"There You Go!"

How easily we have come to take the

bombs and the deaths in Iraq for granted

Robert Fisk

If 'we' had not invaded Iraq, 43 Iraqis would not have been pulverised by three bombs last week

08/27/05 "The Independent" -- -- Taking things for granted. Or, as a very dear friend of mine used to say to me, "There you go." I am sitting in Baghdad airport, waiting for my little Flying Carpet Airlines 20-seater prop aircraft to take me home to Beirut but the local Iraqi station manager, Mr Ghazwan, has not turned up like he used to. Without him, I can't enter departures or check in.

Back in January, he was here, telling me he wouldn't forget to take me through security, talking to an Iraqi officer who looked remarkably like him, telling the officer to look after me. Ghazwan spoke careful, grammatical English and would laugh at himself when he made mistakes.

So I call Ghazwan's mobile and an old man answers. I want to speak to Ghazwan, I say. "Why?" Because I need to know when he'll be at the airport. There is a kind of groan from the other end of the line. "He was killed."

I sit there on my plastic airport seat, unable to speak. What? What do you mean? "He was killed by the enemy," the old man says and I hear the receiver taken from him.

A young woman now, with good English. "Who are you?" A passenger. English. I start apologising. No one told me Ghazwan was dead. Even the Beirut travel agents still list his name as a Baghdad contact.

The young woman - it is his wife, or rather his young widow - mutters something about him being killed on the way to the airport and I ask when this happened. "On the 14th of March," she says. I had last seen him exactly five weeks before his death.

And the story comes out. His brother was a security guard at the airport - presumably the officer who looked like him whom I had met in February - and the two men were leaving home together to go to work in the same car when gunmen shot the brother dead and killed Ghazwan in the same burst of fire. I apologise again. I say how sorry I am. There is an acknowledgement from the young woman and the mobile is switched off.

Taking things for granted. I am back in Beirut, watching the new Pope visit his native Germany. He meets Cologne's Jewish community. He talks of the wickedness of the Jewish Holocaust. He should. He speaks warmly of Israel. Why not?

Then he meets the Muslim community and I see them on the screen, heads slightly bowed, eyes glancing furtively towards the cameras. To them he lectures on the evils of terrorism. It all seems logical even though I can never quite shake off the knowledge that the Pope was a wartime German anti-aircraft gunner. Anti-abortion, anti-gay and, once, anti-aircraft.

But then I sit up. In his first address, there is no word about Israel's occupation of the West Bank, its expanding settlements on other people's land, against all international law. And the Muslims, well, they do have to be reminded of their sins, of their duty to extirpate "terrorism", to preach moderation at all times, to stop the scourge of suicide bombers.

And suddenly I am shocked at this profound lack of judgement on the Pope's part. Yet meekly aware that I had myself gone along with it. It was the Pope's job, wasn't it, to apologise to the Jews of Europe. And it was his job, wasn't it, to warn the Muslims of Europe.

Thus do we fall in line. Yes, he should apologise for the Holocaust - to the end of time. But might not His Holiness, the former anti-aircraft gunner, have also apologised to the Muslims for the bloody and catastrophic invasion of Iraq - no, no, of course there's no parallel in evil, scale, etc - but he might have at least shown the courage of his predecessor who stood up against George Bush and his ferocious war.

Taking things for granted. In Baghdad and then in Beirut, I read of the latest "anti-terror" laws of Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara. Of course, of course. After suicide bombers on the London Underground, what else do we expect? Our precious capital and its people must be protected.

Having been three or four trains in front of the King's Cross tube that exploded on 7 July, I take these things seriously myself. And were I back on the London Tube today, I'd probably be trying to avoid young men with backpacks - as well as armed members of the Metropolitan Police.

And after all the panjandrums in the press about our wonderful security forces, I'd also be taking a close look at these fine and patriotic folk. These are the men (and women?) who lied to us about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. These are the chaps who couldn't get a single advance trace of even one of the four suicide bombings on 7 July (nor the un-lethal ones a few days later). These are the lads who gunned down a helpless civilian as he sat on a Tube train.

But hold on a moment, I say to myself again. The 7 July bombings would be a comparatively quiet day in Baghdad. Was I not at the site of the an-Nahda bus station bombings after 43 civilians - as innocent, their lives just as precious as those of Londoners - were torn to pieces last week.

At the al-Kindi hospital, relatives had a problem identifying the dead. Heads were placed next to the wrong torsos, feet next to the wrong legs. A problem there. But there came not a groan from England. We were still locked into our 7 July trauma. No detectives are snooping around the an-Nahda bomb site looking for clues. They're already four suicide bombs later. An-Nahda is history.

And it dawns on me, sitting on my balcony over the Mediterranean at the end of this week, that we take far too much for granted. We like to have little disconnects in our lives. Maybe this is the fault of daily journalism - where we encapsulate the world every 24 hours, then sleep on it and start a new history the next day in which we fail totally to realise that the narrative did not begin before last night's deadline but weeks, months, years ago.

For it is a fact, is it not, that if "we" had not invaded Iraq in 2003, those 43 Iraqis would not have been pulverised by those three bombs last week. And it is surely a fact that, had we not invaded Iraq, the 7 July bombs would not have gone off (and I am ignoring Lord Blair's piffle about "evil ideologies"). In which case the Pope would not last week have been lecturing German Muslims on the evils of "terrorism".

And of course, had we not invaded Iraq, Mr Ghazwan would be alive and his brother would be alive and his grieving widow would have been his young and happy wife and his broken father would have been a proud dad. But, as that friend of mine used to say, "there you go".

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

Florida Storm Watch

Florida Smote by 'Stealth' Storm

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - In a record year of tropical storm warnings, many in southern Florida took the approaching tropical storm Katrina casually. But, what came ashore, killing several people and wreaking havoc with the state's power grid, was no mild blow.

www.pej.org

[with updates]

http://www.redcross.org/
static/file_cont4466_lang0_1574.jpg

A satellite image shows Hurricane Katrina as it strengthens
in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm could be a Cat. 4 by the time it reaches
land sometime Monday. (Photo Courtesy: NOAA).

[Update I Sat. Aug. 27 8am pst] Katrina has been upgraded to a class 3 hurricane. It has returned to the Gulf of Mexico where it is expected to grow in strength before wheeling back towards the Florida panhandle Monday.

[Update II Sat. Aug. 27 10:41am pst] Katrina, upgraded to class 4 hurricane, is forecast to make landfall near the Lousiana-Mississipi border within the next 36 hours. Oil rigs laying in its path in the Gulf are on evacuation alert.


Florida Smote by Stealth Hurricane
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
August 26, 2005


The storm now dubbed, "Little Andrew," in reference to the worst hurricane event in the state, has Floridians picking up the pieces, more than a million of them doing so in the dark, and asking, "How hurricane savvy locals could be taken by surprise?"

Many, expecting tropical storm Katrina to come and go as benignly as the ten T.S. category events preceding it this year, didn't bother to prepare. Jaded storm veterans, though well equipped with the usual disaster kits, failed to shutter homes, or secure outdoor material possessions. There were none of the familiar hardware store stampedes, or laying in of water and canned goods. What they didn't realize was, Katrina's pass over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico magnified its power enough to upgrade it to an official hurricane; a hurricane heading straight for south Florida and its unofficial capital city, Miami and its three million inhabitants.

For those in the city, receiving news of Katrina's promotion to Class 1 Hurricane status was not a big deal; the city survived Class 5 Andrew and its 200 mile an hour winds ruffled but shaken. But, Katrina's nature was wholly different from the rampaging Andrew, that killed 67 and created more than 26 billion dollars worth of damage claims in 1992. This was a slow moving system, heavily laden with the oily waters of the Gulf. Where Andrew raced across the city and state, Katrina lingered, dumping more than twenty inches (50 centimeters) in just six hours.

The torrential rain and high wind brought down trees and power lines. Almost a third of Miami lost power. The National Hurricane Center in West Miami had a front row seat, Katrina's eye passing directly over their building. Said one scientist working in the building at the time; "We have monitored scores of hurricanes here, but never been this close."

In 1992, Hurricane Andrew tore off the building's storm shutters and forced its temporary evacuation.



Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. He also serves as contributing editor to PEJ News. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Bush's Chimp Monkey Wrenching U. N. Reconstruction

Bolton Throws UN Summit into Chaos
Julian Borger

The Guardian / UK
August 26, 2005



http://www.willisms.com/archives/johnbolton.gif



Bush's envoy demands 750 changes to reorganisation plans

The Guardian - John Bolton, Washington's new ambassador to the United Nations, has called for wholesale changes to a draft document due to go before a UN summit next month aimed at reshaping the world body.


The Bolton amendments...seek to play down the emphasis given to alleviating poverty, and expunge all references to the millennium development goals, including the target for wealthy countries to donate at least 0.7 % of national income to the developing world.
America currently gives less than 0.2% in such aid.


Mr Bolton, a long-standing UN critic who was given a temporary appointment by George Bush three weeks ago after the United States Senate failed to agree on his nomination, has proposed 750 amendments to the draft and called for immediate talks on them.

The 29-page document has been drawn up by a committee under the UN general assembly president, Jean Ping of Gambia, over the past year, during which time several drafts have been circulated.

Critics complained that the US objections had come towards the end of the drafting process, with only three weeks to go before the summit.

But Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the American team at the UN, said Mr Bolton had simply been restating long-held US opinions. "Those are not new positions; surprise positions," he said. "We've been engaged in this process, since the first meeting."

The Bolton amendments, published in the US press, seek to play down the emphasis given to alleviating poverty, and expunge all references to the millennium development goals, including the target for wealthy countries to donate at least 0.7 % of national income to the developing world. America currently gives less than 0.2% in such aid.

The changes would also scrap provisions in the draft calling for action against global warming, and remove endorsements of the international criminal court and the comprehensive test-ban treaty - both of which are opposed by the Bush administration.

Instead, Washington is pushing for more emphasis on international measures against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Ping's office said it was setting up a "core group" of 30 member states, including the US, to begin talks on Monday in an effort to reach agreement on the draft statement before the leaders of more than 170 countries begin arriving in New York on September 14.

"The document was taking good shape," said one European diplomat. "Of course, we wanted to build up some parts without watering down others, but there is a lot of posturing going on at the moment."

The diplomat did not attribute the last-minute nature of the US objections to the arrival of the hawkish Mr Bolton, but suggested: "It's a question of the Americans just getting their act together. Instructions from Washington keep changing."

Mr Chang said the scale and range of the US comments represented the administration's commitment to the future of the organisation.

They were taking the process "very seriously, and we're not apologising for it", he said. "We are treating every step as thoroughly as possible because we contribute a lot to the UN and we expect a lot to come out of this process."

In a letter to his fellow ambassadors, Mr Bolton was quoted as urging quick action on the American proposals.

"Time is short. In order to maximise our chances of success, I suggest we begin the negotiations immediately - this week if possible," he wrote.

Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, said ferment over the draft statement was a positive sign. "We actually feel fairly confident that member states are taking UN reform seriously," said Mr Haq. "There is stepped-up activity everywhere, and very serious high-level negotiating."

Mr Bolton has said the US would be ready to scrap the deal altogether if no consensus was achieved, leaving only a short statement for the summit to agree on, or to break the agreement into sections to give member states a choice of which parts to support.

But a UN official said yesterday he remained confident that a final agreement could be achieved in time for the summit. "As you get closer to crunch time, the more likely it is that this nation or that nation stakes out a harder position. There's always that kind of tactical negotiation," he said. But he added: "No one wants to have a stalemate that leaves the status quo intact."

© 2005 Guardian Newspapers Ltd.

Taking the Mothers Out of the War

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/photos/ large/2005_08/2005_08_26/floyd_2.jpg The Fire Sermon Chris Floyd The Moscow Times August 26, 2005 08/26/05 "Moscow Times" -- -- In his inaugural speech last January, President George W. Bush repeatedly invoked images of unbridled, ravaging destruction as the emblem of his crusade for "freedom." Fire was his symbol, his word of power, his incantation of holy war. Mirroring the rhetoric of his fundamentalist enemies, Bush moved the conflict from the political to the spiritual, from the outer world to the inner soul, claiming that he had lit "a fire in the minds of men." But words are recalcitrant things; they have their own magic, and they will often find their own meanings, outside the intentions of those who use them. Bush has indeed inflamed the minds of men -- and women -- with his military crusade. But it is not the "untamed fire of freedom" that scorches them: It is the fire of grief and outrage at the lies that have consumed the bodies of their loved ones. This bitter flame burns in the rubble of blasted houses in Iraq and in the quiet, leafy suburbs of America, where the dead are mourned and the mutilated are left as the enduring legacy of Bush's cruel, wilful and unnecessary war. This "fire in the mind" has now found its own symbol in the unlikely figure of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain American soldier. Here again, Bush's war-rousing words have gotten away from him. Sheehan's campaign -- which began as a lonely vigil outside Bush's vacation ranch and has now spread across the country -- centers on a single, simple request: that Bush explain to her what he means when he describes the war as "a noble cause." Sheehan is no professional activist, no savvy insider or political junkie. She's an ordinary citizen whose unadorned speech has none of the sweep and grandeur of Bush's expensively tailored rhetoric. But she has one thing that his professional scripters can never put in the presidential mouth: truth. They must labor in the service of a lie, but Sheehan has read the Downing Street memos, the Duelfer WMD report, the September 2000 manifesto of a group led by Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld calling for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the top-level revelations by Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Seymour Hersh and many others. She knows the mountain of freely available, credible evidence that shows unequivocally that Bush and his minions sought this war of aggression from their first day in power; that they openly longed for "a new Pearl Harbor" to use as justification for their plans; that they deliberately manipulated, "stove-piped" and fabricated intelligence to concoct a false case for war; that they used UN diplomacy as a cynical sham to mask their military intentions and then invaded before the weapons inspection process, which they themselves had insisted upon, was even halfway complete. Every housewife and truck driver, every Wal-Mart clerk and office worker in the United States has access to this information, these established facts. The death of her son drove Sheehan to throw off the torpor that has afflicted so many of her compatriots for so many years and look reality in the face. There she has seen Iraqi civilians and American soldiers being shredded, gutted and burned alive by the fire of Bush's death-dealing lies. As New York Times columnist Frank Rich notes, she and other war survivors have watched Bush turn the search for WMD -- the ostensible reason for the sacrifice of their children -- into a comedy routine, a filmed skit for sycophantic journalists, showing the president of the United States goofily searching under desks and behind curtains, then shrugging with a dullard's grin: "No weapons here!" Bush's audience, the highly paid cream of the national media, roared with laughter at the Leader's barbaric wit. Now these same blind guides are struggling to comprehend the fire of dissent that Cindy Sheehan has lit with her vigil in the Crawford scrublands. Many of them have mocked and vilified her, trumpeting the lies that the Bush machine began pumping out like bilgewater the moment her campaign found resonance with the wider public. Others have dismissed it as a flash in the pan, a copy-filler for the August doldrums, a minor blip soon to be swept away by the president's proven mastery of the national agenda. Perhaps they're right. Perhaps this too shall pass, just as every other scandal and tourbillion that has momentarily shaken the Bush regime -- from Enron to Abu Ghraib and beyond -- has fallen by the wayside. It's true that the polls show that Bush is now deeply unpopular, mistrusted by more than half the electorate, who say, as Sheehan says, that he misled the nation into a pointless war. But by hook and crook, with fear and lies, he and his faction have gathered all the reins of power into their hands. With a complaisant media, a feckless opposition, unprecedented control over the nation's electoral machinery -- and the full backing of the corporate oligarchy they have enriched beyond all measuring -- the Bush elitists are not much concerned with the "consent of the governed" anymore. They will wade on through the swamp of blood they have created, generating more terrorism, sacrificing more sons and daughters, engendering more hatred, anguish and death. But what if the form that Sheehan has somehow given to the nation's growing sense of betrayal does not simply fade at summer's end? What if that spark takes hold in the Texas scrub and sets off "an untamed fire of freedom" from the murderous lies that have led America into crime and disgrace? We might yet see Bush undone by his own incantation -- and truth become the new word of power. Annotations Complete Set of Downing Street Documents AfterDowningStreet.org, July 15, 2005 The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan New York Times, Aug. 21, 2005 The Inaugural Speech of President George W. Bush The White House, Jan. 20, 2005 Dark Passage: PNAC's Blueprint for Empire Empire Burlesque, March 27, 2005 George W. Bush's Approval Ratings Drop American Research Group, Aug. 22, 2005 Planning for post-Saddam regime change began as early as October 2001 National Security Archives, Aug. 17, 2005 Cindy Sheehan: I am not the Issue Scripps-Howard, Aug. 24, 2005 My Private Idaho New York Times, Aug. 24, 2005 No Direction Home: The Debate on Withdrawal From Iraq Empire Burlesque, Aug. 23, 2005 The War Before the War TomPaine.com, June 24, 2005 General Admits to Secret Air War The Sunday Times, June 26, 2005 The Real News in the Downing Street Memo Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2005 Two Years Before 9/11, Bush Talked of Invading Iraq, Says Ghostwriter CommonDreams.org, Oct. 24, 2004 Saddam's Desperate Offers to Stave Off War The Guardian, November 7, 2003 The Case of the Last-Minute Offer Salon.com, November 7, 2003 The Lies That Led to War Salon.com, May 19, 2005 Corporations Sitting on a Trillion Dollars in Idle Cash Boston Globe, Aug. 21, 2005 Copyright © 2005 The Moscow Times

The Redemption of Pat Robertson

The Redemption of Pat Robertson

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Frothing at the mouth Christian scion and past Republican presidential hopeful, Pat Robertson did due penance, naturally afore the cameras, for his decidedly un-Christian attitude expressed towards Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. During one of Pat's regular 700 Club "political" segments, the Lamb of God's representative on Earth prayed the "government" would assassinate President Chavez. To his credit, the good Pastor was only thinking of the money saved. An assassin's strike would negate the need for another war, thus saving the righteous tax-payers "200 million dollars." Now that's somethin' to Halleluja over!

www.pej.org

http://photos1.blogger.com/
img/162/1473/320/Robertson,%20Pat.jpg

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." - Reverend Pat Robertson on the merits of assassination

The Redemption of
Pat Robertson
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
August 24, 2005


For those of you who surf straight past the weekend and wee hour theological programs, Reverend Pat Robertson is a major player in the Christian political movement. He's not just another southern buffanted preacher. No, Robertson is intimately connected to some of Washington's biggest power players, and has been for years. He's also a very rich man. Were he to die today, God forbid! Pat's estimated worth lies somewhere between 200 million dollars and a billion. The precision of this accounting itself attests to the laxity of lay lawmakers when it comes to regulating Church finances.

Pat's latest pickle stems from some irreverent remarks made during Monday's broadcast of the 700 Club, one of the Christian Broadcasting Network's flagship money-makers. Wearing worldly garb, politician Pat opined for the murder of Hugo Chavez. Much cheaper than mounting another 200 billiion dollar war, says he.


Makes sense to me, Pat.

In the Lewis Carroll universe Pat and his clone armies inhabit, it makes perfect sense. It is, in fact a no-brainer. Why spend a whole lot of loot stealing the resources and usurping a democratically elected president, something alien to Pat and his flag-draped followers, when a fifty-cent slug will do the trick? It's not a question of morality. But, then morality has never been the pastor's strong suit.

When not pounding the boards, and the airwaves, for Jesus and His republican proctectors, Pat enjoys jetting around the world to hob-nob with princes and potentates for the greater glory of his bank account. Greg Palast exposed the holy fraudster in his 2003 best-seller 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.' In a chapter titled, 'Pat Robertson, General Pinochet, Pepsi-Cola and the Anti Christ' Palast therein refers to Robertson's ascension to Chair the Board of the Bank of Scotland, and his nefarious dealing with blood diamonds and the bloody African dictators who love them.

It all leaves the head of the Christian Coalition, a million-plus strong (reputedly) organization, all willing to take up the sword for a man the Wall Street Journal once described, in reviewing one of the reverend's books, as a "paranoid pinhead with a deep distrust of democracy" in a corner.

Fellow Jesus fan, Jesse Jackson and his allies are already questioning the legality of allowing the Christian Broadcast Network and its affiliates to continue airing hate-speech, seemingly designed to incite to murder a head of state.

This pinhead, Pat's remarks have of course elicited an urgent and uncomprising demand from the government of Venezuela for the Bush administration to denounce these statements, broadcast across the public airwaves. The Venezuelan's are a little worried about the safety of Chavez; likely a case of jitters following the clearly U.S.- backed kidnapping and coup attempt against Chavez in 2002.

They feel it might be unsafe for their president to travel to the United States for meetings at the United Nations, located in New York City. They worry one, or some of Pat's million Christian army might take it into their heads that THEY may yet serve as the hand of the almight Pat and slay the dirty commie, al Qaeda loving, oil-hogging commie red injun guy, whaatsizname?!


The Redemption

Today, Pat Robertson answered the surge of outrage surrounding his call for the head of Hugo with denials. That his comments were made on-air and broadcast verbatim, his refutations seemed ridiculous. So, before the cock had crowed, Pat was back before the camera clarifying the issue. Now, he says he's sorry.

"Is it right to call for assassination?" the reverend rhetorically asked, "No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him."

I'll accept Pat's redemption on face value, but as the Good Lord said: "Ye shall know them by their deeds."

Annotations

Yahoo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050823/
ap_on_re_us/robertson_assassination_1

Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
www.GregPalast.com


Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.
pl?sid=05/08/24/1343225



Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. He also serves as a contributing editor to PEJ News. You can check out the GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com for more.



Pat from the Mountain

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out,'"

"'Take him out' could be a number of things including kidnapping."

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

McCarthyism Canadian Style

Michel Chossudovsky and the Dogs of Reprisal
Kurt Nimmo

August 22nd, 2005

As I walked through the living room, on my way outside to play with the incoming coax cables (on occasion I have to do this to get my broadband working), I passed my wife camped out before the television, watching a “debate” between FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley and a loud, obnoxious, an interruptive Mike Gallagher who claimed, as I drifted past, that Saddam Hussein had “chemical weapons” (even Gallagher should know this was an obvious lie) and Rowley is a “traitor” because she opposes the “war” that is in fact not a war. I paused for a few seconds as the powder-puffed and air headed anchor asked Rowley why “Democrats” like Cindy Sheehan and her are against the “war” that is not a war but rather a prolonged session of organized (more or less) mass murder. Gallagher and this teleprompter-reading bimbo ganged up on Rowley, who is in fact one of the last remaining decent people in the country and a patriot that makes Gallagher look like what he is—an ill-informed yahoo who happens to have a radio program somewhere.

I felt my blood pressure on the rise, so I went outside and fiddled with the cables.

As I stood in the intense late afternoon New Mexico sun twisting on and off coax cables, I admonished myself, if only a little: don’t let them get to you. Cindy Sheehan is a thorn in the side of right-wingers, thankfully. It really irks them she is receiving the media coverage she is, albeit that coverage is biased in favor of Bush and the wingers—thus once again demonstrating there is of course no “liberal bias” in the corporate media. Cindy drives them bonkers and there is a modicum of pleasure therein. At the same time there is danger in false patriots hiding behind flags made in China demanding “traitors” such as Sheehan and Rowley be dealt with. It is a truly and sincerely scary prospect. It is also mind-boggling to consider there are such intolerant neanderthals on the loose, demanding retribution—public scorn, lost jobs, prosecution for treason, maybe even prison terms and violence—against those who believe this “war” is illegal and immoral. Because there seems to be a dozen or more Mike Gallaghers for every Cindy Sheehan. Indeed, much of the country has gone insane with blood-lust and warmongering dementia.

Finished with the coaxial cables, I went back inside the house. I had broadband finally. So I fired up the browser and began to read the news.

In Canada, the B’nai Brith is hounding Michel Chossudovsky for the content posted on his Global Research web site. “Michel Chossudovsky’s website may contain anti-Semitic material, but it’s not the University of Ottawa’s job to figure out if it does, according to the Canadian Association of University Teachers,” an article posted on the Ottawa Citizen site begins. “Part of the complaint was based on Mr. Chossudovsky’s status as a professor at a major university. This not only lends credibility to his views, but also puts him in a position to influence his students, according to B’nai Brith legal counsel Anita Bromberg.” And what precisely is the complaint? “Articles and postings by other writers on the website describe conspiracy theories that ‘echo the age-old anti-Semitic expressions,’ said Frank Dimant, executive vice-president of B’nai Brith.”

Funny, I have read Chossudovsky’s site for years now and have never encountered anti-Semitic material—that is unless you consider the possibility Israel may have had something to do with nine eleven anti-Semitic “hate speech” or the documented fact Israel had spies in the United States (and the documented fact Israel spies followed around Mohammed Atta and the so-called nine eleven conspirators). If we are to consider such theories anti-Semitic (theories about the Israeli government, not Jews in particular) then Bush and Congress and millions of Americans are anti-Semitic for accusing Arabs (who are Semitic, whereas many Israelis are of European stock) of killing 3,000 people on nine eleven, a crime with almost no evidence and certainly no physical evidence. But of course the B’nai Brith is not concerned with that sort of anti-Semitism because a small number of people who happen to be Jews with an axe to grind (and a profitable Holocaust dog and pony show to run) have cornered the market on what is or is not Semitism.

Last time I communicated with Alex Cockburn, he took me to task for mentioning the Odigo fiasco in an anthology published by Counterpunch. Odigo is an Israeli instant message company that allegedly (according to its employees) received advanced warning of the attacks on nine eleven. I made mention of this in an article detailing the travails of one Amiri Baraka, a Beat poet who mentioned this down-the-memory-hole fact in a poem written soon after nine eleven. Apparently, Cockburn had taken heat for my in-passing mention of this allegation—reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz—and he didn’t appreciate it, especially after I bugged him about his willy-nilly defense against right-wingers slandering him in the media (for losing a job at the Village Voice many years ago). Needless to say, I have not bothered to send an article to Counterpunch since, not that they had posted an article I sent to them a week or so before (in standard fashion, they simply ignore articles they do not want to post on their web site, a sort of e-rejection slip—but then of course I am a “conspiracy nut” and Counterpunch, as most of the left, does not put credence in nine eleven conspiracy theories, basically swallowing the Bush version of events hook, line, and sinker; i.e., malicious and murderous Arabs are responsible for what happened on that day, even though, as I say over and over like a broken record, there is no evidence of this, that is unless you consider the word of a pathological and repeat offender liar evidence).

Problem is, I am not “progressive” or “left” enough to be published by the likes of Counterpunch and of course it does not help I pissed off Cockburn. I consider the avoidance or disbelief on the part of lefties of the very real prospect the United States government (and the British and, yes, as anti-Semitic as it will be considered, Israeli government) complicit in the crime against humanity that is nine eleven. Meanwhile, hateful cheerleaders such as Mike Gallagher, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Michael “Savage” Weiner, et al, ad nauseam, who are nothing less than apologists for mass murder in Iraq (based on lies) and who shamelessly exploit the dead of nine eleven to make excuses for killing even more people (more than a 100,000 so far in Iraq), are allowed wide berth in the corporate media. It is now fashionable (employing intellectual laziness and large doses of omission) to declare “we” are in Iraq because that’s where the locus of terrorism exists in the wake of nine eleven, a nothing short of preposterous argument (as if there were “terrorists,” even made-in-America terrorists, as was Osama, before he croaked, in Iraq before nine eleven, remarkably an assertion still made by right-wingers, even with scads of evidence to the contrary, but then, as we know, Bush and crew don’t do reality and the upside-down theories of Bushzarro world rule).

So I have chalked off Counterpunch and a few other lefty web sites and magazines (even as I continue provide links to them on my blogroll)—which of course makes me a right-wing nut since there are only two hues to the political spectrum in this country. In America, you can be yanked from one side of the political carnival to the other with little more than a paragraph or so posted on some obscure web site. It is testament to our bizarrely unique and truly insane political landscape—a sort of badlands where “progressive Democrats” can find the space to “support” the “war” against the utterly defenseless Iraqi people and also believe the scary campfire story about evil-doer Muslims who want to kill our children (al-Zarqawi is a sort of twisted cross between John Wayne Gacy and the Hollywood stereotypical Arab, a dark-skinned psychopath, ready to slip a knife in when you’re not looking).

Anyway, the B’nai Brith is after Chossudovsky, who I admire for his tireless dedication to the nearly thankless quest to reveal facts so few others will touch with a ten-foot pole, and they want to pull a Ward Churchill on him—get him fired, wreck his career and life, and gloat as right-wingers are wont to do. So B’nai Brith wants to paint Chossudovsky as a scurrilous anti-Semite (or a self-hating Jew) because deviating from the official version (or fairy tale) about nine eleven is defamation and beyond the pale, that is to say it deviates from the commonly held assertion only Muslims are capable of wholesale butchery and treachery, even though more than few experts familiar with the inner workings of intelligence agencies (including Mossad, the CIA, MI6, and others) relate the indisputable fact that an operation such of nine eleven could only be accomplished by state players and not a gaggle of medieval Muslims hiding out in caves in one of the most backward countries on the face of the earth (armed with little more than satellite phones, laptops, Kalashnikovs, and mules). From now on, Chossudovsky will be forced to wear the anti-Semite and Holocaust revisionist albatross about his neck. Chossudovsky will be considered a “neonazi” from here out thanks to intolerant fanatics who cannot stand for anybody, including Jews, to buck their carefully constructed (and highly profitable) orthodoxy.

I was not surprised when the Zionist amen corner chimed in—for instance the Scaife-funded wingers over at David Horowitz’s slander portal. “Canada has a growing number of jihadniks, neonazis, and leftist anti-Semites infesting its universities.” declares the Israeli settler and former American Steven Plaut on Horowitz’s Moonbat blog. Chossudovsky, according to the libel-mongering Plaut, “is an active member of the anti-war movement in Canada, and has been involved in the propagation of preposterous conspiracy ‘theories’ regarding the September 11 terrorist attacks. We could not find a single article by him in any refereed journal of economics.” For Plaut, a teacher of Israeli-centric economics in the land God promised Plaut and his fellow Arab haters and various Likudniks and off-the-wall worshippers of Jabotinsky, one is not entitled to an opinion unless he or she is “refereed” in one of a few hundred or so incestuous academic journals. “Chossudovsky’s website, www.globalresearch.ca, also reprints articles from other writers that accuse Jews of controlling the U.S. media and masterminding the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Other postings suggest Israel, the U.S. and Britain are the real perpetrators of the recent attacks on London.” Of course, as an Arab hater and would-be destroyer of Islam and all things Muslim, Plaut believes Muslims are responsible for the London bombings, sans any credible evidence. “Naturally the good professor has been endorsed by several of the neonazis who write for Counterpunch, including Donna J. Volatile, Scott Laughrey and the chronically unemployed Uruknet spokesman Kurt Nimmo.”

As previously stated, I am not a “spokesman” for anybody or any particular group—and my blog posts are re-posted on Uruknet at the discretion of that site’s owners—but all of this is lost on Plaut due to the fact he is a traducing and mean-spirited Zionist who thinks Ariel Sharon is a softie when it comes to killing Palestinians and also hates the idea people who disagree with him are allowed to exist minus never-ending punishment and retaliation. As for jobs, Plaut and the Moonbatites (including the “degreed” ones) desire for all who would dare disagree with their authoritarian and racist views to be reduced to jobless poverty and this is in fact what they are attempting to do in the case of Chossudovsky and other academics such as Ward Churchill—get them fired and pitched into lives of misery and poverty. It says a whole lot about their character—sadism and vindictiveness rule, thus making them perfect examples of the typical inhabitant of Bushzarro (and Likudite) world.

I expect another malware attack on my web site soon—and launched perniciously against others as well. For the haters and fake patriots and Arab-bashers and Bush worshippers cannot stand for the opposition to be allowed space in the commons to air their views (and one arrives at the conclusion as well these sadists resent sharing air with those they hate and wish to destroy—that is to say they have the capacity for murder, or at least a voyeuristic form of murder—thus no sense of outrage or horror at the prospect of Iraqi children cluster-bombed to death in great numbers because the Plauts of the world are essentially sociopaths).

But enough of this. I have spent a large part of the evening writing this. Outside the sun is going down and when that happens in New Mexico the sky alights with color and is a wonder to behold. I simply hope I am allowed to witness the miracle of the planet for the rest of my days. But I fear this will soon come to an end because the sociopaths and sadistic destroyers of life are in control and have unleashed the dogs of avengement and they seem to be staffing the depths of the Bush administration and B’nai Brith and classrooms in Israel where lessons in economics are allegedly taught.

Into the Fulcrum

What Does Democracy Really Mean In The Middle East?
Whatever The West Decides
By Robert Fisk

Sometimes I Wonder If There Will Be A Moment
When Reality And Myth, Truth And Lies, Will Collide

08/20/05 "The Independent" -- -- It makes you want to scream. I have been driving the dingy, dangerous, oven-like streets of Baghdad all week, ever more infested with insurgents and their informers, the American troops driving terrified over the traffic islands, turning their guns on all of us if we approach within 50 meters.

In the weird, space-ship isolation of Saddam’s old republican palace, the Kurds and the Shia have been tearing Iraq apart, refusing to sign up for a constitution lest it fail to give them the federations - and the oil wealth - they want. They miss their deadline - though I found no one in "real" Baghdad, no one outside the Green Zone bunker, who seemed to care.

And that evening, I turn on my television to hear President Bush praise the "courage" of the constitution negotiators whose deadline Bush himself had promised would be met.

Courage? So it’s courageous, is it, to sit in a time capsule, sealed off from your people by miles of concrete walls, and argue about the future of a nation which is in anarchy. Then Condoleezza Rice steps forward to tell us this is all part of the "road to democracy" in the Middle East.

I am back on the streets again, this time at the an-Nahda bus station - nahda means renaissance for those who want the full irony of such situations - and around me is the wreckage of another bombing. Smashed police cars, burnt-out, pulverised buses (passengers all on board, of course), women screaming with fury, children taken to the al-Kindi hospital in bandages to be met by another bomb.

And that night, I flip on the television again and find the local US military commander in the Sadr City district of Baghdad - close to the bus station - remarking blithely that while local people had been very angry, they supported the local "security" forces (ie the Americans) and were giving them more help than ever and that we were - wait for it - "on the path to democracy".

Sometimes I wonder if there will be a moment when reality and myth, truth and lies, will actually collide. When will the detonation come? When the insurgents wipe out an entire US base? When they pour over the walls of the Green Zone and turn it into the same trashed blocks as the rest of Baghdad? Or will we then be told - as we have been in the past - that this just shows the "desperation" of the insurgents, that these terrible acts (the bus station bombing this week, for example) only prove that the "terrorists" know they are losing?

In a traffic jam, a boy walks past my car, trying to sell a magazine. Saddam’s face - yet again - is on the cover. The ex-dictator’s seedy, bewhiskered features are on the front pages, again and again, to remind the people of Baghdad how fortunate they are to be rid of the dictator. Saddam to go on trial next month, in two months’ time, before the end of the year.

Six deadlines for the ghastly old man’s trial have come and gone - like so many other deadlines in Iraq - but the people are still supposed to be fascinated and appalled at Saddam’s picture. You may sweat at home in powerless houses; you may have no fresh food because your freezer is hot; you may have to queue for hours to buy petrol; you may have to suffer constant death threats and armed robbery and your city may suffer 1,100 violent deaths in July alone (all true) but, just to take your mind off things, remember that Saddam is going on trial.

I have not met anyone in Iraq - save for those who lost their loved ones to his thugs - who cares any more about Saddam. He is yesterday’s man, a thing of the past. To conjure up this monster again is an insult to the people of Baghdad - who have more fears, more anxieties and greater mourning to endure than any offer of bread and circuses by the Americans can assuage.

Yet in the outside world - the further from Iraq, the more credible they sound - George Bush and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara will repeat that we really have got democracy on its feet in Iraq, that we overthrew the tyrant Saddam and that a great future awaits the country and that new investments are being planned at international conferences (held far away from Iraq, of course) and that the next bombings in Europe, like the last ones, will have nothing - absolutely nothing - to do with Iraq.

The show must go on and I know, when I return to Beirut or fly to Europe, Iraq will not look so bad. The Mad Hatter will look quite sane and the Cheshire Cat will smile at me from the tree.

Democracy, democracy, democracy. Take Egypt. President Mubarak allows opponents in the forthcoming elections. Bush holds this up as another sign of democracy in the Middle East. But Mubarak’s opponents have to be approved by his own party members in parliament, and the Muslim Brotherhood - which ought to be the largest party in the country - is still officially illegal. Sitting in Baghdad, I watched Mubarak’s first party rally, a mawkish affair in which he actually asked for support. So who will win this "democratic" election? I’ll take a risk: our old pal Mubarak. And I’ll bet he gets more than 80 per cent of the votes. Watch this space.

And of course, from my little Baghdad eyrie I’ve been watching the eviction of Israelis from their illegal settlements in the Palestinian Gaza Strip. The word "illegal" doesn’t pop up on the BBC, of course; nor the notion that the settlers - for which read colonisers - were not being evicted from their land but from land they originally took from others. Nor is much attention paid to the continued building in the equally illegal colonies within the Palestinian West Bank which will - inevitably - make a "viable" (Lord Blair’s favourite word) Palestine impossible.

In Gaza, everyone waited for Israeli settler and Israeli soldier to open fire on each other. But when a settler did open fire, he did so to murder four Palestinian workers on the West Bank. The story passed through the television coverage like a brief, dark, embarrassing cloud and was forgotten. Settlements dismantled. Evacuation from Gaza. Peace in our time.

But in Baghdad, the Iraqis I talk to are not convinced. It is to their eternal credit that those who live in the hell of Iraq still care about the Palestinians, still understand what is really happening in the Middle East, are not fooled by the nonsense peddled by George Bush and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara. "What is this ’evil ideology’ that Blair keeps talking about?" an Iraqi friend asked me this week. "What will be your next invention? When will you wake up?"

I couldn’t put it better myself.

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd

Night of the Generals: Bush Pulls Out the Long Knife

Bush Against the Generals
Justin Raimondo

AntiWar.com
August 15, 2005

Iran, the White House, and the purge of the military

The tipping point against this immoral, ill-conceived and in-every-way disastrous war seems to have been reached, as hundreds – and soon to be thousands – of Gold Star Mothers and sympathizers march against the war in Crawford, Texas. Popular support for George W. Bush's Napoleonic foreign policy has plummeted to its lowest point ever. "Like the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President George W. Bush may be the last person in the United States to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over," avers Frank Rich:

"'We will stay the course,' he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man? A president can't stay the course when his own citizens (let alone his own allies) won't stay with him. The approval rate for Bush's handling of Iraq plunged to 34 percent in last weekend's Newsweek poll – a match for the 32 percent that approved President Lyndon Johnson's handling of Vietnam in early March 1968.'"

The war against Ba'athist Iraq may be over, but the war against the mullahs of Iran is just beginning. What else are we to make of the president's recent interview with Israeli public television:

"When asked if the use of force was an alternative to faltering diplomatic efforts, Bush said: 'All options are on the table.' 'The use of force is the last option for any president. You know we have used force in the recent past to secure our country,' he said in a clear reference to Iraq. 'I have been willing to do so as a last resort in order to secure the country and provide the opportunity for people to live in free societies,' he added."

A "last resort"? Don't make me laugh. The Bushies came to Washington all primed up to invade Iraq: 9/11 gave them the excuse they needed to carry out their plan – a plan, by the way, not limited to the conquest of Iraq. The confluence of the president's pronouncement with news of Vice President Dick Cheney's recent request that the military come up with a plan to attack the Iranians – using nuclear weapons – as a response to a terrorist attack in the U.S., should send a good-sized shiver down your spine, dear reader, as it does mine.

Frank Rich believes Bush "can't stay the course when his own citizens" refuse to go along, but that is nonsense: he can and will do exactly as he pleases. The constitutional provision assigning exclusively to Congress the power to declare war has long been a dead letter, killed by Harry Truman when he sent U.S. troops to Korea. Aside from a few old-fashioned conservative Republicans, the peoples' elected representatives uttered hardly a peep of protest. Just as Congress – aside from a few isolated, and heroic, cases – will stay silent today. As long as the Democratic party is successfully neutered on foreign policy issues by the neocon-influenced Democratic Leadership Council, the War Party will encounter no opposition on that front.

The political groundwork for an assault on Iran has already been laid, as Joshua Kurlantzick points out in an excellent piece in Vanity Fair magazine, and these preparations ought to evoke in us an eerie sense of déjà vu: the same playbook is being used as was followed in Iraq, even including a mysterious (and, in this case, uniquely kooky) group of exiles funneling fake "intelligence" to the war hawks in the Pentagon.

You say Chalabi, I say Rajavi – let's call the whole thing off!

As the president of the United States cowers in his ranch, afraid to meet with a 48-year-old mother who wants to know why her son had to die, he hurls anathemas at Tehran and gathers his hosts for fresh conquests. Bush can safely ignore Congress – not that they'll give him any trouble – and he can tell the chauffeur to speed up when he passes Cindy Sheehan on the way to a fundraiser for the Republican War Machine. However, he can't safely ignore the grumbling of his generals – who may be just short of joining the Crawford peace camp, along with a few divisions from the North American Command. Bush has just slapped down the top American commander in Iraq, General George Casey, for daring to suggest that troop reductions were in the offing. The London Telegraph reports:

"The top American commander in Iraq has been privately rebuked by the Bush administration for openly discussing plans to reduce troop levels there next year, The Sunday Telegraph has learned. … Gen George Casey, the U.S. ground commander in Iraq, was given his dressing-down after he briefed that troop levels – now 138,000 – could be reduced by 30,000 in the early months of next year as Iraqi security forces take on a greater role."

If the troops are going into Iran – or, as some say, Syria – then bringing them home is out of the question. Is the president facing an officers' rebellion as he ratchets up the rhetoric against Tehran?

The firing of General Kevin Byrnes, allegedly for "adultery" – even though he's already been separated from his wife – a few months before he's due to retire, is awfully suspicious in this context: General Byrnes reportedly made an enemy of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for opposing the Rumsfeldian "transformation" of the military into a more "flexible" instrument of the Bush Doctrine and the neocons' imperial vision. In essentially firing a four-star general – a vicious act of retribution that certainly bears the personal stamp of the chimp-in-chief – the White House engaged in a preemptive strike against the War Party's enemies in the military. This is no doubt a sore spot for the White House: opposition from American's military leaders to the Iraq adventure made headlines in the run-up to war, and their continuing objection to this administration's policy of unconstrained aggression was summed up in the remark of a retired general to the Washington Times: "The Army is just too small for what they want it to do."

General Eric Shinseki, the former chief of staff of the Army, dared face down Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz in estimating "several hundred thousand" U.S. troops as the required size of an Iraq occupation force – and was forced into retirement. Now Casey has been rebuked and is presumably on the way out, while Byrnes has been purged, along with no one knows how many others. It's the night of the long knives in the Pentagon, as the War Party cleans out suspected dissidents from the top ranks of the military and prepares for the next move on the Middle Eastern chessboard.

It doesn't matter if the majority of Americans overwhelmingly oppose the president's war plans, just as long as organized opposition can be effectively neutralized. Is a housewife from Vacaville threatening to show up the president as a coward and a liar? Then smear her and make her the issue – anything to divert attention away from the president's own cowardice and the monstrous immorality of his foreign policy. Is a four-star general standing in the way of the neocons? Then smear him, too, on trumped-up charges and haul him out of his office in disgrace. Is the antiwar movement beginning to gain momentum? Then bring out the smear artists and begin a media campaign of demonization.

The regime has a two-note strategy: fear and smear. This summer, they're firing with both barrels, and we can expect the noise level to rise appreciably as we approach the fourth anniversary of 9/11 – the catalytic event that catapulted us into this Bizarro World, where up is down, all morals are inverted, and we live in a "democracy" where a war opposed by a clear majority is about to be escalated, not ended.

If I were president in such a world, I, too, would be nervous about opposition to my crazed war policy emanating from the military. In Bizarro America, after all, anything might happen – including uniformed generals leading the antiwar movement.

Finally taking seriously their sworn duty to defend the Constitution, will they take up their positions next to Cindy Sheehan and march on the president's Crawford compound? We can dream, can't we? Who knows, but in Bizarro America, it just might happen, and wouldn't that be a sight to see? The final rout of the chickenhawks, as they meet their Waterloo!

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

I have a review of Colin Wilson's recently published autobiography, Dreaming to Some Purpose, in the current (August 29) issue of The American Conservative. They don't put a lot of their stuff online, but here's a taste:

"Book reviewers are literary guides, gently leading readers in the right direction: with the publication of Colin Wilson's autobiography, I am happy to assist in the rediscovery of a hidden treasure. Wilson's meteoric career – from the heights of his 1956 success, The Outsider, a study of the creative misfit in modern literature, to his current state of exile from the 'literary' community – is a testament to the theme that energizes all 120 of his published books: the idea that human beings can rise above the muck and pettiness of ordinary human existence if only they keep their gaze fixed on the stars."

The American Conservative is available at all the better newstands, but if you haven't subscribed, you have only yourself to blame for missing out. Go here to subscribe, if you haven't already.

– Justin Raimondo

Gorilla Radio for July 22nd, 2005

Gorilla Radio for Monday August 22nd, 2005

This week on Gorilla Radio; author, media and politics columnist, activist, and the Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Norman Solomon on War Made Easy.

And; cartoonist, political commentator, rumoured screenwriter, and author of, ‘Square in the Nuts,’ Ben Tripp, and what we all owe the “Brylcreemed Bullshitter,” Ronnie Raygun, in the second half.

And; Janine Bandcroft bringing us up to speed on all that's good to do in and around Victoria this coming week.


Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca He also serves as a contributing editor at the progressive web news site: http://www.pej.org.

You can check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com

Gorilla Radio
C. L. Cook

The war against Iraq is generally perceived, by those inclined to perceptive thought, to be simply a grab for the vast oilfields of that long benighted country, and an incidental way for internecine corpo/military industries to further loot the public treasury. But what greases and enables the machinery of the horrid war-factory that has become America?

Norman Solomon is a media and politics columnist, activist, author, and the Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. Some titles among his many books include: ‘Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You,’ co-authored with foreign correspondent, Reese Erlich, ‘Wizards of Media Oz,’ ‘The Habits of a Highly Deceptive Media,’ and , ‘The Power of Babble.’ His latest is, ‘War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.’ Norman Solomon, exposing the War Elephant in America’s living-room in the first half.

And; it’s been a little better than a year since American Icon, Ronald Reagan died. In a grotesque week long hagiographic orgy of media, the “Gipper” was placed in the Pantheon of American greatness, a sentiment confirmed more recently by his popular “election” through his favourite medium, television, as “The Greatest American.” But who was Ronnie Raygun really, and what did his “service” mean to Americans and millions around the world?

Ben Tripp is a cartoonist, political commentator, rumoured screenwriter, and author of, ‘Square in the Nuts,’ an anthology of his essays. Ben Tripp, and what we all owe the “Brylcreemed Bullshitter,” Ronnie Raygun, in the second half.

And, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with all that’s good to do in and around Victoria this week. But first, Norman Solomon and spinning the world to ruin.

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the mainstream media.

Some past guests include: M. Junaid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, David Barsamian, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, Vincent Bugliosi, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, Diane Christian, Juan Cole, David Cromwell, Jon Elmer, Reese Erlich, Jim Fetzer, Laura Flanders, Susan George, Stan Goff, Robert Greenwald, Denis Halliday, Chris Hedges, Julia Butterfly Hill, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Diana Johnstone, Kathy Kelly, Naomi Klein, Anthony Lappe, Frances Moore Lappe, Dave Lindorff, Jim Lobe, Jennnifer Loewenstein, Wayne Madsen, Stephen Marshall, Linda McQuaig, George Monbiot, Loretta Napoleoni, John Nichols, Kurt Nimmo, Greg Palast, Michael Parenti, William Rivers Pitt, Sheldon Rampton, Paul Craig Roberts, Paul de Rooij, John Ross, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, Starhawk, Grant Wakefield, Paul Watson, Bernard Weiner, Mickey Z., Dave Zirin, and many others.