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5/22/06 - 7/30/2006
Sunday 7/30/2006
 Israeli ‘spy’ firm trusted with eavesdropping in Malta 7/30/2006 Malta Today: ''A major Israeli telecommunications company is to provide the Malta Security Services (MSS) the technology for its lawful interception system, in a controversial contract award which has landed the Malta Communications Authority in court. New York-based Verint Systems, a subsidiary of Comverse Technology, was chosen late December 2005 by the MCA to provide an interception system for the MSS. Concerns over the choice of Verint have sparked alarm over its parent company’s notorious link to a major espionage investigation after the September 11 attacks, raising eyebrows over the company that will have its eyes and ears on practically all Malta’s emails, and mobile telephony and VoIP exchanges. Rival bidder RCS, which presented the cheapest offer, is suing the MCA for having refused it an appeal on the contract decision. RCS’s interception equipment has been previously used in uncovering the recent Calciopoli fraud scandal which rocked Italy’s football scene.''
Saturday 7/29/2006
Russia Arming Venezuela in Anticipation of an Expected U.S. Invasion? 7/29/2006 Global Research
Chavez, in Iran, compares IDF bombings to Holocaust 7/29/2006 Haaretz: ''Israel is perpetrating the same acts against the Lebanese that Hitler perpetrated against the Jews - it is killing children and hundreds of innocent civilians," Chavez said in an interview with the Arabic satellite channel, Al Jazeera, on Saturday.''
Mexico: Vote Challenge Underway 7/29/2006 Prensa Latina: ''Friday, TEPJF judges began to study the impugnation files, although in this first stage they will only check if those complaints meet the legal requirements. They have until September 6 to proclaim the president-elect and validate or not the elections. To date, TEPJF has received 364 complaints, most from the opposition coalition that support Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador over the vote results in the 300 electoral districts.''
www.homelandsecurityssi.com 7/29/2006 SSI: ''Security Solutions International SSI represents Israeli know-how in counter-terror training for Homeland Security First Responders.''
Friday 7/28/2006
Sunni-Shia Split Fades as Israel Presses Campaign 7/28/2006 AntiWar: "In fact … there is more of a rapprochement between the Sunni and Shia," according to Jean Francois Seznec, a Gulf specialist at Columbia University, who noted that Shia Hezbollah and Iran both support Sunni Hamas in the Palestinian territories and that Sunnis in Syria could be expected to rally behind the Alawi Assad regime if Damascus, which also supports Hezbollah, is drawn into the current conflict. "[T]he real split here is between the Sunni autocrats and their very own citizens," wrote Fuller in an article for Global Viewpoint. "These Sunni regimes are terrified that Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and even Sunni Hamas are all creating inspirational models of independent mass resistance against reigning U.S. and Israeli power in the region." That Sunni leaders now feel compelled to follow public opinion was made evident by several developments this past week, beginning with Egypt's rejection of Washington's proposal to hold Wednesday's emergency international conference on Lebanon at Sharm al-Sheik. As a result, the conference, at which Rice was found herself completely isolated in rejecting calls for an immediate cease-fire, was held in Rome instead. Tuesday's angry and unusually harsh denunciation by Saudi Arabia of what it called "unremitting Israeli aggression," which also warned Washington in particular of unpredictable "repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one" if a cease-fire is not quickly achieved, was also taken as a major reversal of its previous views.''
The Fate of Israel 7/28/2006 Defense and the National Interest: ''Israel appears to be losing. Of course the campaign is not over, although the rising civilian causalities in Lebanon suggest that the US might be forced to broker a cease-fire in the next few weeks. There remains time for – as Stratfor believes – a surprise move by Israel to quickly win. Still, Israel appears to be losing. Worse, losing not to a 4GW insurgency, but to static defenses more typical of to 2nd generation warfare – which the IDF, skilled at 3rd generation war, should be able to easily defeat. IDF exhibits the classic signs preceding military defeat: Before the start, reconnaissance/intelligence failures plus underestimation of their opponents. Over-emphasis on air power, in contexts under which air power has typically failed. Slow progress, far below that required to meet minimum objects in the available time. Public debate by senior political and military officials on strategy, which suggests that the IDF's elite officers have failed to adapt to the failure of their initial plan. A tie by Hezbollah would be a major inflection point for the region. When the weak tie the strong it is a big psychological win for the weak. Hezbollah's prestige would be greatly enhanced. The morale of Israel's enemies (i.e., everybody else in the region) would rise. Hamas, taking notes on this campaign, would be emboldened. A Hezbollah win – the IDF retreating while Hezbollah retains ability to fire rockets at Israel – would likely reshape geopolitics in the Middle East, intensifying the looming defeats of US in Iraq and Afghanistan.''
Ned Lamont a true Democrat 7/28/2006 Miami Herald: ''by Wayne Madsen - "In 1988, Lieberman welcomed the support of William F. Buckley Jr. and other staunch conservatives in his first Senate race against progressive Republican Lowell Weicker. With their aid, Lieberman barely edged the popular Weicker. Mindful of the debt owed his hard-right benefactors, Lieberman often embraced conservative positions -- irking much of Connecticut's traditionally liberal voting base. Lamont has emerged as the Democratic left's champion by fashioning a powerful coalition of Democrats, independents and even a few Republicans who are tired of Lieberman's unbridled support for the Bush administration. Lamont's supporters number some of the Nutmeg State's most famous political names, including Weicker and Jim Dean, brother of Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean." [Lieberman also won initially thanks to an infusion of cash from Miami Cubans]''
Russia's arms sales to Venezuela may total $3 billion 7/28/2006 Reuters: ''The positions of Russia and Venezuela on the majority of international problems are close or coincide," a senior Kremlin official, who asked not to be identified, said.''
Venezuela's Chavez misses birthday party in Iran 7/28/2006 Reuters: ''Iranian firms have invested $1 billion in Venezuelan ventures to date, and the Industry Ministry says it hopes to expand this to $9 billion in the coming years. Although ties are warm, diplomats and analysts say Chavez knows there are limits to his relations with Iran because of his dependence on the United States as a market for his oil. While commercial deals are acceptable, arms contracts would probably be seen as too inflammatory, they say. Venezuela is looking mainly to Russia for military hardware. Analysts also note that Venezuela will never be a foreign policy priority for Iran, whose interests are primarily Islamic.''
The "hiding among civilians" myth 7/28/2006 Salon: ''Israel claims it's justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn't trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible.''
Israel backed by army of cyber-soldiers 7/28/2006 Times, London: ''Israel’s Government has thrown its weight behind efforts by supporters to counter what it believes to be negative bias and a tide of pro-Arab propaganda. The Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages.''
Thursday 7/27/2006
Psychologists' group under fire for interrogation policy 7/27/2006 CNN: ''The American Psychological Association is under fire from some of its members and other professionals for declaring that it is permissible for psychologists to assist in military interrogations.''
Review of 'The One Percent Doctrine' By Peter Dale Scott 7/27/2006 Consortium News: ''But Suskind, in designing a narrative that can be absorbed and digested by the American political process, avoids some important facts which no one in power seems willing to mention. The most obvious fact suppressed in Suskind’s narrative is the importance of controlling Middle East oil as a prime motive for invading Iraq. One can agree with Suskind that the war has become an unambiguous setback to the war on terror. (“One hundred fifty thousand U.S. troops in the center of the Arab world was a jihadist recruiting tool of almost unfathomable magnetism,” 276-77). But he accepts at face value the misleading claim that WMD provided the “primary impetus for invading Iraq” (123, cf. 213).''
Smoke signals from the battle of Bint Jbeil send a warning to Israel 7/27/2006 Independent: ''In Beirut, one observes the folly of Western nations with amusement as well as horror, but, sitting in these hill villages and listening to how the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, plans to reshape Lebanon is clearly a lesson in human self-delusion. According to US correspondents accompanying Ms Rice on her visit to the Middle East, she is proposing the intervention of a Nato-led force along the Lebanese-Israeli border for between 60 and 90 days to assure that a ceasefire exists, the deployment of an enlarged Nato force throughout Lebanon to disarm Hizbollah and then the retraining of the Lebanese army before its own deployment to the border. This plan - which, like all American proposals on Lebanon, is exactly the same as Israel's demands - carries the same depth of conceit as that of the Israeli consul general in New York, who said last week that "most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing". Does Ms Rice think the Hizbollah want to be disarmed? By Nato? Wasn't there a Nato force in Beirut which fled Lebanon after a group close to the Hizbollah bombed the US Marine base at Beirut airport in 1983, killing 241 US servicemen and dozens more French troops a few seconds later? Does anyone believe that Shia Muslim forces will not do the same again to any Nato "intervention" force? The Americans are talking about Egyptian and Turkish troops in southern Lebanon; Sunni Muslims ruling Shia territory. The Hizbollah has been waiting and training and dreaming of this new war for years, however ruthless we may regard the actions. They are not going to surrender the territory they liberated from the Israeli army in an 18-year guerrilla war, least of all to Nato at Israel's bidding.''
The Bush administration is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act 7/27/2006 Wayne Madsen Report: last entry for July 27, 2006 - "The Bush administration is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by authorizing the Defense Department to pay $1 million to a former Special Forces legal adviser to find ways to limit FOIA and rein in state freedom of information acts to comply with a much more restrictive Federal access to information policy. The Pentagon is paying Dr. Jeffrey Addicott's St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas the million dollars to find out new ways for the federal government to classify previously open government information in the name of protecting it from access by "terrorists." Pentagon funding for the FOIA scale-back program is being laundered through the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, New York. Addicott's mission is to create a model designed to prevent the public and the media from having access to currently public federal and state government information, including information on environmental hazards and homeland security information. Addicott, as previously reported by WMR, has been associated with neo-confederate causes, including the Sons of Confederate Veterans.''
U.S. faces military involvement in Lebanon 7/27/2006 Wayne Madsen Report: scroll to the second July 27, 2006 entry - "Just as it has occurred in the United States, the Israeli government disregarded advice from its former top military and intelligence officials about engaging in a bloody invasion and occupation of Lebanon. The neo-cons in the Bush administration similarly ignored advice from retired senior U.S. military and intelligence officers about invading and occupying Iraq. According to Haaretz, Israeli Major General Uri Sagi, the former chief of Israeli military intelligence, stated that a 1992, he and other military officers warned Chief of Staff (and later Prime Minister) Gen. Ehud Barak not to attack Beirut when Israel faced attacks by Hezbollah units. Instead, Sagi, Barak, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin decided the best course of action was to open up discreet negotiations with both Hezbollah and Syria to defuse the crisis. The policy of secret Israeli talks with Hezbollah through Syria continued until Rabin's assassination by a right-wing Israeli extremist and the policy was personally supported by President Bill Clinton. However, under the neo-con "Clean Break" initiative, Rabin supporters have been largely purged from the Israeli military and intelligence establishment and the current Kadima government unwisely adopted the policies of the Likud Party's chief provocateurs, Binyamin Netanyahu and Natan Sharansky, both of whom maintain close ties with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and such neo-con facilitators as Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, and Elliott Abrams. Abrams accompanied Condoleezza Rice on her window dressing trip to Lebanon and Israel. Word from the war front is that Israel has bitten off more than it can chew. Facing 100,000 battle-hardened Hezbollah militia members, now reportedly being reinforced with U.S.-armed volunteers from Iraq's Shi'a militias, including Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Brigade, Israel is already talking about a temporary face-saving disengagement from Lebanon until U.S. military reinforcements arrive to bolster Israeli forces. The Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians and UN peacekeepers has resulted in strong diplomatic pressure being applied on Israel from a number of nations, with the notable exception of the United States, Britain, and Canada, all infiltrated at the top levels with neo-con agents of influence. Former members of Israel's intelligence community have also criticized the Ehud Olmert government for acting too hastily in the attack on Lebanon. For example, Israeli intelligence was unaware of Hezbollah's possession of Chinese-made C-802 anti-ship missiles, one of which took out an advanced SAAR-5 missile boat off Lebanon's coast. There is also word that Israel was not aware that Hezbollah may possess longer-range missiles capable of reaching deeper inside Israel, some as far south as Beersheba and the Israeli nuclear weapons facility at Dimona… There are also reports that U.S. ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman, someone with close ties to the neo-cons in Washington, had engaged in threatening the Lebanese government if it proceeded with its investigation of the involvement of Israel's Mossad in the assassination of top Lebanese leaders in an effort to destabilize Lebanon. With prior knowledge of Israel's and America's attack plans on Lebanon, Feltman was more interested in threatening Lebanon with a cut off in U.S. aid for releasing the report on Israel's assassination of Lebanese leaders than is preparing his embassy for the evacuation of U.S. citizens from Lebanon. President Emile Lahoud, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and Lebanese security chiefs were prepared to present their report on Israeli assassinations of their leaders to UN special investigator Serge Brammertz on Israel's involvement in the car bombing murders of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Member of Parliament Elie Hobeika, and former Lebanese Communist Party chief George Hawi. Assasination of prominent Hezbollah politicians, including Ali Saleh, were also carried out by Mossad-led teams. On June 13, the Lebanese Army released a statement claiming, "The army arrested a terrorist cell working for Israel's Mossad, and its members admitted responsibility for the May 26 [2006] attack that killed Mahmud al-Majzoub and his brother." Majzoub was an official of Islamic Jihad. WMR reported last year that the Israelis and Americans hired rogue Syrian intelligence agents to carry out the bombings in Lebanon of Hariri, Hobeika, Hawi, and others in an attempt to destabilize Lebanon in phase one of launching the "Clean Break." According to a top U.S. diplomat, the Lebanese assassination operations were carried out with the full knowledge of Karl Rove and Elliott Abrams, acting under the authority of the National Security Council.''
Wednesday 7/26/2006
Hugo Chavez in His Own Words By Greg Palast 7/26/2006 Alternet
Five Myths That Sanction Israel's War Crimes 7/26/2006 AntiWar
Tuesday 7/25/2006
Suburban mayor charged with child porn 7/25/2006 Chicago Sun Times: ''Another Republican Child Pornographer Nabbed: Thomas Adams, longtime Green Oaks, Illinois, mayor and former chairman of the Lake County Republican Central Committee, was charged Monday with possession and distribution of child pornography. Adams, 67, faces 11 counts of disseminating child pornography and two counts of possession. Lake County Judge Victoria Rossetti set his bond at $100,000.''
Chávez seeks to link Putin with anti-US alliance 7/25/2006 FT: ''Ivan Safranchuk, of the World Security Institute think-tank, says the warm reception Mr Chávez can expect in Russia – whose own relations with the US have cooled – demonstrates Moscow’s willingness if not to lead, then at least to have links with that anti-US group. “Moscow looks at Mr Chávez as a person with whom we should be careful,” he says. “But still he is a big oil exporter, and that is why he should be our partner; he can buy weapons; and he is anti-American, which makes him an even better partner.”''
US Cops Continue Studying Counterterrorism in Israel 7/25/2006 The Conservative Voice
Montgomery Police Department's SWAT Team Learns Israeli Tactics 7/25/2006 WSFA Alabama: ''As the fighting continues overseas, some lessons from the Middle East conflict are hitting home right here in Alabama. Members of the Montgomery Police Department SWAT team are in a five day counterterrorism school taught by a former Israeli servicemember. Out at the practice range, the 12 member team learns that timing is everything. SWAT team member Todd Wheeler notes, "The way the Israelis do it, it's extremely dynamic. It's extremely fast and that's the only way to fight counterterrorism." That's also why the Montgomery SWAT team is training with Aaron Cohen. He's a veteran of the Israeli counterterrorist unit. Now his four year stint with that team will work for this team. Cohen says he wants, "to be able to help them reduce risk while responding to terrorist threats while in crowded areas." Cohen says these drills and the current situation in the Middle East are a powerful combination for him. He explains,"It's tough. It hits home for me because my unit is working there right now.''
Monday 7/24/2006
GRAPHIC VIDEO - Lebanese Doctor Says 'Phosphorus Weapons' Cause Suffering 7/24/2006 Raw Story: ''This news report, originally aired on CNN International, contains graphic images.''
Thursday 7/20/2006
Israeli Apartheid 7/20/2006 Black Commentator: ''Imagine, if you will, a modern apartheid state with first, second and eleventh class citizens, all required to carry identification specifying their ethnic origin. First class citizens are obliged to serve in the armed forces, kept on ready reserve status until in their forties, and accorded an impressive array of housing, medical, social security, educational and related benefits denied all others. Second class citizens are exempted from military service and from a number of the benefits accorded citizens of the first class. They are issued identity documents and license plates that allow them to be profiled by police at a distance. Second class citizens may not own land in much of the country and marriages between them and first class citizens are not recognized by the state. Second class citizens are sometimes arrested without trial and police torture, while frowned upon and occasionally apologized for, commonly occurs. Citizens of the eleventh class, really not citizens at all, have no rights citizens of the first class or their government are bound to respect. Their residence is forbidden in nearly nine-tenths of the country, all of which they used to own. The areas left to them are cut up into smaller and smaller portions weekly, by high walls, free fire zones and hundreds of checkpoints manned by the army of the first class citizens, so that none can travel a dozen miles in any direction to work, school, shopping, a job, a farm, a business or a hospital without several long waits, humiliating searches and often arbitrary denials of the right to pass or to return. Posh residential settlements for the first class citizens with protecting gun towers and military bases are built with government funds and foreign aid on what used to be the villages and farms and pastures of the eleventh class citizens. The settlers are allotted generous additional housing and other subsidies, allowed to carry weapons and use deadly force with impunity against the former inhabitants, and are connected with the rest of first class territory by a network of of first-class citizen only roads… The apartheid state in question is, of course, Israel. Its first class citizens are Israeli Jews, the majority of them of European or sometimes American origin. The second class citizens are Israeli Arabs, who enjoy significant but limited rights under the law including token representation in the Knesset. The eleventh class citizens are not citizens at all. They are Palestinians. One expects to be able to say that Palestinians live in Palestine and are governed by Palestinians, but the truth is something different. The areas in which Palestinians may inhabit have shrunk nearly every year since the Nakba, their name for the wave of mass deportations, murders, the dispossession, destruction and exile of whole Arab towns, cities and regions that attended the 1948 founding of the state of Israel. As the whole world, except for the US public knows, Palestinians have lived under military occupation, without land, without rights, without hope, for nearly sixty years now. The difference between life inside and outside the US corporate media bubble is extraordinarily clear on this question. US authorities subsidize the state of Israel to the tune of at least six billion per year, and corporate media take great pains to protect US citizens from news of actual human and legal conditions their tax dollars pay for. The ugly and racist realities of Israeli society and life under Israeli occupation are rarely discussed anywhere most consumers of media might find them. It is nearly taboo in mainstream US print and broadcast media to apply the words racist or apartheid to the state of Israel or its policies, or to call its control at the point of a gun of millions of non-citizens what it is, namely the longest standing military occupation in the world today. In the US media, and on the lips of every administration since Harry Truman's Israel is “a democracy”, whatever that word has come to mean."
Wednesday 7/19/2006
Podcast: KPFT Interviews Matt Pascarella on Mexican Election 7/19/2006 Greg Palast: ''In a video shot in the central state of Guanajuato, the footage shows an apparent supporter of Calderon’s National Action Party stuffing a ballot box on the day of the elections. Investigative reporter Greg Palast travels to Mexico City to report on the disputed election.''
Monday 7/17/2006
Is Venezuela the Real Target of Bush's New Cuba Plan? 7/17/2006 Counterpunch: ''One of the more troublesome of the Commission's recommendations is the threat to apply Title III of the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Solidarity Act, known as "Helms Burton", to Venezuela. Title III gives the United States unprecedented authority over property within another nation's borders. It permits lawsuits in U.S. courts brought by individual citizens against businesses that operate on property the Cuban government nationalized after the 1959 revolution. Concerned about the chilling effect on U.S. relations with foreign governments if it were to implement it, successive U.S. Presidents have suspended Title III since Helms-Burton was enacted ten years ago. According to the Commission's Report, the White House is now prepared to apply, for the first time, Title III to individual countries that are "engaged in a process of support for regime succession (with Cuba)." This is a not-so-veiled threat to Venezuela, as well other nations who maintain normal relations with Cuba. Were the United States to apply Title III to Venezuela, it would have profound and long-lasting implications on U.S.-Venezuela relations. Trade between the two nations in 2005 amounted to almost $39 billion. The specter of Miami Cubans suing Venezuela over nationalized pre-1959 property will loom heavily over any future trade ventures between the United States and Venezuela.''
Doing maths in Mexico 7/17/2006 Guardian: ''by James K Galbraith - "While Mexicans take to the streets over the presidential vote, democracy's fairweather friends are standing silent.''
Friday 7/14/2006
Mexican Migrant Workers Savagely Attacked by
Racists in San Diego, California 7/14/2006 Aztlan: "Hate crimes against US citizens of Mexican descent and against Mexican migrant workers in San Diego County and throughout the US/Mexico border region are becoming more common as hate groups like Glenn Spencer's "American Patrol", Barbara Coe's "California Coalition for Immigration Reform" and vigilante Roger Barnett's "Arizona Ranchers Alliance" increase their hate rhetoric against Mexicans on the radio, the Internet and various other propaganda mediums. The constant message they are broadcasting is for the purpose of, they say, "waking up America" to the "invasion of Mexican migrants" into the United States and the "conspiracy to take over the US southwest on behalf of the Mexican government."
As was feared by Mexican-American civil and human rights organizations, the racist white supremacist "lunatic fringe" in San Diego, California has now violently acted out on the hate propaganda being disseminated by the leadership of the anti-Mexican groups, increasing the number of vicious attacks of Mexican migrant workers along the 2000 US/Mexico border region."
WHY DEMOCRATS DON’T COUNT 7/14/2006 Greg Palast: ''For six years now, I’ve had this crazy fantasy in my head. In it, an election is stolen and the guy who’s declared the loser stands up in front of the White House and says three magic words: “Count the votes.” This past Saturday, my dream came true. Unfortunately, it was in Spanish — but I’ll take what I can get. There was Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, presidential challenger, standing in the “Zocalo” — the square in front of Mexico’s White House, telling the ruling clique inside, “Count the votes!“ Most important, his simple demand was echoed by half a million pissed-off, activated voters chanting with him, “Vota por vota!” — vote by vote.''
Wednesday 7/12/2006
Pinochet's Mad Scientist 7/12/2006 Consortium News: ''In a court document filed in early July 2006, Gen. Manuel Contreras, former chief of Chile's feared intelligence service, implicated the country's ex-dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and one of his sons in a scheme to manufacture and smuggle cocaine to Europe and the United States, explaining one source of Pinochet's $28 million fortune. Contreras alleged that the cocaine was processed with Pinochet's approval at an Army chemical plant south of Santiago during the 1980s and that Pinochet's son Marco Antonio arranged the shipments of the processed cocaine. [NYT, July 11, 2006] At the time of the alleged cocaine smuggling, Pinochet was a close ally of the Reagan-Bush administration, providing help on a variety of sensitive intelligence projects, including shipping military equipment to Nicaraguan contra rebels who also were implicated in the exploding cocaine trade to the United States.''
Audio Podcast of Florida Con Salsa 7/12/2006 Greg Palast
THE TWO ISRAELI SOLDIERS WERE CAPTURED IN LEBANON 7/12/2006 What Really Happened: compendium of articles on this topic
Friday 7/7/2006
EU observers say no major fraud at Mexico vote 7/7/2006 Reuters
A Few Bad Men - Ten years after a scandal over neo-Nazis in the armed forces, extremists are once again worming their way into a recruit-starved military 7/7/2006 SPLC: ''Ten years after Pentagon leaders toughened policies on extremist activities by active duty personnel -- a move that came in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing by decorated Gulf War combat veteran Timothy McVeigh and the murder of a black couple by members of a skinhead gang in the elite 82nd Airborne Division -- large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists continue to infiltrate the ranks of the world's best-trained, best-equipped fighting force. Military recruiters and base commanders, under intense pressure from the war in Iraq to fill the ranks, often look the other way. Neo-Nazis "stretch across all branches of service, they are linking up across the branches once they're inside, and they are hard-core," Department of Defense gang detective Scott Barfield told the Intelligence Report. "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," he added. "That's a problem."''
Racist extremists active in U.S. military SPLC urges Rumsfeld to adopt zero-tolerance policy 7/7/2006 SPLC
Racist extremists active in U.S. military SPLC urges Rumsfeld to adopt zero-tolerance policy 7/7/2006 SPLC
Monday 7/3/2006
GRAND THEFT MEXICO 7/3/2006 Guardian: ''We’ve said again and again: exit polls tell us how voters say they voted, but the voters can’t tell pollsters whether their vote will be counted. In Mexico, counting the vote is an art, not a science - and Calderon’s ruling crew is very artful indeed. The PAN-controlled official electoral commission, not surprisingly, has announced that the presidential tally is too close to call. Calderon’s election is openly supported by the Bush administration. On the ground in Mexico city, our news team reports accusations from inside the Obrador campaign that operatives of the PAN had access to voter files that are supposed to be the sole property of the nation’s electoral commission. We are not surprised. This past Friday, we reported that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had obtained Mexico’s voter files under a secret “counter-terrorism” contract with the database company ChoicePoint of Alpharetta, Georgia (See BUSH TEAM HELPS RULING PARTY “FLORIDIZE” MEXICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.)The FBI’s contractor states that following the arrest of ChoicePoint agents by the Mexican government, the company returned or destroyed its files. The firm claims not to have known that collecting this information violated Mexican law. Such files can be useful in challenging a voter’s right to cast a ballot or in preventing that vote from counting. It is, of course, impossible to know whether the FBI destroyed its own copy of the files of Mexico’s voter rolls obtained by ChoicePoint or whether these were then used to illegally assist the Calderon candidacy. But we can see the results: as in the US, first in Florida, then in Ohio, the exit polls are at odds with “official” polls. In November 2004, the US Republican Senator Richard Lugar, in Kiev, cited the divergence of exit polls and official polls as solid evidence of “blatant fraud” in the vote count in Ukraine. As a result, the Bush administration refused to recognise the Ukraine government’s official vote tally - proving once again that republicans are incapable of irony.''
Tuesday 6/6/2006
Outsourcing Smarts - The Death of US Engineering - By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS 6/6/2006 Counterpunch
Monday 6/5/2006
Review: A Threat from Within - Jewish Opposition to Zionism 6/5/2006 Counterpunch
Saturday 6/3/2006
The Controlled Demolition of the Dollar - Swan Song for the Greenback? 6/3/2006 Counterpunch
Friday 6/2/2006
Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater in New Orleans - "A Mercenary Army" 6/2/2006 Counterpunch
Thursday 6/1/2006
Bay Area Media Targets Ron Dellums - Smear by Caricature 6/1/2006 Counterpunch
Tuesday 5/30/2006
The DLC and Israel - Zionist Democrats 5/30/2006 Counterpunch
Saturday 5/27/2006
An Open Letter to Bono - Why Are You Financing a Video Game on Invading Venezuela? 5/27/2006 Counterpunch
Thursday 5/25/2006
Venezuela Extols African Contribution 5/25/2006 PL: ''The Catedra Libre Africa, a conference to exchange information about Afro-descendants in Venezuela, opened in Caracas on Thursday as part of endeavors to understand and work toward South-South cooperation. Organizers said participants are discussing African history and its contribution to national culture, the fight against discrimination, and the development of Afro-descendants´ expressions. Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Reinaldo Bolivar asserted “this event is included in the Diplomacy of Peoples and the Africa Agenda my office has been promoting for 15 months.” Bolivar stated that mechanisms such as the Catedra Libre Africa should be created for cooperation among nations, so university teachers and students can further their knowledge and bring it to other education and community levels.''
Monday 5/22/2006
The Brutality Connection: Abu Ghraib and America's Prisons 5/22/2006 New West: ''There are about 9 million people residing in prisons around the world. With only one quarter of the world's population the U.S., Russia, and China have half the world's inmates. Adjusted for population, the U.S. has highest incarceration rate in the world. Since 1997 the number of inmates in America's local jails has risen 4.3 percent, a rate of 1,000 each week. In 2002 there were 668 prisoners for every 100,000 Americans, while there were only 59 per 100,000 locked up in Norway, Finland, and Denmark. America's prisons also have a shameful reputation for harsh and violent conditions. In 1999 charges of mock execution of prisoners in a Sacramento jail resulted in a successful class action suit against the sheriff. In Arizona's Maricopa County jails the use of stun guns and restraint chairs, as well as forcing inmates to wear pink underwear, is standard procedure. A training video for Texas' Barzoria County Detention Center encourages the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners. Recently U.S. Army Sgt. Michael J. Smith was found guilty for using unmuzzled dogs to threaten detainees at Abu Ghraib. It is certainly not a coincidence that the CIA has learned that Muslim prisoners are particularly terrified of dogs and very protective of their masculine identities. In January 2005, Army Specialist Charles Graner, one of the leaders in the abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners, was sentenced to a 10-year sentence. The 36-year-old former Marine used to work as a security guard at a supermax prison in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. In 1998 12 officers at this facility lost their jobs after being charged with beating and sodomizing prisoners. In a separate incident, an inmate filed a lawsuit (afterwards dismissed) that accused Graner of beating him. Lane McCotter was director of the Utah State Prison system when Michael Valent died after 16 hours in a restraint chair. McCotter resigned his post, but six years later he was hired to rebuild Abu Ghraib, which President Bush promised would become a model prison."
"There
is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and
security to all, but especially to Democracies as against despots:
suspicion." -- Demosthenes
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