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Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

    Time Event
    2:48a
    Bush at war with common sense
    FROOMKIN - '...the significance of McClellan's book is that his detailed recounting of what he saw from the inside vindicates pretty much all the central pillars of the Bush critique that have been chronicled here and elsewhere for many years now. Among them:
    * That Bush and his top aides manipulated the country into embarking upon an unnecessary war on false pretenses;
    * That Bush is an incurious man, happily protected from dissenting views inside the White House's bubble of self-delusion;
    * That Karl Rove's huge influence on the Bush White House erased any distinction between policy and politics, so governing became about achieving partisan goals, not the common good;
    * That Vice President Cheney manipulates the levers of power;
    * That all those people who denied White House involvement in the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity were either lying or had been lied to;
    * That the mainstream media were complicit enablers of the Bush White House and that its members didn't understand how badly they were being played.
    By coming back again and again to the CIA leak story, McClellan also validates a key theme of the Bush critique: That the Plame case was a microcosm of much that was wrong with the way the Bush White House did business.
    No one could have predicted that the Plame case would play such a central role in McClellan's personal conversion to Bush critic. But his eventual recognition that Rove and then-vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby had flatly lied to him when they denied any involvement in the leak, along with his sudden realization that Bush and Cheney declassified secrets when it was politically convenient, were evidently two major factors. (A third was his unceremonious firing by Chief of Staff Josh Bolten.)

    McClellan's revelation that on Oct. 4, 2003, Bush and Cheney directed him to vouch for Libby's innocence once again raises the question of how the president and particularly the vice president have been able to avoid any kind of public accountability. McClellan even raises the possibility, repeatedly hinted at by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, that Cheney directed Libby to disclose Plame's identity.

    McClellan also makes clear how baldly Bush broke his original pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak. In an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday, McClellan told Tim Russert: "I think the president should have stood by the word that we said, which is if you were involved in this any way, then you would no longer be in this administration. And Karl was involved in it. . . .

    "The president said he was going to restore honor, integrity. He said we were going to set the highest of standards. We didn't live up to that. When it became known that his top adviser had been involved, then the bar was moved. And the bar was moved to, 'If anyone is indicted, they would no longer be here.'"
    2:50a
    A revolutionary party - like Lenins
    Those who want a revolutionary party here need a couple things Lenin himself used in Russia

    1) Millions of pieces of gold from a hostile foreign power
    2) Mercenaries willing to torture and kill the locals for gold. Most should be recruited from outside the country.

    Its only common sense for any revolutionary seeking to emulate Lenin. Oh and you may want to brush up on yr 'vaudeville' skills as you'll be lying to the punters a lot. Posing as an anarchist and so on. The ' Emmanuelle Goldstein' of the RSP might be an asset here.
    3:16a
    The bells! The BELLS!
    The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The tubes! The TUBES! - The Humpback of Foggy Bottom

    "An even more fundamental problem was the way his advisers decided to pursue a political propaganda campaign to sell the war to the American people. It was all part of the way the White House operated and Washington functioned, and no one seemed to see any problem with using such an approach on an issue as grave as war. A pro-war campaign might have been more acceptable had it been accompanied by a high level of candor and honesty, but it was not. "

    On Bush's decision to go to war, which McClellan dates back all the way to November 2001: "[I]it's not asking too much that a well-considered understanding of the circumstances and history of Iraq and the Middle East should have been brought into the decision-making process. The responsibility to provide this understanding belonged to the president's advisers, and they failed to fulfill it. Secretary of State Colin Powell was apparently the only adviser who even tried to raise doubts about the wisdom of war. The rest of the foreign policy team seemed to be preoccupied with regime change or, in the case of Condi Rice, seemingly more interested in accommodating the president's instincts and ideas than in questioning them or educating him.

    "Waging an unnecessary war is a grave mistake. But in reflecting on all that happened during the Bush administration, I've come to believe that an even more fundamental mistake was made -- a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed."

    McClellan himself notes, most key decisions were made in secret by a small circle of advisers. Sometimes, he acknowledges, it wasn't even a circle: "Cheney had greater power and influence than any other vice president in history, and no one really knew how extensively he wielded it. Being shut out from his thinking and from the ways he advised the president left a large black hole in my understanding of what was really going on inside the administration."

    Later, he writes: "[L]urking behind it all remained the magic man, Vice President Cheney. No one knew better how to orchestrate what was happening from behind the curtain while the grand production was playing out on stage. Quietly slipping in and out of internal deliberations, his influence and wand waving barely discernible to the outside world, Cheney rarely showed all his cards and never disclosed how he made things happen. Yet somehow, in every policy area he cared about, from the invasion of Iraq to expansion of presidential power to the treatment of detainees and the use of surveillance against terror suspects, Cheney always seemed to get his way."

    Dan Balz - "His critique of how the administration went to war in Iraq squares with what is now a widely accepted analysis, which is that there was a rush to war and that the administration marshaled the evidence based on faulty intelligence. What makes it sting is that McClellan attaches words and phrases such as 'propaganda' and 'manipulate' and 'cycle of deception' to describe the public relations campaign of which he was a part.

    Mike Lupica writes in his New York Daily News opinion column: "The hyenas Bush still has in the media will make this all about disloyalty. They won't just try to shoot the messenger - McClellan - they will try to shoot him out of a cannon. They will make him the issue. And when they are through with him, he won't just be a disgruntled former employee, he will be some kind of threat to national security and if you believe him, the terrorists win. . . .
    AND
    "But take a look at the ones coming after him hardest for the story he is selling this time around. It is those for whom he sold the war, and the ones who helped him do it."

    Michael Hirsh writes for Newsweek: "Bush's own spokesman is acknowledging his error on Iraq. Why can't the media?"

    Press blogger Jay Rosen reminds us of the key role -- stooge -- that McClellan played in the White House's attack on the press: "It denied the whole theory of the 'fourth estate,' ridiculed the idea that the press is part of the system of checks and balances, told reporters they were a special interest group rather than a conduit to the public-at-large, wiped out all remaining distinctions between propaganda and public information, and welcomed the de-legitimizing of the news media by allies in the culture war.

    "'Back 'em up, starve 'em down and drive up their negatives' is the way I summarized this approach. In July 2003 Bush took it further when he installed in the White House briefing room a stooge figure, a pathetic character who had no power, no in-in-the-loop knowledge, no respect from key players in the Administration, no talent for improvised explanation under the lights, and no problem being made to look like an ass in front of the country, the cameras and the rest of the world."
    For history's sake, it is good that McClellan is confirming what most Americans (according to polls) have long known: the Bush administration trampled the truth to win public backing for the Iraq war. But as an enabler (witting or not) of that process, McClellan owes the public more than a for-sale account. He should not profit from this book, making bucks for correcting war-supporting falsehoods that he defended. He ought to be doing penance. True heart-felt confessions come free."

    In his book, McClellan barely mentions torture, or his role in defending the indefensible. And yet he frequently went well beyond just parroting the administration's talking points when it came to attacking reporters who questioned the administration's tactics in its war on terror.
    3:25a
    Just to recap
    CONSORTIUM NEWS - Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan says George W. Bush’s political guru Karl Rove arranged a private meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in 2005 when the two men were under mounting suspicion for leaking the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.
    Calling the scene “one moment during the leak episode that I am reluctant to discuss,” McClellan writes in his new memoir that “in 2005, during a time when attention was focusing on Rove and Libby, [the meeting] sticks vividly in my mind. …
    “Following [a meeting in Chief of Staff Andy Card’s office], Scooter Libby was walking to the entryway as he prepared to depart when Karl turned to get his attention. ‘You have time to visit?’ Karl asked. ‘Yeah,’ replied Libby.”
    In the new book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and the Culture of Washington Deception, McClellan doesn’t offer substantive evidence that Rove and Libby used the meeting in 2005 to coordinate their cover stories.
    “I have no idea what they discussed, but it seemed suspicious for these two, whom I had never noticed spending any one-on-one time together, to go behind closed doors and visit privately,” McClellan writes.

    “At least one of them, Rove, it was publicly known at the time, had at best misled me by not sharing relevant information, and credible rumors were spreading that the other, Libby, had done at least as much,” McClellan said. “I don’t know what they discussed, but what would any knowledgeable person reasonably and logically conclude was the topic?”
    For more than a year in three separate appearances before a federal grand jury, Rove had insisted he was not a source for columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, two journalists who were told about Plame’s CIA identity when it was still secret.
    On July 14, 2003, Novak wrote the first story exposing Plame’s CIA identity in the context of discrediting her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had challenged Bush’s bogus claims that Iraq had purchased yellowcake uranium from Niger.
    Rove told the grand jury that he first learned that Plame worked for the CIA when he read it in Novak’s column, according to Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin. But the truth was Rove had been an unnamed source for both Novak and Cooper.
    McClellan's Role
    Press secretary McClellan was dragged into the middle of the Plame controversy in September 2003, after the CIA – angered by the blowing of Plame’s cover – got the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation into the leaking of her classified identity.
    It fell to McClellan to steer reporters – and the public – away from suspicions that Bush’s inner circle was implicated in exposing an undercover CIA officer, an act that Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, once had likened to treason.
    In early fall 2003, the White House tried to make it appear that the younger George Bush held the same standards.
    “The President has set high standards, the highest of standards, for people in his administration,” McClellan said on Sept. 29, 2003. “If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.”
    President Bush then announced that he was determined to get to the bottom of the matter.
    “If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is,” Bush said on Sept. 30, 2003. “I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true.”
    Yet, even as Bush was professing his curiosity and calling for anyone with information to step forward, he was withholding the fact that he had authorized the declassification of some secrets about the Niger uranium issue and had ordered Cheney to arrange for those secrets to be given to reporters.

    In other words, though Bush knew a great deal about how the scheme to discredit Wilson got started – since he was involved in starting it – the President uttered misleading public statements that obscured the White House role.
    Also, since the leakers knew that Bush already was in the know, they might well have read his comments as a signal to lie, which is what they did. In early October, McClellan said he could report that political adviser Rove and National Security Council aide Elliott Abrams were not involved in the Plame leak.
    That comment riled Libby, who feared that he was being hung out to dry. Libby went to his boss, Vice President Cheney, complaining that “they want me to be the sacrificial lamb,” Libby’s lawyer Theodore Wells said later.
    Cheney scribbled down his feelings in a note to press secretary McClellan: “Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy the Pres that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others.”
    In the note, Cheney initially ascribed Libby’s role in going after Joe Wilson to Bush’s orders, but the Vice President apparently thought better of it, crossing out “the Pres” and putting the clause in a passive tense.

    Cheney has never explained the meaning of his note, but it suggests that it was Bush who sent Libby out on the get-Wilson mission to limit damage from Wilson’s criticism of Bush’s false Niger-yellowcake claim.

    Special Prosecutor

    In those early days of the leak investigation, it appeared that the Plame case wouldn’t go very far with Attorney General John Ashcroft in charge, but Ashcroft recused himself from the Plame case in December 2003.
    Deputy Attorney General James Comey then selected Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as a special prosecutor to conduct the investigation. Fitzgerald proved to be more aggressive than his predecessors.

    In late January 2004, Fitzgerald sent a letter to Comey, seeking confirmation that he had the authority to investigate and prosecute individuals for obstruction of justice, perjury and destroying evidence – as well as willful disclosure of an undercover CIA officer.
    On Feb. 6, 2004, Comey responded in writing, confirming that Fitzgerald had the authority to prosecute those crimes.
    By April 2004, Fitzgerald had begun focusing on contradictions between White House documents and sworn statements by Rove and other White House officials. The prosecutor also grew suspicious that Rove and Libby were trying to hinder his investigation.
    Fitzgerald’s suspicions may have been on target. An e-mail that Rove had sent to then Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley in early July 2003 revealed that Rove had spoken to Time reporter Cooper about Plame – a fact that Rove had omitted when he was first interviewed by the FBI.

    Rove didn't reveal to the grand jury that he had spoken with Cooper until Oct. 15, 2004, around the same time that a federal court judge compelled Cooper to testify about the identity of his source.
    At the time of the Rove-Libby meeting in 2005 that was recalled by McClellan, Fitzgerald’s investigation was zeroing in on Libby, who was indicted in October 2005 on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice.

    When Libby went on trial in 2007, Libby’s attorney Wells told the jury that the White House had decided that Libby must be “sacrificed” to protect Rove whose criminal exposure in the leak was so great that the White House feared it could cost the Republicans badly in Election 2004.
    In his opening statement, Wells told the jurors that “the person ... who was to be protected was Karl Rove … President Bush's right-hand person in terms of political strategy. Karl Rove was the person most responsible for making sure the Republican Party stayed in office.”
    As the trial proceeded, however, Wells never presented evidence backing up his “scapegoat” claim. Libby was convicted on four of five counts and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. (Bush later commuted the sentence, sparing Libby jail time and dangling the possibility of a full pardon later.)

    One of Libby’s jurors, Denis Collins, said after the verdict that he and other jurors often asked “where’s Rove?”
    Renewed Interest
    Now, McClellan’s memoir is stoking renewed interest in the Bush administration’s handling of the Plame leak. On Wednesday, Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Florida, called for McClellan to give sworn testimony to Congress.
    Wexler described McClellan’s admissions and allegations as “earth-shattering” regarding both the cover-up of the Plame leak and the administration’s deceptive case for invading Iraq.

    "Scott McClellan must now appear before the House Judiciary Committee under oath to tell Congress and the American people how President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and White House officials deliberately orchestrated a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people,” Wexler said.
    Anne Weismann, chief counsel for the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said McClellan’s book reveals that a “conspiracy” of sorts did take place.
    Weismann, whose group represents Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson in a civil suit against White House officials, said the disclosures show why the case requires a discovery order from the courts.

    “This was an outrageous conspiracy by top White House officials to attack and discredit a high-level CIA operative, which is exactly what we have said and the Wilsons have said,” Weismann said about the case, which was dismissed by a lower court and is now on appeal.
    An aide to Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the California Democrat continues to negotiate with Fitzgerald and Attorney General Michael Mukasey about obtaining documents that the special prosecutor uncovered during his investigation.
    So far, Fitzgerald has turned over to Waxman’s committee “FBI 302 reports” of interviews with CIA and State Department officials and other individuals involved in the leak, according to a letter the congressman sent to Attorney General Mukasey in December.
    But Waxman added that “the White House has been blocking Mr. Fitzgerald from providing key documents to the Committee," including transcripts of Fitzgerald’s interviews with Bush and Cheney about the leak.

    Jason Leopold has launched a new Web site, The Public Record, at www.pubrecord.org

    Just to recap on Jason he got out a little too far ahead of the story at one stage...but then so too did Woodstein during Watergate. He paid a heavy price in lost reputation capital at the time even if it might be spun as a ' shaking-the-tree' story when the facts were slow coming.
    This latest stuff of his looks very sober and solid as far as I can see. I hope as many people as possible get behind another bite at the Plame cherry - its the proverbial gift that keeps on giving. And why can't we see those veep and pres transcripts anyways?
    Mmm?
    Nothing to hide - nothing to fear surely.
    Another thing I'd like to see before I'm as old as Methusalah or John W McCain is the 'Phase 2' report.
    You know the one on the political use of the intelligence used as the alleged reason to invade and bomb half a dozen or more countries in SW Asia.
    3:50a
    Home brew and hydroponics
    '...Homegrown terrorists pulled off deadly attacks in Madrid (2004) and London (2005). Other plots have been hatched, or carried out, in recent years in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Denmark.

    The Brits feel particularly under the gun; their authorities are tracking dozens of active plots and more than 2,000 people in the UK. The 2006 London-based conspiracy to bring down 10 or so airliners over the Atlantic could've produced more victims than 9/11.

    But it's not just Europe. We've also had terror attempts here, too - by "self-radicalized" people who were inspired by, but had no physical contact with al Qaeda at all. Such homegrown, self-radicalized "lone wolf" terrorists are a particular worry for the FBI...'

    Thats why the FBI are shooting up Max Hardcores house. They're fighting the terrorists there so we don't have to fight them here. This NY Post left something out too - the best part. If there are any more big attacks a follow up blitz of false alarms sent by a relatively few lone wolves could disable many first responders. Surely this can't be repeated enough can it?

    On a need-to-know basis I mean.
    4:08a
    Sending her back to rehab
    Deprogramming sect members
    UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that a 'fresh approach' was needed towards national security. Marxist extremists could receive counselling instead of criminal charges under new Government plans to 'deradicalise' political fanatics issued today. The move is part of a £12.5m Home Office plan which give councils guidance about how to prevent extremism spreading. People who fall under the influence of violent organisations will not automatically face prosecution under the new plan. Instead it will concentrate on a national 'deradicalisation' programme that will try to persuade extremists to change their views through therapy and counselling from community groups. The scheme will seek to reverse the process of indoctrination carried out by Leninist-related extremists, using unnamed 'specialised techniques'. Community groups and councils in England and Wales will get cash from a £12.5m fund to implement the new measures.
    Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: 'The national security challenges we face demand fresh approaches.
    4:21a
    Down in the catacombs
    Mr Joyboy and Ms Thanatogenous request the pleasure of yr company at the annual Whispering Glades necrophiles orgy. RSVP

    Selling the Iraq War [Rich Lowry]

    I'm not with VDH on this one. The reason that the administration leaned so heavily on WMD, in my view, was that it was the most powerful selling point for the war—end of story. Americans weren't going to go to war for humanitarian reasons. I'm more sympathetic to the Feith argument that Bush emphasized the democracy-building rationale for the war too much after the invasion. But that too was understandable—we hadn't found WMD and we were engaged in democracy building, after all. In the end, the most important thing was execution. If we had managed to establish order in Iraq from the beginning, or, failing that, to squash the insurgency early and prevent the civil war of '06, we wouldn't have to have academic arguments about what exact selling points might have worked better

    Scroll down

    Dealing with Iran [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

    '...The threat posed by Iran is severe and metastasizing. We have every reason to believe the regime seeks nuclear weapons. We know it has a history of sponsoring and executing terrorist acts...'
    4:25a
    Military-industrial strength
    CONSORTIUM PRESS - Some may view ex-White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s new book as vindication for those who took grief – accused of “derangement,” “treason” and a bunch of less-printable things – for calling George W. Bush a liar over the past eight years.
    But the more troubling point is that there has been little improvement in the Washington political/media structure that failed to call Bush out on his lies in a timely fashion.
    In Iraq alone, the consequences for that dereliction of duty include more than 4,000 U.S. dead along with hundreds of thousands of slain Iraqis and possibly trillions of taxpayer dollars wasted.
    Though Bush’s White House and his Republican allies may stand out as the principal villains in this tragic story, a large share of the blame also must fall on accommodating Democrats and careerists in the Washington press corps. They protected their political flanks and their nice salaries by playing along.
    Indeed, McClellan calls the U.S. news media “complicit enablers” in the White House’s “carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval” for invading Iraq, according to a New York Times preview of McClellan’s book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.
    It’s significant, too, that McClellan’s title cites “Washington’s Culture of Deception” because the problem is truly broader than just Bush and his inner circle. The “culture of deception” both preceded and will surely outlast the current residents in the White House.
    During the 1980s, when I was an investigative reporter for the Associated Press and Newsweek, I would sometimes ask myself what was the duty of an American journalist when you reached the conclusion that the U.S. government was lying pervasively – not just once in a while, but routinely.
    That was a problem I encountered when covering the neoconservatives who entered the higher realms of government under Ronald Reagan. At the time, the neocons were pushing a concept called “perception management,” a domestic covert intelligence program for manipulating how Americans perceived dangers abroad.
    The neocon testing ground was Central America and the Caribbean where minor threats like leftist regimes in Nicaragua and Grenada were exaggerated into grave dangers facing the United States. To accomplish these distortions required whipping the Washington press corps into line.
    Journalists who resisted found their careers in jeopardy from a combination of right-wing attack groups and cowardly news executives who valued their social relationships and government contacts more than their journalistic responsibilities.
    There was virtually no career danger – and indeed lucrative rewards – for collaborating with the Reagan administration’s powers-that-be. So, over the years, this corrupt way of doing business – pandering to well-connected Republicans – became Washington’s way of life.
    In my writings – dating back to my first book Fooling America in 1992 through my last one Neck Deep (written with my sons, Sam and Nat) in 2007 – I have tried to explain how this process gradually allowed propaganda to substitute for reality and helped bring the nation to its current fix.
    Iraq Disaster
    However, even the Iraq disaster – in which major news organizations disgraced themselves, from the New York Times to the Washington Post to network and cable TV news – has done little to change matters.
    Except in a few rare cases – like Judith Miller leaving the New York Times – journalists responsible for spreading Bush’s disinformation have avoided significant punishment.
    For instance, the Washington Post’s editorial section, which swallowed neocon propaganda whole, has undergone almost no change. Editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt remains in place, along with pro-invasion columnists, such as Charles Krauthammer, David Ignatius and Richard Cohen.
    While news executives have lost careers over relatively minor offenses, like not catching Jayson Blair’s fabrications regarding a Washington-area sniper mystery, there has been no purge following the far more monumental falsehoods that led to the Iraq War.
    It also wasn’t hard to figure out that President Bush was a brazen liar.
    We often have noted that – just four months after the Iraq invasion – Bush began rewriting the history by telling reporters that Saddam Hussein was the one who “chose” war by barring United Nations inspectors.
    “We gave him [Saddam Hussein] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power,” Bush told reporters on July 14, 2003.
    Facing no serious challenge to this lie from the White House press corps, Bush continued repeating it in varied forms as part of his public litany for defending the invasion.
    On Jan. 27, 2004, for example, Bush said, “We went to the United Nations, of course, and got an overwhelming resolution – 1441 – unanimous resolution, that said to Saddam, you must disclose and destroy your weapons programs, which obviously meant the world felt he had such programs. He chose defiance. It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in.”
    As the months and years went by, Bush’s lie and its constant retelling took on the color of truth.
    At a press conference on May 24, 2007, Bush offered a short-hand version, even inviting the journalists to remember the invented history.
    “As you might remember back then, we tried the diplomatic route: [U.N. Resolution] 1441 was a unanimous vote in the Security Council that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. So the choice was his [Hussein’s] to make. And he made a choice that has subsequently caused him to lose his life.”
    In the frequent repetition of this claim, Bush never acknowledged the fact that Hussein did comply with Resolution 1441 by declaring accurately that he had disposed of his WMD stockpiles and by permitting U.N. inspectors to examine any site of their choosing.
    Learning the Lie
    Prominent Washington journalists eventually began repeating Bush’s lie as their own. In a July 2004 interview, ABC’s veteran newsman Ted Koppel used it to explain why he – Koppel – thought the invasion of Iraq was justified.
    “It did not make logical sense that Saddam Hussein, whose armies had been defeated once before by the United States and the Coalition, would be prepared to lose control over his country if all he had to do was say, ‘All right, U.N., come on in, check it out,” Koppel told Amy Goodman, host of “Democracy Now.”
    Of course, Hussein did tell the U.N. to “come on in, check it out.”
    In fall 2002, Hussein’s government allowed teams of U.N. inspectors into Iraq and gave them free rein to examine any site of their choosing. Then, on Dec. 7, 2002, Iraq sent to the United Nations a 12,000-page declaration explaining how its WMD stockpiles had been eliminated.
    At the time, the Bush administration – and much of the Washington press corps – mocked those efforts as proof that the Iraqis were continuing their WMD cover-up.
    The U.N. inspections continued into March 2003 when Bush decided to press ahead with war and forced the inspectors to leave. After the invasion, U.S. weapons inspectors also found no WMD and concluded that the Iraqis had been telling the truth.
    But none of that reality is part of the history that Americans are supposed to know. The officially sanctioned U.S. account is that Saddam Hussein “chose war” by defying the U.N. over the WMD issue.
    As recently as this year, a major U.S. news outlet was still spreading Bush’s false history.
    In January, CBS’s “60 Minutes” ran a segment with Hussein’s FBI interrogator, George Piro, with correspondent Scott Pelley musing over the mystery of why Hussein didn’t simply stop the U.S. invasion by admitting his WMD was gone.
    “For a man who drew America into two wars and countless military engagements, we never knew what Saddam Hussein was thinking,” Pelley said in introducing the segment on the interrogation of Hussein about his WMD stockpiles. “Why did he choose war with the United States?”
    In the interview, Pelley presses Piro on the question of why Hussein was hiding the fact that his WMD was gone. Piro said Hussein explained to him that “most of the WMD had been destroyed by the U.N. inspectors in the ‘90s, and those that hadn’t been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.”
    “So,” Pelley asked, “why keep the secret? Why put your nation at risk, why put your own life at risk to maintain this charade?”
    After Piro mentioned Hussein’s lingering fear of neighboring Iran, Pelley felt he was close to an answer to the mystery: “He believed that he couldn’t survive without the perception that he had weapons of mass destruction?”
    But, still, Pelley puzzled over why Hussein’s continued in this miscalculation.
    Pelley asked: “As the U.S. marched toward war and we began massing troops on his border, why didn’t he stop it then? And say, ‘Look, I have no weapons of mass destruction,’ I mean, how could he have wanted his country to be invaded?”
    Within the prestigious U.S. press corps, up had truly become down.
    More Than Gullible
    McClellan’s book may add weight to our argument that the major U.S. news media has been more than a little gullible. In our view, there is now an ingrained bias within the Washington press corps – after three decades of fat rewards and harsh punishments – to tilt stories to the right.
    The new book also adds details about how Bush intentionally led the nation into war by shading the truth and manipulating events.
    McClellan writes that Bush “managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option.”
    The sales campaign was laid out by Bush advisers in summer 2002, McClellan said.
    “Top Bush aides had outlined a strategy for carefully orchestrating the coming campaign to aggressively sell the war,” McClellan writes. “In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the President’s advantage.”

    However, McClellan remains unwilling to use direct language in addressing Bush’s long pattern of dishonesty. The former press secretary lays some of the blame for Bush's falsehoods on his “lack of inquisitiveness” or a tendency toward “self-deception.”

    But the evidence is clear: Bush is liar.
    If further evidence were required, there is McClellan’s anecdote about Bush telling aides during Campaign 2000 that he could not remember whether he had used cocaine. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘How can that be?’” McClellan wrote, according to the Washington Post’s preview of the book.
    It would seem to be long past the time for anyone to be making excuses for George W. Bush – or the elite U.S. press corps – not with the horrendous price paid by the Iraqi people, American soldiers and U.S. taxpayers.
    [For an earlier story on McClellan and the Plame-gate lies, see Consortiumnews.com’s “The Bush’s Rules of Evidence.”] -Robert Parry
    4:30a
    Infoshop 2004
    comment by pr
    Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, October 09 2004 @ 06:27 AM CDT
    If I may crave yr indulgence here for a second...we all remember the Laura Myleroi stuff right?

    Saddam was the 20th hijacker and so on?

    Here is a weird echo of that and the Judith Miller \' Tubes of death\' stuff as well ...from page 129 \" Veil - the secret wars of the CIA,\" by Bob Woodward...

    \"...It turned out that a small part of Claire Sterling\'s information had come from an Italian press story on the Red Brigade. The story was part of an old small scale CIA covert propaganda operation...( stuff on \' Blowback\' snipped...) \"...Gordon found the sequence particularly telling; from CIA propaganda , to Sterlings book galleys, to Haig\'s reading of the galley\'s,to Haig\'s press conference, then Haigs comments picked up in the NYTimes article by Sterling, then finally in Sterling\'s book...\"

    Claire Sterling was a big influence on CIA chief Casey as well as Secretary of State, Al \" I\'m in charge,\' Haig. She was the Laura Myleroi of her day with the Soviets actually presenting much more of a real and present world terrorist danger than Saddam Hussein.

    Laurie Mylroie is The Neocons\' favorite conspiracy theorist.

    And Woodward has some more on former Secretary of State and \' take charge\' stand up guy, Al Haig...

    In Haig\'s presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as \"dumb, stupid animals to be used\" as pawns for foreign policy. Kissinger took up a post outside the doorway to Haig\'s office and dressed him down in front of the secretaries for alleged acts of incompetence with which Haig was not even remotely involved. Once when the Air Force was authorized to resume bombing of North Vietnam, the planes did not fly on certain days because of bad weather. Kissinger assailed Haig. He complained bitterly that the generals had been screaming for the limits to be taken off but that now their pilots were afraid to go up in a little fog. The country needed generals who could win battles, Kissinger said, not good briefers like Haig.
    On another occasion, when Haig was leaving for a trip to Cambodia to meet with Premier Lon Nol, Kissinger escorted him to a staff car, where reporters and a retinue of aides waited. As Haig bent to get into the automobile, Kissinger stopped him and began polishing the single star on his shoulder. \"Al, if you\'re a good boy, I\'ll get you another one,\" he said.

    — Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days

    Conspiracy just falls a little short sometimes. - FROM

    http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=04/10/08/8560346

    Woodward speculates ruefully about the nuclear armed Soviets possible reaction to the CIA lies being spread about them...but that was nearly thirty years ago now. Before he became a total weenie.
    4:52a
    Anarchist cats and Marxist dogs
    If they kill you and your reaction is to say, let's chat about this, and then they keep killing you and you keep chatting and offering concessions but do nothing else, you are emboldening them to keep killing you.
    Now as to working toward the goal of squeezing, starving and killing this malignant ideology until it is gone.
    ( In the unlikely - I'd say impossible - event they ever do modify their fascist behavior, you can deal with that when it happens.) Beyond that, they're the deadly enemy (which, by the way, is how they look at us) and we want to see them gone. And there's an added benefit: the anarchism that is not constantly checking its back for Marxist knives, can look steadily forward and up toward the dawn of a brand new day. To become the major positive force for good in the world.
    5:04a
    LBJ's signature issue
    "With the deaths of Kennedy and Diem, the struggle in the South entered
    a period of enormous flux and instability. A plan developed by the
    Joint Chiefs of Staff, under guidance from the Kennedy administration,
    to reduce American forces in Vietnam by the end of 1965 to one-quarter
    the 1963 level (25,000), was quietly scrapped." (p. 171).

    (8 MB PDF file):

    http://www.fas.org/irp/nsa/spartans/additional.pdf
    5:32a
    The full catastrophe
    The big lie
    A Real War Lapse... [Victor Davis Hanson]

    A thought about Iraq: Almost all the controversies over Iraq revolved around the number of troops initially sent, the status of the Iraqi army in the aftermath, and the slow response to the insurgency and the subsequent tactics used. But I still maintain (ad nauseam for some), that our key lapse was privileging the WMD argument for Saddam's removal, when the U.S. Senate had voted for over 20 writs for regime change, almost all of them as valid today as they were in October 2002.

    Once the administration invested in WMDs, then all the other equally pressing arguments were simply forgotten; but they were considerable humanitarian questions dealing with the Kurds, Shiites, UN embargo, bounties for suicide bombing, etc., and continual reference to them would have made the Congress more invested in the war they voted to authorize.

    How else to explain that when the WMDs were not found, and the insurgency began, suddenly droves of supporters claimed they were "misled" and were thus free to flip-flop at precisely the time public support was needed to support the troops in their radically changing battlefield—even though the once lavish subsidies to Palestinian suicide bombers, or the gassing of the Kurds, or the attempt to kill a former President, or breaking of the 1991 accords were never in question?
    Re: A Real War Lapse [Mark Steyn]

    Victor, you're right that the administration over-invested in the WMD rationale and that this caused real post-liberation problems and provided an easy option for those who wanted to discredit the Iraq mission. You're also correct that there were plenty of other reasons for toppling Saddam.

    The trouble was most of the others - his attempted assassination of Bush pere, etc — meant absolutely nothing to the "international community." WMD was the easiest sell to the rest of the world, and even then it didn't sell that easily. I remember a member of the Blair cabinet, the late Lord Williams, the Leader of the House of Lords and a former Attorney-General, telling me that the Prime Minister had been advised by his lawyers that if he expressed support for regime change it would risk having the war ruled "illegal." In an increasingly legalistic conflict environment, the narrow rationale of WMD was all that was available for Her Majesty's Government to sign onto.

    There's an obvious lesson here which the much maligned Secretary Rumsfeld understood. Even when you go in with real allies who do real fighting (which most of the Nato "soldiers" in Afghanistan won't do), you dilute your own national interests - sometimes, at least in domestic political terms, catastrophically.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie
    5:42a
    You too can be a Bush tool
    His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
    3 February 2006
    George Bush considered provoking a war with Saddam Hussein's regime by flying a United States spyplane over Iraq bearing UN colours, enticing the Iraqis to take a shot at it, according to a leaked memo of a meeting between the US President and Tony Blair.
    The two leaders were worried by the lack of hard evidence that Saddam Hussein had broken UN resolutions, though privately they were convinced that he had. According to the memorandum, Mr Bush said: "The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."
    He added: "It was also possible that a defector could be brought out who would give a public presentation about Saddam's WMD, and there was also a small possibility that Saddam would be assassinated." The memo damningly suggests the decision to invade Iraq had already been made when Mr Blair and the US President met in Washington on 31 January 2003 ­ when the British Government was still working on obtaining a second UN resolution to legitimise the conflict.
    The leaders discussed the prospects for a second resolution, but Mr Bush said: "The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would 'twist arms' and 'even threaten'. But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway." He added that he had a date, 10 March, pencilled in for the start of military action. The war actually began on 20 March.
    AND
    There was also a discussion of what might happen in Iraq after Saddam had been overthrown. President Bush said that he "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups". Mr Blair did not respond.
    AND
    Other participants in the meeting were Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, her deputy, Dan Fried, the chief of staff, Andrew Card, Mr Blair's then security adviser, Sir David Manning, his foreign policy aide, Matthew Rycroft, and his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell...'

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/
    bush-plotted-to-lure-saddam-into-war-with-fake-un-plane-465436.html
    5:52a
    Skipping out
    Editor’s Note: Even into the sixth year of war in Iraq – even as ex-White House press secretary Scott McClellan admits the deceptions used to justify the invasion – the U.S. news media still averts its eyes from the full ugliness of what happened in 2002-03.
    In this story, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes the far greater candor occurring in Australia -- and cites the earlier whistle-blowing by members of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), which he helped found:
    Matilda is walzing home from Iraq, and the Australians are lucky but chastened.
    Lucky for having lost not one soldier in combat of the 2,000 sent to join the “coalition of the willing” attack on Iraq in March 2003.
    Chastened because Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is now pulling no punches in decrying the subservience of his predecessor, John Howard, to Washington.
    Announcing the withdrawal of the 550 Australian troops still in Iraq on Monday, Rudd echoed recent charges by former White House spokesman Scott McClellan about the Bush administration’s “shading” of intelligence to “justify” an unnecessary war.
    Rudd told Parliament he was most concerned by “the manner in which the decision to go to war was made; the abuse of intelligence information, a failure to disclose to the Australian people the qualified nature of that intelligence”; and the government’s silence on “the pre-war warning that an attack on Iraq would increase the terrorist threat, not decrease it.”
    Rudd added:
    “This government does not believe that our alliance with the United States mandates automatic compliance with every element of the United States’ foreign policy.”
    Stung by Rudd’s candor, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino fell back on the canard that “the entire world” agreed on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. As President Lyndon Johnson would have put it, That dog won’t hunt.
    If all agreed, why then was President George W. Bush unable to secure the approval of the U.N. Security Council, without which an armed attack on another country is illegal under international and U.S. law?

    Among “coalition of the willing” leaders not named Bush, only the faith-based former British Prime Minister Tony Blair hangs on pathetically to the notion that “everyone” believed Saddam Hussein had WMD.
    This is particularly odd since Blair acknowledges the authenticity of the (in)famous Downing Street Memos. Perhaps his conversion to Catholicism will prompt him to confess that he lied – a reality long beyond dispute.
    The Downing Street Truth
    As some will recall, Blair sent his intelligence chief off to Washington in summer 2002 to confer with his opposite number, and Bush intimate, CIA Director George Tenet.
    In the spring of 2005, a patriotic truth-teller leaked to British media the minutes of a summit meeting of UK national security officials convened on July 23, 2002 at 10 Downing Street. (The minutes, which became known as the Downing Street Memos, were composed that same day by one of those officials and sent to the other participants.)
    The minutes revealed that at CIA headquarters on July 20, 2002, Tenet informed his British counterpart that President Bush had decided to attack Iraq for regime change; that the war would be justified by the “conjunction” of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism; and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
    So we did not really need Scott McClellan’s recent revelations to understand that the intelligence was “fixed,” even though our country’s fawning corporate media (FCM) made a Herculean effort to suppress this key evidence – in part by ignoring and disparaging the Downing Street Memos when they surfaced three years ago.
    Among the saddest aspects of this whole affair, at least for those who have been in the intelligence profession, is that no one within the U.S. intelligence establishment saw fit to go public and disclose the deception that was being used to “justify” a war of aggression. No one.
    The only seasoned officials with the courage to speak out were three Foreign Service Officers – Brady Kiesling, Ann Wright and John H. Brown – each of whom resigned before the war since it was clear to them, even without access to the most sensitive intelligence, that the war could not be justified.

    As for intelligence officials outside the United States, there were several profiles in courage.

    Katharine Gun, a translator in the British equivalent of our National Security Agency, did successfully leak a very damaging Jan. 31, 2003, memorandum from NSA revealing that the U.S. and U.K. were pulling out all stops to sell the war, even intercepting messages to UN delegations in New York and elsewhere.
    It was all part of a last-ditch attempt to pressure non-aligned members of the UN Security Council into acquiescing to the U.S./U.K. desire to strike Iraq. Gun thought she might succeed in slowing or even stopping an attack on Iraq, if the world learned the lengths to which Bush and Blair were going to have their war.
    Gun’s explosive document, carried by the London Observer on March 2, 2003 – just two and a half weeks before the attack on Iraq – was suppressed or trivialized by the FCM (fawning corporate media) in the United States.
    (Gun, who acknowledged leaking the document, was fired and charged under the Official Secrets Act. But the case collapsed when the British government balked at providing evidence that might have disclosed some government law experts had concluded that the Iraq invasion was illegal. Gun is now a member of VIPS/West.)
    And after the war began, Danish Army Intelligence Major Frank Grevil gave the Danish media documents showing that Danish intelligence had reported to its government that the U.S. public rationale for war was not supported by authentic intelligence.
    Grevil (another VIPS member) was sentenced to four months in prison for his efforts to tell the truth.
    Andrew Wilkie: Rising to the Challenge.
    Until he quit nine days before the attack on Iraq, Andrew Wilkie was a senior analyst in Australia’s premier intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments (ONA).
    Of all the Australian, British and American all-source intelligence analysts with direct knowledge of how intelligence was abused in the run-up to the war – Wilkie was the only one to resign in protest and speak truth to power.
    Those who dismiss such efforts as an exercise in futility should know that on Oct. 7, 2003, the Australian Senate, in a rare move, censured then-Prime Minister Howard for misleading the public in justifying sending Australian troops off to war.
    The Senate statement of censure noted that Howard had produced no evidence to justify his claims in March 2003 that Iraq had stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, and castigated him for suppressing Australian intelligence warnings that war with Iraq would increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks.
    One senator accused Howard of “unprecedented deceit.”
    Ask the American FCM why they ignored that story.
    Thanks to Wilkie’s courage and determination , many Australians were able to come to an early understanding that the reasons adduced for war on Iraq were cooked in Washington and served up by Australian leaders all too willing to give unquestioning support to the Bush administration.
    Those Australian leaders are now being held accountable.
    VIPS invited Andrew Wilkie to Washington in July 2003 to speak at a briefing arranged by Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, in the House Rayburn Building. There were 14 TV cameras in that room, but not one minute of TV coverage that afternoon or evening.
    After his presentation, we strongly encouraged Wilkie to keep throwing light on this dark chapter of history; he was pleased to join VIPS/East.
    We expressed our hope that U.S. intelligence analysts who also watched the deceit close-up would soon join him in speaking out. With a wan smile, Wilkie shook his head and pointed to the cost – including the character assassination to which he had already been subjected at the hands of his government.
    One VIPS Testifies
    On Aug. 22, 2003, Wilkie had an opportunity not yet afforded any VIPS of the American, British or Danish chapters. He laid out his case before parliament in Canberra, testifying that the attack on Iraq had little to do with WMD or terrorism. One particularly telling part of his testimony:
    “Please remember the Government was also receiving detailed assessments on the U.S. in which it was made very clear the U.S. was intent on invading Iraq for more important reasons than WMD and terrorism. Hence all this talk about WMD and terrorism was hollow. Much more likely is the proposition the Government deliberately exaggerated the Iraq WMD threat so as to stay in step with the U.S.”
    In the wake of Wilkie’s testimony, Australian pundits became more critical of the Howard government and its persistent refusal to acknowledge that, as one journalist put it, they were “conned by master manipulators masquerading as purveyors of objective intelligence.”
    Sounds a little like Scott McClellan, no? But, thanks to the FCM, most Americans hear it for the first time only five years later.
    The candor of Wilkie’s Aug. 22, 2003 testimony to the Australian parliament helps to dispel the myths and canards still wafting around about – among other things – how “the entire world” believed Saddam Hussein was a dangerous threat.
    Accordingly, we include some of the more telling Wilkie excerpts below. (Emphasis added in bold.)
    Opening Remarks to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), and the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD)
    22 August 2003
    Andrew Wilkie
    “Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to appear before the Committee.
    You would be well aware that I resigned from the Office of National Assessments, before the Iraq war, because I assessed that invading Iraq would not be the most sensible and ethical way to resolve the Iraq issue. I chose resignation, specifically, because compromise or seeking to create change from within ONA were not realistic options.
    At the time I resigned I put on the public record three fundamental concerns. Firstly, that Iraq did not pose a serious enough security threat to justify a war. Secondly, that too many things could go wrong. And, thirdly, that war was still totally unnecessary because options short of war were yet to be exhausted.

    My first concern is especially relevant today. It was based on my assessment that Iraq’s conventional armed forces were weak, that Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction programme was disjointed and contained, and that there was no hard evidence of any active cooperation between Iraq and al Qaida.

    Now the government has claimed repeatedly I was not close enough to the Iraq issue to know what I’m talking about. Such statements have misled the public and have been exceptionally hurtful to me.

    I was a Senior Analyst with a top secret positive vet security clearance. I’d been awarded a Superior rating in my last performance appraisal, and not long before I resigned I’d been informed by the Deputy Director-General that thought was being given to my being promoted.
    Because of my military background (I had been a regular army infantry Lieutenant Colonel), I was required to be familiar with war-related issues…and was on standby to cover Iraq once the war began…
    Now, in fairness to Australian and Allied intelligence agencies, Iraq was a tough target. From time to time there were shortages of human intelligence on the country. At other times the preponderance of anti-Saddam sources desperate for US intervention ensured a flood of disinformation. Collecting technical intelligence was equally challenging.
    A problem for Australian agencies was their reliance on Allies. We had virtually no influence on foreign intelligence collection planning, and the raw intelligence seldom arrived with adequate notes on sources or reliability. More problematic was the way in which Australia’s tiny agencies needed to rely on the sometimes weak and skewed views contained in the assessments prepared in Washington.
    A few problems were inevitable. For instance, intelligence gaps were sometimes back-filled with the disinformation. Worst-case sometimes took primacy over most-likely. The threat was sometimes overestimated as a result of the fairy tales coming out of the US. And sometimes Government pressure, as well as politically correct intelligence officers themselves, resulted in its own bias.
    But, overall, Australian agencies did, I believe, an acceptable job reporting on the existence of, the capacity and willingness to use, and immediacy of the threat, posed by Iraq. Assessments were okay, not least because they were always heavily qualified to reflect the ambiguous intelligence picture.
    How then to explain the big gap between the Government’s pre-war claims about Iraq possessing a massive arsenal of WMD and cooperating actively with al Qaida and the reality that no arsenal of weapons or evidence of substantive links have yet been found?
    Well, most often the Government deliberately skewed the truth by taking the ambiguity out of the issue. Key intelligence assessment qualifications like ‘probably’, ‘could’ and ‘uncorroborated evidence suggests’ were frequently dropped. Much more useful words like ‘massive’ and ‘mammoth’ were included, even though such words had not been offered to the government by the intelligence agencies. Before we knew it, the Government had created a mythical Iraq, one where every factory was up to no good and weaponisation was continuing apace.
    Equally misleading was the way in which the Government misrepresented the truth. For example, when the Government spoke of Iraq having form (being up to no good), it cited pre-1991 Gulf War examples, like the use of chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds. Mind you, the Government needed to be creative, because 12 years of sanctions, inspections and air strikes had virtually disarmed modern Iraq….
    The Government even went so far as to fabricate the truth. The claims about Iraq cooperating actively with al Qaida were obviously nonsense. As was the Government’s reference to Iraq seeking uranium in Africa, despite the fact that ONA, the Department of Defence, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, all knew the Niger story was fraudulent. This was critical information. It beggars belief that ONA knew it was discredited but didn’t advise the Prime Minister, Defence knew but didn’t tell the Defence Minister, and Foreign Affairs knew but didn’t tell the Foreign Minister. …
    In closing, I wish to make it clear that I do not apologise for, or withdraw from, my accusation that the Howard government misled the Australian public over Iraq, both through its own public statements, as well as through its endorsement of Allied statements.
    The government lied every time it said or implied that I was not senior enough or appropriately placed in ONA to know what I was talking about. And the government lied every time it skewed, misrepresented, used selectively and fabricated the Iraq story.
    But these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. For instance, the government lied when the Prime Minister’s Office told the media I was mentally unstable. The government lied when it associated Iraq with the Bali bombing. And the government lied every time it linked Iraq to the War on Terror.
    The Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister in particular have a lot to answer for. After all, they were the chief cheerleaders for the invasion of another country, without UN endorsement, for reasons that have now been discredited. …”

    Ray McGovern @consortium news
    6:13a
    Chaos theorist in love
    In the annals of anarchopsychohirstory, chaos theory mathematics describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is, systems whose state evolves with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. Taking as our baseline models the events in and around the Russian Empire 1905- 1922 and events surrounding the recent neo-colonialist invasion of SW Asia by the last empire we will closely examine these initial conditions some of whose ostensible manifestations trace back to obscure theories of political-economy from the 19th century and even earlier. A full reading list is available now from the RAT Institute by request.
    6:30a
    Stateless cosmopolitan vacancies
    Aragorn — Help Wanted

    I have a couple new projects that I don't want to announce before they get off the ground but would like to get some help with. Asking for help has never been easy for me and trying to attract people to "spotlight" projects (like writing) has met with mixed success. I'm not sure if this method is public enough to reach all the people who might be interested or provides enough context to be appealing to who I'd like to reach but I will give it a try...

    The first project involves reference, using Content Management Software (with the benefit of having experience with CMSs), and working with a small group of people building a large anarchist website. Ideally I would like to build a team of people who share a broad anarchist vision (anarchist without adjectives), who have some experience working with distributed groups, and who are comfortable with web-based Internet technologies. The hope is that a group of about a half-dozen people will participate in this project and they can be trained if they are interested.

    Science!

    The second project is going to be a bit harder to find people for. I am in the beginning stages of trying to build a "new" technology collective that is involved in supporting anarchist (and other anti-authoritarian) projects. Ideally it would include at least a half a dozen people with strong Unix skills and experience (and opinions) with the LAMP and LAPP stack, Postfix (ClamAV, SpamAssassin, etc), Xen, and server management technologies. Additionally it would include a couple of people with experience with popular PHP applications (support, installation, and maintenance), HTML, Python, etc.

    If either of these projects seem interesting to you at all drop me an email at aragorn at anarchymag.org. I'll respond on this thread if there are any general questions. - ANARCHOBLOGS
    6:33a
    An anarchist portal
    The superportal idea has generally developed over time as opposed to being born ' from-the-head-of-Zeus' or corporate constructed but never really fully inhabited. The best portal sites imo are aggregators that grew naturally over some time with plenty of feedback. Sites like Talking points memo and Firedoglake for example. ( Sadly both Infoshop and now Antiwar appear to have jumped the shark just recently) The anarchist news site has potential to be the news page in any new anarchist portal and a new big tent bulletin board service could be bolted on to that. Then the defunct J. Orlin Grabbe site might be revived in a modified - ie more leftist and scientific - basis as eye-candy for newbies. We could also have feeds from or links to anarchoblogs, Indymedia and Cryptome and plenty more with viewer feedback always as our main guide and content provider.
    With the goal of starting an anarchist conversation to rival the democratic socialists then our clean fresh and relatively new narrative could then be quickly and easily contrasted with their lame, tired and incredibly stale idea of politics. We are doubly obliged to do this as a label warning for the very young.
    There will be a lot of friction in attempting something as ambitious as this - but so long as it generates more light than heat I think its worth a shot. The tracer fire ,we feel ,is worth it.
    12:31p
    Little Aussie mauler
    ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA — 03 June, 2008 — Metal Storm (ASX: MST and NASDAQ: MTSX), is pleased
    to announce that Metal Storm Incorporated (MSI) has been awarded a major contract worth almost $US 1
    million to progress the development of one of its weapon systems for the U.S. military.
    MSI has been contracted by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) for the further development of a 12-
    gauge, Multi-shot Grenade Launcher. The Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) contract is valued at $US936,695.
    Work commences immediately with delivery scheduled in under 12 months.
    The project will extend the work performed previously under a contract with the United States Marine
    Corps for a Multi-Shot Accessory Underbarrel Launcher (MAUL). The MAUL is a lightweight grenade
    launcher and shotgun attachment that fits under the barrel of a combat weapon such as the M-16 or M-4.
    It is capable of shooting 4 rounds from a single cartridge.
    The MAUL was recently demonstrated before an audience of more than a hundred people at one of
    world’s premier small arms events, the International Infantry and Joint Services Small Arms Symposium in
    Dallas, Texas. MORE @ metalstorm
    12:35p
    Straight talk
    Trying to avoid the stampede to stick a fork in McSame because some of his policy planks actually make sense.

    1) Free trade is usually better than protectionism in most circumstances.
    2) Farm pork is an unconscionable rort - not just in the states but here and the EU federation.
    3) A league of democracies is good...it could build on the solid foundation of the Commonwealth.
    4) Question time in the US congress ( or Senate, or both) is a great idea.
    5) Pimping the wifes asse...no scratch that one...bad idea.

    Run Bambi run! Steal Bambi steal!
    12:43p
    Late 2002 Bush - Helter Skelter
    “...George Bush has gotten away with murder – thousands of murders,” Bugliosi says. “And no one is doing anything about it. The American people can’t let him do this.”
    Bugliosi wants one or more of the fifty state attorneys general or one of the nation’s hundreds of district attorneys to step up and prosecute Bush for murder.

    “I have set forth in my book the jurisdictional basis for the Attorney General in each of the fifty states – plus the hundreds upon hundreds of district attorneys in counties within the states – to prosecute George Bush for the murders of any soldier or soldiers from their state or county who were killed in Iraq fighting George Bush’s war,” Bugliosi says in the video on his web site.
    “I don’t think it is too unreasonable to believe that at least one prosecutor out there in America – maybe many more – will be courageous enough to say – this is the United States of America. And in America no one is above the law. George Bush has gotten away with murder. No one is doing anything about it. And maybe this book will change that.”
    Bugliosi argues that Bush misled the nation into a war that has killed more than 4,000 Americans.

    At the center of Bugliosi’s indictment of Bush is a October 7, 2002 speech to the nation in which Bush claims that Saddam Hussein was a great danger to this nation either by attacking us with his weapons of mass destruction, or giving these weapons to some terrorist group.
    “And he said – the attack could happen on any given day – meaning the threat was imminent,” Bugliosi says.

    “The only problem for George Bush – and if he were prosecuted, there is no way he could get around this – is that on October 1, 2002, six days earlier, the CIA sent George Bush its 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, a classified top secret report. Page eight clearly and unequivocally says that Saddam Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country. In fact, the report says that Hussein would only use whatever weapons of mass destruction he had against us if he feared that America was about to attack him.”

    “We know that Bush was telling millions upon millions of unsuspecting Americans exactly the opposite of what his own CIA was telling him,” Bugliosi said. “We know that George Bush took this nation to war on a lie. Who is going to pay for all of this? Someone has to pay. And the person who has to pay obviously is directly responsible for all of the death horror and suffering. And that person is George W. Bush.”

    Counterpuke
    12:46p
    Massacre by death
    Tienanmen Square 4 June 1989 - Massacre by
    Counter-revolution. [video 3.35 min]
    Watch Chinese troops are firing on civilians in Tienanmen Square 4 June
    1989, killing thousands and wounding far more people.
    Behind the regime in China is world-capitalism where the economic
    surplus is controled and in charge of a state-capitalist state-class
    with structural similarities to bureaucratism.

    - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJBnHMpHGRY

    Don't forget the states of Cuba and Venezuela are supporting the
    Chinese regime as "marxist" and "socialist". In fact it is neither. It
    is an anti-communist regime allied to world-capitalism as a low wage
    investment market.

    Nemo etomer
    12:55p
    A little pringle from heaven
    The inventor of Pringles chips has arranged for his ashes to be buried in one of those trademark pringles tube.
    These tubes were used during 'wardriving' excercises by hackers looking for unsecured wireless hotspots btw.
    In related news @ndy has arranged to have his ashes interred in a penis-pump...with several washers to secure them.
    1:03p
    Nuke, nuke, nuke - nuke Iran
    Mama take this badge offa me - The bloodhounds are closing in

    EMPTYWHEEL - Henry Waxman noted the same thing that I did about Scottie McClellan's book. He noticed that Scottie McC's book sure came close to saying Dick Cheney and George Bush were personally involved in the outing of Valerie Wilson.
    New revelations by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan raise additional questions about the actions of the President and the Vice President. Mr. McClellan has stated that "[t]he President and Vice President directed me to go out there and exonerate Scooter Libby." He has also asserted that "the top White House officials who knew the truth - including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney - allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie." It would be a major breach of trust if the Vice President personally directed Mr. McClellan to mislead the public.
    Now, I've been quietly trying to find out whether or not Michael Muksaey had handed over Bush and Cheney's interview transcripts to Henry Waxman. Seeing as how he's asking again, I'd say the answer's no.

    On December 3, 2007, I wrote to request that you arrange for the production of documents relating to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the leak of the covert identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson, including copies of FBI interview reports of White House officials. I appreciate that you have since made redacted versions of the interview reports of Karl Rove, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and other senior White House officials available to the Committee.
    I am writing now to renew the Committee’s request for the interview reports with President Bush and Vice President Cheney and to request unredacted versions of the interviews with Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Scott McClellan, and Cathie Martin. I also request that the Department provide all other responsive documents that were approved for release to the Committee by Mr. Fitzgerald. [my emphasis]

    And in the remainder of Waxman's letter, he makes it clear that doing anything less than turning this information over to Waxman's committee is a deliberate attempt to cover up the fact that Dick Cheney outed Valerie Plame, with Bush's involvement.

    In his interview with the FBI, Mr. Libby stated that it was "possible" that Vice President Cheney instructed him to disseminate information about Ambassador Wilson's wife to the press. This is a significant revelation and, if true, a serious matter. It cannot be responsibly investigated without access to the Vice President's FBI interview.

    The interviews with senior White House officials also raise other questions about the involvement of the Vice President. It appears from the interview reports that Vice President Cheney personally may have been the source of the information that Ms. Wilson worked for the CIA. Mr. Libby specifically identified the Vice President as the source of his information about Ms. Wilson. None of the other White House officials could remember how they learned this information.

    [snip]

    In his FBI interview, Mr. McClellan told the FBI about discussions he had with the President and the Vice President. These passages, however, were redacted from the copies made available to the Committee. Similar passages were also redacted from other interviews.
    There are no sound reasons for you to withhold the interviews with the President and the Vice President from the Committee or to redact passages like Mr. McClellan's discussions with the President and the Vice President. Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation is closed and he has indicated that it would be appropriate to share these records with the Committee. There has been no assertion of executive privilege.
    Moreover, withholding these documents would create an unfortunate double standard. During the Clinton Administration, the Committee requested the records of FBI interviews with President Clinton and Vice President Gore in 1997 and 1998 as part of the Committee's campaign finance investigation. These records were turned over to the Committee by the Justice Department without any consultation with the White House.

    The Committee is conducting an important investigation to answer questions that Mr. Fitzgerald's criminal inquiry did not address. As I explained at the Committee's hearing last year, the purpose of the Committee's investigation is to examine:

    (1) How did such a serious violation of our national security occur? (2) Did the White House take appropriate investigative and disciplinary steps after the breach occurred? And (3) what changes in White House security procedures are necessary to prevent future violations of our national security from occurring?

    The information that you are withholding may hold answers to these questions. The FBI interview reports that you have shared with the Committee raise the possibility that Vice President Cheney may be implicated in the release of Ms. Wilson's identity. Mr. McClellan's recent disclosures indicate that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney played a role in directing the White House response. The Committee cannot complete its inquiry into these matters without receiving the reports of their FBI interviews. [my emphasis]

    Does anyone think that I've been crazy anymore, for arguing for the last two years that Dick Cheney ordered Scooter Libby to out Valerie Wilson? Because it sure seems like even Libby cedes that argument. And it sure seems like Waxman is intent to find out--or expose Mukasey for covering up the involvement of Bush and Cheney. - COMMENTS

    http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/06/03/waxman-noted-the-same-thing-i-did/

    Let the record show that NOT putting impeachment on the table now would be criminal negligence in the event of any ' Battle-of-the-bulge' effort by the besieged Nazi's. Cowardice and corruption by the Vichy will not be forgotten I promise you.
    2:22p
    White hot scandal
    This should lead to the downfall of of the Bush/Cheney/ Rice axis of evil

    FBI documents obtained by a congressional committee indicate that Vice President Dick Cheney may have authorized his former deputy to leak the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.
    In a June 3 letter sent to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Rep. Henry Waxman, Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called on the Justice Department to release transcripts of interviews that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald conducted with President George W. Bush and Cheney about the leak of Plame's identity.
    Waxman said the Justice Department has turned over to his committee redacted transcripts of interviews that federal investigators conducted with former White House political adviser Karl Rove and Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
    According to those transcripts, Libby told federal investigators that Cheney may have told him to leak Plame's association with the CIA to reporters, Waxman said in the letter to Mukasey.

    "In his interview with the FBI, Mr. Libby stated that it was ‘possible’ that Vice President Cheney instructed him to disseminate information about Ambassador [Joseph] Wilson's wife to the press. This is a significant revelation and, if true, a serious matter. It cannot be responsibly investigated without access to the Vice President's FBI interview," Waxman wrote.

    Waxman's office would not release copies of the Libby-Rove transcripts or describe the contents in any detail. Fitzgerald's investigative interviews with Bush and Cheney -- asking how much knowledge the President and Vice President had about the Plame leak -- have not been disclosed.

    The scandal revolves around actions taken in June and July of 2003 when Rove, Libby and other administration officials leaked information to reporters aimed at discrediting Ambassador Wilson, who had challenged the truthfulness of Bush’s pre-invasion claims that Iraq had purchased yellowcake uranium from Niger.
    Durinng the investigation, it was revealed that Bush authorized portions of a classified National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s alleged WMD to be disseminated to select reporters as part of the anti-Wilson campaign. Cheney dispatched Libby on that mission.
    However, it is still unknown whether Libby was authorized to pass on information about Plame’s work at the CIA or whether he did that on his own. Other administration officials, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Rove, also served as sources for journalists on Plame’s identity as a CIA officer.
    Right-wing columnist Robert Novak blew Plame’s cover on July 14, 2003, in an article suggesting that Plame had helped arrange her husband’s trip to Africa as some kind of junket.
    Wilson, a diplomat who had served in Iraq and Africa, was selected by the CIA’s non-proliferation office, where Plame worked, to travel to Niger in early 2002 to examine the Iraq-yellowcake allegations. Wilson returned to the United States and reported to CIA officials that the claims appeared to have no merit, a finding that matched with inquiries from other U.S. officials.
    Nevertheless, in January 2003, seeking to dramatize the need for invading Iraq, President Bush cited the Niger claims in his State of the Union speech. That set the stage for Wilson to begin criticizing the misuse of this intelligence. Initially, Wilson avoided giving all the details about his role but finally went fully public in a New York Times op-ed on July 6, 2003.
    That, in turn, prompted an intensified White House campaign against Wilson leading to Novak’s article. With Plame's cover blown and her spy network endangered, the CIA sought a criminal investigation into the leak.
    Knowing Nothing
    As the probe got underway In September 2003, Bush professed to know nothing about the controversy and publicly called on anyone with information to step forward. At the time, however, he was withholding the fact that he had authorized declassification of some secrets about the Niger uranium issue and had ordered Cheney to arrange for those secrets to be given to reporters to undermine Wilson’s criticism.

    In other words, though Bush knew a great deal about how the anti-Wilson scheme got started – since he was involved in starting it – he uttered misleading public statements to conceal the White House role. That was followed by denials of involvement from Rove and Libby – issued through then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan.
    Fitzgerald indicted Libby in October 2005 on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. In October 2005, I first reported that Fitzgerald also was investigating whether Cheney played a role in the leak. I reported, too, that Bush and Cheney discussed Plame prior to the leak, undercutting Bush's claims some three months later that he was unaware of nuances of the case.
    In February 2007, during closing arguments at Libby's trial, defense attorney Theodore Wells told jurors that the prosecutors had been attempting to build a case of conspiracy against the Vice President and Libby, and that the prosecutors believed Libby may have lied to federal investigators and to a grand jury to protect Cheney.
    In his rebuttal, Fitzgerald told jurors:
    "You know what? [Wells] said something here that we're trying to put a cloud on the Vice President. We'll talk straight. There is a cloud over the Vice President. He sent Libby off to [meet with former New York Times reporter] Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. At that meeting - the two-hour meeting - the defendant talked about the wife [Plame]. We didn't put that cloud there. That cloud remains because the defendant obstructed justice and lied about what happened."
    The jury convicted Libby of four counts, leading to a sentence of 30 months in jail. However, Bush commuted the sentence to eliminate jail time and left open the possibility that Libby might get a full pardon before Bush leaves office.
    The way Bush handled Libby’s commutation removed the chief incentive for Libby to cooperate further with prosecutors (to avoid or reduce his jail time) and dangled a possible reward down the road if Libby remains in the administration’s good graces (a full pardon).

    Now, according to the transcript cited by Rep. Waxman, it appears that Libby did tell prosecutors in an earlier interview that it was “possible” that Cheney did order him to leak Plame’s identity. Waxman is now pressing to learn what Cheney and Bush said in response to Fitzgerald's questions about exactly what they did or did not order their subordinates to do.

    Jason Leopold - CONSORTIUM NEWS

    I'm really glad Robert Parrys giving Jason a second chance at CN. This is dynamite!

    And the Dems are trapped now. Its obvious their culpable negligence in not following up on Iran-Contra allowed the rolling republican crime wave to come back. Iran contra only killed hundreds - now there are thousands dead from this 'tale told by an idiot' Bush. The Dems MUST act on this. Doubly now their Vichy Manchurian candidate has finally lost.
    4:50p
    Mutley McCain
    I'm listening to the McCain trainwreck...Mutley Vs Goofy grudge caged-death match

    Meantime the police take care of crime

    THE Iemma Government was under pressure to replace all senior officials of the NSW Crime Commission last night in order to have an independent investigation into the ramifications of drug charges against the body's assistant director Mark Standen.
    Because Mr Standen was facing serious charges, every criminal investigation involving the commission should be reviewed by a new leadership team, said former National Crime Authority chairman Peter Faris QC. "The fallout from this will be massive," he said.
    Other states needed to launch their own reviews of criminal prosecutions because the NSW Crime Commission was frequently involved in national investigations, Mr Faris said. The cross-border nature of much of its work meant the state-based system of regulating its activities was inadequate, he said.
    Mr Faris said the AFP, which had been aware Mr Standen was under investigation, would also need to explain what information about drug investigations it had made available to the NSW Crime Commission.

    The commission, which was established in 1986, is responsible for assembling evidence for the Director of Public Prosecutions and has a particular focus on drug trafficking and organised crime.
    Crime Commissioner Phillip Bradley rejected calls for a royal commission into the affair yesterday but said Mr Standen's arrest had been "very damaging".
    Mr Faris said the matter proved the need for a new national anti-corruption watchdog that could match the cross-border activities of law enforcement agencies. "Crime knows no borders," he said.
    However, NSW Police Minister David Campbell defended the current arrangements and said the episode involved just one officer.
    "To my knowledge, the allegations of corruption relate to one individual and there is no evidence before me to suggest that this matter spreads any further," Mr Campbell said.
    But Mr Faris said Mr Standen's seniority meant any review could not be confined to those areas for which he was directly responsible. It needed to cover every matter involving the commission.

    "Decisions on all sorts of things would have gone to the most senior ranks of the commission," Mr Faris said.

    "All sorts of extremely sensitive information would have been shared by and with other agencies."

    Some of the commission's well-known cases include the jailing last year of former Balmain rugby league star Les Mara for importing cocaine and the arrest of 14 men in Sydney and Melbourne over an international drug ring dealing in cocaine, ice and ecstasy.
    Calls for a better system of regulating the commission were also made yesterday by Sydney University criminologist Mark Findlay, criminal lawyer Phillip Boulten SC and legal academic John Anderson.
    Mr Boulten said the crime commission should answer to parliament and needed a permanent inspector with the powers of a royal commissioner.
    Professor Findlay said the commission was characterised by a tight-knit police culture that was resistant to oversight.
    "It has been said in the past that it was more open to corruption due to its internal and rather protective organisational structure," he said.
    NSW Premier Morris Iemma says a new body may be formed to oversee the NSW Crime Commission, after a senior investigator was charged over an international drug syndicate.
    NSW Crime Commission Assistant Director Mark Standen faced Sydney Central Local Court yesterday charged with conspiracy over his alleged involvement in the syndicate.
    The Opposition has called for a judicial review.
    Mr Iemma said he wouldn't rule out the review.
    He also said he would not rule out another oversight body for the commission if the evidence warranted.
    Mr Iemma said the Police Integrity Commission and the Independent Commission Against Corruption already had oversight powers for the commission.
    "What I'm not going to rule out is taking further action to ensure the highest level of integrity and probity when it comes to these matters," he said.
    "Is it a matter of the upmost concern ... the allegations are very disturbing."
    5:12p
    Animal rights
    25% of respondents supported giving animals the "exact same rights as people to be free of harm and exploitation." 55% of those respondents then said they didn't want to ban hunting. If we take their responses at face value and multiply, this means that over 10% of Americans support the hunting of humans.

    Thats enough to raise a healthy dead-pool should any new Bush stumble along.

    A 62-35 majority of Americans supports "Passing strict laws concerning the treatment of farm animals." This is probably the most important thing to do as far as animal welfare is concerned. Unlike hunted animals, animals in contemporary factory farms live in miserable conditions throughout their lives. Then theres those hunted animals in wingnut welfare. They should all be put down.
    5:16p
    Diversity-of-tactics is bullshit
    But its not total bullshit - its more like anti-bullshit bullshit

    DoT arose out of the bs charge that violence was a wedge that could be used to split the movements demonstrations. Insofar as 99% of any violence could be traced directly back to the Blue Bloc the charge was meaningless. Most people approve of the right of self-defense. So it was a military-enterainment media beat-up that was approved from the upper echelons of power to divide-and-rule as they always do.
    It required a measured response and that response was the emergent consensus for DoT.
    Its not an absolutist concept and does not refer to any 'totality' of any kind. In the past the term ' united front' was sometimes used. It 's a tried and tested response to deflect illegal aggression from the states goon squads. You don't have to swear allegiance to it or even like it. Just use it as the shield it was intended as in the circumstances of the street. Sometimes we have to fight fire with fire.
    5:25p
    Latest version of holocaust denial
    With so many tens of thousands now dead due to extreme climate change I would argue that human caused global warming denial should now be as criminalized at least as much as holocaust denial is. I think we are all sick and tired of the vicious lies of the fossil fool claven. So some examples need to made.

    The NASA Inspector General tells us that political appointees messed with public accounts of NASA's scientific findings on global climate change.

    From the fall of 2004 through 2006, the report said, NASA's public affairs office "managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public." It noted elsewhere that "news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution."
    6:12p
    Victoria - Victoria
    The day after reports of a bump upwards in HIV infections in good old Vic comes this...

    RAT Institute researchers have discovered that an off-the-shelf cream could be used to block the transmission of HIV in men.
    The University of Melbourne study, published today in PLoS One, has found that a cream containing the female hormone oestriol helps block HIV penetrating the inner foreskin of the penis.
    According to Professor Roger Short, from the university's Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, the finding is significant, because the inner foreskin of the penis is where HIV enters the male body.
    "It gets through the inner foreskin where you have all these Langerhans cells, [which] are like octopuses lying in the epithelium with tentacles reaching up to the epithelial surface, which have receptors for HIV."
    "If an HIV virion comes along, it binds to one of these tentacles and the octopus pulls it in and migrates into the lymphatics."
    The researchers found that keratin acts as a barrier protecting Langerhans cells and preventing HIV from entering the body.
    As part of the study, oestriol cream was applied to the inner foreskin of subjects and contact smears were collected to measure the level of keratin in the region.
    The results showed that the cream produced a highly significant increase in the number of keratinised cells within 24 hours of treatment, and lasted for at least five days after the treatment stopped.
    "This thickening of the overlying protective layer of keratin should reduce the exposure of the underlying Langerhans cells to HIV virions," Short says.
    Healing qualities
    Previous studies have also shown that circumcision halves the risk of HIV infection, because it removes Langerhans cells, which are abundant in the inner foreskin.
    But, Short says there have been reports of men not waiting for their circumcision wounds to heal, placing them at greater risk of HIV infection.
    He believes the use of oestriol cream will speed up the healing process, without any side-effects.
    "We are currently undertaking a trail looking to see how effective the oestrogen cream is at wound healing after circumcision," Short says.
    "The cream that we are using has been used by millions of women for the last 30 years as a standard treatment for post-menopausal vaginal atrophy. Famous prostitute Ema Corro used it following the removal of large 'W' tattoo's form each of her buttocks'.
    Cultural alternative
    The researchers believe oestriol cream could become an alternative to circumcision in countries like India, China and most of South-East Asia where circumcision is culturally unacceptable.
    "Oestrogen cream could even be used as a condom lubricant that might ultimately protect the man and the woman," the researchers write.
    Short admits it's still early days, but is excited by the study's findings.

    "The very fact the World Health Organisation has responded to me with 'wow' is pretty exciting."
    6:26p
    The lame appeasement meme
    One good response would be along the lines of 'patriotism as the last refuge, etc' and a harking back to the period. No risk of Godwins cos' they raised it frist...first.
    Yeah - no shit what about the way Goebbels and Hitler started that war hey!
    With the ' Big Lie' technique and a blitzkrieg of propaganda. Most Germans thought they were being attacked!
    ( Sear William Shirer ' Berlin Diary')
    Then there was the drive on the oil fields...hey dipshits! You bought it up!
    And with all his talk of shooting down UN planes its a wonder Bushitler didn't just shoot some prisoners and throw them over the border. As it was he shot some some innocent civilians in the run up.
    This is a feeble attack by a desperate bunker-boy - any reasonable opposition would shoot it - and him - down in flames.

    BTW Barracks lines about ' Not this time' and ' This is our time' seem to be leading up to ' Seize the time!'
    I hope Bobby Seale gets a royalty. Its a good read. Shame Huey couldn't be with us tonite.

    BREAKING...Barry is willing to meet with terrorists! He's meeting with Hillary!...DEVELOPING...
    6:42p
    The big chill
    Chavez creates new 'spying law'
    8 hours ago
    Venezuelans may be forced to spy on their neighbours or risk prison under President Hugo Chavez's new intelligence decree, which has critics fearing a Cuba-style system that could be used to stifle dissent.
    Chavez says the intelligence law that he quietly signed by decree last week will help Venezuela detect and neutralise security threats, including any assassination plots or attempted coups.
    But many Venezuelans are alarmed they could be forced to act as informants for the authorities -- or face up to four years in prison.
    "It's a system just like Cuba," said Raul Barbiera, an 80-year-old barber who was born in Spain and emigrated to Venezuela decades ago. He said the law reminds him of his experiences under the fascist dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, when "you couldn't speak against the government".
    Barbiera said people will be more careful what they say because "anyone can start a file on you".
    The law states that security forces don't need court orders for surveillance such as wiretapping, and authorities can withhold evidence from defence lawyers if that is deemed to be in the interest of national security.
    Nancy Silva, a 45-year-old shopkeeper, said she fears the creation neighbourhood-level spying networks because the law says community-based organisations may be called upon to provide intelligence.

    "The government wants citizens to spy on each other, that's scary," Silva said.

    That feeds the suspicions that many Chavez critics have about government-backed "communal councils" that decide how to spend funds for local projects. They say such groups could become like Cuba's Committees for the Defence of the Revolution, which encourage neighbours to watch for "counter-revolutionary" activities. END

    Its all peaches and cream and honey over cornflakes... till suddenly the centralized democracy turns Stalinist - then its not our fault...nothing to do with us Marxists. Marxism - Trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results ever since 1918. Come fly with me...lets fly, lets fly away...
    6:48p
    The United Networks of anarchy
    The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I feel we should face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of our own limitations. But we might also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the anarchist people. Change is realizing that meeting today's threats requires not just our firepower, but the power of our diplomacy — tough, direct diplomacy where any representative of the United Nets isn't afraid to let any petty dictator know where Anarchy stands and what we stand for.
    We must once again have the courage and conviction to lead the free world. That is the legacy of Stirner, and Proudhon, and Bakunin. That's what anarchist people want. That's what change is. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended all wars and secured our planet and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great socialist tradition so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you, fuck, fuck bless you, and may fuck bless the United Networks of Anarchy.
    7:10p
    Blow it out yr ass
    While Saturday is going to be a blockbuster day – what with Alexander Cockburn and Glenn Greenwald following my 11 a.m. act of setting fire to my own farts. I'm Justin Hector Carreon Raimondo and I approved this message.
    7:19p
    Tony Goodhead
    Never, EVER let it be said that Tony Blair is completely useless

    Re: McCain's Speeches [Kathleen Parker]

    Rich, welcome to the Bush Effect. It became my habit when President Bush was speaking to hit the "Mute" button so as not to screw up the speech. I don't enjoy admitting this. It's just that when I read the hard copy — or had Tony Blair read it to me over the phone — it was brilliant. Not so much when listening in real time.

    ( This could actually explain something about Platformism as well. Text also rulez with these losers.)
    7:24p
    Vice president Catherine Whassername
    I feel that a president Obama could afford a veep like Glenn Close...but one thing has to be tattooed on her butt right from the start. This is a traditional presidential - vice presidential relationship of deep cordial fucking hatred NOT the highly unusual pederastic and exploitative relationshit of Bushit - Cheney that we all just suffered in our jocks for for the last 18 years.
    7:35p
    WaPo Vs NYT
    This could be a way to clean house. Each rival accuses each others tool 'reporters' of high crimes and low crimes. The scum in question are suspended ( Mussolini style I say) at least till December 2008.
    Win win?
    Show me where I'm wrong.
    Each paper has real, true and decent reporters they can point to - these are obviously the sole base they can rely on to rebuild their reputation capital - yet as they seem unable to clean-house entirely yet maybe each can spur the other onto action. I don't know ...and I don't even really care. It's up to them if they care to remain even remotely fucking relevant. I never really like dwarf tossing that much.
    7:44p
    Friends in low places
    Scumbag murdering ex-cop Roger Rogerson reminds us that power corrupts...well jee fucking willikins Dodger!
    Thats it? Thats all?
    Yeah - no what Justin Raimondo has been shoveling lately graphically highlights this point in reinforced concrete praxis. By ignoring a raft of new information on the neocon pond slime Raimondo has chosen to ignore all those factoids and instead highlight his pas-de-dur with the cro-magnon likes of Alexander Cockburn instead. Does sucking Marxist dick make yr cock burn?

    Don't ask - don't tell

    Eric Garriss and St Clair are the new Scotty sausage dogs. Lickspittle, flunkys and lapdogs to homo-superiors.
    Enablers, arselickers and low fascist shit-eating scum never came so low.
    8:10p
    Peasant farm aid
    MILLIONS of the world's most impoverished people are being pushed deeper into poverty as a direct result of rapidly rising food prices.
    The present food crisis is global. It can only be addressed through concerted and co-operative action by the international community. Working together we can make a substantial difference for the better.
    In the Australian Government's view, tackling the many causes of food insecurity requires a systematic approach, which addresses immediate needs as well as the long term.
    Consistent with our support for the decision by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to establish a taskforce on the global food crisis, Australia is developing a comprehensive long-term action plan for food security that will draw on our expertise in semi-arid agriculture research, production and adaptation. Australia has committed $30 million to the UN World Food Program's emergency appeal. This is in addition to the $60 million we provided in 2007-08 and is aimed at addressing the most pressing humanitarian needs.

    The world faces a combined challenge. Demand for food is increasing at the same time as we see rising input costs and supply constraints caused by drought. Through a renewed focus on rural development in our development assistance program, Australia will work with our partners to reduce dependence on food aid and achieve sustained increases in crop and livestock production.
    We know that finding a global response to the challenge of climate change is a necessity.
    Australia's food production is particularly vulnerable to the long-term effects of climate change.

    Australia is committed to working in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to deliver an effective post-2012 framework by developing a comprehensive domestic response to climate change.

    Adapting to the adverse impacts of climate change is a key priority for agriculture and food production. Australia has funded a $130 million initiative to help our primary industries respond to the challenge of climate change.
    We also recognise our responsibility to assist countries vulnerable to the impacts of dangerous climate change. We are particularly committed to working with the small island states of the Pacific.

    The international community also needs to work together to ensure biofuel production is environmentally sustainable and balanced with food production priorities.
    Importantly, to protect and enhance food supplies, Australia remains convinced that the most effective long-term measure is the dismantling of barriers that distort trade in agricultural products.

    Australia has consistently argued in the World Trade Organisation that a strong commitment to further liberalisation of world agriculture is vital to ensuring better functioning agricultural markets and more stable food prices. We remain focused on achieving a successful conclusion to this year's WTO Doha round of negotiations. We urge other countries to redouble their efforts to this end.
    These negotiations are the best opportunity the world has to reform and improve international trade in agriculture and global food trade flows. We urge countries to refrain from continuing or imposing counterproductive measures that restrict food and agricultural exports.
    Australia acknowledges and welcomes the leadership the Food and Agriculture Organisation has shown in focusing the world's attention on this crisis. We urge the FAO to refocus and revitalise its work by taking forward the recommendations of the independent external evaluation of the FAO.
    By focusing on its core mission, a leaner, more efficient FAO will be better able to tackle the pressing challenges confronting us all. We also encourage the FAO and its member states to maximise the impact of their work by closely co-ordinating with other agricultural agencies, particularly the World Food Program.

    A combination of these measures - immediate humanitarian assistance, developmental and research assistance that enhances production technology and output, addressing climate change and bio-energy issues and securing a Doha round outcome - provide a firm basis for systematically confronting the globe's food security crisis.
    Stephen Smith is Foreign Minister. This speech was delivered at the high level conference on food security at the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome.

    Any damn fool that praises police as peasants richly deserves whatever misfortune befalls them imho.
    8:28p
    Standing athwart history, yelling Stop overated
    At critical moments we are obviously obliged to do this...but whats up with Tories doing it to democracy right through the 19th century?

    Or the 'best and the brightest' blowing off anti-colonialism and losing SE Asia?
    Or the global warming denialists?
    Or the nutcase neocons defending apartheid in SW Asia?

    Reactionaries and neo-fascists need better excuses than this to survive. They don't have a leg to stand on.
    8:59p
    A bureaucratic list
    '...Iraq Again [Victor Davis Hanson]

    But Rich, that is exactly the point: when or if things got rough, then the exact arguments for going to war would suddenly become ever more important; and common sense dictated that it was better to have a number of them..'

    Stop right there VD. Professor Paul Mylyroi Wolfowitz - the male brains trust of the neocons - actually drew up a 'bureaucratic list'...his words...of reasons for waging the supreme crime. High up on the list was WMDs.

    So you got anything new tell us raison man?

    Why not go just fuck yr ugly mother Victor...you know you want to.
    9:40p
    Dodgy food at sick spectacle
    http://scatmovies.com/home.php

    Barack for Magpies with open mouths upturned
    10:34p
    AU
    African Union

    Africa should not need food aid to feed its population. Africa can feed its own people—the problem is that it has never been allowed to try to succeed. The continent has been held back in food production by harsh local policies and an unfair trade regime inflicted on it by the developed world.
    Eighty-five percent of Africans live in rural communities. Their main occupation is farming. They rely on it to feed themselves and their families. What profit can be had used to buy other farm implements and chemicals needed to enhance yields and reduce manual labor. The European Union Common Agriculture Policy and the U.S. farm policy of providing subsidies to farmers have been displacing African agriculture products, and hence limiting income that could have been used to re-invest to enhance increased production. This has retarded growth in the continent while at the same time undermining food production.

    According to the World Bank, if the U.S. and E.U. abrogate or reduce the subsidies to their own farmers, the impact will be felt in lifting millions of Africans out of poverty.

    Even the ignorant arrogant and abusive racist, the petit bourgeois swine Karl Marx and his bff, the capitalist swine Friedrich Engels were against protectionism. They were not complete such complete imbeciles as their followers.
    11:00p
    So many suspects
    @ndy… you think you’re getting to me… but you’re clearly not… I find it amusing that you are the Melbourne Punk Stalker! You know everything that’s going on! Your shitty little website there is probably better off being a gig website. You know when ALL the shows are on! … Anyway… anarchy is a fag… that’s all I have to say to you Mr Moran… ~ Chunga, chungacunt, September 23, 2007

    Honestly, I am going to fucking kill you. I hope it was worth it. ~ Joel, December 10, 2007

    Bombshell Punk R o c k Forum, December 2007:

    Top guy. ~ Doug Smith

    @ndy you’re a fucking idiot mate and you better watch your back because when me and my mates are out and about, if we see you, ur dead / @ndy im still going to bash you, fukn gooknigger scum ~ Anonymous

    i dont think u have the right to fucking breath[e] u piece of [shit]. if you like gooks so much why dont you fuck off to some gook country and see how much they tolerate mouthy cunts such as yourself. then you may see why we dont want the scum to do the same here / and reading earlier you were very concerned about some of us hassling a negroid girl, well did you stop to think there may have been a reason? she was foul, spitting on people, drinking goon, making a fool of herself and she had what was coming. anyway mate youre a goose and i think you should put your money where your mouth is ~ BirmyHammerSkinz

    As I stated on the previous forum Andy, you are a liar, a hypocrite and no better than the trash that you fight against. ~ Dion..'

    Slackarse

    While I'm mildly insulted that @ndy doesn't seem to think I wouldn't kill him as soon as look at him its obvious he would hardly like to contrast his pathetic efforts against a real anarchist activist who incited the ire of the US SS, ASIO, The AFP and the Victorian plod. He'd just come across as the low rent cock-sucker he so patently is. A liar, a gutless maggot and a tiny lump of fascist dogshit that no-one will ever, ever miss. Thats @ndy all over.
    11:21p
    Post menstrual cramps
    Post-traumatic stress soars in U.S. troops

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly diagnosed cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan surged 46.4 percent in 2007, bringing the five-year total to nearly 40,000, according to U.S. military data released on Tuesday.

    Poor souls. But let's look on the bright side: they certainly inflicted a lot more stress and trauma than they suffered.

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