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Announcement :: Regime |
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John Ashcroft Is Coming To Town -Patriot Act II |
Current rating: -4 |
by HERB STRENZ reposted by DAN "Most of My Stuff Is In the Hidden Files" Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
23 Aug 2003
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Oh! You better watch out,
you better not cry,
you better not pout,
I'm telling you why:
John Ashcroft is coming to town! |
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He's making a list,
He's checking it twice,
gonna find out who's naughty or nice:
John Ashcroft is coming to town!
They'll know when you're speaking out,
They'll know when you dissent,
They'll know when you don't salute,
But they won't tell where you're sent!
Hooray for the old red, white and blue.
Carnivore and Magic Lantern, too:
John Ashcroft is coming to town.
Closed trials and secret arrests,
All in store for those he detests:
John Ashcroft is coming to town.
Wire taps and pen registers,
Just fun toys for justice jesters:
John Ashcroft is coming to town.
Agents in U-S spyland will have a jubilee,
They're gonna fill their data banks,
With the scoop on you and me.
Ohh.You better watch out, you better not cry,
You better not pout, I'm telling you why:
John Ashcroft is coming to town.
John Ashcroft Is Coming To Town -Patriot Act II
HERB STRENZ
Oh! You better watch out,
you better not cry,
you better not pout,
I'm telling you why:
John Ashcroft is coming to town!
He's making a list,
He's checking it twice,
gonna find out who's naughty or nice:
John Ashcroft is coming to town!
They'll know when you're speaking out,
They'll know when you dissent,
They'll know when you don't salute,
But they won't tell where you're sent!
Hooray for the old red, white and blue.
Carnivore and Magic Lantern, too:
John Ashcroft is coming to town.
Closed trials and secret arrests,
All in store for those he detests:
John Ashcroft is coming to town.
Wire taps and pen registers,
Just fun toys for justice jesters:
John Ashcroft is coming to town.
Agents in U-S spyland will have a jubilee,
They're gonna fill their data banks,
With the scoop on you and me.
Ohh.You better watch out, you better not cry,
You better not pout, I'm telling you why:
John Ashcroft is coming to town.
Good job on the censorship ML you make me proud, we can't let it get out who's behind the bid to control the media thanks for your help
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Comments
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THIS IS A PICTURE OF ML |
by JAKE AKA DAN Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -4
23 Aug 2003
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SMACK THE STINKING LITTLE-BUGGER |
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Re: DAN Disinfo And His Abuses |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 23
23 Aug 2003
Modified: 03:48:12 PM |
You get to have your say, between spamming our IMC and the rest of the Independent Media Center network. Readers can look in the Hidden Files themselves if they are curious about the root of your whining. And it makes no sense to single me out. While I do much of the day-to-day editing at this IMC, it is done within the consensed to editorial policies of our collective. You want to make it personal, but it's not. The work I do is done with the support of our collective. I am not the only one who has dealt with your antics, just the one who usually gets to them first.
Between your juvenile, intentional mis-spellings, lame PhotoHateShop renderings, multiple screen names that fool no one but yourself, use of all caps for no particular reason other than you think your opinions should be allowed to dominate everyone's Newswires, and (most of all) the endless postings of your tripe that has no local content to our Local Newswire (yes, this one was removed from there), your free speech tends to drown out everyone else's. And we are not going to allow that to happen.
Other IMC's have also increasingly shown less and less tolerance for your puerile antics. Even SF IMC tends to hide a lot of your stuff these days. I suppose you have some sort of martyr complex, but no one but you even cares, because you prefer to be reprehensible. The only thing you care about is stirring up hate, as has been proven here and elsewhere by your posting of both anti-Semitic and anti-Moslem hate spam.
All in all, the only thing we can figure out is that you must have some bizarre masochistic fetish that only allows you to have pleasure in the midst of stirring up hate against both others and yourself. For our part, there is only pity that you can't rise above such a degenerate existence. It is no problem for us to limit the exposure of your excesses on our Newswire to minutes, or even seconds. And people always know where to find you, right there in the Hidden Files. Maybe we should rename it DAN's Circular File. |
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The Costs To American Taxpayers Of The Zios-Palestinian Conflict: $3 Trillion |
by Thomas R. Stauffer reposted/rewritten by DAN "Has the Only Spot on the Newswire He's Going to Get" Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -2
24 Aug 2003
Modified: 10:46:46 AM |
Even this figure underestimates the costs because certain classes of expenditure remain unquantified. In particular, no reliable figure is available for the costs of Project Independence, Washingtons lavishly promoted effort to reduce U.S. dependence on oil from the Middle East. That effort, which was subverted early on by diverse local special interests, was designed primarily to insulate Israel from any new Arab oil weapon after 1973/74, and may easily have cost $1 trillion. Even though the outlays were rationalized in the interest of ââŹĹnational security, however, they contributed little or nothing to reducing U.S. strategic dependence upon imported oil from the Middle East. Similarly, aid to IsraelââŹâand thus the regional totalâalso is understated, since much is outside of the foreign aid appropriation process or implicit in other programs. Support for Israel comes to $1.8 trillion, including special trade advantages, preferential contracts, or aid buried in other accounts. In addition to the financial outlay, U.S. aid to Israel costs some 275,000 American jobs each year.
The major components in this minimum estimate of the costs are summarized in Table One; the detailed breakdown is displayed later in Table Two:
Total identifiable costs come to almost $3 trillion. About 60 percent, well over half, of those costsâabout $1.7 trillionâarose from the U.S. defense of Israel, where most of that amount has been incurred since 1973 (see later section and Table Three).
Oil Crises
The largest single element in the costs has been the series of six oil-supply crises since the end of World War II. To date these have cost the U.S. $1.5 trillion (again in 2002 dollars), excluding the additional costs incurred since 2001 during the build-up toward the second war with Iraq. Until 1991, each crisis was triggered by a conflict among two or more Middle Eastern states, usually with the active involvement of at least one extra-regional power. The nature and impact of the oil crises changed over time, becoming more serious and implying greater risk to the oil-consuming world.
The several earlier Mideast oil crises, in 1956 and 1967, actually had relatively little effect on the United States. Indeed, the U.S. profited from exporting surplus oil in 1956 when Mideast suppliesâespecially of sterling oilâwere interrupted. The second such crisis, in 1967, did have a longer-term impact. Initially, only the cost of shipping was raised when the Israelis interdicted the Suez Canal. The splitting of oil markets between east and west of Suez, however, was the catalyst for an overall price increase which otherwise would have been unlikely, if not impossible. Several OPEC states were successful in exploiting the closure of the Suez Canal to increase oil prices across the board after 1968. Again, the effect on the U.S. was relatively small, because U.S. oil imports were still at a low level. Nonetheless, those increases between 1970 and 1973 did cost the U.S. some $40 billion (in 2002 dollars).
The period before 1973, therefore, had little effect on U.S. oil costs, and the burden of aid to Israel was modest, so the overall cost of Middle East conflicts remained modest. The major cost prior to 1973, in fact, was support for Turkey as part of Cold War operations to contain the Soviet Union.
This changed with 1973, and costs escalated rapidly thereafter. Starting with the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, the costs to the U.S. of regional crises and aid programs began to increase beyond any original expectations. Since 1973, protection of Israel and subsidies to countries willing to sign peace treaties with Israel, such as Egypt and Jordan, has been the prime driver of U.S. outlays or the trigger for crisis costs. The 1973 war proved to be dear. At a minimum, it cost the U.S. between $750 billion and $1 trillion. This was the price tag for the rescue of Israel when President Richard Nixon agreed to resupply Israel with U.S. arms as it was losing the war against its neighbors. Washingtons intervention triggered the Arab oil embargo which cost the U.S. doubly: first, due to the oil shortfall, the US lost about $300 billion to $600 billion in GDP; and, second, the U.S. was saddled with another $450 billion in higher oil import costs.
A third factor added to the oil-related cost of the 1973 war (over and above the multi-billion dollar aid package to Israel which began in that year). Deciding to act preventively, as it were, the U.S. created, after some travail, a Strategic Petroleum Reserve (PR) designed to insulate Israel and the U.S. against the wielding of a future Arab oil weapon. It was destined to contain one billion barrels of oil which could be released in the event of a supply crisis. To date the SPR, which still exists and is slowly being expanded, has cost $134 billionâsince much of the oil was bought at high prices, and because the salvage value is relatively low. Thus, the 1973 oil crisis, all in all, cost the U.S. economy no less than $900 billion, and probably as much as $1,200 billion. Ironically, military costs themselves were negligible. The 1973 war illustrated the new dimension of Middle East conflicts, where the burdens are economic rather than military.
The next regional oil crisis was relatively less dear, although costly nonetheless. The Iranian revolution and the subsequent Iran-Iraq war cost the U.S. $335 billion in terms of higher oil import prices. There were two stages. First, 5 million barrels per day (b/d) of Iranian oil exports were suspended when the revolutionaries closed the oil terminals in 1978. The resulting shortfall in oil supply, compounded by speculators, doubled oil prices. Then, just two years later, in 1980, began the Iran-Iraq war, which interrupted oil exports from both warring countries, causing prices to more than double once again. The joint effect of the two crises cost the U.S. consumer $335 billion in terms of higher prices for imported oil. It also caused a rise in prices of domestic energyââŹâoil, gas, and coal. These knock-on effects are not included, however, so that the figure of $335 billion is indeed a lower bound for the actual costs of those two, back-to-back crises. The total consumer cost is likely to have been more than double that figure.
The 1990/91 Gulf war, on the other hand, proved to be almost a bargain. It did cost American consumers approximately $80 billion in higher oil prices, including both imported and domestic oil, again excluding the resulting knock-on effects. The military costs of conducting the war itself were all but nil, however, because virtually all the other costs were passed on to Washingtons willing or reluctant allies through burden-sharing. The Germans, Japanese, and some Gulf states contributed cash and kind to the pursuit of the war, with the result that the net military cost to the U.S. was essentially zero. Officially reported ââŹĹburden-sharing contributions amounted to $45 billion, compared to officially reported U.S. military costs of $49 billion. Given the inherent imprecision in the budgeted figures, the net effect was a wash. In fact, the U.S. government actually showed a fiscal profit from the crisis, because it collected at least an additional $10 billion in taxes and royalties from the higher prices of domestically produced oil and gas.
Economic and Military Aid
This category includes only those amounts which flow through the conventional foreign aid appropriations process. Ad hoc and special aid is discussed later. The total for the Middle East is $867 billion, which includes the official ââŹĹNear EastââŹÂ category, plus Greece and Turkey, which are classified as part of Europe for purposes of U.S. statistics. Greece is included because the Greek lobby has ensured that Greece receives roughly 70 percent as much aid as Turkey as a condition for acquiescing in the appropriations for Turkey. Thus the outlays for Greece are necessary conditions for the outlays for Turkey, given the U.S. domestic political dynamic, and thus are causally linked to the Middle East.
The official reports are incomplete. First, it is necessary to estimate the ad hoc and special aid for Israel, which is reported differently, if at all (see below). Secondly, it is necessary to include such special, but related, transactions as U.S. support for insurgents in the Sudan, or the U.S. share in multilateral aid to Turkey, in order to flesh out the full picture. Humanitarian aid to the revolutionaries in the southern Sudan has aggregated to some $2 billion, while the U.S. share of recent multilateral aid to Turkey from the IMF and World Bank can be estimated at $7 billion. It can be argued that this money was made available to Ankara as a result of U.S. pressure, intended to reward Turkey further for its alliance with Israel and as an incentive for further cooperation against Iraq.
Increasingly, aid to the periphery is part of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea are viewed as integral to geopolitical planning for the Middle East, and, more recently, aid to the Central Asian ââŹĹemergent democraciesââŹÂ is linked in part to Middle East politics, related to efforts to encircle and isolate Iran. That increasing flow of aid is also part of the larger picture of aid to the Middle East.
Another element is ad hoc support for Israel, which is not part of the formal foreign aid programs. No comprehensive compilation of U.S. support for Israel has been publicly released. Additional known items include loan guaranteeswhich the U.S. most probably will be forced to cover special contracts for Israeli firms, legal and illegal transfers of marketable U.S. military technology, de facto exemption from U.S. trade protection provisions, and discounted sales or free transfers of surplus U.S. military equipment. An unquantifiable element is the trade and other aid given to Romania and Russia to facilitate Jewish migration to Israel; this has accumulated to many billions of dollars. Lastly, unofficial aid, in the form of transfers from the Diaspora resident in the U.S. and net purchases by U.S. parties of Israel Bonds, adds at least $40 billion to the total. A rough estimate, again a minimum, for such additional elements is more than $100 billion since 1973.
U.S. jobs and exports also have been affected, adding to costs and losses. Trade followed the flag in the area but in the reverse direction. As U.S. relations with Mideast countries deteriorated, trade was lost. Worsening political relations resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs. Some disappeared as a consequence of trade sanctions, some because large contracts were forefeited, thanks to the Israel lobbyâas in the case of foregone sales of fighters to Saudi Arabia in the 1980sââŹâand still others due to a dangerously growing trade-aid imbalance vis-Ă -vis Israel.
Sanctions alone have caused U.S. jobs to disappear. The trickle of U.S. trade with Iran, Iraq, Libya and SyriaââŹâcompared to what would have been expected had relations been normal, let alone goodâcurrently costs the U.S. some 80,000 to 100,000 jobs each year. The figure is probably higher, in fact, because it does not reflect the lost opportunities for U.S. farmers to export their products into the growing markets of the sanctioned countries.
Good relations, however, do not necessarily mean employment gains for Americans. In the case of Israel, the striking trade-aid imbalance vis-ĂÂ -vis Israel costs the U.S. almost as many jobs as the sanction regimes. Israel exports to the U.S. much more than it imports, while it pays for only a fraction of what it does import from the U.S. Specifically, Israel buys little from the U.S. in relation to U.S. aid levels, and the trade-aid imbalance of $6 billion to $10 billion each year costs about 125,000 jobs. One aspect of U.S. government policy in the region, however, does create American jobs: the states of the southern Gulf incrementally buy large quantities of U.S. arms and related services. That relationship, primarily with Saudi Arabia, has translated into an extra 60,000 jobs in recent years. This gain, due to the special status of Saudi Arabia, partly offsets the jobs lost through Israeli pressures or contracting policies.
Another large element in cost has been the push for energy autarkyââŹâspecifically, ââŹĹProject Independence.ââŹÂ This clutch of programs has been extraordinarily costly since it was initiated as a policy objective in the 1970s. Oil imports are higher today than before, in spite of the imposing array of subsidies or forced technologies designed to increase U.S. energy production and cut consumption. No overview of these costs has been compiled. Identifiable costs come to $285 billion, but the grand total is certainly very much higher. A reasonable estimate is at least one trillion dollars, but only part of that can be documented. While the subsidies were inevitably justified in the interests of national security, the projects and programs were in most cases captured and co-opted by domestic lobbies. Since the national objective was reducing dependence upon Mideast oil, however, the costs should be subsumed within the costs of coping with regional conflicts, even if the programs were largely ineffectual.
Defense of the Gulfoften cited as a major cost factor in fact has been but a minor element of cost. Excluding the buildup for war against Iraq in late 2002, the official figure for operations and presence in the Gulf is about $30 billion to $40 billion per year. That figure is misleading, however. Most of the equipment and troops and the operations of the carrier task force at Diego Garcia would be maintained in support of other geopolitical objectives, so those outlays, which represent the largest component in the reported cost, are not substantively tied to U.S. policies in the Gulf itself. The U.S. presence itself has entailed relatively modest incremental costs on the order of $2 billion (net) per year, exclusive of any new costs tied to the new mobilization against Iraq.
Lastly, a large part of the costs have been inextricably tied to U.S. protection of or support for Israel. It is therefore useful to pull together the various elements linked to that policy:
Direct costs, excluding crisis costs, have amounted to about $800 billion. This figure includes budgeted U.S. aid for Egypt and Jordan, since that flow of aid is so closely correlated with their postures toward Israel i.e., that aid is part of the cost of buying peace for Israel on two of its borders. It also includes the flow of dollars from private Jews or Jewish organizations in the U.S. to Israel, which are drains on the U.S. balance of payments, analogous to official aid transfers. The rescue of Israel in 1973 cost another $1 trillion, so total direct costs, including the costs of the results of support for Israel, are some $1.8 trillion.
There have been further costs where the causal linkage is less clear aid to the states of the periphery (Ethiopia, Central Asia, etc.), the defense of the Gulf, and the costs of Energy Independence. Although some part of those costs of $300-plus billion are attributable to U.S. support for Israel at the core, any allocation is beyond the scope of this discussion.
A last element is a contingent cost: the cost to the U.S. of the Oil Supply Guarantee which Secretary of State Henry Kissinger proffered the Israelis in 1975. If Israels oil supply is affected, Israel in effect gets a first call on any oil available to the U.S. The opportunity cost of that oil depends upon the crisis scenario a plausible scenario would entail costs to the U.S. of $3 billion per month in terms of lost GDP if the U.S. were embargoed at the same time.
Expensive Unrest
Unrest in the Middle East has proven to be very expensive for the U.S. It is known that most of American foreign aid goes to Egypt and Israel, but it is clear that the total costs to the U.S. of conflict in the region are very much higher than the aid bill itself. The total costs of supporting Israel are some six times the official aid, for example. Oil price crises have been particularly expensiveââŹâa sobering lesson from the history of the Middle East over the last 30 years. Future burden-sharing is unlikely while successful in eliminating much of the cost of the 1990/91 Gulf war, it will become much more difficult. Mercenary allies, such as Turkey, moreover, are likely to demand compensation up front, since, they argue, they never received the aid promised to them during the prior Gulf war. Ankara is especially likely to demand considerable rewards, since it protests that it received little to offset the $30 billion it claimed it lost in the last affair.
Israel, too, is demanding more aidââŹâ$4 billion in extra military support and a further $10 bn in loan guarantees, over and above the current level of appropriated aid. Conflicts in the Middle East have become expensive indeed for the American taxpayer.
It is worth noting, however, that the burden shared by the other oil-consuming states has, in fact, been much higher. Even though they do not share in policy formation, they do indeed share in the costs of the consequences. While not greatly drained by foreign aid to the region unlike the $800 billion borne by the U.S. they bear much more of the costs of oil crises because, collectively, they import much more oil than the U.S. Thus the total bill the total burden shared by default is two to four times higher than that for the U.S. alone. All statesââŹânot just the U.S. have borne the burden of conflicts in the Middle East.
Thomas R. Stauffer is a Washington, DC-based engineer and economist who has taught the economics of energy and the Middle East at Harvard University and Georgetown Universitys School of Foreign Service
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The Face Of Freedom In Zionazi/Bush/ML's America |
by kiel AKA DAN "Notice My Affection for Germaqn Names-What's Up With That?" Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -5
24 Aug 2003
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Riot Police stand outside the Chiles Center on the campus of University of Portland, where U.S. President George W. Bush appeared at a fundraising event, August 21, 2003. Bush faced protests Thursday as he traveled to Oregon and Washington to promote his environmental agenda and raise money for his re-election campaign.
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Israeli Army To Demolish Rachel Corrie Peace Center |
by Jason reposted by DAN "Trying to Fill Up Your Newswire with My Views" Disinfo
jiveonion < (nospam) yahoo.com> (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
24 Aug 2003
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The Labor Art and Mural Project's delegation to Palestine/Israel is facing a grave challenge: This morning, four cars of Israeli authorities - the IDF, the Civil Administration, and the police department arrived at the work camp in East Jerusalem where LaMP activists are helping to construct a peace center in memory of Rachel Corrie. The authorities issued a 'stop work' order and confiscated building materials. They also announced that the building and mural - both scheduled for completion on Thursday - would shortly be demolished.
Israeli and Palestinian activists are massing to spend the night in the building, or arranging to be at the site at 4:30 tomorrow morning in an attempt to stall or prevent the demolition. Some activists will carry out civil disobedience. Your messages of protest are crucial as well.
The building, called the Beit Arabia Peace Center, is the project of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions. As an act of resistance to the occupation, ICAHD is holding a work camp to rebuild on the site of the home of Arabia and Salim Shawamreh of Anata. The Israeli authorities have demolished the Shawamreh home four times. In addition to memorializing Rachel Corrie, the center will memorialize the death of Nuha Makadma Sweidan, a pregnant Palestinian woman killed in Gaza in March 2003 when an Israeli bulldozer demolished her home on top of her. The center will house a permanent exhibit of the ongoing tragedy of house demolitions, and will also serve as a center for educational activities, study tours, activist events and peace-building between Palestinians and Israelis. It is poignantly located across a valley from a new Israeli police and interrogation center.
The mural being painted by U.S. labor muralist Mike Alewitz is anchored by an image of broken bulldozers and war equipment. In the sky float images of Corrie and Sweidan. A railroad track runs to the horizon, reminding viewers of the collective dreams of radical Jewish and Arab unionists in the mandate period who fought for joint organizing of the Haifa rail workshops. It is this kind of vision - of Jews and Arabs fighting for socialist future where the interests of working people will be central - that the Israeli authorities hope to bury in their escalating demolitions of rebuilt houses and structures.
Please protest this outrage by contacting the U.S. State Department, your representatives in the Senate and Congress, and the U.S. Consulate General, Jerusalem, at 18 Agron Road, Jerusalem 94190 / 27 Nablus Road, Jerusalem 94190;PHONE: 972-2-6227230 /972-2-6253288;FAX: 972-2-6259270.
The following Israeli authorities should hear your protest as well:
Coordinator of Activities in Judea and Samaria
General Yaakov Orr
Ministry of Defense
Ha-Kirya Tel Aviv, Israel
Phone: 972-3-697-5351
Fax: 972-3-697-6306;
Spokesperson:
Mr. Shlomo Dror
Mobile: 972 2 50-398-652
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Jews Threaten Author Of Children's Book |
by Kim AKA DAN "One Note Is All I Know" Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
24 Aug 2003
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"It's not what is in there that I object to. It's what has been left out," said one kike, Ann Jungman, a member of the allegedly liberal group, Jews for Justice in Palestine, "There should have been a broader picture. All the Palestinians are reasonable, and all the Israelis are monsters."
Her comments show how even "liberal" Jews are really just kike apologists for the Zionist entity in disguise.
The fate of the book is still undetermined, but report is stating that the book may be recalled and destroyed at the orders of the Jewish censors.
The following except was recently printed in the Guardian:
Family crisis
Extract from A Little Piece of Ground
Karim has watched his father being dragged from the family car and stripped at an Israeli checkpoint...
He [the young Israeli soldier] is terrified, Karim thought, with surprise. He thinks we're going to attack him.
He could almost smell the soldier's fear.
"She didn't mean any harm," he said, hating the placating note he could hear in his own voice. "I'll take her back to the car."
The soldier shoved at him roughly. "Take her. If there's any more trouble from you, you go over there and join the other terrorists."
Karim scooped Sireen up in his arms and ran back to the car with her.
Lamia had half opened the door, but another soldier was alongside the car now, ordering her to shut it. Karim handed Sireen to her and jumped into the back seat.
"Oh, my darling," sobbed Lamia, her face in Sireen's hair.
Karim was trembling violently. He felt sick with the backwash of fear.
Farah moved across and leaned against him, her thumb firmly in her mouth. Her other hand clutching at his arm. This time, he didn't push her away.
I hate them. I hate them. I hate them, he thought, unable now to look at his father, who still stood, reduced to an object of ridicule, beside the bewildered old man.
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Hatecase Gets 25% Of UC IMC Newswire? No Way |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
25 Aug 2003
Modified: 02:07:19 PM |
This relatively restrained series of stories (which is the only reason why they are here on the Newswire -- to illustrate why most of DAN Disinfo's stuff can usually be found in the Hidden files) were mostly posted as separate stories, mostly to our Local Newswire, even though they are totally lacking in local content except for DAN's whining about our doing our best to avoid his dominating our Newswire and driving the stories of others off of it.
Since we only have 20 slots for stories total for both Newswires, DAN is simply is not going to be allowed to take over 25% of it, which these five stories represent if they had been allowed to stay up separately. Since he is actually banned form this site, he should be grateful that we allow ANY of his stuff to appear here.
Do not be taken in by his appearance of being in soilidarity with the Palestinian cause. This is just a front for him to conduct his hateful exercises in anti-Semitism under. As for his "solidarity," we only need to look back on the Ahmed ben-Souda case, in which a local man who was active in the Israel divestment campaign was picked up by the INS and FBI because of some visa problems. As our IMC worked diligently to get out the story of ben-Souda's incommunicado detention out, quickly resulting in his release on bond when many others across our nation in similar circumstances found themselves held for months and then quickly deported with little in the way of legal help under Patriot Act provisions, DAN Disinfo was posting fabricated news here. He tried to claim that ben-Souda had died in custody, which caused ben-Souda's relatives, friends, and fellow activists a great deal of mental anguish.
No cause needs "friends" like DAN Disinfo, who are only interested in seeing how much hate their trolling behavior can stir up. That is why his postings, which are easily indentifiable despite his many different screen names, are regularly hidden here at UC IMC. Across the Indymedia network, many other editorial collectives have caught on to DAN and they act in a variety of ways to preserve their Newswires, just like we have had to do. Newswire piggies like DAN destroy the utility of IMC for real news by real activists.
It is worthwhile to ask the question, "Who profits from such behavior?" Given that hours of work are involved in DAN's Indymedia network-wide depredations, it is also worthwhile to ask who is paying for him to spend his time acting in this manner? Increasingly, the odds seem to indicate that DAN is either a government-sponsored effort to undermine the utility and credibility of Indymedia or simply a lone nutcase with lots of time on his hands, hateful obsessions, and access to a computer. In any case, we don't need him here and we are better off as an IMC without him. |
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JEWS EXPOSED, JUDAISM EXPOSED, ZIONISM EXPOSED |
by AA WHITE repost by DAN "All Hate, All the Time" Disinfo
rightreason (nospam) fastmail.fm (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
25 Aug 2003
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JEWS EXPOSED, JUDAISM EXPOSED, ZIONISM EXPOSED |
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Baghdad: The Hand Of Mossad? |
by Dinna AKA DAN "The Hand of Paranoia" Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
25 Aug 2003
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Sometimes it is difficult to understand why some events should occur and change a positive path into a negative situation leading to bloodshed. It is no longer a matter of resistance; the situation is turning into an open intelligence game regardless of the interests of the parties concerned in this situation. First in Baghdad: who carried out this suicide operation against the UN mission? Is it true that Saddam Husseinâs old guard is able to carry out such an operation?
To answer this question, we should note that it is clear that an operation against an American outpost or convoy can be planned and carried out by a small number of soldiers or militants. It doesnât need long and complicated planning or specialized expertise. When the target is seen, they fire on it and the operation is done. But filling a truck with a thousand kilograms of explosives and finding someone willing to give up his life for the sake of the deed is rather different. Providing the truck with complex explosives, observing the UN headquarters to analyze the security system of the building and determine its weak points -- all these require a number of specialists and assistants. If Saddam Hussein is still able to conduct such operations amid the Americansâ minute-by-minute pursuit of him, the situation becomes dangerous. This person is not a superman. He cannot even make a phone call or use wireless communication with his presumed units because American technology would be able to track him in a few seconds. A tracking satellite system is covering not only Iraq but many other regions of the world and many leaders and politicians. An Arab diplomat told this magazine that Gulf countries received information in January that when Saddam Hussein felt sure that the Americans were determined to attack him, he organized some loyal units and provided them with weapons and explosives hidden in secret places. They also agreed to transmit instructions and orders through messengers, not wireless networks, in order to avoid interceptions. Experts in the field say that Saddam is having great difficulty keeping ahead of his pursuers, sometimes escaping from a raid with only a few minutes to spare. Their information indicates that he doesnât stay in the same place more than three hours. So he is not in a position to chair meetings and give instructions for such a large-scale operation.
Thus one is led to the conclusion that the attack on the UN headquarters was a well-planned operation in which Saddam could not have been implicated but which certainly involved operatives from abroad. Some analysts think that Osbat al-Ansar or some other Islamist group may be behind the attack, but none of these factions has declared its responsibility, so there is no lead on which to carry out a search.
Members of such groups may penetrate Iraq with the help of neighboring countries. American officials have on many occasions accused Iran and Syria of allowing Islamist elements to slip into Iraqi territory. But observers have many doubts regarding these accusations for the following reasons:
⢠Syria is not in a position to help militant organizations because it has cooperated fully in the fight against terrorism and provided Washington with data about these very organizations. The American accusations against it are part of the campaign against Damascus in connection with the bilateral relationship between Washington and Syria, and between Washington and Tel Aviv, and do not reflect reality based on facts and evidence.
⢠Iran has concerns in Iraq, but from a Shiite angle only. The southern regions of Iraq, dominated by the Shiite community, has witnessed very few anti-American operations. The demonstrations against the US presence, in the South as elsewhere, arise from the problems caused by the Pentagonâs failure to plan for the post-war period -- electricity and water shortages, etc. -- and from American misunderstanding of local particularities, especially among Shiites. The Iraqi Shiites opposed the Saddamite regime and suffered from it, but they have not ceased to be loyal Iraqis with deep concerns about the countryâs independence and integrity. In the final analysis they are and will remain Iraqi Arabs.
Iran, for its part, is seeking an important role in the Gulf and the Iranian government knows very well that such an ambition can only be achieved through an understanding with Washington. It is thus obvious that Teheran has no interest in sponsoring or encouraging terrorist attacks against US forces or UN installations in Iraq, or in allowing key Islamists to slip into Iraq from its territory.
A situation out of control
This explosion is a turning point in the postwar history of Iraq. The Americans are feeling that matters there are beginning to escape from their control. They now have to regard the Iraqi situation as an ongoing war without time limits. It is also obvious that big players are already established inside Baghdad who are able to cause major disruptions. Some observers speculate that Israeli intelligence may have had a hand in important events taking place in Iraq. More problems for the Americans in Baghdad means closer co-operation with Israeli intelligence to fight against terrorism, whether it is in Iraq or in Israel. Freedom in planning and acting in Iraq is strategic for the Israelis, who are preparing themselves to use Iraq as a channel of trade between themselves and the Gulf states. There are Arab diplomats who shy away from any idea of Israeli complicity, recalling the days when this idea was the fruit of the old conspiracy theory. Moreover, they say, Tel Aviv would not dare to attack a UN facility in Iraq because of the serious problems they might have if the Americans discovered their involvement. But the fact remains that there is no other player on the regional or international level which would have any interest in perpetrating such an explosion, or possess the expertise to carry it out. Certainly the Israelis have never had any love for the UN, and carrying out a terrorist attack against it in Baghdad would have the effect of drawing the Americans even closer to Israel in the context of the âwar against terrorâ and thus more supportive of their actions in Palestine.
An improbable hypothesis? History is full of surprises.
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