Truth Rings Out!

Robert Fisk angrily declares that by endorsing Ariel Sharon's plan, George W. Bush has legitimised terrorism:

"Why shouldn't the British re-take America and boot out those pesky 'terrorists' who oppose the rule of King George's democracy well over 200 years ago?

Every colonial power, including Israel can put forward these preposterous demands. What Bush has actually done is give way to the crazed world of Christian Zionism. The fundamentalist Christians who support Israel's theft of the West Bank on the grounds that the state of Israel must exist there according to God's law until the second coming, believe that Jesus will return to earth and the Israelis - for this is the Bush "Christian Sundie" belief - will then have to convert to Christianity or die in the battle of Amargeddon.

I kid thee not. This is the Christian fundamentalist belief, which even the Israeli embassy in Washington go along with - without comment, of course - in their weekly Christian Zionist prayer meetings. Every claim by Osama bin Laden, every statement that the United States represents Zionism and supports the theft of Arab lands will now have been proved true to millions of Arabs, even those who had no time for Bin Laden. What better recruiting sergeant could Bin Laden have than George Bush. Doesn't he realise what this means for young American soldiers in Iraq or are Israelis more important than American lives in Mesopotamia? Everything the US government has done to preserve its name as a "middle-man" in the Middle East has now been thrown away by this gutless, cowardly US President, George W Bush. That it will place his soldiers at greater risk doesn't worry him - anyway, he doesn't do funerals. That it goes against natural justice doesn't worry him. That his statements are against international law is of no consequence.

And still we have to cow-tow to this man..."

George W. Bush on the Middle East Road Map:

"I'm not reelly sure what it's all about but I think we want to build a highway to get oil and gas to America and we need a map to figger out the best way for it to go. "

More at DeadBrain.

Congratulations to Tom Tomorrow for highlighting the hypocrisy of these mutually destructive Bush quotes:

"But there was nobody in our government at least — and I don't think the prior government — could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale."

And yet, mere seconds later:

"I asked for the briefing. And the reason I did is because there had been a lot of threat intelligence from overseas. And part of it had to do with the Genoa G8 conference that I was going to attend."

Alert readers will recall that one of the major security concerns at the Genoa conference was the possibility of aerial incursions.

Paul Bremer says US-trained Iraqi forces are not ready to take control on June 30.

"Events of the past two weeks show that Iraq still faces security threats and needs outside help to deal with them. Early this month, the foes of democracy overran Iraqi police stations and seized public buildings in several parts of the country... Iraqi forces were unable to stop them.''

Truth is, the USA is pissed at their expensively trained recruits for failing to fire on their Muslim brothers. A whole battalian refused to take part in recent onslaughts. Others turned against the US forces. The Iraqis are probably quite capable of taking control if the US forces leave, and may well be helping them on their way soon...

Lack of critical media gave Government free rein on Iraq invasion:

"Almost everything the Anglo-US leaders told us about the invasion has proven to be false. Iraq was invaded to rid Saddam of his weapons of mass destruction. Almost everyone now concedes such weapons did not exist. Such weapons were especially dangerous, we were told, because of Saddam's links with al-Qaeda. Almost everyone now knows that no such links existed.

We were told the invasion of Iraq would help solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. The prospects of Middle East peace have never been so remote. We were told the invasion would help solve the threat of Islamist terrorism. Nothing has given the ideology of Islamism a greater fillip than the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq. We were told Iraqis would welcome the invading forces as liberators. Iraq is now a tinderbox... "

Robert Manne, professor of politics at La Trobe University, reports on the misreporting of the Murdoch Press. He claims a general pro-war directive was issued throughout the Murdoch organisation a month before the war.

Guantanamo Cases FINALLY Reach Supreme Court

The Ocala Star Banner reports:

"Three Supreme Court cases generated by the Bush administration's detention of those it deems 'enemy combatants' will be argued over the next 10 days, framing a debate of historic dimension not only about the rights of citizens and noncitizens alike, but also or perhaps principally about the boundaries of presidential power... "

A new leaflet is being widely distributed in Baghdad. It says:

'Do not go out of your homes. Keep your families off the streets... Combined Mujahideen Brigades are coming to Baghdad.'

The major highways north, south and west of Baghdad have been blocked by US forces in response to "terrorist" threats. Najaf, where rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's is still holed up under seige, is just two hours south of Baghdad.

Members of al-Sadr's "Army of the Mahdi" have pledged to launch a general war if the US invades Najaf, and the sentiment appears to be widespread across Iraq, with senior clerics using criticism of al-Sadr as a bargaining chip to stop a full-scale US attack. It's a similar story in Falluja.

If the US does launch an all-out attack (and wouldn't that be a surprise, with neo-cons directing operations from their Washington Video Conference lounge-chairs?), we can expect widespread uprisings across Iraq, with members of the new "Iraqi" police and army forces likely to stand aside or even turn against the US-led forces. That should provide some more great footage for war-crazed Western television viewers.

What's The Real Problem?

Another day, another painful trawl through page after page of gut-wrenchingly miserable news. Israeli troops have assasinated the new Hamas leader, US forces are ready to launch a full-scale massacre in Najaf (using Polish and Spanish forces as the front line - that'll teach 'em), the corporate-sponsored media throws up a few more Western warmongers' press releases and John Kerry still isn't saying anything worth hearing. How did we get into this mess and how do we get out of it? The situation is worse than it may seem on the surface...

George W. Bush should never have even been considered for election to the White House. He never had the skills, the experience or the brains to take on the position of World's Most Powerful Individual Ever. But Bush never really sought the Presidency - he was hand-picked for it. By whom? The same band of fools that helped his father become head of the CIA and then the country.

You could probably trace the ideological, political and family connections of these people all the way back to the inner sanctums of Medieval castles, if you wanted to... but it's probably worth starting with the 1930s and the people who helped bring Hitler to power. Like Bush Junior, Hitler was originally just a front-man for powerful business interests. Like the current Bush admnistration, Hitler's machine used nationalistic, war-like rhetoric to stir up public passions and stifle criticism. Like the US forces in Iraq today, they treated foreigners as Unter-menshen, people whose lives do not have the same value as theirs.

It is worth mentioning here that Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, was one of the business people backing Hitler. His banking interested helped finance production of Nazi steel for the war industry. After WWII, Prescott Bush was found guilty of assisting the enemy, but the punishment was mitigated for diplomatic and business reasons, so his family retained its fortune.

The same thing happened in the wake of the Nixon scandal. Watergate was a painful, drawn-out saga which was painfully distressing to the average television-watching US citizen. When the blood-letting was declared over by mutual GOP-Democrat consent, people like Bush Senior, Cheney and Rumsfeld had kept under the radar and were able to continue pursuing their ideological, power-building paths within the CIA and the Republican Party.

These are the same people who hand-picked the idiot from Texas as a potential vote-winner to topple the staid and "boring" Al Gore. They are now experts in media spin and their tentacles reach deep within the GOP, the CIA, the religious right and the US military-industrial machine. These people want to ensure that globalisation leads us into a nightmare scenario of slave-factory workers and mega-rich elites who cannot be challenged militarily, politically or even judicially.

If you find the above hard to believe, look through my posts below for quotes from Teddy Roosevelt, who warned the US public of continuing attempts by corporate fascists, or even Ronald Reagan, who warned the GOP against Bush Snr and the powerful corporate interests that backed him (for those who remember, Bush Snr was originally considered more unelectable than Howard Dean).

So the big question today is not just how to get rid of George W. Bush and his band of neo-conservatives, but also how to ensure that they cannot steal another election by (a) massive corporate business donations to the GOP, (b) careful manipulation of public opinion, or even (c) manipulation of the judicial and voting processes (as witnessed in Florida and the US Supreme Court).

These problems will only be solved if Bush and his gang are thoroughly exposed and publicly held accountable for their misdemeanors, which now include international War Crimes and repeated defiance of the US Constitution.

The first step is to turn public opinion against Bush by censuring him. The next step will be to impeach him, launch a thorough investigation into his administration, then imprison the whole damned lot of them. But even that wont be enough: corporate media and other business interests also need to be held accountable for their part in this corruption. And international co-conspirators like the UK and Australia will obviously require their own blood-letting.

The alternative is a world which continues down the path of endless war, religious hatred, fear and terrorism, where the rich get richer and the middle class become chained forever by poverty and state-sponsored ignorance. Or are we already there?

Can US Voters Handle The Truth???

The White House has done it again, confirming revelations in an unflattering new book in order to take the sting out before they go to press. So instead of newspaper headlines saying "New Book: Bush Planned Iraq War in Nov 2001", there are headlines saying "White House Confirms Nov 2001 Plans For Iraq." Such is the surreal world of media spin in which we live.

The new book is by Bob Woodward, a Washington Post journalist who wrote an earlier book on Bush's anti-terrorism campaign and broke the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein. The book looks set to provide a lot more uncomfortable news for the embattled White House.

What about this for a bombshell:

"... The end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn't know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. ... Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the treasury unless appropriated by Congress. Congress was totally in the dark on this."

There are also a lot of very interesting fly-on-the-wall insights. For example:

"When the CIA and its Iraqi sources reported that Saddam's sons and other family members were at a small palace, and Saddam was on his way to join them, Bush's top advisers debated whether to strike ahead of plan.

Franks was against it, saying it was unfair to move before a deadline announced to the other side, the book says. Rumsfeld and Rice favoured the early strike, and Secretary of State Colin Powell leaned that way.

But Bush did not make his decision until he had cleared everyone out of the Oval Office except the vice president.

"I think we ought to go for it," Cheney is quoted as saying. Bush did.

US forces unleashed bombs and cruise missiles, blanketing the compound but missing the palace.

Tenet called the White House before dawn to say the Iraqi leader had been killed. But his optimism was premature. Saddam was alive."

One senior Bush administrator who comes out looking not as bad as the rest of the garbage is Colin Powell, who has collaborated on other books by Woodward. Powell's spokesman would not comment on whether Powell had assisted with this one. When asked whether it was true that Powell and Dick Cheney are barely on speaking terms, the spokesman said "I don't think that's true" (diplomatic language for "it probably is true").

Is Powell ready to blow the whistle? It's widely rumoured he is not interested in another 4 years with Bush's White House. If he does get exposed as the source of many verbatim conversations in this new book, will the Karl Rove sleaze machine seek to destroy his reputation? If so, it could get very interesting indeed... I've always suspected Powell has a few big skeletons in his cupboard, otherwise he probably would have taken the opportunity to become the first black US President.

Get Out Now, Before We Are Thrown Out - by John Pilger:

"A few weeks ago, Rick Mercier, a young columnist for the Free-Lance Star, a small paper in Virginia, did what no other journalist has done this past year. He apologized to his readers for the travesty of the reporting of events leading to the attack on Iraq. 'Sorry we let unsubstantiated claims drive our coverage,' he wrote. 'Sorry we let a band of self-serving Iraqi defectors make fools of us. Sorry we fell for Colin Powell's performance at the United Nations... Maybe we'll do a better job next war.'

Well done, Rick Mercier. But listen to the silence of your colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic... "

Guardian: Dangerous liaisons

"Washington insiders are scratching their heads as to how Mr Sharon's proposal made it onto the table when the Israeli prime minister flew into Washington. One explanation is that Mr Bush's administration is so preoccupied with other matters, especially Iraq, that it failed to realise the implications of Mr Sharon's proposal. If so, that is no excuse...

The chances of the road map having a lasting role were already imperilled by on-going Palestinian violence and Israel's assassination of the Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin, but this latest announcement has finished it off...

If Britain has any significant influence in the White House as a result of its involvement in Iraq, then this was surely the time to use it. One obvious conclusion is that Britain has none."

Post-9/11 Responsibility and Accountability

As the 9/11 commission finishes calling witnesses, the frenzy of blame-tossing is being replaced by a growing debate about the need for reform of the CIA and the FBI. Despite revelations that a pile of hair-rasing intelligence material was systematically ignored by senior administration members, Bush, Rice, Ashcroft and others have sought to deflect personal blame with suggestions that the US intelligence agencies require major reforms. Such diversionary tactics pre-empt the findings of the commision in a very dangerous way. A political whitewash would be bad enough, but absolving the neo-cons of blame while giving them carte-blanche authority to overhaul the CIA and FBI would be an absolute disaster.

It's true that, even under an Al Gore presidency, 9/11 may not have been prevented. As a result, some degree of intelligence agencies reform may indeed be justified. But the truth is that the USA has already implemented massive changes - most notably the Department of Homeland Security and the dangerously intrusive Patriot Act - that ensure such an attack would be very, very hard to duplicate.

The commision's findings have revealed errors within the CIA, the FBI and other agencies. Far more importantly, however, they have highlighted the blinkered ideological attitude of a White House bent on distorting, suppressing, inventing and ignoring the truth. What use are thousands of intelligence-gathering spooks if the heads of state do not want to see, hear or read their findings, let alone act in response to them?

As former Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal notes, Bush did not even read the President's Daily Briefs that Clinton used to personally examine and edit. "It seems highly unlikely that he read the national intelligence estimate on WMD before the Iraq war that consigned contrary evidence and caveats that undermined the case to footnotes and fine print. Nor is there any evidence that he read the state department's 17-volume report, The Future of Iraq, warning of nearly all the postwar pitfalls, that was shelved by the neocons in the Pentagon and Vice-President Cheney's office."

In such an environment, it is impossible to consider the 9/11 failures without also examining the subsequent "intelligence failures" that led the USA into war with Iraq: the WMDs that did not exist, Saddam's illusionary ties with Al-Quaeda, Nigerian yellowcake, mobile biological weapons labs and other fantasies of neo-conservative conjuring. As one senior intelligence officer says, "The Pentagon began with fantasy assumptions on Iraq and worked back."

Paul Wolfowitz's Office of Special Plans, for example, was created by the neo-cons to subvert or by-pass the traditional intelligence networks, cherry-picking information to suit the ideological aims of the war-mongerers. This must not be allowed to happen again, and those responsible must take the blame for the subsequent "intelligence errors", not to mention the ordinary lives these so-called errors have cost.

The commisioners on the 9/11 panel must not allow themselves to be restricted from extending their mandate to fully examine these larger problems of manipulated, distorted and ignored intellingce. A proper inquiry will lead us all the way back to the creation of the CIA and Roosevelt's warnings against fascist infiltrators, with a special focus on the Nixon administration and the shadowy roles played by people like Dick Cheney and George H. W. Bush (snr.). Rather than giving these people further control of the spy networks they have been working to subvert for over half a century, the 9/11 commision should force them to accept responsibility for their errors and ensure that the intelligence agencies are no longer encumbered by their neo-fascist, right-wing, pseudo-Christian ideological agendas.

The Arabs Were Right: It's A Crusade

A new book, "The Bushes", quotes an unnamed relative as saying that George W. Bush sees the war on terrorism ''as a religious war'':

''He doesn't have a p.c. view of this war. His view of this is that they are trying to kill the Christians. And we the Christians will strike back with more force and more ferocity than they will ever know.'' "

AlterNet takes a good look at Bush's attempts to use the UN to solve his problems in Iraq. After pointing out that "at least one half of the Bush administration – led by the Cheney-Rumsfeld gang – appears to be working to thwart any genuinely viable solution," the article examines the near-impossible challenge facing Kofi Annan's special representative, Lakhdar Brahimi.

"There is a genuine, but rapidly diminishing chance that the United States can clamber out of the hole that it has dug for itself. In order to make the most of its odds, the White House has to give up its neoconservative pipe dreams of an elected Iraqi government that will kiss and make up with Israel, leave OPEC, and offer the U.S. Middle East bases in perpetuity.

The idea of the Bush administration ceding so much ground may seem like a pipedream, but the alternative is a very real nightmare. "

President Bush Needs Your Help - Click here to vote for his biggest mistake!

Editor and Publisher has the complete text of Bush's response to a question asking if he had any regrets about mistakes in Iraq:

'I wish you'd given me this as a written question ahead of time so I could have planned for it. Uh ... [looks up, pauses, shakes head] ... John -- I'm sure historians will look back and say 'he could have done it better this way or that way' but ... [shakes head] ... I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference and all the pressure to come up with an answer but it hasn't yet. ...'

After saying that if he had to do it all over again he would still attack Afghanistan and invade Iraq despite not finding any WMDS -- and reminding us they might 'still be there' -- he returned to the question at hand: 'I don't want to sound like I haven't made any mistakes, but you just put me on the spot here and maybe I'm just not as quick on my feet in coming up with one.'"

Baghdad Airport Is Now A US Dometic Flight

Michael Moore.com : Michael Moore says: "I currently have two cameramen/reporters doing work for me in Iraq for my movie (unbeknownst to the Army). They are talking to soldiers and gathering the true sentiment about what is really going on. They Fed Ex the footage back to me each week. That's right, Fed Ex. Who said we haven't brought freedom to Iraq! The funniest story my guys tell me is how when they fly into Baghdad, they don't have to show a passport or go through immigration. Why not? Because they have not traveled from a foreign country -- they're coming from America TO America, a place that is ours, a new American territory called Iraq. "

Going Round The Bend

Riverbend, a girl blogger from Baghdad, makes some important points on her Baghdad Burning blog today:

"I think western news networks are far too tame. They show the Hollywood version of war- strong troops in uniform, hostile Iraqis being captured and made to face 'justice' and the White House turkey posing with the Thanksgiving turkey... which is just fine. But what about the destruction that comes with war and occupation? What about the death? I don't mean just the images of dead Iraqis scattered all over, but dead Americans too. People should *have* to see those images. Why is it not ok to show dead Iraqis and American troops in Iraq, but it's fine to show the catastrophe of September 11 over and over again? I wish every person who emails me supporting the war, safe behind their computer, secure in their narrow mind and fixed views, could actually come and experience the war live. I wish they could spend just 24 hours in Baghdad today and hear Mark Kimmett talk about the death of 700 'insurgents' like it was a proud day for Americans everywhere...

Still, when I hear talk about 'anti-Americanism' it angers me. Why does American identify itself with its military and government? Why is does being anti-Bush and anti-occupation have to mean that a person is anti-American? We watch American movies, listen to everything from Britney Spears to Nirvana and refer to every single brown, fizzy drink as 'Pepsi'.

I hate American foreign policy and its constant meddling in the region... I hate American tanks in Baghdad and American soldiers on our streets and in our homes on occasion... why does that mean that I hate America and Americans? Are tanks, troops and violence the only face of America? If the Pentagon, Department of Defense and Condi are 'America', then yes- I hate America. "

The Australian reports that "an Iraqi has died of his wounds after US troops beat him with truncheons because he refused to remove a picture of wanted Shiite Muslim leader Moqtada Sadr from his car..."

Bush Holds Press Conference, Says Nothing

It was nothing but more of the same, yet it made headlines around the world anyway. Everybody knows the White House has made huge mistakes in their planning and execution of the War, not to mention 9/11, yet still Bush refuses to acknowledge them or apologize. I loved this quote, when asked what was his biggest mistake in Iraq:

"I'm sure something will pop into my head in a minute... I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes; I'm confident I have. Maybe I'm not as quick... as quick on my feet as I should be, in coming up with one."

Maybe I'm just a spoiled, arrogant son of a #$%*& and I don't give a #$@&.

Bush used the tired old line about those who are against the War must wish Saddam was still in power. Interestingly, an increasing number of Iraqis seem to be saying just that. As the Washington Dispatch points out: "On average the Hussein regime resulted in 9,600 civilian deaths a year while Bush's occupation has led to 10,700 civilian deaths in its only year thus far. "

Bush said he will send as many troops as necessary to maintain US control of Iraq, a policy which contradicts Rumsfeld's long-term insistence that the army must be slimmed down. The neo-cons originally said 30,000 troops would be enough to secure the country. There are currently 130,000, with 10,000 more on order from God knows where. 20,000 more who were due to be rotated home will be staying on indefinitely. Again, there was no admission of error.

And Bush still could not say to whom "Iraqi soveriegnty" will be handed on June 30th.

Meanwhile, televised footage of the increasingly partisan and acrimonious 9/11 hearings is beginning to look a lot like the Nixonian Church Committee hearings...

WorkingForChange: Abu Musad al Zarqawi has two legs.

"This will not strike you as a stop-the-presses moment unless you remember that al Zarqawi was one of Osama bin Laden's Number Two men (we seem to have captured several 'Number Two' men already, with more still out there.) Pre-war, the administration claimed the reason it was so certain Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda was that Zarqawi had gone to Baghdad to get his leg amputated. But now, oops, he has two. "

An interesting article from the Toronto Sun :

"Australia is facing a tight electoral race between Conservative Prime Minister John Howard, who eagerly sent troops to Iraq, and Labour party challenger Mark Latham, who, like Spain's new PM, vows to bring his nation's troops home from Iraq. A majority of Australians opposes the Iraq war.

U.S. Ambassador Tom Schieffer, a Texas pal of Bush, warned Australians of 'serious consequences' if they elect Latham.

Australians love America, but any worldly person knows you do not threaten Aussies. They will come out swinging. Schieffer should be fired. "

Ashcroft's Turn To Feel The Heat

FBI Director Thomas Pickard has told the 9/11 Commision that he appealed to US Attorney General John Ashcroft for more money for counterterrorism. On Sept 10, 2001, one day before the attacks, Ashcroft rejected the appeal.

Ashcroft was briefed on terrorist threats by Pickard in late June and July 2001.

'After two such briefings, the attorney general told him he did not want to hear this information anymore,' the report quoted Pickard as saying. Ashcroft denies making any such statement to Pickard, so once again somebody must be lying...

And former FBI Director Louis Freeh testified that he sought permission to hire almost 1,900 counterterror linguists, analysts and agents in the previous three years but was allowed to add just 76.

Gareth Smith - Anti-War Hero!!!

Gareth Smith, a 61-year-old Australian, today attempted to make a citizens arrest of Prime Minister John Howard, citing his war crimes in Iraq. Bravo, Mr Smith, bravo!

Lessons Of History

A Report on Mesopotamia - by T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia):

"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster... "

One of Condoleeza Rice's former University professors wonders how she could have lost the plot so completely...

"Condi has always been a great performer... But tragically, she is also a person without a core, who loses herself in her performance. National security was her responsibility. She failed in that responsibility because she was too busy perfecting her performance as a Bush team player when the Bush team, obsessed with wild fantasies of global domination, had lost touch with reality.

In contrast, Richard Clarke was not concerned about applause. He saw the threat of al-Qaida. He fought in the Bush bureaucracy to get them to pay attention...

Perhaps Condi's performance, which ran on all the major channels, can take voters' eyes off the fact that due to the invasion of Iraq, al-Qaida has only grown stronger in the past three years. Perhaps Condi can turn our eyes from the fact that the president asked American soldiers to die for lies about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's supposed links to bin Laden. Perhaps Condi can claim that all is well in Iraq while Shiites and Sunnis unite to fight the American occupation and kill American soldiers. The fairy tale continues. The performer skates on. "

Is Bush An Idiot?

How else do you describe his inability to come to terms with either the English language or basic, logical truths? A month before 9/11, he read a memo describing "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." His response:

'There was nothing in there that said, you know, there's an imminent attack. There was nothing in this report to me that said, 'oh, by the way, we've got intelligence that says something is about to happen in America.'

Maybe the FBI should have included pictures in their presidential memos, or delivered them in cartoon format? Maybe they should have marked them up with fat red textas highlighting the words "hijacking" and "attacks" and adding notes saying "This Means Danger!!!"

The good news is that Bush is set to face again the Press tomorrow. It will be the first "real" press conference of 2004, if you call staged and vetted questioning from selected media outlets "real".

Gitmo Disgrace

"A human rights conference in Yemen on Guantanamo Bay detainees has ended with a plea to the US to either release inmates or put them on trial. A statement issued at the end of the two-day conference said the inmates' situation at the US base in Cuba was 'an unprecedented human rights scandal'. "

Future Wars

"The Rise of the Machines is at the heart of the Bush administration's recent military budget. Sandwiched into outlays for aircraft, artillery, and conventional weapons, are monies for unmanned combat aircraft, robot tanks, submarines, and a supersonic bomber capable of delivering six tons of bombs and missiles to anyplace on the globe in two hours. "

WorkingForChange Quote of the Day:

Senator Ted Kennedy said that Iraq was President Bush's 'Vietnam.' When he heard about it, Bush said, 'That's not true; I went to Iraq.'

Aunty, Come Back...

One of the great unsung tragedies of the Iraq War is the de-clawing of the BBC. When is the last time you read a good, critical account of the War on the BBC News website? In the wake of the Hutton inquiry, senior management have obviously told reporters to keep their "opinions" to themselves. As a result, the BBC has become just another mouthpiece for White House spokespersons and Downing Street press releases. There must be a lot of very qualified, experienced and knowledgeable reporters who are now considering leaving the BBC, which could irreparably harm this great and noble public institution... all because they dared to report that the Emperor had no clothes.

In a sense, the war in Iraq has also become an international media war, the outcome of which is likely to determine how we get our news for another generation or more. According to a new book by Paul Rutherford, Weapons of Mass Persuasion, there are now "20,000 more public relations experts in the United States doctoring the news than there are journalists trying to write it". Fortunately, the War has also increased the visibility of independent online news sites like Alternet, Buzzflash, AntiWar.com and others. Many of these sites are run by single individuals on very basic budgets, yet they could hold the key to the future of truly independent "free" journalism.

Phantom Flight From Florida: From The Tampa Tribune:

"The federal government says the flight never took place. But the two armed bodyguards hired to chaperon their clients out of the state recall the 100-minute trip Sept. 13 quite vividly. In the end, the son of a Saudi Arabian prince who is the nation's defense minister and the son of a Saudi army commander made it to Kentucky for a waiting 747 and a trip to their homeland. "

What the Hell are Untermenschen?

The Americans have already lost the battle for Iraqi hearts and minds.

A British Army oficer, speaking from his base in southern Iraq:

"My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful.

"The US troops view things in very simplistic terms. It seems hard for them to reconcile subtleties between who supports what and who doesn't in Iraq. It's easier for their soldiers to group all Iraqis as the bad guys. As far as they are concerned Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to kill them."

The phrase untermenschen - literally "under-people" - was brought to prominence by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf, published in 1925. He used the term to describe those he regarded as racially inferior: Jews, Slaves and gipsies.

"When US troops are attacked with mortars in Baghdad," says the officer, " they use mortar-locating radar to find the firing point and then attack the general area with artillery, even though the area they are attacking may be in the middle of a densely populated residential area.

"They may well kill the terrorists in the barrage but they will also kill and maim innocent civilians. That has been their response on a number of occasions. It is trite, but American troops do shoot first and ask questions later."

Obviously nobody told the British that the Yanks are on a Mission From God.

What The Hell Is A "Warning?"

The newly declassified Presidential memo of Aug 6, 2001, said the FBI had information that "indicates patterns of suspicious activity' inside the US, 'consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York'.

The memo was titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in US", yet Bush and Rice claim it was not a warning. Well, what the hell was it then???

Again, the Bush White House has only volunteered information in response to extreme public pressure. Again, they have responded with carefully constructed sentences which, when you examine them closely, contradict their previous comments and are really nothing more than lies.

Bush says, "I never saw any intelligence that indicated there was going to be an attack on America." I guess bin Laden should have left a few more clues, like the bad guys always do in Hollywood.

What the Hell is "Sovereignty"?

"Contrary to US assurances, there may not be a basis in international law for American and coalition troops to remain after June 30 without a new mandate. That must come either from the UN or the new interim Iraqi government, or both, says a lawyer advising the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), Noah Feldman.

The US has argued that the interim constitution signed by the council and the US Ambassador, Paul Bremer, allows the coalition forces to remain in charge of security after June 30.
But this is disputed in Baghdad and at the UN. The most important Shiite leader in Iraq, the Grand Ayotollah Ali al-Sistani, has rejected the claim.

Mr Feldman said if the US refused to acknowledge that it needed a fresh agreement with the interim government allowing the coalition to continue to exercise military control, 'it raises some serious questions about what the hell is sovereignty'."

Nobody Believes Condi Any More, Not Even the FBI:

"The FBI on Friday disputed National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony that it was conducting 70 separate investigations of al-Qaida cells in the United States before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks... FBI spokesman Ed Coggswell said the bureau was trying to determine how the number 70 got into the report."

Language Barriers

Condi Rice, asked about a memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States": "This was not a warning. This was a historic memo."

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi says: 'We can't cave in to terrorist threats.'

Muqtada al-Sadr, pledging a halt to violence and calling for the arrest of opportunist looters: "After the intervention of a number of learned clerics and Iraqi personalities and tribal notables, we have decided (we, the office of the martyered Sayyid al-Sadr), to halt the military operations and gatherings, and to stop the disturbance of secure citizens, to halt the attacks on their honor, and to apprehend these rebellious elements and to surrender them to the office of the speaking, fighting religious Center."

It appears this cease-fire, which was probably requested by Ayatollah al-Sistani (currently negotiating with Un reps), may have already collapsed.

Noah Feldman, a US constitutional lawyer involved in UN-Iraq negotiations: "Going after al-Sadr was the stupidest thing Bremer has done since the disbanding of the military."

One of the most pro-U.S. of the Iraqi Governing Council, Adnan Pachachi: “It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah, and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal.”

Many Iraqis also consider the arrest warrant against al-Sadr illegal, as there is no recognized legal system to issue or enforce it.

General John Abizaid, America's top commander in Iraq, has warned Washington that he will not be "the fall guy" if violence in the country worsens.

Republican Senator Joe Biden: "Do you know what this reminds me of? Only one similarity to Vietnam - the Tet offensive." (the turning point in Vietnam's war)

Also comparing Iarq to Vietnam, Colin Powell says: 'This is quite different... We do not have huge, state sponsors outside of Iraq, flooding the place with weaponry and manpower. It is not a swamp that is going to devour us.'

So what is the US, if not a "huge state sponsor"? And where has all the weaponry come from? In fact, the US has pledged $1 billion to training and arming Iraq police forces, only to see these forces frequently standing aside or even siding with rebels.

And let's leave the last word to Bush, who (SMH reports) "unnerved many when he publicly stumbled over his explanation of who exactly will take over in Iraq on June 30. "The United Nations representative is there now to work on to whom we transfer sovereignty," Bush said haltingly. "It's one thing to say that it's a transfer; we got to ... we're now in the process of deciding what the entity will look like to whom we will transfer sovereignty."

Meanwhile, guess where Bush is spending Easter? That's right... "This is the 33rd visit by Mr Bush to his ranch as president. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Mr Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office, or more than 40 per cent of his presidency, at one of his three retreats."

How Did We Get Into This Mess?

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography

The Bush-Nazi Connection

THE GROUP WITHOUT A NAME

Too Many Innocent People Are Dying:

"A spokesman for Iraq Body Count criticised the US tactics for putting the lives of civilians in at risk.

'The recent upsurge in violence has emphasised yet again that it is innocent Iraqi civilians who are the main victims of the US-led war and occupation. Up to 11,000 civilians are now reported killed since the invasion. Although we regret the loss of military lives too, military people have chosen to put their lives at risk. Civilians have no choice,' he said.

'The US has responded to the deaths of four security contractors in Falluja with the killing of 16 children. This is not the 'winning of hearts and minds' but the destruction of human life and hope. The continuing failure of the USA and the UK to acknowledge the costs of their policies in civilian deaths further undermines the prospects for peace and reconciliation in Iraq.'"

Condi Decides to Keep Lying

Gandhi: Let's Declare War on Stupidity

The release today of the only September 11 suspect ever convicted over the 9/11 attacks highlights just how abysmally stupid this whole "War on Terror" has been.

Bush says, "The War on Terror is not a figure of speech. It is an inescapable calling of our generation." Fortunately for all of us, such an assessment is not the truth. The real danger is that many people are inclined to believe such lies without considering the facts for themselves.

I dont dispute that there now exists a real danger of small, independent groups utilizing Weapons of Mass Destruction, or of rogue nations employing nuclear weapons or other WMDs. This is indeed a serious and new threat that our generation must face. But that is not what Bush means when he speaks of a "War On Terror." Bush's "War on Terror" ignores the real terrorists while terrorizing innocent civilians across the globe. By employing violence to combat violence, he inflames anti-Western sentiment and religious fundamentalism, increasing the real dangers for all of us. We need vigilance and we need controls, but more importantly we need understanding. We don't need more stupidity and violent confrontation.

As revelations by the 9/11 commision are already proving, 9/11 never needed to happen. If foolish ideologues had not seized control of the White House, the terrorist attacks could have been thwarted. But far more importantly, if US policy towards the Middle East, and towards Israel in particular, had been different for the past decade or more, Islamic Fundamentalists would never have been able to enlist widespread popular support, and the USA would never have become one of their prime targets. Indeed, it can be argued that the spread of Islamic Fundamentalism is itself largely a response to the increased danger of US-sponsored Zionist expansionism.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Bush could have taken advantage of the hugely sympathetic world opinion, aggressively pursued the terrorists involved (even taking advantage of a Taleban offer to hand over bin Laden, which the US declined) and righteously applied the rules of international law to punish them. He could have done that, but he did not.

Instead, although the Bush administration and US intelligence services knew immediately that Bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks, they tried to pin the blame on Saddam. They began doing this within hours of the attack. Why? Of course, they had a pre-set agenda and plans to get rid of Saddam, seize Iraqi oilfields and dominate the Middle East in the same was as they dominate Latin America. But maybe that is not the whole story. Maybe they also wanted to keep attention off Bin Laden and Al-Quaeda, because Bin Laden was a Saudi and the Saudis had oil and money and influence in OPEC and Middle East politics. And because the Bush White House is driven by right-wing ideologues with visions of a global American Empire, and they badly wanted Iraqis to be the bad guys, not the Saudis. And because ideologues find it very hard to reconcile their ideas with conflicting realities.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Osama Bin Laden issued a set of demands, perhaps foremost of which was the removal of all US forces from Saudi Arabia. Although most US citizens probably still do not know it, this demand has already been fulfilled. It was, in retrospect, a legitimate grievance which - until 9/11 - was being ignored by the US, the Saudi Royal Family and the world at large. So now Bush speaks about "Democratizing the Middle East", whereas pre-9/11 he was working deals to keep the House of Saud in power. Does this mean Bush has capitulated to bin Laden's terrorist demands? Of course not - "We don't negotiate with terrorists!"

OK. we shouldn't negotiate with terrorists, but if we ever want to be rid of them, we should try to understand their motives. If that means standing accused of being "sympathetic to terrorists", so be it. People don't blow themselves up or throw themselves in front of tanks without fervently believing in something. Instead of trying to defeat the terrorists with violence, we should be concentrating on defeating their ideas. And the only way we can do that is by admitting that there really is a lot of validity in their complaints. We then need to start working to address those problems. As long as the affluent lifestyles of Westerners are propped up by the suffering and oppression of hard-working ordinary people in other countries, we will remain the legitimate targets of their anger.

And we shouldn't pretend that we will ever "defeat" terrorism - you do not defeat an idea, you can only discredit it. Violence begets violence. Violence and war will not solve the world's problems. To defeat an idea, you need to use "soft" power, not "hard" power. You need to win the hearts and minds of ordinary people, not deploy the deadliest weapons. Even controlling the newspaper headlines and radio talk shows is not enough, as Communists and others have learned.

The war on terror misfired. Blame it all on the neocons:

"The invasion of Iraq may have been wrapped up in high-minded rhetoric about the need to liberate suffering Iraqis from a brutal regime, but most Muslims understand that the US removed Saddam from power for the same reason it installed him in the first place: to engineer a balance of power favourable to its own interests.

This perception of double standards has been compounded by the fact that no serious attempt has been made to address legitimate Muslim or Arab grievances. The roadmap for an Israel-Palestine peace settlement remains locked in the glove compartment, as Sharon continues the illegal annexation of Palestinian land under the pretext of building a security wall and pursues his own militaristic and unsuccessful war on terror. Meanwhile, Bush pretends not to notice. The result of this hypocrisy is that in the places where al-Qaida needs legitimacy in order to generate money and recruits, Britain and America are losing the propaganda battle hands-down. "

A War President's Job:

"Since Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have been told that they are at war. They have not been told what sacrifices, material and emotional, they must make to sustain multiple regime changes and nation-building projects. Telling such truths is part of the job description of a war president. "

Deeper into the abyss:

"US efforts are certain to fail -- no matter how many more Coalition soldiers die or however many more billions of dollars Washington spends. Iraq is not going to be stabilised any time soon, least of all if the US remains as a colonial power. Iraq is not going to become a Western-style democracy (and, if by some miracle it did, it would be an anti-American, anti-Israeli democracy).

The time has come for the US to cut its losses and disengage from Iraq as quickly as it can. Staying on will not make things better. The resistance to the US-led occupation will grow and Iraq will become a magnet for Islamic fighters who want to take on the US.
If the US withdraws, will there be costs? Of course there will. Iraq could fracture, the Middle East - believe it or not - could become less stable than it is presently and some might question US resolve. The truth is, however, that sooner or later the US is going to have to pay these costs.

Once resistance to their rule reaches a threshold, colonial powers don't win wars of national resistance. If that threshold hasn't quite been reached in Iraq during the past few days, it soon will be. "

Shock! Murdoch Paper Reveals: Murdoch Supports Bush!

The Australian: Murdoch backs Bush to win

Smokescreen? Provocation? Or Both?

So why DID the US decide to take on al-Sadr right now? They started by leaving him out of discussions on the handover of power, then they closed down his newspaper and even arrested one of his top men. Until then, al-Sadr's supporters had been "militant" but not violent. Most Shi'ites looked down their noses at his aggressive ways. Suddenly he is becoming a hero and a lightning-rod for the anti-US resistance, including both Shi'ites and Sunnis.

So why did the US choose to provoke him right now?

When your team is getting badly hammered in all parts of the field and you're coming into the final quarter of the game, it's time to throw out the plan book and try something new.

Until two days ago, US media was awash with talk of Richard Clarke and 9/11. In two more days, Condi Rice will be testifying before the 9/11 commision. A day later, Bush and Cheney will be answering questions. Perhaps it was time to turn off the spotlight.

What else is in the news that's worth ignoring? How about Haiti's ousted President Aristide, who is suing the USA and France for removing him from power? Or David Kay's claims that he knew within days that there were no WMDs in Iraq? Or the US Army's moves to again delay troop returns and organise the first draft since Vietnam? The continuing pull-out of foreign forces from Iraq? John F. Kerry pulling ahead in the polls? Republicans slamming their own party's Patriot Act? Ralph Nader's surprisingly solid independent candidacy? Sharon's plans to assasinate Arafat? The quiet trickle of prisoners being released from Guantanamo without charge and without apologies?

Or perhaps this was Bremer's call. Perhaps he knows it will now be impossible to arrange a peaceful handover to hand-picked US puppets in June, so he's looking for a good excuse to delay things, or at least make it look like the US have become the innocent victims of aggression from these "terrorists." Al-Sadr recently aligned himself with Hamas, so he can now be called a "terrorist", which means anything goes for the Bush Boyz.

In any event, things in Iraq are about to get explosive. As a special forces officer at Baghdad airport told Robert Firsk yesterday: "Things are getting very bad and they're going to get worse. But no one is saying that - either because they don't know or because they don't want you to know."

Firsk points out that it took the British three years to alienate both the Sunnis and the Shi'ites in 1920, while the US has achieved it in a single year.

War supporters say we can't leave now because that would plunge Iraq into crisis, civil war and anarchy? So what is THIS?

UPI says that by confronting al-Sadr now, Bremer and Bush have already created "a new pan-Islamic, pan-Arab hero on the same level with Osama bin Laden."

"This new fight with Sadr is rapidly creating a no-win situation for the coalition. Having declared him an outlaw, the Coalition Provisional Authority now has no choice but to go after him, no matter what it takes. Failure to follow through would make the CPA loose face vis-à-vis the Iraqi public and reinforce the belief that the resistance can get away with murder -- literally. It would also give the future Iraqi government an enormous handicap with which to begin their mandate, and therefore reduce their credibility. This would simply be disastrous for the future of a stable and democratic Iraq.

Allowing Sadr to remain at large now only amplifies his status as a leader of the revolt.

Already, a number of Sunni chiefs have accepted Sadr as the unchallenged new leader of Iraq's resistance to the American-led occupation. The events of the last few days have, in short, given the Iraqi resistance a face and an icon it was missing.

On the other hand, if the Americans capture him, they will only encourage further acts of resistance and possibly incite new acts of terrorism against Coalition troops by Sadr's supporters demanding his release.

If the coalition were to kill him while attempting to capture him, they would create an even more volatile situation. The Shiite would never believe Sadr's death was not intentional and besides inciting an unprecedented level of violence, his death would raise his standing to that of a martyred imam."

Bush Versus al-Sadr:

Bush: 'This is one person who is deciding that rather than allow democracy to flourish, he's going to exercise force. And we just can't let it stand. As I understand, the CPA today announced the warrant for his arrest.'

(Actually, the warrant was issued months ago by an Iraqi judge investigating the murder a year ago of a rival Shia cleric, Abdel Majid al-Khoei. Which makes you wonder why the US chose to confront al-Sadr right now).

al-Sadr: 'I'm accused by one of the leaders of evil, Bremer, of being an outlaw. If that means breaking the law of the American tyranny and its filthy constitution, I'm proud of that and that is why I'm in revolt.'

The Guardian dares to publish a Naomi Klein report speculating on why Paul Bremer has decided to confront al-Sadr's militia: " Washington has given up on its plans to hand over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30, and is creating the chaos it needs to declare the handover impossible. A continued occupation will be bad news for George Bush on the campaign trail, but not as bad as if the hand-over happens and the country erupts, an increasingly likely scenario given the widespread rejection of the legitimacy of the interim constitution and the US- appointed governing council."

Klein also reports bizarre scenes in Firdos Square, the plaza where Saddam's statue was toppled last year:

"US forces pointed tanks at the crowd while a loudspeaker told them that 'demonstrations are an important part of democracy but blocking traffic will not be permitted'.

"At the front of the square was the statue that the Americans put up in place of the toppled one of Saddam. Its faceless figures are supposed to represent the liberation of the Iraqi people. Today they are plastered with photographs of Moqtada al-Sadr. "

How To Get Out Of Iraq: A Non-Violent Exit Strategy

A full year ago, when the US-led forces invaded Iraq, I said in this Blog that the neo-conservative ideologues who promoted the war would ensure a continuing state of chaos, if not Civil War, to justify their presence for many years to come. Whether intentionally or not, this appears to be happening.

The White House claims that "soveriegnty" will be handed over to the Iraqis on June 30th, 2004. Robert Fisk, The Independent's man in Baghdad, looks at how little sovereignty the Iraqis will actually have after 30 June 2004. Iraq, he concludes, will remain under Anglo-American occupation:

"For what is going to happen on 30 June is not a "handover" of power. We are going to see a mythical "sovereignty" handed to American-paid and sponsored Iraqis who will do Washington's bidding. And favoured for the future US "ambassador" in Iraq is none other than Paul Wolfowitz, the neo-conservative pro-Israeli academic who is a member of the US administration and one of the "hawks" who encouraged the whole disastrous US invasion of Iraq."

He notes that Iraqi police are already wearing shades and even black hoods to protect their identities. These black hoods, he says, will be the face of the new "sovereign" Iraq, while any who resist them will be branded "terrorists." It does not look like much of a future for ordinary Iraqis, even if they do eventually get their promised 24/7 electricity and countless reconstruction projects (plus the hugely inflated national deficit required to fund them) in return for their sufferance.

So what is the answer? It's very simple: GET OUT! NOW!

It really is that simple. Pull out the US-led troops as quickly as possible and let the Iraqis govern themselves. This is the only way to ensure anythink like a respectable "exit strategy" for this whole sorry misadventure.

Of course, the neo-cons and their CNN-watching supporters will cry that we cannot do that, that the whole country will collapse into anarchy, chaos and civil war. That it will become a haven for terrorists and spread instability across the Middle East. Et cetera, et cetera. So here is my easy six-step strategy for a fast and painless withdrawal:

1. Bush goes live on TV to apologize to the US public, the Iraqi people, the United Nations, and the world. He admits that the invasion was a huge mistake, that the WMDs did not, do not and never will exist, that Saddam was not connected with 9/11, Al-Quaeda, or any other kinds of terrorists and that he was either misled by his own staff or intentionally assisted in the greatest political fraud in history. He declares that the USA will withdraw all its troops as soon as possible, and that those responsible for the war - including himself - will be held accountable in an international court of law. The USA also pledges to wipe all post-invasion Iraqi foreign debt and pay for all costs involved in rebuilding the country.

2. US forces in Iraq immediately cease construction of new military bases. All foreign contractors are withdrawn and all reconstruction projects are placed on hold, pending renogotiation with an internationally recognized Iraqi government.

3. The UN urgently creates an Iraq stabilization force, which does not include troops from any countries that were involved in the war.

4. US invites all major religious and tribal leaders to a televised handover ceremony in the Royal Palace. The Iraqi leaders call upon their followers to remain calm and allow the US forces to leave the country without further violence.

5. All non-UN foreign troops withdraw from the country. UN units work closely with the tribal and religious leaders to ensure any local outbreaks of violence are quelled.

6. Iraqis work out the rest for themselves. That's right - it's up the THEM to come up with the rest of it, not us...

"A nightmare of nationwide chaos... "

It's one thing to deny reality within the walls of the Oval Office, but it gets pretty surreal when the US head honcho in Iraq, Paul Bremer, starts declaring that the growing wave of violence will not be tolerated by Iraq's new police and civil defence services. To quote the SMH, "witnesses described how the fledgling services fled their posts, in some cases abandoning weapons and taking TVs and computers..."

"By Sunday night US spokesmen affected an undaunted approach in the face of encircling gloom. But there was a surreal air to a press briefing by Mr Bremer at which he refused questions. As the violence escalated, he announced appointments to the new Iraqi Defence Ministry and intelligence services."

Significantly, the spiritual leader of the Shiites, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has said that the demonstrators' cause is "legitimate." So now, far from quelling violence in the town of Falluja, where US contractors were recently mutilated in the streets, the US faces the prospect of putting down a violent uprising from the 60% majority Shi'ite population - and these were supposed to be the "good" guys! It was the Sunnis and Kurds that were causing trouble earlier...

How ironic. The Iraqi people, who were urged for years to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein, may now be prepared to rise up and overthrow their US occupiers. And the Spanish, who have already pledged to withdraw, have been the main targets for the violence. And meanwhile Bush still insists he is preparing to hand over sovereignty in a couple of months:

"The message to the Iraqi citizens is, they don't have to fear that America will turn and run. And that's an important message for them to hear."

There's that word again: FEAR.

The Beginning Of The End?

What will happen if Shi'ites across Iraq rise up against the US-led occupying forces, in response to the fervent anti-US statements from a
radical young Shiite cleric named Moktada al-Sadr?

Sadr represents a potent blend of religion, political power and tribal violence. Bremer and the CPA have been keeping him at arms length, alternately mollifying him and alienating his power-base. Last week they closed down a newspaper which was considered a mouth-piece for his views, on the basis that it was inciting voilence. With the long-heralded election process showing no sign of embracing him, al-Sadr declared himself the Iraq "arm-bearer" of Hamas, barricaded himself inside a mosque and called for the violent overthrow of US forces.

'There is no use for demonstrations, as your enemy loves to terrify and suppress opinions, and despises peoples,' al-Sadr said in a statement. 'I ask you not to resort to demonstrations because they have become a losing card and we should seek other ways,' he said. 'Terrorize your enemy, as we cannot remain silent over its violations.'

His followers responded with violent demonstrations over the weekend that included throwing themselves under tanks.

"The occupation is over!" many yelled. "We are now controlled by Sadr!"

Where will this end? These are not people who will be easily placated by a US administration that - after 12 months in the country - still shows no signs of engaging popular support.

Shiite Clashes in with Coalition in Najaf Baghdad: Phase II of the Anti-Occupation Struggle Begins:

"So far, about 60% of clashes with Coalition troops had occurred in the Sunni heartland of Iraq. But the violent clashes in Najaf, Baghdad, Amara and Nasiriyah may signal the beginning of a second phase, in which the US faces a two-front war, against both Sunni radicals in the center-north and Shiite militias in the South. "

Buy Now: "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush" by John W. Dean :

"The only thing, Dean argues, between Bush, Cheney and orange jumpsuits and jail bars is the revelation of the truth. John Dean gets as close as one can get in this book.

Dean's book makes you realize that the Bush Cartel is going to do everything they can to steal the 2004 election. Because if they lose, they might end up in a federal prison, if they don't pardon themselves before they are indicted.

The White House doesn't have enough shredders to cover up their likely crimes.

Thank you, John Dean, for casting a light on an administration that believes the laws of the United States of America do not apply to them."

TOMPAINE.com - Worse Than Watergate?:

"Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced his resignation...

Bush's statements, in chronological order, were:


"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
-United Nations Address, Sept. 12, 2002


"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."

"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
-Radio Address, Oct. 5, 2002


"The Iraqi regime... possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."

"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."

"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
-Cincinnati, Ohio Speech, Oct. 7, 2002


"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
-State of the Union Address, Jan. 28, 2003


"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
-Address to the Nation, March 17, 2003

So what are we now to conclude if Bush's statements are found, indeed, to be as grossly inaccurate as they currently appear to have been?

There are two main possibilities. One, that something is seriously wrong within the Bush White House's national security operations. That seems difficult to believe. The other is that the President has deliberately misled the nation, and the world.

...the president has failed to provide any explanation of how he could have made his very specific statements, yet now be unable to back them up with supporting evidence. Was there an Iraqi informant thought to be reliable, who turned out not to be? Were satellite photos innocently, if negligently, misinterpreted? Or was his evidence not as solid as he led the world to believe?

The absence of any explanation for the gap between the statements and reality only increases the sense that the president's misstatements may actually have been intentional lies.

... In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support, military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a monstrous misdeed.

... To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."

It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly is a serious abuse of presidential power."

Shi'ite says it's time to withdraw troops:

"Chief lieutenant of ad-Sadr, Imam Amer al Hussani, said on Monday the coalition forces should immediately withdraw and return Iraq to local control.

'The Saddam regime (is) gone and ... we know how to control our country,' Imam al Hussani told ABC Radio through an interpreter. 'To be here as occupiers, they are not welcome here.'

Imam al Hussani had a message for Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

'We hope that Australia will follow Spain in their decision to withdraw from Iraq,' he said. 'But we should also say that we thank very much Australia for helping us and, through your TV, we want to tell the Australian prime minister that thank you for your help, but please withdraw from Iraq.' "

Worse Than Watergate:

"G Gordon Liddy, the former FBI agent who masterminded the Watergate burglary on behalf of Richard Nixon, once said that he would like to kill John Dean by shoving a pencil through his neck.

This week, as the cerebral Mr Dean publishes Worse than Watergate: the Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, the sentiment is likely to be shared by many in Mr Bush's White House.

Thirty-one years ago Mr Dean - Nixon's legal counsel - began co-operating with prosecutors into the Watergate burglary, revealing the inner workings of the most secretive and manipulative administration in American history.

Now, in the latest political blockbuster, Mr Dean "testifies" against President Bush and Vice-President Richard Cheney, accusing them of trumping his former boss when it comes to political sharp practice.

He accuses them of wilfully misleading Congress over the nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein before the war in Iraq, and of "stonewalling" over inquiries into the events of September 11.

Much of the blame for the White House style, he suggests, lies with Mr Cheney, who is "by nature a secretive man" who "wants to turn the clock back to pre-Watergate styles of Imperial Presidency".

Mr Dean also claims that the administration's aggressive approach to rebels and mavericks follows a Nixonian pattern, while being even more ruthless. He cites the "outing" of Valerie Plame, a CIA officer whose husband, Joe Wilson, rejected administration claims that Saddam had attempted to buy uranium from Niger.

"When it comes to dealing with dissenters and those willing to speak the truth," said Mr Dean, "this administration is putting Nixon to shame."

He adds: "If Nixon was a member of this administration, he would be scratching his head at what they are up to. He was obsessively secretive - and became so increasingly about national security matters - and overstepped the mark. But only over Watergate. Other than that he was relatively open. But this White House takes secrecy and political expediency as its general mode of operation."

Mr Dean was summarily fired by Nixon and later served four months in jail for obstructing the inquiry into a plot to burgle the offices of the Democratic National Committee."

Suffer The Children... For George's Sake:

The David Letterman show this week featured footage of a very bored 12-year-old standing behind Bush on a podium while Bush was making a speech.



CNN claimed the White House assured them the tape was a fake. Letterman accused CNN of lying.

The footage, however, was real. Tyler Crotty was tired because his father, Rich Crotty (chairman of the Orange County, Florida, Republican party, and a major donor to the president's re-election campaign), had got him out of bed early to travel to the speech and he had been standing on stage a minimum of 3 hours.

So was CNN lying? Or did the White House lie to CNN? As usual, we will never know...

A Dirty Week In Australian Politics:

"I watched the same debate everyone else did. I fail to understand how anyone could think Howard and his ministers had done anything but make fools of themselves...

'Here is the Prime Minister trying to convince the House that I invented - his word - the proposition that 12 months ago our shadow cabinet made decisions on the immediate withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq.' And after Latham detailed the dates of the four meetings and the specific wording of the relevant minutes, he leaned towards Howard opposite and said, with some heat: 'Do you understand that, Prime Minister? Do you understand?'

Howard has not repeated the claim. He has not apologised, either. Not after Latham scalded him: 'It is always sad to see a politician at the end of his career thrashing around for an issue.' "

Following the atrocities in Falluja, private contractors hired to rebuild Iraq now want to bulldoze it:

"'Let's just go in and level the town,' said one angry American civilian. 'Let's tell them to get their women and children out and then go in and level it.

'Why are these Iraqis protesting against us? They are the ones who are killing us, not the other way round.'
Another American civilian nodded in agreement that reconstruction in Fallujah should be thrown into reverse. 'That's exactly what we should do,' he said."

White House Holds Back Clinton Papers:

"The White House has not turned over thousands of pages of documents from the Clinton administration to a commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, even though the records are relevant to the panel's mission, one of Clinton's attorneys said yesterday. "

The Dogs That Didn't Bark - Why Colin Powell and George Tenet aren't bashing Richard Clarke:

"In the short story 'Silver Blaze,' Sherlock Holmes solves the mystery of a stolen racehorse by observing that the stable's guard dog didn't bark—hence, the intruder was not a stranger.

The mystery of whether Richard Clarke is telling the truth about President Bush's counterterrorism policies might be solved the same way: Which dogs aren't barking? Amid all the administration officials bombarding the airwaves with denunciations, who has stayed mum?

The answer: Secretary of State Colin Powell and CIA Director George Tenet, and their silence speaks loudly."

The Clear Light Of Truth

A must-read article for all Australians from John Pilger:

"We must tell Washington we shall not tolerate its aggression any more. Can we achieve that? Yes, in time we can. A world resistance is already under way. Who is this resistance? The answer is: People like you. Millions of people like you: in Spain, Brazil, Italy, Uruguay, South Africa, Britain, France.

Yes, there are perhaps greater challenges in Australia, and it may take longer here. But a start has been made; and we have no choice. Remember the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “First, they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.” "

READ MORE HERE...

Robert Fisk: Things Are Getting Much Worse. It's Not Just A "Spike" Or An "Uptick" In Violence:

"When you go to the manicured lawns and villas of the so-called "Green Zone" in Baghdad, you get this odd, weird feeling; that here is a place so isolated, so ostentatiously secure - it is not secure of course, since mortars are regularly fired into the compound - that it has no contact with the outside world... within the palace walls, the occupying power believes in optimism, progress and political development.

From inside the Green Zone on the banks of the Tigris, you can believe anything. How far can the occupying powers take war-spin before the world stops believing anything they say?

... Baghdad may be dangerous. But at least it's on Planet Earth. "

Ted Rall: Where Was the Air Force?

"On a flight from Bishkek to Tehran on dilapidated Kyrgyzstan Airlines a few years ago, the pilot announced that the landing gear on my friend's Tupolev 154 wouldn't deploy. Tehran refused permission to crash-land the Soviet-era plane at its newly renovated airport. Five minutes later, my pal recalls, fighter jets appeared on each side of the crippled plane to escort it out of Iranian airspace. (It landed safely back in Bishkek.) Why didn't we respond to our crisis in the air on 9/11 with the same efficiency as Iran, a third world country hobbled by international trade sanctions?

The notion of a hijacked passenger jet meandering over the northeastern United States, unmolested for more than an hour before blasting away a chunk of the Pentagon, should appall anyone whose taxes contributed to the quarter of a trillion dollars spent on defense that year."

US Goes Back to the UN Again

The USA has agreed to seek a new UN resolution on Iraq. Colin Powell said the US now expects the measure to be passed before it formally transfers power to an Iraqi government.

'I think there will be a new resolution as we move closer to the first of July,' he told German media.

The US will be looking for a UN resolution to rubber-stamp their invasion and lend credence to their ongoing presence in the country, enough to satisfy their increasingly nervous "coalition of the wilting" partners and stop them withdrawing troops.

But a new resolution is also an opportunity for the UN to take control of the situation, indeed the whole country. If the US is really preparing to withdraw - and I seriously doubt that, of course - why not use this resolution to push for a complete UN takeover pending secure national elections in a few months?

TOMPAINE.com - Impeachable Offenses:

"George W. Bush—whose own election was dubious—has seized monarchical powers in sending this nation into war without any legitimate congressional declaration of war or equivalent congressional action. He has lied to the United States Congress and to the American people about the rationale for the war. He has imprisoned American citizens without charges and denied them access to lawyers and the courts. He has thus trampled on the United States Constitution and he has violated his oath of office.

This nation is at a crossroads. These are not simply issues to be debated in a presidential election. These are 'high crimes' in the most profound meaning of the phrase, and they require the most serious of legal responses.

Our Constitution lays out a specific process for addressing high crimes committed by a president: impeachment. "

Is the Fix In on the 9/11 Panel?

According to the Washington Post, a Bush Legal Counsel called 9/11 GOP panelists just before Clarke testified:

"White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales called commissioner Fred F. Fielding, one of five GOP members of the body, and, according to one observer, also called Republican commission member James R. Thompson. Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, wrote to Gonzales yesterday asking him to confirm and describe the conversations.

Waxman said 'it would be unusual if such ex parte contacts occurred' during the hearing. Waxman did not allege that there would be anything illegal in such phone calls. But he suggested that such contacts would be improper because 'the conduct of the White House is one of the key issues being investigated by the commission.' "

So is the panel fixed? In case you did not already know it:

1. Philip Zelikow, the executive director, worked on the Bush-Cheney transition team. His former boss was Condoleezza Rice.

2. Commission member Jamie Gorelick was a senior official in the attorney general's office during the Clinton administration.

Since they were both close enough to the terror-related events surrounding the Clinton and Bush administrations to give evidence, did they then interview themselves about their roles in the failures? Is it mere coincidence that Zelikow heads the panel and Gorelick is one of the members allowed to see all the documents, while most of the others are relegated to seeing only the summary?

United Press International Analysis: Mogadishu revisited?

"The steadily deteriorating security situation in the Fallujah area, west of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, has become so dangerous that no American soldier or Iraqi security staff responded to the murderous attack against the ill-fated contractors. The Sunni Triangle is rapidly shaping up to become a sort of Iraqi version of the Bermuda Triangle for any foreigner who dares venture in it. They might get in, but never leave it alive.

There are a number of police stations in Fallujah and a base of more than 4,000 Marines nearby. But even while the two vehicles burned, sending plumes of thick, black smoke over the shuttered shops of the city, there were no ambulances, fire engines or security dispatched to try and rescue the victims of Wednesday's attack. This time, there were no Blackhawks to fly to the rescue. Instead, Fallujah's streets were abandoned to the jubilant, chaotic and violent crowds who rejoiced amid battered human remains.

We are now less than 90 days from the scheduled hand-over date of July 1, when the U.S. administration in Iraq is -- in principle -- due to return sovereignty of the country to an Iraqi government. With mounting attacks and insecurity in Iraq rising, a pertinent question to ask at this time would be: In what shape will the country be, and more specifically, to whom will the United States turn the country over?"

Carrots Or Sticks?

That's the question confronting Bush & Co. as they respond to the latest OPEC oil price hike. With US retail gasoline prices soaring to a record $1.76 per gallon, the White House is playing Good Cop/Bad Cop with OPEC

While the White House expresses "disappointment" and makes gentle appeals to "our friends" in OPEC, others assume a more forceful tone.

White House spokesman and resident Pit Bull Scott McClellan says, "Producers should not take steps that harm American consumers and our economy."

McClellan comments were made at a televised news briefing just hours after other White House officials insisted the administration, as a policy, does not comment publicly on specific OPEC decisions.

McClellan then put the blame on Democrats in the U.S. Congress for failing to pass the Republican president's energy plan. Yeah, right.

Ousted Haitian president launches 'abduction' suit against US, France:

"Haiti's ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has lodged a lawsuit in Paris claiming coercion involving United States and French officials forced him from power, his lawyer and legal authorities said. The suit, for 'threats, death threats, abduction and illegal detention' was lodged earlier this week, Aristide's lawyer, Gilbert Collard said. "

Vast majority of Portuguese want troops in Iraq withdrawn: poll:

"Nearly three in four residents of Portugal, or 71 percent, want the country's 128-strong contingent of national guards in Iraq to be withdrawn from the war-ravaged country, a poll published Monday found."

Violence Begets Violence

How will the US public respond to today's grisly pictures of "jubilant" Iraqis burning and mutilating dead US contractors? According to reports, the Iraqis dragged US corpses through the streets and hung them from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River.

Comparisons with Somalia are inevitable. In that case, the US was involved in a humanitarian mission and it was US soldiers from a downed helicopter, not private contractors, who were mutilated in the streets. Clinton's response was to urgently withdraw all US forces from the country. Don't hold your breath waiting for Bush to do the same.

Hopefully the publicity these images generate will help US voters understand the extent of privatized contracting work in Iraq, and question the number of US firms and contractors involved in rebuilding that country with US taxpayers' dollars. No wonder the US Army says no more troops are needed - it's more profitable to hire private contractors from Halliburtons R Us.

Controlling the Story

Although legitimately criticized as a White House backflip, the decision to allow Condoleeza Rice to testify on 9/11 lets Karl Rove maintain control of the mainstream media "story." Clarke's damaging allegations were first derailed by frantic character assasination attempts. These have already fizzled into oblivion, but who cares? Half the US now thinks there is something untrustworthy about Clarke, and his allegations did not get all the attention they deserved at the time they were made. When Clarke hit back, the "story" became focussed on Rice's refusal to testify under oath. Now, by agreeing to testify, Rove ensures that the story goes to sleep again, for the time being at least.

Furthermore, Rove has ensured that this story will not be allowed to run on and on. The conditions for Rice's appearance include: "The commission must agree in writing that Dr Rice's testimony before the commission does not set any precedent for future commission requests, or requests in any other context, for testimony by a national security adviser or any other White House official."

So after Rice's appearance before the panel, public testimony from various aides who might be in a position to confirm or deny her claims is not an option.

Similarly, Bush has now agreed to meet privately with all 10 commissioners for an undetermined time limit, backing off his previous demand to meet only with the Chairman and Vice Chairman for just one hour. But again, the apparent retreat comes with conditions: Bush will not be under oath and can have Vice President Dick Cheney appear with him by his side.

So now the question is, why can't Bush testify alone and under oath? Is he too dishonest or just too stupid to remember the party line?

Anyone Remember Afghanistan?:

"The inevitable postponement this week of Afghanistan's presidential and parliamentary elections can only diminish the Bush camp's hopes of using progress in Afghanistan to divert attention from the quagmire in Iraq. In January this year, to the UN's dismay, Afghanistan's interim President, Hamid Karzai, brought the elections forward to June, reportedly under pressure from Washington. Mr Karzai's decision to reschedule the polls for September keeps alive the possibility that Mr Bush may still get a democratic exercise of sorts. Afghanistan, however, remains woefully ill prepared for its first free election in over four decades. It has much to lose if the groundwork is not properly, and patiently, laid."