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3/8/2003



Summing It All Up :.

Just about everything in this article has been mentioned on Cryptogon, but seeing it all in a single artcle is sobering.

The Washington Post tells us that U.S. embassies around the globe are inundating Washington with cables saying that the world both hates and mistrusts this "dry drunk", megalomaniac who would be laughable except for the fact that he represents a power structure as demented as he is. As if to go Tony Blair ... who recently plagiarized a graduate research paper to compile his sensitive intelligence dossier on Iraq ... "one better", George W. recently cited figures to support his tax cut from a report that doesn't exist. He was caught in that lie by NewsDay's James Toedtman. And retired Air Force Chief of Staff Tony McPeak is publicly saying on a Portland, Oregon TV station that Bush should admit he's made a mistake and that, as far as Iraq is concerned, "I regard the nuclear threat as zero. I regard the connection between Saddam and al-Qaida as less than zero."

Research Credit: MR





Gas Shortages Hit Phoenix, AZ :.

I think the Oh Shit moment for most Americans will happen when gas hits $3 per gallon. Where I am (in California), we could be days or weeks away from that:

Many independent stations run by Costco, Safeway and Albertsons were out of gas Thursday, even as the average price of regular unleaded in the Phoenix area hit another record at $1.77 per gallon.

Matt Homan, who runs stations at six Safeway grocery stores, said most of his stations were out of premium and mid-grade Thursday, with no prospects of more until Sunday or Monday.

"The weekend is going to be rough," he said.


Rough? That guy better watch Road Warrior again...


3/7/2003



Bush "Question and Answer" Speech Scripted :.

I don't expect you guys to read Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West by John Ralston Saul, but the following passage from the book should be kept in mind as the US presidency takes on increasingly Stalinist characteristics:

Uncontrolled words are consistently more dangerous to established authority than armed forces.

From the article:

At today's White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer about the scripted nature of President Bush's press conference last night.


WND: Last night, after the fifth time he had looked down at an apparent list of reporters, [President Bush] smiled and he said, "This is scripted."

FLEISCHER: Are you going to complain he didn't call on you?

WND: No, no, no. No, no. Which surely suggests that he did not write that script, which gave two questions to one network, two questions to one wire service, and one to other vague and wealthy media � but left all the rest, including [veteran White House journalist] Helen Thomas, ruled out in advance of any chance to ask and left us to serve only as window dressing.

And my question is, since you are always fair, Ari, in recognizing all of us, who was it that wrote that script that the president confessed to? Was it Karl Rove or Karen or who?

FLEISCHER: It was me who gave the president a suggestion on the reporters to call. And the president called on all reporters; the president did not call on any columnists.

Mark.

WND: Wait a minute �

FLEISCHER: No, Lester, we're going to go to the � Lester, we're moving on.


More...

Ask the Wrong Questions and You Soon Won't be Asking Any Questions :.

A long-running Washington tradition apparently ended last night when, for the first time in memory, the doyenne of the White House press corps was not called on in a presidential press conference.

Syndicated columnist Helen Thomas, who has covered every president since John F. Kennedy, was relegated to the third row in last night's East Room event and � if the memory of press corps veterans is accurate � received her first presidential snub.

One reporter who has covered the past six presidents said: "I don't remember a press conference in which [Mrs. Thomas] didn't get a question."





Nigerian Radiological Theft was from Halliburton Facility :.

Back on 3/3/03, I noted the "strategic theft" of radiological materials in Nigeria. What I didn't know at the time was that the stuff was stolen from Halliburton, US Vice President Dick Cheney's former company.

All together now: Hmmmmm, isn't that interesting?

Halliburton Co., the world's No. 2 oil field services firm, said Thursday it has started a probe involving U.S. and Nigerian government officials over theft of a radioactive device used at its Nigerian operations.

A report by the Wall Street Journal Thursday said officials were concerned that the device's radioactive material could be used to create a "dirty bomb," an explosive device designed to scatter radioactivity in a densely populated area.


Research Credit: TR

Oh, but wait, there's more...

Halliburton Wins Contract on Iraq Oil Firefighting :.

A Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root has won the contract to oversee any firefighting operations at Iraqi oilfields after any U.S.-led invasion, a Defense Department source said on Thursday.

KBR was widely viewed by many in the oilfield services industry as the likely candidate to oversee firefighting in Iraq's oilfields. Halliburton does extensive logistic support work for the U.S. military.

Vice President Dick Cheney served as Halliburton's chief executive officer from 1995 to 2000.





Hussein Wants Look-Alike Uniforms? :.

Something very dark is about to happen. The USUK fascist alliance is setting up a way to explain away the genocide they are about to unleash on Iraq. Saddam-Did-It will be an especially convenient explanation for destroyed hospitals, schools, etc., especially since he will be executed within hours of the beginning of the war by USUK special forces.

President Saddam Hussein is seeking uniforms that are "identical down to the last detail" to those worn by American and British troops, so that atrocities carried out by Iraqi forces could be blamed on the allies, a senior Defense Department official said Thursday.

James R. Wilkinson, chief spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said Hussein had ordered the uniforms for use by members of his paramilitary force, Fedayeen Saddam.

These forces, Wilkinson said, "would wear them when conducting reprisals against the Iraqi people so that they could pass the atrocities off as the work of the United States and the United Kingdom."





U.S. Military Tortures POWs to Death :.

"International law is the law which the wicked do not obey and which the righteous do not enforce." ---Abba Eban

American military officials acknowledged yesterday that two prisoners captured in Afghanistan in December had been killed while under interrogation at Bagram air base north of Kabul � reviving concerns that the US is resorting to torture in its treatment of Taliban fighters and suspected al-Qa'ida operatives.


3/6/2003



Rainbow Money Announced :.

Alex Jones called this one LONG LONG LONG ago:

The federal government will unveil a new $20 bill that will introduce a predominant but subtle color into the background, marking the first time in modern history that a U.S. bill will feature a color other than green.


3/5/2003



Man Arrested for Wearing Peace T-Shirt :.

A lawyer was arrested late Monday and charged with trespassing at a public mall in the state of New York after refusing to take off a T-shirt advocating peace that he had just purchased at the mall.

According to the criminal complaint filed on Monday, Stephen Downs was wearing a T-shirt bearing the words "Give Peace A Chance" that he had just purchased from a vendor inside the Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, New York, near Albany.

"I was in the food court with my son when I was confronted by two security guards and ordered to either take off the T-shirt or leave the mall," said Downs.

When Downs refused the security officers' orders, police from the town of Guilderland were called and he was arrested and taken away in handcuffs, charged with trespassing "in that he knowingly enter(ed) or remain(ed) unlawfully upon premises," the complaint read.


3/4/2003



The Pathetic British Role in America's Dirty Work :.

AMERICAN forces will play the key role in the capture of Baghdad, with British troops being confined to the south of Iraq. �It won�t be the Union flag flying over Baghdad,� one British defence source said.

US Marines and armoured divisions will be given the role of advancing as rapidly as possible on the Iraqi capital.

The Pentagon hopes that it will not be necessary to conduct a street-fighting operation to capture the city. However, if there has to be an assault on Baghdad to overcome resistance by Iraq�s Republican Guard, the mission will be carried out exclusively by American forces, the sources said.

A senior British Army source said: �This decision is part political, part military, but the Americans have made it clear Baghdad is their prize.�


More...

Could Tony Blair Look at the Internet Now, Please?

Cryptogon readers are sick of hearing about this, but one more dose won't kill you guys. Just in case you haven't been paying attention, the plan to rape Iraq was drawn up in 1997... The Grand Chessboard... American Primacy... Geostrategic Imperatives... Zbigniew Brzezinski... New American Century... Pax Americana... blah blah... I'm even sick of repeating it all. The Prince of Darkness must have made Tony Blair an offer he couldn't refuse. Forget about the fact that he's politically dead and hated in his own country, he'll be spending the rest of eternity in a VERY warm place:

It's heart-warming to hear Tony Blair's concern for the plight of the Iraqi people and how the only possible way to help them is to bomb them with everything the Americans have.
Mr Blair's sudden sympathy for the Iraqis' political aspirations comes as a welcome relief after all these years of US, UK-led sanctions, which have caused the deaths of over half a million Iraqi children, according to the UN.

But I'm a bit worried that Tony may be deluding himself that his friends in the White House share his altruistic ideals. I'm sure Tony has been reading all the recent stuff about PNAC - "The Project For The New American Century" - but has he looked at their website? (www.newamericancentury.org)

As everybody knows, the PNAC is a think-tank founded in 1997 by the people who are now closest to President Bush - Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush and so on. It's a pretty safe bet that what PNAC think is what George W. Bush thinks. PNAC represents the thinking of the men now in power in the United States.





Pentagon Calls for Massive New Covert Operations Capability :.

Remember the Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War? The CIA designated people for execution and... that was it. The vision for the future is a type of macro scale Phoenix Program with paramilitary spooks executing and torturing people all over the planet. Boy, I'll sleep better knowing Rumsfeld is wielding that type of power:

The effort stems in large part from frustration within the Pentagon over the extent to which the military was forced to rely on the CIA in the opening stages of the war in Afghanistan. It also reflects concern that there are too few CIA officers deployed around the world, and that they are not adequately focused on collecting intelligence that is useful to the military, several officials said.

�The CIA doesn�t have the number of assets to be doing what the secretary of Defense wants done,� said one Pentagon official familiar with the plans. �This is a capability the secretary wants the Department of Defense to have.�





Tips for Ugly Americans Abroad :.

Ahh, there's nothing like being hated by the rest of the world. Thanks, Dubya. No, really, thanks.

From Spanish plazas to Parisian metros, American tourists are being quizzed, grilled and even spat on by people who do not approve of the Bush administration's drive for a war against Saddam Hussein.


3/3/2003



Afghanistan Displaces Myanmar as Top Heroin Producer :.

All together now: Hmmmmm, isn't that interesting?

Afghanistan has toppled Myanmar as the world's top source of illicit opium, but the southeast Asian state is streaking ahead as the region's prime producer of amphetamines, the United States said Saturday.

In a major drugs strategy report, Washington backed up figures released by the United Nations last week showing an increase in poppy cultivation since the ouster of Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers.

" The size of the opium harvest in 2002 makes Afghanistan the world's leading opium producer, the report said.





Warren Buffett to Investors: Assume the Crash Position :.

It's not easy being the world's second richest man:

Warren Buffett is poised to issue his most doom-laden forecast for the state of the world economy yet, including a damning verdict on the derivatives industry he fears could cause a global financial crisis.

In the upcoming annual letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, Mr Buffett drops his usual folksy style to warn that banks do not understand the hidden risks lurking on their balance sheets.


Oh, in case you don't get the Make Your Time comment, click here.





U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation :.

It took this guy 20 years in the Foreign Service to figure it out? Come on! I saw it by the time I was a junior college:

The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America�s most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.

Research Credit: JM

Woops: Lost Another One :.

They're dropping like flies over at the State Department:

Beers hinted that she found her job -- selling the policies of the U.S. government to the Islamic world -- an uphill struggle.

"The gap between who we are and how we wish to be seen and how we are in fact seen, is frighteningly wide," Beers told the committee.





The Guns of March :.

The war with Iraq now seems almost certain. Even the gray city weather, filled with the threat of winter storms, seems to express the hopeless mood. The killing and the dying are right ahead of us, and there seems to be little we can do about it. A great unraveling of the world could be upon us, and if you are of a certain age, you recognize once again a big sad truth: Nobody ever learns anything.

Or, to make a qualification, no men of power ever learn anything.





"Radiological Emergency" in Nigeria :.

A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency is on the ground in Nigeria for what it describes as a "radiological emergency."

Sources say radioactive and highly toxic material that could be used to build a "dirty bomb" was stolen from a Nigerian oil company.

Agency workers arrived Feb. 16, an agency representative said on condition of anonymity.

The Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Agency admitted earlier this week that devices used to X-ray oil pipelines for cracks were lost, but sources tell Fox News that officials now believe the disappearance of the material was a "strategic theft."




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