01.Jan.2007 https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/SakherHammad_WTC_9-11.html
Who Signed Sakher Hammad's
WTC Basement Level Pass?
Who Murdered Katherine Smith? License Suspect Had WTC Repair Pass, But Port Authority Did its Own Work
by Bartholomew Sullivan
GoMemphis
16.Feb.2002 https://www.gomemphis.com/mca/local_news/article/0,1426,MCA_437_989113,00.html
A photo ID pass for
05.Sep.2001 found on one of the men charged with fraudulently obtaining a Tennessee driver's license from a Memphis woman gave him access to the six underground levels of the One World Center building.
01.Jan.2007 https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/SakherHammad_WTC_9-11.html
When arrested, Mr. Hammad's residential address + the address for his Magic Heating and Plumbing residential handyman service was: 275 93rd St, Brooklyn -
- an apartment building whose other tenants include (per reverse trace done at skipease.com):
Bassam Alshaer, Chouki Atman, Hesham Elegezeny, Ismail Hanafy, Kholoud Hussein, Khalili Ibrahim, Anas and Fatema Watfa, Dave White.
01.Jan.2007 https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/SakherHammad_WTC_9-11.html
In addition to the
05.Sep.2001 WTC 9/5 pass, also found in Mr. Hammad's wallet at the time of arrest:
two video rental cards, a credit card, a membership card for the New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association,
a card for Detectives Endowment Association of New York with a commemoration for 9/11 victims on it + a charter membership card to Team Ford Racing.
"...The NYC Patrolmen's Benevolent Assoc and Detectives Endowment Assoc of NY are both police unions -- Hammad was carrying cards for both, which would be union membership cards."
The company he claimed to be working for at the WTC,
Denko Mechanical, is NOT a licensed fire protection contractor in New York +
therefore, by NYC law, could NOT touch any pipe or plumbing fixture connected to the building's sprinkler system:
01.Jan.2007 https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/SakherHammad_WTC_9-11.html
When arrested, one of the men, Sakher "Rocky" Hammad, as already said, was carrying a WTC pass for 05.Sep.2001 .
He told police that he had been working on the sprinkler system. He showed them his business card: Magic Plumbing and Heating
In a Memphis court on
28.Mar.200- Rocky's father, a NY City engineer, Mr. Peter Hansen (immigrated 15 years ago from Jordan),
presented the court with a letter from Denko Mechanical, Ltd,
signed by a Mr. Sergei Denko,
stating that Rocky and Rocky's cousin had been doing work for his company in the basement + garage of the WTC on
05.Sep.2001+06.Sep.2001 .
Rocky was released on $250,000 bail.
The nature of the work was not specified.
The Port Authority of New York claimed no knowledge of hiring a Denko Mechanical + said
Denko must have been hired by a tenant.
(Note: Port Authority Chairman Lewis M. Eisenberg,
ex-partner of Goldman Sachs & Co,
is a good friend of former Twin Towers owner Larry Silverstein,
who signed this lease 4 weeks before the attack.
Eisenberg recently was elected Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee)
Denko Mechanical Ltd's address + phone is the residential Manhattan apartment + phone of Mr. Sergei Davidenko.
But Denko is not listed in any yellow pages or in any type of NY contractor list.
It is also still unknown, what Mr. Hammad + his cousin were ostensibly doing in the basement + garage of the WTC
on 9/5 and 9/6.
The track ends finally here:
Denko is mentioned in a database of
376 BERTRAND ST. WINNIPEG (Real Dennis + Wayne McCarthy)
Denko Mechanical was also one of a few sponsors for a trade show at "opportunity knocks" - Source: https://www.northwest.ca/Opportunity Knocks 2001.htm
A NY Times article mentioning Hammad's letter from Sergei Denko, president of Denko Mechanical: https://college4.nytimes.com/guests/articles/2002/02/18/903268.xml
31.Dec.2006 By Allen L Roland
SADDAM'S HANGING A SMOKESCREEN FOR U.S. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
A dangling Saddam may please a vengeful Bush ~ but it will also be a vivid reminder to the rest of the world of our deepening moral disgrace.
This falls in line with a recent International poll that named George W Bush as the greatest menace to mankind + International peace.
Bush's demonizing of Saddam is the ultimate projection of his own dark side ~ which he externalizes on others in his demonic black and white world .
By Carol Wolman - Psychiatrist Says Bush Needs To Be Impeached For The Good Of "we The People".
"We the People" are like an abused wife. The abusers need to be brought to justice, to restore our self-esteem and ability to cope with real problems.
31.Dec.2006 -By SARA QUADLANDER Military Petition Questions Occupancy
An anti-war petiton that was written by an active-duty serviceman has made rapid circulation throughout the entire military.
Petitioners have stated that they have received an overwhelming positive response from other active-duty military and family members + have asked the US government for an Appeal of Redress concerning this issue.
All information for this article was found in the January 8,2007 issue of "The Nation."
31.Dec.2006 By Mickey Z. - Hussein And Ford = Dead Criminals
If there is anyone left who questions the depth of the hypocrisy and the blood lust of the American Empire, the events of the last week left little doubt.
31.Dec.2006 Let there be no mistake what now awaits Iraq + all patriotic Iraqis.
I suppose you all heard of Sheikh Rubaie, right?
The Shia Cleric who was gunned down by Sadrists + Badrists because he said that Muwaffaq Rubaie was not part of the clan or at least was an illegitimate member of the Rubaie clan.
You heard that right? These are the Sadrist and Badrist Shia. And they are coming for every peace-loving secularits, Arab nationalist + non-Muslim in Iraq.
:: Article nr. 29431 sent on 31-dec-2006 04:57 ECT www.uruknet.info?p=29431
31.Dec.2006 China's Coal Boom Making "Toxic Clouds So Big They Can Be Seen From Space"...
A GREAT coal rush is under way across China on a scale not seen anywhere since the 19th century.
Its consequences have been detected half a world away in toxic clouds so big that they can seen from space, drifting across the Pacific to California laden with microscopic particles of chemicals that cause cancer + diseases of the heart and lung. https://feeds.huffingtonpost.com/~r/huffingtonpost/LatestNews/~3/68701778/chinas-coal-boom-making-_n_37475.html
30.Dec.2006 IRAN PRAISES DEMISE OF SADDAM... https://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/12/30/D8MBF3NG1.html
31.Dec.2006 Specter can’t justify escalation. - Nico -Today on :
WOLF BLITZER: Can you justify deploying more U.S. troops into what you believe is a civil war?
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R-PA): On this day, for the record, Wolf, I would say no.
31.Dec.2006 US Iraq death toll 'hits 3,000' The US military suffers its 3,000th death in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, a group tracking casualties says.
31.Dec.2006 Russia-Belarus gas deal reached Russia and Belarus agree a deal on gas supplies after Moscow threatened to cut them off over pricing.
31.Dec.2006 Gasstreit: Moskau und Minsk einigen sich in letzter Minute
31.Dec.2006 https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,druck-456871,00.html
Künstler + Kuratoren haben die Wahl zwischen klassischen Strategien der Exklusion,
einer zeitversetzten Aneignung, die die Distanz zwischen Pop + Kunst aufrechterhält,
oder einem wechselseitigen Austausch, bei dem die Grenzen verschwimmen.
31.Dec.2006 https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,druck-456871,00.html
Der Erfolg von Youtube beruht ganz wesentlich auf der Beteiligung der Nutzer. "User-generated content", lautet das Stichwort für eine ganze Reihe neuerer Web-Services,
die man mittlerweile unter der Bezeichnung "web2.0" subsummiert.
Es ist, als hätten Millionen unzufriedener Fernsehzuschauer darauf gewartet, ihr eigenes Programm machen und sehen zu können -
mit der Einschränkung, daß ein Großteil der verfügbaren Clips von TV-Sendungen stammt.
Dennoch - die Beteiligung der Zuschauer in der Rolle der Produzenten macht einen alten Traum der Brechtschen Rundfunktheorie wahr.
00.000.1920 -bereits Ende der -er Jahre-, Er wünschte sich daß "Hörer zu Mitspielern werden".
31.Dec.2006 The 3,000th U.S. soldier has died in Iraq. - Nico - “Spc. Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Texas, was killed Thursday by small arms fire in Baghdad, the Defense Department said.”
UPDATE: Flashback to Tony Snow at the 2,500th U.S. fatality: “It’s a number + every time there’s one of these 500 benchmarks people want something.”
31.Dec.2006 Lugar: Bush Must Consult Congress Over Escalation Or It ‘Could Get Ugly’ - Nico -
Today on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), the outgoing chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said President Bush should have congressional support before he announces any plan for escalation in Iraq. “[I]n the past, the administration has been inclined not to disregard Congress but to not take Congress very seriously. I think this time Congress has to be taken seriously.”
If Bush ignores Congress, Lugar said he should expect “a lot of hearings, a lot of study, a lot of criticism,” and “demands for subpoenas.”
Fox host Chris Wallace said, “You’re saying this could get ugly.”
Lugar replied, “Yes, it could.” Watch it:
Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Larry Korb, former U.S. assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan, said
last week that “Congress should intervene to block another troop surge unless the administration could adequately explain to it why such a policy was necessary.” Read American Progress’ full memo to Congress.
Do you support sending in more troops?
LUGAR: Well, I don’t know whether I do or not. And I say that because my prayer is that President Bush will take the advice that has come frequently + that is with people being there on the takeoff, they have to support you on the landing.
Now, in the past, the administration has been inclined not to disregard Congress but to not take Congress very seriously. I think this time Congress has to be taken seriously. There’s been an election; Republicans lost the election. There’s going to be a change in leadership in my committee and likewise on the House side.
What I would advise would be maybe a retreat — it could be right here in Washington — but for several hours, in which the Foreign Relations Committee, just to take our group, really studies what is the president’s plan, understands specifically who is to be trained, how would the politics affect what we’ve just been talking about, the devolution of the country, the oil money or anything else, the contact group.
In other words, that there be at least some study of this by all of this before, suddenly, we are all asked to comment, Are you in favor of surge? Are you in favor of withdrawal? Six months? Three months? — all the cliches. These are not going to be relevant.
WALLACE: But you’re saying do this before the president addresses the nation.
LUGAR: Yes, that would be advisable, so that…
WALLACE: And what if he doesn’t do that? What if, basically, you know, he calls a group of you in, has the meeting around the Cabinet Room…
LUGAR: Which is the usual course.
WALLACE: Yes. Then what?
LUGAR: Then he can anticipate, not endless hearings, but a lot of hearings, a lot of study, a lot of criticism.
In other words, as opposed to having a Foreign Relations Committee that really now is well-informed, understands, may not agree but understands how you get from place to place, we have an assortment of invitations, demands for subpoenas, all sorts of situations in which administration figures perhaps reluctantly come to the committee or don’t come to the committee or various other experts discuss…
WALLACE: You’re saying this could get ugly.
LUGAR: Yes, it could. And it need not.
31.Dec.2006 “Few have ever risen so high - Nico - with so little guile or calculation.” — Vice President Dick Cheney, on former president Gerald Ford.
31.Dec.2006 Big oil buying government contracts? - Judd -
“The Justice Department is investigating whether the director of a multibillion-dollar oil-trading program at the Interior Department has been paid as a consultant for oil companies hoping for contracts.
The director of the program + 3 subordinates, all based in Denver, have been transferred to different jobs + have been ordered to cease all contacts with the oil industry until the investigation is completed
some time next spring, according to officials involved.”
31.Dec.2006 President Bush believes in fair trials, - Nico -at least for Saddam Hussein.
31.Dec.2006 “A chunk of ice bigger than the area of Manhattan - Nico - broke from an ice shelf in Canada’s far north + could wreak havoc if it starts to float westward toward oil-drilling regions + shipping lanes
next summer.” It was the “largest such break in nearly three decades,” and global warming “likely played a role.”
31.Dec.2006 POLL: Active Duty U.S. Soldiers Disapprove Of Bush Handling Of War, Do Not Support Escalation - Nico -
The Military Times released a new poll yesterday of 6,000 active duty U.S. military personnel. The results were revealing. Some highlights:
– Only 35 % said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war,while 42 % said they disapproved.
– 50 % believe success in Iraq is likely,down from 83 % in 2004.
– 38 % believe the United States should send more troops to Iraq . 39 % believe we should maintain current levels or reduce the number of troops, including 13 % who support complete withdrawal.
– 72 % believe the military is “stretched too thin to be effective.”
– 47 % disagree with President Bush’s mantra that the war in Iraq is part of the war against terrorism,while the same percentage agree.
– Only 41 % of the military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place,down from 65 % in 2003. That closely reflects the beliefs of the general population today — 45 % agreed in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll.
– 52 % approve of the overall job President Bush is doing,down from 71 % in 2004.
– 63 % say the senior military leadership has the best interests of the troops at heart . That number is lower from President Bush (48 %) and lower still for civilian military leadership (32 %) and Congress (23 %).
Greg Sargent and Steve Benen have more.
31.Dec.2006 Fox News Pundit: Civil War In Iraq Is ‘Positive,’ Shows America Is ‘Winning’ - Amanda -
Today on Fox News’s Your World with Neil Cavuto, guest host Stuart Varney tried to “put out something positive about Iraq.”
He suggested that since Iraq is “now fighting itself,” America is “in a way, winning and preserving our interests.” Watch it:
As the conservative Washington Times notes, a “fullscale civil war in Iraq would likely spread into neighboring countries — something that happened time and over the past century” — and would “conservatively speaking create hundreds of thousands of additional refugees — who would become an additional pool of recruitment for jihadists.” Digg It! Transcript:
STUART VARNEY: Well, let me put out something positive about Iraq, if I may for a second. Look, we took the fight to the enemy. We divided the enemy. The enemy is now fighting itself. America’s interest is surely being well-preserved and well-protected. We are in a fact, in a way, winning and preserving our interests.
31.Dec.2006 “Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted - Amanda -to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park.”
31.Dec.2006 A victory for the Internet. - Amanda -
AT&T agrees to observe Net Neutrality principles for at least 24 months. Columbia University Professor Tim Wu has more on why deal is a “milestone in the history of the Internet.”
29.Dec.2006 December 29, 2006 - Think Progress -
The incoming Senate — including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) — plan to revisit the issue of “what legal rights must be protected for detainees held in the war on terrorism.” Reid’s spokesman said the senator would “‘would support attempts to revisit some of the most extreme elements of the bill’ including language stripping detainees of habeas corpus rights.”
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman : “[G]overnment by the radical right has been an utter failure.”
The capture of Osama bin Laden is “a success that hasn’t occurred yet,” according to White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Frago Townsend.
According to a new AP-AOL News poll, Bush is the top villian of 2006,winning “by a landslide.” Bush “far outdistanced even Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader in hiding; and former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who is scheduled for execution.” (Bush was also chosen as hero of the year, “by a much smaller margin.”)
Iraq “is in the midst of a housing crisis that is worsening by the day,” but “plans to address the problem are minimal.”
While “1.8 million Iraqis are living outside the country,
1.6 million more have been displaced within Iraq since the war began.
00.Feb.2006 -Since- about 50,000 per month have moved within the country.”
A majority of adults in five European countries and the United States want troops out of Iraq .
And finally: Women in the new Congress may take up the “ question of potty parity .” The members-only men’s restroom has a “shoeshine stand, fireplace and television tuned to floor proceedings” and “is nestled a few paces from the House chamber, beside the speaker’s lounge, flanked by Capitol police.” In contrast, reaching the women’s restroom “entails traversing a hall where tourists gather, or entering the minority leader’s office, navigating a corridor that winds past secretarial desks.”
31.Dec.2006 Castro gives New Year message Cuba's President Castro says his recovery from surgery will be "a long process", in his New Year message.
31.Dec.2006 Princess Diana inquest to resume The inquest into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales + Dodi Al Fayed is to resume on 8 January.
31.Dec.2006 Press fears over execution Newspapers in the Arab world and Israel reflect a combination of cynicism, anger and fear over the execution of Saddam Hussein.
31.Dec.2006 Buoyant year for FTSE and pound The FTSE index of leading shares rises nearly 11% in 2006 while sterling gains 14% against the US dollar.
31.Dec.2006 A bitter family saga is at an end BBC Washington correspondent Matt Frei examines what Saddam Hussein's death will mean for the Bush administration.
31.Dec.2006 Tories 'party of working people' The Tories will become the party that represents working people rather than the rich, David Cameron says.
31.Dec.2006 Crash kills Iran justice minister Iranian Justice Minister Jamal Karimirad dies in a car crash in central Iran, state TV reports.
31.Dec.2006 Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at an unspecified location, reports say.
31.Dec.2006 Huge Arctic ice break discovered A vast ice shelf broke away in the Canadian Arctic last year, in what could be another sign of global warming.
31.Dec.2006 Bush shelters amid tornado alert US President George W Bush is evacuated from his ranch after a tornado warning in central Texas.
31.Dec.2006 Population in Nigeria tops 140m Nigeria's census results show that Africa's most populous nation has grown by 63% in the last 15 years.
31.Dec.2006 'Mutant genes' could treat cancer The same genetic mechanism that drives tumour growth could also treat cancer, scientists believe.
31.Dec.2006 Spiky surface 'kills infections' Adding a special "spiky" coating to surfaces can kill bacteria and eliminate viruses, research suggests.
31.Dec.2006 Hussein hanged with the Web as the village square Blog: Saddam Hussein's hanging wasn't done in a public square, but the way video and photos of the before and after are quickly spreading...
31.Dec.2006 China: two more years to Internet #1? Blog: China says it now has over 130-million Internet users. Over 50-million Chinese have broadband.
31.Dec.2006 Now we know: Canada melt down Blog: Using high tech monitoring devices, including satellite images, scientists have reconstructed a major climate event that occurred...
31.Dec.2006 Source Code Access Denied in Disputed Race - Zonk 235+ -
MrMetlHed writes "A judge ruled Friday that congressional aspirant Christine Jennings has no right to examine the source code that runs the electronic voting machines at the center of a disputed Southwest Florida congressional race. From the article: 'The ruling Friday from Judge Gary prevents for now the Jennings camp from being able to use the programming code to try to show voting machines used in Sarasota County malfunctioned. Jennings claims that an unusually large number of undervotes (ballots that didn't show a vote) recorded in the race implies the machines lost the votes.'"
31.Dec.2006 Computer's Heat May Unmask Anonymized PCs - Zonk 123+ -Virtual_Raider writes
"Wired is carrying a story about a method developed by security researchers to identify computers hiding behind anonymity services. From the article: 'His victim is the Onion Router, or "Tor" — a sophisticated privacy system that lets users surf the web anonymously. Tor encrypts a user's traffic + bounces it through multiple servers, so the final destination doesn't know where it came from. Murdoch set up a Tor network at Cambridge to test his technique, which works like this: If an attacker wants to learn the IP address of a hidden server on the Tor network, he'll suddenly request something difficult or intensive from that server. The added load will cause it to warm up.'"
31.Dec.2006 New Frontiers in Authoritarian Gibberish - BG
Following up on Josh Marshall's take, Jim Henley notes: And it's also true that the US and its Iraqi allies chose to try Saddam on one of his relatively minor crimes because if they did so they could get him safely hung before they had to try him for the major ones, the gas attacks and massacres that happened during The Years of Playing Footsie with the United States. The Dujail reprisals were a war crime, no doubt about it, a bigger sham of justice than Saddam's own trial, by two orders of magnitude. They were also the sort of war crime that people like Ralph Peters and a hundred other pundits and parapundits think the United States should be committing. Every time you read a complaint about "politically correct rules of engagement" you are reading someo... Source: https://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2006/12/new-frontiers-in-authoritarian.html
31.Dec.2006 Top Saudi Religious Leader Declares War Against 'Infidel' Shi'ites - BG
In a terrible hurry, Saddam is hung while Rumsfeld skips off, scot free. The arrest of the Iranians helping SCIRI and Sadr reveals all the contridictions and silliness of our klutzy imperialist attempt at controlling the Middle East. Saudi Arabia's top religious leader declares religious war against all Shi'ites. The Apocalypse is all about religious warfare. TO READ MORE ... Source: https://elainemeinelsupkis.typepad.com/culture_of_life_news/2006/12/top_saudi_relig.html
31.Dec.2006 Why the Lobby is uniquely dangerous - BG
James Petras has another good article (or here or here) on the pernicious influence of the Israel Lobby (see also here and here). The Israel Lobby – now known generally as 'the Lobby' due to its unique and overwhelming power in American politics – forces the United States towards war, eliminates the possibility of real political debate on large areas of policy + requires American politicians to take foreign policy positions that are obviously against the best interests of the United States. The Lobby is directly responsible for: immoral and illegal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia (new!) + Palestine (with American taxpayers footing the bill, a bill they can't afford, for most of these); the threat of violence and wars against all the peoples of the Middle East... Source: https://xymphora.blogspot.com/2006/12/why-lobby-is-uniquely-dangerous.html
31.Dec.2006 By Kevin Zeese - Americans Want A Rapid Exit From Iraq But Elected Leaders Aren't Even Considering It
Ending the occupation will reduce violence, immediately save more than $100 billion and respect the wishes of the American people. Why is Washington, DC ignoring the obvious?
By Don Williams - Big Media Should Not Be A Tool In The Cycle Of War
Get ready for Act Two. The same tired drumbeat for war--this time against Iran--is beginning to echo in the land. We in the heartland, where so many of our young sign up for military service, should not be fooled again. Rather we should resist, read up, think critically + take back our country.
By Nancy Tobi - Patriot's Day: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
A punlic meeting with local and state election officials shines the light on what community-based elections are all about.
By Nancy Tobi - Election Reform: Grow It From The Grassroots
A history of national election reform legislation shows how easy it is for federal legislation to screw up the nation's election systems.
30.Dec.2006 today's papers
Hanged Man - By Joshua Kucera
Posted Saturday, Dec. 30, 2006, at 4:58 AM ET
Everyone leads with the early-morning execution of Saddam Hussein. He was hanged at about 6 am Iraqi time after being handed over the previous evening by the US forces who were holding him. The New York Times and Los Angeles Times go with banner headlines + the Washington Post splashes the story across the top of the front page.
The LA Times benefits from its time zone and has many more details of the execution from people who saw it. He didn't wear a hood and wore all black, rather than Iraq's customary red prison jumpsuit. He held a Koran + when guards shouted out the name of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, he replied, sarcastically, "Moqtada," which was his last word. To continue reading, click here.
31.Dec.2006 Dialectics, Rockefellers + population control
31.Dec.2006 Alex Constantine's Political Conspiracy Research Bin: Mockingbird vs. Mockingbird - BG David Ray Griffin + the splash effects of his activism.https://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2006/12/mockingbird-vs-mockingbird.html
31.Dec.2006 The US and the Execution of Saddam Hussein: No Respect for Law - BG
The US and the Execution of Saddam Hussein: No Respect for Law JURIST Special Guest Columnist Curtis Doebbler, an American member of Saddam Hussein's legal defense team, says that the execution of Saddam Hussein after an unfair trial leaves the United States with blood on its hands and makes war criminals of its lead... Source: https://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/12/us-and-execution-of-saddam-hussein-no.php
31.Dec.2006 Widening The War - BG
Widening The War Two important items from Swoop.
First, regarding the White House's Middle East counteroffensive following the November elections and the Iraq Study Group recommendations.
Swoop: During his current consultations on the new strategy for Iraq, President Bush has told those advising him that he is not interested in any proposals that do not involve "success."
"Anyone who does not believe in victory should leave the room right now," was how he began one consultation session.
Top National Security Council officials are describing the Iraq Study Group as "discredited" and "dead and buried."
Instead a new policy is taking shape.
Based on recent discussions between former Saudi Ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan + NSC Middle East Director Elliott Abrams,
this policy foresees a central role for Saudi Arabia as a supplier of money + weapons to local... Source: https://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2006/12/widening_the_wa_1.htm
31.Dec.2006 Lynching Saddam: The New Way Forward - BG
It turns out that Saddam Hussein will be lynched + Bush will announce his plan for "a new way forward" troop escalation at pretty much the same time . . . soon.
What a coincidence! "President Bush worked nearly three hours at his Texas ranch
on Thursday to design a new U.S. policy in Iraq, then emerged to say that he and his advisers need more time to craft the plan he'll announce in the...
Source: https://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/2006/12/lynching-saddam-new-way-forward.html
31.Dec.2006 Chavez Wins "Person Of The Year" Poll ... Time Magazine Ignores Result
You can trust the American voter. Given free and fair elections, we would make the right choices. That's a nightmare that Bush and Pelosi share.
31.Dec.2006 AP/IPSO Poll Pegs Bush As #1 Villain In The World!
George Bush can finally claim, "Mission Accomplished."
In a recent AP/IPSO poll, Americans overwhelmingly chose the U.S. Commander-in-Chief as the world's number one worst villain.
Galloping to the head of the class -
in front of Osama Bin Laden + Saddam Hussein -
by a margin of 4 to 1, Bush is now considered the world's foremost desperado.
Finally, Bush wins in a landslide!
31.Dec.2006 Lieberman Supports Escalation
Trump On Bush: "The Worst And By Far The Dumbest President"
The queen of irony, The New York Times' Maureen Dowd interviewed a no-holds-barred Donald Trump, who also said, "You see children going into school in Baghdad with no arms and legs -
I don't think Bush's kids should be having lots of fun in Argentina."
31.Dec.2006 Cindy Sheehan's Civil Disobedience Results In Another Arrest
Sheehan was arrested for blocking the road leading to President Bush's ranch. She and her fellow protesters lay in the road for 20 minutes before they were taken into custody.
31.Dec.2006 By W. Christopher Epler (Bill)
The Achilles' Heel Of American Corporate Fascism Is BOYCOTTS, BOYCOTTS, & MORE BOYCOTTS
The number one unplayed card in the American progressive social/political deck is nation wide, internet-orchestrated, targeted corporate boycotts.
31.Dec.2006 By John Carey - Video Games And What's Going On In Your Child's Brain
31.Dec.2006 By Alamgir Hussain - Unfettered Religious Freedom In Islam � A Fact Or Fiction?; Part 3
Against much propaganda of peace + tolerance + religious freedom in Islam,
the religious freedom for the idolaters + pagans + heathens is the acceptance of Islam or death,
while subjugation to Islam + payment of jizyah (poll-tax) for the Christians + Jews, according to the Koran.
31.Dec.2006 What Would We Do Without Experts?
"Experts say that cloning is too expensive to be used to make animals only to then grind them into hamburger or even to milk them."--New York Times, Dec. 29
31.Dec.2006 Treason on the half shell - by Don Nash, Unknown News
Excerpt: Will Congress ever wake up and cut the funding for the Bush insanity? Will Congress ever get up the spine to hold the Bush war criminals to account?
Does Congress have an inkling as to the exact and legal definition of treason? Treachery? Murder? War crimes? Impeachment? War crimes tribunals?
31.Dec.2006 Diverse perversions of inverse psychology by Christopher D., Unknown News
Excerpt: George Bush, (or as I've repeatedly called him and hope it catches on because I find it ironic and fitting:
The Other Butcher of Baghdad) has repeatedly rejected all forms of counsel concerning his War on Terror. Or at least, all counsel that doesn't jive with his search and destroy methodology, even if pesky things like law, convention + constitution get in the way. I call this the War of Terror on Freedom, or WTF for short.
31.Dec.2006 Homeland Security Dept admits breaking privacy laws, lying about it
Comment: DHS violated the law and lied about it. And there's nothing in this report to plausibly suggest the violation was anything but intentional.
In the America I'd like to live in, lawbreakers in high political office would be prosecuted. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
29.Dec.2006 Politics: Our Short National Nightmare - BG
fighting words
Our Short National Nightmare
How President Ford managed to go soft on Iraqi Baathists, Indonesian fascists, Soviet Communists + the shah ... in just two years. - By Christopher Hitchens
One expects a certain amount of piety and hypocrisy when retired statesmen give up the ghost, but this doesn't excuse the astonishing number of omissions and misstatements that have characterized the sickly national farewell to Gerald Ford. One could graze for hours on the great slopes of the massive obituaries and never guess that during his mercifully brief occupation of the White House, this president had: Disgraced the United States in Iraq and inaugurated a long period of calamitous misjudgment of that country. Colluded with the Indonesian dictatorship in a gross violation of international law that led to a near-genocide in East Timor. Delivered a resounding snub to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at the time when the Soviet dissident movement was in the greatest need of solidarity. To continue reading, click here.
29..Dec.2006 House member says 'unanswered questions' remain re. OK City Bombing - BG
House member says 'unanswered questions' remain re. OK City Bombing :: 9/11 CitizensWatch :: We are concerned citizens challenging the official story of 9/11 House member says 'unanswered questions' remain re. OK City Bombing
Posted by: khence [snip]
"Well there's nothing wrong to adding to a conspiracy theory when there might be a conspiracy, in fact," Rohrabacher responded.
[snip] : Is GOP Rep. 'fueling' Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories?
12/28/2006 @ 3:38 pm -- Filed by David Edwards and Ron Brynaert
https://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/GOP_Rep._fuels_Oklahoma_City_bombing_1228.html
Earlier today, during an interview on,the Republican chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee -- which just released a report rebuking the FBI on its investigation of the 1999 Oklahoma City bombing -- was asked if he was helping to "fuel conspiracy theories." American Morning's Miles O'Brien told outgoing Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, (R-CA) that he had "raised a lot of questions that are just kind of 'out there' in the conspiracy theorist world." O'Brien mentioned different theories relating to Middle East terrorists, Iraqi officials, neo-Nazi bankrobbers + the alleged John Doe #2.
"Doesn't this just add more fuel to those conspiracy theories?" O'Brien wondered.
"Well there's nothing wrong to adding to a conspiracy theory when there might be a conspiracy, in fact," Rohrabacher responded.
The California congressman spoke further about John Doe #2, citing numerous reported sightings by "credible witnesses" interviewed by the House International Relations Investigative Subcommittee + slammed the FBI for calling a "premature end" to their investigation.
"We did our best with limited resources + I think we moved the understanding of this issue forward a couple of notches even though important questions remain unanswered," Rohrabacher told the Associated Press after the two-year report's release.
Clip from 's American Morning:
[Editor's note: Watch the clip from on YouTube. Or click to the Rawstory.com link and view it there.]
This is encouraging to see. Years after the OK City bombing a House sub-committee picks up on the obvious evidence of cover-up of wider involvement. Pattern is clear.
Just as with the 9/11 investigation, the FBI and other authorities hampered Rohrabacher's Sub-committee's two year effort. Now it's time we call upon Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Chair of National Security Sub-committee under Waxman) to open an investigation of his own into the cover-up of the 9/11 attacks using Rohrabacher's investigation as a model, except with the addition of public hearings which will bring tremendous public support to the effort to learn more about what really happened and hopefully build the case for criminal prosecutions. -KFH
29.Dec.2006 today's papers
Friends Will Be Friends - By Daniel Politi
The Los Angeles Times and New York Times lead with Ethiopian-backed troops taking control of Somalia's capital without firing a single shot. Leaders of the Islamic Courts movement withdrew from Mogadishu saying they wanted to avoid civilian casualties. The Islamists fell from power more quickly than expected, but some analysts worry this could be the beginning of an Iraq-style insurgency.
The Washington Post leads with a new analysis by the Food and Drug Administration that concludes milk + meat from cloned animals pose no particular threats and are safe to eat (the LAT had the story on Saturday).
The assesment is now open to public comment and it still has to be formally approved before the current moratorium on cloned meat and milk is lifted.
The Wall Street Journal tops its worldwide newsbox with word that President Bush met with top security advisers for three hours on Iraq policy yesterday in Crawford.
He said good progress was made but emphasized he still needs time to work out the plan for Iraq that he's scheduled to announce early next year.
USA Today leads with a recap of the extreme weather conditions the country has faced in the past year.
Depending on how warm the rest of December turns out to be, 2006 could be the second-warmest year on record.
So far, it is slated to go down as the third-warmest year since 1895. To continue reading, click here.
31.Dec.2006 Noam Chomsky Is Not Your Friend - BG
Why does Noam Chomsky, defender of progressive issues + seeming whistleblower on the imperialistic ways of the U.S. government, deny the the fact that 9/11 was a set-up?
Is he in denial, under duress, or on the payroll? You decide: ZNet Sustainer: Dear Noam, There is much documentation observed and uncovered by the 911 families themselves suggesting a criminal conspiracy within the Bush Administration to cover-up the 9/11 attacks (see DVD, 9/11: Press for Truth). Additionally, much evidence has been put forward to question the official version of events. This has come in part from Paul Thompson, an activist who has creatively established the 9/11 Timeline, a free 9/11 investigative database for activist researchers, which now, according to The Village Voice's James R...
Source: https://pissedoffcabbie.blogspot.com/2006/12/noam-chomsky-is-not-your-friend.html
31.Dec.2006 "At this moment, unfortunately, the majority of Jews is disappearing not only in America, but all over the world through assimilation." For the Jews of the world, said Sharansky, Israel remains the most basic, strongest connection to their Jewish identity.
31.Dec.2006 Bonnie Goldstein
Posted Thursday, Dec. 28, 2006, at 3:51 PM ET
Omer Hassan al-Bashir, Sudan's military dictator, who seized power in 1989, has overseen the war-related deaths of two and a half million of his fellow Sudanese.
Although Sudan became a party to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in October 2003, ethnic cleansing in the Darfur section of the country steadily increased. Bashir's Arab government in Khartoum fired on the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army and unleashed militias to commit massacres against black-skinned civilians. A military and government-supported group, Janjaweed ("devils on horseback"), fought the insurgents and citizens of Darfur.
When the alarmed international community tried to stop the slaughter, President Bashir threatened to wage a jihad if U.N. peacekeepers entered Darfur. To continue reading, click here.
Bonnie Goldstein is a former special investigator to the U.S. Senate and investigative producer for ABC News.
31.Dec.2006 Alle Wetter: Stürme rütteln an Silvester
31.Dec.2006 Thailand: Bombenserie in Bangkok - auch Touristen unter den Opfern
31.Dec.2006 Jahreswechsel: Die Welt im Silvesterfieber
31.Dec.2006 Irak: An Saddams Grab schwören seine Anhänger Rache
31.Dec.2006 Zusammenschluss: Super- Gewerkschaft gegen Heuschrecken
31.Dec.2006 Irak: Saddam rief bis zuletzt zum Kampf gegen die Amerikaner auf
31.Dec.2006 Brasilien: Die Gier nach Soja frisst den Regenwald
31.Dec.2006 Dvorak Uncensored » James Baker Accused_of_Cover-Up, _Minimally - BG
Former Secretary of State James Baker was involved in a cover-up of illegal trading by his law firm with the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein,... https://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=8855
31.Dec.2006 https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/opinion/30blum.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
Deborah Blum, a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, is the author of “Ghost Hunters: William James and the Scientific Search for Life After Death.”
31.Dec.2006 https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/opinion/30blum.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
The theories developed by Lodge and his colleagues dovetail rather neatly with the electricity-produced hauntings that Olaf Blanke, a Swiss neuroscientist, reports in Nature. For example, he used an implanted electrode to send a current into a region of the brain called the angular gyrus. The test was focused on language processing. But as a side effect, one of the test subjects nervously reported sensing another person in bed with her, silent and shadowy. Her creepy companion came and went with the ebb and flow of current.
It would be compelling — and more convincing — if the same result could be exhibited in a few more subjects. But Dr. Blanke believes that even this one subject’s experience serves as an example of how we may mistake errant signals in the brain for something more. Humans tend, he points out, to seek explanation, to impose meaning on events that may have none. The pure rationalists among us suggest that our need to add meaning to a basic, biological existence easily accounts for the way we organize religions and find evidence of otherworldly powers in the stuff of everyday life.
The nonpurists suggest a different conclusion: willful scientific blindness. And there’s no reason Dr. Blanke’s study can’t support their theories of the paranormal.
31.Dec.2006 Ghosts in the Machine The human brain is, in surprising part, an appliance powered by electricity. It constantly generates about 12 watts of energy, enough to keep a flashlight glowing. posted by Prof. Hex
31.Dec.2006 Full Moon Names for 2007 Full Moon names date back to Native Americans, of what is now the northern and eastern United States. Those tribes of a few hundred years ago kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full Moon. Their names were applied to the entire month in which each occurred. posted by Prof. Hex
31.Dec.2006 At the Coliseum Bookstore, Little Is Left but the Shelves Another long-time bookstore bites the dust. posted by Prof. Hex
31.Dec.2006 Globe's hottest spots are also affordable The 4,000 travelers who use TripAdvisor.com have spoken.
The top hot spot in the world for 2007 is Pamukkale, Turkey.
31.Dec.2006 Lack of Afghan war crime trials shows 'double standard': An Afghan official said Saturday that Saddam Hussein's trial and execution show a double standard in the international community, as no one in Afghanistan has been prosecuted for atrocities from the country's 25 years of war.
31.Dec.2006 700 Pakistanis missing since start of war on terror : A fresh Amnesty International report reveals that several out of hundreds of detainees have been sold to the US by the Pakistani government. Family members and eyewitnesses to many of these disappearances or illegal detentions or abductions
31.Dec.2006 Ethiopian occupation force tanks roll to crush Islamist call to arms: Ethiopian tanks rumbled south from Mogadishu to attack Somali Islamists on Saturday after the religious movement's leaders called on fighters and residents in the port city of Kismayu to drive out the foreign "occupiers".
31.Dec.2006 Children being forced to fight in Somalia -- UNHCR: Children as young as 12 are being recruited to fight in the conflict between Somali government forces and rival Islamists, the United Nations refugee agency said on Saturday.
31.Dec.2006 Israel: What to do with Iran?: We must coordinate independent strike with US, prepare for Iranian response
31.Dec.2006 U.S. Eyes Support for Abbas' Forces: The Bush administration is holding talks with Congress about providing training and other support to security forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority.
31.Dec.2006 Slime Throwing as "Debate": The Dershowitz Treatment: Jimmy Carter's book plainly threatens to ignite a serious mainstream discussion of the Israel-Palestine conflict. To avert such a disaster he just as plainly must be reduced to ridicule and the debate turned into a circus. Enter Alan Dershowitz.
31.Dec.2006 3 Minute Video: Ramsey Clark reacts to the execution of Saddam Hussein: "A tragic assault on truth and justice"
31.Dec.2006 Juan Cole: Saddam: The death of a dictator: Through the bumbling of the U.S.-backed regime, justice becomes revenge + a despot becomes a martyr.
31.Dec.2006 Saddam: The questions that will live on : "It takes remarkable obedience to authority to believe that the US would have 'liberated' Iraq - or taken revenge - if its main exports were lettuce and pickles + the major petroleum resources were in the South Pacific."
31.Dec.2006 Arab haj pilgrims outraged at Saddam execution: The death could harden hatred for Shi'ite Muslims in Saudi Arabia, a bastion of Sunni Islam whose Islamic orthodoxy -- known as Wahhabism -- regards Shi'ites as virtual heretics.
31.Dec.2006 Hanging Saddam ‘barbaric’ says top EU official : Hanging former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was 'barbaric' and may turn him into a martyr, the European Union's aid and development Commissioner said.
31.Dec.2006 Arabiya says Saddam half-brother, ex-judge executed: Arabic satellite channel Arabiya said Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former judge Awad al-Bander were also executed by hanging on Saturday.
31.Dec.2006 Libya declares national mourning for Saddam : LIBYA declared three days of national mourning today after the execution of Iraqi ex-president Saddam Hussein who had been a "prisoner of war," official media said.
31.Dec.2006 Saddam: The questions that will live on : "It takes remarkable obedience to authority to believe that the US would have 'liberated' Iraq - or taken revenge - if its main exports were lettuce and pickles + the major petroleum resources were in the South Pacific."
31.Dec.2006 Tariq Ali: Saddam at the End of a Rope: What's Good for Saddam May Be Good for Mubarak or the Saudi Royals
31.Dec.2006 Robert Fisk: Review of the year: The Middle East : Pray for little countries that believe in empty promises of a superpower
31.Dec.2006 And the Empire Mourned…- By Jason Miller
In the wake of the United States’ recent facilitation of Saddam Hussein’s hanging, we in the self-proclaimed “bastion of human rights” are in the midst of six days of mourning for a man would have swung from the gallows long ago had he been judged by the same standards as Saddam. Continue
31.Dec.2006 Federal Bureau of Intimidation -By Howard Zinn
They don’t like social movements. They work for the establishment and the corporations and the politicos to keep things as they are. And they want to frighten and chill the people who are trying to change things. So the best defense against them and resistance against them is simply to keep on fighting back, to keep on exposing them. Continue
31.Dec.2006 Unofficial Video Shows Hanging Of Saddam 3 Minute Video -WARNING - Some viewers may find the video disturbing. It should only be watched by a mature audience. Click to view
31.Dec.2006 A dictator created then destroyed by America -By Robert Fisk
00.000.2001 -In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of- we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the innocent -
we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam's shame at Abu Ghraib - + yet we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created . Continue
31.Dec.2006 Patterns of Global Terorrism - View as HTML
This year the Department of State has redesignated the same seven states ... crisis management seminar under the Department of State ’s Anti-Terrorism ... www.mipt.org/pdf/1999pogt.pdf
2005060210 Patterns of Global Terorrism -
00.Jun.2005 U.S. watching Bolivian situation: The U.S. State Department said Wednesday it had spoken with ... alfatomega.com/2005060210.html
31.Dec.2006 Best Wishes for a Bloody New Year from George W. Bush: 'Higher levels of fighting' upcoming in Afghanistan, top U.S. general says
Richard A. Clarke: "As the president contemplates sending even more U.S. forces into the Iraqi sinkhole, he should consider not only the thousands of fatalities, the tens of thousands of casualties and the hundreds of billions of dollars already lost. He must also weigh the opportunity cost of taking his national security barons off all the other critical problems they should be addressing -- problems whose windows of opportunity are slamming shut, unheard over the wail of Baghdad sirens."
31.Dec.2006 Vote for Your Favorite Gun Guy of 2006!
Ground Zero is a crime scene + Bin Laden is a perp we have only glorified with our talk about the "War on Terror." He must have seen more proof that Allah was on his side as the invasion of Iraq turned to chaos and cost the international goodwill we gained after 9/11. 12/31
We focus so much on the deaths of our troops that we don't understand the suffering of Iraqis 12/31
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has spent much of the last month behind closed doors, putting the final touches on a presidential campaign-in-waiting. 12/31
The Adrienne Shelly Foundation, Established in Memory of the Late Wife of Progressive Political Analyst Andry Ostroy: "It is in the spirit of this passion and vision that the Adrienne Shelly Foundation has been established. We know that Adrienne would like us to do everything possible to help young women pursue their filmmaking dreams + to assist others in making the same leap from acting to writing and directing as Adrienne had done so successfully."
31.Dec.2006 Healthy? Insurers don't buy it: Minor ailments can thwart applicants for individual policies. 12/31
80 Iraqis killed; deadly month for U.S 12/31
31.Dec.2006 Ringfahndung Journal:
12.Oct.2003-18.Okt.2003 Archives ... our nation knew that Saddam Hussein + his weapons of mass destruction were such ...
Laura Bush, 56, Gattin des US-Präsidenten, nutzt jede Gelegenheit, ... www.ringfahndung.de/2003/10/12-week
Staatsbesuche von US-Präsidenten in Deutschland 1945-2006 ...
Auf dem Weg zur KSZE Konferenz in Paris besucht er mit seiner Gattin den Dom zu ... Kohl zum Mittagessen und Gesprächen, u.a. Saddam Hussein,in Oggersheim. www.us-botschaft.de/germany-ger/staatsbesuche.html
31.Dec.2006 rpk`s diary Saddam Hussein wurde zum Verbündeten der Sowjetunion + der USA gegen die islamische ... mit seiner gattin in einem luxusappartemente an der copa derweil. www.rpk.net/diary
31.Dec.2006 AlterNet: War on Iraq: The Jill Carroll Story, Part 8: A New Enemy U.S. + foreign intelligence sources, on the other hand, said that Gaood had indeed been a powerful figure under Saddam Hussein .
+, the CIA's report on ... www.alternet.org/waroniraq/40702
AlterNet: Our Dear Leaders It should also be noted that Saddam Hussein was utterly powerless to get any kind of nuclear weapons system into full gear because of the sanctions that had ... www.alternet.org/columnists/story/42950
31.Dec.2006 links Operation Große Hochzeit warnings of 9/11? The Media Climate Shifts ... and know-how needed by Saddam Hussein An der Aufrüstung des Irak beteiligte ... www.elvira-classen.de/links.htm
00.000..2003 Die Zeit - Dossier : Vorbild Stalin Saddam Hussein hat in seinem Videoschrank eine Dokumentation über die Hinrichtung des rumänischen Conducators Nicolae Ceau?escu + seiner Gattin gehortet. ...
zeus.zeit.de/text/2003/52/Aufstieg_u__Fall
31.Dec.2006 R. Bühlmann: Ehefrau Vreni haucht ihm ins Ohr... Saddam Hussein todkrank?", (Blick,
07.Sep.2000 : 11) werden zwar die ... sind sie nur die Ehefrau oder Gattin,oder aber sie werden mit dem Vornamen bezeichnet. www.linguistik-online.de/11_02/buehlmann.html
31.Dec.2006 Information Warfare: Military History on DVD Flying Leathernecks (1951) – John Wayne again stars, this time, ... which will be re-made by Peter Jackson for a 2008 release,also inspired the "trench ...
www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20061219.aspx
31.Dec.2006 https://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/1999/Apr-11-Sun-1999/news/10963838.html
A month later the scientists were speculating whether the instrument was triggered by an earthquake or noise, such as blasting or a sonic boom.
As seismologist David von Seggern put it, "Again, we're severely handicapped by having almost no instruments in Southern Nevada."
31.Dec.2006 https://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/1999/Apr-11-Sun-1999/news/10963838.html
Craig dePolo, a research geologist with the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology who is studying faults within the Las Vegas basin, said knowledge about the faults is scarce.
Given the concentration of people who live here -- 1.3 million -- a more in-depth understanding is warranted, he said. "There are questions that have to be answered," dePolo said
31.Dec.2006 https://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/1999/Apr-11-Sun-1999/news/10963838.html
11.Apr.1999 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
If The Big One Hits Here, Will We Be Ready? Valley building officials say structures are safe, but geologists say too little is known about the threat quakes pose. By Keith Rogers Review-Journal
31.Dec.2006 https://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/1999/Apr-11-Sun-1999/news/10963838.html
The elevator shaft leading to the garage is "not connected to anything else." That means the free-standing structure would react independently of the buildings it connects.
31.Dec.2006 2. Operation Phoenix CIA interrogation center "beat the shit out of people. no captives admitted being vc. daren flitcroft, roic region iii, said "half the time we don't have ... www.xs4all.nl/~peace/pubeng/inter/arcnw1.html
31.Dec.2006 Obituaries the week of Dec. 6, 2006 He then worked at Petro Oil Company (formerly Loizeaux Fuel and Elmer Brewer Fuel ...
2006 Independent Press. Used with permission. GO TO » Obituaries ... www.nj.com/obituaries/independentpress/index.ssf?/base/obits-0/1165425507255440.xml&coll=18
31.Dec.2006 reviewjournal.com -- News - CASINO SINKS INTO HISTORY "The vintage buildings made this a very unique project," Loizeaux said.
The implosion brought to end the demolition of ... www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Jan-12-Thu-2006/news/5303102.html
31.Dec.2006 JS Online: Expert says cold damaged bridge Mark Loizeaux,president of the demolition firm hired to take down the ...
Loizeaux has been demolishing bridges, buildings and other structures most of his ... www2.jsonline.com/news/metro/dec00/hoan23122200.asp
31.Dec.2006 LP: New Seismic Data Refutes Official Explanation Pink plastic flamingo flies off into the sunset ( Obituary ).
DRUGS! DRUGS! DRUGS! ...
Tully called Mark Loizeaux,president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. ...
31.Dec.2006 SYDNEY MORNING HERALD OBITUARIES
LOIZEAUX ,Jack. Implosion pioneer. 1915-2000.
02.Jan.2001 P12. LOLLIS,Mary Lou. Storyteller.
1895-1998.
19.Feb.1998 P32. LOMAX,Alan. Musicologist.
1915-2002 ... www.rootsweb.com/~nswsdps/obits/smhol003.htm
31.Dec.2006 Implosion to turn Garfield Heights highrise to rubble - Pittsburgh
Strange ... "We don't need a great deal of explosives to bring the building down," said Loizeaux,... www.pittsburghlive.com/x/kqvradio/s_376610.html
31.Dec.2006 NJ.com's Printer-Friendly Page Obituaries the week of
06.Dec.2006. Phyllis Wiegard Kelly, proud of all her ...
He then worked at Petro Oil Company (formerly Loizeaux Fuel and Elmer ... www.nj.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/obits-0/1165425507255440.xml&coll=18
31.Dec.2006 NOVA | Transcripts | Kaboom! | PBS Demolition engineer Mark Loizeaux is setting charges inside a large apartment ...
NARRATOR: Eight years before he died, Alfred's obituary was mistakenly ... www.flworld.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2401kaboom.html
31.Dec.2006 Conservative Revolutionary American Party: June 2005 AFP asked Loizeaux about the report of molten steel on the site.
"Yes," he said, "hot spots ...
Read his obituary here: crap713.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_crap713_archive.html
31.Dec.2006 History of demolition makes for dynamite book 050806 - The Augusta ...
Today's big name in demolition is probably the Maryland-based Loizeaux family, ... hearts into 'Nutcracker'; Obituary : Herbert Kernaghan (AUGUSTA, Ga. chat.augustachronicle.com/stories/050806/art_80136.shtml 31.Dec.2006 JS Online: JS Online Mark Loizeaux,the president of Controlled Demolitions, ... Loizeaux said initial reports described the demolition as "textbook," right down to the back ... www2.jsonline.com/news/metro/dec00/hoan29122800a.asp
31.Dec.2006 Implosion experts will study test explosion at Kingdome Mark Loizeaux points out the reinforcing rods used in Kingdome columns.
But yesterday's noise, Loizeaux said, will be dwarfed by Boomsday, ... seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/boom24.shtml
31.Dec.2006 COPWATCH.com Forum - Ruppert names Cheney prime suspect in 9-11
ALMOST AN OBITUARY : "THE BUDDHA OF OWL FARM"... *PIC* (views: 391) ... Tully called Mark Loizeaux,president of Controlled Demolition, Inc.
31.Dec.2006 LAS VEGAS RJ:NEWS: If The Big One Hits Here, Will We Be Ready?
The 32-year-old landmark was so easy to drop that Controlled Demolition Inc. President Mark Loizeaux reduced the amount of explosives by 137 pounds from ... www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/1999/Apr-11-Sun-1999/news/10963838.html
31.Dec.2006 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,druck-457195,00.html
"The Observer" (Großbritannien): "Saddams Tod wird kaum irgendwelche Auswirkungen auf die verschiedenen Aufstände haben, die das Land aufreiben. Die daran Beteiligten kämpfen nicht für die Erinnerung an einen gestürzten Diktator, sondern für ihre Zukunft. Präsident Bush nannte die Hinrichtung "einen Meilenstein auf dem Weg zur Demokratie", aber es ist schwer zu erkennen, wie dies möglich sein soll, ohne dass das Weiße Haus seine Strategie im Irak radikal ändert. Es wird immer klarer, dass Bush und seine engsten Berater die Empfehlungen der Irak-Studiengruppe unter dem früheren Außenminister James Baker rundheraus ablehnen. Das ist bedauerlich."
"Le Monde" (Frankreich): "Wenn man zu dem Grundsatz steht, die Todesstrafe abzulehnen, wie es in der gesamten Europäischen Union der Fall ist, dann kann es dabei keine Ausnahmen geben. Außergewöhnliche Umstände mit zu berücksichtigen, hieße den Grundsatz selbst zu unterhöhlen. (Der französische Präsident) Jacques Chirac hat das wohl verstanden und will angesichts einer Öffentlichkeit, die immer noch von dem Gesetz der Vergeltung angezogen wird, die Abschaffung der Todesstrafe in der Verfassung Frankreichs verankern. US-Präsident George W. Bush weiß weder, warum er seine 140.000 Soldaten im Irak lassen soll, noch, wie er sie dort herausholen kann. Er hat die Hinrichtung des Saddam Hussein als eine "wichtige Etappe auf dem Weg zur Demokratie" begrüßt. Das ist eine Auffassung von Demokratie. Unsere ist es nicht."
31.Dec.2006 Hinrichtung: Vollständiges Video im Internet veröffentlicht
31.Dec.2006 Gasstreit: Nervenkrieg zwischen Moskau und Minsk
31.Dec.2006 Nach Saddams Tod: Al- Qaida ruft Iraks Aufständische zu vereintem Kampf auf
31.Dec.2006 Internationale Presse: "Hinrichtung einer Marionette"
31.Dec.2006 Irak: Saddam in seinem Heimatdorf beigesetzt
31.Dec.2006 By Wayne Madsen
Why The Bush Crime Family Wants Saddam Iced
The Iraqi ex-dictator knows too much about the chemical-biological weapons supplied to Iraq by Reagan and Bush.
31.Dec.2006 Survey about Israeli Support - BG
Nearly 70 % of respondents to a survey conducted by a leading Christian publication believe in disinvestment from companies whose products are used by the Israeli government in the territories.
https://www.totallyjewish.com/news/national/?content_id=5208
30.Dec.2006 Gasstreit Moskau- Minsk: Unklare Berichte über Einigung
30.Dec.2006 Spanien: Ministerpräsident setzt nach Eta- Anschlag Friedensgespräche aus
30.Dec.2006 Augenzeugenberichte: "Saddam fiel etwa einen halben Meter weit durch die Falltür"
30.Dec.2006 Giant ice island breaks off Arctic shelf: An ice island the size of a small city is adrift in the Arctic after breaking free from one of Canada's largest ice shelves, scientists said today.
30.Dec.2006 Second Dirty War witness missing : A man who testified he was tortured by Argentina's military junta has become the second witness in the "Dirty War" trials to go missing in recent months.
30.Dec.2006 Israeli journalist reveals the secrets of the assassination of Arafat by Ariel Sharon: The recently deceased Israeli writer, Uri Dan, who was close to Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli Prime Minister, published a book in France in which he accused Sharon of assassinating the former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat by poisoning him.
30.Dec.2006 How I Was Kidnapped by the CIA: Letter from Abu Omar al Masri Imprisoned in Egypt
30.Dec.2006 Killing of Palestinians triples : From January to December 2006, the Israeli military killed 655 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem - a huge rise on last year.
30.Dec.2006 Confusion surrounds Saddam fate : US officials have handed over Saddam Hussein to Iraqi authorities for execution, his chief lawyer has said, but conflicting accounts swirled over whether the deposed president would be hanged within hours.
30.Dec.2006 Saddam still in our custody, says US : IRAQ'S "former president" Saddam Hussein, who is sentenced to hang soon, still is in US custody and has not been handed over to Iraqi authorities, a State Department spokesman said today.
30.Dec.2006 Saddam's Hanging Verdict Is Illegal And Unjust : Are we now going to compound our illegal preemptive attack and occupation of Iraq, where we set up and implemented a U.S. controlled coalition government, where we stage managed a flawed election and judicial system and where we now have condoned the hanging of this sovereign country's leader after a mock U.S. managed monkey trial ?
30.Dec.2006 Who will hang for this crime? : Paying The Price: Killing The Children Of Iraq: A documentary film by John Pilger : Sanctions enforced by the UN on Iraq since the Gulf War have killed more people than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, including over half a million children - many of whom weren't even born when the Gulf War began.
30.Dec.2006 Who will hang for this crime? : The Secret Behind the Sanctions ; How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply
30.Dec.2006 Ritter Reflects On "Iraq Pretext" : The US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, had "nothing to do with those elusive weapons of mass destruction, as claimed by President Bush and his coalition of the willing ... It was all about regime change, no matter the cost".
30.Dec.2006 Poll: Bad guy of 2006: President George W. Bush: Bush won the villain sweepstakes by a landslide, with one in four respondents putting him at the top of that bad-guy list. When people were asked to name the candidate for villain that first came to mind, Bush far outdistanced even Osama bin Laden
30.Dec.2006 Released diplomats handed over to Iranian officials in Baghdad : The two were arrested in the Iraqi capital in a clear example of violating international norms and regulations and regardless of their political immunity.
30.Dec.2006 US slams Teheran's moves : A White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel, urged the Islamic Republic to "immediately" conform to the demands of the UN Security Council to suspend its enrichment of uranium, a practice the US fears is a cover for developing nuclear weapons.
30.Dec.2006 Dilip Hiro: 2007: Tehran on the rise : It's going to be a make-or-break year for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
30.Dec.2006 Book: Israel, Lobby Pushing Iran War : Ritter writes, “in exploiting the ignorance of the American people about nuclear technology and nuclear weapons so as to engender enough fear that the American public has more or less been pre-programmed to accept the notion of the need to militarily confront a nuclear armed Iran.”
30.Dec.2006 PM urges Australia to go nuclear : He said on Friday: "It is foolish and backward-looking and old fashioned of people to say, 'Well, we will always oppose the use of nuclear power'."
30.Dec.2006 Riverbend: Iraqi Girl Blog: You know your country is in trouble when: : An 8-year war and 13-year blockade are looking like the country's 'Golden Years'.
30.Dec.2006 Iraq poll: U.S. troops departure is asset: About 90 % of Iraqis feel the situation in the country was better before the U.S.-led invasion than it is today, according to a new ICRSS poll.
30.Dec.2006 World laughing at US: Mahathir: "The whole world is laughing at America, at the stupidity of the decisions they made and at the refusal to recognise the situation." He described US President George W.Bush as being in "total self-denial".
30.Dec.2006 The Disrespect for Truth has Brought a New Dark Age-By Paul Craig Roberts
At the beginning of the scientific era, men had the hope that the ability to discover truth would free mankind from superstition, dogma + the service of power. The belief in truth was powerful. Truth would deliver justice and bring an end to status-based privileges and the falsehoods propagated by privilege. The faith in truth was short-lived. Today propaganda is everywhere in the ascendency. Continue
30.Dec.2006 Hanging Saddam -By Mike Whitney -The execution of Saddam Hussein is another grim chapter in the catalogue of war crimes perpetrated against the Iraqi people. It is a gratuitous act of barbarism devoid of justice. Continue 30.Dec.2006 A dictator created then destroyed by America -By Robert Fisk
In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001 we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the innocent - we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam's shame at Abu Ghraib - and yet we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created . Continue
30.Dec.2006 The Black Bull died today -By Mirza Yawar Baig
Are we, the people of the world saying that it is the right of America or anyone with the power to do so, to take by force what they want from whoever they want? Are we, the people of the world, saying that it is the right of the rapist to rape? Are we, the people of the world, saying that it is the right of the bandit or the highway robber to hold you up and take from you what he wishes by force? Because in my opinion, by remaining silent, that is exactly what we will be saying. You decide what you want to do. I have already made my decision. . Continue
30.Dec.2006 The Criminality of the State -By Albert Jay Nock
"The idea that the State originated to serve any kind of social purpose is completely unhistorical." No State known to history originated in any other manner, or for any other purpose. Like all predatory or parasitic institutions, its first instinct is that of self-preservation. All its enterprises are directed first towards preserving its own life, and, second, towards increasing its own power and enlarging the scope of its own activity. Continue
30.Dec.2006 Saddam Hussein hanged, says Al Hurra TV station: U.S.-backed Iraqi television station Al Hurra said Saddam Hussein had been executed by hanging shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Saturday.
30.Dec.2006 Saddam 'calm' as he met his death : "It was very quick. He died right away," one of the official Iraqi witnesses said.
30.Dec.2006 'He Was Carrying A Koran' : " Before the rope was put around his neck, Saddam shouted: 'God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab'."
30.Dec.2006 https://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/12/season-of-danger.html
In describing the Mossad, the assessment said 'cunning + ruthless, able to attack US forces + make it appear that the attack was by Arab or Palestinian actors.'
Was this some horrific anti-Semitism canard, put out by the US Army?
Not so much that, but simply a recognition that it has happened in the past + is somewhat of the modus operandi typical for them. # posted by Anonymous :
30.Dec.2006 https://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/12/season-of-danger.html
It was the Army College study whose report summary was published in the Washington Times on
11.Sep.2001 -(or maybe the day before), in a front page article, which laid out the order of battle, as it were, in the ME,
should the US be tasked to help man a border security patrol at or around the old Green Line, separating the Israelis and Arabs.
30.Dec.2006 https://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/12/season-of-danger.html
Frankly, a whole lot of the most extreme sounding theories of the '70s turned out to be true, so far as we know. Was our government training assassins for use worldwide + killing leaders we disagreed with? Nuts, right? No, entirely true. LBJ said he found out 'we' (the US government) were running what he called a 'goddamned Murder Incorporated' down in the Carribean. Could it be that the president could order illegal bombing raids in huge quantity, involving thousands of sorties of B-52s over years time + have the entire military apparatus lie and cover that up with false after action debriefings? What, are you crazy? Do you know how many people would have to keep that secret-- it couldn't happen, not at all. Idiocy to even mention the theory, but that was absolutely what was going on.
30.Dec.2006 https://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/12/season-of-danger.html
If you think history has any predictive powers, you won't be surprised to see America's artists produce astonishing works during the next ten, twenty, thirty years. Everyone else may go stark raving bonkers .
I hate this war. I fear the post-war. # posted by Joseph :
30.Dec.2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/
What he said! The soon-to-come loss of the Iraq war and the sooner-to-come execution of Saddam Hussein have inspired Josh Marshall's best writing.
The Iraq War has been many things, but for its prime promoters and cheerleaders and now-dwindling body of defenders, the war and all its ideological and literary trappings have always been an exercise in moral-historical dress-up for a crew of folks whose times aren't grand enough to live up to their own self-regard and whose imaginations are great enough to make up the difference. This is just more play-acting.
30.Dec.2006 https://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/12/puppet-on-string.html
Ever Since Bush Declared Mission Accomplished and Major Combat Operations were Over In Iraq Several Years Ago, Nothing but Death, Injury and Chaos Has Ensued. Saddam Hussein's Execution Will Not Stop That Grim Milestone of Pathological Failure: "Bombings kill at least 68 in Iraq."
Bush's Mission in the Middle East: to Create and Perpetuate Chaos and Death. "Dec. Deadliest Month in Iraq for U.S."
Heather Wokusch: Bush and the F-word in 2006: Police State or Progressivism in 2007? - A BuzzFlash Guest Contribution
Ring in 2007 with a premium from or gift to BuzzFlash.com!
Hussein's death does not alter Bush's problems. That's for Sure. Only Impeachment, a Criminal Trial + Intensive Psychoanalytic Intervention Could Begin to Do That. 12/30
Poll: Only 1 in 3 military service members approve of the way the president is handling the war in Iraq. And only 41% now feel it was the right idea to go to war in Iraq in the first place. 12/30
Saddam Executed. With His Body Will be Buried the Secrets of the Reagan/Bush I/Rumsfeld Collaboration with the Ousted Tyrant During the 80s.
Maybe Saddam's Exeuction Now Was Bush's Way of Stepping on Gerald Ford's Period of Mourning. 12/30
"Oh sh**, he is even dumber than I thought" Rectangular Fridge Magnet -- Former Pope (satire)
"Bush: Execution will not halt violence." Duh! But Removing the Bozo Bush from Office, Along with His Henchman Cheney, Might! 12/31
30.Dec.2006 https://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/12/puppet-on-string.html
The best book on this history is Alan Friedman's neglected The Spider's Web.
From Amy Goodman's interview with Friedman (with added paragraph breaks and minor punctuation fixes):
Now, I discovered this
at the end of the 1980's when I was reporting for The Financial Times of London and we uncovered the scandal of more than $5 billion of American taxpayer backed credits that had been funneled by the Atlanta, Georgia branch of an Italian bank to Saddam Hussein with the full knowledge of the CIA. +
later on of the White House, under the Bush administration.
That’s because that bank, it later transpired, an Italian bank called B & L, its Atlanta, Georgia branch was being used to surreptitiously finance Saddam Hussein's purchase of both agricultural goods + weaponry.
And the very frightening part of it is that this group of intelligence agents outside the government, but working with the blessing of the government as it later turned out with the blessing of people like James Baker + George Herbert Walker Bush, this organization of arms dealers and transshipment specialists continued to sell a whole variety of equipment to Saddam Hussein, including U.S. military rocket cluster bombs that were transshipped from Pennsylvania through Chile to Iraq, nuclear + chemical weapons technology + missile technology.
And the United States didn't really do anything to stop this shipment because at the time the argument used by the CIA + the White House was that if you allowed a limited amount of military weapons + technology to flow to Iraq, even though it was completely illegal -- against U.S. law, against international treaties -- if you allowed this to happen, as an intelligence operation, the rationalization in the Bush administration went, then you could keep better track of what kind of weaponry Saddam was developing.
What really happened, of course, is that there were people along the way who were greedy, who were making money off of it + there were people in governments in Italy and Britain and in the Thatcher government and in the Andriotti government in Italy who were working with their American counterparts and they continued the flow of equipment.
Some of this is very sophisticated stuff and one of the scandals -- the way the scandal was developed was I first uncovered financial documents for a British company called Matrix Churchill based in Coventry in England that was sending what seemed to be innocent machine tool equipment to Saddam Hussein. But it wasn't. It was dual use technology that the CIA + the British intelligence knew was going into Saddam's missile program and his nuclear program, but they allowed it to happen.
So, the real problem is that we had a Frankenstein monster that got out of control...
30.Dec.2006 https://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/12/puppet-on-string.html
Today, he ended as he began -- a puppet on a string. # posted by Joseph
30.Dec.2006 https://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/12/puppet-on-string.html
00.000.1979 Syria + Iraq - both ruled by Ba'ath parties - made plans to unite, which horrified the United States and Israel.
At this point, Saddam seized total control, scuttling all unite plans.
Throughout much of the next decade, Saddam received "advice" + aid from Americans + others inhabiting that bizarre land where espionage, entrepreneurship and crime intersect.
Robert Fisk:
Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran
00.000.1980 -which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls?
And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds?
We did.
No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Babara Honegger's October Surprise,now a hard book to find, offers up a fascinating interview along these same lines.
Journalist Joseph Trento has offered some unique insights into this era.
If you will forgive a bit of self-quotation:
As I've said many times, you can't understand modern history unless you know about these "spooky" informal networks, in which the players receive both start-up capital and connections from covert sources.
One of these Agency-linked arms merchandisers was Sarkis Soghanalian (who had befriended Trento, which is how Trento came to know about this stuff).
Business proceeded smoothly; Saddam received cluster bombs, battle choppers, guns + and even lovelier bits of merchandise.
Somewhere along the way, a mafia-like group of Republican operatives -- which included Richard Nixon and his old "pals" -- muscled onto the scene.
In short and in sum, they demanded a hefty cut of Operation Arm Saddam.
This second wave of Legitimate Businessmen made a deal with Saddam to supply the Iraqi military with uniforms. I've seen varying estimates as to how much money this scheme was worth; the high figure is $450 million.
The group promised high-quality uniforms manufactured by "their" plant in Tennessee. Actually, the job was off-shored to a Romanian firm known for producing clothing on the ultra-cheap.
This decision insured that, instead of making big profits, the Republican mobsters could make big, big, BIG profits.
Saddam's people were not happy when they opened up the boxes and discovered wool uniforms. In a desert country, in the summer, wool is rarely the soldier's first choice.
You would think that Saddam Hussein would refuse ever again to deal with this group. In fact, they became more powerful than ever: They drove out Soghnalian and pretty much took over the weapons trade in Iraq.
They did not actually produce the needed goods and services; job orders were farmed out to the low-ball bidders.
These men practiced the most perverse form of capitalism.
The greatest rewards went to thugs who did not actually make anything -- who had, in fact, wedged themselves between the consumer + the producers, neither of whom wanted or needed the services of middlemen.
Saddam had no choice but to go along with an operation that had acquired the blessings of Republican bigwigs.
30.Dec.2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/ Bloody commies. The lot of 'em.
What I did not know 25 years ago + what most Americans refuse to acknowledge today, is that Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party came to power in Iraq with CIA connivance in order to repress the bloody commies.
00.000.1958 a reformist-minded officer named Abdul Karim Qasim took over Iraq in a coup.
He attempted to build popular support by refusing to crap on the poor, a strategy which the Agency considered communist-friendly.
The CIA recruited young Saddam, a thug from Tikrit, to assassinate Qasim.
The plan failed + a wounded Saddam -- aided by American and Egyptian spooks -- fled to Cairo, where he hung out in bars with his Agency contacts, plotting a new strike.
(Why do I picture him as resembling those afore-cited pub louts?) (Yes, they do have bars in Cairo -- in hotels.)
00.000.1963 the CIA poured a ton of money into the quasi-fascistic Ba'ath party, which staged a coup and murdered Qasim.
The Agency installed Saddam as the head of intelligence.
This corrupt and unloved government soon fell, so the CIA had to foment another Ba'ath coup in 1968, which placed Saddam in the number two spot.
He functioned as Chief Bastard, the usual job of number twos throughout the world.
The new government annoyed Washington by seeking amicable relations with the USSR, which led to Kissinger's covert attempt (using the Shah of Iran as a cut-out) to foment a Kurdish rebellion in the North of Iraq.
When Saddam decided to reach an accord with D.C., the Kurds were suddenly hung out to dry, the first of several betrayals.
00.000.1979 Syria + Iraq - both ruled by Ba'ath parties -- made plans to unite, which horrified the United States and Israel.
At this point, Saddam seized total control, scuttling all unite plans.
Throughout much of the next decade, Saddam received "advice" and aid from Americans and others inhabiting that bizarre land where espionage, entrepreneurship and crime intersect.
Robert Fisk:
Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran
00.000.1980 -which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls?
And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Babara Honegger's October Surprise,now a hard book to find, offers up a fascinating interview along these same lines.
Journalist Joseph Trento has offered some unique insights into this era. If you will forgive a bit of self-quotation: As I've said many times, you can't understand modern history unless you know about these "spooky" informal networks, in which the players receive both start-up capital and connections from covert sources.
One of these Agency-linked arms merchandisers was Sarkis Soghanalian (who had befriended Trento, which is how Trento came to know about this stuff). Business proceeded smoothly; Saddam received cluster bombs, battle choppers, guns + and even lovelier bits of merchandise.
Somewhere along the way, a mafia-like group of Republican operatives -- which included Richard Nixon and his old "pals" -- muscled onto the scene. In short and in sum, they demanded a hefty cut of Operation Arm Saddam.
This second wave of Legitimate Businessmen made a deal with Saddam to supply the Iraqi military with uniforms. I've seen varying estimates as to how much money this scheme was worth; the high figure is $450 million. The group promised high-quality uniforms manufactured by "their" plant in Tennessee. Actually, the job was off-shored to a Romanian firm known for producing clothing on the ultra-cheap. This decision insured that, instead of making big profits, the Republican mobsters could make big, big, BIG profits.
Saddam's people were not happy when they opened up the boxes and discovered wool uniforms. In a desert country, in the summer, wool is rarely the soldier's first choice.
You would think that Saddam Hussein would refuse ever again to deal with this group. In fact, they became more powerful than ever: They drove out Soghnalian and pretty much took over the weapons trade in Iraq. They did not actually produce the needed goods and services; job orders were farmed out to the low-ball bidders.
These men practiced the most perverse form of capitalism. The greatest rewards went to thugs who did not actually make anything -- who had, in fact, wedged themselves between the consumer and the producers, neither of whom wanted or needed the services of middlemen. Saddam had no choice but to go along with an operation that had acquired the blessings of Republican bigwigs. I like the story of the wool uniforms because makes me smile and because it illustrates a principle. In truth, though, the real story involves the sale to Saddam Hussein of weapons of -- you guessed it -- mass destruction. Yes, we sold him such playthings even after he gassed the Kurds.
The best book on this history is Alan Friedman's neglected The Spider's Web . From Amy Goodman's interview with Friedman (with added paragraph breaks and minor punctuation fixes):
Now, I discovered this at the end of the 1980's when I was reporting for The Financial Times of London and we uncovered the scandal of more than $5 billion of American taxpayer backed credits that had been funneled by the Atlanta, Georgia branch of an Italian bank to Saddam Hussein with the full knowledge of the C.I.A. and later on of the White House, under the Bush administration.
That’s because that bank, it later transpired, an Italian bank called B & L, its Atlanta, Georgia branch was being used to surreptitiously finance Saddam Hussein's purchase of both agricultural goods and weaponry.
And the very frightening part of it is that this group of intelligence agents outside the government, but working with the blessing of the government as it later turned out with the blessing of people like James Baker and George Herbert Walker Bush, this organization of arms dealers and transshipment specialists continued to sell a whole variety of equipment to Saddam Hussein, including U.S. military rocket cluster bombs that were transshipped from Pennsylvania through Chile to Iraq, nuclear and chemical weapons technology + missile technology. And the United States didn't really do anything to stop this shipment because at the time the argument used by the C.I.A. and the White House was that if you allowed a limited amount of military weapons and technology to flow to Iraq, even though it was completely illegal -- against U.S. law, against international treaties -- if you allowed this to happen, as an intelligence operation, the rationalization in the Bush administration went, then you could keep better track of what kind of weaponry Saddam was developing.
What really happened, of course, is that there were people along the way who were greedy, who were making money off of it + there were people in governments in Italy and Britain and in the Thatcher government and in the Andriotti government in Italy who were working with their American counterparts and they continued the flow of equipment.
Some of this is very sophisticated stuff and one of the scandals -- the way the scandal was developed was I first uncovered financial documents for a British company called Matrix Churchill based in Coventry in England that was sending what seemed to be innocent machine tool equipment to Saddam Hussein. But it wasn't. It was dual use technology that the C.I.A. and the British intelligence knew was going into Saddam's missile program and his nuclear program, but they allowed it to happen.
So, the real problem is that we had a Frankenstein monster that got out of control... The rest you know.
Alas, I doubt if the current louts inhabiting this nation's various pubs and bars will ever allow themselves to know. They would never sit still for the truth: Throughout much of his life, Saddam was an American puppet . He offended the gods not through his ruthlessness, not through his prisons and rape rooms + not through his chemical attacks on the Kurds. No, his great sin was his Pinocchio-like determination to walk away from the puppeteers.
Today, he ended as he began -- a puppet on a string. Permalink
30.Dec.2006 Analyse: Nur mit Saddams Tod ist dem Irak noch nicht geholfen
30.Dec.2006 Rekordausgaben: Pentagon will 100 Milliarden US- Dollar zusätzlich
30.Dec.2006 Today in Iraq Local story: Former Oregon police officer, employed in Iraq by DynCorp,... Delk conceded that news of a local death in Iraq won't make his job any easier, ...
dailywarnews.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_dailywarnews_archive.html
30.Dec.2006 Andrew Bayer is Dreaming of China:
00.Nov.2002 Archives In short, by hiring private military contractors such as DynCorp,...
And Tony Delk + Shammond Williams continue to give us bizarrely good numbers from ... www.andrewbayer.com/archives/2002/11.html
al.com: Breaking News from The Birmingham News He will be working with DynCorp,which has a contract with the U.S.
The jury convicted McWane + Delk + Devine of conspiracy + found Robison guilty ... www.al.com/birminghamnews/breaking/index.ssf?/mtlogs/bama_bhamnews_break/archives/2005_06.html
30.Dec.2006 rbb Preußen-Chronik | 6. Republik, Nazi-Herrschaft + Untergang
Hier hat sich wenig geändert seit dem Sturz der Monarchie, vor allem nicht in den Köpfen, die Regierenden in Berlin werden als " “Novemberverräter " ... www.preussen-chronik.de/_/service/popup_jsp/key=beitrag_25062.html Tucholsky - Film: Kriegsfilme Zu den unverzeihlichen Fehlern der Novemberverräter,die ach! leider so gar nichts und niemand verraten haben, gehört der, militärisches Material in großem ...
www.textlog.de/tucholsky-film-kriegsfilme.html
wer-weiss-was | "7000 Mitglieder!" | aus Forum Inlandspolitik ... "novemberverräter" von 1918 ... außerdem hatte die nsdap mit der sa + später der ss eine partei-eigene schläger- + mörder-truppe. genau das soll es nach ... www.wer-weiss-was.de/theme86/article426281.html
00.000.1943 Propaganda der Krise: Goebbels Reden ... einer schwachen Führung + dem Komplott der „Novemberverräter“, sowie der zeitnahe Sturz des faschistischen Regimes in Italien, wirkten in dieser ... content.grin.com/data/9/29624.pdf
20050317 Novemberverräter ... www.damals.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=162480
12.Mar.2005 I. Die britische Deutschlandkonzeption + -politik 1918-1919 - alfatomega.com/20050317.html
2004080709_und_Report 00.Aug.2004 Saddam trial chief faces Iraqi murder charge: Salem Chalabi, the man organising the trial of Saddam Hussein,was facing a murder charge himself ... alfatomega.com/2004080709_und_Report.html
30.Dec.2006 Schurken- Staatschefs: Potentaten, Despoten und Tyrannen am Pranger
30.Dec.2006 Reaktionen: Deutsche Politiker kritisieren Saddams Hinrichtung
30.Dec.2006 Saddams letzte Worte: "Ich habe vor niemandem Angst"
30.Dec.2006 Madrid: Eta verübt Bombenanschlag auf Flughafen
30.Dec.2006 Bulgarien: Die düsteren Spuren der Spitzel
30.Dec.2006 Saddam- Hinrichtung: "Es ging sehr schnell - er starb sofort"
30.Dec.2006 Luxusjets für Superreiche: Das fliegende Anwaltszimmer
30.Dec.2006 Bagdad: Saddam im Morgengrauen gehängt
30.Dec.2006 Chronologie: Die Jagd auf Saddam
30.Dec.2006 Reaktionen: Bush nennt Hinrichtung einen "wichtigen Meilenstein"
30.Dec.2006 Wohnungsmarkt im Wandel: "Für Mieter ist es schwer, den Überblick zu bewahren"
30.Dec.2006 Jahresrückblick der Analysten: Vom Erfolg überrascht
30.Dec.2006 Chronologie: Der Sturz Saddams
30.Dec.2006 Schiffsunglück: Fähre mit 850 Menschen vor Indonesien gesunken
30.Dec.2006 Saddam Hussein: Der Barbar von Bagdad