A few item of interest...to some.

[Chanman]

I realize that many on this board vehemently disagree, but I enjoy the threads and post info that may be of interest or entertainment to some. I figure someone does not like my threads/views, etc, they can skip my posts. Anyway got into a spat w/the little women last night and don't feel like arguing or presenting my position. I still am not swayed by Eddie, Auspice, StevieD or kosar, but enjoy their passionate defense on many issues and many times thay are right on- IMHO.
I do tend to cut n paste, but that is because the web offers so much info and I'll not presume to defend my stance on my own merit simply because 1) I can change my views and 2) I am not privy to the inside information this would require. I can only answer for myself and my limited resources.
I know the following items are a hodge podge on different issues but I post for those who like to read whats out there:
As far as M. Moore, I saw him on a few talk shows and I just can't take him seriously- sorry. Maybe the rest of the country will...

http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/

http://www.archive.org/movies/detai...nsource_movies&collectionid=Masters_of_Terror

For those wanting to read up on Marines, (I know its Pismo Beach is spelled):
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2...84f8f8216a072ec485256ec600344e75?OpenDocument

I also thought this was worth reading...

U.S. General says she met Israeli in Iraq:
LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. general who was in charge of Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison said on Saturday she had met an Israeli interrogator in Iraq, a controversial allegation likely to irritate many in the Arab world.
A U.S. military spokesman in Washington said he had no information and an Israeli official denied Israel was involved.

Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, who was responsible for military police guarding all Iraqi jails at the time prisoners were abused by U.S. troops there, told the BBC she met the Israeli at a Baghdad interrogation center.

"He was clearly from the Middle East and he said: 'Well, I do some of the interrogation here and of course I speak Arabic, but I'm not an Arab. I'm from Israel'," she said.

"My initial reaction was to laugh because I thought maybe he was joking, and I realized he was serious," said Karpinski who has been suspended from her command for failings at Abu Ghraib but has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

An Israeli security source told Reuters: "Israel was not and is not involved in the interrogation of anyone in Iraq."

Israeli involvement in Iraq could anger Arabs who accuse Washington of favoring the Jewish state in its conflict with the Palestinians and in wider disputes with its Arab neighbors.

Israel has denied similar reports in the past of involvement in U.S. operations in the Middle East. Last month, it denied a report in the New Yorker magazine that it was training Kurdish fighters in Iraq to counter Shi'ite militias there.

Photographs of military police abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib and other reports of abuse have led to hearings in Congress and fueled Arab and international outrage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fellow Veterans:

I have heard about all I can stand of the military careers of the two presidential candidates. It's like two combatants arguing about who's Purple Heart carries the most weight. I have seen e-mails "splitting hairs" and making unsubstantiated claims against both candidates. I will not engage in this type of childish name-calling. The official records indicate that both individuals completed their military service obligations and received honorable discharges.

I can, however, give you some personal observations upon which I base my opinion of Governor Bush. George W. Bush arrived at Moody AFB, Georgia, for undergraduate pilot training (UPT) in 1968 as a member of the Texas Air National Guard. I was assigned as one of his Instructor Pilots. The atmosphere at this training base was somber and dead serious, as the student pilots were all either going to Vietnam or subject to being called up for combat duty as members of a Guard or Reserve unit.

George W. Bush put himself totally into the task of becoming the best aviator in the class. His unit flew Century Series jet fighters, which required the best pilots. There was no room for error, as these airplanes were unforgiving, and the price for a mistake was often the pilot's life. George W. Bush appeared to have that "fighter pilot attitude" from our first meeting. This attitude can best be described as: "I can handle the situation--regardless of the odds." He was extremely competitive and eager to learn every thing about his machine and the enemy's tactics. He was quick to pick up the flying skills necessary to maneuver an aircraft into a position to shoot down an enemy aircraft.

Being a fighter pilot is truly like being a modern day gladiator. When two jet fighters meet in combat, there is usually only one survivor. It is the ultimate test of your skills, and you must hone these skills until you have complete confidence that you will be victorious--that in the air you are invincible. Cocky? You bet!!! That was the attitude that saved England during the Battle of Britain, when a small cadre of British fighter pilots turned back the German onslaught. "Never have so many owed so much to so few," were Winston Churchill's words describing the RAF victory. This standard is part of the heritage of every fighter pilot.

The traits which, I believe, made George W. Bush a good fighter pilot and would also make him a good president are:

Leadership
a "take charge" attitude.
Stamina when the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Sincerity

a love of country and care for your fellow man.
Integrity knowledge of and willingness to act upon honest principles.

My personal bottom line used to be, "Would you follow this person into combat?" Well, I'm a bit old now for combat, but I respect George W. Bush's leadership abilities, and I would follow him anywhere!

Respectfully submitted,

Colonel Thomas G. Lockhart, USAF (Ret)

And last, but not least:

Nader Won't Be on the Ballot in Arizona

By Paul Davenport
Associated Press
Saturday, July 3, 2004; Page A05

PHOENIX, July 2 -- Supporters of Ralph Nader on Friday abandoned their effort to place the independent candidate on the presidential ballot in Arizona after Democrats challenged thousands of signatures.

Nader's campaign had submitted more than 22,000 signatures to Arizona election officials June 9, far more than the 14,694 valid signatures required by state law to compete against President Bush and Democratic challenger John F. Kerry on Nov. 2.

In a suit last week, two Democratic voters, backed by the state party, questioned the validity of Nader's petitions and other documents. The Democrats said more than 70 percent of the signatures were invalid.

As a Maricopa County Superior Court judge prepared to hear arguments, Nader campaign attorney Richard K. Mahrle conceded there were "technical errors" in the petition and said Nader would not contest the suit.

Judge Mark Armstrong ordered that Nader be kept off the state ballot.

Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said a review by the secretary of state's office found that the campaign fell short of the required number of valid signatures. He said the campaign does not have the resources to fight an aggressive legal challenge and accused Democrats of harassment. "There's no question that deep-pocketed Democrats don't have much of a sense of fair play," he said.

In their lawsuit, the Democrats alleged Nader's petitions were signed by thousands of unregistered voters, that some of those collecting signatures were convicted felons and that other collectors did not meet residency requirements.

Nader appeared on Arizona's ballot in November 2000 and received 45,000 votes.

He suffered a setback last week when the Green Party, which has ballot lines in 22 states and the District of Columbia, declined to endorse him. He has been endorsed by the Reform Party, which has ballot lines in at least seven states.

? 2004 The Washington Post Company

http://www.constitutionparty.com/party_platform.php

 

[AR182]

chanman,

thanks for posting the info.

you don't have to apologize with cutting & pasting articles.

it gives some people the opportunity to read articless that they otherwise woildn't have the chance to read.

if people don't like cut & paste posts, they should just ignore them .

as far as moore is concerned, i agree with you.

he only hand picks what shows he will go on.

he doesn't go on shows the will ask tough questions about his movie.

 

[Chanman]

Thanks Ar, I appreciate your reply. I just think there is alot of info out there that a lot of us don't see. So far what I've found written on the summary of F 9/11:

Bush was not elected, but he became president anyway.
The Bush Regime makes lots of money in Oil and Weapons.
Wealthy Saudis including the Bin Lauden family invest huge
amounts of money in business enterprises controlled by the Bush regime.
Saudi Arabia is more responsible for 9/11 than Iraq
Afghanistan was about an oil pipeline being built by Haliburton
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but we invaded them anyway
Bush is incompetant.
The citizens of this country have been lied to by its government.
The people who suffer are the poor
Our troops are getting abused
War is hell
Do not let Bush win the next election

Seems to be the gist of it.
Personally I do have an answer for invading Iraq w/out firing a shot or loss of life- We sneak thru the desert@ night or hide in vehicles and hire ppl to drive across the border. This includes our families. Pretty soon we'll have English being taught in their schools and get started on PAC's so anyone who complains is deemed a Racist. After we pass a law allowing Driver's Licenses for Illegals, (American), we'll work on voting rights not to mention reduced tuition@ for short term residents, whether they are Illegal or not. Heh, heh wait til Mohammed starts seeing Camel Races conducted like NASCAR, lawn furniture in the yard next door and his daughter's white boyfriend. Not very original, but I know this works.

P.S.- This is why I usually cut n paste.

Rural America Lets Kerry Know How They Feel About Him

 

[kosar]

Bush Lies Uncovered

Two key players in the White House's campaign to invade Iraq expose the real reasons for the war.
For those still puzzling over why the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq, two key players offered important, but curiously unnoticed, clues this week.

Statements made by both men confirmed growing suspicions that the Bush administration's drive to war in Iraq had very little, if anything, to do with the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or his alleged ties to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda -- the two main reasons the U.S. Congress and public were given for the invasion.

Separate statements by Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), and U.S. retired Gen Jay Garner, who was in charge of planning and administering post-war reconstruction from January through May 2002, suggest that other, less public motives were behind the war, none of which concerned self-defense, pre-emptive or otherwise.

The statement by Chalabi, on whom the neo-conservative and right-wing hawks in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office are still resting their hopes for a White House-friendly transition to self-rule, will certainly interest congressional committees investigating why the intelligence on WMD before the war was so far off the mark.

In a remarkably frank interview with the British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, Chalabi said he was willing to take full responsibility for the INC's role in providing misleading intelligence to George Bush, Congress and the U.S. public to persuade them that Hussein posed a serious threat to the United States that had to be dealt with urgently.

The Telegraph reported that Chalabi merely shrugged off accusations his group had deliberately misled the administration, saying, ''We are heroes in error.''

"As far as we're concerned, we've been entirely successful," he told the newspaper. "That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We're ready to fall on our swords if he wants."

It was an amazing admission, and certain to fuel growing suspicions on Capitol Hill that Chalabi, whose INC received millions of dollars in taxpayer money over the past decade, effectively conspired with his supporters in and around the administration to take the United States to war on pretenses they knew, or had reason to know, were false.

Indeed, it now appears increasingly clear that defectors handled by the INC were sources for the most spectacular and detailed -- if completely unfounded -- information about Hussein's alleged WMD programs, offered not only to U.S. intelligence agencies, but also to U.S. mainstream media, especially the New York Times, according to a recent report in the New York Review of Books.

Within the administration, Chalabi worked most closely with those who had championed his cause for a decade, particularly neoconservatives close to Cheney and Rumsfeld -- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby.

Feith's office was home to the Office of Special Plans (OSP) whose two staff members and dozens of consultants were given the task of reviewing raw intelligence to develop the strongest possible case for war. OSP also worked with the Defense Policy Board (DPB), a hand-picked group of mostly neoconservative hawks, which was chaired until just before the war by Richard Perle, a long-time Chalabi friend.

DPB members, particularly Perle, former CIA director James Woolsey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, played prominent roles in publicizing reports by INC defectors and other alleged evidence developed by OSP that made Hussein appear as scary as possible.

Chalabi even participated in a secret DPB meeting just a few days after the Sept. 11 attacks in which the main topic of discussion, according to the Wall Street Journal, was finding a way to use 9/11 as a pretext for attacking Iraq.

The OSP and a parallel group under Feith, the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, have become central targets of the congressional investigation, according to aides on Capitol Hill, while unconfirmed rumors circulated here this week that members of the DPB are also under investigation.

The question, of course, is whether the individuals involved were fooled by Chalabi and the INC or whether they were willing collaborators in distorting intelligence.

It appears that Chalabi, whose family has extensive interests in a company that has already been awarded more than $400 million in reconstruction contracts, is signaling his willingness to take all of the blame, or credit, for the faulty intelligence.

But other statements made by Jay Garner this week in an interview with The National Journal suggest that the administration had its own reasons for the war. Asked how long U.S. troops might remain in Iraq, Garner replied, ''I hope they're there a long time," and then compared U.S. goals in Iraq to U.S. military bases in the Philippines between 1898 and 1992.

''One of the most important things we can do right now is start getting basing rights with (the Iraqi authorities)," he said. ''And I think we'll have basing rights in the north and basing rights in the south ... we'd want to keep at least a brigade."

Garner added, ''Look back on the Philippines around the turn of the 20th century: they were a coaling station for the navy, and that allowed us to keep a great presence in the Pacific. That's what Iraq is for the next few decades: our coaling station that gives us great presence in the Middle East."

While U.S. military strategists have hinted for some time that a major goal of war was to establish several bases in Iraq, particularly given the ongoing military withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, Garner is the first to state it so baldly. Until now, U.S. military chiefs have suggested they need to retain a military presence just to ensure stability for several years, after which they expect to draw down their forces.

If indeed Garner's understanding represents the thinking of his former bosses, then the ongoing struggle within the administration over ceding control to the United Nations becomes more comprehensible. Ceding too much control, particularly before reaching an agreement establishing military bases will make permanent U.S. bases much less likely.

 

[kosar]

Why Bush lies about Iraq
US President George Bush's plans to invade Iraq have nothing to do eliminating ?weapons of mass destruction?, preventing terrorism or ending human rights abuses. An attack on Iraq will be the first phase of a pre-existing strategy to increase US control of the world's oil supplies.

In a document written more than two years ago and disclosed only recently, the men who now surround Bush outlined in prophetic detail Washington's grand strategy to dominate much of humanity and the world's resources. However, what the US needed to win public support to implement it, it said, was ?some catastrophic and catalysing event ? like a new Pearl Harbor?.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, provided the ?new Pearl Harbor?, described as ?the opportunity of ages?. The extremists who have since exploited 9/11 come from the era of the Ronald Reagan presidency, when far-right groups and ?think-tanks? were established to avenge the US ?defeat? in Vietnam. In the 1990s, there was an added agenda: to justify the denial of a ?peace dividend? following the Cold War.

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was formed, along with the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute and other outfits that have since merged the ambitions of the Reagan administration with those of the current Bush regime.

One of Bush's ?thinkers? is Richard Perle. I interviewed Perle when he was advising Reagan; and when he spoke about ?total war?, I mistakenly dismissed him as mad. He recently used the term again in describing America's ?war on terror?.

Perle is one of the founders of the PNAC. Other founders include: Dick Cheney, now US vice president; Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary; Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary; I Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff; William Bennett, Reagan's education secretary; and Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's ambassador to Afghanistan. These are the modern chartists of US terrorism.

The PNAC's seminal 2000 report, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for A New Century, was a blueprint of US aims in all but name. Two years ago it recommended an increase in arms-spending of US$48 billion so that Washington could ?fight and win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars?. This has happened. It said the US should develop ?bunker-buster? nuclear weapons and make ?star wars? a national priority. This is happening. It said that, in the event of Bush taking power, Iraq should be a target.

And so it is.

As for Iraq's alleged ?weapons of mass destruction?, these were dismissed, in so many words, as a convenient excuse, which it is. ?While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification?, the PNAC's report says, ?the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein?.

How has this grand strategy been implemented?

A series of articles in the Washington Post, co-authored by Bob Woodward of Watergate fame and based on long interviews with senior members of the Bush administration, reveals how 9/11 was manipulated.

On the morning of September 12, 2001, without any evidence of who the hijackers were, Rumsfeld demanded that the US attack Iraq. According to Woodward, Rumsfeld told a cabinet meeting that Iraq should be ?a principal target of the first round in the war against terrorism?. Iraq was temporarily spared only because Colin Powell, the secretary of state, persuaded Bush that ?public opinion has to be prepared before a move against Iraq is possible?. Afghanistan was chosen as the softer option.

If Jonathan Steele's estimate in the Guardian is correct, some 20,000 people in Afghanistan paid the price of this debate with their lives.

Time and again, September 11 is described as an ?opportunity?. In last April's New Yorker, the investigative reporter Nicholas Lemann wrote that Bush's most senior adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told him she had called together senior members of the National Security Council and asked them ?to think about `how do you capitalise on these opportunities'?, which she compared with those of ?1945 to 1947?: the start of the Cold War.

Since September 11, 2001, Washington has established military bases at the gateways to all the major sources of fossil fuels, especially central Asia. The UNOCAL oil company is to build a pipeline across Afghanistan. Bush has scrapped the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, the war crimes provisions of the International Criminal Court and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. He has said he will use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states ?if necessary?. Under cover of propaganda about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the Bush regime is developing new weapons of mass destruction that undermine international treaties on biological and chemical warfare.

In the Los Angeles Times, the military analyst William Arkin describes a secret army set up by Rumsfeld, similar to those run by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and which Congress outlawed. This ?super-intelligence support activity? will bring together the ?CIA and military covert action, information warfare and deception?. According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld, the new organisation, known by its Orwellian moniker as the Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group, or P2OG, will provoke terrorist attacks which would then require ?counter-attack? by the US on countries ?harbouring the terrorists?.

In other words, innocent people will be killed by the US. This is reminiscent of Operation Northwoods, the plan put to President John Kennedy by his military chiefs for a phoney terrorist campaign ? complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans ? as justification for an invasion of Cuba. Kennedy rejected it. He was assassinated a few months later. Now Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but with resources undreamt of in 1963 and with no global rival to invite caution.

You have to keep reminding yourself this is not fantasy: that truly dangerous men, such as Perle and Rumsfeld and Cheney, have vast power. The thread running through their ruminations is the importance of the media: ?the prioritised task of bringing on board journalists of repute to accept our position?.

?Our position? is code for lying. Certainly, as a journalist, I have never known official lying to be more pervasive than today. We may laugh at the vacuities in British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's ?Iraq dossier? and British foreign secretary Jack Straw's inept lie that Iraq has developed a nuclear bomb. But the more insidious lies, justifying an unprovoked attack on Iraq and linking it to would-be terrorists who are said to lurk in every London Tube station, are routinely channelled as ?news?. They are not news; they are black propaganda.

This corruption makes journalists and broadcasters mere ventriloquists' dummies. An attack on a nation of 22 million suffering people is discussed by liberal commentators as if it were a subject at an academic seminar, at which pieces can be pushed around a map, as the old imperialists used to do.

The issue for these humanitarians is not primarily the brutality of modern imperial domination, but how ?bad? Saddam Hussein is. There is no admission that their decision to join the war party further seals the fate of perhaps thousands of innocent Iraqis condemned to wait on America's international death row. Their doublethink will not work.

You cannot support murderous piracy in the name of humanitarianism. Moreover, the extremes of US fundamentalism that we now face have been staring at us for too long for those of good heart and sense not to recognise them.

 

[Chanman]

Good read Kosar. At this rate I hope Kerry picks a goos VP.

 

[AR182]

thanks for posting these articles, kosar.

i read some of it before, but other parts that i haven't read were interesting.

 

[Chanman]

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39079