If anyone still thinks that describing the United States government by using the F word --fascist --

[seemslikeadream]

is an overstatement in 2007, then they should see this film.

Strange Culture

Terrorizing Artists in the USA


By MICHAEL SIMMONS

....

Kurtz was illegally detained for a day, his house was turned upside down, and his work --and Hope’s body --were seized for investigation. While it was eventually ruled that there was no public safety threat or terrorism involved, the Department of Justice (oxymorons are ubiquitous in Orwell’s 21st Century America) continues to prosecute Kurtz and colleague and geneticist Robert Ferrell for wire and mail fraud, even though they followed standard procedure practiced by laboratories and universities.

The last three years have been a nightmare of filed motions and pre-trial hearings and still no one knows when the case is expected to go to trial. Kurtz and Ferrell face 20 years in prison, the same as the terrorism charges. It’s a thought crime vendetta using alleged violations that are normally civil matters.

Kurtz and the Critical Art Ensemble are guilty of practicing freedom of speech. Among other transgressions, including being anti-war and anti-GMO, they’ve accused corporations and their U.S. government proxy of inciting panic. Through mixed media (installation, performance, text), the CAE makes the case that the population-at-large is not susceptible to biowarfare; that the motivation for scare tactics is the “symbolic abstraction of fear” to control citizens and reap corporate profits. I know this panic-for-profits scam is real because I have an unopened box of Tamiflu in my closet. I shelled out many shekels for it, yet there have been no cases of Avian Bird Flu in the United States.


......

[Hissyspit]

1. I've been posting about this film and this case for quite a while. The posts

about the film have fallen with a thud.

Thanks for doing this. EVERYONE K&R!

Kurtz is STILL being prosecuted! It is a sham and embarassment, but they won't leave the man alone.

[seemslikeadream]

2. I'm sorry I missed your posts Hissyspit

:hi:

http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/947?view=print

[Hissyspit]

10. TONIGHT is the fundraising screen at Lincoln Center in NYC

I was gonna post about it and forgot! I'm so glad you did. Big thanks.

Hi everyone,

The CAE Defense Fund will have a fundraising and
informational table in the lobby of Lincoln Center at
the opening night screening of Lynn's film on June
15th, and hopefully on the 18th and 19th as well.

We'll be handing out our informational flyer and
selling "Art is Not Terrorism" buttons to raise money
for the Trial Fund, and accepting large cash and check
donations made out to the CAE Defense Fund and CAE
Trial Fund. The director of the Festival will be
making a pitch for contributions at each screening, so
we should be able to raise a fair amount.

We need your help if you are in the NYC area at this
time to help staff the tables! We will get comp
tickets to the screenings for all volunteers. (You do
not need to be a legal expert on the case to help -
you'll be working as part of a team and we'll have the
Defense Fund web site online to help answer any
questions!)

Plus, after the screenings, we can all go out for some
beers! :-)

Lucia Sommer

[DKRC]

11. I missed them too sorry, but I'm K&R'ing this one to make sure it doesn't disappear.

:kick:

[Hissyspit]

3. Got this email request earlier about a week and a half ago:

Hi everyone,

Lynn Hershman Leeson, who made the
critically-acclaimed film about Steve and Bob's case,
"Strange Culture," needs to get 14 screenings in 10
cities in order to get a theatrical release, which
would help us immensely in spreading the word. (For
more information and to watch the trailer, please see:
http://strangeculture.net )

If anyone knows of, or has any connections to, any
venues
in your city that may be interested in doing 6
screenings over 3 consecutive days of the film, please
contact Lynn Hershman at:
[e-mail]

Many thanks, and best regards,

Lucia Sommer
CAE Defense Fund

---
Lucia Sommer
Ph.D. Student
Program in Visual & Cultural Studies
424 Morey Hall | University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627
716-359-3061

[whistle]

4. It has gone beyond fascist....it is now crony capitalism and total corruption

....economic anarchy based on lies and deception....nothing is at it seems :hide:

[Nite Owl]

9. 'nothing is as it seems'

I think that is so very true.

[truedelphi]

5. Quite a while ago, it was said that the artists would

be the "Indians" of the twentieth century

Where the Indian wanted to roam freely through the wilderness, our creative brothers and sisters insist on roaming the farther reaches of their impulses.

This insistence of the need for freedom makes them enemies of the state.

[Cha]

6. First I've seen of it..thanks for

bringing it on board. I've been using the term "fascist" to describe the current crop of power hungry, rabid bullies ocuppying our White House for years because someone on DU used that term and I looked it up in the online dictionary and sure 'nuf..there they were.

[MADem]

7. Well, if you are talking about the actual MEANING of the word, why it's no surprise at all

Unfortunately, when people use the F word, they tend to think ONLY of a leader who weilded absolute and immutable authority, dressed in silly uniforms, and with a small moustache. Or maybe a bay window and a shaved head. Now, Bush doesn't wield absolute authority, Cheney has a good chunk of it, and he doesn't have a moustache, or a shaved head....!!!! :rofl:

They also think of Jew roundups, smashed glass, brownshirts and jackboots in the streets. They see long hectoring speeches, glassy eyed acolytes, and unswerving devotion to the Fearless Leader.

But that's not really what it's all about, as many of us of course know.

Seriously, one can argue over these definitions, but they are a starting point:

http://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&safe=off&defl=en&q=define:Fascism&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

I urge everyone to click the link and have a look at them. I see a resonance in the US with the one that discusses "CORPORATISM" myself.

Eisenhower had a real point, didn't he?

[Greyhound]

12. You raise an excellent point. The degradation of language is one

of the most effective tools "they" have used over the last few decades to obfuscate the crux of the biscuit.

The absence of critical thinking and ignorance on the part of the sheeple, have served "them" very well. The phenomenon of an amorphous system of definition of words and terms, i.e. Wikipedia, has further opened the door to Orwell's and Huxley's nightmare vision of the future, our present reality.

A few weeks ago there was a thread that proposed the notion that "it's not fascism until my ass is in jail, or in front of the executioner" is the dominant reason behind the Amerikan Sheeple's acceptance of fascism. "Corporatism" was, IIRC, coined by Mussolini himself, as a more accurate description of his government. We have been fascist in practice, if not definition, since the late 60's - early 70's.
:kick: & R

[MADem]

14. It's helpful to study history. Like I said, Ike had it right. He put it in gentler terms, but

he meant what he was saying, and he KNEW what he meant.

[seemslikeadream]

15. Eisenhower's children told me that the president's warning had not originally been worded

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/eugene-jarecki.shtml

One of the things that the film focuses on is the extraordinary prophesy issued by Dwight D Eisenhower in his last moments as president. He warned the American public of this "military-industrial complex" - a confluence of power that he saw as a threat to democracy itself. The film asks to what extent have the military-industrial interests, once a by-product of policy, come to define the policy itself? Eisenhower's children told me that the president's warning had not originally been worded "military-industrial complex". The original formulation was "military-industrial-congressional complex". That was dropped from the final draft, but it represents the fullness of his concern - that only with the collusion of members of Congress could the apparatus of the defence sector grow to wag the dog.

[MADem]

16. I always thought he should have left "congressional" in there, but he

was a gentle fellow.

The only way to get round the Congressional influence, really, is to even distribute/weigh the pork, I guess. Each state gets an amount of pork based on a calcuation that includes their population, their contribution to the GDP, their contribution to the defense establishment, and so forth. Figuring out how to create a formula, and tweaking it continuously so no one can cheat, would be the problem (and it might be insurmountable, really). It's a bit more difficult than, say, Howard Dean levelling the playing field by funding the VT schools on a statewide, rather than a town-by-town basis, but that sort of formula might be a start. Of course, then politicians would then have to be elected on their VIEWS on issues, not their pork-bringing abilities--so the Trent Lotts of this world would fight that sort of change tooth-and-nail!

[bobthedrummer]

8. Yep.

:hi:

[Hissyspit]

13. .

[Octafish]

17. Somebody got to Mark Lombardi

Mark Lombardi was a great artist, who might've become a household name, if it weren't for his untimely demise in 2000.

Here's an interesting work, "George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens," c. 1979-90, 5th Version, a work by Mark Lombardi, from 1999, before most of American had even heard of Osama bin Bush:



The piece is a social network diagram, chronicling the connections between various people, organizations, events and dates. A detail shows systemic corruption. Please note the direct connections between James R Bath, Salem and Osama bin Laden and George W Bush:



More light:

http://www.steamshovelpress.com/altmedia18.html

Mr. Lombardi was found in his studio, hanged, a "suicide," in the summer of 2000. After 9-11, the FBI visited an exhibition of his work and took pictures of the connections.

[Zodiak]

18. Thanks, Octafish

I have never heard of this guy, but I am familiar with Hatfill.

Wellstone, Hunter S. Thompson, that reporter that committed suicide by shooting himself in the head twice...lots of weird, mysterious deaths recently surround Bushco.

These are truly frightening people who unleash evil on this Earth in biblical proportions, and that's just what we can prove.

[Hissyspit]

19. .

[Elspeth]

20. Link?

?

[Hissyspit]

21. Here. Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-simmons/terrorizing-the-artists-i_b_52261.html

[sanskritwarrior]

22. This is not a fascist country and saying it is

demans the deaths of people at the hands of real fascism.............

PATHETIC!!!

[seemslikeadream]

25. please watch this

http://www.bushflash.com/14.html

or maybe this if you have time
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173&q=freedom+to+fascism&total=835&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0


War and Globalization
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3117338213439292490&q=Hijacking+Catastrophe&total=29&start=20&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=7


Hijacking Catastrophe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltOy_F6ZII&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YlcpXBFOXA&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwZaWh0cJPQ&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8S_vOZqJbE&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GT7ti8LZ6A&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkOtqGNJ8qI&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C02QHS0D44&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YlcpXBFOXA&mode=related&search
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kBX00TR-aA&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jghh00bn_DA&mode=related&search=


“Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.”


She's present in our country right now, just waiting to make her - to carry out her divine mission



http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/27/1454229

CHALMERS JOHNSON: Nemesis was the ancient Greek goddess of revenge, the punisher of hubris and arrogance in human beings. You may recall she is the one that led Narcissus to the pond and showed him his reflection, and he dove in and drowned. I chose the title, because it seems to me that she's present in our country right now, just waiting to make her -- to carry out her divine mission.

By the subtitle, I really do mean it. This is not just hype to sell books -- “The Last Days of the American Republic.” I’m here concerned with a very real, concrete problem in political analysis, namely that the political system of the United States today, history tells us, is one of the most unstable combinations there is -- that is, domestic democracy and foreign empire -- that the choices are stark. A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, like the old Roman Republic, it will lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship.

I’ve spent some time in the book talking about an alternative, namely that of the British Empire after World War II, in which it made the decision, not perfectly executed by any manner of means, but nonetheless made the decision to give up its empire in order to keep its democracy. It became apparent to the British quite late in the game that they could keep the jewel in their crown, India, only at the expense of administrative massacres, of which they had carried them out often in India. In the wake of the war against Nazism, which had just ended, it became, I think, obvious to the British that in order to retain their empire, they would have to become a tyranny, and they, therefore, I believe, properly chose, admirably chose to give up their empire.

As I say, they didn't do it perfectly. There were tremendous atavistic fallbacks in the 1950s in the Anglo, French, Israeli attack on Egypt; in the repression of the Kikuyu -- savage repression, really -- in Kenya; and then, of course, the most obvious and weird atavism of them all, Tony Blair and his enthusiasm for renewed British imperialism in Iraq. But nonetheless, it seems to me that the history of Britain is clear that it gave up its empire in order to remain a democracy. I believe this is something we should be discussing very hard in the United States.

[sanskritwarrior]

26. WE ARE NOT A FASCIST NATION

thanks for the video clips but that doesn't prove we are fascist......Again stop demeaning people like my family members that died at the hands of REAL FASCISM.......PATHETIC

[seemslikeadream]

27. I am not and I also have family members that have died at the hands of fascists

Their land taken from them

That's why I know it when I see it

[seemslikeadream]

28. So when does REAL fascism start

Song of Choice

Early every year the seeds are growing
Unseen, unheard they lie beneath the ground
Would you know before their leaves are showing
That with weeds all your garden will abound?

If you close your eyes, stop your ears
Shut your mouth then how can you know?
For seeds you cannot hear may not be there
Seeds you cannot see may never grow

In January you've still got the choice
You can cut the weeds before they start to bud
If you leave them to grow high they'll silence your voice
And in December you may pay with your blood

So close your eyes, stop your ears,
Shut your mouth and take it slow
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn't know

Every day another vulture takes flight
There's another danger born every morning
In the darkness of your blindness the beast will learn to bite
How can you fight if you can't recognise a warning?

Today you may earn a living wage
Tomorrow you may be on the dole
Though there's millions going hungry you needn't disengage
For it's them, not you, that's fallen in the hole

It's alright for you if you run with the pack
It's alright if you agree with all they do



If fascism is slowly climbing back



It's not here yet so what's it got to do with you?

The weeds are all around us and they're growing
It'll soon be too late for the knife
If you leave them on the wind that around the world is blowing
You may pay for your silence with your life

So close your eyes, stop your ears,
Shut your mouth and never dare
And if it happens here they'll never come for you
Because they'll know you really didn't care

Peggy Seeger

[sanskritwarrior]

31. Let me know when the Constitution is

suspended and EVERYONE goes along with it.

Let me know when Mass military conscription starts

Let me know when an ethnic group in this country is rounded up put on trains and sent to a camp to be liquidated

Let me know freedom of speech is outlawed

Let me know when the police gun down peaceful protesters en masse, then I'll agree with you.......Until then you are fearmongering and it is as bad as the Bush craptacular Color coded Threat warnings......

I can go on for a while, our country is screwed up right now, but we are LIGHT YEARS away from being Fascist, only people that have never lived under true Fascism would call this country Fascist.

[seemslikeadream]

33. not light years

When this is being done in our name we are not light years away.




You do know about Blackwater, don't you? There's a training camp right down the road from me and it's pretty scary but you'r probably light years away from them so they're not bothering you

maybe the people of NO would disagree with you

She calls out to the man on the street

sir, can you help me?

Its cold and Ive nowhere to sleep,

Is there somewhere you can tell me?

He walks on, doesnt look back
He pretends he cant hear her

Starts to whistle as he crosses the street
Seems embarrassed to be there

Oh think twice, its another day for

You and me in paradise

Oh think twice, its just another day for you,

You and me in paradise

She calls out to the man on the street

He can see shes been crying
Shes got blisters on the soles of her feet

Cant walk but shes trying

Oh think twice...

Oh lord, is there nothing more anybody can do

Oh lord, there must be something you can say

You can tell from the lines on her face

You can see that shes been there

Probably been moved on from every place

cos she didnt fit in there

Oh think twice...



Thanks again to Phil Collins for the words
My heart to the people of New Orleans

[sanskritwarrior]

40. Yep I know all about Blackwater having been the NCO in charge of contractor

access to our FOB. Guess what? I met some fine fellows at Blackwater. That's right DU, scream and call me all kinds of names because I met some awesome guys that worked for Blackwater USA. ........I also met some Blackwater scumbags that should be in jail, but I'm betting no one will read that part.

Your photo essay proves nothing, it proves YOU THINK we live in a Fascist state....Again your words are not proof......

Call me when the newspapers are shut down and only 1 state paper is left.

Call me when Code Pink and UFPJ are gunned down while they protest

Call me when I am arrested for hanging a sign in my yard that says "Bush sucks"

Call me when my right to peacefully assemble is taken away

Call me when my right to protest my government is taken away

Call me when my son is taken from me and given to another family with "better political beliefs"........

Call me when Congress is burned down and the President is granted powers to arrest and have shot anyone that might have been involved.

Call me when the military has Abrams tanks lined up to shoot protestors........

We do not live in Fascism, again you saying we do is a slap in the face to people that suffered under real Fascism. We can go on like this forever, but you can't prove this is Fascism, I however can prove it is not.......

[seemslikeadream]

43. just because it doesn't affect your compy world

your not going to admit it. When it does it will be to late

[sanskritwarrior]

45. LOL if there was something to admit I would admit it.

Are we about done?

I'm not changing your mind, you're not changing mine.........Capiche?

[seemslikeadream]

54. Yes I am done with you

stay in your fantasy world and don't worry about a thing

[sanskritwarrior]

59. I worry about a lot of things

the US being a Fascist country aint one of them, that's about number 50 on my list of things I worry about.

Top 5 in case you wondered:

1. Will I survive my next tour in Iraq
2. The environment
3. Illegal Immigration
4. GM Foods
5. The value of my home

[seemslikeadream]

36. This is being done in our name we ARE them

We are our brothers keepers, just cause its not affecting YOU yet you can comfortly say it's not here yet

WHILE I SIT HERE TRYING TO THINK OF THINGS TO SAY


SOMEONE LIES BLEEDING IN A FIELD SOMEWHERE

SO IT WOULD SEEM WE'VE STILL GOT A LONG LONG WAY TO GO

I'VE SEEN ALL I WANNA SEE TODAY

WHILE I SIT HERE TRYING TO MOVE YOU ANYWAY I CAN


SOMEONE'S SON LIES DEAD IN A GUTTER SOMEWHERE

AND IT WOULD SEEM THAT WE'VE GOT A LONG LONG WAY TO GO

BUT I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE

SWITCH IT OFF IT WILL GO AWAY

TURN IT OFF IF YOU WANT TO

SWITCH IT OFF OR LOOK AWAY

WHILE I SIT AND WE TALK AND TALK AND WE TALK SOME MORE

SOMEONE'S LOVED ONE'S HEART STOPS BEATING IN A STREET SOMEWHERE

SO IT WOULD SEEM WE'VE STILL GOT A LONG LONG WAY TO GO, I KNOW

I'VE HEARD ALL I WANNA HEAR TODAY

TURN IT OFF IF YOU WANT TO (TURN IT OFF IF YOU WANT TO)

SWITCH IT OFF IT WILL GO AWAY (SWITCH IT OFF IT WILL GO AWAY)

TURN IT OFF IF YOU WANT TO (TURN IT OFF IF YOU WANT TO)

SWITCH IT OFF OR LOOK AWAY (SWITCH IT OFF OR LOOK AWAY)

SWITCH IT OFF

SWITCH IT OFF

SWITCH IT OFF

SWITCH IT OFF

SWITCH IT OFF

TURN IT OFF


thanks phil collins for the words
my heart to the people of Haiti

[seemslikeadream]

39. I wonder how the Native Americans feel about your compy stance

"By conservative estimates, the population of the United states prior to European contact was greater than 12 million. Four centuries later, the count was reduced by 95% to 237 thousand.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gQcoOSKx7M

[sanskritwarrior]

41. Oh lord...........

:eyes:.........

[seemslikeadream]

44. Native Americans would love your sympathy

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[seemslikeadream]

47. I wonder where you live sanskritwarrior

[sanskritwarrior]

50. LOL

you are cracking me up maam.........

Stormtroopers in Paradise

sounds like a Pepper song.........

where do you live?

[seemslikeadream]

52. Stormtroopers in Paradise

They're not in your back yard yet?

[sanskritwarrior]

55. Nope and I bet they

aren't in your's either.......

Look if you want to believe it is Fascism, that's cool, just don't get bent out of shape when someone finds such a suggestion funny......

[Name removed]

57. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Octafish]

29. Bush lied America into an illegal and immoral war.

Congress went along with the Big Lie.

That's fascist.

[sanskritwarrior]

32. No that's stupidity

and you know it......

[Octafish]

76. Wrong. It was an act of national policy, the same as when Germany attacked Poland.

An aggressor attacked a nation that was no threat and with which it was at peace.
For no reason of national security, Bush and the USA attacked Iraq.
That's NAZI.

Not all Americans are NAZI. Thank Goodness.

[sanskritwarrior]

77. Interesting can you prove a negative

[dogday]

82. No what is stupidity is believing that you

are protecting our freedoms by destroying a country which was not involved in 9-11 and killing a half million of it's people.... Since 50% of the population in Iraq is under 18, I would say we have killed many kids....

[sanskritwarrior]

92. When did I say I was protecting your freedoms?

Project much?

[dogday]

97. Narcissist much?

When I say you, I mean as referring to anyone... Not you personally...

[conscious evolution]

34. Smells like fascism to me.

[seemslikeadream]

35. some people will not admit they smell

the stench of burning flesh until it is too late

[sanskritwarrior]

42. And some people

will scream fire in a crowded movie theater in a pathetic attempt to gain attention........

[seemslikeadream]

48. Don't worry be happy

go lay back down in your hamock or do some more scubba diving. DON'T EVER ACCUSE ME OF DOING DRUGS I live in reality

[sanskritwarrior]

49. No thanks

I don't have a hammock....but on Monday I'll be back at work training for my next deployment in December.

[seemslikeadream]

51. That figures now I understand YOU completely

It's Sunday here already, say happy in your little world

[sanskritwarrior]

53. What do you mean you understand me

that's a bit arrogant, don't you think?

I'm just a simple soldier, and by your tone it sounds like that grates on you.

[seemslikeadream]

56. Oh no not at all

What are you doing here anyway, surfs not up yet?

[sanskritwarrior]

60. LOL 0300 is a little early to surf

And besides waves are flat-2 at my house.....not worth it.

[seemslikeadream]

62. BTW What are you fighting for in Iraq?

[sanskritwarrior]

63. My men

and this country, even when wrong it needs defenders.. Actually probably more now than ever before it needs good men and women to defend it........

[seemslikeadream]

64. Defend it from what??

[sanskritwarrior]

65. What kind of question is that?

Don't be coy, say what you mean.........

[seemslikeadream]

66. That's right - Defend from what?

Just what are you defending?

Actually probably more now than ever before it needs good men and women to defend it

[sanskritwarrior]

67. Is our country not f$cked up?

Does it not need good men and women liberals in its armed forces? Moreso now then ever before?

[seemslikeadream]

68. Yes but you are fighting the wrong fight

It's not the Iraqis you should be fighting, it's this administration

[sanskritwarrior]

69. Well do some research on my posts

The day the Supreme Court or the Congress makes the resident a criminal I will do my duty, until then he has broken no laws on which I can do anything on........

[seemslikeadream]

70. There's the problem sanskritwarrior

The president has broken laws and the congress is doing NOTHING about it

[sanskritwarrior]

71. And the military is not free to run amok

and arrest people without proof and a conviction........

[seemslikeadream]

72. no but you are free to live your convictions

Do you believe this is an illegal war?

[sanskritwarrior]

73. Hmmmm

I believe we went in when we shouldn't, but so far I have seen nothing from the govt. to make me believe it is "Illegal".....Untimely, ill-conceived, avoidable, are all words I would use, but as a soldier I can see nothing illegal about it.

[seemslikeadream]

74. Did we go to war based on lies?

[sanskritwarrior]

75. Again excellent question

my background in case you didn't know is Military Intelligence, well it used to be, I reclassed my MOS. Anyway from 1994-2001 when I was MI we believed Saddam Hussein had WMD's, we believed it so much we had a team of 20 people at III corps at Fort Hood from (96-99) that collected and analyzed intel from his supposed WMD program........I believed it when I was in the invasion convoys in 2003........

So I'm going to say it was not based on a lie, but it was based on incorrect analysis and that's mine and people like me's fault.......The govt. can only brief what it gets from its people and we dropped the ball.

[seemslikeadream]

78. Oh no my friend I don't think you've been paying attention Will you follow them to IRAN too?

It was not incorrect analysis.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/10/index.html#008117

HADLEY NAMED. La Repubblica has a dynamite series this week on the origin of the yellowcake forgeries. Laura Rozen reports:
With Patrick Fitzgerald widely expected to announce indictments in the CIA leaks investigation, questions are again being raised about the murky matter that first led to the appointment of the special counsel: namely, how the Bush White House came into possession of discredited Italian intelligence reports claiming that Iraq sought uranium "yellowcake" from Niger.
The key documents supposedly proving the Iraqi attempt turned out to be crude forgeries on official stationery stolen from the African nation's Rome embassy. Among the most tantalizing aspects of the debate over the Iraq War is the origin of those fake documents and the role of the Italian intelligence services in disseminating them.

In an explosive series of articles appearing this week in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo reveal how Niccolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, known as SISMI, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002.

Today's exclusive report in La Repubblica reveals that Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons.

The La Repubblica article quotes a Bush administration official saying, "I can confirm that on September 9, 2002, general Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley."

Laura will have more on this story later today.


and this


JANUARY 2001 BREAK-IN AT NIGER EMBASSY

At night, between the first and second of the January 2001, a mysterious thief came to the embassy of Niger in Rome and into the residence of the counselor in charge. It turned out that some letterhead and seals (see photocopy) were missing. A second dossier on Niger-Iraq trade soon came into Martino’s hands, one that included references to uranium trafficking. Martino claims he got it from embassy personnel and that he thought it was authentic.


http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/berlusconi-behind-fake-yellowcake.html

Double-Dealers and Dilettantes--the Men Behind Nigergate Were All Italians.

The military intervention in Iraq was justified by two revelations: Saddam Hussein attempted to acquire unprocessed uranium (yellowcake) in Niger (1) for enrichment with centrifuges built with aluminum tubes imported from Europe(2). The fabricators of the twin hoaxes (there was never any trace in Iraq of unprocessed uranium or centrifuges) were the Italian government and Italian military intelligence. La Repubblica has attempted to reconstruct the who, where and why of the manufacture and transfer to British and American intelligence of the dodgy dossier for war.

They are the same two hoaxes that Judith Miller, the reporter who betrayed her newspaper, published (together with Michael Gordon) on September 8, 2002. In a lengthy investigative piece for the New York Times, Miller reported that Saddam could have built an atomic weapon with those aluminum tubes. These were the goods that the hawks in the Bush administration were expecting.

The "war dance" which followed Judith Miller’s scoop seemed like "carefully-prepared theater” to an attentive media-watcher, Roberto Reale of Ultime Notizie (The Latest News).

Condoleezza Rice, who was then White House Security Advisor, said on CNN: We don’t want the smoking gun to look like a mushroom cloud. A menacing Dick Cheney told Meet the Press that We know with absolute certainty that Saddam is using his technical and commercial capacities to acquire the material necessary to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon. This was the beginning of an escalation of fear.

26 September 2002: Colin Powell warns the Senate: The Iraqi attempt to acquire uranium is proof of its nuclear ambitions.

19 December 2002: The information on Niger and the uranium is included in the three-page President’s Daily Briefing prepared each day by the CIA and the Department of State for George W. Bush. The ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, added his stamp of approval: Why is Iraq dissimulating its purchase of Niger uranium?

more

http://crookedtimber.org/2005/10/25/la-repubblica-scoop

....

It’s a fact that on the eve of the Iraq war, and under the supervision of the diplomatic advisor to the Foreign Ministry, Gianni Castellaneta (today ambassador to the USA), the director of SISMI organized his agenda in Washington with the staff of Condoleeza Rice, who was National Security Adviser to the White House at that time. La Repubblica is able to document this two track process between the government and Italian intelligence. At least one of these ‘barely official’ meetings of Pollari’s was, according to secret service agents, the ‘creation of a system’ that would bring together government, intelligence and public affairs .

To summarize: Nicolo Pollari’s SISMI wanted to substantiate the the Iraqi acquisition of raw uranium to build a nuclear bomb. The game-plan was rather transparent. ‘Authentic’ documents relating to an attempted acquisition in Niger (old Italian intelligence from the 1980’s) were the dowry of the second-in-command of CISMI’s Roman headquarters (Antonio Nucera). They were bundled together with another fabricated document … through a simulated burglary on the Nigerien embassy (from which they had gotten headed notepaper and seals). The documents were shown by Pollari’s men to CIA station agents, and at the same time, a SISMI ‘postman’ by the name of Rocco Martino was sent to Sir Richard Dearlove of MI6 in London.

turning to the second chapter of the Great Swindle, organized in Italy, to build the case that military intervention in Iraq was necessary. … the Italian report on uranium …

… The CIA analysts thought the first report ‘very limited’ and ‘without the necessary details.’ INR analysts in the Department of State assessed the information as ‘highly suspect.’ … The immediate impact on the American Intelligence community wasn’t very gratifying for Pollari … Gianni Castellaneta advised him to look in ‘other directions’ too, while the minister of Defence, Antonio Martino invited him to meet ‘an old friend of Italy’s.’ The American friend was Michael Ledeen, an old fox in the ‘parallel’ intelligence community in the US, who had been declared an undesirable person in our country in the 1980’s . Ledeen was at Rome on behalf of the Office of Special Plans, created at the Pentagon by Paul Wolfowiz to gather intelligence that would support military intervention in Iraq. A source at Forte Braschi told La Repubblica : “Pollari got a frosty reception from the CIA’s station head in Rome, Jeff Castelli, for this information on uranium. Castelli apparently let the matter drop . Pollari got the hint and talked about it with Michael Ledeen.’ We don’t know what Michael Ledeen did in Washington. But at the beginning of 2002, Paul Wolfowitz convinced Dick Cheney that the uranium trail intercepted by the Italians had to be explored top to bottom. The vice-president, as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence tells it, once again asked the CIA ‘very decisively’ to find out more about the ‘possible acquisition of Nigerien uranium.’ In this meeting, Dick Cheney explicitly said that this piece of intelligence was at the disposition of a “foreign service.”

… Forte Braschi says that “Pollari was incredibly cunning – he knew that it wasn’t enough to rely on the CIA to push the uranium story. It was necessary to work, as Palazzo Chigi and the Department of Defence had indicated, with the Pentagon and with the National Security Adviser, Rice. … An administration official has told La Repubblica “I can confirm that on September 9 2002, General Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley, the deputy to the National Security Adviser, Condoleeza Rice.”… SISMI’s ‘postman,’ Rocco Martino contacted a journalist for a weekly newspaper – edited by Carlo Rossella – to sell her the documents at issue. … Panorama had a worldwide scoop. Title “The War? It’s already begun,’ it spoke of ‘half a ton of uranium.’ … The government asked. The intelligence service gave. The media spread it. The government confirmed it. It was an old disinformation technique from the Cold War. Exaggerate the danger of the threat. Terrify and convince public opinion of it.

more
http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/sismis-war-in-iraq-iranian-connection.html


Monday, October 31, 2005
SISMI's War in Iraq: The Iranian Connection

Carlo Bonini and Giuseppi d'Avanzo are at it again. Another three-part blockbuster exposé on the involvement of Italian Military intelligence inside Iraq.

Part I: From Chelabi to Iranian Agents--SISMI's War in Iraq
A strategic summit in Rome with the Pentagon.

ROME: He’s another politico-military intelligence chief. He’s a SISMI man. He makes his way slowly down the narrow hallway of the bar at the Hotel Eden in via Ludovisi. He stops to admire the sky and the attractive skyline of Rome in the April sun (it is 22 April 2003) through the hotel’s large windows. He looks elegant in his Chairman's Committee grisaille. . He selects a table at the center of the terrace. The waiter walks over and solicitously takes his order. The gentleman orders a freshly-squeezed orange juice and a double espresso. The Anglo-American invasion of Iraq began on the night of 19-20 March, thirty-three days earlier.

Today, as Silvio Berlusconi reveals that he never supported the military intervention in Iraq, it is fitting to tell the story of how our country, Italy, although allegedly opposed to war as our Premier now claims, was an active protagonist in war preparations and operations.

We will reveal the different arrangements and plans of action, as well as who planned them and with whom they were planned.

For us Italians, recounts the high-ranking SISMI official to La Repubblica, the war on Iraq was already underway in the days before Christmans, 2002. He smiles. He is animated with a glint of excitement in his eyes and for once seems seems to have no qualms about letting his personal satisfaction slip from behind a frozen mask.

Our man is too disciplined to crow about his successes and too stubborn to be discouraged by defeat. He tells us: It was a novelty, a revolution for our intelligence services. Never before in its history has SISMI been so prominently involved in military ground operations and a major role in planning a war campaign, to boot. The Italian Government? Of course our work was authorized by the Italian Government—are you joking? It was real war, not an exercise! The twenty men we sent to Iraq were risking their lives. He pauses. The espresso arrives. He sips it slowly, his eyes half-closed with satisfaction.

He continues. Twenty men from three SISMI departments were involved: Intelligence, Operations and Counterterrorism. They were divided into small groups which were to operate in and around the areas of Kirkuk, Baghdad and Basrah using outlandish disguises. Each unit was unaware of the identities and the mission of the others. Each unit was ordered to operate within a sector of territory and to work with intelligence “assets” who had already been selected and trained. The objectives were twofold: To identify Iraqi defenses and to evaluate the readiness of the Iraqi armed forces.

If combat was less intense than expected, it is due to the job we did—and we didn’t do it alone. If we won the war before firing a shot, it was due to our successes at infiltration and intelligence-gathering.

The story of Italian military intervention in Iraq begins when the resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Ledeen, sponsored by Defense Minister Antonio Martino, debarks in Rome with Pentagon men in tow to meet a handful of “Iranian exiles.” The meeting is organized by SISMI. In an Agency “safe house” near Piazza di Spagna (however, other sources have told us it was a reserved room in the Parco dei Principi Hotel).


"Reid: Cheney Obstructing Investigation"

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002979.html

Reid: Cheney Obstructing Investigation
From Laura Rosen at War and Piece...

Reid on Fire

The New Republic has more on what I reported last month: that Cheney has intervened with chairman Pat Roberts to obstruct the Senate Select Intelligence committee's investigation of the Bush administration's use of Iraq intelligence. TNR write:

...--More dramatically, Reid also made it clear that he believes the delay in the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation of prewar Iraq WMD--the underlying issue behind Tuesday's closed session--is entirely attributable to Vice President Dick Cheney. "Nothing happens regarding intelligence gathering ... unless it's signed off on by the Vice President," he said. " Roberts couldn't do it"--i.e., Roberts couldn't conduct a full investigation without Cheney's approval. When I asked Reid whether he meant to state so flatly that Cheney was personally and directly stalling the Intelligence Committee's work, he didn't pause a beat. In fact he almost stood from his chair. "Yes. I say that without any qualification ... Circle it." ...

I don't understand why we haven't heard Pat Roberts complaining more vociferously about the obstruction he's experienced from the Veep. Why would the Senator stand for the administration bucking oversight and Congressional reporting requirements on Iraq intelligence, torture, black site prisons, etc.? (Via Tapped's Ezra Klein).



http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051103/pl_afp/usital ...

But committee staff sources say that before the cooperation ceased, the committee had received from Feith’s office internal memos suggesting that the office may indeed have been conducting unlawful activities. In particular, Democratic staffers are interested in a secret December 2001 meeting of two Feith deputies, Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode, with Ghorbanifar in Rome. The meeting also included members of a foreign intelligence service (Italy’s SISMI). The catch is that it wasn’t reported in advance to the intelligence committee or the CIA, in possible violation of Section 502 of the National Security Act, which says that anyone conducting intelligence activities must inform the committee and the agency



"Italy MPs probe Niger-Iraq claim"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4402594.stm

Italy MPs probe Niger-Iraq claim

The director of the Italian military intelligence agency (Sismi) is due to give evidence over allegations that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger.

Nicolo Pollari is testifying before a parliamentary committee over reports that Italy wilfully gave the US and UK evidence that turned out to be false......


The Italian hearing into the claims is being held behind closed doors, but some details were expected to emerge later.

Italian newspaper La Repubblica says Italian agents gave the false dossier to British and American intelligence services........


"Niger Uranium Forgeries: Excavating a Roman Mystery"



One has to wonder how Laura can have such certain knowledge of what Fitzgerald has or has not requested. Ah, but if there is no such report -- and she cites the head of the Italian intelligence oversignt committee, one Enzo Bianco, denying it -- then how can Fitzgerald have requested it? There is, here, perhaps some confusion as to the nature of the "report" -- is it official, or is it just a transcript of a hearing? I think this guy, whoever he is, has the right idea.

Giovanni D'Avanzo, writing in La Repubblica , poses a few questions to Senor Bianco's oversight committee, and in the course of them avers:

"Sometime after October 9, 2002, a team of SISMI agents are ordered to keep Rocco Martino under close surveillance ... Why was no surveillance memo or report issued to judicial investigators on Rocco Martino, who is investigated by the Rome Public Prosecutor’s office in 2003, until the fall of 2004?"

So there was an investigation, albeit not by the Italian parliament but by Rome's public prosecutor. It could be that this is what both Walker's and my own sources are referring to.

Laura cites several other skeptics, including a reporter for La Repubblica and "a former U.S. official recently in Italy," who say this story is "the echo of a rumor put out by people back the States." She also cites Vince Cannistraro, "who at one time heard rumors of such a report from Italian sources," and who

"Now says there doesn't appear to be a parliamentary report either. 'There is no published report,”'Cannistraro told me Monday. 'If there is a report, we might expect it would have some analysis and conclusions. There is no report, at least not a published report. …I think this stuff is just getting circulated.'"

Of course it isn't published -- that's the whole point.

Yes, it's true, as Laura says, that the Italians aren't too eager to have the blame pinned on SISMI -- but that doesn't mean SISMI isn't involved. And some Italians -- the left-wing opposition coalition, for example -- might be understandably eager to expose the scandal in the run-up to Italy's elections scheduled for next year.

Laura goes into the Italian role in creating and disseminating these documents, referring to the La Repubblica series on the subject, but somehow neglects to mention the crucial American angle -- and the key role of American neocons, i.e. Michael Ledeen, in funneling the information contained in the Niger forgeries to Washington. Someone legitimized these fake documents by doing an end run around the CIA and the mainstream intelligence community, and injected a fabrication into the American intelligence stream. Who was it? La Repubblica fingers the Office of Special Plans, and names names, including Ledeen, Harold Rhode, and Larry Franklin, the confessed spy for Israel.

...

I trust my source, and I furthermore think it's unimportant whether this information is coming from the Italian parliament or Rome's public prosecutor: the point is that the information is there, and it's getting out. Antiwar.com stands by its story.


"Open the Ledeen Dossier!"


The stakes involved in the Ledeen dossier are much more significant than the particular incident around the yellowcake. As EIR documented at great length, Ledeen is not just a nasty American political operative, but had been brought into the service of one of the remnant fascist organizations of the Mussolini era, the Propaganda Two (P-2) freemasonic lodge. P-2, which was founded by avowed wartime fascist grandmaster Licio Gelli, is an outgrowth of the Venetian synarchist bankers network which runs international terrorism, and proceeds from the avowed aim of destroying all nation-states, particularly the United States. The P-2 network has been exposed over the past 20-plus years as the real center of international terrorism, including the left and right wings of the "strategy of tension" which carried out such atrocities as the 1980 Bologna bombing, and the assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro.

Italian political life is riddled with assets, if not outright agents, of the P-2. Notable among them is Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi himself, whose membership card is a matter of public record. Given the prominence of P-2 influence in Italy, it should be no surprise that the Italians, under a Berlusconi government, were the ones who provided the cover of the forged Niger yellowcake documents, to support the Cheney-Bush war drive.

The question raised here is a fundamental one. The role of former P-2ers Ledeen and Berlusconi in promoting the war, underscores the reality that the drive for empire and world dictatorship, for which Cheney is a frontman, is in fact the project of an international synarchist oligarchy, the direct descendants of those banking families who funded Hitler and Mussolini, and created World War II. Cheney is undoubtedly a fascist thug, eager to carry out whatever wars, torture, and economic genocide are on the agenda of the desperate synarchist bankers. But the brains for these operations come from the top level of the heirs of the Venetian banking system, who know that they will destroy the United States as a republic by carrying out these plans.

The prime objective for all those patriots and world-citizens who wish to save this planet from a descent into a New Dark Age, is, of course, to remove Dick Cheney from office. But exposing the roots of Cheney policies in the global Venetian synarchist banking system, is a crucial concomitant, if we are to get the alternative, FDR-like policy put into effect.




How would the neocon think tanks view martial law? Michael Ledeen, a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, and close and trusted White House adviser, has this to say on p. 173 of his book Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli’s Iron Rules Are As Timely and Important Today As Five Centuries Ago: “Paradoxically, preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader – a dictator – willing to use those dreaded 'extraordinary measures,' which few know how, or are willing, to employ."

According to the Boston Globe, Ledeen in a 2003 speech to the American Enterprise Institute, asserted our nation’s insatiable lust for war by claiming that "All the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war. . .What we hate is not casualties but losing." Did anyone in the media ever challenge an administration spokesman to defend Ledeen’s staggeringly wrongheaded, anti-American values? Did any of the (self-described) scholars at AEI that day ask why the GD fool would say such a thing? President Bush, for his part has personally offered these congratulations to the AEI: “At the American Enterprise Institute, some of the finest minds in our nation are at work on some of the greatest challenges to our nation. You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds.”

The leaders of the War Machine – with their gulags, their lies, their senseless, immoral war – do not treat enemies and purported enemies terribly well. In the event of martial law, it would be naïve indeed to suspect that they would treat Americans any better. Patriots – left, right and center – should unite under the American flag to stop the War Machine today while they still can. The impeachment of Bush and Cheney is the obvious place to start. We, the people, should demand it of the US Congress, just as statesmen and citizens of their time demanded the Bill of Rights. Congress should be ordered, as well, to act responsibly and responsively and in the best interest of the sovereign Republic of the United States of America, not in the interest of neocon warmongers.


"Italy's Top Spy Names Freelance Agent as Source of Forged Niger-Iraq"

... Uranium Documents


http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://www.nytim ...

Italy's Top Spy Names Freelance Agent as Source of Forged Niger-Iraq Uranium Documents

November 4, 2005 by ELAINE SCIOLINO and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

ROME, Nov. 3 - Italy's spymaster identified an Italian occasional spy named Rocco Martino on Thursday as the disseminator of forged documents that described efforts by Iraq to buy uranium ore from Niger for a nuclear weapons program, three lawmakers said Thursday.

The spymaster, Gen. Nicolò Pollari, director of the Italian military intelligence agency known as Sismi, disclosed that Mr. Martino was the source of the forged documents in closed-door testimony to a parliamentary committee that oversees secret services, the lawmakers said.

Senator Massimo Brutti, a member of the committee, told reporters that General Pollari had identified Mr. Martino as a former intelligence informer who had been "kicked out of the agency." He did not say Mr. Martino was the forger.

The revelation came on a day when the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that it had shut down its two-year investigation into the origin of the forged documents.


http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002983.html

Laura Rozen: "The (Niger forgeries) Report that Wasn't"

For weeks in the run-up to the Libby indictment last Friday, reports swirled in the blogosphere and some wires. They contended that CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had “widened his probe” to include investigating the origins of the Niger yellowcake forgeries themselves. They spoke of Fitzgerald getting ahold of a secret Italian parliamentary report that reportedly fingered a gang of American neoconservatives and aides to Ahmad Chalabi as being behind the Niger forgeries.

...

There’s just one problem: Not only has Fitzgerald not received such a report or even indicated he has any interest in one. There is no Italian parliamentary report, published or unpublished, on the Niger forgeries. In fact, until today, there has been no Italian parliamentary investigation of the Niger forgeries, or the claim promoted by the Italian military intelligence organization Sismi to the CIA and other western intelligence agencies that Iraq was seeking vast quantities of yellowcake uranium in Niger.

...

A reporter with the Italian newspaper Repubblica, which published a blockbuster series on the origins of the Niger forgeries last week, said that he heard rumors of such a report while in Washington this past summer, and went back to Italy and checked them out with his sources. He was left scratching his head. Not only is there no such report, there is as yet no such Italian parliamentary investigation. Sismi’s director Nicolo Pollari was interviewed by the Italian parliamentary committee overseeing the intelligence services on Thursday, in a closed-door session.

...

The Italian military intelligence organization Sismi reported that Iraq had signed a contract to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake uranium from Niger to the CIA in October 2001 and February 2002. It also reported those claims to Britain’s foreign intelligence service, the MI6, which reported them back to Washington. A motley crew including a senior Sismi officer, a former Sismi officer turned intelligence peddler (Rocco Martino), and a Sismi asset at the Niger embassy in Rome were identified by Repubblica as having collaborated to assemble the Niger forgeries, after staging a robbery on New Year’s Day 2001 to get official Niger embassy letterhead and a diplomatic codebook. Martino reportedly sold the dossier of forgeries to the French, the British, attempted but failed to sell them to the American embassy in Rome, and to an Italian reporter working for a Berlusconi owned magazine.


Lets hope Fitzgerald really does stay un-compromised, period because everyone knows from reading it Cheney deflected the blame to Italy.

The real forgers were NOT mentioned ie Duane Claridge so you can immediately see it.....total fucking whitewash in progress and its going to take a huge entity/army to get this bastard once and for all.

Notice how there was never any mention of....MICHAEL LEDEEN, mossad etc....

More about the Whitewash....you can spot them a damn mile away now.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051103/wl_mideast_af ...

"no one here has any recollection of Niger and uranium being discussed"


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com /

QUESTION: Thank you. Any more explanation of the Berlusconi-President discussion about Italian intelligence on Iraq -- is this to say that Mr. Fitzgerald's finding that the Niger claim had its genesis in Italian intelligence was wrong?
SCOTT McCLELLAN: Mr. Fitzgerald's -- I'll have to look back at what his finding was. I don't recall the specifics of that.

QUESTION: Fitzgerald found that what we had been calling British intelligence, the document -- the forged document --

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Maybe I missed that. I don't think so. I don't think so.

QUESTION: -- alleging an Iraq --

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Okay, I don't think he did.

QUESTION: I'm wrong on this?

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Maybe I'm wrong. But I don't think he --

QUESTION: That's not ringing any bells.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Yes.

QUESTION: It's not ringing any bells with other people either.

QUESTION: No, it is, it is. And I can't remember if it's Fitzgerald or somebody else, but there's this is the central issue is --

QUESTION: The central issue was --

QUESTION: -- the source of the --

QUESTION: The source of the forged document was Italy, who handed it to --

SCOTT McCLELLAN: No, the -- we actually briefed on the source of the information back in July of 2003, and the source was the National Intelligence Estimate and British Intelligence. That was the basis for the reference in the President's State of the Union address.

QUESTION: Fitzgerald found an Italian tie, and I presume this is what the discussion between the President and Berlusconi was about.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Yes, they -- like I said they -- Prime Minister Berlusconi brought it up, and as they indicated, that there wasn't any documents that were provided to us on Niger and uranium by --

QUESTION: Wait, no documents or no intelligence?

SCOTT McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?

QUESTION: The press report out of Italy is a transcription -- it's a transcription of the forged documents, not the actual documents themselves. But Berlusconi said yesterday was, no information passed from Italy to the United States.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Yes, I think he was accurately reflecting what he indicated in the meeting.

QUESTION: So that accurately characterizes the President's position, that the United States never received any intelligence --

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Well, Prime Minister Berlusconi was reflecting that within the meeting, and we've previously said in regards to a question that came up about a meeting here at the White House that no one here has any recollection of Niger and uranium being discussed at that meeting, much less any documents being provided.



http://neworleans.cox.net/cci/newsnational/nationa ...
Italian Lawmaker Says Country's Secret Service Warned U.S. That Iraq Uranium Documents Were Fake


"Hadley told a press briefing that he had briefly met the head of Italy's SISMI secret intelligence service, Nicolo Pollari, on September 9, 2002 in a "courtesy call" aimed at getting to know his new colleague.

"There was a meeting in Washington on that date. I did attend a meeting with him," Hadley said in response to a question about a report published last week in the Italian center-left newspaper La Repubblica, which disclosed the meeting.

"It was, so far as we can tell from our records, about less than 15 minutes. It was a courtesy call. Nobody participating in that meeting or asked about that meeting has any recollection of a discussion of natural uranium, or any recollection of any documents being passed. And that's also my recollection," he said."
AFP News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051103/pl_afp/usital ...

Well Hadley, I'm sure there was a meeting....and I'm also sure you took the Niger forgeries to Frederick Fleitz.

I mean, you wouldn't LIE about everything would you? And attempt to get executive priveledge to save your ass? Nah, not you Hadley, who lied about going to Italy to begin with!

http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp11012005.html

November 1, 2005

Berlusconi's Halloween Visit
The Plame Affair Leads to Rome
By GARY LEUPP

"All roads lead to Rome," and it seems that Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the Plame Affair, and more broadly the lies used to hoodwink the American people into supporting a criminal war on Iraq, will also trudge down the Appian Way lined this Halloween with the ghosts of crucified Iraqis.

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica has recently published an exposé alleging in essence that the Italian military intelligence agency SISMI (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare) at the specific behest of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi provided bogus intelligence to the Bush neocons in order to curry favor with the U.S. and to abet the relentless drive for war between 9-11 and the March 2003 invasion. This follows an Italian parliamentary report released in part to the public in July concerning the forged Niger uranium documents at the heart of the Plame Affair. These, which purport to show a deal between Baghdad and Niger for the purchase of huge quantities of yellowcake, were it seems produced in the Italian capital.

The report names four men as the likely forgers of the documents (Michael Ledeen, Dewey Clarridge, Ahmed Chalabi and Francis Brookes) and suggests that the forgeries may have been planned at December 2001 gathering in Rome involving Ledeen and SISMI chief Nicolò Pollari. Also in attendance at that meeting: Larry Franklin, Harold Rhode, Manucher Ghorbanifar, Antonio Martino and others including a former senior official of the Revolutionary Guard in Iran. Here is a true rogues' gallery.

Michael Ledeen: neocon columnist, National Review Online contributing editor, specialist on the thought of Machiavelli and on Italian fascism, former employee of the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council, was involved in the transfer of arms to Iran during the Iran-Contra affair. Active in the American Enterprise Institute, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and Center for Democracy in Iran (CDI). Advocates regime change by force in Iran and Syria.

Nicolò Pollari: Author of many publications on legal and economic matters, investigation techniques and intelligence. Tax law Professor at the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria. SISMI head since October 2001.

Dewey Clarridge: former CIA operative, famous in mid-1980s for his role in the Iran-Contra Affair. Head of CIA's Latin America division 1981-84, directed the mining of Nicaragua's harbors and helped organize the Contras. Indicted in November 1991 on seven counts of perjury and false statements, pardoned by first president Bush Christmas Eve 1992.

Ahmad Chalabi: convicted swindler, leader of U.S.-funded Iraqi National Congress, neocon ally, presently one of two deputy prime ministers in Iraqi government.

Francis Brookes: member of the "Rendon Group," a "public relations" body formed by the Pentagon engaged to promote Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress.

Larry Franklin: colonel in USAF reserve, subordinate to Douglas Feith in Defense Department, Middle East specialist, under arrest for espionage for Israel.

Harold Rhode: Pentagon official, Middle East specialist, Ledeen protégé, American Enterprise Institute, heavy neocon.

Manucher Ghorbanifar: Iranian exile, arms dealer, one-time CIA operative distrusted by CIA since 1980s. Key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Antonio Martino: Founding member of Forza Italiano (Berlusconi's political party), Professor of Economics, adjunct scholar with the Heritage Foundation, Italian Defense Minister.




"Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi."

Alan Wolf died about a year and a half ago of cancer. He served as chief of the CIA's Near East Division as well as the European Division, and was also CIA chief of station in Rome after Clarridge. According to my source, "he and Clarridge and Ledeen were all very close and also close to Chalabi." The former CIA officer says Wolf "was Clarridge's Agency godfather. Significantly, both Clarridge and Wolf also spent considerable time in the Africa division, so they both had the Africa and Rome connection and both were close to Ledeen, closing the loop."

A veteran of the Iran-Contra scandal, Ledeen played an important role in the Iran-Contra "arms for hostages" scandal by setting up meetings between the American government and the Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. Not all that unexpected coming from a self-proclaimed advocate of Machiavelli's amoralism. Today, Ledeen is among the most visible and radical neoconservative ideologues whose passion for a campaign of serial "regime-change" in the Middle East is undiminished by the Iraqi debacle. Just as the Roman senator Cato the Elder finished his perorations with the command "Carthage must be destroyed," so Michael "Creative Destruction" Ledeen closes his hopped-up warmongering essays with "Faster, please!," an exhortation presumably addressed to his confreres in the Bush administration.

Ledeen has kept the neocon faith – and the same friends – for all these years. He's still buddies with Ghorbanifar. In December 2001, he had a meeting in Rome with Ghorbanifar in the company of the Pentagon's top Iran specialist, Larry Franklin, and Harold Rhode, assigned to the Office of Net Assessment, a Pentagon think tank. Also at the Rome conclave: a number of Ghorbanifar's Iranian friends, including a former senior official of the Revolutionary Guard. Rounding out the distinguished guest list, we have the Italian delegation, consisting of SISMI head honcho Nicolo Pollari, the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, and Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino, a neocon favorite. Once again, Ledeen plays the middleman – but what kind of a deal was he trying to negotiate?

more
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10571.htm


At the beginning of 2001, a few weeks before George Bush took office, there was a break-in at the Niger embassy in Rome. Strangely, nothing of value was taken. Months later came 9/11 and a month after that, as George Bush wondered how to get back at the terrorists, a report from the Italian security service (Sismi) reached the CIA: Iraq was seeking to buy uranium.

Disappointingly for the neocons, the CIA sent Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger to check the story: he reported that it was nonsense. When the story was repeated by Bush, Wilson went public. His wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame, was then outed by the White House. Hence Rove's predicament.

An organisation called the Office of Special Plans (OSP) was set up in the Pentagon by Douglas Feith, a former consultant to Israel's Likud party, to prepare for the war. In the words of Robert Baer, a distinguished former CIA man, it was a "competing intelligence shop at the Pentagon"..."if you didn't like the answer you're getting from the CIA". In short, bogus stories would get a second chance at the OSP.

A clue to the ancestry of these black arts can be found in 1980, when right-wing Republicans wanted Ronald Reagan elected. They publicised a story that Billy Carter, the then President Jimmy Carter's colourful brother, had received $50,000 (£28,000) from the Libyan government.

The story was always denied by the President and no evidence of the payment was found, but the story helped to elect Reagan. Its source? Sismi, and an associate of a man called Michael Ledeen.


First of all, I am not a leftist. Secondly, the sources for the quotes of former CIA and DIA agent Philip Giraldi were my interviews of him, as indicated in the correctly transcribed entry on the Wikipedia page, and which I provided the mp3 link for. Fourth, I am happy that the US is no longer part of the British Empire.

As far as Ledeen and the Niger uranium forgeries, Giraldi explained in the interviews that the "couple of CIA agents" were paid in foreign accounts and that Fitzgerald had "already found the money trail." Ledeen's connections to the Office of Special Plans and Sismi are well documented, he attended a number of meetings in Italy with Harold Rhode, who "practically lived out of (Iranian spy) Ahmad Chalabi's office," Manucher Ghorbanifar and guilty Israeli spy Larry Franklin, around the time the Italians began passing on the (already debunked) story back to the US.

As Josh Marshall put it in The Hill:

"he intelligence reports that came in to Washington in late 2001 were from Italian military intelligence, SISMI. The other detail, according to intelligence sources I’ve spoken to, is that those reports turned out to be text transcriptions of Niger forgeries that didn’t surface in Rome until almost a year later...

From the very beginning, American suspicions about a Niger-Iraq trade in uranium were based on what turned out to be the forged documents. And the text transcriptions of those documents came in from Italian intelligence...

Burba, the Italian journalist who eventually brought the forgeries to the U.S. Embassy in Rome, got them from an unnamed Italian “security consultant.” His name turns out to be Rocco Martino, a retired SISMI operative. And as I mentioned last week, last summer, my colleagues and I conducted a series of in-person interviews with him.

It has sometimes been suggested in the Italian press that Martino himself is the forger. But he told us a different story — one that was corroborated by another participant in the handling of the documents. Martino told us that the documents came from a still-serving SISMI colonel, whom he named."

But where did they originate? Giraldi's partner, Vincent Cannistraro, Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council under Reagan, has maintained that they were produced in the US and has said, "You'd be very close," in answer to the question of whether Ledeen forged them.

Combined with what Giraldi had to say, it sure seems like enough to take to a grand jury to me.

Or is it not a crime to lie a country into war?




July Friday 29th 2005 (05h28) :
KARL ROVE, MICHAEL LEDEEN SPIES PROCURED FORGED NIGER DOCUMENTS


KARL ROVE and VARIOUS SPIES HE IS LINKED TO

Karl Rove’s only full-time foreign-policy advisor is Michael Ledeen, a rabid anti-Arab, pro-Israel activist. The FBI is investigating Ledeen for procuring forged documents (shown here) on nonexistent WMD, which George Bush used to justify his war on Iraq. When Joseph Wilson exposed the farce, Rove helped "out" Wilson’s CIA wife. Did Ledeen procure the documents for Rove, and how might he have done that? The story includes multinational stool pigeon Rocco Martino, Italian spy Francesco Pazienza, wanted CIA spy Robert Seldon Lady, and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, who’s under charges of giving US secrets to Israel.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Rove’s foreign-policy advisor, Michael Ledeen, proclaimed "the rightness of the fascist cause" in 1972. In 1984 he got George Bush Sr to appoint Iranian arms merchant and Iranian/Israeli double-agent Manucher Ghorbanifar as a middleman in the scandalous Iran-Contra affair. Ledeen has been a fixture in Washington and Israel ever since, advocating a modern version of the Crusades against Islamic nations. Based on what he has said and written, I believe Ledeen is insane.
Michael Ledeen, Rove’s "brain," is one of the leading advocates for a US attack on Iran. The Washington Post quoted Ledeen as saying that Rove told him, "Anytime you have a good idea, tell me." I guess that means we can look forward to the Bush team drumming up a war with Iran.

George Bush Jr., when he assumed the presidency in 2000, already knew that he was going to settle the family score with Saddam Hussein. His "brain," Rove, quickly enlisted Ledeen to trump up a causus belli.

EARLY 2000: ROCCO MARTINO AND THE FRENCH CONNECTION

...


The war is not just about oil, Israel’s fears/ambitions, or US hegemony. There are contracts and contractors in Iraq. Modern-day carpetbaggers with briefcases descended like a plague of scorpions on the poor, bloodied, bombed-out, grieving people of Iraq. They included the daughter of the war’s chief banshee -- Simone Ledeen, Michael’s young daughter -- shown in the photo, greeting with an impish smile another occupier at the Baghdad airport -- getting ready to lord it over the Iraqis as she tries out her new MBA in working for the CPA. Caption: "The creatures step out of the tripods." Maybe it’ll help to pay off those student loans -- huh, Michael?


http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/19/14555 ...

Keyser Soze aka Michael Ledeen.

Michael Ledeen was one of the founders of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). He holds the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a think tank for AIPAC. He is co-founder of the Coalition for Democracy in Iran. As far back as 1980, the CIA allegedly listed Ledeen as an agent of influence of Israel. Ledeen is the main foreign policy advisor to Karl Rove. Ledeens main obsession seems to be to overthrow Iran.

In 1972 he published the book Universal Fascism, in which he expounds upon "the rightness of the fascist cause." In Universal Fascism, Ledeen first builds his case that fascism was the "20th Century Revolution" and that "people yearn for the real thing - revolution". It's the blueprint for a fascist revolution.

In 1980 he collaborated with Francesco Pazienza of SISMI and P-2 in the "BillyGate" affair. This is the same Pazienze who was recently found out to belong to the parallel intelligence agency in Italy. In 1985 Pazienza was found guilty of political manipulation, forgery, and the protection of terrorists. Ledeen is identified in court documents as an agent of SISMI.

The Pentagon downgraded Ledeen's security clearances from Top Secret-SCI to Secret in the mid-1980s, after the FBI began a probe of Ledeen for passing classified materials to a foreign
country, believed to be Israel.

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/MichaelLedeen.html


"Everything You Need to Know About Michael Ledeen"


April 7, 2005

Everything You Need to Know About Michael Ledeen
By Katherine Yurica

Would you be surprised to find that a man who was deeply involved in the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan Administration, a man who is the darling of the Bush White House and is an adviser to Karl Rove, a man who loves Machiavelli and studies him, a neo-conservative who has close ties to one of America’s leading “Christian” Dominionists—Pat Robertson, and a man who called Pearl Harbor “lucky” and a providentially inspired event—may be the man who is behind the forging of the Niger documents that convinced America to launch a preemptive strike against Iraq?

<snip>

It would be foolish for America’s political strategists and congressional leaders to ignore Michael Ledeen and his interpretation of Machiavelli. Mr. Ledeen speaks from the cutting edge of a group of men and women who desire nothing more than to reconstruct America in their own image. This nation is in grave danger. Ledeen belongs to a group of men, including Harry Jaffa, Pat Robertson, Willmoore Kendall to Allan Bloom, who, according to Shadia Drury, scholar and author of Leo Strauss and the American Right, share “the view that America is too liberal and pluralistic and that what it needs is a single orthodoxy that governs the public and private lives of its citizens.”<1>

The belief in a single voice that governs the public should cause all Americans to understand these men want to convert this nation to a permanent dictatorship. Their inspirer was Leo Strauss, a professor who taught Machiavellian methods to many of them at the University of Chicago. In fact, Paul Wolfovitz earned his doctorate under Strauss and many of the neo-cons in the White House studied under him. Strauss believed every society needs a “single public orthodoxy.” As Drury put it, “a set of ideas that defines what is true and false, right and wrong, noble and base.” Strauss believed that the role of religion was indispensable to the political success of a nation. For a political society had to hold together and act as a unit in lock step with the leader. Strauss believed that religion was the means to inculcate the desired ideas into the minds of the masses. He didn’t care what religion—just as long as it was a religion that could link itself to the political order.

[sanskritwarrior]

79. I have been remarkably polite

I know the analysis I put together from 1996-1999 we even used some of it when President Clinton bombed Iraq in december 1998....Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs were attacked, our analysis was a small part of that, we helped select targets based on HUMINT and SIGINT....fast forward to 2002-2003,so YES we in the intel community need to be held to account long before our leaders. We screwed up worse than they did.

As for Iran, if I am still in the Army and if Congress, you know our Congress, if they pass a resolution then yes I will follow into Iran. If Bush does it without consulting with Congress I will follow and hope to God the Congress impeachs him immediately to get me out of my obligation.

[seemslikeadream]

80. Many people are paying a high price for YOUR screw up then

[sanskritwarrior]

81. Mine and a lot of other people

I might pay that price myself from December 2007-March 2009.........

[seemslikeadream]

86. Just remember sanskritwarrior

God made Truth with many doors to welcome every believer who knocks on them.-----Khalil Gibran

[sanskritwarrior]

93. Yes and he made the ignore button for creepy stalkers

that use my profile to prove "points" to me........

[Karenina]

85. "I have been remarkably polite"

in revealing the obviously impenetrable brainwashing that perpetuates the American genocide. It's truly a remarkable sight to behold. :scared:
Thank you for your service. :patriot:

[sanskritwarrior]

127. Yeah I'm the Brainwashed one

American genocide? WTF????? Oh lord more of this nonsense.......

[Karenina]

145. So interesting how your posts

mirror the arrogance, incompetence, willful ignorance and Übermensch mentality of the genocidal *warlords you so eagerly and willingly serve. Make a "mistake" in "intelligence?" No accountability. Too bad OUR loved ones are dead and wounded. Accuse and offer no proof. Indeed, declare it unnecessary. Forget that part of the "sacred oath" that says DOMESTIC ENEMIES. The brainwashing precludes EVER RECOGNIZING THOSE WHO ARE DESTROYING AMERICA for the slimy scum that they are. Anyone who didn't before can CLEARLY see why there were 4 dead in Ohio. May you live long enough to have an epiphany that the REAL "rules" are the same as in kindergaten:

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN

(a guide for Global Leadership)

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:

* Share everything.
* Play fair.
* Don't hit people.
* Put things back where you found them.
* Clean up your own mess.
* Don't take things that aren't yours.
* Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
* Wash your hands before you eat.
* Flush.
* Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
* Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
* Take a nap every afternoon.
* When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
* Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
* Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
* And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
http://www.robertfulghum.com/ >

[sanskritwarrior]

146. LOL

now you're just being rude on purpose. I never said no one in the administration should not be held accountable, I would enjoy you trying to prove I did say it.

My loved ones are dead and wounded as well, some of my closest friends bled out in the sands of Mesopotamia.

Since when do I get to decide who is a domestic enemy and who is not? The whole point of the oath is to have a military that is loyal to the nation and will act whenever a domestic enemy is named and identified by the government. I don't get to decide who that enemy is and so far the Congress nor the courts have declared anyone a domestic enemy. Just because you want me to engage in treason doesn't mean I am going to do it. However, the second the Congress or the courts declare George Bush an enemy of the state it is not treason and I will do my duty to remove him from office. I'm sorry that the laws of this country piss you off, it's really not my fault.

Again calling me brainwashed does nothing to advance your beliefs, if anything it makes me label you a loon that isn't worth my time to even listen to. People who call me brainwashed for not agreeing with them are nothing more than bullies, I don't react well to bullies, if anything I write them off as braindead fools. It's easy to call someone brainwashed that doesn't agree with you, it is also pretty childish and immature. We as a nation are not being destroyed, we are nowhere near being destroyed and only breathless fanatics with no concept of how strong our country is really believe that we are on the path to doom. Are we fucked up right now? You bet, do we have a corrupt administration right now? You bet. Are our leaders failing "we the people", you bet. However we are not on a path to destruction and again claiming we are is so intellectually wrong as to merit a laughing fit to overcome me. So yes I laugh at you Karenina, I laugh at you when you call me brainwashed just because I disagree with you, I laugh at you when you say I am a shill for President, when I dare any DUer to find one nice word I have said about Bush. I laugh at you when you say I don't understand the Oath of Enlistment, when I understand it far better than someone like you ever will.....

Now you will read this get bent out of shape and do one of two things.

A. hit the alert button which I'm sure you are tempted to do, and yet I have done nothing against the rules and have been far more polite than any of my antagonists in this thread.

B. hit me up with another silly screed about how I am the problem, how I am just a brainwashed fool, and how I am just a shill, even though you have no evidence, not even a shred.........

How progressive of you.............. :eyes:

[Karenina]

147. A screed from one of your "Brothers-in-Arms"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1136368

Selatius Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Jun-19-07 01:52 AM
Original message
War Is a Racket pamphlet
Edited on Tue Jun-19-07 01:55 AM by Selatius
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

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

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it.

Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

-- Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, USMC; War Is a Racket, 1935

[Octafish]

88. Bush killed an American Citizen without due process of law. That's NAZI.

Hope this isn't proving a negative:

CIA Killed U.S. Citizen In Yemen Missile Strike

Action's Legality, Effectiveness Questioned

by Dana Priest
Published on Friday, November 8, 2002 by the Washington Post

A U.S. citizen was among the people killed in the pilotless missile strike on suspected al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen Sunday, administration officials confirmed yesterday, adding a new element to an attack that reflects the evolving nature of the U.S. war on terrorism around the world.

Ahmed Hijazi and five other suspected al Qaeda operatives were killed by a five-foot long Hellfire missile launched from a remote controlled CIA Predator aircraft as they rode in a vehicle 100 miles east of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.

Hijazi held U.S. citizenship and was also a citizen of an unidentified Middle Eastern country, a senior administration official confirmed. He was not born in the United States, but resided here for an unknown period of time, the official said.

With him in the vehicle, said Yemeni and U.S. government officials, was a senior al Qaeda leader, Abu Ali al-Harithi, who is suspected of masterminding the October 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole.

Hijazi's citizenship highlights the different approaches pursued simultaneously by the administration as it wages its war on terror. In some cases since Sept. 11, American citizens have been arrested and afforded traditional legal rights in the criminal justice system. In others, they have been captured and held indefinitely in military brigs as "enemy combatants." Now, at least in Hijazi's case, a citizen has been killed in a covert military action.

What's more, Hijazi was killed in a country considered at peace with the United States, although U.S. officials say the strike was carried out with the approval and cooperation of Yemen's government.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1108-05.htm

I don't like NAZIs. Why some people can't see them, I don't know.

[Name removed]

91. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Octafish]

94. Killing innocent people is NAZI.

Bush deciding who is guilty is NAZI.

No it's not

Posted by sanskritwarrior

that is not Nazi like at all..........JEEBUS H CHRIST you are a thick one.........

PS: Rather be thick than a NAZI enabler.

[sanskritwarrior]

95. Right...........

I'm a Nazi enabler and you're the good witch of the West........don't walk into the light Carol Ann.........Pointless talking to a zealot........

[conscious evolution]

96. None are so blind

as those who refuse to see.

[sanskritwarrior]

98. None are so lame as those

who try to use metaphors instead of answering

[conscious evolution]

107. I don't owe answers to those

who take part in war crimes.
They owe us answers.

[sanskritwarrior]

108. So whose the war criminal?

[Octafish]

114. George W Bush. The W is for 'Warmonger.'

Bush attorney John Yoo said it was permissible to crush a child's testicles in order to obtain information.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11488.htm

That's NAZI.

BTW:

His granddad dealt with the NAZIs.
His daddy dealt with NAZIs.
He is directed by NAZIs.

NAZI enough for you?

[sanskritwarrior]

121. Not a nazi

and you know...However I appreciate you for demonstrating that you will bully anyone who disagrees.........Forget it, I am not intimidated by you or Seemslikeadream......

Your ideological lockstep mentality sickens me. I DO NOT BELIEVE Bush IS A NAZI......Is he a fucktard that should be impeached??? Perhaps.......but he aint a Nazi and you saying he is tarnishes the memory of people who died at the hands of real nazis.......

Go ahead call me some more names, I like it when my opponents hoists themselves on their own petard of hatred........Do it please.........

[Octafish]

132. I didn't call you anything. I wonder why you defend George Bush, who acts NAZI.

Like Hitler, the turd was never elected fair-and-square.

http://www.hermes-press.com/barbaric_annihilation.htm

Like Hitler, the turd makes war on innocent people.

Those are the facts.

Why you argue against them is your business.

Not the first time, either:

Your oath is to the Constitution, not to the Commander-in-Chief

[sanskritwarrior]

135. Please point to a post where I defended the guy squatting at 1600

Pennsylvania???? It appears not believing we are Fascist means I am a shill for bush........interesting brownshirt tactic you guys got going on there.........

[conscious evolution]

129. george and anyone else

who took part in directing,planning and executing this war is a criminal.
Good thing there is no statute of limitations on war crimes.I hope an Iraqi version of Simon Wiesanthal spends the next 60 years with the same dedication to justice that Simon had.
http://www.wiesenthal.com/simonwiesenthal

[sanskritwarrior]

136. Can you please point out to me where the court ruling is defending your

assertation???? If so then I am free to go arrest said war criminal.......if not then you are just blowing hot air.....

I'm in the military, I need something with the "force of law" behind it for me to do anything to recify our current situation vis a vis the resident in the White House.........Saying he is a war criminal does not make it so, me saying he is not based on the FRIKKING LAW doe not make me a Bush shill........That's called reality, it might not be what we want, it might suck but we live in reality with laws.........

[uppityperson]

144. What about those that don't answer at all?

Please answer post #64 "defend it from what?" (reply to your post "My men and this country, even when wrong it needs defenders")

Defend it from what? Lame is also not answering at all.

[Octafish]

115. You should start a journal with your 'research.'

Well do some research on my posts

Posted by sanskritwarrior

The day the Supreme Court or the Congress makes the resident a criminal I will do my duty, until then he has broken no laws on which I can do anything on........

I'm sure you've really stuck it to Bush.

He is a NAZI, you know.

[seemslikeadream]

116. Now watch what you say or theyll be calling you a radical,

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6624765700437428962&q=logical+supertramp&total=141&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well theyd be singing so happily,
Joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
Logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
Clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the worlds asleep,
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man.
Wont you please, please tell me what weve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.

Now watch what you say or theyll be calling you a radical,
Liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Wont you sign up your name, wed like to feel youre
Acceptable, respecable, presentable, a vegtable!

At night, when all the worlds asleep,
The questions run so deep
For such a simple man.
Wont you please, please tell me what weve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.

[sanskritwarrior]

122. LOL

I'm sorry the Oath of Enlistment and the UCMJ override any personal feelings I have, that's called being professional and putting your duty before your politics, you might want to check into it........

[seemslikeadream]

131. You didn't like the fact that I think this government is fascist so you accuse me of

being a commie cause I post a SONG. If you knew me you would know I am ALWAYS posting songs. I love music, love ALL kinds. Labeling someone a commie for posting a song is out of fashion. RIDICULAS ABOSULETEY RIDUCLAS

[sanskritwarrior]

133. LOL your actions gave it away

I really didn't need to say anything......You have now spent more than 75 posts arguing with me over whether we are a Fascist nation or not....You could have said I respect your opinion, but disagree.........but you didn't you went on a tirade and it is all here for sane people to view....So thank you for doing my job for me........

[seemslikeadream]

137. No you lied about me and I was not going to let you get away with

That's what most of these posts were about Stalking your profile! :rofl:

[seemslikeadream]

138. LOL your actions gave it away

Labeling someone a commie cause of a song. I'm wondering how old you are? You're either so old that you still believe in McCarthyism or you're so young you just don't understand what happened back then. BTW isn't one of the things the military fights for the Constitution, you know Freedom of speech. And if ya get a chance do check out my journal, find any more commie stuff let me know

[sanskritwarrior]

141. I would hope you are more polite people that disagree with you

than you have been to me

[seemslikeadream]

142. It wasn't that you disagreed with me, it's that you called me a communist cause of a song AND

you lied about something I posted. Actually I am a very polite person, have NEVER in 5 years gotten a warning message from a mod.

[dogday]

84. Or to start a stampede or even a war

right? Seems like that is what this administration did to start war with Iraq.. Scream fire when there was none.. But they didn't want attention, just money and contracts.....

[hootinholler]

30. It wasn't when I was born into it.

It is now, or at least by this definition it is.

Allowing it to continue demeans everyone who brought this country forward.

-Hoot

[Marie26]

134. Agreed

When & if this country becomes truly fascist, there'll be no doubt. And no dissent.

[seemslikeadream]

23. I can't believe I didn't post a link! ***** SORRY*****

http://www.counterpunch.org/simmons06152007.html

[leftofthedial]

24. repukes have no respect for the Constitution

the bush cabal are fascists and the repukes are okay with that

[goddess40]

37. We live under an American form of Fascism

This administration has been very selective about what parts of fascism to use but they are using every bit of it they can get away with. It isn't nearly as bad as Hitler's fascism but people, innocent people, are still dying because of our unique form of fascism. Our's places greed first and power second - Hitler was all about power.

[JNelson6563]

38. Actually "oligarchy" is more appropriate

Considering how the government serves the corporate interests.

Just my .0125

Julie

[Az]

58. Its gone past Fascism. We are a Feudal society now

CEOs are the Feudal lords and we are the peasants dependent on them.

[sanskritwarrior]

61. It's much closer to feudalism than fascism........

[elehhhhna]

83. DOnt' forget the "T" word...

Totalitarian

[JanMichael]

87. While I believe we are more oligarchic there are those 14 signs...

Which make us a tad fascist in practice if not officially. Sure we don't have death squads roaming around or use torture prisons but hey. We're fascist light.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.

Yep.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

Mostly yep. Good for some not for others.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite “spontaneous” acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and “terrorists.” Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

Oh yep. Osama anyone?

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.

Double yep. We spend more on the military industrial complex than the next 10 or so countries below us. COMBINED.

5. Rampant sexism. Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.

Pretty yep. Certainly homophobic. Also our puritan nature is combined with donkey punches. Sick fucks.

6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.

Total yep.

7. Obsession with national security. Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting “national security,” and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.

Doubly do-right yep.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.

Mostly yep. Bush is the only bible thumper. Clinton and Carter were too.

9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.

Holy shit yep. We gave them PERSONHOOD!

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.

Yep.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

Oh yep.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment. Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. “Normal” and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or “traitors” was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.

Total yep. Highest number and highest rate of population in prison.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.

Please. Of course yep.

14. Fraudulent elections. Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.

Oh for fucks yep...

[Octafish]

89. Friendly Fascism

What Bertram Gross said:

Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America

We're seeing America turn into un-friendly fascism.

[newspeak]

117. hi Octafish

:hi: I guess some haven't read the definition of "fascism." There is nothing wrong with capitalism, unless it becomes "barbaric capitalism" that dominates over the will and the safety of the people--and, Hitler was no friend to socialism, but he did have friends in the US at the time-in his office he always kept a photo of Henry Ford and Hearst seemed to gush over him-then certain so-called US companies sure felt the need to do business with him, even after we declared war against Germany. While Hitler was giving speeches about supporting labor, he was busy murdering labor leaders. And, when our Congress was given evidence that Hitler was committing mass genocide (before he came up with the gas chambers), some congress critters still wanted more proof. It seems the "isms" continually divide us, and that's just what the powers that be want. When I talk about capitalism, it's the kind of capitalism that takes care of their employees, respects their communities, offers a high quality product or service and believes in customer service. I believe in the small business owner, mom and pop stores and corporations that do business with a conscience. When I talk about socialism, I'm talking about taking care of the most vulnerable of our communities, the elderly, the young, the homeless, the ill.

My cousin had been to the Soviet Union before the collapse, and he is quite disturbed about our current situation--he believes the environment is such in this country that we may wind up like the Soviet Union. Before you all think that the collapse was good-some aspects were good-but the social infrastructure collapsed, leaving the elderly on the streets, people starving, cannibalistic capitalism and a powerful influence of the mafia. Will we be balkanized?

Will we be another "Banana Republic" for the corporate new world order? As the corporations gain influence and power, our power, our rights are diminished. Our resources, our sons and daughters, our money is already being used to fill the coffers of certain powerful corporations-it's all at our expense and the expense of whatever country that doesn't dance to the tune of the fiddler (corporations). Stealing resources and murdering civilians is wrong---period! Remember Mussolini stated that fascism is the government and business against the will of the people (paraphrasing).

If you want an example of corporate power over the will of the people, all you have to do is look at NAFTA. A company can come in and contaminate a community's water supply, if the people boot them out, then said company can sue us and win-can you imagine that abscond with our hard earned money after they poisoned us!!!

I remember about approximately four years ago watching the Aspen round table on PBS discussing our Constitution-arguing for it's demise because it wasn't needed today--a Canadian citizen called in and stated that if we didn't want it, then could Canada have it because all they had was the Magna Carta. Fighting in Iraq is not protecting or defending the Constitution-right now, I believe it is helping destroy it-- secret energy meetings, illegal wiretapping, suspending habeas corpus, torture, going to war based on lies. You do remember the repetitious play by the media-Saddam has the capacity to launch an attack against the US within so many minutes. That was our justification for going to war-then it became, well he has WMD (without the immediate attack capacity)-then it was, well he's a bad man and has killed his own people (a bad man that we were supporting)-then it was we're giving Iraqis our flavor of democracy (yeah, Chalabi was a real great appointed leader-crook). You all can argue all you want, but we are in a very tenuous position at the moment, and the stakes are extremely high-it's the preservation of our country, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our perceived ideology.

[Octafish]

120. Dachau's 73rd 'Grand Anniversary' & Feds Give Halliburton $385 Million Concentration Camp Contract

You understand what is happening and what is at stake. Russ Bellant pegged the real story behind Pruneface St Ronnie, the guy who declared he's a runnin' for president in the deep south lynching capital of Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Old Nazis, The New Right and the Reagan Administration

Of course, connecting the dots to the end-game is what we are trying to make clear.

The fascists lined up and took numbers to serve the guy. It wasn't the first time they served "The Leader."

Dachau's 73rd "Grand Anniversary" Celebrated

Feds Schedule $385 Million Concentration Camp To Be Built By Halliburton Subsidiary

By CLANCY SIGAL
CounterPunch March 16, 2006

I am not one of the "Hitler is here!" crowd. From personal experience of federal-and-local harassment, threats of jail, being run off the road by J. Edgar's hotrodders, blacklisting from jobs and a long look at my FBI file, where I'm listed as a lefthanded, lisping incendiary leader of a mysterious Red 'Cell With No Name' alias the 'Omega cell' (I'm not kidding), I have felt the heavy hand of the ignoramus on my shoulder. Even unto emigration to Britain where, at one time, I enjoyed the attention of Scotland Yard, Special Branch, MI5, U.S. army counter-intelligence, CIA, and U.S. naval intelligence--all at the same time, stumbling over each other as in an Inspector Clouseau movie.

So you get hardened. Shrug it off. Resist paranoia. Fill your wallet with the telephone numbers of lawyers. And wait for something to happen when nothing actually does, at least to you.

Then your eye falls on a barely-noticed article in a local Southern California newspaper. You call the reporter, and he guides you to his reputable source. And the stomach-tickling fears start all over again, especially when--coincidentally--a Germanophile friend researching in the archives digs up the following from a Munich newspaper dated 1933.

First, the American news item:

The federal government has awarded a $385 million contract for the construction of 'temporary detention facilities' inside the United States as part of the Immigration Service's Detention and Removal Program. The contract was given to Kellogg, Root & Brown, a subsidiary of Halliburton. The camps would be used in the event of an "emergency", said Jamie Zuieback, an Immigration service official.

The following article appeared in a Munich newspaper in 1933 to mark the "grand opening" of Dachau, Germany's first concentration camp. This month marks the 73d anniversary:

Münchner Neueste Nachrichten,

Tuesday, March 21, 1933

A Concentration Camp for Political Prisoners in the Dachau Area

CONTINUED…

http://www.counterpunch.org/sigal03162006.html

These turds believe nuclear war is winnable.

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rwnews/2846

And they and their selected cronies will be safe in an undisclosed location and Paraguay.

http://wonkette.com/politics/george-w.-bush/we-hate-to-bring-up-the-nazis-but-they-fled-to-south-america-too-208549.php

But not if We the People stop them.

Outstanding post, yours. Thank you for understanding and for giving a damn, newspeak.

[newspeak]

124. thank you for all of the valuable information

my eyes were truly opened reading Daniel Casalaros' articles in California. Now, there was a journalist!!!! After he died and Ng took over the investigations, then he was killed, I was so spooked out!!!! These brave men lost their lives trying to get the truth to the American people.

[newspeak]

125. I see a thread was started on who has been to the USSR

here, let me clue you in-the fall of the Berlin Wall was a truly momentous occasion-the Soviet Union since Kruschev wanted to be part of trading partners with the West, and with the split of the Soviet Union that's exactly what happened. With the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, that many Soviets became disenchanted with, plus satellite countries like Czechoslavakia since the Prague uprising, identified more with it's western European neighbors---it's the initial aftermath I'm arguing about. The social infrastructure was thrown into turmoil, thus causing many of the elderly to be thrown out of their homes or to sell family heirlooms to survive. I spoke to a customer and his Russian wife after they had just returned from Russia-he was bragging about all of the great deals he got on antique items from Russia-I told him it was a shame people had to sell their family heirlooms in order to survive, his wife agreed with me. The mafia gained a stronger foothold in Russia-as I understand it, the Russian mafia makes the Italian mafia look like choir boys. Also, there have been a couple of articles of corporate predation in Russia after the split. Let's just say in some countries corruption ran amuck. Some satellite Soviet countries have done better than others.

I also stated that my cousin had been to Russia-his concern was the attitude of the Russian people with the ongoing Afghanistan conflict, the funding of the endeavor and the loss of life. The emancipation of certain countries like East Germany which was run with an Iron fist was a good thing even though the incorporation of East and West Germany has had some economic impact, the Chech Republic and Slovakia peacefully split, and Ceausceau was ousted out of Romania, but Yugoslavia became a bloody mess, thus becoming Balkanized.

[Name removed]

90. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bobthedrummer]

99. Lots of NAZI like "Good Americans" posting in this thread, slad.

Their lies and denials are obvious.

Yes, we've been fascist for many years thanks largely to the "influence" of real NAZIS that were given identities and jobs as "Good Americans" working in national security.

Those NAZIS found a political home in the RW of The Republican Party. and the rest is history-not the extreme rhetoric of the BFEE or political operatives engaging in information warfare by posting on political websites.

[seemslikeadream]

100. Do you believe I'm being accused of being a communist btd?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


communist so old hat!

[bobthedrummer]

102. Sure, and others will call you a paid FBI informant or worse!

It's worse than McCarthy and the "ideals" of good Americans like John Edgar Hoover and his soul mate Clyde Tolson.


:hi:

[seemslikeadream]

104. but you know I'm in such good company I hear Martin was a commie too

[bobthedrummer]

105. A commie Christian civil rights leader killed by a conspiracy from the culture of death

the culture that is centered in the occupied WH.

[sanskritwarrior]

110. Oh noes........

you just used MLK in a post, I had better back down............ :eyes:

The time for the thugs that squash all thought at DU is coming to an end, I'm not afraid of you or your brownshirt tactics................Why don't you stalk my profile some more I added some things just for you..........

[seemslikeadream]

101. I thought Joe was dead!

[bobthedrummer]

103. He was a Democrat that became a Republican.

[sanskritwarrior]

106. Oh yes if we don't believe it's Fascism

we are Fascists...................Modified Goodwin's :aw you got going on there Bob....

I'm no Fascist and neither is America, but keep devaluing the victims of real fascism.........

[bobthedrummer]

109. Not to go way off-topic sw but have you ever seen this

"Reframing Perception-Space (P-Space): A Quick Overview of a Unifying Concept"
by Col. Michael McKim USAFR (ret)
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc/reframing-p-space.htm

[conscious evolution]

111. Good read

Military mind fuck techniques are always nice to know.

[bobthedrummer]

112. Here's some more background to negate information warfare tactics

"Reality vs. perception management: the tinfoil controversy" archived DU thread started 1-6-2006
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x71919

That's the low down on some of the so-called "reality based community".

[conscious evolution]

113. Thanks

Very interesting reading there.
It is amazing the lengths they will go to to brainwash people into buying into their agenda.The scary thing is the time they have spent doing this.It shows just how depraved these people are that they are willing to spend decades and billions of dollars to see their plans come to fruition.
A while back someone posted a rant about 'ad people-please kill yourselves'.I could totally see where the ranter was coming from.

[LordJFT]

118. This title is ridiculous

Being anti-American is not being pro-democrat.

[bobthedrummer]

119. Who is being "anti-American" in a thread that discusses being against fascism?

Good Americans fought and died to prevent what has happened, ever read that "commie" Sinclair Lewis's "It Can't Happen Here"???

Welcome to DU.

[sanskritwarrior]

123. Well it hasn't happened here yet

except in seemslikeadream's world where we all live under Fascism and she can insult people and then deny it, and claim that quoting the Internationale makes here a Good Democrat...........War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, that's about right ain't it SLAD............

[LordJFT]

139. It's not just discussing being against fascism, it's calling America fascist

And I'd say calling America fascist is anti-American. Please remember that Bush does not control the whole government, if this was truly a fascist government he would be. When someone makes generalized statements like "the American government is fascist" I see that not just as a shot against Bush, but against everyone in Congress and the supreme court and the constitution itself.

[seemslikeadream]

140. Well duh!

no not anit-American anti-American government, BTW last time I looked bush and cheney were doing a good bit of the controlling. Do you know who CHALMERS JOHNSON is?


“Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.”


She's present in our country right now, just waiting to make her - to carry out her divine mission




http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/27/145...

CHALMERS JOHNSON: Nemesis was the ancient Greek goddess of revenge, the punisher of hubris and arrogance in human beings. You may recall she is the one that led Narcissus to the pond and showed him his reflection, and he dove in and drowned. I chose the title, because it seems to me that she's present in our country right now, just waiting to make her -- to carry out her divine mission.

By the subtitle, I really do mean it. This is not just hype to sell books -- “The Last Days of the American Republic.” I’m here concerned with a very real, concrete problem in political analysis, namely that the political system of the United States today, history tells us, is one of the most unstable combinations there is -- that is, domestic democracy and foreign empire -- that the choices are stark. A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, like the old Roman Republic, it will lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship.

I’ve spent some time in the book talking about an alternative, namely that of the British Empire after World War II, in which it made the decision, not perfectly executed by any manner of means, but nonetheless made the decision to give up its empire in order to keep its democracy. It became apparent to the British quite late in the game that they could keep the jewel in their crown, India, only at the expense of administrative massacres, of which they had carried them out often in India. In the wake of the war against Nazism, which had just ended, it became, I think, obvious to the British that in order to retain their empire, they would have to become a tyranny, and they, therefore, I believe, properly chose, admirably chose to give up their empire.

As I say, they didn't do it perfectly. There were tremendous atavistic fallbacks in the 1950s in the Anglo, French, Israeli attack on Egypt; in the repression of the Kikuyu -- savage repression, really -- in Kenya; and then, of course, the most obvious and weird atavism of them all, Tony Blair and his enthusiasm for renewed British imperialism in Iraq. But nonetheless, it seems to me that the history of Britain is clear that it gave up its empire in order to remain a democracy. I believe this is something we should be discussing very hard in the United States.

......



Over the ashes of blood marched the civilized soldiers,

Over the ruins of the french fortress of a failure

Over the silent screams of the dead and the dying

Saying please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



The treaties were signed, the country was split into sections

But growing numbers of prisons were built for protection

Rapidly filling with people who called for elections

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



Ngo dinh diem was the puppet who danced for the power

The hero of hate who gambled on hell for his hour

Father of his country was stamped on the medals we showered

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



Machine gun bullets became the bloody baptizers

And the falcon copters dont care if someones the wiser

But the boy in the swamp didnt know he was killed by advisers

So please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



And fires were spitting at forests in defoliation

While the people were pressed into camps not called concentration

And the greater the victory the greater the shame of the nation

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



While we were watching the prisoners were tested by torture

And vicious and violent gasses maintained the order

As the finest washington minds found slogans for slaughter

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



Then over the border came the bay of pigs planes of persuasion

All remaining honor went up in flames of invasion

But the shattered schools never learned that its not escalation

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



Were teaching freedom for which they are yearning

While were dragging them down to the path of never returning

But, well condescend to talk while the cities are burning

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



And the evil is done in hopes that evil surrenders

But the deeds of the devil are burned too deep in the embers

And a world of hunger in vengeance will always remember

So please be reassured, we seek no wider war,

We seek no wider war.

phil ochs



War and Globalization
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3117338213439292490&q=Hijacking+Catastrophe&total=29&start=20&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=7


Hijacking Catastrophe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltOy_F6ZII&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YlcpXBFOXA&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwZaWh0cJPQ&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8S_vOZqJbE&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GT7ti8LZ6A&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkOtqGNJ8qI&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C02QHS0D44&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YlcpXBFOXA&mode=related&search
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kBX00TR-aA&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jghh00bn_DA&mode=related&search=

[conscious evolution]

128. Standing up to fascist is anti-american?

Only in some alternative universe.
Like this one: http://www.freerepublic.com/home.htm

Absolutely amazing what crawls out of the woodwork sometimes.

[seemslikeadream]

130. OMG The reinforcements have come

Time for me to head off to work. Long live the worker! :rofl:

[Cleita]

126. Personally, I think it's an understatement. Fascist only

denotes corporatism gone amock. We have way crossed over that line and are becoming pretty good Nazis. If you think it's an exaggeration just read up on the Nazis and the parallels between their one party rule and our neo-con nearly one party rule between 2001 and 2006, is almost like living in a parallel universe. The invasion of Poland was accomplished by ruses almost identical to our invasion of Iraq. Really scary if you bother to look at it in detail.

[seemslikeadream]

143. Fascists of All Varieties

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/63/21746


Fascists of All Varieties
By Marc Ash
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 11 August 2006

Reveling in yesterday's announcement that a plot to blow up American Airlines planes departing from British airports had been foiled by British authorities, George W. Bush leapt at the opportunity to sell his "war on terra" to whoever would listen. Using the best Madison Avenue technique money can buy, he was even ready to roll out a new slogan du jour on cue for the event. Today's phrase that pays: We are at war with "Islamic fascists."

First let me say that if British law enforcement did in fact do all of what the US mainstream press is implying they did, I thank them for finding an efficient, non-violent way to guard the public safety. "Efficient" and "non-violent" being the key words in the preceding sentence.

Efficiency and non-violence have been glaringly absent from US-British national security operations over the past five years. And that absence contributes greatly to the current atmosphere of conflict. War and a warlike mentality are espoused at every turn as the remedies of choice in dealing with all threats to Western security. As a result, Western security has suffered.

What worked in foiling the plot to destroy the airliners was good old fashioned police work and a solid investigation. Not military action. The tools used by British authorities are tools that were available on September 11th 2001. They were available the day the US invaded Iraq, and they are available today. We have always had good tools to safeguard our security. Launching massive invasions is not helping, it's adding to the rage that fuels the madness.

Fascism at Issue

Since, Mr. Bush, you have chosen to put the issue of fascism before the public, it begs a broader dialog on fascism's role in our lives today. I accept the challenge to enter that dialog. Frankly Mr. Bush, many Americans refer to you as a fascist. There really isn't any other way to state that than bluntly. Blowing up an airliner full of passengers is barbaric and completely unacceptable, regardless of the objectives of those involved, but it really doesn't fit the definition of fascism.

From Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language:

FASCISM: A system of government characterized by rigid one party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralized governmental control, belligerent nationalism, racism and militarism, etc.
That's really the heart of the matter now isn't it, Mr. Bush. One might wonder if you are troubled by by the specter of fascism in your inner thoughts when you cast the accusation wildly into the public discourse.

What would the people of Iraq say about fascism if asked? But then they haven't been asked, have they - they've been liberated, of course. What would our founding fathers say about detention without due process, without end? Electronic surveillance of all Americans, without regard for the law? What is democracy if the citizens have no confidence in the integrity of their elections? Our military hurls five-hundred pound bombs all day and all night. They land on whom they land on. It is not an isolated act of madness, it is a coordinated act of state. All the while private corporations profit wildly.

Fascism, Mr. Bush, is not your strongest card. You should change the subject again.