This is the place to find out whether you have your head screwed on properly or not. It won't hurt and it will only take a couple of weeks, at the least, of your time. It doesn't cost anything and you can, and you should, send this page link to your real trusting friends!

Reality is perceived by the level of knowledge one possesses and the quality of that knowledge. Therefore, what good is knowledge if you don't use it?

The misdirection and disinformation we have been getting from a government that is scrambling to introduce us to the world of terrorism, (as if we didn't know about it already), a world they were fully aware of, and a world they have been an active participant in from the very beginning is against all reason and logic. This puts us squarely on the "Frontline" of our very own individual self-defense, our very survival, our responsibility to protect our Constitution, especially since they have failed to do so. This is our right as it is our Constitution - not theirs to change without our approval.

This publication is only one of many, hundreds to thousands actually, on and off line, that are involved with presenting, as much as possible that we can keep up with, the overwhelming amount of information compiled from numerous reliable investigative resources from all across America and around the world.
These issues are not something that can be taken lightly or disregarded as left or right wing, conservative or liberal, democratic or republican, god or godless...they are human issues that stretch beyond the borders of political, corporate and religious boundries. These are issues that, We, as human-beings, so-called responsible inhabitants and caretakers of this planet must get involved in...to make up our minds, to take a stand, to speak out and be heard by those we have permitted the responsiblility to over-see our concerns, wishes, dreams and future. They have failed to do as we require of them.
These wars are not our wars; these crimes are not our crimes. We did not make the conditions to which they exist and yet we are constantly being subjected to fighting these wars amongst ourselves, killing eachother in the name of crooked politicians, corporate overlords and disfunctional religious leaders. All of this madness must come to an end and we are the only ones who can stop it. As the saying goes: "United We Stand - Divided We Fall"
What if they gave a war and nobody came?
Until, and if, they ever get it right, (which, as everyday passes, seems to be very unlikely), our safety, security, freedom and liberty as Americans will be subject to their propoganda, to their Homeland Security program and the U.S. Patriot Act I & II.
The entire 'Homeland Security' program and the 'U.S. Patriot Act I & II' should be a huge wake up call for all Americans. These programs are not to our advantage in any degree. They will do nothing to protect anyone or our Freedoms.
This is our country and we must take control of our government not the other way around.
The corporations that all of us work for, one way or the other, would not be so wealthy, big and powerful if it were not for our sweat. We built them...we made them possible...and they want to dump on us and move out of the very country that built them in the first place. This is a rather obvious statement, a slap in the face of all Americans, they don't care about us.
Our Constitution is under fire from the Bush administration and our Bill of Rights is nearly non-existent.
How much longer is America going to sit by and watch our country being dismantled by these internal terrorists? They may not be using bombs, or planes, or chemicals and viruses to take us down, and then again, they just might be, but they sure are using the media to twist and manipulate the truth and the information to fit their agenda of installing, by force, their New World Order. We can't just sit there and let this happen.
Currently, the entire Bush administration is under fire from our Congress, and us, for failing to produce what they called 'evidence' for the approval they blindly and misleadingly received from Congress to engage in the war on Iraq. So far, we have found no weapons of mass-destruction, we have not found Osama Bin Laden, but, we have found Saddam Hussain hiding in a hole with over $750,000.00 of American money. This administration needs to completely install it's Homeland Security program and the force of the U.S. Patriot Act I & II and will not cease its deadly scenario of world terrorism on every doorstep until it does.
Is this the face of the new SS?
Are we seeing the rebirth of the Geheime Staatsploizei, "Gestapo"?

All of this is going on while Isreal continues it's battle against Palestine, (and we are lead to believe, again, that the Palestinians are to blame...); how many times do we hear that the United States is a Judeo-Christian nation; when did this happen?
The United States is arguing with the U.N. against slapping Israel for the recent murder of Sheik Ahmed Yassin as the U.S. spends over two-billion dollars annually of American tax payers money to support Israel's economic structure. Why? What the hell is going on in this relationship?
For those who have forgotten their history, Palestine was ordered by the U.N. to split its nation and give the Jews their own territory back around 1947 so they could build the nation of Israel. Palestine refused this declaration and thus began the first in a never ending series of wars between Palestine and Israel.
What would you do if the U.N. decided to split the United States into two seperate nations and give up part of it for, let's say, Iraq?
All of this while thousands of people are being murdered in Africa; all of this while American industry and jobs are being shipped across the border and over-seas; while our own people can't make ends meet: our children need healthy parents and be able to grow up in a healthy family environment and neighborhood and go to good schools with updated books and instructed by qualified teachers, but it ain't gonna' happen without a health care program that serves all Americans and their families; it ain't gonna' happen when there are no jobs, no industry, no farms, no ranches, no food, no water; yet, there is plenty of deadly nuclear waste to cram down the throats of all innocent Americans who will have this crap traveling through their neighborhoods on it's way to those sacred Native Americans land out in Nevada at Yucca Mountain...and this guy, this idiot of a President, this alcoholic-cocaine snorting, pretzel choking, AWOL word stumbling and illiterate fool on the hill wants $87 billion to help re-build Iraq. Well he can just kiss our ass. Oh well, he got his money and wants more. Whose ass is getting kicked in all of this?
It's about time that our Congress revoked 'executive orders', that our Congress puts down it's foot and firmly says no more! That our Congress withdraws the approval of $87 billion to bebuild Iraq; that our Congress lives up to it's oath of office, does their duty, and brings the fool on the hill before the Congress and the Supreme Court under charges of incapatability; dereliction of duty; treason; bearing false witness; violating the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights; failure to abide by his oath of office; lying and perpetuating the complete dishonor of America in the eyes of the World and also for deceiving them in the first place to get our nation into this stupid war. This guy has to go...NOW!
"Out the door in 2004!"
The polls are rigged and everybody knows it, therefore, these cannot be trusted any more than the admistration that uses them. They used them real well to place the first president in the White House in all of American history that was not elected by the People. He was placed by the Supreme Court. "BS"
All one needs to do, and they are, is talk to the American people that they come into contact with on a daily basis and one would soon discover that the polls do not reflect what the People are saying, what the People believe. Unfortunately, there is already a very frightened and paranoid sector of our American society that will not speak as they feel, as they know, for they are afraid that they will be arrested for saying anything against this BS administration, at the least, they may loose their jobs, their friends, their postition at church or their kids will be picked on at school. Oh yeah, this is really how Americans are treating eachother. A damn good example of freedom of speech, choice and religion as protected by Our Constitution. How many other people that you have heard about, not even living in this country, who are not even American citizens, that have lost their jobs, their positions in their governmental bodies, and at the worst their lives because they said something against the Bush administration? There are a lot. One is too many.
President Bush has mocked the American principle of Freedom of Speech in Australia when he was critisized by members of it's parliament, none-the-less, these members were asked to leave their own elected governmental seats - they refused - and yet, were escorted out. From their own house! This is insane!
Everyday, slowly but surely, American troops are being picked apart in Iraq long after a war that has been presidentially declared over. the suicide rate amongst our troops overseas is growing everyday. Currently our troops are now no more than American Police in Iraq and this has been claimed from the very on-set as no more than a police action to begin with. Bring 'em ALL home....NOW!
If Iraq needs to be re-built then let them do it themselves. They do not need $87 billion of American Tax payers money to do it. We need our money here to do what we pay taxes for in the first place...to take care of our own country. Iraq can market it's oil and do just fine. If Bush wants to rebuild Iraq then perhaps he shouldn't have knocked it down in the first place. Saddam is gone and it's up to the Iraqy people to keep it that way. It's not our problem...and it never has been our problem.

Think very hard about these issues...then think even harder about what is going on in America everyday. How has any of this effected your life? If you believe it hasn't then you must be under a rock.

GW Bush And The Veterans
By Sam Hamod
10-22-2003

(ICH) -- It is interesting that President GW Bush fled and went AWOL when called upon to serve his country in the military. But this has not stopped him from dozens of photo ops with military jackets and paraphernalia on-as if he is a true warrior. This all pales when we hear of the appalling conditions of military men and their families at Camp Pendleton in California, now this latest scandal of sick, wounded U.S. troops being held in squalor in Ft. Stewart, Georgia while GW Bush runs around the world bragging about his military and how they are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq-yet it's Bush who has cut the funding and wants to cut more funding to military hospitals, his friend, Republican Representative Duncan Hunter of Escondido, wants to give Camp Pendleton a pass on its poor housing and high levels of pollution. Yes, there is something wrong with this picture.

The men who are victims of warfare and illness from Iraq War I to Iraq War II have been held back from treatment, either by lack of doctors, beds or bureaucratic red tape, have finally been heard through complaints to the media. They have had to go home to wait, or have been kept in substandard housing, in heat without air conditioning and without medicine for months and years at a time; all the time, the President and the Republican Congress has been crowing for more money for warfare, sending records of troops into harms-way, while not caring for those who come home sick and wounded. As Lou Dobbs said today, on CNN, "This is unconscionable." I'd say it's a dereliction of duty by the officers in charge of Camp Stewart and the president for not doing something about this instead of running around the world attacking others both militarily and verbally.
Ah, but this is nothing new. I have received mail from children of parents who worked on Agent Orange, all of whom have died or have had many bouts with cancer. I also had friends who were veterans of Viet Nam, all of whom were sprayed and bombed with Agent Orange-they are all dead. The many who are now complaining about the illness they have from the spent Uranium shells are growing, and I'm sure, upon more returning, they will find that the spent Uranium shells did as much damage to our troops as they did to Iraqi troops. Bosnians, Serbs and Croats who served in the Balkan War of recent moment, are still falling ill, with cancer rates at an alarming number in areas where the armor-piercing, spent Uranium shells and bombs were used.

As of today, October 20, the officials at Camp Stewart are asking for more funds, doctors and beds for the oncoming patients and those who have been impatiently waiting for some time. At the same time, the officials at Camp Stewart are saying that there is no problem and that the military sick are exaggerating their claims of waiting time, etc. Of course, as you know, if the stories of lack of medical care were untrue, then the officials at Camp Stewart would not be asking for the extra funds, medical personnel and beds!
I'd say it's time for our president, our congress people and other leaders to start taking care of the American veterans, the American people and the American economy that now has record numbers of unemployed (remember, under R.Reagan/T.Kennedy/T.O'Neill, they passed a law that said, if you are out of work for more than 18 months, you are no longer counted as "unemployed," you are not counted at all).
The situation at the veterans hospitals in America are but the tip of the iceberg on medical care on that front. As you know, if I went into healthcare for the American public (45% of the American populace does not have health care-we are the only major industrialized nation in the world that does not have universal health care), that would show an even larger problem that has not been addressed properly, and at this point, it looks as it's not yet going to be addressed by our president or by our congress.

Sam Hamod is the former editor of 3rd World News (D.C.) and edits www.todaysalternativenews.com ; he may be reached at shamod@cox.net

Information Clearing House

Behold Caesar
George W. Bush & the
American Empire

These days, Julius Caesar and ancient Rome seem to be on the minds of political commentators around the globe. A London Guardian opinion piece from September 20 was titled “Hail Bush: A New Roman Empire,” while Jay Bookman (www.bushwatch.com) explains “The Bush Plan for Empire,” and Michael Lind (www.theglobalist.com) asks rhetorically, “Is America the New Roman Empire?”

It was Caesar who transformed the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. A brilliant general, he waged campaigns throughout modern-day France, Germany, Britain, and Turkey. In 46 BCE, he had himself appointed Imperator for life. Two years later, he was assassinated by a group of conspirators who believed they were striking a blow for the return of the Republic. Thirteen years of civil strife followed. The Republic was finished, but the Roman Empire persisted for another four centuries. Caesar had transformed his world; he was, for a brief time, the most powerful human being in the Western world.

Today the American Republic appears to many pundits to be at a juncture somewhat comparable to the one that Rome confronted in 50 BCE. The analogy is exceedingly imprecise, however: the US is vastly more fearsome than Rome in every respect, possessing weapons no ancient emperor could have dreamed of. Moreover, the American leader, George W. Bush, is far from being a brave and tactically brilliant general, as Caesar was: Bush spent the Vietnam War drinking, snorting coke, and going AWOL from the Texas National Guard. Caesar was also an eloquent orator; the current American leader’s abilities in this regard hardly require description.

Nevertheless, Bush has seized nearly complete control of his nation and seems determined both to extend its global influence militarily, and to undermine its democratic institutions, just as surely as his ancient counterpart did. Today, the American administration is preparing to launch a war in the Middle East to advance its imperial ambitions, and is suppressing dissent at home in every way possible.

But while Caesar was frank in his war aims - he promised the citizenry colonies, tribute, and slaves - the Bush crowd cloaks its goals in a fog of shifting pretexts.

We are perhaps witnessing a new phase of Pax Americana. But this new order of the world is - for reasons discussed below - destined to persist for far less than four hundred years. And, as was the case with Caesar, victory may come at a high price; though in this instance, it is a price we all will pay.

Rationales for War

War is no small matter for a nation; in the present instance, it is estimated that a new Iraq war might cost the United States $200 billion or more. Leaders must have good reasons for such an investment. So far, the US Administration has offered five reasons why Iraq must be attacked. They are as follows:

1. Iraq is in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. This is true; Iraq is currently, for example, violating Resolution 687 (03/04/91), establishing UNSCOM; and Resolution 1060 (12/06/96), which was a condemnation of Iraqi refusal to grant inspection access. But these facts do not constitute a believable pretext for war, because Iraq is far from being unique in its violation of UN resolutions. Turkey and Morocco are currently in violation as well. And still another nation in the region, Israel, has refused to comply with literally dozens of UN resolutions, some dating back nearly 50 years. Why single out Iraq?

2. Iraq has refused UN-mandated arms inspections. This, of course, is the essence of the particular UN resolutions that Iraq has violated. Arms inspections were mandated by the terms ending the Gulf War of 1991, and inspectors have been absent from Iraq for the past four years. But again, this makes no sense as a pretext for a renewed war. Iraq did comply with inspections up to a point, and evidence suggests that those inspections were working: according to some estimates, 90% to 95% of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons were eliminated, and its nuclear program was almost completely dismantled.

When the UN withdrew inspectors in 1998, independent investigations confirmed Iraqi claims that members of the inspection team were “spies” reporting directly to the CIA and the Israeli Mossad. One inspector even left behind a homing device to provide guidance for US bombers, which attacked Iraq in December 1998 during Operation Desert Fox (which, because it played out during the scandal surrounding President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, was often described as a “wag-the-dog” ruse).

In mid-September, 2002, Iraq agreed unconditionally to the return of weapons inspectors; however, the US responded discouragingly. American Secretary of State Powell said that, if UN inspectors attempt to return to Iraq, the US would “move into thwart mode.”

Before inspectors would be allowed back in, the Bush administration demanded the passage of a new UN resolution that called for the US to have representatives on any inspection team, for the inspection teams to set up militarily protected bases and travel corridors in any part of the country they choose, for Iraq to permit unrestricted landing of all aircraft, including unmanned spy planes, and for the US to be able to remove any Iraqi citizen from the country for questioning - all of this effectively dissolving Iraqi sovereignty and amounting to a de facto military occupation; if Iraq were to balk at implementing even the smallest detail of the resolution, member states would automatically be entitled to use “all necessary means” to enforce it. The resolution appeared designed not to make inspections more effective, but to ensure that war would ensue.

On November 8, following weeks of intensive behind-the-scenes political maneuvering, the US Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441. The Iraqi leader, caught in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t conundrum, accepted the terms of the resolution.

3. Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator who killed his own people. True enough. But again, as a pretext for war this doesn’t make sense. Saddam was just as evil in the 1980s, when he was using poison gas on the Kurds in his northern territories. But then the US approved of him, offering logistical support as well as aid in establishing chemical and biological weapons programs. The US has supported many evil dictators over the years; why attack this particular one now? Is there a sudden crisis of evilness that must be addressed militarily and immediately, even to the point of killing perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of innocent civilians in the process?

4. Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that pose a threat to his neighbours and to the American people. But, as documented by the UN and the CIA, Iraq has far less capability in that regard now than in 1990. As noted above, many of Iraq’s WMDs were covertly supplied by the US. The US itself has vast stores of nuclear weapons, and is the only nation to have used such weapons against a civilian population. Of the countries in the Middle East, Israel has by far the largest inventory of WMDs; yet the US has not proposed that Israel be attacked for that reason.

Oddly enough, Iraq’s neighbours do not appear concerned about the threat posed to them; indeed, most of them are pleading with the US not to attack. And no credible analyst has suggested that, even if Iraq does possess remnant WMDs, its leaders have either the ability or the intent to use them against US citizens, absent a large-scale attack.

5. Saddam Hussein provides aid to the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on the US. According to polls, nearly 70% of the American people believe that this is the case, and administration officials have made claims to this effect on several occasions. However, no one has supplied credible evidence for the assertion. Moreover, any such link would be counterintuitive. Osama Bin Laden and other radical Islamists detest secular Arab states, of which Iraq is one of the foremost. And secular Arab leaders, in turn, fear and despise the radical Islamists. It was Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi - not George Bush or Bill Clinton - who was the first world leader to call for the arrest of Bin Laden, in 1994, following terrorist attacks on his nation. Why would Saddam aid his own sworn enemies? Two other nations in the region have been shown to have far more credible links with al Qaeda - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Why is Bush not demanding attacks on these countries?

If none of these stated rationales is the true reason for Bush’s insistence on war, then we must look elsewhere.

Quest for Empire

Several recent articles, noting the flimsiness of the official war rationale, have discussed possible underlying psychological drives. One writer (Mike Hersh, of Online Journal) tells us that White House insiders privately assert that Bush is “out of control.” In prepared speeches, Bush dutifully reads the litany of Saddam’s violations and crimes. But in a recent off-the-cuff comment (26/9/02), Bush is reported to have said simply, “This is a guy that tried to kill my dad,” referring to a purported failed 1993 assassination plot against ex-president Bush. (The only pieces of evidence ever brought forward for the existence of such a plot were confessions extracted by Kuwaiti torturers; nevertheless, Clinton retaliated with missiles, which hit a residential area and killed eight Iraqi civilians.) Is mere personal revenge the underlying motive for Bush’s war?

Revenge may indeed be a contributory factor - at least in the tiny mind of George W. Bush himself. But it is important to remember that many government officials who do not share a personal grudge against Saddam are promoting this war.

This is a project that has emerged from a consensus of strategists whose purposes are undoubtedly more sophisticated than the pursuit of a family feud. Since official statements give us almost no insight into the real reasons why the American leadership is determined to pursue an expensive and risky war halfway around the world, one must indulge in a little informed speculation. In what ways might Bush or the people close to him have something to gain from such a war?

When we pursue this line of thought, three clear possible motives quickly come to mind:

1. Party politics and power. The American economy is in terrible shape now, with the stock market at levels not seen since 1997, corporate bankruptcies accumulating weekly, and revelations ongoing about corporate accounting fraud at the highest levels. A projected trillion-dollar government budget surplus has become a trillion-dollar deficit in a mere eighteen months. As the bubbles of the exuberant 1990s burst one by one, many economic analysts believe that the entire world may be teetering on the brink of a depression at least as serious as that of the 1930s. This should be horrific political news for the party in power.

However, with Americans’ attention riveted by the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Bush and the Republicans have had to endure scant scrutiny. The White House occupant’s handlers cannot help but have noticed that terrorism and war do wonders for the leader’s poll numbers, while economic headlines do the opposite. An obvious strategy: find ways to dominate the news with fear-inducing, patriotic war talk. Prior to the November, 2002 US election, David Morris, writing on Alternet, opined that Bush’s sabre rattling is all about politics, and suggested that, after the elections, weapons inspectors would return to Iraq and threats of attack would subside.

There is no question but that war can make for good politics. But the November elections have come and gone: Bush’s party gained control of the Senate, and thus of the entire apparatus of the US government. But the beat of the war drums did not cease. There are thus clearly other motives at work.

2. Global dominance. The foreign-policy advisors surrounding Bush all share views typified in a report, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” issued in 2000 by the Project for the New American Century. The report calls for American military dominance of Earth and space, pre-emptive strikes on any potential rival, unquestioning support for Israel, and the ignoring of international opinion in the pursuit of US strategic objectives.

Most of the report’s authors (including Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary) are now highly placed administration officials, and the document itself is closely echoed by the official National Security Strategy, released by the administration on September 20, 2002. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the rest appear to view Iraq as a symbolic challenge to US hegemony, Saddam Hussein having survived one US-led attack and over ten years of punishing economic sanctions. The toppling of his regime thus represents a test of the aggressive new American strategic doctrine.

In this view, an attack on Iraq serves an emblematic purpose, sending a message to the rest of the world saying: Defy us at your peril. Yet still something is missing. Why threaten the already teetering US economy to project US military might if there is nothing concrete to be gained thereby?

3. Oil. Here, perhaps, we get to the real nub of the issue. The US needs oil; its wealth was built on energy resources and on its ability to deploy technologies to use those resources (cars, planes, and industrial machinery). American oil production peaked in 1970 and now the nation imports well over half of what it uses.

In order to maintain its global dominance, the US needs to be able to control global oil prices. However, since the 1970s, the OPEC countries of the Middle East, by virtue of their immense petroleum reserves, have had that power. It is Saudi Arabia, as swing producer, that has opened or closed the spigot to enable economic booms (the mid 1980s and the mid- and late 1990s) or provoke recessions (1973, 2000). Now Saudi Arabia teeters, beset by a growing and youthful population, dwindling per-capita incomes, and simmering Islamist radicalism.

Iraq has reserves second only to those of Saudi Arabia. Because of the war with Iran in the 1980s and sanctions in the 1990s, those reserves are not as fully exploited as those of other nations in the region. This makes Iraq a prize for the taking - a fact not overlooked by Russia and France, which also covet its future oil production. If the US could install a compliant puppet regime in Baghdad, it could break the back of OPEC, establish its position first in line ahead of Russia and France, and weather any potential upset in Saudi Arabia.

Upon entering office, Dick Cheney, chair of the White House Energy Policy Development Group, commissioned a report on “energy security” from the Baker Institute for Public Policy, a think-tank set up by former US Secretary of State James Baker. The report, “Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century,” issued in April 2001, concludes:

“The United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a de-stabilizing influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/ diplomatic assessments.”

Cheney, the former CEO of the Texas oil firm Halliburton, was advised principally by Kenneth Lay, the disgraced former chief executive of Enron - the US energy-trading giant that went bankrupt following the revelation of massive accounting fraud. Other advisers included Luis Giusti, a Shell non-executive director; John Manzoni, regional president of BP; and David O’Reilly, chief executive of ChevronTexaco.

The Baker report refers to the impact of fuel shortages on voters and recommends a “new and viable US energy policy central to America’s domestic economy and to [the] nation’s security and foreign policy.”

It also says that Iraq “turns its taps on and off when it has felt such action was in its strategic interest to do so,” adding that there is a “possibility that Saddam Hussein may remove Iraqi oil from the market for an extended period of time” in order to raise prices.

“Unless the United States assumes a leadership role in the formation of new rules of the game,” the report warns, “US firms, US consumers and the US government [will be left] in a weaker position.”

No doubt all three of these latter factors have converged to galvanise the current Bush policy toward Iraq. In light of these powerful motives, publicly stated concerns about Iraq’s violation of UN resolutions and its possession of WMDs pale in significance.

The administration has compelling reasons for its attack on Iraq; otherwise it would not invest so much financial and political capital in the effort. It is a shame, however, that those reasons cannot be shared publicly; if they were, an interesting debate might ensue. As it is, politicians and press commentators alike are in the awkward position of having to state plausible-sounding opinions about inherently implausible rationales issuing from the administration. The ensuing charade is painful to witness.

The War’s Likely Progress and Consequences

Absurd as its rationales may be, the war itself is a deadly serious prospect. What will come to pass when the US and Britain begin the inevitable bombing and invasion of Iraq?

If the war goes according to plan, it will be over in just a few weeks. An overwhelming air attack will be followed by an invasion of ground troops mopping up Republican Guard resistance in the cities. The Iraqi people themselves will welcome American troops with open arms, delighted to be rid of their tyrant.

Other nations in the region will be cowed into obedience by this show of strength; or, if their regimes display weakness or intransigence, they can be overthrown as needed.

Early in the hostilities, and perhaps prior to their commencement, president Hugo Chavez of Venezuela must be ousted (and killed) so as to terminate his nationalist and leftist influence on OPEC policies and ensure the free flow of oil from his country to the US during the course of the conflict in the Middle East.

Also early in the hostilities, Israel must be expected to take advantage of the exclusive focus of world attention on Iraq by militarily pushing virtually the entire Palestinian population out of the West Bank and Gaza, perhaps into Jordan, thus solving the “Palestinian problem” once and for all.

According to analysts at Stratfor (the online strategic forecasting service), Dick Cheney and his advisors are working on a long-term plan for post-war Iraq. The currently favoured approach is to unite Iraq and Jordan in a pro-US Hashemite kingdom. The southern Shiite and northern Kurdish areas, where most of Iraq’s oil is located, present a dilemma: the former must be prevented from uniting with Iran, the latter from uniting with Kurdish areas in Turkey and agitating for a Kurdish state. Both must be granted some sort of limited autonomy but kept under close US control.

With Iraq’s oil resources now accessible to American oil companies, and with Chavez gone from Venezuela, the power of OPEC will have been crushed. Oil prices will fall and the American economy will be saved from ruin (for the time being). American oil companies will grow rich. With large numbers of troops now permanently stationed in the Middle East, the US will have become an overt military empire.

That is the outcome if everything goes as expected. Unfortunately, however, a new Iraq war would hardly be the first unprovoked US military adventure, and experience has shown that such adventures often don’t go according to plan (does the word Vietnam ring any bells?). What could go wrong in this instance? One hardly knows where to start.

What if the Iraqi people decide to resist invasion rather than welcoming their American liberators? The campaign could become a house-to-house urban war of attrition with mounting casualties on both sides. At the same time, Saddam Hussein, realising that he is done for, might well decide to unleash every weapon in his arsenal, with the hope of provoking the widest possible conflagration in the region. The US would then need more than the 250,000 ground troops it is now planning to deploy, and the draft might have to be reinstated. That would in turn provoke more anti-war protests at home, and thus necessitate more government repression.

If other states in the region are overthrown by Islamist opposition movements as a result of popular uprisings triggered by the war, efforts by the US to occupy those nations might seriously overextend American forces; then, rather than face defeat on any front, commanders might resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Israel, perhaps finding itself under attack from Arab neighbour states, might itself decide to unleash some of its 200 or so nukes.

At the same time, popular outrage throughout the Arab and Muslim world at US actions might result in a dramatic increase in anti-American “terrorism” worldwide. Pakistan, which (unlike Iraq) does have functional nuclear weapons, could easily fall to the Islamists; if that were to happen, a nuclear device would probably come to the hands of al Qaeda in short order. Not only would the US economy be shattered by high oil prices and the costs of war, but American cities, and citizens abroad, would be imperiled.

In sum, an outcome in which a years-long World War is triggered, with multiple nuclear weapons being detonated and hundreds of thousands or millions being killed, may be about as likely as that in which everything goes as the war planners hope.

All of this to maintain and extend the power of small group of criminal ideologues in Washington, and to keep American motorists fueled up and mobile for another decade or so.

Who Wants This War?

The potential consequences of the imminent American attack on Iraq are fairly evident to people in most nations around the world - except the people of the US. Here, politicians and pundits alike drone on about the menace of Saddam, while virtually no one dares mention the far greater menace to global peace posed by the geopolitical strategists in the White House.

The American people are deeply unaware of their predicament; with the soporific encouragement of television they are - as more than one commentator has put it, and on more than one occasion - “sleepwalking through history.”

One might get the impression that this is a nation of imbeciles (and this does seem to be the view from the rest of the world); but Americans aren’t inherently any more stupid than anyone else. They are being deliberately and systematically dumbed down. Their attention is distracted and manipulated from morning till night by slick PR professionals in both corporate and government offices. This trend was never more apparent than during the recent elections.

One tool in the arsenal of these professional opinion shapers is the poll. These days we are told that most Americans favour an attack on Iraq, and most think that Mr. Bush is doing a splendid job in leading this brave nation. The polls tend to be deeply disheartening to those who make any attempt whatever to see current events in historical and international context. But one has to view the polls in perspective. What are people actually being asked? Perhaps if questions were rephrased, answers would be more meaningful.

What if a random sample were asked, “Do you get your news from alternative sources and think critically about world issues?” The portion of the sample that replied affirmatively might almost exactly correspond with the 40% of the population that is reputed to disapprove of the “president’s” job performance. Other possible questions: “Do you watch lots of television and pay minimal attention to civic and world affairs? Are you so absorbed with work and family that you just don’t have time to think about much else?” Those who gave an affirmative reply to those questions would, one might well guess, correspond almost identically with the 60% who are said to approve of Bush and his war plans. The latter group is, in effect, saying to pollsters, “Yeah, sure, whatever.” (“Do you approve of the way the ‘president’ is doing his job?” “Yeah, sure, whatever.” “Do you want a World War to erupt in the Middle East?” “Whatever.”)

Meanwhile the overwhelming majority of letters, phone calls, faxes, and e-mails that poured into the offices of the “president” and members of Congress in October, as a congressional bill authorising war was being debated, expressed opposition to an attack. Even senior CIA and Pentagon officials expressed skepticism. Global opinion remains almost unanimously anti-war. It appears that almost nobody wants this war except the tiny circle of far-right strategists surrounding Bush.

Yet no one appears able to stand up to these people forcibly enough to stop them. The Democrats in Congress, perhaps worrying that they might receive more anthrax-laced letters or perish in an airplane “accident,” offered not even token opposition during the November elections. The Bushies have had their way on every count, and they will have their war. And heaven help us all.

Sic Transit Imperium Americanum

George W. Bush aspires to be a Caesar, make no mistake about it. And the scale of power and authority he has attained is indeed impressive. But despite his bellicosity and imperial pretentions, the comparison with Julius utterly fails. Bush Jr. perhaps bears more resemblance to some of the feeble and dissolute hereditary emperors of the third century, men whose names are familiar now only to specialist historians.

In reality, the American empire passed its zenith in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as US oil production peaked and the nation squandered its financial wealth on a pointless war in Southeast Asia. Since then, as its petroleum resources and gold reserves have dwindled, the US has been steadily losing ground both politically and economically.

Post-peak America is awash in debt, dependent on imports, and mired in corruption. Nations around the world fear its military and watch its television shows, but ridicule its leaders and policies.

The far-right ideologues who have hijacked the political and strategic leadership of the country fancy themselves as establishing an American empire, whereas they must know in their heart-of-hearts that they are merely presiding over that empire’s inevitable twilight. Their chest-thumping patriotic triumphalism would be pathetic if it were not so profoundly perilous.

The gambit of an Iraq war is a desperate measure, a floundering attempt to maintain power and authority that are fast slipping away. But, like the flailings of a person caught in quicksand, these efforts can only hasten the undertow. The US can still destroy, but cannot control the rest of the world. Bush, after all, is just a Caesar wannabe with nukes.

The fall of Rome occurred over several centuries. The fall of imperial America will be much more dramatic and impactful, and much quicker, lasting only decades at most. What a shame that such a momentous time in the history of the world should be presided over by people who are not only greedy and ruthless (one can almost take that for granted), but talentless and unimaginative as well.

The above is an updated version of an article titled 'Behold Caesar' that appeared in MuseLetter #128, October 2002.

Richard Heinberg is a journalist and educator. He has lectured widely and has appeared on nationalradio and television in five countries, and is the author of the forthcoming book, The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (New Society, March 2003). Heinberg is a member of the Core Faculty of New College of California in Santa Rosa, where he teaches courses on Energy and Society and Culture, Ecology, and Sustainable Community. Richard's web site is located at www.museletter.com.

Panel Recommends Sweeping
National Security Changes

From National Security Correspondent David Ensor
January 31, 2001 (Note this Date)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A blue-ribbon commission unveiled a detailed report on national security Wednesday, calling for sweeping changes in the way the government handles what it calls a "significant and growing" threat of terrorism on U.S. soil.

One of the panel's main recommendations is for President Bush to create a new Cabinet-level National Homeland Security Agency to handle prevention, response and recovery to terrorist incidents.

READ: "THE BUYING OF THE CONGRESS"
By Charles Lewis

The bipartisan U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century is headed by FORMER Sens. Warren Rudman, R-New Hampshire, and Gary Hart, D-Colorado, and includes FORMER House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, among its members. The report was commissioned several years ago by the Defense Department.

MAFIA & ORGANIZED CRIME TAKE CONTROL IF:
The proposed agency would take over the Border Patrol from Justice, Customs from Treasury, the Coast Guard from Transportation, the FBI Counterterrorism Center and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), among others.

In addition, the agency would assume responsibility for cyber security from Commerce and the FBI. State National Guard units would take on homeland security as their primary task under the commission's proposals. The commission also recommends a series of upgrades of U.S. intelligence gathering against potential terrorists.

Bush administration officials said they will look closely at the commission's recommendations. But the proposal for a National Homeland Security Agency is sure to stir controversy, because it will take resources away from some well-entrenched agencies.

And critics like James Steinberg, who was former President Bill Clinton's deputy national security adviser, said agencies simply need better cooperation in the fight against terrorism, not another new agency.

It's time for the Militia
to stand up and defend our country.

If our government won't defend our boarders (a Constitutional imperative) this is something the Militia's can excel in.

The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary, as distinguished from technical meaning; where the intention is clear, there is no room for construction, and no excuse for interpolation or addition.

In the United States, Sovereignty resides in the people, who act through the organs established by the Constitution.

To disregard a deliberate choice of words and their natural meaning, would be a departure from the first principle of constitutional interpretation.

Constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed. It is the duty of the courts to be watchful of constitutional rights against any stealthy encroachments thereon.

If the legislature clearly misinterprets a constitutional provision, the frequent repetition of the wrong will not create a right.

Disobedience or evasion of a constitutional mandate may not be tolerated, even though such disobedience may, at least temporarily, promote in some respects the best interests of the public.

When any court violates the clean and unambiguous language of the Constitution, a fraud is perpetrated and no one is bound to obey it.

The Bush administration wants to grant amnesty to hundreds of thousands of Mexican illegal aliens now in the United States, according to the new U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

Tony Garza, sworn in this week at the White House, told reporters in Mexico City that reaching an accord legalizing the status of Mexican immigrants - without giving them citizenship - continues to be a top administration priority.

Mr. Garza also proposed new guest-worker programs for Mexican immigrants.

Bush administration efforts to pursue immigration agreements with Mexico were put on hold after the September 11 terrorist attacks on America.

"If we don't do something about their status, we will be admitting that our country has a permanent underclass," Mr. Garza said.

Congress plans to debate the matter as soon as the economy improves, he added, because "people tend to discuss immigration issues more comfortably when the economy is strong."

The new ambassador's comments Wednesday and Thursday fell short of a proposal by President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox, made just four days before the September 11 attacks. That plan would have led to amnesty for as many as 3 million illegal aliens now living in the United States.

But Mr. Garza's remarks were viewed by the Mexican government and media as a first step toward a more comprehensive package.

A senior State Department official said he was unaware of any pending immigration proposal involving Mexico, and questioned whether it was wise to make recommendations that Congress might not approve.

"It doesn't do us any good to overpromise to the Mexican side or to indicate that we can do things that really we understand have no chance of getting through the Congress at all," the official said during a briefing on Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's trip next Tuesday to the U.S.-Mexico summit.

"There is tremendous sympathy, interest in seeing what can be done on this issue. There are other competing concerns - security - that have to be made consistent with whatever we do on immigration," the official said.

But the senior official noted that Mr. Garza "came ' directly from the White House, so maybe he knows something we don't."

Several Republicans on Capitol Hill are expected to oppose any effort to grant amnesty, led, in part, by the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.

The caucus has called the amnesty proposal "a kick in the teeth to the thousands of individuals across the world who are legally attempting to enter the United States."

"Instead, the United States is saying, 'Why wait? Sneak on in. Whether you enter illegally or not, you will be a resident or citizen in no time,'" said Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican and caucus chairman. "The first lesson these new residents will learn about the United States is it is OK to break the law. Is that the America we want to build?"

In August, the government said 215,000 illegal aliens were granted legal status in fiscal 2001 and an additional 970,000 cases were pending. One in five persons who became legal U.S. residents in fiscal 2001 either entered the country illegally or remained here after the expiration of a temporary visa, the report said.

A recent Zogby poll found that 77 percent of Americans surveyed believe the government is not doing enough to control the border and 56 percent thought efforts by Mr. Bush and Mr. Fox to consider amnesty for as many as 3 million illegal immigrants was a "bad or very bad idea."

A Gallup poll found that 67 percent believe the U.S. government should not make it easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens.

Mr. Garza told Mexico's Reforma and El Universal newspapers that the United States could offer legalized residency to as many as 15 percent of the undocumented aliens who have been here for more than 10 years.

"What I would like to see is us have a debate to establish some criteria to legalize these people who have been part of our community," Mr. Garza told Reforma. "I believe we should recognize them, giving them some sort of status."Although citizenship should not be included in the amnesty offer, the ambassador told El Universal, "that can be sought as part of another process, without discrimination."

In September 2001, Mr. Bush and Mr. Fox talked about amnesty for as many as 3 million illegals. Mr. Bush planned to ask Congress to legalize Mexican aliens if they took jobs that others passed up. The president also called for the abolition of laws barring American employers from hiring border jumpers.

"If somebody is willing to do jobs others in America aren't willing to do, we ought to welcome that person to the country, and we ought to make that a legal part of our economy," Mr. Bush said at White House ceremony with Mr. Fox. "We ought not to penalize an employer who is trying to get a job done, who hires somebody who is willing to do that kind of work."

Mr. Fox long has supported the idea that illegal aliens should not be viewed as criminals, but as essential to the success of the U.S. economy. The Mexican president was the force behind a joint U.S.-Mexico statement that immigration policy should respect "the human dignity of all migrants, regardless of their [legal] status."

The September 11 attacks put the proposal on hold.
White House chief political strategist Karl Rove told The Washington Times last year that an Hispanic-outreach strategy was only part of a broader plan to elect more Republicans to Congress and win Mr. Bush a second term. Mr. Rove said Mr. Bush's popularity among Hispanics was the result of a pattern of communication strategies, policy initiatives, high-level appointments and foreign visits.

Mr. Bush and Republicans were doing "far better among Hispanics than we have done in previous years," Mr. Rove said.

Most of the Hispanic population growth is in pivotal electoral states such as California, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania. By 2010, the United States is expected to have the world's second-largest Hispanic population, behind only Mexico.

Bush administration asks high court to ease restrictions on Mexican trucks

By Anne Gearan
Associated Press
Thursday, September 11, 2003

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has asked for the Supreme Court's help in a fight over allowing Mexican trucks and buses on U.S. roadways for the first time in two decades.

The administration wants to drop a court-ordered environmental study that has delayed the border opening. The $1.8 million study is expected to take a year or more.

President George W. Bush ordered U.S. highways open to Mexican trucks last fall, despite long-standing opposition from U.S. labor, consumer, and environmental organizations.

The consumer group Public Citizen, the Teamsters, and others sued on safety and environmental grounds, and a federal appeals court ruled earlier this year that the government must perform the lengthy study.

The Bush administration has said it will comply with that order but also filed an appeal with the Supreme Court.

"The court of appeals misapplied the nation's environmental laws and constrained the president's discretion to conduct foreign affairs," Solicitor General Theodore Olson wrote.

The ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals "prevents the president's action from taking effect and thereby hampers commerce," Olson, the government's top lawyer, wrote in the appeal filed Monday.

The ruling also needlessly prolongs a trade dispute with Mexico over the requirements of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Olson wrote.

The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit handles appeals from the Mexican border states of California and Arizona as well as other western states.

Public Citizen plans to tell the court not to waste its time, said the group's president, Joan Claybrook.

"They're beating a dead horse," she said of the Bush administration. "They didn't do an environmental impact study and they should have. There are significant environmental issues here, and if they'd done it right the first time they wouldn't have to be in court."

The study will analyze short- and long-term environmental effects of opening U.S. roads to Mexican trucks. It will not stop Mexican trucks from operating in the long run but should lessen potentially harmful effects, Claybrook said.

Since 1982, trucks from Mexico have been allowed only in 20-mile (32 kilometer) commercial border zones, where Mexican rigs must transfer their cargo to U.S. trucks for deliveries within the United States.

Mexican trucks make approximately 4.5 million border crossings every year, and it is cumbersome and expensive to offload cargo to U.S. trucks, the administration filing said.

"Passengers using scheduled bus services must follow similarly inefficient procedures," Olson wrote.

Mexico claims the moratorium has cost it more than $2 billion.

Source: Associated Press

COMMENT:
Immigration Vs. Invasion
by SeerOfDreams
(New Hampshire, USA)
Sent by Email
January 6, 2004 at 11:05:46 pm EST

The real issue here is the unwillingness of not only the current Bush administration, but those of previous presidents, to deal with the issue of illegal immigration. There are folks coming over the border and receiving benefits such as Welfare, free schooling and free medical care, just to name a few. Our tax dollars must help those Americans that need help first, not go as a reward to those who break the law and come here illegally. If they want to enter properly, let them come. Otherwise, close the border. If Vincente Fox doesn't like it, he's invited to turn his attention back to his own country, and make Mexico the kind of place his people won't feel the need to flee from.

IMMIGRATION INSANITY
By Peyton Knight
NewsWithViews.com

Following the killing spree alleged to be the act of John Muhammed and his associate, Lee Malvo, Americans learned that the teenager was an illegal alien, originally from Jamaica. Moreover, early indications suggest that Muhammed was engaged in the smuggling of illegal aliens into this nation. Largely unknown to most Americans is the large percentage of the nation's incarcerated criminal population representing the failure of those agencies responsible to protect this nation against the dangers posed by illegal aliens.

From the time you woke this morning to the time you go to sleep tonight, 10,000 illegal aliens will have flooded into the United States from and through Mexico. Tomorrow, the same will happen. In the past 7 years, the estimated number of illegal aliens residing in the U.S. has grown from 5 million to between 9 and 11 million.

In any given day, roughly one-third of the immigrants penetrating our borders will be nabbed by authorities, returned, only to try again the next day or even within the next few hours. It's like a children's game of cops and robbers, only it is played with real guns, real money and real consequences.

Clearly, if a nation is to exist, it must have borders-definitive boundaries that separate the government, laws, ideas, traditions, history and culture of one territory from another. There are issues of millions of dollars in taxes, social services, and other subsidies involved. It makes even less sense when those receiving government handouts and services are not even citizens of the subsidizing nation. That is exactly what is happening in the United States of America.

Current policy on illegal immigration in America is a bungled, confusing, mixed message. On the one hand, the mere fact that we label undocumented citizens who dwell within our borders "illegal aliens" tells us that these folks are breaking the law simply by being here. As illegal aliens, they are not entitled to the same constitutional protections and rights afforded US citizens. Moreover, our government commits sizable, though still woefully inadequate, resources to both preventing illegal aliens from penetrating our borders and locating them for deportation. In addition to the illegal aliens, there are an estimated 300,000 "absconders", those who have overstayed their visa time limits are in this nation.

The same government that spends millions annually in a supposed effort to stamp out illegal immigration is actually luring and enticing illegal immigrants to come here! Sound crazy? It is. An absurd ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1982 declared that children of illegal immigrants have a constitutional right to free public education. It prohibited schools from denying illegal aliens access to education based on the status of their citizenship. John Lee Malvo was enrolled in two schools during his illegal stay.

The court, in reference to ILLEGAL aliens, declared that undocumented, non-citizens are entitled to the same, free public education to which Joe Taxpayer is entitled. And for what reason? Because as long as ILLEGAL aliens are identifiable and present, rather than deport them for ILLEGALLY residing in the U.S., we should do our best to turn them into upstanding, working, non-taxpaying ILLEGAL aliens. Such was the logic of the highest court in the land.

Then, as if the glaring inconsistency of our government's policy weren't evident enough, the court also barred any communication between public schools and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). It said schools were not to cooperate with the INS in any way that might "jeopardize immigrant students and their right of access."

The Urban Institute has estimated that 15% of all kindergarten through high school kids in California are illegal immigrants. This alone costs taxpayers $1.6 billion a year. Public schools, teachers' unions and the department of education are constantly blaming their putrid performances in the education arena on "lack of funds" or "large class sizes." Neither makes mention of this massive, unaccountable drain on taxpayers who finance this undocumented, illegal influx in our nation's classrooms.

The total cost of providing federally mandated education and health care to illegal aliens is estimated at more than $5 billion annually. That's $5 billion dollars worth of lost education and lost health care for American citizens. One in seven inmates in California state prisons is an illegal alien. The estimated yearly cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants in the United States is $500 million.

Hospitals, too, are required by law to treat any illegal alien that shows up for medical care. Of course, the little issue of "who pays for these unaccountable treatments" is not covered in this law. As a result, many hospitals along the border between the U.S. and Mexico have either been forced to close their doors or are facing severe financial crises as mandatory healthcare treatment to illegal aliens gobbles up their resources.

At a time when America is under attack by Islamist holy warriors, the Census Bureau estimates that there are currently as many as 115,000 illegal immigrants from Middle Eastern countries living in the United States. In addition, there are over 400,000 illegal immigrants who continue to live in the U.S. despite having received orders from judges to be deported.

Both the Democrat and Republican parties are busy climbing over one another in an effort to win over the Hispanic voting bloc at the expense of sound immigration policy and national security. One congressman has put forth a bill that will solve many of the problems we currently face with illegal immigration in this country. Rep. George Gekas (R-PA) has introduced H.R. 5013, the "Securing America's Future through Enforcement Reform Act" (SAFER).

The concern over our nation's security has reached a zenith not seen since World War II. The most basic step in bolstering national security, while preserving the rights of American citizens, is to secure our borders to insure we don't give terrorists a free pass to roam the country.

© Peyton Knight - All Rights Reserved

PASSAGES
A true patriot would keep the attention of his fellow citizens awake to their grievances, and not allow them to rest till the causes of their just complaints are removed. -Sam Adams of the Sons of Liberty and Committees of Correspondence, Boston, Massachusetts, 1771.

In From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776, historian Pauline Maier quotes a letter from Sam Adams emphasizing that "the colonists must henceforth depend primarily upon themselves for the defense of their liberties."

In another passage, published in the January 21, 1771, Boston Gazette, and just as crucial and pertinent under Bush and Ashcroft as it was under the first King George III, Sam Adams wrote, "Our ship is in the hands of pilots who . . . are steering directly under full sail to a rock. The whole crew may see [this course to violate our liberties] in full view if they look the right way."

The GW Bush - Osama Bin Laden Connection
Friday, 14 September 2001
Article: The Scoop Editor

EDITORS NOTE: The following is a transcript of a link submitted to Scoop by a Scoop reader. Clearly questions are raised in this material about the nature of the relationship between the Bush family and the family of Osama Bin Laden.

In the circumstances the claims of the connections make some sense as Osama Bin Laden is well known to have been supported by the CIA (which George Senior headed) during his fight against the Russians in Afghanistan.

However the alleged links to George Bush Jr are the most remarkable aspect of this new piece to the puzzle around the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Center this week. Scoop has not verified any of the following (though the links have been checked) and cannot attest to its accuracy.

Burning Bush

James R. Bath, friend and neighbor of George W. Bush, was used as a cash funnel from Osama bin Laden's rich father, Sheikh bin Laden, to set George W. Bush up in business, according to reputable sources from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The connection between GW Bush, the bin Laden family, and the Bank Commerce Credit International (BCCI) is well documented.

The excerpts from the books and news articles are supplemented by the links at the bottom of the page to the cash flow charts of the bin Laden-backed BCCI money which was funneled into the Bush family in return for favors. Just click on the links at the bottom of the page to see the flow charts and use the back and forward keys on the screen to return to this page where you can then access the next flow chart link.

"Bath--who made his fortune by investing money for Mahfouz and another BCCI-connected Saudi, Sheikh bin-Laden--...was an original investor in George Bush Jr.'s oil exploration company..." from The Outlaw Bank, page 229.

"Bath provided financing to George W. Bush, the future president's eldest son, when he went into the oil business..." from False Profits, page 365.

"Bath told me he was in the CIA...he had been recruited by George Bush himself in 1976 when Bush was director of the agency...Bath and George, Jr. were pals and flew together in the same Air National Guard unit, and Bath lived down the street from the Bush family when George, Sr. was living in Houston...he became representative for Sheikh Khalid bin-Mafouz...one of the richest men in the world, and he was a controlling shareholder in...BCCI..." from The Outlaw Bank, page 228.

"BCCI was charged with laundering drug money..." from False Profits, page 433.

"During George Bush's tenure as CIA director, the agency was allegedly involved in a very curious business deal with James R. Bath, a Texas businessman who is a friend and sometime financial backer of one of Bush's sons (George Bush, Jr.). Bath was also a business associate of Khalid bin Mafouze and an important BCCI insider."

"...BCCI would make payments to key officials, sometimes in suitcases filled with cash. As BCCI officer Abdur Askhia stated in interviews tithe Subcommittee staff: Abedi's philosophy was to appeal to every sector. President Carter's main thing was charity, so he gave Carter charity. Pakistani President Zia's brother in law needed a job, he got a job. Bangladeshi president Ashraf's mistress needed a job, she got a job. Admission of your son to a top college, he would arrange it somehow. There was a world wide list of people who were in the payoff of BCCI...". from United States Senate Subcommittee Report on Bank Credit Commerce International, 1992--the Kerry Committee.

Osama bin Laden, whose funds were inherited from his father, Sheikh bin Laden's BCCI investments, has been operating out of Afghanistan since he was established as a conduit for CIA funds in the 1980's. "Afghanistan was by far the biggest; it was, in fact, the biggest CIA operationof all time, both in terms of dollars spent ($5-$6 billion)

The story of the Bush involvement in the BCCI scandal involved "trails that branched, crossed one another, or came to unexpected dead ends...". It was like a "three dimensional chess game." from The Outlaw Bank, page 227.

The BCCI bribery connection went straight to the George Bush oval office. The White House political director, a man whom the Senate noted sat in on presidential meetings, named Ed Rogers, was hired away from the Chief of Staff's Office to represent the BCCI's American representative, Sheik Adham..

"Q - Mr. President, considering your concern about propriety in government, what was your reaction when a senior member of your White House staff, Ed Rogers, left the White House employ and signed a contract with a Saudi sheikh accused of being a key figure in the BCCI scandal?

The President - Well, he is a free citizen to do anything he wants once he leaves the White House. My concern is about the White House itself, that it be beyond any perception of impropriety.

Q - Well, what do you think he was selling to the Saudis except for accessing---

The President - Ask him. I don't know anything what he's selling. I don't know anything about this man, except I've read bad stuff about him. And I don't like what I read about him. But I would suggest that the matter is best dealt with by asking this man what kind of representation he is doing for this sheikh. But it has nothing to do, in my view, with the White House." from the Official Papers of the Presidents, Press Conference, October 25, 1991. George Herbert Walker Bush.

The Senate Commitee on BCCI, the Kerrey Committee, noted that Ed Rogers, the White House political director, was hired directly away by the BCCI sheikh and paid, along with a hitherto unknown assistant named Haley Barbour (later to become National Republican Committee Chairman), the sum of $600,000 to not do much of nothing. The Senate Committee concluded that it, along with the "gifts" of cash to GW Bush, was intended to influence President Bush.

After GW Bush's company, Arbrusto, went bust, the bin Laden connection with BCCI went to work once again to prop up the president's son and to buy influence. GW swapped out shares until he had an interest in a new company, Harken Energy, which quickly received a lucrative oil concession in Bahrain..

An "extraordinary number of people connected to Harken or the oil deal have ties to BCCI...Sheikh Khalifa bin-Salman al-Khalifa helped to ensure that Harken was awarded the offshore drilling contract...Sheikh Abdullah Taha Baksh..Ghairth Pharaon...Bin Mahfouz...Talat Othman who has visited the White House..." from False Profits, page 370. "Knowledgeable oil company sources believe that the Bahrain oil concession was indeed an oblique favor to the president of the United States but say that Saudi Arabia (home of bin Laden) was behind the Decision". From Outlaw Bank, page 230.

The payback was access: "After the Harken-Bahrain deal was signed, Talat Othman was added to a group of Arabs who met with George Bush and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft three times in 1990 -- once just two days after Iraq invaded Kuwait. Othman was the representative of Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, who purchased 10% of Harken stock and had several ties to the infamous BCCI bank. Bakhsh was a co-investor in Saudi Arabia with alleged BCCI front man Ghaith Pharaon. Bakhsh's banker, Khalid bin Mahfouz, was another BCCI figure and head of the largest bank in Saudi Arabia. Sheikh Kalifah, the prime minister of Bahrain, was a BCCI shareholder and played the key role in selecting Harken for the oil contract."

from Bush, Jr. - Real Change

"Brent Scowcroft, the national security advisor to President Bush, said that the younger Bush clearly lacks international credentials as reported to the Boston Globe April 5th. "Is he comfortable with foreign policy? I would say not." Scowcroft said. The governor's main experience "was being around when his father was in his many positions."

from George Bush 2000

Three dimensional Chess Game - LINKS TO CASHFLOW ANALYSIS

James R. Bath cash flow

George W. Bush

Bank Credit Commerce International

BCCI Official Reports and the Bush White House Official US Senate Report--BCCI Crimes

Official US Senate Report--Ed Rogers and BCCI

Ed Rogers--Cash Flowchart

Page Two

Please Note: The above links will take you off this site, therefore, to return here please use your browsers back button.

With Homeland Security In Mind,
Summer Camp Trains Teens
By Matthew P. Blanchard
Philadelphia Inquirer
July 24, 2002

Ten months after the twin towers fell, the tragedy of Sept. 11 has spawned... a summer camp.

Billed as one of the nation's first "homeland security training summer camps for teenagers," a program called Secure Corps in Bucks County is drilling 92 young men and women in essential skills for this new, uncertain era.

And those skills include math: "If I have 40 acres of forest," runs a typical problem, "how many search dogs will I need to find a fugitive?"

The idea was born in the frustrating days of mid-September, when millions of Americans were itching to take up arms, send aid - do anything - but had little idea where to begin. In Bucks County, teenagers were calling the offices of county government, wondering how they could join the ranks of police, fire and emergency personnel.

So the county created Secure Corps.

When the eight-week program ends Aug. 23, graduates will be certified in first aid, CPR (both human and animal), and what organizers call "terrorism response."

They will be ready to don hazmat chemical-protection suits, evacuate institutional buildings, and become bold "first responders" to highway pileups and poison-gas attacks alike.

There is no tuition, and the campers, mostly 11th and 12th graders, are paid minimum wage so that they can spend these hours learning instead of flipping burgers.

The entire program is designed for teens who may be teenage parents, juvenile delinquents, low income, or coping with a learning or other disability. Eighty percent are male, and 30 percent live in group foster homes.

"These aren't the kids whose parents are going to give them $20 to sit by the pool all day," said camp director Danielle Bursk, who oversees activities at several sites from a tiny office at Bucks County Community College.

The job training they receive, Bursk says, can start a career in the homeland security business, which is booming.

One day last week, camper Renee Neroni, 16, found herself facing down a man-made fireball at the county's emergency training center.

Near the concrete tower used to train firefighters, instructors had ignited a large tub of gasoline that resembled a giant hibachi and burned like a very bad accident on I-95.

Then they handed Neroni a fire extinguisher and sent her in.

"Closer! Get closer!" one instructor shouted as sweat beaded on Neroni's face. Neroni is a motormouthed, good-hearted teen from Morrisville who said she joined Secure Corps at the suggestion of her therapist. Her day had begun with a lesson on which type of extinguisher - A, B, C, D or K - was appropriate for what kind of fire. Then she had strapped a compressed-air tank to her back and crawled through a pitch-black 3-D maze meant to simulate a burning house.

Now Neroni was calmly edging toward the gas fire, as the air rippled around her.

She unleashed a sputtering blast of flame-retardant powder from the fire extinguisher and emerged from the resulting white cloud flashing a sign of triumph.

The fire was out. This corner of the homeland was secure.

"It's that easy," said Neroni, who hopes to join a volunteer fire company one day.

When Secure Corps began on July 1, the camp's 92 teens were divided into nine "corps" of eight to 10 members each, named Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and so on up to Indian Corps.

Each corps was assigned a long-term homeland security problem to study throughout - and the scenarios are grim:

A Philadelphia subway train carrying 375 people derails at 8:30 a.m., wiping out the steel tunnel supports and prompting fears that Broad Street itself will collapse.

The Walt Whitman Bridge is buckling in the summer heat, threatening to fall into the Delaware River with cars on it.

And for Neroni's Charlie Corps: The Franklin Mills mall must be evacuated for a bomb threat on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year.

Each corps must contact real government agencies to develop response strategies, and present their findings at an Aug. 22 session to which Tom Ridge, director of the Office of Homeland Security, has been invited.

Students also will tour National Guard facilities, a Peco Energy training center where linemen learn to deal with high-voltage emergencies, and the cavernous First Union Center, where they will see how security officials "prevent" a Britney Spears concert from becoming what experts call a "Level 3 Mass Casualty Event."

Secure Corps is funded with a $409,000 grant from the county's Office of Employment and Training. Debbie Gordon, deputy director of the office, is credited with the idea.

Some of these campers don't intend to make a career of homeland security. Mark Tomlinson, 16, said he is weary of the topic, and with good reason: His birthday falls on Sept. 11, which promises to make it a somber event again this year.

"I've had enough of this terrorism," Tomlinson said.

Older classmate Kevin O'Donnell pointed out the bright side. "Well, now you're learning how to fight terrorism, see?"

Miami News - Nation

Elite Controllers & Hidden Agendas

Who is George W. Bush?
BY SUSAN BRYCE

He grew up as a very rich child with powerful parents. He partied from high school until he was 40 then went cold turkey on drugs and alcohol. His business career was marked by mediocrity or failure that nonetheless resulted making him millions of dollars thanks to the political allies of his father, who happened to be the US President. He was elected 46th governor of Texas mostly because of his family name and his dad’s cronies. He found God and became a Christian. Now, George W. Bush is the 43rd president of the United States.

The Bush administration is a combination of Cold War warriors, big business bureaucrats and ideologues, harvested from the Ford, Nixon and Reagan governments. As veterans of past Republican administrations their thinking reflects a bygone era, particularly with respect to social policy, the environment and nuclear defence. Many of Bush’s appointees are pals from his days as Governor of Texas, or are members of influential insider think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. This article provides a brief analysis of the key players in the ‘Bush team’, their backgrounds, their policies and their likely agendas over the next four years.

President George Walker Bush

Bush’s name is a familiar one in the ranks of America’s top leadership: George W. Bush is the oldest son of George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st president. The only other set of father-son presidents came early in US history when John Quincy Adams, son of the second president, John Adams, became the sixth president in 1825. Bush Jr. attended Eastern elitist schools, in this case Andover Prep, and Yale. According to a Newsweek profile, he “went to Yale but seems to have majored in drinking at the Deke House.” He became a member of the secretive Skull & Bones society in 1968.

George W. Bush joins a recent parade of state governors (Carter, Reagan, and Clinton) who have moved up to the highest office in the country. Bush was elected Governor of Texas in 1994. He and his brother Jeb Bush (elected in Florida in 1998) were the first brothers to be simultaneous governors since the Rockefellers. Before becoming Governor of Texas, George Bush was involved in the Texan oil scene, where he founded an oil company, Arbusto Energy, Inc. (Arbusto is the Spanish word for bush.) The company floundered in the early 1980s when oil prices dropped. Fifty investors, who were mainly family friends, sunk millions to help bail the company out. Nearing collapse, Arbusto was purchased by Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation in September 1984. Despite a poor track record, the owners made Bush Jr. the president and gave him 13.6% of the parent company’s stock.

The Spectrum 7 oil firm company was owned by two staunch Reagan/Bush (dad was then vice president) supporters, who were also involved with the Texas Rangers. After working on his father’s successful 1988 presidential campaign, Bush assembled a group of partners that purchased the Texas Rangers baseball franchise in 1989. He sold his stake for $14.9 million - while Texas governor. Not bad, considering his initial investment was $600,000 of borrowed money. Speaking after the sale, Bush told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “When it is all said and done, I will have made more money than I ever dreamed I would make.”

In 1986, the Harken Energy Corporation bought Spectrum 7’s 180-well operation. In 1990, Harken Energy was granted a contract to drill for oil off the coast of the Gulf state of Bahrain, shunting aside the oil giant Amoco, even though the company had no experience in offshore operations. Suggestions that the Bahrain government was attempting to curry favour with the US president, George Bush Snr, were denied.

A Harken Energy director was invited to participate in private White House briefings on Middle East policy, and in May 1990 Harken learned that Washington was considering an oil embargo of Iraq.

In June, Bush Jr. conveniently sold 212,000 of his Harken shares, raking in more than $848,500. In August, US intelligence agencies, in full propaganda mode, reported that Iraqi troops had invaded Kuwait and the value of Harken’s shares dropped 25%.

During the 2000 presidential election campaign, various allegations about Bush’s past misdemeanours surfaced. They include: an alleged conviction for drunk driving; an allegation that Bush halted investigation of a campaign contributor’s huge funeral home company; that he pulled strings to avoid Vietnam and got favourable treatment; and that he used drugs, then tried to cover it up.

During his campaign, President-elect Bush made a big point of travelling around the country and lecturing youngsters on staying celibate, sober and drug free. At one thank-you banquet for his campaign staff, Bush reportedly spoke to a lady, who by a brief comment she made, indicated she was a Christian. She was with her 16-year-old son. Bush asked the son if he was a believer, too. When the son answered that he didn’t think so, Bush asked “Do you mind if I tell you how I came to know Christ as my Savior?” Bush then pulled up a chair and witnessed to the boy for 30 minutes, even leading him in the sinner’s prayer.

And as governor of Texas, Bush attacked his predecessor for allowing leniency toward first-time drug users, and pushed a no tolerance policy that sent casual cocaine users to prison. During his campaign, he proclaimed that drug users “need to know that drug use has consequences.” In answer to questions about drug use, Bush says it doesn’t matter what he did “in his youth,” because the question is “have you grown up” and “have you learned from your mistakes.”

The 43rd president of the US is an unwavering proponent of trade liberalisation and a strong US military. Although he has pledged to curtail the use of US military power for purposes short of major wars, he is forging ahead with the US ballistic missile defence shield, following in the hawkish footsteps of his father. Shortly after his inauguration, George W. Bush told reporters: “We will work to defend our people and our allies against growing threats of missiles, information warfare, the threats of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. We will confront the new threats of a new century… we will begin creating the military of the future - one that takes full advantage of revolutionary new technologies. We will promote the peace by redefining the way wars will be fought.”

During his presidential campaign, Bush worked to silence his critics. Not since Richard Nixon has a major presidential candidate been so quick to prevent the free speech of his opponents. When asked about one critical web site, Bush told the press, “There ought to be limits to freedom. We’re aware of this site, and this guy is just a garbage man, that’s all he is.” His campaign reportedly bought up over 200 anti-Bush domain names including “bushsucks.com” and “bushbites.com” before the presidential election.

Colin Powell: Secretary of State

After alleged cover-ups in Vietnam and in the Iran-Contra affair, Powell has once again managed to pull the prestige of the military rank above any scandal to become Secretary of State. After 35 years in the US Army, Powell took up the position of General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs from 1989 to 1993. As a General, he rose to superhero status during the Gulf War. His famous quip about the Iraqi army, “We are going to cut it off, and then we are going to kill it,” impressed some of the fact starved journalists, who later described his Gulf War performance as “masterful.” For Powell, the armed forces are a gleaming and expensive elite, to be maintained at vast cost but not to be dirtied by any deployment, let alone peacekeeping. The “Powell Doctrine” focuses upon how to fight wars and when to fight them - with minimal casualties. Powell, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is believed to be one of the architects of the US military’s Joint Vision 2010 (previously reported in New Dawn No. 59).

Powell has come out of retirement to take up post as Secretary of State. During retirement, he wrote a best-selling autobiography and launched a career as a public speaker, addressing audiences across the United States and overseas. During his acceptance press conference, Powell lectured about his foreign policy priorities and made the case forcefully for a defensive shield to become “an essential part” of the nation’s security. Bush stood mutely along side, while Powell offered his vision for the future.

It is said that Powell does not advise, ‘he insists.’ His comments about Russia demonstrate the Bush administration’s commitment to a unipolar world: “Our relations with Russia must not be dictated by any fear on our part. For example, if we believe the enlargement of NATO should continue, for example, and we do believe that, we should not fear that Russia will object. We will do it because it is in our interest and because freedom-loving people wish to be part of NATO. Instead, we should deal with Russia’s objections and find a way to address them.”

Powell’s son, Michael, has been made Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Condoleeza Rice: President Bush’s National Security Adviser

Rice served on the National Security Council under the previous Bush administration. From 1989-1991, she was a director and then senior director of Soviet and East European Affairs and was later named special assistant to the National Security Affairs Advisor.

Rice has written or collaborated on several books, including Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995), The Gorbachev Era (1986), and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). Upon her arrival in Washington in 1986, she worked on nuclear strategic planning at the Joint Chiefs of Staff as part of a Council on Foreign Relations fellowship. Rice’s membership of the Council on Foreign Relations continues in the tradition of having a CFR member hold the NSA top spot (in recent years Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, and Zbigniew Brzezinski have held the post). In addition to her CFR membership, Dr. Rice is also a member of the Aspen Institute’s Strategy Group. She has served as a Professor and provost at Stanford University and as a fellow of the Hoover Institute.

Speaking about her appointment, Rice said: “George W. Bush will never allow America and our allies to be blackmailed.

And make no mistake; blackmail is what the outlaw states seeking long-range ballistic missiles have in mind. It is time to move beyond the Cold War. It is time to have a president devoted to a new nuclear strategy and to the deployment of effective missile defenses at the earliest possible date.”

Donald Rumsfeld: Secretary of Defense

Rumsfeld served as Secretary of Defense in the Ford administration (26 years ago). He recently chaired two high-profile study commissions on ballistic missile defense and the security of space-based infrastructure. The commissions concluded that “rogue” nations could threaten the United States with ballistic missiles sooner than analysts had predicted. The commission’s report is now one of the most influential documents in modern American military planning. It led the Clinton administration to propose its own limited version of a national missile defense system.

Rumsfeld is former Republican congressman, and is a former ambassador to NATO from 1973 to 1974. He completes a national security team (including the Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Powell) that shares the dream of continuing with President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” program.

During the Reagan Administration, (which cut funding to education, health, income security and overseas aid programmes to make way for defence), Rumsfeld served as an adviser to the US Departments of State and Defense and as a member of the President’s General Advisory Committee on Arms Control.

Rumsfeld served as Chairman and chief executive officer at General Instrument Corporation, from 1990 to 1993. He was chief executive officer, president, and later chairman of G.D. Searle & Company, from 1977 to 1985.

Paul O’Neill: Secretary of Treasury

Another Ford administration veteran, O’Neill worked in the Office of Management and Budget from 1967 to 1977, rising to deputy director. He was a multimillionaire shareholder and CEO from 1987 to 1998 and Chairperson of Alcoa Inc. from 1987 to 2001. Most recently, he was chairman of the RAND Corporation, the Los Angeles-based think tank and front for the CIA. He is also a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. O’Neill built his business reputation at Alcoa by focusing on core business and engaging in ruthless cost cutting. From 1977 to 1978, O’Neill was involved with International Paper Company, eventually rising to president. Although O’Neill is a long time friend of Federal Reserve head Alan Greenspan, it is believed that he does not have sufficient knowledge to challenge Greenspan’s judgement if necessary. Other candidates for Secretary of Treasury were Walter V. Shipley, former chairman of Chase Manhattan Corporation; Donald B. Marron, chairman of the Paine Webber Group; and John M. Hennessy, former chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston. O’Neill, an old colleague of Dick Cheney’s, was apparently the pick of the crop.

Robert Zoellick: United States Trade Representative

Zoellick worked on the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) at the Treasury Department under President Reagan, and on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) at the State Department during the previous Bush administration. Zoellick is a past president of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the influential think tank which sets the agenda for US government policy areas such as energy, the global information infrastructure, and trade relations.

In a gushy report about Zoellick, Australia’s national daily newspaper, The Australian, praised him as “an almost ludicrous over-achiever” and the “man many believe to be the brainiest, [and] intellectually the most formidable in the new administration of President George W. Bush.” The Australian named Zoellick as the likely successor to Colin Powell. Zoellick is a founding member of the Australian-American Leadership dialogue, and last year was granted a private audience with Prime Minister John Howard. Zoellick’s recent article in the CFR publication Foreign Affairs advocated a US free trade agreement linking Latin America and the Asia Pacific region.

Donald Evans: Secretary of Commerce

Evans has been a life-long friend of George W. Bush and his appointment as Secretary of Commerce is seen as reward for his involvement in Bush’s election campaign. Evans worked for Tom Brown Inc., an independent energy company engaged in the domestic exploration, development, marketing and production of natural gas and crude oil, from 1975 to 2001, rising from an oil rig crew man to president, chairman and chief executive officer.

Norman Mineta: Secretary, Department of Transportation

Mineta was senior vice president for transportation systems and services at Lockheed Martin Corporation from 1995 to 2000. He was a member of the US House of Representatives, from 1974 to 1995, and spent 20 years on the Transportation Committee, including two years as committee chairman. He was mayor of San Jose, California from 1971 to 1974 and a San Jose city councilman from 1967 to 1971.

Richard B. Cheney: Vice President of the USA

The Vice President of the United States, known affectionately as “Dick”, is a career businessman and public servant. He has served three Presidents. His career in public service began in 1969 when he joined the Nixon Administration, serving in a number of positions at the Cost of Living Council, at the Office of Economic Opportunity, and within the White House. When Gerald Ford assumed the Presidency in August 1974, Cheney served on the transition team and later as Deputy Assistant to the President. In November 1975 he was named Assistant to the President and White House Chief of Staff, a position he held throughout the remainder of the Ford Administration.

As Secretary of Defense from March 1989 to January 1993, Cheney directed two of the largest military campaigns in recent history - Operation Just Cause in Panama and Operation Desert Storm in the Middle East.

After he left the Pentagon, Cheney became CEO of Halliburton in 1995. Halliburton is a Texas construction and engineering company that services oil companies and the US military.

He cashed in on his official contacts within the government, military, the oil industry and Middle East governments. Almost overnight, Halliburton, a middle-sized business, swelled its coffers to $15 billion in annual sales with contracts in 120 countries. Today Halliburton employs 100,000 people in 20 countries.

Although he flirted with the idea of running for president in 1996, Cheney opted instead to remain at Halliburton - where he become around $50 million richer - until he was selected as George W. Bush’s running mate.

John Ashcroft: Attorney General

Ashcroft is a strong anti-abortion campaigner with a rigidly conservative and dogmatic outlook, who has expressed opposition to the National Endowment for the Arts. Ashcroft has earned the enmity of pro-choice women’s groups, conservation organizations, civil libertarians and Missouri’s black community. Ashcroft has been described as Bush’s gift to the right wing. Ashcroft, 58, was narrowly defeated for re-election as a Republican to the Senate in 2000. He is a staunch proponent of the death penalty. (Note: He also won the election in Missouri against a dead man).

Tommy Thompson: Secretary, Health and Human Services

Thompson’s views on Medicaid, the public health insurance program for the poor and disabled, reflect his conservative thinking. He signed legislation that requires Wisconsin women seeking an abortion to first obtain counselling on alternatives, then wait three days for the procedure - if they still want it. He has been one of the main proponents of converting Medicaid to a system of block grants to states. The idea won Republican support in Congress in 1995 but ultimately failed, proving so contentious that it contributed to the shutdown of the federal government.

Thompson, who was elected governor of Wisconsin in 1986, succeeded in slashing the number of people in the state receiving welfare by 92%. Wisconsin under Thompson also set the pace in diverting public education funds to private and religious schools by way of vouchers.

Gale Norton: Interior Secretary

Gale Norton is a protégé of James Watt, President Reagan’s controversial Interior secretary from 1981 to 1983. She also served in the Reagan administration in the Agriculture Department and then in the Interior Department where she helped advocate for the administration’s position on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As Colorado Attorney General, Norton was instrumental in creating the state’s “self audit” program, which gives businesses immunity from litigation and fines if they voluntarily report and correct violations of environmental laws.

Spencer Abraham: Energy Secretary

Abraham was recently defeated as junior senator from Michigan, but during his brief career on Capitol Hill, he managed to introduce a bill to abolish the very department he has now been asked to run. He does not appear to have in depth knowledge about the need for an energy efficient economy. He fully supports Bush’s plans to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. Abraham served as deputy chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle from 1990 to 1992.

He was a founder of the right-wing Federalist Society. Its goal is to politically dominate the legal profession, especially at the level of the judiciary. It stands for eliminating welfare, halting affirmative action and discontinuing bilingual education. Its most prominent members are Supreme Court judges Scalia and Clarence Thomas, whose votes were crucial in delivering the ruling that put George Bush Jr. in the White House with a minority of popular votes.

Ann Veneman: Secretary, Department of Agriculture

Veneman served as Secretary of California Department of Food and Agriculture from 1995 to 1999, rising to the position of deputy secretary. She has extensive experience in law and trade issues, including negotiations on the Uruguay Round that created the World Trade Organisation (WTO), on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and on the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement.

Elaine Chao: Secretary of Labor

Chao, the wife of Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, is a former director of the Peace Corps and from 1996 to 2001 was a fellow at the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation. Chao was president and chief executive officer of United Way of America from 1992-1996. She is a former vice-president of Bank of America Capital Markets Group.

Joe Allbaugh: Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency

Allbaugh, 48, previously served as chief of staff to then-Governor Bush (1995-1999) and as campaign manager for President Bush’s first gubernatorial campaign (1994). Before coming to Texas, he was the deputy secretary of transport for the State of Oklahoma.

George J. Tenet, Director, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Bush asked George Tenet, the current director of central intelligence, “to stay on the job for what will amount to an undetermined period of time.” Tenet is the first CIA director in 28 years to remain in office after the White House switched occupants.

Tenet was sworn in as Director of Central Intelligence on July 11, 1997, following a unanimous vote by both the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the full Senate. In his position he heads the Intelligence Community (all foreign intelligence agencies of the United States) as well as directing the Central Intelligence Agency.

The First Lady Laura Welch Bush

A teacher librarian, her primary interest is education. When Bush was Governor of Texas, Laura Bush launched an early childhood development programme that was a collaborative effort with the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.

President George W. Bush, the scheming businessman who used his father’s oil connections and political position to make his fortune, now takes charge of arguably the most important duty in the world - control of the nuclear button (actually a switch which is flicked). Surrounding him are advisors that harbour fundamentalist Christian values; hawkish secretaries committed to the militarisation of space; the captains of corporate capitalism and slick oil men. The right wing kooks and military spooks are in control at the White House and the Pentagon. It would make a good plot for Armageddon II.

The print version of this article contains two side pieces, ‘Bush Appoints CFR Members’ and ‘Another Skull & Bones President’.

Susan Bryce is an Australian journalist and publisher of the Australian Freedom & Survival Guide. Her interests include global politics, the new economy and the technologies of political control.
The Australian Freedom & Survival Guide, a newsletter that airs the dirty laundry on the international surveillance regime, Transnational Corporations, Genetic Engineering, the New World Order, Defence & Military, WTO, IMF, World Bank, Globalisation.
6 issues per year $45.00. Sample issue $7.50.

Web site: http://www.squirrel.com.au/~sbryce.

Send cheque or money order payable to:
S. Bryce
PO Box 66
Kenilworth, Qld 4574, Australia
Email: sbryce@squirrel.com.au

WNOL - Editor's Note
Below are two articles that have appeared on other pages within our publication that we felt were important enough to include here as well in the event that you missed them. After reading them you will understand why we chose to place them amongst these others. -Ed

Unconstitutional Government
By: Charley Reese

By the time you read this, the Senate will no doubt have passed "fast track" legislation, forfeiting its right under the Constitution to set trade policy to the executive branch. This ought to be of grave concern to Americans.

It is the Constitution that sets us apart from other nations, not the fact that we have elections. If it is routinely violated, then we become no different from any other country. Our lives and our liberty will then exist, in reality, only by the leave of the government ó not as the Founding Fathers believed and intended, because we have these constitutional rights no government on Earth can legitimately take them away from us.

A keystone of that Constitution, designed to ensure the liberty of the people, was the principle of separation of powers. The Constitution denies the president the power to set trade policy; it denies the president the power to commit this nation to war; and it denies to all but Congress the power to coin money and set its value.

But what is the reality? Despite the many wars this country has fought, there hasn't been a declaration of war by Congress since 1941. The power to set trade policy is handed over to the president with fast-track legislation. The power to coin money and set its value has been delegated to a private central bank, deliberately mislabeled as the Federal Reserve System. The American people have, in reality, been betrayed by the people they elected, who have in turn betrayed their oath of office ó which is to the Constitution, not to the party or the president.

What fast track does is authorize the executive branch to negotiate a multi-thousand-page document of special-interest trade deals that Congress must then vote "yes" or "no" on without alteration or amendment. It parades under the false banner of free trade, which is a code name for corporate colonialism.

True free-trade legislation could be written on one page. It would simply say that tariffs are designed to produce revenue and therefore the tariff on all imports is such and such a percentage. What these 20,000-page so-called free-trade documents contain are myriad special trade deals negotiated in secret for special-interest groups, inevitably at the expense of those with less political and monetary clout. It is managed trade, not free trade, and it has already destroyed hundreds of thousands of American jobs. If this practice is allowed to continue, America will end up with a rich aristocracy, a large class of urban peasants working for subsistence, and a middle class so small as to be virtually invisible.

Surely you are not so naive to believe that a pair of what were once called sneakers made for $5 in Thailand are sold to American kids for $20 or $25. No, they are sold to American kids for $100 or more. Thus, American corporations, which move their manufacturing jobs overseas, both exploit the foreign workers and gouge the American consumer. Americans are paying $30 to $50 a pair for bluejeans, which cost the manufacturer about $3 a pair in some foreign sweatshop. This is the true meaning of what is falsely labeled "free trade."

Manufacturing jobs are what allowed this country to transition from an agrarian society to an industrialized society. More important, it was manufacturing jobs that allowed men to transition from the bottom economic class to the middle class.

Middle-class status in most cases allowed people to help their children go to college and thus attain an even higher economic class. Thus, there was a flow from the bottom up.

If we allow greedy corporations to destroy all of these blue-collar jobs, that flow will be cut off. There will be no way for a man to get from common laborer to the middle class, and thus no way for him to get his children into colleges and universities.

The fact that all presidents ó be they Republican or Democrat, supposed liberals or supposed conservatives ó adopt identical policies in this regard tell you that real governing power in America is not the people, but the corporations and the super-rich.

King George Creating East-Block Amerika
By: Chuck Baldwin
NewsWithViews.com

It should be obvious to everyone by now that, wittingly or not, George W. Bush is in the process of creating a communist-style form of government in the United States. As details emerge regarding his new Department of Homeland Security, we discover that Bush and his band of belligerent brothers have begun the process of turning the federal government into a gargantuan police state not seen since Hitler's Third Reich and Stalin's Soviet Union.

According to press reports, Bush plans to do the following:

1. Merge 22 federal police and emergency agencies into his new Department of Homeland Security. (Say hello to the new SS Corps.)

2. Create standardized biometric travel documents ("Show me your papers or your iris. Sieg Heil.")

3. Develop "screening tools to predict human behavior, such as 'hostile intent.'" (Hello Dept. of Pre-Crimes.)

4. Allow federal police to search and seize at will. (Goodbye 4th Amendment.)

5. Allow federal police to incarcerate and indefinitely hold suspects without arrest or warrant and with no legal recourse by the person seized. (Goodbye 5th Amendment. Hello Gestapo.)

6. Implement a national driver's license. (Hello National ID.)

7. Allow the U.S. military to conduct lethal operations on U.S. soil. (Goodbye Posse Comitatus.)

8. Allow the President to unilaterally procure taxpayer dollars without the consent of Congress. (Goodbye U.S. Constitution.)

9. Allow the federal government to act in secret. (Hello East German Secret Police, Stasi. Goodbye Freedom of Information Act.)

10. Create a "Domestic Informant" program whereby millions of Americans are authorized to spy on their fellow citizens on behalf of the federal government. (Hello Communist Amerika.)

According to the Sydney Morning Herald and other news outlets, Bush plans to enlist 1 in 24 Americans into a new citizen-spy department. This number dwarfs the number of citizen spies used by former East-Bloc countries.

The Justice Department launched a pilot program, August 2002, in 10 cities using 1 million informants. The SMH rightly stated, "Historically, informant systems have been the tools of non- democratic states." It would seem that a "non-democratic" state is exactly what Bush is creating.

In Nazi Germany, churches, pastors, and conservatives assisted the creation of tyrannical government. That is exactly what is happening right now in the United States. What we thought we needed to fear from liberals, we find being championed by conservatives.

Right now, George Bush and his fellow travelers compose the greatest threat to freedom and constitutional government that exists. Instead of fighting terrorism, they are actually destroying the very principles of liberty that they claim to be protecting.

America survived the attacks on September 11. It may not survive the Bush administration.

Vote To Impeach
Constitution of the United States
Article II, Section 4

The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John D. Ashcroft have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States.

They have:

1. Seized power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; planned massive military assaults on Iraq, a country that is not threatening the United States; planned a "shock and awe" strategy to create a Hiroshima-type effect on the Iraqi population which is terrorizing and outraging the people of the world.

2. Ordered and directed the violent overthrow of sovereign states, disappearances, kidnappings, assassinations, summary executions, murders and torture. "More than 3000 suspected terrorists have been arrested (by the U.S.) in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way. They are no longer a problem..." [G.W. Bush, State of the Union message, February 4, 2003.]

3. Threatened to wage first strike nuclear war against even non-nuclear countries, setting off a new arms race as non-nuclear nations now seek to develop nuclear arms to deter U.S. aggression or the loss of their sovereignty.

4. Trashed the Bill of Rights and fundamental freedoms of the American people and others everywhere by acting to strip U.S. citizens of their constitutional and human rights; ordering indefinite detentions of citizens and noncitizens; ordering unlawful arrests, raids, and interrogations; institutionalizing racial profiling and authorizing domestic spying on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activities.

Articles of impeachment drafted by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

TAKE BACK THE CONSTITUTION
Join the movement of deeply concerned people all across the U.S. who are voting to impeach. See www.VoteToImpeach.org or cast your vote here. Save our freedoms threatened by an Imperial Presidency! Prevent a U.S. War of Aggression!

Government runs $133.6 billion deficit!
Washington (AP)
April 19, 2002

- -Brief- -

The government is running a deficit of $133.6 billion for the first half of the budget year, more than five times the shortfall for the same period a year ago.
For the first six months of fiscal 2002, which started Oct. 1, 2001, government spending totaled $1.01 trillion, a 7 percent increase over the same period last year. Total revenues this budget year so far are $878.9 billion, a 4.6 percent drop from the cooresponding period a year ago. In the first half of the 2001 budget year, the government resorded a $24.8 billion deficit.
Budget experts believe annual budget defifits are likely for the next two years.
The Bush administration has blamed the return of deficits on a resession that began last March, and the costs of waging war in Afghanistan and battling terrorism at home. But Democrats said it was the 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut that Bush pushed through Congress in the spring for the budget's likely return to red ink.

House votes to make tax cuts permanent.
Pounding away at political themes for the fall elections, Republicans on Thursday pushed through the House a bill they said would bolster the economy and restore taxpayer certainty by making last year's huge tax cut permanent.

Bordering on Insanity
by William F. Jasper
Article: The New American

Bush Republicans and Clinton Democrats are united in supporting immigration policies giving thugs and terrorists easy access into America.

Rookie police officer Tony Zeppetella was making a routine traffic stop in Oceanside, California, on June 13th. According to court reports, Officer Zeppetella was walking back toward his patrol car when the driver of the vehicle he had stopped opened fire on him. The driver, Adrian George Camacho, reportedly then got out of the car and continued to shoot at the wounded officer. Camacho approached the downed policeman, pistol-whipped him, then executed Zeppetella with the officer’s own handgun.

Officer Zeppetella, age 27, had served on the Oceanside Police Department just 13 months before being murdered. He had previously served six years in the U.S. Navy. He leaves behind a wife and a six-month-old son.

Adrian George Camacho, the accused murderer, is a Mexican national who has been repeatedly deported and has a long arrest and prison history. He was 16 when he was charged with attempted murder in a 1991 drive-by gang shooting. He was released from prison last year after serving time for drug offenses. After murdering Zeppetella, Camacho stole the officer’s gun and patrol car and fled to the home of relatives in nearby Via Isidro. He was arrested at the home a few hours later and charged with heroin possession, in addition to first-degree murder.

A few months earlier in Las Vegas, Nevada, a similarly routine traffic stop also ended tragically. Rookie police officer Enrique Hernandez stopped Saul Morales-Garcia on the evening of December 12th. Morales-Garcia, a 24-year-old illegal