MPG'S DAILY RAPSHEET AND BLOTTER  ON THE "GREAT GAME"  - links page

@ www.reficultnias.org
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Editor's note : From now on each weekly blog page will have several items culled from the past called  "9/11 - From The History File" : It's for those who didn't know, and also for those who forgot....or are trying to forget.

Editor's note - War Update, War Alert, War Warning, Red War Warning and War Imminent - refer to articles regarding the upcoming war with Iran.  In the order they appear as shown above, they  represent less serious to more serious possible threats of war. - mpg
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Monday February 18th 2008 - links page

What Do We Stand For? - posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19374.htm
Must Read - A quote...."18/02/08 "ICH" --- - Americans traditionally thought of their country as a "city upon a hill," a "light unto the world." Today only the deluded think that. Polls   ---  http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/1031-Poll.html  ---  show that the rest of the world regards the
 U.S.   ---  http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0615/dailyUpdate.html  ---  and Israel   ---  http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/347324_threated.html  ---  as the two greatest threats   ---  http://www.angus-reid.com/analysis/view/america_the_greatest_menace_to_global_stability/  ---  to peace.  --  This is not surprising. In the words of Arthur Silber:"  --- http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/02/no-one-is-safe-ruling-class-unleashed.html

"The Bush administration has announced to the world, and to all Americans, that this is what the United States now stands for: a vicious determination to dominate the world, criminal, genocidal wars of aggression, torture, and an increasingly brutal and brutalizing authoritarian state at home. That is what we stand for."

"Addressing his fellow Americans, Silber asks the paramount question:
  ---  http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/12/honor-of-being-human-why-do-you-support.html  ---  "why do you support" these horrors?"
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Paul Campos: [George] Washington wouldn't be thrilled about U.S. militarism - posted at AntiWar  --- http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/military-washington-spending-1981524-world-united
A quote...."A few years ago I visited the Huntington Library in San Marino, where, among other things, I saw an original manuscript of an annual budget for the federal government, which George Washington had submitted to Congress.  --  The most interesting feature of this document was the appropriation for what in those less-euphemistic times was called the Department of War. As I recall, it included salaries for 18 employees."
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Willie Nelson: Impeach Bush, "Throw The Bastards Out"  ---  http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2008/021808_impeach_bush.htm
A quote...."American icon Willie Nelson says he supports efforts to impeach President Bush and "throw the bastards out," adding that the administration will do anything to stay in power, including staging an event to cancel the election."
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US court attacks web freedom; enjoins Wikileaks.org out of existence
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__080218_us_court_attacks_web.htm
Must Read - Action Alert - A quote...."One of the most important web sites in recent months has been Wikileaks.org.   ---  http://wikileaks.org/  ---  Created by several brave journalists committed to transparency, Wikieaks has published important leaked documents, such as the
 Rules of Engagement   ---  http://www.wikileaks.be/wiki/US_Rules_of_Engagement_for_Iraq  ---  for Iraq [see my
 The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq],  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/soldz02052008.html  ---  the
2003   ---  http://www.wikileaks.be/wiki/Camp_Delta_Standard_Operating_Procedure  ---  and
2004  ---  http://www.wikileaks.be/wiki/Camp_Delta_Standard_Operating_Procedure_%282004%29
Guantanamo Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures,   ---  http://www.wikileaks.be/wiki/Guantanamo_document_confirms_psychological_torture  ---  and evidence of major bank fraud in Kenya   ---  http://wikileaks.be/wiki/The_looting_of_Kenya_under_President_moi  --- 
[see also here  ---  http://wikileaks.be/wiki/A_Charter_House_of_horrors  ---  ] that apparently affected the Kenyan elections. Wikileaks has upset the Chinese government enough that they are attempting to censor it, as is the Thai military junta.  --  Now censorship has extended to the United States of America, land of the First Amendment. As of Friday, February 15, those going to Wikileaks.org   ---  http://wikileaks.org/  ---  have gotten Server not found messages. Today I received a message   ---  http://freedomspen.org/wiki/Wikileaks.org_under_injunction  ---  explaining that a California court has granted an injunction   ---  http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/images/Dynadot-injunction.pdf  ---  written and requested by lawyers for the Cayman Island's Bank Julius Baer. It seems that the bank is trying to keep the public from accessing documents that may reveal shady dealings. Wikileaks was only given a couple of hours notice "by email" and was not even represented at the hearing where a U.S. judge took such a drastic step attempting to totally shut down an important information outlet. The result was this totally unprecedented attempt to totally wipe out the existence of Wikileaks:"
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Whistle-blower site taken offline  ---  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7250916.stm
Related Article - A quote....A controversial website that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents has been taken offline in the US. - Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says."
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Whistleblowing website vows to defy court gag  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/feb/19/news.usa
Related Article - A quote...."An international website that claims to blow the whistle on corporate and governmental fraud vowed yesterday to defy attempts by a US court to close it down. Wikileaks allows whistleblowers to anonymously post documents in an attempt to expose corruption and wrongdoing. Its owners said yesterday that a Californian judge had ordered that the site be taken offline last week, after an injunction from a Swiss bank."
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Iraq oil law stalled, no end to impasse in sight - posted at BuzzFlash  ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL1630227020080218?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
A quote...."BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A law that could shape Iraq's future by clearing the way for investment in its oil fields is deadlocked by a battle for control of the reserves and no end to the impasse is in sight, lawmakers and officials say."
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Iraqi medical system wrecked by war - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=49854
A quote...."Already a troubled system, Iraqi medical care has fallen to the brink of collapse since the U.S.-led invasion five years ago.  --  Scores of doctors have been slain, cancer patients have to hunt down their own drugs — even IV fluid is in short supply."
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U.S. copters commit ‘massacre’ in northern town  ---  http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2008-02-16%5Ckurd.htm
A quote...."U.S. helicopter gun ships opened fire on a house in the small town of Zab in northern Iraq, killing eight people, five of them children from the same family, a police source said."
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More than one-third of illegal settlements built on private Palestinian land: Report - posted at ICH  --- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
  --- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19379.htm
A quote...." 17/02/08 "AP" -- -- JERUSALEM: More than one-third of Israel's 122 West Bank settlements were built on land confiscated from private Palestinian owners on security grounds, including some erected after the Israeli Supreme Court outlawed such seizures three decades ago, the Haaretz newspaper reported on Monday."
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Agha: The situation in Gaza portends real famine  ---  http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m41269&s1=h1
A quote...."GAZA, (PIC)-- Dr. Mohamed Al-Agha, the agriculture minister in the PA caretaker government, warned Sunday that the agricultural sector and food security in the Gaza Strip are facing a disaster after Israel decided to sever its economic ties with the Strip, adding that the situation in Gaza portends real famine."
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Olmert says Gaza blockade to continue  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Olmert_says_Gaza_blockade_to_contin_02182008.html
A quote...."Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday that Israel would maintain the tighter blockade that it has imposed on the Gaza Strip since last month."
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Pakistanis Deal Severe Defeat to Musharraf in Election  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/world/asia/19pstan.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Special Note - A quote...."ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections on Monday, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States."
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Ex-ISI chief foresees Iran-like revolution in Pak
  ---  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Ex-ISI_chief_foresees_Iran-like_revolution_in_Pak/articleshow/2791020.cms
A quote...." TORONTO: Former chief of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has said "an Iran-like revolution" is possible in the country if President Pervez Musharraf does not step down immediately.  --  "If Musharraf does not step down. We may have to think (about forcibly removing him) because, after all, the country is more important," former ISI Chief Hamid Gul has said in an interview to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation."
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Threat of Failure in Afghanistan  ---  http://www.watchingamerica.com/lemonde000172.shtml
A quote...."By calculation as much as by sheer blindness, the Unites States has for a long time leaned on the Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, without seeing that Musharraf would never dare to check the Islamist faction within his army, those complicit with the Taliban.  Historically, Washington has been constant in its missteps in Afghanistan.  During the Soviet period, America favored the arming of the most anti-western elements within the Mujahedeen – Gulbuddin Hekmatyar – to the detriment of the more moderate elements – Ahmad Shah Massoud."
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Deep divisions in Europe over Kosovo independence  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/koso-f19.shtml
A quote...."Deep divisions emerged at the European Union meeting in Brussels on Monday, with the assembled Foreign Ministers unable to arrive at a unified position with regard to the declaration of independence made by the Kosovan Prime Minister on Sunday."
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Top political analysts on Lavrov’s ‘end of Europe’ Kosovo warning  ---  http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080215/99319479.html
A quote...."MOSCOW, February 15 (RIA Novosti) - RIA Novosti asked a number of top political analysts / experts to comment on the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has said that Kosovo's independence could be the beginning of the end for Europe, and that official recognition of its sovereignty will threaten global security."
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Russian state TV suggests USA involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5643
A quote...."Russian state-controlled Channel One TV has broadcast a report containing allegations that US forces are involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe. It also highlighted the problem of drug abuse in the British army."  --  Don't believe it?  Type in Gary Webb and Contras or Air America and Vietnam+drugs on any search engine. - mpg
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Russian Rosneft to spend $1 bln on Kamchatka shelf exploration  ---  http://en.rian.ru/business/20080219/99569669.html
A quote...."PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, February 19 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's largest crude producer Rosneft [RTS: ROSN] will spend around $1 billion on hydrocarbon exploration of the western Kamchatka shelf in Far Eastern Russia, a company executive said on Tuesday."
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Chavez Calls on Venezuela to Defend Its Oil Sovereignty  ---  http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3170
A quote...."Monday, February 16, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on the Venezuelan people to defend the nation's oil sovereignty on his Sunday talk show Aló Presidente yesterday. Broadcasting from the former oil fields of ExxonMobil in the Orinoco River Basin, Chavez dedicated the show to the recent clash with the transnational oil company and the new projects of the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA."
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U.S. Martial Law Timeline  ---  http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2007/08/us-martial-law-timeline.html
Data Base - Resource - A quote...."U.S. Martial Law Timeline by Sarah Meyer Index Research"
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Howard Zinn Presents Progressive American History in "The People Speak" [VIDEO]  ---  http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/#77310
Video - A quote...." This video is a trailer for The People Speak,   ---  http://www.alternet.org/story/74993  ---  a star-studded (Danny Glover, Marisa Tomei, Viggo Mortenson, and many others) four part television series inspired by Howard Zinn,s   ---  http://howardzinn.org/  ---  book,
A People's History of the United States.
http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States-Present/dp/0060838655/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203365732&sr=8-1The series, hosted by Zinn, features performers telling the stories of those whose voices weren't heard in traditional history textbooks. It was shot in Boston's Cutler Majestic Theatre, and organized around four themes: class, women, race and war. Check out the video to your right for more."
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U.S. Credit Markets Collapsing!  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=52384
Special Note - A quote...."The U.S. credit markets, the giant growth engine that powers the American economy, are collapsing ... with few credit sectors spared from damage, few investors escaping losses, and little hope of federal action that's quick or strong enough to make a major difference.  --  Here's what's happening ...  First and Foremost, the Fall of The Nation's Three Largest Bond Insurers Is Accelerating"
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Banks "quietly" borrow $50 billion from Fed: report
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1821384420080219?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
Special Note - A quote...."NEW YORK (Reuters) - Banks in the United States have been quietly borrowing "massive amounts" from the U.S. Federal Reserve in recent weeks, using a new measure the Fed introduced two months ago to help ease the credit crunch, according to a report on the web site of The Financial Times."  --  Ever reliable "helicopter" Bernanke just keeps shoving the money right out the door. - mpg
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U.S. retail sales show increase because necessities cost more - posted at BuzzFlash  ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/
  ---  http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/15/business/wbmarket16.php
A quote...."U.S. consumers are being forced to scale back their purchases, but high prices of necessities are keeping their overall purchases rising at a reasonably strong rate."
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Wheat market gone wild  ---  http://www.twincities.com/business/ci_8275334
A quote...."Decades from now, farmers will still talk about this week - the moment when wheat in Minneapolis soared to nearly $20 a bushel.  --  Like a 100-year flood, spring wheat prices have risen relentlessly all winter, obliterating every record in sight. At the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, wheat fever pushed prices to $19.80 a bushel in trading Friday - nearly triple the record from 1996."
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Sidelined home buyers frozen by fears  ---  http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Sidelined_home_buyers_frozen_by_fea_02182008.html
A quote...."NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home prices have plunged by 10 percent or more in some parts of the United States and interest rates on mortgages are at enticing levels, but many potential buyers are waiting for prices to fall further."
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Empire State survey shows N.Y. activity slump
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/empire-state-survey-takes-surprise/story.aspx?
  ---  guid=%7B3226A3E8%2DE8BD%2D4595%2D9CC9%2DFD460088CD51%7D
A quote...."LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Data out from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Friday showed that regional manufacturing activity for February fell to the weakest levels seen in close to three years.  -  The Empire State index tracking general business conditions tumbled nearly 21 points to a negative 11.7 reading, falling below the zero for the first time since May 2005.
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Sunday Febuary 17th 2008 - links page

If Only Saddam Had Injected HGH - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/orig/ritter.php?articleid=12370
Must Read - A quote...."The recent spectacle of Congressional hearings on the alleged use of steroids and/or Human Growth Hormone (HGH) by Roger Clemons, a professional baseball player nicknamed "the Rocket," throws into question the viability and functionality of a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party. The House Government Reform Committee, chaired by Representative Henry Waxman (D-California), carried out its own made-for-television version of Court TV, grilling the All Star pitcher and his former trainer over their contradictory statements as to whether or not Clemons actually was injected with a banned performance enhancing substance. While this hearing was underway, thousands of miles away, in Iraq , American service members continued the ugly business of occupying Iraq . That Waxman would abuse his position by pursuing such trivia while Americans continued to fight and die in a war built exclusively on a framework of lies is disturbing."
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Why Do So Many Want To Kill and Torture?  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer168.html
Must Read - A quote...."....Americans have long insisted that their government’s participation in the amassing of tens of millions of corpses be grounded in some so-called "rational" purpose; that there be some moral "justification" for the well-orchestrated carnage for which the United States would become the primary supplier of weaponry. If the state had to concoct events that provided the offense for which armed retaliation was then demanded, that became acceptable, as long as the details of the scheme could be kept suppressed, such as by labeling truth-tellers "paranoid conspiracy theorists." As long as they could cling to their state-induced delusions that collective violence served some pragmatic or moral ends, most Americans have been content to allow the state a free reign.
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'Dodgy dossier' was 'wrong', its author says - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dodgy-dossier-was-wrong-its-author-says-783374.html
A quote...."The government official who wrote the first draft of the "dodgy dossier" that helped propel Britain into war in Iraq today admits, "We were wrong."  --  John Williams, a former Foreign Office aide, said last night that publication of his document would expose how members of Tony Blair's team were locked in a mindset that made military action inevitable."
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Sibel Edmonds’ Story Makes the MSM! - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2008/02/17/sibel-edmonds-story-makes-the-msm/
A quote...."Thanks very much to O.E., who writes: - It was shocking, but a pleasant surprise, to find Philip Giraldi’s
 “Found in Translation”   ---  http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_01_28/article1.html  --- 
article reprinted,  --- http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-sibeledmonds_17edi.ART.State.Edition1.45b446a.html
at least in part, in today’s Dallas Morning News. They did leave out the part about the
 Valerie Plame,   ---  http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2008/02/12/valerie-plame-wilson-describes-sibel-edmonds-disclosures-as-stunning/
but with graphics the article does fill the entire back page of the opinion section..."  --  Heavily edited the author adds, but at least after decades of lying prone upon their bellies with their lips firmly planted on the boots of their overlords....some of the MSMs are actually lifting up their heads to take a look around. - mpg
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Rice Lies To Wexler About Making False Statements Before The Iraq War  ---  http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/14/condi-wexler-lies/
A quote...."Last month, the Center for Public Integrity   ---  http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx  ---  and the
 Fund for Independence in Journalism   ---  http://www.tfij.org/  ---  released a study finding that the Bush administration made
“at least 935 false statements”   ---  http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Default.aspx?src=home&context=overview&id=945  ---  preceding the invasion of Iraq. Condoleezza Rice, who served as National Security Adviser at the time, made 56 false statements.  - underline by website author. -- One speculates on how many false statements she made before the 9/11 commission, no wonder she didn't want to testify under oath, it’s to bad for her that she did.  Perhaps the Center for Public Integrity should apply their skill to ferret out the lies from that pile of mendacity that is the 9/11 commission report. - mpg
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9/11 Victim's Father Paints Picture of US/CIA Criminal Enterprise on Spanish Television
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bill_dou_080215_9_2f11_victim_s_father.htm
Video - A quote....Bob Mcilvaine, who son died on 9/11/2001, has spent six long years fighting for truth.  He's been shunned by US media in the most dispicable fashion.  --  However, Spanish television gave this man what US media should have given him over and over again . . . the nation's ear."  --  Ahhh, our lovely mass-media, almost all of them helping to cover-up essential facts in the murder of almost 3,000 Americans. - mpg
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9/11 - From The History File...Was the 9/11 Commission a White Wash?
  --- http://www.heartson.com/Politics/white_wash.html
Key 911 Comm Mbr Held Secret Meetings w/Rove Scaled Back Criticisms of WH
  ---  http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/30/zelikow-interfered/
9/11 Commision Director, Philip Zelikow, has Major Conflict of Interest
  ---  http://la.indymedia.org/news/2004/03/106073_comment.php
An Incomplete Investigation - Why did the 9/11 Commission ignore "Able Danger"?
  ---  http://forums.eog.com/politics-and-government/why-did-9-11-commision-ignore-8968.html
Philip Zelikow May Have Whitewashed 9/11 Findings as Head of Commission
  ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/honors/005
9/11 Commissioner: 'We had to go through Karl Rove'
  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2007/911_Commissioner_We_had_to_go_0203.html
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Bush Won't Let Facts Stand in the Way of Regime Change in Iran  ---  http://www.alternet.org/audits/76699/
Interview - James Harris interviews Scott Ritter - A quote...."James Harris: This is Truthdig. James Harris sitting down with Scott Ritter, former chief weapons inspector in Iraq. And today we're talking about the latest report from the National Intelligence Estimate. The report says that Iran is not, as of mid-July, in the nuclear weapons business. Scott Ritter -- I think, wisely -- told me to look at this report with caution and that this means nothing to the White House, that they [members of the Bush team] are about regime change. Please explain."
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Iran sees higher economic growth despite sanctions - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=NTI1NDkwNTg5
A quote...."TEHRAN: Iran's foreign debt ratio has declined and its economic growth is expected to increase, the economy minister said yesterday, shrugging off the impact of international sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program. "Sanctions have had no impact on Iran's economic condition," Economy Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari told Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting of the Islamic Development Bank in Tehran."
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1st phase of Iran oil stock inaugurated on Kish island  ---  http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-237/0802173565111734.htm
War Warning - Special Note - A quote...."The first phase of Iran's oil stock market started its work on Kish island in the Persian Gulf, southern Iran, on Sunday presenting oil and petrochemical products."

300 Candidates Are Reinstated in Iran  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/world/middleeast/17iran.html?_r=2&ref=world&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
A quote...."TEHRAN (Agence France-Presse) — Iran on Saturday reinstated an additional 300 mainly reformist candidates who had been disqualified from standing in next month’s parliamentary elections, the official IRNA news agency reported. - The Guardians Council, Iran’s hard-line vetting body, which has the final say on who is permitted to run in the March 14 polls, had already reinstated 280 of them."
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POLITICS:  Can the U.S. Brace Its Fall?  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41232
Must Read - A quote...."WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (IPS) - "Is the American era over?" That was the big question that launched a lengthy analysis by veteran international affairs reporter James Kitfield in the influential ‘National Journal’ last May. Significantly, the article -- which featured interviews with an all-star cast of former top U.S. policy-makers -- was titled "The Decline Begins."  --  Nine months later, the notion that Washington has entered a "New American Century" -- a phrase used by the nationalist and neo-conservative unilateralists who championed the Iraq war -- in which the U.S. can do whatever it wants, where it wants, and when it wants, without consulting anyone else, seems largely to have gone the way of the dodo bird."
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The Power Elite Playbook, Government by Gunpoint: Part X  ---  http://muckrakerreport.com/id569.html
Must Read - A quote...."February 10, 2008 -- America’s long-term foreign policy, including passive and/or aggressive regime change, is driven by corporate greed. Trade agreements or “reciprocity treaties” (tariff-free trade akin to economic annexation or the creation of American protectorates) always favor business. These obligatory contracts generally include the exclusive right to extract resources, sell products, and maintain commercial properties and military bases despite the justifiable objections of the native populations. [i] Though foreign interventions became even more frequent after the creation of the CIA, they began over a century ago."
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U.S. troops erect walls in Mosul as inhabitants flee  ---  http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2008-02-17%5Ckurd.htm
A quote...."U.S. and Iraqi troops are carrying out military operations in heavily populated areas of the northern city of Mosul to flush out insurgents. - And in their bid they are separating and isolating residential quarters with security barriers and walls making movement rather difficult. - Some quarters like Yarmouk, Thawar and Siha are completed isolated."  --  One day they'll call it the Israeli/Romanesque style of architecture.  Pretty soon all of Iraq will be one big maze. Wherever Americans seem to go these days they always seem to start building "separation walls"....just like the Romans used to do. - mpg
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Rights Group Demands UN Investigation Into Israel Use of Cluster Bombs in Lebanon  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/17/7114/
A quote...."WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A leading human rights group called Sunday for a U.N. investigation into Israel’s use of cluster bombs during its 2006 campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon."
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Turkey gearing up for final blow to PKK  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=43591&sectionid=351020204
A quote...."Turkey is reportedly gearing up for a major ground operation against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq."
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Joint training  ---  http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080213/99111861.html
A quote...."MOSCOW. (Nikita Petrov for RIA Novosti) - "The uproar in the press about Russian strategic bombers' fly over of the American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Nimitz is beyond me," General of the Army Pyotr Deinekin, a former commander-in-chief of Russia's Air Force (1991-1998) and Hero of Russia, said."
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Exxon Is Demanding Ten Times its Investment, Says Venezuelan Oil Minister  ---  http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3164
A quote...."Mérida, February 15, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com) - The maximum compensation ExxonMobil should receive for its nationalized 41.6% stake in the Cerro Negro Orinoco River belt project is $1.2 billion, the Venezuelan Minister of Energy and Petroleum and President of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, Rafael Ramírez, announced yesterday. This is a tenth of Exxon's claim to $12 billion of PDVSA's assets, which were temporarily frozen after the transnational oil company won a series of court orders in Britain, the Netherlands, and the Dutch Antilles earlier this month."

Or to put it in the correct venacular.....

"Hey yooze Ven'e boy!  YAH I'm'a talk'n to yooze!  You see what happen to Mr. Iraq?  You want sumt'n like dat to happen to yooze? I'm gonna get dat same identical psycho what's did Iraq to do the same to you if you don't gimmy my money right now!!!  You UNER'STANZ  ME!!  You don'pay up, you don'pay the vig, I'm'a gonna get psycho boy to break'a your whole country just like he did Guatemala, and El Salvador, and Nicaragua and all dem'other little guys....you gettin da'picture??"  - mpg
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Celebrating Un-President's Day: Why I will not vote for a president in 2008  ---  http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2962.shtml
Must Read - A quote...."But that should not surprise any of us. We live in an extraordinarily adolescent culture. The election charade that occurs every four years has been constructed by an emotionally pubescent media, creating and gratifying a puerile citizenry, which like the 16-year-old male drooling over the prospect of owning a Hummer, cares about absolutely nothing but image. The level on which problems are even perceived, let alone addressed, is not even adolescent, it's downright infantile. An essential aspect of childhood is fantasy, and the infantile/adolescent fantasy of America is that a corporate clone, obligated to his/her ruling elite handlers and contributors, willing to say or do anything to get elected, needing to address only a narrow spectrum of issues in order to prevail, is capable of meaningfully confronting issues such as climate change, energy depletion, population overshoot, species extinction, and global economic cataclysm." -- Wow....this guy is harsh. - mpg
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Explaining Our View on Clinton-Obama  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/021608.html
A quote...."Over the past few months, as the Democratic presidential race has heated up, we have received a number of complaints about critical stories we have written about Barack Obama and, especially, Hillary Clinton."
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Edwards Endorsement: Clinton Or Obama?  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/13/edwards-endorsement-clin_n_85997.html
A quote...."Mr. Obama, who canceled an afternoon campaign trip to Wisconsin, flew to Chapel Hill, N.C., to meet with John and Elizabeth Edwards this morning. The meeting was quietly rescheduled after a session Monday with the two men was postponed because too much attention was being paid to it and camera crews were staking out Mr. Edwards' home."  --  Like the article says...."for an endorsement".  How about the other possibility....like the Obama/Edwards ticket? - mpg
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More Guns, No Butter  ---  http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080303/editors
A quote...."Americans are worried about the impending recession and the Wall Street crisis, as well as the exhilarating and unpredictable presidential contest. But another threatening force is bearing down on the nation: our out-of-control military machine. The ever-voracious Pentagon is using this fragile moment as cover for seizing an even greater share of the nation's dwindling resources--trillions more in federal indebtedness to fight a phantom "war on terror." In constant dollars, next year's proposed military budget will be the largest since World War II--around $700 billion."
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Fed drops rates but credit cards don't follow  ---  http://www.mcall.com/business/local/all-tba.6273453feb17,0,5169232.story?track=rss
A quote...."Borrowing money has become cheaper for banks after a series of aggressive rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. So why are many people's credit cards growing more expensive?  --  Hundreds of thousands of Capital One and Bank of America cardholders have been notified in recent months that their interest rates are going up, in some cases to as much as 28 percent, even though they haven't been missing payments."  --  Hey that's great, now they can raise rates just because they feel like it....so much for that contract you signed. - mpg - See also....
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WSJ: Citigroup Stops Withdrawals from Hedge Fund  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5609
Special Note - Financial Warning - A quote...."Citigroup has barred investors in one of its hedge funds from withdrawing their money, and a new leveraged fund lost 52 percent in its first three months, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.  --  The largest U.S. bank suspended redemptions in CSO Partners, a fund specializing in corporate debt, after investors tried to pull more than 30 percent of its roughly $500 million of assets, the newspaper said. Citigroup injected $100 million to stabilize the fund, which lost 10.9 percent last year, the newspaper said."  --  So the investers thought it was "their" money...hah, hah, hah.  There truly is a sucker born every minute. - mpg - posted 02-15-08 See...The Green Light 01-16-08- mpg  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/thegreenlight-blog-mpg-011608
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Argentina’s 2007 foreign trade reached 100.7 billion dollars  ---  http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=12656&formato=HTML
A quote...."Argentina’s foreign trade last year reached a record 100.7 billion US dollars with a surplus of 11.154 billion US dollars according to the latest release from the Statistics and Census Institute, Indec."
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Fury over Northern Rock nationalisation  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5623
A quote...."Alistair Darling on Sunday announced the first nationalisation of a sizeable British bank in a quarter of a century as he put Northern Rock into public ownership, infuriating shareholders and shocking the two private bidders hoping to take over the stricken mortgage lender. - Visibly concerned to avoid queues forming outside branches this morning, the chancellor and Ron Sandler, Northern Rock’s new executive chairman, insisted it would be “business as usual”. "  --  This editor believes nationalized systems can be a good idea in some cases.  Not in this case, this isn't "nationalization", this is a bail-out for bozos. - mpg
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Wheat prices surge to new high  ---  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bab47e26-dd85-11dc-ad7e-0000779fd2ac.html
A quote...."Prices for top-quality spring wheat have jumped by 90 per cent in the past month and a half, boosted by a scramble by corporate consumers to secure scarce grain and speculative buying by investors."
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Saturday Febuary 16th 2008 - links page

US Elections: The Iraq Factor  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19363.htm
A quote...."16/02/08 "ICH" -- - -As the race for the United States presidential nominations progresses, the stances of and attitudes towards both Republican and Democratic candidates continue to bring up causes for concern, in terms of their past behaviour, current appeal and general trustworthiness."
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The scourge of global neoliberalism and the need to reclaim democracy  ---  http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2959.shtml
A quote...."After 30 some years of neoliberal policies, the class war on behalf of the rich is getting more ruthless and more vicious, prompting Naomi Klein to use torture as a metaphor in order to capture and describe the ruthlessness of the re-emergence of neoliberal shock therapy in the latest and most powerful book she has written, titled The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.*  ---  http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine  ---  The insidious class warfare launched by the rich against the working poor and the middle classes is creating Orwellian dystopias, lauded in papers such as the New York Times as the second Gilded Age. Stories abound about the lifestyles of celebrities and billionaires who spend $50,000 to have their dogs groomed or hand over a mere $20 million to take a ride into space. At the same time, nothing is reported about the destructive power of corporations and market fundamentalism on every facet of life."  -- * link added by website editor."
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Are We a Nation of Liars?  ---  http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12884
A quote...."A review of today’s political landscape will divulge a litany of liars. Witness the White House’s whitewash of truths to twist and spin the facts to play on the softened sophistication of today’s sound-byte driven society. George W. Bush’s preposterous statements such as, “We found the weapons of mass destruction”, “I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees”, and the whopper of them all, “When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so”, speaks volumes of our incurious culpability to seek legitimacy. Searching to find a seemingly elusive public envelope of trust to push open, magnificent lies by autocratic authorities have been foisted upon the public to feast on and no one has yet to notice the bitter taste and rancid smell of a rat."
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Bringing Down The New Berlin walls  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19358.htm
A quote...." 15/02/08 "ICH" -- -- The recent breakout of the people of Gaza provided a heroic spectacle unlike any other since the Warsaw ghetto uprising and the smashing down of the Berlin Wall. Whereas on the occupied West Bank, Ariel Sharon's master plan of walling in the population and stealing their land and resources has all but succeeded, requiring only a Palestinian Vichy to sign it off, the people of Gaza have defied their tormentors, however briefly, and it is a guarantee they will do so again. There is profound symbolism in their achievement, touching lives and hopes all over the world."
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If We Get Used to Accepting That Kind of Thing, We Might Get Used to Accepting Anything …  ---  http://www.currentconcerns.ch/index.php?id=502
A quote...."How far have we already been led astray by the economic, military, political and media madness that surrounds us in this world? And to what degree has our thinking and feeling already been dulled? Following the Second World War the newly established United Nations made the final ban of war and the safeguarding of human rights their main issue. The immediate impression of two World Wars with all their crimes within only half a century shook up people‘s conscience and the politically responsible in the world conceived of a plan, «to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war» (Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations of June 26, 1945)."
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Scott Horton Interviews Jonathan Schwarz - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/02/16/jonathan-schwarz/  ---  Audio Interview - A quote...."Jonathan Schwarz, co-author of
Our Kamf   ---  http://www.amazon.com/Our-Kampf-Michael-Gerber/dp/189047004X/antiwarbookstore  ---  and the blog
A Tiny Revolution,   ---  http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/  ---  discusses the fun he had   ---  http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=12367  ---  upon finding a tape of Bill Kristol   ---  http://www.paulkingsnorth.net/kristol.jpg  ---  and Daniel Ellsberg on “Washington Journal” just after the Iraq invasion."
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Scott Horton Interviews John V. Walsh - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/02/16/john-v-walsh-2/
Audio Interview - A quote...."John V. Walsh, regular contributor to CounterPunch laments the failures of the progressive Left, paleo Right and libertarians to get their act together in a real antiwar coalition."
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Iraq WMD Lies: - The Words of Mass Deception  ---  http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WMDlies.html
Data Base - Resource - A quote...."5 trillion reasons why Iraq was of no threat to the USA"
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4 Million Iraqis Struggling For Food - UN  ---  http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=24834
A quote...."Four million Iraqis are struggling to feed themselves, and 40 per cent of the country's 27 million people have no safe water, the UN said today. - Iraq has annual economic growth of around 7 per cent, according to UN estimates, and a national budget of €33 billion, buoyed by oil exports of 1.6 million barrels per day."  -- By the way 1.6 mbpd is a little more than half the pre-war level....another benefit of the US occupation, besides the incarceration of over 60,000 Iraqis in prison, a quintupling of air strikes above the level that occurred in 2006, nation wide power outages, a raging insurgency, widespread epidemics, over five million displaced persons, uncountable injured and of course over a million dead. - mpg
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Public Health Crisis in Iraq:  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8099
Some Quotes...."13 years of sanctions and bombings, an illegal invasion and 5 years of death and destruction"  --  "An Open Letter to the Minister of State for International Development : Regarding Public Health in Iraq."  --  "As one who has spent considerable time in Iraq over the years, has been Senior Researcher for two Award winning documentaries, on the state of the health and health infrastructure, before and after the embargo, has written and broadcast widely on Iraq and am co-author of an educational book on Baghdad, I write in some concern."
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IRAQ:  The Lights Have Gone Out, Who Cares  ---  http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41217
A quote...."BAQUBA, Feb 15 (IPS) - Lack of electricity in Baquba has shattered businesses, and the lives of families. Months of power failures has darkened morale everywhere."
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Half of Baghdad without water  ---  http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2008-02-15%5Ckurd.htm
A quote...."Power failures and maintenance have disrupted running water supplies to almost half of the capital, Baghdad, home to nearly 6 million people. - A Baghdad Municipality source said the project supplying drinking water to Rasafa, the eastern half of Baghdad, was temporarily idle."
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Anti al-Qaeda Iraqis quit US Army  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=43409&sectionid=351020201
A quote...."An anti al-Qaeda group in central Iraq has resigned en-masse from its US military employers, accusing them of killing 19 of the group."
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Is the US really bringing stability to Baghdad?
  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/is-the-us-really-bringing-stability-to-baghdad-782425.html
A quote...."To judge from the talk in Washington, the 'surge' that put 30,000 more US troops on the ground in Iraq has succeeded in bringing stability to a nation still riven by ethnic, religious and tribal conflict. Life, the Pentagon boasts, is returning to normal. But the truth is a very different story."
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US platitudes on Iraq  ---  http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/haifa_zangana/2008/02/us_platitudes_on_iraq.html
A quote...."To minimise the US casualties, during the surge, Iraqis have been subjected to collective punishment, Israeli style. The list of our dead as a result of indiscriminate US air strikes is long. Here are but a few: on January 3 2006, several members of the same family, including women and children, were killed in a US air strike that destroyed their home in Beiji, north of Iraq. Ghadban Nahd Hassan, 56, told AFP that 14 members of his family had been in the house when it was it bombed. On Oct 23, 2007 a helicopter attack completely destroyed Ibrahim Jassim's house. The death toll was 16: Seven men, six women and three children."  --  Well, the author is right, the US has indeed learned from the best....Israel.  Where do you think all those "separation walls" came from? - mpg
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Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Our crimes in Iraq must not be forgotten - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/yasmin-alibhaibrown-our-crimes-in-iraq-must-not-be-forgotten-781051.html
A quote...."If the alliance was arrogant at the time of the invasion, it is even more so today - Don't bring up the catastrophe in Iraq, not in polite circles or at dinner parties, or anywhere in public really. Better to burp or fart loudly. That is the message for 2008. What war? We have moved on, you bore, say the frightfully busy great and good, their eyes glazing over."
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The Conspiracy Theory of History Revisited  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard170.html
A quote...."Let us take an easy example. Suppose we find that Congress has passed a law raising the steel tariff or imposing import quotas on steel? Surely only a moron will fail to realize that the tariff or quota was passed at the behest of lobbyists from the domestic steel industry, anxious to keep out efficient foreign competitors. No one would level a charge of "conspiracy theorist" against such a conclusion. But what the conspiracy theorist is doing is simply to extend his analysis to more complex measures of government: say, to public works projects, the establishment of the ICC, the creation of the Federal Reserve System, or the entry of the United States into a war. In each of these cases, the conspiracy theorist asks himself the question cui bono? Who benefits from this measure? If he finds that Measure A benefits X and Y, his next step is to investigate the hypothesis: did X and Y in fact lobby or exert pressure for the passage of Measure A? In short, did X and Y realize that they would benefit and act accordingly?"
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9/11 Truth Debate at European Parliament, February 26  ---  http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20080215144019801
A quote...."A few weeks after the Japanese parliament it is now Europe’s turn to open the debate on what really happened on 9/11. While journalists and politicians still support the official version of the events, defended by the Bush administration – in which the blame is laid on Muslims – the Europarliamentarian from Italy, Giulietto Chiesa, organizes an historical evening in the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday 26th February. He will present his film ZERO – 9/11: Europe for an Independent Commission of Inquiry."
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2/14/2008: Newly Released FBI Timeline Reveals New Info about 9/11 Hijackers Ignored by 9/11 Commission
  ---  http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/news.jsp?oid=140393703-423
Some quotes...."New evidence suggests that some of the hijackers were assisted by employees of the Saudi government. It has previously been reported that Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who was paid by the Saudi government despite not doing any work, assisted hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi when they first moved to the US."  --  "The new book The Commission by New York Times reporter Philip Shenon published last week further reveals that Bayoumi had close ties to Fahad al-Thumairy, a radical imam working in the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles."
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9/11 - From The History File...Bush Won't Reveal Saudi 9/11 Info
  --- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/30/world/main565782.shtml
White House, CIA Kept Key Portions of Report Classified
  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/072603A.shtml
9/11 And The `Bush-Saudi` Connection
  ---  http://www.jregrassroots.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=7291
Families criticize Bush on 9/11 report
  ---  http://www.pww.org/article/view/3838/1/174/
Open and Shut - Four years later, we still have ten big questions
  ---  http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0549,murphy,70685,6.html
The CIA and Riggs Bank
  ---  http://slate.msn.com/id/2112015/
The Spook Bank - More on the Riggs-CIA connection.
  ---  http://slate.msn.com/id/2112106/
The Riggs Bank Scandal: Pinochet, the CIA, Saudis, 9/11...and...Jonathan Bush!
  ---  http://blog.democrats.com/node/2678
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What have you got against Gaza, Mr Brown? - An open letter to Britain’s prime minister  ---  http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m41210&s1=h1
A quote...."James Gordon Brown, you are a 'son of the manse', which means you were raised in the household of a church minister. You'll be quite big on Christian principles, then.  --  So how do you explain your uncritical support of a foreign government that practises apartheid and is a wholesale thief, plunderer and wrecker of other people's lands ... carelessly slaughters children and inflicts slow genocide on defenceless civilians … sends snatch squads to break your door down in the middle of the night and manhandle your family, demolish your home and imprison you indefinitely without charge or trial ... deals with its 'enemies' by torture and assassination, and ceaselessly breaches the rules of civilised conduct?"
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Qaeda controls town in wake of U.S. troops withdrawal  ---  http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2008-01-31%5Ckurd1.htm
A quote...."Members of al-Qaeda group have retaken a strategic town, some 70 kilometers south of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, members of parliament said. - The MPs said Tuz Khormato, a predominantly Shiite town, was now in the hands of ‘al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia’, the group’s official appellation. - The MPs gave no reason for the unexpected withdrawal of U.S. Marines from the town."
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50,000 Hezbollah men said deployed along border with Israel  ---  http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m41215&s1=h1
A quote...."The Lebanese newspaper A-Safir reported Saturday that the Lebanon-based guerilla group Hezbollah has deployed 50,000 "activists" along the southern border with Israel and declared a state of high alert in southern Lebanon.  --  According to the report, the organization has also evacuated all buildings in the area designated for social or political purposes in recent days, in preparation for a confrontation with Israel in the wake of the assassination of Hezbollah terror chief Imad Mughniyah"
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Musharraf's Playbook is the Same as the Bush Administration's  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/musharrafs-playbook-is-t_b_86881.html
A quote...."Sadly, the United States is doing very little to help the situation in Pakistan and may well be making it worse. The Bush administration has consistently pressed for these elections to proceed despite security concerns and various allegations of unfairness. Not surprisingly, from an administration installed by a controversial Supreme Court ruling, its view appears to be that elections confer legitimacy on whichever regime emerges victorious, regardless of complaints about how the votes were tallied."  --  Or whether the votes are tallied at all. - mpg
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Ahmadinejad under fire in lead up to Iran’s parliamentary election  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/iran-f16.shtml
A quote...."The election for the Iranian parliament due on March 14 is shaping up as a contest over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his policies. While the differences within ruling circles are narrowly circumscribed, Ahmadinejad’s opponents are seeking to make an appeal to broader popular discontent, particularly over rising prices, high unemployment and widespread corruption."
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NYTimes: 0-bama at as Many as 80 'Heavily Black' New York City Precincts  ---  http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5701
"Notable then, is a graphic that runs along with the Times article   ---  http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/16/nyregion/16votegr.pop.jpg  --  (reposted at bottom of this article) explaining how tallies are collected from NY's lever machines and then --- for some reason --- collected on a computer. Those tallies are then given to Associated Press (instead of to election officials), which demonstrates that yes, computers do come into play in NY's system, and could as well be the root of the problem, along with human error, bad lever machines, or anything else."
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BAE, Bandar, Blair - And Bulls**t  ---  http://www.atlargely.com/2008/02/bae-bandar-blai.html
A quote...."The UK government's excuses for halting corruption investigations into an arm deal with Saudi Arabia just took
an overly-dramatic turn."  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/bae.armstrade

"Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence."

"Hang on. We're expected to believe that such serious threats caused the government to order bribe investigations dropped - - but that the government then pressed ahead anyway with a 40 billion pound sale of advanced Eurofighter Typhoon fighters to the nation that had just threatened Britain's security. What an amazing admission."
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Concentration Camps in America: The Consequences of 40 Years of Fear
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_william__080216_concentration_camps_.htm
Must Read - A quote...."If you type the phrase "concentration camps" into your Internet search engine, you will find page after page of references to martial law and the construction of concentration camps in the United States on behalf of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)." -- He's compiled a long list of "camps" they're building. - mpg
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Deputy arrested in wheelchair dump video  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5614
A quote...."A deputy who was videotaped dumping a paralyzed man out of his wheelchair onto a Tampa jailhouse floor turned herself in. -  Jail records show Charlette Marshall-Jones was booked into the Orient Road Jail early Saturday morning. - It is the same jail where Marshall-Jones worked. She is accused of tipping 32-year-old Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair. A videotape of the incident has been widely circulated."  --  Everyone, for your own protection, should carry a phone that has a built in video capability.  It's the only reason the deputy was arrested. - mpg
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Bernanke's State of the Economy Speech: - "You are all Dead Ducks"  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19365.htm
Must Read - A quote...." 16/02/08 "ICH" -- - Even veteran Fed-watchers were caught off-guard by Chairman Bernanke's performance before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. Bernanke was expected to make routine comments on the state of the economy but, instead, delivered a 45 minute sermon detailing the afflictions of the foundering financial system. The Senate chamber was stone-silent throughout. The gravity of the situation is finally beginning to sink in."
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Head of GAO quits, citing censorship  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_french_p_080216_head_of_gao_quits_2c_c.htm
A quote...."WASHINGTON (AFP) — The head of the audit and investigative arm of the US Congress announced his resignation Friday, citing "real limitations" on what he could do.  --  David Walker, 51, a respected voice on fiscal matters, said he was making an early departure from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) to head a new public interest foundation."
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The Debt Dilemma - Bill Moyer's Journal  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02152008/profile3.html
A quote...."To many Americans, the national debt is an impenetrable problem of charts and graphs — worrisome, certainly, but too big, too complicated, too specialized to understand.  --  Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, of Public Citizen, are out to change that with a simple message: the federal debt is indeed a big problem, but it can be understood by everyone and solved together. Bittle and Johnson join Bill Moyers on THE JOURNAL to talk about their irreverent book about the national debt, "Where Does the Money Go" *...."  --  * link added by website editor.
   ---  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061241873/bookstorenow30-20  ---
Watch the Video  ||  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02152008/watch.html
Listen to the Podcast  ||  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/rss/media/BMJ-1145.mp3
Read the Transcript  ||  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02152008/transcript1.html
Comment  ||  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/
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Bleak economic reports signal recession - posted at BuzzFlash  ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN1556555920080215
A quote...."WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A series of bleak economic reports on Friday showed the mood of American consumers deteriorating in February to a point that has always signaled recession, while factory activity in New York state suffered its biggest drop on record.  --  Compounding worries about a downturn, data suggested bubbling price pressures, raising the possibility of a troublesome scenario of simultaneously slowing growth and rising inflation -- "stagflation.""
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Cereal prices hit poor countries - posted at BuzzFlash  ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/
  ---  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7244382.stm
A quote...."The rising price of cereals such as wheat and maize is a "major global concern", the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says.  --  Poor countries could see their cereal import bill rise by more than a third. Africa as a whole is expected to see an estimated 49% increase this year."
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OPEC [now openly] considers dumping US dollar  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=43221&sectionid=3510213
A quote...."Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries plans to discuss a proposal by Iran and Venezuela to price oil in non-dollar currencies. -  Finance minister of the group, which supplies 40 percent of the global crude demand, will meet to study the proposal, the organization's President Chakib Khelil said."
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The Times to Cut 100 News Jobs  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/business/media/15times.html
Some quotes...."After years of resisting the newsroom cuts that have hit most of the industry, The New York Times will bow to growing financial strain and eliminate about 100 newsroom jobs this year, the executive editor said Thursday."  --  "The Times Company stock, which topped $52 in mid-2002, sank below $15 in January. The interest of the hedge funds has generated a slight rebound. Shares closed at $18.84 Thursday, partly in response to news of the probable layoffs."
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BRAZIL:  GM Maize ‘Worst Tragedy’ of Lula Administration - NGOs  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41228
A quote...."RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 16 (IPS) - Non-governmental organisations actively involved in the Campaign for a GM-Free Brazil are protesting against what they call "the worst tragedy" to befall the country during the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: the release for cultivation and sale of two transgenic varieties of maize."
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Friday Febuary 15th 2008 - links page

The Lost Kristol Tapes - What the New York Times Bought
  ---  http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174894/jonathan_schwarz_bill_kristol_s_obscure_masterpiece
Must Read - A quote...."Imagine that there were a Beatles record only a few people knew existed. And imagine you got the chance to listen to it, and as you did, your excitement grew, note by note. You realized it wasn't merely as good as Rubber Soul, or Revolver, or Sgt. Pepper's. It was much, much better. And now, imagine how badly you'd want to tell other Beatles fans all about it.  --  That's how I feel for my fellow William Kristol fans. You loved it when Bill said invading Iraq was going to have "terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East"? You have the original recording of him explaining the war would make us "respected around the world" and his classic statement that there's "almost no evidence" of Iraq experiencing Sunni-Shia conflict? Well, I've got something that will blow your mind! --  A shining, although necessarily limited, chronology of one recently hired Neocon's exceptional talent for mediocrity and mendacity. - mpg
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Keith Olbermann Special Comment *MR BUSH YOU ARE A FASCIST!*  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEcBjpsP1bU
Video - (YouTube - 9 min 10 sec - February 14, 2008)  Keith Olbermann comments on the expired FISA bill, and Bush's constant threats to veto it if Congress didn't provide retro-active Telecom immunity, while at the same time Bush was screaming that if the bill wasn't passed immediately for all of perpetuity....”we were all gonn'a die.” - mpg
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Ain't Gonna Let No Cyber-Thugs Turn Me Around: Empire Burlesque Returns
  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1434&Itemid=135
A quote...."It will not have escaped your notice that we have had some technical difficulties here of late. The site was hijacked by a vicious group of hackers twice this week and was knocked out of action for several days."  --  Chris Floyd's site is back up again. - mpg
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Sunni anger in Iraqi province - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/itsonlyfair/latimes0092.html
A quote...."BAGHDAD — The 26-year-old Sunni Arab man sat in the restaurant of a fashionable Baghdad hotel, his business suit covering marks where he said a power drill had penetrated his thigh and acid dissolved his calf.  --  The former Iraqi SWAT commander had traveled to Baghdad for meetings with Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and other high-ranking officials in which he plans to provide an account of torture he says he endured on the orders of Maj. Gen. Ghanim Quraishi, the Shiite Muslim police chief of Diyala province"
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Ahmadinejad to visit Baghdad March 2  ---  http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=163292
A quote...." BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will make a landmark visit to Baghdad on March 2 for talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other officials, Iraq said on Thursday."
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More U.S. troops seen in Iraq by summer
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1533503220080216?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true
A quote...."WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will probably have more troops in Iraq this summer than it did before pouring in forces last year -- even after a planned drawdown, a U.S. general said on Friday."  --  Hope no one's surprised by this. - mpg
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The door to Iraq's oil opens  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JB16Ak05.html
Some quotes...."In the current circumstances of the world energy scene, the above underscores why any plan to hasten the US effort to achieve greater oil independence translates in political terms as taking control of Iraq's oil reserves. There is simply no other viable alternative open to the US. Essentially, it boils down to the 20 words that the former US Federal Bank chief Alan Greenspan wrote towards the end of his memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil."  --  See....War Resource 9/11  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/priorwarresource911-weblist-mpg-091106

Generally most people would consider it bad form to lie your way into a war of aggression, attack a country that never did you any harm, falsely accuse them of planning to do to you what you actually did to them, kill over a million of their people, displace five million more, deliberately destroy their infrastructure, their culture, their way of life and the worst crime of all "play them" against each other, all in an effort to "control their oil."

All very regrettable of course, but our unseemly behavior as a nation lies in our past now doesn't it?  This editor guesses everybody will soon be instructed to "just get over it" and let the US stay in Iraq to harvest their oil....isn't that right?

This country and it's purported leadership have the morals of a thug. - mpg

"....the Saudis heard out Bush, "noted that the weakening US economy is a valid concern, but they remain reluctant to increase oil supply". --  "The two writers pointed out, "Saudi Arabia's reluctance to address sustained high oil prices, even in the face of a potential recession, represents an important break with past Saudi oil policy ... Why?"  --  "Yetiv and Feld, with much hesitancy, proceed to make an absolutely unthinkable suggestion that the Saudi reluctance might be borne out of a possibility that Riyadh is "getting global markets ready for the possibility that they may not have enough oil to be a long-term fuel pump to the world".
See....Ghawar is Dead - Long Live PNAC - 03-07-07 - mpg  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/ghawarisdead-blog-mpg-030707
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Geoffrey Millard: Interview With Seymour Hersh 02.14.08  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021408A.shtml
Video Interview - More on Israel's raid on Syria, and our mass-media's inaccurate reporting on the situation. - mpg
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 Program Note - Out-of-Control Debt
    Bill Moyers Journal
    t r u t h o u t | Programming Note
    Airdate: Friday, February 15, 2008, at 9:00 PM EST on PBS.
    (Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/about/airdates.html.)  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/about/airdates.html
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BAE: secret papers reveal threats from Saudi prince  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/bae.armstrade
A quote...."Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.  --  Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence."

Come on, we all know that can't possibly be true, after all Bush has repeatedly stated that the Saudi Royals "are our friends” Besides everyone knows 7/7 and 9/11 were carried out by a bunch of cave dwelling malcontents who somehow, spontaneously, without the support of any "state" actor whatsoever, formed themselves into a vast shadowy worldwide web of terror.

The fact they received tens of billions of dollars from the US, Pakistani and Saudi security, intelligence and military services for over twenty years is completely irrelevant. The fact that fifteen out of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi citizens has nothing to do with anything.  The fact that the PNAC protocols called for a "catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor" and the very men who wrote those protocols, who were life long bosom buddies of the Saudi Royals, who made vast fortunes from the "war on terror", who made even bigger fortunes from their investments in the oil and gas sectors, who had divided up Iraq's oil fields before 9/11 and who were in operational charge of this country's security prior to and on the day 9/11 happened....is just simply a set of spurious and coincidental circumstances -- Yep that's absolutely right folks, it's all just a terrible accident, so you all run along now....here's your baby food, and your pacifier....don't forget to take your Prozac and Thorizine.

Bye, bye, now. – mpg
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Hoisted on Their Own Petards  ---  http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12832
A quote...."Ironic, isn't it? Here's an administration that has stubbornly, and largely successfully, hidden, withheld and even destroyed, documents that could implicate it in crimes from conspiracy and collusion with energy companies to fabricating evidence to justify an illegal war against Iraq to torture.  --  Then what do they do? They issue an unclassified cable to diplomats containing all the reasoning and justifications for it's own future in the dock of international justice."
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Paul Kennedy: Neocons’ Worst Nightmare  ---  http://www.watchingamerica.com/gulftimes000002.shtml
A quote...."The year was 1988, the presidency was up for grabs as the Reagan era wound to a close, and Kennedy’s new book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, had touched a raw nerve.  --  “It was actually a study of more than 500 years of global empires”, he smiles, “but I don’t think many people read more than the final chapter on the US and the USSR”."
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Damascus: Syrians to sue U.S. for selling weapons to Israel  ---  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/954034.html
A quote...."Syrians are preparing to sue the United States for supplying weapons to Israel that later killed Syrians in the 2006 Second Lebanon War, said Syria's foreign minister, a day after Washington announced new sanctions against Damascus."  --  They should concentrate on the cluster bombs, they and the way they were used were clearly illegal under international law.  Israel should be forced to pay for the costs to clean them up. - mpg
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Thousands of opposition supporters rally in Georgia  ---  http://en.rian.ru/world/20080215/99351273.html
A quote...."TBILISI, February 15 (RIA Novosti) - Tens of thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Georgia's capital on Friday to demand electoral reforms, press freedom and the release of 'political prisoners' ahead of parliamentary polls in May."
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India preparing a revolution in the arms market  ---  http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080215/99361626.html
A quote...."(RIA Novosti correspondent in India Yevgeny Bezeka) - All participants in DEFEXPO-2008, which opens in New Delhi on February 16, are bound to see the beginnings of a revolution in the Indian military-industrial complex."
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Russian ruble could be used in oil trade deals in Iran - envoy  ---  http://en.rian.ru/world/20080215/99314908.html
A quote...."MOSCOW, February 15 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian ruble could be used as a payment instrument for deals on an Iranian oil exchange, the Islamic Republic's ambassador to Moscow said on Friday."
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Paulson's Wild Ride on the Hindenburg: "The worst has just begun"  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19354.htm
Must Read - A quote...."15/02/08 "ICH" -- -- It's a good thing Hank Paulson wasn't around in 1929 or we'd all be hawking apples on a street-corner. Paulson is currently on a losing-streak that would have been the envy of Marvelous Marv” Thorneberry and the '67 Mets. In the last three months he's put together three new programs to deal with the subprime crisis which have fizzled out in a matter of weeks. First, he tried to entice struggling investment banks to put their mortgage-backed bonds in a Super SIV (structured investment vehicle) to see if it would help off-load billions of dollars of down-graded junk onto unsuspecting investors."
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Consumer sentiment drops sharply in February - Mid-month reading lowest since 1992
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/survey-shows-us-consumers-sentiment/story.aspx?
  ---  guid=%7B30B28BEB%2D78D0%2D4A17%2D91A8%2DEFD919026E2E%7D
A quote...."WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - A gauge measuring consumer sentiment plummeted to the lowest level in 16 years, according to a survey released Friday, as the confidence of consumers is being sorely tested by higher energy and food prices, lower housing prices, and an increasingly louder recession drumbeat."
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Bay Area home sales fall to 20-year-low  ---  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/15/MN8RV2K0E.DTL
A quote...."(02-14) 10:35 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- The Bay Area housing crisis is worsening on all counts, as the lack of credit and growing economic uncertainty extinguished hope for a quick turnaround in the new year.  --  January data show regional home sales dropping to a 20-year low and the median price falling nearly 9 percent. Nearly one-fifth of the properties that did trade hands in the Bay Area last month had been foreclosed upon last year."
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WSJ: Citigroup Stops Withdrawals from Hedge Fund  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5609
Special Note - Financial Warning - A quote...."Citigroup has barred investors in one of its hedge funds from withdrawing their money, and a new leveraged fund lost 52 percent in its first three months, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.  --  The largest U.S. bank suspended redemptions in CSO Partners, a fund specializing in corporate debt, after investors tried to pull more than 30 percent of its roughly $500 million of assets, the newspaper said. Citigroup injected $100 million to stabilize the fund, which lost 10.9 percent last year, the newspaper said."  --  So the investers thought it was "their" money...hah, hah, hah.  There truly is a sucker born every minute. - mpg - See...The Green Light 01-16-08- mpg - http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/thegreenlight-blog-mpg-011608
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US subprime crisis costs global 7.7 trillion dollars: bank  ---  http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080214202021.5qwu7lx0&show_article=1
A quote...."The meltdown in the US subprime real-estate market has led to a global loss of 7.7 trillion dollars in stock-market value since October, a report by Bank of America showed Thursday."
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Bush Administration Hides More Data, Shuts Down Website Tracking U.S. Economic Indicators  http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/13/economic-indicators/
A quote...."The U.S. economy is faltering. Family debt is on the rise, benefits are disappearing, the deficit is skyrocketing, and the mortgage crisis has worsened. Conservatives have attempted to deflect attention from the crisis, by blaming the media’s negative coverage and insisting the United States is not headed toward a recession, despite what economists are predicting.  --  The Bush administration’s latest move is to simply hide the data."
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Euro zone growth outpaced the US; first time since 2001  ---  http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=12649&formato=HTML
A quote...."An initial estimate shows that Euro zone economic growth dipped last year to 2.7%, but still easily outpaced the US economy for the first time since 2001. The rate marked only a marginal slowdown from 2006 when the Euro zone economy grew by 2.8%. The US economy slowed to 2.2% in 2007."
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Thursday February 14th 2008 - links page

Robert Fisk: Bloody end of man who made kidnapping a weapon of war
  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-bloody-end-of-man-who-made-kidnapping-a-weapon-of-war-782031.html
Must Read - A quote...."It wasn't the staring eyes, nor the way he picked up an apple in front of me and cut it open with such careful deliberation. It was the vice-like handshake, the steely grip that made my fingers hurt. "Imad Mougnieh," he said, as if to show he wasn't on the run, wasn't afraid to use his real name."
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House Holds Bush Confidants in Contempt  ---  http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/02/14/1301500-house-holds-bush-confidants-in-contempt
A quote...."WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to hold two of President Bush's confidants in contempt for failing to cooperate with an inquiry into whether a purge of federal prosecutors was politically motivated."  --  All one can say is, it's about time!!!  One timid, tiny, little, itsy, bitsy, step for Congress, one giant leap for the constitution of the United States. - mpg
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Noam Chomsky joins 9/11 "Jersey" widows in calling for release of 9/11 documents
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joseph_m_080213_noam_chomsky_joins_9.htm
A quote...."February 14, 2007 -- Noam Chomsky has signed a petition written by the 9/11 “Jersey” widows calling for the release of classified documents relating to the 9/11 attacks. - The Muckraker Report has contacted him by e-mail and verified that the individual listed on the petition is indeed Noam Chomsky."
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US military accused of harboring fundamentalism  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080214/lf_afp/usmilitaryreligion
A quote...."WASHINGTON (AFP) - Since his last combat deployment in Iraq, Jeremy Hall has had a rough time, getting shoved and threatened by his fellow soldiers. The trouble started there when he would not pray in the mess hall."

Upon seeing the title of this article, this website editor's first thought was "oh it's just another one of the thousands of articles out there detailing how the US military and CIA have supplied tens of billions of dollars to al Qaeda, the Taliban, PKK, MEK, PJAK, Baluchistan separatists, Kurdistan separatists, Iranian separatists, Jihaddists, Mujahedeen, Wahhabists, the SCIRI death squads, the Sunni guerilla groups or other assorted "freedom fighters", "bad boys", "militias" or "friends" throughout the world"

See US Support of Terror  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussupportofterror-weblist-mpg-090306

Turns out it really was about "Christian fundamentalists" establishing some sort of theocracy in the US military....word to the wise, these people ARE NOT CHRISTIAN!  They follow another very dark path, a path that lead to prisoners being drilled, tortured, mutilated and sexually abused at Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Force Base and dozens of other places around the world.  A path that has so far lead to the death and injury of millions of innocent people.

They have voluntarily chosen to walk down this dark path; they are now blind and can no longer see.  It is they who now live in darkness.  It is they who have committed murder and mayhem.

It is they whose actions now please the Beast. - mpg
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Gang-Rape Victim Says She And Others Silenced by Halliburton  ---  http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4278133
A quote...."A Houston, Texas woman, who says she was gang-raped by her co-workers at a Halliburton/KBR camp in Baghdad, says 38 women have come forward through her foundation to report their own tragic stories to her, but that many cannot speak publicly due to arbitration agreements in their employment contracts."
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When We Torture  ---  http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,535217,00.html
A quote...."America spends millions of dollars bolstering public diplomacy to the Islamic world -- and then undoes it all with Guantánamo Bay.  --  The most famous journalist you may never have heard of is Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman who is on a hunger strike to protest abuse during more than six years in a Kafkaesque prison system.  -- 
Mr. Hajj's fortitude has turned him into a household name in the Arab world, and his story is sowing anger at the authorities holding him without trial."
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Tasers, Torture and Terror Tactics: America Becomes a Police State  ---  http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m41161&s1=h1
A quote...."Perhaps because someone uncorked the bottle and unleashed the evil genie, there is renewed interest in the 'scientific' study of evil. Such a renewed study may have its roots in the work of Dr. Gustav Gilbert, the American psychologist who was tasked with interviewing the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. He believed evil to be an "utter lack of empathy". Certainly, this trait, this symptom of pure evil is seen throughout Bush's America. It is always characterized by an unmistakeable inability of persons in 'power' to identify in any way with the victims of their abuse."
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Putin's Way - Russia’s Development Strategy to 2020  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8086
Must Read - A quote...."On February 8, 2008 President Vladimir Putin of Russia made an extraordinary speech at the Expanded Meeting of the State Council. The 13 page speech was titled Russia’s Development Strategy to 2020. The document is a template, a guide for the creation of the 21st Century Flex-State. A State with strong, even aggressive leadership that seeks to keep its story, its history, its people alive and prosperous in an era of competitive globalization where information about any organization, any individual, in any country is nearly impossible to hide. It is a bold, even historical document about Russia’s experience with a method of US economic torture called The Shock Doctrine (see Naomi Klein’s book of the same name), and its trials and tribulations with low birth rates and dismal healthcare. It is astonishingly open."

The article's description of what the US tried to do to Russia, to the Russian people and Putin's role in stopping this "creative destructive/instability", this "shock therapy/doctrine" is totally spot on.

Yet there's something strangely unsettling and illogical about this article.  Yes it's true that "the people" are what's most important, and it's also true that a strong state with a strong leader can be of great benefit for the people and the rest of the international community, but this supposition presupposes that the "state" in question, the man who leads it, the vested interests who support him or even "the people"....are "good".

Throughout history it appears such a confluence of fortuitous "goodness" is actually quite a rare event, many peoples tribes and nation states who have allowed power to be concentrated in any one institution or individual have usually done so at great peril to themselves, most often with devastating and horrific consequences for everyone involved. 

Hence the tragedy that has now befallen the former republic once known as the United States.

The author's contention regarding this former republic is quite correct; this nation has indeed been "taken over" by a bunch of corporate raiders who corrupted what admittedly was once a partially functioning electoral system of power distribution, into a completely rigged game whereby a few wealthy elites get to select individuals to front for them.  One of the individuals most recently selected by our elites to lead this nation best resembles an empty shell, almost all the individuals they've selected have turned out to be fonts for pure, unadulterated, malignant, evil.

However it is a dangerous assertion to suggest that anything resembling the Leviathan state could ameliorate these problems, any such political arrangement would only worsen them.   Russia was very, very, fortunate with Putin, may Russia's circumstances continue to remain so fortunate for the foreseeable future.

Given the historical record however, it is highly unlikely. - mpg
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Failed Fascist States  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_pablo_ou_080214_failed_fascist_state.htm
Special Note - A quote...."When Hermann Hesse warned of the rise of fascism in Germany he was rejected by a majority of the population. The truth is that most people were experiencing first hand the benefits of fascist ideology. Today we look at that part of our global history with shame, asking ourselves how something like Auswitch could be allowed to happen. The problem is that while we identify it in our past, we are reluctant to acknowledge it happening in our present. During the rise of the short-lived Nazi empire, criticizing Hitler and his party to the average German civilian would have undoubtedly received strong rejection. Today the same holds true to critics of the mighty ‘democratic’ empire, built by the U.S. with the submissive support of its ‘client states’. "
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Shame On Us All - Antiwarriors: Divided and Conquered  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh02122008.html
A quote...."There is an enormous antiwar majority in this country--upwards of 70%. And yet the war goes on and on and on. Who is to blame? We could blame the denizens of the two war parties in Congress. The leading Republican and Democrat presidential candidates have a record - and without exception it is a prowar record. McCain froths at the mouth at the prospect of more war. Hillary was there from the beginning and has voted yea on every prowar resolution in the Senate--from authorizing the war to voting for the trillions that have been used to fund the damned thing."
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A dash of discord mixed with competition  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JB15Ak01.html
A quote...."The principle of Islamic democracy, enunciated in the Islamic constitution, has translated into 28 electoral contests in the regime's short history, with practically each election representing a challenge of "Islamic democracy". That is, how to maintain a vibrant republican and participatory system and respond to the needs of the 21st century, in light of Iran's heterogeneous population and never subsiding regional and international challenges?  -- What!!  Those disgusting "towel heads" in Iran have held 28 elections!  They're not allowed to do that, only the US can bring "freedom and democracy" to all those poor benighted countries of the Middle East....how DARE they! - mpg
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US diplomat faces espionage charges in Bolivia  ---  http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/15/news/Bolivia-US.php
A quote...."LA PAZ, Bolivia: A top Bolivian official on Thursday said criminal charges of espionage have been filed against a U.S. Embassy official accused of asking an American student and Peace Corps volunteers to keep tabs on Venezuela and Cuban workers in the country."
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Opinion: The Third Front  ---  http://www.tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=5&i=1624
A quote...."(New Jersey) Bhutto's return to Pakistan and her death have created the exact opposite of what Rice and Bush expected. They wanted to weaken Musharraf, which they have not quite succeeded in doing. Worse Musharraf knew what they were up to. He knew because he is a lot tougher, and a lot smarter, than Bush or Rice. He has survived in a situation of extraordinary volatility. God knows how many assassination attempts he has managed to foil."
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After the Gaza breakout: Israel launches sustained hostilities  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/gaza-f15.shtml
A quote...."Israeli armed forces are engaged in a sustained offensive against the Gaza Strip with the aim of eliminating Hamas’s military and political leadership. Tzahi Hanegbi, chairman of the Israeli parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, said Israel should go after Hamas’s political leaders, and not just its gunmen. Israeli defence officials said they were considering stepping up their air strikes to target Hamas political leaders in Gaza."
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U.S. peace activist protests Egypt military trials  ---  http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL13901254.html
A quote...."CAIRO, Feb 13 (Reuters) - U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan pressed Egypt on Wednesday to free members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood who are on trial in a military court, urging leniency for the sake of their families."
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Court dismisses lawsuit on secret kidnapping  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1339515420080214
A quote...."SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A federal judge, saying the case involved a state secret, dismissed a lawsuit on Wednesday against a unit of Boeing Co that charged the firm helped fly terrorism suspects abroad to secret prisons."
For more on this see....Come Fly the Un-Friendly Skys  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/rapsheetarch/mpgrap-052207-053107#BOEING
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FEMA: Trains To Take You To The Concentration Camps  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5590
A quote...."The U.S. government continues to expand its plans to setup a nationalized concentration camp system under the guise of emergency management. FEMA has already come a long way in establishing their concentration camp system, but now it looks as if they might be trying to figure out a way to transport people to these facilities."
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24,000 Gitmo Interrogation Tapes  ---  http://www.atlargely.com/2008/02/24000-gitmo-int.html
A quote...."There were over 24,000 tapes made of interrogations at Gitmo, according to official statements by military officers. What happened to them?  --  Oh wait, what's that faint buzzing noise, could it be? it is! it is!.....it's the sound of shredders. - mpg
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Thousands of Guantanamo interrogations were taped: report  ---  http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jPWdlTVbuJ6dCEe_riDVcxewo2Fg
Related article - A quote...."WASHINGTON (AFP) — More than 24,000 interrogations of suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo prison camp were videotaped, though the US military has not confirmed the videos exist, a report said Thursday."  --  Bzzzzzt, Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. - mpg
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Antiwar Candidate Donna Edwards Defeats Incumbent Rep. Albert Wynn in Key Maryland Primary
  ---  http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/13/a_changing_tide_from_democratic_voters
A quote...."Antiwar Democrat Donna Edwards joins us to talk about her defeat of eight-term Congress member Albert Wynn in Tuesday’s primary vote. The Maryland race had been described as “a bellwether contest in the fight for the soul of the Democratic Party.” If Edwards wins in November, she’ll be the first African American woman elected to Congress from Maryland. [includes rush transcript]"
Real Video Stream  ||  ---  http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2008/feb/video/dnB20080213a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=14:10
Real Audio Stream  ||  ---  http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2008/feb/audio/dn20080213.ra&proto=rtsp&start=14:10
MP3 Download  ||  ---  http://media.switchpod.com/users/democracynow/ftp/dn2008-0213-1.mp3
More...  ||  ---  http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/13/stream
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Financial Crisis: Asset Securitization-- The Last Tango - Endgame: Unregulated Private Money Creation
  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8032
Must Read - A quote...."What had emerged going into the new millennium after the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall was an awesome transformation of American credit markets into what was soon to become the world’s greatest unregulated private money creation machine."
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When the Swiss Say Money's Tight, The Depression's Gone Global
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_michael__080214_when_the_swiss_say_m.htm
Serious Financial Warning - War Warning - A quote...."UBS AG won't buy auction-rate securities that fail to attract enough bidders, joining a growing number of dealers stepping back from the $300 billion market, said a person with direct knowledge of the situation. --  The second-biggest underwriter of the securities, whose rates are reset periodically at auctions, notified its 8,200 U.S. brokers of the decision yesterday, said the person, who declined to be identified because the announcement wasn't publicly disclosed. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Citigroup Inc. allowed auctions to fail … Bank of America Corp. estimated in a report that 80 percent of all auctions of bonds sold by cities, hospitals and student loan agencies were unsuccessful yesterday." -- bold by website author.

Why is the article shown above a war warning?
  See Standard Disclaimer  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/disclaimer-blog-mpg-070207
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US intel links Iran with nuke bomb bid  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=52120
War Warning - So what do we call this...."Just in time intel?" Or do we call it "just a bunch of bull sh-t?"  Is Newsweek trying to be funny with this one?  Can they be this stupid, do they think we're that stupid?  The US runs into a whole bunch of trouble on their third round of sanctions against Iran and presto! they discover "new" intel.

You guys in the mass-media are so corrupt you don't even care how stupid you look anymore. - mpg

For more on this see....Fake Intel  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206
See also....The Slow Play Option - 12-11-07 - mpg  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/theslowplayoption-blog-mpg-121107
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Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021408C.shtml
A quote...."How the Bush Administration stopped the states from stepping in to help consumers.  --  Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets."
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Part One: Facing the Facts - A Look at the Consumer End of a Stumbling Economy  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021208H.shtml
A quote...."One can pity Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. No other federal reserve chairman ever cut interest rates by a full 1.25% within just eight days, as Bernanke has done. But the monetary skies remain as leaden and thunder-clouded as ever. The stock market keeps quivering downward, crowds thin at the malls, jobless queues grow. Wal-Mart reports that customers are using their Christmas gift cards for groceries.  --  The hard reality is that the economy is facing a one-two knockout blow from a collapse in consumer spending, plus a shock-and-awe wave of asset write-downs that is wreaking havoc in the financial sector. The more Bernanke floods the economy with easy money, the worse the final reckoning is likely to be."
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The Frightful Face of Stimulus  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/frightful-stimulus.html
A quote...."Among businesspeople, bankers, and investors, there is a growing fear that the economy is headed towards recession or already in one. But that alone is not the source of worry. After all, an economy if left alone to function in freedom can recover. The real problem has to do with the political response. There is every indication that no matter who comes to be in charge in November, we face a future of massive spending, inflating, and regulating."
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Bernanke Ready To Cut Rates Again  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5598
A quote...."WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Thursday that the country's economic outlook has deteriorated and signaled that the central bank is ready to keep on lowering a key interest rate -- as needed -- to shore things up."  --  And when he gets to zero what then? Oh that's right, negative interest rates, we'll pay people to borrow US dollars....by then we'll have to. - mpg
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Wednesday February 13th 2008 - links page

Another Killing Spree in Mesopotamia: “Pacifying” Mosul  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8060
Must Read - A quote...."In the Orwellian world of the United States military, when a killing spree in Mesopotamia is embarked upon, it is called an “Iraq Pacification Operation'”. There have been hundreds of these (I abandoned counting at three hundred and eighty, with numerous more to go.)"
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Swan Song for NATO - The Real Cost Of Defeat In Forgettistan  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19350.htm
Must Read - A quote...." The United States has gained nothing from its invasion of Afghanistan. US troops do not control even a square inch of Afghan soil. The moment a soldier lifts his boot-heel; that ground is returned to the native people. That won't change either. General Dan McNeill said recently that "if proper US military counterinsurgency doctrine were followed; the US would need 400,000 troops to defeat Pashtun tribal resistance in Afghanistan." Currently, the US and NATO have only 66,000 troops on the ground and the allies are refusing to send more. On a purely logistical level; victory is impossible."
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The Monster That Wouldn't Die - Why the neocons endure - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12358
Must Read - A quote...."As the ugly reality of what we had gotten ourselves into in Iraq settled on the national consciousness, like a viral infection settling on the lungs, the conventional wisdom was that the authors of this war – the political tendency known as the neoconservatives – were utterly and completely discredited. Where were the "weapons of mass destruction"? Where were the crowds of Iraqis throwing rose petals in our wake? Where was the cakewalk? And – most of all – where were the friggin' neocons, anyway? Most were in hiding, having resigned and slunk back to academia or some neocon "think tank"; very few were in the line of fire. They left that one for the troops."
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Europe: Divorce the US Military  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/156371
Special Note - Related article - A quote...."Almost five years on from "Operation Iraqi Freedom," the neocon dreams of imperial conquest have hit the buffers. Despite the lies about the "surge" being a great success, Iraq remains in chaos: in the first week of February alone over 200 people have been killed in the violence. In Afghanistan the situation from the neocons' viewpoint, is even worse. "There is no doubt that armed resistance to foreign occupation is growing and spreading. NATO forces' own figures show that attacks on western and Afghan troops were up by almost a third last year, to more than 9,000 "significant actions," writes Seumas Milne in the Guardian."  --  "Most normal people when faced with defeat and humiliation on such a monumental scale would admit the game is up and make their exit from the political arena. But neocons, as surely the whole world knows by now, are not normal people."
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The Flaws of Interventionism  - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=521852
A quote...."A recent report from the Government Accountability Office stated bluntly: “The United States’ foreign policy is the major root cause behind anti-American sentiments among Muslim populations.” Indeed, the link between America’s global interventionism and retaliatory acts of terrorism against the United States is nearly undeniable. As such, the United States must immediately cease foreign intervention operations."
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Warfare of the Whisper –dividing the people and keeping them ignorant  ---  http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m41133&s1=h1
Special Note - A quote...."When the truth is too horrible to acknowledge, then it becomes very easy to believe in a series of lies instead. If the truth is that our leaders are really monsters, who have purposely manufactured a planned genocidal world war, in order to preserve America's fading position in the world, then the truth becomes almost impossible to believe."
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Unnecessary Harm  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/opinion/13wed1.html
A quote...."The Bush administration’s decision to put six detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on trial before military tribunals and to seek the death penalty is both a betrayal of American ideals and simply bad strategy. Instead of being what they could and should be — a model of justice dispensed impartially, surely and dispassionately — the trials will proceed under deeply flawed procedures that violate this country’s basic fairness. The intense negative attention they will receive will do enormous damage to what is left of America’s standing in world opinion."  --  Editor's note judging from some of the articles and editorials appearing in the New York Times during the last year, it looks like they’re trying to undo all that they have caused to be done....they have a lot more to undo. - mpg
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US: No permanent bases anywhere in the world  ---  http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hllWA4j60xVGxj2eebz0ixvSCHZg
A quote...."WASHINGTON (AFP) — Amid a bitter dispute over US bases in Iraq, the White House signaled Wednesday it does not view any US military installations overseas -- except perhaps Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- as permanent."  --  Well they're right aren't they?  After all our sun is expected to go nova in about five billion years, and the universe is expected to end about twenty to thirty billion years from now....ergo, there's no such thing as a permanent military base. - mpg
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Asian arms race gathers speed  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JB14Ad02.html
A quote...."Despite all this talk of peace, something else, quite momentous and hardly noticed, is underway in the region. The real money in Northeast Asia is going elsewhere. While in the news sunshine prevails, in the shadows an already massive regional arms race is threatening to shift into overdrive."  --  See also....US Weapons Sales: President Bush Arming Fellow Tyrants Globally - posted 01-20-08
  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7850
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Russia to deliver 12 Su-30 fighters to Malaysia in 2008  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/156320
A quote...."MOSCOW, February 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will deliver 12 Su-MKM fighters to Malaysia before the end of 2008, a spokesman for the Sukhoi aircraft manufacturer said on Wednesday. - The Southeast Asian country will receive a total of 18 Su-30MKM fighters under a $900-million contract signed in 2003. The first six airplanes were delivered in 2007."
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Iran’s defense spending per capita among lowest in Mideast  ---  http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/4071
A quote...." LONDON (IRNA) -- Iran’s defense expenditure per capita remains among the lowest in the Middle East region despite having the second highest population behind Egypt, according to the new publication of Military Balance."
Contrast this with the US's "defense" spending....see below....
World Wide Military Expenditures - chart / graphic   ---  http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm
Bush Military Budget Highest Since WWII  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0210-26.htm
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New 2009 Iraq war request coming soon: Pentagon  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1228843620080212
A quote...."WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Within the next few months the Bush administration will ask Congress for more money to pay for the war in Iraq next year beyond the $70 billion in a White House budget plan, a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday."  --  That was quick. - mpg
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Lockheed Secures Contract to Expand Biometric Database  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5584
A quote...."The FBI yesterday announced the award of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to Lockheed Martin to develop what is expected to be the world's largest crime-fighting computer database of biometric information, including fingerprints, palm prints, iris patterns and face images."  --  We're all just one big, happy, Military Industrial Complex. - mpg
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Iran to launch oil and gas exchange on Feb. 27  ---  http://en.rian.ru/world/20080213/99134070.html
War Warning - A quote...."TEHRAN, February 13 (RIA Novosti) - Iran will launch a commodities exchange for oil, petrochemicals and natural gas on February 27, the Islamic Republic's oil minister said on Wednesday."  --  It is of course only a "war warning" if they actually "launch it"....they've been taking their sweet time about doing so. - mpg
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Hezbollah's most wanted commander killed in Syria bomb
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSFLE35286920080213?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
A quote...."BEIRUT (Reuters) - Senior Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyah, on the United States' most wanted list for attacks on Israeli and Western targets, has been killed by a bomb attack in Damascus, the Lebanese group said on Wednesday."
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MIDEAST:  For the World, Gaza Is Reality TV  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41178
A quote...."GAZA CITY, Feb 13 (IPS) - "We are being starved, killed, tortured, and besieged -- and all this while the world just watches," says Abu Wael at the funeral of the latest group of Gazans killed by Israeli forces."
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Poison riddle of dead billionaire who feared Russian agents would kill him
  ---  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=514101&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
A quote...."Radiation specialists were called in to examine the body of an exiled billionaire yesterday after he collapsed and died at his £10million mansion in Surrey.  --  Georgian tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili, an enemy of Russian president Vladimir Putin, had feared he would be assassinated."
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Venezuela halts oil supplies to ExxonMobil
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSN1225071620080213?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews
A quote...."CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stopped oil exports to Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Tuesday, escalating a multibillion-dollar fight with the U.S. company two days after threatening to cut off all supplies to America."
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Gazprom: output and sales. INFOgraphics  ---  http://en.rian.ru/infographics/20080212/99032000.html
Graphic - A quote...."A record 14.9 million metric tons (109 million barrels) of crude were produced off Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East in 2007, the regional statistics service said on Tuesday."
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Chomsky: Poorer Countries Find a Way to Escape U.S. Dominance  ---  http://www.alternet.org/audits/76657/
Interview - Michael Shank interviews Noam Chomsky - A quote...."The famous critic lays out the emerging alternatives to the U.S.-dominated international financial institutions of the last century."
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Chavez Denounces Colombian Paramilitary Activity in Venezuela  ---  http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3146
A quote...."Meerida, February 12, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez denounced the presence of Colombian paramilitary groups operating in Venezuela with United States government support on his weekly Sunday talk show “Aló Presidente.” Chávez asserted that the zones most affected by the U.S.-designed plan to “fill us with paramilitaries” are the western border states of Táchira, Zulia, Apure, and Barinas, while Colombia is the base."
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France Catches Colonial Fever  ---  http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20080210_france_catches_colonial_fever/
Video - A quote...."The Mosaic Intelligence Report investigates France’s aggressive new push to involve itself in the Middle East. The French have signed a deal to set up a permanent military base in the Persian Gulf region, the first such facility controlled by a Western nation that isn’t led by George W. Bush." -- For more on Sarkozy see....The Sarkozy File  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/thesarkozyfile-weblist-mpg-103007
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We didn't stop that war, but may have stopped the next  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/13/antiwar.iraq
A quote...."Five years ago this week most readers of this newspaper were making plans to go on a demonstration. More surprisingly, just as many Daily Telegraph readers were getting ready for the same event. For most of those who marched against the Iraq war on February 15 2003 it was the first time they had ever demonstrated for or against anything in their lives. It was a protest such as Britain had never seen before, all-embracing in its diversity and imposing in its unity of purpose."
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Searching for truth in Wayne  ---  http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=2008021365223401
A quote...."On Tuesday nights in downtown Wayne, since Jan. 1, Betsy Metz, of Devon, and Jon Gold, of Plymouth Meeting have been sponsoring documentaries at the Wayne Theater that dispute the official explanations of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks."
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Charles Goyette Interviews Seymour Hersh - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/02/07/seymour-hersh-2/
Audio Interview - A quote...."Seymour Hersh from the New Yorker discusses his new article about the  Israeli air strike against Syria last September, U.S. complicity and the lies used to justify it."
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Welcome to Cyberwar Country, USA  ---  http://www.thought-criminal.org/article/node/1271
A quote...."With billions of dollars in contracts and millions in local spending on the line, 15 military towns from Hampton, Virginia, to Yuba City, California, are vying to win the Cyber Command, throwing in offers of land, academic and research tie-ins, and, in one case, an $11 million building with a moat. At a time when Cold War-era commands laden with aging aircraft are shriveling, the nascent Cyber Command is universally seen as a future-proof bet for expansion, in an era etched with portents of cyberwar."  --  See also....

Pentagon: The internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy "weapons system".
  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7980
A quote...."The Pentagon's Information Operations Roadmap is blunt about the fact that an internet, with the potential for free speech, is in direct opposition to their goals. The internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy "weapons system"."  --  posted 02-02-08
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Budget Deficit Running at Faster Pace  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021208T.shtml
A quote...."    Washington - The federal budget deficit is running at a pace that is more than double last year's imbalance through the first four months of the budget year.  --  Tsk, tsk, tsk, those Neo-Roman Empires are just so darned expensive. - mpg
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Imploding Credit Bubble to Hit $1 Trillion  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=52037
A quote...."The current credit and financial crisis, unusually, is almost entirely the creation of the financial services industry.  --  Financial services now dominates American business to an astonishing degree. Though the industry accounted for only about 16 percent of corporate output in 2007, it racked up more than 40 percent of corporate profits. From 2000 through mid-2007, total American stock market value grew about 6 percent, while the value of financial services stocks grew by 78 percent. And though total corporate profits roughly doubled, business investment was almost flat."
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Aboard the Condoleezza Rice  ---  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080212_scheer_feb_13_aboard_the_condoleezza_rice/
A quote...."Whadda you mean “we,” Mr. TV Pundit? When you say “we” are doing better in Iraq or, even more absurd, that “we” were right to invade that country in the first place, are you putting Joe Blow American in the same bag as the top officers of Exxon, which made $40.6 billion in profit last year thanks to the turmoil in the energy markets? That royal “we” is good for the royals who control our government, but its persistent use embodies a pernicious lie that betrays the core ideal of representative democracy."
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Theater of the Absurd (Updated)  ---  http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2008/02/theater-of-absurd.html
A quote...."It's difficult to believe that viewing the epic cinematic debacle Troy could be the high point of an evening, but such was the case for two Utah couples on the evening of May 23, 2004."  --  This one's kind'a fun in a horrible sort of way. - mpg
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Tuesday February 12th 2008 - links page

Following Orders  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19336.htm
Must Read - A quote...." 12/02/08 "ICH  " -- - If I have my facts straight, Hitler killed only one person in his lifetime: himself. All the other atrocities that are attributed to him were carried out by people who were only following orders. - If it is true that the war in Iraq is illegal, as I and others believe it is—including the Secretary General of the United Nations—then all the deaths and atrocities that have occurred to date, inflicted by our coalition forces, are the acts of individuals who, knowingly or unknowingly, with good intentions or not, have been willing to break the law in order to follow the orders of superiors."
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A 9/11 Every Day For Ten and a Half Years  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19332.htm
Must Read - A quote...."12/02/08 "Once Upon A Time" - -- -Let us begin with the proposition of greatest importance. From my essay,
 "The Missing Moral Center: Murdering the Innocent":  ---  http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/10/missing-moral-center-murdering.html
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Bush Turns US Soldiers into Murderers  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/021208.html
A quote...."By forcing repeat combat assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan – and by winking at torture and indiscriminate killings – George W. Bush is degrading the reputation of the U.S. military, turning enlisted soldiers and intelligence officers into murderers and sadists."
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The world sees America in the dock  ---  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/bronwen_maddox/article3359595.ece
A quote...."From the start, Guantanamo has been a disaster. Sympathy for the US has dissolved  --  Every time there is a chance for the United States to escape from the trap it has created for itself in Guantanamo Bay, it slams the door shut.  --  The Pentagon's decision this week to seek the death penalty for six men it accuses of the 9/11 attacks, and to try them under the hugely disputed version of military courts that it has devised, is one of the stupidest mistakes that the Bush Administration has made." -- italics by website author  -- Not really, there's at least seventy or eighty "mistakes" (crimes) worse than this. - mpg
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How the spooks took over the news  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19328.htm
Special Note - A quote...."11/02/08 "The Independent" -- - On the morning of 9 February 2004, The New York Times carried an exclusive and alarming story. The paper's Baghdad correspondent, Dexter Filkins, reported that US officials had obtained a 17-page letter, believed to have been written by the notorious terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi to the "inner circle" of al-Qa'ida's leadership, urging them to accept that the best way to beat US forces in Iraq was effectively to start a civil war." -- For more on this issue see..Fake Intel -- http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206
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Exiled Iraqis too scared to return home despite propaganda push
  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/exiled-iraqis-too-scared-to-return-home-despite-propaganda-push-780708.html
A quote...."There has been no mass return of the two million Iraqis who fled to Syria and Jordan or a further 2.4 million refugees who left their homes within Iraq. The latest figures from the UN High Commission for Refugees show that, on the contrary, the number of people entering Syria from Iraq was 1,200 a day in late January "while an average of 700 are going back to Iraq from Syria". -- Remember when our mass-media for three months kept claiming the Iraqis were returning home?  It was all a lie....again! - mpg
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Thousands demand sacking of local Iraq police chief  ---  http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jCI8KNFDVgu58WSvA56XI61mnxDA
A quote...."BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) — Police were put on a state of alert in the restive Iraqi city of Baquba on Monday, an official said, as thousands of people staged angry street protests to demand the sacking of the police chief.  --  About 3,500 demonstrators marched through the streets of Baquba, which lies north of Baghdad in Diyala province, led by tribal leaders and members of a powerful anti-Qaeda "Awakening" front, an AFP correspondent said."
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Canadians Reject Extending Afghan Mission  ---  http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/29855
A quote...."(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Many adults in Canada believe their government should not extend its current mandate in Afghanistan, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 58 per cent of respondents disagree with allowing the mission to continue beyond February 2009."
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Blair went to war on a lie, law lords told  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blair-went-to-war-on-a-lie-law-lords-told-781015.html
A quote...."The mothers of two teenage soldiers killed in Iraq accused Tony Blair's government of going to war "on a lie" as they took their fight for a public inquiry into the conflict to the House of Lords.  --  Beverly Clarke and Rose Gentle argue that ministers breached their duty to Britain's armed forces by failing to ensure the invasion was lawful."
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Plagiarism, Cover Up and Misrepresentations - The Case Against Alan Dershowitz  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/menetrez02122008.html
A quote...."In June 2007, DePaul University denied tenure to Norman Finkelstein, an assistant professor of political science. The decision ignited a firestorm of protest from DePaul students and faculty, as well as from faculty across the country and abroad. Finkelstein's department had voted 9-3 in favor of tenure, and a college-level committee unanimously joined that recommendation, 5-0. But the University Board on Promotion and Tenure (UBPT) voted 4-3 against tenure, and DePaul's president claimed to "find no compelling reasons to overturn the UBPT's decision."
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PAKISTAN AT THE POLLS - A growing voice for militants  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JB13Df01.html
A quote...."KARACHI - In the initial stages, the runup to Pakistan's elections scheduled for February 18 was characterized by politicians jockeying to present themselves as the best candidates to fight the United States-led "war on terror"."
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Venezuela Halts Oil Sales to Exxon Mobil  ---  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/02/12/financial/f152200S02.DTL&feed=rss.business
A quote...."Venezuela's state oil company said Tuesday that it has stopped selling crude to Exxon Mobil Corp. in response to the U.S. oil company's drive to use the courts to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets."
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Half a Trillion for “Defence”  ---  http://www.yobserver.com/opinions/10013723.html
A quote...."Last week the Pentagon asked Congress for the biggest defence budget since the Second World War: $515 billion, plus an additional $70 billion to cover the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for part of the coming year.  The United States is proposing to spend more on the armed forces, quite apart from the running costs of Iraq and Afghanistan, than it did at the height of the Cold War against the Soviet Union – and yet almost all the commentary and analysis in the US media has focussed on the spending on the two wars."
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Africa Policy Outlook 2008  ---  http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4949
A quote...."According to a Congressional Research Service report released in May of 2007, the United States has recently established military, counter-terrorism and intelligence programs in dozens of African countries. The Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) has been using Camp Lemonier in Djibouti as its main U.S. base for counter-terrorist activities offshore and in the region since October 2002. In January 2007, the military announced that Camp Lemonier will expand from its current 97 acres to more than 500 acres."  --  Africa is doomed. - mpg

See also....AFRICOM: The Recolonization of Africa by Uncle Sam
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_wayne_ma_080103_africom_3a_the_recolon.htm
See also....State Plans One Billion for Private Security Contractors in Africa
  ---  http://www.thought-criminal.org/article/node/1259
See also....Secret contacts to speed up the building of an American military base in Morocco
  ---  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m40122&hd=&size=1&l=e
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Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms  ---  http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html
Must Read - A quote...."The Senate today -- led by Jay Rockefeller, enabled by Harry Reid, and with the active support of at least 12 (and probably more) Democrats, in conjunction with an as-always lockstep GOP caucus -- will vote to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration's years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans. The long, hard efforts by AT&T, Verizon and their all-star, bipartisan cast of lobbyists to grease the wheels of the Senate -- led by former Bush 41 Attorney General William Barr and former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick -- are about to pay huge dividends, as such noble efforts invariably do with our political establishment."
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The WSJ editorial page lies about our surveillance laws  ---  http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/11/wsj/index.html
Related article - A quote...."There are very few opinion venues -- if there are any -- more brazenly fact-free than the Editorial Page of the Wall St. Journal. They have an Editorial this morning warning of all the grave dangers posed by efforts from the "anti-antiterror left" to limit the Leader's warrantless eavesdropping powers -- the most dangerous of which, they warn, is the campaign "to deny legal immunity to telephone companies that cooperated with the government on these wiretaps after 9/11." The Editorial is filled with one demonstrable factual falsehood after the next." -- We are starting to see some of Rupert Murdoch's malevolent influence. - mpg
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Telecom immunity: how stupid do you think we are? - http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/02/12/telecom-immunity-how-stupid-do-you-think-we-are/
Related article - A quote...."It’s FISA Day in your Senate - amazing how this was scheduled for Potomac Primary Day, huh? - and Matt Browner Hamlin has the agenda up at Holdfast.  --  My big issue is item #4: retroactive immunity for telecoms. Verizon and AT&T have done all they can to pretend that they had no idea that their participation in warrantless wiretapping might be, you know, a full-monty assault on the Constitution itself. I mean, shucks, they wuz just doing what the president wanted them to, and if you can’t trust the White House who can you trust?"
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Senate Votes to Give Retroactive Immunity for Telecoms  ---  http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/senate_votes_for_retroactive_i.php
Related article - A quote...."Let there be no doubt: a majority of senators, and a large number of Democrats, think the telecoms should not suffer the hazard of accountability for cooperating with the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) took to the floor last night to give a speech asking, "This is our defining question, the question that confronts every generation: The rule of law, or the rule of men?" The resounding answer: the rule of men."
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The New Crime of Thinking in the US  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/12/7018/
A quote...."It looks like the term “thought police” just might take on a whole new and real meaning.  --  This depends on what happens in the U.S. Senate after receiving House bill H.R. 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This act (now S-1959 - Senate version) is now being considered by Senate committees and, if passed by the Senate and signed by the president, will become law."
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The Ideological Profiling Act of 2007  ---  http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/16314
Related article - A quote...."On October 23, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 passed 404 to 6 in the House (HR 1955). Its Senate companion (S.1959) is under evaluation by the Senate Committee of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.  --  This bill would implement an expansion of the 2002 Homeland Security Act with the creation of a National Commission authorized to study and identify individuals and groups whose social values, political associations, or religious beliefs “might” lead them to commit violent acts. However, this does not refer to CIA assassinations, police brutality, murder of unarmed civilians, or torture at secret prisons. This Commission is targeting political dissidents and social activists who are critical of U.S. foreign policy, corporate abuse, and practices that threaten the life of our planet."
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HR 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007  ---  http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/16098
Related article - A quote...."Factsheet From Center for Constitutional Rights (ccrjustice.org)  --  HR 1955 calls for a Commission that will “examine and report upon the facts and causes” of so called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combating it."
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Smoke, mirrors and American justice  ---  http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/victoria_brittain/2008/02/smoke_mirrors_and_american_justice.html
A quote...."The announcement by the Pentagon of trials by military commission for six of the big-name prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, is the latest in the series of smoke-and-mirror tricks used by the Bush administration to cover the inhuman illegality of the regime in the prison.  --  The issue is straightforward: the men cannot receive fair trials."
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CIA man 'can take White House down'  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=36444&sectionid=3510203
A quote...."Former head of the CIA's clandestine service Jose Rodriguez claims he can take the White House down over a torture cover-up scandal.  --  Rodriguez said he may testify before the House Intelligence Committee if he is granted immunity from prosecution, The Sunday Times reported."
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Discovery Channel Accused of Political Censorship for Dropping Oscar-Nominated Doc on U.S. Torture
  ---  http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/12/discovery_channel_accused_of_political_censorship
A quote...."Days after its Academy Award nomination, the documentary Taxi to the Dark Side was dropped by the Discovery Channel over concerns it was “controversial.” The film investigates some of the most egregious abuses associated with the so-called “war on terror,” including the US torture of prisoners. We get reaction from filmmaker Alex Gibney. [includes rush transcript]"
Real Video Stream  ||  ---  http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2008/feb/video/dnB20080212a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=21:36
Real Audio Stream  ||  ---  http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2008/feb/audio/dn20080212.ra&proto=rtsp&start=21:36
MP3 Download  ||  ---  http://media.switchpod.com/users/democracynow/ftp/dn2008-0212-1.mp3
More... ||  ---  http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/12/stream
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The Mother of All Rip-offs - “Get Ready For A Real Hosing”  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19324.htm
Includes Video - A quote...."11/02/08 "ICH" --- -- Low interest credit and “financial innovation” are a deadly-combo. They've knocked the banking system for a loop, clogged the credit markets with billions of dollars of subprime sludge, and left the real estate market sprawling on the canvas. Still---even though $2 trillion of capitalization has been wiped-out from falling home prices; and even though the financial system is in a terminal state of paralysis---no one has been held accountable. In fact, not one trader, mortgage lender, rating's-agency official, fund manager, or investment banker has been indicted or charged with criminal wrongdoing."
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THE BEAR'S LAIR - Financial models head for scrap heap  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JB13Dj02.html
A quote...."It is now clear that the credit crunch was not due simply to bull market over-optimism, but resulted very largely from the failures of a number of the financial models that have been a staple of the last generation. As the crunch spreads its malign tentacles ever wider into every corner of global economic life, the dust of collapse after collapse isn’t even beginning to clear. However there are now coming to be things one can usefully say about those models, and about the assumptions on which they were based."
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Third of recent buyers owe more than home's value: report
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSN117179120080212?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews
A quote...."NEW YORK (Reuters) - More than 30 percent of U.S. homeowners who bought in the last two years owe more on their mortgage than their house is currently worth, a housing market research company said on Tuesday."
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Fed's Rate Cuts Bring No Relief For Consumers' Credit Card Bills
  ---  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/10/AR2008021002537.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR
A quote...."The Federal Reserve's dramatic rate cuts were expected to make it cheaper for consumers to use credit cards. But credit card interest rates remain high and in many cases have even climbed."
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US job cuts mount as slowdown erodes corporate profits  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_job_cuts_mount_as_slowdown_erode_02122008.html
A quote...."Brand-name American companies, spanning manufacturing, retailing and banking among other industries, are making sizeable job cuts as an economic slowdown bites corporate profits."
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GM offers workers buyouts as posts loss --- http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSWNAS050820080212?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
A quote...."DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp said on Tuesday it would offer a new round of buyouts to all of its U.S. factory workers as it posted a quarterly loss that underscored the pressure the top U.S. automaker faces in its slumping home market."
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F. William Engdahl's - "A Century of War" - Part I  ---  http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman120108.htm
Special Note - Book Review & Analysis - A quote...."Engdahl calls
 his book *   ---  http://www.amazon.com/Century-War-Anglo-American-Politics-World/dp/074532309X  ---  "no ordinary history of oil" because what he recounts is suppressed in the mainstream and what passes for education in America. It settles for mediocrity, ignorance, and a barely literate public by design. As a result, people don't know that US manipulators arranged "the greatest confidence game the world had ever seen" - a "special hegemony" to: -- *link added by website editor.

-- print limitless dollar paper certificates to buy every imaginable product;
-- accumulate endless trade deficits;
-- "inflate (the) currency beyond imagination;"
-- have the government pay interest on its own money; and
-- create an unprecedented public and private debt to enrich an elite few at the expense of the greater good.
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