Lisa-
Couldn't get the new issue (or other links) to open.
Jim in Austin



----- Original Message -----
From: "lisa" <wingedpiper@...>
To: <WarOnFreedom@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2002 6:03 PM
Subject: [WarOnFreedom] Babel Magazine Issue #73 is now online


> from table of contents - on-topic articles
>
> 16
> The Death of John F. Kennedy, Jr.
> by Mike Bellinger
> 17
> U. S. Government Accused in 9-11 Terrorist Attacks
> commentary on an article written by Colonel Donn de Grand
> 18
> The Structure of Big Conspiracies
> by Unknown
> 18
> Challenge to the Official 9-11 Story
> From a Mike Ruppert Press Release
> 20
> Bush Caught in Lie About WTC Attacks
> from "What Really Happened" website
>
> ===========
> Hi Everyone,
>
> Just letting you know that the latest issue of Babel is now online at
> http://www.babelmagazine.com - and it's a doozy!
> Hoep you'll take a few to check it out.
>
> Wishing you all peaceful journeys,
>
> Lisa Guliani
> Babel Magazine/WING
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> WarOnFreedom-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

Complete article at- http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/09/149650.php

Understanding/Exposing 9-11 Update from the Trenches

(more details posted at http://www.communitycurrency.org/9-11.html)

       Like a three ring circus, last week’s media hoopla could be viewed in
many ways, depending upon whether you were being blinded by the spotlights,
or sitting in the dark, faraway, watching the whole panorama.  Certainly,
the Bush Administration was hoping that people did not notice the “Bush Did
It!” rallies and marches, complete with brass band, that took place in San
Francisco, and a smaller march on September 11th in Oakland, nor the series
of public forums questioning 9-11 and the “War on Terrorism” which took
place across the country.

SF Rally and March
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/09/146448.php
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/09/146235.php

which went to the 4th Annual Power to the Peaceful Concert and Social
Justice Rally which drew together 20,000 people-
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/09/146472.php

The September 11, 2002 March and Rally in front of the Federal Building in
Oakland-
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/09/148645.php

But even the mainstream press figured out that- “9/11 skeptics abound"
      I spoke to a reporter from the San Francisco Examiner for half an hour
between demos Sept. 11th- he couldn't even get my name right- let alone the
facts! He wrote-
http://www.examiner.com/news/default.jsp?story=n.conspiracy.0912w

I wrote to the paper demanding a “Correction!!!!”
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/09/147751.php

However, I haven’t seen or heard from them since.

      The deafening silence, however, is that emanating from the
“Established Progressive Press,” which has shocked many of us.  The failure
of the Left, however, to seriously  build a strong anti-war movement can be
partially explained by Bob Feldman's excellent work and a funding map of
the Progressive Institutions-
ALTERNATIVE MEDIA CENSORSHIP: SPONSORED BY CIA's FORD
   FOUNDATION? http://www.questionsquestions.net/gatekeepers.html

       Nevertheless, a joyous, magical, organic networking is happening
amongst researchers, artists, poets, musicians, activists, publishers,
networkers, film-makers, students, activists resulting in a whole new wave
of collaborations, synergies.

       Manifestations of these new networks are the evolving Guerrilla News
Network documentary- Aftermath Unanswered Questions from 9-11
http://www.guerrillanews.com/after_math/  and the remarkable Center for
Cooperative Research, founded by Paul Thompson which has created the
Complete 9-11 Timeline-
http://cooperativeresearch.org/completetimeline/.  I gather that this
brought together publisher John Leonard, and Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed which
led to the outstanding book- The War on Freedom,
http://waronfreedom.mediamonitors.net/index.html. To make the circle
complete, Nafeez drew from Paul Thompson’s work on The Many Faces of Saeed
Sheikh, (who wired the $100,000 to Mohammed Atta under orders from the head
of the Pakistani Intelligence, the ISI’s Lt. General Mahmud Ahmed)
http://www.unansweredquestions.net/timeline/AAsaeed.html when Nafeez spoke
to us, via webcam on September 11, 2002.

       Nafeez’s voice, so desperately needed in these times, did manage to
break through the gatekeepers (at fundraising time naturally, for KPFK; the
book was the most popular item during their recent pledge drive and they
ordered 720 copies!).  He has also been interviewed on KBOO and KALW, and
hopefully more stations will follow.

       Information, books, video clips, urls, are circulating rapidly
amongst a growing network of people determined to cast light upon the dark
secrets the government doesn’t want us to know.

       I still think the big question is- Can we organize resistance, faster
than they can organize repression?  The lies and lunacy seem to know no
bounds, at least the satirists have plenty of ammunition.  I guess we
really would cry- if we couldn’t laugh at those desperately trying to cling
to and expand their power-
THE PRESIDENT'S IRAQ ULTIMATUM, AS DELIVERED TO THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL
ASSEMBLY Remarks by the President
-  http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2002/091402.asp
David Rockefeller Speaks- satire by Victor Thorn
http://www.victorthorn.com/babel/issue74/rocktalks.html

       More books are being published, more people are speaking out, faster
than I can keep track of them!  In the Bay Area, both John Judge and
Michael Ruppert will be speaking on 9-11-
John Judge will be speaking on- "9-11 and Future Wars," 7- 10pm, September
18, 2002, San Francisco, California At the Women's Building, 3543 18th
Street, and 7-10pm, September 19, 2002, Oakland, California, Fellowship
Hall of Humanity, 390 - 27th St., (between Broadway and Telegraph), Oakland
, 415-648-8472
   John will be focusing on 9/11, the permanent war, the rise of American
fascism and the opportunity for real democracy. His observations and
writings can be found at http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/
Michael Ruppert, will be speaking on- "Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld- Caught! In
the web of their own lies about September 11th, 7pm, October 4, 2002, San
Francisco, California and at Sebastopol’s Vet’s Hall 282 S. High St. (off
Bodega Hwy.) Mike has been at the forefront of the struggle to expose the
truth about 9-11. His website is http://www.copvcia.com.

       I’ve been invited to speak on a television program, in Nevato, in San
Geronimo Valley, and at a conference in Berkeley in November.  Kyle Hence
(from Unanswered Questions) and I will both be at the Bioneers conference
this year, although we are not formally on the program- we’ll have our
mouths and materials…

       Massive anti-war protests are being planned, in addition to the
mobilizations against the IMF and World Bank in DC at the end of
September.  I just hope that at some point, everyone will figure out the
links between corporate globalization, militarization, state terrorism, the
WTC and pentagon attacks, and we’ll be able to rein in the Rogue Empire
before it can do more irreparable damage. It will require an unprecedented
level of effort and cooperation amongst the fragmented opposition to
“tyranny, oppression, injustice” that exists, and continues to grow in the
U.S.; it will be a challenge, but there is hope, and if you want to be
hopeful, and be a part of it, just lend a hand… The movement for truth,
peace, justice, freedom is welcoming everyone; we need an enormous big
broad coalition, and each of has a part to play, limited only by our
imagination, courage, and passion for a better world.







--
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>From: "Elson Boles" <boles@...>
>To: "WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK" <wsn@...>
>Subject: The Biggest Turds, and Iraq
>Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 17:13:37 -0400
>X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2627
>Importance: Normal
>X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by csf.colorado.edu id
>g8HLDo217707
>Sender: wsn-owner@...
>
>The Biggest Turds, and Iraq:
>The Relevance of Yesterday's News Today
>
>If you felt disgusted by the hypocrisy of US plans to make war on Iraq,
>yet alone sickened at the inevitable slaughter of thousands of people,
>but could only vaguely recall the details of how deep the hypocrisy
>goes, then read on.  Keep in mind as you do that Bush Jr. has given the
>following reasons for invading Iraq, all of which but the last are
>accurate (the last is a mischaracterization):
>
>1. Iraq used chemical weapons
>2. Iraq has tried to build nuclear weapons
>3. The US tried to bring Iraq into the "family of nations" -- said first
>by Bush Sr.)
>
>I posted a NYT article recently (8-21-02) in which US military officers
>explained that the US helped Iraq use (kill) with chemical and
>biological weapons during the Iraq-Iran war.  The US had not only helped
>arm Iraq with military equipment right up to the time of the Kuwait
>invasion (as also did Germany, Britain, France, Russia and others),
>including high-tech equipment for manufacturing chemical weapons, but
>the US also helped Iraq integrate chemical and biological weapons into
>battle plans and targets that the US gave to the Iraqi military.
>
>As military officers involved revealed in the NYT article that I posted,
>their efforts were part of a "highly classified program in which more
>than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency were secretly
>providing detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning
>for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb-damage assessments for
>Iraq."  At the same time the US was selling chemical and biological
>weapons to Iraq which the Iraqi military -- with full US knowledge --
>integrated into the battle plans, etc. that the US was providing.  As
>retired Col. Walter P. Lang, a senior defense intelligence officer at
>the time added, both D.I.A. and C.I.A. officials "were desperate to make
>sure that Iraq did not lose" to Iran.  "The use of gas on the
>battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern,"
>he said.  The Pentagon "wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of gas," said
>one veteran of the program. "It was just another way of killing people —
>whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference," he
>said.
>
>A Frontline video, _The Arming of Iraq_ (1990) detailed much of the
>conventional and so-called "dual-use" weapons sold to Iraq.  We knew
>from other sources in the early 1990s that since mid-1980s the US was
>selling chemical and biological for weapons to Iraq and approving
>private sales.  Baker, for example, noted that "on July 3, 1991, the
>Financial Times reported that a Florida company run by an Iraqi national
>had produced cyanide -- some of which went to Iraq for use in chemical
>weapons -- and had shipped it via a CIA contractor" (see the article by
>Russ Baker <http://www.cjr.org/year/93/2/iraqgate.asp>).   But the
>extent of tacitly helping Iraq integrate those chemicals into war plans
>provided by the US was only recently disclosed (as far as I know).
>
>Looking back into the affair reveals just how much else we already knew.
>For example, a Nightline episode (1990) revealed that top Reagan
>administration officials, those of the State Dept., of the Pentagon, and
>Dir. of Central Intelligence, etc. collectively engaged in a massive
>cover up of the USS Vincennes' whereabouts and actions when it shot down
>an Iranian airliner in 1987 killing over 200 civilians.  The "massive
>cover up" Koppel explained, was to hide the US Secret War against Iran
>in which, among other actions, US special operations sunk half of Iran's
>navy while giving battle plans and logistical information to Iraqi
>forces.  We now know that when the US was providing war plans to Iraq,
>US officials were fully aware that Iraq was integrating chemical weapons
>into those battle plans.  In the last major battle some 65,000 Iranians
>were killed, many by gas.  In continuing the probe, as Koppel would
>explain in an episode of June 9, 1990, "It is becoming increasingly
>clear that George Bush [Sr.], operating largely behind the scenes
>throughout the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing,
>intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into the
>aggressive power that the United States ultimately had to destroy"
>(Baker, ibid.).
>
>Actually, Bush Sr. was a minor player among US officials involved.  The
>scandal of arms sales led to the financing scandal which involved many
>of the very same circle of arms suppliers, covert operators, and policy
>makers in and out of the US government who had been active in those
>roles for years.  Recall, for example, the infamous Banca Nazionale del
>Lavoro (BNL) scandal in which the National Security Council and CIA and
>other US agencies tacitly approved about $4 billion in unreported loans
>to Iraq through the giant Italian bank's Atlanta branch.  Iraq, with the
>blessing and official approval of the US government, purchased computer
>controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special
>alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods for
>Iraq's missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
>
>Under the direction of the Reagan and Bush administrations, US
>government agencies continued the sales, despite the opposition of some
>US Congresspersons, right up to the invasion of Kuwait.   But the early
>reports on BNL's activities and the startling revelations that the US
>government, including the CIA and Department of Agriculture,
>astonishingly knew that BNL was financing these purchases, were rather
>comical in view of later revelations.  US government officials didn't
>just know and approve, but some were employees at BNL directly or
>indirectly.  It was Representative Henry Gonzalas (D-Texas) who
>relentlessly brought key information into the Congressional Record
>(despite stern warnings by the State Department to stop his personal
>investigation for the sake of "national security").  Gonzalas revealed,
>for example, that Henry Kissinger was an employee of BNL and that,
>during the height of the scandal, BNL was a paying client of Kissinger
>Associates.  He also learned that Brent Scowcroft served as vice
>chairman of Kissinger Associates until being appointed as National
>Security Advisor to President Bush in January 1989.  Even Dan Quayle was
>involved, suggesting to Iraqi officials to approach his friends at BNL.
>(See <http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920428g.htm>)
>
>Perhaps the most bizarre revelations about former US officials concerned
>a Washington-based enterprise called "Global Research" which played a
>middleman role in selling uniforms to Iraq.  It was run by none other
>than Spiro Agnew (Nixon's former VP who resigned to avoid bribery and
>tax evasion charges), John Mitchell (Nixon's chief of staff and
>Watergate organizer), and Dick Nixon himself.  Their involvement was
>also in the mid-1980s mind you, more than a decade after Watergate.  And
>to make sure the deal went through, Dick himself wrote a cozy letter to
>former dictator Ceausescu.
>
>US Provided Large Quantities and Varieties of Deadly Chemicals
>
>By 1992 we also learned about the massive quantities of chemical weapons
>that the US -- not just Germany -- was selling to Iraq.  In looking for
>additional material for my students, I ran across Congressional Records
>from a Senator Riegle who, in his investigation of the Gulf War
>Syndrome, found that the US government had approved the sale of large
>quantities and varieties of chemical and biological materials to Iraq,
>including anthrax, components of mustard gas, botulinum toxin (which
>causes vomiting, double vision, dilation of the pupils, paralysis of the
>muscles involving swallowing, and is often fatal), histoplasma
>capsulatum (which causes a disease that superficially resembles
>tuberculosis and may cause pneumonia, enlargement of the liver and
>spleen, anemia, acute inflammatory skin disease marked by tender red
>nodules, usually on the shins), and many other chemicals.  Those sales
>were made between 1985 and 1989.  Riegle stressed that he looked back
>only as far as 1985, implying that the sales probably began earlier.
>(See the original <http://home.earthlink.net/~founders/armiraq.cfm> or
>an abbreviated version:
>http://www.svsu.edu/~boles/index/ussuppliesiraqgas.htm).
>
>The scandal of Iraq-gate was that despite the international embargo on
>weapons sales to Iraq (and Iran) since the early 1980s, and despite the
>ending of the Iraq-Iran war in 1988, and despite Saddam's killing of
>hundreds of innocent Kurdish people with chemical-biological weapons, US
>agencies and officials continued to build up Iraq's forces even just
>weeks prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, all the while publicly
>condemning Iraq's use of gas.  And as for the invasion, was it a set up?
>Note first that the US knew it was coming but continued the sales.
>Newspaper reports about the infamous meeting between then Ambassador
>Glaspie and Iraq officials, and a special ABC report included in the
>series "A Line in the Sand," indicated that, although the US officials
>told Iraq that it disapproved, they said the US would not interfere.
>
>The arming of Iraq and Iran up to the Gulf War is probably what Richard
>Armatige (then Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security
>Affairs, and now Deputy Secretary of State), had in mind when he said in
>an interview, with a hint of pride in his voice, that the US "was
>playing one wolf off another wolf."  (What does that make the US?)
>Logically, in light of US foreign policy -- including the same kind of
>pride that Bush Sr., Oliver North, and others verbalized in hearings
>about using the Ayatollah's money to fund the Contras as "a right idea"
>-- the setting up of Iraq would very consistent with maintaining parity
>among Middle Eastern allies and foes.  If Iraq's military could be
>leveled, then potential instability caused by the rapid growth of Iraqi
>military power could be averted, and oil prices would probably decline
>since Iraq would need to step up sales to rebuild.
>
>The only problem with this scenario is that there were many operators
>making huge profits from arms sales to Saddam who were either members of
>the US government or former members with influence.  One US official
>interviewed in the PBS video expressed his disappointment with Iraq's
>invasion and subsequent Gulf War because the relationship with Iraq
>could have continued to be "very profit..uh mutually profitable."  In
>the end, the middle run interests of the US government took precedence
>over the short-run profit interests of the shadow government, though
>granted, it is frequently difficult to distinguish the composition and
>interests of the two at the highest levels.
>
>Indeed, there is no great surprise about the sordid assortment of
>officials and individuals directly or indirectly involved -- from the
>infamous US-based international arms dealer Sarkis Songhanalian and
>former Gen. Secord, to Oliver North and Richard Nixon -- and many
>others.  They had been part of covert US arms and drug deals and Mafioso
>dating back decades.  But their operations did become of major concern
>in the 1980s to many citizens and politicians when investigators began
>to reveal how this "shadow government" was circumventing explicit
>domestic and international laws against arming certain regimes and
>terrorist organizations.  Democrats found ammo that helped get Clinton
>elected.
>
>I refer to the various "gates" -- Iran-Contra gate, Iraq-gate, BNL-gate
>etc. -- in which the public learned that the shadow government folks
>played all sides of many wars since the profits were very high, but also
>for ideological reasons.  Perhaps the most well-documented case is the
>flipside of "Iraq-gate": "Iran-Contra gate."  While arming Iraq to the
>teeth with all these weapons of mass destruction and taking some of the
>cash for themselves, Oliver North, Bush Sr., Dennis McFarlane, and Gen.
>Secord, and others purchased from the CIA spare parts for US-made
>weapons and more than two thousand TOW missiles, which the CIA had
>purchased at discount rates from the Pentagon, and which Secord and
>North sold Iran (not Iraq) in exchange for cash and the release of US
>hostages in Lebanon.
>
>In public, Ronnie Reagan had repeatedly condemned negotiations with
>terrorists, and even stated on national TV that there had been no
>negotiations with terrorists.  He went back on air a few months later
>and said that while he still didn't believe "in his heart" that the US
>had negotiated with terrorists, the facts told him "otherwise."  The
>facts were that the shadow operators in and out of the government
>"wheeled and dealed" around their respective governments' laws as
>directed by the highest levels of government.
>
>Many considered these trades as "business as usual."  Secord, for
>instance, unashamedly told Congressional investigators that his
>arms-dealing firm, the "Enterprise," which sold the TOWs to other
>brokers and then to Iran, was a legitimate profit-making business.  And
>as we all know, at the other end of the deal, North delivered a portion
>of the proceeds from those sales through Swiss banks to fund the
>terrorist Contras -- also with money from wealthy right-wingers and
>politicians around the world.  This was detailed in Bill Moyers' PBS
>video, "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1993?).
>
>Of course, it was not only illegal to sell weapons to the Contras per
>the Boland Act, but in other spheres of the operation, the US government
>flagrantly broke international law.  Recall that the CIA had, in
>addition to providing military hardware and lists of targets for Contra
>raids, also mined the harbors of Nicaragua.  When the US was taken to
>the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and convicted of violating
>international laws, President Reagan disregarded this conviction saying
>the ICJ had no jurisdiction over the United States.
>
>In a Cesspool, the Biggest Turds Rise to the Top
>
>Juxtapose Reagan's anti-UN position and stress on US sovereignty with
>Bush Jr.'s push for the UN to take action.  Bush Jr. argued a few days
>ago at the United Nations that Iraq is making a fool of the Security
>Council by failing to following UN mandates.  Many of us are in a debate
>about this juxtaposition.  Some argue that this is not just a short-term
>political maneuver in which the US government could hardly sound more
>hypocritical and one-sided in its proud role as the world's leading
>enforcer of double standards.  Others argue that the US is in decline
>and can no longer pursue unilateral policies.
>
>Yet, even Wallerstein, who tends to take the later position, as
>discussed on this listserve, more recently notes that the US will
>probably get the support it wants, which contrasts his also recent
>comments on how the US is isolating itself.  Time will tell just how
>much the US is really declining.  Yes, US hegemony is gone, as
>Wallerstein defined it, but the residual power and its use requires more
>analysis than that.  In my view, US relations with Middle East countries
>are part of the continuing Mafioso-like racket of oil: get the oil money
>back via arms sales; and later, via the IMF or World Bank, get even
>more, plus additional political leverage and cheap oil as the
>indebtedness caused by continued weapons purchases and regional
>instability grows and grows.  In world-systems terminology, these are
>among the mechanisms of the core-periphery relationship and the trend of
>intensifying global inequality.  But it also seems this racket is also
>taking us into the construction of a world-empire.
>
>In any case, Bush Jr. is correct that Iraq was willing to use chemical
>weapons and has been trying to build nuclear weapons.  Of course, he
>just fails to mention that the US was willing to sell and help Iraq use
>those weapons of mass destruction against Iranians.  Saddam would not be
>the tyrant he is without the US government.
>
>Finally, what about Bush Jr.'s third contention, that the US had tried
>to bring Saddam into the "family of nations?"  In view of the thousands
>upon thousands of women, children, and men butchered with US arms and
>battle plans by US- trained and financed "freedom fighters" and brutal
>sub-imperialist regimes, one could only characterize that family as
>being composed of unscrupulous, profiteering, vile accomplices to mass
>murder.  Is there any basic difference of character between Ceausescu
>and Nixon, Reagan and Khomeini, Bush Sr. and Jr. and Saddam?  No. They
>are a family -- the family of our world's criminal government and
>business leaders.  This is the reason (and not the operations in Bosnia)
>why the Bush administration and friends oppose the formation of the
>World Court.
>
>Elson Boles
>Assistant Professor
>Dept. of Sociology
>Saginaw Valley State University
>University Center
>Saginaw MI, 48710

Dear Michael,

thank you for an interesting contribution on the subject of U.S. government
complicity in the 911 attacks.

My comments:

1. The word "watertight" is used to describe evidence ("facts") required to
obtain a criminal conviction. We are still not even at the stage of an
indictment yet, but of trying to initiate a citizens' call for an inquiry.
So a demand for such evidence is putting the cart before the horse.
Ultimately, to advocate the preposterous application of this evidential
standard could have the same effect as an attempt to harbor suspected
criminals from justice.

Political scandals do not came to the light of day this way. Independent
researchers can not summon witnesses. We are simply not equipped to try
cases except, God willing, in the media.

We have been quite restrained in assessing the conclusiveness of our
evidence, on occasion perhaps overly so. Yet we are up against a
corporatist media cartel which has a vested interest in suppressing the
truth, and we appreciate the indispensable assistance of peace activists
and other private citizens who help our voice be heard.

I submit that we have the First Amendment right, if not duty, to posit the
culpability of our public servants in print, when the accusation is founded
in fair evidence, and that it is in the public interest for informed people
to write and read about it, especially when the future of world peace and
democracy are evidently at stake.

2. Memri and the New Antisemitic Myth

A cursory inspection of the MEMRI website will reveal what business niche
they are in: promoting hatred of the Arab world by translating sundry
indiscretions from the Arab press, along with other  disinformation. (This
task is made easier by the lamentable fact that the level of scholarly
rigor in the Arab world remains far behind its heyday of centuries ago.)
While the selections presented offer a certain piquanterie, and might
contain leads for investigation, it would be surprising if any serious and
useful conclusions for an investigation of 9/11 were to appear from this
source.

Implicit in this contribution are some logical fallacies.

A. The word Myth in the title, of course, is used to state the conclusions
before the evidence.

B. The apriori assumption is that to accuse zionists of wrong-doing is
*always* "anti-Semitic" (even if the plaintiff is Jewish.) We might return
the compliment, and call this the Old Anti-Semitic Myth, which involves
wielding the word anti-Semite as a defensive and offensive weapon to
deflect any opposition, whether or not the accuser or critic really might
suffer from anti-Semitism.

3. Basically, there appears to be an underlying erroneous assumption in
your contribution, which might be illuminated with the following analogy:

A and B are enemies. Suspect A is suspected of committing a crime. Enemy B
is the first to make a public stir about it. Defense attorney D cites B's
rantings as proof of A's innocence, and asks for a dismissal. Judge C
agrees that the enmity of A and B is cause for caution in inspecting B's
claims, but not for throwing out the evidence. Furthermore, the court finds
that the evidence did not originate with enemy B, who has merely publicized
it for his own ends. The case goes to trial and is not dismissed. Whether
or not B rejoices at the outcome is of no concern of the court.

MEMRI is trying to use the same argument as attorney D in order to hush up
the issue.

4. In the case of the evidence of an Israeli connection to 9/11, the
earliest prominent compiler and disseminator was, to my knowledge, Justin
Raimondo of antiwar.com. He is not, to my knowledge, a racist. Furthermore,
the aims of antiwar.com are, as far as I know, consistent with their domain
name; I believe they have no hate agenda. Thus, our grounds for having the
case heard are stronger than in the vignette above.

5. For a serious and objective discussion of the evidence and motivations
for U.S. government complicity in 911, (primarily U.S./CIA, while also
including most of the major sources published in English on the apparent
Israeli connection), I highly recommend the Timeline by Paul Thompson at
http://www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/ .

Paul's Timeline is mercifully free of the absurdities, ad hominem and other
logical fallacies, carelessness, gratuitous insults and obfuscation that
have marred the dispute (debate is too good a word) heretofore on this
thread. He has given us a marvelous tool for untangling the Orwellian web
of deceit woven over our nation by our "intelligence community," Pentagon
and putschist President in their transparent attempt to install a virtual
military dictatorship (American comfort style, mind you, employing
corporate self-censorship and a 24/7 media barrage in lieu of block
cadres)  - for a new Blitzkrieg in the Middle East.

The web of the 9/11 evidence can be mind-boggling in its complexity, which
is in itself a formidable line of defense of the culprits, which their
media lackeys regularly capitalize on. Paul has done us a great service in
untying the knots as well as connecting the dots.

In closing I would like to add a few last tidbits for thought, in case I
don't find time to return to this forum.

6. All this warmongering is nothing new. We can usefully simplify the
picture to a high degree without oversimplifying.

This is only another battle in the same race war that has been going on for
half a millenium, of heavily armed whites against defenseless aborigenes,
colonialism, exploitation and conspicous consumption of stolen resources.
Those great wars of the last century were mere turf battles between
competing white gangs over the loot to be had from these racist imperialist
exploitation opportunities.

The turf wars have now been definitively won by the moloch USA. Now the
tragedy of some critics is that they are still fighting one or the other
side of those battles, and still overlook the real war that has not stopped
for 500 years. This error brings them down on the wrong side. Overly eager
to conform to the white world's bankrupt norm of political correctness,
they falsely and groundlessly accuse us of being liars and neo-nazi
holocaust deniers.

Thus, they describe themselves, for they are assisting the real, serial
warmongers in covering up fresh holocausts. How pitiable, to be so fatuous
and so fooled.


- John Leonard, http://www.thewaronfreedom.com
(Publisher of The War on Freedom, the first book on the evidence on US
government complicity in 911, and author of the section in it setting forth
an overview of self-terror incidents used to provoke virtually all of
America's past foreign wars, as well as the evidence of a link to the
"imperialist proxy Israel")

At 08:13 17.9.02 -0700, Michael Pugliese wrote:
>http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SR702
>
>September 13, 2002
>No.7
>
>
>
>The Events of September 11 and the Arab Media: The New Antisemitic
>Myth

PLEASE FORWARD.
And do what you can to help.
Thanks.
---

Published on Monday, September 16, 2002
in the Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,792821,00.html

ACTION CAN STOP THE WAR

First Believe That You Can Prevent Hostilities,
And Then Do Something About It. It May Just Work

by Gary Younge

       Progressive politics demands a mixture of optimism
and realism. Without the optimism you would never believe
a better world could ever be built. Without the realism you
would never be able to engage with the world as it actually is,
in order to build it. Allow too much imbalance between the
two and you either undervalue your potential to imagine
what might be or undermine your ability to improve what
already exists.

       Keeping the two in equilibrium over the past 20 years
- my entire politically conscious lifetime - has meant lowering
standards to maintain a sense of perspective. Unsustained
by the prospect of victory, optimism becomes little more than
wishful thinking and realism curdles into defeatism.
"The greatest tool in the hands of the oppressor is the
mind of the oppressed," argued the late South African
black consciousness activist, Steve Biko.

       In the 1980s, Mrs Thatcher told us there was
"no alternative", and though we fought anyway, deep
down some of us actually believed it. A culture of protest
emerged that has been informed more by duty in the face
of the inevitable - "We should oppose this even though
we know it is going to happen" - than determination in the
pursuit of the possible - "We must stop this before it happens".
Losing has become a habit, being in a minority has become
a mindset.

       As the military matériel stacks up in the Gulf, poised to
bomb Iraqis into shreds, we need a rapid and radical change
in thinking. Unlike the last Gulf war, the Kosovo war or the
ongoing war in Afghanistan - in fact unlike any war in recent
times - those who oppose Britain's participation in the western
bombing of a poor country are part of a large majority.
Between 52% and 72% of the public in Britain oppose Britain's
involvement in the bombing of Iraq. This is a war that we can
stop before it starts. Opposition to it is popular. We must work
out how to make sure it both persists and prevails.

       The case against the bombing has been made by others
on these pages, including Roy Hattersley today. Given the
volatile situation in the Middle East and the certain power
vacuum left by Saddam's ousting, even the ramifications of
a successful mission could be catastrophic. Answers to the
key questions - why him? why now? and what next? - are
either unavailable or unconvincing.

       You do not have to be particularly progressive to agree
with or understand this. Far from it. Both the pacifist and the
military strategist can see the barbarous folly of going to war.
The array of people who are against action without the backing
of the United Nations - from the Archbishop of Canterbury to
Bill Morris and from Storming Norman Schwarzkopf to Nelson
Mandela - itself tells a story. On just about every front - moral,
legal, military, economic, human, strategic - bombing Baghdad
would be an utter disaster.

       To sense the breadth of opposition we need look no
further than Germany where, according to pollsters, Gerhard
Schröder's anti-war stance has done more than anything else
to reverse the flagging fortunes of his campaign to remain
chancellor. His rightwing challenger, Edmund Stoiber, has
resorted to what has been one of Europe's most popular policies
of late - bashing foreigners. "Four hundred million people are
threatening to come our way," he told crowds in Wiesbaden
on Thursday. "We must prepare ourselves."

       However, with as many as 80% of Germans against
the war, according to the head of one polling institute,
Schröder has decided there are more votes to be gained
to his left than to his right. "Germany has no reason to allow
itself to be lectured by others," he told cheering crowds at
a rally in the University of Munster last week. "On the existential
questions that decide general politics the decisions are made
in Berlin - in Berlin and nowhere else."

       Having trailed for most of the campaign, Schröder is
now in front. The forward march of the right in Europe,
it seems, will be obstructed not by pandering to popular
prejudice over immigration - à la David Blunkett - but by
confronting American military hegemony. Germany's
particular history gives it a deeper pacifist current than
the rest of Europe. None the less, the strength of public
opinion in Britain and America has made a difference.
US president George Bush may have strode to the podium
of the UN with the arrogance of an emperor and the ignorance
of a knave last week, but he would not even have bothered
if he didn't think he had to. Similarly, Blair would not have
recalled parliament for next week or brought forward the
publication of his dossier if he did not feel pressured.

       None of these steps, however, suggests that either
of these leaders is seriously considering peace. The extent
of their concession to electorates who feel no threat from
Iraq and have no desire to see innocent Iraqis killed, is that
they are moving towards war more gingerly. They do so in
the hope that the closer we come to the edge of conflict the
more likely we will be to buckle under the weight of the
inevitable.

       So the fact that the polls are with us at present is
heartening, but little more than that. Now we must make
them count - transforming passive discontent into active
opposition. We could begin by widening the debate to
encompass the domestic agenda. During last year's
election campaign we were told the government's priority
would be the delivery of improved public services and we
were lectured on the importance of prudence in the
management of public finances. What is prudent about
spending up to £4bn on a war few people want?
Why should we have to wait for teachers, trains, hip
replacements and heart valves because Bush won't wait
for a diplomatic solution and Blair won't stand up to him?

       There will, of course, be meetings, petitions and marches
- like the one in London on September 28. But this week,
ahead of the recall of parliament, there must also be letters,
phone calls, emails and text messages to MPs, local newspapers
and radio stations. Wars do not stop themselves. They are
prevented by the mobilization of large numbers of people,
each of whom does what they can. If the bombs drop then,
yet again, they will be in our name and paid for by our taxes.

       In recent times "Stop the War" has been a useful
and commendable slogan - three words that fitted on a
placard and rallied the faithful. This time it is a distinct
possibility. The difference between wanting it to happen
and making it happen may well be believing that it can
happen. And then doing something about it.


g.younge@...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,792821,00.html

---------------------

PLEASE FORWARD.
Let's do something about it.
Now.


----------------------

>Delivered-To: info@...
>From: FreeCosta@...
>Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 18:05:53 EDT
>Subject: RE: A question from chapter 4...
>To: info@...
>X-Mailer: AOL 7.0 for Windows US sub 10637
>
>
>Breakfast with Mahmud
>(or Follow the money, stupid!)
>
>Senator Bob Graham and Representative Porter Goss have something to hide.
>
>Over the course of the year, the two Florida congressmen charged with
>orchestrating the closed door 9/11 investigation have exhibited a penchant
>for obsessive secrecy.  At present, only a handful of nostalgic civil
>libertarians and peace activists are recognizing this "classify
>everything" mentality as being eerily reminiscent of the Nixon
>era.  However, as any student of Watergate 101 can discover, the two
>Intelligence Committee chairmen may be a great deal closer to the actual
>"evil-doers" than America's flag-waving media is willing to acknowledge.
>
>It doesn't take a $30 Billion budget to heed Deepthroat's advice: just
>follow the money.
>
>It is no secret that the 9/11 money trail leads to Pakistan.  That bastion
>of journalistic integrity, The Wall Street Journal, reported as much back
>on October 10, 2001.  A month after the attacks, the head of the Pakistani
>intelligence service (ISI), Lieutenant General Mahmud Ahmad, was forced to
>step down amid some startling allegations.
>
>"The US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that
>$100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad
>Umar Sheikh at the instance of General Ahmad."
>
>Perhaps the Journal owes General Ahmad a well-publicized
>retraction.  Otherwise, perhaps Attorney General John Ashcroft should be
>explaining to the American people why Lieutenant General Mahmud Ahmad
>isn't currently sharing a cell with alleged 20th highjacker, Zacarias
>Moussaoui.  Despite the fact that the Times of India and the Pakistani
>Journal Dawn carried virtually the same story, the story of the general's
>alleged involvement has seemingly fallen into the Orwellian memory
>hole.  When one considers the ISI chief's whereabouts on the morning of
>9/11, it becomes clear why these same two tight-lipped Florida legislators
>would have had good reason to forget him.
>
>As the New York Times reported on June 3, General Ahmad and these men
>share a fascinating history.
>
>"Washington-Early on Sept. 11, Senator Bob Graham and Representative
>Porter J. Goss were having a quiet breakfast meeting in the Capitol with
>the chief of Pakistani intelligence, Lt. Gen. Mehmood Ahmed.  Mr. Graham
>and Mr. Goss, the chairmen of the two Congressional intelligence
>committees, were quizzing their guest about Osama bin Laden and other
>issues when an aide to Mr. Goss rushed in with a note…"
>
>Unfortunately, you don't need to be a "wacko internet conspiracy theorist"
>to reach the following disturbing yet unassailable conclusions:
>
>To begin with, the two Congressmen currently overseeing our nation's
>thus-far classified 9/11 investigation (Rep. Porter Goss and Sen. Bob
>Graham) were, at the moment of the attacks, in a room eating breakfast
>with a man who turned out to be Mohammed Atta's sugar daddy.  For obvious
>reasons, these gentlemen have been less-than-forthcoming with information
>regarding the significance of this meeting.  It now seems that the
>"classify everything" mentality may be a part of an effort to whitewash
>certain potentially embarrassing aspects of the 9/11 story.
>
>In a Nixonian turn of events, what began as a quest to examine a "colossal
>intelligence failure," now seems to revolve around the sudden need to find
>the source of "intel leaks" emanating from classified information.  As
>reported in Roll Call on August 1st, the same two Congressmen also bear
>responsibility for this unprecedented "Investigation of the Investigators."
>
>"The Justice Department probe on the NSA intercept leaks was requested of
>Attorney General John Ashcroft by Sen. Bob Graham (D -Fla.) and Rep.
>Porter Goss (R - Fla.), the Senate and House intelligence committee
>chairmen, as well as their counterparts across the aisle."
>
>As if these facts were not engaging enough, it should be noted that Rep.
>Porter Goss seems to be a man who is destined to follow in Bush 41's
>footsteps.  A Connecticut native and Yale graduate (Class of '60), Goss is
>a 10-year veteran of the CIA's clandestine operations wing.  This
>"Heaviest of Heavyweights" in the US intel community is supposedly at the
>top of the short list of candidates to replace embattled CIA Director
>George Tenet.
>
>While Mr. Goss may be bucking for a promotion, Senator Graham has launched
>a jihad on the Bill of Rights.  According to news anchor Carl Cameron, the
>author of the constitutionally dubious Patriot Act has plans for new
>"safer" Republic…
>"In an interview with Fox News, Bob Graham, Democrat, and powerful
>chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggested that to fight the
>war on terror effectively, the time has come to let the government spy on
>American citizens…"  The same report stated that, "Graham insistss that,
>if America had had a domestic spy agency in place, it's possible 9/11
>would have been avoided all together."
>
>Despite the relentless clamoring of the "X-files viewing"
>anti-globalization crowd, the "Breakfast with Mahmud" saga does NOT
>directly implicate American foreknowledge or complicity in the 9/11
>attacks.  I have hard time accepting the sci-fi notion that the World
>Trade Center was used as the New World Order's modern day
>Reichstag.  However, I also have a hard time surrendering more civil
>liberties (and a lot more tax-dollars) to people like Porter Goss and Bob
>Graham.
>
>There has never been, nor will there ever be a more compelling argument
>for an independent investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attacks.   The
>horrors of that day have been used as a causus belli for what is shaping
>up to be a modern day crusade.  Before we collectively decide to declare
>WWIII on the Arab world, shouldn't we, as a nation, feel obligated to
>ascertain exactly who the real bad guys are? -
>
>Joseph Costa is a recent graduate of the Quinnipiac University Master of
>Arts in Teaching program.  He is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer from the
>former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan.
>
>freecosta@...

Bush Think Tank Trumps Mein Kampf - Must Read !

http://www.sundayherald.com/27735 (Scotland)

Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President

By Neil Mackay


A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and
his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime
change' even before he took power in January 2001.

The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a
'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president),
Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy),
George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of
staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies,
Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by
the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf
region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United
States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf
regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the
immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence
in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'

The PNAC document supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global US pre-
eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the
international security order in line with American principles and interests'.

This 'American grand strategy' must be advanced for 'as far into the future
as possible', the report says. It also calls for the US to 'fight and
decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars' as a 'core mission'.

The report describes American armed forces abroad as 'the cavalry on the
new American frontier'. The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document
written by Wolfowitz and Libby that said the US must 'discourage advanced
industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a
larger regional or global role'.

The PNAC report also:

l refers to key allies such as the UK as 'the most effective and efficient
means of exercising American global leadership';

l describes peace-keeping missions as 'demanding American political
leadership rather than that of the United Nations';

l reveals worries in the administration that Europe could rival the USA;

l says 'even should Saddam pass from the scene' bases in Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait will remain permanently -- despite domestic opposition in the Gulf
regimes to the stationing of US troops -- as 'Iran may well prove as large
a threat to US interests as Iraq has';

l spotlights China for 'regime change' saying 'it is time to increase the
presence of American forces in southeast Asia'. This, it says, may lead to
'American and allied power providing the spur to the process of
democratisation in China';

l calls for the creation of 'US Space Forces', to dominate space, and the
total control of cyberspace to prevent 'enemies' using the internet against
the US;

l hints that, despite threatening war against Iraq for developing weapons
of mass destruction, the US may consider developing biological weapons --
which the nation has banned -- in decades to come. It says: 'New methods of
attack -- electronic, 'non-lethal', biological -- will be more widely
available ... combat likely will take place in new dimensions, in space,
cyberspace, and perhaps the world of microbes ... advanced forms of
biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform
biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool';

l and pinpoints North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes and
says their existence justifies the creation of a 'world-wide command-
and-control system'.

Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP, father of the House of Commons and one of the
leading rebel voices against war with Iraq, said: 'This is garbage from
right-wing think-tanks stuffed with chicken-hawks -- men who have never
seen the horror of war but are in love with the idea of war. Men like
Cheney, who were draft-dodgers in the Vietnam war.

'This is a blueprint for US world domination -- a new world order of their
making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to
control the world. I am appalled that a British Labour Prime Minister
should have got into bed with a crew which has this moral standing.'

Web report: Iraq

What do you think? Have your say in the forum

A somewhat similar book to ours is coming out, called War and
Globalization, by Michel Chossudovsky.
If you order it by the publication date of Sept. 25 you can get it at a
discount, for $14.
See http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html

PLEASE FORWARD


Bush's Nuclear Madness: Horror at Dubya's
Secret Attack Plan on 7 Countries

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/cra0225.htm

---------------

11 March 2002

President Bush faced world anger last night over
America's seven-nation nuclear hit list.

British MPs joined the outcry after a leaked Pentagon
report revealed contingency plans to use nuclear
weapons against China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, North Korea,
Syria and Libya. The secret policy was denounced as
warmongering "lunacy".

Alarmed officials from Moscow to Tehran warned
that the "power crazy" President, buoyed up by the
successful campaign in Afghanistan, could plunge
the world into chaos. British politicians said the
strategy threatened the stability of the NATO alliance.

International tension mounted as Washington
pressed Britain to back an attack on Iraq - including
the possible commitment of 25,000 British troops
to topple Saddam Hussein.

Cabinet Minister Clare Short hinted that she might
resign if Tony Blair supported a mass strike against
Baghdad. She said: "We need to deal with the problem
of Saddam Hussein - we don't need to inflict further
suffering on the people of Iraq."

Labour MPs Alice Mahon and Tam Dalyell will today
deliver a letter to 10 Downing Street warning the Prime
Minister against joining any military action.

US Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in London last
night for talks with Mr Blair which will cover the threat
posed by Iraq.

No 10 insisted last night: "No decisions have been taken."

Amid mounting anger, the target nations accused
America of intimidation and "wreaking havoc on the
whole world" and branded the plans a "lunatic"
threat to world peace.

In Britain, MPs said the sensational disclosures
threatened the stability of the Western alliance.

Labour MP Alice Mahon said: "The lunatics have taken
over the White House. This report must be ringing
alarms throughout NATO". The Pentagon document,
known as the Nuclear Posture Review, was leaked as
the US lobbied Britain to join an invasion of Iraq.

International Development Secretary and Cabinet
Minister Clare Short hinted she might resign if a
strike went ahead.

The review says the US must be ready to use nuclear
  weapons against China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, North Korea,
Syria and Libya. It then identified four areas where the
US should be prepared to press the button:

In an Arab-Israeli conflict, in a war between China and
Taiwan, in an attack by North Korea on South Korea
and in an attack by Iraq on Israel or another neighbor.
Additionally, the weapons could be used against targets
able to withstand conventional attack and in retaliation
for the use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

They could also be used in the event of "surprising
military developments", reflecting fears that rogue states
or terrorists could deploy weapons against the US.

The review, leaked to the Los Angeles Times, orders
the military to plan for the use of "smaller nuclear weapons"
as a more effective deterrent against terrorist attacks.
It also calls for cruise missiles to carry nuclear weapons.
It is the first time the US has reviewed its nuclear strategy
since 1994 and the first list of target nations to be made public.

Last night it was seen as a warning to those states who
might be harboring terrorists. In Russia, defense hawk
General Leonid Ivashov said: "The heart of US political
doctrine is to push powerful Russia off the political scene."

Russian politician Dmitry Rogozin added: "This is a
nuclear stick intended to intimidate us." Vyacheslav
Nikonov, of the Politika think tank, branded the plans
a "very negative signal" which would be "received in
an appropriate fashion by Russia's leadership".

Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an
aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said:
"The US believes that by threatening countries they'll
withdraw their demands. Their policy is one of intimidation."

The Tehran Times newspaper said: "This indicates the
US is going to wreak havoc on the world to establish
its domination." Professor Michael Yahuda, professor
of international relations at the London School of
Economics, warned: "China won't be happy to be
classified among rogue nations."

Liberal Democrat spokesman Menzies Campbell said:
"America seems to be moving from nuclear deterrence
to nuclear war fighting.

"It would drive a coach and horses through NATO's
doctrine of nuclear strikes as a last resort."

US Secretary of State Colin Powell insisted the report
did not signal imminent action.

He said: "We should not get carried away with some
sense the US plans to use nuclear weapons in some
contingency in the near future.

"It's not the case. What the Pentagon has done with
this is sound military, conceptual planning.

"Not a single nation is being targeted by an American
nuclear weapon on a day-to-day basis."

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice added:
"We all want to make the use of weapons of mass
destruction less likely.

"The way that you do that is to send a very strong
signal to anyone who might use them against the United
States that they'd be met with a devastating response."

Vice-President Dick Cheney arrived in London last
night to meet Tony Blair. He is expected to appeal for
military support against Iraq. It is reported the US will
ask for up to 25,000 British troops to form part of an
invasion force.

In the first sign of a Cabinet split, Ms Short denounced
any invasion plans yesterday. She said: "An all-out military
attack is, of course, not at all sensible.

"We need to deal with the problem of Saddam Hussein.
We don't need to inflict further suffering on the people
of Iraq."

Ms Short said the best answer was to allow UN
inspectors back into Iraq, a move firmly ruled out by
Iraq's Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan yesterday.
Her warning amounted to a threat to resign if there is
a strike against Iraq. Donald Anderson, Labour chairman
of the Commons foreign affairs select committee, said
military action on Iraq must only be a last resort.

He said: "I think there are reckless elements in the
Pentagon who are on a roll because of Afghanistan.

"I would hope part of the task of our Government is
to influence those who take a contrary view."

Downing Street played down the reports of an American
request for British troops. A spokesman said: "No decisions
have been taken, let alone any requests made."


Alexandra Williams and Bob Roberts
Published in the Daily Mirror © 2002 mirror.co.uk

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/cra0225.htm



PLEASE FORWARD



--------------------------

ARE CIA RUNNING NEARLY ALL TERROR?

------------

US GOVERNMENT INSIDERS NOW BEGINNING TO
SPILL THE BEANS ON 9-11 / CIA CONNECTIONS

http://www.radicalpress.com

Two thirds down the homepage:

<<<  "Michael Springmann worked for the US
government for 20 years with the foreign service
and consulate. He just went public with the story
of his involvement in a large scale CIA operation
that brought hundreds of people from the middle
east to the US, issued them passports and trained
them to be terrorists. Springmann says that the
CIA is working closely with Bin Laden and his
operatives in Jeddah and has been since 1987.
The most haunting implication from this interview
is that all of the terrorist acts of late were planned
and paid for by the CIA with US taxpayers money
so that the US could legitimately bomb the hell
out of Afghanistan..."  >>>

http://www.radicalpress.com

--------

http://www.radicalpress.com/news/activistskit.htm

US GOVT INSIDERS NOW BEGINNING TO SPILL
THE BEANS ON 9-11 / CIA CONNECTIONS

It looks like the one's with inside information are
starting to come out of the woodwork! Check out this
CBC Radio interview: An interview with Michael
Springmann exposes the CIA's links with the terrorist
attacks on September 11 Straight Goods reader
Ken MacAllister of Vancouver, BC writes:

"Michael Springmann worked for the US government
for 20 years with the foreign service and consulate.
He just went public with the story of his involvement
in a large scale CIA operation that brought hundreds
of people from the middle east to the US, issued them
passports and trained them to be terrorists. Springmann
says that the CIA is working closely with Bin Laden and
his operatives in Jeddah and has been since 1987.
The most haunting implication from this interview is
that all of the terrorist acts of late were planned and paid
for by the CIA with US taxpayers money so that the US
could legitimately bomb the hell out of Afghanistan..."

LINK below, for a printable version of this article as
it was received via email. This article is accompanied
by a vast amount of contact information :
http://www.radicalpress.com/news/activistskit.htm

--------------

PLEASE SEND EVERYWHERE
- Especially Press, Media, News.

CONTACT LIST here:
http://www.radicalpress.com/news/activistskit.htm


-------------------------------

from table of contents - on-topic articles

16
The Death of John F. Kennedy, Jr.
by Mike Bellinger
17
U. S. Government Accused in 9-11 Terrorist Attacks
commentary on an article written by Colonel Donn de Grand
18
The Structure of Big Conspiracies
by Unknown
18
Challenge to the Official 9-11 Story
From a Mike Ruppert Press Release
20
Bush Caught in Lie About WTC Attacks
from "What Really Happened" website

===========
Hi Everyone,

Just letting you know that the latest issue of Babel is now online at
http://www.babelmagazine.com - and it's a doozy!
Hoep you'll take a few to check it out.

Wishing you all peaceful journeys,

Lisa Guliani
Babel Magazine/WING

>Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 23:43:50 -0700 (PDT)
>From: dave connors <wef339@...>
>Subject: [911list] Fwd: Proof ..video FAKE!
>To: "SmartGroups.com"
><911list-subscribe-conf-1028088477.kgdmkhcbdgehlnmbgkhl@...>,
>   Bud Grizzard <911list@...>
>Mailing-List: contact 911list-help@...
>Delivered-To: mailing list 911list
>Reply-To: 911list@...
>X-No-Archive: yes
>List-Post: <mailto:911list@...>
>List-Help: <mailto:911list-help@...>
>List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:911list-unsubscribe@...>
>List-Subscribe: <mailto:911list-subscribe@...>
>
>This PROOF that the latest Usama tape is a fake is
>extremely important and can be used to teach people
>that they are being lied to about 911 to an
>unprecedented degree and that they had better start
>paying attention to what is really going on.It is
>basically a "smoking Gun" proving a coverup and thus
>culability in govt/media! Thus worthy, i believe of
>posting on 911 list! dave
>--- dave connors <wef339@...> wrote:
> > Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 12:16:39 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: dave connors <wef339@...>
> > Subject: Proof ..video FAKE!
> > To: dennis kucinich <info@...>,
> >   Bob McCubbin <bob2046mcc@...>, Cynthia
> > McKinney <cymck@...>,
> >   Mike Piper <piperm@...>,
> >   Rep Trafficant
> > <anthony.traficanti@...>,
> >   int act <answer@...>, angie carlson
> > <angie1@...>,
> >   San Diego <sdiac@...>, marie gunther
> > <marieusa@...>
> >
> > Big problem with the new Bin Laden tape.
> >
> > Here are names of hijackers featured on the tape.
> >
> > Abdul Aziz al-Omari making his will and crowing
> > about
> > his destiny. Ahmed Al-nami, Hamza Al-ghamdi, Ahmed
> > Al-ghamdi and Wail Al-shehri all appear. while a
> > voice
> > over, allegedly that of Bin Laden names the followin
> > guys as ringleaders and prays for their souls.
> > Mohamed
> > Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Hani Hanjour and Marwan
> > Al-Shehhi.
> >
> > The following alleged five "suicide hijackers" are
> > featured or referenced in the video and are all
> > among
> > the eight or more alleged hijackers who are actually
> > still all very much alive, a fact acknowledged by
> > the
> > FBI's Robert Mueller as long ago as last September,
> > as
> > being either mistakes in police work or cases of
> > mistaken identity. All have been cleared of any
> > involvement whatsoever. All have been interviewed by
> > members of the mainstream Press. Regardless of this,
> > their name and likeness continues to be distributed
> > around the world as being the horrible hijackers of
> > 9/11 and, quel surprise, now guys with the very same
> > names turn up in the latest Bin Laden, make that
> > "You've Been Hadden" video production!
> >
> > -Abdul Aziz al-Omari still ALIVE in Saudi Arabia as
> > long since confirmed by the Saudi Foreign Ministry
> > to
> > the FBI. He's an engineer with Saudi Telecom. He's
> > the
> > guy in the FBI pic. There's another guy by the same
> > guy who is a Saudi pilot. He's also alive. -Ahmed
> > Al-Nami is ALIVE and a administrative supervisor
> > with
> > Saudi Arabian Airlines, in Riyadh. -Wail M.
> > Al-shehri
> > is a Saudi airline pilot and very much ALIVE. -Ziad
> > Samir Jarrah - Alive Lebanese pilot. -Marwan
> > Al-Shehhi
> > - ALIVE in Morrocco
> >
> > Either this is a case of life imitating art (or
> > would
> > that be death imitating art?) or new scriptwriters
> > are
> > desperately needed at Al Jazeera - or wherever these
> > astonishing productions originate from
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! News - Today's headlines
> > http://news.yahoo.com
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! News - Today's headlines
>http://news.yahoo.com
>
>--
>If you want to share pictures, use the calendar, or start a vote
>visit http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/911list
>
>To leave the group, email: 911list-unsubscribe@...

Leahy suggests possibility of terrorist link with West Nile virus should be explored

www.boston.com/news/daily/12/leahy_west_nile.htm

"I think we have to ask ourselves: Is it coincidence that we're seeing such an increase in West Nile virus or is that something that's being tested as a biological weapon against us?" said Leahy, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was the target last year of an anthrax-laden envelope sent to his office.

 

How did Iraq get its weapons? We sold them
By Neil Mackay and Felicity Arbuthnot

THE US and Britain sold Saddam Hussein the technology and materials Iraq needed to develop nuclear, chemical and biological wea pons of mass destruction.

Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban affairs -- which oversees American exports policy -- reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.

Classified US Defence Department documents also seen by the Sunday Herald show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.

The Senate committee's rep orts on 'US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to Iraq', undertaken in 1992 in the wake of the Gulf war, give the date and destination of all US exports. The reports show, for example, that on May 2, 1986, two batches of bacillus anthracis -- the micro-organism that causes anthrax -- were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning.

One batch each of salmonella and E coli were shipped to the Iraqi State Company for Drug Industries on August 31, 1987. Other shipments went from the US to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission on July 11, 1988; the Department of Biology at the University of Basrah in November 1989; the Department of Microbiology at Baghdad University in June 1985; the Ministry of Health in April 1985 and Officers' City, a military complex in Baghdad, in March and April 1986.

The shipments to Iraq went on even after Saddam Hussein ordered the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, in which at least 5000 men, women and children died. The atrocity, which shocked the world, took place in March 1988, but a month later the components and materials of weapons of mass destruction were continuing to arrive in Baghdad from the US.

http://www.sundayherald.com/27572

They should be inspected!

all other WARNINGS or PRIOR KNOWLEDGE (42 instances)

no chronological order!!:

1. Israeli Mossad warned the US a week in advance

Numerous sources in Jerusalem and the UK published reports from Israel that the Mossad had sent a major warning to the CIA a week prior to the 9/11 terror attack that "large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent." The CIA claims they get these all the time and didn’t take it seriously. Now the CIA is issuing daily warnings and they expect us to take them seriously!

2. The FBI was tracking at least two of the terrorists

According to the LA Times, the FBI was tracking at least two of the hijackers prior to the event and failed to notify airlines. If the names of Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhamzi had been passed to the airlines, they would not have been able to buy tickets on that fateful day.

3. Financial speculators shorted airline stocks before the crash

The New York Times reported the findings of Ernest Welteke (German Bundesbank) that "There have been fundamental movements in these markets (airline stocks) and the oil price rise just ahead of the attacks is otherwise inexplicable." The US government claims to be investigating who placed these massive short positions, but have not reported any findings. Experts say it would take less than 1 hour to track these transactions down. Why the silence?


INSIDER TRADING
"...insider trading that occurred before the attacks involved only companies hit hard by the attacks. They include United Airlines, American Airlines, Morgan Stanley, Merrill-Lynch, Axa Reinsurance, Marsh & McLennan, Munich Reinsurance, Swiss Reinsurance, and Citigroup...


4. Certain VIPs were warned against travel

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Mayor Brown was called eight hours before the attack and warned that "Americans should be cautious in their travel." (I consider this a general warning only since none of the planes involved were on the West Coast).
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ar...229389.DTL

Author Salman Rushdie (who has written anti-Islamic works) was warned by the FAA on Sept. 3 not to fly to Canada and the US, according to the London Times.
He was scheduled to be on Minnesota Public Radio's book club "Talking Volumes" on September 11th. It was scrubbed for obvious reasons.

access.mpr.org/support/ma...umesb.html

5. Certain military bases and overseas embassies were put on high alert

The Defense Language Institute in Monterey was put on alert prior to the attacks, as well as some overseas embassies and military bases. This is not definitive evidence, as there are other reasons for going on alert, but one has to question why the public was not warned.

6. CIA had advance warning of a plot to destroy buildings with hijacked airliners

I reported previously on Project Bojinka--the code name of a terrorist plot uncovered in the Philippines (where there are numerous Islamic terrorist activities). The CIA failed to surveil any fight schools in anticipation of this threat.

7. Suppression of Flight School warnings by higher authority in the FBI

According to wire services, FBI agents in Minneapolis, MN arrested Zacarias Moussaoui, an Algerian with French citizenship, on immigration charges. He was arrested after a tip from a local flight school that reported that the suspect wanted to be trained in flying a large jet aircraft, but said that he did not want to take the time to learn how to take off or land. The FBI knew he was a terrorist on French watch lists, but refused to pursue the case or issue search warrants on orders from higher authority, according to Phil Brennan of NewsMax.com (Oct 8, 2001) and David Schippers (see below).

8. David Schippers’ Evidence--Government suppression of intelligence:

David Schippers was the former Democratic Chicago lawyer brought in by the Republicans to impeach Clinton. He wrote the book Sellout afterwards, which documented his experience and detailed how the Republican leadership sabotaged the impeachment to help get Clinton off. He was particularly incensed that they refused to let him present the more damaging evidence about Clinton’s treasonous collusion with China. The following are excerpts from his interview with Alex Jones of Infowars.com. Alex Jones (AJ) begins by asking Schippers (DS) how his involvement in these charges of government prior knowledge of terrorism began. He explains that it surfaced as he received information about the various "john doe" accomplices to Timothy McVeigh who were of Middle Eastern origin and who appeared to have past links to Iraq and Osama bin Laden.

9.
Dan Rather interviews FEMA team leader, who arrived in New York the night BEFORE 9/11!
www.whatreallyhappened.com/fema.rm

10.

www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170583.html
27 Sep 2001, 11:48 AM CST
"..Alex Diamandis, vice president of sales and marketing, confirmed that workers in Odigo's research and development and international sales office in Israel received a warning from another Odigo user approximately two hours prior to the first attack.

Diamandis said the sender of the instant message was not personally known to the Odigo employees. Even though the company usually protects the privacy of users, the employees recorded the Internet protocol address of the message's sender to facilitate his or her identification.

Soon after the terrorist attacks on New York, the Odigo employees notified their management, who contacted Israeli security services. In turn, the FBI was informed of the instant message warning. FBI officials were not immediately available for comment today..."


NOTE: There are ties from Odigo to Richard Perles (Top Advisor Pentagon/Wolfowitz Cabal) company HOLLINGER INC.!!

11
Timeline proves that war was planned since 3, 4 years

12.
Another timeline proves, that various companies worked on Anti-Antrax vaccines (e.G. Bioport in a 3 year plane since 199

13.
Member of TV Clubhouse (www.bigbrotherfanclub.com) with a full Profile in her settings:
Jeannenjim
Tuesday, September 11, 2001 - 03:32 pm

"..I heard earlier today they knew this was coming ... I have a brother who lives and works close to the Wright/Patterson Air Force base in Dayton...The company he works for said the officials at W/P advised them to send home all employees... stating W/P was to be target number 6 and they have known this since last night.."


14.

www.bizreport.com/article...&width=800
Thursday, September 13, 2001
Echelon Gave Authorities Warning Of Attacks

by Ned Stafford
"..according to a story in Germany's daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).
The FAZ, quoting unnamed German intelligence sources, said that the Echelon spy network was being used to collect information about the terrorist threats, and that U.K. intelligence services apparently also had advance warning. The FAZ, one of Germany's most respected dailies, said that even as far back as six months ago western and near-east press services were receiving information that such attacks were being planned.


15.

www.theage.com.au/news/wo...P02SC.html
"..Italian Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini spoke on Italian television of parallels between the attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and warnings received before the Genoa meeting.

"Many people joked about the Italian Intelligence Force," Mr Fini said. "But actually they had information that in Genoa
there was the hypothesis of an attack on the American President with the use of an airplane.
That is why we closed the air space above Genoa and installed anti-aircraft missiles.
Those who joked should now reflect."


16.
The most specific warning that bin Laden planned an attack apparently came from Egyptian intelligence sources.
In his interview with Le Figaro, published last week, Mr Mubarak said:
"We had communicated to the Americans certain information from the video made by bin Laden on June 13.
It spoke of assassinating President Bush and other heads of state in Rome.
It was a question of an airplane stuffed with explosives. These precautions then had been taken."

However, people who have viewed the tape say it contains no reference to a plane stuffed with explosives,
no specific threat to kill Mr Bush and no mention of an attack by aircraft.

Mr Mubarak added that "no one had imagined that Boeings filled with passengers would be crashed against the buildings.."


17.
www.ferris.edu/torch/Opin...26-01.html

"..Israeli newspaper, Yadiot Ahranot, claimed Israeli General Security barred Premier Ariel Sharon from
speaking at a festival in New York on Sept. 11. Another paper, Ha'aretz, claimed the FBI arrested five Israelis who,
according to FBI spokesperson Sherri Evanina, were shouting "cries of joy and mockery"
while videotaping the burning Twin Towers. The suspects had been missing for several days prior to the attack and
were to be deported.

Ha'aretz also claimed that Mossad warned U.S. of an impending terrorist attack by bin Laden on American soil.
Of course, only monsters would allow the killing of their own people for political motivations.
It seems this dog plays old tricks. Back in 1941, Roosevelt either planned or allowed the bombing of Pearl Harbor..."

(..to be doublechecked with Ha'Aretz and Yadiot Ahranot)


18.
WASHINGTON - The Mossad warned the United States last month that as many as 200 terrorists
linked to Osama bin Laden were slipping into the country to prepare a "major assault on the United States,"
The Los Angeles Times reported on 20th of September.
The warning to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency
was apparently not acted upon because U.S. authorities have said they had "no specific warning"
of last week's suicide bombings at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon
Source: Ferris.Edu (i couldn't find the LA Times Report anymore)

19.

www.google.com/search?q=W...gle+Search
"...Of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, the SAMS (The Army's School of Advanced Military Studies) officers
say: 'Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target US
forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.'" ("US troops
would enforce peace under Army study," Washington Times, Sept.. 10, 2001, pg. A1, 9.) Just 24 hours after this story appeared, the Pentagon was hit and the Arabs were being blamed..."

The story can't be find in the webarchive of Washigton Post.


20.
The Zacarias Massoui Alert:


www.startribune.com/stori...13687.html
Eagan flight trainer wouldn't let unease about Moussaoui rest
Greg Gordon
Star Tribune

Published Dec 21 2001

WASHINGTON, D.C. --
"..When a Twin Cities flight instructor phoned the FBI last August to alert the agency that a terrorist might be taking lessons to fly a jumbo jet, he did it in a dramatic way:

"Do you realize how serious this is?" the instructor asked an FBI agent. "This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon!"

"...In July, the indictment says, Moussaoui made credit card payments toward Pan Am's $19,000 course in piloting a Boeing 747. Between Aug. 1 and Aug. 3, it says, he received a $14,000 wire transfer from the same figure in Germany alleged to have sent money to the hijackers. Arriving at the Eagan school on Aug. 10, Moussaoui gave a school official $6,300 in cash..."

"...Jerry Snyder, an FAA spokesman in Los Angeles, said he could not comment because the matter is under investigation..."


note: SOME WIRES came from Dusseldorf at exactly the same time, when Musharraf was in Pakistan. Later it came out that the ISI wired 100000 to M. Atta.
On October 7th therefore ISi chief Mammoud had to resign and the retaliation started on same day.


20b/21
The french intelligence service warned about Zacarias Massoui and a possible attack on america, which was once again ignored by CIA

detnews.com/2001/nation/0...309216.htm

www.wsws.org/articles/200...-n20.shtml
"..Insider accounts published in the British, French and Indian media have revealed that US officials threatened war against Afghanistan during the summer of 2001. These reports include the prediction, made in July, that “if the military action went ahead, it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.”

At " Bin Laden, the forbidden truth"
forums.delphiforums.com/n...1&search=y

we reported about the authors Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie
www.intelligenceonline.com/p_index.asp who released their book
"Bin Laden - la verite interdite" (Bin Laden-The forbidden truth) :



22.
NA commander Moussad was killed on Sep7th. Prior Knowledge?
The FBI tried to blame this in April 2002 on a postal worker from NY and two belgish journalists. Other 911 skeptics think, the ISI killed Moussad.

23.


www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ar...145401.DTL
FBI ignored attack warning
Flight instructor told agency of terror suspect's plan

Philip Shenon, New York Times Saturday, December 22, 2001

Washington --

"..An instructor at a Minnesota flight school warned the FBI in August of his suspicion that a student who was later identified as a part of Osama bin Laden's terror network might be planning to use a commercial plane loaded with fuel as a weapon, a member of Congress and other officials said yesterday.


24.
UBL in Dubai with CIA

"..* According to various Arab diplomatic sources and French intelligence itself, precise information was communicated to the CIA concerning terrorist attacks aimed at American interests in the world, including its own territory.."

* Extremely bothered, they requested from their French peers exact details about the Algerian activists , without explaining the exact nature of their inquiry. When asked the question, "What do you fear in the coming days?" - the Americans responded with incomprehensible silence.

In july 2001 one CIA officer named Larry Mitchell visited Bin Laden at a kidney operation in an american hospital in Dubai.

The author of the story was Richard Labevierre, who released in 2000 the book "terror dollars" about illegal Al-Quaeda accounts. He has a serious status in europe.

Within a few hours after the release of the Dubai Story the director of the hospital responded twice.
First he denied the story,in another statement he said, he asked his stuff.


25.


news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english...550366.stm
Tuesday, 18 September, 2001, 11:27 GMT 12:27 UK
US 'planned attack on Taleban'

The wider objective was to oust the Taleban

By the BBC's George Arney
"..A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.
Bin Laden would have been "killed or captured"


26.

On November 30th, GZ reported:

The CIA is searching for "..Sheikh Saiid, 33, a bon vivant who has funded al- Qaeda by £200 million a year, was thought to have flown to Afghanistan on the eve of the attacks in America..."

www.thetimes.co.uk/articl...99,00.html

On this article is claimed that they just found out, that Saiid "..is believed to have helped to finance al-Qaeda in Africa, where it was behind the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania..."

The Times revealed now more about a Dubai connection:
"..Saiid had left his departure late but he knew the precise timings for the attacks and had to wait until the hijackers sent back the money they had not used in the United States..."

"..The suspicion is that Saiid may have stayed in Pakistan until he felt it was safe enough to fly back to the Middle East. He may have returned through an airport such as Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, where security is not regarded as thorough Saiid is believed to have access to a number of passports under various aliases and has no shortage of rich contacts who could provide shelter. He is never photographed and was not one of the 22 named on the FBI’s most wanted list released last month.."


Furthermore:
"..US investigators told USA Today that Saiid acquired Visa credit cards for three of the hijackers which the men used to pay for their airline tickets over the Internet. He also wired up to £70,000 to a branch of the SunTrust bank in Florida so that the men could pay for their living expenses, flight school tuition and airline tickets..."

On September 8, Saiid was captured on a security camera visiting a Federal Express office in Dubai.

Please read also about more "Dubai Connections" at
"A war in the planning for 4 years" (Conspiracy/Legends)
at forums.delphiforums.com/n...&msg=381.1


27.

The MI5 had prior knowledge about an attack since the end of last year, but a delay in intelligence occured.
Please read the latest updates at
"Massaoui-Richard Reid-MI5 connection"
forums.delphiforums.com/n...d=&msg=628

28.

JEB BUSH:

special order for "civil disturbances" was indeed "affixed at Tallahassee, the Capitol, this 7th day of September 2001."

Source: sun6.dms.state.fl.us/eog_...07-01.html

EXECUTIVE ORDER NUMBER 01-261 contained:

"..the Florida National Guard must conduct such training in active service of the state, as defined by Section 250.27, Florida Statutes (also known as active military service and state active duty) for members of the Florida National Guard to be covered by Section 250.34, Florida Statutes; and

WHEREAS, as Governor, I may delegate the authority contained in Section 250.06(4), Florida Statutes, to order training to help respond to civil disturbances, natural disasters, and counter drug operations to The Adjutant General of the State of Florida;..."


Other sceptics already wondered about that coincidence at:

www.miamidrum.com/executiveorder.html :

"..Was the Florida Gov. forewarned of an attack on the World Trade Center?"

www.seebo.net/martiallawfla.html :

"..On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, Pres. "G.W." Bush was in a Sarasota, Florida classroom reading a story about a pet goat when his Chief of Staff whispered in his ear about the WTC "terrorism". Rather than attend to this national disaster, "G.W." continues to read the goat story to these second grade children and then, 30 minutes later, makes a brief statement to the press. More about this odd behavior can be read at The Obscure Goat Story..." (209.123.142.199/lawgiver/911.asp)


www.rense.com/general14/jebdeclared.htm :

"..Jeb Declared Martial Law In FL On 9-7 Dubya's Obscure 'Goat Story'.."


BUBBLING UNDER:

Ziad Jarrah wasn't on CIA watch list, but on a police video:

Ziad Jarrah :
"..According to motel records, a man by that name used a credit card to pay for a late August stay at the Pin Del motel in Laurel, Md., where Nawaq Alhamzi stayed in September. Jarrah gave a Florida address and driver's license number when he registered at the motel..."

www.wbz.com/now/story/0,1...4,00.shtml
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2001
Thursday, September 27, 2001 - 08:50 PM ET


29.

The Arkeh Warning:

www.nypost.com/seven/0107.../38382.htm

FLA. INMATE SAYS FEDS IGNORED HIS N.Y. WARNING

By WILLIAM NEUMAN
January 7, 2002 --

"...A Florida inmate claims he warned the FBI last summer that al Qaeda was planning a terror attack on New York - but his words were ignored.
"I told them something big was going to happen in New York City," Walid Arkeh, 35, said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel.

Arkeh, a Jordanian citizen, claims he became friendly in a British prison with three alleged al Qaeda militants accused of plotting the 1998 bombings at two American embassies in Africa.

Arkeh was convicted in Florida two years ago of dealing in stolen goods and slapping his daughter. To escape deportation, he fled to England, where he was picked up and held in prison for 10 months before being sent back to the United States in July, the Sentinel reported.



30.

The evacuation test in the WTC- prior knowledge?

people.aol.com/people/spe...-5,00.html
September 12, 2001
"..Over the past few weeks we'd been evacuated a number of times, which is unusual..:

"..Ben Fountain, 42, a financial analyst with Fireman's Fund, was coming out of the Chambers Street Station, headed for his office on the 47th floor of the south tower.

How could they let this happen? They knew this building was a target. Over the past few weeks we'd been evacuated a number of times, which is unusual. I think they had an inkling something was going on..."

31.

DU-member observation:

From "Maine Mary" (494 posts!) at democraticunderground.com
Jan-19-02, 10:09 AM (ET)
"..You know how we've all wondered if maybe the Bush administration had some advance notice of the terrorist attacks? In fact, didn't German or French Intelligence (can't remember which) report that they had intercepted info to that suggested the attacks would be carried out by Commercial Airline as early as weeks before???

My reason for revisiting this subject is because of what I personally observed just weeks before the attack and have wondered about ever since....

On August 11th, I brought my daughter to Maine's Portland airport to send her off for a visit with her father in Arizona. I'm very familiar with that particular airport and nothing seemed any different. As usual, I was able to walk right through the baggage check area with her and to the Gate she would leave from.

But everthing was suddenly different when I came to pick her up on August 26th. The most notable was the fact that no one was allowed to wait at the Gate(s). Only people coming from, or going on a flight were allowed through the baggage check area right up to the gate(s). I had never seen Portland do that before and furthermore, it isn't set up well to have so many people say hello or goodbye to their loved ones in the small area we were allowed in.

Another strange thing I noticed was the much larger amount of security personnel milling around, including Portland's City Police Department and their canine unit. At the time, I thought something must have happened that they were called in for. Maybe an unruly passenger on a flight or whatever. But I was there for a good 2 hours because my daughter's flight was delayed and the Portland Police and their dogs just seemed to be wandering around aimlessly the entire time.


32.

John Ashcroft was warned before Sep11th!

www.google.com/search?q=c...tml+&hl=en

Originally:
www.cbsnews.com/now/story...2,00.shtml

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2001


(CBS)
"..Fishing rod in hand, Attorney General John Ashcroft left on a weekend trip to Missouri Thursday afternoon aboard a chartered government jet, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart.

In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.

"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it.

A senior official at the CIA said he was unaware of specific threats against any Cabinet member, and Ashcroft himself, in a speech in California, seemed unsure of the nature of the threat...

..The Justice Department insists that it wasn't Ashcroft who wanted to fly leased aircraft. That idea, they said, came strictly from Ashcroft's FBI security detail. The FBI had no further comment..."


33.

FBI agent
Robert Wright-Is he(or some of his friends?) the deep throat who leaked the Bush-Knowledge as well?

www.newsmax.com/archives/...4339.shtml

Scandal Inside the FBI: Did G-Men Miss the Boat on 9-11?
Wes Vernon
Thurssday, March 14, 2002

WASHINGTON --

"..NewsMax.com has learned that active FBI Special Agent Robert Wright is about to blow the whistle on his superiors for hindering investigations that might have prevented the terrorist attacks of September 11.
Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm, scheduled, then postponed, a press conference for Wednesday where Wright, cloaked in anonymity until now, was going to tell the whole story.


34.


Al-Jazeera US-Website mirror was shutdown by FBI 4 days before Sep11th!
www.newsfactor.com/perl/printer/13407/

FBI Terrorism Task Force Raids Arab Web Hosting Firm

Tim McDonald
September 07, 2001

"..An 80-member FBI terrorism task force on Wednesday and Thursday raided the offices of InfoCom Corporation, a Texas-based company that hosts a broad array of Arab Web sites, including the Arab world's leading news channel.
The FBI said the action was part of a two-year investigation by the North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force, but declined to give specific reasons for the raid on the company in Richardson, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...

.."This is a criminal investigation, not a political investigation," FBI spokesperson Lori Bailey told reporters. "We're hoping to find evidence of criminal activity."

In addition to hosting Arab Web sites, InfoCom sells computer systems and Internet services to Islamic organizations and businesses in the U.S. and Middle East. The company, which said it has 15 full- and part-time employees, denied any links to terrorist groups and said it was cooperating fully in the investigation



35.

Bob Gipson warning:


www.onlinejournal.com/Com...32702.html
Momentum growing for inquiry into "oddities" of September 11
By Joyce Lynn
Online Journal Contributing Writer

March 27, 2002—In January 2000, Bob Gipson of El Dorado County, California, wrote his congressman expressing his fear that the U.S. government would orchestrate a terrorist attack on "certain" U.S. cities and blame the attacks on "Islamic terrorists." Gipson told Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Ca) he thought the "operation" would be a platform for declaring martial law in the U.S.

When the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks occurred on September 11, 2001, Gipson had a sickening feeling this was the event he feared.


36.

Delmart Vreelands warning letter? Bogus or another early warning?

37.

"...Why did Bush toss the 2.5 year study and recommendations done by the Hart-Rudman Commission on Ntl. Security aside in January, 2001 instead turning the issue over to Cheney and FEMA?..."

(*Thx to Triana, DU)


38.

The "lost" warning?- Pentagon on High Alert on Sep10th!
www.msnbc.com/news/629606...w13b2#BODY

Sept. 24 issue

"...In late June the CIA warned of possible terrorist action against U.S. targets, including those in the United States, for the Fourth of July. Nothing happened, but then in July the agency again warned about possible attacks overseas. The threat seemed grave enough to force U.S. ships in Middle Eastern ports to head for sea. Three weeks ago there was another warning that a terrorist strike might be imminent.

But there was no mention of where. On Sept. 10, NEWSWEEK has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns...."


39.
What did Tommy Franks know?

May 16th, 2001
========================================================
British newspaper The Guardian: According to it, a U.S. department of defense official, Dr. Jeffrey Starr, visited Tajikistan in January, and U.S. Rangers were training special troops in Kyrgyzstan. The head of the current Afghan war, General Tommy Franks, visited Dushanbe on May 16, 2001, calling Tajikistan "a strategically significant country."

www.centrexnews.com/
David Leigh, "Attack and counter-attack," The Guardian, September 26, 2001.

www.guardian.co.uk/Archiv...45,00.html


40.

The Arizona connection:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp...2May3.html

WASHINGTON ––

May 3rd, 2002

"...Two months before the suicide hijackings, an FBI agent in Arizona alerted Washington headquarters that several Middle Easterners were training at a U.S. aviation school and
recommended contacting other schools nationwide where Arabs might be studying, law enforcement officials said.

The FBI sent the intelligence to its terrorism experts in Washington and New York for analysis and had begun discussing conducting a nationwide canvass of flight schools when the Sept. 11 tragedies occurred, officials told The Associated Press.

At least one leader of the 19 hijackers, Hani Hanjour, received flight training in Arizona in 2001 but his name had not surfaced in the FBI intelligence from Arizona, the officials said.

41.
FINALLY:

BREAKING NEWS on May 15th 2002 since 9PM :
Bush knew in advance since August 2001 from the CIA about a possible hijack attack with planes


MORE QUESTIONS:

What did ENRON know? Or UNOCAL? Or DynCorp, Carlyle, Harken, UNOCAL, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Richard Armitage, Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, Hopkins Institute, Fort Detrick etc...

Why did Bush assistant really resign?

WAS 911 A SETUP organised by CIA/Pentagon with help pf ISI and a lot more. How much is the Wolfowitz Cabal involved?
Was Afghanistan (with the important oil pipeline a warmup war for Iraq and disbaling civil rights and install more control systems and selling weapons worlwide)

!!!!!!?????? (I SAY: YES!)

(GZ knows also about another military connected company on high alert on Sep10th, but had to put this story on hold....maybe soon to be revealed)

WHY DID BUSH LIE? Who lied too? Cheney, Ashcroft etc...?

Please check out "activist" -folder "Operation 911-skeptics" with "Top 500 FAQ". Send this list with 41 early warnings/prior knowledge to everyone. This is our biggest chance since months to get the snowball running......


PS:
Still forgot some warnings/prior knowledges in this list
42) ..by mayor from russia...

While researching US vetoes of UN resolutions I came on the name Dag
Hammarskjöld on the UN website and thought, why not try a google search on
Dag+cia?

Man, it never fails! as if the CIA really is responsible for all the dirt
in this world - like a sort of Devil's Plenopotentiary.

This is what came up - in 1998, South Africa's Truth Commission, which
investigates crimes of apartheid, found documentation that the CIA and MI5
murdered Hammarskjöld :

http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/980829-truth.html

CIA and MI5 linked to Hammarskjöld death
   by MARLENE BURGER

Capetown: Documents the Truth Commission stumbled across linking South
African agents to the airline death of UN chief Dag Hammarskjöld, also
reveal that the project was hatched at the highest levels of the CIA and MI5.

The alleged plot to assassinate United Nations secretary general Dag
Hammarskjöld 37 years ago was the brainchild of at least two British
security agencies — MI5 and the Special Operations Executive — and the CIA,
top-secret documents show.

For once, apartheid's dirty tricks brigade appears to have been falsely
accused of involvement in the murder.

A series of messages between a commodore and a captain, whose names have
been expunged by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, point to a plot
hatched on South African soil by a group which had access to vast amounts
of money and the ability to muster mercenary forces to protect
international investment in turbulent post-colonial Africa.

The messages, all on letterheads of the South Africa Institute for Maritime
Research (SAIMR), cover the period from July 1960 to September 17 1961 —
the day on which Hammarskjöld's aircraft crashed while approaching the
airport at Ndola in the then Northern Rhodesia.

In addition to outlining Operation Celeste — the plan to get rid of the
"troublesome" Hammarskjöld — the documents implicate the SAIMR and
international intelligence agencies in the death of Patrice Lumumba, the
pro-communist first president of the Congo. Lumumba was deposed in
September 1960 and allegedly shot while escaping from custody in the
breakaway province of Katanga in 1961.

The documents, found by a truth commission researcher investigating an
apparently unrelated matter, implicate then CIA chief Allen Dulles in
Operation Celeste. They also claim that the explosives used for the bomb
that downed the aircraft were supplied by a Belgian mining conglomerate,
Union Miniere. The company had extensive interests in copper-rich Katanga,
and is known to have backed to Tshombe's use of mercenaries, including the
group led by South Africa's Colonel "Mad Mike" Hoare.

The most damning report refers to a meeting between MI5, Special Operations
Executive, the CIA and the SAIMR at which it was recorded that Dulles
"agrees ... Dag is becoming troublesome and ... should be removed".
According to the documents, Dulles "has promised full co-operation from his
people ... Dag will be in Leopoldville on or about 12/9/61. The aircraft
ferrying him will be a DC6 in the livery of [Swedish company] Transair."

The captain is ordered to "see that Leo airport [Leopoldville, now
Kinshasa] as well as Elizabethville [now Lubumbashi] is covered by your
people, as I want his removal to be handled more efficiently than was
Patrice [Lumumba]".

The first message is dated July 12 1960, less than two weeks after the
Congo became independent: “Head office is rather concerned with
developments in the Congo, particularly the Haute Katanga, where it appears
the local strongman Moise Tshombe, supported by Union Miniere, is planning
a secession." The writer claims to "have it on good authority that the UNO
[United Nations Organisation] will want to get its greedy paws on the
province”. He says he has been instructed to ask the captain "to send as
many agents as you think would be needed to bolster Congo Red's unit in
case of future problems".

Civil war broke out in the Congo four days after independence, and Tshombe
announced Katanga's secession on July 11. The commodore records this in his
next message, sent on July 15, the day UN troops arrived at Lumumba's request.

The next orders inform the captain: "Your contact with CIA is Dwight. He
will be residing at Hotel Leopold II in Elizabethville from now until
November 1 1961. The password is: ‘How is Celeste these days?' His response
should be: 'She's recovering nicely apart from the cough.'"
Hammarskjöld's death appears to have been part of an attempt to prevent
Katanga's mineral wealth from falling under communist control.

On September 14 1961, a message couriered to the SAIMR's offices in De
Villiers Street, Johannesburg, recorded: "DC6 aircraft bearing Transair
livery is parked at Leo to be used for transport of subject. Our technician
has orders to plant 6lb TNT in the wheelbay with contact detonator to
activate as wheels are retracted on taking off."

An earlier message records that "Union Miniere has offered to provide
logistic or other support. We have told them to have 6lb of TNT at all
possible locations with detonators, electrical contacts and wiring,
batteries, etc."

A report dated September 17 records: "Device failed on take-off, and the
aircraft crashed a few hours later as it prepared to land." An official
inquiry blamed pilot error.

The documents have been dismissed as fakes by a former Swedish diplomat,
and both MI5 and the CIA have denied any involvement in Hammarskjöld's
death. However, they bear a striking resemblance to other documents
emanating from the SAIMR seven years ago, when it was headed by self-styled
commodore Keith Maxwell-Annandale and forged links with both South Africa's
military intelligence and the National Intelligence Services. These
documents show the SAIMR masterminded the abortive 1981 attempt to depose
Seychelles president Albert René. It was also behind a successful 1990 coup
in Somalia.

Source : Electronic Mail&Guardian, August 28, 1998.
http://www.mg.co.za/mg/news/
=================
a source in the German language also cites Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who
forwarded the documents to the government; however, the Commission was not
able to determine their authenticity. (Note, of course, that 1961 was just one
year before the JFK murder, during the CIA's assassination heyday.)
Another difference is that it calls SAIMR a front for the South African secret
services, so South Africa is not exonerated in the German version.

http://home.t-online.de/home/dkp.hessen/jugoslawien/dag-hammarskjoeld-mord.htm

Beweise für ein Mordkomplott gegen Dag Hammarskjöld

Bischof Tutu über Erkenntnisse der südafrikanischen Wahrheitskommission

KAPSTADT (afp). Der 1961 bei einem Flugzeugabsturz ums Leben gekommene
UNO-Generalsekretär Dag Hammarskjöld ist nach Erkenntnissen der
südafrikanischen Wahrheitskommission einem Mordkomplott Südafrikas, der USA
und Großbritanniens zum Opfer gefallen. Die Wahrheitskommission habe
Beweise dafür gefunden, daß die Geheimdienste der drei Länder den bisher
ungeklärten Absturz zu verantworten hatten, bei dem Hammarskjöld während
einer Vermittlungsmission in der Kongokrise ums Leben kam. Das sagte der
Vorsitzende des Gremiums, Erzbischof Desmond Tutu, am Mittwoch in Kapstadt.
Das britische Außenministerium wies diese Darstellung umgehend zurück. Die
Maschine war am 17. September 1961 im Anflug auf den Flughafen Ndola im
heutigen Sambia abgestürzt, wo der UNO-Generalsekretär den kongolesischen
Rebellenführer Moise Tschombe treffen sollte.

Aus den Dokumenten geht Tutu zufolge hervor, daß der amerikanische
Geheimdienst CIA, der britische MI5 und ein Institut für Meeresforschung -
vermutlich eine Tarneinrichtung des südafrikanischen Geheimdienstes in das
Komplott verwickelt waren. Die Erkenntnisse basierten auf einem kodierten
Briefwechsel zweier Marineoffiziere. Darin stehe unter anderem, daß die
Rolle der Vereinten Nationen in Kongo als störend empfunden wurde und
Hammarskjöld deshalb beseitigt werden sollte. Der linksgerichtete
UNO-Generalsekretär unterstützte damals Tschombes Bemühungen um eine
Abspaltung der reichen Provinz Katanga vom restlichen Kongo. Dagegen
sträubten sich die USA, Großbritannien und Südafrika.

Einer der Offiziere verlangte demnach, die Beseitigung Hammarskjölds solle
effizienter ausgeführt werden als die von "Patrice". Er bezog sich dabei
offenbar auf die der CIA zugeschriebene Ermordung des damaligen
sozialistischen Präsidenten des Kongo, Patrice Lumumba. In einem weiteren
Brief hieß es, daß drei Kilogramm TNT-Sprengstoff am Fahrgestell des
Flugzeugs angebracht werden sollten. Die Bombe sollte beim Einfahren der
Räder nach dem Start explodieren. In einem späteren Schreiben stand, das
habe nicht funktioniert, vielmehr sei sie beim Ausfahren der Räder vor der
Landung explodiert.

Nach den Worten Tutus leitete die Kommission die Unterlagen dem
südafrikanischen Justizministerium zu. Die Wahrheitskommission, habe ihre
Echtheit nicht überprüfen können, sagte der Erzbischof.

(Darmstädter Echo, 20.8.1998)

Stand: 2.10.1999

Hey gang!!

Let's play a game, shall we?


What kind of game you say?


Well, EVERY single time you see a mainstream report about "the 9/11
hijackers," check their names against the list of the 7-8 who are reported
by mainstream sources as still alive,

Waleed Alshehri
Abdul aziz Alomari
Saeed Alghamdi
Salem Alhazmi
Ahmed Alnami
Adnan Bukhari
Amer Kamfar
Khalid Al-Mihdhar

the one dead,
Ameer Bukhari

and five who, according to official FBI and mainstream photos, are more than
one person:
Khalid Almihdhar,
Hamza Alghamdi
Majed Moqed
Ahmed Alhaznawi
Ziad Jarrah

See Paul Thompson's "Jarrah" article.
http://www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/AAjarrah.html

Checking the latest Newsweek "revelation" below, can you spot the unknown,
possible imposter?

Yup, that's right, it's Khalid Almihdhar. Possibly alive, definitely more
than one person. But who cares? -when there's a story to sell? -I mean,
tell.


("What do we have for our lucky contestant Johnny?" Well Bob, for this
overly-inquisitive mind we have a certificate for three free
shock-treatments." [applause])


Now in this case, the possible false identification of one of the terrorists
does not appear to take away from the significance of the story, (unless, of
course, we look at it closely, then the laughs really begin).

Do you see what the story REALLY says?: "the informant never provided the
bureau with the names of his two houseguests from Saudi Arabia."

Oh,... right. So... the INFORMANT is the one who really screwed up, right? I
mean, yes, the bureau SHOULD have paid closer attention to whom their
informant was associating with; but really, the INFORMANT was the most to
blame, not the FBI. Right? I mean, why didn't he tell them? Neither does the
bureau suspect the informant kept anything from them. Gosh, how forgiving.
Everyone's a little to blame, huh?

So here we have an article which starts off with a "revelation" about FBI
bumbling, and turns out to be rather insignificant.

Troubling.... but doesn't it seem that the FBI/media is being so forthcoming
with us, that even INSIGNIFICANT stories of ineptitude are being reported?
Hmmm....
'Yes, we sure do need another commission like the WARREN COMMISSION, don't
we?'
Hmmmm...

Net result?

Nice, clean damage-control.

Technique of choice?

Premptive-strike.

First acknowledge the screw-up, (in dribs and drabs) so as to diffuse the
questions.

Newsweek says,
"In the meantime, the CIA was gathering more information about just how
potentially dangerous both men were. A few months after the October 2000
bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, CIA analysts discovered --in their
Malaysia file that one of the chief suspects in the Cole attack-- Tawfiq bin
Attash--was present at the "summit" and had been photographed with Almihdhar
and Alhazmi. But it wasn't until Aug. 23, 2001, that the CIA sent out an
urgent cable to U.S. border and law-enforcement agencies identifying the two
men as "possible" terrorists. By then it was too late. The bureau did not
realize the San Diego connection until a few days after 9-11, when the
informant heard the names of the Pentagon hijackers and called his case
agent. "I know those guys," the informant purportedly said, referring to
Almihdhar and Alhazmi. "They were my roommates."

Oh, wouldn't you just love to see the photograph of Almihdhar with Attash
and Alhazmi, then compare it with the one that the "informant" saw. Do you
think they will be the same? Perhaps. Stranger things have happened. And
maybe, in a years time when this story has blown over, it will be safe for
Newseek to find out if the real Almihdhar is still alive. Then maybe we can
call him up and have a laugh over the whole affair.

Till then, I suggest y'all  tape this list of "hijackers" names up on your
fridge, e-mail them to friends who need a laugh or a labotomy; and when you
start reading the newspapers or turn on the TV, you too will see what
endless fun we can have, playing the
where's-the-journalistic-integrity-gone-to game.

enjoy!!


malcontentx



Go To Original

The Informant Who Lived With the Hijackers
By Michael Isikoff
NEWSWEEK

Week of September 16th. Issue

NEWSWEEK has learned that one of the bureau's informants had a close
relationship with two of the hijackers.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/09.13A.newk.infrmt.htm

Did everyone see Donahue last night 9/12?

The author of "Second Front" was on proving that Bush I fabricated the
Iraqi atrocities that convinced Congress to go to war with Iraq in the first
place.

EVERYONE should read "Second Front" and urge others to.  It exposes how
baldly the lies are fabricated.

Bill


>From: dave connors <wef339@...>
>Reply-To: 911list@...
>Subject: [911list] Fwd: Proof ..video FAKE!
>Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 23:43:50 -0700 (PDT)
>
>This PROOF that the latest Usama tape is a fake is
>extremely important and can be used to teach people
>that they are being lied to about 911 to an
>unprecedented degree and that they had better start
>paying attention to what is really going on.It is
>basically a "smoking Gun" proving a coverup and thus
>culability in govt/media! Thus worthy, i believe of
>posting on 911 list! dave
>--- dave connors <wef339@...> wrote:
> > Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 12:16:39 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: dave connors <wef339@...>
> > Subject: Proof ..video FAKE!
> > To: dennis kucinich <info@...>,
> >   Bob McCubbin <bob2046mcc@...>, Cynthia
> > McKinney <cymck@...>,
> >   Mike Piper <piperm@...>,
> >   Rep Trafficant
> > <anthony.traficanti@...>,
> >   int act <answer@...>, angie carlson
> > <angie1@...>,
> >   San Diego <sdiac@...>, marie gunther
> > <marieusa@...>
> >
> > Big problem with the new Bin Laden tape.
> >
> > Here are names of hijackers featured on the tape.
> >
> > Abdul Aziz al-Omari making his will and crowing
> > about his destiny. Ahmed Al-nami, Hamza Al-ghamdi, Ahmed
> > Al-ghamdi and Wail Al-shehri all appear. while a
> > voice over, allegedly that of Bin Laden names the followin
> > guys as ringleaders and prays for their souls.
> > Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Hani Hanjour and Marwan
> > Al-Shehhi.
> >
> > The following alleged five "suicide hijackers" are
> > featured or referenced in the video and are all
> > among the eight or more alleged hijackers who are actually
> > still all very much alive, a fact acknowledged by
> > the FBI's Robert Mueller as long ago as last September,
> > as being either mistakes in police work or cases of
> > mistaken identity. All have been cleared of any
> > involvement whatsoever. All have been interviewed by
> > members of the mainstream Press. Regardless of this,
> > their name and likeness continues to be distributed
> > around the world as being the horrible hijackers of
> > 9/11 and, quel surprise, now guys with the very same
> > names turn up in the latest Bin Laden, make that
> > "You've Been Hadden" video production!
> >
> > -Abdul Aziz al-Omari still ALIVE in Saudi Arabia as
> > long since confirmed by the Saudi Foreign Ministry
> > to the FBI. He's an engineer with Saudi Telecom. He's
> > the guy in the FBI pic. There's another guy by the same
> > guy who is a Saudi pilot. He's also alive. -Ahmed
> > Al-Nami is ALIVE and a administrative supervisor
> > with Saudi Arabian Airlines, in Riyadh. -Wail M.
> > Al-shehri is a Saudi airline pilot and very much ALIVE. -Ziad
> > Samir Jarrah - Alive Lebanese pilot. -Marwan
> > Al-Shehhi - ALIVE in Morrocco
> >
> > Either this is a case of life imitating art (or
> > would that be death imitating art?) or new scriptwriters
> > are desperately needed at Al Jazeera - or wherever these
> > astonishing productions originate from
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! News - Today's headlines
> > http://news.yahoo.com
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! News - Today's headlines
>http://news.yahoo.com
>
>--
>If you want to share pictures, use the calendar, or start a vote
>visit http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/911list
>
>To leave the group, email: 911list-unsubscribe@...




_________________________________________________________________
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http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx


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To leave the group, email: 911list-unsubscribe@...

What's the Real Deal with Saddam and the Bush II Administration?

Question: Why is President George W. Bush so eager to unilaterally invade
and topple Saddam?  The rest of the world believes this is a colossal
mistake. Even U.S. experts such as Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons
inspector in Iraq from 1991-1998, adamantly points out that his UN team
destroyed 95% of Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction and all of the
equipment that is required to build such weapons.  Furthermore, Mr. Ritter
states unequivocally that Saddam has not been able to reconstitute his WMD
program - thanks to the ongoing embargo, and if he were trying to rebuild a
WMD program that we would know about it. The fact is that Iraq does not
pose an immediate, clear and present threat to the United States from WMD.
Period.

The Coming October War with Iraq (interview w/ Scott Ritter  a
"card-carrying Republican")
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/07.25A.wrp.iraq.htm

Short Answer about Iraq: It's all about oil profits and strategic reserve
currency issues

Long Answer about Iraq = OPEC, U.S. Dollar vs. Euro, and the Real Reason
for a War:  "The Federal Reserve's greatest nightmare is that OPEC will
switch its international transactions from a dollar standard to a euro
standard. Iraq actually made this switch last year (when the euro was worth
around 80 cents), and has actually made off like a bandit considering the
dollar's steady depreciation against the euro. The real reason the Bush
administration wants a puppet government in Iraq - or more importantly, the
reason why the corporate-military-industrial network conglomerate wants a
puppet government in Iraq - is so that it will revert back to a dollar
standard and stay that way (while also helping veto any wider OPEC momentum
for the switch from Iran or other members)."

Saddam sealed his fate when he decided to switch to the euro late last
summer - at that point, another manufactured Gulf War become inevitable
under Bush II.  Only the most extreme circumstances could possibly stop
that now and I strongly doubt anything can - short of Saddam getting
replaced with a pliant regime.  Sadly, a lot of innocent people will soon
die to postpone U.S. dollar devaluation pressure, which is basically
inevitable given our $6 trillion National debt.

Otherwise, there's a secondary agenda - although Iraq isn't *necessary* to
that, it's getting folded into the broader Grand Chessboard of geopolitical
affairs. This op-ed at AntiWar fairly well summarizes much of this, at
least the parts immediately relevant to Iraq..

"Neocons Go For The Gold"

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j080702.html

Big Picture Perspective: Everything else aside from the reserve currency
and the Saudi/Iran oil issues (i.e. domestic political issues) is
peripheral and of marginal consequence.  Further, the dollar-euro threat is
powerful enough that they'll rather risk much of the economic backlash in
the short-term to stave off the long-term dollar crash of an OPEC
transaction standard change from dollars to euros.  All of this fits into
the broader Great Game that encompasses Europe, Russia, India, China.   J.R

=========

Now we know the anthrax attacks were not Iraq's, why should we believe any
of the other so-called evidence of an Iraqi threat?

John-

Two points:

1) My electronic copy of War on Freedom has inexplicably disappeared from my
computer files. Have you had any other reports of such a happening? I bought
the hard copy as well, so I have it in book form, but miss it in e-form.
Could you please send another?

2) In looking for your address, I found your posts below. I've communicated
with Carol Broulette, Kyle Hence and -Tom Flocco then called me- my
regarding some of my posts, one of which is included below. I believe we
need the Citizens' Commission now more than ever. And in my opinion, we need
to have some heavy-hitter participants and credibility to avoid no-coverage
news conferences. We are about to be pre-empted by some kind of
establishment-sponsored Blue Ribbon Commission that will deliver a blue
ribbon whitewash.

Best regards,
Jim Baldauf
Austin

Kyle-
Thanks for the invitation to submit candidates for the Citizens' Commission
on Sept. 11th. I completely support your efforts and believe strongly that a
citizens' commission is far better than a congressional or blue ribbon
commission, each of which is likely to produce a blue ribbon whitewash. I
recently corresponded with Carol Broulette about some successes we've
had here in Texas with "Citizens' Commissions" organized to support grass
roots environmental projects. I would be happy to discuss these experiences
with you and your group. I know you are in the early stages of organizing
and
wonder what time frame you are thinking about for the Citizens' Hearings. I
also have some other questions that might arise, as I approach some likely
participants. Perhaps we could talk in person, if you would send me your
phone number or prefer to call me.

I would like to nominate some fellow Texans as candidates:

1.) Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General
      and International Human Rights Activist
2.) Sissy Farenthold, International Human Rights Activist,
      former Chair of the Institute for Policy Studies (D.C.),
      former President of Wells College (N.Y.)
3.) Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate (Northern Ireland)
      and President of the Global Children's Foundation
4. Lana Nelson and father Willie Nelson, founders of  Texans
     United Education Fund, our grass roots environmental group.
5. Rick Abraham, Director of Texans United Education Fund
     and lifelong civil rights, labor and environmental activist

Each of these candidates, amply qualified in his or her own right,
would bring with them certain collateral attributes that would serve
your objectives well. (I attach a news clip of my arrest and lawsuit
victory against governor Bush just prior to the presidential election.
We dared to have a peaceful news conference and demonstration
on the public sidewalk in front of the governor's mansion in Austin.)

Best Wishes and Full Support!

Jim Baldauf
Phone: (512) 250-5894 (H), (512) 517-2663 (Cell)
8014 Scotland Yard
Austin, Texas 78759


----- Original Message -----
From: "John Leonard" <leonardjp@...>
To: <warOnFreedom@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2002 11:16 PM
Subject: Fwd: Re: [WarOnFreedom] contacting congress


Hello Wunjo,
The idea of Citizens Committees sounds great.
Have such committees formed yet?
How many 911 activists are there? Do we still need to work on getting the
word out to the grassroots, or are they enough to start doing media actions?
There are quite a few peace groups still around, anti-Iraq bombing groups
and so on.
Let's link up with them.
I know that sometimes it's a problem to get the press to cover our actions,
like the Unanswered Questions press conference. CSpan was supposed to come
and Ashcroft pulled a terror gambit out of the air and they covered that
instead.
It sounds to me like it might be easier to make posters or placards of the
cover of the book, and noisily demonstrate with those, and never mind tea
and sympathy chez le deputé du peuple.
Or hand-lettered placards, plus take a batch of books, and jab them in the
air and before the cameras.
Never mind returning them, they won't be in shape to sell when it's over!
Donate them to the cops to avoid arrest, if they promise to read them.
I always thought of this book rather like a weapon.
Cheers


>John,
>         the suggestion/idea I presented to Richard Mesek
>was that Citizens Committees make appointments
>with their legislators, present THE WAR ON FREEDOM
>and tell them why they need to read it....not hand the
>book to receptionists or aids....
>
>         I think it's a good idea if the publishers can make a copy
>availble to any such Citizen's group that gets an appointment...either
>before such meetings or as a return-to-the-donor of the copy given to the
>US rep-in-person...
>         I write short-hand assuming everyone was an acitivist against the
>war in Vietnam....
>
>         It seems to me that the more activists can begin thinking in
>terms of bearding-the-lion-in-the-den the better...
>         Senators & Congressment have  built up walls between themselves
>and non-moneyed ordinary citizens which will need to be breached on these
>pressing 911 issues....
>
>         the presence of press either inside at the 'presentation' meeting
>or outside afterward is a given in PR with pols who are damned if they
>let the press in or damned if they keep them out in such confrontations
>with their contstituents....
>          the reasons for the sit-ins in Presidents of University
>offices is there is no other way for students to be heard, let alone
>taken seriously....
>
>         it's worse with Senators and Congressmen when issues that
>threaten their security are at stake....and 911 is a much
>bigger threat to their security than Watergate was....
>
>         people will need to be prepared to be arrested...
>
>         thus our laws are being changed to suit the new Homeland Security
>Department's needs in protecting National Security....re: Status
>Quo....the Power In Place
>will rule by any means necessary....
>
>         asking our elected reps to be accountable to voters on the issues
>surrounding 911 amounts to a threat to "their" National Security...not
>ours....




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media as pillar of the open totalitarian society, or mafiocracy for short

Should we go to war against these children?

John Pilger
Monday 25th March 2002

A compliant press is preparing the ground for an
all-out attack on Iraq. It never mentions the victims:
the young, the old and the vulnerable. --

By John Pilger

The promised attack on Iraq will test free journalism
as never before.  The prevailing media orthodoxy is
that the attack is only a matter of time.  "The
arguments may already be over," says the Observer,
"Bush and Blair have made it clear . . ." The beating
of war drums is so familiar that the echo of the last
round of media tom-toms is still heard, together with
its self-serving "vindication" for having done the
dirty work of great power, yet again.

I have been a reporter in too many places where public
lies have disguised the culpability for great
suffering, from Indochina to southern Africa,
East Timor to Iraq, merely to turn the page or switch
off the news-as-sermon, and accept that journalism has
to be like this - "waiting outside closed doors to be
lied to", as Russell Baker of the New York Times
once put it. The honourable exceptions lift the
spirits. One piece by Robert Fisk will do that,
regardless of his subject. An eyewitness report
from Palestine by Peter Beaumont in the Observer
remains in the memory, as singular truth, along with
Suzanne Goldenberg's brave work for the Guardian.

The pretenders, the voices of Murdochism and
especially the liberal ciphers of rampant western
power can rightly say that Pravda never published a
Fisk.  "How do you do it?" asked a Pravda editor,
touring the US with other Soviet journalists at the
height of the cold war. Having read all the papers and
watched the TV, they were astonished to find that all
the foreign news and opinions were more or less the
same. "In our country, we put people in prison, we
tear out their fingernails to achieve this result?
What's your secret?"

The secret is the acceptance, often unconscious, of an
imperial legacy: the unspoken rule of reporting whole
societies in terms of their usefulness to western
"interests" and of minimising and obfuscating the
culpability of "our" crimes. "What are 'we' to
do?" is
the unerring media cry when it is rarely asked who
"we" are and what "our" true agenda is, based on
a
history of conquest and violence. Liberal
sensibilities may be offended, even shocked by modern
imperial double standards, embodied in Blair; but the
invisible boundaries of how they are reported are not
in dispute. The trail of blood is seldom followed; the
connections are not made; "our" criminals, who kill
and collude in killing large numbers of human beings
at a safe distance, are not named, apart from an
occasional token, like Kissinger.

A long series of criminal operations by the American
secret state, identified and documented, such as the
conspiracy that oversaw the "forgotten" slaughter of
up to a million people in Indonesia in 1965-66,
amount to more deaths of innocent people than died in
the Holocaust.  But this is irrelevant to present-day
reporting. The tutelage of hundreds of tyrants,
murderers and torturers by "our" closest ally,
including the training of Islamic jihad fanatics in
CIA camps in Virginia and Pakistan, is of no
consequence. The harbouring in the United States of
more terrorists than probably anywhere on earth,
including hijackers of aircraft and boats from Cuba,
controllers of El Salvadorean death squads and
politicians named by the United Nations as complicit
in genocide, is clearly of no interest to those
standing in front of the White House and reporting,
with a straight face, "America's war on terrorism".
That George Bush Sr, former head of the CIA and
president, is by any measure of international law one
of the modern era's greatest prima facie war
criminals, and his son's illegitimate administration a
product of this dynastic mafia, is unmentionable.

The rest of the answer to the incredulous question
raised by the Pravda editors in America is censorship
by omission. Once vital information illuminates the
true aims of the "national security state", the
euphemism for the mafia state, it loses media
"credibility" and is consigned to the margins, or
oblivion. Thus, fake debates can be carried on in the
British Sunday newspapers about whether "we" should
attack Iraq. The debaters, often proud liberals with
an equally proud record of supporting Washington's
other invasions, guard the limits.

These "debates" are framed in such a way that Iraq is
neither a country nor a community of 22 million human
beings, but one man, Saddam Hussein. A picture of the
fiendish tyrant almost always dominates the page.
("Should we go to war against this man?" asked last
Sunday's Observer). To appreciate the power of this,
replace the picture with a photograph of stricken
Iraqi infants, and the headline with: "Should we go to
war against these children?" Propaganda then becomes
truth. Any attack on Iraq will be executed, we can
rest assured, in the American way, with saturation
cluster bombing and depleted uranium, and the victims
will be the young, the old, the vulnerable, like the
5,000 civilians who are now reliably estimated
to have been bombed to death in Afghanistan. As for
the murderous Saddam Hussein, former friend of Bush Sr
and Thatcher, his escape route is almost certainly
assured.

The column inches now devoted to Iraq, often featuring
unnamed manipulators and liars of the intelligence
services, almost always omit one truth.  This is the
truth of the American- and British-driven embargo on
Iraq, now in its 13th year. Hundreds of thousands of
people, mostly children, have died as a consequence of
this medieval siege. The worst, most tendentious
journalism has sought to denigrate the scale of this
crime, even calling the death of Iraqi infants a mere
"statistical construct". The facts are
documented in international study after study, from
the United Nations to Harvard University. (For a
digest of the facts, see Dr Eric Herring's Bristol
University paper "Power, Propaganda and Indifference:
an explanation of the continued imposition of economic
sanctions on Iraq despite their human cost", available
from [eric.herring@...])

Among those now debating whether the Iraqi people
should be cluster-bombed or not, incinerated or not,
you are unlikely to find the names of Denis Halliday
and Hans von Sponeck, who have done the most to break
through the propaganda. No one knows the potential
human cost better than they. As assistant secretary
general of the UN, Halliday started the oil-for-food
programme in Iraq. Von Sponeck was his successor.
Eminent in their field of caring for other human
beings, they resigned their long UN careers, calling
the embargo "genocide".

Their last appearance in the press was in the Guardian
last November, when they wrote: "The most recent
report of the UN secretary general, in October
2001, says that the US and UK governments' blocking of
$4bn of humanitarian supplies is by far the greatest
constraint on the implementation of the oil- for-food
programme. The report says that, in contrast, the
Iraqi government's distribution of humanitarian
supplies is fully satisfactory ... The death of some
5-6,000 children a month is mostly due to contaminated
water, lack of medicines and malnutrition. The US and
UK governments' delayed clearance of equipment and
materials is responsible for this tragedy, not
Baghdad."

They are in no doubt that if Saddam Hussein saw
advantage in deliberately denying his people
humanitarian supplies, he would do so; but the UN,
from the secretary general himself down, says that,
while the regime could do more, it has not withheld
supplies. Indeed, without Iraq's own rationing
and distribution system, says the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation, there would have been
famine. Halliday and von Sponeck point out that
the US and Britain are able to fend off criticism of
sanctions with unsubstantiated stories that the regime
is "punishing" its own people.  If these stories are
true, they say, why does America and Britain further
punish them by deliberately withholding humanitarian
supplies, such as vaccines, painkillers and cancer
diagnostic equipment? This wanton blocking of
UN-approved shipments is rarely reported in the
British press. The figure is now almost $5bn in
humanitarian-related supplies. Once again, the UN
executive director of the oil-for-food programme has
broken
diplomatic silence to express "grave concern at the
unprecedented surge in volume of holds placed on
contracts [by the US]".

By ignoring or suppressing these facts, together with
the scale of a four-year bombing campaign by American
and British aircraft (in 1999/2000, according to the
Pentagon, the US flew 24,000 "combat missions" over
Iraq), journalists have prepared the ground for an
all-out attack on Iraq. The official premise for this
- that Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction
- has not been questioned. In fact, in 1998, the UN
reported that Iraq had complied with 90 per cent of
its inspectors' demands.  That the UN inspectors were
not "expelled", but pulled out after American spies
were found among them in preparation for an attack on
Iraq, is almost never reported. Since then, the
world's most sophisticated surveillance equipment
has produced no real evidence that the regime has
renewed its capacity to build weapons of mass
destruction. "The real goal of attacking Iraq
now," says Eric Herring, "is to replace Saddam Hussein
with another compliant thug."

The attempts by journalists in the US and Britain,
acting as channels for American intelligence, to
connect Iraq to 11 September have also failed.
The "Iraq connection" with anthrax has been shown to
be rubbish; the culprit is almost certainly American.
The rumour that an Iraqi intelligence official met
Mohammed Atta, the 11 September hijacker, in Prague
was exposed by Czech police as false. Yet press
"investigations" that hint, beckon, erect a straw man
or two, then draw back, while giving the
reader the overall impression that Iraq requires a
pasting, have become a kind of currency. One reporter
added his "personal view" that "the use of force
is both right and sensible". Will he be there when the
clusters spray their bomblets?

Those who dare speak against this propaganda are
abused as apologists for the tyrant. Two years ago, on
a now infamous Newsnight, the precocious apostate
Peter Hain was allowed to smear Denis Halliday, a man
whose integrity is internationally renowned. Although
dissent has broken through recently, especially in the
Guardian, to its credit, that low point in British
broadcasting set the tone. If the media pages did
their job, they would set aside promoting the careers
of media managers and challenge the orthodoxy of
reporting a fraudulent "war on terrorism"; they owe
that, at least, to aspiring young journalists. I
recommend a new website edited by the writer David
Edwards, whose factual, inquiring analysis of the
reporting of Iraq, Afghanistan and other issues has
already drawn the kind of defensive spleen that shows
how unused to challenge and accountability much of
journalism, especially that calling itself liberal,
has become. The address is [http://www.medialens.org.]

It is time that three urgent issues became front-page
news. The first is restraining Bush and his
collaborator Blair from killing large numbers of
people in Iraq. The second is an arms and military
technology embargo applied throughout the Gulf and the
Middle East; an embargo on both Iraq and Israel. The
third is the ending of "our" siege of a people held
hostage to cynical events over which they have no
control.

[http://www.johnpilger.com]

"Knowledge is superior to wealth. It
guards you whereas you guard wealth.
   Wealth decreases with expenditure
whereas knowledge multiplies with
dissemination." -----Imam Ali bin Abi Taleb, 1000 A.D.

While the Ruins of the World Trade Center Smoldered, the Bush
Administration Launched an Assault on the Constitution
Things We Lost in the Fire
by Alisa Solomon
September 11 - 17, 2002

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0237/solomon.php

photo: Chris O'Brien

"Liberty is the most precious gift we offer our citizens."

Could Tom Ridge have said anything scarier or more telling as he accepted
the post of homeland security czar? Trying to strike the bell of liberty,
he sounds its death knell, depicting government not as the agent of the
people's will, but as an imperious power with the authority to give us our
democratic freedoms. Which means, of course, that it can also take them away.

That's exactly what Ashcroft, Bush, Cheney & co. have been up to all year
as, in the attorney general's words, the government has marshaled the might
of "every available statute" to root out "the terrorists among us."
Wrapping themselves in the flag, they have shredded the Constitution. They
have sneered at, ignored, or defied the courts and legislatures that are
designed to provide checks and balances on uninhibited executive power.
They have eroded the precious Bill of Rights protections of free speech,
assembly, and association and its assurances of privacy, due process, equal
protection, legal counsel, and a fair trial— practically everything but the
right to bear arms.

Thanks to these maneuvers in the name of combating terrorism, the
government can now freeze the release of public records, monitor political
and religious gatherings, and jail Americans indefinitely without trial and
without legal representation. As Bush and Cheney ready the country for war
against Iraq, they have established a climate that stifles dissent—and put
laws in place enabling them to clamp down on those who ask too many questions.

First, They Came for the Immigrants . . .

If you're a citizen—and if you haven't tried to organize any major protests
lately—you might easily have missed the rupture. It's the liberties of
noncitizens that have been most severely curtailed in the past year. In
immigrant communities, the tear feels seismic. Midwood, Brooklyn, home to
some 150,000 Pakistanis, saw two planeloads of its young men sent home in
August after long detentions by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The annual Pakistani festival days later drew less than half the usual
crowd of 80,000, according to Asghar Choudhri, president of the
Pakistani-American Federation of New York. "People are too afraid to come
out," he explains. "It's like a third-world country here. They come get
you, throw you in jail, and you can't say anything." Because he is a U.S.
citizen, Choudhri says his neighbors, terrified of lingering too long in
public, often ask him to pick up groceries or run other errands for them.
Local businesses have been closing in droves.

Polls have shown that at least 40 percent of Americans are willing to give
up some civil liberties for the sake of security, but as constitutional
lawyer David Cole has pointed out, so far it's not our own freedom we've
been sacrificing.

If history is any guide, that could quickly change. From the invoking of
the 1798 Enemy Alien Act during the 1941 internment of Japanese American
citizens to McCarthy's use of the tools of 1919 Palmer Raids in the
witch-hunts of the 1950s, the Feds have repeatedly sharpened their teeth on
immigrants before closing their repressive jaws on all dissidents and
undesirables. Indeed, many of the post-9-11 provisions swept into place by
Ashcroft—such as those for the tracking and eventual punishment of would-be
perpetrators of "domestic terrorism"—focus primarily on citizens.

Balanced against security concerns at a time of war, the old dictum holds,
civil liberties spring back to full force when danger has passed. In an
endless "war on terrorism" that soon might include attacks on Iraq, those
springs could get mighty rusty.

Power Grab: Kicking Over Checks and Balances

In the fearful weeks immediately after September 11, Congress and the
American people gave the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt,
supporting a rash of new measures to get to the bottom of the heinous
attacks and to protect us from "sleeper" cells hatching plots on our
shores, as well as from enemies preparing strikes from afar.

On September 14, Congress quickly passed the Authorization for Use of U.S.
Military Force resolution, granting the president carte blanche to wage war
against anybody he deemed responsible for the hijackings. And in October,
with hardly enough time even to read the 342-page document, much less
debate it, lawmakers rushed through sweeping anti- terrorism legislation
whose very name and jingoistic acronym—the Uniting and Strengthening
America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct
Terrorism (or USA Patriot) Act—made it unassailable. Scores of state and
local copycat laws soon followed.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Ashcroft granted himself and the agencies he
oversees a spate of new powers. By decree, he suspended attorney- client
privilege. Soon after, he unilaterally removed restraints on the FBI that
had been put in place after the excesses of the 1960s and '70s, unleashing
agents to sniff around community meetings, political gatherings, religious
services, and even your e-mail messages and Web site visits, without having
any evidence, nor even a good hunch, that anything illegal is afoot.

Not to be outdone, Bush issued a few executive orders of his own. One
called into being military tribunals in which "enemy combatants" could be
arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death entirely in secret and
with no opportunity for judicial review. Another rescinded the planned
release of the papers of former presidents, effectively closing the public
record.

Civil libertarians, immigrant advocates, and human rights activists
frantically sent up warning flares, highlighting various ways the new laws,
regulations, and acts of fiat threatened various constitutional
protections. "There is no doubt that if we lived in a police state it would
be easier to catch terrorists," said Russell Feingold, who braved the only
nay vote on the USA Patriot Act in the Senate. "That would not be America."

The Big Chill

Perhaps it wasn't America in those late months of 2001 as a disquieting
chill wafted in with the winter wind. During the past year, thousands of
immigrants were swept up and disappeared into detention and secret trials;
racial profiling turned from an increasingly discredited and offensive
means of crime-fighting into a brazen national policy; the military
tribunals were established with no public outcry (and two American citizens
tagged as "enemy combatants" have been denied a full and fair trial); some
officials even called for using torture to get detainees to confess—or at
least recommended outsourcing interrogations to countries that aren't so
squeamish about applying physical pressure.

If you had a problem with any of that, you were advised to keep it to
yourself, as the president's spokesperson Ari Fleischer warned that
Americans should "watch what they say." And if anyone dared to point out
the totalitarian tone of this remark, or to question government measures
that paid little heed to the Bill of Rights, the attorney general had a
quick rebuke: "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost
liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists."

The frost trickled down from government into all areas of civic life—even
those most depended upon to keep debate open and vigorous. Newspaper
columnists, cartoonists, and an irreverent TV talk-show host were fired for
questioning whether the men who slammed airplanes into the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon were actually cowards, or whether the president,
who hid out in some cushy compound while the towers crumbled, was genuinely
brave. The anti-multi-culti American Council of Trustees and Alumni—with
the VP's wife Lynn Cheney and Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman in the
forefront—attacked colleges and universities as the "weak link" in
America's response to September 11, asserting in an overheated report that
"when a nation's intellectuals are unwilling to defend its civilization,
they give comfort to its adversaries" and naming more than 40 professors
for uttering such seditious statements as "We need to understand the
reasons behind the terrifying hatred directed against the U.S. and find
ways to act that will not foment more hatred for generations to come."

At the University of South Florida, Sami Al-Arian, a tenured associate
professor of computer science—and a founder of the campus's Islamic studies
center—was fired in December for having expressed hotheaded anti-Israel
views a dozen years ago. Dredging up the old statements, The O'Reilly
Factor and local Florida shock-jocks had recklessly denounced Al- Arian for
fomenting jihad under the Tampa palms, and he soon found himself unemployed.

College frosh A.J. Brown opened her door in Durham, North Carolina, one
October evening as she was getting ready for a date to find a couple of
local secret service officers who had been tipped off about the "un-
American" propaganda in her apartment—a poster, it turned out, protesting
the record number of executions in Texas under Bush's governorship. Brown
told The Progressive magazine that the officers asked whether she had any
pro-Taliban material. "No," she replied. "I think the Taliban is just a
bunch of assholes." That, apparently, sufficed to show how united Brown
stands: after 40 minutes in her apartment, the officers left.

Other outlandish cases of repression and neighborly ratting crept into
national consciousness—or at least were splashed across lefty Web sites —as
the year wore on: the guy in San Francisco who got a visit from the FBI
after he'd questioned Bush's motives for the war in a conversation at his
gym; the student teacher in Maine sacked for giving a lesson on Islamic
culture in a 10th-grade world history class; the two men in Chicago who
were subjected to interrogations by cops and a federal postal inspector
because at their local post office, they'd requested stamps that were not
emblazoned with the American flag.

Death of Due Process & Flouting the First Amendment

Our attorney general's name doesn't lend itself as readily as Joe
McCarthy's to the mellifluous abstract noun that came to define the
witch-hunts, loyalty oaths, and blacklisting of the '50s: "Ashcroftism" is
not likely to enter American parlance. But if it did, the term would
describe not only the climate of enforced conformity, but the
administration's high-handed disregard for the most fundamental of
constitutional protections: First Amendment rights to free association and
free speech and the Fifth Amendment right to due process.

The most egregious breach has been the roundup and "preventive detention"
of thousands of Muslim, Arab, and South Asian immigrants under an
unprecedented veil of secrecy. (The exact number cannot be known; the
government stopped releasing its running tally in November at 1147.) By now
the vast majority has been deported or released without yielding any
information about or connections to Al Qaeda.

The USA Patriot Act allows the attorney general to function as prosecutor,
judge, and jury when it comes to incarcerating and deporting noncitizens.
All he has to do is say he has "reasonable grounds to believe" that they
have engaged in "terrorist" activity, and he can throw them in the clinker
for a week before issuing any charges. Such detainees have no opportunity
to mount a defense against their classification as "terrorist"—nor even to
know why the attorney general has so branded them. What's more, the
detainees cannot be released from detention—even if they prevail in
immigration hearings—until the AG lifts the designation.

That's not so easy: The act defines terrorism broadly as the use of a
"weapon or dangerous device (other than for mere personal monetary gain)"
and expands "terrorist activity" to include providing material or other
support to a "terrorist organization," even if that support goes to
legitimate, nonviolent efforts by a political group that may also have a
military wing. Under this Orwellian twisting of terminology, grabbing a
bottle in the midst of a barroom brawl could be deemed terrorism. So could
sending schoolbooks to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, should the old
warlords fall out of favor with the U.S. Merely associating with activists
from such groups could be grounds for deportation.

Of course, Ashcroft has gone even further without having to invoke the USA
Patriot Act. He simply changed the regulations that govern INS detention.
By declaration, he expanded from 24 to 48 hours the period the INS can
detain someone without charges, and added that in times of emergency, an
unspecified "reasonable" period of time was permissible, giving agents
leave to incarcerate first and then dig up minor immigration violations as
justification.

The End of Privacy

A man approaches a librarian to ask for help finding a text. "These books
are no longer available," she replies, in a pinched, Peter Lorre-like
voice. "May I have your name please?" A couple of suited thugs take the
library patron away.

The scene comes from one of a series of patriotic public service
announcements produced for the Fourth of July by the Ad Council, which
feature creepy Big Brother scenarios followed by the legend "What If
America Weren't America? Freedom: Appreciate It, Cherish It, Protect It."
Trouble is, the library segment is no fantasy.

As far as she knows, there aren't yet any goons stalking the stacks, says
Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the Washington office of the
American Library Association. But under the USA Patriot Act, law
enforcement officials can force librarians (and booksellers) to hand over
records of who checked out what books, and what Web sites they visited
without the high bar of "probable cause" required for searches under the
Fourth Amendment. Librarians, furthermore, must not tell anyone such
records have been requested—not even the patron being investigated. If they
refuse to fork over the records, they can go to jail.

"What books you read gets very close to what thoughts you think," says
Sheketoff. "This is very dangerous."

It's not the only way Ashcroft has found to bore into people's privacy. The
USA Patriot Act authorizes, among other intrusive instruments, roving
wiretaps and "sneak-and-peak searches"—covert snooping in your home or
office that you might not even get to know about for 90 days. In the
meantime, the FBI could plant a "Magic Lantern" on your computer, recording
all your keystrokes for your snoop's next visit.

Meanwhile, when he unilaterally lifted restraints on the FBI, Ashcroft
reopened the door for COINTELPRO—counterintelligence program—the massive
FBI spying operation against law-abiding civil rights, anti-war, and other
activists run by J. Edgar Hoover from the mid '50s to the early '70s. In
1976, after a year-long investigation, the Select Committee to Study
Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, chaired by
Frank Church, blasted COINTELPRO for methods "indisputably degrading to a
free society" in "a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at
preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and
association." Though Church promised that "never again will an agency of
the government be permitted to conduct a secret war against those citizens
it considers a threat to the established order," COINTELPRO is, for all
intents and purposes, back with a vengeance.

Quashing Dissent

Those activists old enough to remember the snitches in their midst in the
'70s have long suspected that something akin to COINTELPRO never entirely
went away. Acting in the open, they have not much worried. "We've just
always assumed they were watching us," says Father Roy Bourgeois, 63,
founder of the Schools of the Americas Watch, which organizes a protest
every November at Fort Bening, where U.S. officers have trained death squad
generals and torturers from Latin America.

What did surprise Bourgeois was that this past November, the school sought
an injunction against the annual nonviolent demonstration of some 10,000
protesters. "They said it was not appropriate during the war on terrorism,"
Bourgeois recalls, "and people started to say that we were siding with Al
Qaeda by exercising our rights to assembly and speech. We said, we too want
to close down terrorist training camps, and we should start with the one in
our own backyard."

Some 36 demonstrators were prosecuted for a trespassing misdemeanor in
November—and 29 are about to go to federal prison, for sentences ranging
from three to six months.

Might they be tarred in the future under the Patriot Act as "domestic
terrorists"? Bourgeois shrugs off the possibility, noting that the SOAW
demos are thoroughly nonviolent. But the amorphous definition— "acts
dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws" that
"appear to be intended . . . to influence the policy of a government by
intimidation or coercion"—can describe any civil disobedience action in
which an overheated cop gets into a tussle with a hepped-up protester.

Meanwhile, since last September, funds and technology have poured from the
Justice Department and FBI into local police departments to help them beef
up their "red squads"—cops who infiltrate political groups and collect data
on their members, even when there's no illegal activity.

It's not lost on protesters who showed up for the Republican convention in
Philadelphia in 2000 that the Pennsylvania governor who coordinated the FBI
and local and state police to infiltrate, tap, disrupt, and covertly snoop
on demonstrators at the time was none other than Tom Ridge, head of the new
Homeland Security Department. Under his watch, legitimate protests were
broken up, their leaders were arrested, and bail was set as high as $1
million. In the end, 95 percent of the charges against protesters were
thrown out.

Ashcroft to Congress: Drop Dead

After nearly a year of unbridled expansion of executive powers, some checks
and balances are finally beginning to kick in. In recent weeks, a series of
heartening court decisions has slammed the Ashcroft strategy of
surveillance overkill and unwarranted secrecy. Ruling late last month that
the government could not close deportation hearings against Rabih Haddad, a
Muslim community leader in Michigan, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals asserted, "The executive branch seeks to uproot people's lives,
outside the public eye and behind a closed door." But, wrote Judge Damon
Keith, "when government begins closing doors, it selectively controls
information that rightly belongs to the people. Selective information is
misinformation."

More surprising, the secret court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA), deciding whether information gathered for foreign
intelligence can be forwarded to criminal prosecutors, rebuked the
administration for seeking broader powers under the USA Patriot Act. In an
unprecedented public statement, the FISA court said it had documented more
than 75 cases of the FBI misleading the court in trying to justify its need
for wiretaps and other electronic surveillance. Given this track record,
the FISA court concluded that the FBI could not be trusted with looser
policies that, it said, "are not reasonably designed" to protect the
privacy of law-abiding citizens.

Meanwhile, after a summer recess, Congress, like a creature evolving out of
the primordial ooze, is beginning to walk upright, and may soon even
develop a spine—if for no other reason than its members being rankled by
the arrogance of Ashcroft. Every time legislators have tried to assert the
oversight they are paid to exercise, the attorney general has essentially
told them to drop dead. In June the committee on the judiciary submitted 50
questions to the attorney general on the implementation of the USA Patriot
Act. How many times has the Department of Justice authorized the
surveillance of facilities used by American citizens and resident aliens,
and what assurances are in place to make sure such orders "are not sought
solely on the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment?" goes
one typical question. And the typical answer came back last in July: That's
classified information.

Congress won't keep pushing—especially not right before an election—
without pressure from the public.

Like any muscle, democratic freedoms atrophy if they are not exercised.
That's what Sacramento Bee publisher Janis Besler Heaphy wanted to tell
graduates at California State University when she was invited to give a
commencement address last December. "The Constitution makes it our right to
challenge government policies," she said. "Our culture makes it our duty.
Raising issues. Asking questions. Debating options." But the students
didn't hear her. They drowned her out and drove her from the stage with
their patriotic shouting.

Expanded and Revised - Evidence of Bush Administration Foreknowledge and
complicity is now overwhelming.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_11_02_lucy.html

Excerpt from article:

I later found out how many of those who attended the picnic got their
tickets. A large number went to members of the carpenters union, of
course. GOP candidates for local, state, and federal office got tickets,
along with their supporters. The third group consisted local residents.
One of them, a woman named Mary, told me that Secret Service agents knocked
on the doors of all the houses near the picnic area. The
residents had two choices: accept the tickets or face a form of house
arrest {gee, isn't this extortion and/or coercion?}. Township residents
could also get tickets by going to the police station.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&}

Article & Essay: Freedom Chained In Pittsburgh

When Bush came to Pittsburgh on Labor Day, the Constitution left town and
the demonstrators were corralled behind a chain-link fence like a
gang of al Qaeda. This is an on the scene report.
By Regis T. Sabol

I got a first-hand lesson on Labor Day on what the right to freedom of
speech and freedom of assembly mean under the regime of George W. Bush.
Americans who support Bush and his policies can raise signs in his praise
and line the streets when his limousine passes by.
Americans who do not support Bush and his policies must stay far away from
the president by judicial decree or risk arrest.
That's what happened to a small but committed band of demonstrators who
wanted to exercise their First Amendment rights at a by-invitation-only
appearance by Bush at a picnic sponsored by the United Brotherhood of
Carpenters and Joiners at Neville Island, PA, just down the Ohio River
from Pittsburgh. The Carpenters and Teamsters Unions are the only labor
organizations to support Bush.

While between 200 and 300 invited guests filed into the picnic grounds,
police ordered between 60 and 70 protesters to stay four blocks away
inside a sun-baked, chain-link fence-surrounded park. Anyone with a protest
sign who stood one foot outside that fence would be arrested. A
65-year-old man who did stand just outside that fence with a sign was, in
fact, arrested, along with his sister, who came to his assistance
when Allegheny County police put handcuffs on him.  Two police officers led
Bill Neel and his sister Joyce to a nearby fire
hall, kept them there for more than two hours and charged them with
disorderly conduct. The police confiscated his protest sign. And this
was about two hours before Bush and his entourage even arrived on Neville
Island, once a bustling heavy manufacturing area but whose only
remaining industries are a couple chemical plants. An Island resident said
the air around the plants smells like sour orange juice every
morning.
When my associate, Mike Hall, and I arrived at the picnic site at about
noon, we saw a long line of people waiting to get in. When we asked if
we could enter the picnic grounds, two men told us this was a private
affair for ticket holders only. Two state policemen then directed us to
the Free Speech zone four blocks away. As we walked down the street, we saw
a number of people with signs supporting Bush. When we got to the
Free Speech zone, one of about a dozen state, county, and township police
officers directed us to the entrance and told us we had to stay
behind the fence. When I asked the officer why we were not allowed on the
sidewalk like the people walking to the picnic and residents holding
pro-Bush signs, he simply said, "Orders."  I later found out how many of
those who attended the picnic got their tickets. A large number went to
members of the carpenters union, of course. GOP candidates for local,
state, and federal office got tickets, along with their supporters. The
third group consisted local residents.
One of them, a woman named Mary, told me that Secret Service agents knocked
on the doors of all the houses near the picnic area. The
residents had two choices: accept the tickets or face a form of house
arrest. Township residents could also get tickets by going to the police
station.
John Copay, a member of the carpenters union for 55 years, who had tickets
for the picnic, said he came to the picnic because he was there
to see the president. "I have some very strong feelings," he said. "I don't
want him to get us into a war."  Inside the Free Speech Zone, I found about
a dozen protesters. Most, like me, were on the other side of 50. One was a
72-year-old woman. Two members of the Thomas Merton Society, a peace
organization, were also there. As more protesters arrived to fill in the
ranks, their composition changed little. A couple protestors, steelworkers,
brought
their small children with them. Two other men drove from Youngstown, Ohio,
about an hour away, to be there. "I am ashamed the Carpenters
Union had him here," said Jim Jordan. Although a representative of Citizens
for Legitimate Government[an Internet group], a Pittsburgh-based protest
organization, counted 60 demonstrators, my own count just before the Bush
entourage sped by the Free Speech Zone was closer to 70.
"Security" Trumps Free Speech  To say that security around the Free Speech
Zone was tight would be an understatement.

After interviewing a number of protestors, I walked outside the gate at the
far end of the park into the adjacent parking lot.
I wanted to get a few shots from the opposite side of the fence of the
protestors with their signs. As I began shooting, a state policeman
walked directly toward me from the fence. He asked me what I was doing
outside the fence. When I told him I was a journalist covering the
protest, the officer politely but firmly told me I had to return to the
Free Speech Zone. He escorted me back to the entrance.
About fifteen minutes before the Bush motorcade was scheduled to arrive,
two county policemen entered the Free Speech Zone and approached he
protestors. One of the officers donned black leather gloves in the nearly
90-degree heat. I don't know why he thought he needed to wear
gloves. Perhaps he thought the 72-year-old woman might attack him with her
sign or that the two girl rappers might unleash a barrage of
anti-Bush hip-hop into each ear. What did they expect would happen?  Led by
a phalanx of motorcycle patrolmen, the Bush motorcade zipped past
the Free Speech Zone, the view inside two presidential limousines obscured
by the smoke tinted glass. As fast as the motorcade was moving,
I don't know if Bush even saw the Free Speech Zone. The entourage did slow
down as it reached the picnic site, which, no doubt, gave the guest
of honor the opportunity to see the signs telling him how great he was and
how much he was loved.
Once Bush was at the picnic site, I suggested to my associate that we leave
our offending posters--"Impeach Bush," "No War Against
Iraq"--inside the Free Speech Zone and mosey on up the street. With Bush
safely arrived, security concerns lessened because we were able to walk
past all the Bush supporters and their signs as far as the yellow police
tape would allow us to go.  Michael Rechtenwald, founder and chair of
Citizens for Elected Government, who had called the Freedom Zone "pathetic
and a violation of the Constitution of the United State," soon joined us.
He carried a small sign bearing the logo of his organization. No
inflammatory phrases. No insults. Just the title, "Citizens for Legitimate
Government." Within minutes, an angry looking Secret Service agent in a
blue suit and two uniformed police office bore down on him. Unlike the
uniformed police I had dealt with thus far, this man was not polite.  "You
know where the protest area is," he told Rechtenwald. "You know where
you're supposed to be." When Rechtenwald quietly said he was
merely exercising his First Amendment rights, the Secret Service agent
replied, "Now you REALLY are pushing it." The agent warned Rechtenwald
in no uncertain terms that, unless he left the area, he was "this close" to
being arrested for violating a federal protection order, a felony
offense. The agent then told Rechtenwald that two state troopers would
escort him back to "the pen" and that if he said a single word, he would
be arrested on a felony charge. "If I so much as say a thing, these guys
will arrest me?" Rechtenwald asked. "Yes!" declared the agent with
serious conviction. Rechtenwald wisely left the area.
Throughout this entire confrontation, we could hear Bush's audience cheer
and applaud as he used the all too familiar phrases, "homeland
security," and "our enemies wish to take away our freedoms." I wondered who
had just taken away Michael Rechtenwald's freedom of speech.
I was seriously tempted to shoot a couple pictures of the confrontation,
but I did not want my $700 camera confiscated and I did not want to go
to jail. Sometimes, I decided, discretion is the better part of valor.
Anyway, by staying where I was, I was able to get a few shots of Bush
and his entourage leaving the picnic. One woman later claimed she could see
him through the tinted window waving at her.
Inside the "Free Speech Zone"  The men and women inside the Free Speech
Zone did not mince words about why they were there. Specifically, they
believed Bush stole the election; they opposed the Administration's plans
to go to war against Iraq; and they opposed its environmental and domestic
policies, including policies they saw as oppressive to women.  "The man
wasn't elected," said Jim Jordan of Youngstown, a former steelworker who
claimed Bush gained the presidency as the result of a coup. Two young
girls, Andalucia and Etta from Pittsburgh's Polish Hill neighborhood,
contributed with their own rap lyrics. "W.W.W., World War III, Bush is in
the White House, Don't know how he got there, he was such a shitty governor."
"I'm here because I think its a great rub in the face for Americans in his
part of the country who work hard every day whose opinions don't
seem to count anymore," said Joyce, a member of the Thomas Merton society.
"Look where they've relegated us," she pointed out. "We're
losing our democracy is how I feel."  Her companion, Marlene Rush, chimed
in, "I'm here personally because I dread the possible result of an
intervention in Iraq. I think it's just not wrong politically, it's wrong
morally. It's a situation that will put us at odds with the rest of the
world. I think it will have much
more consequences than we can begin to see."
When I asked one man why he was in the Free Speech Zone, he simply replied,
"I think this where I should be. I don't like the way the
country is going these days."  Nia Edmondson, a young black woman, said she
was at the protest "because George Bush loves black women like me so much.
I'm being sarcastic," she added. Nia cited Bush's opposition to abortion
and his economic policies, which she described as "horrible and ludicrous
to impoverished people throughout the country."  Seventy-two-year-old Jill
McKenzie was particularly harsh in her criticism of Bush. "I'm here because
I want to tell him how much I hate him. He's a dictator...He utterly
disgusts me because he wants to be a dictator. He said that on three
different occasions." She accused Bush of trying to subvert the
Constitution, "and I don't like it," she added.  "I'm here to stop the war
on terrorism," declared a middle-aged
Pittsburgher named Michael. "Well, I think there is a man arriving here
today who is spreading terror around the world. Through his use of the
tragedy of 9/11, he's now spreading more terrorism by bombing the poor
people of Afghanistan and now he wants to start a war with another
country . . . His policies are a formula for terrorism."  A woman named
Janice, who said she opposed "just about everything" about
Bush's policies, asked that I not use her last name or take her picture
because she was concerned about possible repercussions from her more
conservative acquaintances. Several protesters also said that they have
been called unpatriotic and un-American whenever they question the Bush
Administration's policies, particularly in regard to homeland security and
Iraq.  Sheila Green of Freedom, PA, said, "I'm here because it needs to be said
that Bush is unacceptable as president. He's got a long criminal history in
his family, including selling arms to the enemies of the United
States." She cited business transactions by the Carlyle Group, of which
George Bush Sr., is a board member. "A lot of what we see of this
hawkishness toward Iraq is just an obfuscation intended to keep people from
noticing the economic damage done to the people of this country,"
Green added.  Dan Kovalis, a steelworker from Pittsburgh, brought his two
young sons, ages two and five, to the protest. "We're here to give a
message to the
president that we don't want a war in Iraq." Kovalis said he was also
unhappy with Bush's labor policies.
"I've been watching presidents since I was six years old," said Georgeen
Gallo, "and I've never seen anything like this, the insanity of it, from
the stolen election, every day, every day." She accused Bush of "arrogance"
for rolling back environmental protections put in place by
the Clinton administration. "I thought we'd gotten over all that." She also
cited Bush's decision to deny $34 million to the United Nations'
reproductive services program and other actions as attacks on the health
and safety of women in America and in underdeveloped countries
throughout the world.  Ms. Green said she had never attended a protest
demonstration until inauguration day 2000. "People in this country have too
much faith in him," she noted. "It's not the America I grew up with and the
America I love."  Dan Kyle of Pittsburgh said, "I think it's important to
make a presence
whenever he appears anywhere. I don't think his actions as president
reflect what the people really want." He particularly cited Bush's
economic policies, including the tax cut "giving merely a $200 payoff to
the working people while giving a gigantic payoff, which will probably
never be restored, to the wealthy."  After the exhaust fumes from Bush's
departing motorcade wafted over the remaining protestors, I wondered. Is
this how the Vietnam anti-war movement began in the early 1960's? First, a
few protestors jeered as unpatriotic jerks by the men and women in the
street. Then a few more
protestors being jeered as jerks. Then a hundred. Then a few hundred. Then
a few thousand. Would that be enough to prevent a war?


Regis T. Sabol is contributing editor to Intervention Magazine and editor
of A New Deal: an online magazine of political, social, cultural,
literary, and artistic thought.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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<http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=articl\
e&sid=170>http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&fi\
le=article&sid=170

>X-Sender: cbrouillet@...
>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.2.0.58
>Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2002 23:47:03 -0700
>To: John Leonard <leonardjp@...>
>From: Carol Brouillet <cbrouillet@...>
>Subject: Bay Guardian Review!!!!
>
>Column by one Editor, PAUL REIDIGER, of the the Bay Guardian's literary
>monthly, Lit, on August 24 was devoted to NAFEEZ's book. Favorable
>toward it
>and damning toward other media's avoidance of
>journalistic repsonsibility about " '9/11' ".
>
>Pass58@... wrote:
>
>

Le Monde - the cowardly silence of the American left after 9/11 - and before


Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
<mailto:fboyle@...>fboyle@...

-----Original Message-----
From: Boyle, Francis [mailto:FBOYLE@...]
Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 11:32 AM
To: Killeacle (Killeacle)
Subject: Silence of the Intellectuals:Telerama

En février dernier, Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama et une soixantaine
d’autres intellectuels américains faisaient paraitre dans la presse
europeenne – en France, dans Le Monde - un manifeste adressé a leurs
homologues du vieux continent et aux musulmans du monde entier. Sous le
titre Les Valeurs Américaines, les signataires déclaraient leur soutien a
ce qu’ils appelaient la « guerre juste » menée par George W. Bush en
Afghanistan. Deux semaines plus tard, 137 intellectuels de gauche
ripostaient par une Lettre de citoyens des Etats-Unis a des amis européens
qui dénonçait a la fois l’illusion de la « guerre juste » et
l’interprétation étroite des attentats du 11 septembre comme une attaque
contre les « valeurs américaines ». La Lettre se terminait par cet
avertissement : « Les intellectuels ont aujourd’hui le choix entre, d’un
coté, rejoindre le choeur de ceux qui celebrent la force brute en la
rattachant de facon rhétorique a des « valeurs spirituelles », et de
l’autre s’atteler a la tache plus difficile mais essentielle de denoncer la
folie arrogante du pouvoir et de travailler avec le reste de l’humanité a
la création d’un dialogue raisonnable, de relations economiques justes et
d’une justice equitable (…) ».

Rarement chronologie aura été aussi importante que dans cet échange
acrimonieux. Que la premiere intervention groupée d’intellectuels
américains ait été le fait de chercheurs appartenant a la droite
conservatrice en dit long sur le malaise qui a saisi les penseurs de gauche
apres le 11 septembre. « Pas besoin de se voiler la face, soupire Francis
Boyle, Professeur de Droit International a l’Université de l’Illinois et un
des premiers signataires de la Lettre : le lendemain des attentats, on
n’était pas nombreux a mettre en garde contre les reactions épidermiques.
Il y avait bien Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Edward
Said et deux ou trois autres, mais a l’arrivée, on n’était pas foule. »

Tétanisés par l’horreur des attentats, la plupart des intellectuels de
gauche ont choisi le silence. Quelques-uns ont rejoint le camp de la «
revanche ». Les rares « résistants » se sont retrouvés isolés. Il en aura
fallu, du cran, a Francis Boyle, pour réclamer devant Bill O’Reilly, le
plus populiste et le plus va-t-en-guerre des animateurs de talk show
politiques, sur Foxnews, que les regles du droit international soient
respectées : « Si j’étais le President Bush, fulminait O’ Reilly le 13
septembre au soir , je declarerais la guerre a toutes les forces hostiles
aux Etats-Unis – notez bien ces mots, Professeur – toutes les forces
hostiles aux Etats-Unis. Je ferais une declaration de guerre generale pour
pouvoir me rendre la bas et tuer tous ces gens. Vous pensez que j’aurais
tort ? ». Et Francis Boyle, cranement, de rappeler que les Etats-Unis sont
dotés d’une Constitution, et que celle-ci confie au Congres, et non au
Président, le soin de déclarer la guerre…

Les intellos dissidents ont payé cher leur liberté de parole. Susan Sontag,
parce qu’elle avait poussé l’outrance jusqu’a rappeler dans le New Yorker*
que les terroristes n’étaient pas plus laches que « ceux qui tuent a
l’abri, de la haut dans le ciel » et que la politique étrangere des
Etats-Unis ne faisait pas l’unanimité dans le reste du monde, a été trainée
dans la boue par la presse conservatrice. Bill Maher, animateur caustique
d’un talk show de deuxieme partie de soiree sur la chaine ABC, a du
presenter des excuses a l’antenne pour avoir tenu les memes propos. Et son
émission n’apparait pas dans les grilles de rentrée. Quant a Francis Boyle,
sa chaire est clairement menacée : « Mon Université a tout fait pour me
faire partir. Je ne suis pas le seul dans ce cas et d’autres, qui n’ont pas
mon ancienneté, ont du faire leurs valises. On n’imagine pas les pressions
et les brimades que certains intellectuels ont subi apres le 11 septembre ».

Au bruit et a la fureur s’est ajoutée la crispation du débat politique
autour d’une « ligne officielle » que tres peu de media ont osé remettre en
cause. Une ligne centrée sur trois postulats : l’Amérique est une nation
immaculée ; la « guerre contre le terrorisme » est un conflit entre le Bien
et le Mal ; il faut etre solidaire - faute de quoi on devient « Un-American
», un péché mortel, impardonable, bien plus grave que le simple
anti-Américanisme souvent imputé aux Francais. Etre anti-Américain, c’est
le fait des étrangers. Etre « Un-American », c’est briser une solidarité
essentielle, celle qui soude le peuple américain lorsqu’il se sent en danger.

Du coup, jusqu’en decembre, les pages Op-Ed (« opinions ») des quotidiens
de référence (New York Times, Washington Post, etc) resteront quasiment
vierges de commentaires négatifs contre la politique étrangere de
l’administration Bush. Privées de haut-parleur, les voix de la contestation
vont se perdre dans le desert, a l’exception du 9.11 de Noam Chomsky. Sorti
des le mois d’octobre 2001, ignoré par la critique, 9.11 a réussi l’exploit
de se vendre a plus de 200 000 exemplaires. Etonnant destin pour cet
ouvrage qui, de l’avis de tous, reprend pour l’essentiel des arguments
développés dans d’autres livres du meme auteur : le rappel que les
Etats-Unis sont historiquement un « état terroriste de premier plan », dont
les crimes - soutien au coup d’Etat chilien, armement des « contras » au
Nicaragua ou embargo Irakien – ont provoqué des centaines de milliers de
morts et n’ont jamais été punis ; la dénonciation des contradictions d’une
administration qui déclare la guerre aux terroristes fondamentalistes d’une
main, et soutient « lìétat fondamentaliste le plus extreme, l’Arabie
saoudite », de l’autre ; ou le rappel qu’ « il existe des structures
juridiques adaptées pour juger les crimes, quelle que soit leur ampleur »,
structures dont les Etats-Unis n’ont apparemment que faire. Tout cela,
Chomsky l’a souvent répété : « Ce n’est pas le discours de Chomsky qui a
changé, confirme Dan Simon, l’éditeur de 9.11,c’est ce que les gens sont
prets a entendre. Le gros des acheteurs de 9.11 n’est pas formé par les
fans du linguiste mais par des dizaines de miliers de personnes qui
refusent de croire, comme le leur repete Bush depuis des mois, que « les
terroristes nous ont attaqué parce qu’ils sont jaloux de nos valeurs » » .

Quelques auteurs de fiction ont éssayé d’écrire sur le 11 septembre. Sans
succes : « Une dizaine d’auteurs connus ont tenté de recréer les
evenements, en racontant par exemple ce que c’etait que d’etre dans les
tours avant qu’elles ne s’effondrent ou en imaginant les dernieres
conversations avec un proche, temoigne Bill Buford, Directeur littéraire du
magazine New Yorker. Aucun de ces textes ne fonctionnait. C’est au fond une
bonne illustration de ce que la fiction peut – et ne peut pas – faire. En
général, les grands bouleversements sociaux comme les guerres ou les
révolutions ne produisent pas de tres bonne litterature, en tous cas pas
immediatement. Apres le Printemps de Prague, il a fallu attendre une
dizaine d’années pour voir sortir de grands livres sur ce qui s’était
passé. Les meilleurs bouquins sur la guerre du Vietnam sont ceux sortis
apres la guerre. Tout cela prend du temps. Les premieres nouvelles qu’on
m’a envoyées etaient tres mauvaises. »

Le triomphe de 9.11 n’a pas rendu les éditeurs américains plus audacieux.
Un an apres les attentats, alors que les « mémoires » de pompiers et les
albums commemoratifs affluent, les ouvrages critiques, eux, ont toujours le
plus grand mal a trouver une place sur les présentoirs des libraires. On ne
s’étonnera pas, du coup, que les livres dissidents publiés depuis septembre
2001 se comptent sur les doigts d’une seule main. (Trois d’entre eux, 9.11,
Silencing Political Dissent de Nancy Chang et surtout Terrorisme et
Guerre  de l’historien et ancien combattant de la seconde guerre mondiale
Howard Zinn, qui propose une alternative pacifiste a la « guerre contre le
terrorisme », ont d’ailleurs été publiés par le meme éditeur, Seven
Stories). Toutefois les choses pourraient bouger, puisque les Editions New
Press, annoncent pour la rentrée un ensemble plus combatif de commentaires
et de pamphlets, « pour montrer que l’Amérique ne pense pas d’une seule
voix », déclare André Schiffrin, leur Directeur**.

Qu’ils soient ignorés par les grands media, passe encore, mais les
intellectuels-résistants ont eu, en plus, la mauvaise surprise d’etre
accueillis fraichement par les revues « de gauche ». Le « manifeste des 60
» sur les Valeurs Américaines n’a-t-il pas été écrit par Michael Walzer,
intellectuel socialiste et co-Redacteur en chef de Dissent (« Dissidence »
en Francais) ? Tout un symbole. Mais Dissent n’est pas le seul organe de
gauche a s’etre rallié a la these de la « guerre juste ». Chroniqueur
fétiche de The Nation***, Christopher Hitchens s’est fait le héraut des
bombardements sur l’Afghanistan. Au passage, il en a meme profité pour «
clarifier » la fracture entre intellectuels de gauche et balancer quelques
missiles a ceux qui l’accusaient de trahison . « Nous devrions simplement
ignorer, sans nous moquer trop d’eux, ces ultra de la gauche et ces
quelques doux gauchos qui n’ont cessé de ressasser le meme discours,
écrivait Hitchens mi-décembre.Ils n’ont rien appris du sauvetage des Kurdes
en 1991. Ils etaient de ceux qui voulaient laisser la Bosnie et le Kosovo a
la merci de Milosevic (…). La reflexion politique aux Etats-Unis est
maintenant divisée entre ceux qui savent reconnaitre une situation nouvelle
et ceux qui ne le savent pas – ou qui ne le sauront jamais ». A quoi Ted
Hamm, Redacteur en Chef du Brooklyn Rail, rétorque malicieusement qu’« aux
Etats-Unis, on n’a jamais fait carriere, que ce soit politiquement ou
journalistiquement, en attaquant l’administration en place sur sa politique
étrangere. Surtout lorsque le pays est en guerre. Les Députés et Sénateur
Democrates le savent bien : ils choisissent de se taire ou de marcher au
pas ».

Conséquence naturelle de ce suivisme guerroyeur : beaucoup d’intellectuels
ont eu du mal a publier leurs textes aux Etats-Unis, du moins jusqu’a ce
que les « bavures » de l’administration sur les libertés civiques – la
détention pendant des mois, sans preuves ni inculpation, de centaines
d’Arabes-Américains par exemple - reveillent la contestation. « Tout ce que
j’ai écrit sur le 11 septembre, je l’ai publié dans des revues allemandes
ou francaises », note Dick Howard, Professeur de Philosophie a l’Université
de Stonybrook, et auteur d’un article publié dans le dernier numéro de la
revueEsprit. La veritable alternative, ce n’est pourtant pas a l’etranger
que les intellos contestataires l’ont trouvée, c’est sur internet. Znet,
Counterpunch, Alternet, the Progressive… la Toile regorge d’appels a la
mobilisation contre la guerre en Aghanistan, pour la défense des libertés
civiles ou contre l’obscurantisme de la rhétorique bushiste. Faute
d’espace-papier (et hertzien), le Net est ainsi devenu l’espace privilégié
ou la gauche peut regrouper ses forces. Et riposter, a l’occasion, contre
les attaques de ses pairs… qu’ils soient de droite ou de gauche : « Pour
moi, écrivait ainsi Edward Said sur un de ces sites quelques semaines apres
la publication du « manifeste » des 60, le plus choquant, c’est de voir
qu’a quelques exceptions pres, les plus eminents intellectuels et
commentateurs de ce pays ont toléré le programme de Bush, et meme, dans
certains cas, ont essayé de le dépasser, en ajoutant des sophismes de
pharisiens, de l’auto-congratulation sans esprit critique, et encore plus
d’arguments spécieux ».

Et maintenant ? 12 mois apres l’effondrement du World Trade Center, et
alors que les rumeurs d’une prochaine invasion de l’Irak se font de plus en
plus persistantes, les « résistants » font l’inventaire de leurs forces. Et
ce qu’ils decouvrent n’est pas rassurant : « Le 11 septembre, c’est aussi
un triste constat sur l’organisation des intellectuels contestataires aux
Etats-Unis, admet Francis Boyle. Tout ce qui fait la force d’une
organisation efficace – des reseaux, des structures et de l’argent - nous
fait défaut. Les « think tanks »**** de droite, d’ou sont issus la plupart
des signataires sur les « Valeurs Americaines », sont actifs, eux, depuis
au moins 20 ans. Ca s’est vu apres les attentats ».

A bien y regarder, il se pourrait donc que le fameux « silence » des
intellectuels ne date pas du 11 septembre mais de bien avant. La derniere
fois qu’une opposition consistante s’est formée pour protester contre la
politique étrangere de la Maison Blanche, c’était en 1991, contre la Guerre
du Golfe. Depuis, la gauche américaine a connu10 ans de croissance
économique, 8 années de Clintonisme – marquées par un tel acharnement de la
droite (remember Monica Lewinsky) que les intellectuels de gauche ont mis
leurs propres critiques en sourdine – et un virage a tribord du parti
Démocrate (aggravé par l’acceptation de la victoire sur tapis vert de
George Bush aux élections présidentielles) qui ont serieusement émoussé sa
capacité de contestation. Et ce n’est pas tout : il y aurait un « trou »
entre les générations. Chomsky, Zinn et Sontag ont répondu présent, mais
qui leur succedera ? « Peut etre que nous avons un peu trop bien vécu et
que nous nous sommes repaits dans le cynisme du consommateur », observe
Daniel Pinchbeck, Redacteur en Chef de la revue litteraire Open City, dans
laquelle il vient de publier un étonnant « mea culpa » sur le désengagement
de sa génération : « Cela fait plus de dix ans que je dirige ce magazine
littéraire, écrit Pinchbeck. Aujourd’hui, je crois que nous nous trouvons
dans une situation ou la culture – en tous cas la culture apolitique que
nous avons promue et pratiquée pendant les dernieres décennies – a tout
simplement cessé d’importer .(…) En prétendant que notre culture continue
de compter quand le destin du monde est menacé, est-ce que nous ne nous
mentons pas a nous-memes ? Estce que nous ne nous « droguons » pas avec des
récits de fiction, en évitant l’engagement indispensable dans le monde ? ».

Finalement, le 11 septembre a peut-etre moins plongé la gauche
intellectuelle dans le silence qu’il n’a révélé le silence dans lequel
était plongé une partie de la gauche intellectuelle. Ce sont les
intellectuels de droite qui ont imposé les termes du débat sur
l’Afghanistan en forçant chacun a se positionner pour ou contre les «
valeurs américaines » et la « guerre juste ». Et ce sont eux, aujourd’hui,
qui tentent d’«occuper» le débat sur la nécessité d’une offensive rapide en
Irak, qu’ils soient « pour » (la jeune garde des conseillers de Bush) ou «
contre » (Henry Kissinger, Brelt Scowcroft, ancienne éminence grise de
George Bush senior). Mais a gauche, on se mobilise aussi, et cette fois,
c’est juré, « on ne se laissera pas distancer ».



*Un article aussi publié par Telerama

** Cité dans Livre Hebdo, 5 Juillet 2002

*** Une sorte de Monde Diplomatique américain

**** Les Think Tanks sont des groupes d’études rassemblant des
intellectuels, des politiciens et des businessmen. Certains ont une
influence directe sur la politique de l’administration. The American
Entreprise Institute ou Heritage Foundation sont ainsi a l’origine du «
Reaganisme ».

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
<mailto:fboyle@...>fboyle@...

Yes, Bill, this has to be done at the grass roots level
the channels i have found to be relatively open are radio and independent
booksellers
book reviewers appear relatively closed - i'm told greg palast's
bestselling best democracy money can buy didnt' get reviews, even stupid
white men got almost none
however one should not give up.
also calling people on the phone seems to be more effective than e-mail-
even though you may get mostly voice mail
Regards
JPL


>From: "William Douglas" <findtruth40@...>
>To: 911list@...
>
>
>Last week 2 conservative Bush apologists referred to "loony European ideas
>of 9-11 conspiracy," and in a national Islam confernece in the US, and at a
>book signing on C-SPAN at each event 2 women stood up and suggested that the
>Bush Administration was behind 9-11.
>
>A crumbling is happening from beneath the veneer of the media.  Therefore
>the task is not to hammer away at the media, but to reach out via the
>internet to spread the information far and wide.  Send it to rotary clubs,
>parents associations, teachers associations, fire men's unions, etc. etc.
>- use internet search engines to find their emails and send them a succinct
>one paragraph message that includes the BBC and Canadian TV documentary, and
>an urge to read "The War on Freedom" and to visit www.copvcia.com,
>www.unansweredquestions.org, www.internationalanswer.org
>- Urge them to share this information with as many others as they can
>- Urge them to call in to radio talk shows, TV talk shows, etc. where they
>cannot be censored so easily as letters to the editor can.
>
>- This must occur beneath the radar by getting it out far and wide, for
>those who have ears to have it, rather than beating ourselves down trying to
>win over govt. friends or media friends.
>
>Regards,
>
>Bill
>
>>Just a general update about how things feel here. There is not a whisper of
>>dissent to the official story, in any kind of media,even the radical or
>>independent media. But out on the street,there is the odd person who has
>>their suspicions.
>>    However, there is a growing groundswell of cynicism about the response
>>to
>>it. The papers are full of letters blasting the hypocrytical war mongering
>>of Bush and Co.
>>    People are saying, "What about all the Afghan civillians who were
>>killed?
>>Don't they matter?" and "what about the 35,000 people who starved to death
>>on sept 11,and the day before and the day after- get your priorities
>>straight."
>>There is almost universal opposition to an attack on Iraq. I think there's
>>only about 20 people in the country in favour. Unfortunately those 20 just
>>happen to be the Federal Cabinet, so there's no dount that Aust will be in
>>when it happens,albiet in the face of huge protests.
>>    Last week there was a big bomb scare at Sydney airport, probably trying
>>to put us in the mood for war,but I think they will need their own version
>>of sept 11 here, to get people on side for an attack on Iraq.
>>     In summary, I see zero progress on getting out the truth about sept
>>11,
>>but considerable resistance to any plans to push the response beyond
>>Afghanistan.
>>    BTW, a new 'fact" in the media now is that Norad scrambled fighters at
>>8.44.
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>If you want to share pictures, use the calendar, or start a vote
>>visit http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/911list
>>
>>To leave the group, email: 911list-unsubscribe@...
>
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
>http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
>
>
>--
>If you want to share pictures, use the calendar, or start a vote
>visit http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/911list
>
>To leave the group, email: 911list-unsubscribe@...

This is MAJOR (or is it blair?)

<http://www.msnbc.com/news/802167.asp?pne=msn>http://www.msnbc.com/news/802167.a\
sp?pne=msn


Sept. 7 —  Seeking to build a case Saturday that Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, President Bush cited
a satellite photograph and a report by the U.N. atomic energy agency as
evidence of Iraq’s impending rearmament. But in response to a report by
NBC News, a senior administration official acknowledged Saturday night
that the U.N. report drew no such conclusion, and a spokesman for the
U.N. agency said the photograph had been misinterpreted.

BUSH AND BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair talked to reporters before
opening about three hours of talks at Camp David, Bush’s presidential
retreat in Maryland.

Blair cited a newly released satellite photo of Iraq identifying new
construction at several sites linked in the past to Baghdad’s development
of nuclear weapons. And both leaders mentioned a 1998 report by the U.N.-
affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, that said Saddam
could be six months away from developing nuclear weapons.

“I don’t know what more evidence we need,” Bush said as he greeted Blair

for a brainstorming session on Iraq. “We owe it to future generations to
deal with this problem.”

In a joint appearance before the summit, the two leaders repeated their
shared view that Saddam’s ouster was the only way to stop Iraq’s pursuit
—
and potential use — of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

“The policy of inaction is not a policy we can responsibly subscribe to,”

Blair said as he joined Bush in trying to rally reluctant allies to deal
with Saddam, perhaps by military force.

IAEA:NUCLEAR ABILITY DESTROYED

Contrary to Bush’s claim, however, the 1998 IAEA report did not say that
Iraq was six months away from developing nuclear capability, NBC News’
Robert Windrem reported Saturday.

Instead, Windrem reported, the Vienna, Austria-based agency said in 1998
that Iraq had been six to 24 months away from such capability before the
1991 Persian Gulf War and the U.N.-monitored weapons inspections that
followed.

The war and the inspections destroyed much of Iraq’s nuclear
infrastructure and required Iraq to turn over its highly enriched uranium
and plutonium, Windrem reported.

In a summary of its 1998 report, the IAEA said that “based on all
credible information available to date ... the IAEA has found no
indication of Iraq having achieved its programme goal of producing
nuclear weapons or of Iraq having retained a physical capability for the
production of weapon-useable nuclear material or having clandestinely
obtained such material.”

WHITE HOUSE ADMITS ERROR

A senior White House official acknowledged Saturday night that the 1998
report did not say what Bush claimed. “What happened was, we formed our
own conclusions based on the report,” the official told NBC News’ Norah
O’Donnell.

Meanwhile, Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesman for the U.N. agency, disputed
Bush’s and Blair’s assessment of the satellite photograph, which was
first publicized Friday. Contrary to news service reports, there was no
specific photo or building that aroused suspicions, he told Windrem.

The photograph in question was not U.N. intelligence imaging but simply a
picture from a commercial satellite imaging company, Gwozdecky said. He
said that the IAEA reviewed commercial satellite imagery regularly and
that, from time to time, it noticed construction at sites it had
previously examined.

Gwozdecky said the new construction indicated in the photograph was no
surprise and that no conclusions were drawn from it. “There is not a
single building we see,” he said.

http://prorev.com/fascist.htm

GIULIANI, JEWS,
ART & FASCISM

Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has accused artist Hans Haacke of
"trivializing the Holocaust" by creating analogies between Mayor Giuliani and
Adolph Hitler. Said Foxman, the work "denigrates the memory of six million
Jews and others who were killed by the Nazis."

Foxman's contribution to the Giuliani campaign illustrates the growing
confusion over the nature of fascism, spurred in no small part by a form of
historical revisionism that essentially reduces the Second World War to a
matter of anti-Semitism. In some ways this revisionism is more dangerous than
the claim that the Holocaust never happened, since the denials are safely on
the fringe while the myth that fascism is inexorably linked to anti-Semitism
is widely held.

One of the reasons we have such difficulty perceiving our current conditions
is our aversion to this single word: fascism. While there is no hesitation by
politicians to draw parallels with the Holocaust to justify whatever foreign
adventure appeals to them, or for the media to make similar analogies at the
drop of swastika on a wall, we seem only able to understand -- or even mention
-- the climax of fascism rather than its genesis. Why this reluctance? Perhaps
it is because we are much closer to the latter than to the former.

In any case, it is one of the most dangerous forms of political myopia in
which to indulge. Italians, who invented the term fascism, also called it the
estato corporativo: the corporatist state. Orwell rightly described fascism as
being an extension of capitalism. It is an economy in which the government
serves the interests of oligopolies, a state in which large corporations have
the powers that in a democracy devolve to the citizen. Today, it is no
exaggeration to call our economy corporatist, which has been described by
British academics R.E. Pahl and J. T. Winkler as a system in which the
government guides privately owned businesses towards order, unity, nationalism
and success."

"Let us not mince words, they said. "Corporatism is fascism with a human
face." The Nazis had their own word for it: wehrwirtschaft, semantically
linking wehr (for defense, bulwark, weapon) with wirtshaft (for housekeeping,
domestic economy, husbandry) to describe an economy based on the assumption of
warfare. The concept was not new, however. William Shirer points out in The
Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich that 18th and 19th century Prussia
devoted 70% of its revenue to the army and "that nation's whole economy was
always regarded as primarily an instrument not of the people's welfare but of
military policy." In Hitler's Germany even the pogroms were part of national
economic planning, seizing Jewish shops and companies and replacing Jewish
workers with the Ayrian unemployed.

Hitler argued that "private enterprise cannot be maintained in a democracy,"
and denounced "the freedom to starve," in a country which had known as many as
six million without jobs. Wrote William Shirer, "In taking away that last
freedom, Hitler assured himself of the support of the working class."

The link between business and fascism was clear to German corporatists.
Auschwitz was not just a way to get rid of Jews, it was also a major source of
cheap labor. As Richard Rubenstein points out in The Cunning of History, "I.G.
Farben's decision to locate at Auschwitz was based upon the very same criteria
by which contemporary multinational corporations relocate their plants in
utter indifference to the social consequences of such moves." I.G. Farben
invested over a billion dollars in today's money at Auschwitz and, thanks to
the endless supply of labor, adopted a policy of deliberately working the
Jewish slaves to death. In such ways do economics and freedom become
intertwined. Those who think it can't happen here should consider that four
days before Mussolini became premier, he met with a group of industrialists
and assured them that his aim "was to reestablish discipline within the
factories and that no outlandish experiments .... would be carried out." In
Friendly Fascism, Bertram Gross notes that Mussolini also won "the friendship,
support or qualified approval" of the American ambassador, Cornelius
Vanderbilt, Thomas Lamont, many newspapers and magazine publishers, the
majority of business journals, and quite a sprinkling of liberals, including
some associated with both the Nation and The New Republic. "

Orwell understood fascism. One of the characteristics of his inner party, the
ten percent who controlled the rest, was that there was no sexual or racial
discrimination. He understood that ethnic eradication, while characteristic of
nazism, was not required for fascism. Even earlier, Aldous Huxley set up a
similar non-discriminatory dystopia in Brave New World.

In fact, one of the characteristics of the modern propaganda state is the use
of ethnic and sexual iconography to cover its tracks. Thus Richard Nixon was
slurring Jews in Oval Office conversations even as he set a new record in
their high-level appointments. And W.J. Clinton was called our first black
president by Toni Morrison even as the government was sending young black
males to prison in unprecedented numbers.

There is something else about fascism that we miss: it requires a modern,
technocratic society. John Ralston Saul has written:

* * * The Holocaust was the result of a perfectly rational argument -- given
what reason had become -- that was self-justifying and hermetically sealed.
There is, therefore, nothing surprising about the fact that the meeting called
to decide on "the final solution" was a gathering mainly of senior ministerial
representatives. Technocrats. Nor is it surprising that [the] Wansee
Conference lasted only an hour -- one meeting among many for those present --
and turned entirely on the modalities for administering the solutions .... The
massacre was indeed 'managed,' even 'well managed.' It had the clean
efficiency of a Harvard case study * * *

Marshall Rosenberg, who teaches non-violent communication, says that in
reading psychological interviews with Nazi war criminals what struck him was
not their abnormality, but that they used a language that denied choice:
"should," "one must," "have to." For example, Adolph Eichmann was asked, "Was
it difficult for you to send these tens of thousands of people their death?"
Eichmann replied, "To tell you the truth, it was easy. Our language made it
easy."

Asked to explain, Eichmann said, "My fellow officers and I coined our own name
for our language. We called it amtssprache -- 'office talk.'" In office talk
"you deny responsibility for your actions. So if anybody says, 'Why did you do
it?' you say, 'I had to.' 'Why did you have to?' 'Superiors' orders. Company
policy. It's the law.'"

Yet for all the words we have devoted to the Holocaust, go into almost any
bookstore and you'll find far more works on how to manage, manipulate and
control others - and how to use "office talk" -- than you will on how to
practice the skills of a free citizen.

The most important lessons of the Holocaust are simply missed. Among these, as
Richard Rubenstein has pointed out, is that it could only have been carried
out by "an advanced political community with a highly trained, tightly
disciplined police and civil service bureaucracy." In The Cunning of History,
Rubenstein also finds uncomfortable parallels between the Nazis and their
opponents, of which we are being now reminded with recent questions about the
role of the Vatican and the Swiss during WWII. For example, a Hungarian Jewish
emissary meets with Lord Moyne, the British High Commissioner in Egypt in 1944
and suggests that the Nazis might be willing to save one million Hungarian
Jews in return for military supplies. Lord Moyne's reply: "What shall I do
with those million Jews? Where shall I put them?"

Writes Rubenstein: "The British government was by no means adverse to the
'final solution' as long as the Germans did most of the work." For both
countries, it had become a bureaucratic problem, one that Rubenstein suggests
we understand "as the expression of some of the most profound tendencies of
Western civilization in the 20th century."How many school children are taught
that, worldwide, wars in the past century killed somewhere between 100 and 150
million people? In World War I alone the death toll was around ten million.
All this, including the Holocaust, was driven by a culture of modernity that
so changed the power of institutions over the individual that the latter would
become what Erich Fromm called home mechanicus, "attracted to all that is
mechanical and inclined against all that is alive." Becoming, in fact, a part
of the machinery -- willing to kill or to die just to keep it running.

Thus, with Auschwitz-like efficiency, over 6,000 people perished every day
during World War I for 1,500 days. Rubenstein recounts that on the first day
of the Battle of the Somme, the British lost 60,000 men and half of the
officers assigned to them. But the bureaucratic internal logic of the war did
not falter at all; over the next six months, more than a million British,
French and German soldiers would lose their lives. The total British advance:
six miles. No one in that war was a person anymore.

Milton Mayer, a Jewish journalist, who wrote a book about ordinary Nazis, They
Thought They Were Free, concluded:

*** Now I see a little better how Nazism overcame Germany ~ It was what most
Germans wanted -- or, under pressure of combined reality and illusion, came to
want. They wanted it; they got it; and they liked it. I came back home a
little afraid for my country, afraid of what it might want, and get, and like,
under pressure of combined reality and illusions. I felt -- and feel -- that
it was not German Man that I had met, but Man. He happened to be in Germany
under certain conditions. He might be here, under certain conditions. He
might, under certain conditions, be I. ***

Giuliani's politics contain proto-fascist elements. We should not hide from
this fact. The discussion of Giuliani and fascism is also pertinent for local
historical reasons. During the rise of Mussolini, more than a few New York
City Italians supported the fascist dictator. Of course, this same community
produced such progressives as Fiorello La Guardia and Vito Marcantonio. This
is a sensitive subject, witness the change from the New York City Historical
Society's frank depiction of the intracultural struggle in its exhibit on
Italians in NY to a post-exhibit mealy-mouthed summary on its web site which
reads: "The 1933 election of reform candidate Fiorello La Guardia as mayor of
New York reflected the strength of Italian voters. Like any community,
however, Italian-Americans are not monolithic in their political views. The
rise of European Fascism created significant political divisions among New
York's Italian population. Yet, when called upon, civilians organized behind
the war effort, staging countless rallies, war bond drives, Red Cross efforts
and youth enlistment campaigns."