The Existentialist Cowboy: oil war

Showing posts with label oil war. Show all posts

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Impeach, Remove, and Try George W. Bush for War Crimes and Mass Murder!

Federal laws state that '...whoever commits a war crime' resulting in death to its victim can be put to death. It does not make an exception for whomever occupies the office of President. This is serious stuff but so too are the deaths of some 4000 US personnel as well as the total number of Iraqi deaths as a result of this war of aggression, a figure estimated at some 1.3 million people.

The vast majority of those deaths were of innocent civilians, family members, tradespeople, store keepers --not men well-armed against a high tech invader/aggressor! This is serious enough to require that those responsible be tried for war crimes, and, when found guilty, punished to the extent and the letter of the law.

(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
--TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > § 2441 § 2441. War crimes

This is not a case that would baffle Sherlock Holmes. Among many complicit co-conspirators, one name stands out, the name of the person whose name is on the order to commence battle. It was George W. Bush who ordered the commencement of war. This act has already proven to be among the most horrific war crimes since those of Adolph Hitler or Pol Pot.

I have called for the prosecution of George Bush for 'war crimes' since it became clear that the US attack and invasion of Afghanistan was all about natural gas and pipelines. Before creating this blog, I had long posted those views on NPR's now defunct "How's Bush Doing" discussion forum as well as the likewise defunct "The Opinion". Recently, our lonely voices are joined by distinguished experts, jurists, attorneys and specialists in international law. Adding considerable weight in this area are the opinions of a Nuremberg chief prosecutor who states that there is a case for trying Bush for the 'supreme crime against humanity, an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.'

The extent to which American exceptionalism is embedded in the national psyche is awesome to behold.
While the United States is a country like any other, its citizens no more special than any others on the planet, Americans still react with surprise at the suggestion that their country could be held responsible for something as heinous as a war crime.
From the massacre of more than 100,000 people in the Philippines to the first nuclear attack ever at Hiroshima to the unprovoked invasion of Baghdad, US-sponsored violence doesn't feel as wrong and worthy of prosecution in internationally sanctioned criminal courts as the gory, blood-soaked atrocities of Congo, Darfur, Rwanda, and most certainly not the Nazis -- most certainly not. Howard Zinn recently described this as our "inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior."
--Could Bush Be Prosecuted for War Crimes?

Bush's war against Iraq was begun upon a series of deliberate frauds. Earlier, Bush had targeted Afghanistan where the US would defend --not freedom --but the interests of US oil barons, primarily a consortium of US oil companies which had planned to build the Centgas Trans-Afghan pipeline linking Turkmenistan's abundant gas reserves with markets in Pakistan. The Group was led by Unocal of California and Delta Oil Company of Saudi Arabia. Members of the Taliban actually met with Unocal officials at offices in Sugarland, TX, a Houston suburb, famous primarily as the home district of Tom DeLay who had introduced measures that would absolve Bush of the very war crimes that he most certainly had planned to commit. [See: How Bush Helped Establish a Corporate 'New World Order'; US 'planned attack on Taliban' [Before 911]; Dick Cheney Made Millions with Saddam Hussein ]

Not only is the war against Iraq a war crime prosecutable in US Courts for the violations it represents under the above cited US Codes, Title 18 [op cit], but also in US Federal Courts for the 'mass murder' of some 4,000 US armed forces personnel that have died upon this evil fraud. According to Charles Manson's prosecutor Vince Bugliosi, the penalty is death!

The measure exempting US troops from 'war crimes' was introduced by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) as an amendment to H.R. 1646, The Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2001, on May 8, 2001. It passed the House 282-137 on May 10 and introduced as S. 857 in the Senate on May 9 by Senators Jesse Helms (R-NC), Zell Miller (D-GA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), John Warner (R-VA), Trent Lott (R-MS), Richard Shelby (R-AL), and Frank Murkowski (R-AK) --the usual suspects! Their very support of this measure --I suspect may be itself a violation of the international laws and conventions it seeks to circumvent or subvert.

The bill authorized Bush "...to use all means (including the provision of legal assistance) necessary to bring about the release of covered US persons and covered allied persons held captive by or on behalf of the Court [International Criminal Court, ICC, in the Hague]. Some highlights:

The President is authorized to invade The Hague. Specifically, the bill empowers Bush to use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release from captivity of US or Allied personnel detained or imprisoned against their will by or on behalf of the Court.
No US governmental entity --including State or local governments and court of any US jurisdiction --may cooperate with the ICC in arrests, extraditions, searches and seizures, taking of evidence, seizure of assets, or similar matters.
No ICC agent may conduct any investigation in the US.
No classified national security information can be transferred directly or indirectly to the ICC or to countries Party to the Rome Statute.
These provisions are in addition to existing US law (the 2000-2001 Foreign Relations Authorization Act) which prohibits any US funds going to the ICC once it has been established unless the Senate has given its advice and consent to the Rome Treaty.

This measure was introduced before 911 in anticipation of a 'War on Terrorism' that only those with guilty foreknowledge could have anticipated, a 'war' that would include US aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq. Certainly no one but Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, the Project for the New American Century and high level members of the Bush administration could have anticipated the improbable series of events leading to the American quagmire in Iraq. Certainly, they are not 'psychic' despite a mantra repeated ad nauseam post 911: "No one could have foreseen...."! In fact, only the Bush administration 'foresaw' 911 in such detail, that they planned in advance to make legal the very laws they have in fact violated in the post-911 world. What incredible coincidences!

What war crimes were Bush and his junta planning even then that would require they be immunized from the prosecution of their intended crimes?

How does a man of no charisma, little talent and less intelligence get himself into a position in which he rules the world? Typically it is always done the Adolph Hitler way --a phony terrorist attack, a homegrown version of the Reichstag Fire. In Bush's case 911! [See: Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part I, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks note: if all you have to refute this is a stupid label that you picked up somewhere, spare me! I will delete it! This blog deals in verifiable facts and/or meaningful statements. Labels --the staple of right wing, pro-Bush propaganda gets trashed where it belongs! ]

Well...hold on to your sorry ass, Mr. Bush! The people have the power to restore the Constitution, an essential outcome which begins with the removal of George W. Bush as 'President'! The second step is the subject of this article: the several prosecutions of George W. Bush in federal courts for mass murder and in world courts for war crimes, crimes against the peace and crimes against humanity.

Principle I Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.
Principle II
The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.
Principle III
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
Principle V
Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.
Principle Vl
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under; international law:
Crimes against peace:
Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.
Principle VII
Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principles VI is a crime under international law.
--Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal

An October 2006 poll by New York Times and CBS News indicated that some 84 percent of Americans don't believe George W. Bush is telling the truth about what he knew prior to the attacks of 911. In the same year, Zogby reported that 45 percent of Americans support an investigation of George W. Bush by an International Tribunal. Such a tribunal should re-investigate whether officials of the US government allowed or consciously and deliberately helped or facilitated the attacks.

In the same year, 911truth.org commissioned Zogby which found that about half the population of New York believes that members of the Bush administration 'knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act." 911 was, therefore, a deliberate act of mass murder perpetrated upon the American people by the man who presumes the office of 'dictator'. Since that is the title he prefers to 'president', then I suggest we stoo calling him "President Bush'. He is merely Bush or, more properly, Mass Murderer Bush, if you must attach a title.

Additional resources

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

How Much Was Fox Paid to Shill Bush's War Crime in Iraq?

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The many lies told by Fox and Bill O'Reilly are probable cause to suspect Fox of criminal complicity with the Bush regime. It is reasonable to suspect that Fox is called Bush's "propaganda ministry" because it is Bush's propaganda ministry. Bush may yet stand trial for war crimes and mass murder. But what of his enablers inside his 'propaganda ministry'? It is reasonable to ask how many members of the Fox board, how many executives, how many on-camera shills share Bush's guilt for having perpetrated a murderous lie upon the American people and the world.

It boils down to a legal term: quid pro quo --the word given a 'transaction', an agreement that an item or a service is returned for something of value. Certainly, throughout Bush's war of aggression against Iraq, a war crime in which some 4000 US service personnel were sacrificed upon a bald faced lie, the relationship between Fox and Bush has been symbiotic and conspiratorial. Fox is thus motivated to convince you that 'conspiracies' do not exist though most US case law and SCOTUS decisions have to do with conspiracies of one sort or another.

There is probable cause to suspect, that Bush and Fox achieved agreement upon a quid pro quo! Fox is Bush's propaganda ministry and, if so, the members of the board of directors and key executives may be considered war criminals just as Goebbels was so considered during the Third Reich.

To be fair, FOX has not confined its venal reporting to a decade that will be recalled as the era of Bush atrocities and war crimes! Fox was under investigation by the ITC (Independent Television Commission) back in the 90s, specifically nine complaints by viewers of Sky Digital satellite, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, the evil godfather of Fox! Fox's jingoistic support of Bush's war crime in Iraq, however, cries out to be investigated by a federal panel with powers to subpoena.

Fox does not merely slant the news; it makes it up! Keith Olbermann and Robert Greenwald expose the truth about Fox lies. Fair and balanced? I have a better slogan for FOX. BUNKUM AND BULLSHIT!

Countdown: Fox News Caught Creating False News 11-15-06

If I were on a Federal Grand Jury investigating Bush's capital war crimes, I would insist that 'we' issue subpoenas to Fox execs, perhaps Murdoch himself! In support, I would argue that no investigation of Bush's war crimes could possibly be complete unless the propaganda matrix that made it all possible is likewise investigated thoroughly. We would want to ask them --while they are under oath --just what is in it for Fox to make up news favorable to Bush?

What, for example, was Fox paid to orchestrate billions of dollars in 'free' publicity in support of Bush's war crimes in Iraq? To what 'quid pro quo' did Fox agree for its support of an oil war known to be obscenely profitable for the Military/Industrial complex? We know how the armaments manufacturers 'get paid' for supporting wars of aggression and other war crimes! I want to know how media whores and parasites get their share of the kill!

I want to ask Rupert Murdoch --while he is under oath --how he benefits personally by presiding over a news organization that makes up the news.

A timely subpoena might cough up thousands of emails revealing how Fox conspired with Bush to defraud Americans and the world. There is a bigger story here than a single memo. What is Murdoch's specific connection to the Bush crime syndicate? Who got paid? When? And how much? How? What was the quid pro quo?

Murdoch-owned Fox wants you to think its cover 'patriotic' --but it's not. Lies told to enable a traitor are treasonous. There is nothing patriotic about lying to the American people and the world in support of and on behalf of war criminals! There is nothing patriotic about conspiring to grease the wheels for Bushco's theft of Iraqi oil! There is nothing patriotic about sending US troops to die for Bush's vainglorious visions of conquest and oil theft. There is nothing patriotic about Fox's support of Bush's disdain for the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, documents that Bush was sworn to uphold and did not! Bush, in fact, put his hand on the black book and lied through his teeth.

At market rates for network air time, Fox has most certainly supported Bush to the tune of $billions$. FOX's foray into NFL football came at a price --almost 2 billion dollars. The move made upstart Fox a major player with CBS, ABC and NBC. Are we to believe now that Murdoch has simply given away valuable network air time to the likes of war criminals? Murdoch is not suspected of having compunctions. The point is --Murdoch is in it for the bucks.

Media is now 'unfair' because the 'Fairness Doctrine' came under attack during the Reagan years. By 1990, the FCC had abandoned many rules and procedures that might have prevented broadcasters from using their stations in service to blatant propaganda or ideology. This Reagam-era mania for 'de-regulation' made it possible for Murdoch to build an entire network around outright lies!

The objective of the 'Fairness Doctrine' was, rather, the preservation of all points of view, a requirement enforced by an FCC mandate. De-regulation, however, eliminated guidelines for non-entertainment programming. The FCC justified it all with bureaucrat-speak. Fox was thus 'set free' to propagandize and brainwash! The era of the 'media whore' was ushered in.

Bill O'Reilly stated: 'Flat out lies should be confronted.' 'Confronted' is surely O'Reilly-speak for 'embraced'. 'O brave new world, that hath such people in it'!

Since the Iraq conflict began on March 20, Fox News has been on a mission to legitimize it. One problem for Fox's protracted apologia is that despite promises of evidence of current weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) by the Bush Administration, the evidence has been ambiguous at best. Unfortunately for the network, I’ve been keeping a scratch diary of their reports since the war began.
Keep in mind that in the first three weeks of March, before the bombs started officially dropping, Fox was spreading all sorts of Pentagon propaganda. Iraq had "drones" that it could quickly dispatch to major U.S. metropolitan areas to spread biological agents. Saddam was handing out chemical weapons to the Republican guard to use against coalition troops in a last-ditch red-zone ring around Baghdad. Given what we now know about Iraq, these reports seem to be laughable fantasies, but they were effective in securing public backing for the war. The following is a short chronicle of lies, propagation of lies, exaggerations, distortions, spin, and conjecture presented as fact. My comments are in brackets [ ]s.

March 14: On The Fox Report anchor Shepard Smith reports that Saddam is planning to use flood water as a weapon by blowing up dams and causing severe flood damage.

March 19: Fox anchor Shepard Smith reports that Iraqis are planning to detonate large stores of napalm buried deep below the earth to scorch coalition forces. Fox Military Analyst Major Bob Bevelacqua states that coalition forces will drop a MOAB on Saddam's bunker [!!] and give him the "Mother of All Sunburns."

[After my last article, one sniveling neocon after another wrote me to tell me I was unqualified to assess defense matters because I wasn't a "defense analyst" (never mind that the article wasn't on the war, and the "real" defense experts made one wrong prediction after another on this war). It's interesting how these sniveling Frumsters cheer on the college-uneducated Hannity and Limbaugh when they make defense analyses supporting the neocon view. I do know enough to say that the informed Bevelacqua's suggestion that a MOAB would be used on a bunker was puzzling to say the least (given the reports of less-than-dazzling performance of daisy cutters outside caves in Tora Bora). Anyway, later reports confirmed that GBU-28 bunker busters were used during The Decapitation That Apparently Failed.]

March 23: The network begins 2 days of unequivocal assertions that a 100-acre facility discovered by coalition forces at An Najaf is a chemical weapons plant. Much is made about the fact that it was booby trapped. A former UN weapons inspector interviewed on camera over the phone downplays the WMD allegations and says that booby-trapping is common. His points are ignored as unequivocal charges of a chemical weapons facility are made on Fox for yet another day (March 24). Only weeks later is it briefly conceded that the chemicals definitively detected at the facility were pesticides.

[Jennifer Eccleston has to be the worst reporter employed by any network. She began one segment with a "Hi there!" – in no response to any segue from the relaying anchor at Fox headquarters in New York. Her bangs are long and constantly blowing in her face in the wind. Her head wobbles from side to side with her nose tracing out a figure 8 all the while arbitrarily syncopating a monotone voice with overemphasis on the last syllables of different words (e.g., Bagh-DAD’). The old, white-haired flag-waving yahoos like her not for her professionalism – she has none – but because of her innocent Britney Spearsesque beauty; i.e., she's a typical young piece of meat which dirty old men with too much time on their hands fantasize about.]
...
"... stating that "marketplace solutions can be consistent with public interest concerns," [FN100] that "significant amounts of nonentertainment programming of a variety of types will continue on radio," [FN101] and that "stations will continue to present such programming as a response to market forces." [FN102] In the same proceeding, the Commission eliminated the requirement that stations conduct ascertainment studies to determine the problems and needs of their communities. [FN103] It dismissed concerns that free market competition would tend to limit broadcasters in their assessment of community problems to those of the economically significant segments of the community, [FN104] and left the methods of assessing community problems and needs to broadcasters' "good faith discretion." [FN105] In this proceeding, the Commission also eliminated its commercial guidelines, [FN106] stating that marketplace forces would more effectively curb excessive advertising [FN107] and that "[n]o government regulation should continue unless it achieves some public interest objective that cannot be achieved without the regulation." [FN108] [Pace University School of Law, Summer, 1990. Marc Sophos] Also [Deregulation] [Fairness Doctrine] [Fox Bias]
The independent television commission is investigating nine complaints by viewers of the channel, broadcast on Sky Digital satellite, also controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
Dale Steinreich, Fibbing It Up at Fox

Admittedly, I did not follow the following 'non' story. But, as I am writing about Fox, it may be appropriate here.

NEW YORK - Fox News dropped its lawsuit against Al Franken on Monday, three days after a federal judge refused to block the liberal humorist from using the Fox slogan "Fair and Balanced" on the cover of his latest book. ...
"It's time to return Al Franken to the obscurity that he's normally accustomed to," Fox News spokeswoman Irena Steffen said.
-- Fox News Drops Lawsuit Against Al Franken

Hey, Fox! I am using two perfectly good English words that you 'claim' belong to you. Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced!

So ---sue me!

Fox has a 'blog' (wink, wink) called 'Embed producers'. It proves that Psychopaths Rule the World. I wonder -- How Much Was Fox Paid to Shill Bush's War Crime in Iraq?. Embed Producers is not a blog! It's idiots paid by Fox to write bullshit! What a career!

Monday, February 04, 2008

Talk of Imminent War Against Iran Amid an Attack of 'Coincidences'

The "coincidences":

A series of internet disruptions due to cut telecom cables that has cut Iran off the Internet!
Israel is not affected.
An Iranian Oil Bourse, where oil, petrochemicals and gas will be traded in various non-dollar currencies, is set to open this month.
Israelis have been told to prepare for war, presumably with Iran

Before leaving the Middle East, Bush is reported to have promised Benjamin Netanyahu that the US would join Israel in a nuclear strike on Iran. In Israel, there is talk of "...a rain of missiles" for which Israelis must prepare now.

Speaking on radio as part of a military propaganda offensive, retired general Udi Shani said: "The next war will see a massive use of ballistic weapons against the whole of Israeli territory."
Shani was tasked recently with drawing up a report on the way the military authorities operated during Israel's 2006 summer war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
During that conflict thousands of rockets hit Israel, but were limited to the north of the country from where hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated.
The character of war has changed, said the general.
"Strikes to the rear must now be taken into account -- that is what will come and we must prepare in a totally different way for this eventuality," he said.
--Israelis told to prepare 'rocket rooms' for war

By the time the following dispatch hit what was left of the internet, it was clear: the world is under attack by organized coincidences.

Egypt denies the earlier reports on the Mideast Internet outage, saying there were no ships present around when the cables were cut off.

Egypt's Ministry of Communications announced in a statement Sunday that "a marine transport committee investigated the traffic of ships in the area, 12 hours before and after the malfunction, where the cables are located to figure out the possibility of being cut by a passing vessel and found out there were no passing ships at that time.”

The Ministry had originally stated that a ship dropping its anchor on the two key cables was most likely responsible for Wednesday's cut in service that robbed Egypt, Saudi Arabia and India of much of their internet.

The statement added that the location, 8.3 kilometers from the port of Alexandria, was in a restricted area so ships would not have been allowed there to begin with.

Internet blackouts are impacting large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa after four undersea cable connections were severed.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.
--'No ship behind ME internet outage'

That there was 'no ship' would rule out the official 'dragging anchor' theory.

DOHA (AFP) — An undersea telecoms cable linking Qatar to the United Arab Emirates was damaged, disrupting services, telecommunications provider Qtel said on Sunday, the latest such incident in less than a week.
The cable was damaged between the Qatari island of Haloul and the UAE island of Das on Friday, Qtel's head of communications Adel al Mutawa told AFP.
Cables were also damaged last week in the Mediterranean and off the coast of Dubai, causing widespread disruption to Internet and international telephone services in Egypt, Gulf Arab states and south Asia.
The cause of the damage is not yet known.
--DOHA (AFP) — Qatar reports new damage to Gulf undersea cables

It is amazing how much damage can be done by a rogue coincidence.

A repair ship was expected to begin work to fix the two cables in the Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday. They were damaged on Wednesday, rupturing connections not only in Egypt but also thousands of kilometres away.
--Qatar reports new damage to Gulf undersea cables

The sub-plot that ties all these "coincidences" together is the planned opening of the Iranian oil bourse where petrochemicals, oil and gas will be traded in non-dollar currencies. Iran Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari has said that the bourse will be open during the Ten-Day Dawn, ceremonies marking the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. There's more at: Oil Bourse

Making these developments especially ominous are Bush's repeated threats and promises to Israel that he will join a nuclear attack on Iran. I wonder if this improbable attack of the cable killing coincidences, denying oil traders access to the net, is enough to delay the opening of Iran's planned oil bourse.

Given the precipitous fall of the dollar, only idiots will not consider the effect that an Iranian oil bourse will have on a war-mongering US.

Bush, of course, denies that his wars of aggression have anything to do with oil and, in a very, very narrow technical sense, perhaps not! They are, in fact, motivated by the fact that over the course of a century, the US economy was utterly dependent upon the availability of cheap energy, initially from West Texas, but later, the Sheikhs!

One wonders what goes on inside the heads of blithering idiots, primarily those who wage war upon their own people, those idiots who threaten the world from atop a precarious perch. So precarious the American position --one wonders if impeaching and removing this blithering idiot now is simply too little too late. Even now, however, good people are morally bound to oppose Bush even if it is with a dying breath beneath a mushroom cloud!

GOP, Oil Bourse, Bush, Nuclear War

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Another Inconvenient Truth: Bin Laden is Dead

If Benazir Bhutto was correct then Bin Laden is dead. If Bin Laden is dead, he can't make tapes. If Bin Laden is dead, everything the US government has said about bin Laden is either wrong, mistaken, or, most probably, a bald-faced lie. If Bin Laden is dead, then everything Bush has been telling you about the war on terrorism over several years is either wrong or a lie or both. In any case, there was never any hard evidence linking Bin Laden to the events of 911!

If Binny can't make tapes, Bush cannot exploit them to wage a "war" about which he has never told the truth.

A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that "Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects". CIA Director George Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan ``multiple attacks with little or no warning.'' Secretary of State Colin Powell called the attacks "an act of war" and President Bush confirmed in an evening televised address to the Nation that he would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them". Former CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his finger at "state sponsorship," implying the complicity of one or more foreign governments. In the words of former National Security Adviser, Lawrence Eagleburger, "I think we will show when we get attacked like this, we are terrible in our strength and in our retribution."
Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media mantra has approved the launching of "punitive actions" directed against civilian targets in the Middle East. In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times: "When we reasonably determine our attackers' bases and camps, we must pulverize them -- minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage" -- and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror's national hosts".
-- Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, Who Is Osama Bin Laden?

The news that Bin Laden is dead is an inconvenient truth. The Bush administration had much more than money invested in Bin Laden. Bushco had built around Osama an "evil empire" worthy of a James Bond film --The World is Not Enough, the story of oil, intrigue and pipelines.

Sir Robert King, a British oil tycoon and close friend of M, is killed by a bomb attack inside MI6 Headquarters. The assassin was working under orders from Renard, an international terrorist who survived an assassination attempt by 009 and is continually gaining strength as the bullet eliminates his senses of pain and touch before inevitably killing him. James Bond uses an unfinished Q Boat created by his ally Q and chases the killer until she commits suicide.
M assigns to protect King's daughter, Elektra; Renard previously abducted and held Elektra for ransom, and it is believed that he has once again targeted her. Elektra assumes control of her father's business at a pivotal time, overseeing construction of an oil pipeline that would travel through the Caucasus, from the Caspian Sea to Turkey.
--The World Is Not Enough, 1999, Synopsis by Wikipedia

The non-fiction version was already afoot even as the motion picture moguls were writing the script for The World is Not Enough.

Despite complex geopolitics and considerable risks, major oil companies have been acquiring development rights and preparing for production since the early 1990s. Offshore drilling operations are underway in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and are set to commence elsewhere.

The majors have also invested significantly in the future construction of oil and gas pipelines to distant ports and refineries. By 2010, they expect to invest at least $50 billion in production and transportation.
The first big move was a joint venture between Chevron and Kazakhstan, signed in 1993 to develop the huge Tenzig oil field on the Caspian coast. Three years later, ExxonMobil purchased a 25 percent share. Another consortium focused on Azerbaijan’s offshore fields, with estimated reserves of 32 billion barrels of oil and 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, making it the third largest potential regional source.
In 1994, BP Amoco, Lukoil, Unocal, Penzoil, Statoil, and others joined with Azerbaijan’s state oil company to form the Azerbaijan International Operating Company. Bush family adviser James A. Baker III, who spearheaded George W. Bush’s victory in the Florida election dispute, headed the law firm representing this consortium and sat on the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce advisory council, as did Vice Pres. Dick Cheney before him. But before their investments could produce profits, roadblocks would have to be removed. The biggest was how to get the fuel to markets.
Prior to 9/11, the U.S. government’s preferred future route, known as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) project, went from Azerbaijan through Georgia and then south to the Turkish coast. The goal was to reduce reliance on Russia and bring the southern Caucasus into the U.S. fold. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is a former director of Chevron, a lynchpin of the BTC consortium with extensive operations in Azerbaijan. Until 2000, Cheney was chief executive at Halliburton Co., named a finalist in 2001 to bid on engineering work in the Turkish sector.
--Toward Freedom, Oily footprints on the path to 9/11

Early on, it was easy to conclude that the real beneficiaries of a US adventure in Afghanistan would be the big oil consortium that had planned the pipeline across Afghanistan. In 1995, UNOCAL had apparently concluded a deal with Turkmenistan. Members of the Taliban met in the Houston suburb of Sugarland.

A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is in the United States for talks with an international energy company that wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan.
A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in Sugarland, Texas.
Unocal says it has agreements both with Turkmenistan to sell its gas and with Pakistan to buy it.
[ image: The Afghan economy has been devasted by 20 years of civil war] The Afghan economy has been devasted by 20 years of civil war
But, despite the civil war in Afghanistan, Unocal has been in competition with an Argentinian firm, Bridas, to actually construct the pipeline.
Last month, the Argentinian firm, Bridas, announced that it was close to signing a two-billion dollar deal to build the pipeline, which would carry gas 1,300 kilometres from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, across Afghanistan.
In May, Taleban-controlled radio in Kabul said a visiting delegation from an Argentinian company had announced that pipeline construction would start "soon".
--BBC, Thursday, December 4, 1997 Published at 19:27 GMT

All would not go smoothly; Pakistan and Ahmed Shah Massoud's government in Afghanistan, meanwhile, had already signed a pipeline deal with an Argentinean company.

BBC - American government told other governments about Afghan invasion IN JULY 2001.
The wider objective was to oust the Taleban
By the BBC's George Arney
A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks. Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.
Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin. Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.
The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah. Mr Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.
He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby. Mr Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.
He said that he was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks. And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban.
--US 'planned attack on Taleban', BBC

By July, 2001, the US State Department was reported to have been threatening the Taliban with carpet bombs.

U.S. Policy Towards Taliban Influenced by Oil
By Julio Godoy, Inter Press Service
PARIS, Nov 15 (IPS) - Under the influence of U.S. oil companies, the government of George W. Bush initially blocked U.S. secret service investigations on terrorism, while it bargained with the Taliban the delivery of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid, two French intelligence analysts claim.
In the book ''Bin Laden, la verité interdite'' (''Bin Laden, the forbidden truth''), that appeared in Paris on Wednesday, the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest over the obstruction.
Brisard claim O'Neill told them that ''the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it''. [emphasis mine, EC]
The two claim the U.S. government's main objective in Afghanistan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban regime to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia.
They affirm that until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime ''as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia'', from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean.
Until now, says the book, ''the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that''.
But, confronted with Taliban's refusal to accept U.S. conditions, ''this rationale of energy security changed into a military one'', the authors claim.
''At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs','' Brisard said in an interview in Paris.
According to the book, the government of Bush began to negotiate with the Taliban immediately after coming into power in February. U.S. and Taliban diplomatic representatives met several times in Washington, Berlin and Islamabad.
To polish their image in the United States, the Taliban even employed a U.S. expert on public relations, Laila Helms. The authors claim that Helms is also an expert in the works of U.S. secret services, for her uncle, Richard Helms, is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
--US Policy Towards Taliban Influenced by Oil

The negotiations with the Taliban broke down. In that summer of 2001, the American people were distracted by the American media noise machine. See: All Condit All The Time". The US Government was informing other governments that the US would be at war in Afghanistan no later than October. The US timetable for war was set before 911 would conveniently provide the pretext. Pure luck? I don't think so.

Thoughtful folk were demonized for daring to raise the issue: how fortuitous, how convenient for Bush that Bin Laden would organize one of the most outrageous, the most unbelievable conspiracies in world history! Bin Laden would recruit and arrange to train a rag tag bunch of "terrorists". They would all but flunk lessons in how to fly puddle jumpers but would hone their airliner skills in a coin-operated simulator.

Nevermind the question of how they got on board airliners without showing up on flight manifests! Let's give the liar in the White House the benefit of the doubt. Nevermind that wreckage from four planes completely disappeared --the first and only time in history that such an improbable and incredible thing had ever happened outside David Copperfield's magic show. Nevermind that the space shuttle, by contrast, entered the stratosphere at speeds up to 10,000 miles per hour yet failed to pop through a wormhole into another dimension. Unlike Flight 77 which left not a trace, the Space Shuttle Columbia left wreckage and identifiable human body parts strewn over three states.

The only time in history that four planes completely vanished was on 911. How convenient for Bush!

How convenient for Bush that just when he is planning to invade and/or carpet bomb another country, he is given a pretext on a plate! How convenient for Bush that a "terrorist" attack occurs that could be pinned on Bin Laden!

How inconvenient it is for Bush now that Bin Laden has been dead for several years! How inconvenient for Bush that he cannot credibly roll out another fake tape with which to scare the beejeebers out of gullible Americans!

An essential resource: Election 2004: The Urban Legend by Michael Collins

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Sunday, December 02, 2007

A Tale of Two Tyrants

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Putin out-Bushes Bush. In Russia, Vladimir Putin is supported by pro-Kremlin "youth groups" who equate or associate domestic opposition to Putin with supporters of George W. Bush. "You will not succeed in creating a revolution in Russia", they shout. Russia, they say, will never have an "American" style government. Bush, it seems, has not only created a tyranny in the US,
he inspires the domestic support for tyranny abroad.

Ten thousand young commissars — their title borrowed from the Communist Party leaders of the Soviet era — came here to learn to be Russia's next generation of tycoons and political leaders. Equally important, they came to prepare to stamp out any challenge from opposition groups to President Vladimir Putin's government.

All were summoned by Nashi, a pro-Kremlin organization that pays homage to Putin and seeks to promote Russia's resurrection as a superpower capable of frustrating what leaders call Western "imperialism."
--Russian youth rally at pro-Putin camp, USA Today

It has apparently never occurred to these young Russian "brownshirts" that, from my perspective, there is not a dime's worth of difference between Putin's increasingly fascist tyranny and that of George W. Bush in the US. If anything, Putin has outdone Bush even as Bush's excesses inspire support for Putin in the Russian homeland. As I have denounced the growing disparities of income in the US, a burgeoning oil industry has made possible even worse inequalities in Russia. My message to Putin's young supporters is this: you already have an Americanized government in the person of one Vladimir Putin and it is as bad as oil fascism American style --or worse!

In both Putin and Bush are found tyrants in the process of silencing dissent, consolidating power, procuring riches for their cronies. Both men are supported by a corporate "community" grown rich as a result of "fascist" policies. Bush is propped up by a dowager oil industry that must seek new resources abroad as it supports Bush adventures that promise them a pay-off.

Putin, meanwhile, has the luxury of presiding over a producing, domestic oil industry that need only punch a hole in the ground to pump up black gold. Putin is propped up for as long as the wells will pump. Putin and Bush are products of what can be only be described as "military/industrial" complexes. Wars are conceived by such "complexes" and wars are fought for their benefit.

It was all foreseen, prominently by St. Thomas More during the reign of Henry VIII.

...so God help me, I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth. They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be.
-Of the Religions in Utopia, St. Thomas More

In 1795, Immanuel Kant wrote an essay called "Perpetual Peace". I find that interesting in view of the fact that we now find ourselves --by virtue of leadership both incompetent and criminal --in a state of "Perpetual War" In his treatise, Kant made quick work of the very concept of aggressive war:

A state is not, like the ground which it occupies, a piece of property (patrimonium). It is a society of men whom no one else has any right to command or to dispose except the state itself. It is a trunk with its own roots. But to incorporate it into another state, like a graft, is to destroy its existence as a moral person, reducing it to a thing; such incorporation thus contradicts the idea of the original contract without which no right over a people can be conceived.
--Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace

It could be argued that the United States has not, cannot "annex" Iraq --though Bush may have had that in mind. Every other ex post facto case for war has turned out to have been untrue, most often just black-hearted, deliberate, harmful, immoral lies! Though he will not admit it, Bush proposes to administer "our" new acquisition by way of puppet governments. What is falsely called an insurgency, however, has already plunged Iraq into Civil War. And because U.S. puppets do not have widespread support throughout this conquered territory, it lays bare the hypocrisy of the Bush position. Kant seems prescient when describing the political motivations behind wars of aggression:

...it is in part a new kind of industry for gaining ascendancy by means of family alliances and without expenditure of forces, and in part a way of extending one's domain.
--Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace

Believing war to be antithetical to reason, Kant advocated a federation of states bound by a covenant forbidding all war. Literally, a "United Nations". Kant, perhaps influenced by Montesquieu, describes a state in which an executive branch and a legislative branch are separate. Every form of government, Kant maintains, which is not representative is, in his view, "...without form".

It's interesting to speculate how revulsion to Robespierre's "Reign of Terror" may have moderated Kant's views.

Are the enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear our country apart, the intriguers who buy the consciences that hold the people's mandate; the traitors who sell them; the mercenary pamphleteers hired to dishonor the people's cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil discord, and to prepare political counterrevolution by moral counterrevolution-are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?
--Robespierre, On the Moral and Political Principles of Domestic Policy

I can only speculate that Robespierre's defense, above, was written after his "reign of terror" seemed to have turned upon itself and its own moderating elements. An example of its excesses is the execution of Lavoisier, one of twenty-eight French tax collectors, a powerful figure in the unpopular Ferme Générale. Lavoisier was branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror, convicted and guillotined on May 8, 1794. He was 50.

In our time, Joseph McCarthy and more recently George Bush exemplify demagoguery. You are either with us or you are for the terrorists! The Bush administration has repeatedly warned of additional "terrorist" attacks, "warnings" that are, in fact, thinly veiled threats to both the American people, American allies, indeed, the world. The implications are clear enough: dissent will not be tolerated; anyone daring to oppose Bush is considered to be in alliance with terrorists; those not conforming to the Bush orthodoxy with be dealt with by Bush's "Reign of Terror".

At home, the GOP simply, conveniently, and fallaciously defines "terror" as anything at odds with GOP dogma, orthodoxy, or propaganda. That orthodoxy, however, was described by Kant in 1795 when he referred to it in the words quoted above: "...it is in part a new kind of industry for gaining ascendancy by means of family alliances." A fair question arises: "has the GOP come to believe its own propaganda?"

According to Bertrand Russell, Kant is suspicious of Democracy and warns that the creation of the "executive" branch may lead to despotism. He most certainly had Robespierre in mind. Kant's "state" however, need not be without a King and he proclaims that a "perfect government" is more easily achieved by monarchy.

Nevertheless, it is a mistake to conclude that we must not aspire to Democracy because someone like Bush or Robespierre may pervert it or exploit it. Kant's position cannot persuade us that we must return to an era in which "Kings" rule by "divine right". Kant, however, may be considered to be a warning that if Democracy is not nurtured, it will most certainly be subverted by "...a new kind of industry". Kant could not have imagined what the US has made of this "new kind of industry" , this Military/Industrial complex!

Kant's use of terminology like "the whole people" seems akin to Jean-Jacques Rousseau about whom Sebastien Parmentier has written extensively on this blog [Sebastien Parmentier: Jean-Jacques Rousseau Between the lines]. Ironically, Rousseau seems also to have similarly inspired developments that both Kant and Rousseau would have preferred to avoid:

"If there had been no Rousseau, there would have been no Revolution, and without the Revolution, I should have been impossible."
--Napoleon

Kant presaged a "League of Nations" or "United Nations" and timidly described a separation of powers not nearly as well thought out as our own James Madison et al had already conceived at Philadelphia. It is interesting that Bush and Putin are the vanguard of a process that will consolidate their absolute and fascist powers. Given the apparatus at his command, his record with regard to a free press and the economic policies which have created an almost unimaginably wealthy elite, Putin is now poised to assume a permanent dictatorship. Bush, meanwhile, is content to compete with the likes of Warren Harding for "worst president ever". Certainly, he has worked assiduously to undo the advances we associate with the enlightenment and has thumbed his flared nostrils at Kant's dream of a "United Nations".

It the meantime, the US, another "dream" of Enlightenment thinkers, is itself becoming what it was never intended to be. William Ewert Gladstone called the US Constitution"...the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man" It is tragic that it will die slowly of a thousand cuts.

In 1935, Sinclair Lewis penned the cautionary tale, It Can’t Happen Here, chronicling the fictional rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, who becomes President against the protests of Franklin D. Roosevelt and America’s saner citizens.
A charismatic Senator who claims to champion the common man, Windrip is in the pocket of big business (i.e. Corpos), is favored by religious extremists, and though he talks of freedom and prosperity for all, he eventually becomes the ultimate crony capitalist. Boosted by Hearst newspapers (the FOX News of its day), he neuters both Congress and the Supreme Court, before stripping people of their liberties and installing a fascist dictatorship.
-- Maureen Farrell, Can It Happen Here?

It did happen here! And it has happened in Russia.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

The Truth About US Imperial Oil Wars Is Even Worse Than You Suspected

Germans now call Bush America's Hitler and they should know. Iran, meanwhile, has officially labeled the US army a "terrorist" organization.

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has consistently led the way in telling the story of what's really going on in Iraq and Iran. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke to him about America's Hitler, Bush's Vietnam, and how the US press failed the First Amendment. Bush is accused of accepting 'Ethnic Cleansing'it's been underestimated how much the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) knows. If you follow what
(IAEA head Mohamed) El Baradei (more...) and the various reports have been saying, the Iranians have claimed to be enriching uranium to higher than a 4 percent purity, which is the amount you need to run a peaceful nuclear reactor. But the IAEA's best guess is that they are at 3.67 percent or something. The Iranians are not even doing what they claim to be doing. The IAEA has been saying all along that they've been making progress but basically, Iran is nowhere. Of course the US and Israel are going to say you have to look at the worst case scenario, but there isn't enough evidence to justify a bombing raid.
--Spiegel Online International

Read the entire article for another eye opener from Seymour Hersh. However unpopular George Bush, the American people are still largely in denial. Multiple choice opinion polls don't have a check box for just how bad things have become.

The sorry state of America did not happen overnight. It's a case study of the arrogance of power, how power corrupts and maintains itself, how power compromises its opposition with assassinations, bribes, and paid mercenaries.

Iran/Contra almost gave the game away. Ronald Reagan, playing stupid and senile, beat a high treason rap. Nevertheless, Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh believed Reagan himself complicit in a treasonous scheme to sell arms to Iran while laundering and funneling the proceeds to a right wing terrorist organization in Nicaragua.

The underlying facts of Iran/Contra are that, regardless of criminality, President Reagan, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the director of central intelligence and their necessary assistants committed themselves, however reluctantly, to two programs contrary to congressional policy and contrary to national policy. They skirted the law, some of them broke the law, and almost all of them tried to cover up the President's willful activities.
-- Concluding Observations, Investigations and Prosecutions, Lawrence E. Walsh, Independent Counsel, Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters

If that's not a description of high treason, I don't know what is. Yet --Ronald Reagan got off with that scolding paragraph at the end of a lengthy report. May the traitor rest in peace! In the meantime, a POX on the GOP and every Democratic sellout will do nicely.

Former CIA Analyst, Ray McGovern says, of course, it's about oil. It is so much about oil that the US government has consistently subverted legitimate regimes in order to get control of their oil and, hence, control over the price of oil on the spot markets and the price of gasoline at the pump.

So why the pressure for a wider war in which any victory will be Pyrrhic-for Israel and for the US? The short answer is arrogant stupidity; the longer answer-what the Chinese used to call "great power chauvinism"-and oil.
--Ray McGovern, CIA Analyst, Bush, Oil and Moral Bankruptcy

The issue has grown critical with the ever-growing US dependence on foreign oil. US "problems" with other countries are always with oil producing countries. East Timor barely got a headline in the US. But if Saddam Hussein so much as sneezed, he was likened unto Hitler by folk who actually helped Hitler. Bush's grandfather, in fact, financed Hitler, traded with Nazi-owned companies and plotted a treasonous fascist takeover of the US government. Treason, it seems, runs in the family.

The Bush family, sill supported by the Skull and Bones Society, the CIA, and members of the CIA in Skull and Bones forged an alliance with the US oil industry. That's why these Connecticut Yankees are not in King Arthur's court, but in a hell hole called Texas. To be fair to Texas, it was less a hell hole before the arrival of the Bush crime family.

McGovern reminds that a steady supply of oil has always been a US priority. That, and the oil depletion allowance, was a priority with US oil barons, at least as far back as Spindletop. One wonders: how long has the oil industry owned the US government which is in fact the industry's enforcement arm?

The US, when it fails to achieve its goals through traditional diplomatic efforts, has proven itself willing time and again to go to war for oil.

The US felt its "interests" in Iran threatened in 1953 when the government of Iran nationalized its oil. Nevertheless, as McGovern points out, George W. Bush was the first US president to start a major war. Most often the US has employed the secret services of the CIA and, most recently, a mercenary army --Blackwater USA, little more than George Bush's personal army. A Praetorian Guard?

The US will not tolerate someone like Hugo Chavez who dares to use oil revenues to improve the lot of the people of Venezuela. When Iran is laid waste to, will the US then strike in Venezuela?

An "enforcement" partnership between US big oil interests and the CIA was most certainly forged prior to the murder of JFK who had promised to smash the CIA into "...a thousand pieces" even has he threatened big oil with the loss of their big government hand out: the oil depletion allowance. You almost have to be from Texas to understand just how important that "oil depletion allowance" was to the likes of Clint Murchison and billionaire H.L. Hunt.

If we escalate tensions, if we succumb to hysteria, if we start making threats, we are likely to stampede ourselves into a war [with Iran], which most reasonable people agree would be a disaster for us...I think the administration, the president and the vice president particularly, are trying to hype the atmosphere, and that is reminiscent of what preceded the war in Iraq.

--Zbigniew Brzezinski

The following videos by John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man " exposes US imperialism, the reasons the US is at war stealing oil in the Middle East

Part I

Part II:The second of a three part speech given to the Veterans For
Peace National Convention, Seattle, WA in August 2006.

Part III: John takes Q & A and discusses actions which can be taken to counter the globalization efforts of the multi-national corporations.

Additional Resouces

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