CORRUPTION UPDATES 170

Posted: April 10, 2008, Draft edition

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1) The Articles linked below were Abstracted from the sources cited. After the abstract there's analysis and commentary, links to related articles, and a link to the database with suggested search terms.

Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'

Detailed Discussions Were Held About Techniques to Use on al Qaeda Suspects

By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG, HOWARD L. ROSENBERG and ARIANE de VOGUE

April 9, 2008—

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4583256

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

But this is the first time sources have disclosed that a handful of the most senior advisers in the White House explicitly approved the details of the program. According to multiple sources, it was members of the Principals Committee that not only discussed specific plans and specific interrogation methods, but approved them.

Lawyers in the Justice Department had written a classified memo, which was extensively reviewed, that gave formal legal authority to government interrogators to use the "enhanced" questioning tactics on suspected terrorist prisoners. The August 2002 memo, signed by then head of the Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee, was referred to as the so-called "Golden Shield" for CIA agents, who worried they would be held liable if the harsh interrogations became public.

(Alex note: Abu Zubaida captured on 3-28-08. Yoo summoned to White House in "early spring," produced Bybee memo 8-02)

Old hands in the intelligence community remembered vividly how past covert operations, from the Vietnam War-era "Phoenix Program" of assassinations of Viet Cong to the Iran-Contra arms sales of the 1980s were painted as the work of a "rogue agency" out of control.

But even after the "Golden Shield" was in place, briefings and meetings in the White House to discuss individual interrogations continued, sources said. Tenet, seeking to protect his agents, regularly sought confirmation from the NSC principals that specific interrogation plans were legal.

According to a former CIA official involved in the process, CIA headquarters would receive cables from operatives in the field asking for authorization for specific techniques. Agents, worried about overstepping their boundaries, would await guidance in particularly complicated cases dealing with high-value detainees, two CIA sources said.

Highly placed sources said CIA directors Tenet and later Porter Goss along with agency lawyers briefed senior advisers, including Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Powell, about detainees in CIA custody overseas.

 

"It kept coming up. CIA wanted us to sign off on each one every time," said one high-ranking official who asked not to be identified. "They'd say, 'We've got so and so. This is the plan.'"

 

Sources said that at each discussion, all the Principals present approved.

 

Then-Attorney General Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.

According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

The Principals also approved interrogations that combined different methods, pushing the limits of international law and even the Justice Department's own legal approval in the 2002 memo, sources told ABC News.

At one meeting in the summer of 2003 -- attended by Vice President Cheney, among others -- Tenet made an elaborate presentation for approval to combine several different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time, according to a highly placed administration source.

A year later, amidst the outcry over unrelated abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the controversial 2002 legal memo, which gave formal legal authorization for the CIA interrogation program of the top al Qaeda suspects, leaked to the press. A new senior official in the Justice Department, Jack Goldsmith, withdrew the legal memo -- the Golden Shield -- that authorized the program.

But the CIA had captured a new al Qaeda suspect in Asia. Sources said CIA officials that summer returned to the Principals Committee for approval to continue using certain "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Then-National Security Advisor Rice, sources said, was decisive. Despite growing policy concerns -- shared by Powell -- that the program was harming the image of the United States abroad, sources say she did not back down, telling the CIA: "This is your baby. Go do it."

(note: ABC did not once use the proper term, torture, for the acts these criminals were committing.)

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What's Really Going on Here??

White House participated in torture sessions

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., April 10, 2008

edited for content and clarity on 4-26-08, and on 6-9-08

The ABC report above, of April 7, 08, demonstrates that CIA directors Tenet and Goss demanded that every act of torture applied by a CIA torturer under their command in the field be approved by the highest levels of authority in the White House.

This means that the administration and CIA are both sitting on a pile of torture authorization documents, evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity that were generated at the insistence of the CIA. These documents are signed by the highest level of cabinet and White House officials, and they authorize the real-time use of specific acts of torture during individual torture sessions.

When the information from the story above is correlated with the earlier ABC story of December 12, 07, which appeared at the time to be a gentle apology and justification for the President's criminal authorization for the use of torture on Abu Zubaydah, something strange happens; when both stories are viewed together, the complete chain of communication and command that reached from the White House to the torture chamber is viewed, from the perspective of the torture chamber in the earlier article, and from the White House in the later article.

When t he White House's official authorizations of specific acts of torture are finally exposed, they will not protect the torturers from criminal prosecution, but merely provide an accurate list of the crimes they committed.

The bulk of the earlier ABC story is composed of an interview with an ex-CIA agent, John Kiriakou,who was present at the CIAs capture, incarceration, and torture of Abu Zubaydah.

The ex-CIA agent interviewed in the earlier ABC story, John Kiriakou, not only admitted to ABC that he had observed the specific tortures applied to Abu Zubaydah, but insisted that his torture operation in the field was not only authorized by top CIA leadership, but that this torture operation was being directed in real-time from CIA headquarters through direct communication with the CIAs deputy director for operations, at headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

According to Kiriakou, each torture was approved directly by the top leadership of the CIA.

The earlier article established two critical facts: First, that the CIA applied an escalating scale of tortures to a secretly captured victim in a secret prison. Second, that the CIA torturers were in direct real-time contact with CIA headquarters in Langely, Virginia, and received real-time authorization for each of the tortures their victim was subjected to.

The later ABC report shows Tenet bringing these specific torture requests from the field directly into the White House Situation room, where they were discussed and approved by the most powerful leaders of the Executive Branch, the principals of the National Security Council.

Taken together, these two ABC reports show that this particular torture chamber in the field was in direct communication with the highest levels of authority in the White House. These two reports demonstrate that the White House did not just authorize the policy of torture, but directly and actively participated in the the real-time use of specific methods and escalations of torture during torture sessions.

The combined content of the two ABC articles draws a direct chain of culpability from the torturer in the field to the highest levels of political authority in the United States, the principals of the National Security Council, sitting in the Situation Room of the White house.

The combined evidence from the two ABC stories indicates that Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet, and Goss are not just guilty of signing-off on the general policy of torture, but that each of them is personally responsible for directly participating in the real-time commission of specific acts of torture.

The only question that remains is what we are going to do about it. The severity of these crimes demands that both political, an impeachment trial, and criminal investigations be initiated concerning all of the Constitutional officers involved, and that criminal investigations be initiated investigating everyone else who participated in any aspect of facilitating or committing these crimes against our constitution and laws.

The plain facts of this situation indicate that our corrupted press and government are incapable of holding these criminals to account for their crimes. It will ultimatly  be up to us to either reject these criminals and punish all those who have participated in crafting, approving, and executing these acts of torture, or continue to act like little fascist bitches, and continue serving, and allowing others to serve a criminal government that commits crimes against our democracy, our rights, our Constitution, and humanity. In other words, we can"t act like Democrats.

Why not? Because the Democrats have taken impeachment off the table before even investigating what by all indications are nearly treasonous acts, and are obviously high crimes against our laws.

The Dems have either assisted this administration's crimes, or have blinded themselves to their oversight duties as this administration committed, and continues to commit the most serious crimes ever perpetuated against our constitution, our rights, and our democracy during our country's whole history. A mere change of party will not stop or punish these crimes. A change of party to the democrats will merely put these illegal powers into their equallly dirty hands.

The democrats have proved themselves as corrupt as the republicans. The democrats toleration of these crimes has made them an accessory before, during, and after the crimes, not part of the solution. Finding the solution to these crimes and corruptions demands that all good Americans rise above their party affiliations, and work together to stop the bribery that has allowed the richest and most powerful corporate interests to dominate both of our parties, steal every bit of our wealth, and use our Constitution to wipe their asses with.

Until we eliminate bribery from our democratic process, we will continue to suffer under the venal, corrupt, and incompetent politicians that dominate both parties.

The vast majority of dems and repugs are unified in their mutual dependence on corporate and special interest bribery to get and keep their political power. As long as they depend on corporate bribery to get elected, they will continue to serve their corporate masters, not the voters, independent of the differing lies each party tells its supporters.

The only way we can end these corrupted parties' monopoly of our democracy, their support for dictators, their torture, their illegal searches, their corruption, their thievery, and their criminal policies of preemptive war and torture is to choke out the source of their corrupt power: Corporate Bribery.

Both parties are using the massive corporate bribes that put and keep them in political power as a mutual political shield against the limits on power required by our constitution. As both parties are corrupted, neither is capable nor inclined to hold the other to the rules of the constitution or the rule of law itself.

And thus rose Bush, the corporate fascist, to the presidency of the united States.

The parties mutual dependence on corporate bribes to keep each of them in power has allowed both parties to mutually ignore the the limits and checks on power required by our Constitution. These corrupted corporate traitors have succeeded in capturing our democracy, and have almost finished twisting it into corporate fascist state that spys on everyone, imposes dictators, wages illegal wars, and runs secret prisons where they torture their enemies.

I don't wonder why these crimes are not the major issue in our presidential election. It's simple: We live in a corporate state, with corporate political parties that fund and support corporate politicians, all of which is reported on by the corporate media. All the viable candidates are viable because they serve the corporate powers, or they are excluded.

Join our fight to snatch our democracy back from the bloody hands of the parties and their corporate sponsors. Help us end the corruption that keeps these criminals and traitors in office. Until we do, they will continue to steal our rights, our money, impose dictators on the world, and torture those who resist their evil empire.

check out the initiative that will restore democracy in california.

If corporate fascism does not end with you, it will not end.

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Background:

John Yoo's torture memo of 8-2002

Corruption Updates 80, 1^st article on the page, "CIA Lawyer who Justifies Torture Detention Appears before Congress"

Corruption Updates 80, 4^th article on the page, "Abu Ghraib: Taguba fired for Probing too Deeply"

Corruption Updates 83, 1^st article on the page, "Cheney the Torture mastermind"

Corruption Updates 84, 1^st article on the page,"Pelosi: Impeachment 'off the table"

Corruption Updates 91, 4^th article on the page, "In Intelligence World, A Mute Watchdog: Bush Above the Law"

Bush signs new CIA Torture authorization, LAT, July 21, 2007

Corruption Updates 99, 5^th article on the page, "Bush Could Bypass new Torture Ban"

ABA Clear: Bush Policy allows Torture, AP, 8-10-07

Corruption Updates 101, 10^th article on the page, Report: Harsh Methods Used On 9/11 Suspect

Book: Torture Taxi reveals us system of kidnapping, secret prisons, and torture, Toward Freedom, 9-6-07

Mukasey is drawn into an old fight: Dems Ready to Confirm AG who will Protect Bush's Crimes, Los Angeles Times, September 18, 2007

Bush and Psychologists Who Abet Torture, harper's 7-07

Rorschach and Awe, Vanity Fair, 7-17-07

Psychologists oppose torture yet vote to attend terror interrogations, SF Chron, August 20, 2007

Corruption Updates 119, 2^nd article on the page, Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations: Bush's Signing Statements on McCain's Anti-Torture Law in 2005 have been know to All

Navy Seal testifies before Congress: Waterboarding is torture, Independent (UK), November 2007

Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime, wp, 11-4-04

Dems confirm unitary president, torture, and and all of Bush's crimes through Mukasey Confirmation, Washington Post, November 9, 2007

Liars in Congress to ban torture: They already did, and bush ignored them, NYT, December 7, 2007

ABC Promotes Torture, ABC, 12-10-07

Justice opens criminal investigation of CIA, lat, January 2, 2008

Bush re nominates bradbury, author of torture memos, for office of legal counsel, nyt, January 24, 2008

mukasey rules torture legal, reuters, 1-30-08

Mukasey's rulings predictable before confirmation, committee, 8-28-07

white house admits war crimes, ap 2-6-08

Mukasey refuses to prosecute War Crimes, ap, 2-7-08

UN condemns US Torture, ap, 2-6-08

Scumbag Scalia supports torture, reuters, 2-13-08

Bush vetoes torture ban, again, Mar. 8, 2008 (Reuters)

waterboarding torture bill fails in house, ap, 3-12-08

full torture/kidnapping link list

The Corruption Database

Torture

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2) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Telecom Whistleblower Discovers Circuit that Allows Access to All Systems on Wireless Carrier—Phone Calls, Text Messages, Emails and More

Democracy Now,  4-10-08

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/10/telecom_whistleblower_discovers_circuit_that_allows

Babak Pasdar is a computer security expert who was hired in 2003 to help restructure the tech infrastructure at a major wireless telecommunications company. What he found shocked him. The company had set up a system that gave a third party, presumably a governmental entity, access to every communication coming through that company’s infrastructure. This means every email, internet use, document transmission, video, text message, as well as the ability to listen to and record any phone call.

AMY GOODMAN: Babak Pasdar has not named the company where he worked, but the publication Wired reports his claims are nearly identical to allegations made in a federal lawsuit filed against Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless is one of several major telecoms facing lawsuits over its role in the government’s spying program. Congress is still debating on whether to give Verizon and other telecoms immunity, even though their actions broke the law.

AMY GOODMAN: The Washington Post also says, “Since a 1994 law required telecoms to build electronic interception capabilities into their systems, the FBI has created a network of links between the nation’s largest telephone and Internet firms and about 40 FBI offices and Quantico, according to interviews and documents describing the agency’s Digital Collection System.” It seems to go along with what you’re saying. Why won’t you tell us the company that you were—that you found this at?

BABAK PASDAR: Well, I have a nondisclosure. What my focus is is to prompt an investigation. You know, on one side, they say the circuit doesn’t exist; on the other side, they say the circuit does exist and it adheres to legal standards. I’m aware of what the legal standards are, and the legal standards call for very, very specific logging and evidentiary chain of custody and privacy for all others, except the entity or person under investigation with a subpoena and with a warrant. None of that existed for this circuit. I was the person responsible for implementing it. So if I was not implementing it, then it didn’t exist.

AMY GOODMAN: You have filed an affidavit with Congress?

BABAK PASDAR: I have.

AMY GOODMAN: What is that process?

BABAK PASDAR: Well, I essentially documented everything that I know, tried to—no fluff, just the facts. And my focus is to have an investigation and find out exactly what the purpose and function of this circuit is, who paid for it, who operates it, and what kind of information is collected.

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What's Really Going on Here??

Our criminal government is spying on every american

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., April 10, 2008

In this story by Democracy Now, Amy Goodman has brought to light another threat to our liberties. In this story, Amy introduces Babak Pasdar, a telecommunications security expert who stumbled upon a telecom circuit that gives the Federal Government unlimited access to your private communications. What Mr. Pasdar saw and has exposed is yet another node in the government's efforts to capture every American's personal communications.

Available evidence indicates that the federal government has established the ability to capture, record, and analyze every communication you make through two separate systems. We learned about the one run by the NSA when it was exposed by Mark Klein. Now the existence of a second national surveillance system run by the FBI has been exposed by Mr. Pasdar.

In both cases, it is apparent that every american's private, personal communications have been illegally captured by government agencies. Available evidence indicates that your email, internet activity, cell phone, and land line are being illegally monitored and screened. This indicates that our government has gone criminal, and has slipped the restraints of our constitutional democracy.

The link below, spying on the home front, details a similar example of a telecommunications worker exposing the technical details of how the NSA set up a system to illegally capture all domestic and foreign telecommunications passing through the ATT's regional telecommunications hub in SF.

Evidence in that case indicates that 12 major ATT telecommunications hubs across the US had similar systems installed by the NSA.

According to Mr. Klein, the installation of the equipment required to capture all telecommunications in SF was completed in January of 2003. Mr. Klein's observations have exposed a governmental crime of massive proportions.

Now Mr. Pasdar has provided information that the FBI is committing exactly the same crime. But the FBI did not have to build any infrastructure to illegally search our communications. The ability to illegally capture all of our phone calls, emails, and internet activity through tapping circuits was written into the telecommunications Reform of 1994.

The telecommunications reform of 1994 was crafted by the telecom companies, and passed by a democratic house and senate, and signed by bill clinton. It was obvious at the time that the main goal of this "reform" was to give the telecoms the ability to evade social responsibility and make vast profits by evading regulation. The democrats telecom reform of 1884 gave the telecoms a licence to rob the public of their money, and the feds a licence to steal our rights.

And now Mr. Pasdar's testimony indicates that the FBI has been allowed to use their unlimited access to our communications without any warrant, authorization, check, or record by the telecom companies. As Congress vested the FBI the power to grant itself administrative "warrants" to conduct illegal searches through National Security Letters, we can assume that the FBI has been monitoring all of our communications on their own authority.

The democrats in 1994 who passed the telecom reform are the same as the democrats of 2008. Both were more concerned with helping their bribe masters rob the public of billions of dollars than protecting the public interest, the public treasury, or our Constitutional rights. Then, as today, giving away our Constitutional right to be free from warrantees searches was an afterthought in the Democrat's frenzy of political greed.

Since bush's illegal searching crimes have been exposed, the dems have repeatedly passed laws to support and protect bush's illegal searches. These laws are null and void, and are an insulting contradiction to the plain words of the constitution.

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Background:

Spying on the Home Front, mark klein exposes NSA program, frontline, May 15, 2007

Mark Klein, federal court transcript, 6-8-2006

 

Washington Post, October 16, 2007; Verizon Says It Turned Over Data Without Court Orders: Corporate Criminals Assist General Searches of American's Private Communications

 

Washington Post, October 18, 2007; Senate and Bush Agree On Terms of Spying Bill: Dem Traitors Roll Over to Criminal President Yet Again

Corruption Updates 131, November 15, 2007, House Approves General Search Warrants

 

Corruption Updates 132, November 23, 2007, Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request: Secret Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause

 

House, Senate pass extension of illegal spying, cnn, 1-30-08

Dem Think Tank Talks Up Telecom Immunity, cmd, 1-31-08

 

AP parrots bush defense of illegal searches, media matters. 2-7-08

bush demands illegal search powers from congress, bbc, 2-13-08

 

Dem traitors in Senate Vote to Expand Spy Powers, nyt, 2-13-08

 

Democrats defy Bush on spy program and immunity, reuters, 2-15-08

 

Illegal search bill stopped, not over illegality, but over telecom immunity, voa, 2-15-08

Supreme Court rejects wiretap suit, lat, 2-19-08

 

Bush's Illegal Domestic Spying: The Origins, development and status. link list

 

The Corruption Database

illegal searches

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3) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

CIA rendered 14 prisoners to Jordan: report

Published: April 08, 2008

http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2008/04/08/

cia_rendered_14_prisoners_to_jordan_report/afp/

NEW YORK (AFP) The CIA secretly transported at least 14 war on terror detainees to Jordan between 2001 and 2004, making it the top "rendition" destination at that time, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

"While a handful of countries received persons rendered by the United States during this period, no other country is believed to have held as many as Jordan," the rights group said in a statement.

The prisoners were interrogated and tortured by Jordan's General Intelligence Department, according to a new Human Rights Watch report that documents eight previously unknown cases of rendition.

The report is "based largely on firsthand information from Jordanian former prisoners who were detained with the non-Jordanian terrorism suspects," it said.

"We've documented more than a dozen cases in which prisoners were sent to Jordan for torture," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch.

Prisoners rendered to Jordan included at least five Yemenis, three Algerians, two Saudis, a Mauritanian, a Syrian, a Tunisian, and one or more Chechens from Russia, the group said.

They may also have included a Libyan, an Iraqi Kurd, a Kuwaiti, one or more Egyptians, and a national of the United Arab Emirates.

The report includes an excerpt of a note handwritten by a rendered prisoner while in Jordanian custody in late 2002. The prisoner is now at the US war on terror prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Ali al-Hajj al-Sharqawi wrote that GID interrogators beat him "in a way that does not know any limits."

"They threatened me with electricity, with snakes and dogs .... [They said] we'll make you see death .... They threatened to rape me," the note said.

A common torture method was falaqa, by which prisoners are given extended beatings on the bottoms of their feet.

"Just about everyone at GID was beaten with sticks," a Jordanian former prisoner told Human Rights Watch. "People were beaten on their feet. They did it in the basement."

"Outsourcing torture is not only wrong, it's illegal," Mariner said. "And the US can't say it doesn't torture if it sends people to countries that do."

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What's Really Going on Here??

US Center and Source of Global web of Dictators, Torture, and State Terror

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., April 10, 2008

I look forward to war crimes charges being filed in courts around the world against everyone in the current executive branch, from the president down through the cabinet, to the individual CIA and military thugs, and everyone in between who was involved in authorizing or executing the kidnappings, establishing secret prisons, and torturing anyone, anywhere in the world.

I anticipate that bush, cheney, rumsfeld, rice, gonzales, yoo, card, and a whole host of this administration's war criminals will not be able to travel the world after this administration finally expires. There will be too many war crimes and crimes against humanity charges filed against these criminals in courts all around the world.

As the ABC report on high-level White House participation in real-time torture sessions indicates, this administration, like the nazis, generated a considerable paper trail during the commission of their crimes. It also appears that our government's crimes have left generated a ready supply of victims willing to testify about the tortures they suffered at the hands of our government.

The massive amount of information and documentation surfacing about the details of our program of kidnapping, disappearing, and torturing "suspects" indicates that the current administration is going to have to live in perpetual fear of being charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity if they leave the cocoon of legal protections they and the dems crafted to cover their crimes from the force of American law.

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Background:

Corruption Updates 84, 1^st article on page, "Pelosi: Impeachment 'off the table" (Pelosi and the Dems are aiding and abetting war crimes, and crimes against humanity)

Corruption Updates 21, 7^th article on page, “Ex-judges: Detainee law unconstitutional”

Corruption Updates 25, 7^th article on the page, "ITALY CHIEF OF INTELLIGENCE, 25 CIA OPERATIVES INDICTED FOR KIDNAPPING"

Corruption Updates 34, 4^th article on the page, "Germany issues CIA arrest orders"

Corruption Updates 36, 4^th article on the page, "IRAQI GOV FOLLOWS AMERICAN EXAMPLE: KIDNAPPING-TORTURE"

Corruption Updates 80, 1^st article on the page, "CIA Lawyer who Justifies Torture Detention Appears before Congress"

Bush signs new CIA Torture authorization, LAT, July 21, 2007

ABA Clear: Bush Policy allows Torture, AP, 8-10-07

Book: Torture Taxi reveals us system of kidnapping, secret prisons, and torture, Toward Freedom, 9-6-07

The Corruption Database

torture

Kidnapping

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4) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Merck Wrote Drug Studies for Doctors

By STEPHANIE SAUL

nyt, 4-16-08

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/business/16vioxx

.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print

The drug maker Merck drafted dozens of research studies for a best-selling drug, then lined up prestigious doctors to put their names on the reports before publication, according to an article to be published Wednesday in a leading medical journal.

Vioxx was a best-selling drug before Merck took it off the market in 2004 over evidence linking it to heart attacks. Last fall, the company agreed to a $4.85 billion settlement to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits filed by former Vioxx patients or their families.

The lead author of Wednesday’s article, Dr. Joseph S. Ross of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said a close look at the Merck documents raised broad questions about the validity of much of the drug industry’s published research, because the ghostwriting practice appears to be widespread.

“It almost calls into question all legitimate research that’s been conducted by the pharmaceutical industry with the academic physician,” said Dr. Ross, whose article, written with colleagues, was published Wednesday in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. and posted Tuesday on the journal’s Web site.

In an editorial, JAMA said the analysis showed that Merck had apparently manipulated dozens of publications to promote Vioxx.

“It is clear that at least some of the authors played little direct roles in the study or review, yet still allowed themselves to be named as authors,” the editorial said.

The editorial called upon medical journal editors to require each author to report his or her specific contributions to articles. “Journal editors also bear some of the responsibility for enabling companies to manipulate publications,” the editorial said.

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What's Really Going on Here??

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., April 16, 2008

We are confronted by an out of control pharmaceutical industry that is willing to kill us, cheat us, and use any means at its disposal to make a buck. But they are not alone. Big oil, manufacturing, and the financial industries are right there with them.

These interest's main tool of political power is the massive political bribe. But they are no different than the rest of the big players in American politics. Big oil, the manufacturers, and the financial industries have all stolen the health and wealth of our democracy by bribing our politicians and parties. But they are only the biggest players in a very dirty game.

The main tool the pharm industry uses to enhance their profits is not technology nor innovation, but is achieved by bribing our politicians. The main target of their bribes has now gone beyond our politicians, and has penetrated our regulatory institutions, the medical profession, and our universities. Once the outer rampart defending our public health, our democracy, was breached by bribery and corruption, our medical and academic institutions became the next target for their bribes.

The price we pay for this bribery and corruption is incalculable. A recent example of the power and depth of how pharmaceutical bribes have infected our politicians and parties was the recent medicare drug benefit that our bribed politicians crafted for their bribe masters.

The result of their bribes was that the medicare drug benefit was crafted by our politicians primarily to enhance pharmaceutical industry profits, not provide drugs for seniors. Far to the contrary, the medicare drug plan sacrifices the physical and economic health of our seniors to profit the pharmaceutical industry

The fact is that our politicians had no trouble sacrificing the health of elderly americans to enrich the pharmaceutical industry.

The bribes of the pharmaceutical industry have penetrated the FDA, where regulation and standards are so lax that the public has no assurance that any drug the FDA approves is safe.

And now we are confronted with the fact that the pharmaceutical industry has so perverted academic medical research that published academic pharmaceutical science with any link to industry is suspect. Medicine is not alone. All of our social and political institutions have been infected.

The FDA has been rendered incapable of regulation by the the bribes of the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry has done to the FDA what big oil has done to the interior department, what the financial companies have done to the SEC, and the manufacturing industry has done to the Consumer product safety commission. They have bribed the politicians that guide these institutions into submission.

These bribed politicians subsequently deregulated, de taxed, and provided massive subsidies to their bribers. This involved gutting the FDA.

Every corporate interest in our country have substituted their wealth and power into the role granted to the citizen voter to regulate commerce to assure that the profits and powers of wealth are not extracted at the expense of our citizen's health and safety. As it is now, every aspect of our lives is threatened by the power of corporate bribery to profit from poisoning us, stealing our jobs, destroying our environment, or permitting our citizens to undergo avoidable medical pain and suffering.

The bribes and payoffs of big pharm have not just put our country's physical health and safety at risk, but have rendered our corrupted government illegitimate.

To reclaim our health and safety we must reclaim our democracy, and be able to elect a government that represents the broad interests of our people, rather than the serving the greedy demands of special interest bribery. That is not possible now.

Until we replace the political bribery that runs our government with something that resembles real democracy, we are going to continue to see the nasty liars that run both parties continue to trade away our health, wealth, welfare, safety, and ultimately our rights, for the corporate bribes they use to obtain and maintain the power of the highest offices in the land in the hands of their bribers.

Top of Page

Background:

Corruption Updates 3, “Media Reports: Both Parties Corrupt”

Corruption Updates 14, 10^th article down on page. “Murtha trades his vote, and ethics, for pork”

Corruption Updates 19, 1^st article on page, “TOP RECIPEINTS OF LOBBYISTS BRIBES ARE LEADERSHIP OF BOTH PARTIES”

Corruption Updates 21, 8^fh article on page, 11-1-06: “DEMS BIG CHANCE TO REAP THE REWARDS OF CORRUPTION POLITICAL VICTORY OPENS DOORS OF LOBBYING FIRMS TO DEMO INSIDERS: IT'S THE DEMS TURN TO ROB THE PUBLIC BLIND, AND BETRAY OUR DEMOCRACY”

Killing Americans with Political Bribery:

Corruption Updates 10, 5^th article on page, “DO BRIBED POLITICIANS PROVIDE SAFE REGULATION OF PIPELINES, OR ANYTHING ELSE?” AP IN BEE.

Corruption Updates 16, 4th article on the page, "EPA STANDARDS WILL KILL YOU: SPECIAL INTEREST BRIBERY BRINGS AMERICA DEATH"

Corruption Updates 21, 9^th article on page, “White House under Investigation for Censoring Science”

Corruption Updates 24, 4^th article on page, “ BIG OIL OWNS INTERIOR DEPARTMENT”

Corruption Updates 24, 5^th article on page, NYTIMES, 12-3-06, “LOBBYING BY TRUCKING INDUSTRY BRINGS DEATH TO NATION'S HIGHWAYS INSURANCE AND SAFETY LOBBIES HAVE INSUFFICIENT BRIBE MONEY TO STOP TRUCKING LOBBY FROM GUTTING SAFETY RULES”

Corruption Updates 25, 5^th article on page, AP, 12-6-06, “BATTERY LOBBY BRIBES ENDANGER HEALTH BUSH REPAYS BRIBES WITH OUR HEALTH AND WELFARE BY ATTEMPTING TO KILL LEAD STANDARDS”

Corruption Updates 25, 6^th article, AP, 12-6-06, “FARM LOBBY BRIBES ENDANGER HEALTH GRASSLEY (R-IOWA) REPAYS BRIBES BY KILLING EPA REGULATION OF FARMS

Corruption Updates 32, 2nd article on the page, "BUSH TRIES TO KILL CHEMICAL RULES, SCIENCE, AND INTEGRITY IN ONE FELL SWOOP: INTEGERTY FALLS, RULES AND SCIENCE DAMAGED, BUT STILL STANDING

How lobbying buys lawmakers and law:

Corruption Updates 1, 2^nd to last article on the page, “Big Oil Owns our Politicians”

Corruption Updates 2, 6^th article down, “Contribute to Win, Big Contribs try to Trump State Safety Laws”

See, “Contribute to Win, Big Contribs donate when legislation pending,” Corruption Updates 2, 6^th article down.

Corruption Updates 3, 2^nd article on page, “Big Business Spends Lawmakers into Compliance”

Corruption Updates 4, 1^st article on page, “Checks in, Laws Out, It's that Simple”

FDA links

The Corruption Database

food and drug administration

health

public health

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5) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Chemical in plastic may harm human growth

A federal report finds 'some concern' that fetuses, babies and children are at risk from bisphenol A. But plastics industry officials see no serious risk.

By Marla Cone

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

April 16, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-plastic16apr16,0,4316491.story

A controversial, estrogen-like chemical in plastic could be harming the development of children's brains and reproductive organs, a federal health agency concluded in a report released Tuesday.

The National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, concluded that there was "some concern" that fetuses, babies and children were in danger because bisphenol A, or BPA, harmed animals at low levels found in nearly all human bodies.

An ingredient of polycarbonate plastic, BPA is one of the most widely used synthetic chemicals in industry today. It can seep from hard plastic beverage containers such as baby bottles, as well as from liners in cans containing food and infant formula.

The federal institute is the first government agency in the U.S. to conclude that low levels of BPA could be harming humans. Its findings will be used to help regulators at federal and state environmental agencies to develop policies governing its use.

The draft report followed an 18-month review that was fraught with allegations of bias, heated disputes among scientists and the firing of a consulting company with financial ties to the chemical industry.

Some scientists suspect that exposure early in life disrupts hormones and alters genes, programming a fetus or child for breast or prostate cancer, premature female puberty, attention deficit disorders and other reproductive or neurological disorders.

In its new report, the National Toxicology Program, which reviewed about 500 laboratory animal experiments, concluded that there was "some concern" that fetuses, babies and children were at risk from BPA. It rated as "negligible" the concern for adults.

When animal fetuses or newborns are exposed, BPA "can cause changes in behavior and the brain, prostate gland, mammary gland and the age at which females attain puberty," the agency's draft report says.

"These studies only provide limited evidence for adverse effects on development and more research is needed to better understand their implications for human health," it said. "However, because these effects in animals occur at bisphenol A exposure levels similar to those experienced by humans, the possibility that bisphenol A may alter human development cannot be dismissed."

In the key area of reproductive health, the agency reported more concern about the potential dangers to children than its advisory panel did.

The advisory panel in August found "minimal" concern about effects on the prostate and puberty after siding with the plastics industry and disqualifying many animal studies that showed effects. That drew criticism from scientists who conducted the research.

But in the new report, the National Toxicology Program overruled its panel, elevating its finding about human prostates and puberty to "some concern." It also for the first time expressed concern about effects on human mammary glands, which the panel had not addressed.

The findings "break new scientific ground" by validating the low-dose animal tests, said Anila Jacob, senior scientist at Environmental Working Group, an activist group. It "reflects a significant body of science showing that BPA may play a larger role than previously thought in a host of common health problems, including prostate cancer, breast cancer and early puberty," she said.

Frederick vom Saal, a reproductive scientist at University of Missouri-Columbia who studies BPA, said the new report was "very, very much in line" with a consensus statement signed by 38 scientists last year that said the chemical could be harming babies' brains and reproductive tracts.

"This is going to ripple around the world," vom Saal said. "The bottom line is there really is a convergence of opinion that is occurring."

Canada is expected soon to declare BPA a toxic substance, which would be followed by proposals to control its use. California and other states have considered but not adopted bans on BPA in products.

A year ago, the Los Angeles Times reported that the government was basing its BPA decision on a summary of the science drafted by a private company, Sciences International, which had financial ties to more than 50 chemical companies and groups. The company was then fired. National Toxicology Program officials audited the report and found it unbiased, so it was used to reach its conclusions.

The National Toxicology Program will accept public comments on its draft report until May 23, and it will be reviewed by a new scientific panel in June.

Top of Page

What's Really Going on Here??

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., April, 2008

Top of Page

Background:

Scientists say plastic compound causes reproductive problems, Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2007

Seattle Times, 4-23-06, "Oceans of Waste: Waves of Junk are flowing into the food chain"

Wizzard's Blog, 5-22-07, "Plastic Ocean: Our oceans are turning into plastic. Are we?"

EPA STANDARDS WILL KILL YOU: SPECIAL INTEREST BRIBERY BRINGS AMERICA DEATH, lat,October 8, 2006

...

Corruption Updates 42, 3rd article on the page, Bush Assures Health Executives Continued Massive Profits

Corruption Updates 69, 6^th article on the page, Doctor Says He Was Assailed for Challenging Drug’s Safety

Corruption Updates 85, 4th article on the page, Uninsured in U.S.: 43.6 Million, Bush Assures Health Executives Continued Massive

Corruption Updates 92, 6th article on the page, Congress: FDA Lab Closure Plan Too Risky

Corruption Updates 97, 4^th article on the page, Panel backs diabetes drug despite heart attack risks: First Vioxx, Now FDA Allow

Corruption Updates 97, 8^th article on the page, Food in Botulism Recall Still Being Sold: American Food Supply Unsafe

Corruption Updates 98, 2^nd article on the page, FDA Suspends Plans to Close Field Labs

Corruption Updates 116, 8^th article on the page, More Studies Cast Doubt on Safety of Diabetes Drug

The Corruption Database

food and drug administration

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6) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Big Tax Breaks for Businesses in Housing Bill

By STEPHEN LABATON and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

nyt, 4-16-08

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/business/16bailout.html?ref=todayspaper

WASHINGTON — The Senate proclaimed a fierce bipartisan resolve two weeks ago to help American homeowners in danger of foreclosure. But while a bill that senators approved last week would take modest steps toward that goal, it would also provide billions of dollars in tax breaks — for automakers, airlines, alternative energy producers and other struggling industries, as well as home builders.

The tax provisions of the Foreclosure Prevention Act, which consumer groups and labor leaders say amount to government handouts to big business, show how the credit crisis, while rattling the housing and financial markets, has created beneficiaries in the power corridors of Washington.

It also shows how legislation with a populist imperative offers a chance for lobbyists to press their clients’ interests.

In the Senate bill, the nation’s biggest home builders, some now on the verge of bankruptcy, won a provision that would let them claim millions in tax refunds by charging their current losses against the huge profits they made three or four years ago. Other struggling industries would benefit from this provision.

Downtrodden automakers — Ford and General Motors — were especially dogged in securing a tax break that would let them collect alternative minimum tax credits, also known as the A.M.T., that would otherwise be out of reach because they did not pay enough taxes in recent years to claim a rebate.

“The Senate legislation gave corporations and Wall Street billions in tax breaks,” Terence M. O’Sullivan, the president of the Laborers International Union of North America, said at a news conference on Tuesday to denounce the bill.

“Tax breaks for corporate home builders won’t help stabilize the housing market, won’t create jobs and won’t prevent a single foreclosure,” he continued. “If anything, this multibillion-dollar windfall will make things worse.”

Even Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and the main author of the Senate bill, said the measure did not live up to its name and that he wanted changes. But other lawmakers, and the lobbyists who seek to influence them, also recognize a golden opportunity when they sense that the political winds virtually guarantee a bill’s passage, and the housing crisis is just such a time.

Other industry groups were also eager to sign on as supporters of Mr. Rangel’s bill, even as many of them hope to push him to endorse a more expansive menu of tax breaks that will benefit them.

Among them were the National Association of Home Builders, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Council of Federal Home Loan Banks and the American Hospital Association

Top of Page

What's Really Going on Here??

Pain of homeowner foreclosures

shazam! yet another excuse for parties to feed their bribers/special interests

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., April 16, 2008

The foreclosure crisis our profligate consumer class is experiencing has become yet another opportunity for our political class to loot our treasury, repay their bribers, and pad their campaign coffers to do it again.

The economic pain of our weakest economic players has become an opportunity for our congress to create a legislative vehicle that our political parasites are using to make even more money as our country suffers. They are feeding off of the pain they created.

As with any other piece of legislation, no matter the good intentions that inspired it, once this bill began its passage through the bowels of our nasty congress, it too became a piece of shit serving the bribers of politicians, despite the stated good intentions it carried into the corrupted mouth of congress.

In the case of this "housing rescue bill," congress' stated crusade of helping the homeowner has been transformed by our bribed congress into yet another excuse to open our treasury to be looted by their special interest bribers.

This bill, like every other that passes through congress, has become no more than a media front-job to cover the payoffs to the special interest that keep our party aristocracy living in a flood-tide of luxury while monopolizing our country's most powerful political offices.

This should be expected, as the source of the housing bubble and credit crisis that sparked this crisis share the same source that this so-called warped housing bail-out bill came from: the corrupted policies of our thoroughly bribed politicians. gee, what a coincidence.

Despite the severity of our politician's political and economic crimes, and the greater severity of the ensuing political, economic, and environmental crisis, our politicians cannot stop themselves from continuing to feed on same rat-poison system of corruption and bribery that brought on the crisis in the first place.

Congress does this while having the audacity to call it a homeowner bail-out. In front of the whole country. May they choke on it.

Top of Page

Background:

Feds Bailing Out Greedy Speculators, committee, august 17, 2007

Housing-credit crisis exposing the rotten core of American Markets and Economy, committee, August 17. Updated Nov 24,

Fake Reforms of Democrats:No Change in Who Runs Washington

The article above, and those referenced below, prove that our culture of political corruption has successfully passed the baton from Repub to Dem hands, without losing a dollar of bribery money.

The superficial reforms of the Dems did their job. The Dems have spewed a fog of "happy talk" and fake reform measures to obscure the fact that nothing has changed in how political power and influence is auctioned off in Washington

.It's business as usual, all over again.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 3, “Media Reports: Both Parties Corrupt”

Corruption Updates 14, 10th article down on page. “Murtha trades his vote, and ethics, for pork,”

Pelosi does earmarks well and often, LA Times, 11-13-06, “Speaker-to-be is no stranger to earmarking,” (abstract at LA Times archive, #52 under Richard Simon search) Reference is linked at CU30, 2nd article on page.

Corruption Updates 5, 1st article on page, “Corruption fails as Campaign issue...,”

Corruption Updates 19, 1st article on page, “Top Recipients of Lobbyists Bribes are Leadership of Both Parties”

Corruption Updates 19, 3^rd article on page, “PARTIES AND THEIR BRIBERS WORK TO CIRCUMNAVIGATE CAMPAIGN FINANCE RESTRICTION”

Corruption Update 26, 1st article on page, “Time to Party, just bring the Checkbook,” LOBBYISTS SEE NO CHANGE UNDER DEMS CORRUPTION PRESENTED AS FORCE OF NATURE, DEM CORRUPTION NATURAL”

Corruption Updates 21, 8th article on page, “Dems Big Chance to Reap the Rewards of Corruption: Political Victory Opens Doors of Lobbying Firms to Demo Insiders,”

Corruption Updates 20, 6th article on page, “DEMS RECEIVE SPECIAL INTEREST BRIBES ANTICIPATING VICTORY IN NOV,”

The Corruption Database

democrats

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7) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Genocide announced

al ahram, 4-16-08

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/892/re72.htm

Genocide announced

Bombs would fall under other circumstances, but when influential rabbis call for the total annihilation of the Palestinians the world watches without blinking, writes Saleh Al-Naami

"All of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts." This was the religious opinion issued one week ago by Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, director of the Tsomet Institute, a long-established religious institute attended by students and soldiers in the Israeli settlements of the West Bank. In an article published by numerous religious Israeli newspapers two weeks ago and run by the liberal Haaretz on 26 March, Rosen asserted that there is evidence in the Torah to justify this stand. Rosen, an authority able to issue religious opinions for Jews, wrote that Palestinians are like the nation of Amalekites that attacked the Israelite tribes on their way to Jerusalem after they had fled from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. He wrote that the Lord sent down in the Torah a ruling that allowed the Jews to kill the Amalekites, and that this ruling is known in Jewish jurisprudence.

Rosen's article, which created a lot of noise in Israel, included the text of the ruling in the Torah: "Annihilate the Amalekites from the beginning to the end. Kill them and wrest them from their possessions. Show them no mercy. Kill continuously, one after the other. Leave no child, plant, or tree. Kill their beasts, from camels to donkeys." Rosen adds that the Amalekites are not a particular race or religion, but rather all those who hate the Jews for religious or national motives. Rosen goes as far as saying that the "Amalekites will remain as long as there are Jews. In every age Amalekites will surface from other races to attack the Jews, and thus the war against them must be global." He urges application of the "Amalekites ruling" and says that the Jews must undertake to implement it in all eras because it is a "divine commandment".

Rosen does not hesitate to define the "Amalekites of this age" as the Palestinians. He writes, "those who kill students as they recite the Torah, and fire missiles on the city of Siderot, spread terror in the hearts of men and women. Those who dance over blood are the Amalekites, and we must respond with counter-hatred. We must uproot any trace of humanitarianism in dealing with them so that we emerge victorious."

The true outrage is that most of those authorised to issue Jewish religious opinions support the view of Rabbi Rosen, as confirmed by Haaretz newspaper. At the head of those supporting his opinion is Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, the leading religious authority in Israel's religious national current, and former chief Eastern rabbi for Israel. Rosen's opinion also has the support of Rabbi Dov Lior, president of the Council of Rabbis of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed and a candidate for the post of chief rabbi of Israel. A number of political leaders in Israel have also shown enthusiasm for the opinion, including Ori Lubiansky, head of the Jerusalem municipality.

There is no dispute among observers in Israel that the shooting in Jerusalem three weeks ago that killed eight Jewish students in a religious school was pivotal for Jewish authorities issuing religious opinions of a racist, hateful nature. The day following the Jerusalem incident, a number of rabbis led by Daniel Satobsky issued a religious opinion calling on Jewish youth and "all those who believe in the Torah" to take revenge on the Palestinians as hastily as possible. A week following the operation, a group of leading rabbis issued an unprecedented religious opinion permitting the Israeli army to bomb Palestinian civilian areas. The opinion is issued by the "Association of Rabbis of the Land of Israel" and states that Jewish religious law permits the bombing of Palestinian civilian residential areas if they are a source of attacks on Jewish residential areas. It reads, "when the residents of cities bordering settlements and Jewish centres fire shells at Jewish settlements with the aim of death and destruction, the Torah permits for shells to be fired on the sources of firing even if civilian residents are present there."

The opinion adds that sometimes it is necessary to respond with shelling to sources of fire immediately, without granting the Palestinian public prior warning. A week ago, Rabbi Eliyahu Kinvinsky, the second most senior authority in the Orthodox religious current, issued a religious opinion prohibiting the employment of Arabs, particularly in religious schools. This religious opinion followed another that had been issued by Rabbi Lior prohibiting the employment of Arabs and the renting of residential apartments to them in Jewish neighbourhoods. In order to provide a climate that allows Jewish extremist organisations to continue attacking Palestinian citizens, Rabbi Israel Ariel, one of the most prominent rabbis in the West Bank settlement complex, recently issued a religious opinion prohibiting religious Jews involved in attacks against Palestinians to appear before Israeli civil courts. According to this opinion, they must instead demand to appear before Torah courts that rule by Jewish religious law.

Haaretz newspaper noted that what Rabbi Ariel was trying to achieve through this religious opinion has in fact already taken place. The first instance of such a court in Kfar Saba ordered the release of a young Jewish woman called Tsevia Teshrael who attacked a Palestinian farmer in the middle of the West Bank. And there are Jewish religious authorities that glorify killing and praise terrorists, such as Rabbi Yitzhaq Ginsburg, a top rabbi in Israel who published a book entitled Baruch the Hero in memoriam of Baruch Goldstein, who committed the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre in 1994 when he opened fire and killed 29 Palestinians as they were performing the dawn prayer in Hebron in the southern West Bank. Ginsburg considers his act "honourable and glorious".

The danger of these religious opinions lies in the fact that the religious authorities issuing them have wide respect among religious Jewish youth. And while only 28 per cent of Israel's population is religious, more than 50 per cent of Israelis define themselves as conservative and grant major significance to opinions issued by Jewish religious authorities. According to a study conducted by the Social Sciences Department of Bar Elon University, more than 90 per cent of those who identify as religious believe that if state laws and government orders are incongruous with the content of religious opinions issued by rabbis, they must overlook the former and act in accordance with the latter.

What grants the racist religious opinions a deeper and far-reaching impact is the fact that for the last decade followers of the Zionist religious current, who form nearly 10 per cent of the population, have been seeking to take control of the army and security institutions. They are doing so through volunteering for service in special combat units. The spokesperson's office in the Israeli army says that although the percentage of followers of this current is low in the state's demographic makeup, they form more than 50 per cent of the officers in the Israeli army and more than 60 per cent of its special unit commanders. According to an opinion poll of religious officers and soldiers supervised by the Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya and published last year, more than 95 per cent of religious soldiers and officers say that they will execute orders from the elected government and their leaders in the army only if they are in harmony with the religious opinions issued by leading rabbis and religious authorities.

Wasil Taha, Arab Knesset member from the Tajammu Party led by Azmi Bishara, says that these religious opinions lead to the committal of crimes. He mentions religious opinions issued by a number of rabbis in mid-1995 that led to the assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at that time. "If that's what happens when religious opinions urge attacks against Jewish leaders such as Rabin, what will the situation be like when they urge attacks against Palestinian leaders and the Palestinian public?" he asks. "We, as Arab leaders, have begun to feel a lack of security following this flood of religious opinions, and we realise that the matter requires a great deal of caution in our movements as we are certain that there are those who seek to implement these opinions," he told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Taha dismisses those who ask about the role of the government and Israeli political cadre in confronting these extremist religious opinions. "The ministers in the Israeli government and the Knesset members compete to incite against the Palestinian public and don't hesitate to threaten expulsion of the Palestinians who live on their land in Israel and carry Israeli citizenship outside of Israel's borders, just as former deputy premier Avigdor Lieberman and representative Evi Etam did," Taha said. He notes that Palestinian citizens within Israel have begun to take extreme precautionary measures since the issue of these religious opinions, including security measures around mosques and public institutions and informing officials of public demonstrations so that members of Jewish terrorist organisations can be prevented from attacking participants. Taha holds that the sectors of the Palestinian population most likely to be harmed by these religious opinions are those living in the various cities populated by both Jews and Palestinians, such as Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramleh and Jerusalem.

Palestinian writer and researcher Abdul-Hakim Mufid, from the city Um Fahem, holds that the religious opinions of rabbis have gained major significance due to the harmony between official rhetoric and that of the rabbis. Mufid notes that official Israeli establishments have not tried to confront the "fascist" rhetoric expressed in these religious opinions even though they are capable of doing so. "Most of the rabbis who issue tyrannical religious opinions are official employees in state institutions and receive salaries from them. And the state has not held these rabbis accountable or sought to prohibit the issue of such opinions," he told the Weekly.

Mufid points out that when the official political institution is in a crisis, the Zionist consensus behind these religious opinions grows more intense, and offers as an example the religious opinions relied upon by Rabbi Meir Kahane in the early 1980s to justify his call to forcefully expel the Palestinians. Mufid adds that Israel in practice encourages all those who kill Palestinians, and points to the way that the Israeli government dealt with the recommendations of the Orr Commission that investigated the Israeli police's killing of 13 Palestinians with Israeli citizenship in October of 2000. The government closed the file even though the commission confirmed that the police had acted aggressively towards the Palestinian citizens. Mufid suggests that what makes the racist rhetoric the rabbis insist upon influential is the silence of leftist and liberal voices, and the lack of any direct mobilisation against it.

Top of Page

What's Really Going on Here??

"Israel" Thievery of Arab Lands continues from 1948 to Present

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July 20, 2007

Israel has no legitimate basis. Israel is based on violence, ethnic cleansing, and the military, economic and political power of the United States, and nothing else.

All of Israel is occupied land gained through terrorism, war, and other crimes against humanity.

Until the US recognizes these facts, the middle east will resist, and eventually overthrow, our Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian Dictators. Then the middle east will destroy Israel.

Until the US defines "democracy" as something more than a thin cover for Corporate control of our nation's politics, our middle eastern foreign policy will continue to be nothing more than a tool of the Oil and Israel lobbies. Both political parties have been corrupted by these fascistic interests, and both parties are incapable of dealing honestly with the middle east.

The dismal situation in Iraq represents the final failure of Democracy in America, not the spread of American Democracy.

America's unwarranted attack on Iraq represents the victory of wealth and power over our American democracy, and our foreign policy. In the case of the Iraq war, we got an example of the massive power of the Oil and Israeli lobbies to easily use America's power and wealth to advance their criminal agendas. They have stolen yet another nation. Except this time their hand is wedged tight in the cookie jar.

The Iraq war, and how it came about, does not represent the actions of a democratic country. The Iraq war represents the actions of a corporate fascist state.

Unfortunately for us, the majority of Arabs who are suffering under our various middle eastern dictators and the iron fist of our Jewish colony, have concluded that what we call "democracy" is completely unjust, patently immoral and unacceptable, and are instead embracing political forms based on religion.

Sadly, these religiously based systems, despite their considerable drawbacks and shortcomings, provide considerably more justice than our "democratic" system delivers.

The fault for the rise of extreme islamic radicalism lies with us, with us for allowing our own corporate christian taliban to smash our democracy, and seize the reigns of our foreign policy.

The rise of radical islam is nothing more than a response to our own extreme corruption, which is also the source of the loss of our own democracy.

This tragedy did not begin with 911, as our political and media liars constantly tell us. 911, and many more tragedies to come, began with the loss of our democracy, and our imposition of dictators and tyrants on countries in every continent in the world.

Resistance to American-supported puppet governments around the world is growing rapidly as colonized nations are rejecting our farcical "democratic" governments run by dictators, and seizing the right to define their own identities, cultures, and political systems.

This inevitable post-colonial evolution will only stop if America recognizes the right of every country in the world, especially the nations sitting on top of Oil, mineral resources, and labor, to self-determination and self-definition without us threatening them with war, death squads, or military coups to seize their assets.

If we continue to pursue our program of corporate globalism, the post colonial revolution we are experiencing will end with the violent destruction of our middle eastern dictatorships, Israel, and the shattering of our globalized web of corporate thievery.

A Democrat Congress and President is not going to change this scenario one iota. Until we reimpose democracy on our corporate politicians and release our "free" press from its corporate bondage, the corporate politicians of both parties will only be capable of spreading our corruption and tyranny, not our Democratic Principals, around the world.

The global revolution of democracy must start here, not over there.

Background:

jew leader calls for holocaust on palestinians; bloodbath follows, aljezeera, 3-1-08

hostile entity holocaust: the jew's final solution for gaza, meo, 3-8-08

Mearsheimer and Walt, March 2006, THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY.

Book Review by Stepen Lendman: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.

Book Review by Kim Petersen: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.

Israel, $30 Billion in Military Aid From U.S. essay: Bush Wars Push Saudi Arabia..., nyt, 8-15-07

Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007; 'No elections if Hamas will win'

BBC NEWS: 10-25-07; Israel approves Gaza power cuts

rice backs Israeli naming Gaza “Hostile Entity:”a War Crime, bbc, 9-20-07

UN: cutting off gaza is an international crime, haaretz,9-20-07

Israel tribunals (bush courts) assure convictions, ap, 1-6-08

US: Israel's Bitch, aljazerra, 1-17-08

Israel abdicates legal responsibilities for gaza, yet another war crime, ap, 1-24-08

Israel intentionally making civilians suffer in gaza, lat, 1-28-08

US Kills UN resolution against israeli crime of collective punishment, meo, 1-30-08

Israeli crime of collective punishment sparks Gaza humanitarian crisis, suffering. ap, 2-15-08

war crimes, but no trials: cluster bombs in lebanon, lat, 2-1-08

jew leader calls for holocaust on palestinians; bloodbath follows, aljezeera, 3-1-08

hostile entity holocaust: the jew's final solution for gaza, meo, 3-8-08

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The Corruption Database

Israel

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8) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Two interesting stories abstracted below.

As War’s Costs Rise, Congress Demands That Iraq Pay Larger Share

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ERIC LIPTON
nyt, April 19, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/world/middleeast/19cong.html?ref=todayspaper

WASHINGTON — As Congress gears up to debate President Bush’s latest request for $108 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, lawmakers in both parties are pointing to record-high oil prices and demanding that Iraq pay a larger share of the costs, especially for reconstruction efforts.

In a letter to the defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, a group of 10 senators — six Democrats and four Republicans — wrote that Iraq was likely to see a “financial windfall” of about $56 billion from high oil prices and that it should be forced to spend that money.

“The time has come to end this blank-check policy and require the Iraqis to invest in their own future,” the senators wrote.

Congressional Democrats have said that they will not simply grant Mr. Bush’s request, but will once again seek to attach strings, including a requirement that Iraq pay a higher share of the costs.

Some Democrats are also trying to approve an additional $70 billion to sustain military operations through the end of Mr. Bush’s term, a move that would draw greater attention to the high cost of the Iraq war.

In a new line of attack against the administration, the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, has taken to stressing that the cost of the Iraq war is roughly $5,000 per second.

“The president has not been honest about the cost of the war from the beginning,” Mr. Reid said at a news conference this week. “$5,000 a second, $434 million every day. Seven days a week, no weekends off, no vacations. $12 billion every month.”

At a news conference on Thursday, 3 of the 10 senators who wrote to Mr. Gates — Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana; Susan Collins, Republican of Maine; and Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska — said they would press the administration to force Iraq to spend more of its budget surplus, projected at $60 billion, on reimbursing American expenses, including the cost of fuel.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, is considering pushing the debate into yet another arena next week, an aide said, perhaps by asking the State Department to determine if Iraq is using American tax dollars to hire lawyers and lobbyists to influence Congress and the administration.

Reid has no regrets over Iraq war vote

Senator: 'Evidence at the time was persuasive'

Feb. 17, 2007
Las Vegas Review-Journal

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2007/Feb-17-Sat-2007/news/12611183.html

WASHINGTON -- As he prepares to lead Senate Democrats in the debate on President Bush's Iraq policy, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada says he has no second thoughts about his vote in 2002 authorizing the president to go to war.

"The evidence at the time was persuasive -- especially if you go back and look and see what Secretary of State Colin Powell did at the United Nations," Reid said Tuesday.

Reid says he is not sorry for his vote. His stance is similar to that of presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who voted to go to war but has declined to express regret.

Reid insists his 2002 vote was based on "inaccurate information" propounded by the Bush administration.

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What's Really Going on Here??

This is no Joke: Dems want occupied country to finance their occupiers, and pay the reconstruction costs of the invasion

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., April 17, 2008

The dems want the iraqis to pay for reconstruction and occupation costs. Before iraq pays, they and the dems should know what they are really paying for. The iraq war clearly constitutes an illegal war of aggression that is a crime against humanity, and a violation of the international rules of war.

The democrats voted for the war, and despite their thin claims of being duped, it was apparent at the time they voted that the president and press were lying through their teeth. Although harry reid does not regret voting for the war, he apparently regrets that iraq has not paid for it.

Any citizen, congressman, or senator who did even the most basic due diligence on bush's claims leading up to the iraq war understood that the administration's claims were blatant lies, and that the real push for war was political. The democrats response was to wildly cheer and give bush unconstitutional power to illegally invade another country on false pretexts. Since then, the dems have constantly supported bush's domestic crimes against our right to be free of warrantees searches.

The dems had, and have no trouble supporting the war now because they have supported the real agenda behind the war and the president's lies from the very beginning: the dems were down with invading iraq to establish it as an american sponsored bulwark against iran, reinforce israel's declining ability to bully other regional powers, and provide support for our tottering arabic dictatorships in saudi arabia, kuwait, jordan, and egypt.

Bush lied about why we went to war, but the dems agreed with bush's real reasons for war, so they went along willingly when bush plunged us into a foolish imperial war.

Ultimately, the reason both parties in congress voted for an illegal war is because they both share the same assumptions that underlay the war, and our whole middle eastern policy: assuring american control of the world's oil market for the next fifty years, as we have dominated them for the last fifty.

The democrats were, and still are, working as hard as the republicans to crush any resistance to our domination of the middle east. Thus the US has assisted dictators across the middle east to brutally suppress democratic elections in egypt, pakistan, and palestine. And when we want someone tortured, we can bring them to egypt or pakistan if we are unwilling to do it ourselves. Our support for middle eastern dictators and Israel does not change no matter which party holds congress or the white house.

The iraq war was, and remains a bipartisan affair, and will continue through the next administration, and to the next after that. This will continue until our forces are defeated, or the traitors in both parties who have corrupted our democracy are throw out of office, and we can dismantle our global ring of dictatorships.

When the rare middle eastern election does occur, we immediately rush in and try to crush any government actually elected by their own people. As the people of the middle east are not stupid, nor can they be bought off like sheep-like consumers, we can expect that that they will continue to resist the the terms our dictators, israel, and our occupations have imposed on them.

We can expect that the suicide bombs and attacks from people all across the middle east who will not live under our dictators or occupation will continue until they are no longer plagued by foreign dictators or occupations.

As iraq has become the "main front" in our battle to re-subjugate the middle east, this war will continue independent of who wins the next presidential election. As the corporate parties have already decided that we are going to be in iraq for decades, the democrats have decided to economize, and make the iraqi victims of our war crimes pay our costs of occupying their country.

The dem demands that iraq pay the costs of our criminal invasion and occupation is not just rubbing salt into iraq's wounds, but also reveal that the dems are sticking with their original votes to go to war: They must feel it is a just war if they are charging the iraqis for it. The other option is that the dems are traveling yet further down the road of war crimes by trying to extract cash, as well as their oil, from the conquered iraqis. In any case, the dems have not taken the criminal responsibilities or financial implications of their vote to go to war seriously.

Let me remind them again. The iraq war is a crime. Their vote for an illegal invasion makes them culpable for that crime. The criminal invasion of iraq makes the US responsible for every injury and death suffered subsequent to the invasion. The criminal invasion of iraq makes the US responsible for every damage to the real property of individuals and the state suffered during the invasion and occupation. As long as the US occupation continues, the US is responsible for providing food, water, shelter, electricity, medication and education to all iraqis. Period.

The iraqis owe us nothing. What we owe the iraqis goes beyond money, into a moral responsibility to punish the political criminals in both parties who participated in the crime of invading iraq.

It is an amazing act of ignorant arrogance that inspires the dem demands that the bitch government we formed in occupied iraq be forced to pay the costs of its own destruction and humiliation. If the dems get their way, the iraqis will get the privilege to pay to support their occupiers, beyond having already paid with their lives, their broken culture, and their smashed country.

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Background:

NY Times, August 12, 2007; Democrats Say Leaving Iraq May Take Years: Dems Still Voting for Iraq War

Corruption Updates 94, 5^th article on the page, Oil Law Stalls in Iraq

Compromise on Oil Law in Iraq Seems to Be Collapsing, NY Times, September 13, 2007

Ex-general calls Iraq a 'nightmare,' Aljazeera, OCTOBER 13, 2007

Minister Sees Need for U.S. Help in Iraq Until 2018, nyt, 1-15-08

We're never leaving iraq, mcclatchy, 1-17-08

Iran dismisses israeli threats, meo, 1-18-08

the situation in iraq: continued deception by administration, committee, 1-30-08

what the generals, (ret.) have said, committee, links

More than one million Iraqis dead since US-led invasion, meo, 1-31-08

Failed war, failed state, failed empire, essay, August 3, 2007

The bubbling regional war to pick up speed? 1-14-08

Iraq Links

oil, guns, and money: links

endless war links

War Fraud links

War Status links&Generals

Afghan links

The Corruption Database

iraq war

war

democrats

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9) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Pentagon institute calls Iraq war 'a major debacle' with outcome 'in doubt'

Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: April 17, 2008 10:38:37 PM

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/v-print/story/34101.html

WASHINGTON — The war in Iraq has become "a major debacle" and the outcome "is in doubt" despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute.

The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush's projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.

The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations.

It was published by the university's National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research center.

"Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle," says the report's opening line.

"No one as yet has calculated the costs of long-term veterans' benefits or the total impact on service personnel and materiel," wrote Collins, who was involved in planning post-invasion humanitarian operations.

The report said that the United States has suffered serious political costs, with its standing in the world seriously diminished. Moreover, operations in Iraq have diverted "manpower, materiel and the attention of decision-makers" from "all other efforts in the war on terror" and severely strained the U.S. armed forces.

"Compounding all of these problems, our efforts there (in Iraq) were designed to enhance U.S. national security, but they have become, at least temporarily, an incubator for terrorism and have emboldened Iran to expand its influence throughout the Middle East," the report continued.

"For many analysts (including this one), Iraq remains a 'must win,' but for many others, despite obvious progress under General David Petraeus and the surge, it now looks like a 'can't win.'"

The report lays much of the blame for what went wrong in Iraq after the initial U.S. victory at the feet of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. It says that in November 2001, before the war in Afghanistan was over, President Bush asked Rumsfeld "to begin planning in secret for potential military operations against Iraq."

Rumsfeld, who was closely allied with Vice President Dick Cheney, bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the report says, and became "the direct supervisor of the combatant commanders."

" ... the aggressive, hands-on Rumsfeld," it continues, "cajoled and pushed his way toward a small force and a lightning fast operation." Later, he shut down the military's computerized deployment system, "questioning, delaying or deleting units on the numerous deployment orders that came across his desk."

In part because "long, costly, manpower-intensive post-combat operations were anathema to Rumsfeld," the report says, the U.S. was unprepared to fight what Collins calls "War B," the battle against insurgents and sectarian violence that began in mid-2003, shortly after "War A," the fight against Saddam Hussein's forces, ended.

Compounding the problem was a series of faulty assumptions made by Bush's top aides, among them an expectation fed by Iraqi exiles that Iraqis would be grateful to America for liberating them from Saddam's dictatorship. The administration also expected that "Iraq without Saddam could manage and fund its own reconstruction."

The report also singles out the Bush administration's national security apparatus and implicitly President Bush and both of his national security advisers, Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, saying that "senior national security officials exhibited in many instances an imperious attitude, exerting power and pressure where diplomacy and bargaining might have had a better effect."

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What's Really Going on Here??

middle eastern wars picking up speed?

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., april 17, 2008

(this is the second. the first was written on January 14, 2008)

There has been an underground potential for a regional conflict percolating through the middle-east since before the end of the cold war. During the cold war, the middle east was split, like the world, between the soviets and the US.

Egypt, syria and iraq, like india and a few other non-aligned nations, tried to create an independent space for themselves by playing the us and russia against each other to their advantage. Although a few succeeded, most nations were not so lucky or skillful, and fell under the thumb of a western or soviet allied dictator, like the shah of iran or the Saudi family of saudi arabia.

When the soviet threat melted away, the middle-east was released from the grip of the soviet-american cold war struggle. But little has changed for the average individual living in the middle east since the US exerted unchallenged regional supremacy over their region.

Today, as during the cold war, all of the countries in the middle east are still comprised of politically suppressed majorities. But unlike then, today the main instruments of their political suppression are exclusively products of the political, military, and economic power of the US, rather than the soviets.

The middle east today is almost exclusively ruled by a set of american supported dictators, kings, and petty tyrants. Between the end of the cold war and today, the formation, care and feeding of these american puppet states revealed to the whole middle east that not only are their kings and dictators illegitimate, but that our democratic rhetoric is a lie.

Although we seemed, and still seem, oblivious to the change, a new psychological paradigm appeared when the soviet-US contest for domination of the middle-east ended. Not only did middle eastern nations gain political flexibility when they were released from this vice, but so too were the aspirations of their people released.

After the fall of the soviets, american foreign policy abuses were no longer judged as part of the contest against the soviets, but we were now see by, and tested by our own standards: democracy and freedom. Between 1992 and now we failed the test.

All arabs, from bedouins to post-colonial urban elites, would have responded favorably to any real american support for democracy, let alone political freedom. They have been bitterly disappointed, leading all classes of muslims to find an alternative source of legitimacy in islam, rather than secular democracy.

As during the cold war, american foreign policy in the middle-east has continued to be dedicated to repressing democracy and freedom across the middle east by maintaining any regime capable and willing to impose american political and economic policies on their people. The specter of domestic revolution against our dictators has risen to replace the soviet threat.

This is because we have completely failed everyone in the middle east who aspired for democracy, if not freedom, when the berlin wall fell. The ultimate cost of this failure cannot be calculated, but we can see that the people of egypt, saudi arabia, and pakistan have been chafing under their american-backed master's whip.

These countries will be lost to us if we continue to insist on ruling them through dictatorships. Iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, syria, and iran have already departed our sphere of influence, and will the people in these nations will not recognize the authority of an american backed government.

Although I cannot put a price tag on the costs that our losing the battle for political and moral legitimacy, the battle for the hearts and minds of the middle eastern people will eventually entail, it appears that control of the world's oil markets and our predominant weight in the world's balance of power are a couple of the assets at stake in our middle eastern imperial wars.

As bush tours nations ruled by kings, emirs, sultans and religious democracies passing out munitions and money to all who all hold power under the shadow of the american sword, it is crystal clear that hegemonic american power in the middle-east has not brought a golden age of democracy.

On the contrary, our support for dictatorships and authoritarian governments, be they be disguised as kings, emirs, or exclusive democracies, has dramatically increased since the fall of the soviets. As the middle east sought its own identity, we have reciprocally tried to stamp this identity out, and increased our support for our dictators and tyrants as they have intensified their domestic repressions.

Every one of our muslim authoritarian regimes in the middle east is now facing the multi-headed specter of domestic islamic revolutionaries, a regional diplomatic and political threat from an independent iran, and the political demands of the US.

Not like the good old days, when the cold war made things relatively simple.

It is not just bush's middle-eastern crime spree in iraq, Afghanistan, and pakistan that is now blowing up in our face, but we are seeing the blowback from fifty years of playing the dirty game of imperial domination, and we can't blame the russians for this blowup.

I blame Osama. It was Osama who provoked bush sufficiently to get him to expose the truly brutal nature of america's long term imperial relationship with the middle east.

Bush's truly brutal attacks on afghanistan and iraq exposed the true nature of our fifty year reign of "globalism" in the middle east, and has pushed the de-colonization of the middle east ahead by 30 years.

Bush's failed wars and broken foreign policy are rearranging the domestic politics in our middle eastern dictatorships, while simultaneously pushing them further out of our sphere of influence. The seriousness of this breakdown to our corporate fascist government's global power and profits cannot be overstated.

If bush attacks iran to shore up our tottering middle eastern dictatorships, iran will use their power to seriously destabilize all of our kings, emirs, and dictators across the middle east. A regional war will break out, and national uprisings will break out in egypt, lebanon, jordan, and saudi arabia that will prevent them from allying with the US and israel against any muslim nation.

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Background:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Shinseki fired as Chief for honest analysis of Iraq war plans

General Paul Eaton, International Herald Tribune, 3-20-07, Gen, Eaton's Criticism of Bush Policies Masked under Criticism of Rummy, "For his failures, Rumsfeld must go"

Corruption Updates 45 , 1^st article, 3-28-07, "McCaffrey Paints Gloomy Picture of Iraq"

A failure in generalship, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, Armed Forces Journal, May 2007

Corruption Updates 49 , 1^st article, 4-11-07, "3 Generals Spurn the Position of War 'Czar'"

NY Times, 5-13-07: Batiste: Army Career Behind Him, General Speaks Out on Iraq: General Warns of Incompetence of Bush's War, Bush

 

Ex-general Sanchez calls Iraq a 'nightmare,' Aljazeera, OCTOBER 13, 2007

US had No Post-War Plan for Iraq, BBC, Oct 27, 2007

 

condition of iraq

Corruption Updates 25, 2^nd article on page, December 8, 2006, “GOP senator says war may be 'criminal'”

Corruption Updates 25, 4th article on the page, "ENGLISH LORD COMPARES HITLER'S INVASION OF POLAND WITH IRAQ WAR"

Corruption Updates 58, 6^th article on page, "War-torn Iraq 'facing collapse'"

Corruption Updates 67, 1^st article on the page, "'03 Iraq reports warned Bush: Bush is an Irresponsible Idiot"

Corruption Updates 79, 1^st article on page, "Iraq Ranks No. 2 of Failed States"

Corruption Updates 91, 5^th article on the page, Iraq: CIA Reports Instability "Irreversible"

Corruption Updates 97, 5^th article on the page, Oxfam Reports Growing Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq: Failed War-Failed State

 

iraq war links

 

The Corruption Database

iraq war

iraq

middle east

foreign policy

generals

 

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10) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

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What's Really Going on Here??

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., April, 2008

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Background:

The Corruption Database

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the criminal government

1] White house approved, participated in torture

2] FBI is recording every phone call, email, and all internet traffic in US

3] US "rendered" 14 to jordan for torture

4-16-08

4] Merck Wrote Drug Studies for Doctors: don't trust your bribed govt? then don't trust drugs

5] Plastic industry poison slowly pushed back, despite their bribes and political clout

6] Housing foreclosure crisis gives politicians/lobbyists excuse to steal

7] Israel: Genocide announced

1-17-08

8] dems want iraq to pay costs of american destruction, occupation of iraq

9] Pentagon institute calls war "debacle," hints that we lost