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May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Doubting the Evidence Against Iran

Pentagon Targeted Iran for Regime Change after 9/11 By Gareth Porter

By Mark Kukis And Abigail Hauslohner/Baghdad
ICH
05/06/08 “Time”

American circles in Baghdad and Washington are probably not pleased with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s plan for a special panel to investigate allegations of Iranian interference in Iraq. Many U.S. officials are already convinced of the worst and, for years, U.S. officials have aired accusations against Iran, insisting that Tehran is stoking Iraq’s violence by keeping up a flow of money, weapons and trained fighters into the country. The Iraqi government, however, remains unconvinced — with good reason.

“We want to find really good evidence and not evidence made on speculations,” Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Iraqi government, told reporters in Baghdad on Sunday. Last week an Iraqi government delegation went to Tehran to discuss the allegations of Iranian involvement in the Iraqi militias, the government said. Details of the evidence presented in Tehran remains hazy, but at the same time American officials in Baghdad and Washington have never offered a convincing case publicly to support their allegations. [In the meantime, Tehran announced that it would not hold a new round of talks — the third of their kind with American representatives — regarding security in Iraq unless the U.S. ceased its operations against Iraqi Shi’ites. American forces have been working with the Iraqi Army against Shi’ite militias in Baghdad’s sprawling slum, Sadr City.]

…continued

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see

Media Disinformation: Iran’s Link to Iraqi Insurgents NYT vs McClatchy

Iraq Says No Hard Evidence of Iran Support For Militia + US drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp

Iran

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Trilateral Commission: Global Elite Gather in D.C.

by James P. Tucker Jr.
Global Research, May 6, 2008
American Free Press, Issue no. 19

Trilateral Commission members want suffering U.S. taxpayers to shell out even more money

The Trilateral Commission—one of the three most powerful globalist groups in the world—held closed-door meetings right here in Washington, D.C. from April 25 to 28. True to form, those members of the media who knew about the meeting—or were themselves participants in the proceedings—refused to discuss what went on inside or report on the attendees. Luckily, AFP’s own editor, Jim Tucker, was on the scene to bust this clandestine confabulation wide open.

Luminaries at the Trilateral Commission meeting in Washington expressed confidence that they own all three major presidential candidates, who, despite political posturing, will support sovereignty-surrendering measures such as NAFTA and the “North American Union.”

“John has always supported free trade, even while campaigning before union leaders,” said one. “Hil and Barack are pretending to be unhappy about some things, but that’s merely political posturing. They’re solidly in support.”

He was referring to Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Mrs. Clinton, they noted, held strategy sessions as first lady on how to get Congress to approve NAFTA “without changes.” As president, they agreed, she would do no more than “dot an i or cross a t.”

Candidate Obama has not denied news reports in Canada that his top economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, assured Canadian diplomats that the senator would keep NAFTA intact and his anti-trade talk is just “campaign rhetoric.”

PETRIFIED ABOUT PAUL

While they are confident they can deal with any “potential president,” the Trilateralists paid huge tribute to Ron Paul in an equally large twist of irony, by expressing alarm that he is causing “significant future damage.”

They expressed concern that Paul’s rallies have attracted multitudes of young people who are getting “their political education.” They want Republicans to pressure Paul to drop out now and stop his education rallies. This assignment was given to Thomas Foley, former U.S. House speaker.

The reasons Paul’s “education campaign” strikes fear into Trilateral hearts are obvious. Paul would refuse to surrender an ounce of U.S. sovereignty to an international organization and TC wants world government.

Paul would immediately bring U.S. troops home from Iraq, Afghanistan and from 130 UN “peacekeeping” missions around the globe. TC wants to enjoy war profiteering and global power. Paul would abolish the federal income tax while the TC wants to pile on a global tax payable to the UN.

The formal agenda was loaded with everything Paul and American patriots detest: higher taxes, more foreign giveaways, more immigration, both legal and illegal, into the United States and “engaging Iran,” among others.

AMERICA NEEDS TO PAY HER FAIR SHARE?

The Trilaterals got down to real work on Saturday, April 26, with a high-powered panel called “U.S. Foreign and Domestic Policy: Broad Outlines for a New Administration.”

It was presided over by journalistic pimp David Gergen, who will write nothing about TC in his magazine, U.S News and World Report. Also participating were Kenneth Duberstein, former White House chief of staff for President Ronald Reagan; Strobe Talbot, president of the Brookings Institution and former deputy secretary of state; and Joseph Nye, former assistant secretary of defense. Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state and long-time Bilderberg leader, was present and listed as a participant. But a TC staff member crossed his name out. Some speculated he had throat problems.

This panel had these orders for the next president: increase foreign aid across the board because “America does not pay its fair share,” pay up the arrears in UN dues, allow as many immigrants into the United States as want to come and provide “amnesty” for illegal aliens already here.

Little, if anything, was said about the fact that American taxpayers pay one-fourth of the UN’s operating costs and one-third of the cost of 130 “peacekeeping missions” or the fact that immigrants from South America depress wages here and the average immigrant family costs the government thousands of dollars a year in welfare, health and other “benefits.”

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank and another long-time Bilderberg boy, largely echoed these views in a sweetheart “interview” by another journalistic strumpet, Lionel Barber, editor of The Financial Times, who will obediently report nothing.

…continued

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Pentagon’s Propaganda Documents Go Online, But Will the TV Networks Ever Report This Scandal?

DeLauro Presses Defense Department Inspector General for Answers on Propaganda Program

By John Stauber
After Downing Street
Center for Media and Democracy
May 6, 2008

Eight thousand pages of documents relative to the Pentagon’s illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see. These include the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.

The Pentagon program, which clearly violated US law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers — most of them with financial ties to war contractors — into the TV networks as “message surrogates” for the Bush Administration. To date every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences.

…

Here is the official Pentagon website with the 8,000 pages of documents, the most interesting and revealing of them previously secret and only available to the Pentagon and the New York Times:

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/

…continued

see

General Happy Swellspin, Ret. cartoon by Mark Fiore

Murtha: The Military Has Been ‘Dishonored’ By The ‘Untruths’ Of The Pentagon’s Propaganda Program

Pentagon TV Scandal: Media Fails To Ask Hard Questions

Tomgram: Petraeus, Falling Upwards By Tom Engelhardt

The neoconning of a nation: Vice-President, shilling troupe of retired generals, deliver fantastic tales for their cause

PBS: TV Generals Pentagon Propagandist & It’s Illegal!

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

IN & NC Primary Results 05.06.08 (updated)

Indiana Democratic Primary Results
Candidate	Votes	%
Hillary Clinton	638,274	51%
Barack Obama	615,862	49%
Key: Winner Precincts: 99% \| Updated: 4:58 AM ET \| Source: AP

Indiana Republican Primary Results
Candidate	Votes	%
John McCain	317,837	78%
Mike Huckabee	41,018	10%
Ron Paul	31,481	8%
Mitt Romney	19,480	5%
Key: Winner Precincts: 99% \| Updated: 4:53 AM ET \| Source: AP

***

North Carolina Democratic Primary Results
Candidate	Votes	%
Barack Obama	890,695	56%
Hillary Clinton	657,920	42%
No Preference	22,722	1%
Mike Gravel	12,486	1%
Key: Winner Precincts: 99% \| Updated: 4:58 AM ET \| Source: AP

Democrat and Republican Delegates

North Carolina Republican Primary Results
Candidate	Votes	%
John McCain	381,138	74%
Mike Huckabee	62,917	12%
Ron Paul	40,275	8%
No Preference	20,305	4%
Alan Keyes	13,589	3%
Key: Winner Precincts: 99% \| Updated: 4:58 AM ET \| Source: AP

see

Results

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Pentagon Targeted Iran for Regime Change after 9/11 By Gareth Porter

By Gareth Porter
ICH
May 5, 2008 (IPS)
WASHINGTON

Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith’s recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

House panel subpoenas top Cheney aide + Yoo to testify

John Yoo-4th Amendment-Torture

By PAMELA HESS – 8 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to compel a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney to testify to the committee about the Bush administration’s interrogation practices.

David Addington, Cheney’s chief of staff, refused to testify without a subpoena. No date has been set for his appearance before Congress.

…continued

h/t: CLG

***

‘Torture memo’ author, former attorney general, to testify

9 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Justice Department lawyer who wrote a now-repudiated memo allowing harsh interrogations of military prisoners has agreed to testify to Congress about those practices, say House Judiciary Committee officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the panel has not yet made the announcement.

…continued

h/t: CLG

see

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Mosaic News – 5/5/08: World News from the Middle East

Warning

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

linktv

For more: http://linktv.org/originalseries
“Rebels Attack Government Forces in Yemen,” Abu Dhabi TV, UAE
“US Accuses Iran of Meddling in Iraq,” Dubai TV, UAE
“Lebanese Factions Compete on the Streets of Beirut,” Al Arabiya TV, UAE
“Progress Between Olmert & Abbas,” Al Jazeera English, Qatar
“Olmert Plagued With Investigation,” IBA TV, Israel
“Israel’s Secret Operation in Yemen,” Al Jazeera TV, Qatar
“Wood Replaces Gas in Gaza,” Al Aqsa, Gaza
“Tunisia Faces Economic Problems,” France 24, France
Produced for Link TV by Jamal Dajani.

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

The Daily Show: Hillary is George W. Bush

By Manila Ryce
May 6th, 2008

After Stewart allowed Clinton to turn his show into one giant campaign ad in March, I’m surprised that he’s finally found the balls to compare her to Bush. Still, the pundits are a bit late. Dennis Kucinich made this public observation back in August and was dismissed outright for it.

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Media Disinformation: Iran’s Link to Iraqi Insurgents NYT vs McClatchy

America’s Occupation Trumps the “Surge” and Petraeus’ Counterinsurgency Manual

by Greg Mitchell
Global Research, May 6, 2008
Editor and Publisher – 2008-05-05

Michael Gordon, the military writer for The New York Times who contributed several false stories about Iraqi WMD in the runup to the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2002, has written several articles in the past year about Iran’s alleged training of Iraqi insurgents — or supplying them with weapons to kill Americans. He produced another major report on this subject for today’s Times – based solely on unnamed sources — which is at odds with an account from McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau.

Gordon asserts that “Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran…An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.

“The United States has long charged that the Iranians were training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran, which Iran has consistently denied, and there have been previous reports about Hezbollah operatives in Iraq.

“But the Americans say the reports of Hezbollah’s role at the Iranian camp offer important details about Iranian assistance to the militias, including efforts Iran appears to be making to train the fighters in unobtrusive ways.”

But McClatchy has a quite different take.

…continued

see

Iraq Says No Hard Evidence of Iran Support For Militia + US drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp

DeLauro Presses Defense Department Inspector General for Answers on Propaganda Program

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Democrats Prepare Sell-Out on Telecom Immunity

Spying on Americans: The FBI’s “Quantico Circuit” – Still Spying, Still Lying

by Tom Burghardt
Global Research, May 6, 2008
Antifascist Calling…

House Leaders to Give White House a Blank Check to Spy on Americans

As revelations of the Bush administration’s illegal surveillance programs continue to expose the criminal nature of the regime in Washington, new reports suggest that House Democrats are preparing to capitulate to the White House on warrantless wiretapping and amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms.

When the Orwellian “Protect America Act” expired in February, Republicans and right-wing Democrats argued that unless the state’s covert alliance with giant telecommunications companies were not shielded from congressional oversight or public scrutiny, “Americans would die.” Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Mike McConnell made this threat explicit last August when he told the El Paso Times:

Now part of this is a classified world. The fact we’re doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die, because we do this mission unknown to the bad guys because they’re using a process that we can exploit and the more we talk about it, the more they will go with an alternative means and when they go to an alternative means, remember what I said… (Chris Roberts, “Transcript: Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” El Paso Times, August 22, 2007)

But as Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists told The New York Times, “If we’re to believe that Americans will die from discussing these things, then he is complicit in that. It’s an unseemly argument. He’s basically saying that democracy is going to kill Americans.”

But with “Blue Dog” Democrats on-board with the Bush administration, its more a case of Americans killing (their own) democracy.

As Salon’s Glenn Greenwald reports,

Numerous reports — both public and otherwise — suggest that [Steny] Hoyer is negotiating with Jay Rockefeller to write a new FISA bill that would be agreeable to the White House and the Senate. Their strategy is to craft a bill that they can pretend is something short of amnesty for telecoms but which, in every meaningful respect, ensures an end to the telecom lawsuits. It goes without saying that no “compromise” will be acceptable to Rockefeller or the White House unless there is a guaranteed end to those lawsuits, i.e., unless the bill grants amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms. (Glenn Greenwald, “What backroom conniving Are Steny Hoyer and the Chris Carney Blue Dogs up to on FISA?,” Salon, May 2, 2008)

According to Alexander Bolton’s article in The Hill, right-wing and freshman congressional Democrats “are growing skittish,” and that House Speaker Nancy “impeachment is off the table” Pelosi (D-CA), “has stepped back from the FISA talks and let Hoyer spearhead House talks with the Senate and executive branch.” Translation: give the White House what it wants.

And what the White House wants is the ability–and legal cover–to spy at will.

As AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein revealed in 2006, NSA gained access to “massive amounts” of internet data after the company allowed the spy agency to hook into its network in San Francisco and other cities. The retired technician described how the NSA created a system that vacuumed up internet and phone-call data with AT&T executives as the agency’s willing accomplices.

Despite administration claims that its so-called “Terrorist Surveillance Program” is aimed solely at overseas terrorists, Klein demonstrated that a vast proportion of the data swept up by AT&T and forwarded to NSA was purely domestic. Klein told The Washington Post,

…the NSA built a special room to receive data streamed through an AT&T Internet room containing “peering links,” or major connections to other telecom providers. The largest of the links delivered 2.5 gigabits of data — the equivalent of one-quarter of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s text — per second, said Klein, whose documents and eyewitness account form the basis of one of the first lawsuits filed against the telecom giants after the government’s warrantless-surveillance program was reported in the New York Times in December 2005. (Ellen Nakashima, “A Story of Surveillance: Former Technician ‘Turning In’ AT&T Over NSA Program,” The Washington Post, November 7, 2007, Page D01)

Klein’s story of flagrant lawlessness by the Bush regime and the telecoms was seconded by Babak Pasdar, a security consultant and CEO of Bat Blue Corporation, who provided a signed affidavit to the Government Accountability Project describing the FBI’s “Quantico circuit.”

Last month The Washington Post reported that FBI investigators “with the click of a mouse” have the ability to “instantly” transfer data along a computer circuit “to an FBI technology office in Quantico.” Verizon is the company named by the Post in its report as having provided “unfettered access” to its data stream, a charge denied by the company.

Despite these revelations, the Bush administration continues to illegally target the American people. As Ryan Singel reported last week,

2007 might have been a rough year for U.S. home prices, but growth in government wiretaps remained healthy, with the eavesdropping sector posting a 14% increase in court orders compared to 2006. In 2007, judges approved 4,578 state and federal wiretaps, as compared to 4,015 in 2006, according to two new reports on criminal and intelligence wiretaps. …

It’s unclear how many people these orders applied to since they can name more than one target, and in January 2007, the Bush Administration began getting so-called basket warrants from the secret court, in order to reduce the political heat over its warrantless wiretapping program.

Those orders, which the administration described as “innovative,” likely covered many individuals or entire geographic regions and required periodic re-authorization from the court. Sometime in spring 2007, one judge on the court ruled that the orders were unconstitutional, prompting a summer fear-mongering campaign to get Congress to expand the government’s warrantless wiretapping powers. (Ryan Singel, “Court-Approved Wiretapping Rose 14% in ’07,” Wired, May 1, 2008)

We don’t know, and the administration won’t say, how many Americans have been swept up by so-called “basket warrants.”

None of this however, trouble congressional Democrats. As the administration continues to eviscerate the Constitution, it should be clear that like the Republicans, the Democratic party completely accepts the overall framework of Bushist “national security” and the specious argument that it is waging a global “war on terrorism.”

Since taking control of both house of Congress in 2006, the Democrats–like their Republican “adversaries”–have refused to hold hearings on domestic spying nor have they sought to expose the scope of the illegal NSA program. Lost in the shuffle, are the obvious–and growing–dangers posed by these intrusive programs.

In a time of systemic crisis for the capitalist system as a whole, the massive intelligence being gathered by the Bush regime, and by future administrations–Democratic or Republican, take your pick–will be deployed as tools for wholesale repression under conditions of growing class polarization, economic crisis and mass opposition to war.

Telecom immunity? “There’s nothing to see here, move along.”

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love & Rage and Antifa Forum, he is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military “Civil Disturbance” Planning, distributed by AK Press.

The CRG grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author’s copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: crgeditor@yahoo.com

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

see

FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics By Ellen Nakashima

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

America’s Occupation Trumps the “Surge” and Petraeus’ Counterinsurgency Manual

General Petraeus: Zionism’s Military Poodle: From Surge to Purge to Dirge

by Walter C. Uhler
The Smirking Chimp
May 6, 2008

As three months of news reports of escalating violence in Iraq undercut widespread American propaganda about the “surge’s” success, increasing numbers of Americans, once again, are reaching the conclusion that the Bush administration’s illegal, immoral and incompetent invasion and occupation of Iraq is a war that never should have been fought. According to the results of CNN/Opinion Research Poll reported on 1 May 2008, 68 percent of Americans now oppose George W. Bush’s war in Iraq.

These Americans have (belatedly) gotten it right. Moreover, five years after viewing the sick “Mission Accomplished” propaganda, it’s now becoming clear that the “surge” and the implementation of the counterinsurgency strategy detailed in General Petraeus’ Counterinsurgency Field Manual were last-ditch and largely propaganda gimmicks chosen by Bush to avoid admitting his stark defeat in Iraq. Thus, Bush and Cheney are sacrificing lives while playing for time — time to escape office without being impeached and convicted, time to assert that the war was not lost during their watch.

Simply consider the words of Andrew Bacevich, in his recent article “Surging to Defeat.” Not only are American and Iraqi forces still suffering from nearly 500 attacks per week, “the United States today finds itself with too much war and too few warriors.”

…continued

see

Shadowing Slaughter in Sadr City By Hala Jaber

Iraq: Corruption Eats Into Food Rations by Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr Jamail

The Last War & the Next One By Tom Engelhardt

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

James Steele: Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear (video; interview)

The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see (video)

Democracy Now!

May 6, 2008

Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear

Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics—ruthless legal battles against small farmers—is its decades-long history of toxic contamination. We speak to James Steele, contributing editor at Vanity Fair. [includes rush transcript]

Real Video Stream

Real Audio Stream

transcript

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

***

IWantDemocracyNow

see

Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear

William Clinton & Monsanto – a Team for Mutual Profit

Letter to Hillary about Monsanto connections (02.03.08)

GMO

Monsanto

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Abbas resignation threat (video)

TheRealNews

Abbas threatens to resign as Mideast peace talks resume.

May 6, 2008 by dandelionsalad

90,000 child refugees could die in Somalia (video)

MegaNewsbreak

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra reports from the refugee camps of Yemen on the people fleeing the fighting in Somalia.

Last year more than 100,000 people made the perilous journey across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen in order to flee the fighting in Somalia – according to the figures given by the ‘Yemen Observer’.

This year 32,000 others have joined them in order to escape too. However it is estimated that one in 20 did not survive the trip.

Amnesty International issued a warning in a new report that 90,000 children could die in Somalia in the coming months.