While it is fitting that our nation reserves a special day to honor the sacrifice and commitment of our warriors, it also serves to highlight how we, as a country, have fallen short of caring for our veterans, reintegrating them back into our communities, and demanding that our military be used responsibly and only as a last resort. Over 1.7 million men and women of the U.S. military have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many of them now struggle to cope with physical and emotional injuries, with family relationships strained because of prolonged separation, and with finding employment during an economic recession.
Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War know that in order to truly honor our veterans, we must listen to them, not just on Veterans Day, but on the other 364 days as well. It is for each other, our military brothers and sisters, and for our country that IVAW works every day to share our experiences, to challenge the predominant narrative of war as heroic and glorious, and to expose people to the brutal reality and true human costs of modern warfare.
Now that we know at least some members of our Congress were intimidated into voting for corporate welfare with the understanding that if the measure didn’t pass - it was likely Bush would have to declare Martial Law. It was “frighten, scare, claim the global economy would collapse and cause widespread panic, ushering in Martial Law because of our Congress’s inability to act fast while there was still time; It was 911 all over again, but this time, there were no mass causalities except the American and global economies. The casualties will come later, when this measure barely halts the global readjustment that is occurring as the US loses its status of being the world’s most solid economy.
Will the truth sink in?
The occupation in Iraq is about oil profits
The American public still will not see the truth.
Kucinich vows to keep impeachment on the table.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich continues to
fight for truth justice and the American way.
A true Superman.
“WE WENT TO WAR FOR THE OIL COMPANIES” Kucinich Tells Congress
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2008-06-26 16:06.
Demands Bush Administration and Oil Company Execs be Held Accountable
Washington, DC (June 26, 2008)-- US Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, in a speech to the House of Representatives today, tied the secret meetings of the Cheney Energy Task Force to the recent award of non-competitive oil contracts in Iraq and said that both the Bush Administration and the oil company executives who participated in those meetings in 2001 should be held criminally liable for an illegal war and extortion of Iraq’s oil.
“In March of 2001, when the Bush Administration began to have secret meetings with oil company executives from Exxon, Shell and BP, spreading maps of Iraq oil fields before them, the price of oil was $23.96 per barrel. Then there were 63 companies in 30 countries, other than the US, competing for oil contracts with Iraq.
“Today the price of oil is $135.59 per barrel, the US Army is occupying Iraq and the first Iraq oil contracts will go, without competitive bidding to, surprise, (among a very few others) Exxon, Shell and BP.
“Iraq has between 200 – 300 billion barrels of oil with a market value in the tens of trillions of dollars. And our government is trying to force Iraq not only to privatize its oil, but to accept a long-term US military presence to guard the oil and protect the profits of the oil companies while Americans pay between $4 and $5 a gallon for gas, while our troops continue dying.
“We attacked a nation that did not attack us. Over 4000 of our troops are dead. Over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis have perished. The war will cost US taxpayers between $2 - $3 trillion dollars. Our nation’s soul is stained because we went to war for the oil companies and their profits. There must be accountability not only with this Administration for its secret meetings and its open illegal warfare but also for the oil company executives who were willing participants in a criminal enterprise of illegal war, the deaths of our soldiers and innocent Iraqis and the extortion of the national resources of Iraq.
“We have found the weapon of mass destruction in Iraq. It is oil. As long as the oil companies control our government Americans will continue to pay and pay, with our lives, our fortunes our sacred honor,” he concluded.
Every time an important fact undermining the official story about 9/11 is raised, defenders of the government's version try to label it as an "old story" which is "not news".
Are they right?
Well, the Iraq war is "old" news, right? The fact that Bush lied us into it?
The fact that it was an unnecessary war?
The fact that it is bankrupting the U.S.
Oh wait... The war is CONTINUING, so it is still news.
Similarly . . .
The entire "war on terror" is based on 9/11.
TRILLIONS have been spent on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq due to the government's story about 9/11 (and so the U.S. is in a recession, and possibly heading into a depression.
Many, many people have been killed and tortured due to the government's story about 9/11.
America's constitution has been shredded due to the government's story about 9/11. Spying on all Americans. Public dissent cracked down on, free speech stomped on ... due to the government's story about 9/11.
That's all old news, right?
Oh wait . . . all of these things are still ongoing...
Is it therefore remotely possible that it might be worth double-checking what the government says about 9/11, given that hundreds of top structural engineers, architects, scientists, military leaders, congressmen -- and even the 9/11 commissioners themselves -- question the government's version of how the Trade Centers were destroyed?
In modern day America, is checking the government's claims so unusual that that is considered news?
Incidentally, the "old story, not news" label was actually perfected by Karl Rove. Specifically, Rove taught people to "slime" the character of the person accusing the White House of wrongdoing, or otherwise to misdirect the debate. If that that was not possible, or was not working, he advocated labeling any harmful facts as "old news", and thus not worth paying any attention to.
NORAD, responsible for intercepting errant aircraft over the U.S., has a standard operating procedure for scrambling planes for interception which takes less than 15 minutes
You might think that the military couldn't find the hijacked planes because the hijackers turned off the transponders. However, a former air traffic controller, who knows the flight corridor which the two planes which hit the Twin Towers flew "like the back of my hand" and who handled two actual hijackings says that planes can be tracked on radar even when their transponders are turned off (also, listen to this interview).
In addition, Dick Cheney monitored flight 77 for many miles as it approached the Pentagon -- one of the most heavily-defended buildings in the world -- and yet ordered that the airplane not be intercepted (confirmed here). Given that Cheney was in charge of all of the war games and coordinated the government's "response" to the attacks on 9/11 -- apparently including Norad (see this Department of State announcement, this CNN article, and this essay) -- Cheney's orders regarding flight 77 seem to be part and parcel of the Norad stand down.
She said it three more times in the past day. Why the hell is she saying that the Republican candidate is more qualified to be president than our own presumptive nominee? And what the hell does our party plan to do on stopping this train wreck? She can't win, it's over, she doesn't have the delegates and can't get the delegates. She's hoping she can destroy Obama and step in after he's toast. And if she's wrong, she'll simply leave Obama destroyed for the general election campaign against McCain, the guy she has now said four times is more qualified to be president than our presumptive nominee. Here is the first time she endorsed McCain over Obama, and watch her three additional TV appearances below.
2nd time: "[McCain has] never been president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002."
3rd time: "I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."
4th time: "Of course, well, you know, I've got a lifetime of experience. Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience. And you know, Senator Obama's whole campaign is about one speech he made in 2002."
This Shill for the Republicans, this wretched and shrewish woman,
can only get elected by lying, cheating and stealing votes.
Let's stop Shillary send your donations to Barack Obama.
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
- George Orwell
The battle between Shillary and Obama continues.
Watching the many speeches. You have to wonder
How much of what they are saying do the candidates
believe as truth? Not much, Hillary is the most insincere
candidate I have seen this election. Bill Clinton is a
master at deception. A politician to be studied and
admired for his skills. I am tired of the bullshit and
lies. The American people have had it with the
Bush-it liars and corrupt snake oil salesman who need
to be imprisoned and not leaders of our broken
government. ~ Hello in there
Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?
Is it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist?
by Robert Scheer
Is it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist?
To even raise the question amid all the officially inspired hysteria is heretical, especially in the context of the U.S. media's supine acceptance of administration claims relating to national security. Yet a brilliant new BBC film produced by one of Britain's leading documentary filmmakers systematically challenges this and many other accepted articles of faith in the so-called war on terror.
"The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear," a three-hour historical film by Adam Curtis recently aired by the British Broadcasting Corp., argues coherently that much of what we have been told about the threat of international terrorism "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media."
Stern stuff, indeed. But consider just a few of the many questions the program poses along the way:
• If Osama bin Laden does, in fact, head a vast international terrorist organization with trained operatives in more than 40 countries, as claimed by Bush, why, despite torture of prisoners, has this administration failed to produce hard evidence of it?
• How can it be that in Britain since 9/11, 664 people have been detained on suspicion of terrorism but only 17 have been found guilty, most of them with no connection to Islamist groups and none who were proven members of Al Qaeda?
• Why have we heard so much frightening talk about "dirty bombs" when experts say it is panic rather than radioactivity that would kill people?
• Why did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claim on "Meet the Press" in 2001 that Al Qaeda controlled massive high-tech cave complexes in Afghanistan, when British and U.S. military forces later found no such thing?
Of course, the documentary does not doubt that an embittered, well-connected and wealthy Saudi man named Osama bin Laden helped finance various affinity groups of Islamist fanatics that have engaged in terror, including the 9/11 attacks. Nor does it challenge the notion that a terrifying version of fundamentalist Islam has led to gruesome spates of violence throughout the world. But the film, both more sober and more deeply provocative than Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," directly challenges the conventional wisdom by making a powerful case that the Bush administration, led by a tight-knit cabal of Machiavellian neoconservatives, has seized upon the false image of a unified international terrorist threat to replace the expired Soviet empire in order to push a political agenda.
Terrorism is deeply threatening, but it appears to be a much more fragmented and complex phenomenon than the octopus-network image of Al Qaeda, with Bin Laden as its head, would suggest.
While the BBC documentary acknowledges that the threat of terrorism is both real and growing, it disagrees that the threat is centralized:
"There are dangerous and fanatical individuals and groups around the world who have been inspired by extreme Islamist ideas and who will use the techniques of mass terror — the attacks on America and Madrid make this only too clear. But the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organization waiting to strike our societies is an illusion. Wherever one looks for this Al Qaeda organization, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the 'sleeper cells' in America, the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy."
The fact is, despite the efforts of several government commissions and a vast army of investigators, we still do not have a credible narrative of a "war on terror" that is being fought in the shadows.
Consider, for example, that neither the 9/11 commission nor any court of law has been able to directly take evidence from the key post-9/11 terror detainees held by the United States. Everything we know comes from two sides that both have a great stake in exaggerating the threat posed by Al Qaeda: the terrorists themselves and the military and intelligence agencies that have a vested interest in maintaining the facade of an overwhelmingly dangerous enemy.
Such a state of national ignorance about an endless war is, as "The Power of Nightmares" makes clear, simply unacceptable in a functioning democracy.
Robert Scheer, a journalist with more than 30 years' experience, has built his reputation on the strength of his social and political writing. His columns appear in newspapers across the country, and his in-depth interviews have made headlines.
And, according to to the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the massacre against Vietnamese civilians, Cheney is the main guy helping to fund groups which the U.S. claims are terrorists (see confirming articles here and here)
And guess who is the prime architect of efforts to bomb Iran? Yup, Mr. Cheney (see also this article).
To recap, Cheney's past includes:
• Oil
• Defense
• Faking intelligence and using scare tactics about enemies to justify a pre-planned military agenda
• Lobbying to give the president the powers of the king
• Calling for an American empire and lamenting the lack of a "new Pearl Harbor"
This last question is not merely academic: vice President Cheney was apparently in charge of ALL 5 of the war games which occurred on 9/11 and coordinated the government's "response" to the attacks. See this CNN article; and this essay.
And Cheney is the one who monitored flight 77 for many miles as it approached the Pentagon and -- when a military man asked "do the orders still stand?" -- Cheney responded affirmatively:
"The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"
Of course, Cheney has not acted alone in his actions. But he's been an important player in many different arenas and is, perhaps, the most widely-known figure who has had a hand in all of the above-described events. Cheney might not be the ultimate Mr. Big in these crimes, but he appears to have gotten his hands dirtier -- and to be closer to the true seat of power -- even than Mr. Bush.
In addition, while Cheney was not solely responsible for the above-listed actions, he hired many of the people who caused the mischief, such as the chief architect of the Iraq war - Paul Wolfowitz.
See also this round-up of Cheney's actions.
from IVAW.org
Well, the Iraq war is "old" news, right? The fact that Bush lied us into it?
The fact that it was an unnecessary war?
The fact that it is bankrupting the U.S.
Oh wait ... The war is CONTINUING, so it is still news.
Similarly . . .
The entire "war on terror" is based on 9/11.
TRILLIONS have been spent on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq due to the government's story about 9/11 (and so the U.S. is in a recession, and possibly heading into a depression.
Many, many people have been killed and tortured due to the government's story about 9/11.
America's constitution has been shredded due to the government's story about 9/11. Spying on all Americans. Public dissent cracked down on, free speech stomped on ... due to the government's story about 9/11.
That's all old news, right?
Oh wait . . . all of these things are still ongoing...
Indeed, many former high-level officials are warning that the government might use false "provocations" to start new wars.
Is it therefore remotely possible that it might be worth double-checking what the government says about 9/11, given that hundreds of top structural engineers, architects, scientists, military leaders, congressmen -- and even the 9/11 commissioners themselves -- question the government's version of how the Trade Centers were destroyed?
In modern day America, is checking the government's claims so unusual that that is considered news?