Gas Blasts In Russia And Texas: Terrifying But 'Not Terrorism'

BBC:
Blast hits Russian gas pipeline

A huge explosion and fire have hit a gas pipeline outside the Russian city of St Petersburg.

There were no reports of deaths or injuries and officials said they did not suspect an act of terrorism.
...

The main pipeline for Russian gas lies well to the south of the blast, but a pipe supplying Finland is nearby.

Witnesses said the massive explosion, at just after midnight on Wednesday (2000 GMT) in St Petersburg's northern suburbs, shook buildings several kilometres away.

How do they know whether or not to suspect an act of terrorism?

Does it depend on how much they want to frighten us?

Rocky Mountain News:
Faulty connector triggers Dallas explosions

A series of explosions at a gas facility sent flaming debris raining onto highways and buildings near downtown today, injuring at least three people.

Authorities evacuated a half-mile area surrounding the Southwest Industrial Gases Inc. facility and shut down parts of nearby Interstates 30 and 35 as the explosions continued for more than half an hour. Video footage showed numerous small fires burning in the area as stacks of gas cylinders exploded.

Three hours after the explosions started, fire crews were hosing down the charred metal wreckage. About a dozen cars in a parking lot and a grassy highway median were damaged.

Fire Department Lt. Joel Lavender said the explosions started around 9:30 a.m. because of a malfunctioning connector used to join acetylene tanks during the filling process.

And how do we know that faulty connector wasn't Islamic?

John Conyers, Ron Paul and Mike Gravel -- This Week With George Stephanopolis!

No kidding!

Our EXCLUSIVE headliner this Sunday is Rep. John Conyers, Jr., D-Mich. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee joins me in advance of his committee's hearing next week on President Bush's grant of clemency for Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Next, we continue our award-winning "On the Trail" series with two presidential hopefuls, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and former Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska.

Check you local listings! ;-)

Monday afternoon UPDATE: ABC has the video online.

Texas Crowd Beats Man To Death

BBC News is reporting the beating death of a man who stepped out of the car in which he was riding to check on the condition of a young girl who had been struck by the car.

The collision happened at low speed in a parking lot, and the girl, said to be three or four years old, was not seriously injured.

But the passenger, David Rivas Morales, was beaten by the crowd and left lying on the ground. He was taken to a hospital where he died soon afterward.

The incident happened near Austin, Texas, where a couple of thousand people had gathered for a ceremony commemorating the freeing of the slaves.

A Google News search a few minutes ago indicated that this story had not appeared in any major American news, although it had drawn a bit of local coverage. A more recent search shows that it has been picked up by the AP and carried by FOX.

Editor & Publisher has more.

Bush: Iraq, Afghanistan, Yada Yada, Sacrifice, Destiny, Yada Yada, Happy Memorial Day!

Another Memorial Day, another wreath, another steaming pile of equine fecal matter, and another barbecue. The CBS headline told the whole sorry tale:

Bush: Iraqi, Afghan Wars "Our Destiny"

Speaking under overcast skies [...]

How could the sun have shone?

[...] after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and meeting privately at the White House with the families of some fallen servicemen and women, Mr. Bush called the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a part of the nation's destiny.

Yes, indeed. Our foreign policy has long been based on a thoroughly shameful and lunatic idea of endless national expansion called "manifest destiny" -- not just a garden-variety lunatic idea but one which has brought America and indeed the whole of humanity to the very brink of ruin.

And this is our destiny!! Happy Memorial Day!!

He said they follow a rich tradition of similar American sacrifices throughout this country's history.

Rich? That's a great choice of words; we do have a very long tradition whereby thousands of poor Americans and millions of ever poorer foreigners are sacrificed so that a relatively few families of merciless scoundrels can get even richer! And we are so conditioned to absorb the lies along with the loss that we usually feel more grief than anger.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the bogus war,

violence continued in Iraq where a suicide car bomber struck a busy commercial district in central Baghdad, killing at least 21 people and damaging a shrine revered by Sunnis and Shiites alike.

Ah yes, well, that figures, doesn't it? In the pseudo-sectarian "call it anything but" Civil War that America has brought to Iraq, religion has very little to do with anything. That doesn't fit in with what we're constantly told, does it? Well, what does that say about what we're constantly told?

Speaking of the more than 368,000 buried through history at Arlington National Cemetery, Mr. Bush said, "Nothing said today will ease your pain. But each of you needs to know our country thanks you and we embrace you and we will never forget the terrible loss you have suffered."

Not "never". "Never" is a very long time. We can't really be sure about anything forever! But we can be fairly sure that Bush managed to remember the terrible loss that other people have suffered while he and his buddies have accumulated mind-numbing wealth and power -- we can be sure that George Bush managed to remember -- what where we talking about? -- at least until he reached the end of the quoted sentence. Or maybe at least almost half that long.

In his speech, Mr. Bush said the freedoms that people enjoy in this country today "came at a great cost and they will survive only so long as there are those who are willing to protect them."

As happens so often with this miserable failure, he's got it only partway right. The freedoms that people enjoy in this country today came at a great cost and they survived only as long as the American people were willing -- and able -- to protect them from their government.

"They know that one day this war will end, as all wars do. Our duty is to make sure this war was worth the sacrifice" and that the fighting men and women succeeded — and "where tyrants and terrorists are frustrated and foiled ... where our nation is more secure from attack."

Is this insanity or deliberate propaganda? Either way it makes no sense to any astute observer. The only way Bush will consider the "sacrifice" "worthwhile" is if it leads him to the greatest pot of Texas Tea in the land.

"This is our country's calling," Mr. Bush said. "It's our country's destiny."

As long as our entire electoral system -- from campaign finance law to media coverage to rigged elections -- is thoroughly dysfunctional, he is probably right. Our destiny is to be ruled by others whose agenda differs significantly from our own.

"On this day of memory, we mourn brave citizens who laid their lives down for our freedom," he said. "May we always honor them, may we always embrace them and may we always be faithful to who they were and what they fought for."

It's enough to elicit a sick laugh. This miserable little man could not possibly be less careful -- or more ironic! "Always" is right up there with "Never" on the list of dangerous words to say. And the president has never shown any sense of honor, for himself or for the troops, yet he asks us to honor them always. And people still gobble this stuff up?

At least 3,452 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war in Iraq in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 325 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department.

At least. And how many have died in Germany? And how many have died en route to Germany?

Do you like the way we sacrifice our lives -- and the future of our nation's economy -- so a few of the president's richest supporters can guarantee themselves virtually limitless wealth? That's the freedom they're always talking about -- not our freedom; our freedoms are still being taken away. Do you like that, too?

... Sacrifice, Destiny, Yada Yada, Happy Memorial Day!

Lunatic Fringe? Cheers For Red Tory!!

Here's an absolutely perfect post, from the Canadian blogger "Red Tory" -- reproduced in full, with humble gratitude:

Cheers for the “Lunatic Fringe”

As a hopeless political junkie, I have to confess that one of my wicked indulgences is watching the early reels of the interminable American primary season unspool in all their shambolic awfulness, especially as captured from time to time in the amber of so-called debates televised by the cable news networks and broadcast to thousands of viewers with unfortunately inoperative remotes. After all, where else can you see so many witless hacks, shameless panderers, brazen egomaniacs, aspiring grifters and gaffe-prone gasbags square off in one place at one time? Some wags might answer that by suggesting the floor of the U.S. Senate or the House of Commons during Question Period on any given day, but I’d maintain that such wearisome poo-flinging contests simply can’t hold a candle to the truly spectacular rhetorical trainwrecks and fabulous flame-outs on display in the primary presidential debates that the mainstream media so generously stage for our edification and cynical amusement.

Of particular delight in these otherwise largely pointless charades are the fringe candidates; those whose barren coffers, subterranean polling numbers, physical shortcomings, advanced age, and/or supposed wild-eyed craziness, combine with passionate conviction and a bloody-minded sense of purpose unfettered by the bothersome constraints of reality, to afford them the glorious liberty of… gasp… actually speaking truth to power. Remember that quaint notion? It’s pretty much regarded these days by the intelligencia with snotty contempt as a quaint relic of a bygone era filled with radical hippies and loopy, drug-addled protesters, but it still resonates with some of us who find the concept oddly compelling and of enduring value both in its naïve purity and the idealistic belief that it may actually be possible to rattle the gilded cages of the hidebound establishment machine. Ha ha ha ha ha… I know. What foolishness.

Aside from my absolute favourite perennial no-hoper, pacifist Congressman Dennis Kucinich (by far the smartest and most sadly overlooked man who will never, ever be president, owing largely to the fact he vaguely resembles a diminutive Vulcan, or possibly some creature of Elvish extraction), this latest Clusterfuck to the White House offers up two other thoroughly improbable and yet strangely endearing contrarians: former Alaska senator Mike Gravel (Democrat) and Texas congressman Ron Paul (Republican). Both have been largely dismissed by the mainstream press as objects of ridicule and mockery with various terms of sneering derision and contempt immediately affixed to them by the mainstream press that would suggest they’re mentally unbalanced individuals. To the contrary, I’d submit that they are, in fact, the most lucid voices to be heard amongst the all the various candidates of both the left and the right.

That these individuals stand out so clearly from the groaning platitudes, homogenized twaddle and painfully contorted triangulations of the front-runners and “top tier” of candidates is refreshing to say the least. That moves are now afoot on various fronts to silence them on the grounds they’re nothing more than annoying distractions to the “main event” and to have them barred from future debates is profoundly tragic. It speaks volumes I suppose to the lamentable influence of the powerful elites on the political process and the willful complicity of their sniveling media whores who all too happily participate in this ritual sham intended to bamboozle the American people into believing they’re living in a democracy of some sort.

The Truth Hurts: Michigan GOP Chairman Seeks To Ban Ron Paul From Future Debates

When you've built a regime based exclusively on lies, even a little bit of truth hurts a lot!

Jim Davenport of the Associated Press reports, via South Carolina's The State:

The chairman of the Michigan Republican Party said Wednesday he will try to bar presidential candidate Ron Paul from future GOP debates because of remarks the Texas congressman made that suggested the Sept. 11 attacks were the fault of U.S. foreign policy.

Michigan party chairman Saul Anuzis said he will circulate a petition among Republican National Committee members to ban Paul from other debates. At a GOP candidates’ debate Tuesday night, Paul drew attacks from all sides, most forcefully from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, when he linked the terror attacks to U.S. bombings.

“Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years,” Paul said.

Anuzis called the comments “off the wall and out of whack.”

“I think he would have felt much more comfortable on the stage with the Democrats in what he said last night and I think that he is a distraction in the Republican primary and he does not represent the base and he does not represent the party,” Anuzis said during an RNC state leadership meeting in Columbia.

“Given what he said last night it was just so off the wall and out of whack that I think it was more detrimental than helpful,” Anuzis said.

Anuzis said his petition would go to debate sponsors and broadcasters to discourage inviting Paul.

Paul’s campaign did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

After the debate Tuesday, Paul said he didn’t expect his remarks to end his campaign.

“The last time I got a message out about my position on the war it boosted us up by tens of thousands and I didn’t change my position,” Paul said. “I think the American people are sick and tired of this war and want it ended.”

All this because Ron Paul doesn't buy "they hate us for our freedoms."

Retribution for speaking the truth? Oh yes! It's the Republican way.

I can't even imagine how bonkers the GOP would have gone if Paul had dared to suggest what some of us have known since the very day of the attacks -- that the whole official story is bunk!

Kurt Nimmo is spot-on about all this, in his post "Educating Ron Paul".

This Washington Post Op/Ed Is Excellent -- If You Like Shirking Responsibility And Stifling Debate

It's not too hard to see where the Washington Post is going with the op/ed piece "Building a Better Debate: Too many candidates talking about too much", but it might be worthwhile pointing out that the pitfalls it attempts to introduce would make a tragic situation infinitely worse.

IF YOU TUNED IN to the recent Republican and Democratic presidential debates, you may have had the same reaction as many viewers looking at the crowded stages: Who's that?

Exactly! Why haven't these names and faces been in the papers, and on the TV? And who is the WaPo -- of all sources -- to complain about why we don't know all these guys? It would be enough to break the Irony Meter, but that got broken a long time ago.

The Democratic debate in South Carolina featured eight candidates, while 10 crammed into the GOP debate in California last Thursday. Voters trying to sort out their presidential choices aren't helped by debates cluttered with the likes of Mike Gravel (hint: he's a former senator from Alaska) on the Democratic side and Ron Paul (hint: he's a libertarian House member from Texas) among the Republicans.

Voters are not helped by seeing the likes of Mike Gravel and Ron Paul? On what planet?

It's the rest of 'em -- all pushing different varieties of the the same fecal matter -- that make it hard for voters to sort 'em out.

If the standard is that any declared candidate is entitled to a podium, we're going to end up with even more crowded stages in 2012.

I am all for setting standards, and I'll say more about it below.

One possibility would be to allow viewers to vote off one candidate after each debate; it seems to work well for other TV programs.

But this isn't a meaningless made-for-TV game show. It's not even a game at all.

And since we already can't trust our national "elections", what would give us any confidence about a made-for-TV "election"? Just because it would be run by the same people?

Oops! I wasn't supposed to say that, was I? Oh well, they're gonna have to sue me, because my Backspace key is stuck!

The WaPo continues:

There may a better way to improve the debate system, though this would need to be done carefully and slowly. For starters, as this process continues, debate organizers ought to think about using various tests to narrow the fields.

Let's ignore for the moment the hubris required of the Washington Post to tell the debate organizers what they ought to think about, after admittedly failing so dismally in its reporting that many American voters didn't even realize how many candidates there were!

Let's think instead about the hubris required to compile the following list:

Has a candidate demonstrated any indicia of viability or seriousness: standing in the polls, ability to raise money, trips to the state where the debate is taking place?

I know this is not what the WaPo is talking about, but in my view, Mike Gravel and Ron Paul are the only candidates who have given any indicia of seriousness about the issues. And for this reason they may have found it hard to raise money, not to mention making trips to the state where the debate is taking place.

And who cares where the debate is taking place? This is a national debate, a national process, is it not? So what difference does it make where the made-for-TV moment happens?

Answer: It doesn't. Message: That's not what this is about. Here's what this is about: it's about discrediting the only candidate who has a chance to upset the whole cart of rotten apples. Thus the WaPo opines:

When Mr. Gravel says he's not running to win, that ought to be grounds enough to toss him out.

But in fact, as the Washington Post would have known if it had paid any attention, Mr. Gravel has changed his mind about running to win, and he did so after he got a good look at the other candidates.

So give us a break, and let the freshest voices on the scene speak. It's still early -- there's a lot more to this story and it needs time and space to play itself out.

Even the WaPo seems to agree with me on this point:

Yes, at this early stage, poll standing alone isn't enough to exclude a candidate; some serious, experienced candidates are mired in the single digits, and they ought to be given their chance to catch fire. But as the process moves forward, the bar for inclusion should move higher.

Absolutely. I'd like to start by tossing out all those who have committed obvious treason against their country. That would be not only a great start, but it would actually solve the whole problem. And the criteria could be very simple:

• Get rid of everybody who voted to abolish habeas corpus.
• Get rid of everybody who has taken a pledge of allegiance to a foreign country.
• Get rid of everybody who still supports the so called USA-PATRIOT Act.
• Get rid of everybody who still supports the illegal war in Iraq.
• Get rid of everybody who is still threatening Iran.
• Get rid of everybody complicit in the 9/11 coverup!
  

Who'd be left? There would be no more congestion, especially on the Republican side.

And what could be better for the voters who have trouble sorting things out than a race with only one candidate?

Another solution to a still-crowded field would be to structure the debates more usefully to assess the quality of candidates' thinking. Would it be too much to ask for 90-second answers? Or for a format in which candidates could question each other?

Setting reasonable time limits would be a good idea, in my view. And allowing candidates to question one another would be very refreshing.

Allowing candidates to refute one another's lies would be refreshing as well.

The best would be to give sustained attention to a single topic, or at most a few areas. Why not one debate on economic issues such as taxes, spending and trade, another on Iraq and foreign policy, more on domestic issues such as health care, education, the environment and immigration?

"The best"? Puh-leeze! Talk about hubris!!

There are two big problems with "the best" suggestion. First, all these issues are interconnected, and our problems will never be solved by anyone who can't see and articulate the connections. Restricting the topics for each debate would favor the candidates who cannot see the connections -- or worse, the candidates who actively deny that these connections exist.

Second, what happens when the biggest issues of the day don't fall into any of the approved categories? For surely they wouldn't -- especially if the WaPo editorialists were permitted to draw up the categories.

Whether you call it "framing" or something else, it's well known that whoever defines the issues is going to win the debate. So why should anyone other than the candidates themselves define the issues in advance?

Even if debates aren't this rigorously formatted, certainly they could benefit from more focus on a few topics, rather than Thursday's attention-deficit-disorder-style debate, which skipped from belief in evolution (three candidates didn't) to organ donation to I. Lewis Libby.

Possibly. But then again there are 18 months left till the "election" and most candidates don't get much face-to-face time with the public, when they can speak without "benefit" of the media filter. So let them talk, let them talk, let them all talk. We'll figure out who we like.

It can be argued that debates will be more important than ever this election, with its compressed and nationalized primary calendar.

It can also be argued that these debates are meaningless because the election is already rigged, the candidates are already selected, and the big media are already corrupt. Kind of like 2004 again.

But it can also be argued that the debates will be more important than ever this year, not because of the primary schedule but because America faces the gravest crisis in our history. But the media won't talk about that either, so they're stuck trying to exclude the most interesting candidates of each party from the debates, while ironically concluding:

It's in everyone's interest to rethink how they are conducted.

I tried to measure that line on the Irony Meter, but as you already know, it's broken!

~~~

Thanks to Bluebear2 for this -- and much more!

Big Surprise: US Troops Used 'Excessive Force' In Firing On Unarmed Civilians In Afghanistan ... Somalia ... Korea ...

BBC News reports:

US marines violated international humanitarian law by using excessive violence in reaction to a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan, a report says.

The reaction was disproportionate and indiscriminate force used, it said.

That's certainly what it looked like at the time, even though they didn't want us seeing the results, as we mentioned a few days later in "No Photos, Please: Marines Gun Down Civilians In Afghanistan"

At least 12 civilians died and 35 were injured during the incident which took place on 4 March in Nangarhar province.

According to reports we quoted at the time, the original suicide bombing attack had injured one US Marine. Other Marines turned and opened fire on civilians moving along a nearby road, firing randomly into cars and at pedestrians.

And we were not allowed to see photographs of the scene at the time, because, as we mentioned on March 11, the story was an example of How The US Military Protects The American Public From Seeing Details That Are Not As They Originally Were, And Brings Freedom To Afghanistan.

The Afghan report said that, in failing to distinguish between civilian and legitimate military targets, the US marine corps used "indiscriminate force".

"Their actions thus constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian law standards," it said.

Well, you know how it is when you're in a foreign country, you know nothing about the culture, you know nothing about the language, everybody around you is (or could be) the enemy, and who are you supposed to trust?

Besides, you can always say they were shooting at you, and if you're lucky they'll count the bodies as dead terrorists and there won't even be an investigation.

On the other hand not everybody is so lucky. In this case not only have the "hosts" been investigating, but so have the "guests".

A preliminary US investigation agreed with the report that the unit did not come under small-arms fire after the bombing, US media reports said.

Maj Gen Frank H Kearney III, who ordered the inquiry, told the Washington Post newspaper it had found no evidence that the victims were fighters.

"My investigating officer believes these folks were innocent," he was quoted as saying.

That's what it looked like at the time. However:

A US military spokesman said shortly after the incident that the civilians might have been killed by incoming fire from an ambush by insurgents which followed the bombing.

But there was no ambush. Thus we read:

Evidence of a complex ambush involving militant gunmen who fired on the convoy was "far from conclusive", the report said.

According to the authors of the report, who spoke to victims, police and hospital officials as well as eyewitnesses, the marines fired indiscriminately on civilians and their vehicles as they left the scene.

That was the ambush: civilians leaving the scene.

Maj Gen Kearney said no ammunition casings had been found that might substantiate reports that the marines were fired on.

"We found ... no brass that we can confirm that small-arms fire came at them," he told the Washington Post.

No brass. No shell casings. No weapons either. Rather than evidence of incoming fire, what the investigators did find was evidence of lying.

"We have testimony from marines that is in conflict with unanimous testimony from civilians at the site."

Unanimous testimony from civilians at the site is a powerful thing, unless one can show that the civilians are collaborating to tell a unanimous lie. But that gets to be a bit like a conspiracy theory.

On the other hand, it's always useful to say the people you killed were shooting at you, even when it's palpably untrue. Because by the time your story is contradicted, the first news has broken and the story is formed.

This is yet another example of details that are not as they were, but as we can all see, the privilege of passing out details that are not as they were is reserved for the troops who we are asked to support, even if we don't support the war itself.

Thus we suffer not only the burden of waging unnecessary war but also the burden of unnecessary cognitive dissonance.

But that's nothing.

Because halfway around the world, people who never did anything to us have once again suffered "disproportionate and indiscriminate force" because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when some trigger-happy Americans nearby were attacked.

Oh well. At least they were spared having to endure details that were not as they were at the time.

~~~

Not so lucky were the refugees from the violence following the US-backed Ethiopian proxy overthrow of Somalia's Islamic Courts, as we've mentioned previously and which has been admirably documented in a series of posts from Chris Floyd (see links here).

As we have mentioned, and as Chris has discussed in detail, refugees fleeing the violence have been bombed, arrested, imprisoned and tortured -- all without anyone coming under any kind of attack, under the pretext that al-Q'aeda fighters may be among them.

Meanwhile, a short and informative piece from Ivan Eland at Consortium News details how the instability the Ethiopian intervention was intended to "cure" was caused by American meddling in the first place.

After 9/11, the Bush administration feared that the absence of a strong government in the “failed state” of Somalia could turn the small east–African country—slightly smaller than Texas—into a haven for terrorists.

The administration ignored the fact that other states with weak governments have not become sanctuaries for terrorists. Even if Somalia had become a terrorist enclave, the terrorists, absent some U.S. provocation, probably would not have attacked the faraway United States.

As a result of the administration’s unfounded fear, the United States began supporting unpopular warlords in the strife-torn nation. That’s when the real trouble began.

The radical Islamists in Somalia never had much following until the Somali people became aware that an outside power was supporting the corrupt and thuggish military chieftains. The popularity of the Islamist movement then surged, allowing the Islamists to take over much of the country.

In sum, where no problem with radical Islamists previously existed, the U.S. government helped create one.

Eland classifies this as another example of American policy-makers making "mistakes"; like Chris Floyd, your nearly frozen correspondent takes a dim view of the "eternal incompetence" defense, and regards these events as much more deliberate -- as well as more sinister.

Perhaps it would be easier to see things the way Ivan Eland does, and it would certainly be more comfortable, but reality keeps getting in the wday. Lately, we've been reading about an imprisoned refugee who was because he wouldn't claim an affiliation with al-Q'aeda, and about another who is still being held because he won't agree to work undercover for his American captors. It's difficult to imagine how these practices -- like much else about the way America now approaches the rest of the world -- could still be in place, if they were mere accidents.

But even this treatment may be merciful, compared to past American actions. As Chris has reported most recently, American troops exterminated hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of refugees fleeing from violence in Korea in 1950, under the pretext that North Korean Communists may be among them, according to recently released papers.

Of course, in the 1950s there was no internet, and a good lie was sufficient to cover such atrocities with a web of deceit that could last for fifty years or more. Nowadays there's much more independent communication going on, and more independent journalism too, so in addition to a good lie we need a world-wide system of "terrorist attacks" and the continual unmasking of "terror cells" to keep a cap on the grisly truth. But still the truth gets out.

As Chris Floyd points out,

Mercilessness toward refugees is a venerable tradition in American military policy.

And the sooner we all take in this very simple truth -- and its none-too-simple implications -- the better off we all will be, as this bogus war rages on to its quietly scheduled conclusion.

REVEALED: Rove Deleted His Email Accidentally!

Finally! Here's a story that will put to rest all the idle speculation about one of the ugliest pseudo-scandals in recent American history. Now, finally, all has been revealed:

Karl Rove didn't mean to delete all the email which the White House says it can't find. He was just doing the usual housekeeping that people do when they organize their email, and he had no idea that messages were being deleted from the server as well as from his inbox.

Karl Rove's lawyer on Friday dismissed the notion that President Bush's chief political adviser intentionally deleted his own e-mails from a Republican-sponsored server, saying Rove believed the communications were being preserved in accordance with the law.
...
"His understanding starting very, very early in the administration was that those e-mails were being archived," Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said.

And everybody knows attorneys never lie, and Rove never lies, so it's simply inconceivable that Rove's attorney could be less than truthful about this.

So.

There's no need to lose any further sleep over the "loss" of thousands of potentially incriminating documents, because they weren't deliberately shredded, they were just accidentally deleted. And there was nothing to hide anyway.

That's why the White House can confidently state that

the administration is making an honest effort to recover any lost e-mails.

You see? It's all quite simple and above-board.

So just move along, there's no story here.

Nobody lied, nobody died, nobody cried.

It's just a political witch-hunt. That's all.

And it's pointless, because everybody knows there are no witches in the White House.

Just a bunch of slimy bottom-feeders who will say anything to stay in power for another day, and whose lies are getting more transparent all the time.

The prosecutor probing the Valerie Plame spy case saw and copied all of Rove's e-mails from his various accounts after searching Rove's laptop, his home computer, and the handheld computer devices he used for both the White House and Republican National Committee, Luskin said.

The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, subpoenaed the e-mails from the White House, the RNC and Bush's re-election campaign, he added.

"There's never been any suggestion that Fitzgerald had anything less than a complete record," Luskin said.

Yeah, sure! That's a good one. How would a prosecutor know if there was anything missing? Unless Rove kept a list of the email messages he had deleted, there would be no way to know what was missing ... and because Fitzgerald never complained that anything was missing, that proves what, exactly?

Oh, it just doesn't say. How unfortunate. But whatever...

The mystery of the missing e-mails is just one part of a furor over the firings of eight federal prosecutors that has threatened Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' job and thrown his Justice Department into turmoil.

For now, Bush is standing by his longtime friend from Texas, who has spent weeks huddled in his fifth-floor conference room at the Justice Department preparing to tell his story to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

New documents released Friday by the Justice Department may shed additional light, but their release prompted Gonzales' one-time chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to postpone a closed-door interview with congressional investigators.

Again, more evidence that this is nothing but a pseudo-tempest in a pseudo-teapot.

If Alberto Gonzales had done anything wrong, do you think it would take him weeks to prepare for a little bit of testimony?

And if Kyle Sampson had anything to hide, would he be postponing interviews with investigators?

Of course not. Move along. Lah-de-dah. Pfft.

We Can't Depend On The Democrats And Even Cindy Sheehan Has Noticed

It's nice to see some essential knowledge moving through the ... um ... food chain ... belatedly or otherwise ...

This report comes to us from Iran, where it's already "Sunday, 8 April 2007"

Bush Critic Blasts Democrats

CRAWFORD, Texas, April 6--Prominent Iraq war opponent Cindy Sheehan urged US President George W. Bush on Friday to "end this madness" and accused his Democratic foes of having "betrayed" their anti-war supporters.

Sheehan, whose soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004, led dozens of protesters to a security checkpoint near Bush's Texas ranch, set up a makeshift altar, and read out names of some of the US dead in Iraq.

"Our message is: Today is Good Friday, when Jesus Christ was killed by the Roman Empire. He rose again on Sunday, came back to life. But our loved ones won't be coming home" from Iraq, she told reporters.

The protesters will tell Bush "to end this madness for our families," said Sheehan, who took a tough line against Democrats who harnessed anger at the Iraq war to recapture the US Congress in November.

"They got there and they betrayed the grass roots that put them back there," she said. "We can't depend on the Democrats."

I wonder what tipped her off?

The Democrats are locked in a bitter struggle with Bush over an emergency war funding bill that would set a timetable calling for a withdrawal of US forces from the strife-torn country in 2008.

"The timeline is now, not 18 months, not two years, or whenever they feel like it," said Sheehan.

The anti-war movement "lost a little momentum during the elections, but it's picking up again" because "the Democrats aren't really doing anything" to end the conflict, she said.

"There are hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and America who are dead forever, and there are families who are destroyed forever because of George Bush's policies," she told reporters.

Sheehan started visiting Crawford in the summer of 2005 when she wanted to meet with Bush while he vacationing at his ranch. Bush had met with her after her son died but did not see her again, although he sent some top aides to talk to her.

Democrats have attached a troop withdrawal timetable to their legislation, and Bush has vowed to veto it if it reaches his desk.

Speaking of which, it's amazing the amount of venom the chumperor has been spending on a bill he has no intention of signing. Imagine the whimpering sounds that we'd hear coming from the Oval Orifice if the Democrats had anything like 2/3 of the votes -- and the will to use them!

On The David Hicks Case And The Mainstreaming Of Modern American Insanity

Under the insane headline Some Bumps at Start of War Tribunals at Guantánamo, William Glaberson writes even more insanity for the New York Times (and the emphasis is mine):

As the first of the war crimes cases under a new law began here a few days ago, a military law specialist said it was a test run “to show that this plane will fly.”

If I'm writing it, I'm asking: What sort of nonsense is this? Is this your new public diplomacy "proving ground"?

You notice the pentagon never has "testing" anymore, just "proving". They never want to find out whether the plane will fly, only to show that it will.

And sometimes it won't, of course. What insanity! But it's a traditional military insanity, and of only slight import compared to the horrendous new insanity initiated in the immediate wake of 9/11.

From the start, Guantánamo, its detainees and the legal proceedings here have provided enough grist to support the competing views of the detention center: a necessary mechanism for dealing with a new kind of enemy, or the embodiment of the war on terror gone awry.

What a bald-faced lie!

From the start?? Guantánamo has never provided any "grist" to support the view that it is "a necessary mechanism for dealing with a new kind of enemy", if by "grist" one means actual legitimate palpable and/or verifiable evidence.

Or, as Chris Floyd points out,

Only a self-deluded fool [...] could believe that the hideous regime of concentration camps, secret prisons, torture, kidnapping and "extrajudicial killing" established by Bush is anything but "the embodiment of the war on terror gone awry."

But oh! no! the Times also tells us:

Military officers quickly began to refer to Mr. Hicks as the “convicted war criminal” in the not-so-subtle battle of competing words here.
...
To the prosecutors and the extensive public relations apparatus assembled by the military here, Mr. Hicks’s case proved, as one spokeswoman regularly repeated, that the military commission system offers a “fair, legitimate and transparent forum.”
...
The chief military prosecutor, Col. Morris D. Davis of the Air Force, told reporters ... it was ... a victory for a much maligned system that he said had been unfairly criticized before it was given a chance to prove it could deliver justice.

“There’s a notion that this is a rigged system,” he said when asked if he was disappointed by the outcome. “I think this shows that’s not true.”

But then you look at the case, and how it was settled, and there's just so much more nonsense, all interleaved with reasons why the David Hicks case shows exactly the opposite of what the five-sided demons claim. Listen:

The military commissions being convened here are special war crimes tribunals to try terrorists that do not offer the legal protections of civilian courts. One justification for the looser rules is that they will deal with the worst of the worst.

But the first man through the double doors of the heavily secured courtroom here was no Osama bin Laden. He was David Hicks, a 31-year-old Australian whose lawyer described him as a ninth-grade dropout and “wannabe soldier” who ran away when the shooting started in Afghanistan.

Glaberson doesn't quite get around to mentioning the fact that before the shooting started in Afghanistan, the Taliban and al-Q'aeda were supported by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, which in turn was supported by the CIA. Not for nothing is al-Q'aeda sometimes called "al-CIA-duh".

Of course the New York Times doesn't call it that.

In the somber, makeshift courtroom, the lead prosecutor of the Hicks case, Lt. Col. Kevin Chenail of the Marines, tried to portray Mr. Hicks as public enemy No. 1.

“Today in this courtroom, we are on the front lines of the global war on terror,” Colonel Chenail told a panel of military officers assembled from around the globe Friday to hear arguments on the appropriate sentence. Mr. Hicks pleaded guilty on Monday to providing material support to Al Qaeda. “The enemy is sitting at the defense table,” Colonel Chenail added, gesturing to Mr. Hicks. “We are face to face with the enemy” who was “trying to kill Americans,” he said.

Killing Americans how? By running away when the shooting started?

He admitted training with Al Qaeda, guarding a Taliban tank and scouting a closed American embassy building. But there is no evidence he was considering a terrorist attack or capable of carrying one out. Yet he was held five years and four months before he got his day in court. And at the end of a very long day at the tribunal Friday, his actual sentence was only nine months...

The worst of the worst? The first "detainee" to be tried? Held for sixty-four months before he could even get a sham hearing, and then sentenced to nine months more? Doesn't he get credit for time served? He's done the nine months already, plus fifty-five more. For what? For being tortured?

To some in the courtroom, the proceedings proved only that the system was rigged to show detainees that the only way out of Guantánamo was to give the prosecutors what they wanted. Not only did Mr. Hicks plead guilty, but he also signed a plea bargain in which he recanted his accusations about being abused in detention and promised not to speak to reporters for a year.

In the courtroom, the military judge had Mr. Hicks acknowledge each of the contentious provision[s] of his deal. Mr. Hicks, the judge read, agreed that he had “never been illegally treated” while in American captivity, including “through the entire period of your detention by the United States at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.” Mr. Hicks agreed to that statement.

Doesn't it all depend on what you mean by "illegal"? And if a twice-unelected president of a former democracy says some "interrogation technique" is "legal", then it's legal. That's the new rule, isn't it? So the statement Mr. Hicks agreed to is not so far-fetched after all.

It's the system that's far-fetched.

Mr. Hicks’s lawyer, Maj. Michael Mori of the Marines, said he was speaking for his client, who he said was too nervous to speak for himself. “He wants to apologize to Australia and to the United States,” Major Mori said during the proceedings, adding that Mr. Hicks wanted to thank members of the armed services who, he said, had treated him professionally.

OMG! This is too thick to scrape off your shoes without power tools! And the New York Times reports it straight.

Is this the same David Hicks who, according to another NYT article of less than two weeks ago,

alleges in court document that he was beaten several times during interrogations and witnessed abuse of other prisoners during more than five years in American custody; Hicks, an Australian seeking British citizenship, says abuse began during interrogations in Afghanistan, where he was captured in late 2001...

Sometimes I wonder whether the old grey bitch is afraid of being charged with treason or whether that's just a ploy to make it seem like she's a Bush opponent. After all, the wingnuts can't claim the media is left-biased if the NYT licks Bush's shoes all day every day, can they?

In fact they can and they do say anything they like, regardless of whether it has any truth to it at all, or just a smidgen.

But in reality, and as expressed by

observers from advocacy and human rights groups here to monitor the proceedings, the plea deal Mr. Hicks reached was fresh evidence of the coercive power of this place. The plea bargain included a provision that will get Mr. Hicks out of detention here and into an Australian prison to serve the rest of his sentence within 60 days.

It takes that long to arrange transportation? What are all the unmarked planes doing? Isn't one of them free sometime in the next month, or six weeks, anyway? Or is Mr. Hicks' accommodation down under a problem?

Actually the whole Hicks case has been a problem down under, and one can't avoid the thought that this is why they dealt with him first.

There had been growing diplomatic pressure on the Bush administration to return Mr. Hicks to Australia, where his case has drawn wide attention and where Prime Minister John Howard, one of President Bush’s most stalwart supporters, is facing a tough re-election fight.

David Hicks has become a cause celebre in Australia. How many prisoners are held hostage at Guantánamo? And how many of them have the weight of an entire country -- an allied country at that -- behind them? And it goes without saying that an allied country which happens to be a so-called democracy must be led by an insane warmonger who is facing a re-election bid soon. Ah ha ha!

Ben Wizner, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who is one of the regular observers in the courtroom here, said the deal showed that the military commission was intended to bring cases to the conclusion the government wants. “A person here, in order to have any hope of going home,” he said, “has to play by whatever rules the government sets.”

Jennifer Daskal, an observer for Human Rights Watch, said after the sentencing that the unusual rule silencing Mr. Hicks for a year showed that the government’s primary goal was “the protection against the disclosure of abuse.”

The most sensible comment came from Hicks himself, through his attorney:

Other than a few muted words in court, Mr. Hicks was not heard from directly. But as developments unfolded, David H. B. McLeod, an Australian lawyer working with the defense, provided insight into Mr. Hicks’s thoughts.

“He says that if he is the worst of the worst, and the person who should be put before a military commission first,” Mr. McLeod said, “then the world really hasn’t got much to worry about.”

Well that's insane too because the world has a great deal to worry about.

If I were a worrier I would worry about the way the national discourse has been shifted so far into the pro-torture realm that anyone, anywhere -- much less the NYT -- could possibly write a "fair-and-balanced" piece on such a heinous subject.

Fair and balanced now appears to be everywhere -- except the blogs with axes to grind -- but what it means in practice is that the wingnut insanity: indefinite detention without charge or hearing, much less a speedy trial; various forms of torture -- up to and including murder; "military tribunals" where confessions obtained under extreme duress are considered acceptable, and this is not to mention the sort of debacle we saw with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, where the pentagon released a "transcript" of an alleged hearing, with no video, no audio, not even a current photograph, and a "confession" that reads like a laundry list.

In the very midst of describing the horrors, is it really necessary to include the defense department's mantra?

Mr. Hicks’s case proved, as one spokeswoman regularly repeated, that the military commission system offers a “fair, legitimate and transparent forum.”

Yeah, sure it does.

Hey spokesman: You ever hang from the ceiling by your wrists while the guards smash your legs with baseball bats? No? You should try it sometime.

The fact that we are even discussing such a thing would have come as a shock to most Americans -- I would hope -- not all that long ago. But now, as Chris Floyd reads the not-so-subtle message just behind the lines:

This view -- the open acceptance of concentration camps, indefinite detention and unconstitutional judicial processes -- can actually be "supported" by the workings of the kangaroo court thus far, the venerable Times informs us. Check out this classic case of accomodation with evil masquerading as journalistic objectivity: "From the start, Guantánamo, its detainees and the legal proceedings here have provided enough grist to support the competing views of the detention center: a necessary mechanism for dealing with a new kind of enemy, or the embodiment of the war on terror gone awry."

Only a self-deluded fool -- either blinded by the cowardly panic that is the hallmark of the Bootlicker Brigade (Malkin, Limbaugh, Beck, etc.) or dulled by the well-wadded cozy "insider" status of our media barons (recently on such sickening display at the Gridiron Club Dinner love-in with all the adorable Bushies) -- could believe that the hideous regime of concentration camps, secret prisons, torture, kidnapping and "extrajudicial killing" established by Bush is anything but "the embodiment of the war on terror gone awry." Yet these mindsets -- the bootlickers and the well-wadded barons -- control our national discourse...and will continue to do so, as we noted yesterday, long after George W. Bush has retreated to his bunker in the Texas scrub, leaving a scorched earth behind.

At this point I'm not sure which is more dangerous -- the hideous regime of concentration camps, secret prisons, torture, kidnapping and "extrajudicial killing" established by Bush or the extent to which it is being "mainstreamed".

This isn't hard to figure out, folks. If David Hicks is among the worst of the worst, the whole system stinks on ice!

And if William Glaberson gets paid for this bootlicking blather -- by the New York Times, no less -- while Chris Floyd blogs ...

Cynthia McKinney Speaks At The Pentagon: 'Voting for Complicity'

My friends! Some great things are happening and I want to update you on them all -- or at least the ones I can remember right now!

First of all, St. Patrick's Day is my birthday and I received a wonderful message from my son saying how atypical his mom is: she spent her birthday protesting the government! Well, the message was wonderful because he at least remembered it was my birthday! We're making progress here . . .

But that day was incredible. First of all it was so darn cold my mouth was freezing as I was trying to give my remarks!!! However, the crowd was enthusiastic. They had to be. The march organizers told me that 60 buses couldn't make it out of the north because of the weather! Yes, the night before it was snowy and sleeting. Driving was treacherous. So the ones who did make it, braved the elements to be there. People came from Texas, Indiana, and all over to be there. I went up with my contingent from Georgia! I'm renaming my remarks, "Voting for Complicity" because that's exactly what the Democratic vote to fund the surge and Bush's wars is. Here's a youtube link of my remarks.

As you know, I participated in the Malaysia Peace Commission and it was mentioned in an article describing how Bush and Blair have opened themselves up for prosecution. Believe me, the international community has established the mechanism for justice and we must demand that justice be served to the international community and the American community betrayed by its leaders. The March 18, 2007 London Sunday Telegraph article starts out: "The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said in an interview that he can envision a scenario in which President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair could one day face war-crimes charges at The Hague." The article goes on to mention the Malaysia effort organized by former Prime Minister Mahatir.

I have been asked to join the Hurricane Katrina Tribunal and to take its findings to the Malaysia effort as a crime against humanity. And as I mentioned before, I have accepted the invitation to join the Brussells Tribunal on Iraq, too. I promise I'll send more information on these efforts!

I will continue the work for justice. I invite you all to please visit my website All Things Cynthia McKinney dot Com and if you can, please make a donation to help us retire our 2006 campaign debt. All donations are greatly appreciated and much needed. It's difficult to move forward for 2008 if we haven't settled our responsibilities for 2006. Here's the donation page. Thank you in advance for your help and support!

I am meeting such committed Americans as I travel around the country. Please feel free to drop me a line at this e-mail address. For those who are not on my regular list, just tell me to put you on my updates list. For those of you who are, please share these updates with your internet circle of friends. Let's get the word out that the hard work of taking our country back is being done every day by a small, but committed core group who are not afraid of the machinery of intimidation being hurtled at all Americans on a regular basis. Think about that the next time you find yourself undressing at the airport. Only we can save our country from what it is becoming.

Once again, thank you for your support! Here are my birthday remarks in front of the Pentagon:

"Voting for Complicity"

Cynthia McKinney
Remarks in front of the Pentagon
March 17, 2007

Well, it seems that George Bush and Democratic Leaders were right.

They confidently told us that not only would Democrats fund the surge, but that the Democrats would not stop action in Iran, too.

Now, we are not surprised when the unelected, illegitimate Administration of George Bush ignores us, but we are shocked that the Democratic majority in Congress chose war over us as we say Bring our troops home now!

The answer is clear: Our country has been hijacked.

What about a livable wage for America's workers?

What about the right of return for Katrina survivors?

What about repealing the Patriot Act, the Secret Evidence Act, and the Military Tribunals Act?

Why is impeachment "off the table"?

Our country is bankrupt yet this institution, the Pentagon, has "lost" 2.3 trillion dollars!

I want that money back . . .

For jobs . . . for health care . . . for education . . . for our veterans!

The Democrats have become so timid they won't even repeal the Bush tax cuts as a strategy to deal with a bankrupt nation.

Seems the story is the same: more money for war, but we can't feed the poor.

It's hard to believe, but now the Democrats are full partners in George Bush's wars.

And by funding his wars, the Democratic Congress is explicitly complicit.

Complicit in war crimes!
Complicit in torture!
Complicit in crimes against humanity!
Complicit in crimes against peace!

The FBI spied on us;
Condoleezza, Dick, and George lied to us.

In 1957, Dr. King observed that "Both political parties have betrayed the cause of justice."

And so it must be repeated today.

Our beloved America is dividing again into two Americas. Our struggle is for nothing less than the soul of our country.

We want an America that is respected in the commonwealth of man; we want our values to shine like a beacon throughout the world.

As an American of conscience, I hereby declare my independence from every bomb dropped, every threat leveled, every civil liberties rollback, every child killed, every veteran maimed, every man tortured.

And I sadly declare my independence from the leaders who let it happen.

We will not stop. We will win. We will take our country back!

Bush Urges His Private Death Squad To Speed Up The Slow Rush To War With Iran

Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post reports:
Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq

The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.
...
In Iraq, U.S. troops now have the authority to target any member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as well as officers of its intelligence services believed to be working with Iraqi militias. [...] Bush administration officials have been urging top military commanders to exercise the authority.

The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war.

Or -- on the contrary -- they might be intended to provoke a reaction which could then be used as a pretext for war with Iran.

Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque noticed that the Iranians who are being attacked in Iraq are in the country at the request of the government -- the government supported by the USA -- and as he says in Death and Dishonor: Bush's New Assassination Order, this leaves no doubt:

The purpose of the order is to provoke Iran into some action that can be trumpeted as a casus belli for the Bush Faction's long-planned war against Iran.

What Bush has done with this order is to turn the American military into his own private death squad. It is an act of breathtaking dishonor, of unspeakable moral filth. That this pathetic little man and the jumped-up thugs around him – especially the hulking, smirking, lying coward Dick Cheney – are allowed to show their faces among civilized people, much less exercise power over a mighty nation, remains an unfathomable mystery...and a source of deep shame for all Americans.

Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane of Raw Story have been collecting the history of our long slow rush to war. In Escalation of US Iran military planning part of six-year Administration push, they write:

The escalation of US military planning on Iran is only the latest chess move in a six-year push within the Bush Administration to attack Iran
...
While Iran was named a part of President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” in 2002, efforts to ignite a confrontation with Iran date back long before the post-9/11 war on terror. Presently, the Administration is trumpeting claims that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than the CIA’s own analysis shows and positing Iranian influence in Iraq’s insurgency, but efforts to destabilize Iran have been conducted covertly for years, often using members of Congress or non-government actors in a way reminiscent of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.

There's much more good new reporting at Raw from Larisa and Muriel, including a timeline, The Build Up To Iran, which details -- step by deliberate bloodthirsty step -- exactly how our rogue administration has brought us to the very brink of war with a country which has done nothing to us or any of our people. Every step of the timeline is documented by references to mainstream news sources, so it will be invaluable for batting away wingnuts, but whether it will cut much ice against the professional mass-murderers who now run our country remains to be seen.

What is Bush thinking?

Stephen P. Pizzo at Atlantic Free Press calls it another game of Texas Hold-em and says:

He's not putting his own children's lives at risk, but OPK – Other People's Kids. [...] As long as he can keep feeding fresh troops into Iraq his project cannot be proven a failure. If Bush can just keep borrowing other people's kids to place at risk, and rolling over – renewing — his Iraq policy for just two more years, he's home free. It's another Texas “win/win” in which the perp gets away and the American people pay the price.

Pizzo is writing about banking scams and Iraq, but I believe the same demented keep-it-rolling philosophy is also driving the administration's policies in Iran, the Middle East, and the whole so-called War on so-called Terror.

In a nutshell: It's not their money being poured into Iraq, and it's not their blood either, but they and their moneyed base reap the profits.

It's not all about money, of course; to a certain extent it's also about power. But it's also about responsibility, and the avoidance thereof.

They simply can't stop now; they're in too-dangerous waters. If they stopped making war and allowed the truth to be revealed -- the truth about the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the truth about upcoming wars with Iran and likely Syria, the truth about 9/11, the truth about the so-called the War on Terror -- their final shred of legitimacy would vanish in an instant, and the so-called president and all his war-profiteering cronies -- the "have-mores" he likes to call his "base" -- would be one small step from the guillotines.



Am I dreaming? Of course I am. But at least it's a pleasant dream.

One small step for a few vicious men, and one giant leap for mankind.

Newly Linked

[UPDATED below]

I've just linked a couple of new blogs on the sidebar and I wanted to draw your attention to them, as things are busy over there and here too at the moment, and you could easily have missed them.

Steve Burks : Shooting Straight

Steve Burks is a musician and writer from Gary, Indiana via Dallas, Texas. He popped up on my radar screen when he blogged about Sibel Edmonds and had me on the floor when he turned on his diplomacy blocker and said what he really thought about Dixie-Chick Haters.

So I kept reading and found that Steve is really thoughtful and thought-provoking; he hasn't blogged a lot lately but what he has posted at Shooting Straight seems really good to me. From one musician and writer to another: Keep up the good work, Steve. I'll be reading you.

Ranger Against War

Then there's the Special Forces vet who now blogs against the war from an undisclosed location in the USA. He came to my attention when he mentioned Janis Karpinski and I got reading a bit on his blog, RangerAgainstWar, and I found myself really enjoying it, especially in the spots where he and I don't exactly see eye-to-eye ... and there are quite a few of those spots, so it's been very interesting reading him. I think you'll probably enjoy reading him, too.

You might want to start with "Disarmament", a post which makes a ton of sense, and which, since I found it, has been linked by Juan Cole at Informed Comment. So this Ranger's undisclosed location is probably getting a ton of traffic at the moment, and it's very well-deserved, in my opinion.

From one undisclosed location to another, Congrats! and Please keep up the good work. I'll be reading you too.

Pen And Sword

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) was operations officer of a naval air wing and an aircraft carrier, and commanded an E-2C Hawkeye aircraft squadron. His satires and analyses of military and foreign policy affairs have appeared in Proceedings, The Navy, Jane's Fighting Ships, and other print periodicals. Some of his essays have been required student reading at the U.S. Naval War College, where he received a master's degree in national security studies in 1995.

His "Navy Admiral Goes to CENTCOM: Be Very Afraid" caught my eye when it appeared at Larisa's blog and his blog, Pen And Sword, looks excellent (from what I've seen so far).

As always, your comments are invited.

Webster Tarpley: Filibuster al Q'aeda Founder Robert Gates

From Webster G. Tarpley via Total911.info courtesy of Salo ...
Dems set to roll over for Qaeda architect Gates

The nomination of Robert Gates to be Secretary of Defense must be rejected. Gates is deeply implicated in three decades of crimes by the intelligence community. There is no reason to think he intends to begin the necessary rapid departure of US forces from Iraq. His nomination by Bush can only be read as a deliberate provocation directed against the new Democratic Congress. Will the Democrats fight back, or will they capitulate? The American people are watching the Democratic Senators carefully, and they are appalled by the self-congratulatory and clubby narcissism of the Senate at a time when US forces are facing encirclement and decimation in Iraq and Afghanistan. . Senators must not only vote against Gates; they must stop the confirmation process with a filibuster. A look at Gates’ sordid record shows why.

Robert Gates was an integral part of the gun-running, drug-running, and death squad murders lumped under the heading of the Iran-Contra scandal. Gates started in Iran-contra as a stooge of William Casey, and continued under Bush the elder.

When Gates was nominated by Reagan to be head of the CIA in 1987, his role in Iran-contra crimes was already so filthy and so blatant that he was forced to drop out of contention under questioning. In doing this, Gates was seeking to defend his new master, George H.W. Bush, who at that time was preparing a presidential bid for 1988. The elder Bush was the czar of all Reagan-Bush covert operations, including Iran-contra. Gates fell on his sword to avoid revelations which would have doomed the candidacy of Bush the elder. Payback for Gates came in June 1991, when he was nominated once again to be head of the CIA, this time by Bush the elder. Sam Nunn and some others posed embarrassing questions, but this time the cover-up of Gates’ Iran-contra role was supervised by Sen. David Boren of the Bush Skull & Bones clique. The Democrats, intimated by the elder Bush’s apparent victory in the first Gulf war, rolled over. If Gates was too dirty to even get to a vote in committee in 1987, how can he be acceptable today? If Democratic Senators like Levin and Biden opposed Gates in 1991, how can they find him acceptable for a much more important post at a time of far greater crisis?

Gates’ resume is marked by a total absence of independent and competent judgment. His pedigree is rather that of a stooge who serves powerful masters. The first was Reagan’s CIA Director William Casey, the kingpin of Iran-contra. The second was George H.W. Bush, who took over that role from Casey. Gates appears as a Bush family retainer, as when he was tapped by the family in 1999 to become Dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. Gates is a secret government toady, not the autonomous figure of integrity required to terminate US involvement in Bush’s catstrophic Iraq adventure.

The Bush regime has become infamous for fixing the facts and the intelligence to suit the pre-determined policy of aggression and adventurism. As Pentagon chief, Gates would control the majority of the US intelligence budget. His track record promises nothing but more faked intelligence. In September 1991, Time Magazine cited widespread reports that Gates "cooked the books" while he was at the CIA to support the political demands of the Reagan and Bush regimes. A New York Times editorial of November 4, 1991 concluded that "charges that Mr. Gates slanted intelligence assessments, leaving Congress in the dark and more amenable to administration policy, stand unrefuted." George Shultz reports in his memoirs that he “felt that Gates was giving me an idealized picture of what was an altogether different reality,” and complained to Gates on January 5, 1987, "I don't have any confidence in the intelligence community… I feel you try to manipulate me. So you have a very dissatisfied customer. If this were a business, I'd find myself another supplier." The Senate would be well advised to find itself another supplier today. Will Gates resist the new attacks on Iran, Syria. North Korea, demanded by Cheney and the neocons? His assurances in this regard are worthless.

In the final report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Lawrence Walsh left little doubt that he believed Gates had given perjured testimony during that investigation. But Walsh concluded that the matters involved were so complicated that it would be very difficult to prove them before a jury. For this reason and for no other, Gates did not face criminal charges for perjury.

Most damning of all is the fact that Gates was one of the founders of al Qaeda, the CIA’s Arab Legion which was assembled to attack the Soviets in Afghanistan. Gates is thus part of the infrastructure that produced the patsies of 9/11:

According to former CIA Director Robert Gates' memoir From the Shadows, the big expansion of the US covert operation in Afghanistan began in 1984. During this year, "the size of the CIA's covert program to help the Mujaheddin increased several times over," reaching a level of about $500 million in US and Saudi payments funneled through the Zia regime in Pakistan. As Gates recalled, "it was during this period [1985] that we began to learn of a significant increase in the number of Arab nationals from other countries who had traveled to Afghanistan to fight in the Holy War against the Soviets. They came from Syria, Iraq, Algeria, and elsewhere, and most fought with the Islamic fundamentalist Muj groups, particularly that headed by Abdul Resaul Sayyaf. We examined ways to increase their participation, perhaps in the form of some sort of 'international brigade,' but nothing came of it. Years later, these fundamentalist fighters trained by the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan would begin to show up around the world, from the Middle East to New York City, still fighting their Holy War – only now including the United States among their enemies. Our mission was to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan. We expected a post-Soviet Afghanistan to be ugly, but never considered that it would become a haven for terrorists operating worldwide." (Gates 349) But the international brigade Gates talked about was in fact created – as the group now known as al Qaeda. (Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror, pp.139-140 )

This is the same al Qaeda which provided the troupe of patsies, psychotics, and double agents (bin Laden, Atta, Moussaoui, etc.) which were used to pin the 9/11 attacks on Arabs and Moslems – instead of the US bankers’ rogue network which actually carried out 9/11 for geopolitical reasons. Gates is up to his ears in the terror apparatus of this rogue network, the September criminals who created 9/11.

There can be no question of approving such a candidate. Even the Senate’s willingness to hold hearings for so compromised a figure amounts to an obscene farce. In the recent election, Democrats campaigned against the rubber-stamp Republican Congress. These same Democrats dare not rubber stamp the Gates nomination now. In particular, Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate are reminded that if they fail to filibuster Gates, the aroused anti-war base of the Democratic Party will demand accountability on the campaign trail. We do not want bi-partisan sellouts, but rather a real opposition to the Bush regime and its crimes. Above all, we want 9/11 truth as the essential precondition for restoring lawful government.

Webster G. Tarpley
Washington DC

Thanks to Webster Tarpley, Total911.info, and Salo.

As usual, Webster Tarpley says many of the same things that I've been saying, but in my opinion he says them better than I do.

Your comments, as always, are most welcome.

J.F.K. and the Bay of Pigs

“If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched.”

-– George H. W. Bush, cited in the June 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter.

A BLAST FROM THE PAST: Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote this letter to his brother Nov. 8, 1954:

"Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this -- in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything–even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government.

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man rom other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

One of those Texas Oil Millionaires, and part of the "tiny splinter group" is none other than George H. W. Bush.

41’s bio:

…A few months before the end of the war, while on rotation home, he married Barbara Pierce, whose father published the magazines Redbook and McCall’s. After the war,
...
Although he was offered a job at his father’s firm, Brown Brothers, Harriman and Company, Bush moved, with his wife and infant son, to west Texas, where he worked for Dresser Industries, an oilfield supply company. He started at the bottom, sweeping warehouses and painting machinery, but soon became a salesman of drilling bits.

By 1950, he had gone into business for himself, forming the Bush-Overby Company with partner John Overby in Midland, Texas. This company, which dealt in oil and gas properties, grew and took on more partners. In 1954, George Bush co-founded and became the president of Zapata Offshore Company.

DRESSER INDUSTRIES:

…Prescott Bush was a director of Dresser Industries, which is now part of Halliburton. Former United States president George H. W. Bush worked for Dresser Industries in several positions from 1948-1951, before he founded Zapata Corporation.

Halliburton’s Iraq Deals Greater Than Cheney Has Said

…But in 1998, Cheney oversaw Halliburton’s acquisition of Dresser Industries Inc., which exported equipment to Iraq through two subsidiaries of a joint venture with another large U.S. equipment maker, Ingersoll-Rand Co.

ZAPATA OIL: THE BAY OF PIGS AND THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION

Starting about the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion in the spring of 1961, we have the first hints that Bush, in addition to working for Zapata Offshore, may also have been a participant in certain covert operations of the US intelligence community.

Such participation would certainly be coherent with George’s role in the Prescott Bush, Skull and Bones, and Brown Brothers, Harriman networks. During the twentieth century, the Skull and Bones/Harriman circles have always maintained a sizable and often decisive presence inside the intelligence organizations of the State Department, the Treasury Department, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Office of Strategic Services, and the Central Intelligence Agency. [MORE]

Dick Russel dot org

Leave it to the old Kennedy assassination researcher to come up with a good one. As we read about the decimation of the striper’s principal food supply – a small, boney fish called the menhaden – by commercial fishing operations intent on exploiting it for use in Omega-3 fish oil, we find ourselves back at “the Bay of Pigs thing”, as Nixon put it. For who is America’s largest purveyor of Omega-3 fish oil and the major destroyer of the menhaden supply but … Zapata Oil!

Oh, yes, dear reader. The same Zapata Oil that was run by George H.W. Bush until he sold it in the mid-1960s, believed to have been a CIA front for the Bay of Pigs invasion. We will never know all the details because, as Russell reminds us, potentially revealing financial documents were “accidentally” destroyed at the SEC when Bush became vice-president under Reagan. The company is now known as Omega Protein, and it is owned by the same man who bought the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Manchester United: Malcolm Glazer.

Famous Texans.com - Howard Hughes

…Throughout the 1950s, as the power of three entities grew – the Hughes empire, organized crime, and the new Central Intelligence Agency – it became all but impossible to distinguish between them. By the end of the decade, Hughes’ chief of staff, Robert Maheu, had orchestrated the CIA’s dirtiest secret – plots to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro with the help of two heads of organized crime. Vice President Richard Nixon was the White House action officer in the clandestine attempts to oust Castro.

Zapata Off-Shore, the oil company owned by future CIA director and U.S. president George Bush after he split it off from Zapata Oil partner Hugh Liedtke in 1954, had a drilling rig on the Cay Sal Bank in 1958. These islands had been leased to Nixon supporter and CIA contractor Howard Hughes the previous year and were later used as a base for CIA raids on Cuba.

Nixon lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy largely because of a scandal over a never repaid $205,000 “loan” Nixon’s brother received from Hughes. As attorney general, Robert Kennedy secretly investigated the Hughes-Nixon dealings.

Allen Dulles, the later CIA director, who was the architect [together with Vice President Richard Nixon and George Bush] of the Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Allen Dulles was fired by President Kennedy because of the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs. Yet Allen Dulles was appointed by Lyndon Johnson to serve on the Warren Commission to “investigate” JFK’s death.

Allen Dulles & the CIA

Dulles was fired from the CIA by Kennedy in 1961 over Operation Northwoods. Another cover CIA operation aimed at gaining popular support for a war against Cuba by framing Cuba for stage real or simulated attacks on American citizens. Dulles was replaced by John McCone.

Allen Dulles and the Bush family
John Foster Dulles, Allen’s brother was hired by George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush to cover up improprieties in their business dealings in Poland and nazi Germany.

White House For Sale: The Hunts of Texas

Ray Hunt ranked No. 78 on the 2003 “Forbes 400 Richest Americans” list. Hunt’s fortune originated in rights his father bought in 1930 to a sea of 5 billion barrels of east Texas crude.

Polygamist H.L. Hunt pumped $100 million into trusts that he left to two of his three families. Placid Oil fed his first family’s trusts, while Hunt Oil benefited the family that H.L. started with a Hunt Oil secretary.

Ray Hunt later formed Hunt Consolidated as an umbrella for Hunt Oil, his Dallas real estate empire and other other ventures. Hunt Oil and Halliburton Co. (where Hunt sits on the board) are developing the $1.6 billion Camisea gas project in a Peruvian rain forest reserve established to protect indigenous people.

Gas will be shipped to a processing plant in the buffer zone of Peru’s only marine sanctuary in pipelines cut through the rain forest. On environmental grounds in mid 2003 the U.S. Export Import Bank rejected a request for $214 million in public funding for Camisea, which Amazon Watch calls “the most damaging project in the Amazon Basin.” Two weeks later, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) stepped in with $135 million in loans.

While the United States controls 30 percent of the IDB’s multilateral vote, Camisea promoters lined up the votes to approve this funding with U.S. IDB Director Jose Fourquet abstaining. Until recently, the company website said that Hunt Oil Vice President Hunter Hunt (Ray Hunt’s son) served as George W. Bush’s “primary Policy Advisor responsible for energy issues.”

Ray Hunt is a veteran powerbroker. After raising $4 million for then-Senator Phil Gramm in a single 1995 fundraiser, Hunt boasted that this one-day take was “the largest in the history of American politics.” A monument to Hunt’s local political influence is Dallas’ $210 million, 53-acre Reunion complex, which Hunt spent a year secretly planning with then-City Manager George Schrader without informing the city council.

The city received just one bid for the huge project in 1973 and approved a remarkable contract with Hunt. One provision stipulated that the city would refurbish the old Union Terminal train station and then rent two floors of it to Hunt for $100 a year over 100 years. Accusing the city of breaching this contract, Hunt later pressed a $1.4 million claim.

The City Council voted in 1993 to pay Hunt a $440,000 settlement. “This is giving welfare to the rich,” complained dissenting council member Domingo Garcia. “Somebody owed us money, and they threatened to take us to court. Now, we’re paying people to be quiet.”

After Dallas’ First Republic Bank failed in 1989 at a record taxpayer cost of $3.6 billion, Hunt and other ex-directors and officers of the bank (see Robert Dedman) agreed to pay $17.5 million in 1993 to settle related charges. “Those were very rich, very important, and some very self-important people,” a federal prosecutor said. “They don’t understand that when you have enormous problems you have to do something about it or quit the bank. It is endemic among directors across the country. But there is a peculiar brand of it in Texas.”

Then-Governor Bush fast-tracked an oil tax break in 1999 by declaring it a legislative emergency. Billed as relief for small producers, the tax cut benefited energy giants as well as the oil companies of nine future Pioneers, including a $85,176 tax break for Hunt energy interests. Bush appointed Hunt to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in 2001.

Top Secret Cronies

Bush has stacked his foreign advisory board with his Texas business pals, who stand to profit from access to CIA and military intelligence.

By Robert Bryce | 11/17/2005

...With Scowcroft out, Bush's cronies are in. Last month, the White House announced that Dallas oil billionaire Ray Hunt, one of Bush's biggest financial backers, was reappointed to the PFIAB. So was Cincinnati financier William DeWitt Jr., who has backed Bush in all of his business deals going back to 1984, when DeWitt's company, Spectrum 7, bailed out the faltering entity known as Bush Oil Co. The new appointee of note to the PFIAB is former Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, a Bush confidant since his days in Midland, Texas....

[many thanks to Kira for this material]