Martelen 52

'AP Learns Gitmo Guards Brag of Beatings . By Thomas Watkins. The Associated Press.

Camp Pendleton, California - Guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as common practice, a Marine sergeant said in a sworn statement obtained by The Associated Press.
The two-page statement was sent Wednesday to the Inspector General at the Department of Defense by a high-ranking Marine Corps defense lawyer.
The lawyer sent the statement on behalf of a paralegal who said men she met on Sept. 23 at a bar on the base identified themselves to her as guards. The woman, whose name was blacked out, said she spent about an hour talking with them. No one was in uniform, she said.
A 19-year-old sailor referred to only as Bo "told the other guards and me about him beating different detainees being held in the prison," the statement said.
"One such story Bo told involved him taking a detainee by the head and hitting the detainee's head into the cell door. Bo said that his actions were known by others," the statement said. The sailor said he was never punished.
The statement was provided to the AP on Thursday night by Lt. Col. Colby Vokey. He is the Marine Corps' defense coordinator for the western United States and based at Camp Pendleton.
Calls left for representatives at Guantanamo Bay on Friday were not immediately returned. A Pentagon spokesman declined immediate comment.
Other guards "also told their own stories of abuse towards the detainees" that included hitting them, denying them water and "removing privileges for no reason."
"About 5 others in the group admitted hitting detainees" and that included "punching in the face," the affidavit said.
"From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice," the sergeant wrote. "Everyone in the group laughed at the others stories of beating detainees."
Vokey called for an investigation, saying the abuse alleged in the affidavit "is offensive and violates United States and and international law.'"

Lees verder: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Guantanamo_Alleged_Abuse.html Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100606T.shtml

Een groot deel van de Nederlandse politici steunen door de militaire samenwerking met de VS de schendingen van het internationaal recht en kunnen daarvoor juridisch worden vervolgd.

Irak 102

De Christian Science Monitor bericht:

'How Al Qaeda Views a Long Iraq War.
A letter from Al Qaeda leaders found in Iraq shows that the group sees the war as a boon for its cause.

Cairo - In appearances across the US, President Bush has been campaigning against withdrawing troops from Iraq, arguing that to leave now would hand a historic victory to Al Qaeda and inspire new generations of jihadists to attack the US.
But a letter that has been translated and released by the US military indicates that Al Qaeda itself sees the continued American presence in Iraq as a boon for the terror network, which has recently shown signs of expanding into the Palestinian territories and North Africa.
"The most important thing is that the jihad continues with steadfastness ... indeed, prolonging the war is in our interest," says the writer, who goes by the name Atiyah. The letter, released last week, was recovered in the rubble of the Iraqi house where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, former leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed by a US bomb in June.
If the letter is accurate, it provides a window into the group's strategic thinking on Iraq that differs starkly from the one the Bush administration has been expressing publicly - a view the president reiterated Wednesday when he said that Al Qaeda believes that "America is weak, and if they can kill enough innocent people we'll retreat. That's precisely what they want."
While the letter was released only recently, Atiyah, thought to be a senior Al Qaeda leader whose full name Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, apparently wrote it last December from the Pakistani region of Waziristan. It has surfaced among a flurry of other communiquÈs from Al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a videotape this week in which he lashed out at Mr. Bush and Pope Benedict XVI. On Sept. 28, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, believed to have replaced Mr. Zarqawi as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, published an Internet statement in which he reached out to Sunni tribal leaders who have been in conflict with Al Qaeda. And a new group claiming to be Al Qaeda in Palestine issued a video attacking Palestinian political leaders.
But the Atiyah letter, reflecting as it does the candid opinions of Al Qaeda, rather than the group's propaganda statement crafted for public consumption, appears to offer the most insight. It is largely focused on the fact that Zarqawi's tactics were alienating Iraqi Sunni leaders, and urges him to move with more caution.
He strongly warned Zarqawi against assassinating Sunni leaders. Al Qaeda is a Sunni organization that has been trying to use minority Sunni anxiety in Iraq to build support. The letter also called the Zarqawi-organized bombing of three hotels in Jordan in 2005 a "mistake," arguing that expanding Iraq's jihad beyond its borders too soon will cost them public support.'

Lees verder: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1006/p01s04-woiq.html Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100606C.shtml

Het Neoliberale Geloof 9

Dit is het resultaat van het neoliberale geloof dat ook onze regering aanhangt:

'The Gap Is Getting Wider.


You can imagine that the latest release of income and poverty statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau landed with a thud at the White House.

The headline is that for the first time since President Bush has been in office, the poverty rate has not increased; it has instead remained stable. But there is worse news under the headline: Because the poverty rate was unchanged, but real median household income rose 1.1 percent between 2004 and 2005, that can only mean one thing: Income inequality between the rich and the poor in America is getting worse.

It gets still worse: According to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the increase in median income in 2005 was driven by an increase in the income of elderly households. Non-elderly households—working families—saw their median income actually fall by 0.5 percent. Since 2001, the median income for non-elderly households has fallen 3.7 percent, or $2,000. “That is both stunning and unprecedented,” said economist Robert Greenstein with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in a conference call with reporters.

Economist Jared Bernstein at the Economic Policy Institute said that the 2001 recession has been followed by “an unusually uneven economic recovery,” making a mockery of the promises the Bush administration and congressional Republicans made when they rammed record tax cuts for the wealthy and for businesses through Congress. Those tax cuts, combined with the low-interest-rate policies of the Federal Reserve and a booming real estate market, were supposed to be a rising tide for everyone. As progressives warned, they were not. Now, interest rates are up, the housing boom is over and the caffeine buzz from the tax cuts is long gone. “I’m concerned that for many working families, this is as good as it gets,” he said.

The Gini Index, which is used to measure income inequality, has increased 4.2 percent since 1995, according to the Census Bureau. Today, the wealthiest 20 percent of households earn 50.4 percent of the nation’s gross income; the poorest 20 percent earn just 3.4 percent. The real median income of the top 10 percent of households increased 13 percent in that period, while it increased just 2.3 percent for the bottom 10 percent.'

Lees verder: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/08/29/the_gap_is_getting_wider.php

The Empire 23

Onze bondgenoot in de zogeheten war on terror is bankroet. De VS heeft zich vandaag uit Afghanistan teruggetrokken. De NAVO, waaronder Nederland, mag zich nu in de schulden steken voor een zinloos militair avontuur.

'U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK.
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 06 Oct 2006 at 06:51:42 PM GMT is:
The estimated population of the United States is 299,643,567so each citizen's share of this debt is $28,532.02.
The National Debt has continued to increase an average of$1.66 billion per day since September 30, 2005!Concerned? Then tell Congress and the White House!


Een redactioneel commentaar van de New York Times:

'Deeper and Deeper.

There is fresh evidence, if any more were needed, that excessive borrowing during the Bush years will make the nation poorer.
For most of the past five and a half years, interest rates have been low, allowing the government to borrow more and more — to cut taxes while fighting two expensive wars — without having to shoulder higher interest payments.
That’s over now. For the first time during President Bush’s tenure, the government’s interest bill is expected to rise in 2006, from $184 billion in 2005 to $220 billion this year, up nearly 20 percent. That increase — $36 billion — makes interest the fastest-growing component of federal spending, and continued brisk growth is likely. According to projections by Congress’s budget office, the interest bill will grow to $249 billion in 2007, and $270 billion in 2008.
All of that is money the government won’t have available to spend on other needs and priorities. And much of it won’t even be recycled back into the United States economy. That’s because borrowing from foreign countries has exploded during the Bush years. In 2005, the government paid about $77 billion in interest to foreign creditors in China, Japan and elsewhere.
And that’s not the worst of it. While foreign investors were putting up most of the $1.5 trillion the federal government has borrowed since 2001, they were also snapping up hundreds of billions of dollars in private sector securities, transactions that have been a big source of the easy money that allowed Americans to borrow heavily against their homes.
The result, as The Wall Street Journal reported last week, is that for the first time in at least 90 years, the United States is now paying noticeably more to foreign creditors than it receives from its investments abroad. That is a momentous shift. It means that a growing share of America’s future collective income will flow abroad, leading to a lower standard of living in the United States than would otherwise have been achieved. Americans deserve better than this financial mess.'

Zie:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/opinion/05thu2.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

Joachim Fest 15

Joachim Fest in Tegenlicht. Een Italiaanse reis: ''De winst voor de wetenschap is soms een verlies voor de fantasie; literatuur en kunst ontlenen hun wezenlijke leven namelijk aan het geheim.'

Flying Dogs

Van de zomer zag ik in een sport- en recreatiewinkel in Flagstaff, Arizona, hele kleine zonnebrilletjes. Toen ik aan een verkoper vroeg waar die dingetjes voor waren zei hij: 'Voor honden.' Toen ik mijn wenkbrouwen fronste voegde hij daar zonder blikken of blozen aan toe: 'I have seen dogs at 14.000 feet.' Ik geloofde hem onmiddellijk.

Iran 61

'War Signals: Is An 'October Surprise' Attack On Iran Imminent?

As reports circulate of a sharp debate within the White House over possible US military action against Iran and its nuclear enrichment facilities, The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have moved up the deployment of a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This information follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1.
As Time writes in its cover story, "What Would War Look Like?," evidence of the forward deployment of minesweepers and word that the chief of naval operations had asked for a reworking of old plans for mining Iranian harbors "suggest that a much discussed--but until now largely theoretical--prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran."
According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received orders to depart the United States in a little over a week. Other official sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran on or around October 21.'

Lees verder: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/920

Sean Penn

De Amerikaanse acteur Sean Penn zei het zo:

'The Arrogant, the Misguided and the Cowards.
Out of Iraq, Out with Bush.

The arrogant, the misguided, the cowards would argue that an immediate pull-out of our troops from Iraq would inspire lack of confidence and the lost credibility of the United States. President Bush and his functionaries indeed have lost enormous credibility for the perception of our country internationally. Perhaps more damaging than that, they have created the greatest cultural, religious, and political divide domestically since our own Civil War.
We the people of the United States have a unique opportunity. We can show each other and the world that what the Bush administration claims is their mission is not ours. And, by leading our country as a citizenry and demanding of our government an immediate end to our own military and profit investments in Iraq, display for the entire world that democracy is a government of the people. What more powerful message to send the world than that we ourselves can choose in policy, in peace, and in humanitarian support.
In fascism, one serves the State. Let's show the world that with democracy, we can make the State do our bidding, and that such bids would not be the blind ones, given exclusively to the friends of power. But rather, the domain of the people of freedom everywhere. This is an administration that advocates torture, deceives the public, spends billions of dollars on a failed war. This is an administration where in the year of Katrina, Exxon Mobil claimed the highest profit margin in the history of world business. It is an administration that belittles, demeans, deceives, and indeed kills our brothers, our sisters, our sons, and our daughters.
At the U.S./Mexico border, we panic at the notion of illegal entry, without blinking an eye as our elderly line up every Saturday morning with wheelchairs, walkers, canes and joint pain, queued up in the desert heat to enter Mexico where they can purchase affordable medication. In the human family, this President is indeed pushing his wheelchair-bound grandmother down the stairs with a smile on his face. Everyone knows that these are true statements. Everyone. Some are ashamed of where they've put their support in the past, their passivity in the present, with the courage of their minds and hearts at bay. What an exciting thing to reverse this as one America and show the world who wears the pants in this house. Stand up as an American and join World Can't Wait and those demonstrating this Thursday, October 5th.
Out of Iraq. And out with Bush.'

Sean Penn issued this statement on October 2, 2006 at the Great Hall of Cooper Union, New York City. It was read by Mark Ruffalo (his co-star in "All the King's Men") at an emergency meeting of World Can't Wait"Drive Out the Bush Regime held in response to passage of the Torture Bill and in preparation for protests happening on Thursday, October 5 in over 190 cities nationwide.

The Empire 22

Alexander Hamilton, een groot bewonderaar van de monarchie en als mede samensteller van de Amerikaanse Grondwet een van de grondleggers van de Verenigde Staten, verklaarde in 1787 tijdens de Conventie die de Constitutie bekrachtigde: 'All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the Second... Can a democratic assembly who annually resolve in the mass of people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy... It is admitted that you cannot have a good executive upon a democratic plan.' Hamilton was een rijke advocaat die als minister van Financieen onder president George Washington erop toezag dat de Amerikaanse Grondwet de rijken diende.

Hamilton verwoordde de opvattingen van de elite het duidelijkst. De Amerikaanse historicus Brian Price die zich verdiept heeft in de opkomst van de Amerikaanse elite stelde zich daarom de volgende retorische vraag: 'Is it possible for a class which exterminates the native peoples of the Americas, replaces them by raping Africa for humans it then denigrates and dehumanizes as slaves, while cheapening and degrading its own working class - is it possible for such a class to create democracy, equality, and to advance the cause of human freedom?'

Die vraag is nog steeds actueel.

Blanco Lijst

Ik kreeg deze email opgestuurt van de dichter Ko Kabboord:

'Hallo Stan,

Wat zou je ervan vinden om aandacht te besteden aan de blancolijst op je weblog?

>> Blanco Lijst is geen politieke partij en heeft geen partij programma. <<

http://www.blancolijst.nl/index-tekst.html

In verschillende kiesdistricten moeten nog steunverklaringen worden verzameld.

Een formulier downloaden per kiesdistrict kun je hier!
http://www.sdnl.nl/kiesdistricten.htm

Laten ondertekenen op het gemeentehuis. En dan zorgen dat deze steunverklaring zsm (uiterlijk 9 oktober) bij de coördinator van het district is. Op 10 oktober moeten de steunverklaringen worden ingeleverd door de coördinator. Wie de coordinator is in je district kun je ondermeer te weten komen via: http://www.ditkannietwaarzijn.nl/?p=296

Onder blancolijst valt een scala aan sociale en ecologische groeperingen. Voor een volledige lijst van alle mensen die op de blancolijst staan:
http://www.sdnl.nl/blanco-barometer.htm

Met vriendelijke groet,

Ko Kabboord'

The Empire 21

The Erosion Of Democracy And Freedom In America

Countercurrents bericht:

'On December 8, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the US Congress the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He said that "date....will live in infamy" because of what the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan did. Two and one-half months later on February 19, 1942, FDR himself committed an infamous act signing into law Executive Order 9066 which authorized the internment of 120,000 Japanese civilians, two-thirds of whom were US citizens. These Americans committed no crimes and were only "guilty" of being of Japanese ancestry and thus by presidential edict were judged potential enemies of the state. Because of FDR's action, these otherwise ordinary peace-loving Americans lost all their sacred constitutional protections including habeas corpus and their rights of trial by jury and to own and keep their property. They also lost all their other freedoms and were treated like criminals. They were sent against their will to concentration camps where they were interned for the duratin of the war until 1946.

It should be noted no similar action was taken against white German Americans. It seems the Japanese then were more guilty of their skin color and race than their country of national origin. The US Supreme Court agreed in their 1944 landmark Korematsu v. United States decision in which a Court majority ruled military necessity justified their internment. Justice Frank Murphy and two other Justices disagreed denouncing the decision. In Justice Murphy's dissent, he said this act amounted to the "legalization of racism." It took until 1988 for the US Congress to undue this presidential act of infamy and High Court approval of it. It then passed Public Law 100-383 apologizing to those internees still living and their families, provided reparations for them (too late and far too inadequate), and created a public education fund to "inform the public about the internment of such individuals so as to prevent the recurrence of any similar event (ever again)."

Dare anyone suggest members of the 109th Congress have an immediate and urgent need for an industrial strength dose of its own re-education program. On two late September, 2006 days of infamy, the US House and Senate passed and sent to President Bush for his certain signature the Military Commissions Act of 2006 appropriately called "the torture authorization bill." This clear unconstitutional act gives the administration extraordinary powers to detain, interrogate and prosecute alleged terror suspects and anyone thought to be their supporters. The law grants the executive branch (specifically President Bush) the extraordinary right to label anyone anywhere in the world an "unlawful enemy combatant" and gives him the legal right to arrest and incarcerate them indefinitely in military prisons. Persons liable will include anyone who even innocently contributes financially to a charitable organization thought to be associated with any nation or group the US believes supports terrorist or hostile actions aginst the US. On September 27 and 28, 2006, freedom and justice effectively died in the US, and no one will be secure anywhere in the world as long as this act is the law of the land. One day it will be repealed - if the republic survives long enough to do it which now is very much in question.'

Lees verder: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-lendman041006.htm

Joachim Fest 14

Joachim Fest in Tegenlicht. Een Italiaanse reis: 'De moderne wereld is onverbiddelijk. Ze verdraagt het bijzondere niet.'

De Bush Bende 24

De New York Times bericht:

'Records Show Tenet Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat.

Jidda, Saudi Arabia - A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said Monday.
The account by Sean McCormack came hours after Ms. Rice, the secretary of state, told reporters aboard her airplane that she did not recall the specific meeting on July 10, 2001, noting that she had met repeatedly with Mr. Tenet that summer about terrorist threats. Ms. Rice, the national security adviser at the time, said it was "incomprehensible" she ignored dire terrorist threats two months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. McCormack also said records show that the Sept. 11 commission was informed about the meeting, a fact that former intelligence officials and members of the commission confirmed on Monday.
When details of the meeting emerged last week in a new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, Bush administration officials questioned Mr. Woodward's reporting.
Now, after several days, both current and former Bush administration officials have confirmed parts of Mr. Woodward's account.
Officials now agree that on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, were so alarmed about an impending Al Qaeda attack that they demanded an emergency meeting at the White House with Ms. Rice and her National Security Council staff.
According to two former intelligence officials, Mr. Tenet told those assembled at the White House about the growing body of intelligence the Central Intelligence Agency had collected pointing to an impending Al Qaeda attack. But both current and former officials took issue with Mr. Woodward's account that Mr. Tenet and his aides left the meeting in frustration, feeling as if Ms. Rice had ignored them.
Mr. Tenet told members of the Sept. 11 commission about the July 10 meeting when they interviewed him in early 2004, but committee members said the former C.I.A. director never indicated he had left the White House with the impression that he had been ignored.
"Tenet never told us that he was brushed off," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic member of the commission. "We certainly would have followed that up."'

Lees verder:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/washington/03ricecnd.html? _r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100306J.shtml

Als de regering Bush wist van de dreigende aanslagen van 11 september 2001 waarom zitten dan nu Nederlandse troepen in Afghanistan? En wat wordt verder geheim gehouden? Waarom liet de 11 september commissie zich een rad voor ogen draaien?

Robin van Persie

De stijl van Robin van Persie is ronduit poetisch. Mijn zoon Dylan wees me op deze goal. Kijkt u zelf maar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YylTKnZjoFQ&NR

De Bush Bende 23

InformationClearingHouse bericht:

'Powell says he was fired by Bush Admin.

Colin Powell claims he was 'fired' by the Bush Administration, according part of Powell's official biography published in the Washington Post. Powell and the Bush Administration used the cover story that Powell resigned of his own accord from his position as Secretary of State.
10/01/06 Video Runtime 3 Minutes

The following is the relevant text of Powell's official biography published in the Washington Post:"The president would like to make a change," Card (chief of staff White House) said, using a time-honored formulation that avoided the words "resign" or "fire." He noted briskly that there had been some discussion of having Powell remain until after Iraqi elections scheduled for the end of January, but that the president had decided to take care of all Cabinet changes sooner rather than later. Bush wanted Powell's resignation letter dated two days hence, on Friday, November 12, Card said, although the White House expected him to stay at the State Department until his successor was confirmed by the Senate. After four long years, Powell had anticipated the end of his service and sometimes even longed for it. He had never directly told the president but thought he had made clear to him during the summer of 2004 that he did not intend to stay into a second term. There had been public speculation as the election drew near that the president might ask the secretary of state to reenlist, at least temporarily. Powell was still the most popular member of Bush's team, far more popular with the public than the president himself. Senior Powell aides were convinced that the secretary anticipated an invitation to stay, and they were equally certain that he intended to accept. The approaching elections in Iraq, hints of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the rumored departure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a principal Powell nemesis, made the next six months look like a rare period of promise for diplomacy.

'Zie: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article15193.htm

Op grond van de gegevens van de Bush Bende is het kabinet Balkenende, met vooraan de voormalige wethouder van Borculo en tegenwoordig minister van Defensie Henk Kamp, met militaire avonturen in Irak en nu Afghanistan begonnen. Desondanks worden de politiek verantwoordelijken niet door het parlement ter verantwoording geroepen.

11 September 2001 (12)

De New York Times bericht:

'9/11 Panel Members Weren't Told of Meeting.

Washington - Members of the Sept. 11 commission said today that they were alarmed that they were told nothing about a White House meeting in July 2001 at which George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, is reported to have warned Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, about an imminent al Qaeda attack and failed to persuade her to take action.
Details of the previously undisclosed meeting on July 10, 2001, two months before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, were first reported last week in a new book by the journalist Bob Woodward.
The final report from the Sept. 11 commission made no mention of the meeting nor did it suggest there had been such an encounter between Mr. Tenet and Ms. Rice, now secretary of state.
Since release of the book, "State of Denial," the White House and Ms. Rice have disputed major elements of Mr. Woodward's account, with Ms. Rice insisting through spokesmen that there had been no such exchange in a private meeting with Mr. Tenet and that he had expressed none of the frustration attributed to him in Mr. Woodward's book.
"It really didn't match Secretary Rice's recollection of the meeting at all," said Dan Bartlett, counselor to President Bush, in an interview on the CBS News program "Face the Nation."
"It kind of left us scratching our heads because we don't believe that's an accurate account," he said.
Although passages of the book suggest that Mr. Tenet was a major source for Mr. Woodward, the former intelligence director has refused to comment on the book.
Nor has there been any comment from J. Cofer Black, Mr. Tenet's counterterrorism chief, who is reported in the book to have attended the July 10 meeting and left it frustrated by Ms. Rice's "brush-off" of the warnings.
He is quoted as saying, "The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head." Mr. Black did not return calls left at the security firm Blackwater, which he joined last year.'

Lees verder: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/washington/01cnd-book.html
Of: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100206Z.shtml

De vraag moet nu toch opnieuw gesteld worden: over hoeveel andere zaken weet de commissie niets? En natuurlijk: hoe serieus deze politieke commissie 9/11 onderzocht?

Mr. Tutu Johnson

Oplichters zijn zo oud als de mensheid, ze zijn er in alle maten en vormen. Hoe vindt u deze? Ik kreeg vanmiddag een email van hem:

'BE MY PARTNER

My Dear

I am Mr Tutu Johnson a Zimbabwean, and I have a very sensitive for you. In view of the urgent and private nature of our intentions to go into a joint investment programme with your establishment in your Country, although it might come to you as surprised , but I have no option than to write you my Business proposal, which I wish and request that you forward to me the direct contact of your Establishment. I understand that your country is good for an investment, although this might not be your field; still I believe it will benefit you and your family. I am soliciting your humble attentions to this matter as we will like to discuss the terms and conditions of the investment policies before we can commence with the perfection of documentations that will assume this venture the beneficiary of the investment funds. We (Late MR. BOCKRIE JOHNSON FAMILY) have in our disposal a sum of $20.5M. (Twenty Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) that we wish for your ventures co- operation in securing and investing these funds into the financial system of your country without any complication, We have confidence in your investment opportunities to withstand the value of these funds for the required period of time we shall agree on. I will also like you to treat my humble request with integrity and confidentiality as the political system in the country in Europe demands that we secure and invest these funds now without delay.
Please be fast to forward your private e-mail addresses, mobile phone number(s), and direct fax lines so that I can open communication with you, discuss your sweet able percentage of your Management Fees, and the modalities of the legitimate transaction. Note this transaction is risk free, since the necessary documentation is with me and all I need from you to agreed with my business proposal and plan the best way to transfer the Funds into your nominated Bank account of your Choice for further investment. Finally, please note that this must be concluded within two to three weeks. Please write back promptly with the following email address bellow:
E-Mail: mrtutujohnson@lycos.com
Thanks and Remain bless.
Mr. Tutu Johnson.'

Mijn vraag is: zouden mensen hier werkelijk intuinen? Zo stom kun je toch niet zijn?

Joachim Fest 13

Joachim Fest in Tegenlicht. Een Italiaanse reis: 'De ontoereikende overheid die Rome altijd had gehad, was een spiegelbeeld van de inwoners.'

De Bush Bende 22

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

In Counterpunch schrijft hij:

'How the US Government Planned America's Downfall.
The New Face of Class War.

The attacks on middle-class jobs are lending new meaning to the phrase "class war". The ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled. America, the land of opportunity, is giving way to ever deepening polarization between rich and poor.
The assault on jobs predates the Bush regime. However, the loss of middle-class jobs has become particularly intense in the 21st century, and, like other pressing problems, has been ignored by President Bush, who is focused on waging war in the Middle East and building a police state at home. The lives and careers that are being lost to the carnage of a gratuitous war in Iraq are paralleled by the economic destruction of careers, families, and communities in the U.S.A. Since the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, the U.S. government has sought to protect employment of its citizens. Bush has turned his back on this responsibility. He has given his support to the offshoring of American jobs that is eroding the living standards of Americans. It is another example of his betrayal of the public trust.

"Free trade" and "globalization" are the guises behind which class war is being conducted against the middle class by both political parties. Patrick J. Buchanan, a three-time contender for the presidential nomination, put it well when he wrote1 that NAFTA and the various so-called trade agreements were never trade deals. The agreements were enabling acts that enabled U.S. corporations to dump their American workers, avoid Social Security taxes, health care and pensions, and move their factories offshore to locations where labor is cheap.

The offshore outsourcing of American jobs has nothing to do with free trade based on comparative advantage. Offshoring is labor arbitrage. First world capital and technology are not seeking comparative advantage at home in order to compete abroad. They are seeking absolute advantage abroad in cheap labor.'

Lees verder: http://www.counterpunch.org/

Nederland en Afghanistan 95

Het is geen politiek vraagstuk in Nederland, de oorlog die Nederland voert in Afghanistan, die volgens de commerciele media honderden doden veroorzaakt, vooral onder de Afghanen. Het is een uitzichtloze oorlog, waarvoor geen geldige rechtvaardiging bestaat en waarvoor het kabinet Balkenende geen verantwoordiging tegenover het parlement hoeft af te leggen. Terwijl toch de voormalige wethouder van Borculo en tegenwoordig minister van Defensie, Henk Kamp, meermaals niet de waarheid heeft verteld over die oorlog. Feit is dat Nederland die oorlog voert in opdracht van Washington. Tot straks hier of daar door 'robuust' optreden van Afghaanse strijders onder Nederlanders doden vallen, kan dit kabinet zijn oorlogsmissie ongestoord voortzetten. Voor alle duidelijkheid is hier een overzicht van die mislukte oorlog.

Information Clearing House bericht:

'Afghanistan: The Other Lost War By Stephen Lendman.

In his important new book Freedom Next Time , dealing with "empire, its facades and the enduring struggle of people for their freedom," John Pilger has a chapter on Afghanistan. In it he says that "Through all the humanitarian crises in living memory, no country has been abused and suffered more, and none has been helped less than Afghanistan." He goes on to describe what he sees as something more like a moonscape than a functioning nation. In the capitol, Kabul, there are "contours of rubble rather than streets, where people live in collapsed buildings, like earthquake victims waiting for rescue....(with) no light or heat." It seems like it's always been that way for these beleaguered people who've had a long history of conflict and suffering with little relief.

In the 19th century, the Afghan people were victimized by the "Great Game" struggle pitting the British empire against Tsarist Russia for control of that part of the world. More recently in the 1980s, it paid dearly again when a US recruited mujahideen guerrilla army battled against a Soviet occupation. It forced the occupiers out but at the cost of a ravaged country and one forced to endure still more suffering and destruction from the brutal civil war in the 1990s that followed the Soviet withdrawal. Then came 9/11, the US attack, invasion, occupation and further devastation that's ongoing with no end in sight and now intensifying in ferocity. In his book, Pilger explains that Afghanistan today is what the CIA once called Vietnam - "the grand illusion of the American cause." There's no assured safety even in most parts of the capitol now where for a brief time after the US invasion the people of Kabul enjoyed a degree of freedom long denied them by the Taliban. Now there's neither freedom nor safety almost anywhere in the country as the brutal regional "warlords" rule most parts of it, and the Taliban have begun a resurgence reigniting the conflict that for a time subsided. Today the nation is once again a war zone and narco-state with the "warlords" and drug kingpins controlling everything outside the capitol and the Taliban gaining strength and fighting back in the south trying to regain what they lost. In Kabul itself, the country's selected and nominal president Hamid Karzai (a former CIA asset and chief consultant to US oil giant UNOCAL) is a caricature of a man and willing US stooge who functions as little more than the mayor of the city. Outside the capitol he has no mandate or support and wouldn't last a day on his own without the round the clock protection afforded him by the US military and the private contractor DynCorp. When they ruled most of the country in the 1990s, the Taliban at least kept order and wouldn't tolerate banditry, rape or murder, despite their ultra-puritanical ways and harsh treatment of the disobedient. They also virtually ended opium production. Now all that's changed. The US - British invasion in 2001 ended the ban on opium production, allowed the "warlords" to replant as much of it as they wanted, and the result according to a report released by the UN is that cultivation of this crop is spiraling out of control. Antonio Maria Costa, the UN anti-drug chief, said this year's opium harvest will be a record 6,100 tons (enough to make 610 tons of heroin) or 92% of the total world supply and 30% more than the amount consumed globally. Costa went much further in his comments saying southern Afghanistan "display(s) the ominous hallmarks of incipient collapse, with large-scale drug cultivation and trafficking, insurgency and terrorism, crime and corruption (because) opium cultivation is out of control." He directed his comments at President Karzai for not acting forcefully to deal with the problem saying provincial governors and police chiefs should be sacked and held to account. He also accused government administrators of corruption.

The reason why this is happening is that elicit drug trafficking is big business with an annual UN estimate gross of around $400 - 500 billion or double the sales revenue from legal prescription drugs the US pharmaceutical giants reported in 2005. Those profiting from it include more than the "kingpins" and organized crime. The elicit trade has long been an important profit center for many US and other banks including the giant international money center ones. It's also well-documented that the CIA has been involved in drug-trafficking (directly or indirectly) throughout its half century existence and especially since the 1980s and the Contra wars in Nicaragua. Today the CIA is partnered with the Afghan "warlords" and criminal syndicates in the huge business of trafficking heroin. It guarantees the crime bosses easy access to the lucrative US market and the CIA a large and reliable revenue stream to augment its annual (heretofore secret) budget disclosed by Mary Margaret Graham, Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Collection, to be $44 billion in 2005.

Lees verder: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15146.htm

The Empire 20

Het Amerikaanse tijdschrift The Nation bericht:

' Revolt of the Generals.

A revolt is brewing among our retired Army and Marine generals. This rebellion - quiet and nonconfrontational, but remarkable nonetheless - comes not because their beloved forces are bearing the brunt of ground combat in Iraq but because the retirees see the US adventure in Mesopotamia as another Vietnam-like, strategically failed war, and they blame the errant, arrogant civilian leadership at the Pentagon. The dissenters include two generals who led combat troops in Iraq: Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr., who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division, and Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who led the First Infantry Division (the "Big Red One"). These men recently sacrificed their careers by retiring and joining the public protest.
In late September Batiste, along with two other retired senior officers, spoke out about these failures at a Washington Democratic policy hearing, with Batiste saying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was "not a competent wartime leader" who made "dismal strategic decisions" that "resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies and the good people of Iraq." Rumsfeld, he said, "dismissed honest dissent" and "did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war."
This kind of protest among senior military retirees during wartime is unprecedented in American history - and it is also deeply worrisome. The retired officers opposing the war and demanding Rumsfeld's ouster represent a new political force, and therefore a potentially powerful factor in the future of our democracy. The former generals' growing lobby could acquire a unique veto power in the future by publicly opposing reckless civilian warmaking in advance.
No one should be surprised by the antiwar dissent emerging among those who have commanded our legions on the fringes of the US military empire. After more than sixty-five years of increasingly centralized and secret presidential warmaking, we have concentrated ultimate civilian authority in fewer and fewer hands. Some of these leaders have been proved by events to be incompetent.
I speak regularly to retired generals, former intelligence officers and former Pentagon officials and aides, all of whom remain close to their active-duty friends and protégés. These well-informed seniors tell me that whatever the original US objective was in Iraq, our understrength forces and flawed strategy have failed, and that we cannot repair this failure by remaining there indefinitely. Fundamental changes are needed, and senior officers are prepared to make them. According to my sources, some active-duty officers are working behind the scenes to end the war and are preparing for the inevitable US withdrawal. "The only question is whether a war serves the national interest," declares a retired three-star general. "Iraq does not."'

Lees verder: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061016/whalen Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/093006X.shtm l

Martelen 51

De Los Angeles Times bericht:


As America's politicians, media and citizens get used to wartime abuses, Bush's horrific policies get a pass.

A year ago this week, a military jury convicted Army Reserve Pfc. Lynndie R. England of maltreating detainees. The face of the Abu Ghraib scandal, England is forever fixed in photographs as the girl with the bowl cut and the pixie smile who pointed at Iraqi prisoners while they were forced to masturbate and who held a writhing, naked man by a leash. Before sentencing, the Army prosecutor thundered: "Who can think of a person who has disgraced this uniform more? Who has held the US military up for more dishonor?"
Indeed, it was that uniform - not the breach of immutable standards of decency held by this nation - that put England in the dock and eventually in prison. It was that uniform and nothing else, because if England and the others charged in the scandal had been civilian interrogators instead of military police, they would be among the privileged torturers whom President Bush and members of both parties in Congress are determined to keep on the job and to shield from future prosecution.
Abu Ghraib has become shorthand for the kind of abhorrent behavior that, in the latest discussion about interrogation techniques, nobody ventures to allow. In that sense, Abu Ghraib is the new American standard, a negative one, marking the line that must not be crossed. A positive standard - that is, humane treatment of unarmed prisoners - being inconceivable, debate turns on permissible degrees of inhumanity; "rough stuff," as New York Times columnist David Brooks and others justifying pain say lightly.
So here is the bitter joke: England, the public emblem of torture, was convicted for nothing so awful as what the president and his flank have chosen to protect. Her crime was to smile, to pose, to jeer at naked, powerless men, and to fail to stop their humiliations or to report them afterward. She did not shackle men in stress positions, strip them of their clothes, deny them sleep, force them to stand for hours or days, douse them with icy water, deprive them of heat or food or subject them to incessant noise or screaming.
Despite Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain's compromise, none of those brutalities is expressly outlawed in the legislation that Congress just passed and the president is about to sign.
Such brutalities were regular fare at Abu Ghraib because interrogation, by civilian and military personnel, was regular fare. But interrogation was largely sidestepped in the Abu Ghraib trials, in which prosecutors focused on what soldiers did for "fun," for "laughs," with common criminals "of no value" to US intelligence. The infamous pyramid and sexual mortifications were not part of interrogations, so these formed the centerpiece of criminal charges. The daily application of fear and cold and want and pain - what Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr., the putative ringleader of the scandal at Abu Ghraib, called his job of "terrorizing prisoners" - was an accompaniment to questioning, so it went unpunished.
"We just humiliated them," England said; it could have been worse. For many detainees, it was. Two days before England was photographed laughing at prisoners, Manadel Jamadi died in a shower stall at Abu Ghraib. Army investigators found that he entered the stall under his own power with civilian interrogators said to be from the CIA. Later, soldiers smiled in pictures with his corpse. The interrogators had vanished, and no one was charged.'

Lees verder: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-wypijewski30sep30,0,69229.story Of: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/093006E.shtml

Joachim Fest 12

Joachim Fest in Tegenlicht. Een Italiaanse reis: 'Het is ook het vermoeden dat de mens de elementaire behoefte aan verfraaiing, die hij eens bezat, heeft verloren... Achtervolgd door dergelijke angsten, ontroostbaar over het einde van de schone oude wereld heeft Pier Paolo Pasolini gesproken van de "antropologische moord" van de mens op zichzelf.'

De Bush Bende 21

Keith Olbermann van MSNBC haalt opnieuw uit naar de Bush regering:

'A Textbook Definition of Cowardice
Keith Olbermann: "Our tone should be crazed. The nation's freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation's marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would've quit. Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years. He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration."'

Zie: http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

The Empire 19

De Washington Post bericht:

'Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice

Sunday 01 October 2006
Editor's Note: How much effort the Bush administration made in going after Osama bin Laden before the attacks of September 11, 2001, became an issue last week after former president Bill Clinton accused President Bush's "neocons" and other Republicans of ignoring bin Laden until the attacks. Rice responded in an interview that, "what we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years." -The Washington Post

On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately.
Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, from the car and said he needed to see her right away. There was no practical way she could refuse such a request from the CIA director.
For months, Tenet had been pressing Rice to set a clear counterterrorism policy, including specific presidential orders called "findings" that would give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden. Perhaps a dramatic appearance - Black called it an "out of cycle" session, beyond Tenet's regular weekly meeting with Rice - would get her attention.
Tenet had been losing sleep over the recent intelligence he'd seen. There was no conclusive, smoking-gun intelligence, but there was such a huge volume of data that an intelligence officer's instinct strongly suggested that something was coming. He and Black hoped to convey the depth of their anxiety and get Rice to kick-start the government into immediate action.
He did not know when, where or how, but Tenet felt there was too much noise in the intelligence systems. Two weeks earlier, he had told Richard A. Clarke, the National Security Council's counterterrorism director: "It's my sixth sense, but I feel it coming. This is going to be the big one."
But Tenet had been having difficulty getting traction on an immediate bin Laden action plan, in part because Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had questioned all the National Security Agency intercepts and other intelligence. Could all this be a grand deception? Rumsfeld had asked. Perhaps it was a plan to measure U.S. reactions and defenses.
Tenet had the NSA review all the intercepts, and the agency concluded they were of genuine al-Qaeda communications. On June 30, a top-secret senior executive intelligence brief contained an article headlined "Bin Laden Threats Are Real."'

Lees verder:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR2006093000282.html Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100106Z.shtml