3.27.2004
Clarke: Truth Served
The folks at Compassiongate have about a bunch of information you should know about Richard Clarke, the Bush Administration on terrorism and the reality of present administration readiness to protect the US from Al Qaeda attacks pre 9/11, versus a readiness to implement a Neocon plan go after Iraq, start Democratizing the middle east...
Impressive documentation, Compassiongate.
You might want to navigate around the site, it is quite well done. Be sure to e-mail the URL to everyone you know.
To get right to the heart of the matter uggabugga offers two simple timelines, one highlighting the difference between the Clinton/Reno "top priority" treatment of terrorism as a threat to the US and of the Bush/ Ashcroft seeming dismissal of a terrorist threat here. Cutting funding for counter-terrorism says it all. The other timeline illustrates what Richard Clarke relates on 60 Minutes.
3/27/2004
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3.26.2004
Truth Served?
Condoleezza Rice will speak with the 9/11 commission again, in private, her testimony unsworn.
Doesn't fill me with confidence that the truth will be served. The Washington Post points out a bunch of discrepancies in what Ms Rice has told the media concerning Bush administration terrorism preparedness pre-9/11 as well Ms Rice's comments on Richard Clarke.
In an op-ed published Monday in The Washington Post, Rice wrote that "through the spring and summer of 2001, the national security team developed a strategy to eliminate al Qaeda" that included "sufficient military options to remove the Taliban regime" including the use of ground forces. But Armitage, testifying this week as the White House representative, said the military part was not in the plan before Sept. 11.
The Center for American Progress "Claim vs. Fact: Administration Officials Respond to Richard Clarke Interview" can help you document present administration dissembling on both Clarke and its role in heeding intelligence reports calling
for a domestic attack.
Not everyone thinks seeking the truth about 9/11 is a good idea.
WOODRUFF: One person who is unhappy with the fact these hearings were held at all is Georgia Senator Zell Miller. He's a Democrat who's supporting President Bush for reelection. Miller tells me that this week's hearings, he thinks, could be a bad thing for the United States.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. ZELL MILLER (D), GEORGIA: But I think it could do great damage to this country. I think that our enemies, our terrorist enemies, look at what's happening here and they see all this bickering, they see this divisiveness, they see this disunity and they will interpret it as weakness and instability.
Here is a Zell Miller quote from 1998.
"...you can remain a person's friend without excusing his behavior. In life, every action has a consequence. He'll have to live with the knowledge of what he did for the rest of his life. And that's tough punishment for a man who understands history like he does."
Yup, he is talking about Bill Clinton.
We all wear the blue dress now, folks.
The political reality of the situation is, it doesn't matter whether you have censure, resignation or impeachment," Miller said Monday. "The fact is, his credibility is shattered and your credibility is what politicians operate on."
Miller circa '98 is quite quotable in light of the actors and actions Miller supports, now, under the Bush regime.
"I'm talking about what came after that: sending his aides out to continue the lie. That particularly galled me because he was betraying them every day,"
Clinton lies bad. Bush lies good. I get it.
"It's really hard to watch a man that you love betray others, betray his family and his friends, and debase himself and diminish the office."
Good words to remember, Mr Miller.
3/26/2004
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Good Mind Food
Over at American Samizdat a link shows that Noam Chomsky now has a blog.
3/26/2004
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3.25.2004
In his own words: Richard Clarke
We are hearing lots of spin about Richard Clarke.
Hear him in his own words on NPR's "Fresh Air" (Windows media). See/Hear him speaking with the 9/11 commission.
Clarke has 30 years of government service under three Republican Presidents and one Democrat. Hearing him talk
paints a pretty clear picture of a government body asleep at the wheel considering a domestic terrorist threat, while plotting to prepare for war, oddly enough following the Plan for a New American Century blueprint that echoes the Dick Cheney (with later refinements from Wolfowitz and Powell)
"Defense Strategy for the 1990's".
After three straight days of television interviews on the same topic by a variety of White House officials, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters at the White House Wednesday that Clarke's charges were "scurrilous."
"Scurrilous" coming from a National Security Advisor who will not talk to the 9/11 commission under oath? Indeed.
Rice's willingness to brief Fox executives is especially intriguing in light of the fact that she continues to refuse to brief the bipartisan panel that is investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
It might be good to let the Commission know what some of your concerns and questions concerning 911 are.
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
301 7th Street, SW
Room 5125
Washington, DC 20407
Washington Office
Tel: (202) 331-4060
Fax: (202) 296-5545 info@9-11Commission.gov
Nor is Ms Rice working with Democracy in the world. Advocating that the President of Haiti not stay in Jamaica seems a blow to Democracy.
3/25/2004
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3.24.2004
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Could this news article from June 2003 indicate why Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was killed?
The spiritual leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas says it has decided to suspend "fighting operations" against Israelis.
In a television interview in Gaza City, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said this was not yet a formal ceasefire, and that Hamas was working with other Palestinian factions on a joint statement.
This article from October 2003 is telling as well.
"In the past we declared a unilateral ceasefire, we gave the Israeli enemy a truce for 50 days, but they did not commit to it even for one day. They continued with their killings and crimes, with demolishing houses and building settlements.
"So we have to study where the national interest lies: with resistance, or with declaring a ceasefire."
'Military battle'
Hamas has been calling for a mutual ceasefire, one that would mean an end to Israeli assassinations and incursions as well as Palestinian attacks.
Judging by public statements, Palestinian officials have also adopted that approach.
US reaction to the assassination was perceived as "near open support" according to an article in Haaretz- initially that is.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher later in the day reflected the worlds outrage.
He said the United States was "very troubled" by the events in Gaza. He also avoided condemning Israel explicitly, but turned the White House's general call for calm into a message aimed at Israel, urging Jerusalem to avoid further action that would make it difficult to restore calm.
From an editorial in todays Haaretz.
Last week's cabinet decision to kill off the Hamas leadership broke the rules of the game, and could move the armed conflict to areas never seen before. For the first time the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken on a religious dimension since the target chosen by Israel was an Islamic leader whose symbolic stature went far beyond the borders of the country. Moreover, the declared decision - to assassinate the entire political and spiritual leadership of the Hamas, on the grounds that they initiate terror operations and are responsible for them - pushes them into a corner where they have nothing left to lose. It will also provoke them into adopting a particularly extremist approach, hoping for unusually spectacular terror attacks that would revive their own deterrence against Israel and reestablish the balance of fear on which the violent conflict has taken place until now.
Abdel Aziz Rantisi is heir to the leadership of Hamas. He is now a target for the IDF. It is thought that the resistance group will keep the identity of it's leaders secret to ward off more assassinations. Rantisi promises more violent resistance.
Just what Sharon needs to keep in power; and to secure his "facts on the ground", illegal settlements on the land of the Palestinian people, Gaza, the West Bank.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.-- Gandhi
3/24/2004
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3.23.2004
Israeli/Palestinian Violence
It seems whenever there is a glimmer of hope for peace and justice in the Israel/Palestine, just the slightest glimmer of hope, the Israeli government ratchets up the violence.
Killing a quadriplegic old man as he left a place of prayer as well as the people pushing his wheelchair, not to mention innocent bystanders is a case in point. Assassination from US provided Apache helicopters raining rockets in a populated
area is obscene, no matter what Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is accused of.
Sharon has succeeded in igniting a third intifada, while the second one he launched by "visiting" the Temple Mount with a thousand soldiers was still smouldering on.
Thanks to the Israeli "Separation Wall" which cuts well into 1967 UN mandated Palestinian Territory Palestinian folks are living in a virtual prison, a system of bantustans that remind one of South Africa's apartheid policies.
Navigate this site by photographer Eyal Dor-Ofer and get a real world perspective on the Wall. There are a number of galleries to explore.
Look at this map and get a sense of just what the government of Isreal is taking from the beleagured Palestinian people. Words are not as effective as a graphic representation is when it comes to understanding much of the dynamic of the Israel/Palestinian conflict. A map makes clear what words can sugercoat.
Palestinian folks are having trouble getting enough food to eat.
The report found that 40 percent of Palestinians - or 1.4 million people - are now classified as food insecure, meaning they don't have access on a continuing basis to the food they need to live normal and healthy lives.
Another 1.1 million people, or 30 percent, are threatened with becoming food insecure if conditions continue, said the
report.
The West Bank and Gaza are Palestinian Territories. Any real peace would see Israel dismantle illegal settlements- that means ALL of them. Dismantling settlements in Gaza and sending the folks to the West Bank is not a solution- or legal under international law.
First, settlements have a stranglehold over Israeli politics. Particularly today, with unremitting terrorist attacks against innocents, the Israeli body politic is unable to effectively voice its growing discontent over settlements.
There is a second problem - the Israeli government's dishonesty. Just look at what Zeev Schiff, Israel's most respected security analyst, had to say about settlements this month in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz: "When it comes to the (settlement) outposts, the issue has involved the spreading of one of the state of Israel's biggest lies - not only a lie that was told to the Americans but an ongoing lie that the Israeli public is being fed."
Schiff revealed that despite Israeli government claims that some settlement outposts were being dismantled, the number of outposts grew steadily during Sharon's tenure. Moreover, the government has deliberately skewed the numbers. Schiff cites information confirming that at least 90 outposts have been set up. "The only viable conclusion," says Schiff, "is that Washington must apply pressure to Israel for its own sake."
Zionist history prescribes the power politics and genocide we see today.
Individual Arabs may perhaps be bought off but this hardly means that all the Arabs in Eretz Israel are willing to sell a patriotism that not even Papuans will trade. Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement.
That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of "Palestine" into the "Land of Israel".
...they are not a rabble but a nation, perhaps somewhat tattered, but still living. A living people makes such enormous concessions on such fateful questions only when there is no hope left. Only when not a single breach is visible in the iron wall, only then do extreme groups lose their sway, and influence transfers to moderate groups. Only then would these moderate groups come to us with proposals for mutual concessions. And only then will moderates offer suggestions for compromise on practical questions like a guarantee against expulsion, or equality and national autonomy.
--The Iron Wall by Vladimir Jabotinski, 1923
3/23/2004
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3.22.2004
The Threat of Christian Theocracy
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . We need believing people."
Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the NAZI-Vatican Concordat of 1933
Did you know that the top 7 ranking Republicans have a 100 percent ranking from the Christian Coalition, meaning that their votes were 100 percent consonant with the fundamentalist perspectives of those religious extremists? Are you concerned with a government that increasingly links "god talk" with miltarism? Do you know the difference between New Millenialist and Christian Reconstructionist?
Theocracy Watch can help you gain understanding of the phenomenon of right-wing radical Christianity and how this Christianity-without-Christ has come to empower the most reactionary and repressive elements in our society.
Liberals Like Christ is a very informative website for the thinking Christian.
3/22/2004
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3.21.2004
Domestic Disinformation
"... a principle familiar to propagandists is that the doctrine to be instilled in the target audience should not be articulated: that would only expose them to reflection, inquiry, and, very likely, ridicule. The proper procedure is to drill them home by constantly presupposing them, so that they become the very condition for discourse"--Noam Chomsky
Administration sources tell TIME that employees at the Department of Homeland Security have been asked to keep their eyes open for opportunities to pose the President in settings that might highlight the Administration's efforts to make the nation safer. The goal, they are being told, is to provide Bush with one homeland-security photo-op a month.
A Department of Homeland Security function that I was unaware of. Technically I'm guessing "posing" the President for a photo-op once a month to "highlight the Administration's efforts to make the nation safer" is taxpayer funded propaganda. As well as taxpayer funded campaigning, subtle or not.
The Department of Homeland Security also would like to use the entertainment industry to help us have "the proper perspective" on it's message and mission. In seeking to fill the DHS "entertainment liaison officer" position that would
facilitate a Homeland Security/Hollywood nexus the strategic power of "entertainment" as propaganda is clearly recognized, as is the industries willingness to work hand-in-hand with the DHS.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge is aware of the entertainment industry's impact on the department's image. While on a recent visit to Los Angeles, he met with entertainment industry executives who asked him how they could help the Homeland Security effort, Scolinos said.
The Pentagon has a long history of working with film makers. Film producers get access to military equipment, bases and consultants. The military gets last word on scenarios offered and dialogue.
"There was a tension, almost until the day filming began, which manifested itself in our comments which went unanswered by in subsequent drafts of the script. When the filmmakers realized that unless the services were satisfied with the script, approval would not be granted, the changes were finally made."
further on
In short," Major Georgi wrote of the changes, "military depictions have become more of a 'commercial' for us."
The Pentagon has had good success with the use of PR biggies The Rendon Group to shape our perceptions for both Gulf Wars.
Karen Ryan, the PR professional that read the governments new Medicare bill propaganda, ending her reports with
"In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." is reported to have made a career over the last few years of posing as a "reporter" to promote her clients products.
"In my experience over the past thirty years, every White House- save one,the Gerald Ford White House -has on occasion willfully misled or lied to the press."--David Gergan
Dr Nancy Snow offers background on the history of US foreign and domestic propandanda campaigns, their techniques and targets. Eye opening stuff.
It's from the IPA that we get the so-called 7 "tricks of the trade" in propaganda campaigns: name calling (bad label for an idea), glittering generalities (associating your campaign with a virtuous concept like freedom or democracy), transference (using authority and prestige to transfer message), testimonials (celebrity endorsements), plain folks ("of the people" is always good), card stacking (selection of facts or illustrations to prevent best and worst case scenarios), and band wagon (everybody is doing it; "we are of one mind").
Think. It's Patriotic.
Noam Chomsky's work, "Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies" is available in its entirety here on the web.
3/21/2004
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Follow Up
I mentioned the James Mann article "The Armageddon Plan" which spells out Rumsfeld Cheney involvement in extra-Congressional "Continuety of Government" planning in a piece from February 23 called "Shadowy Government", as the link shows Common Dreams has the full text of the Atlantic article
posted.
3/21/2004
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Going, Going, Gone
Lou Dobbs offers an A-Z listing of companies that send jobs offshore. Give the listing he compiled, "Exporting America" , a look over.
3/21/2004
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