December 6, 2007
New Venture in Canada’s Oil Sands
By REUTERS
The British oil company BP and Husky Energy said yesterday they would form a joint venture linking a BP Ohio refinery with Husky’s Sunrise oil sands project in Alberta in what is the latest in a series of deals integrating Canadian oil production and United States processing.
The British oil major and Husky, a Canadian producer controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, plan to spend at least $5.5 billion initially on the venture, which furthers efforts to secure markets for Canada’s huge oil sands resource.
The transaction is similar to an oil sands-refining venture hammered out by EnCana and ConocoPhillips last year and follows various arrangements by Suncor Energy, Marathon Oil and others.
BP was the only oil major without holdings in the oil sands, which are second in size only to Saudi Arabia’s conventional oil reserves.
For BP and its new chief executive, Tony Hayward, the deal is a turnaround from the strategy of the former chief, John Browne, who shunned the oil sands as being too costly.
Husky and BP will have 50 percent each of BP’s 155,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Toledo, the companies said.
The plant will be retooled to process 120,000 barrels a day of extra-heavy bitumen from the Alberta oil sands and total capacity will be increased to 170,000 barrels a day. The work is expected to cost $2.5 billion.
The companies will also share ownership of Sunrise, located near Fort McMurray, Alberta. It is expected to produce 200,000 barrels a day of heavy crude by 2015-2020, starting with a 60,000 barrel-a-day phase in 2012, they said.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Canada: Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
Nuclear agency review may trigger privatization
TheStar.com - Business - Nuclear agency review may trigger privatization
November 30, 2007
Tyler Hamilton
Energy Reporter
The federal government is launching a strategy review of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to determine whether the maker of the Candu nuclear reactor needs to be restructured, a move industry observers say will likely lead to a partial privatization of the heavily subsidized Crown corporation.
"It is time to consider whether the existing structure of AECL is appropriate in a changing marketplace," Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said yesterday.
"This review will give us the information we need to make the right decisions for AECL and the right decisions for Canadians."
Lunn's ministry will lead the review with help from the Department of Finance and "with assistance of outside expertise."
The Toronto Star, citing industry sources, reported in July that the federal government has been in talks to sell the commercial business of AECL and has already held informal meetings with U.S.-based General Electric Co. and France's Areva SA – both of which have expressed an interest in AECL.
This was followed in October by an internal reorganization at AECL, which saw five business groups broken into two distinct divisions – one devoted to commercial reactor sales and the other focused on research and development, and nuclear waste management.
Sources tell the Star that senior federal bureaucrats have already unofficially approached the banking community about plans to restructure AECL and that one scenario being floated is to sell a minority stake in the company's commercial reactor businesses to General Electric and engineering firm SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.
Lunn was asked at a parliamentary committee last week whether the government has had internal discussions about the privatization of AECL, but he wouldn't answer the question directly.
"We have made absolutely no decision with respect to that," he said. In the past he has maintained there have been no official talks.
Duncan Hawthorne, chief executive of nuclear operator Bruce Power, wasn't surprised at the decision for a strategic review, which could result in one of many outcomes for AECL. "It was the worst kept secret in the world, was it not?"
One wild card that could affect AECL's future is whether it lands a new reactor sale in Ontario. The company recently established an Ontario sales team and launched an aggressive "Choose Candu" email lobby campaign.
Failure to snag a sale in Canada could derail efforts to sell abroad, where giants GE, Areva and Westinghouse dominate.
"Frankly, when you look at the international reactor market, AECL doesn't have a lot of potential right now," said Shawn-Patrick Stensil, who tracks activity in the nuclear power market for Greenpeace Canada. "The question is how much of this review is going to be public or a dog-and-pony show."
Launch of the AECL review was accompanied yesterday by the announcement that Canada will join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which aims to promote peaceful development of nuclear energy.
Under the partnership, countries such as Canada that export uranium as nuclear fuel would be required to take it back for reprocessing to be used again or for disposal. Creating stewardship over the uranium supply chain would help keep the dangerous material from falling into the hands of countries looking to develop nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, Bruce Power announced yesterday it has signed a letter of intent to purchase certain assets of Energy Alberta Corp., the company that wants to build a nuclear reactor in the oil sands.
Hawthorne said Alberta needs 5,000 megawatts of new power by 2017 and nuclear fits the bill. He said Energy Alberta already has a head-start in the market, helping Bruce Power to accelerate its presence in the province.
source
Canada won't become nuclear waste dumping ground, minister says
Last Updated: Friday, November 30, 2007 | 1:04 PM ET
CBC News
Canada will not be taking radioactive waste from other countries after it joined an international nuclear power partnership, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn says.
Opposition parties had expressed fears Canada's membership in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership — which proposed the idea of returning spent nuclear fuel to the country of origin for disposal — could make Canada a dumping ground for the waste.
Canada is the world's top uranium exporter, meaning adoption of the proposal could have led to it being responsible for disposing of a sizable amount of waste.
But in an interview with CBC News on Friday, Lunn said that a condition of signing up for the partnership was that Canada will not take nuclear waste.
Instead, the minister said, Canada will share research and technology into how other countries can best deal with their own waste.
Opposition parties had lobbed criticism at the government following its announcement Thursday that Canada has joined the partnership.
Continue Article
"The government has tried to slip this one under the wire," New Democratic environment critic Nathan Cullen said following the announcement.
During question period in the Commons on Friday, NDP Leader Jack Layton continued the attack on the decision, saying it should be put to a vote in the House because nuclear energy is not only expensive but dangerous.
"National security should be a key part of this discussion," Layton said.
The nuclear energy partnership proposes the expansion of nuclear energy worldwide through the use of an unproven breed of reactors that burn nuclear waste — a practice effectively banned in Canada and the United States since the 1970s because of security reasons.
The natural resources minister, however, responded that it is "great news" that Canada has joined the group, saying the country must be at the table for international nuclear talks.
"Canada should be a player. Canada can show leadership and we should show other countries," Lunn said.
Seventeen other countries are members, including China, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.
The partnership has many critics, both in the environmental movement and scientific circles.
On Thursday, the federal government also announced a review of Atomic Energy Canada Limited, the Crown corporation that builds and sells nuclear reactors.
"It is time to consider whether the existing structure of AECL is appropriate to the changing marketplace," Lunn said in a news release.
Opposition critics said that was a sign that AECL could be privatized.
source
TheStar.com - Business - Nuclear agency review may trigger privatization
November 30, 2007
Tyler Hamilton
Energy Reporter
The federal government is launching a strategy review of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to determine whether the maker of the Candu nuclear reactor needs to be restructured, a move industry observers say will likely lead to a partial privatization of the heavily subsidized Crown corporation.
"It is time to consider whether the existing structure of AECL is appropriate in a changing marketplace," Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said yesterday.
"This review will give us the information we need to make the right decisions for AECL and the right decisions for Canadians."
Lunn's ministry will lead the review with help from the Department of Finance and "with assistance of outside expertise."
The Toronto Star, citing industry sources, reported in July that the federal government has been in talks to sell the commercial business of AECL and has already held informal meetings with U.S.-based General Electric Co. and France's Areva SA – both of which have expressed an interest in AECL.
This was followed in October by an internal reorganization at AECL, which saw five business groups broken into two distinct divisions – one devoted to commercial reactor sales and the other focused on research and development, and nuclear waste management.
Sources tell the Star that senior federal bureaucrats have already unofficially approached the banking community about plans to restructure AECL and that one scenario being floated is to sell a minority stake in the company's commercial reactor businesses to General Electric and engineering firm SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.
Lunn was asked at a parliamentary committee last week whether the government has had internal discussions about the privatization of AECL, but he wouldn't answer the question directly.
"We have made absolutely no decision with respect to that," he said. In the past he has maintained there have been no official talks.
Duncan Hawthorne, chief executive of nuclear operator Bruce Power, wasn't surprised at the decision for a strategic review, which could result in one of many outcomes for AECL. "It was the worst kept secret in the world, was it not?"
One wild card that could affect AECL's future is whether it lands a new reactor sale in Ontario. The company recently established an Ontario sales team and launched an aggressive "Choose Candu" email lobby campaign.
Failure to snag a sale in Canada could derail efforts to sell abroad, where giants GE, Areva and Westinghouse dominate.
"Frankly, when you look at the international reactor market, AECL doesn't have a lot of potential right now," said Shawn-Patrick Stensil, who tracks activity in the nuclear power market for Greenpeace Canada. "The question is how much of this review is going to be public or a dog-and-pony show."
Launch of the AECL review was accompanied yesterday by the announcement that Canada will join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which aims to promote peaceful development of nuclear energy.
Under the partnership, countries such as Canada that export uranium as nuclear fuel would be required to take it back for reprocessing to be used again or for disposal. Creating stewardship over the uranium supply chain would help keep the dangerous material from falling into the hands of countries looking to develop nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, Bruce Power announced yesterday it has signed a letter of intent to purchase certain assets of Energy Alberta Corp., the company that wants to build a nuclear reactor in the oil sands.
Hawthorne said Alberta needs 5,000 megawatts of new power by 2017 and nuclear fits the bill. He said Energy Alberta already has a head-start in the market, helping Bruce Power to accelerate its presence in the province.
source
Canada won't become nuclear waste dumping ground, minister says
Last Updated: Friday, November 30, 2007 | 1:04 PM ET
CBC News
Canada will not be taking radioactive waste from other countries after it joined an international nuclear power partnership, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn says.
Opposition parties had expressed fears Canada's membership in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership — which proposed the idea of returning spent nuclear fuel to the country of origin for disposal — could make Canada a dumping ground for the waste.
Canada is the world's top uranium exporter, meaning adoption of the proposal could have led to it being responsible for disposing of a sizable amount of waste.
But in an interview with CBC News on Friday, Lunn said that a condition of signing up for the partnership was that Canada will not take nuclear waste.
Instead, the minister said, Canada will share research and technology into how other countries can best deal with their own waste.
Opposition parties had lobbed criticism at the government following its announcement Thursday that Canada has joined the partnership.
Continue Article
"The government has tried to slip this one under the wire," New Democratic environment critic Nathan Cullen said following the announcement.
During question period in the Commons on Friday, NDP Leader Jack Layton continued the attack on the decision, saying it should be put to a vote in the House because nuclear energy is not only expensive but dangerous.
"National security should be a key part of this discussion," Layton said.
The nuclear energy partnership proposes the expansion of nuclear energy worldwide through the use of an unproven breed of reactors that burn nuclear waste — a practice effectively banned in Canada and the United States since the 1970s because of security reasons.
The natural resources minister, however, responded that it is "great news" that Canada has joined the group, saying the country must be at the table for international nuclear talks.
"Canada should be a player. Canada can show leadership and we should show other countries," Lunn said.
Seventeen other countries are members, including China, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.
The partnership has many critics, both in the environmental movement and scientific circles.
On Thursday, the federal government also announced a review of Atomic Energy Canada Limited, the Crown corporation that builds and sells nuclear reactors.
"It is time to consider whether the existing structure of AECL is appropriate to the changing marketplace," Lunn said in a news release.
Opposition critics said that was a sign that AECL could be privatized.
source
Seeing the Trees: Review Ordered on Land 'Gifitng' to Big Timber
Rich 'decision has been made' Coleman must face a review after all
Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, November 24, 2007
The Opposition finally witnessed some progress this week in the effort to shed light on the government's controversial release of private land from public tree farm licences.
New Democratic Party members have been complaining about removals since the legislature convened for the fall session in mid-October.
But they didn't get anywhere with Forests Minister Rich Coleman, who has defended his action at every turn.
"The decision has been made, it's not being changed," was a typical Coleman response during the give-and-take which extended through numerous question periods.
Would the minister submit to a review by the office of the independent auditor-general? the New Democrats wanted to know.
He would not. "I have no intention of asking for a review of this decision."
Of course, as he went on to concede, the auditor-general could make his own decisions "on what to audit and what not to audit."
On the very day that Coleman made the foregoing comment -- Oct. 29 -- John Doyle was taking up his duties as B.C.'s new auditor-general.
This week Doyle announced that his first major undertaking would be to look into whether the decision to release the land was "in the public interest."
He was not responding to Opposition concerns alone. "The office has received a number of requests to examine the decision," the press release said.
The key decision was taken in January. Coleman approved the removal of some 28,000 hectares of private land from three tree farm licences on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
The controversy heated up this fall when the owner of the land, Western Forest Products, began putting some of it up for sale as recreational property.
The Opposition exploded with indignation. The government was serving Western's private interest, with no regard for the public interest.
Private forest lands -- like the tracts freed up in this case -- have been managed as part of the public forest for decades.
In exchange for locking in their lands, private companies were given exclusive access to larger tracts of adjacent Crown timber and other considerations.
But with this transaction, the company regained control of its land with no payback to the public for all those years of access to Crown land and timber.
Not so, Coleman insisted. The landowner had already kept up its part of the bargain by investing in plant and equipment and providing jobs. But now, with the forest industry squeezed by a high dollar and slumping U.S. housing markets, the company's back was to the wall.
"They were going to sell off some of this to, quite frankly, pay down some debt and stabilize their company and try to build a strong future on the island," was the way he put it in an interview with me this week on Voice of B.C. on Shaw TV.
Apart from the quasi-bailout aspect of the decision, Coleman says there were other reasons for it as well.
He says the land, being mainly along the west coast, was not likely to be subject to harvesting in any event: "This is land that most people tell me they would oppose logging on."
Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, November 24, 2007
The Opposition finally witnessed some progress this week in the effort to shed light on the government's controversial release of private land from public tree farm licences.
New Democratic Party members have been complaining about removals since the legislature convened for the fall session in mid-October.
But they didn't get anywhere with Forests Minister Rich Coleman, who has defended his action at every turn.
"The decision has been made, it's not being changed," was a typical Coleman response during the give-and-take which extended through numerous question periods.
Would the minister submit to a review by the office of the independent auditor-general? the New Democrats wanted to know.
He would not. "I have no intention of asking for a review of this decision."
Of course, as he went on to concede, the auditor-general could make his own decisions "on what to audit and what not to audit."
On the very day that Coleman made the foregoing comment -- Oct. 29 -- John Doyle was taking up his duties as B.C.'s new auditor-general.
This week Doyle announced that his first major undertaking would be to look into whether the decision to release the land was "in the public interest."
He was not responding to Opposition concerns alone. "The office has received a number of requests to examine the decision," the press release said.
The key decision was taken in January. Coleman approved the removal of some 28,000 hectares of private land from three tree farm licences on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
The controversy heated up this fall when the owner of the land, Western Forest Products, began putting some of it up for sale as recreational property.
The Opposition exploded with indignation. The government was serving Western's private interest, with no regard for the public interest.
Private forest lands -- like the tracts freed up in this case -- have been managed as part of the public forest for decades.
In exchange for locking in their lands, private companies were given exclusive access to larger tracts of adjacent Crown timber and other considerations.
But with this transaction, the company regained control of its land with no payback to the public for all those years of access to Crown land and timber.
Not so, Coleman insisted. The landowner had already kept up its part of the bargain by investing in plant and equipment and providing jobs. But now, with the forest industry squeezed by a high dollar and slumping U.S. housing markets, the company's back was to the wall.
"They were going to sell off some of this to, quite frankly, pay down some debt and stabilize their company and try to build a strong future on the island," was the way he put it in an interview with me this week on Voice of B.C. on Shaw TV.
Apart from the quasi-bailout aspect of the decision, Coleman says there were other reasons for it as well.
He says the land, being mainly along the west coast, was not likely to be subject to harvesting in any event: "This is land that most people tell me they would oppose logging on."
Friday, November 30, 2007
Media Lens: guardians of honest journalism
The cyber guardians of honest journalism
By John Pilger
11/30/07 "ICH" -- -- What has changed in the way we see the world? For as long as I can remember, the relationship of journalists with power has been hidden behind a bogus objectivity and notions of an "apathetic public" that justify a mantra of "giving the public what they want." What has changed is the public's perception and knowledge. No longer trusting what they read and see and hear, people in western democracies are questioning as never before, particularly via the internet. Why, they ask, is the great majority of news sourced to authority and its vested interests? Why are many journalists the agents of power, not people?
Much of this bracing new thinking can be traced to a remarkable UK website, MediaLens. The creators of Media Lens, David Edwards and David Cromwell, assisted by their webmaster, Olly Maw, have had such an extraordinary influence since they set up the site in 2001 that, without their meticulous and humane analysis, the full gravity of the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan might have been consigned to bad journalism's first draft of bad history. Peter Wilby put it well in his review of Guardians of Power: the Myth of the Liberal Media, a drawing-together of Media Lens essays published by Pluto Press, which he described as "mercifully free of academic or political jargon and awesomely well researched. All journalists should read it, because the Davids make a case that demands to be answered."
That appeared in the New Statesman. Not a single major newspaper reviewed the most important book about journalism I can remember. Take the latest Media Lens essay, "Invasion - a Comparison of Soviet and Western Media Performance." Written with Nikolai Lanine, who served in the Soviet army during its 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan, it draws on Soviet-era newspaper archives, comparing the propaganda of that time with current western media performance. They are revealed as almost identical.
Like the reported "success" of the US "surge" in Iraq, the Soviet equivalent allowed "poor peasants [to work] the land peacefully." Like the Americans and British in Iraq and Afghanistan, Soviet troops were liberators who became peacekeepers and always acted in "self-defense." The BBC's Mark Urban's revelation of the "first real evidence that President Bush's grand design of toppling a dictator and forcing a democracy into the heart of the Middle East could work" (Newsnight, 12 April 2005) is almost word for word that of Soviet commentators claiming benign and noble intent behind Moscow's actions in Afghanistan. The BBC's Paul Wood, in thrall to the 101st Airborne, reported that the Americans "must win here if they are to leave Iraq . . . There is much still to do." That precisely was the Soviet line.
The tone of Media Lens's questions to journalists is so respectful that personal honesty is never questioned. Perhaps that explains a reaction that can be both outraged and comic. The BBC presenter Gavin Esler, champion of Princess Diana and Ronald Reagan, ranted at Media Lens emailers as "fascistic" and "beyond redemption." Roger Alton, editor of the London Observer and champion of the invasion of Iraq, replied to one ultra-polite member of the public: "Have you been told to write in by those c*nts at Media Lens?" When questioned about her environmental reporting, Fiona Harvey, of the Financial Times, replied: "You're pathetic . . . Who are you?"
The message is: how dare you challenge us in such a way that might expose us? How dare you do the job of true journalism and keep the record straight? Peter Barron, the editor of the BBC's Newsnight, took a different approach. "I rather like them. David Edwards and David Cromwell are unfailingly polite, their points are well argued and sometimes they're plain right."
David Edwards believes that "reason and honesty are enhanced by compassion and compromised by greed and hatred. A journalist who is sincerely motivated by concern for the suffering of others is more likely to report honestly . . ." Some might call this an exotic view. I don't. Neither does the Gandhi Foundation, which on 2 December will present Media Lens with the prestigious Gandhi International Peace Award. I salute them.
By John Pilger
11/30/07 "ICH" -- -- What has changed in the way we see the world? For as long as I can remember, the relationship of journalists with power has been hidden behind a bogus objectivity and notions of an "apathetic public" that justify a mantra of "giving the public what they want." What has changed is the public's perception and knowledge. No longer trusting what they read and see and hear, people in western democracies are questioning as never before, particularly via the internet. Why, they ask, is the great majority of news sourced to authority and its vested interests? Why are many journalists the agents of power, not people?
Much of this bracing new thinking can be traced to a remarkable UK website, MediaLens. The creators of Media Lens, David Edwards and David Cromwell, assisted by their webmaster, Olly Maw, have had such an extraordinary influence since they set up the site in 2001 that, without their meticulous and humane analysis, the full gravity of the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan might have been consigned to bad journalism's first draft of bad history. Peter Wilby put it well in his review of Guardians of Power: the Myth of the Liberal Media, a drawing-together of Media Lens essays published by Pluto Press, which he described as "mercifully free of academic or political jargon and awesomely well researched. All journalists should read it, because the Davids make a case that demands to be answered."
That appeared in the New Statesman. Not a single major newspaper reviewed the most important book about journalism I can remember. Take the latest Media Lens essay, "Invasion - a Comparison of Soviet and Western Media Performance." Written with Nikolai Lanine, who served in the Soviet army during its 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan, it draws on Soviet-era newspaper archives, comparing the propaganda of that time with current western media performance. They are revealed as almost identical.
Like the reported "success" of the US "surge" in Iraq, the Soviet equivalent allowed "poor peasants [to work] the land peacefully." Like the Americans and British in Iraq and Afghanistan, Soviet troops were liberators who became peacekeepers and always acted in "self-defense." The BBC's Mark Urban's revelation of the "first real evidence that President Bush's grand design of toppling a dictator and forcing a democracy into the heart of the Middle East could work" (Newsnight, 12 April 2005) is almost word for word that of Soviet commentators claiming benign and noble intent behind Moscow's actions in Afghanistan. The BBC's Paul Wood, in thrall to the 101st Airborne, reported that the Americans "must win here if they are to leave Iraq . . . There is much still to do." That precisely was the Soviet line.
The tone of Media Lens's questions to journalists is so respectful that personal honesty is never questioned. Perhaps that explains a reaction that can be both outraged and comic. The BBC presenter Gavin Esler, champion of Princess Diana and Ronald Reagan, ranted at Media Lens emailers as "fascistic" and "beyond redemption." Roger Alton, editor of the London Observer and champion of the invasion of Iraq, replied to one ultra-polite member of the public: "Have you been told to write in by those c*nts at Media Lens?" When questioned about her environmental reporting, Fiona Harvey, of the Financial Times, replied: "You're pathetic . . . Who are you?"
The message is: how dare you challenge us in such a way that might expose us? How dare you do the job of true journalism and keep the record straight? Peter Barron, the editor of the BBC's Newsnight, took a different approach. "I rather like them. David Edwards and David Cromwell are unfailingly polite, their points are well argued and sometimes they're plain right."
David Edwards believes that "reason and honesty are enhanced by compassion and compromised by greed and hatred. A journalist who is sincerely motivated by concern for the suffering of others is more likely to report honestly . . ." Some might call this an exotic view. I don't. Neither does the Gandhi Foundation, which on 2 December will present Media Lens with the prestigious Gandhi International Peace Award. I salute them.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Shameless, Remorseless, Soulless
Karl Rove's Shameless, Remorseless,
Soulless Attempt to Rewrite History
by Arianna Huffington
by Arianna Huffington
I went on Countdown last night to talk about what Keith Olbermann called Karl Rove's "attack on history."
During an interview with Charlie Rose, the erstwhile Boy Genius pulled out his bucket of whitewash and audaciously claimed that "one of the untold stories" about the war in Iraq is that the Bush administration had been "opposed' to Congress holding the vote authorizing the president to use military force in Iraq just a few weeks prior to the 2002 elections because "we thought it made it too political."
Too political? For Karl Rove? That's like saying something was too bloody for Count Dracula.
He went on to paint a picture of a White House pushed into war, and laid the blame for much of what has happened since on a Congress that had "made things move too fast." If not for Congress, you see, there would have been more time for weapons inspections, and to build a broader coalition.
It was a satiric tour de force worthy of Jonathan Swift or Stephen Colbert -- but Rove wasn't joking. He actually expected us to buy his load of b.s. Watching Rove, two things were perfectly clear: his disdain for the truth and his contempt for the American people know no bounds.
Rove's appearance was the work of a shameless, remorseless, soulless political animal taking the first steps on what will no doubt be a high profile and lucrative march toward historical revisionism. He knows that he stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the fanatics responsible for the worst foreign policy disaster in American history -- not exactly the best thing to put on your post-government resume -- so he is hell-bent on replacing reality with the latest incarnation of The Big Lie.
A student of history, Rove is obviously also up on his Orwell: "Who controls the past, controls the future."
Unfortunately for Rove, this isn't 1984; we now live in the Age of Google, and YouTube, and Lexis-Nexis searches. So the refutation of his lies is just a click away.
The evidence that it was President Bush and Vice President Cheney -- and not Congress -- who were hungry for war is overwhelming. For starters, we have Bush's own words before the vote, when he explicitly told Congress that "it's in our national interest" to get the vote "done as quickly as possible." And the insistence of then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld that "delaying a vote in Congress would send the wrong message." And the words of then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle who says that when he asked Bush in September 2002 why there was such a rush for a vote on Iraq the president "looked at Cheney and he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said: 'We just have to do this now.'"
And there is the insider evidence provided by Richard Clarke, who wrote that within hours of the 9/11 attacks, this administration had its heart set on heading into Iraq. And from Paul O'Neill, who made it clear that invading Iraq had been Bush's goal before he had even learned where the Oval Office supply closet was.
Even now, with his approval ratings scraping the bottom of the historical barrel, Bush still dominates the Congressional agenda on the war. And Rove wants us to buy that back in the heady days of 2002, when the president was still riding a wave of support forged by 9/11, his desire for caution and reasoned action were overridden by a war hungry Congress? "We don't determine when the Congress votes on things," Rove told Rose. "The Congress does." I guess he and Bush landed on the whole "I'm the Decider" thing later (maybe after they orchestrated that triumphal landing on the Abraham Lincoln).
The truth is that the zealots in the White House were not about to allow their desires to invade Iraq -- which had been laid out years earlier by the Project for a New American Century -- be quashed by anything as piddling as the facts or the evidence or reasoned debate or Congress. Especially a Congress populated with Democratic leaders so rattled and timid that to call them spineless would be an insult to invertebrates everywhere.
Indeed, it was the perfect political environment for an administration intent on shoving a war down the throats of Congress and the American people.
Let's remember, this was the time when the administration had pulled together the White House Study Group (which included Rove himself) with the express mission of marketing the war. These people weren't in the mood to wait, they were in the mood to sell, sell, sell. The Downing Street Memo showed that by July of 2002 they were already fixing the intel to sell the war. By August 2002 the White House was already using Judy Miller and the New York Times as prime advertising space. And by September 2002, Condi Rice was already warning of smoking guns turning out to be mushroom clouds, and Cheney was using aluminum tubes to make the case that Saddam was "actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons."
So the record is irrefutable: the drumbeat of war coming from the White House couldn't have been louder. And no amount of 5-years-down the road spinning by Karl Rove is going to change that truth.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Annapolis Talks
Annapolis talks: A cover for fomenting Palestinian civil war and preparing assault on Iran
Chris Marsden and Jean Shaoul
26 November 2007
The Annapolis summit in Maryland on the Israel Palestine conflict on November 27 has nothing to do with seeking a peace settlement through the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Not even a preliminary statement of goals and/or principles could be agreed between the two parties for this one-day affair. Israel has refused to discuss any of the key issues that must be resolved for any settlement: the borders of any putative state, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and the status of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.
Israel goes to the talks confident that it is hosted by its key ally. An article in the Washington Post last week quoted senior White House staffers admitting that the US has no intention of pressurising Israel into making concessions it does not wish to make. “The president remains skeptical as to the Palestinians’ ability to make the necessary concession for achieving peace,” said one source. “The Israelis trust Bush...if they’re going to take any chances, they’d rather do it with him, not his successor,” said the officials.
As far as the Palestinians are concerned, the talks are a crude attempt to stitch up a deal between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President and Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas so that he can posture as having moved the “peace process” forward and continue to suppress all resistance to the Israeli occupation.
For Washington, the talks have a broader political purpose. By enabling President George Bush to be seen attempting some kind of resolution of the conflict, they will aid the Arab regimes in justifying their acquiescence in Washington’s occupation of Iraq and its planned assault on Iran.
On Friday, the Arab League agreed to go along with the charade, including Saudi Arabia, which does not recognise Syria and is a financial backer of Hamas in Gaza. Syria will attend after the US indicated that the future of the Golan Heights would be on the agenda. The US is also reported to have given its tacit approval to separate talks between Syria and Israel on the Golan Heights immediately following Annapolis.
This is by no means the main reason for the participation of Damascus. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem went so far as to state that the return of the Golan Heights was not a precondition to peace talks. Attendance at Annapolis is a desperate effort by the regime of Bashir Assad to reach an accommodation with Washington and prevent the US from targeting it alongside Iran.
Lebanon will also attend, despite the strenuous opposition of Hezbollah.
Israeli Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer of the Labour Party noted the political significance of the Arab regime’s decision to participate, telling Army Radio, “The meeting is taking place at a time when radicals and moderates in the Arab-Muslim world are on a collision course. There is no doubt that this meeting is also aimed at contributing to reinforcing the moderate Arab camp.”
In the Occupied Territories, Annapolis has been preceded by frantic efforts by Abbas to get a minimal state that Olmert would agree to. To this end, he dropped his previous demands for a freeze on the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and a definite time when a Palestinian state would come into being.
Secondly, he has stepped up efforts to depose the Islamist group Hamas and retake control of the Gaza strip, which is the precondition placed on him by both Washington and Israel for recognising Fatah as a “negotiating partner.”
Hamas came to power in January 2006, as a result of widespread disaffection with Fatah because of its readiness to agree a rotten deal with Bush and its endemic corruption. The Western powers and Israel responded by imposing an economic blockade, closing Gaza off to the outside world. When the possibility of a National Unity government of Fatah and Hamas emerged in the summer of 2006, Israel mounted a savage war on Gaza.
After fomenting a civil war between the rival factions in Gaza that ended with Fatah’s military defeat, Israel, the US and the European powers encouraged Abbas to dissolve the Hamas government and form a new government, splitting Palestine into two. Bush gave US$190 million to support Abbas’s regime and with Israel has provided arms and training for Abbas to root out Hamas.
Olmert has publicly insisted that any future deal depends upon the Palestinian Authority retaking control of Gaza. “There will be no implementation of the treaty before the Road Map commitments are all implemented,” he told journalists after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh.
“The commitments also apply to the Gaza Strip, [for the Palestinians] Gaza must be part of the Palestinian state and then naturally, the Palestinians must fight terrorism, and that includes the Gaza Strip,” he continued. Last week, the Israeli Defence Ministry’s plan to begin reducing the flow of electricity to the Gaza Strip as of December 2 was approved by Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz.
Abbas has responded to the demands placed on him by mobilising his forces in a direct conflict with Hamas. When 100,000 Fatah supporters gathered at a November 12 rally in Gaza to mark the third anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, Hamas security forces opened fire, killing 7 demonstrators and injuring more than 90. More than 400 Fatah supporters were arrested and dozens held for questioning.
Two days later, Abbas publicly called for the overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza. “We have to bring down this gang that forcibly took over the Gaza Strip and is abusing the sufferings and pains of our people,” he said on television.
Hamas does not represent a progressive alternative to Fatah and articulates the interests of sections of the Arab bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. Beholden to Saudi Arabia as well as Iran and Hezbollah in Syria for its finances and armaments, it was clearly shaken by their decision to endorse Annapolis. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the announcement “a great shock for Palestinians because it opened the door for direct normalisation with the occupation amid continued escalation and aggression.”
“We were expecting an Arab consensus to break the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip and to save the lives of many Palestinians who are stranded on the borders,” he said. “We didn’t expect to see agreement among the Arabs on meeting with Israel.”
Deposed Palestinian President Ismael Haniyeh said that “Israel is seeking normalisation, especially with key countries like Saudi Arabia. We must avoid giving legitimacy to free normalisation with the Israeli occupation.”
Such expressions of surprise ignore the bitter experience of decades during which the Arab regimes, most infamously Egypt, Jordan and Syria, have carried out monstrous betrayals of the Palestinians that have left them in their present dire straits. Now the Arab states are participating in a yet greater crime—preparations for war against Iran
Hamas has been left with little option other than to rally opposition to Abbas internally, uniting with Islamic Jihad and smaller militant groups in convening an “Anti-Annapolis” conference in the Gaza Strip.
Khaled Abu Hilal, of the breakaway Fatah al-Yasser, will be in attendance, and it is supported by various Palestinian political and civic groups. Abu Mujahed, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza, warned that any concessions made by Abbas would trigger a third intifada that would be “fiercer than the previous ones.”
Abbas also faces a challenge on the right, from Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, who has his own small party called Third Way and is said to be working with PA negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo to establish a new party to contest the next Palestinian elections. The infighting has left the Palestinian negotiating team divided into two camps.
Fayyad epitomises the wealthy social layer that is now collaborating with Washington even more clearly than Abbas. He has no connection whatsoever with Fatah’s earlier struggle against Israel.
Described by Haaretz as “Everyone’s favorite Palestinian” and “the ideal partner,” he was seated next to Ariel Sharon at a wedding ceremony and has lectured “Israel’s economic and political elite” about his own political and economic philosophy.
He received a doctorate in economics at the University of Texas in 1987, then worked at the World Bank and the Federal Reserve in Washington. When the PA was established, he served as a representative of the International Monetary Fund and then the West Bank’s manager of the Arab Bank, the largest bank in the Middle East. He was adopted as a favourite by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who en sured that he became PA finance minister. Following the split between Gaza and the West Bank, he was unconstitutionally made prime minister, as well as retaining his position as finance minister.
See Also:
Israel’s power cuts to Gaza: Collective punishment with tacit US approval
[29 October 2007]
US secretary of state seeks to impose Israeli diktats on Palestinians
[22 October 2007]
WSWS source
Chris Marsden and Jean Shaoul
26 November 2007
The Annapolis summit in Maryland on the Israel Palestine conflict on November 27 has nothing to do with seeking a peace settlement through the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Not even a preliminary statement of goals and/or principles could be agreed between the two parties for this one-day affair. Israel has refused to discuss any of the key issues that must be resolved for any settlement: the borders of any putative state, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and the status of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.
Israel goes to the talks confident that it is hosted by its key ally. An article in the Washington Post last week quoted senior White House staffers admitting that the US has no intention of pressurising Israel into making concessions it does not wish to make. “The president remains skeptical as to the Palestinians’ ability to make the necessary concession for achieving peace,” said one source. “The Israelis trust Bush...if they’re going to take any chances, they’d rather do it with him, not his successor,” said the officials.
As far as the Palestinians are concerned, the talks are a crude attempt to stitch up a deal between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President and Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas so that he can posture as having moved the “peace process” forward and continue to suppress all resistance to the Israeli occupation.
For Washington, the talks have a broader political purpose. By enabling President George Bush to be seen attempting some kind of resolution of the conflict, they will aid the Arab regimes in justifying their acquiescence in Washington’s occupation of Iraq and its planned assault on Iran.
On Friday, the Arab League agreed to go along with the charade, including Saudi Arabia, which does not recognise Syria and is a financial backer of Hamas in Gaza. Syria will attend after the US indicated that the future of the Golan Heights would be on the agenda. The US is also reported to have given its tacit approval to separate talks between Syria and Israel on the Golan Heights immediately following Annapolis.
This is by no means the main reason for the participation of Damascus. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem went so far as to state that the return of the Golan Heights was not a precondition to peace talks. Attendance at Annapolis is a desperate effort by the regime of Bashir Assad to reach an accommodation with Washington and prevent the US from targeting it alongside Iran.
Lebanon will also attend, despite the strenuous opposition of Hezbollah.
Israeli Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer of the Labour Party noted the political significance of the Arab regime’s decision to participate, telling Army Radio, “The meeting is taking place at a time when radicals and moderates in the Arab-Muslim world are on a collision course. There is no doubt that this meeting is also aimed at contributing to reinforcing the moderate Arab camp.”
In the Occupied Territories, Annapolis has been preceded by frantic efforts by Abbas to get a minimal state that Olmert would agree to. To this end, he dropped his previous demands for a freeze on the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and a definite time when a Palestinian state would come into being.
Secondly, he has stepped up efforts to depose the Islamist group Hamas and retake control of the Gaza strip, which is the precondition placed on him by both Washington and Israel for recognising Fatah as a “negotiating partner.”
Hamas came to power in January 2006, as a result of widespread disaffection with Fatah because of its readiness to agree a rotten deal with Bush and its endemic corruption. The Western powers and Israel responded by imposing an economic blockade, closing Gaza off to the outside world. When the possibility of a National Unity government of Fatah and Hamas emerged in the summer of 2006, Israel mounted a savage war on Gaza.
After fomenting a civil war between the rival factions in Gaza that ended with Fatah’s military defeat, Israel, the US and the European powers encouraged Abbas to dissolve the Hamas government and form a new government, splitting Palestine into two. Bush gave US$190 million to support Abbas’s regime and with Israel has provided arms and training for Abbas to root out Hamas.
Olmert has publicly insisted that any future deal depends upon the Palestinian Authority retaking control of Gaza. “There will be no implementation of the treaty before the Road Map commitments are all implemented,” he told journalists after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh.
“The commitments also apply to the Gaza Strip, [for the Palestinians] Gaza must be part of the Palestinian state and then naturally, the Palestinians must fight terrorism, and that includes the Gaza Strip,” he continued. Last week, the Israeli Defence Ministry’s plan to begin reducing the flow of electricity to the Gaza Strip as of December 2 was approved by Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz.
Abbas has responded to the demands placed on him by mobilising his forces in a direct conflict with Hamas. When 100,000 Fatah supporters gathered at a November 12 rally in Gaza to mark the third anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, Hamas security forces opened fire, killing 7 demonstrators and injuring more than 90. More than 400 Fatah supporters were arrested and dozens held for questioning.
Two days later, Abbas publicly called for the overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza. “We have to bring down this gang that forcibly took over the Gaza Strip and is abusing the sufferings and pains of our people,” he said on television.
Hamas does not represent a progressive alternative to Fatah and articulates the interests of sections of the Arab bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. Beholden to Saudi Arabia as well as Iran and Hezbollah in Syria for its finances and armaments, it was clearly shaken by their decision to endorse Annapolis. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the announcement “a great shock for Palestinians because it opened the door for direct normalisation with the occupation amid continued escalation and aggression.”
“We were expecting an Arab consensus to break the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip and to save the lives of many Palestinians who are stranded on the borders,” he said. “We didn’t expect to see agreement among the Arabs on meeting with Israel.”
Deposed Palestinian President Ismael Haniyeh said that “Israel is seeking normalisation, especially with key countries like Saudi Arabia. We must avoid giving legitimacy to free normalisation with the Israeli occupation.”
Such expressions of surprise ignore the bitter experience of decades during which the Arab regimes, most infamously Egypt, Jordan and Syria, have carried out monstrous betrayals of the Palestinians that have left them in their present dire straits. Now the Arab states are participating in a yet greater crime—preparations for war against Iran
Hamas has been left with little option other than to rally opposition to Abbas internally, uniting with Islamic Jihad and smaller militant groups in convening an “Anti-Annapolis” conference in the Gaza Strip.
Khaled Abu Hilal, of the breakaway Fatah al-Yasser, will be in attendance, and it is supported by various Palestinian political and civic groups. Abu Mujahed, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza, warned that any concessions made by Abbas would trigger a third intifada that would be “fiercer than the previous ones.”
Abbas also faces a challenge on the right, from Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, who has his own small party called Third Way and is said to be working with PA negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo to establish a new party to contest the next Palestinian elections. The infighting has left the Palestinian negotiating team divided into two camps.
Fayyad epitomises the wealthy social layer that is now collaborating with Washington even more clearly than Abbas. He has no connection whatsoever with Fatah’s earlier struggle against Israel.
Described by Haaretz as “Everyone’s favorite Palestinian” and “the ideal partner,” he was seated next to Ariel Sharon at a wedding ceremony and has lectured “Israel’s economic and political elite” about his own political and economic philosophy.
He received a doctorate in economics at the University of Texas in 1987, then worked at the World Bank and the Federal Reserve in Washington. When the PA was established, he served as a representative of the International Monetary Fund and then the West Bank’s manager of the Arab Bank, the largest bank in the Middle East. He was adopted as a favourite by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who en sured that he became PA finance minister. Following the split between Gaza and the West Bank, he was unconstitutionally made prime minister, as well as retaining his position as finance minister.
See Also:
Israel’s power cuts to Gaza: Collective punishment with tacit US approval
[29 October 2007]
US secretary of state seeks to impose Israeli diktats on Palestinians
[22 October 2007]
WSWS source
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Guinpoint Medicine
http://www.newstarg et.com/022267. html
Originally published November 19 2007
Children herded like cattle into Maryland courthouse for forced vaccinations as armed police and attack dogs stand guardby Mike Adams(NewsTarget)
Following the State of Maryland's threats against parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated, children were herded into a Price George County courthouse being guarded by armed personnel with attack dogs.
Inside, the children were forcibly vaccinated, many against their will, under orders from the State Attorney General, various State Judges and the local School Board Director, all of whom illegally conspired to threaten parents with imprisonment if they did not submit their children to vaccinations.
The State of Maryland has now turned to Gestapo tactics to force its medical will upon the People, stripping parents of any right to decide how they wish to protect their own children from infectious disease. Health authorities there have already announced their intent to essentially kidnap parents and throw them in jail, removing them from their children for up to thirty days if they continue to refuse to have their children vaccinated.
This will all be conducted at gunpoint, with armed personnel and attack dogs at the ready, making sure nobody steps out of line, and suppressing any attempt at public dissent against the Orwellian vaccination policies.The entire campaign against these parents is blatantly illegal.
There is no law in Maryland requiring the vaccination of children, thus parents who refuse to do so may not be legally charged with violating any law. Instead, Maryland health and school authorities are using Gestapo-like tactics, threatening to charge the parents with child truancy violations, criminalizing them for daring to protect their children from the dangerous chemicals found in vaccines (including thimerosal, a chemical additive containing a neurotoxic form of mercury).
The desperation of organized medicine is becoming increasingly apparent
As more and more parents are becoming informed about the dangers of vaccinations and their link to autism, state health authorities are increasingly turning to "Gunpoint Medicine" to force the People to submit to the poisons of conventional medicine. Parents who attempt to save their children from deadly chemotherapy chemicals are being arrested and having their children kidnapped by Child Protective Services (see http://www.newstarg et.com/Abraham_ Cherrix.html ), and oncologists who used to be armed only with radiation machines and chemotherapy injectors and now arming themselves with U.S. Marshals and other local law enforcement authorities who are using loaded firearms to enforce "the will of the State" against parents who resist.
Even the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) announced its strong opposition to the Maryland "Gunpoint Medicine" vaccination campaign. In a press release (http://www.truthrin g.org/?p= 5521) published Nov. 16, the AAPS states:
"The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons today condemned the "vaccine roundup" executed in Prince George's county Maryland this week, and promised to do everything it can to support parents who refuse to immunize their children."
This power play obliterates informed consent and parental rights," said Kathryn Serkes, director of policy for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), one of the few national physician groups that refuse corporate funding from pharmaceutical companies.
In a scenario reminiscent of cattle round-ups, the state's attorney has issued summons to more than 1600 parents of children who have not provided certificates of immunization for their children. But instead of toting a cattle prod, this state's attorney chooses to wield a syringe to keep the "herd" in line.
Read the rest of the press release at: http://www.aapsonli ne.org/press/ nr-11-16- 07.php...
What's next for Gunpoint Medicine?
As the truth continues to emerge about the extreme dangers of vaccinations and pharmaceuticals, Big Pharma is becoming increasingly desperate to coerce the public into relying on its products. It is now working closely with state authorities (including Governors of several states) to mandate the use of vaccinations on young children...
The FDA has already criminalized nutritional supplement companies who dare to tell the truth about the health benefits of their supplements. (Read the true history of armed FDA raids on vitamin companies here: http://www.newstarg et.com/021791. html )...
The end game of all this is to apply Gunpoint Medicine tactics to everyone: Adults and senior citizens included. Anyone suffering from high cholesterol, for example, who does not submit to Big Pharma's statin drugs could be arrested, strapped to a table and medicated against their will.
People with cancer could be arrested for choosing to treat that cancer with safe and effective botanical medicines instead of patented, high-profit Big Pharma drugs.
If you think the prisons are full enough right now from all the arrests for marijuana possession and other victimless crimes, just wait until the State starts arresting all the natural health moms and dads across the country who refuse to participate in the utterly insane and extremely harmful system of medicine that now dominates U.S. health care today.
The State is very clear about medicine: If you want to remain a free citizen, you must submit to the synthetic drugs made by the very same corporations that now control government health regulators. Anyperson who resists such "treatments" will be branded a threat to public health -- a designation just beneath "terrorist" in the eyes of many government bureaucrats.
As such, they believe there is no limit to the level of force they may use to coerce such people into submitting to Big Pharma's chemicals....
The "free" America we all once knew is long gone, and it has been replaced with The United States of Corporate America, where police tactics are now used to enforce hazardous public health policies, and the people who run the State no longer think there's anything wrong with rounding up the population at gunpoint and performing large-scale medical experiments on their children.
That's what modern vaccines are, after all: A grand medical experiment whose effects will only become known after a generation of mass poisoning has come and gone.
Originally published November 19 2007
Children herded like cattle into Maryland courthouse for forced vaccinations as armed police and attack dogs stand guardby Mike Adams(NewsTarget)
Following the State of Maryland's threats against parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated, children were herded into a Price George County courthouse being guarded by armed personnel with attack dogs.
Inside, the children were forcibly vaccinated, many against their will, under orders from the State Attorney General, various State Judges and the local School Board Director, all of whom illegally conspired to threaten parents with imprisonment if they did not submit their children to vaccinations.
The State of Maryland has now turned to Gestapo tactics to force its medical will upon the People, stripping parents of any right to decide how they wish to protect their own children from infectious disease. Health authorities there have already announced their intent to essentially kidnap parents and throw them in jail, removing them from their children for up to thirty days if they continue to refuse to have their children vaccinated.
This will all be conducted at gunpoint, with armed personnel and attack dogs at the ready, making sure nobody steps out of line, and suppressing any attempt at public dissent against the Orwellian vaccination policies.The entire campaign against these parents is blatantly illegal.
There is no law in Maryland requiring the vaccination of children, thus parents who refuse to do so may not be legally charged with violating any law. Instead, Maryland health and school authorities are using Gestapo-like tactics, threatening to charge the parents with child truancy violations, criminalizing them for daring to protect their children from the dangerous chemicals found in vaccines (including thimerosal, a chemical additive containing a neurotoxic form of mercury).
The desperation of organized medicine is becoming increasingly apparent
As more and more parents are becoming informed about the dangers of vaccinations and their link to autism, state health authorities are increasingly turning to "Gunpoint Medicine" to force the People to submit to the poisons of conventional medicine. Parents who attempt to save their children from deadly chemotherapy chemicals are being arrested and having their children kidnapped by Child Protective Services (see http://www.newstarg et.com/Abraham_ Cherrix.html ), and oncologists who used to be armed only with radiation machines and chemotherapy injectors and now arming themselves with U.S. Marshals and other local law enforcement authorities who are using loaded firearms to enforce "the will of the State" against parents who resist.
Even the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) announced its strong opposition to the Maryland "Gunpoint Medicine" vaccination campaign. In a press release (http://www.truthrin g.org/?p= 5521) published Nov. 16, the AAPS states:
"The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons today condemned the "vaccine roundup" executed in Prince George's county Maryland this week, and promised to do everything it can to support parents who refuse to immunize their children."
This power play obliterates informed consent and parental rights," said Kathryn Serkes, director of policy for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), one of the few national physician groups that refuse corporate funding from pharmaceutical companies.
In a scenario reminiscent of cattle round-ups, the state's attorney has issued summons to more than 1600 parents of children who have not provided certificates of immunization for their children. But instead of toting a cattle prod, this state's attorney chooses to wield a syringe to keep the "herd" in line.
Read the rest of the press release at: http://www.aapsonli ne.org/press/ nr-11-16- 07.php...
What's next for Gunpoint Medicine?
As the truth continues to emerge about the extreme dangers of vaccinations and pharmaceuticals, Big Pharma is becoming increasingly desperate to coerce the public into relying on its products. It is now working closely with state authorities (including Governors of several states) to mandate the use of vaccinations on young children...
The FDA has already criminalized nutritional supplement companies who dare to tell the truth about the health benefits of their supplements. (Read the true history of armed FDA raids on vitamin companies here: http://www.newstarg et.com/021791. html )...
The end game of all this is to apply Gunpoint Medicine tactics to everyone: Adults and senior citizens included. Anyone suffering from high cholesterol, for example, who does not submit to Big Pharma's statin drugs could be arrested, strapped to a table and medicated against their will.
People with cancer could be arrested for choosing to treat that cancer with safe and effective botanical medicines instead of patented, high-profit Big Pharma drugs.
If you think the prisons are full enough right now from all the arrests for marijuana possession and other victimless crimes, just wait until the State starts arresting all the natural health moms and dads across the country who refuse to participate in the utterly insane and extremely harmful system of medicine that now dominates U.S. health care today.
The State is very clear about medicine: If you want to remain a free citizen, you must submit to the synthetic drugs made by the very same corporations that now control government health regulators. Anyperson who resists such "treatments" will be branded a threat to public health -- a designation just beneath "terrorist" in the eyes of many government bureaucrats.
As such, they believe there is no limit to the level of force they may use to coerce such people into submitting to Big Pharma's chemicals....
The "free" America we all once knew is long gone, and it has been replaced with The United States of Corporate America, where police tactics are now used to enforce hazardous public health policies, and the people who run the State no longer think there's anything wrong with rounding up the population at gunpoint and performing large-scale medical experiments on their children.
That's what modern vaccines are, after all: A grand medical experiment whose effects will only become known after a generation of mass poisoning has come and gone.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Final Nail in America's Coffin
The Final Nail in America's Coffin:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/
discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2305406
http://www.democraticunderground.com/
discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2305406
Friday, November 16, 2007
Torture: What Ottawa knew
Globe and Mail November 16, 2007
The Afghan Mission: detainee abuse: from Canadian custody into cruel hands
Afghan prisons: What Ottawa knew
Bloody floors, constant use of leg irons and few checks on authority revealed in declassified government files
Paul Koring and Alan Freeman
Washington, Ottawa -- The Harper government knew prison conditions were appalling long before The Globe and Mail published a series of stories last April detailing the abuse and torture of prisoners turned over by Canadian soldiers to Afghanistan's notorious secret police, documents released this week show.
The heavily censored documents also show that at the same time as senior ministers were denying evidence of abuse, officials on the ground in Afghanistan were collecting first-hand accounts from prisoners of mistreatment.
Although large sections of the more than 1,000 pages of documents and messages between Ottawa, Kabul and Kandahar remain blacked out, two disturbing pictures emerge from the pile.
First, that despite working hard to create the impression of careful follow-up in monitoring of detainees, efforts have been hampered by a chaotic and unreliable Afghan system in which scores, perhaps hundreds, of detainees have vanished.
Second, in the months prior to public allegations of abuse and torture, there was compelling evidence of terrible conditions in Afghan prisons. In addition to routine reports by diplomats citing widespread torture and abuse, Canadian officials were also delivering first-hand accounts showing how grim the prisons were.
In one, Linda Garwood-Filbert, the newly arrived leader of a Correctional Service Canada inspections team, asked for better boots in February, 2007, months before the published reports, because she was "walking through blood and fecal matter" on the floor of cells as they toured Afghan prisons.
No explanation of why the floors were covered in blood is given.
The government was forced to release the documents on detainee conditions after a federal judge ordered it to disclose them as part of a suit brought by Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.
Another report noted that the warden of the main prison in Kandahar, where many prisoners handed over by Canadians soldiers were held, had been fired after charges that he raped juvenile detainees. Cosmetics and hashish were found in his office. He was exonerated because an Afghan military judge said it was "impossible for a drunken man in his 50s to commit an act of rape," reported a Canadian official in a cable to Ottawa.
Other reports detail conditions far outside internationally acceptable norms. At one Kandahar secret police prison, all inmates are shackled in leg irons around the clock. Some have been kept that way for more than a year.
Meanwhile, in the months since May, after the government hastily arranged follow-up inspections in the wake of news reports, a different, but equally disturbing picture, emerges.
It is of scores of disappeared detainees, of strong evidence of torture and abuse continuing despite the inspections and of a frantic effort, in the first few days after the stories appeared last April, to paint a far rosier picture than documented in secret diplomatic cables.
On the first Canadian visit to a secret police prison, officials reported that they were stunned that two prisoners braved almost certain retribution to complain of abuse. "To our surprise, even through NDS [Afghanistan's version of a combined CIA and FBI] officers accompanied us throughout the visit, two prisoners came forward with complaints of mistreatment," says an April 25 cable marked "secret."
The frantic damage-control efforts by the government in that tumultuous last week of April also are clear in the documents. On April 23, Canadian diplomats in Kabul reported back to Ottawa after an urgently arranged meeting with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission that "the commission is unable to monitor the condition of detainees as per their agreement with the Canadians, Dutch and others" because the NDS refused to allow them into the prisons.
The next day, then-defence minister Gordon O'Connor told the House of Commons during Question Period that "the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has assured us that it will report any abuse of prisoners. It is able to monitor all the prisoners." Mr. O'Connor had previously told the Commons that the International Committee of the Red Cross would report any abuse or torture of transferred detainees back to Canada, a claim he was later forced to retract when he apologized to the House for misleading it.
Since May, when the Harper government signed a new deal designed to plug the holes that had allowed for no follow-up monitoring of transferred detainees, the government has been claiming a sea change in treatment and tracking.
"We now have a much greater ability to track the detainees to ensure the standards that are expected are being met," Peter MacKay, then foreign minister, said on June 6. "The Afghans themselves, of course, clearly understand the expectations when it comes to detainees who were turned over by Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. They will not only ensure that we know about their whereabouts, but their treatment will conform with international standards, the standards we have clearly set out." That stands in sharp contrast to what was being reported by Canadian diplomats, military officers and corrections officers actually charged with the follow-up monitoring.
Five days earlier, on June 1, diplomats struggling to cope with NDS record-keeping reported that some detainees are listed as being "released about three months before they are arrested," while for others there was no record "of these detainee names anywhere on our spreadsheet."
Another report later in June said that "given the poor level of record-keeping, it is to be expected that we will not be able to verify the status of some of these detainees." Canadian Forces flatly refuse to say how many prisoners they have taken and either released or handed over to Afghan authorities. However, blacked-out numbers in the documents indicate the number is in triple digits and Canadian sources in Afghanistan say more than 200.
Yet in more than six months of follow-up monitoring, Canadian officials have been able to arrange only 32 interviews. Several of those were multiple meetings with the same detainees, David Mulroney, the government's point man on the Afghan file, has said.
That suggests that more than 100, perhaps more than 150 detainees have gone missing.
In the 32 interviews, at least seven detainees claimed they were abused or ill-treated. The government no longer seems to use the word "torture" in connection with prisoners in Afghanistan.
Among the many partially blacked-out references in the documents released in Ottawa is a cryptic mention from early April, warning "there are also indications that Canadians may have been present during questioning of detainees by NDS."
*****
What the documents say
This spring, as cabinet ministers were defending prisoner safeguards as adequate and denying the existence of prison-abuse allegations, numerous government reports showed otherwise.
1 - In February, conditions were so appalling in Afghan prisons that a Correctional Service Canada team asked for better boots with which to wade through the blood and feces on the floors.
2 - When The Globe and Mail published allegations of abuse in April, cabinet ministers denied any knowledge. But officials knew that Kandahar's notorious Sarpoza prison - where many detainees captured by Canadian soldiers were held - was run by a warden suspected of raping inmates as early as February, when Correctional Service officials arrived in Afghanistan.
3 - In June, one month after the Harper government announced new follow-up visits to monitor detainees, Canadian diplomats reported that Afghan records were so bad it was impossible to know what happened to many prisoners.
1 EQUIPMENT
CIVPOL have made the request on our behalf to be issued with the desert camel boots, as they have also had to convert since being in theatre. they afford the appropriate ankle support when getting in and out of the LAV/Coyote/Nyala vehicles. Additionally the colour is more appropriate in the summer heat. On a Health and Safety level we will be walking through blood and fecal matter when either on patrol or in the prison and should not be wearing our personal footwear as it will track into our personal quarters. We are also trying to get Ranger blankets issued as there is no guarantee that when we go on patrol that we will
2
Specific discussion focused on the recent exoneration of the previous Warden of Sarpoza. MUHAMMAD NADIR was accused and arrested in early 2007 for the rape or attempted rape of a juvenile prisoner. When the Warden's room was searched they also found hashish, wine and cosmetics. CSC had been made aware of this incident when they arrived in theatre in early February.
3
1) Follow-up on detainee transfers by Canada.
Have we heard back from ANP [Afghan National Police] and ANA [Afghan National Army] on detainees we transferred to them? What are we doing to pursue this?
ANP and ANA were provided with a list of individuals transferred into their custody by the Canadian Forces. given the poor level of record-keeping by the ANP/ANA, and the fact that they do not keep any records on original detaining force, it is to be expected that we will not be able to verify the status of some of these detainees, particularly if they were released. KABUL is in regular contact with ANP and ANA officials.
FOR AIHRC [Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission] AND ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] EYES ONLY
NDS SITE VISIT
2007-04-25
The Director of the Corrections Component and Gavin Buchan of DFAIT [Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade] attended NDS. The following was noted in relation to persons on remand.
XXXXXXX, son of XXXXXXXX has been there for 21/2 months. His investigation is finished. When asked about abuse he said his toes had been burned but it was not apparent to CSC [Correctional Service of Canada] inspection. He also said he had been kicked and beaten while blindfolded, that they had stepped on his belly. This reportedly took place in the NDS office. When asked who had abused him he said it was officers at NDS however he could not identify them due to the blindfold. NDS alleged that XXXXXXXXX had killed two ANP in Myan Shin or Shah Wali Kot before being captured.
Another prisoner beckoned to us and told us his name was XXXXXXXX (spelling to be verified), son of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. He said that he had been in detention for about one year. The first month was at XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. When asked about cells at XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, which is where he was held. When asked about other prisoners he said that there were none. When asked about the number of cells he said it was just a room. He went on to state that he had been interrogated by foreigners and XXXXXXXX. He alleged that XXXXXXXX beat him and gave him electric shocks. He also stated he was bound by his feet and hands and was made to stand for 10 days.
He said the reason for the detention was that he had been accused by an enemy in Government of being XXXXXX of Taliban XXXXXXXXX. He has never been to court. His name in the file is XXXXXXXXXX but he claims that is inaccurate and that he was captured in Maywand, not Panjawayi as recorded in the file, and that after his detention his care was appropriated by XXXXXXXXXX.
For your considerations,
L. Garwood-Filbert
Director Corrections Component
KPRT
Monday, November 12, 2007
SOOKE FOOD SECURITY: VISIONING WORKSHOP
SOOKE FOOD SECURITY: VISIONING WORKSHOP
November 7th, 2007 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Sooke Harbour House
Potlatch Room
WHAT IS FOOD SECURITY?
There are many formal and informal definitions of food security. For the purposes of this project ’food security’ can be defined as “a situation in which all community residents obtains a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes self-reliance and social justice.
A ‘sustainable food system’ can be described as a food system that improves the health of the community, environment and individuals over time, involving a collaborative effort in a particular setting to build locally based, self-reliant food systems and economies.”
A local ‘food system’ can be described as “one in which food production, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal of end products are integrated to enhance the environmental, economic, social and nutritional health of a particular community and place”
WHAT IS VISIONING & WHY DO WE NEED IT?
(Andrew Moore)
What is it?
A vision is an ideal that we can project into the future and work towards achieving.
‘A picture in which everyone can see themselves’.
A vision expresses all that is important to an individual or group e.g.
Potential, Aspiration, Interests, Values, Dreams, Roots
Why do we need one?
If you do not have a strong vision of where you want to go you will probably end up being a bit player in other people’s visions.
Once we have a vision we can share it with others and see if they too can see themselves in this picture.
Visions and values form the basis for developing goals and objectives that when implemented turn the vision into a reality
Transforming any idea into a reality is usually 10% Inspiration, 90% Perspiration
Visioning is one of the ‘inspiration’ components so do not miss the chance, otherwise you may end up with the 90% ‘perspiration’ components - carrying out someone else’s vision!
WHO IS FUNDING OUR PROJECT & WHAT HAVE WE BEEN FUNDED FOR?
VIHA’s Community Food Action Initiative (CFAI):
The Vancouver Island Health Authority’s (VIHA) Community Food Action Initiative (CFAI) is part of the Healthy Eating component of ActNow BC. The purpose is to increase food security in BC by supporting the implementation of community, regional and provincial initiatives that improve access to healthy foods for all members of the community. They have awarded us with $10,000 to help fund our Community Food & Health Action Plan (Please see below objectives. If you have not send the CFAI funding proposal please let me know and I will email it to you).
Region of Focus:
From East Sooke to Port Renfrew (including all communities within this geographical area: East Sooke, Beecher Bay, Sooke, Shirley, Otter Point, Jordan River, Pacheedaht and Port Renfrew).
Project Objectives:
To initiate, support, and enhance the collaboration between a broad range of community members, decision-makers, and key stakeholders to develop the regional Food & Health Action Plan.
To provide the community with clear, accessible and relevant information on the assets and needs related to the local food system.
For the community to prioritize areas for improvement and develop next steps for achieving priorities.
To strengthen the link between community needs and government decision-making by providing elected officials and local planners with relevant and useful information to inform land-use planning.
Actions & Time Line:
Kate Kittredge will speak to this.
Additional Funding Sources (to supplement VIHA’s $10,000):
a. District of Sooke ($5000 grants in Aid)
b. VanCity (funding CASA’s community kitchen to upgrade to a commercial/ community kitchen).
c. Unlocked NDP funds (Sinclair?)
d. United Way
e. Victoria Foundation
f. Vancouver Foundation
g. Canadian Organic Growers
h. Ministry of Agriculture & Lands
i. First Nations Agricultural Lending Association
j. Corky Evans & Kathleen Gibson (funding resources?).
TASK GROUPS:
FUNDING (from September – December):
Members: Kate Kittredge, Phoebe Dunbar, Ellen Anderson, Andrew Moore, Amy Rubidge.
Tasks: Research available funding sources (see above suggestions), write proposals, and secure funding for an additional $20,000-$25,000 for the Community Food & Health Action Plan.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT (on-going):
Members: Jessica Boquist, Mary Alice Johnson, Sinclair Philip, Toni Tata, Marlene Barry (?), Mary Dunn (?)
Tasks: Engage with and create an inventory of potential project partners including all aspects of the Food System (i.e.: producers, distributors, stakeholders, families, youth/students, marginalized populations, those participating in the hidden economies, etc.); keep recruited project partners informed and engaged with the process (without needing to become a part of the steering committee).
COMMUNICATIONS (on-going):
Members: Kathryn Kusyszyn, Amy Rubidge, Tracy Kelly, Kate Kittredge, Marlene Barry (?),
Tasks: Educate the community, media, decision-making bodies (i.e.: government), stakeholders, etc. about what we are doing and why, what our values are, when our focus groups are, etc. Idea: screen films locally educating the public about food security issues (regionally, nationally, globally); food security calendar, etc..
NOTE: It is important to align with the District of Sooke as they revise their Official Community Plan. Because there will be a new Food Security component to the OCP we will need to closely connect with them and keep them informed of the outcomes from our community engagement (through our focus groups, forum, etc.).
FUTURE TASK GROUPS:
Hiring of Project Coordinator (Late Fall):
Tasks: Develop job description; Interview & hire Co-ordinator; Orient to job and expectations.
Focus Groups: Organize the development and implementation of at least 6 community focus groups.
Food Resource Inventory
Community Forum
Final Report Writing
November 7th, 2007 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Sooke Harbour House
Potlatch Room
WHAT IS FOOD SECURITY?
There are many formal and informal definitions of food security. For the purposes of this project ’food security’ can be defined as “a situation in which all community residents obtains a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes self-reliance and social justice.
A ‘sustainable food system’ can be described as a food system that improves the health of the community, environment and individuals over time, involving a collaborative effort in a particular setting to build locally based, self-reliant food systems and economies.”
A local ‘food system’ can be described as “one in which food production, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal of end products are integrated to enhance the environmental, economic, social and nutritional health of a particular community and place”
WHAT IS VISIONING & WHY DO WE NEED IT?
(Andrew Moore)
What is it?
A vision is an ideal that we can project into the future and work towards achieving.
‘A picture in which everyone can see themselves’.
A vision expresses all that is important to an individual or group e.g.
Potential, Aspiration, Interests, Values, Dreams, Roots
Why do we need one?
If you do not have a strong vision of where you want to go you will probably end up being a bit player in other people’s visions.
Once we have a vision we can share it with others and see if they too can see themselves in this picture.
Visions and values form the basis for developing goals and objectives that when implemented turn the vision into a reality
Transforming any idea into a reality is usually 10% Inspiration, 90% Perspiration
Visioning is one of the ‘inspiration’ components so do not miss the chance, otherwise you may end up with the 90% ‘perspiration’ components - carrying out someone else’s vision!
WHO IS FUNDING OUR PROJECT & WHAT HAVE WE BEEN FUNDED FOR?
VIHA’s Community Food Action Initiative (CFAI):
The Vancouver Island Health Authority’s (VIHA) Community Food Action Initiative (CFAI) is part of the Healthy Eating component of ActNow BC. The purpose is to increase food security in BC by supporting the implementation of community, regional and provincial initiatives that improve access to healthy foods for all members of the community. They have awarded us with $10,000 to help fund our Community Food & Health Action Plan (Please see below objectives. If you have not send the CFAI funding proposal please let me know and I will email it to you).
Region of Focus:
From East Sooke to Port Renfrew (including all communities within this geographical area: East Sooke, Beecher Bay, Sooke, Shirley, Otter Point, Jordan River, Pacheedaht and Port Renfrew).
Project Objectives:
To initiate, support, and enhance the collaboration between a broad range of community members, decision-makers, and key stakeholders to develop the regional Food & Health Action Plan.
To provide the community with clear, accessible and relevant information on the assets and needs related to the local food system.
For the community to prioritize areas for improvement and develop next steps for achieving priorities.
To strengthen the link between community needs and government decision-making by providing elected officials and local planners with relevant and useful information to inform land-use planning.
Actions & Time Line:
Kate Kittredge will speak to this.
Additional Funding Sources (to supplement VIHA’s $10,000):
a. District of Sooke ($5000 grants in Aid)
b. VanCity (funding CASA’s community kitchen to upgrade to a commercial/ community kitchen).
c. Unlocked NDP funds (Sinclair?)
d. United Way
e. Victoria Foundation
f. Vancouver Foundation
g. Canadian Organic Growers
h. Ministry of Agriculture & Lands
i. First Nations Agricultural Lending Association
j. Corky Evans & Kathleen Gibson (funding resources?).
TASK GROUPS:
FUNDING (from September – December):
Members: Kate Kittredge, Phoebe Dunbar, Ellen Anderson, Andrew Moore, Amy Rubidge.
Tasks: Research available funding sources (see above suggestions), write proposals, and secure funding for an additional $20,000-$25,000 for the Community Food & Health Action Plan.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT (on-going):
Members: Jessica Boquist, Mary Alice Johnson, Sinclair Philip, Toni Tata, Marlene Barry (?), Mary Dunn (?)
Tasks: Engage with and create an inventory of potential project partners including all aspects of the Food System (i.e.: producers, distributors, stakeholders, families, youth/students, marginalized populations, those participating in the hidden economies, etc.); keep recruited project partners informed and engaged with the process (without needing to become a part of the steering committee).
COMMUNICATIONS (on-going):
Members: Kathryn Kusyszyn, Amy Rubidge, Tracy Kelly, Kate Kittredge, Marlene Barry (?),
Tasks: Educate the community, media, decision-making bodies (i.e.: government), stakeholders, etc. about what we are doing and why, what our values are, when our focus groups are, etc. Idea: screen films locally educating the public about food security issues (regionally, nationally, globally); food security calendar, etc..
NOTE: It is important to align with the District of Sooke as they revise their Official Community Plan. Because there will be a new Food Security component to the OCP we will need to closely connect with them and keep them informed of the outcomes from our community engagement (through our focus groups, forum, etc.).
FUTURE TASK GROUPS:
Hiring of Project Coordinator (Late Fall):
Tasks: Develop job description; Interview & hire Co-ordinator; Orient to job and expectations.
Focus Groups: Organize the development and implementation of at least 6 community focus groups.
Food Resource Inventory
Community Forum
Final Report Writing
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Iraq: Worth Another Soldier's Life?
'I Don't Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier's Life'
After 14 months in a Baghdad district torn by mounting sectarian violence, members of one U.S. unit are tired, bitter and skeptical.
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 27, 2007; A01
BAGHDAD, Oct. 26 Their line of tan Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles creeps through another Baghdad afternoon. At this pace, an excruciating slowness, they strain to see everything, hoping the next manhole cover, the next rusted barrel, does not hide another bomb. A few bullets pass overhead, but they don't worry much about those.
"I hate this road," someone says over the radio.
They stop, look around. The streets of Sadiyah are deserted again. To the right, power lines slump down into the dirt. To the left, what was a soccer field is now a pasture of trash, combusting and smoking in the sun. Packs of skinny wild dogs trot past walls painted with slogans of sectarian hate.
A bomb crater blocks one lane, so they cross to the other side, where houses are blackened by fire, shops crumbled into bricks. The remains of a car bomb serve as hideous public art. Sgt. Victor Alarcon's Humvee rolls into a vast pool of knee-high brown sewage water -- the soldiers call it Lake Havasu, after the Arizona spring-break party spot -- that seeps in the doors of the vehicle and wets his boots.
"When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street," Alarcon said this week. "The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks."
That was 14 long months ago, when the soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, arrived in southwestern Baghdad. It was before their partners in the Iraqi National Police became their enemies and before Shiite militiamen, aligned with the police, attempted to exterminate a neighborhood of middle-class Sunni families.
Next month, the U.S. soldiers will complete their tour in Iraq. Their experience in Sadiyah has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.
Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice -- 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad -- Alarcon said no: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."
While top U.S. commanders say the statistics of violence have registered a steep drop in Baghdad and elsewhere, the soldiers' experience in Sadiyah shows that numbers alone do not describe the sense of aborted normalcy -- the fear, the disrupted lives -- that still hangs over the city.
Before the war, Sadiyah was a bustling middle-class district, popular with Sunni officers in Saddam Hussein's military. It has become strategically important because it represents a fault line between militia power bases in al-Amil to the west and the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Dora to the east. U.S. commanders say the militias have made a strong push for the neighborhood in part because it lies along the main road that Shiite pilgrims travel to the southern holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.
American soldiers estimate that since violence intensified this year, half of the families in Sadiyah have fled, leaving approximately 100,000 people. After they left, insurgents and militiamen used their abandoned homes to hold meetings and store weapons. The neighborhood deteriorated so quickly that many residents came to believe neither U.S. nor Iraqi security forces could stop it happening.
The descent of Sadiyah followed a now-familiar pattern in Baghdad. In response to suicide bombings blamed on Sunni insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Shiite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army, went from house to house killing and intimidating Sunni families. In many formerly mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad, such as al-Amil and Bayaa, Shiites have become the dominant sect, with their militias the most powerful force.
"It's just a slow, somewhat government-supported sectarian cleansing," said Maj. Eric Timmerman, the battalion's operations officer.
The focus of the battalion's efforts in Sadiyah was to develop the Iraqi security forces into an organized, fair and proficient force -- but the American soldiers soon realized this goal was unattainable. The sectarian warfare in Sadiyah was helped along by the Wolf Brigade, a predominantly Shiite unit of the Iraqi National Police that tolerated, and at times encouraged, Mahdi Army attacks against Sunnis, according to U.S. soldiers and residents. The soldiers endured repeated bombings of their convoys within view of police checkpoints. During their time here, they have arrested 70 members of the national police for collaboration in such attacks and other crimes.
The Interior Ministry, which oversees the national police, has said that officials are working hard to root out militiamen from the force and denied that officers have any intention of participating in sectarian violence.
But in one instance about two months ago, the American soldiers heard that the Wolf Brigade planned to help resettle more than 100 Shiite families in abandoned houses in the neighborhood. When platoon leader Lt. Brian Bifulco arrived on the scene, he noticed that "abandoned houses to them meant houses that had Sunnis in them."
"What we later found out is they weren't really moving anyone in, it was a cover for the INP to go in and evict what Sunni families were left there," recalled Bifulco, 23, a West Point graduate from Huntsville, Ala. "We showed up, and there were a bunch of Sunni families just wandering around the streets with their bags, taking up refuge in a couple Sunni mosques in the area."
As the militiamen and insurgents battled it out, the bodies mounted up. U.S. troops said that earlier this year it was common for them to find at least half a dozen corpses scattered on the pavement during their daily patrols.
Militiamen in BMWs rode around the neighborhood with megaphones, demanding that residents evacuate. Mortar rounds launched from nearby Bayaa, a Mahdi Army stronghold, began crashing down regularly in Sadiyah. Three mosques in the neighborhood were rigged with explosives and destroyed.
The national police erected checkpoints outside other mosques and prevented Sunnis from attending services. The U.S. soldiers began facing ever more sophisticated armor-piercing roadside bombs known as EFPs, short for explosively formed penetrators. Some of them were linked in arrays that blasted out as many as 18 heated copper slugs.
Over time, the neighborhood became a battleground that residents fled by the thousands. Hundreds of shops shut down, schools closed, and access to basic services such as electricity, fuel and food deteriorated. "The end state was people left. They felt unsafe," said Timmerman, the operations officer.
"We were so committed to them as a partner we couldn't see it for what it was. In retrospect, I've got to think it was a coordinated effort," Timmerman said. "To this day, I don't think we truly understand how infiltrated or complicit the national police are" with the militias.
Lt. Col. George A. Glaze, the battalion commander, says his soldiers are playing the role of a bouncer caught between brawling customers. Alone, they can restrain the fighters, keep them off balance, but they cannot stop the melee until the house lights come on -- that is, until the Iraqi government steps in.
"They're either going to turn the lights on or we're all going to realize they've moved the switch," he said.
"I'm frustrated. After 14 months, I've got a lot of thoughts in my head. Do they fundamentally get giving up individual rights and power for the greater good?" Glaze said. "I'm going to leave here being skeptical of everything."
Over the past two months, the U.S. soldiers have recruited more than 300 local residents, most of them Sunnis, into a neighborhood defense force. This has proved more controversial in Sadiyah than elsewhere; the Iraqi government has openly accused the force's members of abusing residents and has limited their freedom of movement. In September, after Glaze led an eight-month campaign to kick out the Wolf Brigade, soldiers from the Iraqi army's Muthanna Brigade, which has clashed with Sunni volunteers in the Abu Ghraib area, arrived in Sadiyah.
The Iraqi army's arrival and the emergence of the Sunni volunteers have coincided with some positive signs, the soldiers said. Some of the shops along the once-busy commercial district of Tijari Street now open for a few hours a day. The number of violent incidents has dropped, although it rose again over the past two weeks, officers said.
"This is a dangerous place," said Capt. Lee Showman, 28, a senior officer in the battalion. "People are killed here every day, and you don't hear about it. People are kidnapped here every day, and you don't hear about it."
On Oct. 14, Washington Post special correspondent Salih Saif Aldin was killed while on assignment in Sadiyah.
Those who patrol the neighborhood every day say the fight has left them tired, bitter, wounded and confused. Many of their scars are on display, some no one can see. Sgt. 1st Class Todd Carlsrud has a long gash on the right side of his neck and carries a lump of shrapnel lodged against his spine that his doctors would not risk cutting out. Another sergeant felt the flaming pain of a bullet tearing through his cheek and learned the taste of his own warm blood. He was one of three soldiers that day to get shot in the head -- a fourth was hit in the biceps -- when his squad walked into a house and found two gunmen waiting.
"The closer we get to leaving, the more we worry about it," said Alarcon, 27, sitting at a plastic table with several other soldiers outside their outpost in Sadiyah. "Being here, you know that any second, any time of the day, your life could be over."
"Gone in a flash," said Sgt. Matthew Marino.
"We had two mechanics working in the motor pool get hit by mortars," Alarcon said. "You would have never thought." Both died.
Many of the soldiers from the battalion are on their second tour in Iraq. Three years ago, they were based in Tikrit, the home of Saddam Hussein, a city they entered expecting to fight a determined Sunni insurgency. By the end of their tour, with much of the violence contained, many of them felt optimistic about progress in Iraq.
"I honestly thought we were making a difference in Tikrit. Then we come back to a hellhole," Marino said. "That was a playground compared to Baghdad."
The American people don't fully realize what's going on, said Staff Sgt. Richard McClary, 27, a section leader from Buffalo.
"They just know back there what the higher-ups here tell them. But the higher-ups don't go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe places, places with a little bit of gunfire," he said. "They don't ever [expletive] see what we see on the ground."
After 14 months in a Baghdad district torn by mounting sectarian violence, members of one U.S. unit are tired, bitter and skeptical.
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 27, 2007; A01
BAGHDAD, Oct. 26 Their line of tan Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles creeps through another Baghdad afternoon. At this pace, an excruciating slowness, they strain to see everything, hoping the next manhole cover, the next rusted barrel, does not hide another bomb. A few bullets pass overhead, but they don't worry much about those.
"I hate this road," someone says over the radio.
They stop, look around. The streets of Sadiyah are deserted again. To the right, power lines slump down into the dirt. To the left, what was a soccer field is now a pasture of trash, combusting and smoking in the sun. Packs of skinny wild dogs trot past walls painted with slogans of sectarian hate.
A bomb crater blocks one lane, so they cross to the other side, where houses are blackened by fire, shops crumbled into bricks. The remains of a car bomb serve as hideous public art. Sgt. Victor Alarcon's Humvee rolls into a vast pool of knee-high brown sewage water -- the soldiers call it Lake Havasu, after the Arizona spring-break party spot -- that seeps in the doors of the vehicle and wets his boots.
"When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street," Alarcon said this week. "The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks."
That was 14 long months ago, when the soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, arrived in southwestern Baghdad. It was before their partners in the Iraqi National Police became their enemies and before Shiite militiamen, aligned with the police, attempted to exterminate a neighborhood of middle-class Sunni families.
Next month, the U.S. soldiers will complete their tour in Iraq. Their experience in Sadiyah has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.
Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice -- 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad -- Alarcon said no: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."
While top U.S. commanders say the statistics of violence have registered a steep drop in Baghdad and elsewhere, the soldiers' experience in Sadiyah shows that numbers alone do not describe the sense of aborted normalcy -- the fear, the disrupted lives -- that still hangs over the city.
Before the war, Sadiyah was a bustling middle-class district, popular with Sunni officers in Saddam Hussein's military. It has become strategically important because it represents a fault line between militia power bases in al-Amil to the west and the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Dora to the east. U.S. commanders say the militias have made a strong push for the neighborhood in part because it lies along the main road that Shiite pilgrims travel to the southern holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.
American soldiers estimate that since violence intensified this year, half of the families in Sadiyah have fled, leaving approximately 100,000 people. After they left, insurgents and militiamen used their abandoned homes to hold meetings and store weapons. The neighborhood deteriorated so quickly that many residents came to believe neither U.S. nor Iraqi security forces could stop it happening.
The descent of Sadiyah followed a now-familiar pattern in Baghdad. In response to suicide bombings blamed on Sunni insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Shiite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army, went from house to house killing and intimidating Sunni families. In many formerly mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad, such as al-Amil and Bayaa, Shiites have become the dominant sect, with their militias the most powerful force.
"It's just a slow, somewhat government-supported sectarian cleansing," said Maj. Eric Timmerman, the battalion's operations officer.
The focus of the battalion's efforts in Sadiyah was to develop the Iraqi security forces into an organized, fair and proficient force -- but the American soldiers soon realized this goal was unattainable. The sectarian warfare in Sadiyah was helped along by the Wolf Brigade, a predominantly Shiite unit of the Iraqi National Police that tolerated, and at times encouraged, Mahdi Army attacks against Sunnis, according to U.S. soldiers and residents. The soldiers endured repeated bombings of their convoys within view of police checkpoints. During their time here, they have arrested 70 members of the national police for collaboration in such attacks and other crimes.
The Interior Ministry, which oversees the national police, has said that officials are working hard to root out militiamen from the force and denied that officers have any intention of participating in sectarian violence.
But in one instance about two months ago, the American soldiers heard that the Wolf Brigade planned to help resettle more than 100 Shiite families in abandoned houses in the neighborhood. When platoon leader Lt. Brian Bifulco arrived on the scene, he noticed that "abandoned houses to them meant houses that had Sunnis in them."
"What we later found out is they weren't really moving anyone in, it was a cover for the INP to go in and evict what Sunni families were left there," recalled Bifulco, 23, a West Point graduate from Huntsville, Ala. "We showed up, and there were a bunch of Sunni families just wandering around the streets with their bags, taking up refuge in a couple Sunni mosques in the area."
As the militiamen and insurgents battled it out, the bodies mounted up. U.S. troops said that earlier this year it was common for them to find at least half a dozen corpses scattered on the pavement during their daily patrols.
Militiamen in BMWs rode around the neighborhood with megaphones, demanding that residents evacuate. Mortar rounds launched from nearby Bayaa, a Mahdi Army stronghold, began crashing down regularly in Sadiyah. Three mosques in the neighborhood were rigged with explosives and destroyed.
The national police erected checkpoints outside other mosques and prevented Sunnis from attending services. The U.S. soldiers began facing ever more sophisticated armor-piercing roadside bombs known as EFPs, short for explosively formed penetrators. Some of them were linked in arrays that blasted out as many as 18 heated copper slugs.
Over time, the neighborhood became a battleground that residents fled by the thousands. Hundreds of shops shut down, schools closed, and access to basic services such as electricity, fuel and food deteriorated. "The end state was people left. They felt unsafe," said Timmerman, the operations officer.
"We were so committed to them as a partner we couldn't see it for what it was. In retrospect, I've got to think it was a coordinated effort," Timmerman said. "To this day, I don't think we truly understand how infiltrated or complicit the national police are" with the militias.
Lt. Col. George A. Glaze, the battalion commander, says his soldiers are playing the role of a bouncer caught between brawling customers. Alone, they can restrain the fighters, keep them off balance, but they cannot stop the melee until the house lights come on -- that is, until the Iraqi government steps in.
"They're either going to turn the lights on or we're all going to realize they've moved the switch," he said.
"I'm frustrated. After 14 months, I've got a lot of thoughts in my head. Do they fundamentally get giving up individual rights and power for the greater good?" Glaze said. "I'm going to leave here being skeptical of everything."
Over the past two months, the U.S. soldiers have recruited more than 300 local residents, most of them Sunnis, into a neighborhood defense force. This has proved more controversial in Sadiyah than elsewhere; the Iraqi government has openly accused the force's members of abusing residents and has limited their freedom of movement. In September, after Glaze led an eight-month campaign to kick out the Wolf Brigade, soldiers from the Iraqi army's Muthanna Brigade, which has clashed with Sunni volunteers in the Abu Ghraib area, arrived in Sadiyah.
The Iraqi army's arrival and the emergence of the Sunni volunteers have coincided with some positive signs, the soldiers said. Some of the shops along the once-busy commercial district of Tijari Street now open for a few hours a day. The number of violent incidents has dropped, although it rose again over the past two weeks, officers said.
"This is a dangerous place," said Capt. Lee Showman, 28, a senior officer in the battalion. "People are killed here every day, and you don't hear about it. People are kidnapped here every day, and you don't hear about it."
On Oct. 14, Washington Post special correspondent Salih Saif Aldin was killed while on assignment in Sadiyah.
Those who patrol the neighborhood every day say the fight has left them tired, bitter, wounded and confused. Many of their scars are on display, some no one can see. Sgt. 1st Class Todd Carlsrud has a long gash on the right side of his neck and carries a lump of shrapnel lodged against his spine that his doctors would not risk cutting out. Another sergeant felt the flaming pain of a bullet tearing through his cheek and learned the taste of his own warm blood. He was one of three soldiers that day to get shot in the head -- a fourth was hit in the biceps -- when his squad walked into a house and found two gunmen waiting.
"The closer we get to leaving, the more we worry about it," said Alarcon, 27, sitting at a plastic table with several other soldiers outside their outpost in Sadiyah. "Being here, you know that any second, any time of the day, your life could be over."
"Gone in a flash," said Sgt. Matthew Marino.
"We had two mechanics working in the motor pool get hit by mortars," Alarcon said. "You would have never thought." Both died.
Many of the soldiers from the battalion are on their second tour in Iraq. Three years ago, they were based in Tikrit, the home of Saddam Hussein, a city they entered expecting to fight a determined Sunni insurgency. By the end of their tour, with much of the violence contained, many of them felt optimistic about progress in Iraq.
"I honestly thought we were making a difference in Tikrit. Then we come back to a hellhole," Marino said. "That was a playground compared to Baghdad."
The American people don't fully realize what's going on, said Staff Sgt. Richard McClary, 27, a section leader from Buffalo.
"They just know back there what the higher-ups here tell them. But the higher-ups don't go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe places, places with a little bit of gunfire," he said. "They don't ever [expletive] see what we see on the ground."
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