Latest News & Analysis July 1-15 2003

7-15-03 ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI AND THE 9-11 COVER-UP Feds refuse to produce Moussaoui witness "The Justice Department yesterday refused to produce a key witness in the case against Zacarias Moussaoui, defying a federal court order and acknowledging that the judge will likely dismiss the indictment against the only person charged in the United States in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks." Prosecutors stymied in Moussaoui case "Moussaoui remains in jail, and even if the government loses the current battle it isn't about to let him go. His case could be transferred to a military tribunal, where constitutional protections are fewer and national security concerns probably would be considered more important than a defendant's traditional rights under the Constitution." 9-11 prior knowledge archive Includes nearly a dozen links showing government protection of Moussaoui. Q&A: Moussaoui trial "He is charged on four counts that carry the death penalty in the case of conviction—conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, to commit aircraft piracy, to destroy aircraft and to use weapons of mass destruction. He is also charged with conspiracy to kill US Government officials and destroy US Government property—two lesser charges." Zacarias Moussaoui timeline September 24, 2002: Federal prosecutors say a business card found in the wreckage of Flight 93 provides a link between alleged conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and hijacker Ziad Jarrah. Supposedly a business card belonging to Jarrah has a phone number written on it, and Moussaoui had once called that number.…Was it just incredible luck to have found this card a year after 9/11, or could someone have created new evidence by writing a phone number on a card? Indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui "United States of America -v- Zacarias Moussaoui, a/k/a 'Shaqil,' a/k/a 'Abu Khalid al Sahrawi,' Defendant." Zacarias Moussaoui Numerous links to relevant articles. Also see our 9-11 cover-up links page.

7-15-03 The national house of waffles "Why does it always come to this in Washington? The people who ascend to power on the promise of doing things differently end up making the same unforced errors their predecessors did. " (Real News 24/7: Commenting in 1946 about a U.S. foreign policy that consistently was aiding International Communism and going against our national interests, a pattern some wrote off to stupid decision making, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal declared: "Consistency has never been a mark of stupidity . If they [the policymakers] were merely stupid, they would occasionally make a mistake in our favor." The answer is treason. For more on Forrestal, see "Our leaders hold a gun to our heads," below on 7-12. )

7-15-03 Leading journalists expose the myth of a free press Jane Akrehas (formerly of Fox News): "After our struggle to air an honest report, Fox fired the general manager [of our station]. The new GM said that if we didn’t agree to changes that the lawyers were insisting upon, we’d be fired for insubordination in 48 hours. We pleaded with [him] to look at the facts we’d uncovered. His reply: 'We paid $3 billion dollars for these TV stations. We’ll tell you what the news is. The news is what we say it is!'"

7-15-03 Appeals court rejects Branch Davidian claim "A federal appeals court rejected an attempt by survivors to collect damages from the government for the deadly 1993 confrontation outside Waco, Texas, between federal agents and members of the Branch Davidian cult. "

7-14-03 Mel Gibson's The Passion—Watch the video clip here. (Yet to be rated, but, due to scenes of graphic suffering, not recommended for children under 16. Scroll down to "Trailer." Requires Quicktime upgrade. Some people have experienced problems loading, but be persistent (clicking "back," then clicking on trailer link again; sometimes, unfortunately, this takes several tries)—it will play eventually. Read a critique of video here.) This intense, deeply-felt version of the death of Christ continues to be the center of a raging controversy, despite the fact that it isn't due in theaters for nine months. Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the American Jewish Committee and Jewish Defense League (with some support from a few leftwing theologians who were part of the ADL's "ad hoc committee of Catholic and Jewish scholars") have all taken potshots at the film, suggesting it is anti-Semitic and urging Gibson to change its message to suit them. But beneath the surface the attacks aren't just about the movie. According to the Christian Science Monitor's Jane Lampman in Gibson's Passion, "Some Jews and Christians suggest that the New Testament itself is anti-Semitic. So concerned are some over the continuing impact of historical interpretation that an October 2001 article in the Jewish magazine Moment asked, 'Can Christianity be purged of anti-Semitism without changing the Gospels?'" This, according to Dr. Ted Baehr in Beware the bigoted kibbitzers, is part of a larger attack: "Telling Christians what to think about their own faith has become the fashion in the media, but that does not make it right. It is a base form of religious bigotry and exposes the agenda of the bigots who want to eliminate Jesus, the Bible and Bible-believing Christians from the marketplace of ideas."

7-14-03 A question of trust "Four months after the war started, at least one piece of key evidence has turned out to be false, the U.S. has yet to find weapons of mass destruction, and American soldiers keep dying in a country that has not greeted its liberators the way the Administration predicted it would. Now the false assertion and the rising casualties are combining to take a toll on Bush's standing with the public." Bush defends intelligence as "darn good" Can you believe this?

7-14-03 Rumsfeld loses it as he admits he misled Senate Oh, and he also gave this classic non-answer when challenged as to whether WMDs have been found: "They have found things—they have not found things that when one aggregates them and looks at them that they would say, 'Aha, there it is,' but they are finding things, and then what they do is, they take the materials, and they send them to several different laboratories to be tested. Then it comes back, and it's not what you thought it might be. They send some more out, and it comes back, and it's a dual use.…(blah, blah, blah blah blah, etc.!)"

7-14-03 Dug-up Iraqi parts' potential faces doubt About those "things" Rumsfeld talks about: "A top U.N. weapons hunter says it would have been 'virtually impossible' for Iraq to revive a nuclear bomb program with equipment recently dug up from a Baghdad backyard, as the Bush administration contends."

7-13-03 Why Bush's war may lead to increased Muslim militancy Iraqi governing council named "The new Iraqi leadership sat in a semicircle of chairs on stage at a downtown Baghdad convention center, some dressed in traditional white Arab robes, some in clerical garb and some in business suits - while the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer (right), and other dignitaries looked on." Why did the Bush Administration really decide to invade Iraq? "What the neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration fail to realize is that Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite and Syria majority radical Sunni so that if these countries were to become true democracies they would elect anti-American tyrants and terrorists as their leaders. In fact, Iran is a democracy today and has done precisely that. Now Osama bin Laden calls for Unity for the blessed obligation of jihad: The rise of the Muslim nation starts now "George Bush may go down in the annals of history as the best thing that ever happened to the Muslim Ummah. With the invasion and rapid occupation of Iraq, just one year after the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and with talk of further invasions into Syria, Iran, Egypt and Pakistan, it has become abundantly clear to the whole world that America intends to control all of the oil-rich Arab countries and furthermore, it believes this can be easily accomplished." From Sept. 11 to the fall of Saddam "After all, even if there is not the least connection between Al-Qaeda and Saddam, and even if Sept. 11 has nothing to do with the embargo imposed on Iraq, what could the Americans take from Bin Laden? His life? It is worthless now. His $300 million? They are a drop in the ocean.…Yet if Bin Laden seemed worthless, Saddam appealed almost naturally to the American vendetta."

7-13-03 Hear Scott Ritter at Traprock Peace Center (link to page with one-hour audio) Ex-Marine and U.N. weapons inspector Ritter on the Iraqi War: "It's President Bush that's killing Americans; he put them in harm's war...We're waging an illegal war of aggression."

7-13-03 Betting everything on a hoax about Iraq "The documents were appallingly crude. The letterhead on one document was obviously transplanted from some other, presumably genuine, paper; the signature of the president of Niger was copied; and, most telling of all, one signature was supposedly written by a minister who had been out of office for over a decade." (Real News 24/7: We went to war over this?)

7-13-03 Flashback: Manifesto for world dictatorship "In declaring itself dictator of the world, The United States will have no accountability to non-United States citizens. It will bomb who it likes when it likes, and change regimes when and as it sees fit, it will not be subject to investigations for war crimes, for torture, or for breaches of fundamental human rights." (Real News 24/7: Scary how close this sounds to what's happening today. The manifesto includes an endorsement of the African Union—see related articles for 7-12-03.)

7-12-03 Australia's PM says they'll go to war if they must Howard, the Bush-Blair yes man, rattles his saber. So, you want to pick a fight with North Korea, do you? Sorry, John, but nobody's buying this as long as its big brother, Communist China, is around. So stop the silly talk.

7-12-03 Monsanto sues Maine dairy over label's hormone remarks "In another sign of how contentious food labeling issues have become in recent years, the Monsanto Company has sued a small milk producer in Portland, Me., over the labeling of its dairy products."

7-12-03 Jewish censorship prevails in Australia "Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF) organizers cancelled the planned screening of the film on Thursday night because of fears of a protest by Jewish groups."

7-12-03 Flashback: Dr. Henry Makow Our leaders hold a gun to our heads "These deviants and their high-priced toadies constitute the global elite. The CIA, MI-5/6, the Mossad and every major intelligence agency owe their loyalty directly to this elite. These agencies have the additional function of operating the annual $500 billion drug trade, which has been a source of elite power for more than 200 years. These agencies executed the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City attacks. This cabal is probably responsible for 95% of the “terrorist” acts and political assassinations of the last 100 years. The totality of its control of the United States is brought home by what happens to people who stand in their way.…They are murdered."

7-11-03 Long haul for troops in Iraq "American troops could still be in Iraq four years from now, the war's former commander told members of Congress concerned about persistent, deadly attacks." (Real News 24/7: Members of Congress need the courage to look Bush and company square in the eye and say: Not four years, not one year. Too many Americans and Iraqis have died, for what? Bring our troops home now!)

7-11-03 The President's real goal in Iraq Neocon Donald Kagan, co-chairman of 2000's Project for the New American Century: "People worry a lot about how the Arab street is going to react.…Well, I see that the Arab street has gotten very, very quiet since we started blowing things up."

7-10-03 The Insiders are coming out "When was the last time we got a straight answer out of the Bush administration?…In the vacuum, we wind up getting answers like the one Don Rumsfeld delivered on February 12, 2002 when faced with pointed press questions about terrorism: 'As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.'" (Real News 24/7: Boy, Bill Clinton has nothing on Rummy in the "non-answer disguised as answer" department! This article also quotes Rand Beers, ex-Bush advisor now assisting John Kerry, on how the War on Terrorism lacks sufficient funding, which means that Beers is part of the problem himself. What the nation doesn't need is further expanding of an already elephantine federal budget, but people in Washington determined to get to the bottom of the lies and skullduggery that are covering up the real 9-11 scenario [don't hold your breath for the "independent" commission to come through], just as they are now need for an Iraqi War investigation. Unfortunately, Diogenes would have a formidable task searching for an "honest man" inside the Beltway. much less enough of them to make a difference against a firmly entrenched Establishment.)

7-10-03 Arab League blasts Israeli minister for statement on drowning prisoners "The Arab League on Thursday condemned remarks by extreme right-wing Israeli minister Avigdor Lieberman who said Palestinian prisoners should be drowned in the Dead Sea rather than released. 'These statements full of hatred are clear evidence of the aggressive practices that hamper the Middle East peace process,' the spokesman for League Secretary General Amr Mussa said." ( Real News 24/7: If Saddam Hussein had talked about drowning enemy prisoners, the Bush Administration would have used it as "Exhibit A" for why we need to invade Iraq! But Avignor Lieberman can say the same thing on the floor of the Knesset and it doesn't provoke a so much as a whimper of protest from Washington's Israel First team.)

7-10-03 Aussie film festival cans David Irving movie; replaces it with Israeli propaganda flick! Despite winning court approval to show Irving's The Search for Truth in History, the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF) opts, instead, for the pro-Israeli Relentless: the struggle for peace in Israel. According to its website, MUFF is showing the latter "a suggested addition from Michael Lipshutz and the Australian Jewish Community Council (AJCC)." (Real News 24/7: AJCC is the pressure group that sought to ban the Irving film Question: If MUFF is in existence to show films that otherwise won't be seen, how does showing Relentless—which, as a film extolling the virtues of the Zionist state, can count on wide distribution—even remotely fit the category of banned motion picture?)

7-9-03 Big Brother gets a brain "The military is scheduled to issue contracts for Combat Zones That See, or CTS, as early as September.…CTS would coordinate the cameras, gathering their views in a single information storehouse. The goal, according to a recent Pentagon presentation to defense contractors, is to 'track everything that moves'.…'This gives the U.S. government capabilities Big Brother only pretended to have,' said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a defense think tank."

CTS is a brainchild of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the defense agency that has spawned such entities as the sinister Total (now changed to "Terrorist," after many Americans voiced concerns over the Orwellian implications) Information Awareness office and the Brain Machine Interface. Also from DARPA is LifeLog, a digital super diary that captures and analyzes a multimedia record of everywhere a subject goes and everything he or she sees, hears, reads, says and touches. Data is captured by a camera, microphone and sensors worn by the user. The fear of a future where the government knows every thought and action of a person is often written off as the paranoid delusion of "conspiracy nuts," but these projects show unmistakably that the technologies to achieve such population control are in existence and just need to be coordinated to arrive at that state.

House approves $368B defense bill The bill, which represents a 1.3 percent increase over spending in the current fiscal year, "also extends for another year Congress' ban on the use of any funds, without further specific consent of Congress, to implement the Pentagon's controversial Terrorism Information Awareness program domestically against U.S. citizens." IBM, Cray, Sun awarded grants from DARPA for supercomputers

Big brother is tracking you "In a country with a tradition of civil liberty, TIA faces challenges. Opposition ranges from the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union to the right-wing American Conservative Union. The libertarian contention: TIA could be misused to spy on the blameless, data in commercial/government databases is often incorrect and every false positive leads to harassment." Civil defense vs. civil liberties "'In my conversations with people from across the political spectrum, I hear one refrain over and over: If we give up our freedoms in the name of national security, we will have lost the war on terrorism,' said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, in a statement released Thursday."

Two who love Big Brother Not everyone is concerned over the potential destruction of civil liberties that such technology poses. Microsoft's Bill Gates, addressing a homeland-security conference, said Orwell was wrong about Big Brother and cited current law-enforcement efforts to share criminal databases, but predicted that, "unless this system is properly connected to the entire Homeland Security command structure, the potential will not be fully realized." Judge Robert Bork, author and Reagan nominee for the Supreme Court, in an essay "Civil Liberties since 9-11," takes up the Bush position and calls for even tighter "security" measures.

7-9-03 Mossad: Masterminds of global terror? That the major news media have chosen to ignore these stories, rather than go after them tooth and nail like the cutting edge investigative journalists they promote themselves as being, is, in a word, criminal.

7-9-03 Falkland veteran's grief for soldier son "Like everyone else I had to trust the information we were being given and the reasons for going to war. But now I am asking 'What was it for?' and 'What did my son die for?'" (How many other parents will be asking the same questions before it's over?)

7-9-03 Charley Reese: Eden long gone "Recently, an American Army vehicle ran over a 10-year-old boy. It didn't stop. That did not sit well with the Iraqis who saw it happen. I hope it was the case that the soldiers didn't realize they had hit him.…But the boy's family thinks they knew. They think the American soldiers just didn't care that they had killed an Iraqi child."

7-8-03 Deck stacked against defendants as military tribunal looms Cop, prosecutor, defense lawyer, judge, jury & hangman all in one—America's Kangaroo Justice "If we are expecting compassion from the American President then we should think again. This is the man who mocked an appeal for clemency made by convicted murderer Faye Tucker during an interview with Talk magazine. Bush pursed his lips, squinted his eyes and said in a high-pitched feminine voice, 'please don't kill me.'" British MPs oppose Guantanamo trials "US President George W Bush decided on Thursday that six of them, including Britons [Moazzam] Begg and [Feroz] Abbasi and Australian David Hicks, should face trial in a military tribunal rather than in a regular court. The announcement sparked a wave of protest from human rights groups who said the tribunals would be a 'legal black hole.'" For Hicks (right) and others arrested and detained without charge after 9-11, the prospects for getting a fair chance in court are indeed remote. Fair trial fear for Aussies Former Bush Sr. aide to act as "defense attorney" for suspected al-Qaeda members at secret military tribunal. (Maybe they're afraid this is going to be a kangaroo court.) U.S. free to tap Hick's calls Can anyone really expect justice to be served when suspects' rights are being denied? Terror suspect won't get fair trial in U.S. "U.S. National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) president Lawrence Goldman said there would be no confidentiality between lawyers and clients, which is held to be a basic tenet of legal representation, and that would make it virtually impossible for a trial to be fair." Camp X-Ray.org "Camp X-Ray is the code name for the internment camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that the U.S. is using to house Afghan suspects it has detained. We are concerned that Human Rights Violations are occurring or that the U.S. is giving the world the appearance of a government that violates Human Rights." Fair go for David Hicks A website asking that Hicks and other Aussie prisoners at Guantanamo be treated according to the Geneva Convention, have the law of Habeas Corpus apply for them and if charged with any crimes, be repatriated to Australia to stand trial.

7-8-03 Film festival wins legal row "A Jewish group has lost its legal fight to stop the screening of a documentary made by Holocaust skeptic David Irving. The Melbourne Underground Film Festival is set to screen Irving's The Search for Truth in History this Thursday, followed by a live telephone interview with the British historian."

7-8-03 White House admits factual error in State of the Union address Oh, and it just so happened to be an error that helped sell us on going to war. What, if anything, that's been said about Iraq hasn't been wrong? BBC: Bush "warned over uranium claim" "The CIA warned the US Government that claims about Iraq's nuclear ambitions were not true months before President Bush used them to make his case for war.…"

7-8-03 South Carolina radio co-host is suing Clear Channel The lawsuit contends she was fired for opposing the Iraqi War. Clear Channel Communications, the broadcast media giant with ties to Bush, has made it a consistent policy nationwide for its affiliates to be rabidly pro-war and has even sponsored pro-war rallies.

7-7-03 The Anti-Christian Zionists

On March 25, Christine Saadeh, 10 (in some reports, 12—photo, right) was shot and killed by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers as she drove in a residential area of Bethlehem with her parents and older sister. The Israeli Defense Force claimed it was a case of mistaken identity, but, according to an eyewitness, they refused to allow an ambulance to come to the scene and Christine, whose father is the headmaster of a Greek Orthodox school, was not taken to a hospital for more than half-an-hour after receiving her fatal wounds.

While Christine Saadeh's death may have been a tragic accident, there are numerous other instances in which Zionists in Israel have committed deliberate anti-Christian acts. The fact that these events are almost entirely unknown outside of the Holy Land is testimony to how well the Israel First spin machine is a burying any and all stories that do not fit the "Israel can do no wrong" propaganda matrix. The articles below defy the blackout.

Zionists/Israeli attacks on Christian: 1944-1995 Completely ignored by the pro-Israeli news media, the neocons and Christian Zionists are the numerous terrorist or other belligerent acts perpetrated prior to the establishment of the State of Israel by the Zionists who seized Palestine and, subsequently, by the Israelis, against Christians and church property. Among the criminal acts conveniently thrown down the memory hole are:

St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem. On 3 Feb. 1944 three Jews were surprised as they tried to set a bomb at the gate of St. George's Cathedral through
which the British High Commissioner would pass on his way to Sunday service.
French Catholic Ratisbonne School. On 20 Nov, 1947 Jews smashed the statue
of the Virgin Mary in the enclosure.
German Catholic Church of Jerusalem. On 16 Feb. 1948 Jews threw hand grenades into the yard of the church.
Dormito Abbey, Mt. Zion. Also on 16 Feb. 1948 a bomb was thrown by the Haganah into the garden barely missing two fathers.

While the above article only covers up to the year 1995, such instances still continue, as is seen in the accompanying articles.

Anti-Christian feelings exploding in Israel Statement by the late Israel Shahak, professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, on Jewish hatred towards Christianity: "Dishonoring Christian religious symbols is an old religious duty in Judaism. Spitting on the cross, and especially on the Crucifix, and spitting when a Jew passes a church, have been obligatory from around AD 200 for pious Jews.…"

Israel implements actively anti-Christian policies "It is not enough that Israeli laws allow for the imprisonment of preachers and missionaries, that Israeli laws allow for the stripping of Christian immigrants of their Israeli citizenship and for their deportation, that the Knesset of Israel has debated rendering the praising of Jesus punishable by mandatory prison sentence." (Emphasis in original)

7-7-03 Behind the Iraq dossier hoax: Intelligence was cooked in Israel "The essential facts are as follows: Two days before (Secretary of State Colin) Powell's UN appearance, 10 Downing Street issued a 16-page paper, "Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception, and Intimidation," purportedly based on high-level British intelligence data. In fact, at least 11 of the 16 pages were lifted, verbatim, from an Israeli journal, Middle East Review of International Affairs, whose sole proprietor is Dr. Barry Rubin, an American-born Israeli citizen."

7-7-03 Quizzing them on 9-11 Contact the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States and urge them to publicly examine the classified information about the Israeli spies arrested after the attacks. For a quick overview, see Investigative Report: Intelligence agents or art students? "Indeed, says a senior Justice Department official briefed on an ongoing multi-agency task force, 'We think there is something quite sinister here but are unable at this time to put our finger on it.' But, said another federal law-enforcement source: 'The higher-ups don't want to deal with this and neither does the FBI because it involves Israel'" (emphasis added) or for more extensive background material, see the "Israeli Spy Ring" link.

7-7-03 Autopsy: No Arabs aboard Flight 77 "It seemed simple to me. . .produce the names of all the bodies identified by the AFIP [Armed Forces Institute of Pathology] and compare it with the publicized list of passengers. So, I sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the AFIP and asked for an expedited response, because we were getting ready to send our boys to war on the pretext that Osama/Sadaam had done the deed. Fourteen months later, a few US soldiers dead, many Iraqi civilians pushing up daisies, and I finally get the list."

7-6-03 The Christian Zionists

Palestinians: "Zionist Christians" illegitimate "At a conference this week, Palestinian church leaders declared American Christians who support Israel's right to the Holy Land based on biblical grounds have no connection to true Christianity." Israeli extremists and Christian fundamentalists: the alliance "What is the message of the Christian Zionist? Simply stated it is this: Every act taken by Israel is orchestrated by God, and should be condoned, supported, and even praised by the rest of us.…They believe that what Israel wants is what God wants. Therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to give the green light to whatever it is Israel wants and then conceal this from the American people. Anything, including lies, theft, even murder, is justified as long as Israel wants it." Christian Zionists and the political implications of rebuilding the Temple " "Christian support for the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple is also invariably linked to the political claims of exclusive Jewish sovereignty over not only the Temple Mount (see above right photo of Israeli protesters) and Jerusalem but much of the Middle East as well.…Far from demonstrating a ministry of reconciliation to all nations, which is at the heart of the Christian faith, Zionism perpetuates religious intolerance and incites ethnic violence. Fuelled by a fatalistic conviction of an imminent apocalyptic war, Christian Zionists are indeed, 'anxious for Armageddon.'" This is evident in the article, "Open the gates!," on the website of the International Christian Zionist Center (ICZC), in which they write of of their "prophetic rendezvous" with "the Temple Mount Faithful - a group of Bible-believing Jews that has for years been working to re-establish de facto Jewish sovereignty on God's Holy Hill." (See photo left of ICZC at Temple Mount) Apocalypse Now "American evangelicals, according to former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 'are the Israelis' best friend in the whole world.' In return, they dubbed him “the Ronald Reagan of Israel."

7-6-03 Saddam destroyed weapons in 1990s "Evidence given in the US this week suggests that US intelligence analysts lacked new, hard information about Saddam's weapons after United Nations inspectors left Iraq in 1998." U.K.: Where does the paper trail lead An interview with Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge lecturer who revealed that the second dossier issued by Prime Minister Tony Blair's staff (and used by Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations to justify the invasion of Iraq) had been plagiarized, on what to expect the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee's report. (Real News 24/7: In answer to a question about how to determine if Iraq had or was planning to make WMDs, Rangwala replied "Simply the only way is to let the United Nations inspection teams go back to Iraq and continue their work." This is wrong headed for more than one reason. First, the U.N. teams have checked for them and found nothing, which is consistent with what previous inspectors such as Scott Ritter had been saying all along. Further, it is now three months since victory was declared and a search of over 200 suspected facilities has turned up nothing. The claim that the weapons are well hidden doesn't wash, either; if Saddam Hussein had posed the great and immediate threat Bush and his neocon spin doctors continue to claim, it is absurd to believe he would not have used them against the invasion force since he knew the goal was to topple him from power, in which event, he would never be able to use them Over and above these consideration, however, is Rangwala's suggestion that the "only way" to find them is to send the U.N. teams back into Iraq. There notion that they could suddenly uncover what neither they nor the coalition troops could find after many months of scouring the country is ridiculous, but besides being ridiculous, it's downright dangerous. Why? Because it is acknowledging the United Nations as having the authority to act as only a government can act and every time the U.N. is permitted such power solidifies the coalescing of a world government. But wait, defenders of the U.N. will say, what about Saddam and others like him. If we don't have inspection teams, then we won't know if they are stockpiling weapons. The answer is that there are other ways to know, such as satellites. No matter, though, because the threat of a despot is far less that of a all-encompassing world government that sees man—not God—as the source of human rights.)

7-6-03 Lying redefined "In a very short time, the Bush/PNAC administration has accomplished a rather extraordinary feat. Using their well honed skills for surreptitious manipulation, the Bush Cartel has cleverly disguised the fabrications and distortions uttered by the President to make them more palatable to the gullible public. George W. Bush never, ever lies! He may not be telling the truth, but, glory be, George W. Bush, like our legendary first president, simply cannot tell a LIE!"

7-6-03 Paleoconservatives explained (and why they're the bane of neocons) "Paleos are losers, at least politically, which is what makes them so attractive. They do not share the popular prejudices of the American Street. They recognize the dangers of militant Islam, but do not believe that bombing Arab women and children is the answer to the problem. They are pro-life and pro-death penalty. They are anti-big business and anti-big government. There is no party line, however; no ideology.…" Chronicles website Paleoconservative Digest A lively blog of paleocon thought.

7-5-03 Bill Clinton as NATO Chief? "One of Norway’s most highly profiled and right-wing politicians, Carl I. Hagen, is urging the nomination of former U.S. President Bill Clinton as new NATO boss," reported Norway’s Aftenposten on June 17th. Hagen, head of Norway’s Progress Party, insists that "NATO’s new leader should have international authority," continued the report. "He thinks Clinton, therefore, is the perfect choice." (Real News 24/7: Since when is a "right-wing politician" an internationalist? One of the distinguishing marks of those on the Right, whatever their individual differences might be, is that they defend the notion of national sovereignty. This just goes to show that phony conservatives are active the world over.)

7-5-03 Defensive use of guns underreported "The media conditions many to oppose guns because reporting of incidents when firearms are used negatively is so much more prevalent than coverage of when guns protect lives and property, which is estimated by researchers to be more than 2 million times a year – most never involving the firing of shots."

July 4th, 2003

Americans celebrate nation's birthday as
war rages abroad—and at home

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People
to alter or abolish it and to institute new Government,…
—The Declaration of Independence

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter
and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
—Abraham Lincoln

While it is distressing to to see the wretched shape in which our nation finds herself both at home and abroad on this great holiday, we can find much solace in knowing that she has weathered a great many storms of similar dimensions. Still, the conflict being fought by U.S. troops half-way around the world, a conflict both unclear in its origins and in its goals, needs to be questioned by Americans. Among those questions:

Did certain people in our government—let us call them what they are…traitors—know beforehand of the plans to attack our country on September 11, 2001, yet do nothing or, even worse, were complicit in those plans?
Why were scores of Israelis arrested for spying in the United States shortly after 9-11, only to be deported without explanation?
Why was this crucial story totally ignored by the news media, with the lone exception of Fox News (which quickly dropped it, as though it was told to do so)? What figures in government saw to it that the story was killed, so Americans were left in the dark?
In November 2002 Bush advisor Richard Perle revealed to British Parliament that (contrary to the lies the American people were being told) the U.S. would invade Iraq regardless of whether Weapons of Mass Destruction were found there. Why was this critical story also spiked?

While our troops needlessly have been placed into a hostilities overseas, at home the nation groans as a terrible culture war ensues. The same subversive forces, hateful of traditional American values, have succeeded in imposing their will on the masses in myriad ways: abortion, attacks against Christianity and even its right to have a say in the "marketplace of ideas," blasphemy, birth control, feminism, gun control, pornography, sex education and sexual promiscuity (including, to some extent, the "pedophile priests" and their counterparts in other faiths), are some of the baneful results visited upon the nation by these social terrorists. Going even beyond abortion to the liquidation of post-natal "undesirables," one prominent culture subversive, "animal rights" activist Professor Peter Singer of Princeton, has advocated a Hitler-like "euthanasia" for the mentally or physically handicapped and for "less-than-human" babies under a month old. Of this "humanist" proposal a paraphrase of Orwell is in order: All humans are equal, but some are more equal than others." In June they scored another victory when the "conservative" U.S. Supreme Court voted to legalize homosexual acts (next the sodomites will push the country to follow the sad lead of Canada, where "gay" parodies of marriage are given the equivalent status of the real thing).

Much of this is justified by appealing to Thomas Jefferson's famous phrase "wall of separation between of church and state," which is twisted to mean something never intended by him. Jefferson specifically was contending that no particular denomination, be it Episcopal, Presbyterian, Catholic, Methodist, etc., be established as a state religion (a common practice in European countries that many early Americans had come here to avoid), and this was always the sense in which it was interpreted until the last 40 years or so. Jefferson never would have approved, say, the recent court ruling that seeks to take "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. But, then, how could he? It was he, after all, who penned the immortal phrase "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," a phrase which "violates" the "wall of separation" as interpreted by his would-be modern proponents.

Americans must be silent no more as the forces of evil succeed, in piecemeal fashion, to gut our nation of these rights and eventually submerge it into a godless New World Order in which government, not God, is portrayed as the giver of rights. It is the purpose of Real News 24/7 to provide information to help Americans (and people of goodwill throughout the world) combat this wickedness in high places. We hold that this battle is not only being fought on in the physical world, but in the spiritual one, as well. Consequently, it is a conflict that must be fought with the weapons of the spirit, of which prayer is a principal one. But it is imperative that we do all in our power to fight on the temporal plane with every morally permissible means at our disposal, which includes providing vital knowledge to our neighbor that is being concealed (or presented as half-truths) by the powers-that-be. As St. Augustine said: "Pray as if everything depends on God, but work as if everything depends on you."

What follows are some website that commemorate Independence Day:

A Capitol Fourth This PBS page about the annual Washington, D.C., observance has much more than just information about the concert and performers, including Presidents' reflections on the Fourth, holiday tips, a timeline, and histories of the holiday and of Old Glory

It happened on the Fourth of July Take this challenging quiz to find out how much you really know about the holiday, by answering questions such as: "Name three U.S. presidents who died on the Fourth of July."

ushistory.org's Declaration of Independence website. "This site provides a wealth of information about the signers of the Declaration, the history of the Declaration, and an online version of the Declaration for you to read." It does, plus provide links to other sites of interest.

An Oration on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence Noah Webster's powerful reiteration of our nation's founding principles: "The undisguised encroachments of power give the alarm and excite resistance . . . but the approaches of despotism, under cover of popular favor, are insidious and often deceive the most discerning friends of a free government."

Fourth of July Celebrations Database This site, though geared for grade-schoolers, has much of interest for all ages, including speeches (with audio in some cases), "What the Presidents did on the Fourth of July" (1969- Nixon spends the holiday weekend in Key Biscayne, Fla., where he watches a
parade and exchanges messages with anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, who is on the boat
"Expedition Ra" on his way across the Atlantic), "Numerical Symbolism and the Fourth of July" and "A Chronology of Notable Fourth of July Events" [for example, 1995- Dunbarton, N.H., welcomes five candidates (Bob Dole, Kansas; Senator Phil Gramm, Texas; Patrick Buchanan; Bob Dornan, Calif.; Alan Keyes) for the presidential nominations; in Oklahoma City, Okla., all flags are raised to full staff at 9:02 a.m., the exact time that the Federal Building there was bombed (19 April); in Indianapolis, the Fourth is the final Independence Day flag raising at Fort Benjamin Harrison, due to its closing in the Army's downsizing; the first July 4th celebration occurs in Hanoi, Vietnam by 500 Americans since the end of the War and on the site where the former American Consulate stood ].

7-4-03 Anger as Britons named for U.S. terror trials "Two Britons will be among the first terror suspects to be tried by the United States, Britain said on Friday, sparking outrage among relatives and human rights groups who fear justice will not be done."

7-4-03 Charley Reese: Truth is important "Unfortunately, most Americans don't seem to care if their public officials lie to them. Many seem to expect it. No wonder we are coming unglued at the seams of our society. Trust is imperative. And trust is based on truth."

7-3-03 Don't Know Much About History: America's Civics Challenge "About three out of four fourth-graders knew that July 4 celebrates the Declaration of Independence. But one in four thought it marked the end of the Civil War, the arrival of the Pilgrims or the start of the woman's right to vote. More than half of 12th-graders, asked to pick a U.S. ally in World War II from a list of countries, thought the answer was Italy, Germany or Japan." The NEA laments the lack of knowledge, but it's really a self-indictment.

7-2-03 Congresswoman wages battle against "gay" marriages "While gays claim victory with a Supreme Court decision knocking down a ban on sodomy, freshman Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave insists the real battle is over the right of homosexuals to marry."

The proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (H.J.Res. 56):

"Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any state under state or federal law shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

Support the Federal Marriage Amendment. Sign the online petition. Act now! Alliance for marriage More information from a sponsoring group.

Bush: Too soon for amendment banning "gay" marriages (Real News 24/7: This should be considered a large, bright red flag to pro-family groups around the nation. It brings to mind similar remarks he made while running as a "pro-life" candidate for President—after more than two decades of legal abortion, mind you—that the country was not "ready" for a Constitutional amendment effectively overturning Roe vs. Wade. So, sad to say, there is good reason to believe, should "gay" marriages ever be given the blessing of the Federal Government, that Bush will continue to find excuses for not supporting a pro-family amendment.) Conservatives divided on amendment "Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group,…said his group favored changing the courts, not the Constitution." Real News 24/7: Sure, there you go, "brilliant" idea—all we need are a couple more stalwart "conservative" justices like Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor or David Souter to solve our problems. No doubt, we can count on Dubya will nominate some "really solid" judges, like Alberto Gonzales (see our June 25th posting in the Latest News and Analysis Archives).

We need the Marriage Amendment "The Marriage Amendment now before Congress appears to be the only way the march of judicial activism can be halted and the public be given the opportunity to make the final decision." Deconstructing marriage: What will be legalized next? "If homosexual activists have their way, the Supreme Court's ruling in the Lawrence v. Texas —that homosexual sodomy cannot be outlawed—will be used to force states to grant legal recognition of homosexual "marriages" performed in other states and even in other countries."

7-2-03 Israelis pull out of Bethlehem "However, as long as Bethlehem remains encircled by Israeli checkpoints, residents don't expect the handover to change much. 'They are making fools out of us,' said Jaudat Joude, who has been unable to reach his job at a Jerusalem welding factory since the uprising began almost three years ago. 'If you want to make some serious changes, open the roads, remove the checkpoints and let people in to work. Then maybe we can believe that the Israelis have good intentions.'

7-2-03 Bush to Iraqi militants: "Bring them on" "New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg sharply criticized Bush for the 'bring them on' comment: 'I am shaking my head in disbelief. When I served in the army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander— let alone the commander in chief—invite enemies to attack U.S. troops.'" (Real News 24/7: Among the President's remarks was one that didn't make the newswires: "I am optimistic, but I also recognize the nature of the Middle East. I mean, there are people there who still hate. They hate Israel. They hate the idea of peace. They can't stand the thought of a peaceful state existing side-by-side with Israel." Why the blackout of this? Could it be that it might remind people that the U.S. is doing Israel's dirty work by fighting in Iraq? And what about the remark itself? It could have just as easily have come from the lips of any Israeli politician—as though Israel doesn't ever hate any of its neighbors, initiate conflicts or engage in acts of state-sponsored terrorism. His comments can be found near the end of this announcement naming a head of the White House's $15 billion AIDS relief plan.)

7-2-03 Majority in U.S. believe Bush "stretched the truth" about Iraq: poll "For the first time since the beginning of the war in Iraq, a solid majority of Americans believe the Bush administration either "stretched the truth" about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or told outright lies, according to a new opinion survey."

7-1-03 Predator prowls Iraq

Remote-control aerial vehicle equally adept at spying, killing

"From the DoD's DefenseLink: "It hunts alone, flying quietly for more than 20 hours at a time, carefully scouring the Earth for the most minute evidence of ground activity and discretely relaying intelligence information to analysts half a world away.…But on a moment's notice, the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle can transform itself from a forward aerial observer to an opportunist attack-craft capable of delivering an armor-busting missile with pin-point accuracy." BBC News: U.S. drones take combat role On November 4, five suspected members of the al-Qaeda were killed while motoring in Yemen by a Predator-fired missile in a CIA hit. (Real News 24/7 comment: This incident was widely reported and in virtually all articles the slain men were described as suspected members of al-Qaeda. Remember, this was several months before the start of the Iraq war and it occurred in a nation with which we were not at war. Killing those only suspected of terrorist activities, without apprehension and trial, is as immoral as a lynching and resembles the "targeted killings" of the Israelis, which often include the deaths of innocent civilians. For all this, there was no outcry condemning this criminal act, meaning that the perpetrators will feel emboldened to carry out other such hits in the future.) Mark Fiore with a different take on the Yemen strike in his brilliant animated cartoon, Predator execution drone. Was similar technology used in the WTC and Pentagon attacks in September 11, 2001? For thoughts on this and other related issues, see New questions about remote control and 9-11. Showing awareness of such potential threats, the Department of Home Security has harassed the builder of remote control helicopters.

Flashback: Lone Gunmen TV series presaged 9-11 "Funny how a Hollywood series could anticipate the 911 scenario, but the multi-billion dollar defense and intelligence establishment was caught totally off guard. George W. Bush and Dick Chaney say no one ever thought of flying hijacked aircraft into buildings before. And they are honorable men. So are they all, honorable men." (Real News 24/7: Please note—this is a different article than the one in our Latest News and Analysis for 11-22-02, and it includes a link to a TV Guide article about the episode's 9-11 parallel that has interesting comments from Lone Gunmen writer Frank Spotnitz and a video with some footage not seen on the one in our archives.)

7-1-03 MSNBC.com "reveals" facts on Israel's WMD "Even now, MSNBC is not making the information easy to get. It is tucked away in an obscure corner of the website. Try finding it from the home page, and if you figure out how, let me know.…"

7-1-03 CIA removes photos of uranium equipment "The CIA abruptly removed from its Web site photos that showed key uranium-enriching equipment found hidden in Iraq because they revealed secrets that countries seeking to develop nuclear weapons might find helpful, analysts said yesterday." (Real News 24/7: That's the CIA's cover story for why the photos were taken down, but the real reason has more to do with damage control, after their overblown claims were shown to be utterly ridiculous. For those who might have missed it when we first ran the evidence last week or for those who need to be refreshed, here's a breakdown of the folly!)

7-1-03 Contrarian chronicles: Fed wants to tax your savings "So basically, these unelected morons are contemplating a new law—"Thou shalt not save, thou shalt spend." And, if you don't, we're going to confiscate your money, via a tax, after we've already confiscated your money via debasement."

7-1-03 From our Cryptozoology department: Giant sea creature baffles scientists "Chilean scientists are baffled by a huge, gelatinous sea creature found washed up on the southern Pacific coast and are seeking international help identifying the mystery specimen."