Of course, we all know what that means, but what curious mafia-like language for a government representative to use. Coincidence? I don't think so.
Israel should "liquidate" Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah "at the first opportunity," Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, a former defense minister, told army radio Saturday.
"We must liquidate Nasrallah at the first opportunitybecause he is the embodiment of evil,not just for us but for Muslims and Christians too," Ben Eliezer said.
Speak for yourself, buddy. I know when I think of the embodiment of evil, two people come to mind - [one,two] and Nasrallah aint one of them.
Eliezer is not even a right-winger, btw, to be coming up with such radical statements.
The minister is a member of the center-left Labor party,the main coalition partner of the centrist Kadima formation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Oddly enough, bankers also use the term 'liquidate' to describe what they do to a business that is no longer profitable for them.
So, if anything happens to Nasrallah, we know who did it.
But, as usual, Israel came up with a pitiful excuse for slaughtering the peacekeepers in cold blood.
They don't deny that they used precision bombs - NO - instead they want us to believe that they used the wrong map!BUTthey WILL NOT let the UN interview the men responsible for delivering the so-called 'wrong map' to the bombers.
Surprised? TOUGH! You'll just have to take Israel's word for it.
[A] report by a special U.N.-appointed board of inquiry could not affix blame because Israel did not allow the access to operational or tactical level commanders involved in the July 25 disaster at Khiam. Four military observers died, officers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland.
Therefore, the board was "unable to determine why the attacks on the U.N. position were not halted, despite repeated demarches (communications) to the Israeli authorities from U.N. personnel, both in the field and in U.N. headquarters," Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement.
Annan said the U.N. bunker at Khiam "was struck by a 500- kilogram precision-guided aerial bomb."
Despite not drawing any conclusions, a senior U.N. official briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said precision-guided munitions were "precision-guided and meant to hit the targets they hit, which was the United Nations."
"War is hell, peacekeeping is not supposed to be," the official said.
Of course, Israel is so very, very sorry [that they were caught].
Israel has accepted full responsibility for the incident and apologized to the United Nations for the army's "tragic operational mistake." But Annan and other officials made clear they were not able to verify if and how the error occurred.
* * *
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said maps of the area had been incorrect. "There was a mishap on the Israeli side where in duplication of maps, the U.N. position on the maps was not marked as it should have been and that created the tragedy," he said.
Israel launched an offensive into Lebanon after Hizbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
Regev said the investigation found that about 100 metres (yards) from the U.N. position there was a Hizbollah position where there was "hostile activity."
U.N. officials agreed Hizbollah guerrillas were at a base in the area as well as in a nearby prison. But they said there was no activity from the militia on July 25 and the U.N. bunker was clearly marked.
Jane Holl Lute, a deputy head of U.N. peacekeeping operations, told the U.N. Security Council on July 26 there were 21 strikes within 300 metres (yards) of the observer post during the six hours before it was completely destroyed.
Twelve of the 21 struck within 100 metres, including four that scored direct hits, Holl Lute said.
While there was speculation Israel may have been targeting Hizbollah positions near the Khiam post, Holl Lute said there was no Hizbollah firing coming from near the outpost.
An Irish army officer in south Lebanon warned Israeli forces six times that its strikes threatened the lives of the four observers, Ireland's Foreign Ministry said.
Little did he know, he was merely confirming what Israelis already knew.
And in case you have any doubts, people who use state of the art precision bombs DO NOT operate with faulty maps.
Apparently, someone at the Zionist Organization of America [ZOA] thinks I'm interested in receiving press releases about what they're scheming to do next in the region.
The one I received this morning alleges that "Lebanese officials" told Israelis (of all people) that Hizbullah is "rebuilding its network of [underground] bunkers" near the Israeli border - just in time for Israelis to postpone completion of their scheduled pullout from Southern Lebanon this Sunday.
Officials say several issues remain unresolved, including the role of international and Lebanese peacekeeping forces [which have no authority to disarm Hizbullah].
* * *
"When the Hezbollah leadership feels that its position is weakening, due to the growing international presence in southern Lebanon, it's very likely that they may try to force a small-scale confrontation with Israel," said Israeli analyst Shlomo Shpiro.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has boasted that his fighters remain dug-in in South Lebanon, and have no intention of leaving. And, he says, they still have 12,000 rockets.
Considering that Hezbollah fired 4,000 rockets at Israel during the war, Shpiro says it is a serious threat.
"They're certainly capable of doing a lot of the stuff they did before the war," he said. "Their troops are there; their equipment and weapons are there. The situation is very volatile."
Of course, if this is true, then Shpiro just admitted that Israel killed over one thousand civilians and destroyed half of Lebanon for NO DISCERNABLE REASON WHATSOEVER.
But, evidently it is, since ZOA had this to say about the current situation in Lebanon and what exactly BUSH and Co. must do next:
Lebanese officials have disclosed that the Islamist terrorist group, Hizballah, is moving rockets into Palestinian camps in southern Lebanon and rebuilding its network of bunkers just a few miles from the Israeli border only weeks since the conclusion of the recent Lebanon war. The officials said that the office of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Sinora sent a letter last week to Abbas Zakir, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) most senior representative in Lebanon, indicating that Hizballah weapons were being transferred to Palestinian camps and noting “unusual activity” in and near the Palestinian camps, including the coming and going of trucks suspected of carrying weapons.
The Lebanese officials were also quoted as saying that Hizballah, with the help of Iran, [of course] has commenced building underground war bunkers in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps. Palestinian groups, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party [wouldn't want to leave them out] and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) maintain armed bases in Lebanon, mostly in the al-Naemeh province just south of Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley, near Lebanon’s border with Syria and Israel [have to involve Syria, somehow]. According to an UNNAMED senior Lebanese official “The Lebanese Army doesn’t have the authority to patrol inside the camps ... Hizballah knows it is safe there to rebuild their war bunkers, and they began doing so with Iranian help” (Yediot Ahronot, September 26).
Hizballah is committed to Israel’s destruction and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has confessed genocidal ambitions, stating in 2002 that “If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide” (The Daily Star [Beirut], October 23, 2002). Hizballah launched an unprovoked assault on Israel in July[what's a press release without LIES?] which resulted in a 34-day war in which Israel counter-attacked against Hizballah in Lebanon[might as well justify our genocide] and ceased fire only after the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1701 (UNSC 1701). The Resolution did not mention, much less condemn Syria and Iran[while we're at it, let's complain], the main supporters of Hizballah, and set no timetable for the disarmament of Hizballah. The Resolution “calls upon the Government of Lebanon and [United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] ... to deploy their forces together throughout the South” but sets no timetable or mechanism to oversee the disarming of Hizballah. According to international legal scholar and Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Anne Bayefsky, the Resolution designed “a force for southern Lebanon incapable of disarming Hezbollah” (National Review Online, August 14).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “The ZOA predicted at the time that UNSC 1701 was a flawed and defective resolution that failed to punish the aggressors [I have to agree with that] and provide for the verifiable and efficient disarmament of Hizballah and recent reports about the rearming of Hizballah and its new program of constructing war bunkers close to Israel is conclusive evidence of these failures. In these circumstances, the Bush Administration must bring all possible pressure to bear on Lebanon and the UN forces to disarm Hizballah.The Bush Administration should further declare that Lebanon is accountable for military activities within Palestinian camps and indeed throughout Lebanese territory and cannot be permitted to allow terrorist groups to re-establish and entrench themselves.”
Sounds like ZOA is pretty confident about their ability to get the Bush administration to do their bidding. How is that possible if, as they insist, AIPAC is not as powerful as Walt and Meirsheimer claim it is?
"The secret of mind control is to change people outside of their awareness so they do your bidding without realizing that that's what they're doing."
* * *
"In 1776, Franz Mesmer unveils a device called a [baquette?] at the court of Louis the XVI of France. It is an oak barrel filled with iron filings that gives off an almost imperceptible magnetic charge. Mesmer tells the assembled guests that the charge is very powerful and that if they touch it they will have pleasant convulsions. And in fact, when members of the court touch the baquette, they collapse in convulsive fits and faint. What Mezmer has discovered is the power of suggestion."
Think you know what you're doing?
Think again. You don't know half the story.
And when you learn it, you'll realize that what you don't know CAN hurt you.
The Israeli army said it could not release details on the attack but said it had targeted two men suspected of involvement in firing rockets into Israel.
An army spokeswoman said the two had been hit as they were collecting a rocket launcher that had been used over the past week to fire rockets from northern Gaza into Israel.
Witnesses said the two were brothers aged 16 and 18 who were passing by on bicycles and were hit after stopping to look at the rocket launcher out of curiosity.
The debate was televised to an audience of millions by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The proposition under debate was Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue, a statement made by Barry Goldwater in his 1964 speech accepting the Republican Party nomination for president of the United States.
Malcolm X was the fifth of six speakers, and the second of three who defended the above proposition.
* * *
The audience, which included many students originally from Africa and Asia, greeted Malcolm's remarks with enthusiastic applause.
Two months later, 'they' killed him.
But, there he was in 1964 - a black Muslim man, in a time of overt racism, speaking before a predominately white audience, yet receiving a vigorous round of applause notwithstanding his fiery, revolutionary message.
He had discovered the key to our power, that is at once the secret to 'their' success.
As long as Malcolm was part of the black nationalist movement - essentially a domestic hate club - he was ineffective - nothing but a fly in 'their' soup; a mild nuisance to be dealt with through humor and dismissed out of hand.
But, when he traveled abroad and learned to identify with ALL human beings - no matter what color, or religion - making analogies and drawing parallels between conditions abroad and conditions at home; when his message became UNIVERSAL, he became an existential threat that had to be eliminated.
He finally understood their tricks, their trade - their whole kettle of lies and deceptions that for decades had kept people of simple means - of all races and religions - down, unable to fend for themselves or emerge from their squalid conditions.
Divide, Divide, Divide, and Conquer - they did it then and they do it now.
Who are 'they?'
They are those who see themselves as more deservingthan any other of the fruits of this planet that we all inhabit, such that they are ready to lie, cheat and even kill to ensure that they get it. But, by far, their most effective and preferred mechanism of control is deception.
They trick us into accepting our fate by filling our minds with twisted logic - Up is Down, Right is Wrong, and before you know it, what's rightfully ours becomes legally theirs and we're extremists if we're willing to fight to get it back.
Malcolm may not have convinced his audience in 1964 , but he was and continues to be RIGHT.
Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice and moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.
Those unwilling to risk their lives for liberty and justice, will never know either liberty or justice because, throughout history, never has an oppressor relinquished his power or control over another without being forced.
"It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That's the only thing that can save this country."
--Malcolm X, two days before he was assassinated
BROTHERHOOD and the will to fight for it is the only thing that can save our world.
There are some things you just don't let corporations do for (obscene) profits.
As a general rule of thumb, nations should steer away from handing the keys to certain industries - those charged with safeguarding their populations' well-being at their most vulnerable hour (defense, healthcare, insurance) - to a pack of wolves who are not only ready, but VERY willing to fully exploit those vulnerabilities.
The Chinese, on the other hand, are not as easily fooled as their American counterparts.
American life insurance companies are pressing Chinato make good on WTO commitments to give them equal access to its booming market, arguing that they can help meet the needs of a fast-aging population, the head of an industry group said Tuesday.
Insurers want Beijing to remove obstacles that limit their ability to set up nationwide operations and cap foreign ownership of a Chinese insurer at 50 percent, said Frank Keating, president of the American Council of Life Insurers.
He said China's life insurance market, now about one-tenth the size of the $540 billion-a-year U.S. market, could grow in coming years to become the world's biggest.
To put that in perspective, $540 billion is significantly more than the annual budget for the US Department of Defense - and we all know how huge that is compared to other nations.
Americans are so afraid of what will happen when they die that they let vultures eat from their flesh while they're alive.
Keating said his group pressed regulators in meetings this week to bring China's licensing system in line with its promise to the World Trade Organization to treat foreign and Chinese insurers equally.
China's current system requires foreign insurers to apply to open new offices one at a time, while Chinese competitors can win permission for a nationwide operation, Keating said.
China promised in 2004 to end such geographic restrictions and officials acknowledge that they are no longer required by regulations, but regulators still use the old system, he said.
"Our message here was a gentle chiding message that as this process goes forward it is important to be prompt, to be fair and to provide a competitive market for all," Keating told reporters.
China faces a Dec. 11 deadline for meeting commitments to open its BANKING, INSURANCE and other FINANCIAL industries to foreign competitors.
OMG!That's akin to injecting yourself with AIDS!
Trade groups say Beijing has met most of its commitments to repeal formal barriers to foreign competition. But they say that in some areas, companies are still waiting for promised regulations that are meant to put them on an equal footing with Chinese competitors.
Keating said he told Chinese officials that foreign insurers can help Beijing cope with the needs of a rapidly graying population by selling life insurance, annuities and other retirement-related services to millions of families who can afford them.
That would let government focus on helping the poor, he said.
Keating, a former governor of the U.S. state of Oklahoma, said he plans to meet with U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in hopes of having equal treatment in insurance made part of a U.S.-Chinese dialogue on economic matters.
The dialogue was launched last week when Paulson visited Beijing.
Keating also said that while Beijing has met its WTO commitment to let foreign investors own up to 50 percent of a Chinese insurer, his group wants to see that limit raised to allow FULL ownership.
The American Council of Life Insurers represents 377 companies that sell life insurance, annuities and pensions, including about 20 that operate in China.
He represents 377 insurance companies?!!
Do you know how POWERFUL that makes this man - life insurance is a classic protection racket - only it's global - and he's the godfather.
You simply don't wield that kind of power overnight. This man MUST have been connected to the industry for SOME time now to be appointed President.
Exactly, WHO is this guy???
Governor Keating had little time to relax upon taking office.Within three months of taking office, on April 19, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was destroyed following the Oklahoma City bombing. Following the terrorist attack, the lives of 168 Oklahomans were lost and over 800 people were injured. The blast destroyed or damaged more than 300 buildings in the surrounding area, leaving several hundred people homeless and shutting down offices in downtown Oklahoma City.
Governor Keating immediately mobilized relief and rescue teams to handle the crisis, assuring prompt assistance. Over 12,000 people participated in relief and rescue operations in the days following the blast. The national and worldwide humanitarian response was immediate and overwhelming. Governor Keating declared a state of emergency, which allowed FEMA to activated 11 of its Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces to assist in rescue and recovery operations.
Hmmmmm . . . sounds familiar - didn't have time to relax upon taking office . . .national and international support overwhelming . . . declared a state of emergency . . . HUGE corporate connections . . . VERY interesting.
U.S. insurers accounted for $1.5 billion of the $61.6 billion in life insurance premiums paid in China last year, according to Brad Smith, the insurance group's vice president for international relations.
The Chinese market for insurance has been growing by 15 percent to 20 percent a year over the past decade, [!!!] Smith said.
Smith said he couldn't estimate what share of China's insurance market foreign companies might be able to capture. But elsewhere in Asia, foreign companies account for 25 percent of Japan's insurance market and 13 percent of South Korea's, he said.
Insurers hope to see Beijing create TAX and other incentives for families to invest in annuities, long-term health care policies and other retirement services, Keating said.
"That will free the government to focus on the 60 million poorest people," he said. "That's good public policy."
Suuuurrre, it's good public policy - it's like letting the fox guard the chicken coop.
Check out the steel core columns sliced in clean, 45 degree angles!
There is NO WAY this happened spontaneously as a result of structural collapse.
The Truth is closing in on the BIG LIE, surrounding it from every angle, as more and more people learn the Truth and talk about it openly.
At this rate, by this time next year, the people who perpetrated these crimes will be hanging from the gallows - where they belong!
___________________________________ Order the whole 9/11 Mysteries series, if you can afford it, to thank them for their awesome work and to support the search for Truth.
Israelis deliberately fired several rounds of shells onto a crowded beach ripping to pieces this 12 year old girl's entire family before her very eyes.
But, instead of this incident and many more in between, our Zionist controlled media inserts their celebrated Shalit "kidnapping" following EVERY new grisly murder of Palestinian civilians by bloodthirsty Israelis, in order to "remind" readers how it allegedly all started. They even include Israel's 'cause celebre' in photo captions to justify images of dead children - killed by Israel's war machine, and paid for by our tax dollars.
An Israeli warplane bombed and destroyed a home in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, [September 27, 2006] killing a teenage girl in a neighboring building and wounding 10 other people, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli army confirmed it had fired at a house camouflaging a weapons-smuggling tunnel in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, and that its occupants had been warned [MINUTES] beforehand to leave.
Dr. Ali Mousa, the director of Rafah's hospital, told Reuters a girl, 14, died when a block from the house that Israel bombed twice ricocheted into a neighboring building causing it to collapse.
He said 10 other people were wounded by the blast, most of them women and children who suffered broken bones, bruises and shrapnel wounds.
The Israeli strike came hours after a rocket fired from Gaza wounded an off-duty Israeli soldier in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.
Israel has stepped up military operations in Gaza, a coastal strip it had withdrawn from last year, after Palestinian militants captured a soldier in a June 25 cross-border raid.
TOO BAD IT'S A LIE.
It all started June 9th, on a beach in Gaza.
The tears have not yet left the innocent face of one astonished girl, Huda Ghalia, 12, who lost 7 members of her family yesterday, while they enjoyed their weekend at the shore in the town of Beit Lahia, north of Gaza.
* * *
These enjoyable moments did not continue for long. Soon, the Israeli navy gunboats shot two bombs among the beachgoers.
Ali hailed a taxi and called for his family members to leave quickly, as soon as possible, and they collected their luggage, the children collected their toys, and they fled the now-dangerous beach.
* * *
"Suddenly, a rocket hit our family. I was only several meters away. The rocket fell among my mother, father, sisters and brothers. The dust was so intense that I couldn't see anything," she said, while laying on her bed at Kamal Udwan Hospital.
Seven members of the family were killed on the spot - the father Ali, 45, his son Haitham, 6 months, daughter Hanadi, 18 months, daughter Sabreen, 3, daughter Ilham, 7, daughter Alia, 25 and Ali's second wife, Raifa, 26. Several other women and children were wounded.
"I was so scared and ran away for several meters, and then I came back. I saw my brothers and sisters bleeding. I saw a head and hands but did not realize to whom they belonged. I saw my father - he was dead, lying on the dunes."
Eyewitness, Moneer Ghabin, said that he saw the "unbelievable and horrible" scene at the sea soon after the bombardment.
* * *
"Huda was running between the sand dunes as if she were looking for something. She was weaving between the bodies, and the body parts, of her family. She was scared, astonished, surprised and crying," Ghabin said.
Ayham, 20, another of Ali's sons, said that he was talking to his father just seconds before the attack.
"When the shell hit us, I do not know what happened. Within seconds, I realized that my family had been turned into a heap of flesh. Unconsciously, I carried someone's hand or leg - I'm not sure whose. I did not know what to do, and do not know why it happened," Ayham said.
* * *
Samir Kullab, 33, was carrying his bag leaving the shore. As his children followed, he said that the Israelis committed this crime because "they feel angry to see Palestinians enjoying their lives."
Kullab said that he could not understand why it happened and promised that he will never come, or allow his children to come, to see the sea again.
And to this day, the bloody massacre continues, unabated.
Nothing can justify this wholesale slaughter of innocents.
Spread the word. Israel must pay for its war crimes.
Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison for Palestinians where life is "intolerable, appalling, tragic" and the Jewish state appears to have thrown away the key, a U.N. human rights envoy [John Dugard] said on Tuesday.
* * *
"If ... the international community cannot ... take some action, (it) must not be surprised if the people ... disbelieve that they are seriously committed to the promotion of human rights," he told the United Nations' Human Rights Council.
Now there's the understatement of the millenium!
Anyone with EYES, EARS and even a modicum of information KNOWS that the UN, the US and Israel aren't even interested in human rights let alone committed to protecting them. But, even this mild diplomatic admonishment was too abrasive for Israel's taste.
Israel hit back saying there was an "alarming disconnect" between the rapporteur's report to the U.N.'s human rights watchdog and the experience of Israelis who continued to "face the daily threat of Palestinian terrorism."
The South African lawyer, who has been a special U.N. investigator since 2001, repeated earlier accusations that Israel is breaking international humanitarian law with security measures which amount to "collective punishment."
Israel says its security restrictions, which include the construction of a steel and concrete barrier in the West Bank, are designed to stop suicide bombers entering Israel. Bombings have declined since the barrier was built.
It also maintains tight restrictions on the movement of goods and people into and out of Gaza, a coastal strip that it pulled out of last year after 38 years of occupation.
* * *
"Israel violates international law as expounded by the Security Council and the International Court of Justice and goes unpunished.But the Palestinian people are punished for having democratically elected a regime unacceptable to Israel, the U.S. and the EU," Dugard said.
But Israel's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva Itzhak Levanon said that by putting the "entire blame" on Israel the report "absolves the terrorists that have taken Palestinian society hostage from even the most minimal responsibility."
Dugard said that three-quarters of Gaza's 1.4 million people were dependent on food aid. Bombing raids by Israel since the June 25 capture of an army corporal by Palestinian militants had destroyed houses and the territory's only power plant.
"Gaza is a prison and Israel seems to have thrown away the key," he said.
The West Bank also faced a humanitarian crisis, albeit not as extreme as Gaza, in part due to the barrier,which Dugard alleged wasno longer being justified by Israel on security grounds but was part of a move to annex more land.
Palestinians living between the barrier and the Green Line, the frontier at the end of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, could no longer freely access schools and places of work and many had abandoned local farms, he said.
"In other countries this process might be described as ethnic cleansing but political correctness forbids such language where Israel is concerned," Dugard said.
* * *
Saddest Ramadan in 40 years: To many residents of Gaza, this month of Ramadan is the poorest and saddest holiday since 1967. According to them, the economic situation has never been worse and the holiday feasts have never been as lacking as this year.
Abed Srur, a construction worker from Gaza said that unlike the Ramadan tradition, for their fast ending meal they eat only rice with no meat. He said that his income since May has been only NIS 3,000.
The Palestinians continue to be troubled by the closure imposed on the Strip that prevents the transfer of goods and people and hurts the ability of traders and workers to support their families.
Srur also said that the salaries that the Palestinian government has promised to pay its employees have not been paid because of conflicts between the government and Palestinian President Abbas. "Ramadan has never been so sad," said Srur.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, Ramadan is the Islamic holy month in which Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset in the name of God, to purify us - mind, body and soul - from the desires of this world.
Israelis want to take this opportunity to purify the land of its unwanted inhabitants, further entrenching themselves in the desires of this world.
Coincidence? I don't think so. And neither do 42% of Americans polled.
Almost half of all Americans believethe November elections have more influence than market forces. For them, the plunge at the pump is about politics, not economics.
Retired farmer Jim Mohr of Lexington, Ill., rattled off a tankful of reasons why pump prices may be falling, including the end of the summer travel season and the fact that no major hurricanes have disrupted Gulf of Mexico output.
“But I think the big important reason is Republicans want to get elected,” Mohr, 66, said while filling up for $2.17 a gallon. “They think getting the prices down is going to help get some more incumbents re-elected.”
According to a new Gallup poll, 42 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that the Bush administration “deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall’s elections.”
Fifty-three percent of those surveyed did not believe in this conspiracy theory, while 5 percent said they had no opinion.
Almost two-thirds of those who suspect President Bush intervened to bring down energy prices before Election Day are registered Democrats, according to Gallup.
White House spokesman Tony Snow addressed the issue Monday, telling reporters that “the one thing I have been amused by is the attempt by some people to say that the president has been rigging gas prices, which would give him the kind of magisterial clout unknown to any other human being.”
“It also raises the question, if we’re dropping gas prices now, why on earth did we raise them to $3.50 before?” Snow said.
But, in all fairness to Snow-blow, this is NOT just about Bush & Cheney and their Oil & Blood-soaked cronies. There are other forces behind the scenes.
Crude oil prices dropped below $60 a barrelfor the first time in six months on Monday before rebounding a bit as nervous speculatorsretreated from the commodity markets, spooked by the improving picture for oil supplies and cooling economies.
[ "The market" ] reacted at first to news that Iran was willing to enter negotiations about its nuclear program and that BP would resume pumping oil ahead of schedule from part of its site in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. But underlying economic jitters, particularly fears about a United States slowdown, also contributed to the price drop, analysts said.
By "the market", they mean the gambling casino we euphemistically call "the financial market."
The price of a barrel of light crude oil for delivery in November fell as low as $59.52 a barrel in New York. By late afternoon in London, it was trading at $60.55 and it closed in New York at $61.45, ending up 90 cents. Oil prices have fallen about 20 percent since July, after being driven up by hedge funds and traders concerned about supply squeezes because of geopolitical unrest and hurricanes.
Whether oil prices will drift back up or continue their general slide is a matter of fierce debate.[in other words, a matter of choice]
“The oil market’s fundamentals have finally asserted themselves,” the Centre for Global Energy Studies in London said in a report on Monday. Markets reached a point recently where “the upward momentum of oil prices disappeared, and it will therefore take a combination of special factors to bring it back,” said the group, which was founded by a former Saudi petroleum minister.
When he says "fundamentals", he means 'free market forces.' And when he says "a combination of special factors" he means THIS.
But, then you must ask - Who or What prevents market fundamentals from 'asserting themselves?'
Noncommercial buyers, which are generally pension, mutual and hedge funds,poured money into oil and other commodities in recent years, in part because they thought that the growing emerging-market economies had created a so-called supercycle that guaranteed price increases. In recent weeks, they have exited the market rapidly as prices started to fall when the hurricane season proved to be less severe than had been feared and several producers increased supplies or announced new oil discoveries.
The net number of long contracts, not including options, held by noncommercial buyers — bets that the price of crude oil will increase — is 22,000, down from 83,000 on Aug. 15, according to an analysis by PFC Energy of the most recent report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. “It is a huge reversal in position,” said David Kirsch, an oil markets analyst with PFC in Washington.
Kamal Murari, global head of energy marketing for Dresdner Kleinwort, said: “The move down that’s taken place has been sharp and sudden. The fact that it’s moved as significantly as it has means that any forced liquidation has been mostly priced into the market,” he said. Some of the selling in the oil market may be linked to the recent well-publicized losses in the natural gas markets, Mr. Murari said, as some funds may have been forced to liquidate assets across energy. Most market participants think OPEC will be concerned enough to take steps to stem further declines if the prices fall to $55 a barrel, he said.
Think about it. Some funds were FORCED to liquidate. And those forced liquidations were "mostly priced into the market."BY WHOM??
The members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, have been in contact by telephone since their last meeting on Sept. 11 to discuss falling prices but have no plans for an emergency meeting on the subject, a spokesman said on Monday. Questions about the future growth of the United States economy are also pushing investors out of the oil market.American consumers are often referred to by economists as the engine that drives the world’s markets, and when they stop spending, other economies are affected. United States home prices are cooling down, giving consumers less confidence and stripping them of paper gains.
In the United States, market experts estimate that the falling oil prices will help soften the effect of the weakening housing market. “The sudden change in oil price direction in the last month has reduced the total cost of oil to the United States economy by $40 billion a year,” said Lawrence J. Goldstein, the president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. The fall in oil prices has added back one-quarter to one-half of a point of growth to the United States gross domestic product, Mr. Goldstein estimates.
If the fall in oil prices increases US GDP, increases in oil prices does the exact opposite - bringing our economy to its knees.
The same exact thing can be said of the Federal Reserve's interest rates. And in each case - energy and money - each industry is TOTALLY controlled by a handful of individuals.
This is no exaggeration.
Americans are being remote-controlled by the two levers that affect us most - our energy supply and our money supply.
If you believe in FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY - the only way to win it back is by spreading the truth about our economy - the TRUTH that THEY don't want YOU or ANYONE ELSE to KNOW.
In a dramatic development that has come as a surprise to pundits and the public alike, a youthful technician with Diebold, Inc. has emerged as the unlikely winner of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. The president-elect, 19 year old Billy Pustule of Green, Ohio, reached via SMS at the garage apartment by his mother's house in which he currently resides, said he was "real psyched about being the president" and "had big plans for the inauguration party".
Satire, of course, but not far from the truth about our voting system.
According to the official electronic tally, compiled and certified by Diebold voting engineers, President-elect Pustule won an impressive 59.6% of the popular vote nationwide, the strongest showing ever received by a write-in candidate. He was followed by 38% for Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, and 28.6% for Republican candidate Bill Frist. The fact that the totals exceed 100% has been attributed by a Diebold spokesman to "a special kind of rounding".
This underscores how important it is for communities to organize committees to independently survey their communities to ensure that the official count in November is legitimate. Our government agencies can't be trusted.
“What is needed is to evacuate the villages from where the rockets are being fired, and raze them,” Yishai, from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, told public radio.
“And to do this village after village until they stop firing rockets against us,” said Yishai, who also serves as deputy prime minister and is a member of Israel’s security cabinet. “This situation cannot continue as is.”
If they can announce things like this for all the world to hear, imagine what they do to Palestinians behind closed doors.
He's right about one thing, though - “this situation cannot continue as is.”
The Madman of Tel-Aviv not only purportedly met with a senior Saudi official (if not King Abdullah himself), he allegedly gave his royal majesty two thumbs up.
An Israeli newspaper reported Mondaythat Prime Minister Ehud Olmert secretly met with a senior Saudi Arabian official to discuss Iran's nuclear program and peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
The daily Yediot Ahronot quoted an unspecified number of anonymous Israeli officials as saying that Olmert met with King Abdullah "10 days ago."It described other officials as hinting that the talks were with a senior official close to the king. None of the officials disclosed the location of the purported meeting, or what was supposed to have been said, according to the paper.
Saudi Arabia, which has NO OFFICIAL diplomatic ties with Israel, has been trying to revive a regional peace initiative it presented in 2002. Israel rejected the plan at the time, but Olmert has indicated he might be more open than his predecessor, Ariel Sharon.
When asked by Yediot last week if Israel had secret contacts with Saudi Arabia, Olmert said: "I do not have to answer every question."
Israeli Cabinet Minister Gideon Ezra refused to confirm or deny Monday's report.
"I know what I read in the newspaper," Ezra told Israel Radio. "I think this is the correct way to respond ... every extra word about these issues is unnecessary."
Yediot first reported last week that Israel and Saudi Arabia had been holding secret talks since fighting erupted in July between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
Israel and the United States say Iran is trying to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Saudi Arabia 's peace initiative called for a full Israeli withdrawal from lands it captured in the 1967 Mideast war in exchange for normalization and relations with all Arab countries. It was rejected by Sharon outright but Olmert struck a different tone in the interview with Yediot last week.
"I am very impressed with different processes and statements that are connected to Saudi Arabia, some that have been stated publicly and others as well. I am very impressed with King Abdullah's wisdom and sense of responsibility," Olmert was quoted as saying.
Anyone who thinks for a second that Israel wouldn't dare demonstrate its nuclear capacity on Iran, can wakeup now.
If Israel is not forced [by US] to refrain, it's not a matter of IFthey will use their nuclear arsenal, but simply WHEN and under what treacherous circumstance.
They didn't build them to put on a shelf - I don't care what so-called "leftist" Israeli alternatives are being leaked through the Zionist controlled media. Israelis are Hell-bent on demonstrating their nuclear supremacy.
In a speech before the UN General Assembly last week, Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni , said the international community "is faced with no greater responsibility than to stand against this dark and growing danger -- not for Israel's sake,but for its own."[that's a veiled threat, btw]
Nevertheless, the failure so far of US-led efforts to rally the UN Security Council has forced Israelis to ask "what if?"
For one, there is a new sense that the United States, bogged down in Iraq, will be unwilling to take on Iran militarily if diplomacy fails, according to Shai Feldman, director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University.
"For the moment, Iran seems to be dealing with a very, very strong hand," Feldman said in an interview, citing high oil prices and new influence in the region. "If there weren't these new considerations there would have been greater confidence in Israel that if all diplomacy failed that the United States would act militarily to stop Iran. There is a growing assessment in Israel that the United States might have no choice but to let this program go through."
There is also a deepening suspicion that any Israeli military strike would only embolden the Iranians, while doing little to prevent the country from ultimately acquiring a nuclear arsenal.
Unlike the Israeli airstrike against the Iraqi program, Iran's project is believed to be spread across multiple underground sites, many of them secret. Iran is also significantly farther than Iraq, making it more difficult for Israeli aircraft to travel undetected. Another complication: Any Israeli mission would be viewed as approved by Washington -- whether it is or not -- because the US military controls the Iraqi airspace through which Israeli jets would probably have to fly.
They've just outlined a litany of reasons why dropping THE BOMB is their most strategic option.And they are not afraid to do it.
A senior Israeli diplomat said the Israeli government has no formal planning underway for how to respond to a nuclear Iran. [BULLSHIT.] But the official, who declined to be identified while discussing internal deliberations, acknowledged that a quiet debate is going on at the highest levels about what to do if, for example, Iran conducts a surprise nuclear test. [BULLSHIT - you can be sure that any surprise attacks will be Israeli.]
Yehezkel Dror, a member of the government commission reviewing the recent 34-day conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, is among those raising such questions. He maintains that Israel must have a new plan to deal with the prospect that it will wake up one day to find that Iran has the bomb.
"If efforts to prevent fanatical enemies from acquiring weapons of mass killing fail, TOTAL DETERRENCE may often be the only effective counter stance," Dror asserts. "This requires an image of UNSHAKEABLE WILL and assured capacity to ANNIHILATE any country that causes grievous harm to Israel, even after Israel is devastated."
There is no two ways to interpret this. Israelis are plotting to drop THE BOMB on Iran.
What's for certain, Feldman said, is that the unfolding debate will be fierce.
"Some will argue that it is not the Cold War -- you are talking about people who welcome death,"he said, referring to Islamic extremists in Iran. "But there will be new pressures to sharpen Israel's deterrence and the perception about its ability to retaliate."
This is no exaggeration - the world sits at the edge of nuclear abyss.
Not only were they caught high-fiving while videotaping the towers burn, they had the nerve to get on Israeli tv in 2001 and say that "[their] purpose was to document the event."
This statement may have gone unnoticed had they not been dancing and laughing as the towers burned and crashed before their eyes, had they not been found with box-cutters and maps of the city with certain places highlighted, had they not cried upon arrest "We are not your problem . . . Palestinians are your problem."
But, under the circumstances, the statement can be interpreted as an admission of foreknowledge, or - more likely - an admission of complicity.
As the world sits on the edge of nuclear abyss, about to be pushed over by these same pack of war-like paranoid delusionals, the world would do good to sit up and notice these uncanny string of "coincidences."
The Corporate Terrorists At Citigroup: If you are Sick be Prepared to Die!
Here is a story from inner city press that shows just how sick these corporate terrorists are...especially when they are dealing with the sick.
"I missed six weeks of work, and asked to be accommodated through the flex-work initiative propounded by the corporate offices. The HR department told me that my request had been denied due to some late reviews and that I would have to return to the office to complete a conference call. When I came in I was called into a manager's office with my immediate supervisor, and his manager and told that my request was denied, there would be no further discussion and if I wanted to continue working there I had better sign the forms being presented to me. Although I was, and am still under a doctor's care, the forms basically stated that I felt ready to return to work and that a new work-plan was being devised to "accommodate" me. No copies were provided" (www.innercitypress.org).
So basically Shitibank used terror to scare this employee into signing a contract against their will. Now someone explain to me how this isn't terrorism! Not to mention slavery and abuse.
What would happen next though was on a completely new level of evil. Shitibank doubled this employees workload. This employee spent their whole Memorial Day weekend trying to satisfy the terrorist slave drivers at Citibank. The worker even spend their own money to hire someone to help. This is one of the richest companies out their and they not only abuse sick slaves, but they force them to spend their own money to do their dirty work.
But what do you think was the reward for this employees slave labor "Five weeks after I returned, I was terminated and escorted from the building by 4 vice presidents and the head of building security. I told then that this seemed unnecessary, and was certainly humiliating since it would appear that I was some terrorist (note:citisucks prefers the term freedom fighters) being escorted out of the Citigroup tower. I would not have thought much more of the situation except for the fact the other employees told me of similar occurrences with "mature" workers over the age of fifty. Just one month before me a 20 year veteran returned from hip-replacement surgery and was terminated exactly 4 weeks later" (www.innercitypress.org).
So to all the people that Citibank hates and seeks to murder, better ad the ill, disabled, and the elderly to the list. Hitler would be proud.
And if you think this itself is sick, their is more to come in part II.
And p.s. if you haven't taken your money out of Shitibank or gotten rid of their credit cards will you please do so and stop supporting the terrorists. Thanks.
How many special agents does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Apparently - under optimum conditions - tens of thousands.
That's how preposterous it is that it should take 3 years, billions of dollars, and 16 spy agencies, manned by tens of thousands of intelligence agents, to conclude that which was patently obvious to anyone with half a brain from day one.
The document reportedly blames the conflict for increasing the threat of terrorism and helping fuel Islamic radicalism worldwide.
Such a conclusion is at odds with the White House's persistent claim that going to war was the right thing to do.
The paper has not seen the report, but spoke to people familiar with it.
* * *
The BBC's Andre Vornic in New York says the National Intelligence Estimate, as the document is known, is all the more significant for reflecting the views of no fewer than 16 US spy agencies:
According to the New York Times, it says the Iraq war has triggered more, not less, terrorism, and helped spread jihadist ideology.
It also reportedly concludes that al-Qaeda has now mutated into a global franchise of semi-autonomous cells.
The estimate is the first US assessment of international terrorism since the Iraq war began.
The New York Times has spoken to officials who have either read it, or been involved in drafting it.
If what they say is true, our correspondent says, the document appears to undermine US President George W Bush's insistence that for all the flaws of the Iraq war, the world is now a safer place.
Don't you just love the way they use fancy technical terms like "jihadist ideology" and "global franchise of semi-autonomous cells" to describe what is clearly an entirely natural phenomenon: spontaneous reactions to brutal occupation by isolated individuals with only one thing in common - their humanity.
Our government just doesn't get it. They believe their own lies.
The truth about Iraqis, or any other people for that matter, is not what the US government thinks it is, or how they would like it to be or would like others to believe that it is.
The truth is that DESPITE the fact that the US government thinks Iraqis are animals and DESPITE the fact that they treat them that way - Iraqis are HUMAN and they react accordingly - regardless of whether or not their oppressors anticipate it.
Moreover, regardless of how that reaction is characterized, it remains what it is - a natural human response.
So - as the saying goes - keep doing what you're doing and you'll keep getting what you're getting.
Until US corporate interests STOP trying to take away other people's freedoms (and resources) in order to enhance their own freedoms and increase their own resources, Americans can expect MUCH MORE of the SAME - a whole lot of angry people around the world who will put up a VERY nasty fight to protect themselves and their resources.
The group will be led by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Dina Powell and will include Intel Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett, Cisco Systems Inc. Chief Executive John Chambers, Ghafari Inc. Chairman Yousif Ghafari and Ray Irani, chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp.
The White House said the delegation will meet with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and will visit areas hit by the bombing. The conflict killed nearly 1,200 people in Lebanon and 157 in Israel.
The group is setting up a fund to seek private donations from Americans for the rebuilding.
You didn't think they'd do it for free, did you?
If you haven't already, now's the time to watch Why We Fight.
The guy's been dead for almost five years, but those heavily invested in the "War on Terror" will go to any lengths to keep the Lie alive.
"We are not saying he is dead, but there is a lot of truth in the report" [a Saudi intelligence source told United Press International.]The Saudi source, who spoke on condition that his name not be revealed, confirmed the existence of a Saudi intelligence report relating to the health of bin Laden. And according to that Saudi Arabian intelligence document, it states, "bin Laden was very ill these past few weeks."
The Saudi source told UPI the French intelligence report must have concluded that Saudi authorities believes bin Laden to be dead.
"There is no way we can prove that bin Laden is dead until we can see the body," the Saudi intelligence source told UPI. But, he stressed, "A good portion of what is in the report is true."
For the moment, the source went on to say, "We do not confirm bin Laden's death. "We don't know."
Making the report all the more credible was the choice by those in French counter-intelligence of where to leak the Saudi report, the regional L'Est Republicain, rather than one of the larger Paris-based dailies.
"There is a history with that paper," the Saudi source told UPI. The newspaper is known to have had intelligence reports leaked to it in the past. "They are very reliable," said the Saudi official.
The information purporting the death of the world's most sought after terrorist is based on what the newspaper calls "a usually reliable source," stating that Saudi intelligence sources "are convinced" of bin Laden's death.
The French intelligence report goes on to say, still according to the French daily, that bin Laden died in Pakistan on August 23 after suffering "from a severe bout of typhoid fever," and a bacterial infection provoked a paralysis of his lower body. [not to mention rigor mortis!]
The Saudi intelligence report states that bin Laden's geographic isolation "rendered all medical assistance impossible. Indeed, U.S. intelligence sources have long believed bin Laden was hiding in remote parts of Pakistan, close to the border with Afghanistan, areas where sophisticated medical help would be difficult to obtain.
The news of bin Laden's death reached the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Sept. 4. If confirmed, that, in part, might explain the complete absence of Osama bin Laden from making any appearances on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon just outside Washington, DC.
Instead, a videotape by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was released to television news networks.
The French daily reports that the internal and confidential memo from the DGSE reporting the death of "the enemy number one" of the United States and of the West, was handed over to the Presidency of the French republic on Sept. 21.
What a farse. They can no longer sustain the lie so they admit that he's dead five years after the fact. And the Saudis won't even do that - they insist there's still hope for the "War on Terror."
We write to you from ALL OVERthe United States and ALL OVER the world to URGE YOU to OBEY both international and U.S. LAW,which forbid aggressive attacks on other nations.
WE OPPOSE
YOUR PROPOSAL TO ATTACK IRAN.
Iran DOES NOT possess nuclear weapons,
just as Iraq DID NOT possess nuclear weapons.
[EVEN if] Iran had such weapons, that would not justify the use of force, any more than any other nation would be justified in launching a war against the world's greatest possesor of nuclear arms, the United States.
The most effective way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons would be to closely monitor its nuclear energy program, and to improve diplomatic relations -- two tasks made much more difficult by threatening to bomb Iranian territory.
We urge you to lead the way to peace, NOT WAR, and to begin by making clear that you will not commit the highest international crime by aggressively attacking Iran.
Isn't it enough what you and your handlers did to Iraq?
This isn't a request, you bastard, it's an ORDER from THE PEOPLE you work for.
_______________ Thanks, vper1, for helping with the video.
Prepare for more war, America - like it or not, the fuse has been lit.
The Bush Administration and the Pentagon have issued ordersfor a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This information follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1.
As Time writes in its cover story, "What Would War Look Like?," evidence of the forward deployment of minesweepers and word that the chief of naval operations had asked for a reworking of old plans for mining Iranian harbors "suggest that a much discussed--but until now largely theoretical--prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran."
According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received recent orders to depart the United States in a little over a week. Other official sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran on or around October 21.
The Eisenhower had been in port at the Naval Station Norfolk for several years for refurbishing and refueling of its nuclear reactor; it had not been scheduled to depart for a new duty station until at least a month later, and possibly not till next spring. Family members, before the orders, had moved into the area and had until then expected to be with their sailor-spouses and parents in Virginia for some time yet. First word of the early dispatch of the "Ike Strike" group to the Persian Gulf region came from several angry officers on the ships involved, who contacted antiwar critics like retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner and complained that they were being sent to attack Iran without any order from the Congress.
"This is very serious," said Ray McGovern, a former CIA threat-assessment analyst who got early word of the Navy officers' complaints about the sudden deployment orders. (McGovern, a twenty-seven-year veteran of the CIA, resigned in 2002 in protest over what he said were Bush Administration pressures to exaggerate the threat posed by Iraq. He and other intelligence agency critics have formed a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.)
Colonel Gardiner, who has taught military strategy at the National War College, says that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian Gulf arrival date of October 21 is "very important evidence" of war planning. He says, "I know that some naval forces have already received 'prepare to deploy orders' [PTDOs], which have set the date for being ready to go as October 1. Given that it would take about from October 2 to October 21 to get those forces to the Gulf region, that looks about like the date" of any possible military action against Iran. (A PTDO means that all crews should be at their stations, and ships and planes should be ready to go, by a certain date--in this case, reportedly, October 1.) Gardiner notes, "You cannot issue a PTDO and then stay ready for very long. It's a very significant order, and it's not done as a training exercise." This point was also made in the Time article.
So what is the White House planning?
On Monday President Bush addressed the UN General Assembly at its opening session, and while studiously avoiding even physically meeting Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was also addressing the body, he offered a two-pronged message. Bush told the "people of Iran" that "we're working toward a diplomatic solution to this crisis" and that he looked forward "to the day when you can live in freedom." But he also warned that Iran's leaders were using the nation's resources "to fund terrorism and fuel extremism and pursue nuclear weapons." Given the President's assertion that the nation is fighting a "global war on terror" and that he is Commander in Chief of that "war," his prominent linking of the Iran regime with terror has to be seen as a deliberate effort to claim his right to carry the fight there. Bush has repeatedly insisted that the 2001 Congressional Authorization for the Use of Force that preceded the invasion of Afghanistan was also an authorization for an unending "war on terror."
Even as Bush was making not-so-veiled threats at the UN, his former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, a sharp critic of any unilateral US attack on Iran, was in Norfolk, not far from the Eisenhower, advocating further diplomatic efforts to deal with Iran's nuclear program--itself tantalizing evidence of the policy struggle over whether to go to war, and that those favoring an attack may be winning that struggle.
"I think the plan's been picked: bomb the nuclear sites in Iran," says Gardiner. "It's a terrible idea, it's against US law and it's against international law, but I think they've decided to do it." Gardiner says that while the United States has the capability to hit those sites with its cruise missiles, "the Iranians have many more options than we do: They can activate Hezbollah; they can organize riots all over the Islamic world, including Pakistan, which could bring down the Musharraf government, putting nuclear weapons into terrorist hands; they can encourage the Shia militias in Iraq to attack US troops; they can blow up oil pipelines and shut the Persian Gulf." Most of the major oil-producing states in the Middle East have substantial Shiite populations, which has long been a concern of their own Sunni leaders and of Washington policy-makers, given the sometimes close connection of Shiite populations to Iran's religious rulers.
Of course, Gardiner agrees, recent ship movements and other signs of military preparedness could be simply a bluff designed to show toughness in the bargaining with Iran over its nuclear program. But with the Iranian coast reportedly armed to the teeth with Chinese Silkworm antiship missiles, and possibly even more sophisticated Russian antiship weapons, against which the Navy has little reliable defenses, it seems unlikely the Navy would risk high-value assets like aircraft carriers or cruisers with such a tactic. Nor has bluffing been a Bush MO to date.
Commentators and analysts across the political spectrum are focusing on Bush's talk about dialogue, with many claiming that he is climbing down from confrontation. On the right, David Frum, writing on September 20 in his National Review blog, argues that the lack of any attempt to win a UN resolution supporting military action, and rumors of "hushed back doors" being opened in Washington, lead him to expect a diplomatic deal, not a unilateral attack. Writing in the center, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler saw in Bush's UN speech evidence that "war is no longer a viable option" in Iran. Even on the left, where confidence in the Bush Administration's judgment is abysmally low, commentators like Noam Chomsky and Nation contributor Robert Dreyfuss are skeptical that an attack is being planned. Chomsky has long argued that Washington's leaders aren't crazy, and would not take such a step--though more recently, he has seemed less sanguine about Administration sanity and has suggested that leaks about war plans may be an effort by military leaders--who are almost universally opposed to widening the Mideast war--to arouse opposition to such a move by Bush and war advocates like Cheney. Dreyfuss, meanwhile, in an article for the online journal TomPaine.com, focuses on the talk of diplomacy in Bush's Monday UN speech, not on his threats, and concludes that it means "the realists have won" and that there will be no Iran attack.
But all these war skeptics may be whistling past the graveyard. After all, it must be recalled that Bush also talked about seeking diplomatic solutions the whole time he was dead-set on invading Iraq, and the current situation is increasingly looking like a cheap Hollywood sequel. The United States, according to Gardiner and others, already reportedly has special forces operating in Iran, and now major ship movements are looking ominous.
Representative Maurice Hinchey, a leading Democratic critic of the Iraq War, informed about the Navy PTDOs and about the orders for the full Eisenhower Strike Group to head out to sea, said, "For some time there has been speculation that there could be an attack on Iran prior to November 7, in order to exacerbate the culture of fear that the Administration has cultivated now for over five or six years. But if they attack Iran it will be a very bad mistake, for the Middle East and for the US. It would only make worse the antagonism and fear people feel towards our country. I hope this Administration is not so foolish and irresponsible." He adds, "Military people are deeply concerned about the overtaxing of the military already."
Calls for comment from the White House on Iran war plans and on the order for the Eisenhower Strike Group to deploy were referred to the National Security Council press office, which declined to return this reporter's phone calls.
McGovern, who had first told a group of anti-Iraq War activists Sunday on the National Mall in Washington, DC, during an ongoing action called "Camp Democracy," about his being alerted to the strike group deployment, warned, "We have about seven weeks to try and stop this next war from happening."
One solid indication that the dispatch of the Eisenhower is part of a force buildup would be if the carrier Enterprise--currently in the Arabian Sea, where it has been launching bombing runs against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and which is at the end of its normal six-month sea tour--is kept on station instead of sent back to the United States. Arguing against simple rotation of tours is the fact that the Eisenhower's refurbishing and its dispatch were rushed forward by at least a month. A report from the Enterprise on the Navy's official website referred to its ongoing role in the Afghanistan fighting, and gave no indication of plans to head back to port. The Navy itself has no comment on the ship's future orders.
Jim Webb, Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan Administration and currently a Democratic candidate for Senate in Virginia, expressed some caution about reports of the carrier deployment, saying, "Remember, carrier groups regularly rotate in and out of that region." But he added, "I do not believe that there should be any elective military action taken against Iran without a separate authorization vote by the Congress. In my view, the 2002 authorization which was used for the invasion of Iraq should not extend to Iran."
Unfortunately for the world, El Diablo - not Webb - is in charge.
What better way to celebrate than to make others' lives miserable?
Israeli Defense Minister Amir PeretzThursday ordered the army to impose a full closure on the West Bank and Gaza during the Jewish New Year holiday, local media reported.
And then they wonder why people hate them so much.
___________________________ UPDATE: It wouldn't be New Years without fireworks . . .
Witnesses said that Abu Jarad family fled their two-storey house minutes before bombardment as the Israeli Occupation Forces notified them being targeted in air strike.
I don't even want to know what they exchange as holiday gifts.
Alex Jones's new documentary on how our governments (specifically the US, UK, and Israel)routinely stage false flag operations even on their own citizens in order to drum up support for their greedy imperial wars is now available online for free viewing so it can reach the WIDEST possible audience BEFORE they DO IT AGAIN.
Time is of the essence, bloggers - get it out to as many people as humanly possible.
And remember, HISTORY is a RACE between education and destruction, where destruction has a HUGE headstart!
Troops killed a woman, 35, and an armed man during a raid of a militant stronghold in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
Excuse me, but what do they expect Palestinian men to do as their neighborhood is RAIDED by armed, bloodthirsty Israelis? Of course, he was 'armed' - in defense of himself and his family!
In northern Gaza, soldiers killed three teenagers, whom Palestinians said were shepherds and the Israeli army said were tinkering with a rocket launcher. Two rockets were launched from the area earlier, damaging an Israeli apartment building.
Suuure they were tinkering with a rocket launcher - because DEAD teenagers can't talk!
Will I ever stop ranking on Israel?
GLADLY - just as soon as Israel stops murdering defenseless women and children in the name of their so-called Jewish majority.
