BYU professor's group accuses U.S. officials of lying about 9/11
A few months ago Brigham Young University physics professor
Steven E. Jones made headlines when he charged that the World Trade Center collapsed because of
"pre-positioned explosives." Now, along with a group that calls itself "Scholars for 9/11 Truth," he's upping the ante.
"We believe that senior government officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened on 9/11," the group says in a statement released Friday announcing its formation.
"We believe these events may have been orchestrated by the administration in order to manipulate the American people into supporting policies at home and abroad."
Headed by Jones and Jim Fetzer, University of Minnesota Duluth distinguished McKnight professor of philosophy, the group is made up of 50 academicians and others.They include Robert M. Bowman, former director of the U.S. "Star Wars" space defense program, and Morgan Reynolds, former chief economist for the Department of Labor in President George W. Bush's first term. Most of the members are less well-known.
The group's charges include:
• Members of the Bush administration knew in advance that the 9/11 attacks would happen
• No Air Force or Air National Guard jets were sent to "scramble" the hijacked planes, which were clearly deviating from their flight plans, although jet fighters had been deployed for scramblings 67 times in the year prior to 9/11.
• The video of Osama bin Laden found by American troops in Afghanistan in December 2001, in which bin Laden says he orchestrated the attacks, is not bin Laden.
The Scholars group hopes that media outlets around the world will ask experts in their areas to examine the group's findings and assertions. If this were done, they argue,
"one of the great hoaxes of history would stand naked before the eyes of the world."Source :
HereThe 'Academicians' have developed their own web site which can be found
here. The site includes a must read (Microsoft word) document
here. Also as astutely noticed by Logical Voice you should note the surprise discovery that
Bin Laden does not appear to be wanted by the FBI for the 9/11 atrocity at all.
Very intriguing reading.
The pre-positioned explosives theory was always the most ridiculous to me. Due to the lack of Star Trek transporter technology in the real world, the explosives would have to be carried in and carefully placed encased in flame retardant, heat-proofed material in a location just above where it was known the plane would strike (note to pilot, don't miss the floor you are supposed to hit). Doing this would take a team of saboteurs several days in the least. And all this would need to be done without one single person who worked in the towers saying, "Hey, why are you guys planting these many tonnes of explosives around the support beams of the tower?"
Really interesting blog.
Conspiracy theorists gone mad. Down right insulting to be honest. While American and British troops are loosing their lives to protect the people back home in their cooshey arm chairs, they should have some respect. No democratic leader in their right mind would kill 3000 of their own people in order to make an excuse to go to war.
They are just apologists of another kind.
I agree Djeb on the 'pre-positioned explosives theory' It is hard to Imagine how they could have been put in place.
To be fair to Steven Jones he never actually claimed that this is what happened. He is the first to admit that he has no idea what happened inside the tower. He presented this view only as a hypothesis based on factors that can be analyzed such as video footage of the towers and the effects on metal under extreme heat environments (which i 'think' is his speciality.)
my understanding of physics certainly is not good enough to confirm or deny such a claim.
But he is a physicist and certainly not a conspiracy theorist so he makes no effort to try and justify how,why,or when such an impossible task could have taken place. If he is correct with his calculations (and its a big if) then we would have to look at what possible explanations could fit such a hypothesis
I certainly can't think of any. As you say its impossible to believe that troops of people carried explosives into those buildings .At the very least it would have taken so many people and so much planning that it would have been impossible to keep quite (especially when so many people died)
But to me the first question is , could the heat generated from the amount of fuel on board those planes actually bring the towers down ? There are examples similar planes hitting buildings and the structure remaining to some degree after. But I have no idea if in the other examples the planes were carrying similar amounts of fuel or not.
I think Professor jones was (in his November paper) asking serious questions. He was not supplying any serious answers. I personally hope that more research is done into the effects of aviation fuel fires upon such structures and obviously calculating the increased impact of such fires based on the mass , speed etc of planes hitting the towers in the way that they did.
more generally on the claims being made by him on Friday that Members of the Bush administration knew in advance that the 9/11 attacks would happen is a view that I think we would be foolish to dismiss out of hand.
For now I will continue to see this as intriguing reading that may or may not contain elements that are accurate and wait to see what sort analysis is done on the work by those better qualified than me to assess.
As for the events of 9/11 in general I feel confident in saying the events did not happen 'exactly' as we were told they did. But I still refrain from taking the claim any further until a lot more investigation into the events takes place.
Probably the truth will only be known long after this current US administration have left office. They clearly lie about almost anything they can get away with so its a real up hill struggle to find any truth in their sea of lies.
The military actions of which you speak, Lennie, have not only (predictably) increased terrorist recruitment, they have increased terrorist acts (and committed such acts themselves in some cases). They are not protecting people in comfy armchairs such as yourself.
Second, many democratic leaders would indeed kill their own citizens for their own gain if they felt they could get away with it. But they would not target "their base" (to use Bush's words) as the 9/11 attacks did. One who comes from the financial elite would not target his own when any attack would do as an excuse for a nation that is willing to go to war on a whim.
Just to add to what I said earlier, the beams in the WTC were encased in sheetrock, not concrete. As such, it is not surprising that they were weakened by the fire to the point that they lost their structural integrity. Additionally, the supports were not redundant enough to withstand the cascading collapse that occurred. Had the building been better build, it likely would have stayed standing. Other buildings such as the Empire State Building (interesting name for a building) have survived hits. However, the Empire State was hit by a fairly small aircraft and it is infamous for its strenght. It is essentially a giant lump of reinforced conrete. It was built before lighter-weight building techniques were developed. You could hit the thing with an Airbus A380f and it would not cause the entire buiding to collapse as the WTCs did.
As an aside, my background is in physics and I can tell everyone that being a physicist does not preclude one from notions that defy the laws of physics - one I know believes that martial artists could kick down streetlight posts.
Lennie
While American and British troops are loosing their lives to protect the people back home in their cooshey arm chairs ...
How exactly are they protecting me ? Lliving in London and watching people die due to the recent terrorist attack makes it clear we are not being protected by troops in Iraq or Afghanistan ? . If those troops had been guarding the London underground I may see your point. In fact I am being put in danger by the actions of democratically electected governments who are encouraging the recruitment of 'terrorists' by there very actions. How can fighting people in Iraq make us any safer from terrorists at home ?
your a part time policeman so you tell me what in the slightest would the war in Iraq have to do with my safety. I can see that people have died due to it , I fail to see a single example of how lives at home here in the UK , or Spain or Bali have been saved . please elaborate ?
Also what evidence do you have that Bin laden committed the crime in question ? your obviously used to evidence being required so please show me the evidence that Bin Laden was aware of the event and was directly connected to it ?
Please don't point me to his taped confession which has been proven to an accuracy of 95% by independent Swiss research to be a fake(as reported by all the major news networks) for you know as well as I do that such a tape would not stand up to much scrutiny in a court of law.
It is now 2006 so it should be very easy to point me to evidence that directly links Bin laden to the crimes we were told were committed by Bin Laden in 2001 . the FBI have not directly linked him for his top ten wanted status (updated in Nov 2001) clearly states that
USAMA BIN LADEN IS WANTED IN CONNECTION WITH THE AUGUST 7, 1998, BOMBINGS OF THE UNITED STATES EMBASSIES IN DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, AND NAIROBI, KENYA. THESE ATTACKS KILLED OVER 200 PEOPLE. IN ADDITION, BIN LADEN IS A SUSPECT IN OTHER TERRORIST ATTACKS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.
There is no mention of 9/11 at all .
so please show me what the FBI and millions of others have failed to see ?
As for your 'no democratically elected leader....'
there seems to be so much of history you have missed. to start with Hitler was democraticly elected (albiet under a rather dubious version of democracy) and the burning of The Reichstag is well known as an act commited by a government that was then blammed on the jews.
In general you as a part time constable should no better than most that opinion has very little value unless backed up with evidence. I personally am not claiming that this article is factual. I print it as it is presented and call it 'intriguing reading' . neither am I claiming that Bin Laden is not connected to the crimes on 9/11 . I am stating that no evidence what so ever has been presented that prooves his guilt to a degree that would stand up in a court.
You however have dismissed it , so please supply sources and data to justify your view that you hold. Just saying something is incorrect without providing anything what so ever to justify such a view would be a little foolish don't you think ?
Djeb
I take your point on the physics . Infact a family member is very senior in the institute of physics in the UK and believed that a spider on the wall was a male due to it being 'big'
taking your point on board about the PPET what do you think on the other claims made such as prior knowledge by any element within the administration ?
Of course, there was prior knowledge that an attack was likely as we know from the memo "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." Anything else is speculation. Moreover, it is speculation of conspiracy, which grates on my nerves. The underlying message behind conspiracy theories is that your fate is under the control of a few powerful individuals, so anything you do to try and improve the world is moot. It also implies that there is nothing wrong with the political system itself, it is just infected with bad people. I disagree. I feel that the system itself is fundamentally flawed and purging those individuals will not correct the problem.
hehehe , i thought calling something a conspiracy was a simple way to stop people who think to much from finding out the truth . its an easy way to ridicule people without having to question their theory.
a conspiracy to me is An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act .So surely even if Bin laden did commit the crime we would call such a thing a conspiracy.
to conspire these days brings along connotations such as the ones you mention above.
but one thing for sure , somebody flew those planes into those towers and it must have been planed so we can now safely call the the official story we are told a conspiracy too
I for different reasons dislike the word 'conspiracy' it invokes all of those things you mention but it shouldn't . it should merely represent a secret plan or plot to commit a crime or do harm often for political ends.
there really shouldn't be any connection to taking self responsibility away or for assuming that we all run and start watching the x-files
in simple terms to claim that Bin laden was behind the bombing of the world trade centre is itself literally a conspiracy theory.
on your point of I feel that the system itself is fundamentally flawed and purging those individuals will not correct the problem.
my total agreement
I understand that the mission of the blog is not generally for the two of you to write original longer posts (or so it seems to me), but I find that the various comments are the most interesting parts of the blog because each of you have interesting and developed viewpoints that you express well. I don't always agree with you by any stretch, but I think this blog speaks most eloquently when your personae come through in comments.
I think that you should consider changing the structure of the blog in the following way: Instead of often lengthy summaries of different source articles, just do block quotes of the lede or key paragraph(s) of the article with a link. Then write longer commentaries about the topic along the lines of what you have in this comment thread. I think that this would make for a more interesting and distinctive blog, and it would lessen the impression that you are endorsing the articles you summarize and link to with the "source" link. With shorter extracts and more original commentary in the body of the blog (instead of in comments), it will be easier to see your nuanced viewpoints even if you have linked to something that many readers would discount as a conspiracy site.
Just a thought.
"hehehe , i thought calling something a conspiracy was a simple way to stop people who think to much from finding out the truth ."
It is a very, very hard thing to say what the "truth" of anything is. However, to try to find it, one needs solid evidence. Jones has none. The collapse can be explained as the effect of planes hitting two buildings that were not built as strongly as most skyscrapers. His hypothesis, however, is lacking vital evidence like explosions. It also raises questions that he wisely avoided like why the WTC workers didn't say "boo" when demolitions experts were carefully placing tonnes explosives around the buildings' main support beams over the period of several weeks.
"a conspiracy to me is An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act ."
Yes, I agree. I'm talking about conspiracy theories, though - attempts to find hidden, sinister motives behind events that already have a perfectly logical explanation.
"So surely even if Bin laden did commit the crime we would call such a thing a conspiracy."
Indeed. If he were tried, he would be charged with conspiracy to commit mass murder. Either way, someone, as you say, conspired to fly planes into those buildings. But I'm talking about conspiracy theories, not conspiracies.
"in simple terms to claim that Bin laden was behind the bombing of the world trade centre is itself literally a conspiracy theory."
Indeed. The idea that a guy in a cave is coordinating a plan of attack that the hijackers themselves could pull off using their own brains, cash, flying skill, box cutters and synchronised watches is rather silly to me. It's quite possible that he helped finance it, but for him to plan it would simply be a bad way to manage the operation.
well we have almost reached agreement.
Certainly on all you say about the work of jones you will get no complaint from me.
purely on your description of conspiracy theories ....
The term is often used pejoratively to dismiss 'allegedly' misconceived, paranoid or outlandish rumors. It is very easy to call something a conspiracy theory and it is just as easy to reject the term as prejudicial, and argue that you are using it in an attempt to evade an analysis of the subject.
It is too vague and over used (in my view) and there is no sure fire system to define what is or is not a conspiracy theory. So if I wish to dismiss something that is said to me I merely have to call it a conspiracy theory to feel I have said something above reproach and beyond question.
For example it is not correct to say that all conspiracy theories are false. but the phrase when used implies the subject under discussion is in fact a false one. where such an assumption is not necessarily true. Hence it has become to me a phrase with more propaganda value than genuine meaning.
even when I hear the words my brain defines the subject as being false , where as 'conspiracy theory' means no such thing by defintion.
It is often used by people as if it has some deep and meaningful conclusion that could be drawn from the phrase but their is none . Calling something a conspiracy theory does not in any way negate the accuracy of the claims being made it merely removes the debate from serious discussion and allows the ridicule of the person outside of the claims they are making
In many ways no different discussing with someone who 'believes' that they may have seen something strange in the sky by using the phrase 'little green men' . such a phrase implies the person is a little crazy and hence you no longer need to take seriously anything else they may say on the subject.
I personally feel that what is important is the scientific accuracy of any claim and not how a person (who is by definition subjective) classifies any given subject and it is much more important to dismiss a theory based on logic and reason than it is to pigeon hole it under a banner called 'conspiracy theories'
now when I become supreme being of the universe I will ban the phrase 'conspiracy theories' to force everyone to treat each claim with the individual analysis that it deserves
how much analysis does a claim deserve ?
well that's a whole new debate I suppose , one that has happened before and ended up with the abuse of the perfectly good words 'conspiracy' and , 'theory'
I've very often said in the past that the idea that Bin Laden was the so called "terrorist mastermind" of "911" and that 4 commercial airliners could be hijacked and used as suicide bombs on US soil without someone in authority in the US knowing about some sort of plan as absolutely ludicrous.
It's my opinion that these professors are absolutely right to go public and say that they doubt the official "911" tale, it's quite obvious that the regime in Washington have been hiding something. Now I personally believe that they are hiding the fact that they allowed the events of "911" to happen in order to facilitate their own warped agenda.
I know what you are saying, _H_. I agree that the term is used pejoratively. Let me just say that I find institutional theory far more accurate and productive than conspiracy theory.
It seems I have managed to strike a nerve unintentionally. I was referring to the "evidence" and not your thoughts on them.
Djeb: “They are not protecting people in comfy armchairs such as yourself.”
Whilst my armchair is comfy I don’t sit in it for long. Had they not removed his regime it would have come back to bite us in the future.
“many democratic leaders would indeed kill their own citizens for their own gain if they felt they could get away with it.”
I’m sorry you feel that way.
_H_: "How exactly are they protecting me ?"
I believe that if Saddam wasn't removed, or if the Taliban weren't put in check in Afghanistan, then they (Saddams Regime & the Taliban) would eventually gain enough power to become a credible threat. A threat that would have the potential for much more blood shed.
"How can fighting people in Iraq make us any safer from terrorists at home?"
A stable Iraq/Middle East would hopefully mean a more peaceful western world. Unfortunately foreign policy hasn't exactly worked for the last x no. of years...Allowing religious fundamentalists who openly want to destroy Democracy flourish. Our governments have definitely had a part to play in the screw ups. But we have to play with the cards we are dealt.
"Also what evidence do you have that Bin laden committed the crime in question ?"
I never said he did. I just said that a democratic government would not kill 3000 of its own people to start a war.. There is no need to jump on your high horse ;)
"As for your 'no democratically elected leader....'"
I am aware of Hitler. There always exceptions to the rule. As nuts as I think Bush is, I don't believe the American establishment would ever allow that to happen.
"You however have dismissed it , so please supply sources and data to justify your view that you hold. Just saying something is incorrect.."
I said it was insulting. I didn’t say it was incorrect, nor did I dismiss it. Believe it or not I am a scientific man. I do believe in tangible evidence to prove hypothesise. There is however a point at which any person can justify a certain set of circumstances by interpreting the data in a certain way. The Labour government can for example spin any data they want to give a positive outcome. I am merely saying you will always find someone who can twist the truth. I tend to go with the main stream. But this does not mean I am not open to other suggestions. I'm sure if the theories were more credible they would be more publicised by now.
This can explain how a pilot could indeed hit the floor they were supposed to hit.
http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/WitnessesLink.htm
Here are some more supporting the explosives theory:
http://www.911blimp.net/videos/FDNY-explosions.mov
http://terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/heavy.duty.explosion.wmv
http://www.terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/911.wtc.ann.thompson.intermediate.explosions.wmv
http://terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/911.wtc.reporter.2.wmv
http://terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/911.wtc.reporter.1.wmv
http://terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/911.wtc.witness.1.wmv
http://terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/911.wtc.witness.2.wmv
CBS News Channel Eyewitness Describes 'Secondary Explosions' in WTC:
The following clips originate from CBS Channel 2 in New York. The reporter is in a helicopter as the WTC Towers collapse:
http://www.prisonplanet.tv/articles/april2004/042704secondaryexplosions.htm
Louie Cacchioli, 51, a firefighter assigned to Engine 47 in Harlem. Was quoted as saying:
"We were the first ones in the second tower after the plane struck. I was taking firefighters up in the elevator to the 24th floor to get in position to evacuate workers. On the last trip up a bomb went off. We think there was bombs set in the building"
Source:
http://prisonplanet.com/louie_cacchioli.htm
Here is some video evidence of explosions going off just a few floors below the collapsing upper floors:
http://images.indymedia.org/imc/ontario/wtc-2_demolition_waves.mpg
This reporter's video was shot just before and during the collapse of the South Tower:
http://terrorize.dk/911/wtc2dem4/911.wtc.2.demoltion.west.below.wmv
Quicktime video of squibs ejecting vertically as the North Tower collapses above them:
http://www.911research.com/wtc/evidence/videos/docs/squibs_and_streamers.mov
Frank A. Demartini, on-site construction manager for the World Trade Center, January 25, 2001. Demartini, who had an office on the 88th floor of the North Tower, died on 9/11/2001 in the World Trade Center attack.(Video of the Demartini interview):
http://www.freepressinternational.com/wtc_11152004_manager_88888.html
10 minute video presentation by MIT Engineer/Research Scientist, Jeff King talking about the collapses of the World Trade Center buildings:
http://reopen911.org/video/cte_07.mov
"Whilst my armchair is comfy I don’t sit in it for long. Had they not removed his regime it would have come back to bite us in the future."
To do what? Getcha? Iraq would have launched an attack against Britain? Be serious. It would take a country that devastated (pre-2003 war) a century to build itself up to a level anywhere near strong enough to threaten Britain.
'many democratic leaders would indeed kill their own citizens for their own gain if they felt they could get away with it.'
"I’m sorry you feel that way."
We already know that they are perfectly willing to put them in harm's way improperly equipped. We also know they they have, on paper, planned to kill their own on U.S. soil (ie. the March Plan) for propaganda purposes.
"I believe that if Saddam wasn't removed, or if the Taliban weren't put in check in Afghanistan, then they (Saddams Regime & the Taliban) would eventually gain enough power to become a credible threat. A threat that would have the potential for much more blood shed."
Quite literally your opinion. That is to say, zero supporting evidence. They always were a threat to their own population, but if the governments of the first world didn't like that, they shouldn't have supported them. The most powerful countries were perfectly happy to have them around as long as they followed orders. The brutality of these states was of no concern to them. Case in point, current U.S. and UK support for Islam Karimov's regime. You've heard of him - the guy who boils his opponents to death; the guy who sends out the army to kill protesters. A guy like that is pretty dangerous. Then why support him?
"A stable Iraq/Middle East would hopefully mean a more peaceful western world. Unfortunately foreign policy hasn't exactly worked for the last x no. of years...Allowing religious fundamentalists who openly want to destroy Democracy flourish. Our governments have definitely had a part to play in the screw ups. But we have to play with the cards we are dealt."
The effects of the war were predictable and predicted. I give you the FBI:
"[A] war with Iraq could trigger new domestic terrorism risks."
Or perhaps Jean-Louis Bruguiere, "the French judge who is the dean of the region's investigators after two decades fighting Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorists," who said "Attacking Iraq would intensify Islamic terrorism, not reduce it."
"Allowing religious fundamentalists who openly want to destroy Democracy flourish."
You very well could be speaking of allies like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Jordan, etc.
Phishy:
thanks for all the links , excellent range of video sources and well worth examining .
Lennie:
I would (and will) take issue with the points made in your reply to me , almost all of them , but forcing you to reply to two people at once is a little unfair so if you are still willing to debate your points after you have concluded your discussion with djeb I would be delighted to take you up on the points made to myself .
Thank you for returning to clarify your view
Voice:
With you all the way
Anonymous:
thanks for the critic , I will have a ponder on your thoughts , as for debating with Djeb we agree so often that it would become very boring , this thread was a rare moment of minor differences of opinion . I cant see it happening that often
but thanks for your view of our site , I appreciate that
For those that believe that America or any other nation wouldn't kill a few thousands of their own people (or by inaction allow to be killed) for political or monetary gain, wake up!
The US did precisely the same thing at Pearl Harbor, leaving 2400 US servicemen dead, so that they could enter WWII.
As for the comment about the 'maintenance' at the World Trade Center, this had apparently been planned for at least a year or more. How often in your builing do you have maintenance checks, or upgrades? Would you notice. These men would likely be professionals and not have a lunch box with C4 written on it. Just think about the resources that they'd have at their disposal.
How often in your builing do you have maintenance checks, or upgrades?
Not often.
Would you notice.
Every time it has happened, I have noticed. Not everyone is as alert as me, but not everyone is asleep, either.
Furthermore, setting explosive charges takes a lot of work. In the case of the WTC, the sheetrock would be stripped off exposing the beams. Then the explosives would need to be set with redundant detonators: both wired and wireless as they would most certainly receive damage in the crash. Additionally, such charges would make very visible and audible explosions like this.
But why bother with explosives at all? Jets would be enough. The building was build without the standard concrete reenforcement around the support beams. The main support for the building was in the exterior beams - many of which would have been damaged or broken when the planes hit - along with additional support at the core around the elevators. The building used bar joists in the floors to support their weight. In the words of architect Jim Mallot on Sept 13, 2001, "If any part of that system failed in any of its joints, the whole system could fail. And unlike more conventional buildings where you had columns spaced every 30 feet or so each way, this building didn't have any such thing in the interior spaces. So when that aircraft struck -- or the aircraft struck yesterday, the first thing that happened was the impact peeled off all the fire-protective gypsum. And it took about an hour from the time that steel was first struck until the fire in there so weakened the steel... that is collapsed."
Jones makes a stink about the fires not being able to reach 800C (others say only 590 degrees would be needed), I offer the following in rebuttal to that claim:
According to Francis Brannigan author of Building Construction for the Fire Service, "…temperatures in excess of 2000 degrees [Farenheit, 1090C] are the rule in severe fires. The average person has no idea of the temperatures which can be reached in a quite ordinary fire."(Brannigan 1971, p245).
moslem terrorist destroyed it.they'll all die for doing it.every one of them,sooner the better.i hope they run out of virgins for them and have to substitue camels.(most will like the camels better)
how scientific :-)
any Evidence you can show us of any of that ?
nobody else has managed to do so. Maybe when the whole world 'appears' to have it's head up its ass your perspective is in fact a reflection of yourself
I accept your 'opinion' is that 'moslem terrorist destroyed it' but this thread is about the search for 'facts' to proove or not who commited that act .
I appreciate your right to hold the opinion that you do . but it really has no place in this thread unless you can show me evidence that would be considered good enough to be used in a (independent) court of law
djeb, in response to Jim Mallot's take on the structural integrity of the WTC I offer this:
http://www.freepressinternational.com/wtc_11152004_manager_88888.html
Also the fire would have to have burned extremely intense for way more then just an hour.If you want i can post links that support this.
However djeb, I don't believe you bothered to check out any of the links i provided.
"Furthermore, setting explosive charges takes a lot of work. In the case of the WTC, the sheetrock would be stripped off exposing the beams. Then the explosives would need to be set with redundant detonators: both wired and wireless as they would most certainly receive damage in the crash. Additionally, such charges would make very visible and audible explosions like this."
So maybe you can explain how WTC7 collapsed on top of itself, exactly as the buildings in controlled demos fall on themselves.
http://www.911research.com/wtc/evidence/videos/docs/wtc7_collapse2.mpg
When could they have wired building 7?
Are you aware that a skyscraper has never been taken down by fire? Unless of course if you believe the 9/11 comissions report. In which case the WTC would be the very first to do so.
Also why haven't you considered any of the many first hand accounts of explosions going off?
The problem is that making a claim is easy. Disproving it takes a lot more work (one of the reasons I just ax disruptive posts on A Logical Voice, for example).Perhaps when I retire, I can find the time to investigate each claim point by point, including new ones that arise. However, as far as a conspiracy theory that goes completely against institutional theory goes, I feel I've done enough to disprove it already. If people insist on believing it, they insist on believing it. C'est la vie.
How many have read the paper by Jones? Seen the pictures in the links? There are photos of the bulidings in their construction phases - believe me - that core was solid.
The architect said the buildings were designed to take a hit like that, not only once, but twice.
There is enough photographic evidence being shown to give me plenty of cause to want a reinvestigation!
Jones is being cool, evidence says this is possible (explosives), prove me right or wrong - and let the chips fall where they may!
On one video I saw that Bush's brother was head of security in the towers up until Sept. 10th. Evdently security drills were done in the few weeks prior to the attact - that cleared numbers of floors at a time. Coould have been a chance to sneak in contraband. Anyone else see that part?
Gary
Also djeb, here are some "visual audible explosions"
http://www.911research.com/wtc/evidence/videos/docs/squibs_and_streamers.mov
http://images.indymedia.org/imc/ontario/wtc-2_demolition_waves.mpg
http://terrorize.dk/911/wtc2dem4/911.wtc.2.demoltion.west.below.wmv
Thanks for the latest. The first has no sound and I see no explosion in it.
The second has sound, but all I hear is the collapse and all I see is the rippling way that architect Jim Mallot mentioned in his interview (link above). Same for number three.
How did you disprove anything? Your joking right? When have I once mentioned "conspiracy theories"? Or is that the label that you just gave me?
H, am I a "disruptive poster"? Cause certainly do not want to be where I'm not wanted?
Phishy
You are always welcome here you know that , your not disruptive at all. your views are welcome and always appreciated , you have never once offended me and you know darn well that I would endorse and agree with at least 95 % of what you post.
Djeb doesn't agree with your view on 'this subject' but I can assure you he would agree with about 95 % of what you post.
Please don't be take issue here , we all wish to see the end of the bush regime and we all see the administration as being in serious contempt so this (in my view) is no reason to break ranks with like minded people.
I have always appreciated your visits here and I personally view you as a friend.
I do agree that the evidence in what you have shown contradicts the official version and should be examined. I personally have not ruled out jones paper but as jones himself says he wants experts from around the world to examine his work and find fault with it.
Its a hypothesis under examination and in my views deserves further experiment but until it has been examined by many equally qualified people I have not ruled it in or out.
what is important to me is that apart from this particular issue there are hundreds of important questions that are unanswered about the tragic events on 9/11 . I want to see a new inquiry and I would still hold that view whether this claim is 'exactly' how it happened or not.
Please speak your mind and Djeb will speak his but remember we are all on the same side.
respect and good to see you as per usual .
Gary
"There is enough photographic evidence being shown to give me plenty of cause to want a reinvestigation!"
I am certainly with you there and if there is nothing too it then an open and public inquiry will show that.I am not sure how I feel to be honest but I am sure the answers we have been given by the US government are not accurate and truthful and on that bases I would certainly support the re-opening of the files.
I can tell you I feel sick about the potentials to come from this. I am not an alarmist but I feel the true stripes of those in charge need to be seen, and as you say - if they are clean, so be it. Yet, if they are dirty, better to out them now, rather than later.
Gary
First off STP, I offer my apologies. I was in no way trying to imply that you were a disruptive poster. In hindsight, I should have made a different analogy. I've read all of your posts since I've become a regular here and each time I see one I look forward to it. (And best of all, you are not G.) I, for one, want you here.
On to disproving things. As with any claim, if one can reasonably demonstrate it is false, it is considered disproved. The Earth was believed to be flat by some. That was disproved. JJ Thompson's "raisin bum model" of the atom was disproved, as was Bohr's model (which Bohr knew to be incorrect anyway).
Also, you have not mentioned a conspiracy theory - in this case I prefer to say conspiracy hypothesis. The words are not needed, however. Were the towers to have been brought down by explosives, that would imply a team of people conspiring to place and detonate those explosives. The explosives would not be able to walk in and place themselves.
"The explosives would not be able to walk in and place themselves."
Maybe it was a smart bomb! LOL
Gary
The architect said the buildings were designed to take a hit like that, not only once, but twice.
The architect, Jim Mallot, said at 4 minutes 41 seconds in that the Empire State building withstood it's hit (by a smaller aircraft) because it was built in a different way, ie. concrete encased beams. At 5 minutes 34 seconds in, the interviewer said that "what you are suggesting here is if the building was built in a more conventional way, those several thousand people in each building may still be alive [sic] today," to which Mallot responded "Some of them would have been." He goes on to suggest "another kind of failure". In short, Mallot says the design of the design of the WTC is at fault. He claims that other buildings could have survived, but the WTC was not built as strongly as it could have been.
Phishy, I just want to add that I happen to disagree with you on this point, but am not against you. I certainly hope not only to see you around here, but to see more of you around here - if you can tolerate my occassional unwise choice of analogy.
To everyone else, I won't be back until I get my damned foot out of my mouth...
Well, the way I see it, the only solution is to resurrect the Warren Commission and let them take a shot at it.
DJEB you should watch all the documentaries and read the material before you label this a conspiracy. Look up conspire. Conspiring is how things get done.
while you are at it, please download and watch some documentaries on the subject: http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=9%2F11
Loose Change is a good one.
There is also a good documentary on the US Military Industrial complex.
-Hype
When I said architect, I meant the one in charge of the WTC towers design. He had many others working on the design.
To back up - I have done a lot of reading and poking around on this issue and I find a lot of contradicting information being circulated. There is a lot of politics going on here - not good.
I look at the pictures, the construction pictures from way back when, and I say we need to know more. A lot of info we are being fed does not add up.
The thing we need to remember as members of "the public" is that much of the information we get is filtered. In this day and age it is hard to believe your own eyes because images are too easy to doctor.
All I know is that things do not add up - we need to know more - and it will take a non-partisan investigation to get there, if we ever do.
When I saw the live footage I wondered how the buildings could fall so symetrically, straight down.
The damage was asymetrical - it should have toppled. The very first thing I wondered was where are the F-15s? We are supposed to be a guarded country!
One of the hijacked planes, if not all, flew around for way too long without any intercept! (after controllers awareness)
I saw the programs on A&E last night about the air controllers. The Air Force was never mentioned as being around - or even asked to be. The exception to that was the incident in Alaska with the Korean jet that I had not even heard of before. F-15s went out on that one, and it was the false alarm!
Remember when Payne Stewart's jet went off course the Air Force went right up to see why! As I understand it they scramble very often on false alarms. Payne Stewart was not a false alarm, neither was Sept. 11.
I can't say what it is, because I do not have enough accurate information - but something aint right! It's just plain obvious by what we did not see! (as well as what we did see)
Gary
Hype, I'm a little confused. If conspiring is how to get things done, how come I shouldn't cal this a conspiracy? (Actually, I'm calling it a conpiracy hypothesis.)
I have not read not seen all the info on the bomb hypothesis, but I have seen what was posted here and more and haven't seen anything that needs the bomb hypothesis to explain it. A friend once gave me a creationist video to watch and what I found on it were exceedingly weak arguments (and outright manipulation of biologists quotes) attempting to prove Biblical literalism. I don't need to read every such essay nor see every such documentary to say that creationism is hookum.
Gary, I have seen the construction photos. But eyeballing them does not tell me much. I get a lot more information from Jim Mallot's explanation of the building's construction.
When I saw the live footage I wondered how the buildings could fall so symetrically, straight down.
The damage was asymetrical - it should have toppled.
Personally, I was shocked. I thought the top might topple, but was horrified to see the whole works go. After seeing the first, I knew that the second might go, which of course it did. This, however, is explained in Jim Mallot's interview. For more on the collapse, please see The sequence of structural events that challenged the forensic effort of the World Trade Center disaster.
On the planes not being intercepted, it is neither here nor there with respect to the hypothesis that bombs were planted in the building. (On the planes, you might find the following intersting interesting. Payne Stewart's jet was intercepted by an already airbourne F-16 from the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base [Source].)
You are right, the intercepts, lack of, and the demolition potential are not necessarily related.
The lack of intercept at all concerns me very much. What does/could that mean?
By the way, Larry Silverstein admitted that WTC7 was "pulled". I just wonder how they got so much explosives in place so quickly, when such a succesful drop takes days of planning. And, just how does one plant explosives in a building with fires in it? And is that the desicion of the fire department to make? Aparently Silverstein thought so.(but then he was well insured)
Gary
On jet intercepts:
The implication is that there is something “inexplicable” about jets flying from a base that is not the closest to an airborne target. Others have questioned why the mission was assigned to National Guard pilots rather than regular Air Force pilots. The issue is not whether or not an airfield is an Air Force Base or an Air National Guard Base. These are designations that are unrelated to whether or not an airfield is tasked by military authorities to scramble a jet interceptor in between five to ten minutes, which is the goal. Whether or not the scrambled jets are piloted by regular Air Force or the Air National Guard is also not important. At any given moment, the base tasked with scrambling jets may not be the closest base to a particular target.
Active fighter and interceptor jet bases are often located near the ocean, to allow for sonic booms during numerous training missions to happen over the ocean, thus reducing complaints from encroaching suburbs near other bases. This is the case with Otis and Langely.
Pilots are not sitting in their aircraft prior to a scramble order; they are sitting near their jets in what is called a “ready room.” They need to get to their jets, go through at least a basic systems check, power up the jet engines, taxi to the proper place on the runway depending on the winds, and then take-off. There is nothing “inexplicable” about this process taking six minutes.
Unlike Star Trek and Star Wars, the U.S. military does not have craft that can take off and reach maximum speed instantaneously. Jets cannot immediately hit their top speed if the pilots wish to survive the G-forces from rapid acceleration.
Any researcher can make a mistake, but in this case Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel refuse to admit they made a mistake, and have come up with more and more tortured explanations for their theory. At Political Research Associates our policy is to post our mistakes and corrections on our website, including a correction for a mistake I made on a Pacifica Radio interview concerning 9/11.
Among those who have challenged the Bykov / Israel article is progressive activist and military expert Stan Goff, (who is a frequently a critic of my work). Here is part of Goff’s critique from an online discussion list:
Bykov / Israel:
“ Andrews Air Force Base is a huge military installation just 10 miles from the Pentagon. On 11 September there were two entire squadrons of combat-ready fighter jets at Andrews.”
Goff:
“ Saying they were combat ready does not mean there was a stand-by status in effect. In other words, what was the status of the crews. How many were on stand-by, and what was their spin-up time? Ten minutes? Thirty minutes? One hours? Two hours? Is anyone actually suited up and ready to fly? If so, how many, and what are their standing orders? What is their primary mission?”
Bykov / Israel:
“ Their job was to protect the skies over Washington D.C.”
Goff:
“ Do you have documentation that states this is their mission?”
Bykov / Israel:
“ They failed to do their job. Despite over one hour's advance warning of a terrorist attack in progress, not a single Andrews fighter tried to protect the city.”
Goff:
“ I myself have questioned this, but the question remains, what was their actual status? Did they actually maintain ‘hot’ crews and craft? If the answer is no, it could concievably take well over an hour to get a bird aloft.”
According to the Bykov / Israel article, the failure to stop the attacks was evidence of an order to “stand down” from persons high up the chain of command:
Bykov / Israel:
“ This could only happen if individuals in high positions worked in a coordinated way to make them fail.”
Goff criticized the claim by Bykov / Israel that the events of 9/11 proved complicity by government officials in the attacks:
Goff:
“ Wild generalization. You haven’t yet established what the procedures are. Yet you conclude they 'failed.' Whereupon you conclude it was done on purpose. Raising the question is one thing. But answering your own question without all the facts is another. The question of the actual alert status at Andrews, and the question of the FAA-USAF-NORAD procedures, and the question of whether anyone might have fucked up any of those procedures, are all open.” Source.
On 7 World Trade Center, I would direct you here. Or to An Initial Microstructural Analysis of A36 Steel from WTC Building 7, which states that
A section of an A36 wide flange beam retrieved from the collapsed World Trade Center Building 7 was examined to determine changes in the steel microstructure as a result of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. This building was not one of the original buildings attacked but it indirectly suffered severe damage and eventually collapsed. While the exact location of this beam could not be determined, the unexpected erosion of the steel found in this beam warranted a study of microstructural changes that occurred in this steel. Examination of other sections in this beam is underway.
Rapid deterioration of the steel was a result of heating with oxidation in combination with intergranular melting due to the presence of sulfur. The formation of the eutectic mixture of iron oxide and iron sulfide lowers the temperature at which liquid can form in this steel. This strongly suggests that the temperatures in this region of the steel beam approached ~1,000ºC, forming the eutectic liquid by a process similar to making a “blacksmith’s weld” in a hand forge.
Here's the way I look at it. We pay the military to be at the ready, to react quickly to protect us. We pay them to do that.
If they are not ready - or effective at that - then we have a much larger problem than figuring out 9/11 !
Personly, I call "bull shit" on any one who trys to say it takes a long time to scramble. I have seen the documentaries about our readiness. Ready rooms are pretty damn ready!
Granted, there was some degree of stand down during the Clinton years, as he did cut military money to help the budget - but I strongly believe we still had plenty of readiness!
So - even if they were not that ready in the ready rooms - what about the missle batteries around the Pentagon? They are damn near automatic and very quick - and charged with the defense of our military leaders - ie the Pentagon.
What happened?
I want to know, and this is just absurd:
Goff:
“ Saying they were combat ready does not mean there was a stand-by status in effect. In other words, what was the status of the crews. How many were on stand-by, and what was their spin-up time? Ten minutes? Thirty minutes? One hours? Two hours? Is anyone actually suited up and ready to fly? If so, how many, and what are their standing orders? What is their primary mission?”
Give me a ^&*((&%^$ BREAK!!
We PAY for BETTER............
Gary
Desire and reality are not always the same thing. The amount of money you spend on your taxes has relatively little to do with the speed with which planes are able to scramble.
Additionally, belief is irrelevant. Only fact is relevant. As such, you have not rebutted what I have posted above.
" The amount of money you spend on your taxes has relatively little to do with the speed with which planes are able to scramble."
I agree, yet if we are not getting what we expect we have a bigger problem - as I said. Maybe that is my point.
On facts, I said I had seen tv documentaries about readiness, practice scrambles "Patrolled air space" over sensitive areas and such. I did consider that to mean it was a fact. If that is no longer true, then we have that bigger problem.
Am I to take it that you find it OK that those planes were flying, obviously hi-jacked, for so long with out a defense put up against them?
Gary
How do you respond to this:
http://www.st911.org/
Gary
"Am I to take it that you find it OK that those planes were flying, obviously hi-jacked, for so long with out a defense put up against them?"
Have I said something to suggest that I think it is ok? I have said that the facts are not known and in the absence of facts, there is no reason to take one speculation over another.
" How do you respond to this:
http://www.st911.org/"
At this time I can only respond that it will not load for me.
It loads now. I respond by asking if you have something specific you want me to look at. I will not waste my time critiquing an entire site.
just read more about 9/11 before dismissing the 'conspiracy' angle..
my point is, I haven't read enough or come across anything that makes me believe any part of the official explanation.. too many pieces don't fit. that is all.
Etymology: Latin conspirare to be in harmony, to join in an unlawful agreement, from com- together + spirare to breathe
Conspire came into English from Latin via French, and the original Latin source word meant (literally) “to breathe together”: con meaning “together” and the second syllable spire referring to respiration – breathing together. The picture this originally painted would have been of two conspirators huddled together in a small room, hence breathing the same air; or, perhaps, huddled so closely together that their thoughts, and their breaths, are as one. It’s a metaphor that paints a vivid picture of what a conspiracy is all about. Conspire is first recorded in English in 1382 in the Wycliffe translation of the Bible (of John 9:22 in which the rulers of the synagogue conspire together to have the man born blind – healed by Christ – put out of the synagogue). It came into English with its meaning intact – a meaning that hasn’t changed in over 600 years.
-Hype
Conpiracy and conspiracy theory (or in this case conspiracy hypothesis) are not the same thing.
splitting hairs?
you are either missing my point or dancing around the issue. when people plot together in secret which is how much of everything gets done, it is called conspiring.
labeling something a conspiracy theory only serves those who would want to hide the conspiracy.. so why are you on that side? it is interesting to me. you seem to be smarter than that.
-Hype
Yes, when people plan in secret, they are, by definition, conspiring. This is not the same thing as a conspiracy theory (hypothesis). Moreover, because people conspire does not mean that a given conspiracy theory is therefore correct.
As for the 9/11 "theories," I'm not giving them the credit of being "theories." I'm calling them hypothesis. And when you say that "only serves those who would want to hide the conspiracy," you are assuming that the hypotheses are correct. If not, there would be no way for me to serve anyone by assigning any linguistic tag to them. I can only be "on that side," if "that side" were actually shown to exist.
Furthermore, by asking "why are you on that side?" you are not only assuming that "that side" exists, you are trying to emotionally manipulate me into your position. And you top it of with flattery to try and get the job done.
Please, I have not done anything unreasonable here. I have merely asked for evidence. There is no need to accuse me of something or try to manipulate me into some position. If these hypotheses can be demonstrated to be fact, I will support them. Until they are, I will not join in on this speculation.
again your take on conspiracy 'hypothesis' is laughable...
you haven't reviewed any of the evidence that has been collected and reviewed by these folks.
sounds like you just don't like the notion of conspiracies.. well that is your problem..
-Hype
I haven't reviewed the "evidence"?
Fallacy. Ignoring the counterevidence. Scroll up. I have addressed every point raised here.
I have no problem with conspiracies. I have problems with conspiracy theories.
As I said before, if these hypotheses can be demonstrated to be fact, which they have yet to be, I will support them.
Documents Show US Army Seized Wives As Tactic
The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of "leveraging" their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.
In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family's door telling him "to come get his wife."
Iraq's deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim Ali, dismissed such claims, saying hostage-holding was a tactic used under the ousted Saddam Hussein dictatorship, and "we are not Saddam." A U.S. command spokesman in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, said only Iraqis who pose an "imperative threat" are held in long-term U.S.-run detention facilities.
But documents describing two 2004 episodes tell a different story as far as short-term detentions by local U.S. units. The documents are among hundreds the Pentagon has released periodically under U.S. court order to meet an American Civil Liberties Union request for information on detention practices.
In one memo, a civilian Pentagon intelligence officer described what happened when he took part in a raid on an Iraqi suspects house in Tarmiya, northwest of Baghdad, on May 9, 2004. The raid involved Task Force (TF) 6-26, a secretive military unit formed to handle high-profile targets.
"During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target's surrender," wrote the 14-year veteran officer. He said he objected, but when they raided the house the team leader, a senior sergeant, seized her anyway.
"The 28-year-old woman had three young children at the house, one being as young as six months and still nursing," the intelligence officer wrote. She was held for two days and was released after he complained, he said.
The second episode, in June 2004, is found in sketchy detail in e-mail exchanges among six U.S. Army colonels, discussing an undisclosed number of female detainees held in northern Iraq by the Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division.
The first message, from a military police colonel, advised staff officers of the U.S. northern command that the Iraqi police would not take control of the jailed women without charges being brought against them.
In a second e-mail, a command staff officer asked an officer of the unit holding the women, "What are you guys doing to try to get the husband — have you tacked a note on the door and challenged him to come get his wife?"
Source and full article
hereFirst document:
here (pdf)
E-mail exchange:
here (pdf)
Isn't holding someone against their will as leverage called 'kidnap' , can you imagine seeing this headline next time the Insurgents kidnap someone.
'Insurgents seize Westerner as leverage tactic to facilitate removal of US forces.'Its amazing how differently we word things when its our side doing the kidnapping. They even have the ransom note being pinned to the door. Maybe the western police forces should try the same tactics , kidnap the families of the criminals they wish to catch here at home. Cant see it catching on. Can you ?
We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard, right?
Well you would think we would. We are supposed to be the good guys. If the Police were looking for me in Canada because I had kidnapped someone they would not kidnap my wife as ransom to catch me. There are standards to uphold if we claim to be the good guys. The good guys do not kidnap and torture.
Hi, I realy like your blog, it's very informative. If you lie to know what Arabs think of the mess in Iraq, check this book "Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts" by Samar Dahmash Jarrah. The book is an open dialouge between Arabs and Americans, a must read.
Unacceptable. It would be interesting to trace the chain of command in which this all took place. I would wager to say the administration knew... now that this has broken, I wonder if the colonels and others directly involved will be ostracized- just as they did with the Abu-Ghraib scandal.
Indeed H, it's an absolute disgrace. The world has known for some time, America is now one of the leading human rights abusers, and has absolutely no moral authority to judge any other country.
What also is interesting is how it seems to have been forgotten that the U.S. was doing this in '03 at the beginning of the conflict...
Just gets uglier and uglier, doesn't it?
I have added the actual documents to the article now for anyone who wishes to look into this a bit further.
Adjo thanks for the suggestion I will take a look at the book.
wasn't that in 24?
-Hype
Yes I think it was Hype .
Middle Eastern TV reports on Hamas victory (video)
From
Democracy Now a compilation of over 30 news stations from around the Middle east showing how the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections was presented to their audiences.
You can watch it
Here (Real player required) Length 49 Min's 56 seconds includes introduction by Democracy now.
EU panel probing alleged prisons may call on Cheney, Rumsfeld
An EU committee investigating alleged CIA secret prisons could call Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to testify, a senior member of the panel said.
British Liberal Democrat Sarah Ludford, a member of the EU parliament and vice president of the investigative committee, said "very senior people" would be asked to answer questions about the alleged prisons. "I don't see why we should not invite Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney," Ludford said.
She acknowledged, however the EU parliament would have no legal power to subpoena them. "Our only pressure, if you like, on these people to come and talk to us and cooperate is political embarrassment," she said.
Source :
hereOf course they wont turn up and I doubt very much they will feel any embarrassment either. But refusing to turn up for such a serious charges as the abuse of the sovereignty of nations , kidnap , secret prisons and the use of torture will be a major embarrassment even if those accused fail to feel any.
I wonder what the Americans would have said if Galloway would have decided not to go to Washington. At least Galloway had the strength of character to do such a thing, of course, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice don't know anything about strength of character.
Does the EU count, or is it "old Europe"?
Ah, now that's an interesting question DJEB, given the recent cosying up to the US by France and Germany, are they now counted as "New Europe" I wonder?
They might now be neo-Europa.
Rumsfeld's Roadmap to Propaganda
A secret Pentagon
"roadmap" on war propaganda, personally approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2003, calls for "boundaries" between information operations abroad and the news media at home, but provides for no such limits and claims that as long as the American public is not "targeted," any leakage of PSYOP to the American public does not matter.
Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive at George Washington University and posted on the Web today, the 74-page
"Information Operations Roadmap" admits that "information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa," but argues that "the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences becomes more a question of USG [U.S. government] intent rather than information dissemination practices."
The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, amended in 1972 and 1998, prohibits the U.S. government from propagandizing the American public with information and psychological operations directed at foreign audiences; and several presidential directives, including Reagan's NSD-77 in 1983, Clinton's PDD-68 in 1999, and Bush's NSPD-16 in July 2002 (the latter two still classified), have set up specific structures to carry out public diplomacy and information operations. These and other documents relating to U.S. PSYOP programs were posted today as part of a new Archive Electronic Breifing Book.
Several press accounts have referred to the 2003 Pentagon document but today's posting is the first time the text has been publicly available. Sections of the document relating to computer network attack (CNA) and "offensive cyber operations" remain classified under black highlighting.
Article source and further reading
National Security Archive
I love the word propaganda. Thanks for employing it!
how delusional are these people? do they actually believe that acts and laws pertaining to information passed in distant cold war age are actually applicable in these age of blogs, google and news sources that don't really cater to any specific national demographic.. they are just going to make themselves look extremely lethargic and on the road to extinction.. is it just me or does donald rumsfeild have a distinctly reptillian air? ;)
Rush, as someone who once considered a career in herpetology, I would prefer if you wouldn't insult reptiles in such a manner.
Please extend my sincere apologies to everything reptillian. It was, on hindsight, an extremely inappropriate metaphor..
UK : Afghan troop levels to hit 5,700
The number of UK troops in Afghanistan will peak at 5,700, Defence Secretary John Reid has told MPs. The majority will be sent to the south, to the volatile Helmand area, which Mr Reid admitted was "more demanding" than other regions in Afghanistan.
He said they would be a "potent force" against the Taleban and drugs barons.
An extra 3,300 troops will go to the country to add to 1,100 already there and 1,950 announced earlier, but the total at any time will not top 5,700.
The deployment will cost £1bn over three years.
when will usa stop?
I've said in the past if Blair & Co want to save money (which is the excuse they give for wanting to "reform" the welfare system in this country) then a good place to start would be by bringing all troops back to Britain, cutting down on frivolous parliamentary expenditure, unfortunately, I don't think that will happen.
Blair & Co have got Britain involved in a pet project of the rabid right in the US, and now they can't get out of it, sadly.
I agree the cost of supporting the agenda of the PNAC to this country has been shocking
You know I was one of the sad fools who was pleased when TB came into power (anything to get the tories out) boy do I feel foolish now.
One would think that after 4 years of operations in Afganistan we would be moving somewhere close to peace and the return of foreign troops to their countries.
This is becoming yet another lenghty conflict like Kashmir or Chechnya.
It woul probably be better to leave Afganis to themselves and spend all those huge sums of money on protecting western bordesr and information gathering.
Hope all this can stop soon and that governments start to spend more in other areas.
Tehran claims Britain behind bombings in Ahvaz
Iran directly accused Britain of of equipping and directing those behind a twin bomb attack in the oil city of Ahvaz that killed eight people and wounded dozens more.
Britain immediately dismissed the allegations which come amid a wider deterioration of relations between Tehran and London over Iran's nuclear programme as "completely without foundation".
"The trace of Iraq's occupiers in the Ahvaz crimes are clear, and they must take responsibility," hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Iranian media on Wednesday.
Eight people died and 46 others wounded in Tuesday's attacks in the restive southwestern Iranian city situated close to the border with British-controlled southern Iraq. A visit to Ahvaz that day by Ahmadinejad had been cancelled at the last moment because of bad weather.
"We have information showing that British soldiers in Iraq equip these elements and draw up their missions," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA. "It is not necessary to point out that the members of this group are based in London," he added, apparently referring to the Britain-based Popular Democratic Front of Ahvazi Arabs.
In London, the Foreign Office denied the charges.
"We reject these allegations from Mottaki," a spokesman told AFP. "Any linkage between HMG (Her Majesty's Government) and these terrorist attacks is completely without foundation."
Ahvaz has been hit by a wave of insecurity over the past year. These include ethnic riots in April and a string of car bombings prior to the June presidential election in which Ahmadinejad scored a shock victory.
In October another double bombing in Ahvaz killed six people and wounded more than 100. Several pipelines have also been hit by blasts in recent months, with sabotage reportedly suspected in at least one of those incidents.
After the October blasts, Mottaki also said the clerical regime had proof of British meddling. Several officials in Tehran have also alleged that Britain and the United States were seeking to destabilise the Islamic republic by supporting ethnic minority separatists.
Arabs are said to represent three percent of Iran's population of 69 million, who are mainly Farsi speaking, but they are believed to make up close to 50 percent of oil-rich Khuzestan's population.
"Britain must respond to the doubts of Iranians concerning the events in Ahvaz and the terrorist attacks in Khuzestan," Mottaki was also quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
On Tuesday, government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham blamed "international terrorists" and said Ahmadinejad had ordered the intelligence and foreign ministries "to probe the role of foreign hands in this incident."
Source :
here
Note I am obviously not stating this story is true (or not true)
I am simply posting it as found in the Turkish press.
This is not the first time Iran has accused the UK of terrorism and of course the UK has claimed Iran has been behind terrorism in Iraq saying explosives for IE D's were coming from Iran. (the British government has since withdrawn such claims)
Tit for tat ? .... who knows
These bombings have MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN written all over them. Iran supported insurgents in Iraq, gave them the technology and information they needed to kill British troops so Britain responds in kind.
This is text book stuff, page 74 paragraph 2 of the manual to be exact.
It was meant as a warning to Ahmadinejad, he was meant to be nearer the bang, so likely the warning wasn't heeded. Paragraph 3 it is then.
It sounds belieavable to me. Supporting terorist groups in order to destabilize a country wouldn't be anything new.
I have to say myself that it does seem that at least some elements in this story may be true.
I have no evidence at all to say that it is true, so I can only go by what I feel and what history has shown us and both of these tell me that this is more plausible than people might think.
China and Iran warm to Russian nuclear proposal
China and Iran expressed support on Thursday for a Russian proposal to resolve Tehran's standoff with Western governments which suspect it of secretly planning to build a nuclear bomb.
Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, on a one-day trip to Beijing to seek China's support, said the Russian proposal that Iran's uranium fuel be enriched on Russian soil rather than in Iran needed further discussion.
Tehran has previously shown little interest in the idea, intended to ensure it does not covertly divert enriched fuel toward a weapons program. It has repeatedly insisted it has no plans to build bombs but has the right to enrich uranium fuel on its territory for nuclear power generation.
"The Russian suggestion is a useful one, but needs to be discussed further," Larijani told a Beijing news conference. He later told Reuters Iran was willing to show flexibility but rejected the "language of force", an apparent reference to the threat of U.N. sanctions.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a news conference earlier that China wanted other countries to consider Moscow's proposal. "We think the Russian proposal is a good attempt to break this stalemate," he said.
Earlier this month Iran removed U.N. seals on enrichment equipment and announced it would resume nuclear fuel research. The United States and its European Union allies say the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should turn Iran over to the United Nations Security Council.
But China said U.N. sanctions would only complicate matters. "We oppose impulsively using sanctions or threats of sanctions to solve problems," Kong said.
Source and further reading (3 pages)
here
i opposes sanctions against king king as well.
This deal will really piss off the Yanks and Israel, they need an excuse to attack Iran.
I'm all for the deal myself!
King king?
I Still believe this to be a red herring, designed to temporarily reduce tensions. Iran still wants nuclear weapons and is on record as looking forward to the idea of a nuclear exchange between it and Israel. Though Iran acknowledges she would suffer millions in casualties, she also knows that Israel would no longer exist after suffering only a couple of detonations.
The terrorism movement is ultimately about destroying Israel and her supporter, the United States. Let's not forget that. The fact that U.S. troops are "next door" should have put Iran on notice to "play nice" with the world, but such actions are in conflict with her stated goals.
http://rantsdujour.blogspot.com/2006/01/surprise.html#links
Javaboy, Iran is on record as saying that it is seeking nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. There is absolutely no law against that, and attempting to implement sanctions on Iran when, in fact is doing nothing wrong in legal terms is completely wrong.
voice1, I am not disputing one way, or another, about the "rights" to nuclear energy. If you understand the process of uranium enrichment, you know then you are only a step away from using that product to build a weapon. Now, couple this understanding with Iran's stated goals and any thinking person can see what Iran is really pursuing. I'm not as stupid as I look; we both know this has nothing to do with nuclear energy. I wish it was. Anyone who thinks that nuclear energy it is the only thing Iran is interested in has another think coming. It's no accident or slip of the tongue that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stoked outrage abroad by dismissing the Holocaust as a “myth” and saying that Israel should "wiped off the map." Wake up.
DJEB . I think the 'king king' reference was an attempt at humour with the name 'kong' :-)
Javaboy the IAEA have no evidence that Iran is building a bomb and neither do you.
There is no track record of Iran starting wars with anyone and why on earth do you think they would use such a weapon in Israel when they would end up killing thousands of Palestinians in the process ?
I have said many times on this site in response to people claiming that Iran is building the bomb.If you have evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon please stop what you are doing immediately and please inform the IAEA for they have not said anything like the claims your making here.
It is clear(from these reports) that even if Iran was not going through the rigorous inspections that are taking place that they are still a decade away from such technology. The enrichment process taking place has no connection to bomb making as well you know. The uranium that is produced is as close to 'weapons grade' as I am to being the next president of the united states (and I am British)
so please as you say your not as stupid as you look , the IAEA have performed 1300 days of unrestricted inspections of Iran (unprecendeted) and failed to notice what seems to be so clear in your mind.
If you have information that the IAEA does not posses then I am sure they would be delighted to hear from you .
If all you have is press articles based or intelligence of a similar nature to what was used with Iraq where Hans Blix said that every single piece of such intelligence was "100 percent wrong" then I don't doubt they would consider you wasting their time.
so could you either
(a) supply genuine IAEA reports to back up your claim ?
or
(b) supply the IAEA with your information so that we can all read about it in the next report ?
It is very easy to speculate but as you speak of yourself we too are not stupid. So supply evidence that is of the standard that would be credible to the IAEA or admit your clutching at straws.
Why would Iran use Nuclear weapons on Israel? That would turn Israel/Palestine into a waste ground for generations if not thousands of years. That would be stupid and not even a case of "if we can't have it no-one can.."
The only country in the region that is likely to use Nuclear weapons is Israel, if they were attacked and were losing, I don't think that they'd hesitate to use Nuclear weapons on their enemies, even if it meant destroying Israel too.
Javanoy, you have only Iran's rhetoric to back you up - and it is the kind of macho rhetoric that even a 13-year-old school yard bully would be embarrassed to use.
hopefully israel will strike first.one nice nuke in mecca will take care of a lot.
Why would that be a hopeful thing? In an article about Iran you mention Saudi Arabia, so the only conclusion I can draw is that you are advocating genocide. Lovely.
What other rhetoric would one take note of to get insights to what Iran may be up to? Would you have the world believe Iran is just "trash talking"? If someone came to you and said they were going to do harm to your mother, would you dismiss it as rhetoric while they were trying to break into your mother's home? Probably not. You would, at the very least, take notice and assess the situation as it unfolded and ultimately, take action. That is all anyone could reasonably expect. So Iran's president has stated his intentions clearly to the world. It is not standing idle either; it is executing plans to that end. Only a fool would ignore or dismiss it. The world ignored clear intentions around 1939 and as we know, there was a price paid for that. All I am trying to say is this: let's take notice here and not ignore the potential for another possible repeat of world conflict because of the mis-guided ambitions of those Iranians in power.
A snippet from an A.P. story published today ...
While the IAEA has said it has found no evidence of Iran's building nuclear weapons, it has refused to give Iran a clean bill of health because of unanswered questions over its atomic program.
Late last year, inspectors saw the document that apparently showed how to mold highly enriched grade uranium into the core of warheads, and it figured in a November report by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
Initial reports said the IAEA was given the documents at that time but the diplomats said Friday that Tehran handed them over only last week in a show of cooperation meant to head off increasing international consensus on reporting Iran to the Security Council over suspicions that its nuclear activities might be a cover for developing weapons.
The document was given to Iran by members of the nuclear black market network, the IAEA said. It showed how to cast "enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into hemispherical forms."
Iran has claimed it did not ask for the document but was given it anyway as part of other black market purchases.
Meanwhile, Belgium's intelligence chief has resigned after it emerged that warnings from the CIA went unheeded and that the country's state security agency failed to stop a Belgian company exporting nuclear-sensitive equipment to Iran.
Sorry for the delay here . I missed your message somehow
Nobody is ignoring anything Anonymous . Let the IAEA do its job that is all I ask. this speculation is pointless , we have inspectors on the ground so lets stop the media speculation and let them get on with the job.
If the IAEA thinks Iran should be put before the security council then they will say so . we do not need pathetic lobbying from nation states , especially any state that defied the world by not signing the NPT and building a nuke in secret. that would be hypocritical
in regard to your document mentioned
would This be the document in question ?
Iran does not have the thousands of centrifuges required to do this and they are at least a decade away from doing so (unless you read the jp)
the uranium being enriched is of no use in the creation of nuclear weapons and they will not have any facility to enrich Uranium to a higher enough level until 2012 !!
so whats the problem . let the IAEA do its job.
sometimes rhetoric is obvious , Iran would never nuke Israel , the would kill they very people they are angry with Israel for (the palestinians)
they would also be wiped of the planet by the US / UK and Israel itself .
so what are you worried about ?
PS having looked at the November IAEA document I am sure that you will have read that although they had the doucmentation (which they themselves handed over) they have no means or enriching the Uranium to the level required.
you can try and read what you like into a IAEA report but if you take the whole document it clearly says that there is no evidence that Iran is building a bomb at all.
Thats after 1300 days of inspections
What other rhetoric would one take note of to get insights to what Iran may be up to? Would you have the world believe Iran is just "trash talking"?
Because common sense says that if you attack a nation that has 200+ nuclear warheads that is backed by another nation that has more than 2000 nuclear warheads, you will get your ass handed to you on a plate. This is obvious.
The mom schtick - faulty analogy.
The Nazi schtick - faulty analogy.
How seldom we weigh our neighbors in the same balance as ourselves
Sometimes the only thing you can do is laugh.....
US ambassador to Peru James Curtis Struble has complained that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
"is meddling a lot in other countries' affairs." There is no hypocrisy in that is there ?
Source
here
Classic.
Oh, don't you just love irony?
indeed.. maybe the administration in question does develop a sense of irony, the world would not be as interesting a place as it is turning out to be at present..
Palestinian PM resigns as Hamas heads to shock victory
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei has announced his resignation, saying Hamas must form the next government following the parliamentary elections.
It comes as the militant Islamic group appeared to be heading for a shock win. With counting still under way, officials from the ruling Fatah party said Hamas had won a majority. Official results are due at 1900 local time.
Israel, the US and the EU consider Hamas a terrorist group and have said they do not want to deal with it.
"I am going to present my resignation to President Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] and Hamas should form the [new] government," Mr Qurei told journalists, according to AFP news agency.
Hours before official results were due to be released, Fatah officials conceded that Hamas had won the elections. Hamas claimed it had won at least 70 seats in the 132-member parliament.
The BBC's Jon Leyne in Jerusalem says a victory for Hamas would present a huge challenge for Israel and the international community and for Hamas itself. He says many believe the militant movement would be more comfortable as the major opposition party rather than having power thrust on it at the first attempt.
With victory looming, senior Hamas official Mushir al-Masri said the group wanted to work with Fatah in a "political partnership". But he said Hamas would not hold peace talks with Israel.
"Negotiations with Israel is not on our agenda," he said. "Recognising Israel is not on the agenda either now."
Source :
BBC Previous post :
HereHere we go ... Hamas are democratically elected it seems and they are the choice of the Palestinian people. Israel has every right to security and Hamas has every right to represent the people that have voted for them in such huge numbers.
So what now ?
Just like Iran it seems you get extreme governments out of extreme situations. If there is to be any sign of peace some serious banging of heads is going to need to happen. Hamas must recognise Israel at least enough to talk to them and Israel must recognize that Hamas have been democratically elected and have every right to speak for the Palestinian people.
Hard though it will be for both sides they will have to find some way forward if they ever desire peace for their children and their children's children.
Seems to me H that you summed the situation up perfectly, some banging together of heads, and acknowledging each other.
Hamas never had that much political support in the past, but I can't help notice that they reversed their position on the right of Israel to exist right before the election...
I agree with the commentary on the original post...
What should also prove interesting are the relations between Abbas and Hamas.
What's really, really interesting is the origins of Hamas and who supported them at the time. Irony is alive and well and living in U.S. and Israeli foreign policy.
It is almost deliciously ironic though isn't it? when there is so much talk of instilling democracy in the middle east and so on, and when a democratic election does happen (and a free and fair one, as free and fair as an election gets i suppose..), a "recognized" terrorist outfit gets a democratic mandate! if this happens, and lets say it happens in say myanmar (hypothetically) that the junta gets elected in a free democracy, should we turn a blind eye to previous behaviour, now that their rule has a public mandate? is the purpose of any external agency looking to (again hypothetically) work for the benefit of the citizens of a particular country merely to support democracy or does it stretch further? and if it does, what is the difference between a benevolent friend and an imperialist?
Saddam to sue Bush and Blair
Defence lawyers for Saddam Hussein Wednesday distributed copies of a lawsuit against President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair for destroying Iraq.
The suit accuses Bush and Blair of committing war crimes by using weapons of mass destruction and internationally-banned weapons including enriched uranium and phosphoric and cluster bombs against unarmed Iraqi civilians, notably in Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi, al-Kaem and Anbar.
The Amman-based legal team had said Sunday that the ousted president intended to start legal action against the two leaders of the Iraq war in the International Criminal Court in the Hague, but the text of the suit was made available Wednesday.
The suit also accuses the U.S. president and British prime minister of torturing Iraqi prisoners, destroying Iraq's cultural heritage with the aim of eliminating an ancient civilization, and inciting internal strife.
Bush and Blair were also accused of polluting Iraq's air, waters and environment.
The lawsuit demanded that Bush and Blair appear before court to answer the charges filed against them and requested the harshest punishment in line with Dutch legislation and the rules of international and humanitarian laws.
It also requested compensation for all material and moral damage inflicted on the Iraqi people.
Source :
here
I hate bush the most for making me actually agree with saddam. Saddam has legitimate points here. Isnt that some crazy ish?
Bathroom Review
The US is not party to the ICC. Thus the ICC has no jurisdiction over this case, whether Saddam wants to submit it or not.
Of course M thats obvious
You miss the point .
when the Ex Iraqi dictator affectionately known as the 'Butcher of Baghdad' starts calling George Bush a war criminal and he actually has a point , surely the time for this President is nearly over ....
He is being Made to look a fool now even by Saddam.
The UK is signed up to the ICC and it won't happen to blair either.
Please dont take everything I post seriously . I pressumed the fact that this would never happen was obvious to all.
I am intrigued by your blog.
Gee, you really hide behind the serious but not serious thing, huh? I feel the issue is more valuable placed on this level... would you rather I not comment on the reality and seriousness of the issues being brought? Again, don't tell me what I can and cannot say and how I can and cannot view things. However, you can tell me not to comment on your page- if you want my opinions off your page, you got it.
I am never against any investigation into any entity committing war crimes.
I do not believe the time of the President is over- it is a dictator almost no one respects, threatening a lawsuit in a court with no jurisdiction, levying accusations against a government as if its the first time they ever did anything wrong. I urge you to look deeper- look into the concept that Saddam cannot have this done in the ICC and question how the international community can be more attentive and steadfast in addressing justice in concern to war crimes violations.
You are welcome to say what you wish M .... why do you think I told you not to say something ?
I just said it was obvious . I really didn't think anyone would take this article seriously in the context that you did.
I mean saddam is locked up standing trial , he is not exactly going to be allowed to fly over to Holland to take B n B to court.
The serious point in this is that George Bush is war criminal he has broken the UN charter he Has broken the Geneva convention and hence he is a war criminal
There is no debate about it . It is simply a fact
But being the President of the most powerful country on earth seems to make him exempt from the standards placed on other people and countries.
Saddam is standing trial for his crimes and will almost certainly face the death penalty
George Bush will probably never stand trial for his crimes and he should
But one thing for sure . There is nothing that can be done whilst GWB is still in power so the first objective it to get him out of office by whatever mesure Americans can legally do so .
I am not telling you what to write anymore than your telling me what to post and your very over sensitive to criticism there M .
You decide whether you wish to post here its your fingers and your keyboard so as long as you are willing to abide by the simple rules (which you do) I am not going to ask you not to post !
If you were to follow your argument through you would see that the UK although signed up to the ICC would never allow such a thing to happen either
Hence the fact the the US is not signed up really has no factor in the case at all , for there is no case
There are plenty of serious attempts going on to charge George Bush with war crimes . But they are all pointless .
Nothing will be done internationally in any way shape or form . Only if Americans themselves decide such an action is needed would anything have the slightest chance of success
The time of GWB is already over with or without any of this . that is obvious to everybody I would say , we just have to wait and see which one of his many errors brings him down
It is lik watching a boxer on the ropes , you know he is going to fall , you just do not know which punch is going to give the killer blow
Please try not to take personal offense for non is intended and as noted to you on the 'cartoon of the week' thread this is no place to be over sensitive.
Now please can we try to not turn this into a personal conversation , my email is there if your ever concerned or wish to urge me of anything .
I appreciate your comment
"he is a war criminal
There is no debate about it . It is simply a fact"
I beleive in innocent until proven guilty.
"George Bush will probably never stand trial for his crimes and he should"
I completely agree.
"the first objective it to get him out of office by whatever mesure Americans can legally do so"
I see your point- but I don't think I should just find some law Bush may fit into and work that angle. If it is possible he is guilty for something, he should be tried. I am particularly irate about our Patriot Act (which I wrote to my Senators and Reps about), the wire-tapping, the torture and the humanitarian violations. Concerning Guantanamo inmates- they have already won some legitimate ground on that in the District Courts- it is next to go to the Supreme Court and with the way our bench looks, its not looking promising for those detainees. I actually did research for a forensic psychiatrist that worked at Gitmo- so I am doing my best as an American.
"I am not telling you what to write anymore than your telling me what to post and your very over sensitive to criticism there M."
What I am trying to get at, is the fact that you post something about serious topics, so I take the serious angle and the first thing you say is why are you taking it so seriously (in a matter of words). This is silly- bottom line, post what you want and I will comment what I want- deal?
"Only if Americans themselves decide such an action is needed would anything have the slightest chance of success"
I agree with this to a certain extent. While it is our President, we have the duty to hold him accountable. But if we are talking about international iinfluence, then US citizens are not the only ones accountable. All others are accountable as well- if you were so angry and your government was your voice and this happened all over- what choice would America have? I believe we are all interconnected and if we say that one is repsonsible for the fate of many, we must also say that those many have a responsibility for contributing to that fate. I am sick of people blaming America for everything. maybe I am getting defensive- but place blame where blame is due. Don't only blame the powerful- that goes against the concepts of indivuality and innate freedom each person has. In addition, a lot of this seems to be focused on Bush being horrid. I don't hear anyone trying to get rid of Rumsfeld who has botched up just about everything. In addition, the US has not only done horrible things. We have done quite a significant amount for AIDS and spearheaded the wiping out of debt at the G8. I have never seen human rights reports and human trafficking reports more in depth than it has been under Bush. You can always see the negative, just remember there is positive as well. I do agree that the negative is quite overwhelming in this case, but to be honest, a lot of these things have been happening under many other administrations and many other countries- it is not fair to give so much credit to Bush. For example- have you looked into the Maze in the UK? Or terrorist techniques in Israel (in fact where the US learned many of the ones they are alleged to emply)?
"try not to take personal offense"
I believe it is time to explain myself. I am a very intense person. I can argue with someone on a topic at a ridiculous length for a ridiculous amount of time on every ridiculous angle. This sort of dialogue only fosters open debate and helps me and others to see another point of view- if we were lacking such insight, we would not be very capable of making competent arguments. I take none of this personally- it is a battle of words, nothing more.
I am pleased you don't take things personally . Of course I post what I like and you comment what you wish already .
If i think something is obvious I will say so , if you think something is shit , say so , and expect a response . I already know your an intense person . Like any web site all comments visits are noted whether anonymous or not and you have been very busy since you found us. Your new here so you are still getting used to what me and Djeb post and it will come as no surprise that the little site called terrorism news is not going to have any major impact on US politics.
Of course George bush is innocent until proven guilty as is Saddam (though not many have noticed that) but there is no denying GWB has broken the Geneva convention and the UN charter so what should we call him "a war criminal yet to be charged" ? Once charged we would call him a convicted war criminal to date he is merely a war criminal
I welcome the widest possible diversity of views here and your welcome as I have no said three times I believe , post what you like . if it was rude (which it isn't) I would delete it. If i think it is obvious I will say so. It is an open forum so post what you like and be prepared to get back whatever comes . Everyone has there own mind
As for what the world can do . we are already doing it , and we will keep doing it . Look down to the work Sen. Dick Marty is doing a few posts down. There is a message I am trying to get across in this post as there was with the cartoon but i don't tailor my posts to think of any single reader (that would be stupid) so sometimes maybe the message is not going to be noticed by you for it was not someone like you that I had in mind when i posted it.
The only thing that would concern me with your tendency to be intense is that you 'try' your best not to take over a thread (I am not saying you have) .I have repeated to you that my email is there , if you want to debate at length then create an email and send it , i will always debate along as it is sensible . here is for leaving a few comments and taking part in a collective conversation obviously.
But I find when 2 people continue to bounce back and forth on a single post with long comments it makes others feel like they are intruding and they choose not to post. With or without your point M , your welcome to post what you like. calling your point 'obvious' is really no reason to react . it is just my opinion on my own site.
Hang around , you will see me being attacked by your fellow countrymen of a right winged persuasion often and having hundreds of such attacks on here I have become direct with my style of response . so please maintain the view of not taking offense.
I can't put a little sticker on each post saying 'deadly serious' or 'now this is only partly serious' make your own judgments and I will continue to make mine.
PS yes I have looked into the maze etc and I am happy to discuss it with you but this post is on saddam, bush and blair so I will leave that for either a more personal debate or if/when me or Djeb decide to post on it
PPS if I just deleted someones comment it was an error please post again (I was trying to delete my dublicate so god knows what I deleted) , _H_ ponders why he is not asleep
respect
Alex, anyone can make a valid point. Don't feel crazy.
Innocent until proven guilty? Lucky for George that "Laws are like spiders' webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape."
The man's power aside, he violated Articles 33 and 39 of the UN Charter and the The General Treaty for the Renunciation of War (AKA the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928) (and the Geneva conventions as _H_ mentioned) thereby violating Article VI of the Constitution of the United States of America.
With regards to Articles 33 and 39 of the UN Charter and the Kellogg-Briand Pact, I think the judgement of the International Court of Justice in the Corfu Channel case of 1949 fits:
The Court can only regard the alleged right of intervention as the manifestation of a policy of force, such as has, in the past, given rise to most serious abuses and such as cannot, whatever be the defects in international organization, find a place in international law. Intervention is still less admissible in the particular form it would take here; for, from the nature of things, it would be reserved for the most powerful states and might easily lead to perverting the administration of international justice itself.
The judgement at Nuremburg was also instructive as it pertains to violations of the Kellogg-Briand Pact:
The charges in the Indictment that the defendants planned and waged aggressive wars are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent States alone, but affect the whole world.
To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
If you're not up to speed on the Kellogg-Briand Pact, it was summed up by Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson in 1932:
War between nations was renounced by the signatories of the Kellog-Briand Treaty. This means that it has become throughout practically the entire world... an illegal thing. Hereafter, when engaged in armed conflict, either one or both of them must be termed violators of this general treaty law... We denounce them as law breakers.
GW ordered the invasion. GW thereby violated the Kellogg-Briand Pact and Articles 32 and 39 of the UN Charter. GW initiated "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." The other day, someone posted something about a duck. It goes something like this: if it looks like a duck. walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then George Bush is a war criminal even if he has too much power to ever stand trial.
As for no one going after Rumsfeld, I've posted on him before and have supported organisations trying to get rid of him (and just about anyone else in the current administration; and Clinton's when he was around).
As for the G8, There is quite a bit you have not read on the 'wiping out debt' fascade. You are grabbing at straws as a result of "getting defensive." How do you define youself? By who you are, or by the actions of your government? I could tell you which I think is the wiser choice, if you would like. Until then, I'll look at you for who you are and not which state controls your life.
We all have different interpretations of events, but don't assume that my perspective is indicative of ignorance. In retrospect, I agree that I should not have brought up the G8, only because this post is in fact not about that.
I am not going to begin to define myself- I don't know any psychiatrist, neuroscientist, philosopher, or politician that can do any such thing for themself or any one person- I do the best I can to educate myself and stay true to certain principles and because I am not isolated, my environment and social constructs influence me to a great degree. I believe in democracy and the government has been elected to represent me. Therefore I am to some extent bound to the actions they take.
I do agree with H that these long diatribes are not right for these posts. I will look into emailing in the future, now that I know it is preferred.
Roy
your comment has been deleted. If your willing to explain 'why' you believe what you do and actually supply factual information to support your claim then feel free to post again .
but please read the previous comments first
One can "represent" democracy as much as one can "represent" a glass of water. You either have a glass of water, or you don't. A painting of one will not go very far towards quenching your thirst.
Nice analogy.
So much moral righteousness! Were or are you also disposed to prosecute Putin for Chechnya? Chirac for Cote D'Ivoire?
Hussein for the 400,000 unidentified corpses unearthed so far? etc, etc, etc . . . .
Not at all odd that you have chosen the fashionable and preferred, safe place to vent your very selective spleen.
Tyranno
Cote D'Ivoire .... yes
Chechyna ... yes
Hussein ... yes
I have been to the middle east(including Iraq)
Now does the crimes of others prevent GWB from being a war criminal ? or does it have no base within this thread or post
let me flip the question , does the existence of Hitler mean that Saddam should not be tried for his crimes ?
whats your point ? . This is about the war crimes of GWB and TB and there is no factual denial of those crimes so I assume you accept the undeniable facts above
Now I think that answers all your questions and it seems all your points were mute
Maybe you should not judge so quickly then you would not come in all angry and end up getting everything wrong .
thanks for your 'selective spleen'
Please note: that posting was border line . personal attacks and offensive messages are deleted on this site , your welcome to comment on the posts but you have already shown your powers of prophecy when judging people to be far from accurate . Attack the comments (with facts) if you so wish but refrain from attacking the author of any post or comments as all others do on this site.
_H_, you beat me to it. Tyranno, yes, yes and yes.
You outta check out the site before venting your very selective spleen. Sorry about the plagiarism...
Personally S.Hussein should in my opinion be awaiting trial in Camp X-Ray with all the others not being tried well attempting to be tried in Iraq.
this never happened a the end of WW11 justice was meted out at Nuremburg this stupid performance is happening at the Hague with that other criminal from Bosnia or Kovosko one or the other.
They don't carry out trials at Camp X-Ray.
Also, a real trial would attempt to get at the truth, meaning that they connections between the U.S., Europe and Iraq would be thoughly exposed.
Hamas gains share of power in Palestine
In the first Palestinian parliamentary elections in a decade, the ruling Fatah Party fell short of a majority in the 132-seat parliament, with the militant group Hamas thrusting itself onto the political scene, exit polls showed late Wednesday
Exit polls suggest that the ruling Fatah party has won a narrow victory in the first Palestinian parliamentary elections for a decade.
The first official poll gave Fatah more than 46%, compared to 39.5% for Islamic militant group Hamas. Both Fatah and Hamas have said they will consider a coalition if there is no clear winner. Voting has been brisk, with turnout at 73%, the election commission said. In the West Bank, 70.6% voted, while in Gaza the figure was 76.8%.
Observers say the elections were peaceful, and one EU official said the vote was an example to the Arab world.
Sources and Opinion from around the globe
BBC ,
CNN ,
Reuters ,
Washington post ,
MSNBC ,
Al Jazeera ,
Jerusalem Post ,
Xinhua (China) ,
Peoples Daily (china) ,
Kerala (India) ,
Daily Times (pakistan) ,
Dar Al Hayat (Saudi Arabia) ,
Moscow Times (Russia) ,
Islam Online .
I’ve got to tell you the film The War Within totally opened my eyes about how the mistreatment of those suspected of terrorist activities can actually turn them into what we fear most—terrorists.
Katrina warnings 'went unheeded'
The US government was warned about the risk Hurricane Katrina posed to New Orleans before the storm hit, but the warning was ignored, a senator says.
Democrat Joseph Lieberman, on a Senate panel studying the response to Katrina, said emergency agency Fema had warned on 27 August the city could be flooded. He accused the White House of being unwilling to hand over documents which might explain why no action was taken.
A White House spokesman insisted the administration was cooperating fully.
Sen Lieberman said the report from Fema had been received by the White House several hours before the storm made landfall on 29 August. The note warned of the potential for serious damage, loss of power and flooding in New Orleans, he told the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.
Why was the president left so uninformed that he said four days later: 'I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees'?
It also predicted that Katrina would exceed the projections of an exercise the previous summer, which had suggested a Category 3 storm would require mass evacuations and could breach the city's flood defences.
Hurricane Katrina was a Category 4 storm with winds of 233kph (145mph) winds when it hit the city.
"What happened to that report?" Sen Lieberman asked. "Why was the president [George Bush] left so uninformed that he said four days later: 'I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees'?"
He said the White House had failed to provide important documents which could explain why the warnings went unheeded and had been reluctant to allow officials to be interviewed.
Sen Lieberman accused the Department of Homeland Security of a "conscious strategy of [delaying] our investigation in the hope that we would run out of time".
Source :
BBC
the fault of what happened to n.o. and its people is mainly the fault of the people who lived there! no one, espically the media wants to admit it but its true as the people were warned to get out and didnt. why, because the vast majority were raised to rely on the government for every aspect of their lives and could not act on their own when it mattered. its their fault not the government. its brutal but true
Shit happens. Nobody could really predicted it...
H, this has been my first chance to visit the blog, have to say nice place you have here. I see you get the "victims of disasters deserve all they get" crowd in here as well. I wonder what their attitude would be if they were a victim.
Curious- do you post things only pertaining to terrorism, or just fascinating reads in general? If the former... Gulf Coast disaster...terrorism? Would like to hear anyone's opinion on the matter.
I will say that I do not believe a decision was made specficially to allow the Gulf Coast disaster- call it blind faith, call it naivite...a mistake and lack of administrative congruity is one thing, but purposeful destruction? I have to question such an accusation and see some SIGNIFICANT evidence to prove otherwise.
Zosimo, one can hardly blame the destitute who had no means to get out for not getting out. Additionally, you are totally forgetting about events like people trying to walk out and being ordered back by the authorities.
As for relying on the government, I see a glaring inconsistency in your position upon visiting your site. You support one of the biggest branches of government: the military. Or is it that, in your calculus, if a government agency's job is to destroy and kill, you support it, but if it is there to help people, you are against it?
Anna, go here.
Voice, yes, we do.
M, we don't limit ourselves to terrorism here, but we do focus on it.
'is mainly the fault of the people who lived there!'
we'll see how fast your attitude changes when something like this happens to you.
looking at the radar it seems to me like somebody was using a microwave device to direct/create or change the hurricane.
weather control devices have been around for about a century.
-Hype
hi
i have a question. did you ever receive a cheque by adsense ? hehe i just want know if it's real.
One question to those who don't think the Bush regime has anything to be ashamed about. Why are they stonewalling the Katrina investigation if they have nothing to hide, or be ashamed about?
From the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/politics/25katrina.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1138165200&en=e89a11af74ffd279&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The Bush administration, citing the confidentiality of executive branch communications, said Tuesday that it did not plan to turn over certain documents about Hurricane Katrina or make senior White House officials available for sworn testimony before two Congressional committees investigating the storm response.
The White House this week also formally notified Representative Richard H. Baker, Republican of Louisiana, that it would not support his legislation creating a federally financed reconstruction program for the state that would bail out homeowners and mortgage lenders. Many Louisiana officials consider the bill crucial to recovery, but administration officials said the state would have to use community development money appropriated by Congress.
Hey, intersting article. I will probablly be the last person to defend something the current US administration, the post in question does bring to mind one point.. surely the white house must receive a number of security / natural disaster / terrorism briefings and warnings as and when circumstances arise. in this case, which of these briefings should be acted upon decisively. i guess it boils down to, do you want an administration that will react to any and all intelligence coming in (is that possible?) or try and take objective decisions keeping in mind the risks of ignoring some of the information available (i guess this is what they aspire to do..).
obviously, in this case, they ignored some very important information, with devastating consequences. i guess, the ability to make these calls objectively is what would define a good administration and i guess a good president.. but now, that is a different debate entirely!
Voice
Welcome , well you have in fact been here a few times before which is how I found your excellent site but it was before your non existent death so maybe your memory has not returned yet , But a visitor worthy of two welcomes if ever I have had one .
We get the full range in here I am afraid usually the "victims of disasters deserve all they get" crowd reappear and post comments such as 'lets nuke Iran' so If they don't have someone else to blame for a disaster then they try to create a New disaster to blame others for.
On your point of stone walling , my total agreement the phrase 'something to hide Mr Bush ?' comes to mind .
M
As Djeb said we don't rule out any stories here , Terrorism is the main theme of course but as you know yourself terrorism is not the easiest thing to define , Globalization , environmental damage , poverty , all things things have areas that you could discuss under the dictionary definition of terrorism . I suppose it is 80 % terrorism and politics and 20 percent what ever me or Djeb may have on our minds that day , maybe our motto should be expect the unexpected
Djeb
one can hardly blame the destitute who had no means to get out for not getting out. Additionally, you are totally forgetting about events like people trying to walk out and being ordered back by the authorities , exactly the point thank you
Benoit
Haven't got a penny/cent yet , click on a few ads and I will be sure to let you know :-)
Hype
'is mainly the fault of the people who lived there!'we'll see how fast your attitude changes when something like this happens to you again exactly the point thank you
Rush
I guess, the ability to make these calls objectively is what would define a good administration and i guess a good president.. but now, that is a different debate entirely!
is it ? :-) , I would say it is entirely the same debate , thank you for your comment.
Yes, "Something to hide Mr Bush?" appears to be the quote of his "presidency" doesn't it. Apologies for my forgetfulness.
Redefining failure
From
Democracy Now!:
In Iraq, the U.S has admitted that insurgents carried out over 34,000 attacks during 2005. This marks an increase of nearly 30 percent over the previous year. Despite the spike, U.S. officials have attempted to put a positive spin on the news. A military spokesperson said the numbers "tells me the coalition and the Iraqi forces have been very aggressive in taking the fight to the enemy."
You know I had no idea that you, a person who commented in my blog, ran terrorism news also. You have so many blogs it is insane :)
As many people have said, the US has turned Iraq into a terrorist training ground. The Bush regime and their supporters must be so proud of their achievements.
Alex,I put a little input into Terrorism News, but I don't run it. This is _H_'s show.
The second poster, Voice 1, is my other boss. A Logical Voice is his site. I am a member of these sites because these two gentlemen asked me to join them.
we are the terrorists... america is creating terrorism and the counter-terrorism. it is a profitable business.
remember Iran 1979? the U.K. is neck deep in it as well.
-Hype
I prefere to see it as a team Alex , Djeb has brought a great deal of wisdom to Terrorism News and I am very grateful for his talents .
btw , fantastic bathroom site. I can Imagine the moment of genius when you created it
great stuff
Alex, help! The truth is _H_ has me locked in his basement sweatshop churning out posts!
Israel 'has to withdraw further'
Israel will have to withdraw from further parts of the West Bank, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said.
In his first policy speech as interim leader, he said the main challenge ahead was to shape Israel's borders for good to ensure a Jewish majority. It could not continue to control parts with a Palestinian majority, but would keep its main settlements, he said.
Mr Olmert told a conference at Herzliya that Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank last year was a turning point.
In order to ensure the existence of a Jewish national home, we will not be able to continue ruling over the territories in which the majority of the Palestinian population lives," he said.
However, Mr Olmert said that Israel would keep security zones, the main settlement blocs, and places important to the Jewish people, such as Jerusalem.
Read more at the
Source
Nice blog! Mind if I come from time to time?
I have a little blog of my own, feel free to visit:
www.plvsvltra.blogspot.com
Best regards, Jon
Thank you jon , we do our best ....
you are of course welcome whenever you wish to pass through
welcome
yuck, blog spam sucks.
Israel is wise to move out of the West Bank. however, the problem is not getting resolved. fear and hate is steering this conflict to deadly end game.
-Hype
Glad to see you are spilling your ignorance over onto this thread as well. We could take your word for it, or we could actually poll the opinions of the Arab world. No need, in fact. It has already been done, and their reasons are quite straight forward and have nothing to do with jealousy.
Furthermore, your post is seething with racism. Perhaps you might point to the boiling to death of prisoners in one particular nation, but unfortunately, that is done with Western support.
oops xenophobia and religious hatred are not allowed on this site
Message deleted.
If you want to play here evening blogger then you have to be polite and apply by the rules of the site.
no stereotypical rants of hatred , you can find such comments welcome and the klu clux clan and the BNP to name but two. but your racism is not welcome here
Thanks for removing that filth, _H_.
U.S. 'Outsourced' Torture
The head of a European investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons in Europe said Tuesday that evidence pointed to the existence of a system of "outsourcing" of torture by the United States, and that it was highly likely European governments were aware of it.
But Swiss Sen. Dick Marty said there was no tangible proof so far of the existence of clandestine centers in Romania or Poland as alleged by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, and complained of a lack of cooperation by EU governments.
His interim report, based partly on results of national investigations and recent press reports, did not break new ground and largely repeated his previous claims that U.S. policies in the war on terror contravene international law on human rights. Allegations that the CIA hid and interrogated key al-Qaida suspects at Soviet-era compounds in Eastern Europe were first reported Nov. 2 in The Washington Post.
"There is a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of "relocation" or "outsourcing" of torture," Marty said in the report to the Council of Europe, the human rights watchdog on whose behalf he is investigating.
"Acts of torture or severe violation of detainees' dignity through the administration of inhuman or degrading treatment are carried outside national territory and beyond the authority of national intelligence services," Marty said. He added that more than 100 suspects may have been transferred to countries where they faced torture or ill treatment in recent years.
"The entire continent is involved," Marty told the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly, a body comprising several hundred national lawmakers. "It is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware."
In his report, Marty analyzed the cases of an Egyptian cleric allegedly kidnapped from Milan, Italy, in 2003 by CIA agents and a German captured in Macedonia and taken to Afghanistan in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
Citing an American lawyer, Marty also said six Bosnians were abducted by U.S. agents on Bosnian soil and taken to Guantanamo Bay, despite a Bosnian court ruling ordering their release.
Last week, Italy's justice minister formally asked the United States to allow Italian prosecutors to question 22 purported CIA operatives they accuse of kidnapping the Egyptian cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, in 2003 from a Milan street.
Nasr, believed to belong to an Islamic terror group, was seized Feb. 17, 2003. Prosecutors claim the cleric, who is also known as Abu Omar, was taken by the CIA to a joint U.S.-Italian air base, flown to Germany and then to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
Marty also said he would follow up on evidence gathered in the case of Khaled al Masri, a German of Lebanese origin reportedly kidnapped from Germany to Afghanistan, in the next stage of his investigation.
Marty, who is expected to issue another interim report in the next few months, complained there was enormous pressure on him to produce evidence of secret CIA prisons but there was not much help from the Council of Europe or governments.
"Not a single day passes without me being asked, 'Do you have any hard evidence, is there any proof?'" he said. "I am not a judicial authority, I have no means of investigation, the logistical support available to me is very limited."
The European Union's top justice official, Franco Frattini, called on all EU governments Tuesday to "fully cooperate" with the investigators.
The Council of Europe launched its probe after allegations surfaced in November that U.S. agents interrogated key al-Qaida suspects at clandestine prisons in eastern Europe and transported some suspects through Europe to other countries.
Human Rights Watch identified Romania and Poland as possible sites of secret U.S.-run detention facilities. Both countries have denied involvement. Clandestine detention centers would violate European human rights treaties.
Marty said there was no irrefutable evidence of the existence of secret CIA prisons in Romania, Poland or any other country.
"On the other hand, it has been proved that individuals have been abducted, deprived of their liberty and all rights and transported to different destinations in Europe, to be handed over to countries in which they have suffered degrading treatment and torture," he said. If eventually uncovered, the detention centers would likely be small cells that could be easily hidden, he added.
Marty has obtained flight logs archived by the Brussels-based air safety organization Eurocontrol and satellite images of air bases in Romania and Poland.
Source :
here
sounds about right. why pay somebody 100K a year to torture when the people in romania will do it for 10K.
-Hype
Hunger strikers close to death
DESPITE force feeding by the American military, several hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay may be close to death, according to lawyers acting for the detainees.
The condition of two emaciated Yemeni hunger strikers who have been refusing solid food since August is causing particular concern. There are also fears for the life of a hospitalised Saudi prisoner.
The wife of a British resident and hunger striker, Shaker Aamer, visited the Commons last week to appeal to MPs for help. Aamer’s wife, 31, who lives in London with her four children and has asked for her name to be withheld, said: “This is the time to do something. My husband is not going to last.”
Aamer has been on hunger strike since November 2. Although he has lost weight, he is stronger than some other prisoners taking part in the protest at their detention without trial.
According to a report to be released tomorrow by the prisoners’ rights group Reprieve, the Yemenis, identified as Abu Bakah al-Shamrani and Abu Anas, are said by detainees to be gravely weak. Shamrani weighs only 70lb (5 stone).
Reprieve claims Camp Echo, which is comprised of isolation cells, has been turned into a “force feeding institution” away from other prisoners and its gravel path paved with concrete so the hunger strikers can be moved around in wheelchairs.
read more at the
source
if they cared about life, they would eat
This is quite clever on the prisoners' behalf- what other way do they have to rebel? Apparently 85 prisoners have taken up the surade, which is defined by the US military as "missing nine consecutive meals."
The UN special rapporteur has said that some of the force-feeding was cruel. I admit I wondered- is there a non-cruel way to force-feed someone? Apparently, they did not have doctors performing the tube insertions- which is highly unethical. Of course, the Pentagon denies any abuse. Until there is more investigation and until the international community is rightfully allowed to inspect the situation, all we have is a game of he-said, she-said.
Does anyone know more about the legalities of force-feeding? I know that suicide is illegal in the US, but to what extent is a hunger strike considered an attempt at suicide and what actions are legally permitted?
This is quite a diffcult situation to be up against. The best I can do is petition my government and work with those who have fought for rights for these prisoners.
Nicoderm
if they cared about life, they would eat
And if you cared about 'life' you would be doing all you could to ensure these people are either tried and sentenced in a court or released
which ironically is all they are asking for.
You see not being tried of any crime whilst being kept in a cell in Cuba and occasionally being tortured would get to you after a while too. It is simple , if they are guilty then put them on trial and put them in jail .If they are innocent then release them.
If your one of these people that assumes that they are ALL guilty then I am sure you will have no problem with them being proven to be guilty in a court of law , with lawyers and in accord with the Geneva convention.
What could you possibly have to lose ?
you think these people have some wonderful information to tell you about the current state of al-qaeda after 4 years in gitmo ?
you think keeping Muslims locked up without any proof of guilt is helping win the war on terror ?
or do you think that such an action is encouraging many to join their ranks in their hundreds as they watch the 'justice , freedom and democracy' that we are claiming to represent in action ?
do you actually know how many people have been released from gitmo and returned to their countries (such as the UK) to be charged with zero crimes and to be told by the police that they have no concerns with any of them at all ?
you would think spending two or three years in gitmo would make them so angry that they would be out their making bombs as we speak
but no , they are campaigning to get kidnapped Americans and Brits in Iraq released !
some terrorists eh !
your government sticks chemical lights up their anus and they return the favour by working hard to get some of your fellow countrymen back home.
I am sure your very grateful for the work they are doing right now and I am sure you cant say sorry enough for the hell they went through
Of course you are...
M
Does anyone know more about the legalities of force-feeding?
As you state yourself M it is the method that is in question under the 'no doctor' guidelines briefly mention yourself , force feeding would be against the Geneva convention as it clearly would be classed as torture.
Forced feeding in general is not covered directly in the Geneva convention but is covered by Article 5 of the 1975 World Medical Association Tokyo Declaration, which US doctors are legally bound to observe through their membership of the American Medical Association and it states that doctors must not undertake force-feeding under any circumstances.
So in short if there is a doctor then it breaks the Tokyo declaration and if there is not a doctor it breaks the Geneva convention so you can take your pick.
That of course is the sort of legal mess you get in when you keep prisoners for prolonged periods of time without access to courts or justice for there 'claimed' crimes
As for what you can do well if you have not already then take a look here and make your voice join with many ....
BTW for those that wish to split hairs the 'torture' link above is an example of how forced feeding can be defined as torture
It is not meant as an example of the torture at gitmo for without allowing independent UN inspections of the camp it is very difficult to get exact details of almost anything going on inside that camp
A link worthy of a read is here and I would advise checking out the sources at the bottom of that page for further information
In fact, I believe I have been viewing this rather narrowly. The point seems to be less about the feeding and more about the "force" of it all:
"Someone committed to self-starvation could easily remove such a tube, if he had any freedom of movement. So we can surmise that there is a line of twenty-one hospital beds, each with a prisoner held tight in four-point restraints. His head must be strapped down, immobile, and forcible sedation seems probable. Hardly the image evoked by the term 'assisted feeding.'"
THIS is what makes it questionable under the Geneva Conventions. Which brings me back to my initial point- is force-feeding a form of suicide and if so can one take action against that? Just trying to get a 360 degree view of the issue...
If Blair had any balls he'd get Bush to send any remaining British Citizens there back to the UK to be held in British prisons.
There can be no excuse for this and as someone pointed out, hunger strike is the only 'weapon' that they have; these men are desparate and no doubt on the edge of sanity.
If that were me, as soon as I were released I'd be bomb making and hitting back at the US as best I could. Am I a terrorist, no but I would be after 4 years in Gitmo.
Of course there are those that believe that is Gitmo's intended purpose, to create terrorists.
quicker they starve,the quicker they get their virgins.
Ass, your ignorance of Islam is, frankly, not surprising.
Army Interrogator Convicted For Killing Jailed Iraqi
From
Democracy Now!:
A military jury has convicted an Army interrogator of negligent homicide for his role in the death of an Iraqi general. The interrogator -- Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. - killed the Iraqi man by putting a sleeping bag over the general's head, wrapping him in electrical cord, sitting on his chest and covering his mouth. He faces up to three years in prison. Had Welshofer been convicted of murder, he would been sentenced to life in prison. Attorneys for Welshofer said he had been given permission to use harsh techniques during interrogations. In one email, Captain William Ponce wrote "The gloves are coming off, gentlemen.... We want these individuals broken. Casualties are mounting." The interrogator's attorneys also questioned why no one else was charged in the general's death. The general was severely beaten two days before his death by a group of Iraqis reportedly being paid by the CIA.
Welshofer got a slap on the wrist for murdering an Iraqi prisoner. Reportedly, folks in attendance in the courtroom broke into a cheer at the sentence. Fairly incredible. We seem to be supporting torture and murder here.
The fact that no one seems shocked at this speaks volumes. We seem to have become to hardened in this era of terrorism that we are leaving our humanity behind.
This sentence should alarm all clear-thinking Americans.
It's amazing how totally warped our government is.
I find it quite disgusting.
The U.S. terror threats that didn't count
From
Democracy Now!:
Last year federal investigators told a Senate committee that environmental and animal groups like ELF and ALF represented the nation's leading domestic terror threat. The Southern Poverty Law Center however recently criticized the federal government for underestimating the threat posed by violent right-wing organizations. According to the Center, the radical right has plotted to carry out at least 60 terrorist plots inside the United States since the Oklahoma City Bombing. This includes plans to bomb or burn government buildings, mosques, synagogues and abortion clinics, plans to assassinate government officials and civil rights leaders and efforts to amass chemical and biological weapons arsenals.
The existence of right wing terrorism is so often missed (or ignored) by those on the far right of the political spectrum . I posted something similar a few months back here which itself links to an excellent Article cataloging the extent of right wing extremist terrorism in the United states over recent years .
A subject that is not nearly highlighted enough
thanks Djeb
Isn't this incredible! I mean, few Americans support these fringe groups using arson as a weapon. I don't, but I do think this action by the Justice Department is an attempt to convince us that they are winning a war on terrorism.
Let's face it: ELF and ALF didn't kill anyone, and they are not a threat to our national security. They are convenient targets for the public relations folks in the White House.
Let's not confuse the indictments of these groups with the prosecution of the larger war on terror, as the administration seems to want.
This whole thing is analogous to a town being terrorized by a foreign serial axe murderer who cannot be caught. The sheriff in the town then apprehends a local teenager who has punched someone, and announces that he has caught a serial bully.
This whole episode is just absurd...
Cartoon of the week
lmao, funny pic!
I find this cartoon illogical, without warrant and disgusting. And guess what? I don't even agree with Bush's wire-tapping.
why on earth would you find this cartoon 'disgusting' ?
if this is without warrant and disgusting i wonder how you view such Images as Lynsey England dragging Iraqi's around on a lead ?
or the dropping of WP on the people of falluja.
I dread to think !
Good picture, the other guy clearly has no sense of humour.
www.fabelstales.blogspot.com/
"Pay Me A Visit"
This is a great cartoon. It ould be just as good with Dubya in place of Saddamm, too.
I despise attempts at relativism such as this. As horrible as some of Bush's decisions may be, they are not the same as Saddam's. I am not saying that either are saints. If you would wager to say that Bush's actions are a negation of people's freedom, that is another thing. But one crime does not equate to another.
I believe in justice- even if it is not always found, an honest attempt must be made to find it. If we treat each dictator, each delinquent, each fraudulent as the same as the other, we directly undermine the individualized process justice requires.
The word disgusting has variable definitions and can be applied to many degrees. Why would you assume that my dislike of this cartoon is immediately translatable to my acceptance of heinous actions across the board?
Corporate England's acts of torture were wrong, disgusting and depraved. I think she is getting the sentence she deserves.
I understand the attempt at humor, but there are all kinds of humor. To choose this joke is testimony to your underlying belief system on it all. Therefore, no I do not find it funny and I do find it disgusting.
Enough of this silly banter and lets get to the guts of it- you really should look into the Highway of Death if you are interested in atrocities. I would be interested to you hear your opinions on the matter.
Anonymous
I despise attempts at relativism such as this. As horrible as some of Bush's decisions may be, they are not the same as Saddam's. I am not saying that either are saints. If you would wager to say that Bush's actions are a negation of people's freedom, that is another thing. But one crime does not equate to another.
I agree that Bush's crimes are not the same as Saddam's and 'despise' is another very strong word . Saddam was a vicious dictator without doubt but the number of innocents killed around the globe by the orders of president Bush and his utilization of the worlds most potent military force make him a greater danger to human kind than Saddam ever could have been .
But the general point is in my view being missed . This is a cartoon and you have probably spent longer assessing it than the artist spent drawing it , It may well be designed to make you think but only at the surfice its main intent is to mildly amuse that is all .
A few posts down from here is access to an entire lecture by the intellectual Norm Chomsky which may well be worthy of your effort to dig into the mind of the designer ,it has structure and data points to assess and was designed to be taken seriously , this cartoon was not and it worries me that for whatever reason you decided to do so ?
I believe in justice- even if it is not always found, an honest attempt must be made to find it. If we treat each dictator, each delinquent, each fraudulent as the same as the other, we directly undermine the individualized process justice requires.
Yes I agree . I hope to see Saddam sentenced for his crimes and I hope in a decade or so to see President Bush charged with war crimes for the Illegal invasion of a sovereign country and his actions within . Of course this will never happen as you say justice is not always found
The word disgusting has variable definitions and can be applied to many degrees. Why would you assume that my dislike of this cartoon is immediately translatable to my acceptance of heinous actions across the board?
Extremely unpleasant to the senses or feelings: atrocious foul horrid, nasty, nauseating, offensive, repellent, repulsive, revolting, sickening, ugly, unwholesome, vile all very strong definitions of disgusting , the use the word disgusting did surprise me in the context of a cartoon , By the usual standards of the kinds of images and the language I use on this site is is very mild .
Anybody who comes to my site often reads about torture and the murder of women and children in quite some graphic detail . but you are without doubt the first to feel 'disgusted' by the presentation of a cartoon on my site ...
So the immediate transference was in the context of what I am used to being classified as offensive by a very small minority of (usually right wing) Americans on this blog . It is for you to decide what you do or do not find offensive , but of the 700 posts on this site you probably found offense at one of the mildest posts I have ever made and I would respectfully suggest that such sensitivity would make this site unsuitable for someone such as yourself . (of course your welcome to return if you wish)
Corporate England's acts of torture were wrong, disgusting and depraved. I think she is getting the sentence she deserves.
I agree , though I certainly feel she is being used as a scape goat and the fact that not a single senior person has been charged with this barbaric sickness when it was clearly authorised from on high is a perfect example of the double standards currently being employed by the US .
I understand the attempt at humor, but there are all kinds of humor. To choose this joke is testimony to your underlying belief system on it all. Therefore, no I do not find it funny and I do find it disgusting.
To feel that this cartoon is here as testimony to my 'underlying belief system' is with respect just absurd , it is just a cartoon ! that happens to be the last post I made before I went to sleep , I never claimed it was fundamental to my philosophy and this comment does help me understand why you would feel such offence .
I found the cartoon funny that is all . I am not alone with such thoughts it seems for someone else found it funny too and the web site where i found the cartoon also has comments commending its humour .
Personal taste is the key but please don't be so shallow as to presume you can psychoanalyse my online persona on the bases of a line drawing I decided to post . That would be a tragic injustice to your intelligence
But to complain of the hypocrisy of one of my assessments in one paragraph then to be guilty of the same charge in the next is funny ( you see we all laugh at different things)
Enough of this silly banter and lets get to the guts of it- you really should look into the Highway of Death if you are interested in atrocities. I would be interested to you hear your opinions on the matter.
I (as you may expect) find the mass killing of retreating soldiers in this way disgusting , I was a strongly in favour of the liberation of Kuwait and found that final act of barbarism 'disgusting'
However as you may have noticed I see the current US Neocon Agenda as the greatest danger that we as a planet have had to face for some considerable time .
I am obviously worried about the rise in extreme Muslim fundamentalism and the increased global profile of Al-qaeda but looking at ridiculous 'poke it with a stick' method of current US foreign policy the disregard for international law and standards and the constantly aggressive tactics including kidnap , torture , the use of land mines , depleted uranium , chemical weapons , predator drones , the patriot act and the constant surveillance and character assassinations of anyone who dares to dissent ... (the list is endless) extremely 'disgusting'.
I see the terrorist action of killing 18 civilians inside the sovereign nation of Pakistan considered justified by many because there may or may not have been a 'terrorist' around the area 'disgusting' and I find the current dehumanisation of Iran completely out of context of the reports from the inspections carried out by the IAEA 'disgusting' ( I find the rhetoric of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disgusting too)
So I feel it is important to keep reminding as many as possible of the view of many of us that the current US administration is the greatest 'terrorist' threat to us all including the American population (shortly followed by Al-Qaeda) and the refusal to hand over the ex CIA terrorist Louis Posada Carriles is a perfect example of the current hypocrisy we are all expected to play along with.
If you have some desire to debate the highway of death in more detail or anything else that is not on topic for the particular thread you may be on please feel free to email me and i will respond in kind
If you choose to respond to this (assuming I have not disgusted you more) would you kindly pick a name so i can distinguish between yourself and any other anonymous that post . I have no desire to identify you but it does help if I can identify your comments.
Lol I think it is funny and well done. Sure we all would rather have bush than saddam, but we would also rather have just about any previous american president than bush. He isnt the worst leader in the world, but he isnt the best.
But most of all, its a joke. It isnt supposed to be a deep political discussion, it is just a fun one liner. Just admit you support bush because you hate gay people or want christianity to run our government, or both. Thats 50% of the american vote right there.
R2K
Nice response- it helps to clarify things. I stand by every word I said, but I do see where you are coming from.
I do not like being told how I am allowed to use words, although now that I have been informed as to how you view the word, I can see why you find it mystifying.
Haha- you totally called me on my propensity to over psychoanalyze- I am quite famous for such things. However, you have to admit, the things people choose to post are in some way indicative of the way they see the world. For example, I would not have posted the cartoon, simply because I think it absurd and find it sad to waste time on it. Had I wanted to instigate thought, I would have posted something more substantial. But, that's me and like you said- to each their own.
In fact, I do not align myself with the right, but slightly to the left. While I too am quick to analyze the US government, because one, it is my own, and two, it is the most powerful in the world, I also think it imperative to analyze other sources of power elsewhere. President Bush would not be able to get away with everything if others were doing more about it. For example, your own government- the UK has been a great ally with US efforts- even if it is not always public. Of course, the Uk is not alone in all of this.
To call the US terrorists- I am not sure I agree with that. Terrorism in itself is a very vague concept. I think that while the result of violent acts may have similar consequences- 20 dead, etc.- the motivation and individual who commits the act are important to differentiate. Do I beleive that the US should be party to the ICC and such? HELL YES. Do I believe that Al Qaeda members, or whomever else should have a right to fair trial? HELL YES. However, international law is quite a fickle thing and jurisdiction can get a bit controversial. This is why I am quite interested in comity of law between nations, but that is for another topic.
I find we have very similar views on most things you mentioned and believe we could have quite interesting dialogue on such subjects.
I had posted my comments as anoynymous because I felt what I had to say was all that mattered. I think it will be easy for you to identify which posts are mine, but if you find more comfort in actually knowing who I am, I will sign with my blog id and then you can look at my page- its not as activist as yours is and is actually much more personal. For this reason, I have remained anonymous on my blog page, simply because I do not want to deface some of the people I am talking about on the page. It sounds cowardly, but if you read my page, you may better understand. Feel free to comment on my diatribes- I will definitely keep your site to take a gander at from time to time.
I did not actually need or desire for you to use your blogger ID , just for you to type in any name you wanted under the section 'other'
Many people do not have an account , I just wanted to be able to define your anonymous from any other anonymous but thank you anyway.
Terrorism is a difficult thing to define and that is one (but not all) of the reasons why the 192 member states of the UN find it impossible to agree on what we should all class as 'terrorism'
I use the definition in the dictionary (both US and UK) and find it impossible to see how George Bush could be excluded from the literal definition
the general term terrorism is usually used to define
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
and even telling Saddam he had 24 hours to leave the country is clearly an act of Terrorism (of course my views are much stronger than this but) to say George Bush is 'not' a terrorist would require you to re-write the worlds dictionaries
as they say one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist
examples
your war of Independence from us could be called terrorism
the French resistance in world war 2 could be called terrorism
I am delighted to see you support the US joining the ICC . Your the first American I have heard say such a thing (I am sure there are many of you) so that's wonderful to read
thank you for taking the time to comment
and thank you to everyone for your comments it seems most of us found it funny anyway :-)
good cartoon.
Cartoon on Bush recalls Yale frat hazing
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=31064
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20051127
here are some more:
http://www.internetweekly.org/images/bush_torture.jpg
http://www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au/cartoons/new/2005-06-30%20Bush%20Fort%20Bragg%20rallies%20nation%20226.jpg
http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=12786
http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=12611
http://skeptically.org/bw/id6.html
http://www.dorkinglabs.com/bush.php?id=210
-Hype
I find this cartoon logical, with warrant and a prime example of high-brow humor. And guess what? I don't even agree with Bush's wire-tapping either.
Iraq's Sadr says his militia will support Iran
Firebrand Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has assured Iran that his Shi'ite Muslim militiamen will support the Islamic Republic if it comes under attack, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday.
Although the United States and Israel have said they prefer diplomacy as a means to solve a dispute over Iran's atomic programme, they have not ruled out military options.
Washington accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.
"If neighbouring Islamic countries, including Iran, should come under attack, then the Mehdi Army will support them," Sadr said on a visit to Tehran.
Sadr's Mehdi Army militia rose up against U.S. occupying forces in Iraq in 2004.
In Iran, Sadr has met Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki
Source :
Reuters
Moqtada al-Sadr couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, let alone any sort of serious compaign. His sort of help, Iran or anyone else could do without.
Well from being wanted 'dead or alive' for the murder of US soldiers to being a major key player in the new Iraqi government.
He has now become untouchable by US forces and walks around Sadr city in full view knowing that the Military have been told not to even try to arrest him for Jay walking.
He is welcomed by heads of state in almost all the countries of the middle east and holds the balance of power that can make or break the coalition that will make up the Iraqi parliament.
It seems he played his cards rather well.
I certainly wouldn't want to be anywhere near the 'brewery' he is having his 'piss up' in (his sense of justice is barbaric to say the least)But from where he sits the Invasion of Iraq has raised his profile to one of 'future' Iraqi dictator and has the potential to be more dangerous to the west than Saddam ever could have been
Sadr does not hide his contempt for the US and he knows that at this moment in time the US forces need him more than he needs them
G.W.B The " Uniter " !
Phishy !
good to see you around again :-)
now take it easy or you will have one of your turns :-)
it´s terrible that those men like Sadr has so much influence in Iraq, so Iraq will never come to rest.
You could very well have said that it's predictable (and predicted) that those men like Sadr have so much influence in Iraq...
On thing's for sure, Iraq will not come to rest under occupation.
Silencing the tyrant
By Eric MargolisSaddam Hussein's trial in Baghdad has become a circus. The presiding judge refuses to return to court, and defence lawyers have been murdered.
What to make of this spectacle? Emotionally, it's good to see the tyrant who terrorized so many on trial for his life. But morally and legally, Saddam's trial is a travesty of justice. This is an old-fashioned Soviet-style show trial set up by U.S. occupation authorities.
Its goal is not to determine Saddam's guilt or innocence, but to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq which, by the way, was a blatant violation of international law.
The court lacks any legal basis, being created by the puppet regime installed by the U.S. after the invasion. Saddam has no proper legal defence. Witnesses remain secret and beyond cross-examination. Defence witnesses risk murder by Shia hit squads.
Pre-trial publicity -- the vast propaganda campaign by the U.S. to demonize Saddam -- and Iraqi TV programs (controlled by U.S. authorities) about Saddam's alleged crimes, would trigger a mistrial in any proper legal system.
In short, a kangaroo court, designed to find Saddam guilty and probably order his execution.
Dead dictators tell no tales. If allowed to fully testify, Saddam would reveal the whole sordid story of America's long, intimate collaboration with his regime, and how the U.S. and British governments of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher encouraged, armed and financed Iraq to invade Iran.
Saddam is being tried for ordering a massacre in a small Shia village where he narrowly escaped assassination. He will not be tried for his worst crime, the invasion of Iran, that caused 1.5 million casualties on both sides.
Saddam's regime ferociously repressed Kurdish tribes, and used poison gas against them -- as it did against Iranian troops. But these attacks occurred while Iraq was fighting to the death against Iran, and its chronically rebellious Kurdish tribes had defected to the Iranian invaders.
Similarly, Saddam's forces killed many Shia after George Bush Sr. called on them to rebel against Baghdad. Israel and Iran had been stirring up, arming and financing Kurdish rebels in Iraq for decades.
Under international law, Saddam had every right to fight rebels seeking to either overthrow Iraq's government, or trying to secede. Across the border, Turkey waged similar war against its Kurdish rebels.
Recall that when Imperial Britain ruled Iraq, which it created to grab Mesopotamian oil, that saint of neoconservatives, Winston Churchill, ordered the RAF to use poison gas against "Kurds, Pathans, and other primitive tribesmen." When Iraqis rose in the 1920s against British rule, Her Majesty's soldiers gunned down some 20,000.
Ironically, U.S. forces in Iraq are doing the same things Saddam's thuggish regime did: Bombing and blasting rebels (this time Sunnis); holding 18,000 political prisoners; torturing and executing suspects. Uncle Sam is the new Saddam.
Saddam should face trial for his many crimes, but in a proper legal venue, under full western and international law. The trial should be moved at once to the UN tribunal at the Hague. A fair trial will establish an important international legal precedent.
Those citing the World War II Nuremberg trials as precedent for Baghdad's kangaroo court should read the magisterial words of that court's Chief Justice, Robert Jackson: "No political or economic situation can justify the crime of aggression." Please take note, President Cheney and VP Bush.
very informative post, thanks for filling me in
Ooops Anonymous you just crossed the line of what is considered an acceptable comment on this site so it has been removed
Personal insults are not allowed on this site
Insulting the mentally ill to get at me is very sad
But then you go one better and display copious amounts of homophobia
Finely served with a dose of non sequiturs and a complete failure to supply any facts to question the post in question
if you are able to correct all of the above then feel free to post again though I am sure there are plenty of blogs out there more suited to your particular taste
You did the right a favour again by deleting one of their great "thinkers," eh?
Have you been there? Have you sat down with men and women who have? Have you carried on a conversation who someone who lived there under that regime? Yeah I didn't think so. The truth should be heard from where the tire meets the road not from your TV set. Instead of sensoring your viewers' comments why not go there and get it first hand for yourself and then I will respect your views. Until then you are only a target for the Peace Makers.
Fletcher Christian Bowhay
Infact I have been there runningman which makes your comments all the more amusing.
thanks.
we all have standards and the comments made by anonymous are a criminal offence in my country (as well they should be)
I do not support such obvious bitotry and have every right not to accept it on my own web site :-)
Now as I said if anon wishes to return and abide by the points I have mentioned then he/she is welcome
Its funny I find that almost always when I post on right wing sites I find my comments deleted (about 90 % of the time)
but I never delete comments ( anon's was only my third ever deletion excluding advertisements etc) people are free to attack the views on this site from where ever they sit ...
But respect and good manners are not much to ask for , If people attack the post or comment and not the poster then thats fine by me
But personal attacks agaisnt people , race , colour , religion , sexual preference etc is just pathatic
and there sadly are plenty of places to read such crap
There is absolutely nothing magical about the opinion of an occupier. Nor does being a participant in occupation give one the right to insult others, insult the developmentally challenged, insult homosexuals and make comments that are completely unrelated to the issue.
As a (claimed) former marine, you should know this, runningman. According to your corp's website, Marines are "warriors of the finest kind... tempered with compassion, respect and maturity. You even claim yourself that you "learned all about honor... and doing the right thing..." So what went wrong? Why are you defending indefensible comments?
Those aren't rhetorical questions runningman. I want to know why you are defending the indefensible.
Oops there you go again.
try again without the insults and pathetic name calling then it might stay on the site to actually be debated .
Fahrenheit 9/11 (Video)
For anyone that has not watched it already , I spotted Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 on Google videos and you can watch it
here.
I have no Idea if Michael has endorsed the film being there or not and if it comes to light that he has not then i will remove the link.
So this is why the feds want googles data logs?
http://www.digitalhindenburg.blogspot.com
Http://www.myspace.com/gin4communion
Dead Poet:
I wish the Google Videos was the main reason why the goverment wants access to the most conprehensive internet database in the world.
Who knows what may happen to blogs like this, if they ever manage to put their hands on it.
I get a message from google that Google Video playback is not available in my country (I guess they mean the country where I'm located, France).
Just as well I saw the film when it came out.
no problem salvador , if I put anymore such films up and you cant watch them then email me and i will be able to send you an alternative link
ant.
Thanks for your support , great site btw
It is so insane that this whole film is on google videos! :)
Laura Bush 'the President is anti-war'
I think this one belongs in the you couldn't make it up section
"The choices that a president makes, for instance, are so consequential, there are so many consequences - and so I knew that, even though that doesn't always help when you are in the midst of it yourself. Many people are very, very sincerely anti-war, everyone is anti-war, the president is anti-war, no-one wants war, but no-one wanted what happened on September 11 either." Full article
hereIt seems the feeble connections to the horrors of 9/11 and the illegal invasion of Iraq are still being made but it really doesn't matter President Bush is anti war!
I assume she is using the Orwellian definition of the word 'war'.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Have you ever noticed that blank stare that Laura Bush always has? My theory: robot.
You may be right...
Not 'maybe' but definetely right...
Either a robot, or anti-robot.
Hey, Great Blog!
Are You a Terrorist?
They are Terrorists
Maybe Bush is anti-war, but defenitely he is hatred and bad habbit person...who will kill anyone that he think is a terorrist...
I think he is jerk, stupid and morron...
I just hope taxpayer money didn't pay for her pre-first lady lobotomy!
i bet they are anti-war... they don't want to fight. except maybe some brush wrestling.
-Hype
Osama tape or Osama fake
Personally I have quite a number of doubts about the latest Bin Laden tape. If you remember there was the independent research that was carried out in 2002 on one of these 'CIA confirmed' tapes that showed it almost certainly to be a
fake. Then we had the fantastically timed October 2004
fiction which gave the US President a
six point lead as he headed into the election.
This latest tape is incredibly poor quality ( probably to stop the
Swiss from exposing this one too) and is already being questioned by
scholars and
journalists (windows media file) alike.
As per usual the timing is perfect for the President and as noted in this
BBC article
'the immediate political effect of the tape will probably be to boost support for President George W Bush'.Many people including Pakistan's President
Musharraf believe Bin laden died quite some time ago and a number of independent analysts date his death on or around the week of
December 10, 2001. Which will of course be well known to those that went to his
funeral. ( copy of Arabic newspaper article printed in al-Wafd, Wednesday, December 26, 2001 Vol 15 No 4633 announcing Bin Ladens funeral
here )
If you take into account the reams of evidence available for his death in December 2001 then it makes his last interview all the more interesting . It was in the Karachi-based Pakistani daily newspaper, Ummat, and printed on September 28, 2001. Bin laden was asked about the September 11th attacks and this was his reply...
"I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle. "An amazing contrast to his willingness to put his name to every terrorist action since his death.
Now don't get me wrong I am no fan of Bin Laden and I certainly would not want to defend him. His list of crimes even without the 'incident' on 9/11 would make almost any government put him at the top of their wanted list , but that obviously was not the view of the CIA when they last met him in
July 2001. The fact that CIA trained and funded Bin Laden during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan is so well known that it is barely worth a link. ( but
here is one anyway )
Osama was a nasty piece of work and the world is better off without him. I just wonder how long the
Emmanuel Goldstein routine will continue to work on a significant number of the American population.
Anyway for those that believe he is still alive and well here is the full
transcript of the fanatical terrorists latest rant recorded during a spare five minutes away from his constant need for kidney dialysis. Apparently helping out President Bush just in time for the
warrantless domestic spying hearing this coming week.
How Ironic.
This is another phoney tape made by the CIA-Mossad. It's all BULLSHIT.
Osama is mad and evil man, sick, and i think this tape shows that he is seeking help
If he is still alive, then why hasn't he made his usual video appearances? And if he's not alive, how can he 'seek help.'
Listen to the tape at this website and tell me if you think it's an obvious fake. I think it is.
johniwanski.com
"Osama was a nasty piece of work and the world is better off without him. I just wonder how long the Emmanuel Goldstein routine will continue to work on a significant number of the American population."
The piece you link to in that quote argues he had no role in 9/11. You cite it without criticism in support of another most dubious proposition--that he died years ago. You quote another source (the doubtless completely objective Karachi daily) supporting, and seem to subscribe to, the idea that OBL really wasn't involved in the 9/11 attacks, but readers might want to examine this for a more conventionally-accepted view of his involvement, from his own mouth:
BIN LADEN: (...Inaudible...) we calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (...Inaudible...) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for.
I find your blog amusing, as in comical.
The line (not link) provided by _H_ quotes bin Laden making the claims that he wasn't involved in the 9/11. Perhaps that escaped you. It certainly made your post amusing, as in comical (sorry about the plagiarism).
The piece you link to in that quote argues he had no role in 9/11.
Well infact the quote comes directly from Bin laden himself and post dates your claimed source
personally I have yet to see ANY evidence that he was directly connected apart from being told by the American administration that he was (sadly to date they have provided no proof of this claim)
You cite it without criticism in support of another most dubious proposition--that he died years ago.
so your one of these people that like to think Afghanistan is fitted out with a kidney dialysis machine in every other cave ?
You quote another source (the doubtless completely objective Karachi daily) supporting, and seem to subscribe to, the idea that OBL really wasn't involved in the 9/11 attacks, but readers might want to examine this for a more conventionally-accepted view of his involvement, from his own mouth:
'more conventionally-accepted view' of his involvement tells me your a right winged American , well hello , I am neither American or right wing an i can assure you that the conventional view that you believe is widly held is far from accepted outside the little get together's of the American right . Most people tend to question either
(a) that he had anything to do with it
or
(b) that his involvment was somehow connected to a group such as the PNAC
if you want to find out what happened on 9/11 ask companies like bechtel who were working with the bin ladens so closely , ask the CIA who funded , trained and supplied with stinger missiles the infamous Bin laden when fighting the previous enemy (the communists) in Afghanistan
you know when he was connected to the very people Ronald reagan called "the moral equivelent of our founding farthers"
Of course I question your view , sadly the CIA agents who were speaking to him in july 2001 are unavailible for comment . A number of people have been to his funeral and his vaste fortune has already been divided from his will , usually all these things tend to imply that the person is dead ..
burying him in a hole in the ground would assure us of that
your snip is amusing but considering the number of links that you have failed to quote apon or mention from the article above it is no surprise that you missed the excellent work of the swiss researchers who prooved to an accuracy of 95% that the tape they looked at was a fake
so who made the fake ?
why did the CIA say it was genuine ?
why has their not been any video since ?
and why would a country that obviously lies to its own people , places false stories into the Iraqi press , fails to admit that it tortures and kidnaps people and has been found out already to be lying about the accuracy of bin laden tapes be belived by anyone .....
Didnt your great leader once make a speach where he said "fool me once....."
I find your blog amusing, as in comical.
I take it from that your an avid reader of Neocon weekly . I am sure if that is your main reading material then sites such as this will seem amussing
btw the link to the washington post article no longer exists so It is impossible to cross reference it to see if any independent research has been carried out on the 'tape' outside of the US and the Neocon propaganda machine . If you have a source to such a independent non partisan researcher on this 'tape' I will be glad to look at it but you supply nothing as yet that would convince me or the millions of people like me around the world that such a link could be clasified as 'evidence'
I have a hundred doubts about the evil act that was commited on 9/11 and for the sake of all those that lost their lives (and loved ones) I hope one day we all have the answers
first on that list of a hundred would be for you to tell me how 9 of the hijakers on those planes are alive and well and enjoying their lives ... kind of hard to do when you were supposedly blown up in a plane
I do not personally rule out that Osama may have been involved in some way , he did work for the CIA after all , but so did Saddam and that did not help him much .
If you have sources then please supply them , I would accept almost any non american funded or connected research as being worthy of analysis .
LOL Who let Anonymous in here,shouldnt he be sending his scripts to Disney.
This is the tape anonymous is talking about link obviously genuine as you can see if you call fiction as fact that is.
Thanks everybody but all anyone has to do is take the quote made by Bin Laden (in my article) and put it into Google. It is not like I am making some amazing claim , over 200,000 web sites got there before me.
That he denied any involvement in the attack is well known and the question marks over the authenticity of the tape claiming he did commit the act are numerous to say the least.
Now to clarify I am not saying he did or did not commit the act at all , what I am saying is that no evidence has ever been supplied to prove that he did . There is no question marks (that I know of about) about his interview with the Pakistani newspaper and there are plenty of question marks over the 'bin Laden' tape that suddenly appeared after his claimed death saying that it was recorded in November
But I do wonder why 'Bin Laden' whilst praising the attacks on 9/11 would personally name two of the hijackers(in the full length transcript of the video not the small snippet in anons link)
He personally thanks Wail M. Alshehri and Salem Alhazmi who are very much still alive today and weren't actually on those planes or working for Al-Qaeda in anyway
Now why would he make an error like that ?
Well infact the quote comes directly from Bin laden himself and post dates your claimed source
I was talking about the link on Emmanuel Goldstein. The author of the piece is making what I think is a very non-mainstream argument that OBL was not connected to the attacks. I think the argument that he is dead can be made more strongly if you don't associate it with the argument that he was blameless on 9/11. The truth is that none of us knows for sure whether he is alive or not. Certainly it is interesting that the recent tape mentions Wolfowitz, who has been out of the government since late spring of last year. To me that suggests it may be an older tape than those who believe its authenticity are supposing. One would think a U.S. government forgery wouldn't make the outdated reference to Wolfowitz, but I'm sure you would be willing to ascribe that to U.S. deviousness.
personally I have yet to see ANY evidence that he was directly connected apart from being told by the American administration that he was (sadly to date they have provided no proof of this claim)
If you want to reflexively distrust everything the U.S. government says, go for it. You will even be right sometimes. But why not try to be an informed and critical consumer of information. Don't believe all this stuff you read on conspiracy websites.
so your one of these people that like to think Afghanistan is fitted out with a kidney dialysis machine in every other cave ?
I was actually very surprised to learn the extent of the Tora Bora complex, whose construction OBL oversaw for a decade or more. It's a bit of an injustice to call these "caves." I'm willing to say he could be dead. If he is alive, it's impressive that he's managed to surround himself with helpers crazy enough to be unmotivated by the $25 million bounty. You should add the fact that no one has turned him in to your list of arguments, by the way--hard to turn him in if he's dead. But while I'm giving rhetorical advice, I suggest that you can't just throw in every article you find that claims he's dead and call it good. One of them says he was blown up at Tora Bora, and the next says he died peacefully from some lung complications. Both stories can't be correct.
'more conventionally-accepted view' of his involvement tells me your a right winged American , well hello , I am neither American or right wing an i can assure you that the conventional view that you believe is widly held is far from accepted outside the little get together's of the American right . Most people tend to question either
(a) that he had anything to do with it
or
(b) that his involvment was somehow connected to a group such as the PNAC
Hello. I'm an American, but not right wing. Maybe you think there is no other kind, in which case "right winged American" wasn't an attempt to differentiate among us. But anyway, since I am here and you are not, I can tell you with some authority that almost no one in this country questions his involvement (you may feel there is false consciousness, but I'm just telling you what the reality is). There's not much question among educated people in other parts of the world, from all I can gather (again, they could all be dupes). The idea that many people question whether "his involvement was somehow connected to a group such as the PNAC" is funny, because for better or worse only a tiny number of people in the U.S. or elsewhere has heard of that group. Do you mean to suggest that some affiated entity of the U.S. government orchestrated 9/11? I don't really understand (b) otherwise.
if you want to find out what happened on 9/11 ask companies like bechtel who were working with the bin ladens so closely , ask the CIA who funded , trained and supplied with stinger missiles the infamous Bin laden when fighting the previous enemy (the communists) in Afghanistan
you know when he was connected to the very people Ronald reagan called "the moral equivelent of our founding farthers"
Are you saying that these companies and the CIA were involved in orchestrating 9/11. Since you don't think OBL was involved, it wouldn't seem that his closeness with Bechtel or the CIA would give the latter any insight into "what happened on 9/11." The U.S. has obviously allied itself with some pretty unsavory characters over the years, I'll grant you that. Typically the alliance was against someone worse, at least as we saw it (Hitler, the USSR, Iran, etc.), and it typically didn't long outlast the worse threat. You may disagree.
Of course I question your view , sadly the CIA agents who were speaking to him in july 2001 are unavailible for comment . A number of people have been to his funeral and his vaste fortune has already been divided from his will , usually all these things tend to imply that the person is dead ..
You should read the Guardian story again. It's a report about a report and it's filled with indicia that the underlying report is suspect. The funeral thing seems shaky, since other people said he got vaporized at Tora Bora. I confess I don't know what became of his "vaste fortune" but it wouldn't surprise me if any under Saudi jurisdiciton had been taken or redistributed to avoid having it taken.
burying him in a hole in the ground would assure us of that
your snip is amusing but considering the number of links that you have failed to quote apon or mention from the article above it is no surprise that you missed the excellent work of the swiss researchers who prooved to an accuracy of 95% that the tape they looked at was a fake
No special reason to favor them just because they are not American.
so who made the fake ?
why did the CIA say it was genuine ?
why has their not been any video since ?
and why would a country that obviously lies to its own people , places false stories into the Iraqi press , fails to admit that it tortures and kidnaps people and has been found out already to be lying about the accuracy of bin laden tapes be belived by anyone .....
Didnt your great leader once make a speach where he said "fool me once....."
Rhetorical questions, I assume.
I find your blog amusing, as in comical.
I take it from that your an avid reader of Neocon weekly . I am sure if that is your main reading material then sites such as this will seem amussing
I'm not. I'm a skeptical mainstream American and the kind of person you ought to be interested in convincing. Sorry about the "comical" comment. You are obviously committed and sincere. I think your reflexive distrust of the U.S. is your Achilles' heel. There's no reason to doubt that the 9/11 attacks were conceived and conducted by islamic terrorists. But my sense is that you do. My sense is that you would disbelieve something that was obviously true, if you could somehow trace it back to someone connected to the U.S. government.
btw the link to the washington post article no longer exists so It is impossible to cross reference it to see if any independent research has been carried out on the 'tape' outside of the US and the Neocon propaganda machine . If you have a source to such a independent non partisan researcher on this 'tape' I will be glad to look at it but you supply nothing as yet that would convince me or the millions of people like me around the world that such a link could be clasified as 'evidence'
The other commenter has a link about the tape, from a site that talks elsewhere about JFK, MLK, JFK, Jr. assassination conspiracies, compares George Bush to Hitler (please), etc. I'm inclined to subscribe to something then-Vice-Presdient George H.W. Bush said years ago: "If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck, AND IT SAYS IT'S A DUCK, then it's a duck. So I'd say Al Qaeda orchestrated 9/11. I've already said we don't know whether OBL is alive or not. I think the wisest course is to assume he is absent credible PROOF to the contrary. I happen to think he is/was something of a figurehead and Zawahiri is the the real brains of the operation (as Al Q only came into its current form after merging with Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad).
I have a hundred doubts about the evil act that was commited on 9/11 and for the sake of all those that lost their lives (and loved ones) I hope one day we all have the answers
Yes, you do. I think we know the basic facts.
first on that list of a hundred would be for you to tell me how 9 of the hijakers on those planes are alive and well and enjoying their lives ... kind of hard to do when you were supposedly blown up in a plane
I guess you're going to have to fill me (and most everyone else in the mainstream world) in on this one.
I do not personally rule out that Osama may have been involved in some way , he did work for the CIA after all , but so did Saddam and that did not help him much .
If we're doing guilt by association, someone might think all this defending of OBL says something about you. If you're saying the CIA or some other U.S. instrumentality, or the Mossad, was behind 9/11, that is just so far out there that I honestly don't think it's worth having a dialogue about. Only because of the Achilles' heel in how you reason--which I mentioned above--are you able to think such things.
I was talking about the link on Emmanuel Goldstein. The author of the piece is making what I think is a very non-mainstream argument that OBL was not connected to the attacks.
First Up let me get a few things straight , by American I mean your governmental administration , your correct in stating the view is not main stream within the United states but you fail to notice that the United states represents a mere 4 percent of the worlds population and not being American I view the US perspective as being of course worthy of note but it does not gain any more respect in the accuracy of its views then any other 4 % that you would care to mention.
To say the view I express is not mainstream is of course a very insular view , I accept that it is not the most common view within your country but I think you will find the numbers pan out slightly differently once you leave your country and ask in Europe or Asia and especially the middle east . your reading a site written from the united kingdom and Japan and not from the united states so it would be a little silly to come here expecting to read what you view as being mainstream in your own country ...
I think the argument that he is dead can be made more strongly if you don't associate it with the argument that he was blameless on 9/11.
If you read my reply I do not state that he was blameless I said there is no evidence of his guilt and nothing in what you reply here has presented any
As stated if you wish to supply evidence of his guilt I would be happy to look at it
it seems from my perspective that I am showing an interview (which you doubt) where Osama states clearly that he did not commit that act . You are showing an article (which I doubt) which shows that he did commit that act .
even assuming that both articles are true we still have conflicting evidence about a sickening crime that caused the deaths of 3000 people at the world trade center and the subsequent effect of the deaths many more than 100,000 due to the actions taken due to this events .
considering the tragic loss of human life you would think that we would have all have been shown evidence by now that the deed was committed as we have been told and we have not .. so you tell me what I should think ?
The truth is that none of us knows for sure whether he is alive or not.
certainly I will say that I can not confirm this , but the testimony of those who went to his funeral and can confirm the location of his remains could prove the point one way or the other ,
do you not find it odd that people are saying they went to his funeral and there is no desire from officials to investigate such claims all these years after his claimed death ?
Certainly it is interesting that the recent tape mentions Wolfowitz, who has been out of the government since late spring of last year. To me that suggests it may be an older tape than those who believe its authenticity are supposing. One would think a U.S. government forgery wouldn't make the outdated reference to Wolfowitz, but I'm sure you would be willing to ascribe that to U.S. deviousness.
I sadly have grave doubts about everything the current US administration tells us yes , I wish I did not , all countries use propaganda and tell the occasional lie to achieve an aim but I genuinely believe this current Neocon agenda in the United states is a great danger to us all (including Americans)
to cover the multitude of reasons why would take the reading of almost all the posts on this blog and certainly could not be answered in a single comment .. But i do not believe the disregard of the Geneva convention , the use of torture and secret prisons the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation and the total disregard of the united nations to be minor crimes but major ones that puts the current US administration right up there with the worst of the worst...
If you want to reflexively distrust everything the U.S. government says, go for it. You will even be right sometimes. But why not try to be an informed and critical consumer of information. Don't believe all this stuff you read on conspiracy websites.
Now your putting yourself right there with the crimes you accuse me of , your assuming that my claims are incorrect and that I have no base to be believing them .
as stated If you supply credible evidence that can be assured of its non partisan detachment from Neocon Propaganda or nationalism then I would be happy to look at them , but your accusing me of believing in some kind of conspiracy theory whilst failing to show me a single example of why such a view would be wrong ?
I was actually very surprised to learn the extent of the Tora Bora complex, whose construction OBL oversaw for a decade or more. It's a bit of an injustice to call these "caves." I'm willing to say he could be dead. If he is alive, it's impressive that he's managed to surround himself with helpers crazy enough to be unmotivated by the $25 million bounty. You should add the fact that no one has turned him in to your list of arguments, by the way--hard to turn him in if he's dead. But while I'm giving rhetorical advice, I suggest that you can't just throw in every article you find that claims he's dead and call it good. One of them says he was blown up at Tora Bora, and the next says he died peacefully from some lung complications. Both stories can't be correct.
Of course not but my whole point behind the argument was to state that things are not as clear cut as you may believe them to be .
The extremist elements within the terrorists circles also have a program of propaganda and it would be foolish to spot one and be convinced by the other but considering so many of your fellow Americans died on that day does it not anger you that these issues are not being followed up . and that Mr bush doesn't really think about Bin laden very much ... ?
Hello. I'm an American, but not right wing. Maybe you think there is no other kind,
check through my site you will find more than half of my readers are American and also they are left of center in their views. Maybe I reacted that way as almost without question the only dissent I receive on this site are from right winged Americans and the left usually leave comments in agreement with the conclusions shown ....
in which case "right winged American" wasn't an attempt to differentiate among us.
come on that's shallow , your jumping from assumption to assumption whilst claiming to show concern for me jumping from assumption to assumption are your assumptions somehow better than mine ...
But anyway, since I am here and you are not,
what on earth do you think that would prove ? hey I am here and your not too so I guess we are even .
I can tell you with some authority that almost no one in this country questions his involvement
really so the thousands of web sites and comments that I come across on American servers are all figments of my imagination
or is is purely a matter of the fact that you have not seen them and hence they do not exist ?
and why on you seem to think the American view has any more importance than the British or Canadian or palestinian or any country you care to name is beyond me , you just come across as egotistical with such over inflated sense of the importance of your personal view .
Your view here is always welcome but please dont be so niave as to think your the first American to enter this tribal land , I get a hundreds of your fellow countrymen each day and there views ironically do not always match yours . maybe you should go out and meet some of them
you incorrectly perceived earlier that I was making stereotypical judgments of your nation and now your doing the same , how strange ...
(you may feel there is false consciousness, but I'm just telling you what the reality is).
you have no greater understanding of what reality is than myself , in fact unless you yourself committed the act on 9/11 your fumbling in the dark as much as the rest of us
being an American does not give you a greater access to truth as the many Americans who have come here in there thousands since i started the sight will testify.
There's not much question among educated people in other parts of the world, from all I can gather (again, they could all be dupes).
again your just jumping to conclusions , where have you asked ? ,
how many people have you asked ?
what was the question ? .
what percentages were white , black , Muslim , christian , Jew ? male , female , young old ,
supply data not assumptions for your no better than me and I at least can claim that this is my blog to express my opinion upon , where as you have arrived and questioned my view without having any evidence at all to justify your point and a long list of assumptions that I am supposed accept because your an American ? really ? ...
The idea that many people question whether "his involvement was somehow connected to a group such as the PNAC" is funny, because for better or worse only a tiny number of people in the U.S. or elsewhere has heard of that group. Do you mean to suggest that some affiliated entity of the U.S. government orchestrated 9/11?
I am saying that over 80 % of new yorkers when asked in a recent survey believe the some element of the US government had some kind of prior knowledge of the event and I am saying that I have not ruled out the possibility that some element within the realms of Power in the US may be connected directly or indirectly yes
I can say with some certainty that the events on 9/11 did not happen exactly as we were all told they did .
I can not say that X or Y committed the crime for I do not have access to all of the files and resources that I would require and neither do you . you see people like me are merely asking the questions and it is easy to ridicule but it is much harder to prove those questions false
take a look at where we have got , hundreds on pointless words in a thread not many will still be reading to achieve the conclusion that you don't have a clue what happened either , the key difference is that you accept the version told and that I do not
you have zero evidence to justify your assumption and I have none either . now considering the catastrophic consequences of that fateful day it would concern me that your not asking the very same questions that i do
why are you not asking your government to justify its view with evidence ?
Are you saying that these companies and the CIA were involved in orchestrating 9/11.
I am saying that companies like bechtel have gained immense amounts of money from the horrors involved and that they have by definition much to gain from such terrorist acts
I am not saying they are involved(how on earth would I know , or you for that matter) but I am saying if you look at every single major terrorist attack including London , Bali, Madrid , Iraq and even the attack on the USS Cole that Bechtel has somehow managed to gain enormous amounts of money from the tragedy of others
so in simple terms they have motive , that does not mean they did anything at all but in any investigation the first question you should ask is who has a motive to be connected to this
If you know as much as you claim to then you will be fully aware of Bechtels connections to the CIA and the history of both ..
Now again you should not assume from what I am saying that I am inferring anything more than ' look at this ' as many of your fellow Americans are also doing . They are also trying hard to get the investigation re-opened as well it should be
Since you don't think OBL was involved,
again I repeat I did not say that , I doubt that he was involved but there is a key difference between the words
it wouldn't seem that his closeness with Bechtel or the CIA would give the latter any insight into "what happened on 9/11."
that's what we calla non sequitur
T.he U.S. has obviously allied itself with some pretty unsavory characters over the years, I'll grant you that. Typically the alliance was against someone worse, at least as we saw it (Hitler, the USSR, Iran, etc.), and it typically didn't long outlast the worse threat. You may disagree
Its perspective , you seem to have an undercurrent of belief that I am Anti American , I am not, I am anti the worst most extreme right Neoconservative agenda to hit your country that could be imagined , I view this Neocon agenda as the greatest threat to world peace and stability since Hitlers rise to power in 1933 yes . but i am only talking about an assessment of a few hundred people in key positions
I am sure you are familiar with the words of Theodore Roosevelt
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
Sadly it seems these days those that question your government from inside and outside your country are viewed as being anti american , this i believe is the worst of your many assumptions about myself
You should read the Guardian story again. It's a report about a report and it's filled with indicia that the underlying report is suspect. The funeral thing seems shaky, since other people said he got vaporized at Tora Bora. I confess I don't know what became of his "vaste fortune" but it wouldn't surprise me if any under Saudi jurisdiciton had been taken or redistributed to avoid having it taken.
The guardian story is one of many infact I am shocked you have not complained about the papers left wing tendancies , Most people who would comment here would already have their own sources of information and a simple peice of research yourself that would take a shorter amount of time than your reply to me will show hundreds of such sources , if you want help looking just ask
I'm not. I'm a skeptical mainstream American and the kind of person you ought to be interested in convincing. Sorry about the "comical" comment. You are obviously committed and sincere. I think your reflexive distrust of the U.S. is your Achilles' heel. There's no reason to doubt that the 9/11 attacks were conceived and conducted by islamic terrorists. But my sense is that you do. My sense is that you would disbelieve something that was obviously true, if you could somehow trace it back to someone connected to the U.S. government.
Your may need to see someone about your senses they seem a little messed up , I can assure you that if you can show me that Osama is alive and well and did comit the act in question I would post it without hesitation , my concern is with the truth and not with some assesment of my asssement of an asssement , which is bizare to say the least
My purpose here is much greater than the events of 9/11 or convincing middle ground Americans of their view and I would respectfully ask that you make your assessment of what you see here based on more than a single post about a (what seems to me) highly convenient very bad audio tape ,
The other commenter has a link about the tape, from a site that talks elsewhere about JFK, MLK, JFK, Jr. assassination conspiracies, compares George Bush to Hitler (please), etc. I'm inclined to subscribe to something then-Vice-Presdient George H.W. Bush said years ago: "If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck, AND IT SAYS IT'S A DUCK, then it's a duck.
well some could also use Mr Bushs comment about himself and the word fascist (note i said could)
So I'd say Al Qaeda orchestrated 9/11.
and three thousand words later we are still at the guessing stage , again if you take anything from this natural abuse of the worlds keyboards then please take this
we don't know , we should know , people are dead , more are dying and nobody is bothered about presenting the slightest evidence to prove the point ...
you should be able to come here and without a seconds doubt say
exhibit one ....
exhibit two ....
full unrestricted open enquiry where Mr bush etc testified ....
but you can't can you ?
London bombings all solved
Madrid ... solved
Bali ... solved
9/11 nobody has a clue but a lot of people are getting bombed shit less for the pleasure
I've already said we don't know whether OBL is alive or not. I think the wisest course is to assume he is absent credible PROOF to the contrary. I happen to think he is/was something of a figurehead and Zawahiri is the the real brains of the operation (as Al Q only came into its current form after merging with Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad).
I agree that he is only a figure head and have said so often . the debate into what is firing the current rise in extreme terrorism is immense and I would be happy for you to dive into such a debate on the next such posting on that subject
but something interesting comes from your words , it seems clear to me that you doubt the accuracy of this tape too , your not saying as much but you infer that credible proof has not been supplied and we have just had a tape as you know ...
Yes, you do. I think we know the basic facts.
I doubt very much that you do from what I have read so far
I guess you're going to have to fill me (and most everyone else in the mainstream world) in on this one.
again your mainstream world is not mine , you probably view extremist as al jazeera and I would say the criminal is fox news so please don't assume so much your intelligence is clouded by your arrogance
Again if you doubt me (and I have already shown a link that proves 4 people on the FBI list are alive and well which you have not questioned) then it is a simple matter to look at the names of the hijackers and research a little into what there current status is . A simple google search will bring up enough to start with and you can decide if actual interviews with the people who the FBI still claim were on those planes is sufficient evidence for your satisfaction ...
If we're doing guilt by association, someone might think all this defending of OBL says something about you. If you're saying the CIA or some other U.S. instrumentality, or the Mossad, was behind 9/11, that is just so far out there that I honestly don't think it's worth having a dialogue about. Only because of the Achilles' heel in how you reason--which I mentioned above--are you able to think such things.
so your a psychology expert now I see , well alas your not very good at it ... in fact you have taken me on a considerably longer 'therefore' journey than the very post you criticize ,
I am not saying anybody DID or WAS connected and as before I am still asking you to justify your claim
let us sum up
I say Osama is probably (almost certainly) dead
you say he could be dead
I say I have yet to see any evidence that proves Osama committed the crime so I doubt it (note i said doubt)
you say you believe your government but you bring no evidence to prove he committed the act
your guessing ! , I am Guessing ! your applying your logic ! I am applying mine ! your questioning my logic ! I am questioning yours !
shall i go on or are we bored yet ....
So far we have had a mildly amusing but completely pointless debate and your number one point seems to be that your right because your American, and I am wrong .... well because I am
thanks
I am happy to debate with you but the tedium of the debating a subject where there are no clear facts for you to present will become a never ending pursuit of opinion
3000 of your fellow countrymen died and your happy to go forward without any evidence that we an all see as being clear
I think that your Achilles heal , is being far to trusting of the motives of your government ask yourself what would happen to your country if an even worse attack was to take place ..
how far are you willing to let them go before you insist they prove there case to you ?
btw if anyone else had time to read all that ... please find a hobby or something you have far to much free time on your hands
and I wont speak for Anonymous but my last comment was considerably shorter than I would have wished :-)
I know it is hilarious. They should be called the many faces of Osama. I mean he has more faces and nose shapes than Michael Jackson.
Fletcher Bowhay
I blogged about the Osama tape a few days ago... in case you're interested in my opinion:
http://www.weidenfeldfamily.com/blogs/rob/2006/01/bin-laden-reappears-to-help-his-buddy.html
You might find some of my other entries interesting as well. Hope you check it out!
I think if you take one thing from all this, it should be that--despite the websites you read, despite what your self-selected group of visitors suggests, and poll or no poll--there is very little question among people in the U.S. about who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. It seems to me you will be better off for knowing this, even though I'm sure it comes as bad news from your perspective, and tells you nothing but that Neocon propaganda has been dreadfully effective. Naturally, I don't expect you to just believe me on this, but you should because I'm telling you the truth and it seems I'm in a far better position to judge this particular truth than you are.
You seem pretty uncritical about where your information comes from. I'm not a fan of FOX News by any stretch, but mainstream U.S. news organizations have standards and controls, and competitors ready to refute their stories, that Al Jazeera and others do not. Notice that I'm not saying that Al Jazeera does not present a viewpoint that has millions of sympathizers around the world. I'm not interested in playing dueling web citations as it's very easy to find support for whatever you like on the web. I get most of my news from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Economist, wire services and other reputable outlets whose basic reliability and standards have been proven over decades.
I'm well aware that many in the world don't embrace the U.S. and would like to see the U.S. step back into a global role no greater than that of any other country. To the extent this would require the U.S. to refrain from actions its leaders--of any party--deem essential to protect the country and its vital interests, that's not going to happen. No state would behave that way, and the U.S. just happens to be the state with the most resources for protecting its interests. You may not like that, but that's the way things are and it's not likely to change anytime soon.
thanks for your comments Anonymous.
I have a natural distaste for those who claim to speak 'the truth' and again you fail to tell me why the Opinion of Americans should have more credence than any other point of view .
btw I have no way to self 'select' my visitors. this is a web site people come here if they choose too just as you did.
for your Information My dear wife spent 17 years in your beloved country and hence I have spent much time there myself . I have friends right across the US and meet with your fellow countrymen often.
With respect your living inside a self created myth whit your opinion ... "U.S. news organizations have standards and controls,"
is that why your country is ranked 44th in the world for freedom of press , yes 44th , that's awful isn't for the land of the free ! here considering that your country was inside the top 20 before your current president speaks for itself .
or is the world wide press index part of your conceptual conspiracy your convinced I believe in . Please your coming across as simply arrogant and your lack of factual understanding of the accuracy of your own press shows that such arrogance is misplaced.
I am quite sure that you would find an excuse to dismiss any point of view that does not fit with your vision of the world and again you have supplied not a single fact to prove your initial point that you somehow how have access to some proof that Bin Laden did without doubt com it the horrible act on 9/11 and you still have supplied none ....
so what on earth are you trying to prove ?
take another look at my article please , the title 'osama tape or osama fake' 'the first sentence Personally I have quite a number of doubts about the latest Bin Laden tape
now it is obvious that this is my opinion (note the word doubts) I did not claim that this is the work of god and should be believed accordingly I said I had some doubts and hence here a some things to ponder
you doubt them , that's your right , but please don't expect me to place any more credence to your opinion than my own ,
If you want to persist in coming back each time then bring facts , bring evidence , bring sources
I really place your dissent on this site as one of the least well constructed I have had for you believe I should just accept your view without anything at all to back it up apart from the fact that you tell me its true ...
sorry If you want to prevent the complete waste of our time , drop the assumptions they make you look foolish , drop the attitude , arrogance is not a pleasant thing to read, and bring facts , for otherwise you should just open your own site to write hundreds of words that add up to the conclusion that you don't have any more knowledge than the rest of us
"If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck, AND IT SAYS IT'S A DUCK, then it's a duck.
"
The expresion is 'if it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck, then it might be a duck.'
Get it right you quack.
From the detail of the rankings you cite: "The United States (44th) fell more than 20 places, mainly because of the imprisonment of New York Times reporter Judith Miller and legal moves undermining the privacy of journalistic sources."
Miller was treated as any witness in a criminal matter--under well-establshed Supreme Court precedent, there is no privilege for reporters to avoid testifying to criminal conduct they may have witnessed. You are writing from a country with no written constitution and no bill of rights whose robust Official Secrets Act and libel laws both tend to stifle the press, and yet the UK ranks higher in the survey than the U.S. To me this is remarkable. Naturally, the basis for the U.S.'s low ranking only tends to bolster the credibiltiy of the NYT, whose reporter was the one jailed.
I was referring to your visitor traffic as self-selecting. You are surely getting a skewed picture of popular opinion in the U.S., just as I would get a skewed picture of U.K. popular opinion if I put up a very Blair-sympathetic site. I would probably conclude that everyone over there loved the guy. Would I be right?
If you want to understand what the U.S. does, I think you should want to understand the true state of popular opinion here. There is a great deal of disagreement on many things, but culpability for the 9/11 attacks is not one of them. I'm not intersted in convincing you, per se, because I think you should want to have a clear-eyed view of what people believe over here. I'm just throwing it out there for you, and if you'd rather continue to believe something else, that's fine with me. Yes, it's a small minority of the world's population, but it's one that it would do well for you to understand as the author of a website generally critical of U.S. policy.
If you don't want me to think you are susceptible to conspiracy theories, don't link to sites that propound them. It's really not that hard to figure out which are the conspiracy sites, and it has nothing to do with being an arrogant American. Weed them out and you'll do wonders for your credibility. However, my sense is that, behind your seeker's facade of "I have quite a number of doubts," you want to believe a lot of that stuff--neocons planning 9/11 as their own Reichstag fire, remote-controlled planes, etc. I know, I know, ask the people who were at the funeral that no one in the mainstream U.S. media is interested in talking to because they are all organs of the dominant power structure. Interesting that the ideologically neutral outlet that runs headlines like this also seems to think OBL is alive and well.
Sorry, duck, I was quoting George H.W. Bush and he departed from a customary formulation, but to make a point. I should have made that more clear. He was responding to someone's claim that the Sandinistas were not communists. His point was that in addition to the other indicia that they were, they actually had said they were communists. If I wanted to express a usual formulation, I would not have gone to the trouble of acribing it to George H.W. Bush.
And actually, there are all kinds of different variations on the basic saying.
44th) fell more than 20 places, mainly because of the imprisonment of New York Times reporter Judith Miller and legal moves undermining the privacy of journalistic sources."
I know the reasons stated why and you not yourself the word 'mainly' the supresson of the NYT in printing the wiretap stories will push you even lower
You are writing from a country with no written constitution and no bill of rights whose robust Official Secrets Act and libel laws both tend to stifle the press, and yet the UK ranks higher in the survey than the U.S. To me this is remarkable.
now thats hillarious thank you :-)
It seems your writing from a country that ignores its own constitution and bill of rights ,
I can assure you that we don't torture people
we do comply with the Geneva convention
we don't spy on our citizens without a court order
we don't use land mines
We did not kick and scream about ratifying the treaty of the child to give rights to children
our record for the 'accidental' deaths of civilians in war makes you look like attila the Hun ,
we abolished the barbaric death penalty unlike you and other progressive countries such Iran and Saudi Arabia
we don't harbour terrorists whilst telling the world not too
our people are HIGHLY tolerant of world religions and cultures
Our press actually question our government and not blindly follow them into war
we don't ask our children to repeat a pledge each morning to in bed artificial patriotism into there brains
a news network as biased as fox would be taken off the air in this country
companies are capped to prevent them spending billions supporting people to gain power here
questioning authority is not considered unpatriotic here but vital to freedom and democracy . The shameful disgusting way that people like cindy sheehan are treated in your country is barbaric and would never happen on such a scale here
we have not used our veto ten times more than any other country to stifle world opinion and action
we have signed the Kyoto treaty
we don't kidnap ,
we wouldn't dare conceive of a patriot act
and we allow women the freedom of choice on whether they should have a baby or not
and most important of all is that we keep religion and politics separate . to listen to George bush and his messages from 'god' is no less scary than listening to the president of Iran I assure you
to allow faith and politics to mix is just about the most damaging thing you can do to a free country , the overwhelming Islamophobia and Xenophobia that a large percentage of your people possess (as noted by other americans here often) is in no short meassure down to the power and influence of the 'christian' right in your country
dont missunderstand me It is for each to choose his faith or not but politics and relgion working in tandom has created more deaths than enything else , including the illigal invasion of soveriegn Iraq
I was referring to your visitor traffic as self-selecting. You are surely getting a skewed picture of popular opinion in the U.S., just as I would get a skewed picture of U.K. popular opinion if I put up a very Blair-sympathetic site. I would probably conclude that everyone over there loved the guy. Would I be right?
You would ne Niave , I spend a great deal of my time at a wide varity of sites , check my links , one left , one right , 2 american , 2 not , I have no idea why you think your some kind of revelation to me , I meet people like you all the time and very sadly people much much much worse
the most common view I here from americans is sadly comments like "lets nuke Iran" and it is usually combined with incredible ingorance as to who , why , and what is happening in the 96 % of the planet that is not them
this kind of barbaric thinking is not the type of american I wish to converse with , who would converse with those that wished for the genocide of others , some people are far far far too ignorant and probably are dumb enough to think that george bush has in any way shape size or form made them safer !
you can't argue with such Ignorance , to be fair other countries can do the same , the tendacy in the middle east to JUST blame israel and the US for all their problems is no better
If you want to understand what the U.S. does ....
I have a wide range of opinion and experience and qualifications and wisdom to draw apon to make my conclusuions I have no idea why you would think there is anything at all in what you say that has not been included already within my understanding , I agree with some , I dont with others , it is called having my own mind . you made a choice to come here and read my article now you want me to abandon my thoughts and inherite yours on the bases of your superior understanding based on the fact that you say so
you know nothing about me , you don't know where I have been or whom i converse with or whether i spent the last 50 years studying your town , its just assumption , assumption ,assumption
let me give you some advice , your process for coming to logical conclusions is flawed , it continues time and time again to give you the wrong answer but somehow you fail to notice.
that it would do well for you to understand as the author of a website generally critical of U.S. policy
please , there are web sites out there that are advocating attacking countries and bombing people , the continued use of torture and why its ok to spy on your own people without warrant , and your here , saying this ! give me a break
go find a site that tells the world to kill black people or Muslims or gays or to bomb France , or to remove civil liberties in your own country or remove liberties and freedoms from others and lay off this mild stuff . the people who come here in general care about the world , they want to stop the senseless murder of civilians , they wish to put balance into the extreme propaganda that they see on their TVs and their often angry but they are good people ,
I have worked In Iraq and the Middle east , I have seen what a US or UK missile can do to a family and living in London I have also seen what the evil of terrorism can do many many many times over .
There is nothing your insular view is going to tell me , I am not some fool who sits at home looking at web sites and posting stuff from the TV and the implication is insulting , more so considering the good you could be doing with your nimble fingers against some genuine threat to freedom democracy and your own people
If you don't want me to think you are susceptible to conspiracy theories,
now this may shock you .... I don't care what you think , take what you want , leave what you don't , read it , laugh at it , scream at it , come every day , never come again that is your choice . I didn't write it for you , I wrote it for myself and if others gain from it then great if they don't then fine
you really over inflate your own importance in all this don't you
you Al-Jazeera comment tells me that you have no idea how and they were formed , who backed them , how they are viewed in the middle east (have you even been there ? )
H
Finally as you wll noted (I am sure you have taken a look around whilst checking for my replies)
I am not Anonymous my email is in my profile and all of what you are saying is based on your personal assesment of me and what I post
so for goodness sake just email me
people coming here wanting to quickly read the threads will have to wade through nine miles of you you and you and thats not repectfull to others ...
I am happy to debate with you if you so wish but I have already recieved emails telling me that people dont have time to read all this and lets be fair there is nothing at all to be gained by reading a single world of it
if you want to probe 'me' by all means do so but you not coming here awash with facts just dripping with opinion and I am sure your aware that each of us on this planet has one of those
If you want to take anything up with me , you (as anyone) can click my profile and email me direct
assuming for a second that your intention really was to convince 'me' of something emailing me of course would have been the first thing you did
44th) fell more than 20 places, mainly because of the imprisonment of New York Times reporter Judith Miller and legal moves undermining the privacy of journalistic sources."
I know the reasons stated why and you not yourself the word 'mainly' the supresson of the NYT in printing the wiretap stories will push you even lower
You are writing from a country with no written constitution and no bill of rights whose robust Official Secrets Act and libel laws both tend to stifle the press, and yet the UK ranks higher in the survey than the U.S. To me this is remarkable.
now thats hillarious thank you :-)
It seems your writing from a country that ignores its own constitution and bill of rights ,
I can assure you that we don't torture people
we do comply with the Geneva convention
we don't spy on our citizens without a court order
we don't use land mines
We did not kick and scream about ratifying the treaty of the child to give rights to children
our record for the 'accidental' deaths of civilians in war makes you look like attila the Hun ,
we abolished the barbaric death penalty unlike you and other progressive countries such Iran and Saudi Arabia
we don't harbour terrorists whilst telling the world not too
our people are HIGHLY tolerant of world religions and cultures
Our press actually question our government and not blindly follow them into war
we don't ask our children to repeat a pledge each morning to in bed artificial patriotism into there brains
a news network as biased as fox would be taken off the air in this country
companies are capped to prevent them spending billions supporting people to gain power here
questioning authority is not considered unpatriotic here but vital to freedom and democracy . The shameful disgusting way that people like cindy sheehan are treated in your country is barbaric and would never happen on such a scale here
we have not used our veto ten times more than any other country to stifle world opinion and action
we have signed the Kyoto treaty
we don't kidnap ,
we wouldn't dare conceive of a patriot act
and we allow women the freedom of choice on whether they should have a baby or not
and most important of all is that we keep religion and politics separate . to listen to George bush and his messages from 'god' is no less scary than listening to the president of Iran I assure you
to allow faith and politics to mix is just about the most damaging thing you can do to a free country , the overwhelming Islamophobia and Xenophobia that a large percentage of your people possess (as noted by other americans here often) is in no short meassure down to the power and influence of the 'christian' right in your country
Nice list, but we were talking about freedom of the press. Weren't we? The things I mentioned had some bearing on that. If we want a catalogue of Britain's various bad acts and practices over the years, neither of us would even know where to start, I should think. After all, you have spent time in the Middle East. One interesting thing, to me, is that Britain has a state religion and we do not. Maybe it's not intrusive over there, but your monarch is the head of your national church. That couldn't happen here. By the way, I think Islamic and Christian fundamentalists are equally crazy.
dont missunderstand me It is for each to choose his faith or not but politics and relgion working in tandom has created more deaths than enything else , including the illigal invasion of soveriegn Iraq
I was referring to your visitor traffic as self-selecting. You are surely getting a skewed picture of popular opinion in the U.S., just as I would get a skewed picture of U.K. popular opinion if I put up a very Blair-sympathetic site. I would probably conclude that everyone over there loved the guy. Would I be right?
You would ne Niave , I spend a great deal of my time at a wide varity of sites , check my links , one left , one right , 2 american , 2 not , I have no idea why you think your some kind of revelation to me , I meet people like you all the time and very sadly people much much much worse
No, I was mentioning this because I thought you were saying you knew U.S. popular opinion because of what all your hundreds of U.S. visitors were saying.
the most common view I here from americans is sadly comments like "lets nuke Iran" and it is usually combined with incredible ingorance as to who , why , and what is happening in the 96 % of the planet that is not them
It would be a bad thing for Iran to have nuclear weapons. The U.S. has a big interst in seeing that that doesn't happen. It will be interesting to see how far Iran wants to push it. Israel may not let them push it as far as the U.N. or even the U.S. would.
this kind of barbaric thinking is not the type of american I wish to converse with , who would converse with those that wished for the genocide of others , some people are far far far too ignorant and probably are dumb enough to think that george bush has in any way shape size or form made them safer !
Fair enough on the first part. I think that we've killed a lot of people who it will be hard for Al Qaeda to replace easily, and that probably has made us safer. Driving them out of Afghanistan has probaby made us safer.
you can't argue with such Ignorance , to be fair other countries can do the same , the tendacy in the middle east to JUST blame israel and the US for all their problems is no better
If you want to understand what the U.S. does ....
I have a wide range of opinion and experience and qualifications and wisdom to draw apon to make my conclusuions I have no idea why you would think there is anything at all in what you say that has not been included already within my understanding , I agree with some , I dont with others , it is called having my own mind . you made a choice to come here and read my article now you want me to abandon my thoughts and inherite yours on the bases of your superior understanding based on the fact that you say so
you know nothing about me , you don't know where I have been or whom i converse with or whether i spent the last 50 years studying your town , its just assumption , assumption ,assumption
let me give you some advice , your process for coming to logical conclusions is flawed , it continues time and time again to give you the wrong answer but somehow you fail to notice.
It seems, then, that we can't learn much from each other.
that it would do well for you to understand as the author of a website generally critical of U.S. policy
please , there are web sites out there that are advocating attacking countries and bombing people , the continued use of torture and why its ok to spy on your own people without warrant , and your here , saying this ! give me a break
There is no shortage of interesting opinions on the web, that's for sure. Blame the "next blog" button for not taking me somewhere different.
go find a site that tells the world to kill black people or Muslims or gays or to bomb France , or to remove civil liberties in your own country or remove liberties and freedoms from others and lay off this mild stuff . The authors of those sites are beyond help. the people who come here in general care about the world , they want to stop the senseless murder of civilians , they wish to put balance into the extreme propaganda that they see on their TVs and their often angry but they are good people ,
I have worked In Iraq and the Middle east , I have seen what a US or UK missile can do to a family and living in London I have also seen what the evil of terrorism can do many many many times over .
There is nothing your insular view is going to tell me , I am not some fool who sits at home looking at web sites and posting stuff from the TV and the implication is insulting , more so considering the good you could be doing with your nimble fingers against some genuine threat to freedom democracy and your own people
Sorry.
If you don't want me to think you are susceptible to conspiracy theories,
now this may shock you .... I don't care what you think , take what you want , leave what you don't , read it , laugh at it , scream at it , come every day , never come again that is your choice . I didn't write it for you , I wrote it for myself and if others gain from it then great if they don't then fine
Suit yourself, I guess. People will take you more seriously if you avoid conspiracy sites. But it's entirely up to you.
you really over inflate your own importance in all this don't you
Apparently
you Al-Jazeera comment tells me that you have no idea how and they were formed , who backed them , how they are viewed in the middle east (have you even been there ? ) They were funded by the Emir of Qatar, I believe. I have a pretty good idea that they are accorded a lot of credibility in the Middle East. I have not been there. I don't think the average person there or here is exceptionally good at critical thinking.
Nice list, but we were talking about freedom of the press. Weren't we? The things I mentioned had some bearing on that. If we want a catalogue of Britain's various bad acts and practices over the years, neither of us would even know where to start, I should think. After all, you have spent time in the Middle East. One interesting thing, to me, is that Britain has a state religion and we do not. Maybe it's not intrusive over there, but your monarch is the head of your national church. That couldn't happen here. By the way, I think Islamic and Christian fundamentalists are equally crazy
Yes we were talking about the press but you said from a country that does not have a constitution ( of course your excluding the hundreds of laws including the European convention human rights etc) and trying to connect that to your assumption that your press was somehow more free
call it a complete vague connection in return for you complete vague connection IE we can both supply non sequiturs and I often return them when sent to me :-)
on the acts of my country I agree , all countries act barbaric during times of imperialism and we were worst than most ( read all )
as for the Monarch :-) who ? , they are there to take in the money from tourists
what on earth do you think a state religion is ? I have no religion , there is complete freedom of faith in every way and it is purely symbolic , my monarch is also the head of the prevention of cruelty to dolphins (or whatever it may be ) that means nothing too any of us
the monarch is always at the front of the church, mosque or whatever and treats all faiths equally , the UK is known for its history and ceremony and along as you guys keep flying over we will keep supplying them ... I always find it hilarious that the the queen etc gets more coverage on your TV then it does mine
No, I was mentioning this because I thought you were saying you knew U.S. popular opinion because of what all your hundreds of U.S. visitors were saying.
now that would be silly , there are hundreds of reasons why I hold the views I do , the mistake is to assume you can figure out how i came to think as I do based on a small article and your comments there after ..
It would be a bad thing for Iran to have nuclear weapons. The U.S. has a big interest in seeing that that doesn't happen. It will be interesting to see how far Iran wants to push it. Israel may not let them push it as far as the U.N. or even the U.S. would.
with respect I will skip this one or we will be here for weeks if you want my view there are dozens of posts on the subject here
It seems, then, that we can't learn much from each other.
it seemed to me that was obvious from the start , I did actually write the article you know .
I admit I could have spent much longer compiling the sources (there are plenty of better ones) but to let you in on something the article is actually half the size it was when i wrote it at least 20 links were removed and extra opinions taken out due to the knowledge that many people just will not bother to read a piece with so many links in it for they don't have the time .
but sadly you came in assuming that my whole persona existed within a single article and hence believed there was something I had missed , this was wrong
... But it's entirely up to you
why thank you
now please . for anyone that has had the time to read all of this now or in the future , you have more than had the opportunity to get across what it is that you think , I have not suppressed a single word and done my best to respond to each and every point you have made
this has become a conversation not an open thread that people feel free to add their 2 cents too and it should be the other way round. try doing the same on a site that accepts the full version you are told and 9 times out of 10 you would be deleted
your welcome to post on any topic here you wish (as is anybody who has basic manners and courtesy) but can we agree that you have had you moment to let off steam and it is time to move on at least from this thread ?
Please note in the comment above your last I said feel free to email me if you want to continue what is a one on one debate on this subject , you may find me more willing to address you particular thoughts and ideas if you did so that way
I have thousands of sources for data and I don't doubt you have your own resources too and the debate on the current status of OBL has changed to a debate about an article that i did not write , to the value of American opinion , to the constitution and onwards and upwards
basically you seem to just want to debate and before I know it we will be arguing the existence of extraterrestrials in the context of their contribution to still life art forms
I like debating but this site is for everyone who wants to read it and many people have gathered the wisdom to email me if they feel their point may exceed 75 paragraphs .....
thank you for your comments , as I say there is little we will learn from each other on this subject but maybe on other subjects who knows ...
H
I think I was typing when you posted your penultimate comment about email. I might drop you a line sometime and you may do the same at the address you have for me.
I think if I had had the restraint to leave the gratuitous last line off of my first post, we might not have found ourselves playing the game of line-by-line responses (a style I adopted from you and then ran with--but that I probably goaded you into in the first place). It wasn't without its charms, though :)
Cheers.
"And do as adversaries do in law -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends."
- Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
Annual Amnesty International Lecture: Noam Chomsky, 'The War on Terror', (full text)
Described by The New Yorker as 'one of the greatest minds of the 20th century', Noam Chomsky gave the 2006 Amnesty Lecture, hosted by Trinity College Dublin, on January 18th. The theme of the lecture was 'The War on Terror'.
The full text of the lecture has now been made available
here. (pdf file)
Very interesting reading .
i will have to find time to read this. thanks for the link.
-Hype
The NeoConservative Manifesto
Not all Fascism looks like Adolf Hitler.
Length : 2 min 40 sec
Watch it
here
See this one on Leemonzoo a while back. Who ever did the graphics did a great job.
Google obviously don't want subversive foreigners watching their video streams.
Can't access it from here (France), an obvious hotbed.
No doubt there is some way of watching it by using a proxy, or possibly another site.
Email me Salvador and i can send it to you
awesome video. more people need to see videos like this.
-Hype
What a beautifully-realized satire! Roll on WWIII and the new Nazism! The updated constructivist style is a perfect fit for ths parodic updating of Soviet propaganda at its most ham-fisted. France or Britain could be next--that detail really raised this little gem to the level of art. The funniest thing is that there could really be some people out there who envision that the USA would really attack a country like France or Britain.
Glad to know some people can still see the humour in all this talk of a New World Order. Thanks for sharing!
France and Britain, of course, being safe because they are junior partners...
The video is meant to satirise less extreme versions of worldview it presents. Notice the swastikas and the Third-Reich-style eagle device. The France and Britain thing right at the end is just the icing on the cake. It's not meant to be taken seriously.
Anon :
It is a 2 Min's and 40 seconds animation and it should be judged as such.
Similar (but far less dangerous and a lot more accurate) to the propaganda that we were all fed to take us into war.
As far as I know nobody died in the making of this thought provoking piece and lets not forget that is all that this is meant to be (thought provoking)
For those whose minds are opened to the possibility of this scenario (regardless of how exaggerated it may or may not be) there are plenty of more credible and detailed areas of research.
I view it as a trailer to a movie so all the bullet points are thrown in including maybe the odd sight or sound that probably doesn't exist in the full version
the point is to convince you to see the movie. (this obviously is an analogy)
It made you think as you decided to comment so I am sure it has made others think too and that is its simple purpose
A few months ago Brigham Young University physics professor Steven E. Jones made headlines when he charged that the World Trade Center collapsed because of "pre-positioned explosives." Now, along with a group that calls itself "Scholars for 9/11 Truth," he's upping the ante.
DJEB, at
January 29, 2006 1:24 am
, at
January 29, 2006 8:56 am
