COLOMBIA POLITICAL SCANDAL IMPERILING U.S. TIES

by: Indira A.R. Lakshmanan

27 February 2007

Source:
www.Boston.com (The Boston Globe)
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/02/25/colombia_political_scandal_imperiling_us_ties/

Just two weeks ahead of a high-profile visit by President Bush to Latin America, the United States' key partner on the continent is engulfed in an extraordinary scandal that threatens to undermine the credibility of US alliances and policy priorities from Mexico to Argentina.

The widening probe linking dozens of political allies of Colombia's president, Álvaro Uribe, to the country's right-wing death squads and drug traffickers has started to erode support on Capitol Hill for Colombia, the biggest recipient of US aid outside the Middle East and Afghanistan.

The United States has spent .7 billion since 2000 fighting drugs and the insurgency in Colombia. In a show of support for his center-right ally, President Bush is scheduled next month to be the first US president since John F. Kennedy to visit the Colombian capital of Bogotá.

But after a week that saw the ouster of Uribe's foreign minister over her family's ties to paramilitary militias and the arrest of his hand picked former secret police chief for murder, the next casualty of the scandal could be America's reputation. The region feels forgotten by and estranged from Washington, D.C., since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and a string of victories by leftist presidents.

Bush is not expected to offer significant new aid or trade in his March 8-14 tour, his nemesis Hugo Chávez of oil-rich Venezuela is traversing the continent with an open checkbook.

"Who have we staked all of our political capital on in Latin America? Uribe," said Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy, a think tank in Washington. "If this scandal engulfs him or his armed forces, it will be a devastating blow to the whole design of US policy."

The "para-political" scandal burst open last fall, when a computer seized from paramilitary leader "Jorge 40" revealed the names of dozens of politicians who supposedly collaborated with paramilitaries in intimidating voters, seizing land, and kidnapping or killing labor unionists and political rivals. Other revelations followed, including secret documents signed by officials pledging moral support or kickbacks to the illegal militias.

The paramilitaries formed in the 1980s to combat leftist guerrillas who have terrorized the population for more than 40 years. But the militias, like their leftist rivals, were soon implicated in massacres, kidnapping, and drug trafficking to the United States. The paramilitary umbrella group, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, is classified as a terrorist organization by Washington, and many of its leaders are wanted for extradition on drug charges.

In a peace process started by Uribe, about 31,000 alleged paramilitary fighters had put down their weapons and agreed to confess to crimes in exchange for lighter penalties, making way for investigations into links to powerful elites.

Eight pro-Uribe congressmen have been arrested for collaborating with paramilitaries, and dozens of national and regional politicians, some who have apparently fled the country, are under investigation. Pro-Uribe legislators, as well as the opposition, have called for special elections to "cleanse" Congress, to erase suspicions that many may have won because of support from paramilitaries. A decorated colonel has been relieved of his post, and other former military officials are also under investigation.

On Monday, Uribe's foreign minister, María Consuelo Araújo, resigned after the Supreme Court arrested her brother, an Uribe-allied senator, for involvement in the kidnapping of a political rival. Her father, a former governor, another brother, and a cousin are also under investigation.

On Thursday came the worst blow. Jorge Noguera, who served as Uribe's campaign manager and later as head of Colombia's secret police, was arrested by the attorney general. Noguera is accused of giving a hit list of trade unionists and activists to paramilitaries, who then killed them. Another former secret police official is serving an 18- year sentence for purging police records of paramilitaries and drug traffickers.

Already, the scandal has had a ripple effect on Capitol Hill, where questions are being raised about requests for an additional billion in antinarcotics aid and a free-trade pact is up for approval.

"American taxpayers deserve assurances that the Colombian government has severed links to these terrorist groups," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that oversees US foreign-assistance programs. "[This] scandal only reinforces the need to reassess who we are dealing with, whether adequate corrective steps are being taken, and what we are getting for our money."

For the Bush administration, Uribe has been a staunch and rare supporter in a region increasingly dominated by leftist or anti-US leaders. But with Colombia's Congress opening hearings next month into paramilitary power in Uribe's home state, including accusations against Uribe's brother, the scandal threatens to swallow up the president himself.

Uribe's defenders at home and in Washington are standing firm, countering that it is his success in persuading paramilitaries to disarm and confess that has shed light on the links to illegal militias. A recent Gallup Colombia poll gave Uribe a 73 percent approval rating.

"The US applauds the Colombian government for its determination to investigate, and where appropriate, prosecute all charges of ties to paramilitary organizations and other illegal armed groups," Eric Watnik, a State Department spokesman, said in a telephone interview from Washington.

But with Bush set to visit Bogotá, US policy to Colombia will be under the microscope. In addition to Democrats in Congress, some of Colombia's neighbors may question why Washington sticks by an administration in the midst of a humiliating crisis.

US Representative William D. Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat active in Latin American affairs, said evidence of the right-of-center government's links to death squads "evokes memories of the 1980s in Central America. I think you're going to see hearings on these issues." Aside from the problems in Colombia, Delahunt contended that "what we have is a Latin America policy that is an afterthought."

Maria McFarland, a Colombia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said Bush has "stood by Uribe unconditionally," despite long standing allegations of his armed forces collaborating with death squads. With proof now emerging, McFarland said, US policy appears hypocritical.

"They are prepared to criticize very harshly leaders they disagree with, but when their allies do something, they turn a blind eye," she said. If the United States continues "to support so strongly a government mired in corruption and links to terrorists and drug lords," it will fuel resentment from other Latin American countries that have been ignored, she said.

Having put so much faith in Uribe, Bush is expected to broaden his agenda during a trip that will also take him to Brazil, Uruguay, Guatemala, and Mexico.

"We'll see a real emphasis on Mexico and Brazil, on ethanol and biofuel -- an attempt to elevate other regional players," predicted Dan Restrepo of the Center for American Progress, a think tank in Washington. "Part of the silver lining in all this could be a wake-up call to pursue all of our interests in Latin America."

But Leonardo Carvajal , a professor of foreign affairs at the Universidad Externado de Colombia in Bogotá, dismissed such comments as failing to take into account the strategic realpolitik of the region.

"Colombia is the beachhead of US interests in Latin America. . . . It doesn't matter what scandal happens," Carvajal said. "Everyone knows that the counterbalance to Chávez is Uribe and that Colombia is the bastion of US interests in Latin America."

BRITISH TROOPS IN IRAQ FACE RISK OF MENTAL ILLNESS

Monday, March 12, 2007

Source:
www.Dailytimes.com
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C03%5C12%5Cstory_12-3-2007_pg7_35

Thousands of British troops are facing permanent psychological damage after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, a mental health charity has warned, reports the Sunday Telegraph.

"New government figures reveal that more than 2,100 soldiers have returned from Iraq since 2003 suffering from some form of mental illness," Sean Rayment writes in the British newspaper.

"The threat from roadside bombs, the intensity of the combat and the fear associated with fighting a hidden enemy are all factors said to be leading to large numbers of troops returning from operational tours with serious mental conditions."

Psychiatric conditions suffered by service personnel include post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), manic depression, and drug and alcohol dependency.

But it has also emerged that up to seven British service personnel have committed suicide either during or after active duty in Iraq.

The Ministry of Defence is yet to publish figures of the number of soldiers diagnosed with a psychiatric condition after serving in Afghanistan, where the risk of death and injury has been even greater in recent months than in Iraq.

Combat Stress, a mental health charity for veterans, has said that it has seen a 26 percent increase over the past year in the number of troops seeking help. They include 160 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seeking help for mental health conditions, many of which were not diagnosed while they were serving in the forces.

Robert Marsh, the charity's director of fund-raising, said: "The average veteran does not seek help for at least 10 years. The military could be facing a mental health time bomb."

The MoD's figures show that of the 2,100 troops diagnosed with a psychiatric condition, 904 had developed adjustment disorders, where sufferers have difficulty readjusting to their normal way of life after a traumatic experience.

Up to 328 servicemen and women returned from Iraq with PTSD, which can lead to manic depression, and another 227 were diagnosed with other neurotic disorders.

The figures also stated that 188 had taken part in so-called psychoactive substance misuse, including alcohol and drug abuse, and the abuse of antidepressants.

COMMENTARY:
A desperate Army Is Scraping The Bottom

by: JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY

McClatchy Newspapers

Wed, Mar. 14, 2007

Source:
http://www.realcities.com/
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16903393.htm


An Army already stretched painfully thin is now being asked to find the additional 25,000-plus troops to man President Bush's escalation in Iraq and, it's now obvious, prepare for additional combat rotations next year.

All the easy sweeping up of manpower already has been done. All the obvious moves to rob Peter to pay Paul have been carried out just to keep this unending war going.

Now comes the hardest part: Units that are completing their second or third yearlong combat tours are being extended for another four or six months.

Other units, now home for their promised 12 months with their families, are being told they will go back to combat sooner than that. Army National Guard units that'd already served the maximum time on active duty, in combat, are being told that the rules have changed, and they're again being called back for Iraq service.

It doesn't matter that those Guard units were ordered to leave virtually all of their equipment in Iraq and have had none of it replaced so that they might actually train for the eventuality that has befallen them. Nor does it matter that there may not be equipment and vehicles waiting for them in Iraq when they get there. Nor does it seem to matter that, four years into this war, there still aren't enough sets of body armor to provide one for every soldier sent to Iraq in this escalation. Or that in the fervent search for bodies to fill the quotas the Army has begun combing the lists of wounded soldiers and re-evaluating their fitness to return to the war, rating some soldiers who are no longer physically able to even wear the 35 pounds of body armor good to go.

That might be one solution to the scandalous treatment of soldiers on out-patient status at Walter Reed Army Hospital - rate them good to go and send them back in to Iraq. The Army, that once-magnificent Army we counted on as our shield in a dangerous world, is being bled to death in the streets and on the roads of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Politicians only now are talking about adding 100,000 more soldiers to the Army and Marine Corps, when that's something that should have begun on Sept. 12, 2001.

Where and how do they propose to find and enlist 10,000 or 20,000 more troops each year when it is literally all the recruiters can do to find enough young men and women to fill the existing quota of at least 80,000 each year?

Again, all the cheap fixes have been used. They've raised the maximum age for enlistment from 35 to 42. Should we kick that higher, say 65? Then you would have your choice: Medicare or boot camp? We've doubled the number of convicted felons permitted to enlist. We've lowered the minimum standards to allow for more high school dropouts, more people who test in the lowest quarter on mental aptitude, and more people who are tattooed from elbow to ear. And we've boosted enlistment bonuses too. Sign on the dotted line, young man, and you're on your way to boot camp and Iraq with money in your pocket.

Of course, if the economy does a meltdown there could be a boom in enlistments and all our problems would be solved. If this war continues much longer it may be hard to postpone that economic meltdown.

The Defense Department budget is now running at half a trillion dollars annually. The war in Iraq costs more than billion a week. The long-term costs of Bush's great adventure in taking down the late and unlamented Saddam Hussein are now estimated at perhaps .5 trillion when lifetime health care for thousands of wounded and disabled soldiers and Marines is figured in.

If the war ended today it would cost billions to repair and replace the equipment worn out or destroyed in Iraq. All of these costs are being pushed down the line to be borne by our children and grandchildren and their children in the form of burgeoning budget deficits seen and, as yet, unseen.

When is someone, somewhere in this country going to stand up and demand an accounting for all we've lost in a foolish, unjustified and unnecessary war in the wrong place, against the wrong people, at the wrong time - conducted by a president who got every bit of it wrong?

When are we going to cut our incredible losses in Iraq - human, spiritual, and monetary - and get back on the road to being a better country and a better people whose leaders believe, as we do, in the U.S. Constitution and habeas corpus and the right to privacy?


ABOUT THE WRITER:
Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young." Readers may write to him at:

P.O. Box 399,
Bayside,
Texas 78340
E-mail: jlgalloway2@cs.com

News Feature: Flying Tigers Send Stark Message

Tamil Guardian

Friday, 30 March 2007

Source:
http://www.sibernews.com/news/news-feature/-200703307987/

The Liberation Tigers’ bombing raid on the main Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) airbase at Katunayake last Monday has signalled what one security analyst has termed a new phase in the island’s protracted conflict.

Other commentators, on the other hand, have questioned the efficacy of the Tamileelam Air Force (TAF). They point to the limited firepower of a handful of light aircraft in comparison to SLAF’s fleet of powerful jet fighter-bombers. Some have argued this has been further reduced by the loss of the element of surprise.

But this analysis not only misconstrues the specific capabilities the TAF adds to the LTTE’s military options, but also misses underlying lessons about the LTTE’s strategic growth that the fielding of an air force, no matter how small, outlines.

To begin with, the TAF was never intended to take the SLAF head on in air-to-air combat.

Instead the TAF is intended to augment the LTTE’s ground and sea fighting capabilities by providing three new capabilities: (a) attack targets that are otherwise inaccessible either due to their distance from the frontlines or the presence of substantial defences and impediments on the ground, (b) enhance the rapid gathering and verification of battlefield and strategic intelligence, and (c) transfer key assets, including personnel and specialist equipment, rapidly across the island.

Secondly, by compelling the Sri Lankan military and government to contend with and respond to the LTTE’s possession of these options, the TAF raises the cost of waging war against the LTTE and also constraints some of the options hitherto available to Colombo.

In the latter regard, the TAF undoubtedly seeks to deter, through the possibility of comparable retaliation in kind, some of the tactics used by Sri Lankan military in the northeast.

The TAF’s first (acknowledged) combat operation last Monday was, as international security analysts have pointed out, a feat of considerable skill and competence, not only for the aircrew involved, but for the commanders who planned and controlled the raid from their operation centre in Vanni.

Two LTTE aircraft took off from a jungle airstrip, accurately hit the SLAF’s most heavily defended installation and returned to base. The entire operation was conducted at night.

The issue is not whether Sri Lanka’s parked aircraft escaped or not on Monday – and amidst the government imposed blackout, the matter remains inconclusive – but the demonstration that the LTTE can launch strikes against specific targets on the ground anywhere in the island with considerably greater ease than before.

A cursory survey of the major military and economic targets, particularly outside the northeast, which have been attacked in the past two decades by the LTTE using its ground or sea assets reveals the edge an airborne option now gives it.

Key installations, potentially anywhere in the island, including military bases and other sites that contribute to Sri Lanka’s war economy can no longer rely solely on adequate defence of their perimeters on the ground.

The military’s supply routes moving personnel and equipment to and from the northern battlefronts are much more vulnerable as bridges, culverts, roads and railway tracks far from the frontlines are now within range of an LTTE strike.

So are manufacturing sites, storage depots and marshalling yards.

This is not to say all these targets are automatically vulnerable, but they certainly are less secure than before: simply being located too far away from the frontlines or behind layers of ground protection is no longer sufficient.

And the LTTE’s loss of the element of surprise does not diminish the need for Sri Lanka to implement countermeasures.

There is consequently greater pressure on the Sri Lankan military to provide adequate protection both to its own installations and others that are vital to the war economy.

The military’s anti-aircraft capability needs to be simultaneously expanded at a considerable number of sites across the island.

But it also needs to adequately disperse its assets, rather than relying on the inaccessibility of key stockpiles and assembly points. This further raises the strain of defence against air attack.

Meanwhile, as one defence analyst has already pointed out, even the Navy’s larger warships, hitherto operating in the safety provided by distance from the shore and a screen of gunboats, also have a new threat to contend with.

Harbours heavily reinforced against LTTE sea borne attacks are no longer sufficient protection either.

Secondly, the LTTE’s ability to put observers in the air and move them rapidly across the battlefield means that the gathering and verification of intelligence, both tactical and strategic, is considerably enhanced.

The Sri Lankan military therefore now now has to contend with greater needs for concealment and dispersal, while the element of surprise on which offensive operations often crucially rely is potentially harder to retain than before.

Thirdly, the use of aircraft allows the LTTE to move key assets, including personnel and specialist equipment, across the island with greater ease, simply bypassing complex security measures and other impediments on the ground.

Even after Monday’s airstrike, some eyewitnesses claimed, for example, that parachutists were seen descending in the skies over Colombo.

Although the LTTE has released pictures of one plane, the number and type of aircraft in its possession are a matter of speculation.

For some time there have been claims of small helicopters as well as fixed wing planes being operated by the LTTE. If true, these make a considerably enhance the Tigers’ ability to move personnel and equipment into and out of government-controlled areas.

Notably, the actual number of aircraft in the LTTE’s possession are not relevant to these kinds of operations. Indeed, unless the LTTE wanted to mount several simultaneous operations, a couple of planes would suffice.

But the most striking aspect of the TAF is that it emerged at all.

Some analysts have posited the emergence of the Tiger air force as a natural and logical extension of the LTTE’s fighting capability. The LTTE is famously the only non-state military to field a substantial naval arm, the ‘Sea Tigers.’

But there is nothing inevitable about the emergence of the ‘Air Tigers.’ In fact there is every reason for such an endeavour to be nigh impossible now.

Although the LTTE claimed an air force as long ago as 1998 and the foundations for it being laid by Colonel Shankar, assassinated by Sri Lankan commandos in 2001, it is only in recent years that the TAF has been properly constituted.

But this period coincides with the most concentrated and extensive effort by the Sri Lankan government and its international allies to squeeze the LTTE’s ocean going supply lines and shut down its financial and other operations around the world.

Indeed, the post 9/11 era, with its attendant global anti-terrorism drives, has arguable been the most difficult period in which the LTTE has had to develop any of its military capabilities.

That it was able to acquire the sophisticated equipment, the supplies and, especially, the extensive know-how to run an air force, not matter how small, is no mean feat.

A cursory survey of the kinds of skills and equipment needed to stage even a two-plane air force reveals the magnitude of the task.

Apart from the planes themselves, an air force needs radar, communication systems, and a range of avionics. It also needs the equipment to repair and upgrade all this, as well as the planes themselves.

The skillsets required to operate even a propeller driven air force go well beyond simply pilots - the aircrew themselves need to be trained in air-to-ground combat, including low-level and night flying.

And on the ground technicians are needed for each aspect of the aircraft and support equipment and armourers for the different types of ordnance being used.

Air to ground operations are complex activities requiring extensive training and practice.

Supporting even a single airstrike requires radar operators, communication personnel and operational planning and control staff.

Behind the handful of pilots pictured with the LTTE leader Vellupillai Pirapaharan in photographs released this week are hundreds of other skilled personnel.

In launching a single airstrike against the SLAF base in Katunayake, the LTTE has demonstrated that it has acquired many of these skills and the capacity to reproduce and extend these.

The sheer scale of this institutional exercise is demonstrated by the extent of the external support that Sri Lanka relies on for its own air operations.

Colombo relies heavily on the facilities and know-how of friendly air forces, especially those of India and Pakistan, to train its pilots and other personnel.

Despite being 18,000 strong, the SLAF still relies heavily on foreign personnel, again especially from Pakistan and India, in day-to-day operations.

Pakistani Air Force officers are, according to Indian security analysts, coordinating SLAF air-to-ground operations against the LTTE whilst Indian personnel are reportedly manning some of Sri Lanka’s radars.

Contractors from Ukraine and Israel are reportedly helping SLAF operate and maintain some of its aircraft.

Thus while SLAF can readily call on Sri Lanka’s extensive military relationships for expertise and support, especially since the turn of the century, there have been considerable international constraints on the acquisition of military capacity by non-state actors of any political persuasion.

Except, of course, those enjoying state patronage.

The LTTE is a notable exception in this regard, not having the backing of a single state but the undisguised hostility of several powerful ones.

And astute observers have noted this is the crucial message that the LTTE has sent Colombo with its heavily publicised airstrike Monday: not only is it now able to conduct such raids; it has been able to acquire this ability despite the pointed efforts of the Sri Lanka government and its allies to prevent it.

Sri Lanka’s war has entered a new phase.

WE'VE LOST THE AUTHORITY TO LECTURE IRAN

by: Matthew Norman

The Iraqi misadventure has rendered Britain too demoralized to respond with serious force

30 March 2007

Source:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/matthew_norman/article2405090.ece

...the reaction to the televising of Faye Turney on Wednesday does seem slightly hysterical. It goes without saying that the seizure of the 15 sailors and marines, whether or not they had strayed into Iranian waters (and it seems certain that they didn't), is inexcusable on every level.

And yet although Leading Seaman Turney seemed stressed, naturally enough, she also looked healthy. There were no overt signs of any physical violence, and her hands were not cuffed. She was wearing civilian clothes, and was allowed to smoke. So on hearing Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, saying that it is "totally unacceptable to parade our people in this way", the image that flashes to mind is that of other people being paraded for a global television audience, their legs and hands chained together, their bodies immersed in lurid orange boiler suits.

The British Government wasn't directly responsible for Guantanamo Bay, but it colluded in the illegal seizure of suspects taken there and mistreated to an unimaginably worse degree than appears the case with LS Turney. It assisted the Americans in their pioneering extension of the concept of outsourcing to take in torture, allowing CIA jets to refuel at British airports while transporting suspects to countries with a similarly unCyrus-like approach to human rights as modern Iran.

And it never raised a squeak about such criminal acts as the kidnap of Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, an EU citizen who was walking down a Milanese street in February 2003 when CIA operatives snatched him, bundled him into the back of a white van, and flew him to Cairo for interrogation.

None of this is to suggest, of course, that one nation's collusion in the illegal seizure of foreign nationals in any way justifies the use of the same indefensible tactics by another, or diminishes the seriousness of the offence. But British complicity in these American crimes raises questions about the source of the moral authority fuelling the current outrage about LS Turney's television appearance. If it did contravene the Geneva Convention, inmates of Camp X-Ray were expressly excluded from its protection, although they were supposedly captured in war (the abstract one against terror), and no Cabinet minister publicly objected to that. It also highlights yet again the extent to which the catastrophic blunder in Iraq is undermining attempts to deal effectively with Iran.

Precisely why the Iranians captured the officers remains opaque, even now, a week after the event, largely because of the confused command structure at the top of their government and the factional nature of the military. What is crystal clear, however, is that Iran would never have dared so blatant an act of brinkmanship were it not convinced, quite correctly, that the Iraqi misadventure has rendered Britain too nervous and demoralised, not to mention militarily overstretched, to respond with serious force.

If the Iranians aren't remotely spooked by the presence in the region of US aircraft carriers designed to focus their minds on Mr Bush's warnings about the consequences of continuing with their nuclear programme, it's hard to imagine Margaret Beckett petrifying them into line. Not even if she uses that specially fierce tone of rebuke she usually reserves for boy racers tailgating the caravan on rural lanes.

Four years after joining a war notionally intended to defuse the threat of non-existent weapons of mass distraction, we see more clearly than ever how that war has emboldened Iraq's neighbour to develop real ones; and how impotent that war has left Britain and the US so far as containing a volatile, oil-rich country gripped by paranoia about the intentions of the local nuclear superpower, Israel....

Upsetting as the vision of a distressed young mother certainly is, in the nuclear scheme of things the manipulation of LS Turney for propaganda purposes looks a fairly small step on the long, winding and disturbingly signpost-free road towards regional nuclear proliferation. The anguish expressed here by politicians and pundits stems less, one suspects, from any genuine fear for the officers' safety...than wounded pride that the naval officers of a once-dominant maritime power should be treated with such undisguised disdain.

Somewhere in all this lies a moral. Gunboat diplomacy is a thing of the past, even if we could find a spare gunboat, and for all the public pretence of "ratcheting up the heat" on the Iranians, they need to be handled with the softest of kid gloves, and cajoled into behaving by a coalition of international trading partners sympathetic to the plight of the sailors. For the days when Britain had the stature, self-confidence and façade of moral authority to play sergeant to the US chief inspector on the global stage are over, and the villains know it.

This is the legacy of Iraq, and if the posturing of the Iranians leaves Mr Blair's successors in less doubt than ever about that, the ordeal of Leading Seaman Turney and her 14 colleagues will not have been in vain.

George Galloway, A Man For All Seasons

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway

When the issue of Galloway's meetings with Saddam Hussein is raised, including before the U.S. Senate, Galloway has argued that he had met Saddam "exactly the same number of times as U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns."

Views on Blair and Bush--

At the national conference of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, on 30 June 2003, he apologised for describing George Bush as a "wolf", saying that to do so defamed wolves:

"No wolf would commit the sort of crimes against humanity that George Bush committed against the people of Iraq."

On 20 November 2004, George Galloway gave an interview on Abu-Dhabi TV in which he said:
“The people who invaded and destroyed Iraq and have murdered more than a million Iraqi people by sanctions and war will burn in Hell in the hell-fires, and their name in history will be branded as killers and war criminals for all time. Fallujah is a Guernica, Falluaja is a Stalingrad, and Iraq is in flames as a result of the actions of these criminals. Not the resistance, not anybody else but these criminals who invaded and fell like wolves upon the people of Iraq. And by the way, those Arab regimes which helped them to do it will burn in the same hell-fires.”

On 20 June 2005, he appeared on Al Jazeera TV to lambast these two leaders and others:
“Bush, and Blair, and the prime minister of Japan, and Silvio Berlusconi, these people are criminals, and they are responsible for mass murder in the world, for the war, and for the occupation, through their support for Israel, and through their support for a globalised capitalist economic system, which is the biggest killer the world has ever known. It has killed far more people than Adolf Hitler. It has killed far more people than George Bush. The economic system which these people support, which leaves most of the people in the world hungry, and without clean water to drink. So we're going to put them on trial, the leaders, when they come. They think they're coming for a holiday in a beautiful country called Scotland; in fact, they're coming to their trial....Ancient freedoms, which we had for hundreds of years, are being taken away from us under the name of the war on terror, when the real big terrorists are the governments of Britain and the United States. They are the real rogue states breaking international law, invading other people's countries, killing their children in the name of anti-terrorism, when in fact, all they're achieving is to make more terrorists in the world, not less, to make the world more dangerous, rather than less.”

Galloway has accused Tony Blair of "waging war on Muslims at home and abroad".

On 3 February 2006, Galloway was refused entry to Egypt at Cairo Airport and was detained "on grounds of national security", where he had been invited to 'give evidence' at a 'mock trial' of Bush and Blair. After being detained overnight, he said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak "apologised on behalf of the Egyptian people", and he was allowed to enter the country. After initial derogatory comments from Galloway and a spokesman from his Respect party regarding Mubarak's pro-western stance and ties to Bush and Blair, Galloway later commented: "It was a most gracious apology which I accept wholeheartedly. I consider the matter now closed".

In an interview with Piers Morgan for GQ Magazine in May 2006, Galloway was asked whether a suicide bomb attack on Tony Blair with "no other casualties" would be morally justifiable "as revenge for the war on Iraq?". He answered "Yes it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it, but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable, and morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq as Blair did."

In the House of Commons, on the day of the 7 July 2005 London bombings that killed 56 and injured hundreds, and following a visit to the Royal London Hospital in his constituency where many of the victims had been taken, Galloway condemned the attacks strongly, but argued that they could not be separated from the hatred and bitterness felt among Muslims because of injustices in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, including injustices, he said, suffered as a result of British foreign policy:

"I condemn the act that was committed this morning. I have no need to speculate about its authorship. It is absolutely clear that Islamist extremists, inspired by the al-Qaeda world outlook, are responsible. I condemn it utterly as a despicable act, committed against working people on their way to work, without warning, on tubes and buses. Let there be no equivocation: the primary responsibility for this morning's bloodshed lies with the perpetrators of those acts... The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), in an otherwise fine speech, described today's events as "unpredictable". They were not remotely unpredictable. Our own security services predicted them and warned the Government that if we [invaded Iraq] we would be at greater risk from terrorist attacks such as the one that we have suffered this morning... Despicable, yes; but not unpredictable. It was entirely predictable and, I predict, it will not be the last."

Winding up the debate for the government in the last moments allotted, Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram described Galloway's remarks as "disgraceful" and accused Galloway of "dipping his poisonous tongue in a pool of blood." No time remained for Galloway to intervene and he ran afoul of the Deputy Speaker when trying to make a point of order about Ingram's attack. He later went on to describe Ingram as a "thug" who had committed a "foul-mouthed, deliberately timed, last-10-secondssmear." The men had previously clashed over claims in Galloway's autobiography.

Galloway is Vice-President of the Stop the War Coalition (StWC). He is actively involved, often speaking on StWC platforms at anti war demonstrations. During a 9 March 2005, interview at the University of Dhaka campus Galloway called for a global alliance between Muslims and progressives: "Not only do I think it’s possible but I think it is vitally necessary and I think it is happening already. It is possible because the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies. Their enemies are the Zionist occupation, American occupation, British occupation of poor countries mainly Muslim countries."

On 17 May 2005, the committee held a hearing concerning specific allegations (of which Galloway was one part) relating to improprieties surrounding the Oil-for-Food programme. Attending Galloway's oral testimony and inquiring of him were two of the thirteen committee members: the chair (Coleman) and the ranking Democrat (Carl Levin).

Upon Galloway's arrival in the US, he told Reuters, "I have no expectation of justice from a group of Christian fundamentalist and Zionist activists under the chairmanship of a neo-con George Bush". Galloway described Coleman as a "pro-war, neo-con hawk and the lickspittle of George W. Bush", who, he said, sought revenge against anyone who did not support the invasion of Iraq.

In his testimony, Galloway made the following statements in response to the allegations against him:
“Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader, and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf. Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.”

He questioned the reliability of evidence given by former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, stating that the circumstances of his captivity by American forces calls into question the authenticity of the remarks.

Galloway also denounced the invasion of Iraq as having been based on "a pack of lies" in his Senate testimony. The U.S. media, in reporting his appearance, emphasized his blunt remarks on the war. The British media gave generally more positive coverage; TV presenter Anne Robinson said Galloway "quite frankly put the pride back in British politics" when introducing him for a prime time talk show.

The transcript of George's evidence to the Senate was added to the Senate Committee's website and then removed approximately 24 hours later. There is now just the comment on the website that "Mr Galloway did not submit a written statement".

His autobiography, I'm Not The Only One, was published on 29 April 2004. The book's title is a quotation from "Imagine" by John Lennon. Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram applied for an interim interdict to prevent the book's publication. Ingram asserted that Galloway's text, which stated that Ingram "played the flute in a sectarian, anti-Catholic, Protestant-supremacist Orange Order band", was in bad faith and defamatory, although Ingram's lawyers conceded that for a year as a teenager he had been a member of a junior Orange Lodge in Barlanark, Glasgow, and had attended three parades. The Judge, Lord Kingarth, decided that he should refuse to grant an interim interdict, that the balance of the arguments favoured Galloway's publisher and that the phrase "sectarian, anti-Catholic, Protestant-supremacist" was fair comment on that organisation. Although Ingram was not and never had been a flute-player, the defending barrister observed that "playing the flute carries no obvious defamatory imputation ... it is not to the discredit of anyone that he plays the flute." The judge ruled that Ingram should pay the full court costs of the hearing.

======================================================

Source:
http://prisonplanet.com/Pages/Sept05/130905Galloway.htm

On Friday 9th September Alex Jones was joined on air by member of Parliament and prominent antiwar activist George Galloway for a riveting one on one interview.

on The Emerging Controlled Police State:
Mr Galloway discussed the rising tide of anti-Iraq war protest, the snarling Neo-Cons' plan for world war and the possibility of staged government terror attacks to justify the invasion of more countries.

Mr Galloway kicked things off by asserting that the recent purposeful botch job on the part of FEMA in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the heavy handed police state-like crackdown in New Orleans has backfired on the political elite.

"The United States today looks like a country run by dangerous malevolent incompetants...There is a stain on the reputation of your great country and by association mine" Said Mr Galloway.

We have extensively covered the purposeful incompetence of the federal response in New Orleans and the jackbooted-thuggery that is being advertised all over the nightly news, forwarding the agenda to once again normalize such repressive authoritative behaviour. Mr Galloway described the aftermath of Katrina as:

"A bizarre catalogue of incompetence and malevolence and racism and all the worst things about the US today... and now as we are beginning to pick up, there is more to it than meets the eye and it may be being seized upon as a big diversion. If it was it hasn't worked, it just compounds people's feeling that the US is run by these ghoulish, Marie Antoinette incompetents."

Mr Galloway went on to describe the state that the Neo-Con greed and war machine has got itself into:

"On the surface they appear to be gliding serenely like a swan but underneath they are paddling like hell just to stay afloat because they run the risk of being thrown out."

But Mr Galloway was also quick to point out that you cannot slip a cigarette paper between the two opposition parties both in the United States and Great Britain. There is no opposition, both countries operate under a duopoly, both parties run along parallel lines. We have to constructively approach how we vote and who we empower.

Mr Galloway's Respect Party, whom he represents in the London Constituency of Bethnal Green is an example of such a constructive movement. Respect knows it is never going to win a majority vote but is there simply to keep the powers that be in line, bringing them to book so to speak on important and far reaching issues that may otherwise go relatively unchallenged.

"The danger is that when the state begins to be such a miserable abysmal failure that people turn not to progressive forces of leadership but to the kind of brown shirted aggressive forces...".Galloway comments.

on Government Engineered Terrorism:

Previously Mr Galloway has suggested that there is a very real danger of the government engineering a situation where terror attacks can be manufactured and seized upon to forward the pre-planned agenda abroad and at home. On Friday Mr Galloway elaborated on these comments:

"There is a very real danger because you have elements within the state, you have the Richard Pearle 'axis of evil' snarling 'you're next' at this country or that country and yet the circumstance on the ground, the political collapse of the Bushites in the United States, the resistance in Iraq having taken such a terrible toll...is making the idea of another war simply ridiculous...and yet there are those in this Neo-Con, Zionist, Christian Fundamentalist axis that really are itching to get as much of this agenda pushed on whilst they still have the reins of power. So you cannot discount some kind of provocation being staged by those elements who want to propel the US into an even more disastrous invasion"

Mr Galloway suggests that it is not beyond the realms of imagination for a situation to arise where the power hungry elite in the US uses staged provocation to drag Iran into a geopolitical set-to, using Israel as the hammer. If this were to happen, the consequences could be as far reaching as to start a third world war which would be devastating for humanity.

This would provide the authorities with the perfect excuse to set up a police state domestically to regulate the activities of everyone and have complete control.

"...That's right, it's Orwellian, it's 1984, the permanent division of the world into warring blocs, for the profit of a few at the cost of the misery of the many, and we have to refuse this in every way we can." Galloway states.

Of course, the past masters of government sponsored terrorism were the Zionists, who created the condition in the Arab countries, and in some European countries to stampede the Jewish populations out of the countries they had been living in for many hundreds years and get them into a Zionist state. Galloway comments:

"Suddenly Jewish people who had been the victims of Christian persecution suddenly saw their Synagogues being blown up, their countries being attacked and all kinds of provocations being staged so packed their bags and moved to occupied Palestine, then to be called Israel."

on The Neo-Con War mentality:

It's well documented that the United States has adopted such provocation "dirty tricks" before and during the Vietnam war and ever since.

"It's always the case that in a big and complex State machine, there are all sorts of elements, they don't have to be endorsed by all of the political leadership, they can be people representing a trend in the political leadership." Galloway states. He went on to once again lambaste the disgusting Neo-Conservative war crazed movement that had recently attempted to falsify documents to implicate Mr Galloway in the very corruption that they consistently revel in:

"I 've already mentioned this hideous character Richard Pearle. I saw him the other day actually snarling 'you're next', threatening people with American military power, a man who couldn't punch his own way out of a wet paper bag, but ready to fight to the last with other people's last drop of blood. These people make my blood boil and they ought to make every right thinking person feel that way. We deserve better than to be governed by these gangsters."

Mr Galloway went on to describe how it is always the elite draft dodging spoon-fed weaklings that strive for this kind of dominance over all, sacrificing the lives of others whilst swaggering around in their own bomber jackets playing up to the act.

Returning to staged terrorism and Zionism Mr Galloway pointed out that Zionism has nothing to do with Jewishness. The Zionist movement, as it is well documented, funded Hitler before World War Two and many of the figurehead of Zionism were not and are not Jews.

"The reality is these people have used Jewish people, and they have used them with this ideology of Zionism, to create this little Hitler State on the Mediterranean, to act as an advance guard for their own interests in the Arab world, and we're all paying for it, the Palestinians have paid for it, the Arabs have paid for it, and now the American people are paying for it, and why should we? We don't want to live our lives in a permanent state of warfare and division."

The danger in the Arab world is that the people their know we are not evil and corrupt like our governments are, but they also know that we democratically elect our governments, Galloway goes on to decree. They are supposed to act on our behalf and that's why this corrupt version of "democracy" is being flatly rejected across the Arab world.

Mr Galloway concluded by asserting that we do have the power to change things, we are in the majority:

"The United States was a country built out of nothing and a country that went to the stars. The people of the United States are great 'can-do' people and they ought to be able to use the Constitution which the founding fathers gave them to organise their political power to change things."

Al-Qaeda Warns Of Attacks 'Worse Than 9/11'

Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070530/wl_mideast_afp/qaedaattacksusmideast_070530103055;_ylt=AjwmHKOssyq0m2p6RTFXeTUUewgF

DUBAI (AFP) - An American member of Al-Qaeda warned in an Internet video that US President George W. Bush' should withdraw all his troops from Muslim land or face attacks worse than September 11. Adam Gadahn, a convert to Islam who has been indicted for treason by a US jury, issued a list of demands which he said were not up for negotiation.

"Your failure to heed our demands means that you and your people...will experience things that will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11, and Virginia Tech," he said in the video posted on Tuesday.

"You're losing on all fronts and losing big time," said Gadahn, who is the English-language spokesman for Osama bin Laden's terror network.

The tape entitled "Legitimate Demands" was produced by As-Sahab, a media outfit that specialises in Al-Qaeda online material.

Gadahn -- sporting a headress, glasses and long beard -- said Bush had "embroiled his nation in a series of unwinnable and bloody conflicts in the Islamic world."

He also called on the United States to cease support for the "bastard state of Israel" and the "56-plus apostate regimes of the Muslim world" and to free all Muslims from its prisons.

"We don't negotiate with war criminals and baby killers like you. No, these are legitimate demands which must be met," he said.

Gadahn -- also known Azzam al-Amriki and Azzam the American -- has appeared in several videotapes for Al-Qaeda since 2004, praising the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington and threatening new terror onslaughts.

In October 2006, he became the first person to be charged in the United States with treason since the World War II era. The charge carries a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum penalty of death.

Gadahn, who is believed to be in Pakistan, has a one million dollar reward for his capture and appears along with bin Laden on a US "Wanted" poster featuring 26 "faces of global terrorism". His last appearance in a video was in September last year.

Gadahn was born in 1978 in southern California, the son of a 1960s Jewish rock musician who later converted to Christianity and became a rural goat farmer.

His conversion to Islam came after he began attending the Islamic Centre of Orange County, where he is believed to have come under the influence of two foreign-born Islamic radicals.

Gadahn is believed to have left California for Karachi in 1998 and gradually fell out of contact with relatives in the United States.

His reference to Virginia Tech was to the shooting of 32 people at the university by a Korean-born gunman who then turned the gun on himself.

Al-Qaida Video Threatens Attacks On U.S.

by: ANNA JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer

Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070530/ap_on_re_mi_ea/al_qaida_american_video

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - An American member of al-Qaida warned President on Tuesday to end U.S. involvement in all Muslim lands or face an attack worse than the Sept. 11 suicide assault, according to a new videotape. Wearing a white robe and a turban, Adam Yehiye Gadahn, who also goes by the name Azzam al-Amriki, said al-Qaida would not negotiate on its demands.

"Your failure to heed our demands ... means that you and your people will ... experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th and Virginia Tech," he said in the seven-minute video.

Gadahn, who has been charged in a U.S. treason indictment with aiding al-Qaida, spoke in English and the video carried Arabic subtitles. The video appeared on a Web site often used by Islamic militants and carried the logo of al-Qaida's media wing, as-Sahab.

Gadahn, who appeared in an al-Qaida video last September in which he called on Americans to convert to Islam, demanded that Bush remove all U.S. military and spies from Islamic countries, free all Muslims from U.S. prisons and end support for Israel. He said a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq alone would not satisify al-Qaida. Ben Venzke at IntelCenter, a U.S. government contractor that monitors al-Qaida messages, said the group likely did not believe any of its demands would be met.

"It essentially allows al-Qaida to say that it has provided fair warning and is thus no longer responsible for the outcome," Venzke said in a statement.

Gadahn, a California native, is the first American to be charged with treason in more than 50 years and could face the death penalty if convicted. He also was indicted on a charge of providing material support to terrorists.

A LETTER THAT WAS NEVER PUBLISHED BY ANY OF THE WEST'S CONTROLLED/PIMPED MEDIA WHORES



Supreme Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Issues Statement Calling For Unity in Afghanistan, Iraq

15 May, 2007

Source:
IraqWar
http://www.kavkazcenter.com
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2007/05/15/8276.shtml



The Commander of the Faithful and Supreme Taliban Leader Mullah Muhammad Omar issued a statement yesterday calling for unity in Afghanistan and Iraq. Warning that a large part of America's strategy is to divide the fighting forces, the Amir Al-Mumineen calls for all to unite under the flag of Islam.



A Message From The Commander Of The Faithful To The Mujahideen Of Afghanistan And Iraq.

In The Name Of Allah, The Most Gracious The Most Merciful!

We praise Him and send blessings on His Prophet Kareem!

To Proceed:

O dear Muslim brothers and Muslim sisters, you know very well that Muslims today are facing a number of challenges as the result of American politics, stubbornness, and pride.

This devourer of the world on the one hand is attacking the Muslims in armed attacks using various types of weapons including biological weapons and is building monstrous prisons for the Muslims like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and Bagram.

On the other hand, it is trying to plant hypocrisy among the Muslims by developing ways to create an atmosphere of non-confidence within their ranks and is using Muslims by trying to invoke tribes and tongues and against each other.

Therefore it becomes obligatory on Muslims in all parts of the world to protect themselves and is an absolute duty just the same way it becomes obligatory on every Muslim to close all openings for the mean and cunning enemy so as not to give it the opportunity to open the fire of creating differences between the Muslims.

A large part of the American policy in Iraq is to divide the Muslims by name such as Ahl Al Tashee'(Shia) and Ahl As Sunnah (Sunnis) and in Afghanistan it is by Pashtun, Tajik, Hazarah, and Uzbek in an effort to reduce the severity and power of national uprising and armed resistance.

I am completely sure that the disciplined armed resistance of the heroic Mujahideen in Iraq, and the national standing in the face of the foreign occupation in Afghanistan under a single leadership has made the enemy largely nervous.

And they are now like those who are drowning, trying to grab hold of anything within arms reach.

They try to scare the local civilians by bombing them with heavy bombs and some times in the name of the tribe and area they come forward with a different faces.

However it is very pleasing and satisfying that many of their plans have now failed.

The locals have rejected the "Greats" among those who the occupiers have appointed but most importantly, they have obtained greater wisdom knowing that Islamic closeness with each other, national unity and brotherhood is a severe necessity.

I have issued a serious order to the Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate to open their hearts to all the Islamic groups and people of the tribes and locations and to unite with all of them to form a single hand.

We must make relentless efforts so that the public will step away from befriending the enemy and stand by the side of the Mujahideen.

The politics of the Islamic Emirate is to set up an Islamic government, which is the wish of all the individuals in Afghanistan, which will be free from foreign intervention, which deals with wisdom with its neighbors and the world in the light of the Islamic rulings and international laws.

The Islamic Emirate does not interfere illegally in the internal affairs of other countries and does not accept the illegal interference of other countries in its matters as well.

We are, with all our strength and effort, carrying out Jihad to free our Beloved Afghanistan from foreign occupation and to provide the facility of free living, development, and peace for our citizens.

I strongly urge all the people of knowledge, Jihad, politics and national struggle to stretch their hands to their brothers to free the country and to establish an Islamic nation so that those painful events that occurred in the 1980's after the defeat of the Soviet Union never happens again, may Allah not permit it.

It is also necessary that in future Muslim blood not be spilled as the result of differences in names Mullah or Mujahid or in sect or leadership.

This is our policy, and it is on this basis that we shall work and it is for the world and the people not to consider the saying of any person as the policy of the Islamic Emirate.

The policy of the Islamic emirate is only published by the officially assigned speakers by the Islamic emirate.

In the same way I hope that the Iraqi brothers will leave aside the differences of the name of Ahl At Tashee and Ahl As Sunnah behind and stand united against the occupying enemy.Victory is not possible without unity.

And peace be unto you.

The servant of Islam,
Amir Al-Mumineen Mullah Muhammad Omar, Mujahid ,
25 Rabi Al-Akhir 1428
May 12, 2007

Spy Drones Added To Britain's "Surveillance Society"

by: Luke Baker

May 23, 2007

Source:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070523/tc_nm/britain_surveillance_dc



LONDON (Reuters) - It could be the 4 million closed-circuit television cameras, or maybe the spy drones hovering overhead, but one way or another Britons know they are being watched. All the time. Everywhere.

The latest gizmo to be employed in what civil liberty campaigners are calling Britain's "surveillance society" is a small, remote-controlled helicopter that can hover above inner city streets and monitor suspected criminals.

Unveiled in the north of Britain this week, it could be introduced across the country if deemed a success, fuelling an already intense debate over whether the "Big Brother" world George Orwell predicted is now truly upon us, or whether such scrutiny is merely essential for security in the modern era.

"For us, this is a cost-effective way of helping to catch criminals," said Simon Byrne, a senior police officer in the Merseyside district who launched the spy drone project.

Britain is now the most intensely monitored country in the world, according to surveillance experts, with 4.2 million CCTV cameras installed, equivalent to one for every 14 people.

So blanketing is the surveillance that the average resident of London runs the possibility of being photographed up to 300 times a day just moving around the capital, civil liberties campaigners Liberty say.

The pervasiveness of the cameras, combined with the government's plans to introduce digital identity cards for all citizens in the coming years and expand its DNA database, has led to calls for a halt until the impact can be better studied.

In a report issued earlier this year, the Royal Academy of Engineering warned that increased monitoring of society actually risked provoking a breakdown in trust between individuals and the state, eventually causing more harm than good.

"The state should remain the ultimate protector of citizen rights to privacy and should not garner new powers to invade the privacy or increase surveillance without strong justification," it said in a study filled with carefully measured language.


"SOCIAL SUICIDE"

As well as civil liberty campaigners growing increasingly alarmed at the tightening web of surveillance, some police officers have also expressed concern, saying excess monitoring is disrupting otherwise tranquil communities.

The deputy chief constable of Hampshire, a leafy county west of London, said this week he feared Britain was becoming an Orwellian society, with quiet villages now wired with cameras.

"I really don't think that's the kind of country that I want to live in," Ian Redhead told BBC television.

The conundrum for many is that while they don't want to feel constantly under surveillance themselves, they don't mind demanding the benefits of CCTV if it might do some good.

When the Cutty Sark, a famous 19th century trading ship, went up in flames on Monday in a possible arson attack, the first call by angry citizens was to urge on the police to study footage to see if any perpetrators could be spotted.

Perhaps the greatest perversity about the explosion of surveillance is that experts say it doesn't necessarily do any good. While crime has gone down in some areas, studies show that it's seldom due to the presence of CCTV cameras. In fact, there is evidence that cameras can provoke more criminal behavior.

"If people start to feel they are constantly under surveillance, the feeling of being watched starts to create the behavior that the surveillance was there to prevent," said Kirstie Ball, an expert in the impact of surveillance on society and a professor at the Open University Business School.

"Once you feel the screws are being turned, that your every move is being pinned down, you actually start trying to find ways to get around what's become a pervasive system."

An irony is that while most people don't want to feel monitored or observed by a government, many will reveal lots about themselves on Web sites and reality-style TV programmes, getting titillation from what would otherwise be an irritation.

Yet ultimately, she worries that the breakdown in trust that can be created between individuals and the state by excess surveillance is the greatest long-term worry.

"It can actually make for a slow social suicide," she said.

Author Unbowed About Jesus Revelations

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Source:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070425/2/138cl.html

A new book and television documentary claiming Jesus Christ's tomb has been discovered and that he and Mary Magdalene had a son has drawn worldwide scepticism from religious and scientific groups.

But the man behind the controversial claim says he stands behind his work and so far the critics have failed to "punch any holes" in his evidence.

The Jesus Family Tomb, written by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino and released in Australia this month, details their journey to prove a connection between a first century burial tomb in Jerusalem and Jesus and his family.

The story began in 2003 when, while studying some ancient burial boxes, or ossuaries, Jacobovici came across one with the inscription "Jesus son of Joseph".

A Palestinian Jewish antiquities expert told Jacobovici that along with that ossuary were 10 others in the same family tomb including ones inscribed Joseph, Matthew, and two marked Mary.

However, he told Jacobovici the find was unremarkable in that all names, especially Mary, were common at the time and one of the Marys was written as Mariamne - a name not associated with Jesus.

But the coincidence of all those names grouped together sparked Jacobovici's interest and a quick internet search found recent academic research which he said lent weight to the claim that Mary Magdalene may have used the name Mariamne.

The book further says another ossuary found in the same tomb had the inscription "Judah, son of Jesus".

That no one had ever heard of Jesus' son could be explained so the authors say by the fact that it was common practice for children of people seen as a threat to the Roman powers to be executed along with their parents.

Therefore the existence of the son may have been a carefully guarded secret among Jesus' followers.

Despite early evidence of one of the major discoveries of all time, film maker and journalist Jacobovici says he remained sceptical about what he had found.

"The part of me as a human being gets excited but the other part that is a journalist has to always be sceptical.

"So when I saw the first ossuary with the inscription 'Jesus son of Joseph' part of me said 'Wow', but the other part of me said 'hold on'."

He hired a statistician who calculated the chances of all those names appearing within the same tomb at about one in 600.

Jacobovici also had DNA from the ossuaries labelled Jesus and Mariamne tested, showing neither were related - something he says would not have been expected from a family tomb and pointed to the possibility they were married and had a child.

Jacobovici insisted the evidence proved the book was no fantasy like the Da Vinci Code - which claimed Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and they had a daughter, whose lineage still survived today.

"This is not a product of my imagination - people can huff and they can puff, but the tomb is a fact.

"The ossuaries in it are a fact. The inscriptions on six of them are a fact. The Jesus son of Joseph inscription is a fact," Jacobovici said.

"(The group names on the ossuaries) is not only not common, it's not even rare. It's unique."

However criticism of the book and documentary has been overwhelming.

At last count about 44,000 websites had been created concerning the find, with the majority ridiculing Jacobovici and his colleagues.

"I'm not naive, I know that if you make a claim that you've found the tomb of Jesus and his entire family practically, including his DNA, people are going to take notice and some people are going to be very very critical."

But Jacobovici said what had surprised him was how little response there had been to what he called "the hard facts" of his investigation.

"A lot of it has been just personal, from people you would think were scholars - which in a way makes me feel good.

"It makes me feel good because it means we really did our job well," he said.

"And if there was one hole to punch in it they would have punched it.

"But nobody's been able to punch any holes in our investigation, so when people start saying 'Hey, you did it for the money', for me it puts a smile on my face because to me they've got nothing."

Jacobovici predicted eventually there would be more research conducted around the Jerusalem tomb, now that his team had opened this particular religious can of worms.

"I think there's going to be more attempts to study the tomb closer - for example with infrared technology to see if there are more inscriptions on the wall.

"Because potentially it could say Jesus was the best bread maker in Jerusalem and that would be the end of the story. Or it could say Jesus, King of the Jews; or Jesus, Messiah," he said.

"You can only ridicule the messenger for so long, but I think also serious people are beginning to weigh in and they are beginning to say, 'Well these guys have brought this up. Why don't we have some follow up'?

"I think that's going to happen and when it does happen I hope to be there and do my job as a film-maker, writer, journalist, and see this job to the end."

Michael Moore Responds to Treasury Secretary's Investigation Threat

by: Michael Moore

May 12, 2007

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/51794/



Under investigation by the Bush Dictatorship for taking ill 9/11 clean up workers to Cuba for better treatment than they received in America, Moore answers, "I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide."



Open Letter from Michael Moore to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson


Secretary Henry Paulson
Department of the Treasury


Secretary Paulson,

I am contacting you in light of the document sent to me dated May 2, 2007, which was received May 7, 2007 indicating that an investigation has been opened up with regards to a trip I took to Cuba with a group of Americans that included some 9/11 heroes in March 2007 related to the filming of my next documentary, on the American Healthcare system. SiCKO, which will be seen in theaters this summer, will expose the health care industry's greed and control over America's political processes.

I believe that the decision to conduct this investigation represents the latest example of the Bush Regime's abusing the federal government for raw, crass, political purposes. Over the last seven years of the Bush Dictatorship, we have seen the abuse of government to promote a political agenda designed to benefit the conservative base of the Republican Party, special interests, and major financial contributors. From holding secret meetings for the energy industry to re-writing science findings to cooking the books on intelligence to the firing of U.S. Attorneys, this Regime has shown time and time again that it will abuse its power and authority.

There are a number of specific facts that have led me to conclude that politics could very well be driving this Bush Regime investigation of me and my film.

First, the Bush Regime has been aware of this matter for months (since October 2006) and never took any action until less than two weeks before SiCKO is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and a little more than a month before it is scheduled to open in the United States.

Second, the health care and insurance industry, which is exposed in the movie and has expressed concerns about the impact of the movie on their industries, is a major corporate underwriter of Herr Fuhrer George W. Bush and the Republican Party, having contributed over $13 million to the Bush campaign in 2004 and more than $180 million to Republican candidates over the last two campaign cycles.

It is well documented that the industry is very concerned about the impact of SiCKO. They have threatened their employees if they talk to me. They have set up special internal crises lines should I show up at their headquarters. Employees have been warned about the consequences of participating in SiCKO. Despite this, some employees, at great risk to themselves, have gone on camera to tell the American people the truth about the health care industry. I can understand why that industry's main recipient of its contributions -- Herr Fuhrer Bush -- would want to harass, intimidate, and potentially prevent this film from having its widest possible audience.

And, third, this investigation is being opened in the wake of misleading attacks on the purpose of the Cuba trip from a possible leading Republican candidate Fred Thompson, a major conservative newspaper The New York Post, and various right wing blogs.

For five and a half years, the Bush Regime has ignored and neglected the heroes of the 9/11 community. These heroic first responders have been left to fend for themselves, without coverage and without care. I understand why the Bush Regime is coming after me -- I have tried to help the very people they refuse to help, but until George W. Bush outlaws helping your fellow man, I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide.

I demand that the Bush Regime immediately end this investigation and spend its time and resources trying to support some of the real heroes of 9/11.

Sincerely,

Michael Moore

Preventing War with Iran

by: Noam Chomsky

April 07, 2007

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.alternet.org/story/50197/


Unsurprisingly, George W. Bush's announcement of a "surge" in Iraq came despite the firm opposition to any such move of Americans and the even stronger opposition of the (thoroughly irrelevant) Iraqis. It was accompanied by ominous official leaks and statements - from Washington and Baghdad - about how Iranian intervention in Iraq was aimed at disrupting our mission to gain victory, an aim which is (by definition) noble.

What then followed was a solemn debate about whether serial numbers on advanced roadside bombs (IEDs) were really traceable to Iran; and, if so, to that country's Revolutionary Guards or to some even higher authority.

This "debate" is a typical illustration of a primary principle of sophisticated propaganda. In crude and brutal societies, the Party Line is publicly proclaimed and must be obeyed - or else. What you actually believe is your own business and of far less concern. In societies where the state has lost the capacity to control by force, the Party Line is simply presupposed; then, vigorous debate is encouraged within the limits imposed by unstated doctrinal orthodoxy. The cruder of the two systems leads, naturally enough, to disbelief; the sophisticated variant gives an impression of openness and freedom, and so far more effectively serves to instill the Party Line. It becomes beyond question, beyond thought itself, like the air we breathe.

The debate over Iranian interference in Iraq proceeds without ridicule on the assumption that the United States owns the world. We did not, for example, engage in a similar debate in the 1980s about whether the U.S. was interfering in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, and I doubt that Pravda, probably recognizing the absurdity of the situation, sank to outrage about that fact (which American officials and our media, in any case, made no effort to conceal). Perhaps the official Nazi press also featured solemn debates about whether the Allies were interfering in sovereign Vichy France, though if so, sane people would then have collapsed in ridicule.

In this case, however, even ridicule - notably absent - would not suffice, because the charges against Iran are part of a drumbeat of pronouncements meant to mobilize support for escalation in Iraq and for an attack on Iran, the "source of the problem." The world is aghast at the possibility. Even in neighboring Sunni states, no friends of Iran, majorities, when asked, favor a nuclear-armed Iran over any military action against that country. From what limited information we have, it appears that significant parts of the U.S. military and intelligence communities are opposed to such an attack, along with almost the entire world, even more so than when the Bush Regime and Tony Blair's Britain invaded Iraq, defying enormous popular opposition worldwide.


"The Iran effect"

The results of an attack on Iran could be horrendous. After all, according to a recent study of "the Iraq effect" by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, using government and Rand Corporation data, the Iraq invasion has already led to a seven-fold increase in terror. The "Iran effect" would probably be far more severe and long-lasting. British military historian Corelli Barnett speaks for many when he warns that "an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III."

What are the plans of the increasingly desperate clique that narrowly holds political power in the U.S.? We cannot know. Such state planning is, of course, kept secret in the interests of "security." Review of the declassified record reveals that there is considerable merit in that claim - though only if we understand "security" to mean the security of the Bush Regime against their domestic enemy, the population in whose name they act.

Even if the White House clique is not planning war, naval deployments, support for secessionist movements and acts of terror within Iran, and other provocations could easily lead to an accidental war. Congressional resolutions would not provide much of a barrier. They invariably permit "national security" exemptions, opening holes wide enough for the several aircraft-carrier battle groups soon to be in the Persian Gulf to pass through - as long as an unscrupulous leadership issues proclamations of doom (as Condoleezza Rice did with those "mushroom clouds" over American cities back in 2002). And the concocting of the sorts of incidents that "justify" such attacks is a familiar practice. Even the worst monsters feel the need for such justification and adopt the device: Hitler's defense of innocent Germany from the "wild terror" of the Poles in 1939, after they had rejected his wise and generous proposals for peace, is but one example.

The most effective barrier to a White House decision to launch a war is the kind of organized popular opposition that frightened the political-military leadership enough in 1968 that they were reluctant to send more troops to Vietnam - fearing, we learned from the Pentagon Papers, that they might need them for civil-disorder control.

Doubtless Iran's government merits harsh condemnation, including for its recent actions that have inflamed the crisis. It is, however, useful to ask how we would act if Iran had invaded and occupied Canada and Mexico and was arresting U.S. government representatives there on the grounds that they were resisting the Iranian occupation (called "liberation," of course). Imagine as well that Iran was deploying massive naval forces in the Caribbean and issuing credible threats to launch a wave of attacks against a vast range of sites - nuclear and otherwise - in the United States, if the U.S. government did not immediately terminate all its nuclear energy programs (and, naturally, dismantle all its nuclear weapons). Suppose that all of this happened after Iran had overthrown the government of the U.S. and installed a vicious tyrant (as the US did to Iran in 1953), then later supported a Russian invasion of the U.S. that killed millions of people (just as the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980, killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, a figure comparable to millions of Americans). Would we watch quietly?

It is easy to understand an observation by one of Israel's leading military historians, Martin van Creveld. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, knowing it to be defenseless, he noted, "Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy."

Surely no sane person wants Iran (or any nation) to develop nuclear weapons. A reasonable resolution of the present crisis would permit Iran to develop nuclear energy, in accord with its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but not nuclear weapons. Is that outcome feasible? It would be, given one condition: that the U.S. and Iran were functioning democratic societies in which public opinion had a significant impact on public policy.

As it happens, this solution has overwhelming support among Iranians and Americans, who generally are in agreement on nuclear issues. The Iranian-American consensus includes the complete elimination of nuclear weapons everywhere (82% of Americans); if that cannot yet be achieved because of elite opposition, then at least a "nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East that would include both Islamic countries and Israel" (71% of Americans). Seventy-five percent of Americans prefer building better relations with Iran to threats of force. In brief, if public opinion were to have a significant influence on state policy in the U.S. and Iran, resolution of the crisis might be at hand, along with much more far-reaching solutions to the global nuclear conundrum.


Promoting democracy - at home

These facts suggest a possible way to prevent the current crisis from exploding, perhaps even into some version of World War III. That awesome threat might be averted by pursuing a familiar proposal: democracy promotion - this time at home, where it is badly needed. Democracy promotion at home is certainly feasible and, although we cannot carry out such a project directly in Iran, we could act to improve the prospects of the courageous reformers and oppositionists who are seeking to achieve just that. Among such figures who are, or should be, well-known, would be Saeed Hajjarian, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Akbar Ganji, as well as those who, as usual, remain nameless, among them labor activists about whom we hear very little; those who publish the Iranian Workers Bulletin may be a case in point.

We can best improve the prospects for democracy promotion in Iran by sharply reversing state policy here so that it reflects popular opinion. That would entail ceasing to make the regular threats that are a gift to Iranian hardliners. These are bitterly condemned by Iranians truly concerned with democracy promotion (unlike those "supporters" who flaunt democracy slogans in the West and are lauded as grand "idealists" despite their clear record of visceral hatred for democracy).

Democracy promotion in the United States could have far broader consequences. In Iraq, for instance, a firm timetable for withdrawal would be initiated at once, or very soon, in accord with the will of the overwhelming majority of Iraqis and a significant majority of Americans. Federal budget priorities would be virtually reversed. Where spending is rising, as in military supplemental bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would sharply decline. Where spending is steady or declining (health, education, job training, the promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy sources, veterans benefits, funding for the UN and UN peacekeeping operations, and so on), it would sharply increase. Bush's tax cuts for people with incomes over US$100,000 a year would be immediately rescinded.

The U.S. would have adopted a national health-care system long ago, rejecting the privatized system that sports twice the per-capita costs found in similar societies and some of the worst outcomes in the industrial world. It would have rejected what is widely regarded by those who pay attention as a "fiscal train wreck" in-the-making. The U.S. would have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and undertaken still stronger measures to protect the environment. It would allow the UN to take the lead in international crises, including in Iraq. After all, according to opinion polls, since shortly after the 2003 invasion, a large majority of Americans have wanted the UN to take charge of political transformation, economic reconstruction, and civil order in that land.

If public opinion mattered, the U.S. would accept UN Charter restrictions on the use of force, contrary to a bipartisan consensus that this country, alone, has the right to resort to violence in response to potential threats, real or imagined, including threats to our access to markets and resources. The U.S. (along with others) would abandon the Security Council veto and accept majority opinion even when in opposition to it. The UN would be allowed to regulate arms sales; while the U.S. would cut back on such sales and urge other countries to do so, which would be a major contribution to reducing large-scale violence in the world. Terror would be dealt with through diplomatic and economic measures, not force, in accord with the judgment of most specialists on the topic but again in diametric opposition to present-day policy.

Furthermore, if public opinion influenced policy, the U.S. would have diplomatic relations with Cuba, benefiting the people of both countries (and, incidentally, U.S. agribusiness, energy corporations, and others), instead of standing virtually alone in the world in imposing an embargo (joined only by Israel, the Republic of Palau, and the Marshall Islands). Washington would join the broad international consensus on a two-state settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which (with Israel) it has blocked for 30 years - with scattered and temporary exceptions - and which it still blocks in word, and more importantly in deed, despite fraudulent claims of its commitment to diplomacy. The U.S. would also equalize aid to Israel and Palestine, cutting off aid to either party that rejected the international consensus.

Evidence on these matters is reviewed in my book Failed States as well as in The Foreign Policy Disconnect by Benjamin Page (with Marshall Bouton), which also provides extensive evidence that public opinion on foreign (and probably domestic) policy issues tends to be coherent and consistent over long periods. Studies of public opinion have to be regarded with caution, but they are certainly highly suggestive.

Democracy promotion at home, while no panacea, would be a useful step towards helping our own country become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international order (to adopt the term used for adversaries), instead of being an object of fear and dislike throughout much of the world. Apart from being a value in itself, functioning democracy at home holds real promise for dealing constructively with many current problems, international and domestic, including those that literally threaten the survival of our species.