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Signs Editorials
Editorial: Making Sense of Political Complexity
Laura Knight-Jadczyk
Signs of the Times
30 May 2006
Looking out over the sorry state of our world, it isn't easy to make sense of what is going on. There are so many factors at play, so many levels of play and deception and manipulation with very few of the players having a complete overview of the ultimate plan. This complexity allows everyone to become a pawn: you'll hear one say that the Iraq war was about oil, another will say it was to advance Israel, another that it was to move in on the French and Russians. Each of these explanations have a kernel of truth to it because there were groups involved who did have these interests, and many more. But the entire situation cannot be understood as the expression of a single issue unless and until the real underlying cause is identified, the one that serves as context for the others, that is capable of subsuming them all within it.
It is important to keep in mind that the political drama that is played out for the masses is just that: a drama. For example, France may appear to oppose the war in Iraq, but that is because the French people have to be taken into account. Most French people do NOT like politicians in general and feel that it is their duty to oppose anything proposed by them. Moreover, there is a HUGE Muslim population in France. So, had Chirac been in favor of the war, there would have been a far worse situation in France than there was in the case of the recent employment law, the EU Constitution, the headscarf ban, etc.
The force of France at the moment, a force that appears to be long spent in the United States, is the readiness of even the most ordinary French citizen to become active in politics and fight for what he or she believes. The media in France and elsewhere, especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries, tries to portray the French as fighting to hold on to their cushy jobs in the face of the inevitable "restructuring" that must take place for the new economy to emerge. You know the "new economy", it is the one that will make everything great once all the safegaurds already in place have been removed.
But if you already had job security and a way of life that had been won at the cost of hard struggle, why would you give it up for illusory promises from people you don't trust, who have proved themselves capable of lying with a straight face over and over again?
An element that is rarely considered when trying to understand international politics is blackmail. Certainly we hear stories often enough from around the world of people being set up in honey traps with the cameras going. We read in spy novels that it is a favourite way of turning someone. But have you really considered what this means for the real workings of the world?
Regarding blackmail, there is ONE group that runs about everything on this planet (though less so in China, but I understand they are making inroads even there.) This group is primarily Zionist, though not exclusively. And when I say "Zionist," I don't necessarily mean Jewish either. Some of the most rabid Zionists are Christian Fundies trying to "Initiate the Eschaton" by supporting Israel, with the firm belief that Israel and all the Jews will be destroyed in the end if they don't get "saved." Let's just call them Pathocrats. There are high level pathocrats in about every country. At the top, the "national divisions" seem to fall away and each "top person" looks at his constituency, his "masses of plebes" as his "ante into the pot" for the overall game.
Notice also that here, I am not necessarily talking about elected or publicly known individuals, but rather those who really run things. I don't like to call them Illuminati or even to refer to the alleged "masters," the Rothchilds because I am not entirely certain that these are not just red herrings to distract attention.
So, imagine a group of these men, the ones with the power to make or break heads of state, conspiring as to how they are going to implement a massive population reduction program to eliminate about 90 percent of the planet's population, to preserve their own elite groups, and to have perhaps enough common people left to serve their needs and interests. These people know that the planet is beginning a process of global climate change that will lead to massive food shortages, water shortages, disease, and possibly even cataclysm. They know that if they do not do something to deal with masses of people, to eliminate many of them, and to control the rest, that they, themselves, are in danger of losing control, even their lives.
Now, how do you suppose they would go about setting up the game to accomplish this?
Well, they would do something like create a lot of apparent global conflict and disagreement so as to provoke many different groups and nationalities into stances that are oppositional to one another. The more provocation to chaos they can provoke, the more reasons they have for imposing draconian laws because the people will be frightened of the chaos and will want that protection. At the same time, the fires of nationalism will be lit and the various groups will be ready, willing and able to go out and kill each other off, which results in accomplishing precisely what the pathocrats want. Those troublesome people with fire in their bellies just eliminate each other, the passive cowardly types are well and truly fenced in and accepting total control, their own position is secured and even enhanced, and everybody's happy.
It's simple Machiavelli, ideas as old as Time that have been in use, consciously, for millennia.
Let's look at the question of 9/11. The great weak point of 9/11 is the Pentagon attack. If one were able to offer concrete proof that Flight 77 didn't hit the Pentagon, the government story collapses.
Well, it so happens that, from what we have learned, it is very possible, even probable, that one or more countries have satellite photos of what happened that day at the Pentagon. So why haven't they shown them?
For the same reason that everything else is controlled: Blackmail and power games.
Even IF there are multiple reasons to do something, there may be more reasons, with more weight, NOT to do the thing. That is why politicians have many advising committees and strategy game simulators.
In politics nothing is simple. Politics is full of contradictions and many game players are participating. For instance it may appear that the US and Russia are enemies. But they may have common plans. The same with France.
So if several countries, such as France, Russia and China have photos that out the Bush gang and Israel on 9/11, they aren't necessarily going to play those cards. But trying to observe their behavior and figure out the reasons can be a challenge.
Let's say that if, right after 911, they had shown the world the truth, well, the whole thing would have been so simple, right? The U.S. population would have turned against Bush and his Pathocrats and the peoples of France, Russia and China would have backed their governments up in coming over and overseeing the straightening out of the U.S. corrupt govermental systems.
But then, they would have all lost the golden opportunity to have a war or two or three and decimate large numbers of people! And believe me, at the TOP, that IS the agenda!
As for the leaking of the IDEA via Thierry Meyssan, my thought is that he was just another useful idiot, primed by the fire in the belly for righteousness. In a certain sense, we are all useful idiots because we all just contribute to the general melee of ideas while the Masters of Deception pick and choose which idea they want to push or suppress from one day to the next.
Will the truth ever be revealed, will the alleged photos ever be published or otherwise circulated?
Possibly. But look at what happened to such things as the Downing Street Memos. Was that a leak by someone with a conscience, or was it a deliberate leak to just create more controversy between those who can see and those who just cling desperately to naive beliefs? Observe how it was spun and/or ignored, or how it came and went and Bush is still spying on congress and journalists, the neocons are goosestepping along their merry way without a care in the world about what the masses of Americans think.
I think that if they are revealed, it will be when the moment is precisely right for the revelation to lead to the greatest number of deaths and the greatest chaos.
Moreover, to let other countries to TAKE these photos may have been part of the plan. After all, G. W. Bush is likely a marionette and, perhaps, at some point, there will be a necessity to get rid of him. The gamesmanship is on many levels, and the complexity of planning must not be underestimated. On the other hand there are always surprises, and new elements come into the game that were not taken into account by the gamers.
It should be also remebered that there are other ways of taking photos of interesting objects at interesting times than via satellites. See for instance project Aurora and its highly classified "improvements" that different countries are working on since many years.
Some other thoughts I have had while observing the global gamesmanship is that it has been a very clever maneuver for France, Russia, China, and even Israel, to more or less step back and allow the U.S. to engage itself and its resources on different fronts. The U.S. is now weaker than it has ever been, stretched beyond endurance both economically and personnel wise. Most professional jobs and manufacturing jobs are outsourced overseas, the education system is worse than you can even imagine, (especially if you are not familiar with European schooling), and its goal seems to be to produce cannon fodder, health is declining at a massive rate, and the other countries are just sitting around like vultures waiting for the weakness to become sufficient that they can begin the picking and pecking. Why would France or Russia or China or even Israel want to HELP the U.S. population? After all, the U.S. is full of 300 million people that are competitors for resources. Better to sit back, refuse to engage your own people (yet) and let the U.S. wear itself out, stretch itself thin, and go down the tubes on its own. And, after all the years of the arrogant U.S. lording it over everyone else, don't think that, at some level, there isn't some fiendish satisfaction at watching the process!
There are so many levels, so many games being played, so much drama created for the average person, all designed to appeal to different types, different mentalities, different goals, that there is truly something for everyone here in this smorgasbord of death and destruction that has been laid on the table for the population of the planet.
I doubt that anything either of us think, do, or say will make one whit of difference. I do what I do only because it is the right thing to do and for no other reason. It would be a shame for our civilization to come to an end and nobody stood up for the truth.
Addendum: Having written the above, I came across the following article today:
Gore in Hay climate change plea
In his first UK speech on the subject, Mr Gore promised to devote himself to the task of warning people about the impending "planetary emergency".
He appealed to the audience to act to halt the growing crisis.
"I will own up to shortcomings in my ability to communicate," said Mr Gore, who ran against President Bush in 2000.
"But I'm not through with this yet and I am devoting myself to it".
Mr Gore was the key note speaker of the 19th Hay Festival on the mid-Wales border.
Five years ago Bill Clinton spoke at Hay on his many roles in conflict resolution.
But Mr Gore, fresh from an appearance at the Cannes film festival, delivered a starker message that the world was now facing a "danger which could bring the end of civilisation." ...
Problem is, Gore is as likely part of the "gang" as anyone.
For a very good perspective on what is really behind the global war games including the cointelpro action in the 911 Truth Movement, have a look at Joe Quinn's article:
Ruppert and Hopsicker Co-Opting the 9-11 Truth Movement Or Exposing the Big Con - Lies and Disinformation At The End Of Civilisation As We Know It
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Is The Mossad Planning To Carry Out An Attack At the World Cup?
Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
30/05/2006
About a week ago, I started to wonder why those governments with most to gain
from the "war on terror" - American, British and Israeli - had not
been making a lot of noise (via their media lackeys) about the "very
real possibility of a terrorist attack at the World Cup" which is scheduled
to kick off in Germany on June 10th. After all, an international event attracting
hundreds of thousands of people and a worldwide TV audience in the billions,
must surely strike the war mongers as a perfect opportunity to ramp up the
fear factor and further cement the 'reality' of worldwide Islamic terrorism
in the minds of the planet's population.
Then
I had a rather disturbing realisation:
Every previous terror attack,
as opposed to high-profile warnings about terror attacks that did not materialise,
occurred in a general absence of widespread public warnings about
the potential for an attack. Consider 9/11, the Madrid bombings of 2004 and
the London bombings of 2005. All of these attacks came 'out of the blue', at
least as far as the public was concerned. Then contrast these attacks with
the regular public hyping of 'possible' terrorist attack plans
that have been shoved in our faces by the media over the past 5 years, none
of which actually materialised. Of course, in the scenario that the real source
of actual attacks is the very governments that claim to be fighting
the war on terrorism, it is quite logical that they would not warn the public
or admit to knowing of an actual attack in advance because they could not then
reasonably claim to have been unable to prevent it.
So in essence, we can say that, when
a lot of noise is being generated in the media about a potential terror attack,
complete with warnings from American intelligence sources, it is quite
probable that no terror attack will take place. However, that leaves us somewhat
blind in attempting to determine when an actual false flag terror
attack might take place. The best we can do is to look at events where
an apparent act of "Islamic terrorism" would offer the war propagandists
the best "bang for their buck"1 in the promotion of their claim that
"Islamic terrorism" is real and a threat to the world, or, in the current global
political climate, that "Iran is a threat to civilised nations".
My point then is that the World Cup is just such an event, and it
is the conspicuous lack of propaganda from government and the media about the
potential for a "terror attack" at the world cup that gives us significant
cause for serious concern.
While the policy adhered to in the lead up to a fake terror attack seems to
be a relative blackout on any mention of the potential for such an attack,
it seems that the same policy allows for low level murmurings in the fringe
mainstream press. Such reports are usually left until a week or two before
the attack and serve the purpose of setting up the designated fall guy. With
this in mind consider the following report from last friday that appeared only
in the Ynet News service out of Israel:
Israel
warns of World Cup terror
ynetnews.com
May 26, 2006
Israel has warned European and American intelligence bodies of possible attempts
by Hizbullah cells, led by Imad Mugniyah, to carry out terror attacks during
the upcoming World Cup tournament in Germany, the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper
reported on Friday.
According to the report, the terror plot is aimed at proving to the international
community that Tehran is capable of retaliation if attacked.
Notice that Israel has not only identified the attackers - Iran - but has
even gone so far as to inform European and American intelligence bodies of
the specific reason why Iran is planning to carry out the attack -
to warn the West that it is "capable of retaliation if attacked". How, we wonder,
can Israel know so much about the Iranian governments intentions? How can Israel
claim to know that Iran is determined to 'wage war on the infidels' when
the Iranian government has repeatedly dismissed such claims and gone
to great lengths to work out a peaceful solution to the impasse
deliberately imposed by Washington and Tel Aviv? Does the Israeli government
really not realise that it is a bit of a stretch to ask us to believe
its claim that Iran is going to attack the World Cup, when such an attack would
play directly into the hands of the Israeli war mongers who are chomping at
the bit to find justification to attack Iran??
If we are to be reasonable and rational here, (and we like to be reasonable
and rational as often as possible), we would have to say that, given that the
Israeli government and lobby in the U.S. have been somewhat hysterical in their
attempts to convince the world that Iran needs to be attacked, if an
attack does occur at the World Cup, then the most obvious author of the attack
will be Israel.
The Mossad
has made something of an 'art' of such fake Islamic terror attacks, carrying
them out with meticulous precision. Indeed, the Mossad's potential for such
attacks was highlighted in a 68-page report by the [American] Army School of
Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) which was drafted to analyse the daunting
task facing any international peacekeeping force if Israel and the Palestinians
ever reached a peace agreement backed by the United Nations. The report was
part of an article in the September 10th, 2001 edition of the Washington Times
entitled, “U.S.
troops would enforce peace under Army study”, which detailed the findings
of an elite U.S. Army study center plan.
The article tells us:
"[...] the School for Advanced Military Studies is both a training ground
and a think tank for some of the Army’s brightest officers. Officials
say the Army chief of staff, and sometimes the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ask SAMS
to develop contingency plans for future military operations. During the 1991
Persian Gulf war, SAMS personnel helped plan the coalition ground attack that
avoided a strike up the middle of Iraqi positions and instead executed a ‘left
hook’ that routed the enemy in 100 hours.
The exercise was undertaken by 60 officers dubbed ‘Jedi Knights,’ as
all second-year SAMS students are nicknamed. The SAMS paper attempts to predict
events in the first year of a peace-enforcement operation, and sees possible
dangers for U.S. troops from both sides. It calls Israel’s armed forces
a ‘500-pound gorilla in Israel. Well armed and trained. Operates in both
Gaza [and the West Bank]. Known to disregard international law to accomplish
mission. Very unlikely to fire on American forces. Fratricide a concern especially
in air space management.’
Of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, the SAMS officers say: ‘Wildcard.
Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like
a Palestinian/Arab act.’”
Just for the record then, anyone with a problem about my suggestion
that the Mossad can and does carry out attacks on nominally friendly targets
in such a way that it looks like an "Arab terror" act, needs to take it up
with the members of the elite U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies.
According to ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky, the Mossad, like other intelligence
agencies, works out of their consulate office (embassy) in any given country.
Different from other intelligence agencies however, the Mossad can rely on
what are termed 'Sayanim', or members of the local Jewish community in the
country. Due to this additional 'help', the Mossad can operate with a significantly
reduced number of operatives when carrying out a mission. An article from the
April 22 2004 edition of Scoop states:
Mossad insiders, now on the outside, say the Mossad has just 30 to 37 case
officers called katsas operating at any one time. The Mossad is able to function
on a low number of core katsas due to a loyal Jewish community outside Israel.
The loyalists are networked via a system of sayanim, or volunteer Jewish helpers.
Sayanim loyalists are usually Jewish, live outside of Israel, and are often
recruited via Israeli relatives. There are reportedly thousands of sayanim
around the world. Their role will be specific to their professions: A loyalist
in the travel industry could help Mossad obtain documents. Sayanim offer practical
support, are never put at risk, and are certainly not privy to classified information.
A sayan in the tenancy business would find accommodation, financiers, doctors,
civil servants, care-givers employed caring for the severely disabled --
all have a part to play without knowing the complete or bigger picture, and
will remain silent due to loyalty to the cause. Katsas in charge of active
sayanim will visit once every three months involving both face-to-face meetings
and numerous telephone conversations. “The system allows the Mossad
to work with a skeleton staff. That's why, for example, a KGB station would
employ about 100 people, while a comparable Mossad station would need only
six or seven.”
In terms of what it would take to stage an attack at the World Cup, we can
see that the job, while requiring meticulous planning, could in fact be quite
easy for them Mossad. Regardless of the specifics of the attack, the Mossad
would require Sayanim contacts within the extensive security apparatus surrounding
the World Cup matches and teams taking part. They would also likely require
confidants within the international football body FIFA, and even perhaps those
involved in catering and advertising etc etc. Essentially, anyone with official
and therefore free access to the numerous aspects of the World Cup infrastructure.
With 105,000 members of the Jewish community living in Germany ( this estimate
does not include the many Jews not affiliated with the country’s
main Jewish organization, the Central Council of Jews), it is very possible
that there will be a pool of 'sayanim' involved with the World Cup from which
the Mossad can draw in order to plan and implement an "Arab terrorist" attack.
Please note that the 'Scoop' editor states that, while used to facilitate
such attacks, the members of the Jewish community or 'sayanim' are certainly
not privy to classified information, i.e., they are not aware
that they are part of a false flag terror attack and the murder of innocent
people. It is almost certain that they 'prepped' by the with some patriotic
spiel about Israel and are lied to about how their 'help' is being used. If
they are told anything it is that the operation is to thwart a suspected Arab
terror attack, in which case they enthusiastically offer any help they can.
Who wouldn't? The fact is that ordinary Jewish people are as deceived as anyone
else by the propaganda over the 'reality' of Arab terrorism. The Mossad's motto
is "by way of deception", clearly, this deception is not limited to non Jews
but includes deceiving Jewish people also.
If an attack occurs at the World
Cup and the blame is pinned on Iran, an
attack on Iran by Israeli and American war planes, possibly carrying
nuclear devices will follow quickly. If this occurs, the very obvious existing
threat to the lives of Jews in Israel, a threat that clearly arises from the
actions of the Israeli government, will be increased tenfold. For over 100
years, ordinary Jews have been manipulated and forcibly corralled into a part
of the Middle East which, up until 58 years ago, was inhabited by Palestinians
for thousands of years. For Zionist leaders to have pursued such a
policy while at the same time claiming that their only goal was the protection
of the Jewish people is contradictory and therefore entirely disingenuous.
I fear for the future of the Jewish people, and all Semitic peoples, of
the Middle East. But that fear is not based on the existence of any
so-called "Arab terrorism", but rather the actions of the Israeli, American
and British governments who seem determined to carelessly (or rather carefully)
stoke the fires of hatred in the Middle East in full awareness of the fact
that, when the fuse really ignites, all (save them) will be consumed in the
ensuing war of strangely biblical proportions.
1. The phrase "more bang for your buck" is very appropriate given that
the terms dates from 1954 when it specifically meant more efficient use of
defense appropriations, relying mainly on nuclear deterrents. The 'bang'
here alludes to a nuclear explosion. Its origins stem from a comment by John
Foster Dulles who laid the policy of "massive
retaliation"
in 1954 and told the Council on Foreign Relations: (CFR) "it is now possible
to get, and share, more basic security and less cost." Defense Security
Charles E. Wilson promptly dubbed the policy the "New Look" ... and
said it would provide a "bigger bang for a buck." (Safire, _New Language
of Politics_, 1968)
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: The Evil Within
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
May 27-29, 2006
Is the Bush regime a sponsor of state terrorism?
A powerful case can be made that it is.
In the past three years the Bush Regime has murdered tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and an unknown number of Afghan ones.
US Marines, our finest and proudest military force, are under criminal investigation for breaking into Iraqi homes and murdering entire families. In an unprecedented event, General Michael Hagee, the Marine Corps commandant, has found it necessary to fly to Iraq to tell our best trained troops to stop murdering civilians.
General Hagee found it necessary to tell the U.S. Marines: "We do not employ force just for the sake of employing force. We use lethal force only when justified, proportional, and most importantly, lawful."
The war criminals in the Bush Regime have dismissed the murders as "collateral damage," but they are in fact murders. Otherwise, there would be no criminal investigations, and the Marine commandant would not be burdened with the embarrassment of having to fly to Iraq to lecture US Marines on the lawful use of force.
The criminal Bush Regime has now murdered more Iraqis than Saddam Hussen. The Bush Regime is also responsible for 20,000 US casualties (dead, maimed for life, and wounded).
Bush damns the "axis of evil." But who has the "axis of evil" attacked? Iran has attacked no one. North Korea has attacked no country for more than a half century. Iraq attacked Kuiwait a decade and a half ago, apparently after securing permission from the US ambassador.
Isn't the real axis of evil Bush-Blair-Olmert? Bush and Blair have attacked two countries, slaughtering their citizens. Olmert is urging them on to attack a third country--Iran.
Where does the danger to the world reside? In Iran, a small religious country where the family is intact and the government is constrained by religious authority and ancient traditions, or in the US where propaganda rules and the powerful executive branch has removed itself from accountability by breaking the constitutional restraints on its power?
Why is the US superpower orchestrating fear of puny Iran?
The US government has spent the past half century interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, overthrowing or assassinating their chosen leaders and imposing its puppets on foreign peoples. To what country has Iran done this, or Iraq, or North Korea?
Americans think that they are the salt of the earth. The hubris that comes from this self-righteous belief makes Americans blind to the evil of their leaders. How can American leaders be evil when Americans are so good and so wonderful?
How many Serbs were slaughtered by American bombs released from high above the clouds, and for what reason? Who even remembers the propagandistic lies that the Clinton administration told us about why we absolutely had to drop bombs on the Serbs?
Wasn't it evil for the US to bomb Iraq for a decade and to embargo medicines for children? When US Secretary of State M. Albright was asked if she thought an embargo that resulted in the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was justified, she replied, "yes."
The former terrible tyrant ruler of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, is on trial for killing 150 people. The US government murdered 500,000 Iraqi children prior to Bush's invasion. When the US government murders people, whether Serbs, Branch Davidians at Waco, or Iraqi women and children, it is "collateral damage." But we put Saddam Hussein on trial for putting down rebellions.
Gentle reader, do you believe that the Bush Regime will not shoot you down in the streets if you have a rebellion?
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: The Threat of Depleted Uranium Exposure - It's Real, Deadly and Covered up by the Pentagon and VA
by Stephen Lendman
The Pentagon must surely believe the old but very foolish saying that what you don't know won't hurt you. To prove it they nearly always go to great lengths to conceal what they do know so we won't find out. That's especially true when what they know is bad news or hazardous to our health or that of our troops. That's certainly the case regarding the real and deadly threat from exposure to the toxic effects of depleted uranium (DU) poisoning. The public has precious little information about this crucial issue because it's been willfully and deliberately suppressed to conceal just how potentially great and irreversible a threat it is.
Is it any wonder then that most of those people who've heard about DU have been seduced by the Pentagon cover-up and stream of lies and are taken in enough by them to believe what little information they hear and read in the mainstream. I know those individuals never heard of one of the two greatest and most highly esteemed US print journalists of the last century. His name was I.F. Stone, and I've read nearly all his important books. Stone once told a class of aspiring journalists always to remember "All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed." Another time he simply said "All governments lie." If I were asked to address a group of students, I'd be even more emphatic than Stone and say governments only lie and never tell the public the truth, especially about the most important issues affecting us all. I'd also quote Stone and recommend the students paste his maxim to their bathroom mirrors so they never forget it.
Government propaganda, lies and deception are more extreme and sophisticated now than in Stone's day. Those unaware of it remind me of a poker player looking around the table to assess the competition. He doesn't realize when he can't find who the mark is it's him. But in a real life game of high stakes poker when it's you against the "power structure" and their corporate media allies, unless you know how the game is played, you surely are their mark and they'll eat you alive.
I know of nothing more dangerous to a free society than a deficit of real information on the most vital issues affecting everyone. It's impossible getting it from government sources or the dominant corporate media in league with them because supplying us with it would subvert their interests. It's true on all important issues without exception. So, if the public knew the full truth about the potentially nightmarish effects of exposure to DU munitions that will only likely get worse unless exposed and stopped, it would be impossible for the Pentagon to continue using them. Only their cover-up has allowed them to be able to recklessly and criminally use them in four wars since 1991 including the two of them ongoing now. And they couldn't possibly ever consider raising the stakes further, as they now have claimed the exclusive right to do, to fight future wars with industrial strength nuclear weapons that could lead to a nuclear holocaust.
What we already know about the deadly effects of DU munitions use alone is clear and growing, unreported in the dominant media, and thus largely concealed from the public. Those unaware of it, taken in by Pentagon propaganda, or choosing to ignore the few facts about it they do know should welcome and praise the impressive work done on this issue by Irving Wesley Hall. He's a man I personally know and have had contact with. I've also collaborated with him as he was preparing his extremely important series of articles on this growing menace that may eventually affect everyone. Irving has made an important contribution, and I respect and admire him greatly for it. His articles should be widely read and those doing it should encourage others to read them as well for their own safety and welfare. Having written on this subject myself, I know from my own research how valuable Irving's work is to expanding the knowledge base about DU and its harmful effects.
What Depleted Uranium Is and How It's Being Used
Depleted uranium is a derivative of the uranium enrichment process required to produce fuel for commercial reactors. This process is then followed by gaseous diffusion in two streams - one is enriched and the other depleted. Before a use was found for it, DU was just stored in vast amounts as a byproduct. All that changed when it was discovered that solid "dense metal" DU projectiles (in all forms) greatly increased their ability to penetrate and destroy a target. That was irresistible to the Pentagon that wanted to use them in bullets, bombs, shells and missiles and now has done so freely in four wars since they were first used in the Gulf war in 1991 (except for one test in the 1973 Yom Kippur war).
There's a problem with these weapons, however - a serious downside never discussed and which great pains are taken to conceal. These weapons in all their forms leave in their wake an irremediable irradiated and chemically toxic landscape far more deadly than the death and destruction to the targets struck. How deadly and toxic the fallout is varies only with the amount of these weapons used. Hundreds of tons of them were used beginning for the first time in the Gulf war in 1991. A likely similar amount was used again in Yugoslavia in 1999 and up to 1,000 or more tons so far in Afghanistan since 2001. Any use of these weapons is reckless and was effectively banned by common consent (and common sense) and never used until 1991 in Iraq (except for that one test). However, their usage ballooned in successive wars to over 3,000 tons so far since the US introduced them on a large and sustained scale again in Iraq in March, 2003.
Put in perspective, since first used in 1991, the US military has willfully and criminally spread deadly toxic radiation across a vast area of three countries as well as everywhere else affected by the fallout. It's caused permanent irremediable contamination with a half-life of 4.5 billion years or forever by my reckoning.
One more important fact is these numbers increase daily as since last December US forces have been conducting four to six daily bombings of target sites in Iraq alone that we know about using DU munitions and an unknown likely less frequent number in Afghanistan. We also have a new terror weapon we claim the right to use routinely called "bunker-buster mini nukes" that aren't mini but sure are nukes. These are industrial strength nuclear bombs that can be produced to any desired potency but are likely to be used in strengths of between one-third to two-thirds the destructive force of a Hiroshima bomb. Pentagon propaganda falsely says these are little more than king-sized hand grenades that are perfectly safe when used as designed. They're supposed to penetrate a target site deeply before exploding on the false theory that their radiation will be contained underground and thus are environmentally safe. Testing of these bombs are planned in the Nevada desert and may be now underway, but at least one already carried out and observed proves otherwise. What was seen on explosion is hardly reassuring that the toxic fallout will be contained when used in combat. Clearly visible was a huge black mushroom-shaped cloud (sound familiar) that rose thousands of feet in the air and was shown to be deadly and toxic when ground radiation measurements were taken following at least this one test. There may have been others as well we haven't heard about.
The Pentagon always deliberately spreads false and misleading information on its controversial activities, but especially something as outrageous as the lingering, spreading and deadly effects from DU contamination which never end. Those exposed to it and their loved ones with whom they have intimate contact and their offspring are henceforth vulnerable to a vast menu of virtually any illness, disease or disability imaginable often leading to early death or at the least a lifetime of pain, suffering and great expense. It's no exaggeration to say that DU is the deadly and unwelcome gift that keeps on giving, disabling and killing.
DU weapons aren't just toxic and deadly, they're illegal according to the standards and binding international law under the Hague Convention of 1907 and 1925 Geneva Protocol and other succeeding Geneva Weapons Conventions that specifically outlaw the use of any chemical and biological agents in any form for any reason in war as well as any poison or poisoned weapons. DU weapons in all their forms are radioactive and chemically toxic and clearly fit the definition of poisonous weapons banned under these binding international laws to which we are signatories. As such, the US, having used them in four wars, has violated our sacred treaty obligations which are the supreme law of the land and is guilty of repeated war crimes. That minor detail doesn't bother the Bush administration that considers the Geneva Conventions and all other international laws inconvenient to its plans just "quaint" and "obsolete."
The Public Is Largely Unaware of the DU Threat Or Prefers to Believe Pentagon Propaganda Instead of Known Scientific Fact
Most people get their so-called news and information from the dominant corporate media mostly on TV which, as everyone by now should know, never gives them what they tune in for. Instead they get state approved propaganda, lies and deception cleverly disguised as the real thing. It's almost always true that what they don't report is lots more important than what they do. Of course, the reason this goes on is that if the public knew and understood what our government was up to, they'd never stand for it. So it's all kept under wraps, and most people are never the wiser. It's very easy to be influenced by the slick state and corporate-friendly messages because they're transmitted effectively ad nauseam round the clock on air and in print. The repetition has a powerful effect. It clouds the mind, blocks out the truth and distracts enough to prevent those mesmerized by it from seeking it. Why would you not want to believe the friendly news anchors you've grown to know and love over the years. Would they ever lie to you? Darned right they would if they want to keep their high-paying jobs.
I comment on this often for one reason. It's the most important of all issues I know. Unless people know and understand the truth about what's happening around them on the vital issues affecting their lives, they're defenseless against the onslaught of fraud and deceit delivered through the dominant media. It allows government to get away with the most egregious acts as agents for giant corporations and the "money changers" who buy and pay for their services. This alliance is hostile to the public interest as it allows these corporations and financial institutions (including the US Federal Reserve which is a private for-profit entity and not a government run one as commonly believed) free reign to pursue their predatory quest for greater profits and world dominance and do it at our expense.
The Disturbing Truths about DU the Pentagon and VA Are Taking Great Pains to Conceal
Those truths are emerging slowly and convincingly, but emerging they are. It's quite true we don't have all the answers yet, and there's still much more to be learned before we know for certain just how harmful DU is in all respects and how widespread its contamination has spread. However, all the new evidence coming out points in one direction and leads to an increasingly clear conclusion. It's the same one I first heard told me by an eminent man in a required college natural science course I took in 1953. The man was George Wald, distinguished professor of biology and later a nobel laureate in 1967. Dr. Wald had many admirable qualities I admired greatly, but I still remember verbatim the dramatic statement he made one day in class. He told his young students that "there is no such thing as a safe amount of radiation." He understood what Albert Einstein did even earlier, and both these men spoke out forcefully against the genie out of the bottle that emerged once the atom was first split in 1938 in a Berlin laboratory. From that time to now, it's been known beyond dispute how dangerous and deadly radiation is in all its forms and in any amount to all those coming in contact with it even for short periods of time. However, for those exposed to it daily like our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan where it's contaminated a vast area, it's a possible death sentence or at the least a lifetime of likely misery from the poisoning that increases each day.
Some Documented Facts On the Effects of DU Poisoning
The greatest damage from DU comes from the radiation residue after its use. When a DU weapon strikes a target, it penetrates deeply and aerosolizes into a fine spray which then contaminates the air, soil and water around the target area. The residue is permanent, and its microscopic and submicroscopic particles are then swept into the air from the tainted soil and are carried by winds to distant areas as a radioactive component of atmospheric dust. That dust falls indiscriminately everywhere over the area it reaches. It causes radiation contamination that affects every living thing and cannot be remediated. As mentioned above, the poisoning from the contamination causes every imaginable illness and disease from severe headaches, muscle pain and general fatigue, to major birth defects, infection, depression, cardiovascular disease, many types of cancer and brain tumors. It also causes permanent disability and death. Months ago I personally alerted my own medical providers to be on the lookout for any unexplainable symptoms in their patients, especially if they had served in the military in the Middle East, Afghanistan or Yugoslavia.
I reported all this in a major, detailed article I wrote on this subject a few months ago and available on my blog site - sjlendman.blogspot.com. In it I went on to explain that all military and civilian personnel at or near target areas were and are most adversely affected by DU contamination, especially if they remained in those areas for an extended time. During the six week Gulf war about 150 of our forces were killed and 467 were reported injured. However, the real effects of that war weren't apparent until years later. We're beginning to get lots of information on it now but not without great difficulty to make it as complete and accurate as possible.
Because of that problem, there's great variance in the numbers I've seen. But somewhere between about 30 - 75% of the 696,841 military personnel who served in the Gulf from August 2, 1990 to end of July, 1991 have filed claims for or have been reported by the Veteran's Administration (VA) to be on some form of disability in 2004. It's likely the true number is closer to the lower percentage, but I've chosen to report the range in case later on we learn things were far worse than we now can imagine. We do know an additional 11,910 vets have died as of early this year. There's a problem compiling accurate data because the VA has been complicit with the Pentagon in the cover-up about DU and has said very little about the true number disabled or how many of the disability total were the result of DU poisoning. They could easily find out by administering blood tests and doing other proper examinations. Instead they've done as little as possible just as for years in the 1990s they denied the existence of "Gulf war" syndrome (most likely from DU poisoning) and told suffering vets it was all in their heads. They certainly were there if any of those heads were afflicted with brain tumors or their early stages.
We can only speculate about how many of our military personnel post 2001 are now the victims of DU poisoning, but it's likely the number is large and growing with more coming down with disturbing symptoms daily. We know many returning vets are already seeking treatment for health problems, and that medical professionals in hospitals and other facilities providing it have been threatened with $10,000 fines and even jail if they speak out about what those problems are. Think how outrageous this is - that a nation that sent hundreds of thousands of its young men and women to fight in two illegal wars of aggression, then turns its back on them when they return home with serious illnesses they may never recover from or that may kill them. And making matters even worse, the Pentagon and VA are complicit in a cover-up and denial a problem even exists. They might as well be saying "let 'em suffer and die." So think of it. This is the "model democracy" we hold up to the world to emulate. In fact, it's a deadly and sinister model all nations should reject and condemn.
Documented Evidence On Recent DU Fallout
In February, 2006, after I wrote my article on DU, Irving Wesley Hall wrote his carefully researched and extremely important series on DU and its harmful effects. His findings were widely posted, and all of it is available on his web site - notinkansas.us. Irving's work is so important, readers should visit his site, review his series carefully and likely learn for the first time how serious and deadly a threat DU contamination is to everyone coming in contact with it.
Here's a sample of the information included in the series which needs as much resonance as possible. I've added some of my own comments to it. Irving has made an important contribution, and I'm proud to be associated with him and his work. He wrote that Dr. Chris Busby, scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, reported on official UK radiation levels in the wake of the "shock and awe" assault against Iraq in 2003. Dr. Busby documented that uranium particles traveled 2,400 miles in nine days from Iraq to Aldermaston, England. The invisible cloud quadrupled Europe's atmospheric radiation clearly showing that despite Pentagon denials, DU contamination spreads far beyond the target sites struck. Once again the Pentagon's mendacity and indifference to its forces and the rest of us is revealed in plain sight for all to see if they'll bother to look.
The widespread contamination is even more dangerous and deadly than formerly believed. But apparently one emailer in particular, with little knowledge to support what he wrote, attacked Irving's findings and shamed and embarrassed himself in the process. I read his response and know the facts. They clearly contradict virtually everything he said and his conclusions overwhelmingly. The emailer not only put his ignorance on public display, but he also arrogantly and insolently attacked the honesty, honor and integrity of a man of the highest stature.
His shameless act reminded me of a "show-stopping" moment I saw on US TV in June, 1954. It was during the so-called Army - McCarthy hearings when chief Army counsel Joseph Welch gave his famous retort to the soon to be disgraced US senator, who became infamous from his witch-hunting, self-serving search for communists in government without ever finding any. Welch and his reply are still remembered to this day, and I clearly recall him making it. In defense of his client under McCarthy's malicious attack he asked the senator on national TV: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency." Not long after that memorable moment the McCarthy hearings ended inconclusively, the senator's reputation was shattered, he was censured by the Senate, and he died a disgraced man a few years later. We can only hope for a similar denouement for the band of rogues in charge of US policy today who are making so many people around the world the worst for it.
I won't try to match Joe Welch, but I'll just ask the emailer: aren't you ashamed enough to flaunt your ignorance to a world audience without compounding it by shamelessly attacking a distinguished man of the highest integrity and honor. Like "Tail-Gunner" Joe (a moniker referring to one more dark side of the tainted senator), have you no sense of dignity, or just plain no sense at all?
Additional Expert Scientific Commentary Reported by Irving Wesley Hall
Here's more from Irving's articles on the DU threat. He learned about the work of Leonard Dietz who's a retired physicist from the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in New York state. Dietz pioneered the technology to measure uranium isotopes, and Irving quoted what he said: "Anyone, civilian or soldier, who breathes these particles has a permanent dose, and it's not going to decrease very much over time....In the long run....veterans exposed to ceramic uranium oxide have a major problem."
Irving reported an even more dire assessment that came from another study of the materials currently in the DU munitions used in Iraq and Afghanistan. The study found that in addition to U-238, today's DU weapons contain plutonium (the most toxic of all known substances), neptunium, and the highly radioactive uranium isotope U-236. According to a 1991 study by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, these elements are 100,000 times more dangerous than the U-238 in DU. It only takes the most minute, nearly unmeasurable amount of this substance in one's body to be fatal.
One other expert must be mentioned as well. His name is Dr. Doug Rokke who was the director of the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project. He was assigned by the US Army to be their chief biological, chemical and nuclear weapons safety officer and expert in the Gulf war. Irving interviewed Doug, and I, too, spoke to and corresponded with him. Doug's extensive work as director of the project led him to conclude that "Uranium munitions must be banned from the planet, for eternity, and medical care must be provided for everyone - those on the firing end and those on the receiving end." Rokke understands the problem well from his extensive study of it and his own personal and tragic experience. He and his staff of 100 were all devastated by exposure to DU contaminated dust. Thirty of them have since died, and Rokke now suffers from serious health problems including brain lesions, lung and kidney damage, reactive airway disease, permanent skin rashes, neurological damage and cataracts. It's quite clear Dr. Rokke didn't contract this nightmarish stew of mostly very serious health problems from an unhealthy life style, bad diet or lack of exercise.
A Grim Assessment the Evidence Points To
So what can we make from all this. From the Gulf war in 1991, at a minimum many tens of thousands of the US military forces sent there for a short period of time have had health problems or are now on some form of disability. But the worst is yet to come. In the Afghanistan war beginning in late 2001 and the Iraq war from March, 2003, about 1.3 million US military forces have served in combat and occupation in these countries. They were all assigned long tours of duty and most of them have served two or three deployments to what are beyond question the most dangerous and toxic environments on earth. Somewhere between 30 - 75% of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm are now on some kind of disability or have died. If those percentages are applied to the 1.3 million of our military now serving or having served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, between 390,000 - to 975,000 vets may end up on disability or die from exposure to the far more toxic DU munitions used in these wars, the many other poisonous pollutants they've been exposed to, and the much longer and multiple tours of duty they've had to undergo.
In simple terms, it's likely we can expect an eventual catastrophic human disaster of epic proportions and one being covered up because of its enormity. And it's in addition to the far greater one we've inflicted on 26 million innocent Iraqis discussed below. Should the truth about all this come out fully, what sane young men and women would ever volunteer for military service knowing they were either signing their death warrants or at the least likely assuring themselves a lifetime of devastating and/or debilitating health problems. And add to that the mass outrage by the US public and the people of other nations that joined with the US in sending contingents of their military to be part of an illegal occupying force.
The effect of all this has finally reached the US Congress, but it's unlikely anything meaningful will emerge there to reveal how dangerous and deadly exposure to DU contamination really is. Still on May 11, the House passed legislation that includes an amendment by Rep. Jim McDermott (himself an MD and once a practicing psychiatrist) ordering a comprehensive study of possible health effects from DU exposure on US military forces and their children. It's almost certain this amendment will never get through the Senate or certainly won't ever be signed into law by George Bush. Still kudos and an A for effort to Rep. McDermott even though it's almost certain it will all be for naught.
The Devastating Toll on Iraqis Since 1991
As bad as it's been and still is for our troops and their families, try to imagine the nightmare 26 million innocent Iraqis have been living through since January, 1991. The Gulf war began the malicious destruction of a once modern state. It caused 100,000 or more Iraqi deaths in just weeks and destroyed essential infrastructure like electricity and clean water facilities vital to the health, welfare and the safety of the people. It also began the spread of deadly toxic radiation across the country from the first use of DU munitions in combat as well as a harmful stew of other pollutants responsible for rampant illness and disease. This living hell is what US illegal aggression based on lies and deceit brought to this most highly developed and well-functioning of all states in the Middle East now unable to cope against a brutal occupier determined to destroy and control it for its own imperial purpose and gain.
The sacking and plunder of Iraq began in January, 1991. But although the war formally ended after six weeks of one-sided fighting, the bombing and brutality against the people never did. Air attacks continued sporadically throughout the 1990s (ordered by Bill "I feel your pain" Clinton) destroying more infrastructure, causing more deaths and adding to the spread of deadly pollutants including the toxic radiation from the DU weapons used. What also followed the formal end to hostilities was a dozen years of brutal economic sanctions that ravaged a population helpless to cope with their horrific effects. The result was a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions that never ended. Besides the physical and human toll, the economy was destroyed as is evident from the following data. The per capita annual income of Iraqis declined from a 1979 level of $2,313 to $255 in 2003 and $144 in 2004. Further, the college of economics at Baghdad University estimated that unemployment rose to a level of 70%. Even the so-called "oil for food" program did little to relieve the crisis prior to the 2003 invasion. In fact, it was never intended to as the US planned all along to inflict the greatest possible hardship on the people hoping their misery would encourage them to rise up and topple Saddam. It turned out it had the opposite effect despite the severity of the toll. Instead of blaming Saddam, Iraqis relied on him for whatever relief they could get. It wasn't much or nearly enough because the US allowed him little to give.
The combination of war and economic sanctions caused widespread illness and disease that was devastating and still is. Even by conservative estimates, it likely caused the death of at least one million Iraqis including 500,000 children. Some estimates put the number as high as 1.5 million and some others far higher still. When Denis Halliday resigned in 1998 as UN head of Iraqi humanitarian relief he said he did so because he believed he'd been instructed to implement a policy of genocide and refused to do it. He added that 5,000 Iraqi children were dying needlessly every month. Hans Von Sponek, who took on the UN relief job after Halliday, also resigned in frustration and disgust in 2000 voicing similar sentiments when he left.
But bad as conditions were then, they got far worse following the US illegal aggression beginning in March, 2003. The daily toll of death and destruction since then is unknown precisely, but even conservative estimates are appalling and shocking. The British Lancet earlier reported by their "conservative assumptions" an Iraqi toll of about 100,000 "excess deaths" post March, 2003. They recently updated their initial estimate (three years later) to a now likely 300,000 and rising daily as we all should know. Other estimates place the number far higher, up to 500,000 in one estimate I saw a few months ago. Whatever the true number is, the US inflicted disaster on Iraq and its people for over the past 15 years is truly of epic proportions. It clearly warrants the label genocide and makes all those in the US at the highest levels of three administrations responsible for it guilty of egregious war crimes and crimes against humanity.
What May Lie Ahead
Iraq and Afghanistan are in ruins, and the US is hopelessly embroiled in two wars it has no possibility of winning. Both of them will go on without end as long as we remain occupiers in countries where we're not wanted and will never be tolerated. Further, both countries have a long history of expelling invaders regardless of how long it took them to do it. It will be no different this time, but it's shocking to imagine the human toll that will result on all sides before they finally do end, the final tally is estimated years later, and the many years it will then take to rebuild these shattered countries.
So with two out-of-control wars ongoing, it would seem unthinkable the US would now be planning one or two more. How can that be possible, and what sane planners would ever contemplate such an irrational course? We don't have the troop strength, and our military budget (on and off the books) is off the charts and running up huge deficits even the new Fed chairman is alarmed about. Logic and fiscal sanity should indicate it would be folly to compound the current mess with a still greater mess. But that's exactly what appears to be in the works, and the preliminary and softening up stage of a planned attack against Iran is already underway just as it was leading up to the March, 2003 "shock and awe" assault against Iraq.
For many months, Iran has known the US has been flying unmanned aerial surveillance drones to help select target sites. There have been some scattered but unconfirmed reports that one or more of these intruders have been shot down. It's also a not so hidden secret we've sent special forces or combat personnel into Iran under cover along with reconnaissance teams to collect similar information on the ground as well as link up with anti-government elements we hope will help our efforts. The Iranians know all this, and you can bet they're trying to snare a few of them, but if they have neither side is letting on. I wouldn't want to be one of the illegal infiltrators and get caught in the act. I don't think the Iranians will be very hospitable or understanding nor should they be. So what's likely to happen next and when.
I have no timetable, but it's been responsibly reported, and I believe the reports, that George Bush has signed off on a "shock and awe" attack against Iran and is intending to do it using industrial strength nuclear weapons. They're deceptively called "bunker-buster mini-nukes" which I explained above are nukes but not mini ones - they're likely to be from one-third to two-thirds as powerful as a Hiroshima bomb. But they can be produced to any potency and some likely will be and used. I also explained that the Pentagon has lied (do they ever do anything else) that the radiation emitted from these earth-penetrating munitions will be contained below ground and thus are safe to use. Not so, and the Pentagon knows it.
Our apparent intentions toward Iran are also based on more lies and deception as we accuse that country of violating international law by having a secret nuclear weapons program. There's no evidence whatever Iran has one, but they'd be irresponsible not to be taking every measure possible to defend itself against a hostile US intending to bring down its government by any means including nuclear war. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and so far as known is in full compliance with it. As such it has every legal right to enrich uranium for its commercial nuclear industry as does every other country following NPT rules.
US hostility to Iran has nothing to do with its enrichment policy or even its form of government. It's the result of Iran's intent to remain independent of US dominance and go its own way. It's been that way since the uprising that overthrew the repressive and US installed and supported Shah in 1979 after which Iran no longer was willing to continue relinquishing its sovereignty and remain subservient to US interests. The result has been continued hostility between the two countries that may now be culminating with a US planned attempt to oust the country's leadership forcibly since we've given up trying to achieve that goal by other means short of war. The strategy won't be any more successful in Iran than it's been in Iraq. What US planners may succeed in doing is engulfing the whole Middle East in flames without a realistic notion of what the outcome of that may be. It certainly won't be a good one, but that never before deterred an administration that's often wrong but never in doubt.
The US way of doing things is to engage other nations like a schoolyard bully. It's especially true in our dealings with the developing world where we generally treat the countries in it on the basis of an "our way or the highway" policy. We can't unleash our full force bullying against most developed ones in the Global North, but we do that freely and often, directly or through proxies, against all others that forget "who's boss." When that happens, that "highway" is usually strewn with unwarranted economic sanctions, coup attempts, political assassinations, or death and destruction from war. The US follows this hostile course to bring "outlier" nations in line with our policies, but also to deter others from deviating from them as well. It's a bloodstained legacy that puts to rest the myth that the US is a peace loving, benevolent democracy only wanting to spread those principles to other nations that don't practice them. But let me state clearly something I haven't said elsewhere before but should have. By the US I don't mean the people. I mean the leadership of both major political parties and their corporate and elitist allies all of whom work against the public interest everywhere and only for their own.
The US and Iranian public interest won't be served by what our present leadership apparently has in mind for that country - regime change the hard way. It looks like the plan is to make it extra hard by upping the ante to send a clear and decisive message to the Iranians and all other nations going their own way that we will nuke you into submission unless you come around willingly. So far we've only used nuclear weapons below the radar with DU munitions that alone have caused unspeakable harm. But should the US go further and attack Iran with industrial strength nuclear bombs, we will have crossed an inviolable threshold, moved the nation one step closer to tyranny and brought the world a lot closer to a possible eventual nuclear holocaust. In my judgment, that's what's now at stake unless a way is found to stop this aggressive juggernaut before it goes further and it's too late to act.
Iran is First in the US Target Queue Followed by Venezuela
Unimaginable as it may seem, high-level leadership and planners in Washington may have in mind not just a third conflict but a fourth one as well. I've written about this several times, and recently wrote a feature article titled "The US Now Planning A Fourth Attempt to Oust Hugo Chavez." Based on my knowledge and ear to the ground observing and listening to the steady and intensifying drumbeat of anti-Chavez rhetoric coming from top US officials through the corporate media (all of it the usual litany of lies and deception only), I have no doubt whatever a fourth attempt to oust President Chavez and his government is planned and likely now being implemented under the radar. Precisely how and what will be unleashed won't be known until the fireworks begin. But make no mistake about it, they will begin, and this time they may include attempted assassinations and open conflict with DU munitions or even full-scale nuclear bombs if that's part of the plan. If that happens, the nuclear nightmare will have arrived in the Americas and come ever closer to the US Southern border.
By whatever means the US has in mind in its latest attempt to unseat Hugo Chavez, its intentions toward him and his government are clear, unmistakable and written in stone. The US will settle for nothing less than full control of his country's vast hydrocarbon reserves and a government willing to hand them over to us. Those reserves are far more vast than once thought as the best estimates of the country's oil reserves (including the extra-heavy kind more expensive to refine) are thought to be about 350 billion barrels or even higher. That compares to Saudi Arabia's estimated reserves of about 262 billion barrels of (at least mostly) the preferred and more easily refined "light sweet" crude. It takes no mental exertion to see the two countries at the head of the US target queue have vast amounts of the essential commodity the US wants most and is willing to go to war if necessary to secure control over everywhere it feels it's worth the cost and effort. There's no doubt the US feels that way about Iran and Venezuela just as it did about Iraq.
The US decided Saddam had to go not because of his oppressive rule or his "now you see 'em, now you don't" WMDs. It was because of his unwillingness to surrender his nation's sovereignty to the US. Same old story, and it's the same again in Iran and most of all in Venezuela that has to be the greatest prize of the three. It's especially tricky for the US there as that nation happens to have a democratic leader loved by the great majority of his people. It's because Hugo Chavez is fiercely and proudly independent, as he has every right to be, and puts the needs of his people ahead of the US and its Big Oil interests. Chavez was twice democratically elected and then prevailed in an August, 2004 recall referendum (the third coup attempt by ballot box means) that was a contrived act of desperation cooked up by his right wing opposition in league with US corporate interests. It was a flop as Chavez's supporters flocked to the polls giving him a decisive victory. He deserved and earned it and his other electoral victories as he proved he's the rarest of political leaders who actually delivers on his promises to the people. Try finding a US politician who's done that, especially one with any power to follow through. You'll need a high-powered version of that lamp Diogenes once used used looking for an honest man.
It's Hugo Chavez's intention to serve the interests and needs of his own people and not those of his dominant Northern neighbor that has him once again high on its target list for elimination. Hugo Chavez will remain there until the US finds a way to remove him which it certainly will keep trying to do. Chavez is well aware of it and so are the Venezuelan people who love and support him and are likely to fight to keep him in office. They know what their lives were like before he became their president and what a vast difference he made once he came into office. He promised to serve the people and proved it by instituting a vast array of social programs the majority of the US public might only dream about if they knew what's available now to the Venezuelan people.
They include free, comprehensive and high-quality health and dental care for all as well as free education through the university level to all those who wish it and can qualify. Compare that to what's available in the US - a health care system available only to those who can afford its high and fast-rising cost and a deliberately degraded inner-city public education system as well as a costly one at the university level unavailable to lower income families that can't afford it for their children. Now try to imagine what the US has in mind for Venezuelans. It won't tolerate a developing nation's leader who'll institute such essential social services for the people and will try to end them even if it takes nuclear war to do it. Try to think of appropriate language to describe the leader of a nation who would unleash such an attack and do it for power and profit. Do the words tyrant and war criminal come to mind?
Get Ready for the Long Knives, the Marines Again in Action to Go Along with A Little Or Maybe A Lot of "Shock and Awe."
The plans for two "outlier" countries are set, the wheels are in motion, and we now must wait and see what will unfold in the next chapter of the ongoing drama of an aggressor and imperial US against the world with Iran and Venezuela numbers one and two in the US target queue.
Several times before I spelled out in some detail what I feels lies ahead unless a way is found to stop it. I fear two more conflicts are ahead for starters to add to the ones now ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still others will follow against other countries to be named later and by whatever timetable and means we have in mind. The result may be that the US is near to crossing an inviolable Rubicon in two deadly and dangerous ways - first by unleashing the nuclear genie in an industrial strength way, and second by suspending the Constitution and declaring martial law at home in the wake of a likely inevitable second major terror attack that may be as much an inside job as was the first one on September 11.
Unless the US public awakens to these very real threats, we face the same fate as did the Germans who lost their model democratic state after the ascension of Adolph Hitler. Good German people let him steal it from them while they weren't paying attention or bought into his false rhetoric that he was serving their interests and protecting them from an outside threat - that never existed. We also have no outside threat from any other nation, but we've been effectively scared to death and conned by the false rhetoric that's made us feel we do. The result is we're getting too close for comfort to the point of no return. There's still time to act if we're bold enough to do it. Think of the choice I think we face. Act together in our collective self-interest or do nothing and see us pass from a once proud but now tattered republic to tyranny. It can happen here as it has elsewhere unless we act to prevent it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Comment on this Editorial
War Crimes in Iraq
Marines 'ordered to photograph civilian bodies'
30/05/2006
Two US Marines were severely traumatised after following orders to photograph corpses of unarmed Iraqi civilians allegedly killed by members of their unit, their families said today.
The parents of Lance Corporal Andrew Wright, 20, and Lance Corporal Roel Ryan Briones, 21, both members of a Marine unit based at Camp Pendleton, California, said their sons were sent into the western Iraqi city of Haditha to help remove the bodies of as many as two dozen men, women and children who were shot. [...]
The details of what happened in Haditha are still murky. What is known is that a bomb rocked a military convoy and left one Marine dead.
Marines then shot dead unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot other people, according to Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and decorated war veteran who has been briefed by military officials.
The incident has sparked two investigations: one into the deadly encounter itself and another into whether it was the subject of a cover-up. The Marine Corps had initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to the car bombing and a firefight with militants, eight of whom the Marines reported had been killed. [...]
Briones' best friend, Lance Corporal Miguel "TJ" Terrazas, had been killed the day of the attack by the roadside bomb, his mother said. He was still grieving when he was sent in to clean up the bodies of the Iraqi civilians.
One was a little girl who had been shot in the head, Susie Briones said. "He had to carry that little girl's body," she said, "and her head was blown off and her brain splattered on his boots."
While there, the two were ordered to photograph the scene with personal cameras they happened to be carrying the day of the attack, the families told The Associated Press in separate interviews.
Briones' mother, Susie, said her son told her mother he saw the bodies of 23 dead Iraqis that day, including a decapitated child.
"It was horrific. It was a terrible scene," Susie Briones said in a tearful interview.
Navy investigators confiscated Briones' camera, his mother said. Wright's parents, Patty and Frederick Wright, of Novato, declined to comment on what might have happened to the photos their son took, but they said he had turned over all of his information to the Navy.
"He is the Forrest Gump of the military," Frederick Wright said. "He ended up in the spotlight through no fault of his own."
Ryan Briones told The Los Angeles Times that Navy investigators had interrogated him twice in Iraq and wanted to know whether bodies had been tampered with. He turned over his digital camera but did not know what happened to it after that.
Susie Briones called the November 19 incident a "massacre" and said the military had done little to help her son, who goes by his middle name, deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder.
"I know Ryan is going through some major trauma right now," said Susie Briones, 40. "It was very traumatic for all of the soldiers involved with this thing."
Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on CBS' The Early Show that "it would be premature for me to judge" the situation.
But he added that it was critically important to make the point that if certain service members were responsible for an atrocity, they "have not performed their duty the way that 99.9% of their fellow Marines have".
Briones' best friend, Lance Corporal Miguel "TJ" Terrazas, had been killed the day of the attack by the roadside bomb, his mother said. He was still grieving when he was sent in to clean up the bodies of the Iraqi civilians.
One was a little girl who had been shot in the head, Susie Briones said. "He had to carry that little girl's body," she said, "and her head was blown off and her brain splattered on his boots."
The Wrights declined to say whether their son witnessed the killings or what he thought of the allegations against other members of his unit.
He was under so much pressure because of the investigation that he had seen a lawyer, they said.
He has also experienced psychological trauma.
Wright and Briones are both recipients of the Purple Heart, given to soldiers wounded in battle.
Wright was injured during an assault on Fallujah in January 2005. He voluntarily rejoined his unit at Camp Pendleton the next month. Briones was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. He received a Purple Heart during his first tour.
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Marine 'Massacre' in al-Haditha: Eye Witness Report
05/29/06
The Times
GRAPHIC accounts of the apparent slaughter of unarmed civilians have been obtained by The Times as Washington braces itself for the results of an investigation into what threatens to be the most damaging military scandal in Iraq.
On Saturday Iman Hassan, a 10-year-old Iraqi girl, told The Times how she had watched US marines kill her mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, four-year-old cousin and two uncles.
Residents in the insurgent stronghold of al-Haditha have now stepped forward to corroborate elements of Iman's story and to describe to The Times the murder of a second family, which included five children, the youngest of whom were two and three years old.
The events threaten to land a major blow to the US military's reputation in Iraq.
An official investigation has already resulted in the removal of Lieutenant-Colonel Jeffrey Chessani, the commanding officer, and Captain Luke McConnell and Captain James Kimber, two company commanders, from their duties in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment of the 1st Marine Division.
Three marines are to face criminal charges, including homicide, while nine other marines may also face court martial, according to Pentagon sources.
Fallout from the inquiry, which is expected to be made public next month, is already being felt in Washington and the military establishment in Iraq. One US officer speaking anonymously in Iraq said what happened in al-Haditha was "clearly pretty awful".
In Washington, Congressman John Murtha, a former Marine and a harsh critic of the war, said that the episode might prove to be America's darkest hour in Iraq.
"This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people. And we're set back every time something like this happens. This is worse than Abu Ghraib," he told ABC television.
The trouble started when Marine Corporal Miguel Terrazas, 20, was killed by a roadside bomb on the morning of November 19 last year in alHaditha, where the US military and rebels have clashed regularly since the 2003 invasion.
What ensued is the subject of controversy. At the time the Marines said that 15 civilians were killed in the bombing along with Terrazas.
They later amended their story to say that the civilians had died during a gunbattle between troops and insurgents.
The case was reopened after a video made by a trainee Iraqi journalist was handed to Time magazine in January. The footage showed bloodstains, bullet holes and shrapnel marks inside Iman's home and triggered a US Marine inquiry.
"Who covered it up? Why did they cover it up? Why did they wait so long?" Mr Murtha said.
The latest accounts given to The Times paint a gruesome picture of events on November 19. About a quarter of an hour after the attack on Iman's house, Mohammed Basit, 23, an engineering student, said that he watched as Marines entered the home of his neighbour, Salim Rasif, He peered from a window as the family, including Salim's wife, sister-in-law and their five children, rushed into a bedroom.
"I saw them all gathering in their parents' room, then we heard a bang which was most likely a hand grenade, then we heard shooting," he said.
Fearing for his life, he moved away from the window.
Throughout the next day the Americans cordoned off Salim and Iman's homes, which are located about 20 metres apart. The next night Basit and his father slipped inside Salim's house.
"The blood was everywhere in Salim's bedroom," Basit said. "I saw organs and flesh on the ground and a liver on the bed. Blood splattered the ceiling. The bullet holes were in the walls and in different parts of the house.
"We found an unexploded grenade in the bathroom, which had been set on fire. There was shrapnel and a crater on the floor and the wall of the bathroom."
Later Basit joined relatives and friends who went to al-Haditha mortuary to pick up the bodies of those whom the Marines had killed. The corpses were zipped in plastic bags. "They were all shot, even the kids. They were shot more than one time, mostly in the chest and the head," he claimed.
Salim's daughters - A'isha, 3, Zainab, 2, Noora, 15, and Saba'a, 11 - and his eight-year-old son, Mohammed, were among the dead.
In a separate development, a resident of al-Haditha came forward with an account corroborating the story told by 10-year-old Iman about the murder of her family.
Abdul Basit, 45, Iman's neighbour and cousin, gave details that matched the girl's description of watching her uncle being shot dead.
About 15 minutes after hearing an explosion in Iman's home just 30 metres away, Abdul Basit said that the girl's aunt, Hiba, raced outside crying "they slaughtered them, they slaughtered them" and rushed into Abdul's home.
Congressmen who have been briefed on the investigation expect it to conclude that up to 24 civilians were killed. While the claims are contentious, the US military has not disputed the seriousness of the allegations.
"The bottom line is there was enough evidence presented to warrant a criminal investigation . . . There was enough credibility there to warrant a criminal investigation," said Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, the US military spokesman in Iraq.
Comment: The U.S. military's reputation in Iraq is a figment of the imagination of the Bush government as disseminated by the mainstream media. Events similar to the one described above have very likely occurred on a fairly regular basis in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet no one gets to hear about them, because, as was reported yesterday, the Bush government places fake stories in the mainstream press.
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Parents: Marines Traumatized by Murder of Unarmed Iraqi Civilians
By JUSTIN M. NORTON
Associated Press
May 30, 2006
HANFORD, Calif. - Family members of two Marines say their sons were ordered to photograph and clean up corpses of unarmed Iraqi civilians that members of their unit are suspected of killing, and they have been traumatized ever since.
In separate interviews with The Associated Press on Monday, the parents of Lance Cpl. Andrew Wright, 20, and Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones, 21, said their sons told them the events of last November remain seared in their memories.
Wright and Briones were members of a Marine unit based at Camp Pendleton that was sent into the western Iraqi city of Haditha to help remove the bodies of as many as two dozen Iraqis, including women and children, who were shot.
While there, the two were ordered to photograph the scene with personal cameras they happened to be carrying the day of the attack, the families said. Briones' mother, Susie, said her son told her he saw the bodies of 23 dead Iraqis that day.
"It was horrific. It was a terrible scene," Susie Briones said in a tearful interview at her home in California's San Joaquin Valley.
Navy investigators confiscated Briones' camera, his mother said. Wright's parents, Patty and Frederick Wright of Novato, declined to comment on what might have happened to the photos their son took but said he turned over all of his information to the Navy.
"He is the Forrest Gump of the military," Frederick Wright said. "He ended up in the spotlight through no fault of his own."
Ryan Briones told the Los Angeles Times that Navy investigators had interrogated him twice in Iraq and they wanted to know whether bodies had been tampered with. He turned over his digital camera but did not know what happened to it after that.
Susie Briones called the Nov. 19 incident a "massacre" and said the military had done little to help her son, who goes by his middle name, deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder.
"I know Ryan is going through some major trauma right now," said Susie Briones, 40, an academic adviser at a community college. "It was very traumatic for all of the soldiers involved with this thing."
The details of what happened in Haditha are still murky. What is known is that a bomb rocked a military convoy and left one Marine dead. Marines then shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot other people, according to Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and decorated war veteran who has been briefed by military officials.
The incident has sparked two investigations - one into the deadly encounter itself and another into whether it was the subject of a cover-up. The Marine Corps had initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to the car bombing and a firefight with insurgents, eight of whom the Marines reported had been killed.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday on CBS's "The Early Show" that "it would be premature for me to judge" the situation.
But, he added, if certain service members are responsible for an atrocity, they "have not performed their duty the way that 99.9 percent of their fellow Marines have."
Briones' best friend, Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas, had been killed the day of the attack by the roadside bomb, his mother said. Briones was still grieving when he was sent in to clean up the bodies of the Iraqi civilians.
"He had to carry that little girl's body," she said, "and her head was blown off and her brain splattered on his boots."
The Wrights declined to say whether their son witnessed the killings or what he thought of the allegations against other members of his unit.
Wright and Briones are both recipients of the Purple Heart, given to soldiers wounded in battle.
Wright was injured during an assault on Fallujah in January 2005. He voluntarily rejoined his unit at Camp Pendleton the next month. Briones was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. He received a Purple Heart during his first tour.
On Monday, both Marines were back at Camp Pendleton, near Oceanside, where base officials said several members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division were being confined during the investigations.
Lt. Lawton King, a Camp Pendleton spokesman, declined to comment Monday.
Sgt. Ian Moore, who was relaxing on the base Monday, said he and other Marines in the battalion were waiting to hear results from the investigations.
"A lot of these things are being played out in the court of public opinion and it's unfair on the Marines," said Moore, who spent time in Haditha on his previous tour in Iraq.
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Two US newsmen killed in Iraq, reporter seriously wounded
AFP
May 30, 2006
WASHINGTON - Two British members of a US news crew were killed and a US reporter was seriously wounded in a car-bomb attack in central Baghdad, raising to 96 the toll of media professionals killed in Iraq.
Paul Douglas, 48, a veteran CBS cameraman, and sound technician James Brolan, 42, died Monday, while US correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, sustained serious injuries, CBS News said.
A makeshift bomb in a parked car exploded as the journalists were accompanying a US army patrol in downtown Baghdad.
Also killed in the attack were a US Army captain and an Iraqi interpreter, according to the British Foreign Office.
The three journalists had gotten out of their armored Humvee vehicle while embedded with the US 4th Infantry division to inspect an Iraqi checkpoint. They were wearing the body armor that US forces oblige them to use, CBS said.
Dozier was hit in the lower body and by a piece of shrapnel to the head.
"Doctors successfully removed the shrapnel from her head, and it did not penetrate her brain, so that does not appear to be life threatening. The serious injuries are to her lower body," CBS reporter David Martin said.
US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said he was "shocked and saddened" by the attack, and visited Dozier in hospital, according to CBS.
"These brave journalists risked their lives to tell the world the story of a courageous people and a proud nation," Kahlizad said.
A military helicopter flew Dozier from the scene to a US military hospital within the nearby Green Zone but she has now been moved to another hospital north of Baghdad.
Dozier underwent further surgery and doctors stabilized her for an airlift to a US military hospital in Germany, to be carried out once it is safe to move her.
CBS said doctors gave a "cautiously optimistic" prognosis.
"This is a devastating loss for CBS News," said president Sean McManus.
"Kimberly, Paul and James were veterans of war coverage who proved their bravery and dedication every single day."
Dozier's relatives were planning to travel to Germany to wait for her transfer there to a military hospital, a family spokesman told CBS late Monday.
Dozier, who has both US and British citizenship, and her London-based team joined a long list of journalists killed and wounded in the Iraq war.
CBS said Dozier has been covering the Iraq war for three years.
From 1996-1998, she anchored BBC Radio World Services "World Update" foreign affairs program.
Douglas had worked for CBS News since the 1990s in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Rwanda and Bosnia, sharing credit for a 2006 Overseas Press Club award for CBS coverage of the Pakistan earthquake.
Freelancer Brolan had worked for CBS for the past year in Iraq and Afghanistan, the network said.
"James was the best dad, the best husband and the best mate to be with in a tight spot out in the field," Brolan's family said in a statement. He was married with two children ages 12 and 18.
In its 2005 report, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders called Iraq the world's most dangerous country for journalists.
Adding the group's figures to the CBS team, at least 96 reporters, photographers, cameramen and assistants have died since the US-led invasion in March 2003, making it the deadliest war for journalists since World War II.
By comparison, 63 journalists were killed over 20 years of war in Vietnam from 1955-1975.
"The security situation is becoming more and more alarming for the press in Iraq," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement after the attack on the CBS crew.
Noting that six of the journalists killed in the war were embedded with US coalition forces, the international press freedom group said: "Although better protected, embedded journalists are not completely isolated from the dangers."
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Witness: Saddam case built on bribes
Tuesday 30 May 2006, 16:32 Makka Time, 13:32 GMT
A defence witness in Saddam Hussein's trial over the killing of Iraqi Shia villagers has said that many of those allegedly executed are still alive and that the prosecution case has been built on bribes.
The anonymous witness said he was a teenager in al-Dujail in 1982 when an attempt on Saddam's life led to what the prosecution has termed a massive crackdown on the village, which included hundreds of arrests and the execution of 148 men.
"The prosecutor said they were executed, but I am telling you I ate with them some time ago," the witness, who had worked at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison in the mid-1980s, said.
He said 23 of them were alive.
"Many of them have become rich and occupy powerful positions," he said.
As he testified from behind a curtain he wrote down names for the judge.
The lawyer representing Awad al-Bandar said: "If it is true and these people are still alive, this whole case should be reconsidered from the beginning."
It was al-Bandar's revolutionary court that sentenced the men to death in 1984.
Fabricated
Saddam and seven co-defendants are on trial for crimes against humanity stemming from the alleged arrests, torture and execution of al-Dujail villagers as well as the destruction of their property.
The witness also accused Jaafar al-Musawi, the chief prosecutor, of coming to al-Dujail in July 2004 and offering to forge documents.
"Someone came and asked for witnesses, saying the Iranians would thank them and if they don't have the necessary documents, he could forge them," he said.
"This man was prosecutor al-Musawi."
He said that many al-Dujail villagers who went on to testify against Saddam were at that meeting. The prosecutor denied the allegations.
"I just want to clarify this for the records. I was born in Baghdad and I never went to al-Dujail. On July 8, 2004, I wasn't a prosecutor, I had nothing to do with the court," said al-Musawi.
One of the defence lawyers, meanwhile, said a defence witness who testified recently had been killed, a claim that could not be confirmed.
Throughout the trial, the defence has complained that witnesses for the prosecution have been coached and induced to testify.
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The Apache Killing Video
WRH | 19.01.2004 01:48
Video Execution by Apache helicopter in Iraq - video/avi 12M
Video shorter MPEG version - video/mpeg 4.6M
This video has caused a great deal of controversy. Originally shown on ABC TV, it was first shown as an object lesson as to what happens to Iraqi Insurgents who dare show weapons before US forces. However, as time goes on, doubt has begun to surface as to whether the people shown blown to pieces with the 30mm cannon on the Apache were really insurgents, or just harmless farmers.
This is what is known about the tape. It is from the thermographic camera system of an Apache attack helicopter. The image is of heat, not of light. The time of day appears to be midmorning, based on the time display seen on the heads-up display. Military time uses a 24 hour system, there is no "PM" in military clocks.
The vehicle at the far left of the video is a farm tractor, facing away. The engine is running as is evidenced by the hot vertical exhaust tupe and the glowing undercarriage seen in the thermal image. Attached to the rear of the tractor is a plough, and the dirt in the foreground shows clear furrows.
There is a longer version of the tape (which may not play on everyone's computers) that does show one individual taking a long object or objects from his car and taking it over to the vehicle at the far right. It is assumed by those who want to justify the shooting that this object is a missile launcher assembly being discarded. However, one cannot explain why someone who had just fired off an RPG at US troops would bother to put the used launcher into his car, only to them drive someplace else and then discard it. Nor does it make sense that the man would place a weapon over there it is likely to be run over by the tractor and plough, damaging both the weapon and the plough assembly as well. And, given that the man does not in any way point the object at the approaching helicopter, it is clear that at least he does not think it is a working weapon. Given that the object is actually longer than an RPG launcher assembly, three alternative explanations suggest themselves.
1. That the object is a bundle of long handled farm tools being taken over to where the farmers are working with the tractor.
2. That the object is a bundle of thin poles to be driven into the ground ahead of the tractor to give the tractor driver a visible guide to keep the furrows straight.
3. As suggested by a reader, that the object may be part of the plastic pipe irrigation system used in dry climate agriculture.
We can deduce several facts from the video.
From the perspective seen in the video, it is clear that the Apache helicopter is not being threatened. It is hovering, moving slowly forward, and not engaging in any evasive maneuvers which would suggest that the individuals on the ground have threatened the apache in any way.
From the body language of the individuals on the ground, it is clear that they themselves do not feel they are doing anything which should be of concern to a US helicopter hovering nearby. In other words, they do not act like the object thrown into the field near the tractor is anything the US helicopter would object to. No sooner has the man delivered the object to the tractor than he turns and walks back to the car. At no time does he (or anyone else) act like they are trying to escape the area until the Apache opens fire.
From The Geneva Convention 3-1: 1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria
The very FIRST person gunned down was the person who had been driving the tractor. This video records a war crime.
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'US is an expert in killing'
28/05/2006 22:07 - (SA)
Baghdad - Word that United States marines may have killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in "cold-blooded" revenge after an insurgent attack has shocked Americans but many Iraqis shrug it off as a fact of life.
Despite US military denials, many Iraqis believe the killing of civilians at the hands of careless or angry American soldiers is common.
Last week, US officials said charges, including murder, were possible after an investigation into the deaths of Iraqi civilians at Haditha in November. But Iraqi media and politicians are paying scant attention to details leaking out of Washington.
US commentators wonder if Haditha could have a similar effect on public attitudes as the 1968 massacre in Vietnam, but few Iraqi leaders have mentioned the incident.
"We would like an official Iraqi investigation," said an aide to Iraq's human rights minister Wejdan Mikhail.
Leaders of the Sunni minority were more critical but said the Haditha incident is part of a pattern of US behaviour.
"The American soldier has become an expert in killing," said Abdel Salam al- Qubaisy, of the Sunni Muslim Scholars Association.
'There were no warning shots'
He said the US soldiers convicted of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib in 2003 were scapegoats for a wider problem: "This must be considered a war crime and the commanders tried."
In Baghdad, Mohammed Jawdaat, 47, offered a typical view at his store.
Like many in the city, he can recount an incident in which he saw US forces open fire on civilians: "Six months ago a car pulled out of a street towards an American convoy and a soldier just opened fire.
"The driver was shot in the head. There were no warning shots and the Americans didn't even stop."
In the Sunni city of Ramadi, lawyer Abd Mohammed Falah said: "The US forces have committed more crimes against the Iraqi people than appears in the media. The US defence secretary and his generals should be sent to court."
'They assume he is a terrorist'
The Haditha investigation is not complete and no final decisions on charges have been made.
But US politicians have been giving details. One anti-war congressman said marines killed "in cold blood".
Haditha residents have described how two families, including young children and women, were shot dead in their homes after a marine was killed by a roadside bomb on November 19.
The military initially said the bomb had killed the civilians. The emergence of a film of the bodies led to an inquiry by Time magazine, that in turn prompted the probe.
Hamdi Hassan, editor of the Adala newspaper, said civilians were often killed by US troops: "The insurgents attack the Americans and then they hide among the civilians. Then the Americans just open fire everywhere."
Imad Mohammed, who sells newspapers, said he had not seen Haditha on any front page and that it was not news: "The Americans see a Muslim go into a mosque and just assume he is a terrorist.
"They either arrest him or blow it up."
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It's not nice to fool Mother Nature
Race to help Indonesia survivors as quake toll tops 5,400
by Ian Timberlake
AFP
May 30, 3006
BANTUL, Indonesia - Desperate Indonesian quake survivors were still waiting for aid despite pledges help would come fast, as the rising activity of a nearby volcano fuelled fears of an eruption.
The death toll from Saturday's quake in Central Java province rose past 5,400, but the most urgent task was to get help to 200,000 rain-soaked victims, many of whom huddled under makeshift tents for a third night.
Hopes appeared all but lost of finding any more survivors in the ruins after Saturday's 6.3-magnitude temblor.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited survivors camping out near the damaged Prambanan Hindu temple complex and pledged that food and medical aid would reach them soon.
"We are giving priority to the victims -- those who are injured, the sick, those who need surgery and also refugees who lost their homes and other belongings," he told reporters at the compound, a UNESCO heritage site.
"We are prioritising the medical treatments to save as many lives as possible," the president added later as he toured a makeshift camp in hard-hit Klaten district east of ancient Yogyakarta city.
The Indonesian army deployed at least 2,000 soldiers to assist with relief efforts, Army Chief General Joko Santoso said.
Australia ordered more than 80 disaster experts and medical personnel to the worst hit areas around Yogyakarta, in what Foreign Minister Alexander Downer characterised as part of "a hugely expanded emergency response".
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) expected to ferry in more than 40 tons of supplies on Tuesday, including seven tons of emergency rations and four portable warehouses to store food, spokesman Barry Came told AFP.
Shipments also included tents, blankets, portable water treatment units and generators as aid flowed in from around the world.
The UN set up a coordination centre at Yogyakarta airport to organise the flow of help.
But some victims grumbled relief was too slow and too meagre.
In Klaten and throughout badly-damaged Bantul district, beggars held cardboard boxes daubed with the words, "Asking for aid".
"If we don't, how do we get money?" asked Budi, 18, whose box was empty as he waited for donations with a handful of other young men.
"Yesterday we got 40,000 rupiah (4.35 US dollars)," which villagers spent on cooking oil and food, said Wawan, 28, adding that government aid of three packets of instant noodles per family was not enough.
But the beggars slowed relief efforts as they put chairs, oil drums and stones in the road to slow drivers and ask for money.
A stream of aid trucks was caught in a major traffic jam on the main highway, stretching some 10 kilometres (six miles), the Detikcom online news service reported.
Hospitals were anxiously waiting for more medical staff and supplies to treat the thousands of injured who overflowed from their wards, raising fears of the spread of disease in the wet and poor sanitary conditions.
Indonesia has struggled to cope with the scale of the disaster, as Yudhoyono acknowledged Monday.
The social affairs ministry said 5,427 were confirmed to have died in the quake with some 20,000 injured. The Red Cross said 200,000 were homeless.
Adding to concerns was increased volcanic activity at Mount Merapi, to the north of Yogyakarta, which belched heat clouds and sent trails of lava running down its slopes, heightening fears of an eruption.
Plumes of smoke rose some 900 metres (3,000 feet) into the air -- nearly double the height of the previous day -- and the area remained on high alert.
Scientists have warned that although the magma flow which forms a dome at the peak appeared to be weakening, the structure may collapse and spew out millions of cubic metres of rock and lava.
"Theoretically as well as statistically, there is a very large possibility that tectonic activities trigger or increase volcanic activities," Syamsulrizal, who works at Indonesia's national vulcanology office, told AFP.
The quake was Indonesia's third major disaster in 18 months, following the tsunami that killed 168,000 in Sumatra and another quake that killed more than 600 people in Nias last year.
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Where the buffalo roam a sore topic in Montana
By Laura Zuckerman
Reuters
Mon May 29, 2006
WISDOM, Montana - Buffalo once thundered across this vast river valley in southwest Montana but now the only evidence of the animal that symbolizes the untamed American West is its image on a national park sign.
By the late 19th century, the systematic hunting of American buffalo, or bison, had cut their numbers from the millions to the dozens. Today, domesticated buffalo are commercially ranched throughout the West, but the nation's only wild herd of purebred bison is at Yellowstone National Park.
Now the herd is again at the center of a controversy because it harbors brucellosis, a disease that can cause stillbirths in cows.
Nearly one in five -- 947 -- of the bison herd were sent to slaughter this winter for fleeing Yellowstone's snow-covered high country for food outside the park in Montana where cattle graze.
Bison advocates are outraged by the slaughter, which is authorized under an agreement between Yellowstone National Park and Montana's Department of Livestock. But Montana ranchers say the buffalo endanger the state's prized brucellosis-free status, which allows producers to ship their cattle across state lines without testing.
Fresh on the heels of Montana's first bison hunt in 15 years, Gov. Brian Schweitzer has charged into the debate, aiming to broker a deal between ranchers and buffalo admirers.
Schweitzer wants to expand the range the herd may roam outside Yellowstone National Park and would pay ranchers not to graze their cattle on the same land. He also has proposed increasing hunting permits for buffalo to up to 500 annually from 50 to help cull a Yellowstone herd that last year numbered 4,900, a record high since it was established in the early 1900s.
"I'm trying to come up with a solution that actually makes sense," Schweitzer said.
The rancher-turned-governor is promoting his plan even as a government operation last week to push buffalo back into the park using a helicopter and ATVs stirred fresh discord.
COWBOYS VS NATURALISTS
There is no documented case of brucellosis transmission in the wild from bison to cattle, and most of the animals killed this winter were not tested for the disease. Elk in the Yellowstone area also carry brucellosis, but the popular game animal has not evoked the same ire in Montana's $1 billion livestock industry.
Ranchers want to see bison confined within Yellowstone's unfenced boundaries whatever the cost.
"We need to do whatever it takes in the state of Montana to make sure those (brucellosis) transmissions don't occur," said Jay Bodner of the Montana Stockgrowers Association.
By contrast, the activist Buffalo Field Campaign says Yellowstone's bison herd has already suffered "carnage."
"People should be very disturbed when the government comes in and starts executing wildlife," said Buffalo Field Campaign board member Scott Frazier.
The debate in America is mirrored in Canada, where officials are toying with killing off the 4,500 free-ranging bison at Wood Buffalo National Park because of the beef industry's fears about brucellosis.
Underlying the dispute about the Yellowstone herd is a perennial debate in the American West about public lands, pitting its cowboy culture against nature lovers.
The conflict is heightening even as tourism is eclipsing ranching as a leading economic engine and newcomers are flocking to the Big Sky State for its scenic beauty and abundant wildlife.
Cattle graze near Yellowstone mostly on federal acreage and Montana's ranchers fear the push to protect the park's bison is a thinly veiled attempt to drive them from that land.
"Some advocacy groups would like to see cattle off public lands and have it only used for wildlife," said Montana Department of Livestock Director Marc Bridges.
Bison advocates say the country's last wild herd cannot afford to be lost.
"But maybe the public would rather have snowmobiles in the park rather than bison," said wildlife biologist Mary Meagher, a critic of the bison-management plan who worked with the Yellowstone herd for 35 years.
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China's longest river "cancerous" with pollution
Reuters
Tue May 30, 2006
BEIJING - China's longest river is "cancerous" with pollution and rapidly dying, threatening drinking water supplies in 186 cities along its banks, state media said on Tuesday.
Chinese environmental experts fear worsening pollution could kill the Yangtze river within five years, Xinhua news agency said, calling for an urgent clean-up.
"Many officials think the pollution is nothing for the Yangtze," Xinhua quoted Yuan Aiguo, a professor with the China University of Geosciences, as saying.
"But the pollution is actually very serious," it added, warning that experts considered it "cancerous.""
Industrial waste and sewage, agricultural pollution and shipping discharges were to blame for the river's declining health, experts said.
The river, the third longest in the world after the Nile and the Amazon, runs from remote far west Qinghai and Tibet through 186 cities including Chongqing, Wuhan and Nanjing and empties into the sea at Shanghai.
It absorbed more than 40 percent of the country's waste water, 80 percent of it untreated, said Lu Jianjian, from East China Normal University.
"As the river is the only source of drinking water in Shanghai, it has been a great challenge for Shanghai to get clean water," Xinhua quoted him as saying.
China is facing a severe water crisis -- 300 million people do not have access to drinkable water -- and the government has been spending heavily to clean major waterways like the Yellow, Huaihe and Yangtze rivers.
But those clean-up campaigns have made limited progress because of spotty regional enforcement. Toxic spills are common, the worst recently being in the Songhua river in the northeast which led to the taps of Harbin being turned off for days.
Despite immediate concerns for the cities along its banks, the Yangtze, along with the Yellow river, is earmarked for China's ambitious South-North water diversion scheme -- a plan to pump water from southern waterways to the parched north.
But environmentalists fear that unless local governments and industries start getting serious about cutting pollution, most of the water shipped north will not be fit to drink.
Most of the Yellow River, the second-longest in China and the cradle of early Chinese civilisation, is so polluted it is not safe for drinking or swimming, Xinhua news agency said in May last year.
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Mount St. Helens shoots steam into air
AP
Tue May 30, 2006
VANCOUVER, Wash. - Mount St. Helens shot a steam and ash plume at least 16,000 feet into the air Monday after a large rockfall from the lava dome in the volcano's crater, scientists said.
Pilots reported the plume rose between 16,000 and 20,000 feet in the air, scientists at the Cascades Volcano Observatory said.
The rockfall coincided with a magnitude 3.1 earthquake shortly after 9 a.m. Monday at the mountain, scientists said. Such events are expected during growth of the lava dome, they said.
"There is no evidence of an explosion associated with this event," the observatory said in a statement.
Clouds obscured the crater at the time.
"We don't know how much steam and how much ash," Cynthia Gardner, scientist in charge at the observatory, told The Columbian. "These are very short-lived events."
Lava has continued to push into the crater - most recently forming a sheer rock fin - since the 8,364-foot mountain reawakened with a drumfire of low-level seismic activity in September 2004.
The crater was formed by the volcano's deadly May 18, 1980, eruption that killed 57 people and blasted about 1,300 feet off the then-9,677-foot peak.
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China deserts eat up arable land: environmentalist
By Lindsay Beck
Reuters
Tue May 30, 2006
BEIJING - A giant dust bowl is forming across northern China, converting swathes of arable land to desert and triggering sandstorms whose impact carries across the Pacific, a leading environmentalist said on Tuesday.
Lester Brown, of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute, said China was far from arresting the problem he attributed to overgrazing and falling water tables in the country whose landmass is already one-third desert.
"There are huge areas there that were once productive grassland that are now desert," Brown told foreign correspondents. "It represents the largest conversion of productive land to desert anywhere in the world."
China, which is plagued by sandstorms every spring, has embarked on a campaign to plant billions of trees and says it is slowing the rate of desertification, but Brown said the problem was far from under control.
"Here and there are successful pilot projects, but overall we are not anywhere close to arresting this situation. The deserts are expanding," he said.
The number of livestock grazing had mushroomed since China began economic reforms in the late 1970s, and, with little management, the number of sheep and goats jumped to 339 million, compared with about 7 million in the United States.
China has also said the sheer size of its deserts mean it will never completely tame the sandstorms that this spring covered the capital in brown dust, and left skies a murky yellow.
The dust from storms originating in China has in the past been traced all the way to the United States and Canada, Brown said.
Sandstorms were this year exacerbated by droughts across northern and western China, that were also contributing to forest fires raging in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang that some 20,000 firefighters were struggling to control.
Desertification, which officials at China's State Forestry Administration say is causing direct economic losses of about 54 billion yuan ($6.7 billion) a year, was also not helped by poor management of water, Brown said.
Water tables were diminishing in north China, causing rivers and land to dry out and affecting grain harvests, especially of wheat, which is grown predominantly in the drought-stricken northern provinces.
China plans to pump water from southern rivers to the parched north in a project known as the South-North water diversion scheme, but Brown said he doubted the efficacy of the plan already hampered by pollution and lack of adequate waste treatment.
Floods, mudflows and landslides triggered by days of torrential rain in parts of south China have killed at least nine people in recent days.
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Painful mosquito-borne virus on the rise in India, health officials warn
Last Updated Mon, 29 May 2006 23:34:29 EDT
CBC News
A rare mosquito-borne virus that can cause an extremely painful, debilitating illness is making a comeback in parts of India and the southwest Indian Ocean, say Canadian health officials who are warning people planning to travel to the region.
"We have recognized, at the moment, four confirmed cases of Canadians who have histories of travels to the Indian Ocean area and have come back and been confirmed by antibody testing to have chikungunya," said Harvey Artsob, director of zoonotic diseases at the Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.
In recent months, chikungunya virus has spread from Madagascar and several other islands in the southwest Indian Ocean to the Indian mainland, where hundreds of thousands have been infected.
In some areas, one-third of the population is showing symptoms: They include sudden fever followed by a crippling pain in the joints that can cause patients to curl up. Chikungunya is Swahili for "one who walks bent over."
There is no vaccine or treatment other than painkillers. Chikungunya is rarely fatal, but it has the potential to temporarily incapacitate.
"If you get a quarter or a third of the population