"By now it should be clear that authoritarian rule is not the wave of the future. It is the last gasp of a discredited past."I've been saying the same thing for more than four years. And in my opinion, it's about time he started taking the idea seriously. I eagerly await the last gasp of this discredited presidency.
Brother testifies he saw Jackson molesting boyI knew they'd get back to covering serious issues eventually.
A $33,000 food order in Mosul was billed to the U.S.-led interim government of Iraq at $432,000. Electricity that cost $74,000 was invoiced at $400,000. Even $10 kettles got a 400 percent markup.What's been going on here? Maybe you have heard or read about Custer Battles before reading about them in this context. I hadn't. Such is the ignorance of the lowly and nearly frozen Winter Patriot. But I'm learning fast. And here is some of what I'm learning:
Documents unearthed as part of a whistleblower suit against Fairfax, Va.'s Custer Battles reveal for the first time the extent to which the defense contractor is accused of gouging the Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq following the U.S. invasion of the country in 2003.
For critics of the Bush administration's handling of postwar Iraq, Custer Battles has become something of a symbol of contractor excess during the 14-month period that the Coalition Provisional Authority governed Iraq. The company was able to secure tens of millions of dollars' worth of security and logistical contracts from the CPA -- despite the fact that it didn't even exist until just months before the invasion of Iraq.Now this raises a few interesting questions, does it not? For instance, how did major contracts wind up in the files of a company which didn't even exist a few years ago? Who are the people behind this company, and how did they put themselves in a position to perpetrate such a major fraud?
Documents unearthed as part of a whistleblower suit against Fairfax, Va.'s Custer Battles reveal for the first time the extent to which the defense contractor is accused of gouging the Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq following the U.S. invasion of the country in 2003.Let's see: less than $4 million in costs, at an allowed profit margin of 25 percent, that's less than $1 million in profit, for a total of less than $5 million in invoices. But they billed the government nearly $10 million, so we're talking about an overbilling of roughly $5 million. Five million dollars! Does that sound major to you? Does it sound like fraud?
Among those documents is a spreadsheet that appears to show the company billing the government nearly $10 million for dozens of items, including food, vehicles, and cooking pots. The total cost to Custer Battles, according to the spreadsheet, was less than $4 million -- a profit margin of 150 percent, far higher than the 25 percent margin allowed under its contract.
"do not demonstrate any type of fraud or wrong-doing by the company or any of its employees, and the company vigorously denies any such conduct or allegations."Well of course they didn't do anything wrong. They probably mistakenly gave the appearance of doing something wrong when they in fact were doing everything properly. Happens all the time, doesn't it?
Custer Battles employed a group of "sham companies" to create bogus invoices that vastly overstated the cost of items.This would be much more difficult to pass off as a mistake, wouldn't it?
In an interview with government investigators, Scott Custer acknowledged that Custer Battles set up companies in the Cayman Islands named Secure Global Distribution and Mid-East Leasing.Well that's not so simple, is it? But it certainly doesn't appear that the Winter Patriot's hypothesis of diamond-encrusted kettles is going to hold any water [ahem].
A third company, MT Holdings -- named after the initials of two Custer Battles employees -- was also set up in the Caymans as a holding company for Secure Global and Mid-East Leasing. The offshore companies, Custer told investigators, were designed to limit Custer Battles' liability in the event that its employees were killed or injured in Iraq and to maintain Custer Battles' image as a security contractor by providing a different brand identity for the company when it was providing logistical work.
But several documents -- the company's suspension memorandum from the Air Force, the signed statement from BearingPoint's Ottenbreit, an internal report written in February 2004 by Custer Battles manager Peter Miskovich, and the statements of the two whistleblowers in the current suit -- suggest that Mid-East Leasing and Secure Global were just two of several companies set up to inflate the company's equipment and supply costs.
Scott Custer and Michael Battles, both in their 30s at the outset of the invasion of Iraq, had served together in the U.S. Army.Oops. Maybe I was wrong about the connections, too. Former U.S. Army! One a former Ranger! This doesn't look good. Maybe it will get better. Or maybe not!
Custer is a former Army Ranger who had worked for Arlington, Va.-based defense contractor Science Applications International Corp.
Battles ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Republican in Rhode Island in 2002 and, according to the record of Custer's interview with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, is a former Central Intelligence Agency case officer who was -- according to Custer -- "very active in the Republican Party and speaks to individuals he knows at the White House almost daily."So one of the people behind this non-fraud is a Republican with CIA connections, who is "almost daily" in contact with individuals he knows at the White House? Who could ever believe such a thing?
In the fall of 2002, the two founded Custer Battles as a security firm. Within months, President George W. Bush would order U.S. troops into Iraq.Well that's not so special, is it? I mean, everybody knew that Bush was going to do that, didn't they? Everyone who was watching the news or reading the papers must have known, months in advance, that there was going to be an invasion of Iraq. I could have told you the USA was going to invade Iraq, just based on what I saw on TV on September 11th, 2001 [ahem].
Custer Battles was among the first contractors into Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein and, by the end of June 2003, had managed to win the contract to provide security for Baghdad's airport, a contract Custer told investigators was the first time the company had provided actual security for a site.So I was wrong again! Despite never having provided security for any site in the history of the company, they got the contract to secure Baghdad's airport! What a miracle!
Under the False Claims Act, whistleblowers can file a qui tam suit against a company for bilking the United States. The Justice Department can then choose to join the suit; if successful, the government can collect three times the amount of damages it sustains, plus penalties and fees. The plaintiffs are also eligible for 15 percent to 30 percent of the claim.What a surprise that must have been! This is the same Justice Department we all know and love, is it not? Well at least it doesn't set any precedent. Setting a precedent to allow companies to defraud the government and escape the notice of the Justice Department would be a very bad move, wouldn't it? So it's a good thing that isn't happening...
In October, the DOJ, without explanation, declined to join the Custer Battles suit [...] A Justice Department spokesman declined comment on the case.
Grayson, the whistleblowers' attorney and a partner in McLean, Va.'s Grayson & Kubli, says that the Justice Department declined to join the suit because of uncertainty over whether the CPA was a part of the federal government. [...]Oh well. Wrong again! Sorry about that, folks. You lose some, you lose some.
One senior Pentagon lawyer told Legal Times that a number of other suits have been filed that will turn on this exact question.
Should the court decide that the False Claims Act does not apply to CPA contracts in the Custer Battles case, procurement attorneys say it's unclear how violations of those contracts can be prosecuted in other cases.
"The government has played this both ways," says Steven Schooner, a government contracts expert at George Washington University Law School. "When it's been to the government's advantage to say the CPA was a federal agency, they've said it was a federal agency. When it wasn't, they've said it wasn't."
"do not demonstrate any type of fraud or wrong-doing by the company or any of its employees, and the company vigorously denies any such conduct or allegations."So let's not be so pessimistic! There may be some winners after all. Stay tuned.
Syria's announcement that it will withdraw its forces in Lebanon in a two-step process was greeted with criticism by the United States, which said Saturday the plan is insufficient. Syrian President Bashar Assad said his country first would move its troops to the Bekaa Valley area, closer to the Syria-Lebanon border.Of course it's insufficient. What Syria should do is this: Build fourteen permanent military bases in Lebanon, and establish the largest and most heavily fortified Syrian embassy in the world in Beirut. Then the United States could not possibly complain. After all, this is exactly what the US is doing in Iraq.
The U.S. has criticized Syria's announcement that it will withdraw its forces in Lebanon in a two-step process, saying the troops "must withdraw completely and immediately." Syrian President Bashar Assad said his country first would move its troops to the Bekaa Valley area, closer to the Syria-Lebanon border.I think they do this just to bother me. Sometimes they take the links down as well. At the moment, however, you can find CNN's story here.
For a government that wraps its actions in moral absolutes about good versus evil, while deriding liberal relativism, the Bush administration may rank as the most committed in modern American history to an ends-justify-the-means ethos.He goes on and on [and this is a rather lengthy piece by Parry's standards], detailing three instances in which the neocons have recently taken credit for things they did not do, and drawing parallels with the way in which they took credit for bringing about the fall of the Soviet Union [which they also did not do]. I could attempt to give you a brief synopsis, but there is no way in which I could do the column justice. He's too good a writer. Everything is stated as succinctly as possible already. You just have to read it for yourself.
Indeed, to understand the administration’s neoconservative foreign policy, one must recognize how this moral framework works: First, it sets out worthy-sounding goals – freedom, democracy, security – and then it applies whatever tactics are deemed necessary – torture, murder, unprovoked invasions – along with an aggressive propaganda strategy at home.
Next, when events take a positive turn, the neoconservatives claim credit, even if they had only a minor role or the events were largely coincidental. Criticism of the bloody means is washed away by celebration of the virtuous ends. Mainstream commentators join in, cheering the neocons’ farsightedness. Those who opposed the original actions are pushed to the political margins.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has branded the United States a terrorist state while rejecting Washington's criticism of Caracas for its arms purchase from Russia.
Chavez, a fierce critic of US President George Bush and the US-led war in Iraq, on Saturday brushed aside US opposition to the agreement to buy 100,000 automatic rifles and about 40 military helicopters from Moscow.
"One has to ask whether there was transparency in the invasion of Iraq. The world knows President Bush lied openly about Iraq having chemical weapons," Chavez said.
"They keep on bombing cities, killing children, they have become a terrorist state," he said.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to suspend oil exports to the US if someone tries to assassinate him.
"If they kill me, there will be a really guilty party on this planet whose name is the President of the United States George Bush," Chavez said on Sunday during his weekly radio programme Hello, Mr President.
"If, by the hand of the devil, those perverse plans succeed... forget about Venezuelan oil, Mr Bush," he said.
Venezuela has rejected recent US accusations against President Hugo Chavez as slander, designed to prepare the ground for an impending attack against the country.
Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez on Wednesday dismissed as "impertinent" charges Venezuela limits free speech.
He also ruled out accusations that Caracas associates with Colombian guerrillas and is a destabilising force in the region.
"The absurdity of these accusations against our government would not cause us the least anxiety if it were not for so many facts demonstrating that these signs appear because, sooner or later, there will be an attack," Rodriguez said.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has renewed a threat to halt oil supplies to the United States if Washington hurts the Latin American country.
Relations between Washington and Venezuela - which exports the bulk of its oil to the US - have been badly strained since Chavez last month accused Washington of plotting to have him assassinated.
"If there is any aggression, there will be no oil," Chavez, who is in New Delhi on a four-day visit, was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying on Friday.
Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over.
In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.
Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.
How about a hyperlink? Is it worth a penny, or a dollar, to a campaign?
I don't know. But I'll tell you this. One thing the commission has argued over, debated, wrestled with, is how to value assistance to a campaign.
Corporations aren't allowed to donate to campaigns. Suppose a corporation devotes 20 minutes of a secretary's time and $30 in postage to sending out letters for an executive. As a result, the campaign raises $35,000. Do we value the violation on the amount of corporate resources actually spent, maybe $40, or the $35,000 actually raised? The commission has usually taken the view that we value it by the amount raised. It's still going to be difficult to value the link, but the value of the link will go up very quickly.
This is an incredible thicket. If someone else doesn't take action, for instance in Congress, we're running a real possibility of serious Internet regulation. It's going to be bizarre.
The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture.I would love to tell you that their fears concerning torture are unfounded, but there's a limit to the amount of sarcasm a patriot can write -- even a lowly and nearly frozen patriot like myself.
"I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research," says Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, UK. "Even if the use of temporary severe pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are unknown."And what do we mean by "optimize"? Sadly, it's just about what you'd expect. They are trying to figure out how to produce the maximum amount of pain.
The contract, heavily censored before release, asks researchers to look for "optimal pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor activation" - in other words, cause the maximum pain possible. Studies on cells grown in the lab will identify how much pain can be inflicted on someone before causing injury or death.How "quaint".
Amanda Williams, a clinical psychologist at University College London, fears that victims risk long-term harm. "Persistent pain can result from a range of supposedly non-destructive stimuli which nevertheless change the functioning of the nervous system," she says. She is concerned that studies of cultured cells will fall short of demonstrating a safe level for a plasma burst. "They cannot tell us about the pain and psychological consequences of such a painful experience."Of course they can't. Cultured cells in a lab are not going to tell us anything about the long-term damage humans may suffer if they are exposed to such a weapon. And even if they somehow managed to do experiments with this thing on humans, it still wouldn't tell us very much. As one of my friends always reminds me, "Every organism is different. Every one reacts in a different way. Just because an experiment on a hundred subjects shows no lasting harm, that doesn't mean the hundred-and-first time won't kill somebody." I won't mention the name of the friend who likes to tell me this, but I will say that I don't dare argue with him. Not only because he's at least as smart as I am, but also because he happens to have a PhD in biology.
If Wayne Madsen has it right, the torture is all part of something much bigger; impossibly sick and horribly sickening. His most recent article asks Did White House S&M ring order special videos from Abu Ghraib?. And his main point appears in this short paragraph:By their fruits shall ye know them.The presence of cameras in prison facilities had many Washington insiders wondering if the gay S&M prostitution ring centered in the White House had access to pornographic videos from torture centers such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
Missile Counter-Attack
Axworthy fires back at U.S. -- and Canadian -- critics of our BMD decision in An Open Letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Thursday, March 3rd, 2005
By LLOYD AXWORTHY
Dear Condi, I'm glad you've decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It's a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.
I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.
But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can't quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.
As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we've had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we're going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.
Sure, that doesn't match the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a "liberation war" in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while cutting food programs for poor children.
Just chalk that up to a different sense of priorities about what a national government's role should be when there isn't a prevailing mood of manifest destiny.
Coming to Ottawa might also expose you to a parliamentary system that has a thing called question period every day, where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions, and where demands for public debate on important topics such a missile defence can be made openly.
You might also notice that it's a system in which the governing party's caucus members are not afraid to tell their leader that their constituents don't want to follow the ideological, perhaps teleological, fantasies of Canada's continental co-inhabitant. And that this leader actually listens to such representations.
Your boss did not avail himself of a similar opportunity to visit our House of Commons during his visit, fearing, it seems, that there might be some signs of dissent. He preferred to issue his diktat on missile defence in front of a highly controlled, pre-selected audience.
Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.
If you want to have us consider your proposals and positions, present them in a proper way, through serious discussion across the table in our cabinet room, as your previous president did when he visited Ottawa. And don't embarrass our prime minister by lobbing a verbal missile at him while he sits on a public stage, with no chance to respond.
Now, I understand that there may have been some miscalculations in Washington based on faulty advice from your resident governor of the "northern territories," Ambassador Cellucci. But you should know by now that he hasn't really won the hearts and minds of most Canadians through his attempts to browbeat and command our allegiance to U.S. policies.
Sadly, Mr. Cellucci has been far too closeted with exclusive groups of 'experts' from Calgary think-tanks and neo-con lobbyists at cross-border conferences to remotely grasp a cross-section of Canadian attitudes (nor American ones, for that matter).
I invite you to expand the narrow perspective that seems to inform your opinions of Canada by ranging far wider in your reach of contacts and discussions. You would find that what is rising in Canada is not so much anti-Americanism, as claimed by your and our right-wing commentators, but fundamental disagreements with certain policies of your government. You would see that rather than just reacting to events by drawing on old conventional wisdoms, many Canadians are trying to think our way through to some ideas that can be helpful in building a more secure world.
These Canadians believe that security can be achieved through well-modulated efforts to protect the rights of people, not just nation-states.
To encourage and advance international co-operation on managing the risk of climate change, they believe that we need agreements like Kyoto.
To protect people against international crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, they support new institutions like the International Criminal Court -- which, by the way, you might strongly consider using to hold accountable those committing atrocities today in Darfur, Sudan.
And these Canadians believe that the United Nations should indeed be reformed -- beginning with an agreement to get rid of the veto held by the major powers over humanitarian interventions to stop violence and predatory practices.
On this score, you might want to explore the concept of the 'Responsibility to Protect' while you're in Ottawa. It's a Canadian idea born out of the recent experience of Kosovo and informed by the many horrific examples of inhumanity over the last half-century. Many Canadians feel it has a lot more relevance to providing real human security in the world than missile defence ever will.
This is not just some quirky notion concocted in our long winter nights, by the way. It seems to have appeal for many in your own country, if not the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal or Rush Limbaugh. As I discovered recently while giving a series of lectures in southern California, there is keen interest in how the U.S. can offer real leadership in managing global challenges of disease, natural calamities and conflict, other than by military means.
There is also a very strong awareness on both sides of the border of how vital Canada is to the U.S. as a partner in North America. We supply copious amounts of oil and natural gas to your country, our respective trade is the world's largest in volume, and we are increasingly bound together by common concerns over depletion of resources, especially very scarce fresh water.
Why not discuss these issues with Canadians who understand them, and seek out ways to better cooperate in areas where we agree -- and agree to respect each other's views when we disagree.
Above all, ignore the Cassandras who deride the state of our relations because of one missile-defence decision. Accept that, as a friend on your border, we will offer a different, independent point of view. And that there are times when truth must speak to power.
In friendship, Lloyd Axworthy
(Lloyd Axworthy is president of the University of Winnipeg and a former Canadian foreign minister)
For the first time since the Vietnam War ended in 1975, a group of Vietnamese people who say they are victims of Agent Orange are suing for compensation.
The civil case – which, if successful, could be worth billions of dollars in payouts - has been filed on behalf of millions of Vietnamese, who accuse US chemical manufacturers of crimes against humanity. Children raised in areas contaminated by the substance – which contains highly poisonous dioxin - have a wide range of birth defects and chromosome damage.
Companies which manufactured the chemical say they did so in accordance with government specifications, and that use of the agent was necessary to protect US troops. They also say that the health problems suffered by the complainants and exposure to the chemical are unrelated.
The US Justice department has asked the judge to throw the case out, claiming that it is a threat to a president’s power to wage war, and that it will open the floodgates for compensation claims.
"It’s taken so long because the American Government has denied any connection between physical or emotional disabilities and the spraying of 20 million gallons of dioxin on that country during the war. American war veterans spent time in a class action suit in the early 1980s, attempting to receive redress from the US government in support. That case was settled out of court, so there was no precedent."
The neocons have got a good thing going with the Ukrainian model of taking over countries by using manipulated calls for 'democracy' and 'freedom'. After all, who is going to argue with the establishment of democracy? Liberals have exactly the same intellectual problem with this form of propaganda as they have with radical religious fruitcakes hiding behind the concept of liberal tolerance in order to preach their anti-liberal hatred. The entire 'Orange' ruse is staged as a massive PR campaign, using both local and international mass media to create the illusion that all the people are united in a bottom-up plea for freedom. Of course, it is all an illusion. The removal of Syrian troops will just leave Lebanon open to occupation by Israeli troops, hardly an improvement for most of the population.
The complexity and sophistication of the campaign requires a considerable amount of planning by international PR experts. We are supposed to believe the call for removal of Syrian troops arose spontaneously on the assassination of Hariri, but the nature of the staged protests and synchronized media campaign proves that the planners knew in advance of the trigger event, the death of Hariri.
[W]atch for increasingly insane reporting from the disgusting American media on the great danger to the U. S. 'homeland' from Hezbollah, a group predominantly concerned with charitable, educational, and political actions in Lebanon — and Syria's support of Hezbollah replacing Saddam's mythical connections to al Qaeda. The fact that the current Syrian government has waged a bitter war against Islamist fundamentalists, and even offered to help the Americans by sharing their excellent intelligence on terrorist groups — an offer, needless to say, rudely rebuffed by the Americans — won't faze the American propagandists one little bit. Syria is doomed.Personally, I hope Syria is not doomed. I hope nobody is doomed. But then I am only a lowly and nearly frozen blogger, not to be taken seriously. At least not without a healthy block of salt.
The US plans to begin Arab-language television broadcasts to Europe later this year to try and win the hearts and minds of Arab Muslims there, officials say.No problem, right? Just give them a few sitcoms and the hearts and minds will follow, won't they? Of course they will!
If Congress approves the request within the next several weeks as officials expect, Virginia-based Al-Hurra could begin broadcasting by late this year to a Muslim population estimated at 11 million people in Western Europe alone.And they certainly will believe whatever they see on the Al-Hurra network, won't they? Are you kidding?? Why wouldn't Arabic-speaking Europeans believe what they saw on an American television network? You'd believe it, wouldn't you? Well, why wouldn't they??
The Bush administration views satellite TV as a soft-power tool for building goodwill towards the United States, which has been sorely lacking in the Muslim world, especially since the recent US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.Only a subversive "news" organization would try to link "lack of goodwill in the Muslim world" with "the recent US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq". Only some off-the-wall radical sleazeball propaganda operation like Aljazeera would do that, right? Because there's clearly no connection between the two!
Officials say Al-Hurra has grown to reach about 25% of satellite TV owners in the Middle East and viewers increasingly find its newscasts credible and reliable.There, you see? Officials say!! And of course they must be right. Foreign viewers naturally find American television "credible and reliable". They probably see it as "fair and balanced", as well. Wouldn't they? Of course they would! And so would you. Wouldn't you?
However, there has been widespread scepticism in the Arab world since al-Hurra's launch last year.Now why would anyone say something like that? Why would anyone even think something like that? I would never suspect the US of broadcasting propaganda into Europe! Would you?
Most commentators have belittled it as little more than a US propaganda.
"I just don't know how effective it's going to be. A better use of resources would be to work with moderate leaders throughout the Arab world," Nancy Snow, a propaganda expert at California State University, Fullerton, said.Well, now, who are you going to believe, unnamed "officials" or an admitted "propaganda expert"? Propaganda experts by definition are in the business of telling lies, aren't they? So I don't know why anyone would put any stock in a "propaganda expert". I prefer to believe unnamed "officials". Don't you? Doesn't everybody?
[T]he American Civil Liberties Union and a human-rights organization sued Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and three Army commanders yesterday on behalf of former detainees, charging that the military authorized illegal interrogation techniques.or Bush Lives In A Bubble
The legal action stems from some of the well-documented instances of prisoner mistreatment in the Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad, Iraq. However, it also includes less-known examples of abuse at other sites in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four Iraqis and four Afghanis by the ACLU and the group Human Rights First.
"The great motorcade," wrote Canadian correspondent Don Murray, "swept through the streets of the city… The crowds … but there were no crowds. George W. Bush's imperial procession through Europe took place in a hermetically sealed environment. In Brussels it was, at times, eerie. The procession containing the great, armour-plated limousine (flown in from Washington) rolled through streets denuded of human beings except for riot police. Whole areas of the Belgian capital were sealed off before the American president passed."or Depleted Uranium Is A Weapon Of Mass Destruction
Murray doesn't mention the 19 American escort vehicles in that procession with the President's car (known to insiders as "the beast"), or the 200 secret service agents, or the 15 sniffer dogs, or the Blackhawk helicopter, or the 5 cooks, or the 50 White House aides, all of which added up to only part of the President's vast traveling entourage. Nor does he mention the huge press contingent tailing along inside the president's security "bubble," many of them evidently with their passports not in their own possession but in the hands of White House officials, or the more than 10,000 policemen and the various frogmen the Germans mustered for the President's brief visit to the depopulated German town of Mainz to shake hands with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
Vietnam was a chemical war for oil, permanently contaminating large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But since 1991, the U.S. has staged four nuclear wars using depleted uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the U.S. government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been permanently contaminated with radiation.or even USA Used Outlawed Weapons In Fallujah
[S]urveys and studies which a medical team did in al-Fallujah and subsequently reported to the Ministry confirm that US forces used substances that are internationally prohibited -- including mustard gas, nerve gas, and other burning chemicals -- in the course of its attacks on the city.They'll believe it! Sure they will!! Wouldn't you?? Despite whatever you hear about Arabs and Muslims, they are reasonable people.