October 2005

October 31, 2005 News
Posted: Monday, October 31, 2005

¤ The Zuma plot is thickening
¤ Libby's Lies
¤ The Libby Indictment
¤ After the Libby Indictment, the Press Is Acquitting Itself
¤ Car bomb in Basra kills 20
¤ US says bombs Qaeda house, Iraqis say 40 dead
¤ Many killed in Basra car bombing
¤ 'Big election theft in a little town'
¤ 'As good as it gets?'
¤ Al-Qaeda in South Africa -- Chasing Islamic Phantoms
¤ The strategy of the US oil and finance elite controls the White House
¤ Is Avian Flu another Pentagon Hoax?
¤ Impeach Bush for lies propelling U.S. to war
¤ We Have Been Warned
¤ Washington hid damaging Vietnam finding
¤ U.S. not legally bound to reveal dump sites
¤ The Race to Execute Tookie Williams
¤ US soldiers accused of beating detainees
¤ Bush is in ethical meltdown
¤ The enemy of liberty
¤ Let Us Honor Rosa Parks—By Shattering the Myths About Her
¤ Dispossessing Africa's Wealth
¤ A funny kind of equality
¤ Seeds of Leak Scandal Sown in Italian Intelligence Agency
¤ US ‘had no policy’ in place to rebuild Iraq
¤ How Dubya lost his swagger
¤ Bush: Treaty Outlawing Torture Doesn't Apply Beyond US Soil
¤ Did Rove Rat on Scooter?
¤ Iran: Pluralism Under Construction -- No Bombs Please
¤ Haiti's Utility
¤ Bush Administration as Dangerous Now as Before
¤ Anti-Israel comment nothing new: Iran president

Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media
Posted: Monday, October 31, 2005

By Tim Wise

During the flooding of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, many a voice praised the media for its supposedly aggressive coverage. The fact that Anderson Cooper cried on camera, or that Geraldo evinced outrage (imagine that), or that even Fox's Shepard Smith waxed indignant at the suffering in the streets, was taken as evidence of some newfound courage on the part of the press.

Standing up to FEMA's Mike Brown, and making him appear every bit as incompetent as he was -- a task about as difficult as making Paris Hilton look underfed -- inspired plaudits for any number of network anchors and reporters in the field. So too, Cooper's upbraiding of an utterly hapless Mary Landrieu, she of the U.S. Senate, just to show that both parties were fair game in this brave new world of independent media, no longer willing to be led around by the neck on a leash, as it had been with, say, Iraq, for starters.

But just as surely as the media went after those in positions of power, and sought to expose them as witless in all respects, it was even more adept at framing (pun very much intended) low-income black folks in the streets of New Orleans as a collection of deviant criminals. In other words, the more things changed, the more they ultimately stayed the same, with the press presenting images of the desperate and left behind that reinforce negative and racist stereotypes, to the utter exclusion of accuracy and fair-mindedness.

Case in point, the constant repetition of the same five or six video loops of so-called looters. The fact that most of these were taking water, food and medicine didn't seem to matter to camerapersons or, ultimately, a viewing public quick to condemn what they saw. That the relative paucity of such video suggests theft wasn't particularly representative of the crowds on Canal Street -- after all, if looting had been that common, there would have been more than the same half-dozen clips to present -- also mattered not it appears.

An even better case in point, the repetition of unfounded rumors -- later proven false -- to the effect that Children's Hospital had been raided by drug addicts looking for a fix; or that gang rapes were occurring in the Superdome or Convention Center, or that babies were being molested and then having their throats slit, only to be stuffed like trash in abandoned freezers and garbage cans. False, false and false; and for none of these stories had there ever been a first hand witness who had actually seen any of the supposed carnage taking place.

Or consider the reports of thugs shooting on first aid helicopters: fact is, there are no first hand witnesses who claim they saw anyone shoot at the helicopters, as if hoping to bring them down or harm relief workers. Rather, those who were actually there, and saw the gunfire in question, report that it was intended to get the attention of the helicopters, which seemed to be repeatedly passing people by, looking at the catastrophic conditions, but refusing to land and save people in most instances. Perhaps those in the air didn't see those on the ground? Or perhaps they didn't understand the magnitude of the suffering below them? Either way, the gunfire was a desperate attempt to get people to take things seriously and do their jobs: perhaps not the best way to get attention, but hardly the act of mindless, violent thugs aiming indiscriminately at everyone in sight, as reports made it seem.

Yet the media, feeling no need to find witnesses or to verify claims of black deviance (because, after all, what's not to believe?) simply went along. The result? Rescue efforts were delayed because rescue workers had been scared for their lives by a press that led them to think New Orleans was a war zone; the Governor and Mayor actually told law enforcement to stop saving lives and start arresting and shooting lawbreakers on sight; and the public, which rarely needs reasons to think the worst of poor black people, found its stereotypes confirmed. Not only whites, it should be pointed out, but black folks too, like Mayor Nagin and his crony police chief Eddie Compass, both of whom apparently think so little of their own people that they too assumed the stories were true, in spite of no evidence, and repeated the charges on national TV.

Within just a few days, urban legends began zipping around the Internet, in the form of e-mails recounting utterly fabricated events, but all of them -- however false -- fit perfectly within the narrative developed by the media during the catastrophe.

First there was the one about the crack dealer who refused to be evacuated to a hospital because he wouldn't be able to sell his wares there; then there was the one about the thugs (black and poor of course) who destroyed a rest area on the Louisiana/Texas border, during a stop on the way to Houston, even urinating on the walls to show their disregard for civilized norms of behavior; then there was the one from the guy claiming to have volunteered at the Astrodome to feed and help evacuees, all to be shocked by how ungrateful they were--supposedly demanding beer, liquor, cigarettes and four-star restaurant meals. That hundreds of others refuted these nonsensical claims, and noted how unbelievably gracious the evacuees had been did nothing to damper the enthusiasm with which the lies were circulated.

And in each case, the authors of these fantasies made sure to throw in something about how racist the blacks were (calling white aid workers "crackers" and "honkies" of course), and ending with the admonition that those displaced by Katrina deserved no respect or assistance, seeing as how they were a bunch of spoiled brats who should be left to their own devices. In other words, no need to be compassionate, no need to contribute to relief funds, and certainly no need to challenge one's already negative views towards the kinds of people left behind in the flood. They had, ultimately, gotten what they deserved.

Though the mainstream media hadn't created these phony and vicious stories (and indeed, one has to wonder what kind of evil mind and heart would have done so), it is certainly true that they created the conditions that made such tripe believable to a lot of people. Had the media focused less on looters and supposed gang raping murderers, and more on the efforts by thousands to help one another in the midst of hellish conditions -- stories that are only trickling out in the corporate press, but which those who lived through them have been trying to get told via their own accounts from the flood zone -- it would have been impossible for such vile trash as this to have gained traction. But once the climate had been created and the frame set -- one that said, these are bad people, who do bad things -- it took no effort at all for racists to concoct lies and peddle those to a willing and gullible public that never seems to challenge stories of black perfidy, so easily do they fit within their pre-existing racist biases in the first place.

Which brings us to the other big lie told about the poor in New Orleans: one that has yet to be addressed in the media, despite how easily it can be disproved by a mere five minutes worth of research. It is one repeated daily for the past eight weeks by conservative talk show hosts and columnists, and one to which I am exposed many times a day in my email inbox, thanks to the efforts of right wing louts without the seeming desire to do their homework. Namely, it is the argument that the reason 130,000 poor black folks were unable to escape the flooding was because they had grown dependent on the government to save them, thanks to the "welfare state," and that was why they lacked the money and cars to get out before disaster struck.

In other words, liberal social policy had rendered the black poor unable or unwilling to work, content to collect a government check, and thus, had made them incapable of saving themselves. This lie -- and it is just that, not an exaggeration or simplification or overstatement, but a flat-out falsehood -- has been parroted by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Shawn Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame), not to mention such viciously self-loathing black conservatives as Star Parker, John McWhorter and the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, all despite the lack of evidence to sustain it, and the amazing amount of evidence, both contemporary and historical, to refute it.

But of course the media, having long ago decided not to challenge the mainstream public's view of folks on welfare -- and indeed to collaborate with the framing of such persons by politicians of both major parties -- has done nothing to set the record straight, suggesting either that they are incredibly inept at research, or just as incredibly craven in their attitudes towards the poorest of this nation's citizens.

But the facts, however unsettling they may be for conservative mythmakers, are clear.

To begin with, as of 2004, according to the Census Bureau, there were only 4600 households in all of New Orleans receiving cash welfare from the nation's principal aid program, TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, formerly Aid to Families With Dependent Children, or AFDC). That is not a misprint: 4600 out of a total of 130,000 households in the black community alone. Which means that even if every welfare receiving household in Orleans Parish had been black (which was not in fact the case), this would have represented only a little more than four percent of black households in the city.

According to the same Census data, the average household size in a welfare receiving family in New Orleans is the same as the citywide average for non-recipients: roughly 3.5 persons. So the number of individuals receiving welfare in New Orleans, by the time of Katrina would have been about 16,000.

Thus, even if we assume that all of the 130,000 persons left behind were poor, and that no persons receiving welfare managed to escape before the flooding with friends or family, this would mean that at most, perhaps twelve percent of the persons left behind (and whose faces we may have been seeing on national TV) would have been welfare recipients at all, let alone persons who had been rendered dependent on such benefits for long periods of time.

And speaking of dependence, or the notion that the city's welfare recipients had grown content to sit back and collect government checks instead of doing for self, this hardly seems likely when you consider that the average annual income received from TANF, for those small numbers actually getting any such benefits at all, was only a little more than $2,800 per year, in New Orleans prior to the catastrophe.

Indeed, such paltry amounts explain why most of the poor in New Orleans, far from being happy to receive so-called handouts, work whenever they can find steady employment, which admittedly, is not often the case.

For example, in the ninety-eight percent black and forty percent poor Lower Ninth Ward, one of the hardest hit communities (and one about which many negative things were said in terms of so-called welfare dependence), seventy-one percent of families prior to the flooding reported income from paid employment, while only eight percent received income from cash welfare. In other words, folks in this community were almost nine times more likely to earn their pay than to receive government benefits. Forty percent of workers from the community worked full-time, and the average commute time for Ninth Ward workers was over 45 minutes each day, suggesting that the work ethic was quite common to the folks who lived there, irrespective of commonly held and utterly false stereotypes.

Even food stamps -- a program with much more lenient terms and where even the near poor can often qualify for minimal benefits -- were only received by eleven percent of New Orleans households as of last year: hardly indicative of a general mindset of welfare entitlement. As for public housing, far from being the location of residence for most poor blacks in New Orleans -- let alone those in the streets in the wake of Katrina -- fewer than 20,000 people lived in such units at the time of the flooding: this representing no more than five percent of black New Orleanians. In the Lower Ninth Ward, for example, few lived in public housing and nearly six in ten families owned their own homes.

Even in the city's poorest communities, like the Iberville or Lafitte housing developments, or parts of Central City, at least a third, and often a majority of households report income from paid employment. What's more, tenants in the B.W. Cooper development have been managing their own housing for years, teaching job and leadership skills to the persons who live there.

Likewise, in the mid-90s, several public housing developments participated in a national Jobs Program, funded by the Annie B. Casey Foundation: a successful effort that matched low-income black residents with businesses looking for employees. In the former St. Thomas development -- the first public housing "project" funded by the federal government under the Roosevelt Administration -- residents had started their own coffee shop and bookstore, and had created innovative teen pregnancy prevention and safe sex initiatives.

When St. Thomas was torn down a few years ago, residents were told there would be mixed-use economic development in its place, and although they mourned for the loss of their neighborhood, many looked forward to participating actively in the economic lifeblood of the community. Then the city reneged on its promises and offered the land to Wal-Mart, which then placed a superstore on the property--the very store whose gun supply was looted during the flooding (an ironic turn of events if ever there was one). Poor folks wanted economic opportunity and jobs; the city's elite (black and white alike) gave them a gun supply shop.

Bottom line: the stereotype of poor blacks in New Orleans (and elsewhere) as lazy and dependent on government is false. In Louisiana, it should be noted that only a very small share of those receiving TANF benefits, and AFDC before that, are able-bodied adults. Indeed, even prior to welfare reform, only eleven percent of those receiving AFDC in the state were able-bodied adults who did no work: the rest were vulnerable children, the elderly, the disabled, or adults who were already working (mostly part-time), but earned too little to come off assistance.

It should also be noted that even when persons do receive so-called welfare, there is still a predicate to doing so: one that is rarely explored, but is simply assumed to be personal incompetence, bad choice-making, laziness or other personal pathologies. So, for example, we are to believe that for those who live in public housing, it was their own lack of initiative or willingness to take personal responsibility for their lives that rendered them so vulnerable to the likes of Hurricane Katrina and the collapse of the city's levees.

Yet what this commonly-repeated claim ignores is what came before folks ended up in public housing, in overcrowded communities, with concentrated levels of extreme poverty; and what came before had nothing to do with the welfare state, or liberal social policy more generally. Rather, what happened was the deliberate and calculated destruction of the inner-city in the name of economic "development" (which benefited only the elite) and to meet the needs of middle-class and above whites.

So, for example, consider the Treme (pronounced truh-may): the oldest free black neighborhood in the United States, home to Congo Square and Louis Armstrong Park. Located on the outer edge of the French Quarter and Central Business District, the Treme is more than ninety percent black and over half of its residents are poor, when you include those in the Iberville and Lafitte housing developments. Though it had long been a lower-income community, with the attendant issues that often emerge in such spaces, the Treme had also been, for the most part, functional. It was the site of dozens of successful black-owned businesses, and hundreds of stable middle-class families, where few lived in the so-called projects. The same was true for the 7th Ward: the base of the city's old-line Creole community.

But beginning in the early 1960s, the city of New Orleans, as with every major city in the United States, began taking federal funds to extend interstate highways through their urban centers, which meant the heart of those places black communities. In New Orleans, plans to extend the interstate through the French Quarter met with stiff opposition from affluent (and mostly white) historic preservationists and business owners. Once their political clout was deployed so as to block construction through the main tourist artery, planners opted to take the I-10 through the Treme and 7th Ward, whose lower income and black residents lacked the power to stop their property from being destroyed in the name of progress.

It was a story repeated throughout the U.S. during this time: by the mid-1960s, interstate construction in urban areas was destroying roughly 37,000 residences annually; this, in addition to the 40,000 more that were being torn down each year in the name of "urban renewal," which translated into the building of shopping malls, office parks and parking lots. By 1969, nearly 70,000 homes, mostly occupied by blacks and Latinos, were being destroyed for the interstate program alone, in virtually every medium and large city in the country.

Although some had argued for financial assistance to help relocate the low-income families displaced by this process, rarely did such help materialize. Indeed, less than ten percent of those displaced by urban renewal had new single-resident occupancy housing to go to afterward: instead, they had to double up with relatives in small, crowded apartments, or move into public housing projects, which became something akin to concentration camps for the poorest and most vulnerable citizens of the nation.

These policies, known euphemistically as "slum clearance" by those who implemented and supported them, actually created slums, in places where previously had been low-income, but largely working class and stable communities. In New Orleans, this also extended to the Central Business District, including the very land where the now infamous Superdome sits.

Beginning in 1971, construction began on the facility, on which ground had previously existed yet another mostly black and largely low-income and working class neighborhood. But in a contest between the needs and lives of those New Orleanians on the one hand, and the mere wants of wealthy developers, concert promoters, the New Orleans Saints and Tulane University boosters on the other (the latter of which wanted to move their pathetic team's games there, away from the old and decrepit Sugar Bowl), which side can we guess, ultimately prevailed? And so the Dome was completed, in 1975, at a public cost of tens of millions of dollars, and the loss of yet another patch of homesteads for the city's black majority.

All of this "slum clearance," it should be noted, was done for the benefit of whites, and not only the rich developers. Indeed, the primary reason for the interstate highway program was to help facilitate daily movement from the cities where most people still worked, to the suburbs, where large numbers were beginning to live. But of course, it was only whites who could live there in most cases. Blacks were still subject to regular discrimination in housing (indeed, most types of housing bias weren't even illegal until 1968), and had been largely unable to take advantage of the government's FHA and VA home loans for the first 30 years of their existence, thanks to racially discriminatory lending criteria built into this government program.

So while nearly 40 percent of white mortgages were being written on the extremely favorable FHA and VA terms by the early 1960s, (making home ownership possible for some 15-20 million white families who wouldn't have otherwise been able to own their own place), virtually no blacks had access to this form of economic opportunity. To then tear down black neighborhoods so as to build highways that would help whites get to their new and growing communities (like Bill O'Reilly's boyhood Levittown), was an especially pernicious and racist combination of anti-black neglect and white racial preference.

Beyond housing issues, even regular "welfare" receipt is something predicated on history: specifically the history of low-wage employment and inadequate job opportunities, particularly in urban centers. One study from Harlem in the 1990s, found that for every job opening in the area, there were as many as fourteen people looking for work. Nationally, data has long suggested that there are between 7-10 people out of work at any given time, for every above-poverty wage job opening. In other words, there is not enough opportunity in the modern American economy, irrespective of the claims made by conservatives and believed by millions.

In fact, it has long been the official monetary policy of the United States, under the leadership of the Federal Reserve, to raise interest rates whenever unemployment drops "too low," and suddenly the nation is faced with having too many people working. The fear is that too many people working will tighten the labor market, thereby pushing up wages, and then causing a spike in prices, to the detriment of economic well being. By raising the cost of borrowing money, the Fed hopes to cool off business expansion (and thus any attendant and related hiring sprees), and thereby, hold inflation in check.

Putting aside the validity (or lack thereof) of this particular theory, the result of such thinking should be obvious, especially when it is regularly employed to maintain unemployment at around four percent by raising interest rates whenever joblessness drops below that level: namely, it means that millions of people will be out of work at any given time, not because they are lazy, and certainly not because government handouts appear so luxurious to them; but rather, because it is desired by the government and the nation's economic policymakers that they be out of work.

Indeed, since the official unemployment rate fails to count all who are jobless, such as those who have grown so discouraged by their prospects that they've simply stopped looking (or those who are near jobless, able to pull down only a few hours of work each week, but who are still considered fully employed for the sake of the data), administering monetary policy this way results in as many as 10-12 million people being out of work or seriously underemployed at any given time. They and their dependents will then be (surprise, surprise) poor, and require some type of assistance so as to survive. None of this is a reflection on the values of the poor themselves, though it speaks volumes about the values of the rich who have supported this kind of policy for decades.

But of course, in a media culture incapable of looking deeper than the next 30-second, 100-word soundbite, none of this matters. Indeed, most reporters, news anchors, or journalists of any stripe would be unlikely to even know any of this in the first place. All that matters is the here and now: no need for context, background, or history. And so they give us poor people, stealing from stores, carless, penniless and homeless: how they became poor and why they stayed that way doesn't matter, apparently. And by remaining silent on that issue, the mainstream press leaves venal ideologues to fill in the blanks, for an eager public all too willing to believe the worst about people who, for the most part, none of them have ever met.

Thus do we repeatedly plant the seeds for each new round of victim blaming, poor-folks bashing and racism, all the while thinking that just because Anderson Cooper cried on camera and Fox momentarily turned on Bush (but only for a nanosecond), the Earth's center of gravity moved.

In fact, just as with the aftermath of 9/11, and quite contrary to conventional wisdom, nothing at all has changed.

Tim Wise is the author of two new books: White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (Soft Skull Press, 2005), and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge: 2005). He can be reached at: timjwise@msn.com

Reprinted with permission from:
http://counterpunch.org/wise10292005.html

October 30, 2005 News
Posted: Sunday, October 30, 2005

¤ Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media
¤ Demand for grave diggers and coffins soars in Baghdad
¤ An ugly turn toward torture
¤ US to attack Syria
¤ Hey NY Times: Go to Hell You Criminal Bastards!
¤ Karl Rove: Last-Minute Evidence
¤ The Threats Against Iraq and Syria and the Option of Resistance
¤ Bush's Crimes and Wounds, Deeper Than He or Neo-Cons Want to Admit
¤ Voices from the grave The world's new Halloween reality
¤ As Scooter Fades, Syria takes Front and Center
¤ Bay SOS 'was written in blood'
¤ BBC News: Lancet Report too old to mention!!!
¤ Dirty Tricks With Money
¤ Brother of Iraq Vice President Killed
¤ 'Our 27 months of hell'
¤ The White House Criminal Conspiracy
¤ Aziz denies naming British MP in oil probe
¤ Strong hurricane pounds Nicaragua
¤ US pounds Iraqi border area
¤ Berlusconi warned Bush against war
¤ 26 die in Iraq bomb blast
¤ Bush turns to Iraq to deflect critics
¤ British soldier killed as Afghan tensions rise
¤ Politics of the ghetto
¤ State of emergency declared as Diwali bombs rock Delhi
¤ Syria accuses US of launching lethal raids over its borders
¤ Some Experts Scoff at Terror WMD Threat
¤ White House Ethics, Honesty Questioned
¤ Groups to Rally Against Bush in Argentina
¤ Iraq car bomb kills at least 30

Seeds of Leak Scandal Sown in Italian Intelligence Agency
Posted: Sunday, October 30, 2005

While American public attention focuses on special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak, U.S. and Italian lawmakers are probing a series of bogus claims of Iraqi uranium purchases in Africa that were the opening chapters in a saga that resulted in the disclosure of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

In the past week, the respected, left-of-center Italian daily La Repubblica published a three-part series of investigative articles claiming that documents purporting to prove that Saddam Hussein was seeking yellowcake uranium in Niger had been forged by an Italian freelance spy and then were fed by the Italian intelligence agency to eager officials in Washington and London.

Full Article : commondreams.org

October 29, 2005 News
Posted: Saturday, October 29, 2005

¤ Iraq car bomb kills 25 northeast of Baghdad
¤ 3 New Delhi Explosions Kill at Least 58
¤ A Formidable Hawk Goes Down
¤ Bush's Imploding Presidency
¤ The 2,000 Dead Aren't The Only Victims
¤ Indicting America
¤ A Halloween Greeting
¤ Tongue-Tied on Iraq
¤ The Origins of Hostility
¤ The Fifth Afghan War
¤ Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words
¤ Train Derails in India; at Least 100 Dead
¤ Assassinations in Lebanon, and the Mosul-Haifa Oil Pipeline
¤ Pentagon Plans Iran Attack Over Oil Euro Marker By Christmas 2005
¤ The War Crimes Act of 1996
¤ Government for and by the dead
¤ Weaving New Alliances with Cultural Threads
¤ Canada's Crimes Against Haiti
¤ Endless sunset
¤ EXAMPLES OF HATE SPEECH
¤ Apostles of Perpetual Psychosis
¤ Storm Beta Upgraded Into a Hurricane
¤ Speeches to the converted
¤ Toll rises in Indian train derailment
¤ Israeli jets bombard Gaza
¤ Israel fires missiles at Gaza camp; 7 killed
¤ Transcript: Iran President's speech
¤ Iran slams UN
¤ UN's Mehlis report discredited
¤ Amin the ‘ape,’ people-eating blacks: Richard Nixon
¤ Oil-for-food documents falsified’
¤ New Orleans Police Fire 51 for Desertion
¤ Indictment Adds to White House Woes
¤ U.S. lost, Iran won after Ahmadinejad’s speech
¤ What Patrick Fitzgerald didn't say and the Media didn't ask
¤ Malevolent Hegemony
¤ 'You Do the Dying, We'll Do the Talking'
¤ The Whack Job on Harriet Miers
¤ Cuba Accepts U.S. Aid Offer for First Time
¥ The US Lie
¤ Castro denies accepting U.S. aid
¤ U.S. and Key Allies Facilitated Profiteering in Oil For Food Program
¤ Smoking Guns and Red Herrings
¤ Forging the Case for War

Transcript: Iran President's speech threatening Israel
Posted: Saturday, October 29, 2005

Tehran, Iran, Oct. 28 – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a keynote speech on Wednesday at the gathering of 4,000 students organised by the Association of Islamic Students Societies. The text follows:

I am grateful to God for giving me the great pleasure of speaking at this very important gathering. I thank God for seeing the pious faces of you, the valiant, aware, God-fearing and selfless children of the revolution, who understand with vigilance and intelligence the most important issues of our times and are active with great zest and in a decisive way in the most central issues of the Islamic world. I thank God for the presence of you dear young people.

The real question is what is Zionism? No doubt there have been many discussions in this conference on this issue and you have made studies in this regard, and you may know what I want to emphasize, but it is something worth mentioning.

Full Article : africaspeaks.com

EXAMPLES OF HATE SPEECH

October 28, 2005 News
Posted: Friday, October 28, 2005

¤ Israel fires missiles into Gaza Strip
¤ 'Bushzilla vs. reality (again)'
¤ Bush calls Iran and Syria 'outlaw regimes'
Flashback ¤ Israel: Sharon stirs up conflict with Syria and Iran
Flashback ¤ US Assures Israel That Syria And Iran Are Next
¤ 'Future perfect'
¤ At the White House, the Spin Doctor Is Ill
¤ Is the US Really Against Torture?
¤ Embracing the Anti-Apartheid Struggle in Israel/Palestine
¤ Suddenly, Bush Embraces Right of Fair Trials
¤ More than 1 million Iranians rally against Israel
¤ Iran: Why all the commotion now?
¤ Several US soldiers killed in Iraq
¤ Iranians hold anti-Israel street protests
¤ Seven Palestinians killed by Israel
¤ Culture of Collusion
¤ Treasonous liars and warmongering murderers
¤ Rove, Libby Prepare for Possible Indictments
¤ Condi's True Confessions
¤ The Death of an Iraqi Prisoner
¤ Vice President Cheney is the Man Who Unleashed Torture
¤ Frameshop: "Surprise!" The Distractions Begin
¤ Another document, dripping with blood, surfaces in House of Death case
¤ The Democrats Blow It On Iraq… Again!
¤ how many more milestones will Americans tolerate?
¤ Things Related (& Not)
¤ We Have Been Warned
¤ Russians carry out genocide of the newly born Chechen children
¤ U.S./Israeli Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds

October 27, 2005 News
Posted: Thursday, October 27, 2005

¤ 19 killed in Sunni-Shiite clashes in Iraq
¤ Bush's October Surprise
¤ More fake war propaganda
¤ The Scandal isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War
¤ Bono and Geldoff: "We Saved Africa!" Oh No, They Didn't!
¤ In India, Bill Gates Does Well By Doing "Good"
¤ White House in Meltdown
¤ They Profit While the Hungry Die
¤ The Battle for New Orleans
¤ "Peak oil" determined to strike inside U.S.:
¤ I call 'regime change' on you
¤ Bird Flu Epidemic is a Hoax
¤ Rumsfeld To Profit From Bird Flu Hoax
¤ Harriet Miers Withdraws Nomination
¤ 'What now?'
¤ 'You're screwed'
¤ Mr. "Bring 'em on"
¤ Israeli Missile Kills Seven Palestinians
¤ Beta Threatens Colombian Islands
¤ Car bombs kill 15 near Baghdad hotels
¤ The Epic Crime That Dares Not Speak Its Name
¤ The Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions
¤ Where is the Grand Inquisitor When You Need Him?
¤ New Iraq bomb attacks kill four
¤ Fabricated Links?
¤ West draining doctors from poor nations
¤ Bush at bay
¤ Amsterdam fire kills 11
¤ Counting the cost
¤ Tropical Storm Beta Forms in Caribbean Sea
¤ White House awaits Plame fallout
¤ Making up history
¤ Yellowcake Dossier Not the Work of the CIA
¤ Israel still in control of Gaza, says envoy
¤ ‘French troops used excessive force in Ivory Coast’
¤ The strange saga of Cheney and the "nuclear threat"
¤ Hariri assassination coverage gives readers the hole story
¤ Iran-Contra II?
¤ Italian Faces Pre-War Intelligence Probe
¤ Saddam team wants to 'try' Bush
¤ The real price of gold
¤ Maureen Dowd: Heart of Darkness

Cheney told Libby of Plame's identity, notes show
Posted: Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 — I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby’s testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson’s husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration’s handling of intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear program to justify the war.

Lawyers said the notes show that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.

Mr. Libby’s notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson. But they contain no suggestion that either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby knew at the time of Ms. Wilson’s undercover status or that her identity was classified. Disclosing a covert agent’s identity can be a crime, but only if the person who discloses it knows the agent’s undercover status.

Full Article : nytimes.com

October 26, 2005 News
Posted: Wednesday, October 26, 2005

¤ Education Apartheid Lives On
¤ 100,000s Pay for the Imperial Ambitions of a Few
¤ America's Iron Click
¤ We Burn Corpses, Don't We?
¤ Iraq Approves Constitution, Despite Sunnis
¤ Plamegate: Worse than Watergate
¤ TV Images Don't Bring Change
¤ How Ruling Powers Distort Morality
¤ Global Warming Strengthens Hurricanes
¤ Russia says will defend Syria against UN sanctions
¤ Russia is ready to expand cooperation with Iran
¤ Bush Tries to Revive Support for Iraq War
¤ License to Abuse Would Put CIA Above the Law
¤ America, the land of the free- minus the free
¤ 'Harassed' BBC shuts Uzbek office
¤ Follow the drugs: US shown the way
¤ Facing the music in the US
¤ A Fake End to Fake News
¤ Bush Administration's Torture Gangs Still Operational
¤ Dozens of Abu Ghraibs?
¤ Demand The Truth Flash
¤ Iraqi constitution yes vote approved by UN Cartoon
¤ Syria in the Imperialist Crosshairs
¤ Assassinations in Lebanon; Pipelines in Haifa
¤ Syria Old whine, new bottle
¤ Elections in Haiti: Papering Over an Illegal Situation
¤ Africa takes aim at 'canned hunting'
¤ Spotlight on Cheney in intelligence leak row
¤ Cheney, September 14th, 2003
¤ Taking a stand by sitting down
¤ Six dead and millions without power in Florida
¤ Missionaries in Venezuela Reassigned
¤ Galloway challenges senators to press charges
¤ Wal-Mart: Boost Minimum Wage
¤ Wal-Mart memo proposes employee cost cuts
¤ What Rice Can't See
¤ Australian terror laws spark uproar
¤ Iraq vote was a fraud (video)
¤ OPEC AND THE ECONOMIC CONQUEST OF IRAQ
¤ Who Are We to Pick Syria's President?
¤ Bush’s Foreign-Aid Fraud
¤ Pulling the court strings: The Saddam trial
¤ We, the People vs. Zionism
¤ Why we rely too much on the military
¤ 2,000 Dead in Iraq 'Not a Milestone'
¤ Rising Civilian Toll Is the Iraq War's Silent, Sinister Pulse

October 25, 2005 News
Posted: Tuesday, October 25, 2005

¤ Tanzania won’t condemn Zimbabwe, says Mkapa
¤ U.S. Military Deaths Reach 2,000 in Iraq
¤ Iraqi Death Toll Way Higher Than U.S.
¤ Iraqi Civilians death Maximum 30051
¤ Cast of Characters Grows in CIA Leak Drama
¤ Haiti Turning into Canada's Iraq
¤ Condi Rice and Syrian Regime Change
¤ Iran, India and the US
¤ Targeting Central Baghdad
¤ The Limits of Bush's Mind
¤ The 4 Billion Year Crime
¤ Rumsfeld To Profit From Bird Flu Hoax
¤ Don't Rule Out Staged Government Terror
¤ Syria is being Set Up to Fail
¤ Still Think Bush Is Doing a Great Job?
¤ 'Syria: The next Iraq'
¤ Open up to us, US urges China
¤ Wilma Helps Stoke Powerful Nor'easter
¤ VeriSign Settles with ICANN
¤ 20 killed by three explosions at Baghdad hotels
¤ Civil rights champion Rosa Parks dies
¤ Wilma unleashes its full wrath on Florida
¤ Exception Sought in Detainee Abuse Ban
¤ 21 homicides among deaths of U.S. prisoners overseas
¤ Fixing and Forging
¤ The Blair Leading the Blind in Iraq
¤ Total Disconnect On Iraq Realities
¤ Why We Did It, What To Do Now, and What Happens Next
¤ The Anti-Syria Scam
¤ Critics on Iraq Policy Come Out of the Woodwork Too Late
¤ Suicide Car Bombings Kill 9 in Iraq
¤ UK lawmaker rejects new US accusations over Iraq
¤ The chief scientific adviser has become a government spin doctor
¤ Afghan civilians die as US convoy hit

October 24, 2005 News
Posted: Monday, October 24, 2005

¤ Shades of Iran/Contra
¤ Thousands protest U.N. Hariri report, rally for Syria
¤ France says too early for sanctions against Syria
¤ Wilma pummels Florida, kills four, millions in dark
¤ The ball is now in Syria's court
¤ 'The scariest Halloween costume'
¤ 'Background noise and fried Rice'
¤ Second-Term Slide
¤ 3 huge bombs blow up near Baghdad hotel
¤ When the votes don't add up
¤ Who decides what is hate and what isn't?
¤ The United States Of America Has Gone Mad
¤ Election officials pore over Iraq vote in crucial province
¤ Baghdad hotel struck by enormous car bombs
¤ The ILEA: A New School of Assassins?
¤ Bush's Lies are Coming Home to Roost
¤ Is Anyone Responsible for Iraq's Disaster?
¤ Weaponsgate is a Media Scandal
¤ US Foreign Policy and Palestine
¤ The Weapons of Misperceptions
¤ The Troops Don’t Defend Our Freedoms
¤ Voting in Afghanistan; warlords, jihadis, and Iranian-agents
¤ Haiti, Imperialism, and the Treachery of Liberals
¤ It’s not always what people say, it’s who says it
¤ The matrix: SUDAN
¤ Genocide: Rwanda maintains pessimism about UN
¤ George Bush’s Propaganda Exposed
¤ Brazil Makes History in Vote to Ban Sale of Guns
¤ How tension in a Birmingham suburb erupted
¤ Carry on excluding
¤ Global Warming a Major Threat to Africa
¤ Wilma bears down on Florida
¤ Wilma Churns Massive Waves Into Cuba
¤ Syrians protest against Mehlis report
¤ Scores killed in Iraq violence
¤ Salivate, Citizen
¤ Iraq Insurgency Shows No Signs of Abating
¤ Memo to Bill Keller: The War in Iraq is NOT a "Loose End"
¤ Disinformation in the Terror War
¤ Media, Democrats Complicit in Rush to War
¤ 18 climbers feared dead after avalanche in Nepal
¤ Syria faces more pressure over Hariri killing

Brazil Makes History in Vote to Ban Sale of Guns
Posted: Sunday, October 23, 2005

MORE than 122 million Brazilians will make history today by voting in the world's first national referendum on the sale of guns, in a race that now seems certain to be won by a hair's breadth.

The vote will be on one simple question in the compulsory electronic poll - should the sale of firearms and ammunition be banned in Brazil?

In a country where one person dies from a gunshot wound every 15 minutes, supporters of the "Yes" campaign claim the ban could save thousands of lives every year.

Yet the "No" campaign is vehemently opposed, claiming prohibition is an infringement of civil liberties. All week it has been running hard- hitting publicity campaigns championing the "rights" of ordinary Brazilians to defend themselves.

Full Article : commondreams.org

October 23, 2005 News
Posted: Sunday, October 23, 2005

¤ The ploy of the Iraqi referendum
¤ Four U.S. Contractors Killed in Iraq
¤ Grieving Iraq family sees no end to “rivers of blood”
¤ 20 Iraqis Killed Sunday
¤ Colonel quits as fears grow for the safety of his men
¤ 'Cash for peerages' row as Blair honours top donors
¤ Europe is hanging by a thread
¤ Britons promised rapid disaster aid
¤ All 117 Feared Dead in Nigeria Plane Crash
¤ Editor opens rift over CIA 'leak'
¤ After pummeling Mexico, Hurricane Wilma barrels toward Florida
¤ Looting Breaks Out in Wilma's Wake
¤ US, UK urge world to act on Syria
¥ War War War
¤ Life on political skidrow
¤ 'God, Iraq and the power of the President's PR'
¤ 'Saddam trial won't hide Bush's historic mistakes'
¤ 'America's torrid love affair with executions'
¤ 'We have proof UK bombed us'
¤ Americans must start protesting the Bush regime's international terrorism
¤ U.S. starts retreating from lofty Iraq goals
¤ Imposing «Imperial Democracy»
¤ Basra incident exposes the real foreign terrorists
¤ Iraqi bar association urges boycott of Saddam court
¤ British military investigator found hung in Basra
¤ Will the French Indict Cheney?

October 22, 2005 News
Posted: Saturday, October 22, 2005

¤ Death Up; Taxes Down
¤ Pyrrhus Without His Victory?
¤ Murder of Defense Lawyer Puts Saddam's Trial at Risks
¤ Disasters Are Us
¤ "No Parent Would Want Their Child Over There"
¤ Blix Says US Misled Itself, The World on Iraq
¤ Bird Flu Brings Out Double Standards on Drug Patents
¤ Record-breaking Tropical Storm Alpha in Caribbean
¤ 'A foreign policy of free-floating belligerence'
¤ Hurricane Wilma Kills at Least 7 in Mexico
¤ Israel kills two Palestinians in West Bank
¤ Nigerian plane carrying 116 crashes
¤ 8 Police, 4 Taliban Killed in Afghanistan
¤ Wilma begins slow journey across Mexico
¤ Karzai tries to play down burning of Taliban bodies
¤ U.S. death toll in Iraq nears 2,000
¤ Iraqi Deaths Reported: Minimum 26661 - Maximum 30018
¤ US troops fighting losing battle for Sunni triangle
¤ Stifling Neo-Crazy Media Sycophants
¤ Karen Hughes' Magical Misery Tour
¤ Israeli leaders call for regime change in Syria after assassination report
¥ The excuse to do what they have planned for a long time

Flashback 2003 ¤ US Assures Israel That Syria And Iran Are Next
Flashback ¤ Israel instructs America to attack Iran and Syria
Flashback ¤ Bush's next move: Syria

¤ Iraq Is Bush's Tar Baby
¤ Facing a Nameless War
¤ France Orders Positive Spin on Colonialism
¤ US blocks Israeli arms sale to Venezuela

October 21, 2005 News
Posted: Friday, October 21, 2005

¤ Serious Lapses Taint Probes of Detainee Deaths
¤ Media at a Huge Crossroads, 25 Years After Reagan's Triumph
¤ USA desperate to shift blame for Iraqi mess on Syria and Iran
¤ Israel 'still expanding West Bank settlements'
¤ Former FEMA official charged with taking kickbacks in Miami-Dade
¤ 'Death watch at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue'
¤ 'Flop sweat'
¤ Syria blasts 'biased' report
¤ Bush: World Must Hold Syria Accountable
¤ Terror alerts conveniently timed
¤ Rice fails to win Russia's support to make Iran return to talks
¤ Leading Historian Says U.S. ‘Empire’ To Fail
¤ Six dead Iraqis found south of Baghdad
¤ Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein
¤ Props and Puppets
¤ Trial of Saddam diverts attention from US-UK war crimes
¤ Atrocities committed under US Command
¤ TV documentary shows soldiers burning Taliban corpses
¤ Taliban corpses «used» for propaganda
¤ Wilma Heads Toward Mexican Resort Area
¤ Amazon rainforest vanishing at twice rate of previous estimates
¤ Former Powell aide attacks 'cowboy' Bush
¤ MP killed after being seized by prisoners
¤ Evidence about Cheney's chief of staff weakens White House's argument
¤ When White House spin spins out of control
¤ Bush says focused on job not 'background noise'
¤ Syria, Another Scapegoat?
¤ Syria Involved in Killing Lebanon's Ex-Premier, U.N. Report Says
¤ Uzbekistan objects to UN investigating Andizhan events
¤ U.S. presses Israel to halt Venezuelan plane upgrade
¤ Subway threat shows feds not on right track
¤ Does democracy lead to the end of terrorism?
¤ Invading Iran: Who Is to Stop Them?
¤ Saddam Trial Defense Lawyer Found Dead
¤ Syria rejects UN report
¤ Aid worker dies in Afghan attacks

October 20, 2005 News
Posted: Thursday, October 20, 2005

¤ Chickens Come Home to Roost on Cheney
¤ Attack Syria? Invade Iran?
¤ Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed?
¤ Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture
¤ Grandmas Knew Iraq Score Early
¤ .6 Trillion Missing from Pentagon prior to 9/11
¤ Operation Desert Fraud
¤ KIDNAPPED IN BAGHDAD
¤ American government told other governments about Afghan invasion IN JUNE!
¤ Israel's Secret Hand in Iraq Inspections
¤ Dick Cheney - The “Ground Zero of Corruption”
¤ Why torture is OK
¤ If Iraq is a democracy, why can't it vote to kick the U.S. out?
¤ Chavez: US may invade Venezuela
¤ Afghans Outraged Over Alleged Desecration
¤ US policy and the 'Oval Office cabal'
¤ Virginia oil firm admits kickbacks to Iraq
¤ Saddam trial: whose 'demons' are they anyway?
¤ Chavez Promotes Venezuelan Cooperation with Europe
¤ Al-Qaeda’s Barber of Baghdad
¤ The Fix Is In
¤ Mouse journalism’ is the only way we can report on Iraq
¤ The Scandalous History of the Red Cross
¤ The Messiah of the 21st Century
¤ Florida evacuated again as most intense Atlantic storm heads north
¤ Israel accused of 'road apartheid' in West Bank
¤ Pakistan earthquake toll reaches 79,000
¤ Spain orders arrest of US soldiers over death
¤ Abuse by UN troops still widespread, says report
¤ Wilma Lashes Caribbean Coastlines
¤ UN chief warns of new 'massive wave of death' in Pakistan
¤ Wilma: US and Cuba prepare for worst-ever storm
¤ Saddam: 'I do not respond to this so-called court'
¤ Secrets, Evasions and Classified Reports
¤ It's the Nukes, Stupid
¤ Orange revolution oligarchs reveal their true colours
¤ Expanding Iraq War into Syria is lunacy
¤ The Iraq war is really about money in the bank for Bush’s cronies
¤ As the casualty count rises, an `Iraq syndrome' emerges
¤ Cast fails to show for show trial
¤ Terrorist letter's validity doubted
¤ Central Iraq Oil Pipeline Ablaze After Bomb Attack-Police
¤ Sunni-led insurgents kill 26 Iraqis
¤ Afghan official shot dead in mosque

Chavez in Italy
Posted: Thursday, October 20, 2005

Chavez Promotes Venezuelan Cooperation with Europe and Opposition to US in Italy

Following his visit to Spain, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez flew to Italy on Sunday, where he blasted the U.S. government's role in increasing world hunger at the 60th anniversary of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), had meetings with Italy's Prime Minister, and spoke at a conference on Latin America.

The first activity upon Chavez's arrival in Italy was to visit Monte Sacro, near Rome, where Latin America's independence hero made a legendary oath 200 years earlier, in 1805, to fight for the independence of Latin America. Monte Sacro has been a symbol for the struggle against repression ever since the 5th Century BC. Echoing Bolivar's pledge of the time, Chavez said on the mount that Venezuelans, "should not rest their arms nor their souls until we have broken the chains that oppress our people due to the will of the North-American Empire."
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

October 19, 2005 News
Posted: Wednesday, October 19, 2005

¤ Iraq Still Trembles
¤ War and Intelligence
¤ "None of Us Have the Right to Avert Our Gaze"
¤ Fixing the U.S. by Making the Chinese Into Debtors
¤ Not Only Did Bush Know - But He Lied About It To The Press
¤ US readies to challenge Syria
¤ Bill Gates dumps dollar for euro
¤ Niger Uranium Forgery Mystery Solved?
¤ Why facade democracy will never work in Muslim countries
¤ Dan Simpson: Invade Syria? Insane
¤ The Illusion of Normality
¤ Wilma Lashes Caribbean Coastlines; 13 Die
¤ Israel plans W Bank 'apartheid' roads
¤ Israel's nuclear Arsenal threats stability
¤ Central Iraq Oil Pipeline Ablaze After Bomb Attack-Police
¤ The occupiers' trial
¤ Psych War in Afghanistan
¤ Fleeing Palestine: My right to return
¤ Mali President Appreciates Cubans in Africa
¤ Globalisation 'exploits' Africa
¤ Human genetic diversity supports 'Out of Africa' model
¤ Rumsfeld questions China's openness
¤ Judge attacks 'fairy tale' over Iraq war
¤ Iran might cut ties with UK
¤ Beginner's Guide To American Politics
¤ Israel Maintains Option To Strike Iran Nukes
¤ Bush Seeks to Alter Global Nuclear Pact
¤ War in Iraq putting off recruits, says army
¤ What happened next?
¤ Wilma swells into Category 5 hurricane
¤ A crusade in support of a flawed crusader
¤ The ¨Dark¨ Soul of a White System
¤ Trial of the century? Not for Iraqis
¤ Haiti, Imperialsim, and the Treachery of Liberals
¤ Cubans: Neither US Neo-Colony or Present Iraq
¤ Message To Humans With Rights

October 18, 2005 News
Posted: Tuesday, October 18, 2005

¤ Merle Haggard: "Let's Get Out of Iraq"
¤ On the Eve of Saddam's Trial
¤ The Sorrows of Haiti
¤ The Iraq Constitution: And They Call This Victory
¤ Moral Hysteria and the Persecution of Difference
¤ 40 Years of Living Dangerously
¤ New York Times' Misguided Crusade
¤ The Tarnish of Torture
¤ OUR SOLDIERS JUST PROPS FOR BUSH
¤ Fake letter, real trouble?
¤ Fake Al Qaeda
¤ Does Al Qaeda exist?
¤ Curious numbers in Ninevah
¤ BUSH FAMILY FINANCED BY FOREIGN $$$
¤ Are we going to war with Iran?
¤ Falsified Bush Biography Found on State Department Website
¤ Iran says arrested British agent for twin bombings
¤ Surrender is not an Option
¤ Israel redraws the roadmap, building quietly and quickly
¤ “Elections” and other Deceptions in Iraq
¤ Bill O'Reilly's Racist Distortion of History
¤ Mbeki says SA was prepared to bail out Zimbabwe
¤ Cuba Denounces US Plans of Annexation
¤ President Mugabe blasts US, Britain
¤ Are British troops at breaking point in Iraq?
¤ WHO warns against ‘scare mongering’
¤ ‘Hunger is top WMD’
¤ Every Washington scam has its memory lapses
¤ On the precipice in Iraq
¤ Earthquake aftermath: continuing disaster
¤ Iraq: The Trail of Disinformation
¤ Wrong diagnosis – wrong treatment
¤ FSB launches a SPAM-war against Kavkaz Center
¤ The price of cheap beef
¤ Gephardt on Iraq: "I was wrong"
¤ Miers and Roberts: "CEO's Dream Team"
¤ Sex, Envy, Proximity
¤ Memos Show FEMA's Internal Chaos
¤ Cheney's Office Is A Focus in Leak Case
¤ Officials unaware of reporter's special status
¤ A Peaceful Kick to the Groin
¤ Unfit to Print
¤ Mugabe uses UN forum to compare Blair to Mussolini
¤ Spike Lee to blame US government in new Katrina film
¤ Iraqis Say Civilians Killed in U.S. Raids
¤ Kashmir minister killed in his home
¤ An American journey

President Mugabe blasts US, Britain
Posted: Tuesday, October 18, 2005

From Innocent Gore in ROME, Italy

IN a stirring speech which laid bare the open and underhand destabilisation manoeuvres of the United States and Britain, President Mugabe yesterday strongly denounced the two countries for continuously meddling in the internal affairs of developing countries.

This came in the wake of a statement by the US Ambassador to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Mr Tony Hall, who had criticised the United Nations food agency for inviting the President to the organisation’s 60th anniversary commemorations.

Mr Hall was quoted in a number of newspapers here and on the Internet as saying the US was amazed that Cde Mugabe had been invited to speak at the FAO anniversary and that the President had "done so much to hurt the hungry" and had "absolutely turned his back on the poor".

Departing from his prepared speech, President Mugabe said Zimbabwe is a UN member and the world body’s agencies such as FAO and is not an extension of the US.

"Again we have a situation where some countries like the US and Britain have taken it upon themselves to decide and even interfere in our domestic affairs and want to bring about what they call regime change. Where is their morality? Where are their principles? Democracy bids that any political change in any country is the right of the people of that particular country and not the right of a foreign country.

"My people have the right under our Constitution, which is a democratic constitution, to decide who shall govern and who shall not and which party they prefer. We have a multi-party system, but if the US is going to say ‘I am big and stand for all humanity’ and the voice of Mr Bush and Mr Blair can decide who shall rule in Zimbabwe, who shall rule in Venezuela, who shall rule in Iraq, who shall rule in Iran, what world are we living in?"

To applause from the audience, Cde Mugabe asked whether the world should allow Mr Bush and Mr Blair to do the same as what fascist rulers Adolf Hitler of German and Benito Mussolini of Italy — who provoked the 1939-45 Second World War by initially attacking small states in defiance of the League of Nations, the predecessor of the UN — had done and attack an innocent country like Iraq after lying that it possessed weapons of mass destruction.

"Look at the scene in Iraq now — everyday violence, women and children suffering. Who is responsible for that? And that was done in open defiance of the United Nations Charter, defiance of the Security Council, and defiance of us all. Yes, voices were raised in Europe, we heard them, some said no, that’s wrong. But they went on these two on the unholy campaign and what we have now is that inferno in Iraq. Is this what we want to see?

"They continue to threaten us the small countries. Venezuela because of the oil, Iran being threatened and they say you North Korea dare not conduct any nuclear experiments. Neither must you in Iran. Neither must anyone else. But only we are entitled to possess weapons of mass destruction and now they are destroying their own, they have atomic nuclear bombs. They won’t destroy them but they want everyone else not to make them. Who are they? Must we allow them that possession?

"It is that arrogance that we see expressed by this agent of imperialism, Tony Hall.

"I thank you for defying him. I thank you (FAO director general Dr Jacques) Diouf for inviting me. I thank you (Venezuelan President Mr Hugo) Chavez for having mentioned Zimbabwe (in his address to the conference earlier on) and praised it."

President Mugabe said he was aware of the dangers and threats to Mr Chavez coming from the US. He said he was also aware how Mr Chavez was humiliated during his recent visit to the US when some of his security men and his doctor were denied entry into the country.

"Is this the world we desire? The world of giants and international terrorists who will use their muscle, state muscle in order to intimidate us? We become midgets.

"I say small as I am with only 14 million people, I have a soul, I have a heart, I have a conscience and I dare not allow anything that is untoward to happen to my people."

Cde Mugabe said he had been imprisoned for 11 years by the Smith regime for fighting for freedom and independence and together with the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo, they had dislodged British colonial rule and brought democracy to Zimbabwe.

"And we will not see Zimbabwe becoming a colony again," he said, again to much applause.

"I thank those who have supported us; I thank those in Europe who continue to work with us; I thank all who are driven, whose conscience is driven by morality, by honesty, by good neighbourliness, by doing to others what you would want others to do unto you.

"We stand by principle, by honesty, by virtue.

"That’s my teaching, the Jesuits taught me to die for principle and I stand by that. I am Catholic like Chavez and I am a Catholic to the end with my principles which I hold as sacred. I serve my people and I served them when I went to prison. I shall serve them again, but serve them in a context in which we co-operate. We have Sadc, the development community of Southern African."

Sadc countries work together and if there is drought in the region and one country has surplus food, others buy from that country. Zimbabwe had enough funds to buy food for drought relief but if charity comes its way, it will receive it, Cde Mugabe said.

"But we are able to buy food from South Africa this year to save our people. That is how we are organised in Sadc. We have a community which also takes care of the political situation and security in our region.

"Overall, we have the AU (African Union) now and we don’t need America, we don’t need Britain, except in the global context, but not as our mentors," said the President.

In his prepared speech, Cde Mugabe said there was need for the depoliticisation of international humanitarian assistance.

While commending the response of the international community to natural disasters such as droughts and floods caused by climate change and which had affected production systems and wreaked havoc on the transport and communication infrastructure, the President noted that there had been unfortunate instances where the provision of humanitarian assistance had been politicised often on the basis of ideology, race and religion.

Saying there was urgent need for a multilateral response to address the challenges of climate change, he called upon developed countries to accede to the relevant multilateral environment agreements and to meet their obligations and fully implement the action plan of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Another challenge to sustainable agriculture and food security, particularly in Africa, was the HIV/Aids pandemic, which had affected mostly the productive age groups, thereby depriving the sector of vital skills, expertise and labour.

The President said there was still need for a comprehensive and robust global response to HIV/Aids so as to promote greater access to affordable anti-retroviral drugs and balanced nutrition.

"The world should respond to the HIV/Aids menace with the same zeal, resolve and resources as we have deployed on the war against terror," said Cde Mugabe.

He also called upon countries to increase their budgetary support to FAO, saying a well-resourced FAO can play a critical role towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

In Africa, he said, investment in sustainable agricultural production is of core essence for providing food and employment, both critical components in the fight against hunger and poverty.

It was for this reason that in 2004, the AU Assembly agreed to implement the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad)’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, which commits African governments to allocate at least 10 percent of their national budgets to agriculture.

President Mugabe said the land reform programme was not only an economic empowerment undertaking and a redress of the past gross imbalances in land ownership which were institutionalised by British colonial rule, but was also the provision of a wealth-creating resource.

He said the constitutional amendment had brought finality to the previously long-protracted legal process of land acquisition and provided greater clarity to land tenure.

Venezuelan President Chavez said global hunger was a political problem, which needed the intervention of political leaders. He said FAO’s budget of US$1 billion was inadequate for its operations in poor countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia. In glaring contrast, US companies were given more than that in subsidies a day and the American defence budget was US$500 billion a year, which was enough to finance FAO operations for 500 years, Mr Chavez said.

He said it was impossible to halve the number of hungry people in the world by 2015 as long as there was no political solution.

Reprinted from:
www.zimbabweherald.com/index.php?id=47965&pubdate=2005-10-18

October 17, 2005 News
Posted: Monday, October 17, 2005

¤ Israel Suspends Contacts With Palestinians
¤ Absurd level of election fraud in Iraq
¤ Iraq to audit vote amid fraud allegations
¤ If the Sunnis Don't Like It, That's Their Problem
¤ Your TV On NeoCon Spin Cycle
¤ 50 False News Stories By Bush Propaganda Machine
¤ The Mindless American: A Tragedy In The Making
¤ Crony in Charge of Protecting Us From Killer Flu
¤ US Must Stop Attacking Chávez
¤ Halliburton's New Low in Treachery
¤ Get Ready for G W Bush's Next Big Job
¤ D.C. Press Co-Opted By War Lies
¤ Torture and Misery in the Name of Freedom
¤ Aziz won't testify against Saddam
¤ Iraqi Electoral Workers to Audit Results
¤ Israeli Occupation Forces Assassinate Resistance Activist
¤ Israel re-imposes W Bank travel ban
¤ 'Bush's latest Iraq war lies'
¤ Blair's nuclear bombshell
¤ Investigator found dead at Basra base
¤ Katrina uncovers the forgotten queues at America's soup kitchens
¤ White House sets up group to market war in Iraq in 2002: article
¤ Israel, Iran, and the US
¤ 'Al-Qaeda Letter' Belies Bush's Iraq Claims
¤ We do not deserve these people
¤ Memo alleges plan to fight beyond Iraq
¤ Rice enlists support for Syria, Iran showdowns
¥ War Monger
¤ Weapons of Mass Deception
¤ Invaders brutally torture civilians of Nalchik
¤ The War Propaganda Timing Was a Fraud, Too
¤ The Slings and Arrows of George W. Bush's Outrageous Fortune
¤ It's Bush-Cheney, Not Rove-Libby
¤ I Have a Question for You
¤ Ayatollahs of the Apocalypse
¤ Bush and Big Oil May Be Making A Killing This Winter
¤ Gaza Disengagement: Whither Palestinian Sovereignty
¤ Extremists encourage fear and suspicion that US fixed the result
¤ Government censors 'kill off' envoy's Iraq memoir

USA against Hugo Chavez
Posted: Monday, October 17, 2005

Vheadline

US "private military contractors" already in-country to "deal with" Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias...

Intelligence agencies are revealing that US private military contractors, active in Colombia "under various contract umbrellas, including counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency" are building up to yet another attempted coup d'etat against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

Carefully described as "private military contractors" (a.k.a. hired mercenary killers), the PMCs are known already to have conducted several incursions across the Colombia-Venezuela border to link up with rebel units of the Venezuelan military operating along the border badlands between the two countries.

Senior officials at the US Pentagon have authorized the intruder operation as part of a plan to make it appear that Chavez is militarily assisting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The US mercenaries have also established close links with right-wing Colombian paramilitaries (AUC) and their associated drug cartels to smuggle weapons into Venezuela.

Attached to the Pentagon's Joint Staff, a Colombian General is participating in a joint foreign military "interaction plan" sponsored by the US Defense Department in Washington D.C. to coordinate "force development" and "scenario simulation" invasive techniques at the behest of the US Joint Staff Command.

Intel sources also say that an Opus Dei (Roman Catholic) espionage and political assassination team operating in the United States is in the background of a case where a former Marine aide, Leandro Aragoncilla ... a US Vice Presidential staffer and FBI agent ... has been accused of espionage at the White House.

Aragoncilla was arrested recently on charges of illegally obtaining classified documents from US Vice President Dick Cheney's office and FBI computer which were passed to Philippine opposition figures linked to Opus Dei in the Philippines in preparation for a coup d'etat against that country's President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Opus Dei elements are known also to have played a major role in supporting the April 2002 coup d'etat against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias which continues a wider espionage and political black bag operation with support and logistics approved by highest levels within the Pentagon and the FBI.

A classified intelligence report leaked to this e-publication shows that the espionage ring has operating out of US Vice President Dick Cheney's office with the implicit approval from within the Bush administration.

Intel sources are also revealing more paper trails linking George H. W. Bush to the now defunct Al Taqwa ("Fear of God") bank operated on behalf of Osama Bin Laden, his family, and some of his closest business associates.

The network of Swiss-based terrorist financiers is also linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and prominent European fascist leaders. The Al Taqwa bank was headquartered in the Italian Swiss enclave Campione d'Italia and had offices in the Bahamas. It ceased operations after assets were blocked by a US Treasury Department order, its assets were frozen by the Swiss government, and its banking license was revoked by the Bahamas.

Al Taqwa subsequently changed its name to Nada Management Organization. Al Taqwa and a complex web of affiliate front companies and brass plates in Switzerland, the Bahamas, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Jersey, Isle of Man, Turkey, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, the United States (Delaware and Texas), Germany, Belgium, Albania, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Austria, Bahrain, Singapore, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Liechtenstein were reportedly involved in funding terrorist operations around the world, including the procurement of nuclear material from the former Soviet Union through Baltic intermediaries.

According to a EUROPOL diagram obtained by WMR, these companies included Iksir Holding, SA (Italy), Asat Trust (Liechtenstein), Iksir Ltd. (Bahamas), Gulf Center (Italy), NASCO (Turkey), Nasreddin International Group (Liechtenstein), Akida Bank (Bahamas), MIGA (Switzerland), and Nasreddin Foundation (Liechtenstein).

According to intelligence sources in the United States and Europe, the Al Taqwa network intersected with tranches in Geneva and the Isle of Man that involve front companies associated with George H. W. Bush and Enron: Topaz Liberty, Bluelake World, and Potomac Capital.

Iranian fraudster and neocon Pentagon contact Manucher Ghorbanifar, Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi and members of the Bin Laden family are reportedly linked to Geneva-based Potomac Capital ... a front company created by George H. W. Bush when he was CIA Director in 1976.

Interestingly, it was George W. Bush, who, in November 2001, cited Al Taqwa as part of Al Qaeda's money-laundering activities.

However, Bush's neocon allies at The Washington Times and World Net Daily quickly altered course and drew attention away from Al Taqwa's Saudi and Kuwaiti investors and began to erroneously link Al Taqwa to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Further criminal investigations of Al Taqwa's principals were also quickly dropped.

Potomac Capital appeared on the radar screen of Federal investigators during the Iran-Contra investigation conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Al Taqwa connection to weapons of mass destruction proliferation, Bin Laden, and George H. W. Bush and his business associates stands as another reason the George W. Bush administration leaked the CIA's Brewster Jennings & Associates counter-WMD network. The CIA counter-proliferation team was getting uncomfortably close to tying members of the Bush family and their business associates to the same financial networks that fund Osama Bin Laden and his "Al Qaeda" network.

Intel sources have also traced a possible second connection between the Swiss network connected to George H. W. Bush and other 9/11 hijackers.

The first connection concerned hijacker Fayyaz Ahmed and a US doll.50,000 check he received from a tranche connected to the Swiss network. The second is the listing of Ahmed Mesfer Ahmed Alghamdi as a shareholder of Al Taqwa on a Central Bank of the Bahamas document dated April 15, 2000. Ahmed Alghamdi and Hamza Alghamdi were two of the Saudi hijackers on board United Flight 175, which struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Saeed Alghamdi was one of the hijackers on board United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after being shot down by US military fighter planes (according to an NSA employee who was on duty in the National Security Operations Center on the morning of 9/11).

According to the FBI, the Alghamdi hijackers used a number of aliases. Ahmed Alghamdi used the names Ahmed Saeed Saleh Alghamdi, Ahmed Mohammed Alghamdi, Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Saleh, and Juan Poncho Bennett. Hamza Alghamdi used Saleh Alghamdi Hamzah. Saeed Alghamdi used Mohsalih Alghamdi, Mokhlidmazid Almotairi, Saeedayed Alghamdi, and Saeed H. Alghamdi. Other Alghamdis wanted by the FBI for involvement with "Al Qaeda" include Nora Alghamdi, Ali A. Alghamdi, Abdulrahman Alghamdi, Othman Alghamdi, Sadda Alghamdi and Tareqsaeed Alghamdi.

Now, more information has been gleaned from knowledgeable intelligence sources about the secret UNOCAL, Enron, and Taliban negotiations over the Central Asian Gas pipeline (CentGas). The source of the 10 billion doll. was the Saudi Royal family and the recipient was Enron's LJM1 off-the-books partnership, also known as LJM Cayman, LP. LJM1 was primarily set up to finance the CentGas pipeline deal. Convicted Enron Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Andrew J. Fastow was the managing member of the LJM1 partners. In addition to Barclays, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was also allegedly used to transfer the 10 billion doll. to the Enron account.

Two criminal investigations in New York are getting close to exposing a major Bush family and associates' international money-laundering operation that has spanned more than a generation and has been used to illegally fund US elections since the Nixon era.

According to CIA sources, most Bush family assets are tied up in off-shore accounts that are masked from investigators through the use of pass through companies and secretive interlocking board directorships.

The investigations of the secret Bush money tranches are coming to the fore as New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer focuses in on the scandal involving Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and the inflation of the worth of American Insurance Group (AIG) through shady affiliates, including AIG reinsurer Coral Re of Barbados.

Greenberg was the CEO of AIG but was forced to step down amid the Spitzer probe. AIG was founded from Asia Life/CV Starr, a Shanghai-based international import/export and insurance firm founded in 1919 by Cornelius V. Starr, an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operative in Southeast Asia during World War II.

AIG's largest shareholder is Starr International Company (SICO), an off-shore corporation incorporated in Panama with headquarters in Bermuda.

Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who prosecuted President Clinton, is the nephew of Cornelius Starr.

Greenberg inherited the CEO job and Chairmanship from Starr as well as the .5 billion Starr Foundation.

Another probe by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is focused on long-time Bush backers Sam and Charles Wyly of Texas and a Bank of America off-shore account in the Isle of Man. According to intelligence sources, that probe is getting very close to an Isle of Man multi-billion dollar account controlled by the Bushes through an off-shore contrivance known as Five Star Trust.

Charles Wyly serves on the board of the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO). Critics have charged that hundreds of millions of dollars of UTIMCO's 11 billion doll. in public funds have been steered to investment funds run by Bush family friends and supporters. A number of UTIMCO's past and current directors are members of George W. Bush's "100,000 doll. Club." These include, in addition to Wyly, former UTIMCO chairman Tom Hicks, a vice chairman of Clear Channel and head of Muse, Tate & Furst, Inc.; L. Lowry Mays, the chairman of Clear Channel; former Texas Representative and current lobbyist Tom Loeffler (who received illegal laundered campaign contributions from the failed Vernon Savings & Loan); A. W. Riter, a former chairman of NCNB Bank in Tyler, Texas; A. R. "Tony" Sanchez, Chairman of Sanchez-O'Brien Oil & Gas, owner of the Texas border-based International Bank of Commerce and the failed Tesoro Savings & Loan; and Woody Hunt, Chairman of Hunt Building Company. Some of UTIMCO's investments were directed to firms with close ties to Bush "Pioneer" contributors Lee Bass (Bass Brothers Enterprises), Henry Kravis (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts), and Charles Wyly (Maverick Capital Fund), as well as George W. and H.W. Bush (The Carlyle Partners II Fund, managed by The Carlyle Group).

Texas money laundering is the tip of an Bush family financial iceberg that extends below the surface to shady financial deals around the globe. However, investigators who dare venture into Texas will have their jobs cut out for them. The Bushes have been major recipients of campaign cash from senior partners the largest law firms in Texas -- Vinson & Elkins, Baker Botts (law firm of James Baker III), Andrews Kurth (the law firm of contentious US District Judge Priscilla Owen), Jenkins & Gilchrist, Haynes Boone and Bracewell & Patterson -- that have also been involved in defending those Texas companies and principals who have benefited from massive illegal financial flows.

www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=46388

We need to be told
Posted: Sunday, October 16, 2005

When journalists report propaganda instead of the truth, the consequences can be catastrophic - as one largely forgotten instance demonstrates. By John Pilger

"The propagandist's purpose," wrote Aldous Huxley, "is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human." The British, who invented modern war propaganda and inspired Joseph Goebbels, were specialists in the field. At the height of the slaughter known as the First World War, the prime minister, David Lloyd George, confided to C P Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian: "If people really knew [the truth], the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don't know, and can't know."

Full Article : informationclearinghouse.info

October 16, 2005 News
Posted: Sunday, October 16, 2005

¤ US "private military contractors" already in-country
¤ Blair Approval Drops Significantly in Britain
¤ 'Moslem Terrorism' Is Fabricated By Intel Agencies
¤ :"SUICIDE-BOMBINGS" ARE INTEL-MADE
¤ US bombs Iraq city amid fighting, 25 dead: doctor
¤ Afghan election staffers fired for fraud
¤ Death Toll in Pakistan Quake Up to 54,000
¤ Three Israelis shot dead in West Bank
¤ The Cuban Blockade: A Crime Against Humanity
¤ It’s getting funnier: Zarqawi’s “barber” captured
¤ Iraq voting is illegal: the coming invasion of Venezuela too
¤ Suicide 100 percent
¤ Mr. Bush the Iraqis know your tricks
¤ Cayman Islands Braces for Tropical Storm
¤ Anger in Kashmir as death toll rises
¤ IRA bombs killed eight British soldiers in Iraq
¤ Bush to Blair: First Iraq, then Saudi
¤ 'What is the 'character' of Bush administration?'
¤ 'Bush's obscene performance with troops in Tikrit'
¤ Bush has dug himself into a hole, and he just can't leave that shovel alone
¤ Things Pfc. Lynndie England Should Wonder About in Prison
¤ Russia, US clash over Iran's nuclear 'rights'
¤ Harrier destroyed by Afghan rocket
¤ USA against Hugo Chavez
¤ Captured SAS men 'spying on drill torturer'
¤ Venezuela seeks nuclear energy
¤ US urged to end economic blockade on Cuba
¤ Iran Accuse British Agents for Khuzestan Bomb Blasts
¤ Relief helicopter crashes in Pakistan

The Cuban Blockade: A Crime Against Humanity
Posted: Sunday, October 16, 2005

A blockade –surrounding and preventing the delivery of supplies to cities– has been a method employed throughout human history by cut-throat conquerors feeling compelled to break their opponents.

It is said that the Greek town of Troy, cited by Homer in the Iliad, was besieged for a decade, while its fame lasts until today.

During the Second World War, for long harsh months German fascists surrounded the city of Leningrad, today St. Petersburg, in another episode of cruelty. Confronted with heroism by the

Soviet people and army, Berlin's forces were finally overcome.

However, with its prolonged and varied acts of aggression, Washington’s more than four and a half decade blockade of Cuba has become the longest in history.

Full Article : periodico26.cu

October 15, 2005 News
Posted: Saturday, October 15, 2005

¤ Can a Man Become President?
¤ Thousands of Black Americans Gather in Washington to Promote Unity
¤ Pakistan Quake Death Toll Nears 40,000
¤ Exposing Grave Moral Distortions
¤ Several killed in Iran blast
¤ Something Wicked This Way Comes
¤ The Hangover of Colonial Violence
¤ Fallacy of Western Democracy Exposed
¤ Guantanamo guards enjoyed torture
¤ Nothing New Going On Here
¤ US rejects British hurricane relief meals over BSE fears
¤ The burning Bush
¤ The Media Are Wrong Again
¤ US cannot explain suspicious Zawahri letter passage
¤ Money for Nothing
¤ The Broken Constitution
¤ Venezuela defends expulsion of US missionary
¤ Let the Cuban doctors come to Pakistan!
¤ Let's Not Imitate the British
¤ Casualties of the Bush Administration
¤ Bush Seen Increasingly as a Failed President
¤ When will WOT end?

Why the Fight Against Fake News Continues
Posted: Saturday, October 15, 2005

Like much news that's damaging to the Bush administration, the report came out on a Friday.

Since then, it's gotten little media attention -- just 41 mentions in U.S. newspapers and wire stories, according to a news database search on October 11. That's remarkably sparse coverage for a story showing that the U.S. government has been engaged in illegal propaganda aimed at its own citizens.

On September 30, the nonpartisan, investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), announced that several aspects of work done for the Department of Education by the public relations firm Ketchum violated federal law. Taxpayer-funded projects carried out by Ketchum or its subcontractors -- including Armstrong Williams and Karen Ryan -- constituted "covert propaganda" or "purely partisan activities," according to the GAO.

Yet, what the GAO has condemned, administration officials seem to consider business as usual.

Full Article : prwatch.org

Hugo Chávez and the Politics of Race
Posted: Saturday, October 15, 2005

As the war of words heats up between the Bush White House and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, the firebrand South American leader has boldly sought to forge ties with poor communities of color in the United States. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Chávez provided relief assistance to the poverty stricken and largely African American victims of the disaster. The head of Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela's state owned oil company, set up disaster relief centers in Louisiana and Texas in the wake of the hurricane and provided humanitarian to thousands of victims. Volunteers based at Citgo refineries in Lake Charles, Louisiana and Corpus Christi, Texas, provided medical care, food and water to approximately 5,000 people. In Houston, volunteers from Citgo headquarters provided similar assistance to 40,000 victims. What is more, Venezuela has provided hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil in energy assistance to the United States. Chávez followed up his bold initiative by announcing that he would soon begin to ship heating and diesel oil at rock bottom prices to schools, nursing homes, hospitals and poor communities within the U.S. The Venezuelan president has also offered to provide free eye surgery for poor Americans suffering from certain eye conditions. The firebrand South American leader, who proclaimed the plan during a recent visit to New York, will begin his oil program through an October pilot project in Chicago. There, the Venezuelan government will target poor Mexican Americans for assistance.
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

October 14, 2005 News
Posted: Friday, October 14, 2005

¤ Why the fight against fake news continues
¤ Summit backs Cuba against US
¤ United States Caught In Iraq Car-Bombing
¤ Taking Iraq Apart
¤ What's Happening Out of Camera Range?
¤ Squeezing the Have-Nots
¤ Hugo Chávez and the Politics of Race
¤ The Friendly Face of US Imperialism
¤ Mr. Bush Goes to Tikrit (Sort of)
¤ 22 US Troops Killed in the Last Week
¤ "We don't do body counts"
¤ Chinese workers in Israel sign no-sex contract
¤ US troops starving Iraqis, says UN
¤ The pay's lousy, but the slop is free
¤ Revving up the China threat
¤ We need to be told
¤ "War On Terror" Revisited
¤ Sleepwalking into Slavery?
¤ Pipelineistan's Biggest Game Begins
¤ Gun battle leaves 85 dead in Russia
¤ Bush Teleconference With Soldiers Staged
¤ Pinter: Torture and misery in name of freedom
¤ G.O.P.S Flash
¤ Troops chat with Bush — after rehearsal
¤ At Least 85 Killed in Attacks in Russia
¤ Bush looked past Iraq on spread of weapons
¤ The enemy within
¤ Bush approval rating dips further
¤ The Mindless American: A Tragedy In The Making
¤ 1965
¤ One of the More Nauseating Images
¤ Another Crony?! It's Enough to Make You Sick. Or Dead.
¤ Can Attacks on Oil Facilities lead to Peace?
¤ Sunni party office attacked in Iraq

October 13, 2005 News
Posted: Thursday, October 13, 2005

¤ Did You Know This About Iraq?
¤ ‘Frauds-R-Us’
¤ Al Qaeda in Iraq says Zawahri letter is fake:
¤ Al-Qaeda disowns 'fake letter'
¤ Al-Qaida: US faked al-Zawahiri letter
¤ Yes, Virginia, there are government conspiracies.
¤ Bush Teleconference With Soldiers Staged
¤ Why do they want to invade Venezuela you ask?
¤ 'The suspicious timing of alerts: The nexus of politics and terror'
¤ Fog Facts
¤ At Least 85 Killed in Attacks in Russia
¤ Song and dance on the terror trail
¤ We need to be told
¤ The Cuban Blockade: A Crime Against Humanity
¤ Cuba Sends Doctors to Guatemala and Offers Them to Pakistan
¤ Leopold leaves a lasting legacy
¤ U.S. Opposes the Poor in Haiti at Every Turn
¤ 22,000 Katrina Evacuees Still Homeless
¤ President sweats as US hawks turn up the heat
¤ Iran's heritage deserves respect from America and Europe
¤ Bush warns Syria over Lebanon, Iraq
¥ War Monger
¤ N.Y. Times 'frustrated' by Miller story
¤ Making the Middle East Safe for What?
¤ Rockets in Afghan capital Kabul
¤ Gunmen attack Russian Caucasus town, battle rages
¤ 46 Killed in Guerrilla Attacks
¤ Iraq invasion breeds terrorists, ambassador says
¤ How the Zarqawi myth was made in America
¤ Many killed in southern Russia clash
¤ Chavez ousts US missionary group
¤ A toy called Assad
¤ Iraq has descended into anarchy, says Fisk
¤ Three Suicides in Special Forces Unit
¤ Another Iraq Suicide Attack Leaves 30 Dead
¤ Venezuela has no plans to acquire a nuclear reactor
¤ Iraq stability could take 10 years-British minister
¤ Terror's media: war over the Web
¤ Dossier on foreign terror laws backfires on Government

October 12, 2005 News
Posted: Wednesday, October 12, 2005

¤ Bush Denies Staging Relief-Effort Photo Ops
¤ Iraq war now costing $6 billion a month
¤ Countdown to a Legal Lynching
¤ The Haves and Haves-Not-to-Much
¤ Israel citing 'security' to limit Palestinian rights: UN
¤ Using War as an Excuse for More War
¤ Syria: Interior minister killed himself
¤ Arafat death report inconclusive
¤ GOP stands up for U.S. right to torture
¤ What Iraqis Really Think About The Occupation
¤ US ignored forecasts of Iraqi ethnic turmoil-CIA
¤ Mexico's 1968 massacre heads for big screen
¤ Government by Temper Tantrum
¤ America's Ministry of Propaganda Exposed
¤ New York subway threat was a hoax, security sources admit
¤ President created terror mess he describes
¤ Bush Without Rove Is Hard to Imagine
¤ Voices of Iraq: Baghdadis tell their stories
¤ The canny Sharon's one and three-quarter state solution
¤ Floods as a month's rain falls in one day
¤ More Than 55 Killed in Continuing Violence
¤ Iraq rebuilding slows as U.S. money for projects dries up
¤ Concerns quake toll may reach 40,000
¤ I wanted to slap him
¤ Go Fu** Yourself Mr. Cheney UPDATE....
¤ Who is doing what in Iraq?
¤ CNNNN discovers Americans support war on Kyrgyzstan, 'wherever it may be'
¤ Isolating Iran
¤ Hugo Chavez - showing the US who's master
¤ How Africa developed Europe and America
¤ Bush's Fantasy Foreign Policy
¤ A Little Denial Here, a Little There
¤ Welcome to the Occupation
¤ Violence marks Rice's Afghan trip
¤ Haiti Rules U.S. Citizen Can Seek Office

Hugo Chavez - showing the US who's master
Posted: Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Venezuela's president is rarely seen by foreigners for what he is: one of the world's most popular and democratic politicians. His strength may yet bring his downfall.

"Oh," said an acquaintance in a rather surprised voice, "so you take a reasonably favourable view of Hugo Chavez." "Well, yes," I stammered, "he was elected to office fairly, he's popular and he's trying to reform a once-moribund society."

I needn't have worried: the full Chavez experience was around the corner. He had summoned a meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS), a generator of hot air based in Washington, DC. He wanted this glove puppet of the United States to create a social charter for the hemisphere and start doing something about its startling inequalities. So, the following day we trooped over to the tropical splendour of the Hilton hotel to watch and hear a powerful personality in full flow. The ideas and plans tumbled out like sparks off a grinding wheel - the people of Latin America given the right to eat as well as vote; cheap oil for the poor of the US; free literacy classes and free eyecare for everyone in the western hemisphere; an international referendum on US sanctions against Cuba; the replacement of the OAS by something that would reflect Latin rather than US interests.
Full Article : newstatesman.com

October 11, 2005 News
Posted: Tuesday, October 11, 2005

¤ Nuclear Power: Back to the Future
¤ New Orleans: Leaving the Poor Behind Again!
¤ Anti-Bush in the Afterlife
¤ Death toll rises to 650 as rescuers dig for corpses
¤ New Delhi gives US the nod over Iran
¤ Iraq blasts kill dozens ahead of referendum
¤ A Nobel Prize for Chernobyl?
¤ No Place For Propaganda
¤ Peruvian Farmers Move to End Terminator Seeds
¤ History
¤ How Long Can This Go On?
¤ What Mr. Bush didn't tell you in Iraq speech
¤ The Real Reasons Why Iran is the Next Target
¤ New Orleans Man: I Wasn't Drunk
¤ Danish PM faces Iraq war lawsuit
¤ Our Snake Oil President
¤ Martial Law and the Avian Flu Pandemic
¤ The Plot to Blow Up NYC Subway is Bogus
¤ Iran: Friend or Foe?
¤ The New York City Terror Alert
¤ New York terror alert 'was hoax'

October 10, 2005 News
Posted: Monday, October 10, 2005

¤ The Labyrinth of Iraq
¤ "The War on Terror" in Translation
¤ War in Iraq is Really All About Soil and Oil
¤ Five nations join UN Security Council
¤ Making sense of why the Americans are in Iraq and Afghanistan
¤ Venezuela labels Robertson 'insane'
¤ The Trouble with Authority
¤ Israeli soldiers kill three Palestinians
¤ IOF Employs Lethal Force, Leave Youths to Bleed to Death
¤ Venezuelans March in Support of Land Plan
¤ We Can’t Let "It" Happen Here
¤ In Defense of Liars...
¤ Pakistan quake survivors await relief
¤ Former Afghan commander killed
¤ Suicide Bombings Kill 3 in Afghan City
¤ Europe on high alert over avian flu
¤ ‘Anti-Americanism’ simmers on
¤ World as usual
¤ Drug Rehab For George
¤ Anti-Iranian Hysteria
¤ US military might strike «insurgents bases» in Syria
¤ Iraq war's U.S. toll nearing 2,000
¤ Curfews begin as 70,000 troops safeguard voting
¤ Desperate struggle to reach earthquake survivors
¤ Iraqi violence hits new peak for British troops
¤ African migrants 'left to die' in desert

October 09, 2005 News
Posted: Sunday, October 9, 2005

¤ Tell Us Who Fabricated the Iraq Evidence
¤ How Many More Will Die Before We Cry 'Enough'?
¤ American Debacle
¤ Latin Nations Rejecting US-Led Reforms
¤ Troubles abound in Florida prisons
¤ Three Police Officers Arrested in New Orleans Beating
¤ Invisible Ballots, Confirming Our Worst Fears About Democracy in Decline
¤ US televangelist says Venezuela threatens US with nuke
¤ Truth is the enemy
¤ Authorities debate credibility of alleged NY plot
¤ Iraq's September crude production falls 90,000 b
¤ Guard: Hostile Fire Caused Copter Crash
¤ Homeland security can’t even secure the White House
¤ President Winkin', Blinkin' 'n' Noddin'
¤ Audacity with Mendacity: A Bush Trademark
¤ 'American debacle'
¤ Does God speak to Bush?
¤ 'These guys are a credit to their race'
¤ The wealth of the west was built on Africa's exploitation
¤ Pakistan: Quake toll reaches 30,000
¤ Car bomb hits Basra militia building
¤ Hundreds die in Guatemala mudslide
¤ UK forces 'destabilising Basra'
¤ U.S. military in Paraguay unsettles South America
¤ Abuse: Systematic And Chronic
¤ Suicide Car Bomb Kills Two in Basra
¤ Rhetoric and reality in the business of getting rid of black people
¤ Iraqis vote on 'invisible' constitution
¤ Abuse: Systematic And Chronic

October 08, 2005 News
Posted: Saturday, October 8, 2005

¤ An Oily Religious Dream
¤ Rhetoric and Reality in the Business of Getting Rid of Black People
¤ Disaster on Wings?
¤ All Down Hill from Here
¤ A Nobel Prize for Chernobyl?
¤ Collusion, Cover-Up and Kierkegaard
¤ When Assassins Accuse Assassins
¤ Lessons from Afghanistan
¤ Torture's Final Stand
¤ Reporters: Lost in the 'Fog'?
¤ A Tale of Two Cities: New Orleans is Our Baghdad
¤ DeLay's Conduct Speaks Louder Than His Defender's Words
¤ Bush's Crony Capitalism
¤ Bush Call to Expand Military Powers at Home Seen as Unnecessary
¤ Massive Quake Kills Thousands In S. Asia
¤ Hundreds killed in earthquake in Pakistan
¤ Why did Miller go to jail? I'll tell you.
¤ Bush White House declares torture vital to US security policy
¤ The Cash-cow called Israel
¤ Blair's honesty over Iran charges in doubt
¤ 'An untouchable lame-duck president'
¤ Reality is casting a chill
¤ Suicide car bomber kills seven in Baghdad
¤ Israel-Palestine: The spoilers
¤ BackPageMag.com Reports!
¤ Hundreds feared dead in S Asian quake
¤ Italian journalist posing as migrant reports abuse at detention camp
¤ US probes ‘friendly fire’ deaths of Afghan police
¤ All the president's women
¤ A Horrid Reality...
¤ The president is tired
¤ “It Seems a Age”
¤ "Progress" in Iraq: Do the Numbers Add Up?
¤ Iraq warfare likened to Nazi campaign
¤ 8 killed, 19 wounded in Pakistan mosque shooting
¤ David Frost joins al-Jazeera TV
¤ Iraq on brink of civil war: Arab League chief
¤ The Maker of US policy
¤ Bomb blast kills Indian police

October 07, 2005 News
Posted: Friday, October 7, 2005

¤ Nukes for Peace, Revisited
¤ New American Law
¤ IAEA Rewarded for Failure: Critics
¤ Explosions Kill Six Marines in Iraq
¤ Hurricane Stan toll rising
¤ 'Moot court'
¤ 'The big picture'
¤ Subway Alert Is Fake Terror To Distract From Indictments
¤ Serious turn to Guantanamo protest
¤ Four Afghan police killed accidentally by US
¤ Palestinian Mother Bleeds to Death At IOF Checkpoint
¤ George Bush: 'God (Israel) told me to end the tyranny in Iraq'
¤ White House denies Bush God claims
¥ It was not GOD it was ISRAEL!!!!!
Flashback ¤ The war on Iraq: Conceived in Israel
¤ The spies who pushed for war
Flashback ¤ Israel (God) to U.S.: Now deal with Syria and Iran
¤ Bush: Iran, Syria 'Enemies of Civilization'
¤ Death Toll Up in Central America Flooding
¤ Israeli high court bans use of Palestinians as human shields
¤ The deadly aftermath of a hurricane called Stan
¤ Darfur wasn't genocide and Sudan is not a terrorist state
¤ Bush repeats threat to veto torture curb
¤ Hit the Gas When You Can See the Cliff Up Ahead
¤ Iraq Constitution Distributed Amid Attacks
¤ Bush Tries To Sell Skeptical Public On War In Iraq
¤ A Mess of George Bush's Own Making
¤ Unrest, violence continue in Haiti
¤ George Bush’s “Major Speech” Resets the Terror Trap!
¤ Death Sentences Linked To History Of Lynching In States
¤ 9/11 Security Courtesy of Marvin Bush
¤ Why is Bush's jaw suddenly spasming
¤ Breaking America's grip on the net
¤ 21 dead in Iraq bombing, attacks
¤ The Iraq enigma

Breaking America's grip on the net
Posted: Friday, October 7, 2005

After troubled negotiations in Geneva, the US may be forced to relinquish control of the internet to a coalition of governments.
Full Article : guardian.co.uk

Death Sentences Linked To History Of Lynching In States
Posted: Thursday, October 6, 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio – States that sentence the most criminals to death also tend to be the states that had the most lynchings in the past, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that the number of death sentences for all criminals – Black and white – were higher in states with a history of lynchings. But the link was even stronger when only Black death sentences were analyzed.
Full Article : researchnews.osu.edu

October 06, 2005 News
Posted: Thursday, October 6, 2005

¤ Michael Ray Aquino caper: 'Controlled leak' gone wrong?
¤ Bali II: Another Elusive Terror Mastermind on the Loose
¤ Katrina - A Blessing in Disguise?
¤ Why the unity and integration of Latin America is an issue of life or death ...
¤ "Why can't I own Canadians?"
¤ Four Years Into Afghan Campaign, Perils Abound
¤ Bombing at Shiite Mosque Kills 36
¤ Bush vows to never back down
¤ Blundering Into Syria?
¤ Haiti's Biometric Elections
¤ Shame On Them, Shame On Us
¤ Crony Contractors Clean Up On Katrina
¤ U.S. 'Lacks Moral Authority' In Iraq
¤ God Told Me to Invade Iraq, Bush Tells Palestinian Ministers
¤ Court Rules in Favor of Anonymous Blogger
¤ Iraqi PM denies Iranian interference
¤ Bush: Al-Qaida strikes on US foiled
¤ Bush turns up rhetoric in the antiterror fight
¤ 'Boozer Bush: W. gets by with a little help from Jack and Jim'
¤ 'When the White House shouts, the press faints'
¤ Terrorism reaction not addressing cause, says Fisk Video
¤ Kill! Kill! Kill!
¤ Nicaragua party 'outraged' by US
¤ The Deadliest Flu Virus in the World: Made in USA
¤ Is the US poised for intervention?
¤ U.S. hegemony vs. Arab survival
¤ Where fear can't take us
¤ UK accuses Iran over killings of soldiers
¥ Lying towards another INVASION
¤ Iran denies British attacks link
¤ Suicide bomber kills Afghan boy
¤ Western-trained, Western-armed, enemies
¤ US back to the drawing board in Afghanistan
¤ The Inherent Contradictions of Forcible Government
¤ Espionage Case Breaches the White House
¤ Europe is asking better questions on terror
¤ Iran Trains To Stop U.S.-Backed Insurgency
¤ Zoellick Tries to Thwart U.S. Foes in Nicaragua

October 05, 2005 News
Posted: Wednesday, October 5, 2005

¤ US Poverty: Chronic Ill, Little Hope for Cure
¤ Arrogance in the Face of Disaster
¤ Barry Bonds Laughs Last
¤ AOL Time-Warner Censors Alex Jones Websites
¤ Bush's Final Choice
¤ Levees were 'heaved' upward from below
¤ O'Reilly endorsed assassinating Syrian leader
¤ Many die in Iraq mosque explosion
¤ Growing Gulf Between Rich and Rest of US
¤ Wanted a leader for America
¤ Death Squads And Diplomacy
¤ Connect the Dots
¤ Missionary 'planned genocide'
¤ Venezuelans trade junk for food
¤ Tsunami report criticises relief effort
¤ Archaeologists Report on Slave Community
¤ European elites can't ignore the views of their peoples
¤ Claims of cronyism force Bush to defend choice
¤ US 'aiming at Syria regime change'
¤ Let's get to the top of Abu Ghraib
¤ If oil was the question, war wasn't the answer
¤ Black Bodies Remain Still.....
¤ Bush Lies About Iraqi Army Readiness
¤ A Wolfie in Sheep's Clothing
¤ Bush Jr.'s Skeleton Closet
¤ They blinded me
¤ Legitimacy of reciprocal violence
¤ Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible
¤ Hurricane Stan sparks deadly storms across Central America
¤ Crime and Punishment
¤ Spate of inquiries may weaken president
¤ Florida’s “Shoot First” Law is Deadly and Wrong
¤ GEORGE BUSH resume

Venezuelans trade junk for food
Posted: Wednesday, October 5, 2005

Caracas - Men, women and children line up at a scale to weigh their loot: bags filled with old clothes and newspapers, bent bicycle wheels, rusted bed frames and discarded auto parts.

The junk is tossed into trucks by city workers, and the people take tickets in return to redeem for food as part of an unusual government programme - carrying away bags of rice, cans of sardines and bottles of vegetable oil.

"I think it's good people can hand in things they don't need for food, because that's what people need - food," said Maria Bonilla, a 50-year-old single mother who supports two children and a nephew working as a janitor.

She and other Venezuelans who came to turn in their trash on Saturday in one Caracas slum said they felt grateful to President Hugo Chavez and his allied mayor, Freddy Bernal, who promote the programme as a way to clean up the streets while helping feed the needy.
Full Article : news24.com

The Crude Truth about the War in Iraq
Posted: Tuesday, October 4, 2005

by Ahmed Amr, thousandreasons.org

Every day, without fail, containers arrive at American ports bearing the fruits of the world. Among other things, they deliver Japanese electronics, European cars, Chinese and Indian textiles and Arab and Venezuelan oil. Over land, manufactured products and raw materials flood across the border from Mexico and Canada – including four million barrels of crude. By the end of each and every day, five billion dollars of goods and services will have landed on American soil. The value of these imported products is further enhanced by the fact that much of it is produced by the blood, sweat and tears of third world workers who earn no more than a few dollars a day.

In consideration of this mountain of imported treasures, the United States sends back containers loaded with weapons, civilian aircraft, high tech and agricultural products and overpriced pharmaceuticals. In terms of their dollar value, America's daily exports amount to three billion dollars of goods and services. When you import more than you export, you end up with a trade deficit. So far this year, we are running a trade deficit that averages two billion dollars a day.

Contrary to popular myth, the United States is one of the least competitive producers in the world. Since 1976, Americans have run consecutive and exponentially rising trade deficits. By its very definition, a trade deficit measures the inability of a country to manufacture products that can compete in global market. So, for going on three decades, our manufactured goods have been judged by our trading partners to be either too expensive or of low quality or both. Keep in mind that if we excluded American exports of arms and ammunition – an industry in which we excel - our annual trade deficits would balloon by an additional 180 billion dollars.

You might ask yourself why the rest of the world would stomach such a huge trade imbalance from the largest economy on the planet. The answer is rather simple – America manufactures a unique currency – the dollar. And every day we export two billion newly minted dollar bills to make up for our daily trade deficit. In effect, the United States treasury manufactures forty percent of our total exports. Now, why would the rest of humanity take our paper money when they have no intention of using the proceeds to buy American goods? Again, the answer is simple – to buy corporate securities, to buy our treasury bonds and to buy oil. That last item might seem baffling. Why would the rest of the world need dollars to buy oil from a country that imports twelve million barrels of oil each and every day? Because oil is priced and sold in dollars, countries with a heavy dependence on oil imports – like China, Japan and Western Europe – are obliged to horde dollars to purchase oil from the petro-kingdoms in the Gulf. A derivative benefit is that these oil dependent economies tend to horde their dollars in instruments like short term US treasuries – in effect financing our budget deficit and providing easy credit that fuels the housing bubble.

Eventually, a substantial portion of the petro-dollars that pour into the coffers of the rulers of the oil plantations get re-cycled into American stocks, real estate and long term securities. British and American military contractors – like Halliburton – also manage to secure lucrative multi-billion dollar supply contracts with the Gulf monarchies.

The looting of Saudi and Kuwaiti oil revenues by these hereditary dictatorships involves money laundering on an epic scale – aided and abetted by investment firms like the Carlyle Group – a firm where former Secretary of State James Baker toils as a full partner. The senior George Bush and ex- Prime Minister John Major also work for this outfit.

It's fair to speculate on whether Tony Blair's resume is already being reviewed by Carlyle's management. The Prime Minister continues to babble incoherently about Britain's tradition of standing 'shoulder to shoulder' with America. Well, our British cousins conveniently abandoned that 'tradition' during the Vietnam War. They were not at our side when we invaded Panama and they were critical of our intervention in Central America. But they seem to be more than enthusiastic to accept invitations to our war parties in the Middle East, even though Great Britain is an oil exporting country. Why would that be? Could it have something to do with the $50 billion dollar of British arm sales to Saudi Arabia? Or is Blair more interested in the attracting Saudi and Kuwaiti petro-dollar investments. I say Tony is looking out for Tony and hoping to become as wealthy as John Major. The Saudis have always understood the value of rewarding ex-Prime Ministers and ex-Presidents after they leave office.

If you digest that last couple of paragraphs, you will be well on your way to understanding the major reason the United States and Britain are so adamant about exercising hegemony over the Gulf region. 'No Blood for Oil' has long been the battle cry of those who oppose direct American military intervention in the Middle East. It is a slogan that doesn't ring true because American oil companies pay the going price for Arab crude. Those who market the war as an 'altruistic' mission can readily point out that the United States depends on Gulf oil for only 12% of daily oil consumption and less than 5% of total energy needs. They might add that we get 40% of our daily oil fix from Texas, Alaska and Louisiana and that most of our import requirements are satisfied by crude originating in Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. As for Downing Street policy makers, they can easily rubbish the 'no blood for oil' argument by issuing exact figures on British oil exports.

For a rational discussion of our Middle Eastern imperial obsessions, Americans need to understand that our military adventures in the region are not driven by mere 'crude' considerations. More precisely, our soldiers and marines are killing and dying in Iraq to coerce an oil starved world to horde American dollars for future purchases of Saudi and Kuwaiti crude. Now, that might seem like a distinction without a difference and it does make for a piss poor anti-war slogan. However, it is a distinction that allows for an iron clad rebuttal against those who still buy into the silly notion that we are in the region to promote democracy and export 'our values.' In reality, we place military garrisons in the region to maintain the status of the dollar as an international means of exchange and convince the world of accepting our trade deficits as an American entitlement program. It's our way of making the world an offer they can't refuse.

When it comes to our imperial project in the Gulf, Americans can be credited with inventing a very new kind of imperial racket –currency exporting on a massive scale. The dollar figures involved in this scam are staggering. This year alone, our annual trade deficit is projected to exceed seven hundred billion dollars. Without our cozy dollar pricing arrangements with the absolute monarchs in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and our current control of Iraqi oil – it is unlikely that the world would continue to passively absorb our astronomical currency exports in exchange for their manufactured goods. Our military engagements in the Gulf are not about protecting 'our way of life' – but rather our standard of living.

One should never discount the right wing amoral minority that would accept our currency exporting racket as a sweet deal that justifies the cost in blood and treasure of invading Iraq. In previous published research, I have used facts and figures to argue that given the increasing economic cost of our military aggression – our little dollar racket no longer makes dollars or sense. If our 'national interests' in the region were soberly re-examined – we wouldn't have a single soldier deployed in the Gulf region. We shouldn't just get out of Iraq – we should get out of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

When the big boys in high places rant about our 'national interest' in the Middle East, they are talking about the dollar. The currency exporting imperative is the crucial component of the undeclared American agenda in the region. But, like any other imperial business – the benefits need to be critically weighed against the increasingly ruinous cost. First of all, if we were not over there, the terrorists would not be over here. You don't see them attacking Sweden or Canada. Every dollar spent on homeland security needs to be tallied as part of the cost of our currency exporting racket. Add to that, the cost of the war in Iraq.

Second, because we have the world captive to our number one product – the petro-dollar – we don't produce much of anything else. Only 11% of the American work force is now engaged in manufacturing. Currency exporting is such a lucrative business. Why should America go to the trouble of doing real work? America is de-industrializing its economy at a rapid pace and the wreckage is on display in rust belt cities across the nation. What seems like a great deal for the American consumer – is a catastrophe for American labor.

Third, the dollars we export don't evaporate into thin air. The foreigners who take them – be they Chinese, Japanese, Europeans or Arabs - end up investing them in American financial assets – including government securities. It's nice of them to finance our national debt – but they will also be nice enough to collect interest from our children for decades to come.

It used to be argued that we could depend on the Saudis and Kuwaitis to keep oil prices reasonable by fending off the more militant members of OPEC. Now, with the increasing international demand for oil by emerging economic giants like India and China, the world will need another Saudi Arabia every decade to keep up with demand. Welcome to 'Peak Oil.' Even with the entire planet pumping oil at full capacity - every marginal barrel is fetching over sixty dollars in a very competitive market. OPEC no longer qualifies as a cartel. All they do these days is issue comforting press releases and post price guidance.

In terms of naked American economic interests, the empire is costing us more than its worth. The peace movement needs to start challenging the naïve members of the war party who think that the war in Iraq is good for business. We need to convince these people that – aside from being amoral vultures – they are also very bad students of economics. Let's see how they react when they realize that our invasion of Iraq is a money losing proposition that inflates our national debt without saving them a dime at the gas pump.

Naturally, there are people in high places that will have none of this talk about a permanent and swift withdrawal – regardless of the economic price to the nation. We need to be aware that our deranged policies in the Middle East are heavily influenced by the Israeli lobby. In polite circles, these lobbyists are now referred to as neo-cons. As far as they're concerned, when America loses a dollar and Israel gains a dime – it still makes for a profitable transaction.

As every politician in Washington knows, the neo-cons are a force to be reckoned with – if only because of their massive leverage in the mass media and their high caliber arsenal of think tanks. This tiny domestic constituency can never hope to market their alien agenda based on the merits of the bloody repression of the Palestinian people. America benefits nothing from Israel's military occupation of the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza or the Golan Heights. But the Israeli lobby can and does punish any politician who dares to stand up to their ludicrous demands for massive foreign aid to finance Israel's appetite for stealing other people's real estate. The neo-con stake in the invasion of Iraq was to destabilize the region and redraw the map of the Middle East to afford Ariel Sharon more elbow room to consolidate his grasp of the occupied territories and to deflect attention from Israel's vicious repression of the native people of Palestine. The neo-cons like to call their destabilization policies "creative destruction." It's an apt description of a policy that destroys Palestinian homes to create exclusive Jewish settlements. These arsonists are always standing around the inferno in the Gulf chanting "Burn Baby Burn".

American foreign policy in the region is hostage to two lobbies - the Saudi advocates who promote the virtues of 'currency exporting' and the Israeli lobby which is guided by the agenda of the Likudniks in Tel Aviv. The unholy alliance between Israel's Amen corner and the Saudi clan might seem far fetched. True enough, they don't share the same goals. But without the blessings of the Israeli lobby, the mass media might not be so enthusiastically silent about America's lucrative currency exporting racket.

It has always been my belief that most Americans can become experts in the Middle East with a little bit of reading and a two or three day seminar from academics who have no allegiance to either the Israeli or Saudi lobby. One of the greatest achievements in the annals of propaganda campaigns has been the ability of our media lords to make us dependant on neo-con and Likudnik experts to rationalize America's adventurous foreign policy in the region. The same think tank neo-con brigades that convinced us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda are still paraded as credible authorities on the region. The neo-con gurus and oracles who forecasted 'cake walks' and 'flower showers' are now pedaling 'liberation theology' in the 'Greater Middle East' – knowing full well that the last thing that Bush wants is democracy in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. Judith Miller who collaborated with her friends in high places to plan and execute a spectacular 'intelligence failure' is hailed as a hero of the free press - while Cindy Sheehan is accused of treason and self-promotion for demanding a few rational answers from Miller's accomplices in the White House.

It is easy enough to get tangled in the latest farcical Anglo-American response to the latest surprise Iraqi development. Let's face it - the architects of this war didn't even expect an insurgency. Just this week, the Bush administration let it be known that the Pentagon's strategy was working just fine. A few days later, they declared that American forces were changing their tactics. Go figure.

Moving in step with the administration, the Judith Miller clones in the mass media impertinently ignored the hundreds of thousands of peace demonstrators who descended on Washington to protest this insane and unprofitable war. Does it come as any surprise that the same Likudnik media operatives who marketed the invasion are intent on silencing the majority of Americans who want to end this bloody useless conflict?

Any honest observer needs to conclude that the war in Iraq was a major blunder and that both Bush and Blair are tangled in the unintended consequences of an immoral and illegal war motivated by crude economic calculations that turned out to be a formula for generating massive red ink and pools of innocent Iraqi blood. It is certain that the administration vastly underestimated American casualties – nearly two thousand fatalities and fifteen thousand wounded. In terms of costs, the expedition is already 300% over budget and the economic tab is piling up at the rate of five billion dollars a month. Most experts agree that the war has increased the threat of terror, radicalized a new generation of militants and ignited a civil war.

Bush needs to put aside this 'noble cause' charade and try to explain – even to his credulous right wing partisans - exactly what the United States gets out of this rotten deal. Let's challenge him to prove that America still derives any economic advantage that justifies the loss in Iraqi and American lives. If he can make a case that this bloody venture is such a sweet deal, the soldiers deployed in Iraq should be paid like the 20,000 foreign mercenaries we have hired to back us up against the insurgents. It would be an unfortunate precedent to have Americans doing the same dirty work for less pay. If we, as a nation, are willing to send our young to kill and die for their country's currency – they are certainly entitled to their fair share of the war booty. They are also entitled to know the exact nature of their 'dollar protection' mission. Because some of them might decide that their lives are worth more in Canadian dollars or in the private sector.

This war will end when Americans, especially those who support it, come to terms with the crude truth about the war in Iraq. It isn't about oil or spreading the blessings of democracy. It's about the trade deficit and the dollar. And even that excuse is a money losing proposition. At some point, we reached a consensus to end the war in Vietnam – based on rational considerations of our national interest. We gave up the Panama Canal and shut our bases in the Philippines and accepted an armistice in Korea based on an analysis of what was good for us – not them. The Cold War ended when both the Soviets and Americans sat down and re-evaluated the costs and benefits of prolonging the conflict. Military intervention in the Gulf is just bad business and we should withdraw immediately – because the cost will only increase and there is precious little reward in continuing this bloody affair.

Ahmed Amr is the editor of NileMedia.com

October 04, 2005 News
Posted: Tuesday, October 4, 2005

¤ Viewing Terrorism Through A Different Lens
¤ A Flood of Fraud
¤ When Mother Nature Checks in for a Visit
¤ Hurricanes destroyed 109 oil platforms: US government
¤ Cars stolen in US used in suicide attacks
¤ Disease 'caused by food aid'
¤ Car bomb blows up inside Baghdad Green Zone, 3 dead
¤ Loss of bodies adds to grief of many families
¤ Iraq Violence Leaves 5 U.S. Soldiers Dead
¤ Mayor of New Orleans Announces Layoffs
¤ Sunnis see Shia manipulation ahead of Iraq vote
¤ Think again . . . give chaos a chance
¤ The indefatigable insurgency
¤ Pleading Incompetence
¤ Bush offers crucial supreme court seat to his former lawyer
¤ I’m Your Man!
¤ Juan Peron Advises W
¤ Liars’ brains make fibbing come naturally
¥ Is this what happens to Politicians?
¤ DeLay indicted on money laundering charge
¤ Reconstruction is still largely stalled
¤ Leaving No Child Behind (Except 19.5 Million)
¤ Bush's Stay out of Jail Card
¤ Making Faux Martyrdom Pay: Judy Miller Lands a Book Deal
¤ Hopes fade for 59 missing in typhoon landslide
¤ Toward a sensible US foreign policy
¤ In New Book Ex-Chaplain at Guantánamo Tells of Abuses
¤ Israeli troops kill Palestinian woman
¤ Yemen court acquits Iraqis

October 03, 2005 News
Posted: Monday, October 3, 2005

¤ Private Investment: Makes Africa Poor
¤ 'Worse Things' Have Happened at Abu Ghraib
¤ Fool Shortage? Unfortunately, Not in Georgia
¤ Dems/Iraq = Bush/Vietnam = AWOL
¤ Condoleezza the Gun Slinger
¤ Ethnic Cleansing as Economic Policy
¤ How the world was duped
¤ What I Learned In Louisiana
¤ 'Is the American psyche headed for a nervous breakdown?'
¤ The Crude Truth about the War in Iraq
¤ The Terrorism of Race and Poverty
¤ The Iraqis Right to be Free
¤ Ghost Town Flash
¤ Three Bangladesh courts hit by bombs
¤ Israel halts air raids, assassinations, says it will also halt artillery fire 'for now'
¥ Only Israel could make a statement like this
¤ Engaging with Israel
¤ $300 Billion Terrorist Training Ground
¤ Ferrer, Sharpton slam Bloomberg for skipping event at Apollo
¤ Back in the Belly of the Beast
¤ Day of the Jackass
¤ More Lies for More War
¤ Last One to Leave, Please Turn On the Lights
¤ DID H.W. BUSH, CLINTON OFFICIALS ORCHESTRATE OKC BOMBING?
¤ Times reporter tried to cut earlier CIA leak deal
¤ Bush speech to crank up Iraq message
¤ Bush cranks up message on dangers of Iraq withdrawal
¤ Iraqi government official gunned down in Baghdad
¤ Burt Bacharach and Dr Dre target Bush
¤ Voting Fraud Is Found in Afghanistan's Election
¤ Last-minute talks on Turkish membership stall
¤ Britain in the dock for human rights failures
¤ Bush Misreads History
¤ Magazine ad "unleashes hell" for Boeing and Bell
¤ Afghan troops kill 31 fighters in clash

October 02, 2005 News
Posted: Sunday, October 2, 2005

¤ President Bush Directly Involved In Leak Scandal
¤ Thousands of civilians flee military offensive near Syrian border
¤ Iraqi Government Totters
¤ U.S. soldiers get off easy for crimes against Iraqis
¤ Uzbekistan cuts off ties to U.S. on fighting terror
¤ 'Who supports Bush's sinking ship?'
¤ 'Silencing Sibel Edmonds: Translator caught in web'
¤ Rogue Soldiers or Rogue President?
¤ Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'
¤ Good Advice Costs Nothing
¤ A Government of War Criminals
¤ Retired general: Iraq invasion was ‘strategic disaster'
¤ 'Iraq guilt' mars British army morale
¤ Bombers didn't need al-Qaeda
¤ Torture of Iraqis was for ‘stress relief’, say US soldiers
¤ US attacks al-Qa'ida base
¤ U.S. Generals Now See Virtues of a Smaller Troop Presence in Iraq
¤ Shock and awe: the night Baghdad burned.
¤ Something stinks in America
¤ North Korea turns away Western aid
¤ Shooting of reporter in Iraq was justified, U.S. report says
¤ Residents Flee El Salvador Volcanic Blast
¤ Revealed: British link to Bali bombs

October 01, 2005 News
Posted: Saturday, October 1, 2005

¤ African Food Exports vs. African Starvation
¤ Gutless, Spineless and Clueless
¤ The Bennett Rule: Abort Every White Baby!
¤ The War in Iraq
¤ Shades of FEMA's Brown in Bush Pick
¤ Galloway Blasts Israel
¤ Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal
¤ Bush administration found involved in illegal 'covert propaganda'
¤ Afghanistan: Four Years Later
¤ 22 Killed, 50 Wounded in Bali Explosions
¤ Journalists calls on US army to end targeting journalists
¤ On the recent killing "al-Zarqawi's 2nd in command"
¤ Life for farmer who threw man to lions
¤ Iraq suicide bomber brings death toll to 200 in five days
¤ UN atomic watchdog rejected call to denounce Israel as a nuclear threat.
¤ Israelis urge U.S. to stop Iran's nuke goals
¤ Bush administration to examine new measures against Syria
¤ US launches Iraq offensive near Syria
¤ Bush is Cooking Up Two New Wars
¤ The Us Has Plans to Invade Iran Before Bush's Term Ends
¤ Rice: Force necessary for democracy
¤ Rice: Iraq Must Not Be Given Up to Killers
¥ We agree, America and Britian GET OUT
¤ American security contractor allegedly shoots dead his Afghan interpreter
¤ Police chief to face fresh questions on Tube killing
¤ Public Skeptical About Bush's Democracy Crusade
¤ Guantanamo- Modern Nazi Camps
¤ Iran threatens oil curbs if sanctioned

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