Mr. de president, slaap zacht!

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2004: a Lousy Year!

DOES AMERICA GET WHAT IT DESERVES?


Well, "Time" magazine named President George W. Bush "Man of the Year" for 2004, an honor previously bestowed on Adolf Hitler (1938), Josef Stalin (1942) and the Ayatollah Khomeini (1979). Congratulations and good for him.


His proud accomplishments include the needless slaughter of more than 1,300 brave American men and women in Iraq, the maiming of 10,000 more, the deaths of 150 soldiers from countries stupid enough to join his "coalition" and the murder of an estimated 16,000 Iraqi civilians.

The American advance from Normandy to Berlin in World War II was accomplished in half the time of Bush's "liberation" of Iraq. And there's no end in sight.

When he visited Canada recently, there was talk of having him arrested as a war criminal. How sweet would that have been?

Here at home, he has managed to wreck a thriving economy, divide the nation and announce plans for dismantling Social Security based on a phony "crisis" that may or may not occur in 50 years. On the currency market, the dollar is becoming increasingly worthless and Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to post a net loss of jobs during his first four years in office.

Still, some 59 million Americans voted for him, something that will be to our shame for decades to come. From Ireland to India, people around the world are still shaking their heads.

Bush calls himself a conservative. In our view, launching an unprecedented pre-emptive war against a country that represented no threat whatsoever to our national security is anything but. Likewise, proposing to amend the United States Constitution on the basis of a political issue that might qualify as "flavor of the month" -- gay marriage -- is similarly radical, the polar opposite of conservatism.

An admittedly flawed candidate, John Kerry saw his campaign for the presidency undone by the demonstrably dishonest Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the drug-addled Rush Limbaugh and the pervert Bill O'Reilly, all of whom supported Bush.

For a lot of people and for a lot of reasons, 2004 was a lousy year, one best forgotten as quickly as possible. Perhaps "Time" magazine, in selecting Bush as the "Man of the Year," recognized that fact.

The problem is, we're stuck with him for another four years. And a lot more people are going to die before it's over.


Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Dec. 28 2004

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And on, and on, and on...

Recht, getekend George W.


De Amerikaanse president Bush wil vermeende terroristen voor altijd uit roulatie halen - zonder proces en desnoods levenslang. Ook als er onvoldoende bewijs voor een rechtszaak is.


Het doet er niet toe dat het Amerikaanse Hooggerechtshof zich al tégen de nodeloze detentie van heeft uitgesproken. Net vóór zijn tweede inauguratie lijkt George W. Bush toch vastbesloten om vermeende terroristen de duimschroeven nog wat harder aan te draaien. De president wil 25 miljoen dollar vrijmaken om in de Verenigde Staten een nieuwe gevangenis voor terroristen te bouwen. Zo kan hij de duizend celcontainers van Camp Delta, op de militaire basis in Guantanamo Bay, eindelijk vrijmaken.

Vandaag zitten zo'n 550 verdachten uit 42 landen vast in Cuba. Amper vier van hen zijn ook effectief beschuldigd: zij wachten op een proces voor een federale rechtbank. Bush en zijn entourage vinden gerechtelijke procedures maar bijzaak in hun strijd tegen het terrorisme en vóór terreurgevangenissen. Ze willen vooral vermeende terroristen langdurig gevangen houden en ondervragen, in de hoop informatie over de werking van Al Qaeda te kunnen losweken.

Als de nieuwe gevangenis er ook daadwerkelijk komt, kan Bush tweehonderd van terrorisme beschuldigde sujetten opgesloten houden in gevangenisblokken van gewapend beton die onder toezicht staan van diplomaten, de Amerikaanse geheime dienst en het ministerie van defensie. Woordvoerder Bryan Whitman van het Pentagon ziet alvast geen graten in de plannen: 'Omdat de oorlog tegen de terreur een zaak van lange adem is', zegt hij in The Washington Post, 'moeten we ook naar oplossingen zoeken voor problemen van lange termijn'.

Er zou ook een ander voorstel circuleren, zónder nieuwe gevangenis op Amerikaanse bodem. Volgens dat plan zouden de VS gevangenissen optrekken in Saudi-Arabië, Jemen en Afghanistan, waar een vijfhonderdtal potentiële terroristen desnoods de rest van hun dagen zouden kunnen slijten. Het Amerikaanse ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken zou erop toezien dat de mensenrechten in die instellingen worden gerespecteerd. Maar het Pentagon schijnt niets van die alternatieve plannen te weten.

© Der Spiegel / Knack, 05-01-2005

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Oneerlijk duurt het langst

TV-commentator omgekocht door Bush met 183.500 euro

President Bush kreeg de woede van de democraten over zich, die eisen dat het belastinggeld teruggevorderd wordt.Een Amerikaanse televisie- en radiocommentator heeft vrijdag toegegeven dat hij 240.000 dollar (183.500 euro) van de regering-Bush heeft ontvangen om zich uit te spreken voor een onderwijshervormingsprogramma dat drie jaar geleden werd afgekondigd. Armstrong Williams, conservatief en eigenaar van een PR-bureau, heeft zijn excuses aangeboden.

Aan CNN verklaarde hij dat hij "een beoordelingsfout" heeft gemaakt door in te gaan op het voorstel van de regering, maar hij liet ook weten zich niet als journalist te beschouwen en zich daarom niet gebonden te achten aan de beroepsethiek. Hij verklaarde voorts dat hij ook daadwerkelijk een voorstander was van Bush' plan voor onderwijshervorming.

De affaire stond vrijdag op de voorpagina van USA Today, en leidde tot grote verontwaardiging bij de democratische partij. Die beschuldigt Bush ervan "belastinggeld te misbruiken voor politieke propaganda." Harry Reid, leider van de democratische minderheid in de Senaat, heeft samen met twee andere senatoren een open brief aan president Bush geschreven. In die brief wordt Bush opgeroepen een einde te maken aan het afsluiten van dit soort contracten en te zorgen dat het geld terugkomt naar waar het vandaan kwam.

"Wij menen dat het omkopen van journalisten om hun informatieverstrekking in de richting van de regeringspolitiek om te buigen, de integriteit van onze democratie ondermijnt," zo wordt in de brief benadrukt. Verschillende democratische leden van de Kamer van Afgevaardigden hebben, onder leiding van Nancy Pelosi, een gelijkaardige actie ondernomen. Ze eisen van Bush dat hij "publiekelijk afstand doet van het toepassen van geheime propaganda om de publieke opinie te beïnvloeden." (BVH, belga)


Weblog HLN, 08/01/05 00u04

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Wapeninspecties? Een maat voor niets...

VS hebben zoektocht naar vernietingswapens Irak gestaakt


De twee jaar lange speurtocht naar massavernietingswapens in Irak heeft niets opgeleverd.Net voor Kerstmis hebben de Verenigde Staten hun zoektocht in Irak naar massavernietigingswapens (WMD) definitief gestaakt. De twee jaar lange en peperdure speurtocht heeft, zoals verwacht, niets opgeleverd. Iraks vermeende arsenaal aan WMD's gold als de officiële hoofdreden voor de Brits-Amerikaanse invasie van dat land.

Later werden de WMD's afgezwakt tot WMD-programma's om uiteindelijk volkomen uit het discours te verdwijnen, ten voordele van een invasie als eerste stap van een Globale Democratisering. Naar het wapenarsenaal werd gezocht door de zogenaamde Iraq Survey Group (ISG), na het ontslag van David Kay onder leiding van speciaal adviseur van de CIA Charles Duelfer.

Duelfer moet voor eind juni aan het Congres zijn eindrapport voorleggen. Dat zal, volgens de door de Amerikaanse krant Washington Post aangehaalde anonieme functionarissen, besluiten dat Saddam Hoessein de "intentie" maar niet de capaciteit had om massavernietigingswapens te maken.

Weblog HLN, 12/01/05 12u57

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Ritter was right...

RITTER RIGHT ABOUT IRAQ

President Bush has been handing out Presidential Medals of Freedom lately like they were Little League good sportsmanship ribbons.

The medal apparently is an award for good effort, even if the results aren't so winning.

He awarded one to former Iraq viceroy Paul Bremer, who most notably disbanded the Iraqi army, leading to our present security implosion.

And he gave one to George Tenet, the former CIA chief, who most notably presided over two of the most devastating intelligence failures in the nation's history: first Sept. 11, then Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

It was Tenet who told the president that finding weapons stockpiles in Iraq was a "slam dunk."

Right. Give that man a medal.

I'd like to nominate someone who really deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom: Scott Ritter.

Remember Ritter? In a column in 2002, I wrote about the square-jawed former U.S. Marine and United Nations weapons inspector, who was in Wichita several months before the invasion of Iraq, giving a talk -- no, a plea -- about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

He was adamant: Saddam Hussein had no WMDs -- at least none of any consequence or that posed an imminent danger to the United States. Certainly nothing that would warrant a rushed invasion. "We can't go to war based on rhetoric and speculation," he told the crowd. "We'd better make sure there is a threat out there worth fighting."

He argued that 90 percent to 95 percent of Saddam's WMDs had been dismantled by the U.N. inspection team in which he served from 1991 to 1998. And that Saddam was otherwise well-contained by U.S. forces.

Now we know: He was right.

You've probably heard that the Bush administration this week quietly called off the weapons search.

There aren't any WMD stockpiles. As in none. Zip. And, no, they weren't moved to Syria.

The weapons didn't exist.

True to form, Bush insisted this week that it didn't matter -- that's right, his main justification for taking this country into a bloody, costly war didn't matter. He would still have invaded Iraq!

Huh? That makes sense only if he had planned to invade Iraq all along, as critics charged.

I remember Ritter telling the largely anti-war audience at the Wichita church that he wasn't a pacifist. A proud U.S. Marine, he believed that it was sometimes necessary to go to war and fight. But he also believed that it was wrong to put American fighting men and women in harm's way without very good reason.

Ritter saw that his country was headed down a disastrous path and had the guts to speak out.

At the time, he took a lot of abuse from Bush loyalists. They questioned his motives, and his integrity. They compared him to Jane Fonda. They asked in mocking tones what exercise video he was making next.

He could be saying, "I told you so." Instead, he's speaking out on another security boondoggle -- the anti-missile defense shield program, which is costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars without the Pentagon even being able to prove that it works.

We're spending the national treasure on it, with nothing in the way of enhanced security to show for it. On the contrary, argues Ritter, it's unleashing a dangerous and pointless new arms race.

Will we listen to him now? Probably not.

But make no mistake: Scott Ritter is an American patriot who cares enough about his country to tell it the unvarnished truth.

Give that man a medal. He actually deserves it.


The Wichita Eagle, 14-01-2005

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Dat kan er ook nog wel bij...

Antieke site Babylon zwaar beschadigd door coalitietroepen


LONDEN - Amerikaanse en Poolse troepen hebben de ruïnes van de antieke stad Babylon in Irak zwaar beschadigd. Dat staat in een verslag van het Londense British Museum.


De ravage aan de meer dan 2000 jaar oude stad is groot. Zo hebben de zware wielen van legervoertuigen de straten letterlijk verbrijzeld, kwamen archeologische resten terecht in zandzakken en op werd verschillende plaatsen gravel gestort voor de aanleg van parkeer-en landingsplaatsen. In de omgewoelde aarde vonden de archeologen stukjes aardewerk, maar ook een nog complete vaas, beenderen en fragmenten van bakstenen met inscripties in spijkerschrift

Het rapport heeft het verder ook nog over beschadigingen aan de Ishtar-poort. De onderzoekers vermoeden dat soldaten de geglazuurde tegels hebben willen loswrikken.

Archeoloog John Curtis, conservator van de afdeling Nabije Oosten van het British Museum: ,,Het is alsof er een militair kamp zou worden opgericht rond de Grote Pyramiden in Egypte of rond Stonehenge in Groot-Brittannië''. Hij wijst erop dat Alexander de Grote in Babylon begraven werd en dat de stad als een van de zeven wonderen van de antieke wereld werd beschouwd wegens haar ’hangende tuinen’.

Het legerkamp rond de oude stad werd in april 2003 door de Amerikanen opgezet en in september van hetzelfde jaar overgedragen aan de Polen. Er verbleven tot tweeduizend soldaten.


DS, 16/01/2005 - afp

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Oeps... forgot my wallet...

4 miljard dollar tekort om VS-soldaten in Irak te voeden en wassen


De kosten voor de niet strikt militaire logistiek voor de Amerikaanse troepen in Irak zullen vier miljard dollar méér bedragen dan gedacht in de begroting 2005 van het Pentagon, zo heeft de zakenkrant Wall Street Journal (WSJ) bericht onder aanhaling van cijfers van de groep Halliburton.

Volgens de WSJ heeft de Halliburton-dochter KBR (Kellog Brown and Root), die instaat voor het levensonderhoud van de 150.000 VS-militairen in Irak, in december het Pentagon een bestek van tien miljard dollar bezorgd voor de dienstverlening vanaf 1 mei. Maar het Amerikaanse ministerie van defensie had voor die diensten slechts 3,6 miljard dollar begroot. Dankzij besparingen elders kon het Amerikaanse leger een deel van de ontbrekende som wegwerken. Toch bleef er een gat van vier miljard dollar, aldus generaal George Casey tegenover de WSJ.

"Zeggen dat we niet bezorgd zijn, zou de waarheid geweld aan doen", zo citeert de krant de generaal. Voor de oorlog in maart 2003 uitbrak in Irak, had Washington gedacht dat die ongeveer zestig miljard dollar zou kosten. Maar de kost is ondertussen verdrievoudigd en blijft oplopen, aldus de WSJ.

In het laatste trimester van 2004 kreeg het VS-leger van KBR een factuur van 18 miljoen dollar per dag voor de niet-militaire logistiek voor de soldaten in Irak. Het betreft onder meer logement, voedsel, hygiëne enz. (LVK/MAE, belga)

HLN, 01/02/05 16u55

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Op het netvlies gebrand...

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/01467.htm

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20 amazing facts about voting in the USA

20 amazing facts about voting in the USA

http://www.newmatilda.com/home/articledetail.asp?ArticleID=471

Did you know...

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies:
Diebold and ES&S.

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad.
See the film by Votergate here: http://www.votergate.tv/

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

18. All - not some - but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favour of Bush or Republican candidates.

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida - again always favouring Bush have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

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Of had U iets anders gedacht?

Scum Also Rises: The Bloody Career of John Negroponte

By DAVE LINDORFF

The nomination by President George Bush of John Negroponte for the new post of director of national intelligence, in charge of overseeing all the burgeoning intelligence operations of the United States, is both obscene and predictable.

Negroponte, currently the U.S. ambassador to Iraq and, unofficially, the head of the U.S. occupation of that country, is a career foreign service officer on paper, but in fact a veteran CIA operative responsible for some of the blackest crimes of murder and torture in Central America during that region's dark days of civil war, revolution and counter-revolution in the late 20th Century.

As U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85, Negroponte played a key role in organizing the military repression in that poorest of Latin American countries, and in creating and running the so-called Contra's, the U.S-organized military operation to undermine and overthrow the elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

What makes Negroponte the perfect candidate to be America's KGB chief is his refined cover. He has the Republicans on the Republican-dominated Intelligence Committee in his pocket anyhow, and as a career diplomat, urbane and fluent in five languages, he also appeals to the mushy national security state Democrats like John Rockefeller (D-W. VA), Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who will be asked to join in rubber-stamping his nomination.

If his appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, during hearings on his nomination for the post of ambassador to Iraq is any indication, he will breeze through this next "test." Democratic Senators Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) and Joseph Biden (D-Del.) gushed over him at those earlier hearings, and didn't ask anything about his role in promoting death squad activities or in covering up human rights abuses in Central America, which included the murders of several dozen priests and nuns.

Americans concerned about our vanishing civil liberties, and about the expanded use of official state terrorism against American citizens and resident aliens should be concerned about this appointment, however. The new intelligence chief will be responsible for overseeing the nation's vast $100-billion spying operation and its ballooning, largely secret budget.


This man's record is not encouraging.

Negroponte deliberately falsified State Department human rights reports every year of his ambassadorship in Honduras. According to the Maryknoll Order, many U.S. missionaries and other religious activists were murdered in that country in the 1970s and especially the early 1980s by CIA-trained Honduran soldiers of the so-called Battalion 3-16, whose operations they claim Negroponte oversaw, or "at best overlooked."

Even The New York Times credits Negroponte with "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinista government in Nicaragua"-an effort which the paper fails to note was illegal, and which ultimately included the trading of guns for drugs on CIA-financed aircraft. Negroponte helped with this massively corrupt and illegal war effort of the Reagan administration even after it had been expressly banned by the U.S. Congress.

One would think that kind of insult to the Congress would elicit at least some opposition to Negroponte's appointment, but not a word about it came up during his ambassadorship hearings (Sen. Dodd actually said, "I happen to feel he's a very fine Foreign Service officer and has done a tremendous job in many places."), and it seems unlikely he'll be asked about it this time around.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press. Information about both books and other work by Lindorff can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net.

Counterpunch, 18-02-2005

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En nu ook nog twee rasechte havik-unilateralisten als U.S.-vertegenwoordiger binnen multilaterale organisaties: John Bolton als V.N.-ambassadeur en Paul Wolfowitz als chairman van de Wereldbank... Dat belooft!

Zoals al gezegd na het bezoek aan Europa: 'Actions speak louder than words' - Q.E.D.!

Gelukkig slapen ze daar nog niet allemaal, zie onderstaand artikel...


Congres tegen uitbesteden folteringen

Van onze redacteur


BRUSSEL - Het Amerikaanse Congres eist dat de VS geen martelpraktijken meer uitbesteden aan andere landen. President George Bush repliceert dat als de VS mensen repatriëren, ze telkens de belofte krijgen dat die niet worden gemarteld. Die beloften zijn een lachertje, zegt een anonieme CIA-agent.


Het nieuws lekte begin maart uit: de Amerikaanse geheime dienst CIA laat vermeende terroristen voor ondervraging opsluiten in landen die folteren. Er is sprake van 100 tot 150 personen sinds de aanslagen van 11 september 2001. De Verenigde Staten gebruikten die praktijk al voor die fatale dag, maar veel minder en ze controleerden de hele zaak veel nauwgezetter.

Het Amerikaanse Huis van Afgevaardigden stemde woensdag in met de besteding van 60,87 miljard euro voor dringende uitgaven die de oorlog en heropbouw in Afghanistan en Irak met zich meebrengen. De gekozenen verboden in één adem, met 420 stemmen tegen 2, dat de overheid geld zou gebruiken om verdachten over te vliegen naar landen die folteren.

President Bush kon het vraagstuk door de houding van het Amerikaanse parlement niet langer uit de weg gaan: ,,In de wereld na 9/11 moeten de Verenigde Staten hun bevolking en hun vrienden tegen aanvallen verdedigen. Een manier om dat te doen, is mensen te arresteren en ze terug te sturen naar hun land van oorsprong, mits de belofte dat ze niet zullen worden gefolterd. We krijgen die belofte. Deze staat gelooft niet in martelen. We geloven in zelfverdediging.''

Die beloften zijn een lachertje, zei een CIA-agent die bij de operaties betrokken is, aan de krant The Washington Post. ,,Het gaat om veel meer dan dat'', vertelden regeringsambtenaren die gevangenissen in het buitenland bezochten waar de CIA verdachten dropte. ,,Het is heel duidelijk dat ze daar ondervragingstechnieken toepassen die in de Verenigde Staten verboden zijn.''

De geheime dienst evalueert het systeem en leden van het Amerikaanse Congres vragen een diepgaand onderzoek. Canada, Zweden, Duitsland en Italië zijn al aan het onderzoeken in welke mate hun geheime diensten deelnemen aan die CIA-activiteiten.

Maher Arar, een Canadees van Syrische oorsprong, was het slachtoffer van die praktijken. De Amerikanen namen hem op de luchthaven JFK van New York gevangen en zetten hem op het vliegtuig naar Syrië. Hij vloog er een jaar in de cel waar hij werd geslagen. Mamdouh Habib, een Australiër van Egyptische oorsprong, zegt te hebben vastgezeten in Pakistan, Egypte, Afghanistan en Guantánamo Bay op Cuba. De Verenigde Staten lieten hem in januari gaan.


18/03/2005 Boudewijn Vanpeteghem

©Copyright De Standaard

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In a warped reality

In a warped reality - Two years on, the occupiers justify the war by embracing the irrelevant and ignoring the inconvenient

Gary Younge


03/21/05 "The Guardian" - - This is a tale of one war, two anniversaries, three different demonstrations - and inconsistencies, contradictions and civilian deaths that are too numerous to count.


On April 18 2003, tens of thousands of Sunni and Shia protesters took to the streets of Baghdad to call for the Americans to leave Iraq. "You are the masters today," Ahmed al-Kubeisy, the prayer leader, told the Americans as he addressed the men emerging from Friday prayers. "But I warn you against thinking of staying. Get out before we kick you out."

Two years later, the US is still there. The anti-American protest was hailed in the White House as a vindication for the US strategy of bombing and then occupying the country. "In Iraq, there's discussion, debate, protest - all the hallmarks of liberty," said President George Bush that week. "The path to freedom may not always be neat and orderly, but it is the right of every person and every nation."

On February 22 2005, tens of thousands of Lebanese protesters took to the streets of Beirut to call for the Syrians to leave the country. Within a week the Syrians announced indefinite plans to leave. Front covers of magazines carried pictures of pretty young Lebanese women waving flags (at last, some Arabs editors could fancy) proclaiming a "cedar revolution" and "people power". The protest was hailed in the White House as a vindication for the US strategy of bombing and occupying Iraq. "By now it should be clear that authoritarian rule is not the wave of the future," said Bush. "We want that democracy in Lebanon to succeed, and we know it cannot succeed so long as she is occupied by a foreign power."

On March 8 2005, 500,000 pro-Syrian protesters took to the streets of Beirut to oppose US and European interference. The demonstration was backed by Hizbullah, which the US has branded a terrorist organisation. People carried banners saying "Death to America". It was several times bigger than the first anti-Syrian protest. They too waved Lebanese flags. But editors didn't find them pretty. They did not appear on the front pages of the news magazines. Their protest was not hailed in the White House. In fact, its existence was barely acknowledged.

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side," George Orwell once wrote. "He has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

So it is on the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, where the occupying powers are still so desperate to create a moral framework to justify the war that embracing the irrelevant and ignoring the inconvenient has become the only viable strategy left to them.

We have entered a world where reality - like the photographs of torture or the absence of weapons of mass destruction - is just a minor blockage in a flood of official, upbeat declarations and statements. Each new dispatch from the departments of irony on both sides of the Atlantic suggests that truth can be created by assertion, principle can be established by deception and democracy can be imposed through aggression. These people would claim credit for the good weather and deny responsibility for their own signature if they thought they could get away with it.

Two years on, the death toll keeps rising, the size of the "coalition" keeps shrinking and global public support for this reckless occupation has maintained its downward spiral from a low base. Indeed, the only thing that changes is the rationale for starting the war, where the sophistry of the occupying powers keeps plumbing new depths and selective amnesia has attained new highs.

We are supposed to believe that there is no link between the American shooting of an Italian intelligence agent on a rescue mission and Rome's decision to withdraw its troops 10 days later. "I don't see a connection there," says the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan. We are supposed to remember Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds 17 years ago in graphic detail and forget everything that happened in Abu Ghraib 16 months ago.

"If our guys want to poke somebody in the chest to get the name of a bomb maker so they can save the lives of Americans, I'm for it," said Republican senator Jim Talent at a recent hearing on torture. How about ramming someone who does not have the name of a bomb maker in the anus with a truncheon, Mr Talent. Are you for that too?

Most recently, we have been told to believe that the limited and as yet untested moves towards democracy in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the thawing in Palestinian-Israeli relations (largely the result of Yasser Arafat's death) and the proposed withdrawal of Syrian troops (prompted by an outcry over the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri) all justify the bombing.

As further proof they point to January's elections in Iraq. This was a vote that the Americans wanted to postpone, in which many people could not participate, that produced a victory for Islamists with close ties to Iran who want the US troops out as soon as possible. If all of this amounts to victory, I would hate to see what their idea of defeat looks like.

The truth is that you cannot even begin to make a justification for the war unless you take into account the lives of innocent Iraqis lost as a result of it. The simplest way to deal with that is to pretend that these deaths do not exist - the occupying powers simply do not count them. The only other defence is that their deaths are a price worth paying and that good things can come from bad acts - a claim every bit as offensive and wrong-headed as arguing that 9/11 was a price worth paying for waking America up to the consequences of its foreign policy.

But the Iraqis are not the only ones to have suffered these past two years. While the occupiers have been busy failing to export democracy abroad, they have been busy undermining it at home. All of them lied to their electorates about the reasons for going to war. With the exception of America, all of them went to war despite overwhelming opposition from the public. And through their anti-terrorist bills and patriot acts they have removed some of the most basic legal rights of their citizens and criminalised the most vulnerable.

The elections last year in Spain and recent events in Italy are encouraging. They show that while the anti-war movement failed to stop the war, it has maintained a sufficiently effective presence to make a crucial difference at key moments to disable and discredit it.

In the meantime, the department of irony will keep moulding its own version of reality until it is sufficiently warped to fit its own agenda. US troop withdrawal, said Bush last week, "would be done depending upon the ability of Iraqis to defend themselves". They are already defending themselves Mr Bush - from you.

[email protected]

Copyright: The Guardian, 21-03-2005

[Barst]

Bolton: trop is te veel...

VN / Republikeinen geven Bolton niet zomaar op


Aanhoudend negatieve verhalen over de beoogde Amerikaanse VN-ambassadeur John Bolton brengen de regering-Bush steeds verder in verlegenheid.


De Republikeinen hopen vandaag de rangen gesloten te houden en de benoeming van John Bolton tot VN-ambassadeur door de senaatscommissie van buitenlandse zaken te loodsen. Dan zou Bolton zeker zijn van zijn nieuwe baan, want de officiële goedkeuring door de voltallige Senaat is een formaliteit.

Voor de Republikeinen moet de stemming, die vorige week werd uitgesteld, echt vandaag komen. De partij gaat zich steeds ongemakkelijker voelen omdat er elke dag nieuwe verhalen opduiken over Boltons vermoedelijke wangedrag. Bolton was de afgelopen vier jaar onderminister voor buitenlandse zaken. De verhalen brengen de regering-Bush meer en meer in verlegenheid.

Critici zeggen al lang dat het Witte Huis informatie over de geheime wapens van de verdreven Iraakse leider Saddam Hoessein opgeklopt, verdraaid of selectief gebruikt heeft om de oorlog te kunnen voeren die ze al lang plande. Het Witte Huis heeft dat steeds ontkend. Het zette de centrale inlichtingendienst CIA nooit onder druk. Die zou zelf de plank helemaal misgeslagen hebben.

Het eindrapport van de onderzoekscommissie naar het falen van de geheime diensten bij Irak enkele weken geleden, leek de regering in het gelijk te stellen. De commissie zei geen bewijs te hebben gevonden dat de regering geheim agenten ooit dwong analyses te veranderen. Net toen het Witte Huis de vlag buiten gehangen had, blies de benoeming van Bolton die oude verhalen nieuw leven in.

Bolton zou, zo getuigden leden van de geheime dienst van buitenlandse zaken in een hoorzitting, zijn uiterste best hebben gedaan om informatie over massavernietigingswapens naar zijn hand te zetten. Agenten die zijn alarmerende kijk op vooral Cuba en Syrië betwistten, probeerde hij ontslagen te krijgen. Hij was een serial abuser, iemand die stelselmatig kritisch personeel uitschold en vernederde.

The Washington Post berichtte gisteren ook dat Bolton vaak informatie over Iran, Irak en Noord-Korea achterhield voor minister Colin Powell en diens opvolger, Condoleezza Rice. In de hoop het beleid in neoconservatieve richting bij te sturen. Hij zou daarvoor ook een eigen achterdeurtje naar de CIA hebben geopend.

Republikeinse senator Chuck Hagel waarschuwde afgelopen weekend dat er geen grote nieuwe onthullingen bij moesten komen. Anders zou hij tegenstemmen. Dan zouden de stemmen in de commissie staken en was de benoeming van de baan.

Maar de Republikeinse voorzitter bleef optimistisch dat de Republikeinen als blok vóór zouden stemmen. ,,Ik denk niet dat het oordeel van leden verandert -ook als er nieuwe informatie naar buiten komt.''


Trouw, 19-04-2005

[Barst]

War On Terrorism - Where?

There is no war on terrorism


04/27/05 "SMH" - The so-called global war on terrorism does not exist, a high-ranking army officer has declared in a speech that challenges the conventional political wisdom.


In a frank speech, Brigadier Justin Kelly dismissed several of the central tenets of the Iraq war and the war on terrorism, saying the "war" part is all about politics and terrorism is merely a tactic.

Although such wars were fuelled by global issues, they were essentially counter-insurgent operations fought on a local level. This would result in Australian soldiers fighting in increasingly urban environments.

Speaking at a conference on future warfighting, Brigadier Kelly, the director-general of future land warfare, also suggested that the "proposition you can bomb someone into thinking as we do has been found to be untrue".

His speech appears to fly in the face of a comment by the Prime Minister, John Howard, last year that the "contest in Iraq represents a critical confrontation in the war against terror ..."

The brigadier said populations were being cut off from their traditional roots, giving them "aspirations that cannot be immediately met", and fuelling a search for identity.

Terrorists were exploiting local issues - such as ethnic wars - to pursue global ends. From a military point of view, the job was now one of counter-insurgency, he said.

As a result, Australia's future soldiers would fight increasingly close to populations, with the enemy "continuing to retreat into complex terrain".

While success in battle was critical, it would not of itself deliver victory - that would come by winning over the hearts and minds of the local people.

The war of the future would be "out of human control". There was "no alternative" but to engage the population and "convince them of your rightness".

"Our proximity to populations enables us to influence and control the populations, [it] enables us to dominate the environment, generate intelligence and eventually bring the conflict to a resolution," the brigadier told the conference last week.

To fight such a war, a new kind of soldier was needed - one not only proficient in the latest technologies, but who had been educated in "cultural understanding" and sensitivity.

Brigadier Kelly said modern war could be defined as "conflict, using violent and non-violent means, between multiple actors and influences, competing for control over the perceptions, behaviour and allegiances of human population groups".

He said he found it interesting that "if you take out violence out of the first line, it's a description of politics".

Copyright © The Sydney Morning Herald, 27-04-2005.

[Barst]

Guantanamo cover-up

Ex-UN envoy: U.S. feared discovery of prison abuse

By Deborah Horan
Tribune staff reporter

Cherif Bassiouni, the DePaul University law professor who last week lost his post as UN human-rights investigator in Afghanistan, said Thursday he believed the U.S. pushed him out to hide abuses in American-run prisons in the country and the possible transfer there of as many as 200 prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"They have two groups of people they want to hide--the people in Afghan prisons and the people they transfer from Guantanamo," Bassiouni said in an interview. "The bigger exposure is the transfer of about 200 people from Guantanamo."

Bassiouni said he had heard reports the U.S. plans to transfer prisoners to Afghanistan from Guantanamo before opening the prison in Cuba to international inspectors.

He called the move part of a "well-known game" that governments around the world use to ease prison conditions and hide torture victims before allowing human-rights inspectors into facilities.

"The U.S. can say, `Oh, we released them,'" Bassiouni said. "Where? They'll probably fudge on the answers."

Bassiouni, who took up his post in April 2004, was informed last Friday via e-mail that his two-year mandate would not be renewed. The e-mail came the same day that he submitted a 24-page report that criticized the United States and other countries for not allowing him and other inspectors into coalition forces' facilities. (...)


Chicago Tribune, 29-04-2005