The Corruption Updates 161

CORRUPTION UPDATES 161

#1 through #4 posted March 1, 2008, Draft edition

#5 through #8 posted March 3, 2008, Draft edition

#9 through #12 posted March 5, 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.

Mukasey refuses probe of Bush aides

By LAURIE KELLMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080301/D8V4C5HG5.html

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused Friday to refer the House's contempt citations against two of President Bush's top aides to a federal grand jury. Mukasey said White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers committed no crime.

As promised, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she has given the Judiciary Committee authority to file a lawsuit against Bolten and Miers in federal court.

"The House shall do so promptly," she said in a statement.

Mukasey said Bolten and Miers were right in ignoring subpoenas to provide Congress with White House documents or testify about the firings of federal prosecutors.

"The department will not bring the congressional contempt citations before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute Mr. Bolten or Ms. Miers," Mukasey wrote Pelosi.

Pelosi shot back that the aides can expect a lawsuit.

"The American people demand that we uphold the law," Pelosi said. "As public officials, we take an oath to uphold the Constitution and protect our system of checks and balances and our civil lawsuit seeks to do just that."

Pelosi requested the grand jury investigation on Thursday and gave Mukasey a week to reply. She said the House would file a civil suit seeking enforcement of the contempt citations if federal prosecutors declined to seek misdemeanor charges against Bolten and Miers. The plaintiffs would be the entire Judiciary Committee, who would be represented by the House's lawyers, according to aides to Pelosi and committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich.

Mukasey took only a day to get back to her. But he had earlier joined his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, in telling lawmakers they would refuse to refer any contempt citations to prosecutors because Bolten and Miers were acting at Bush's instruction.

A civil suit would drag out a slow-motion crawl to a constitutional struggle between a Democratic-run Congress and a Republican White House that has been simmering for more than a year.

Democrats say Bush's instructions to Miers and Bolten to ignore the House Judiciary Committee's subpoenas was an abuse of power and an effort to block an effort to find out whether the White House directed the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 for political reasons.

The 223-32 House vote on a resolution approving the contempt citations Feb. 14 was the first of its type in 25 years.

"Today's decision to shelve the contempt process, in violation of a federal statute, shows that the White House will go to any lengths to keep its role in the U.S. attorney firings hidden," said Conyers. "In the face of such extraordinary actions, we have no choice but to proceed with a lawsuit to enforce the committee's subpoenas."

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What's Really Going on Here??

Dems only responding to Bush Crimes when he targeted Dem Politicos

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., March 1, 2008

The dems have let bush off the hook for an illegal war, torture, kidnapping, hijacking the 4th amendment, and censoring government scientists. But things have changed now, now that bush's plot to use US attorneys to politically prosecute and imprison dems has been exposed.

It started with republican heavyweights dominici and weh in new mexico. They insisted the local US attorney initiate a political prosecution before the nov '06 elections. This was clearly unethical and illegal. The prosecutor refused, and was fired, along with a raft of other US Attorneys who would not use the law as a political weapon for the administration.

It has been clear from early in the bush administration that bush was intent on twisting every aspect of presidential power to his personal will, to either defy the law, or to enrich his friends and allies. The latter is a common practice of both parties, and bush's administration has reached new heights in giving away our national resources and assets to his bribers. But bush has gone far beyond the normal cupidity of our politicians, and has openly defied the letter and spirit of the constitution.

Bush has hit a grand slam: he has ignored the rules of the constitution, our laws, the powers of congress, and international law. Beyond rejecting law, duty, and bush's oath to obey our laws, the actions of this administration are well beyond the pale of the bad ethics. lack of common decency, or common sense that we have gotten used to seeing in our politicians.

Unfortunately, the dems have had little problem with any of bush's corruptions, be they in the economic, foreign policy, or most importantly, bush's defiance of the limits of the 4th amendment, the checks and balances between the branches, or his duty to sign or veto a piece of legislation.

By tolerating these crimes, bush's crimes have been tacitly accepted and institutionalized as precedent by the dems passivity. This is what Pelosi really did when she rejected impeaching bush in oct of '06, just prior to winning the house. The dems went along with a criminal war. They have aided and abetted bush's crimes by passing a raft of unconstitutional laws. The dems appear to be asleep at the wheel of our government.

All of bush's crimes were O.K. until bush crossed the one line the dems will fight for, their own survival, when bush turned the power of his corrupted justice department loose on them.

It's sad and disgusting indictment of the character of the dems that they have only finally chosen to stand up for our constitution after king george threatened their party with the laws designed to protect our democracy.

The dems choose not to stand against an illegal war. They have chosen to permit torture. They have affirmed the patriot act. They have chosen to let the military commissions act stand. They have chosen to allow every american's phone to be tapped. They have chosen to ignore the president's system of secret prisons. Defying congress and the constitution has been ok with the dems until bush started putting the crooked dems in prison, and used criminal law and US Attorneys against the dems to win elections.

This demonstrates that the real problem in our government runs much deeper than one evil administration, or one corrupt party. The corruptions of this administration are not isolated. They are shared and perfectly mirrored by the dem congress.

The key to breaking our political duopoly is to recognize that both parties depend on the same sources of corporate wealth to obtain and maintain political power. This two headed snake will put aside its eternal battle for supremacy, to join together to fight to protect its source of power: Corporate and special interests bribery.

The relationship between the monied special interests and our parties assure that congress and president are more alike than different, independent of which party controls either branch of government. The parties mutually tolerate each other's corporate campaign financing schemes-bribery-and mutually payoff these bribes with earmarks.

This relationship between political power and wealth has decapitated our democracy. The first goal of both parties is to obtain the wealth necessary to get power, and provide the paybacks required keep this ill-gotten power.

The repugs have gone beyond the domestic political pale, breaking the rules of the political knife fight that characterizes the struggle between these political snakes for power in washington, by using the us attorneys to put dems in prison for political corruption. This is a delicious irony when you consider that this administration is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the energy industry.

It would be a rich irony, if it was not so sad that the dems have allowed the whole fabric of our government to be shredded before standing up for our constitution.

All of these crimes and derelictions of duty by our criminal president and congress are only yet another set of reasons why we must push special interest money out of our elections. We need to decide if we want a democracy, or to keep running politics as if our elections were auctions.

Democracy is simple: If you can't vote in the election, you can't contribute to the candidates. Keeping the corporate parties, and all parties in their place (subordinate to the voters), is a fine reason to restrict all political party contributions to their candidates to no more than 30% of what the local voters contribute to the candidates.

These simple changes will not create a perfect world, nor a perfect democracy. But they will move bribery from the center of our political structure, to the perimeter.

It's late in the game, and a lot of damage has been done to our constitution, our country, and the world by our criminal government. But we still have an opportunity to re-democratize our government, restore our rights, and bring the wisdom of our people to bear on the economic, environmental, and social crisis our corrupted leaders have brought upon us.

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Also See:

Note that the dems recommended mukasey. Note that the dems confirmed mukasey. Now think about what this tells us about both parties.

On mukasey

Who Will Defend the President's Crimes Now? committee, August 28, 2007

On the US Attorney scandal(s)

Search the Corruption Database under

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

Key points: Kenya power-sharing deal
bbc, 2-28-08

Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga have signed a power-sharing agreement which will see the creation of a prime minister post.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who mediated the negotiations, said the deal would be known as the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, and "entrenched in the constitution".

He outlined the key points of the agreement as follows:

The post of prime minister will be created, with the holder having the authority to co-ordinate and supervise the execution of government functions.

The prime minister will be an elected member of parliament and the parliamentary leader of the largest party in the National Assembly, or of a coalition if the largest party does not command a majority in parliament.

Two deputy prime ministers to be appointed, one to be nominated by each member of the coalition.

The prime minister and deputy prime ministers can only be removed if the National Assembly passes a motion of no-confidence with a majority vote.

A cabinet to consist of a president, vice-president, prime minister, two deputy prime ministers and other ministers.

The removal of a minister of the coalition will be subject to consultation and agreement in writing by the leaders.

The composition of the coalition government will at all times take into account the principle of portfolio balance, and reflect the parties' relative parliamentary strengths.

The coalition will be dissolved if the current parliament is dissolved; or if the parties agree in writing; or if one coalition partner withdraws from the coalition.

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What's Really Going on Here??

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., March 1, 2008
After our attempt to allow kibaki to steal the election in return for his cooperation with kidnapping whole families of somali refugees, blew up in our face, kenya has been spiraling downward into unchecked ethnic violence.

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Also See:

US backed invasion, war on terror, empowered kenyan election fraud, committee, 12-29-07

Kenyan Election Fraud covered by US, xinhuanet.com, 12-30-07

Kenyan Election Condemned, telegraph, 12-31-07

Riots Batter Kenya as Rivals Declare Victory, NYT, 12-30-07

Violence Grips Kenya, Sky, 12-31-07

Video: How to win in Kenya: Fraud, Violence, and US Support, Guardian, 12-31-07

Kenya election fraud rejected, economist, 1-2-08

Kenyan election chair announced result before finishing count, guardian, 1-3-08

african links

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Kenya

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

'Tragic proportion' of dropouts prompts panel ideas

Better data system, 'lighthouse districts' among suggestions.

By Deb Kollars - dkollars@sacbee.com

Published 12:00 am PST Thursday, February 28, 2008

http://www.sacbee.com/capolitics/story/745603.html

A panel of educators, researchers and politicians on Wednesday announced 15 recommendations for reducing the state's serious and entrenched dropout problem.

The exact dropout tally is not known because the state does not have an adequate data collection and reporting system.

But according to the California Dropout Research Project, about 170,000 California ninth-graders in 2002-03 dropped out of high school or failed to graduate with their classes four years later. Only about two-thirds graduated on time, with rates even lower for African American, Latino and American Indian students. The trend repeats year after year, and costs the state billions in lost income and economic activity, as well as higher crime and welfare expenses, said Russell W. Rumberger, a University of California, Santa Barbara, professor who directs the project.

"The problem really is of tragic proportion," said Jack O'Connell, California's superintendent of public instruction. "It's too high. It's unacceptable. It absolutely must be addressed."

Rumberger and other members of the dropout research project recommended a range of solutions Wednesday, including better state data collection, the creation of "lighthouse districts" to research and model successful anti-dropout programs, re-examining graduation requirements, and reforming middle schools to stop early patterns of academic failure.

State Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who served on the panel, said Wednesday that reducing the state's dropout rate is his top legislative priority. "For me, it begins with accountability," he said, noting that the state – after years of delays – must develop an accurate system for tracking individual student progress.

Although some of the report's recommendations may take longer to carry out because of the state's budget crisis, Steinberg said launching an effective data system for tracking dropouts and graduates should happen as soon as possible because without it, the state cannot effectively hold schools and districts accountable for improving.

Wednesday's report followed a study released last week by the same group that found a disproportionate number of California's dropouts come from nontraditional schools such as charters and continuation campuses.

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What's Really Going on Here??

These people are liars

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., March 1, 2008

Just read this short article, "schools need billions." As you can see, california is 25 billion dollars short of providing the most basic level of education for grades K-12.

So it's real interesting that this panel is working to fix the schools, when our planning, growth, and financing of the schools has been tailor made to allow the people making the money off of our irresponsible growth to put it into their pockets, rather than pay the costs of making their profits.

Our growth and profits in california for the last 35 years have ben based on under funding schools, hospitals, roads and retirement as massive numbers of illegals lower wages and increase demand on food, rent, schools and hospitals, not to mention our jails and prisons.

The middle-class has been systematically stripped of their economic, social and political resources for the last 35 years.

This irresponsible growth has fulfilled its function: The middle class has been destroyed as an economic or political force in california. California's schools are incapable of educating the children of our citizens, let alone the children of the cheap laborers who have replaced them.

The failure of our educational system will not be lessened by this panel. The problem we have is not only with our massive corrupt growth changing the distribution of wealth in the state, but with this movement of wealth came a breakdown in the mutual responsibility of citizenship.

Now all that is left of our once-balanced rights and responsibilities is a joke: everyone has the right to be an "american," but no one has the responsibility to pay the costs that "right" entails.

If you think the schools are bad now, just wait a few months. The real problem lies in our immediate future, when the great ponzi scheme of our irresponsible demographic and economic growth comes tumbling down.

Our educational failures of the last 30 years of strong economic growth and failed schools are going to look like the good old days as our greed and irresponsibility catch up with us. We will have to pay the piper, once again, to keep the rich fat, happy, and in control of our country.

It's unfortunate our leaders are determined by who buys the most politicians with the profits ripped out of our bleeding infrastructure and an obedient foreign labor force, rather than who can get elected on the money and votes of their own constituents.

To end this vicious cycle of criminality, profit, and political power we must break the link at its source: the relationship between wealth and political power that has made a farce of our elections, destroyed our middle-class and our schools, and made labor cheap and dishonorable, something only brown people do.

Until we fix the core corruption of our democracy, our problems will only deepen. Help us take back our government and country. Join the committee for democracy.

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Also See:

CA Study: Schools need billions, bee, 3-27-08

California: from bad to worse: 14 bil shortfall, bee, 12-12-07

Search the Corruption Database under

schools

education

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

Dozens killed in assault on Gaza

newstime7, 3-1-08

http://www.newstime7.com/haber/20080301/Dozens-killed-in-assault-on-Gaza.php

At least 35 people have been killed in the last 24 hours as Israel continues a major assault in Gaza that has left many children and civilians dead.

The operation in the Jabaliya refugee camp on Saturday marks the deadliest day of fighting in the Hamas-ruled territory for more than a year.

Sixty-eight Gazans have died since the operation - which followed the death of an Israel civilian in a Palestinian rocket attack - began four days ago.

More than 120 Palestinians have also been wounded.

Israeli troops injured

The Israeli army confirmed its operations in northern Gaza, with the Israel Army Radio reporting that five soldiers were lightly or moderately wounded in the fighting.

Tariq Dardouna, a Palestinian resident trapped in his house in east Jabaliya, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces targeted civilians.

"The Israeli army opens fire at everything in our area, including children and houses. There are injured children bleeding inside their houses," Dardouna said.

"They are opening fire at everything."

Witnesses also reported clashes in the nearby Tufah neighbourhood in northern Gaza City.

Hamas denunciation

Khaled Meshaal, the exiled Hamas leader living in Syria, denounced the Israeli attacks against Gaza civilians as "the real holocaust".

Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, described the Jabaliya assault as "genocide".

He accused "regional and internal parties" of being involved in the conflict, as well as an "Israeli conspiracy".

In Ramallah, Mahmoud Abbas, the president, condemned the escalating Israeli military operation in Gaza, and called for its immediate end.

"It's very regrettable that what is happening is more than a holocaust. We tell the world to see with its own eyes and judge for itself what is happening and who is carrying out international terrorism," Abbas later told reporters.

Comparisons to a "holocaust" apparently refer to remarks made by Matan Vilnai, Israel's deputy defence minister, who earlier used the Hebrew word "shoah" - generally used about the Nazi Holocaust - in remarks to army radio on Friday.

"By intensifying the rocket fire and extending their reach [fighters in Gaza] are bringing onto themselves a worse catastrophe [shoah] as we will use all means to defend ourselves," Vilnai said.

In his press conference, Abbas said: "It is regrettable that Israel uses this word, banned for more than 60 years, the word 'holocaust,' and we demand that the world respond."

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What's Really Going on Here??

The Truth will Come Out:

Jews have surpassed Nazis Crime in "israel"

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., March 1, 2008

The only response of the us will be to give the jews more bullets and bucks to fulfil their dreams of a middle eastern empire from the jordan to the sea.

That's working out about as well as our illegal iraqi invasion. We can expect more crimes from our government and its brain, israel.

It is our duty as americans to end the ownership of american foreign policy by the jews. This will be neat and clean.

Let's do this: Let's make it a crime for non-voters to bribe our politicians. The jewish hijacking of our foreign policy will be over. Hell, this will end corporate control of our government too. Then, if we decide to commit war crimes, it will be a legitimate decision, democratically arrived upon, and we will be openly culpable as a people and a nation. As it is now, our policies are illegitimate, crafted to serve the powers of corporate and cultural bribery.

Ever wonder why our politicians never thought of legislating fair democratic elections? Because they would be thrown out of office if we had honest elections.

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Also See:

essay: basis of israel: Failure of democracy in the United States, committee, 9-20-07

essay: Arabs in israel live under jim crow apartheid, committee, 8-6-07

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.

Corruption Updates 64, 3^rd article on the page,"British Academics’ Union Endorses Israel Boycott"

Corruption Updates 64, 4^th article on the page, "Largest Labor Union in Britain May Consider a Boycott of Israel"

NYT, July 23, 2007; In Arabic Textbook, Israel Calls ’48 War Catastrophe for Arabs: Arabs in Israel Live under Jim Crow Apartheid

Israel to Get $30 Billion in Military Aid From U.S., NYT, August 17, 2007

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

Corruption Updates 127, 4^th article on the page, Sabra and Shatila Massacres, 25 years later

Election power of the Israel lobby, aljazeera, 12-30-07

Bush Who? goes to Israel, independent (UK) 1-7-08

Israel escalates violence as tribute to bush policies, bbc, 1-7-08

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

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

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

Russians go to polls today under orders to vote for Putin's favourite

Most analysts foresee a Kremlin double act after a loaded election, but some optimists scent a wind of change in Medvedev

observer, 3-2-08

The campaign has been drearily insipid; the result a foregone conclusion. Unlike in the US, where the presidential election remains tantalisingly open, Russia's presidential election has been a lacklustre affair - because the man who counts has already voted.

Vladimir Putin announced last December that he was backing Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister, to be the next President. Medvedev swiftly offered Putin the job of Prime Minister. Ever since, the Kremlin has been using its vast administrative resources to make this happy scenario come true. Millions of public sector workers have been told to vote for Medvedev or lose their jobs. Additionally, zealous election functionaries are preparing to stuff ballot boxes tonight to ensure that he wins a landslide victory.

The same tactic was used in Russia's rigged parliamentary elections in December, which saw some areas of the country, most notably Chechnya and other parts of the north Caucasus, deliver a 99 per cent vote for Putin's United Russia party. Turnout was an equally improbable 99.6 per cent. Fraudulent elections have now become an established part of Russian political life - in the words of the Soviet dissident Sergei Kovalev a 'tasteless farce being played out by untalented directors on the entire, boundless Russian stage'.

Many Russians, however, will vote willingly for Medvedev today, believing him to be decent, competent and even cuddly. Nobody is in any doubt that Medvedev - a 42-year-old lawyer from St Petersburg - has the only attribute that matters: Vladimir Putin's trust.

The questions now are how will Medvedev and Putin work together? Who will dominate? Does Medvedev have a post-Putin agenda? Political analysts find it tough to explain how Russia will function from May, when Medvedev becomes the Federation's third post-Soviet leader. They have used words such as tandem, diarchy and dualism - all alien to Russia, which has traditionally relied on a single autocrat.

'Decisions will be made in a tandem behind closed doors,' Boris Makarenko, deputy director of the Centre for Political Technologies, Russia's oldest independent think-tank, said. 'We can only guess how these decisions will be made,' he said. Others have compared Putin's future role to that of St Sergius, a 14th-century saint and monastic reformer who advised Moscow's medieval prince Dmitry Donskoy on how to beat the Mongols. Most observers believe Putin will remain the dominant figure in politics, possibly returning as President in 2012. Others think Putin is tired and does not really want to head the new government - aware that his popularity could rapidly vanish as the country's multiple economic problems (inflation, liquidity) pile up.

Most experts believe Russia's belligerent attitude to the West in the late Putin era is unlikely to change soon. 'Medvedev will be the same as Putin, but with a more smiley face. The distribution of powers between the two will be so complex it would be suicidal to pursue a different agenda,' Grigorii Golosov, a professor of political sciences at St Petersburg's European University, said. Asked whether Medvedev had a world view of his own, he said: 'Who knows? At the moment he doesn't say. Any differences with Putin are stylistic, not substantive.'

A few optimists, however, believe that Medvedev could be a progressive leader, who might even unravel Putinism. In a speech last month in Krasnoyarsk, Medvedev said Russia desperately needed an independent judiciary and a free press. 'Freedom is better than non-freedom,' Medvedev said, also calling for economic reforms and an end to bureaucratic corruption. What is not clear is whether he means what he says or whether this is merely a Putin-approved ploy to assuage an international community that has grown weary of Putin's West-bashing.

'I think there is a 50/50 chance Medvedev could turn into a real progressive leader,' Andrei Ryabov, an expert in politics at the Carnegie Centre in Moscow, said. 'It depends on Medvedev's political will. It's like in France under the Fifth Republic, back in the Sixties, when Charles de Gaulle ran an authoritarian regime. But his successors using the same constitution were very different.'

Russia factfile

· More than 109 million Russians across 11 time zones can vote today for any one of four candidates. About 96,000 polling stations are open.

· Russia is a semi-presidential republic with a population of 142 million. It shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea.

· The largest country, it covers more than an eighth of the planet's land area and has a quarter of its fresh water.

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

Medvedev quick to signal hardline intent

By Neil Buckley and Catherine Belton in Moscow and Roman Olearchyk in Kiev

Financial Times, Published: March 3 2008 09:26

Russia signalled on Monday it was set to continue its hardline approach to opposition and the west under Dmitry Medvedev, its new president, as it cut gas supplies to Ukraine and police detained demonstrators in Moscow.

The moves came just hours after Mr Medvedev, who took 70.2 per cent of the vote in Sunday’s election, said he would take charge of Russian foreign policy after his May 7 inauguration, but pledged to continue the course of his mentor, President Vladimir Putin.

Several hundred members of pro-Kremlin youth groups including Nashi, or “Our Own”, also marched towards the US embassy in Moscow to protest over US foreign policy towards Kosovo and Iraq. The youths carried slogans including “Russia Forward” and “We will stand beside our country”.

Western capitals have seized on Mr Medvedev’s reputation as a comparative liberal among the Russian leadership as providing hope of an improvement in relations, which have sharply cooled under Mr Putin.

Sergei Kupriyanov, a Gazprom spokesman, insisted shipments to Europe would not be affected, but said Ukraine had failed to pay $600m (€395m, £302m) for 1.9bn cubic metres of gas received this year. He said Gazprom was a reliable supplier “but we cannot and should not supply gas without payment”.

While officials and some analysts attempted to portray the move as purely about money, critics suggested its timing sent a message that little had changed in Russia as a result of the presidential campaign.

So, too, did a swoop by hundreds of riot police on dozens of opposition protesters attempting to hold a rally that had not been sanctioned by the authorities. Nikita Belykh, leader of the liberal Union of Right Forces party, was among up to 50 people eyewitnesses said they saw being detained.

Vladimir Ryzhkov, a former independent member of Russia’s parliament who lost his seat because of rule changes last year, said talk of a possible “thaw” under Mr Medvedev was misleading.

“This is one team, it’s a very close team,” he said. “I want to remind you that Medvedev has been in senior posts in Russia for the last eight years and took part in all the major decisions.”

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What's Really Going on Here??

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., March 3, 2008

The maintenance hardline position in the emerging russian leadership is a reflection the US policy towards russia since the fall of the soviet union.

From our support of the oligarchs, to the breakup of Czechoslovakia, to our breaking the anti-ballistic missile treaty, pushing nato and missiles into the post-soviet states, and claiming the right to engage in unilateral wars of aggression and pre-emptive nuclear strikes, america's policy towards russia and the world has offered a convenient locus to aid the formation of an anti-american hardline authoritarian state in russia.

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Also See:

essay: Putin's Choice, what's next? committee, 4-27-07

essay: "Who lost Russia,?" committee, 3-12-07

essay: RUSSIA RESPONDS STRONGLY TO AMERICAN AGGRESSION, committee, 8-15-07

Links: Russia

Search the Corruption Database under

Russia

Putin

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

Revealed: the first draft of dossier that took Britain to war

By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent

Independent.co.uk

Tuesday, 19 February 2008

Fresh evidence that the Iraq weapons dossier was "sexed up" emerged as the Government finally published the secret first draft of the document.

As expected, the earliest version of the document did not include the now notorious claim that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to do so.

The first draft made a series of lurid claims about the extent and danger of the Iraqi president's weapons arsenal. But those were expressed in even stronger terms by September 2002, when the official dossier on which Tony Blair based the case for war was published.

Ministers had fought a three-year battle to stop the confidential initial draft from being released, but last month lost an appeal against a ruling that it should be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The paper, whose existence first emerged during the Hutton inquiry in 2003, was written by John Williams, the former director of communications at the Foreign Office. He warned that Saddam had come to power by "torture, rape and execution" and concluded that Iraq presented a "uniquely dangerous threat to the world".

The Williams paper made a series of detailed claims about the Iraqi president's stockpile of chemical and biological weapons.

But there was no reference to the 45-minute claim, although it warned that Iraq was "developing as a priority longer-range missile systems capable of targeting Nato (Greece and Turkey?)".

The final dossier, attributed to John Scarlett, who was then the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, made the bold assertion: "Iraq's military forces are able to use chemical and biological weapons, with command, control and logistical arrangements in place. The Iraqi military are able to deploy these weapons within 45 minutes of a decision to do so."

In addition, language used in Mr Williams' assessment of the threat from Saddam was toughened up several times by the publication of the final dossier.

Mr Williams also said that Iraq would "find it difficult to produce fissile material [for nuclear weapons] while sanctions remain in place".

The Hutton inquiry into the death of the weapons expert Dr David Kelly heard claims that evidence against Saddam was "sexed up" by Downing Street by the time it was presented to the public.

Last night, Mr Williams told BBC Radio 4's PM programme: "The 45-minutes claim was absolutely nothing whatever to do with me. It was news to me."

According to the Government, the Williams dossier was quickly set aside after it was decided that Sir John should be made responsible for the document.

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

This war on terrorism is bogus

The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination

Michael Meacher

The Guardian, Saturday September 6 2003

Massive attention has now been given - and rightly so - to the reasons why Britain went to war against Iraq. But far too little attention has focused on why the US went to war, and that throws light on British motives too. The conventional explanation is that after the Twin Towers were hit, retaliation against al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan was a natural first step in launching a global war against terrorism. Then, because Saddam Hussein was alleged by the US and UK governments to retain weapons of mass destruction, the war could be extended to Iraq as well. However this theory does not fit all the facts. The truth may be a great deal murkier.

We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says "while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document attributed to Wolfowitz and Libby which said the US must "discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role". It refers to key allies such as the UK as "the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership". It describes peacekeeping missions as "demanding American political leadership rather than that of the UN". It says "even should Saddam pass from the scene", US bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently... as "Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has". It spotlights China for "regime change", saying "it is time to increase the presence of American forces in SE Asia".

The document also calls for the creation of "US space forces" to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent "enemies" using the internet against the US. It also hints that the US may consider developing biological weapons "that can target specific genotypes [and] may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool".

Finally - written a year before 9/11 - it pinpoints North Korea, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes, and says their existence justifies the creation of a "worldwide command and control system". This is a blueprint for US world domination. But before it is dismissed as an agenda for rightwing fantasists, it is clear it provides a much better explanation of what actually happened before, during and after 9/11 than the global war on terrorism thesis. This can be seen in several ways.

First, it is clear the US authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt the events of 9/11. It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks. Two senior Mossad experts were sent to Washington in August 2001 to alert the CIA and FBI to a cell of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation (Daily Telegraph, September 16 2001). The list they provided included the names of four of the 9/11 hijackers, none of whom was arrested.

It had been known as early as 1996 that there were plans to hit Washington targets with aeroplanes. Then in 1999 a US national intelligence council report noted that "al-Qaida suicide bombers could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House".

Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has stated that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly issuing visas to unqualified applicants from the Middle East and bringing them to the US for training in terrorism for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC, November 6 2001). It seems this operation continued after the Afghan war for other purposes. It is also reported that five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek, September 15 2001).

All of this makes it all the more astonishing - on the war on terrorism perspective - that there was such slow reaction on September 11 itself. The first hijacking was suspected at not later than 8.20am, and the last hijacked aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania at 10.06am. Not a single fighter plane was scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just 10 miles from Washington DC, until after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38 am. Why not? There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked aircraft before 9/11. Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft (AP, August 13 2002). It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate.

Was this inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been deliberately stood down on September 11? If so, why, and on whose authority? The former US federal crimes prosecutor, John Loftus, has said: "The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defence of incompetence."

The catalogue of evidence does, however, fall into place when set against the PNAC blueprint. From this it seems that the so-called "war on terrorism" is being used largely as bogus cover for achieving wider US strategic geopolitical objectives. Indeed Tony Blair himself hinted at this when he said to the Commons liaison committee: "To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11" (Times, July 17 2002). Similarly Rumsfeld was so determined to obtain a rationale for an attack on Iraq that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to 9/11; the CIA repeatedly came back empty-handed (Time Magazine, May 13 2002).

In fact, 9/11 offered an extremely convenient pretext to put the PNAC plan into action. The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11. A report prepared for the US government from the Baker Institute of Public Policy stated in April 2001 that "the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East". Submitted to Vice-President Cheney's energy task group, the report recommended that because this was an unacceptable risk to the US, "military intervention" was necessary (Sunday Herald, October 6 2002).

Given this background, it is not surprising that some have seen the US failure to avert the 9/11 attacks as creating an invaluable pretext for attacking Afghanistan in a war that had clearly already been well planned in advance.

Similarly the PNAC blueprint of September 2000 states that the process of transforming the US into "tomorrow's dominant force" is likely to be a long one in the absence of "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor". The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the "go" button for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement.

The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US and the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies. By 2010 the Muslim world will control as much as 60% of the world's oil production and, even more importantly, 95% of remaining global oil export capacity. As demand is increasing, so supply is decreasing, continually since the 1960s.

This is leading to increasing dependence on foreign oil supplies for both the US and the UK. The US, which in 1990 produced domestically 57% of its total energy demand, is predicted to produce only 39% of its needs by 2010. A DTI minister has admitted that the UK could be facing "severe" gas shortages by 2005. The UK government has confirmed that 70% of our electricity will come from gas by 2020, and 90% of that will be imported. In that context it should be noted that Iraq has 110 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in addition to its oil.

The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the "global war on terrorism" has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project. Is collusion in this myth and junior participation in this project really a proper aspiration for British foreign policy? If there was ever need to justify a more objective British stance, driven by our own independent goals, this whole depressing saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical change of course.

· Michael Meacher MP was environment minister from May 1997 to June 2003

meacherm@parliament.uk

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What's Really Going on Here??

continued deception by administration

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., January 30, 2008

The first problem with gates' announcement is that the troop levels in iraq were never accounted for accurately. As the level of troops fluctuated between 130,000 and 150,000, the military and political leadership never counted the mercenaries, nor the vast army of private contractors who do the work traditionally done by army personnel. At seven or eight times the cost of having the army do their own job.

I put our actual level of "troops" in iraq at over 280,000, if you count every private worker there as necessary to maintain our forces. The ratio of support personnel necessary to field ground forces is high. That's why there were over 500,000 thousand troops in vietnam.

Second, the announcement of perpetual troops in iraq is no surprise, but it didn't happen like they thought it would. The hair-brained scheme was simple: crush saddam, impose dictator, i mean democracy, and withdraw into massive bases capable of projecting american power across the region.

Everything went wrong after the crush saddam part of the plan. Nobody but chalabi and alawi were stupid enough to try for the dictator job, and they had no support other than wealth, their own desire, and american power. Chalibi apparently has been courting the iranians for support as well.

The current lull in the fighting is due to our military turning al anbar over to the bathists. I mean the ex-bathists. Sadr wisely declared a truce when the escalation rolled into Baghdad. Both sides were ready for a break after expending so much energy ethnically cleansing their neighborhoods.

Iraq has split into three simmering parts. The west and south are controlled by the Shiites, and are natural allies of Iran. The north is kurdish, and they are hated by turkey, iraq, iran, and the rest of the post colonial nation-states who divided their lands among themselves.

This means that our permanent presence and our permanent bases can no longer be envisioned as fortresses of american power, able to cow iran and impose our will across the region. Our permanent forces in iraq will have their hands full imposing america's will on baghdad, let alone tehran, as originally envisioned. Iran's power and influence have risen far more than can be offset by military force.

The source of this failure cannot be blamed on osama or "the terrorists." It cannot be eliminated with illegal searches, kidnapping, or secret prisons, let alone with torture under any name. This problem cannot be killed by our military, nor lied out of existence by our press. The source of this failed war is our failed democracy.

Of all the basic elements of our country's general welfare that our corrupted government has abused, abusing the power of making war is the nastiest. The forces of wealth have stolen our elections, our money and our rights. As bad as that is, these are all domestic crimes, committed among ourselves. These wars signal that we have crossed the rubicon, claiming unlimited arbitrary authority within this country and around the world. We have gone way over the line.

That these wars were not defensive compliments the brutality, if not the raw power, influence and wealth, of our corporate elites. Unfortunately for us, heir weapons are the blood and treasury of our country.

The political, economic and media elites who lied these wars down our throats are still marching in lockstep, trying to maintain the discredited illusion that we are projecting power in the middle east for "democracy." It would be hard to build one there, when our democracy here has failed. We have been, and are in the middle east to maintain control of the world oil market.

There's a way out. The only way to stop american domestic politics, military power, and global prestige from being used to advance the power and wealth of our corporate elite is stop them from bribing our political candidates and officeholders. Once we own the politicians, it will be a hell of a lot harder for them to drain our schools, bleed us for medicine, kill our environment, and fritter away the wealth and beauty of this country as a sacrifice to their greed.

When we make the local voter the source of 70% of every candidate and officeholder's bribes, the local voter will regain control of their representatives, and we will once again have established the basic elements of our democratic republic. The other 30% is reserved for special interest, political party, and other sources of outside money. The candidate can decide which outside sources to accept, but the total of outside money cannot exceed 30% of the total contributions from local voters.

After taking our democracy back, we can then turn towards releasing the press from its corporate captivity. Hell, if we make it that far, we might even have a shot at forcing the government to protect private freedom while regulating public affairs, instead of the reverse.

Imagine that.

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Also See:

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

iraq war links

Search the Corruption Database under

War

iraq war

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

'US plot against Hamas' revealed

aljazeera, TUESDAY, MARCH 04, 2008

17:06 MECCA TIME, 14:06 GMT

The US plotted to overthrow the democratically elected Hamas government in the Palestinian territories, documents obtained by Al Jazeera reveal.

One of the documents appears to show that Washington tried to persuade Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of Fatah, to remove Hamas from power.

One document, dated March 2007, states "the plan will enable the Palestinian leadership to be more credible in the eyes of Israel and the others".

But, when that plan failed, the US set up an operation to fund Fatah fighters and drive Hamas out.

In Cairo, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, justified the arming of Fatah, saying the situation had called for it.

She said she had not read a report in Vanity Fair magazine which quoted a former US intelligence official said to be knowledgeable of the US plans to overthrow Hamas after it failed to convince Abbas to dissolve the cabinet.

US support

"It is very clear that Hamas is being armed. And it is very clear that they are being armed in part by the Iranians," Rice said on Tuesday.

"So if the answer is that if Hamas gets armed by the Iranians and nobody helps to improve the security capabilities of the legitimate Palestinian Authority security forces, that's not a very good situation."

Rice said that international forces, including the US, would therefore continue to work with the PA to bolster its forces to keep security in its mandated region.

Responding to Rice's comments about Iranian support for Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, the exiled Hamas political leader, told Al Jazeera Rice was "lying".

"Their main concern is to provoke Iran," Meshaal said. "I'm saying it again if they have proof of this let them produce it".

"Everyone knows the origins of the Israeli weapons, it's American made while our men are using very simple homemade arms," he said.

The US has openly supported Fatah and after Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007, the US announced an $80m funding deal for Fatah's security services in the West Bank.

Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Ramallah, said that many Palestinians would be upset that Fatah appeared to have played into the hands of an American foreign policy that wanted to make an example out of Hamas, whom the US labels a "terrorist" organisation.

Emerging evidence

Hamas won democratic elections in January 2006, prompting Western governments, which have refused to engage with Hamas, to threaten to withdraw financial aid to the Palestinians.

Left with little international support, by June that year Hamas and Fatah had agreed to form a unity government but were unable to broker a conclusive end to factional fighting on the streets of Gaza.

Allegations the US sought to remove Hamas in a coup dates back to 2006, after the group had come to power through Palestinian elections.

The leaked documents include a memo sent to Fatah officials, apparently by a senior US diplomat in Jerusalem in November 2006, encouraging Fatah to declare a state of emergency and take control.

The memo stated: "If Hamas does not agree [to accept a new government] within the prescribed time, you should make clear your intention to declare a state of emergency and form an emergency government explicitly committed to that platform."

The plan was ignored by Abbas who instead formed a unity government with Hamas in 2007, intended to bring an end to fighting between the two factions.

The unity government, agreed in February 2007 with the mediation of Saudi Arabia, appears to have prompted the second document and a plan to oust Hamas by force, with the US bolstering Mohammed Dahlan, the head of Fatah's security forces.

But the unity government failed to end factional fighting and in June Hamas seized Gaza, dividing the Palestinian territories into Gaza and the Fatah-controlled West Bank.

Plot denied

The US on Tuesday denied the coup plot allegations.

"There is no accuracy to that story. I've checked and there is no truth to it," Sean McCormack, the US state department spokesman, said.

A statement from the office of Mohammad Dahlan, the former head of the Palestinian national security council, called the Vantiy Fair article "highly inaccurate and misleading".

"Accordingly there was (and remains) no secret plan to carry out a coup against Hamas," said the statement.

"Although the US offered its financial support for the plan to reform the PA's [Palestinian Authority's] security forces (by offering assistance for non-lethal equipment as requested by the PA), financial support was never received."

No official US stamps or seals appear on the document.

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What's Really Going on Here??

Bush "Democracy" Requires People Vote for Bush's Side, or our Dictators will Brand you as a "Terrorist" and Kill you.

America only respects elections that have a preordained Outcome: our dictator wins.

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., June, 2007

The governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt are American supported dictatorships who have no democratic or Islamic legitimacy. Their Kingdoms are propped up by American political, military and economic support.

The opponents of these regimes have been labled "terrorists," as have the opponents of Israel Occupation.

50 years of denying the democratic rights of colonized Arabs, especially the Palestinians, has caused Arabs to look towards religion, rather than secular Western "democracy," for political justice.

Our denial of democratic justice to the Middle-East has radicalized resistance by forcing insurgents to depart "democracy," and find justification for their resistance to Western Imperialism in religion. Our "democracy" has delivered nothing but dictators, invasions, occupations, and injustice by any standard.

Thus our military and political victories, as complete as they seem to us, have laid the groundwork for our ultimate failure. Our victory has repudiated our legitimacy, and empowered radical Islam to provide justice and legitimacy to replace our secular democratic injustices.

The ethical and moral void created when the West and its dictators denied political legitimacy, democracy, and self-determination to Arabs is now filled with radical Islam.

50 years of military domination and occupation has not forced the Palestinians to accept defeat. Instead, they brazenly deny Israeli victory, and willingly give up their lives in asymmetrical warfare against the overwhelming superiority of Israeli and American weapons.

An American Patriot once said he was sorry he had only one life to give, in pursuit of his country's freedom.

The Palestinians are, at their most destructive, no threat to Israel. The real threat the Palestinians pose to to the Israeli-American domination of the Middle-East is their refusal, at the cost of lives, liberties, and property, to accept Israel's "victory," over them, let alone accept the terms of victory the Israelis are dictating.

This bare rejection of Israeli legitimacy is a shining example of the triumph of the spirit of freedom and justice even when crushed under the treads of an American supplied Israeli tank.

Our response to this temerity is to declare the defeated, occupied residents of Palestine who refuse to accept Israeli victory, occupation, and domination "Terrorists."

This designation, according to Bush, puts the Palestinians beyond the pale of humanity, and the protections of international law. They may be kidnapped, tortured, and killed with extra-legal impunity.

The Ironic counterpoint to our "war on terror," is that to maintain the pretense of Israeli legitimacy in the Middle-East we fund and arm the Saudi, Jordanian and Egyptian Dictatorships. These governments recognize no civil rights. They arbitrarily detain, torture, and kill their opponents.

Our state sponsored terror has stimulated individual "terror" which has triggered a flood tide of state terror. Now we have a self-sustaining cycle of terror that is going to alter the political geography of the Middle-East.

Our Middle-Eastern Dictatorships repay our support by recognizing the legitimacy of Israel. They can only recognize Israel by holding their people in check at gunpoint.

Calling Islamic resistance to foreign dictators and foreign occupation "terrorism" is a thin effort win the war of words, and define the situation away. But as I pointed out above, Arabs are retreating from Western political and diplomatic forms, which have completely failed them, and are now basing the legitimacy of their insurgencies on Islam.

Winning the war of words is irrelevant when you have lost the war for the hearts and minds of the Middle-East.

The change in the terms of legitimacy in the Middle-East, from secular to Islamic, was spawned by our long term abuses of Palestine and our long term support of despotic regimes.

Iraq has merely released long pent up forces, instantly, and has accelerated the de colonization that was already changing the political landscape of the Middle-East.

Bush's definition of terrorism, combined with his attacks on Islamic nations, when coupled with our long term support of Arabic dictatorships, has created the conditions for a perfect storm of Islamic legitimacy to blow down our corrupted Middle-Eastern Empire.

The reversion to Islamic legitimacy has made American support for our dictatorships there as much a threat their continuation in power, as our support is necessary for these dictators to continue in power.

These governments will instantly crumble in open elections, or if our military and economic support was withdrawn. They are presently under serious domestic pressure for accepting our support.

American supported dictatorships in the Middle-East have only one viable solution to this contradiction: radicalizing their positions to reflect their peoples' hatred of America. Only by putting themselves at the head of rising popular sentiment against American interference can our dictators hope to retain power.

Our dictators must do this to maintain what little moral authority they still have over their people, to postpone the day when they either pay for their disloyalty with their heads, go radically "native," or flee to the protection of the United States.

Bush has accelerated the process of Middle-Eastern de colonization by highlighting and inflaming Arabic rage against their American supported dictators by de legitimizing the Palestinians as "terrorists," and attempting to steal Iraq.

Our grasping for empire has hastened the inevitable fall, or radicalization of the Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian dictatorships. This will end the Arab peoples' forced recognition of Israel, and leave Israel in a considerably degraded negotiating position.

Israel's legitimacy cannot be honestly recognized in the Middle-East until the Arab peoples have rid themselves of American supported dictatorships, and form legitimate governments that represent their beliefs, positions, and interests.

Only then will there be legitimate negotiating partners that represents the Arab's true perspective on Israel.

This has already happened in Iran and Syria. And it should come as no surprise that they hate and mistrust both Israel and the US. Until we stop imposing dictators and policies on the Middle-East that puts our interests above local self-determination and self-rule, we will continue to be confronted by people who will go to great lengths to give up their lives to kill us.

We can strengthen and expand this hatred, by crushing the Arabs as they revolt against American dictatorships. This will fail, and when the Arabs emerge out from under American-sponsored dictatorships, there will be hell to pay for both Israel and the US.

Or we can diminish the hatred. We have a choice with the parts of the Middle East we still control, Let's tell our Arab dictators that our reign of terror is over, and so is theirs. We can demand free and fair elections under threat of taking away the military and political protections that we shield our dictators under.

It is obvious that rather than justice, we have chosen to strengthen tyranny and increase violence. This will fail, and it will fail in a bloodbath.

When failure occurs, the survivors, the rich Saudi Princes, and the minions of the Egyptian dictator, will move here, their true “homeland,” with billions of dollars.

We can still avoid the bloody birth of an independent Middle-Eastern Enemy. Before us lays a critical choice. We can continue down the present path of supporting dictatorships and occupations which are accelerating the breakdown of our moral authority and legitimacy. Our legitimacy, and the legitimacy of our various dictatorships, no longer extends beyond the range of our weapons.

Our other option is to radically shift direction by empowering Hamas as a legitimately elected representative of the Palestinians, and begin peace negotiations that respect their position. Our only requirement should be that they come to the negotiation table.

This would have to be accompanied by an refusal to fund or arm Israel unless they agreed to put the legitimacy of Israel up for negotiation with Hamas. We would also have to de fund, disarm, and demand that our Middle-Eastern Dictatorships immediately democratize. Our first demand must be that the region's armies have no role in domestic politics or security.

The price Israeli would pay for legitimacy in negotiations with Hamas would be substantial. But giving up East Jerusalem, Golan, the right of return, and linking the West Bank with Gaza would not just buy peace for Israel, but would de fang Islamic fundamentalism around the world.

If Israel fairly negotiates for its legitimacy with the Palestinians, rather than imposing itself through violence, the United States will no longer need to fund and support regional dictators to protect Israel. A deal between Hamas and Israel would defuse the vast majority of Islamic hatred for the Jews.

But even more importantly, an honestly negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestine would re legitimize the validity of western secular democracy and be more effective at deflating the expansion of radical Islam than any dictator or war on "terror" we ever could throw at them.

We've thrown vinegar on the Arabs for long enough. Let's try sugar.

Unfortunately, the state of American Politics makes it virtually impossible to rip our foreign policy out of the grip of Big Oil and the Israeli Lobby. The only way to stop our government from supporting tyranny around the world is to take it back from the corporate fascists who have captured our parties, elections, and the government itself. A tall order indeed.

The problem is deeper than party or political belief. Our democratic system itself has been hijacked by wealth and power. The fact is that we are no longer a democracy, independent of which party controls which branch of government. Both parties use our foreign policy as a weapon of empire.

Look for the US to attempt to bomb Iran into the Stone Age, triggering a massive regional war, if not an eventual global conflict. At the very least the bloody emergence of an independent, post-colonial Middle-East will formalize a new world balance of power that will feature China, Russia and India rising to fill the power vacuum our moral and military blunders are creating. American control of the world oil markets is ending.

For the Middle-East this will involve changing the definition of "terrorism" from applying to those who oppose tyranny, to those who impose it.

That's us.

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"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.

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Search the Corruption Database under

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

Egypt detains Brotherhood members

The outlawed Egyptian opposition group the Muslim Brotherhood says another 85 of its members have been detained in dawn raids across the country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7277194.stm

bbc, march 4, 2008

The Brotherhood says the arrests are part of a campaign to destroy it as a political force ahead of local elections next month.

It says more than 600 supporters have been detained in the past few weeks.

Although officially banned in Egypt, Brotherhood members have been able to stand as independents in polls.

They hold about a fifth of the seats in the Egyptian parliament.

A Brotherhood spokesman said those detained were all likely candidates in the council elections.

They were picked up in sweeps from Qena in Upper Egypt to Alexandria on the northern coast, he said.

Tuesday marks the beginning of a 10-day registration period for candidates who wish to stand in the 8 April council elections.

Correspondents say Egypt's 4,500 local councils are key institutions in Egypt's centralised system of state control.

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What's Really Going on Here??

Top of Page

Also See:

Corruption Updates 18, 7^th article on page, FOR MODERATE DEMOCRACY: EGYPTIANS BELIEVE DEMOCRACY IN EGYPT IS NOT A REAL CONCERN” (of the United States)

Corruption Update 27, 5^th article down, Egypt Cracks Down on Brotherhood

Corruption Update 27, 5^th article down, Egypt adopts Bush style arrests based on no more than the will of the President

Corruption Update 27, 6^th article on page,“2007, Redrawing the Map,” This article describes Mubarak's suppression of democracy through arbitrary Constitutional amendments.

Corruption Update 40, 6^th article on page, "Before the vote" (MUBARAK ABOUT TO IMPOSE BUSH RULES ON EGYPT The Constitutional changes Mubarak is about to impose on Egypt are the same powers Bush has claimed here