Tuesday July 7th 2009

How the FBI and 9/11 Commission Suppressed Key Evidence about Hani Hanjour, alleged hijack pilot of AAL 77
Special Note - A quote...."July 07, 2009 "ICH" --- The evidence was crucial because it undermined the official explanation that Hani Hanjour crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at high speed after executing an extremely difficult top gun maneuver. But to understand how all of this played out, let us review the case in bite-size pieces..." - also posted at DProgram - For more on this issue see....9/11 - NORAD

London Bombings - The Facts Speak For Themselves
Special Note - A quote...."Four years ago today, on the morning of July 7th, 2005, someone detonated four carefully placed bombs in London. Three exploded on London underground trains within 50 seconds of each other at 8.50 am, the first on the sub-surface eastbound Circle Line, the second on the sub-surface westbound Circle Line, a third on the deep-level underground southbound Piccadilly Line. A fourth bomb exploded almost an hour later at 9.47 am on the upper deck of a double decker bus in Tavistock Square."

Remember, Remember 7/7: Media spins the 4th anniversary
Special Note - A quote...."Today almost four years on, the images of that dreadful morning are etched into our minds: the woman in the haunting white burns mask being helped to safety; the shell-shocked businessman in a suit with his hair and shirt matted with blood; the crippled No 30 bus with its roof blown off; the mangled wreckage of smouldering Tube trains."

Kelly's Book of Secrets
Special Note - A quote...."WEAPONS inspector David Kelly was writing a book exposing highly damaging government secrets before his ­mysterious death. -- He was intending to reveal that he warned Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq weeks before the ­British and American invasion. -- He had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford and was seeking advice on how far he could go without breaking the law on secrets."
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More On The Iranian Election....

The Iranian ‘Revolution’ Has Failed So It’s Back To The ‘Iran Has Nuclear Weapons’ Rhetoric To Bomb Them Into ‘Regime Change' -- A quote...."With the failure of the Western powers to foment a popular uprising after the 12 June elections in Iran that they hoped would lead to regime change, the West has now had to return to the ‘Iran has nuclear weapons’ meme in order to pave the way for an attack against Iran in the hope that regime change can be affected that way."

Much Ado About Nothing?
Special Note - A quote...."I've made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not at all interfering in Iran's affairs," said US President Barack Obama with a straight face on June 23. "Some in the Iranian government [have been] accusing the United States and others outside of Iran of instigating protests over the elections. These accusations are patently false and absurd." -- "Never believe anything until it's officially denied," British writer Claud Cockburn famously said." - also posted at ConsortiumNews - For more on this issue see....Iran, Just RELAX!! – Of Course It Was A US-NRE PSYOP! - 06-26-09

BBC provoked post-vote unrest: Iran police chief
A quote...."Iranian police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam accuses the BBC and the British Embassy in Tehran of having a significant role in provoking post-election violence."

Tehran to put British embassy employees on trial
A quote...."The announcement made during Friday prayers. They are accused of having fomented the anti-government protests and have "confessed" the crime. The Ayatollah accuses London of having organized a "velvet revolution" against Iran."
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Slip Sliding Away: Joe Biden Gives Iran Green Light to Attack Israel
War Alert - A quote...."Given the fact that a nuclear-armed nation is openly discussing and planning an attack on their country, the Iranians could quite logically "make a determination that they are existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country. -- Thus, by Biden's logic, it would be quite legitimate for the Iranians to mount an attack to "take out the nuclear program" in Israel, given the ever-present existential threat this poses to their survival. And the United States, according to Biden, would not do anything to stop such an attack, because Washington "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation" what it can do when it feels threatened to such a degree."

Russia surprised by Biden's remarks on Iran - "Surprised", are they kidding? - mpg
Related article - A quote...."The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman has said the recent remarks by US Vice President Joe Biden, who said Israel has the right to attack Iran, have surprised Moscow. -- "We are very surprised at these remarks by US Vice President Biden. As we see, they are drastically out of line with the approaches that US President Barack Obama is declaring regarding the Iranian nuclear program, in particular, on the US readiness to enter a dialogue with Iran," RIA Novosti quoted Andrei Nesterenko as saying on Tuesday." -- also posted at WarInIraq

ANALYSIS-Wary of naked force, Israelis eye cyberwar on Iran
Related Article - A quote...."The appeal of cyber attacks was boosted, Israeli sources say, by the limited feasibility of conventional air strikes on the distant and fortified Iranian atomic facilities, and by U.S. reluctance to countenance another open war in the Middle East. "We came to the conclusion that, for our purposes, a key Iranian vulnerability is in its on-line information," said one recently retired Israeli security cabinet member, using a generic term for digital networks. "We have acted accordingly."

Oil, Gas Market Speculation May Face Restrictions (Update4) -- a.k.a. getting ready for the attack on Iran. - mpg
War Alert - Related Article - A quote...."July 7 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. regulators say they may clamp down on oil and gas price speculators by limiting the holdings of energy futures traders, including index and exchange-traded funds. -- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will hold hearings this month and next to explore the need for government-imposed restrictions on speculative trading in oil, gas and other energy markets, Chairman Gary Gensler said today in a statement." -- also posted at AtheoNews
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More on the US-NRE's Honduran Coup....

Honduras: The People are Bigger Than an Army
A quote...."Speech given on July 2, 2009 at the House of the United Nations during a massive demonstration organized by the Frente de Resistencia Popular contra el golpe militar en Honduras – Front for Popular Resistence against the military coup in Honduras." -- also posted at UpsideDwnWrld

Hondurans Pour into the Streets Demanding Zelaya's Return
A quote...."The day started out full of joy, as thousands of Hondurans converged in front of the National Institute of Pedagogy, intent on marching about three miles to the airport to greet the plane that was supposed to bring deposed President Zelaya back to Honduras."

Honduran coup resistance growing By Sandra Cuffe
Video - A quote...."Military resorts to killing protesters as increasing numbers take to the streets."

Tragedy at Toncontin: Army Shoots and Kills Protesters
Photo Essay -- also posted at UpsideDwnWrld

Central America Plunged Back Into Chaos
A quote...."A military coup in a Latin American nation sounds as routine as afternoon tea in England. It feels a bit different if you’ve been there."

Zelaya Reveals Assassination Plot
A quote...."Jul 7 (Prensa Latina) The group that ordered the coup in Honduras gave specific directions to assassinate President Manuel Zelaya, according to declarations by the constitutional president, published on Monday in this capital."
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More On The Palestinian Situation....

Efforts to break siege on Gaza unceasing despite deportation of boat crew and confiscation of aid
A quote...."Brussels / PNN – The European campaign to lift the siege on Gaza said in a statement that a second convoy of aid was launched Sunday afternoon from JFK Airport in New York. -- It is being led by American activist Ron Kovic, and includes British MP George Galloway and activist Kevin Aovindn along with the support of more than 46 institutions organization in America."

NEW TOON ~~ FREE GAZA
Cartoon - The "good boy", vs. the "bad girl"

IOF troops prevent French medical team from entering Gaza
A quote...."BEIT HANUN, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Monday blocked the entry of a French medical team into the Gaza Strip for the second consecutive day via the Beit Hanun (Erez) crossing in northern Gaza Strip."

[Israeli] Army kidnapped 380 Palestinians in June
A quote...."The Palestinian Ministry of Detainees reported that the Israeli army kidnapped more than 380 Palestinians in several parts of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem during the month of June."

UN Holds 2nd Round of Public Hearings on Gaza
A quote...."A UN human rights mission investigating possible war crimes in the Gaza Strip has resumed its public hearings with the victims of Israel's deadly offensive. -- The two-day session at the UN's human rights headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, which follows a first set of hearings in Gaza nearly 10 days ago, aims at giving a chance to those who were not able to travel to Gaza to present their testimony."

The Raids on the Resistances Bookstore -- Zionist Fanatics Practice Serial Vandalism in Paris
A quote...."Thousands of books drenched in cooking oil – that is the latest exploit of the Zionist fanatics who regularly attack property and people in Paris and get away with it. -- In the early afternoon of Friday, July 3, five men, mostly masked, stormed into the “Resistances” bookstore located in a quiet residential neighborhood of the 17th arrondissement in northwest Paris. To the startled women working in the shop, as well as two customers, they announcing that they were from the Jewish Defense League and began ripping books off shelves and tables, dousing them heavily with cooking oil, and then smashing four computers before leaving rapidly in a waiting vehicle." -- also posted at Creative-i & PulseMedia

Please Step In....And Assume The Position
A quote...."Israel is well p-ssed off at the European Commission for telling the truth about Settlements and plans to give them a good spanking for this act of "defiance" and "Evil Truth Telling." The Commission reported the fact that illegal settlements make it virtually impossible for peace in the region. Their existence causes devastating effects on the Palestinian Economy, which in turn effects Palestinian residents. Best of all it was pointed out that it is the European Union that foots the bill for this, to the tune of 280 Million, no less! Israel's reaction to this statement is much the same as their reaction to the UN's War Crimes Investigations, Amnesty International's Investigations and all the others who find fault with the evil rogue state. -- Israels reply was thus: -- "Infamy, Infamy, They've All Got It In Fa Me"

Palestinian Titanic
A quote...."The dismemberment of the Palestinian national movement is one of Israel’s biggest successes. Yet, while Israel — and the Bush administration — provoked the rift, Palestinian leaders are sustaining it, becoming passive onlookers who appear powerless to shape their future, as though only Israel and the United States have agency."
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McNamaranism Alive and Well
Must Read - A quote...."Today’s wars are in a different place, yet McNamara-style justifications, obfuscations, and moral hollowness prevail triumphant. -- Instead of preventing a communist domino effect on the Asian rim, Bush/Clinton/Bush and Obama are "preventing" independent republics, Islamic and secular, from freely trading their own resources and solving their own domestic problems. Americans like to think they themselves would never tolerate this kind of treatment by a foreign army and its diplomatic corps. We can only pray, as McNamara must have, that there is no karma."

May He Rest in Darkness -- McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank
Special Note - A quote...."Robert McNamara, who died yesterday, July 6, served as Kennedy’s , then as Johnson’s defense secretary. He contributed more than most to the slaughter of 3.4 million Vietnamese (his own estimate). He went on to run the World Bank, where he presided over the impoverishment, eviction from their lands and death of many millions more round the world."

Will What We Don't Know (or Care to Know) Hurt Us? -- Mourning Michael Jackson, Ignoring the Afghan Dead
Special Note - A quote...."It was a blast. I'm talking about my daughter's wedding. You don't often see a child of yours quite that happy. I'm no party animal, but I danced my 64-year-old legs off. And I can't claim that, as I walked my daughter to the ceremony, or ate, or talked with friends, or simply sat back and watched the young and energetic enjoy themselves, I thought about those Afghan wedding celebrations where the "blast" isn't metaphorical, where the bride, the groom, the partygoers in the midst of revelry die." -- also posted at CommonDreams & CounterCurrents & SmirkingChimp

John Pilger on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, the Corporate Media, Obama’s Wars and Resisting the American Empire
Pilger -- Special Note - A quote...."Award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker, John Pilger, joins us for a wide-ranging conversation on on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, the media, health care, and Obama’s wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pilger has has written close to a dozen books and made over 50 documentaries on a range of subjects including struggles around the world for a more just and peaceful society and against Western military and economic intervention. [Includes rush transcript] -- ||  Real Video Stream  ||  Real Audio Stream  ||  MP3 Download  ||  More…  || 

Straight Talk: Revealing the Real U.S.-Africa Policy
Special Note - A quote...."It's time for some straight talk on U.S. foreign policy as it relates to Africa. While Obama administration officials and the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) representatives insist that U.S. foreign policy towards Africa isn't being militarized, the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. While Africans condemned U.S. military policy in Africa under the Bush administration, the Obama administration has not only mirrored Bush's approach, but has in fact enhanced it." -- also posted at CommonDreams -- For more on this issue see....Africa - the Next Target - 02-28-08 - mpg

Obama Warns Russia Not to ‘Interfere’ in Neighboring States
Obama's just a complete laugh riot, the US-NRE is currently invading every country on the planet and he makes statements like this.  This suggests he's either seriously disconnected from reality, or he's deeply psychotic....or both. - mpg – A quote...."During a visit to Moscow this week aimed at improving ties with the Russian government, President Barack Obama warned the nation not to interfere in neighboring states and to get past its “old ways of thinking.”

Historian says US backed “efficacious terror” in 1965 Indonesian massacre
A quote...."The United States and British governments, supported by Australia, were deeply complicit in the murder of more than half a million alleged communist sympathisers in the wake of the 1965 Indonesian coup, a prominent historian told an international conference in Singapore last month."

What Are They Afraid Of?
A quote...."First, they took his name out of Iraqi history books. Then, they made a criminal charge that constitutes a two-year prison sentence for displaying a picture of him in public. Now, the Iraqi government has banned people from visiting Saddam Hussein's grave."

CHILE:  Alternative Media Have Their Network
A quote...."SANTIAGO, Jul 7 (IPS) - The recently created People's Media Network of Chile seeks to forge links that will strengthen newspapers, web sites and radio and TV stations that give a voice to those who are basically ignored by the mainstream media." -- also posted at UpsideDwnWrld

MI5 accused over 'torture deal'
A quote...."A British man convicted of being a member of al-Qaeda has accused MI5 and police of attempting to pervert the course of justice. -- Rangzieb Ahmed, from Rochdale, said he was offered a shorter jail term if he would drop claims UK officials were involved in his alleged torture." -- also posted at WarInIraq

Inquiry agreed into alleged torture of Iraqis by UK soldiers
A quote...."An independent inquiry is to be held into allegations that British soldiers mutilated and murdered civilians in Iraq – and the government has been forced to admit that key documents had not been disclosed. -- In a letter read out in court today, the defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth, said he "profoundly regrets" the failures to disclose relevant documents. Though he denied the allegations, he said he was now prepared to set up an inquiry under European human rights convention articles enshrining the right to life and prohibiting torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment." -- also posted at WarInIraq
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Ron Paul:
Video - A quote...."If you support the views of the Declaration of Independence today, then you will be put on a subversive list. -- A message from Ron Paul."

Acquitted Detainees Could Stay in Prison
Special Note - The title says it all, the US-NRE has become one big sick joke of itself. - mpg -- A quote...."Top Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson informed the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the Obama Administration might decide to continue imprisoning detainees indefinitely, even if they were charged with a crime, tried and acquitted." - bold by website editor

New challenge on “state secrets”
A quote...."Seeking to go forward with a legal challenge to the Bush Administration’s secret “rendition” program, lawyers for individuals claiming to have been tortured during that program urged a federal appeals court Monday to turn aside an Obama Administration move to shut down the case altogether."

Pervasive Surveillance Continuing Under Obama. New DHS-NSA-AT&T "Cybersecurity" Partnership
Under the rubric of cybersecurity, the Obama administration is moving forward with a Bush regime program to screen state computer traffic on private-sector networks, including those connecting people to the Internet, The Washington Post revealed July 3. -- That project, code-named "Einstein," may very well be related to the much-larger, ongoing and highly illegal National Security Agency (NSA) communications intercept program known as "Stellar Wind," disclosed in 2005 by The New York Times.

NSA To Spend $1.8 Billion on New Data Center
Related Article - A quote...."The United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) is planning on spending around $1.8 billion to build itself a new, million square foot data center in Fort Williams, Utah, according to a document on military construction for 2009. This branching out is largely due to the fact that the NSA’s power bill is too much, so the move is in hopes of doing the same work in a place where electricity is cheaper. The initial infrastructure is for 65MW of power distribution, but it seems that the ultimate plan is to build a 5.8 million square foot “campus” at its current data center in Fort Meade."
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Fiat Money in Death Throes
Special Note - Quote of the Day...."Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take away that power, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear — as they ought to in order to make this a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let them continue to create deposits.”  --  *Sir Josiah Stamp* (1880-1941), one time governor of the Bank of England, in his Commencement Address at the University of Texas in 1927. Reportedly he was the second wealthiest individual in Britain.

Senate Blocks Bill To Audit The Fed As Government Prepares For Second Round Of Looting
Special Note - Related Article - A quote...."Senator Jim DeMint slams Fed’s monopoly, questions where trillions in bailout funds has gone -- A Senate amendment based on Congressman Ron Paul’s successful House bill to audit the Federal Reserve was blocked by the Senate yesterday evening on procedural grounds, as Jim DeMint slammed the Fed for refusing to disclose where trillions in bailout funds had gone, while a top Obama administration advisor called for a second “stimulus” package to be prepared."

US lurching towards 'debt explosion' with long-term interest rates on course to double
Special Note - Related Article - A quote...."The US economy is lurching towards crisis with long-term interest rates on course to double, crippling the country’s ability to pay its debts and potentially plunging it into another recession, according to a study by the US’s own central bank." -- also posted at ICH

ABA: Consumers delinquent on loans rises to record level
A quote...."WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The number of consumers who were delinquent on their loans rose to a record level in the first quarter of 2009, according to the American Bankers Association."

U.S. Home Prices to Fall Through 2011’s First Quarter (Update1)
A quote...."July 7 (Bloomberg) -- Home prices may fall in more than half of the largest U.S. cities through the first quarter of 2011 as unemployment and foreclosures rise, mortgage insurer PMI Group Inc. said. -- Thirty of the 50 biggest metropolitan areas have at least a 75 percent chance of lower prices through March 31, 2011, Walnut Creek, California-based PMI said in a report today. The decline is likely to spread to “all regions of the nation” from California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, the states most affected by the housing slump, PMI said." -- also posted at AtheoNews

Bottom falls out of economic predictions after relapse in [British] manufacturing
A quote...."Hopes that Britain may be emerging from its steepest slump in output since the Great Depression were dashed when the government announced that a relapse in the manufacturing sector had reduced factory production to its lowest level in 17 years." -- bold by website editor

Unemployment skyrockets throughout Europe
This website editor has very little sympathy for the Europeans.  For the longest time they kept allowing their banks to buy US-NRE crap when they knew better and to this day they still keep on accepting US-NRE paper, including dollars.  For stupidity like that they deserve exactly what they're gonna get. - mpg -- A quote...."Unemployment has reached a 10-year high in Europe. -- The official jobless rate in the 16-nation euro currency zone rose to 9.5 percent in May, from April’s 9.3 percent. -- The European Union (EU) statistics office Eurostat revealed that 273,000 people lost their jobs in May. The Eurostat figures are based on the EU Labour Force Survey and recorded the eurozone unemployment total in May at 15.13 million people."

Worst of social, political crisis ahead: WTO chief
A quote...."The worst social and political effects of the economic crisis are "still to come," WTO chief Pascal Lamy said Tuesday, warning these could push countries deeper into trade protectionism."
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S&P, Fitch Upgrade Brazil . . . Moody's May Follow - A BRIC does good. - mpg
A quote...."BreakingViews notes: -- Moody’s may bestow its investment-grade blessing on the country, after similar upgrades by Fitch and S&P. That would reward Brazil’s monetary and fiscal policies. It would also cement its status both as an example for other developing countries and as the best Bric investment. -- Of course, Brazil has profited handsomely from China's hunger for raw resources. So it is important to ask whether China's commodity buying spree is slowing down. And if so, how severely will that effect Brazil's economy?"

China's 2Q growth may top 7.5 pct, researcher says - And so does another BRIC. - mpg
A quote...."BEIJING – China's economy is improving and growth might top 7.5 percent for the quarter that ended in June, a central bank researcher said in an official journal."

Monday July 6th 2009

No posts. - mpg

Sunday July 5th 2009

Obama Takes Bush’s Plutocratic-Socialism to the Next Level
Must Read - A quote...."It has been noted by observers of both Left and Right that the Obama administration has adopted nearly exact duplications of the Bush administration’s authoritarian policies in a multitude of areas, both foreign and domestic. And now it appears that Obama and the Democrats are only going to accelerate the economic plutocratic-socialism which became a problem during the Clinton administration, increased exponentially in the Bush years, and is poised to consume the entire country and its economy under the Obama presidency." -- also posted at ICH

The Great American Bubble Machine
Must Read - A quote...."The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. -- Any attempt to construct a narrative around all the former Goldmanites in influential positions quickly becomes an absurd and pointless exercise, like trying to make a list of everything. What you need to know is the big picture: If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain — an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy."

Happy Co-Dependence Day
Must Read - A quote...."By Cindy Sheehan -- July 05, 2009 "ICH"-- July 04, 2009 ----  One of the reasons, in my opinion, that so many people are ready, willing, able and yes, eager to succumb to “hope,” is because most of us believe that true change is not possible. -- In our heart of hearts, do we really think that Obama is an agent of change for the people? Have we not been fooled, yet again? So, we lay all of our hopes and dreams for a better life on one person and allow the inevitable heartache of betrayal to wash over us and once again drown us in disappointment when that person turns out to be just another politician. Politicians just act like politicians because we always let them."
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The Big Whorehouse On The Potomac
Must Read - A quote...."July 03, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -As Americans celebrate July 4th, they can contemplate that the union of “free and independent states,” like the former British colonial power, has evolved into its final manifestation--a complete whore house. While Members of Parliament in London charge their expense accounts with every personal expenditure, including the rental of adult xxx-rated films, an American newspaper put the reporting of public policy out to bids until politico.com blew the whistle. -- In Washington, everything is for sale, including journalistic integrity. The Washington Post, which abandoned investigative reporting eons ago, decided to boost its sagging revenues by spreading her legs. The Post’s business division put out a flyer offering lobbyists access at the Post’s CEO’s gracious home to “those powerful few” in the Obama administration, Congress, and among the Post’s editors and reporters who decide the nation’s policies, such as health care. -- The Washington Post’s flyer offered a Wal-Mart low cost of a mere $25,000 for one “salon” to interact with decision makers and $250,000 for eleven interactions. "

Western Media Persists in Propaganda About Iraq's Purported WMD
Must Read - Related Article - A quote...."The mainstream media is reporting that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein told his FBI interrogators after his capture that he lied about having weapons of mass destruction (WMD) because he feared Iran. But there’s just one problem with this claim: Saddam Hussein never claimed to have WMD, but , as everybody knows, repeatedly denied that this was so."
      
Declaration of Indictment
A quote...."When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a gang of lawless thugs and insist on the appointment of a special prosecutor to enforce the laws of the land even against those until recently holding the reins of Power, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Prosecution." -- also posted at ConsortiumNews

Conspiracy fever: As rumours swell that the government staged 7/7, victims' relatives call for a proper inquiry
Special Note - A quote...."Today almost four years on, the images of that dreadful morning are etched into our minds: the woman in the haunting white burns mask being helped to safety; the shell-shocked businessman in a suit with his hair and shirt matted with blood; the crippled No 30 bus with its roof blown off; the mangled wreckage of smouldering Tube trains. -- The country's worst-ever terrorist atrocity during London's morning rush hour on July 7, 2005, shattered for ever the heady euphoria in which the capital was basking the morning after winning the bid for the 2012 Olympics. -- That afternoon, Tony Blair - who was hosting the G8 summit on global poverty in Gleneagles, Scotland - returned to Downing Street to pronounce that the attack was an act in the 'name of Islam'. " -- also posted at PrisonPlanet

Four Years Ago: THE LONDON 7/7 BOMBINGS
Special Note - Related Article - From the History File - Article List - A quote...."Global Research brings to the attention of its readers key articles on the London July 7, 2005 bombings."

9/11, Waterboarding, a Confession and the Iraq War
Special Note - Video - A quote...."Enver Masud was one of the speakers at a "Demand Accountability for Torture" rally, on June 25, 2009, in John Marshall Park, in Washington, D.C. He questioned how Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was" waterboarded 183 times by the CIA," and then confessed to being the "mastermind of 9/11," can get a "fair trial"in this country. Mr. Masud connected the dots between 9/11, the waterboarding of a detainee, a so-called "confession," and the Iraq War. Mr. Masud is the founder and CEO of "The Wisdom Fund" and the author of "The War on Islam." See, http://twf.org/ " -- For more on this issue see....9/11 - Iraq - Torture Fables

Report: Saudis to overlook Israeli jets headed to Iran
War Alert - Related Article -- Proof again of Saudi complicity with the "Great Game".  For the last thirty years the Saudi Royals have been engaged with the PNAC Neocons and Israel (The True Axis of Evil) in a massive, coordinated effort to destabilize the entire Middle East by supporting every single xenophobic, violent, Wahabbist, Salafist, Jihadist, terrorist group out there. - mpg

"They have, in the end, allowed Islam to be deliberately besmirched, degraded, denigrated and twisted in front of the entire international community so they could continue to engage in a program, along with the United States, to "pacify" the unruly peoples of the Middle East in order to make them conform with the "New World Order", adopt "Neo-Liberal" economic policies and submit to the will of these elites while ensuring the Saudi Royals continual comfort and security. -- Their plans are as obvious and as childish as they are corrupt and utterly evil." -- quoted from *The Kingdom of Leprosy*

Will Israel help NATO police the Mediterranean?
Related Article - A quote...."Israel is to issue a request shortly to allow it to join a NATO operation in the Mediterranean aimed to prevent the passage of terrorists and weapons of mass destruction as well as improve the security of the region's shipping industry."

As Israel gears up for war, US divide appears
War Alert - A quote...."As Israel continues its efforts to portray Iran as a regime hell-bent on a nuclear war, top officials in the White House and the US military express contradictory stances on a potential Israeli attack on Iran. -- The top US military commander, Admiral Mike Mullen, warned on Sunday that any military strike against Iran would have "unintended consequences" - bold by website editor - Is Mike Mullen an AIPAC member? No....'nuff said. - mpg  - also posted at WarInIraq
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More on the US-NRE's Honduran Coup....

Gob-smacked
Must Read - A quote...."There’s no continent where the pwogwessive  “left” (I have to set this exhausted noun on the crutches of gloomy quotemarks) in the United States has entertained higher hopes of Obamian change from traditional U.S. thuggery than Latin America. This was a big constituency for Obama to allure last year. Radicals here in their senior decades have been rooting for Cuba ever since they cheered Fidel’s triumphant entry into Havana in 1959. Twenty-five years later in the late 70s and mid-80s the hottest issue for young people on the left in the US was the brutal and ultimately successful efforts of the US government in the Carter and Reagan years to crush revolutions in El Salvador and Nicaragua. To this day the “Hands off Central America”  movement of those years remains by far the most determined mobilization of the US left in the post Vietnam era." -- The poor Obama believers, betrayed again and again.  It's actually sort of endless and it's only been five months so far.  Just think of what lays ahead, just how many more betrayals they'll have to endure. On the other hand it appears Obama may have already betrayed every promise or implied promise he's ever made, so the good news is that he may very well have used up all his "betrayals" and we'll all have to settle for brand new policies of murder and mayhem that people haven't even contemplated yet. – mpg

Honduran military regime threatens reprisals as president plans return
A quote...."The ousted president of Honduras was last night poised to make an extraordinary return to the country in a bid to retake office, following last week's military-backed coup, despite fears that his comeback could spark a bloodbath. -- Manuel Zelaya has been warned by the interim government that it will arrest him and put him on trial if he sets foot in the country. He has called on supporters to greet him at the capital's airport, where he said he planned to arrive today in the company of a number of other Latin American leaders, reportedly including the president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner. -- Amid continuing unrest on the streets of Honduras, more than 10,000 of his supporters gathered near the heavily guarded presidential palace yesterday and pledged they would be ready if he returns."

Honduran Military Ordered to Turn Back Zelaya's Jet
A quote...."TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Honduras braced for confrontation Sunday as ousted President Manuel Zelaya insisted on coming home to reclaim his post, urging his supporters to mass at the airport for a showdown with the interim government in power since the army sent him into exile a week ago."

Thousands March to Welcome Zelaya
A quote...."Tegucigalpa, Jul 5l (Prensa Latina) Thousands of Hondurans march to the international Toncontin air terminal to back constitutional president, Manuel Zelaya 's return expected in the next hours after a week since his forced departure by coupists."

Two killed in Honduras anti-coup rally
A quote...."At least two people were killed and two others were injured on Sunday in clashes between soldiers and hundreds of supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya at Toncontin airport in Tegucigalpa."

One journalist killed and another wounded by hired assassins in Honduras
A quote...." Confirmed by Andrés Pavón by phone link to YVKE Mundial  •   Murdered journalist is Gabriel Ciro Noriega, from San Juan Pueblo municipality."

Coup sends Honduras ministers into hiding - 3 Jul 09 - (YouTube - 2 min 32 sec - July 03, 2009)
Video - Special Note - A quote...."Since Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras was forced into exile by the military and supreme court, many of his former cabinet members have fled the country. -- But for those who have stayed behind the constant threat of arrest by the country's new leadership means they are living in fear."

Honduran [Junta] Takes Control of Some Media
A quote...."TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- Honduras's provisional government, while trying to persuade the international community that its overthrow of its president was democratic, is being criticized for taking control of a number of media outlets since the coup."

O.A.S. Votes to Suspend Honduras Over Coup
A quote...."WASHINGTON — The Organization of American States voted Saturday night to suspend Honduras, but after deliberations that lasted until nearly midnight, it stopped short of calling on member countries to impose sanctions on the interim government responsible for ousting President Manuel Zelaya."

Nicaragua denies troops headed toward Honduras
A quote...."TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AFP) – Nicaragua denied Sunday moving its troops toward the border with Honduras, as claimed by interim Honduran leader Robert Micheletti ahead of the expected return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya."
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More On The Iranian Election....

Two-third of Iran unrest arrests 'released'
A quote...."Iran's Police Chief, Brigadier General Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam, says two-third of those arrested in the country's post-election violence have been released."

Mousavi details accusations of fraud in Iran vote - It's not exactly a smoking gun....to put it mildly. - mpg
Special Note - A quote...."Defeated Iranian presidential contender Mir-Hossein Mousavi has released a new report detailing what he calls 'irregularities' in the June 12 election. -- The report, prepared by the Committee for the Protection of Votes which is run by Mousavi's campaign office, accused the re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of abusing the national financial resources for his election campaign."

Iran official urges media crackdown
Oh, the Iranian hardliners are being ridiculous, they're to blame for much of what happened during the last election because they keep thinking defensively, they should just get their rich supporters to create a broadcast network, dig up as much dirt on the "Great Game" including the "True Axis of Evil's", Mossad's, MI6's (SIS's), and the CIA's malevolent involvement throughout the Middle East, and broadcast it 24/7. They should get their own intelligence services to help. Be PROACTIVE!!  Not SUPPRESSIVE!! The reason many of the wealthy youth in Iran were willing to support Britain’s little power play is because all the stuff coming from the hardliners is just a bunch of empty propagandistic slogans.  You can't just call the US-NRE the "Great Satan" all the time.....you have to show WHY the US-NRE is the "Great Satan" all the time.  They should do themselves and the world a favor and get out there, dig up the juicy stuff, and PLASTER IT EVERYWHERE! – mpg -- A quote...."The head of Iran's judiciary has called for a crackdown on television channels and websites deemed to have been criticial of the government. -- "The daily growth of anti-regime satellite channels and ... websites needs serious measures to confront this phenomenon," state television quoted Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi as saying on Sunday. -- "Those who co-operate with such websites and television channels will face prosecution," he said in a circular addressed to branches of the judiciary."

IRGC sees no middle ground in Iran's polity
A quote...."Political head of the Islamic Revolution's Guards Corps says that no one can remain impartial following the disputed presidential election."

Ahmadinejad challenges Obama to live debate
A quote...."After his reelection as Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad extends an invitation to his American counterpart Barack Obama for a debate before the eyes of the world. -- Addressing Iranian heads of medical universities on Saturday, President Ahmadinejad offered to debate President Obama at the United Nations headquarters in New York before the eyes of all nations of the world. -- President Ahmadinejad had previously urged a debate with former US president George W. Bush."
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More On The Palestinian Situation....

Netanyahu reaffirms commitment to racism and expansionism – thanks to US tax dollars
A quote...."To judge by the next day’s headlines, Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy speech last month was a great success. “Israeli premier backs state for Palestinians,” declared the New York Times. “Israel endorses two-state goal,” said the Washington Post. “Netanyahu backs Palestinian state,” announced the Guardian. -- He did no such thing, of course, unless by “state” one understands an amorphous entity lacking a definite territory, not allowed to control its own borders or airspace, shorn of any vestige of sovereignty (other than a flag and perhaps a national anthem), not allowed to enter into treaties with other states – and permanently disarmed and hence at the mercy of Israel. It would make about as much sense to call an apple an orange or a piano a speedboat as to call such a construct a state, and yet those are the conditions that Netanyahu imposed on the creation of such an entity for the Palestinians (if they get that far in the first place)."

Israel razes Palestinian mall in Um Al-Fahim
Contains Video - A quote....""Israel has destroyed a Palestinian mall in the Arab town of Um al-Fahim. Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes has drawn international criticism, with rights groups calling on the international community to stop Tel Aviv from continuing its destruction of houses. PressTV's Shireen Yassin has more."

A Life in Ruins
A quote...."In the immediate aftermath of Israel's bloody three-week war with Hamas in January, Peter Beaumont travelled to Gaza and met the Palestinians devasted by the death of their families and the destruction of their neighbourhoods. Six months later he returns to find they are still waiting - to rebuild both their homes and their lives." -- For more on this issue see....Gaza Invasion of 12/27/08

Why Obama should fire General Dayton
A quote...."The US-sponsored "security coordination" program headed by Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, which was launched by the Bush Administration in 2005 to allegedly help the Palestinians reform their security services, has done more harm than good. US President Barack Obama would do well to fire Dayton and put an end to US intrusion into internal Palestinian affairs." -- Everyone has to understand, the US-NRE is just trying to "help" "'dem poor liddle Aaaa-rabs".  For more on the "kind of help" the US-NRE likes to give see....US Sponsored Civil Wars - Palestine

US McKanny, 13 activists still in Israel jail, Bahrainis freed
A quote...."Five Bahraini activists was deported on Friday but 14 Free Gaza activists are still under Israeli jail." -- also posted at CounterCurrents

Cynthia McKinney Refuses Israel's Offer of Release from Custody
A qoute...."ATLANTA, Ga. -- Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who was taken into custody by the Israeli Navy on Tuesday with 20 others while trying to sail through a navy blockade to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza, has refused Israel's initial offer to release her from custody. According to her supporters in Atlanta, McKinney refused the offer because she would have been required to sign an admission of guilt that she violated Israel's blockade." - bold by website editor -- My goodness, a woman of principals, as apposed to that craven, obsequious, butt-kissing, AIPAC genuflecting, marionette, we currently have occupying the White House. Gentle readers, many of you shamefully made the wrong choice this last November. – mpg - also posted at WarInIraq

Letter From An Israeli Jail, By Cynthia McKinney
Contains Audio - A quote....

"This is Cynthia McKinney and I'm speaking from an Israeli prison cellblock in Ramle. [I am one of] the Free Gaza 21, human rights activists currently imprisoned for trying to take medical supplies to Gaza, building supplies - and even crayons for children, I had a suitcase full of crayons for children. While we were on our way to Gaza the Israelis threatened to fire on our boat, but we did not turn around. The Israelis high-jacked and arrested us because we wanted to give crayons to the children in Gaza. We have been detained, and we want the people of the world to see how we have been treated just because we wanted to deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza." -- *Cynthia McKinney*
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Bill banning forced identity-chip implants clears House
A quote...."HARRISBURG - Invasion of privacy is an issue that really gets under State Rep. Babette Josephs’ skin. -- That’s why the Philadelphia Democrat introduced a bill, passed unanimously last week by the House, that would ban the forced implantation of computer chips in humans. -- Conjuring Orwellian images, Josephs worries the identification devices - the size of a grain of rice - could lead to a real-life Big Brother nightmare."

Martial Law & Food Control In One Insane Bill - HR 2749
Special Note - A quote...."HR 2749 is a strange bill in many ways. While the other “food safety” bills have been around since winter, allowing for much public discussion on the internet, HR 2749 has only suddenly appeared. It is a mutant conglomeration of the worst of the other bills, with the addition of one very original part – martial law."

A Covenant With Death - Or worse, much, much worse. - mpg
Special Note - A quote...."We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves. -- *Isaiah* 28:15 (KJV)
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“Any American president is a hostage of his own political system”
A quote...."The views of the restricted group that Barack Obama represents will be outlined in the American foreign policy, and Moscow is yet to see the extent to which those views coincide with Russian views." -- If Russia believes a single word Obama says, it'll prove they haven't been paying very much attention for the last five months and they'll deserve everything they'll get.  Which is to say at a minimum nothing at all, or possibly even worse than that. -- mpg

Clashes at protest vs US base expansion in Italy
A quote...."Protesters clash with police at demonstration against expansion of US base in northern Italy."

Nigerian rebels threaten new gas pipeline project
A quote...."LAGOS (AFP) – Nigeria's best known rebel group on Saturday threatened to thwart a 10-billion-dollar trans-Saharan gas pipeline linking vast reserves in Nigeria to Europe, but the army vowed to protect the project."

Central African Republic rebels sign peace deal: mediator
A quote...."LIBREVILLE (AFP) – The head of a rebel group which refused to endorse a 2008 peace deal for the Central African Republic has performed a U-turn, mediators said Saturday."

PM Erdogan sees Turkey's economy sixth largest in Europe
A quote...."The Turkish prime minister put on Sunday Turkey's economy in the sixth place in the continent of Europe."

Secret agents force Spanish spy chief to quit
A quote...."Spain's spy chief, Alberto Saiz, has been forced to resign after his own agents turned on him, employing the tricks of the trade to overthrow their boss at the country's National Intelligence Centre (CNI). -- In a constant flow of black propaganda over several months, disgruntled agents leaked photographs of Saiz's exotic fishing and hunting outings during business trips abroad and claimed that he even used the agency's divers to clean his swimming pool."

Lula to call for solidarity with poor nations at G8
A qoute...."Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula will call on wealthy nations to moderate their demands from poor countries during a G8 summit in Italy."
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A New Life for the IMF: Capitalizing on Crisis
Special Note - A quote...."April's G-20 meeting - involving the heads of state of 20 of the world's most economically powerful countries - failed to yield an agreement on increased European stimulus spending or on new global financial regulatory rules. But it did feature one overriding tangible agreement: A commitment to expand massively the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in order to channel funds to developing countries rocked by the financial crisis." -- Also known as extortion, first you bust the financial system up, than you loan money to the "poor liddle darkies" to "help" (that dreaded word again) them out, than at the back end you grind them into the dust all over again with usurious interest rates.  And the best part of the deal is even if leaders in a given country don't won’t to "participate" or "play ball", there are usually many others that can be bribed who will, and....how can one put this delicately, they will be perfectly happy to "arrange" for the removal of those who won't. – mpg

India Joins Russia, China in Questioning U.S. Dollar Dominance
A quote...." July 4 (Bloomberg) -- Suresh Tendulkar, an economic adviser to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said he is urging the government to diversify its $264.6 billion foreign-exchange reserves and hold fewer dollars. -- “The major part of Indian reserves is in dollars -- that is something that’s a problem for us,” Tendulkar, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, said in an interview yesterday in Aix-en-Provence, France, where he was attending an economic conference." --  also posted at BLN

Calls grow to supplant dollar as global currency
A quote...."The call to find an alternative to the U.S dollar as the global reserve currency is gaining momentum as France joined calls by China, India and Russia for a review of the world's currency practices." -- also posted at RogueGov

Saturday July 4th 2009

No posts. - mpg

Friday July 3rd 2009

How to Deal with America's Empire of Bases - A Modest Proposal for Garrisoned Lands
Must Read - A quote...."The U.S. Empire of Bases -- at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest military enterprise -- just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new "embassy" in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don't occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there." -- also posted at ICH

The Base Court: Another Fortress Rising in America's Ring of Iron
Must Read - Chris Floyd's take on the article shown above. - mpg -- A quote...."While Chalmers is undoubtedly one of the wise men of our day, I am not so sure about this final point. Oh, it's true that the empire of bases is further bankrupting our already bankrupt country. And it's an indisputable fact that the fever-dream of dominance and militarism has already spelled the end of the United States as we knew it (or as we once perceived and hoped it to be). Yet it is hard for me to believe that if push really comes to shove for our imperial managers, they will simply stand by and watch their power and privilege melt away with nothing more than a wistful sigh for passing glories. Especially with a unfathomably vast military arsenal -- including thousands of nation-devouring nuclear weapons -- at their command."

The Banality of Evil Applies to Everyone
Must Read - A quote...."One of the aspects of the Iraq War that has fascinated me the most is how CIA agents and U.S. soldiers could actually bring themselves to kill, torture, and sexually abuse Iraqis. After all, don’t forget that neither the Iraqi people nor their government participated in the 9/11 attacks. The worst “crime” that any Iraqi committed against any American was resisting an unlawful invasion of his country. -- Nonetheless, even though the Iraqi people were innocent of any attacks on the United States, many CIA agents and most U.S. soldiers have been able to bring themselves to kill and maim hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in an invasion and occupation of a country that never attacked the United States, and murder, torture, and sexually abuse dozens of Iraqis detainees and prisoners."

Iraq a failed imperialist venture
Must Read - A quote...."Not only did the Iraqi invasion and occupation prove the limits of military power, it also exposed how incapable America has become at nation-building. Its postwar incompetence was stunning. -- America plunged Iraq into chaos, shattered the infrastructure and destroyed the society, reducing human beings to their basest instincts. They turned on each other and found safety only in family, tribe, clan and sect. Shiites and Sunnis, who had lived together for ages, ethnically cleansed each other's neighbourhoods, which to this day remain separated by barricades, walls and checkpoints. -- Having unleashed the forces that put Iraq's three main communities at war with each other, the U.S. toyed with the idea of dividing the country into the Kurdish north, a Sunni centre and a Shiite south, much like the British had divided India in two in 1947. -- Having created the chaos, violence and jihadism, the U.S. said, in colonial fashion, it had to stay to curb the chaos, violence and jihadism. Having crippled the state, it had no choice but to prolong the occupation until the natives were ready to govern themselves." -- also posted at ICH
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More on the US-NRE's Honduran Coup....

The other 9/11 returns to haunt Latin America
And it's a funny thing that BOTH 9/11s were staged by the US-NRE's elites.
Special Note - A quote...."The ghost of the other, deadlier 9/11 has returned to stalk Latin America. On Sunday morning, a battalion of soldiers rammed their way into the Presidential Palace in Honduras. They surrounded the bed where the democratically elected President, Manuel Zelaya, was sleeping, and jabbed their machine guns to his chest. They ordered him to get up and marched him on to a military plane. They dumped him in his pyjamas on a landing strip in Costa Rica and told him never to return to the country that freely chose him as their head of state." -- also posted at CommonDreams

Honduran Coup Tries to Halt Advance of Latin America's Left
A quote...."The coup against Manuel Zelaya of Honduras represents a last ditch effort by Honduras’ entrenched economic and political interests to stave off the advance of the new left governments that have taken hold in Latin America over the past decade. As Zelaya proclaimed after being forcibly dumped in Costa Rica: “This is a vicious plot planned by elites. The elites only want to keep the country isolated and in extreme poverty.” -- also posted at ICH

Honduras Under Siege
Video - A quote...."The military coup government of Roberto Micheletti is coming under increasing economic pressure to concede power, whether from holds on US humanitarian aid and World Bank loan money or the sealing of the borders by all three neighbors. On the political front, it has yet to be recognized by a single foreign government. And domestically, it has resorted to the tactics of Central America's dark past to crush the people's angry response to the coup. Beatings, curfews, spot-checks, censorship and death threats. Honduran human rights advocate Bertha Oliva believes that the actions of the 'golpistas' (coup leaders) can only be explained as a reaction to the growing demand for citizen participation in Honduran politics. Though the Golpistas have sought to make their actions appear necessary to defend the republic from a power-hungry President, Manuel Zelaya, Oliva tells The Real News that the real story is the opposite. That it is they, as the polical-economic ruling class, that are afraid of losing their power to an increasingly engaged citizenry."

No Press Freedom in Post-Coup Honduras
A quote...."When José David Ellner Romero heard the soldiers breaking down the door of the Globo radio station on the evening of the June 28 coup, he had a flashback. His mind conjured up the terrible images from the 1980s, when he was arrested by the military, thrown into an underground prison and tortured. "I couldn't stand the thought of going through that hell again, so I got out on the ledge of the windowsill and jumped," Elner told our delegation. His fractured shoulder, ribs and bruises were minor given that he jumped from the third floor."

EU ambassadors pull out of Honduras
A quote...."All ambassadors from European Union member countries have been recalled from Honduras, Sweden's foreign minister says, following a military-backed coup that deposed the elected president."

Chavez: U.S. and Venezuelan Right Wing Support Coup in Honduras, a Challenge to Obama
A quote...."Chavez said the Obama administration has so far been "soft-hearted" in response to the coup, because it has not yet called for the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who was kidnapped by the military on Sunday. "Define yourself, or you are a mollusk," Chavez said to Obama, urging the U.S. president to follow the lead of the Latin American fair trade bloc ALBA and the Organization of American States (OAS) and take "a firmer stance."
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More On The Iranian Election....

Iranian Cleric: British Embassy Staffers ‘Confessed,’ Will Face Trials
A quote...."Addressing the weekend arrest of several local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran in his weekly sermon, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati today claimed the staffers had ‘made confessions’ with regards to their activities, and would be put on trial, though he did not say what the charges would be."

Cleric urges end to election dispute in Iran
A quote...."A senior cleric urges Iran's political parties to end their bitter row over the outcome of the June 12 presidential elections in the interest of the country. -- “The world has its eyes fixed on Iran's post-election developments,” said Tehran's Interim Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati. “So we need to end the ongoing dispute.”

West regretting stance on Iran: Lawmaker - [Foreign Policy Commissioner Alaeddin Boroujerdi]
Who does he think he's kidding?  Most of the governments in the West were indifferent to what was happening in Iran and would have blown whichever way the wind went, except for two Anglo powers whose only regret is that  their attempt at another "color revolution" failed....for now. - mpg -- A quote...."A senior Iranian dignitary says Western powers are regretting the inappropriate stance they adopted in the wake of the June 12 presidential election. -- “Western countries have now realized their stance on the Iranian elections was undoubtedly out of line,” head of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Friday."

U.K. seeks to isolate Iran
And one of the West's "powers" (that's a laugh) is still resentful that their carefully laid plans went so astray. After all, the poor little cry babies were so confident that things would go well again that they're practically hysterical now that they haven't. Of course they'd had every reason to be confident, they'd carried out an almost identical operation quite successfully back in in 1953. - mpg -- A quote.... "LONDON: Britain’s efforts to isolate Iran over the arrests of its embassy staff in Tehran for allegedly fomenting the post-poll turmoil met with partial success on Friday when the European Union governments reportedly agreed to summon Iranian Ambassadors to lodge a protest but declined to set a deadline for downgrading their diplomatic missions in Iran." -- also posted at WarInIraq
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More On The Palestinian Situation....

Israel p-sses on Britain again – and our craven leaders love it
A quote...."Stuart Littlewood considers Israel’s latest act of piracy on the high seas – the seizure of an aid ship bound for Gaza and the kidnapping of its passengers and crew – and highlights the complicity of the British government, which is forever fighting a rear-guard action on behalf of Israel."

"Nowadays you have to carefully pick your way through a veritable obstacle-course of pro-Zionists, Chosen Ones and Israeli stooges that inhabit every nook and cranny in the corridors of power and dominate Britain’s key defence bodies. These Israeli flag-wavers seem only too happy for the Israelis to piss on us – and on the rest of the world – while rewarding them with more and more trade and scientific co-operation."

"On Tuesday 30 June the Israeli navy, in a blatant act of piracy on the high seas, assaulted the vessel Spirit of Humanity and abducted six British nationals who were taking part in a voyage of mercy."

Mairead Magquire FREE GAZA Kidnapped by Israeli Pirates
Video - A quote...."Free Gaza Movement. Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire has spoken from behind bars of her terror after the aid boat on which she was travelling was attacked by terrorist Israeli Pirates We were threatened by the Israeli navy when we were in |international waters and during the night they told us they would shoot if we didnt turn back to Cyprus, she said. They cut off all our satellite communications and our lives were very much in danger,| because we could have strayed into Israeli waters. We sailed on and they kept threatening that they would shoot if we didnt turn back. In the early hours of Tuesday navy boats pulled up to Maireads ship and special forces troops began to board it."

Gaza Aid Britons In 'Atrocious' Israel Cell
A quote...."British nationals have told Sky News they are being held in "atrocious conditions" in an Israeli prison after their boat was seized as they tried to take aid in to the Gaza Strip." -- also posted at AtheoNews

UN Human Rights Mission Collects Gruesome Testimonies from Gaza
A quote...."Gaza City - A UN human rights mission on Sunday listened as witnesses described in gruesome detail the Israeli shelling of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip during a three-week offensive at the turn of the year."

Gaza's Sewage Beaches
A quote...."Manal's dreams of a vacation were not a luxurious summer camp or a first-class resort, but a dip in the water on the Gaza beach, regardless of pollution risks. "It's not that bad if the sea is polluted and someone gets sick," the 10-year-old Gazan girl told Agence France Presse (AFP) Friday, July 3. "Exams are over and we want to have fun like other children." In one of the world's most populated area, 1.6 million Gazans are facing risks of serious illnesses and infections from the polluted sea. Affected by Israel's blockade and ban on pipes and spare parts necessary to repair Gaza's sewage system, thousands of cubic meters of raw sewage water are dumped every day straight into the sea."
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Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries
Special Note - A quote...."Sunni terrorist groups armed, funded, and moved around the global chessboard to suit geopolitical agenda of Anglo-American establishment. -- Recent revelations concerning the U.S. importing Taliban members into Iraq to foster false flag terrorism is merely the tip of the iceberg when compared to the U.S. intelligence complex’s multi-decade history in sponsoring Sunni Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist groups around the world." -- For more on this issue see....US Support of Terror

‘Secret’ Rome Meeting Recounted by AIPAC Spy Case Figure
Special Note - A quote...."A few years back Sheryl Crow recorded a haunting song called “Three Days in Rome,” about a lover’s treacherous retelling of their affair in a novel. -- Likewise, anonymous sources have been talking for years about a secret meeting two Bush administration Pentagon officials had in Rome with a notorious Iranian arms dealer, in December 2001."

Happy Fourth! China is bidding on Iraq’s oilfields
Good for the Chinese, they're willing to pay in good coin whereas the US-NRE just makes stuff up about countries, invades them based on these childishly made up pretexts and than robs their citizens of their wealth and their lives. - mpg -- A quote....After the torturous interrogations by not so intelligent intelligence and contractors for actionable intelligence; after contaminating the country with Depleted Uranium; after shocking and awing the Cradle of Civilization and poisoning its food chain for posterity . . .But mostly, after Bush and Cheney lied their way into war in search of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, now we allow the Chinese to do Iraq’s oil contract bidding so they won’t call in our two trillion in debt markers. Have a beer on me. Have two. For the two trillion we’ve blown in this pointless, even humiliating war. -- As the New York Times reports in As Iraq Stabilizes, China Bids on Its Oil Fields, our British “buddies” BP are partnered with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to win the first awarded contract in the latest Chinese grab for Iraq’s oil, a bit ballsy even though the country remains in our somewhat illegal sphere of interest."

Russia to allow US arms shipments to Afghanistan
A quote...."Russia will allow the U.S. to ship weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, a top Kremlin aide said Friday in a gesture aimed at bolstering U.S. military operations and improving strained ties between Washington and Moscow." -- Obviously Putin thinks he has a deal with Obama on the missile shield.  We'll just see how long that lasts. - mpg

Taliban claims downing Pakistan Army helicopter
A quote...."The Taliban Friday claimed to have shot down a Pakistan Army helicopter in the country's lawless tribal region, a media report said. -- A spokesman for the Islamic militants told Sama television that the Taliban had also captured the pilot of the helicopter gunship."

New IAEA Head: No Evidence Iran Seeking Nuclear Weapons
A quote....."New International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Yukiya Amano may have been the candidate of choice for Western nations, and in particular Israel, but he sought to assure the world today that he would remain independent and would seek to de-politicize the office. -- In particular, Amano noted that going through the IAEA’s documents he didn’t see any evidence that Iran was trying to develop nuclear weapons."

US-backed Colombian soldiers execute innocent for cash
A quote...."The Colombian government of President Alvaro Uribe is facing questions about its handling of the war against the country’s FARC rebels following a UN report that accuses Colombian soldiers of systematically killing innocent people for a cash reward." -- also posted at BLN

The Venezuelan Coup Revisited: Silencing the Evidence
Book Review - A quote...."Whatever one's opinion of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, one thing is certain: The coup attempt against him on April 11, 2002, together with the tumultuous events leading up to it, were a pivotal moment in the country's recent history. Unsurprisingly, in the context of deep political polarization in Venezuela at the time, accounts of how the coup took place often constitute partisan positions, as political opponents wage battles to define the truth of what happened.

Cybersecurity Plan to Involve NSA, Telecoms -- DHS Officials Debating The Privacy Implications
Oh look!  Obama's backing ANOTHER Bush program.  You Obamatrolls happy yet? - mpg -- A quote...."The Obama administration will proceed with a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, with AT&T as the likely test site, according to three current and former government officials." -- also posted at CommonDreams
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Whose Country is it anyway? A political-economic oligarchy has taken over the United States of America
A quote...."The claims of workers for unpaid wages have often been dismissed as have their contracts for benefits. -- But there is an essential difference between a business that lends money or delivers products or services to another company and the employees who work for it. Business is an activity that supposedly involves risk. Employment is not. Neither is unknowingly buying a defective product. Workers and consumers do not extend credit to the companies they work for or buy products from. They are not in any normal sense of the word “creditors.” Yet that distinction is erased in bankruptcy proceedings which preserve companies at the public’s expense."

Thursday July 2nd 2009

FBI Ignored Bush-Hussein Ties - posted at Consortium News
Special Note - A quote...."The FBI has released reports on 20 interviews and five conversations conducted with Iraq’s deposed dictator Saddam Hussein before he was put to death, but none of the disclosed Q and A deals with the role of the Reagan administration in delivering key components for Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons in the 1980s."
    
SAUDI BOMBSHELLS, Part 3 -- FBI chief defended Saudis -- Part I -- Part II
Special Note - A quote...."The pro-Saudi bias of former FBI director Louis Freeh during the investigation of the 1996 Khobar Towers terror bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 United States airmen shut down a probe in which Osama bin Laden was clearly implicated. Had the case run its course, the US may not have been so brutally blindsided by 9/11."

The Bigger Story Behind Michael Scheur's Wish for an Attack on America
Special Note - A quote...."Everyone is appropriately outraged that the former head of the CIA unit which hunted Bin Laden for almost a decade - Michael Scheur - told - [YouTube] Glenn Beck:

"The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States." -- *Michael Scheur*

But people aren't putting this in context. In fact, many Neocons have also stated a desperate yearning for another attack on America (and see this)

Eager to Tap Iraq's Vast Oil Reserves, Industry Execs Suggested Invasion
Special Note - A quote...."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 [Energy] Policy Challenges for the 21st Century," was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the U.S. 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." - bold by website editor -- also posted at the PublicRecord -- For more on this issue see....War Resource 9/11

From The Archives: America's Matrix - posted at Consortium News
Special Note -- Related Article -- A quote...."The Matrix” and its sequel, “The Matrix Reloaded,” offer a useful analogy for anyone trying to make sense of the chasm that has opened between what’s real and what Americans perceive is real. -- Like the science-fiction world of the two movies, a false reality is being pulled daily over people’s eyes, often through what they see and hear on their TV screens. Facts have lost value. Logic rarely applies. -- Some living in this “American Matrix” are like the everyday people in the movies, simply oblivious to what’s going on beneath the surface, either too busy or too bored to find out. Others appear to know better but behave like Cipher, the character in the original movie who chooses the fake pleasures of the Matrix over what Morpheus calls “the desert of the real.”"

Helen Thomas: Not Even Nixon Tried to Control the Media Like Obama
Related Article -- A quote...."(CNSNews.com) - Following a testy exchange during Wednesday’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press." -- also posted at AmericanEveryman & OhBummer

Obama Administration Backs Bush White House on Cheney Interview
Related Article -- A quote...."WASHINGTON - When it comes to the Bush White House's decision to withhold from the public Dick Cheney's interview with FBI agents investigating the CIA leak case, the Obama administration says its predecessor did the right thing. And it's fighting hard to do the same."

For $25-250K, Washington Post Offered Lobbyists Access to Obama Officials, Congress and Reporters
Related Article -- A quote...."Mike Allen’s story on Politico today on how The Washington Post attempted to sell access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress and the Post’s reporters for the small price of $25,000-250,000 is a must read. In an ironic twist, the pay-for-access scandal was brought to public light by a health care lobbyist who was given a flier promoting one of the Washington Post’s exclusive “Salons.” -- The mass-media in this country really are a bunch of boot-licking (or worse)  presstituting whores in the fullest sense of the term. - mpg

Washington Post cancels lobbyist event amid uproar -- Hip Hip Hooray!!  Victory....for the moment. - mpg
Related Article -- A quote...."Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors." -- also posted at DProgram

POLITICS:  U.S. Uses False Taliban Aid Charge to Pressure Iran
Special Note  - Related Article -- A quote...."WASHINGTON, Jul 2 (IPS) - The Barack Obama administration has given new prominence to a Bush administration charge that Iran is providing military training and assistance to the Taliban in Afghanistan, for which no evidence has ever been produced, and which has been discredited by data obtained by IPS from the Pentagon itself." -- also posted at AftrDwngSt & CommonDreams

The still-growing NPR "torture" controversy
Related Article - A quote...."There are several noteworthy developments since I wrote on Tuesday about the refusal of NPR's Ombdusman, Alica Shepard, to be interviewed by me about NPR's ban on using the word "torture" to describe the Bush administration's interrogation tactics.  Given the utter vapidity of her rationale ("there are two sides to the issue. And I'm not sure, why is it so important to call something torture?"), I was momentarily amazed to learn that she actually teaches "Media Ethics" to graduate students at Georgetown University...." - bold by website editor - also posted at CommonDreams - Haaa!  It's all just simply too funny for words. - mpg

Another Example of U.S. Censorship of Mainstream Media
Related Article - A quote...."Cynthia McKinney and 20 other humanitarians on the ship "Spirit of Humanity" were stopped in International waters Monday by the Israeli Navy. This is a pretty big deal. An aid ship captured by the armed forces of another country in International waters is an act of piracy� I think. At least it was when Somali pirates captured an American ship recently. -- It appears that the U.S. Mainstream media is going to ignore this story even though Cynthia McKinney was once a Congresswoman from Georgia and a Presidential candidate. How odd. What does this say about the news we receive daily from the mainstream media. The New York Times Boasts "All the News that's fit to Print". Apparently this act of piracy and cowardly behavior isn't fit to print. I condemn the New York Times for failing to print this news that they are fully aware of."

Torturing the Rule of Law
A quote...."Sixty years ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson left Washington to pursue what he later called "the most important, enduring, and constructive work of [his] life": prosecuting international war crimes committed during WWII. Justice Jackson helped usher in a new international regime that promised to help deter human rights abuses. -- Unfortunately, Jackson's achievements have proven less enduring than he hoped. Our nation continues to undermine international law by sweeping torture under the rug, with serious implications going forward."

A video dedicated to the world's two biggest terrorist states; Israel and her colony, the USA
Video - Lyrics -- "War Pigs" -- Black Sabbath, live in Paris 1970 - (Hard rock, metallic) -- A quote....

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!......

More on the US-NRE's Honduran Coup....

US-Honduras: Dictatorships and Double Standards Revisited
A quote...."WASHINGTON, Jul 1 (IPS) - When the Honduran military deposed President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday, in an incident that stirred memories of Cold War military coups in Latin America, it also seems to have caused at least some foreign policy commentators here to revert to positions reminiscent of the Cold War." -- also posted at UpsideDwnWrld
 & 21stCS

Honduras: Typical CIA Lab, warns Scholar
A quote...."Caracas,Jul 2 (PL) Venezuelan academics and politicians warn today about a new mechanism to counter the progressive thrust in the region, in which "the CIA does the dirty work and US diplomacy hides the hand." -- also posted at DemoUndrgnd

Hondurans Call Out for Help from the International Community
A quote...."Our emergency international delegation to Honduras, organized from the United States by CODEPINK, Global Exchange and Non-Violence International, began its fact-finding mission in the wake of the June 28 coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya."

Angel Palacios, “Honduras Resists”
Video - A quote...."Honduran women and men were called upon by President Manuel Zelaya Rosales to participate in a popular referendum on 28 June 2009 in order to convene a National Constituent Assembly. In the morning of the day of the referendum, the president was abducted and removed from the country by a coup d’état. Diverse Hondurans headed for the Presidential Palace to demand that Zelaya be returned to the office which the people entrusted to him."

President Zelaya Message to Hondurans
A quote...."Tegucigalpa, Jul 2 (Prensa Latina) Honduran constitutional President Manuel Zelaya sent a message of encouragement to his followers in Honduras and urged them to continue their resistance to the military coup until his return to the country this weekend."

Spinning the Honduran Coup -- Latin America Media Battle Continues
A quote...."Read or listen to the mainstream media these days and you get the impression that Sunday’s coup in Honduras was all about a simple disagreement over the constitutionality of presidential term limits. But as the coup unfolds it’s becoming clear that the authorities want something more: the restoration of Honduras’s conservative political order and an end to President Manuel Zelaya’s independent foreign policy which had reached out to leftist countries like Cuba and Venezuela."
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More On The Iranian Election....

Ghorbanifar, Mousavi, and the CIA
Special Note - A quote...."Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian arms dealer who served as a go-between for the CIA, Israel, and the regime of Ayatollah Ruhuollah Komeini during the Iran-Contra affair, was “a trusted friend and kitchen adviser to Mir Hussein Mousavi, Prime Minister in the Khomeini government”, said TIME magazine back in 1987."

Iran hardliners urge legal action against Mousavi
It may not be a politicaly wise idea.  However, legal action against Mousavi would be required if he knowingly lied about "irregularities" in the vote and/or knowingly cooperated with foreign elements in fomenting the demonstrations. Even if he did so however, and as a result becomes “damaged goods”, Iran's hardliners are still going to have to make substantial efforts to insure the political system is made more flexible in the future to allow a legitimate and growing opposition a voice in how the country is governed. --  mpg  -- A quote.... "TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian hardliners pressed on Thursday for legal action against moderate leaders accused of inciting post-election turmoil that has dimmed Western hopes of engaging Tehran on its disputed nuclear program. -- "Those who hold illegal rallies and gatherings should be legally pursued," parliament member Mohammad Taghi Rahbar was quoted as saying by the hardline Javan newspaper."

Ahmadinejad won fair and square: Samareh-Hashemi
A quote...."Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election campaign manager, Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi, says Iran's electoral process was fair and healthy."

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More On The Palestinian Situation....

Hamas’ Political Impasse: Between Principal and Necessity
A quote...."Much can be said to explain, or even justify Hamas’ recent political concessions, where its top leaders in Gaza and Damascus agreed in principle with a political settlement on the basis of the two-state solution. --  On June 25, Damascus-based leader of the Islamic group’s political bureau, Khaled Meshaal reiterated Hamas’ rejection of recognizing Israel as a Jewish State, rightfully dubbing such a designation as “racist, no different from Nazis and other calls denounced by the international community.” However, he did endorse the idea of a two-state solution, which envisages the creation of an independent Palestinian state on roughly 22 percent of the land of historic Palestine." -- also posted at PalestineChron

My talk with Hamas about peace with Israel
A quote...."The US should follow the Northern Ireland and South African models – which had principles, not preconditions." -- Yes but that would not please AIPAC, and US-NRE politicians exist to serve AIPAC's wishes.  Besides, "principals" are not a concept this country's politicians can grasp or maintain with any reliability. – mpg

[Israeli] Housing Minister: Spread of Arab population must be stopped
A quote...."Housing Minister Ariel Atias on Thursday warned against the spread of Arab population into various parts of Israel, saying that preventing this phenomenon was no less than a national responsibility."

Ethnic Cleansing as State Policy -- Netanyahu's "Peace" Plan
A quote...."In his speech at Bar Ilan University on June 14, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a new Israeli “peace plan,” with preconditions that a Palestinian negotiator must first meet before he would “promptly” engage in “unconditional” bilateral talks to meet an international consensus demanding the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. His preconditions added to the fourteen conditions the former Israeli government of comatose Ariel Sharon attached to Israel’s adoption in grudge of the 2003 Road Map blueprint for peace with the Palestinian side, on the basis of which the U.S. administration of President Barak Obama and his presidential envoy George Mitchell are now urging an early resumption of “immediate” Israeli – Palestinian peace talks, which Mitchell on June 26 hoped “very much to conclude this phase of the discussions and to be able to move into meaningful and productive negotiations in the near future." -- also posted at CounterPunch

In Israel, former US lawmaker remains imprisoned
A quote...."Former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney and several other human rights activists remain in an Israeli prison after refusing to sign a deportation form that they claim is self-incriminating."

US Remains Silent over McKinney Arrest by Israel
A quote...."Nearly a day after the detention of former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney by Israeli forces, Washington has yet to make a reaction. -- Israeli Navy detained former US congresswoman and Nobel Prize laureate Cynthia McKinney and twenty other human rights activists on board a relief boat outside Israel's territorial waters on Tuesday as they were heading to Gaza on a humanitarian mission."

Cynthia McKinney calls WBAIX from Israeli prison
Audio - A quote...."Cynthia and 20 others were detained after being seized by Israeli Navy while in international waters. They were attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza." -- also posted at Creative-i & BAR

MIDEAST:  Future of Fatah in Doubt
A quote...."RAMALLAH, Jul 2 (IPS) - The future of Palestinian unity talks is far more complex than the bitter rivalry, bloodshed and division which represent the yawning chasm separating Palestine's two main political factions, Hamas and Fatah." -- also posted at CounterCurrents & PalestinianPundit & WillToTruth & Uruknet
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Al-Sadr demands full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq
A quote...."BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — The ongoing presence of U.S. troops in Iraq “shows that the (Iraqi) government and the occupation are not serious about the withdrawal,” a key Shiite cleric in the country said Wednesday. -- Muqtada al-Sadr made the statement on his Web site a day after U.S. forces withdrew from Iraqi cities and towns in accordance with the security agreement between the United States and Iraq. About 131,000 American troops remain in the country, on bases and in outposts outside of population centers."

Lawsuit now accuses Xe [Blackwater] contractors of murder, kidnapping
A quote...."A just-amended lawsuit alleges six additional instances of unprovoked attacks on Iraqi civilians by Blackwater contractors. -- Three people, including a 9-year-old boy, are said to have died. -- Also added to the suit is a racketeering count accusing Blackwater founder Erik Prince of running an ongoing criminal enterprise involved in, among other things, kidnapping and child prostitution." - also posted at RogueGov - Ahhhh, the New Roman Empire in all its depravity. - mpg

Taliban Slip Away From Afghanistan Surge Battle
Gee whiz, the Taliban didn't stand around and let themselves be killed?  Who would have thunk it?  "Those who learn to run away, live to fight another day"....also known as standard guerilla tactics.  Or to quote the master....  mpg

"If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected." -- *Sun Tzu*, the Art of War

A quote...."WASHINGTON— The Marines faced little Taliban resistance as they began moving into villages in the Helmand River valley, a Taliban stronghold that is one of the world's largest opium-producing regions. - Marine commanders said Taliban fighters seemed to have melted into the surrounding countryside rather than staying to fight the large U.S. force."

Blow to British forces as Afghanistan bombing kills senior officer
A quote...."British Forces in Afghanistan have been dealt a huge personal blow with the loss of the most senior infantry commander to be killed in action since the Falklands war."

Pakistanis Reject U.S. "Aid" Flights, As Lawsuit is Filed Against U.S. Drone Attacks
A quote...."Damn those ungrateful Pakistanis. After U.S. drone attacks killed more than 600 of their people since 2006—most of them civilians—it seems they think they have some right to say they don’t want the U.S. flying its “aid” planes to Swat and other “tribal areas.” The New York Times reports that “the Pakistani authorities have refused to allow American workers or planes to distribute the aid in the camps for displaced people.” The paper reports" -- also posted at CommonDreams & Uruknet

US Lawmakers Call For Supporting Terrorists In Iran
Since the US-NRE has been supporting terrorists for the last thirty years, this is sort of redundant. - mpg -- A quote...."The Obama administration should be doing more to support Iranian resistance groups —  including the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK), a "cult-like" terrorist organization that has engaged in suicide attacks against their own countrymen, according to the U.S. State Department — in an all-out effort to affect regime change in Tehran, two American lawmakers said at a recent press conference in Washington, DC. " -- For more on this issue see....US Support of Terror - MEK-PKK-Others

While the U.S. Dilly Dallies on Honduras, We Continue to Support a Right-Wing Thug in Colombia
A quote...."With all eyes suddenly on Honduras over the expulsion of President Manuel Zelaya, few were paying attention when President Barack Obama quietly met with Colombian president and staunch U.S. ally Alvaro Uribe this week."

Bolivia slams US for halting trade benefits
A quote...."Bolivian President Evo Morales has criticized the US for cutting trade benefits to La Paz, calling President Barack Obama is a liar."

Gazprom Seeks Global Deals to Build Gas Grid Encircling Europe
A quote...."July 2 (Bloomberg) -- OAO Gazprom, the Russian company that ships a quarter of Europe’s gas, is seeking supply deals in the Caspian, Africa and around the world to anchor its lead in areas where European buyers may turn to rival producers."

Troops gather on Georgian border
A quote...."Less than a year after the enclave of South Ossetia erupted in war, this tinder box of the Caucasus is primed to flare up again, writes Shaun Walker."

Medvedev furious over India-destined warship delays
A quote...."MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday angrily rebuked a shipyard chief for delays to repairs of a Soviet-era aircraft carrier set for delivery to India, urging work to be completed quickly."
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Grand Jury Inquiry on Destruction of C.I.A. [9/11 cover-up torture] Tapes
A quote...."WASHINGTON — Current and former top Central Intelligence Agency officers have appeared before a federal grand jury in Virginia as part of an 18-month investigation into the agency’s destruction of 92 videotapes depicting the brutal interrogations of two Qaeda detainees." -- For more on this issue see....9/11 - Iraq - Torture Fables

John Yoo, Donald Rumsfeld and the Systematic Torture of Prisoners
A quote...."On January 17, 2003, Mary Walker, the Air Force general counsel, received an urgent memo from the Pentagon's top attorney. Attached to the classified document was a set of directives drafted two days earlier by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld." -- also posted at Uruknet

"Court Filing Shows Evidence Cheney Swayed White House Response to CIA Leak --Discussions of CIA Agent Listed in Filing 03 Jul 2009 A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president [sic] Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration's public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations. A list of at least seven related conversations involving Cheney appears in a new court filing approved by Obama appointees at the Justice Department. In the filing, the officials argue that the substance of what Cheney told special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in 2004 must remain secret." -- Paragraph quoted from CLG

"Obama pushes to delay release of CIA report --Agency's secret detention, torture program under scrutiny 02 Jul 2009 The Obama administration said Thursday that it needs two more months to review an internal CIA report on the agency's secret detention and interrogation program before making it public. The Justice Department had originally said it intended to release the report in June as part of a lawsuit, but department officials now say they 'need' until the end of August. [See: U.S. again [third time] delays releasing CIA torture report 02 Jul 2009; US wants to [again] delay release of CIA report 26 Jun 2009; Delay in Releasing CIA Report Is Sought 20 Jun 2009.]" -- Paragraph quoted from CLG

Town Hall Meeting on Health Care – Brought to you by Burson-Marsteller
A quote...."(breakdown of the transcript, and links to the transcript, at the end of this) -- In a video from Tuesdays White House Press briefing (see below), Helen Thomas and Chip Reid challenge Obama’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the heavily controlled aspects of the next days healthcare “Town Hall” meeting. The argument is that the questions aren’t going to be asked during the meeting by the citizens who asked them in the first place; rather, as Gibbs points out, the questions are being submitted on “Facebook and Twitter” prior to the meeting, then they are “selected” by the White House to be asked of the president during the town-hall meeting."
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Ignoring Propethic Predictors
Must Read - That's right folks, facts, theories, over-arching paradigms, and most importantly - accurate predictions that arise from good paradigms, are what count!!  Not just a bunch of hot-air, vaporous, self-serving, elite excreted, bull sh-t. - mpg -- A quote...."By Ralph Nader --  I've wondered often why people who go to "town meetings" held by campaigning politicians rarely ask fundamental questions. -- Here is one that should have been asked of presidential candidate Barack Obama: "If you get to the White House, will you appoint to top positions Americans who have a track record of making the right decisions in their respective fields?" -- "Of course, I will," Obama would have undoubtedly replied. -- Of course, he did not when it came to the collapse of the corrupt Wall Street casinos and the bailout of these gamblers by the American people. Obama chose the very Wall Streeters and Wall Street servants who were involved in, condoned, or profited from the speculative binges that led to the biggest government bailout scheme in world history."

How Goldman Sachs and Citi Run the Show -- The Wall Street White House
A quote...."Robert Hormats, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, is to be installed as Under Secretary of Economics, Business, and  Agricultural Affairs. This  comes as one more, probably unnecessary reminder of the total control exercised by Wall Street  over the Obama administration’s economic and financial policy.  True, Hormats is “a talker rather than a decider” according to one former White House official, but he will find plenty of old friends used to making decisions, almost all of  them uniformly disastrous for the U.S. and global economy."

Banking System Like South Sea Bubble: Senior Bank of England Official And now the big banks own the government.
A quote...."Banking became the goose laying the golden eggs. There is no period in recent UK financial history which bears comparison,’ says executive director for financial stability, Andy Haldane -- A senior Bank of England official today compared the banking system over the last 20 years to the South Sea bubble of the early 18th century and said bankers had merely “resorted to the roulette wheel” to keep up with each other."

We’re in the Middle of a Crash’ – Black Swan
Video - Special Note - A quote...."You may have green shoots, whatever you want to call them, you may have temporary relief, but you are still in a world that’s breaking,” Taleb said on “Squawk Box.” Anything that’s fragile like the financial system will eventually crash, he said. “We’re in the middle of a crash,” Taleb said. “So if I’m going to forecast something, it is that it’s going to get worse, not better.” The government needs to deleverage debt and not try stimulus packages that will inflate assets, he said. “What makes me very pessimistic in not seeing any leadership or awareness on parts of government on what has to be done, which is deleverage $40-to-$70 trillion,” Taleb said. “The monkey on our back is debt,” he added."

7 more banks fail as FDIC mulls rules for sales
A quote...."WASHINGTON (AP) -- Six Illinois banks and one bank in Texas were shuttered Thursday as government regulators proposed new rules for private equity firms seeking to take over failed banks. -- That brought the number of U.S. bank failures this year to 52. -- That's more than double the 25 which failed in all of 2008 and the three closed in 2007." -- Just keep in mind folks, during the S&L crisis the FDIC closed down well over eight hundred banks, in other words we have a very long way to go. - mpg

US unemployment rate for June at 9.5 percent
A quote...."The US economy lost far more jobs in June than had been predicted by economists, and the unemployment rate hit 9.5 percent, its highest level since 1983, according to data released by the Labor Department on Thursday. The June jobless report undercut the efforts of the Obama administration and the media to downplay the depth of the economic crisis and generate illusions of a rapid recovery."

Official: US government will pull out of GM if no deal by July 10
A quote...."The US government will pull its support from General Motors if the automaker does not get court permission for a speedy exit from bankruptcy protection by July 10, an official testified on Wednesday."

Britain: Public sector jobs set to be slashed
A quote...."Large-scale job losses and cuts in services are planned throughout the UK public sector. -- John Philpott, the chief economist and director of public policy for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), writes, “The public sector has yet to feel the full impact of the recession, and the resultant bloodbath in the public finances.”

Everything suggests that the American bonds seized at Chiasso are real -- More on the $134 Billion Chiasso Bonds.
A quote...."Milan (AsiaNews) – Four weeks have passed since [$134 Billion in] American bonds were confiscated from two Japanese who were travelling on a direct train to Chiasso, Switzerland, and while there has been clarification of some points, very few, Italian authorities have remained silent on the rest of the episode."

What Has Government Done to Our Money and The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar
Book Review -- A quote...."On 25 June 2009 I was invited to the Cafe Libertalia to speak at a book club where I was given the latitude to choose the book for discussion. I picked What Has Government Done To Our Money And The Case For A 100% Gold Dollar by Murray Rothbard. This book is an easy to read foundation for the student of the Austrian school of economics. Therefore, I think everyone should get and read a copy."

Wednesday July 1st 2009

Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire"
Special Note - Book Review -- A quote...."First written in 1972, it was updated in a 2003 edition that's every bit as relevant now - thus this review focusing on Hudson's new preface, introduction, and detailed account of the book's theme. -- He revisited it in his 2008-09 Project Censored award- winning article titled: "Economic Meltdown - The 'Dollar Glut' is What Finances America's Global Military Build-up" in which he explains the following - the "inter-related dynamics" of:
In other words, the global "dollar glut" finances US corporate takeovers, speculative excesses creating bubbles and global economic crises, America's reckless spending, foreign wars, hundreds of bases worldwide, "military build-up," and culture of militarism and belligerence overall at the expense of democratic freedoms, beneficial social change, and human and civil rights." -- For more on this issue see....Some Tentative Laws - 07-20-08 - mpg

America's Praetorian Guard Is Slowly Crumbling
Special Note - A quote...."Professional armies have traditionally been far more disciplined, especially under the stress of longer-run warfare. -- BUT that does not mean they have no turning points or breaking points. In Rome the professional, imperial guard, The Praetorian Guard, was highly disciplined and bore casualties well in the early years. But over the decades of imperial struggles and military in-breeding common to such armies largely cut off from the civil population, they became bored with routine, self-centered, arrogant, puffed up with their own importance, and started deposing and imposing emperors, forcing them to put more and more of the national wealth into the military and so on. The professional military became a tyrannical force no civilians could control, so it controlled them through their imposed emperors."

Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure - posted at Consortium News
A quote...."President Barack Obama and Iraqi leaders may try to sugarcoat the bitter pill for the United States by talking up the achievements of the six-year occupation, but the public celebrations by Iraqis marking the American pullout from Iraq’s cities tell the painful story of a U.S. strategic failure."

Freedom Rider: Dangerous Progressives
A quote...."Most Americans believe their country is a benevolent and beloved force in the world. That belief is so deeply ingrained that even political progressives are rarely different in upholding this awful dogma. They are as likely as self-identified conservatives to support the government when it asserts a right to interfere with foreign governments, to occupy their nations, or to kill human beings on any pretext deemed necessary by the United States." -- also posted at OhBummer

Why Did It Take So Long To Order The Release From Guantánamo Of An Al-Qaeda Torture Victim?
A quote...."In over three years of researching and reporting about the prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, I learned early on to expect, as one of Guantánamo’s first commanders, Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey explained, that many of the men were “Mickey Mouse” prisoners, with no connection to terrorism whatsoever, and, in hundreds of cases, not even a tangential involvement in the Taliban’s inter-Muslim civil war with Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, which preceded the 9/11 attacks, but morphed into a war against the US after “Operation Enduring Freedom” — the US-led invasion of Afghanistan — began on October 7, 2001."

Torture Autopsy Reveals Death by Enhanced Interrogation
A quote...."Torso: Multiple contusions and abrasions including "brush burn" injuries consistent with being dragged on the ground. -- Extremities: Multiple contusions and abrasions, including injuries around the wrists consistent with shackling. On the thighs were linear contusions likely made from being struck with blunt objects. The patterns in the skin of the left calf revealed the likely source of the injuries- combat boots:"

NPR Ombudsman refuses interview regarding "torture"
A quote...."NPR's Ombudsman, Alicia Shepard, wrote a column last week justifying NPR's policy of using euphemisms such as "enhanced interrogation tactics" -- while barring the use of the word "torture" -- to describe the interrogation tactics used by the Bush administration.  I wrote a critique of that column which was widely cited, and the comment section to her column was filled with hundreds of angry criticisms -- many times the number of comments her column typically attracts (usually in the range of 10-20)."

I Want My Money Back! (Pres. Obama!)
A quote...."I gave $20 a week for seven months, plus $60 every once in a while for a t-shirt and sticker. I gave of my modest purse joyfully. Once I add that all up, it makes a grand total of... $106 billion?! Wait a minute, I thought I was supporting change I could believe in, not more of the same bloodshed and war!" -- also posted at ICH

More on the US-NRE's Honduran Coup....

Does the US back the Honduran coup?
Special Note - A quote...."The military coup that overthrew Honduras's elected president, Manuel Zelaya, brought unanimous international condemnation. But some country's responses have been more reluctant than others, and Washington's ambivalence has begun to raise suspicions about what the US government is really trying to accomplish in this situation."

Generals Who Led Honduras Military Coup Trained at the School of the Americas
Special Note - A quote...."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. [includes rush transcript]" -- ||  Real Video Stream  ||  Real Audio Stream  ||  MP3 Download  ||  More…  ||

More on CIA Approved Coup of Honduran President Zelaya
A quote...."President Obama has declared the Coup illegal in Honduras but has done nothing to show America's displeasure. The President is good at words that mislead and that is why he is President."

Honduran Leader's Populism Is What Provoked Military Violence
A quote....."Contrary to most media accounts, President Manuel Zelaya wasn't seeking to abolish term limits."

Thousands hit streets over Honduras coup -- Aid, trade suspended; OAS demands ousted president's return
A quote...."TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Thousands of Hondurans demonstrated Wednesday for the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, who vowed to fly home this weekend despite a warrant for his arrest. Thousands more rallied in favor of the military-backed government."

Hondurans for Zelaya, Democracy
A quote...."Tegucigalpa, Jul 1 (Prensa Latina) The Honduras Popular Resistance Front affirmed on Wednesday continued massive protests rejecting the military coup and demanding President Manuel Zelaya's return."

Coup in Honduras: defiant president arrives in Costa Rica
A quote...."Manuel Zelaya, the leader of Honduras who was arrested by the army in an apparent coup, arrived in Costa Rica on Sunday and declared that he was still president."

Honduras' Coup Congress Erases Five Basic Liberties
Special Note - A quote...."Despite the best efforts of what I call "the Oligarch Diaspora" to flood the Internet with near identical messages that the Honduran coup "is not a coup" and that was a "constitutional succession" (cough, cough) dressed in the blue-and-white flag of Honduran democracy, the coup regime bared its fangs today. And like any vampire, it's coming out at nightfall."

Honduran coup leaders tighten grip
Related Article -- A quote...."The Honduran congress has given police expanded powers to move against opponents of the military-backed interim government in the wake of a coup which deposed the elected president."

Honduras rulers defy world pressure to restore Zelaya - Except the US-NRE ain't pressuring them. - mpg
A quote...."TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – The Honduran interim government defied international pressure on Wednesday and vowed there was "no chance at all" of ousted President Manuel Zelaya returning to office."

Honduras coup leaders get 3-day ‘ultimatum’
A quote...."WASHINGTON - Honduran coup leaders have three days to restore deposed President Manuel Zelaya to power, the Organization of American States said Wednesday, before Honduras risks being suspended from the group."

Honduras coup: Fidel Castro says it was 'a suicidal error'
A quote...."Fidel Castro, the former president of Cuba, has condemned a coup in Honduras as 'a suicidal error'."
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More On The Iranian Election....

The Clash of Islam and Democracy in Iran
Must Read - A quote...."Before his June 19th hard-line speech at a Friday prayer congregation, Khamanei had the mystique of a just arbiter of authority, perched on a lofty platform far above the contentiousness of day-to-day politics. In his sermon, he asserted the validity of the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while the Guardian Council, the constitutional body charged with validating any national election, was still dealing with 646 complaints about possible election misbehavior and fraud. As a result, he damaged his status as a just ruler, a matter of grave importance since justice is a vital element in Islamic values. -- Furthermore, by boycotting the June 19th congregation, former presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Muhammad Khatami, as well as Mahdi Karrubi, former Speaker of the Iranian Parliament -- all of them respected mullahs -- exposed a deep rift in the ruling religious establishment. That bodes ill for the future of the Islamic Republic. -- Khamanei has won the immediate battle, but the conflict between hard-liners and reformists is far from over. Taking a long-term view, Khamanei and his hard line cohorts face a superhuman task of countering an inexorably rising trend. Quite simply, the demographic make-up of Iran favors their reformist adversaries."

Made for Revolution - Iran and Us
Must Read - A quote...."No longer can it be said that Iran’s society is authoritarian. The robust display on the streets and within the Parliament, and indeed, within the circle of the éminence grises, particularly the turbaned mullahs of both the Council of Guardians and the deliciously named Expediency Discernment Council of the System, puts paid to the idea that social forces in Iran are suppressed beyond measure. The Iranian State is not fully able to absorb the energetic forces of its society, but it is, in the breech forced to accept them (most recently, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had to call for a judicial inquiry into the street killing of Neha Agha-Soltan). Ludicrous comparisons between contemporary Iran and Nazi Germany should be given their due burial (not two months ago, Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom made just this claim, one often repeated by the now haggard looking neo-conservatives)."

Iran and Washington's Hidden Hand - Has the CIA Been Caught in Iran's Cookie Jar, Again?
Must Read - A quote...."Only weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post columnist and mouthpiece of the neoconservatives, revealed the target list of the Bush administration as it set out on its post-9/11 war footing. The list included six nations: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, and the Palestinian Authority. While the priority allotted to Afghanistan and subsequently Iraq was not in dispute, the remaining order was in flux."

This is CIA revenge
A quote...."The denials by the US government of the coup in Honduras and the attempted coup in Iran have absolutely zero credibility. -- In his book on the coup in Iran in 1953, Stephen Kinzer notes how the CIA paid Iranian officials to side against the democratically elected government of Mossadeq and line up with the puppet despot Shah. -- The tactic was to get fake demonstrators onto the streets to make it look as if Mossadeq was the victim of a spontaneous uprising. Mossadeq was deposed and the result was 26 years of oil profits for US and British oil companies."

U.S.:  Anti-Regime Exiles Galvanised by Iran Unrest
A quote...."WASHINGTON, Jun 29 (IPS) - While mass demonstrations in Iran are dwindling – with large gatherings and the opposition appearing largely paralysed by the authorities’ crackdown – the crisis there is causing a return to prominence for groups of Iranians living in the West: the exiles who have long advocated regime change in Iran, sometimes by armed means."

Demonising Iran conveniently hides uncomfortable truths for the West
A quote...."THE MAINSTREAM media narrative of events unfolding in Iran has been set out for us as clear as a fairytale: an evil dictatorship has rigged elections and now violently suppresses its country's democrats, hysterically blaming foreign saboteurs the while. But the Twitter generation is on the right side of history (in Obama's words), and could bring Iran back within the regional circle of moderation. If only Iran becomes moderate, a whole set of regional conflicts will be solved. -- I don't mean to minimise the importance of the Iranian protests or the brutality of their suppression, but I take issue with the West's selective blindness when it gazes at the Middle East. The "Iran narrative" contains a dangerous set of simplicities which bode ill for Obama's promised engagement, and which will be recognised beyond the West as rotten with hypocrisy." -- also posted at ICH

CNN’s Iran timeline omits CIA’s ‘53 coup
A quote...."CNN’s Iran Timeline Omits US-Backed ‘53 Coup -- It might be more difficult for Republicans to bash President Obama for being “timid” in his comments about the Iranian government’s violence against protesters if the U.S. media didn’t consistently censor US-Iranian history."

Khatami denounces Iran election, arrests
Special Note - A quote...."TEHRAN (Reuters) - Moderate former president Mohammad Khatami criticized the outcome of Iran's disputed election and called for the release of people arrested since the June 12 vote in a hard-hitting statement on Wednesday. -- Khatami was the third leading pro-reformer to publicly denounce the vote and its turbulent aftermath since Iran's top legislative body on Monday confirmed the victory of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

Iran militia wants probe of opposition leader
A quote...."Iran's Basij militia is calling for an investigation into opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi's role in the street protests that followed last month's presidential election."

Mousavi to disclose tell-all documents
And why did Mousavi wait so long to do so?  Is this some sort of joke?  To wait 'till after he was repeatedly asked to provide proof of irregularities, after a partial recount, after the election was ratified, then at this juncture he wants to comes forward with some "tell all documents".  Admittedly the Iranian youth who support Mousavi and who are participating in Iran's various demonstrations have learned a lot from the US-NRE's "culture", and this website editor would be loath to criticize anyone in Iran.  But a word to the wise, if the Iranian youth treat their electoral process like the people of the US-NRE do, like it's all just one big Faux-news, Survivor, American-Idol, Jerry Springer, Beauty Pageant, guess-a-vote-a-thon, joke-fest, than they'll become as impoverished, fat, stupid, lazy, cruel, depraved morally degenerate and indifferent to mass murder as most Neo-Romans in this country have become.  But maybe that's what they really desire, in which case they'll deserve exactly the government, and the country, they'll get.  It's something they should probably think about very carefully. – mpg -- for more on this issue see....It's The Votes That Count - 06-28-09 - mpg
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On The Palestinian Situation....

Amnesty says Israel 'wantonly' destroyed Gaza
A quote...."OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Amnesty International said on Thursday Israel inflicted "wanton destruction" in the Gaza Strip in attacks that often targeted Palestinian civilians during an offensive in December and January in the Hamas-run enclave. The London-based rights group, in a 117-page report on the 22 days of fighting, also criticized the Hamas movement for rocket attacks on Israel, which it called "war crimes."

Amnesty accuses Israel of using human shields in Gaza
A quote...."JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Amnesty International on Thursday accused Israeli forces of war crimes, saying they used children as human shields and conducted wanton attacks on civilians during their offensive in the Gaza Strip." -- also posted at DProgram & MEO

Lean Cuisine: Counting Calories On the Checkpoint Diet
A quote...."Remember, no matter what the facts say, just keep repeating to yourself: This is not a ghetto. This is not a ghetto. This is not a ghetto....A West Bank checkpoint managed by a private security company is not allowing Palestinians to pass through with large water bottles and some food items, Haaretz has learned....  The private security company Modi'in Ezrahi...stops Palestinian workers from passing through the checkpoint with the following items: Large bottles of frozen water, large bottles of soft drinks, home-cooked food, coffee, tea and the spice zaatar. -- The security company also dictates the quantity of items allowed: Five pitas, one container of hummus and canned tuna, one small bottle or can of beverage, one or two slices of cheese, a few spoonfuls of sugar, and 5 to 10 olives. Workers are also not allowed to carry cooking utensils and work tools." -- also posted at Uruknet

The “Spirit of Humanity
A quote...."July 01, 2009 "Information Clearing House" --- On June 30, the government of Israel committed an act of piracy when the Israeli Navy in international waters illegally boarded the “Spirit of Humanity,” kidnapped its 21-person crew from 11 countries, including former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Nobel Laureate Mairead MaGuire, and confiscated the cargo of medical supplies, olive trees, reconstruction materials, and children’s toys that were on the way to the Mediterranean coast of Gaza. The “Spirit of Humanity,” along with the kidnapped 21 persons, is being towed to Israel as I write."

Israel Holds Gaza Boat, Foreign Dignitaries
A quote...."Israeli navy troops seized on Tuesday, June 30, a Gaza blockade-defying boat loaded with humanitarian aid and detained 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney."

Pirates of the Mediterranean
A quote...."July 01, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- THE arrogance of Israel is nothing short of breath-taking. --
On the eve of one of the most damning reports ever to be published on human rights abuses and suspected war crimes, Israel committed an act of piracy. --  While western naval fleets are patrolling the waters off the coast of Africa, acts of piracy are being carried out routinely in the Mediterranean. --  But the international community leaders couldn’t care less because most of those who are kidnapped, shot at and hijacked at sea are Palestinian fishermen from Gaza."

Finding Fish, But Israelis Too
A quote...."GAZA CITY — "They told us ‘go west or we will shoot you’," says Ashraf Sadallah. "Initially, we refused, so they began shooting very close all around our boat."

IOF troops block firefighters from extinguishing fire in Palestinian land
Burn baby burn is their motto, in some cases like Gaza - literally. - mpg -- A quote...."JENIN, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces on Tuesday night blocked Palestinian firefighters from reaching cultivated lands of Anin village, Jenin district, to extinguish a fire that started at a late night hour and continued till Wednesday morning."

Land Theft with False Justifications
A quote...."Arabs call the very Zionist Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, "Nitin ya ho" that is "O you the dirty", but we disagree to a certain extent, because unlike other Zionist politicians, he at least speaks his dirty plans out in the open and says what is going in his head. He openly declares his plans about stealing all of Palestine�s land, and in the end he wants to complete the Zionist ethnic cleansing project that started in 1948, and still continues up to this date, other Zionist politicians were doing the dirty work while giving a form of sweet talk." -- also posted at Uruknet

THE ILLUSTRATED PALESTINIAN RIGHT OF RETURN
Illustrations -- A quote...."The Right To Return Will Never Be Forgotten……. Palestinian Refugees……"
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Iraqis are too shrewd to fall for an ‘invisible’ occupation
A quote...."We are at the beginning of the end. On Tuesday, US troops left Iraq’s cities, and in two years they will leave the country. Or so the official story goes. In reality, most of the “withdrawing” forces are merely relocating to forward operating bases where they appear to be hunkering down for a long entr’acte offstage in expensive, built-to-last facilities."

Troop Movements Are not a 'Withdrawal'
A quote...."By Dennis Kucinich -- July 01, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement regarding the announcement that U.S. troops have left the cities and towns of Iraq and turned over formal security to Iraqi security forces."

Iraq stands firm, rejects foreign oil deals
A quote...."Government pledges some sites will be solely exploited by state-owned firms amid foreign companies’ snub."

Iraq: torture and Abuses under Puppet Government
A quote...."Babil Province Human Rights Commission president Fawziya al Jashami revealed that detainees in Babil Province have been subjected to tortures and sexusal abuses."

Afghanistan: No Exit Plan, No Exit, No End
A quote...."There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but our government can’t find one to quit Afghanistan. Nor propose a truce. Nor, after seven brutal years, disclose an exit strategy, despite recent legislation from fed-up House Democrats."

Taliban Seize U.S. Soldier in Afghanistan
A quote...."(CBS)  A Taliban commander told CBS News' Sami Yousafzai Thursday that militants had captured one U.S. soldier and three Afghan nationals in Paktika province, near the Pakistani border."

US Forces Launch Helmand Campaign; Pakistani Public turns Against Taliban but Still Rejects US Intervention
A quote...."Some 4,000 US military personnel and 650 Afghan troops are launching an assault on Taliban positions in Helmand Province, with an aim to 'take, clear and hold' in emulation of the counter-insurgency tactics deployed successfully in some parts of Iraq. Helmand has been a particularly violent province in recent years, and is also the major poppy-producing area of Afghanistan."

Pakistan Begins Serial Production of JF-17 Thunder Jet Fighter
A quote...."ISLAMABAD, June 30 — Pakistan Tuesday kicked off serial production of the multiple jet fighter JF-17 Thunder in collaboration with the People’s Republic of China. -- Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar inaugurated the project at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex Kamra."

Zimbabwe gets $950m loan from China
A quote...."Zimbabwe is to receive a $950m loan from China to aid its devastated economy."

China backs away from controversial Internet filter
Good for China, they've finally come to their senses. You want to be a modern technological power, you gotta stop all that censorship stuff. - mpg -- A quote...."China has delayed indefinitely a much-criticised plan to force manufacturers to bundle Internet filtering software with personal computers sold in the country, in an abrupt retreat hours before the policy was due to start."
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ACLU Says Government Used False Confessions
A quote...."The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday accused the Obama administration of using statements elicited through torture to justify the confinement of a detainee it represents at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." -- For more on this issue see....9/11 - Iraq - Torture Fables

U.S. spy says just followed orders in Italy kidnap
A quote...."ROME (Reuters) - A former U.S. spy at the center of a kidnapping trial in Italy appeared to acknowledge a role in the abduction of a Muslim cleric but said he was only following orders, according to a rare interview published on Tuesday." -- For more on this issue see....Fun & Torture - It's a Pleasure.

"U.S. again [third time] delays releasing CIA torture report 02 Jul 2009 The U.S. government on Wednesday once again delayed the release of a full report on CIA's controversial interrogation program. The government had intended to complete its review of the 2004 report and release it two weeks ago. But continued interagency debate about how much of the secret report could be made public pushed back the deadline. [See: US wants to [again] delay release of CIA report 26 Jun 2009 and Delay in Releasing CIA Report Is Sought 20 Jun 2009.]" -- Paragraph quoted from CLG

WaPo Covered For CIA In Iran-Contra Crack Scandal
A quote...."Over at The Root, you can read an excerpt of my colleague, Ryan Grim's book This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History Of Getting High In America. A particularly juicy one, at that: the incredible true story of two newspapers, sparring over the story of Nicaraguan Contras, inner-city drug dealers, and the way the whole thing eventually evolved into a tidy little tale of a "victimized" black community, under the thrall of paranoia."

"FEMA Administrator Fugate Meets Top Israeli Official To Discuss Emergency Management Issues
False Flag Alert -- A quote...."WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate met today with Maj. Gen. Yair Golan of the Israeli Defense Forces Home Front Command (IDF/HFC), continuing to foster a working relationship with Israel and bolstering the exchange of information on common emergency management practices." -- Paragraph quoted from CLG

VIDEO: Beck guest Scheuer: "The only chance we have as a country right now is" for bin Laden to "detonate a major weapon" in U.S. -- video - False Flag Alert -- This website editor considers this statement to be a transperent and openly blatent appeal to elements within the US-NRE military and US-NRE elites to engage in another false flag event against the people of this nation. - mpg

Federal Agents Conducting House by House Gun Checks
A quote...."HOUSTON, TEXAS - The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) agents are in the midst of  fanning out across Texas in order to conduct house by house investigations into what the agency deems numerous  “suspicious” firearms transactions and as a means to combat “narco-terrorism” along the U.S. /Mexican border." -- also posted at BLN

The Military Invades U.S. Schools: How Military Academies Are Being Used to Destroy Public Education
A quote...."For the past four years, I have observed the military occupation of the high school where I teach science. Currently, Chicago's Senn High School houses Rickover Naval Academy (RNA). I use the term "occupation" because part of our building was taken away despite student, parent, teacher and community opposition to RNA's opening." -- also posted at BLN & OhBummer
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Market Predictions from the Foundation for the Study of Cycles
A quote...."The Foundation for the Study of Cycles was formed during the Great Depression to try to figure out why it happened. It was staffed and funded by leading intellectuals and business men of the day." -- For more on this issue see....Effective Fed Funds Rate & Total Non-Farm Payrolls 03-24-07

Goldman Sachs The Fourth Branch of the U.S. Government
And this website editor used to think it was the "press"....well we all know that's not true anymore. - mpg -- A quote...."Shouldn’t we have a Financial Branch of government? A group of fiscal experts entirely devoted to keeping the US’s fiscal house in order? -- Well, we actually do, but instead of installing a branch of smart, genuine financiers interested in benefiting the American people, we installed a bunch of greedy crooks intent on stealing as much of the public’s money as possible with no consequences what so ever. --  Ladies and Gentleman, I present to you America’s Financial Branch of the Government: Goldman Sachs." -- also posted at BLN

Goldman Sachs: The Wall Street Bubble Mafia
A quote...."This was published last week in Rolling Stone issue 1082-83. As of now, Rolling Stone has not posted this article online. -- I know what you’ll be thinking as you read this: That my last job in the U.S. (Wall Street Chop Shop and “We Americans Were Very Clever”) was with Goldman Sachs. Good guess, but no. The firm I worked for is dead now."

Fannie, Freddie to Refinance Larger Underwater Loans (Update3)
A quote...."July 1 (Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will begin refinancing mortgages with loan-to-value ratios of as much as 125 percent as the Obama administration seeks to boost participation in its anti-foreclosure programs."

Credit Card Addicted Nation: How Americans have Pushed Themselves off the Fiscal Cliff. $931 Billion in Credit Card Debt Outstanding. -- A quote...."Credit cards were developed as a form of convenience and not another stream of household income.  The first major use in the United States started in the 1920s when it was used for the purposes of fueling the expanding auto owner population.  Bank of America created the BankAmericard in 1958 which later became the Visa system.  If we rewind to the start of the decade, let us use January 2000 as the date, Americans had $614 billion in credit card debt.  Today that number now stands at $931 billion." -- Actually that's not a real large increase at all.  That's because Americans were smart, they borrowed against their homes.....oh oh. - mpg

Citi raises rates on millions of credit cards: report
A quote...."(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc has increased interest rates on up to 15 million U.S. credit card accounts just months before curbs on such rises come into effect, the Financial Times reported citing people close to the situation."

Bank Fees Rise as Lenders Try to Offset Losses
A quote...."Bounced check: $32. Stop-payment: $30. A.T.M. charge: as high as $3. Even now, after all those bailouts, banks never seem to tire of dipping a little deeper into your wallet. Despite the tough economic times and increased scrutiny from Washington, they are keeping most fees at record highs, and are eking out slight increases on others like overdraft charges — a step they rarely took during past recessions." -- also posted at RogueGov

Hotel Loan Defaults Double as Recession Cuts Travel (Update2)
A quote...."July 1 (Bloomberg) -- As many as one in five U.S. hotel loans may default through 2010 as the recession means companies are spending less on travel and perks, according to University of California economist Kenneth Rosen."

Construction spending falls more than expected
 A quote...."WASHINGTON – Construction spending fell more than expected in May, a sign the problems facing the nation's builders are far from over. -- The Commerce Department said Wednesday that construction spending dropped 0.9 percent in May, nearly double the 0.5 percent decline that economists expected. Adding to the signs of weakness, activity in the past two months was revised lower."

It's Not the Weather, It's the Depression
A quote...."Macy's flagship store has racks of summer tops, swimwear and dresses marked down as much as 50 percent, while luxury retailer Bergdorf Goodman is slashing prices on designer goods by as much as 70 percent. Meanwhile, piles of clothing as well as barbecue grills, tents and gardening tools are bypassing stores and heading straight to liquidators as merchants try to conserve their cash. -- Such deep discounting so early in the season is great news for bargain hunters, but it's a worrisome sign that shows a further weakening in retail sales since the end of May."

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070109-070709 - links page

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