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AS THE WORLD SQUIRMS
Sunday – November 5, 2006
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by: Hotpolitics.com

SQUIRMS
ARCHIVE
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As The
World Squirms
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Commentary Etc.
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Music/Music-Videos
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August 30, 2006
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September 2, 2006
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October 17, 2006
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October 18, 2006
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October 21, 2006
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October 23, 2006
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October 24, 2006
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October 25, 2006
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October 28, 2006
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November 5, 2006
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September 9,
2006: “No More Lies! What Really Motivated The 9/11 Hijackers? (Video)
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British MP
George Galloway Speaks Out On Israel, Hezbollah And ‘Zionist State
Terrorism’ (Video)
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Palestine & Lebanon: Watch
The Destruction! (Video)
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Saddam
Hussein: “Thanks For The Memories”, He Was Always Washington’s Man –
Always! (Video)
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Iraq, The
Real Story – BBC Newsnight Report (Video)
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9/11 -
Selective Memory –Parody (Animation)
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9/11 Vendetta – Past, Present
& Future (Video)
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Don’t
Shut-Up, Stand-Up!
(Video)
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Classic George Carlin Rant – Trenchant and
Profane - Caution,
‘colorful’ Use of Profanity and Much Truth (Spoken)
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Keith Olbermann: The ‘Murder’ of
Habeas Corpus (Video)
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Bush's "Comma" Comment
On Iraq (Video)
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Keith
Olbermann: Military Commissions Act, A Special Comment (Video)
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“Bring ’Em Home” – Bruce Springsteen’s New
Antiwar Anthem (Music-Video)
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September 4, 2006:” John The
Revelator”- Depeche Mode (Music-Video)
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‘Fascist Christ’ - Todd Rundgren
(Music-Video)
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‘Right Now…’ (Music-Video)
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Bush-Blair “Endless Love”
–Parody (Music- Video)
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“Mamas Don’t
Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Pages” (Music)
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‘Whatever Happened To Peace On Earth’ – Willy
Nelson’s New Antiwar Anthem (Music)
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INTERVIEW:
U.S. Lawyer Says
Saddam Faces “Victor's Justice”
11.4.06
Reuters
AMMAN, Nov 4 (Reuters) -A death sentence on Saddam Hussein
for crimes against humanity would deliver "victor's justice" that would
fuel violence in Iraq for decades, former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark said on
Saturday. "It's an unfair trial in more ways than you can count. Where
have we seen a trial take place in the midst of such uncontrollable
violence?" Clark
said Saddam will almost certainly receive the death sentence on Sunday when
the court is due to deliver its verdict, said Clark who leads a team of international lawyers
defending Saddam. He described the court as prejudiced and lacking
impartiality, and said it had already condemned the ousted Iraqi president
for killing 148 Shi'ite villagers after an attempt on his life in 1982.
"To let there be worse than victors' justice and the revenge of all
enemies at a time like this for Iraq is something history and humanity should
not have to bear," Clark said before flying to Baghdad.
who leads a team of international lawyers defending Saddam. "It will
create violence maybe for generations to come. "The trial will go down
in history as politically forced, it was a disaster for justice. It just went
on for too long with lawyers killed and judges kicked off," said Clark.

Former Iraq
President Saddam Hussein Found Guilty, Sentenced To Hang
11.5.06
Globe
& Mail - Canada
BAGHDAD — Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced
Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people
in a Shiite town, and the ousted leader responded by shouting “God is great!” As he, his half brother and another
senior official in his regime were convicted and sentenced to death by the
Iraqi High Tribunal, Saddam yelled defiantly: “Long live the people and death to
their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!” Later, his lawyer said the former
dictator had called on Iraqis to reject sectarian violence and refrain from
revenge against U.S. forces. The trial brought Saddam and his co-defendants
before their accusers in what was one of the most highly publicized and
heavily reported trials of its kind.
Neocons Make
Excuses for Mass Murder
11.4.06
Kurt Nimmo
In America, instead of
facing justice, criminals from up high usually write memoirs, or become “elder statesmen,” and are interviewed, settling comfortably into the
historical record, either oblivious to or proud of the swathe of blood and
gore that enshrouds them.
For instance, take the neocons, who should be filling up the docket
at the Hague for plotting and executing the invasion and occupation of Iraq—current death total, 650,000, with
millions floundering in abject misery—but are instead allowed to walk free
and talk freely with David Rose, Vanity Fair contributing editor.
Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, Kenneth
Adelman, David Frum, Michael Rubin, Eliot Cohen—these comprise the very marrow of
the neocon criminal camarilla. Rose interviews them as one would interview any petty
bureaucrat (Adolf Eichmann comes to mind). Rose’s article, or the short preview here,
casts the neocons as pentiti, the Italian word for those who have repented.
Well, sort of, as the sociopath rarely repents, but
instead blames others, as the neocons blame Bush and his obsequious followers
and lackluster appointees, all outside the neocon circle.
UN Call For
Moratorium On Executions
UN human rights chief Louise Arbour today called for a
moratorium on executions after former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was
sentenced to death by an Iraqi court.
11.5.06
She also called for the rights of
defendants to a fair appeal to be “fully respected”. “A credible appeals process is an essential
part of fair-trial guarantees,” she said in a statement. “This is particularly important in
this instance, in which the death penalty has been imposed. “Those convicted today should have
every opportunity to exhaust their appellate remedies in a fair way, and
whatever the outcome of an appeal, I hope the government will observe a
moratorium on executions.”
Top Military Publications
To Call For Rumsfeld’s Resignation
11.4.06
Ecanadanow.com
Washington (dpa) - Major US military
publications are calling for the resignation of Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld days before the country’s mid-term elections.
Editorials in the latest editions of
the Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Corps Times to be published Monday say Rumsfeld has “lost the support and respect of the
military leadership,” the senior
managing editor of Army Times Publications, which publishes the four titles
said.
‘Neo Culpa’
Warmongering,
Treasonous, Neocons Abandon Bush
~or~
Rats Flee Sinking Ship
It is perfectly within the malicious personality of the neocon
to turn on a nominal and expendable leader when things get tough and do not
go exactly as planned.
11.4.06
Mail &
Guardian – London
Several prominent neoconservatives
have turned on United States President George Bush days before critical
midterm elections, lambasting his administration for incompetence in the
handling of the Iraq war and questioning the wisdom of the 2003 invasion they were
instrumental in promoting. Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, who were both
Pentagon advisers before the war; Michael Rubin, a former senior official in
the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans; and David Frum, a former Bush
speechwriter, were among the neoconservatives who recanted to Vanity Fair magazine in an article that could influence Tuesday's battle for control
of Congress. The Iraq war has been the dominant issue in the election.

Martyn Turner, Ireland, The Irish Times
More Troops -
or Less Empire?
11.6.06
by
Patrick J. Buchanan
When the
debate over expanding the U.S. Army begins in 2007, there need to be voices
raised calling for withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Korea and Central
Asia, where they do not belong, and a bottom-up review of all U.S. war
guarantees.
This will be denounced as isolationism. But was it isolationism for the
Russians to go home from Cuba? Just as we wanted the French, British,
Spanish, and, finally, Russians out of our hemisphere, other nations bristle
at U.S. troops stationed just over their border.
We have
more than enough soldiers to defend the United States and our vital interests
and allies. If we will pull up the
old trip wires we put down in the Cold War and bring home the troops manning
those trip wires, we will also find that, suddenly, we have fewer quarrels
and fewer enemies than the administration has managed to make for us.
The
More-Than-$2-Trillion War
Two scholars, one a Nobel
Prize winner, revisit their estimate of the true
cost of the Iraq war – and find that $2 trillion
was too low. They consider not only the current
and future budgetary costs, but the economic impact of lives lost, jobs
interrupted and oil prices driven higher by political uncertainty in the
Middle East.
By Linda Bilmes
linda_bilmes@harvard.edu
and Joseph E. Stiglitz
jes322@columbia.edu
COMMENTARY | November 01, 2006
In January, we estimated that the true cost of the Iraq war
could reach $2 trillion, a figure that seemed shockingly high. But
since that time, the cost of the war – in both blood and money – has risen
even faster than our projections anticipated. More than 2,500 American troops
have died and close to 20,000 have been wounded since Operation Iraqi Freedom
began. And the $2 trillion number – the sum of the current and future
budgetary costs along with the economic impact of lives lost, jobs
interrupted and oil prices driven higher by political uncertainty in the
Middle East – now seems low.
Army Guard, Reserves Face New Iraq Call-Ups
11.5.06
Washington Post
Two Army National Guard
combat brigades with about 7,000 troops have been identified recently in
classified rotational plans for possible special deployment to Iraq, according to senior Army and
Pentagon officials, who asked that the specific units not be named. One
brigade could be diverted to Iraq next year from another assignment, and the
other could be sent there in 2008, a year ahead of schedule.
Next year, the number
of Army Guard soldiers providing security in Iraq will surge to more than
6,000 in about 50 companies, compared with 20 companies two years ago, Guard
officials said. "We thought we'd see a downturn in operational
tempo, but that hasn't happened," said one official.
A more sweeping policy shift is under
consideration that
would allow the Pentagon to launch a new wave of involuntary mobilizations of
the reserves, as a growing proportion of Guard and Reserve soldiers are
nearing a 24-month limit on time deployed, they said. Army officials said no
decision had been made on the politically sensitive topic but that serious
deliberations will unfold in the coming months.
Senior Army leaders
have made clear that without a bigger active-duty force, the only way they
can maintain the intense pace of rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan is by
relying more heavily on the reserves, which make up 52 percent of the Army's
total manpower.
The Army as a whole is providing the bulk of the forces in today's wars, with
about 105,000 soldiers in Iraq and 16,000 in Afghanistan.

CIA Torture
Down the Memory Hole
11.4.06
by
Kurt Nimmo
According to the CIA’s favorite newspaper, the Washington
Post, the unitary decider “administration has told a federal
judge that terrorism
suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details
of the ‘alternative interrogation methods’ that their captors used to get them
to talk.” According to the government, these “alternative interrogation methods,” actually brutal medieval torture techniques updated to
include sexual humiliation, are “now among the nation’s most sensitive national security
secrets” and any release of information about the systematic sadism of
the state against largely innocent victims, especially released to the
attorneys of the victims, “could reasonably be expected to
cause extremely grave damage” to the torture and murder state,
now a bestial leviathan with tentacles stretching around the world.
Revealed: U.S.
Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques
11.1.06
Editor
& Publisher
November 01, 2006)—The true stories of how American
troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. On
Tuesday, we explored the case of Kenny Stanton Jr., murdered last month by
our allies, the Iraqi police, though the military didn’t make that known at the time. Now we learn that one of the first
female soldiers killed in Iraq died by her own hand after objecting to
interrogation techniques used on prisoners.
She was Army specialist Alyssa
Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native serving with C Company, 311th
Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking
interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal-Afar in
northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003,
from a “non-hostile weapons discharge….
After 46 years
of failure, we must
change course on Cuba
11.1.06
The
Guardian - London
The US is deaf to the
almost unanimous international view: its embargo is a block on positive
change in Havana.

Rainer Hachfeld, Berlin, Germany,
Neues Deutschland
Moscow
condemns US interference in Nicaragua presidential election
11.3.06
MosNews
Moscow is ’surprised and concerned’ over
the ’undisguised
interference’ of the United States in the run-up to
Nicaragua’s presidential election, the Foreign Ministry is quoted by RIA
Novosti news agency Thursday.
Iran Shows New
Generation of Anti-Helicopter Weapons
11.5.06
Xinhua
TEHRAN, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on Saturday tried new generation of
anti-helicopter weapons and other military hardware during the ongoing
military maneuvers, the official IRNA news agency reported. Different
types of improved anti-helicopter, anti-armor and anti-personnel weapons had
been used by the Iranian troops, General Mohammad-Reza Zahedi, commander
of the IRGC's ground forces, told a press conference. The combat capability
of these anti-helicopter weapons had been doubled in recent years and they
could be used against all types of helicopters, Zahedi said. Iran's new
generation of anti-personnel bullets, which had been used in the war games,
could penetrate the most advanced bullet-proof vests, Zahedi said. The IRGC
forces were using modern equipment and tactics to encounter enemies' combat
power, the Iranian general said, adding that the IRGC ground forces' weapons
could reach as far as 1,400 km into hypothetical enemy's territory. Zahedi
said the war games were intended to show the Iranian military's ability to
defend the country against any attack and thereby discourage enemies from
inimical contemplation. The IRGC's 10-day maneuvers, dubbed "The Great
Prophet 2," began on Thursday and are to be carried out in the Gulf
waters, the Sea of Oman and 14 of the country's provinces.

· Germany says
Israel not respecting Lebanon airspace: BERLIN
(Reuters) - Israel is ignoring deals on the policing of Lebanese airspace and
is struggling to accept international peacekeepers in the region, a German
deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying on Saturday. "That
Israel is still trying to control the airspace over Lebanon despite the
international presence of French, Italian and other soldiers, runs contrary
to every agreement," Gernot Erler told the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Sonntagszeitung. "The Israelis have so far rejected every
internationalization of their security. But this is now happening with the
UNIFIL mission. It's evidently something the Israeli armed forces take some
getting used to."
· Israeli troops
open fire on Palestinian women outside mosque: Two
Palestinian women were killed and another 10 were reported wounded when
Israeli forces today opened fire on a group preparing to act as a human
shield for militants in a Gaza mosque.

The scene near
a mosque in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun after Israeli troops opened fire on
a group of Palestinian women, killing one of them and injuring 10 others. The
mosque had been the scene of an Israeli siege after a group of men, presumed
to be armed, took refuge there. Photograph: Suhaib Salem/Reuters
· Baptist
convention told: Muslims 'are here to take over our country’: CAPE GIRARDEAU
—
The prophets of the Hebrew scriptures are known for their warnings of doom
and gloom, but even Jeremiah — arguably the gloomiest Old Testament sage — would
have tipped his hat to the Rev. David Clippard at the Missouri Baptist
Convention's annual meeting here this week.
· Chinese banks
see profits surge: BEIJING - Six publicly
listed Chinese banks unveiled better assets quality and greatly improved
profitability in their quarterly reports in spite of a moderate rise in bad
loans in some banks. The listed banks reported an average profit growth of
nearly 30% in the first three quarters of the year. Bank of China (BOC),
which is listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong, led the listed banks in a net
profit of 32.4 billion yuan (US$4.1 billion) in the first three quarters.
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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)
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“People should not be afraid of their government.
Governments should be afraid of their people.”

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