Some oldies, but worth checking again in the light of current events!

The Lies Of The Century
Any government that desires to initiate a war usually lies to their people to create the illusion that support for the war is the only possible choice they can make.
Click here - highly recommended!
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/lieofthecentury.html


Blair and Howard could face charges over Iraq - lawyer
Video and transcript.
Philippe Sands, QC, director of the Centre for International Courts and Tribunals at University College London, said Mr Howard, along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair could face charges amid claims the Iraq war was illegal. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9171.htm


Hyping Terror For Fun, Profit - And Power
By Thom Hartmann

What if there really was no need for much - or even most - of the Cold War? What if, in fact, the Cold War had been kept alive for two decades based on phony WMD threats?

What if, similarly, the War On Terror was largely a scam, and the administration was hyping it to seem larger-than-life? What if our "enemy" represented a real but relatively small threat posed by rogue and criminal groups well outside the mainstream of Islam? What if that hype was done largely to enhance the power, electability, and stature of George W. Bush and Tony Blair?

And what if the world was to discover the most shocking dimensions of these twin deceits - that the same men promulgated them in the 1970s and today?

It happened.

You can find the complete text of the above article at:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1207-26.htm

(Published on Tuesday, December 7, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
But be forewarned: You'll never see political reality - and certainly never hear the words of the Bush, Blair or Howard administrations - the same again.)


U.S. corporations sued over Agent Orange
Click here: How the Pentagon used WMDs in Vietnam
By Paddy Colligan
On April 30, 1975, U.S. imperialism suffered its sharpest, most stunning defeat of the last century. Its “advisers” and “diplomats” in Saigon fled in desperation onto helicopters that took them away to ships waiting in the South China Sea.


Was it 'fragging'?
GI casualties increase in Iraq
By Greg Butterfield
First Lt. Louis Allen and Capt. Philip Esposito, two officers assigned to a New York National Guard unit in Tikrit, Iraq, were killed in their sleep on June 7.
The Pentagon is investigating their deaths as a possible “fragging”—an act of retaliation by a rank-and-file soldier or soldiers.


GI Special: thomasfbarton@earthlink.net 6.22.05
From "GI SPECIAL" # 3B67:
WHEN TROOPS STOPPED A WAR:
"Sir! No Sir"

Anne-Marie O'Connor wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "Anyone waging war with American troops might want to listen carefully to the largely untold story of David Zeiger's new documentary, "Sir! No Sir!", of how some of the most dedicated troops became some of the most damaging supporters of the movement to end the war in Vietnam."

Check out the web site - http://www.sirnosir.com/


We have launched the most extensive library and image gallery on the GI Movement ever seen. Over 1,600 images of front pages, photos, and cartoons from the GI underground press, the entire recently declassified reports from the military's investigations of the Long Binh Jail rebellion and the Presidio 27 mutiny case, a complete calendar of key events in the GI movement, and much, much more.

This incredible resource was researched and put together by James Lewes, writer of the stirring book "Protest and Survive--Underground GI Newspapers during the Vietnam War."

The web site is also where you can keep track of upcoming screenings of the film.
"Sir! No Sir" has already garnered strong press. The L.A. Weekly named it the "Critic's Pick" of the festival, and the Pasadena Weekly wrote:

"Debunking several myths about America's invasion of Vietnam, David Zeiger's documentary might be the most important documentary to screen in Los Angeles this year. Knowledge is ammunition."

Displaced Films
3421 Fernwood Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90039



Do The People Of Iraq Have A right To Resist U.S. Occupation?
The American antiwar movement is disunited on the important question of whether or not to support the right of the Iraqi people to resist U.S. aggression as best they can, including by force of arms.
By Jack Smith
This is a right Americans unquestionably would invoke were their country invaded and occupied by a foreign power. They would take whatever measures were necessary to defeat the enemy and force it to withdraw.
Click here to read more:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8968.htm



The 'I' word
THE IMPEACHMENT of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, should be part of mainstream political discourse.
By Ralph Nader and Kevin Zeese
President Clinton was impeached for perjury about his sexual relationships. Comparing Clinton's misbehavior to a destructive and costly war of occupation launched in March 2003 under false pretenses in violation of domestic and international law certainly merits introduction of an impeachment resolution. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8991.htm



Impeachment Fever and Media Politics
If you think President Bush should be impeached, it's time to get serious. We're facing huge obstacles -- and they have nothing to do with legal standards for impeachment. This is all about media and politics.
By Norman Solomon
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8998.htm



Retired lieutenant colonel gives scathing speech on Iraq policy
Bowman told the audience that the biggest threat to the American way of life comes from within the country. He said instead of the battle lines being overseas, they were right here at home.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8980.htm



Is The USA Addicted To War?
First Consider The Evidence, Then Draw Your Own Conclusions:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8904.htm


About 6,000 Soldiers Deserted From Iraq War;
150 Fled To Canada:
"I went to fight for my country. To me, the Army, they lied to me from the beginning," Key said.
http://www.wesh.com/news/4534806/detail.html


Amnesty International Wants U.S. Officials Arrested and Investigated
"Governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them," said William Shulz, executive director of the U.S. branch of the international human rights agency.
By Bob Dart
Amnesty International USA urged foreign governments Wednesday to use international law to investigate Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other alleged American "architects of torture" at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and other prisons where detainees suspected of ties to terrorist groups have been interrogated. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8956.htm



Is the U. S. guilty of Crimes against Peace?
To many Americans, the idea that U. S. leaders could be prosecuted for war crimes comes right out of left field.
Check out the War Crimes Trial website!
http://www.warcrimestrial.us/


Deliberate Deception—Bush & Iraq
How Much More Evidence is Needed?http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8931.htm


It’s a Pentagon World : Bases, Bases Everywhere
Most Americans, knowing next to nothing about our global bases or the Pentagon's basing policies, would undoubtedly be surprised to learn that ours is an empire of bases.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=3025


Four bloody lies of war, from Havana 1898 to Baghdad 2003
The Bush Administration's lies about its rationales for attacking Iraq fit a pattern of deceit that has dragged America into at least three other unjust and catastrophic wars.
By Harvey Wasserman
Nixon's "dirty trickster" disciples Karl Rove and Dick Cheney have now poisoned this nation with yet another ghastly lie of war. Their hopeless Iraqi slaughter has become the modern definition of cynical deceit, human butchery and economic ruin.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8788.htm

BEST ALT BIRD FLU SITE WE’VE FOUND TO DATE

http://www.alternative-health-news.com/birdflualert.htm

Bird flu - no threat to the human population
Special Report: The Bird Flu and You

Source: http://www.stratfor.com/
From: www.uncensored.co.nz

(more…)

Rumsfeld Profit from Avian Flu Scam

Source: globalnewsmatrix.com
From: www.uncensored.co.nz

[ Is this story true?
I have no idea, but read it and make up your own mind! ]


You can’t make any real money without a bogeyman, and the new “Bird Flu” hoax is the latest scam used to generate profits for pharmaceutical company insiders, according to this particular article.

“Finally, the pieces of the puzzle start to add up,” writes Dr. Joseph Mercola, author of the 'Total Health Program':

“President Bush sought to instill panic in this country by telling us a minimum of 200,000 people will die from the avian flu pandemic but it could be as bad as 2 million deaths in this country alone.”

http://mercola.com/blog/2005/oct/19/rumsfeld_to_profit_from_avian_flu_hoax(more…)

Secret MoD poll:
Iraqis support attacks on US / British troops
65% of Iraqi citizens support attacks, and less than 1% think Allied military involvement is helping to improve security in their country.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10721.htm

Karl and Scooter's Excellent Adventure
By Frank Rich
We don't yet know whether Lewis (Scooter) Libby or Karl Rove has committed a crime, but the more we learn about their desperate efforts to take down a bit player like Joseph Wilson, the more we learn about the real secret they wanted to protect: the "why" of the war.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10724.htm

What makes an American family man
choose to burn himself to death
to protest his government's aggressive war policies?
Who remembers?
Who forgets?

Morrison’s sacrifice remembered
By Lady Borton
(01-05-2005)

Link to original story, including photos:

http://vietnamnews.vnanet.vn/showarticle.php?num=06WAR010505

"Yes, of course we know Mo Ri Xon," Vietnamese will say, adapting Norman Morrison’s surname to their monosyllabic language.

Many Vietnamese who were adults during the American War can recount in detail the moment they heard about Norman Morrison’s death. Those who were in school can still remember their grade when they recited To Huu’s poem:

"Emily, my child

Emily, come with me

So that when you’re older, you won’t lose the way.

"Where are we going, Father?"

"To the banks of the Potomac."

"What will we see?"

"Nothing, My Child, only the Pentagon...."

On 2 November 1965, Norman Morrison held his second daughter and third child, Emily, in his arms as he stood below the window of the Pentagon office used by US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Emily was eleven months old.

McNamara described the scene in Errol Morris’ film, The Fog of War (2003):

"Norman Morrison was a Quaker. He was opposed to war, to the violence of war, the killing. He came to the Pentagon, doused himself with gasoline, burned himself to death below my office. He held a child in his arms, his daughter. Passersby shouted, ‘Save the child.’ He threw the child out of his arms, and the child lived and is alive today. His wife issued a very moving statement: ‘Human beings MUST stop killing other human beings.’

"Norman Morrison’s widow, Anne Morrison, had not known of her husband’s plans. Her first intimation came from a journalist’s phone call. The reporter, who was sensitive enough to choose compassion over professional gain, did not push for quotes. However, the press stories appeared soon enough — from the double banner headline in The [Baltimore] Sun: "Baltimore Quaker With Baby Sets Self Afire, Dies in War Protest At Pentagon" to Newsweek’s acerbic judgment: "Morrison’s macabre act of protest almost included the sacrificial murder of his own baby daughter."

Anne Morrison’s unrelenting personal loss often elicited judgment, and not just from the press. She never knew whether strangers and even friends would consider her husband’s stand an act of muddled madness or spiritual sacrifice. Insurance policies do not cover acts of conscience. Anne’s singular financial and emotional responsibility for three small children left her little time or space for grieving.

Further, the United States had little context for immolation. Alice Herz, age 82, had set herself afire in Detroit on 16 March 1965, shortly after the first US combat troops landed at Da Nang. The media scarcely noticed her protest against the "use of high office by our president, L.B.J., in trying to wipe out small nations."

Better known were examples from Viet Nam itself, particularly Thich Quang Duc’s immolation on 11 June 1963 at a busy Sai Gon intersection.

A US Military Assistance Command Viet Nam (MACV) report listed the supporting group of nuns and monks as between 400 and 500. The bonzes used loudspeakers to announce their demands to the South Vietnamese Government and to the world. The Western media had been alerted that something might happen near Xa Loi Pagoda, but only Associated Press reporter Malcolm Browne showed up. His photograph of Thich Quang Duc in flames — among the war’s most haunting images — had a searing effect on the American public and on the Kennedy administration.

Norman Morrison seems to have kept his act of conscience in private confidence between his own soul and his spiritual source. We do not know what he hoped to achieve, but we do know that his sacrifice had an effect.

In 1995, nearly thirty years after the event, Robert McNamara wrote in his book, "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Viet Nam":

"Morrison’s death was a tragedy not only for his family but also for me and the country. It was an outcry against the killing that was destroying the lives of so many Vietnamese and American youth.

"I reacted to the horror of his action by bottling up my emotions and avoided talking about them with anyone — even my family. I knew Marg [Robert McNamara’s wife] and our children shared many of Morrison’s feelings about the war.... And I believed I understood and shared some of his thoughts. There was much Marg and I and the children should have talked about, yet at moments like this I often turn inward instead — it is a grave weakness. The episode created tension at home that only deepened dissent and criticism as the war continued to grow."

In April 1995, Robert McNamara told interviewer Brian Lamb:

"She [Anne Morrison] says, ‘To heal the wounds of war, we must forgive ourselves and each other, and we must help the people of Viet Nam to rebuild their country.’... I talked to her on the telephone this morning. We had quite an extended discussion. She is a noble person."

Anne Morrison visited Viet Nam with her two daughters and their husbands in 1999. Her son, Ben, had died from cancer at age sixteen. The family spent a morning with To Huu, the poet who had introduced Norman Morrison and "Emily, My Child" into Viet Nam’s national consciousness.

Mme Truong My Hoa, now vice-president of Viet Nam, was vice-president of the National Assembly at the time. She also met Anne Morrison and her family. During the American War, Mme My Hoa had been a political prisoner in the tiger cages on Con Son Island in South Viet Nam. The cages’ concrete cells measured five by nine feet. Each cage held five prisoners. The cells were open on the top to rain and sun. Guards patrolling overhead threw lime down on the prisoners huddled below.

"The women in our tiger cage made a small altar for Norman Morrison," Mme My Hoa said, referring to the Vietnamese custom of honouring family members who have died. Vietnamese believe that the souls of the departed are accessible to the living and provide a source of support and guidance.

"Whenever we grew discouraged," Mme My Hoa said, "We thought about the sacrifice Norman Morrison had made. We drew strength from him to continue the struggle."

Mme My Hoa gestured to the fine woodwork and the brocade-covered chairs in the National Assembly’s grand guest room. "This is where we meet our highest-level official visitors," she said, turning to face Anne Morrison. "And this is where we meet our closest friends." — VNS

More links to fascinating reading:

The last letter from a lost soldier

The American War and its historic lesson

American photojournalist returns to VN

All roads lead to Sai Gon, 30 years later

The 7,600th day of being an orphan

Returned Viet kieu share experiences

Daring pilot recalls heroic mission

Viet Nam celebrates 1975 Spring Victory

Festivals commemorate 30 years of liberation

US veterans in solidarity with Vietnamese people

War correspondents re-live old times at the Rex Hotel

Truong Sa Island celebrates 30th anniversary of liberation

Liberating soldiers reflect on their lives

Women's stories of liberation

Defence Minister thanks international friends

Thuan An district looks back, and forward, after 30 years of liberation

Suburb rises from the rubble

Memoir recounts VN's road to liberation

Central coast provinces celebrate progress

The Story of Colin Powell : Bagman for a bloody elite

By Chris Floyd

Colin Powell's reputation as "one of the good guys" in the Bush Administration has been one of the most enduring mysteries of our sad, demented times.

He was not only one of the chief enablers of Bush's war crime in Iraq, but his entire career has marked him out as a bagman for a bloody elite, ever willing to turn a blind eye -- or pitch in directly -- when there is dirty work to be done, from the My Lai massacre in Viet Nam, to Iran-Contra, to the murderous excursion in Panama, to the warm embrace of Saddam Hussein, to his final apotheosis as Imperial Handmaiden in his sick-making appearance at the UN in February 2003, when he "made the case" for war.

Check out the full revealing story: http://tinyurl.com/aywtm

Why should all the Iraqi participants trust that the election results are actually what was voted for when the occupation army helped transport ballot boxes after the vote?

The current Nobel Prize winner for literature Harold Pinter made an important point in an acceptance speech earlier this year when he had also won the Wilfred Owen Award.

Pinter said:

You may say at this point: what about the Iraqi elections? Well, President Bush himself answered this question when he said: "We cannot accept that there can be free democratic elections in a country under foreign military occupation". I had to read that statement twice before I realised that he was talking about Lebanon and Syria.

(From:"Torture and misery in the name of Freedom", by Harold Pinter at: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1014-27.htm )

We also know that areas heavily populated by Sunnis were under sustained attack from the Iraqi army and coallition forces in the weeks and days leading up to the election. This had worried leading Sunnis as is shown by the following:

Meanwhile, Iraqi member of parliament Mishaan al-Juburi told Aljazeera that the US offensive against predominantly Sunni towns in the central Anbar province was a repetition of similar tactics used ahead of the January 2005 elections.

''What we fear most in the governorates that contain mixed residents is the targeting of Sunni Arab neighbourhoods, in order to prevent Sunnis from attaining the two-thirds of the consensus required to vote down the [constitution] at the referendum," he said.

(From "Several killed in Baghdad bomb attack" at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D9C617C8-CF1B-4ACB-94C1-CBBBDF3DCD74.htm Thursday 06 October 2005, 16:13 Makka Time, 13:13 GMT )

So why should Sunnis believe this vote was fair?

What is it about this vote that might reduce the resistance to the occupation?

Or is it just something to give the invaders a figleaf for back home...just part of the propaganda war trying to convince some that Democracy is now happening?

Australian 'Anti-terror’ laws under the spotlight

From Jan van Dalfsen:

I just found this article (see below) about a very informative meeting I attended in Brunswick on August 9, 2005. A co-sponsor of this meeting was Liberty Victoria, which I belong to.

Apart from what is in the article, one other thing mentioned at the meeting was how the media got tipped off so they could film the picking up of people by ASIO for questioning. They then put it on the evening news while the people picked up were not allowed to talk to anyone about it, not even their own families. Even the Minister (Ruddock) claimed he wasn't allowed to talk about it when questioned. Yet his office were quite likely the ones who tipped off the media about the raid.

Cheers
Jan

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/638/638p4.htm

Legendary Puerto Rican national liberation fighter
Filiberto Ojeda Ríos assassinated by FBI

By Tom Soto
San Juan, Puerto Rico

On Sept. 23, as hundreds of workers and their families were participating in the annual pro-independence commemoration known as "El Grito de Lares," agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigations descended on the town of Hormigueros in western Puerto Rico and fired the shots that killed Puerto Rican liberation hero Filiberto Ojeda Ríos.

During typhoons
How China & Vietnam were able to save lives

By Paddy Colligan

China and Vietnam were able to move millions of people out of harm’s way when struck by fierce typhoons, Khanun and Damrey, at the end of September.

From Paul Jay, Chair
INDEPENDENT WORLD TELEVISION

Two exciting new videos to tell you about:

Legendary author and IWT Founding Committee member Gore Vidal talks about television news and the state of democracy. "There are so many questions that television refuses to take up -- much less answer."

Watch now here: http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/gore_vidal

And new IWT Founding Committee member and former CBS News Senior Foreign Correspondent Tom Fenton talks about the opportunity for IWT:
"I'm convinced that there's a real audience out there for what I call 'real news.' News of context, news that tells people what's coming down the road, things that could affect their lives."
http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/thomas_fenton

There's lots happening on our web site this week, with highlights below.
Join the discussion happening on our blog, and please help spread the word by forwarding this message to others.
Or use our "tell a friend" page here:http://www.iwtnews.com/invite

Best wishes,
Paul Jay, Chair
Independent World Television
www.IWTnews.com