From Paul Krugman - NYTimes.com:
Bill O’Reilly explaining that of course America has lower life expectancy than Canada — we have 10 times as many people, so we have 10 times as many deaths.
I need a drink.
28 July 2009
23 July 2009
Walter Cronkite: Most Trusted Asset of Operation Mockingbird
From Intel Daily:
By Kurt Nimmo
(PrisonPlanet) -- “It is impossible to imagine CBS News, journalism or indeed America without Walter Cronkite,” said Sean McManus, president of CBS News, on the passing on Walter Cronkite. “More than just the best and most trusted anchor in history, he guided America through our crises, tragedies and also our victories and greatest moments."
I wonder if Mr. McManus knew the real Cronkite — Cronkite the a former intelligence officer who was lured away from his UPI Moscow desk by Operation Mockingbird’s Phil Graham.
Of course he did. Because the corporate media, at least at the level Walter Cronkite occupied, is rife with spooks, government agents, and disinfo operatives. The CIA has “important assets” inside every major news publication in the country, a fact established by numerous FOIA documents. A rare glimpse was also provided by Frank Church’s committee in the mid-70s.
Some of the journalists working the CIA’s side of the street “were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors-without-portfolio for their country,” Carl Bernstein wrote in an article published in Rolling Stone in October, 1977. “Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested it the derring-do of the spy business as in filing articles, and, the smallest category, full-time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad.”
“It was not until 1982 that the Agency openly admitted that reporters on the CIA payroll have acted as case officers to agents in the field,” writes Alex Constantine in The Depraved Spies and Moguls of the CIA’s Operation MOCKINGBIRD. “Most consumers of the corporate media were — and are — unaware of the effect that the salting of public opinion has on their own beliefs.”
By Kurt Nimmo
(PrisonPlanet) -- “It is impossible to imagine CBS News, journalism or indeed America without Walter Cronkite,” said Sean McManus, president of CBS News, on the passing on Walter Cronkite. “More than just the best and most trusted anchor in history, he guided America through our crises, tragedies and also our victories and greatest moments."
I wonder if Mr. McManus knew the real Cronkite — Cronkite the a former intelligence officer who was lured away from his UPI Moscow desk by Operation Mockingbird’s Phil Graham.
Of course he did. Because the corporate media, at least at the level Walter Cronkite occupied, is rife with spooks, government agents, and disinfo operatives. The CIA has “important assets” inside every major news publication in the country, a fact established by numerous FOIA documents. A rare glimpse was also provided by Frank Church’s committee in the mid-70s.
Some of the journalists working the CIA’s side of the street “were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors-without-portfolio for their country,” Carl Bernstein wrote in an article published in Rolling Stone in October, 1977. “Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested it the derring-do of the spy business as in filing articles, and, the smallest category, full-time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad.”
“It was not until 1982 that the Agency openly admitted that reporters on the CIA payroll have acted as case officers to agents in the field,” writes Alex Constantine in The Depraved Spies and Moguls of the CIA’s Operation MOCKINGBIRD. “Most consumers of the corporate media were — and are — unaware of the effect that the salting of public opinion has on their own beliefs.”
20 July 2009
Shell on Trial: Landmark Trial Set to Begin Over Shell's Role in 1995 Execution of Nigerian Human Rights Activist Ken Saro-Wiwa
From Democracy Now:
A landmark trial against oil giant Royal Dutch Shell’s alleged involvement in human rights violations in the Niger Delta begins this Wednesday in a federal court in New York. Fourteen years after the widely condemned execution of the acclaimed Nigerian writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, the court will hear allegations that Shell was complicit in his torture and execution.
A landmark trial against oil giant Royal Dutch Shell’s alleged involvement in human rights violations in the Niger Delta begins this Wednesday in a federal court in New York. Fourteen years after the widely condemned execution of the acclaimed Nigerian writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, the court will hear allegations that Shell was complicit in his torture and execution.
19 July 2009
US Special Forces briefing to Congressman Miller exposes involvement in 19 Latin American countries during 2009 including Honduras
From Intel Daily:
This confidential US Special Forces (7th, US Southern Command), briefing dated 17 May 2009 was created for Florida Congressman Miller. Although unclassified, it specifies a For Official Use Only (FOUO) distribution restriction.
On page 7 of the document, it is proudly proclaimed that the 7h Special Forces Group has conducted missions in every Latin American country.
On page 10 a map is given, revealing Special Forces deployments to 19 Latin American countries during 2009 alone, including two bases or missions in Honduras.
The briefing provides a history of the Special Forces such as its genesis as the covert action arm of the OSS (the intelligence arm of which became the CIA). Notable is a graph of Special Forces growth. Its numbers now substantially eclipse its previous 1968 peak during the height of the cold war.
This confidential US Special Forces (7th, US Southern Command), briefing dated 17 May 2009 was created for Florida Congressman Miller. Although unclassified, it specifies a For Official Use Only (FOUO) distribution restriction.
On page 7 of the document, it is proudly proclaimed that the 7h Special Forces Group has conducted missions in every Latin American country.
On page 10 a map is given, revealing Special Forces deployments to 19 Latin American countries during 2009 alone, including two bases or missions in Honduras.
The briefing provides a history of the Special Forces such as its genesis as the covert action arm of the OSS (the intelligence arm of which became the CIA). Notable is a graph of Special Forces growth. Its numbers now substantially eclipse its previous 1968 peak during the height of the cold war.
18 July 2009
The six deadly hypocrites
From Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com:
Will the destructive center kill health care reform? It looks all too possible.
What’s especially galling is the hypocrisy of their claimed reason for delaying progress — concern about the fiscal burden. After all, in the past most of them have shown no concern at all for the nation’s long-term fiscal outlook.
Case in point: the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which denied Medicare the right to bargain for lower drug prices, locked in overpayments to private insurance companies, and did nothing, nothing at all, to pay for its proposed outlays. How many of these six self-proclaimed defenders of solvency voted no on the crucial procedural vote? One. (Joe Lieberman, to my surprise.)
And let’s not forget that Ben Nelson, who appears to be the ringleader, has fought tooth and nail against competition from a public option — which would almost certainly save a significant amount of money, as well as providing much-needed competition.
If the Gang of Six really does kill reform, remember their names; they will bear the responsibility for vast, unnecessary suffering over the years to come.
Will the destructive center kill health care reform? It looks all too possible.
What’s especially galling is the hypocrisy of their claimed reason for delaying progress — concern about the fiscal burden. After all, in the past most of them have shown no concern at all for the nation’s long-term fiscal outlook.
Case in point: the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which denied Medicare the right to bargain for lower drug prices, locked in overpayments to private insurance companies, and did nothing, nothing at all, to pay for its proposed outlays. How many of these six self-proclaimed defenders of solvency voted no on the crucial procedural vote? One. (Joe Lieberman, to my surprise.)
And let’s not forget that Ben Nelson, who appears to be the ringleader, has fought tooth and nail against competition from a public option — which would almost certainly save a significant amount of money, as well as providing much-needed competition.
If the Gang of Six really does kill reform, remember their names; they will bear the responsibility for vast, unnecessary suffering over the years to come.
The Mega-embassy That Wasn’t [Propaganda Watch]
From Voltaire:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently warned of a "huge embassy in Managua," adding: "You can only imagine what that’s for."
By David V. Johnson
Have you heard that Iran built a mega-embassy in Nicaragua? Word of this development has passed the lips of many a conservative anxious about Tehran’s intentions. As the Washington Post reports:
It is not clear where the report of the embassy in Managua began. But in the past two years, it has made its way into congressional testimony, think tank reports, press accounts, and diplomatic events in the United States and elsewhere.
“Iran recently established a huge embassy in Managua,” Nancy Menges of the Center for Security Policy told a House committee last year. “Iran’s embassy in Managua is now the largest diplomatic mission in the city,” wrote Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute.
The terrifying news even made it into a speech by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in May. Is Iran’s new Managuan fortress merely a step in broadening Iranian appeal and swaying Central America away from American influence? Or could it be a secret forward-operating base for terrorist deployments? Perhaps part of a plot to destroy Israel?
There’s just one problem with such speculations: THE MEGA-EMBASSY DOESN’T EXIST.
But Bayardo Arce, a senior economic adviser to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, likened the elusive “mega-embassy” to the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. “It doesn’t exist. They deceived the secretary of state,” Arce said. “We don’t have an Iranian mega-embassy. We have an ambassador in a rented house with his wife.” . . .
“Who told Hillary that? Someone misinformed her,” said Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, a leader of the opposition Constitutionalist Liberal Party and head of a legislative foreign affairs committee. “I never cease to be astonished that a country with such intelligence-gathering capacities could fall for such a canard. What now? Is Obama going to start talking about the Axis of Evil?”
Here’s a question worth pursuing for an intrepid political or foreign-policy reporter: How did this embarrassingly wrong rumor make it into a speech by the Secretary of State? The article says that Clinton heard about the embassy during a meeting in the region, according to a State Department spokesman (who when informed of the mega-embassy’s non-existence, replied: “If it turns out this is not happening, that’s good news.”) Is that really true? If so, who said it? And does that person have any connection to right-wing think tanks, intelligence agencies, or propagandistic organizations in the United States?
Whatever the answer, the story serves as a welcome warning that the peddling of false propaganda does not depend on who sits in the Oval Office or which party occupies the White House. There are structures and institutions in place who spend a lot of time and money spreading false information, and they didn’t disappear after last year’s election.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently warned of a "huge embassy in Managua," adding: "You can only imagine what that’s for."
By David V. Johnson
Have you heard that Iran built a mega-embassy in Nicaragua? Word of this development has passed the lips of many a conservative anxious about Tehran’s intentions. As the Washington Post reports:
It is not clear where the report of the embassy in Managua began. But in the past two years, it has made its way into congressional testimony, think tank reports, press accounts, and diplomatic events in the United States and elsewhere.
“Iran recently established a huge embassy in Managua,” Nancy Menges of the Center for Security Policy told a House committee last year. “Iran’s embassy in Managua is now the largest diplomatic mission in the city,” wrote Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute.
The terrifying news even made it into a speech by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in May. Is Iran’s new Managuan fortress merely a step in broadening Iranian appeal and swaying Central America away from American influence? Or could it be a secret forward-operating base for terrorist deployments? Perhaps part of a plot to destroy Israel?
There’s just one problem with such speculations: THE MEGA-EMBASSY DOESN’T EXIST.
But Bayardo Arce, a senior economic adviser to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, likened the elusive “mega-embassy” to the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. “It doesn’t exist. They deceived the secretary of state,” Arce said. “We don’t have an Iranian mega-embassy. We have an ambassador in a rented house with his wife.” . . .
“Who told Hillary that? Someone misinformed her,” said Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, a leader of the opposition Constitutionalist Liberal Party and head of a legislative foreign affairs committee. “I never cease to be astonished that a country with such intelligence-gathering capacities could fall for such a canard. What now? Is Obama going to start talking about the Axis of Evil?”
Here’s a question worth pursuing for an intrepid political or foreign-policy reporter: How did this embarrassingly wrong rumor make it into a speech by the Secretary of State? The article says that Clinton heard about the embassy during a meeting in the region, according to a State Department spokesman (who when informed of the mega-embassy’s non-existence, replied: “If it turns out this is not happening, that’s good news.”) Is that really true? If so, who said it? And does that person have any connection to right-wing think tanks, intelligence agencies, or propagandistic organizations in the United States?
Whatever the answer, the story serves as a welcome warning that the peddling of false propaganda does not depend on who sits in the Oval Office or which party occupies the White House. There are structures and institutions in place who spend a lot of time and money spreading false information, and they didn’t disappear after last year’s election.
17 July 2009
One third of FBI Terror Watch List are innocent people
From RT:
"U.S. government auditors have found that one-third of people on the FBI's list of terror suspects are there by mistake - blacklisting tens of thousands of innocent people.
The terror watch list was established in 2003 under the Bush administration, in the wake of fear after the 9/11 attacks. Today, the list includes more than 1,000,000 terrorist suspects. But there is no explanation as to why around 50,000 people appear on the list at all – the fields with their names are blank."
"U.S. government auditors have found that one-third of people on the FBI's list of terror suspects are there by mistake - blacklisting tens of thousands of innocent people.
The terror watch list was established in 2003 under the Bush administration, in the wake of fear after the 9/11 attacks. Today, the list includes more than 1,000,000 terrorist suspects. But there is no explanation as to why around 50,000 people appear on the list at all – the fields with their names are blank."
15 July 2009
Generals Who Led Honduras Military Coup Trained at the School of the Americas
from democracy now:
Romeo Vasquez, a general who led the military coup in Honduras against President Manuel Zelaya, received training at the US School of the Americas. The SOA has trained more than 60,000 soldiers, many of whom have returned home and committed human rights abuses, torture, extrajudicial execution and massacres. According to School of the Americas Watch, Vasquez attended the SOA in 1976 and 1984. The head of the Air Force, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, also studied there in 1996. We speak with Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of the School of the Americas Watch.
Romeo Vasquez, a general who led the military coup in Honduras against President Manuel Zelaya, received training at the US School of the Americas. The SOA has trained more than 60,000 soldiers, many of whom have returned home and committed human rights abuses, torture, extrajudicial execution and massacres. According to School of the Americas Watch, Vasquez attended the SOA in 1976 and 1984. The head of the Air Force, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, also studied there in 1996. We speak with Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of the School of the Americas Watch.
Gov’t Report: Bush Surveillance Program Was “Unprecedented”
Democracy Now!:
In other intelligence news, a government report released Friday found that the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 surveillance efforts went well beyond the widely publicized warrantless wiretapping program. The report called the surveillance program “unprecedented” and questioned its legal justification. The report also raised questions about the effectiveness of the surveillance operation. Some CIA officials complained that much of the data from the program was “vague and out of context,” so they turned to other information sources. The report was compiled at the request of Congress by five government agency watchdogs: the inspectors general of the Justice Department, Pentagon, CIA, Directorate of National Intelligence and National Security Agency. More than 200 top officials and front-line agents in defense and intelligence agencies were interviewed for the report, but several top Bush administration officials refused to speak, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Justice Department attorney John Yoo, former CIA Director George Tenet, and David Addington, a former top aide to Vice President Cheney.
In other intelligence news, a government report released Friday found that the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 surveillance efforts went well beyond the widely publicized warrantless wiretapping program. The report called the surveillance program “unprecedented” and questioned its legal justification. The report also raised questions about the effectiveness of the surveillance operation. Some CIA officials complained that much of the data from the program was “vague and out of context,” so they turned to other information sources. The report was compiled at the request of Congress by five government agency watchdogs: the inspectors general of the Justice Department, Pentagon, CIA, Directorate of National Intelligence and National Security Agency. More than 200 top officials and front-line agents in defense and intelligence agencies were interviewed for the report, but several top Bush administration officials refused to speak, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Justice Department attorney John Yoo, former CIA Director George Tenet, and David Addington, a former top aide to Vice President Cheney.
14 July 2009
Ex-FBI Agent: Why I Support a New 9/11 Investigation
From Raw Story:
In the absence of my being there in New York City to stand with the 9/11 families, first responders and survivors, I offer the following statement in support of your goal of a new investigation into the attacks of September 11th and the NYC CAN campaign to place it on the ballot for November.
At the time of 9-11, I had been an FBI agent for over 20 years. My main responsibilities by then were teaching criminal procedure to FBI agents and other law enforcement officers, mostly about 4th Amendment search and seizure, 5th and 6th Amendment law of interrogation, right to attorney and constitutional protection of rights to “free speech”, due process, habeas corpus, and against cruel and unusual punishment. A week before 9-11, I and the rest of the FBI’s ethics instructors were mandated (as a result of an earlier public FBI scandal) to give a one hour PowerPoint presentation, a form of remedial training on “law enforcement ethics” which I accomplished in a fairly perfunctory way, just reading the slides.
After 9-11, with the knowledge I had of the bitter internal dispute inside the FBI that was being hushed up but had kept some of our better agents from possibly uncovering more of the 9-11 plot before it happened, I couldn’t forget two of the slides in that Law Enforcement ethics curriculum: “DO NOT: Puff, Shade, Tailor, Firm up, Stretch, Massage, or Tidy up statements of fact.” And “Misplaced Loyalties: As employees of the FBI, we must be aware that our highest loyalty is to the United States Constitution. We should never sacrifice the truth in order to obtain a desired result (e.g. conviction of a defendant) or to avoid personal or institutional embarrassment.”
The official dissembling and excuse-making about the true causes and prior mistakes that gave rise to and allowed the terrorist attacks to happen, almost immediately ushered in the Bush-Cheney Administration’s egregious and lawless, post 9-11 “war on terror” agenda which bore no connection to the original causes and no connection to the goal of reducing terrorism and making the world safer. When I got a chance, about 8 ½ months after 9-11 to tell what I knew, I did so and my disclosures led to further investigation by the Department of Justice Inspector General and figured in the 9-11 Commission Report.
But it was way too late for this emerging bit of truth that has continued to leak out in dribs and drabs to have any impact. The laws themselves, especially the criminal procedure ones rooted in the Constitution that I had spent my career teaching to law enforcement, have largely gone up in smoke. Having seen the cost of remaining silent, I publicly warned, a few months after my first memo, against launching the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. But false agendas had already filled the vacuum created by lack of truth. And we are still dealing with the disastrous consequences of these unjustified, pre-emptive wars.
Let me therefore simply repeat the request I made to the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2002: “Foremost, we owe it to the public, especially the victims of terrorism, to be completely honest. I can only imagine what these crime and terrorism victims continue to go through. They deserve nothing but the complete, unfettered truth.”
Therefore, I fully support the 9/11 families, first responders, survivors and over 60,000 other New Yorkers who have endorsed a new 9/11 investigation in New York City as advanced by ballot referendum this coming November election.
Coleen Rowley is a former FBI staff attorney who turned whistle-blower after witnessing repeated failures within the bureau to properly investigate alleged 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. She was one of three Time Magazine Persons of the Year in 2002.
In the absence of my being there in New York City to stand with the 9/11 families, first responders and survivors, I offer the following statement in support of your goal of a new investigation into the attacks of September 11th and the NYC CAN campaign to place it on the ballot for November.
At the time of 9-11, I had been an FBI agent for over 20 years. My main responsibilities by then were teaching criminal procedure to FBI agents and other law enforcement officers, mostly about 4th Amendment search and seizure, 5th and 6th Amendment law of interrogation, right to attorney and constitutional protection of rights to “free speech”, due process, habeas corpus, and against cruel and unusual punishment. A week before 9-11, I and the rest of the FBI’s ethics instructors were mandated (as a result of an earlier public FBI scandal) to give a one hour PowerPoint presentation, a form of remedial training on “law enforcement ethics” which I accomplished in a fairly perfunctory way, just reading the slides.
After 9-11, with the knowledge I had of the bitter internal dispute inside the FBI that was being hushed up but had kept some of our better agents from possibly uncovering more of the 9-11 plot before it happened, I couldn’t forget two of the slides in that Law Enforcement ethics curriculum: “DO NOT: Puff, Shade, Tailor, Firm up, Stretch, Massage, or Tidy up statements of fact.” And “Misplaced Loyalties: As employees of the FBI, we must be aware that our highest loyalty is to the United States Constitution. We should never sacrifice the truth in order to obtain a desired result (e.g. conviction of a defendant) or to avoid personal or institutional embarrassment.”
The official dissembling and excuse-making about the true causes and prior mistakes that gave rise to and allowed the terrorist attacks to happen, almost immediately ushered in the Bush-Cheney Administration’s egregious and lawless, post 9-11 “war on terror” agenda which bore no connection to the original causes and no connection to the goal of reducing terrorism and making the world safer. When I got a chance, about 8 ½ months after 9-11 to tell what I knew, I did so and my disclosures led to further investigation by the Department of Justice Inspector General and figured in the 9-11 Commission Report.
But it was way too late for this emerging bit of truth that has continued to leak out in dribs and drabs to have any impact. The laws themselves, especially the criminal procedure ones rooted in the Constitution that I had spent my career teaching to law enforcement, have largely gone up in smoke. Having seen the cost of remaining silent, I publicly warned, a few months after my first memo, against launching the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. But false agendas had already filled the vacuum created by lack of truth. And we are still dealing with the disastrous consequences of these unjustified, pre-emptive wars.
Let me therefore simply repeat the request I made to the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2002: “Foremost, we owe it to the public, especially the victims of terrorism, to be completely honest. I can only imagine what these crime and terrorism victims continue to go through. They deserve nothing but the complete, unfettered truth.”
Therefore, I fully support the 9/11 families, first responders, survivors and over 60,000 other New Yorkers who have endorsed a new 9/11 investigation in New York City as advanced by ballot referendum this coming November election.
Coleen Rowley is a former FBI staff attorney who turned whistle-blower after witnessing repeated failures within the bureau to properly investigate alleged 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. She was one of three Time Magazine Persons of the Year in 2002.
13 July 2009
Iraq's weakened unions fight foreign oil firms
Reuters
By Aref Mohammed
BASRA, Iraq, July 13 (Reuters) - Unions are lobbying against Iraq's new oil contract with BP (BP.L) and China's CNPC, but the weakened labour movement may have a hard time thwarting deals desperately needed to revive a struggling oil sector.
The Federation of Oil Unions of Iraq and the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq have condemned the Oil Ministry's decision to award a foreign consortium the contract to develop Rumaila, the country's largest producing oilfield."
By Aref Mohammed
BASRA, Iraq, July 13 (Reuters) - Unions are lobbying against Iraq's new oil contract with BP (BP.L) and China's CNPC, but the weakened labour movement may have a hard time thwarting deals desperately needed to revive a struggling oil sector.
The Federation of Oil Unions of Iraq and the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq have condemned the Oil Ministry's decision to award a foreign consortium the contract to develop Rumaila, the country's largest producing oilfield."
12 July 2009
Cutting interest rates raises unemployment? (They would?)
Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com:
OK, not really. But here’s what the data actually look like (Fed funds inverted on left scale, unemployment rate on right):
"Of course, we all understand that the correlation runs the way it does because the Fed cuts rates in an effort to fight recessions.
But here’s the thing: a lot of people are asserting that because unemployment has risen along with the budget deficit, fiscal expansion has failed or even made things worse. Why don’t we apply the same standards to monetary policy?
OK, I actually know the answer: it’s ideological. Fiscal expansion bothers people because it violates the dogma that government is the problem, not the solution, whereas monetary policy has become accepted as a mainly technocratic thing without political implications.
But if we treated fiscal policy the same way we treat monetary policy, it would be clear that we need more stimulus, not less."
OK, not really. But here’s what the data actually look like (Fed funds inverted on left scale, unemployment rate on right):
"Of course, we all understand that the correlation runs the way it does because the Fed cuts rates in an effort to fight recessions.
But here’s the thing: a lot of people are asserting that because unemployment has risen along with the budget deficit, fiscal expansion has failed or even made things worse. Why don’t we apply the same standards to monetary policy?
OK, I actually know the answer: it’s ideological. Fiscal expansion bothers people because it violates the dogma that government is the problem, not the solution, whereas monetary policy has become accepted as a mainly technocratic thing without political implications.
But if we treated fiscal policy the same way we treat monetary policy, it would be clear that we need more stimulus, not less."
Blitz of “Cyber Attacks” as Rockefeller Bill Approaches
Global Research
A determined propaganda blitz is well underway as the government sets the stage for the passage of Cybersecurity Act of 2009, introduced in the Senate earlier this year. If passed, it will allow Obama to shut down the internet and private networks. The legislation also calls for the government to have the authority to demand security data from private networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access. In other words, the bill allows the government to impose authoritarian control over electronic communications.
A determined propaganda blitz is well underway as the government sets the stage for the passage of Cybersecurity Act of 2009, introduced in the Senate earlier this year. If passed, it will allow Obama to shut down the internet and private networks. The legislation also calls for the government to have the authority to demand security data from private networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access. In other words, the bill allows the government to impose authoritarian control over electronic communications.
03 July 2009
Video: US sent Afghan mercenaries into Iraq (U.S. creates and controls all of its "enemies")
From Intel Daily:
Comment: What this really means is that the U.S. has no viable enemy...the U.S., as Brezinski puts it, is the sole global superpower."
Comment: What this really means is that the U.S. has no viable enemy...the U.S., as Brezinski puts it, is the sole global superpower."
Western Media Persists in Propaganda About Iraq’s Purported WMD
From Foreign Policy Journal:
"The Associated Press reports, “The documents also confirm previous reports that Saddam falsely allowed the world to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction — the main U.S. rationale behind the war — because he feared revealing his weakness to Iran, the hostile neighbor he considered a bigger threat than the U.S.”
The USA Today blog “On Deadline” similarly reports, “Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, in 20 formal interviews and at least five casual conversations with the FBI, said he was bluffing publicly about having weapons of mass destruction because he feared showing weakness to Iran, according to newly released FBI summaries.”
The Christian Science Monitor’s “global news blog” , under a headline reading “Why Saddam Hussein lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction“, states that “Saddam Hussein encouraged the perception that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) because he was afraid of appearing weak in Iran’s eyes, according to nearly two dozen declassified transcripts of an FBI agent’s conversations with the former Iraqi dictator released Wednesday.”"
"The Associated Press reports, “The documents also confirm previous reports that Saddam falsely allowed the world to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction — the main U.S. rationale behind the war — because he feared revealing his weakness to Iran, the hostile neighbor he considered a bigger threat than the U.S.”
The USA Today blog “On Deadline” similarly reports, “Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, in 20 formal interviews and at least five casual conversations with the FBI, said he was bluffing publicly about having weapons of mass destruction because he feared showing weakness to Iran, according to newly released FBI summaries.”
The Christian Science Monitor’s “global news blog” , under a headline reading “Why Saddam Hussein lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction“, states that “Saddam Hussein encouraged the perception that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) because he was afraid of appearing weak in Iran’s eyes, according to nearly two dozen declassified transcripts of an FBI agent’s conversations with the former Iraqi dictator released Wednesday.”"
Eager to Tap Iraq's Vast Oil Reserves, Industry Execs Suggested Invasion
From t r u t h o u t | J Leopold:
"Two years before the invasion of Iraq, oil executives and foreign policy advisers told the Bush administration that the United States would remain 'a prisoner of its energy dilemma' as long as Saddam Hussein was in power.
That April 2001 report, 'Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,' was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the US Council on Foreign Relations at the request of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.
In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world's second largest oil reserves."
"Two years before the invasion of Iraq, oil executives and foreign policy advisers told the Bush administration that the United States would remain 'a prisoner of its energy dilemma' as long as Saddam Hussein was in power.
That April 2001 report, 'Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,' was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the US Council on Foreign Relations at the request of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.
In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world's second largest oil reserves."
Murdoch CEO Labels Bloggers “Political Extremists”
From Info Wars:
"When the people know that the corporate media is deliberately lying to them about Niger yellowcake and weapons of mass destruction, they are going to seek alternative avenues of information. The fact that the corporate media habitually lies is a manifestly provable reality, not a “myth” as Hartigan ludicrously claims."
"When the people know that the corporate media is deliberately lying to them about Niger yellowcake and weapons of mass destruction, they are going to seek alternative avenues of information. The fact that the corporate media habitually lies is a manifestly provable reality, not a “myth” as Hartigan ludicrously claims."
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