Toben gives Holocaust denial apology in court

DR Fredrick Toben this week gave an apology in the Federal Court of Australia for being in contempt of court by continually featuring Holocaust denial material on his Adelaide Institute website.

He gave the apology during a contempt hearing of the Federal Court sitting in Adelaide on Tuesday.

After being called up to the bar by Justice Michael Moore to apologise if he agreed with it, Dr Toben began to give a qualified apology.

When Justice Moore said that his comments were inconsistent with an apology, Dr Toben gave a full apology, without embellishment and undertook to remove all Holocaust denial material from the website by 4pm on December 5 and not to replace it.

Solicitor Steven Lewis of legal firm Slater & Gordon said after the hearing: “It’s a significant victory for the community. The ECAJ was vindicated in their actions and has forced him to acknowledge his contempt of court and remove the offending material.” More...

“Thousands” Illegally Rendered By Bush Administration for Interrogation, Torture

In violation of international and U.S. law, “thousands” of alleged terrorists have been victims of “extraordinary rendition” by the Bush Administration since 9/11, two legal scholars say. “Instead of working to bring those committing crimes against the United States to justice in U.S. courts, the Bush Administration seems intent on doing exactly the opposite---keeping such individuals away from U.S. courts, hidden in a web of secret prisons, underground interrogation cells, and in the hands of cooperative governments,” write Margaret Satterthwaite and Angela Fisher. Satterthwaite is an assistant professor of clinical law at NYU School of Law and Fisher served as assistant research scholar with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.

“Extraordinary renditions, whether originating in territories under U.S. control (actual or effective) or merely carried out by U.S. agents, are unlawful and in violation of international treaties to which the United States is a party,” the authors write. “Despite this clear prohibition, the Bush Administration continues to engage in this practice, using it to transfer detainees out of the reach of U.S. courts and into the realm of secret detentions and brutal interrogations.”

“Having altered the procedure from a transfer sanctioned by U.S. courts to a transfer that is extralegal, this Administration completed the transformation of extraordinary rendition from transfer to justice to transfer out of the justice system,” the authorities contend in an article titled “Tortured Logic: Renditions to Justice, Extraordinary Rendition, and Human Rights Law” published in “The Long Term View,” a journal of informed opinion published by the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover(Volume 6, No. 4). More...

Cranking up the holiday booga-booga - Dimona made

Britain faces the serious threat of a "dirty bomb" terror attack, the Home Secretary has warned.

The news comes as police in Slovakia question three people caught trying to sell enriched uranium for possible use in a radiological device.

In an exclusive interview for Sky News on her department's efforts to counter the terrorist threat, Jacqui Smith said intelligence analysts believed the number of plots was likely to grow in the months ahead.

"The regular threat assessments I receive make sobering reading," she said.

"What we have seen of course, is that over the last year or so the threat has been growing."

Sha added that Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, had estimated there were 1,600 to 2,000 individuals involved in terrorist plots in the UK.

"I think that the analysis that says this is a threat, a serious level of threat that will be with us over a period of time, is right," Ms Smith added.

"If we look at the trends, it is something that is growing at the moment." More...

The Torture Compromise of 2007

A friend at a dinner party on the East coast found herself in an argument in which she was the only person opposed to torture. The other invitees, all graduates of favored preparatory schools and Ivy League colleges, worked in the law, investment banking, urban planning and the arts. They agreed that President Bush was incompetent and untrustworthy; but his fundamental mistake about torture had been to go after the law. Torture, they said, cannot be a policy, and a law that permits torture cannot be on the books. What is wanted is a leader who will break the law selectively, in a way we can trust. Torture should be allowable, but only by the right people and for the right reason. To a man and woman, the guests who held this view were supporters of Hillary Clinton.

Go back a year. A scholar-adviser of Democratic candidates was addressing a group of journalists shortly before the 2006 election. Confident of a victory, he rattled off the legislative successes that would come soon after the Democratic majority was in place. Prescription drugs, minimum wage. As the discussion wound down, a deferential question came from a liberal editor at the back of the room. "Can we expect the Democrats to repeal the suspension of habeas corpus and the Military Commissions Act?" The answer was (slowly), No. "Of course, we're all against those things, but they can't be a primary concern to a new majority. The laws should be changed. And things will get better; but I wouldn't expect this to be at the top of the Democratic agenda." More...

US Coup Planned for Venezuela?

The New York Times had a news article about Venezuela in Thursday's edition, but it was about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez saying he would cut diplomatic ties with neighboring Colombia. There wasn't a word about a memo from a CIA operative in Caracas to CIA Director General Michael Hayden, uncovered yesterday, outlining a plan for interfering with a Venezuelan referendum set for Dec. 2, and laying out the steps for instigating and backing a coup.

The plot, called "Operation Pliers," and laid out in the letter to Hayden by an undercover operative named Michael Steele, who reportedly works in the US Embassy as a "regional affairs officer," was intercepted by Venezuelan intelligence and released publicly on state TV yesterday.

In the Nov. 20-dated letter, Steele refers to an $8 million US-funded in-country propaganda campaign against Chavez and the referendum, already being implemented, which is designed to institutionalize many of Chavez's socialist reforms and to permit him to continue to run for president beyond his current two-term limit. He proposes trying to stall the referendum, which pro-Chavez forces are expected to win handily, and failing that, to then promote a campaign to refuse to accept the results. Steele further confirms that the agency is working with international news agencies in an effort to distort reports about the referendum and the reforms. (CNN had to apologize for a "mistake" which led to the words "Who killed him?" superimposed over a photo of Chavez broadcast on CNN's Spanish-language international broadcast in Venezuela. Was this a deliberate CIA-inspired black-op?) Counterpunch

Blowback From Moscow

Our next president will likely face a Russia led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, determined to stand up to a West that Russians believe played them for fools when they sought to be friends.

Americans who think Putin has never been anything but a KGB thug will reject accusations of any U.S. role in causing the ruination of relations between us.

Yet the hubris of Bill Clinton and George Bush I, and the Russophobia of those they brought with them into power, has been a primary cause of the ruptured relationship. And the folly of what they did is evident today, as Putin's party, United Russia, rolls to triumph on a torrent of abuse and invective against the West.

Entering the campaign's final week, Putin, addressing a rally of 5,000, ripped the Other Russia coalition led by chess champion Gary Kasparov as poodles of the United States, "who sponge off foreign embassies ... and who count on the support of foreign resources and governments, and not of their own people." Lew Rockwell.com

China says ties with US damaged, amid naval row

US actions over Tibet and Taiwan have damaged relations between China and the United States, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said Thursday amid a row over US naval calls to Hong Kong.

"Recently, due to the erroneous practices of the US, relations have been disturbed and harmed," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said.

Liu cited a US congressional medal awarded to the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in October as one of the reasons for the damaged ties. China views the Dalai Lama as a dangerous figure seeking independence for Tibet.

Liu also referred to Washington's recent approval of about three billion dollars' worth of weapon sales to Taiwan. China views Taiwan as part of its territory that must eventually be reunified, by force if necessary. AFP

More Boos At Republican Debate As McCain Re-Writes History

The Republican CNN/YouTube debate looked more like an episode of Jerry Springer than a presidential debate. Senator John McCain was asked a question about taxes and decided to go way off topic and attack Rep. Ron Paul for his stance on Iraq and wanting to bring the troops home.

McCain accused Paul of what he called the same sort of appeasement that allowed Hitler to take power and WWII to happen, and told him he’d just returned from Iraq and said he had a message for Ron from “the troops” — and the audience let him have it. Paul put it right back in his face by reminding him that he has received more donations from active duty military personnel than any other Republican candidate. Oh, did anyone notice Chuck Norris in the audience? This stuff just writes itself…
Crooks and Liars

Report: China targeting all 'enemy space vehicles' including GPS satellites

China’s anti-satellite and space warfare program includes plans to destroy or incapacitate 'every enemy space vehicle' that passes over China.

The annual report of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, released last week, listed among Beijing's goals that of ensuring that Chinese space weapons are “conducted covertly so China can maintain a positive international image.” China has called for a ban on space weapons at the United Nations.

The report said that China also is developing civilian technology that can be applied to military space programs and is acquiring the “ability to destroy or temporarily incapacitate every enemy space vehicle when it is located above China,” the report said.

The Chinese also plan to attack U.S. global positioning system (GPS) satellites through various means, including anti-satellite weapons, high-energy weapons, high-energy weather monitoring rockets and ground attacks on earth-based stations.
One section of the report, based on public and classified briefings, concluded there was a need for more information about Chinese activities and intentions.

Research from nearly 100 Chinese sources identified 30 proposals and recommendations by Chinese military leaders “regarding the development of space and counter-space weapons and programs.”

The military is also developing stealth satellites and a space program that will “provide key support for Chinese combat forces.”

“Some of these proposals appear to have been implemented already, as evidenced by January’s kinetic anti-satellite test and earlier laser incidents involving American satellites,” the report said. World Tribune

China’s Thanksgiving rebuff to USS Kitty Hawk called power play over Taiwan Senior U.S. government officials last week expressed puzzlement at the Chinese government’s last-minute refusal to permit the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk and supporting warships to dock in Hong Kong. But intelligence officials said the move was a power play by the Chinese military, which regards U.S. carriers as the main threat to its plans for Taiwan.

(FULL STORY)

A Chinese Navy destroyer fires a missile during a training exercise in the South China Sea on Nov. 17. AP/Xinhua, Zha Chunming

CIA Operation "Pliers" Uncovered in Venezuela

Last night CNN en Español aired the above image, which captions at the bottom "Who Killed him?" by "accident". The image of President Chavez with the caption about killing him below, which some could say subliminally incites to assassination, was a "production error" mistakenly made in the CNN en Español newsroom. The news anchor had been narrarating a story about the situation between Colombia and Venezuela and then switched to a story about an unsolved homicide but - oops - someone forgot to change the screen image and President Chavez was left with the killing statement below. Today they apologized and admitted it was a rather "unfortunate" and "regrettable" mistake. Yes, it was.

On a scarier note, an internal CIA memorandum has been obtained by Venezuelan counterintelligence from the US Embassy in Caracas that reveals a very sinister - almost fantastical, were it not true - plan to destabilize Venezuela during the coming days. The plan, titled "OPERATION PLIERS" was authored by CIA Officer Michael Middleton Steere and was addressed to CIA Director General Michael Hayden in Washington. Steere is stationed at the US Embassy in Caracas under the guise of a Regional Affairs Officer. The internal memorandum, dated November 20, 2007, references the "Advances of the Final Stage of Operation Pliers", and confirms that the operation is coordinated by the team of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) in Venezuela. The memo summarizes the different scenarios that the CIA has been working on in Venezuela for the upcoming referendum vote on December 2nd. The Electoral Scenario, as it's phrased, confirms that the voting tendencies will not change substantially before Sunday, December 2nd, and that the SI (YES) vote in favor of the constitutional reform has an advantage of about 10-13 points over the NO vote. The CIA estimates abstention around 60% and states in the memo that this voting tendency is irreversible before the elections. More...

Paul on North American Union, CFR

Presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) responds to a question about talk of a North American Union, CRF and Conspiracy. This was the "Grand Slam" answer of the evening!

Bush says US will support Israel if Iran attacks, again

Israel would have US support if it came under attack by Iran, US President George W Bush said Wednesday.

'I hope it doesn't happen,' Bush told CNN. 'You are asking me to answer a hypothetical. My answer is, and they've got to understand that we'll support Israel if Iran attacks them.'

Bush was interviewed by CNN one day after brokering a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians to to resume negotiations on a settlement for the first time in seven years.

The agreement came out of a US-hosted peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland on Tuesday with the participation of more than 40 counties, including 16 Arab states.

Iran was not invited to attend, and has dismissed the conference as illegitimate."

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/arti...

CIA Venezuela Destabilization Memo Surfaces

On November 26, 2007 the Venezuelan government broadcast and circulated a confidential memo from the US embassy to the CIA which is devastatingly revealing of US clandestine operations and which will influence the referendum this Sunday, December 2, 2007.

The memo sent by an embassy official, Michael Middleton Steere, was addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence, Michael Hayden. The memo was entitled 'Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation Pincer' and updates the activity by a CIA unit with the acronym 'HUMINT' (Human Intelligence) which is engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the forth-coming referendum and coordinate the civil military overthrow of the elected Chavez government. The Embassy-CIA's polls concede that 57 per cent of the voters approved of the constitutional amendments proposed by Chavez but also predicted a 60 per cent abstention.

The US operatives emphasized their capacity to recruit former Chavez supporters among the social democrats (PODEMOS) and the former Minister of Defense Baduel, claiming to have reduced the 'yes' vote by 6 per cent from its original margin. Nevertheless the Embassy operatives concede that they have reached their ceiling, recognizing they cannot defeat the amendments via the electoral route.

The memo then recommends that Operation Pincer (OP) [Operación Tenaza] be operationalized. OP involves a two-pronged strategy of impeding the referendum, rejecting the outcome at the same time as calling for a 'no' vote. The run up to the referendum includes running phony polls, attacking electoral officials and running propaganda through the private media accusing the government of fraud and calling for a 'no' vote. Contradictions, the report emphasizes, are of no matter. More...

Guliani : "You're all a bunch of morons"

Its scary to think that this transcould be president or even think he's presidential material.

Newly-Released Documents Show Nixon White House Concerns About Israeli Nukes

President Nixon's top national security adviser worried that Israel might produce nuclear warheads "clandestinely" and that Israel's ambassador to the United States at the time, Yitzhak Rabin — later Israel's prime minister — might "stonewall" the White House in its efforts to ascertain the Israel's true intentions, according to newly declassified documents.

The papers also show the Nixon administration possessed "circumstantial evidence" that Israel built its nuclear arsenal with "some fissionable material...illegally obtained from the United States" at an unspecified time prior to 1965.

The disclosures emerged in some 123,000 pages of Nixon-era documents released by the National Archives on Wednesday, pages that underscored the ambivalence and alarm toward the prospect of a nuclear-armed Israel that prevailed in both the Johnson and Nixon White Houses.

Israel has long maintained a studied vagueness about whether it possesses nuclear weapons, however current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared to remove any doubts about the matter when, during a German television interview last December, he claimed Iran is "aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia."

Although Israel is believed to have possessed a formidable nuclear arsenal since the mid-1970s, Olmert's aides claimed he had merely "listed Israel among the list of responsible nations, and not the list of nations which have nuclear weapons." More..

RON PAUL WENT MISSING AND JESUS PROBABLY WOULD WIND UP IN GUANTANAMO THESE DAYS

I just managed to read the Washington Post's comment about the GOP debate that was distributed via Internet.

I was longing to hear something new from our all hope, Dr.Ron Paul, and how he did make it there.

I couldn't find him!

First I thought he had been excluded from the debate - like it was the case most of the time at the start of GOP's efforts to convince their voters once again every four years how grand and traditional they all would be - and how different they are compared to this other GOP - who call themselves "Democrates".

But - as hope is always the last thing to die - I didn't give up on searching Washington's flagship of presstitutial freedom of information about my favourite choice.

But nothing about Dr.Ron Paul. Already a bit confused I continued towards the second page of those informations from that presstitutial grand paper - and voila! - my Ron Paul detector made some noises, finally --- but rather quietly --- to say it honestly.

The part read as follows:

...Later, McCain and Paul clashed over Iraq and foreign policy, with McCain accusing the congressman of the kind of isolationism that allowed Adolf Hitler to come to power in the 1930s...

Bump!

Holocaust Denial, American Style

Institutionally unwilling to consider America's responsibility for the bloodbath, the traditional media have refused to acknowledge the massive number of Iraqis killed since the invasion.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's flirtation with those who deny the reality of the Nazi genocide has rightly been met with disgust. But another holocaust denial is taking place with little notice: the holocaust in Iraq. The average American believes that 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the US invasion in March 2003. The most commonly cited figure in the media is 70,000. But the actual number of people who have been killed is most likely more than one million.

This is five times more than the estimates of killings in Darfur and even more than the genocide in Rwanda 13 years ago.

The estimate of more than one million violent deaths in Iraq was confirmed again two months ago in a poll by the British polling firm Opinion Research Business, which estimated 1,220,580 violent deaths since the US invasion. This is consistent with the study conducted by doctors and scientists from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health more than a year ago. Their study was published in the Lancet, Britain's leading medical journal. It estimated 601,000 people killed due to violence as of July 2006; but if updated on the basis of deaths since the study, this estimate would also be more than a million. These estimates do not include those who have died because of public health problems created by the war, including breakdowns in sewerage systems and electricity, shortages of medicines, etc.

McCain blames Rise of Hitler on Ron Paul

Not Invading and Occupying other Countries Branded 'Isolationism'

In a new low of despicable looniness, at the Republican debate in St. Petersburg, John McCain equated those Americans who want to stop militarily occupying Iraq with Hitler-enablers. He actually said that, saying that it was 'isolationism' of a sort that allowed Hitler to come to power.

It gives a person a certain amount of faith in one's fellow Americans that McCain was booed by the Republican crowd for this piece of calumny. Comparisons to Hitler should be automatic grounds for a candidate to be disqualified from being president.

But then McCain is the same person who joked about bombing Iran. He thinks that killing all those children from the air would be funny?

McCain also repeated his standard lie that Iraqis would attack the United States if US troops were withdrawn from that country. He contrasted the Vietnamese Communists, who, he said, just wanted to build their workers' utopia in Vietnam once the US left, with Iraqis, who he continues to confuse with Usamah Bin Laden (a Saudi living far from Iraq who never had anything to do with Iraq). More...

Both parties cooperate to keep administration crimes secret

The Bush administration has made widespread use of the so-called state secrets privilege to dismiss lawsuits that seek to challenge its domestic wiretaps and other illegal activities. Now two veteran senators, Arlen Spector (R-PA) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA), are teaming up to craft legislation that would direct judges to evaluate the government's state secrets claims rather than accepting them uncritically.

Keith Olbermann described this proposed legislation with a high degree of skepticism, saying sardonically, "The bill may end up as part of the Senate's wiretapping law, due for a vote next month -- after which the president will sign it and monkeys will fly out of his butt."

He then turned to constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley, asking him why there isn't already such a law, as most Americans would assume there would be. More...

Musharraf steps down as Pakistani army chief

General Pervez Musharraf finally quit as Pakistan army chief on Wednesday, trading the post for a second five-year term as president and fulfilling a promise many Pakistanis doubted he would keep.

He passed the baton of command to his hand-picked successor, General Ashfaq Kayani, at a ceremony at army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, is to be sworn in as civilian president on Thursday, having relinquished his position in the one institution that guaranteed his power.

"The system continues, people come and go, everyone has to go, every good thing comes to an end, everything is mortal," a tearful Musharraf told top brass and government leaders at the change-of-command ceremony. Reuters

Conspiracy Deniers Delight In Their Attempt to Debunk the Obvious

Evidence that the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. are working to merge the three countries into a North American Union has alerted and alarmed many. It has also stimulated some conspiracy deniers. But their denials skip over numerous reasons for concluding that a plot, similar to the one that brought 27 nations under the rule of a European Union, does indeed exist.

Follow this link to the original source: "The Amero Conspiracy"

The Boston Globe's Drake Bennett provided many facts that have led to the conclusion that a conspiracy designed to merge the three nations of North America actually exists. But even though he offered some evidence that it does exist, he confidently told his readers that "there is no such thing" as the plot being pointed to by many. In other words, we should continue to trust our leaders who have nothing but our best interests at heart.

Bennett admits that Messrs. Bush, Martin, and Fox created the Security and Prosperity Partnership in 2005. And yes, Martin and Fox have been succeeded by Calderon and Harper who have continued to meet with Bush in subsequent SPP sessions. He mentions, but refuses to consider, the hugely important significance of the Council on Foreign Relations' publication Building a North American Community that, he notes, seeks "a common North American security perimeter, the development of a biometric North American border pass, and the adoption of a North American tariff." JBS

Rudy or Hillary: Pick Your Poison

In new books writers as disparate as Naomi Wolf and Pat Buchanan conclude that America as we know her is disappearing. Both writers hope, but are not confident, that enough Americans will catch on in time to find the leadership to pull America back from the brink.

If polls are reliable, a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with President Bush and Congress. However, Americans are far short of Wolf and Buchanan's grasp of our peril.

Americans are unable to connect their dissatisfaction with the current political leadership with their choice of new leaders. All polls show that Hillary Clinton is far in the lead for the Democratic presidential nomination and Rudy Giuliani is far in the lead for the Republican nomination These are the only two candidates guaranteed to be worse than Bush/Cheney.

Both Hillary and Rudy are committed to the war. Both refuse to rule out expanding the war to Iran and beyond. Both are totally in the pocket of the Israel Lobby. Indeed, practically every Giuliani advisor is a member of the Lobby. Both defend the police state measures that "protect us from terrorism." And neither gives a hoot for the US Constitution and the civil liberties it guarantees. The Republican Giuliani is likely to overturn the Second Amendment even quicker than the Democrat Hillary. PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Counterpunch

More New Labour Scandals

Gordon Brown was on the rack as never before today as the donor sleaze scandal engulfed him.

He was shaken in the Commons when his honesty was openly challenged by David Cameron.

The Tory leader said there were "questions of integrity" for the Prime Minister and demanded that the police be called in to clean up the affair.

• LibDems tell Brown he has gone from 'Stalin to Mr Bean'
• Labour in disarray as PM aide knew of donations weeks ago
• Cameron taunts Brown in Commons over sleaze scandal
• His No.2 Harriet Harman is left clinging to her job

Gordon Brown was on the rack as never before today as the donor sleaze scandal engulfed him.

He was shaken in the Commons when his honesty was openly challenged by David Cameron.

The Tory leader said there were "questions of integrity" for the Prime Minister and demanded that the police be called in to clean up the affair. More...

Giuliani Used Tax-Payer Funds For Secret Hamptons Trips

As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York's Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

• Read Whole Story

Russia's Lavrov says US missile defence offer 'a step backwards'

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called written US offers aimed at allaying Russia's concerns over planned missile defences in eastern Europe 'a step backwards'.

'We're continuing to examine in detail the written proposals that we finally received, but it's already clear that it's a step backwards compared with declarations from US officials in Moscow at the start of October,' Lavrov said in a statement after talks in Washington with US officials.

'If they understand cooperation as the development of unilateral plans to construct their anti-missile shield in eastern Europe and ask us only to help realise these plans and give them all our information, we understand it otherwise,' he said.

Lavrov met with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday, a month and a half after she visited Moscow with Defence Secretary Robert Gates and made the proposals for US-Russian missile defence cooperation.

The Russian foreign ministry said last week that Moscow had received Washington's missile defence proposals in writing and was studying them.

Lavrov also criticised their 'lack of transparency'.

CNN Is An ACTIVE Participant In Planning War With Iran

CNN Presents: We Were Warned--Iran Goes Nuclear

CNN Presents: We Were Warned - Iran Goes Nuclear examines a potential scenario of the nation's response to an Iran with nuclear weapon capabilities. Participating in the scenario are people with real-life situation task force experience at the highest levels of government:

Former Acting CIA Director John Mclaughlin in the role as National Security Advisor

Former Nixon and Clinton Sr. Staffer David Gergen in the role as White House Chief of Staff

Former Vice-Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joe Ralston, in the role as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

Former EPA Administrator and New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman in the role as Secretary of Treasury

Former CIA Director Jim Woolsey in the role as Secretary of Defense

Former FBI Terrorist Chief Dale Watson in the role as Secretary of Homeland Security

Former CIA Director of Counter Terrorism, John Brennan in the role as Director of National Intelligence

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, U.S. Ambassador to Syria and Undersecretary of State for Near-East affairs, Ed Djrejian as the Secretary of State.

Set in the future, an informant discloses a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program and the U.S. president convenes his National Security Council to review the options and the consequences of potential action and inaction, and develop a recommendation for what to do.

While our hypothetical council debates, CNN's Frank Sesno interviews former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, former arms inspector David Kay, and current Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns for their expert views on the consequences of a nuclear Iran - and the current tensions between the two nations. He asks them what the U.S. should be doing to avert the worst-case scenario.

We Were Warned - Iran Goes Nuclear will premiere on Wednesday, December 12 from 8pm to 10pm, with a replay at midnight to 2am (all times Eastern).

This program is pure propaganda, designed to get us all comfy with the idea of going to war with Iran .... CNN is guilty of conspiracy, IMO.

Pope Benedict: Islamofascist

At least that's what we'll be hearing soon since the Pope is against dropping nukes on toddlers and women and other innocents in Iran. They even think it's okay to speak of Iranians as if they were humans.

And they suggest diplomacy as an alternative to nuclear holocaust. The Pope hates us because we're free.

It's hard to say what will be trotted out when the neoconservatives tire of his constant opposition to the endless war in Iraq and the opposition to the coming war with Iran, but here's a possible list:

1. The Vatican is part of "Old Europe"
2. Benedict was a Hitler Youth as a child
3. Weren't some French people popes once?
4. We heard that Benedict was once a Hitler youth
5. Pius XII was Hitler's Pope
6. All religious extremists think alike (The Hitchens Theorem)
7. Did we mention that the Pope was once a hitler youth?!?

It's certainly been done before:

Lew Rockwell

‘We Support the Troops Who Oppose the War’

Liam Madden from Iraq Veterans Against the War sends the following:

In 1969, the My Lai massacre helped fuel popular opposition to the Vietnam War. U.S. political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. Members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War knew differently.

In January of 1971, over one hundred Vietnam Veterans gathered in Detroit to testify their experiences to America. Their testimony, called the Winter Soldier Investigation, revealed that atrocities were systemic and responsibility laid at the highest levels of government.

The U.S. Government lied to get us into war and continues to conceal the true nature of military occupation.

On the weekend of 13-15 March, 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will assemble history’s largest gathering of US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Iraqi and Afghan survivors. They will provide first hand accounts of their experiences and reveal the truth of occupation. Click here to sign the statement of support. More...

CheneyBush Burned Again: Too Near the Plame

Bush and Cheney being fingered in the Plamegate scandal by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan is not news. More than a year ago, Americans learned about CheneyBush's complicity in the outing of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative -- a treasonous act that put America's national-security at risk -- and about the coverup that followed.

We learned all this partially from good journalistic reporting and partially from Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in his 2005 indictment of Cheney's then-Chief of Staff Scooter Libby for perjury and obstruction, and from Fitzgerald's May 2007 comments about Cheney after Libby's conviction.

No, the news now is that the political situation is far different than it was in 2005. Now, Bush and Cheney are much more politically vulnerable to impeachment and criminal prosecution. Also newsworthy is that the mainstream media this time around, at least currently, is mostly treating all this as a non-story, with barely a follow-up mention of McClellan's bombshell and its implications. And I've seen no story in the corporate media that mentions Bush's granting of clemency to Libby as a possible obstruction of justice by someone who stands to benefit by his aide's continued silence.

If a scandal falls in the forest, and nobody hears it, did it happen?

Taiwan "martial law" flap backfires on president

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's threat of a return to martial law in a row over a referendum has touched off a media storm, forcing his party into damage control on Tuesday by invoking political rival China.

The flap, involving a proposal to hold a referendum on the opposition's "inappropriately obtained assets" in January on the same day as a legislative election, looked likely to tarnish Chen's image, already suffering from graft allegations against members of his family and former office aides.

Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) takes satisfaction in having pressured the then-ruling Nationalist Party (KMT) to end decades of martial law in 1987, heralding the island's move to full democracy.

It also prides itself on putting space between Taiwan and China, which has claimed sovereignty over the self-ruled island since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Raising the "China threat" is an oft-used DPP electoral tactic.

"It's a big blunder for him," said Shane Lee, a political science professor at Taiwan's Chang Jung University. "The president talked too fast."

Chen said on Sunday he would "consider" martial law to impose the referendum in which Taiwan residents would be asked if the state should seize the KMT's "ill-gotten" assets.

On Monday, he denied any detention to declare martial law. And then on Tuesday, Chen's party said he would declare martial law only in the event of a military strike by China. Reuters

Jewish Media Group, S.I.T.E. to release another "aL-Qaeda" tape

If you'll recall, the last video tape released by Rita Katz and S.I.T.E. showed a pale imitation of BL that curiously enough, stopped moving his lips several minutes into the airing, while continuing on with a message, not unlike watching a bad Japanese movie with an English dubbed soundtrack.

Rita Katz and her staff of ONE at her Search for International Terrorists Entities (S.I.T.E.) announced on Monday, 11/26 to have knowledge of another Bin Laden message forthcoming, according to the Middle East Times

One has to wonder what incarnation of Bin Laden Rita Katz and S.I.T.E. will dream up this time. Will BL still have his beard dyed? What version of BL will Rita Katz show to the public or will S.I.T.E. only release an audio tape?

The last release from "Bin Laden", courtesy of S.I.T.E., was around 9/11/07. About the same time the war criminals at large in the Bush/Cheney administration were trying to get more tax dollars for their SURGE plan. One has to wonder what current events the Bush White House and its media arm known as S.I.T.E. are trying to distract the public from this time?

Their good buddy in the Senate, Trent Lott, resigning suddenly? Or the crashing to the ground economy? Or the recent revelations about more Bush lies from the former WH Press Secretary, Scott McClellan?

Most likely, this latest BL tape from Rita Katz and S.I.T.E. is timed to influence or even disrupt the so-called "Summit" of ME nations at Annapolis. And will provide kindling for the next ME fire Bush and Cheney are wanting to start, this time in Iran.

Since Rita Katz and her staff of ONE at S.I.T.E., Josh Devon, do such a bang-up job of gathering intelligence that the combined spy agencies of the U.S. can't seem to do, even with their plus $50 BILLION dollars budget, we should just fire the CIA and NSA and let Rita Katz and S.I.T.E. take over intelligence gathering operations.

P.S. Try googling "As-Sahab" and see if you can find this site on the web. I can't. An interesting side note is that when you do goggle As-Sahab, you'll notice that there are only 91,700 hits???

That doesn't seem like many hits for a so-called world wide conspiracy that has followers with possible numbers in the millions. Link

Afghanistan MPs in mass walk-out

Afghanistan's Speaker has led a walk-out of parliament, followed by nearly half the country's deputies.

Yunus Qanuni left the assembly because he said the government of President Hamid Karzai was ignoring parliament.

Many MPs want senior officials in Baghlan province to be suspended after a bombing there earlier this month.

Nearly 80 people were killed in the attack, including six MPs and about 60 children. The government has said it is still investigating the bombing.

Correspondents say much is still unclear about the bombing in Baghlan.

Some reports say many of the victims died from gunshot wounds and appear to have been shot by the MPs' bodyguards. More...

If Bush Attacks Iran, He Won't Get My Taxes

I will not pay my income tax if Bush and Cheney go to war with Iran.

I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran. I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture. But an attack on Iran -- which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election -- will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions. This war, and especially Iranian retaliatory strikes on American targets, will be used to silence domestic dissent and abolish what is left of our civil liberties. It will solidify the slow-motion coup d'état that has been under way since the 9/11 attacks. It could mean the death of the Republic.

Let us hope sanity prevails. But sanity is a rare commodity in a White House that has twisted Trotsky's concept of permanent revolution into a policy of permanent war with nefarious aims -- to intimidate and destroy all those classified as foreign opponents, to create permanent instability and fear and to strip citizens of their constitutional rights.

A war with Iran is doomed. It will be no more successful than the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon in 2006, which failed to break Hezbollah and united most Lebanese behind that militant group. The Israeli bombing did not pacify 4 million Lebanese. What will happen when we begin to pound a country of 65 million people whose land mass is three times the size of France? More...

Sarkozy was ex-Mossad secret agent

A report reveals that French President Nicolas Sarkozy worked for Israeli intelligence for a long time before he was elected president.

French daily Le Figaro has revealed the French leader once worked for the Zionist regime as a sayan, Hebrew for 'collaborator'.

Ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky says sayans, who perform many roles, are Jewish citizens of other nationalities assisting Mossad.

Le Figaro claimed that French police officials managed to keep secret a letter, which exposed Sarkozy's past participation in espionage activities for Mossad.

The letter fixed Sarkozy's alleged spying activities as far back as 1983.

In the immediate aftermath of Le Figaro's exposé, the Zionist regime's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was on a state visit to France to discuss Iran's nuclear program, which raised more questions about the report.

Analysts believe since Sarkozy took office in May, he has taken every opportunity to pledge his allegiance to the United States and the Zionist regime.

""Sarko the Sayan"" has also followed in the footsteps of the White House by choosing a hostile approach toward Iran and its peaceful nuclear activities

(Source: Press TV)

Alert - S 1959 Eviscerates Free Speech

THIS IS AN URGENT ACTION ALERT

S 1959 "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" must be stopped at all costs.

Pick up your phone today and contact your US Senator's office to instruct them to vote "NO" on S.1959.

Click here for your Senators contact info:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Full PDF text if the bill: http://tinyurl.com/3a3y2z

If this bill is passed, and becomes law, your words and actions could be considered terrorism. S 1959 EVISCERATES FREE SPEECH, and empowers the government to declare ANYTHING they deem an "extremist belief system" to instantly make you a 'terrorist' and resulting in stripping of US citizenship, torture, and/or execution, with no habeas corpus rights, no ability to challenge even in the US Supreme Court.

Contact your Senator and let them know they will be looking for another job if they vote yes on this bill, which is now introduced into the Senate as S.1959 THIS BILL **MUST NOT** BECOME LAW, PERIOD.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1955
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1959

If this becomes law, your words could be considered "promoting an extremist belief system", and all they have to say is that you are using PLANNED OR THREATENED *FORCE* (DOES NOT HAVE TO BE VIOLENCE) -- FORCE by exposing CORRUPTION, CRIMINALITY against "THE CIVILIAN POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES, *****OR ANY SEGMENT THEREOF" READ THE BILL MANY TIMES AND VERY CAREFULLY--YOU ARE THE TERRORIST (WHICH MEANS THEY CAN STRIP YOUR CITIZENSHIP, AND HAVE YOU TORTURED AND EXECUTED).

Senate is back in session today, do not hesitate, call, fax, email your Senator ASAP.

Click here for your Senators contact info:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Related:

HATE LAW FOLLIES

US defense chief urges greater use of 'soft power'

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Monday for a dramatic increase in spending on civilian efforts to project US "soft power" globally through diplomacy, foreign aid and public relations.

"We must focus our energies beyond the guns and steel of the military, beyond just our brave soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen," Gates said in a speech at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.

Gates said greater civilian participation was needed for the success of military operations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan but also to head off problems before they turn into conflicts.

He said the 36 billion dollars a year the United States budgets for foreign policy programs is "disproportionately small" when compared to a military budget that is now close to a trillion dollars a year. AFP

Putin accuses U.S. of meddling in Russia vote

President Vladimir Putin accused Washington on Monday of plotting to undermine December parliamentary elections seen widely as a demonstration of his enduring power in Russia.

Putin, drawing on resurgent nationalist sentiment ahead of Sunday's poll, also said Russia must maintain its defences to discourage others from "poking their snotty noses" in its affairs.

Europe, however, joined the United States in voicing concern over a weekend police crackdown on protests by an opposition that says it has been banished from the airwaves and from the streets by an overbearing Kremlin.

Putin, who must step down as president early next year, said he saw Washington's hand in a decision by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's ODIHR monitoring arm to abandon plans to observe the poll.

"We have information that, once again, this was done on the recommendation of the U.S. State Department," Putin said at a meeting with activists of his United Russia party.

"Their aim is to deprive the elections of legitimacy, that is absolutely clear," he said in his home city of St Petersburg. ODIHR has said Russian obstruction left it with no choice but to cancel the monitoring mission. Reuters

British MPs warn against dividing Europe over U.S. missile shield

A British parliamentary committee conceded that Russia's opposition to U.S. missile shield plans in Europe will be difficult to overcome, and called for greater international cooperation on the issue.

U.S. plans to deploy missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic have become the most controversial issue in relations between Russia and the United States, bringing them to their lowest point since the Cold War.

In a report released on the weekend, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee said: "We conclude that Russian opposition to U.S. ballistic missile defence (BMD) plans in Central Europe largely reflects Moscow's sensitivity about the presence of NATO infrastructure in its former satellite states. As such, Russian opposition will be hard to overcome."

The United States is planning to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic as part of its European missile shield, to avert possible strikes from "rogue states," such as Iran and North Korea. Russia has objected, citing concerns over its national security. RIA Novosti

Just a Friendly Reminder… Hillary Clinton is a Warmonger

Hillary Clinton is no lady: Bad Mouth Woman!

Napolitano: A Nation Of Sheep

Judge Andrew Napolitano Warns American Sheeple

Darfur rebels tell China peacekeepers to go home

KHARTOUM (AFP) - Darfur rebels on Sunday said freshly deployed Chinese peacekeepers were not welcome and as Khartoum's "allies" in Sudan's war-ravaged western region threatened they were not immune from attack.

China, the biggest buyer of Sudan's oil and which sells the country weapons, has been accused of shielding Khartoum -- blamed for fanning the violence in Darfur -- from international sanctions.

"Our position is clear, the Chinese are not here for peace and they must leave immediately," Justice and Equality Movement commander Abdel Aziz el-Nur Asher told AFP by telephone one day after Chinese engineers arrived in Darfur.

"Otherwise, we will consider the Chinese soldiers as part of the government forces and we will act accordingly," said Asher, who is also a brother of JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim. More...

The President We Were Warned About

George W. Bush is the imperial president that James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about. He lied the nation into precisely the "foreign entanglements" that George Washington feared would destroy our experiment in representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas Jefferson as to the deprivation of the inalienable rights of free citizens. But most important, he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers that James Madison enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

With the "war on terror," Bush has asserted the right of the president to wage war anywhere and for any length of time, at his whim, because the "terrorists" will always provide a convenient shadowy target. That's just the "continual warfare" that Madison warned of in justifying the primary role of Congress in initiating and continuing to finance a war — the very issue now at stake in Bush's battle with Congress.

In his "Political Observations," written years before he had served as fourth president of the United States, Madison went on to underscore the dangers of an imperial presidency bloated by war fever.

"In war," Madison wrote in 1795, at a time when the young republic still faced its share of dangerous enemies, "the discretionary power of the executive is extended ... and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people." More...

State of human rights in US 'appalling'

Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak slams America's 'violations of human rights,' Israeli justice minister's attempt to limit High Court's powers

Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak slammed the state of human rights in the United States Saturday, calling it 'appalling' and saying the Israeli High Court is doing a far better job of upholding rights laws.

Speaking at a forum on law at the Natanya College Barak said: "The Americans were caught with their pants down after 9/11... They are committing unspeakable acts and that kind of human rights violations could cost them dearly.

"Our High Court is ready to defend human rights in times of war as well as in times of peace."

Speaking of Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann attempts to reform the High Court's powers, Barak said "there is no democracy without the segregation of authorities; there is no democracy without the judicial authority and no democracy without human rights.

"I was horrified when the government impertinently asked Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish where exactly it was written that it was she who held power over all the courts… in that moment, the line between the judicial authority and the executive authority was crossed," said Barak.

Evidence on Iran doesn't seem to matter

Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli defense minister, is not a fan of Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. In fact, he wants him fired. "The policies followed by ElBaradei endanger world peace. His irresponsible attitude of sticking his head in the sand over Iran's nuclear program should lead to his impeachment," Mofaz said during a visit to Washington in early November.

Mofaz was getting his retaliation in first. As he foresaw, the IAEA director's report on Iran's uranium-enrichment program, released Nov. 14, said Tehran was years away from an ability to make nuclear weapons.

Not only that, ElBaradei said Iran is complying with a work plan agreed with the IAEA last August to clear up the remaining questions about a project that the Iranians insist was only ever about making fuel for civilian nuclear power stations. How can you bomb a country, or even impose serious sanctions on it, if the head of the IAEA won't accuse it of seeking nuclear weapons?

Well, you can if you really want to. It was the same Mohammed ElBaradei who reported to the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 14, 2003, that "We have, to date, found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq." The United States and Britain insisted that their intelligence said otherwise, Iraq was duly invaded, and nobody even apologized when no "prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities" were found. More...

Stephen King says: Let’s waterboard Jenna Bush

Strange quotes to read in a prominent magazine like Time, but they are very powerful words. Stephen King, in an interview about his upcoming film “Mist”, brought up the issue of real vs. fake news. He can’t stand the fact that Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan flood our news with their “trailer trash” lifestyles, while serious world events are taking place and receiving no coverage.

Yeah. You know, I just filmed a segment for Nightline, about [the movie version of his novella] The Mist, and one of the things I said to them was, you know, “You guys are just covering — what do they call it — the scream of the peacock, and you’re missing the whole fox hunt.” Like waterboarding [or] where all the money went that we poured into Iraq. It just seems to disappear. And yet you get this coverage of who’s gonna get custody of Britney’s kids? Whether or not Lindsay drank at her twenty-first birthday party, and all this other shit. You know, this morning, the two big stories on CNN are Kanye West’s mother, who died, apparently, after having some plastic surgery.

The other big thing that’s going on is whether or not this cop [Drew Peterson] killed his… wife. And meanwhile, you’ve got Pakistan in the midst of a real crisis, where these people have nuclear weapons that we helped them develop. You’ve got a guy in charge, who’s basically declared himself the military strongman and is being supported by the Bush administration, whose raison d’etre for going into Iraq was to spread democracy in the world. More...

The Global Impact of Bush's War Crimes in Iraq: King Midas in Reverse

Journalist Robert Fisk recently explained the Bush/Cheney abomination in the Middle East quite succinctly, when he asserted: "The world in the Middle East is growing darker and darker by the hour. Pakistan. Afghanistan. Iraq. "Palestine". Lebanon. From the borders of Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean, we - we Westerners that is - are creating (as I have said before) a hell disaster. Next week, we are supposed to believe in peace in Annapolis, between the colorless American apparatchik and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister who has no more interest in a Palestinian state than his predecessor Ariel Sharon." [Robert Fisk, "Darkness falls on the Middle East," Independent.co.uk, 24 Nov. 2007]

On Friday, November 23rd, a bomb exploded in a pet market in central Baghdad. It followed a "brazen attack against U.S.-backed Sunni fighters on the southern belt of Baghdad" and a mortar and rocket attack on the Green Zone a day earlier that constituted "the biggest attack against the U.S.-protected area in weeks." [Bushra Juhi, "Twin bombings Kill at Least 26 in Iraq," Associated Press, 23 Nov. 2007]

You might keep such information in mind whenever you hear dishonest Republicans and feckless Democrats shy away from the awful truth about the "hell disaster" in Iraq and the Middle East. More...

Fox hypes shaky story on border tunnel jihadists

A report Monday on potential terrorist infiltration of the US was based largely on "raw, uncorroborated information" from a source of "unknown reliability."

Given the opportunity to fear-monger, though, the folks at Fox & Friends ignored those caveats and painted a picture of weapon-wielding terrorists who are plotting an attack on a US army base as we speak.

"It was one base in particular ... Fort Huachuca, they have tunnels that go right into it, they have 60 people ... Iraqis and Afghanis, some of which made it through and are still here, coming through with high-powered, lethal weapons to bomb out some of the 12,000 that are housed at that fort," anchor Brian Kilmead warned in that ominous-yet-cheerful tone that is a hallmark of the Fox News morning crew. More...

New Australian PM signals Iraq pullout

AUSTRALIA’S new prime minister Kevin Rudd will mark his arrival on the international stage by announcing the withdrawal of his country’s combat troops from Iraq and signing the Kyoto treaty on climate change.

Rudd, a republican and former diplomat, swept to power as his Labor party stormed to a landslide victory in yesterday’s elections.

Official figures showed Labor had won more than 53% of the vote, compared with just under 47% for the ruling Liberal coalition of John Howard, who had served four terms as prime minister but lost his seat. Computer projections forecast that Labor would secure 86 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament.

Rudd, 50, who has been called a “Tone Clone” for his similarities to Tony Blair on policy, told cheering supporters that the electorate had decided to “write a new page in our nation’s history”. London Times

How We’ve Traded Freedom for ‘Equality’

“Our Enemy, the State” was the title of libertarian Albert Jay Nock’s classic that was once widely read by conservatives.

In the 1950s, there were men’s clubs and women’s clubs, WASP country clubs and law firms and Jewish country clubs and law firms. Black folks had their own restaurants, barber shops, movie theaters and churches.

We were a free country then. Did people use their freedom to discriminate? Undeniably. Did race discrimination need correcting? Undeniably. But in enlisting state power to end discrimination, we harnessed Leviathan. The left is now using the monster to reshape America. Thus is freedom, the cause of the American Revolution, supplanted by equality, the cause of the French Revolution.

The U.S. Constitution guaranteed freedom by restricting the power of government, the source of tyranny: “Congress shall make no law …” Civil rights laws restrict freedom. Men are told they will face disgrace, fines, ruin if they act on their beliefs in deciding whom they will hire, whom they will serve in a bar or restaurant, or to whom they wish to sell or rent their homes.

If a man is free to hold beliefs we detest, and speak and write in ways we detest, why is he not free to live according to his beliefs – if we believe in freedom? Hopefully, we are becoming a better society, for we are surely becoming a less free society. Patrick J. Buchanan