h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm going to try to go to bed soon to finish off Volkswagen Blues.

I might also try to get back to storing links down here sometime too.

'The warning signs are aligned, as the stars in the heavens portending a great event.

There are stirrings in Congress and intensified contacts with exile groups from the Middle Eastern country in question. Once more, President George W. Bush is warning that he has not ruled out the use of force to make sure that a regime linked to terrorism does not acquire weapons of mass destruction.

Most sensationally of all, a highly regarded magazine carries a detailed, only partially denied report that US special force units are already carrying out missions on the ground inside that country, pinpointing sites that could be hit by air-strikes or commando raids.

Back in mid 2002, all these things were happening as Washington prepared to demolish Saddam Hussein. This time however, the sights of the US are trained elsewhere.'

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=602275

'Four more years of Bush make the world anxious' http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=WHZZORK2RJS2YCRBAE0CFFA?type=topNews&storyID=7368896

'The U.S. military is resorting to collective punishment tactics in Iraq similar to those used by Israeli troops in the occupied territories of Palestine, residents say.

Military bulldozers have mown down palm groves in the rural al-Dora farming area on the outskirts of Baghdad, residents say. Electricity has been cut, the local fuel station destroyed and the access road blocked.

The U.S. action comes after resistance fighters attacked soldiers from this area several weeks back.

"The Americans were attacked from this field, then they returned and started cutting down all the trees," says Kareem, a local mechanic, pointing to a pile of burnt date palms in a bulldozed field. "None of us knows any fighters, we all know they are coming here from other areas to attack the Americans, but we are the people who suffer from this."'

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=27077

TOWARDS A DETENTE WITH HISTORY:
CONFRONTING CANADA'S COLONIAL LEGACY
- by Joyce A. Green

http://www.labmetis.org/cccl.htm

'When dozens of suspected fighters showed up for a so-called peace conference in Baquba on Tuesday, they told the governor sponsoring it why they would not lay down their weapons ahead of elections.

Midnight raids by US and Iraqi forces that rudely awaken women and children in the conservative Arab country were
unacceptable.

Arbitrary arrests and unemployment were driving more men,
young and old, to the insurgency.

When the suspected guerrillas and their sympathisers were
handed an oath of non-violence, few asked "where do I sign"?

Many of the men - from clerics and tribal leaders to ex-army
officers and professionals - just wanted to know when US forces would leave.'

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/723EDB4B-6F81-46C0-8AA8-99B286F6CCE8.htm

From the Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com/generic/show_print.php?id=60130&page=perlstein&issue=0503&printcde=MzMxODY4ODc3MA==&refpage=L25ld3MvaW5kZXgucGhwP2lzc3VlPTA1MDMmcGFnZT1wZXJsc3RlaW4maWQ9NjAxMzA=

'The fantasy of total control has emerged as central to the Bush administration imagination. It comes out in the unguarded utterances: the aide who blurts to a New York Times reporter that he was just one more sad-sack member of the "reality-based community." ("That's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.") The president demanding during the Iraq debate to congressional leaders, "Look, I want your vote. I'm not going to debate it with you." A White House aide, to a congregation of Pentecostal ministers, the "current government is engaged in cultural, economic, and social struggle on every level."

It shows up in the tautological narcissism of Bush's National Security Strategy document, which actually uses the phrase "the best defense is a good offense," and artfully constructs a vision in which whatever the United States does to preserve its interest is always already "peaceful," even when it requires war, is always already "democratic," even when it requires installing governments by fiat, is always already selfless, even as it establishes only two categories of states, those who cooperate and those who do not, in a situation of crisis defined unilaterally and whose time horizon stretches to infinity.

"In the new world we have entered," it avers, "the only path to peace and security is the path of action." The manifesto takes on ominous overtones when read alongside the famous post-9-11 draft Pentagon report that establishes a royalist conception of "sweeping" executive power as the only way to keep us safe: because "national security decisions require the unity in purpose and energy in action to characterize the presidency rather than Congress."

"Unity in Purpose, Energy in Action"—more than one commentator has noted its resemblance to slogans of fascist movements throughout history.

And of course out of fantasies of perfect control have always sprung the world's greatest human catastrophes.'

A new Scott Ritter opinion piece in Al-Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ADCA48CC-9307-466B-BA18-82724CAA7484.htm

And, for those who pretend that Muslim authority figures don't denounce terrorism:

'"We reaffirm that such acts are prohibited, and we condemn those who praise these acts and incite [extremists] to target the nation's oil interests and vital installations," a group of academics and public figures from across Saudi Arabia said in a statement on Sunday.'

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B3A2820B-158D-4D75-9CE9-0E21E7B2CC9B.htm

'Saudi King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz marked the start of Aidil Adha on Thursday with a call for Muslims to disavow terrorism, which they said was taboo in Islam.'

http://www.brunei-online.com/bb/fri/jan21w35.htm

Interesting that CNN's story about the Hajj spends a good deal of time, including the headline, talking about some of the people stoning the pillars pretending that the pillars are Bush and then just drops a little mention of 'On Thursday, a leading Saudi cleric warned Muslims against waging terror attacks in the name of Islam.' Nothing about the king, the crown prince, or the council of scholars. Just 'Hajj pilgrims stone 'devil' Bush'

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/21/hajj.bush.reut/index.html

Goodness! It's been a busy day on the links! Fore!

Finally! Finally! Finally some justice in the whole Iraq mess!

'Iraq's interim defense minister said former Iraq exile leader Ahmed Chalabi will be arrested Saturday and handed over to Interpol to face bank fraud charges in Jordan. . . As the exiled political leader of the Iraqi National Congress, Chalabi was a key U.S. ally leading up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.'

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/21/iraq.chalabi/index.html

'In bluntly threatening terms on Inauguration Day, Vice President Dick Cheney removed any doubt that in its second term the Bush administration intended to directly confront the theocracy in Tehran.

Cheney, who often has delivered the Bush team's toughest warnings to foreign capitals, said Iran was "right at the top" of the administration's list of world trouble spots, and expressed concern that Israel "might well decide to act first" to destroy Iran's nuclear program. The Israelis would let the rest of the world "worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterward," he added in a radio interview with Don Imus that was also broadcast on MSNBC.'

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheney21jan21,0,2703424.story


A little note from Amnesty International:

'Amnesty International’s recommendations to the US authorities based on the organization’s 12-Point Program for the Prevention of Torture by Agents of the State'

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR510122005

Worth a read.

' In a stunning legal attack, Ohio's Republican Attorney General has moved for sanctions against the four attorneys who sued George W. Bush et. al. in an attempt to investigate the Buckeye State's bitterly contested November 2 election.'

http://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1102

'Britain is urging America to announce a timetable for withdrawing coalition troops from Iraq over the next 18 months or more.

With a new Iraqi government due to take power after next week's elections, British officials believe the time is ripe for the coalition to announce an "indicative timetable" for its departure.'

http://theage.com.au/news/Iraq/Britain-urges-US-to-set-exit-timetable/2005/01/20/1106110875078.html?oneclick=true

'Watching the inaugural ceremonies yesterday reminded me of the scenes near the end of "The Godfather" in which a solemn occasion (a baptism in the movie) is interspersed with a series of spectacularly violent murders.

Even as President Bush was taking the oath of office and delivering his Inaugural Address beneath the clear, cold skies of Washington, the news wires were churning out stories about the tragic mayhem in Iraq. There is no end in sight to the carnage, which was unleashed nearly two years ago by President Bush's decision to launch this wholly unnecessary war, one of the worst presidential decisions in American history.

Incredibly, with more than 1,360 American troops dead and more than 10,000 wounded, and with scores of thousands of Iraqis dead and wounded, the president never once mentioned the word Iraq in his Inaugural Address. He avoided all but the most general references to the war. Lyndon Johnson used to agonize over the war that unraveled his presidency. Mr. Bush, riding the crest of his re-election wave, seems not to be similarly bothered.' The New York Times via http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/012205E.shtml

'The scandal sheet
Print it out, send it to Harry Reid, or just read it and weep. Here are 34 scandals from the first four years of George W. Bush's presidency -- every one of them worse than Whitewater.'

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/01/18/scandal/index.html

Regime change that could destroy our homeland
Bush's plan for dismantling Social Security would have dire economic consequences, and Republicans who support it had better be prepared for a backlash.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/01/20/social_security/index.html

'“There’s a trade deficit. That’s easy to resolve: People can buy more United States products if they’re worried about the trade deficit.” —George W. Bush, December 15, 2004

Reminiscent of the callous “Let them eat cake” reputedly uttered by Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine, President Bush’s remarks show how out of touch he is with the economic reality most Americans face. Apparently, the president hasn’t visited a shopping mall or Wal-Mart lately. If he had, like the millions of Americans who flocked to our nation’s stores this holiday season to buy toys, bicycles, computers, sneakers, clothes, telephones, cowboy boots (yes, Mr. President, cowboy boots!), even artificial Christmas trees and decorations, he would surely know that an overwhelming majority of these products were made overseas, mostly in China.'

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1881/

'What Could Go Wrong in 2005?'

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2141

'A Republican who has served in three GOP administrations remarked that the mood in Washington this inauguration week reminded him a bit of the second Nixon administration. There is a smugness and insularity among senior officials -- a feeling that because the president has won reelection, his aides don't have to explain themselves or their policies to the nation.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25278-2005Jan20

'The Robber Barons are back.

They're staging a celebration of their power in Washington, DC, where they help write the majority of legislation and hold captive all but a very few of our nation's legislators. The television networks they own are showing the party in all its pomp and ceremony. The newspapers and magazines they own are telling us what a fine time is being had by all in Washington, DC. The radio stations, networks, and talk show hosts they own are reassuring us that they know what is best, that all will be well, that "freedom is on the march."

Every generation, it is often said, must relearn the lessons of history. This generation is getting a crash course.'

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0120-24.htm

'President Bush opened his second term with an "assertively abstract" speech in which he promised to promote liberty and democracy "in every nation and culture" on earth. The speech was "harnessed to almost no specifics" – the words "freedom," "free" and "liberty" appeared 49 times, but Bush "did not mention Iraq, Iran, North Korea – or indeed any country, friend or foe." The word "terrorism" did not appear, nor was there mention of al Qaeda. And the war in Iraq, which has claimed the lives of 1,360 American troops and wounded upwards of 10,000, went unacknowledged.'

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480

'It began in 1997 as a company that sold credit data to the insurance industry. But over the next seven years, as it acquired dozens of other companies, Alpharetta, Ga.-based ChoicePoint Inc. became an all-purpose commercial source of personal information about Americans, with billions of details about their homes, cars, relatives, criminal records and other aspects of their lives.

As its dossier grew, so did the number of ChoicePoint's government and corporate clients, jumping from 1,000 to more than 50,000 today. Company stock once worth about $500 million ballooned to $4.1 billion. . .ChoicePoint and other private companies increasingly occupy a special place in homeland security and crime-fighting efforts, in part because they can compile information and use it in ways government officials sometimes cannot because of privacy and information laws'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22269-2005Jan19.html



'The latest polls show that most Americans are critical of the war in Iraq. But the option of swiftly withdrawing all U.S. troops from that country gets little media attention.

So far this year, many news outlets have lapsed into conjecture on what George W. Bush has in mind for the Iraq war. At the end of a recent lengthy editorial, the New York Times noted that "there's speculation about whether President Bush intends to use the arrival of a new elected government [in Baghdad] as an occasion to declare victory and begin pulling out American troops."

Right now, that kind of speculation amounts to a smokescreen for a war-crazed administration. Its evident intention is for large numbers of U.S. troops to stay in Iraq for a long time.'

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_17275.shtml

Just a few links:

'"This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers, stories of which were spread everywhere among the people, and later by the prisoners who were freed … were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees."



Most people who hear this quote today assume it was uttered by a senior officer of the Bush administration. Instead, it comes from one of history's greatest mass murderers, Rudolf Hoess, the SS commandant at Auschwitz. Such a confusion demonstrates the depth of the United States' moral dilemma in its treatment of detainees in the war on terror.'

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-horton20jan20,0,2436713.story

'Recently I wrote once again about the spread of torture as a way of life in the Bush administration's offshore imperium. I offered my version of a national "self-portrait" for the New Year (American Gothic) and considered the latest torture news, now practically pouring through leaks in the Washington and Pentagon bureaucracy. While I was at it, I made a partial listing of some of the grisly tortures reported in the news as 2004 was ending. As now often happens (especially when right-wing blogs comment -- disparagingly, of course -- on Tomdispatch material), I received an abusive letter. It called me "disgusting" and a "coward"; wondered whether I wasn't a "pervert" as well as a godless sot; suggested I get help; complained that I ignored "beheadings" (in a portrait of America) -- and suggested, as proof that something was "wrong" with me, that I worried instead "about someone put in underwear."'

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2136

'Voicing displeasure with the Bush administration over prisoner abuse and the Iraq war, Senate Democrats on Wednesday delayed the expected confirmations of Atty. Gen.-designate Alberto R. Gonzales and Secretary of State nominee Condoleezza Rice.'

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cabinet20jan20,0,5271984.story


Off to the 19th hole!

Just "a few" links?

I suppose it depends on your definition of "a few" ---obviously you've used the same one I do when I claim to be stopping in a the pub for a few drinks on the way home.

Python swallows Bush! http://www.salon.com/books/int/2005/01/21/jones/

It's no longer the 45-member 'coalition of the willing': it's now the 28-member 'fodder for the killing'

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E830A494-8304-45C9-98C7-AF6F96DDD918.htm

And a little feature analysis: "Will the US attack Iran?"

'The consensus among experts is that any proxy war, invasion or missile strike on Iran would be a costly mistake, but opinion is divided as to whether it could happen anyway.

An overwhelming view among foreign policy analysts and experts on Iran is not just that there is no international support for an attack, but that the US lacks the necessary resources to deal with its consequences.

However, a determined group within the US administration argue that Iran is a regional and global threat and that the use of air and special operations attacks against its suspected nuclear facilities can stop the ruling clerics in Tehran acquiring warheads.'

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/946C40F5-059D-4122-88B4-FFC4EA3A0930.htm

' Church-going Americans have grown increasingly intolerant in the past four years of politicians making compromises on such hot issues as abortion and gay rights, according to a survey released on Saturday.

At the same time, those polled said they were growing bolder about pushing their beliefs on others -- even at the risk of offending someone.'

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7400529

Here's on for the 'you call that news?!' file:

'U.S. losing in Iraq' http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000769945

I'm just getting depressed. Is there much point in posting these links?Am I preaching to the converted and depressed?


' It is no secret that the Neo-Cons intend to "bring democracy" to Iran and Syria, thereby eliminating two more traditional enemies of the USA and Israel. Dick Cheney, the Vice-President (certainly no Virtue-President), has already prophesied that Israel may attack Iran, as if threatening to unleash a Rottweiler.

It could have been hoped that after the total debacle in Iraq and the less obvious but equally serious failure in Afghanistan, Bush would shrink from more such actions. But as almost always happens with rulers of this type, he cannot admit defeat and stop. On the contrary, failure drives him on to more extremes, vowing, rather like the captain of the Titanic, "to stay the course."'

http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article340.html

How's your French?

http://www.nouvelobs.com/articles/p2098/a261131.html

'The team had already recorded testimony from over 50 former detainees, detailing severe abuse, rape, torture, humiliation, and religious degradation allegedly committed throughout the network of US-run detention centers and prisons in Iraq. In August, Akeel and his investigative partner, Mohammed Alomari, also revealed what appears to be the systematic targeting of religious inmates, as well as the rape of a 15-year-old boy by his captors as late as July 2004'

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1359

A recently released detainee at Abu Ghraib on the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq:

"The Americans brought electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house!"

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2109

Look at this! The U.N. has called on the world to bail the U.S. out of it's present financial situation! That's right, where other countries would get orders from the World Bank and the IMF to change their dirty ways, when the U.S. f***s up its house we have to bail them out!

http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/012705W.shtml


And, a wonderful line from Seymour Hersh: 'We've been taken over by a cult.'

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/26/1450204

More Shite:

'The Death of Hadi Saleh' from Truthout.org. A window into Iraqi history. http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/012905L.shtml

'What If (It Was All a Big Mistake)?' A statement delivered in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/012905B.shtml

'Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account.' http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GUANTANAMO_SEX_VS_FAITH?SITE=NJHAC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

'The official wall of silence surrounding the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) so-called 'ghost prisoners' who are being held at secret locations has sparked legal concerns among human rights groups that denounce the practice as abusive.

It is not publicly known exactly how many 'ghost detainees' the CIA is holding, who they are or where they are held' http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1291449.htm


'When more than 200,000 people died in a tsunami caused by an Asian earthquake in December, the immediate reaction in the United States was an outpouring of grief and philanthropy, prompted by extensive coverage in the news media.

Two months earlier, the reaction in the United States to news of another large-scale human tragedy was much quieter. In late October, a study was published in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, concluding that about 100,000 civilians had been killed in Iraq since it was invaded by a United States-led coalition in March 2003. On the eve of a contentious presidential election -- fought in part over U.S. policy on Iraq -- many American newspapers and television news programs ignored the study or buried reports about it far from the top headlines.'
http://chronicle.com/temp/email.php?id=6g87s8d900q52bjppa5m3h7noo5ikert

An example of the ignorance and absolute lack of political creativity that pretends to be leadership in so many powerful places these days:

http://www.newhorizons.org/future/lamm.htm

Despite Mr. Lamm's bigotted and inflamatory comments to the contrary, we Canadians sure are bloody lucky to be where we are. (even if some of us are in Japan. Or Spain.

'Voting in Baghdad was linked with receipt of food rations, several voters said after the Sunday poll.'

http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_.../archives/hard_news/000192.php#more

Try again, that link doesn't...erm...link.

hmm.


http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/hard_news/000192.php

try that one.

Also, did anybody see John Gibson on Fox? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,145883,00.html He's got this lie about the Globe and Mail headlining with the casualties in Iraq rather than the turnout of the election. As far as I can tell from their webpage, the G&M lead off with a story about the turnout for the election, exactly the opposit of what Gibson said: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

They really are nasty liars, aren't they?

"The results of not building a community are evident everywhere, in Bosnia, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Quebec, and Rwanda. What is going on today -- in Azerbaijan and Bosnia -- is not a failure of communism; it is failure of community. "


Quebec? WTF?