American Blog

Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

Nuclear energy negotiations between the United States, the EU and Iran officially begin in Geneva.

Two months ago, President George W. Bush declared that negotiating with Iran over its nuclear energy program was like having a friendly chit-chat with Nazis at the start of World War 2 :

While delivering an address before the Israeli parliament commemorating the 60th anniversary of Israel, President Bush said that Sen. Barack Obama and Democrats favor a policy of appeasement toward terrorists. CNN reports that Bush was comparing Obama to “other U.S. leaders back in the run-up to World War II who appeased the Nazis.” In his speech, Bush said, “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

Hmm, tough words. That’s why he left it up to Condi Rice to deliver the new platform of appeasement :

In a surprising development in the tense American-Iranian relationship, the US announced this week that it would send a high-level State Department official to attend talks with Iranian nuclear negotiators in Switzerland over the weekend. This unexpected policy turn comes after a tense, saber rattling summer during which the US, Israel, and Iran have traded threats, staged war games, and tested weapons.

It’s only like appeasing Nazis and hi-fiving terrorists when everybody else wants to do it, and it makes sense.

Russia is doing big oil and gas business with Iran now, and has been clear that an attack on Iran is an attack on a Russian ally. After Chechnya, Russia is not going to allow Iran’s more extreme Islamists to load up on nuclear weapons. The US and Israel already know this fact. Russia is on the rise and it should be no surprise they want to protect their multi-billion dollar investments in Iran.

Bush appears to have been suddenly told, since May anyway, that Iran is a no go. He still has to deal with Afghanistan, let alone Iraq, and Russia knows just how much harder the war in Afghanistan is certain to become.

UPDATE : First the long overdue diplomacy, then the re-opening of the US embassy in
Tehran:

The US plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years as part of a remarkable turnaround in policy by President George Bush.

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section - a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country.

The news of the shift by Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his tenure comes at a critical time in US-Iranian relations. After weeks that have seen tensions rise with Israel conducting war games and Tehran carrying out long-range missile tests, a thaw appears to be under way.

The likely next prime minister of Israel is still in favour of hitting Iranian civilian nuclear energy workers, and their families, with missiles :

Israel cannot let Iran get to the point of nuclearization,” Mofaz said. “All options are on the table. If there won’t be a choice other than a nuclear Iran or a military option, it’s clear what our decision has to be.”

As the minister in charge of Israel’s strategic dialogue with the United States on Iran, he will head to Washington later this month for a meeting with key officials…

“The strategy against Iran has not changed and it will continue to be led by the United States,” Mofaz said.

Mo obviously didn’t get the Condi Rice memo.

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

Of course this was the intention from day one of the Patriot Act. Americans against the Iraq War were never going to be allowed to do what they did during the Vietnam War era. Anti-war is now anti-government. Pro-peace is now suspected terrorist.

Also included in the 46 pages of documents,…is an account of an activist’s name being entered into a federally funded database designed to share information among state, local and federal law-enforcement agencies on terrorist and drug trafficking suspects.

The activist was identified as Max Obuszewski. His “primary crime” was entered into the database as “terrorism - anti govern(ment).” His “secondary crime” was listed as “terrorism - anti-war protestors.”

….information about the protesters and their activities was sent to seven agencies, including the National Security Agency and an unnamed military intelligence official.

Who did you really think was going to go on a Terror Watch List? The people who actually make war into a reality?

UPDATE : An important, very valid question - So how many terrorists have been caught or stopped from unleashing terror by the implementation of Terror Watch List, now one million Americans strong? Answer? None.

Paul Craig Roberts explains :

“Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ’suspicious characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

Do you really believe there are one million terrorists and nothing has blown up in the US since September 11, 2001 (assuming you believe the government’s account of that episode)?

How can there possibly be 1,000,000 terrorists and America still be in one piece? If there were 1,000,000 terrorists, America would be in ruins. According to the Bush Regime’s line, it only took a handful of terrorists to destroy America’s tallest skyscrapers and a section of the Pentagon and to send the President of the United States scurrying to a hiding place.

The “watch list” has not apprehended a single terrorist, but thousands of American citizens have been inconvenienced and arrested.

What the “watch list” or “no-fly list” is doing is training Americans to submit to warrantless searches, to abandon their constitutional rights, and to submit to humiliation by thugs and bullies. A Gestapo is being trained to have no qualms about searching and intimidating fellow citizens, using any excuse to delay or arrest them. Americans are being taught to use arbitrary power and to submit to arbitrary power. In the false name of “safety from terrorists,” Americans are being made the least safe people on earth.

Police State USA is steadily taking shape.

A government loses its mandate to rule when it no longer trusts the people it is supposed to be governing.

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

There ain’t nothing wrong with getting some religious imagery associated with your presidency. You ain’t saying you is good or such, but hey, this halo thing plays big with the masses.

But Obama is leaping past this tired old halo business, and is performing miracles of levitation instead. He’s going straight for The Awesome :

Maybe there is something in this Obama = Messiah thing after all.

Captured casually floating and reaching up to the heavens (or a basketball ring) is surely a better way to be seen by the American public than hanging portraits of Osama Bin Laden, and burning American flags, in the West Wing :

The United States will need a new president who can perform miracles. The thrill of having a president who can hover a few feet off the ground, however, will wear off quickly, and desperate Americans living the cold, dark side of free market capitalism, will be demanding less floating and more flowing of the fish and loaves.

Of course, the miracle of ultra-fast food will have to be updated to capture these times.

If Obama can turn up at a Krispy Kreme and turn on endless cream-filled donuts to feed the hungry hordes, and the morbidly obese, he’s got the election in the bag.

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

American television comedians are afraid to make fun of Barack Obama.

In particular, white TV comedy hosts tread carefully around Obama’s racial background, upbringing, his drug use confessions, his religious beliefs, his intense followers who whisper the word ‘Messiah’…

Maureen Dowd asks if Bar-ama is the UnMockable, and if the American presidential campaign is suffering from a “irony deficiency.”

Many of the late-night comics and their writers — nearly all white — now admit to The New York Times’s Bill Carter that because of race and because there is nothing “buffoonish” about Obama — and because many in their audiences are intoxicated by him and resistant to seeing him skewered — he has not been flayed by the sort of ridicule that diminished Dukakis, Gore and Kerry.

“There’s a weird reverse racism going on,” Jimmy Kimmel said.

So desperate are American comedians to find acceptable jokes to make about Barama, the next US president’s campaign has reacted sympathetically, according to comedian Andy Borowitz, and released a list of utterly unoffensive-to-all jokes they can use instead. Here’s one :

“A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse, and much to his surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The salesman says, ‘I was expecting the farmer’s daughter.’ Barack Obama replies, ‘She’s not here. The farm was foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are making a mockery of the American dream.’ ”

Here’s a word you don’t want associated with you when you’re running for American
president :

“Prissy.”

Writes Dowd :

(Obama is) already in danger of seeming too prissy about food — a perception heightened when The Wall Street Journal reported that the planners for Obama’s convention have hired the first-ever Director of Greening, the environmental activist Andrea Robinson. She in turn hired an Official Carbon Adviser to “measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed.”

No fun there.

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Written by Michael Vass

There is an international shit storm about to hit the U.S., and the American media is eating it up. The storm comes in the form of a video released to the Canadian government of detainee Omar Khadr. Omar Khadr is currently held in Guantanamo, after being captured in Afghanistan where he is alleged to have killed U.S. Sgt. Christopher Speer and blinded another with a grenade.

Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen. He is the son of alleged Al Quida financial supporter Ahmed Said Khadr, his father. He was captured when he was 15, six years ago. Canada has not tried to get his release, and continues to make no efforts to regain him. He is facing life imprisonment in October.

The following video is the longest version of the video released to Canada, that I have been able to find so far. It is 5 minutes of 10 that exists. This snippet of video is the material being used by Canadian defense lawyers on behalf of Khadr.

When I say snippet that is because there is in fact 7.5 hours of video. The defense obviously used the most beneficial minutes for their cause. Part of what was excluded was video showing Khadr denying the existence of his family, and urinating on their photo.

I will comment further after the video

First let me say that I am a supporter of the Child Soldier Act [also see here What’s better a laptop or food?]. I believe everything possible to prevent children from engaging in war should be done. The U.S. government (at all levels) has dragged its feet in this matter.

Now as for the video, it’s not horrendous. It does show that he is being treated like an adult though, which is illegal for a U.S. citizen child. He is Canadian. I cannot comment on international law (I don’t know it I’m not a lawyer).

The interrogations are being done by CANADIAN agents. They were involved lock step with his American detainment. The Canadian government was directly aware of what was happening, and they felt it was appropriate.

He was deprived of sleep, that is illegal mental torture. But he was given food and rest as the video clearly states.

The wounds he wants to receive pity for were inflicted (as reported by Rolling Stone in the most anti-war form) from the grenade he used to kill a U.S. soldier. [I have seen one news item stating the chest wounds were from gunshots – it is not made clear how he was shot in that same article] That grenade injured his eye and chest. And as noted in the video and the fact he has lived for 6 years he received adequate medical treatment, which the Canadian government was aware of.

These are facts we can determine from what is known. Anything else is subjective, and based on the views of the viewer. And the media is definitely against Guantanamo.

The first sentences of several media news releases says it all.

AP via Yahoo – TORONTO - A 16-year-old captured in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo Bay sobs during his questioning, holding up his wounded arms and begging for help in a video released Tuesday that provided the first glimpse of interrogations at the U.S. military prison.”

Newsblog - “A 16-year-old sobbing teenager is not, needless say, the image the Pentagon would like you to associate with its infamous destination for “enemy combatants”.”

Rolling Stone – “At that moment, Omar entered the extralegal archipelago of torture chambers and detention cells that the Bush administration has erected to prosecute its War on Terror. He has remained there ever since.” [3rd paragraph]

Leader-Post – “Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials “callously disregard” everything terror suspect Omar Khadr had to say during an interrogation when he was 16 years old, according to the Guantanamo detainee’s two lawyers.”

And it just goes on.

But let me refer back to something. Ahmed Khadr trained his son to be a fighter. Ahmed Khadr placed his son in a war zone to kill Americans for Al Quida. Omar threw the grenade that killed Sgt. Christopher Speer.

It’s one thing to be against recruiting children into a military, or to force them to fight. It’s quite another to defend yourself as the child tries to kill you. Successfully at that.

In that video, did you hear remorse? Did you hear any argument that he did not kill Americans? Did you note him being upset that his father placed him in the situation he was in? NO, I did not.

You heard a child that wanted sympathy for the consequences of the actions he took, and his father wished him to live. You heard a child (whether he states, Kill Me or Help Me) that realizes that he has done a wrong and is being punished. You hear a trained assassin that is seeking means to circumvent any legal reprimand for his actions.

Are those my opinions? Yep. And of his Canadian government.

So while the media may want to focus on the fact that this murderer, active in a war zone, was a child and was treated, admittedly, badly stop. Before you give him pity stop. Before you hear the roaring tide of liberals saying that war is bad, stop.

Before Omar Khadr threw that grenade he had a choice. While in interrogation he had a choice. Before he urinated on the picture of his family he had a choice.

The lawyers from his defense team had a choice after viewing 7.5 hours of video tape. They chose the most sympathetic 10 minutes. What happened in the remaining 7+ hours?

The news media at large had a choice in how to frame this video. They could present facts, or color the presentation to increase exposure, gain sympathy, and support their political views. Call me old-fashioned but I believe Edward R. Murrow was in favor of facts.

Is his incarceration fair? Not entirely. But then again many nations incarcerate minors that commit murder, some less Westernized nations kill them.

Was his interrogation and torture fair? Who are you asking, me, yourself, the members of SGT. Speer’s unit, or the family of Sgt. Speers? You might get different answers from each, and every one of them is valid.

War is not without its mistakes and over-reactions. It is the single worse state of Mankind. But it is also a reality that has existed for as long as Mankind.

In the end this particular story does not reflect on Guantanamo, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Oil, Terrorism, America or Canada. It is a very small piece of war, and it is sad. Any other thought is what you bring to it, just as I have and the news media in general have not.

I would have to believe that overall we all would agree that this was not a shining moment for anyone involved, but that it is part of the price of war. It’s one outcome in a sea of tens of thousands of outcomes, just as occurred in Viet Nam, World War I, the Spartans last stand, the Crusades and every other conflict known to Man.

So what do you think? Not what the media, or fanatical political or religious groups want you to think, but your thoughts?

Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

An excellent piece of art from Strk3 :

(spotted in comments at the science fiction addicts shooting gallery io9.com)

Why Richard Nixon Should Be Your Dystopian President

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

The chief foreign affairs reporter for Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian newspaper enthusiastically adds his voice, or should that be Dick Cheney’s voice, to the Australian end of the Murdoch world media campaign now underway for War On Iran. The reporter’s name is Greg Sheridan and he and US Vice President Dick Cheney are old friends. They’ve known each other for 16 years.

Sheridan’s got some news he wanted to share with the readers of Australia’s only national newspaper, and chief distributor of shameless NeoCon propaganda :

There is…between a 30 and 40 per cent chance that the Bush administration will bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities before the end of the year.

Sheridan bases his judgement on, “two weeks of intense conversations I have had with American national security figures.”

He’s been on the phone to Dick Cheney’s office to get his War On Iran talking points. Sheridan got the whole set :

People who know Vice-President Dick Cheney well believe he wants to strike Iran, that he has made a sober judgment that time is running out.

Cheney and Sheridan have been down this road together before, most recently with Iraq. When Cheney visited Australia to spruik War On Iran, he naturally granted his old mate Greg Sheridan an exclusive interview, where Cheney repeatedly pumped his mantras for War On Iran.

Sheridan really, really likes Dick Cheney. Shamelessly so. Some previous Sheridan Cheney gushing :

“…you never find Cheney hiding in the shadows, he’s always in the bright light of the day“

There is something bracing about Cheney’s unrepentant attitude generally…

(Cheney) certainly presents as the very model of sweet reason…

…in person he is avuncular, softly spoken, often deploying a little wry irony.

One of Cheney’s most appealing qualities is that he tells it exactly as he sees it. There is never a trace of ambiguity in what he says…

Cheney told Sheridan back in 2007 that he believes :

…a military confrontation with Iran would be a lesser evil than an Iran with nuclear weapons.

Cheney also points out that 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz and is vulnerable to Iranian military action.

Yes, let’s not forget the oil.

Today, even though, according to Sheridan, “Washington, all the capitals of Europe and Canberra are united in their determination to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons”, waiting to find out of they’ve actually got ‘em may take too long. Remember, according to Cheney, “time is running out.”

Does this sound familiar to you at all?

Sheridan knows the fallout from nuking Iranian non-nukes will shatter the global economy, even more than the War On Iraq did. He knows that almost every oil expert thinks striking Iran will see a barrel leap above $200. And at $200, millions in the West will no longer be able to afford to drive to work. And that’s for starters.

So what to do? What kind of magic fantasy dust have Dick Cheney’s people sprinkled inside Sheridan’s mind?

Terrorism :

…the top secret intelligence committee heads of Congress have authorised $400million for covert operations in Iran. This program is designed to gather information about Iran’s nuclear facilities and support opposition, including violence, to Iran’s Government and military.

…two separate national security insiders have confirmed to me that the US has a substantial covert operations effort in Iran.

It’s not so covert anymore, is it Mr Sheridan? Or perhaps that is the idea?

Figures right across the Bush administration routinely describe a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat to Israel. Existential here means a serious threat to Israel’s existence. Another national security figure tells me that if Israel really does regard a nuclear Iran as as existential threat, it would have no alternative but to strike.

By using the term existential threat, the Bush administration at the very least is itself legitimising the Israeli strike option.

A nuclear-armed Iran changes the world for all of us. It is the most important issue on the international agenda today.

Yeah, forget about the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, millions in the West rapidly falling into a Third World kind of poverty. Forget about the tens of billions being lost every day on world stock markets, the society-altering rise of fuel and food prices, and the creeping spread of totalitarian societies and dictatorships.

It’s all about Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons.

Surely another war can only work to solve all those other crises. Right?

And what a fantastic foreign correspondent Dick Cheney’s pal is. How thorough he is. Sheridan makes absolutely no mention of Russia’s reaction, or plans for preventive action, to US or Israel strikes on Iran.

The fact that Russia will clearly retaliate if Iran is attacked must have completely slipped his mind.

These people are psychotic.

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

French president Nicolas Sarkozy went to Israel and told them they had to stop building illegal settlements on Palestinian land, that they will have to dismantle the ’security fence’ and also demanded they get used to the idea of sharing Jerusalem with Palestinians.

So it should come as no surprise at all if we learn in the coming days that an Israeli soldier was shot dead as he tried to assassinate Sarkozy.

Here’s a report from Israeli media :

A Border Guard officer tasked with a perimeter security assignement during the farewell ceremony for French President Nicolas Sarkozy at Ben-Gurion Airport was killed after apparently shooting himself.

Police officials estimated that the officer committed suicide.

The armored cars of President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were rushed to the ceremony site, and the two were taken away from the area.

After the gunshot was heard, security forces began searching for the shooter, who was found lying on the ground.

So he waited until he was about 100 metres away from the French president and then decided to shoot himself in the head?

Bullshit.

As if Mossad would allow an armed, suicidal soldier anywhere near a visiting head of state. Unless, of course, they wanted him there.

Interesting, then, that rumours are rife in Israel that prime minister Ehud Olmert is days away from resigning.

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

The difference between a soundbite and a full quote is the difference between an outrageous statement and a reasoned, passionate defence of democracy. Why should any American take the mainstream corporate news seriously when the journalists themselves refuse to to do so?

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

You already know NeoCons are stone-cold crazy. And they just keep on confirming it :

Strikes that flatten its nuclear infrastructure could have a demoralizing effect, and could influence Tehran’s assessment of the cost of rebuilding. But the most effective strikes may not necessarily be against nuclear facilities. Iran is extraordinarily vulnerable to attacks on its oil export infrastructure…. The political shock of losing the oil income could cause Iran to rethink its nuclear stance—in ways that attacks on its nuclear infrastructure might not.

Don’t bomb the nuclear energy plants, bomb Iran’s oil infrastructure instead. Brililant! Why didn’t you think of that?

To be sure, in a tight world oil market, attacking Iran’s oil infrastructure carries an obvious risk of causing world oil prices to soar and hurting consumers in the United States and other oil-importing countries….

No, really? You think that might happen?

If the choice is between higher oil prices and a Middle East with several nuclear powers, higher oil prices and reduced economic growth are not clearly the greater evil.

No, NeoCons in general are the greater evil.

…. The challenge, should the United States decide to go that route, would be to conduct military and information campaigns that mitigate a nationalist backlash and that undercut and isolate the regime, while at the same time signaling the Islamic Republic’s leaders that the United States is prepared to make a deal if they abandon their nuclear program.

We just carpet-bombed the absolute shit out of your oil infrastructure and killed thousands of innocent Iranians. So let’s say we make a deal on those alleged nukes now then, hmmm?

Interesting that Russia’s response to either the US or Israel (or anyone else) hitting Iran, where it now has more than $US50-100 billion of investment, is never mentioned by these brutal war-drooling freaks :

Russia’s foreign minister on Friday warned against the use of force on Iran, saying there is no proof it is trying to build nuclear weapons.

“I hope the actual actions would be based on international law,” Lavrov said. “And international law clearly protects Iran’s and anyone else’s territorial integrity.”

Lavrov said Russia had asked both the United States and Israel to provide factual information to back their claims that Iran was working to build atomic weapons. “So far we have seen none, and the same conclusion was made by the International Atomic Energy Agency,” he said.

“It’s absolutely not right to speak matter-of-factly that Iran continues building nuclear weapons,” Lavrov added.

Israel’s military refused to confirm or deny a report Friday that its warplanes staged a major rehearsal this month for a possible attack on Iran.

NeoCons don’t want to destroy Iran. They want to destroy the United States. All that they haven’t destroyed already.

Pentagon WarGame Showed Swarms Of Small Iranian Bomb Boats Could Destroy 15 US Naval Ships In Less Than 10 Minutes

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

President Bush doesn’t often get quoted for good lines. Only the bad, the stupid, the misjudged and the downright weird. Or Bushisms, as they are generally known.

But Bush recently fired off this line about Iraq :

“Freedom trumps tyranny every time.”

Great line. A mostly true generalisation, but usually only when that Freedom is backed up by Heavy Weaponry and a tolerance for six figure civilian casualty body counts.

But where did Bush, or his writers, pick up that so very quotable line?

From a blog rambling about Star Wars philosophy?

“Good always defeats evil.. Freedom trumps tyranny… but what is the cost.. “

From this February, 2005, blog post?

“Freedom trumps tyranny when given the chance.”

Or, most likely, from Richard Land, of the United States Commission On International Religious Freedoms, talking about Burma in 2007?

“…if we have learned anything from recent history we know that freedom trumps tyranny.”

Wherever it came, expect to hear more of this phrase. Particularly when NeoCons need a mantra, a catch-all dismissive excuse, for the brutal violence unleashed on the people of Iraq.

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

The CIA wore the blame for not knowing the 9/11 attacks were coming.

But The Agency clearly is not going to let history record it was responsible for the Iraq WMD and bioweapons intelligence and the ‘Saddam Loves Osama’ hype that so primarily fueled BushCo. and the NeoCons hysterical hard-core hyping of the desperate need for a War On Iraq in the second half of 2002.

The Agency wants Americans, and the world, to know that the key sources for Al Qaeda-Iraq links and WMDs were not CIA-cleared sources.

Those sources, including ‘Curveball’ (he of the “Saddam has mobile bioweapons labs!”) belong squarely, solely to the NeoCons.

The CIA knew by August 2002 that ‘Curveball’, like the other key sources promoted by BushCo, were full of shit when it came to Iraq. They weren’t well-informed Saddam insiders. They were torture victims, political puppets and flat-out liars.

The CIA wrote a report in August, 2002, that reached all key Republicans and Democrats. Most ignored the direct warnings from the CIA that claims from sources hyped by NeoCons, BushCo. and the Murdoch world media were not to be trusted.

Still, it’s hard to know whether the fog of fact-surrounded-by-lies has cleared a bit more, or is growing ever more thick :

A previously undisclosed CIA report written in the summer of 2002 questioned the “credibility” and “truthfulness” of an Al Qaeda detainee who became a key source for the Bush administration’s claims about links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

The statements of the detainee–a captured terrorist operative named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi–were the principal basis for President Bush’s contention in a major pre-Iraq War speech that Saddam’s regime had “trained Al Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases.” The speech was delivered in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, just as Congress was taking up the White House-backed resolution authorizing the president to invade Iraq.

But two months before Bush’s dramatic assertion, the CIA had raised serious doubts about whether al-Libi might be inventing some of what he was telling his interrogators, according to a 171-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on pre-war intelligence released last week.
“Questions persist about [al-Libi’s] forthrightness and truthfulness,” the CIA wrote in the still-classified Aug. 7, 2002, report, which was circulated throughout the U.S. intelligence community. “In some instances, however, he seems to have fabricated information.”

The agency found that al-Libi–in an “attempt to exaggerate his importance”–had told interrogators that he was a member of Al Qaeda’s “Shura Council,” or governing body. But that claim was not corroborated by other intelligence reporting, the CIA analysis concluded in its report, which was titled: “Terrorism: Credibility of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi and the Information He has Provided While in Custody.”

…the Defense Intelligence Agency was concerned that a key corroborating source for the claim that Iraq had developed mobile biological weapons labs “was being coached” by Ahmad Chalabi’s controversial Iraqi exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, “to further its political agenda.” In May 2002, the DIA cut off contact with the source, an Iraqi officer identified only as “Major General al-Assaf,” and issued a warning notice about him after determining his information was “assessed as unreliable and, in some instances, [is] pure fabrication.”

…al-Libi was “the principal intelligence source” for assertions by Bush, CIA director George Tenet, national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Powell that Iraq had provided chemical and biological weapons training to Al Qaeda operatives.

The White House doesn’t like talking about Iraqi WMDs anymore. This is all they have to say on the fact they purposely, actively, hysterically promoted false intelligence, even when the CIA told them it was nearly all lies :

“The administration’s statements on Iraq were based on the very same intelligence that was given to Congress, and they came to the same conclusions, as did other countries around the world. The issue about Iraq’s WMD ultimately turned out to be false, and we have fully admitted that. We regret it. And we have also taken steps to make sure that we can correct it for–in the future.”

A Three Trillion Dollar regret, but not for BushCo. For the Americans who will be paying off Iraq War bills for decades to come.

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

Depending on which news report you read, President Bush has “warned” or “urged” UK PM Gordon Brown not to set a final date to withdraw his forces from Iraq.

So what will happen now to convince Gordon Brown that Bush is right, and that UK forces must stay in Iraq, in an open-ended commitment?

Perhaps ‘Al Qaeda’ will help Bush to get the message through to the Brits?

It wouldn’t be the first time ‘Al Qaeda’ has taken action that directly benefits the NeoCon agenda for Iraq.

UPDATE : Bush “urges” and “warns” often, on a variety of issues.

UPDATE : It’s fascinating, and disturbing, or disturbinating, to see that Bush is trying to convince the Brits to stay in Iraq at the exact same time that the Iraq parliament is exercising its democracy and is rejecting NeoCon plans to finalise the installation of at least 58 American bases across the country. Iraqis, overwhelmingly, want coalition forces to announce withdrawal dates and yet Bush insists that not only is the US not planning to leave, but he wants UK troops to stay where they are.

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

These events have been on the horizon for a few years now, but it’s still stunning to see them unfold on the evening news, even when you were expecting such chaos.

And such events are only likely to escalate, as a sudden drop in fuel prices seems unlikely before the end of the year, or even during 2009.

A summer of anarchy looms in Europe, a season of chaos in the US, and downright disaster for many parts of South East Asia.

Oil speculators must pay a heavy price for what they’ve now unleashed.

Car Plants, Airlines Shut Down As Fuel Protests Escalate Across The World

In Spain, Truckers Blockade Roads Over Fuel Prices, Riot Police Move In

Jets Run Out Of Fuel, Factories Close, Supermarket Shelves Empty

Now Dutch Lorry Drivers Join European Fuel Price Protests

Petrol Prices In UK Expected To Double, PM Warns Against Panic Buying

Europe’s Roads Clog As Thousands Join Fuel Price Protests

Two Die In European Fuel Protests

Food Shortages Loom In Spain As Protests Spread

And It’s Going To Get Even Worse In India

It’s a good time, priority time, to get that food stockpile sorted, if you haven’t already. Just in case. Consider it an investment. Bags of rice and pasta I brought last year (here in Sydney) when I started writing here about looming food and fuel shortages now cost more than double what I paid. And nobody is predicting food prices, like fuel, will be dropping any time soon.

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

In early 2006, I predicted :

Short of her face and body flesh falling off during upcoming TV debates to reveal she is an intergalactic lizard, with eight scaly breasts, Billary will be the Democrats nomination for president.

I still think it’s too early to claim that Billary is gone for good, even for this year’s election. Billary hasn’t quit, it has suspended its campaign, but is still accepting donations. Should Barack Obama turn out to be still racking up lines of cocaine, or gay, or carrying an illness not yet declared, or diagnosed, Billary will sweep back into the 2008 elections for POTUS.

Do you really believe the Bush-Clinton ‘family’ will give in so easily?

For now, here’s excerpts from a New York Times story that looks back on the Billary campaign, and why it failed :

Hers was a campaign of destiny that fell achingly short, garnering nearly 18 million votes in her quest to become the first woman to hold the presidency. “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it,” Mrs. Clinton said as she ended her campaign on Saturday.

Yet while she emphasized its trailblazing nature as she exited the race, her campaign also represented a back-to-the-future effort to restore the Democratic dynasty of the 1990s that could never quite escape the past. Although Mrs. Clinton proved a more agile candidate than many had expected, she built a campaign that was suffused in overconfidence, riven by acrimony and weighted by the emotional baggage of a marriage between former and would-be presidents.

As she flew from town halls to rallies on the road, she did little to stop the infighting back home among advisers who nursed grudges from their White House days. The aides grew distracted from battling Senator Barack Obama while they hurled expletives at one another, stormed out of meetings and schemed to get one another fired.The Clintons struggled to adapt their successful formula to a new era against a new kind of opponent. They found their message of hope and change co-opted, and they found it hard to break out of the news media’s old image of them. Mrs. Clinton variously tried presenting herself as the friend having conversations with the American people, then the experienced hand and tough warrior before settling on heroine of the working class.

Mr. Clinton vented frustrations and, still not one to use e-mail, much less a BlackBerry, found his famed instincts inadequate in a blogosphere age that amplified every intemperate outburst.

While Mr. Obama had mastered Internet fund-raising, it took Mrs. Clinton a year to do the same.

Why bother to learn how to make use of the greatest creation in communication since the written word when you know you’ve got the White House locked in for the next eight years?

As others have pointed out, and often, it was a sense of entitlement to the White House that really helped turn Americans against Billary.

The Bushes And Clintons Are Really The Best Of Friends

Obama’s Fiction Reality

Billary Can’t Quit, Won’t Quit

“This Country Is In Revolution”

Billary’s Self-Assassination

Billary Busted Creating Fake Realities For Mainstream Media

This Is What A Real Anti-War American Presidential Candidate Sounds Like

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

UK troops are mostly gone, Australian combat troops are now withdrawing and Poland is packing up and going home. Now more than 70% of Iraqis and just over half of Iraq’s parliament want to know when the United States will be ending its occupation. Iraq, with Iran’s backing, is now forcing the issue with BushCo. by refusing to sign a security pact that would allow the US to keep its forces in Iraq beyond 2008 :

A majority of the Iraqi parliament has written to Congress rejecting a long-term security deal with Washington if it is not linked to a requirement that U.S. forces leave, a U.S. lawmaker said on Wednesday.Rep. William Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat and Iraq war opponent, released excerpts from a letter he was handed by Iraqi parliamentarians laying down conditions for the security pact that the Bush administration seeks with Iraq.

“What are the threats that require U.S. forces to be there?” asked Nadeem Al-Jaberi, a co-founder of the al-Fadhila Shi’ite political party, speaking through a translator.

“I would like to inform you, there are no threats on Iraq. We are capable of solving our own problems,” he declared. He favored a quick pullout of U.S. forces, which invaded the country in 2003 and currently number around 155,000.

More On All This Here

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

US government officials begin to prepare Americans for life after the Bush administration, and the end of the ‘War On Terror’ as we know it.

A senior official at the Department of Homeland Security worries (very publicly) that somehow, despite all the promises of freedom and democracy, too many Muslims believe the ‘War On Terror’ is actually a war against Islam.

From the Financial Times :

The west needs a more comprehensive strategy to counter al-Qaeda propaganda and the US should stop using the term “war on terror”, according to a top intelligence official.

Charles Allen, the senior intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security, says the phrase is counter-productive because it creates “animus” in Islamic countries.

“[It] has nothing to do with political correctness,” Mr Allen said in an interview. “It is interpreted in the Muslim world as a war on Islam and we don’t need this.”

President George W. Bush made “war on terror” one of his stock phrases in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001. But there is disagreement in Washington, including among his own administration, over whether officials should use the term.

Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, in an interview said the phrase ”war on terror” was the “dumbest term…you could use”.
While the military in general tends to echo the langauge of the president, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs who recently met with moderate Muslim leaders to hear their concerns, tries to ensure his language does not create the perception of a war against Islam, Captain John Kirby, his spokesman, said.

While US officials have warned about an increasing potential for home-grown terrorism, Mr Allen welcomed the results of a 2007 study by the Pew Research Center, which found that the vast majority of US Muslims were concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism and had an unfavourable view of al-Qaeda.

A recent memo from the homeland security department’s office for civil rights and civil liberties echoed some of these concerns. The memo said terminology employed by the US government should “avoid helping the terrorists by inflating the religious bases and glamorous appeal of their ideology” and “must be properly calibrated to diminish the recruitment efforts of extremists who argue that the west is at war with Islam”.

Crazy, paranoid Muslims. They think the ‘War on Terror’ is some kind of new Crusade.

Now where in the hell did they ever get that lunatic idea?

President George W. Bush, September 16, 2001 :

“This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while.”

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

In follow up to the below story about how Murdoch media tried to pass off a video game image of a nuked Washington DC as having come from ‘Al Qaeda’, I decided to help out the media by alerting them to their mistake. I mean, surely some of the most famous newspapers and mainstream news websites in the world wouldn’t purposely want to scare their readers with fake terror stories. Right?

The Australian newspaper, Fox News, the UK Daily Mail, the London Evening Standard and about 15 other major news websites and newspapers, reaching tens of millions of people, all ran the nuked Washington image with headlines very similar to this one from the Daily Mail :

Al Qaeda’s Terrifying Vision Of A Devastated America In The Wake Of A Nuclear Attack

I contacted 15 of the major news corporations who ran the story and image, pointing out they were deceiving their readers by claiming the dramatic image came from ‘Al Qaeda’. Some of them, like The Australian and Fox News, I contacted multiple times. No corrections have been made, and none have even bothered to properly credit the source of the nuked Washington image. I know of at least 20 Your New Reality readers who also contacted media who ran the story and game art, contacting them by e-mail, phone or through comments (or all three). Almost 48 hours later, no corrections have been made. Not one. Corrections through comments sections have also been mostly censored.

As readers have pointed out, anti-terror laws in Australia, the US, the UK clearly state that purposely spreading ‘terror’ through propaganda is in itself an act of terrorism (or more accurately, an act of attempted terrorism).

So many of the biggest news corporations in the world have committed acts of attempted terrorism, and even given plenty of time and information to post corrections to their story, and to explain where the nuked Washington image actually came from, none that I can find have bothered to do what their readers and viewers expect and correct the record. None.

Not that we should be at all surprised by this.

And the MSM wonders why it is losing readers and viewers to blogs and alternative news sites.

The biggest news corporations in the world are now the most influential and prolific spreaders of Al Qaeda propaganda, even when the scare stories don’t even come from anyone remotely connected to whatever Al Qaeda is supposed to be today.

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

By Darryl Mason

UPDATE : The Australian newspaper has illustrated a thoroughly discredited story about Al Qaeda and WMDs with a piece of art from an online video game. The Australian newspaper claimed the above was “supplied”. But supplied by who? Al Qaeda? News agencies? Corporate American intelligence agencies? Or someone in The Australian’s own art department?

Previously : According to Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian, the above image turned up on an Al Qaeda website. Or on a website populated by people who claim to be Al Qaeda. Or it was ’supplied’ to The Australian newspaper by the corporate American intelligence agency that claims to monitor Al Qaeda websites, and then sells what they find for big dollars to the world’s media? It’s hard to keep track.

The Australian newspaper is supposed to Murdoch’s ‘quality broadsheet’ down under, but clearly they are more than happy to pump Al Qaeda propaganda as much as the dozens of trash Murdoch tabloids in the US, the UK and Australia.

But don’t worry about that massive credibility gap. This imagery (we now know comes from a video game - ed) came with a terrible warning of doom…. or as it’s more commonly known, complete and utter bullshit :

Groups that monitor Islamic websites say al-Qaeda will post a new video in the next 24 hours urging jihadists to use biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West, the FBI said.

The FBI warning came as the US-based monitoring group SITE said the video encouraging terrorists to develop and detonate weapons of mass destruction in the US and Europe was posted on an Islamist militant forum.SITE also released a computer-generated image, showing Washington DC in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, which reportedly appeared on an Islamist forum.

The 39-minute, documentary-style video, titled Nuclear Jihad: The Ultimate Terror, was posted on the al-Ekhlaas forum on May 25, SITE said in a statement.

“The idea of killing lots of people, this idea is available to us, and it must be used under the idea of treating others the same, so I say that terror in their countries must involve human losses and these human losses must be with WMDs,” the video says, according to SITE’s translation.

Paul Joseph Watson has some very interesting information on American ‘intelligence specialists’ who have turned the distribution of all but meaningless Al Qaeda propaganda into a very profitable business, and explains why we don’t see anymore beheading videos from ‘Al Qaeda’ :

Nearly four years after Benjamin Vanderford hoodwinked the global media by manufacturing a fake Al-Qaeda beheading tape, America’s corporate press whores are once again gearing up to fearmonger about the prospect of mushroom clouds over American cities by instantly ascribing gospel status to a dubious “Al-Qaeda fan” Internet videotape that encourages the use of WMD in a terrorist attack.

Since the dubious series of beheading videos, which coincidentally came to a stop when one of our readers managed to expose the ludicrousness of accepting such propaganda at face value by hoodwinking the world media with a fake beheading tape, “Al-Qaeda” has been resigned to spreading its message through Mossad agents like Adam Pearlman and alleged sketchy Bin Laden audio recordings…

story continues below….
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Darryl Mason’s online novel ED Day, about life in Sydney after a bird flu pandemic kills millions, is now completed. Read it here free.

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story continues….

Now Al Qaeda ‘fan made’ videos, as this ‘documentary’ is being described, are getting mass media exposure. The MSM is petrified that if they don’t pump any and all AQ propaganda that comes their way, and there is another attack on the US, they will be seen as being guilty of not having informed the public of what they knew might have been coming.

Whatever Al Qaeda is, the American (and Australian) mainstream media is doing their job of spread the threat of terror for them, and making money at the same time utilising dramatic free content supposedly supplied by terrorists.

It doesn’t matter how absolutely crap and ridiculous the supposed Al Qaeda videos are, the mainstream media gives them all front page and lead evening news story exposure, almost seven years after the United States was last attacked.

How much longer can this Al Qaeda crapfest be kept up? Not much longer. The bitter cynicism from reader-commenters across the American media spectrum in reaction to this ‘documentary’ has been almost unanimous, and many are disgusted and furious. Not at Al Qaeda necessarily, but at the MSM for once again doing the terrorists’ job of trying to spread fear and unease.

Rupert Murdoch, and the rest of the MSM, should give this shit a fucking rest, Or at the very least start mocking the creators of this propaganda for being absolutely crap at what they do.

All the great enemies of the West were mocked relentlessly during the wars of the 20th century. But for this war we are told, by President Bush in particular, that we must listen closely to and believe every word that Osama Bin Laden, or one of his lackey arseholes, have to say.

The scary truth is that the American war machine has as much interest in prolonging this war as Al Qaeda, or whatever passes for Al Qaeda, has. Neither side wants it to end.

We don’t seem to get to have a say in this. No matter who we vote for, the war goes on. And on. And onandonandon.

If you preach hatred, violence and intolerance, you should not expect the mainstream media to do most of your work for you in getting out your vile message.

Enough is enough.

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Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

What possible use could there be for a killer robot that can fire a million rounds a minute?

Crowd control, of course!

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