During an interview with a Scientology spokesperson on CNN yesterday, anchor Anderson Cooper stated the following ( to quote him almost verbatim) :

"the usual routine [for psychiatric treatment] is that you're suppose to enter into talk therapy...you're suppose to enter into a dialogue, and medication is usually considered a last resort"

Where I have to ask did Anderson come  up with this 'statistic'?  In fact, it's quite "usual" today not to receive talk therapy when seeking the advise of a shrink. And by "talk therapy," I mean  meaningful one hour per session discussions about the patients problems (history, chronic issues, etc), not the increasingly common five minute "how are you today...Ok here's your prescription" ritual.

 In fact, according world renown psychiatrist Peter Breggin, talk therapy has become a thing of the past, to the point that it is no longer taught in some psychiatric schools. And not suprising when considering the profession 's avowed obession with quick cures, and of discovering the "chemically induced brain abnormality" of this or that disorder, rather than long term change. 

But don't take my word for it. See what the media has said.

From a September 2004 CBS article (Anderson, you reading?):

"During the past decade, "the biggest change ... has been the dramatic shift from talk therapy to drug therapy for mental health problems," he [Joel Gurin, Consumer Reports executive vice president ] ,noted. "In 1995, less than half of people getting mental health treatment — 40 percent — got drug therapy. Now 68 percent get drug treatment, and 80 percent of those treated for depression or anxiety get drug treatment."  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/08/health/webmd/main641883.shtml

68 percent for mental illnesses and 80 percent for depression or anxiety. For the most common types of diagnoses, that means only 20 percent of the patients are not being administered drugs. This is apparently what Anderson Cooper means by "last resort"? I wonder what  he considers a "first resort"?

But, you might being saying, surely this isn't all that psychiatrists do in therapy? Perhaps not, but things are moving in this direction, as a lenthier excerpt  from a Wall Street Journal article, published in June of 2005 [!],  attests:

 "...For decades, the American model for addressing mental-health problems focused on personal and interpersonal dynamics. Talk therapy was the dominant course of treatment. Medication was reserved either for the most debilitating conditions -- such as schizophrenia or manic-depression -- or was considered a last resort when therapy failed to alter a patient's approach to life.

That view began changing in the 1970s, as more effective medications came on the market. And the trend accelerated in the 1980s, with large-scale clinical trials of psychiatric medications.

But the biggest shift has come in the past 10 years, with new classes of medications like the antidepressants referred to as SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which include Prozac; and antipsychotic medications such as Risperdal. Sales of psychotherapeutic drugs totaled $26.7 billion last year, according to NDCHealth Corp., an Atlanta-based health-information company. Fueling this growth, consumer advertising has increased demand and lessened the stigma attached to using such drugs.

Most psychiatrists still provide both therapy and prescription medications, according to the APA [This all really depends on what you consider "therapy". 5 minutes "how are you feeling..." isn't exactly therapy...Of course, under a very loose definition, sure]. Many studies suggest that this combination is the most effective treatment. At the same time, millions of psychotherapeutic prescriptions are written by professionals outside the mental-health field, such as internists or pediatricians.

It's increasingly common, however, for mental-health patients to see psychopharmacologists just for medication. Psycho-pharmacology isn't a board-certified specialty, like cardiology or oncology. Those who practice it are mostly psychiatrists who have extensive training in how to use a wide range of medicines, including some that aren't typically prescribed for mental illnesses; how these drugs affect functions such as metabolism or heart rate; and how they interact with other medications.

A consultation can include a detailed personal and family history, blood work and other tests. After diagnosing or stabilizing a patient, the doctor will often see the patient just a few times a year, in short sessions, lasting 10 to 30 minutes, during which the doctor will check to make sure that the medications are working right and that side effects are under control. From 1998 to 2002, the percentage of psychiatrists' patients seeing their doctors just for medication jumped to about 30 percent [last resort, eh?] from about 20 percent, says Darrel Regier, director of research for the APA.

The rise of managed care, as well as changes in Medicaid and Medicare, has pushed patients and doctors toward the use of prescription drugs. A 2003 APA study on "financial disincentives" for psychotherapy found doctors could earn about $263 an hour for doing three 15-minute "medication management" sessions, versus about $156 for a single 45- to 50-minute therapy session. That represents an hourly pay cut of 41 percent for doing only therapy, the APA study said. (Insurance and reimbursement policies have also encouraged health-care professionals who aren't medical doctors to practice as psychopharmacologists. Some psychiatric nurses, for example, do the work under the auspices of a doctor or a hospital.)

Twenty years ago, psychiatrists had to justify using only medication to treat patients, says Scott Spier, a Baltimore psychiatrist. Now, he argues, doctors respect their patients enough to believe that they have a disease that can be treated with drugs, and that they're not necessarily at fault. Dr. Spier, who is aware of the controversy surrounding the practice, hesitates to identify himself as a psychopharmacologist. But in interviews and in annual lectures to medical residents about the role of psychopharmacology, he likes to say provocative things about the medicine-only idea. For example, he uses a line about a patient who comes to a doctor because of a troubled marriage, but who in fact has a mental illness. "Sometimes, the best 'couples counselor' is an antidepressant," Dr. Spier quips..." http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05171/525310.stm

Switching gears to medical sources. Here's what  psychiatrists have been saying in some variation for decades:

"Americans seek therapy in record numbers and consume more medications than ever before, yet stress, anxiety, and depression continue to rise to epidemic proportions. People can spend years on the psychoanalytic couch without making any progress. And for many psychiatrists, the prescription-writing reflex has become almost automatic, despite the fact that benefits often disappear as soon as drug treatment stops. Standard treatments simply aren't long-term solutions".
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-3-2004-50127.asp

From another of the profession's finest:

"The new medicines have beena breakthrough, but at the end of the day, the patients still have schizophrenia," said Weiden, who directs schizophrenia research and has worked with British psychiatrists to adapt the therapy for New Yorkers. "We want to understand how abnormal thoughts guide behavior," said Weiden, who says it's been too long since many doctors actually listened to their patients.

http://philadelphia.nami.org/newsletter.html

And another (lengthier) quote:

"Once upon a time, a young Connecticut woman was extremely bulemic and suicidal. The psychiatrist who treated her with psychotherapy believes that she was the sickest outpatient he had ever cared for. He said, "I think my ability to stay in a therapeutic relationship with her was what kept her alive."

This heady testimonial to the value of psychotherapy comes from outgoing APA President Allan Tasman, M.D. He related it at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis in Chicago in May in a session titled "Toward the Future: Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry."

What’s more, drugs are no substitute for psychotherapy, Tasman asserted. For instance, there was a very anxious woman who met the DSM criteria for an anxiety disorder. She was tense and had difficulty sleeping, working, and making friends. During the first two hours of psychotherapy that Tasman conducted with her, he found a similarity between her boss and her father that made her very anxious. Tasman decided that she had some psychological conflicts that needed working through and suggested weekly psychotherapy although she had no health insurance to cover it. She thus saw him for 20 visits at her own expense. These sessions helped her resolve her conflicts, and as a result, her anxiety symptoms vanished. She told Tasman that the therapy had been far more helpful than she had anticipated. Yet if she had been simply placed on antianxiety drugs, the core of her illness would never have been addressed, he said.

Another argument against replacing psychotherapy with drugs, Tasman pointed out, is that studies are underscoring the advantages of treatments that combine medication and psychotherapy rather than rely on drugs alone.

Yet for all its virtues, the art of talk therapy—long a core of psychiatric practice—is in danger of becoming lost to future generations of patients, Tasman lamented. For instance, he was recently examining a candidate for board certification. The candidate seemed quite knowledgeable about the patient in question, yet his focus was mainly on DSM-IV symptoms, not on the antecedents of the patient’s illness. When Tasman broached the subject of treatment, the candidate discussed drugs and said nothing about psychotherapy, although the patient seemed to have some serious personality problems that would have warranted it.

In fact, the candidate was forthright in his disdain for talk therapy—he said it was something only for social workers to pursue. Tasman asked him what he would do if he were practicing in some rural area and a patient needed talk therapy. With a thin smile, the candidate replied: "I would look very hard for a social worker!" Unfortunately, such an attitude is not at all uncommon among psychiatry residents today, Tasman said.

And it’s not just scorn for talk therapy that detracts from psychiatry residents’ ability to do it but the fact that many simply don’t know how to do it, Tasman emphasized, even at its most basic.

So why aren’t psychiatry residents today learning how to do psychotherapy? One reason, Tasman said, is that some [sic!] psychiatrists believe that understanding brain structure is more important than understanding the psyche—a position with which he disagrees. Another reason is that residency programs are emphasizing the learning of neuroscience at the expense of learning talk therapy.

But there seems to be a deeper cause for why residents can’t do talk therapy as well, Tasman contends: They are not learning how to put themselves in their patients’ shoes, so to speak, and when "we play down empathy, we lose essential data to understand our patients."

For instance, Tasman cited the case of a woman whom a psychiatry resident had diagnosed as having paranoid delusions and for whom he had prescribed antipsychotic medication. Yet the medication didn’t help her. Tasman talked with her, and in only five minutes, he was struck by her ability to relate to him, suggesting that she was not psychotic. Tasman then asked her a question he rarely asks patients: Had there been any changes in her neighborhood recently? She replied that there had been a drive-by shooting, and a child had been killed on her front porch. It was obvious that the woman was not suffering from delusions but was traumatized by this recent event, Tasman realized.

Why did Tasman discover this fact whereas the resident had not? "I used my own emotional response to the patient," he explained. "It allowed me to discover something about the patient that had not been discovered before."

The resident had apparently lacked this tool, leading Tasman to ask: "Where is empathy in our training programs? These skills have been lost."

So what can be done to keep psychotherapy in psychiatry training from going the way of the dodo bird? Tasman entreats psychoanalysts—many of whom departed from teaching residents during the 1970s and 1980s—to give it another go..."

I think I've said enough. Needless to say, if Coops had done his homework he would have discovered this himself, as it took me a mere 20 minutes to come across this information. Yet, as I suspect is the case (and consistent with the CNN brand of journalism), he is simply in a habit of regurgitating whatever he is told by "the expects", i.e., pharmaceutical industry reps and their shrink side-kicks.

[The worse kept secret of psychiatry: chemical imbalance doctrine  NEVER PROVEN]

July 6, 2005 http://www.idiom.com/~drjohn 

to the New York Times

OPINION EDITORIAL SECTION

A NEUROLOGIST SPEAKS OUT ON CHEMICAL IMBALANCES

BY John M. Friedberg, M.D.

The Governor of New Jersey, Richard Codey, poised to launch an ambitious

first-ever state wide screening and drugging program for children with

ìchemical imbalances,î went head on over the holiday weekend against Tom

Cruise:

"Tom Cruise knows as much about postpartum depression as I do about

acting, and he should stick to acting and not talk about women who need

help," said Richard J. Codey, whose wife, Mary Jo, has struggled with the

illness. (AP report July 3, 2005).

As a board certified neurologist who has studied the question of chemical

imbalances in so-called mental illnesses and the effects of electroshock

and drug treatment for more than 25 years I was intrigued by this media

dust-up.

Was it a mere coincidence that Governor Codeyís state is home to 19 of the

25 largest pharmaceutical and medical technology companies in the world?

Was it a coincidence that the publicís concern over the danger of

psychiatric drugs was raised to a new level by three unprecedented FDA

suicide warnings just last week?

While the FDA had just warned about increased suicide risk for 30 million

antidepressant users -among them more than 8 million children ñ the

governor of New Jersey, using his wife as a cudgel, saw fit to extol the

virtues of those self-same drugs.

Was Mrs. Codey a willing poster child? Most definitely. The ìOfficial

Website of the State of New Jerseyî gives her particulars details under

the heading ìMy Story.î

In her freshman year in college Mrs. Codey, now nearly 50, apparently had

her first bout with depression from which she recovered spontaneously,

seemingly without the benefits of psychiatry.

Then, after her first child was born 20 years ago she was incarcerated in

a mental hospital and placed on drugs and took them until she got pregnant

a second time five years later.

In her eighth month of the second pregnancy she subjected herself (and her

fetus) to electroconvulsive shock or ECT and I quote: ìShe does not

believe it helped her that muchÖ.î although sheíd like to see others get

it.

She preferred drugs and 15 years later, just three years ago, Mrs. Codey

was severely depressed again, despite the drugs.

At that point, and I quote again >from her own ghosted statement: ìHer

doctor increased the dosage of her medication - too much, as it turned

out. The results were devastating.î

 Apparently the drugs and the prior ECT put threw her into status

epilepticus and despite inducing ìtherapeutic drug comaî she could not be

restored to consciousness for a week.

Does this sound like a psychiatric success story? Or a psychiatric

careerist making the best of a sad life of dangerous drugs and malpractice?

And while I can sympathize with Ms. Codeyís sufferings, I certainly do not

agree that her experience makes her an expert or that her failed example

should be forced on others. Especially children!

Consider electroshock treatment, which Mrs. Codey had and was probably

told was ìsafe and effective.î (Everyone is.) Electrical energy, the

equivalent of lighting up a 100 Watt bulb for a second or two, is delivered

to the human brain and triggers a major motor convulsion, a catastrophic

neurologic event doctors have been doing their utmost to prevent for

thousands of years.

I have researched the effects of ECT for over 30 years. I can state

unequivocally it is ineffective and very dangerous. It causes brain

damage manifested at the extreme by brain hemorrhages and cardiac arrests

but more often as traumatic brain injury in all its various

manifestations: dizziness, absent mindedness, spatial disorientation,

apathy or the opposite: ìpunchdrunkî giddiness, and it causes memory loss

both retrograde (before the shock) and anterograde (after the shock).

In many cases it lowers seizure thresholds permanently and kindles

longstanding seizure disorders which might be reactivated by many

psychiatric drugs which also lower the seizure threshold and may have been

the case here.

But far and away the most consistent effect of ECT, the one that is

mistaken for improvement, is amnesia, the loss of memories for things,

some good and some bad; and amnesia is present in each and every case of

shock treatment. This can be permanent and irreversible. It can be patchy

and variable. It varies with age and sex. And thatís always the case

with brain injuries.

 The point is, the way Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) works is no deep

mystery known only to high priests of the art. The way ECT works is

amnesia.

Autopsies of people who undergo ECT and die show brain hemorrhages. They

show heart attacks. People die on the table from shock treatment and they

die shortly afterward. The death rate within two weeks of ìtreatmentî in

Texas in the 1990ís was just upwards of one in 200. And that is a very

high death rate. Nobody would undertake any medical procedure with a

death rate of one in 200.

With regard to Attention Deficit Disorder in children, look it up. ADD

isnít even indexed in the most authoritative textbooks of pathology. And

while youíre in the index of Robbins Textbook of pathology check for

bipolar disorder. Not there. Post partum depression not there. And then,

check for schizophrenia, the mental illness of all mental illnesses: also,

not there. Pathology which for two centuries has been the foundation of

medical science has no patience for irreproducible results. It has plenty

of real diseases to document. You wonít find spring fever or heartbreak

either. To date, there are no provable chemical imbalances in any mental

illness, at least not until drugs and electroshock have been given and

then the effects are dramatic.

Tom Cruise was right. Mary Jo Codey is wrong. The Governor should take his

own advice and stick to what he knows.

A more disturbing question is why the Codeysí message is so well received

and those like mine not. I suspect it has to do with the sheer number of

wives and children, politicians and CEOís, liberals and conservatives who

are popping pills around the clock.

Other than the mind-boggling profits of the psychiatric drug

manufacturers, there are no statistics but Iíll bet the ìfundamentalistsî

are more prevalent in their belief in pills, shock and psychiatry than are

those that believe in religion. At least in the United States. For now.

Very truly,

John M. Friedberg, M.D. 3000 Colby Street Suite 305 Berkeley, CA 94705

510 644 2282

[to pass a "deportation" law targeting  Brits who "incite" hatred (meaning, individuals of Arabic or Muslim descent who speak out against the British state).  I think Bliar gets the award for the most dispicable U.S. stooge. More bragging rights for Christ Church. ]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1121291414040&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

Blair promises to deport fanatics
Laws will target inciters of hate Police step up hunt for `mastermind'

>ADVERTISEMENT<

SANDRO CONTENTA
EUROPEAN BUREAU

LONDON—Prime Minister Tony Blair has promised new laws to deport people who incite the kind of hatred that led British-born men to launch the first suspected suicide bomb attacks in Western Europe.

Blair's vow to crack down on extremist ideologues came as police hunted for the mastermind behind the subway and bus bombings last Thursday that killed at least 52 people in London.

"There is the possibility that it could be Al Qaeda — someone who would have been sent to the country to do the preparation and then would have left the day before the attack," a senior security source told Britain's Press Association.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke called the four British bombers "foot soldiers" of a wider extremist organization.

And he made clear that Britain should brace itself for the possibility of other attacks.

"We have to organize ourselves on the basis that there are other people prepared to act in this way," Clarke said yesterday.

British newspaper The Independent reported yesterday that police found a bathtub filled with high explosives Tuesday at a house in Burley, Leeds. Local MP Greg Mulholland said the house was the bombers' "operational base."

And The Sun tabloid said police were hunting Egyptian Magdi el-Nashar, a Leeds University chemistry professor who lived in Burley and disappeared days before the bombings.

The police investigation extends from Leeds, the northern English city where all four bombers lived, to Pakistan, where at least one of them — 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer — travelled for a course in Islamic studies.

Many of Pakistan's Islamic schools are known as hotbeds of radicalism and British police are trying to find out who Tanweer met there.

Blair said the British bombers were the product of a "network of extremism" that exists "right around the world." And it must be fought on all fronts, he told the House of Commons.

He said he would review Britain's anti-terror laws — already seen as some of the toughest in Europe — and give security services whatever extra powers they may need.

"We will look urgently at how we strengthen the procedures to exclude people from entering the United Kingdom who may incite hatred or act contrary to the public good, and how we deport such people, if they've come here, more easily," Blair said.

Clarke is the first government or security official to publicly state that the four British bombers intended to kill themselves and others in the attacks.

Clarke made the statement while telling BBC Radio that Britain must defend its democratic values against those who seek to destroy them.

"That means standing out against, in a very strong way, anybody who preaches the kind of fundamentalism which can lead four young men to blow themselves and others up on the Tube on a Thursday morning," he said.

Clarke said he was "shocked" to learn that the bombers were British. Yet he said a "very large number" of British residents have trained at Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

Late last night, police raided a home in Aylesbury, northwest of London. There were no reports of arrests.

The only person arrested in the investigation so far is a man believed to be a relative of one of the bombers.

Clarke denied a statement from French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy that some of the bombers had been "subject to partial arrest" in 2004.

The BBC reported last night that two of the bombers were cautioned by police last year for shoplifting and disorderly behaviour.

Three of the four bombers have been widely identified in news reports as Tanweer, a cricket-loving sports science graduate; Hasib Hussain, 19; and Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, the father of an 8-month-old baby. The fourth bomber has not been named, although he, too, is said to be from Leeds.

All four men were videotaped at 8:30 a.m. Thursday by closed-circuit cameras at King's Cross station. They had backpacks that police say each carried bombs with less than 4.5 kilograms of explosives.

Three subway trains blew up almost simultaneously at 8:50 a.m. and a bus in nearby Tavistock Square exploded at 9:47, killing 13 people.

At 10 p.m. that night, the family of Hussain called police to report him missing. Police matched the description the parents gave of his clothes to what was found on a headless body at the scene, according to The Times newspaper.

Decapitation is typical of what happens to suicide bombers — a theory that led police to track Hussein's image on videotapes, discover him with his fellow bombers at King's Cross, and eventually raid their homes in Leeds. Personal identification of three of the bombers, including credit cards, was found at the scenes of the bombings.

Said Blair: "This is not an isolated criminal act we are dealing with. It is an extreme and evil ideology whose roots lie in a perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of the religion of Islam. In the end, this can only be taken on and defeated by the community itself," he said, adding the government will help the Muslim community do so.

But a spokesperson for Britain's largest Muslim coalition accused Blair of suggesting the country's two million Muslims somehow supported the bombers. It's time the government publicly acknowledged that British participation in the war against Iraq "increased the pool of recruits for Al Qaeda," Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said in an interview. "The government must begin to recognize some of the harm its own policies have done," he said.

Bunglawala also accused police and the government of allowing radical preachers such as Abu Hamza al-Masri and Omar Bakri to "spew out their venom" for years, despite calls by the Muslim community to shut them up. "The coverage those men got in the media helped demonize the Muslim community, yet no one took any action for so long," he said.

Abu Hamza, a British citizen, was only arrested last May after the U.S. requested his extradition on charges of supporting terrorism. Omar Bakri, who openly expresses admiration for Osama bin Laden, continues to give public lectures.

At noon today, Britain will observe two minutes of silence in memory of the victims.

Additional articles by Sandro Contenta

Whatever happened to Kings and Queens keeping to their figurehead responsibilities? A Prince  lecturing the public about morality is like Hitler lecturing G-d about redemption.

 In all fairness to Charles, he is the  product of inbreeding so perhaps it's herediary.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4681281.stm

Root out extremists, prince urges

Prince Charles said the attacks had no link to "true faith" Prince Charles has urged "every true Muslim" to root out extremist preachers in the wake of the London bomb attacks. An "evil influence" appeared to have been brought to bear on the suspected bombers, whose "atrocities" must be condemned, he told the Daily Mirror. Others must resist the temptation to condemn the Muslim community for the actions of an evil minority, he added. Tony Blair has said talks will start on new laws to make it easier to deport people trying to "incite hatred". Muslim leaders say they are "shocked" British Muslims may have been behind last Thursday's attacks. 'No link to faith' "Some may think this cause is Islam. It is anything but. It is a perversion of traditional Islam," Prince Charles said. The prince said Muslim leaders were right to point out the attacks had no link to "true faith". "Those who claim to have murdered in the name of Islam have no care for the lives they have so brutally destroyed. "Offended by the good relations between faiths and cultures, the extremists seek to break up the communities that make up our modern, multi-cultural society," the prince wrote He said Britain's tradition of welcoming new communities had to be upheld to prevent the bombers achieving their aim of dividing the community. "We seem to be seeing a cycle, from Bali to Baghdad, from New York to London, of willing recruits sacrificing their young lives to slaughter innocent people in some inhuman cause." But the prince also said the way Londoners had coped with last week's attacks was a cause of "national pride". Two generations or so after the Blitz, the resilience and courage of Londoners have again inspired the world." On Tuesday, the Muslim Council of Britain's secretary general, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, said: "Nothing in Islam can ever justify the evil actions of the bombers. "They happen to be Muslims and it's not that Islam is the problem, it is those individuals, it is the criminality that is there," he said. On Wednesday, Mr Blair met Muslim MPs to discuss how to tackle "this evil within the Muslim community". "In the end, this can only be taken on and defeated by the community itself," he said. The prime minister condemned any attacks on British Muslims, saying the vast majority were decent and law abiding.

[but who's counting?...Incidentally, this has been the trend over the last decade. From the standpoint of females, an encouraging stastistic, not least since it sould lead to greater  parity in job pay and domestic labour-sharing responsibilities. It also suggests that the infamous old boys clubs are becoming a thing of the past.  Yet from the standpoint of males it is worrying to say the least, since more males being locked into low paying (glass cealing) professions means more men denied the niceties that come with obtaining a higher education, such as greater status, job opportunity and social economic advancement. What's not so surprising is the mute response by the femastashi.]

http://www.sacredheartspectrum.com/media/paper747/news/2004/10/21/Features/Female.College.Enrollment.Increases-775684.shtml

Female College Enrollment Increases

Article Tools:

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Worldwide, there has been an increase in the amount of women attending college. Accordingly, over the years Sacred Heart has seen in increase in female enrollment. According to a national report from College Week in November of 1999, "the proportion of women enrolled in higher education has increased steadily over the past 30 years. In 1969, there were 3.3 million women in colleges representing about 41 percent of the total college enrollment. By 1999, the total number of women had increased to an estimated 8.5 million, and they made up 57% of total college enrollment. Karen Guastelle of Undergraduate Admissions has been with SHU for 15 years and has seen a slight change in the female enrollment. "More girls are applying to college statistically overall in the United States right now. Fewer men are applying to college so I think all colleges are seeing the effects of that," she said. "The general demographic of four year institutions and Catholic institutions have higher female enrollment over male enrollment," said Larry Wielk, Dean of Students. Michael Bozzone, Dean of Freshmen, agrees. "Lately our incoming freshman class have been about 60%/40% women to men, and that mirrors what most private colleges report," he said. According to Dean Wielk, SHU may not see such drastic changes in the student body based on gender, partially due to the number of male varsity sports. Not to say that every male at SHU plays a sport but it does increase the male appeal. The Football team alone has a roster of 110 male students, unlike Quinnipiac University, which has never had football as part of their athletic department. "Maybe I am color blind, sex blind, and everything else blind but on a day to day basis I don't necessarily see a change in the atmosphere based on gender. When everyone shows up to school, I see students," said Weilk. According to Douglas Bohn, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs and University Registrar, the statistical ratio of full time students has not drastically changed. Bohn has been at SHU for 41 years. In 1998 the ratio was 62%/38% women to men, while in the year 2001 the ratio was 64%/36% women to men. The current ratio of full time students is 58.9% /41% women to men. "The numbers have been pretty stable over time," said Bohn. However, some students may see a change in the composition of the classroom atmosphere due to their selected major. In the year 2003 selected majors such as Art had a 57%/42% ratio while Psychology was 86% females. Selected majors can impact the number of female students.

 The composition of the student body based on gender has caught the attention of several students. "I feel like the school has a lot more female activities or seminars, like self-defense classes, and a female speaker that was geared toward women. The atmosphere has been affected I guess, it seems to be more friendly," said Patrick Kitson (sophomore, Manhattan, NY).
Melissa Giovanniello, a junior, from Smithtown, NY agrees. "Yes I definately have noticed a change and I think its unfair. This school has an overwhelming amount of girls. Even being a math major I have noticed the change especially my classes are overwhelmed by girls, in one of my classes there's only one guy."
Worldwide this has become a change over the years, more and more women are seeing the benefits in a college degree. "There is a quantum change if you look at today's world, in gender participation in various jobs. Women are now presidents of colleges and universities, Cabinet members, Supreme Court Justices, and just about anything else you can think of," said Bozzone.

[Well done to this courageous man for this commendable act. North Americans would well do learning from example.  Europe, despite a long (and sordid) history of  colonialism and war making, has  nurtured a citizentry on a whole more (ironially) freethinking than their North American cousins -- and hence having  the balls to do what this man had done. Typical North Americans mentality in contrast is to chearlead war and occupations, screw fellow man, consume needless amount of resources and think that doing all this makes them "enlightened".]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20050717/ts_latimes/sardiniasaysitstimefortheusnavytoleaveport

Sardinia Says It's Time for the U.S. Navy to Leave Port

BIRMINGHAM, England - Ten days after Islamic radicals carried out deadly attacks on the London transport system, Britain's largest Sunni Muslim group on Sunday issued a binding religious edict, a fatwa, condemning the July 7 suicide bombings as the work of a "perverted ideology."

The Sunni Council denounced the bombings as anti-Islamic and said the Quran, the Muslim holy book, forbade suicide attacks.

"Who has given anyone the right to kill others? It is a sin. Anyone who commits suicide will be sent to Hell," said Mufti Muhammad Gul Rehman Qadri, the council chairman. "What happened in London can be seen as a sacrilege. It is a sin to take your life or the life of others."

The council said Muslims should not use "atrocities being committed in Palestine and

Iraq" to justify attacks such as those in London that killed 55 when suicide bombers struck in three Underground trains and a double-decker bus, the fatwa declared.

"We equally condemn those who may have been behind the masterminding of these acts, those who incited these youths in order to further their own perverted ideology," Qadri said.

More than 2,000 Sunni clerics, scholars and community leaders attended Sunday's meeting, which was scheduled before the bombings.

Also Sunday, government officials dismissed claims that lax attitudes allowed homegrown suicide bombers to develop. The Sunday Times reported that one suspected bomber, 30-year-old Mohammad Sidique Khan, was investigated last year by MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service, but was not regarded as a threat to national security or subsequently put under surveillance.

MI5 began evaluating Khan, a Briton of Pakistani ancestry, during an inquiry that focused on an alleged plot to explode a large truck bomb outside a target in London thought to be a nightclub in Soho, the newspaper said. The private inquiry reportedly evaluated hundreds of potential suspects.

The Metropolitan Police and a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair declined comment.

The bombings have prompted the government to propose new legislation outlawing "indirect incitement" of terrorism — including public praise for those who carry out attacks.

Nevertheless, Charles Falconer, the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor, denied that the government had not been diligent in screening political refugees from Muslim countries, making Britain a fertile recruiting ground for Islamic terrorism.

"In terms of asylum, our policy is: If you are in fear of persecution, you are entitled to come here," the minister said on BBC television. "Obviously, if you then seek to attack the very state that you come to, that gives rise to different questions.

"But I don't think we have been ultraliberal. ... What we have got to do now is unify all the forces in our society, in particular in the Muslim community, against those people who are fundamentally at odds with our values."

The fatwa was issued as investigators in the northern city of Leeds continued to focus on an Islamic bookshop and a house near the home of one of the four alleged bombers, 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer.

Tanweer, born in Britain to Pakistani parents, was believed to be one of the Underground train bombers and reportedly visited two religious schools on a trip to Pakistan.

Pakistani intelligence agents have questioned students, teachers and administrators at the school in central Lahore, and at least two other al-Qaida-linked radical Islamic centers, showing pictures and a dossier on Tanweer.

In an interview with CNN's "Late Edition," British Defense Secretary John Reid expressed concern about Pakistan's religious schools, saying the madrassas "are a major source of international instability and contribute largely toward the growth of terrorist activity."

Police said Sunday night that six men were arrested in Leeds under Britain's anti-terrorism act, but later retracted the claim and said they were arrested on immigration offenses. There is no connection between the July 7 London bombings and the arrests Sunday night, police said.

"There was a mistake earlier in that entry ," a spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity according to government policy.

Tanweer, Khan and 18-year-old Hasib Hussain, who were all from the Leeds area. Hussain was also a Briton whose parents were from Pakistan. The fourth suspect, Jamaican-born Germaine Lindsay, 19, who came to Britain as an infant, lived in Luton, a city north of London.

Police on Saturday released an image captured by surveillance cameras showing all four bombers with backpacks entering the Luton train station on the morning of the attacks. Investigators say the four took a train from Luton to London's King's Cross station, where they split up to carry out the bombings.

Officers have also been searching the Leeds home of an Egyptian biochemist for more evidence after investigators reportedly found traces of explosives in the man's bathtub. Magdy Mahmoud Mustafa el-Nashar is being interrogated by Egyptian authorities, who say the biochemist denies having any connection to the attacks. He was arrested at the Cairo airport in the days after the bombing.

Egypt is not prepared to hand el-Nashar over to Britain, Egyptian security officials said. British investigators are in Cairo to take observe the questioning. The two countries have no extradition treaty.

[This article provides a glimpse into the mindset of a media journalist, the job it is distort the role of government foreign policy  to keep the public in perpertual state of docillity and indifference. In the example below, the News of the World reporter patrionizingly walks the reader through the London suicide bombers' final steps (which she describes a "bloody cocky" ). She notes that they were  "brainwashed" since they were praising to high heaven "Al Queda" (read Pan Arab)  resistance to British and U.S. imperailism , which she reminds us is unacceptable, in contrast to her implied praise of Royal Airforce slaughter of  thousands of Iraqi and Afghanis civilians, which is naturally acceptable.

The "reporter" even quotes an unamed source ("youngster") as stating:  "They tried to brainwash us with pictures of women and children being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq ", as if to say that the civilians dying in Iraq and Afghanistan daily through western lock and barrel is a matter of dispute.  

Bottom line, it's OK by the standards of a respectable journalist that PM Bliar incite naive (and/or racist) Brits into perpetrating mass murder,  but, of course, reprehensible when "home grown terrorists" do the same.]

LONDON BOMBINGS: Chilling CCTV pictures

SO BLOODY COCKY

By Lucy Panton

THESE are the four swaggering suicide bombers setting out on their journey of death and destruction. The chilling CCTV pictures were taken at Luton station at 7.21am on July 7 before they boarded a Thameslink train to King's Cross.

Strolling casually towards the entrance with a lethal cargo of explosives in their rucksacks, Hasib Hussain, 18, Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22 and 19-year-old Germaine Lindsay look as if they are going on a hiking trip.

Bus bomber Hussain coolly leads the way, sauntering through the door in a blue zip-up jacket and trainers, one hand stuffed into the pockets of his jeans.

A few steps behind is Russell Square Tube bomber Lindsay, wearing gleaming white trainers and clutching a carrier bag, his face partly screened by his baseball cap.

Third comes Edgware Road bomber Khan looking casual in a white baseball cap.

And behind him Tanweer, hurrying to catch up, with his lethal cargo of death hidden in the rucksack swinging from one shoulder. Eighty-nine minutes later the first three bombs went off.

Yesterday the grim toll from their one-way visit to London rose to 55 as architect Lee Harris, 30, died at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, on Friday night.

He had been caught up in the Tube bombing near King's Cross along with his partner, 36-year-old Samantha Badham, who is also missing feared dead.

Last night it emerged that Kahn, Tanweer and Hussain had been trying to recruit young terrorists on the streets of Leeds since the September 11 attacks, giving out CDs which they claimed showed war atrocities against Muslims.

One youngster told us: "They tried to brainwash us with pictures of women and children being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hussain even used to make homemade bombs in his bedroom and test them out in the fields."

The suicide bombers became friends after meeting in youth groups and football matches in the Beeston area.

Soon they were secretly trawling the cobbled streets looking to recruit naive young Muslims.

One such youngster, who refused to succumb to their propaganda, said: "In front of people they acted innocent and respectable but behind the scenes they would change and their true colours would come out."

The scared Muslim 19-year-old said: "Hasib talked about bombs and how he planned to blow people up. He used to practise with different kinds of explosives by making home-made bombs out of fireworks."

"I think it was Sidique—everyone knew him as Sidi—who started talking to people about how we should fight back against all the countries involved in the killing of Muslims.

"He and Shehzad became friends when they met at a gym in Beeston.

"They would talk there about al-Qaeda and about the terrorists who were training abroad to fight against the West."

PM Tony Blair talked of the battle against Islamic extremists in a speech in London yesterday:

HE said: "What we witnessed last Thursday was not random.

It had a purpose. It was done according to a plan. It was meant. What we are confronting here is an evil ideology...

They demand the elimination of Israel; the withdrawal of all Westerners from Muslim countries, irrespective of the wishes of people and government; the establishment of effectively Taliban states and Sharia law in the Arab world en route to one Caliphate of all Muslim nations.

We don't have to wonder what type of country those states would be. Afghanistan was such a state. Girls put out of school. Women denied even rudimentary rights. People living in abject poverty and oppression. All justified by reference to religious faith.

We must join up with moderate Muslims to take on extremists.

They murdered over 50 innocent people. It could have been over 500. And had it been, they would have rejoiced."

DO you have a story? Call us any day free on 0800 279 3786, text us on 07770 381560 or email us at newsdesk@notw.co.uk

[There is nothing more  treasonous than citizens of an occupied country collaborating with an occupier that has murdered 10s of 1000s of their countrymen.  In the case of Iraq, add the countless (millions) killed through  the combined occupation and sanctions regime. So-called Iraqi soldiers are merely tools to further this genocide].

 Baghdad hospital doctors on strike against soldiers

[I'm not sure which is dummer: "sacrificing" your life for the rich (e.g., deceased army, navy, or airforce personel) or protecting their butts in  the name of "national" security and being paid SQUAT DIDLY for the service?  FBI personnel -- you are the lagdog hoochies of the powerful unable to  cut it in the real world of corporate exploitation so you become rich folk muscle....You are cowards hiding behind the cloak of "patriotism". Courage is opposing the hegemon, not being its accessory.]

FBI Keeping Lengthy Files on Groups Opposed to Bush's Policies

London mayor says West fueled Islamic radicalism

[to the Canadian government doing something useful. On the down side,  they'll probably be an explosion in child pornography and the molestation of children by Gay people ]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050720/ap_on_re_ca/canada_gay_marriage_2;_ylt=AjGN6HLpVn2czXEqdqtNlyRdlakA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Canada 4th Nation to Legalize Gay Marriage

[The U.S. media's  latest pinnups in the "War on Terror", fortunate to have survived the

London subway bombings. A hospital interview of the sisiters was aired yesterday on  Fox

News. Not suprisingly both are attractive and of course White

 (synonomous in the age of sex as a commodity with good looks). Both also miss the plot entirely,

in viewing it as incumbent upon citizens of the most despicable, immoral  country on the planet to lecture their victims about morality.

In the words of one:

"It just kills me that somebody is that misled and that misinformed and could

 possibly think that that kind of senseless violence does anything positive

 whatsoever."…"I just feel empowered and feel like God's prepared us, both of us,

 our whole lives for this day," she said. "And he has given us this opportunity I

 think to just reach out to others and to encourage others who are sick or hurt

and just to make a stand against terrorism."

Yes, I'm sure G-d delibaretely spares us Western mortals from suicide bombers while those Third World sinners are daily left to their

own devises (i.e., to starve to death, perish of aids, 

be killed at the hands of the machine guns toting, F-15 bomb dropping democracy spreading

armies of the west).

Needless to say, what better force to turn to in such trying times for the Western world than such a loving G-d. As (I imagine) the brighter of the two sisters reminds us, 

 "There's no better way to fight terrorism than to turn

what they meant for evil into good and the Lord is certainly capable of that,"

Met Police chief Sir Ian Blair has apologised to the family of the Brazilian man shot dead by police in south London on Friday.

He said the death of Jean Charles de Menezes was a "tragedy", but admitted more people could be shot as police hunt suspected suicide bombers.

The 27-year-old electrician's family condemned the shooting and said there was no reason to suspect him.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke described the shooting as an "absolute tragedy".

Mr Menezes, who lived in Tulse Hill, south London, was completely unconnected to Thursday's attempted bombings on three Tube trains and a bus, Scotland Yard have confirmed.

The shooting is being investigated by officers from Scotland Yard's Directorate of Professional Standards, and will be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Other developments on Sunday include:

[It's all a big mistery, claim the Dutch. Why do muslims embrace 'radical islam'. Be imaginative.]

Van Gogh killer jailed for life

Bouyeri was arrested shortly after Van Gogh's killing A Dutch court has sentenced a 27-year-old radical Islamist to life in prison for the November murder of controversial film-maker Theo Van Gogh. Mohammed Bouyeri, who has joint Dutch-Moroccan nationality, had made a courtroom confession and had vowed to do the same again if given the chance. The murder in Amsterdam stunned the Netherlands. The court ruled that it was a terrorist act. The judge said the murder had triggered "great fear and insecurity" in society. "The murder of Theo van Gogh provoked a wave of revulsion and disdain in the Netherlands. Theo van Gogh was mercilessly slaughtered," said Judge Udo Willem Bentinck. Brutal killing Bouyeri had told the court he had acted out of religious conviction. Clutching a copy of the Koran, he said that "the law compels me to chop off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the prophet". Theo Van Gogh was a well-known critic of Islam Van Gogh, a strong critic of radical Islam, was shot and stabbed in broad daylight as he was cycling through Amsterdam. His throat was slashed and the killer also pinned a letter to his chest with a knife, which threatened Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She had written the script for Van Gogh's controversial film Submission, which criticised the treatment of women under Islam. The trial in Amsterdam took place in a heavily guarded building and about 20 relatives and friends of Van Gogh were present, Radio Netherlands reporter Eric Hesen told the BBC News website. Van Gogh's 14-year-old son wept and was embraced by his mother as the film-maker's death was described in court. Van Gogh was a distant relative of the famous 19th-Century painter Vincent. Alleged network The judgement said the killer had shown "a complete disregard for human life". Mr Bouyeri said nothing, but looked "very calm and superior", according to Mr Hesen. He was also convicted of the attempted murder of several police officers and bystanders and illegal possession of firearms. His right to vote was withdrawn and his sentence carries no possibility of parole. The Dutch are still struggling to understand how Bouyeri, who was born and raised in Amsterdam, turned to radical Islam, the BBC's Geraldine Coughlan reports. After this trial, the authorities will decide if he can be prosecuted separately for membership of a terrorist organisation. Twelve other terrorism suspects are awaiting trial in the Netherlands and prosecutors believe Mr Bouyeri is a key figure in that group, but so far they have not come up with enough evidence to charge him. After the Van Gogh murder, mosques in several Dutch cities were the targets of vandalism and failed arson attempts.

 till August 16. No updates until return.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050816/wl_mideast_afp/iraqexecute_050816170527

 First post-Saddam executions soon: Jaafari 2 hours, 44 minutes ago BAGHDAD (AFP) - The first executions in Iraq since the ousting of Saddam Hussein will take place within days, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said -- in what could be an ominous sign for the jailed former dictator. ADVERTISEMENT "The president (Jalal Talabani) has signed three death sentences and the next few days will see the first executions in Kut," 175 kilometers (110 miles) south of Baghdad, Jaafari told reporters on Tuesday. Three members of the Al-Qaeda-linked group Ansar al-Sunna were sentenced to death in May, a verdict later approved by the Supreme Council for Justice, the highest judicial authority in Iraq. Kurd Bayan Ahmad al-Jaf, a 30-year-old taxi driver, as well as two Sunni Arabs, Uday Dawud al-Dulaimi, a 25-year-old builder, and Taher Jassem Abbas, a 44-year-old butcher, were condemned to death after being convicted of killing and kidnapping policemen and raping Iraqi women. They were the first death sentences to be announced by Jaafari's government since capital punishment was suspended by US authorities following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Officials from the human rights group Amnesty International condemned the announcement Tuesday, saying it was concerned that dozens of death sentences had been handed out in recent weeks. "We condemned the passing of death sentences in Iraq before 2003, and we also condemn them now," said Said Boumadouha, an Amnesty official in London who was part of the organisation's last delegation to visit Iraq in early 2004. Tuesday's announcement could also set a precedent for sentencing during the high-profile trials of former regime figures, including Saddam for crimes against humanity, Boumadouha added. "In those cases the charges are so serious and the evidence so clear that quite a few people from the old regime (in Iraq) will probably face the death sentence," he said. Boumadouha said he was aware of at least 50 death sentences being passed in Iraq since the beginning of 2005, adding that Amnesty would be taking "urgent action" following Tuesday's announcement. All Amnesty members should write to Iraqi authorities urging that the sentences be commuted, Boumadouha said. Saddam is currently in US custody near Baghdad airport along with his top henchmen awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity. Sources close to the Iraq Special Tribunal set up to try the former dictator said last week his trial could begin within the next couple of months. The court filed the first charges against Saddam in late July over the 1982 killing of 143 residents of the village of Dujail, northeast of Baghdad, where he had been the target of a failed assassination bid.

AFP/Pool Photo: Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari answers questions during a press conference in Baghdad's fortified 'Green Zone'...

[Shot 8 times in "self defence", but who's counting?]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050817/ap_on_re_eu/britain_bombings_brazilian_4;_ylt=An4DHyrcocYpCL7vBYaOPZS9Q5gv;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Footage Contradicts London Police Reports

[How touching: a judge orders a convicted killer on death row to be forced fed on account of his hunger strike against intolerable prison conditions. Apparently, he can't stomach the thought of a man starving himself to death but has no qualms with ordering his execution. I suppose better to slaughter one's game in peak condition.]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050826/ap_on_re_us/sniper_hunger_strike

Judge Orders Convicted Sniper Forcibly Fed

[Troll with a law degree...]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace

Nancy Grace

[Renegade lifeform Condaleeza Rice takes one for Team Bush...]

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice loads a box of supplies into a pick-up truck Sunday Sept. 4, 2005 in Bayou La Batre, Ala. Rice visited the community center in the town before heading down the Gulf Coast to visit area's hit by Hurricane Katrina. At right is city councilman Henry Barnes. (AP Photo/Rob Carr)

[Yet, still the #1 Uncle Tom.]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4222170.stm

Last Updated: Wednesday, 7 September 2005, 17:08 GMT 18:08 UK E-mail this to a friend Printable version Annan accepts oil-for-food lapses Kofi Annan said the findings were "deeply embarrassing" UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said he takes personal responsibility for the failures of the oil-for-food programme, highlighted in a new report. The highly critical report by an independent panel was delivered to the UN Security Council on Wednesday. It finds instances of "illicit, unethical and corrupt" behaviour during the $64bn scheme, and blames the secretary general for mismanagement. The inquiry concludes that the UN is in urgent need of sweeping reform. Responding to the report, the US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said it demonstrated that the credibility of the UN depended on those reforms. "This report unambiguously rejects the notion that business as usual at the United Nations is acceptable," he said. It was a compact with the devil, and the devil had means for manipulating the programme to his ends Paul Volcker Head of the inquiry Q&A: Oil-for food scandal Mr Annan said the findings were "deeply embarrassing". "The inquiry committee has ripped away the curtain, and shone a harsh light into the most unsightly corners of the organisation. "None of us - member states, secretariat, agencies, funds and programmes - can be proud of what it has found." High-level corruption The report was prepared by investigators led by the former head of the US Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker. It faults UN management for allowing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to corrupt the operation for personal gain. Volcker panel report in full Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader. Download the reader here It says there was no adequate framework of control and auditing. There were incidences of corruption at the highest level as well as in the field. "Our assignment has been to look for mis- or maladministration in the oil-for-food programme, and for evidence of corruption within the UN organisation, and by contractors. Unhappily we found both," Mr Volcker said. He said the programme's weaknesses were aggravated by corrupt behaviour, and Iraq had been allowed to take too much initiative. "It was, as one past member of this council has put it, a compact with the devil, and the devil had means for manipulating the programme to his ends," Mr Volcker said. He added that the problems were not an aberration but ran deep in the UN, which had been designed 60 years ago in a "simpler time". Key summit But the chief investigator said the programme had had some successes, averting the danger of malnutrition and the collapse of medical services in Iraq. The scheme was set up in the 1990s, when Iraq was under economic sanctions, and allowed the country to sell enough oil to provide food and healthcare for its people. BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says Mr Annan has embraced change, establishing a commission that has presented wide-ranging proposals for updating UN machinery and potentially broadening Security Council membership. World leaders will discuss the issues at a summit ahead of the annual UN General Assembly, in what our correspondent describes as a potentially key moment in the organisation's history. The report said action should be taken by the time the General Assembly had completed its meetings in 2006.

[The usual un-critical take on a farcical "free election" in a totalitarian middle eastern regime supported through U.S. taxpayer funding. To win the election, Mubarrak resorts to the totalitarian's  ploy of banning the best supported opposition party; the west excuses this ritual in dictatorship with the usual "democratic progress" ruse. The end result: the continuation of a police state in Egypt, with an already impoverished Egyptian population ripened for further western, corporate exploitation.  Some things never change, apparently.]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050907/ts_nm/egypt_elections_dc

Egyptians vote for leader, opposition complains

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=FLO20060316&articleId=2108

Milosevic's Death: A Political Assassination blamed on the Victim

by Sara Flounders March 16, 2006

 International Action Center

In the summer of 2004 I met with former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in Scheveningen prison when I was approved as a defense witness. Before I could get in, I had to pass four totally separate check points, unable to take in anything but papers. Each level of security was more rigid than the one before.

No one who has met with President Milosevic over the past four years would believe he would risk killing himself rather than finishing his trial. And no one who visited Scheveningen in The Hague would believe the outlandish claims that somehow he was able to smuggle in un-prescribed medications on a regular basis. They would instead suspect that the authorities were desperately trying to cover up their own crimes.

My role as witness was based on my trip to Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, during the 78-day U.S./NATO bombing. I visited bombed schools, hospitals, heating plants and market places, recording the harm done to civilians. In addition, I had written since 1993 on the behind-the-scenes U.S. role in the strangulation and forced dismemberment of Yugoslavia.

Even after my name was accepted as a defense witness, it was a complicated and lengthy procedure to make the visit. Though all was approved on the day of the visit, it still took four hours to get through the checkpoints into the special unit inside the prison where the defendants for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) were kept totally segregated from general population and closely monitored. \

Scheveningen prison is a maximum-security high-tech facility. Milosevic and other indicted prisoners are housed in a special prison unit within the larger prison. This section is spread over four floors with 12 cells each. The unit is specially patrolled by United Nations guards. Cameras are everywhere. Every movement of the prisoners is monitored and controlled. When the president was first placed in his cell, lights were kept on 24 hours a day and every motion was monitored.

WHERE DID RIFAMPICIN COME FROM?

 Now the Dutch authorities claim that Milosevic was taking a rare, difficult-to-acquire antibiotic used to treat leprosy or tuberculosis that has the unique ability to counteract the medicine he was taking to control his high blood pressure. How did this medicine, rifampicin, get into Milosevic's system? He was held in a maximum security prison in triple lock down in a special contained unit within a larger Dutch prison once used by the Nazis to detain Dutch resistance fighters.

When rifampicin was found last Jan. 12 in Milosevic's blood, the ICTY kept the report of the blood tests secret, even from Milosevic and his doctors, who were complaining that something terribly wrong was damaging the defendant's health. While the prisoner and his defense committee and assistant lawyers were demanding health information, the ICTY officials sat on this report. If ICTY officials responsible for Milosevic's health really believed he was sneaking toxic medications into the prison, why hadn't they publicized this report much earlier?

DELAYS HURT MILOSEVIC

Equally outlandish are the claims that Milosevic staged his illness to delay the trial. The prosecution delayed the trial, first by adding charges against the president regarding Croatia and Bosnia when they realized they had no war-crimes case on the original Kosovo charges, then by bringing hundreds of witnesses to generate 500,000 pages of prosecution testimony from February 2002 to February 2004.

Each time Milosevic was too sick to continue in court, the prosecution moved to impose counsel and to take away the prisoner's right to present his own defense. Milosevic was determined to use the trial as a platform to defend not only himself but the people of Yugoslavia, and to indict the U.S., Germany and the NATO powers for their role in the criminal destruction of his country. He welcomed the trial as the only platform where he could make the historical record. In his words to the court he constantly described why, despite his bad health, he was determined to continue.

When I met Milosevic it was in the special room that was the only place where the ICTY allowed him to work or have the court papers to prepare for his defense. Whenever his blood pressure rose and he was unable to continue the court sessions, he was also barred from any access to his defense materials.

During each step of the trial Milosevic's cardiovascular problems, especially his high blood pressure had resulted in several delays in the trial. At each step the ICTY officials tried to use the issue of his health in constant efforts to deny him the right to conduct his own defense. Neither the illness nor the delays helped his defense.

The ICTY charged that Milosevic was secretly medicating himself and avoiding taking prescribed medicines. Milosevic answered this charge himself for the court record on Sept. 1, 2004: "You probably don't know the practice in your own Detention Unit. I take my medication in the presence of guards. I'm given them. I take them in the presence of the guard, and the guard writes down in the book the exact time when I ingested those medicines."

Despite the life-threatening cardiovascular risk raised in every dispute with the prosecution, tribunal officials refused even to secure regular check-ups of the president's health condition. They also denied access for months to specialists who were willing to come to Scheveningen, delaying his care.

The president's own explanation of his problem was more consistent and credible than the ICTY's. In a letter addressed to the Russian Embassy two days before he died, Milosevic writes that he has taken no antibiotics in more than four years. He asks why the medical report on the discovery of rifampicin was kept secret from him for almost two months. He writes that he believes that "active steps are being taken to destroy my health." He warns that he is sure he is being poisoned and that his life is in danger.

A POLITICAL TRIBUNAL

The ICTY's handling of President Milosevic's death has been like its handling of the entire trial: an attempt to blame the victim for the crime.

The ICTY is not a real international court, with the ability to try any accused war criminal. It is a political court set up by the UN Security Council at the insistence of Secretary of State Madeline Albright in 1993 in violation of the UN Charter. Its scope is limited to trying the peoples of the former Yugoslavia and the vast majority of prisoners are Serbs. It is a propaganda apparatus and internment camp for political prisoners disguised as an unbiased court. It aims to punish the victims for the crimes committed against them and to absolve the imperialist powers who invaded, bombed, dismembered and forced the privatization of the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia.

When Milosevic discussed the trial with me, his scope of historical knowledge, his energy despite his illness, cut through my own jet-lag and fatigue from the four-hour entrance hurdle and allowed us to finish the interview with enthusiasm for the next step of the tribunal.

Now the world is asked to believe that Milosevic is responsible for his own death. It is a scenario so incredibly complex, an elaborate suicide story that is as improbable as the charges he was facing. The bought-and-paid-for corporate media is accepting and propagating the story of his death in the same servile fashion they accepted the very existence of this illegal court and the justification for the destruction of Yugoslavia.

Milosevic is now gone. But his summation answering two years of the prosecution case and his opening defense speech live on. He has left a ringing indictment of U.S. and European big-power intervention in the Balkans in a historic document in an "I accuse" format. His speech, which contains extensive documentation and factual detail, has been published in Serbian, Greek, French, Russian and English. This response, "The Defense Speaks-for History and the Future," (IAC 2006) will stand long after the tawdry war propaganda has collapsed.

-- or, the same thing, work as a reporter for the corporate press.]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060318/ap_on_re_eu/milosevic

Tens of Thousands Bid Goodbye to Milosevic

Cost of Iraq war could surpass $1 trillion

Estimates vary, but all agree price is far higher than initially expected

[Picture of Murder Inc.]

Jacob Silberberg / AP file The economic ramifications are rarely included in the debate over whether to go to war, although some economists argue it is quite possible and useful to assess potential costs and benefits.  View related photos

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NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE

By Martin Wolk

Chief economics correspondent

MSNBC

Updated: 7:25 p.m. ET March 17, 2006

Martin Wolk Chief economics correspondent • Profile • E-mail

One thing is certain about the Iraq war: It has cost a lot more than advertised. In fact, the tab grows by at least $200 million each and every day.

In the months leading up to the launch of the war three years ago, few Bush administration officials were willing to comment publicly on the potential costs to the United States. After all, no cost would have been too high if the United States faced an imminent threat from an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction, the war's stated justification.

In fact, the economic ramifications are rarely included in the debate over whether to go to war, although some economists argue it is quite possible and useful to assess potential costs and benefits.

In any event, most estimates put forward by White House officials in 2002 and 2003 were relatively low compared with the nation's gross domestic product, the size of the federal budget or the cost of past wars.

White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey was the exception to the rule, offering an "upper bound" estimate of $100 billion to $200 billion in a September 2002 interview with The Wall Street Journal. That figure raised eyebrows at the time, although Lindsey argued the cost was small, adding, "The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy.”

U.S. direct spending on the war in Iraq already has surpassed the upper bound of Lindsey's upper bound, and most economists attribute billions more in indirect costs to the war effort. Even if the U.S. exits Iraq within another three years, total direct and indirect costs to U.S. taxpayers will likely by more than $400 billion, and one estimate puts the total economic impact at up to $2 trillion.

Back in 2002, the White House was quick to distance itself from Lindsey's view. Mitch Daniels, director of the White House budget office, quickly called the estimate "very, very high." Lindsey himself was dismissed in a shake-up of the White House economic team later that year, and in January 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the budget office had come up with "a number that's something under $50 billion." He and other officials expressed optimism that Iraq itself would help shoulder the cost once the world market was reopened to its rich supply of oil.

• Video special: Iraq then and now • 'Shock and awe.' 'Embeds.' Do you remember? • Day by day, images of a four-week invasion • Highlights from our exclusive Baghdad blog • How much do you recall? Take our special quiz • SEE ALL OF OUR SPECIAL SECTION

Those early estimates struck some economists as unrealistically low. William Nordhaus, a Yale economist who published perhaps the most extensive independent estimate of the potential costs before the war began, suggested a war and occupation could cost anywhere from $100 billion to $1.9 trillion in 2002 dollars, depending on the difficulty of the conflict, the length of occupation and the impact on oil costs.

The most current estimates of the war's cost generally start with figures from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which as of January 2006 counted $323 billion in expenditures for the war on terrorism, including military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Just this week the House approved another $68 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which would bring the total allocated to date to about $400 billion. The Pentagon is spending about $6 billion a month on the war in Iraq, or about $200 million a day, according to the CBO. That is about the same as the gross domestic product of Nigeria.

Scott Wallsten, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, put the direct cost to the United States at $212 billion as of last September and estimates a "global cost" of $500 billion to date with another $500 billion possible, with most of the total borne by the United States.

That figure is in line with an estimate published last month by University of Chicago economist Steven Davis and colleagues, who put the likely U.S. cost at $410 billion to $630 billion in 2003 dollars.

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and self-described opponent of the war, puts the final figure at a staggering $1 trillion to $2 trillion, including $500 billion for the war and occupation and up to $300 billion in future health care costs for wounded troops. Additional costs include a negative impact from the rising cost of oil and added interest on the national debt.

In the buildup to any war, financial costs rarely play a big role in the debate, especially for a superpower like the United States, which is presumed to have virtually limitless resources. But economists like Wallsten and Davis say there is no reason wars cannot be subjected to the same type of cost-benefit analysis as other government activities.

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After all, even a society as rich as ours has finite resources, and the public has a limited appetite for absorbing the costs of war, whether human or economic.

"I come at this from a background in regulation," said Wallsten, who served in the Clinton White House but said his analysis is not rooted in any particular perspective on the war.

"When the government proposes a new regulation they have to by law do a cost-benefit analysis," he noted. "So we have this framework, but it's never been applied to this kind of policy decision."

Wallsten said some people might look at his estimate of up to $1 trillion in costs and conclude that the war was worth it given its benefits, such as the removal of Saddam Hussein from power and the possible installation of a democratic government in the heart of the Middle East.

"I wasn’t trying to say whether the war was worth it or not. There are lots of benefits that could arise, and I don't know how to place a probability on whether they would occur. I was interested more than in coming up with a number, coming up with a framework that people might want to have in coming up with such decisions in the future," Wallsten said.

Wallsten also offers amateur and professional policy-makers the chance to come up with their own cost estimates by plugging in values for variables like the length of the occupation (up to nine more years) the number of annual deaths and injuries and the statistical "value" of a life. (To try your own assumptions, click here.)

In addition to the economic costs, any military conflict can also have financial benefits, although in this age of more limited wars and a service-oriented economy, war is not the economic pump-primer it once was.

• Video special: Iraq then and now • 'Shock and awe.' 'Embeds.' Do you remember? • Day by day, images of a four-week invasion • Highlights from our exclusive Baghdad blog • How much do you recall? Take our special quiz • SEE ALL OF OUR SPECIAL SECTION

Davis and his colleagues at the University of Chicago recently updated a paper to make the point that the cost of the war alone is not necessarily an iron-clad argument against it.

They estimate that continuing the previous policy of containment with a deployment of 28,000 troops in Turkey, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf would have cost $14.5 billion a year for many years to come. And they say containment eventually could have failed, meaning a more costly armed conflict might have broken out anyway. Factoring in those possibilities, they say containment could have cost $350 billion to $700 billion over the long term, possibly as much as the war option.

They also point to potential net economic benefits to Iraqis, concluding that the war is likely to lead to "large improvements in the economic well-being of most Iraqis relative to their prospects under the policy of containment."

And, Davis and his colleagues argue, even though the war has led to thousands of Iraqi deaths, tens of thousands were dying prematurely each year under Saddam's regime, due to repression, economic failure or UN sanctions.

"If, over the course of a generation, Iraqis recover even half of the economic losses they suffered under Saddam Hussein, then they will be significantly better off in material terms as a consequence of forcible regime change," they say.

© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

************************************************************************

[Meanwhile...]:

The Other America

An Enduring Shame: Katrina reminded us, but the problem is not new. Why a rising tide of people live in poverty, who they are—and what we can do about it.

Sept. 19, 2005 issue - It takes a hurricane. it takes a catastrophe like Katrina to strip away the old evasions, hypocrisies and not-so-benign neglect. It takes the sight of the United States with a big black eye—visible around the world—to help the rest of us begin to see again. For the moment, at least, Americans are ready to fix their restless gaze on enduring problems of poverty, race and class that have escaped their attention. Does this mean a new war on poverty? No, especially with Katrina's gargantuan price tag. But this disaster may offer a chance to start a skirmish, or at least make Washington think harder about why part of the richest country on earth looks like the Third World.

"I hope we realize that the people of New Orleans weren't just abandoned during the hurricane," Sen. Barack Obama said last week on the floor of the Senate. "They were abandoned long ago—to murder and mayhem in the streets, to substandard schools, to dilapidated housing, to inadequate health care, to a pervasive sense of hopelessness."

The question now is whether the floodwaters can create a sea change in public perceptions. "Americans tend to think of poor people as being responsible for their own economic woes," says sociologist Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University. "But this was a case where the poor were clearly not at fault. It was a reminder that we have a moral obligation to provide every American with a decent life."

In the last four decades, part of that obligation has been met. Social Security and Medicare have all but eliminated poverty among the elderly. Food stamps have made severe hunger in the United States mostly a thing of the past. A little-known program with bipartisan support and a boring name—the Earned Income Tax Credit—supplements the puny wages of the working poor, helping to lift millions into the lower middle class.

But after a decade of improvement in the 1990s, poverty in America is actually getting worse. A rising tide of economic growth is no longer lifting all boats. For the first time in half a century, the third year of a recovery (2004) also saw an increase in poverty. In a nation of nearly 300 million people, the number living below the poverty line ($14,680 for a family of three) recently hit 37 million, up more than a million in a year.

With the strain Katrina is placing on the gulf region (and on families putting up their displaced relatives), it will almost certainly increase more.

http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20060320-124726-1902r

Intl. Intelligence

Pro-Israel lobby in U.S. under attack.

WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- Two of America's top scholars have published a searing attack on the role and power of Washington's pro-Israel lobby in a British journal, warning that its "decisive" role in fomenting the Iraq war is now being repeated with the threat of action against Iran. And they say that the Lobby is so strong that they doubt their article would be accepted in any U.S.-based publication.

Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, author of "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" and Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kenney School, and author of "Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy," are leading figures American in academic life. They claim that the Israel lobby has distorted American policy and operates against American interests, that it has organized the funneling of more than $140 billion dollars to Israel and "has a stranglehold" on the U.S. Congress, and its ability to raise large campaign funds gives its vast influence over Republican and Democratic administrations, while its role in Washington think tanks on the Middle East dominates the policy debate.

And they say that the Lobby works ruthlessly to suppress questioning of its role, to blacken its critics and to crush serious debate about the wisdom of supporting Israel in U.S. public life.

"Silencing skeptics by organizing blacklists and boycotts -- or by suggesting that critics are anti-Semites -- violates the principle of open debate on which democracy depends," Walt and Mearsheimer write.

"The inability of Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these important issues paralyses the entire process of democratic deliberation. Israel's backers should be free to make their case and to challenge those who disagree with them, but efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must be roundly condemned," they add, in the 12,800-word article published in the latest issue of The London Review of Books.

The article focuses strongly on the role of the "neo-conservatives" within the Bush administration in driving the decision to launch the war on Iraq. "The main driving force behind the war was a small band of neo-conservatives, many with ties to the Likud," Mearsheimer and Walt argue." Given the neo-conservatives' devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush administration, it isn't surprising that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli interests."

"The neo-conservatives had been determined to topple Saddam even before Bush became president. They caused a stir early in 1998 by publishing two open letters to Clinton, calling for Saddam's removal from power.

The signatories, many of whom had close ties to pro-Israel groups like JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) or WINEP (Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy), and who included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had little trouble persuading the Clinton administration to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam. But they were unable to sell a war to achieve that objective.

They were no more able to generate enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush administration. They needed help to achieve their aim. That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that day led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a preventive war," Walt and Mearsheimer write.

The article, which is already stirring furious debate in U.S. academic and intellectual circles, also explores the historical role of the Lobby. "For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel," the article says.

"The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only U.S. security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?" Professors Walt and Mearsheimer add.

"The thrust of U.S. policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the 'Israel Lobby'. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and those of the other country - in this case, Israel -- are essentially identical," they add.

They argue that far from being a strategic asset to the United States, Israel "is becoming a strategic burden" and "does not behave like a loyal ally." They also suggest that Israel is also now "a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.

"Saying that Israel and the U.S. are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around," they add. "Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel's presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to attract recruits."

They question the argument that Israel deserves support as the only democracy in the Middle East, claiming that "some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens."

The most powerful force in the Lobby is AIPAC, the American-Israel Public affairs Committee, which Walt and Mearsheimer call "a de facto agent for a foreign government," and which they say has now forged an important alliance with evangelical Christian groups.

The bulk of the article is a detailed analysis of the way they claim the Lobby managed to change the Bush administration's policy from "halting Israel's expansionist policies in the Occupied Territories and advocating the creation of a Palestinian state" and divert it to the war on Iraq instead. They write "Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical."

"Thanks to the lobby, the United States has become the de facto enabler of Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, making it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians," and conclude that "Israel itself would probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and U.S. policy more even-handed."

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved Want to email or reprint this story? Click here for options.

You’d think so if you the followed the media script on the recent elections. At the BBC caption below reads, “Belarus has been slow to shed its communist past”; a comparison to the rest of region, which has apparently embraced “democratic change”. For newcomers to the issue, this is what is meant by the democratic tide sweeping Eastern Europe.

What is never discussed surrounding this ‘tide’ is the wider role of the west and the implications for the region. That’s the part where millions of dollars from U.S. and Western Europe is funnelled into the coffers of "opposition candidates" (i.e., the good guys) and for their part, they consent to implementing crippling privatization schemes, to the detriment of average citizens. The sanctions imposed on the governments in power (the bad guys) are also never mentioned. As with Belarus, this usually occurs years before the election and is inevitably proceeded by the calls of “rigged elections” by OSCE (or Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe)  “observers” and encouragement to citizens following the election by western leaders to rise up against the rulers.

Of course, the citizens don’t always bite. For example, in Venezuela and Zimbabwe, where there was similar pattern of "rigged elections",  the citizens rejected the designated script. At least, enough of them did, so the bad guys prevailed.

In eastern Europe, however, the pattern has been quite uniform, as far as opposition “success” in overthrowing  the rulers. The reason lies probably in the region's proximity to its more powerful neighbours in the west. This ensures that tremendous pressure is placed on citizens to embrace the designated script, i.e., “democratic change”, or else face the wrath of the West. In Ukraine, the punishment was the crippling sanctions that preceded the so-called Orange Revolution. In Serbia and Montenegro, it was the various western fuelled wars of the early 90s and the subsequent sanctions preceded by the more recent 78 days of bombing by NATO.  

All this is irrelevant to the media, whose job it is during the eleciton not to present the facts, but the desired script. This means focusing on the “opposition candidates goals"  and the barriers to their fullfillment, inevitably a self styled authoritarian. In Serbia, this was Milosevic; in Georgia, it was Shevardnadze; in the Ukraine, it was Kuchma and Yanukovych ; and in the Belurus, it is Lukashenko.

 See paralels between Belarus elections and:

The Ukaine:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/11/22/international1122EST0497.DTL

Serbia:

http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/oct00/hed738.shtml

Georgia:

http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/AFP/2003/11/20/353455?extID=10037&oliID=229

 Kyrgyzstan:

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52233-2005Mar20?language=printer

Zimbabwe:

http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/national/2002/03/13/zimvote020313.html

and

Haiti:

http://edition.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/11/25/us.haiti.ap/

*****************************************************

 http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?p=%22+slow+to+shed+its+communist+past%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&x=wrt&u=news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/europe/4821502.stm&w=%22slow+to+shed+its+communist+past%22&d=DhN4MG1aMd5g&icp=1&.intl=us

Poll doubts cloud Belarussia vote

Belarus has been slow to shed its communist past Millions of Belarussians are preparing to vote in presidential elections on Sunday amid claims by the opposition that the ballot has been rigged. Opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko have called for a mass rally after polls close at 2000 (1800GMT), to protest against electoral fraud. Mr Lukashenko has warned he will crush any attempt to stage a popular revolt. His administration has been widely criticised in the West for its authoritarian rule. Prior to the vote, scores of opposition supporters were detained and a number of foreign election monitors barred. Chief opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich predicted that fraud would return President Lukashenko to office with 70% of the vote. Mr Lukashenko has warned he will not tolerate any attempt at a "coup" and has vowed to "break the neck" of anyone who tries to seize power. BELARUS ELECTION Polls: 0600GMT to 1800GMT 6,627 polling stations (41 abroad) More than 7m eligible voters Election valid if over 50% turnout Lukashenko seeking third five-year term Police have said that protesters "trying to destabilise the situation" will be treated as terrorists and could face the death penalty. A spokesman for the human rights organisation, the Helsinki Committee, told the BBC the Belarussian government's threats to opposition groups could trigger violence. "We've had similar statements during previous elections... This one is stronger and maybe it's a sign that we should expect violence during Sunday evening. "They are just trying to intimidate people, to make them afraid of participating in protest actions," Dzmitry Markusheuski said. 'No to lies' Officials in the ex-Soviet republic have accused foreign countries of backing opposition candidates in the election and a number of foreign monitors and journalists have been denied entry to watch the vote. Mr Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia, is running for his third term in office and points to economic growth and social stability as his main achievements. Alexander Milinkevich is seen as the strongest of three challengers Opinion polls were rare during the election campaign but those taken suggested Mr Lukashenko would win the first round even in a fair vote. Mr Milinkevich has said he is not planning a revolution and he accused the authorities of blatant election propaganda. "I had expected the campaign to be unfair and dishonest but I had not expected it to be so outrageous," he said. "We will go peacefully, without violence. We will go onto the square and say: 'No to falsification, no to lies'. Do we have that right? We do," he said. Mr Lukashenko would, he said, win a landslide but "half of Belarus" would be laughing at the result. Alexander Kozulin, another opposition candidate, told a rally in Minsk on Friday that it was "time for Belarus to awaken and shake off its fascist dictatorship". He stressed, however, that protests should be non-violent. 'No conflicts here' In a final televised election address on Friday, President Lukashenko warned foreign monitors not to "exceed their remit". Alexander Lukashenko dominated the media during the campaign "Observe, draw conclusions, but do not decide for us... what path the Belarussian people should take," he said. Mr Lukashenko defended his record in office, saying the economy was strong and the republic had avoided "social, political, racial and religious conflicts". Arguing that the presence of four rival candidates was proof of democracy, he warned that political violence would not be tolerated. "I guarantee that there won't be a coup d'etat in this country," he said. Large-scale street protests led to the fall of leaders in other ex-Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia. Both the European Union and the United States have expressed concern at the Belarussian government's tough stance on political protest.

[Compare my comments from a fews days ago on BelaRus to the info. contained in the article below...Did I mention: Sanctions? Yes. "Democratic" Opposition party? Yes. "Spontaneous"Gathering in a square? Yes, in my original draft, which I ended up editing out due to clutter. Calls of "Flawed elections" before and after the results? Yes. Encouragement to the people by the opposition leader and West to overthrow the government? Yes. In other words, all the ingredients of a coup d'etat. The question remains: will the people bite? We shall find out.]

http://www.interfax.com/3/142033/news.aspx Interfax March 25, 2006 Authorities should feel afraid - Milinkevich MINSK -

Former Belarussian presidential candidate [and western stooge] Alexander Milinkevich has called on participants in an unsanctioned rally in Yanka Kupala Park in Minsk "not to wait another five years to build a free [please define free A-HOLE? Am I free?...I'd love to be free to tell the murderous tyrant Bush to swallow his vomit to his face, but I'm unable to, as it would get me locked up in a federal prison for life or perhaps executed.]  Belarus, but to do so now," an Interfax correspondent reports.

 "We have made a step forward, we have rid ourselves of fear, and now it's time for them [the authorities] to feel afraid," Milinkevich said.

 "They are sitting in a fortress, but you can see the cracks appearing. We will storm this fortress," Milinkevich said  [Ya, stick to your whoring duties; you make a bad poet] 

"Nobody believes the results of the elections," Milinkevich said.

"They lost the elections. We won [with 6% of the votes].

This is the beginning of the end for those who have deceived us," he said.

------------------------------------------------------ http://regnum.ru/english/612109.html Regnum (Russia) March 25, 2006 Russian Foreign Minister thinks that dispersal of rally in Minsk was legitimate

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accuses OSCE in instigation, regarding presidential elections in Byelorussia.

“Long before the elections the OSCE stated that their results will not be legitimated, their comments on the process were biased and thus, it played an instigative role,” said Lavrov. He also noted that Russian observers found nothing illegal in the Byelorussian elections.

“As for the rally that lasted several days – such meetings rarely decide anything,” he said.

The meeting that lasted 5 days in the central square of Minsk was dispersed by Byelorussian police on the night before [Want to know long protestors against Bush's first election victory were allowed to congregate in public space? A few hours! Hey, but who in the media pays attention to such ironies...]  A tent town in the square has been destroyed, 200-300 people arrested, according to unofficial information. Lavrov noted that police actions were legitimate.

http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/706/2006/03/25/421@66791.htm China Radio International March 25, 2006

No Heavy Police Interference at Belarus Rally

No heavy police interference has been reported during an unsanctioned rally organized by Belarusian opposition supporters in central Minsk on Saturday. The rally was organized to protest President Alexander Lukashenko's victory in a disputed election last week.

Anti-Lukashenko forces had called for a massive gathering [but only managed to draw a few hundred  - ha, ha!] on Saturday's anniversary of the first independent Belarusian state, hoping it would galvanize tens of thousands more to join them. Traditionally, March 25 has been a rallying day for the opposition....

 Meanwhile the United States joined European nations on Friday in imposing sanctions on Belarus. U.S. State Department spokesman, Adam Ereli said Washington would act in unison with the European Union against President Alexander Lukashenko and others.

 "The United States is imposing targeted travel restrictions and is planning financial sanctions against individuals responsible for the recent electoral fraud and human rights abuses in Belarus including Alexander Lukashenko.”

Ereli said the United States strongly condemns actions by Belarus' security forces who have seized and detained citizens demonstrating against the results of the presidential election [Funnily enough, when Bush was elected, protestors were similarly "seized and detained " by the FBI and police, yet the actions then were obviously justified]. Russia, which has close ties to the former Soviet republic, has taken a different tack, saying the media has distorted the severity of the police action.

[The caption below was taken from the frontpage of the  BBC website. When you press on the link, it takes you to another webpage. There, with typical fascistic and racist venom, the usual dipshit Israeli Jewish opinions are provided on the Arab (i.e., "Terrorist") question (see: numbered comments). Could you imagine, "Do Palestinians or Israeli Arabs feel safer than at the last vote?" Of course,  if that were the question asked, there would be immediate condemnation by Jewish groups and their stooges; and likewise with most other groups. It is only with the Arabs that questions of this nature are permissable, let alone the racist responses.  Indeed, with Arabs, and Muslims in particular, it is Kosher to dehumanize, villify, and collectively condemn. With Jews, but particularly Israelis, sensitivity is demanded:  sensitivity to their racism, to their beloved Israel, to wars carried out in its name, to the mistreatment and slaughter of Palestinians, and so on.] In pictures Do Israelis feel safer than at the last vote? 1) Vered Sabag, 30, cosmetician I feel a little bit safer than I did at the last election. The army and the police conduct more checks and stop the terrorists [i.e, the very human Palestinians]. But I don’t think that things are going to get better anytime soon [i.e., as long as Palestinians exist]. I don’t think there is much we can do accept separate Israelis from Palestinians.   2) Mark, 59, financial advisor I feel less safe than I did five years ago. Fortunately there is an answer, but many people don’t want to hear it: Arab society is based on hierarchy and the Arabs don’t know who the boss is. This leads to the violence [Apparently, this is moderation by Israeli standards]. Whether the situation improves depends on the Americans and British and what pressure they put on the Palestinians [translation: the Americans need to extort more concessions from the Palestinians and Hamas needs to be eliminated.] .   3) Natalie, 19, student I don’t think things are any better than five years ago. I don’t trust the Israeli government and what they do. I think it makes the situation worse [We got a bright one folks]. But I believe in my people and I think the situation will get better [obligatory racial remark]. The Jewish people are stronger than the Arabs and this will lead to a safer environment [imagine, "the American people are stronger than the Natives and this will lead to a safer environment"] .   4) [A pessimist] Moshe, 20, religious student I feel the same as I did five years ago. I don’t think the security situation has really changed. We gave the Arabs territory and they just fire more and more rockets at us. It just gets worse every day. If Olmert wins then it will be more of the same. He’s just like Sharon.   5) [More slaughter of Palestinians needed]   Yitzhak, 67, civil servant I don’t feel safer. Safety depends on military retaliation. From a military viewpoint, we could defeat the terrorist threat in one week. But we would have to behave like Arab regimes against their own people. But because we are Israelis, Jews, brought up on the Bible we have moral obstacles to overcome, which stops us from doing this.   6) [It's all a big  mystery]   Moshe Ouzan, 17, student It’s difficult to tell whether I feel safer than at the last election. I think I probably do. But the security situation is very complex [yes, if you're an apologist for Israel...if you're facing the barrel of a Israel gun  or the victim of 'precision strikes' from helicopeters and gunboats and other crimes against humanity, it's not that complicated] , and every party, from right to left, has their own solution how to improve things.

[but naturally deny responsibility, as we know that Americans only kill the bad guys, not innocent bystander children, adults, and a 75-year-old.]

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/14138980.htm

Posted on Sun, Mar. 19, 2006

Iraqi police report details civilians' deaths at hands of U.S. troops

By Matthew Schofield

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi police have accused American troops of executing 11 people, including a 75-year-old woman and a 6-month-old infant, in the aftermath of a raid last Wednesday on a house about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

The villagers were killed after American troops herded them into a single room of the house, according to a police document obtained by Knight Ridder Newspapers. The soldiers also burned three vehicles, killed the villagers' animals and blew up the house, the document said.

A U.S. military spokesman, Major Tim Keefe, said that the U.S. military has no information to support the allegations and that he had not heard of them before a reporter brought them to his attention Sunday.

"We're concerned to hear accusations like that, but it's also highly unlikely that they're true," he said. He added that U.S. forces "take every precaution to keep civilians out of harms' way. The loss of innocent life, especially children, is regrettable."

Accusations that U.S. troops have killed civilians are commonplace in Iraq, though most are judged later to be unfounded or exaggerated. Navy investigators announced last week that they were looking into whether Marines intentionally killed 15 Iraqi civilians - four of them women and five of them children - during fighting last November.

But the report of the killings in the Abu Sifa area of Ishaqi, eight miles north of the city of Balad, is unusual because it originated with Iraqi police and because Iraqi police were willing to attach their names to it.

The report, which also contained brief descriptions of other events in the area, was compiled by the Joint Coordination Center in Tikrit, a regional security center set up with United States military assistance. An Iraqi police colonel signed the report, which was based on communications from local police.

Brig. Gen. Issa al-Juboori, who heads the center, said that his office assembled the report on Thursday and that it accurately reflects the direction of the current police investigation into the incident.

He also said he knows the officer heading the investigation. "He's a dedicated policeman, and a good cop," he said when reached by phone in Tikrit from Baghdad. "I trust him."

The case involves a U.S. raid conducted, according to the official U.S. account, in response to a tip that a member of al-Qaida in Iraq was at the house.

Neighbors, interviewed by a special correspondent for Knight Ridder, agreed that the al-Qaida member was at the house. They said he was visiting the home's owner, a relative. The neighbors said the homeowner was a schoolteacher.

According to police, military and eyewitness accounts, U.S. forces approached the house at around 2:30 a.m. and a firefight ensued. By all accounts, in addition to exchanging gunfire with someone inside the house, U.S. troops were supported by helicopter gunships, which fired on the house.

But the accounts differ on what took place after the firefight.

According to the U.S. account, the house collapsed because of the heavy fire. When U.S. forces searched the rubble they found one man, the al-Qaida suspect, alive. He was arrested. They also found a dead man they believed to be connected to al-Qaida, two dead women and a dead child.

But the report filed by the Joint Coordination Center, which was based on a report filed by local police, said U.S. forces entered the house while it was still standing.

"The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men," the report said. "Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals."

T

he report identified the dead by name, giving their ages. The two men killed were 22 and 28. Of the women, one was 22, another was 23, a third was 30 and the fourth was 75. Two of the children were 5 years old, two were 3, and the fifth was 6 months old, the document said.

The report was signed by Col. Fadhil Muhammed Khalaf, who was described in the document as the assistant chief of the Joint Coordination Center.

A local police commander, Lt. Col. Farooq Hussain, interviewed by a Knight Ridder special correspondent in Ishaqi, said autopsies at the hospital in Tikrit "revealed that all the victims had bullet shots in the head and all bodies were handcuffed." Efforts to reach hospital spokesmen Sunday were unsuccessful.

Keefe, the U.S. military spokesman, said that he had seen photographs of the victims and had not seen handcuffs, which caused him to doubt the validity of the report.

He said, however, that he has no reason to doubt the body count provided by local police.

"We conducted a preliminary investigation," he said. "They were the investigating officers on the ground."

Keefe said that he didn't know which U.S. unit conducted the raid. An official account of the raid provided Sunday by the military also did not mention the unit involved by name.

Ibraheem Hirat Khalaf, whose brother Faiz owned the house and was among the dead, said he watched and heard the assault from his home 100 yards away. He said that U.S. troops used six missiles from helicopters to destroy the house as they were leaving.

Abu Hijran, 38, and a neighbor, said those in the house were liked and respected, though the wanted al-Qaida member was not as well known.

Rasheed Thair, an employee of Ishaqi, said that the town was in a state of shock over the killings.

"Everyone attended the funeral," he said. "We want the Americans to give an explanation for this horrible crime which took the smile and the dream of a spring night from 11 people, and destroyed even the simple toys of children."

Three Knight Ridder Newspapers special correspondents contributed to this report. Their identities are being withheld for security reasons.

---

POLICE REPORT

This is a translation of the Iraqi police report obtained by Knight Ridder, including accounts of events not related to the Ishaqi raid.

In the name of God, the most merciful

This is the morning and afternoon events of 15/3/2006

1. Interior Ministry Operations:

All forces belonging to the Interior Ministry will go on 100 percent alert status starting Wednesday 15/3/2006 until 1000 hours Friday 17/3/2006.

2. Coordination Center of Beji

At 810 gunmen in a white vehicle, duck type (a reference to the local name for a Toyota model) kidnapped the child Mohamed (Badei Khaled) from Samaha school in Beji (map coordinates 617667).

3. Coordination Center of Dujail

At 730 a benzene truck burned near Gassem al Queisy fuel station after one of its tires caught fire. The incident burned the driver (Hamed Abdalilah) and he was transported to the hospital (map coordinates 263519).

4. Coordination Center of Balad

At 230 of 15/3/2006, according to the telegram (report) of the Ishaqi police directorate, American forces used helicopters to drop troops on the house of Faiz Harat Khalaf situated in the Abu Sifa village of the Ishaqi district. The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people, including 5 children, 4 women and 2 men, then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals (map coordinates 098702).

They were:

Turkiya Muhammed Ali, 75 years

Faiza Harat Khalaf, 30 years

Faiz Harat Khalaf, 28 years

Um Ahmad, 23 years

Sumaya Abdulrazak, 22 years

Aziz Khalil Jarmoot, 22 years

Hawra Harat Khalaf, 5 years

Asma Yousef Maruf, 5 years

Osama Yousef Maruf, 3 years

Aisha Harat Khalaf, 3 years

Husam Harat Khalaf, 6 months

(Signed)

Staff Colonel

Fadhil Muhammed Khalaf

Assistant Chief of the Joint Coordination Center

3/16/2006

Three Knight Ridder special correspondents contributed to this report. Their identities are being withheld for security reasons.

*************************************************************

[The actual report in Arabic]

Iraqi police report on an incident that killed 11 civilians including 75-year-old woman and a 6-month-old infant.

April 3, 2006

Israel and Moral Blackmail The Israel lobby is bringing out the big guns

by Justin Raimondo

The reaction to a pathbreaking – or, rather, taboo-busting – study of how and why Israel's interests came to be substituted for America's national interests in Washington policymaking circles, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," [.pdf] by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, has confirmed, in part, its thesis. "The Lobby," as the authors call it, effectively works to control the debate over our Israel-centric policy in the Middle East by ensuring that there is no debate. Congress has been captured through their exemplary use of pressure tactics, and the editorial pages of the nation's newspapers and magazines are also dominated by the Israel-Firsters, where the same imbalance prevails. In a hint of what these two distinguished scholars had to go through to get their study published, they aver: "It is hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States publishing a piece like this one." It turns out that, before turning to Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government – where Walt is academic dean (albeit not for long) – they attempted to get a version of their study published in an American magazine: "John Mearsheimer says that the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful that he and co-author Stephen Walt would never have been able to place their report in a American-based scientific publication. 'I do not believe that we could have gotten it published in the United States,' Mearsheimer told the Forward. He said that the paper was originally commissioned in the fall of 2002 by one of America's leading magazines, 'but the publishers told us that it was virtually impossible to get the piece published in the United States.' Most scholars, policymakers and journalists know that 'the whole subject of the Israel lobby and American foreign policy is a third-rail issue,' he said. 'Publishers understand that if they publish a piece like ours it would cause them all sorts of problems.'" Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor of the London Review of Books – which published a shortened version – tells the Guardian that the piece "was originally written for, but rejected by, the Atlantic Monthly and picked up by the LRB, when Wilmers 'became aware of its existence.'" In an important sense, then, it appears that, like Palestine, the American literary and political scene is Israeli-occupied territory. As Mearsheimer and Walt point out, academia, too, suffers from the pro-Israel version of the Inquisition, suffering extensive efforts to "police" campuses for evidence of "anti-Israel" sentiments. As if to verify this charge, the authors have run smack up against the campus Thought Police, with Harvard University taking the unusual step of pulling its logo from their piece, altering and making a boilerplate disclaimer more prominent, and finally announcing that Walt would be resigning shortly from his post as academic dean. This question of Walt's resignation has aroused some interest – especially since it was made shortly after major Harvard contributor Robert Belfer (who gave $7.5 million to the Kennedy School in 1997) expressed his displeasure. This concatenation of events has occasioned a denial by Walt, who says that his stepping down had nothing to do with the controversy surrounding his work. This echoes the official statement put out by Harvard, as well as an e-mail to me by Melodie Jackson, the Kennedy School's director of communications and public affairs: "There is no connection between the conclusion of Professor Walt's term as academic dean and the discussion around his recent paper. As agreed a year ago, professor Walt's term as academic dean will expire at the end of this academic year and has absolutely no connection to the current conversation around his paper." Well, then, that's that – right? Move along, nothing to see here. But not quite. As the Harvard Crimson reports: "[Kennedy School Dean David T.] Ellwood said that he sent an e-mail to Kennedy School faculty members on Feb. 21 – before the uproar over the article – informing them that Walt would end his term as academic dean in June. Ellwood said he also asked professors for recommendations regarding the search for the next academic dean. "When asked to provide the Feb. 21 e-mail to The Crimson, Kennedy School spokeswoman Melodie Jackson declined to do so. … "Walt's term as academic dean will be one year shorter than that of his predecessor, Frederick Schauer, who held the post from 1997 to 2002. Though Ellwood's statement made reference to a 'normal three-year cycle' of academic deans, three-year terms have not been the norm for administrators who have held that post in recent years. "Ellwood himself held the post for a year before joining the Clinton administration in 1993, and he returned to the school in 1995 to serve a two-year term as academic dean. Alan A. Altshuler held the post for two years during Ellwood's absence. And before that, Albert Carnesale was the school's academic dean for a decade." It seems clear that Walt, loyal to Harvard, and understandably not wanting to widen the breach between himself and the university administration, is stretching the truth, to put it charitably. He says the decision to alter the disclaimer and remove the Harvard logo from his work was made to correct a misimpression that the study was the work of "two Harvard researchers," and that their work constituted an "official report." However, I can't find a single news story about this brouhaha that falsely reports Professor Mearsheimer as resident at Harvard: all correctly describe him as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Furthermore, it is difficult to define what would constitute an "official report." Universities publish all sorts of research on a wide variety of topics, written from any number of perspectives: the decision to publish implies that the university has held the work to a high academic standard and found it at least acceptable, if not exemplary. It never constitutes "official" agreement with the views expressed therein. It is undeniable that the Mearsheimer-Walt study was singled out for special treatment: out of all the "working papers" published by Harvard, only this one now lacks the university's logo. Only this one has special language appended to it putting the reader on notice that neither Harvard nor the University of Chicago "take positions on the scholarship of individual faculty." Ouch! If that isn't a slap in the face – impugning their scholarship – then I don't know what is. (Go here to see the difference between the treatment afforded the Mearsheimer-Walt "working paper" and others recently published.) The controversy has certainly been as instructive as it's been ugly. Not only has the Lobby revealed itself by such a visible and vocal baring of its very pointed teeth, but we have also seen some remarkable alliances forged in its defense. Who would have thought that Christopher Hitchens would be on the same side of the barricades as Noam Chomsky? Not since the days of the Hitler-Stalin pact have we seen such a mind-blowing convergence. Like that previous rapprochement, however, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense: after all, these two do have something in common – a monomaniacal focus on the military and political supremacy of the U.S. Chomsky sees it as a bad thing, while Hitchens sees it as a positive development, yet they come together in averring that the omnipotent warlords of Washington could not possibly have been captured by a foreign lobby. The former sees the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis as a diversion away from his anti-capitalist message and the "war for oil" spiel we are so used to hearing, while the latter derides as "smelly" the very idea that Israel had anything to do with us going to war against Iraq. Both go all the way back to the days of Dwight Eisenhower to chronicle incidents of U.S.-Israel disharmony. The problem with this argument is that the study says the consolidation of the Lobby's power was achieved much later, after the 1973 war. But ideologues have a habit of ignoring bothersome details. While complimenting Mearsheimer and Walt for taking what he admits is a "courageous stand," Chomsky says he doesn't find their argument "very convincing." He attributes the causes of our Middle East policy of "regime change" and perpetual war to "strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic power in the tight state-corporate linkage," rather than the machinations of the Lobby. The proof? Haven't the oil companies made "profits beyond the dreams of avarice?" What more do we need to know? Oh, and don't forget how Israel performed a great "service" for the evil American capitalists by "smashing secular Arab nationalism, which threatened to divert resources to domestic needs." Leaving aside the oddity of a professed "anarchist" like Chomsky pining for the "independent nationalism" of the "secular" Arab leaders, killers like Nasser and the Mesopotamian Ba'athists, the big problem for Chomsky and his co-thinkers on the Left is that their reasoning is dizzyingly circular. They ascribe everything to the machinations of a "corporate" cabal, but their case is stated in terms of the broadest generalities, leaving the details to the imagination. It is the lack of details, however, that is most telling. Because wars are started not by abstract "forces" nor by ideological constructs floating in mid-air, but by individuals – not corporate entities, but specific government officials, their advisers and employees. One could say that, in the abstract, the "stovepiping" of false information about Iraq's alleged WMD was the result of late capitalism's moral corruption and the "class interests" of Scooter Libby, but most people would find such a formulation baffling – and it is certainly inadequate. The question of how and why we were lied into war is a matter of fact, not ideology. Abstract "forces" had nothing to do with it: specific individuals carried out specific acts. The misinformation that was deliberately planted was produced not by decaying capitalism, but by the decayed moral sense of certain government officials. And I'd be very surprised if the Niger uranium forgeries were fabricated by capitalists in top hats. The confluence of views on this matter between Chomsky and the War Party – not only Hitchens, but Martin Peretz, whose magazine, The New Republic, has long been the house organ of the Lobby – is, as the Marxists used to say, no accident. Peretz, too, wants to know why Mearsheimer and Walt give a free pass to Big Oil, not to mention the supposedly powerful Saudi lobby. What I want to know is where was the Saudi lobby when the U.S. decided to invade and occupy Iraq? Apparently they went missing in action. As for attributing the genesis of the war to oil companies, is the editor of The New Republic confessing, in public, that in all those long years of agitation for war with Iraq, his magazine was merely the instrument of "strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic power in the tight state-corporate linkage," as the Chomskyite jargon would phrase it? Of all the commentary on this subject – and there has been a lot – the most rational, aside from Daniel Levy's, is to be found in a Financial Times editorial: "Reflexes that ordinarily spring automatically to the defence of open debate and free enquiry shut down – at least among much of America's political elite – once the subject turns to Israel, and above all the pro-Israel lobby's role in shaping US foreign policy. "Even though policy toward the Middle East is arguably the single biggest determinant of America's reputation in the world, any attempt to rethink this from first principles is politically risky. "Examining the specific role of organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, commonly considered to be the most effective lobby group in the US apart from the National Rifle Association, is something to be undertaken with caution." The Lobby has nothing to worry about from the Noam Chomskys of this world. No amount of evidence can prove the Chomskyite case that abstract economic forces somehow unleashed the U.S. military on the people of Iraq, and are now threatening Iran with more of the same. In this way, the real culprits are let off the hook, while popular ire is directed at a conjuration of shadows. Any attempt to cut through this smokescreen is met with an organized campaign of calumny, exemplified by the smears aimed at Mearsheimer and Walt. Alan Dershowitz screeches that the Harvard paper is the equivalent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and virtually every news story about the matter mentions neo-Nazi David Duke in the same breath as the academic dean of the Kennedy School and his co-author, the foremost advocate of foreign policy "realism." The Financial Times rightly diagnoses the problem: "Only a UK publication, the London Review of Books, was prepared to carry their critique, in the same way that it was Prospect, a British monthly journal, that four years ago published a path-breaking study of the Israel lobby by the American analyst, Michael Lind. "Moral blackmail – the fear that any criticism of Israeli policy and US support for it will lead to charges of anti-Semitism – is a powerful disincentive to publish dissenting views. It is also leading to the silencing of policy debate on American university campuses, partly as the result of targeted campaigns against the dissenters." I emphasize the phrase "moral blackmail" because it aptly characterizes what the foreign policy community and the people of the United States are being subjected to. As we awaken from the fever-dream induced by war propaganda and recover our senses, we look around at the disaster unfolding in the Middle East and ask: How did we get here? The Lobby is right to feel endangered by this question: several administration figures, including Douglas Feith, a former top Pentagon official, are being investigated for having unusually "close" relations with the government of Israel. The Larry Franklin spy case is not being prosecuted – against a veritable tsunami of criticism, including from the judge – for nothing. As we learn more about the activities of Scooter Libby, and more indictments come down, the key role of the neoconservatives in the Bush administration as the sparkplugs who ignited this war will become as plain as the wart on Ahmed Chalabi's nose. To Hitchens and the rest of the neocon fellow travelers, this is merely "code" for "the Jews." This is the sort of moral blackmail that has always ended all discussion of this vitally important topic – but not anymore. It is ridiculous to identify the neocons as somehow representative of Jewish opinion on matters of foreign policy: not only is this demonstrably false, but it is also indicative of real anti-Semitism. David Duke inveighs against "the Jewish neocons," and the Lobby echoes his rhetoric, albeit from the opposite perspective. Both argue that we ought to dispense with the "code words" and call a spade a spade. But this is nonsense: as Mearsheimer and Walt point out, the distortion of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East by the Lobby is no more in Israel's interest than it is in America's. Aside from that, the majority of American Jews are against this war, no doubt in greater proportion than the rest of the population. The problem isn't "the Jews" – it's the Lobby. Until it is reined in by public awareness, and the appropriate legislation – which might start, for example, by requiring AIPAC to register as a foreign agent, like all the other lobbyists for foreign governments – the danger of a prolonged and widened war in the Middle East will continue unabated. Aside from that, however, what is needed is further investigation by Congress into the "faulty" intelligence that lured us into the Iraqi quagmire: I'd bet the ranch that a lot of it came directly from Tel Aviv to Washington. I might add this dollop from the Financial Times editorial: "Judgment of the precise value of the Walt-Mearsheimer paper has been swept aside by a wave of condemnation. Their scholarship has been derided and their motives impugned, while Harvard has energetically disassociated itself from their views. Mr Walt's position as academic dean of the Kennedy School is in doubt." No one is buying Harvard's denials, least of all the Lobby. They glory in their power: note how the New York Sun, a house organ of the Israel-Firsters, was gloating all last week over the troubles inflicted on the authors of the Harvard study. The Lobby means business: like the Mafia, which likes to make an example of recalcitrants who fail to pay protection money, they want people to take notice of their ruthlessness. Fear prevents debate – and a real debate is what the Lobby can least afford.

You notice many racial discrepancies growing up in a multicultural environment, the biggest being over attitudes towards war.

For example, when it comes to supporting military initiatives (inevitably against non-western nations), my White friends are first to jump the bandwagon, seeing this through the prism of fighting  “terrorism”, “despotic rulers”, “weapons of mass destruction” or “perpetrators of genocide”,  whereas my racialized friends view the matter as the further imposition of euro supremacy.

Even when there’s agreement -- as in recently with opposition to Iraq -- the motivations are often different. For example, my White friends who opposed invading Iraq did so because of Bush’s questionable intentions, not because of the war itself. My coloured friends opposed the war out of principle.

Why this disconnect?

An obvious factor is life experiences. Because they’ve experienced it themselves, racialized groups more easily identify with others affected by Euro-imperialism.

Yet more fundamental than race per se are the values informing support for war. My coloured friends hold values that are informed by their racial status, which denies them the same advantages to White people.

For White people, however, it is the opposite: their race shelters them from their values and this makes them oblivious to how it informs their behaviours, including attitudes towards war.

For a White person to acknowledge the significance of racial privilege in informing war support means problematizing the dominate values system, particularly values surrounding “choice” and  “development” and “progress” and “freedom” and “democracy” and just, overall, being more like western countries. When forced to rethink these values, they’re inevitably forced to rethink their rationalization for supporting war.

This isn’t to suggest that the issue is cut and dry -- White warmongers and their supporters on one side, non-White opponents and activists against war on the other -- but that cultural discrepancies over war support are often race based.

[What's new?]

US considers use of nuclear weapons against Iran

[or simply, "the Scum". ]

(the unedited version)

Part 1, Scene 1.

First you're born, then you're socialized.

Then you're taught the ins and outs.

Rule number #1: respect your fellow man.

Rule number #2: be independent.

Rule number #3: work hard and by "the books".

Rule number #4: everything by the books goes.

Acceptance of said rules = becoming an adult.

Most adults willingly accept said rules.

Others do grudgingly.

Still others realize that all is not as it appears and the quicker you forgot this, the better off you'll be.

Next scene:

Obedience and Punishment...

[posing for the cameras.]

 

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 25 minutes ago

TEHRAN, Iran - 

 

 Iran's president insisted Thursday his country will not retreat "one iota" on its uranium enrichment, and his negotiator made no such concession in talks the U.N. hoped would head off a confrontation with the Security Council over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

 

The U.N. nuclear agency chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, said that in four hours of discussions Thursday with Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, he put forward the U.N. request for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment until questions over its nuclear program are resolved.

But Larijani indicated suspension was not an option. "Such proposals are not very important ones," he told reporters matter-of-factly while standing next to ElBaradei at a joint news conference after the talks.

ElBaradei looked much less optimistic than when he arrived at Tehran airport early Thursday for a one-day visit and said the time was "ripe" for a political solution to the standoff.

The talks came hours after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said enrichment was a line in the sand from which the Iranians would not retreat.

"We won't hold talks with anyone about the right of the Iranian nation (to enrich uranium), and no one has the right to retreat, even one iota," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

"Our answer to those who are angry about Iran achieving the full nuclear fuel cycle is just one phrase. We say: 'Be angry at us and die of this anger,'" Ahmadinejad said.

Iran says its nuclear work is solely for peaceful, civilian purposes, but the U.S. and a number of its allies believe it is after a nuclear arsenal.

ElBaradei said the extent of Iran's nuclear program was uncertain: "We have not seen diversion of nuclear material for weapons purposes, but the picture is still hazy and not very clear."

During the 20 years of Iran's nuclear program, "lots of activities went unreported," ElBaradei said.

Higher-level enrichment makes uranium suitable for a nuclear bomb, though Western experts familiar with Iran's program say the country is far from producing weapons-grade uranium.

ElBaradei said that in their talks, Larijani had renewed Iran's commitment "to provide clarity to outstanding issues before I write my report to the International Atomic Energy Agency board by the end of this month."

The Security Council has given Iran until April 28 to cease enrichment of uranium. But Iran has rejected the demand and announced Tuesday that, for the first time, it had enriched uranium with 164 centrifuges — a step toward large-scale production.

Representatives of the five permanent Security Council members — the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia — discussed the latest development Thursday morning. The U.S. and Europe are pressing for sanctions, a step Russia and China have so far opposed.

"We want to see what the outcome of the discussions between ElBaradei and the Iranian government is. And when we get information on that, we'll consider what to do next," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said after the meeting.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there will "have to be some consequence" for Iran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment activities.

"There is no doubt that Iran continues to defy the will of the international community despite the fact that the international community very clearly said stop," Rice said.

Undersecretary for Arms Control Robert Joseph rejected Iran's claims that its nuclear program was for peaceful purposes, saying its enrichment "is for a weapons program and that is what we are trying to deal with."

"If it had nuclear weapons, I am sure (Iran) would be even more ambitious in its use of terror to undercut the prospects of peace in the Middle East," Joseph told reporters in Cairo, Egypt.

China said Thursday it was sending its assistant foreign minister to Tehran to convey its concerns about Iran's nuclear program.

Iran's deputy nuclear chief, Mohammad Saeedi, said Wednesday that Iran intends to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges by late 2006, and then expand the program to 54,000 centrifuges.

Saeedi said the 54,000 centrifuges would produce enough enriched uranium to fuel a 1,000-megawatt reactor, such as the one Iran has built with Russian assistance at Bushehr. The reactor is due to come on stream later this year.

Iran's nuclear chief, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said Wednesday that Iran is prepared to give the West a share of Iran's enrichment facilities to allay fears that the country may divert some product to build weapons.

"The best way to get out of this issue is for countries that have concern to become our partners in Natanz in management, production and technology," he said, referring to the site of Iran's enrichment plant.

"This is a very important confidence-building measure," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060414/ts_alt_afp/uspolitics

More Americans feel US should mind its own business: poll

[The picture below speaks a thousand words.]

Iraqi Christians Brave Violence to Celebrate Easter

Iraqi Christians brave violence to celebrate Easter

Top 10 worse News-Media offenders (unofficial ranking).

1) Agence France Press and/or Fox News.

2) CNN/Associated Press.

3) ABC/ NBC/CBS.

4) The BBC (British State News).

5) The New York Times/Washington Post.

6) The Washington Times

7)  The Chicago Times Tribune.

8) Sky News (Britain)/ CTV (Canada).

9). CBC (State news Canada).

10). The Jerusalem Post (Israel).

Ongoing reports from behind the Native lines at Caledonia

The following reports are ongoing reports received from Aboriginals observing the ongoing crisis at Caledonia in Ontario. The reports are reproduced verbatim.

The opinions and views stated in the reports are not necessarily those of Taiga Communications Inc., The First Perpective or The Drum.

Photo Gallery

20 April 2006 - morning

4:20 am the OPP attacked to arrest them. Hauled first 9 off. Some protesters took the Caledonia bridge. Reserve people arrived and repelled the cops. At least 150 heavily armed cops. Vans, trucks, paddy wagons, ambulances (for the cops). They repelled them. The cops came back. They were replled again. Now at 9:00 am the people have taken the land in question back. How to get there: From Niagara Falls and Toronto, take Highway 6 straight south from Hamilton to Caledonia. From buffalo take Highway 3 west to Higway 6 and north on Highway 6 to Caledonia. From Windsor take Higway 3 East to Higway 6 and go north. These are backways and cops are not likely to be looking at it too much.

8:30 OPP DISRUPTS PEACE IN QUIET CALEDONIA

The OPP has created an ongoing battle. They sit in their cars, give out false news reports, and wait for reinforcements to come in to squash the Six Nations people but they can’t. Everyone is reporting to everyone.

All police have been chased off the perimeter of Douglas Estates for now. Cop were sneaking behind the unfinished houses. One woman went over. A women cop told her she was under arrest. "What do you mean I’m under arrest. You’re violating the laws, both ours and international law". Other cops came out and wrestled her down on the ground. She fought all of them. They kneed her to handcuff her. She started booting the cops. Then other Indians arrived on the scene and chased the cops off. As they were leaving they shot her son in back with tasers. The big woman cop was carrying a big gun, something like an Ouzi. "It was a big one". Those cops were fully packed, she said. They failed to arrest her because she resisted. There are 9 arrested. They’re supposed to only keep them for 2 hours. "We haven’t seen them back yet". The People are shutting Caledonia down. "We are not armed. We got our land back. Were in! We’re at the fire!"

At the 6th Line where the Douglas Estates comes out on the road at the entrance, out to Highway 6 that goes onto the rez. The bypass that goes around Caledonia. At the 6th line overpass, the people there had been blocking that road, they were attacked by the cops, paddy wagons were there. They fought back. It was a brawl. People started coming from the rez and supported them. Immediately there were hydro poles around which they threw on the road and set on fire. They are cutting off Highway 6 the main supply line that goes goes to Nanticoke Hydro Electric plant down on Lake Erie. It is the main transport truck road to Hamilton. This is being blocked.

Some protesters are still holding Caledonia Bridge, the main artery of the city. It’s total confusion.

If you have satellite TV, look for Hamilton CH which has a live feed. They have helicopters filming everything.

8:00 AM

It is an ongoing situation. 9 people arrested.

There is fighting going on at the No. 6 Line Bridge. It is blocked off. The traditional Longhouse people put a fire there and the OPP pepper sprayed them. But the people started fighting back. The people have moved onto the main bridge in Caledonia. The people moved the police off the land and are going back to the main door and are still there holding on. The cops are still on the road shutting down the bypass. The OPP were chased off by the people and told to get out. OPP got off the land and are in their cars watching and waiting for "orders".

Get the news on the radio stations, newspapers, television.

7:05 am. Two snipers were chased off by the people. They have 50 cops trapped in, who can’t get out. A media black out could work against them. More cops are going to come in. Indians don’t have weapons but they do have tons of cameras.

In Ipperwash there was a media blackout. The only way the information got out was because some of the people told what they saw. That’s why we need people in there. The police showed in that public inquiry there was a deliberate attempt to stop the press from finding out. There were attacks upon people with cameras, those who tried to get the story out. What the police learned is how to do this the right way next time. This is it. They learned all the weaknesses We learned the invaders are psychologically twisted people who pretend to be supporting the law. These are megalomaniacs who think they can say what the law is because they have access to guns. This time they will do it "right". The CTV have made two major movies showing what happens when these twisted personalities are allowed free reign on Indians. We get killed.

There are back room deals in police headquarters to hide the information and protect the police officers that give orders. In the case of Ipperwash, three OPP police officers died suddenly just before they were going to give evidence at the enquiry. What a strange coincidence. It is unfortunate that the poor jerks that are just "following orders" do not realize that they are putting their lives on the line. They are not at risk from Indians, so why all these coincidences?

The Six Nations people have been burning tobacco during this entire occupation for their protection. This is the only weapon that we have. We know the truth is on our side. We are calling upon the natural forces to give us wisdom and guidance through this whole siege. There are repercussions to those involved when you go against people who are innocent and justified in what they are doing. The megalomaniacs who do these kinds of things are only looking out for themselves. They are a danger to all of society. We Indigenous people are within our rights. We want Canada to obey their own laws, and to respect international norms. We want an open and fair hearing. If the colonizers think they own our land, they need to prove it. With this attack they have trashed any pretension to right and decency, democracy and the rule of law. Canada is beginning to slide quickly down the slippery slope of despotism. How can Canada decolonize. The test lies in how they feel toward people who challenge their assumptions. Are they going to use batons, guns and pepper spray? Or are they going to get out their documents and take a serious look at the evidence.

The answer is obvious. Just look at what is happening today. This is a colonial government’s hard core. Canada does not believe in reasoned researched and documented solutions. We are seeing how colonial government is going to deal with any kind of questioning of their "might makes right" authority. These are the signs of how a tyrannical government is going to suppress the people from expressing legitimate dissent against a takeover by the powerful elitist interests that are involved. It appears that individual rights are being eliminated systematically all over Turtle Island. This destruction of dissent at Six Nations is done under the cover of media darkness. This is the way it will be done in the future against all people across Turtle Island. This is an experiment in police state tactics against unarmed people who are exercising our rights.

These are the lessons they learned at Gustafsen Lake in 1995 where 77,000 rounds of ammunition were shot at the Indians. In Saskatoon, where Six Indian boys were found frozen to death outside the city put there by police officers. In Winnipeg where J.J. Harper was murdered by the Winnipeg police. At Ipperwash where Dudley George was murdered in cold blood by the OPP. There are over 500 Indigenous women who have "disappeared" and the police have done nothing about it. In the 1960’s there was a complaint made in British Columbia because men were looking for Indian children to have sex with them in the streets. The police did nothing about it. Child prostitution is an on-going problem in Vancouver. We don’t want the blood lust of Canada’s police force to be whetted by spilling the blood of Indians. This vampire regime is moving in on Indians like sharks who smell blood in the water.

We don’t want the...

6:45 am

Go to Six nations. Take part in the Canadian "democratic" process. Get pepper sprayed. Get beat up. Get arrested. Get killed. No one will know what is going on. Seriously, the media black out is giving the lawless their power. They can do anything they want and who knows where it will stop. Take photos and tell your friends. We don’t want another Chile. The state has been involved in murders before like Anna May Aquash. These attackers find a place where they can live out their bizarre fantasies and manias. These people have a twisted view of society and a gun is put in their hands. No psychological testing is done on these guys in police, armies, and bureaucracies. The only test for surviving is a willingness to "follow orders", not the law. These people have no concept of what the law or true democratic rule is.

6:20 AM

Cops all over the place. People are there. More people coming. Pepper sprayed. So far they let everybody go. Some might have been seized. Don’t know. Canada using Gestapo tactics instead of making things right. Canada following big brother george bush mentality – invasion, containment, imprisonment and torture of Indigenous people and their families. Next Canada will start hunting down those who continue to protect and try to maintain the sov and jurisdiction of our people. lets not be surprised if Canada puts a deck of 52 for its most wanted Indigenous people and their friends and allies. Free land is our land that is free of Indians.

At 5:55 am this morning, Thursday, April 20th, over 150 heavily armed Ontario Provincial Police with Native mercenaries as body shields, invaded Six Nations land. Some carrying M-16's, in riot gear. 6th line is still open. The Rotinoshon'no are not fighting because they are unarmed. Tear gas has been thrown at them. Some were pepper sprayed. The traitors are the same kind of people who stabbed Crazy Horse, Geronimo, and those who fought for our sovereignty and our lives.

One bridge to the property has been closed.

Witnesses required. This will not be on the national news. Go there and see what is going on. This is a scary precedent. Take pictures. Make reports. Let the world know. report. REPORT. REPORT. Help the people so no one gets hurt. we never wanted violence. Canada has opened to the door to covert state violence on a scale that is unprecedented in Canada. This si the end of any pretense of negotiation with Indigenous people. they’re just going to take the land. Canada came in with armaments, guns, paddy wagons (we dont know what's in there).

Don't let Canada become another Chile. Tell the world. The Rotino'shon:we are on our own land.

kahentinetha2@yahoo.com
MNN Mohawk Nation News

20 April 2006 - evening

UPDATE: 6:30 PM STILL APRIL 20, 2006

Canada hasn’t learned its lesson. It wants another Oka summer! 200 RCMP are going to back up the Ontario Provincial Police OPP. Instead of figuring out to negotiate a solution and maybe give back something they stole, they decided to use force again. This is a one trick pony. They are presently waiting at the Hamilton airport where they have choppers and "swat whipping gear" to whip "dem stubborn Injuns" into shape. They have all the toys, gadgets and guns. The whole 9 whistles! If they leave them behind, we can dress them up with feathers and warrior badges, eh!

Misinformation continues.

It is Canada and Ontario who are violating the jurisdiction of the Indigenous people. According to their own constitution, we have to validly give up our lands and sovereignty under Section 132 of the BNA Act. We never did this. This is not a domestic issue, as they say. It is an international issue. We began our r elationship with Britain as allies. When the British split themselves up into Canada, United States and Britain, we never agreed to join any of them. We’ve never agreed to be anything but allies. Under international law one state cannot absorb another without the fully informed consent of the majority of the population. Canada agrees with this formula. In the Quebec Succession Reference, it said that a province could not leave without the consent of a clear majority on a clear question. Canada and Ontario don’t want to play fair. They still want to be colonizers. That’s why they think they can run around like a bunch of big bullies, instead of learning of history and stealing what isn’t theirs.

According to the Kaianereh’ko:wa, the Women are the title holders of the land. We hold it in trust for our future generations. It belongs to our future generation. None of the so-called treaties that Canada claims to rely on are valid. None were signed with the authority of the people. Of course, none were signed by the future generations because they weren’t born yet.

It’s not like the settlers will have no place to live.

They recognize the rights that they agreed to respect. In 1784 General Haldimand made a proclamation on behalf of the British. He promised that Britain would protect the Six Nations right to occupy our land for six miles on either side of the Grand River from its mouth to its source. The public needs to be know that it is Canada and Ontario who refuse to come to the table and deal with laws and documents that back us up. Canadian leaders are announcing they wish they knew how to solve this problem. There is no problem. They just have to stay off our land, take their police away, stop trying to invade and stop giving fraudulent titles to squatters. It’s all in their archives. Canadians just have to look it up.

MEDIA BLACK OUT IS OVER FOR NOW. SIX NATIONS STAND UP TO TOTALARIANISM. WHAT’S NEXT?

MNN. April 20, 2006. 1:45 PM. Thursday. The Rotin’oshon’ni Six Nations, with our brothers, sisters, friends and allies, took a stand against totalitarian might. We could not give into it. It would have had a ripple effect through all of society. We stood up for law and order on behalf of everybody. It’s not over. We repelled the police. Our supporters came and stood with us. We now wait.

Right now 50 Quebec Police SQ are standing with binoculars at the end of Mercier Bridge staring across the St. Lawrence River at us here in Kahnawake. An elderly supporter took out her warrior flag and hung it out on her balcony in a high rise in Toronto. Canadians are angry. They feel like they’ve been lied to. Vital information has been kept from them.

The media black out is over. Our protest is on the front page. But what does all this mean? Why was it blacked out to begin with? What good is freedom of the press if the press is in the pockets of whoever controls the government? The Ontario Provincial Police OPP had a press conference at 1:00 today. They’re carrying out a court order, the legality of which we question. The Ontario government doesn’t want to take the blame. The Canadian government's Indian Affairs Department doesn’t want to take the responsibility. [Why should they? They’re the ones responsible for most of the frauds suffered by the Six Nations in the first place]. They both say. "It’s a police matter".

16 protesters were removed from the Caledonia building site using violence and threats. OPP said they were merely trying to serve a court order taken out by Henco Industries, an American Corporation. No one has explained how and why the courts and the police became puppets of American businesses. No one is taking responsibility for the attack on the Six Nations people. Does this mean that this is a police state? Who rules the police anyway? Are the cops in charge? They seem to be able to do what they want. Who’s next? Welcome to the new world order!

The Ipperwash Inquiry doesn’t seem to have had any effect on the agenda of the OPP. They are now dictating to the government, attorneys general, crown attorneys and politicians. Everyone is afraid of the power of the police, except the Indians. The politicians have made laws giving so much power to the police that they have created a monster that is taking over. They cannot put the genie back into the bottle that they opened.

But the resistance at Six Nations is not what the police expected. To begin with, none of the people were carrying weapons, other than cameras. The news blackout was broken because the story got too big for Canada to control. They could not stop people from expressing themselves, at least not without killing us all off. We must have our say, no matter how hard whoever controls the government tries to shut us up. We see that the public is angry because the media never told them what was going on. Suddenly the issue that has been going on for 52 days is thrown in their faces.

Say the OPP, "This is no Ipperwash [when they attacked Indigenous protesters in 1995 and killed Dudley George]. We are not taking orders from politicians" [Does this mean they’re become a law onto themselves]. The OPP, they tell us, only enforces the law. Monte Quinter, an Ontario politician, said that the whole question of Six Nations lands has been before the Ontario legislature. "We’ve got to negotiate with the people", said the NDP Indian Affairs critic. Most said they wanted a peaceful resolution. The facts have to go before the people. Why is it that the Canadian media never carries any information to inform the public about Indigenous land claims? This is why Canadians are surprised by what happened at Ipperwash, Oka and now at Six Nations. It seems that the Conservative party in opposition are still pushing their agenda. They would like to see the Liberals, who are in power, send the police in to continue the Mike Harris policy of using brute force on anyone who opposes his government. They want the Liberals to make the same mistake that they made at Ipperwash. This lead to a big inquiry and a huge black eye for the Conservatives.

If Canada had gotten away with the media black out, the outcome would been a lot worse. Because Indigenous news outlets sent messages worldwide, Canada could not hide their dirty underwear anymore. We have to thank our brothers and sisters all over the world who inundated Canadian officials with questions. Our people could have been killed and no one would have known about it. It’s strange too that Henco is an American company and the New York Times recently put a story on its front page demonizing the Mohawks. Is this all part of the plan?

Once the news got out, the police had to back off. The Indians had cameras everywhere. The OPP did not want to be on television beating up the Indians. A few Indians were arrested. Then they were replaced by more people. Ontario and Canada are not sure what to do now. This indicates to us that the Canadian demagogues had a plan to see how far they could get by using force and hiding it. If they could have gotten get away with it, they could do it elsewhere. If they could control us, they could do it on anyone, native or non-native. We were at the point of tipping down the horrible slope that the people of Chile and Argentina know so well.

Canada has to sit down with the real owners of the land and not anyone else.

Also, Canada can only negotiate after peace has been established. Canada may think this unfortunate. They have to get used to the idea they can’t grab everything. They have to show the world there is going to be no more violence and threats. Only then can we come forward without fear of being arrested.

We know what was done to our chiefs in the past. In the 1600’s our ancestors were invited to parlay with the government and were attacked, killed or imprisoned. We never saw them again. We still have this mistrust for a very good reason. We want open and transparent assurances. We want international observers. The people are the leaders. The chiefs are merely spokesmen for the people and have no power but to carry out the will of the people. The government and police don’t understand true democracy. Our people will not fall for their old colonial tricks. We will not let any of our people be set up, put on ships and die in Europe.

All over the world despotic leaders are attacking people, putting them in jails, concentration camps, separating them from loved ones, without lawyers or habeas corpus. It’s been creeping closer and closer. Look at Quantanamo. Look at security certificates that can be issued in Canada without letting the accused victim or their lawyer know what the evidence against them is. It has become impossible to put proof forward even cases of mistaken identity.

We want to show what we have to do when the powerful try to take control of the masses. We have been through this many times in the past. We know who we are dealing with. We can’t be fooled into falling for their trap.

The media blackout was a total violation of freedom of speech which is right in the constitution of Canada. The Six Nations had our backs against the wall. We did the only thing we could do in a nonviolent way. We are doing this for all oppressed people everywhere in the world. We want them to see someone standing up to the power of mass control of the human race. We ask all people to stand with us in solidarity. We are doing it for all of us.

We want to help stop the enslavement of everyone who use totalitarian means of brute force. The only protection we have is for the media to tell everybody what is happening. Mediayou’re your job. Don’t black us out. Don’t let the controllers of the government shut you down. Become involved with us.

Kahentinetha Horn
kahentinetha2@yahoo.com
MNN Mohawk Nation News

21 April 2006 - morning

5:20 AM Friday April 21, 2006

PREPARE FOR MILITARY OPPRESSION: OKA BLUEPRINT BROUGHT OUT AGAIN

Brothers, Sisters, Friends and Allies,

We need information about the moves being made against us, solidarity, witnesses to stand with us, alternative communication systems, cameras, food, medicine, runners, people to apply pressure on the Prime Minister, Parliament, Premier of Ontario, Governor General, etc. Addresses and phone numbers are further down this email, contact with and information to media to get the word out, supporters outside of Canada to put pressure on governments, United Nations, protests…. and whatever you can think of to help us prevent bloodshed, imprisonment, persecution.

As happened at Oka they cut off our communication with the outside world. They seem to have already done that at Six Nations. We need reports, to ensure safety if someone gets hurt.

We have learned 1000 OPP have been brought in nearby and WE received the following email:

C wrote:
I wanted to pass on information I heard from an employee who works at the Hamilton Airport. Apparently at 9:30am tomorrow the military will arrive there and begin using the airport as a staging area.

in solidarity,

Thanks, C. What other info do you have? Anything at all. Whatever.
Kahentinetha Horn,
MNN Mohawk Nation News

Thanks to our Canadian supporters who do NOT want to live under a military dictatorship. Yesterday Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited the former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in Montreal. Mulroney was the Prime Minister during the Mohawk Oka Crisis of 1990. One day after his visit with US President George Bush, he came back to Canada and ordered the army to attack us for defending our ancestral ceremonial site and burial grounds. We were under siege for 78 days. It’s really sad to see that Canadian leaders have learned nothing. If Prime Minister Harper is using the Mulroney blueprint, he’s headed for disaster. Look at the botch up that guy made in 1990. If he’s listening to George Bush, we’re all in trouble.

We need negotiation, consent and peaceful coexistence. The Six Nations grievances are deeply rooted, complex and well documented, going back centuries.

7:30 FRIDAY APRIL 21, 2006

EXTREME HIGH ALERT! POLICE MOVE IN FOR THE SLAUGHTER

Twenty RCMP vans arrived loaded with Mounties and weapons arrived. Ambulances nearby. Need people right now! Phone working sporadically. Need alternative communications. Need people to stand with us with cameras, eyes and ears. Contact everybody you can to get the word out. Need some medical personnel to help in case of injury.

OPP and it is believed the Canadian Army are coming in too at Hamilton airport at 9:30 am.

21 April 2006 - continued

9:10 am

Need more people. The Coalition in Support of Indigenous Sovereignty stated that the presence of 1000 OPP was confirmed by CHCH TV news this morning. RCMP are using the Hamilton Airport as a staging ground.

Behind Canadian Tires on Kinross St. Caledonia, there were 18 – 11 passenger vans, great big ones. They are full OPP officers. One seen with gun on passenger side. There were some standing behind the vans. Couldn’t tell what they were doing.

From Marlene: "Yesterday at night at Radio Canada (CBC in french) , at the end of 6:00 pm news they invited a rights specialist, and he told what happens now was highly predictable due to Canada's mistakes on the matter of territories and that your claims might be justificated ( welll....it is still CBC, they won't accept to say you guys are totally right !) . Not surprisingly though, the only coverage of the event shows images of haudenasaunee flags and tires burning, nothing about police violence. This media manipulation is sickening".

10:30 am. On Site

Most of the scouting is being done by the native women, doing groceries, laundry, happen to be driving around window shopping. At the nearby subdivision is the RCMP staging area where they have 20 vehicles parked. Personnel around throughout the area. The military staging area is at the John Munro International Airport in Hamilton Ontario, 12 miles from Caledonia. Unity Road is just north of Caledonia which is closed off. This is the staging area for the OPP. Ambulances and buses all around. Onsight surveillance indicates that the OPP have upgraded from "riot gear" to "tactical gar" which is bullet proof vests, keeping their weapons nearby. One of the concerns of the Indians is that negotiations with band council and the Confederacy chief will be used by Ontario and Canada as a diversionary tactic to distract the people, calm everybody down. As soon as we relax, they will attack. This is what they did last week.

WHAT’S THE MESSAGE? POLICE STATE OFFICIALLY IMPLEMENTED

The Canadian government wants to send us a message that if we ever again lift our heads and demand our rights, they and their goons are coming after us with overwhelming military force. They want to show us they are the conquerors and we are the conquered. They want to tell us we have no rights and, even though we are in the right, they are taking our land and resources away from us anyway. They have never had a public hearing to look at the evidence of the Six Nations. They tell us, "You can’t do anything about it. Too too bad for you". With all their ambulances parked up front, it seems obvious they are out to make another Tianamen Square right in the middle of rural Ontario. They may even come in and bulldoze our houses and put non-native subdivisions on our lands. All Indian communities across Canada can be overwhelmed and bulldozed for developers from all over the world. They are being welcomed to come and take over stolen Indian land. The Canadian government institutions are protecting them. Do the Canadian people want this? I don’t think so. We know about this old strategy. Soon, if we look at them the wrong way we might be eliminated one way or another. Canada is sanctioning this process. In the Six Nations case, neither Canada nor Ontario take responsibility. Is it the police’s? All these public enquiries into police behaviour show is how police can hide the abuse and murders of Indians and how to cover up their crimes efficiently.

12:10 PM There are now between 2,500 and 3,000 OPP and RCMP in a perimeter around the people about 1 mile away. There is 50 sq. mi. squared off.

How to get there: From Niagara Falls and Toronto, take Highway 6 straight south from Hamilton to Caledonia. From Buffalo take Highway 3 west to Highway 6 and north on Highway 6 to Caledonia. From Windsor take Higway 3 East to Highway 6 and go north. These are back ways.

12:55 "KAHEHTI:IO", one of the young men jailed by the OPP yesterday morning for being on the Six Nation Nations land, remains in jail. Following the precedent set by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Kahehti:io is being kept in jail for refusing to give any other name except the one he has. It means "he plants a good garden". They are asking him for a colonial name does not have. He refuses to be fingerprinted and photographed. He is a young skinny kid who was beaten up by 4 OPP officers. He asked for me, Kahentinetha, to come and take him into my care. I would have to assure them he will be a good boy, without mentioning that I think he has been a wonderful boy so far!

AKWESASNE ROTISKENRAKETE, the men of the longhouse are handing out information on the International Bridge between New York State and Cornwall. They have a duty to protect the land which is held by the Women Title Holders. The decision of the people was for these men to express our outrage at what is happening to our brothers and sisters at Six Nations.

COLONIAL WAR RE-ENACTORS – CANADIAN ARMED FORCES ARE STILL PLAYING "COWBOYS AND INJUN GAMES".

They’re behaving like little kids marching around the kitchen banging on pots and pans. You know how Canada re-enacts old wars, like the Plains of Abraham, Louisburg and other monuments of the colonial past. The fife and drum set clowns around with old flintlock guns just for fun. You can get you photo taken on that guillotine thing. They sure took this seriously, didn’t they? They’re still playing their baby games, but they’ve got serious artillery in their hands.

5:45

URGENT. WITNESSES NEEDED. CANADIAN GOVERNMENT HAS ISSUED ULTIMATIM DEMANDING SIX NATIONS PEOPLE LEAVE THEIR LAND WITHIN ONE HOUR! NO OFFER TO NEGOTIATE. Get over there quick. Support needed desperately. Bring gas masks. anything you can think of that might protect you from pepper spray and tasers or even being beaten up. Bring cameras, tape recorders, cell phones, observors required, friends, walkie talkies, face coverings. Tell someone where you are going so that you will not suddenly "disappear". Stand up for democracy. Stand up for freedom. Stand up for peace.

6:00. GOOD NEWS! THE OPP AND RCMP SAID "IT’S A FALSE ALARM". It was really a normal sadistic police tactic to perfect their psychological strategies to break down the Indians. They want to watch and report on all our movements - who’s on the phone to who, who’s staying and who’s leaving. In other words, they’re testing the waters. So now they know us, they think. It was a test all along. A dry run to see what everyone was going to do. They found out that no one was going to leave the site of the protest, and more came. We can expect them to continue to toy with us in this kind of way. the very fact that they would set us up for a false alarm like this shows that they are functioning in good faith. They are not respecting the fiduciary obligations that the Crown has assumed over the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island.

We were all going to stay and face them for round 2 or 3 or however many rounds they will come at us. if they are sincere about peaceful negotiations, they will show their good faith by burying their weapons underground where they can be washed away in the underground rivers never to trouble relations between them and us and the generations to come.

When we were in the Treatment Center during the 1990 Mohawk Oka Crisis, we got these false alarms so many times that we got better and better at it. We still laugh about it. All the kids learned how to put wet cloths on their faces to stop the tear gas that we knew was going to be thrown at us. Do’s and don’t’s. Do have a good legal defender. At the end of the day, they won't hesitate to use bayonets or whatever other weapons they happen to have at hand. they will use them against unarmed non-combatants and children. they will lay criminal charges for getting in their way. they will not allow a neutral court to consider the legality of their claim to own our land or to have jurisdiction over us.

They will throw heavy criminal charges at you with long term incarceration, that's if you get a Nazi judge. Don’t hold a stick in front of yourself without a mask or you’ll be charged with rioting, disguisement and unlawful confinement. Be ready for such conditions as banishment, being separated from your spouse, your children, your family and friends. So be prepared. Tell everyone what happened to us and that it will happen again and again. prepare your kids and grandchildren beause they will probably have to fight the same fight over and over again. We are standing our ground. Don't forget, everyone has a right to self-determination under international and under the natural law of the Kaianereh'ko:wa. We are not giving up. We still need your help.

[And now to the more important matters...]

[Hey, but it's for the good of democracy.]   Is the Bush Administration Planning a Nuclear Holocaust? Will the US launch "Mini-nukes" against Iran in Retaliation for Tehran's "Non-compliance"? by Michel Chossudovsky February 22, 2006 GlobalResearch.ca   http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060222&articleId=2032

News [sic]   Wednesday 05 July 2006, 22:44 GMT 23:44 UK US urges talks on N Korea crisis The US secretary of state says six-party talks should be the place to resolve the crisis over N Korea's missiles. An insoluble problem? US refuses to be rattled Japanese reaction to firing

And who was it that said animals can't communicate?

Mindsay's Ridemebareback would know all about this one below,

and the coke habit it supports:

An environmental message:

A message from Grandma to all the haters

and to Ohio and some chap named Nathan:

Courtesy of my little homeboy from Rotterdam and to all Ajax supporters:

[And finally for a special friend ;-) xoxo]

and I'm not referring to Kimveer Gill...More to follow in the coming days...]

See:

http://vampirefreaks.com/gallery.php?u=fatality666

and

Wikipedia bio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimveer_Gill