‘The Pentagon’s plans for engaging in “virtual warfare”
are impressive. As BBC notes: “The operations described in the document include
a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief
journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts
and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to
destroy enemy networks.” (BBC) 

The enemy, of course, is you,
dear reader, or anyone who refuses to accept their role as a witless-cog in new
world order. Seizing the internet is a prudent way of controlling every piece
of information that one experiences from cradle to grave; all necessary for an
orderly police-state. 

‘Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Deputy National
Security Adviser Stephen Hadley led a campaign beginning in March 2003 to
discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson for publicly criticizing the Bush
administration's intelligence on Iraq, according to current and former
administration officials. 

The officials work or had worked
in the State Department, the CIA and the National Security Council in a senior
capacity and had direct knowledge of the Vice President's campaign to discredit
Wilson.'

Happy New Year, from the Democratic Audit Team. 

Whistleblowing 

In a new paper for the Audit, Dr David Solomon,
Adjunct Professor of Politics at the University of Queensland, looks at the law
protecting whistleblowing, arguing that more protection is needed.  

‘Bush’s State of the Union included numerous references to freedom and liberty, and even denunciations of protectionism. The dishonest rhetoric persists. As usual, the Republicans like to have it both ways. They love the authority and violence of the state, from the trigger-happy cop on the street all the way up to the bomb-happy president in the Oval Office. But they also love pretending to be enamoured with protecting freedom and the little guy. They feed Big Brother steroids even as they claim to want to get him off your back.  

‘Iran signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and insists (correctly) that the treaty assures signatories the right to pursue nuclear programs for peaceful use. And when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claims, as she did last month, "There is simply no peaceful rationale for the Iranian regime to resume uranium enrichment," she is being, well, disingenuous again.

If Dr. Rice has done her homework, she is aware that in 1975 President Gerald Ford's chief of staff Dick Cheney and his defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld bought Iran's argument that it needed a nuclear program to meet future energy requirements. This is what Iranian officials are saying today, and they are supported by energy experts who point out that oil extraction in Iran is already at or near peak and that the country will need alternatives to oil in coming decades. 

‘As the war in Iraq drags on into almost its fourth year with no end in sight, still American soldiers continue to fight and bleed, not for the American people, but for the president, the U.S. government, and the military-industrial complex. No one is fighting and bleeding and dying to "defend our freedoms" or anyone else’s freedoms. 

What makes this even more disturbing is that the majority of American soldiers would claim to be Christians or at least identify with Christianity.  

‘The Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor were among the most barbaric actions of the late 20th century. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger met with Indonesian President Suharto in Jakarta the day before the invasion and gave U.S. approval. The primary concern of U.S. officials seemed to be to get back to Washington before the bloodbath began. Kissinger told Suharto, “We understand your problem and the need to move quickly but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned.” Kissinger, doing his best imitation of Lady Macbeth, urged Suharto, “It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly.”  

‘Saddam was a wicked tyrant, yet he was our wicked tyrant, and so not a word was uttered about his war crimes and crimes against humanity, and especially muted to our ears and made blind to our eyes was his use of American WMD technology against both Iranians and Kurds.  He was our evildoer, just like so many before and after him, from all corners of the globe, from Marcos to Suharto to Pinochet to Batista to Mobutu, all dictators whose hands were made bloody by the support and encouragement America’s government engendered. Saddam maintained power in large part thanks to American generosity and financing, much the same as dozens of US supported dictators have for decades.  It was only when he was no longer needed to further the interests of America that he became expendable. It was when his character exceeded his allotted power, when his ego thought itself capable of more than he could handle that he went from ally shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld to dictator and tyrant used to manipulate the fears of bed-wetting Americans. 

The Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections has thrown the parties in the faltering peace process into a real spin. Even more so given the fact that the US illegally tried to pre-empt the election outcome in favour of Fatah (U.S. Spent $1.9 Million to Aid Fatah in Palestinian Elections). 

But the “surprise” result once again underscored the inability of the US & its allies – the phoney champions of “freedom & democracy” - to truly understand the dynamic forces at work in the region, whilst their shrill, alarmist reactions to the election outcome rudely highlighted the fact that they were caught entirely unprepared to deal with the new situation.