| URL: https://www.theinsider.org/mailing/article.asp?id=506
04.Jul.2004 Ray guns that shoot a beam of energy to stun or kill a human target are no longer science fiction - they already being developed by the US military. The first generation of ray guns will soon be available.
The most advanced of laser gun currently being developed fires a stream of "glowing plasma" which acts as a channel down which a bolt of lightening is fired at the target. The gun is designed to deliver 26 watts of power at 50,000 volts to stun the victim, but this could easily be increased to make it a lethal weapon.
We are crossing into a new era of warfare in which vehicle-mounted cannons or hand-held rifles will be able to fire "a stream of electricity like water out of a hose at one or many targets in a single sweep" at long-range to control a crowd - or vaporize a whole unit of enemy troops.
The new technology can also be used to "interfere with electronic ignition systems and stop vehicles" - and this could include aircraft as well as cars or trucks.
16.Jun.2004. OURCE New Scientist, "Sweeping stun guns to target crowds",[ https://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996014 ]
URL: https://www.theinsider.org/mailing/article.asp?id=499
04.Jul.2004 The oldest historical record of Atlantis that is known to mainstream contemporary scholars was provided by Plato, one of the great classical scholars of ancient Greece (427-347 BCE), in his famous books about the history of the world, Critias and Timaios.
Plato's book describes Atlantis in detail, based on an oral tradition that was handed down through the ages. According to this record, an ancient civilization existed on Earth at some point in the distant past (possibly as long ago circa 9,000 BCE). Many modern scholars have dismissed Plato's account as nonsense, because it describes advanced technologies, such as flying machines, that would have seemed like science-fiction until recent decades.
In modern times, Atlantis has been the subject of numerous works of fiction, a great many theories + much speculation - not all of which have been credible. Consequently, the name has become synonymous with the paranormal, to the extent that most people think of Atlantis as a purely fictional myth or legend.
The existing records are entirely serious about Atlantis, however. Plato refers to it in terms of "genuine history" and within "the realm of fact."
URL: https://www.rense.com/general54/uno.htm
04.Jul.2004 "As lawmakers, we must assure the people of America that our nation will not experience the nightmare of the 2000 presidential election," she said in the letter. "This is the first step in making sure that history does not repeat itself," she added after requesting that the UN "deploy election observers across the United States" to monitor the November, 2004 election. The lawmakers said in the letter that in a report released in June 2001, the US Commission on Civil Rights "found that the electoral process in Florida resulted in the denial of the right to vote for countless persons."The bipartisan commission, they stressed, determined "that the 'disenfranchisement of Florida's voters fell most harshly on the shoulders of black voters' and in poor counties." Both groups vote predominantly Democratic in US elections. The commission also concluded, the lawmakers added, that "despite promised nationwide reforms (of the voting system) ... adequate steps have not been taken to ensure that a similar situation will not arise in 2004 that arose in 2000."Thirty-six days after the November 7, 2000 presidential election, after several state court interventions and vote recounts in numerous Florida counties, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Republican George W. Bush, awarding him all of Florida's 25 electoral votes. URL: https://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3856401.stm
04.Jul.2004 If this is confirmed, in seven days we will have doubled the number of planets known in nine years
Steven Beckwith, Space Telescope Science Institute URL: https://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3856401.stm
04.Jul.2004 Hubble discovers 100 new planets By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor
The Hubble Space Telescope may have discovered as many as 100 new planets orbiting stars in our galaxy. Hubble's harvest comes from a sweep of thousands of stars in the dome-like bulge of the Milky Way. If confirmed it would almost double the number of planets known to be circling other stars to about 230. The discovery will lend support to the idea that almost every sunlike star in our galaxy + probably the Universe, is accompanied by planets. 'Most significant advance' Steven Beckwith, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, told BBC News Online: "I think this work has the potential to be the most significant advance in discovering extra-solar planetary systems since the first planets were discovered in the mid-1990s. If this is confirmed, in seven days we will URL: https://www.rense.com/general54/try.htm
04.Jul.2004 PNAC - Regime Change for Iran 2-24-4 We would like to draw your attention to the following op-ed by Michael McFaul and Abbas Milani in yesterday's Wall Street Journal ("Solidarity with Iran"). In the face of Iranian clerics' assault on the democratic process leading up to Iran's recent parliamentary elections, the authors argue that it is time for the Bush administration to demonstrate that its commitment to democracy in the Middle East extends to U. S. policy toward Iran. https://www.newamericancentury.org/iran-20040224.htm
URL: https://www.rense.com/general54/try.htm
04.Jul.2004 US Trying To Provoke War With Iran-From The Insider-
7-3-4 The US military is trying to start a war with Iran + they have been caught trying to use the UK to do the dirty work for them. In July last year the US military commander in Iraq ordered thousands of British troops to launch a full-scale attack on Iranian positions at the border with Iran. If the British commander had not broken the chain of command by blocking the orders, it is likely that the allies would now be at war with Iran. The US has tried to use the UK to trigger conflicts in the past. Last time, during the Balkans war in the 1990s, the British commander, Gen Jackson, refused to attack Russian positions + is quoted as protesting: "I am not going to start World War Three for you." The US could have engaged the enemy themselves on both occasions when the UK refused, but apparently they would prefer to wait until somebody else is stupid enough to do the dirty-work for them. A recent open memorandum published by the Project for the New American Century under the title "Regime Change for Iran" makes it clear what the agenda is for Iran. PNAC is a powerful group which claims to "advise" the US government on policy and strategy, but its members actually happen to be the decision-makers themselves. Iran is currently surrounded by American and British forces on both sides, with US-occupied Iraq on its Western border and US-occupied Afghanistan on its Eastern border. https://www.theinsider.org/mailing/article.asp?id=0513
URL: https://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10012766^2,00.html
04.Jul.2004 In Fallujah, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, resident Ammar Mohammed suggested the Americans should be put on trial first, because they "killed thousands if Iraqis in one year of occupation." Saddam Hussein is facing charges of "crimes against humanity", an official from the Iraqi special tribunal trying Saddam said yesterday. URL: https://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10012766^2,00.html
04.Jul.2004 US and Iraqi officials hope the trial will lay bare the atrocities of his regime and help push the country toward normalcy after years of tyranny, the US-led invasion and the insurgency that has blossomed in its aftermath. But the trial could have the opposite effect, possibly widening the chasm among Iraq's disparate groups — Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. "It's going to be the trial of the century," National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told Associated Press Television News. "Everybody is going to watch this trial + we are going to demonstrate to the outside world that we in the new Iraq are going to be an example of what the new Iraq is all about." Wednesday's transfer of legal custody took place in secret. Chalabi said the defendants were brought one by one into a room at an undisclosed location and informed of the change in their status to criminal suspects. They were told that they will appear in court within 24 hours to hear charges, he said. URL: https://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10012766^2,00.html
04.Jul.2004 "They were surprised that they were told they're in Iraqi custody," Chalabi told AP Radio. President Ghazi al-Yawer told an Arab newspaper that Iraq's new government has decided to reinstate the death penalty, suspended during the US occupation. URL: https://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10012766^2,00.html
04.Jul.2004 The faces of those involved, except for Saddam and 11 former aides who are due to appear later in the day, will be obscured to guard against any attacks by supporters of the disgraced despot. URL: https://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10012766^2,00.html
04.Jul.2004 Officials said videotape of the ex-president in court would be carefully checked before they are released to the public. URL: https://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10017646^401,00.html
04.Jul.2004 White House spokesman Scott McClellan brushed off reporters' questions about Saddam's remarks, the first words heard from the former Iraqi leader in months. "I'm sure Saddam Hussein will continue to say all sorts of things," Mr McClellan said. URL: https://www.rense.com/general54/deepseafishstocks.htm
03.Jul.2004 Deep Sea Fish Stocks 'In Crisis' BBC News - Over-fishing in the north Atlantic is seriously damaging fish stocks, which are being "mined" at over twice the recommended rate, say conservationists. Fishing vessels currently catch stocks of blue whiting to feed farmed salmon. The North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission, which fixed the last quota for blue whiting at 650,000 tonnes, says fishermen caught 2.3m t in 2003. Stocks of the fish will cease to be sustainable if current practices continue, says conservation body WWF. Blue whiting, a deep sea relative of cod, tend to be caught in international waters, from north Africa to the Barents Sea. Urgent need The majority of fish caught are used as fishmeal, with a small number being caught for human consumption. A precautionary fishing quota of 650,000 tonnes was set in 1994, but the system broke down in 2000.
URL: https://www.rense.com/
04.Jul.2004 Deep Sea Fish Stocks 'In Crisis'URL: https://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=9106
03.Jul.2004 Why the US can't be trusted with our personal data Recently, the European Commission announced — over vocal objections by the European Parliament and its own advisory group — that it will permit the United States government direct access to airline passenger data. This means that before you fly to or via the United States, details of your reservation, including credit card number, flying history and even meal preferences, will be transmitted to the US government for "screening" and will be retained in a database for a minimum of 3.5 years up to an indefinite period. This is not the time to be turning over the personal data of European residents to the American government. First, there is no evidence that collection and monitoring of personal information does anything to stop terrorism. The next terrorist is more likely to be an undocumented student from rural Pakistan than a convicted criminal. He is not going to have charges from Osama's Live Bait and Fertiliser Shop on his American Express card or a subscription to Terrorist Weekly. Second, and more seriously, is that the United States has a long — very long — history of abusing personal information and surveillance powers for political purposes to the detriment of the entirely innocent. Whether we are talking about FBI surveillance and intimidation of suspected communists in the 1950s and 1960s or physical abuse of French journalists arriving in the US in 2003, America has a problem distinguishing real threats from imagined ones. You will recall the Oregon lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, who was imprisoned for two weeks in May because his fingerprints matched an object found in the Madrid bombing. Except they didn't. The FBI made a mistake + even then a judge had to intervene to get the man released. How did the FBI get Mayfield's fingerprint in the first place? He was in the military + all soldiers are fingerprinted. So will all visitors to the United States, including you – your biometric data (fingerprints or retinal scan, for example) will be in your passport, or you will be printed on arrival. Or perhaps you know of the case of Jose Padilla, another American citizen, who has been held incommunicado and without access to lawyers as a so-called "enemy combatant". The Supreme Court is now deciding if he can be held indefinitely without charge, if the President can on his whim throw out the centuries-old principle of habeas corpus, the right to appear before a judge before being imprisoned. We don't have to wonder how non-Americans are treated. For that we have Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, plus an archipelago of gulags around the world which are accountable to no one. People are being disappeared – a term which evolved from government kidnappings and murders under the old Argentinean dictatorship. In 2002, a Canadian engineer was detained at New York's JFK airport, en route to Montreal from visiting his wife's family in North Africa. He was held incommunicado, without trial or lawyer and deported – to Syria – where he was tortured and imprisoned for a year until his wife could get him out. The US has long had a problem respecting other nationalities. Its conviction that it alone holds the ideals of truth, justice, freedom and democracy is both wrong and dangerous. As part of this lack of respect, official degradation and humiliation of foreigners by those in positions of authority seems to be an important ritual, whether it's Najaf or New York. Border guards are often young, uneducated and eager to press their authority. Just one small — and pretty minor — example is the JFK immigration clerk who when faced with a Dutch passport demanded, "Why don't you go back to Belgium, or wherever you came from?" And we want to give these people are credit card details? If you’ve every tried to have your credit report corrected, you’ll agree that software and bureaucracy can create a disaster waiting to happen. Except this time it’s not a loan you’ll be denied when a mistake is made – it will be your liberty. By stealth, the US is building vast databanks of personal information on citizens and non-citizens, criminals and the entirely innocent. When investigating a murder recently, the FBI had 1.5 million relevant DNA samples to search. How did they get so many samples? Get arrested or even detained – legitimately or not – and your fingerprints go into the system, maybe your DNA. Join the military or certain agencies, same thing. These records will be combined with those of millions of visitors, immigrants and citizens; tens of millions of files on people who have committed no crimes and pose no threat whatsoever. Just like the Stasi used to do. If this isn't state surveillance, what is? We — whether US citizens or not — did not elect the American administration to watch over the world and collect this information. It is neither accountable nor in any way transparent as to its methods, objectives and results. Information is power + the US is grabbing fistfuls of it to our peril. And the trust-me rhetoric doesn't cut it. The United States administration has made it patently clear that it does not consider itself bound by laws – domestic or international – when they conflict with its interests. All it takes is for somebody, from the President on down to a lowly border guard, to say so. As if in a dictatorship, the President has made himself prosecutor, judge and jury. After all, Bush told us that the prisoners in Guantanamo are "bad people" and therefore, according to him, worthy of indefinite detention and abuse. Never mind that the Red Cross says that 70-90 percent of those rounded up are innocent of any crime; the United States has stated in words and deeds that it's OK to lift human rights for the "war on terror" and OK to torture human beings, especially those who are non-white and non-American. Read that again: it's OK to torture. Not just criminals, though that's bad enough. These are people who have not been charged with any crime. So much for the presumption of innocence. Say goodbye to your rights to a lawyer and a hearing. Being a suspect is enough to get you the full welcome package. And guess what? When your plane takes off for the US, you're a suspect too. The European Commission is putting the safety and dignity of every traveler at stake by giving the US information with which its border security personnel can wreck havoc on personal lives. In case that isn't perfectly clear, the US had an escape clause built into the agreement on how the data will be used, saying that it couldn't be held to it in any case. Europeans may sit silent when they think it will only be Muslims and dark-skinned people being harassed, just as they did when Jews and Gypsies were taken into the night. We all know what that silence begets + it is ugliness in the extreme. Terrorist, journalist, protester, liberal, writer, dissident – they all look the same to the Bush administration. Remember: anyone who is not with them is with the terrorists – Bush's words, not ours. Which are you? Sorry, that's not your decision – a border guard will make it for you on your next trip to the land of the free. Simply put, the United States cannot be trusted to respect any law or international protocol + cannot therefore be trusted with the personal data of Europeans. For once, the European Parliament tried to look out for our interests + an unelected and unaccountable Commission overruled them. Europeans should now press their representatives to take this ill-advised decision to the European Court, where it can be overturned for the dangers it poses to the privacy and security of all of us and for its clear violation of EU law. 02.Jul-2004 [Copyright Expatica News 2004]
URL: https://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=9106
03.Jul.2004 In 2002, a Canadian engineer was detained at New York's JFK airport, en route to Montreal from visiting his wife's family in North Africa. He was held incommunicado, without trial or lawyer and deported – to Syria – where he was tortured and imprisoned for a year until his wife could get him out. URL: https://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a5MOJpyzedZc&refer=us#
03.Jul.2004 The dollar will weaken to $1.27 per euro within six months, Sinche said. URL: https://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=54772
03.Jul.2004 51:05
Yet Bush’s policies have provoked international and domestic backlashes. Does that make you hopeful? The political system alone can no longer save the republic. Even if Congress wanted to exercise real oversight, how can it when 40 percent of the military budget is secret? All of the intelligence budget is secret. The only hopeful sign I saw was a year ago when 10 million people demonstrated in the streets for peace. We also saw the recent election in Spain as a response to what is happening. If we can see that now in the U.S., in the U.K., in Italy, then maybe we can have some hope. Otherwise we will soon be talking about the short happy life of the American republic. URL: https://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=54772
03.Jul.2004 But Bush dropped the mask. He comes out and says we are a New Rome, we don’t need the U.N. or any friends. We now put countries on hit lists. Certainly, if there were some steering committee for an American imperial project, it would consider Bill Clinton a much better imperial president than George W. Bush. It’s always better strategy to not show your hand, to take an indirect approach but to know exactly where you are going. URL: https://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=54772
03.Jul.2004 If the bankers of Asia and Japan should tire of financing this, if they notice the euro is now stronger than the dollar, then all this ends — whether or not they like the Boy Emperor from Crawford. We would face a terrible crisis. The greater cost is what the public will lose, if they haven’t already lost it: the republic, the structural defense of our liberties, the separation of powers to block the growth of a dictatorial presidency. But American history didn’t begin on January 20, 2001, or on 9/11. Isn’t much of what you describe a situation that dates back a full century or more? Why blame so much of this on George W. Bush? Yes, this goes back a long way — to Teddy Roosevelt acquiring colonies from the Spanish. But Bush dropped the mask. He comes out and says we are a New Rome, we don’t need the U.N. or any friends. We now put countries on hit lists. Certainly, if there were some steering committee for an American imperial project, it would consider Bill Clinton a much better imperial president than George W. Bush. It’s always better strategy to not show your hand, to take an indirect approach but to know exactly where you are going. URL: https://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=54772
03.Jul.2004 You know from your study of history that when we traditionally speak of empire, we have in mind the model of European colonialism — the Brits in India, the French in Algeria and Indochina. Surely that’s not what you mean when you refer to an American empire. By an American empire I mean 725 military bases in 138 foreign countries circling the globe from Greenland to Asia, from Japan to Latin America. This is a sort of base world — a secret, enclosed, separate world where our half-million troops, contractors and spies live quite comfortably around the world. I think that’s an empire. Granted, the unit of European imperialism was the colony. The unit of American imperialism is the military base. These American bases are an outgrowth of U.S. containment policy from the Cold War. What’s their role now? Are they just pork? Or are they there to defend U.S. investment? What they don’t do is defend U.S. security. They just grew, whether or not they had or have strategic value. We have 101 bases today in Korea even though the war has been over for 50 years. Once created, the military is endlessly creative in finding new functions for them, long after their real value has evaporated. This base world becomes part of the vested interest we associate not with security but with militarism, the danger of the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned against. URL: https://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=54772
03.Jul.2004 The Bill of Rights — articles 4 and 6 — are now open to question. Do people really have the right to habeas corpus? Are they still secure in their homes from illegal seizures? The answer for the moment is no. We have to wait and see what the Supreme Court will rule as to the powers of this government that it appointed. URL: https://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=7807
03.Jul.2004 "It's easy to be cynical, but it's hard to be skeptical," Kleinman says. "Skepticism is the ability to compare and contrast a lot of information." Even if someone wanted to examine the kind of nightly coverage that led up to the war, it's not the kind of thing that can be easily reconstructed. TV news coverage tends to dissipate as soon as the story's over. A study released in March 2004 by Susan Moeller's Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, which criticized the media for accepting the Bush administration's case for weapons of mass destruction, noted that merely reading the TV transcripts wouldn't be useful without the accompanying footage. Unless, of course, someone taped it, for months. Someone like Kent Bye. Of course, Bye's guerrilla documentary probably would not have gotten this far a mere decade ago. Anyone can tape the news, but thanks to a relatively inexpensive home filmmaking kit, especially a computer with a terrabite (1,000 gigabites) of memory to hold up to 85 hours of footage and a Mini DV camera, Bye can edit the tapes down into usable footage. And in an age when documentaries ranging from Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine to Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me can entertain and spark public debate, Bye may be in the vanguard of a new trend beyond the box office, where average citizens with a little know-how, some technology + the determination can sift through the previously one-way news feed from the giant media outlets and answer back. URL: https://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=7807
03.Jul.2004 Until his film is finished, Bye might as well be just another angry crank. But he is a crank armed with the kind of analytical obsessiveness that doesn't come standard in most journalists, who often lack the patience to sift through the tedious details. After all, who has the time to watch all the TV network news reporting leading up to the Iraq War? URL: https://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4959007-103677,00.html
29.Jun..2004 Iraqis have lived this lie before -The British transfer of sovereignty in the 20s was equally meaningless Haifa Zangana The Guardian URL: https://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/nation/2658470
03.Jul.2004 WASHINGTON -- The Bush-Cheney re-election campaign has sent a detailed plan of action to religious volunteers across the country asking them to turn over church directories to the campaign, distribute issue guides in their churches and persuade their pastors to hold voter registration drives. Campaign officials said the instructions are part of an accelerating effort to mobilize President Bush's base of religious supporters. They said the suggested activities are intended to help churchgoers rally support for Bush without violating tax rules that prohibit churches from engaging in partisan activity. "We strongly believe that our religious outreach program is well within the framework of the law," said Terry Holt, a Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman. But tax experts said the campaign is walking a fine line between permissible activity by individuals and impermissible activity by congregations. Supporters of Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, charged that the Bush-Cheney campaign is luring churches into risking their tax status. "I think it is sinful of them to encourage pastors and churches to engage in partisan political activity and run the risk of losing their tax-exempt status," said Steve Rosenthal, chief executive officer of America Coming Together, a group working to defeat Bush. The instruction sheet circulated by the Bush-Cheney campaign to religious volunteers lists 22 "duties" to be performed by specific dates. By July 31, for example, volunteers are to "send your church directory to your state Bush-Cheney '04 headquarters or give (it) to a BC04 field rep" and "talk to your pastor about holding a Citizenship Sunday and voter registration drive." 03.Jul.2004 Some Guantanamo detainees 'may be released before court review' : Donald Rumsfeld, said no final decisions have been made about how the US government would respond to Supreme Court decisions this week requiring that detainees be given a way to challenge their incarceration. URL: https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6421.htm
03.Jul.2004 The Scott inquiry had been set up in 1992 following the collapse of the trial in the case of Matrix Churchill, a British firm exporting equipment to Iraq that could be put to military use.
Three senior executives of Matrix Churchill said the government knew what Matrix Churchill was doing + that its managing director Paul Henderson had been supplying information about Iraq to the British intelligence agencies on a regular basis.
The inquiry revealed details of the British government's secret decision to supply Saddam with even more weapons-related equipment after the Halabja killings.
Former British foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe was found to have written that the end of the Iraq-Iran war could mean ”major opportunities for British industry” in military exports, but he wanted to keep that proposal quiet.
”It could look very cynical if so soon after expressing outrage about the treatment of the Kurds, we adopt a more flexible approach to arms sales,” one of his officials told the Scott inquiry. Lord Scott condemned the government's decision to change its policy, while keeping MPs and the public in the dark.
Soon after the attack, the United States approved the export to Iraq of virus cultures and a billion-dollar contract to design and build a petrochemical plant the Iraqis planned to use to produce mustard gas.
Saddam Hussein has appeared so far without a lawyer to defend him. A Jordanian firm is reported to be speaking up for him. But the real defence for him could be waiting for him in Washington and London.
URL: https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6421.htm
03.Jul.2004 Pelletiere writes that these facts have ”long been in the public domain but, extraordinarily, as often as the Halabja affair is cited, they are rarely mentioned.”
Pelletiere wrote that Saddam Hussein has much to answer for in the area of human rights abuses. ”But accusing him of gassing his own people at Halabja as an act of genocide is not correct, because as far as the information we have goes, all of the cases where gas was used involved battles. These were tragedies of war. There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of them.”
Pelletiere has maintained his position. All Saddam would have to do in court now is to cite The New York Times article even if the court would not summon Pelletiere. The issues raised in the article would themselves be sufficient to raise serious questions about the charges filed against Saddam - and in turn the justifications offered last year for invading Iraq.
URL: https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6421.htm
03.Jul.2004 The Halabja massacre is now prominent among the charges read out against Saddam in the Baghdad court. When that charge was read out, Saddam replied that he had read about the massacre in a newspaper. Saddam has denied these allegations ever since they were made. But now with a trial on, he could summon a witness in his defence with the potential to blow apart the charge and create one of the greatest diplomatic disasters the United States has ever known.
A report prepared by the top CIA official handling the matter says Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the massacre + indicates that it was the work of Iranians. Further, the Scott inquiry on the role of the British government has gathered evidence that following the massacre the United States in fact armed Saddam Hussein to counter the Iranians chemicals for chemicals.
Few believe that a CIA man would attend a court hearing in Baghdad in defence of Saddam. But in this case the CIA boss has gone public with his evidence + this evidence has been in the public domain for more than a year.
The CIA officer Stephen C. Pelletiere was the agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. As professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, he says he was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf.
In addition, he says he headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States + the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.
Pelletiere went public with his information on no less a platform than The New York Times in an article on January 31 last year titled 'A War Crime or an Act of War?' The article which challenged the case for war quoted U.S. President George W. Bush as saying: ”The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured.”
Pelletiere says the United States Defence Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report following the Halabja gassing, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need- to-know basis. ”That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas,” he wrote in The New York Times.
URL: https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,druck-307106,00.html
03.Jul.2004 Der Grund für die taktvolle Zurückhaltung: Allzu deutlich erinnern die Ermahnungen des Botschafters an die Kritik, die Bandars persönlicher Freund, US-Präsident George W. Bush, seit den Anschlägen vom 11. September immer wieder auch am Königshaus formuliert - zuletzt vorige Woche auf dem Nato-Gipfel von Istanbul: "Jeder Staat, der Kompromisse mit Terroristen eingeht, ermutigt sie nur und legt die Saat für eine gewaltsame Zukunft. Auch die Freunde der Vereinigten Staaten müssen das erkennen."
Doch als Freunde betrachten viele Saudi-Araber die Washingtoner Regierung schon lange nicht mehr. Zwar lehne "die Mehrheit den Terror der vergangenen Monate ab", sagt der Rechtsanwalt Muhsin al-Awadschi aus Riad. Und doch stellten die Terroristen "exakt die richtigen Fragen: Was haben Amerikas Flugzeugträger vor unseren Küsten zu suchen? Warum tut das Königshaus nichts gegen die Erniedrigung unserer Brüder in Palästina und im Irak?"
URL: https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,druck-307106,00.html
03.Jul.2004 Wie die Kalifen der islamischen Frühzeit werde auch das Königreich heute nicht von Juden oder Christen bedroht - die Gefahr komme von innen. "Genug der Demagogie! Schluss mit der Beschuldigung anderer, wenn der Grund bei uns selbst liegt!" Bandar zitiert den Koran: "Der Lohn derer, die gegen Gott und seinen Gesandten Krieg führen, soll darin bestehen, dass sie getötet werden."
In den wohltemperierten Büros hoher Regierungsbeamter in Riad lösen solche "Null-Toleranz"-Forderungen deutliches Unbehagen aus. Es handele sich um "persönliche Meinungen" eines wichtigen Prinzen, welche man sich nicht anmaße zu kommentieren.
URL: https://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=7083
03.Jul.2004 Michael Moore-The Wall Street Journal 's James Taranto argues that "sometimes Saddam and Moore are hard to tell apart. For one thing, they both have those scraggly beards. And the things they say sound awfully similar." Taranto's solution: "The only way we've come up with to distinguish these two is that Saddam is the thin one." Read 03.Jul.2004 Saddam Could Call CIA in His Defence: Evidence offered by a top CIA man could confirm the testimony given by Saddam Hussein at the opening of his trial in Baghdad Thursday that he knew of the Halabja massacre only from the newspapers. A must read. https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6421.htm 03.Jul.2004 Israel Will Ignore World Court Barrier Ruling: Israel's foreign minister said on Friday his government would not accept a World Court ruling on the legality of its West Bank barrier and pressed for U.S. support to block any U.N. action against the Jewish state. https://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5578236 03.Jul.2004 Ariel Sharon: The Accused : Nearly 20 years ago the man who is now Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, sent Lebanese militiamen into the Palestine refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla. When they left 36 hours later at least 800 people lay dead after a rampage of murder, torture and rape. https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6403.htm 03.Jul.2004 John Pilger: Bush Or Kerry? Look Closely And The Danger Is The Same: A myth equal to the fable of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is gaining strength on both sides of the Atlantic. It is that John Kerry offers a world-view different from that of George W Bush. https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5815.htm Bush pushing for religious campaigning: The Bush-Cheney re-election campaign has sent a detailed plan of action to religious volunteers across the country asking them to turn over church directories to the campaign https://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2658470 URL: https://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=3147
03.Jul.2004 Alliance Defense Fund
American Center for Law and Justice
American Conservative Union
American Enterprise Institute
American Family Association
American Legislative Exchange Council
American Life League
FRCAction
Americans for Tax Reform
Bradley Foundation, Lynne and Harry
Campaign for Working Families PAC
Cato Institute
Christian Coalition of America
Club for Growth
Concerned Women for America
Eagle Forum
Family Research Council
Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Focus on the Family
Free Congress Research and Education Foundation
Heritage Foundation
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution + Peace
Independent Women's Forum
Institute for Justice
Leadership Institute
Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research
Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Madison Project
National Center for Policy Analysis
National Right to Life Committee
National Taxpayers Union
State Policy Network
Traditional Values Coalition
URL: https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,307106,00.html
03.Jul.2004 SAUDI-ARABIEN-Dschihad gegen den Terror-
Der Kampf gegen al-Qaida spaltet das Herrscherhaus: Hardliner fordern die Vernichtung der Bin-Laden-Anhänger. Doch deren Parolen erreichen auch viele Bürger, die nicht unter der Fuchtel der Islamisten leben möchten. Sie fordern mehr Mitsprache und Distanz zu Amerika.
03.Jul.2004 Saudi-Arabien: Bin Ladens Herausforderung bedroht das Königshaus URL: https://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=16167
03.Jul.2004 News From The Right
Right Wing Organizations
Right Wing Watch Online 2004
URL: https://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=16167
03.Jul.2004 Florida Felon Purge List Made Public -In a victory for Florida voters, Circuit Court Judge Nikki Clark ruled today that the list of 47,000 "potential felon matches" who the state claims may be purged from the voter polls must be made available to the public. This is a huge step forward in heading off potentially massive voter disenfranchisement the likes of which occurred in 2000.
"This is great news for democracy and for the state of Florida," said Ralph G. Neas, president of People For the American Way Foundation. "We encourage the state to accept Judge Clark's order, forgo an appeal + make the list public immediately. An appeal will only delay justice for voters who have been wrongly placed on the list."
03.Jul.2004 Die Ermittlungen ergaben schließlich, dass einer Frau an Bord aus Unachtsamkeit eine Flasche Nagellack ausgelaufen war. Die Dämpfe hatten sich über die Klimaanlage im gesamten Flugzeug verteilt und so die Übelkeit verursacht. URL: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,307077,00.html 03.Jul.2004 Flughafen Bremen: Nagellack löst Großalarm aus
03.Jul.2004 Tschechien: Kalte Dusche
Der Alltag hat die Tschechen wieder. Nach der Niederlage gegen Griechenland im EM-Halbfinale bestimmt jetzt wieder die Regierungskrise die Agenda. Der neue Premier Stanislaw Gross muss sich mit denselben Schwierigkeiten herumplagen wie sein Vorgänger. Die Folge: Tschechien kann sich zum europäischen Problemfall entwickeln. 03.Jul.2004 Florida Felon Purge List Made Public : In a victory for Florida voters, Circuit Court Judge Nikki Clark ruled today that the list of 47,000 "potential felon matches" who the state claims may be purged from the voter polls must be made available to the public. https://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=16167 03.Jul.2004 Das Rohmaterial für etwa 300.000 Jahre alte Feuersteinwerkzeuge aus einer der untersuchten Höhlen wurde demnach einfach gesammelt oder kam aus oberflächlichen Steinbrüchen. Einige Gegenstände gleichen Alters aus einer zweiten Höhle wurden hingegen aus Feuerstein gefertigt, der aus mindestens zwei Meter tiefen Gesteinsschichten stammte und daher vermutlich gezielt gefördert worden war. Die Analyse der durch kosmische Strahlung entstandenen Isotope könnte auch auf andere Gesteinsarten angewandt werden, aus denen prähistorische Werkzeuge hergestellt wurden, schlagen die Forscher vor. URL: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,300311,00.html
03.Jul.2004 Geförderter Feuerstein ist stabiler und lässt sich einfacher zu Werkzeugen verarbeiten als von der Oberfläche gesammeltes Material, das verwittert und spröde ist. Diesen Vorteil erkannte der Mensch schon sehr früh URL: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,300311,00.html
03.Jul.2004 FRÜHE WERKZEUGE-Kosmische Strahlen verraten Feuerstein-Minen-Menschen haben früher mit der Förderung von Gestein angefangen als bisher vermutet. Forscher haben in Israel Hinweise darauf gefunden, dass Feuerstein schon vor 300.000 Jahren gezielt aus der Erde geholt wurde, um Werkzeuge herzustellen.
URL: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,300311,00.html
03.Jul.2004 Steinzeitliche Feuerstein-Werkzeuge (aus einer Grabung bei Lietzow): Menschen begannen schon vor 300.000 Jahren mit der Gesteinsförderung 03.Jul.2004 A British General's View of Fahrenheit 9/11: I believe that this film will utterly destroy any residual confidence that the American people might have in the credentials of Bush as a decisive war leader. https://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=47 03.Jul.2004 In case you missed it: Any US invasion of Iran will have terrible consequences: The US is preparing to invade Iran early next year if president George W.Bush is re-elected and later possibly if John Kerry comes in, with the outer deadline being Christmas of 2005. https://www.indiareacts.com/archivedebates/nat2.asp?recno=908&ctg=World 03.Jul.2004 Dissing the Republic To Save It: A conversation with Chalmers Johnson: "The greater cost is what the public will lose, if they haven’t already lost it: the republic, the structural defense of our liberties, the separation of powers to block the growth of a dictatorial presidency." https://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/32/features-cooper.php 03.Jul.2004 Caught on Tape: Filmmaker Kent Bye Says the Media is Partially Responsible for the Iraq War--and He Has the Footage to Prove it https://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=7807 03.Jul.2004 US tips Jakarta's terror balance: The Bush administration appears not only to have given up on restoring its legitimacy on human rights, but has shifted the balance to encourage human rights violations by the Indonesian military in the name of fighting terror. https://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/FG03Ae06.html 03.Jul.2004 Dollar Falls Against Euro as U.S. Job Growth Is Below Forecasts : The dollar is headed for a third straight weekly decline against the euro + the seventh in eight weeks. It is still 0.8 percent higher this week against the yen. https://tinyurl.com/2tcy3 03.Jul.2004 Why the US can't be trusted with our personal data: The United States has a long — very long — history of abusing personal information and surveillance powers for political purposes to the detriment of the entirely innocent. https://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=9106 03.Jul.2004 It's illegal: top defence lawyer: "On what basis was the court set up? Who appointed the judges?" He claimed the bench had been bribed by the US-led coalition force. https://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10015941%255E2703,00.html 03.Jul.2004 How Chalabi Played the Press: The list includes articles from nearly every blue-blooded news outfit in America, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Time, Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly, 60 Minutes, USA Today, the New York Daily News, UPI + Fox News. https://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/4/mccollam-list.asp 03.Jul.2004 Convoy of Death: Why have US television stations refused to broadcast this documentary?: The film provides eyewitness testimony that U.S. troops were complicit in the massacre of thousands of Taliban prisoners during the Afghan War. https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3267.htm 03.Jul.2004 Den vielleicht besten Beweis für diese Artenvielfalt liefern Handäxte, die in der direkten Umgebung des Schädels entdeckt wurden: Die Steinwerkzeuge sind unverhältnismäßig groß; von dem jetzt entdeckten Frühmenschen hätten sie kaum benutzt, geschweige denn hergestellt werden können.
Diese Aufgabe kam größeren Mitgliedern der Gruppe zu. Offensichtlich war die Variationsbreite bei den Hominiden derart groß, so Potts in "Science", dass sich die Vertreter des Homo erectus sogar auf einzelne Aufgaben konzentrieren konnten. URL: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/erde/0,1518,306764,00.html
03.Jul.2004 Doch nun haben US-Forscher in Kenia einen Schädel entdeckt, der die These eines dominierenden Homo erectus stützt. Wie das Anthropologen-Team um Richard Potts von der Smithsonian Institution in Washington im Fachmagazin "Science" berichtet, handelt es sich bei den rund 930.000 Jahre alten Fossilien um einen der kleinsten jemals gefundenen Schädel eines erwachsenen Frühmenschen.URL: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/erde/0,1518,306764,00.html
03.Jul.2004 Im Mittelpunkt der Kontroverse steht dabei der Homo erectus: Der "aufrecht gehende Mensch" betrat vor knapp zwei Millionen Jahre die irdische Bühne und zeichnete sich vor allem durch seinen Hang zu ausgedehnten Wanderungen aus. Bis nach Zentraleuropa und Südostasien zieht sich die Spur der handwerklich geschickten Hominiden. Form und Größe der gefundenen Knochen sind überraschend vielfältig.
03.Jul.2004 HOMO ERECTUS-Frühe Menschen liebten die Vielfalt-Im Osten Afrikas sind Anthropologen auf Spuren der ersten Menschen gestoßen, die sie vor ein Rätsel stellen: Ein viel zu kleiner Schädel und viel zu große Werkzeuge deuten darauf hin, dass sich einzelne Vertreter der Art Homo erectus stark voneinander unterschieden haben. URL: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/erde/0,1518,306764,00.html
URL: https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,307144,00.html
03.Jul.2004 Ein erster Schritt in dieser Richtung ist bereits offenbar bereits erfolgt. Zwei hohe NATO-Offiziere sollen in der kommenden Woche in den Irak reisen, um dort die Ausbildung von irakischen Sicherheitskräften durch das Militärbündnis vorzubereiten, wie die Londoner "Financial Times" berichtet. Es sei die erste Mission der Allianz in den Irak. Die Mission werde vom NATO- Oberkommandierenden, US-General James Jones + US-Admiral Gregory Johnson geführt. URL: https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,307144,00.html
03.Jul.2004 Der Prozess hat begonnen + dem Präsidenten wurde sein Recht auf einen Anwalt verwehrt", kritisierte Raschdan am Samstag. Dem Nachrichtenmagazin "Focus" sagte der jordanische Jurist, er habe monatelang versucht, mit seinem Mandanten in Kontakt zu treten. Sogar an US-Verteidigungsminister Donald Rumsfeld habe er geschrieben, doch habe dieser dann den Erhalt des Briefes bestritten.
03.Jul.2004 EM-FINAL-RAUSCH Griechen stürmen Flugzeuge nach Portugal Halb Griechenland ist auf dem Weg zum Estádio da Luz in Lissabon, wo am Sonntag die griechische Mannschaft zum ersten Mal in der Fußball-Geschichte im Endspiel eines großen Turniers antritt. Doch es gibt ein Problem: Niemand hatte mit dem Andrang rechnen können, die Flugzeuge sind fast restlos ausgebucht. 03.Jul.2004 Gaddafi-Tochter verstärkt Saddams Anwalts-Team Angesichts der grassierenden Gewalt im Irak kommt dem Prozess gegen den ehemaligen Diktator große Bedeutung zu. Dessen Anwaltteam rüstet sich derweil, um einen "Akt der Siegerjustiz" zu verhindern. Zum Team gehört auch eine Tochter des libyschen Revolutionsführers Muammar el Gaddafi. URL: https://www.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibtable.html
03.Jul.2004 The PROPHET, by Kahlil Gibran -->Table of Contents ->To read please click on the desired chapter 1. The Coming of the Ship 15. Reason and Passion 2. Love 16. Pain 3. Marriage 17. Self-Knowledge 4. Children 18. Teaching 5. Giving 19. Friendship 6. Eating and Drinking 20. Talking 7. Work 21. Time 8. Joy and Sorrow 22. Good and Evil 9. Houses 23. Prayer 10. Clothes 24. Pleasure 11. Buying and Selling 25. Beauty 12. Crime and Punishment 26. Religion 13. Laws 27. Death 14. Freedom 28. The Farewell | 