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The white-Left Part 1: The two meanings of white

Monday, November 5, 2007

The Jerusalem Post Lies

I went to the Jerusalem Post looking for the story that said that Al Jazeera said that it was the USAF that bombed Syria September 6th. I got sidetracked by this article:

Preventing World War III

In it columnist Caroline Glick claims that in 2005 elBaradei said that Iran could produce a nuclear bomb in "a few months." I was struck by that claim and decided to follow it up. I have quoted the relevant part of her article below.

Take for example the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency Muhammad elBaradei's recent remarks on the subject. Speaking to ,i>Le Monde on Monday, elBaradei asserted that it will take Iran between three to eight years to acquire a nuclear arsenal. Consequently, he argued, there is no reason to consider conducting a military strike against Teheran's program. There is still plenty of time for diplomacy, or sanctions or even incentives for the ayatollahs, he said.


ElBaradei's statement is only interesting when it is compared to a statement he made in December 2005 to the Independent. Back then Baradei's view was that Iran was just "a few months" away from producing atomic bombs. But then too he saw no reason to attack. As he put it when he warned that Iran was on the precipice of nuclear weapons, using force would just "open Pandora's box." "There would be efforts to isolate Iran; Iran would retaliate, and at the end of the day, you have to go back to the negotiation table to find the solution," elBaradei warned.


The Jerusalem Post 25 October 2007

No doubt this is an excerpt from The Independent article to which she refers:

But he warned that if Iran carries out a threat to reopen its mothballed Natanz underground enrichment plant, a dangerous escalation will ensue, and raise fresh questions about Iran's insistence that its nuclear intentions are peaceful. "If they start enriching this is a major issue and a serious concern for the international community," he said.

Although IAEA officials have said it would take at least two years for Natanz to become fully operational, Mr ElBaradei believes that once the facility is up and running, the Iranians could be "a few months" away from a nuclear weapon. "That's why there is the concern of the international community about Iran," he said, "because lots of people feel it could be a dual purpose programme".


The Independent, 05 December 2005


So what elBaradei really said was that if the Iranians opened a closed enrichment plant, and ran it for at least two years, they would be "a few months" away from a nuclear weapon. In other words, in December 2005 elBaradei said that the Iranian were at least two years and a few months away from a bomb on a clock that hadn't even started running yet and this the Jerusalem Post represents as him saying that the Iranian were, two years ago, only a few months from the bomb on a clock that was already running.

This is a complete misrepresentation of what elBaradei told The Independent, in short it is a lie. A falsehood like this shows a complete lack of journalist ethics on the part of the the Jerusalem Post. That would be true and bad enough if done on any subject, but this lie is much, much worst because it is being done to promote a war and the mass murder of Iranians.

If we can't trust the Jerusalem Post to accurately represent easily checked [by English readers] articles from The Independent, how much creditability can we give to their presentation of something from an Arabic only website?

Sunday, October 28, 2007

[This Week: Sen. John McCain] These Guys Are Nuts!

This Sunday on ABC News This Week Presidential candidate Senator John McCain told George Stephanopoulos his take on Bush's most recent threats against Iran. He said

"If you make threats, you have to make sure you carry them out."

Bush threatens World War III and McCain wants to start it!!! These guys are nuts! They are looking for the rapture. God help us if we leave them in power.

Friday, September 28, 2007

BENT SPEAR: Were Missing Nukes Head for Iran

According to Wayne Madsen the story about six Air Force nukes that went 'missing' on Aug. 30th, the story first broke by Military Times here and discussed on the Daily Kos here, the so-called BENT SPEAR story, is just the tip of a very chilling conspiracy. According to WMR these nukes were headed for Iran. They were to be used in a massive U.S. air strike against Iran set to coincide with the September 6th Israeli air strike on Syria. The U.S. part in these plans was derailed by push back with in the Air Force and the U.S. Intelligence community, the BENT SPEAR story is just what bubbled to the surface in the Media. Wayne Madsen writes:

Air Force refused to fly weapons (nukes) to Middle East theater [FREE]
By Wayne Madsen Sept. 24, 2007 Author's website


WMR has learned from U.S. and foreign intelligence sources that the B-52 transporting six stealth AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles, each armed with a W-80-1 nuclear warhead, on August 30, were destined for the Middle East via Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

However, elements of the Air Force, supported by U.S. intelligence agency personnel, successfully revealed the ultimate destination of the nuclear weapons and the mission was aborted due to internal opposition within the Air Force and U.S. Intelligence Community.

Yesterday, the Washington Post attempted to explain away the fact that America's nuclear command and control system broke down in an unprecedented manner by reporting that it was the result of "security failures at multiple levels." It is now apparent that the command and control breakdown, reported as a BENT SPEAR incident to the Secretary of Defense and White House, was not the result of a command and control chain-of-command "failures" but the result of a revolt and push back by various echelons within the Air Force and intelligence agencies against a planned U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and conventional weapons.

The Washington Post story on BENT SPEAR may have actually been an effort in damage control by the Bush administration. WMR has been informed by a knowledgeable source that one of the six nuclear-armed cruise missiles was, and may still be, unaccounted for. In that case, the nuclear reporting incident would have gone far beyond BENT SPEAR to a National Command Authority alert known as EMPTY QUIVER, with the special classification of PINNACLE.

Just as this report was being prepared, Newsweek reported that Vice President Dick Cheney's recently-departed Middle East adviser, David Wurmser, told a small group of advisers some months ago that Cheney had considered asking Israel to launch a missile attack on the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz. Cheney reasoned that after an Iranian retaliatory strike, the United States would have ample reasons to launch its own massive attack on Iran. However, plans for Israel to attack Iran directly were altered to an Israeli attack on a supposed Syrian-Iranian-North Korean nuclear installation in northern Syria.

WMR has learned that a U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and conventional weapons was scheduled to coincide with Israel's September 6 air attack on a reputed Syrian nuclear facility in Dayr az-Zwar, near the village of Tal Abyad, in northern Syria, near the Turkish border. Israel's attack, code named OPERATION ORCHARD, was to provide a reason for the U.S. to strike Iran. The neo- conservative propaganda onslaught was to cite the cooperation of the George Bush's three remaining "Axis of Evil" states -- Syria, Iran, and North Korea -- to justify a sustained Israeli attack on Syria and a massive U.S. military attack on Iran.

WMR has learned from military sources on both sides of the Atlantic that there was a definite connection between Israel's OPERATION ORCHARD and BENT SPEAR involving the B-52 that flew the six nuclear- armed cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale. There is also a connection between these two events as the Pentagon's highly-classified PROJECT CHECKMATE, a compartmented U.S. Air Force program that has been working on an attack plan for Iran since June 2007, around the same time that Cheney was working on the joint Israeli-U.S. attack scenario on Iran.

PROJECT CHECKMATE was leaked in an article by military analyst Eric Margolis in the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, the Times of London, is a program that involves over two dozen Air Force officers ...

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Bill O'Reilly on the Fascist DailyKos [Video]

FYI: On Monday's Talking Points Fox News Billy O'Reilly starts out talking about the fascist Ahmadinejad and ends up talking about the fascist Daily Kos. Obviously Ahmadinejad is a fascist because Bush needs to attack Iran next and what better way to vilify the leader of a country you want to make war on than to compare him to Hitler? But what makes the Daily Kos fascist? Is it just because everyone is not signing up for the next war?

I also love the hypocrisy of O'Reilly and these other right wing nuts when they jump on Ahmadinejad for his homophobic denial and in the same commentary they jump on Bollinger for not letting ROTC on Columbia's campus, never mentioning that it's ROTC's homophobic attitudes that are keeping it off the campus.

Bill Clinton Rips GOP, Defends MoveOn [Video]

This is the best thing I've seen Bill do in a while. He can really be quite good when he get his blood up. In an interview on CNN's Anderson Coopers 360 Bill Clinton gripped into the Republicans for their hypocrisy in attacking the MoveOn.org Petraaus ad.

I could give you a transcript or a description but here's the video:

Monday, September 24, 2007

Ahmadinejad @ Columbia: the Video

No wonder those that are beating the war drums against Iran didn't want Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak any place American might hear him. Thanks to Columbia University and CPAN he was heard by many. He sounds entirely too reasonable. Hearing his own word doesn't help the cause of demonizing him as a madman and the most recent Hitler. This is someone we definitely should be talking to. so in the interest of promoting peace and knowledge, I present these short excerpts from his talk at Columbia University today.
Excerpts for Ahmadinejad Speech


Excerpts from Q & A


Friday, September 21, 2007

Fox News: The Mark Fuhrman Tapes

I am so sick of a Media that subjects us to 'OJ II' while Blackwater declares hunting season in Iraq. I find it absolutely outrageous that Fox News hires the likes of Mark Fuhrman as a commentator. Since we all are being subjected to this crap, I thought it was a good time to remind the world just what type of person Mark Fuhrman is and just what sort of lowlifes the LAPD and Fox News are willing to associate with. Here's a little video I put together to honor the Jenna Six.

The Fuhrman Tapes: Race and the LAPD


I think the Fuhrman revelations, especially the taped interviews he had with Laura McKinny between 1985-1994, were the most important thing to come out of the whole sorry Simpson trial saga. They revealed not a rogue policeman, which is how the Media tried to play it, but a rogue and very racist LAPD. Note Fuhrman's words "We were tight. I mean we could have murdered people and got away with it. We were tight. We all knew what to say. " It revealed an LAPD where the most outspoken racists were tolerated and even encouraged, the most offensive terms were generally used to refer to Black people. It showed a group of cops that regularly arrested people on false charges, fabricated evidence and committed brutality and even murder under color of authority. He didn't have to hide what they were doing. There was no Serpico around. He could be very open about it, even to the point of bragging about his exploits to the screen writer.
The Mark Fuhrman Tapes + Enhanced Version




The trial was broadcast by CNN, and that is when I had a chance to record these tapes. While they [transcripts] were played in court before the judge, they were never heard by the jury. They were never heard by most trial watchers either, thanks to suppression by the Media. I don't believe they were ever replayed substantially on TV after that morning court session. Even during the initial broadcast, CNN would generally be live through the boring procedural stuff and then run a bunch of commercials when the court got back to the tapes, so the public never got to hear much of it the first time. By the evening news cycle they had completely cleaned it up. A few of the tamer Fuhrman quotes were played and the myth was propagated that the whole dust up was simply that Mark had used the N-word and lied about it.

Not hardly! The heart of his evidence was not the "words", N or otherwise, it was the "sticks and stones." He bragged of committing murder in one of those interviews, and yes Virginia, there is a body. The Police departments own cover up, I mean follow up, MARK FUHRMAN TASK FORCE after the Simpson Trial identified 12 incidents from the tapes that they could connect to actual events, and they weren't even trying.

These tapes gave us a rare window into the real workings of the LAPD. This is a very good thing. This stuff came out in the Simpson trial because he had enough money to properly investigated the police that were investigating him, and because for a decade Fuhrman had the arrogance to commit his crimes to tape. The fact that they came out in the context of the Simpson trial was used to obscure them, but they should have been socially much more important than the verdict on OJ himself. They involved the accusation of misuse of violence, not by one man on one night, but by a state institution of thousands specifically entrusted with a monopoly on violence over a period of decades. Not only was the jury justified in finding 'reasonable doubt' in Fuhrman's story of how he found the bloody glove, every person that Fuhrman had a hand in sending to jail in the preceding decade should have gotten a new trial as well.

So for 13 years it has been on my very long 'to do" list to extract some essence from this generally very boring 6 hour VHS tape and put it in some modern electronic form, if for no other reason than to fill a void. While you may Google transcripts of the Fuhrman tapes at a number of places, I have not found any place on the Internet with actual bits of the audio before this and this stuff has to be heard to have the full impact it deserves. So now the Media is on another Simpson diversion and Fox News has the nerve to put Mark Fuhrman front and center as a respectable commentator. So I figure what better time to take this off my to do list. This one is a little better than the first one I posted.

You know it's just possible that OJ is guilty and the police planted the evidence. They're not above planting evidence on a suspect they know to be guilty.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Why Wait For Petraeus?

No need to wait for the General Petraeus report on the Iraq War. You already
know what it is going to say. So just replay these fall reports from the
generals of another war 40 years ago.

Remember these statement were made just months before the Tet Offensive hit the Man.



GENERAL WESTMORELAND: Very very encouraged. I've never been more encouraged during my entire, almost four years in this country. I think we're making real progress. Everybody is very optimistic that I know of, who is intimately associated with our effort there.

GENERAL EARLE WHEELER (Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff): We feel that on the military side there has been substantial progress over the past two years, that in the last six months, the progress has been even more rapid than in the 18 months before that.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Maliki Should Worry

If I were Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki, I'd be more than a little concerned that George Bush is starting to draw lessons from the Vietnam War. In the early part of the Vietnam War Ngo Dinh Diem was "our man in Saigon" but by late '63 he was viewed as ineffective by many and a liability by the White House, more or less the way Maliki is now. Diem's fate has important health implications for Maliki. The White House had him murdered. [20 sec. video]


It is a rare thing to actually hear a U.S. President admit to participation in murder, but that is eactly what President Lyndon Johnson does in a very frank November 1, 1966 discussion with Eugene Carthy:

"They started on me with Diem, you remember, He was corrupt and he ought to be killed.' So we killed him. We all got together and got a goddamn bunch of thugs and assassinated him. Now, we've really had no political stability since then."

Sunday, August 26, 2007

BushNam

Some of us have been saying from the beginning that the Iraq War would become another Vietnam War. After years of being in a "State of Denial", our President now agrees, as he draws the parallels in his own speeches.

But he was dead wrong to say we were not involved in the War in Vietnam in 1955. Roosevelt was against returning the French to Vietnam after WW2, but Truman helped the French back in. Eisenhower paid 80% of the French effort and sent "advisors." Kennedy sent 16,000 and LBJ upped the ante to half a million. Then there was Nixon, who among other things, expanded the war to Cambodia, and in doing so created the "killing fields" that Mr. Bush tries to blame on the Vietnamese. Well they all look the same to him.


The point is that it took the work of five presidents, both Democratic and Republican, to create that fiasco. George Bush can take full create for this one, which is why we call it BushNam. Of course Mr. Bush puts his own spin on this. He is much more of a Vietnam Revisionist than he is a Christian. Well George, We strongly disagree. You will be no more successful at rewriting the history of the Vietnam War than you have been in prosecuting the Iraq War. Truth will out, and facts are stubborn things! Those sayings are platitudes because they are true. The Iraq War is not yet anywhere near the disaster that the Vietnam War was but it can't end too soon. It is now well documented that we killed between 3.4 and 5 million souls in Vietnam, by the most ambitious accounts, less than a million have died in this war - so far.
So for those that never lived the Vietnam War, and for those that coulduse a refresher course, we offer Vietnam: American Holocaust [ 81 minute video ] and a number of clips from it.

And to all the comparisons that both we and now you have made between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War, Mr. Bush, we would like to add one more:
George Bush had a plan for getting out of Vietnam!
Mr. Bush also spoke of parallels with the Korean War, and in that spirit we offer this little tune. It was first heard among U.S. troops in the Korean War, became very popular during the Vietnam War, and as witnessed in the video "Ground Truth" This version was recorded by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam in 1968.[MP3 Here!]
Strafe the Town and Kill the People

Strafe the town and kill the people
Let's declare a massacre.
Lay napalm in the square,
So you'll know that Jake was there

Drop the candy in the courtyard,
Let the kiddies gather 'round.
Crank your twenty-millimeter,
Gun the little bastards down.

Come 'round early Sunday morning,
Catch the village unaware.
Drop a bunch of cluster bomblets,
Get 'em while they kneel in prayer.
Tune: Wake the Town and Tell the People
VietCong BluesAmerican soldiers in Vietnam were often put in the position of killing a lot innocent Vietnamese. This is how it happened and what it looked like. From Vietnam: American Holocaust. [04:54]Bombing VietnamRolling Thunder was the name of one the most murderous bombing campaigns in history. During the Vietnam War more tons of bombs were dropped on that tiny country than were dropped by all parties in World War II. It is responsible for most of the killing. [08:39]
Tonkin IncidentPresident Johnson used an alleged attack by North Vietnamese gun boats on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin to greatly escalate the American War in Vietnam, but the attack never happened. [07:18]Rape & Murder in the Vietnam WarThis testimony from the Vietnam Veterans Against the War's Winter Soldier Hearing was used in Vietnam: American Holocaust. [03:00]
History of Conflict Vietnam struggled for it's independence for a thousand years before it was won in 1975. This is a brief history of this struggle with a focus on American involvement. [08:14]Helicopter KillingVietnam was the first helicopter war and that is how much of the killing was done. [04:55]
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