"A US soldier who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Iraq says he was shocked by alleged atrocities committed by the American military.

Among the incidents, he described soldiers kicking the severed head of an Iraqi like a football in Ramadi."

More at the BBC

"The 58-year-old is accused of laundering corporate contributions for use in Republican campaigns in Texas.

He has strongly denied the charges in a case which has yet to go to trial. (...) Mr DeLay has been destroyed by corruption allegations against him and admitted corruption by his senior staff.

Just days ago his former deputy chief of staff pleaded guilty to corruption, saying he ran a criminal enterprise out of Mr DeLay's office."

More at the BBC

"But DeLay's crudest assault on American democracy will be little mentioned now, as it has been since he waged it.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, 2000, when the eyes of the nation were fixed on the Stephen P. Clark Government Center in downtown Miami, where a Dade County canvassing board was reviewing 10,750 uncounted ballots in Florida's disputed presidential contest between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush, a riot orchestrated by DeLay's top aides and allies and carried out by Republicans flown in from Washington stopped the count. In so doing, DeLay's minions assured that the Bush campaign's Florida co-chair, Katharine Harris, would, in her capacity as secretary of state, be able to certify a 537-vote "win" for the Republican when the recount deadline arrived. It was that certification that allowed Florida Governor Jeb Bush to sign a Certificate of Ascertainment designating 25 Florida electors pledged to his brother. The paperwork was immediately transferred to the National Archives, where it would eventually be cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in its decision to award the Florida electoral votes, and with them the presidency, to George W. Bush."

From "The Nation": The Hammer Goes Down

"IMAGINE a world where wars are fought over the internet; where TV broadcasts and newspaper reports are designed by the military to confuse the population; and where a foreign armed power can shut down your computer, phone, radio or TV at will. In 2006, we are just about to enter such a world. This is the age of information warfare, and details of how this new military doctrine will affect everyone on the planet are contained in a report, entitled The Information Operations Roadmap, commissioned and approved by US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and seen by the Sunday Herald."

"Bob Woodward writes insider accounts of wars and the policymakers who wage them. He does so by talking to the most senior Bush administration insiders, who--obviously--tell him what they wish to tell him. No doubt, Woodward does capture some (maybe even most) of what occurred. But what happens when the insiders try to spin Woodward or share with him a rather selective rendition of an important event? Does he buy it and sell it (literally) to the rest of us? The leak of a British memo recounting a January 31, 2003 conversation in the White House between George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair affords Woodward's readers a rare opportunity to factcheck the fellow who imbues his behind-the-scenes storytelling with an omniscient tone."

Story in The Nation

"A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence at which senior defence chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran.

It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran's ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is 'inevitable' if Teheran's leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme."

More in the Telegraph

Legendary cartoon about atomic bombs (9 min 15 sec)

THIS IS SO FUCKED UP!

"Playable re-creations of real war events released weeks after they occur. Accurate missions developed in advanced war game and distributed free online."

Watch the videos at kumawar.com

They got games like this: Osama 1998 - Breaching the walled compound of Osama Bin Laden's headquarters in the dead of night, you lead a raiding party of CIA-backed guerillas on a near-suicidal mission to capture the terrorist kingpin and spirit him away before his hundreds of al Qaeda guards realize what you’re doing and stop you with a hail of bullets. Can you get in, make the capture, and get out in one piece?"

Tags: Games, Propaganda, War

Maybe the foreigners should really take over the investigations...

"Billionaire philanthropist Jimmy Walter and WTC survivor William Rodriguez this week embarked on a groundbreaking trip to Caracas Venezuela in which they met with with the President of the Assembly and will soon meet with Venezuelan President himself Hugo Chavez in anticipation of an official Venezuelan government investigation into 9/11.

Rodriguez was the last survivor pulled from the rubble of the north tower of the WTC, and was responsible for all stairwells within the tower. Rodriguez represented family members of 9/11 victims and testified to the 9/11 Commission that bombs were in the north tower but his statements were completely omitted from the official record."

More at prisonplanet.com...

Another propaganda-site for kids. Sick, sick, sick!

Related: Hey kids, spying is fun!

Remember, "24" is just a TV-show. In the real world, the FBI doesn't even have the money to pay for secure e-mail accounts or modern cellphones.

"NEW YORK (AP) -- Budget constraints are forcing some FBI agents to operate without e-mail accounts, according to the agency's top official in New York.

'As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts,' Mark Mershon said when asked about the gap at a New York Daily News editorial board meeting."

More at CNN...

"Actor Charlie Sheen has joined a growing army of other highly credible public figures in questioning the official story of 9/11 and calling for a new independent investigation of the attack and the circumstances surrounding it." More at Infowars...

Read this article from "Lettre International": Eliot Weinberger: What I Heard About Iraq in 2005

It's too good and too long to quote something. Sent in by Terry Gilliams little elves.

We should all visit Greg Palast more often.

Quote from his article "Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools" for "The Guardian":

"It's about oil," Robert Ebel told me. Who is Ebel? Formerly the CIA's top oil analyst, he was sent by the Pentagon, about a month before the invasion, to a secret confab in London with Saddam's former oil minister to finalize the plans for "liberating" Iraq's oil industry. In London, Bush's emissary Ebel also instructed Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, the man the Pentagon would choose as post-OIF oil minister for Iraq, on the correct method of disposing Iraq's crude.

And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq's oil? The answer will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger. The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq's oil secretly drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how, doesn't matter. The key thing is what's inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will "enhance its relationship with OPEC."

Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude.

Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on Iraq's oil production -- limiting Iraq's oil pumping to the tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.

There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil -- not to get more of Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing too much of it. "

...read on

Sent in by Sean

Back at the time of a major Bush-1 "drug war" in 1989, Hodding Carter pointed out that with increasing attention to the newly declared "crisis" by the administration and media, the public's estimate of the importance of the drug problem rose spectacularly. "Today's big news is the drug war. The president says so, so television says so, newspapers and magazines say so, and the public says so." Today's big news is the possibility that Iran, the Little Satan, might some day acquire a nuclear weapon: the administration says so, the media say so, and now three times as many people regard Iran as the U.S.'s greatest menace than four months ago and 47 percent of the public agrees that Iran should be bombed if needed to prevent its acquiring any nuclear weapon capability.

Quote from znet: "Uncle Chutzpah and His Willing Executioners on the Dire Iran Threat: With Twelve Principles of War Propaganda in Ongoing Service" by Edward S. Herman

Via the boys in the woods...

Mehr...

Salon.com posted 279 photographs and 19 videos from the United States Army's internal investigation that "record a harrowing three months of detainee abuse inside the notorious Iraqi prison. The files make clear that many of those responsible have yet to be held accountable." More at Salon.com...

Salon.com: The Videos..

Unbelievable! The Chicago Tribune reports: "Internet blows CIA cover - It's easy to track America's covert operatives. All you need to know is how to navigate the Internet."

Der amerikanische Geheimdienst steht mal wieder nicht so richtig gut da. Von Datensicherheit scheint man bei der CIA zumindest nicht viel zu verstehen. Journalisten der Chicago Tribune konnten via Google über 2600 Namen von Agenten, 50 interne Telefonnummern und zwei Dutzend geheime CIA-Zentralen ausfindig machen.

"Can a computer game teach how to fight real-world adversaries—dictators, military occupiers and corrupt rulers, using methods that have succeeded in actual conflicts—not with laser rays or AK47s, but with non-military strategies and nonviolent weapons? Such a game, A Force More Powerful (AFMP), is now available. A unique collaboration of experts on nonviolent conflict working with veteran game designers has developed a simulation game that teaches the strategy of nonviolent conflict. A dozen scenarios, inspired by recent history, include conflicts against dictators, occupiers, colonizers and corrupt regimes, as well as struggles to secure the political and human rights of ethnic and racial minorities and women."

Could the Big Secret of the Enron scandal be that Cheney and the White House were working closely with the Taliban -- on Enron's behalf -- up to a few weeks before Sept. 11? alternet

Fucked up!

Story at Forward

"In this first ever television history of disbelief, Jonathan Miller goes on a journey exploring the origins of his own lack of belief and uncovering the hidden story of atheism." more at the BBC

The Videos are here.

1. Shadows of Doubt Jonathan Miller visits the absent Twin Towers to consider the religious implications of 9/11 and meets Arthur Miller and the philosopher Colin McGinn. He searches for evidence of the first 'unbelievers' in Ancient Greece and examines some of the modern theories around why people have always tended to believe in mythology and magic.

2. Noughts and Crosses With the domination of Christianity from 500 AD, Jonathan Miller wonders how disbelief began to re-emerge in the 15th and 16th centuries. He discovers that division within the Church played a more powerful role than the scientific discoveries of the period. He also visits Paris, the home of the 18th century atheist, Baron D'Holbach, and shows how politically dangerous it was to undermine the religious faith of the masses.

3. The Final Hour The history of disbelief continues with the ideas of self-taught philosopher Thomas Paine, the revolutionary studies of geology and the evolutionary theories of Darwin. Jonathan Miller looks at the Freudian view that religion is a 'thought disorder'. He also examines his motivation behind making the series touching on the issues of death and the religious fanaticism of the 21st century.

'Radio talk show host Karen Kwiatkowski talks to William Clark, author of Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar, about the reason for American intervention into the Middle East: oil and the dollar. Clark discusses the origins of this problem going back the 1945 Bretton Woods Agreement to secret U.S./Arab negotiations that the CIA did NOT even know about in the 1970's to today's current situation. If what Clark says is accurate, there may not be much time left. MP3 available. No registration required.'

from disinfo.com

Reporters Without Borders said today it was shocked at the failure of Turkish police to prevent an attack on a woman reporter, Aliye Cetinkaya, of the daily paper Sabah (The Morning), during a protest against publication of cartoons of Mohammed in the European press.

A group of 30 men broke away from the demonstration, on 10 February in the city of Konya, and attacked the journalist, accusing her of not having her head covered, of wearing trousers and chewing gum. They threw shoes and stones at her and called her a “slut.”

Police surrounding the demonstration did not help her and she had to be rescued by colleagues.

“The police failure is disgraceful,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “She could have been seriously injured. This incident discredits the police, who could be suspected of allowing it to happen and being on the side of the protesters. The authorities must find out who was responsible for this error.”

Cetinkaya filed a formal complaint on 13 February and the Konya prosecutor’s office began an investigation. The attackers were identified in police photos of the demonstration and are expected to be prosecuted. Four Turkish journalists’ organisations strongly protested against the attack and demanded action from the authorities.

One of the groups in the demonstration, the Islamist “Association for Training, Research and Cooperation of the People” (HEDA-DER) meanwhile filed a complaint against Cetinkaya the same day, accusing her of disturbing the demonstration, an offence that carries a fine or between 18 months and three years imprisonment under a 1983 law on public demonstrations.

The Konya prosecutor’s office is expected to decide in the next few days whether to formally investigate her for this.

"Reporters Without Borders" via Shoutwire (Internet News for the Masses)

Tags: cartoons, comics, design Muslim Cartoons, Mohammed Cartoons, media, Medien, Propaganda, Zensur, War

KILLING FOR JESUS! Americans torture children in their concentration camp in Abu Ghraib, but the US doesn't seem to care very much. Well, the Oscars are coming up and who cares about a bunch of dead muslim kids anyway. Europe doesn't and there are still planes with "suspected terrorists" in the air. How many children do we have to torture and kill until "the long war" is won? All of them? I guess... Indeed, it's going to be a "long war".

"In order to sidestep international laws against torture, the CIA currently uses a fleet of unmarked airplanes to kidnap, "render," and "disappear" suspected terrorists. The CIA takes these people to a clandestine network of prisons in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Poland, and Romania: places where they can be tortured.

Because the CIA uses civilian (rather than military) aircraft for these "black" operations, they leave a publicly-accessible trail of flight logs, registration papers, and other legal documents. These paper trails are filled with forgeries, lies, and cover-stories, but nevertheless contain important clues as to who the "real" people behind these operations and unmarked planes might be.

One of these planes is a Boeing 737. Its tail number is N4467S. It is the property of a company called "Keeler and Tate Management," incorporated by a man named "Tyler Edward Tate." Mr. Tate does not exist.

Over the course of this presentation, we will navigate through the fog of misinformation surrounding Mr. Tate. We will visit the street addresses of his front companies, observe the airfields that his unmarked plane frequents, and introduce ourselves to some of the flesh-and-blood individuals who may have penned his name"

Via Eyebeam!

Trevor Paglen

Tags: Bush, NSA, CIA, DHS, Media, Medien, Propaganda, Zensur, Rumsfeld, War, Torture, British, soldiers, Iraq, Blair

It turns out now that Dick Cheney did not have a license to hunt, and coincidentally, turns out we didn't have a license to go into Iraq. (David Letterman)

"Could it be that comedians are doing a better job of connecting the dots regarding Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors than are the unintentionally ridiculous members of the White House press corps?

Huntergate is certainly worthy of coverage, especially now that the vice president has admitted to shooting while intoxicated."

The Nation Blog

Tags: Cheney, Huntergate

"'Russia's top military chief on Thursday warned the United States against launching a military strike against Iran and a top diplomat voiced hope that close cooperation with China could help resolve the Tehran nuclear crisis.

'With tension mounting over Iran's nuclear programs, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia's general staff, warned the United States against attacking Iran.

'"A military scenario can't be ruled out," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.' (AP article).

"The military loves jargon. And acronyms. And swearing. Confusing? To help everyone out, scroll down and find the new Iraq Slang list, some more obscure than others.

Iraq Slang:

A/O: Area of operations. Where the war is.

Chow: Food

Haji: Any Iraqis, Arabs, or Muslims; use derogatorily for the enemy (like Charlie in Vietnam). Derived from the Arabic term for pilgrims to Mecca.

Muj: (pronn: Mooj). short for Mujahadeen. Insurgents. Often used half-jokingly with Iraqis: "you mooj?"

Collected by televisionreporter

"Congressional investigations of government responses to Hurricane Katrina have revealed that two of the nation’s key crisis managers, the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, do not use e-mail."

Digg, digg, Newsweek Web Exclusive

Tags: Bush, NSA, CIA, DHS, Katrina, FEMA, Propaganda, Rumsfeld, Chertoff

"Armstrong's attempt to downplay the presence of 'a beer or two' raises more questions than it answers about an incident involving a vice president who, like George W. Bush, was a heavy drinker in his youth, but who, unlike Bush, never swore off the bottle."

Hilarious and a little sad. Alternet with the latest on Duck Cheney.

"Australia's SBS Dateline and Sydney Morning Herald showed and published some of the Abu Gharib photos which have been until now supressed by the Bush Administration."

dailykos has them.

Via del.icio.us

Tags: Abu Ghraib, Bush, NSA, CIA, DHS, Media, Medien, Propaganda, Zensur, Rumsfeld, War, Torture, British, soldiers, Iraq, Blair