BREAKING: Discover How A Slacker Makes $100,000 A Year!

WEBMASTERS! Get Your Website To The Top Of Google

Media propaganda against Iran

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Farsi: “Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad.”

Translation: “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”.

Word by word: Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).

Words not used: Israel, wiped off, wipe out, map, world, Earth, face.

The western phrase, ‘wiped off’ or ‘wiped out’, were not used in the quote, nor was the “state” of Israel. ‘Nagsheh’, the word for map was not there either.

Essential reading:
http://tinyurl.com/348fuk
(orignal unedited article)

must read update:
http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news…

Iranian President Ahmadinejad DID NOT threaten to “wipe Israel off the map.”
http://representativepress.blogspot.c…
“There is no new policy,” Ahmadinejad said. “They created a lot of hue and cry over that.” Ahmadinejad added, “It is clear what we say: Let the Palestinians participate in free elections and they will say what they want.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.i…
http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news…

Experts confirm that Iran’s president did not call for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’. Reports that he did serve to strengthen western hawks.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showartic…

What has been confirmed by human rights groups has also been observed directly by journalists.
http://representativepress.blogspot.c…
Israel Does Target Civilians and Always Has
http://representativepress.blogspot.c…
http://representativepress.blogspot.c…

Fabricated Bellicose Statements
http://representativepress.blogspot.c…

see another video on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN2Jrw…

President Ahmadinejad was talking about the occupying regime which is a form of government. On Feb 20, 2006 Iran’s foreign minister said, “He is talking about the regime.”

President Ahmadinejad also said in his speech that the issue with Palestine would be over “the day that all refugees return to their homes [and] a democratic government elected by the people comes to power.”

In his letter to Bush (see Text of Iranian President’s Letter to President Bush:
http://representativepress.blogspot.c…
), he asks, “are we to understand that allowing the original inhabitants of these lands - inside and outside Palestine - whether they are Christian, Muslim or Jew, to determine their fate, runs contrary to principles of democracy, human rights and the teachings of prophets?”

President Ahmadinejad Calls for Democracy, Free and Fair Elections and a Durable Peace.
http://representativepress.blogspot.c…
Mike Wallace Interviewed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on 60 Minutes. At the request of the Iranian President Ahmadinejad, the FULL UNEDITED version was shown on C-SPAN. “The cable public affairs net will air the 60 Minutes edited version, followed by the full 90-minute interview, to give viewers a window on what is left on the cutting room floor.” - John Eggerton — Broadcasting & Cable, 8/11/2006
We can see what they cut out, a call for democracy.

Please read these links, don’t let them trick us into another war:
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/2006…
http://representativepress.blogspot.c…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/

See these other videos:
Bush Threats and Actions Risk Accidental War with Iran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ1REG…

Bush is Ignorant and Extremely Dangerous
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSZXWD…
Above is the video that Viacom/CBS got pulled until I successfully disputed their false copyright claim. It is a VERY important video. Bush is crazy wrong! Look at it and send it to others.
transcript:
Now they are selling a war on Iran. Mainstream media is helping sell another illegal war. The way they do this is mainly by not reporting things or under-reporting things. So important facts don’t reach the majority of the American people.

Most people are are relying on the mainstream media to learn what is going on in the world. Most people rely on TV news and TV news is not telling them what they need to know. Most people don’t hunt around the internet for vital information, most people aren’t learning about Dr. ElBaradi’s recent statements. Dr. ElBaradei is the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency and he recently said “we have not seen any undeclared facilities operating in Iran”. Did you know Iran is permitted under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to have facilities for civilian nuclear power? it’s their right. Here is something else the most people are not hearing from the mainstream media: The U.S. is in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

You have to watch independent media like Democracy Now to find out what the mainstream media isn’t telling you.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed IAEA is warning no military action should be taken against Iran, and that threats of war are premature and counterproductive.

ElBaradei also said that there are rules on the use of force.
The public needs to hear these statements. People should know that military action against Iran would be a violation of International law. Mainstream media isn’t reporting that. People should know that threats of war against Iran are violations of international law. Mainstream media isn’t reporting that.

Mainstream media is not making this clear to the public.

Have Your Say: Media propaganda against Iran
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Questions Raised on Terror Exercise

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation is preparing for its biggest terrorism exercise ever later this month when three fictional “dirty bombs” go off and cripple transportation arteries in two major U.S. cities and Guam, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.

Yet even as this drill begins, details from the previous national exercise held in 2005 have yet to be publicly released — information that’s supposed to help officials prepare for the next real attack.

House members demanded answers Wednesday, including why the “after-action” report from 2005 hasn’t been made public. Congress has required the exercise since 2000, but has done little in the way of oversight beyond attending the actual events.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, did not get a direct answer to why it has taken the department two years to finish the after-action report.

“I’m just wondering how much of that information you gleaned is actually current enough to move forward with,” Thompson, D-Miss., told Dennis R. Schrader, a preparedness official at the Department of Homeland Security. Wednesday was Schrader’s 45th day on the job at the department, and he did not have most of the answers lawmakers were seeking on the $25 million exercise.

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., suggested the department might be hiding something by not releasing the report. “Is it so sensitive because there was a lot of failures in this exercise?” he asked. “You know Katrina wasn’t exactly a home run.”

The fourth Top Officials exercise — dubbed TOPOFF — takes place during the week starting Oct. 15. The program costs about $25 million a year and involves the federal government’s highest officials, such as top people from the Defense and Homeland Security departments.

“The challenge with TOPOFF is not the exercise itself. It’s to move as quickly as possible to remedy what perceives to be the problems that are uncovered,” former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in an interview with AP this week.

Ridge, who launched his own security consulting company on Monday, said he’s a big fan of the TOPOFF exercises. But he said “it’s not acceptable” that the review from the 2005 exercise is still not released publicly.

The House Homeland Security emergency communications, preparedness and response subcommittee was holding a hearing Wednesday on the terrorism exercise program.

This year’s TOPOFF will build on lessons learned from previous exercises, according to the Homeland Security Department, which runs the program. The agency said the Oct. 15-19 exercise would be “the largest and most comprehensive” to date.

According to an internal department briefing of the coming exercise obtained by AP, a dirty bomb will go off at a Cabras power plant in Guam; another dirty bomb will explode on the Steel Bridge in Portland, Ore., impacting major transportation systems, and a third dirty bomb will explode at the intersection of busy routes 101 and 202 near Phoenix.

Local hospitals and law enforcement agencies will be involved in the “attacks” by the dirty bombs, which are conventional explosives that include some radioactive material that would cause contamination over a limited area but not create actual nuclear explosions.

“Lessons learned from the exercise will provide valuable insights to guide future planning for securing the nation against terrorist attacks, disasters and other emergencies,” according to the department’s Web site.

The after action report from TOPOFF 3, which deals with issues that came up in the 2005 exercise, is supposed to identify areas for improvement. That report is still going through internal reviews.

According to a brief summary of the 2005 exercise — marked For Official Use Only, but obtained by AP — problems arose when officials realized the federal government’s law for providing assistance does not cover biological incidents.

The exercise involved a mustard gas attack from an improvised explosive device in Connecticut and the release of the pneumonic plague in New Jersey. This caused certain federal disaster programs to be unavailable to some residents suffering from the attack, according to the summary.

A 2005 Homeland Security inspector general report suggested the department start tracking the lessons learned from these exercises.

And a 2006 White House report on Hurricane Katrina criticized the department for not having a system to address and fix the problems discovered in the TOPOFF exercises.

“The most recent Top Officials (TOPOFF) exercise in April 2005 revealed the federal government’s lack of progress in addressing a number of preparedness deficiencies, many of which had been identified in previous exercises,” according to the White House.

Previously, a more detailed version of lessons-learned from TOPOFF 2, held in 2003 was not released to states for security reasons.

Have Your Say: Questions Raised on Terror Exercise
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

An Open Letter to the US Marine Corps about 9/11

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Major General Smedley Butler, among the most celebrated of all Marines, wrote WAR IS A RACKET, complaining about the abuse of the military for the benefit of corporations.  A former USMC artillery officer, who founded Scholars for 9/11 Truth, submitted this article to the Marine Corps GAZETTE, which it would not publish.  This is a lesson every Marine, even every American, deserves to know about the profit motive driving wars.
Madison, WI (OpEdNews) 12 September 2007 - Smedley Butler didn’t like for the Marine Corps to be abused, and neither do I. Indeed, I can’t think of a more serious issue than whether or not Uncle Sam is taking advantage of us to benefit the profit margins of American corporations, the very charge alleged in his book, War is a Racket. Today those corporations even include Halliburton, whose former CEO is well-positioned to benefit it from the inside as Vice President of the United States. Is there any reason to think that history is repeating itself and the Corps is being abused once again?

The fuse that ignited the conflagrations in Iraq and in Afghanistan was 9/11, which, according to the official account presented in The 9/11 Commission Report, was carried out by 19 Islamic fundamentalists, who hijacked four commercial airliners and outfoxed the most sophisticated air defense system in the world in order to commit these atrocities under the control of a man in a cave in Afghanistan. If you don’t want to believe in a conspiracy theory, you had better reject the official account, because it only takes two persons acting in concert to commit an illegal act to qualify as a ‘conspiracy’. This is one.

After resigning my commission as Captain, USMC, in 1966, I earned a Ph.D. in the history and the philosophy of science. I would spend 35 years teaching courses in logic critical thinking, and scientific reasoning. Along the way, I would become deeply involved in research on the assassination of JFK and publish three collections of studies by experts on that case. Then, in 2005, I would found a non-partisan society of students, experts, and scholars devoted to exposing falsehoods and revealing truths about 9/11, which is known as Scholars for 9/11 Truth. Our membership includes aeronautical engineers, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, pilots, physicists, and even some philosophers and theologians committed to the truth.

Anyone who doubts the breadth and depth of interest in 9/11 from many professionals should visit http://patriotsquestion911.com, where you can find bio sketches and statements from 110+ Senior Military, Intelligence Service, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials, 200+ Engineers and Architects, 50+ Pilots and Aviation Professionals, 150+ Professors, 180+  Survivors and Family Members, and 90+ Entertainment and Media Professionals. Anyone who tells you that the 9/11 truth movement is a ‘lunatic fringe’ does not know what they are talking about. Check it out for yourself!

If the official account of the events of 9/11 were true, of course, then it should be very difficult or even impossible to disprove it. That would require using biased or manufactured evidence, for example, to create a false impression. It would be very odd if much or most of what we have been told about 9/11 were false. It may come as some surprise, therefore, to learn that members of Scholars, building upon prior research by earlier students of 9/11, have established more than a dozen disproofs of the official government account, the truth of any one of which is enough to show that the government’s account — in one or another of its multiple guises — cannot possibly be correct. Consider the following points:

o The impact of the planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the buildings down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, has observed), the planes that hit were very similar to those they were designed to withstand, and they continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects.

o The melting point of steel at 2,800F is about 1,000F higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800F under optimal conditions, so the fires cannot have caused the steel to melt, which means that melting steel did not bring the buildings down.

o Underwriters Laboratory certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000F for three or four hours before it would even significantly weaken, where these fires burned too low and too briefly at an average temperature of less than 500F — about one hour in the South Tower and one and a half in the North — to have even caused the steel to weaken, much less melt.

o If the steel had melted or weakened, the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt, and total demolition that was observed.

o William Rodriguez, the senior custodian in the North Tower and the last man to leave the building, has reported massive explosions in the subbasements that effected extensive destruction, including the demolition of a 50-ton hydraulic press and ripping the skin off a fellow worker, a report corroborated by the testimony of more than two dozen other custodians.

o Willie reported that the explosion occurred prior to the airplane’s impact, a claim that has now been substantiated in a new study by Craig Furlong and Gordon Ross in their “Seismic Proof: 9/11 was an Inside Job”, which demonstrates that these explosions actually took place as much as 14 and 17 seconds prior to the airplanes impacts.

o Heavy steel construction buildings like the Twin Towers, built with more than 100,000 tons of steel, are not even capable of “pancake collapse”, which normally only occurs with concrete structures of “lift slab” construction and could not occur in “redundant” welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time, as Charles Pegelow, a structural engineer, has pointed out to me.

o The destruction of the Twin Towers in approximately 10 seconds apiece is even faster than free fall with only air resistance, which would have taken at least 12 seconds, which, as Judy Wood, a former professor of mechanical engineering, has emphasized, is an astounding result that would have been impossible without extremely powerful explosives.

o The towers are exploding from the top, not collapsing to the ground, where the floors do not move, a phenomenon that Judy Wood has likened to two gigantic trees turning to sawdust from the top down, which, like the pulverization of the concrete, the official account cannot possibly explain.

o WTC-7 came down in a classic controlled demolition at 5:20 PM/ET after owner Larry Silverstein suggested the best thing to do might be to ‘pull it’, displaying all the characteristics of classic controlled demolitions, including a complete, abrupt, and total collapse into its own footprint, where the floors are all falling at the same time, and so forth, an event so embarrassing to the government it is not even mentioned in The 9/11 Commission Report.

o The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44 feet above the ground; the kind and quantity of debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757!

o The Pentagon’s own videotape does not show a Boeing 757 hitting the building, as even Bill O’Reilly admitted when it was shown on “The O’Reilly Factor”; but at 155 feet, the plane was more than twice as long as the 77-foot Pentagon is high and should have been present and visible; it was not, which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757!

o Pilots for 9/11 Truth have analyzed black box data allegedly from the Pentagon plane and discovered that it contradicts the official account in direction, approach, and altitude: it was 300 feet too high to have taken out the lampposts and 100 feet too high to have hit the building itself.

o The aerodynamics of flight would have made the official trajectory — flying at high speed barely above ground level — physically impossible; and if it had come it at an angle instead, it would have created a massive crater; but there is no crater and the government has no way out, which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757!

o If Flight 93 had come down as advertised, then there would have been a debris field of about a city block in size, but in fact the debris is distributed over an area of about eight square miles, which would be explainable if the plane had been shot down in the air but not if it had crashed as required by the government’s official scenario.

When you stop to think about it, the differences between the temperatures at which these fires burned and the duration of their burning means that it is not even physically possible that the steel weakened, much less melted. And the aerodynamics of flight make it impossible for a Boeing 757 to have taken the official flight path toward the Pentagon. Those of us who have investigated the official account and discovered that it cannot possibly be true, I would suggest, are not conspiracy theorists but conspiracy realists.

Indeed, no steel structure, high rise building ever fell as a result of fire either before 9/11 or after 9/11 — nor, if our research is well-founded, on 9/11. While we cannot rebuild the Twin Towers to conduct experiments, history did that for us. In February 1975, a huge fire broke out on the 11th floor of the North Tower. Its temperatures reached 2,000 degrees and it consumed 2/3 of the floor, including enveloping the core. It burned for three hours. And yet none of the steel had to be replaced.

There are more, especially about the alleged hijackers, including that they were not competent to fly the planes; that their names were not on the passenger manifests; that they were not subject to autopsy; that several have turned up alive and well; that the cell phone calls could not have been made; on and on. You will have heard so many contrary reports through the mass media, however, that I cannot expect you to believe what I am telling you without checking it out. Try http://www.911scholars.org or our new book, The 9/11 Conspiracy, for a start.

Most Americans, including most Marines, are unaware that George W. Bush, in response to a reporter’s question about Saddam Hussein’s connection to 9/11, answered with the single word, ‘Nothing!”’Or that the Senate Intelligence Committee investigated the administration’s claim that Saddam was in cahoots with al Qaeda and discovered that he was actually tracking down its leaders to incarcerate or even kill them!

Better yet, did you know tha Ed Hass of The Muckraker Report discovered that the FBI’s ‘wanted’ poster for Osama bin Laden did not include any reference to the crimes of 9/11? When he inquired, he was told by Rex Tomb that the reason the FBI’s ‘wanted’ poster for Osama bin Laden did not include any reference to the events of 9/11 is because the FBI has ‘no hard evidence’ that connects him to the events of 9/11.

Our thought is that, if Saddam was not responsible for 9/11 and if Osama was not responsible for 9/11, then exactly who was responsible for the death of 3,000 civilians? We believe it is the highest form of respect to those who died and their survivors to determine how and why they died, which our government has not told us. And, as a former Marine Corps’ officer, I am also motivated by the same concerns that affected Smedley Butler. We are entitled to know the real reasons we are asked to risk our lives. Corporate profits are not enough.

James H. Fetzer
Founder
Scholars for 9/11 Truth

Have Your Say: An Open Letter to the US Marine Corps about 9/11
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Militarizing US police

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

As the US government becomes more aggressive overseas, it’s also developing its military capacity to repress American citizens at home.

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/163.html

Have Your Say: Militarizing US police
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Prince Philip ‘told MI6 to murder Diana and lover’

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

By Andrew Vine

SENSATIONAL claims that Princess Diana was murdered on the instructions of the Duke of Edinburgh after she expressed fears of an attempt on her life dominated the opening of the inquest into her death yesterday.

The jury heard allegations that Prince Philip was at the heart of a conspiracy to murder Diana and her lover, Dodi Fayed, after ordering MI6 to prepare a report on them for the Royal Family. The car crash that killed them both in Paris on August 31, 1997 was then engineered, the jury heard.

The claim of murder by Dodi’s father, Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed, was at the heart of coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker’s opening statement to the jury at the inquest at the High Court in London yesterday.

And the jury was told how Diana had expressed fears that she would be the victim of an arranged accident if, as she believed, the Queen abdicated and Prince Charles succeeded to the throne, saying that would create a need to “get rid of her, via some accident in her car such as prepared brake failure”.

The judge told the jury of six women and five men that many had come to believe something “sinister” may lie behind the crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in which Diana, 36, and 42-year-old Dodi were killed with their driver, Henri Paul.

He added that Mr al-Fayed also believes MI6 had been commissioned to write a special report on his family to be presented to the Royal Family.

The judge said: “It is his belief that a decision was taken at that time to kill Diana and Dodi. He places Prince Philip at the heart of the conspiracy, you will have to listen carefully to the witnesses you hear to see whether there is any evidence to support this assertion.”

Mr al-Fayed believes that Diana was carrying Dodi’s child and that they would have announced their engagement on September 1 that year, the day after the crash, but the Royal Family “could not accept that an Egyptian Muslim could eventually be stepfather to the future King of England”.

He is convinced that Henri Paul was in the pay of MI6 and French secret services, and the crash was caused by a combination of a collision with a mystery white Fiat Uno and a blinding flash from a stun gun deliberately fired. Two official inquiries concluded that Paul had been drinking and lost control of the car whilst driving too fast. But the inquest heard that Diana had written a note to her ex-butler, Paul Burrell, saying Prince Charles wanted her dead so he could marry their nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke. Diana also claimed Ms Legge-Bourke had undergone an abortion.

The jury was told of a note written by one of Diana’s lawyers, Lord Mishcon, following a meeting at Kensington Palace in October 1995.

In the note, Lord Mishcon said: “Her Royal Highness said that she had been informed by reliable sources whom she did not wish to reveal … that (a) The Queen would be abdicating in April and the Prince of Wales would then assume the throne and (b) efforts would be made if not to get rid of her (be it by some accident in her car such as prepared brake failure or whatever) between now and then.”

Lord Justice Scott Baker also said Mr al-Fayed had claimed Diana had told him she believed her life was in danger.

He said: “Mohamed al-Fayed says during the summer holiday she often told him she would be murdered by the Royal Family.

“She would go up in a helicopter and never come down alive.”

He went on: “It is clear that there are many members of the public who are concerned that something sinister may have caused the collision in which Diana and two others died.

“One of the purposes of the inquest is to investigate the incident thoroughly so that the public suspicion is either dispelled or substantiated.”

He said there would be a “vigorous and searching” investigation of the evidence to find the truth.

Lord Justice Scott Baker told the jury: “Most, if not all, of you will remember where you were when you heard about the subsequent death of the Princess of Wales.

“None of you would for a moment have thought that over 10 years later you might be in a jury investigating the events related to that tragic August night.”

The inquest is set to continue for up to six months.

Have Your Say: Prince Philip ‘told MI6 to murder Diana and lover’
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

“Capitalism and Freedom” Unmasked

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

By Stephen Lendman
RINF Alternative News

An era ended November 16, 2006 when economist Milton Friedman died. A torrent of eulogies followed. The Wall Street Journal mourned his loss with the same tribute he credulously used when Ronald Reagan died saying “few people in human history have contributed more to the achievement of human freedom.” Economist and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers called him a hero and “The Great Liberator” in a New York Times op-ed; the UK Financial Times called him “the last of the great economists;” Terence Corcoran, editor of Canada’s National Post, mourned the “free markets” loss of “their last lion;” and Business Week magazine noted the “Death of a Giant” and praised his doctrine that “the best thing government can do is supply the economy with the money it needs and stand aside.”

Rarely had so much praise been given anyone so undeserving in light of the human wreckage his legacy left strewn everywhere. He believed government’s sole function is “to protect our freedom both from (outside) enemies….and from our fellow-citizens.” It’s to “preserve law and order (as well as) enforce private contracts, (safeguard private property and) foster competitive markets.” Everything else in public hands is socialism that for free-wheeling market fundamentalists like Friedman is blasphemy. He said markets work best unfettered of rules, regulations, onerous taxes, trade barriers, “entrenched interests” and human interference, and the best government is practically none at all as anything it can do private business does better. Democracy and a government of, by and for the people? Forget it.

He preached public wealth should be in private hands, accumulation of profits unrestrained, corporate taxes abolished, and social services curtailed or ended. He believed “economic freedom is an end to itself….and an indispensable means toward (achieving) political freedom.” He thought state laws requiring certain occupations be licensed (like doctors) a restriction of freedom. He opposed foreign aid, subsidies, import quotas and tariffs as well as drug laws he called a subsidy to organized crime (which it is as well as to CIA and money laundering international banks earning billions from it) and added “we have no right to use force….to prevent (someone) from committing suicide….drinking alcohol or taking drugs,” while saying nothing about major banks and CIA partnering for profit with drug lords.

He favored a constitutional amendment requiring Congress balance the budget because deficits “encourage political irresponsibility.” He claimed taxes were onerous and was “in favor of cutting (them) under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever possible….” and make corporations entirely exempt from them. He opposed the minimum wage, supported a flat tax favoring the rich, and believed everyone should have to buy his or her own medical insurance like any other product or service. Can’t afford it? Too bad. Get sick? Let the market heal you.

He opposed public education, supported school vouchers for privately-run ones, and believed marketplace competition improves performance even though voucher amounts are inadequate and mostly go to schools emphasizing religious education or training. Further, evidence shows teaching quality suffers in for-profit schools except in elitist ones. Most others stress cost-cutting and fewer services for bigger returns on investment.

He ignored the fact that Christian fundamentalist schools harm democracy and violate the constitutional separation of church and state. They also threaten public education’s future that’s been the bedrock of primary and secondary schooling throughout our history until Friedman first proposed vouchers in the 1980s as one of his core free choice objectives.

He was a vocal opponent of trade unions, claimed they were “of little importance (historically in advancing) worker (rights and gains) in the United States,” and ignored clear evidence to the contrary in spite of corrupted union officials who could and should have done more for their rank and file and still don’t. He also claimed “the gains that strong unions win for their members are primarily at the expense of other workers (and believing otherwise) is a fundamental source of misunderstanding.” It all came down to supply and demand for him - “the higher the price of anything, the less….people will….buy.”

Sounds reasonable up to the examples he gave: “Make labor of any kind more expensive and the number of jobs of that kind will be fewer. Make carpenters more expensive, and fewer houses….will be built (and the ones that are will) use materials and methods requiring less carpentry. Raise the wages of airline pilots (and) there will be fewer jobs for them (because) air travel will (cost more and) fewer people will fly.”

Bottom line for Friedman - high union wages harm everyone, including union members. They make consumer products and services more expensive, he believed, notwithstanding the fundamental law of pricing every marketing executive knows but Friedman ignored. It’s to charge what the market will bear, no more or less so, costs aside, prices reflect what buyers will pay, no more.

Friedman also opposed government-run Social Security that he called “The Biggest Ponzi Scheme on Earth” in an article with that title. He described the current system as “an unholy combination of two items: a flat-rate tax on earnings up to a maximum with no exemption and a benefit program that awards subsidies that have….no relation to need (forgetting it’s our most successful poverty-reducing program) but are based on (criteria like) marital status, longevity and recent earnings.”

He wanted it privatized, abhorred the “tyranny of the status quo,” and agreed with Barry Goldwater that it be voluntary which, of course, would kill it. He added it’s “hard to justify requiring 100% of the people to adopt a government-prescribed straitjacket to avoid encouraging a few (many millions, in fact) ‘lower-income individuals to make no provision for their old age deliberately (even though most cannot), knowing they would receive the means-tested amount.’ ” Addressing only eligible retirees, he ignored millions of others getting Social Security benefits. They include disabled workers and spouses and children of deceased, retired or disabled workers. They comprise around 37% of all recipients, are left out of Friedman’s calculation, and would get nothing under a privatized system.

For Friedman, we’re on our own, “free to choose,” but unequally matched against corporate giants and the privileged with their advantages. The rest of us are unequally endowed and governed by the principle, “To each according to what he and the instruments he owns produces,” in a savage world where economic freedom trumps all other kinds. This was right from Friedman’s 1962 laissez-faire manifesto, “Capitalism and Freedom,” that’s long on free market triumphalism and void on its effects on real people.

He opposed social or any market-interfering democracy, an egalitarian society, government providing essential services, workers free from bosses, citizens from dictatorship and countries from colonialism. Instead, he perversely promoted economic freedom as a be-all-and-end-all, limited government, and profit-making as the essence of democracy. He supported unfettered free markets with political debate confined to minor issues unrelated to the distribution of goods and services he wanted left to the free-wheeling marketplace.

This was Friedman’s best of all possible worlds with people in it no different than disposable commodities and government not obligated to fulfill its minimum constitutionally-mandated function as stated in the Preamble and Article I, Section 8. It’s that “The Congress shall have power to….provide….for (the) general welfare of the United States” - the so-called welfare clause Friedman believed conflicted with “capitalism and freedom” and our “freedom to choose” that ranked above the law of the land for him.

The School of Thought in the University of Chicago’s Economics Department

Friedman grew up in New York, got his BA at Rutgers, an MA at the University of Chicago, and his doctorate at Columbia. Surprisingly, he was a Keynesian early on, but Friedrich Hayek’s teachings changed him into a free market fundamentalist who’d become what the Economist called “the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century (and) possibly all of it.” He returned to the University of Chicago Economics Department in 1946 and became its charismatic leader on a mission to revolutionize his profession and the world.

The doctrine was simple at its core - unfettered free market pure capitalism works best, and Friedman and his colleagues set out to prove it scientifically in a set of mathematical equations and computer models they developed. They promised that left on their own, markets are magical. They produce the right amount of products and services, at the right prices, by the right number of workers earning the right amount of wages to buy what’s produced. In short, a win-win for everyone….paradise. There was only one problem. It’s voodoo science, sounds good mathematically and doesn’t work. Friedman and his “Chicago Boys, however, believed it did but needed a real life “Chicago School state” to prove it.

He got many, called them models of free market magic, and justified repression believing ends justify means and free choice offered “more room for individual initiative….a private sphere of life (and a greater) chance (authoritarian regimes he supported would in the end make it possible) to return to a democratic society.” He countered his critics claiming “economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom” and that transitional pain was worth it for the free market paradise he promised would emerge. He and his mentor, Friedrich Hayek, called social democracy, collectivism, socialism and welfare state economics the “road to serfdom” producing “bondage and misery” and “coercion rather than freedom.”

It was pure baloney, but who could argue in the face of huge corporate backing, heavy funding and the dominant media in tow calling market fundamentalism the new orthodoxy and repression freedom. On the ground, it was different. The record of Chicago School fundamentalism is in the human wreckage it left everywhere.

The Human Toll of Chicago School Fundamentalism

Every nation Friedman’s ideology touched took pain, but it wasn’t the well-off who suffered, just ordinary working people targeted for profit in pursuit of “economic freedom.” Early on, his dogma was considered quirky, on the margins of mainstream economics, and out of step with the Keynesian post-war golden age of capitalism. It lasted until the 1970s when recession, stagflation and high unemployment changed everything. Keynesian economics was unfairly blamed, and Friedman got his chance to prove government intervention is the problem and unfettered free markets the solution. It was pure nonsense and about as scientific as alchemy, but long ago people thought that worked until they finally understood they couldn’t make gold out of lesser metals.

The First Test Case in Chile

Chile under Augusto Pinochet became Friedman’s first test case to prove what we now know is flimflam. The results were disastrous and Chileans to this day haven’t recovered from the September 11, 1973 coup d’etat and aftermath that ended the most vibrant democracy in the Americas and ushered in Friedman’s magic.

The playbook promised paradise but delivered the junta’s “Caravan of Death,” hyperinflation, the economy contracting 15%, wages cut, unemployment at 20%, labor unionism destroyed, social services gutted, severe poverty, ghostly factories and rotting infrastructure, out-of-control corruption and cronyism, a massive transfer of public resources to private hands, and a repressive military and secret police targeting dissenters with detention, torture and death. It was hell for Chileans but nirvana for the privileged and foreign investors reaping big profits from the masses they took it from. It was just the beginning with Friedman-style “shock treatment” on to the next target.

One of many was Bolivia with predictable results and Friedman unrepentant. Food subsidies were ended, social services gutted, price controls lifted, wages frozen, oil prices hiked 300%, deep government spending cuts imposed, unrestricted imports allowed, and state-owned companies downsized costing hundreds of thousands of jobs before privatizing them.

There was more. Real wages dropped 40%, poverty soared, but a privileged elite got rich. Public anger grew with repression the antidote. Tanks rolled in the streets against striking workers, and police targeted dissenters in union halls, a university and factories. “Freedom” for Friedman was hell for Bolivians. It would soon get worse.

The Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia

The Berlin Wall’s fall should have been a triumph but instead was tragic for Russia’s people. Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in March, 1985 with political and social change in mind but wasn’t around long enough to lead it. He liberalized the country, introduced elections, and favored a Scandinavian-style social democracy combining free market capitalism with strong social safety net protections. He envisioned “a socialist beacon for all mankind,” an egalitarian society, but never got the chance to build it.

When the Soviet Union dissolved, he was out, Boris Yeltsin became Russia’s president, he supported a corporatist state and adopted Chicago School fundamentalist “shock therapy” masquerading as “reform.” Its former apparatchiks cashed in big along with a new class of “nouveaux billionaires” (called “the oligarchs”) who strip-mined the country’s wealth and shipped it to offshore tax havens. For the Russian people, it was another story. They didn’t know what hit them in what was one of the greatest ever crimes by a government against its own people who still today are crushed by it. The toll was devastating and pandemic:

– 80% of Russian farmers bankrupt;

– about 70,000 state factories closed causing an epidemic of unemployment;

– 74 million Russians (half the population) impoverished; for 37 million of them conditions were desperate, and the country’s underclass remains permanent;

– alcohol, painkilling and hard drug used soared, and HIV/AIDS threatens to become epidemic with a 20-fold increase in infections since 1995; suicides also rose and violent crime as well more than fourfold; and

– Russia’s population is declining by around 700,000 a year; unfettered capitalism has already killed off 10% of it; it’s a startling condemnation of Chicago School orthodoxy and the man who triumphantly spread it in the name of freedom that’s fake, ferocious and fatal.

The Curse of Predatory Capitalism in South Africa

As in Russia, opportunity for progressive change became tragedy under neoliberal Washington Consensus policies far worse than apartheid repression. Nelson Mandela pledged to support black economic empowerment and seemed poised to lead it when ANC candidates swept the 1994 elections and he became president. Instead, political power came at the expense of economic surrender. The former white supremacist government and industrialists secured their wealth and privilege by keeping unfettered capitalism unchanged under harsh shock medicine rules.

It was unforgivable from a man like Mandela with charisma and political capital enough to have prevented it. Instead, he chose not to and brushed off later criticism saying “….for this country, privatization is the fundamental policy.” The toll on his people was horrific:

– double the number of people living in desperate poverty on less than $1 a day from two to four million;

– the unemployment rate doubling to 48% from 1991 - 2002;

– two million South Africans losing their homes while the government built only 1.8 million others;

– nearly one million South Africans evicted from farms in the first decade of ANC rule; as a result, shack dweller population grew by 50%, and in 2006, 25% of South Africans lived in them with no running water or electricity;

– the HIV/AIDS infection rate at about 20%, and the ANC government denies its severity and does little to alleviate it; it’s a major reason why average life expectancy in the country declined 13 years since 1990;

– 40% of schools with no electricity;

– 25% of people with no access to clean water and most with it can’t afford the cost;

– 60% of people with inadequate sanitation, and 40% no telephones.

Freedom for black South Africans came at a high price with political empowerment traded for economic apartheid and no relief in sight for the millions affected. It’s more evidence of Chicago School economics failure and the human wreckage it leaves everywhere.

Free Market Repression in Haiti

Haitians enjoyed a brief interregnum of freedom in the 1990s up to 2004 under Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Rene Preval in his first term. Haitians were only once earlier free when the first ever independent black republic was established January 1, 1804, but it didn’t last.

Freedom again was lost for one of the longest ever oppressed people anywhere. It ended February 29, 2004 when US Marines abducted Aristide, in a shocking middle of the night coup d’etat, and flew him against his will to the Central African Republic. Haiti is small, around three times the size of Los Angeles, with a population around eight million. It has some oil, natural gas and other mineral wealth, but it’s main value is its human resource that corporate giants want as an offshore cheap labor paradise for Wal-Mart’s “Always Low Prices.”

Under President Aristide and Preval in his first term in office, impressive social gains were achieved, but they’re are now lost in the wake of the 2004 coup. Haiti is once again a free market paradise with freedom sacrificed (despite an elected president) and real reforms gutted for the poorest people in the hemisphere:

– thousands of public sector workers were fired;

– many more thousands killed, jailed, disappeared or forced into hiding;

– many thousands of small businesses burned and destroyed as well as homes for large numbers of the poor;

– unemployment and underemployment rampant with up to two-thirds of workers without reliable jobs; destruction of the country’s rural economy an enormous problem with displaced poor people migrating to urban areas but finding no work;

– the lowest public sector employment in the region at less than .7%;

– education and health care greatly deteriorated and mostly provided by NGOs, including church-based ones;

– life expectancy at only 53 years; the death and infant mortality rates the highest in the western hemisphere;

– the World Bank places the country in its bottom rankings with its deficient sanitation systems, poor nutrition, high malnutrition, and inadequate health services;

– the country is the poorest in the hemisphere with 80% of its population living below the poverty line; it’s also the least developed with lack of infrastructure, severe deforestation and heavy soil erosion;

– half its population is “food insecure” and half of all children undersized from malnutrition;

– less than half the population with access to clean drinking water;

– the country ranks last in the hemisphere in health care spending with only 25 doctors and 11 nurses per 100,000 population and most rural areas having no access to health care;

– the highest HIV/AIDS incidence outside Africa;

– the World Bank estimates Haiti’s per capita income at under $450; the prevailing sweatshop wage is around 11 - 12 cents an hour; the official minimum wage is about $1.70 a day (with most Haitians getting less) with no benefits and inadequate help from weak unions;

– restructuring and privatizations, like what’s intended for the state-owned telecommunication company, Teleco, cost thousands of jobs from downsizings;

– human rights repression is severe under a UN paramilitary MINUSTAH occupation masquerading as peacekeepers; they were illegally sent for the first time ever to support and enforce a coup d’etat against a democratically elected president; political killings, kidnappings, disappearances, torture and unlawful arrests and incarcerations are common forms of repression so real Haitian democracy can’t emerge under its elected president, Rene Preval, in his second term; he’s impotent against the power of US-orchestrated plunder under Chicago School fundamentalist rules. Another Friedman legacy of failure, this one close to home.

Free Market Fundamentalist Destruction in Afghanistan

September 11 erased the familiar world, created mass disorientation and regression, and made anything possible under collective shock that didn’t take long to unfold. The “war on terror” was launched in a climate of fear with Afghanistan first targeted. It inaugurated a brave new post-9/11 world. Its horror continues. War rages, its ferocity intense, and no end is in sight for a people and nation journalist John Pilger describes as having been “abused and suffered more (with less help than any other) in living memory.”

War and conquest were planned well in advance with 9/11 the pretext to launch it. It was part of a grand strategic plan to control Central Asia’s vast oil and gas reserves, then on to the grand prize in the Middle East with Iraq its epicenter. It began October 7, 2001, continues, and has now intensified at an enormous cost to the Afghan people who’ve been torn by endless war and internal turmoil for over two decades. The toll is horrific and rising:

– half the population unemployed with no improvement in sight nor is any planned under fundamentalist market rules;

– half the population earning around $200 a year with those in the booming opium trade doing marginally better;

– poverty soared post-invasion, one-fourth or more of the population needs food aid, and regional famine risks remain;

– life expectancy is one of the lowest in the world at 44.5 years;

– the infant mortality is the highest in the world at 161 per 1000 births;

– one-fifth of children die before age five;

– an Afghan woman dies in childbirth every 30 minutes;

– an estimated 500,000 homeless are in Kabul alone including people living in collapsed and unsafe buildings;

– only one-fourth of the population has access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation;

– only one doctor is available per 6000 people and one nurse per 2500 people;

– 100 or more people are killed or wounded by unexploded ordnance each month and rising violence kills many more;

– children are kidnapped, sold into slavery or murdered for their organs bringing high prices in the “free market” where everything is for sale including body parts;

– less than 6% of Afghans have electricity only available sporadically;

– women’s literacy rate is about 19%, conditions for them are very harsh, they’re forced to beg on the streets or turn to prostitution to survive; many must remain veiled;

– schools are burned and teachers beheaded in front of their students;

– basic services don’t exist and essential ones like schools, health clinics and hospitals are in deplorable condition with no aid provided to improve them as all of it goes for profit;

– as in Iraq, occupying forces operate outside the law with impunity that includes the use of indiscriminate force, arbitrary arrests, indefinite detentions and free use of the harshest types of torture unreported in the mainstream;

– under military occupation, democracy in the country is pure fantasy; the puppet president is a caricature of a man and willing US stooge with no support or mandate outside Kabul;

– lawlessness is rampant, war raging, violence increasing, the drug harvest and trafficking uncontrolled, corruption massive, Sharia law reinstated, and life overall intolerable in this free market fundamentalist paradise.

The Epicenter of the “War on Terror” in Iraq for Market Fundamentalist “Freedom”

Iraq has the misfortune of lying at the heart of the oil rich MIddle East where two-thirds of proved reserves are located and the greatest potential amount of them untapped for lack of development. Its potential remained frozen in time the result of intervening wars since 1980, economic sanctions until 2003, and now occupation and conflict for the most sought after real estate on earth and a no-brainer why it was targeted.

At its core, the plan was simple - a bold new experiment to erase a nation and create a new one by invasion, occupation and reconstruction for pillage. It would transform the nation into a fully privatized free market paradise with blank check public funds for profit but none for Iraqis for essential needs, a sustainable economy or critical local infrastructure.

The record of unfettered capitalism is consistent. It leaves mass human wreckage everywhere. In Iraq, it turned a bold new experiment into a horrific disaster:

– an inferno of uncontrolled violence throughout the country with new British O.R.B. independent polling data estimating over 1.2 million Iraqi deaths since March, 2003 on top of about 1.5 million deaths from the Gulf war and economic sanctions in place until the current war; the true toll may be even higher with huge uncounted numbers of daily violent and non-violent deaths that one estimate by Gideon Polya places at 3.9 million from 1990 to the present; no one knows for sure;

– the International Rescue Committee and UNHCR estimating four million displaced Iraqis, including those internally displaced, with 40,000 additional Iraqis fleeing their homes each month; these figures may be conservative with true numbers much higher;

– a near-total breakdown of essential services like electricity, drinking water, sanitation, medical care, education, security and food for many;

– mass unemployment and extreme poverty in what was once “the cradle of civilization” now erased for profit;

– an overall humanitarian disaster of epic proportions that continues to worsen with a July Oxfam International and NCCI network of aid organizations report of other grim findings:

– eight million Iraqis needing emergency aid - one-third of the population;

– four million without enough food;

– 70% of Iraqis with no adequate water supply;

– 80% lack adequate sanitation;

– 28% of children malnourished;

– underweight baby births tripled;

– 92% of Iraqi children with learning problems due to fear; and

– a mass exodus of around 80% of doctors, nurses, teaching staff at schools and hospitals and other vitally needed professionals.

In addition, local Iraqi industry collapsed, kidnapping for ransom is a growth industry, the country is a wasteland, its nation creation project bankrupt, and Iraq today more closely resembles hell than “the cradle of civilization.”

Iraq above all other nations today is a ghoulish testimony to the myth of free market magic, but it’s even worse than that. It proves Friedmanomics a crime against humanity and the man who led it a Nobel prize-winning fraud whose legacy is failure. His real time record is so horrific, it’s unrevealed in the mainstream to suppress it.

It’s endless foreign wars, mass killing and destruction, detentions and torture, contempt for international law, and total disregard for human rights and social justice everywhere. At home, it’s just as bad short of open warfare:

– democracy is a fantasy in a corporatist state placing profits over people;

– the prison-industrial complex is a growth industry;

– social decay is increasing as well as real human need;

– social justice, civil liberties and human rights are non-starters;

– an unprecedented wealth disparity exists in a rigid class society with growing poverty in the richest country in the world that’s also the least caring;

– government is the most secret, intrusive and repressive in our history;

– the rule of law is null and void;

– a cesspool of uncontrolled corruption prevails with no accountability;

– a de facto one party state exists with no checks and balances or separation of powers and a president claiming “unitary executive” powers to do as he pleases and does with impunity;

– suppression of all dissenting ideas and thoughts;

– an out-of-control military-industrial complex bent on world dominance; and

– a mainstream media serving as national thought control police gatekeepers glorifying wars, defiling democracy and supporting imperial conquest and repression.

This is the legacy of the man The Economist called “the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century (and) possibly all of it.” Once anointed, well funded and nurtured, he could never admit he was wrong or apologize to millions of victims who proved his ideology was hokum. Never have so many suffered so much to reveal the flimflam of one man and the movement he led until his death. That’s the dark side of “capitalism and freedom” unmasked that his torrent of eulogies left out.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com this Saturday at noon US central time but moving to Mondays at the same time October 8.

Have Your Say: “Capitalism and Freedom” Unmasked
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

European Union - The Grand Experiment

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

By Ivan Simic

The European Union (EU) is a multinational union, established in 1993. The
EU is made up of twenty-seven Member States. First, the EU was established
as the European Economic Community in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome and has
since undergone many changes. The EU has a single market between member
states with common trade policy. Important EU institutions and bodies
include the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of
the European Union, the European Court of Justice and the European Central
Bank, among others.

The end of War World II brought the idea for the unification of Europe, now
known as the EU, but some individuals or groups also known as world rulers
needed to conduct an experiment before the formation of an important super
power such as the EU. And soon, they succeeded; the right person for them
was Josip Broz Tito leader of Communist Party and lifetime President of the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ). With the Royal family in
exile and a post war atmosphere in Europe, Tito became famous, an ideal
partner for this experiment.

Many will wonder why Yugoslavia? The answer is very simple; besides the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which was too powerful, to play
with, she was the only post war country in Europe with multiethnic and
multicultural population, and Member Republics.

In 1945, from the remains of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia; the Democratic
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed, headed by Tito. Tito becomes
Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The experiment begins; one State with six republics, one army, one currency,
one federal police, one federal Government and Law, one passport, no borders
and a visa regime among republics, and most of all: every Republic had their
own Government with all vital institutions. Still, one very important thing
for this experiment was the fact that Yugoslavia had different cultures and
religions among State members, such as: Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim. The
way the population is going to live in these circumstances was essential for
the future of the EU.

In 1948, Tito makes one interesting move, highly motivated; he becomes the
first socialist to defy Stalin’s leadership in COMINFORM also known as
Information Bureau (Inform biro). This move by Tito gains him good positions
with all Western powers, of course his old friends, but bad relations with
the USSR. For good results and loyalty to the West, In London in 1954,
Yugoslavia gets zone B from Free Territories of Trieste by treaty based on
the “Memorandum of Understanding”.

On the other side, with the first results of the experiment, formation of
the future European Union begins with European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC) in 1952. Let us not forget that coal and steel were, and still are,
very important in war and industry. A very important founding member of this
Community was West Germany. A few years later, the Treaties of Rome in 1957
created two more communities: the European Economic Community (EEC) and
European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or EURATOM). The EEC and EAEC later
merge into EEC in 1967.

Strangely, but as previously arranged, Tito is chosen for SFRJ to be free
Eastern European country, independent from the USSR, and neither member of
Warsaw pact nor NATO, but in 1961, Tito puts Yugoslavia to be a founding
member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Membership in NAM did not affect
the experiment since Yugoslavia was the only European country in the
Movement at that time, but it did affect future of Yugoslavia.

Time is running, and in the beginning of eighties, Tito dies, but the
experiment continues. The West needs a few more years before final
announcement of new European Union. Europe is rapidly altering, many
countries have joined EEC.

At the beginning of nineties, Europe is about to change forever. In
Yugoslavia a new government is forming headed by Slobodan Milosevic, the
experiment is about to end, mission is about to be accomplished. World
rulers are entering the final phase before the formation of the EU. With the
USA battling Gulf War in Middle East, in Europe, history has been written;
Germany’s reunification takes place in 1990, followed by; dissolution of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991, dissolution of Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992, dissolution of Czechoslovakia in
1992, and wide spread fall of communist monopoly.

As planned, the new Europe comes into being in the year 1993, and with no
threats on the way, a new star was born, European Union. Just a few months
after termination of the USSR in which America had a big influence, the USA
got a new rival; the EU. This rival will become more influential and
powerful than any other country or Union in the world, more powerful than
the old USSR.

Two questions arise from this: First, did world rulers decide to put
European Union instead of the USA as a leader of a free world and first
super power? Second, who are those rulers and where were they coming from?

Answer for the first question is yes, they did, and as always, the USA was
used. Second: We will never know who they are, but they are definitely
coming from Germany, they are not Jews as many think, if they were Jews then
they would have had their own State long time ago.

If we turn back and look through European history, Germany was not defeated
as many thought, they played very smart; waited and planned to return
stronger than ever and they did through the EU, as leader and strongest
Member State. Germany was, and still is the Union’s biggest net contributor;
with the biggest economy, she is responsible for about 23% of the EU budget.
Same is with Japan and the USA; it looks like Japan was also not defeated in
the USA-Japan war. Now, Japan is the strongest independent economic and
industrial power on the earth, most Japanese products is represented in the
USA. In contemporary days, power is not measured through weapons, rather
through strongest industry.

Will the EU have an equal rival in the future?

It will; a true rival for the EU will be a future Union with lots of money
and same religion among member States as an advantage (maybe, Union of
Islamic countries?).

However, maybe we are being deceived with the EU; perhaps the EU is just
another world experiment before the launch of another giant global Union.

Have Your Say: European Union - The Grand Experiment
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Mauritanian in Guantanamo ‘abuse’

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Mr Mohamed spent more than four years in captivity

A Mauritanian man freed from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay says he suffered “physical and psychological torture” during his years in jail.

Mohamed Lemine Ould Sidi Mohamed spoke to the media as he was welcomed back to his family home by his mother.

He described how US guards forced prisoners to watch them “urinating on the Koran”, AFP news agency reports.

Mr Mohamed was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan. He told AP news agency he had never had any connection to al-Qaeda.

He was released without charge by a US tribunal and arrived back in Mauritania last week where the authorities questioned him for several days.

“Other prisoners, simple innocent Muslims were also tortured, humiliated in their beliefs and their human dignity,” AFP news agency quotes him as saying about his experiences.

“After that [the desecration of the Koran] we decided to no longer take it to our cells and only recited from memory,” he said.

Mr Mohamed, who is reported to be in his mid 20s, told AP news agency that he was “subjected to forced feeding after the hunger strike” demanding “justice or liberty”.

Correspondents say two other Mauritanians remain in custody in Guantanamo Bay alongside more than 300 detainees.

The US set the camp up in 2002 to hold foreign terror suspects captured during the war against the Taleban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7025955.stm

Have Your Say: Mauritanian in Guantanamo ‘abuse’
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Tories reaffirm anti-ID card stance

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

David David opposes ‘expensive white elephant’

Tash Shifrin

Shadow home secretary David Davis restated the Conservatives Party’s plan to scrap the government’s ID card scheme in a speech to the party’s conference in Blackpool yesterday.

“We’ll scrap ID cards, that expensive white elephant. Put some of the early savings into extra prison places,” he told the party faithful.

In February, Davis wrote to ministers and companies expected to bid for the plan, warning that his party would axe the project if it came to power, in an unprecedented move that sparked anger from suppliers. Trade body Intellect said the Tories announcement would cast doubt over the future of other public procurement plans.

But Davis’s conference speech comes as the main parties gear up in anticipation of a possible general election in November, adding extra spice to the Conservatives’ threat.

The party also launched an electronic petition as part of its ‘Bad IDea’ campaign, arguing that ID cards would not prevent terrorist attacks or identity fraud, in an indication that ID cards are seen as a likely election battleground.

It also attacked the cost of the plan, rubbishing government estimates that it would cost £5.4bn and instead citing figures from the London School of Economics that suggest the price tag could reach £20bn.

A campaign statement aimed at voters says: “According to Government estimates, you will pay at least £93 for a combined ID card and passport package but, given this government’s appalling record of implementing IT projects, this figure is likely to go up.”

The party also warned that the ID cards “could hold almost 30 separate pieces of personal information” on individuals.

Have Your Say: Tories reaffirm anti-ID card stance
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Record 22C temperatures in Arctic heatwave

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

By Steve Connor

Parts of the Arctic have experienced an unprecedented heatwave this summer, with one research station in the Canadian High Arctic recording temperatures above 20C, about 15C higher than the long-term average. The high temperatures were accompanied by a dramatic melting of Arctic sea ice in September to the lowest levels ever recorded, a further indication of how sensitive this region of the world is to global warming. Scientists from Queen’s University in Ontario watched with amazement as their thermometers touched 22C during their July field expedition at the High Arctic camp on Melville Island, usually one of the coldest places in North America.

“This was exceptional for a place where the normal average temperatures are about 5C. This year we frequently recorded daytime temperatures of between 10C and 15C and on some days it went as high as 22C,” said Scott Lamoureux, a professor of geography at Queen’s.

“Even temperatures of 15C are higher than we’d expect and yet we recorded them for between 10 and 12 days during July. We won’t know the August and September recordings until next year when we go back there but it appears the region has continued to be warm through the summer.”

The high temperatures on the island caused catastrophic mudslides as the permafrost on hillsides melted, Professor Lamoureux said. “The landscape was being torn to pieces, literally before our eyes.”

Other parts of the Arctic also experienced higher-than-normal temperatures, which indicate that the wider polar region may have experienced its hottest summer on record, according to Walt Meir of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

“It’s been warm, with temperatures about 3C or 4C above normal for June, July and August, particularly to the north of Siberia where the temperatures have reached between 4C and 5C above average,” Dr Meir said.

Unusually clear skies over the Arctic this summer have caused temperatures to rise. More sunlight has exacerbated the loss of sea ice, which fell to a record low of 4.28 million square kilometres (1.65 million square miles), some 39 per cent below the long-term average for the period 1979 to 2000. Dr Meir said: “While the decline of the ice started out fairly slowly in spring and early summer, it accelerated rapidly in July. By mid-August, we had already shattered all previous records for ice extent.”

An international team of scientists on board the Polar Stern, a research ship operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, also felt the effects of an exceptionally warm Arctic summer. The scientists had anticipated that large areas of the Arctic would be covered by ice with a thickness of about two metres, but found that it had thinned to just one metre.

Instead of breaking through thicker ice at an expected speed of between 1 and 2 knots, the Polar Stern managed to cruise at 6 knots through thin ice and sometimes open water.

“We are in the midst of a phase of dramatic change in the Arctic,” said Ursula Schauer, the chief scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, who was on board the Polar Stern expedition. “The ice cover of the North Polar Sea is dwindling, the ocean and the atmosphere are becoming steadily warmer, the ocean currents are changing,” she said.

One scientist came back from the North Pole and reported that it was raining there, said David Carlson, the director of International Polar Year, the effort to highlight the climate issues of the Arctic and Antarctic. “It makes you wonder whether anyone has ever reported rain at the North Pole before.”

Another team of scientists monitoring the movements of Ayles Ice Island off northern Canada reported that it had broken in two far earlier than expected, a further indication of warmer temperatures. And this summer, for the first time, an American sailing boat managed to traverse the North-west Passage from Nova Scotia to Alaska, a voyage usually made by icebreakers. Never before has a sail-powered vessel managed to get straight through the usually ice-blocked sea passage.

Inhabitants of the region are also noticing a significant change as a result of warmer summers, according to Shari Gearheard, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre. “People who live in the region are noticing changes in sea ice. The earlier break-up and later freeze-up affect when and where people can go hunting, as well as safety for travel,” she said.

Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, said: “We may see an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer within our lifetimes. The implications… are disturbing.”

The North-west Passage: an ominous sign

The idea of a North-west Passage was born in 1493, when Pope Alexander VI divided the discovered world between Spain and Portugal, blocking England, France and Holland from a sea route to Asia. As it became clear a passage across Europe was impossible, the ambitious plan was hatched to seek out a route through north-western waters, and nations sent out explorers. When, in the 18th century, James Cook reported that Antarctic icebergs produced fresh water, the view that northern waters were not impossibly frozen was encouraged. In 1776 Cook himself was dispatched by the Admiralty with an Act promising a £20,000 prize, but he failed to push through a route north of Canada. His attempt preceded several British expeditions including a famous Victorian one by Sir John Franklin in 1845. Finally, in 1906 Roald Amundsen led the first trip across the passage to Alaska, and since then a number of fortified ships have followed. On 21 August this year, the North-west Passage was opened to ships not armed with icebreakers for the first time since records began.

Have Your Say: Record 22C temperatures in Arctic heatwave
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

MI6 men were in Paris when Diana died

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

By Robert Verkaik

 

MI6 agents were operating in Paris at the time of the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed, the jury hearing the inquest into their deaths was told yesterday.

The presence of the secret intelligence officers has been used by MohamedAl Fayed to support his allegation that his son and Diana were murdered by MI6 as part of a conspiracy involving the Royal Family. Mr Al Fayed believes MI6 officers used stun guns in the Paris road tunnel on the night of 31 August 1997 to blind the driver of the car carrying Dodi and the princess, causing him to crash into one of the pillars.

Britain’s ambassador to Paris in 1997, Sir Michael Jay, is expected to attend the inquest to deny any links between MI6 and a conspiracy to murder the couple.

The coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, told the jury: “The UK has maintained from the outset that it was entirely unaware of Diana’s presence in Paris.”

He also told the jury that Sir Michael had said no officers working for the security or intelligence services were involved in a conspiracy to cause the death of Diana. But the coroner said it was up to the six women and five men jurors to make their own minds up about the reliability of the evidence relating to the alleged involvement of the British secret intelligence services.

Mr Al Fayed also claims the driver of the Mercedes in which the couple were travelling was an agent working for MI6 and evidence was tampered with to portray him as a drunk driver. This, said the coroner, was one of the 10 parts of Mr Al Fayed’s conspiracy theory.

Lord Justice Scott Baker said CCTV footage of M. Paul working in the Ritz hotel on the night of the crash showed him to be acting soberly although medical evidence later found him to be twice over the UK legal drink driving limit.

French police twice searched M. Paul’s home but found more alcohol on the second visit than they claimed to have found on the first. The coroner said there was “no obvious explanation for this” and told the jury: “You must consider whether there is any sinister implication”.

The judge added: “Members of the jury, you will have to decide if indeed samples analysed came from Henri Paul or whether they came from a completely different person.” He said the CCTV film showed Mr Paul bending down and tying his shoe laces while working at the Ritz. “There is no indication that his movements were affected by alcohol,” he said.

It became clear yesterday that questions of Diana’s supposed pregnancy would become a central theme of the inquests.

Mr Al Fayed alleges that the princess was pregnant and this was covered up by the British Government to avoid causing embarrassment to the Royal Family. He claims an unlawful embalming took place in Paris shortly after her death to hide the fact that Diana was expecting a baby.

The coroner said the allegation was important in the context of the Fayed conspiracy theory because it provided a motive for her murder and an explanation for the embalming. But he said there was “no indication given by Diana” either to her close friends and family or her doctor that she was pregnant. In fact, the coroner said the jury would hear evidence later that showed Princess Diana was taking the contraceptive pill. He also reminded the jury that two Home Office pathologists who had examined the body had found no “physical features” supporting that suggestion.

The coroner said that for an embalming to be lawful under French law, authority was required from a French mayor or from French police as well as a member of the deceased’s family. But in the case of the princess no family member appeared to have given consent. Instead, it appears that a decision was taken in Paris shortly after her death by her private secretary and Paul Burrell, her butler.

He went on: “It is likely the pregnancy is a matter that cannot be proved one way or the other in scientific terms. You will of course consider the scientific evidence such as it is but you will also hear evidence from several sources about what Diana had said to her friends and intimate details of her personal life.”

The coroner said he hoped Mr Burrell would give evidence. He said: “Paul Burrell has made a number of witness statements… I hope that he will come here to give evidence… Paul Burrell, you may think, was in an unrivalled position to know about her and give insight into various aspects of Diana’s life. But I am not going to anticipate what his evidence may be.”

Another matter for the jury to consider - the whereabouts of private letters sent by the Duke of Edinburgh to Diana – was raised by the coroner, who said that, if indeed they had existed, it seemed they were now “missing”. He added that, although Diana’s sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, was “certain” no such correspondence had existed, Mr Burrell insisted it had. The hearing continues.

How the princess’s final evening with Dodi Fayed was caught on camera

5.40pm: Dodi Fayed is pictured leaving the Ritz hotel to go to choose a ring. Mohamed al-Fayed claims this was to be an engagement ring that his son intended to give the princess on 1 September.

5.50pm: The pictures show him returning to the hotel.

4.00pm: CCTV coverage also captured the mid-afternoon scenes outside the Ritz as the paparazzi begin gathering in the square.

6.53pm: The jury is also shown images of the couple’s aborted attempt to leave the hotel when they fail to shake off the paparazzi.

9.49pm: A distressed-looking princess is seen being chased into the hotel through the revolving doors by members of the press. The couple have a meal at the Ritz restaurant. Afterwards Diana and Dodi return with their bodyguard, Trevor Rees Jones, to the imperial suite.

Today, the jury will be shown pictures of the couple leaving the hotel for the last time.

Have Your Say: MI6 men were in Paris when Diana died
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Related News

• Former CIA Official Exposes Bush Administration Fraud
• Iranian protesters chase police away from BBC crew
• ‘Bush message one of confrontation’
• Nicaragua leader calls for a New World Order
• PUT BUSH ON TRIAL

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 10:15 pm and is filed under General, Latest News, Media News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.