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SOCIAL SCIENCE FOR A NON-FREE SOCIETY

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Social Science was created to destroy human freedom The French philosopher/mathematician, Auguste Comte (1798-1857) devoted his entire intellectual life to perfecting plans for a WORld Management System (WORMS) , He believed human activities should be controlled by an intellectual elite whom he called ’social scientists.’

In the early Nineteenth Century two of the most important influences on human behavior were science and religion. If the WORld Management System could gain control in these two areas, Comte reasoned, it could establish a non-free society with a permanent world government that could never be overcome. He wrote and lectured about his plans and attracted a following of many who considered themselves to be among the intellectual elite.

To gain power over science, and of human behavior Comte claimed that his plan was scientific, and therefore not to be disputed. He invented the term, ’sociology’ for his new master science. In every instance methods of social control would be contrived and used to replace self control.

To gain power over religion he decided that all religions should eventually be united to form a single world religion which he called the ‘Religion of Humanity’ or ‘Positive Religion’. The object of worship would be humanity as the Great Being, symbolically represented as a woman of thirty with a child in her arms. The religious leaders would be called ‘Priests of Humanity.’

Comte published Positive Philosophy (PPC) in six volumes (1828-1842), System of Positive Polity (SPP), four volumes (1851-1854), and Catechism of the Positive Religion, (CPR) (1852). Throughout the generations others have been instructed by Comte’s works, and some have published instructions of their own. The following are among the steps deemed necessary and used to establish a sociologically-controlled non-free world management system (WORMS):

1. Replace Christianity With Positive Religion
2. Abolish Monarchy
3. Institute & Expand Communistic Principle
4. Limit Education & Establish Sociological Control
5. Control Environment to Control Mankind & Claim Land
6. Destroy Moral Authority & Crush Personality
7. Control Public Opinion
8. Liberalize Sexual Attitudes and Behavior
9. Destroy the Natural Family & Diminish Male Role
10. Establish Evolutionary Theory & Control Sciences
11. Promote Global Integration
12. Invest Political Power in Wealthy & Industry Leaders
13. Establish cities as Humanity’s Centers of Operation
14. Replace Constitution With World Management System (WORMS)

This is the introduction to an organized file of quotes which I hope you will download and use. Why? Because we can never regain our free society so long as the social sciences are accepted as true sciences. In the file that follows all the above subjects begin with Comte quotes related to the years 1830 to 1860. The development of Comte’s plan is then followed to the present day. For example, here is the beginning of the first section describing how Comte’s Religion of humanity was to destroy and replace all other religions. The entire file comering all 14 goals is more than 100 pages when downloaded or printed.

1. Replace Christianity With Positive Religion–1830-1860

EXCLUDE SERVANTS OF GOD — In the name of the past and of the future, the servants of humanity — both its philosophical and its practical servants come forward to claim as their due the general direction of this world. Their object is to constitute at length a real providence in all departments,–moral, intellectual, and material. Consequently they exclude once for all from political supremacy all the different servants of God — Catholic, Protestant, or Deist — as being at once behindhand, and a cause of disturbance. — Comte quote from Encyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition, “Auguste Comte,” Volume 6, Page 191.

UNIVERSAL RELIGIION — We have founded the new Science of Sociology, and as a deduction from Sociology, the Universal Religion. SPP, Vol.2, 344.

WOMEN BECOME GODDESSES — By substituting goddesses for gods, we sanction the legitimate preeminence of women. SPP, Vol 4, 446.

CATHOLICISM WILL ADAPT — Direct attacks upon Catholicism will not be necessary. The new religion will simply put itself into competition with the old by performing in a better way the same functions that Catholicism fulfils now, or has fulfilled in past times. SPP, Vol. 1, 217.

SOCIOLOGY WILL DIRECT SOCIETY — The final blow was inevitably given to Theology. . . when the establishment of my system of Sociology cut from under it its old title to teach Morality and direct Society. . .SPP, Vol. 2, 290.

SPIRITUAL REORGANIZATION — The object of our philosophy is to direct the spiritual reorganisation of the civilised world. . . A new basis for morality is being gradually laid down. . . No important step in the progress of Humanity can now be made without totally abandoning the theological principle. . . Positivism proves more efficient than theology. SPP, vol. 1, P35,14,15,28.

POLITICAL RECONSTRUCTION –It is true that Positivism has just supplied us with a philosophical basis for political reconstruction. But its principles are still so new and underdeveloped, and besides are understood by so few, that they cannot exercise much influence at present on political life. Ultimately, and by slow degrees, they will mould the institutions of the future, but meanwhile they must work their way freely into men’s minds and hearts, and for this at least one generation will be necessary. Spiritual organisation is the only point where an immediate beginning can be made; difficult as it is, its possibility is at last as certain as its urgency. SPP, Vol. I., P. 89

WOMAN PRIESTESS — Woman is the spontaneous priestess of Humanity. . . All classes must be brought under women’s influence, for all require to be reminded constantly of the great truth that reason and activity are subordinate to feeling. SPP, Vol. I, P.183.

WORSHIP OF WOMEN — In a word the new doctrine will institute the worship of Woman, publicly and privately, in a far more perfect way than has ever before been possible. It is the first permanent step towards the worship of Humanity. SPP, Vol. I, 205.

POSITIVE RELIGION — Thus in the conception of Humanity the three essential aspects of Positivism, its subjective principle, its objective dogma, and its practical object, are united. Towards Humanity, who is for us the only true Great Being, we, the conscious elements of whom she is composed, shall henceforth direct every aspect of our life, individual or collective. Our thoughts will be devoted to the knowledge of Humanity, our affections to her love, our actions to her service. . .

Thus Positivism becomes, in the true sense of the word, a Religion; one more real and more complete than any other, and therefore destined to replace all imperfect and provisional systems resting on the primitive basis of theology. SPP, Vol. I. P. 264.

END REVOLT OF INTELLECT — Consequently it is the primary condition of social reorganization to put an endto the state of utter revolt which the Intellect maintains against the Heart. . . Positivism has at last overcome the immense difficulties of this task. . . every part of our nature is brought under the regenerating influence of the worship of Humanity. Thus a new spiritual power will arise. . . better calculated than Catholicism to engage the support of women which is so necessary to its efficient action on society. SPP, Vol. I, P. 285-287

CLOSING COMMENTS

With more than 2000 Non Governmental Organizations involved and submitting to the United Nations requirements, there is every possibility that you, are, without your knowledge, a member of one or more organizations sanctioning the non-free sociological New World Order. There are few national or international organizations, that have not been taken in. Elected officials are intimidated by members of these national and international non governmental organizations and are allowing themselves to be replaced by Regional Government bureaucrats.

The SOCIAL SCIENCE FOR A NON-FREE SOCIETY collection of quotes is still a work in progress. Much more could have been included because everything concerning the new world order or WORld Management System (WORMS) can be traced back to Comte and his social science. Every child or young adult who is enrolled in social science courses is being trained to manage and be managed for the new world order.

In the 1940’s a system for managing people was developed at HARvard University and taught to many top business executives and university professors, etc. The HARvard Management System (HARMS) is now widely used in many kinds of endeavor. Instead of talking about owners or executives of businesses or various enterprises, they more frequently are referred to as managers of men or peoople managers.

Articles which fit in the framework of Social Science For A Non-Free Society appear in the media every day. We suggest you clip or record them, note the aource, and file them for future reference under one of the fourteen categories . If you would like to share the information or suggest categories which might be added and traced back to Comte, send quotes and details to ericacarle@sbcglobal.net.

If the social sciences are treated as true sciences there can be no freedom. All people everywhere and forever become no more than objects of social management and experimentation.

Download the entire SOCIAL SCIENCE FOR A NON-FREE SOCIETY AT: http://idisk.mac.com/ericacarle-Public?view=web

Via the awesome Revolution Radio, another great site for your bookmarks

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More delegates for Obama, Huckabee

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

The Democrat sweeps Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington by wide margins. Huckabee takes Kansas and Louisiana.

By Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Sen. Barack Obama narrowed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s lead in the fight for Democratic presidential delegates Saturday, sweeping three states, while Sen. John McCain hit a detour on his march to the Republican nomination.

Obama won Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington by wide margins as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won Kansas and Louisiana, and McCain won a tight race in Washington.

None of the results reconfigured the delegate counts that will settle the nominations, but for Democrats they set the stage for the Maine caucuses today and the so-called Potomac primaries Tuesday in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Clinton and Obama remain locked in a showdown that might not be settled until the August convention in Denver, and each sought to make the case on the trail Saturday that each is better situated to defeat McCain.

“If our nominee is running against someone with the legendary background of John McCain — Democrats need to think about this,” Clinton said in Orono, Maine. “Because we’re picking a nominee we expect to win. We cannot take four more years of more of the same.”

In addressing an audience in Virginia after his sweep Saturday, Obama sought to cast Clinton and McCain as part of the same Washington establishment, and said the defining issue of the Democratic campaign was which candidate is most likely to effect political change.

“That’s a debate we can win,” Obama said.

Despite McCain’s setbacks Saturday, the table remained set for the Arizona senator to eventually gather the 1,191 delegates he needs for the Republican convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul beginning on Labor Day.

After last week’s Super Tuesday slate of contests — which effectively ended the campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — McCain faces only Huckabee, who swept the Kansas caucuses and the state’s 36 available delegates Saturday, and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who has managed to win a sliver of the total needed.

Huckabee narrowly beat McCain on Saturday in Louisiana, but with less than a majority of the vote.

Under the state party’s rules, that means the primary might not lead to any candidate being awarded delegates.

The results show that despite McCain’s commanding lead for the Republican nomination, social conservatives are still willing to back someone else.

And they reflect the continuing divide within the party.

Huckabee celebrated the Kansas win and vowed to continue his campaign until someone receives enough delegates to seal the nomination.

“Earlier this morning, I said I didn’t major in math, I majored in miracles. It looks like my victory in Kansas is one of them,” Huckabee said. “Clearly I am pleased by these results, but it is onward and upward to Virginia and Maryland.”

McCain, who was endorsed by Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas after Brownback ended his own Republican presidential run, campaigned in Kansas with a single news conference in Wichita, said Corrie Kangas, the state party’s political director. McCain did not campaign Saturday.

Huckabee made four stops in Kansas on Friday, helping him win his sixth state in less than a week.

“Huckabee held several rallies, and I think that weighed in on the results,” Kangas said.

Campaign manager Chip Saltsman said in a statement: “It was an important victory, especially after the pundits spent the past few days saying this campaign is over. Kansas said, ‘Not so fast.’ ”

On the Democratic side, Obama celebrated his sweep in a speech before the party’s Jefferson-Jackson fundraising dinner in Richmond, Va.

“Today the voters from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast to the heart of America stood up to say ‘Yes, we can,’ ” Obama told the enthusiastic crowd. “We won North, we won South, we won in between, and I believe that we can win Virginia on Tuesday.”

The Obama campaign cast the three-state sweep as part of a broader endorsement by rank-and-file Democrats. He also won caucuses in the U.S. Virgin Islands, with three delegate votes at stake.

“They see in Barack Obama the best chance to beat John McCain in the fall, unite our country, take on the special interests, and confront the challenges facing working families,” said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

Interest ran so high in Washington that the state party’s online caucus-finder overloaded. The party diverted some traffic to the Obama campaign website and three other sites run by local Democratic groups.

Party spokesman Kelly Steele described the turnout as “record-shattering,” perhaps double the previous record of 100,000 set in 2004.

The interest apparently centered mostly on Obama: He won two-thirds of the vote.

The Democratic Party allots delegates under a complex formula based on both statewide vote and the vote within congressional districts, so the number of delegates Obama won was not immediately known.

But the margins made it clear that he had gained ground on Clinton.

The day’s lineup of states played to Obama’s electoral strengths: an organization that gets supporters to caucuses, and in Louisiana a large base of African American voters who support his historic run for the nomination.

Clinton, of New York, and Obama, of Illinois, were already looking ahead to the next contests.

Clinton, who also addressed the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, asked the audience to look to inauguration day.

“Someone standing on the steps of the Capitol will place his or her hand on the Bible and be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States,” Clinton said.

“Our task tonight is to make sure that president is a Democrat.”

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Calls for probe into prison bugging

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

An inquiry has been demanded into claims lawyers’ legally-protected conversations with clients in jail are routinely bugged.

Opposition parties said such a practice would strike “at the heart” of the justice system and suggested it could only have been sanctioned by ministers. And one leading QC warned that the courts could let violent offenders walk free if it was shown their meetings with lawyers had been taped.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw has already launched an inquiry into claims a Labour MP’s jail meetings with a terror suspect constituent were bugged at Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes.

Sadiq Khan’s case sparked particular controversy amid suggestions it breached a ban on bugging MPs - and is being examined by Chief Surveillance Commissioner Sir Christopher Rose.

Now the Tories and Liberal Democrats are demanding a fresh probe into claims by an unnamed whistleblower that it was part of a wider practice nationwide.

The individual, said to have “detailed knowledge” of the operation at Woodhill, told the Daily Telegraph “hundreds” of meetings with lawyers had been eavesdropped. Murderers and other category-A prisoners - including Soham murderer Ian Huntley - were said to have been targeted as well as terror suspects.

The Ministry of Justice said covert listening operations were “a matter for the police and are undertaken in line with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000″.

But Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said the allegations were so serious they merited a new inquiry.

“If it is… a widespread practice it is very hard to imagine that could have happened without ministerial approval because the risks are so great - it goes so close to the heart of our justice system and it puts the whole trial process at risk,” he said.

“That is why I have called for Mr Straw to set up a second inquiry - not to stretch the first one, we need the answer to the Rose inquiry in a couple of weeks’ time - to actually establish what the real practice is, how common this is and what needs to be done about it.”

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Hillary’s $5 Million Dump Truck

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Marc Cooper

Now that’s what one might call a heckuva coincidence. A handful of weeks ago, Bill Clinton disentangles his investment partnership with billionaire Ron Burkle, producing an estimated $20 million windfall. And now we learn that the suddenly flush Clintons are loaning Hillary’s campaign $5 million from their joint assets to bridge it through a funding rough patch.

Talk about windfalls. This is a veritable bonanza not only for enterprising reporters and snoopy researchers, but also for any Republican candidate that could potentially face Hillary in November — if she wins the nomination. That is, if she doesn’t first drown in a sea of sleaze of her own making.

This newest episode in the Clinton finances opens up a field of questions that could make Whitewater and Hillary’s long-forgotten but near-magical touch in commodity trading look like kid’s stuff. And with a lot of time to kill between now and November, there’s going to plenty of opportunity to rake through it all. Make that, parse through it, as it is the Clintons we’re talking about.

It puts front and center the question of just how rich are the Clintons, and how did they get so rich? Current estimates of their joint wealth range from $10 million up to $50 million or more, a long way to come from when they first got married and they struggled to make the $14,000 mortgage on their first modest Arkansas home.

Quite a nice pay-off for a supposed career of 35 years, as Hillary repeats every day, “working to bring positive change to people’s lives.” While Clinton touts her decision to come out of law school and work not for Wall Street but rather for the Children’s Defense Fund, the truth is that she spent only a year there. (And then omitted her mentor Marian Wright Edelman from among the 400 others she mentions in the acknowledgemets of her autobiography because Edelman had broken with her when Bill Clinton abolished the federal welfare saftey net in 1996).

For half of her professional career Clinton really worked not at all for The Little People, but rather for Arkansas’most elite business-connected law firm, representing big corporations and serving on their boards.

In fairness, though, the bulk of the money earned by the Clintons has been acquired since Big Dawg left office and started socking away huge book, speaker and, um, consulting fees. Indeed, their entire fortune has been made since leaving the White House. Renting out the Lincoln Bedroom was but a Ma and Pa operation compared to what came in its wake.

Let’s be very clear about this. We’re not just talking about Bill cashing in by smoking some cigars and telling some good stories to a bunch of banquet goers. It also means such smelly deals as him serving as an “advisor” to Dubai, when he coached their government on how to swing a port deal with the U.S. (that failed). That’s after the oil sheiks shelled out $300,000 in 2002 to have Bill address one of their summits (There was also a direct link between Dubai and the investment fund with which Burkle and Clinton were partnered).

Then there was that revoltingly sleazy little deal revealed by The New York Times in which the former president served as a broker/fixer between a Canadian mining entrepreneur and the dictator of Kazakhstan, greasing through a multi-billion dollar uranium deal. Mr. Clinton’s fee? A previously undisclosed “donation” of more than $30 million to his charitable Clinton Foundation from the grateful Canadian capitalist.

A honcho at a Canadian bank specialized in mining said the deal was a result of a “fantastic network” with Bill Clinton at its top.

None of this illegal, we think. And the money given to Clinton’s foundation is not supposed to be the same personal funding that was used as a bridge loan to Hillary’s campaign. And there’s nothing against the law about a former president serving as a high-end errand boy for Arab Sheiks. Nor is it illegitimate to make a stack of dough fronting for dictators, pushing ghost-written books, or serving as hired jester for private corporate banquets. Except with the Clintons, of course, there’s always the slippery questions of definition. Whose money is whose? Where does Bill’s end and Hillary’s begin? What’s the line between personal funding and political funding? Charitable versus political donations?

One might also argue that what Bill does is not necessarily what Hillary does. Except that Hillary has based her entire campaign on being a faithful offshoot of his legacy.

What we know for certain is this: When Barack Obama said yesterday that we can expect Republicans to find a “whole dump truck” of dirt on Hillary, he knew what he was talking about. She just pumped $5 million worth of fuel into its tank.

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Our best guard against a surveillance society?

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Times Online

Life without privacy is intolerable. Behind the Iron Curtain and in Mao Tse-tung’s China people lived in constant dread that anything they said would be recorded or reported, even by close family members. The best way to survive was not merely to say nothing but to think nothing, too. That was the grim success of state terror.

In the past week our growing awareness of the extent of surveillance in the United Kingdom has invited comparison with the former East Germany. In fact there is little similarity - for now at least. The British state does not forbid political debate nor stifle dissent.

However, even where the motivation is not political, depriving a person of privacy still renders their life miserable. In Britain those who have so far found themselves in that position are victims not so much of MI5 as of the press.

Yet there has been little public concern because those who are violated are often celebrities - for example, members of the royal family. Those who occupy the limelight (even if only because they are unwittingly born into it) are widely thought to deserve all that is coming to them.

Most of us would be devastated if we had to endure for a day or two what such people experience on a daily basis. For instance, if the transcripts of our telephone calls were printed in newspapers - as the Prince of Wales’s once were - which of us would not regret things that we had said, believing the conversation was private?

A recent book on press intrusion has even shocked many journalists because it reveals that access to our bank accounts and telephone records can easily be bought by unscrupulous investigators. Quite often someone who is not a celebrity but who strays into the public gaze for 15 minutes of infamy finds his or her private life exposed to criticism and ridicule. Because attention moves on quickly to other people and things, we never know what lasting damage has been caused.

In the rumpus over the bugging of an MP’s conversation with a constituent detained in prison we should not conclude that the biggest current threat to our privacy comes from the state. For the time being it does not. Our media will always be vigilant on our behalf against government encroachment into our lives. But none is likely to defend us from intrusion by other organs of the media.

Nor is the danger confined to the media. Today shops openly sell spy equipment. It is not difficult for people to penetrate our lives in order to steal our identities, blackmail us or simply make our lives hell.

The government does not take the issue seriously, perhaps because it is embarrassed at having massively extended the reach of its own surveillance. Its own carelessness with our personal data demonstrates that it does not grasp what damage can be done when sensitive personal material is diverted.

We viewed the communist regimes of Europe with both horror and amusement. It was not only monstrous that vast numbers of citizens had their conversations recorded, it was also ludicrous.

Eavesdropping on such a scale was a symptom of an inefficient state. How many people were employed typing transcripts? Who had time to read the volumes of material produced, let alone make judgments about their significance? At what economic cost were thousands or millions of workers switched to spy on each other?

It is in that area that the comparison with modern Britain is more apt. Now that about 800 public agencies have the right to carry out surveillance, the British state is evidently mushrooming. For the moment it is at least as comic as it is sinister.

The issue about recording the conversation of Sadiq Khan, the MP, with Babar Ahmad is precisely about whether the surveillance process is properly controlled. Apparently ministers had not given their consent and did not know of it. Evidently, then, the system works badly.

Much nonsense has been written that MPs should not be placed above the law. The real points are quite different. First, constituents with serious problems and often justified grievances against government agencies will worry, reasonably or not, about speaking to their MP if they think the conversation might be bugged.

Second, any government finds a number of MPs a real nuisance because they ask awkward questions. The public relies on MPs to do just that. So we need safeguards against the executive using bugging as a way to discredit its political opponents.

The best guarantee is to require the prime minister personally to authorise any interception against an MP. That can be effective because prime ministers still fear cross-examination in parliament and are reluctant to tell a blatant lie in case it is later found out.

Democracy does not function if ministers can answer in every case that things occurred without their knowledge and beyond their control. Then nobody is accountable. Recently ministers have pleaded ignorance about almost everything that matters: financing scandals in the Labour party, the lost records of 25m child benefit claimants and now the bugging of Khan.

Indeed, ministers have responded to the public’s declining trust in politicians by arranging to know about and decide upon ever fewer issues. They subcontract an ever larger number of decisions to quangos and committees of experts.

If the public thinks that this improves the quality of decision-making, it is wrong. Politicians may be slimy or mendacious, but at least they are public figures operating in the glare of publicity.

The experts to whom they devolve the decisions they fear to take are often little more than jumped-up vested interests operating behind closed doors. They do not fear accountability as ministers must. If voters understood their own interests better, they would demand that every decision of consequence be taken by a minister and that all the paraphernalia of anonymous decision-making bodies be dismantled.

To make matters worse, ministers’ fear of parliament is declining. The scandal over MPs’ allowances further diminishes the public’s respect for the House of Commons. The cry goes up that the house must cease to regulate itself.

It is easy to see that self-governance has not been a total success – to put it mildly. Nonetheless the house is much more transparent than it used to be and more transparent than other institutions are today: MPs now declare their outside interests, for example.

Do journalists or broadcasters reveal what financial interests may have helped to shape their views? Having moved from one camp to the other, I can say that it is a great relief no longer to have to tell the public exactly how I earn my living.

The Commons needs to reform much more and do it quickly. But our democracy rests upon parliament being sovereign. If MPs are merely state employees, and if the executive can tell them what to do, then parliament will surrender that sovereignty and we the public will be the principal losers.

For instance, it is understandably awkward for MPs to have to vote on their own salaries. They loathe the bad press that it brings them. But still it is extraordinary that most are ready to accept instead that the government should dictate their pay. If the executive directs parliament, then the relationship upon which our representative democracy is based will be inverted. The government should depend on parliament, not the other way around.

Of course the executive is happy to see parliament weakened, to change it from being its boss to being its client. Although Gordon Brown and David Cameron appreciate better than the Speaker that Commons reform is urgent, we should not trust them because their interest is to give the executive an easier ride.

In a surveillance society, life would be unbearable. Neither the government nor the media will protect us against its development. Parliament provides our best defence. We must hope, against the odds, that it can autonomously bring its standards up to date. We need it to retain responsibility for its own affairs. We depend upon its remaining sovereign.

Simon Jenkins is away

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Guantánamo detainees said to face 9/11 trial

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

By Colin Freeman | The Telegraph

US military prosecutors are putting the finishing touches to the first major case against Guantanamo Bay inmates suspected to have helped plot the September 11 attacks.


	Khalid Shaik Mohammed was subjected to “waterboarding” while in detention

The charges are expected to involve six detainees currently held at the Cuban detention camp, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the former senior aide to Osama bin Laden, who claims to have been the main architect of the plot.

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The prosecution, which will permit a crucial trial in the US-led war on terror, is intended to bolster Washington’s argument that the 275 remaining inmates at Guantanamo would pose a threat to US national security were they to be freed, the New York Times reported today.

One US official familiar with the case told the newspaper: “The thinking was 9/11 is the heart and soul of the whole thing. The thinking was: go for that.”

However, any trial will put the spotlight once again on claims of mistreatment and torture brought by some of the inmates, who as designated “enemy combatants” of the US were denied basic legal rights that would normally afforded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.

Last week, for example, the CIA confirmed that Mr Mohammed had at times been subjected to the interrogation technique known as “waterboarding”, in which suspects have water poured into their breathing passages in order to simulate a sense of drowning.

The CIA claimed it was carried out on him in the belief that he had knowledge about further large-scale terrorist attacks. A second suspect thought to be among the six, Mohammed al-Qahtani, was subjected to sleep deprivation, forced to wear a bra, and led around Guantanamo Bay on a leash, according to a 2005 Pentagon investigation into claims of abusive treatment.

Al-Qahtani, who been held at Guantanamo since 2002, is said to have been the so-called “20th hijacker”, whose plans were thwarted when he was denied entry into the United States by an immigration official.

Gitanjali Gutierrez, a lawyer acting for Mr al-Qahtani, told The New York Times that she had no information about whether he would be charged.

“But if he is,” she added, “I can assure you that his well-documented torture and the controversy over secret trials will be the focus.”

Prosecutors are understood to be considering charges of murder, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism against the defendants, although it is thought that any trial is still many months away.

The only person who has so far been tried in a US court over the September 11 plot is Zacarias Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2005 and is serving a life jail term.

All the British inmates held in Guantanamo Bay have been released.

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Former IRA driver spy ‘worked for MI5′

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

A man who served as a driver for Sinn Fein leader and former IRA commander Gerry Adams secretly worked as a British spy, a party official says.

Roy McShane, 58, was once part of the security team that looked after transportation arrangements for the Irish Republican Army leadership.

But he also worked for MI5, Britain’s domestic spy agency, for several years, and left his home in west Belfast early Friday, apparently out of concern for his safety after his alleged role had been disclosed, the official told AP.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he had not been authorised to be the party’s spokesman about McShane.

But he confirmed reports in British newspapers quoting Alex Maskey, a Sinn Fein member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, as saying McShane had told his family on Thursday about his alleged role as an MI5 agent. Maskey said the former IRA member had left the country after being taken into “protective custody”.

Police refused to comment on the reports, which would be embarrassing for Adams, who has steered his IRA movement from a 1997 ceasefire to 2005 disarmament.

Two years ago Denis Donaldson, one of Adams’ closest administrative aides, admitted having secretly worked as a double agent for MI5. Five months later, Donaldson, 56, who had led a Sinn Fein support team, was shot dead in Ireland.

As a driver, McShane worked for senior IRA officials, including at the time of the developing peace process which led to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement 10 years ago.

He would have been privy to highly sensitive information as he drove senior IRA members back and forth to Castle Buildings, where the intense negotiations took place.

McShane would have been on a first-name basis with all the top men and women in Sinn Fein, including Martin McGuinness, who is now deputy first minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Tortured Justifications

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Alan Bock

So it’s out in the open now. Central Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Michael Hayden admitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that the CIA used the coercive interrogation technique known as waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, on three al-Qaeda operatives in 2002 and 2003. The technique is widely viewed as torture, which is prohibited by U.S. law and international treaties. Gen. Hayden said it has not been used since 2003 but that the CIA could use it again if approved by both the attorney general and the president.

The Justice Department is currently investigating the destruction of videotapes of the interrogations of two detainees held in Thailand who were reportedly subjected to waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques to determine whether destroying the tapes amounted to obstruction of justice. However, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Thursday that the Justice Department cannot probe the legality of the interrogations themselves because the department said they were legal in 2002 and 2003, but new laws passed since then make it “not certain that that technique would be considered lawful under the current statute.” CIA director Hayden says he prohibited his agency from using waterboarding in 2006.

Well, now. Do you suppose that public disclosure of these incidents will lead to a firm U.S. policy preventing government operatives from using torture in the future? Given the almost incoherent murmurings from the administration, that may be too much to hope for as long as this administration is in power. Press spokesman Tony Fratto intimated that it might be used in the future (though the CIA and FBI seem convinced it is illegal) and Darth Cheney (of course!) said he was glad and proud that the U.S. had done it.

Will that attitude last forever? Perhaps the best thing about the emergence of Sen. John McCain as the Republican presidential front-runner is that Sen. McCain, who was tortured by the North Vietnamese while a POW during the Vietnam War, has expressed his firm opposition to the use of torture by the U.S. He has said that one thing that helped him endure torture and imprisonment was the knowledge that our side doesn’t engage in such barbarity – although Philippine guerrillas could testify that it was not always so.

Torture is sometimes justified as the only way to extract information from detainees when an attack is deemed imminent, and Gen. Hayden said in 2002 and 2003 that everybody expected more attacks after 9/11. But most experienced interrogators say that torture seldom if ever produces reliable intelligence and that while other techniques may take longer, they generally produce better information. Recent Army War College research reinforces the perception that although there may be occasional instances when a detainee blurts out the truth under torture, in the vast majority of instances people being tortured say what they think the torturer wants to hear or might believe – anything to get the pain to stop. If the person being tortured has any training or dedication to cause at all, torture is much more likely to produce lies than the truth.

Sometimes torture that elicits lies can lead to much larger tragedies. As I wrote a couple of years ago:

“For example, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was subjected both to the cold cell and waterboarding. Eventually he told interrogators that Saddam Hussein’s regime had trained al-Qaeda members to use biochemical weapons. This ‘confession’ became a key part of the administration’s case for invading Iraq. But it was pure invention. And relying on it led to a huge disconnect between justification and the realities that emerged after the invasion of Iraq that would have been hugely embarrassing to the administration, if this administration were in fact capable of embarrassment.

“Not that the president or anybody in the administration has even acknowledged, let alone apologized for, the mistakes and lies that led many Americans to support the invasion initially.”

At a more fundamental level, the use of torture blurs the line between civilized societies and ruthless barbarians. Permitting torture by the government of a society that likes to think of itself as civilized can lead to tragic and bizarre results. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern noticed, for instance, that on Thursday President Bush attended the annual National Prayer Breakfast and intoned: “When we lift out hearts to God, we’re all equal in his sight. We’re all equally precious …In prayer we grow in mercy and compassion.” That same day Darth Cheney told the Conservative Political Action Conference he was glad the U.S. had detained and harshly interrogated those al-Qaeda prisoners, whom he apparently didn’t consider quite equal and deserving of mercy and compassion.

In the larger struggle with jihadist terrorists and their supporters and those tempted to harbor them, the perception that the United States has a certain moral authority is invaluable. Moral authority (sometimes deserved, sometimes not) was a key factor in the long, twilight struggle we call the Cold War. Using torture undermines that moral authority.

It is beyond dismaying, therefore, that White House spokesman Tony Fratto on Wednesday was still saying that waterboarding might be used justifiably in the future. It would have been better to acknowledge that in the wake of 9/11 the U.S. used coercive techniques, that one could understand the temptation considering the circumstances and the lack of knowledge about al-Qaeda, but that we had renounced them.

It is telling that the firmest opponents of the use of torture tend to be military and former military people, who understand the dangers to captured military personnel if it is widely believed that the U.S. still engages in torture. During previous debates on torture not only Sen. McCain but Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a former military lawyer, as well as dozens of retired top-level officers, weighed in against even a hint of the authorized use of torture.

The most prominent defenders of torture are sofa samurai and deskbound intellectuals and lawyers whose experience consists of watching “24″ and dreaming up convoluted justifications. These mock-macho war weenies deserve to – no, I guess it would be inconsistent to waterboard them, but if they ever came to my house I would throw them in the pool.

Perhaps there’s a bright side to the fact that modern “conservatives” (unlike the hardy breed that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s) tend to be worshippers of authority figures. At the CPAC convention they went beyond being polite to John McCain, whom most of them couldn’t stand a few days ago and started applauding him enthusiastically. (Some of them did stay and applaud Ron Paul, who was especially tough on the war and directly critical of McCain on a range of issues.) He was, after all, the designated leader now, and conservatives and Republicans love to “touch the purple” as a former colleague used to put it.

Now that the wearer of the purple is an opponent of the use of torture by the United States, will the newly enlightened followers of the newly anointed Great Man stop justifying and demanding torture? Probably not entirely, but they might not make it so central to their public talking points.

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VIDEO: Mr. Doubletalk

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI[/youtube]
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/272.html

President McCain?

Giuliani - the 9/11 ghoul - has been eliminated.So has Mitt Romney, a high ranking member of a church that until relatively recently was officially racist.

Which leaves us with…this guy.

The Republicans managed to fraudulently put Bush in the White House - twice -
and McCain is clearly a water boy for the War Party.

So, are we looking at the next president of the United States?

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Police chief Orde backs use of wire-tap evidence

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Henry McDonald and Gaby Hinsliff

Police chief Sir Hugh Order confirmed this weekend he had asked the Secretary of State Shaun Woodward to have Gordon Brown’s plans for the introduction of wire-tap evidence in court extended to Northern Ireland.

Asked if Orde regarded wire-taps as bona fide evidence, a spokesman for the PSNI Chief Constable said: ‘In principle, yes. However, as the Prime Minister has said, it is important all the safeguards are in place before it is introduced.

‘It would allow further evidence to be placed before the courts which could help in the prosecution of terrorists and those involved in criminality.’

Senior PSNI officers and retired top policemen involved in major investigations such as the Omagh bombing inquiry have backed the use of intercept evidence. One officer involved in the original Omagh investigation said that if they had been able to use wire-taps they could have brought a number of Real IRA suspects to court for the atrocity.

But the current Chief Constable’s lobbying for wire-tap evidence will be fiercely resisted on the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Sinn Fein member Alex Maskey said yesterday that his party was ‘instinctively opposed’ to the use of such evidence.

‘We would oppose it because it’s not suitable for the new climate in the north of Ireland, and because of the historic abuses of power by the state again and again throughout Irish history,’ he said.

The South Belfast assembly member added that, if policing and justice powers were devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive, then Sinn Fein would seek to block the use of wire-taps in court. Under the 2006 Saint Andrew’s agreement that led to the present power-sharing government at Stormont, the British government promised to hand over policing and justice powers to ministers elected by the assembly in Belfast this May. However, due to opposition from the Democratic Unionists, it is unlikely that these powers will be devolved until later in the year.

Meanwhile, the Rev William McCrea, the Democratic Unionist MP, entered the row over wire-tapping of MPs this weekend by claiming he had been systematically bugged by the security services. The South Antrim MP said he had ‘no doubt’ that both his home and office phones were tapped at the height of negotiations during the peace process. He said he and his colleagues had their offices swept for bugs. ‘We got private persons in to do tests and they found that at that time it seemed very evident that this was going on,’ he said.

‘There is no doubt whatsoever that the authorities were doing it. If you were opposing what was government policy, or were seen as an obstacle or standing in the way, it happened.’

McCrea said that he had routinely taken ‘corrective measures’, such as avoiding using the phone for sensitive political conversations.

The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has already ordered an inquiry into revelations that the Muslim Labour MP Sadiq Khan was taped when he visited a constituent in prison, contravening the Wilson doctrine that supposedly protects elected politicians from secret surveillance.

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A Rebuke of Zeitgeist - Just 3 Minutes Examined

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

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The threat of a police state looms over us

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

By Dave Snyder

The FBI is planning to announce the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract in an increased effort to “protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in,” in the words of FBI Biometric Services Section Chief Kimberly Del Greco.

This seems to be a noble cause and something everyone can agree is important, but how exactly does the FBI plan on doing this? The FBI wants to create a database which compiles various types of biometric data, such as palm prints, eye scans, facial structures and even data regarding scars and tattoos.

And certainly this won’t only be used to track terrorists and criminals, as many of the FBI background checks (which already compile some of this data) are for people who are involved in such things as teaching and elder care.

While one can make the argument that this does not necessarily mean the system will affect every American citizen, regardless of his or her activities or standing in the criminal justice system, one has to admit that the potential is certainly there.

In this day and age, when government is too vast and too many operations and actions are being undertaken in secret in the name of “national security,” we must realize that this is potentially opening the door for a very Orwellian state and system in this country.

While it is probably impossible to find people who disagree with the notion that we need to implement new measures to combat and prevent terrorism and crime, it seems far-fetched to assume that these same people would agree with actions such as these, which have far greater impacts on society as a whole.

Certainly I’m not out committing atrocious crimes such as rape and murder, and would have no reason to be fearful of the government having my biometric data on file to link me to these crimes, but is it wrong to want, or even expect, some reasonable amount of privacy in my daily life?

This revelation, coupled with other actions and discussions on the part of the government, is leading us in a direction that just doesn’t seem too comfortable and compatible with our notions of liberty, privacy and freedom. In the past few years the government has discussed and implemented plans for a National ID Card.

There is ongoing discussion about fencing off our borders to keep outsiders out (but perhaps also to keep insiders in?). And who can ignore the depth and secrecy of the NSA’s wiretapping program, which has caused considerable controversy even within the government.

We must be aware of the potential for mistakes to be made with systems such as this. How can we know for certain that the government won’t suspect a person of having ties to a terrorist or terrorist organization, only to later find out that they don’t and that all the private and personal information which has been collected about this person does not aid the government in its endeavors? And what would become of this information? Surely the government wouldn’t want to simply destroy it, because it may help them later, should they ever have a reason to identify or track this person down.

Now why couldn’t they just use this same justification for everyone, as an excuse to know where anyone is at any time? The truth is, they could, and this is why this system should be frightening to many people, not just to so-called “privacy advocates.” Do you really want the government to know when you’re engaging in … ahem … marital relations with your spouse? Even worse, would you want the government to know if you’re doing the same with someone other than your spouse (not that I advocate this at all, but we’re speaking hypothetically here)? I didn’t think so.

Based on these new revelations, we need to ask ourselves how much of our liberties and freedoms we are willing to give up in the name of “national security.”

It is wise to remember the words of Benjamin Franklin when considering this situation: “They that give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Are we moving towards a “more secure” and “safer” society, or are we moving towards the end of “society” as we know it?

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25% of police under scrutiny

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

This is Swansea

Almost a quarter of the Dyfed-Powys force’s 1,200 police officers have been investigated for allegations of misconduct, corruption or failure in duty in less than a year.Over around 11 months in 2007, 283 constables, sergeants, and inspectors faced a probe by the force’s Professional Standards Department (PSD).

The shock figures were revealed after a Post reporter requested details under the Freedom of Information Act.

The revelations have sparked a strong reaction from Llanelli AM Helen Mary Jones, who said the figures were disappointing.

“I am extremely concerned about these findings,” she said.

“They not only let down the public, but they let down the many honest police officers who are doing an excellent job in very difficult conditions.”

Five of the allegations were so serious that the officers involved tendered their resignation.

The research shows that six of the officers have been under scrutiny for two separate allegations, which brings the total number of accusations handled by the PSD to 289.

Around a third of the investigations were resolved by the PSD or the force division, with a number of others discontinued or found to be unsubstantiated. Some 120 of the inquiries are ongoing.

Female officers were the subject of at least 49 of the allegations, although details on gender were withheld in 30 cases.

Force spokeswoman Eleri Morris said: “To put this figure into context, the 283 officers were either subject of a public complaint or internal misconduct procedures.

“It needs to be explained that these 283 officers were not all the subject of formal discipline.

“It has to be acknowledged that the majority of complaints against officers or internal misconduct results in either the matter being unsubstantiated or being dealt with by means of local resolution and/or managerial advice.

“It is comparatively few cases that result in formal discipline.”

The figures come after Llanelli inspectors Dyfed Bolton and Bob Price were temporarily removed from their Llanelli patches amid an investigation into alleged misconduct in an off-duty incident at the end of last year.

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Ron Paul Will Fight On

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Message from Ron

Whoa! What a year this has been. And what achievements we have had. If I may quote Trotsky of all people, this Revolution is permanent. It will not end at the Republican convention. It will not end in November. It will not end until we have won the great battle on which we have embarked. Not because of me, but because of you. Millions of Americans — and friends in many other countries — have dedicated themselves to the principles of liberty: to free enterprise, limited government, sound money, no income tax, and peace. We will not falter so long as there is one restriction on our persons, our property, our civil liberties. How much I owe you. I can never possibly repay your generous donations, hard work, whole-hearted dedication and love of freedom. How blessed I am to be associated with you. Carol, of course, sends her love as well.

Let me tell you my thoughts. With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties — just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.

I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.

In the presidential race and the congressional race, I need your support, as always. And I have plans to continue fighting for our ideas in politics and education that I will share with you when I can, for I will need you at my side. In the meantime, onward and upward! The neocons, the warmongers, the socialists, the advocates of inflation will be hearing much from you and me.

Sincerely,

Ron

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Brian Haw Marches From London To Oxford

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Oxford Times

PARLIAMENT Square peace protester Brian Haw took his campaign on the road by walking 60 miles from London to Oxford.

Mr Haw, who began a peace camp outside the Houses of Parliament in 2001, reached the city last night, pictured, to address the Oxford Union.

In a recreation of the famous 1933 debate entitled This house would under no circumstance fight for its King and country, Mr Haw spoke in favour of the motion.

A group of about 20 supporters, aged from eight to 61, walked with Mr Haw since Monday, staying in churches and with Quakers along the way.

Mr Haw said: “Oxford is an important city and a great place to come for a debate. I want to get people together and walking for peace all over the country - hopefully this will be the first of many.

“We’ve all had blisters but everyone does when you do a walk like this.

“I’ve had a very pleasant reaction from people passing by and it has been a lovely walk along the A40, although the footpaths need to be upgraded.”

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