Just thinking about the program I watched last night. I seen it before. The boffin Hawkings - "Master of the Universe". Fair enough he has done hell of a lot for Physics; more than anyone for a while. I said a while. He is good no.....he is the best in that field; but we should think different from the way given by the ruling party or Hawkings, as if you believe in what he says as gospel truth, you are going to be in trouble. Each and every individual being is driven by it's own logic. If I beleave in a certain logic of another person, then I do not have my own logic. That is what faith is. As Saint Ignatius of Loyola said to his followers to become like a piece of wood, and live like a piece of wood giving all actions to be of God and not to take any there of. Its the will of the God properly laid out by the Bible they followed. That way all thinking is of God. Yes it can be good if you can do it 100%. I dont think Saint himself was capable of doing it. Please do correct me if I am wrong here, but I am talking about 100% and Saint is dead.
So my point is Mr Hawkings have spent a lot of time on this subject and want to find a solution before he dies. So did Mr Einsein init? Some of what he proved at that time ...bless him.... has been reproved to a more closer point of accuracy, but some of them has been proven wrong. So will Mr Hawkings or anyone elses for that matter. That is the reason I want not to have total blind belief in this theory of everything.
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Monday, March 31, 2008
Marijuana Smokee it Not But Good Medicine?
Well well well the US doctors have come out of the Dark Ages and wants to decriminalise Pot. Hmmmm.....
Read This.
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Read This.
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The World Hunger Is Growing
This is somethong which I noticed in the news recently. the food shortage in the world.
"Two million children in India die and turn into statistics every year. That's about 6,000 deaths everyday. A CNN-IBN Special Investigation travelled to the rural heartlands of UP to document deaths and cases of malnutrition for a special edition of 30 Minutes. Here's the first installment from UP's Varanasi and Lalitpur districts."
In Booming India, Hunger Kills 6,000 Kids Daily
"The United Nations body World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the rise in global food prices will reduce its ability to feed hungry and malnourished people.
Speaking last month in Rome, where the WFP is based, WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said, “Our ability to reach people is going down just as needs go up.... We are seeing a new face of hunger in which people are being priced out of the food market.... Situations that were previously not urgent—they are now.”
In a press release, the WFP gave a new estimate for the funds needed for its work this year at nearly US$3.5 billion, half a billion more than estimated last year. This money is for approved projects to feed 73 million people in 78 countries throughout the world. It notes that this money is for projected feeding schemes and does not include unforeseen emergencies that may arise.
It also notes that the poorest people on earth will have to spend an increasing portion of their meagre income on food. The WFP warns that these people will be forced to buy less food, or less nutritious food, or rely on outside help."
Global Food Prices Rise And Famine Increases
After Philliphines and Indonesia Cambodia has banned export of rice.
"Cambodia has become the latest Asian country to impose restrictions on exports of rice – the staple food for half the world's population.
The government announced the two-month export ban to ensure "food security" on Thursday, blaming surging overseas demand – particularly in Africa and the Middle East - for the skyrocketing cost of rice."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Two million children in India die and turn into statistics every year. That's about 6,000 deaths everyday. A CNN-IBN Special Investigation travelled to the rural heartlands of UP to document deaths and cases of malnutrition for a special edition of 30 Minutes. Here's the first installment from UP's Varanasi and Lalitpur districts."
In Booming India, Hunger Kills 6,000 Kids Daily
"The United Nations body World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the rise in global food prices will reduce its ability to feed hungry and malnourished people.
Speaking last month in Rome, where the WFP is based, WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said, “Our ability to reach people is going down just as needs go up.... We are seeing a new face of hunger in which people are being priced out of the food market.... Situations that were previously not urgent—they are now.”
In a press release, the WFP gave a new estimate for the funds needed for its work this year at nearly US$3.5 billion, half a billion more than estimated last year. This money is for approved projects to feed 73 million people in 78 countries throughout the world. It notes that this money is for projected feeding schemes and does not include unforeseen emergencies that may arise.
It also notes that the poorest people on earth will have to spend an increasing portion of their meagre income on food. The WFP warns that these people will be forced to buy less food, or less nutritious food, or rely on outside help."
Global Food Prices Rise And Famine Increases
After Philliphines and Indonesia Cambodia has banned export of rice.
"Cambodia has become the latest Asian country to impose restrictions on exports of rice – the staple food for half the world's population.
The government announced the two-month export ban to ensure "food security" on Thursday, blaming surging overseas demand – particularly in Africa and the Middle East - for the skyrocketing cost of rice."
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Friday, March 28, 2008
Obama Or Not
I am not really intersted in US politics as it is the same whenever it comes out of the hell hole where it lives. Two party system controlled by the big companies. All the small people write blogs and write to the law makers and news papers but nothing changes. And it is getting worse as the law makers are getting rid of the constitution, one bit at a time, on which the whole country was built. But I could not ignore this article which brings out more about the election farce which is taking place now. Here is part of the article.
"A deeper look reveals that Obama does not deserve the support of workers, progressives, or youth. Here are ten reasons why:
1. His biggest contributors are Wall Street banks and corporate law firms.
Seven of his top ten donors are some of the world’s biggest banks and financial institutions that are behind the sub-prime mortgage crisis and are now looking for big bail-outs and corporate welfare from the federal government, while the rest of us are left with the bill (see www.opensecrets.org for a list of Obama’s donors).
2. He won’t end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
While Obama says he would end the war in 2009, like Clinton he has been very careful to call only for the removal of combat troops from Iraq. His position might look good when compared to McCain’s statements about staying in Iraq for 100 years. In reality, Obama’s plan would also maintain tens of thousands of troops, special operations forces, and bases – as well as private mercenaries like Blackwater - in Iraq for years to come.
3. He promotes the expansion of the U.S. military.
Like Bush, Obama has called for increasing the size of the U.S. military by 92,000 troops. He calls for redeploying thousands of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to strengthen the U.S. occupation there.
As William Hartung writes, Obama has said “we will probably need to ‘bump up’ the military budget in a new administration.” (Foreign Policy in Focus, 2/21/08) At $614 billion (not counting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!), the proposed U.S. military budget for 2008 is already larger than the rest of the world’s military spending combined.
4. He has repeatedly voted to fund the war in Iraq.
While he spoke out against the war before entering the Senate, as a Senator Obama has voted for over $300 billion in funding to continue the war.
5. He supports the continuation of the for-profit healthcare system.
Michael Moore’s film Sicko has provided ample evidence to show the key problem with the U.S. healthcare system is that it is controlled by big, for-profit insurance companies and HMOs, yet Obama wants to leave power in their hands.
Moore points out that Obama is “now the second largest recipient of health industry payola after Hillary” and now takes “more money from the people committed to stopping universal healthcare than any of the Republican candidates.” (michaelmoore.com, 1/4/08)
6. He supports NAFTA and corporate free trade.
In the Ohio primaries, Obama decried how corporate free trade deals like NAFTA have hurt millions of working people. Yet within days, it came out that his top economic advisor was telling the Canadian government not to take it seriously – it was “more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.” (AP, 3/3/08)
This hypocrisy is not new. As the Associated Press reported, “In his 2004 Senate campaign, [Obama] said the U.S. should pursue more deals such as NAFTA.” (2/26/08)
7. He voted to re-authorize the Patriot Act in 2005.
As Ralph Nader’s running mate Matt Gonzalez points out, this was “easily the worst attack on civil liberties in the last half-century. It allows for wholesale eavesdropping on American citizens under the guise of anti-terrorism efforts.” (“The Obama Craze: Count Me Out,” beyondchron.com, 2/27/08)
8. He voted for the 2006 bill to build a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexican border.
This racist, anti-immigrant, nationalistic bill will force immigrants to cross in even more dangerous areas. Around 500 immigrants die each year attempting to cross the border, a number that has soared since the early 1990s owing to the growing militarization of the border.
9. He supported Bill Clinton’s “welfare reform.”
This bill disproportionately hurt poor blacks and Latinos by cutting off guaranteed federal aid to families with dependent children. Poor single mothers were forced to look for jobs to qualify for aid under the guise of “personal responsibility.” But the government failed to take responsibility for providing them with decent, living-wage jobs, meaning many have sunk even deeper into poverty, stuck working minimum-wage jobs or forced out onto the streets.
10. He is not campaigning against the racist criminal injustice system.
While Obama calls for the elimination of sentencing disparities for crack and powder cocaine, he has spent very little political energy speaking out on this or other issues relating to the racist criminal injustice system."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"A deeper look reveals that Obama does not deserve the support of workers, progressives, or youth. Here are ten reasons why:
1. His biggest contributors are Wall Street banks and corporate law firms.
Seven of his top ten donors are some of the world’s biggest banks and financial institutions that are behind the sub-prime mortgage crisis and are now looking for big bail-outs and corporate welfare from the federal government, while the rest of us are left with the bill (see www.opensecrets.org for a list of Obama’s donors).
2. He won’t end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
While Obama says he would end the war in 2009, like Clinton he has been very careful to call only for the removal of combat troops from Iraq. His position might look good when compared to McCain’s statements about staying in Iraq for 100 years. In reality, Obama’s plan would also maintain tens of thousands of troops, special operations forces, and bases – as well as private mercenaries like Blackwater - in Iraq for years to come.
3. He promotes the expansion of the U.S. military.
Like Bush, Obama has called for increasing the size of the U.S. military by 92,000 troops. He calls for redeploying thousands of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to strengthen the U.S. occupation there.
As William Hartung writes, Obama has said “we will probably need to ‘bump up’ the military budget in a new administration.” (Foreign Policy in Focus, 2/21/08) At $614 billion (not counting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!), the proposed U.S. military budget for 2008 is already larger than the rest of the world’s military spending combined.
4. He has repeatedly voted to fund the war in Iraq.
While he spoke out against the war before entering the Senate, as a Senator Obama has voted for over $300 billion in funding to continue the war.
5. He supports the continuation of the for-profit healthcare system.
Michael Moore’s film Sicko has provided ample evidence to show the key problem with the U.S. healthcare system is that it is controlled by big, for-profit insurance companies and HMOs, yet Obama wants to leave power in their hands.
Moore points out that Obama is “now the second largest recipient of health industry payola after Hillary” and now takes “more money from the people committed to stopping universal healthcare than any of the Republican candidates.” (michaelmoore.com, 1/4/08)
6. He supports NAFTA and corporate free trade.
In the Ohio primaries, Obama decried how corporate free trade deals like NAFTA have hurt millions of working people. Yet within days, it came out that his top economic advisor was telling the Canadian government not to take it seriously – it was “more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.” (AP, 3/3/08)
This hypocrisy is not new. As the Associated Press reported, “In his 2004 Senate campaign, [Obama] said the U.S. should pursue more deals such as NAFTA.” (2/26/08)
7. He voted to re-authorize the Patriot Act in 2005.
As Ralph Nader’s running mate Matt Gonzalez points out, this was “easily the worst attack on civil liberties in the last half-century. It allows for wholesale eavesdropping on American citizens under the guise of anti-terrorism efforts.” (“The Obama Craze: Count Me Out,” beyondchron.com, 2/27/08)
8. He voted for the 2006 bill to build a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexican border.
This racist, anti-immigrant, nationalistic bill will force immigrants to cross in even more dangerous areas. Around 500 immigrants die each year attempting to cross the border, a number that has soared since the early 1990s owing to the growing militarization of the border.
9. He supported Bill Clinton’s “welfare reform.”
This bill disproportionately hurt poor blacks and Latinos by cutting off guaranteed federal aid to families with dependent children. Poor single mothers were forced to look for jobs to qualify for aid under the guise of “personal responsibility.” But the government failed to take responsibility for providing them with decent, living-wage jobs, meaning many have sunk even deeper into poverty, stuck working minimum-wage jobs or forced out onto the streets.
10. He is not campaigning against the racist criminal injustice system.
While Obama calls for the elimination of sentencing disparities for crack and powder cocaine, he has spent very little political energy speaking out on this or other issues relating to the racist criminal injustice system."
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Did You Know
That Clinton Family employs slaves? I mean the Expresident of US. Hmmmm no....you wouldn't as the media blocks this kind of news. Ok read this arcle.
Why the Clintons’ profiting off near-slavery is not a campaign issue
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Why the Clintons’ profiting off near-slavery is not a campaign issue
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Thursday, March 27, 2008
Did You Know
That Mr Bush has exempted Pakistan from a law that limits funding to countries where the head of state was deposed by a military coup, as President Pervez Musharraf had done in Pakistan.
The White House released a copy of a memorandum sent by Mr Bush to US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, entitled "a determination to waive military coup-related" provision.
While it does not reveal any details of appropriations, Mr Bush has asked the US congress to approve $300 million in security assistance for Pakistan.
Mr Bush granted Pakistan the waiver although President Musharraf came to power in a military coup in 1999. "I hereby determine and certify, with respect to Pakistan, that a waiver .. would facilitate the transition to democratic rule in Pakistan and it is important to US efforts to respond to deter, or prevent acts of international terrorism," said Mr Bush in the memorandum
US waives Pak aid restrictions
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The White House released a copy of a memorandum sent by Mr Bush to US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, entitled "a determination to waive military coup-related" provision.
While it does not reveal any details of appropriations, Mr Bush has asked the US congress to approve $300 million in security assistance for Pakistan.
Mr Bush granted Pakistan the waiver although President Musharraf came to power in a military coup in 1999. "I hereby determine and certify, with respect to Pakistan, that a waiver .. would facilitate the transition to democratic rule in Pakistan and it is important to US efforts to respond to deter, or prevent acts of international terrorism," said Mr Bush in the memorandum
US waives Pak aid restrictions
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Did You Know
That "After all, this is a guy who tried to kill my dad at one time," Bush said. The comment referred to a 1993 claim by the Kuwaiti government—accepted by the Clinton administration—that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) had plotted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush during a trip to Kuwait that spring. Ever since, armchair psychologists have suggested that personal revenge may have been one reason for the president's determination to overthrow Saddam's regime.
Saddam’s Files
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Saddam’s Files
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Did You Know
That the Pentagon reportedly burns through an astounding 365,000 barrels of oil every day (the equivalent of the entire nation of Sweden’s daily consumption), Sohbet Karbuz, an expert on global oil markets, estimates that the number is really closer to 500,000 barrels.
No wonder Bush and Co is not into Global Warming thingy init?
Bits From The Military-Petroleum Complex
"And the deployments DoD has “rushed its forces” to in recent years – in Afghanistan and Iraq – have sucked up massive quantities of oil. According to Fuel Line, the official newsletter of the Pentagon’s fuel-buying component, the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), from October 1, 2001, to August 9, 2004, the DESC supplied 1,897,272,714 gallons of jet fuel, alone, for military operations in Afghanistan. Similarly, in less than a year and a half, from March 19, 2003, to August 9, 2004, the DESC provided U.S. forces with 1,109,795,046 gallons of jet fuel for operations in Iraq. In 2005, Lana Hampton of the DoD’s Defense Logistics Agency revealed that the military’s aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles were guzzling 10 to 11 million barrels of fuel each month in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Yet, while the Pentagon reportedly burns through an astounding 365,000 barrels of oil every day (the equivalent of the entire nation of Sweden’s daily consumption), Sohbet Karbuz, an expert on global oil markets, estimates that the number is really closer to 500,000 barrels.
With such unconstrained consumption, recent U.S. wars have been a boon for big oil and have seen the Pentagon rise from the rank of hopeless addict to superjunkie. Prior to George Bush’s Global War on Terror, the U.S. military admitted to guzzling 4.62 billion gallons of oil per year. With the Pentagon’s post-9/11 wars and occupations, annual oil consumption has grown to an almost unfathomable 5.46 billion gallons, according to the Pentagon’s possibly low-ball statistics.
As a result, the DoD had some of the planet’s biggest petroleum dealers, and masters of the corporate universe, on its payroll. In 2005, alone, the Pentagon paid out more than $1.5 billion to BP PLC – the company formerly known as Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (on whose behalf the CIA and its British counterpart covertly overthrew the Iranian government back in 1953) and then British Petroleum. In 2005, the Pentagon also paid out over $1 billion to N. V. Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij -- also known as the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company (and best known in the United States for its Shell brand gasoline) – and in excess of $1 billion to oil titan ExxonMobil.
In 2005, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Petroleum, and BP ranked sixth, seventh, and eighth on the Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s five hundred largest corporations in terms of revenue. The next year, they bumped their way up to first, third, and fourth, respectively. They also ranked 29th, 30th, and 31st on the DoD’s 2006 list of top contractors, collectively raking in over $3.5 billion from the Pentagon. The big three petrogiants are, however, only the tip of a massive, oily iceberg. Also on the Pentagon’s 2006 list were such oil services, energy, and petroleum conglomerates as:
Ranking
Company name
Total take from the DoD (in dollars)
Ranking: 6
Company name: Halliburton
Total take from the DoD (in dollars): 6,059,726,743
34
Kuwait Petroleum
1,011,270,194
45
Valero Energy
661,171,541
55
Refinery Associates of Texas
576,557,185
66
Abu Dhabi National Oil
494,286,000
70
Bahrain Petroleum
477,535,378
83
CS Caltex
356,313,452
94
Tesoro Petroleum
310,564,052
It’s almost impossible to catalog all the companies with at least some ties to the oil game that are doing business with the Department of Defense, but if just the most obvious names on DoD’s payroll are any indication, the U.S. military is mainlining petroleum from a remarkable assortment of places. For instance, in 2005 alone, the Pentagon payroll listed 145 companies (from A & M Oil to Wyandotte Tribal petroleum).
These 145 companies -- far from constituting a complete list of energy-related firms on the DoD dole – took in more than 8 billion taxpayer dollars in 2005. To put that figure in perspective, that was more than the army paid out in the same year to the military-corporate powerhouses Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Electric, and the Bechtel Corporation, combined. Or over $2.7 billion more than it spent in 2005 on bombs, grenades, guided missiles, guided missile launchers, unmanned aerial vehicles, bulk explosives, all guns, rockets, rocket launchers, and helicopters.
No doubt due to his outfit’s penchant for petroleum guzzling, in 2005, then secretary of defense Rumsfeld issued a memo calling on DoD staff to develop plans for employing alternative power sources and energy-saving technologies. As defense technology expert Noah Shachtman noted in early 2007, while the “Department of Defense might not care about the environment,” it had met its green goals ahead of schedule. As a result, the Pentagon now touts itself as environmentally conscious, drawing attention to its use of wind power at the naval station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and its dabblings in “cleaner, ‘greener’ hybrid fuel.” On March 24, 2006, the Pentagon’s American Forces Press Service published an article, “Hydrogen Fuel Cells May Help U.S. Military Cut Gas Usage,” speculating that someday such technology might significantly reduce the military’s “dependence on hydrocarbon-based fuels for transportation needs.”
That day is not yet in sight. In fact, on March 23, 2006, the day before that article was published, the Pentagon quietly announced a series of DoD contracts that demonstrated the degree of its continuing addiction to oil: a $241,265,176 deal with Valero Energy; a $171,409,329 agreement with Shell Oil; separate contracts of $156,616,405 and $23,923,354 with ConocoPhillips; a $124,152,364 agreement with Refinery Associates of Texas; a $121,053,450 deal with Calumet Shreveport Fuels; a $118,374,201 jet fuel contract with Gary-Williams Energy Corporation; a $75,094,613 agreement with AGE Refining; a $43,994,360 deal with Tesoro Refining; and a $29,524,800 contract with Western Petroleum – all of which had a completion date of April 30, 2007.
Couple this with the fact that, on Rumsfeld’s watch, the Environmental Protection Agency granted the DoD a “national security exemption” on trucks that failed to meet current emissions standards; that the army canceled plans to introduce “hybrid-diesel humvees” (the current military model gets just four miles per gallon in city driving and an equally dismal eight miles per gallon on the highway); and that it similarly dropped plans to retrofit the fuel-guzzling Abrams tank with a more efficient diesel engine (the current model, in service in Iraq, gets less than a mile per gallon), while the air force deep-sixed plans for the possible replacement of aging “surveillance, cargo and tanker aircraft engines” – and you’re looking at a Pentagon patently incapable of altering its addiction-addled ways in any near future.
Since then, it’s been more of the same. In March 2007, the Pentagon, now under Rumsfeld’s replacement, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, went on a two-day bender of epic proportions. On March 22 and 23, the DoD announced that it had struck “fixed price with economic price adjustment” deals, to be fulfilled by April 30, 2008, with ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Valero, Refinery Associates of Texas, and ten other petrogiants to the tune of $4 billion. Another petro-binge occurred around the 2007 Labor Day holiday. Over the course of three days, the DoD acknowledged fuel contracts with BP, Chevron, Tesoro, and four others worth more than $1.4 billion.
The Pentagon needs two things to survive: war and oil. And it can’t make the first if it doesn’t have the second. In fact, the Pentagon’s methods of mass destruction -- fighters, bombers, tanks, Humvees, and other vehicles -- burn 75 percent of the fuel used by the DoD. For example, B-52 bombers consume 47,000 gallons per mission over Afghanistan. But don’t expect big oil (or even smaller petroplayers) to turn off the tap for peace. Such corporations are just as wedded to war as their most loyal junkie. After all, every time an F-16 fighter “kicks in its afterburners and blasts through the sound barrier,” it burns through $300 worth of fuel a minute, while each of those B-52 missions means a $100,000 tax-funded payout.
According to retired lieutenant general Lawrence P. Farrell Jr., the president of the National Defense Industrial Association (“America’s leading Defense Industry association promoting National Security”), the Pentagon is “the single largest consumer of petroleum fuels in the United States.” In fact, it’s the world’s largest energy consumer, according to Shachtman. That, alone, guarantees the military-petroleum complex isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon – just some fuel for thought next time you head out to a Shell, BP, Exxon, or Mobil station to fill ’er up."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
No wonder Bush and Co is not into Global Warming thingy init?
Bits From The Military-Petroleum Complex
"And the deployments DoD has “rushed its forces” to in recent years – in Afghanistan and Iraq – have sucked up massive quantities of oil. According to Fuel Line, the official newsletter of the Pentagon’s fuel-buying component, the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), from October 1, 2001, to August 9, 2004, the DESC supplied 1,897,272,714 gallons of jet fuel, alone, for military operations in Afghanistan. Similarly, in less than a year and a half, from March 19, 2003, to August 9, 2004, the DESC provided U.S. forces with 1,109,795,046 gallons of jet fuel for operations in Iraq. In 2005, Lana Hampton of the DoD’s Defense Logistics Agency revealed that the military’s aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles were guzzling 10 to 11 million barrels of fuel each month in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Yet, while the Pentagon reportedly burns through an astounding 365,000 barrels of oil every day (the equivalent of the entire nation of Sweden’s daily consumption), Sohbet Karbuz, an expert on global oil markets, estimates that the number is really closer to 500,000 barrels.
With such unconstrained consumption, recent U.S. wars have been a boon for big oil and have seen the Pentagon rise from the rank of hopeless addict to superjunkie. Prior to George Bush’s Global War on Terror, the U.S. military admitted to guzzling 4.62 billion gallons of oil per year. With the Pentagon’s post-9/11 wars and occupations, annual oil consumption has grown to an almost unfathomable 5.46 billion gallons, according to the Pentagon’s possibly low-ball statistics.
As a result, the DoD had some of the planet’s biggest petroleum dealers, and masters of the corporate universe, on its payroll. In 2005, alone, the Pentagon paid out more than $1.5 billion to BP PLC – the company formerly known as Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (on whose behalf the CIA and its British counterpart covertly overthrew the Iranian government back in 1953) and then British Petroleum. In 2005, the Pentagon also paid out over $1 billion to N. V. Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij -- also known as the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company (and best known in the United States for its Shell brand gasoline) – and in excess of $1 billion to oil titan ExxonMobil.
In 2005, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Petroleum, and BP ranked sixth, seventh, and eighth on the Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s five hundred largest corporations in terms of revenue. The next year, they bumped their way up to first, third, and fourth, respectively. They also ranked 29th, 30th, and 31st on the DoD’s 2006 list of top contractors, collectively raking in over $3.5 billion from the Pentagon. The big three petrogiants are, however, only the tip of a massive, oily iceberg. Also on the Pentagon’s 2006 list were such oil services, energy, and petroleum conglomerates as:
Ranking
Company name
Total take from the DoD (in dollars)
Ranking: 6
Company name: Halliburton
Total take from the DoD (in dollars): 6,059,726,743
34
Kuwait Petroleum
1,011,270,194
45
Valero Energy
661,171,541
55
Refinery Associates of Texas
576,557,185
66
Abu Dhabi National Oil
494,286,000
70
Bahrain Petroleum
477,535,378
83
CS Caltex
356,313,452
94
Tesoro Petroleum
310,564,052
It’s almost impossible to catalog all the companies with at least some ties to the oil game that are doing business with the Department of Defense, but if just the most obvious names on DoD’s payroll are any indication, the U.S. military is mainlining petroleum from a remarkable assortment of places. For instance, in 2005 alone, the Pentagon payroll listed 145 companies (from A & M Oil to Wyandotte Tribal petroleum).
These 145 companies -- far from constituting a complete list of energy-related firms on the DoD dole – took in more than 8 billion taxpayer dollars in 2005. To put that figure in perspective, that was more than the army paid out in the same year to the military-corporate powerhouses Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Electric, and the Bechtel Corporation, combined. Or over $2.7 billion more than it spent in 2005 on bombs, grenades, guided missiles, guided missile launchers, unmanned aerial vehicles, bulk explosives, all guns, rockets, rocket launchers, and helicopters.
No doubt due to his outfit’s penchant for petroleum guzzling, in 2005, then secretary of defense Rumsfeld issued a memo calling on DoD staff to develop plans for employing alternative power sources and energy-saving technologies. As defense technology expert Noah Shachtman noted in early 2007, while the “Department of Defense might not care about the environment,” it had met its green goals ahead of schedule. As a result, the Pentagon now touts itself as environmentally conscious, drawing attention to its use of wind power at the naval station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and its dabblings in “cleaner, ‘greener’ hybrid fuel.” On March 24, 2006, the Pentagon’s American Forces Press Service published an article, “Hydrogen Fuel Cells May Help U.S. Military Cut Gas Usage,” speculating that someday such technology might significantly reduce the military’s “dependence on hydrocarbon-based fuels for transportation needs.”
That day is not yet in sight. In fact, on March 23, 2006, the day before that article was published, the Pentagon quietly announced a series of DoD contracts that demonstrated the degree of its continuing addiction to oil: a $241,265,176 deal with Valero Energy; a $171,409,329 agreement with Shell Oil; separate contracts of $156,616,405 and $23,923,354 with ConocoPhillips; a $124,152,364 agreement with Refinery Associates of Texas; a $121,053,450 deal with Calumet Shreveport Fuels; a $118,374,201 jet fuel contract with Gary-Williams Energy Corporation; a $75,094,613 agreement with AGE Refining; a $43,994,360 deal with Tesoro Refining; and a $29,524,800 contract with Western Petroleum – all of which had a completion date of April 30, 2007.
Couple this with the fact that, on Rumsfeld’s watch, the Environmental Protection Agency granted the DoD a “national security exemption” on trucks that failed to meet current emissions standards; that the army canceled plans to introduce “hybrid-diesel humvees” (the current military model gets just four miles per gallon in city driving and an equally dismal eight miles per gallon on the highway); and that it similarly dropped plans to retrofit the fuel-guzzling Abrams tank with a more efficient diesel engine (the current model, in service in Iraq, gets less than a mile per gallon), while the air force deep-sixed plans for the possible replacement of aging “surveillance, cargo and tanker aircraft engines” – and you’re looking at a Pentagon patently incapable of altering its addiction-addled ways in any near future.
Since then, it’s been more of the same. In March 2007, the Pentagon, now under Rumsfeld’s replacement, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, went on a two-day bender of epic proportions. On March 22 and 23, the DoD announced that it had struck “fixed price with economic price adjustment” deals, to be fulfilled by April 30, 2008, with ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Valero, Refinery Associates of Texas, and ten other petrogiants to the tune of $4 billion. Another petro-binge occurred around the 2007 Labor Day holiday. Over the course of three days, the DoD acknowledged fuel contracts with BP, Chevron, Tesoro, and four others worth more than $1.4 billion.
The Pentagon needs two things to survive: war and oil. And it can’t make the first if it doesn’t have the second. In fact, the Pentagon’s methods of mass destruction -- fighters, bombers, tanks, Humvees, and other vehicles -- burn 75 percent of the fuel used by the DoD. For example, B-52 bombers consume 47,000 gallons per mission over Afghanistan. But don’t expect big oil (or even smaller petroplayers) to turn off the tap for peace. Such corporations are just as wedded to war as their most loyal junkie. After all, every time an F-16 fighter “kicks in its afterburners and blasts through the sound barrier,” it burns through $300 worth of fuel a minute, while each of those B-52 missions means a $100,000 tax-funded payout.
According to retired lieutenant general Lawrence P. Farrell Jr., the president of the National Defense Industrial Association (“America’s leading Defense Industry association promoting National Security”), the Pentagon is “the single largest consumer of petroleum fuels in the United States.” In fact, it’s the world’s largest energy consumer, according to Shachtman. That, alone, guarantees the military-petroleum complex isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon – just some fuel for thought next time you head out to a Shell, BP, Exxon, or Mobil station to fill ’er up."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Monday, March 24, 2008
Tibet
Well well well even the most hard working researchers do not see the whole view at once. I have an article written by Michael Parenti. It looks as if it is well reserched but I will have to look into it. I did not really know about Tibetan life style and the history of it. Now I got this Article. Hmmmm...I am not quite sure that I shall hate the Chinese for Tibet. But what I found about this article is that most of the reseached articles by Michael Parenti are anti CIA and US. So I have to go deeper to find out about the Tibetan issue.
"In 1995, the News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, carried a frontpage color photograph of the Dalai Lama being embraced by the reactionary Republican senator Jesse Helms, under the headline “Buddhist Captivates Hero of Religious Right.”45 In April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the first George Bush, the Dalai Lama called upon the British government to release Augusto Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a longtime CIA client who was visiting England. The Dalai Lama urged that Pinochet not be forced to go to Spain where he was wanted to stand trial for crimes against humanity."
You live and learn. Dalai Lama CIA asset?
"Since the first Dalai Lama appeared, his successors have been the effective leaders of one of the five religious schools of Tibet, the Gelug.1 Starting in 1642, the Dalai Lamas were also the political rulers of the central provinces of the huge area now called Tibet. This gave the Dalai Lamas a mix of religious and political authority that has been difficult for historians to sort out. Were the Dalai Lamas the recognized religious leaders of Tibet? And is the current Dalai Lama the religious leader of all Tibetans today? His supporters say yes. But many Tibetans disagree. They hold that the four religious schools outside of the Dalai Lama’s own Gelug governed themselves autonomously back in Tibet—and that they continue to run their own affairs today, without reference to the authority of the Dalai Lama."
Reincarnating Lamas
Basically we know that untill 1911 the Tibet was under Chinese patronage. But after the Chinese revolution in 1911, the British in India used Tibet as a buffer zone against Cina and Russia. Soon after Mao's peasant armies took power in Beijing in 1949, the Chinese army seized Tibet and in 1951 it was formally incorporated into China.
This is the Sino-Tibetan Agreement, Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, [17-Point Agreement of May 23, 1951
(1) The Tibetan people shall unite and drive out imperialist aggressive forces from Tibet; the Tibetan people shall return to the big family of the Motherlans- the People's Republic of China.
(2) The local governemtn of Tibet shall actively assist the PLA to enter Tibet and consolidate the national defences.
(3) In accoradnce with the policy towards nationalities laid own in the Common Programme of the CPPCC, the Tibetan people have the right of exercising national regional autonomy under the unified leadership of the CPG.
(4) The central authorities will not alter the exisiting political system in Tibet. The central authorities also will not alter the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama. Officials of various ranks shall hold office as usual.
(5) The established status, functions and powers of the Panchen Ngoerhtehni shall be maintained.
(6) By the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama and of the Panchen Ngoerhtehni are meant the status, functions and powers of the thirteenth Dalai Lama and of the ninth Panchen Ngoerhtehni when they were in friendly and amicable relations with each other. The policy of freedom and religious belief laid down in the Common Programme of the CPPCC shall be carried out. The religious beliefs, customs and habits of the Tibetan people shall be respected and lama monasteries shall be protected. The central authorities will not effect a change in the income of the monasteries.
(8) Tibetan troops shall be reorganized step by step into the PLA and become a part of the national defence forces of the CPR.
(9) The spoken and written language and school education of the Tibetan nationality shall be developed step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet.
(10) Tibetan agriculture, livestock-raising, industry and commerce shall be developed step by step and the people's livelihood shall be improved step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet.
(11) In matters related to various reforms in Tibet, the will be no compulsion on the part of the central authorities. the local government of Tibet should carry out reforms of its own accord, and, when the people raise demands for reform, they shall be settled by means of consultation with the leading personnel of Tibet.
(12) In so far as former pro-imperialist and pro-Kuomintang officials resolutely sever relations with imperialism and the Kuomintang do not engage in sabotage or resistance, they may continue to hold office irrespective of their past.
(13) The PLA entering Tibet shall abide by all the above-mentioned policies and shall also be fair in all buying and selling and shall not arbitrarily take a needle or thread from the people.
(14) The CPG shall have centralized handling of all external affairs of the area of Tibet; and there will be peaceful co-existence with neighbouring countries and establishment and development of fair commercial and trading relations with them on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect for territory and sovereignty.
(15) In order to ensure the implementation of this agreement, the CPG shall set up a Military and Administrative Committee and a Military Area HQ in Tibet and- apart from the personnel sent there by the CPG- shall absorb as manylocal Tibetan personnel as possible to take part in the work. Local personnel taking part in the Military and Administrative Committee may include patriotic elements from the local government of Tibet, various district and various principal monasteries; the name-list shall be set forth after consultation between the representatives designated by the CPG and various quarters concerned and shall be submitted to the CPG for appointment.
(16) Funds needed by the Military and Administrative Committee, the Military Area HQ and the PLA entering Tibet shall be provided by the CPG. The local government of Tibet should assist the PLA in the purchase and transport of food, fodder and other daily necessities.
(17) This agreement shall come into force immediately after signature and seals are affixed to it.
Signed and sealed by delegates of the CPG with full powers:
Chief Delegate- Li Wei-Han (Chairman of the Commission of Nationalities Affairs)
Delegates- Chang Ching-wu, Chang Kuo-hua, Sun Chih-yuan
Delegates with full powers of the local government of Tibet:
Chief Delegate- Kaloon Ngabou Ngawang Jigme (Ngabo Shape)
Delegates- Dazasak Khemey Soanm Wangdi, Khentrung Thupten Tenthar, Kenchung Thupten Lekmuun, Rimshi Samposey Tenzin Thundup.
Peking, 23rd May, 1951.
But Chinese did not understand the Tibetan way of life and had lots of problems in Tibet; and the West used it to create more problems for Chinese in the World forum. After the Chinese take over in 1950 the CIA trained guarillas to sabotage the Chinese rule. Now the CIA exploits are leaking out as the former employees of CIA started boasting about the work they carried out as far back as 1956. While the Dalai Lama, keen to preserve his image as a man of peace, claims not to have been directly involved, his elder brother Gyalo Thondup was at the centre of the operations. According to the magazine's report: “Gyalo Thondup now says he didn't inform his exalted sibling about all of his intelligence connections at the time: ‘This was a very dirty business'.”
The Newsweek article explained: “Beginning in 1958, American operatives trained about 300 Tibetans at Camp Hale in Colorado. The trainees were schooled in spy photography and sabotage, Morse Code and minelaying. Between 1957 and 1960, the CIA dropped more than 400 tonnes of cargo to the resistance. Yet nine out 10 guerrillas who fought in Tibet were killed by the Chinese or committed suicide to evade capture, according to an article by aerospace historian William Leary in the Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine.”
In 1959 Dalai Lama fled Tibet with the aid of CIA snd started a government-in-exile in Napal. “By the mid-60s,” Newsweek explained, “the Tibet operation was costing Washington $1.7 million a year, according to intelligence documents. That included $500,000 subsidy to support 2,100 guerrillas based in Nepal and $180,000 worth of ‘subsidy to the Dalai Lama'.”
US made up with the Chinese after China is allowed to take a seat in UN in 1971. 1972 US President Nixon visits China. US cuts down financing Dali Lama's exiled government and the funds dry up. The Newsweek article quoted the rather bitter remarks of the Dalai Lama: “They [the CIA] gave the impression that once I arrived in India, great support would come from the United States. It's a sad, sad story... The US help was very, very limited.” By 1974, the Dalai Lama was forced to publicly call for an end to armed resistance in Tibet.
Even though the US seems to have stopped the support for Free Tibet movement; right wing people in both parties still have connections and funding. Tibet and Taiwan is the hobbyhorse of these people who are using them for their own ends.
At the same time we should not forget that prior to 1950 the Tibet was ruled by a theocracy rooted in the backward semi-feudal practices of the past. Things were hard for the majority of the Tibetan population, except the rich Lamas including Dalai.
"For instance, Mary Craig in her book Tears of Blood—A Cry for Tibet, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama, provides the following grim picture: “In this strange theocracy administered from Lhasa, all land belonged to the state. Much of this had been granted in the form of hereditary manorial estates to aristocratic families or important monasteries. The government retained a few holdings for its own use, but most of the remaining arable land was leased in strips to small-holding peasants.
“It was a mediaeval feudal society and whether he worked on government property, the monastic estates or on the lands held by the two hundred or so great aristocratic families, the Tibetan peasant was undeniably owned by his master. He had to render a certain amount of compulsory labour in exchange for his own bit of land; and give up the greater portion of his crops to his landlord, keeping the barest minimum necessity for himself and his family. The landlord not only had the right to exact whatever rents he wished, but could also impose cruel punishments for failure to conform. Capital punishment and limb amputation were quite common in some regions.”
Having painted this picture, Craig in the next breath tells us: “Life for the ordinary Tibetan was harsh, but it was not the unmitigated hell claimed by Chinese propaganda... Generally speaking, the Tibetans were not aware of being downtrodden or exploited, and their enormous zest for life was undimmed by desire for a freedom they had never known... Despite the yawning divide in terms of money and material possessions, there was so little resentment of the rich by the poor that in all Tibet's history there had seldom been a popular uprising.”
They had food, shelter and clothes—what more could they want? At any rate, they didn't rebel so they must have been content. All of this reeks of the same appalling indifference and contempt towards the plight of the oppressed as was exhibited by the high lamas themselves and could no doubt be found—with the appropriate changes—among the justifications trotted out by the apologists of, for example, the British Raj in India or Czarist Russia."
There are three main characters in Tibetan system of rule Dalai Lama, Panchen Lama, and Karmapa Lama. They are all Tulkus. Tulku is a Tibetan Buddhist Lama who keeps on been reborn to take the place of the one who died. According to the Tibetan custum the Tulku inherits the wealth of the dead lama. But he is from a different family but of the same school of Buddhism.
The first recognized tulku of this kind within the Vajrayana traditions was the Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism; precisely, the first to be recognized as a re-manifestation was the second Karmapa, Karma Pakshi (1024-1283) first Karmapa was Düsum Khyenpa (1110-1193). The Karmapa is now in his 17th incarnation. The wealth of this school is immense.
“If the boy-lama was sent to secure the spiritually vital Black Crown and be installed at Kagyu's Rumtek headquarters, his presence in India could aid Chinese designs both on Sikkim and the Tibetan exile community. He who controls Rumtek also controls the school's $1.2 billion worldwide wealth and commands influence over many Buddhists living in the strategically sensitive Indian Himalayan arc from Arunchal Pradesh to Ladakh. What undergirds India's concerns is the fact that China on its maps still shows Arunchal Pradesh as its territory, Sikkim as independent, and Jammu and Kashmir (other than the parts it occupies) as disputed.”
Blimey that is lots of loot init. No wonder all these super powers want a peice of action on it. See the little kingdoms involved. Now I can understand a bit of the conspiracies involved by the various powers.
Present Dali Lama in the Gelugpa (Dge-lugs-pa) School of Tibetan Buddhism (the school which controlled Tibet from the 16th century until the Communist takeover) was already there in 1950. We all know of him. He is the incarnation of Gendun Drup (1391 – 1474), who was not known as Dalai Lama, First who become known as Dalai Lama was actually the third incarnation Sonam Gyatso, until he was dubbed "Dalai Lama" as an adult, after which he applied the title posthumously to his predecessors and declared himself the 3rd Dalai Lama. It was Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682), the 5th Dalai Lama, who established the Dalai Lamas as Tibet's predominant political power. After that the Dalai Lama ruled the country and was powerful enough to stop the reincarnation of Shamarpa (red hat) who was the second in command to Karmapa in 1792. This ban remained in place until 1952 when DL lost power. Well the Karma Kagyu school has said they kept on finding Shamarpa reincarnations secretly all these years. Man this is getting complicated init. So many bloody high class lamas. So in 1981 the senior regent Shamarpa Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche fell out with DL and the rest of the regents who were to select the next Karmapa Lama.
"According to an article in the New York Times, “On August 2, 1993, a second brawl broke out, far worse than the first. Versions of what occurred are as different as inner peace and outer space. What is certain is that the split within the monastery's walls had become irreparable. Dozens of monks slept in the woods that night—or in a hospital or in jail.” Monks loyal to the Dalai Lama continue to control the valuable monastery"
Conduct unbecoming of a senior monk of Buddhism. It is all to do with money. Buddha never had any. So why?
So without Shamar, Ogyen Trinley Dorje has been recognized by Situ Rinpoche and Gyaltsab Rinpoche. In July 1992, both asked the Office of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala to confirm their recognition. The 14th Dalai Lama confirmed the recognition of Ogyen Trinley Dorje. The head of the Sakya school, H.H. Sakya Trizin and the head of the Nyingma school at that time, H.H. Mindroling Trichen Rinpoche also recognised Ogyen Trinley Dorje as the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa and composed long-life prayers for him.[3] The government of the People's Republic of China has also accepted him.
But The first born Karmapa, Trinley Thaye Dorje, has been recognized by H.H. Shamar Rinpoche - the senior Kagyu official below the Karmapas themselves.
On top of all these happenings, Dawa Sangpo Dorje, who was born in Mangan in north Sikkim in 1977 (before the death of the 16th Karmapa) and subsequently resided in Damthang in South Sikkim. As recently as December 2003 he requested the opportunity to prove his "supernatural power" to the Dalai Lama.
So now we have three Karmapas residing and doing religious rituals. But the all the moneys involved is cotrolled by a fund Karmapa Charitable Trust.
The Panchen Lama was appointed by 5th DL to honour his Tutor Lobsang Chökyi Gyalsten head of Tashilhunpo Monastery and exclusively reserved the title Panchen for him,[2] and this title has continued to be given to his successors and, posthumously, to his predecessors starting with Khedrup Je. Panchen means great scholar. There is a problem about who is the Panchen lama? Chinese arrested Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the youngest political prisoner ever recorded, in 1995. Qoigyijabu who has been put there as PL by the Chinese and the Tibetan Government in Exile does not recognize him. Now it is getting a bit more easier to understand all these init. But Chinese are trying to simplify it further by getting rd of all these bullshit and put just numbers on them. Ha ha ha
Check wikipedia for most of the stuff above.
And From: "The flight of the Karmapa Lama from Tibet"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"In 1995, the News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, carried a frontpage color photograph of the Dalai Lama being embraced by the reactionary Republican senator Jesse Helms, under the headline “Buddhist Captivates Hero of Religious Right.”45 In April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the first George Bush, the Dalai Lama called upon the British government to release Augusto Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a longtime CIA client who was visiting England. The Dalai Lama urged that Pinochet not be forced to go to Spain where he was wanted to stand trial for crimes against humanity."
You live and learn. Dalai Lama CIA asset?
"Since the first Dalai Lama appeared, his successors have been the effective leaders of one of the five religious schools of Tibet, the Gelug.1 Starting in 1642, the Dalai Lamas were also the political rulers of the central provinces of the huge area now called Tibet. This gave the Dalai Lamas a mix of religious and political authority that has been difficult for historians to sort out. Were the Dalai Lamas the recognized religious leaders of Tibet? And is the current Dalai Lama the religious leader of all Tibetans today? His supporters say yes. But many Tibetans disagree. They hold that the four religious schools outside of the Dalai Lama’s own Gelug governed themselves autonomously back in Tibet—and that they continue to run their own affairs today, without reference to the authority of the Dalai Lama."
Reincarnating Lamas
Basically we know that untill 1911 the Tibet was under Chinese patronage. But after the Chinese revolution in 1911, the British in India used Tibet as a buffer zone against Cina and Russia. Soon after Mao's peasant armies took power in Beijing in 1949, the Chinese army seized Tibet and in 1951 it was formally incorporated into China.
This is the Sino-Tibetan Agreement, Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, [17-Point Agreement of May 23, 1951
(1) The Tibetan people shall unite and drive out imperialist aggressive forces from Tibet; the Tibetan people shall return to the big family of the Motherlans- the People's Republic of China.
(2) The local governemtn of Tibet shall actively assist the PLA to enter Tibet and consolidate the national defences.
(3) In accoradnce with the policy towards nationalities laid own in the Common Programme of the CPPCC, the Tibetan people have the right of exercising national regional autonomy under the unified leadership of the CPG.
(4) The central authorities will not alter the exisiting political system in Tibet. The central authorities also will not alter the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama. Officials of various ranks shall hold office as usual.
(5) The established status, functions and powers of the Panchen Ngoerhtehni shall be maintained.
(6) By the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama and of the Panchen Ngoerhtehni are meant the status, functions and powers of the thirteenth Dalai Lama and of the ninth Panchen Ngoerhtehni when they were in friendly and amicable relations with each other. The policy of freedom and religious belief laid down in the Common Programme of the CPPCC shall be carried out. The religious beliefs, customs and habits of the Tibetan people shall be respected and lama monasteries shall be protected. The central authorities will not effect a change in the income of the monasteries.
(8) Tibetan troops shall be reorganized step by step into the PLA and become a part of the national defence forces of the CPR.
(9) The spoken and written language and school education of the Tibetan nationality shall be developed step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet.
(10) Tibetan agriculture, livestock-raising, industry and commerce shall be developed step by step and the people's livelihood shall be improved step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet.
(11) In matters related to various reforms in Tibet, the will be no compulsion on the part of the central authorities. the local government of Tibet should carry out reforms of its own accord, and, when the people raise demands for reform, they shall be settled by means of consultation with the leading personnel of Tibet.
(12) In so far as former pro-imperialist and pro-Kuomintang officials resolutely sever relations with imperialism and the Kuomintang do not engage in sabotage or resistance, they may continue to hold office irrespective of their past.
(13) The PLA entering Tibet shall abide by all the above-mentioned policies and shall also be fair in all buying and selling and shall not arbitrarily take a needle or thread from the people.
(14) The CPG shall have centralized handling of all external affairs of the area of Tibet; and there will be peaceful co-existence with neighbouring countries and establishment and development of fair commercial and trading relations with them on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect for territory and sovereignty.
(15) In order to ensure the implementation of this agreement, the CPG shall set up a Military and Administrative Committee and a Military Area HQ in Tibet and- apart from the personnel sent there by the CPG- shall absorb as manylocal Tibetan personnel as possible to take part in the work. Local personnel taking part in the Military and Administrative Committee may include patriotic elements from the local government of Tibet, various district and various principal monasteries; the name-list shall be set forth after consultation between the representatives designated by the CPG and various quarters concerned and shall be submitted to the CPG for appointment.
(16) Funds needed by the Military and Administrative Committee, the Military Area HQ and the PLA entering Tibet shall be provided by the CPG. The local government of Tibet should assist the PLA in the purchase and transport of food, fodder and other daily necessities.
(17) This agreement shall come into force immediately after signature and seals are affixed to it.
Signed and sealed by delegates of the CPG with full powers:
Chief Delegate- Li Wei-Han (Chairman of the Commission of Nationalities Affairs)
Delegates- Chang Ching-wu, Chang Kuo-hua, Sun Chih-yuan
Delegates with full powers of the local government of Tibet:
Chief Delegate- Kaloon Ngabou Ngawang Jigme (Ngabo Shape)
Delegates- Dazasak Khemey Soanm Wangdi, Khentrung Thupten Tenthar, Kenchung Thupten Lekmuun, Rimshi Samposey Tenzin Thundup.
Peking, 23rd May, 1951.
But Chinese did not understand the Tibetan way of life and had lots of problems in Tibet; and the West used it to create more problems for Chinese in the World forum. After the Chinese take over in 1950 the CIA trained guarillas to sabotage the Chinese rule. Now the CIA exploits are leaking out as the former employees of CIA started boasting about the work they carried out as far back as 1956. While the Dalai Lama, keen to preserve his image as a man of peace, claims not to have been directly involved, his elder brother Gyalo Thondup was at the centre of the operations. According to the magazine's report: “Gyalo Thondup now says he didn't inform his exalted sibling about all of his intelligence connections at the time: ‘This was a very dirty business'.”
The Newsweek article explained: “Beginning in 1958, American operatives trained about 300 Tibetans at Camp Hale in Colorado. The trainees were schooled in spy photography and sabotage, Morse Code and minelaying. Between 1957 and 1960, the CIA dropped more than 400 tonnes of cargo to the resistance. Yet nine out 10 guerrillas who fought in Tibet were killed by the Chinese or committed suicide to evade capture, according to an article by aerospace historian William Leary in the Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine.”
In 1959 Dalai Lama fled Tibet with the aid of CIA snd started a government-in-exile in Napal. “By the mid-60s,” Newsweek explained, “the Tibet operation was costing Washington $1.7 million a year, according to intelligence documents. That included $500,000 subsidy to support 2,100 guerrillas based in Nepal and $180,000 worth of ‘subsidy to the Dalai Lama'.”
US made up with the Chinese after China is allowed to take a seat in UN in 1971. 1972 US President Nixon visits China. US cuts down financing Dali Lama's exiled government and the funds dry up. The Newsweek article quoted the rather bitter remarks of the Dalai Lama: “They [the CIA] gave the impression that once I arrived in India, great support would come from the United States. It's a sad, sad story... The US help was very, very limited.” By 1974, the Dalai Lama was forced to publicly call for an end to armed resistance in Tibet.
Even though the US seems to have stopped the support for Free Tibet movement; right wing people in both parties still have connections and funding. Tibet and Taiwan is the hobbyhorse of these people who are using them for their own ends.
At the same time we should not forget that prior to 1950 the Tibet was ruled by a theocracy rooted in the backward semi-feudal practices of the past. Things were hard for the majority of the Tibetan population, except the rich Lamas including Dalai.
"For instance, Mary Craig in her book Tears of Blood—A Cry for Tibet, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama, provides the following grim picture: “In this strange theocracy administered from Lhasa, all land belonged to the state. Much of this had been granted in the form of hereditary manorial estates to aristocratic families or important monasteries. The government retained a few holdings for its own use, but most of the remaining arable land was leased in strips to small-holding peasants.
“It was a mediaeval feudal society and whether he worked on government property, the monastic estates or on the lands held by the two hundred or so great aristocratic families, the Tibetan peasant was undeniably owned by his master. He had to render a certain amount of compulsory labour in exchange for his own bit of land; and give up the greater portion of his crops to his landlord, keeping the barest minimum necessity for himself and his family. The landlord not only had the right to exact whatever rents he wished, but could also impose cruel punishments for failure to conform. Capital punishment and limb amputation were quite common in some regions.”
Having painted this picture, Craig in the next breath tells us: “Life for the ordinary Tibetan was harsh, but it was not the unmitigated hell claimed by Chinese propaganda... Generally speaking, the Tibetans were not aware of being downtrodden or exploited, and their enormous zest for life was undimmed by desire for a freedom they had never known... Despite the yawning divide in terms of money and material possessions, there was so little resentment of the rich by the poor that in all Tibet's history there had seldom been a popular uprising.”
They had food, shelter and clothes—what more could they want? At any rate, they didn't rebel so they must have been content. All of this reeks of the same appalling indifference and contempt towards the plight of the oppressed as was exhibited by the high lamas themselves and could no doubt be found—with the appropriate changes—among the justifications trotted out by the apologists of, for example, the British Raj in India or Czarist Russia."
There are three main characters in Tibetan system of rule Dalai Lama, Panchen Lama, and Karmapa Lama. They are all Tulkus. Tulku is a Tibetan Buddhist Lama who keeps on been reborn to take the place of the one who died. According to the Tibetan custum the Tulku inherits the wealth of the dead lama. But he is from a different family but of the same school of Buddhism.
The first recognized tulku of this kind within the Vajrayana traditions was the Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism; precisely, the first to be recognized as a re-manifestation was the second Karmapa, Karma Pakshi (1024-1283) first Karmapa was Düsum Khyenpa (1110-1193). The Karmapa is now in his 17th incarnation. The wealth of this school is immense.
“If the boy-lama was sent to secure the spiritually vital Black Crown and be installed at Kagyu's Rumtek headquarters, his presence in India could aid Chinese designs both on Sikkim and the Tibetan exile community. He who controls Rumtek also controls the school's $1.2 billion worldwide wealth and commands influence over many Buddhists living in the strategically sensitive Indian Himalayan arc from Arunchal Pradesh to Ladakh. What undergirds India's concerns is the fact that China on its maps still shows Arunchal Pradesh as its territory, Sikkim as independent, and Jammu and Kashmir (other than the parts it occupies) as disputed.”
Blimey that is lots of loot init. No wonder all these super powers want a peice of action on it. See the little kingdoms involved. Now I can understand a bit of the conspiracies involved by the various powers.
Present Dali Lama in the Gelugpa (Dge-lugs-pa) School of Tibetan Buddhism (the school which controlled Tibet from the 16th century until the Communist takeover) was already there in 1950. We all know of him. He is the incarnation of Gendun Drup (1391 – 1474), who was not known as Dalai Lama, First who become known as Dalai Lama was actually the third incarnation Sonam Gyatso, until he was dubbed "Dalai Lama" as an adult, after which he applied the title posthumously to his predecessors and declared himself the 3rd Dalai Lama. It was Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682), the 5th Dalai Lama, who established the Dalai Lamas as Tibet's predominant political power. After that the Dalai Lama ruled the country and was powerful enough to stop the reincarnation of Shamarpa (red hat) who was the second in command to Karmapa in 1792. This ban remained in place until 1952 when DL lost power. Well the Karma Kagyu school has said they kept on finding Shamarpa reincarnations secretly all these years. Man this is getting complicated init. So many bloody high class lamas. So in 1981 the senior regent Shamarpa Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche fell out with DL and the rest of the regents who were to select the next Karmapa Lama.
"According to an article in the New York Times, “On August 2, 1993, a second brawl broke out, far worse than the first. Versions of what occurred are as different as inner peace and outer space. What is certain is that the split within the monastery's walls had become irreparable. Dozens of monks slept in the woods that night—or in a hospital or in jail.” Monks loyal to the Dalai Lama continue to control the valuable monastery"
Conduct unbecoming of a senior monk of Buddhism. It is all to do with money. Buddha never had any. So why?
So without Shamar, Ogyen Trinley Dorje has been recognized by Situ Rinpoche and Gyaltsab Rinpoche. In July 1992, both asked the Office of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala to confirm their recognition. The 14th Dalai Lama confirmed the recognition of Ogyen Trinley Dorje. The head of the Sakya school, H.H. Sakya Trizin and the head of the Nyingma school at that time, H.H. Mindroling Trichen Rinpoche also recognised Ogyen Trinley Dorje as the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa and composed long-life prayers for him.[3] The government of the People's Republic of China has also accepted him.
But The first born Karmapa, Trinley Thaye Dorje, has been recognized by H.H. Shamar Rinpoche - the senior Kagyu official below the Karmapas themselves.
On top of all these happenings, Dawa Sangpo Dorje, who was born in Mangan in north Sikkim in 1977 (before the death of the 16th Karmapa) and subsequently resided in Damthang in South Sikkim. As recently as December 2003 he requested the opportunity to prove his "supernatural power" to the Dalai Lama.
So now we have three Karmapas residing and doing religious rituals. But the all the moneys involved is cotrolled by a fund Karmapa Charitable Trust.
The Panchen Lama was appointed by 5th DL to honour his Tutor Lobsang Chökyi Gyalsten head of Tashilhunpo Monastery and exclusively reserved the title Panchen for him,[2] and this title has continued to be given to his successors and, posthumously, to his predecessors starting with Khedrup Je. Panchen means great scholar. There is a problem about who is the Panchen lama? Chinese arrested Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the youngest political prisoner ever recorded, in 1995. Qoigyijabu who has been put there as PL by the Chinese and the Tibetan Government in Exile does not recognize him. Now it is getting a bit more easier to understand all these init. But Chinese are trying to simplify it further by getting rd of all these bullshit and put just numbers on them. Ha ha ha
Check wikipedia for most of the stuff above.
And From: "The flight of the Karmapa Lama from Tibet"
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Did You Know
That US is giving military aid to Kosovo which is ruled by a ex-terrorist organisation who is against the Serbs.
Russia: US plan arms ex-terrorists
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Russia: US plan arms ex-terrorists
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Gaffe [ Gaf ] (plural Gaffes) or Gaff [ Gaf ] (plural Gaffs)
This is a new feature from to day.
The precidental candidate J McCain's Al Qaeda-Iran gaffe.
"As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq."
Does he know that Alqaeda is Sunni and Iran is majority Shite country.
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The precidental candidate J McCain's Al Qaeda-Iran gaffe.
"As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq."
Does he know that Alqaeda is Sunni and Iran is majority Shite country.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
The woman who nearly stopped the war
I remember something about Mr Annan saying to one of our ministers to go out of his office and walk if you want to talk about something serious as the place is full of bugs. But this is really nasty coming from a nice democratic country like US of frigging A. What sort of people can do thses things? Answer people who take up these shite jobs.
"Koza insisted that he was looking for "insights" into how individual countries were reacting to the ongoing debate, "plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies etc". In summary, he added: "The whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers the edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises." The scope of the operation was vast: "Make sure they pay attention to existing non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful related to the UNSC deliberations/debates/votes," wrote Koza."
Why We Said No: Three Diplomats’ Duty
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"Koza insisted that he was looking for "insights" into how individual countries were reacting to the ongoing debate, "plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies etc". In summary, he added: "The whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers the edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises." The scope of the operation was vast: "Make sure they pay attention to existing non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful related to the UNSC deliberations/debates/votes," wrote Koza."
Why We Said No: Three Diplomats’ Duty
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Betrayal Iraq War Ch4 on 3rd March
Col Lawrence Wilkinson Former Chief of Staff to Gen C Powell says that, needs $ 100 billion, to get the army back in to the state which was before invation...... the morale of the troupes are conflicted now. US cannot deploy troups elsewhere.
Col Paul Hughes Former Director Coalition Strategy Office says
When Gulliver is tied down in Iraq what happened to him is happening to US army. So Us cannot do anything if somewhere else anything happens to undermine the US authority. Eg China's authority been spread around the world.
Gen William Odom Former Naational Security Agency Officer says: that there were no Al Qaeda in Iraq but they are there now. Instead of destrying them we have increased their cadre.
Funny init these guys when they were working they did the job and carried out the orders without a question mark; then after retirement they come out with all these stuff. I believe in people who leak, about, whatever questions their conscience, out to others while they are working and be proud about it. Sybel Edmonds comes to mind. But with the present Western Governments you cannot do it as you will get sacked, gagged, jailed or shot; in other words punished. I pray for more transparency in all the governments in their work.
At the moment dollar is taken a funny drive downwords and still not levelling out. Col Lawrence Wilkinson says that they were not there when we came here but they are here now, and they will be gone when we are gone. Al Qaeda have atleast 6000. But being a Sunni based group the moment US get out of Iraq there will be 100's of thousands to stop the Shites taking power.
Yes of course I remember when Bush was sounding off to go and bomb Afghanistan Bin Laden said that his aim is to tie up the military of the West and bankcrupt US Dollar. Not bad for a terrorist to forsee and plan it; or is it done with the agreement with the people who are controling the most of the governments? bankers? Because the petral prices and the precious metal prices have gone up massively. Who is creaming in the loot?
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Col Paul Hughes Former Director Coalition Strategy Office says
When Gulliver is tied down in Iraq what happened to him is happening to US army. So Us cannot do anything if somewhere else anything happens to undermine the US authority. Eg China's authority been spread around the world.
Gen William Odom Former Naational Security Agency Officer says: that there were no Al Qaeda in Iraq but they are there now. Instead of destrying them we have increased their cadre.
Funny init these guys when they were working they did the job and carried out the orders without a question mark; then after retirement they come out with all these stuff. I believe in people who leak, about, whatever questions their conscience, out to others while they are working and be proud about it. Sybel Edmonds comes to mind. But with the present Western Governments you cannot do it as you will get sacked, gagged, jailed or shot; in other words punished. I pray for more transparency in all the governments in their work.
At the moment dollar is taken a funny drive downwords and still not levelling out. Col Lawrence Wilkinson says that they were not there when we came here but they are here now, and they will be gone when we are gone. Al Qaeda have atleast 6000. But being a Sunni based group the moment US get out of Iraq there will be 100's of thousands to stop the Shites taking power.
Yes of course I remember when Bush was sounding off to go and bomb Afghanistan Bin Laden said that his aim is to tie up the military of the West and bankcrupt US Dollar. Not bad for a terrorist to forsee and plan it; or is it done with the agreement with the people who are controling the most of the governments? bankers? Because the petral prices and the precious metal prices have gone up massively. Who is creaming in the loot?
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
About Climate Change and the Exxon Mobile
We all know big companies bribe anyone polititians to the dustman to get their own way. Here is a bit of proof about the subject.
"SCIENTISTS and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine the UN climate change report.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute, an ExxonMobil-funded think tank with close links to the Bush Administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of the report. Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.
The institute has received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil - which yesterday announced a $50 billion annual profit, the biggest ever by a US company - and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush Administration. A former head of ExxonMobil, Lee Raymond, is the vice-chairman of the institute's board of trustees.
The letters, sent to scientists in the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work", and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".
Climate scientists described it as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation which wants to distort science for its own political aims," said David Viner, of the University of East Anglia in Britain.
The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at the institute, who confirmed that it had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the UN report.
"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."
Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M University, turned down the offer, citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain.
Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific institute, said the UN report would underscore "the urgent need for concerted international action to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. However, yet again, there will be a vocal minority with their own agendas who will try to suggest otherwise."
Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said the institute "is more than just a think tank, it functions as the Bush Administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra".
On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the UN report."
And on the other hand Dr. James Hansen the top advisor to the US government has been gagged and his reports subdued by the US government for atleast 3 decades. This is very good to hear from an imminant scientist, who is not afraid to talk about it.
Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming
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"SCIENTISTS and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine the UN climate change report.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute, an ExxonMobil-funded think tank with close links to the Bush Administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of the report. Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.
The institute has received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil - which yesterday announced a $50 billion annual profit, the biggest ever by a US company - and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush Administration. A former head of ExxonMobil, Lee Raymond, is the vice-chairman of the institute's board of trustees.
The letters, sent to scientists in the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work", and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".
Climate scientists described it as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation which wants to distort science for its own political aims," said David Viner, of the University of East Anglia in Britain.
The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at the institute, who confirmed that it had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the UN report.
"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."
Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M University, turned down the offer, citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain.
Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific institute, said the UN report would underscore "the urgent need for concerted international action to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. However, yet again, there will be a vocal minority with their own agendas who will try to suggest otherwise."
Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said the institute "is more than just a think tank, it functions as the Bush Administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra".
On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the UN report."
And on the other hand Dr. James Hansen the top advisor to the US government has been gagged and his reports subdued by the US government for atleast 3 decades. This is very good to hear from an imminant scientist, who is not afraid to talk about it.
Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming
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Saturday, March 22, 2008
Did You Know
That the Easter Date is the first Sunday after the full moon after the Spring Equinox.
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Thursday, March 20, 2008
Hilary Clinton and the Christian Fundamentalists
I want to record this for the furure conciderations as I have not understood the CF in US at the moment. So here is the link.
I wrote something about this in here. It shows how far the CF has gone into in the military.
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I wrote something about this in here. It shows how far the CF has gone into in the military.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Did You Know
According to my estimates after living in this unique world, is that the rich countries get their way of life imposed on the poor countries top down; the poor countries get their way of life imposed on the rich countries bottom up.
Check the indian curries? Check the arms trade?
May be there is a moral here but who am I to let you know?
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Check the indian curries? Check the arms trade?
May be there is a moral here but who am I to let you know?
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Autoimmune Disease In America
The Americans better be praying to their own God Almighty for deliverance from this plague. Their god is different than any one elses as they are a different sect living in a bubble of glue which makes them invincible they reckon. Ok you don't believe me check this out. hmmmm no.... check this about the Mr President. And rest of the sane world laugh at them, and they don't realise it at all. Pure buggers.
"Imagine, if you can: the tingling foot and ankle that turns out to be the beginning of the slow paralysis of multiple sclerosis. Four hundred thousand patients. Excruciating joint pain and inflammation, skin rashes, and never-ending flu-like symptoms that lead to the diagnosis of lupus. One and a half million more. Relentless bouts of vertigo -- the hallmark of Ménière's. Seven out of every one thousand Americans. Severe abdominal pain, bleeding rectal fissures, uncontrollable diarrhea, and chronic intestinal inflammation that define Crohn's disease and inflammatory bowel disease. More than 1 million Americans.More than 2 million patients. Dry mouth so persistent eight glasses of water a day won't soothe the parched throat and tongue and the mysterious swallowing difficulties that are the first signs of Sjögren's. Four million Americans. And, with almost every autoimmune disease, intolerable, life-altering bouts of exhaustion. If fatigue were a sound made manifest by the 23.5 million people with autoimmune disease in America, the roar across this country would be more deafening than that of the return of the seventeen-year locusts."
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"Imagine, if you can: the tingling foot and ankle that turns out to be the beginning of the slow paralysis of multiple sclerosis. Four hundred thousand patients. Excruciating joint pain and inflammation, skin rashes, and never-ending flu-like symptoms that lead to the diagnosis of lupus. One and a half million more. Relentless bouts of vertigo -- the hallmark of Ménière's. Seven out of every one thousand Americans. Severe abdominal pain, bleeding rectal fissures, uncontrollable diarrhea, and chronic intestinal inflammation that define Crohn's disease and inflammatory bowel disease. More than 1 million Americans.More than 2 million patients. Dry mouth so persistent eight glasses of water a day won't soothe the parched throat and tongue and the mysterious swallowing difficulties that are the first signs of Sjögren's. Four million Americans. And, with almost every autoimmune disease, intolerable, life-altering bouts of exhaustion. If fatigue were a sound made manifest by the 23.5 million people with autoimmune disease in America, the roar across this country would be more deafening than that of the return of the seventeen-year locusts."
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Did You Know
That the MOD is trying to "write" the history of the Iraq War to teach in British schools and the history is not accurate. Man we all know the history was written by the victors and it is not accurate. But this is lunacy.
Have a look at this little bit from the article.
"What the MoD’s guide says… and what it omits
* “Iraq was invaded early 2003 by a United States coalition. Twenty-nine other countries, including the UK, also provided troops… Iraq had not abandoned its nuclear and chemical weapons development program”. After the first Gulf War, “Iraq did not honour the cease-fire agreement by surrendering weapons of mass destruction…”
The reality: The WMD allegation, central to the case for war, proved to be bogus. David Kay, appointed by the Bush administration to search for such weapons after the invasion, found no evidence of a serious programme or stockpiling of WMDs. The “coalition of the willing” was the rather grand title of a rag-tag group of countries which included Eritrea, El Salvador and Macedonia.
* “The invasion was also necessary to allow the opportunity to remove Saddam, an oppressive dictator, from power, and bring democracy to Iraq”.
The reality: Regime change was not the reason given in the run-up to the invasion - the US and UK governments had been advised it would be against international law. Saddam was regarded as an ally of the West while he was carrying out some of the worst of his atrocities. As for democracy, elections were held in Iraq during the occupation and have led to a sectarian Shia government. Attempts by the US to persuade the government to be more inclusive towards minorities have failed.
* “Over 7,000 British troops remain in Iraq… to contribute to reconstruction, training Iraqi security forces… They continue to fight against a strong militant Iraqi insurgency.”
The reality: The number of British troops in Iraq is now under 5,000. They withdrew from their last base inside Basra city in September and are now confined to the airport where they do not take part in direct combat operations.
* “The cost of UK military operations in Iraq for 2005/06 was £958m.”
The reality: The cost of military operations in Iraq has risen by 72 per cent in the past 12 months and the estimated cost for this year is £1.648bn. The House of Commons defence committee said it was “surprised” by the amount of money needed considering the slowing down of the tempo of operations.
* “Over 312,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped (Police, Army and Navy).”
The reality: The Iraqi security forces have been accused, among others by the American military, of running death squads targeting Sunnis. In Basra, the police became heavily infiltrated by Shia militias and British troops had to carry out several operations against them. On one occasion British troops had to smash their way into a police station to rescue two UK special forces soldiers who had been seized by the police.
* “A total of 132 UK military personnel have been killed in Iraq.”
The reality: The figure is 175 since the invasion of 2003. A British airman died in a rocket attack at the airport two weeks ago despite British troops not going into Basra city on operations. Conservative estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the invasion stand at around 85,000.
* “From hospitals to schools to wastewater treatment plants, the presence of coalition troops is aiding the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq.”
The reality: Five years after “liberation”, Baghdad still only has a few hours of intermittent power a day. Children are kidnapped from schools for ransom and families of patients undergoing surgery at hospitals are advised to buy and bring in blood from sellers who congregate outside."
British Teachers Told to Rewrite History of Iraq War
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Have a look at this little bit from the article.
"What the MoD’s guide says… and what it omits
* “Iraq was invaded early 2003 by a United States coalition. Twenty-nine other countries, including the UK, also provided troops… Iraq had not abandoned its nuclear and chemical weapons development program”. After the first Gulf War, “Iraq did not honour the cease-fire agreement by surrendering weapons of mass destruction…”
The reality: The WMD allegation, central to the case for war, proved to be bogus. David Kay, appointed by the Bush administration to search for such weapons after the invasion, found no evidence of a serious programme or stockpiling of WMDs. The “coalition of the willing” was the rather grand title of a rag-tag group of countries which included Eritrea, El Salvador and Macedonia.
* “The invasion was also necessary to allow the opportunity to remove Saddam, an oppressive dictator, from power, and bring democracy to Iraq”.
The reality: Regime change was not the reason given in the run-up to the invasion - the US and UK governments had been advised it would be against international law. Saddam was regarded as an ally of the West while he was carrying out some of the worst of his atrocities. As for democracy, elections were held in Iraq during the occupation and have led to a sectarian Shia government. Attempts by the US to persuade the government to be more inclusive towards minorities have failed.
* “Over 7,000 British troops remain in Iraq… to contribute to reconstruction, training Iraqi security forces… They continue to fight against a strong militant Iraqi insurgency.”
The reality: The number of British troops in Iraq is now under 5,000. They withdrew from their last base inside Basra city in September and are now confined to the airport where they do not take part in direct combat operations.
* “The cost of UK military operations in Iraq for 2005/06 was £958m.”
The reality: The cost of military operations in Iraq has risen by 72 per cent in the past 12 months and the estimated cost for this year is £1.648bn. The House of Commons defence committee said it was “surprised” by the amount of money needed considering the slowing down of the tempo of operations.
* “Over 312,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped (Police, Army and Navy).”
The reality: The Iraqi security forces have been accused, among others by the American military, of running death squads targeting Sunnis. In Basra, the police became heavily infiltrated by Shia militias and British troops had to carry out several operations against them. On one occasion British troops had to smash their way into a police station to rescue two UK special forces soldiers who had been seized by the police.
* “A total of 132 UK military personnel have been killed in Iraq.”
The reality: The figure is 175 since the invasion of 2003. A British airman died in a rocket attack at the airport two weeks ago despite British troops not going into Basra city on operations. Conservative estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the invasion stand at around 85,000.
* “From hospitals to schools to wastewater treatment plants, the presence of coalition troops is aiding the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq.”
The reality: Five years after “liberation”, Baghdad still only has a few hours of intermittent power a day. Children are kidnapped from schools for ransom and families of patients undergoing surgery at hospitals are advised to buy and bring in blood from sellers who congregate outside."
British Teachers Told to Rewrite History of Iraq War
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Food I Eat Again
I will have to eat biofuel from now onwords. And if I want to make money invest on companies like: Seed innovators Monsanto (MON, news, msgs) and Syngenta (SYT, news, msgs); fertilizer makers Potash of Saskatchewan (POT, news, msgs), Mosaic (MOS, news, msgs), CF Industries (CF, news, msgs) and Agrium (AGU, news, msgs); tractor maker Deere (DE, news, msgs); and, for exposure to the food futures themselves, the exchange-traded funds PowerShares DB Agriculture (DBA, news, msgs), iPath AIG Agriculture (JJA, news, msgs) and iPath AIG Grains (JJG, news, msgs).
Nice EU and UK passed bills n their respective paliaments to increase the production of biofuel in the future. Ha Ha. some of us petitioned the MPs and MEPs not to but to no avail. Funny init reading this article appeared.
This is what I said
Dear MEP,
I am writing to ask you to vote against increased EU biofuel targets as proposed by the European Commission in the draft Directive on renewable energy.
You may be aware of the overwhelming evidence published over the last few months that the large scale production of biofuels will
- have devastating effects on the world's most important habitats- have disastrous consequences for the poorest people and
- do little to tackle climate change.
Despite this evidence the European Commission has held on to its proposal to include a 10% target for biofuels by 2020.
The Commission proposes to avoid negative impacts from biofuels through the introduction of sustainability criteria.
In reality sustainability criteria fail to solve problems like the pressure biofuel crops exert on other agricultural land uses, pushing them into rainforests and other habitats (a problem known as leakage). And there are not even attempts to address social issues like land rights conflicts and the effects on the world's food prices.
If you feel you cannot vote against the target I would like to hear from you how you propose the problems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels will be tackled. You can contact me by email or at the following address:
Flat 1 34, Badminton RoadBristolBS2 9QL
Yours sincerely,
Chris Bury
23 Feb 2008
Reply 1.
Dear Chris Bury,
Thank you for your email. I am of the belief that biofuels still present us with a greatopportunity, both for farmers, and to deal with our energy dependancy.However it is imperative that biofuel growth is sustainable.
I believe that the EU was not wrong to initially introduce ambitioustargets on the amount of fuel that should be replaced with biofuels butunfortunately many farmers in Britain have not felt they had the supportfrom the government to venture into biofuel production. The key to thelong-term viability of biofuels is ensuring our fuels are grown as closeto home as possible and that any growth is sustainable. Cutting down therainforest and digging up food crops when we have a world shortage offood is clearly not the best way to meet the targets.
However, with the future potential of second generation biofuels, whichare both cleaner and do not affect our ability to grow food, and with aproper accreditation scheme which can ensure that imports come fromsustainable sources, I still believe that biofuels can play an importantrole in our future energy needs. Therefore I do not support a furtherreduction in what is now a more modest target for biofuel use.
Yours sincerely, Neil Parish MEP
Reply 2
Dear Constituent
Please forgive my addressing you in this impersonal way but I have hadso many identical letters about biofuels that it is the only way I canreply quickly.
I do believe that biofuels have the potential to offer an alternativeform of energy that can help to alleviate Europe's dependence uponimported oil. Given that our transport sector is almost entirelydependent upon oil, the price of which doubled from 2003-6, biofuels mayoffer, in part, a means by which to cope with a severe security ofsupply challenge. Secondly, in an era in which climate change poses areal and significant threat, biofuels may offer greenhouse gas savings;the combustion of biofuels only releases carbon into the atmosphere thatwas absorbed by the biofuel crop during its growth. It is thereforehoped that biofuels may offer a carbon neutral solution to transport fuels.
The proposal to which you refer has not yet arrived in the Environment,Public Health and Food Safety Committee, of which I am a member. When itdoes, I agree with you that rather than blunder onwards towards such anarbitrary target with potentially weak sustainability criteria, weperhaps need to reassess what we are trying to do with biofuels andreconsider the whole approach. It is quite likely that the Parliamentreport will say something on similar lines and hopefully address theproblems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels. How this will bedone will not be known until the rapporteur, the MEP responsible forsteering the dossier through the Parliament and the responsiblecommittees, has published his draft report.
Yours sincerely Caroline Jackson MEP
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Nice EU and UK passed bills n their respective paliaments to increase the production of biofuel in the future. Ha Ha. some of us petitioned the MPs and MEPs not to but to no avail. Funny init reading this article appeared.
This is what I said
Dear MEP,
I am writing to ask you to vote against increased EU biofuel targets as proposed by the European Commission in the draft Directive on renewable energy.
You may be aware of the overwhelming evidence published over the last few months that the large scale production of biofuels will
- have devastating effects on the world's most important habitats- have disastrous consequences for the poorest people and
- do little to tackle climate change.
Despite this evidence the European Commission has held on to its proposal to include a 10% target for biofuels by 2020.
The Commission proposes to avoid negative impacts from biofuels through the introduction of sustainability criteria.
In reality sustainability criteria fail to solve problems like the pressure biofuel crops exert on other agricultural land uses, pushing them into rainforests and other habitats (a problem known as leakage). And there are not even attempts to address social issues like land rights conflicts and the effects on the world's food prices.
If you feel you cannot vote against the target I would like to hear from you how you propose the problems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels will be tackled. You can contact me by email or at the following address:
Flat 1 34, Badminton RoadBristolBS2 9QL
Yours sincerely,
Chris Bury
23 Feb 2008
Reply 1.
Dear Chris Bury,
Thank you for your email. I am of the belief that biofuels still present us with a greatopportunity, both for farmers, and to deal with our energy dependancy.However it is imperative that biofuel growth is sustainable.
I believe that the EU was not wrong to initially introduce ambitioustargets on the amount of fuel that should be replaced with biofuels butunfortunately many farmers in Britain have not felt they had the supportfrom the government to venture into biofuel production. The key to thelong-term viability of biofuels is ensuring our fuels are grown as closeto home as possible and that any growth is sustainable. Cutting down therainforest and digging up food crops when we have a world shortage offood is clearly not the best way to meet the targets.
However, with the future potential of second generation biofuels, whichare both cleaner and do not affect our ability to grow food, and with aproper accreditation scheme which can ensure that imports come fromsustainable sources, I still believe that biofuels can play an importantrole in our future energy needs. Therefore I do not support a furtherreduction in what is now a more modest target for biofuel use.
Yours sincerely, Neil Parish MEP
Reply 2
Dear Constituent
Please forgive my addressing you in this impersonal way but I have hadso many identical letters about biofuels that it is the only way I canreply quickly.
I do believe that biofuels have the potential to offer an alternativeform of energy that can help to alleviate Europe's dependence uponimported oil. Given that our transport sector is almost entirelydependent upon oil, the price of which doubled from 2003-6, biofuels mayoffer, in part, a means by which to cope with a severe security ofsupply challenge. Secondly, in an era in which climate change poses areal and significant threat, biofuels may offer greenhouse gas savings;the combustion of biofuels only releases carbon into the atmosphere thatwas absorbed by the biofuel crop during its growth. It is thereforehoped that biofuels may offer a carbon neutral solution to transport fuels.
The proposal to which you refer has not yet arrived in the Environment,Public Health and Food Safety Committee, of which I am a member. When itdoes, I agree with you that rather than blunder onwards towards such anarbitrary target with potentially weak sustainability criteria, weperhaps need to reassess what we are trying to do with biofuels andreconsider the whole approach. It is quite likely that the Parliamentreport will say something on similar lines and hopefully address theproblems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels. How this will bedone will not be known until the rapporteur, the MEP responsible forsteering the dossier through the Parliament and the responsiblecommittees, has published his draft report.
Yours sincerely Caroline Jackson MEP
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
War Mongering People Colombia
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples Army (FARC-EP)
The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives
By James Petras
16/03/08 "ICH" -- - President Uribe’s troop and missile assault, violating Ecuadorian sovereignty came very close to precipitating a regional war with Ecuador and Venezuela. During an interview I had with President Chavez, at the time of this bellicose act, he confirmed to me the gravity of Uribe’s doctrine of ‘preventive war’ and ‘extra-territorial intervention’, calling the Colombian regime the ‘Israel of Latin America’. Earlier, during his Sunday radio program ‘Alo Presidente’, in which I was an invited guest, he followed up with an announcement that he was sending ground, air and sea forces to the Venezuelan frontier with Colombia.
Uribe’s cross-border attack was meant to probe the political ‘will’ of Ecuador and Venezuela to respond to military aggression, as well as to test the performance of US-coordinated remote, satellite directed missile attack. There is no doubt also that Uribe aimed to scuttle the imminent humanitarian release of FARC prisoner, Ingrid Betancourt, being negotiated by the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, Ecuador’s Interior Minister Larrea, the Colombian Red Cross and especially Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Kouchner, Larrea and Chavez were in direct contact with FARC’s leader, Raul Reyes who, along with 22 others, including non-combatants of various nationalities, were assassinated in Ecuador by Uribe’s American-coordinated missile and ground attack. Uribe’s military intervention was in part directed at denying the important diplomatic role, which Chavez was playing in the release FARC-held prisoners, in contrast to the failure of Uribe’s military efforts to ‘free the prisoners’.
Raul Reyes was recognized as the legitimate interlocutor in these negotiations by both European and Latin American governments, as well as the Red Cross; if the negotiations succeeded in the prisoner release it was likely that the same governments and humanitarian bodies would pressure Uribe to open comprehensive prisoner exchange and peace negotiations with the FARC, which was contrary to Bush and Uribes’ policy of unrelenting warfare, political assassinations and scorched earth policies.
What was at stake in Uribe’s violating Ecuadorian sovereignty and murdering 22 FARC guerrillas and Mexican visitors was nothing less than the entire military counter-insurgency strategy, which has been pursued by Uribe since coming to office in 2002.
Uribe was clearly willing to risk what eventually happened – the censure and sanction of the Organization of American States and the (temporary) break in relations with Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua. He did so because he could count on Washington’s backing, which covertly (and illegally) participated in and immediately applauded the attack. That was more important than jeopardizing cooperation with Latin American nations and France. Colombia remains Washington’s military forward shield in Latin America and, in particular, it is the most important politico-military instrument to destabilize and overthrow the anti-imperialist Chavez government. Clinton and Bush have invested over $6 billion dollars in military aid to Colombia over the past 7 years, including sending 1500 military advisers and Special Forces, dozens of Israeli commandos and ‘trainers’, funding over 2000 mercenary fighters and over 10,000 paramilitary forces working closely with the 200,000-man strong Colombian Armed Forces.
Notwithstanding these and other international considerations, influencing Uribe’s extra-territorial ‘act of war’, I would argue that the main consideration in this attack on the FARC campsite in Ecuador was to decapitate, weaken and isolate the most powerful guerrilla movement in Latin America and the most uncompromising opponent to Washington and Bogotá’s repressive neo-liberal policies. International politicians, including progressive leaders like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa, who have called for the end of armed struggle, seem to overlook the recent experiences of FARC efforts to de-militarize the struggle, including three peace initiatives (1984-1990), (1999-2001) and (2007-2008) and the heavy costs to the FARC in terms of the killing of key leaders, activists and sympathizers. During the mid-1980’s many leaders of the FARC joined the electoral process, formed a political party – the Patriotic Union. The scores of successfully elected local and national officeholders and…5,000 of their members, leaders, congress-people and three presidential candidates were slaughtered. The FARC returned to the countryside and guerrilla struggle. Ten years later, the FARC agreed to negotiate with then President Pastrana in a demilitarized zone. The FARC held public forums, discussed policy alternatives for social and political reforms to democratize the state and debated private versus public ownership of strategic economic sectors with diverse sectors in ‘civil society’. President Pastrana, under pressure from US President Clinton and later Bush, abruptly broke off negotiations and sent the armed forces in to capture the FARC’s high level negotiating teams. The US-funded and advised Colombian military failed to capture the FARC leaders but set the stage for the scorched earth policies pursued by paramilitary President Uribe.
In 2007-2008, the FARC offered to negotiate the mutual release of political prisoners in a secure demilitarized zone in Colombia. Uribe refused. President Chavez entered into negotiations as a mediator. The French government and others challenged Chavez to ask for ‘evidence’ that the FARC prisoners were alive. The FARC complied with Chavez request. It sent three emissaries who were intercepted and are being detained by the Colombian military under brutal conditions. Still the FARC continued with Chavez request and attempted to relocate the first set of prisoners to be turned over to the Red Cross and Venezuelan officials – but they came under aerial attack by Uribe’s armed forces thus aborting the release. Still later, under increased risk, they were able to release the first batch of captives. The French Foreign Minister Kouchner and Chavez made new requests for the release of Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national and former presidential candidate. This was sabotaged when Uribe, with high-level US technical assistance, launched a major military offensive throughout the country, including a comprehensive monitoring program, tracing communications between Reyes, Chavez, Kouchner, Larrea and the Red Cross. It was this high-risk role played by Reyes as the highest level FARC official involved in the negotiations and coordination for captive release that led to his assassination. Outside pressures for a unilateral release of prisoners caused the FARC to lower their security. The result was the loss of leaders, negotiators, sympathizers and militants – without securing the release of any of their 500 comrades held in Colombian prisons. The entire emphasis of Sarkozy, Chavez, Correa and others demanded unilateral concessions from the FARC - as if their own tortured and dying comrades in Uribe’s jails were not part of any humanitarian consideration.
The subsequent summit in the Dominican Republic during the weekend of March 8-9 led to a condemnation of Colombia’s violation of Ecuador’s territorial sovereignty, but the Uribe government, responsible for the invasion, was not actually named or officially sanctioned. Moreover, no mention was made (let alone respect shown) for the treacherously assassinated leader, Raul Reyes, whose life was lost in pursuit of a humanitarian exchange. If the meeting itself was a disappointing response to a tragedy, the aftermath was a farce: a smiling Uribe, walked across the meeting hall and offered a hand shake and perfunctory apology to Correa and Chavez, while Nicaraguan President Ortega embraced the murderous leader of Colombia. By that vile and cynical gesture, Uribe turned the entire military mobilization and weeklong denunciations by Chavez and Correa into a comic opera. The post-meeting ‘reconciliation’ gave the appearance that their opposition to a cross-border attack and the cold-blooded murder of Reyes was merely political theater – a bad omen for the future if, as is likely, Uribe repeats his cross border attacks on an even larger scale. Will the people of Venezuela or Ecuador and the armed forces take serious another call for mobilization and readiness?
Less than a week after the Santa Domingo ‘reconciliation’ meeting, Chavez and Uribe renewed an earlier military agreement to cooperate against ‘violent groups whatever their origins’. Clearly Chavez hopes that by dissociating Venezuela from any suspicion of providing moral support to the FARC, Uribe will stop the large-scale flow of paramilitary infiltrators from entering Venezuela and destabilizing the country. In other words, ‘reasons of state’ take precedence over solidarity with the FARC. What should be clear to Chavez however is the fact that Uribe will not abide by his side of the agreement because of his ties to Washington, and the latter’s insistence that the Chavez government be destabilized by any or all means, including the continued infiltration by Colombian paramilitary forces into Venezuela.
Uribe could apologize to Correa and Chavez because the real purpose of his military attack was to destroy the FARC leadership, any way, any place, any time and under any circumstance – even in the midst of international negotiations. Washington placed a $5 million dollar bounty on each and every member of the FARC secretariat, long before Chavez or Correa came to power, Washington’s top priority – as witnessed by its military aid programs ($6 billion dollars in 7 years), size and scope of its military advisory mission (1500 US specialists) and the length of its involvement in counter-insurgency activities within Colombia (45 years) – was to destroy the FARC.
Washington and its Colombian surrogates were willing to incur the predictable displeasure of Correa, Chavez and the slap on the wrist by the OAS if they could succeed in killing the Number Two commander of the FARC. The reason is clear: it is the FARC and not the neighboring leaders, who influence a third of Colombia’s countryside; it is the FARC’s military-political power which ties down a third of Colombia’s armed forces and prevents Colombia from engaging in any major military intervention against Chavez at the behest of Washington. Uribe and Washington have pressured Correa into cutting most of the FARC’s logistical supply lines and many security camps on the Ecuadorian-Colombian border. Correa claims to have destroyed 11 FARC campsites and arrested 11 guerrillas. The Venezuelan National Guard has turned a blind eye to Colombian cross border military pursuit of FARC activists and sympathizers among the Colombian refugee-peasantry camped along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. Uribe and Washington’s pressure has forced Chavez to publicly disclaim any support for the FARC, its methods and strategy. The FARC is internationally isolated – the Cuban Foreign Ministry proclaimed the phony ‘reconciliation’ at Santo Domingo to be a ‘great victory’ for peace. The FARC is diplomatically isolated, even as it retains substantial domestic support in the provinces and countryside of Colombia.
With the ‘neutralization’ of outside support, or sympathy for the FARC, the Uribe regime – before, during and immediately after the Santo Domingo meeting – launched a series of bloody murders and threats against all progressive and leftist organizations. In the run-up to a March 6, 2008 200,000-strong ‘march against state terror’, hundreds of organizers and activists were threatened, abused, followed, interrogated and accused by Uribe of ‘supporting the FARC’, a government label, which was followed up by the death squad killings of the leader of the march and four other human rights spokespeople. Immediately following the mass demonstration, the principle Colombian trade union, the CUT (the Confederation of Colombian Workers) reported several assassinations and assaults including the head of the banking employees union, a leader of the teachers union, the head of the education section of the CUT and a researcher at a pedagogical institute. All told, over 5,000 trade unionists have been killed, 2 million peasants and farmers have been forcibly removed and their land seized by pro-Uribe paramilitary forces and landlords. Former self-confessed death squad leaders publicly have admitted to funding and controlling over one-third of the elected members of Congress backing Uribe. Currently 30 congress-people are on trial for ‘association’ with the paramilitary death squads. Several of Uribe’s most intimate cabinet collaborators were exposed as having family ties with the death squads and two were forced to resign.
Despite international disrepute, especially in Latin America, with powerful support from Washington, Uribe has built up a murderous killing machine of 200,000 military, 30,000 police, several thousand death squad killers and over a million fanatical middle and upper class Colombians in favor of ‘wiping out the FARC’ – meaning eliminating independent popular organizations of civil society. More than any other past Colombian oligarchic rulers, Uribe is the closest to a fascist dictator combining state terror with mass mobilization.
The opposition political and social movements in Colombia are massive, committed and vulnerable. They are subject to daily intimidation and gangland-style murder. Through terror and mass propaganda, Uribe has so far been able to impose his rule over the working class opposition and attract mass middle class support. But he has utterly failed to defeat, destroy or disarticulate the FARC – his most consequential opposition. Each year since he has come to power, Uribe has pledged massive, all-out military sweeps of entire regions of the country, which would finally put an end to the ‘terrorists’. Tens of thousands of peasants in FARC-influenced regions have been tortured, raped, murdered and driven from their homes. Each of Uribe’s military offensives has failed. Yet he absolutely and totally fails to recognize what some generals and even US officials observe: the FARC cannot be militarily annihilated and at some point the government must negotiate.
Uribe’s failures and the enduring presence of the FARC have become a psychotic obsession: All territorial, legal, international constraints are thrown overboard. Alternating between euphoria and hysteria, faced with internal opposition to his mono-maniac strategy of terror, he screams ‘FARC supporters’ at any and all overseas and Colombian critics. To Ecuador and Venezuela, he promises ‘not to invade their territory again’ unless ‘circumstances warrant it.’ So much for ‘reconciliation.’
The period of humanitarian exchange is dead; the FARC cannot and will not accommodate the requests of well-intentioned friends, especially when it puts in risk the entire FARC organization and leadership. Let us concede that Chavez intentions were well meant. His pleas for a mutual release of prisoners might have made sense if he had been dealing with a rational bourgeois politician responsive to international leaders and organizations and eager to create a favorable image before world public opinion. But it was naïve for Chavez to believe that a psychotic politician with a history of annihilating his opposition would suddenly discover the virtues of negotiations and humanitarian exchanges. Without question, the FARC understands better than its Andean and Caribbean friends through hard experience and bitter lessons, that armed struggle may not be the desired method but it is the only realistic way to confront a brutal fascist regime.
Uribe’s killing of Raul Reyes was not about Chavez initiatives or Ecuador’s sovereignty or Ingrid Betancourt’s captivity, it was about Raul Reyes, a consequential and life-long revolutionary and leader of the FARC. The war-scare is over, differences have been papered over, the leaders have returned to their palaces, but Raul Reyes has not been forgotten – at least not in the countryside of Colombia or in the hearts of its peasants.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest book is "The Power of Israel in the United States" (Clarity Press, 2006).
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives
By James Petras
16/03/08 "ICH" -- - President Uribe’s troop and missile assault, violating Ecuadorian sovereignty came very close to precipitating a regional war with Ecuador and Venezuela. During an interview I had with President Chavez, at the time of this bellicose act, he confirmed to me the gravity of Uribe’s doctrine of ‘preventive war’ and ‘extra-territorial intervention’, calling the Colombian regime the ‘Israel of Latin America’. Earlier, during his Sunday radio program ‘Alo Presidente’, in which I was an invited guest, he followed up with an announcement that he was sending ground, air and sea forces to the Venezuelan frontier with Colombia.
Uribe’s cross-border attack was meant to probe the political ‘will’ of Ecuador and Venezuela to respond to military aggression, as well as to test the performance of US-coordinated remote, satellite directed missile attack. There is no doubt also that Uribe aimed to scuttle the imminent humanitarian release of FARC prisoner, Ingrid Betancourt, being negotiated by the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, Ecuador’s Interior Minister Larrea, the Colombian Red Cross and especially Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Kouchner, Larrea and Chavez were in direct contact with FARC’s leader, Raul Reyes who, along with 22 others, including non-combatants of various nationalities, were assassinated in Ecuador by Uribe’s American-coordinated missile and ground attack. Uribe’s military intervention was in part directed at denying the important diplomatic role, which Chavez was playing in the release FARC-held prisoners, in contrast to the failure of Uribe’s military efforts to ‘free the prisoners’.
Raul Reyes was recognized as the legitimate interlocutor in these negotiations by both European and Latin American governments, as well as the Red Cross; if the negotiations succeeded in the prisoner release it was likely that the same governments and humanitarian bodies would pressure Uribe to open comprehensive prisoner exchange and peace negotiations with the FARC, which was contrary to Bush and Uribes’ policy of unrelenting warfare, political assassinations and scorched earth policies.
What was at stake in Uribe’s violating Ecuadorian sovereignty and murdering 22 FARC guerrillas and Mexican visitors was nothing less than the entire military counter-insurgency strategy, which has been pursued by Uribe since coming to office in 2002.
Uribe was clearly willing to risk what eventually happened – the censure and sanction of the Organization of American States and the (temporary) break in relations with Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua. He did so because he could count on Washington’s backing, which covertly (and illegally) participated in and immediately applauded the attack. That was more important than jeopardizing cooperation with Latin American nations and France. Colombia remains Washington’s military forward shield in Latin America and, in particular, it is the most important politico-military instrument to destabilize and overthrow the anti-imperialist Chavez government. Clinton and Bush have invested over $6 billion dollars in military aid to Colombia over the past 7 years, including sending 1500 military advisers and Special Forces, dozens of Israeli commandos and ‘trainers’, funding over 2000 mercenary fighters and over 10,000 paramilitary forces working closely with the 200,000-man strong Colombian Armed Forces.
Notwithstanding these and other international considerations, influencing Uribe’s extra-territorial ‘act of war’, I would argue that the main consideration in this attack on the FARC campsite in Ecuador was to decapitate, weaken and isolate the most powerful guerrilla movement in Latin America and the most uncompromising opponent to Washington and Bogotá’s repressive neo-liberal policies. International politicians, including progressive leaders like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa, who have called for the end of armed struggle, seem to overlook the recent experiences of FARC efforts to de-militarize the struggle, including three peace initiatives (1984-1990), (1999-2001) and (2007-2008) and the heavy costs to the FARC in terms of the killing of key leaders, activists and sympathizers. During the mid-1980’s many leaders of the FARC joined the electoral process, formed a political party – the Patriotic Union. The scores of successfully elected local and national officeholders and…5,000 of their members, leaders, congress-people and three presidential candidates were slaughtered. The FARC returned to the countryside and guerrilla struggle. Ten years later, the FARC agreed to negotiate with then President Pastrana in a demilitarized zone. The FARC held public forums, discussed policy alternatives for social and political reforms to democratize the state and debated private versus public ownership of strategic economic sectors with diverse sectors in ‘civil society’. President Pastrana, under pressure from US President Clinton and later Bush, abruptly broke off negotiations and sent the armed forces in to capture the FARC’s high level negotiating teams. The US-funded and advised Colombian military failed to capture the FARC leaders but set the stage for the scorched earth policies pursued by paramilitary President Uribe.
In 2007-2008, the FARC offered to negotiate the mutual release of political prisoners in a secure demilitarized zone in Colombia. Uribe refused. President Chavez entered into negotiations as a mediator. The French government and others challenged Chavez to ask for ‘evidence’ that the FARC prisoners were alive. The FARC complied with Chavez request. It sent three emissaries who were intercepted and are being detained by the Colombian military under brutal conditions. Still the FARC continued with Chavez request and attempted to relocate the first set of prisoners to be turned over to the Red Cross and Venezuelan officials – but they came under aerial attack by Uribe’s armed forces thus aborting the release. Still later, under increased risk, they were able to release the first batch of captives. The French Foreign Minister Kouchner and Chavez made new requests for the release of Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national and former presidential candidate. This was sabotaged when Uribe, with high-level US technical assistance, launched a major military offensive throughout the country, including a comprehensive monitoring program, tracing communications between Reyes, Chavez, Kouchner, Larrea and the Red Cross. It was this high-risk role played by Reyes as the highest level FARC official involved in the negotiations and coordination for captive release that led to his assassination. Outside pressures for a unilateral release of prisoners caused the FARC to lower their security. The result was the loss of leaders, negotiators, sympathizers and militants – without securing the release of any of their 500 comrades held in Colombian prisons. The entire emphasis of Sarkozy, Chavez, Correa and others demanded unilateral concessions from the FARC - as if their own tortured and dying comrades in Uribe’s jails were not part of any humanitarian consideration.
The subsequent summit in the Dominican Republic during the weekend of March 8-9 led to a condemnation of Colombia’s violation of Ecuador’s territorial sovereignty, but the Uribe government, responsible for the invasion, was not actually named or officially sanctioned. Moreover, no mention was made (let alone respect shown) for the treacherously assassinated leader, Raul Reyes, whose life was lost in pursuit of a humanitarian exchange. If the meeting itself was a disappointing response to a tragedy, the aftermath was a farce: a smiling Uribe, walked across the meeting hall and offered a hand shake and perfunctory apology to Correa and Chavez, while Nicaraguan President Ortega embraced the murderous leader of Colombia. By that vile and cynical gesture, Uribe turned the entire military mobilization and weeklong denunciations by Chavez and Correa into a comic opera. The post-meeting ‘reconciliation’ gave the appearance that their opposition to a cross-border attack and the cold-blooded murder of Reyes was merely political theater – a bad omen for the future if, as is likely, Uribe repeats his cross border attacks on an even larger scale. Will the people of Venezuela or Ecuador and the armed forces take serious another call for mobilization and readiness?
Less than a week after the Santa Domingo ‘reconciliation’ meeting, Chavez and Uribe renewed an earlier military agreement to cooperate against ‘violent groups whatever their origins’. Clearly Chavez hopes that by dissociating Venezuela from any suspicion of providing moral support to the FARC, Uribe will stop the large-scale flow of paramilitary infiltrators from entering Venezuela and destabilizing the country. In other words, ‘reasons of state’ take precedence over solidarity with the FARC. What should be clear to Chavez however is the fact that Uribe will not abide by his side of the agreement because of his ties to Washington, and the latter’s insistence that the Chavez government be destabilized by any or all means, including the continued infiltration by Colombian paramilitary forces into Venezuela.
Uribe could apologize to Correa and Chavez because the real purpose of his military attack was to destroy the FARC leadership, any way, any place, any time and under any circumstance – even in the midst of international negotiations. Washington placed a $5 million dollar bounty on each and every member of the FARC secretariat, long before Chavez or Correa came to power, Washington’s top priority – as witnessed by its military aid programs ($6 billion dollars in 7 years), size and scope of its military advisory mission (1500 US specialists) and the length of its involvement in counter-insurgency activities within Colombia (45 years) – was to destroy the FARC.
Washington and its Colombian surrogates were willing to incur the predictable displeasure of Correa, Chavez and the slap on the wrist by the OAS if they could succeed in killing the Number Two commander of the FARC. The reason is clear: it is the FARC and not the neighboring leaders, who influence a third of Colombia’s countryside; it is the FARC’s military-political power which ties down a third of Colombia’s armed forces and prevents Colombia from engaging in any major military intervention against Chavez at the behest of Washington. Uribe and Washington have pressured Correa into cutting most of the FARC’s logistical supply lines and many security camps on the Ecuadorian-Colombian border. Correa claims to have destroyed 11 FARC campsites and arrested 11 guerrillas. The Venezuelan National Guard has turned a blind eye to Colombian cross border military pursuit of FARC activists and sympathizers among the Colombian refugee-peasantry camped along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. Uribe and Washington’s pressure has forced Chavez to publicly disclaim any support for the FARC, its methods and strategy. The FARC is internationally isolated – the Cuban Foreign Ministry proclaimed the phony ‘reconciliation’ at Santo Domingo to be a ‘great victory’ for peace. The FARC is diplomatically isolated, even as it retains substantial domestic support in the provinces and countryside of Colombia.
With the ‘neutralization’ of outside support, or sympathy for the FARC, the Uribe regime – before, during and immediately after the Santo Domingo meeting – launched a series of bloody murders and threats against all progressive and leftist organizations. In the run-up to a March 6, 2008 200,000-strong ‘march against state terror’, hundreds of organizers and activists were threatened, abused, followed, interrogated and accused by Uribe of ‘supporting the FARC’, a government label, which was followed up by the death squad killings of the leader of the march and four other human rights spokespeople. Immediately following the mass demonstration, the principle Colombian trade union, the CUT (the Confederation of Colombian Workers) reported several assassinations and assaults including the head of the banking employees union, a leader of the teachers union, the head of the education section of the CUT and a researcher at a pedagogical institute. All told, over 5,000 trade unionists have been killed, 2 million peasants and farmers have been forcibly removed and their land seized by pro-Uribe paramilitary forces and landlords. Former self-confessed death squad leaders publicly have admitted to funding and controlling over one-third of the elected members of Congress backing Uribe. Currently 30 congress-people are on trial for ‘association’ with the paramilitary death squads. Several of Uribe’s most intimate cabinet collaborators were exposed as having family ties with the death squads and two were forced to resign.
Despite international disrepute, especially in Latin America, with powerful support from Washington, Uribe has built up a murderous killing machine of 200,000 military, 30,000 police, several thousand death squad killers and over a million fanatical middle and upper class Colombians in favor of ‘wiping out the FARC’ – meaning eliminating independent popular organizations of civil society. More than any other past Colombian oligarchic rulers, Uribe is the closest to a fascist dictator combining state terror with mass mobilization.
The opposition political and social movements in Colombia are massive, committed and vulnerable. They are subject to daily intimidation and gangland-style murder. Through terror and mass propaganda, Uribe has so far been able to impose his rule over the working class opposition and attract mass middle class support. But he has utterly failed to defeat, destroy or disarticulate the FARC – his most consequential opposition. Each year since he has come to power, Uribe has pledged massive, all-out military sweeps of entire regions of the country, which would finally put an end to the ‘terrorists’. Tens of thousands of peasants in FARC-influenced regions have been tortured, raped, murdered and driven from their homes. Each of Uribe’s military offensives has failed. Yet he absolutely and totally fails to recognize what some generals and even US officials observe: the FARC cannot be militarily annihilated and at some point the government must negotiate.
Uribe’s failures and the enduring presence of the FARC have become a psychotic obsession: All territorial, legal, international constraints are thrown overboard. Alternating between euphoria and hysteria, faced with internal opposition to his mono-maniac strategy of terror, he screams ‘FARC supporters’ at any and all overseas and Colombian critics. To Ecuador and Venezuela, he promises ‘not to invade their territory again’ unless ‘circumstances warrant it.’ So much for ‘reconciliation.’
The period of humanitarian exchange is dead; the FARC cannot and will not accommodate the requests of well-intentioned friends, especially when it puts in risk the entire FARC organization and leadership. Let us concede that Chavez intentions were well meant. His pleas for a mutual release of prisoners might have made sense if he had been dealing with a rational bourgeois politician responsive to international leaders and organizations and eager to create a favorable image before world public opinion. But it was naïve for Chavez to believe that a psychotic politician with a history of annihilating his opposition would suddenly discover the virtues of negotiations and humanitarian exchanges. Without question, the FARC understands better than its Andean and Caribbean friends through hard experience and bitter lessons, that armed struggle may not be the desired method but it is the only realistic way to confront a brutal fascist regime.
Uribe’s killing of Raul Reyes was not about Chavez initiatives or Ecuador’s sovereignty or Ingrid Betancourt’s captivity, it was about Raul Reyes, a consequential and life-long revolutionary and leader of the FARC. The war-scare is over, differences have been papered over, the leaders have returned to their palaces, but Raul Reyes has not been forgotten – at least not in the countryside of Colombia or in the hearts of its peasants.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest book is "The Power of Israel in the United States" (Clarity Press, 2006).
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
War Mongering People Israel
"I Came, I Saw, I Destroyed!"
By Uri Avnery
16/03/08 "ICH" --- WHAT HAPPENED this week is so infuriating, so impertinent, that it stands out even in our familiar landscape of governmental irresponsibility.
On the near horizon, a de facto suspension of hostilities was taking shape. The Egyptians had made great efforts to turn it into an official cease-fire. The flame was already burning visibly lower. The launching of Qassams and Grads from the Gaza Strip into Israel had fallen from dozens a day to two or three.
And then something happened that turned the flame up high again: undercover soldiers of the Israeli army killed four Palestinians militants in Bethlehem. A fifth was killed in a village near Tulkarm.
THE MODUS OPERANDI left no doubt about the intention.
As usual, the official version was mendacious. (When the army spokesman speaks the truth, he is ashamed and immediately hurries on to the next lie.) The four, it was said, drew their weapons and endangered the life of the soldiers, who only wanted to arrest them, so they were compelled to open fire.
Anyone with half a brain knows that this is a lie. The four were in a small car on the main street of Bethlehem, the road that has joined Jerusalem and Hebron since British (or Turkish) times. They were indeed armed, but they had no chance at all of drawing their weapons. The car was simply sprayed with dozens of bullets.
That was not an attempt to make an arrest. That was an execution, pure and simple, one of those summary executions in which the Shin Bet fulfils the roles of prosecutor, judge and executioner.
This time no effort was even made to pretend that the four were about to carry out a murderous attack. It was not claimed, for example, that they had anything to do with last week's attack on the Mercaz Harav seminary, the flagship of the settlers' fleet. Actually, no such pretense could be put forward, because the most important of the four had recently given interviews to the Israeli media and announced that he was availing himself of the Israeli "pardon scheme" - a Shin Bet program under which "wanted" militants give up their arms and undertake to cease resistance to the occupation. He was also a candidate in the last Palestinian elections.
If so, why where they killed? The Shin Bet did not hide the reason: two of the four had participated in attacks in 2001 in which Israelis were killed.
"Our long arm will get them even years later," Ehud Barak boasted on TV, "we shall get everyone with Jewish blood on his hands."
SIMPLY PUT: The Defense Minister and his men endangered today's cease-fire in order to avenge something that happened seven years ago.
It was obvious to all that the killing of Islamic Jihad militants in Bethlehem would cause the renewal of the Qassam launchings on Sderot. And so it happened.
The effect of a Qassam rocket is completely unpredictable. For the residents of Sderot, this is a kind of Israeli Roulette - the rocket may fall in an empty field, it may fall on a building, sometimes it kills people.
In other words, according to Barak himself, he was ready to risk Jewish lives today in order to take revenge on persons who may perhaps have shed blood years ago and have since given up their armed activity.
The emphasis is on the word "Jewish". In his statement, Barak took care not to speak about persons "with blood on their hands", but about those "with Jewish blood on their hands". Jewish blood, of course, is quite different from any other blood. And indeed, there is no person in the Israeli leadership with so much blood on his hands as him. Not abstract blood, not metaphorical blood, but very real red blood. In the course of his military service, Barak has personally killed quite a number of Arabs. Whoever shakes his hand - from Condoleezza Rice to this week's honored guest, Angela Merkel - is shaking a hand with blood on it.
THE BETHLEHEM killing raises a number of hard questions, but with very few exceptions, the media did not voice them. They shirk their duty, as usual when it concerns "security" problems.
Real journalists in a real democratic state would have asked the following questions:
(a) Who was it who decided on the executions in Bethlehem - Ehud Olmert? Ehud Barak? The Shin Bet? All of them? None of them?
(b) Did the decision-makers understand that by condemning the militants in Bethlehem to death, they were also condemning to death any residents of Sderot or Ashkelon who might be killed by the rockets launched in revenge?
(c) Did they understand that they were also boxing the ears of Mahmoud Abbas, whose security forces, which in theory are in charge of Bethlehem, would be accused of collaborating with the Israeli death-squad?
(d) Was the real aim of the action to undermine the cease-fire that had come about in practice in the Gaza Strip (and the reality of which was official denied both by Olmert and Barak, even while the number of rockets launched fell from dozens a day to just two or three?)
(e) Does the Israeli government generally object to a cease-fire that would free Sderot and Ashkelon from the threat of the rockets?
(f) If so, why?
The media did not demand that Olmert and Barak expose to the public the considerations that led them to adopt this decision, which concerns every person in Israel. And no wonder. These are, after all, the same media that danced for joy when the same government started an ill-considered and superfluous war in Lebanon. They are also the same media that kept silent, this week, when the government decided to hit the freedom of the press and to boycott the Aljazeera TV network, as punishment for showing babies killed during the Israeli army's recent incursion in Gaza.
But for two or three courageous journalists with an independent mind,
all our written and broadcast media march in lockstep, like a Prussian regiment on parade, when the word "security" is mentioned.
(This phenomenon was exposed this week in CounterPunch by a journalist named Yonatan Mendel, a former employee of the popular Israeli web-site Walla. He pointed out that all the media, from the Channel 1 news program to the Haaretz news pages, as if by order, voluntarily use exactly the same slanted terminology: the Israeli army confirms and the Palestinians claim, Jews are murdered while Palestinians are killed or find their death, Jews are abducted while Arabs are arrested, the Israeli army always responds while the Palestinians always attack, the Jews are soldiers while Arabs are terrorists or just murderers, the Israeli army always hits high-ranking terrorists and never low-ranking terrorists, men and women suffering from shock are always Jews, never Arabs. And, as we said, people with blood on their hands are always Arabs, never-ever Jews. This, by the way, also goes for much of the foreign coverage of events here.)
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT does not disclose its intentions, we have no choice but to deduce its intentions from its actions. That is a judicial rule: when a person does something with a foreseeable result, it is assumed that he did it in order to obtain this result.
The government which decided on the killing in Bethlehem undoubtedly intended to torpedo the cease-fire.
Why does it want to do so?
There are several possible kinds of cease-fire. The most simple is the cessation of hostilities on the Gaza Strip border. No Qassams, Grads and mortar shells on the one side, no targeted assassinations, bombardments, shelling and incursion on the other side.
It is known that the army objects to that. They want to be free to "liquidate" from the air and raid on the ground. They want a one-sided cease-fire.
A limited cease-fire is impossible. Hamas cannot agree to it, as long as the blockade cuts the Strip off on all sides and turn life there into hell - not enough medicines, not enough food, the seriously ill cannot reach appropriate hospitals, the movement of cars has come to an almost complete standstill, no imports or exports, no production or commercial activity. The opening of all border crossings for the movement of goods is, therefore, an essential component of a cease-fire.
Our government is not willing to do that, because it would mean the consolidation of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. Government sources hint that Abbas and his people in Ramallah also object to the lifting of the blockade - a malicious rumor, because it would mean that Abbas is conducting a war against his own people. President Bush also rejects a cease-fire, even while his people pretend the opposite. Europe, as usual, is trailing along behind the US.
Can Hamas agree to a cease-fire that would apply only to the Gaza Strip but not to the West Bank? That is doubtful. This week it was proven that the Islamic Jihad organization in Gaza cannot stand idly by while its members are killed in Bethlehem. Hamas could not stand by in Gaza and enjoy the fruits of government if the Israeli army were to kill Hamas militants in Nablus or Jenin. And, of course, no Palestinian would agree that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are two separate entities.
A Gaza-only cease-fire would allow Barak to blow it to pieces at any moment by a Bethlehem-style provocation. This is how it could go: Hamas agrees to a Gaza-only cease-fire, the Israeli army kills a dozen Hamas members in Hebron, Hamas responds by launching Grad missiles at Ashkelon, Olmert tells the world: You see? The terrorist Hamas is violating the cease-fire, which proves that we have no partner!
This means that a real and durable cease-fire, which would create the necessary atmosphere for real peace negotiations, must include the West Bank, too. Olmert-Barak would not dream of agreeing to that. And as long as George Bush is around, there will be no effective pressure on our government.
A PROPOS: who is really in charge in Israel at this time?
This week's events point to the answer: the man who makes the decisions is Ehud Barak, the most dangerous person in Israel, the very same Barak who blew up the Camp David conference and persuaded the entire Israeli public that "we have no partner for peace".
2052 years ago today, on the Ides of March, Julius Caesar was assassinated. Ehud Barak sees himself as a latter-day local replica of the Roman general. He, too, would dearly want to report: "I came, I saw, I conquered."
But the reality is rather different: He came, he saw, he destroyed.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
By Uri Avnery
16/03/08 "ICH" --- WHAT HAPPENED this week is so infuriating, so impertinent, that it stands out even in our familiar landscape of governmental irresponsibility.
On the near horizon, a de facto suspension of hostilities was taking shape. The Egyptians had made great efforts to turn it into an official cease-fire. The flame was already burning visibly lower. The launching of Qassams and Grads from the Gaza Strip into Israel had fallen from dozens a day to two or three.
And then something happened that turned the flame up high again: undercover soldiers of the Israeli army killed four Palestinians militants in Bethlehem. A fifth was killed in a village near Tulkarm.
THE MODUS OPERANDI left no doubt about the intention.
As usual, the official version was mendacious. (When the army spokesman speaks the truth, he is ashamed and immediately hurries on to the next lie.) The four, it was said, drew their weapons and endangered the life of the soldiers, who only wanted to arrest them, so they were compelled to open fire.
Anyone with half a brain knows that this is a lie. The four were in a small car on the main street of Bethlehem, the road that has joined Jerusalem and Hebron since British (or Turkish) times. They were indeed armed, but they had no chance at all of drawing their weapons. The car was simply sprayed with dozens of bullets.
That was not an attempt to make an arrest. That was an execution, pure and simple, one of those summary executions in which the Shin Bet fulfils the roles of prosecutor, judge and executioner.
This time no effort was even made to pretend that the four were about to carry out a murderous attack. It was not claimed, for example, that they had anything to do with last week's attack on the Mercaz Harav seminary, the flagship of the settlers' fleet. Actually, no such pretense could be put forward, because the most important of the four had recently given interviews to the Israeli media and announced that he was availing himself of the Israeli "pardon scheme" - a Shin Bet program under which "wanted" militants give up their arms and undertake to cease resistance to the occupation. He was also a candidate in the last Palestinian elections.
If so, why where they killed? The Shin Bet did not hide the reason: two of the four had participated in attacks in 2001 in which Israelis were killed.
"Our long arm will get them even years later," Ehud Barak boasted on TV, "we shall get everyone with Jewish blood on his hands."
SIMPLY PUT: The Defense Minister and his men endangered today's cease-fire in order to avenge something that happened seven years ago.
It was obvious to all that the killing of Islamic Jihad militants in Bethlehem would cause the renewal of the Qassam launchings on Sderot. And so it happened.
The effect of a Qassam rocket is completely unpredictable. For the residents of Sderot, this is a kind of Israeli Roulette - the rocket may fall in an empty field, it may fall on a building, sometimes it kills people.
In other words, according to Barak himself, he was ready to risk Jewish lives today in order to take revenge on persons who may perhaps have shed blood years ago and have since given up their armed activity.
The emphasis is on the word "Jewish". In his statement, Barak took care not to speak about persons "with blood on their hands", but about those "with Jewish blood on their hands". Jewish blood, of course, is quite different from any other blood. And indeed, there is no person in the Israeli leadership with so much blood on his hands as him. Not abstract blood, not metaphorical blood, but very real red blood. In the course of his military service, Barak has personally killed quite a number of Arabs. Whoever shakes his hand - from Condoleezza Rice to this week's honored guest, Angela Merkel - is shaking a hand with blood on it.
THE BETHLEHEM killing raises a number of hard questions, but with very few exceptions, the media did not voice them. They shirk their duty, as usual when it concerns "security" problems.
Real journalists in a real democratic state would have asked the following questions:
(a) Who was it who decided on the executions in Bethlehem - Ehud Olmert? Ehud Barak? The Shin Bet? All of them? None of them?
(b) Did the decision-makers understand that by condemning the militants in Bethlehem to death, they were also condemning to death any residents of Sderot or Ashkelon who might be killed by the rockets launched in revenge?
(c) Did they understand that they were also boxing the ears of Mahmoud Abbas, whose security forces, which in theory are in charge of Bethlehem, would be accused of collaborating with the Israeli death-squad?
(d) Was the real aim of the action to undermine the cease-fire that had come about in practice in the Gaza Strip (and the reality of which was official denied both by Olmert and Barak, even while the number of rockets launched fell from dozens a day to just two or three?)
(e) Does the Israeli government generally object to a cease-fire that would free Sderot and Ashkelon from the threat of the rockets?
(f) If so, why?
The media did not demand that Olmert and Barak expose to the public the considerations that led them to adopt this decision, which concerns every person in Israel. And no wonder. These are, after all, the same media that danced for joy when the same government started an ill-considered and superfluous war in Lebanon. They are also the same media that kept silent, this week, when the government decided to hit the freedom of the press and to boycott the Aljazeera TV network, as punishment for showing babies killed during the Israeli army's recent incursion in Gaza.
But for two or three courageous journalists with an independent mind,
all our written and broadcast media march in lockstep, like a Prussian regiment on parade, when the word "security" is mentioned.
(This phenomenon was exposed this week in CounterPunch by a journalist named Yonatan Mendel, a former employee of the popular Israeli web-site Walla. He pointed out that all the media, from the Channel 1 news program to the Haaretz news pages, as if by order, voluntarily use exactly the same slanted terminology: the Israeli army confirms and the Palestinians claim, Jews are murdered while Palestinians are killed or find their death, Jews are abducted while Arabs are arrested, the Israeli army always responds while the Palestinians always attack, the Jews are soldiers while Arabs are terrorists or just murderers, the Israeli army always hits high-ranking terrorists and never low-ranking terrorists, men and women suffering from shock are always Jews, never Arabs. And, as we said, people with blood on their hands are always Arabs, never-ever Jews. This, by the way, also goes for much of the foreign coverage of events here.)
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT does not disclose its intentions, we have no choice but to deduce its intentions from its actions. That is a judicial rule: when a person does something with a foreseeable result, it is assumed that he did it in order to obtain this result.
The government which decided on the killing in Bethlehem undoubtedly intended to torpedo the cease-fire.
Why does it want to do so?
There are several possible kinds of cease-fire. The most simple is the cessation of hostilities on the Gaza Strip border. No Qassams, Grads and mortar shells on the one side, no targeted assassinations, bombardments, shelling and incursion on the other side.
It is known that the army objects to that. They want to be free to "liquidate" from the air and raid on the ground. They want a one-sided cease-fire.
A limited cease-fire is impossible. Hamas cannot agree to it, as long as the blockade cuts the Strip off on all sides and turn life there into hell - not enough medicines, not enough food, the seriously ill cannot reach appropriate hospitals, the movement of cars has come to an almost complete standstill, no imports or exports, no production or commercial activity. The opening of all border crossings for the movement of goods is, therefore, an essential component of a cease-fire.
Our government is not willing to do that, because it would mean the consolidation of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. Government sources hint that Abbas and his people in Ramallah also object to the lifting of the blockade - a malicious rumor, because it would mean that Abbas is conducting a war against his own people. President Bush also rejects a cease-fire, even while his people pretend the opposite. Europe, as usual, is trailing along behind the US.
Can Hamas agree to a cease-fire that would apply only to the Gaza Strip but not to the West Bank? That is doubtful. This week it was proven that the Islamic Jihad organization in Gaza cannot stand idly by while its members are killed in Bethlehem. Hamas could not stand by in Gaza and enjoy the fruits of government if the Israeli army were to kill Hamas militants in Nablus or Jenin. And, of course, no Palestinian would agree that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are two separate entities.
A Gaza-only cease-fire would allow Barak to blow it to pieces at any moment by a Bethlehem-style provocation. This is how it could go: Hamas agrees to a Gaza-only cease-fire, the Israeli army kills a dozen Hamas members in Hebron, Hamas responds by launching Grad missiles at Ashkelon, Olmert tells the world: You see? The terrorist Hamas is violating the cease-fire, which proves that we have no partner!
This means that a real and durable cease-fire, which would create the necessary atmosphere for real peace negotiations, must include the West Bank, too. Olmert-Barak would not dream of agreeing to that. And as long as George Bush is around, there will be no effective pressure on our government.
A PROPOS: who is really in charge in Israel at this time?
This week's events point to the answer: the man who makes the decisions is Ehud Barak, the most dangerous person in Israel, the very same Barak who blew up the Camp David conference and persuaded the entire Israeli public that "we have no partner for peace".
2052 years ago today, on the Ides of March, Julius Caesar was assassinated. Ehud Barak sees himself as a latter-day local replica of the Roman general. He, too, would dearly want to report: "I came, I saw, I conquered."
But the reality is rather different: He came, he saw, he destroyed.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Iraq key players, then and now
These are the past and the present feelings of the people who took us to war in Iraq. This comes from BBC.
"KOFI ANNAN
The battle over Iraq in the UN Security Council raised doubts about the organisation's role in the 21st Century. Secretary General Kofi Annan vainly appealed for compromise and unity. But as France, China and Russia threatened to veto a US-backed resolution authorising force against Iraq, he realised the die was cast. The UN began instead to prepare for the humanitarian consequences of war.
In the first few months of the conflict the UN's headquarters in Baghdad was bombed, killing its most senior official. Mr Annan called the attack "the darkest day in our lives".
In September 2004, he said for the first time that the decision to go to war without a second resolution was illegal. "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view - from the charter point of view - it was illegal," he told the BBC. In his final speech as UN head, in late 2006, he again attacked US unilateralism, saying: "No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over others."
JOSE MARIA AZNAR
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's support for the Iraq war marked a realignment in Europe's relations with the US. A member of the UN Security Council as the preparations for war advanced, Mr Aznar stood shoulder to shoulder with the US and the UK, rather than France and Germany.
"There is nothing more dangerous than a political leader who builds castles in the air, and I believe political leaders who raise false hopes, who don't look at the world as it is, are set to reap failure," Mr Aznar said after a meeting with Mr Bush in February 2003. The next month he took part in a key pre-war summit with Mr Bush and Mr Blair in the Azores. Huge protests occurred in August, as Spanish troops departed for Iraq.
In 2007, Mr Aznar - who was beaten in the 2004 elections - acknowledged that he had over-estimated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein: "The whole world thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and they didn't, I know that now. When I didn't know, no-one knew."
TONY BLAIR
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's backing for war - as the only way of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction - came to define his premiership. In a speech before parliament on March 18 2003, he argued that Saddam Hussein's "diplomatic dance" meant that threats were only effective if backed with force: "The only persuasive power to which he responds is 250,000 allied troops on his doorstep."
His decision to go to war was backed in parliament but brought the biggest parliamentary rebellion ever recorded against a British government, and prompted three ministers to resign.
He has recognised that the intelligence on his decision was based was flawed but has not apologised. In 2006, he admitted he had struggled with his conscience over the decision to go to war, saying he would be judged by history and God. A year later he told The Times: "If there's anything I regret... it is... not having laid out for people in a clearer way what I saw as the profound nature of this struggle and the fact that it was going to go on for a generation."
HANS BLIX
Plucked from retirement to lead the team of UN weapons inspectors sent in to Iraq, the pragmatic and calm Hans Blix asked in vain for more time to continue checking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
His anger about the military intervention spilled over just months after the bombing began. In a series of scathing attacks on the UK and the US, he accused them of organising the war well before the outcome of his work was known and dramatising the threat of WMD to support their campaign. "There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the [weapons] inspections," he told the Spain's El Pais in April 2003.
A year later, he compared the US attitude to the hunt for WMD to a "witch-hunt", saying the US had made "monumental" and "scandalous" errors of intelligence. His opinions have not changed. In 2007 he said: "I think everything in Iraq after the invasion has been a tragedy. The only positive thing I think is the disappearance of Saddam Hussein."
GEORGE W BUSH
The US president said he had three reasons for going to war against Iraq - to disarm the country of its WMD, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism and to free the Iraqi people. "The attacks of September 11 2001, show what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction," he said in March 2003.
Two months into a war that his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said would probably last no longer than six, Mr Bush announced that major combat operations in Iraq were over. "The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free," Mr Bush said from an aircraft carrier off the Californian coast.
Three years later, he seemed willing to concede that the situation in Iraq could be compared to Vietnam but continued to describe it as the latest battlefield in the war on terror. In January 2007, he announced that an additional 20,000 US troops would be sent to Iraq to bolster the lawless regions around the capital.
Despite his administration's acknowledgement of intelligence failures, Mr Bush has remained steadfast in his defence of his decision to go to war, saying in March 2008: "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency; it is the right decision at this point in my presidency; and it will forever be the right decision."
SERGEI LAVROV
Russia's ambassador to the United Nations was one of the key mouthpieces for his country's opposition to the US-led proposal to intervene militarily. "Russia never considered war as an adequate tool to resolve the Iraqi issue," he said. Russia, along with France, opposed the idea of a second UN resolution to authorise the use of force. In an address just a few days after the conflict began, he called the military action "unprovoked" and said it violated international law and the UN charter.
Russia's anger over the war contributed to a deepening diplomatic rift between the two countries, prompting talk of a new Cold War. Critics claim Russia's opposition to the Iraq war was due to its oil interests in the country.
Five years on, as Russia's Foreign Minister, Mr Lavrov continues to argue that the conflict threatens to destabilise Iraq's immediate neighbours and the region as a whole. He has repeatedly called on the international community to withdraw foreign troops and says strengthened Iraqi forces should be given responsibility for security.
COLIN POWELL
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the detailed and controversial evidence for going to war against Iraq to the UN in February 2003. He referred to spy satellite photos and intercepted conversations between Iraqi officials as he asserted that Saddam Hussein's regime was hiding WMD: "Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving, not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction to keep them from being found by inspectors."
It was a speech that would come to haunt him. A year later he conceded that some of the information - on the country's development of mobile labs for making biological weapons - "appears not to be... that solid". In September 2005, more than a year after he resigned as head of the State Department, he described the speech as a "blot" on his record. "It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now," he said.
In 2007, he revealed that he had tried to dissuade George W Bush from intervening militarily in Iraq, a country which he now said was a state of civil war. "I tried to avoid this war. I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers."
DOMINIQUE DE VILLEPIN
Former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin led his country's opposition to the war in Iraq, successfully blocking a second UN resolution proposed by the US and UK authorising the use of force. In a much-quoted speech to the UN Security Council on 14 February 2003, Mr de Villepin eloquently defended the diplomatic process: "The option of war might seem a priori to be the swiftest. But let us not forget that having won the war, one has to build peace," he said.
France threatened to employ its Security Council veto against a second UN resolution authorising the use of force. This, combined with France's rejection of a series of disarmament tests proposed by the UK, led to accusations that he was poisoning the very same process he wanted to protect. In response, Mr de Villepin said: "It isn't a matter of according a few more days to Iraq before resorting to force, but to resolutely advance on the path of peaceful disarmament created by the inspections, which are a credible alternative to war."
His prominent anti-Iraq role, brought huge popularity in France, and helped catapult him into the job of France's prime minister, which he held between 2005 and 2007."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"KOFI ANNAN
The battle over Iraq in the UN Security Council raised doubts about the organisation's role in the 21st Century. Secretary General Kofi Annan vainly appealed for compromise and unity. But as France, China and Russia threatened to veto a US-backed resolution authorising force against Iraq, he realised the die was cast. The UN began instead to prepare for the humanitarian consequences of war.
In the first few months of the conflict the UN's headquarters in Baghdad was bombed, killing its most senior official. Mr Annan called the attack "the darkest day in our lives".
In September 2004, he said for the first time that the decision to go to war without a second resolution was illegal. "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view - from the charter point of view - it was illegal," he told the BBC. In his final speech as UN head, in late 2006, he again attacked US unilateralism, saying: "No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over others."
JOSE MARIA AZNAR
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's support for the Iraq war marked a realignment in Europe's relations with the US. A member of the UN Security Council as the preparations for war advanced, Mr Aznar stood shoulder to shoulder with the US and the UK, rather than France and Germany.
"There is nothing more dangerous than a political leader who builds castles in the air, and I believe political leaders who raise false hopes, who don't look at the world as it is, are set to reap failure," Mr Aznar said after a meeting with Mr Bush in February 2003. The next month he took part in a key pre-war summit with Mr Bush and Mr Blair in the Azores. Huge protests occurred in August, as Spanish troops departed for Iraq.
In 2007, Mr Aznar - who was beaten in the 2004 elections - acknowledged that he had over-estimated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein: "The whole world thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and they didn't, I know that now. When I didn't know, no-one knew."
TONY BLAIR
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's backing for war - as the only way of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction - came to define his premiership. In a speech before parliament on March 18 2003, he argued that Saddam Hussein's "diplomatic dance" meant that threats were only effective if backed with force: "The only persuasive power to which he responds is 250,000 allied troops on his doorstep."
His decision to go to war was backed in parliament but brought the biggest parliamentary rebellion ever recorded against a British government, and prompted three ministers to resign.
He has recognised that the intelligence on his decision was based was flawed but has not apologised. In 2006, he admitted he had struggled with his conscience over the decision to go to war, saying he would be judged by history and God. A year later he told The Times: "If there's anything I regret... it is... not having laid out for people in a clearer way what I saw as the profound nature of this struggle and the fact that it was going to go on for a generation."
HANS BLIX
Plucked from retirement to lead the team of UN weapons inspectors sent in to Iraq, the pragmatic and calm Hans Blix asked in vain for more time to continue checking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
His anger about the military intervention spilled over just months after the bombing began. In a series of scathing attacks on the UK and the US, he accused them of organising the war well before the outcome of his work was known and dramatising the threat of WMD to support their campaign. "There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the [weapons] inspections," he told the Spain's El Pais in April 2003.
A year later, he compared the US attitude to the hunt for WMD to a "witch-hunt", saying the US had made "monumental" and "scandalous" errors of intelligence. His opinions have not changed. In 2007 he said: "I think everything in Iraq after the invasion has been a tragedy. The only positive thing I think is the disappearance of Saddam Hussein."
GEORGE W BUSH
The US president said he had three reasons for going to war against Iraq - to disarm the country of its WMD, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism and to free the Iraqi people. "The attacks of September 11 2001, show what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction," he said in March 2003.
Two months into a war that his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said would probably last no longer than six, Mr Bush announced that major combat operations in Iraq were over. "The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free," Mr Bush said from an aircraft carrier off the Californian coast.
Three years later, he seemed willing to concede that the situation in Iraq could be compared to Vietnam but continued to describe it as the latest battlefield in the war on terror. In January 2007, he announced that an additional 20,000 US troops would be sent to Iraq to bolster the lawless regions around the capital.
Despite his administration's acknowledgement of intelligence failures, Mr Bush has remained steadfast in his defence of his decision to go to war, saying in March 2008: "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency; it is the right decision at this point in my presidency; and it will forever be the right decision."
SERGEI LAVROV
Russia's ambassador to the United Nations was one of the key mouthpieces for his country's opposition to the US-led proposal to intervene militarily. "Russia never considered war as an adequate tool to resolve the Iraqi issue," he said. Russia, along with France, opposed the idea of a second UN resolution to authorise the use of force. In an address just a few days after the conflict began, he called the military action "unprovoked" and said it violated international law and the UN charter.
Russia's anger over the war contributed to a deepening diplomatic rift between the two countries, prompting talk of a new Cold War. Critics claim Russia's opposition to the Iraq war was due to its oil interests in the country.
Five years on, as Russia's Foreign Minister, Mr Lavrov continues to argue that the conflict threatens to destabilise Iraq's immediate neighbours and the region as a whole. He has repeatedly called on the international community to withdraw foreign troops and says strengthened Iraqi forces should be given responsibility for security.
COLIN POWELL
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the detailed and controversial evidence for going to war against Iraq to the UN in February 2003. He referred to spy satellite photos and intercepted conversations between Iraqi officials as he asserted that Saddam Hussein's regime was hiding WMD: "Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving, not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction to keep them from being found by inspectors."
It was a speech that would come to haunt him. A year later he conceded that some of the information - on the country's development of mobile labs for making biological weapons - "appears not to be... that solid". In September 2005, more than a year after he resigned as head of the State Department, he described the speech as a "blot" on his record. "It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now," he said.
In 2007, he revealed that he had tried to dissuade George W Bush from intervening militarily in Iraq, a country which he now said was a state of civil war. "I tried to avoid this war. I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers."
DOMINIQUE DE VILLEPIN
Former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin led his country's opposition to the war in Iraq, successfully blocking a second UN resolution proposed by the US and UK authorising the use of force. In a much-quoted speech to the UN Security Council on 14 February 2003, Mr de Villepin eloquently defended the diplomatic process: "The option of war might seem a priori to be the swiftest. But let us not forget that having won the war, one has to build peace," he said.
France threatened to employ its Security Council veto against a second UN resolution authorising the use of force. This, combined with France's rejection of a series of disarmament tests proposed by the UK, led to accusations that he was poisoning the very same process he wanted to protect. In response, Mr de Villepin said: "It isn't a matter of according a few more days to Iraq before resorting to force, but to resolutely advance on the path of peaceful disarmament created by the inspections, which are a credible alternative to war."
His prominent anti-Iraq role, brought huge popularity in France, and helped catapult him into the job of France's prime minister, which he held between 2005 and 2007."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Did You Know
that:
"He who loves his mother, his father, his wife, his brothers and sisters, his children more than me is not worthy of me. To come with me, you must bear your own cross." Jesus Christ
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"He who loves his mother, his father, his wife, his brothers and sisters, his children more than me is not worthy of me. To come with me, you must bear your own cross." Jesus Christ
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Who Is Rev. Moon?
I have heard about this guy for the last 10 years or so but do not have a lue who he is. Do you?
If you are rich and have time to read books yeah there is one book they recommend; Bad Moon Rising: By John Gorenfeld ISBN: 978-0-9794822-3-6 $24.95, Hard Cover. I neither have the time no the money; so I read the net for my info.
This guy must be filthy rich to get himself self proclaimed to be ""King of Peace" at a coronation ceremony held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. In attendance were twelve U.S. lawmakers. In his speech, Moon proclaimed himself "humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."" On March 23, 2004. Now what sort of guy do that if he is not deranged? It is a joke as far as I can see but what do I know about the man.
Now have look at this little clip and see what sort of a guy he is.
At least now I know how to imbed the YouTube stuff in a webpage Yo.
A speech he made in the coranation scene is wicked man... I wish I can get the whole speech. This is very serious indeed.
""The time has come for you to open your hearts," Moon said, "and receive the secrets that Heaven is disclosing in this age through me." To prove his credentials, he spoke of testimonials on his behalf -- from the lips of the dead, with whom he claimed the power to converse. "The five great saints," he said -- meaning Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, and the Hindu prophet Shankara -- "and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons.""
Who is Daddy huh? I think I can say the same thing but no one will listen to me except the ones who are as crazy as I am or who wants to cure me or lock me up. Jeeze this guy was talking in front of lawmakers of US. I mean are they daft or is there something about the Unification Church which makes sane people do daft things.
See this clip where the Bush senior and good wife blowing candles with the Moons.... I should really call them Moonies init? The clip is in korean but you cannot mistake the scene.
And the Mr Moon is very good at saying things like this,
Moon had said:
1) "The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the world."
2) "In restoring man from evil sovereignty, we must cheat."
3) "The time will come when, without my seeking it, that my words will almost serve as law."
4) "[W]e will be able to amend laws, articles of constitution, if we wish to do so."
5) "[T]elling a lie becomes a sin if you tell it to take advantage of a person, but if you tell a lie to do a good thing ... that is not a sin .... Even God tells lies very often."
6) "The present U.N. must be annihilated by our power .... We must make a new U.N."
7) "Many people will die, those who go against our movement."
8) "I have met many famous, so-called famous, Senators and Congressmen; but to my eyes they are nothing. They are weak and helpless. We will win the battle. This is our dream, our project. But shut your mouth tight."
(The church has often insisted these were mistranslations.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61932-2004Jun22.html
http://www.gorenfeld.net/book/
http://www.christianmediaresearch.com/falwell.html
The Rev, Bush & North Korea
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen01142003.html
The Bush-Kim-Moon Triangle of Money
http://www.rickross.com/reference/unif/unif115.html
Dark Side of Rev. Moon: Hooking George Bush
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon1.html
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/04/bush_moon.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen01142003.html
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/101100a.html
http://www.americanatheist.org/spr00/T2/fitrakis.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0103-07.htm
http://metamyth.tripod.com/q-kgate.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_South_Korea
First Sun Myung Moon is 88 years old and his wife Hak Ja, sixty-four. They are both from Korea.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
If you are rich and have time to read books yeah there is one book they recommend; Bad Moon Rising: By John Gorenfeld ISBN: 978-0-9794822-3-6 $24.95, Hard Cover. I neither have the time no the money; so I read the net for my info.
This guy must be filthy rich to get himself self proclaimed to be ""King of Peace" at a coronation ceremony held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. In attendance were twelve U.S. lawmakers. In his speech, Moon proclaimed himself "humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."" On March 23, 2004. Now what sort of guy do that if he is not deranged? It is a joke as far as I can see but what do I know about the man.
Now have look at this little clip and see what sort of a guy he is.
At least now I know how to imbed the YouTube stuff in a webpage Yo.
A speech he made in the coranation scene is wicked man... I wish I can get the whole speech. This is very serious indeed.
""The time has come for you to open your hearts," Moon said, "and receive the secrets that Heaven is disclosing in this age through me." To prove his credentials, he spoke of testimonials on his behalf -- from the lips of the dead, with whom he claimed the power to converse. "The five great saints," he said -- meaning Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, and the Hindu prophet Shankara -- "and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons.""
Who is Daddy huh? I think I can say the same thing but no one will listen to me except the ones who are as crazy as I am or who wants to cure me or lock me up. Jeeze this guy was talking in front of lawmakers of US. I mean are they daft or is there something about the Unification Church which makes sane people do daft things.
See this clip where the Bush senior and good wife blowing candles with the Moons.... I should really call them Moonies init? The clip is in korean but you cannot mistake the scene.
And the Mr Moon is very good at saying things like this,
Moon had said:
1) "The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the world."
2) "In restoring man from evil sovereignty, we must cheat."
3) "The time will come when, without my seeking it, that my words will almost serve as law."
4) "[W]e will be able to amend laws, articles of constitution, if we wish to do so."
5) "[T]elling a lie becomes a sin if you tell it to take advantage of a person, but if you tell a lie to do a good thing ... that is not a sin .... Even God tells lies very often."
6) "The present U.N. must be annihilated by our power .... We must make a new U.N."
7) "Many people will die, those who go against our movement."
8) "I have met many famous, so-called famous, Senators and Congressmen; but to my eyes they are nothing. They are weak and helpless. We will win the battle. This is our dream, our project. But shut your mouth tight."
(The church has often insisted these were mistranslations.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61932-2004Jun22.html
http://www.gorenfeld.net/book/
http://www.christianmediaresearch.com/falwell.html
The Rev, Bush & North Korea
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen01142003.html
The Bush-Kim-Moon Triangle of Money
http://www.rickross.com/reference/unif/unif115.html
Dark Side of Rev. Moon: Hooking George Bush
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon1.html
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/04/bush_moon.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen01142003.html
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/101100a.html
http://www.americanatheist.org/spr00/T2/fitrakis.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0103-07.htm
http://metamyth.tripod.com/q-kgate.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_South_Korea
First Sun Myung Moon is 88 years old and his wife Hak Ja, sixty-four. They are both from Korea.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
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