AS THE WORLD SQUIRMS

‘The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.’

~George Orwell

Wednesday: 6 GIs, 56 Iraqis Killed; 47 Iraqis Injured

News & Comment

Congressman: American Concentration Camps "On The Books.."

Representative Ron Paul (R.TX) Urges Repeal of “Neo-Fascist” Laws

By Steve Watson

Infowars.net

11.13.06

"Not a whole lot will change because the leadership on the Democratic side, even if they had their way, don't have a different foreign policy. They have been supportive of an interventionist foreign policy in the middle east, and they are not about to back away from that... They are willing to criticize the policy but only as a means to get power."

~ Rep. Ron Paul

Guy Badeaux (Bado), Ottawa - Journal LeDroit

America’s “Torturer-In-Chief”

CIA acknowledges Bush signed secret directive on interrogating terror suspect

International Herald Tribune (IHT)

11.15.06

The CIA has acknowledged for the first time the existence of two classified documents, including a directive signed by President George W. Bush, that have guided the agency's interrogation and detention of terror suspects.

The CIA referred to the documents in a letter sent last Friday from the agency's associate general counsel, John McPherson, to lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The contents of the documents were not revealed, but one of them is "a directive signed by President Bush granting the CIA the authority to set up detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees," the civil liberties union said, based on its review of published accounts.

The second document, according to the group, is a Justice Department legal analysis "specifying interrogation methods that the CIA may use against top Al Qaeda members."

Foreign Policy "Expertise" Revisited

By Philip Slater

The Huffington Post

11.15.06

Donald Rumsfeld attributed his firing and the Republican election losses to the American people being unable to "comprehend" what was going on in Iraq--a display of the same arrogance and boneheadedness that characterized his tenure. Rummy is a rather perfect illustration of what I said in my blog of 10/11/2006: foreign policy by "expert" over the past fifty years has been a total disaster.

In his provocative book, The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki demonstrates that regardless of knowledge or intelligence, any collection of ordinary people--provided its members are diverse, and independent of one another--will make better judgments and better decisions than the most brilliant expert, or even a group of experts working as a unit--especially if they're all trying to please the same authority figure. Large groups of people consistently do better than the elite few, whose homogeneity and shared assumptions often lead them into folly. Surowiecki cites the Bay of Pigs as an example--a small group of like-minded 'experts' who firmly believed that 1200 men could take over Cuba, that the Cuban population would rise up in support of them, and that no one would know the United States was behind the operation. All three beliefs turned out to be ludicrous.

Israel's key ally: U.S. evangelicals

For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is ‘God’s Foreign Policy’

By David D. Kirkpatrick

The New York Times

11.14.06

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 — As Israeli bombs fell on Lebanon for a second week last July, the Rev. John Hagee of San Antonio arrived in Washington with 3,500 evangelicals for the first annual conference of his newly founded organization, Christians United For Israel.

At a dinner addressed by the Israeli ambassador, a handful of Republican senators and the chairman of the Republican Party, Mr. Hagee read greetings from President Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and dispatched the crowd with a message for their representatives in Congress. Tell them “to let Israel do their job” of destroying the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, Mr. Hagee said.

Veritas!

Abizaid: 'Shinseki was right'

CNN

11.15.06

A few minutes ago, Abizaid was asked if Gen. Eric Shinseki -- who famously told Congress before the war in Iraq that the military would need "several hundred thousand" troops to secure that nation after major combat operations, only to be slapped down by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz -- was correct.

"Gen. Shinseki was right that a greater international force contribution -- U.S. force contribution and Iraqi force contribution -- should have been available immediately after major combat operations," Abizaid said.

Frank Boyle, Edinburgh Evening News, Scotland

“People should not be afraid of their government.

Governments should be afraid of their people.”

An extraordinarily prescient TV interview with General Norman Schwarzkopf and Robert Gates - Deputy National Security Advisor to Former President George Bush Sr.

Why Invading Iraq Was A Very Stupid Idea…

(Click on blinking dot above for video)