Monday, March 05, 2007
By Kathy Gannon
In Afghanistan’s tribal society, a single death — no matter if NATO labels the person an ‘enemy’ target — can create scores of sworn foes. And NATO, like the Taliban, has killed hundreds
ABDULLAH Shah and his son made a pilgrimage to the holy Muslim city of Mecca this January, courtesy of the Afghan government. President Hamid Karzai himself arranged the trip to Saudi Arabia.
The invitation came after Shah’s wife, two daughters and three other sons were killed by a wayward NATO bomb in Lagarnai, a village near here in southern Afghanistan.
Shah, in his 70s and wearing the white turban of a religious man, accepted the trip, but not the message.
Before the deaths, “I wasn’t with the Taliban and I wasn’t with the government,” he said. “But, I tell you, now I am Talib.”
In the sixth winter since the US-led ouster of the Taliban government, the radical Islamists are making a comeback. Their bold confidence was apparent last week, when a suicide bomber killed 23 outside an air base during Vice President Richard Cheney’s visit there.
There are many factors. But citizens like Shah, the Afghan government and key NATO commanders agree on this: The use of force is sometimes excessive and errant. In Afghanistan’s tribal society, a single death - no matter if NATO labels it “enemy” - can create scores of sworn foes. And NATO, like the Taliban, has killed hundreds.
The US-based Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 100 Afghan civilians died as a result of coalition assaults in 2006. An AP tally, based on reports from Afghan, NATO and coalition officials, puts the overall death toll of civilians in 2006 at 834, most from militant attacks.
“Killing Taliban is not going to get this country sorted out. That is not going to fix the problem,” said Brig Gen Tim Grant, commander of Canada’s 2,500 troop force, stationed in southern Kandahar, heartland of the resistance to Karzai’s government. What’s needed, he says, is an Afghan army.
While troops go after Taliban fighters, Grant says that’s not a priority for ordinary Afghans; they are frustrated by insecurity and lawlessness, which they blame on a corrupt and inept government whose police extort, threaten and make them feel less secure.
The international troops are there to support Karzai’s government. When they do that aggressively, even in response to deadly Taliban tactics, they are seen as brutes protecting an unpopular regime, he said.
“Are we stuck between a rock and a hard place? Yes. We are here at the request of the government and the government has issues and corruption is leading amongst them,” said Grant.
The head of an Afghan human rights advocacy group, Nader Nadery, told The Associated Press that Afghans are turning away from the government and the international forces.
Yet most Afghans don’t want the foreign soldiers to leave, he said. They keep local warlords and commanders - some now in government - from turning their guns on each other. Such feuds killed thousands of Afghans in the 1990s, destroyed much of the capital, Kabul, and eventually gave rise to the Taliban.
Grant said his priority, higher than chasing Taliban, was training and equipping Afghan forces to provide security on their own by 2009, when the Canadian mission ends.
There’s much work to be done.
Wali Mohammad is a police officer in Kandahar, looking smart in his gray woolen hat and pants. He told the AP that a policeman’s salary of US$60 a month is so low it drives police to corruption.
“There is no discipline among the police, no direction,” he said. “We are given nice uniforms and weapons but that won’t feed our family. We are compelled to be corrupt.”
The police chief of Zabul province, Noor Mohammed Paktin, earlier told the AP that criminal gangs abetted by the police and military are as big a threat in some parts of Afghanistan as the religious militia.
With the spring thaw, fighting is sure to intensify. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates promises NATO and coalition forces will go after the Taliban rather than wait for them to strike.
“What we want to do this spring is have this spring offensive be our offensive,” he said.
But aggressive action risks a backlash.
In 2006, NATO and coalition forces mounted blistering offensives, including the strongest called Operation Medusa in Panjwayi district of southern Kandahar.
Residents of Spirwan, a village in the heart of the district, fled before last year’s operation and had only recently returned when the AP visited this January.
Mohammed Khan, a villager in his 50s with dirt-caked hands from scrounging through the rubble of his home, screamed abuse when he saw a Westerner approach.
“What are these foreign soldiers doing?” he said. “One day they are dropping bombs on us and then they come with three or four dishes of food. What is that? What do they think?”
The offensive against the Taliban left the common people with nothing but problems, he said.
“We hate the world community. We hate America. We hate NATO,” he said. “What good are they doing for us? What good is our government doing?”
In what appeared to be the only concrete structure in the otherwise mud-brick village, local elder Dur Mohammed warned that the bombing of villages was creating more Taliban. He sat in the corner of the room, smoking and stroking his artificial leg, lost in the 1980s war against the invading Soviet Union.
“People don’t like the Taliban coming into the villages, because then the bombing will come,” he said. “But why are they (NATO) killing the Taliban? They are from this country. Why should the foreigners come and kill Afghans?”
Grant said the war is lost if the international community loses the hearts and minds of Afghans. More foreign troops aren’t the answer, he said, and when assaults are needed they must be accurate.
A study of the Afghan war released Tuesday by the US-based Jamestown Foundation reached a similar conclusion.
“As coalition troops continue to use close air support and superior artillery firepower to flush Taliban insurgents out of provinces like Kandahar, the real contest for the hearts and minds... may well hinge on the competing sides’ “collateral damage” statistics,” it said.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, another Washington-based group, said that NATO and the US military were wrong to emphasize their ability to kill Taliban. “The ensuing collateral damage in a culture that emphasizes revenge has created ten enemies out of one and has disillusioned most Afghans,” it said.
Grant says there is more anger today toward the foreign soldiers than in 2005, when he also was stationed in Afghanistan. To turn around that perception means taking risks, he said.
“I tell the troops that there are 55,000 drivers in Kandahar city and maybe five among them are suicide bombers. But if we treat all the other 54,995 drivers like they are all suicide bombers then we have lost,” he said.
Some, like Abdullah Shah, who lost so much of his family, can’t be won back.
“I don’t care. They can kill me. What are the foreign soldiers doing but killing us?” he said, recounting the day his wife and children were struck as they tried to flee. His youngest child, a 10-month-old baby, died with his mother.
“From whom can they protect us? The looters? The looters are the government and they are with the government.” ap
Monday, March 5, 2007
BAGHDAD CHAOS PLAN
March 03, 2007
Iraqi government call it (BAGHDAD SECURITY PLAN) and we call it (BAGHDAD CHAOS PLAN) every single member in the security system taking money from the people to be released like for example I have paid in one day 30,000 Iraqi dinars to the traffic police and the peace keeping forces to be forgiven for the mistake that I did, my mistake was that I was driving my car in the street to go to my work in the time that I not suppose to be driving I mean the government have silly law obligate me to drive three days a week in the street in Baghdad because the numbers of the car as you know the (odds and even ) numbers my car was odd and I was driving in the even day so can you imagine he took 15,000 Iraqi dinars to him self instead giving me the 30,000 Iraqi dinars penalty recede from the government and the keeping peace forces guy did the same thing at the time that it is non of his responsibility….
Can you imagine that you are driving very happy and suddenly an Iraqi army soldier taking a guy from his car because he was wanted to the American and the Iraqi Government because he was related to the Mahdi Militia I was very happy when sow that I was feeling that there is some good will be happen in our future suddenly again the keeping peace forces show up again and they pulled there weapons to the soldiers head and they asked him to release the guy the Iraqi army in coincidence were driving by the same area and they sow that scene they got mad and they start shooting at each others and the funny thing that they didn't mentioned about it on TV so we still have the big hope in Baghdad chaos plan to bring more chaos for us till Almaliky give Baghdad to mahdi militia successfully without any contradiction from the American side..
Thanks for your time
The web works for the grassroots, but political power still lies with the few
Comment
Thousands have been mobilised for the 2008 US elections. But, more than anything, the candidates want money
Gary Younge
Monday March 5, 2007
The Guardian
Thousands have been mobilised for the 2008 US elections. But, more than anything, the candidates want money
Gary Younge
Monday March 5, 2007
The Guardian
Whatever happened to Tom Vilsack? Vilsack appeared on the presidential scene without trace and faded with even less commotion. Since, according to a recent survey, Americans have been paying more attention to coverage of Anna Nicole Smith than the 2008 presidential campaign, few have missed him. But on February 23 he bowed out of the Democratic primaries almost a year before the first vote was to be cast.
"I have the boldest plan to get us out of Iraq and a long-term policy for energy security to keep us out of future oil wars," said Vilsack in his concession speech. This is not true. Vilsack was a fairly ordinary candidate with fairly ordinary policies. His plans were not bold. In a free and fair contest of content, charisma and character the voters would probably not go for him. The issue is that they will never get the chance. Before he could get his name on a ballot, money had the final say.
"This process has become a great deal about money. A lot of money," he said. "So it is money, and only money, that is the reason why we are leaving today."
That is entirely true. The dominant role of money in US politics is widely acknowledged but all too rarely interrogated. The corruption scandals that made the news last year flouted the letter of the law but did not violate its spirit. Money buys access; access begets influence. It is as close to a textbook definition of corruption as you can get - but it's still legal. "We have created a culture in which there's no distinction between what is illegal and what is unethical," says the former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.
The Bush administration did not invent this culture but it has exacerbated it. Registered lobbyists have doubled in George Bush's tenure and they now spend around $25m per politician each year to leverage their agendas. But even as money has cemented its place on the American political landscape, so the internet has enabled a countervailing tendency that could yet allow the green shoots of genuine democratic engagement to break through. The technology by itself does nothing. But when a message or candidate grabs the popular imagination it is the most effective way to fill the vacuum and challenge established hierarchies.
We have no idea yet what role the internet will play in next year's presidential election. First, it is too early in the process. Second, the pace at which the medium is developing means that the campaigning tool of choice probably has not been invented yet. Back in 2003 it took Howard Dean six months to compile an email list of 139,000. But that was before networking sites such as MySpace. In less than two months Barack Obama has gathered more than 310,000 supporters on Facebook.com.
What is certain is that the internet will play a vital, possibly decisive, role; and in all likelihood that role will come into conflict with the established kingmakers. Neither trend is new. But the power of money and the modem are both driven by different and, arguably, contradictory forces. At some stage something will have to give.
Almost two years before polling day we have already seen the pitfalls and the potential. John Edwards let two hired bloggers go after a coordinated Christian conservative attack against them. One had described President Bush's supporters as his "wingnut Christofascist base". Tame stuff, given the adversarial tone of the blogosphere; a disaster, given the all-American nature of an American presidential campaign.
A few weeks earlier Obama attended a 3,000-strong rally at George Mason University organised by Students for Barack Obama, a group set up by Meredith Segal on Facebook. It now has more than 62,000 members and chapters at more than 80 colleges, a field operations director, an internet director, a finance director and a blog team director. Segal met Obama for the first time at the rally.
While these tensions may play out as a battle between left and right, or doves and hawks, they will in essence represent a far more fundamental shift in the relationship of the professional political class with the politically engaged public - a struggle between the popular and the oligarchic, between the bespoke message of the paid consultant and the chaos of freewheeling public opinion. Sadly, it won't change the centrality of money in American politics - the internet is a crucial fundraising tool. But by enabling thousands of small donors to contribute, it has already proved its potential to provide an alternative funding base.
In the past, US political parties have done little more than raise money and get out the vote. They are not forums for debate and persuasion. Beyond polling day they have no organic relationship with the people who vote for them or the communities where their support is based (a trend fast installing itself in the UK). They call for your money and they call for your vote. You write a cheque and pull a lever. No wonder Anna Nicole Smith draws more interest.
The upcoming election is only the second time the web has had a chance to challenge this. Three years ago the internet was instrumental in the Democratic primaries. It explained Howard Dean's stunning ascent from obscurity to insurgency at a time when anti-war views were popular and marginalised. It also explains his equally stunning descent. The web helped make his campaign viable. But with insufficient organisation and an inadequate candidate, it could not make it winnable.
We should have no illusions about who has the upper hand in this battle between big money and burgeoning activism. At a meeting in New York to support Hillary Clinton last week, organised through Meetup.com, the host told us that since Hillary had the votes of New Yorkers sewn up, all she really needed the town for was money.
Over the next 45 minutes there was no political discussion - about Hillary's healthcare, the war or trade. Just how could the assembled pry money from the little people without giving them access to the candidate. Might they host a house party and charge friends $25 to watch Clinton do a webcast? Not an alternative source of funding but an additional one for the candidate who spent $27,000 on valet parking and $13,000 on flowers in November. "She does house parties in Park Avenue," said the host without a blush. "But she's not going to come to our house."
It suits the mythology of meritocracy that remains so central to American identity to have young children walking around in T-shirts saying "Future president of America". But the truth is if your kid really does stand a chance at the top office, he'll already be wearing more expensive attire. America's class system is now more rigid than most in Europe, and that sclerosis is given full expression at the highest levels of politics. Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, Chicago mayor Richard Daley and Southern Christian Leadership Conference head Martin Luther King all carry the names and job titles of their fathers. Each year the richest quarter per cent make 80% of all political donations. The last time there was not a Clinton or a Bush on the presidential ticket was 1976. This is not democracy, it is dynasty.
Some States Put Untrained Cops on Duty
Monday March 5, 2007 7:01 PM
By HOLBROOK MOHR
Associated Press Writer
Four months into his job, a police officer in Mississippi holds a gun to the head of an unarmed teenager and puts him in a chokehold. A rookie officer in Illinois gets into a car chase that kills a driver. And a new campus policeman in Indiana shoots an unarmed student to death.
Some are blaming these harrowing episodes on what an Associated Press survey found is a common practice across the country: At least 30 states let some newly hired local law enforcement officers hit the streets with a gun, a badge and little or no training.
These states allow a certain grace period - six months or a year in most cases, two years in Mississippi and Wisconsin - before rookies must be sent to a police academy. In many cases, these recruits are supposed to be supervised by a full-fledged officer, but that does not always happen.
The risks, some say, are high.
``You wouldn't want a brain surgeon who isn't properly trained. Someone shouldn't be out there carrying a badge and a gun unless they are qualified to be out there,'' said Jeremy Spratt, program manager of the Missouri Peace Officer Standards and Training Program.
No one seems to know how many untrained recruits are on the streets. But the practice appears to be most common among small-town police forces and sheriff's departments.
Many police chiefs interviewed for this story said that for years, they have used less-than-fully-trained officers without problems, and they strongly defended the practice for reasons of money and manpower.
It allows departments to put new hires on the streets right away, without waiting for them to go through police academy training, which is usually a full-time, weeks- or monthslong exercise during which the officer is not on duty but still on the payroll. In some places, there are waiting lists to get into the academy.
Also, some police forces see the grace period as a tryout, during which the department can decide whether the officer is going to work out before it invests thousands of dollars in police academy training. (In several states, if a recruit graduates from the academy, the police force is reimbursed by the state, but not if the officer fails to finish.)
``It lets the officer work for the department for an amount of time to make sure that's what they want to do and make sure that's the right person for the job,'' said Batesville, Miss., Police Chief Gerald Legge. ``We get some people that work a few weeks and say, `This isn't what it was like on TV and this is not for me.'''
Chris Hollingsworth, 24, was hired two weeks ago by the Newton, Miss., police but is not scheduled to go to the academy until April. He said that he is working under the supervision other officers and that he isn't allowed to do much anyway.
``I can see how (the grace period) would be a positive thing as far as letting people see if this is what they want to do for a living,'' Hollingsworth said. ``But I can also can see how it would be a negative thing because you're a real big liability until you go through the training and there's not much you're allowed to do.''
In 2003, Robert Duplain, a 24-year-old rookie police officer at Ball State University in Indiana, fatally shot a student - three rounds in the chest and one in the head. The officer is facing a wrongful-death lawsuit.
Duplain had taken only a 40-hour ``pre-basic course'' consisting of mostly online classes and firearms training, said Rusty Goodpaster, director of Indiana's police academy. Indiana law allows new hires up to one year to go through the police academy, but they can take on enforcement duties before then if they take the pre-basic course, Goodpaster said.
Police said the victim, Michael McKinney, 21, had lunged at the officer, who was responding to a burglary call. McKinney's family said he had gone to the wrong home after a night of drinking.
``When someone's put in a situation where they're given a firearm and they're not trained as they should be, you're asking for trouble,'' said Tim McKinney, the student's father.
A university attorney would not comment on specifics of the case.
In Illinois, Janice Cole, a 58-year-old nurse, died in 2004 when a police SUV driven by Sparta Police Officer Misty McPherson slammed into Cole's car during a chase.
Charles Chapman, the lawyer who helped Cole's family win $5.4 million in a lawsuit, said a policy that allows officers up to six months to enroll in the academy contributed to the woman's death. McPherson had not even started basic training.
``She didn't even know how to turn the sirens on,'' Chapman said.
Sparta's police chief did not return a call for comment.
In Mississippi, Greenwood Police Officer Casey Wiggins was captured by surveillance cameras at a high school in the Mississippi Delta in December, pointing his weapon at an unarmed student, 17-year-old James Marshall. Marshall, who was not disciplined by the school or charged with a crime, is suing for $2 million.
Police recruits in Mississippi have two years to get trained, during which time they are supposed to be supervised by a full-fledged officer. But no other office was visible in the surveillance tapes during the confrontation.
``Not only could Mr. Marshall have been killed, innocent bystanders could have been killed as well,'' said Carlos Moore, the student's lawyer. ``Clearly, if Mr. Wiggins had been trained, he would have conducted himself in a more appropriate manner.''
Wiggins, through his attorney, has said that he did no wrong and that Marshall resisted when the officer approached a group of students to see what they were up to. A hearing is set for March to determine if the officer should face charges.
Some states - Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming - require training before officers are put on the force. Elsewhere, the rules are different.
``The minute I say, `I do,' I can carry out the laws of small-town West Virginia,'' said Chuck Sadler, law enforcement training coordinator for West Virginia, where recruits have 90 days to apply to the police academy.
Some states like Tennessee, which allows officers six months to attend a training academy, have considered eliminating the grace period, said Brian Grisham, executive secretary of Tennessee's Peace Officers Standards and Training.
``The days of `Barney Fife, here's your gun and go' are over. You have to be trained first,'' Grisham said. ``There's too much liability.''
By HOLBROOK MOHR
Associated Press Writer
Four months into his job, a police officer in Mississippi holds a gun to the head of an unarmed teenager and puts him in a chokehold. A rookie officer in Illinois gets into a car chase that kills a driver. And a new campus policeman in Indiana shoots an unarmed student to death.
Some are blaming these harrowing episodes on what an Associated Press survey found is a common practice across the country: At least 30 states let some newly hired local law enforcement officers hit the streets with a gun, a badge and little or no training.
These states allow a certain grace period - six months or a year in most cases, two years in Mississippi and Wisconsin - before rookies must be sent to a police academy. In many cases, these recruits are supposed to be supervised by a full-fledged officer, but that does not always happen.
The risks, some say, are high.
``You wouldn't want a brain surgeon who isn't properly trained. Someone shouldn't be out there carrying a badge and a gun unless they are qualified to be out there,'' said Jeremy Spratt, program manager of the Missouri Peace Officer Standards and Training Program.
No one seems to know how many untrained recruits are on the streets. But the practice appears to be most common among small-town police forces and sheriff's departments.
Many police chiefs interviewed for this story said that for years, they have used less-than-fully-trained officers without problems, and they strongly defended the practice for reasons of money and manpower.
It allows departments to put new hires on the streets right away, without waiting for them to go through police academy training, which is usually a full-time, weeks- or monthslong exercise during which the officer is not on duty but still on the payroll. In some places, there are waiting lists to get into the academy.
Also, some police forces see the grace period as a tryout, during which the department can decide whether the officer is going to work out before it invests thousands of dollars in police academy training. (In several states, if a recruit graduates from the academy, the police force is reimbursed by the state, but not if the officer fails to finish.)
``It lets the officer work for the department for an amount of time to make sure that's what they want to do and make sure that's the right person for the job,'' said Batesville, Miss., Police Chief Gerald Legge. ``We get some people that work a few weeks and say, `This isn't what it was like on TV and this is not for me.'''
Chris Hollingsworth, 24, was hired two weeks ago by the Newton, Miss., police but is not scheduled to go to the academy until April. He said that he is working under the supervision other officers and that he isn't allowed to do much anyway.
``I can see how (the grace period) would be a positive thing as far as letting people see if this is what they want to do for a living,'' Hollingsworth said. ``But I can also can see how it would be a negative thing because you're a real big liability until you go through the training and there's not much you're allowed to do.''
In 2003, Robert Duplain, a 24-year-old rookie police officer at Ball State University in Indiana, fatally shot a student - three rounds in the chest and one in the head. The officer is facing a wrongful-death lawsuit.
Duplain had taken only a 40-hour ``pre-basic course'' consisting of mostly online classes and firearms training, said Rusty Goodpaster, director of Indiana's police academy. Indiana law allows new hires up to one year to go through the police academy, but they can take on enforcement duties before then if they take the pre-basic course, Goodpaster said.
Police said the victim, Michael McKinney, 21, had lunged at the officer, who was responding to a burglary call. McKinney's family said he had gone to the wrong home after a night of drinking.
``When someone's put in a situation where they're given a firearm and they're not trained as they should be, you're asking for trouble,'' said Tim McKinney, the student's father.
A university attorney would not comment on specifics of the case.
In Illinois, Janice Cole, a 58-year-old nurse, died in 2004 when a police SUV driven by Sparta Police Officer Misty McPherson slammed into Cole's car during a chase.
Charles Chapman, the lawyer who helped Cole's family win $5.4 million in a lawsuit, said a policy that allows officers up to six months to enroll in the academy contributed to the woman's death. McPherson had not even started basic training.
``She didn't even know how to turn the sirens on,'' Chapman said.
Sparta's police chief did not return a call for comment.
In Mississippi, Greenwood Police Officer Casey Wiggins was captured by surveillance cameras at a high school in the Mississippi Delta in December, pointing his weapon at an unarmed student, 17-year-old James Marshall. Marshall, who was not disciplined by the school or charged with a crime, is suing for $2 million.
Police recruits in Mississippi have two years to get trained, during which time they are supposed to be supervised by a full-fledged officer. But no other office was visible in the surveillance tapes during the confrontation.
``Not only could Mr. Marshall have been killed, innocent bystanders could have been killed as well,'' said Carlos Moore, the student's lawyer. ``Clearly, if Mr. Wiggins had been trained, he would have conducted himself in a more appropriate manner.''
Wiggins, through his attorney, has said that he did no wrong and that Marshall resisted when the officer approached a group of students to see what they were up to. A hearing is set for March to determine if the officer should face charges.
Some states - Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming - require training before officers are put on the force. Elsewhere, the rules are different.
``The minute I say, `I do,' I can carry out the laws of small-town West Virginia,'' said Chuck Sadler, law enforcement training coordinator for West Virginia, where recruits have 90 days to apply to the police academy.
Some states like Tennessee, which allows officers six months to attend a training academy, have considered eliminating the grace period, said Brian Grisham, executive secretary of Tennessee's Peace Officers Standards and Training.
``The days of `Barney Fife, here's your gun and go' are over. You have to be trained first,'' Grisham said. ``There's too much liability.''
Media Blacks Out Iran Peace Delegation Representing 50+ Million in US
By Bruce Wilson
Posted on March 4, 2007
Bruce Wilson: Pro-Nuclear War Lobbying Group Gets More Attention
In their book The Record of The Paper : How The New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy, Howard Friel and Richard Falk amply document how New York Times mis-reporting helped pave the way for the US invasion of Iraq.
[they] demonstrate how the newspaper of record in the United States has consistently, over the last 50 years, misreported the facts related to the wars waged by the United States. From Vietnam in the 1960s to Nicaragua in the 1980s and Iraq today, the authors accuse the New York Times of serial distortions. They claim that such coverage now threatens not only world legal order but constitutional democracy in the United States.
In late February 2007, delegates representing the National Council Of Churches, which has roughly 45 million members, and other religious groups traveled to Iran and met with top Iranian religious and political leaders, in hopes of increasing trust and reducing tensions that might lead to war between the US and Iran. On Monday February 26th the delegation gave a Washington press conference about the trip. Beyond a vitriolic New York Post parody of the delegation Not a single major US media venue has opted to cover the story.
Ironically, New York Times has just published a story about how the anti-war "Out of Iraq [US] Congressional Caucus" has been blacked out by the media, but the Times is itself appears to be blacking out the story of a peace delegation to Iran representing upwards of perhaps 60 million Americans or more. (see interview with delegate member Jim Winkler)
Meanwhile, the NYT - which has so far declined to cover the peace efforts - opted to run a February 7th op-ed. that appears to treat favorably a new Christian "pro-Israel" lobbying group that advocates for a US nuclear attack on Iran and whose founder says publicly that he thinks the war he wants (for religious reasons) will set in motion a global conflict that he thinks could kill most Jews on Earth. Also, top GOP leaders meet often with Mr. Hagee. Are these GOP leaders just "pandering", eh ? Well, we sure better hope they are. Dick Armey says George W. Bush believes in the "End Times", "The Rapture", "The Apocalypse" and so on but says GW isn't trying to actually make those things happen. How lucky do we feel ?
Bruce Wilson writes for Talk To Action, a blog specializing in faith and politics.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
Mineta's Testimony CONFIRMED: Cheney allowed 9/11 plane to strike Pentagon
Related
DID CHENEY ALLOW OR ORDER 9/11 PLANE TO STRIKE PENTAGON?911 Commission - Trans. Sec Norman Mineta Testimony
9/11 Update
---
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Mineta's Testimony CONFIRMED
When faced with former Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta's testimony -- about Cheney's stand-down order as the plane approached the Pentagon -- Defenders of the official story have tried to discredit Mineta by saying that he got his times mixed up.
Specifically, Mineta claims:
CNN Backs Mineta
However, a CNN news report from 9:52 Eastern Time on 9/11 states:
Therefore, if Mineta arrived at the White House around 9:22 or 9:20 a.m. Eastern Time, the White House evacuation could have commenced. Mineta could then have gone down to the PEOC, and overheard the conversation between Cheney and the young officer. In other words, there are approximately 15 minutes of time in which this could have occurred -- more than enough for the events Mineta described to have taken place.
Indeed, 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer corroborated this basic timeline with Mineta:
Admittedly, counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke said that his recommendations to evacuate the White House were not carried out until 9:45. However, that might very well refer to a full evacuation ordered by the Secret Service itself. It appears that a partial or informal evacuation had already commenced much earlier, ordered by someone other than the secret service.
Indeed, Richard Clarke corroborates Mineta's testimony that Cheney was in the PEOC prior to the Pentagon strike. As the Complete 911 Timeline states:
What Does Dick Cheney Say?
Mr. Cheney has recently testified that he did not enter the PEOC until around 20 minutes after the Pentagon strike. However, his initial testimony, 5 days after the attack, was:
Additional Confirmation
Well over a year before Mineta's testimony to the 9/11 Commission, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward corroborated much of Mineta's testimony (and destroyed any claim that the government could not track the basic position of the hijacked plane because it had turned off its radar transponder):
And Mineta's general outline of the timing of the Pentagon strike is corroborated by the fact that Flight 77 was 38 miles from the Pentagon at approximately 9:29 a.m. (the plane did a bunch of loop-de-loops on its way down, and did not fly a direct route in its final descent). At the very least, this puts the plane in the same basic region it should be in according to Mineta's timeline.
Yet another attempt to defend the official story has been debunked.
Robert Moore found the CNN transcript, and all credit goes to Robert for the catch and for pointing out the significance in relation to Mineta's testimony. Personally, I think Robert is one of the best 9/11 researchers anywhere. Stay tuned for more stunning catches from Robert.
Specifically, Mineta claims:
"When I got to the White House, it was being evacuated. I met briefly with Richard Clark, a National Security Council staff member, who had no new information. Then the Secret Service escorted me down to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, otherwise known as the PEOC."Defenders of the official myth say that the White House was not being evacuated at the time Mineta said, and that this proves Mineta got his story wrong, and that in fact Cheney wasn't in the PEOC until later -- after the Pentagon was hit.
***
I was made aware of it during the time that the airplane coming into the Pentagon. There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, "The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"
CNN Backs Mineta
However, a CNN news report from 9:52 Eastern Time on 9/11 states:
"The White House Has Been EvacuatedThe Pentagon was attacked at approximately 9:37 a.m. Eastern Time, which was 15 minutes before the CNN report. However, the CNN report states that the White House evacuation began about 30 minutes prior to the report.
Aired September 11, 2001 - 09:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
We also have a report now that it was a plane that crashed into the Pentagon, and we have a large fire at the Pentagon. The Pentagon is being evacuated as we speak now. The White House had been evacuated as well.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's John King joins us on the phone. John?
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESP.: Aaron, I'm standing in Lafayette Park, directly across the White House, perhaps about 200 yards away from the White House residence itself. The Secret Service has pushed most people all the way back to the other side of the park. I'm trying to avoid having that done to me at the moment.
Just moments ago they started slowing evacuating the White House about 30 minutes ago. Then, in the last five minute people have come running out of the White House and the old executive office building, which is the office building right directly across from the White House.
About 10 minutes ago, there was a white jet circling overhead. Now, you generally don't see planes in the area over the White House. That is restricted air space. No reason to believe that this jet was there for any nefarious purposes, but the Secret Service was very concerned, pointing up at the jet in the sky.
It is out of sight now, best we can tell. They've evacuated the entire White House staff and the old executive office, as well as some townhouses that are government offices. Many of our viewers might know Blair House, where other international leaders say when they are in Washington. That block of townhouses has been evacuated as well. They are pushing us now back towards 8th Street, which is the next main street to the north from Pennsylvania Avenue, across from the White House.
BROWN: John, hang on one second. We are getting reports that the Capitol, the Treasury building also being evacuated.
John, is this evacuation from the White House, was it orderly? Did it seem panicky? How would you characterize it?
KING: It started off as orderly, much like we get when there are ocassional bomb scares near the White House. But then, again in the last 10 minutes or so, the people who came out -- the last several hundred I saw leaving the grounds, were told and ordered by the Secret Service to run. They were running through the gates. These were of course professionals in business suits.
I'm also told that prior to that, and we don't know the current situation that the vice president and other administration officials on the scene very meeting in the White House situation room, which is in the basement of the White House. Whether they have stayed on the complex or not is unknown to us at this moment.
I spoke to an administration official shortly after the president delivered his statement. He said obviously the operating assumption here is terrorism. The initial assumption, this official said, was that this had something to do, or at least they were looking into any possible connection with Osama Bin Laden. The administration recently released a warning that they thought Osama Bin Laden might strike out against U.S. targets.
BROWN: Just to add at bit, John, to what you've been saying. We're getting a report from the Associated Press now that the White House was evacuated after the Secret Service received what the AP is describing as a credible threat of a terrorist attack against the White House itself. I expect you'll be checking that out. We'll try and confirm that. But that is what AP is reporting right now."
Therefore, if Mineta arrived at the White House around 9:22 or 9:20 a.m. Eastern Time, the White House evacuation could have commenced. Mineta could then have gone down to the PEOC, and overheard the conversation between Cheney and the young officer. In other words, there are approximately 15 minutes of time in which this could have occurred -- more than enough for the events Mineta described to have taken place.
Indeed, 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer corroborated this basic timeline with Mineta:
"MR. ROEMER: So when you arrived at 9:20, how much longer was it before you overheard the conversation between the young man and the vice president saying, "Does the order still stand?"Additional Eyewitness Testimony: Clarke and Bohrer
MR. MINETA: Probably about five or six minutes.
MR. ROEMER: So about 9:25 or 9:26. And your inference was that the vice president snapped his head around and said, 'Yes, the order still stands.'"
Admittedly, counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke said that his recommendations to evacuate the White House were not carried out until 9:45. However, that might very well refer to a full evacuation ordered by the Secret Service itself. It appears that a partial or informal evacuation had already commenced much earlier, ordered by someone other than the secret service.
Indeed, Richard Clarke corroborates Mineta's testimony that Cheney was in the PEOC prior to the Pentagon strike. As the Complete 911 Timeline states:
"(9:10 a.m.): Rice and Cheney Apparently Go to White House Bunker; Other Accounts Have Cheney Moving Locations LaterSince the Pentagon strike occurred at approximately 9:37, and since Clarke, Bohre, ABC News, Mineta and others placed Cheney in the PEOC prior to the strike, and since Mineta and CNN stated that the White House was being evacuated prior to the strike, it makes more sense that Clarke simply did not know about the earlier White House evacuation efforts, or that he didn't consider them to be the full-scale, speedy, secret service-coordinated type of evacuation which he envisioned.
According to counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke and others, Vice President Cheney goes from his White House office to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), a bunker in the East Wing of the White House, at about this time. National Security Adviser Rice, after initiating a video conference with Richard Clarke in the West Wing, goes to the PEOC to be with Cheney. There is no video link between response centers in the East and West Wings, but a secure telephone line is used instead. [New York Times, 9/16/2001; Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; ABC News, 9/14/2002; Clarke, 2004, pp. 3-4] One eyewitness account, David Bohrer, a White House photographer, says Cheney leaves for the PEOC just after 9:00 a.m. [ABC News, 9/14/2002] However, there is a second account claiming that Cheney doesn’t leave until sometime after 9:30 a.m. In this account, Secret Service agents burst into Cheney’s White House office. They carry him under his arms—nearly lifting him off the ground—and propel him down the steps into the White House basement and through a long tunnel toward an underground bunker. [New York Times, 10/16/2001; Newsweek, 12/31/2001; Washington Post, 1/27/2002; BBC, 9/1/2002; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] At about the same time, National Security Adviser Rice is told to go to the bunker as well. [ABC News, 9/11/2002] In addition to the eyewitness accounts of Clarke and Bohrer, ABC News claims that Cheney is in the bunker when he is told Flight 77 is 50 miles away from Washington at 9:27 a.m., suggesting that accounts of Cheney entering the bunker after 9:27 a.m. are likely incorrect." (see original for links)
What Does Dick Cheney Say?
Mr. Cheney has recently testified that he did not enter the PEOC until around 20 minutes after the Pentagon strike. However, his initial testimony, 5 days after the attack, was:
"[A]fter I talked to the president, . . . I went down into . . . the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. . . . [W]hen I arrived there within a short order, we had word the Pentagon's been hit."Changing testimony tends to discredit a witness's credibility, especially if he, himself, is a suspect.
Additional Confirmation
Well over a year before Mineta's testimony to the 9/11 Commission, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward corroborated much of Mineta's testimony (and destroyed any claim that the government could not track the basic position of the hijacked plane because it had turned off its radar transponder):
"Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, summoned by the White House to the bunker, was on an open line to the Federal Aviation Administration operations center, monitoring Flight 77 as it hurtled toward Washington, with radar tracks coming every seven seconds. Reports came that the plane was 50 miles out, 30 miles out, 10 miles out-until word reached the bunker that there had been an explosion at the Pentagon."(Remember also that the FAA set up a telephone bridge with the military long before 9:37, so whatever Mineta was telling the FAA would have immediately been passed on to the military).
And Mineta's general outline of the timing of the Pentagon strike is corroborated by the fact that Flight 77 was 38 miles from the Pentagon at approximately 9:29 a.m. (the plane did a bunch of loop-de-loops on its way down, and did not fly a direct route in its final descent). At the very least, this puts the plane in the same basic region it should be in according to Mineta's timeline.
Yet another attempt to defend the official story has been debunked.
Robert Moore found the CNN transcript, and all credit goes to Robert for the catch and for pointing out the significance in relation to Mineta's testimony. Personally, I think Robert is one of the best 9/11 researchers anywhere. Stay tuned for more stunning catches from Robert.
Time to create shock and awe in the streets
Beth Quinn Column: It's time to create a little shock and awe in the street
'March 05, 2007' Times Herald-Record
bquinn@th-record.com
March 05, 2007
'March 05, 2007' Times Herald-Record
bquinn@th-record.com
March 05, 2007
I get occasional e-mail from readers complaining that they're sick of my writing about Bush's war.
Well, by golly, me too. I'm entirely sick of writing about it.
I'm sickened by it, too. I want to throw up I'm so sickened by it.
Who can even keep up with each new Goal Of The Day this president claims to have in Iraq? I'm exhausted from trying to follow the bouncing ball as he careens from one rationale to the next.
I was hoping I could take a nap from it all after the mid-term elections. Ah ha! I thought. The Democrats finally have some power — now they'll fix the mess!
But here we are — four years from Mission Unaccomplished with most of America sick to death of this stupid, pointless war. And what have we got from the new Democratic Congress that we had such high hopes for?
We've got a non-binding resolution. Whooee. We've got a compromise on war spending. Whoop-de-doo. We've got a debate about blah blah blah blah blah blah.
They all sound like the grown-ups in a Charlie Brown special.
Where is everyone's backbone? Where is the outrage over the 3,164 dead and 23,677 wounded American soldiers? Where is the remorse over the 650,000 dead Iraqis?
Where is the despair over the $279 million per day we're spending on a war apparently planned with crayons, construction paper and a little Elmer's Glue to hold the glitter?
Where are the congressional hearings about that smarmy, smirky little liar in the White House? About the missing money? About the torture and imprisonment without habeas corpus?
Where is the impeachment?
In case you haven't heard the news from the rest of Earth, Bush has caused half the world to hate us and he's put us into debt to the other half. Even Tony Blair has figured out there's no percentage in throwing more British bodies into the Iraqi civil war. Lithuania, for cryin' out loud — the vanguard of Bush's "coalition of the willing" with its army of 53 soldiers — they're pulling out, too.
But not George Bush, Boy Genius. Despite the clear will of the American people to leave Iraq, Bush is escalating. He's sending more soldiers without armor to their death in a place that doesn't want them and where it's not even clear who the enemy is or what our purpose is.
So now I gotta listen to my own self talk again. On and on and on. I'm sick of it.
But I can't stop. You can't stop either. You shouldn't. We voted, and Bush ignored us. We gave the Dems our fealty and so far they've disappointed.
So we have to take it to the streets.
A protest march on the Pentagon is set for 11 a.m. on March 17. Busloads of Hudson Valley activists will travel to Washington to join thousands of other Americans as they bring their anti-war demands directly to Shock and Awe Headquarters down there.
The protest will begin with a rally at Constitution Gardens at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue, then head across the Potomac to the Pentagon for a rally calling for immediate withdrawal of the U.S. military from Iraq.
Buses are slated to depart from Kingston, Poughkeepsie and New Paltz, sponsored by the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter. The cost is $50 with discounts for those on low budgets and students if they so request.
To join the trip, contact organizer Jack Smith at jacdon@earthlink.net or call 255-5779. State your name, town, e-mail and phone number, and how many seats you want to reserve. Then mail a check to Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter, Box 662, New Paltz, NY 12561.
Smith will let you know the time (probably about 5 a.m.) and departure locations once he knows how many people are traveling with the group.
By coincidence — or perhaps not — this is the 40th anniversary of the historic march on the Pentagon against the Vietnam War, a tipping point for what became a powerful anti-war movement.
It's time for another tipping point. There are 687 days 'til Jan. 20, 2009. The devastating damage Bush has done to this country continues. Do you really want to wait until the clock runs out before we get rid of him?
By
Beth's column appears on Monday. Talk to her at 346-3147 or at bquinn@th-record.com.
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