Gladio: Nato-sponsored State Terrorism in Europe

On August 4, 1974, while I was travelling around Italy on an Interrail ticket, a bomb exploded in car 5 of the Italicus Express running from Rome to Brennero on the Florence-Bologna line as it left the tunnel of San Benedetto Val di Sambro. Twelve passengers were killed and 44 were wounded. Mario Tuti, Pietro Malentacchi, and Luciano Franci of the Revolutionary National Front were accused of the attack, though when they came to trial years later they were aquitted for lack of evidence.



Days earlier I had travelled through the same tunnel on my way by train from Venice to Naples. A few days later, I would travel through the same tunnel on my way to Florence. Had my schedule been different, I may well have found myself a victim of the attack.

I became aware of the event through the lurid artist's reconstructions on the covers of Italian news magazines outside newsagents on Rome's Corso Vittorio Emanuele.

I was seventeen at the time.

On August 2, 1980, a bomb was planted in the waiting room of the Bologna railway station: 84 died and some 200 were injured. The act was ascribed to neo-Fascists.



A few weeks later, while travelling with a friend around Italy by train we passed through Bologna and noted the gap where the waiting room had been.

In March, 1982, I began to live and work in Italy. In the June of that year, the body of Italian banker, Roberto Calviwas found hanging from a noose under Blackfriars Bridge, London. In the next few years, the name of Banco Ambrosiano, the Propaganda Due (P2) Masonic Lodge, and Licio Gelli would become familiar.

In the winter of 1984/85, I was working in Pistoia, Tuscany, and I lived in a mansard directly under the rafters on the top floor of the medieval Casa del Capitano del Popolo (House of the Captain of the People). (See picture below.)



Shortly before Christmas, 1984, I travelled through the San Benedetto Val di Sambro tunnel where, ten years earlier, there had been a bomb explosion, on my way from Florence to Bologna and from Bologna to Padua to stay with the family of an Italian friend who lived in a house in the Veneto countryside, before flying from Treviso airport to London's Gatwick airport.

In the January 7, 1985, edition of Time Magazine, the article, "Italy Tunnel of Death", appeared. It began:

Stretching for 11 1/2 miles beneath central Italy's rugged Apennine mountains, it is one of Europe's longest railway tunnels and carries the nickname La Direttissima because it provides the most direct route between Florence and Bologna. Last week the Italian press renamed it the "Tunnel of Death."

Two days before Christmas, Train 904, an express bound from Naples to Milan with 700 holiday passengers aboard, was roaring through La Direttissima at 90 m.p.h. when a time bomb exploded in a second-class carriage. The force of the blast blew in the double-paned windows in most of the train's 14 cars. Antonio Algieri, 33, one of those wounded by the flying glass, described the scene as "a hurricane of slivers--and then so much terrible screaming in the dark." The train came to a stop, and thick smoke billowed through the tunnel, initially frustrating rescue attempts as dazed passengers stumbled around in the blackness.

When rescue teams eventually reached the wreckage, they found that the ninth car of the train had been demolished by the blast; at least 15 people were found dead and 80 were seriously injured. It was Italy's bloodiest terrorist act since the authorities began to gain the upper hand in the fight against political extremists two years ago.

Within hours, a number of outlawed groups of both the left and the right claimed responsibility for the blast. Official suspicion centered on neo- Fascist terrorists, since the Christmas attack took place in the same tunnel in which right-wing extremists bombed a train in 1974, killing twelve and wounding 48. In 1980 neo-Fascists planted a bomb in the waiting room of the Bologna railway station: 84 died and some 200 were injured.

I had travelled through this very tunnel only days before this second bomb attack.

After flying back to Italy, I returned by the same route to my mansard in Pistoia's Casa del Capitano del Popolo.

As the couple above whose flat I lived were out and I couldn't get in, a doctor who lived in a flat below theirs invited me in for a drink and a chat. Naturally, the conversation revolved around the recent bombing, and my own lucky escapes, both in 1974 and a few weeks earlier.

It was then that I became aware of the view, quite commonly held by all classes of people in Italy, including respectable middle class doctors, that the Italian government were somehow behind these attacks.

Over the next few years, the words Operazione Gladio (Operation Gladio), and strategia di tensione (strategy of tension), became increasingly familiar as these were increasingly talked about in the Italian press. These topics are too complicated to deal with in one article. But I leave the reader with a few links and the first of a three-part BBC programme on Operation Gladio.

And with one final thought. When, in 1990, Italian Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, revealed the existence of Gladio (though he denied that it had anything to do with the bombings described above), then president of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, who had been involved in setting Gladio up, felt honor-bound to resign.

More recently, Senator Cossiga, who clearly has a deep roots in his country's intelligence service, has stated, in an interview with leading Italian newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera: "It is common knowledge amongst global intelligence agencies that 9/11 was an inside job."

Operation Gladio: NATO Terrorists pt 1 of 15

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The $3-Trillion War

By James Harris | truthdig, posted on Apr 16, 2008

Listen to this interview.

Transcript:

James Harris: This is Truthdig. James Harris here with Linda Bilmes. She is the co-author of the new book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War.” She’s also a Harvard economist, and she did serve in the Department of Commerce during the Clinton administration. As we watch the sensational news coverage of the governor of New York’s resignation, “The Three Trillion Dollar War” reminds us that nearly 4,000 American soldiers and more than half a million Iraqis have been killed in this war. And that spending will total more than $3 trillion. Linda, why is it important that we take this war, and our spending, more seriously?

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Neocons Admit that “War On Terror” Is a Hoax

George Washington Blog | Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Key war on terror architect Douglas Feith has now confirmed Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Wesley Clark in admitting that the so-called War on Terror is a hoax.

In fact, starting right after 9/11 -- at the latest -- the goal has always been to create "regime change" and instability in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon so as to protect Israel. And the goal was never really to destroy Al Qaeda.

As reported in a new article in Asia Times:

Three weeks after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, former US defense 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-under secretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions. Feith's account further indicates that this aggressive aim of remaking the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat of force was supported explicitly by the country's top military leaders.

Feith's book, War and Decision, released last month, provides excerpts of the paper Rumsfeld sent to President George W Bush on September 30, 2001, calling for the administration to focus not on taking down Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network but on the aim of establishing "new regimes" in a series of states...

***

General Wesley Clark, who commanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign in the Kosovo war, recalls in his 2003 book Winning Modern Wars being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that Rumsfeld and deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take down included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia [and Lebanon].

***

When this writer asked Feith . . . which of the six regimes on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, he replied, "All of them."

***

The Defense Department guidance document made it clear that US military aims in regard to those states would go well beyond any ties to terrorism. The document said the Defense Department would also seek to isolate and weaken those states and to "disrupt, damage or destroy" their military capacities - not necessarily limited to weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Where does Israel come in?

Well, the Asia Times article continues:

Rumsfeld's paper was given to the White House only two weeks after Bush had approved a US military operation in Afghanistan directed against bin Laden and the Taliban regime. Despite that decision, Rumsfeld's proposal called explicitly for postponing indefinitely US airstrikes and the use of ground forces in support of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in order to try to catch bin Laden.

Instead, the Rumsfeld paper argued that the US should target states that had supported anti-Israel forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

***

After the bombing of two US embassies in East Africa [in 1988] by al-Qaeda operatives, State Department counter-terrorism official Michael Sheehan proposed supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan against bin Laden's sponsor, the Taliban regime. However, senior US military leaders "refused to consider it", according to a 2004 account by Richard H Shultz, Junior, a military specialist at Tufts University.

A senior officer on the Joint Staff told State Department counter-terrorism director Sheehan he had heard terrorist strikes characterized more than once by colleagues as a "small price to pay for being a superpower".

And if "terrorist strikes" were a "small price to pay for being a superpower"- and that is the reason that the U.S. government refused to disrupt the alleged planners of the 9/11 attacks - doesn't that add weight to the claim that the U.S. government intentionally allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur? In other words, doesn't this statement by a senior officer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tend to prove that 9/11 was intentionally allowed to occur as the "New Pearl Harbor" which would allow America to act like "a superpower" and re-make the Middle East in its own (and Israel's) image?

This is not an unreasonable question, especially given that Feith, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and most of the other key architects of the "war on terror" were part of the Project for a New American Century and its plea for a "New Pearl Harbor" to justify expansion of American militarism and regime change in the Middle East.

And remember that many of the key members of PNAC and architects of the "war on terror" had previously created the "Clean Break" strategy for Israel, which called for a policy of war and regime change against Israel's enemies.

The war on terror was never intended to be about fighting terrorism. As even Newsweek has now admitted, the war on terror is a hoax.

The Self-Righteous Rich: Rockefeller Family Fables

SHARON SMITH | Counterpunch | Thursday, May 8, 2008



On April 30th, reporters flocked to the penthouse suite of a Midtown Manhattan hotel where fifteen representatives of the Rockefeller dynasty were holding court. There, the Rockefellers chastised oil giant Exxon-Mobil for failing to invest in “alternative energy” sources, invoking their own moral authority as Exxon-Mobil’s longest standing shareholders.

Family spokesperson Neva Rockefeller Goodwin sanctimoniously recalled the memory of her great-grandfather, John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil and originator of the family fortune. “Kerosene was the alternative energy of its day when he realized it could replace whale oil,” she argued. “Part of John D. Rockefeller’s genius was in recognizing early the need and opportunity for a transition to a better, cheaper and cleaner fuel.”

But the indignation of today’s generation of Rockefellers—who inherited their own exorbitant wealth from Standard Oil, Exxon-Mobil’s parent corporation—is aimed more at ensuring the continued financial health of the family’s trust funds than concern for the future of the world’s population. As Peter O'Neill, great-great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller, commented at the press conference, “I have a world of respect for what the company has done well. In fact, if the next 20 years of the energy business were just going to be about oil and gas, we probably wouldn't be here today.”

More...

You will find my latest posts, and those of fellow team-members, on Suzie-Q and my own website, Friends of the American Revolution.

Suzie-Q is a liberal blogsite devoted to news and current affairs, while Friends of the American Revolution looks at a number of themes connected to the American Revolution.

Bush Directive for a "Catastrophic Emergency" in America: Building a Justification for Waging War on Iran?

by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, June 24, 2007

"Another [9/11 type terrorist] attack could create both a justification and an opportunity that is lacking today to retaliate against some known targets" (Statement by Pentagon official, leaked to the Washington Post, 23 April 2006)

The US media consensus is that "the United States faces its greatest threat of a terrorist assault since the September 11 attacks" (USA Today, 12 February 2006) The American Homeland is threatened by " Islamic terrorists", allegedly supported by Tehran and Damascus.

America is under attack" by an illusive "outside enemy".

Concepts are turned upside down. War becomes Peace. "Offense" becomes a legitimate means of "self-defense". In the words of President Bush:

"Against this kind of enemy, there is only one effective response: We must go on the offense, stay on the offense, and take the fight to them." (President George W. Bush, CENTCOM Coalition Conference, May 1, 2007)

The intent is to seek a pretext to wage a preemptive war.

A "terrorist attack on America" could be used to justify, in the eyes of an increasingly credulous public opinion, on "humanitarian grounds", the launching of a major theater war directed against Iran and Syria.

Allegedly supported by Iran, the terrorists are said to possess nuclear capabilities. They are supposedly planning to explode "radiological dispersion devices" (RDD) or "dirty bombs" in densely populated urban areas in the US. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell had already forewarned in 2003 that, "It would be easy for terrorists to cook up radioactive ‘dirty’ bombs to explode inside the U.S. … How likely it is, I can't say..." (10 February 2003).

The sheer absurdity that Al Qaeda might have advanced capabilities to wage a nuclear attack on America is, nonetheless, pervasive in US media reports. Moreover, numerous drills and exercises, simulating a terrorist attack using nuclear devices, have been conducted in recent years, creating the illusion that "the threat is real":

"What we do know is that our enemies want to inflict massive casualties and that terrorists have the expertise to invent a wide range of attacks, including those involving the use of chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear weapons. ... [E]xploding a small nuclear weapon in a major city could do incalculable harm to hundreds of thousands of people, as well as to businesses and the economy,...(US Congress, House Financial Services Committee, June 21, 2007).

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New study from Pilots for 9/11 Truth: No Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon

by Scholars for 9/11 Truth
Global Research, June 24, 2007

Pilots for 9/11 Truth obtained black box data from the government under the Freedom of Information Act for AA Flight 77, which The 9/11 Report claims hit the Pentagon. Analysis of the data contradicts the official account in direction, approach, and altitude. The plane was too high to hit lamp posts and would have flown over the Pentagon, not impacted with its ground floor. This result confirms and strengthens the previous findings of Scholars for 9/11 Truth that no Boeing 757 hit the buillding.

Madison, WI (PRWEB) June 21, 2007 - A study of the black box data provided by the government to Pilots for 9/11 Truth has confirmed the previous findings of Scholars for 9/11 Truth that no Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon on 9/11. "We have had four lines of proof that no Boeing 757 hit the building," said James Fetzer, founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. "This new study by Pilots drives another nail into a coffin of lies told the American people by The 9/11 Commission":

The new society, an international organization of pilots and aviation professionals, petitioned the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained its 2002 report on American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 that, according to the official account, hit the ground floor of the Pentagon after it skimmed over the lawn at 500 mph plus, taking out a series of lamp posts in the process. The pilots not only obtained the flight data but created a computer animation to demonstrate what it told them.

According to the report issued by Pilots for 9/11 Truth (http://pilotsfor911truth.org/), there are major differences between the official account and the flight data:

a. The NTSB Flight Path Animation approach path and altitude does not support official events.

b. All Altitude data shows the aircraft at least 300 feet too high to have struck the light poles.

c. The rate of descent data is in direct conflict with the aircraft being able to impact the light poles and be captured in the Dept of Defense "5 Frames" video of an object traveling nearly parallel with the Pentagon lawn.

d. The record of data stops at least one second prior to official impact time.

e. If data trends are continued, the aircraft altitude would have been at least 100 feet too high to have hit the Pentagon.

As Robert Balsamo, co-founder of Pilots for 9/11 Truth, observes, "The information in the NSTB documents does not support, and in some instances factually contradicts, the official government position that American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, 2001." The study was signed by fifteen professional pilots with extensive military and commercial carrier experience. They have made their animation, "Pandora's Box: Chapter 2," available to the public at http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Pandora's+Black+Box%3A+Chapter+2 .

According to James H. Fetzer, founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth (http://911scholars.org), this result fits into the broader picture of what happened at the Pentagon that day. "We have developed four lines of argument that prove--conclusively, in my judgment--that no Boeing 757 hit the building. The most important evidence to the contrary has been the numerous eyewitness reports of a large commercial carrier coming toward the building. If the NTSB data is correct, then the Pilot's study shows that a large aircraft headed toward the building but did not impact with it. It swerved off and flew above the Pentagon."

Fetzer, who retired last June after 35 years of teaching courses in logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning, expressed pleasure over the Pilot's results, which, he said, has neatly resolved the most pressing issue that remained about the Pentagon. He added, "We have previously developed several lines of argument, each of which proves that no Boeing 757 hit the building," including these four:

(1) The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44 feet above the ground; the kind and quantity of debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: there were no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Not even the engines were recovered, and they are practically indestructible.

(2) Of an estimate 84 videotapes of the crash, the three that have been released by the Pentagon do not show a Boeing 757 hitting the building, as even Bill O'Reilly admitted when one was shown on "The Factor". At 155 feet, the plane was more than twice as long as the 77-foot Pentagon is high and should have been visible. There are indications of a much smaller plane, but not a Boeing 757.

(3) Indeed, the aerodynamics of flight would have made the official trajectory--flying more than 500 mph barely above ground level--physically impossible, because of the accumulation of a massive pocket of compressed gas (air) beneath the fuselage; and if it had come it at an angle instead, it would have created a massive crater; but there is no crater and the official trajectory is impossible.

(4) Flying low enough to impact with the ground floor would have meant that the enormous engines were plowing the ground and creating massive furrows; but there are no massive furrows. The smooth, unblemished surface of the Pentagon lawn thus stands as a "smoking gun" proving the official trajectory cannot be sustained.

Members of Scholars have contributed to a new book that analyses the government's official account, according to which 19 Islamic fundamentalists hijacked four commercial airliners, outfoxed the most sophisticated air-defense system in the world, and committed these atrocities under the control of a man in a cave in Afghanistan. Entitled, THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY (2007), it includes photographs of the hit point before and after the upper floors collapsed, the crucial frame from the released videos, and views of the clear, smooth, and unblemished lawn.

"Don't be taken in by photos showing damage to the second floor or those taken after the upper floors collapsed, which happened 20-30 minutes later," Fetzer said. "In fact, debris begins to show up on the completely clean lawn in short order, which might have been dropped from a C-130 that was circling above the Pentagon or placed there by men in suits who were photographed carrying debris with them." The most striking is a piece from the fuselage of a commercial airliner, which is frequently adduced as evidence.

James Hanson, a newspaper reporter who earned his law degree from the University of Michigan College of Law, has traced that debris to an American Airlines 757 that crashed in a rain forest above Cali, Columbia in 1995. "It was the kind of slow-speed crash that would have torn off paneling in this fashion, with no fires, leaving them largely intact." Fetzer has been so impressed with his research he has invited Hanson to submit his study to Scholars for consideration for publication on its web site, 911scholars.org.

"The Pentagon has become a kind of litmus test for rationality in the study of 9/11," Fetzer said. "Those who persist in maintaining that a Boeing 757 hit the building are either unfamiliar with the evidence or cognitively impaired. Unless," he added, "they want to mislead the American people. The evidence is beyond clear and compelling. It places this issue 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. No Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon."

Bohemian Grove Roster Sent Anonymously to Infowars

Membership List Reveals Former Presidents, Host of Academics and NWO Operators

An interesting package came into the Infowars mailbox recently-- sent anonymously with no return address-- but the contents revealed the reason for secrecy. Someone has shipped our office the 2006 membership roster for the secretive and exclusive Bohemian Grove, which Alex Jones infiltrated and exposed in 2000.

A number of high profile elites appear on the list, including David Rockefeller (and son), Henry Kissinger, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, David Gergen (who Alex Jones confronted about his grove membership), Colin Powell, George P. Shultz, Donald Rumsfeld and even Kenneth Starr, who gained attention after prosecuting Bill Clinton.

See a 1981 news report on the grove.

Many U.S. Presidents have gone to the grove, but most do not appear on the membership roster, though we know that Reagan, Nixon (both pictured below at the Grove), George W. Bush, Herbert Hoover and many other presidents have also attended but are not listed, as is the case for presidential advisor Karl Rove.

Walter Cronkite, the infamous and notable TV journalist, is also a member and listed in the directory. The 'P' next to his name denotes "Regular - Professional." Also listed is the King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf.

Beyond Presidents and elite world controllers, the exclusive male-only club has obviously used the appeal of the retreat to influence the world of academia-- at least 50 well-known universities are represented at Bohemian Grove, including almost every school in California, at least any that come to mind. The members-- which includes listings of older and deceased members who no longer attend-- are influential faculty members, board members, trustees or presidents of universities.

Stanford University with 17 members and U.C. Berkeley with 19 members, were the most heavily represented schools. (See members from academia below-- note: only those members with schools listed by their name were counted as academia, with many other members listed by city and name or only by name).

Treaty 'hands swathes of power to Brussels'

Tony Blair emerged from tense negotiations today claiming to have secured a new European treaty which protects Britain’s interests but which opponents say hands vast swathes of power to Brussels.

The Prime Minister won a legal exemption from a new Charter of Fundamental Rights, one of four "red lines" fought over during days of acrimonious negotiations.

But he surrendered Britain’s right to veto EU decisions in more than 40 other areas of policy including energy, tourism, space policy, transport, civil protection and migration.

The visibly-tired Prime Minister said the most important thing about the deal was that it allowed European nations to focus on the issues that concerned their citizens: "The truth is we’ve been arguing now for many years about the constitutional question.

"This deal gives us a chance to move on. It was important to get out of this bind into which we’d got with the constitutional treaty: to go back to making simple changes in our rules that allow us to operate more effectively now we are in a large European Union."

The outgoing Prime Minister, who hands over to Gordon Brown on Wednesday, said his work on Europe was a key part of his legacy.

He told reporters as the negotiations came to an end shortly before 4am (GMT): "My position throughout the course of my time as Prime Minister has been to get out of this endless destructive negativity and realise that actually Britain has a lot to offer Europe and Europe has a lot to offer Britain."

Full Story

How can Blair possibly be given this job?

I suppose that astonishment is not the word for it. Stupefaction comes to mind. I simply could not believe my ears in Beirut when a phone call told me that Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara was going to create "Palestine". I checked the date - no, it was not 1 April - but I remain overwhelmed that this vain, deceitful man, this proven liar, a trumped-up lawyer who has the blood of thousands of Arab men, women and children on his hands is really contemplating being "our" Middle East envoy.

Can this really be true? I had always assumed that Balfour, Sykes and Picot were the epitome of Middle Eastern hubris. But Blair? That this ex-prime minister, this man who took his country into the sands of Iraq, should actually believe that he has a role in the region - he whose own preposterous envoy, Lord Levy, made so many secret trips there to absolutely no avail - is now going to sully his hands (and, I fear, our lives) in the world's last colonial war is simply overwhelming.

Of course, he'll be in touch with Mahmoud Abbas, will try to marginalise Hamas, will talk endlessly about "moderates"; and we'll have to listen to him pontificating about morality, how he's absolutely and completely confident that he's doing the right thing (and this, remember, is the same man who postponed a ceasefire in Lebanon last year in order to share George Bush's ridiculous hope of an Israeli victory over Hizbollah) in bringing peace to the Middle East...

Full Story

Will the last person to leave the DoJ pleae turn the lights out! (continued)

Bush pick for key Justice Department job withdraws

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's nominee for the third-ranking U.S. Justice Department post withdrew on Friday, becoming the department's latest casualty amid congressional scrutiny of the firings of federal prosecutors.

The move by William Mercer, selected by Bush for the post of associate attorney general, came just days before a scheduled Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday on his nomination. Mercer had been serving in the job on an acting basis since last September while also holding the job of U.S. attorney in Montana, a post he will retain.

Mercer becomes the sixth Justice Department official to step aside since March as the Democratic-led Congress investigates the department's firing of nine U.S. attorneys.

"After much consideration, I have concluded that it is highly unlikely that both the Judiciary Committee and the Senate will take prompt action on my nomination in the near term, if ever," Mercer said in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales explaining why he asked Bush to withdraw his nomination.

"This view is informed in part by statements suggesting that some senior Justice nominees will not be voted upon until the Senate receives e-mails and witnesses it has demanded from the White House," Mercer added.

Gonzales, who has fended off demands from some lawmakers for his resignation, ousted the prosecutors last year as part of a plan that originated at the White House.

Critics have questioned whether partisan politics played an improper role in the dismissal plans. Bush and Gonzales say the firing of nine of the 93 U.S. attorneys, all Bush appointees, was justified, although mishandled.

THE CURSE OF DICK CHENEY

As vice president, Cheney has been the decisive force pushing America into war. In the inner councils of the administration, it was he who emasculated Colin Powell, cut the State Department out of effective policymaking, foisted fake reports on the intelligence agencies and supplanted the National Security Council. It was also Cheney who placed appointees personally loyal to him, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, in charge of the Pentagon and speckled the warmaking bureaucracy with desk officers culled from neoconservative Washington think tanks -- ideologues with no military experience ~ Those who have known him over the years remain astounded by what they describe as his almost autistic indifference to the thoughts and feelings of others : T.D. Allman / Rolling Stone

Vice President Dick Cheney's shadow presidency is now in full view where he has now asserted that his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information by government agencies.

This is further evidence that Cheney's fingerprints are on virtually every lie and abuse of power committed by this corrupt administration. This latest abuse of power as well his shameless, deceitful and vindictive speeches during the build up to our illegal war and occupation of Iraq remind me of an insightful article by Rolling Stone entitled THE CURSE OF DICK CHENEY.

ROLLING STONE revealed the unvarnished truth ~ Dick Cheney is as big a loser as George W Bush . It's the blind leading the blind ~ no wonder we are in such deep trouble.

T.D Allman brilliantly reveals in detail how Cheneys career has been marred by one disaster after another . This is a compelling insight into, perhaps, the most dangerous and shameless man in our government today. To fully understand this unindicted criminal ~ you must read this article.

Excerpt:

" The period between August 1974 and November 1976, when Ford lost the election to Jimmy Carter, is essential to understanding George W. Bush's disastrous misjudgments -- and Dick Cheney's role in them. In both cases, Cheney and Rumsfeld played the key role in turning opportunity into chaos. Ford, like Bush later, hadn't been elected president. As he entered office, he was overshadowed by a secretary of state (Kissinger then, Powell later) who was considered incontestably his better. Ford was caught as flat-footed by the fall of Saigon in April 1975 as Bush was by the September 2001 attacks. A better president, with more astute advisers, might have arranged a more orderly ending to the long and divisive war. But instead of heeding the country's desire for honesty and reconciliation, Rumsfeld and Cheney convinced Ford that the way to turn himself into a real president was to stir up crises in international relations while lurching to the right in domestic politics."

E-vote 'threat' to UK democracy

British democracy could be undermined by moves to use electronic voting in elections, warns a report.

The risks involved in swapping paper ballots for touch screens far outweigh any benefits they may have, says the Open Rights Group report.

It based its conclusions on reports from observers who watched e-voting trials in May's local elections.

The group called for a halt to e-voting until it is reliable, easy to oversee and has proven its integrity.

Cost counting

Observers acting for the ORG scrutinised local elections in England which tried out e-voting as well as Scottish elections using electronic counting systems to tally votes.

What the observers saw led the ORG to express "serious concerns" about e-voting and whether it should be used local and national elections. In England, e-voting systems using kiosks, laptops, touch screens and mobile phones have been tried.

The ORG's main objection was that e-voting was currently a "black box" system which stopped voters seeing how their votes were recorded or counted.

This, said the ORG, made oversight of elections "impossible" and left them open to "error and fraud".

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A Miscarriage of Justice

On 21 December 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was 38 minutes into its journey when it was blown up at 31,000 feet.

...Twelve years later, on 31 January 2001, a panel of three Scottish judges convicted a former Libyan intelligence officer for mass murder at Lockerbie. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was tried at a specially convened court on a former US air force base near the Dutch town of Zeist. Under a special international arrangement, the court, which sat without a jury, was temporarily declared sovereign territory of the United Kingdom, under the jurisdiction of Scottish law.

Al-Megrahi is still the only person to have been found guilty in connection with the attack. He was sentenced to 27 years in jail. His co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, a fellow Libyan intelligence officer, was acquitted. Al-Megrahi was initially told that he would spend at least twenty years in prison, but the Crown, which was prosecuting, protested that this sentence was unduly lenient and petitioned the judges for a longer one. In 2003 the judges reconvened to rule that he must serve no less than 27 years before the parole board would consider his eligibility for release. Al-Megrahi’s defence team had already lodged an appeal against the conviction, but in March 2002 the guilty verdict was upheld.

...Lawyers, politicians, diplomats and relatives of Lockerbie victims now believe that the former Libyan intelligence officer is innocent. Robert Black QC, an emeritus professor of Scottish law at Edinburgh University, was one of the architects of the original trial in Holland. He has closely followed developments since the disaster happened and in 2000 devised the non-jury trial system for the al-Megrahi case.

Even before the trial he was so sure the evidence against al-Megrahi would not stand up in court that he is on record as saying that a conviction would be impossible. When I asked how he feels about this remark now, Black replied: ‘I am still absolutely convinced that I am right. No reasonable tribunal, on the evidence heard at the original trial, should or could have convicted him and it is an absolute disgrace and outrage what the Scottish court did.’

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President Bush claims he's exempt from security oversight too, Los Angeles Times reports

The White House says the president's own order on classified data does not apply to his office or the vice president's.

WASHINGTON — The White House said Friday that, like Vice President Dick Cheney's office, President Bush's office is not allowing an independent federal watchdog to oversee its handling of classified national security information.

An executive order that Bush issued in March 2003 — amending an existing order — requires all government agencies that are part of the executive branch to submit to oversight. Although it doesn't specifically say so, Bush's order was not meant to apply to the vice president's office or the president's office, a White House spokesman said.

The issue flared Thursday when Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) criticized Cheney for refusing to file annual reports with the federal National Archives and Records Administration, for refusing to spell out how his office handles classified documents, and for refusing to submit to an inspection by the archives' Information Security Oversight Office.

The archives administration has been pressing the vice president's office to cooperate with oversight for the last several years, contending that by not doing so, Cheney and his staff have created a potential national security risk.

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DON'T UNDERESTIMATE MICHAEL BLOOMBERG

New York Mayor is jumping the Republican ship for two good reasons ~ Bush is determined to take the party down with him in 2008 and, as an Independent, Bloomberg offers the electorate a fresh and compelling alternative versus seeing the Clintons in the White House again: Allen L Roland

Despite Bloomberg's statements, he is often talked about as a potential 2008 independent presidential candidate. Bloomberg denies these plans, but has dropped several coy hints over the past year that the idea has crossed his mind:

In summer 2006, he met with Al From of the centrist group the Democratic Leadership Council to talk about the logistics of a possible run.

Bloomberg re-launched his personal website (http://www.mikebloomberg.com), which had been defunct since his successful election to a second mayoral term. Writing in the New York Sun, Jill Gardiner noted Bloomberg's site was conspicuously red white and blue and "strikingly similar to the sites of the 2008 presidential candidates."

After a conversation with Bloomberg, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska has also suggested that he and Bloomberg could run on a shared independent ticket for the presidency.

On This Week on June 10, 2007, anchor George Stephanopoulos mentioned four necessary conditions Bloomberg insiders say would be prerequisites to a presidential campaign for the Mayor:

• 70% of the nation would need to feel as though the country is moving in the wrong direction.


• Both nominees would need to have disapproval ratings in the 40% range.


• 40% of the country would need to be open to a third party candidate.


• 20–25% of the country would need to be "open to Mike Bloomberg". During that airing, panelist Jay Carney also made allusions to a conversation between Bloomberg and top staffers. During said conversation, Bloomberg asked approximately how much a presidential campaign would cost, one staffer replied "around $500 million."

A $500 million budget would allow Bloomberg to circumvent many of the common obstacles faced by third party candidates seeking the White House.

On June 19, 2007, Bloomberg left the Republican Party, eschewing the labels of party politics and filed papers to change to an Independent after a scathing speech about the current political climate in Washington. This has only increased speculation about his future plans, but Bloomberg continues to say he won't run.

The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy: Privatizing Our

The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?

Maybe Florida went for Kerry, maybe for Bush. Over time - and through the efforts of some very motivated investigative reporters - we may well find out. Bev Harris of http://www.blackboxvoting.org/just filed what may be the largest Freedom of Information Act [FOIA} filing in history), and bloggers and investigative reporters are discovering an odd discrepancy in exit polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot states and oddly inaccurate in touch-screen electronic voting states Even raw voter analyses are showing extreme oddities in touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed bloggers are finding that news organizations are retroactively altering their exit polls to coincide with what the machines ultimately said.

But in all the discussion about voting machines, let's never forget the concept of the commons, because this usurpation is the ultimate felony committed by conservatives this year.

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See also: Was the 2004 Election Stolen?