Resisting the New World Order

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2006-03-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

CNN Produces Balanced Piece On Sheen 9/11 Comments

911 Blogger | March 23 2006

Comment: We are amazed and flabbergasted by how fair this piece is and it should help encourage other high profile figures in the public eye like Charlie Sheen to come forward.

Tonight marks the first instance where those that question 9/11 were given a fair shake at voicing their opinions. While little can be said in just 10 minutes of coverage, it was at the very least a reasonable discussion and an important milestone for the 9/11 truth community. 911truth.org's media coordinator Mike Berger did a great job with the short time he was allotted while the host A.J. Hammer allowed for a good live discussion and avoided the all-to-familiar Bill O'Reilly style of 'news'.

Despite the numerous questions surrounding 9/11 which have gone unmentioned by the mainstream media for the last 4+ years, and the growing number of respectable scholars, government officials, and family members demanding answers - this is the first time a major news station has covered 9/11 questions in any reasonable format, even if it was on a Hollywood celebrity show. If the mainstream media were to truly desire to cover 9/11 further I would hope in the future they might consider a longer format so that all of the news and facts they haven't bothered reporting over the last 4+ years might have a chance to finally be seen and heard. (Hey Showtime and HBO, are you listening?)

I urge all of those who support 9/11 being further discussed by CNN and their affiliates to contact them via their feedback form here. Be sure to reference the host A.J. Hammer, and the show 'Showbiz Tonight'.

MSM Attacks Charlie Sheen Over 9/11 Comments

Finally covers story, Neo-Cons start frothing at the mouth

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | March 23 2006

The mainstream media has finally seen fit to cover Charlie Sheen's comments on 9/11with both the New York Post and the Boston Herald penning hit pieces that seek to smear Sheen as an unstable crackpot. Several smaller Neo-Con websites are also frothing at the mouth at the latest example of what they see as a Hollywood led 'vast left-wing conspiracy'.

On Monday Charlie Sheen appeared on the Alex Jones Show to go public on his serious doubts about the official story behind 9/11. Despite an early link on the Drudge Report which was quickly pulled, only the Defamer, a LA gossip rag picked up the story. Until today.

New York Post

The New York Post's popular and influential celebrity gossip 'Page Six' section ran with the story today and immediately castigated Sheen as a member of the tin foil hat wearing crowd.

"CHARLIE Sheen has joined the 9/11 gone-bonkers brigade," wrote the Post before quoting some of his statements from the interview.

If that's the case then the Post has just insulted half of its entire readership. A Zogby poll showed that half of New Yorkers believed the government were complicit in the attacks, a stretch that was not even made by Sheen in the interview, who was keen to stress that he didn't know who carried out the attacks, and 66% called for a new investigation. So in effect the Post has demonized two-third of its audience as demented nutcases, something they should perhaps consider in light of falling newspaper sales figures.

Boston Herald

The Herald immediately went for the yellow journalism tactic of attacking the messenger rather than the message, going for the throat of Sheen's personal life.

The Herald finished by quoting Sheen's call for an independent investigation and then stating, "Excuse us if we don’t exactly feel that Charlie’s the man for that job!"

If the Herald has bothered listening to the entire interview then they would have heard Sheen clearly state who he thought should carry out the investigation, retired political foreign nationals with no connections to the Bush administration. Not once did Sheen suggest he should be part of the investigative team, he was merely stating his informed opinion as a taxpaying American citizen, as again did 66% of New Yorkers who said the same thing.

It is quite obvious that the Herald did not listen to the interview and just copied and pasted the quotes over from the original Prison Planet article. This is proven by the fact that the Herald state, "Sheen pointed out that eyewitnesses recounted hearing what sounded like bombs and explosions coming from the basement levels of the buildings and discounted the theory that the damage to the towers’ lobbies was the result of fireballs traveling 110 feet down elevator shafts."

The 110 feet figure was a transcript error that we quickly fixed to the correct number of 1100 shortly after posting the article. The Herald obviously didn't hear the interview and just copied over the 110 feet figure from our original release.

Human Events

On the whole the Human Events piece was the most balanced, the bulk of it consisting of a elongated transcript of the interview. At least these guys, unlike those bastions of professionalism the Boston Herald, had bothered to listen to the interview.

"In an interview with Alex Jones this week, a liberal radio talk show host for GCN Radio Network, Sheen relived his thoughts and shared his theories on what happened that historic day four-and-a-half years ago," states the article.

Alex Jones a liberal? That one's going to keep us laughing all through until next winter! Alex Jones cut his teeth bashing Bill Clinton and in his youth even campaigned for Republicans before waking up to the false left-right paradigm. Within 10 seconds of meeting Alex Jones anyone would know that he is not a liberal. But in the upside down world of neo-cons and neo-libs, where the drumbeat of state worship has flipped them over so many times that they aren't even sure of their own phony political labels, Alex Jones is a liberal.

If George W. Bush, an assault weapons ban supporting, amnesty loving, abortion supporting, biggest spender on federal government ever, faux cowboy from Kennebunkport Maine is a conservative then I guess we're all Hollywood liberals. In truth both Alex Jones and Charlie Sheen are real conservatives, adhering to the legacy of the founding fathers who advocated constant vigilance of government.

In addition, the headline, Hollywood Actor Charlie Sheen Calls 9/11 'Conspiracy Theory', is blatantly misleading. Sheen never said words to that effect throughout the entire interview.

Other Festering Neo-Cons

A smattering of smaller neo-con websites (compared to which Prison Planet.com gets four times as much traffic or more) gnashed their teeth at Sheen's comments, including one poster at RedState.com, an individual who said he lived in his own world called 'Matworld' - a place where Sheen's comments were not appreciated. Well we're in the real world, he can stay in 'Matworld', worshipping Bush for an hour a day and spending the rest of his time throwing his toys out of the pram eating expensive biscuits his mom bought.

In summary, pressure was brought to bear on the MSM government apologists and in the end they had to respond. The fatal flaw in their argument is that they are preaching to a disappearing choir. At least half of Americans are suspicious about 9/11 and want to see a new independent inquiry. Charlie Sheen is just one of those Americans.

Lords back down on glorification

BBC | March 23 2006

Comment: This is how Blair's authoritarian government works now, never mind that this terror legislation has been rejected SIX times, they just keep pushing it until it goes through. The ID card bill has currently been "defeated" FOUR times, how much longer before that goes through too?

The government has finally won its battle of wills with the House of Lords over proposals to outlaw the "glorification" of terrorism.

In the sixth round of parliamentary "ping pong", peers accepted the government plans by a majority of 112.

Charles Clarke warned peers that Labour had made a manifesto commitment to outlaw the glorification of terrorist attacks and intended "to honour it".

Many peers felt the new law was too vague and would curb freedom of speech.

'Easily understood'

It was also opposed by Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs.

Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland of Asthal urged peers to back the government, saying the glorification offence was easily understood by "the ordinary man in the street".

Conservative spokesman Lord Kingsland asked Tory backbenchers to abstain this time because otherwise the government would use the Parliament Act to push through the Terrorism Bill, which would cause a nine month delay.

He said Mr Clarke had given an undertaking to "reconsider all the measures on terrorism" that were already on the statute book and to replace them.

This would give peers the chance to look at a range of issues "that have given us deep discomfort in the course of this bill".

Will become law

Lib Dem Lord Goodhart said including the word "glorification" would inhibit genuine debate and cause "significant trouble" in the future.

But peers voted against a Lib Dem amendment to the bill omitting any reference to glorification by 172 votes to 60, majority 112. The bill will now become law.

The prime minister had said the measure would allow action to be taken against people with placards glorifying the 7 July bombers - which were seen in London during protests against cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

He said the last Commons vote in favour of the new offence had sent a "signal of strength" on fighting terror and he made it clear he expected peers to respect that message.

Rocky ride

Critics say existing laws - and plans for a new offence to prevent indirect encouragement of terrorism - mean the glorification offence is not needed.

The Terrorism Bill was introduced after July's bomb attacks in London.

It has suffered a rocky ride in Parliament, with MPs voting down plans to allow police to hold suspects for up to 90 days without charge.

Former Iraqi minister refutes NBC report he told CIA about WMD

AFX | March 23 2006

Naji Sabri Hadithi, Iraq's foreign minister under Saddam Hussein, denied a report on US TV channel NBC that he provided the CIA with information about the deposed regime's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

'The information carried by the American channel NBC are lies, totally fabricated and unfounded,' Sabri Hadithi told Agence France-Presse in a telephone interview, in his first public remarks since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

'After the lies about the weapons of mass destruction which do not exist and the alleged links with Al-Qaeda, it seems that this new lie is aimed at giving a new fake pretext to justify the crime of the century: the invasion of Iraq.'

NBC reported on Monday that Sabri Hadithi spied for the CIA and traded information on Saddam's alleged weapons programme in return for a 100,000 usd payment, in a French-sponsored New York City hotel room meeting.

But Sabri Hadith described the report as a 'desperate attempt to undermine the reputation of nationalistic Iraqi leaders who opposed, with honour and courage, the Anglo-American-Zionist scheme to invade Iraq.'

He said the NBC report follows 'the failure of attempts (by the US administration) over the years to convince (Iraqi) civilian or military officials ... to betray their country.'

Sabri Hadithi accused NBC of having 'published the lies of the American administration to deceive the American people in a bid to promote the colonialist occupation of Iraq.'

'A few weeks ago, the American channel asked me, in a way that resembled blackmail, for an interview. I apologised, said I couldn't and refused to receive their correspondent,' Sabri Hadithi said.

He said he would be in touch with his lawyers in order to sue NBC.

According to the NBC report, Sabri Hadithi told a CIA middleman that Saddam possessed chemical weapons and wanted a nuclear bomb but needed much more time to build one than the CIA estimate of several months to a year.

He also denied Saddam had any biological weapons.

Straw to demand release of 'MI5 man' in Guantanamo after U-turn

Robert Verkaik / London Independent | March 23 2006

In a foreign policy U-turn, Jack Straw has agreed to intervene in the case of a British resident who has been held in Guantanamo Bay for the past three years.

The concession emerged during a court hearing yesterday after lawyers had alleged that the Iraqi-born businessman, who has lived in Britain since 1985, was an MI5 informer.

Until yesterday Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, had said that the British government would not make any representations on behalf of American prisoners who were not British citizens.

The Government maintains that - as foreign nationals - Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna and Omar Deghayes have no legal right to the assistance they seek.

But the judges heard yesterday that the Foreign Office had conceded that representations would be made to the US authorities for the release of Mr al-Rawi because of the particular circumstances of his case.

His lawyers said afterwards that the decision to intervene was only an expedient way of avoiding the publication of sensitive information about MI5's relationship with Mr al-Rawi.

Bisher al-Rawi, 37, and his Jordanian business partner Mr el-Banna, who was granted refugee status in 2000, were detained three years ago in Gambia.

According to statements before the court, they were alleged to have been associated with al-Qa'ida through a connection with the radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada.

Mr al-Rawi, who has a wife and five children living in the UK, has always maintained he had contact with Abu Qatada that was "expressly approved and encouraged by British intelligence", to whom he supplied information about the cleric.

He said representatives of security services had assured him that, should he run into trouble, they would intervene and assist him.
Yesterday, Timothy Otty, appearing for the detainees, told the High Court he would not be alleging that the British Government was "knowingly complicit" in the arrest and the detention of the two men. But, he said, documents attached to a statement made by a security service official, referred to as "witness A", established there had been "communications" between the British and US security services, relating to the two men prior to their arrest .

Mr Otty said: "Viewed objectively, and given the nature of these communications, it was foreseeable detention would occur. We will certainly be contending there has been real injustice and there is a causal link on the part of those acting for the UK in that injustice."

Reprieve, the human rights group that has acted for Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna in the US courts, believes the implication of yesterday's decision is clear.

Zachary Katznelson, senior counsel at Reprieve, said: "It's high time that the British government recognised their responsibilities to Bisher al-Rawi. He's always maintained, and the Government has never denied, that he was helping MI5 by acting as a go-between with Abu Qatada.

"That's his only connection and that is why he was detained - because he chose to help British intelligence."

The judges were told yesterday that there is now "compelling evidence" that the three British residents have been "severely tortured and suffered inhuman and degrading treatment."

The men also remained exposed to a "real risk" of further ill treatment at the detention facility in Cuba.

Now that Mr al-Rawi was likely to have a release request made on his behalf, it did not seem too much to ask, against that background, that all three British residents at Guantanamo Bay should receive assistance from the Foreign Office, argued Mr Otty yesterday.

The hearing continues.

Home Office has details of 35,000 Ulster people's DNA

Michael McHugh / Belfast Telegraph | March 23 2006

Fears over Big Brother-style government resurfaced today after it emerged that DNA samples from thousands of people in Northern Ireland are held on a central database.

Concerns were expressed by political representatives and civil liberties groups following revelations that details of approximately 35,500 people in Northern Ireland are held on a UK-wide DNA database.

The figure was disclosed following a Freedom of Information request by the Belfast Telegraph but officials from the Home Office, who administer the database, said they could not provide any breakdown of how many of those people had been convicted of an offence.

The news that one in every 50 people in Northern Ireland have entries on the system has split those concerned about use of the information from those who focus on the crime-solving benefits of DNA.

Sinn Fein Newry and Armagh Assemblyman Davy Hyland said questions had to be asked about which official agencies had access to the data.

"This seems to be a very large number of people to be on the files and I would have concerns from a civil liberties point of view that people who have not been convicted of anything are on this database," he said.

"People will say that if they have nothing to hide then why be worried about it but it is a different matter when people who have not been convicted of anything have their DNA recorded.

"It smacks a bit of Big Brother and if it could be utilised in some way in the future for a political reason then I would be concerned."

Mr Hyland's warning follow an early day motion in Westminster which noted with concern that 40% of the black population had details entered on the database as opposed to 9% of white people.

DUP Policing Board representative Sammy Wilson said: "I have some sympathy with the police having an extensive database to work from. I just think that as criminals become more sophisticated then the police need to have the means to combat them," he said.

"I can understand why identity cards would be a bit sensitive because of the amount of personal information which they hold but DNA is unique to yourself and I would not be as worried about the abuse of it."

Maggie Beirne, director of the Committee for the Administration of Justice, said she wanted to know who had access to the database and whose details were kept on the file.

"I think that if some of these people have never been arrested for anything, then their details should not be held," she said.

Sheen: What 9/11 Hijackers?

New York Post | March 23 2006

CHARLIE Sheen has joined the 9/11 gone-bonkers brigade. The "Two and a Half Men" star gave a bizarre interview on GGN Radio Network's conspiracy-minded "The Alex Jones Show," in which he suggested that the federal government was covering up what "really" happened.

"It seems to me like 19 amateurs with boxcutters taking over four commercial airliners and hitting 75 percent of their targets, that feels like a conspiracy theory. It raises a lot of questions," Sheen said.

"A couple of years ago, it was severely unpopular to talk about any of this. It feels like from the people I talk to, and the research I've done and around my circles, it feels like the worm is turning." Sheen said the collapse of the Twin Towers looked like a "controlled demolition."

The out-there actor also expressed his disbelief over how one of the planes hit the Pentagon. "Just show us how this particular plane pulled off these maneuvers . . . It is up to us to reveal the truth. It is up to us because we owe it to the families, we owe it to the victims, we owe it to everyone's life who was drastically altered, horrifically, that day and forever. We owe it to them to uncover what happened."

Charlie Sheen doesn’t buy 9/11 spin

Boston Herald | March 23 2006

Charlie Sheen, following in the footsteps of his politically outspoken father, Martin Sheen, has joined the chorus of conspiracy theorists who don’t believe the official version of events surrounding 9/11.

The estranged husband of Denise Richards, who is better known for his affinity for prostitutes and gambling than his Homeland Security credentials, told the GCN Radio Network he doesn’t buy the government’s explanation that “19 amateurs with box cutters (took) over four commercial airliners and (hit) 75 percent of their targets.”

The “Two and a Half Men” star, who was shooting his former sitcom “Spin City” the morning the World Trade Center towers fell, said he was immediately suspicious about the official reason given for the buildings’ collapse. After watching in horror as the South Tower was hit, he said to his brother, “call me insane, but did it sorta look like those buildings came down in a controlled demolition?”

Sheen pointed out that eyewitnesses recounted hearing what sounded like bombs and explosions coming from the basement levels of the buildings and discounted the theory that the damage to the towers’ lobbies was the result of fireballs traveling 110 feet down elevator shafts.

The father of two also questioned whether a plane actually hit the Pentagon and how President George Bush was able to see the first plane hit the north tower, when no live footage of that incident was carried.

“I guess one of the perks of being president is that you get access to TV channels that don’t exist in the known universe,” the actor-turned-pseudo-intellect quipped.

“It is up to us to reveal the truth,” Sheen asserted. “We owe it to everybody’s life who was drastically altered, horrifically that day and forever. We owe it to them to uncover what happened.”

Excuse us if we don’t exactly feel that Charlie’s the man for that job!

What’s Become of Americans?

Paul Craig Roberts | March 23 2006

Imagine knocking on America’s door and being told, "Americans don’t live here any longer. They have gone away."

But isn’t that what we are hearing, that Americans have gone away? Alan Shore told us so on ABC’s Boston Legal on March 14:

When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out not to be true, I expected the American people to rise up. They didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to régimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorist suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.

And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidently, we haven't.

In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people even seem to notice. . . .

The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest. Stop for a second and try to fathom that. At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you’re wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.

This! In the United States of America.

Readers tell me that Americans don’t live here any more. They ask what responsible American citizenry would put up with the trashing of the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers, with wars based on deception, and with pathological liars in control of their government? One reader recently wrote that he believes that "no element of the U.S. government has been left untainted" by the lies and manipulations that have driven away accountability. So-called leaders, he wrote, "talk a great story of American pride and patriotism," but in their hands patriotism is merely a device for "cynical manipulation and fraud."

The Bush regime acknowledges that 30,000 Iraqi civilians, largely women and children, have been killed as a result of Bush’s invasion. Others who have looked at civilian casualties with greater attention have come up with numbers three to six times as large. The Johns Hopkins study accounted for 98,000 civilian deaths. Andrew Cockburn, using more sophisticated statistical analysis, concluded that 180,000 Iraqis died as a result of Bush’s invasion. The former prime minister Iyad Allawi says that Iraqi sectarian violence alone is claiming 50–60 deaths per day, or 18,000–22,000 annually, a figure that could quickly worsen.

Some were killed by “smart bombs” that weren’t very smart and dropped on hospitals, schools, and weddings. Others were mistaken for resistance fighters and killed. Still others were killed by spooked, trigger-happy U.S. troops. And many died due to the breakdown of the Iraqi health system.

Now comes a report in the online edition of Time magazine that U.S. Marines went on a rampage in the village of Haditha and deliberately slaughtered 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes. The Iraqis were still in their bed clothes, and 10 of the 15 were women and children.

The Marines turned in a false report that the civilians were killed by an insurgent bomb. But the evidence of wanton carnage was too powerful. Pressed by Time’s collection of evidence, U.S. military officials in Baghdad opened an investigation. Time reports that "according to military officials, the inquiry acknowledged that, contrary to the military’s initial report, the 15 civilians killed on Nov. 19 died at the hands of the Marines, not the insurgents. The military announced last week that the matter has been handed over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which will conduct a criminal investigation."

If this story is true, under Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush’s leadership, proud and honorable U.S. Marines have degenerated into the Waffen SS. Those of us raised on John Wayne war movies find this very hard to take.

A fish rots from the head. Clearly, deception in the Oval Office is corrupting the U.S. military. One reader reported that on March 19 his local PBS station aired a program which discussed the deaths of two young American soldiers in friendly fire incidents similar to Pat Tillman’s death. In each case, he reports, "elements within the military falsified reports and attempted to shift blame to either enemy combatants or allied (Polish) forces."

The neocons have yet to tell us the real reason for their assault on Iraq, which has so far produced 20,000 dead, maimed, and wounded U.S. soldiers, between 30,000 and 180,000 (and rising) dead Iraqis, and demoralized U.S. Marines to the point that they commit atrocities on women and children.

Would real Americans accept these blows for the sake of an undeclared agenda? Perhaps it is true that Americans don’t live here any longer.

Source: http://www.myspace.com/powerfan

Pulled Over In Kansas Get Ready to Show Your License, Registration and Fingerprints

2006-03-23T01:24:00.000-08:00

BENITA Y. WILLIAMS / The Kansas City Star | March 23 2006

If you are stopped by police in Kansas, don’t be surprised if the officer pulls out a little black box and takes your fingerprints.

The gadget allows officers to identify people by fingerprints without hauling them to the police station.

Over the next year the Kansas Bureau of Investigation will test 60 of the devices with law enforcement agencies around the state. State officials said similar tests are being planned for New York, Milwaukee and Hawaii.

“This is definitely new,” said Gary Page, Overland Park Police Department crime lab. “It’s been talked about, but as far as I know they are not in use anywhere in the metro.”

The tests in Kansas are part of a bigger $3.6 million upgrade to the KBI’s statewide fingerprint database, unveiled Tuesday by the KBI and Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline.

¦ The system:

Called the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System, it is a statewide database of more than 10 million fingerprints taken from people arrested in Kansas. The Missouri Highway Patrol maintains a similar database. Both systems link to the FBI fingerprint database.

¦ How it works:

In Kansas, 54 law enforcement agencies have traded the ink-and-paper fingerprinting method for biometric imaging, which electronically scans a digital image of the print. Sixty Missouri agencies use biometric scanning. Police also can scan the fingers of corpses and people they arrest to match them against prints in the system. Results are obtained in seconds instead of hours. The inked cards still used by some smaller departments are also scanned into the statewide systems.

¦ Why upgrade?

Kansas could no longer locate replacement parts or anyone to service the old system, which was launched in 1990 and upgraded in 1998. The first phase was funded with a $752,000 homeland security grant. The KBI is applying for similar grants to pay the balance. All upgrades should be completed by January 2007.

¦ The portable devices:

Police place a person’s two index fingers on a screen. Wireless technology sends the image to the database for comparison. Prints scanned in the field will not be stored.

¦ What else is new:

The system will analyze palm prints, which were stored but could not be read before. The system also will store mug shots and pictures of scars, tattoos and other identifying marks.

Source: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/230306_b_fingerprints.htm

North Korean Defector Says Disabled Newborns Are Killed

2006-03-23T01:20:00.000-08:00

Jack Kim / Reuters | March 22 2006

North Korea has no people with physical disabilities because they are killed almost as soon as they are born, a physician who defected from the communist state said on Wednesday.

Ri Kwang-chol, who fled to the South last year, told a forum of rights activists that the practice of killing newborns was widespread but denied he himself took part in it.

"There are no people with physical defects in North Korea," Ri told members of the New Right Union, which groups local activists and North Korean refugees.

He said babies born with physical disabilities were killed in infancy in hospitals or in homes and were quickly buried.

The practice is encouraged by the state, Ri said, as a way of purifying the masses and eliminating people who might be considered "different."

The group urged the South Korean government to change course away from "silent diplomacy" and immediately begin taking action to pressure the North to improve its human rights record.

The South Korean government has refused to join international condemnation of human rights abuses in the North out of concern that such a move could rattle ties with Pyongyang, which considers any criticism of its human rights as deeply offensive.

"The government should stop trying to avoid upsetting Kim Jong-il," said another defector, Kim Young-sun, 67, referring to the North Korean leader. "It should try to upset Kim Jong-il," she said, adding it would be the best way to change the North.

Kim Young-sun is a survivor of the North's Yodok prison camp, notorious for its forced labor and life-sentences for people charged with conspiring against the Kim Jong-il leadership.

Mun Hyon-ok said women from her hometown in the northern region of North Korea bordering China were taken by a ring of human traffickers and probably ended up in China.

"And there are women who are selling themselves for a handful of rice," she told the forum.

North Korea has called itself a people's paradise and said criticism of its human rights was motivated by a goal of toppling the leadership of Kim Jong-il.

South Korea has come under fire from human rights groups and some countries for abstaining in votes on U.N. measures to condemn the North's human rights record.

Seoul has also avoided the subject in bilateral talks with the North. South Korean officials have said the best way to improve the situation is through quiet diplomacy and encouraging the North to improve its food situation and open up to the international community.

Source: http://www.infowars.com/articles/life/nk_defector_says_disabled_newborns_killed.htm

Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq

2006-03-23T01:17:00.000-08:00

Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools
The Mission Was Indeed Accomplished

Greg Palast / London Guardian | March 22 2006

Get off it. All the carping, belly-aching and complaining about George Bush's incompetence in Iraq, from both the Left and now the Right, is just dead wrong.

On the third anniversary of the tanks rolling over Iraq's border, most of the 59 million Homer Simpsons who voted for Bush are beginning to doubt if his mission was accomplished.

But don't kid yourself -- Bush and his co-conspirator, Dick Cheney, accomplished exactly what they set out to do. In case you've forgotten what their real mission was, let me remind you of White House spokesman Ari Fleisher's original announcement, three years ago, launching of what he called,

"Operation
Iraqi
Liberation."

O.I.L. How droll of them, how cute. Then, Karl Rove made the giggling boys in the White House change it to "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the 101st Airborne wasn't sent to Basra to get its hands on Iraq's OIF.

"It's about oil," Robert Ebel told me. Who is Ebel? Formerly the CIA's top oil analyst, he was sent by the Pentagon, about a month before the invasion, to a secret confab in London with Saddam's former oil minister to finalize the plans for "liberating" Iraq's oil industry. In London, Bush's emissary Ebel also instructed Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, the man the Pentagon would choose as post-OIF oil minister for Iraq, on the correct method of disposing Iraq's crude.

And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq's oil? The answer will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger. The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq's oil secretly drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how, doesn't matter. The key thing is what's inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will "enhance its relationship with OPEC."

Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude.

Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on Iraq's oil production -- limiting Iraq's oil pumping to the tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.

There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil -- not to get MORE of Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing TOO MUCH of it.
You must keep in mind who paid for George's ranch and Dick's bunker: Big Oil. And Big Oil -- and their buck-buddies, the Saudis -- don't make money from pumping more oil, but from pumping LESS of it. The lower the supply, the higher the price.

It's Economics 101. The oil industry is run by a cartel, OPEC, and what economists call an "oligopoly" -- a tiny handful of operators who make more money when there's less oil, not more of it. So, every time the "insurgents" blow up a pipeline in Basra, every time Mad Mahmoud in Tehran threatens to cut supply, the price of oil leaps. And Dick and George just LOVE it.

Dick and George didn't want more oil from Iraq, they wanted less. I know some of you, no matter what I write, insist that our President and his Veep are on the hunt for more crude so you can cheaply fill your family Hummer; that somehow, these two oil-patch babies are concerned that the price of gas in the USA is bumping up to $3 a gallon.

No so, gentle souls. Three bucks a gallon in the States (and a quid a litre in Britain) means colossal profits for Big Oil, and that makes Dick's ticker go pitty-pat with joy. The top oily-gopolists, the five largest oil companies, pulled in $113 billion in profit in 2005 -- compared to a piddly $34 billion in 2002 before Operation Iraqi Liberation. In other words, it's been a good war for Big Oil.

As per Plan Bush, Bahr Al-Ulum became Iraq's occupation oil minister; the conquered nation "enhanced its relationship with OPEC;" and the price of oil, from Clinton peace-time to Bush war-time, shot up 317%.

In other words, on the third anniversary of invasion, we can say the attack and occupation is, indeed, a Mission Accomplished. However, it wasn't America's mission, nor the Iraqis'. It was a Mission Accomplished for OPEC and Big Oil.

Source: http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/bush_didnt_bungle_iraq_you_fools.html

NYC Crime Fight To Get More Eyes

2006-03-23T01:15:00.000-08:00

DAILY NEWS | March 21st, 2006
BY ALISON GENDAR and MICHAEL SAUL

New Yorkers, get ready for your closeup.

The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city - and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a "ring of steel" that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday.

The police cameras will constantly keep watch over neighborhoods plagued by crime and monitor potential terror targets as the city moves to put another 1,200 cops on the street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

The exact locations of the cameras were not revealed, but the electronic eyes will be set up in 253 spots, including many Operation Impact zones - high-crime areas already targeted by teams of cops.

"They'll serve to reinforce safety already stabilized by Operation Impact, and serve as a high-visibility deterrent and investigative tool in other outdoor, public places," Kelly said.

Recording high-quality images, the electronic sentinels will help the city's Finest track down criminals and terrorists as well as provide valuable evidence to convict them.

Most of the cameras will be clearly marked so crooks know that their every move is being recorded by the cops.

The NYPD is also testing audio sensors that would allow the cameras to point in the direction of gunshots, sources said. The cameras will be put up in Brooklyn first before spreading to other boroughs.

City Hall is paying for the cameras using $9.1million in homeland security funds.

The NYPD also has applied for $81.5 million in federal aid to install surveillance cameras, computerized license plate readers and vehicle barriers around lower Manhattan, Kelly said.

The security measures would be similar to London's "ring of steel," which gained worldwide recognition after that city's terror attacks of last July, when police cameras provided images of the suspected bombers.

The NYPD has no comprehensive system to monitor the Financial District - considered the nation's No. 1 terror target - and a team of five NYPD experts visited London in September to get a look at the "ring of steel."

Aboveground, London has cameras posted at 16 entry points and 12 exits from the City of London, an enclave that includes that city's financial district and landmarks such as St. Paul's Cathedral.

The cameras capture images of license plates and drivers' faces. Officials then run the license plates through a database of stolen cars and terrorism suspects. Last year, the system read 37 million cars and got 91,000 hits, leading to 550 arrests.

The NYPD will find out by the end of May whether it will receive the federal money. New York officials have also discussed the possibility of creating a similar surveillance system for midtown Manhattan.

Law enforcement and transportation agencies already have about 1,000 cameras in the subways, with 2,100 scheduled to be in place by 2008. An additional 3,100 cameras are monitoring city housing projects.

Thousands of other cameras at private buildings and apartment towers also train lenses on New Yorkers and often provide valuable clues to cops.

But don't expect the NYPD to install its cameras without battling the New York Civil Liberties Union. The watchdog group's associate legal director, Chris Dunn, questioned the plan.

"Commissioner Kelly may be ready to launch us all into a surveillance society, but we believe cameras are not a cure-all for crime and terrorism," Dunn said. "It is far from clear that cameras deter crime."

Source: http://www.infowars.com/articles/bb/cameras_nyc_gets_more_eyes.htm

A whole load of News

2006-03-23T00:57:00.000-08:00

Hey! It's been awhile since I've updated, I'm really sorry! Here are some really important articles. Check them out and spread it around!

Bush makes false claim about Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda

Olbermann: "Who does the President think he's F'n kidding?"

Crooks and Liars | March 21 2006

I know it's hard to believe Mr. President, but they have these things know that actually record what you say and are able to play back what they record. Even after a long period of time. Keith Olbermann and Countdown supply the evidence.

Today in his speech in Cleveland:

Bush: "First-just if I might correct a misperception, I don't think we ever said, at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September 11th and Saddam Hussein."

In days gone by-SOTU-three years ago:

Bush: "Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda."

Now-anyone listening and watching his speech back then would make that connection easily enough since al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11-don't you think? Keith analyzes it very nicely.

Olbermann: "Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda in the same sentence separated by seven words. Sept. 11th and Saddam Hussein -two sentences later, separated by six words. In a moment Craig Crawford joins me to discuss the fundamental remaining question. Who does the President think he's F'n kidding?

VeriChip Corporation Expands Infrastructure Rollout of VeriMed Patient Identification System - 172 New Physicians Elect to Offer VeriMed ID System to Patients

VeriChip Corporation, a subsidiary of Applied Digital, announced that 172 new physicians registered to provide the VeriMed Patient Identification System to select patients at the recently completed American Medical Directors Association (AMDA) 2006 Annual Symposium held March 16-19 in Dallas. Overall, since the FDA granted clearance of VeriChip for medical applications, 232 doctors have elected to provide the System. 80 hospitals and medical facilities nationwide previously agreed to adopt the VeriMed Patient Identification System for patient identification.

"We believe the strong acceptance that the VeriMed Patient Identification System achieved at this key industry conference represents a significant step in developing widespread acceptance of VeriChip," said VeriChip Corporation Chief Executive Officer Kevin McLaughlin. "It is essential for physicians, who will be implementing the implantation process, to recognize the important role that the VeriChip can play in providing immediate access to medical records in critical care situations. Moreover, while some early adopters learn of VeriMed on their own, we expect many patients to first learn of VeriMed from their physicians. Last year, we signed up many new hospitals at the American College of Emergency Physicians' Scientific Assembly. We will continue to target leading healthcare industry events as a cost-effective way to rapidly expand adoption of the VeriMed Patient Identification System."

VeriMed is the first and only FDA-cleared patient identification system using implantable RFID technology, consisting of a handheld reader, a microchip approximately the size of a grain of rice (containing a unique 16-digit ID number), and a secure, patient database. Using the handheld reader, healthcare professionals are able to securely obtain a patient's unique ID contained in the microchip in their right arm. They then look up the ID in a patient-designated, secure healthcare information database - either through the facility's electronic medical record system or through VeriChip's secure Web site. For the thousands of patients presenting in emergency departments each day either unconscious or unable to communicate for themselves due to medical conditions, VeriMed offers a secure, rapid and accurate solution to accessing their medical information.

About VeriChip Corporation

VeriChip Corporation, headquartered in Delray Beach, Florida, develops, markets and sells radio frequency identification, or RFID, systems used to identify, locate and protect people and assets. VeriChip's goal is to become the leading provider of RFID systems for people in the healthcare industry. VeriChip sells passive RFID systems for identification purposes and active RFID system for local-area location and identification purposes. VeriChip recently began to market its VeriMed patient identification system which is used to rapidly and accurately identify people who arrive in an emergency room and are unable to communicate. VeriChip's VeriMed patient identification system uses the first human-implantable passive RFID microchip, the implantable VeriChip, cleared for medical use in October 2004 by the United States Food and Drug Administration.

About Applied Digital - "The Power of Identification Technology"

Applied Digital develops innovative identification and security products for consumer, commercial, and government sectors worldwide. The Company's unique and often proprietary products provide identification and security systems for people, animals, the food supply, government/military arena, and commercial assets. Included in this diversified product line are RFID applications, end-to-end food safety systems, GPS/Satellite communications, and telecomm and security infrastructure, positioning Applied Digital as the leader in identification technology. Applied Digital is the owner of a majority position in Digital Angel Corporation.

Actor Charlie Sheen Questions Official 9/11 Story

Calls for truly independent investigation, joins growing ranks of prominent credible whistleblowers

Alex Jones & Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | March 20 2006

Actor Charlie Sheen has joined a growing army of other highly credible public figures in questioning the official story of 9/11 and calling for a new independent investigation of the attack and the circumstances surrounding it.

Over the past two years, scores of highly regarded individuals have gone public to express their serious doubts about 9/11. These include former presidential advisor and CIA analyst Ray McGovern, the father of Reaganomics and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Paul Craig Roberts, BYU physics Professor Steven Jones, former German defense minister Andreas von Buelow, former MI5 officer David Shayler, former Blair cabinet member Michael Meacher, former Chief Economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds and many more.

Speaking to The Alex Jones Show on the GCN Radio Network, the star of current hit comedy show Two and a Half Men and dozens of movies including Platoon and Young Guns, Sheen elaborated on why he had problems believing the government's version of events.

Sheen agreed that the biggest conspiracy theory was put out by the government itself and prefaced his argument by quoting Theodore Roosevelt in stating, "That we are to stand by the President right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

"We're not the conspiracy theorists on this particular issue," said Sheen.

"It seems to me like 19 amateurs with box cutters taking over four commercial airliners and hitting 75% of their targets, that feels like a conspiracy theory. It raises a lot of questions."

Sheen described the climate of acceptance for serious discussion about 9/11 as being far more fertile than it was a couple of years ago.

"It feels like from the people I talk to in and around my circles, it seems like the worm is turning."

Suspicious collapse of buildings

Sheen described his immediate skepticism regarding the official reason for the collapse of the twin towers and building 7 on the day of 9/11.

"I was up early and we were gonna do a pre-shoot on Spin City, the show I used to do, I was watching the news and the north tower was burning. I saw the south tower hit live, that famous wide shot where it disappears behind the building and then we see the tremendous fireball."

"There was a feeling, it just didn't look any commercial jetliner I've flown on any time in my life and then when the buildings came down later on that day I said to my brother 'call me insane, but did it sorta look like those buildings came down in a controlled demolition'?"

Sheen said that most people's gut instinct, that the buildings had been deliberately imploded, was washed away by the incessant flood of the official version of events from day one.

Sheen questioned the plausibility of a fireballs traveling 110 feet down an elevator shaft and causing damage to the lobbies of the towers as seen in video footage, especially when contrasted with eyewitness accounts of bombs and explosions in the basement levels of the buildings.

Regarding building 7, which wasn't hit by a plane, Sheen highlighted the use of the term "pull," a demolition industry term for pulling the outer walls of the building towards the center in an implosion, as was used by Larry Silverstein in a September 2002 PBS documentary when he said that the decision to "pull" building 7 was made before its collapse. This technique ensures the building collapses in its own footprint and can clearly be seen during the collapse of building 7 with the classic 'crimp' being visible.

The highly suspicious collapse of building 7 and the twin towers has previously been put under the spotlight by physics Professor Steven Jones and Kevin Ryan of Underwriters Laboratories, the company that certified the steel components used in the construction of the World Trade Center towers.

"The term 'pull' is as common to the demolition world as 'action and 'cut' are to the movie world," said Sheen.

Sheen referenced firefighters in the buildings who were eyewitnesses to demolition style implosions and bombs.

"This is not you or I watching the videos and speculating on what we saw, these are gentlemen inside the buildings at the very point of collapse."

"If there's a problem with building 7 then there's a problem with the whole thing," said Sheen.

Bush's behavior on 9/11

Sheen then questioned President Bush's actions on 9/11 and his location at the Booker Elementary School in Florida. Once Andy Card had whispered to Bush that America was under attack why didn't the secret service immediately whisk Bush away to a secret location?

By remaining at a location where it was publicly known the President would be before 9/11, he was not only putting his own life in danger, but the lives of hundreds of schoolchildren. That is unless the government knew for sure what the targets were beforehand and that President Bush wasn't one of them.

"It seems to me that upon the revelation of that news that the secret service would grab the President as if he was on fire and remove him from that room," said Sheen.

The question of how Bush saw the first plane hit the north tower, when no live footage of that incident was carried, an assertion that Bush repeated twice, was also put under the spotlight.

"I guess one of the perks of being President is that you get access to TV channels that don't exist in the known universe," said Sheen.

"It might lead you to believe that he'd seen similar images in some type of rehearsal as it were, I don't know."

The Pentagon incident

Sheen outlined his disbelief that the official story of what happened at the Pentagon matched the physical evidence.

"Show us this incredible maneuvering, just show it to us. Just show us how this particular plane pulled off these maneuvers. 270 degree turn at 500 miles and hour descending 7,000 feet in two and a half minutes, skimming across treetops the last 500 meters."

We have not been able to confirm that a large commercial airliner hit the Pentagon because the government has seized and refused to release any footage that would show the impact.

"I understand in the interest of national security that maybe not release the Pentagon cameras but what about the Sheraton, what about the gas station, what about the Department of Transportation freeway cam? What about all these shots that had this thing perfectly documented? Instead they put out five frames that they claim not to have authorized, it's really suspicious," said Sheen.

Sheen also questioned how the plane basically disappeared into the Pentagon with next to no wreckage and no indication of what happened to the wing sections.

Concerning how the Bush administration had finalized Afghanistan war plans two days before 9/11 with the massing of 44,000 US troops and 18,000 British troops in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and in addition the call for "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor," as outlined in the PNAC documents, Sheen stated, "you don't really put those strategies together overnight do you for a major invasion? Those are really well calculated and really well planned."

"Coincidence? We think not," said Sheen and he called the PNAC quotes "emblematic of the arrogance of this administration."

A real investigation

Sheen joined others in calling for a revised and truly independent investigation of 9/11.

Sheen said that "September 11 wasn't the Zapruder film, it was the Zapruder film festival," and that the inquiry had to be, "headed, if this is possible, by some neutral investigative committee. What if we used retired political foreign nationals? What if we used experts that don't have any ties whatsoever to this administration?"

"It is up to us to reveal the truth. It is up to us because we owe it to the families, we owe it to the victims. We owe it to everybody's life who was drastically altered, horrifically that day and forever. We owe it to them to uncover what happened."

Charlie Sheen joins the rest of his great family and notably his father Martin Sheen, who has lambasted for opposing the Iraq war before it had begun yet has now been proven right in triplicate, in using his prominent public platform to stand for truth and justice and we applaud and salute his brave efforts, remembering Mark Twain's quote.

"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."

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Please feel free to contact us about this story at mediaonly@infowars.com

Listen to the entire Charlie Sheen interview right now for free by clicking here.

Huge Reaction To Sheen 9/11 Story

Linked on Drudge, later removed

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | March 21 2006

Yesterday's Charlie Sheen story, in which the actor went public with his grave suspicions about the official story of 9/11, received widespread interest across the Internet and was even linked on the Drudge Report for a time, a news website that gets more traffic than the New York Times.

Our observations will now center around the question of if any mainstream outlets will pick up the story or seek to interview Mr. Sheen regarding his comments. The story is obviously big enough to be of interest to a wide readership but its context may cause establishment controlled media to shy away in journalistic cowardice.

Prominent alternative website Rense.com carried the story as did many others but who will be the first aside from Drudge to give the issue mainstream spotlight?

The story appeared on Drudge shortly after 6pm CST and our servers began receiving hits from millions of readers. A link from Drudge regularly overloads even medium sized mainstream websites and they go offline for hours. Despite a little slowdown, we managed to ride the wave fairly comfortably until Drudge mysteriously killed the link after 10pm CST.

We had even replaced our usual format page with a bare bones printer-friendly style version to ensure maximum speed and delivery of the page, so it is unlikely Drudge (pictured below) removed the link because of bottlenecked traffic. We speculated that another webmaster had posted the link and Drudge personally removed it upon seeing it.

Whatever the reason for the removal, the story still received huge traction and we expect it to again garner interest across the Internet today.

The mainstream media pour over stories about Mr. Sheen's personal life whether real or manufactured yet will they remain silent when Sheen actually discusses something serious?

Carlos Santana is all over the news today for criticizing George Bush and the Iraq war yet Charlie Sheen has gone much further, if the media ignores this story it is proof positive of a cover-up.

In many ways a Hollywood celebrity stepping forward and making these comments receives more attention than a former government official or physics professor because the information is wrapped in a package that is instantly recognizable to a wide audience.

The danger is that some are dangerously ill-informed, such as Madonna, who dismissed 9/11 as "ambiguous" yet focused all the attention on Hurricane Katrina and kept the argument firmly within a left-right paradigm prison.

Charlie Sheen on the other hand took the time to educate himself thoroughly on the real issues of 9/11 before going public with his doubts about the official story.

There are several very high profile actors and film producers who are well aware of the entire New World Order agenda and have directed their artistic talents into exposing that agenda through the guidance of popular culture.

This is a real movement and it is growing, unlike the Madonna's and their ilk, who are simply riding a wave which will wash away as rapidly as their mock ego-driven political opinions when a Democrat gets back in the White House.

Our hope is that Sheen's stance, which is by no means a rarity for him or his family who have been politically engaged for decades, will encourage other high profile celebrities to use their platform to educate America and the world on the serious issues that face us and the real perpetrators of global terrorism.

Please feel free to contact us about this story at mediaonly@infowars.com

Kissinger: ''America's global strategy benefits from the Indian participation in building a new world order."

Zee News | March 21 2006

The civilian nuclear agreement reached by the United States and India ''promises to make a seminal contribution to international peace and prosperity, '' according to former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

He has welcomed the agreement as ''an unprecedented level of cooperation and interdependence between the two powers''.

''In a period preoccupied with concerns over terrorism and the potential clash of civilisations, the emerging cooperation between the two great democracies, India and the us, introduces a positive and hopeful perspective,'' said Kissinger who served as Secretary of state to then President Richard Nixon, between 1973 and 1977.

''Too often America's India policy is justified as a way to contain China. But the reality has been that so far, India and America have found it in their interest to maintain a constructive relationshiop with China,'' Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post yesterday.

''America's global strategy benefits from the Indian participation in building a new world order. But India will not serve as America's foil with China, and will resent any attempts to use it in that role,'' he added.

Kissinger suggested that the scope of the nuclear cooperation should avoid the rhetoric and the reality of a nuclear arms race in which China could be tempted to support nuclear programmes in Iran and Pakistan as a counter-weight.

The goal should be an Asia that navigates between an unacceptable hegemony by any power and an arms race that replicates in Asia the tragedies of Europe, only with fiercer weapons and even vaster consequences, he added.

The US-Indo nuclear deal, reached by US President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gives energy-starved India access to long-denied civilian nuclear technology in return for placing a majority of its nuclear reactors under international safeguards.

Identity cards a 'present' to terrorists and criminals, spy heroine says

JAMES KIRKUP / Scotsman | March 21 2006

A NATIONAL identity card scheme will be a "present" to terrorists, criminal gangs and foreign spies, one of Britain's most respected former intelligence agents has told ministers.

The warning from Daphne Park, who served for 30 years as a senior controller for MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, came as the parliamentary power struggle over the identity cards bill dragged on.

The House of Lords once again defeated the government last night. Peers backed a joint Conservative and Liberal Democrat amendment that would prevent ministers making identity cards compulsory until at least 2011.

It is the fourth time the Lords have sent the bill back to the Commons in a parliamentary ping-pong game that could go on for months.

At issue is the "voluntary" nature of the proposed card. Labour ministers insist that the cards will be optional, but also want to create a rule meaning that anyone renewing a passport after 2008 must also buy an identity card.

Opponents argue that is "compulsion by stealth" and question Labour's mandate for the scheme. The Labour manifesto at last year's election promised the cards would be "voluntary at first".

Baroness Scotland, speaking for the government in the Lords, insisted that MPs have already voted for the document link and that should stand.

"The Commons did discuss this issue," she said. "This is not compulsion by stealth as has been suggested."

While ministers have hinted at using the Parliament Act to force the ID cards bill through the Lords, peers insist they will continue to resist.

The former MI6 agent will be a key part of that resistance.

Baroness Park, who was made a peer by Margaret Thatcher, passed a withering verdict on the proposed cards, ridiculing ministers' suggestions that the system will make people safer. In fact, she said, the complete opposite is true.

"The very creation of such an enormous national identity register will be a present to terrorists; it will be a splendid thing for them to disrupt and blow up," she said.

"It will also provide valuable information to organised crime and to the intelligence services of unfriendly countries. It will be accessible to all of these," she said.

The warning about the risk of foreign spying comes at a time when MI5, the domestic security service, has cut its counter-espionage budget, prompting concerns among MPs who oversee the UK intelligence services.

Baroness Park concluded: "I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe why anyone would voluntarily and enthusiastically come forward and say: 'Do let me join this dangerous club'."

Baroness Park is not the first former intelligence officer to question the value of a national ID card. Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, last year said she did not believe the cards would make Britain any safer from terrorist attack; they would quickly be copied, she said.

Whereas Dame Stella's background was in combating internal threats, especially the IRA, Baroness Park has extensive experience of foreign intelligence operations.

Now in her eighties, her career began during the Second World War, when she volunteered for service and was assigned to train Resistance fighters who were being parachuted into France in the run-up to D-Day.

When the war ended, she was posted to Berlin where she was ordered to locate and secure German military scientists before they fell into the hands of advancing Russian forces.

That work brought her to the attention of MI6, who made extensive use of her services using the Cold War.

Although she has repeatedly refused invitations to publish her memoirs, many of Baroness Park's exploits as a spy are in the public domain - she is something of a living legend in the British intelligence community.

Among her Cold War postings were extensive service in Moscow, running agents inside the Soviet regime. During the Vietnam war, she was a covert operative in Hanoi.

She is also known to have been in Congo during the turbulent 1960s, at one point smuggling a defecting official out of the country in the boot of her car.

BBC: Concerns over Military and Police merging

BBC / Matthew Davis | March 21 2006

The recent killing of an unarmed Virginia doctor has raised concerns about what some say is an explosion in the use of military-style police Swat teams in the United States.

Armed with assault rifles, stun grenades - even armoured personnel carriers - units once used only in highly volatile situations are increasingly being deployed on more routine police missions.

Dr Salvatore Culosi Jr had come out of his townhouse to meet an undercover policeman when he was shot through the chest by a Special Weapons and Tactics force.

It was about 2135 on a chilly January evening. The 37-year-old optometrist was unarmed, he had no history of violence and displayed no threatening behaviour.

But he had been under investigation for illegal gambling and in line with a local police policy on "organised crime" raids, the heavily armed team was there to serve a search warrant.

As officers approached with their weapons drawn, tragedy struck. A handgun was accidentally discharged, fatally wounding Dr Culosi.

Two months on, investigations into the incident are still continuing, a delay which Dr Culosi's family says is compounding the "horror and burden of it all".

Salvatore Culosi Sr, the dead man's father, told the BBC: "I never knew him to carry so much as a pocket knife so it bewilders me how a detective could spend three months investigating my son and not know he is a pussy cat.

"If anything comes out of this it must be that another family does not experience this pain and anguish for absolutely no reason.

"Policy needs to change so these kinds of accidents never occur again."

'Excessive force'

Peter Kraska, an expert on police militarisation from Eastern Kentucky University, says that in the 1980s there were about 3,000 Swat team deployments annually across the US, but says now there are at least 40,000 per year.

"I have no problem with using these paramilitary style squads to go after known violent, armed criminals, but it is an extreme tactic to use against other sorts of suspects," he said.

Mr Kraska believes there has been an explosion of units in smaller towns and cities, where training and operational standards may not be as high as large cities - a growth he attributes to "the hysteria" of the country's war on drugs.

"I get several calls a month from people asking about local incidents - wrong address raids, excessive use of force, wrongful shootings - this stuff is happening all the time," he adds.

Every wrongful death of a civilian, or criminal killing of a police officer, fuels the complex and emotive argument over the way the United States is policed.

Those who reject criticism of the use of Swat teams argue that the presence of the units actually prevents violence through the credible threat of overwhelming force.

John Gnagey, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, told the BBC: "What we find is that when Swat teams go out, shootings go down.

"We don't see it as escalating anything. We see it as reducing violence."

The NTOA rejects Mr Kraska's figures and says the actual number of deployments is far lower, but says there is a need for national training standards.

An NTOA study of 759 Swat team deployments across the US, found half were for warrant service and a third for incidents where suspects had barricaded themselves in a building - 50 were for hostage situations.

When criminology professor David Klinger looked at 12 years of data on Swat teams in 1998, he also found the most common reason for calling out teams was serving warrants, but that the units used deadly force during warrant service only 0.4% of the time.

Recruitment video

Last year the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) commissioned music video director JC Barros to make them a 10-minute film - To Protect and Serve - that would "get young men and women excited" about a career with the force.

More action film than recruitment video, it follows two LAPD officers who - in one day - capture a robbery suspect, are first on the scene when a gun-toting man takes a woman hostage, mediate a fight, and help to find a young kidnap victim.

Along the way they are supported by colleagues from bike patrol, K-9 dog teams, air support and, of course, the Swat team.

But Mr Kraska sees such initiatives as reflecting a changing culture of police work.

"These elite units are highly culturally appealing to certain sections of the police community. They like it, they enjoy it," he says.

"The chance to strap on a vest, grab a semi-automatic weapon and go out on a mission is for some people an exciting reason to join - even if policing as a profession can - and should - be boring for much of the time.

"The problem is that when you talk about the war on this and the war on that, and police officers see themselves as soldiers, then the civilian becomes the enemy."

Death Squads on the Prowl; Iraq Convulsed by Fear

PATRICK COCKBURN | March 21 2006

Iraq is a country convulsed by fear. It is at its worst in Baghdad. Sectarian killings are commonplace. In the three days after the bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra on February 22 , some 1,300 people, mostly Sunni, were picked up on the street or dragged from their cars and murdered. The dead bodies of four suspected suicide bombers were left dangling from a pylon in the Sadr City slum.

The scale of the violence is such that most of it is unreported. Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, said yesterday that scores were dying every day. "It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more," he said. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

Unseen by the outside world, silent populations are on the move, frightened people fleeing neighborhoods where their community is in a minority for safer districts.

There is also a growing reliance on militias because of fears that police patrols or checkpoints are in reality death squads hunting for victims.

Districts where Sunni and Shia lived together for decades if not centuries are being torn apart in a few days. In the al-Amel neighbourhood in west Baghdad, for instance, the two communities lived side by side until a few days ago, though Shias were in the majority. Then the Sunni started receiving envelopes pushed under their doors with a Kalashnikov bullet inside and a letter telling them to leave immediately or be killed. It added that they must take all of their goods which they could carry immediately and only return later to sell their houses.

The reaction was immediate. The Sunni in al-Amel started barricading their streets. Several Shia families, believed to belong to the Shia party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), were murdered later the same day the threatening letters were delivered.

"The local Sunni suspected those Shias of being behind the letters," said an informant. "Probably they called in the local resistance and asked them to kill the Sciri people."

One effect of the escalating sectarian warfare is to strengthen the Sunni insurgency as their own community desperately looks to its defenses.

It is not as if life was not already hard enough before the latest escalation in communal violence. Three years ago, most Iraqis were glad to see the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, even if they did not like the US occupation, because they wanted normal lives. They had been living in a state of war since 1980 when the Iraqi leader invaded Iran. They then had eight years of bloody conflict followed by the invasion of Kuwait, defeat by the US-led coalition, the Shia and Kurdish uprisings of 1991 and then 12 years of UN sanctions.

Instead of improving, life in Baghdad has become far more dangerous than it was under Saddam Hussein. Every facet of daily living is affected.

In the last few days, temperatures have started to soar in Iraq and people would normally be buying summer clothes. But in the shopping district of al-Mansur last week few people were on the streets. Many shops were closed because their owners are too frightened to leave their homes.

But even staying in your own house carries problems. In the torrid heat of the Iraqi summer people are dependent on air conditioning to make life tolerable. But Baghdad gets only three or four hours of electricity a day. Almost everybody has a generator, large or small, depending on what they can afford. But the price of petrol, still heavily subsidised by the government, tripled before Christmas. One friend called Mohammed complained: "Either I wait seven or eight hours in a queue to buy the fuel or I get it on the black market. But black market fuel means that I would have to spend $7-8 a day to run my generator and I simply can't afford that." Mohammed added that he had just spent 10 hours, 5 am until 3pm, queuing to buy a bottle of gas which he, like most Iraqis, use for cooking.

Iraqis have been compelled to find ways of going on living even in the most testing conditions but even their resolution is beginning to weaken.

Mohammed's brother had a job in a company selling air-conditioning units. Since this is the beginning of the summer on the Mesopotamian plain - one of the hottest places on earth - it should be a good business, but the brother has just lost his job. The company he worked for was owned by a Kurd. His life was threatened and he shut down the company before moving to Jordan with his family.

Iraqi political parties have now spent three months since the election on 15 December trying to form a government. But ask an Iraqi on the street what he wants from a new government and many reply: "What government? It never does anything for us." Supply of electricity, clean water and sewage disposal are all down from 2003. The only improvement is in electricity supply outside Baghdad but even this is sporadic. In Kurdistan, the only peaceful part of Iraq, electrical supply is currently only a few hours a day. Everywhere there are men beside the road selling black-market petrol smuggled in from Iran. Turkey has cut off supplies of refined fuel because it has not been paid.

All Iraq is suffering, but Baghdad and the central provinces are turning into a slaughter house. Normal life has long been impossible. The symbol of post-Saddam Iraq is the blast wall, giant grey concrete blocks placed end to end to create fortifications of medieval appearance. They have come to dominate Baghdad and most other Iraqi cities. They protect US positions, police and Iraqi army posts and all government buildings. They also strangle streets leading to traffic gridlock at notorious choke points.

Some Iraqis are living better than before 2003. Teachers and government officials are earning $200 a month where they used to earn $10.

There are also Kurds and Shia inhabiting provinces north and south that they wholly dominate. But elsewhere, Iraqis live lives of chromic insecurity.

In al-Khadra, a Sunni neighbourhood in west Baghdad, for instance, the insurgents are waging two wars at the same time, one against the Americans and the other against Shia militiamen, some of whom work for the Ministry of the Interior.

Last week, Sunni guerrillas attacked a car which they claimed was carrying CIA agents in a road tunnel and killed those inside. Two days later, they ambushed a convoy of vehicles of the Badr Group, the Shia militia. Four of the militiamen were killed and petrol was poured over their bodies and set alight. Soon afterwards, a bus was spotted abandoned by a highway. At first it was thought it might contain a bomb. Instead it had a more grisly cargo, the bodies of 18 Sunni tortured and killed. In districts such as al-Khadra, the civil war has already begun.

Former judge attacks anti-terror laws

AAP | March 21 2006

Australia's new counter-terrorism laws are a Pandora's box that could lead to the creation of a police state, says former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld.

Sweeping counter-terrorism powers became law in early December, allowing terrorist suspects to be detained without charge for up to 14 days, along with controls on their movement and communication for up to 12 months.

They also update sedition laws, giving police tougher search and seizure powers and allowing greater use of security cameras.

Speaking at a symposium at the University of Western Sydney, Justice Einfeld QC questioned how many fundamental human rights Australians were expected to give up in the interests of protection.

"Despite protests from groups as diverse as extreme left activists to members of the Liberal Party itself, and critical debate at the highest academic levels, the government has seen fit to expand on legislation that many have decried as archaic," he told the gathering.

"They are a Pandora's Box of possible abuses if used incorrectly.

"How far do we allow ourselves to be led away from fundamental liberal and democratic tenets in the name of fighting terrorism?"

Justice Einfeld said that last week a section of a website belonging to a social commentator was reportedly shut down at the behest of the Australian government.

The site had run a mock version of the prime minister's own website, with a fake speech in which John Howard apologised for violating human rights and international law, Justice Einfeld said.

"Incredulous though it may seem to us, living in a democracy as we are, our government alleged that the site was `too similar' to their own," he said.

"How this constitutes a threat to our national security, or falls within sedition laws or even might `incite other to terrorism' is not only beyond me, but a serious question for us all to consider."

Justice Einfeld said the laws would "result in increasing levels of state control over our lives".

"Binding our own country in webs of anti-terrorist measures that leave our own citizens at risk of state-sanctioned punishment for no cause, is not a way forward," he said.

Alluding to the Cole inquiry investigating $300 million worth of kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein's regime, Justice Einfeld also questioned the morality of a government that may have knowingly funded terrorists.

"Many of these (terrorist) countries have been backed and financed by the US and other western powers, including Australia whose own very personal contribution to terrorist regimes via the Australian Wheat Board is now believed by every taxi driver in the country," he said.

"Apparently political transparency is a democratic ideal to which we only pay lip service these days."

Justice Einfeld said Australians had "turned a blind eye to `security measures' that border on autocratic".

Carlos Santana Speaks Out Against Bush

Carlos Santana quoted his old friend Jimi Hendrix in an anti-war message here Monday and said his philosophy is the antithesis of President George W. Bush's.

"I have wisdom. I feel love. I live in the present and I try to present a dimension that brings harmony and healing," the 58-year-old rock icon said. "My concept is the opposite of George W. Bush."

Santana, speaking to Peruvian journalists ahead of a Tuesday concert, said young people's opposition to the war in Iraq is reaching the dimensions of the anti-Vietnam war sentiment in the 1970s.

"There is more value in placing a flower in a rifle barrel than making war," he said. "As Jimi Hendrix used to say, musical notes have more importance than bullets."

In 1971, Santana was prevented from performing in Peru by the military dictatorship, which deemed his music an "alienating" force. Santana returned to perform in 1995.

Imagine Accepting The Truth.

Proof the Bible is True

NEW DVD'S

2006-01-26T23:03:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!
I got some new DVD's from the Resistance blog, here's what I got and am offering up to you guys.
Loose Change
The U.N. Deception
JFK II

Also don't forget about the other ones that I have:
The Illuminati
Martial Law
In Plane Sight

Also I have a collection of Prison Planet videos if anyone is interested in that. Let me know! PM5Kstar5000@adelphia.net

Just a reminder

2006-01-22T20:17:00.000-08:00

If you want a copy of In Plane Sight, Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State, or The Illuminati, email me your name and address at PM5Kstar5000@adelphia.net the DVD's are free to you, and I'll let you know when I get more DVD's and what they are.

Sites to check out!
http://www.myspace.com/powerfan
http://www.infowars.com
http://www.prisonplanet.com

Some songs to check out

Your Government Loves You - Future Leaders of the World
We Didn't Start the Fire - Billy Joel

Until next time, Keep your ears and eyes open.
God Bless!

No World Order

Google defies US over search data

2006-01-22T20:15:00.000-08:00

BBC January 20 2006
The internet search engine Google is resisting efforts by the US Department of Justice to force it to hand over data about what people are looking for.
Google was asked for information on the types of query submitted over a week, and the websites included in its index.
The department wants the data to try to show in court it has the right approach in enforcing an online pornography law.
It says the order will not violate personal privacy, but Google says it is too broad and threatens trade secrets.
Privacy groups say any sample could reveal the identities of Google users indirectly. And they say the demand is a worrying precedent, because the government also wants to make more use of internet data for fighting crime and terrorism.
However, the Department of Justice has said that several of Google's main competitors have already complied.
Act blocked
The department first issued a request for the data last August.
It wants:
A list of terms entered into the search engine during an unspecified single week, potentially tens of millions of queries
A million randomly selected web addresses from various Google databases.The US government is seeking to defend the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which has been blocked by the Supreme Court because of legal challenges over how it is enforced.
Google's refusal to comply prompted US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to ask a federal judge in the state of California on Wednesday for an order to hand over the records.
But Google's lawyers said it would fight the order.
"Google is not a party to this lawsuit and their demand for information overreaches," associate general counsel Nicole Wong said in a written statement.
"We had lengthy discussions with them to try to resolve this, but were not able to, and we intend to resist their motion vigorously."
Watch interview with serach expert John Battelle Google has also said that providing the data would make its users think it was willing to reveal personal information about them, as well as giving competitors access to trade secrets.
One of its search rivals, Yahoo, said it had already complied with a similar government subpoena "on a limited basis and did not provide any personally identifiable information".
And Microsoft said in a statement that it "works closely with law enforcement officials worldwide to assist them when requested".
"It is our policy to respond to legal requests in a very responsive and timely manner in full compliance with applicable law," it said.

Source:http://infowars.com/articles/bb/google_defies_us_over_search_data.htm

Iran to move foreign currency reserves from Europe

2006-01-22T20:13:00.000-08:00

Associated Press January 20, 2006 By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Iran is moving its foreign currency reserves out of European banks as a pre-emptive measure against any possible U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program, the Central Bank Governor said Friday.
Ebrahim Sheibani told reporters that Iran has started transferring the foreign currency reserves from European banks to an undisclosed location, the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency reported.
"We transfer the foreign exchange reserves to wherever we deem fit," Sheibani was quoted by ISNA as saying. "We have begun transferring. We are doing that."
Sheibani would not say how much money was involved and it was not immediately clear whether Iran's investments in Europe would be affected by the move.
Iran is facing possible referral to the U.N. Security Council for its refusal to give up its uranium enrichment program. The council has the power to impose economic and political sanctions.
European powers have drafted a resolution that calls for referring Iran to the 15-nation council but stops short of asking for punitive measures against Iran. The International Atomic Energy, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, will meet Feb. 2 to discuss the draft.
Iran's assets in the United States were frozen shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-Western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and installed a clerical regime.
The move suggests Iran has taken the issue of possible U.N. sanctions seriously. However, it has insisted that it won't give up its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel.
Iran removed some U.N. seals from its main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, central Iran, on Jan. 10 and resumed research on nuclear fuel _ including small-scale enrichment _ after a 2 1/2-year freeze.
The shift alarmed Western nations that suspect Iran may be trying to produce nuclear weapons.
Uranium enriched to low levels is used to produce nuclear fuel for use in reactors producing electricity but further enrichment makes it suitable for use in building nuclear bomb.
Iran has rejected U.S. accusations that it was seeking to develop atomic bomb, saying its nuclear program is geared merely toward generating electricity.
Iranian experts say Iran's accounts are protected by the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations, arguing that any seizure of the Iranian assets would be against international regulations.
Iran has previously complained that Britain blocked raw uranium it bought before the 1979 Islamic revolution; Germany refused to complete its only nuclear power plant and Paris has refused to release Iran's uranium materials despite having a share at a uranium enrichment plant in France.

Memo Reveals Government Strategy To Deny Torture Flights

2006-01-22T20:12:00.000-08:00

Rak/Aki January 20 2006
Memo Reveals Government Strategy To Deny Torture Flights
Rak/Aki January 20 2006
The British government has prepared a secret strategy aimed at rebutting accusations that it knew of covert US "torture flights" two British publications have alleged. The Guardian daily and the New Statesman weekly base their allegations on an internal memo sent by the British foreign office to prime minister Tony Blair's offices. The document, a copy of which has been obtained by the New Statesman, shows that the government has been aware terrorism suspects captured by US and British security forces may have been sent to secret interrogation centres.
The memo suggests ways in which the Labour government can deny any knowledge that the suspects were possibly tortured at the detention centres after having been smuggled across Europe and the Middle East by US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "rendition" flights.
According to the Guardian, the memo urges government ministers queried on the subject to rely on a statement by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice last month when she said America did not transport anyone to a country where it believed they would be tortured.
"We should try to avoid getting drawn on detail and try to move the debate on, in as front foot a way as we can, underlining all the time the strong anti-terrorist rationale for close cooperation with the US, within our legal obligations," wrote the author of the memo, Irfan Siddiq of the foreign office's private office, according to the Guardian.
The document, which is dated 7 December 2005, says that in the most common use of the term - namely, involving the real risk of torture - rendition could never be legal. It also emphasises that while the US ruled out torture, it did not include "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" in its definition. If Britain had participated or known of operations whose outcome would lead to prisoners facing such treatment, the memo points out, it would contravene the European human rights convention.
On 22 December when Blair was asked at his monthly press conference about the US practice of rendition, the prime minster told journalists: "It is not something that I have ever actually come across until this whole thing has blown up, and I don't know anything about it."
Reacting to the revelations, Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty which has demanded an inquiry inti the allegations of British collusion in rendition flights, said she was "deeply disappointed". "The government seems more concerned about spinning than investigating our concerns," she told the Guardian.
In his reaction Nick Clegg, the opposition Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said Blair had fully endorsed Rice's statement, yet the prime minister had clear advice through the memo that it might have been deliberately worded to allow for cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
"I am submitting an urgent question to the speaker and expect the foreign secretary to come to parliament to explain the government's position," he said. "Evasion can no longer be sustained: there is now overwhelming evidence to support a full public inquiry into rendition."
Source: http://infowars.com/articles/ps/cia_torture_flights_memo_strategy_deny.htm

Professor Says Bin Laden Tape a Fake Leaked by Pakistanis

2006-01-22T20:10:00.000-08:00

ABC News 11 January 20 2006
A Duke professor says he is doubtful about Thursday's audiotape from Osama bin Laden.
Bruce Lawrence has just published Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, a book translating bin Laden's writing. He is skeptical of Thursday's message.

It was like a voice from the grave, Lawrence said.

He thinks bin Laden is dead and has doubts about the tape. Lawrence recently analyzed more than 20 complete speeches and interviews of the al Qaida leader for his book. He says the new message is missing several key elements.

There's nothing in this from the Koran. He's, by his own standards, a faithful Muslim, Lawrence said. He quotes scripture in defense of his actions. There's no quotation from the Koran in the excerpts we got, no reference to specific events, no reference to past atrocities.

While the CIA confirms the voice on the tape is bin Laden's, Lawrence questions when it was recorded. He says the timing of its release could be to divert attention from last week's U.S. air strike in Pakistan. The strike targeted bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and killed four leading al Qaeda figures along with civilians.
Lawrence believes faulty Pakistani intelligence led to the strike and the civilian deaths, and the tape was leaked by Pakistani authorities to divert attention from their mistake.

It led to a failed military operation where America got blamed, but they people who are really to blame are the ones who provided the intelligence, Lawrence said. I think this is an effort to say were not going look at this terrible incident that happened.

Another element that Lawrence takes issue with in bin Laden's latest message is its length - - only 10 minutes. Previously, the shortest was 18 minutes.

Source: http://infowars.com/articles/terror/bin_laden_tape_fake_leaked_by_pakistan.htm

Mexican Troops Defiant: Border? What Border?

2006-01-16T14:09:00.000-08:00

Military 'crosses into America 216 times during past 9 years'

World Net Daily January 16 2006

The Mexican mili tary has little regard for the border as troops have entered the United States 216 times over nine years, according to a Department of Homeland Security document and a map of incursions.
California's Inland Valley Daily Bulletin says U.S. officials claim the border-crossings are designed to help foreign drug and human smugglers gain safe access into American territory.
While the White House refused comment, a spokeswoman for the DHS said her department is in ongoing discussions with the Mexican government about the incursions.
"We – the Department of Homeland Security and the CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) – are determined to gain control of the border and will continue to collaborate with our partners on the border,'' Kristi Clemens told the paper.
The document indicates since 1996, Mexican military personnel made their way into the U.S. at the following Border Patrol sectors:
San Diego County, 17 times
El Centro, 58
Yuma, Ariz., 24
Tucson, Ariz., 39
El Paso, Texas, 33
Marfa, Texas, 8
Del Rio, Texas, 3
Laredo, Texas, 6
Rio Grande Valley, Texas, 28. "That number [of 216] is 20 times larger than even the Minuteman project organizers are aware of,'' said Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the Minuteman Project, a civilian group concerned with border security. "But I'm not surprised at that number. There are significant drug and human cargo cartels involving Mexican military threatening Americans at the border. But our Congress has turned a blind eye to it because what the American people don't know won't bother them – that's how our representatives think.''
One border agent speaking on condition of anonymity told the Bulletin: "We've had armed showdowns with the Mexican army. ... These aren't just ex-military guys. These are Mexican army officials assisting drug smugglers.''
Officials with Mexico's government dispute the findings, claiming not a single crossing has been made by its troops.
"I strongly deny any incursion by the Mexican military on United States soil,'' said Rafael Laveaga, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C. "When it comes to Mexican military on the southern side, I have no reports of them crossing into the United States. That would mean that the patrol got lost or lack of expertise and orientation. This could be smugglers with fake uniforms as a tactic to confuse the authorities.''
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said the high numbers of incursions show suggestions for increasing Border Patrol resources or building a border fence won't be enough to secure the boundary between the U.S. and Mexico.
"It is a military problem,'' said Tancredo. "We should commit the military to the border – tomorrow. I mean, with armor and weapons."

Source: http://infowars.com/articles/immigration/mexican_troops_what_border.htm

Bush: Iran Intends to Nuke Israel

2006-01-16T14:07:00.000-08:00

Newsmax January 16 2006

In his sharpest comments to date on the Iranian nuclear crisis, President Bush warned Friday that Iran is seeking to produce nuclear weapons and intends to use them to destroy Israel.
Speaking at a joint press conference in Washington, D.C. with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bush warned:
"I want to remind you that the current president of Iran has announced that the destruction of Israel is an important part of their agenda. And that's unacceptable. And the development of a nuclear weapon, it seems like to me, would make them a step closer to achieving that objective."
The president said that Iran's nuclear ambitions pose a threat, not just to the Jewish state, but to the world.
"Iran armed with a nuclear weapon poses a great threat to the security of the world. Countries such as ours have a great obligation to step up, working together to send a message to the Iranians that their behavior, trying to clandestinely develop a nuclear weapon, or using the guise of a civilian nuclear program to attain a nuclear weapon, is unacceptable."
For her part Chancellor Merkel added, "To Germany, it is totally unacceptable, what Iran said recently, especially regarding Israel and the Holocaust."
Last month, Iranian president Mamoud Ahmadinejad said that historical coverage of the Holocaust had been "exaggerated." In October he urged that Israel be "wiped off the map."

Source: http://infowars.com/articles/ww3/iran_bush_says_iran_nuke_israel.htm

Fearmongering for Total Control Police: Sprint Refused To Help Find Abducted Toddler

2006-01-16T14:02:00.000-08:00

NBC10 January 13, 2006

CORONA, Calif. -- Police said the Sprint telecommunications company refused to provide information to help locate a toddler who was in his father's SUV when it was stolen. In response, Riverside County lawmakers wanted to put a moratorium on permits for new Sprint cellular towers, but they discovered they don't have authority. "My point is to send the message to the provider that we need to do things differently when a child's life is at risk," said county Supervisor John Tavaglione, who proposed the moratorium.
"The bureaucracy and the hoops that everyone has to jump through need to be minimized." The drama began the morning of Dec. 23, when Jason Cochran buckled his 10-month-old son, Wade, into his car seat and ran into his house near Corona to get his 3-year-old son, Blake. When Cochran came back outside, his beige Lincoln Aviator -- and Wade -- were gone. Cochran's cell phone, equipped with a global positioning system, also was in the car.
But Cochran's wife, Stephanie, said a Sprint operator told her the company couldn't give her the coordinates for the Aviator's location. The company told a Riverside County sheriff's detective that it wouldn't release the information without a subpoena and a $25 fee, she said. Deputies found Wade in the car near his home about two hours later -- without getting the cellular data, officials said. "We would have preferred a smoother, more effective ability to access the information that Sprint possessed," said Tom Freeman, executive officer for the Sheriff's Department. "Time is critical in an investigation where you've had an abduction of a child."
Sprint is investigating the incident, said company spokeswoman Kathleen Dunleavy. The company's emergency procedures should allow police to get coordinate information in "a matter of minutes" by filling out a special form and faxing it back to Sprint, she said. "If proper procedure is followed, Sprint acts very quickly," Dunleavy said. The alleged car thief was arrested in late December.

Source: http://infowars.com/articles/bb/gps_sprint_refused_help_abducted_toddler.htm

Taiwan breeds green-glowing pigs

2006-01-16T13:58:00.000-08:00

BBC News January 16, 2005
By Chris Hogg

Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that "glow in the dark".
They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.
The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo.
The researchers hope the pigs will boost the island's stem cell research, as well as helping with the study of human disease.
The scientists, from National Taiwan University's Department of Animal Science and Technology, say that although the pigs glow, they are otherwise no different from any others.
Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before; but the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better. They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green, the researchers say.
To create them, DNA from jellyfish was added to about 265 pig embryos which were implanted in eight different sows.
Four of the female pigs became pregnant and three male piglets were born three months ago.
Green generation
In daylight, the researchers say the pigs' eyes, teeth and trotters look green. Their skin has a greenish tinge.
In the dark, shine a blue light on them and they glow torch-light bright.
The scientists will use the transgenic pigs to study human disease. Because the pig's genetic material encodes a protein that shows up as green, it is easy to spot.
So if, for instance, some of its stem cells are injected into another animal, scientists can track how they develop without the need for a biopsy or invasive test.
But creating them has not been easy. Many of the altered embryos failed to develop.
The researchers say they hope the new, green pigs will mate with ordinary female pigs to create a new generation - much greater numbers of transgenic pigs for use in research.

Source: http://infowars.com/articles/science/glowing_pigs_bred_taiwan.htm

British regime refuses to allow inquiry into 7/7 bombs

2006-01-06T12:30:00.000-08:00

*** The British government has officially refused to hold an investigation into the "terrorist" attacks in London on 7 July, ensuring that the public will never know exactly what happened that day. Instead, a government employee will publish a document re-stating the official version of events. The security level was lowered before attacks. Is this the behaviour of a government trying to find out what happened, learn lessons, and prevent further attacks, or a government that has something to hide? There is long list of serious questions that will never be answered. For example, why was the security level lowered before the attacks? Why did officials claim on the day that the problem was an electrical fault and advise people to continue using public transport? What caused the problem with the CCTV cameras on the buses and trains that were blown up? Is the government aware that the Chief Executive of London Underground is known to have worked for the CIA? ***PM defends bomb inquiry decisionThe prime minister has defended the government's decision not to hold a public inquiry into the 7 July London bombings, amid heavy criticism. Victims' representatives, opposition MPs and Muslim leaders said an inquiry was needed for lessons to be learned. Ministers have said they will instead publish a definitive account of what happened, in a written narrative. Tony Blair said: "I do accept that people want to know exactly what happened. We will make sure they do." The attacks by four suicide bombers on three Tube trains and a bus on 7 July killed 52 people and injured hundreds. 'Real crisis' Mr Blair said it was already known "essentially" what happened on 7 July and said there would be up to five Commons select committee inquiries. "If we ended up having a full scale public inquiry... we would end up diverting a massive amount of police and security service time and I don't think it would be sensible," he said. He added that the written narrative - to be compiled by a senior civil servant - would include all of the evidence the government had. Home Secretary Charles Clarke has stressed that, although the bombers were dead, police were still investigating their links to other individuals. Any public inquiry could affect the police investigation or any future prosecution, he said. 'More robust' But the Muslim Council of Britain's Sir Iqbal Sacranie said without a public inquiry, "we will not be able to deal with the real crisis". He said: "This tragic event has resulted in the loss of more than 50 innocent lives... We need to ensure that this sort of criminal event should not repeat itself." Sir Iqbal said an inquiry would be "far more robust" than the government's offer of a narrative. Immediately after the bombings there were calls for a public inquiry, but ministers said it would divert attention and resources away from pressing security and community issues, and take too long. Saba Mozakka, whose mother Behnaz died in the King's Cross blast, said it was "unacceptable" not to hold a public inquiry and families would continue to campaign for one. "A narrative of events will not satisfy anybody. This is not something we will go away on," she said. Warning level Colin Ettinger, a solicitor representing some of the victims, told BBC Radio Five Live a published narrative was insufficient. He said none of the government measures were in-depth enough to allow lessons to be learned and safety measures to be improved. Shadow minister for homeland security Patrick Mercer said clarification was needed on all the details of the attacks. He told the BBC he wanted to know why the government reduced the level of warning five weeks before the attack. "I think it's time that we fully understood what happened and most importantly... make sure that we've learned the lessons so that this isn't going to happen again - or if it does, that the effects of it can be mitigated," he said.

Source: http://www.theinsider.org/news/article.asp?id=1791

Suicide Bombing in Iraq Kill at Least 130

2006-01-05T12:24:00.000-08:00

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, AP
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Jan. 5) - Suicide bombers targeted Shiite pilgrims in the south and police recruits in central Iraq, and a roadside bomb killed five U.S. soldiers, bringing Thursday's death toll to at least 130 people in a series of attacks as politicians tried to form a coalition government.
The two-day toll from insurgent attacks rose to 183, reflecting a dramatic upsurge in bloodshed following the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections. Some leading Sunni politicians accuse the Shiite-led government of condoning fraud in the voting.
Iraq's prime minister denounced the violence as an attempt to derail the political process at a time when progress was being made toward including the Sunnis in a new, broad-based government and thereby weakening the Sunni-led insurgency.
But Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, blamed the violence on Sunni Arab groups that fared poorly in the elections. SCIRI warned that Shiite patience was wearing thin, and it accused the U.S.-led coalition forces of restraining the Iraqi army and its police forces.
Thursday's death toll _ the largest single-day total since Sept. 14, when 112 died, and one of the bloodiest days in the three-year insurgency -- included the death of five American soldiers killed by a roadside bomb while patrolling the Baghdad area, the U.S. military said.
Earlier, Iraqi police Capt. Rahim Slaho said the U.S. convoy was heading for the Shiite holy city of Karbala when it was attacked 15 miles south of the city, and five soldiers were killed.
At least 2,188 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began, according to an Associated Press count.
A suicide blast near the Imam Hussein shrine in central Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, killed 63 people and injured 120, Karbala police spokesman Rahman Meshawi said.
In the attack's aftermath, a woman and an infant girl in a bright red jumpsuit lay in a pool of blood, their faces covered by a sheet. Television images showed men ferrying the wounded in pushcarts.
The bomber appeared to have blown himself up about 30 yards from the shrine in a busy pedestrian area surrounded by shops.
In Ramadi, a U.S. spokesman said dozens were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a line of about 1,000 police recruits. Marine Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool initially put the death toll at about 30, but Mohammed al-Ani, a doctor at Ramadi General Hospital, later said 56 people were killed and 60 injured.
The attack took place at a police screening center in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad. Pool said recruits later got back in line to continue the screening process.
In other violence Thursday, a suicide car bomb killed three Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Thamir al-Gharawi said, and gunmen killed three people in separate incidents, police said, raising Thursday's death toll to 110.
The Karbala bomber detonated a vest stuffed with about 18 pounds of explosives and several hand grenades, al-Taie said. Small steel balls that had been packed into the suicide vest were found at the site, as was one unexploded grenade, he said.
Many pilgrims travel to Karbala on Thursdays to be at the holy site for Friday prayers. Mohammed Saheb said he travels there every Thursday.
"I never thought that such a crime could happen near this holy site," said Saheb, who sustained a head injury. "The terrorists spare no place from their ugly deeds. This is a criminal act against faithful pilgrims. The terrorists are targeting the Shiites."
Akram Saleh, a vendor, said he lost consciousness after the explosion.
"I was selling toys near the shrine when I flew into the air because of the explosion," he said from a hospital bed, where he was being treated for burns and bruises.
Karbala's governor, Aqeel al-Khazraji, blamed "takfiris and Saddamists" for the Karbala attack. The takfiri ideology is followed by extremist Sunni Muslims bent on killing anyone they consider an infidel, even fellow Muslims. Al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a takfiri, and his group often has targeted Shiites.
A senior official in the Iraqi Accordance Movement, the main minority Sunni coalition, denounced the violence and called for solidarity among Iraqis to defeat it, but he blamed the government for allowing it to happen.
"This government has not only failed to end violence, but it has become an accomplice in the cycle of violence by adopting sectarian policies and by weakening the state and strengthening militia groups," Izzat al-Shahbandar said.
SCIRI, a partner in the governing Shiite coalition, said the attacks were part of a plot "to eliminate the Shiites in Iraq."
"These crimes took place after statements and threats of a civil war issued by some Iraq political groups," it said. "Such political groups bear the responsibility for every blood drop that was shed."
It said U.S.-led coalition forces were preventing Iraq's army and police from stopping insurgents, an apparent reference to increased American oversight of Shiite-dominated security forces following widespread charges of abuse -- especially of Sunni Arab detainees.
"The multinational forces, and the political entities that declared their support for terrorism, bear the responsibility for the bloodshed that happened in the recent few days. They should know that the patience of our people will not last for a long time," it said.
Karbala has been relatively free of violence since December 2004, when seven people were killed and 31 wounded in an attack. But the deadliest civilian attack in Iraq since the war began came in March 2004 in Karbala, when coordinated blasts from suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives exploded near Muslim shrines, killing at least 181 people.
On Wednesday, a suicide bomber struck a funeral for a Shiite politician's nephew, killing at least 32 mourners, wounding dozens and splattering tombstones with blood. The attack in Muqdadiyah, 60 miles north of Baghdad, bore hallmarks of Islamic extremist groups.
There also were two car bombings in Baghdad and a militant ambush on a convoy of 60 oil tankers heading from Iraq's biggest refinery to the capital.
Politicians said the funeral attack was an attempt to hinder a broad-based government or force the dominant Shiite alliance into further compromises. Shiites were said to be close to a deal on a coalition with Sunni Arabs and Kurds nearly three weeks after parliamentary elections.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted that the "horrendous crime" was the latest in a series of increasingly violent attacks after the Dec. 15 elections, and he called on Iraqis not to undermine the democratic process.
Final results from the elections should be released within two weeks, and they are expected to show the United Iraqi Alliance winning about 130 of parliament's 275 seats. That figure is well short of the 184 needed to form a government.

Source: http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060104065109990001

Only One Miner Survived Coal Mine Explosion Despite Earlier Reports of Multiple Survivors, 12 Miners Found Dead

2006-01-04T11:44:00.000-08:00

TALLMANSVILLE, W.Va. (Jan. 4) - Jubilant family members celebrated news early Wednesday that 12 miners were pulled alive from the scene of an underground explosion, only to learn nearly three hours later that they had been misled and just one miner actually survived. The chief executive of the mine blamed the stunning error on a misunderstood conversation overheard between rescuers and the command center overseeing rescue efforts. Families learned of the deaths from mine officials more than three hours after Gov. Joe Manchin said he had been told 12 of the miners survived the disaster. The sole survivor of the disaster was hospitalized, a doctor said. International Coal Group Chief Executive Officer Ben Hatfield told the families that only one miner, Randal McCloy, survived the explosion. Hatfield told the families gathered at the Sago Baptist Church that "there had been a lack of communication, that what we were told was wrong and that only one survived," said John Groves, whose brother Jerry Groves was one of the trapped miners. At that point, chaos broke out in the church and a fight started. Hatfield said the erroneous information spread rapidly when people overheard phone calls between rescuers and the rescue command center. In reality, rescuers had confirmed finding 12 miners and were checking their vital signs, he said. "The initial report from the rescue team to the command center indicated multiple survivors," Hatfield said during a news conference. "That information spread like wildfire, because it had come from the command center. It quickly got out of control." Hatfield said the company waited to correct the information until it knew more about the rescue. On Tuesday, mine officials found extremely dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in the part of the mine where the men where believed to have been. The odorless, colorless gas can be lethal at high doses. At lower levels, it can cause headaches, dizziness, disorientation, nausea, fatigue and brain damage. Rescue crews found the body of a 13th miner earlier Tuesday evening and said they were holding out hope that the others were still alive, even as precious time continued to slip away. International Coal Group Inc. never confirmed that the 12 other men were alive. A relative at the church said a mine foreman called relatives there, saying the miners had been found. A few minutes after word came, the throng, several hundred strong, broke into a chorus of the hymn "How Great Thou Art," in a chilly, night air. There were hugs and tears among the crowd outside the Sago Baptist Church near the mine, about 100 miles northeast of Charleston. The miners had been trapped 260 feet below the surface of the mine since an explosion early Monday. The body was found about 700 feet from a mine car, and it appeared the employee was working on a beltline, which brings coal out of the mine, said Ben Hatfield, chief executive officer for ICG of Ashland, Ky. Michelle Mouser of Morgantown said her family believed the dead miner was her uncle, Terry Helms. The mine car was empty, which led rescuers to believe the others may have been safe somewhere else in the mine. Associated Press writers Vicki Smith, Jennifer C. Yates and Mark Williams in Tallmansville contributed to this report.

Source: http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060102114609990005&ncid=NWS00010000000001

'Military Times' Poll Finds Fading Support for President, War

2006-01-03T20:32:00.000-08:00

Editor And Publisher Ja nuary 3 2006
NEW YORK While President Bush remains more popular within the military than outside it, support for him, and for the war in Iraq, "has slipped significantly in the last year among members of the military's professional core," according to the Military Times, analyzing its annual year-end poll.

The Military Times Media Group is made up of the Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Times.

Approval of the president's Iraq policy fell 9% from 2004; a bare majority, 54%, now says they view his performance on Iraq favorably. Support for his overall performance fell 11 points, to 60%, among readers of the Military Times newspapers (85% of those polled are on active duty).
"Though support both for President Bush and for the war in Iraq remains significantly higher than in the public as a whole, the drop is likely to add further fuel to the heated debate over Iraq policy," the report continued. "In 2003 and 2004, supporters of the war in Iraq pointed to high approval ratings in the Military Times Poll as a signal that military members were behind President Bush's the president's policy."

Of the poll respondents, all active duty, about half had served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Only 13% called themselves Democrats. The poll was taken from about mid-November to mid-December, with 1,215 respondents.

Other findings:

• Positive feelings about Congress, civilian and uniformed Pentagon leaders and the media all fell.

• Opposition to the draft fell slightly, from 75 percent last year to 68 percent this year.

• Nearly two-thirds said the military is stretched too thin to be effective, though that figure is down substantially from two years ago.

CIA operative says Bush, military leaders let bin Laden escape

2006-01-03T20:26:00.000-08:00

Capitol Hill Blue January 2 2006The top CIA counterterrorism officer who tracked Osama bin Laden through the mountains of Afghanistan says the United States could have captured the terrorist leader if President George W. Bush and the American military had devoted the necessary resources to the hunt and capture.
In addition, says Gary Bernsten, a decorated espionage officer, the post-Cold War downturn in recruitment and attention to espionage has left a crippled spy agency that will need a decade or more to build up its clandestine service for the U.S. war on terrorism.
Berntsen led a paramilitary unit code-named "Jawbreaker" in the war that toppled the Taliban after the September 11 attacks.
He says his Jawbreaker team tracked bin Laden to Afghanistan's Tora Bora region late in 2001 and could have killed or captured the al Qaeda leader there if military officials had agreed to his request for an additional force of about 800 U.S. troops. But the administration was already gearing up for war with Iraq and troops were never sent, allowing bin Laden was able to escape.
His account contradicts public statements by Bush and former Gen. Tommy Franks, who maintained that U.S. officials were never sure bin Laden was at Tora Bora.
Berntsen says CIA Director Porter Goss faces an uphill battle to fill the agency's senior ranks with aggressive, seasoned operatives.
"He's probably more aggressive than most of the senior officers in the clandestine service. So I think he's having to pull them along a bit," Berntsen said in an interview.
"(Goss) is trying to improve the situation. But it's going to be tough. The rebuilding is going to take years. A decade, at least," he told Reuters late last week.
The CIA, widely criticized for lapses involving prewar Iraq and the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, has seen its clandestine staff dwindle to less than 5,000 employees from a peak of over 7,000, intelligence sources say.
Experts blame a post-Cold War downturn in recruitment for a current lack of seasoned clandestine operatives that has been exacerbated by a rush to lucrative private sector jobs in recent years.
"We have a smaller number of really, really aggressive, creative members of our leadership in the senior service," said Berntsen, who recently published a book about his exploits in the war on terrorism, titled "Jawbreaker" (Crown Publishing).
Former CIA Director George Tenet told the September 11 commission in April 2004 the CIA would need five years to produce a clandestine service fully capable of tackling the terrorism threat.
Goss later said at his September 2004 Senate confirmation hearings that rebuilding the clandestine operation would be "a long build-out, a long haul."
President George W. Bush issued an order last year that called for a 50 percent increase in CIA clandestine officers and analysts to be completed "as soon as feasible."
"The CIA is moving aggressively to rebuild and enhance its capabilities across the board," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.
But intelligence sources say the rebuilding process has been complicated by disaffection for Goss' leadership within the clandestine service.
Years of double-digit growth in federal spending on intelligence that followed the September 11 attacks may also be about to end.
John Negroponte, the new U.S. director of national intelligence, has endorsed an intelligence budget for fiscal year 2007 that is relatively flat, with current spending levels believed to total about $44 billion for the 15-agency intelligence community. Fiscal 2007 begins in October.
Berntsen, 48, who also led the CIA Counterterrorism Center's response to the 1998 al Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, sued the CIA in July, accusing the spy agency of trying to stop him from publishing his book.
Gimigliano said the CIA reviewed Bernsten's book before publication only to ensure that it contained no classified information.
In the book, Berntsen says his Jawbreaker team tracked bin Laden to Afghanistan's Tora Bora region late in 2001 and could have killed or captured the al Qaeda leader there if military officials had agreed to his request for an additional force of about 800 U.S. troops.
But the troops were never sent and bin Laden was able to escape, he said.
His account contradicts public statements by Bush and former Gen. Tommy Franks, who maintained that U.S. officials were never sure bin Laden was at Tora Bora.

Source: http://infowars.com/articles/iraq/let_laden_escape.htm

Interesting Quotes :
"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."- G.W. Bush, 9/13/01
"I want justice...There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive,'"- G.W. Bush, 9/17/01, UPI
"...Secondly, he is not escaping us. This is a guy, who, three months ago, was in control of a county [sic]. Now he's maybe in control of a cave. He's on the run. Listen, a while ago I said to the American people, our objective is more than bin Laden. But one of the things for certain is we're going to get him running and keep him running, and bring him to justice. And that's what's happening. He's on the run, if he's running at all. So we don't know whether he's in cave with the door shut, or a cave with the door open -- we just don't know...."- Bush, in remarks in a Press Availablity with the Press Travel Pool, The Prairie Chapel Ranch, Crawford TX, 12/28/01, as reported on official White House site
"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02
"I am truly not that concerned about him."- G.W. Bush, repsonding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts, 3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)

AOL Asks "Is the Internet Good?"

2006-01-03T20:15:00.000-08:00

-Bad-
Voice over:
Some people think the internet is a bad thing.

Images-
Blue-print of computer circuit board, close-up of eye.

Voice over:
Thanks to the internet, your identity can be stolen, your home invaded and your savings robbed without anyone setting foot inside your door.

Images-
Travelling down the line image, stick men, revolving head, hand opening window as old couple and std sit at table in background, blue-print of house, house exploding.

Voice over:
The internet is one of the most dangerous weapons every created. A way for the unhinged to spread evil, free of supervision or censorship.

Images-
Atom bomb, lies transmitter, b/w Nazis (3), skin-heads, KKK, Osama Bin Laden, headlines.

Voice over:
A place for mankind to exercise its darkest desires.

Images-
Porn: silhouette, director viewing, close-up , girl looks at camera.

Voice over:
An open market where you can purchase anything you want.

Images-
Products flash up and then baby with price tag.

Voice over:
Orwell was right.

Images-
1984 footage

Voice over:
The internet has taken us to a place where everything we do is watched, monitored and processed without us ever realising.

Images-
Kid on hobby-horse, surveillance cameras etc.

Voice over:
Some people think the internet is a bad thing.

Images-
View of old man looking at CCTV camera.

Voice over:
What do you think?

Super:
Discuss

Dissolves
AOL

-Good-

Voice over:
Some people think the internet is a good thing.

Images-
Close-up of eye, young girl, blue-print of computer circuit.

Voice over:
The most powerful educational tool the world has ever known.

Images-
Top shot of old man at library reading table, close-up of old man reading words.

Voice over:
It's preserving our history, making sure that in the future we never forget the past.

Images-
Cemetery inc. girl in b/w (5 shots).

Voice over:
When disaster struck Asia, the volume of aid donated by ordinary people through websites outweighed that of their own governments.

Images-
Tsunami wave, people walking over rubble, shots of various currencies.

Voice over:
The internet is a place that is free of state regulation, censorship and control. The only place where freedom of speech truly exists.

Images-
Burning books, riot police, censored documents, Tiananmen Square tank.

Voice over:
Orwell was wrong. It is not the state that holds all the power.

Images-
1984 footage of Orwell then close-up of face.

Voice over:
It is us.

Images -
Magnifying glass with baby.

Voice over:
Some people think the internet is a good thing.

Voice over:
What do you think?

Super
Discuss
Dissolves
AOL

Good videos to follow up check them out at http://discuss.aol.co.uk/home.aspx?id_Content=2

Also you need an account to discuss anything on the AOL website, I encourage you to sign up and speak out. As of 11:23 pm Eastern Standard time the results were 80% of people polled believe the internet is a good thing, where as 20% believed the internet to be a bad thing.

More anti-NWO Government Issued Propaganda

2006-01-01T15:50:00.000-08:00

While doing a google search today, I came across this web site, and it kind of made me giggle, kind of a retracing of steps and hoping that you didn't catch on to what they've been saying type thing. As anymore the government doesn't care who knows about their NWO and they will throw it in nonchalantly whenever they want. Anyhow, this site was put out by the American Government and I thought I'd add it here for you all to read, see if you took it the same way I did.

How To Tell if a Story is True or "False"

How can a journalist or a news consumer tell if a story is true or false? There are no exact rules, but the following clues can help indicate if a story or allegation is true.
Does the story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?
Does the story fit the pattern of an “urban legend?”
Does the story contain a shocking revelation about a highly controversial issue?
Is the source trustworthy?
What does further research tell you?
Does the story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?
Does the story claim that vast, powerful, evil forces are secretly manipulating events? If so, this fits the profile of a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are rarely true, even though they have great appeal and are often widely believed. In reality, events usually have much less exciting explanations.
The U.S. military or intelligence community is a favorite villain in many conspiracy theories.
For example, the Soviet disinformation apparatus regularly blamed the U.S. military or intelligence community for a variety of natural disasters as well as political events. In March 1992, then-Russian foreign intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov admitted that the disinformation service of the Soviet KGB intelligence service had concocted the false story that the AIDS virus had been created in a US military laboratory as a biological weapon. When AIDS was first discovered, no one knew how this horrifying new disease had arisen, although scientists have now used DNA analysis to determine that “all HIV-1 strains known to infect man” are closely related to a simian immunodeficiency virus found in a western equatorial African chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes troglodytes. But the Soviets used widespread suspicions about the U.S. military to blame it for AIDS. (More details on this.)
In his book 9/11: The Big Lie, French author Thierry Meyssan falsely claimed that no plane hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Instead, he claimed that the building had been struck by a cruise missile fired by elements within the U.S. government. No such vast conspiracy existed and many eyewitness accounts and evidence gathered on the scene confirmed that the hijacked airliner had struck the building. But, nevertheless, the book was a best-seller in France and has been translated into 19 languages, demonstrating the power that even the most groundless conspiracy theories can have. (More details on 9/11: The Big Lie.)
Does the story fit the pattern of an “urban legend?”
Is the story startlingly good, bad, amazing, horrifying, or otherwise seemingly “too good” or “too terrible” to be true? If so, it may be an “urban legend.” Urban legends, which often circulate by word of mouth, e-mail, or the Internet, are false claims that are widely believed because they put a common fear, hope, suspicion, or other powerful emotion into story form.
For example, after the September 11 attacks, a story arose that someone had survived the World Trade Center collapse by “surfing” a piece of building debris from the 82nd floor to the ground. Of course, no one could survive such a fall, but many initially believed this story, out of desperate hope that some people trapped in the towers miraculously survived their collapse. (More details on this.)
Another September 11 urban legend is that an undamaged Bible was found in the midst of the crash site at the Pentagon. In reality, it was a dictionary. But, if a Bible had survived unscathed, that would have seemed much more significant, and been seen by many as a sign of divine intervention. (More details on this.)
Since 1987, the false story that Americans or others are kidnapping or adopting children in order to use them in organ transplants has been widely believed. There is absolutely no evidence that any such event has ever occurred, but such allegations have won the most prestigious journalism prizes in France in 1995 and Spain in 1996. (More details on this.)
This urban legend is based on fears about both organ transplantation and international adoptions, both of which were relatively new practices in the 1980s. As advances in medical science made organ transplantation more widespread, unfounded fears began to spread that people would be murdered for their organs. At the same time, there were also unfounded fears about the fate of infants adopted by foreigners and taken far from their home countries. The so-called “baby parts” rumor combined both these fears in story form, which gave it great credibility even though there was absolutely no evidence for the allegation.
In late 2004, a reporter for Saudi Arabia’s Al Watan newspaper repeated a version of the organ trafficking urban legend, falsely claiming that U.S. forces in Iraq were harvesting organs from dead or wounded Iraqis for sale in the United States. This shows how the details of urban legends can change, to fit different circumstances. (More details in English and Arabic.)
Highly controversial issues
AIDS, organ transplantation, international adoption, and the September 11 attacks are all new, frightening or, in some ways, discomforting topics. Such highly controversial issues are natural candidates for the rise of false rumors, unwarranted fears and suspicions. Another example of a highly controversial issue is depleted uranium, a relatively new armor-piercing substance that was used by the U.S. military for the first time during the 1991 Gulf War.
There are many exaggerated fears about depleted uranium because people associate it with weapons-grade uranium or fuel-grade uranium, which are much more dangerous substances. When most people hear the word uranium, a number of strongly held associations spring to mind, including the atomic bomb, Hiroshima, nuclear reactors, radiation illness, cancer, and birth defects.
Depleted uranium is what is left over when natural uranium is enriched to make weapons-grade or fuel-grade uranium. In the process, the uranium loses, or is depleted, of almost half its radioactivity, which is how depleted uranium gets its name. But facts like this are less important in peoples’ minds than the deeply ingrained associations they have with the world “uranium.” For this reason, most people believe that depleted uranium is much more dangerous than it actually is. (More details on depleted uranium in English and Arabic.)
Another highly controversial issue is that of forbidden weapons, such as chemical or biological weapons. The United States is regularly, and falsely, accused of using these weapons. (More details on this in English and Arabic.)
In the same way, many other highly controversial issues are naturally prone to misunderstanding and false rumors. Any highly controversial issue or taboo behavior is ripe material for false rumors and urban legends.
Consider the source
Certain websites, publications, and individuals are known for spreading false stories, including:
Aljazeera.com, a deceptive, look-alike website that has sought to fool people into thinking it is run by the Qatari satellite television station Al Jazeera
Jihad Unspun, a website run by a Canadian woman who converted to Islam after the September 11 attacks when she became convinced that Osama bin Laden was right
Islam Memo (Mafkarat-al-Islam), which spreads a great deal of disinformation about Iraq.
(More details on Islam Memo and Jihad Unspun in English and Arabic.)
There are many conspiracy theory websites, which contain a great deal of unreliable information. Examples include:
Rense.com
Australian “private investigator” Joe Vialls, who died in 2005
Conspiracy Planet
Extremist groups, such as splinter communist parties, often publish disinformation. This can be especially difficult to identify if the false allegations are published by front groups. Front groups purport to be independent, non-partisan organizations but actually controlled by political parties or groups. Some examples of front groups are:
The International Action Center, which is a front group for a splinter communist party called the Workers World Party
The Free Arab Voice, a website that serves as a front for Arab communist Muhammad Abu Nasr and his colleagues.
(More details on Muhammad Abu Nasr in English or Arabic.)
Research the allegations
The only way to determine whether an allegation is true or false is to research it as thoroughly as possible. Of course, this may not always be possible given publication deadlines and time pressures, but there is no substitute for thorough research, going back to the original sources. Using the Internet, many allegations can be fairly thoroughly researched in a matter of hours.
For example, in July 2005, the counter-misinformation team researched the allegation that U.S. soldiers in Iraq had killed innocent Iraqi boys playing football and then “planted” rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) next to them, to make it appear that they were insurgents.
Using a variety of search terms in “Google,” a researcher was able to find the article and photographs upon which the allegations were based. Because weapons did not appear in the initial photographs, but did appear in later photographs, some observers believed this was evidence that the weapons had been planted and that the boys who had been killed were not armed insurgents.
The researcher was also able to find weblog entries (numbered 100 and 333, on June 26 and July 15, 2005) from the commanding officer of the platoon that was involved in the incident and another member of his platoon. The weblog entries made it clear that:
the teenaged Iraqi boys were armed insurgents;
after the firefight between U.S. troops and the insurgents was over, the dead, wounded and captured insurgents were initially photographed separated from their weapons because the first priority was to make sure that it was impossible for any of the surviving insurgents to fire them again;
following medical treatment for the wounded insurgents, they were photographed with the captured weapons displayed, in line with Iraqi government requirements;
the insurgents were hiding in a dense palm grove, where visibility was limited to 20 meters, not a likely place for a football game, and they were seen carrying the RPGs on their shoulders.
Thus, an hour or two of research on the Internet was sufficient to establish that the suspicions of the bloggers that the weapons had been planted on innocent Iraqi boys playing football were unfounded.
Finally, if the counter-misinformation team can be of help, ask us. We can’t respond to all requests for information, but if a request is reasonable and we have the time, we will do our best to provide accurate, authoritative information.

Source: http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jul/27-595713.html

NWO no longer a "Conspiracy Theory"

2006-01-01T15:30:00.000-08:00

The New World Order is no longer a conspiracy theory; it is an established fact.
The "New World Order" has been a prominent conspiracy theory for decades[1]. Here and now, as the new millennium dawns, the New World Order has become a globally recognised political concept,[2] and as such it can no longer be regarded simply as a theory.
Mankind is now literally entering a new age, the Age of Aquarius, according to the ancient zodiacal calendar which is as old as human civilisation.[3] Aquarius is associated by astrologers with brotherhood, or fraternity, which is the cornerstone of Freemasonry.
The previous zodiacal age was that of Pisces. The zodiacal symbol of Pisces, the fish, is also an important Christian symbol, and it is noteworthy that the age of Pisces coincided with the age of Christianity. During the previous age dates were written with the suffix "A.D." which stands for "Anno Domini" or "Year of Our Lord" denoting the era of Christ. Alternatively, dates were denoted "B.C." - "Before Christ".
In 2002 AD, as the Age of Pisces was giving way to the new age of Aquarius, the decision was officially taken to replace the BC/AD date referencing system with the new CE/BCE references which stand for "Common Era" and "Before the Common Era".[4] What better way for the New Secular Order to proclaim the begginning of its reign than to secularise the way in which dates are recorded, replacing the Christian dating system of the old Order with a new, secular system for the for the Aquarian age?
Consider the official Great Seal of the Unites States of America[5], which is most commonly seen on the back of the one the dollar bill[6] - probably the world's most familiar banknote. On the US Great Seal, beneath the ancient Pyramid, is the Latin inscription: "Novus Ordo Seclorum". The official translation of this motto is "A New Order of the Ages". The Latin word "Novus" means "New", and "Ordo" means "Order". The Latin word "Seclorum" and its English equivalent "Secular" both share the same three alternative definitions: (1) "Secular" - without religion; (2) "Worldly" - of this world; and (3) "From century to century" - or from age to age. Thus, the motto "Novus Ordo Seclorum" has three different but equally valid translations:
New Secular Order
New World Order
New Order of the Ages
The different meanings of Novus Ordo Seclorum are not mutually exclusive; in fact, they are synergistic. The alternative translations are all as pertinent today as they were "at the beginning of the new American era in 1776." Let this be a testament the wisdom of the men who chose these words, for they demonstrate the esoteric power of language and the written Word.
If secret societies are able to display such esoteric and Masonic symbolism so prominently for us all to see, then perhaps this is indeed the age of Freemasonry. Amen.
Amen-Ra.

Source: http://www.theinsider.org/reports/new-world-order/

AMERICA'S HIDDEN AGENDA

2006-01-01T15:13:00.000-08:00

The US government has a hidden agenda - a conspiracy to establish an American empire and rule the world.The elite men in control are now so certain of their absolute power that they no longer conceal their plan for the New World Order.The insiders behind US government policy, including Vice-President Dick Cheney, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,[1, 2] have openly declared their bold vision for "American world leadership", a "global leadership" controlled by the White House.NEW WORLD ORDEREvery intelligent adult on the planet should read the material published by The Project for the New American Century.[3] These documents reveal the true factors shaping the world, at this time, for all to see. The PNAC is literally an "organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership".[4]The PNAC, which helps the US President decide official policy, openly speaks of America's "new order", which is also referred to as the "New World Order".[5] The New World Order is heralded by the Latin motto "Novus Ordo Seclorum," meaning "a New Order of the Ages," which is enscribed on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States and printed on the back of every one-dollar-bill.[6]PNAC calls upon Americans throughout the world to "embrace the cause of American leadership" as the US government creates "an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles".[7]The events of September 11th are being used to manipulate public emotion, using people's grief, anger, and fear, to guarantee American support for the NWO, and "to launch a new era of American internationalism."[8]OLD EUROPEThe PNAC is openly unfriendly toward Europe. They admit that the Bush administration "was hostile to the new Europe" from the beginning. The organisation boasts: "American leaders should realize that they are hardly constrained at all, that Europe is not really capable of constraining the United States" because "Americans are powerful enough that they need not fear Europeans". America has realised that "Europe has been militarily weak for a long time, but until fairly recently its weakness had been obscured."The organisation for the new American era bluntly criticises the pursuit of peace by European nations as "weakness". They give the American people full credit for constructing the new Europe after World War II, acknowledging that "the Europe of today is very much the product of American foreign policy". But the almighty US government has no further need for its old European allies. "Can the United States handle the rest of the world without much help from Europe? The answer is that it already does."The British Council, a think-tank closely linked to the UK government's Foreign Policy Centre, is calling for the British government to retaliate and give the US government a "bloody nose".[9]CONFLICT ON THE HORIZONEach step in the US government's agenda causes increasing friction between the New World embodied by America and "old Europe".[10, 11] In America's eyes, the reason why Europeans disapproves of American aggression against other nations is because: "Europe’s military weakness has produced a perfectly understandable aversion to the exercise of military power." "Given that the United States is unlikely to reduce its power and that Europe is unlikely to increase more than marginally its own power or the will to use what power it has, the future seems certain to be one of increased transatlantic tension."Despite diverging policy, PNAC appreciates that Europe is essential to the events that will unfold during this century. Because America has become so powerful, "Europe must amass power, but for no other reason than to save the world".As transatlantic tensions continue to escalate conflict is inevitable, and only the strongest side can prevail.
Source: http://www.theinsider.org/news/article.asp?id=0311

Prescott satellite to spy on your home: Hi-tech cameras brought in to police home improvements and council tax dodgers

2006-01-01T15:06:00.000-08:00

By Marie Woolf, Political Editor
Published: 01 January 2006
John Prescott has told tax inspectors to use satellites to snoop on householders' attempts to improve their homes.
Images of new conservatories and garages taken from space will be used to hike up council taxes and other property levies, official guidance obtained by The Independent on Sunday reveals.
Mr Prescott's department is overseeing the creation of a database containing the details of every house in Britain to help tax inspectors to assess new charges.
Even minor improvements, invisible from the road, will be caught by "spy in the sky" technology that uses a mix of aerial and satellite images taken over time to spot changes.
Last night the Tories accused the Deputy Prime Minister of laying the ground for a "new stealth tax on home improvements".
Houses in the country will be particularly targeted. "Aerial photographs are very effective in rural areas where improvements are hard to see from the road," a handbook for property inspectors says.
The Tories warned of a Big Brother-style inspection regime which could see householders forced to reveal every detail of their homes, including the finish of a children's playroom or the type of central heating.
They accused the Government of using satellite technology to spy on families so they can levy stealth taxes.
Caroline Spelman, shadow Secretary of State for Local Government, accused Mr Prescott of invading people's privacy.
"The public have already expressed concern at the prospect of inspectors with cameras entering their homes. Now it appears that the Government will also be using aerial photography to invade people's privacy and lay the ground for a new stealth tax on home improvements," she said. "For many people who need more space but can't afford to move to a bigger house, the answer is to make improvements to their existing home, but it now seems they are going to be penalised for this through council tax hikes. It is catch-22, with home-owners being taxed if they move and taxed if they don't."
The Government is planning to compile a database of every home in Britain, which will include details of how many bedrooms each house has and what kind of roof it has.
Inspectors will look at whether garden sheds have been converted into offices or studios and whether kitchens or porches have been extended. They will even be able to see if a drive has been Tarmacked or a shrubbery extended. The computer system will be used to assess council tax, inheritance tax and capital gains tax.
A re-evaluation of property values will take into account home improvements, including extensions and conservatories to assess how much council tax a property should pay.
The Government has delayed re-evaluating property values after widespread concern that it could lead to a massive rise in council tax bills, which would particularly hit pensioners.
But the Government's Valuation Office Agency is still rolling out a "Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal" database across England. So far almost two million homes in England have had "value significant codes" recorded.
John Prescott has told tax inspectors to use satellites to snoop on householders' attempts to improve their homes.
Images of new conservatories and garages taken from space will be used to hike up council taxes and other property levies, official guidance obtained by The Independent on Sunday reveals.
Mr Prescott's department is overseeing the creation of a database containing the details of every house in Britain to help tax inspectors to assess new charges.
Even minor improvements, invisible from the road, will be caught by "spy in the sky" technology that uses a mix of aerial and satellite images taken over time to spot changes.
Last night the Tories accused the Deputy Prime Minister of laying the ground for a "new stealth tax on home improvements".
Houses in the country will be particularly targeted. "Aerial photographs are very effective in rural areas where improvements are hard to see from the road," a handbook for property inspectors says.
The Tories warned of a Big Brother-style inspection regime which could see householders forced to reveal every detail of their homes, including the finish of a children's playroom or the type of central heating.
They accused the Government of using satellite technology to spy on families so they can levy stealth taxes.
Caroline Spelman, shadow Secretary of State for Local Government, accused Mr Prescott of invading people's privacy.
"The public have already expressed concern at the prospect of inspectors with cameras entering their homes. Now it appears that the Government will also be using aerial photography to invade people's privacy and lay the ground for a new stealth tax on home improvements," she said. "For many people who need more space but can't afford to move to a bigger house, the answer is to make improvements to their existing home, but it now seems they are going to be penalised for this through council tax hikes. It is catch-22, with home-owners being taxed if they move and taxed if they don't."
The Government is planning to compile a database of every home in Britain, which will include details of how many bedrooms each house has and what kind of roof it has.
Inspectors will look at whether garden sheds have been converted into offices or studios and whether kitchens or porches have been extended. They will even be able to see if a drive has been Tarmacked or a shrubbery extended. The computer system will be used to assess council tax, inheritance tax and capital gains tax.
A re-evaluation of property values will take into account home improvements, including extensions and conservatories to assess how much council tax a property should pay.
The Government has delayed re-evaluating property values after widespread concern that it could lead to a massive rise in council tax bills, which would particularly hit pensioners.
But the Government's Valuation Office Agency is still rolling out a "Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal" database across England. So far almost two million homes in England have had "value significant codes" recorded.

Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article335970.ece

Site to check out!

2005-12-30T20:47:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! Please check out this site http://www.myspace.com/powerfan he's very in the know and he has the chance to update regularly, unlike myself. Also if you can spare it, he has a donations button, and I know for a fact that he uses the donations for spreading the word, please make a donation, even if it's a small one.

Also if you would like a copy of any of the following DVD's that I currently have (which include: The Illuminati, In Plane Site, and Martial Law) PLEASE email me your address at PM5Kstar5000@aol.com When Powerfan sends me more DVD's I'll let you know what else I have, or you can also request whatever new he's sending out as well. I will ship DVD's overseas, its not a problem, and its completely free to you, so no worries about that. Eventually there will be some promotion in the packages too, so that you can help spread the word and wake people up. The test run of bumper stickers failed. The ink smeared in the rain, so you can't read them anymore. I'm currently looking into getting them professionally done up, I just have to check on cost's.

Anyway thank you for reading, thank you for believeing and above all, thank you for spreading the word.

God Bless!
-Resist or Die

Ten Die As Egyptian Police Break Up Sudan Protest

2005-12-30T20:45:00.000-08:00

Associated Press December 30, 2005 By Samer Elatrash
At least 10 Sudanese refugees died and around 50 were injured on Friday when Egyptian police dispersed a three-month sit-in by thousands of Sudanese demanding to be moved to another country, officials said.
The head of the local ambulance service, who did not want to be named, said 20 bodies had been taken to medical centers, but the number could not immediately be confirmed.
The Interior Ministry said 10 people had died in what it said was a stampede among the protesting refugees, who have been camped at the site in an affluent part of Cairo. It said 75 police officers were also injured when they tried to move them.
Witnesses said about 2,000 riot police stormed the camp site early on Friday and beat those inside with truncheons and sticks after officials had failed to persuade them to board buses waiting to take them to another site.
Pools of blood were visible on the pavement as men in the camp fought back with sticks and hurled bottles at the riot police, who also fired water cannon to try to disperse them.
About 4,000 police in total ringed the site, near the offices of the U.N. refugee agency, where the Sudanese had set up camp in squalid conditions in protest against what they said was poor treatment since they fled Sudan's lengthy civil war.
"The security forces were present to ensure a process of transporting those mentioned (Sudanese) and to prevent squatting," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Reuters witnesses said there were about six unconscious Sudanese, some of them young children, lying on the ground.
A doctor who examined a girl aged about four who was brought to him after being found unconscious said: "She's dead."
WATER CANNON
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called the deaths at the camp a tragedy but a Sudanese official said Egyptian security forces were entitled to end the sit-in.
"There is no justification for such violence and loss of life," High Commissioner Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
A UNHCR spokesman said the agency had urged Egyptian authorities to deal with the situation peacefully. Egyptian police had not told UNHCR officials they would try to move the protesters on Friday, Astrid Van Genderen Stort said.
"The Egyptian government was within its rights to re-establish its control," said Sudanese presidential adviser Mahjoub Fadl in comments carried by Egypt's official Middle East News Agency (MENA).
"Reports indicate that most of the deaths were children, and they are the weakest in a stampede situation," he added.
The protesters said they wanted the UNHCR to arrange for them to be flown out of Egypt.
"Most Sudanese refugees have been subjected to violence in Egypt. We don't want to be here any more," said one Sudanese protester who gave his name as Wilson.
After police cleared the area, Wilson and a Sudanese woman who was in the camp told Reuters hundreds of those picked up were being held in two camps run by the security forces, who were checking their identities.
"Many of us are wounded and suffering ... The police are calm now and ... are processing us," Wilson said.
The UNHCR has said it is prepared to give more help to Sudanese people in Egypt fleeing conflict at home, but cannot arrange for all of them to be resettled in another country.
Sudan's two-decade north-south civil war made 4 million people homeless and a separate conflict in the western Darfur region has produced a further 2 million refugees.
A January peace agreement ended the north-south civil war but many Sudanese say it is not safe to return home as the deal is fragile.

Source: http://infowars.com/articles/world/ten_die_egyptian_police_break_sudan_protest.htm

Pentagon propaganda program orders soldiers to promote Iraq war while home on leave

2005-12-30T20:44:00.000-08:00

DOUG THOMPSON / Capitol Hill Blue December 30 2005
Good soldiers follow orders and hundreds of American military men and women returned to the United States on holiday leave this month with orders to sell the Iraq war to a skeptical public.
The program, coordinated through a Pentagon operation dubbed “Operation Homefront,” ordered military personnel to give interviews to their hometown newspapers, television stations and other media outlets and praise the American war effort in Iraq.
Initial reports back to the Pentagon deem the operation a success with dozens of front page stories in daily and weekly newspapers around the country along with upbeat reports on local television stations.
“We've learned as a military how to do this better,” Captain David Diaz, a military reservist, told his hometown paper, The Roanoke (VA) Times. “My worry is that we have the right military strategy and political strategies now but the patience of the American public is wearing thin.”
When pressed by the paper on whether or not his commanding officers told him to talk to the press, Diaz admitted he was “encouraged” to do so. So reporter Duncan Adams asked:
“Did Diaz return to the U.S. on emergency leave with an agenda -- to offer a positive spin that could help counter growing concerns among Americans about the U.S. exit strategy? How do we know that's not his strategy, especially after he discloses that superior officers encouraged him to talk about his experiences in Iraq?”
Replied Diaz:
“You don't. I can tell you that the direction we've gotten from on high is that there is a concern about public opinion out there and they want to set the record straight.”
Diaz, an intelligence officer, knows how to avoid a direct answer. Other military personnel, however, tell Capitol Hill Blue privately that the pressure to “sell the war” back home is enormous.
“I’ve been promised an early release if I do a good job promoting the war,” says one reservist who asked not to be identified.
In interviews with a number of reservists home for the holidays, a pattern emerges on the Pentagon’s propaganda effort. Soldiers are encouraged to contact their local news media outlets to offer interviews about the war. A detailed set of talking points encourages them to:
--Admit initial doubts about the war but claim conversion to a belief in the American mission;
--Praise military leadership in Iraq and throw in a few words of support for the Bush administration;
--Claim the mission to turn security of the country over to the Iraqis is working;
--Reiterate that America must not abandon its mission and must stay until the “job is finished.”
--Talk about how “things are better” now in Iraq.
“My worry is that we have the right military strategy and political strategies now but the patience of the American public is wearing thin,” Diaz told The Roanoke Times.
“It’s way better now (in Iraq). People are friendlier. They seem more relaxed, and they say, ’Thank you, mister,’” Sgt. Christopher Desierto told his hometown paper, The Maui News.
But soldiers who are home and don’t have to return to Iraq tell a different story.
“I've just been focused on trying to get the rest of these guys home,” says Sgt. Major Floyd Dubose of Jackson, MS, who returned home after 11 months in Iraq with the Mississippi Army National Guard's 155th Combat Brigade.
And the Army is cracking down on soldiers who go on the record opposing the war.
Specialist Leonard Clark, a National Guardsman, was demoted to private and fined $1,640 for posting anti-war statements on an Internet blog. Clark wrote entries describing the company's commander as a "glory seeker" and the battalion sergeant major an "inhuman monster". His last entry before the blog was shut down told how his fellow soldiers were becoming increasingly opposed to the US operation in Iraq.
“The message is clear,” says one reservist who is home for the holidays but has to return and asked not to be identified. “If you want to get out of this man’s Army with an honorable (discharge) and full benefits you better not tell the truth about what is happening in-country.”
But Sgt. Johnathan Wilson, a reservist, got his honorable discharge after he returned home earlier this month and he’s not afraid to talk on the record.
“Iraq is a classic FUBAR,” he says. “The country is out of control and we can’t stop it. Anybody who tries to sell a good news story about the war is blowing it out his ass. We don’t win and eventually we will leave the country in a worse shape than it was when we invaded.

Source: http://infowars.com/articles/military/propaganda_program_orders_soldiers_promote_war.htm

Cyberonics' device for treating depression finds more acceptance

2005-12-30T20:41:00.000-08:00

Houston Chronicle December 30, 2005 By ANNE BELLI
Five months after it was approved for sale, an implantable device dubbed by its maker as the next frontier in treating severe depression is winning favor with some doctors willing to prescribe it for patients. -->
Houston-based Cyberonics says a growing number of psychiatrists and surgeons are being trained to use its vagus nerve stimulator, and an increasing number of insurance companies are agreeing to reimburse patients for their costs.
"I think it is a good device and it is a new treatment option for a group of very ill patients," said Dr. Thomas Schwartz, assistant professor of psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, N.Y. The medical school was one of 20 sites that took part in a federally approved three-year study of the device, and Schwartz was lead investigator at that site.
Still, despite the encouraging signs, some psychiatrists continue to question whether Cyberonics' VNS is effective. And insurance companies have yet to write coverage of the therapy into their policies, agreeing to reimburse only on a case-by-case basis.
"I'm just really skeptical," said Dr. Christopher Merkl, a Houston psychiatrist who has received marketing material from Cyberonics. "I haven't been impressed with the literature on this."
Indeed, analysts said it likely will be at least a couple of years before the medical and reimbursement communities alike embrace the company's device as a treatment for the sickest of the mentally ill.
"I think it is a two-year process," said Thom Gunderson, an analyst with Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Cyberonics' vagus nerve stimulator in July for the treatment of severely depressed adults who had not responded to at least four different treatment regimens.
Roughly the size of a stopwatch, the VNS is a pacemakerlike device that is surgically implanted in the patient's upper chest and sends pre- programmed electrical impulses to the vagus nerve in the neck. It has been used to treat epilepsy since 1997, and Cyberonics officials believe it may eventually be effective to treat a wide range of other conditions, including bulimia.
Launch costs blamedCyberonics' chief executive and president, Robert "Skip" Cummins, said during a conference call with analysts last month that the company suffered a loss of $22 million on revenue of $29 million for the quarter that ended Oct. 28. That was an elevenfold loss over the same period last year.
But Cummins attributed the loss in part to the costs associated with launching the device for depression. And he said that more than 2,000 psychiatrists and 250 surgeons were trained in the VNS therapy during the quarter.
Further, earlier this month the company reported that 62 insurance providers had agreed to reimburse costs associated with the therapy for depression, up from the previously stated 31.
Prominent supportersPiper Jaffray's Gunderson said these are signs that the psychiatric and insurance communities are warming up to the vagus nerve stimulator. He also noted that several prominent psychiatrists have lent their support to the device.
"I am becoming more encouraged as more physicians are signing up for this," Gunderson said. "You really need luminaries if you are going to get significant snowballing."
Schwartz said: "I think it has started out a bit slowly. But the average psychiatrist, I think, is excited to have something that is a new possible treatment."
He added that the university's clinic has recently been restructured to specialize in the the treatment of depression. About 10 patients are in the process of being evaluated for the VNS device, he said.
Costs and benefitsBut not everyone is as convinced.
Dr. Martha Leatherman, a San Antonio psychiatrist who sees primarily geriatric patients, said that her patients aren't always good candidates for the device because studies show it may take several months, even a year, for it to cause significant improvements.
She said her interest in the device was high at first but waned in the last year as the FDA flip-flopped on whether to approve the device.
"It was far from an unqualified endorsement," she said, adding that she wasn't sure if the benefits would outweigh the high costs. The device costs about $15,000, and the surgery required to implant it runs about $25,000.
Leatherman also said she wasn't convinced that the device worked better than electroconvulsive, or so-called "shock," therapy, which is sometimes used to treat such severely depressed patients.
Still, she said she has recommended it for two patients who are waiting to see if their insurance will cover the cost.
Question of familiarityIn a research note to investors earlier this month, analyst Alex Arrow with Lazard Capital Markets said that most psychiatrists are still unfamiliar with the VNS device.
"Psychiatrists who have embraced VNS as a treatment option they suggest for patients on a regular basis are the exception rather than the rule, a situation likely to persist until more clinical data can be generated that supports the efficacy claims of the device," Arrow wrote.
Still, other analysts see that the device is off to a good start.
"I think that the numbers that the company has released so far as to the number of psychiatrists who are filling out paperwork for patients is encouraging at this early stage of the launch," said Keay Nakae, a senior medical devices analyst with C.E. Unterberg, Towbin in San Francisco.
He said that as with any new therapy, "you are going to have a mix of reactions" from doctors.
"It doesn't work for everybody," he said of the VNS device. "But it does seem to represent a treatment option."

Source: infowars

Pupils being given "Patriotism" tests in Washington State Schools

2005-12-30T20:26:00.000-08:00

Children in Washington State are being given 'Patriotism tests' which are completely unrelated to their studies. The paper gauges whether or not the student shows fealty to the power of the state and whether the student believes in the right to overthrow a corrupt government.
A reader from Washington State writes us to highlight a questionnaire paper handed out to her daughter and the rest of her 10th grade class.
The reader comments,
"We live in Washington state. My daughter is in 10th grade and found this to be interesting. She has a GPA of 3.75 and uses her brain. This was given in her English class, and has nothing to do with the materials they were studying. We thought you might be able to use this. They are grooming our kids. Keep up the great work. Christine."

Considering the fact that this paper is a complete one off in that it is not part of any standard curriculum, we must question the motivations behind it.
Is the paper a means of gauging the level of obedience to the state amongst American teenagers?
We have covered several examples before where the government identifies a target group in society and canvasses their views on the nature of power and when that power goes too far. For example, in the 90's, American marines and national guard were occasionally asked if they would be willing to fire on American citizens in a time of crisis.
We are by no means against patriotism when it means love of country. Unfortunately however, the new brand of so-called patriotism translates as worship of government, and that definition is something that the founding fathers never intended.
This may be an isolated case but if we receive anything similar then watch this space for any updates.

Source: http://infowars.com/articles/ps/school_washington_pupils_given_patriotism_test.htm

EU to Investigate Allegations of CIA Jails

2005-11-05T00:11:00.000-08:00

Associated Press November 4 2005 By CONSTANT BRAND
Comment:Before we said that the UN investigating Gitmo was like ted Bundy investigating Ed Gein's house, this is no different. The EU and the CIA are both just front organizations for Bilderberg and the NWO, there will be no impartiality here.
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union and the continent's top human rights group said Thursday they will investigate allegations the CIA set up secret jails in eastern Europe and elsewhere to interrogate terror suspects, and the Red Cross demanded access to any prisoners.
Human Rights Watch said it has evidence, based on flight logs, that indicate the CIA transported suspects captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania. But the two countries — and others in the former Soviet bloc — denied the allegations. U.S. officials have refused to confirm or deny the claims.
Such prisons, European officials say, would violate the continent's human rights principles. At work may be a complex web of global politics, in which eastern European countries face choices between the views of the European Union and their interest in close ties with the United States.
The International Committee of the Red Cross expressed strong interest in the claims, first reported Wednesday in the Washington Post, that the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaida captives at Soviet-era compounds.
Red Cross chief spokeswoman Antonella Notari said the agency asked Washington about the allegations and requested access to the prisons if they exist. The Red Cross, which has exclusive rights to visit terror suspects detained at a U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, long has been concerned about reports U.S. officials were hiding detainees from ICRC delegates.
Europe's top human rights organization, the Council of Europe, said it, too, would investigate.
Notari said the Red Cross, which also monitors conditions at U.S. detention centers in Afghanistan and Iraq, has been unable to find some people who reportedly were detained. She said the Red Cross was "concerned about the fate of an unknown number of persons detained as part of what is called the 'global war on terror' and held in undisclosed places of detention."
In implicating Poland and Romania, Human Rights Watch examined flight logs of CIA aircraft from 2001 to 2004, said Mark Garlasco, a senior military analyst with the New York-based organization. He said the group matched the flight patterns with testimony from some of the hundreds of detainees in the war on terrorism who have been released by the United States.
"The indications are that prisoners in Afghanistan are being (taken) to facilities in Europe and other countries in the world," Garlasco, a former civilian intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, told The Associated Press.
He would not say how the organization obtained the flight logs, but said two destinations of the flights stood out as likely sites of any secret CIA detention centers: Szymany Airport in Poland, which is near the headquarters of Poland's intelligence service; and Mihail Kogalniceanu military airfield in Romania.
Human Rights Watch also obtained the tail numbers of dozens of CIA aircraft to match them with the flight logs, Garlasco said.
He said that in September 2003, a Boeing 737 flew from Washington to Kabul, Afghanistan, making stops along the way in the Czech Republic and Uzbekistan. On Sept. 22, the plane flew on to Szymany Airport, then to Mihail Kogalniceanu, proceeded to Sale, Morocco, and finally landed at Guantanamo, Garlasco said.
As far as he knew, Human Rights Watch has not found and interviewed detainees who were held in any alleged facilities in Poland and Romania.
Washington had an agreement with Romania to use its air space during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the U.S. military has used Kogalniceanu air base. But the Romanian Defense Ministry issued a statement saying it was "not aware that such a detention center ... existed at the Mihail Kogalniceanu base," and invited journalists to come see for themselves.
"I repeat: We do not have CIA bases in Romania," said Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu.
In Poland, an aide to President Aleksander Kwasniewski said authorities there had "no information" of such facilities.
Other European countries also issued denials.
Boglar Laszlo, a spokesman for Hungary's prime minister, told the AP that an official report would be drawn up following consultations with air transportation officials and others "so we can bring this matter to a close."
Baltic countries Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia also denied the allegations, as did former Soviet republics such as Georgia and Armenia.
In London, the office of Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has close ties with the Bush administration, declined to comment.
EU spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing told reporters that the European Commission, the EU's executive office, would launch an informal probe, requesting answers from all 25 member governments and EU candidates Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Turkey.
At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States has not received any request from the EU for cooperation with an investigation into the reported secret prisons.
"If we do receive a request, we will take a look at it," McCormack said.
Such an investigation could create tensions between Washington and EU governments, many of which have been outspoken critics of how the United States has been handling terrorist suspects at Guantanamo. EU heavyweights France and Germany led international opposition to the U.S. decision to invade Iraq.
According to the Post's report, the CIA set up a covert prison system nearly four years ago which at various times included sites in eight countries, including Afghanistan and several eastern Europe nations. It quoted current and former intelligence officials and diplomats as sources for its story.
Roscam Abbing said such prisons could violate EU human rights laws and other European human rights conventions.
Matjaz Gruden, a spokesman for the Council of Europe, said the human rights watchdog would also be following the issue "very closely."

Source: InfoWars.com

Interesting Read!

2005-11-02T22:48:00.000-08:00

CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret PrisonsDebate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System Set Up After 9/11
Washington Post November 2 2005By Dana Priest

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.
The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.
The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.
The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.
While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.
But the revelations of widespread prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. military -- which operates under published rules and transparent oversight of Congress -- have increased concern among lawmakers, foreign governments and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system. Those concerns escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA employees from legislation already endorsed by 90 senators that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoner in U.S. custody.
Although the CIA will not acknowledge details of its system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach, arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that the agency be empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.
The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.
The secret detention system was conceived in the chaotic and anxious first months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the working assumption was that a second strike was imminent.
Since then, the arrangement has been increasingly debated within the CIA, where considerable concern lingers about the legality, morality and practicality of holding even unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and secrecy, perhaps for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA officers began arguing two years ago that the system was unsustainable and diverted the agency from its unique espionage mission.
"We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a grand strategy," said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program but not the location of the prisons. "Everything was very reactive. That's how you get to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a netherworld and don't say, 'What are we going to do with them afterwards?' "
It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.
Host countries have signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as has the United States. Yet CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the CIA's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," some of which are prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law. They include tactics such as "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he or she is drowning.
Some detainees apprehended by the CIA and transferred to foreign intelligence agencies have alleged after their release that they were tortured, although it is unclear whether CIA personnel played a role in the alleged abuse. Given the secrecy surrounding CIA detentions, such accusations have heightened concerns among foreign governments and human rights groups about CIA detention and interrogation practices.
The contours of the CIA's detention program have emerged in bits and pieces over the past two years. Parliaments in Canada, Italy, France, Sweden and the Netherlands have opened inquiries into alleged CIA operations that secretly captured their citizens or legal residents and transferred them to the agency's prisons.
More than 100 suspected terrorists have been sent by the CIA into the covert system, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials and foreign sources. This figure, a rough estimate based on information from sources who said their knowledge of the numbers was incomplete, does not include prisoners picked up in Iraq.
The detainees break down roughly into two classes, the sources said.
About 30 are considered major terrorism suspects and have been held under the highest level of secrecy at black sites financed by the CIA and managed by agency personnel, including those in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, according to current and former intelligence officers and two other U.S. government officials. Two locations in this category -- in Thailand and on the grounds of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay -- were closed in 2003 and 2004, respectively.
A second tier -- which these sources believe includes more than 70 detainees -- is a group considered less important, with less direct involvement in terrorism and having limited intelligence value. These prisoners, some of whom were originally taken to black sites, are delivered to intelligence services in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan and other countries, a process sometimes known as "rendition." While the first-tier black sites are run by CIA officers, the jails in these countries are operated by the host nations, with CIA financial assistance and, sometimes, direction.
Morocco, Egypt and Jordan have said that they do not torture detainees, although years of State Department human rights reports accuse all three of chronic prisoner abuse.
The top 30 al Qaeda prisoners exist in complete isolation from the outside world. Kept in dark, sometimes underground cells, they have no recognized legal rights, and no one outside the CIA is allowed to talk with or even see them, or to otherwise verify their well-being, said current and former and U.S. and foreign government and intelligence officials.
Most of the facilities were built and are maintained with congressionally appropriated funds, but the White House has refused to allow the CIA to brief anyone except the House and Senate intelligence committees' chairmen and vice chairmen on the program's generalities.
The Eastern European countries that the CIA has persuaded to hide al Qaeda captives are democracies that have embraced the rule of law and individual rights after decades of Soviet domination. Each has been trying to cleanse its intelligence services of operatives who have worked on behalf of others -- mainly Russia and organized crime.
Origins of the Black Sites
The idea of holding terrorists outside the U.S. legal system was not under consideration before Sept. 11, 2001, not even for Osama bin Laden, according to former government officials. The plan was to bring bin Laden and his top associates into the U.S. justice system for trial or to send them to foreign countries where they would be tried.
"The issue of detaining and interrogating people was never, ever discussed," said a former senior intelligence officer who worked in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, during that period. "It was against the culture and they believed information was best gleaned by other means."
On the day of the attacks, the CIA already had a list of what it called High-Value Targets from the al Qaeda structure, and as the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack plots were unraveled, more names were added to the list. The question of what to do with these people surfaced quickly.
The CTC's chief of operations argued for creating hit teams of case officers and CIA paramilitaries that would covertly infiltrate countries in the Middle East, Africa and even Europe to assassinate people on the list, one by one.
But many CIA officers believed that the al Qaeda leaders would be worth keeping alive to interrogate about their network and other plots. Some officers worried that the CIA would not be very adept at assassination.
"We'd probably shoot ourselves," another former senior CIA official said.
The agency set up prisons under its covert action authority. Under U.S. law, only the president can authorize a covert action, by signing a document called a presidential finding. Findings must not break U.S. law and are reviewed and approved by CIA, Justice Department and White House legal advisers.
Six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush signed a sweeping finding that gave the CIA broad authorization to disrupt terrorist activity, including permission to kill, capture and detain members of al Qaeda anywhere in the world.
It could not be determined whether Bush approved a separate finding for the black-sites program, but the consensus among current and former intelligence and other government officials interviewed for this article is that he did not have to.
Rather, they believe that the CIA general counsel's office acted within the parameters of the Sept. 17 finding. The black-site program was approved by a small circle of White House and Justice Department lawyers and officials, according to several former and current U.S. government and intelligence officials.
Deals With 2 Countries
Among the first steps was to figure out where the CIA could secretly hold the captives. One early idea was to keep them on ships in international waters, but that was discarded for security and logistics reasons.
CIA officers also searched for a setting like Alcatraz Island. They considered the virtually unvisited islands in Lake Kariba in Zambia, which were edged with craggy cliffs and covered in woods. But poor sanitary conditions could easily lead to fatal diseases, they decided, and besides, they wondered, could the Zambians be trusted with such a secret?
Still without a long-term solution, the CIA began sending suspects it captured in the first month or so after Sept. 11 to its longtime partners, the intelligence services of Egypt and Jordan.
A month later, the CIA found itself with hundreds of prisoners who were captured on battlefields in Afghanistan. A short-term solution was improvised. The agency shoved its highest-value prisoners into metal shipping containers set up on a corner of the Bagram Air Base, which was surrounded with a triple perimeter of concertina-wire fencing. Most prisoners were left in the hands of the Northern Alliance, U.S.-supported opposition forces who were fighting the Taliban.
"I remember asking: What are we going to do with these people?" said a senior CIA officer. "I kept saying, where's the help? We've got to bring in some help. We can't be jailers -- our job is to find Osama."
Then came grisly reports, in the winter of 2001, that prisoners kept by allied Afghan generals in cargo containers had died of asphyxiation. The CIA asked Congress for, and was quickly granted, tens of millions of dollars to establish a larger, long-term system in Afghanistan, parts of which would be used for CIA prisoners.
The largest CIA prison in Afghanistan was code-named the Salt Pit. It was also the CIA's substation and was first housed in an old brick factory outside Kabul. In November 2002, an inexperienced CIA case officer allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets. He froze to death, according to four U.S. government officials. The CIA officer has not been charged in the death.
The Salt Pit was protected by surveillance cameras and tough Afghan guards, but the road leading to it was not safe to travel and the jail was eventually moved inside Bagram Air Base. It has since been relocated off the base.
By mid-2002, the CIA had worked out secret black-site deals with two countries, including Thailand and one Eastern European nation, current and former officials said. An estimated $100 million was tucked inside the classified annex of the first supplemental Afghanistan appropriation.
Then the CIA captured its first big detainee, in March 28, 2002. Pakistani forces took Abu Zubaida, al Qaeda's operations chief, into custody and the CIA whisked him to the new black site in Thailand, which included underground interrogation cells, said several former and current intelligence officials. Six months later, Sept. 11 planner Ramzi Binalshibh was also captured in Pakistan and flown to Thailand.
But after published reports revealed the existence of the site in June 2003, Thai officials insisted the CIA shut it down, and the two terrorists were moved elsewhere, according to former government officials involved in the matter. Work between the two countries on counterterrorism has been lukewarm ever since.
In late 2002 or early 2003, the CIA brokered deals with other countries to establish black-site prisons. One of these sites -- which sources said they believed to be the CIA's biggest facility now -- became particularly important when the agency realized it would have a growing number of prisoners and a shrinking number of prisons.
Thailand was closed, and sometime in 2004 the CIA decided it had to give up its small site at Guantanamo Bay. The CIA had planned to convert that into a state-of-the-art facility, operated independently of the military. The CIA pulled out when U.S. courts began to exercise greater control over the military detainees, and agency officials feared judges would soon extend the same type of supervision over their detainees.
In hindsight, say some former and current intelligence officials, the CIA's problems were exacerbated by another decision made within the Counterterrorist Center at Langley.
The CIA program's original scope was to hide and interrogate the two dozen or so al Qaeda leaders believed to be directly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, or who posed an imminent threat, or had knowledge of the larger al Qaeda network. But as the volume of leads pouring into the CTC from abroad increased, and the capacity of its paramilitary group to seize suspects grew, the CIA began apprehending more people whose intelligence value and links to terrorism were less certain, according to four current and former officials.
The original standard for consigning suspects to the invisible universe was lowered or ignored, they said. "They've got many, many more who don't reach any threshold," one intelligence official said.
Several former and current intelligence officials, as well as several other U.S. government officials with knowledge of the program, express frustration that the White House and the leaders of the intelligence community have not made it a priority to decide whether the secret internment program should continue in its current form, or be replaced by some other approach.
Meanwhile, the debate over the wisdom of the program continues among CIA officers, some of whom also argue that the secrecy surrounding the program is not sustainable.
"It's just a horrible burden," said the intelligence official.
Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report

Source: InfoWars.com

The State Thrives on Hate, Genocide and Racism

2005-11-02T22:43:00.000-08:00

Steve Watson November 02 2005
Dr. Kamau Kambon. a Raleigh, N.C., activist, book store owner, and former professor at North Carolina State University recently advocated the "extermination of white people" while speaking at a Pro-black Media Forum at Howard Law School, in an event that was covered in its entirety by C-SPAN.
The so called Doctor commented that whites have an "international plantation" for blacks, making "every white person on earth a plantation master." He continued, "You're either supporting white people in their process of death, or you're for African liberation."
Brit Hume reported for Fox that Kambon stated to the audience that white people "’have retina scans, they have what they call racial profiling, DNA banks and they're monitoring our people to try to prevent the one person from coming up with the one idea.
"’And the one idea is, how we are going to exterminate white people because that, in my estimation, is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve this problem. White people want to kill us... they want to kill you because that is part of their plan.’"
How is it that such racist hate can be broadcast in its entirety on a national television channel and no one batters an eyelid?
This is one example of how a so called "hate crimes" bill will be of no use to anyone other than the government overlords who choose when and where and who to use it against.
You cannot selectively enforce a hate law, nor can you take down everyone who says something that someone somewhere may consider offensive. Either way any sort of legislation would be a hammer blow to the First Amendment and to free speech as a whole.
The federal government argues that there is a need for such extreme legislation because there is currently an "epidemic of hate" against people of "differing" race, religion. Gender, sexual orientation, etc. Yet they do not seem to care when Dr Kambon goes on live television and broadcasts an entire diatribe about exterminating every white person on the face of the planet.
Yet one might argue that Dr Kambon may not be under threat from the hate crimes bill. Should an overarching definition of "hate crime" be determined by an ADL/federal definition that 'hate' equals bias against federally-protected groups, then such groups that claim to be defending their heritage may fall into that category. The bill states that a "hate crime" would be defined by actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
It's hard to imagine but Dr Kambon could very well argue that he is speaking in defence of his heritage.
We have highlighted recently that the MECHA, motto is, “Everything for the race, for those outside the race nothing,” and La Raza, means “The Race” in Spanish. These Mexican groups have overtly racist ideologies, yet they claim they are defending their national origin and the media does nothing to expose them for what they are.
These groups that openly promote hatred but seem to get away with it because they "hate" those in the majority.
At the root of this lies the fact that the cabal in control of government in the US profits from keeping us at each others throats. Whether it be over race, gender or sexual orientation, the powers that be have a long history of influencing the opinion of the country towards division and seclusion.
If they were to introduce a hate crimes bill they would undoubtedly use it not to encourage diversity and tolerance of other cultures, but to highlight and heighten social degradation, racial tension and cultural division. That is how they perform best in controlling the people, divide and conquer.
So who is the real villain here? Is it Dr Kambon with his avocation of race based genocide? Is it the federal Government, lying to us about "hate epidemics" and pushing a bill directly in violation of the US constitution? Or is it the mainstream media for selectively choosing what does and does not constitute hate, falling firmly on the side of whatever is politically correct no matter how mindless it may be?
The answer may be all three but one thing above all is clear, we are the ones talking common sense here, not the academics, not the government, not the mainstream media. We are the ones having to fight tooth and nail to protect our freedoms and our hard earned rights. That has always been the case and we have to make sure it always will be.

Souce: InfoWars.com

I've been busy

2005-11-02T22:37:00.000-08:00

Sorry I've not updated in over a month, I've been really busy. But I promise more frequent updates!

Site to check out: Anti-NWO

Also, World Cant Wait had their around the country "Drive out the Bush Regime" today and according to the site, it was AWESOME! I had to work so I couldn't make it out to Cleveland to participate. But check out the audio/video footage and also read the first hand accounts at WorldCantWait

Thats all for just random little bits.

Resist or Die!

G.W.B. Admits to Being a "Bonesmen"

2005-10-06T17:14:00.000-07:00

IN AN AUGUST 7, 2000 TIME MAGAZINE INTERVIEW WIH GEORGE W. BUSH, HE ADMITS HAVING BEEN INITIATED AT THE YALE UNIVERSITY INTO THE SKULL AND BONES SECRET ORGANIZATION. HERE IS MORE INFO ON IT: IN THIS excerpt from: What A Long Strange Trip It's Been ©1999 RA Kris Millegan

" . . . these same secret societies are behind it all," my father said. Now, Dad had never spoken much about his work.

What is Skull and Bones?

The Order of Skull and Bones is the oldest of several senior secret societies that are unique to Yale University. The "Order" was founded in 1832 by William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft.

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Members of Order of Skull and Bones have had a great impact upon our society. "They" have friends in very high and very low places. They occupy key positions in the worlds of commerce, communications & media, diplomacy, education, espionage, finance, law and politics. Their impact on professional associations and the philanthropical fortune-controlling foundations has been very profound.

There have been two Skull and Bones Presidents with a possible third, George W. Bush (S&B 1968), looming on the horizon; at least ten Senators; two Chief Justices of the Supreme Court and many U.S. representatives and state governors. "Bonesmen" have held a myriad of lesser appointed posts and positions, with a particular affinity for Secretary of War/Defense; diplomatic posts to Europe, Russia, China and the Philippines; and in the national security state/intelligence apparatus.

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Gordon Gray was the first director of the Psychological Strategy Board, having been installed by the "Harriman security regime" in the early 50's. Gray and his four elite Jupiter Island, Florida, neighbors Prescott Bush, Robert A. Lovett, C. Dillion Read and "Jock" Whitney, are, along the Dulles and Harriman brothers considered by some historians to be the "fathers of this permanent covert action monolith". The "secret government" in the shadowy realms of intelligence operations that cloaks its actions with cries of national security.

They created this modern wall of deniality for Eisenhower deep within the government-military-industrial complex-that Ike was later to regret. One of Gray's jobs, as Ike's National Security advisor, was to "under the guise of 'oversight' on all US covert action, to protect and hide" the "cryptocracy."

"Gray's son, C. Bowden was President Bush's very helpful "soulmate'", "protector of the president, come what may", White House counsel. He helped to keep George "out of the loop," as George became embroiled in the evolving Iran-Contra scandal.

Iran-Contra, Watergate are just two of the many scandals that allows glimpses into a "secret government" netherworld. A black and gray world where one sees many of the same faces and, yes, George HW Bush is/was in the loop. A deep cover in an alliance of oil and intelligence that has merged with another cabal intelligence, the mob and drugs. "Drug trafficking" is now in the realm of "national security." There are excuses like isn't it better that we do it, instead of someone else, and other spurious whatever's handy hoodwinks and backstops. Here, one is dealing with an "intel" world where a big rule is to leave no fingerprints. Deniability being out of the loop are built into systems of overlapping agencies and groups that are used by this "secret government."

The assault upon the rights of American public through an unconstitutional War on Drugs has just been part of a directed cultural, economic, political and real warfare. There is no true public debate or public exposure. ABC's Peter Jennings does series of reports on CIA's shady money dealings ABC is bought by Bush friend William Casey's influenced Capitol Cities and the reports stop. Many a policing agency's bust is "compromised" by claims of national security; money and property are given back and get-out-of-jail-cards are routinely used while us hoi polloi's lives are ruined. Exposes, reporters and agents are summarily squashed, ignored, dismissed, jailed and killed.

A steady drumbeat of events and news stories is used to create fear and division within our society. The targeted racial realities and exploited fears of the drug trade and drug use are used to subdue many and disenfranchise all parts of the community. Along with the crack, came the reality-cop show "popularizing the police state." More laws, equals more criminals, more prisons, more controls and more corruption. And more money to be made . Prohibition brings higher prices. Competition can be "officially" weeded out and the public pays for anti-drug messages that entreats teens.

Drugs are a hard-metal cash crop. "Gold" from the ground, that in some places can be harvested three times a year. Drugs is the biggest business on the planet.

But then, this game is not new and has been played before

Harper's Magazine
February 2000

Source: http://www.davidicke.net/tellthetruth/conspiracy/bushadmits.html

C.I.A. Chief Refuses to Seek Discipline for 9/11 Officials

2005-10-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

New York Times | October 6 2005
By DOUGLAS JEHL

The C.I.A. will not pursue disciplinary action against George J. Tenet, a former director, or anyone else among current or former officials singled out by an inspector general for poor performance on counterterrorism before Sept. 11, 2001, the agency said today.

The decision by the agency's current director, Porter J. Goss, signifies an end to nearly four years of inquiries into the agency's performance before the Sept. 11 attacks. It means that no current or former officer will be reprimanded for his performance, despite what the inspector general, John L. Helgerson, concluded were serious shortcomings in advance of the attacks.

In a written statement, Mr. Goss said that as "matter of judgment," he had decided not to heed a recommendation by Mr. Helgerson that he convene what the agency calls an "accountability review board" to assess the performance of individual officials, as a prelude to possible disciplinary action.

Mr. Helgerson's report remains classified. But people who have read the document have said that it singled out about 20 current and former officials, including Mr. Tenet; James L. Pavitt, the former deputy director for operations; Cofer Black, the former head of the agency's Counterterrorism Center.

"In no way does this report suggest that any one person or group of people could have prevented 9/11," Mr. Goss said of Mr. Helgerson's report.

In his statement, Mr. Goss said he had concluded that singling out individuals for disciplinary action "would send the wrong message to our junior officers about taking risks -- whether it be an operation in the field or being assigned to a hot topic at headquarters."

Of those named in the report, Mr. Goss said, "about half" have retired from the agency since Sept. 11, 2001, while "those who are still with us are amongst the finest we have."

Mr. Helgerson delivered his report to Congress in August, more than two years after beginning his review. Congressional leaders from both parties have asked that it be made public, but in his statement, Mr. Goss signaled that the agency was unlikely to approve the request, saying that the "extraordinary bulk" of the document bore on sensitive intelligence matters.

The internal report was said to have faulted Mr. Tenet in particular for focusing too little attention on combating Al Qaeda as a whole in the years before Sept. 11, a period in which much of the agency's focus was aimed at the terrorist group's leader, Osama bin Laden. Mr. Tenet and others named in the document objected strongly to that conclusion, and prepared lengthy rebuttals that the C.I.A. has also shared with members of Congress.

The C.I.A. inspector general's report, ordered by Congress in December 2002, was the last in a series of inquiries by Congress, the independent Sept. 11 commission and others that have focused on the agency's performance before Sept. 11. The C.I.A. has acknowledged missteps that prevented information about two future 9/11 hijackers from being shared with the F.B.I. until shortly before the attacks, but it has otherwise defended the agency's performance.

The Sept. 11 commission concluded that the C.I.A., under Mr. Tenet, was the most aggressive of government agencies in trying to call attention to the threats posed by terrorism before Sept. 11. The F.B.I. also conducted an internal review of the bureau's performance before Sept. 11, but that report did not hold any individuals accountable in connection with the attacks.

Mr. Pavitt, who retired as head of the agency's directorate of operations in August 2004, said today that Mr. Goss had done "the right thing" by deciding not to seek disciplinary action against anyone named in the report.

"There has been a great deal of accountability - how many times can we go through it again?" Mr. Pavitt said. "How many times do we need to try to hold a G.S.-13 or, for that matter, a former director responsible for 9/11. We've said, yes, mistakes were made, but there was an awful lot that was done that was good, that was positive, that was extraordinary."

There was no immediate response from members of Congress who had called for the report

Source: http://infowars.com/articles/sept11/cia_chief_refuse_seek_dscipline_911_officials.htm

Intro

2005-10-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

If you had known me a year ago, you would be surprised by my sudden turn of belifes. I was one of those American's who believed that even if you didn't agree with your President, you should back him up. Times have changed, and many people have made me realize how extremely wrong I was.
I began to open my eyes about a year ago, but I haven't been very outspoken about all of this for very long, maybe 6 or 7 months. 90% of this blog will just be filled with news, you wont read any of my life drama in here. But what you will find, you will either, deny, look for a way to prove me wrong, or agree with. You will find links to everywhere I got my information, and you will find links to message boards where other people know whats going on, and are looking for ways to stop it.
You can either read on and open your eyes, or you can go on living in ignorance, the choice is up to you.