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AS THE WORLD SQUIRMS
Wednesday - January 31, 2007
ARCHIVE
Cheney's
Handwritten Notes Implicate Bush in Plame Affair Wednesday
31 January 2007 (Excerpt) Copies of handwritten notes by Vice
President Dick Cheney, introduced at trial by defense attorneys for former
White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, would appear to
implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case. Bush has long maintained that he was
unaware of attacks by any member of his administration against [former
ambassador Joseph] Wilson. The ex-envoy's stinging rebukes of the
administration's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence led Libby and other White
House officials to leak Wilson's wife's covert CIA status to reporters in July
2003 in an act of retaliation. But Cheney's notes, which were
introduced into evidence Tuesday during Libby's perjury and
obstruction-of-justice trial, call into question the truthfulness of
President Bush's vehement denials about his prior knowledge of the attacks
against Wilson. The revelation that Bush may have
known all along that there was an effort by members of his office to
discredit the former ambassador begs the question: Was the president also
aware that senior members of his administration compromised Valerie Plame's
undercover role with the CIA? Further, the highly explicit nature
of Cheney's comments not only hints at a rift between Cheney and Bush over
what Cheney felt was the scapegoating of Libby, but also raises serious
questions about potentially criminal actions by Bush. If
Bush did indeed play an active role in encouraging Libby to take the fall to
protect Karl Rove, as Libby's lawyers articulated in their opening
statements, then that could be viewed as criminal involvement by Bush.  The Crime Of
The Century
The Failure of
America as a Moral Force
January 30,
2007 (Excerpt) President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq is the greatest crime of the
21st century. Armed with a powerful moral case against
Bush, whose lies are responsible for a war that has caused thousands of US
casualties and killed vast numbers of Iraqi civilians, Democratic leaders are
damning Bush’s war because it did not
succeed! The Bush
Regime lied and fabricated "evidence" that was used to
deceive Congress, the American people, and the United Nations. The vice
president of the United States and the National Security Advisor created
public images of mushroom clouds going up over American cities
unless Iraq was invaded and Saddam Hussein’s terrible weapons of mass
destruction were destroyed. At the time
that these absurd claims were being made, experts knew that they were false. Today everyone knows that
the claims were lies. The invasion of Iraq under false
pretenses comprises solid grounds for impeaching both Bush and Cheney and for
turning them over to the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague. Under the
Nuremburg standard, to commit unprovoked aggression is a war crime. Among the
consequences of Bush’s monstrous war crime are the deaths
of tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, the destruction of Iraqi
civilian infrastructure, the outbreak of civil war between Iraqi Sunnis and
Shi’ites, the spreading of this sectarian conflict throughout the
Middle East and the consequent destabilization of the region. Try to
imagine all the lives, careers, hopes, and families that Bush has destroyed.
Try to image the fate of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees, the
departure of educated and skilled Iraqis from Iraq, the ultimate horror of
civil war that is only beginning. Official US
casualties (dead, wounded, and maimed) at time of writing total 26,194.
Experts have estimated the cost of the invasion and attempted occupation to
be in excess of the enormous sum of 1,000 billion dollars. 
Bush, Merkel and Blair: 'Jealousy' [Guardian Unlimited, U.K.] Bush 'Spoiling
for a Fight With Iran’ “..as was
also the case in the days before Saddam Hussein fell, powerful external
forces, ranging from exiled Iranian opposition groups to leading Israeli
politicians, appear intent on stoking the fire - and winding up the White
House.” Simon
Tisdall (Excerpt)
US officials in Baghdad and Washington
are expected to unveil a secret intelligence "dossier" this week
detailing evidence of Iran's alleged complicity in attacks on American troops
in Iraq. The
move, uncomfortably echoing Downing Street's dossier debacle in the run-up to
the 2003 Iraq invasion, is one more sign that the Bush administration is
building a case for war. 
Julius Hansen,Horsens Folkeblad, Denmark
“Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful
and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure
wind.” ~George Orwell~
Incomplete,
Contradictory Information on So-called Najaf Cultists' Raises Questions US 'victory'
against cult leader was 'massacre'
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
The Independent – UK
Published: 31 January 2007(Excerpt) There are
growing suspicions in Iraq that the official story of the battle outside Najaf
between a messianic Iraqi cult and the Iraqi security forces supported by the
US, in which 263 people were killed and 210 wounded, is a fabrication. The
heavy casualties may be evidence of an unpremeditated massacre. A picture
is beginning to emerge of a clash between an Iraqi Shia tribe on a pilgrimage
to Najaf and an Iraqi army checkpoint that led the US to intervene with
devastating effect. The involvement of Ahmed al-Hassani (also known as Abu
Kamar), who believed himself to be the coming Mahdi, or Messiah, appears to
have been accidental. The story
emerging on independent Iraqi websites and in Arabic newspapers is entirely
different from the government's account of the battle with the so-called
"Soldiers of Heaven", planning a raid on Najaf to kill Shia
religious leaders. The cult
denied it was involved in the fighting, saying it was a peaceful movement.
The incident reportedly began when a procession of 200 pilgrims was on its
way, on foot, to celebrate Ashura in Najaf. They came from the Hawatim tribe,
which lives between Najaf and Diwaniyah to the south, and arrived in the
Zarga area, one mile from Najaf at about 6am on Sunday. Heading the
procession was the chief of the tribe, Hajj Sa'ad Sa'ad Nayif al-Hatemi, and
his wife driving in their 1982 Super Toyota sedan because they could not
walk. When they reached an Iraqi army checkpoint it opened fire, killing Mr
Hatemi, his wife and his driver, Jabar Ridha al-Hatemi. The tribe, fully armed
because they were travelling at night, then assaulted the checkpoint to
avenge their fallen chief.  US Troops Massacre Babylon
‘Gate-Keepers’ In Iraq Sorcha Faal, (as reported to her Western Subscribers) Russia 1.31.07
(Excerpt)
Russian Military Analysts are
reporting today that the United States Military Leaders ordered the massacre
of one of Shiite Muslims most Holy, and mysterious, sects known as the ‘Gate Keepers’ of Babylon. We have reported many times on
the strange American preoccupation of the ancient Iraqi city of Babylon,
including our April 16, 2006 report titled "Mysterious
‘Ritual’ Performed By United
States Military Forces In Babylon Raises Concerns Of Muslim And Russian
Orthodox Religious Leaders" In this latest massacre,
according to these reports, the decision by the ‘highest’ US Military Leaders to completely annihilate the ‘Soldiers of Heaven’ during the Shiite Muslims most Holy day of the year was due to
the growing American worries associated with the underground complexes
discovered under Babylon during the Saddam Hussein regime and which the Iraqi
dictator refused to allow US scientists to investigate. Though being portrayed to the
American public by their propaganda media organs as a ‘Great Victory’, European news sources are reporting
the closer truth of these events, and as we can read as reported by Britain’s Independent News Service in their article titled "US 'victory' against cult leader was 'massacre'… 
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