A-Changin' Times (ACT)
Born in the aftermath of 9/11, ACT has become as political as the times.
Now a blog for alternative news, views and rants offered with a twist, a song and a smile. Fair and balanced.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize [sic] with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
 — Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan Copyright 1963
(1991 Special Rider)

"A-Changin' Times: taking the best from the past to make the most of the present and to create a better future."

"What marching through the streets was to the Sixties, walking through the halls of Congress is now."

 — Marianne Williamson

You're visiting a website that incorporates a blogging feature, not "just" a blog.

Blog entries follow, most recent entries at the top

Saturday, July 26, 2003

	:: DUG853		7/26/2003 07:59:00 PM

A Tool for Healthy Democracy

By Joel Stonington, Utne.com
July 25, 2003 Issue

Promoting the foundations of democracy through enabling informed voting and public discourse, E-Democracy provides valuable resources for researching the 2004 race to the White House.

The web site provides direct channels to the major avenues of information on candidates, the election, and media coverage.

E-Democracy is a Minneapolis-based nonprofit, nonpartisan group that created the world's first election-oriented web site back in 1994.

The hundreds of links available feature nonprofit directories, issues-related content, Internet elections research, and state nonprofit and government sites.
-- Joel Stonington

SOURCE UTNE

Go there>>
E-Democracy United States

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	:: DUG853		7/26/2003 03:46:00 PM

Military review reveals more government lies

US launched air war against Iraq in 2002

By James Conachy


In a briefing to military commanders last week, US Air Force Lieutenant General T. Michael Moseley acknowledged that the Air Force launched offensive operations against Iraq in June 2002.

Three months before President Bush appeared before the United Nations to present a case for "disarming" Iraq, five months before the adoption of UN resolution 1441 threatening "serious consequences" if Iraq did not cooperate with weapons inspectors, and a full nine months before the war was officially announced, the Bush administration had already ordered combat operations to begin.

In the midst of closed-door congressional inquiries and media speculation over whether the Bush administration went to war on the basis of "manipulated" or "faulty" intelligence, the response to Moseley's statements has been a deafening silence.

Apart from news reports of Moseley's briefing in the weekend Washington Post and New York Times, nothing has been said about what amounts to an admission that the Bush administration lied to the American people for months about its intentions and operations in Iraq.

Even as US planes were systematically destroying Iraqi air defenses and communications grids in preparation for a land war, under cover of patrolling the so-called "no fly" zone in the south of the country, Bush was repeatedly insisting that he had made no decision on invading Iraq and was "hoping for peace."

Moseley's briefing exposes the entire effort to secure United Nations backing and resume weapons inspections as nothing more than a cynical charade, behind which Washington carried on an air war to facilitate the rapid introduction of ground troops once war was publicly proclaimed.

According to Moseley, the Air Force received its orders from the White House to begin the preparations for a war on Iraq in late 2001—following the September 11 attacks.

CONTINUE

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	:: DUG853		7/26/2003 03:33:00 PM

Secret report undercuts Iraq connection to WTC

'No specific information' Saddam behind 1993 bombing, any other attack on U.S.

By Paul Sperry
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – U.S. intelligence services unanimously agreed last fall that "no specific intelligence information" tied Iraq to U.S. terrorist attacks, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Their findings were presented to the president Oct. 2 in a still-secret report on Iraq.

The summary, or "key judgments" section, of the 90-page National Intelligence Estimate was declassified Friday. WorldNetDaily obtained a copy from the National Security Council.
(The report is different from the unclassified 25-page white paper the CIA made public on its website last October.)

Page 4 of the report states: "... [W]e have no specific intelligence information that Saddam's regime has directed attacks against U.S. territory."

The statement would appear to undercut a popular theory among Iraq hawks that Baghdad conspired with al-Qaida operatives to try to blow up New York's Twin Towers in 1993, and possibly sponsored the repeat attack on them in 2001.

CONTINUE

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	:: DUG853		7/26/2003 12:45:00 PM

Ex-CIA Agent on Cheney Iraq Speech:
"Longest Statement of Disinformation" Ever Fed U.S. Public

Friday, July 25th, 2003

Yesterday, Vice President Dick Cheney attempted to restate the administration's case for war at a speech at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute.

He repeatedly cited an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that warned Saddam Hussein was seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

"Those charged with the security of this nation could not read such an assessment and pretend that it did not exist. Ignoring such information, or trying to wish it away, would be irresponsible in the extreme," Cheney said. "And our President did not ignore that information--he faced it. He sought to eliminate the threat by peaceful, diplomatic means and, when all else failed, he acted forcefully to remove the danger."

Former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman responded on Democracy Now! by describing Cheney's speech as the "longest statement of disinformation that I think the American government has distributed to the American people."

Goodman went on to say, "For Dick Cheney to recite those charges we all know now not to be true adds to the terrible politicization of intelligence that's created a scandal in the intelligence community unlike anything I ever saw in my 24 years in the C.I.A. that includes the period of Vietnam, the period of the intelligence failure on the Soviet Union, and the incredibly contentious disputes over arms control."

Cheney did not discuss his role in the Iraq-Niger uranium scandal or the reports that he personally went to CIA headquarters to pressure the Agency on Iraq intelligence.

CONTINUE

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	:: DUG853		7/26/2003 12:50:00 AM

JOINT INQUIRY REPORT ON 9/11

A declassified version of the congressional joint inquiry report on the September 11 terrorist attacks was released this afternoon following an arduous seven-month declassification process.

A copy of the 858 page document (in a large 6.5 MB PDF file) is posted here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_rpt/911rept.pdf

Of particular interest to Secrecy News readers may be the final Appendix on "Access Limitations Encountered by the Joint Inquiry."

It describes a number of documents or topical areas to which congressional investigators were denied access.

These included the President's Daily Brief, reports on foreign liaison relationships, information on intelligence budget requests, and more.

On other crucial topics, congressional access was limited or delayed.

This Appendix appears at pages 834-858 of the report.

Another item of special interest is a newly released General Accounting Office (GAO) analysis of the October 2001 anthrax attacks.

The December 2002 GAO assessment had been restricted as "Limited Official Use Only."

It is now published at pages 808-822 of the report.

SOURCE

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Friday, July 25, 2003

	:: DUG853		7/25/2003 10:22:00 PM

Amnesty Accuses U.S. of Rights Abuses in Iraq

By Michael Georgy


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Amnesty International accused U.S. troops on Sunday of "very severe" human rights abuses in Iraq and complained that it had been denied access to thousands of prisoners held without charge in "appalling" conditions."

Amnesty spokeswoman Judit Arenas Licea said some Iraqis had been forced to stand under the blistering sun for up to 48 hours in U.S.-run detention centers that lack proper sanitation and that relatives had no information on their plight.

One detainee was shot dead by U.S. troops during a prison riot last month, she told Reuters in an interview in Baghdad.

"We are disappointed that human rights were used as an excuse to go to war in Iraq and now the human rights of Iraqis are being violated," she said, condemning conditions at among other sites Saddam Hussein's once notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

U.S. military officials declined immediate comment.

A team from the London-based independent rights watchdog is visiting Iraq to take testimony from those held and released by U.S. forces and to try and speak to some of those still held.

It is also investigating abuses under Saddam, although most of those imprisoned by him are now free.

While some Iraqis detained by invading troops have been released, many remain in prisons with no access to a lawyer or families, Licea said.

CONTINUE

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	:: DUG853		7/25/2003 08:36:00 PM

[Various human rights issues contained on this site pertaining to Iraq -DUG]

Amnesty International, Iraq Human Rights Concerns

Click Here

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	:: DUG853		7/25/2003 02:20:00 PM

Welcome to NRDC's Earth Action Center!

Here you'll find all the tools, tips and information you need to help protect the earth's extraordinary wealth of natural treasures.

To receive our free bi-weekly email alert on urgent issues needing your immediate action, join our Earth Activist Network.

You can track your action history and update your subscription information at your Personal Action Profile.

Earth Action Center

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	:: DUG853		7/25/2003 01:24:00 PM

Privacy Villain of the Week:

Federal camera operators
By James Plummer


The federal government owns one-third of the land in the country and half of the land west of the Mississippi. And as far as the Beltway bureaucrats are concerned, we have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" on any of it.

To prove they're serious, they've begun to piece together a near-all-encompassing surveillance dragnet in the Washington, DC area.

And according to a report recently issued by the General Accounting Office (TXT )

http://www.gao.gov/atext/d03748.txt

PDF - http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03748.pdf the federal agencies have failed to demonstrate their cameras do anything to stop evildoers and have been lax in responding to Congressional oversight concerns about the cameras' effect on privacy.

The GAO report focused on the use of cameras by two agencies, the National Park Service and the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPDC) and the United States Park Police.

MPDC told GAO that their cameras were geared to fight crime, particularly, but not solely, during demonstrations and whenever the Homeland declares CODE ORANGE.

MPDC has 14 cameras of their own, but can access real-time video from other DC agencies including the public schools as well as "certain private entities."

MPDC has a written set of regulations that restrict camera operators from focusing in on faces or print, but GAO also pointed out that there is no clear training regimen for the camera operators to make sure these restrictions are followed.

MPDC has yet to develop any evidence that the camera systems actually reduce crime.

The United States Park Police also have cameras in and around the nation's capital and they are far more secretive than MPDC about how, when and where they are used.

Park Police claim that their cameras are chiefly to fight "terrorism" instead of "crime."

The Park Police will not divulge where any of their cameras are, and has not yet issued final regulations on their use that were due a year ago.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, however has recently obtained the draft version of these regulations through a Freedom of Information Act request

http://www.epic.org/privacy/surveillance/uspp-cctv_policy-070903.pdf

Those regulations call for the spycams to tape everything they see "twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week" and leave open the door to use of face-recognition software and the use of images from the cameras in civil as well as criminal proceedings.

This "no reasonable expectation of privacy" policy vis-à-vis government surveillance on public lands is unfortunately not limited to the monuments inside the District.

Cameras and microphones can turn up in the oddest places -- for instance, one man in Nevada recently had a six carloads of a federal Joint Terrorism Task Force search his home after he pointed out military sensors on public land to some reporters

http://www.lasvegasmercury.com/2003/MERC-Jun-26-Thu-2003/21596133.html,

The number of cameras keep increasing despite GAO's finding that neither MPDC nor USPP can prove the cameras actually decrease crime. GAO also points out the spycam operators in the UK haven't proven such either -- but they're installing precrime software in the cameras there, so maybe that will "help"

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993918.

Indeed, "no reasonable expectation" is the lowest common denominator when it comes to privacy, especially when the information gathered could be dumped into the Pentagon's TIA computers.

The more land controlled by the federal government -- from the middle of the forest to the municipal airport -- the less choice citizens, consumers, tourists and travelers have to make among competing privacy tradeoffs.

That is a true tragedy of the commons -- and breeding ground for privacy villains.


SOURCE

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	:: DUG853		7/25/2003 12:07:00 AM

Who's covered by the Bill of Rights?  

Sierra Times
by Lex Concord

"Those of us who care about protecting our basic human rights, and preserving the idea that our government must recognize them, are duty-bound to remove from office any elected official who violates his or her oath of office, and acts as if he or she is free to ignore the limitations on arbitrary power found in the Bill of Rights.

In the election of 2004, if we fail to remove from office everyone who voted for the Patriot Act, we will have failed in our duty."

Full Text

[Hear! Hear! Throw the bums O-U-T!! No votes for incumbents! No votes for incumbents! No votes for incumbents! -v]

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Thursday, July 24, 2003

	:: DUG853		7/24/2003 11:49:00 PM

Revenge of the Bill of Rights

Liberty For All
by Garry Reed

"Authoritarian-minded folks would argue that if citizens could do anything the government does, we'd have utter chaos.

But libertarians know that it's government run amok, doing all sorts of things that citizens can't do, that causes the chaos.

What was legal yesterday is illegal today.

What wasn't regulated then is regulated now.

What belongs to us can belong to the government whenever they wish to take it, under whatever pretext of legalized thievery they choose to invent."

Full Text

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	:: DUG853		7/24/2003 11:14:00 PM

Media Cover-up

Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press

This is a two-page summary of fascinating accounts by 18 award-winning journalists from the book Into the Buzzsaw, edited by Kristina Borjesson.

All of these writers were prevented by corporate media ownership from reporting major, incredibly revealing news.

Some were even fired or laid off.

These journalists have won numerous awards, including several Emmys and a Pulitzer.

Help create a better world by spreading this news across the land.

CONTINUE

[Great article, DUG! This is what we've been waiting for! By all means, folks, pass this one on! -v]

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	:: DUG853		7/24/2003 10:40:00 PM

The killing of Hussein's sons: the Nuremberg precedent and the
criminalization of the US ruling elite
By David Walsh
24 July 2003

There is little doubt that Uday and Qusay Hussein, the two sons of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein killed by US forces in a house on the outskirts of Mosul July 22, were morally and politically reprehensible figures.

By all accounts, Uday Hussein, the elder, was a sexual predator and murderer, while Qusay, as chief of Iraq's notorious security apparatus, had even more blood on his hands.

Given the reactionary nature of the regime, there is no reason to doubt the extent and depth of their crimes.

Having said that, both the means by which Hussein's sons were liquidated and the manner in which the killings were greeted by the American government and media speak volumes about the nature of the US intervention in Iraq and the character of the American political establishment.

On the plane of morality, there exist no fundamental differences between the personnel of the Hussein regime and the Bush administration. [Emphasis added.]

The latter operates in every sphere with unashamed lawlessness and violence.

If there is a difference in the degree of brutality against its own citizens, the "restraint" exercised by the Bush forces is a matter of circumstance rather than moral superiority over the killers and torturers of the ousted Iraqi regime.

CONTINUED

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Wednesday, July 23, 2003

	:: DUG853		7/23/2003 09:51:00 PM

400,000 Letters to Congress Seek War Evidence Probe


WASHINGTON (Reuters) More than 400,000 letters have been sent to members of the U.S. Congress backing a call for an independent investigation into intelligence used by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq war, organizers of an online campaign said on Tuesday.

The campaign, being run by the advocacy group Moveon.org http://www.moveon.org, is trying to pressure lawmakers to back a bill introduced by Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, that would create a nonpartisan commission to probe the intelligence.

"People feel like the president is not giving them straight answers and they want to know why the president said what he did in the State of Union address," Eli Pariser, the campaign organizer said in a telephone interview.

The White House has conceded that U.S. intelligence did not fully endorse a statement he made in his January State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to get uranium from Africa.

Many Democrats and other critics have accused President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair of exaggerating the threat posed by President Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

No such weapons have been found in Iraq.

The White House has dismissed such charges, and spokesman Scott McClellan said on Tuesday there had been a "mountain of evidence that outlined a clear and compelling case" for Bush to order U.S. troops to war to oust Saddam in March.

The initiative to get an inquiry approved by Congress faces an uphill task, with the majority Republicans opposing it.

Since the petition began about a month ago, the number of lawmakers sponsoring the House bill has almost tripled to 63, said Karen Lightfoot, a minority spokeswoman for the House Committee on Government Reform.

Waxman is the top Democrat on that committee.

SOURCE

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	:: DUG853		7/23/2003 08:40:00 PM

How Are We Different From Saddam?

07/23/03: An ICH reader's commentary.


Here's the big question that gnaws at my conscience with every report of targeted killings, of dead-or-alive rewards for Saddam, of everyday Iraqi citizens killed in checkpoint incidents, crossfire gun battles, and roundups of "Baathist bitter-enders":

If there is no proof of mass weapons threatening anybody, no evidence of any links to terrorists who actually did attack the U.S., then by what legal right or on what juridical basis are we killing or issuing death warrants for any Iraqi leaders or fighters? 

Absent any legal justification for our attack, are those we are now fighting not in fact legitimately defending their country against our illegal aggression?  

I don't in any way defend Saddam or the Baathists—it's abundantly clear that they are not nice people, were not good for Iraq. 

But what's the precedent, what's the moral principle underlying our actions and being reinforced by them? 

How are we in fact different from Saddam, using naked power to kill or intimidate those who won't go along with our program? 

Specifically, what crimes did Saddam, his sons and cohorts commit that justify their summary, pre-emptive execution? 

If there is no evidence of current crimes on an international scale that would justify invasion and assassination, then our attacks must be based on the original crime behind the incomplete first Gulf War. 

In other words, the fundamental crime Saddam committed was to invade a sovereign nation on flimsy, trumped-up pretext, for underlying geo-political strategic reasons.  

Hmmmm………
David G.

SOURCE

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	:: DUG853		7/23/2003 05:26:00 PM

The Prosecution Calls...
The TomPaine.com Staff


Editor's note: Members of Congress and major media outlets are pushing for comprehensive investigations of the Bush administration's manipulation of intelligence data.

Although Republicans impeached President Clinton for fudging about the tawdry hours he spent with Monica, they have blocked open inquiries into the verity of the statements that led the country to war.

As the media's shadow trial of these statements heats up, we present a partial list of witnesses the prosecution should
tap.

CONTINUED

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	:: DUG853		7/23/2003 02:14:00 AM

Support the Warrior Not the War: Give Them Their Benefits!
by Ashley L Decker


The recent rally cry "Support Our Troops" seems to me little more than a perverted, propaganda ploy to "Support the War."

But we can support our troops, without supporting the war, by rectifying some of the following conditions.

The House of Representatives have recently voted on the 2004 budget which will cut funding for veteran's health care and benefit programs by nearly $25 billion over the next ten years.

It narrowly passed by a vote of 215 to 212, and came just a day after Congress passed a resolution to "Support Our Troops."

How exactly does this vote support our troops?

Does leaving our current and future veterans veterans without access to health care and compensation qualify as supporting them?

The Veteran's Administration, plagued by recent budget cuts, has had to resort to charging new veterans entering into its system a yearly fee of $250 in order for them to receive treatment.

It is a sad irony that the very people being sent to fight the war are going to have to pay to treat the effects of it.

According to the Veteran's Administration, 28 million veterans are currently using VA benefits.

Another 70 million Americans are potential candidates for such programs.

This amounts to a quarter of the country's population.

Veterans and their families will sadly begin finding that they have no place to turn for their medical treatment as V.A. hospitals across the country face closing their doors.

With the budget shrinking, staff will be let go.

This could mean the loss of over 19,000 nurses.

Without these nurses, this leads to the loss of over 6.6 million outpatient visits.

Approximately one out of every two veterans could lose their only source of medical care.

That is, if they even realize help is available to them.

The Bush Administration recently ordered V.A. medical centers to stop publicizing available benefits to veterans seeking assistance.

This follows discontinued enrollments of some eligible veterans for healthcare benefits as of January, 2003.

Bush Administration funding cuts will also prevent veterans from receiving their disability pensions.

My father was granted 100% disability six years ago for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder associated with the Vietnam War.

He deserves every cent of it.

As do all soldiers who are willing to go to war.

Under the Bush administration, being granted the ability to receive war related compensation has become a rare privilege, not a right as it should be.

Nearly a third of Gulf War veterans, about 209,000 veterans, have submitted claims to to the VA for disability.

The backlog of unprocessed claims has reached the astronomical count of 489,297, a number which is unfortunately increasing all of time.

There are also currently 500,000 Compensation and Pension cases still pending.

Making matters worse, forty percent of Vietnam Veterans are homeless.

They went from the jungles of the war to the jungles of the street.

Before President Bush decided to declare war, maybe he ought to have considered correcting this situation first.

How many current veterans will return home, only to find themselves in the same situation?

I have seen the effects of war written upon the face of a man who grew old at 17.

I have seen it in the way he awakes from yet another night terror.

I have seen it in the countless pills he has to take.

They have only succeeded in erasing his memory, but the images of the war he fought are so graphic that they will never be able to stop playing themselves upon his mind.

Even I, his daughter, have not escaped unscathed.

Exposure to the chemical Agent Orange has left me with several genetic problems, including growth problems and digestive ones.

I fear that these current soldiers will be exposed to toxins that will not only affect them, but their future offspring as well.

And today we are told that we must "Support Our Troops."

"Wear a yellow ribbon, wave your flag, support the Bush Administration's War on Terror and War on Iraq."

Questioning the war is equated with deserting our troops or treason.

And yet how are the warmongers supporting our troops?

By eliminating their healthcare and slashing their pensions.

Let us support the warrior without supporting the war.

Source

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Tuesday, July 22, 2003

	:: DUG853		7/22/2003 01:44:00 PM

NEWS DUG UP BY DUG

Thumbscrewing International Law
From Amnesty International

Torturers used to practice their craft behind a wall of secrecy.
Now some U.S. officials are defending torture as a necessary tool in the "war on terror."
By Eyal Press

When U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld charged in March that Iraq had violated the Geneva Conventions by parading captured U.S. soldiers on television, the U.S. media were awash with stories about the fine-points of international law.

Article 13 of the Geneva Conventions does in fact state that prisoners "must at all times be protected…against insults and public curiosity."

But there is something else that the Geneva Conventions prohibit: torture.

And on this score, Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration have been notably less attentive to the letter of the law.

Recent revelations in the media suggest that torture is becoming acceptable in some quarters of the U.S. government, with terrorism replacing communism as the official rationale.

And as during the cold war when U.S. trainers taught torture techniques, Washington's tolerance of such practices could have a ripple effect around the world.

A Washington Post story on Dec. 26 detailed allegations of torture and inhumane treatment of some of the thousands of suspects the U.S. has apprehended since the Sept.11 terrorist attacks.

U.S. Army Special Forces often "soften up"—that is, beat up—Al Qaeda captives held at the CIA interrogation centers overseas before interrogating them, according to the front-page report.

Interrogators have also thrown suspects against walls, hooded them, deprived them of sleep, bombarded them with light, and bound them with duct tape in painful positions.

Referred to by officials as "enemy combatants," the prisoners have no access to lawyers, reporters, and most outside agencies, including Amnesty International.

Such methods, at the least, constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and may rise to the level of inflicting "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental," the official benchmark of torture set forth in the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

The U.S. government insists it is conforming to international law, but one unnamed official told the Post, "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job."

At least two prisoners have been killed in U.S. custody.

In March, the story broke that death certificates for two Al Qaeda suspects at the Bagram base in Afghanistan showed both to have been killed by "blunt force injuries."

A military doctor listed the deaths as homicides.

At the Guant?namo detention center, where detainees undergo frequent interrogations, about 25 prisoners have attempted suicide and dozens are being treated with anti-depressant drugs.

In some cases, Washington prefers to distance itself by outsourcing interrogations.

The Post also reported that since 9/11 Washington has transferred approximately 100 suspects to U.S. allies, including Saudi Arabia and Morocco, whose brutal torture methods have been amply documented in the State Department's own annual human rights reports.

"We don't kick the [expletive] out of them," one official told the Post.

"We send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them."

In at least one case, a suspect was sent to Syria. According to a State Department Annual Report, torture methods in Syria include "pulling out fingernails; forcing objects into the rectum; ...using a chair that bends backwards to asphyxiate the victim or fracture the spine."

Other captives have been sent to Egypt, where, according to the State Department, suspects are routinely "stripped and blindfolded; suspended from a ceiling or doorframe with feet just touching the floor; beaten with fists, whips, metal rods, or other objects; subjected to electric shocks."

A former CIA official told Newsday about one detainee transferred from Guant?namo Bay to Egypt:

"They promptly tore his fingernails out, and he started telling things."

The capture last March of Al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed prompted some U.S. officials to suggest that such practices are warranted.

An unnamed official told the Wall Street Journal that U.S. interrogators may authorize "a little bit of smacky-face" while questioning captives in the war on terrorism.

Said another, "There's a reason why [Mohammed] isn't going to be near a place where he has Miranda rights or the equivalent.

You go to some other country that'll let us pistol-whip this guy."

U.S. complicity in torture goes back at least to the 1970s when police and military forces trained by Washington engaged in the widespread torture and ill-treatment of leftists in countries such as Brazil and Uruguay.

It was one of the cold war's most sordid (and hidden) chapters.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, hopes arose that such abuses would be relegated to the past.

Full Text

Eyal Press is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Atlantic Monthly, and other publications.


===0===0===0===

Ten Questions For Cheney

Reps. Kucinich, Maloney and Sanders are members of the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations.

[Editor's note: The following letter was sent to Vice President Dick Cheney on July 21, 2003.]


The Honorable Dick Cheney
Vice President
Office of the Vice President of the United States
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
Washington, DC 20501

Dear Mr. Vice President:

While it has been widely reported that the President made a false assertion in his State of the Union address concerning unsubstantiated intelligence that Iraq purchased uranium from Niger, your own role in the dissemination of that disinformation has not been explained by you or the White House.

Yet, you reportedly paid direct personal visits to CIA's Iraq analysts; your request for investigation of the Niger uranium claim resulted in an investigation by a former U.S. ambassador, and you made several high-profile public assertions about Iraq's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons.

We hope that you will take the opportunity to provide responses to the following ten questions.

CONTINUE

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	:: DUG853		7/22/2003 02:08:00 AM

NEWS DUG UP BY DUG

A Kind of Fascism Is Replacing Our Democracy
by Sheldon S. Wolin

Sept. 11, 2001, hastened a significant shift in our nation's self-understanding.

It became commonplace to refer to an "American empire" and to the United States as "the world's only superpower."

Instead of those formulations, try to conceive of ones like "superpower democracy" or "imperial democracy," and they seem not only contradictory but opposed to basic assumptions that Americans hold about their political system and their place within it.

Supposedly ours is a government of constitutionally limited powers in which equal citizens can take part in power.

But one can no more assume that a superpower welcomes legal limits than believe that an empire finds democratic participation congenial.

No administration before George W. Bush's ever claimed such sweeping powers for an enterprise as vaguely defined as the "war against terrorism" and the "axis of evil."

Nor has one begun to consume such an enormous amount of the nation's resources for a mission whose end would be difficult to recognize even if achieved.

Like previous forms of totalitarianism, the Bush administration boasts a reckless unilateralism that believes the United States can demand unquestioning support, on terms it dictates; ignores treaties and violates international law at will; invades other countries without provocation; and incarcerates persons indefinitely without charging them with a crime or allowing access to counsel. CONTINUE


===0===0===0===

More than 1,000 children killed or wounded by abandoned arms in Iraq: UNICEF

More than 1,000 Iraqi children have been killed or wounded by abandoned weapons and munitions since the April 9 fall of Baghdad, the UN children's fund UNICEF said Thursday, urging action from the US-led coalition here.

UNICEF official Geoff Keele told a press conference in Baghdad that the casualties were the result of handling arms, ammunition and cluster bombs dumped at several hundred sites around Iraq. Hundreds of surface-to-air missiles abandoned by the now-disbanded Iraqi army, many of them damaged and unstable, also pose a serious threat, he said.

In Haditha, northwest of Baghdad, around 30 children were killed as they searched through an arms depot to salvage metal for sale, an activity which has become commonplace in Iraq since the war, Keele said.

He said 133 children were killed or wounded in Kirkuk in the last two weeks of April, while an average of 20 such accidents a day are being reported from Mosul, another northern city.

In southern Iraq, children are involved in about one in five of accidents involving explosives and arms, said Keele.

He pointed out that the Baghdad region alone had around 100 sites for the manufacture of surface-to-air missiles out of a total of 1,000 sites spread out across Iraq.

"Nothing has been done" to cope with the danger, said Keele, urging the US-British coalition to take prompt action and to send in specialised teams. It was their obligation as an occupying force to provide for civilians' safety, he stressed.

Story Source


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The thirty-six lies that launched a war
(11 July 2003)

Click Here

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Monday, July 21, 2003

	:: DUG853		7/21/2003 08:10:00 PM

NEWS AND VIEWS DUG UP BY DUG

But Billie did it too!
Alternet.org Iraq War Weblog

With the occupation of Iraq failing to turn up any chemical or biological weapons, or signs any WMD programs were active or effective, war touts like Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld have been increasingly dependent on an odd, childlike defense for the White House bungles:

Clinton did the same thing.

For the Right, no Friends of Bill, this is rather like a man who defends his actions by arguing that Satan would have done it the same way.

The latest example of this was Sunday, as the debate over "those 16 words" from Bush's State of the Union Address continues.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said on "Meet the Press" that President Clinton launched a four-day bombing campaign against Iraq in December 1998 based on the same evidence. "He didn't give a speech about it, he just did it," Hastert said.

So is Hastert saying:

a) That this makes using weak intelligence to scare Amercans into a premptive attack okey-dokey?

b) The intelligence (sic) was five years old when Bush read it to the nation?

c) The real problem here was the democratic process, which forced Bush to communicate a reason for attacking another nation?

All of the above?

Source


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I was ejected from a plane for wearing "Suspected Terrorist" button

Selected excerpt:

Annie later told me that the stewardess who had gone to fetch her said
that she thought the button was something that the security people had
made me wear to warn the flight crew that I was a suspected terrorist(!).
Now that would be really secure.

Click Here to Read Story

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	:: DUG853		7/21/2003 06:03:00 PM

SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT DUG UP BY DUG

A small rant and a backup story
(Historic Counterpunch article about the "Iraq has violated UN resolutions" excuse for War)

I agree that Bush is of the opinion that he is somehow above the Law: U.S. law, International law, EVERY law!
His use of the concept of "GOD" to justify war frankly disgusts me. "God told me to destroy . . . whomever."
BLECH! A sick, sick man, in my opinion.

The "Iraq has ignored U.N. resolutions" excuse doesn't hold any water either, otherwise the US would've been insisting
that resolutions be enforced in Israel, as well! So far over 61 U.N. resolutions have been ignored by Israel--and for many years.

More hypocrisy? You tell me! -DUG


Yet Another Bush Doctrine
by William A. Cook

Now we have Dubya's third doctrine: resolutions of the United Nations must be enforced; at least that is how Dubya defended his desire to bring about "regime change" in Iraq when he addressed the UN on the 12th.

On the surface this would seem to be a desirable goal for international order.

Unfortunately, neither Bush nor his administration mean what they say.

If they did, they would apply the same doctrine to Israel.

Consider the discrepancies: Iraq has broken UN resolutions since 1991 according to the President; Israel has broken UN resolutions since 1948.

Bush claims that Saddam has defied the UN and thus " is a threat to UN authority and to peace."

He asks this question as he presents his arguments before the UN delegates: "Are UN resolutions to be honored and enforced or cast aside without consequence?"

Will the UN become irrelevant if its resolutions are not obeyed?

The answer applies, of course, only to Iraq.

It is the only argument he could make at the UN.

He could not claim that the United States has authority to "go it alone" against his perceived "evildoer."

He could not use the fabrication that Iraq, with only a third of its military intact following the other Iraqi war and hobbled
with a population that has suffered ten years of deprivation caused by the US imposed sanctions, could pose a threat to
the US unless they were to hand-deliver a weapon across 7,000 miles.

So he resorts to this doctrine trusting, I suspect, that no one would notice that Israel has defied over 55 UN resolutions
since 1967 and others prior to that reaching back to 1948.

These resolutions condemn Israeli intransigence against implementation of fundamental human rights and illegal
occupation of Arab territory.

Consider the wording of these resolutions and contrast them with the resolutions condemning Iraq. Resolution 194 (III), dating from 12/11/48, demands that Israel give refugees the right to return.

That right has never been granted. Resolution 237, dated 6/14/67, and resolutions 2252, 2341B, Human Rights
Resolution 6, and 1336 continue a string of UN resolutions against Israel demanding "Right of Return" calling "upon the government of Israel to facilitate return of those inhabitants who have fled the area of military operations since the
outbreak of hostilities."

They further "Expressed its (the UN) grave concern at the violation of human rights in Arab territories occupied by Israel."

These resolutions "Called upon the Government of Israel to desist forthwith from acts of destroying homes of the Arab
civilian population inhabiting areas occupied by Israel and to respect and implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949 in occupied territories."

Israel has defied the UN on each and every one of these resolutions.

But it gets worse.

The UN Security Council passed resolutions 242, 338, 262, 267, 446, and 465 each stating substantially the same thing, Israel must vacate all their illegal settlements and provide "land for peace" for the Palestinians.

Israel has defied every one of these resolutions.

In wording resolution 56/59, dated December 10, 2001, the UN deplored "those policies and practices of Israel which
violate Human Rights" Yet Bush has said nothing about Israel's disobedience nor has he asserted that its defiance is a
threat to the UN authority or to peace.

What hypocrisy.

Bush condemned Iraq for defying the UN by not acquiescing to resolution 688 of 1991 concerning repression of minorities
and the use of torture. Similar condemnations of Israel have been made by human rights organizations and accepted by
the UN as fact in its resolutions. Why condemn one and not the other?

Bush condemned Iraq for not returning 600 prisoners of war as demanded by UN resolutions 686 and 687, but he said nothing of the many UN resolutions demanding that Israel permit Palestinians who number in the millions to return to
their homeland.

Why?

The answer is clear enough: Bush supports Israel and condemns Iraq. He determines who is good and who is evil.
How else can he implement his first two doctrines?

Bush doctrines as noted provide a blueprint for US domination of the world agenda regardless of the UN. If the US
demands it, it must be done. It is not a question of equality of treatment; it's a question of who is with us (US) and
who is not. It is a question of who determines who is good and who is evil!

Click Here for More


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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
By Carlos Serrano

1. What percentage of the world population is North American? 6%

2. What percentage of the world wealth does USA have? 50%

3. What country has the largest oil reserves? Saudi Arabia

4. And the second largest? Iraq

5. What is the world expenditure in military budgets by the governments?
More than a trillion de euros

6. What percentage of this amount corresponds to the USA? 50%

7. What percentage of the US military expenditure would be enough to cover the
basic needs of the Third World, according to the UNO? 10%

8. How many people have died in wars since the Second World War? 86 million

9. Since when did Iraq have chemical and biological weapons? Since the beginning of the 1980s

10. Did Iraq develop those weapons on their own? No, it counted on the material and technology
provided by the governments of the US, UK and private multinational corporations.

11. Did the government of the US condemn the Iraqi use of gas against Iran? No

12. How many people did Saddam Hussein gas in the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988? 5,000 people

13. How many Western governments condemned that act back then? None

14. How many liters of "Agent Orange" did the US use in Vietnam? More than 35 millions liters

15. Are there any proofs of a link between Iraq and the September 11, 2001, attacks? None

16. What are the estimated civilian deaths just during the Gulf War? 35,000

17. How many losses did the Iraqi army cause on the Western troops in the Gulf War? Twenty or so

18. How many tons of depleted uranium that causes cancer and congenital malformations were left behind in Iraq
and Kuwait in the Gulf War? 40 tons

19. According to UNO, what percentage did cancer in Iraq increase from 1991 to 1994? 700%

20. How many civilian deaths did the Pentagon anticipate in an attack on Iraq? 10,000

21. How many of those would be children? 50%

22. How many years has the US been doing incursions by aerial attacks against Iraq? 11 years

23. How many UN resolutions has Israel failed to fulfill until 1992? More than 65

24. How many UN resolutions has the US vetoed between 1972 and 1990? More than 30

25. How many countries have nuclear arms? Eight

26. How many nuclear warheads does Iraq have? None

27. And how many nuclear warheads does the US have? More than 10,000

28. Which one has been the only country that has utilized nuclear arms? The United States [Remember:
the US destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians with atomic bombs]

29. How many nuclear warheads does Israel have? More than 400

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Sunday, July 20, 2003

	:: DUG853		7/20/2003 05:08:00 PM

NEWS AND VIEWS DUG UP BY DUG

Top US General in Iraq to Soldiers: Shut Up!
by Mike Ewens, July 18, 2003

[Fighting for Freedom? Just make sure that YOU don't "practice" it! -D]

The General's warning was not empty:

"It was the end of the world," said one officer Thursday. "It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers."

First lesson for the troops, it seemed:

Don't ever talk to the media "on the record" -- that is, with your name attached -- unless you're giving the sort of chin-forward, everything's-great message the Pentagon loves to hear.

The coalition forces commander -- General Abizaid -- declared that American troops must silence their criticism concerning the President and Defense Secretary.

The New York Times quoted the general:

"None of us that wear this uniform are free to say anything
disparaging about the secretary of defense or the president
of the United States. . . We're not free to do that.

It's our professional code.

Whatever action may be taken, whether it's a verbal reprimand
or something more stringent is up to the commanders on the
scene and it's not for me to comment."

-- CONTINUE

[Yes. We have a lot more than 16 words to be concerned about! Keep this item in mind when listening to the "talking heads" in the mainstream newsrooms and guests on talk shows. The same military/industrial complex control is in force everywhere--not just at the front. -v]


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Media Underplays U.S. Death Toll in Iraq
Soldiers Dead Since May Is 3 Times Official Count
By Greg Mitchell NEW YORK -- News Analysis

Any way you look at it, the news is bad enough.

According to Thursday's press and television reports, 33 U.S. soldiers have now died in combat since President Bush declared an end to the major fighting in the war on May 2. This, of course, is a tragedy for the men killed and their families, and a problem for the White House.

But actually the numbers are much worse -- and rarely reported by the media.

According to official military records, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since May 2 is actually 85. This includes a staggering number of non-combat deaths.

Even if killed in a non-hostile action, these soldiers are no less dead, their families no less aggrieved.

And it's safe to say that nearly all of these people would still be alive if they were still back in the States.

Nevertheless, the media continues to report the much lower figure of 33 as if those are the only deaths that count.

A Web site called Iraq Coalition Casualty Count is tracking the deaths, by whatever cause, of U.S. military personnel in Iraq, based on official Pentagon and CENTCOM press releases and Army Times and CNN casualty trackers.

Their current count is 85 since May 2.

Looking at the entire war, there was much fanfare Thursday over the fact that the latest U.S. combat death this week pushed the official total to 148 -- finally topping the 147 figure for Gulf War 1.

However, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, the total number of all U.S. deaths, combat and otherwise, in Iraq is actually 224.

This Web site not only counts deaths, it describes each one in whatever detail (often sketchy) the military provides, along with the name and age and home town of each fatality. -- CONTINUE

[I wish someone would sound-bite the Rumsfeld briefing I heard many weeks ago when he acknowledged 52 deaths by his own lips when what we'd heard elsewhere was something like 17. -v]


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The Legacy of Guantanamo
By Lizzy Ratner, The Nation

This isn't the first time for human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay.

Ten years ago, the U.S. detained almost 300 Haitian refugees, without charges, for a year and a half.

Full text here.


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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: UNITED STATES
Presumption of Guilt

Human Rights Abuses of Post-September 11 Detainees

Full text available here.

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