Media histronics revisted: The Wall Street Journal OpEd pages

As if I don't get enough bs reading the Canadian press opeds, and particularly the business shill, I DO have to take into account what passes for remarks (they're really just ignorant jabs) by the neoCON set. Nowhere do you get a more vivid xray pic of the truly DELUDED than at the WSJ. Mike Whitney has POINTERS for all of you on how to spend a real good dollar .. I spend my dimes and nickels keeping this computer array running so's I can access all those neat little right wingers who think something is achieved producing WAR MACHINES and can't figure out that they themselves are one day away from REPRESSION!! for the slightest infraction of the unspoken "Rules" as the war of engagement is against all of us, unless we have about a billion in the bank these days.

So that said, the WSJ is an important thing to track as it feeds them, the overpaid corporate drones, what they are SUPPOSED to pick up, spout back and BELIEVE.


The ICH forum posters are especially FINE folks, I have found in this wasteland of "lesser of two evils" that folks seem to "fall" for .. I get some of my very best inspiration and info from them.

Murdoch’s Cuckoo’s Nest: The Wall Street Journal’s Op-ed Page

By Mike Whitney

10/26/07 "ICH " -- -- The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page is the ideological headwaters for far-right fanaticism in the US. It is less of a forum for open debate than it is a breeding ground for noxious ideas that undermine democratic institutions. Every day, there’s a whole new slate of extremist opinion pieces defending one absurdity or another. Typically, the articles focus on the two issues of primary importance to all conservatives; war and taxes. It’s astonishing how many variations there are on the same hackneyed theme.

Conservatives are naturally distrustful of ideas, so they’ve created a platform where they can couch their reactionary views in academic-sounding jargon without any real attempt at upgrading social policy. There appears to be an endless reservoir of Reagan-era “supply side” zealots and think-tank windbags who are more than eager to promote the topic-du jour, whatever that may be. By using right wing celebrities as their standard-bearers, the WSJ is able to elevate the most mundane, nonsensical arguments to a level of respectability. And that’s the objective---to make hard-nosed, narrow-minded chauvinism look like enlightened policy.

Typically, the editorials take aim at any regulation which restricts industry or any law which protects the citizen. Articles are chosen on the basis of how they appeal to a small group of corporate mandarins whose views about “how the world should be organized” are nearly identical. In other words, it is an “echo chamber” for the investor class. That’s why liberals should pay attention. The men who currently run the world are not shy about revealing what they have in mind for the rest of us. Isn’t it worth the price of a subscription to find out what that is?

In the last few days the WSJ has run articles defending Exxon against the $2.5 billion punitive damages that were ordered by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for its massive oil spill in Alaska nearly 2 decades ago. They’ve run another tiresome apology for Judge Robert Bork, the alleged victim of a left-wing witch hunt. They’ve provided a lawyerly defense of the Marines who went on the “killing spree” in Haditha; another promotion for the extortionist World Bank, an emotional plea to “Save the Bush Tax Cuts”, and, of course, an over-the-top 1500 word thesis on why “Victory Is Within Reach In Iraq” by neocon nutcase Michael Ledeen.

On Monday, October 22, the WSJ ran an article by David Rivkin, “Getting Serious about Torture”, which essentially defends the “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of terror suspects by pointing out the relative nature of these terms. (Isn’t it odd that questions related to torture never came up before Bush took office?)

As Rivkin says, “The words cruel, inhuman and degrading, whether or nor a particular interrogation method shocks the conscience depends very much on the circumstances.”

Sure, David, it’s all relative, isn’t it? How about “eye gouging”; is that okay, too?

Remember when conservatives used to rail against “moral relativism”? At the time, it seemed like a matter of principle. Now we can see that it was just empty posturing.

At the end of his article Rivkin reminds us that, “There is no free lunch. Coercive interrogations have been key in preventing post 9-11 attacks on American soil.”

Indeed. Sounds like a pretty spirited defense of torture to me. Am I missing something?

No theory is too whacky or obscene for the WSJ’s editorial page as long as it conforms to the far right mind-set of its readership. For just one dollar, anyone can take a seat in the enemy’s camp and listen in. Sounds like a bargain to me.

Governor Schwarzenegger Backs Aerial Biochemical Spraying That Harms Children

(NewsTarget) On September 9^th, 2007 several planes hired by the State of California Food and Agricultural Department (CDFA) flying at an altitude of approximately 500ft sprayed the untested biochemical, CheckMate®OLR-F, on over 30,000 citizens in Monterey and other surrounding cities in California. This occurred without the permission of the citizens. The spraying continued for three nights from approximately 8pm to 5am. About 1,500 pounds of biochemical were dumped on the cities. Many citizens did not even know what was happening when the planes were buzzing overhead.

An 11 month old child nearly died from breathing difficulties. A six year old child developed asthma as a result of the aerial spraying. Over one hundred people signed affidavits stating that they got sick from the spraying. Hundreds of people had symptoms like; shortness of breath, headaches, dizziness, burning lungs, nausea, and muscle aches.

The excuse for aerial spraying is not a deadly disease carrying mosquito, but a moth whose larva may eat some leaves of some plants; called the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). The CDFA considers the moth an invasive species since it is from Australia. Yet, evidence suggests that the moth has been in California for many years, living peacefully. In response to the moth, the CDFA set up relatively harmless sticky traps, which have captured nearly every Light Brown Apple Moth in the Northern California region.

Governor Schwarzenegger is a strong supporter of the declared emergency; the need to spray untested biochemicals on humans to stop the LBAM from destroying crops.

This aerial spraying violates several state, federal and international laws. It violates the right to personal safety given by the California State Constitution, the very document that creates the California government. It violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects people with chemical sensitivities and other disabilities from discrimination. It violates the Federal constitutional right to personal liberty. It violates the EPA's laws against spraying pesticides on people. It violates human rights laws that say that human experimentation without consent is unethical and immoral. It violates criminal laws that claim it is a crime to poison children, or anyone else. It violates pollution laws to spray a toxic substance over plants, animals, and waterways. It violates laws against organized crime and it violates the very tenants of our democracy; a system of government designed to represent the people, not to poison the people to represent private agri-business interests.

...http://www.newstarget.com/022158.html

While in Paris, Rumsfeld

Is Charged with Torture …

"Legally speaking, few complaints are as irrefutable as this one. Then there is the political aspect: this touches on the Bush Administration ... But there should be impunity for no one."

-- Patrick Baudoin, French Lawyer Who Filed the Complaint

By Julien Martin

Translated by Andrew Levine

October 26, 2007

France - Rue89 - Original Article (French)

At three pages and with twenty-seven appendixes, the French complaint filed on Thursday by four human rights organizations against Donald Rumsfeld is detailed and damning. The former American Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 is accused of torture, in particular with respect to the prisoners of Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

This is the fifth complaint against the man considered one of the architects of the Iraq War. Two criminal complaints were dismissed in Germany (the second, however, will be appealed next week) and two more have been filed, one in Argentina and one in Sweden.

But for the first time, Donald Rumsfeld has been charged while in the country in which the complaint was filed. Arriving in Paris on Thursday, he gave a lecture on Friday morning without specifying the duration of his stay. Owing to the universal jurisdiction defined under the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture and enshrined in French law ten years later, his presence here forces France to act unless the country rejects the complaint.

In the French complaint, which Rue89 has obtained a copy of, the International Federation for Human Rights Leagues, the French League for the Defense of Human and Civil Rights, the Center for Constitutional Rights [of New York] and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights intend, "to take all preliminary measures to ensure that this person is detained or else kept on French territory."

Testimony from former detainees and American troops fills out the complaint, which lists the alleged interrogation methods: two-day-long periods of sleep deprivation, 20-hour interrogations, sexual humiliation, and religion-related threats, among others.

Most importantly, memos written by Donald Rumsfeld himself are included as appendixes. Some quotes mix the serious nature of the proposal with cynicism: "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours [for prisoners]?"

Patrick Baudoin, the lawyer who filed the complaint, organized a press conference in Paris on Friday to publicize his legal action. A sign that media pressure is stronger than political pressure:

"Legally speaking, few complaints are as irrefutable as this one. Then there is the political aspect: this touches on the Bush administration ... But there should be impunity for no one."

At the Court of First Instance in Paris, no more information was given out than necessary. Laurence Abgrall, the assistant prosecutor of France, told Rue89 that "the complaint should not run up against any major difficulties," but before being heard, "we're checking to make sure we have jurisdiction."

"The issue is whether or not Donald Rumsfeld has immunity. We are currently checking to see if he's still in France. But I can't tell you anything more about it."

Why the Iraqi Kurds Won’t Give in to Turkish Threats

By William Kern (Watching America)

Are the PKK terrorists who have been killing Turkish soldiers receiving significant aid and comfort from the government of Iraq’s semi-autonomous north? According to this op-ed article from Iraqi Kurdistan’s Kurdish Media, all Kurds -whether they are members of the PKK, Peshmerga soldiers or civilians - will resist the Turks “to the last drop of blood.”

“They know that this Kurdistan state, which they have been able to create and maintain in northern Iraq, is the ultimate prize for all Kurds. It’s a prize that Kurds have been trying to win for generations upon generations.”

By Karwan Qader

October 23, 2007

Iraqi Kurdistan - Kurdish Media - Original Article (English)

To almost all Kurds, talk of a Turkish invasion is the most critical issue. Recently, the Turkish Parliament approved a resolution granting the military permission to invade Southern Kurdistan (also known as northern Iraq WATCH ). Turkish politicians and generals claim that their purpose for invading will be to destroy Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK] camps in the region. But the reality is that what Turkey is most disturbed by is the autonomy that the Kurds have gained in Iraq. They are uncomfortable with growing international acceptance of Kurdistan and the legitimacy that Kurds have been able to achieve.

In response to this, in addition to deploying 400,000 soldiers along the Turkish-Iraqi border, the Turkish state has taken other steps. They have demanded that the Iraqi government arrest 140 individuals (36 of whom are members of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and they have even gone so far as to demand the arrest of the son of the President of the Autonomous Kurdish Government in Iraq, Massoud Barzani [Mensur Barzani, who is the chairman of the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party’s intelligence organization ].

The Turks even began limited operations along the border this week, but were stopped in their tracks when Kurdish rebels effectively ambushed their forces and foiled their plans. But most importantly, the Turks have ignored every Kurdish call for a peaceful resolution and have effectively rejected any political dialogue.

Given this, the Kurds will not be so quick to adhere to Turkish demands. Despite all of their domestic problems, corruption and issues of establishing democracy that Kurds now face in their semi-autonomous region, they realize that what they have gained in Iraq is their right and in unlike anything they have experienced before. Kurds know that this Kurdistan state, which they have been able to create and maintain in northern Iraq, is the ultimate prize for all Kurds. It’s a prize that Kurds have been trying to win for generations upon generations. After all the injustice and genocide that has been perpetrated against the Kurdish people by oppressive states that surround them and have occupied them, Kurds have finally established the right to rule their own affairs in their own nation. They have finally established peace in a part of the world that is infamous for war. Even during the bloody Iraq War, Kurdistan stands as the only peaceful region. Hence politicians and generals in Turkey are foolish if they think Kurds will easily or willingly give up their new-found rights.

Why kill Kurds?

Henk Ruyssenaars - Foreign correspondent

Kurdistan will not now, nor in the nearby future become independent. Kurds will not rule themselves for a long time to come. At least not as long as neighboring countries need Kurdistan's water. The water from the Kurdish mountains also is the life line for Israel, and much more expensive than oil.

Why Kurdistan? Have a look at the map, it shows where and why. http://members.tripod.com/surkew/id18.htm

FPF - Update 27 October 2007 - Today's information from the pro-war New York Times: ''US troops in Iraq will do absolutely nothing," Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, the top American commander in northern Iraq, said. He had ''no plans to order his troops to confront Kurdish rebels in the mountains,'' he said, ''to fight the PKK.'' Also those Kurdish groups in northern Iraq claim that Turkey's ultimate motive is to prevent the formation of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq, Kurdistan, by occupying its territory and ultimately controlling part of its natural resources. The Kurds are absolutely and legally right, but the US/UK junta's multinationals don't want to share the power and profit with them, or with 'partner' Turkey.* That's why the Kurdish resistance is killed too.

NATO partner Turkey violently proceeds opening the water war front in different Kurdish areas, and the US/UK junta further and negatively alters the destiny of the Middle East as was planned. In a way that probably could not be challenged for decades, and not solely by controlling Iraq's oil, but by controlling its water.* There are no 'official' reports about concrete U.S.-Turkey cooperation on suppressing Kurdish 'rebels' it's wrongly stated, and the Chicago Tribune reported last Tuesday the U.S. military has considered launching cruise missile against PKK targets, but air strikes using manned aircraft were an easier option, one unidentified official told the Tribune.*

Because, in what to the Kurds is known as Kurdistan, (see map), and where they have fought for decades for their independence as a people, that's where not only the Kurdish oil capital of Kirkuk is located, but where also the very important water resources are. In Kurdistan the Tigris stream is made up of five long rivers from the mountainous regions. The Euphrates flood is another very important water supplier from those life spending sources and in 1991 a huge water dam and irrigation system was build. Costing more than 10 billion US dollars, and situated in the Kurdish region of Turkey. Turkey had at that time already signed 'secret' agreements with Israel, among others to thus secure the future delivery of Kurdish water to Israel, via the Mosul/Kirkuk/Haifa oil and water pipelines. It's officially known that Turkey receives Israeli hightech, training and all kinds of weapons in return.*

RICE TO VISIT TURKEY

The 2nd and 3d November 2007, the globally detested US 'Secretary of State' Condoleezza Rice, who everywhere leaves a huge trail of death and destruction, will visit Turkey. To check what more can be done by the US/UK's NATO and Israeli armed forces to stop Kurdish PKK resistance fighters, which are called 'rebels' or 'terrorists' as usual because they too endanger the multinationals profit and power. By the generalizing US junta's 'State Department', the whole of the (resistance) PKK was officially classified as a 'terrorist organisation'. But clearly some are more 'terrorist' than others... Formally Rice is supposed to attend an international meeting on Iraq in Istanbul, but before this meeting on the by the U.S. c.s. lost illegal invasion of former ally Iraq, Rice will have talks with Turkish leaders in Ankara concerning some of the PKK people.

Turkey 'pro forma' will be asked by the US and Israeli delegation to 'take it easy', after deadly clashes 30 kilometers into Iraq, including attacks from the Turkish air force on some Kurdish groups, but that will be the 'smoke and mirror' part. The Kurdish resistance groups - contrary to the Kurdish collaborators which have sold themselves - do not intend to give in to Turkish/US/UK and Israeli demands and so called 'agreements' concerning Kurdistan. Whereupon the mainstream propaganda is describing the Kurdish resistance fighters as 'terrorists', as a pretext which also can enable an attack with the armed forces of the US/UK plus NATO, and thus Turkish forces, on Iran, as Israel and its lobby in the US junta fervently wants.

"We are chasing Kurdish terrorists in the area." the propaganda media will spout, again treacherously 'selling' this other pretext for resource wars. Without any proof whatsoever, and as always, the propaganda media will also accuse them of 'ties with al Qaida' or some other CIA front organisation used in the US-made global war of terror. As if - according to UNICEF - 2.7 million dead people in Iraq is not enough, Rice c.s. - representing the worst this world has to offer - will state that those 'terrorists' should be 'neutralized'. Because the US/UK junta still is prone to illegal invasions, their global threats and terrorism, and, what they keep saying is ''the need for international intervention''. It's all a pack of lies.

TURKISH PM ERDOGAN: PKK IS A TERROR ORGANISATION

"Turkey is committed to pursuing and hunting down members of the terrorist organisation the PKK who use the north of Iraq as a base to stage attacks in Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last Thursday. Speaking in the Romanian capital Bucharest, where he was on an official visit, Erdogan said Turkey would use its legitimate rights under international law to defend itself against attacks by the PKK. Asked if his forthcoming visit to the US would be used to obtain clearance for Turkish forces to enter northern Iraq to strike at the PKK, Erdogan said Turkey did not need the permission of anyone to defend itself.

"The ball is off our court now, and we will have to do what is necessary on our own if those who have the responsibility do not take action," he told reporters. He also said that Turkey's European allies were failing a test of their sincerity in the fight against terrorism. "Unfortunately, the terrorist organization has been establishing associations in several European countries, receiving financial support and our European friends are employing delaying tactics by refusing to hand over the PKK operatives they captured to Turkey." Erdogan said.

WHO IS DOING WHAT?

A couple of years ago The Guardian (UK) quoted american journalist Seymour Hersh, who is well informed because he knows the zionists which he calls 'a cult that has taken over', and wrote about what they were doing to Kurdistan too.* Hersh's story was published in the UK, using the title Israelis 'using Kurds to build power base', and the article was written by Gary Younge, the Guardian's correspondent in New York. Quote: "Israeli military and intelligence operatives are active in Kurdish areas of Iran, Syria and Iraq, providing training for commando units and running covert operations that could further destabilize the entire region, according to a report in the New Yorker magazine. The article was written by Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who exposed the abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib. It is sourced primarily to unnamed former and current intelligence officials in Israel, the United States and Turkey.

Israel's aims, according to Hersh, are to build up the Kurdish military strength in order to offset the strength of the Shia militias and to create a base in Iran from which they can spy on Iran's suspected nuclear-making facilities. "Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way - a balance against Saddam," one former Israeli intelligence officer told the New Yorker. "It's Realpolitik. By aligning with the Kurds Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and Syria. The critical question is 'What will the behaviour of Iran be if there is an independent Kurdistan with close ties to Israel? Iran does not want an Israeli land-based aircraft carrier on its border."

MORE BLOOD, TEARS AND PAIN

By supporting Kurdish separatists, Israel also risks alienating its Turkish ally and undermining attempts to create a stable Iraq. "If you end up with a divided Iraq it will bring more blood, tears and pain to the Middle East and you will be blamed," a senior Turkish official told Mr Hersh.

Intel Brief, an intelligence newsletter produced by former CIA chiefs, noted early this month that the Israeli actions are placing increasing stress on their relationship with Turkey, which was already strained over the war. "The Turks are increasingly concerned by the expanding Israeli presence in Kurdistan and alleged encouragement of Kurdish ambitions to create an independent state."

According to Mr Hersh, Israel decided to step up its role in Kurdistan last summer after it was clear that the United States incursion into Iraq was failing, principally because it feared the chaos would strengthen Iran. The Israelis are particularly concerned that Iran may be developing a nuclear capability.

Iran said on Saturday it would reconsider its suspension of some uranium enrichment activities after the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a resolution deploring Iran's limited cooperation with the agency.

In the autumn the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak told the US vice president, Dick Cheney, that America had lost in Iraq. Israel "had learned that there's no way to win an occupation," he told Mr Cheney, and the only issue was "choosing the size of your humiliation".

From July last year, argues Mr Hersh, the Israeli government started what one former Israeli intelligence official called "Plan B" in order to protect itself from the fallout of the chaos prompted by America's failure ahead of June 30. If the June 30 transfer of sovereignty does not go well, "there is no fallback, nothing," a former National Security Council member tells Hersh. "The neocons still think they can pull the rabbit out of the hat in Iraq," a former intelligence official says. "What's the plan? They say, 'We don't need it. Democracy is strong enough. We'll work it out.'"

Israel has a longstanding relationship with the Kurds, whom they regard as one of the few non-Arab allies in the area. The Iraqi Kurds, who played a key role in providing the United States with intelligence ahead of the war, have been angered by the United Nations resolution on Iraq earlier this month. The resolution did not affirm the interim constitution that granted them minority veto power in a permanent constitution and so could potentially leave them sidelined.

KURDISH INDEPENDENCE IS CALAMITOUS TO THE REGION...

One Turkish official told Mr Hersh that Kurdish independence would be calamitous for the region. "The lesson of Yugoslavia is that when you give one country independence everybody will want it. Kirkuk will be the Sarajevo of Iraq. If something happens there, it will be impossible to contain the crisis." [end quote]

And the crisis keeps growing. AP, the 'American Propaganda' bureau, writes that the US-made Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's so called 'government', has protested to Ankara over cross-border shelling of Iraqi territory by the Turkish army and repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Al-Maliki has received an invitation from Erdogan to visit Turkey, but it's no surprise that no date has been set. The whole of course being intended to get the Israeli and US/UK war machine further thwart efforts by Kurds and Turks to annex the water and the oil rich area and the city of Kirkuk, plus the rest of what by the inhabitants is looked upon as Kurdistan.

Like the US/UK's multinationals and Israeli plotters, Kirkuk's Arab and Turkoman residents reject Kurdish claims to Kirkuk. Iraq's 'constitution' stipulates that a referendum on the fate of Kirkuk must be held in the city before the end of the year, which would likely be won by Kurds - guess which group! - raising Turkish concerns that it would fuel separatist sentiment at home.

So the plan is - depending on further armed actions - that Rice will assure the Turkish government what is said above, that Kurdistan in the nearby future will definitely NOT become independent, and that some fake autonomy or similar with a good sounding name will be offered. Like the Turks, Rice's kongsi of killers will see to it that Kurds will not rule themselves for a long time to come, and when they dare to offer resistance, they're chased and killed.

PKK LEADER ÖCALAN WAS KIDNAPPED BY THE MOSSAD

Or, like PKK resistance leader Abdullah Öcalan who, because of the Greek government's usual and criminal collaboration with the Israeli Mossad, in 1999 was kidnapped in Kenya's capital Nairobi, one of the CIA's main headquarters in Africa. The also by the EU countries refused and hunted Öcalan, was after his totally illegal kidnapping, brought to jail in Turkey but the people in power didn't dare to kill Öcalan, because of the immense and global protests. Hardly ever anything was seen or heard which was said about the tyrannous disregard of human rights.*

The anger of the Kurdish resistance is also based upon a further growing 'security' axis between the US/UK junta, Israel and Turkey, which, since its official inauguration in February 1996, has permeated all levels of Turkey's foreign policy. Including the highest echelons of the armed forces which fight an oppressive war against some groups of the PKK in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Where the Kurdish resistance fighters rightly say, that the natural resources of Kurdistan ought to help the Kurds to become autonomous, to be a souvereign state.

That's why some Kurds get arms, and other Kurds get killed.

And that's what the whole fight is about: power and profit.

Nothing else...


HENK RUYSSENAARS


Story Source: Guardian (UK) - Url.: http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4952249-103552,00.html

New York Times (war propaganda) today - Oct. 27th - 2007 - "Iraq Plan to Add U.S. Troops at Kurdish Border Is Rejected by Turkey" - Url.:
link to www.nytimes.com

Israel signs agreement to buy water from Turkey and may pay for part of it with weapons, in a deal - Url.:
www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcglobal/4israsign3.html

Power Bloc Turkey and Israel Lock Arms - Israeli weapons offer Turkey a way around such sanctions. The PKK to increase its leverage with Turkey over its water rights. - Url.:
www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_World_Order/PowerBloc_TurkeyIsrael.html

Reshaping the Mideast countries - Kirkuk/Haifa pipelines - Url.: http://www.nogw.com/ilrunshow.html

NOORDWIJK, The Netherlands - Khaleej Times Online - NATO allies express solidarity with Turkey - NATO expressed solidarity with Turkey on Wednesday. Turkish warplanes reportedly bombed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) targets. -

Kurdish Fighters Defy The World From Mountain Fortress As Bombing Begins - Patrick Cockburn in the Qandil mountains, Iraq - 25 October, 2007 - The Independent - Url.: http://www.countercurrents.org/cockburn251007.htm

Seymour Hersh: We've Been Taken Over by a Cult. - Url.: www.apfn.net/messageboard/02-04-05/discussion.cgi.31.html

Turkey Visited By JINSA Delegation - JINSA Online, February 04, 1997 - Url.:
link to www.jinsa.org

Al Ahram on PKK leader Öcalan's hijack by the Mossad and following global protests Url.: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1999/418/re1.htm

* FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3z3r6

Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan hold talks on security issues
Tehran Times Political Desk

TEHRAN -- Supreme National Security Council deputy director for local security affairs here on Saturday said that a second round of talks was held between a visiting delegation from Iraqi Kurdistan and Iranian officials.

The Iraqi side explained about the newly arranged operations for preventing any further infiltration of terrorist groups into Iran, Mohammad Jafari said.

Jafari stated the Iraqi side also insisted that five Iranian diplomats, who were kidnapped by U.S. forces in Irbil and another detained Iranian official in Soleymaniyeh, should be immediately released.

It was also agreed that Iran’s consulates in Soleymaniyeh and Irbil should be reopened,” the official explained

Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming that you haven't heard yet

You’ve probably heard about the global warming song and dance: rising temperatures, melting ice caps and rising sea levels in the near future. But Earth’s changing climate is already wreaking havoc in some very weird ways. So gird yourself for such strange effects as savage wildfires, disappearing lakes, and freak allergies.

read more | digg story

Condi Rice reminded of the BLOOD ON HER HANDS

Anyonw know what that security guy handed Condi at :12?

U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 28 Oct 2007 at 10:05:41 AM GMT is:

The estimated population of the United States is 303,376,365
so each citizen's share of this debt is $29,876.34.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$1.42 billion per day since September 29, 2006!
Concerned? Then tell Congress and the White House!

Pentagon New Weapons

New Weapons: Advanced Seminar

Pentagon New Weapons

DDX

DDX firing rail gun

US Military industrial complex is the entity that invest more in new technologies so they can get more effective and intelligent weapons for the future, the most recent idea that change the way they hunt enemies was to put Hellfire missile to UAV Predator.

But the most advance and state of the art weapon is to put weapons on satellites with Rail Guns (Gauss Weapon) that can shoot a 40 pounds projectile at Mach 7, and can travel up to 200 miles and obliterate a target, that projectile would not need explosive they would be effective only with kinetic energy of the impact. The cost of munition of that weapon would be smaller than 1 million Tomahawk.

Satellite weapons would be available maybe beyond 2015.

Also known as RODS Of GOD

RODS of GOD Satellites

These weapon would be also on the Destroyer DDX that would run using Permanent Magnet Motor technology.

Another NEW weapon would be the laser gun that US Air force plan to put on a 747 plane to shoot down enemy missiles.

Future C-130 with Laser Gun

Pentagon stays the course with laser weapon

Airborne Laser given a reprieve — and challenging development schedule

Jim Shryne / USAF

The Boeing-led Airborne Laser team exposes the Airborne Laser's conformal window during a test flight. Such an exposure is necessary for the weapon system to complete its mission of shooting down a ballistic missile during the boost phase of flight.

As envisioned, the aircraft would fly in a figure-eight pattern over an area deemed a likely site of a missile launch. Onboard infrared sensors would detect the launch and feed that information into a computer that would direct the laser turret to point at the ascending missile. The turret would then fire two lower-powered solid-state lasers — one to track the missile and one to measure atmospheric distortion — before shooting the high-powered chemical laser at the target.

The ABL program's inability to meet cost and schedule targets in past years once made it a candidate for termination. Just prior to his 2004 retirement, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, who was then serving as the Missile Defense Agency's director, said the program could be canceled if it did not perform well in initial flight and ground tests that were scheduled for late in the year.

Those tests were a flight of the aircraft outfitted with the battle-management and fire-control systems, and a brief firing of the chemical laser on the ground. Both went smoothly, and the senior Missile Defense Agency officials have not invoked similar termination threats in relation to any upcoming ABL test, Daniels said in a telephone interview.

As the 2004 demonstrations approached, markers, called "knowledge points," were laid out to ensure that progress on the program — or lack thereof — would be easy for senior MDA officials and their congressional overseers to gauge, said Daniels, who took over the program in April 2005. He replaced Brig. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, who now serves as the director of the Air Force's military satellite communications joint program office.

Flight testing planned
The ABL program has a budget of $471.6 million in 2006. Knowledge points laid out for this year include testing of the solid-state lasers for missile tracking and atmospheric-distortion correction. Ground-based tests of those lasers are slated to wrap up in August, with flight testing to take place by the end of the year, Daniels said.

Lockheed Martin An engineer at Lockheed Martin's facility in Sunnyvale, Calif., inspects the Turret Ball Conformal Window on the Flight Turret Assembly for the Airborne Laser. The window is the exit for the High Energy Laser, as well as the exit and return window for the Beacon Illuminator and Tracker Illuminator lasers.

During the flight test, the lasers will be fired at a military NKC-135 aircraft with a picture of a ballistic missile painted on its fuselage, according to Greg Hyslop, Boeing vice president and ABL program director. While these lasers are relatively low-powered, the aircraft will be shielded and the pilots will wear protective goggles, he said.

Also planned for 2006 is the refurbishment of the optical hardware on the high-power chemical laser for a new round of ground testing in 2007, Daniels said.

That hardware has been used extensively over the past 18 months, and the military plans to give it a thorough cleaning and inspect it to ensure it is ready for the next series of tests and then the 2008 intercept, Daniels said.

MDA has requested $631 million for the ABL effort in 2007. During that year, the MDA plans to install the refurbished chemical laser hardware on the 747 aircraft, and run ground tests to prepare for the 2008 intercept demonstration, Daniels said.

Demonstration to determine future
Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering, the MDA's current director, has indicated that the 2008 demonstration likely will factor heavily into a decision on whether to continue with the ABL program beyond then. The ABL has been positioned as a competitor to the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, a boost-phase missile defense system slated for a flight test in 2008, and MDA officials have indicated that only one of the programs may be funded over the long term.

Daniels said an operational ABL fleet ultimately could consist of seven aircraft.

By Jeremy Singer

Updated: 8:32 p.m. ET March 22, 2006

The threat of cancellation no longer looms over the Pentagon's Airborne Laser effort, but senior program officials say they are taking nothing for granted as they prepare for a missile-intercept demonstration in 2008.

Several clear test milestones have been laid out for the Airborne Laser in 2006 so that senior Missile Defense Agency officials will be able to measure its progress, according to Air Force Col. John Daniels, the effort's program director.

The Airborne Laser, or ABL, is a Boeing 747 aircraft being equipped with a high-powered chemical laser to destroy ballistic missiles in their boost phase. Chicago-based Boeing Co. is the prime contactor on the effort.

When it submitted its 2006 funding request to Congress last year, the MDA said it was planning to begin design work on a second ABL aircraft in 2007. The plan accompanying the budget submission for 2007 delays that work to 2009, to take advantage of the lessons learned from the intercept demonstration, Daniels said.

If the 2008 demonstration is successful, it likely would be followed by attempts to shoot down longer-range missiles, Daniels said.

Other work that could follow a successful 2008 intercept demonstration includes testing the ABL against other airborne targets, and possibly using the system to track space debris, Hyslop said during a March 10 briefing for reporters.

© 2007 Space.com. All rights reserved.

John Macneill

Space-based weapons have exceptionally disparate advantages and disadvantages: They are extremely powerful and difficult to defend against, but they’re also expensive to launch and maintain and they’re in constant motion above the Earth.

Rods from God
Space-launched darts that strike like meteors

By Eric Adams

This technology is very far out—in miles and years. A pair of satellites orbiting several hundred miles above the Earth would serve as a weapons system. One functions as the targeting and communications platform while the other carries numerous tungsten rods—up to 20 feet in length and a foot in diameter—that it can drop on targets with less than 15 minutes’ notice. When instructed from the ground, the targeting satellite commands its partner to drop one of its darts. The guided rods enter the atmosphere, protected by a thermal coating, traveling at 36,000 feet per second—comparable to the speed of a meteor. The result: complete devastation of the target, even if it’s buried deep underground. (The two-platform configuration permits the weapon to be “reloaded” by just launching a new set of rods, rather than replacing the entire system.)

The concept of kinetic-energy weapons has been around ever since the RAND Corporation proposed placing rods on the tips of ICBMs in the 1950s; the satellite twist was popularized by sci-fi writer Jerry Pournelle. Though the Pentagon won’t say how far along the research is, or even confirm that any efforts are underway, the concept persists. The “U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan,” published by the Air Force in November 2003, references “hypervelocity rod bundles” in its outline of future space-based weapons, and in 2002, another report from RAND, “Space Weapons, Earth Wars,” dedicated entire sections to the technology’s usefulness.

If so-called “Rods from God”—an informal nickname of untraceable origin—ever do materialize, it won’t be for at least 15 years. Launching heavy tungsten rods into space will require substantially cheaper rocket technology than we have today. But there are numerous other obstacles to making such a system work. Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org, argues that the rods’ speed would be so high that they would vaporize on impact, before the rods could penetrate the surface. Furthermore, the “absentee ratio”—the fact that orbiting satellites circle the Earth every 100 minutes and so at any given time might be far from the desired target—would be prohibitive. A better solution, Pike argues, is to pursue the original concept: Place the rods atop intercontinental ballistic missiles, which would slow down enough during the downward part of their trajectory to avoid vaporizing on impact. ICBMs would also be less expensive and, since they’re stationed on Earth, would take less time to reach their targets. “The space-basing people seem to understand the downside of space weapons,” Pike says—among them, high costs and the difficulty of maintaining weapon platforms in orbit. “But I’ll still bet you there’s a lot of classified work on this going on right now.”

The Weekly Standard June 8, 2005

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Advanced Tactical Laser

Is This What War Will Come To?

Rods from God

Metal Storm

Electromagnetic Railgun

Supercavitating Torpedo

The Rods from God

By Michael Goldfarb

BY CHANCE, the same day that Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith was released in theaters across the country, the world learned of the Bush administration's plans to weaponize space. So while critics speculated about the parallels between the Evil Empire and the Bush administration, pundits debated the merits of "space superiority"--the allies it would alienate, the treaties it would violate, the billions it would cost. The irony was not lost on Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information, whose insistence that the world would not "accept the U.S. developing something they see as the death star," was carried in the pages of the New York Times.

Among the weapons the Air Force might deploy are space-based lasers, a space plane capable of delivering a half-ton payload anywhere in the world in 45 minutes, and the "rods from god." The rods are currently just a concept--and have been since the early 1980s--but, if the myriad technical and political hurdles to deployment could be overcome, the system could represent a tremendous leap forward in the military's ability to destroy underground, hardened facilities of the type that have allowed Iran and other rogue states to violate the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty with impunity.

HOW DO THE RODS WORK? The system would likely be comprised of tandem satellites, one serving as a communications platform, the other carrying an indeterminate number of tungsten rods, each up to 20 feet in length and 1 foot in diameter. These rods, which could be dropped on a target with as little as 15 minutes notice, would enter the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 36,000 feet per second--about as fast as a meteor. Upon impact, the rod would be capable of producing all the effects of an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon, without any of the radioactive fallout. This type of weapon relies on kinetic energy, rather than high-explosives, to generate destructive force (as do smart spears, another weapon system which would rely on tungsten rods, though not space-based).

Clearly the rods are a first-strike, offensive weapon. The nation's aging fleet of ICBMs, and its more modern Ohio-class submarines--each carrying 24 Trident missiles--will serve as an adequate nuclear deterrent well into the 21st century, but nuclear weapons cannot deter rogue states from developing their own nuclear arsenals.

Iran has used deeply buried facilities, such as the one in Natanz, to shelter its nuclear program from an assault similar to Israel's raid on Iraq's Osirak facilities. This has limited America's options for intervention. A conventional attack on such facilities might succeed in setting the Iranian program back a few years, but due to the presumed dispersal of equipment over a number of sites across the Islamic Republic, only good intelligence and a great deal of luck would eliminate the threat entirely. And while a nuclear attack could be tactically successful, it is politically unviable. A few well-placed tungsten rods, however, would guarantee the destruction of the targeted facilities (assuming timely and accurate intelligence).

OF COURSE THE RODS would not be a panacea for proliferation. It is hard to imagine how the "rods from god" would alter the equation in North Korea, which possesses thousands of rockets and artillery pieces capable of hitting Seoul in retaliation for any perceived act of aggression by the United States. But no other rogue state can hold a gun to the head of the international community the way North Korea can. Absent such a non-nuclear deterrent, rogue states such as modern-day Iran and Saddam-era Iraq have employed hardened, underground bunkers (note the recent discovery of a large, underground insurgent lair in Anbar) as their primary defense against American air superiority.

There are a number of interest groups working to stymie plans to build either a new generation of fission bombs or space-based weapons (see here, and here). These groups present reasonable arguments against both strategic avenues. For instance, if the administration starts production on a newly designed nuclear weapon, it would likely be in violation of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Furthermore, such weapons run the risk of mitigating the military's well-founded fear of launching a nuclear first-strike.

The arguments against space weapons range from the practical--they will be extremely expensive to build and maintain, and they may not work--to the ideological. Teresa Hitchens simply maintains that, "The world will not tolerate this." John Pike, of globalsecurity.org, speculates that the likelihood of the rods, or any other system, being deployed in space over the next decade were "next to nil." The reason, he explains, is that the military appears to be putting very little money into the research and development of such systems--though the military's immense classified budget could in theory be hiding some of the evidence.

Pike offered another interesting explanation for why the rods may remain on the drawing board--the GBU-28. The GBU-28 was designed to destroy underground bunkers, but there have been doubts about whether it can actually penetrate Iran's buried facilities. Pike says they would--"like a hot knife through butter"--and that this misperception may have been intentionally fostered: "to lull the mullahs into a false sense of security."

THE RODS may indeed be more science fiction than science. They are at least 10 years away from being operational, and the cost of launching heavy tungsten rods into orbit would be, well, astronomical. Other financial challenges include the satellite's "absentee-ratio," which refers to number of satellites, or in this case bundles of rods, which would be necessary to assure proximity to the target.

Furthermore, it may be necessary to slow substantially the rods' rate of speed to prevent them from vaporizing on impact--though retrorockets might offer a solution to this problem. Simply attaching a tungsten rod to the tip of an ICBM would overcome many of these hurdles, but would create another serious problem: the need to involve the Russians and Chinese, who might detect such a launch and mistake it for an American nuclear attack on their own territories.

Whether the Air Force does ultimately pursue this particular platform to fulfill its vision of American space superiority is a decision that should not be taken lightly. There are a great many obstacles to getting a tungsten rod into space and bringing it back down on the nuclear facilities or command centers of our enemies. Such obstacles range from our continued reliance on unreliable intelligence to the probability that our enemies would adapt to the new technology. Nevertheless, it's likely that space will be weaponized. The only question is whether the U.S. Air Force or the People's Liberation Army will be at the vanguard of the revolution.

Michael Goldfarb is an editorial assistant at The Weekly Standard.

Canada loosing water

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canada lost control over its energy resources. Now, with “NAFTA-plus”, it could also lose control over its freshwater resources, say experts.

Canada’s water is on the trade negotiating table despite widespread public opposition and assurances by Canadian political leaders, said Adèle Hurley, director of the University of Toronto’s Programme on Water Issues at the Munk Centre for International Studies.

A new report released Sep. 11 by the programme reveals that water transfers from Canada to the United States are emerging as an issue under the auspices of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). The SPP — sometimes called “NAFTA-plus” — is a forum set up in 2005 in Cancún, by the three partners, Canada, United States and Mexico.

Economic integration as envisioned by the powerful but little-known SPP is slowly changing the lives of Canadians, says Andrew Nikiforuk, author of the report “On the Table: Water Energy and North American Integration”.

The SPP is comprised of business leaders and government officials who work behind the scenes and are already responsible for changes to border security, easing of pesticide rules, harmonisation of pipeline regulations and plans to prepare for a potential avian flu outbreak, Nikiforuk writes.

“The SPP is run by corporate leaders; governments are irrelevant,” said Ralph Pentland, a water expert and acting chairman of the Canadian Water Issues Council.

Pentland envisions a future where, in response to ongoing drought problems in the United States, the SPP will make arrangements to dole out millions of dollars of public funds for private companies to build pipelines to transfer water from Canada.

“The SPP is like putting the monkeys in charge of the peanuts,” he told Tierramérica.

Massive water diversions from Canada do not make economic or environmental sense, according to water experts. Far better and cheaper is to improve water efficiency and eliminate waste. The United States and Canada lead the world in water consumption and are extraordinarily wasteful, Pentland says.

Moreover, most of Canada’s water is in the far north, not near its border with the United States. And even the transboundary Great Lakes are at their lowest levels in 100 years due to climate change, notes Nikiforuk.

William Nitze, prominent member of the SPP and chairman of GridPoint Inc., a company that makes energy management systems, is not in favor of bulk water exports.

“Water management has been poor in all three countries,” Nitze said. Canada, for example, favors guidelines over mandatory rules for keeping pollutants out of water. And Mexico needs to double its investment in its water infrastructure, he noted.

Nikiforuk agrees that Canada has mismanaged its water resources. He points out that Canada already ships enormous volumes of water to the United States, in the form its main exports: grain, cattle, hogs, aluminum, automobiles and oil. Each of these requires many tons of water to produce, but the latter is perhaps the most controversial.

Most of Canada’s oil comes from the tar sands, a 125-billion-dollar capital project in the boreal forest of northern Alberta province. One million barrels of oil flow south each day to the U.S. making Canada its largest supplier.

However, it takes three barrels of freshwater to produce one barrel of oil from the tar sands, says Nikiforuk.

The project already consumes 359 million cubic metres of water, enough for a city of two million people in Canada. Ninety percent of the water becomes contaminated and has to be stored in vast tailings impoundments. More than 10 of these exist, covering an area of 50 square km.

Members of the SPP North American Energy Working Group met in Houston, in the southern U.S. state of Texas, in 2006, where they talked about the “pipeline challenge”, a proposed a five-fold increase in production at the tar sands, said Nikiforuk.

“No mention was made of water at the meeting, but there isn’t nearly enough water in the region for this kind of expansion,” he said.

Under NAFTA rules, Canada cannot reduce its energy exports to the United States, according to Gordon Laxer, director of the Parkland Institute, a research network at the University of Alberta.

“The U.S. is the most energy wasteful nation on Earth. And Canada is sacrificing its environment to feed America’s addiction to oil,”

Laxer said in an interview.

“Respected energy analyst Matthew Simmons told me Canada should stop furthering the U.S. addiction to liquid fuels and make it illegal to use fresh water in tar sands,”

said Nikiforuk.

There is ample evidence that environmental standards and stewardship in Canada and Mexico have plummeted since NAFTA went into effect in 1994, and “accelerated trade under the SPP means accelerated environmental abuse,” he said.

GRAND THEFT IRAQ

It is time to see how much bounty every pirate is going to get for the ILLEGAL Invasion and Destruction of Irak, of course the big winner USA, UK with some bones, and Netherlanda, Spain with maybe one contract...it doesn't matter if a lot of Iraqies are fleeing from their country and some more dying there...its all about MONEY and OIL.

“We live under a system by which the many are exploited by the few - and war is the ultimate sanction of that exploitation.” Harold Laski, 1945.

At the end of August, in Dubai and the beginning of September, in London, conferences were held in order to privatize and carve up contracts for every essential service and infrastructure in Iraq. There was not a mega-corporate pig anywhere on earth, seemingly, who did not have its trotters in the trough. As Iraqis flee in an exodus of biblical proportions and die in a genocidal one, US/UK government backed corporate priority is a smash and grab raid of every asset and facility in the “land between two rivers”.

Meetings were organised by the Iraq Development Programme, under the auspices of the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce (“Arab” clearly secondary, as since Arabic is written from right to left, Britain comes first and the Arabic version, last) ninety five percent of “tendered” (“assumed” seems more apt) contracts are US giants. The UKEgypt, Netherlands and Spain getting one each, according the IDP website (http://www.iraqdevelopmentprogramme.org ) was thrown minimal bones, with

The “best-in-breed” technology is to the brought to Iraq, as it is milked dry.

Trough facilitators include: the misnamed United States Aid and International Development (USAID), U.S. Embassy Iraq, Department of Defence Army Corps of Engineers, (U.S.) Defence Procurement and Acquisition Police, U.S. Government Iraq Infrastructure and Reconstruction Programme (NB: http://www.bechtel.com/iraq ) the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, U.S. Government Iraq Reconstruction Projects - and on and on. To mix metaphors, potential cash cows don't come bigger than this.

The carpetbaggers had a little bit of help from their quisling friends in their illegitimate and illegal carve up. Dr Adel Abdul Mehdi, Iraq's “Vice President”, said: “Iraq's new investment law will facilitate investment for both Iraqi and non-Iraqi businesses by providing a secure investment environment.” Referring to Iraq's resources, he said the conference presented opportunities across a wide range of industries: oil, gas, agriculture, infrastructure.

Indeed. Up for grabs are: hospital and security equipment, medicines, road and rail machinery, oil production tools, finance and telecommunication systems. Rebuilding of roads, rail, hospitals, government buildings, schools, water purification plants and electricity, information technology, telecommunications, all to move from state owned to the “free market economy”.

If Iraqis are down to near no electricity now, due to the liberators' inability to provide what Saddam Hussein's government did within just months after the 1991 decimation, they won't be able to afford it in the future anyway. “Yes we have plans for fully privatising”, Iraq's electricity “Minister” Karem Waheed Hassan, told UPI.

Ali Al Dabbagh, for the Electricity Company, was concerned only for assurances “for the investor”, Iraq's population did not come into the equation. Contracts will be granted; $Billions will be spent; contractors paid their massive profits - and the lights will go out all over Iraq (except the Green Zone, and the Vatican City sized U.S. embassy, if the resistance haven't blown them up.)

In the country which brought the world writing, the first written records, Algebra, Astronomy, the wheel, the first time piece, Irrigation, the first pharmaceutical college, the “Epic of Gilgamesh”, and it is thought, the first university, the Universities of Florida and Oklahoma are being drafted in as education “curricular consultants” to take advantage of the “key opportunities in ICT and education”.

It would be interesting to know what the Universities of Florida and Oklahoma can offer to a country which, as with Palestine, prior to the invasion, had the most PhD's per capita, in the world. Whose educational system was so exemplary, that UNESCOIraq, commenting that it was the only country, in their experience, where a child could be born in abject poverty, of illiterate parents and complete his education to become an architect, engineer, surgeon, or whatever he or she aspired to. Education was free from kindergarten through university and post graduate studies abroad. devised a unique award for

“Panel sessions at the conferences covered the legal environment for conducting business in Iraq, financing private sector business, trade and commerce and private sector banking.”

You bet. American lawyers seemingly are on hand at every ministry to draft laws legitimising one of the biggest ram raids in history.

Electricity, of course, is also needed to pump oil. Some of those representing the oil industry - which, after nationalisation in 1971, saw the Iraqi government pour money into all that is now being privatised, thereby creating a near “first world country”, according to the U.N. - were: Chevron, B.P., Conoco Phillips, Marathon Oil, Total, Exxon, Lukoil, Statoil, General Electric, Dana Gas, Raytheon, Crescent Petrolium and Hawker Beechcroft.

Ahmed Janabi (Al Jazeera, 4th May 2006) reminds us of Douglas Feith, then US Under-Secretary of Defence, who said on February 11, 2003:

“Only someone ignorant of the easy-to-ascertain realities could think that the United States would profit from such a war, even if we were willing to steal Iraq's oil which we emphatically are not going to do.”

He was either economical with the truth, or very forgetful of President George H.W. Bush's statement after 1991, Janabi reminds, who said he would not let one country control twenty percent of the world's oil resources. Further, at a conference in London on 20th June 2003, just a month after the fall of Baghdad, writes Janabi, Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu told a group of investors that Iraqi oil would be flowing through Israel's Jaffa pipeline “sooner or later”.

“Iraq has the capacity to become the biggest revenue generating country in the Middle East”, states I.D.P., with one delegate shown on BBC Newsnight, nearly salivating, as he talked of opportunities unheard of anywhere on the globe. “A follow up summit is expected to take place in 2008, by which time the hydro-carbon law will have been approved.” The “Iraqi people are going to become part of the international community”, said another I.D.P. delegate.

Indeed, stripped of all and sold down Mesopotamia's two great rivers. Coincidentally, the U.S. is to build another vast base in Wasit Province, to protect Iraq from “insurgents” coming in from Iran. As the gimlet eyed analyst Sarah Meyer points out coincidentally, another vast oilfield, it seems, has just been discovered there.

(http://www.indexresearch.blogspot.com);

In an article worth revisiting, (U.S.) Major General Smedley Butler, in Common Sense Magazine, in November 1935 wrote:

“There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its 'finger men' (to point out enemies) its 'muscle men' (to destroy enemies) its 'brain guys' (to plan war preparations) and a 'Big Boss' (supernationalistic capitalism.)

“It may seem odd, for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to do so. I spent thirty three years and four months in active service in one of our country's most agile forces - the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major General. During that period I spent most of my time being a high class muscle man for Big Business and Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism.

“I suspected I was just a part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it.... My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher ups. This is typical with everyone in military service.

“Thus, I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I made Haiti and Cuba a decent place for National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify NicaraguaDominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China, in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the

“During those years, I had, as the boys in the backroom would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals and promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have been able to give Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. I operated on three continents.”

Mesopotamia is a racket so gargantuan, that it surely would have stunned even General Butler. Not, however, it seems, General Colin Powell, who told U.S, Commander in Chief, President George W. Bush, in the summer of 2002, that in the event of an invasion of Iraq: “You are going to be the proud owner of twenty five million people ... You'll own it