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 28 Jul 2006 @ 00:39
From wsws.com
Declassified archives document ties between CIA and Nazis
By Andre Damon
27 July 2006
On June 6, the US national archives released some 27,000 pages of secret records documenting the CIA’s Cold War relations with former German Nazi Party members and officials.
The files reveal numerous cases of German Nazis, some clearly guilty of war crimes, receiving funds, weapons and employment from the CIA. They also demonstrate that US intelligence agencies deliberately refrained from disclosing information about the whereabouts of Adolf Eichmann in order to protect Washington’s allies in the post-war West German government headed by Christian Democratic leader Konrad Adenauer.
Eichmann, who had sent millions to their deaths while coordinating the Nazis’ “final solution” campaign to exterminate European Jewry, went into hiding in Buenos Aires after the fall of the Third Reich. Utilizing friendly contacts in the Catholic Church and the Peron government in Argentina, Eichmann was able to reside in the South American country for 10 years under the alias of Ricardo Klement. He was abducted in 1960 by Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, put on trial in Israel and executed in 1962.
The documents show that the CIA was in possession of Eichmann’s pseudonym two years before the Mossad raid. The CIA received this information in 1958 from the West German government, which learned of Eichmann’s alias in 1952. Both the CIA and the Bonn government chose not to disclose this information to Israel because they were concerned that Eichmann might reveal the identities of Nazi war criminals holding high office in the West German government, particularly Adenauer’s national security adviser Hans Globke.
When Eichmann was finally brought to trial, the US government used all available means to protect its West German allies from what he might reveal. According to the declassified documents, the CIA pressured Life magazine into deleting references to Globke in portions of Eichmann’s memoirs that it chose to publish.
In addition to the revelations regarding Eichmann, the documents chronicle the CIA’s creation of “stay-behind” intelligence networks in southwestern Germany and Berlin, labeled “Kibitz” and “Pastime,” respectively. The Kibitz ring involved several former SS members. In the early 1950s, the CIA provided these groups with money, communications equipment and ammunition so that they could serve as intelligence assets in the event of a Soviet invasion of West Germany.
The CIA documents were reviewed by Timothy Naftali, a historian with the National Archives Interagency Working Group, the government body that oversaw their declassification and release. According to an article published by Naftali, the stay-behind program was dissolved “in the wake of public concerns in West Germany about the resurgence of Neo-Nazi Groups.” Specifically, the Kibitz-15 group, led by an “unreconstructed Nazi,” became a potential source of public embarrassment for the US, as its members were broadly involved in Neo-Nazi activity. [1]
The CIA terminated the program by 1955 and arranged for many of its contacts to be resettled in Canada and Australia. According to the documents, Australia provided funds for relocation while the CIA provided its ex-assets with a “resettlement bonus.”
The CIA employed Gustav Hilger, a former adviser to Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. As an employee of the German foreign office, Hilger was present at the negotiation of the Stalin-Hitler pact in 1939. The CIA deemed his experience with the USSR sufficiently valuable to free him from incarceration at Fort Meade in Maryland and employ him as an intelligence evaluator in West Germany.
In 1948, Hilger moved to the United States and obtained a position at the CIA’s K Street building in Washington as a researcher and expert on the USSR. Hilger eventually left the CIA to work for the West German foreign office.
According to a paper analyzing the CIA documents published by Robert Wolfe, a former senior archivist at the US National Archives, “it is beyond dispute that Hilger criminally assisted in the genocide of Italy’s Jews.... During the roundup of Italian Jews in late 1943, a note signed ‘Hilger’ recorded Ribbentrop’s concurrence that the Italians be asked to intern the Jews in concentration camps in Northern Italy, in lieu of immediate deportation. The SS intended thereby that the Italian Jews and their potential Italian protectors should believe that internment in Italy was the final destination, rather than eventual deportation to the murder mills in Poland to be immediately murdered or gradually worked to death. The stated purpose of this ruse was to minimize the number of Italian Jews who would go into hiding to avoid deportation to Poland” [2]
In another instance, the CIA employed Tscherim Soobzokov, a former Nazi gendarme and Waffen SS lieutenant, who, according to a paper published by Interagency Working Group Director of Historical Research Richard Breitman, “participated in an execution commando [combat group detailed to executing Jews and Communists en masse] and had searched North Caucasian villages for Jews.”
Soobzokov was employed by the CIA for seven years. Over this period, he repeatedly used his intelligence contacts to avoid investigation by the FBI and the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in regard to his complicity in war crimes.
According to Breitman’s paper, CIA examiners noted that Soobzokov was an “incorrigible fabricator” who repeatedly lied about his past in order to conceal his participation in criminal activity. Nevertheless, the CIA shielded him against investigation, at one point sending the INS a document asserting that Soobzokov had never worked for the Nazis. [3]
Prior to the outbreak of war, a significant section of the American ruling elite had favored cooperation with the Nazis as a European hedge against the spread of Bolshevism. Henry Ford was notorious for his anti-Semitism and his political affinity for German Fascism, and a number of major American companies retained their business ties with the Third Reich. Notably, IBM sold Germany the punch cards that were used to catalog the “final solution.” (See: “How IBM helped the Nazis IBM and the Holocaust”)
However, as one European nation after another fell before Hitler’s onslaught, the threat of German imperialist dominance in Europe spurred the American ruling class to enter the European theater.
US imperialism mobilized popular support in its war against the Nazi regime by appealing to the democratic and anti-fascist sentiments of the American people. After the defeat of Germany, it organized, together with its World War II allies—Britain, the Soviet Union and France—the Nuremburg trials to prosecute top Nazi officials for their complicity in war crimes.
However, with the start of the Cold War, the United States reversed its policy of identifying, trying and executing prominent Nazi war criminals. As is starkly demonstrated in the case of Eichmann, the knowledge possessed by many of these individuals made trying them inconvenient.
Regardless of its limited persecution of upper-echelon Nazis, the United States had no qualms about recruiting Nazi Party members and war criminals into its military research apparatus. Prominent German military developers such as Werner Von Braun and Bernhard Tessmann were assimilated into the US rocketry program, while Kurt Blome, a Nazi scientist who experimented on concentration camp prisoners, was employed by the US to develop chemical weapons.
Likewise, the early stages of the Cold War saw high-level Nazi cadres drafted into the US intelligence machine and deployed in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. According to the Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations (OSI), the bureau assigned to investigate German war criminals living within the US, at least 10,000 Nazis entered the US between 1948 and 1952. Of the thousands of German Nazis who fled—or were brought—to the United States, only some 100 have been prosecuted by the OSI.
Notes:
1. Timothy Naftali, “New Information on Cold War CIA Stay-Behind Operations in Germany and on the Adolf Eichmann Case” [link]
2. Robert Wolfe, “Gustav Hilger: From Hitler’s Foreign Office to CIA Consultant” [link]
3. Richard Breitman, “Tscherim Soobzokov” [link]
See Also:
Newly released files show: Postwar German government and CIA shielded Adolf Eichmann
[3 July 2006]
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21 Jul 2006 @ 19:26
World Socialist Web Site
The real aims of the US-backed Israeli war against Lebanon
Statement of the Editorial Board
21 July 2006
As the onslaught against Lebanon enters its tenth day, Israeli troops are poised for a full-scale invasion that has been prepared by murderous aerial bombardment, and the far-reaching imperialist aims of the war have become all too clear.
With the full political, financial and military backing of the United States, the Zionist regime is attempting to transform Lebanon into an Israeli protectorate. This military operation is a continuation and escalation of the imperialist geo-political restructuring of the Middle East and Central Asia that began with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and whose goal is the establishment of US domination of the entire region.
The immediate aim of this war—the elimination of Hezbollah as a military and political force within Lebanon—is directed against all mass resistance to Israeli and American domination of the country. The Bush administration and its allies in Jerusalem see this as an essential step toward: 1) the removal of the Syrian Baathist regime, and 2) the launching of a full-scale war against Iran.
While the Israeli government and the Bush administration endlessly repeat propaganda claims that the attack on Lebanon is an act of “self defense” prompted by the seizure of two soldiers, this assertion enjoys no credibility among knowledgeable observers.
As the Financial Times of London wrote in its lead editorial of July 17, “Israel’s massive bombardment of Lebanon by land, sea and air in response to Hezbollah’s cross-border raid last week is now about a great deal more than recovering two Israeli soldiers seized by Islamist guerrillas—and it probably always was.”
Similar assessments have been published in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, as well as numerous newspapers internationally. They simply state what is by now obvious: the Israeli attack on Lebanon is the realization of a long-planned act of aggression.
Recent events have placed in clearer perspective the significance of the February, 2005 assassination of the Lebanese multi-billionaire and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Hariri was killed by a massive explosion that destroyed his motorcade in Beirut four months after he resigned his post as prime minister in protest against the decision of Emile Lahoud, an ally of Syria, to extend his term as president of Lebanon. The United States and France, the country’s former colonial ruler, immediately blamed Hariri’s death on Damascus. Their anti-Syrian allies within Lebanon, predominantly based on the more affluent social layers, seized upon Hariri’s killing to launch the so-called Cedar Revolution, which resulted last year in the withdrawal of Syrian troops, which had occupied Lebanon since the 1970s.
If, in fact, the Syrian regime was behind the killing, it carried it out because it had become convinced that Hariri had lent his support to a US-Israeli plan to drive Syria out of Lebanon, in preparation for an assault on the Hezbollah movement, which enjoys mass support among the impoverished Shiite population and dominates the south of Lebanon. It was well aware that this would be followed by an offensive against the Baathist regime in Damascus itself.
It is, on the other hand, eminently possible that the killing was a provocation organized by Israeli or American intelligence agencies for the purpose of creating a pretext for carrying through the same plan.
In either case, the current Israeli offensive is the implementation of precisely such an operation. The Cedar Revolution itself produced disappointing results in the eyes of the Israelis and Americans. Under the terms of a United Nations Security Council resolution co-sponsored by Washington and Paris, Syria was obliged to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. The power of its Hezbollah ally, however, remained intact.
Indeed, at the height of the anti-Syrian agitation, marked by well-publicized demonstrations in Beirut organized by Maronite Christian forces and other Lebanese parties aligned with Washington, Hezbollah organized far larger counter-demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets of the capital. With the specter of a new civil war before it, the government that emerged from the Cedar Revolution felt obliged to make a settlement which included the admission of Hezbollah representatives into the cabinet.
In an article published July 20, the New York Times reflected the frustration within the Bush administration and American ruling circles: “Despite the hopes raised by the so-called Cedar Revolution, which ended nearly three decades of Syrian control, the government remains trapped in the sectarian straitjacket of a system that apportions political offices by religion.” (The Times has no similar objections to the “sectarian straitjacket” of Lebanon’s neighbor to the south, which not only apportions all political power to representatives of one religion, but defines itself as a “Jewish state”).
This comment points to the real purpose of the current onslaught against the Lebanese people. Its aim is a thoroughgoing political restructuring of the country, in which the fiercely pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli sentiments of the Shiite masses are to be crushed and the power of right-wing, pro-US forces—above all, the Christian Phalange—vastly expanded.
This is an attempt to reverse the outcome of the Lebanese civil war, which raged from 1975 until 1990. The US, Israel and other imperialist powers, notably France, played a central role in inciting that long and bloody conflict and keeping it going, including the introduction of American and French military forces and an Israeli invasion in 1982 that was followed by an 18-year Israeli occupation of the south. Washington’s chief ally was the fascistic Phalange, which headed a coalition of right-wing forces arrayed against an alliance of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Lebanese Left.
Imperialist intrigue and intervention succeeded in driving the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from Lebanon, but the eventual settlement curtailed the power of the Phalange, on the one hand, and saw the rise of the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah on the other. This is what Washington is determined to change. Significantly, the current Israeli offensive has enabled the US to move its military forces into Lebanon for the first time since they were withdrawn in the aftermath of the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut in October of 1983.
The historical background
Israel has a long history of attempting to transform Lebanon, through a combination of military pressure and political alliances with right-wing forces in that country, into a virtual protectorate.
In March 1978, in the midst of the Lebanese civil war, Israel sent military forces across the border into Lebanon, justifying its actions as a response to PLO terrorist activity. Though compelled by international pressure to withdraw after its military operations had resulted in more than 2,000 Lebanese deaths, Israel maintained control of a 12-mile strip north of the border by sponsoring a right-wing militia, dubbed the South Lebanon Army, under the proxy leadership of one Major Saad Haddad.
Four years later, in 1982, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his defense minister, Ariel Sharon, set into motion a far more ambitious plan to take political control of all Lebanon and expel the PLO from the country. Once again, a convenient pretext was found when an Israeli ambassador was wounded in London by a Palestinian assassin in June 1982. Though intelligence experts acknowledged that the PLO had nothing to do with this incident, the Begin government used the event as a pretext to invade Lebanon. In an operation entitled, with consummate cynicism, “Peace for Galilee,” Israeli troops swept north toward the outskirts of Beirut, which was subjected to protracted bombing.
The war forced the PLO’s expulsion from Lebanon and led to the Israeli-sanctioned slaughter of thousands of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese fascist militiamen.
The United States also became involved in the subjugation of Lebanon, with the Reagan administration stationing Marines in Beirut. But direct US participation in attacks on the poorer neighborhoods of Beirut (which were shelled by American naval vessels) created deep hostility, leading to the suicide bombing in which nearly 250 Marines were killed. The Reagan administration decided to cut its losses and withdraw from Lebanon.
The Israeli regime, however, sought to maintain control over substantial portions of south Lebanon. It was out of the popular resistance to the occupation that Hezbollah emerged as a powerful military and political force. The guerrilla war conducted by Hezbollah eventually forced Israel to withdraw its forces in 2000.
Israeli military tactics
The current war is not only about wiping out Hezbollah, but destroying any resistance within Lebanon to US and Israeli domination. This desired end goes a long way in explaining the means that are being employed. Israel is carrying out an indiscriminate bombardment of the south, the home of the poor Shiite population and the main base of support for Hezbollah. The Israeli military is deliberately targeting the entire civilian population, destroying whole villages and making the entire region uninhabitable.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Israel has ordered all Lebanese living in the southern sector below the Litani River to evacuate the region within 24 hours.
The goal is to turn south Lebanon into a no man’s land so as to prepare the ground for the entry of either Israeli troops or a combination of Israeli and American forces, with perhaps other national contingents operating as an “international peace keeping force” with the imprimatur of the United Nations.
The Israeli offensive is above all a war against the Lebanese poor. The more affluent residential neighborhoods of Beirut and other parts of the country have been largely spared. This is in keeping with US and Israeli policy during the civil war, when they were allied with the Phalange against the Shiite masses and the Palestinian refugee population.
The unleashing of death and destruction against southern Lebanon is combined with a bombing campaign aimed at the Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut and against airports, ports, roads, bridges and power stations in the rest of the country. The objective is to wreck the country’s infrastructure. In order to remake Lebanon politically, it first must be gutted physically. This gives some idea of what US imperialism and its junior partner, Israel, have in store for the people of Syria, Iran and beyond.
Nor is there any reason to believe Israel’s disavowals of plans for a full-scale ground invasion. The more Israeli leaders discount such a move, the more likely it becomes. While the scale of the bombing in south Lebanon is sufficient to kill many thousands of people, it will not achieve Israel’s aims of destroying Hezbollah as a military and political force, and converting Lebanon into a Zionist protectorate.
Citing the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, NBC’s evening news program reported Thursday that several thousand Israeli troops have begun crossing the border into southern Lebanon.
The role of the United States
The United States is playing a decisive role in the war. It sanctioned the war in advance and is working in the closest collaboration with the Israeli military’s US-made and American-financed war machine to carry it out.
On the diplomatic level, the Bush administration is openly aligning its moves with the military objectives and political calculations of the Israeli government. Washington is coordinating US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s impending visit to the region with Israel to give the Israeli military all the time it wants to inflict maximum possible destruction in south Lebanon. As the New York Times reported on July 19, “American officials signaled that Ms. Rice was waiting at least a few more days before wading into the conflict, in part to give Israel more time to weaken Hezbollah forces.”
There is no precedent for the US government’s open opposition to a ceasefire. The Wall Street Journal, in a fairly frank assessment of US policy published July 19, began by recalling Washington’s diplomatic role when the last major conflict erupted between Israel and Hezbollah:
“Ten years ago, when Hezbollah and Israeli forces engaged in a multiweek bloodbath, President Clinton sent Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the region for six days of intensive shuttle diplomacy between Damascus and Jerusalem. In the end, he won a cease-fire deal that ended the fighting, at least temporarily.
“Today, the Bush administration has a starkly different approach.”
The US is fully and openly legitimizing war as an instrument of foreign policy. This is a continuation of its military aggression in Iraq, and an anticipation of future aggression against Syria, Iran, and other countries. It is bound up with the Bush doctrine of “preemptive war,” which has been embraced by the entire American political establishment and both parties of American imperialism—the Democrats as well as the Republicans.
Washington’s determined effort to allow Israel to continue the slaughter in Lebanon underscores that the current war is part of US imperialism’s drive, by any and all means, to establish American supremacy throughout the Middle East.
Whether this reckless and criminal military adventure will, in the short term, further this objective or lead Washington into an even deeper debacle in the region remains to be seen.
See Also:
American media unquestioningly defends Israeli violence
[21 July 2006]
Western diplomacy supports Israel's war of aggression
[19 July 2006]
G8 powers sanction Israeli aggression in Lebanon
[18 July 2006]
US gives Israel a blank check to wage war
[17 July 2006]
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 18 May 2005 @ 15:38
It would really interest me to know how many people would still say that "everything is as it should be", "we don't know the divine plan, therefore all is ok", "there is no truth, only my truth and your truth" etc. if they lived in Iraq. What does it take for people to say...hmmm maybe things are NOT as they should be and maybe, just maybe there is something I can do to change the course of humankind.
Just because the human species is caught up in world karma and inertia from events of the past in NO WAY implies that we are not responsible for the way things are going. It in NO WAY implies that this is the way it is supposed to be and it IN WAY implies that this is Supreme will.
It only implies that we are NOT doing our "job" as Consciousness in bodies, Fragments of God and Stewarts of the Earth.
But that is ok...go back to your focus of ego, consumerism, materialism and tv....you don't live in a country like Iraq....at least not in this life, but that in no way implies that you are relieved of the responsibility your part/contribution contributes to all the "tragedies" in the world....(karma...a very real and just Natural Law)
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UN report finds
US war in Iraq yields a social “tragedy”
By David Walsh
18 May 2005
A new study issued by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reveals what the Iraqi Minister of Planning Barham Salih describes as “a rather tragic situation of the quality of life in Iraq.” What this minister in the Baghdad puppet regime did not care to say, unsurprisingly, is that this disaster for the Iraqi people is attributable overwhelmingly to the unrelenting assault by US imperialism over the past 15 years and more.
The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, a conflagration over which Washington warmed its hands; the Gulf War of 1991; more than a decade of sanctions; and the US invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq have resulted in the death of untold numbers in that country, laid waste its infrastructure, health and education system and generally brought about a regression in the lives of millions. Oil-rich Iraq now suffers from some of the region’s highest rates of unemployment and child malnutrition and debilitating problems with electric power, sewage systems and other public services.
Among the indices of social misery contained in the report are the following:
* Nearly a quarter of Iraq’s children suffer from chronic malnutrition.
* The probability of dying before 40 for Iraqi children born between 2000 and 2004 is approximately three times the level in neighboring countries.
* Three out of four Iraqi families report an unstable supply of electricity.
* 40 percent of families in urban areas live in neighborhoods where sewage can be seen in the streets.
* More than 722,000 Iraqi families have no access to either safe or stable drinking water.
* The jobless rate for young men with secondary or higher education stands at 37 percent.
The study, entitled Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004 (ILCS), was organized by the UN development agency in collaboration with the Iraqi Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation and conducted by a Norwegian-trained team from the Central Organisation for Statistics and Information Technology in Baghdad. It drew its conclusions from interviews carried out in April-August 2004 with members of 21,688 households in Iraq’s 18 provinces.
In their analysis of Iraq’s infrastructure, housing, environment, health system, conditions for women, labor market and other aspects of life, the authors of the UNDP report repeatedly resort to certain terms and phrases to describe their findings: “alarming” appears numerous times, along with “worsening,” “deterioration,” “falling behind” and “reverse development.”
In these words, as well as some of the starker figures, one can detect, within the dry (and timid) language of bourgeois social researchers, the scope of the human suffering in present-day Iraq.
The general contention of the study, pieced together from separate comments, is that Iraqi society made considerable advances in the 1970s, as “oil revenues began growing dramatically.... This period of rapid economic growth also saw significant rural-urban migration...and the growth of employment in the public sector and in state-owned enterprises, both of which indicate that households’ incomes were increasing.”
However, Iraqi Gross Domestic Product has been declining since 1980, according to the report, “due to a combination of wars, sanctions, and economic mismanagement.... [H]ouseholds may have experienced a continuing decline in income over the past 25 years, a situation that is almost unheard of among middle-income countries.” This decline is particularly remarkable in the light of Iraq’s possession of the world’s second-largest proven oil reserves (and undiscovered reserves that some analysts suggest might place it closer to Saudi Arabia as an oil producer).
This “unheard of” situation can only be explained as the product of geopolitics, in particular the determination of the US, through one means or another (including diplomatic maneuvering, a brutal war that stopped short of occupation, economic strangulation and full-scale invasion), to control the Middle Eastern nation’s natural resources. Now occupying the country, Washington is least of all concerned with the conditions of the conquered people.
What have been the results of America’s war against the Iraqi people?
In regard to Iraq’s infrastructure, the ILCS argues that the US-led sanctions, “misguided economic policies” and three wars have contributed to its deterioration. Moreover, after “the most recent war, the situation worsened due to looting, destruction of public property, and general insecurity.”
The instability of the electrical supply remains a central problem for Iraqis. In urban areas in particular, many households have experienced a reduced supply and “a dramatic worsening of its quality and stability.” In Baghdad, 92 percent of all households suffer from an unstable electrical supply.
On average, the ILCS found, 33 percent of all Iraqi households have an unstable supply of drinking water (more than weekly problems with supply) and 17 percent of all households have neither safe nor stable drinking water. A full 70 percent of all rural households find it problematic to obtain the drinking water they need; in the southern regions, the figure reaches 76 percent. Poorer households, with young household heads, low education and small children, are faring the worst, revealing that “traditionally vulnerable groups are falling behind on this indicator.”
The report notes that, compared “to other countries in the region and to the earlier data from Iraq...we find that the supply of safe and stable water supply in Iraq has deteriorated.... A reduction in urban access to safe drinking water from 95 to 60 percent is grave. Compared to other Arab countries, Iraq is far behind, and the observed deterioration of the situation is alarming.” According to Salih, the planning minister, “In 1980, 75 percent of families had access to clean water.”
Sanitary conditions too “show a steep deterioration”; Iraqi sewage systems “show a reverse development.” The study notes reports of old and destroyed sewage systems, which lead to seeping of sewage into the ground and result in the contamination of drinking water systems.
Infant and child mortality rates show the same general trend. The ILCS data indicates “a progressive worsening of the situation for children.” This has occurred “in a context of declining infant and child mortality rates in neighbouring countries.” The study estimates the rate of maternal mortality, the number of deaths of women per 100,000 childbirths, to be 193, a figure only exceeded in the region by Syria and Yemen. Again, “Iraq has not participated in the overall decline in maternal mortality achieved in the past decades in other Middle Eastern countries.”
As the ILCS notes, “Most Iraqi children have lived their whole lives under sanctions and war.” The consequences for these most vulnerable members of society have been inevitable and tragic. Malnutrition among small children in Iraq is widespread. Almost one quarter of children between six months and five years suffer from chronic malnutrition; the prevalence of acute severe malnutrition is 10 percent. Compared with previous studies, the report notes, the level of malnutrition has increased and stabilized “at a high level during the last four years.” The authors find this “surprising” given that fully 96 percent of the population receive regular food rations.
In 1990, Iraq ranked 50th on the UN Development Program’s Human Development Index; in 2003, it ranked 126th. An Iraqi citizen’s average dietary intake was 3,300 calories; thanks to UN-US sanctions, a decade later the intake had shrunk by more than 1,000 calories per person, or by nearly a third.
A major childhood killer is diarrhea. A preventable condition, most commonly by good hygiene and clean drinking water, diarrhea accounted for 2 deaths in 10 among under-five-year-old Iraqis before the 1991 US-led war; this percentage rose to 4 in 10 after the war. The fatality rate of diarrhea per 1,000 cases was reported to have climbed from 1.6 in 1990 to 19.3 in 1998, a 12-fold increase. It is widely acknowledged that the sanctions against Iraq cost hundreds of thousands of children their lives.
Ordinarily there is a correlation between piped water, considered safe, and a lower incidence of childhood diarrhea. In Iraq recently that correlation has not been evident. The authors suggest that this may be due to the irregularity of electricity in Iraq. “This has led to interruptions in the function of sewage pumps and over-flooding of the sewage system.” In other words, “safe” piped water in Iraq is often unsafe.
Confronting the miserable state of the Iraqi health care system as a whole, the ILCS authors advance an argument that is worth citing at length:
“In the 1980s, Iraq was widely considered to have one of the region’s best health care systems, with advanced, technological specialist care, and an extensive net of primary health care. However, after years of war and sanctions, this situation has changed completely. Among the current major problems are lack of health personnel, lack of medicines, non-functioning medical equipment and destroyed hospitals and health centres. The health services are also heavily affected by infrastructure problems, including degraded or disrupted electricity supply, sanitation, and communications. The situation has been characterized in this way: ‘Iraq is a second world country, accustomed to a first world health system, which now has the epidemiological profile of a third world country (Garfield, Zaidi & Lennock 1997).’ ”
Before the first US-led war in 1991, Iraq had a network of approximately 1,800 primary health centers; by 2001, that figure had declined to 929, of which a third were considered in need of rehabilitation. “In the course of the war launched in mid-March 2003, further destruction of infrastructure and health facilities were reported.” In 1999-2003, Iraq had one third the number of physicians per 100,000 inhabitants as its neighbors Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Decades of war have taken their toll. The ILCS research indicates that more than 200,000 Iraqis currently have chronic disabilities caused by war. The number of deaths attributable to the 2003 US war and occupation remains unknown, principally because neither Washington nor the puppet authorities in Baghdad have the slightest interest in calculating the figure. A study in The Lancet medical journal last year estimated that as many as 100,000 Iraqis had died in the conflict. The Iraqi Living Conditions 2004 report places the figure at somewhere between 18,000 and 29,000.
A revealing fact brought out in the report is that a higher percentage of children, women and elderly have been chronically disabled as a result of the ongoing war than in the previous conflicts in the 1980s and 1990s—not astonishing, given that the current fighting is taking place almost entirely in Iraqi cities and towns. “[I]n the ongoing war, it is the civilian population that are most affected. This impression is further strengthened by the fact that, in the most recent war, there is almost no difference in the number of women and men that were disabled.”
Writing on education and the position of women in Iraqi society, the ILCS authors offer comments similar to those they made in regard to health care: after considerable advances in the 1970s and 1980s, conditions have seriously worsened under the impact of sanctions and war.
“Iraq’s educational system,” they write, “used to be among the best in the region; one of the country’s most important assets remains its well-educated people. The results of education reforms in the 1970s and 1980s are evident in the high literacy rates in the adult population.” For example, in 1978 the Baathist government launched the National Comprehensive Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy, which aimed at eliminating illiteracy for all those between the ages of 15 and 45. There was “a special emphasis on the full participation and emancipation of women.”
The literacy rate today for those 15 to 24, however, is lower than for those 25 to 34, indicating that the younger generation is lagging behind its predecessors. This is a result of the deterioration of the educational system over the past 10 to 15 years. The literacy rate for women has stagnated, and, in certain regions, the level of female illiteracy is very high. Some 65 percent of the adult population in Iraq is literate, compared with 86 percent in Jordan and 75 percent in Syria.
School enrolment at all levels has dropped over the past decade. Iraq is “far behind” the UN Millennium Development Goal of ensuring that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling and eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education. In rural areas, 38 percent of women between 15 and 24 have not completed elementary education.
On the overall position of women in Iraqi society, the ILCS argues that after improvement in the 1970s, there have been numerous setbacks in the past 15 years. In the late 1960s, the Baath party started an ideological campaign for women’s participation in the labor force and educational system. This “state feminism” was typical of bourgeois nationalist regimes in the aftermath of decolonization. A national illiteracy campaign for women was introduced in 1978; according to the Baathist regime, 1.5 million were reached and illiteracy was eliminated in some regions. “Yet data from the ILCS shows a high level of illiteracy among women today.” Women’s participation in the labor force and education, once again, is among the lowest in the region.
The study, in passing, makes the interesting observation that one effect of the US pressure on the Hussein regime was the latter’s decision after 1990 to seek stronger ties with religious leaders and neighboring, less secular regimes, thus reinforcing conservative and more patriarchal trends in Iraqi society.
Based on its survey results, the ILCS estimates the unemployment rate, including discouraged workers (those who have given up looking), at 18.4 percent. The jobless figure among young people—in a country where 39 percent of the population is less than 15 years old—is 33.4 percent and “reaches an astonishing 37.2 percent” among men with secondary or higher education.
The report contends that the majority of those employed before the US invasion have kept their jobs—with the important exception of those in the army—and that the majority of the unemployed are new entrants to the labor market.
All the accumulated tragedies of the past two decades have created a situation in which the average Iraqi household probably has lower real income in 2004 than in 1980. The ILCS found the median per-capita household income in 2003 to be 366,000 dinars (about $255). Some 16 percent of Iraqi households are unable to buy any one of six elementary items (new clothes, heating, etc.); 35 percent would be unable to raise 100,000 dinars in an emergency; 28 percent describe themselves as “among the poor in Iraq.” The poorest 20 percent of households receive less than 7 percent of the total income of Iraqi households; the richest 20 percent receive 44 percent—in fact, however, income inequality in Iraq is still relatively low compared to the rest of the region.
The ILCS figures reveal that wide layers of the population in what was a relatively modern society, rich in resources, have been reduced to poverty and degradation in large measure by American imperialist policy, conditions that have been worsened by the ongoing occupation. The economic and social facts refute the claims of the Bush administration and the US media about America’s “democratizing” and “nation-building” mission in Iraq. They represent an indictment of US policy pursued by both Republicans and Democrats.
Alleviating the immense suffering of the Iraqi people requires, first and foremost, the immediate withdrawal of all US forces, war crimes trials of those officials responsible for the 2003 invasion and tens of billions of dollars in reparations.
See Also:
Soaring birth deformities and child cancer rates in Iraq
[10 May 2005]
Iraq: child malnutrition almost doubles after US invasion
[26 November 2004]
Iraqi social crisis continues unabated as US slashes funding
[20 October 2004] More >
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 16 May 2005 @ 21:36
They Said It Couldn’t Happen Here
(But It IS)
(by anonymous author)
I was told at the age of five by my German refugee Grandmother, “Don’t you ever believe that it can’t happen here”. In the pre-Nazi era my family believed, like the majority of others, that because we lived in a democracy that was founded in a civilized world, that nothing like what was to come could even be imagined, let alone expected. They had all seen the warning signs of insanity and blind hatred, stirred to a war-fever pitch, but had chosen to deny them for the most part, until it was too late. The Germany of that time was a place of hopes for the future, as a nation amongst many peaceful neighbors in the world community. The first World War, the one that was supposed to, “end all wars”, was now a memory from which the world had supposedly learned its lessons. But that was not to be the case, as history proves. The attention span of the public is short, and memories are even shorter.
Today we witness the modern America with its supposed reputation for being a haven of “peace, justice and democracy” taking the foremost role as aggressor, tyrant and world bully. All this talk of “keeping world peace”, “defending freedom and democracy” through warring ways and the disintegration of our Bill of Rights and Constitution, amounts to one single endpoint…things are not as we are told on our televisions. Today we find that the world is not a very peaceful place, and this is largely, if not primarily due to the constant threats issued, and wars of aggression waged, by the United States. The entire world community is up in arms. Nervous fears of wars and grave international instability abound. World War III looms large on the immediate horizon. Open talks of nuclear attacks of one nation upon another, boasted by world leaders like the bold promises of retaliation made by any grade school bully, are the common rhetoric of international relations. The proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons is skyrocketing, as every country on Earth looks to the examples of Afghanistan and Iraq, and sees the possibility of their own demise, and are thus convinced that if they are not properly armed with such weapons, they will have no means to deter wars of aggression by imperial super-power governments. Once again the people of the world are faced with the dilemma of their own support for governments which flaunt their ability to end the human race forever. Once again the same plea by intellectuals and progressive people the world over go basically unheard, while madmen race to destroy each other for the sake of imperial ambitions of world domination, and the filling of bank accounts.
The parallels between Nazi Germany and the current United States are just too striking to ignore. Yet most people seem bent on ignoring them. This too is a parallel between 1933 and 2003. Many people ask of history and of the German people, “How could a population of people have allowed such an evil as Hitler to arise, when they saw it happening, step by step”? The answer is being re-written by history in this present day, right before our eyes. Because millions of people didn’t WANT to believe what was happening in Nazi Germany they didn’t live to see 1945. They didn’t offer any significant resistance to the Nazi party as it rose to power, preferring instead to cower helplessly at each new imposition of civil liberty erosion, arbitrary arrests, and martial law. They believed that they were citizens of a great country, one that was based on democratic principles and which would balance itself politically and socially, by not allowing extremists and fascists to take it over. But they were wrong. Those that stayed were either killed in their homes, died in concentration camps or hid in attics and basements for the duration of the war. Others simply joined the Nazis and became the oppressors, so that they in turn might not be oppressed. Neighbor turned against neighbor, children against parents, man against wife, sword against reason. Then it was called “the Jewish Problem”. Now it’s called “the War on Terror”, a conflict that is literally scheduled to last decades.
Those that did escape before the era of the concentration camps were forced to leave everything behind, assuming they were lucky enough to obtain a passport. All their possessions, titles, lands, homes and personal histories were wiped out. This was the plight of the German Jews and millions of others throughout Europe, and it is one of those moments in time which has repeated itself over and over again throughout recorded history. Yet through all these travails and trials at the hands of oppressors, how much did the people learn regarding the wrong use of power? How much did they learn from the holding of materialistic and ideologically selfish values, the very ones which have brought about most wars throughout the world? How many people have actually changed their values as reflected in an honest appraisal of society and a real change of lifestyle? Almost no one. If the present norms of American living and the actions of modern Israel are any indication, people have learned almost nothing. In the short span of 50 years, people have already forgotten the lessons history has to teach, and they fall yet again for the very same ploys of fascists and government criminals, who give excuses for war and injustice.
Even in the time of the Roman empire, Caesar was quoted as saying,
“Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war,
In order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor,
for patriotism is indeed a double edged sword.
It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch
And the blood boils with hate
And the mind has closed, the leader will have no need of seizing
the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism,
will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.
How do I know? For this is what I have done.
And I am Caesar.”
What had the people learned from the Nazi era? Almost nothing other than to say a great tragedy was committed, yet without any bother to explain WHY it happened to start with. Even at the age of five I could see that my family, which had remained Jewish, had not changed their values or their lifestyle in any way. In fact they held onto it even more. Their main focus was, as ever, the making of money and the holding of social status in a materialistic society, which values possessions and bank accounts far more than people or life. My family was quite wealthy in pre-Nazi Germany, with house servants, a mansion-like house, artwork, silver, jewelry, fine furniture and china, fur coats and all the modern conveniences. Rather than learning some needed life lessons about how greedy and selfish values are the very foundations for fascism and war, my family went about seeking another fortune soon after they arrived in the United States. Spiritual values were never sincerely discussed, only traditional, shallow rituals and obligatory motions. Never did they ever speak of WHY the Nazis rose to power, or how they held it despite their obvious levels of corruption, fraud and abuse. Never did they speak of what THEY did to prevent Nazi-ism from gaining and keeping its power over a large portion of the world. In essence, they did nothing at all to prevent it, and yet went on and on about what a horrible tragedy the whole affair was. They spoke of how much they lost, but rarely spoke of the reasons why so many suffered, or how many died, or what social changes were needed to keep it from happening again. To me these attitudes were and are tantamount to being uncaring about preventing or solving anything, and only engaging in more selfishness, by emphasizing what victims the poor Jews were.
It is more than noteworthy to realize that in these modern times, those most prone to agreeing with and paying for unprovoked wars of aggression, such as with Iraq, are those “good” religious people in the Jewish and Christian traditions. Just like abused children who become abusive parents, the descendants of concentration camp inmates and Roman persecution have become the proponents of mass murder, so long as they think that might benefit them in some selfish way. If this were not so, then these religious communities would have long ago expressed their extreme discomfort and outrage at the moral and spiritual atrocity being contemplated in the Middle East. And just like the Jews and Christians, American “patriots” imagine that they are in many ways better than anyone else, that they are the “chosen” people to rule the world. Like the Nazis’, many Americans think that God is clearly on their side, and that whatever they want as the, “superior race” is what the world should immediately give, or face the consequences of war and mass death. Like early 1940’s Germany, America imagines that it can both make the rules by which the world should live, and simultaneously break them whenever it is convenient.
It’s a tried and true tactic of dictators everywhere, to pose false or even self-created threats to, “justify” the slaughtering of millions, to corrupt the due process of law, to excuse torture, the arbitrary cancellation of international treaties, the daily telling of the most bald-faced lies in the media and the imprisonment of anyone who might disagree. But people refuse to learn. In time they themselves become the aggressors and the fascists, through the holding of those very same corrupt and greedy values of, “my advantage before yours” mentality. Through their fear and their narrow minded selfishness they create yet again the repetition of the tragedies of history, in the name of patriotism and national self-protection.
In Nazi Germany fascism started with the public persecution of intellectuals, thinkers, artists and those of alternative politics, with the government doing everything in its “legal” power to sweep away all resistance to its own corruption and hypocrisy. Then there was the passing of legislation which increasingly made dissent of all kinds a grave offense against the, “best interests of the people” and in the name of, “patriotism”. In this way fascism was “legalized”. After this there was the ominous build-up of both military and domestic police forces to “enforce” the “law” and discourage anyone “radical” and “unpatriotic” enough to voice any significant opposition to government policy. At the end Nazi facism engaged in the widespread round-up, imprisonment and extermination of the Jews and anyone else who opposed them. What is the relevance of this to the modern day? These are exactly the trends we see set in motion through such legislature as the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, the gutting of the national treasury for the sake of private, corporate benefit, widespread government corruption, utter contempt for real democratic process, the rigging of elections, the huge enlargement of the prison system and population, the continuous erosion of civil liberties and the due process of law. Worst of all, we find that the American public has become too brainwashed by the media, (and particularly the television which the Nazis didn’t have) to understand what is really going on, or even really care.
To quote the proposed articles of “Patriot Act 2” the following provisions are likely to be pushed through congress;
From [link],1250,BDC_2489_1738465,00.html
Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government, under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship. I challenge all Americans to study the new Patriot Act and to compare it to the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. Ninety percent of the act has nothing to do with terrorism and is instead a giant Federal power-grab with tentacles reaching into every facet of our society. It strips American citizens of all of their rights and grants the government and its private agents total immunity. Here is a quick thumbnail sketch of just some of the draconian measures encapsulated within this tyrannical legislation:
SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the Bush administration's "enemy combatant" definition to all American citizens who "may" have violated any provision of
Section 802 of the first Patriot Act. (Section 802 is the new definition of domestic terrorism, and the definition is "any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law.") Section 501 of the second Patriot Act directly connects to
Section 125 of the same act. The Justice Department boldly claims that the incredibly broad Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act isn't broad enough and that a new, unlimited definition of terrorism is needed.
Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown into a van never to be seen again. The Justice Department states that they can do this because the person "had inferred from conduct" that they were not a US citizen. Remember Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or State law can result in the "enemy combatant" terrorist designation.
SECTION 201 of the second Patriot Act makes it a criminal act for any member of the government or any citizen to release any information concerning the incarceration or whereabouts of detainees. It also states that law enforcement does not even have to tell the press who they have arrested and they never have to release the names.
SECTION 301 and 306 (Terrorist Identification Database) set up a national database of "suspected terrorists" and radically expand the database to include anyone associated with suspected terrorist groups and anyone involved in crimes or having supported any group designated as "terrorist." These sections also set up a national DNA database for anyone on probation or who has been on probation for any crime, and orders State governments to collect the DNA for the Federal government.
SECTION 312 gives immunity to law enforcement engaging in spying operations against the American people and would place substantial restrictions on court injunctions against Federal violations of civil rights across the board. SECTION 101 will designate individual terrorists as foreign powers and again strip them of all rights under the "enemy combatant" designation.
SECTION 102 states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power. This makes news gathering illegal.
SECTION 103 allows the Federal government to use wartime martial law powers domestically and internationally without Congress declaring that a state of war exists.
SECTION 106 is bone-chilling in its straightforwardness. It states that broad general warrants by the secret FSIA court (a panel of secret judges set up in a star chamber system that convenes in an undisclosed location) granted under the first Patriot Act are not good enough. It states that government agents must be given immunity for carrying out searches with no prior court approval. This section throws out the entire Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.
SECTION 109 allows secret star chamber courts to issue contempt charges against any individual or corporation who refuses to incriminate themselves or others. This sections annihilate the last vestiges of the Fifth Amendment.
SECTION 110 restates that key police state clauses in the first Patriot Act were not sunsetted and removes the five year sunset clause from other subsections of the first Patriot Act. After all, the media has told us: "this is the New America. Get used to it. This is forever."
SECTION 111 expands the definition of the "enemy combatant" designation. SECTION 122 restates the government's newly announced power of "surveillance without a court order."
SECTION 123 restates that the government no longer needs warrants and that the investigations can be a giant dragnet-style sweep described in press reports about the Total Information Awareness Network. One passage reads, "thus the focus of domestic surveillance may be less precise than that directed against more conventional types of crime." *Note: Over and over again, in subsection after subsection, the second Patriot Act states that its new Soviet-type powers will be used to fight international terrorism, domestic terrorism and other types of crimes. Of course the government has already announced in Section 802 of the first USA Patriot act that any crime is considered domestic terrorism.
SECTION 126 grants the government the right to mine the entire spectrum of public and private sector information from bank records to educational and medical records. This is the enacting law to allow ECHELON and the Total Information Awareness Network to break down any and all walls of privacy. The government states that they must look at everything to "determine" if individuals or groups might have a connection to terrorist groups. As you can now see, you are guilty until proven innocent.
SECTION 127 allows the government to takeover coroners' and medical examiners' operations whenever they see fit. See how this is like Bill Clinton's special medical examiner he had in Arkansas that ruled that people had committed suicide when their arms and legs had been cut off.
SECTION 128 allows the Federal government to place gag orders on Federal and State Grand Juries and to take over the proceedings. It also disallows individuals or organizations to even try to quash a Federal subpoena. So now defending yourself will be a terrorist action.
SECTION 129 destroys any remaining whistleblower protection for Federal agents.
SECTION 202 allows corporations to keep secret their activities with toxic biological, chemical or radiological materials.
SECTION 205 allows top Federal officials to keep all their financial dealings secret, and anyone investigating them can be considered a terrorist. This should be very useful for Dick Cheney to stop anyone investigating Haliburton.
SECTION 303 sets up national DNA database of suspected terrorists. The database will also be used to "stop other unlawful activities." It will share the information with state, local and foreign agencies for the same purposes.
SECTION 311 federalizes your local police department in the area of information sharing.
SECTION 313 provides liability protection for businesses, especially big businesses that spy on their customers for Homeland Security, violating their privacy agreements. It goes on to say that these are all preventative measures - has anyone seen Minority Report? This is the access hub for the Total Information Awareness Network.
SECTION 321 authorizes foreign governments to spy on the American people and to share information with foreign governments.
SECTION 322 removes Congress from the extradition process and allows officers of the Homeland Security complex to extradite American citizens anywhere they wish. It also allows Homeland Security to secretly take individuals out of foreign countries.
SECTION 402 is titled "Providing Material Support to Terrorism." The section reads that there is no requirement to show that the individual even had the intent to aid terrorists.
SECTION 403 expands the definition of weapons of mass destruction to include any activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce.
SECTION 404 makes it a crime for a terrorist or "other criminals" to use encryption in the commission of a crime.
SECTION 408 creates "lifetime parole" (basically, slavery) for a whole host of crimes.
SECTION 410 creates no statute of limitations for anyone that engages in terrorist actions or supports terrorists. Remember: any crime is now considered terrorism under the first Patriot Act.
SECTION 411 expands crimes that are punishable by death. Again, they point to Section 802 of the first Patriot Act and state that any terrorist act or support of terrorist act can result in the death penalty.
SECTION 421 increases penalties for terrorist financing. This section states that any type of financial activity connected to terrorism will result to time in prison and $10-50,000 fines per violation. S
ECTIONS 427 sets up asset forfeiture provisions for anyone engaging in terrorist activities. There are many other sections that I did not cover in the interest of time. The American people were shocked by the despotic nature of the first Patriot Act. The second
Patriot Act dwarfs all police state legislation in modern world history. ---
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On top of all this, the current national debt now runs at the astronomical figure of 6.4 Trillion dollars. See this excerpt from;
[link]
demonstrating the criminal and unaccountable nature of the current American regime. A total lack of accountability on the part of state and federal law makers as to the reasons WHY the budgets are so indebted and imbalanced, is considered common place. Not only do government officials offer no logical explanation why the richest economy in the world is so in debt, they rarely offer any explanation at all. Nor do a sheep-like American public demand one…
Government Hits $6.4 Trillion Debt Limit
Thu Feb 20,11:18 AM ET
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON - Replaying a drama from last year, the government is once again bumping against the debt limit of $6.4 trillion and the Treasury Department (news - web sites) has begun taking evasive actions to prevent an unprecedented default on the national debt.
Treasury Secretary John Snow informed leaders of Congress on Wednesday that the government would reach the borrowing limit on Thursday and he would begin pulling investments out of a $48 billion government pension fund to make room for normal public borrowing auctions.
In a reference to the looming possibility of a war with Iraq, Snow urged Congress to act without delay to raise the borrowing limit.
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In a contemptuous and completely routine manner, President Bush effectually stated that the protests of the people mean nothing to him, and wont change his policies of aggression in the slightest. This is not democracy, it is dictatorship.
Bush Shrugs Off Global Antiwar Protests
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) on Tuesday shrugged off global protests against a possible U.S.-led war with Iraq and the White House said a new U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing military force could be proposed this week.
In a huge wave of demonstrations not seen since the Vietnam War, more than 6 million peace protesters took to the streets in 600 towns and cities from Cape Town to Chicago on Saturday.
Bush told reporters that "democracy is a beautiful thing and people are allowed to express their opinion" but that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) is a risk to peace.
"Evidently some in the world don't view Saddam as a risk to peace. I respectfully disagree," Bush said.
********
Additionally, the current U.S. government works to;
1) continually erode all environmental protections and international treaties for the sake of corporate profits.
2) Provide arms and weapons of mass destruction to countries around the world, as the biggest supplier of these materials the world has ever known. [This includes Iraq in the 1980’s, which the U.S. supplied such materials to during the Iran-Iraq war.]
3) Encourage cut-throat economic practices that are designed to strangle the third world with debt, and create sweat shop labor for the sake of corporate profits. To undercut the economies of developed nations, rather than seeking to cooperate with them.
4) Threaten the international community with war or economic measures in the event that they seek to act in any way that is contrary to Washington’s demands, through the use of “pre-emptive” war, nuclear weapons and trade sanctions. Recent dealings with NATO and the UN prove this point beyond a doubt.
5) Bribe foreign officials with the tax money of American citizens, so as to achieve their political and imperial aims, such as in the case of the “foreign aid package” now being offered to Turkey, in exchange for its’ compliance as an Iraq battle-front.
6) Usurp and otherwise install puppet regimes throughout Central and South America, for the sake of exploiting those country’s natural resources.
7) Silencing dissenting voices through the cancellation of funding to universities and other public institutions, who express their discontent with foreign and domestic policy. This includes the making of death threats and firing of professors, and the disbanding of student groups who are vocal about opposing imperialism. It also includes a strong measure of increasing police brutality at peacefully organized protests.
8) Pass legislation which is transparently geared to give free handouts, such as enormous tax breaks and legal loopholes to big business, even in the midst of the biggest national budget crisis in history, while simultaneously forcing states to raise their taxes as a burden to the people.
9) Impose an increasingly police-state version of martial law, in the huge bloating of “law enforcement” beaurocracies, such as the DEA, Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA and a whole host of minor agencies, all working to keep the public under their imperial thumb. The United States already has the largest per capita prison population in the world, and there is every indication that they intend to build even more prisons, and imprison even more people.
10) Maintain a nearly air-tight control of the major media, on television, radio, magazines and newspapers.
11) Spend by far the most money for the military than any country ever known, and whose total exceeds the military budgets of the next 12 largest countries in the world COMBINED. This expense is in excess of 500 billion dollars a year, and constantly growing.
12) Create laws designed to be followed only by the great mass of the working public, who are under that threshold of economic status known as, “the ultra rich” or “wealthy elite”. Such laws do not apply to the rich, nor do they apply to the United States government. This government has made it perfectly clear that it is bound by no laws at all, or only those which are deemed momentarily convenient, for the sake of domestic or international advantage.
13) Creating programs like “TIPS” which encourage people to spy on each other, to report any “suspicious behavior”. This where the guy who reads your electric meter can look into your window and report you for having politically incorrect books on your bookshelf, or where the person sitting next to you on an airplane doesn’t like the comment you just made about the government, or that you simply “look nervous”.
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It takes no great leap of logic or intuition to conclude that the American government has been taken over by big-money interests, who are little more than glorified mobsters. These ring leaders of organized crime create laws that seem to justify their criminal negligence, but which any logical analysis of their activities will reveal as quite illegal. The current “budget deficit” is a perfect example. Although the average person is required to show where and how they spend their money, and to balance their books in order for taxes to be paid, no such requirement is made of the government. In fact, the U.S. government couldn’t possibly show an honest account of its books, since it’s spending practices are thoroughly illegal and fraudulent. How else can one conclude, given that we are supposedly strongest economy and richest nation in the world, but at the same time have the biggest public debt ever known, to the tune of 6.4 Trillion dollars? Where has all this money been squandered? No one can clearly say, least of all the corrupt politicians running the show.
The fact is, the United States is already broke, and that it’s money has been siphoned off in leech-like fashion by private interests, such as the major corporations of the world. The treasury of America is basically insolvent, since it owes more than it can realistically repay for decades to come. No business could hope to operate in such an inefficient and fraudulent manner, but since the government is little more than a parasite infecting the labors of the people, it carries on, and with each year that passes more debts are added to the backs of the working class. When will the last straw break the camels’ back, both here at home, and abroad in foreign policy? Who knows. But what is certain is that this current state of affairs cannot possibly last much longer, and MUST simply collapse due to sheer corruption and wrong spending values.
The fact that America is already broke is not the main issue in the minds of the international community at present, which is why foreign nations still treat the dollar as a valid form of exchange. The dollar is essentially worthless. But what goes as a surrogate for worth is the fact that the world views America’s international influence as the standard for the world economy. Why is this so? It’s because the U.S. military still holds the primary power-position in world events. Given this, the world fears what the international bully might do to THEM next, and so, is intimidated into complying with the idea that the dollar is the standard currency by which all things monetary are judged. This is the true and underlying reason behind the U.S. military build-up and the “War on Terror” that has been carried to the world. It is also the secret reason why the Department of Homeland Security has been so amplified, so as to keep the probable revolts of the American citizenry in check, as more and more needed social services are removed. Government leaders behind the scenes know that the whole economic mess is on the verge of collapse, and only military intimidation of the world can keep it from faltering completely.
Like pre-Nazi Germany, American corporate interests are on the verge of collapse, while the economy is being held up by the thread of an illusory “recovery”. Only the toils of the vast majority of wage-slave employees, are keeping the current machine sufficiently oiled to get by one more year at a time. Corporate America knows this and has invented the War on Terror as an excuse to invade and occupy one country after the next, particularly those with special resources and strategic positioning. And just like the Nazis they plan to destroy one country after the next in the most cold blooded fashion, all in the name of “national security” and “freedom”.
If you enjoy the thought of contributing to World War III, then by all means remain silent like the Jews were, prior to 1940. Or better yet, continue to be deluded by the idea that changing the system through “getting out the vote” or writing letters to Congress people is going to do any good, when the voting machines are rigged and most Senators are on the corporate payroll…
“Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war”….. More >
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15 Apr 2005 @ 00:52
Leaving the World Behind
What does it take to truly leave the world behind? When one attempts to do such a thing, the result is inevitably the same. Connections and contacts of the person attempting this feat do nothing but criticize, get defensive, make excuses, argue, and psychically vibe the person with the purpose of saying that they are wrong. The reasons given for the person being wrong is never quite clear, but the obvious expectation of everyone is that the reason(s) for rejection and abandonment of such standards is totally and unequivocally erroneous anyway.
This attempt is one I have been “trying” to do for years now and it always ends up the same way. I am in the midst of people who do not want to give up the status quo at any cost and therefore I am wrong in everything I say and do in every way shape and form. After a time, no one even listens to the Truth of what is being told. The standard comebacks are: “You’ve said all that before”, “I know what you are saying but I have to do it my way” (which is no way except staying in the same situations and lifestyles), “You are angry”, “You are judgmental”, “You can’t change the world, so just accept and live it in the wrong way even if it means death and destruction to all life including the soulic body,”, “It’s been this way for eons and it will continue in this way for eons”, “Everything is as it should be”….blah blah blah….
Doesn’t anyone get it? We are truly consciousness in bodies and we are here to expand, love, become High Spiritual Masters and Ascend. Just because it is NOT the focus of society and everything you have ever been taught does in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS mean that the reason for life is not the reasons listed above. It is all due to wrong focus, the acceptance of wrong values, wrong living, wrong intention and therefore insane minds and corrupted/lost souls.
I have made excuses for the humans of the world and myself long enough. I have compromised and told people it is ok to stay the way they are because I wanted to feel good loving vibes from them (not angry/hostile vibes) and I was afraid of truly being alone in saying these things. This only keeps one stuck in fears and in denial of the truth. My fears and the world’s fears do NOT matter, because no matter what we are feeling, the truth is that we are dying because of our current means of living, thinking, being and accepting. We then say… this Truth does not matter, because we are so afraid to admit to how wrong we have been for lifetimes, how painful the truth feels in our bodies, minds and souls, how much pressure is upon us daily from the world mind to keep things as they are, how hurtful the truth is to our ego/image and the death/rejection of the false self (ego/image) that this implies, and that we want to keep denying all our true intentions because in essence they are shameful. Our true intentions allow people, (governments) to lie, kill, abuse, betray and continue in all these things without end. Even the “so-called” spiritual people do this. They claim to spread positivity and love etc, but they don’t look the truth at face value, because that would mean that their “image” of being “Good Spiritual People” would be diminished. Let’s look at some of these truths….
1) Governments start wars based on lies that they tell the public and are really about greed, corruption, the need for natural resources, and world domination.
At first you may get the usual protests because the lies are so obvious a comatose person would know the difference. But then the excuses start…..”Oh, we must support our troops”, “sign petitions that no one reads or cares about”, “let’s make the best of this administration and hope it changes later” etc…
Meanwhile very few look to see their part in all this. Just two examples are: the need for natural resources is NOT by accident. It is because we are depleting the earth with our wasteful, extravagant lifestyles (materialism/consumerism) based on lack of self knowledge.
People continue to pay taxes to the government, funding their evil ways and therefore taking on the karma. World Karma is Personal Karma as long as one is involved in it to any degree. That child in Iraq that has no limbs, or no parents, or no home is that way because most just sit back and do nothing in the way of change or responsibility. Oh yes, the platitudes are plenty, but the actions are nil.
2) People claim that they “know” that we are all one and that we are souls in bodies yet they continue to send their children to schools where NONE of this is even mentioned and the children are merely being programmed to:
· Ignore their bodies in lieu of schedules
· Learn the meaning of stress and just getting the job done
· Programmed with what is “politically correct” and not what is the truth
· Put on medication in order to do all the above
Again we are hit with double messages. We are one, but there is no use even mentioning psychic vibe or world consciousness as one. So listen to me at home, but be politically correct everywhere else. Yes this is taking the truth seriously and living it in our daily actions. (That was a sarcastic comment)
Until one realizes the impact of the world mind, psychic pressure, false ego concerns, the merit of living, knowing and honoring Truth, then one will only fall prey to the conditions of this world and its’ ultimate karma of destruction. There is NO WHERE else it can go.
I admit here and now that I have been as guilty as the next person in not living the truth at all costs, because that is all there is. I wanted to be loved by my children and associates and not looked upon as the angry, negative person that they don’t want to be with or listen to. But the fact of the matter is that they are wrong and I am right. I have yet to hear one argument that changes that fact. Society is WRONG and we are not here to struggle with school, career, financial concerns, peers, image, and ego. We are here to expand, evolve and go higher and higher. It is often depicted in movies and books that humans are afraid of their own power. That is bunk. They are afraid to look at what they have done with their power, pure and simple. They know they have denied it and used it for low, corrupt, evil and de-evolutionary ways. I’ve got news for you…the pain and fear you are feeling at this very moment no matter how subtle, are not the norm, they are the wrong focus in life, the poor intent of every action and the denial/disconnection to the true self.
I have heard that people want to truly make a difference, or spread the word, or wake people up, or get in the system to change it. One cannot change the consciousness of a person or planet coming from the same level of consciousness as everyone else, and one can certainly not change a corrupt system within that system. One cannot get out of quicksand by moving forward, backward or side to side in it. One must rise above it. Most people are caught up in the quicksand of the world mind and they won’t even look at it. They are moving around with their fingers in the muck of this consciousness. They believe that just moving it from one place to another, side to side and in swirls, perhaps, believing that this swirling action is going to help it or change it. I am sorry to have to tell you this folks, but it is doing NOTHING! It is only stirring the pot of denial and confusion. It is not saying I am out of it, higher in mind, body and spirit, and therefore, I see things clearly and I can now help you get out. It is only helping to keep the murky substance stirred well. It is only pulling people through the muck with the illusion of some movement, even though the movement is not progressive. The only thing being accomplished is that one is able to stay “afloat” a little bit longer. This is all I have seen done by people, even those who have very good intention, because they lack clear seeing, honesty and higher consciousness to do more.
My question to you is this…do we stay stuck in the quicksand, never reaching for a better way to get out, because it is intensely hard at first to get a little height? ….or do we finally say it is time to truly look things squarely in the eye, be honest about them and change within ourselves, perpetuating a change without? I know the answer for most of you and now I am not in alignment with that way of being anymore. It is just too deadly and corrupt for my soul.
It is time to listen to our souls and the Higher Consciousness that we truly are. Most of what the mind tells you is faulty and must be sent to the recycle bin for total depletion. It is by and large only programmed information and it is killing you…..literally!
I must admit that my intention in writing this is to put my intention in writing and out to the world that I will not compromise anymore. If you don’t like it then that is too bad. I will say it as I see it. If someone has a legitimate comment or argument, I will be most happy to listen, and if I am wrong I will be the first to admit it. BUT I will not make excuses for you or me anymore.
As I have told you countless times before, there are over 100 articles written on the Truth of what we are and what we are here for in the library at The World Mind Society at [link] But I know, you have more important things to do like…. work, read a book demanded on you by a teacher/professor, watch tv, play video games, talk about trivia on the net, go to work, go to the health club, play cards/games, discuss the weather or what is for dinner, keep up your image, etc…..did I miss anything? We have no time for truth or creative thought. We only have time for what we were taught in school and what is programmed into us daily by tv, magazines, movies and the such.
After reading this, you can hate me, blame me, criticize me, make your own judgments, and deny all I say, but until you can See something better, more true, higher and soulic, then don’t bother to tell me. Live your life the way you are and when this life is over maybe you will finally see what is truly important to your soul…I can guarantee you that it is not the new car, college degree, new house, career etc. It is the Truth and the evolutionary goals of the vast universe…..now that is power.
In the words of Matthew Webb: (paraphrased) You may believe that all you need is love, but that is not true, You need clarity first, because without clarity how will you know what love is, what you are striving for and what the meaning of life truly is?
Sandi Hunter, spellscaster9@yahoo.com More >
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