posted 01-23-2003 02:17 AM            

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posted 01-23-2003 10:30 PM            

"Human Shields" for Saddam
By Anne Kingston
The National Post | January 23, 2003

As one would reasonably expect, Grace Trevett's children are heartsick about their mother's intention to travel to Baghdad to become a "human shield." The 45-year-old mother of four is part of the latest convoy of British anti-war protestors on its way to Iraq. When they arrive, they'll join hundreds of other prospective human shields who plan to position themselves in front of potential Allied targets in a bid to forestall war.

Becoming a human shield has become the most extreme expression of fulminating anti-war sentiment. It's the protest gesture du jour, what the fashionable Western militant is up to this season now that anti-globalization seems so year 2000.

But, as is the case with many such trends, the underlying logic motivating the human shield movement is somewhat faulty, as an interview Trevett gave to The Sunday Telegraph on the weekend makes abundantly clear. "I am doing this to drive home the point that my life is equal to that of an Iraqi civilian," she said. "In order to make that point properly, I have to be prepared to die for my principles."

Now were Trevett about to embark on a trading-places program in which an Iraqi mother of four and her children travel safety to Stroud, Gloucestershire, in exchange for her presence in Iraq, perhaps her self-sacrifice would be understandable, even noble.

But her blithe willingness to sacrifice her life, and to leave her children motherless, to protest a war she disagrees with would suggest she considers the life of an Iraqi citizen worth very little indeed. It's even more baffling given her recent battle with cancer. "I faced the fragility of life and I came through with tremendous gratitude," she said.

So let's get this straight: To express gratitude for being alive, she's willing to die? Or does her confidence heading off to Baghdad stem from a sense of Western entitlement? Does she, like other Western human shields, not understand that she's taking a huge risk, one that will potentially create even more collateral damage and confusion in an already horrible landscape?

Probably not. Implicit in the human-shield gesture is the misbegotten faith that U.S.-led forces will not rain bombs down on their own -- that the "us" they represent will hold more sway than the "them" that is the Iraqi population.

This kind of moral hubris was best articulated by Cliff Kindy, an organizer for Christian Peacemakers, a group that has been active gathering seniors from Canada and U.S. to act as human shields. "You get about 500 grandmas and grandpas from around the world and you scatter them around Iraq and dare the U.S. to bomb them," Kindy told The Chicago Tribune. "That would give them a collective moral authority."

Establishing moral authority, rather than actually aiding Iraqi people, would appear to be the human shields' priority. For all of the talk of being equal to oppressed Iraqis, Kindy's comment makes clear that he believes the life of a few non-Iraqi grandpas and grandmas is of far more value.

What makes the human shields' naïveté particularly dangerous, however, is that, for all of their good intentions, they're protecting Saddam's regime rather than the Iraqi people. The shields, of course, will argue otherwise -- that their solidarity is with Iraqi civilians, a group that has been battered by decades of war and international sanctions and which deserves no further anguish. So why is it then that it's the Iraqi dictatorship -- one well- practised in employing its citizens, as well as Western hostages, as unwilling human shields -- that's so delighted by the Western human shield influx? They're laying on the red-carpet treatment, meeting Western human shields at the border and ferrying them to designated sites.

At these sites, paradoxically, the Western shields will share space with a growing number of Arab militants being sent there to purposefully defend Iraqi institutions. The contrast between these two groups would be laughable were the situation not so potentially calamitous.

The Western familiarity with human shield protest derives from tame and successful examples of activists using the technique to protest cruelty to animals or logging, whereas the Arab experience is that the human shield is an utterly expendable construct.

posted 01-24-2003 04:39 PM            

"Papers reportedly smuggled out of Iraq, document Saddam Hussein's secret battle plans. They include the use of chemical weapons against U.S. and British troops, as well as attacking our ships in the Gulf."

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) -- President Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday has warned the United States of huge losses and a calamity worse than the September 11 attacks if it goes ahead with plans to invade Iraq.

"It is better for them (the Americans) to keep themselves away from us," Uday was quoted as saying on Thursday night by al-Shabab (Youth) television which he owns.

"Because if they come, September 11 which they are crying over and see as a big thing will be a real picnic for them, God willing," Uday said, referring to suicide hijacker attacks in New York and Washington which killed about 3,000 people in 2001.

"They will be hurt and pay a price they will never imagine," he added, repeating similar comments in an editorial in Thursday's Babel daily, which Uday also owns.

posted 01-24-2003 11:20 PM            

January 20, 2003

U.N. Uncovers Proof of Iraq's Nuclear Bomb Plans
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/01/19/wirq19.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/01/19/ixnewstop.html

Don't you find it curious why our side of the pond isn't reporting some of the biggest news? A lot of news that you would think supports the U.S position to invade Iraq isn't being heard on major news networks here. I've heard it at rushlimbaugh, and seanhannity , infowars.com and glennbeck.com but no "mainstream" media sources. Embarrassing or not to some of our so called allies (France and Germany) this should be "news" if news were not censored and we have free press in this country. (it is and we don’t)

Another example this week... Did you happen to hear Sean Hannity's program today? Watch Hannity and Colmes on Monday. Sean says he’s not going to let this story die, he will do an exclusive on TV with the UN inspector who was part of the team in 1998 exposing France's inspector. He is going public with proof that France gave Iraq the list of inspection sites during the last UN inspection go 'round. According to his interview today they not only caught him rifling through a desk where he did not belong but after that they set the French guy up with fake lists of inspection sites that he passed along to the Iraqis, on more than one occasion. That is just part of it.

I know you don't subscribe to the globalist elitist plot of a NWO that is an ugly reality for some of us. But you have been open minded in the past so I'm asking you to stew on this particular development as it unfolds.

There is a NWO takeover planned to usurp our sovereignty. Ask yourself why the US government hasn’t been making hay with the facts that seem to support our position. Add to that the nuclear papers that have been reported in Reuters we hear nothing about. There are those within our own government both right and left who are involved, painful as that is to realize.

Unlike Mech I’m not convinced many of these people are aware of the part they play in the so called Grand Chessboard. I think most are misguided and pawns. Don’t let your disdain for Mech or me or anyone else be a reason to pull back from the truth. (or from your current understanding what may very well be the truth)You're not expected to take my word for it nor is anyone, but keep an open mind and look further. When you think you've drawn a conclusion keep looking.

I don’t think you are a shill or anything like the names that you have been called around here. (anymore than I think Mech is an anarchist) I think, like I once was, you are a dyed in the wool conservative who really believes that it’s the liberals that are destroying our country through moral relativism, humanism and good ole fashioned stupidity. You’re right, they are. The irony is that so are many self proclaimed conservatives. It’s not about left or right, (that’s the good cop /bad cop routine) Our constitution is in tatters and the globalist one world government types are to blame. Executive orders have made an end run around Congress and our constitution, can't you see that? Have you actually read any of these executive orders? Research the last twenty years or so of them for yourself or email me and I’ll send you links to the most overreaching ones. Have you even looked into the Federal Reserve set up and the bogus fiat currency we’re using, the international bankers that just happen to always be there financing both sides? The same are there now and they were there for every major conflict or war that either you or I can ever remember.

In some of your previous posts you seem to be reluctant to accept things that are not reported on CNN, FOX or the like. I used to be that way too until about two years ago. Once I started reading Reuters, IP and AP for myself instead of what is editorially filtered, things really cleared up in a hurry. Just try it for a couple of months T/S you’ll be amazed.
If you've got a few minutes check out the last post I made here about the top conspiracy theories of 2002. Don't just read them and brush it off. Reasearch them for yourself. http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000919-2.html

posted 01-24-2003 11:39 PM            

>>>There is a NWO takeover planned to usurp our sovereignty. Ask yourself why the US government hasn’t been making hay with the facts that seem to support our position<<<

anyone of a number of reasons...the east coast and west would be easy to take over because most are liberals do not own a gun and as long as they keep their pay checks what in a name right U.S U.N ? Between those east and west boundries the middle part of the country, specifically the southern part...there is no way that a UN NWO take over will ever happen...period...

kook there's folks down here still pissed that the north invaded the south...do you get my meaning ? much less a bunch of foreigners...lol...

I did blow through the 10 blankety blanks of 2002 but I did read them and still 90% is unverified bullocks...the 10% is the names and dates are correct...

my main point is unless you have all the media in on the NWO take over then why has not one liberal left-wing geek went after bush, and cheney ? that the war was planned before 9-11 and the opium fields rstore for evil intent and the pipeline due to enron colapsing and they did so what good was the war ? and some of the 19 terrorist are alive !

my God if I was a journalism I'd be on some of this like flies on shit....

unless that is what it is...bullshit...

I appreciate your post kooks...sorry to be snippy but my oldest has the flu I'm coming down with it and it's time to rest...

posted 01-25-2003 09:09 AM            

Read the front and back flap and the first few pages here...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail /-/1573929727/ref=lib_dp_TFCV/104-9649622-2199942?v=glance&s=books&vi=reader#reader-link

Here's one review:

In a November, 1992 expose on illegal practices being carried out by supermarket chains on Prime Time Live, reporters working undercover at Food Lion outlets documented instances of "…employees repackaging and re-dating fish, grinding expired beef with fresh beef, and applying barbeque sauce to old chicken to mask the smell."(p61) Food Lion soon filed suit against ABC News and after a costly court battle, won a $1 symbolic settlement from the news organization. Other news divisions, suddenly afraid of broadcasting stories critical of big business began to pull inflammatory stories from their programs for fear that they might lose costly and time-consuming cases defending their (at this time still constitutional) right to report. In the end, the case stands as a landmark ruling in favor of corporate interests at the expense of the public good.

This is just one of the stories mentioned in editor Kristina Borjesson's illuminating yet uneven collection of essays, Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press. With almost one voice the essays contained here contend that the modern news business -- where the emphasis on the bottom line has almost trumped the traditional sanctity of the byline -- has become just that: a business. Given the current spate of media mergers which has resulted in corporations folding news departments into their entertainment divisions, news outlets have in effect become just another form of entertainment. This trend is most evident in local television news programs, which have begun to look more and more like slightly less splashy versions of Access Hollywood than traditional news programming.

Given this backdrop, Buzzsaw stands a timely and quite unnerving book. The impetus for the book arose when Borjesson, who is an Emmy and Murrow Award winning investigative reporter had her own brush with censorship in 1996 when she found herself in the middle of an investigation of the TWA flight 800 crash off the coast of Long Island.

Assigned to cover the story for CBS, Borjesson quickly stumbled upon a series of red flags that should have tipped off any curious reporter. The fact that the military wouldn't allow the NYPD dive team access to the area for almost three days after the crash, and when they did, only allowed them to search certain areas for remains. Or the so-called "30-knot clip" -- a blip on recorded images of radar screens that shows a large surface vessel moving at a high rate of speed away from the area right after the plane erupted in a ball of flames and crashed. In addition, numerous credible witnesses from the Long Island shore who went un-interviewed (or dismissed when interviewed) claim to have seen something rise from the surface of the ocean and explode just before they saw the plane come apart and plunge into the water.

The final straw came one evening when Borjesson and fellow investigator Kelly O'Meara left some crucial evidence pointing to a government cover-up in the trunk of Borjesson's car. What happened next is the stuff of pulp spy-thriller fare: "The next morning, we went to the car, and O'Meara opened the trunk. Everything was there, except for the TWA 800 documents and O'Meara's computer. The trunk lock itself looked untouched and worked perfectly. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these things do happen in the United States of America. I would never have believed it if I hadn't experienced it myself."(p132)

There is almost too much evidence Borjesson produces in favor of a government cover-up for the theory to be ignored, including a whistleblower being taken to court by the government for sneaking seat samples out of the recovery area which contained chemical traces consistent with rocket fuel residue, in direct refutation to the government's claim that the residue was simply industrial strength glue. But Borjesson was not alone. Contributing essayist and thirty-five year journalism veteran David E. Hendrix also tried to track down the facts of what really happened off the coast of Long Island that night, with no more success. In his essay he arrives at the same conclusion Borjesson, O'Meara and a few others who did their homework: In the face of so much evidence showing that it is likely that the U.S. Navy accidentally shot down TWA 800, why didn't more journalists chase down the many leads that supported this contention? Simple: editors were looking for a quick turnaround on the story. They simply parroted the government's version of the story and left it at that. As J. Robert Port says in his essay: "Some of our biggest, most trusted news organizations simply lack the courage, the will or the leadership to consistently do the work necessary to expose the truth about the most controversial subjects in our world…"(p207)

The title of the book might make one think that it's written by what we've come to know as "conspiracy nuts" - but nothing could be further from the truth. The essayists are producers, television anchors, editors at major dailies and award-winning columnists who have had stories killed, their contracts cancelled and have resigned in protest at their superiors' refusal to run factual stories critical of big business and government. They're an angry group, but to their credit they each manage to retain an air of professionalism and even-handedness when describing the injustices they and their colleagues have suffered. If there is one fault in the collection, it's in the number of essays, and the quality of a handful of them. Of the 18 pieces included, at least two or three could have been left out as they basically parrot what some of the more compelling pieces have to say, and as such don't really stand on their own legs.

Riveting essays by Michael Levine and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Gary Webb expose the complicated web of diverted funds and outright lies the CIA has perpetrated by moving narcotics into North America in order to fund its jaunts abroad. Levine was on the ground during the early days of the drug war in the 70's and 80's and recounts from personal experience instances where he was told he'd gone far enough in an investigation and that he should back off. Webb, who broke open the story about CIA involvement in the crack epidemic of the 80's in LA which soon spread around the country was eventually sacked by his newspaper because he refused to retract factual information that was in his story when pressure was put on his publishers.

These essays sure won't help you sleep at night, rife as they are with stories of cover-ups, lies, murder and little-known government reports detailing their own involvement in major crimes, but they are necessary. They are also very believable. It is next to impossible to know exactly what motivation someone has to write an essay of the sort you will find here, whether it be personal, professional or altruistic is up to each reader to judge for themselves, but there is an underlying thread of sincerity that runs throughout these pieces which give them an air of authority. At a time when our media outlets have "missed" stories such as massive corporate fraud being perpetrated against Americans by our largest corporations and seem to accept that our war on terror is going precisely as planned (according to Bush, Ridge, Ashcroft, etc), the book comes as a timely wake-up call to people interested in the truth, and just who is fashioning that truth.

Review by Paul McLeary

Hope you and your family are feeling better. (There's that damn sincerity again)

posted 01-25-2003 06:36 PM            

http://www.msnbc.com/news/753195.asp

posted 01-25-2003 07:54 PM            

You'll need realplayer to hear it.
Featured Guest: Kristina Borjesson
part 1 http://www.blackopradio.com/black106a.ram

part 2 http://www.blackopradio.com/black106b.ram

posted 01-27-2003 04:28 PM            

Iraq Nuke Evidence Found, American Media Buries, El Rushbo Unearths

January 20, 2003

It is just stunning and amazing that the United Nations weapons inspectors have uncovered evidence that proves Saddam Hussein is trying to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons, and no one in the American media cares. The US pointed them to the home of an Iraqi scientist, and the UN found the proof. This stuff was supposed to have been destroyed as part of all those old UN resolutions, but it's still around.



Yet this is not news. The New York Times, AP, UPI, Dan Rather and all the rest knew this happened – yet none of them reported it. I only learned about it because I found articles in the Total Stack of Stuff from the Telegraph of London and the UK Independent. Everybody uses this “smoking gun” talking point to say that if the inspectors don’t find anything, there’s no cause for war. Bull. We're having this build-up and talk about assassinating Saddam for a reason.

I linked to the headlines below, and it’s as if there’s a concerted effort not to report this huge document find. Sunday’s Washington Post: “Iraqi Scientist Accused UN of Mafia Tactics.” It worries about how they grabbed the documents, as if this scientist should have had Miranda rights, but there’s nothing about the documents! CBS downplays it too, and I have to ask: if the British papers can pursue the contents of these documents, why can't the American news agencies? Why are our papers clinging to anything that would downplay the significance of this? It really makes me scratch my head.

posted 01-27-2003 06:20 PM            

yes yes...the media does serve itself quite well...and I agree you have to look for the truth sometimes...at credible sources...for example there's 6500 tons of chemical weapons flying around in iraq somewhere...and some news orgs and *stars* want peace and mech wants peace too...

but noooo all that poison is not a potential problem in the hands of a madman a proven killer is it mech !

let's just all sit around in a circle, hold hands and wish saddam good vibes...while we breathe deep the gathering gloom....

drudge said last night saddam's family are transfering money, selling property and liquidating assets....

saddam dumped 6 billion barrels of oil into the persian gulf last time which made the exxon valdiz look like a ketchup stain and set 700 oil fields on fire...he will do it again because he is evil and must be destroyed...

snippets from blix's report....

During my recent discussions in Baghdad, Iraq declared that it would make new efforts in this regard and has set up a committee of investigation. Since then, it has reported that it has found four chemical rockets at a storage depot in al-Haji. I might further mention that inspectors have found at another site a laboratory quantity of ... a mustard [gas] precursor.

Iraq has declared that it had repaired chemical processing equipment previously destroyed under UNSCOM supervision and had installed it at Fallujah for the production of chlorine and phenols. We have inspected this equipment and are conducting a detailed technical evaluation of it. On completion, we will decide whether this and other equipment that has been recovered by Iraq should be destroyed.

turn to biological weapons. I mention the issue of anthrax to the council on previous occasions, and I come back to it as it is an important one. Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 liters of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared and that at least some of this was retained over the declared destruction date. It might still exist.

Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was indeed destroyed in 1991.

As I reported to the council on the 19th of December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kilos, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as reported in Iraq's submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999. As a part of its 7 December 2002 declaration Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate, as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.

In the letter of 24th of January this year to the president of the Security Council, Iraq's foreign minister stated that, I quote, "All imported quantities of growth media were declared." This is not evidence. I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 liters of concentrated anthrax.

posted 01-27-2003 06:26 PM            

Funny. According to my sources the UN stated Iraq is cooperating but they aren't satisfied yet. Translation= MORE TIME.

I am 100% CERTAIN Iraq can't hit us and they are pathetically impotent compared to say...PAKISTAN.

posted 01-27-2003 06:36 PM            

I think everyday should be attack mech day....

you don't buy it because your bias...and that is your achilles heel....missles ain't the only way to spread chemicals...

I predict after the state of the union address support for the war with iraq will approach the low 70's...

and mech just mosey on down to the mall like sears and watch it there.....