From somewhere like the Washington Times

Who's losing Latin America?
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
May 2, 2006

Millions of illegal immigrants are marching in America's streets and boycotting jobs, schools and merchants. Their explicit purpose is to blackmail our government into granting rights to which they are not entitled.
These activities demonstrate two realities: First, life is good in this country and the opportunities for economic advancement are extraordinary for those willing to work hard.
Second, life is typically not so good in Mexico and the other Latin American nations from which these illegal aliens principally come. Unfortunately, if present political, economic and social trends continue south of our border, there will likely be many more immigrants coming here unlawfully in search of better lives, and to flee increasingly hard ones in their own countries.
In fact, a prospective surge in illegal immigration -- perhaps coupled with a further radicalization of those already in this country -- are just some of the reasons why these worrisome trends should command far greater attention from American policymakers and citizens alike. Despite the serious and almost-without-exception adverse implications of events throughout Central and South America for our strategic, trade and security interests, however, neither the Bush administration nor either party in Congress is doing much to address them.
Among the indicators of trouble ahead are the following ominous developments:
• Fidel Castro has been rescued from oblivion by the oil wealth and vaulting strategic ambitions of his most promising protege, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. The two authoritarians have adopted a new strategy, born of the realization that radical anti-American leftists can be brought to power throughout the hemisphere the same way Mr. Chavez was -- by ballots, rather than bullets.
read more of that rubbish if you want at the WT
-------------------

Gus is quite irate...
The US economy is mostly built from the base — those who are doing the shit jobs. It's the pyramidal structure... If no one does the shit jobs, there is no economy, even the biggest mansions need their garbage collected... Some rich bastards might be prepared to pay three times the price of peanuts to get it done, but let's be frank, if you start to pay the real value for what you get, billionaires might get poor very quickly...

So who does the shit jobs or the jobs that "Americans" don't want to do for the paltry pay packet divided by half? Immigrants...

Why do immigrants from mexico want to go in the US and do shit jobs? Well the US has made sure their southern neighbours developed an elite class but in general, most of the population was kept underfoot... This was achieved partly by mexicans being closer to the sun and a bit of farniente, but also by capitalistic exploitation of their space by their own rulers who did the bidding for the US... On top of that the US are now buying most of their supplies from China because the stuff is cheaper still... So unemployment is soaring in Mexico..The Yanks do not have the real money to pay for the goods they buy so they fast-print some more dollars and bob's your Dubya...

Now, that a Frank J. Gaffney Jr. start to say that "Fidel Castro has been rescued from oblivion by the oil wealth and vaulting strategic ambitions of his most promising protege, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez" is a bit rich from someone whose country has meddled in EVERY country in South and central America since even before the 1900 — usually trying to exploit as much as possible of the place like ants cultivate larvaes of this, or that, insect species to suck the stuffing out of.

So The "Americans " have a problem with immigrants. The immigrants are starting to demand rights because they are waking up to the fact that they are exploited, but can cope with most of that as long as they can stay in the US... But some people in the US want to chase them out... then, who'll do the shit job? We all know that george Bush is doing a shit of a job but it's a rare cushy job with perks, like sending kids to war and all that... Strangely, every one and his dog want to to that job... The truants.

Anyway, that Mr Frank J. Gaffney Jr. ought to go and bury himself. He'd make a nice privet Bush...

From the NYT

Mexico backs off legalizing drug use
By Hugh Dellios
Chicago Tribune
MEXICO CITY — Heeding an outcry of criticism, President Vicente Fox retreated Wednesday from supporting a proposed law that would have allowed small amounts of drug use in Mexico without criminal penalties.
Fox's office said he was sending the legislation back to Congress so it could make "necessary corrections to be absolutely clear that in our country the possession and consumption of drugs is and will continue being crimes."

Read more at the NYT

‘Iran's nuclear program is a
danger to the entire world, U.S. President George Bush warned again last week
as Washington pressed the UN Security Council to impose sanctions. 

The uproar certainly helped
distract public attention from the Bush administration's mounting domestic and
foreign policy woes. It also showed how few people understand the Iranian
nuclear question. 

Experts say Iran may be in a
position to fabricate a crude nuclear weapon in 5–10 years, but all the current
alarms about Iran ignore a basic reality of nuclear weapons.’ 

The Final Say 

meanwhile .....

‘Russia will seek the removal tonight of the core of a
UK-sponsored draft United Nations resolution on Iran because it fears that it
could pave the way to unilateral military action to curb the Iranian nuclear
programme. 

A bruising battle looms in New
York at a dinner of foreign ministers of the five UN Security Council
veto-holding members, plus Germany, over UN plans to compel Iran to abandon
uranium enrichment. The high-stakes talks at the Waldorf hotel will be the
first official duty for Margaret Beckett, who replaced Jack Straw as Foreign
Secretary on Friday, and could result in an embarrassing climb-down for
Britain.’ 

Russia
Says UN Plan For Iran 'First Step To War'

’When the bombing begins in Iran,
the UN can finally board-up its doors and send the diplomats home; there'll be
no more reason to maintain the pretense. An attack on Iranian facilities will
signal a period of global realignment where states either submit to the
Washington axis or join the growing resistance. We are quickly moving towards
Bush's dream of a world that is divided into "us against them".’ 

Time To
Shut-Down The UN

Yes John...
All I can say, for good or bad reasons, we need to thank the Russians and the Chinese for holding up the fort of "common sense" despite their own interests in the crab basket... Without that we'd be up-crap nuke creek without a paddle. Bad will is hard to fight on all sides, especially on our own side... Some good people are giving up fighting and are going lazily with the "comfortable" flotsam because going against it, is very hard work, wearing many a despairing soul into resting onto the shores of accepting the unacceptable...

Can't the Indonesians read? The script that is. They are not allowed to say this - Indonesia backs Iran's 'peaceful' nuclear program.

It's a pity Jack Straw is off the case for wars. He'd have something to say about it.

I bet Lord Lex is busy phoning round his toady-tanks, dictating tomorrow's fulminations for the Mordoch mouthpieces.

Condi Rice will "review" US arms sales to the Indonesians, who may already have attractive bids from the Russians, Chinese, Indians, Israelis, South Africans, Swiss, Swedes, Czechs and Brits.

‘In the 27 years since the Iranian Revolution, the United
States has launched air strikes on Libya, invaded Grenada, put Marines in
Lebanon, and run air strikes in the Bekaa Valley and Chouf Mountains in
retaliation for the Beirut bombing. 

We invaded Panama, launched
Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait, and put troops into Somalia. Under Clinton, we
occupied Haiti, fired cruise missiles into Sudan, intervened in Bosnia,
conducted bombing strikes on Iraq, and launched a 78-day bombing campaign
against Serbia, a nation that never attacked us. Then, we put troops into
Kosovo. 

After the Soviet Union stood down
in Eastern Europe, we moved NATO into Poland and the Baltic States and
established U.S. bases in former provinces of Russia's in Central Asia. 

Under Bush II, we invaded
Afghanistan and Iraq, though it appears Saddam neither had weapons of mass
destruction nor played a role in 9-11.

Yet, in this same quarter
century, when the US military has been so busy it is said to be overstretched
and exhausted, Iran has invaded not one neighbor and fought but one war: an
eight-year war with Iraq where she was the victim of aggression. And in that
war of aggression against Iran, we supported the aggressor.’ 

"Comrade
Wolf" And The Mullahs

From somewhere at the Guardian

When two poor countries reclaimed oilfields, why did just one spark uproar?

The outcry over Bolivia's renationalisation and the silence over Chad's betrays the hypocrisy of the critics

George Monbiot
Tuesday May 16, 2006
The Guardian

..........
So, on the one hand, you have a man [Bolivia;s president] who has kept his promises by regaining control over the money from the hydrocarbon industry, in order to use it to help the poor. On the other, you have a man who has broken his promises by regaining control over the money from the hydrocarbon industry, in order to buy guns [Chad's President]. The first man is vilified as irresponsible, childish and capricious. The second man is left to get on with it. Why? Well, Deby's [Chad's President] actions don't hurt the oil companies. Morales's do. When Blair and Rice and the Times and all the other apologists for undemocratic power say "the people", they mean the corporations. The reason they hate Morales is that when he says "the people", he means the people.

read the whole lot at the Guardian...

If you are old-fashioned, and your computer can do a video stream, you might like this one at Youtube - Website of the Day: Seeger: "Bring Them Home"

‘A little over a month ago, Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad proudly announced that Iran had joined, as he put it, those
countries which have nuclear technology. 

He was
speaking in the wake of a series of successful experiments in which Iranian
scientists had taken uranium hexafluoride gas, introduced it into a small
number of centrifuges, and produced a small quantity of low enriched uranium.  

The
message was simple. Iran's enrichment programme was under way and there would
be no going back.  

But
Iran's technical capabilities may not be quite as advanced as they would have
the world believe.  

Western
diplomatic sources have told the BBC that there is a very strong probability
that the uranium hexafluoride gas used in these experiments was not made by the
Iranians at all.  

They
say that it may well have come from a small stock of material sold to Iran by
China back in 1991.’  

Iran Enrichment: A
Chinese puzzle?

The Bush administration is
shunning pressure from its allies for a direct dialogue with Iran &
shifting toward a
more confrontational stance & intensifying efforts to undercut the
country’s ruling clerics. 

according to the New York
Times ….. 

‘Prodded by the United States with
threats of fines and lost business, four of the biggest European banks have
started curbing their activities in Iran, even in the absence of
a Security Council resolution imposing economic sanctions on Iran for its
suspected nuclear weapons program. 

Top Treasury and State Department officials have intensified their
efforts to limit Iran-related activities of major banks in Europe, the United
States and the Middle East in the past six months, invoking antiterrorism and
banking laws. They have also traveled to Europe and the Middle East to drive
home the risky nature of dealing with a country that has repeatedly rebuffed
Western demands over suspending uranium enrichment, and to urge European
countries to take similar steps.’  

US
Pressure Yields Curbs On Iran In Europe

‘Government power in Iran is divided, and President
Ahmadinejad – the man responsible for hateful comments about Israel – does not
control their nuclear policy. We should ignore him as a pariah, and deal
instead with Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s National Security Council, who has
made several reasonable statements about the US and shows a desire to have
direct diplomatic talks. 

Discussions with Iran are not
appeasement. On the contrary, dialogue is needed to explain clearly that
America’s objectives of non-proliferation and peace in the Middle East will not
be compromised. 25 years of isolating Iran has moved us farther from, not
closer to, achieving those objectives.’ 

Avoiding War With Iran

‘“Every child who has been killed
in Palestine has been killed because of you. Israel is just a missing star in
the American flag. 

Maybe one day she can think how
many people the CIA have destroyed their life. 

You have an amount of hypocrisy
that is beyond any belief. 

You have branded me a terrorist
or whatever criminal.... look at yourself first. 

Your humanity is a very selected
humanity – only you suffer, only you feel.”’

Zacarias Moussaoui

 

Moussaoui &
Foreign Policy Unrealities

‘The White House yesterday ruled
out previously authorised direct talks between Tehran and the US ambassador in
Baghdad, which were to have focused on the situation in Iraq. The move marks a
hardening of the Bush administration's position, despite pressure from the
international community to enter into direct dialogue with Iran. 

Washington's decision not to
pursue the talks with Iran on Iraq, which would have been conducted by the
American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, came as the US, Britain, France,
Germany, Russia and China concluded a meeting in London last night to discuss a
new offer to Iran. The Foreign Office reported progress on agreeing on a
combination of sticks and carrots to try to entice Iran into suspending its uranium-enrichment
programme, which is seen by the west as a step towards achieving a nuclear
weapons capability.’ 

U-Turn By White
House As It Blocks Direct Talks With Iran 

at the same time, it has now been revealed that Iran had
previously offered to enter talks with the US, subject to the very conditions
that the US has claimed Iran refuses to meet ….. 

‘Iran offered in 2003 to
accept peace with Israel and to cut off material assistance to Palestinian
armed groups and pressure them to halt terrorist attacks within Israel's 1967
borders, according to the secret Iranian proposal to the United States.  

The two-page proposal for
a broad Iran-U.S. agreement covering all the issues separating the two
countries, a copy of which was obtained by IPS, was conveyed to the United
States in late April or early May 2003. Trita Parsi, a specialist on Iranian
foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International
Studies who provided the document to IPS, says he got it from an Iranian
official earlier this year but is not at liberty to reveal the source.  

The two-page document
contradicts the official line of the George W. Bush administration that Iran is
committed to the destruction of Israel and the sponsorship of terrorism in the
region.’ 

Iran Proposal To US Offered
Peace With Israel

‘Iran does not pose an immediate
nuclear threat and the world must act cautiously to avoid repeating mistakes
made with Iraq and North Korea, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency
said on Tuesday. 

Mohamed ElBaradei, director of
the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the world shouldn't "jump the
gun" with erroneous information as he said the U.S.-led coalition did in
Iraq in 2003, nor should it push the country into retaliation as international
sanctions did in North Korea. 

"Our assessment is that
there is no immediate threat," the winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize
told a forum organized by the Monterey Institute of International Studies south
of San Francisco. "We still have lots of time to investigate."’ 

ElBaradei:
Iran Not An Immediate Nuclear Threat

‘Don’t be misled and believe this
is a genuine step forward as surely it’s not. 

It’s simply just the latest ploy
and example of US deceit designed to solidify support among its European
allies, as well as try to convince the Chinese and Russians to come aboard.
It’s unlikely they will as those two countries would have a lot to lose should
they agree to what the US, in fact, has in mind which has nothing to do with
Iran’s legal right to enrich uranium for its commercial nuclear program. 

The Iranians are a signatory to
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and under its rules are behaving in
full compliance with it and doing so no differently than all other countries
that have signed it and have their own nuclear reactors for commercial use.’ 

Sham US
Proposal To Iran Evokes Memories of Past Similar Ones 

‘“We’re making a significant step here,” that will be
criticized by many of the president’s staunchest supporters here at home. But
he’s taking this step to show strength and American leadership and to say he’s
willing to do something that may be unpopular even with some of his supporters,
to remove all excuses from Iran and its supporters to say: “We went the extra
mile. We gave Iran really, this last chance to show that they are serious when
they say they don’t want nuclear weapons. 

This is put or shut up time for Iran.”’ 

US Warmonger to the UN, John Bolton 

Bolton: ‘This
is Put Up or Shut Up Time For Iran’

 

 

‘Despite claims that U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has regained the diplomatic initiative from
Iran with a conditional offer to join multilateral talks with Tehran, the real
story behind the policy shift is that the administration has suffered a
decisive defeat of its effort to get international sanctions for possible
military action against Iran.

U.S. officials and French
and British diplomats have sought to obscure the failure to get the agreement
of Russia and China to a hardline U.N. Security Council resolution making
Iranian compliance mandatory if it refused to suspend its uranium enrichment
activities. Nevertheless, details of the proposal finally given to Iran and
Russia's subsequent statement both confirm that the administration has had to
accept a package without the threat of Security Council action it had counted
on.  

The list of "possible
measures in the event that Iran does not cooperate" in the proposal, as
revealed by Reuters on Jun. 9 based on the earlier draft of the proposal
released by ABC news and interviews with Western diplomats, includes 13
economic and diplomatic "disincentives" to be applied gradually,
depending on Iran's behaviour. But the document makes no reference to the
possibility of an enforceable Security Council decision that the Bush
administration could use to justify a military attack on Iran.  

Going into the crucial
negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme between Washington and the other five
powers -- France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany -- in early May, the Bush
administration had regarded such an enforceable Security Council action as the
key to its strategy for increasing the pressure on Iran.’ 

Bush Iran Strategy Suffers
Major Diplomatic Defeat

‘Western countries at a 35-nation U.N. meeting pushed
Tuesday for consensus on the need for Iran to freeze uranium enrichment, but
diplomats said that most non-aligned countries were preparing to endorse
Tehran's right to continue the work. 

The diplomats, who spoke on
condition of anonymity because they were divulging confidential information,
said the 16 International Atomic Energy Agency board members from the
Non-aligned Movement were likely to issue a joint statement at odds with
Western efforts on enrichment. 

The language would be similar to
a statement issued last month by foreign ministers of non-aligned nations in
Malaysia, the diplomats told The Associated Press.

That declaration "reaffirmed
the basic and inalienable right" of all countries to develop, produce and
use atomic energy "for peaceful purposes, without any discrimination and
in conformity with their respective legal obligations."’ 

Non-Aligned Nations
Prepare To Back Iran

‘In other words, everything that George W. Bush says he
wants from the Iranians now, he could have had for the asking – three years
ago. What then can we conclude from the rejection of this extraordinary
initiative? The answer is obvious: that the Bush Faction is not really
interested in curbing nuclear proliferation or defusing the powder keg of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the regional and global terror that it
spawns. 

What are they interested
in? This answer too is obvious, to anyone who's been paying the slightest
attention to the Faction's words and actions over the years: they are
interested in loot and dominion. What they want from Iran is nothing less than
its return to quasi-colonial control by the crony conquistadors of the West.
And they're willing to play a (reasonably) long game to get it.

In the meantime, it serves their
interests well for the entire Middle East to seethe and boil. War and rumors of
war are engines of limitless profits for the crony-cons. It sends oil prices
sky-high and keeps those pork-laden contracts for weapons and "military
servicing" rolling in. And the terrorism that thrives in this deliberately
created chaos is another massive money-maker, as vast armies of "security
consultants" ply their political connections to gobble up tons of insider
grease. Bush Regime minions have led the way in this alchemical transmutation
of fear into gold: more than 90 officials from the Department of Homeland
Security have stampeded through the revolving door from government service to
lucrative private posts with companies seeking – and getting – fat deals from,
er, the Department of Homeland Security, the New York Times
reports.’ 

The Alchemists: Turning
Blood Into Gold

‘On May 31st, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
announced what appeared to be a major change in U.S. foreign policy. The Bush
Administration, she said, would be willing to join Russia, China, and its
European allies in direct talks with Iran about its nuclear program. There was
a condition, however: the negotiations would not begin until, as the President
put it in a June 19th speech at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, "the
Iranian regime fully and verifiably suspends its uranium enrichment and
reprocessing activities." Iran, which has insisted on its right to enrich
uranium, was being asked to concede the main point of the negotiations before
they started. The question was whether the Administration expected the Iranians
to agree, or was laying the diplomatic groundwork for future military action.
In his speech, Bush also talked about "freedom for the Iranian
people," and he added, "Iran's leaders have a clear choice."
There was an unspoken threat: the U.S. Strategic Command, supported by the Air
Force, has been drawing up plans, at the President's direction, for a major
bombing campaign in Iran.

Inside the Pentagon, senior
commanders have increasingly challenged the President's plans, according to
active-duty and retired officers and officials. The generals and admirals have
told the Administration that the bombing campaign will probably not succeed in
destroying Iran's nuclear program. They have also warned that an attack could
lead to serious economic, political, and military consequences for the United
States.’

Last Stand

From Al Jazeera

Bush denies let-up in bin Laden hunt

Saturday 08 July 2006, 0:39 Makka Time, 21:39 GMT

The hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is still on, the US president has said.

George Bush on Friday denied that the CIA had closed a unit dedicated to the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader because the hunt had become less important.

"We got a lot of assets looking for Osama bin Laden," Bush said during a news conference.

"It's a matter of time, unless we stop looking. And we're not going to stop looking so long as I'm the president - not only for Osama bin Laden, but anybody else who plots and plans attacks against the United States of America," he said.

The terrorist tracking unit, known inside the agency as "Alec Station," was disbanded last year and its analysts moved to other offices working in counter-terrorism at the CIA, intelligence officials said.

Still alive

Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri have eluded US forces and continue to release videos and audiotapes to show they are still alive.

The al-Qaeda leaders are widely believed to be hiding somewhere near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

"In the short run, we will bring these people to justice. ...In the long run, the way you defeat this enemy is to spread liberty, and that's what you're seeing unfold," Bush said

-------------------------

"And our Liberty main factory is in Guantanamo Bay..." The president added, but the reporters' crews had already turned their microphones off and were packing up.... Gus

From Al Jazeera

Author says Iraq worse than reported

By Adla Massoud

Thursday 06 July 2006, 2:45 Makka Time, 23:45 GMT

The author of In the Belly of the Green Bird tells Aljazeera.net that the conflict in Iraq is far more terrible than reported and could spill over and threaten the entire Middle East.

Nir Rosen - who speaks Arabic and has Middle Eastern looks - went to Iraq in April 2003, just days after Baghdad fell.

Entering mosques and tribal meeting halls, and afforded access to fighters' secret meetings and Iraqi homes, he documented the deadly behind-the-scenes manoeuvring in the post-Saddam power vacuum.

The freelance journalist's writings have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Time, among other publications. He is also a fellow at the New America Foundation.

Aljazeera.net:
Let's start with the title of your book. What is the green bird?

Rosen:
When I was in Falluja, and other parts of Iraq where the resistance was very strong, you would often hear this quote in mosques, or see it in resistance propaganda - that the martyrs were in paradise.

Aljazeera.net:
You often saw or heard the statement that the martyrs die with a smile on their faces, die with smelling sweet and the martyrs went to paradise in the bellies of the green bird.

To write your book, you gained access to both Sunni and Shia resistance more than any other American reporter. How did you do that?

Rosen:
I have a very good smile (he laughs). I definitely had more access than many other people. Some of it was because I am Middle Eastern; my father is Iranian.

I looked like everybody else which I think is an important advantage because you get to places more easily. People don't notice you.

I think it's mainly having the right friends. Friends from the right Sunni tribes, friends from the right Shia neighbourhoods who could introduce me to the right people. You need somebody from the right tribe, from the right neighbourhood, from the right sect. More and more, that's what determines whether you can survive.

Aljazeera.net:
Has al-Zarqawi's death impacted the insurgency?

Rosen:
I think it's insignificant. I don't think he was so important in the first place.

If anything, he was sort of an advertisement. He came into Iraq to kill infidels and the Shia, become a martyr and go to paradise. He succeeded.

The Americans created Zarqawi, sort of the Zarqawi myth. Right at the beginning, they refused to accept the fact that the Iraqis had liberated or supported popular resistance so they had to blame everything around foreign fighters for the sake of the American [public].
........

Aljazeera.net:
How has the war in Iraq affected you personally?

Rosen:
My journalistic career began at the age of 26 when I got to Iraq. I'd never been a journalist before. So everything I've learned in the past three years was from Iraq.

In some sense, it has made me an angry person. When I go back to the United States, I feel angry because people don't know how terrible the situation is.

Aljazeera.net:
Is the media to blame?

Rosen:
A little bit. They are too slow to expose America's crimes and they still are. I mean I was embedded for two weeks and I saw so many horrible things happen. There are journalists who have been embedded for months, for much of the occupation on and off, and they must have seen things much worse than what I saw.

And not to write about them and glorify the hometown heroes from the US is in itself collaborating with the crime.

Read more at Al Jazeera

From Al Jazeera

Iran 'committed' to stability in Iraq
Iran has told Iraq's neighbouring countries that they should stop terrorist groups from entering the country because they create an excuse for foreign troops to stay.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, told ministers from Iraq's neighbours that surrounding states were committed to ensuring stability in Iraq.

"It is necessary to stop the crossing of terrorist groups into Iraq who aim at creating insecurity, hatred and differences, and pave the way for the presence of foreign forces in Iraq," Ahmadinejad told the foreign ministers in Tehran on Saturday.

He did not say where "terrorist" groups were crossing into Iraq from or how they were entering.

The US accuses Iran of backing some insurgent groups in Iraq, a charge which Tehran denies.
------------------

Gus can be sure that although Instability creates an excuse for foreign troops to stay in Iraq, a sizeable (minimum 40,000) US force would stay in Iraq no matter how stable that country could be, just to make sure...

This can be gauged by the size of the US embassy and the construction of bunkered bases, with the blessing of course of the present Iraqi government... This US-attached government would see any legitimate or insurgency-led desires to topple it unlawful and thus thwarts them with the help of "friends" who would go again shouting on the rooftops of the world: "terrorists"...

From the BBC

Egyptian papers protest over law
By Heba Saleh
BBC News, Cairo

President Hosni Mubarak had made pledges on media law
Some two dozen Egyptian newspapers are suspending publication for a day to protest against a new law they say will prevent them investigating corruption.

The papers will not appear on Sunday and journalists plan to stage a demonstration outside parliament.

President Hosni Mubarak promised two years ago that he would abolish prison sentences for media offences.

But a new draft law makes it a crime punishable by prison to question the financial integrity of individuals.

---------------------------

Neat trick.... Gus wonders why Mr Bush has not thought of this one yet in his capitalism versus terrorism war... Hum... Ah... the US administration does it secretly of course... and from time to time lets one poor bastard take the corrupt beanie... while more eat the cake...

The Bush administration has enlisted the counsel of at least two discredited Iranian exiles who are known to have fabricated information about their home country. Manucher Ghorbanifar was blacklisted by the CIA in 1984 "for providing allegedly bogus information on threats against President Reagan," and is described by some former U.S. officials "as an Iranian version of Ahmed Chalabi."

Recently, however, Ghorbanifar has been consulting American envoys around the world on Iran "with the blessing of the White House."

The Wall Street Journal reports, "CIA operatives have spent hundreds of hours since 2003 trying to corroborate information passed on by" Ghorbanifar, and concluded "the tips are no better than they were during the Reagan era." "None of the information bore any ties to reality," says William D. Murray, the CIA's station chief in Paris until his retirement last year. Murray believes Ghorbanifar "wants to stoke a hard-line U.S. policy" by suggesting that Iran is ripe for regime change.

In May, another exile named Amir Taheri - notorious for concocting a report that Iran passed legislation requiring Jews to wear yellow insignia (a la World War II) - was invited to the White House to consult President Bush as an "Iraq expert."

Regardless of any impending ceasefire, the removal of Hizbullah and the Iranian nuclear position sets up the prospect of an US war against Iran

By Dan Plesch

08/08/06 "The Guardian"

‘US forces are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in the Middle East in a few hours. US readiness for more war is just one indicator that the present war is likely to spread and intensify in the coming months.

Unnoticed amidst coverage of the war, Iran has rejected a UN resolution demanding it halt uranium enrichment. Condoleezza Rice anticipates that on the nuclear issue: "when the Iranians get past this August 31 deadline, I think they're going to see sanctions from the international system that are going to start to make life pretty miserable." Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, stated back in April that the decisive point in Iran's development of nuclear arms would come in months.

Both the Iranian and US governments regard the fighting in Lebanon and Israel as related to their own conflict. President Bush made the end of Iranian and Syrian support of Hizbullah a condition of any ceasefire, though he has since softened his stance at the UN. Condoleezza Rice remarked that "we do know that this is more than just Hizbullah in Lebanon. This is an extension of Iranian power through a proxy war."

US Intelligence Chief, John Negroponte, told the US Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this year that Iran regarded Hizbullah as "a critical regime safeguard by deterring US and Israeli attacks". With Hezbollah already at war, this "safeguard" is in the process of being removed.

Iran has threatened a world oil price crisis in response to UN sanctions. We do not now know if China, France and Russia will support sanctions or if US will once more regard the UN's failure as a license to act militarily. These "ifs" require a close look at the US, Israeli and Iranian political intentions and military capabilities.

American intentions towards Iran are fairly clear. If diplomacy and sanctions fail to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions then military force must be used. No one should be shocked that William Kristol, the neoconservative leader, has already called for a military strike on Iran in response to Hizbullah's attack on Israel.

Seymour Hersh's articles claim that President Bush ordered war against Iran shortly after the President's re-election in 2004. His claim that Bush is determined not to leave Iran to a future president and that he has support from leading Democrats is born out by numerous conversations I have had with colleagues in Washington. As a senior staffer to Senator Kerry put it: "why should people object if we carry out disarmament militarily?"

There are plenty more reports that war with Iran is either underway or in preparation. Special forces "prepare for Iran attack" wrote Robert Fox back in 2003. Pat Buchanan's American Conservative argues along with Hersh that vice-president Cheney has prepared a war plan for Iran including the use of nuclear weapons by summer 2005. Scott Ritter has claimed that President Bush ordered that the US be ready to attack Iran at any point after June 2005 and Newsweek reported that the administration was considering options for regime change. The Atlantic Monthly concluded after conducting a wargame that attacking Iran was too risky. The powerpoint slides from that game provide a glimpse into the world of war planning. Their analysis assumes a large ground invasion, clearly not a favoured option of either Don Rumsfeld or the American public. Most recently, the eminent investigative writer, James Bamford, has described a neoconservative push for regime change.

Speculation aside, we do know that Don Rumsfeld has placed US forces on alert. "We're now at the point where we are essentially on alert," lieutenant-colonel Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force, said. "We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes in half a day or less."

Under the command of marine-general James Cartwright, US Global Strike planning has the potential to destroy over 10,000 targets in Iran in one mission with "smart" conventional weapons. US government documents obtained by Hans Kristensen and analysed by William Arkin has described the development of this Global Strike capability.

Awaiting his orders, George Bush has more than 200 strategic bombers (B52-B1-B2-F117A) and US Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles. One B2 bomber dropped 80,500lb bombs on separate targets in 22 seconds in a test flight. Using just half the available force, 10,000 targets could be attacked almost simultaneously. This strike power alone is sufficient to destroy all major Iranian political, military, economic and transport capabilities.

Such a strike would take "shock and awe" to a new level and leave Iran with few if any conventional military capabilities to block the straights of Hormuz or provide conventional military support to insurgents in Iraq. If this was not enough, the latest generation of smart bombs now being delivered to the US air force quadruples the number of weapons all US warplanes can carry.

Placing forces on high alert, no more means that the US will actually use them. However, in combination with an increasing crisis, high alert levels mean we should be extra careful how we move forward. We should heed Tony Blair.

When Mike Gapes MP, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, queried the prime minister's equivocation over pre-emptive war on Iran, asking: "Does that mean, then, we are just left with sanctions?

Mr Blair replied: "It means that you take this a step at a time."