Winter of our Discontent

“……They follow leaders who deliver on patronage, jobs and services…..”

and that is what politics are about. except in america where the populace is hypnotized by slogans and pretty faces

“If Syria gives up its weapons”…Israel would be all over Lebanon in a flash.

Lebanon has something that Israel covets and that is the water of the Litani River. Who would stop them? UNFIL? Ha Ha! The Lebonese Army? The last time, they served the Isralis tea and refreshments.

Hezbollah are not terrorists. They are patriots fighting to protect their own territory. (Like Washington’s Continental Army!)

As for Syrian interest, wasn’t Lebanon stripped away from Syria by the West (namely France) just as Kosovo was taken away from Serbia. These grievances are destined to fester in bthe hearts of these agrieved countries forever.

Ed

Meanwhile a sidetrack “Back to Iraq”………

February 18, 2008

Bush’s Dirty Secret: Bribing Iraq Insurgents Not to Fight By Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/080218_bush.htm

It is impossible to keep up with all the Bush regime’s lies. There are simply too many. Among the recent crop, one of the biggest is that the “surge” is working.

Launched last year, the “surge” was the extra 20,000-30,000 US troops sent to Iraq. These few extra troops, Americans were told, would finally supply the necessary forces to pacify Iraq.

This claim never made any sense. The extra troops didn’t raise the total number of US soldiers to more than one-third the number every expert has said is necessary in order to successfully occupy Iraq.

The real purpose of the “surge” was to hide another deception. The Bush regime is paying Sunni insurgents $800,000 a day not to attack US forces. That’s right, 80,000 members of an “Awakening group,” the “Sons of Iraq,” a newly formed “US-allied security force” consisting of Sunni insurgents, are being paid $10 a day each not to attack US troops. Allegedly, the Sons of Iraq are now at work fighting al Qaeda.

This is a much cheaper way to fight a war. We can only wonder why Bush didn’t figure it out sooner.

The “surge” was also timed to take account of the near completion of neighborhood cleansing. Most of the violence in Iraq during the past five years has resulted from Sunnis and Shi’ites driving each other out of mixed neighborhoods. Had the two groups been capable of uniting against the US troops, the US would have been driven out of Iraq long ago. Instead, the Iraqis slaughtered each other and fought the Americans in their spare time.

In other words, the “surge” has had nothing to do with any decline in violence.

With the Sunni insurgents now on Uncle Sam’s payroll, with neighborhoods segregated, and with al Sadr’s militia standing down, it is unclear who is still responsible for ongoing violence other than US troops themselves. Somebody must still be fighting, however, because the US is still conducting air strikes and is still unable to tell friend from foe.

On February 16, the Los Angeles Times reported that a US air strike managed to kill 9 Iraqi civilians and 3 Sons of Iraq.

The Sunnis are abandoning their posts in protest, demanding an end to “errant” US air strikes. Obviously, the Sunnis see an opportunity to increase their daily pay for not attacking Americans. Soon they will have consultants advising them how much they can demand in bribes before it pays the Americans to begin fighting the war under the old terms.

If Sunnis are smart, they will split the gains. Currently, the Sunnis are getting shafted. They are only collecting $800,000 of the $275,000,000 it costs the US to fight the war for one day. That’s only about three-tenths of one percent, too much of a one-sided deal for the Americans.

If the Sunnis negotiate their cut to between one-quarter and one-half of the daily cost to the US of the war, the Sunnis won’t need to share in the oil revenues, thus helping the three factions to get back together as a country. Even 10% of the daily cost of the war would be a good deal for the Sunnis. A long-term contract in this range would be expensive for Uncle Sam, but a great deal cheaper than John McCain’s commitment to a 100-year Iraqi war.

In Israel hat Merkel ihre Arsch an die Deutsche Fahne gewischt.

You are being asked to believe that the US military death toll in Iraq is 4000.

I, like most, are not in a position to dispute the validity of the Pentagon claim but this article from a Canadian publication, ’ The Canadian Nation ’ takes issue with the statement. claiming deception by the US government regarding the true casualty rate Read on and ask yourselves if this war is worth it…..

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/03/21/02286.html

Over 70,000 deaths, and over 1 million disabilities among American soldiers attributed to Iraq Wars says U.S. government data

by Peter Tremblay and Libertyforlife.com researchers

Iraq War veterans protest as U.S. Republican Presidential campaign seeks to help support corporate media spin about the Iraq War.

According to U.S. media reports, there are well below 5,000 U.S. soldiers who have been killed in Iraq. However, this data appears to be very misleading. Why? Because many tens of thousands of American soldiers have apparently been killed to-date, as a result of being exposed to radiation poisoning from the indiscriminate killing machines of U.S. military weaponry. Ironically, the only Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that Americans soldiers have found in Iraq are “Made in America”.

U.S. investigative researchers have discovered an official U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs official, but not well publicized count, of 73,846 U.S. soldiers who have perished as an apparent result of Depleted Uranium based bio-chemical warfare exposure. This exceeds an estimate of 58,000 U.S. soldiers who had been killed in relation to the Vietnam War.

Well over 200,000 American soldiers could be killed by 2010, as a result of the after effects of exposure to U.S. dirty bombs.

Over One million U.S. soldiers have apparently been disabled from Depleted Uranium based biochemical exposure. Over one million Iraqis have also been documented to have been killed.

This is what the U.S. ruling elite including U.S. President George W. Bush and U.S. Republican Presidential candidate John McCain calls a “success”. How many sons and daughters of the American ruling class have been sent in harms way of the apparent biological warfare that is being perpetrated in Iraq? Not to many, huh? The Iraq War is a class-and-racial-inspired war that is being masqueraded into being about fighting “extremists” and “terrorists”. The Iraq War is an extension of brutality by the prevailing elites of the global capitalist system, that the 9/11 Truth Movement has accused to be the ultimate perpetrators of 9/11. Indeed, ruling elites are the only group that could pull off the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City which engineers have represented to be specifically designed to withstand being hit simply by aeroplanes. Investigative scholarly researchers who include Dr. David Ray Griffin, present critical evidence of a technologically sophisticated military planning associated with 9/11, including a ‘Controlled Demolition’, that could in no way be executed by the alleged Muslim perpetrators.

More than 1,820 tons (3-million, 640 thousand pounds) of radioactive nuclear waste uranium were exploded into Iraq alone in the form of armour piercing rounds and bunker busters, representing the worlds worst man made ecological disaster ever. 64 kg of uranium were used in the Hiroshima bomb. The very broad human and ecological disaster of the Iraq War has been drowned out by America’s sound-bite driven media organizations, that are owned by the same fascist clique which presides over the Iraq War.

U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs official data shows over 70,000 U.S. troops killed in relation to Iraq Wars.

The apparent use of these dirty bombs, could be perceived to a categorical Crime Against Humanity, both against the Iraqi people, and military personnel. Indeed, there are far more people getting killed from these dirty bombs than the alleged terrorist targets of U.S. military propaganda.

The fascist clique that is presiding over the Iraq War, clearly seeks to perpetrate widespread Eugenics inspired depopulation of Iraq.

Millions of Iraqis could be killed as a result of contamination from the use of U.S. “strategic” “mini nuclear bombs”.

It is apparent that a Eugenics-inspired megalomaniacal fascist clique seeks to further make Iran a toxic nuclear wasteland

The use of these dirty bombs demonstrates that the War in Iraq is not simply about “going after terrorists”, but rather, is the apparent premeditated execution of Crimes against Humanity. The kind of demonic intelligence that is associated with such a Crime against Humanity is consistent with the kind of criminal profile associated with what critically acclaimed author Dr. David Ray Griffin labels as the ultimate perpetrators of 9/11.

What kind of socio-pathetic milieu would seek to inspire jingoistic patriotism in statements about military personnel “defending the Homeland” while wilfully exposing them to the toxic by-products of radiation poisoning?

Libertyforlife.com researchers document: “What the government is doing is only counting the soldiers that die in action on the ground before they can get them into a hummer, helicopter or ambulance. Any soldier who is shot but they get into a vehicle before ‘the die’ is not counted.”

“Uranium poisoning, which can take decades to kill not only the soldier but family members as well” are further cited documents in Libertyforlife.com.

Libertyforlife.com also adds that more than 1,820 tons of radio active nuclear waste uranium were exploded into Iraq alone in the form of armour piercing rounds and bunker busters (also known as dirty bombs), representing the worlds worst man made ecological disaster, over the 64 kg of uranium that was used in the Hiroshima bomb.

“The U.S. Iraq Nuclear Holocaust by mass, represents between fourteen and twenty eight thousand Hiroshima’s from a uranium poisoning perspective. In Hiroshima 70 thousand died from the blast and 70 thousand died from uranium poisoning.”

“The nuclear waste the U.S. has exploded into the Middle East will continue killing for billions of years and could wipe out a third of life on earth.

Winds can and will blow the uranium dust from the U.S. weapons around the world. Gulf War Veterans and civilians who have ingested the uranium will continue to die off from uranium poisoning over a number of decades.”

“So far, more than one million people have been slaughtered and four million are homeless as a consequence of the U.S.’s illegal invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Birth defects are up 600% in Iraq – the same will apply to U.S. Veterans children.”

When depleted uranium nuclear waste in the form of a “dirty bomb” is blown up or released into the atmosphere it has the potential of killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. Well it turns out that instead of storing the nuclear waste from power plants in proper and very expensive storage facilities, the apparent neo-fascists who have taken over America, have been machining the depleted uranium into dirty bombs in the form of armour piercing bullets.

Libertyforlife.com researchers critically add: “That’s right, those tanks you saw exploding into flame, as our troops invaded other nations, were being hit with dirty bombs. You were actually witnessing “mini atomic bombs” as the uranium armour piercing rounds made out of nuclear waste called ‘Depleted Uranium’ or ‘DU’ hits it’s target.”

“It turns out the uranium from nuclear waste is very dense and possesses pyrophoric properties. That is, it bursts into flame releasing an explosion of heat so intense when the DU bullet hits the armour, it literally melts through armour, ” further documents Libertyforlife.com

Many American soldiers have been literally fried from the intense radio energy released from the mini DU atomic explosions.

“Now our boys in the military have not been firing just one or two of these dirty bomb bullets and bunker busters, they have been letting loose a hail of death. In Iraq alone during the two invasions, more than one thousand eight hundred and twenty tons of Depleted Uranium dirty bomb bullets and bombs were blasted into that innocent nation,” further documents Libertyforlife.com investigative researchers.

Astonishingly, Libertyforlife.com researchers also document, because most Americans watch TV, many still think Iraq had something to do with blowing up the three large World Trade center buildings and the Pentagon. Otherwise they try to suggest that Saddam Hussein had it coming because he murdered the Kurds with the helicopters we provided, the year we gave him a billion dollars.

Now if 64 kg of uranium can poison seventy thousand people. How many people will two thousand tons kill? The numbers are staggering, that’s more than twenty eight thousand Hiroshima’s. Forty percent of the Gulf War veterans are on “Gulf War Syndrome” disability from uranium poisoning. Seventy Three thousand of them have already died.

Every time that U.S troops (and “coalition soldiers) fires depleted uranium against “enemy targets” in Iraq, they are also being exposed to radiation poisoning that is much more intense than the radioactive by-products associated with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima to end World War II in the Pacific.

The U.S. War on Iraq both represents an apparent Eugenics inspired genocide against perceived “lesser breeds” of U.S. combat troops largely made up of African Americans and “poor whites” as well as Muslim infidels. Eugenics seems to be the driving motivation of the U.S. religious-political-military-industrial complex agenda against Iraq.

In the apparent view of the architects of the Iraq War, the use of “dirty bombs” accomplishes an apparent depopulation agenda which “frees up more resources” for the “racially superior” self-anointed rulers of our planet Earth. The Iraq War seems to be an attempt to fulfill in the Middle East the Eugenics inspired military expansionist goals that Adolf Hitler had.

Ed

On March 22, an Economist magazine editorial described the recent violence in Tibet as a “colonial uprising”, a “revolt” against foreign occupation. This was accurate, as was the implication that China has no legitimate claims over Tibet. (‘A colonial uprising - Tibet,’ The Economist, March 22, 2008)

By contrast, recent media coverage of the fifth anniversary of the 2003 US-UK invasion of Iraq depicted the conflict as an “insurgency”, with the US military engaged in “counter-insurgency”. American media analyst David Peterson commented:

“In other words, in Tibet, China is a colonial power and ‘doesn’t belong there’. Okay. But in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military forces are not a colonial power imposing their will from the outside, but ‘do belong there’, quite unlike the people who are resisting the U.S. forces, who clearly lack this right.” (Email, March 22, 2008)

Instead, in covering the fifth anniversary, the media emphasis was on the success of the “surge” in reducing violence. The invasion may have been a disaster, we were told, but the addition of 30,000 extra US troops has stabilised the situation, and so the troops should stay until ‘the job is done’. The presupposition is that the US-UK presence has some kind of legitimacy. Anyone seeking the logical basis for this idea need look no further than George Bush Sr’s comment towards the end of the 1991 Gulf War: “What we say goes.”

Anthony Loewenstein

I just loved your analysis on Lebanon and Hizbolla—typical wetern journalist..may i ask you where do you get your information from! let me ask you if you speak arabic..or you just hang out with the rest of us in pubs in Jemaizy where you exchange notes with other journalists analysing “alwadu”.. funny man!

That Other Military Draft ‘I didn’t sign up for the Navy to be in the Army’
by Joshua Frank
“There sure as hell is a draft going on,” the passenger sitting next to me said grudgingly as the flight attendant handed him a ginger ale on our way into Los Angeles last week. “I signed up to be in the Navy, not the damn Army.”

It will be his third deployment to Iraq in four years but his first to be served on shore. Thousands of Navy and Air Force personnel are now serving nontraditional roles in Iraq – posts they never signed up for. Steven, who asked that I not use his last name in print, said he’s to receive six weeks of weapons training at a California Army base before being flown over to Iraq for a year-long deployment.

“We’ve all heard of the stop-loss policy, there’s even a new movie about it, but few know about what else is happening in our armed forces right now,” Steven explained. “The backdoor draft is real, for sure, but here we are being shipped off to Iraq to basically serve in the infantry. It’s ridiculous.”

The Department of Defense reports that sailors and Air Force members are carrying out many different missions in Iraq, from traditional duties in the air and sea to construction jobs, medical operations, civil affairs, customs inspection, security, and detention operations. Most are promised non-combat roles in Iraq, but many have found themselves to be in harm’s way once they arrive.

In 2007 the Navy sent roughly 2,200 “individual augmentees,” as the service calls them, to handle combat-related duties with Marine and Army units stationed in Iraq. As of early April 2008, 92 Navy and 46 Air Force personnel had been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, with those numbers sure to rise as the U.S. troop surge continues into its second year.

On March 31, 400 Navy reservists who had received training at military bases in Virginia were shipped back to Iraq. “The good news and bad news about this is that we are out doing things that our people weren’t originally trained for,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley in a speech last year.

Such a trend has increased over the past several years. In 2006, for example, there were 4,000 Air Force members in Iraq, but that number has jumped significantly. Now the Pentagon reports that over 6,000 are to serve in the country by year’s end.

“Technically, these combat-related assignments do not violate service members’ contracts,” said Lawrence Korb, who handled manpower as assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. “But many … are not volunteering for these jobs – they’re being told to do them.”

Military recruitment numbers across the board are dwindling, and as a result all branches of the service are being overextended to maintain current troop levels in Iraq. Aside from combat-related roles, however, sailors and Air Force members have been deployed in order to protect U.S. economic interests in the region – from oil pipelines to Halliburton’s numerous reconstruction projects.

And that’s what seems to have sailors like Steven irked at the troop surge and his new job in Iraq.

“It’s a draft, plain and simple. I don’t care what they call it,” Steven told me as our plane landed at LAX. “I didn’t sign up for the Navy to be in the Army. But I’m going because I don’t feel I have a choice. I have children to feed and a mortgage to pay.”

Josh

As we all know, when the Soviet Union threw in the towel in 1989, the US was the world’s undisputed hegemon. America was on top of the world – with no real competition. It was a “unipolar” world. The stock market boomed. The dollar rose. America’s chest swelled with homegrown pride and the entire world’s credit. And by the late ’90s, President Clinton summed it up: “things couldn’t get better,” he said.

He was right. They couldn’t. So, they got worse.

No nation can stay on top of the world forever. But when you have no competition, you can’t rely on others to bring you down; you have to find ways to destroy yourself. For that job, America found just the men it needed just when it needed them most – Alan Greenspan and George W. Bush. What these two men accomplished is probably one of the greatest feats in human history. They took the richest, most powerful country the world has ever seen and, in the space of only five years, practically ruined it.

The soaring price of oil had the effect of transferring trillions of dollars from the biggest oil user – the United States – to the oil producers, notably the Arab states and its former enemy, Russia.

Second, the federal government went from a budget surplus over $100 billion in 2000 to some of the largest government deficits ever recorded. Those, along with huge current account deficits equal to 6% of GDP, changed the United States from a chooser into a beggar – heavily reliant on foreign money.

America’s spending spree had another important effect – it lit a fire under its new commercial rivals. Americans spent absurdly – which caused the Chinese to build factories, learn skills, and pile up a mountain of U.S. dollars.

Of course, super-powers do tend to “over-reach.” You wouldn’t believe just how much of this over-reach would be caused by so few people in such a short period of time. Alan Greenspan’s emergency-level Fed rates triggered an explosion of spending, borrowing and leveraging…which has now blown up in our faces.

And the Bush Administration took on a war that has proved to be costly beyond anyone’s imagination. The total price of the war may come to $1 trillion or more – at a time when the United States already needs to borrow $2 billion per day.

Obviously, more prudent, more cautious leaders would have prevented these catastrophes. They would have read history…reduced expenses…raised interest rates…pulled back the troops…and saved money. But sensible leaders do not make history. Fools do. People reach for glory. Then, they over-reach.

I would like to suggest titles for their books when Bush and Cheney get around to writing autobiographies.

For Cheney’s book …..”I DID IT MY WAY.”

And for Bush…………..”I DID IT HIS WAY.”