The Holocaust In Cambodia And Its Aftermath Is Remembered

By John Pilger

John Pilger recalls the stricken society he found in Cambodia in 1979 which he described in his epic dispatches and documentary, Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia.

He reminds us that the Pol Pot horror emerged from the bombing ordered by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, and that Cambodia was again "punished" when its liberators came from the wrong side of the cold war and the Thatcher government sent special forces to train the Khmer Rouge in exile.

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Thank you John Pilger!

John Pilger is one of those rare voices still brave enough to speak the uncomfortable truths about Cambodia. The apologists for US imperialism seem to have effectively wiped this from public consciousness.

I regularly visit Cambodia as a tour group leader, and I am always frustrated by the misinformation, amnesia and rewriting of history I experience - from both foreign tourists and from some Cambodians.

Even the important museum sites, such as Tuol Sleng/S21 and the Killing Fields near Phnom Penh present an incomplete or distorted view of the tragedy of modern Cambodia.

Informed people like John Pilger understand very well the critical role played by the insane US aerial bombing of most of the country in bringing Pol Pot and his extremist politics to power in Cambodia.

The full and terrible extent and consequences of this US "free-fire zoning" of a whole country is largely ignored or played-down in the tourist sites and media of Cambodia today.

At S21 Museum, the whole sorry story of that monstrous US bombing is reduced to one tiny, easily-overlooked reference in small print to "the bombing" . . . not even specifying US bombing!

This is surely more than an innocent oversight. Without understanding the background, it is impossible for casual tourists to make any sense of the horror images and stories of S21 and the Khmer Rouge years in power.

The diabolical racist policies and massacres of innocents carried out by the Pol Pot clique still resonates in the frequent "anti-Vietnamese" sentiments expressed by some Cambodians, who seem to forget where their liberation from Pol Pot actually came from.

The monstrous crimes committed by various US governments (Republican & Democratic) against Cambodia - before and after Pol Pot came to power - seem to be forgotten today.

Thank you to John Pilger for reminding the world of these things. Those who do are often dismissed or not believed. It is not so easy to dismiss John Pilger!

You can read more about Cambodia, and some of my impressions, from my blog.
(Check the side column: Links to recommended websites)


Bruce McPhie


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In Case You Missed It
Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia

A Documentary Film By John Pilger

John Pilger vividly reveals the brutality and murderous political ambitions of the Pol Pot / Khmer Rouge totalitarian regime which bought genocide and despair to the people of Cambodia while neighboring countries, including Australia, shamefully ignored the immense human suffering and unspeakable crimes that bloodied this once beautiful country.

A Documentary Film By John Pilger - Runtime 59 Minutes - Produced 1979

This Video Is Available For Sale Here

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Why Americans Gotta Read the "War Crimes Times!"

By Kim Carlyle

We must look back. And we must hold accountable the men and women who have broken our laws, tarnished our honor, and spit on our ideals. Continue

Are You Ready for the Next Crisis?

By Paul Craig Roberts

October 26, 2009 "Information Clearing House" --


Evidence that the US is a failed state is piling up faster than I can record it.

One conclusive hallmark of a failed state is that the crooks are inside the government, using government to protect and to advance their private interests.

Part 2

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Hosts and Parasites

The Consequences of Default

By Michael Hudson

What happens when a country goes broke?

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The US Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex

By Larry Wilkerson:

The beginning of the American "Imperial Rome" and Eisenhower's warning This talk by Larry Wilkerson was the keynote speech given at an event sponsored by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, American University History Department, American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute on Oct 21,2009 at American University in Washington DC. Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence describes itself as "a movement of former CIA colleagues and other associates of former intelligence analyst Sam Adams, who hold up his example as a model for those in intelligence who would aspire to the courage to speak truth to power". Real News - Posted October 26, 2009

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The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex Pt2 Wilkerson: From US debt to the geopolitics of oil, the US empire will come to an end view

New Jewish lobby hits Washington scene J Street which opposes Jewish settlements and advocates a Palestinian state, holds first conference view

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Welcome to 2025

American Preeminence Is Disappearing Fifteen Years Early

By Michael T. Klare

It may take a decade or two (or three) before historians will be able to look back and say with assurance, "That was the moment when the United States ceased to be the planet's preeminent power and was forced to behave like another major player in a world of many competing great powers."

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200 Intrepid tours of Viet Nam

+ almost 2000 Intrepid travellers

= 12 Intrepid years.

The 3^rd Life of “Lemon Juice” Bruce

On October 22, 2009, I officially completed leading my 200^th Intrepid tour of Viet Nam. For the past 12 amazing years, this has meant leading almost 2000 foreign tourists from all around the world through Viet Nam, and sometimes Cambodia.

What an incredible journey!

It is hard to believe it has been 12 years. Some time ago, I casually commented to a friend “Where do the years go?”, and he replied “They don’t go anywhere, they just add up.” How true. The past 12 years for me have certainly added up to a fast-paced, wonderful and challenging “real life experience”.

Fortunately, I have had the privilege and opportunity to travel through exotic cultures, tumultuous history, and stunningly beautiful landscapes. Every day can still be a learning day, for me and my fellow travellers.

There is still so much popular misinformation and ignorance about Viet Nam and Cambodia crying out to be corrected. The whole world can benefit from learning these truths, and discovering the true magic of Indochina.

Along the way, I have made countless friends (and maybe occasional enemies!). I have many times been moved to tears when sharing both the joys and the pains of local people who so easily become local friends. I have been able to help in some small ways to sponsor children through school, relieve friends from crippling debt, assist local charities and people in genuine need, and once even helped keep an unfortunate local out of prison and in university instead.

One cannot be a passive bystander.

Such is life in my adopted home of Viet Nam.

My previous lives in Australia seem worlds away, as indeed they are. I have been lucky, I guess, to have been able to follow a somewhat unconventional lifestyle.

My first life was in Melbourne where, among other things, I was passionately involved in the peace movement against the war in Viet Nam, including resistance to military conscription.

Deciding to ‘drop out’ of teacher training college to work full time for peace, Viet Nam obviously made a life-changing impact on my youth. Today, the cause of peace remains critical for the survival and dignity of humanity, and for the health and sustainability of the planet.

The war profiteers and war criminals must be relentlessly exposed and put out of their evil business. The corporate mass media which acts as a propaganda tool for the military-industrial complex must be balanced with alternative media.This truth is driven home every day when you live and work in a land still suffering from the ongoing effects of past criminal wars.

For my second life, I ‘went bush’ to the beautiful Cassilis valley in far north east Victoria for an alternative rural lifestyle experience, where more lifetime friends were made. Viet Nam was and is my third life. My fourth life? I have no idea!

Throughout all my lives, I have had an eclectic range of jobs, I guess coincidentally following Uncle Ho’s idea of combining and respecting both mental and physical labour. Sometimes I have worked to live, but mostly I have lived to work, and always I did the things I wanted to do and felt needed to be done.

Fortuitously, this continues in my current life as an Intrepid tour leader, in a company committed to Responsible Travel and a better world. For me, there is no real line between work and personal life; it is my lifestyle, and what I do. What a special privilege!

Way back in 1996, I was a novice traveller on Intrepid’s 3-week Vietnam Adventure tour. This was meant to be just part of my first Asian holiday experience, before returning to Oz.

However, miraculously, from the moment I arrived in Hanoi I felt completely at home, as if I had been there in some previous life! Less than one year later, I was back in Viet Nam with a brand new job – this time working for Intrepid Travel as a tour leader.

So Viet Nam had dramatically changed my life for a second time!

Now, hopefully, there are many more tours ahead for me with Intrepid Indochina, and many more travellers to introduce to ‘my Viet Nam’. Hopefully, it will be a positive life-changing experience for them as well. How long? Who knows the future? As they say, time flies when you’re having fun. (Or, as a frog might say, time’s fun when you’re having flies!)

“Lemon Juice” Bruce

Intrepid Indochina

Tour Leader

Bruce McPhie

October 22, 2009

Iranian Nuclear Threat Hyped: ElBaradei:

By Jerusalem Post Staff
October 19, 2009 "JPost" - Oct 18, 2009

The greatest danger in the region, according to ElBaradei, comes from the possibility of an Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.


EMohamed ElBaradei, outgoing chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, maintains that the danger posed by Iran's nuclear program is being exaggerated, and that the only way to resolve issues with Teheran is through talks.

Negotiations should also eventually lead to the Middle East being a nuclear-free zone, he believes, thus ending the "imbalance" resulting from the fact that Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"The threat in Iran's nuclear program is exaggerated. I do not think that we will wake up tomorrow and discover that Iran has a nuclear weapon," he said in an interview with the Austrian Die Presse published on Sunday.

"[US] President Barack Obama has understood that negotiation is the only possible solution with Iran... Iran wants to discuss not only the nuclear issue, but also the entire palette of problems with the US. Iran can play an important, central role in the Near East; in Afghanistan or also in Iraq," the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureate continued.

The greatest danger in the region, according to ElBaradei, comes from the possibility of an Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

"Bombing Iran is not the solution. An Israeli attack would turn the entire region into a fireball," he said.

"We should ask ourselves why countries develop nuclear weapons. They promise power and prestige. Israel says it cannot tolerate an Iran in possession of nuclear weapons. But when you talk now with Arab leaders, they say they cannot tolerate a nuclear Israel.

"The solution: We need to ensure a lasting peace in the region, and the entire Middle East must become a nuclear-free zone.

That, however, takes time. But we must also remember the imbalance in the fact that a country, namely Israel, remains out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while other countries are bound by the contract."

War Is Peace. Ignorance Is Strength

By John Pilger

Barack Obama, winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, is planning another war to add to his impressive record. In Afghanistan, his agents routinely extinguish wedding parties, farmers and construction workers with weapons such as the innovative Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of your lungs.

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$600 Billion And
10 More Years of War in Afghanistan : McCaffrey:

By Thomas R. Eddlem

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Barry McCaffrey told MSNBC's Meet the Press Sunday that the United States faces 10 more years of war in Afghanistan. Continue

Saving Face in Afghanistan

By Ron Paul

We overthrew the Taliban government in 2001 with less than 10,000 American troops. Why does it now seem that the more troops we send, the worse things get? If the Soviets bankrupted themselves in Afghanistan with troop levels of 100,000 and were eventually forced to leave in humiliating defeat, why are we determined to follow their example? Continue

What, Exactly, is Being Fought in Afghanistan?

By M. Reza Pirbhai

Washington insiders do not mention that the Taliban’s “harsh form of oppression on women and others,” which everyone from Madeleine Albright to Hillary Clinton have argued provides cause for war, is not a concern when relations with ‘Wahhabi’ Saudi Arabia are pursued. Continue

Arundhati Roy: ‘I’m here to understand what you mean by Taliban’:

When we say we must fight the Taliban or must defeat them, what does it mean? I’m here to understand what you mean when you say Taliban. Do you mean a militant? Do you mean an ideology? Exactly what is it that is being fought?

US Bans Pictures of Dead Soldier : The U.S. military in eastern Afghanistan has changed its media embed rules to ban pictures of troops killed in action.

Veteran Army Officer Urges Afghan Troop Drawdown: A veteran Army officer who has served in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars warns in an analysis now circulating in Washington that the counterinsurgency strategy urged by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is likely to strengthen the Afghan insurgency, and calls for withdrawal of the bulk of U.S. combat forces from the country over 18 months.

John Bolton Suggests Nuclear Attack on Iran

By Daniel Luban

Discussing Iran during a Tuesday speech at the University of Chicago, Bolton appeared to call for nothing less than an Israeli nuclear first strike against the Islamic Republic. (The speech, sponsored by the University Young Republicans and Chicago Friends of Israel, was titled, apparently without a trace of irony, “Ensuring Peace.”) Continue

Pentagon Cites 'Urgent' Need for Mega-Bomb to Take Out Hidden Bunkers: Pentagon is speeding up delivery of a colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete

Indict Dick Cheney
Keep America Safe

By Scott Horton

If you enjoy fear-mongering, here’s a not-for-profit organization for you: Keep America Safe. William Kristol and Liz Cheney are the dynamic duo behind it. Continue

Benito Mussolini Recruited by MI5: Documents reveal Italian dictator got start in politics in 1917 with help of £100 weekly wage from MI5

The Rich Have Stolen The Economy

By Paul Craig Roberts

The political system is unresponsive to the American people. It is monopolized by a few powerful interest groups that control campaign contributions. Interest groups have exercised their power to monopolize the economy for the benefit of themselves, the American people be damned.

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The people vs Wall Street: Amidst the economic wreckage, after 7 million job losses and approaching 2 million home foreclosures in the US alone, with businesses and consumers around the world still struggling to get finance after the long credit crunch, Wall Street is finally on trial. A little piece of Wall Street, at least.

Goldman Sachs posts massive profits: US bank Goldman Sachs has posted third-quarter profits that are more than three times the earnings it made at the same time last year.

Goldman Sachs: Your tax dollars, their big bonuses: Goldman Sachs is having a banner year, and is getting a big boost from government programs.

"Defiant" UN Backs Israel War Crimes Report

By Gavin Cordon, Press Association

Britain and France today failed in an attempt to delay a crunch Middle East vote at the UN, amid warnings by Israel that it could derail the peace process. Continue

Despite promises to Obama, construction continues in dozens of W. Bank settlements: Human rights activists monitoring the West Bank report that despite commitments Israel made to President Barack Obama's administration last month, widespread building activity commenced three weeks ago in at least 12 settlements.

Humanitarian Law Applies to All

By Tammy Obeidallah

October 12, 2009 "Information Clearing House" --

Throughout the world, people have attempted to distinguish ordinary Americans from the United States government. Perhaps our complacency for aiding and abetting war crimes has been attributed to lack of education, apathy in the face of an omnipotent pro-Israeli lobby or that we are simply hapless workaholics with time for little else....

In September, the city of Dayton, Ohio--population roughly 160,000--signed a three-year commitment to share military technology with Israel....

The attitude of this small Midwestern city is reflective of the American nation as a whole.

Sharing military technology with a nation that is known to use such technology against civilians is against international law; yet human rights take a back seat to the promise of job opportunities and economic growth at the expense of people half a world away. While Americans enjoy the freedom of unfettered Internet access and ample educational opportunities, the majority choose to remain deliberately ignorant of the law and an all but forgotten value system.

The American Society of the Red Cross offers a four-hour class on International Humanitarian Law during armed conflict, which draws its legal basis from the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Ratified by all 194 of the world's countries, the Conventions prohibit attacks on civilians and institutions such as hospitals, houses of worship and schools. They also mandate the humane treatment of sick and injured combatants as well as prisoners of war.

In 1998, the world community took additional steps to establish a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) responsible for prosecuting individuals for violations of International Humanitarian Law. Ironically, the United States did not ratify the Rome Statute which created the ICC and notified the United Nations that it will not recognize the authority of such a court....

Not coincidentally, the United States made this announcement in May 2002, less than a month after Israel's attack on the Jenin refugee camp. Untold numbers of civilians were massacred in the onslaught and survivors were subsequently denied Red Cross and Red Crescent access, representing yet another grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. Journalists were kept out in an attempt to conceal mass graves of Palestinian men, women and children from the rest of the world--crimes worthy of referral to the ICC.

Small wonder the United States, protector-in-chief of the Jewish State, chose that time to deny the court's right to exist. Yet, as horrific as was the Jenin massacre, it served as a merely a bloody preamble to Israel's attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and most recently, Gaza.

During Israel's December 2008-January 2009 offensive, Gazans suffered indiscriminate attacks on civilian neighborhoods, mosques, clinics and a UN school....

Compounding the human toll, Israel used white phosphorus and the DIME bomb, a heinous weapon causing catastrophic internal wounds and the rapid onset of cancer in those exposed to it.

The Geneva Convention calls on its signatories--all 194 of them--to prosecute war crimes. When a nation is unwilling or unable to do so, it is up to the international community to step in and apply sanctions against the offending nation.

However, when governments are unwilling to live up to their agreements, it should fall into the hands of private citizens to pressure these said governments; when private citizens are ignorant of international law, the pro-Israeli media juggernaut and corrupt politicians are all too eager to fill the vacuum.

Such was the case at the recent G-20 summit held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The United States, France and Britain called for sanctions against Iran for pursuing nuclear power, hypocritically ignoring Israel's already hefty nuclear arsenal along with its demonstrated willingness to use weapons of mass destruction.

It is time International Humanitarian Law be made an educational requirement in our public schools rather than an optional course offered intermittently. Only then will we have a citizenry capable of demanding government adherence to the Geneva Convention.

The alternative is unfolding before our very eyes: a decline in civility, the breakdown of morality and the rapidly decreasing value we place on a human life. This is the legacy the children of the world are doomed to inherit if teaching international law is not made a priority.


- Tammy Obeidallah is a writer based in Dayton, Ohio.
She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Beneath the Hype: Is Iran Close to Nukes? (Yes, but only because it is surrounded by perhaps 200 Israeli nukes, plus the nukes of Pakistan & USA....!!!) Retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern speaks on disinformation, Iran, and "faith-based intelligence" Real News Video Raymond McGovern is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a Federal employee under seven U.S. presidents over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them. Greg Thielmann is a Senior Fellow at the Arms Control Association, located in Washington, DC. Thielmann came to fame in 2003 when he quit his position as director of the Strategic, Proliferation and Military Affairs Office at the State Department's Intelligence Bureau, citing the manufacturing of intelligence concerning the Iraqi government's weapons program. He openly criticized the false information that was then used to gain support for launching the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. This brought an end to a 25-year career in the US foreign service officer. Posted October 11, 2009 Part 2 Part 3

The Nobel Peace Prize
is named after Alfred Nobel,
the inventor of dynamite, gelignite and a
major armaments manufacturer! . . .

War and Peace Prizes

By Howard Zinn

I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given a peace prize. Until I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel peace prizes. The Nobel committee is famous for its superficial estimates, won over by rhetoric and by empty gestures, and ignoring blatant violations of world peace. Continue

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Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize

By Thomas DiLorenzo

I’m still surprised, though, that he won the prize after killing so few people. Continue

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Warmonger Wins Peace Prize

By Paul Craig Roberts

The non-cynical can say that the Nobel committee is seizing on Obama’s rhetoric to lock him into the pursuit of peace instead of war. We can all hope that it works. But the more likely result is that the award has made “War is Peace” the reality. Continue

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Sample of Peace Prize winner's resume

written by Michael Allen, October 09, 2009


Then there's the matter of his actual policy and political record.
If Obama is such (as many "progressives" seem to need to believe) an "antiwar" candidate, why has he offered so much substantive policy support to the criminal occupation and the broader imperial "war on terror" of which Bush says O.I.F. is a part?

Here are some highlights from a summary of Obama's U.S. Senate voting record recently sent to me by the Creative Youth News Team (CYNT 2007), a progressive African American advocacy organization:

"1/26/05: Obama voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State. Rice was largely responsible...for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent victims in unnecessary wars...Roll call 2"

"2/01/05: Obama was part of a unanimous consent agreement not to filibuster the nomination of lawless torturer Alberto Gonzales as chief law enforcement officer of the United States (U.S. Attorney General)."

"2/15/05: Obama voted to confirm Michael Chertoff, a proponent of water-board torture... man behind the round-up of thousands of people of Middle-Eastern descent following 9/11. By Roll call 10."

"4/21/05: Obama voted to make John 'Death Squad' Negroponte the National Intelligence Director. In Central America, John Negroponte was connected to death squads that murdered nuns and children in sizable quantities. He is suspected of instigating death squads while in Iraq, resulting in the current insurgency. Instead of calling for Negroponte's prosecution, Obama rewarded him by making him National Intelligence Director. Roll call 107"

"4/21/05: Obama voted for HR 1268, war appropriations in the amount of approximately $81 billion. Much of this funding went to Blackwater USA and Halliburton and disappeared. Roll call 109 "

"7/01/05: Obama voted for H.R. 2419, termed 'The Nuclear Bill' by environmental and peace groups. It provided billions for nuclear weapons activities, including nuclear bunker buster bombs. It contains full funding for Yucca Mountain, a threat to food and water in California, Nevada, Arizona and states across America. Roll call 172 ."

"9/26/05 & 9/28/05: Obama failed and refused to place a hold on the nomination of John Roberts, a supporter of permanent detention of Americans without trial, and of torture and military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees."

"10/07/05: Obama voted for HR2863, which appropriated $50 billion in new money for war. Roll call 2 ."

"11/15/05: Obama voted for continued war, again. Roll call 326 was the vote on the Defense Authorization Act (S1042) which kept the war and war profiteering alive, restricted the right of habeas corpus and encouraged terrorism. Pursuant to his pattern, Obama voted for this. ."

"12/21/05: Obama confirmed his support for war by voting for the Conference Report on the Defense Appropriations Act (HR 2863), Roll call 366, which provided more funding to Halliburton and Blackwater. "

"5/2/06: Obama voted for money for more war by voting for cloture on HR 4939, the emergency funding to Halliburton, Blackwater and other war profiteers. Roll call 103 ."

"5/4/06: Obama, again, voted to adopt HR4939: emergency funding to war profiteers. Roll call 112 ."

"6/13/06: Obama voted to commend the armed services for a bombing that killed innocent people and children and reportedly resulted in the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi... Michael Berg, whose son was reportedly killed by al-Zarqawi, condemned the attack and expressed sorrow over the innocent people and children killed in the bombing that Obama commended. Roll call 168 ."

"6/15/06: Obama voted for the conference report on HR4939, a bill that gave warmongers more money to continue the killing and massacre of innocent people in Iraq and allows profiteers to collect more money for scamming the people of New Orleans. Roll Call 171 ."

"6/15/06: Obama, again, opposed withdrawal of the troops, by voting to table a motion to table a proposed amendment would have required the withdrawal of US. Armed Forces from Iraq and would have urged the convening of an Iraq summit (S Amdt 4269 to S. Amdt 4265 to S2766) Roll Call 174 "

"6/22/06: Obama voted against withdrawing the troops by opposing the Kerry Amendment (S. Amdt 4442 to S 2766) to the National Defense Authorization Act. The amendment, which was rejected, would have brought our troops home. Roll Call 181 "

"6/22/06: Obama voted for cloture (the last effective chance to stop) on the National Defense Authorization Act (S 2766), which provided massive amounts of funding to defense contractors to continue the killing in Iraq. Roll Call 183."

"6/22/06: Obama again voted for continued war by voting to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (S 2766) for continued war funding. Roll Call 186 .

9/7/06: Obama voted to give more money to profiteers for more war (H..R. 5631). Roll Call 239 "

"9/29/06: Obama voted vote for the conference report on more funding for war, HR 5631. Roll Call 261 ."

"11/16/06: Obama voted for nuclear proliferation in voting to pass HR 5682, a bill to exempt the United States-India Nuclear Proliferation Act from requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Roll Call 270 ."

"12/06/06: Obama voted to confirm pro-war Robert M. Gates to be Secretary of Defense. Gates is a supporter of Bush's policies of pre-emptive war and conquest of foreign countries. Roll Call 272 "

"Obama's voting record in 2007 establishes that he continues to be pro-war. On March 28, 2007 and March 29th, 2007, he voted for cloture and passage of a bill designed to give Bush over $120 billion to continue the occupation for years to come (with a suspendable time table) and inclusive of funding that could be used to launch a war with Iran. Roll calls 117 and 126 ...Obama's record shows a minimum of 20 major pro-war votes..."

http://www.haloscan.com/comments/tf2777/article23676_htm/

The Demise of the Dollar

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading

By Robert Fisk

October 06, 2009 "The Independent" -- -- In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years....


Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018....


"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars.

Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars.

A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.

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“Dollar’s Demise Will Be Felt Worldwide” : Gerald Celente

Video Interview With Gerald Celente

"There’s a major financial crisis ahead. The United States, the world’s superpower, is failing on its most basic level,”

Continue

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A Financial Revolution with Profound Political Implications

By Robert Fisk

The plan to de-dollarise the oil market, discussed both in public and in secret for at least two years and widely denied yesterday by the usual suspects – Saudi Arabia being, as expected, the first among them – reflects a growing resentment in the Middle East, Europe and in China at America's decades-long political as well as economic world dominance.

Continue

9/11 And The New American Century

Video

The film exposes how every major war in US history was based on fraud.

Continue

ElBaradei Says Nuclear Israel Number One Threat to Mideast: Report

By Chinaview

At a joint press conference with Iran's Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran, ElBaradei brought Israel under spotlight and said that the Tel Aviv regime has refused to allow inspections into its nuclear installations for 30years, the report said. Continue

Eric Margolis: Americans Manufacture Another Nuclear Crisis:

The U.S., Britain and France staged a bravura performance of political theatre last week by claiming to have just "discovered" a secret Iran uranium enrichment plant near Qum. On cue, a carefully orchestrated media blitz trumpeted warnings of the alleged Iranian nuclear threat and "long-ranged missiles."

The UN Must Adopt the Goldstone Report

Dissolve the Palestinian Authority

By Omar Barghouti

Succumbing to US pressures and unabashed Israeli blackmail, the president of the PA himself reportedly was himself responsible for the decision to defer discussion at the Council of the Goldstone report, dashing the hopes of Palestinians everywhere as well as of international human rights organizations and solidarity movements that Israel will finally face a long overdue process of legal accountability and that its victims will have a measure of justice.

Continue

Bernanke's Remedy: Pump More Blood Into a Corpse

By Mike Whitney

Corporations are finding it harder to roll over their debt, bank loans are defaulting at a historic pace, and commercial real estate is imploding. Credit destruction is unprecedented, massive and ongoing. The capital hole is bigger than the Fed and bigger than the Treasury. It can't be plugged with liquidity alone. Continue

How the Feds Imprison the Innocent

By Paul Craig Roberts

For two decades I have been attempting to make Americans aware that the danger to their liberty comes not from foreign adversaries, terrorists, or criminals, but from prosecutors, who have destroyed law as a shield of the innocent and turned law into a weapon against the innocent. Continue

What Recession?

As the Economy Crashed Around Them, 400 Richest Americans Lined Their Pockets with $30 Billion

By Les Leopold

It's great to know that during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans, according to Forbes, actually increased by $30 billion. Continue