What Bush Is Up To - "I'm going to tell you what the real Bush administration policy is. I have no take-it-to-court proof. No one does, because the administration doesn't tell the truth and is very secretive. But from conversations I've had with people from the Middle East and from extensive reading, I infer that the Bush administration's policy encompasses three goals: One of the goals is to replace the present Syrian government with one the administration hopes will be more pliable in its policy toward Israel. Another is to construct four permanent bases in Iraq, and that means the administration has no intention of ever withdrawing all U.S. forces. The third goal is to attack Iran's nuclear facilities from the air. The propaganda campaign to justify this attack is already under way."
Tipping Toward High Crimes - "That terrorist bomb plot against Los Angeles’ Library Tower turns out to be as bogus as a Hollywood movie plot that never made it past the storyboard. “Bush spoke about four al Qaeda plotters who had planned to use shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door. But a foreign official with detailed knowledge of the intelligence scoffed at Bush’s account, saying that the information obtained from Khalid Sheik Mohammed and an Indonesian operative known as Hambali was not an operational plan so much as an aspiration to destroy the tallest building on the West Coast. When I asked a former high-level U.S. intelligence official about Bush's comment, he agreed that Bush had overstated the intelligence.” When were we going to see that corrective splattered on the front pages, the way Bush’s original story was earlier this month? Not in this universe—not with media willing to be stenographers to presidential deceptions first, truth seekers and investigators last."
Traitorous bitches and bastards - "But, as happens all too often in Washington, those promises vanished into thin air as the Patriot Act this week cleared hurdle after hurdle and heads for permanent renewal when the goons who call themselves our elected representatives return from the President's Day recess. ... Which means virtually no one - Democratic or Republican, conservative or liberal, left or right - can claim the high road when it comes to destroying freedom in the United States. Only Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., seems to realize the dangers of the act, continuing to fight it and saying the law, even as amended, allows "government fishing expeditions" and an outright assault on the Constitution. ... Yes, freedom died this week and just about every one of the bitches and bastards who "serve" in Congress should take a long, hard look at the blood on their hands. They stand guilty of high crimes and treason against the United States of America. They are traitors and should be treated as such."
'The Americans are breaking international law... it is a society heading towards Animal Farm' - "The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has launched a passionate attack on President George Bush, saying his administration's refusal to close the notorious Guantanamo Bay camp reflected "a society that is heading towards George Orwell's Animal Farm". Dr Sentamu, the Church of England's second in command, urged the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) to take legal action against the US - through the US courts or the International Court of Justice at The Hague - should it fail to respond to a report, by five UN inspectors, advising that Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay should be shut immediately because prisoners there are being tortured."
Rumsfeld Says Extremists Winning Media War - "The Pentagon will not close its Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorist suspects, despite U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call to shut it down, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday. "He's just flat wrong," Rumsfeld said in response to a question about the controversial prison during an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations. "We shouldn't close Guantanamo. We have several hundred terrorists — bad people, people that if let back out on the field would try to kill Americans. That's just a fact." He said closing it would amount to pretending there is no problem with a terrorist threat to U.S. interests. ... Rumsfeld also said al-Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups have poisoned the Muslim public's view of the United States through deft use of the Internet and other modern communications methods that the American government has failed to master." -- Oh, yeah, al-Qaida took the torture pictures, al-Qaida has locked people up for years without charging them with crimes, the internet is bad and the American government needs to control the content. Can you believe the world we live in?
Losing our values in the war on terror - ""I never imagined I would live to see the day... One cannot find strong enough words to condemn what Britain and the United States have accepted... habeas corpus is part of our freedom...""
Selling War against Iran - "While U.S. forces and their allies are continuing the destruction of Iraq and sadistic torture of Iraqi civilians, the phantom of Iran “threat” is being amplified across the world. Speculations about possible U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran have reached a stage of war propaganda by Western media and Western pundits. The aims are: to demonise Iran and keep the public in state of war, and create a smokescreen to divert the public from greater war crimes in Iraq and Palestine."
Google may have to fight second subpoena - " If the U.S. Justice Department is successful in obtaining a week's worth of search terms from Google, which it demanded as part of an attempt to defend a 1998 Internet pornography law, a second round of subpoenas is shaping up to be far more intrusive."
China’s virtual cops pinpoint web dissent - "“Now internet users know the police are watching them,” Ms Chen says in an interview at the Bureau’s gleaming new 28-storey building in central Shenzhen. ... Indeed, Ms Chen suggests US officials might want to consider adopting their own Jingjings or Chachas to police Google services following the US company’s refusal to share information about its searches with the government. In any case, she says, overseas critics should not judge China by their standards. “In my family, if my child does not lay her chopsticks down properly, then I will smack her, but maybe in your family you are too relaxed about such things,” Ms Chen says. “Each family has its own rules and countries are the same.”"
Retirement age 'will rise to 85' - "The age of retirement should be raised to 85 by 2050 because of trends in life expectancy, a US biologist has said. ... He also told a science meeting in St Louis that 50-year or 75-year mortgages may not be unusual in the future."
Quote of the Day
"War is not about victory or defeat. It is about the total failure of human spirit."
~ Robert Fisk
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