Examining Fascism in America

[UniverseSeven]

Neo-Con Torture Rhetoric Alarmingly Mirrors Nazi Counterparts

NO COMPARISON:January 24th, 2005 : Filed by ~A!

www.WatchingtheWatchers.org | January 26 2005

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.

Can anyone tell me who said that? Was it:

A) George W. Bush
B) John Ashcroft
C) Donald Rumsfeld
D) Someone else

If you answered “someone else", you’d be right. It was Rudolf Hoess, SS Kommandant of the infamous Auschwitz death camp where over 2.5 million people were murdered.

Conservatives, who love to call Liberals whiny, get whiny as hell when the Bush administration is compared to Nazi Germany, or to fascism in general. Guess what, though? The comparisons are beginning to come through more and more.

Scott Horton wrote in the LA Times:

Consider the memorandum written by Alberto Gonzales – then the president’s attorney, now his nominee for attorney general. He wrote that the Geneva Convention was “obsolete” when it came to the war on terror. Gonzales reasoned that our adversaries were not parties to the convention and that the Geneva concept was ill suited to anti-terrorist warfare.

In 1941, General-Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the head of Hitler’s Wehrmacht, mustered identical arguments against recognizing the Geneva rights of Soviet soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front. Keitel even called Geneva “obsolete,” a remark noted by U.S. prosecutors at Nuremberg, who cited it as an aggravating circumstance in seeking, and obtaining, the death penalty. Keitel was executed in 1946.

Hitler was installed, then re-elected. Bush was installed, then re-elected. Hitler had Reichstag, Bush had 9/11. (I am not implying government collusion in 9/11, FYI) Both used their respective catastrophes to assume more power (Hitler with the Enabling Act, Bush with the USA PATRIOT Act), and to assume dictatorial powers.

Hitler used Christianity to give his words absolute authority and decried any who dissented as unpatriotic. Bush uses Christianity to give his words absolute authority and decries any who dissent as unpatriotic.

Hitler said:

“The German people are not a warlike nation. It is a soldierly one, which means it does not want a war, but does not fear it. It loves peace but also loves its honor and freedom”

Bush said:

We’re pursuing a strategy of freedom around the world, because I understand free nations will reject terror. Free nations will answer the hopes and aspirations of their people. Free nations will help us achieve the peace we all want.

I have rejected this type of comparison of Bush to Hitler for months, because Hitler was a genocidal maniac bent on ruling the world with his ideology. I submit this comparison now because I believe the same to be true of George W. Bush.

George W. Bush will have his empire, and he will kill any person, group, or country that stands in his way. I challenge any of you to tell me why that is not so, as he has already proved it.

Send comments to the author at [e-mail]

Original at watchingthewatchers.org/index.php?p=283

www.prisonplanet.com/index.html

Another take on fascism
January 26th, 2005 : Filed by Mixter
This seems to be the hot topic of late here at Watching the Watchers…<br>
It is possible to be both a republic and a fascist state. The preferred class lives in a republic while the oppressed class lives in a fascist state. More than a class system, fascism specifically targets, dehumanizes and aims to destroy those it deems undesirable.

Fascism uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to supress political opposition. A perfect example of this new censorship is when the brand-new Education Secretary Margaret Stallings recently asked PBS to return Department of Education money that was spent on an episode of a cartoon that had lesbian characters, and warned “You can be assured that in the future the department will be more clear as to its expectations for any future programming that it funds.”

Fascism engages in severe econonic and social regimentation. Rich, older, white, “Christian” men over all other races and religions? Constitutional amendments to discriminate against a portion of our society? Federal enforcement of civil rights laws has dropped sharply under the Bush administration even though the level of complaints received by the U.S. Department of Justice has remained relatively constant. BushCo has appointed Gerald Reynolds, an outspoken opponent of affirmative action, to chair the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Fascism engages in corporatism. Lets face it, corporations have had legislative power for a long time now.

Fascism creates confusion through “facts.” It relies on junk science, revisionism, the elimination of cultural records/treasures and withholding information to create its case and gain acceptance. The “science” of intelligent design? Christian fundamentalist movements seek to rationalize and advance their agenda, touching on issues as diverse as abortion rights, school prayer, government aid to religious schools, and much more.

Fascism uses a right-wing mass movement to attack the organizations of the working class: parties of the left and labor unions. Some examples: Dubya stripping federal airport security workers of union protections and questioning the patriotism of union leaders who objected, proposing that companies be allowed to grant comp time instead of paying for overtime and imposing stringent financial disclosure requirements on unions.

Fascism joins business and government sectors into a single economic unit. Hmm. Privatizing social security?

Fascists make policy based upon current circumstances rather than creating policies to prevent problems; piles lies and misnomers on top of more lies until the truth becomes indistinguishable, revised or forgotten. We were attacked on 9/11/01. Let’s get Osama. No, wait. Let’s get Saddam. Hold on! Let’s spread freedom and liberty across the globe. Never mind the fact that freedom and liberty are becoming a luxury afforded only to the elite in the U.S.

Fascism uses two or more tiered legal systems, varying rights based upon superficial characteristics such as race, creed and origin. Enemy combatants being tortured? U.S. citizens being held indefinitely without a right to counsel?

Fascists use imperialism: Extending a nation’s authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political domination of one state over its allies. “The survival of liberty in our land depends on the success of liberty in other lands.” The Project for a New American Century.

Fascism uses impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace. Fear is a VERY powerful emotionl. How’s THIS for an expert opinion?

Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

– Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials *quote verified at Snopes.com

It all adds up. Bush + Evangelicals + Neo-cons = FASCIST AMERICA

Mixter

watchingthewatchers.org/index.php?p=292

[UniverseSeven]

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

From Liberty Forum
www.rense.com/general37/char.htm

[UniverseSeven]

CIA Refuse To Release Nazi Papers

UPI | January 31 2005

Comment: The CIA won't release the papers because the Nazi war criminals were recruited by their predecessor orgaization, the OSS, via Operation Paperclip. This is part of the historical record.

Related: We Are Our Enemies

The CIA refuses to provide documents sought by the U.S. government under a law requiring disclosure of classified records related to Nazi war criminals.

Under the 1998 law, the spy agency has already provided more than 1.2 million pages of documents. Some of the papers made public last year showed a closer relationship between the U.S. government and Nazi war criminals than had previously been understood.

But for nearly three years, the CIA has nixed requests for more records, Congressional officials and some members of a government working group told The New York Times.

The officials believe the stance seems to violate the law and say the agency has sometimes agreed to provide information about ex-Nazis, but not about the extent of the agency's dealings with them after World War II.

"I think that the CIA has defied the law, and in so doing has also trivialized the Holocaust, thumbed its nose at the survivors of the Holocaust and also at Americans who gave their lives in the effort to defeat the Nazis in World War II," said Elizabeth Holtzman, a former congresswoman from New York and a member of the group.

www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2005/310105nazipapers.htm

[UniverseSeven]

[jonnygemini]

My mother always told me that when a person dies, one should not say anything bad about him. My mother was wrong. History requires truth, not puffery or silence, especially about powerful governmental figures. And obituaries are a first draft of history. So here’s the truth about Chief Justice Rehnquist you won’t hear on Fox News or from politicians. Chief Justice
William Rehnquist set back liberty, equality, and human rights perhaps more than any American judge of this generation. His rise to power speaks volumes about the current state of American values.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Rehnquist bragged about being first in his class at Stanford Law School. Today Stanford is a great law school with a diverse student body, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it discriminated against Jews and other minorities, both in the admission of students and in the selection of faculty. Justice
Stephen Breyer recalled an earlier period of Stanford’s history: “When my father was at Stanford, he could not join any of the social organizations because he was Jewish, and those organizations, at that time, did not accept Jews.” Rehnquist not only benefited in his class ranking from this discrimination; he was also part of that bigotry. When he was nominated to be an associate justice in 1971, I learned from several sources who had known him as a student that he had outraged Jewish classmates by goose-stepping and heil-Hitlering with brown-shirted friends in front of a dormitory that housed the school’s few Jewish students. He also was infamous for telling racist and anti-Semitic jokes.

As a law clerk, Rehnquist wrote a memorandum for Justice Jackson while the court was considering several school desegregation cases, including Brown v. Board of Education. Rehnquist’s memo, entitled “A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases,” defended the separate-but-equal doctrine embodied in the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Rehnquist concluded the Plessy “was right and should be reaffirmed.” When questioned about the memos by the Senate Judiciary Committee in both 1971 and 1986, Rehnquist blamed his defense of segregation on the dead Justice, stating – under oath – that his memo was meant to reflect the views of Justice Jackson. But Justice Jackson voted in Brown, along with a unanimous Court, to strike down school segregation. According to historian Mark Tushnet, Justice Jackson’s longtime legal secretary called Rehnquist’s Senate testimony an attempt to “smear[] the reputation of a great justice.” Rehnquist later admitted to defending Plessy in arguments with fellow law clerks. He did not acknowledge that he committed perjury in front of the Judiciary Committee to get his job.

The young Rehnquist began his legal career as a Republican functionary by obstructing African-American and Hispanic voting at Phoenix polling locations (“Operation Eagle Eye”). As Richard Cohen of The Washington Post wrote, “[H]e helped challenge the voting qualifications of Arizona blacks and Hispanics. He was entitled to do so. But even if he did not personally harass potential voters, as witnesses allege, he clearly was a brass-knuckle partisan, someone who would deny the ballot to fellow citizens for trivial political reasons -- and who made his selection on the basis of race or ethnicity.” In a word, he started out his political career as a Republican thug.

Rehnquist later bought a home in Vermont with a restrictive covenant that barred sale of the property to ''any member of the Hebrew race.”

Rehnquist’s judicial philosophy was result-oriented, activist, and authoritarian. He sometimes moderated his views for prudential or pragmatic reasons, but his vote could almost always be predicted based on who the parties were, not what the legal issues happened to be. He generally opposed the rights of gays, women, blacks, aliens, and religious minorities. He was a friend of corporations, polluters, right wing Republicans, religious fundamentalists, homophobes, and other bigots.

Rehnquist served on the Supreme Court for thirty-three years and as chief justice for nineteen. Yet no opinion comes to mind which will be remembered as brilliant, innovative, or memorable. He will be remembered not for the quality of his opinions but rather for the outcomes decided by his votes, especially Bush v. Gore, in which he accepted an Equal Protection claim that was totally inconsistent with his prior views on that clause. He will also be remembered as a Chief Justice who fought for the independence and authority of the judiciary. This is his only positive contribution to an otherwise regressive career.

Within moments of Rehnquist’s death, Fox News called and asked for my comments, presumably aware that I was a longtime critic of the late Chief Justice. After making several of these points to Alan Colmes (who was supposed to be interviewing me), Sean Hannity intruded, and when he didn’t like my answers, he cut me off and terminated the interview. Only after I was off the air and could not respond did the attack against me begin, which is typical of Hannity’s bullying ambush style. He is afraid to attack when there’s someone there to respond. Since the interview, I’ve received dozens of e-mail hate messages, some of which are overtly anti-Semitic. One writer called me “a jew prick that takes it in the a** from ruth ginzburg [sic].” Another said I am “an ignorant socialist left-wing political hack …. You’re like a little Heinrich Himmler! (even the resemblance is uncanny!).” Yet another informed me that I “personally make us all lament the defeat of the Nazis!” A more restrained viewer found me to be “a disgrace to the Law, to Harvard, and to humanity.”

All this, for refusing to put a deceptive gloss on a man who made his career undermining the rights and liberties of American citizens.

My mother would want me to remain silent, but I think my father would have wanted me to tell the truth. My father was right.

Alan Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard. His latest book is The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved (Wiley, 2005).

[jonnygemini]

www.wonkette.com/politics/fema/index.php#swift-fema-action-124217

Swift FEMA Action

You know, it's become so fashionable to beat up on the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the lack of accountability therein. In reality, the agency has acted swiftly on some occasions to quell bad actors in its ranks. Why, just look at how promptly it addressed the conduct of Nicole Rank, a Corpus Christi-based FEMA administrator who was dispatched to the Charleston, West Virginia site of a flood last year. It so happened the president turned up in town at the same time, for a Fourth of July speech, and Rank turned up at the event with her husband Jeff. Both were wearing a T-shirt that read "Love America, Hate Bush" and "Regime Change Starts at Home"; the Charleston police told them to "cover [the shirts] up, take them off, or leave completely." When the Ranks refused they were forcibly removed from the premises and briefly imprisoned, so that the president could proceed with his speech declaring the Fourth an occasion to celebrate "the freedom for people to speak their minds, the freedom for people to worship as they so choose. Free thought and free expression, that's what we believe"

And within two days, FEMA informed Ms. Rank that because of the incident, she was being released from the Charleston assignment. That's some rapid action to protect the security of the homeland. A heck of job, you might even say. -- HOLLY MARTINS

ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20041025&s=trb102504

TRB FROM WASHINGTON
Uniform Standard
by Peter Beinart
Post date 10.20.04 | Issue date 10.25.04

On July 4, Jeff and Nicole Rank went to hear George W. Bush speak in Charleston, West Virginia. Tickets in hand, they found seats ten or 15 rows from the stage. There they sat, quietly, wearing t-shirts that read love america, hate bush and regime change starts at home. Forty-five minutes before the president took the podium, event staffers approached the couple and said, "You need to either take those shirts off or leave." According to The San Antonio Express-News, Jeff Rank replied, "People around us have Bush-Cheney t-shirts, pro-Bush t-shirts. Why can't we express our views?" The staffers left, but a few minutes later, two police officers arrived and told the couple to "cover up, take them [the t-shirts] off or leave completely." The Ranks refused, at which point they were handcuffed, expelled from the event, and briefly thrown in prison. With the Ranks safely off the premises, Bush addressed the crowd, declaring that "on the Fourth of July, we confirm our love of freedom, the freedom for people to speak their minds, the freedom for people to worship as they so choose. Free thought and free expression, that's what we believe." Two days later, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Nicole Rank's employer, told her that, as a result of the incident, she was being dismissed from her assignment in West Virginia....

[UniverseSeven]

Nice Find

[jonnygemini]

It is a tribute to the humanity of ordinary people that horrible acts must be camouflaged [with words] like security, peace, freedom, democracy, the 'national interest'. — Howard Zinn, Boston University professor and former Second World War bomber pilot, USA.

more goodness here:
en.wikiquote.org/wiki/War

" '...what is the best type of Jihad [struggle].' He answered: 'Speaking truth before a tyrannical ruler.' "

* Riyadh us-Saleheen Volume 1:195
en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Muhammad

[UniverseSeven]

Galloway´s Frankness Invigorates, Shocks Americans


The Capital Times :: EDITORIAL :: 9A
Saturday, September 17, 2005

John Nichols

Americans who are familiar only with the almost always empty words -- and often empty heads -- of this country´s political leaders can be a little shocked by George Galloway´s pronouncements.

The British parliamentarian, who came of age in the brawling political landscape of his native Scotland, where a quick wit and a savage debating style are prerequisites for electoral success, does not mince words in the manner that most American pols do.

Consider Galloway´s statement in response to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath:

"The scenes from the stricken city almost defy belief. Many, many thousands of people left to die in what is the richest, most powerful country on Earth. This obscenity is as far from a natural disaster as George Bush and the U.S. elite are from the suffering masses of New Orleans. The images of Bush luxuriating at his ranch and of his secretary of state shopping for $7,000 shoes while disaster swamped the U.S. Gulf Coast will haunt this administration.

"In the most terrible way imaginable they show to the whole world that it is not only the lives of people in Baghdad, Fallujah and Palestine that Bush holds cheap. It is also his own citizens -- the black and poor people left behind with no food, water or shelter. This is not simply manslaughter through incompetence, though the White House´s incompetence abounds. It is murder -- for Bush was warned four years ago of the threat to New Orleans, as surely as he was warned of the disaster that would come of his war on Iraq. ...

"His is the America of Halliburton, the M-16 rifle, the cluster bomb, the gated communities of the rich and of the billionaires he grew up with in Texas. There is another America. It is the land of the poor of Louisiana, it is the land of the young men and women economically conscripted into the military. It is the land of the glorious multiethnic mix that was New Orleans, it is the land of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and of great struggles for justice."

That´s not exactly a politically correct response to the crisis, at least not in George Bush´s America of muted debate and sappy bipartisanship. But it is one that will ring true with a significant proportion of the American population, as have Galloway´s pronouncements with regard to the war in Iraq.

Galloway, who will appear at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Wisconsin Union Theater on the UW-Madison campus, became an instant hero to many opponents of the U.S. occupation of Iraq when the previously little-known member of the British Parliament flew to Washington to appear before the Senate´s Permanent Committee on Investigations.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., a headline-grabbing conservative who is trying to position himself for a presidential run, had accused Galloway and other European figures of opposing the Iraq war because they had received "oil for food" program kickbacks from Saddam Hussein. In fact, Galloway had successfully challenged the same accusations in Britain and gone on to win a stunning victory in that country´s May 5 election. So Galloway jumped at the chance to go before Coleman´s committee, which he did in a remarkable May 17 appearance.

After rebutting Coleman´s charges -- "Mr. Chairman, I am not now, nor have I ever been an oil trader, and neither has anyone been on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf." -- Galloway turned the tables on his accuser, tearing into the senator with a fiery attack on the war and its proponents:

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life´s blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed 1 million Iraqis, most of them children. Most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to be born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies," Galloway informed the fool on Capitol Hill.

"I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaida. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11, 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong, and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies."

Coleman couldn´t get out of the hearing room quick enough. The senator had met more than his match, and he quickly changed topics.

For his part, Galloway was stunned by Coleman´s lack of preparation for the confrontation.

"The senator´s performance was pitiful, embarrassing. He did not know the first thing about the matters he was raising," says Galloway, who has clashed with some of the ablest legislators on the planet. "When I was told that Mr. Norm Coleman has presidential ambitions, I thought: I fear for America. I fear for the world. This man is not prepared to be a senator, let alone the leader of the most powerful country in the world."

If Galloway was dismayed by the quality of American politicians, he was heartened by the response of the American people. He received more than 20,000 e-mails from Americans in just the first few days after his appearance before the committee. So high was the interest that he has now penned a book on the incident, "Mr. Galloway Goes to Washington" (The New Press), and his tour this month of the U.S. is drawing unprecedented crowds. (More than 1,000 people attended his debate this week in New York with war backer Christopher Hitchens.)

Galloway is enjoying the chance to expound on his views before American audiences, even if he is sometimes frustrated by the determination of his critics to paint him as the Beast of Britain.

He laughs at the claim that he is a "friend" of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, noting that he met Hussein only twice -- "exactly the same number of times that (Secretary of Defense) Donald Rumsfeld met him," Galloway notes. "The difference," he adds, "is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns."

Galloway´s impression of Saddam is far more nuanced than that of American politicians or commentators. But his is hardly a favorable view.

"I found him to be a man who is capable of rational and irrational actions, which I think is the nature of dictatorship," he explained.

To accusations that his militant opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq means that he supports terrorism, Galloway responds that he is opposed to the killing of innocents by any group or any means -- "be it a suicide bomber or a bomb dropped from an airplane flying overhead." He rejects the notion that the United States or Great Britain ought to decide whether the insurgents in Iraq are "legitimate" representatives of popular sentiment in that country, arguing instead, "It is the height of imperialism to suggest that the Iraqi insurgency is legitimate or illegitimate."

What he will suggest, however, is that the only way to sort out the mess in Iraq is for occupying forces to exit the country. To those who tell him that withdrawal of foreign troops would lead to chaos, Galloway replies, "From what I see, there is quite a lot of chaos there now."

That´s Galloway. Quick of wit and unapologetic, he is the antidote to the American politician.

A fter being expelled from British Prime Minister Tony Blair´s Labour Party, he formed a new party, Respect, and then beat one of Blair´s closest allies in parliament. He decries the stilted debate and the "corrupt duopoly" of American politics, which sees many Democrats echoing the lines of a Republican president.

But Galloway takes his anti-imperialism seriously. When asked whether he thinks American war foes should work within the two major parties or go the independent or third-party route, he says, "It´s not for me to say whether you need a new party in the United States. We determined in Britain that an alternative was needed. What I can say is that the whole world has suffered because the debate in the United States has been inadequate. One of the reasons I am here is to stir it up."

That George Galloway will surely do.

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times.


www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=tct:2005:09:17:519658:EDITORIAL

[jonnygemini]

MUST READ!!!

Today in DC: Commandos in the Streets?

Today, somewhere in the DC metropolitan area, the military is conducting a highly classified Granite Shadow "demonstration."

Granite Shadow is yet another new Top Secret and compartmented operation related to the military’s extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control

A spokesman at the Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region (JFHQ-NCR) confirmed the existence of Granite Shadow to me yesterday, but all he would say is that Granite Shadow is the unclassified name for a classified plan

That classified plan, I believe, after extensive research and after making a couple of assumptions, is CONPLAN 0400, formally titled Counter-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Concept Plan (CONPLAN) 0400 is a long-standing contingency plan of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) that serves as the umbrella for military efforts to counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction. It has extensively been updated and revised since 9/11.

The CJCS plan lays out national policy and priorities for dealing with WMD threats in peacetime and crisis -- from far away offensive strikes and special operations against foreign WMD infrastructure and capabilities, to missile defenses and "consequence management" at home if offensive efforts fail

All of the military planning incorporates the technical capabilities of the intelligence agencies and non-military organizations such as the national laboratories of the Department of Energy. And finally, CONPLAN 0400 directs regional combatant commanders to customize counter-proliferation plans for each of their own areas of operations.

When that "area of operations" is the United States, things become particularly sensitive.

That's where Granite Shadow comes in. U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the military's new homeland security command, is preparing its draft version of CONPLAN 0400 for military operations in the United States, and the resulting Granite Shadow plan has been classified above Top Secret by adding a Special Category (SPECAT) compartment restricting access

The sensitivities, according to military sources, include deployment of "special mission units" (the so-called Delta Force, SEAL teams, Rangers, and other special units of Joint Special Operations Command) in Washington, DC and other domestic hot spots. NORTHCOM has worked closely with U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), as well as the secret branches of non-military agencies and departments to enforce "unity of command" over any post 9/11 efforts.

Further, Granite Shadow posits domestic military operations, including intelligence collection and surveillance, unique rules of engagement regarding the use of lethal force, the use of experimental non-lethal weapons, and federal and military control of incident locations that are highly controversial and might border on the illegal.

Granite Shadow is the twin to Power Geyser, a program I first revealed to The New York Times in January. The JFHQ spokesman confirms that Granite Shadow and Power Geyser are two different unclassified names for two different classified plans

In the case of Power Geyser, the classified plan is CJCS CONPLAN 0300, whose entire title is classified. According the military documents, the unclassified title is "Counter-Terrorism Special Operations Support to Civil Agencies in the event of a domestic incident." It is another Top Secret/SPECAT plan directing the same special mission units to provide weapons of mass destruction recovery and "render safe" in either a terrorist incident or in the case of a stolen (or lost) nuclear weapon. Render safe refers to the ability of explosive ordnance disposal experts to isolate and disarm any type of biological, chemical, nuclear or radiological weapon.

The obvious question is why there is a need for two plans. My guess is that Power Geyser and CONPLAN 0300 refers to operations in support of a civil agency "lead" (most likely the Attorney General for a WMD attack) while Granite Shadow and CONPLAN 0400 lays out contingencies where the military is in the lead. I'll wait to be corrected by someone in the know

Both plans seem to live behind a veil of extraordinary secrecy because military forces operating under them have already been given a series of ''special authorities'' by the President and the secretary of defense. These special authorities include, presumably, military roles in civilian law enforcement and abrogation of State's powers in a declared or perceived emergency.

In January, when The New York Times reported on the Power Geyser name from my Code Names website, the Pentagon argued that "It would be irresponsible … to comment on any classified program that may or may not exist."

I can't see how the Defense Department can continue this line of argument post-Katrina. We see the human cost of a system of contingency planning done in complete secret, with a lack of any debate as to what should be the federal government's priorities, emphasis, and rules.

As the Granite Shadow commandos and their federal brethren go through their paces today, some inside the system will lament that I have "compromised" their work. But the very fact that nothing in my writing damages the Granite Shadow effort should demonstrate that we can have a discussion of contingency planning priorities in the United States, and debate extraordinary special authorities granted to those in uniform, without compromising the details of the plans themselves.

There's still time. The full-scale exercise of Granite Shadow's capabilities and procedures doesn’t start until April 2006

blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/09/today_in_dc_com.html

[UniverseSeven]

Will you space the paragraphs please?

[jonnygemini]

my bad...that wouldn't cut and paste easy for some reason

Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Able Danger and Bolton: The link to 9-11 and the NSA

If you're a parent torn about what's going on in Iraq or upset about what happened in Louisiana with the hurricane recovery, I encourage you to review this.

As you've probably figured out, I'm not all that happy with how things have been fleshing out.

MI5 made some revelations which, in my mind, all but confirmed there was a problem. Added to which, one of their former analysts accused the Americans of being behind the 9-11 attacks.

* * *


Now we get into some smoke and mirrors with Able Danger and 9-11. The problem the White House and Pentagon have is that there are two problems:

A. The witnesses are still alive; and

B. By confirming the information was destroyed, they've confirmed the Able Danger program is real -- non-existent programs do not have paper trails that are covered up.

One of the arguments against letting DoD personnel testify is that the White House will have egg on its face. However, the real issue is that the Pentagon doesn't want the public to know about the NSA connections with the DoD satellites.

Bolton has already spilled the beans: NSA and GCHQ both spy on America and retain the information.

* * *


The problem DoD has is whether the funding for Iraq got taken out of the satellites to fund the Iraq war; or whether the real reason to Army didn't get the armor is because of the NSA/NRO satellite bills.

Which leads us back to 9-11. Supposedly there were many classified briefings given to the 9-11 Commission.

What's the problem with "not being able to provide classified information on Able Danger" in 2005? Senators have classified clearances.

* * *


DoD is confused. Their responses should be sending off alarm bells: "DoD hasn't been forthcoming with Congressional oversight -- those who are lawfully required and cleared to review that material and/or the testimony from those involved."

This means that the information is problematic, not because it is classified, but because it is on the same level as Bolton's NSA intercepts: They are illegal.

Remember, the NSA keeps copies of this Able Danger in GCHQ -- that's where the Downing Street Memo came from.

Does the United States Congress have to subpoena the GCHQ in order to get the information on the Able Danger program?

If you think you're "brave enough" to know the truth, then get on the ConyersBlog and ask Congressman Conyers to write another letter for the Raw Story to post:: It is time the US Congress subpoena GCHQ so that the American public can get the information about ongoing, unlawful operations.

* * *


Remember all the levee warnings about New Orleans? Who do you think is also ignoring the risks of other problems? The same people who are clueless and took the nation to war without adequate planning in Iraq.

Here's the pattern: Bad trends build, they gain momentum, and then they come together. The 2012 article discusses this confluence.

However, if you don't want to find out about Able Danger do nothing; but don't whine if there's a military coup as written in the 2012 piece.

Just as the "nation chose to do nothing about setting a firm deadline to get some accountability and results in re the levees," so too is there a building momentum toward what was written about in the 2012 piece.

Here's the theme: Bad trends discussed; lip service to solutions; lack of closure on the issues; the forecasts materialize; the nation suffers; and then people wonder why nothing was done.

It was the same prior to 9-11.

* * *


How does this relate to Hurricane Rita? Read this and consider the similarities: US forces are losing in the middle east; and the US population is getting "used to" relying on the military; and there's talk about getting rid of Posse Comitatus.

The actual coup was attempted in 2001. Do you want to find out what can really go bad, or do you want to tell DoD to fess up about Able Danger?

The toads in the Pentagon know full well about the Dunlap paper. The American public may find out about it the hard way.

It's now time to put up or shut up. The players in DoD have not only committed war crimes in Iraq, but they're about to do the same thing [again] stateside: What other "Able Danger-like" programs are there; and if DoD is doing this, what is DoJ up to?

* * *


Maybe you need a bigger slap in the face. I'll say it again [for the third time]: The forecasts in the 2012 paper are continuing to accelerate, it's happening, and you're being spoon fed non-sense to ignore the problem.

Read this full quote. Neither Shakespeare nor Caesar wrote it.

Guess who did?

NSA, NRO, JTTF, and GCHQ know. There's your answer.

* * *


The easy answer is to defer the "response problems with Katrina" from DHS back onto DoD. Warner is already calling for Posse Comitatus to get scrapped.

Remember the last time they wanted to "scrap something"? That was after 9-11, and we got the Patriot Act, rubber stamped.

I'll say it a fourth time: Read the 2012 paper, and the "Beware the leader" quote.

Is this sinking in? If it is, then blog about it. If I don't hear anything, I'll assume America remains in a coma despite the catalysts of 9-11, Able Danger, Iraq WMD, and Katrina.

What is it going to take?

You can have your constitution if you're willing to keep it. There are many people dazed right now over 9-11, Iraq, and Katrina.

Get focused.

constantpated.blogspot.com/2005/09/able-danger-and-bolton-link-to-9-11.html

www.woodrow.org/teachers/esi/2002/CivilLiberties/Projects/Origins.pdf

[jonnygemini]

Blackwater Down

by JEREMY SCAHILL

[from the October 10, 2005 issue]

The men from Blackwater USA arrived in New Orleans right after Katrina hit. The company known for its private security work guarding senior US diplomats in Iraq beat the federal government and most aid organizations to the scene in another devastated Gulf. About 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear spread out into the chaos of New Orleans. Officially, the company boasted of its forces "join[ing] the hurricane relief effort." But its men on the ground told a different story.

Some patrolled the streets in SUVs with tinted windows and the Blackwater logo splashed on the back; others sped around the French Quarter in an unmarked car with no license plates. They congregated on the corner of St. James and Bourbon in front of a bar called 711, where Blackwater was establishing a makeshift headquarters. From the balcony above the bar, several Blackwater guys cleared out what had apparently been someone's apartment. They threw mattresses, clothes, shoes and other household items from the balcony to the street below. They draped an American flag from the balcony's railing. More than a dozen troops from the 82nd Airborne Division stood in formation on the street watching the action.

Armed men shuffled in and out of the building as a handful told stories of their past experiences in Iraq. "I worked the security detail of both Bremer and Negroponte," said one of the Blackwater guys, referring to the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer, and former US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte. Another complained, while talking on his cell phone, that he was getting only $350 a day plus his per diem. "When they told me New Orleans, I said, 'What country is that in?'" he said. He wore his company ID around his neck in a case with the phrase Operation Iraqi Freedom printed on it.

In an hourlong conversation I had with four Blackwater men, they characterized their work in New Orleans as "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting criminals." They all carried automatic assault weapons and had guns strapped to their legs. Their flak jackets were covered with pouches for extra ammunition.

When asked what authority they were operating under, one guy said, "We're on contract with the Department of Homeland Security." Then, pointing to one of his comrades, he said, "He was even deputized by the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use lethal force if we deem it necessary." The man then held up the gold Louisiana law enforcement badge he wore around his neck. Blackwater spokesperson Anne Duke also said the company has a letter from Louisiana officials authorizing its forces to carry loaded weapons.

"This vigilantism demonstrates the utter breakdown of the government," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "These private security forces have behaved brutally, with impunity, in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of New Orleans is frightening and possibly illegal."

Blackwater is not alone. As business leaders and government officials talk openly of changing the demographics of what was one of the most culturally vibrant of America's cities, mercenaries from companies like DynCorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut and an Israeli company called Instinctive Shooting International (ISI) are fanning out to guard private businesses and homes, as well as government projects and institutions. Within two weeks of the hurricane, the number of private security companies registered in Louisiana jumped from 185 to 235. Some, like Blackwater, are under federal contract. Others have been hired by the wealthy elite, like F. Patrick Quinn III, who brought in private security to guard his $3 million private estate and his luxury hotels, which are under consideration for a lucrative federal contract to house FEMA workers.

A possibly deadly incident involving Quinn's hired guns underscores the dangers of private forces policing American streets. On his second night in New Orleans, Quinn's security chief, Michael Montgomery, who said he worked for an Alabama company called Bodyguard and Tactical Security (BATS), was with a heavily armed security detail en route to pick up one of Quinn's associates and escort him through the chaotic city. Montgomery told me they came under fire from "black gangbangers" on an overpass near the poor Ninth Ward neighborhood. "At the time, I was on the phone with my business partner," he recalls. "I dropped the phone and returned fire."

Montgomery says he and his men were armed with AR-15s and Glocks and that they unleashed a barrage of bullets in the general direction of the alleged shooters on the overpass. "After that, all I heard was moaning and screaming, and the shooting stopped. That was it. Enough said."

Then, Montgomery says, "the Army showed up, yelling at us and thinking we were the enemy. We explained to them that we were security. I told them what had happened and they didn't even care. They just left." Five minutes later, Montgomery says, Louisiana state troopers arrived on the scene, inquired about the incident and then asked him for directions on "how they could get out of the city." Montgomery says that no one ever asked him for any details of the incident and no report was ever made. "One thing about security," Montgomery says, "is that we all coordinate with each other--one family." That co-ordination doesn't include the offices of the Secretaries of State in Louisiana and Alabama, which have no record of a BATS company.

A few miles away from the French Quarter, another wealthy New Orleans businessman, James Reiss, who serves in Mayor Ray Nagin's administration as chairman of the city's Regional Transit Authority, brought in some heavy guns to guard the elite gated community of Audubon Place: Israeli mercenaries dressed in black and armed with M-16s. Two Israelis patrolling the gates outside Audubon told me they had served as professional soldiers in the Israeli military, and one boasted of having participated in the invasion of Lebanon. "We have been fighting the Palestinians all day, every day, our whole lives," one of them tells me. "Here in New Orleans, we are not guarding from terrorists." Then, tapping on his machine gun, he says, "Most Americans, when they see these things, that's enough to scare them."

The men work for ISI, which describes its employees as "veterans of the Israeli special task forces from the following Israeli government bodies: Israel Defense Force (IDF), Israel National Police Counter Terrorism units, Instructors of Israel National Police Counter Terrorism units, General Security Service (GSS or 'Shin Beit'), Other restricted intelligence agencies." The company was formed in 1993. Its website profile says: "Our up-to-date services meet the challenging needs for Homeland Security preparedness and overseas combat procedures and readiness. ISI is currently an approved vendor by the US Government to supply Homeland Security services."

Unlike ISI or BATS, Blackwater is operating under a federal contract to provide 164 armed guards for FEMA reconstruction projects in Louisiana. That contract was announced just days after Homeland Security Department spokesperson Russ Knocke told the Washington Post he knew of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private security firms. "We believe we've got the right mix of personnel in law enforcement for the federal government to meet the demands of public safety," he said. Before the contract was announced, the Blackwater men told me, they were already on contract with DHS and that they were sleeping in camps organized by the federal agency.

One might ask, given the enormous presence in New Orleans of National Guard, US Army, US Border Patrol, local police from around the country and practically every other government agency with badges, why private security companies are needed, particularly to guard federal projects. "It strikes me...that that may not be the best use of money," said Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

Blackwater's success in procuring federal contracts could well be explained by major-league contributions and family connections to the GOP. According to election records, Blackwater's CEO and co-founder, billionaire Erik Prince, has given tens of thousands to Republicans, including more than $80,000 to the Republican National Committee the month before Bush's victory in 2000. This past June, he gave $2,100 to Senator Rick Santorum's re-election campaign. He has also given to House majority leader Tom DeLay and a slew of other Republican candidates, including Bush/Cheney in 2004. As a young man, Prince interned with President George H.W. Bush, though he complained at the time that he "saw a lot of things I didn't agree with--homosexual groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act, those kind of bills. I think the Administration has been indifferent to a lot of conservative concerns."

Prince, a staunch right-wing Christian, comes from a powerful Michigan Republican family, and his father, Edgar, was a close friend of former Republican presidential candidate and antichoice leader Gary Bauer. In 1988 the elder Prince helped Bauer start the Family Research Council. Erik Prince's sister, Betsy, once chaired the Michigan Republican Party and is married to Dick DeVos, whose father, billionaire Richard DeVos, is co-founder of the major Republican benefactor Amway. Dick DeVos is also a big-time contributor to the Republican Party and will likely be the GOP candidate for Michigan governor in 2006. Another Blackwater founder, president Gary Jackson, is also a major contributor to Republican campaigns.

After the killing of four Blackwater mercenaries in Falluja in March 2004, Erik Prince hired the Alexander Strategy Group, a PR firm with close ties to GOPers like DeLay. By mid-November the company was reporting 600 percent growth. In February 2005 the company hired Ambassador Cofer Black, former coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department and former director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, as vice chairman. Just as the hurricane was hitting, Blackwater's parent company, the Prince Group, named Joseph Schmitz, who had just resigned as the Pentagon's Inspector General, as the group's chief operating officer and general counsel.

While juicing up the firm's political connections, Prince has been advocating greater use of private security in international operations, arguing at a symposium at the National Defense Industrial Association earlier this year that firms like his are more efficient than the military. In May Blackwater's Jackson testified before Congress in an effort to gain lucrative Homeland Security contracts to train 2,000 new Border Patrol agents, saying Blackwater understands "the value to the government of one-stop shopping." With President Bush using the Katrina disaster to try to repeal Posse Comitatus (the ban on using US troops in domestic law enforcement) and Blackwater and other security firms clearly initiating a push to install their paramilitaries on US soil, the war is coming home in yet another ominous way. As one Blackwater mercenary said, "This is a trend. You're going to see a lot more guys like us in these situations."

[jonnygemini]

LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER
National Security Agency
gets fix on Internet users
Top secret group applies for patent
to ID physical address of Web surfers
Posted: September 25, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Internet users hoping to protect their privacy by using anti-virus software, Web anonymizers, false identities and disabled cookies on their computer's Web browser have something new to worry about – a patent filed by the National Security Agency (NSA) for technology that will identify the physical location of any Web surfer.

Patent 6,947,978, granted this week, describes a process based on latency, or time lag between computers exchanging data, of "numerous" known locations on the Internet to build a "network latency topology map" for all users. Identifying the physical location of an individual user, reports CNET News.com, could then be accomplished by measuring how long it takes to connect to an unknown computer from numerous known machines, and using the latency response to display location on a map.

The rate at which data travels over the Internet constantly varies due to the amount of traffic, the size of data files, the constant changing of hardware and software by millions of users. Sometimes the system is slow, sometimes it is fast. Because of this variation, knowing how long it takes for a signal to travel to a location and back is not sufficient to identify it's location. But knowing the latency of the entire system at a given moment and the latency for a specific computer provides a means of knowing relative locations, however fast or slow the Internet is operating.

While most users are unaware of it, their computers are able to "ping" website addresses to trace the route their connection took and how much time was required to complete the operation. Likewise other computer users – hackers, for example – can ping their computer as well when connected to the Internet. It is this feature that the NSA's patent seeks to exploit.

The NSA patent does not describe the intended use of the technology by the agency, noting only general uses like measuring the "effectiveness of advertising across geographic regions" or flagging a password that "could be noted or disabled if not used from or near the appropriate location," according to CNET News. But given NSA's status as the nation's premier cryptologic organization, it's unlikely the technology will be used to improve advertising.

NSA is so secret that its acronym has been said to stand for "No Such Agency." According to its website, "the National Security Agency/Central Security Service ... coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. government information systems and produce foreign signals intelligence information. A high technology organization, NSA is on the frontiers of communications and data processing. It is also one of the most important centers of foreign language analysis and research within the government."

The agency has come under fire in the past for spying on American citizens. In the 1970s, the agency was forced to admit that it had used its eavesdropping equipment against Jane Fonda and other anti-Vietnam War activists. The revelation led to a 1978 law banning spying by the agency on U.S. citizens and resident aliens anywhere.

In 2000, following reports revealing the existence of Echelon, a massive data-mining project that filtered electronic and voice communications around the world, then director of the National Security Agency, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, and his boss, CIA Director George Tenet, assured Congress, "We protect the rights of Americans and their privacy. We do not violate them and we never will."

"If, as we are speaking this afternoon, Osama bin Laden is walking across the peace bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario, to Niagara Falls, New York, as he gets to the New York side, he is an American person and my agency must respect his rights against unreasonable search and seizure as provided by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution," Hayden testified.

Post-9-11, if bin Laden goes online, NSA may actually know where he is.

[jonnygemini]

news.gif (10434 bytes)

September 27, 2005 -- Rather says CBS wouldn't allow him to do a follow-up story on Bush's Texas Air National Guard (TANG) files. Speaking at the National Press Club on September 26, former CBS News anchor Dan Rather responded to a question posed by moderator Marvin Kalb concerning the controversial TANG files of George W. Bush. Kalb asked Rather why he did not return to the story and investigate those who created the guard files, passed them off to a former TANG officer and hence to CBS's 60 Minutes, and tipped off right-wing bloggers before the airing of the pre-2004 election exposé by 60 Minutes. Rather responded, "You'll have to ask CBS that question."

Rather stated it was his desire to continue to delve into the story and the set-up. According to CBS insiders, the original TANG files were scanned by GOP dirty tricks operatives using a sophisticated text scanner that changed the original IBM typewriter Courier font to a Times Roman font, automatically created a "th" superscript for date numbers, and created margins and pagination. An independent panel commissioned by CBS and headed by former GOP Attorney General Richard Thornburgh never concluded the documents were bogus.


Rather was prevented by CBS (subsidiary of Viacom) from going after the GOP document doctorers

In fact, the GOP operatives had to be very careful in their dirty tricks operation: forging or counterfeiting official government documents is a felony. However, scanning original documents technically does not fall under the category of counterfeiting. Nevertheless, the GOP quickly tipped off right-wing bloggers, including Free Republic.com, that the CBS documents were forgeries. In doing so, Karl Rove and his team successfully refocused attention away from Bush and his AWOL status in the Guard and on to Dan Rather and 60 Minutes. People like Karl Rove and, as reported by The New York Post, long time GOP dirty tricks operative Roger Stone, got away with the entire caper, thus eliminating Bush's phony military record as a campaign issue.



The "other" Karl Rove, dirty tricks operative Roger Stone -- New York Post reported his involvement in "Rathergate" caper. The National Enquirer in 1996 had another salacious story about Stone.

Rather reiterated his recent comments at Fordham University that a fear mentality has gripped news rooms across the nation. He partly blamed the government for instilling fear among America's journalists.