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US-Iraq Death Squads * VT Nuke Increase
10 May 2006
"He not busy being born, is busy dying."
Bob Dylan1) Iraq's Hidden News - Return of the Death Squads- - General who eavesdropped on public is new CIA chief
- - The President of Iran's Letter To President Bush
- - Kucinich Asks Tough Questions of Bush, Rumsfeld
- - My Meeting With Rumsfeld by Ray McGovern
- - Ray McGovern Is Going to Rumsfeld's House
- - THE CON - Kerry Won. Now Get Over It . . .
2) Nuclear plant gets OK for final stage of power increase- - Forget Iran; Worry about Vermont
- - Free Speech @ Entergy VT Nuclear Headquarters
- - Brazil Officially Starts First Uranium Enrichment Facility
Editor's Notes:When John Negroponte got in as Intelligence Czar, known for his role with those of the Death Squads in El Salvador, it was of no surprise when George Bush nominated Michael Hayden for the new CIA head, an insider with the Neocons and a four-star air force general. The war is within, the cover-up, the treachery, obvious. The article by John Pilger is important to consider, "Return of the Death Squads – Iraq's Hidden News." The following segments show actions of those of eloquence and noble resistance: Ray McGovern, Greg Palast, Dennis Kucinich.. The fight continues, while item 2 covers the issue of the dangerous power brokers sucking more juice out of an aging nuclear power plant than it was originally designed to achieve. Hopefully the people of Vermont and New England will unite, and this will be the end of a bizarre era when VY gets decommissioned in 2012.
Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day
when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman, and child
lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads,
capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or madness.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
1) Iraq's Hidden News - Return of the Death Squads- - General who eavesdropped on public is new CIA chief
- - The President of Iran's Letter To President Bush
- - My Meeting With Rumsfeld by Ray McGovern
- - Ray McGovern Is Going to Rumsfeld's House
- - THE CON - Kerry Won. Now Get Over It . . .
Return of the Death Squads – Iraq's Hidden News
By John Pilger 04 May 2006
In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes
the difference between Iraq as seen on the corporate news and the
real news, such as the return of US-trained and armed death squads,
reminiscent of Central America and Vietnam.
RETURN OF THE DEATH SQUADS - IRAQ'S HIDDEN NEWS
The lifts in the New York Hilton played CNN on a small screen you could not avoid watching. Iraq was top of the news; pronouncements about a "civil war" and "sectarian violence" were repeated incessantly. It was as if the US invasion had never happened and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians by the Americans was a surreal fiction. The Iraqis were mindless Arabs, haunted by religion, ethnic strife and the need to blow themselves up. Unctuous puppet politicians were paraded with no hint that their exercise yard was inside an American fortress. And when you left the lift, this followed you to your room, to the hotel gym, the airport, the next airport and the next country. Such is the power of America's corporate propaganda, which, as Edward Said pointed out in Culture and Imperialism, "penetrates electronically" with its equivalent of a party line.
The party line changed the other day. For almost three years it was that al-Qaeda was the driving force behind the "insurgency", led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a bloodthirsty Jordanian who was clearly being groomed for the kind of infamy Saddam Hussein enjoys. It mattered not that al-Zarqawi had never been seen alive and that only a fraction of the "insurgents" followed al-Qaeda. For the Americans, Zarqawi's role was to distract attention from the thing that almost all Iraqis oppose: the brutal Anglo-American occupation of their country.
Now that al-Zarqawi has been replaced by "sectarian violence" and "civil war", the big news is the attacks by Sunnis on Shia mosques and bazaars. The real news, which is not reported in the CNN "mainstream", is that the Salvador Option has been invoked in Iraq. This is the campaign of terror by death squads armed and trained by the US, which attack Sunnis and Shias alike. The goal is the incitement of a real civil war and the break-up of Iraq, the original war aim of Bush's administration.
The ministry of the interior in Baghdad, which is run by the CIA, directs the principal death squads. Their members are not exclusively Shia, as the myth goes. The most brutal are the Sunni-led Special Police Commandos, headed by former senior officers in Saddam's Ba'ath Party. This was formed and trained by CIA "counter-insurgency" experts, including veterans of the CIA's terror operations in central America in the 1980s, notably El Salvador. In his new book, Empire's Workshop (Metropolitan Books), the American historian Greg Grandin describes the Salvador Option thus: "Once in office, [President] Reagan came down hard on central America, in effect letting his administration's most committed militarists set and execute policy. In El Salvador, they provided more than a million dollars a day to fund a lethal counter-insurgency campaign... All told, US allies in central America during Reagan's two terms killed over 300,000 people, tortured hundreds of thousands and drove millions into exile."
Although the Reagan administration spawned the current Bushites, or "neo-cons", the pattern was set earlier. In Vietnam, death squads trained, armed and directed by the CIA murdered up to 50,000 people in Operation Phoenix. In the mid-1960s, in Indonesia, CIA officers compiled "death lists" for General Suharto's killing spree during his seizure of power. After the 2003 invasion, it was only a matter of time before this venerable "policy" was applied in Iraq.
According to the investigative writer Max Fuller (National Review Online), the key CIA manager of the interior ministry death squads "cut his teeth in Vietnam before moving on to direct the US military mission in El Salvador". Professor Grandin names another central America veteran whose job now is to "train a ruthless counter-insurgent force made up of ex-Ba'athist thugs". Another, says Fuller, is well-known for his "production of death lists". A secret militia run by the Americans is the Facilities Protection Service, which has been responsible for bombings. "The British and US Special Forces," concludes Fuller, "in conjunction with the [US-created] intelligence services at the Iraqi defence ministry, are fabricating insurgent bombings of Shias."
On 16 March, Reuters reported the arrest of an American "security contractor", who was found with weapons and explosives in his car. Last year, two Britons disguised as Arabs were caught with a car full of weapons and explosives; British forces bulldozed the Basra prison to rescue them. The Boston Globe recently reported: "The FBI's counter-terrorism unit has launched a broad investigation of US-based theft rings after discovering that some of the vehicles used in deadly car bombings in Iraq, including attacks that killed US troops and Iraqi civilians, were probably stolen in the United States, according to senior government officials."
As I say, all this has been tried before - just as the preparation of the American public for an atrocious attack on Iran is similar to the WMD fabrications in Iraq. If that attack comes, there will be no warning, no declaration of war, no truth. Imprisoned in the Hilton lift, staring at CNN, my fellow passengers could be excused for not making sense of the Middle East, or Latin America, or anywhere. They are isolated. Nothing is explained. Congress is silent. The Democrats are moribund. And the freest media on earth insult the public every day. As Voltaire put it: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
First published in the New Statesman - www.newstatesman.co.uk
http://pilger.carlton.com/print/133564= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - General who eavesdropped on public is new CIA chiefPublished by The Independent (UK) 10 May 2006
President Bush yesterday named Michael Hayden, a four-star air force general, to be the new director of the CIA. General Hayden is expected to face tough questioning both for his military background and his role superintending the warrantless domestic eavesdropping programme by the ultra-secret National Security Agency, which he led between 1999 and 2005. But his confirmation by the Senate seemed in little doubt last night.
For the complete article, see:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article362857.ece= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - The President of Iran's Letter To President BushMr George Bush,
President of the United States of America
For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena -- which are being constantly debated, specially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them..
For the Full Text, click =>
The President of Iran's Letter to President Bush= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Kucinich Asks Tough Questions of Bush, RumsfeldWants Answers About What the U.S. Is Doing in Iraq and Iran
May 6, 2006
Congressman Kucinich has been asking tough questions of the President and the Secretary of Defense.
He wrote letters in April to both Secretary Rumsfeld and President Bush. The text of the letters appears in the May 4 issue of the Congressional Record Extensions of Remarks.
Kucinich's April 5 letter to Rumsfeld began, "I am writing to request a copy of all records pertaining to Pentagon plans to use U.S. Special Forces to advise, support and train Iraqi assassination and kidnapping teams."
He referred to the January 5, 2005 Newsweek report of Pentagon plans to train elite Iraqi troops to put down growing violence there, dubbed "the Salvador option." He then cited 15 news reports since this time last year, suggesting that "the U.S. has trained and supported highly organized Iraqi commando brigades, and ... some of those brigades have operated as death squads, abducting and assassinating thousands of Iraqis."
Finally, Kucinich asked, "Mr. Secretary, in light of this evidence of U.S. support for and the existence of death squads in Iraq, what is the basis for your January 11, 2005 statement, that the idea of a Salvador option in Iraq is 'nonsense'?"
Kucinich's letters to the President concerned Iran. In his April 14 letter, he asked about reports that troops are already operating in Iran. If these reports are true, he suggested, "it appears that you have already made the decision to commit U.S. military forces to a unilateral conflict with Iran, even before direct or indirect negotiations with the government of Iran had been attempted, without UN support and without authorization from the U.S. Congress."
In conclusion, Kucinich wrote, "Any military deployment to Iran would constitute an urgent matter of national significance. I urge you to report immediately to Congress on all activities involving American forces in Iran."
Four days later, Congressman Kucinich again wrote to the President, this time asking about reports that "the U.S. is fomenting opposition and supporting military operations in Iran among insurgent groups and Iranian ethnic minority groups, some of whom are operating from Iraq." Once again he asked the President to report to Congress on U.S. support for anti-Iranian insurgent groups operating in Iran.
"It is a great breach of public trust to set this country on another path of war while keeping the Congress and the American people in the dark. I am demanding that you respond."
Read the full letters to
Rumsfeld and
Bush= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - My Meeting With Rumsfeld by Ray McGovernWhen Rumsfeld broadened our dialogue to include the never-to-be-found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction,
saying, "Apparently, there were no weapons of mass destruction," I could not resist reminding him that he had
claimed he actually knew where they were.
For the complete article, see:
www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=7187= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Ray McGovern Is Going to Rumsfeld's HouseBy David Swanson
Ray McGovern wasn't aiming to make Donald Rumsfeld stutter and stammer like a kid caught cheating on a test when he asked him last week why he'd lied us into a war. That was just a side benefit. Ray wants answers, and he's taking his demand to Donald Rumsfeld's house in Washington, D.C.
On Thursday, May 18, a large coalition of groups is planning to deliver to the White House all the signatures and comments posted on a petition at
www.DontAttackIran.org As the name of the site suggests, the petition simply asks the President and Vice President not to launch another aggressive attack on foreign soil – an attack that would necessarily be promoted with lies, lies that are already being spread by the Bush administration.
For the complete article, see:
www.afterdowningstreet.org/rumsfeld= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - THE CON - Kerry Won. Now Get Over It . . .by Greg Palast
...because they're putting '08 in their pocket. Republicans just seem to have that winning spirit. They also have caging lists, felons of the future, rotting ballots, snuffed canaries, and a lock on the votes of Kissinger-Americans and the undead.
WARNING! There are cranks and kooks and crazies out there on the Internet who say that George Bush lost the 2004 election, like one titled, "Kerry Won" published on the TomPaine.com web site two days after the election. I wrote it.
On November 11, a week after TomPaine.com published it, I received an e-mail from The New York Times Washington Bureau. Hot on the investigation of the veracity of the vote, The Times reporter asked me pointed questions:
Question #1: Are you a "sore loser"?
Question #2: Are you a "conspiracy nut"?
There was no third question. Investigation of the vote was, for The Times at any rate, complete. The next day, the paper's thorough analysis of the evidence yielded this front-page story, "VOTE FRAUD THEORIES, SPREAD BY BLOGS, ARE QUICKLY BURIED."
As America's self-proclaimed Paper of Record had no space for the facts, I thought I'd share some with you here.
"Kerry Won" was not a two-day inquiry à la Times. It was the latest in a series of investigative reports coming out of a four-year team examination, begun for BBC Television's Newsnight, Britain's Guardian papers and Harper's Magazine, dissecting that greasy sausage called American electoral democracy.
For the complete article, see:
www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=501&row=0
2) Nuclear plant gets OK for final stage of power increase- - Forget Iran; Worry about Vermont
- - Free Speech @ Entergy VT Nuclear Headquarters
- - Brazil Officially Starts First Uranium Enrichment Facility
- - Nuclear plant gets OK for final stage of power increase
MONTPELIER, Vt. --Federal regulators on Thursday cleared the Vermont Yankee
nuclear plant for the final stage of its 20-percent power increase.
For complete AP article, see:
Nuclear plant gets OK for final stage of power increase- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - Forget Iran; Worry about VermontPublished On Monday, May 08, 2006 2:28 AM
By LEAH S. ZAMORE
Harvard University
Crimson Staff Writer
www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513410- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - Free Speech @ Entergy Nuclear VT HeadquartersFree Speech Demo & Walk to Entergy Nuclear Headquarters,
May 13, 14; Reddy Kilowatt to Join Anti-Nuclear Movement
For information on the walk call Citizens Awareness Network at 413-339-5781 or 413-863-8952;
www.nukebusters.orgFor information about the 24-hour Free Speech Demo call Traprock Peace Center at 413-773-7427.
www.traprockpeace.org= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Brazil Officially Starts First Uranium Enrichment FacilityPublished May 9, 2006 by OneWorld.net
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Brazil has inaugurated its first uranium enrichment facility to produce the type
of fuel for nuclear power plants that Iran is running into trouble for attempting to produce.
For the complete article, see:
www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0509-01.htm
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