Judith Miller |
“She plays fast and loose with fact.” Edward Said 1996 review |
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Edward Said — 1996 review
“ Miller "trades in 'the Islamic threat' — her particular mission has been to advance the millennial thesis that militant Islam is a danger to the West. ... [B]ooks like Miller's are symptomatic because they are weapons in the contest to subordinate, beat down, compel and defeat any Arab or Muslim resistance to U.S.-Israeli dominance.
Moreover, by surreptitiously justifying a policy of single-minded obduracy that links Islamism to a strategically important, oil-rich part of the world, the anti-Islam campaign virtually eliminates the possibility of equal dialogue between Islam and the Arabs, and the West or Israel.
"To demonize and dehumanize a whole culture ... is to turn Muslims into the objects of a therapeutic, punitive attention.
I do not want to be misunderstood here: The manipulation of Islam, or for that matter Christianity or Judaism, for retrograde political purposes is catastrophically bad and must be opposed, not just in Saudi Arabia, the West Bank and Gaza, Pakistan, Sudan, Algeria and Tunisia but also in Israel, among the right-wing Christians in Lebanon (for whom Miller shows an unseemly sympathy) and wherever theocratic tendencies appear.
And I do not at all believe that all the ills of Muslim countries are due to Zionism and imperialism.
But this is very far from saying that Israel and the United States, and their intellectual flacks, have not played a combative, even incendiary role in stigmatizing and heaping invidious abuse on an abstraction called 'Islam,' deliberately in order to stir up feelings of anger and fear about Islam among Americans and Europeans. ...
"Perhaps Miller's most consistent failing as a journalist is that she only makes connections and offers analyses of matters that suit her thesis about the militant, hateful quality of the Arab world.
I have little quarrel with the general view that the Arab world is in a dreadful state, and have said so repeatedly for the past three decades.
But she barely registers the existence of a determined anti-Arab and anti-Islamic U.S. policy.
She plays fast and loose with fact."”
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www.counterpunch.org October 25, 2005 By John Sugg Judith Miller and Me OK, for a start, there really is no "Judith Miller and me," at least in the sense that I'd invite her to my birthday party. But I have talked to her on the phone a few times (nothing to do with Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby or Karl Rove, however). For a time, our lives were remotely in each other's gravity, drawn together by a pseudo-journalist — indeed, a model for what Miller has become — named Steven Emerson. I don't like what Miller represents in journalism. She is not, to my mind, a journalist. She forfeited that claim when she became a conduit of propaganda for the neo-conservative cabal that has its bloody hands on the control levers of the nation. In a stunning declaration this month, Miller admitted that she'd been granted a Pentagon security clearance. She tried to backpedal on the assertion, claiming the clearance was routine. But she couldn't spin away the disclosure that she'd been blindsiding her editors and colleagues. She had become a shill for the Bush administration; her employment at the New York Times was merely a cover. |
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Former Guantanamo Chaplain James Yee
“One of the most...one of the most emotional things that I might say that I saw down there was the conditions and how they deteriorated within the time frame that I was there, the emotional and mental conditions of the prisoners themselves.
I recall seeing, for example, two detainees permanently residing in the detainee hospital who had become so depressed, so despondent, that they no longer had an appetite and stopped eating to the point where they were force-fed with a tube that is inserted through their nose medically into their stomach and force-fed in that manner.
And I witnessed this tube in the hospital being put in the prisoner's nose who didn't want it in his nose, of course.
And it's a very painful experience.
The prisoner had to be shackled down with handcuffs to both sides of the bed.
A guard had to come back and hold the prisoner's head back and then the medic or the nurse would come and put petroleum jelly on the end of the tube, this plastic tube, in his nose so this tube slides down.
As that happens, you hear the detainee scream out in pain.”
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www.counterpunch.org October 25, 2005 By John Sugg Judith Miller and Me She boasted in a self-serving article two weeks ago that she "had everything to be proud of and nothing to apologize for." That bombast was in the same edition as a companion piece where the Times admitted to censoring reporters who had written an article that would have exposed details about Libby and his role in outing Plame's work as a covert CIA agent. In short, the Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., had turned his newspaper into a public relations vehicle for an out-of-control pet reporter. If burying the truth was the price, Sulzberger was willing to pay. Miller's 85 days in jail elicit no sympathy from me. She was made to appear a martyr for "protecting sources," a cynical attempt to repair her slime-adorned reputation after she contributed to the serial misleading of America on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. When the Times issued an after-the-fact semi-confession that it had on at least a half-dozen occasions failed to due its duty in vetting articles that credulously backed George Bush's war propaganda, all but one of the stories was a Miller job. The newspaper, oh-so protective of the woman, did not mention her name, however. |
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The famed British "Downing Street Memo" spoke of the Bushies' efforts to "fix" intelligence.
Miller was nothing more than one of the fixers.
The reality behind her jailing is that she was merely carrying water for the Bush administration in its (likely criminal) efforts to punish former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who had exposed one of George Bush's chief fabrications in support of invading Iraq, the wild tale that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy "yellowcake" uranium from Niger.
Revenge was exacted by the Bushies in the form of outing Wilson's wife, Plame, as a CIA operative.
The Bush machine spin — relentlessly echoed by the right, from Pat Buchanan (who knows a few things about seeing White House colleagues indicted) to Sean Hannity — is that the Plamegate (or Treasongate, as Bush's more trenchant foes call it) affair is just politics as usual.
In Washington, information is currency that is traded among factotums and scribes, the Bush apologists claim.
Actually indicting someone, as seems likely will happen, will as Hannity screeched recently, "criminalize politics."
Of course, the spin was different when Bill Clinton was dropping his pants, but was not, as is happening in the current administration, betraying the nation.
Information bartering is, indeed, part of journalism, but it's clear that what Miller was up to was far from anything that even remotely could be called newsgathering.
She was simply spreading the smear the White House wanted spread.
The WMD lies exposed by Wilson were integral to the whole scare-and-deceive-the-public strategy to bolster support for the war.
The famed British "Downing Street Memo" spoke of the Bushies' efforts to "fix" intelligence.
Miller was nothing more than one of the fixers. |
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Former Guantanamo Chaplain James Yee
Juan Gonzalez: ...You mentioned the monitors in the back. And that was because you had this special prison block for prisoners who were mentally disturbed, who had been seriously affected by the conditions that they were living in.
Chaplain James Yee: They had to be monitored 24 hours a day, because they were under suicide threat.
It was that serious.
It was so serious that the Joint Task Force needed to have a team of 17 psychiatric nurses and doctors to take care of these prisoners who got to that state.
And this resulted [mass suicide attempts] when I was there predominantly from their complaints that the Koran was being abused, or that Islam was being insulted, disrespected.
Other general complaints that they had, for the most part, I was able to try and handle them and try and relieve some of those tensions.
So, the protests, the resistance was the abuse of the Koran.
They could put up with being mistreated to some extent.
They can put up with being humiliated.
But what they wouldn't put up with is Islam or the Koran being mistreated, and that led to them taking drastic measures, conducting the — willing to conduct or take their own life and try and hang themselves.
Now, contrast that with today.
There's a growing hunger strike going on now in Guantanamo.
And we see that in the news where not just two detainees are being force-fed, but it's been reported that some 18 or 21 detainees are now being force-fed.
And we have seen in the news, the recent news reports, the reasons for this protest, it's not just now abuses against religion, it's the general abuses that I was able to handle and help them deal with when I was there.
There's no Muslim chaplain there today, as far as I know.
So this, to me, is an indication that the conditions down in Guantanamo seemingly have deteriorated to even worse conditions than when I was there almost two years ago.”
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Miller first surfaced on my radar about a decade ago.
Her close confederate was Emerson.
Both had been engaged in a furious campaign attacking virtually every Arab and Muslim voice in America.
Emerson -- who also at various times claimed to be a journalist — lost his foothold as a commentator among most responsible media, especially after he tried to pin the Oklahoma City bombing on Muslims.
Emerson's most noteworthy crusade has been against a Tampa professor, Sami Al-Arian.
Emerson and an ally at The Tampa Tribune were relentless.
I eventually exposed many of Emerson's and the Trib's distortions and exaggerations.
More important, the top FBI counterterrorism chief told me Al-Arian had not committed any federal crimes, and the lead federal prosecutor in the case also said there was no evidence to prosecute.
My heavily documented revelations about Emerson provoked him to retaliate via a lawsuit.
Noteworthy, the lawyer he went to for advice was Floyd Abrams, most recently in the news as Miller's attorney.
That's only fitting.
We spent four years litigating with Emerson, and finally prevailed in both federal and state courts.
The final blow to his case came when we obtained an order compelling him to show proof of his allegations. He wouldn't — couldn't? — and he ran away.
During the litigation, one of the most interesting insights that I gleaned were reports of meetings held that involved Miller, Emerson, arch-Islamaphobe Daniel Pipes — and a number of other people we now call "neo-cons."
All of these people had strong ties to the right-wing Likud party in Israel.
Heck, Miller had even sat in on Israeli "interrogation" sessions of Palestinians.
Emerson provided beds in his Washington apartment to Likud spooks who slipped into the United States to try and undermine peace negotiations. |
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Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish in Louisiana, appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press.
And she drowned Friday night
The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything.
His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?"
And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday."
And she drowned Friday night.
She drowned Friday night. |
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www.counterpunch.org October 25, 2005 By John Sugg Judith Miller and Me Many people, including me, had predicted years ago that terrorism would reach our shores. If we declare we are on the road to inevitable conflict with a culture and religion, and pursue policies that reflect such belligerence, it's likely to happen. (Of course, missing from Miller's, Emerson's and Pipes' breathless predictions about terrorism striking America is the fact that it long ago had. The Islam-haters neglect to notice the thousands of terrorist events in the United States committed by fundamentalist Christians who hate blacks or oppose abortion, not to mention the scores of bombings and murders committed by right-wing Cubans in Miami. Indeed, the only three actual Middle East-related terrorist events in Florida, including an assassination attempt on a former Israeli prime minister, were committed by radical supporters of Israel, not by Arabs or Muslims. But you're not supposed to know that.) Emerson's and Miller's mission had always been to depict all Muslims as likely terrorists — to foster the idea of a "conflict of cultures." One of the more enlightening explanations of that process was "The Green Peril," a 1992 Cato Institute paper by Leonard Hadar, a former bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post. In descriptions that, looking back 13 years, are near-prophetic, Hadar describes how the "green peril" — Islam — will be substituted for the "red menace." The process, Hadar wrote, will involve government leaks that, without skepticism, are echoed by the media, creating fear and distrust in the nation. In other words, a perfect description of the work of Judith Miller. |
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www.counterpunch.org October 25, 2005 By John Sugg Judith Miller and Me Prior to 9/11, the Tampa federal probe of Al-Arian had stalled. This was unacceptable to the neo-cons and their Likudnik allies; Al-Arian was arguably the most prominent advocate for Palestinians in America, and had gained audiences with many Congressmen and even the White House (George Bush welcomed him in a 2000 campaign photograph). Thus, Israel conjured up "intelligence" — not actual documents and information that could be vetted and responded to by Al-Arian, but shadowy insinuations much like Miller's WMD claims. Miller, in fact, was one of the water-carriers for the Israeli "intelligence." The essence of the work of people such as Miller and Emerson is to blur the distinctions among Arabs. Palestinians have adopted horribly reprehensible and self-defeating tactics, but they are nonetheless an indisputably oppressed people. The tactic is to equate Palestinians, with their justifiable claims to nationhood, with the criminal madmen of Al-Qaida. It's an effective technique. And it's clearly the party line from Likud. Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when asked what 9/11 would mean for American-Israeli relations, responded: "It's very good." Realizing his maladroit gaffe, he then added: "Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy" for Israel from the United States. The fact that no Palestinian had anything to do with 9/11 is a mountain-size distinction intentionally overlooked by Netanyahu — and Emerson and Miller. |
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www.counterpunch.org October 25, 2005 By John Sugg Judith Miller and Me In the post-9/11 anti-Arab frenzy, Al-Arian was bushwhacked on the Bill O'Reilly show. The new "intelligence," thanks to Miller and The Tampa Tribune led to Al-Arian's indictment. His trial has been going on for months in Tampa. The government has repeatedly been caught prevaricating — including claiming Israeli intelligence wasn't involved in the prosecution, only to be exposed by an Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz (and me). Without doubt, Al-Arian had secrets, including participation with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But that involvement appears to have been during a period when it was legal, and the government has had a hard time showing that Al-Arian actually did anything illegal. But justice was never the purpose of the trial — or of the work by Miller and Emerson. The judge in the case has dictated that jurors are supposed to hear only about the deaths of innocent Israelis and never about the far more numerous deaths of innocent Palestinians. In this Kafkaesque setting, if Martin Luther King Jr. were on trial for civil disobedience, he wouldn't be allowed to mention Jim Crow, lynchings or the Ku Klux Klan. Reading the latest about Miller wasn't a surprise. I'd seen it before in her alliance with Emerson and her catering to the neo-cons behind the Al-Arian prosecution. She's not a journalist. She's a convenient tool for some very bad people. |
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American Democracy in Trouble
Keynote Speech We Media Conference in New York October 5, 2005 By Al Gore The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, describes what has happened as "the refeudalization of the public sphere." That may sound like gobbledygook, but it's a phrase that packs a lot of meaning. The feudal system which thrived before the printing press democratized knowledge and made the idea of America thinkable, was a system in which wealth and power were intimately intertwined, and where knowledge played no mediating role whatsoever. The great mass of the people were ignorant. And their powerlessness was born of their ignorance. It did not come as a surprise that the concentration of control over this powerful one-way medium carries with it the potential for damaging the operations of our democracy. As early as the 1920s, when the predecessor of television, radio, first debuted in the United States, there was immediate apprehension about its potential impact on democracy. One early American student of the medium wrote that if control of radio were concentrated in the hands of a few, "no nation can be free." As a result of these fears, safeguards were enacted in the U.S. — including the Public Interest Standard, the Equal Time Provision, and the Fairness Doctrine — though a half century later, in 1987, they were effectively repealed. And then immediately afterwards, Rush Limbaugh and other hate-mongers began to fill the airwaves. And radio is not the only place where big changes have taken place. Television news has undergone a series of dramatic changes. The movie "Network," which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1976, was presented as a farce but was actually a prophecy. The journalism profession morphed into the news business, which became the media industry and is now completely owned by conglomerates. The news divisions — which used to be seen as serving a public interest and were subsidized by the rest of the network — are now seen as profit centers designed to generate revenue and, more importantly, to advance the larger agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part. They have fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by management, and more dependence on government sources and canned public relations hand-outs. This tragedy is compounded by the ironic fact that this generation of journalists is the best trained and most highly skilled in the history of their profession. But they are usually not allowed to do the job they have been trained to do. |
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American Democracy in Trouble
Keynote Speech We Media Conference in New York October 5, 2005 By Al Gore The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They placed a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a reporter — and then called upon him to give the president a hand at crucial moments. They paid actors to make make phony video press releases and paid cash to some reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive stories. And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President. U.S. 27th freest press in the world For these and other reasons, The US Press was recently found in a comprehensive international study to be only the 27th freest press in the world. And that too seems strange to me. Among the other factors damaging our public discourse in the media, the imposition by management of entertainment values on the journalism profession has resulted in scandals, fabricated sources, fictional events and the tabloidization of mainstream news. As recently stated by Dan Rather — who was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the White House — television news has been "dumbed down and tarted up." The coverage of political campaigns focuses on the "horse race" and little else. And the well-known axiom that guides most local television news is "if it bleeds, it leads." (To which some disheartened journalists add, "If it thinks, it stinks.") |
In fact, one of the few things that Red state and Blue state America agree on is that they don't trust the news media anymore.
Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest.
It is to "glue eyeballs to the screen" in order to build ratings and sell advertising.
If you have any doubt, just look at what's on: The Robert Blake trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various celebrity couplings, and on and on and on.
And more importantly, notice what is not on:
The global climate crisis.
The nation's fiscal catastrophe.
The hollowing out of America's industrial base.
A long list of other serious public questions that need to be addressed by the American people.
One morning not long ago, I flipped on one of the news programs in hopes of seeing information about an important world event that had happened earlier that day.
But the lead story was about a young man who had been hiccupping for three years.
And I must say, it was interesting; he had trouble getting dates.
But what I didn't see was news.
This was the point made by Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of "The Daily Show," when he visited CNN's "Crossfire": there should be a distinction between news and entertainment.
And it really matters because the subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy —
It leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people.
And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both. |
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American Democracy in Trouble
Keynote Speech We Media Conference in New York October 5, 2005 By Al Gore One of the only avenues left for the expression of public or political ideas on television is through the purchase of advertising, usually in 30-second chunks. These short commercials are now the principal form of communication between candidates and voters. As a result, our elected officials now spend all of their time raising money to purchase these ads. That is why the House and Senate campaign committees now search for candidates who are multi-millionaires and can buy the ads with their own personal resources. As one consequence, the halls of Congress are now filling up with the wealthy. Campaign finance reform, however well it is drafted, often misses the main point: So long as the only means of engaging in political dialogue is through purchasing expensive television advertising, money will continue by one means or another to dominate American politic s. And ideas will no longer mediate between wealth and power. And what if an individual citizen, or a group of citizens wants to enter the public debate by expressing their views on television? Since they cannot simply join the conversation, some of them have resorted to raising money in order to buy 30 seconds in which to express their opinion. But they are not even allowed to do that. |
Moveon.org tried to buy ads last year to express opposition to Bush's Medicare proposal which was then being debated by Congress.
They were told "issue advocacy" was not permissible.
Then, one of the networks that had refused the Moveon ad began running advertisements by the White House in favor of the President's Medicare proposal.
So Moveon complained and the White House ad was temporarily removed.
By temporary, I mean it was removed until the White House complained and the network immediately put the ad back on, yet still refused to present the Moveon ad.
The advertising of products, of course, is the real purpose of television.
And it is difficult to overstate the extent to which modern pervasive electronic advertising has reshaped our society.
In the 1950s, John Kenneth Galbraith first described the way in which advertising has altered the classical relationship by which supply and demand are balanced over time by the invisible hand of the marketplace.
According to Galbraith, modern advertising campaigns were beginning to create high levels of demand for products that consumers never knew they wanted, much less needed. |
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American Democracy in Trouble
Keynote Speech We Media Conference in New York October 5, 2005 By Al Gore The same phenomenon Galbraith noticed in the commercial marketplace is now the dominant fact of life in what used to be America's marketplace for ideas. The inherent value or validity of political propositions put forward by candidates for office is now largely irrelevant compared to the advertising campaigns that shape the perceptions of voters. Our democracy has been hallowed out. The opinions of the voters are, in effect, purchased, just as demand for new products is artificially created. Decades ago Walter Lippman wrote, "the manufacture of consent...was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy...but it has not died out. "It has, in fact, improved enormously in technique...under the impact of propaganda, it is no longer plausible to believe in the original dogma of democracy." Like you, I recoil at Lippman's cynical dismissal of America's gift to human history. But in order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum and create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future. Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the Rule of Reason. We must, for example, stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth. We are learning some fascinating lessons about the way decisions are made in the television industry, and it may well be that the public would be well served by some changes in law and policy to stimulate more diversity of viewpoints and a higher regard for the public interest. |
Published on Wednesday, October 26, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
For Whom They Toll
Today, in cities and towns throughout the U.S. and beyond, activists will gather to grieve and protest the carnage wrought by the unlawful and immoral war in Iraq.
by Kathy Kelly
Thousands will gather to commemorate the 2,000 lives of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and call upon U.S. people to stop funding the war.
Others will focus chiefly upon the well over 100,000 Iraqi lives lost, and, in a campaign launched some months ago, will ring bells 100,000 times 1,000 chimes each in 100 different locations - as names of Iraqi civilians killed since the start of Shock and Awe are read aloud.
October 25th marked the 2,000th American service-member death in the Iraq war: October 29th will mark one year since The British Lancet, perhaps the world’s foremost medical journal, estimated from careful research that tens of thousands of Iraqis had died due to the insane horrific war.
The demonstrations will overlap, but for once we can claim that separate demonstrations held simultaneously, can actually raise awareness and hopefully affect change.
These protests are after all the same: One life, two thousand lives, one hundred thousand lives, or many, many more - are all too much to pay for the imperial ambitions of the few.
Let me tell you about something I just learned.
Eager to help promote the “100,000 Rings” campaign, I recently accepted an invitation from a literature class at a Baltimore community college to bring some experiences of injustice and war to the students’ literary pursuit – in this case, the ancient Greek drama, Antigone.
It was a surprisingly good fit.
Sophocles’ heroine dies utterly forsaken and alone in punishment for standing against Creon, her king, who decrees that her slain brother, declared an enemy of state, will rot, unburied, above ground.
Antigone defies the king and adheres to her conscience. In front of witnesses, she pours dirt upon her brother’s corpse, and when the King’s guards undo her work, she returns openly to the scene of her “crime’ to repeat her act once again.
After the King sentences her to be buried alive, the blind seer, Tiresias, denounces the unjust King, saying: “Thou hast thrust children of the sunlight to the shades,” “. . .but keepest in this world . . . a corpse unburied, unhonoured, all unhallowed,” entombing the living and refusing to honor the dead.
When Creon relents, of course it is too late. Tiresias had warned him of his madness and as the Greeks and others echoing have said: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
The lesson for our time is painful.
All over the world, people can see that the U.S. went to war against Iraq because the ruling elites in this country knew Iraq couldn't fight back.
Enough madness.
We are mired in a war that could last ten years or more, one that is already intensifying other, perhaps even more dangerous conflicts.
Now, whatever security we might establish, as U.S. people or as people of the world, rests in seeking fair trade relations and raising vigorous opposition to the warmongers who run this country. Any other behavior would be madness.
We must not show Creon’s callous disregard to those slain by war.
A few months ago, our friend Scott Blackburn went to downtown Chicago, alone, and rang a bell, once a minute, in memory of each U.S. soldier who had been killed in Iraq.
The dreadful total then was still “only” 1594, and it kept him there for over 24 hours, ringing his bell once a minute.
People who stopped to talk with him learned that honoring the other dead of this war would take months.
A local reporter came by, and although Scott’s story of our troops made the paper, nothing he had told the reporter about the Iraqi casualties was considered news.
For Scott, the 100,000 rings project was immediately apparent as a burning obligation.
Like all war, this rotten folly creates victims on all sides.
What it has done to our safety in this most precarious of times, by destroying most of what was left of our good faith with the world, by further fracturing international solidarity and understandings of rights and law, by escalating conflicts of both grave terror and war-making, has prevented U.S. people from seeing the greatest terrors we face, the disasters generated by our own degradation of the world’s resources and our planetary environment.
And let us each consider also the small but real tragedy of not being able to look at ourselves in the mirror each day without wondering how much longer we’ll continue to make war against people for the sake of gluttonously controlling their precious and irreplaceable energy resources.
Which is to say: if you see people gathered in your neighborhood this week, in anger or grief or guilt, with their bells or their candles, perhaps it’s best not to ask if it’s an observance for 2,000 Americans or for the well-over 100,000 Iraqi tragedies our government has not yet even seen fit to count.
A life is a life, and the full tragedies of this cruel war are yet to be told.
Advice I read in sixth grade remains true today: “send not to know for whom the bell tolls.”
It tolls for thee.
For more information on the 100,000 Rings campaign, visit www.iraqmortality.org .
Common Dreams © 1997-2005 | ||||
ESTIMATED NUCLEAR WARHEADS, STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL The United States has conducted 1,127 nuclear and thermonuclear tests — 217 in the atmosphere.
The Soviet Union/ Russia conducted 969 tests — 219 in the atmosphere.
France, 210 tests, 50 in the atmosphere.
The United Kingdom, 45 tests — 21 in the atmosphere.
China, 45 tests — 23 in the atmosphere.
India and Pakistan — 13 tests underground.
Israel — possible 1 test atmosphere South Africa 1979.
North Korea — 1 test underground, October 2006.
“The United states had drawn up a battle plan for the potential use of nuclear weapons in Iraq and the United States has been involved in planning potential nuclear use scenarios for Iran.”“The United States is now involved in a massive program to overhaul its nuclear arsenal. In fact they're working to replace every nuclear warhead and all of the existing delivery systems in the arsenal to ensure prompt precision global strike capabilities.”Jackie Cabasso — Western States Legal Foundation |
Western Elite militarismWestern Elite Terror StatesWestern Elite War Crimes
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'Oh! You don't believe the 9-11 official version,' they say.
'You mean where they want you to accept the buildings were not blown up from below.
'Plane fuel! Substance never burns higher then a gas stove! That it caused the inner core steel to melt!
'Steel melting!
'Concrete vaporizing!
'
'No! I don't believe that conspiracy theory.
'Cheney! Bush! Rudy Giuliani! HA! HA!
'Tower 7 that never had a plane hit — just came tumbling down!
'You believe that, eh!
'Ever think it had to be blown up because the plane scheduled to fly into it was off getting shot down.
'Thermite in Tower 7's walls, you see — incriminating evidence — impossible to get out without people watching!
Had to be blown up!
'Next you'll be saying Obama is not a Wall Street Illuminati banker stooge?
'Take your pick: The partner in a comedy team who feeds lines to the other comedians.
'Him who allows himself to be used.
'Oh! I can't really blame you, Television it turns minds to pulp.
'Turn off the television. It's the only way.'
'Turn off the television?'
'Get rid of it really. I mean what else is there to do!'
'Get rid of the television?'
'Don't forget all radio garbage is propaganda, even the songs.
'Then those five minute propaganda hits they send you every hour!
'The ones they refer to as News
'Get rid of all the propaganda from your brain, the only way to do it.'
'Stop being hooked on those Hollywood movies — even those that make you think they are making you think'
'All paid performers to make your brain dead.
'You turn the brainwashing off, you'll begin to become yourself.
'It really is the only way!'
'Oh!'
Kewe — TheWE.cc
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50 minute discussion on psychotronic mind control with Dr. Nick Begich and Alex Jones
for mp3 — right click here |
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We are change 9/11 lies have sustained the ruling terrorism-threat paradigm The “why” is obvious: To justify an unjust war to serve corporate interests and greed |
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9.11 Truth New York City Decades long history of political disruption the US has been responsible for 9/11 is part of a long series of criminal, imperialist conquests Another major highlight was surprise appearance of Cynthia McKinney |
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Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth A solid convincing case which architects & engineers will readily see: that the 3 WTC high-rise buildings were destroyed by both classic and novel forms of controlled demolition These buildings were professionally demolished with explosives |
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Danish scientist Niels Harrit on nano-thermite in the WTC dust
— Click Here
Niels Harrit and 8 other scientists found nano-thermite in the dust from the World Trade Center.
Niels Harrit, you and eight other researchers conclude in this article that it was nano-thermite that caused these buildings to collapse. |
ITALIAN SAYS 9-11 SOLVED
It’s common knowledge, he reveals
CIA — Mossad behind terror attacks By the Staff of American Free Press
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies.
In what translates awkwardly into English, Cossiga told the newspaper Corriere della Sera:
“All the [intelligence services] of America and Europe… know well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part … in Iraq [and] Afghanistan.”
Cossiga was elected president of the Italian Senate in July 1983 before winning a landslide election to become president of the country in 1985, and he remained until 1992.
Cossiga’s tendency to be outspoken upset the Italian political establishment, and he was forced to resign after revealing the existence of, and his part in setting up, Operation Gladio.
This was a rogue intelligence network under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s and ’80s.
Gladio’s specialty was to carry out what they termed 'false flag' operations — terror attacks that were blamed on their domestic and geopolitical opposition.
In March 2001, Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated, in sworn testimony:
“You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game.
The reason was quite simple: to force … the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security.”
Cossiga first expressed his doubts about 9-11 in 2001, and is quoted by 9-11 researcher Webster Tarpley saying:
“The mastermind of the attack must have been a sophisticated mind, provided with ample means not only to recruit fanatic kamikazes, but also highly specialized personnel.
I add one thing: it could not be accomplished without infiltrations in the radar and flight security personnel.”
Coming from a widely respected former head of state, Cossiga’s assertion that the 9-11 attacks were an inside job and that this is common knowledge among global intelligence agencies is illuminating.
It is one more eye-opening confirmation that has not been mentioned by America’s propaganda machine in print or on TV.
Nevertheless, because of his experience and status in the world, Cossiga cannot be discounted as a crackpot.
Free to redistribute as long as credit given to American Free Press |
Photo: Bentham-Open.org |
Bentham-Open.org Download pdf — 10mg document including images — Right click Save As |
The secret story of Mossad and the World Trade Center attack The Odigo Warning: Israeli employees get e-mail warnings of 9-11 SEC Secret Probe Of Stock Dealings Before 9/11 |
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Truth Action LA Branch We are in the midst of a mass awakening 9/11 is the foundational myth upon which the entire agenda has been triggered for our generation |
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Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice High Velocity Bursts of Debris From Point-Like Sources in the WTC Towers Why Did the World’s Most Advanced Electronics Warfare Plane Circle Over The White House on 9/11? |
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Your life, your children's lives — Will you live or die?Decided by small group of elite.Pure evil It doesn't get any clearer than this
Published on Friday, March 2, 2007 by the Los Angeles Times
US to Develop New Hydrogen Bomb
by Ralph Vartabedian
The Energy Department will announce today a contract to develop the nation's first new hydrogen bomb in two decades, involving a collaboration between three national weapons laboratories, The Times has learned.
The new bomb will include design features from all three labs, though Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Bay Area appears to have taken the lead position in the project. The Los Alamos and Sandia labs in New Mexico will also be part of the project.
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Hiroshima, Nagasaki — George Weller report |
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Why are the West's elites trying to start a nuclear war?
Because you pay for it |
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BBC — Thursday, 6 September 2007
UK jets 'chase Russian bombers'
The UK's Royal Air Force has launched fighter jets to intercept eight Russian military planes flying in airspace patrolled by Nato, UK officials say.
Four RAF F3 Tornado aircraft were scrambled in response to the Russian action, the UK's defence ministry said.
The Russian planes - said to be long-range bombers - had earlier been followed by Norwegian F16 jets.
Russia recently revived a Cold War-era practice of flying bombers on long-range patrols.
A Norwegian officer, Lt Col John Inge Oegland, told the BBC the Russian Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bombers flew in international airspace from the Barents Sea to the Atlantic, before turning back.
Two Norwegian F-16s shadowed them on Thursday morning and another two went up later, he said.
There have been several similar incidents in recent months, Lt-Col Oegland added.
"Norway is following the increased Russian activity in the far north with interest," he told the BBC News website.
He said the Russian flights were not causing alarm in Norway. "Our systems are adequate," he said, when asked whether Norway was bolstering its security in the area. |
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9/11
By all accounts, the unprecedented events of September 11th, 2001 changed the way our country functions, and in turn, the world.
It is therefore critical that conscientious Americans, as well as people around the globe, understand these events in detail.
Unfortunately the official reports, including The 9/11 Commission Report and the NIST WTC Report, written by those working under the direction of the Bush Administration, have been proven to be elaborate cover-ups.
Film: 9/11 Revisited
September 11th Revisited is perhaps the most riveting film ever made about the destruction of the World Trade Center.
This is a powerful documentary which features eyewitness accounts and archived news footage that was shot on September 11, 2001 but never replayed on television.
Featuring interviews with eyewitnesses & firefighters, along with expert analysis by Professor Steven E. Jones, Professor David Ray Griffin, MIT Engineer Jeffrey King, and Professor James H. Fetzer.
This film provides stunning evidence that explosives were used in the complete demolition of the WTC Twin Towers and WTC Building 7.
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For Film: 9/11 Revisited
— Click Here
Film: 9/11 Press for Truth
An excellent documentary about the families of the victims of 9/11 and their fight to uncover and expose the truth about what happened that day.
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For Film: 9/11 Press for Truth
— Click Here
Film: 9/11 Mysteries
90 minutes of pure demolition evidence and analysis, laced with staggering witness testimonials.
Moving from “the myth” through “the analysis” and into “the players,” careful deconstruction of the official story set right alongside clean, clear science.
The 9/11 picture is not one of politics or nationalism or loyalty, but one of strict and simple physics. How do you get a 10-second 110-story pancake collapse?
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Image: Natasha Mayers |
| It's kind of a fun gameYou see the aim of those inner forces who guide the Elite —
For them the real agenda is depopulation
To kill off you your children your grandchildren It is to have fun watching our stupidity as we allow the destruction of our planet — but most haven't figured this out yet! If we stop them with the nuclear and biological weapons then it's the 400+ MPH, KPH wind the increase in UVB, UVC, UVA rays due to loss of stratospheric ozone. It's the climate! It's the reduction and elimination of food coming from all levels of cunning World Elite — tools and servants of Lucifer |
Gustave Doré's illustration for Paradise Lost by John Milton |
The Dark Side Initiates — Click here Dark path initiates depend on the denial The five-percent manipulator class is composed of those on the dark path |
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Agent Orange Dioxin — Vietnam Cleft palate, Canoe footed, Clawed fingers continue in births I didn't know what it was then, but it was white |
UVC in the 10 to 290 nanometer band UVB, 290 to 320 nanometers UVA, 320 to 400 nanometers |
Soot's effect on ice melt and glaciers Washington State's Glaciers are Melting |
Remnants of knowledge would be retained with those on higher ground. A few people here, a few there. Translations of discussions with The WE |
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Published on Monday, July 4, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
by Sheldon Drobny Justice O'Connor's decision in Bush v. Gore led to the current Bush administration's execution of war crimes and atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places in the Middle East that are as egregious as those committed by the Third Reich and other evil governments in human history. The lesson is clear. Those people who may be honorable and distinguished in their chosen profession should always make decisions based upon good rather than evil no matter where their nominal allegiances may rest. Justice O'Connor was quoted to have said something to the affect that she abhorred the thought of Bush losing the 2000 election to Gore. She was known to have wanted to retire after the 2000 election for same reason she is now retiring. She wanted to spend more time with her sick husband. Unfortunately, she tarnished her distinguished career with the deciding vote in Bush v. Gore by going along with the partisan majority of the Court to interfere with a democratic election that she and the majority feared would be lost in an honest recount. She dishonored herself and the Supreme Court by succumbing to party allegiances and not The Constitution to which she swore to uphold. And the constitutional argument she and the majority used to justify their decision was the Equal Protection Clause. The Equal Protection Clause was the ultimate basis for the decision, but the majority essentially admitted (what was obvious in any event) that it was not basing its conclusion on any general view of what equal protection requires. The decision in Bush v Gore was not dictated by the law in any sense—either the law found through research, or the law as reflected in the kind of intuitive sense that comes from immersion in the legal culture. The Equal Protection clause is generally used in matters concerning civil rights.
The majority ignored their basic conservative views supporting federalism and states' rights in order to justify their decision.
History will haunt these justices down for their utter lack of justice and the hypocrisy associated with this decision.
Sheldon Drobny is Co-founder of Air America Radio.
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Appointment of U.S. President by the U.S. Supreme Court Hiroshima, Nagasaki — Raw political clout exercised by U.S. Supreme Court |
Unspeakable grief and horror
...and the circus of deception killing continues...
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Nanci Pelosi — U.S. House Democratic leader — Congresswoman California, 8th District
Speaking at the AIPAC agenda May 26, 2005
There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is absolute nonsense.
In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist.
The greatest threat to Israel's right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran.
For too long, leaders of both political parties in the United States have not done nearly enough to confront the Russians and the Chinese, who have supplied Iran as it has plowed ahead with its nuclear and missile technology....
In the words of Isaiah, we will make ourselves to Israel 'as hiding places from the winds and shelters from the tempests; as rivers of water in dry places; as shadows of a great rock in a weary land.'
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The United States will stand with Israel now and forever.
Now and forever.
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Ahmed and Asma, story of two children dying — Lest we forget |
Atrocities committed by Israel — graphic pictures What CNN never shows you |
Israel, chemical weapons and phosphorous bombs New and unknown deadly weapons used by Israeli forces Undetectable poison-needle gun for 'clean' assassinations |
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From the video 'Holes in Heaven' — Brooks Agnew, Earth Tornographer
In 1983 I did radio tornography with 30 watts looking for oil in the ground.
I found 26 oil wells over a nine state area.
100 hundred percent of the time was accurate, which is just 30 watts of power beaming straight into solid rock.
HAARP uses a billion watts beamed straight into the ionosphere for experiments.
Picture these strings on the piano as layers of the Earth, each one has its own frequency.
What we used to do is beam radio waves into the ground and it would vibrate any 'strings' that were present in the ground.
We might get a sound back like ___ and we would say, that's natural gas.
We might get a sound back like ____ and we'd say that's crude oil.
We were able to identify each frequency.
We accomplished this with just 30 watts of radio power.
If you do this with a billion watts the vibrations are so violent that the entire piano would shake.
In fact the whole house would shake.
In fact the vibrations could be so severe under ground they could even cause an earthquake.
Download or watch HAARP Holes in Heaven
— Complete version available for mp4 download Download or watch movie on HAARP — Advanced US Military research weapon on behaviour modification
weather change, ionesphere manipulation — click here Download or watch audio of Dr. Nick Begich talking on HAARP
— The 2006 update to 'Angels Don't Play This HAARP'. 'Angels Still Don't Play This HAARP: Advances In Tesla Technology'. Planet Earth Weapon by Rosalie Bertell
ozone, HAARP, chemtrails, space war — click here HAARP/Chemtrails/Alien aircraft/Illuminati involvement
1 hour FreemanTV.com video — click here (has 30 second lead in with blank screen and silence) Angels Dont Play This HAARP weather manipulation 1 hour 36 minutes video — click here (poor quality to watch but well worth listening)
Dr. Nick Begich, his book and his articles can be found here
http://www.earthpulse.com/
Article on Chemtrails — unusual cloud formations in the US.
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50 minute discussion on psychotronic mind control with Dr. Nick Begich and Alex Jones
for mp3 — right click here |
Published on Monday, July 4, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
by Sheldon Drobny Justice O'Connor's decision in Bush v. Gore led to the current Bush administration's execution of war crimes and atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places in the Middle East that are as egregious as those committed by the Third Reich and other evil governments in human history.
The lesson is clear.
Those people who may be honorable and distinguished in their chosen profession should always make decisions based upon good rather than evil no matter where their nominal allegiances may rest.
Justice O'Connor was quoted to have said something to the affect that she abhorred the thought of Bush losing the 2000 election to Gore.
She was known to have wanted to retire after the 2000 election for same reason she is now retiring.
She wanted to spend more time with her sick husband.
Unfortunately, she tarnished her distinguished career with the deciding vote in Bush v. Gore by going along with the partisan majority of the Court to interfere with a democratic election that she and the majority feared would be lost in an honest recount.
She dishonored herself and the Supreme Court by succumbing to party allegiances and not The Constitution to which she swore to uphold.
And the constitutional argument she and the majority used to justify their decision was the Equal Protection Clause.
The Equal Protection Clause was the ultimate basis for the decision, but the majority essentially admitted (what was obvious in any event) that it was not basing its conclusion on any general view of what equal protection requires.
The decision in Bush v Gore was not dictated by the law in any sense—either the law found through research, or the law as reflected in the kind of intuitive sense that comes from immersion in the legal culture.
The Equal Protection clause is generally used in matters concerning civil rights.
The majority ignored their basic conservative views supporting federalism and states' rights in order to justify their decision.
History will haunt these justices down for their utter lack of justice and the hypocrisy associated with this decision.
Sheldon Drobny is Co-founder of Air America Radio.
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— the Third World War continued: Chechnya, North Ossetia, Ingushetia
Foreign Ministry officials stated they will do everything possible to renew diplomatic ties, expressing sorrow over the "unfortunate incident". Projected mortality rate of Sudan refugee starvation deaths — Darfur pictures Suicide now top killer of Israeli soldiers Atrocities files - graphic images 'Suicide bombings,' the angel said, 'and beheadings.''And the others that have all the power - they fly missiles in the sky.They don't even look at the people they kill.' The real Ronald Reagan — Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, South Africa Follow the torture trail... Photos August 2004 When you talk with God were you also spending your time, money and energy, killing people? Are they now alive or dead? Photos July 2004 US Debt Photos June 2004 Lest we forget - Ahmed and Asma, story of two children dying Photos May 2004 American military: Abu Gharib (Ghraib) prison photos, humiliation and torture - London Daily Mirror article: non-sexually explicit pictures Photos April 2004 The celebration of Jerusalem day, the US missiles that rained onto children in Gaza, and, a gathering of top articles over the past nine months Photos March 2004 The Iraq War - complete listing of articles, includes images Photos February 2004 US missiles - US money - and Palestine Photos January 2004 Ethnic cleansing in the Beduin desert Photos December 2003 Shirin Ebadi Nobel Peace Prize winner 2003 Photos November 2003 Atrocities - graphic images... Photos October 2003 Aljazeerah.info Photos September 2003 |
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