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Here's a site that argues that the most important acts of terror and war against the US for the last 6 decades were all fake.
According to what I've read, some of these charges are justified but some are not.
The fraudulence of the supposed Gulf of Tonkin attack is well established.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was not fake. It was indeed a response to the US trade embargoes, but it was not a compelled response: Japan also had the option of ceasing its aggression in China. The Japanese leaders chose to start a war with the US rather than to stop their expansion. A side point: Germany declared war on the US first, not the other way around. It might have been hard for Roosevelt to get a declaration of war against Germany if Germany had not already made one.
The Iraqi attack on Kuwait was real, and even if a story about stealing incubators and dying babies was falsified, the truth was bad enough. However, the US encouraged the attack by having its ambassador telling Hussein that it would not object if Iraq conquered Kuwait. This made the US government partially responsible for the attack.
I have never before seen the accusation that the Oklahoma City bombing was carried out by the government, and at first sight it seems implausible. McVeigh's lawyers would have pounced on any evidence that the bombing was done in some other way.
The Sudanese government has arrested refugees who testified about the murderous activities of government-supported militias.
US media will broadcast lies about Kerry's war record, but the truth about Bush's national guard record (and blackmail record) is too controversial for them.
Settlement Growth: Bad for America, Worse for Israel
The US media are trying to marginalize protests against the Republican Convention, just as they failed to show the opposition to the invasion of Iraq.
It's Peace [in Najaf] but the Dead are Everywhere.
US-sponsored torture, from El Salvador to Iraq.
Gandhi's grandson led a rally of 2000 Palestinians and Israelis against the annexation wall.
Air fresheners, carpets, heater fumes, air conditioning all increase asthma.
Unarmed marchers on a peace mission to Najaf, under the direction of Ayatollah Sistani, were fired at with mortars, then with guns. It is not certain who fired the mortars, but the gunfire came from the Bush forces.
Police in Florida are trying to scare Blacks into not voting.
This is part of a widespread pattern of trying to stop Blacks from voting in many states.
When Blacks do vote, their votes are especially likely to be called "spoiled" and not counted.
The Indonesian army is in a quagmire fighting against the decades-long insurgency in Aceh.
The rebels in Aceh are Muslim extremists, and I don't think I would want to live under the government they would establish. But there is no use trying to impose a non-Islamic government on them by force when most of the Acehnese wouldn't support it.
The reason Dubya's men restrict and arrest protestors is simply out of concern they might be injured... by Dubya's men.
Defend the Homeland!-- Support All Suspicious Activity
The Bush administration continues to try to authorize torture, by redefining the meaning of the word "torture" that the law forbids.
People ridiculed Clinton for splitting hairs about the meanings of "sex" and "is". Splitting hairs about the meaning of "torture" is deadly serious.
Environmental changes have caused a great increase in many kinds of brain diseases.
This article is about the UK, but I'd expect it is the same elsewhere.
A US army investigation has inculpated commanders at Abu Ghraib for torture there.
Knowing what we know about the explicit Bush decisions to authorize torture, it would be an injustice to let the buck stop there.
The Guantanamo kangaroo courts have begun--accepting evidence obtained by torture. So they could torture you into confessing to a murder, then fry you for it.
If Bush is ever put on trial for these crimes, I hope he gets a fair trial. I would not support anything less. It would be turnabout for Bush to be tortured into confessing having connived at the murder of thousands of New Yorkers (regardless of whether he really did this, he might confess it under torture); but by doing so we would demean ourselves, and set a bad precedent that might later endanger the rights of others. Rather than giving vent to feelings of anger by torturing Bush, we should set a higher moral standard for ourselves, and be proud of having decided not to torture him.
Nonviolent protestors against the annexation wall confronted Israeli soldiers who had detained Palestinian youths for hours for no particular reason. One of the protestors was dragged away, imprisoned, and beaten by the police.
A UK member of parliament plans to move the impeachment of Tony Blair on charges of deliberately misleading the public and parliament.
"There is more than one way not to tell the truth: half-truths, omissions and deliberate ambiguities can be just as effective as crude lies if the mission is to mislead." Well said!
Criticizing the usual story of why the US developed and used nuclear weapons.
I disagree with one aspect of the author's point of view. The Soviet Union was a bloody dictatorship, and at the end of World War II it had a large army and a penchant for conquest. Even despite US nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union took over and occupied eastern Europe for 45 years. Such a threat justifies strong countermeasures, and I will not criticize people for thinking to develop super weapons as a way to hold the Soviet armies in check.
The use of nuclear weapons on cities in Japan is a separate question.
The US government has escalated the War on Copying by raiding people who were sharing songs and movies over the Internet.
This is an example of the result of having a government dominated by large corporations. It serves them, not the public.
Meanwhile, the music factories have sued almost 1000 individuals for sharing music.
Friendship is sharing. Anyone who tells you it is wrong to share is the enemy of you and all the friends you might share with.
Arundhati Roy: TIDE? OR IVORY SNOW? Public Power in the Age of Empire
The US National Academy of Engineering sent its members an email criticizing the US goverment for interfering with scientific cooperation by making it hard for scientists to get visas to visit the US. It talked about efforts to convince US consular officials to change their policies, and how hard it will be to convince foreign scientists that the US is an "open and welcoming country".
I sent back this message:
The US is not an open and welcoming country. For instance, if these scientists do visit the US, they will be fingerprinted like criminals. There is also the danger that they will be arrested, as Dmitri Sklyarov was (see www.eff.org)--or shipped summarily to Syria or Egypt to be tortured. (For more information on one known case, see.
Rather than trying to convince our colleagues that it is good to visit the US, we should recommend that they uphold their dignity and safety by staying away. I would stay away from the US if I were them. International scientific conferences should be held outside the US, in countries that are open and welcoming.
Marin County is considering a resolution opposing dirty uranium weapons. More on the background of Leuren Moret.
One caveat about that article is that "atomicity" is not a meaningful way to measure radioactivity. This article explains that point and many other useful points about dirty uranium bombs.
A study of Al Qa'ida reports that it is decentralized--more a social movement than a unified organization. Its strength, while not zero, is overestimated by governments that are manipulating public fears.
The official 9/11 investigation says that the FBI failed to do its best in stopping the funding for 9/11.
Direct intervention by the Bush administration played a role in this failure.
The US is supporting expansions of Israeli settlements in Palestine.
The Arctic ice cap is breaking up--for the first time in human history, but surely not the last.
At last the Democrats criticize one thing Bush has done: cut overtime pay for many Americans.
If they start criticizing 20 more, I will start to say they aren't gutless.
The US military blocked a UN human rights investigator from visiting prisons in Afghanistan.
Driving land cruisers in the desert has caused a tremendous increase in dust storms, world wide.
John Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
OCAP is fighting against campaigns in Toronto to sweep away homeless people.
In little over one year, almost half the soldiers in one unit in the Bush forces have developed cancer--almost certainly due to the dirty uranium bombs that were used in large quantities.
Over half the troops that participated in the first Gulf War in 1991 are now on permanent disability. This could also be due to dirty uranium bombs. They were used then in smaller quantities, so troops got a smaller dose and would not get sick as fast.
Many of Iraq's cities may now be uninhabitable, by the standards of people who are not desperate.
What was the other jet that was near United 93 when it crashed?
Iraqi athletes at the Olypmic Games are speaking out against Bush.
The Sierra Club charges the Bush administration with deliberately suppressing information that people working near the World Trade Center were in danger from the fumes.
Palestine: A Very One-Sided War
The official 9/11 investigation failed to investigate whether the reported cell phone calls from passengers could really have worked. It appears that the planes were flying too high for this, and that the calls must have been faked.
Neither Bush nor Kerry is trying to prepare the US to get through the effects of decreasing oil production.
The Bush forces have bombed Najaf heavily, but al Sadr's army remains determined to fight.
A visit to al Sadr's stronghold.
"Let them starve to death" is the Israeli state's policy toward all Palestinians--those now in prison, and those yet to be put in prison.
Dubya will be the subject of unofficial war crimes trials in New York City. Too bad they can't really arrest him and imprison him.
The Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike is motivated by many forms of torture that are applied in Israeli prisons. Israeli officials call this nonviolent activism "terrorism".
Like Bush, their policy is, "lies built on a foundation of lies."
When Nader criticized Sharon's power over US policy towards Israel, the Anti-Defamation League called him a "bigot". However, criticizing governments is not racism. This particular false accusation is frequently used against anyone who criticies Israeli policy.
Here is Ralph Nader's response to the Anti-Defamation League.
If the ADL makes this policy consistent, it will accuse me, and my (Jewish) Israeli friends and relatives, of hating Jews. That would make the accusation totally absurd and divorced from reality.
World military spending nears 1 trillion dollars per year, mainly as a result of increased US spending. And this doesn't include the costs of war.
Compared with the 500 billion that the US will spend, some 9 billion dollars (almost 2 percent) are unaccounted for in Iraq.
Some of this money went to Iraqis, who are mostly unemployed. Some of it went to Cheney and his rich cronies.
Bush gambles as Najaf burns.
The 9/11 Commission report has contradictions and mysterious omissions in regard to how the hijackings were handled by the FAA and NORAD.
Climate modeling yields projections of sour wine, less milk, and sweltering heat in US cities that are currently livable.
Is Kerry really a lesser evil? Or is this just a distraction from what's really wrong in the US?
Saudi Arabia says it has imprisoned a US citizen at the request of the Bush regime, which pretends that it can't get Saudi Arabia to release him.
Bush follows the Humpty Dumpty approach to laws: they mean what Bush says they mean. It follows that the Bush regime has no more legal standing than any criminal.
Where Kerry really stands on the environment.
How Bush sullied the once heroic term "draft evader."
The US is cutting the funds for AIDS treatment; Bush is trying to provide just enough to keep the problem out of the news until after the election.
Since treatment delayed costs much more, the only way this policy makes sense is if it is intended to kill these people. However, at least it is a positive sign that it suggests Bush is acting as if there will really be an election.
(Temporary) Continuance of the American Way of Life At Stake in Iraq.
At least if oil consumption decreases it may limit the extent of global warning.
When the poor-middle class can't afford to live in suburbs and drive around any more, they are likely to move into cities and semi-gentrify them, forcing the poor into the suburbs where they can't go anywhere except by occasional buses designed to take them to and from work.
Sharon has torn up Bush's "road map" by announcing plans to expand settlements in Palestine.
The annexation wall is designed to take Palestine's water, leaving many Palestinian farmers with none.
Anticipatory harrassment of activists by police and federal agents: sometimes they tell your boss you are a "terrorist, trying to scare you that you'll be fired.
More information on the plans to impose round the clock surveillance on 56 activists.
If I were one of them, I'd have lots of fun giving those police watchers a hard time.
Free software voting machines are a step forward, but not enough.
Mordechai Vanunu defied the prohibition on speaking to non-Israelis by giving a series of interviews to the press. Here is an interview with Democracy Now.
A Republican congressman made news saying it was a "mistake" to attack Iraq, and entertains the possibility that he was lied to by Bush & Co.
He is not running for re-election--perhaps others who do seek reelection are afraid to speak up. But why should this be, when polls show most of the public even now thinks it was wrong?
Forgotten news: On Sep 12, 2001, William Safire reported that the Bush administration received terrorist threats from someone who knew internal communications codes.
As far as I know, the official investigation has not even looked at this. (If I'm wrong, please let me know.)
A volcanic collapse in the Canary Islands could scour the east coast of North America, and there could be nothing left on many islands in the Carribean.
The Abu Ghraib whistleblower is getting death threats. Apparently some people in the army are angry that their friends are getting punished.
Developments in neuroscience are starting to endanger the freedom to think--even inside one's own head.
Barbie in a Blender Day celebrates a court victory over Mattel's attemps to censor art.
This note is a little too late for this year's celebration, but if they do it next year, you'll have a lot of time to prepare.
The Iraqi police in Najaf ordered all journalists to leave, then shot at them when mere orders did not suffice.
2000 civilians, unarmed from now, have gone to Najaf to act as "human shields" for al Sadr.
A year after a major US power blackout, Bush still supports the deregulation policies that caused it.
The US military investigation of torture in Abu Ghraib is a blatant whitewash, leaving the generals free to order others to do the torture in future.
A year after a major US power blackout, Bush still supports the deregulation policies that caused it.
The US military investigation of torture in Abu Ghraib is a blatant whitewash, leaving the generals free to order others to do the torture in future.
Starbucks is making false accusations in an attempt to fire a union organizer.
The Iraqi puppet government has banned Al Jazeera for giving "a bad picture of Iraq". Interestingly, this does not accuse Al Jazeera of lying.
"Bad picture" could mean that Al Jazeera was not parroting the official line, or that it is as biased as US media but in a different direction.
Al-Sadr's militia is gaining strength as Shi'as in Iraq become increasingly hostile to the occupation.
UK oks use of evidence obtained by torture (in Guantanamo) provided the torture wasn't "connived at" by the UK.
The claim that torture in Guantanamo is not supported by the UK government is absurd, given the decades-long practice where each government spies on the other country's citizens for the other country's government.
Bush is using the distraction provided by Iraq as cover to change many federal regulations--generally to favor business and shaft the public.
The Iraqi puppet government has charged Ahmed Chalabi and Salem Chalabi (organizer of Saddam Hussein's trial) counterfeiting and murder, respectively.
It looks to me like a gang of thieves falling out. I would not be shocked if the charges were true, nor if they were a complete frame-up; both sides are so far from honesty.
Venezuelan President Chavez won the recall referendum.
I'm proud to say that I was asked for, and gave, a message of support for his campaign. I hope I gained a few votes for him among free software users.
A good critique of the values of modern economics, first published in 1966.
Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike--many of whom have never been charged with a crime--are demanding decent food, family visits and not to be kept for long periods in solitary confinement.
An Israeli official described the hunger strike as "terrorism".
Bigotry against lower castes in India remains so strong--and so cruel--that they are almost entirely excluded from most professional and business jobs.
US government "terror alerts" magnify the intended effect of terrorism, which is to disrupt people's lives and minds.
Meanwhile, when the administration gets real information, its response may be not to issue any warning.
This reinforces the conclusion that these "terror alerts" serve no purpose except to scare people.
A group of bereaved parents has begun organizing an anti-induction campaign, aimed at getting recruits to refuse to join the IDF.
It's all-out war in Najaf again. The Bush forces won't estimate civilian casualties because they don't want people to think about them.
They may be following the Vietnam-War practice of counting all dead bodies as "insurgents", to present massacres as victories.
Kerry says he would have supported the invasion of Iraq even if he had known Saddam had no weapons of mass distruction.
Does Kerry say what reason he believes would have justified this war?
A timeline of Bush administration actions in regard to Iraq shows that the administration, not intelligence agencies, were to blame for the false warnings about Iraqi weapons.
A father in the UK calls on Blair to get his son, who is being tortured, out of Guantanamo.
Bush now opposes inspections in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, in effect making the treaty much less effective.
Perhaps Bush gives low priority to the danger posed by development of weapons of mass distruction, when they are not a convenient excuse. Or perhaps he intends to invade every country that develops them and feels a treaty is superfluous.
You and I might call Bush a paranoid megalomaniac and mean it loosely. Various psychiatrists say this, and mean it literally.
Porter Goss, Bush's nominee to run the CIA, wants to officially authorize the CIA to spy on Americans inside the US, and even to arrest people.
The Presbyterian Church criticized Israel's annexation wall.
The US government funds "democratic change" in countries whose elected leaders are not to its taste.
The Democratic Party's platform is as militaristic as Bush's policies. Most Americans are coming to oppose the war, but neither major party represents these views.
Nixon prologed the Vietnam War for political purposes even though he had already concluded it was lost. This is an example of the "never admit a mistake" attitude that we often see in governments, but especially in Bush.
Dubya's nominee to head the CIA told Michael Moore's interviewers that he isn't qualified to work at the CIA.
GIs in Iraq are asking, "Why are we here"? They have a "pervasive sense that Iraqis do not want their help", which means they have more sense than Bush or Kerry.
I would guess that the governor of Anbar, who doesn't want the Bush forces to leave, was installed by the Bush forces and figures that the resistance will consider him a collaborator.
An Iraqi official in Basra is calling for secession of that region from Iraq.
The breakup of Iraq has been a fairly likely possibility ever since the Bush forces invaded. Hatred for Bush and his men could make Iraqis stick together voluntarily, or a new dictator (perhaps Bush-installed, perhaps not) might in theory be able to impose unity on the whole country.
Opposition is growing even in the UK government to the tyrannical anti-terrorism laws there.
The US government is using businesses to spy intensively on Americans in ways that it is legally prohibited from doing directly.
In order to give companies less information about me, I don't buy retail goods with credit cards, and I don't carry a portable phone. Portable phones report your whereabouts constantly, even when you are not using them.
For crushing the resistance in Sadr City, the epidemic of typhoid there could be more effective than the Bush-imposed daily curfew.
6000 or so US soldiers have been wounded in recent wars, most of them in the Bush forces in Iraq.
Note the subtle propaganda in labeling the invasion of Iraq as part of the "War on Terrorism", since it had nothing to do with that.
Rove's White House 'Murder, Inc.'
The US government is using businesses to spy intensively on Americans in ways that it is legally prohibited from doing directly.
In order to give companies less information about me, I don't buy retail goods with credit cards, and I don't carry a portable phone. Portable phones report your whereabouts constantly, even when you are not using them.
Blair's "Labor" party has helped the rich in the UK get richer while doing nothing about poverty.
The problem of unverifiable electronic voting machines is being addressed by some states, but others are failing to act.
How the TV broadcasters effectively copyright Bush's blunders, and use this power to protect him.
The Secret Service has been circulating fliers showing pictures of political activists, as if they were planning to attack Bush physically rather than just attack his conduct. And they have tried to cover it up, too.
A challenge invites people to find and document security holes in electronic voting machines.
These people have confused hacking with cracking, but I've made a link anyway because this activity is important.
The TSA confiscated a Baptist peace organization's peace banner, calling it "security threat". They also threatened to destroy it summarily.
The arrogant tyrants in the TSA are more of a danger to our freedom than any terrorists could be.
Information Liberation, by Brian Martin.
Of course, I don't agree with all of the many ideas in this book; it would be an amazing coincidence if I did. Nonetheless, it is well worth reading.
Chapter 3 is partly weakened by its use of the term "intellectual property", which tends to lead people to lump together disparate legal issues. Martin has mostly managed to resist the confusing effect of this term, though not entirely. (For instance, the basic purpose of trademarks has nothing to do with providing an incentive for anything in particular. Rather, it is so that buyers can be sure of what they are buying.)
You can play it much safer by not using that term at all, and by thinking about copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets as entirely separate issues.
A woman is running for president of Afghanistan, defying intimidation.
A former deputy chief of the Mossad (Israel's spy service) denounced the army as having discarded its ethics.
It is interesting that the chief of the army responded by suggesting that Toledano didn't understand Israel's security needs. If he doesn't, who does?
The Israeli army destroyed 40,000 olive and fruit trees in Beit Hanoun, as "reprisals" for a few rockets. They destroyed houses and factories too, and stole cash.
Idema, on trial in Afghanistan, claims Pentagon support for his private torture operation.
He could be making this up, but I would not be surprised if it were true. Rumsfeld called him a "mercenary", which he probably is, but that does not contradict his story. The Pentagon employs thousands of mercenaries, and some of them have been employed to torture prisoners.
Blair is facing demands to reopen the inquiry about Dr Kelly since information was withheld. A majority of the UK now say Blair lied to make an excuse for war.
Public Citizen reports:
Kerry has raised significantly more than Bush from lawyers and the media/entertainment industry.
(See http://www.whitehouseforsale.org)
If Kerry wins, he will probably pay his managers by supporting further draconian extensions in copyright law, and escalating the War on Sharing.
Indonesia's trials for war crimes in East Timor were a sham: everyone was let off, except for two Timorese. ETAN calls for UN trials.
The UK plans to protect dolphins which are being killed by the thousands by fishing for striped bass.
The Sudanese army is working closely with the Janjaweed militias to kill non-Muslim civilians in southern Sudan.
Israel regularly imprisons Palestinians without charging them with any crime, sometimes over and over. They can't have family visits because the guards say, "Prove this is your mother."
The increasing price of oil is likely to mean big changes in the American way of life--and, to the extent it has been imitated by other countries, in their way of life also.
Bush's prisoners at Guantanamo have been tortured like those in Iraq.
Privatization in the UK has been a failure in its own terms.
How doctors assisted torture in Iraq, and helped to cover it up.
Here is more information on how the right-wing smear machine fabricates accusations, then tries to make them seem like truth through repetition.
John Scarlett , new head of MI-6, has been personally inculpated for secretly pushing the weapons inspection in team to lie about its findings. (They defied Scarlett's pressure and released a report saying they had found nothing significant.)
The Bush invasion of Iraq has had the ironic effect of strengthening the position of Iran in the region. You wouldn't expect Bush to want to do this, but hey, religious fanatics have to stick together.
John Kerry needs a lesson on Latin American democracy.
Doctors Without Boarders has pulled out of Afghanistan after some of its people were killed by the Taliban. Afghanistan was never given the aid it was promised after the war.
The Bush administration scored an "own goal", arresting a spy inside Al Qa'ida. Bush was telling the truth, for once, when he said, "Our enemies...never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
A Republican Congressman admitted seeking to prevent Detroit voters from voting. Some people argue that "Detroit" stands for "Black". It might be true, but I don't think it makes any difference which one he meant. Either way, it is contrary to the spirit of democracy.
FBI harrassment of anarchists in the US includes giving them subpoenas to appear in court when they were planning to go to protests.
Gulf War Syndrome may be due to low level exposure to some of Saddam's chemical weapons, after they were hit by a US bomb and spread through the air.
It occurs to me that most of the civilians in Iraq were probably exposed too.
The Internation Red Cross says that former Guantanamo prisoners could have a real case for war crimes prosecution of their captors. Meanwhile, many retired judges and former FBI director Sessions (under Bush I) have condemned the Bush administration legal opinions that purported to legitimize torture.
The handful of people who took control of most of Russia's wealth after the fall of the Soviet Union are now boasting of how they did it. Privatization gave them their predictable opportunity. They gained full control of the media, got Yeltsin reelected, then ruled through him. Putin chased them out of Russia, but they managed to take a lot of riches with them.
Putin has since taken control of all media in Russia himself, kicking out journalists that criticized the government. It appears that Russia today is democratic in form, but not in fact.
The Thai National Human Rights Commission condemned the Thai government for trampling civil liberties.
The Bush forces have lost control over much of Iraq; the puppet government is ineffective, and probably will be unable to hold the promised elections.
Before the war, I said I would support an invasion to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussain's dictatorship, provided (1) the Iraqi people wanted this kind of liberation and (2) we could trust the invading forces to establish freedom and democracy. But I didn't think either of these conditions was true. Events have confirmed they were not.
The Iraqi resistance doesn't believe in freedom or democracy any more than Bush does, and uses tactics as brutal in their own way as the Bush forces' tactics. But I still hope they win, because they are better than a foreign occupying army whose real purpose is to help corporations steal the country's wealth. The end result will probably be another dictatorship, but it will probably kill fewer Iraqis than the Bush dictatorship.
A dictator is never legitimate, so I will once again be ready support an invasion to liberate Iraq from the new dictatorship, provided (1) the Iraqi people want this kind of liberation and (2) we can trust the invading forces to establish freedom and democracy. But the first condition surely won't be true, and I'd be skeptical about the second if someone like Bush or Kerry is in charge.
The National Geographic Society officially isn't a business, but it now acts on behalf of businesses: its magazine for children is loaded with ads for candy and junk food.
This article says how to contact the head of the society to express your views about this.
How Bush misuses "intelligence information" to mislead people.
Wouldn't it be ironic if the prisoner told that lie because he realized it would help Bush attack Iraq, which in turn would help Al Qa'ida? Naturally Dubya fell straight into the trap.
"Intelligence information" in the hands of the inexperienced and stupid can easily turn into "stupidity information".
Colombia's president Uribe, whose US-funded government presides over a paramilitary death squads, was listed in 1991 as a major drug trafficker.
An Iraqi group has counted almost 40,000 Iraqi civilians killed since the invasion by Bush forces.
The Bush forcesd don't try to keep track of Iraqi casualties, neither military nor civilian, because they figure that "out of sight, out of mind".
Prisoners in Guantanamo have been tortured like prisoners in Iraq. They were tortured, for instance, into making confessions that are demonstrably false. Some are reported to be going crazy from long isolation. Meanwhile, the evidence now shows that the UK government was complicit in the torture practices.
The Bush forces have been imprisoning minors as young as 12, and appear to hold around 100 minors in prison now. Some of them have been tortured.
It's hard to imagine what crime a child of 12 would be suspected of, but recall that the Bush forces have a practice taking hostages. When they can't find the person they want to arrest, they arrest people in his family and keep them prisoner. Some of these children may be hostages.
Sibel Edmonds open letter to Thomas Kean points out several forms of malfeasance at the FBI which the the 9/11 investigation has failed to investigate.
Halliburto is being investigated for illegal ties with Iran under Cheney's adm inistration.
India is building a new highway right through wildlife preserves. It threatens to destroy the largest remaining population of wild tigers, along with various other species.
Household garbage from Ireland is persistently being sent to India despite treaties banning the practice.
Israeli scholars have given the army a document spelling out the ethical ways to fight Palestinian fighters; but the army ignores it, and continues shooting innocents, torturing them in public, and knocking down houses on top of old people.
The army destroyed a food-processing plant just after it was set up by a charitable foundation hoping to give Palestinians some work and income.
The implicit message of this attack was that Israel is determined to reduce Palestinians to poverty, and will destroy any help that they get.
Workers at a chicken slaughterhouse were found to be regularly torturing the chickens. People are upset about this.
I see a different scandal here. These workers were cruel to the chickens to take out their anger at the management for making them work too long hours. Instead of punishing these workers, we should help them form a strong union.
There is evidence that the US is keeping hundreds of disappeared prisoners on prison ships kept 3 miles off Diego Garcia. This is like a secret version of Guantanamo.
Regarding the exile of the inhabitants of Diego Garcia: it can be justified to take private lands for a military base, but those who are thus evicted are entitled to compensation, and they shouldn't be exiled among another people.
A senator is now accusing NORAD of lying about the events of 9/11.
Seabirds in Scotland are being wiped out; this year they are failing to raise any young. They are the victims of an ecological chain reaction caused by global warming. In a few years they may be gone.
Perhaps small populations of a few species will be able to find enough to eat. Or perhaps such a small population would be wiped out by predators. (These birds find safety in their numbers.)
The right-wing conspiracy that attacked Clinton is now operating against Kerry's wife.
Here we see how it operates: by persistently making disproportionate fuss about minor things. Often the things are distortions of the facts, or are not actually bad, but sufficient media criticism makes them look bad and their truthfulness is then irrelevant. Recall what was done to Howard Dean: his go-get-em war cry was broadcast over and over, minus the noise of the crowd in the room, and thus made to seem peculiar.
Bush is trying to push NATO to support the occupation of Iraq, and France is blocking it.
The US military is trying to limit the blame for torture to the underlings who were taught to carry it out. Meanwhile, Congressman Markey is courageously trying to end the US government practice of disappearing people at whim into countries that will torture them.
The FBI is questioning many political activists about supposed plans to "hurt people", which they surely have fabricated.
I think the decision to suspect political dissidents is meant as both intimidation and propaganda. Some may be too scared to protest; meanwhile, the protestors are smeared in the public's eyes. Instead of saying that all protestors are terrorists (which has been tried), they point at each protestor and ask, "Are you a terrorist?" It has the same effect.
The obvious parody web site http://www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk bothered the UK government so much that they asked the operator to take it down.
Greg Palast: Has Johnnie been good?
The US is turning into a nation of prisons. Over 2 million Americans are in prison. Almost 7 million (over 2% of the population) are in prison or parole.
Beware the mythical super-pot.
Garment sweatshops in many countries will be closed as China welcomes them all.
The corporate owners of the song This land is my land are threatening to sue people who used it to lampoon Bush and Kerry. The concept that parody words "damage" a song is a perversion promulgated by philistines who appreciate music only as an income-producing property.
Pressure increases for reform of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, against Arafat's control.This is in anticipation of Sharon's talk of removing Israeli settlements and troops from Gaza.
The "free speech zone" in Boston carries limitation and harrassment of protestors to an extreme. It impossible to really protest there, but people who look like they might want to try are threatened by police.
The Swedish government grabbed two people and suddenly deported them without a hearing to Egypt, where they were tortured. The plane that brought them there was apparently a US plane.
The Swedish government is now complaining they were lied to; Egypt promised not to torture these people, but tortured them anyway. However, that's ducking the issue. The Swedish government surely has laws to require people get hearings before they are deported. It should not have let people be arrested and shipped off unwillingly to any country respecting their rights.
Swedes should press their government on this issue until it falls from power and is replaced by one that respects civil liberties.
Iran: Secularist critic of the regime sentenced to five years in prison. Nigeria: smear campaign against atheists.
Iraqi insurgents are taking hostages to pressure various countries to withdraw troops from Iraq, and to show the government's weakness.
This is a despicable tactic, but we have to remember that the Bush forces have done things just as bad (and did so before the insurgents). The Bush forces have even held hostages in Iraq, and probably still imprison them, although they have not killed them.
The Bush forces in Iraq are considering the idea that they should stay out of the cities and stop patrolling. The idea is to let Iraqis do all the work of keeping the Bush forces in power.
Here's an example of what it looks like:
This might be an effective idea in some other time and place, but given how much Iraqis hate the Bush forces, and their tendency to attack Iraqi collaborators, I don't think it will work. It may reduce non-Iraqi casualties, but it can't win.
British MPs As a group of British MPs were looking at the place where British activist Tom Hurndall was shot by Israeli troops, they were fired at by Israeli troops.
Teaching Torture: Congress Quietly Keeps School of the Americas Alive
Fighting Israel's Wall - by ANN PETTER
Farmers in Colombia are trying to organize and practice sustainable agriculture, but they have been attacked by paramilitaries.
These paramilitaries are supported by the Colombian government with US backing and perhaps US funds too.
We are seeing a pattern of attacks on the careers of musicians and performers who criticize Bush. It adds up to censorship.
I think hotel owners should be able to decide who can speak at their hotels, and radio stations should be able to decide what songs to play. This has the effect of censorship today because industry is concentrated in few hands and performers don't dare offend them. You could write a protest song about Iraq today, but no matter how good it is, people would only hear it on the Internet.
To end corprate rule and restore democracy requires breaking up the large corporations. Radio and TV are no exception.
Kerry is starting, reluctantly, to talk about the problem of disenfranchisement of Black voters.
Japan is buying votes in the International Whaling Commission in a campaign to allow resumed whaling.
Florida Governor Bush is flouting a court order to prevent many ex-felons from regaining their voting rights.
Kerry, who declines to call Bush a liar, apologized for people who called Bush a thug.
The original thuggees were religious fanatics that killed for their religion. Doesn't Bush qualify?
The US and Saudi Arabia released terrorist suspects in a deal designed to gain partial Saudi support for the invasion of Iraq.
It is possible that the Saudis in Guantanamo deserved to be released; they certainly did not deserve to be held without trial, or tortured. However, the prisoners released in return by the Saudis were convicted of a car bombing, and their release was not due to doubts about their guilt. It was just a deal.
This is one of many ways that Bush accepted an increased danger of terrorism increase in order to achieve his real goal.
About half the carbon dioxide humans have released into the air has gone into the ocean. While this as prevented global warming from proceeding even faster, it also puts the survival of shellfish in danger.
Many "US" companies are incorporating offshore to avoid taxes. Both Bush and Cheney were active in doing this with their own companies.
Sharon caused an uproar by publicly urging Jews to leave France to escape anti-semitism there.
Ironically, Sharon is largely responsible for the anti-semitism in France. Thoughtful people criticize Israeli government cruelty without being anti-semitic, but not everyone is thoughtful, so Israel's cruel treatment of Palestinians tends to result in increased anti-semitism.
Chirac might well respond by inviting Jews to move from Israel to France. There are so many reasons he might give: to avoid the domination of the ultra-orthodox, to avoid being inculpated or dragged into the Israeli government's bestial behavior, etc.
The Democratic Party's decision to woo wealthier voters, and abandon the cause of the workers against the rich, led to a situation where in many areas poor Americans support the Republicans more even as they get poorer.
Muslim militias in the Sudan are systematically raping the non-Muslim women, as well as killing the men.
Get the unofficial Michelin Guide to Israeli Prisons...before Michelin shuts it down.
Israeli troops shot two Palestinian bystanders in their own home. With helicopters shooting missiles into a populated area, it's a wonder they didn't kill more civilians.
Israeli forces claim these attacks on civilian areas are for "safety", but the main perpetrators of violence in the region are Israeli troops, and most of the civilians killed are killed by them.
Farmers in India are killing themselves as drought makes them unable to pay their debts.
Offering government compensation to the families is a kind gesture, but what the Indian government really needs to do is consider the needs of farmers who are still alive. Otherwise it is driving them to kill themselves.
The Iraqi resistance has stepped up its attacks since the handover of nominal authority to Iraqis.
Over 10,000 troops in the Bush forces have been wounded so far; I don't know how many of those were serious wounds, but it is a lot of casualties.
The US is moving to cut off aid to Uzbekistan. It is the right thing to do, but it's so unlike Bush to do anything right that I have to wonder if some subtle evil scheme lurks behind it.
Bush plans to allow lots of logging of trees in large areas now protected.
Sunni leaders in Iraq call for war. (I wonder if the one who was imprisoned was tortured.)
Iraqi professors are being systematically murdered. We don't know by whom.
Western journalists no longer dare travel around Iraq, which has the result that Bush forces can bomb a wedding party and deny it, and nobody can even say it isn't so.
What does "sovereignty" mean in Iraq?
Seymour Hersh reports seeing a video of Iraqi prisoners being raped.
Gulf War Syndrome victims get a hearing in the UK. We don't know what the cause or causes are, but we know from the figures that it is a real problem.
Bush is trying to eliminate overtime pay for 6 million US workers.
Uncritical support for Israeli policies in the US now comes more from Christian fanatics than from Jews. The fanatics are not concerned for the well being of Israelis, any more than they are for Palestinians, but rather seek to bring about conditions they believe will trigger the end of the world. Can anyone get more crazy than that?
By trying to make propecies come true, these fanatics are treating their supposed god as a sort of machine, preprogrammed to activate the desired sequence of events whenever certain conditions are met. "God, activate world destruct sequence." The god responds, "Enter password." So they arrange for a new temple in Jerusalem to be constructed, and the god says, "Destruct sequence activated."
And to think that people used to accuse engineers of worshiping the machine.
They have a backup system, too: in case no god shows up to carry out the prophecies, they are burning up all the oil. At least they will get another flood.
Sibel Edmonds isn't even allowed to tell a court where she was born.
This article also gives more info about the treachery she found inside the FBI, which has been covered up.
Life expectancy in parts of Africa is under 40 years, due to AIDS.
Previous UK inquiries about false reports of Iraqi weapons were kept in the dark. The responsibility for this is narrowing in towards Blair.
Fallujah: inside the Iraqi resistance.
I am not sure how to reconcile the statements in this article about a friendship between Fallujah and Saddam with statements elsewhere about a hostile relationship between them. Perhaps someone who knows can explain.
Kerry would keep troops in Iraq longer than Bush.
Former officials who urged Bush to attack Iraq are now working for companies that profit from the war.
Bush could try to manipulate the election by faking a terrorist alert on election day, timed to prevent voting in California cities.
Given that we know some past terror alerts were fishy, and given that the Bush campaign cheated in 2000, we cannot regard this danger as beyond consideration.
You might wonder why I am concerned about fixing or canceling the election, given that Kerry agrees with Bush on the major issues of the day. The reason is that elections may someday provide a chance to peacefully obtain leaders that stand for freedom and democracy. Even if there is no hope of this in 2004, there may be some day.
More evidence about how false intelligence about Iraqi weapons was obtained and used in Washington.
Insiders who wanted an invasion of Iraq surely had contacts with each other. Richard Perle certainly knows Cheney. I would expect ties can be found between Woolsey and people such as Cheney who profit from the war.
We can envision what was happening: while Cheney and Bush were trying to pull something out of the DIA that they could use, Woolsey and Perle were pushing from the other side.
The Bush regime has been denying data about Iraq expenses to UN auditors.
How slimy it is to praise the auditors to sidestep the failure to help them. A lack of cooperation from the entity being audited is surely a "challenging environment"--and whose fault is that?
The UK is considering legalizing brothels as a way of helping the women who have been pressured into prostitution.
There is no legitimate reason to prohibit prostitution.
Information that MI6 knew the supposed evidence for Iraqi weapons was false was withheld from previous inquiries in the UK.
It looks like the blame for this deception is becoming localized in the highest levels of Blair's government.
A major British bank is closing the bank account of the British National Party.
The BNP is racist and right-wing, and I don't agree with it at all. Islam, like Christianity, is very dangerous, but people have a right to believe in it and should not be the victims of prejudice.
However, that is no excuse for closing the BNP's bank account. To close a political party's bank account is tantamount to banning the party.
Banks should not be allowed to close anyone's account, except for cause such as misbehavior towards the bank or a criminal conviction.
The editor of the Russian edition of Forbes was shot and killed, apparently for his writing about rich Russians who are probably criminals. Meanwhile, freedom of speech in Russian mass media is being eliminated even more thoroughly than in the US.
Even the GAO says that US government "terror alerts" are meaningless.
A Russian journalist who writes about rich people (who are often criminals) was assassinated--apparently because they don't want to be written about.
Official protest against the Democratic National Convention is supposed to occur in an unfree "free speech zone" where there is room for only 1000 or so people, each of whom is to be searched by police. Gas masks, to protect against police attacks such as occur frequently at protests, are prohibited. People who go in will be sitting ducks.
So the Black Tea Society calls on protestors to refuse to use this zone, and protest elsewhere.
Militarisation of the US is proceeding on a number of parallel tracks, which add up to the end of everything the US is supposed to stand for. This article explains how they fit together.
I am not convinced that Al Qa'ida is "a CIA asset"--the arguments I saw for that have too many possible weak points. But these arguments seem pretty convincing.
Ken Lay has been indicted for operating "The Microsoft of the energy world".
Microsoft's crimes are larger and more harmful, but they are also subtler, so it has been able to buy its way out of trouble despite being convicted twice in court.
The most central part of economics is the value system it assumes to be everyone's sole motivation: personal gain. By repeating this assumption, it acts as propaganda convincing people to submerge other aspects of their personality, other motivations. In other words, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There is evidence that studying economics makes people more selfish in general; it does not surprise me to learn that a robber baron like Lay started out as an economist.
Bush and his supporters participate in a "social phantasy system", where they reinforce each other's false beliefs and become increasingly disconnected from reality.
The Republicans failed in their attempt to limit marriage to heterosexuals, but Bush vows to continue trying.
The bizarre assumption in Bush's speech is that the existence of homosexual couples ruins marriage for all other Americans. I know a recently-married homosexual couple--the invitation to their party was the first such invitation I have ever accepted. I invite Bush to meet them, and then tell us if they have damaged his marriage.
Is the International Space Station failing so fast that will soon have to be abandoned? This article argues for that.
I hope it isn't true. I don't have enough expertise to judge for myself.
Overfishing in the North Atlantic threatens to wipe out the population of blue whiting.
Many fish populations around the world are in danger; modern fishing methods are too effective to be sustained. (Many of them also destroy other animals.)
Blaming the CIA for "mistaken intelligence" about Iraq overlooks the political pressure from above and its influence on the CIA's evaluation of available information.
911 Truth is campaigning for an honest and thorough investigation of the many suspicious circumstances involving the 9/11 attacks.
Governments are endangering the neutrality of NGOs, which in the end puts their ability to operate in danger.
Israel is profiting from the Bush invasion of Iraq to arm Kurds to fight Iran. The Kurds can use the same arms to fight Turkey, or the Bushist government of Iraq.
Iranians do not like their Islamic government very much, but if anything could make them support it, it would be an external attack like this. Whether deliberately or carelessly, Bush is paving the way to strengthen Islamic terrorism yet again.
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire
The Deepening Crisis in America's Prisons
Public Citizen defeated Bush's attempt to trash the US govt rules for nuclear waste disposal. When it was found that the planned Yucca Mountain site didn't meet the established criteria, Bush wanted to do away with the criteria.
Bush will surely try again if he has a chance.
Disposing of the waste unsafely is not the right way to handle it. However, if the waste can't goin Yucca Mountain, where SHOULD it go?
Reports say that the WTO is on the path towards a treaty that would restrict vitamin supplements and herbal medicine.
The most important point here, as I see it, is the way the WTO subjugates democracy. For democracy's sake, we have to abolish the WTO.
People are "liberating" aquarium fish in the wrong ocean, and this is causing ecological damage. Fish can reproduce like kudzu when they enter an ecosystem where nothing eats them.
Increased CO2 in air causes peat bogs to release carbon in the form of CO2. We can expect around twice as as much global warming as was previously estimated.
Don't buy property less than 100 feet above sea level.
How Big Brother Is Watching, Listening and Misusing Information About You
A planned execution in India has stimulated a strong campaign to abolish the death penalty.
Bush wants legislation to enable the Department of Homeland Security to postpone the November election. Perhaps forever--or till the "end" of the "war on terrorism", which would mean forever.
Various rebel groups in the Congo are jointly committing the genocide of the pygmies.
The UN has asked to talk with the prisoners held by the US outside the US, to assure they are being treated humanely.
A Canadian Muslim women's group warn that allowing Shari'a courts for divorce will result in pressuring them to use these courts, and the results could be systematically harmful to women.
The DMCA, the law that prohibits free software for important purposes such as viewing a DVD, has been interpreted to prohibit independent support providers for a proprietary software package. It's as if it were illegal for you to hire an unauthorized mechanic to service your car.
The decision is preliminary, but if it stands up, many proprietary software developers may use the same method to forbid users access to parts of their software.
I refer to this article for the sake of the factual information in it, but its general assumptions are questionable. The intended purpose of the DMCA was to impose DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) on the public, not merely to prevent private copying (although preventing private copying is bad enough!).
The term "piracy" embodies another assumption: that sharing is wrong. That word is the basis of a propaganda campaign meant to demonize sharing.
The Bush forces hit a car, killed the driver, then shot the passenger. Then they tried to threaten journalists who were watching.
Like the Rodney King beating, this is an unusual well-documented instance of a frequent practice that is usually covered up.
After the FBI found that their accusations of terrorism against artist/professor Steve Kurtz couldn't stand up, they found a bizarre excuse to charge him with a crime--receiving a sample of harmless bacteria from another professor. In other words, ordinary scientific cooperation.
The FBI's policy is, "Once we target you, we can always find something to accuse you of."
Given that governments have a pattern of stretching laws to get whoever they want, we cannot afford to give them discretion in the matter. Laws, in order to be just, must constrain the government more clearly. They must be designed to resist the police and prosecutors' attempts to stretch them.
We're making progress in the fight against software patents in the European Union.
Contrary to what the article says, the campaign against software patents was launched by free software activists, not by the open source movement.
In 2001 we heard that someone had taken out lots of stock options before 9/11, suggesting that this someone knew about the attacks in advance. Three years later, the public has not been told who it was, but there are signs of a coverup, and an executive at the bank where these options now works for the CIA. A serious and thorough investigation of the 9/11 attacks must investigate this issue, along with many others.
Polls show Venezuelan President Chez headed for a big win in his recall referendum.
Bush and the Republicans should give back what they bought with Enron money.
Iraqi guerrilla leader al Muhammadani, who fought Saddam before, gave Bush a chance to see what he would do. Now he says Iraq has gone from one dictator to another, and he is fighting the Bush forces.
Israeli troops shot a Palestinian boy playing football in Rafah, where they are also demolishing houses again--part of a long-drawn-out campaign of collective punishment and ethnic cleansing.
A suicide bombing in Israel typically kills several persons; only one boy was shot in that place at that time. But the relentless shooting of Palestinians kills more people than suicide bombings in Israel used to kill when they were common (and now they are rare). All in all, Israeli terror is several times worse than Palestinian terror.
If we sincerely condemn terrorism, we must not focus on the lesser terror while disregarding or excusing the greater terror. Steps to end the terror are ineffective if they focus narrowly on the lesser terror. A separation wall on the Green Line, one that did not annex Palestinian land, might be a good measure to reduce terror in both directions.
Bush is pressing Musharraf to take big risks to try to catch some Al Qa'ida suspects in a hurry (before the election). Previously, Bush thought it was ok to go slower and avoid the risks.
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Sibel Edmonds reports on a court decision that upheld the Bush administration, preventing her from telling us (or even Congress) what she knows about the antecedents of the Sep 11 attacks.
The World Court denounced the Israali annexation wall, saying it should be torn down. However, the decision has no power, and the Bush government has rejected it already.
One of the reasons for suspicion about the official story of what happened on September 11 is the presence of strange attachments photographed under one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center. I know what conclusion to draw from this, but it appears to come from reputable sources and Boeing's refusal to explain is very suspicious.
A translation of the article from La Vanguardia (Spain).
The Venezuelan Referendum, Beware Jimmy Carter!
Bush is developing procedures for postponing the next election on account of "terrorism". I guess this means that he expects to lose the election if it is held.
Having Bush in power is ideal for Al Qa'ida recruitment, and people have wondered if Al Qa'ida might carry out some action in order to make Americans too scared to think.
There are also those who suggest that Bush would cooperate intentionally with the attack. Whether that is true, I do not know, but the conclusion here does not require that assumption. The cooperation Bush provides through actions that help Al Qa'ida recruiting is sufficient.
Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War
Blair's former legal advisor condemns the occupation of Iraq as illegal, and says the Bush forces may be guilty of war crimes.
Saleh shouldn't feel ashamed of how he was treated in AbuGhraib-- only indignant.
The Bush forces tried to censor audio from Saddam's hearing, then lied about the censorship. They also tried to disguise their presence there.
The Bush administration continues to support torture and empoverishment in several Latin American countries.
Bush uses mercenaries for interrogation as a way to sidestep military law that prohibits torture.
Bush's policy, at every level: one law for Bush--another for you.
Blame the Culture of War for the Chaos in the Middle East
General Wiranto, who commanded Indonesia's armed forces while they organized death squads and massacres in East Timor, did not made it into the final stage of voting for president of Indonesia. Wiranto is under international indictment for war crimes.