Sunday, June 26, 2005

WTC Basement Blast And Injured Burn Victim/ 9-11

June 24, 05 -- William Rodriguez declared a hero for saving numerous lives at Ground Zero, he was the janitor on duty the morning of 9/11 who heard and felt explosions rock the basement sub-levels of the north tower just seconds before the jetliner struck the top floors.

He not only claims he felt explosions coming from below the first sub-level while working in the basement, he says the walls were cracking around him and he pulled a man to safety by the name of Felipe David, who was severely burned from the basement explosions.

It’s a miracle Rodriguez, 44, who worked at the WTC for 20 years, is even alive. Usually arriving to work at 8:30am, the morning of 9/11 he reported 30 minutes late. If he’d arrived on time, it would have put him at the top floors just about the same time the jetliner hit the north tower.

"When I heard the sound of the explosion, the floor beneath my feet vibrated, the walls started cracking and it everything started shaking," said Rodriguez, who was huddled together with at least 14 other people in the office."

Rodriguez said Anthony Saltamachia, supervisor for the American Maintenance Co., was one of the people in the room who stands ready to verify his story.

"Seconds after the first massive explosion below in the basement still rattled the floor, I hear another explosion from way above," said Rodriguez. "Although I was unaware at the time, this was the airplane hitting the tower, it occurred moments after the first explosion."

But before Rodriguez had time to think, co-worker Felipe David stormed into the basement office with severe burns on his face and arms, screaming for help and yelling "explosion! explosion! explosion!"

David had been in front of a nearby freight elevator on sub-level 1 about 400 feet from the office fire burst out of the elevator shaft, causing his injuries.

"He was burned terribly," said Rodriguez. "The skin was hanging off his hands and arms. His injuries couldn’t have come from the airplane above, but only from a massive explosion below.
"I know there were explosives placed below the trade center. I helped a man to safety who is living proof, living proof the government story is a lie and a cover-up.

"I have tried to tell my story to everybody, but nobody wants to listen. It is very strange what is going on here in supposedly the most democratic country in the world. In my home country of Puerto Rico and all the other Latin American countries, I have been allowed to tell my story uncensored. But here, I can’t even say a word."

After Rodriguez escorted David to safety outside the WTC, he returned to lead the others in the basement to safety as well. While there, he also helped two other men trapped and drowning in the basement elevator shaft, another result he says of the explosives placed below the tower.
In fact, after leading these men to safety, he even made another trip back into the north tower, against police orders, in order to rescue people from the top floors.

"I never could make it to the top, but I got up to the 33rd floor after getting some of my equipment and a face mask out of the janitor’s closet," said Rodriguez, adding he heard a series of small explosions going off between the 20th and and 30th floors, unrelated to the airplane strike, while making his way through the stairwell to the top floors.

"Also, when I was on the 33rd floor, I heard strange sounds coming form the 34th floor, loud noises like someone moving and thumping heavy equipment and furniture. I knew this floor was empty and stripped due to construction work so I avoided it and continued to make my way up the stairs."

Rodriguez said he finally reached the 39th floor before being turned back by fire fighters and then, reluctantly, started his dissent back down and his own flight to safety while, at the same time, hearing explosions coming from the South Tower.

Rodriguez has been ignored by government officials/ FBI, the 9/11 Commission and the National Institute of Safety and Technology (NIST).

" I disagree 100%with the government story," said Rodriguez. "I met with the 9/11 Commission behind closed doors and they essentially discounted everything I said regarding the use of explosives to bring down the north tower..."

"Also, The FBI never followed up on my claims or on the other part of my story when I told them before 9/11, I encountered one of the hijackers casing the north tower." Rodriguez, claims he saw United Airlines Flight 175 hijacker Mohand Alshehri in June 2001, telling an FBI agent about the incident a month after the attacks.

"I had just finished cleaning the bathroom and this guy asks me, 'Excuse me, how many public bathrooms are in this area?'" Rodriguez told the 9/11 Commission. "Coming from the school of the 1993 [Trade Center] bombing, I found it very strange. I didn't forget about it"

"During the 9/11 hearings, NBC brought a crew out to my house and spent a day taping my story but they never did air a word of it," said Rodriguez. "Since then, some reporters and commentators have subtly warned me to keep quiet, told me my life could be in jeopardy and warned me that I really didn’t understand who I was dealing with."

"I have been receiving this type of subtle harassment for years, but I keep telling everybody I can’t be intimidated because I am on a mission. Whenever someone asks why I keep talking or warns me that I could be killed, I just tell them I have nothing to lose.

"I tell them I lost 200 friends and I am their voice now. I tell them I will do everything in my power to find out the truth since I am living on borrowed time since I probably should be dead anyway."

Besides trying to tell his explosive story, Rodriguez has been active raising money for 9/11victims, being involved with charity groups that have raised more than $122 million. He says he has used over $60,000 of his own money, originally earmarked to buy a new house, in order to get at the truth behind 9/11.

Also seeking justice at the highest level, Rodriguez is the lead plaintiff in a federal RICO lawsuit filed against President Bush and others, alleging conspiracy to commit murder and other crimes in the deaths of more than 3,000 at the WTC.

NBC news knew about his story several years ago, even spending a full day at his house taping his comments. But when push came to shove, his story was never aired. Why?

.http://prisonplanet.com/articles/june2005/240605officialstory.htm

Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory -- seismic data and analyses

There is one other major source of hard 9-11 evidence that is readily available to the public.This is the seismic data and analyses have proved an invaluable repository of hard facts.
The seismic reportsshow us that immediately before the collapse of each tower Manhattan was subjected to a massive seismic spike that had the magnitude and properties of a medium-sized underground nuclear explosion.

The duration of the two impacts as recorded on the seismic charts. It can be seen that while the impact of the second plane was two to three seconds in duration, that of the first plane lasted around ten seconds, which by all accounts is one mighty long impact. That's about as long as it took for each tower to collapse.
http://serendipity.ptpi.net/wot/spencer03.htm

Seismic Evidence Points to Underground Explosions Causing WTC Collapse

Two unexplained "spikes" in the seismic record from September 11 indicate huge bursts of energy shook the ground beneath the World Trade Center's twin towers — just as the buildings began to collapse.

"The seismic effects of the collapses are comparable to the explosions at a gasoline tank farm near Newark on January 7, 1983," the Palisades Seismology Group reported on Sept. 14, 2001.
One of the seismologists, Won-Young Kim, told AFP that the Palisades seismographs register daily underground explosions from a quarry 20 miles away. These blasts are caused by 80,000 lbs. of ammonium nitrate and cause local earthquakes between Magnitude 1 and 2.

Last November, Lerner-Lam said, "During the collapse, most of the energy of the falling debris was absorbed by the towers and the neighboring structures, converting them into rubble and dust or causing other damage — but not causing significant ground shaking,"

Evidently, the energy source that shook the ground beneath the towers was many times more powerful than the total potential energy released by the falling mass of the huge towers.
American Free Press has learned of pools of "molten steel" found at the base of the collapsed twin towers weeks after the collapse.

AFP asked Loizeaux about the report of molten steel on the site. "Yes," he said, "hot spots of molten steel in the basements." These incredibly hot areas were found "at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven [basement] levels," Loizeaux said. The molten steel was found "three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed," Loizeaux said. He said molten steel was also found at 7 WTC, which collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon. Construction steel has an extremely high melting point of about 2,800° Fahrenheit (1535° Celsius).

The foundations of the twin towers were 70 feet deep. At that level, 47 huge box columns, connected to the bedrock, supported the entire gravity load of the structures. The steel walls of these lower box columns were 4 inches thick.

Loizeaux said, "If I were to bring the towers down, I would put explosives in the basement to get the weight of the building to help collapse the structure."

Eric Hufschmid, author of a book about the WTC collapse, Time for Painful Questions, told AFP that due to the lack of oxygen, paper and other combustibles packed down at the bottom of elevator shafts would probably be "a smoky smoldering pile."

Experts disagree that jet-fuel or paper could generate such heat. This is impossible, they say, because the maximum temperature that can be reached by hydrocarbons like jet-fuel, burning in air is 1520° F (825° C). Because the WTC fires were fuel rich (as evidenced by the thick black smoke) it is argued that they did not reach this upper limit of 825° C.

The hottest spots at the surface of the rubble, where abundant oxygen was available, were much cooler than the molten steel found in the basements.

Eric Hufschmid, author of a book about the WTC collapse, Time for Painful Questions, told AFP that due to the lack of oxygen, paper and other combustibles packed down at the bottom of elevator shafts would probably be "a smoky smoldering pile."

Experts disagree that jet-fuel or paper could generate such heat. This is impossible, they say, because the maximum temperature that can be reached by hydrocarbons like jet-fuel, burning in air is 1520° F (825° C). Because the WTC fires were fuel rich (as evidenced by the thick black smoke) it is argued that they did not reach this upper limit of 825° C.
The hottest spots at the surface of the rubble, where abundant oxygen was available, were much cooler than the molten steel found in the basements.
http://www.serendipityli/wot/bollyn2.htm

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. MY NEWSLETTER has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is MY NEWSLETTER endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewsViewsnolose

Douglas McCarron / Poster Boy for Corporate Unionism

Here is an overview of McCarrons rise to power and what he has done with it. The rest of this series is available at electbrinemanvp.blogspot.com . In response to the final sentence in this article........
Join us in becoming the Nuclear Holocaust that sweeps the McCarron Group from power and RESTORES the democratic principles that the UBC was founded upon.

GET INVOLVED.......THE WORLD IS RUN BY THOSE WHO SHOW UP..........SEE YOU THERE !!!!!!

In Brotherhood & Solidarity..............................Scott

Link to PayPal account:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick&business=electbrinemanvp%4

Corporate Unionism (2)
By Harry Kelber
Editor, The Labor Educator
Second in a series of five articles (September 13, 2004)

The poster boy of corporate unionism is Douglas McCarron, general president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. McCarron turned the union of 550,000 members virtually into his personal property by transferring the authority of its 2,200 locals to 55 regional councils, whose officers were handpicked by him and conform to his wishes.

McCarron runs the union like a corporation, claiming that centralized leadership (his) is more efficient and attractive to contractors and would produce more jobs for working carpenters.
Restructuring of the locals began in May 1997, when McCarron sent a letter to the union membership in which he said: "I have determined that it is in the best interest of the United Brotherhood and its members" to begin the process of wholesale mergers of local unions. When local unions filed complaints with the Labor Departments in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, McCarron's actions were upheld, despite ample precedents that bodies like regional councils can't usurp the powers of local unions unless council officers are directly elected by union members.

McCarron can be ruthless against those who oppose his policies. When he expected resistance from a dissident local, his agents arrived without notice, backed by uniformed police officers or sheriff's deputies. The agents grabbed books and money and changed the locks behind them. McCarron defended the abrupt seizures as necessary. "We're talking about carpenters' families being exploited," he said. "It's terrible out there. I don't believe we moved fast enough."

McCarron's mind-set is that of a corporate executive who happens to manage a union, rather than a company. He compares his visionary approach to that of Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric and an icon of American business. He refers to skilled union members as "a strong product." McCarron, 53, cultivates friendships with the nation's major general contractors. Speaking to delegates at a National Erectors Association, he said: "You need to assign the work based on what makes sense. If there's a dispute, let the owner settle it. It's his money and his job."

His dream is to build a multi-corporation that would supply contractors with skilled labor from all of the 15 crafts. To train such a work force, McCarron decided to build a $22 million training center in Las Vegas, equipped with the latest construction technology, that would provide instruction in dozens of skills from laying carpets to constructing a roof to doing plumbing and electrical work. With wall-to-wall skilled construction labor, McCarron figured he could cut favorable deals with major contractors and end up as a dominant force in the industry. However, his problem was that the leaders of the other 14 crafts were not about to surrender their personal fiefdoms without an all-out war.

McCarron, 6-feet-five-inches tall, with white hair and a beard, is an impressive personality, whose aggressive style has won him admiring friends and bitter enemies. He dropped out of high school to hang drywall in housing developments in California's San Fernando Valley. He was not yet 30 when he was elected to head his drywallers' local and become a member of the negotiating team of the Southern California Council of Carpenters. McCarron's rise to the presidency of the national union was the result of a nasty internal fight and a fluke. McCarron backed the winner, Sigurd Lucassen, in the national election. In gratitude, Lucassen named Mccarron as his second vice president. But the Labor Department declared the election was rigged and ordered a new election. Lucassen did not run. His number 2, Paschal McGuinness, had recently settled charges of labor racketeering in New York, so he was out. McCarron, the organization's third in line, was swept into office in 1995, unopposed. To strengthen his shaky presidency, McCarron accelerated the process of merging local unions into regional councils, assigning some of the largest to his cronies whose loyalty to him was unquestioned. His younger brother, Michael, runs the Southwest region, which covers Arizona, Nevada and Southern California.

McCarron has won wide praise for declaring that the union spends half its budget on organizing and has hired 600 full-time organizers to recruit new members. The new organizers are given two weeks of intensive training at the Las Vegas center before being sent out to the field. McCarron says the union has gained 70,000 new members since he took office nine years ago, but there is no evidence that the union has grown, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Robert Gasperow, executive director of the Construction Labor Research Council, says that about 25% of building trades workers are union, but that carpenters as a craft are below the average. He says that the union missed its chances to expand during the construction boom years of the late 1990s. Referring to the carpenters, Gasperow says that "holding their own is probably the best they can hope for."

In 2001, McCarron decided unilaterally to disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO in disputes over the federation's poor organizing record and the carpenters' delinquency in dues payments. Many rank-and-file carpenters around the country decried the move, noting that it would aggravate problems with the other construction crafts. There were rumors that McCarron's breakaway from the AFL-CIO was part of a plan to create a separate building trades organization that he would control.

McCarron saw it as smart politics to develop a friendly relationship with President George Bush, inviting him to Labor Day picnics and union headquarters and, in return, getting to ride with the president on Air Force One. He has supported the White House on a number of issues, including the expansion of oil drilling in Alaska.

McCarron was one of several national union leaders who profited from an insiders' stock trading scheme while serving as director of the union owned Union Labor Life Insurance Company (ULLICO). With the scandal going before a grand jury and investigations by several government agencies, McCarron reluctantly decided to return about $300,000 of his ill gotten profits.

Opposition to McCarron's dictatorial control of the union has grown. In British Columbia, angry carpenters voted to exit from the UBC to escape from his clutches. He is faced with numerous law suits challenging his denial of members' rights. But there is as yet no broad movement to unseat him and win the union back for its members. Barring a nuclear holocaust, McCarron will get another five-year lease to run the union in his anti-democratic, corporate style, when he is re elected at the Brotherhood's 2005 convention.

Some News You May Have Missed

FOCUS: Brendan Smith The "Tribunal Movement"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062605Y.shtml

FOCUS How 'Britain's Deep Throat' Leaked the Memos
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062605Z.shtml

The World Tribunal on Iraq is in session in Istanbul, Turkey. For truthout'sspecial coverage of this event go to
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/wti.shtml.

FOCUS Arundhati Roy: The Most Cowardly War in Historyhttp://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062505Y.shtml

FOCUS Kerry's Letter on Downing Street Memoshttp://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062505Z.shtml

19 Named in Medicinal Pot Indictmenthttp://www.truthout.org/issues_05/062405HC.shtml

Ray McGovern Fixing To Fix "Fixed"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062405M.shtml

Dahr Jamail Censorship
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062405N.shtml

John Cory The Howling
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062405Y.shtml

Rove Under Intense Fire for 9/11 Smear
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062405Z.shtml

William Rivers Pitt The Thing We Don't Talk About
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062305X.shtml

A WORLD OF ECONOMIC DO-GOODERS
Matthew Wheeland, AlterNet
A global movement has rejected the Enron business model infavor of an entrepreneurial spirit that is changing theplanet.
http://www.alternet.org/story/22302/

SUPER SENATE SWEEP?
Molly Ivins, AlterNet
The drumbeat of this administration's giveaways to bigcorporations continues: tax breaks for the undeserving andmore green lights for the exploitation of the environment.
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/22296/

If you believe in the importance of independent media,James Weinstein should be one of your heroes. Weinstein,who founded, edited and mentored the always thoughtful andconstructive "In These Times" magazine for several decades,died on June 16, at the age of 78. Weinstein was proud ofbeing a pragmatic progressive. He urged people to workwithin the Democratic Party, preaching a broad-basedpolitics built around issues of economic justice,corporate accountability and human rights. Jimmy Weinstein--AlterNet salutes you. Read his obituary here:
http://www.alternet.org/story/22265/

Don HazenExecutive Editor, AlterNet
----------------------------------
DESTROYING PBS
Molly Ivins, AlterNet
A Bush-appointed political operative says he'll erase biasat PBS ... by inserting bias.
http://www.alternet.org/story/22262/

AN AIR AMERICAN GIRL
Andrew Varnon, Valley Advocate
Meet the Air America Radio personality that has RushLimbaugh asking, 'Has anyone heard of Rachel Maddow?'
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/22213/

CONFESSIONS OF A MOTHER-MAN
Osha Neumann, AlterNet
If birth were the central metaphor of our civilization, all men would be unmanned of their false and warlike manliness. Successfully unmanned, we could become fathers.
http://www.alternet.org/story/22263/

Why George Went To War
by Russ Baker, TomPaine.com
The Downing Street Memos still do not answer the question of why the president wanted a war. Fortunately, Bush did that himself. http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050620/why_george_went_to_war.php

Losing The American Revolution
by Bill Moyers,TomPaine.com
It wasn't supposed to be this way. America was not meant to have a "government of the few at the expense of the many." http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050606/losing_the_american_revolution.php

Steve Weissman Kill the Messenger, Hide the News
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062205B.shtml

Tim Robbins' controversial antiwar play, "Embedded," whichdebuted onstage in Los Angeles and was followed by a majorrun at NYC's Public Theatre, has been released on DVD inconjunction with NetFlix. The arrangement, which takes thefilm directly to DVD, making it available to the nation'sthree million Netflix subscribers, is a new trend in filmdistribution. Read AlterNet executive editor Don Hazen'sreview of the play:
http://www.alternet.org/story/18246/

Then, rent the DVD!
http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70033780&trkid=134852/
_____________________________________________________________________

U.S. POLITICS IN 'A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY'
Brian Fanelli, WireTap
The original 'Star Wars' trilogy was revolutionary, but decidedly apolitical. Lucas' latest take is awash in political meaning, some of it quite relevant to the present day.
http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/22284/

FEDERAL STUDY DOWNPLAYS HUGE FIREPROOFING FAILURE, INDIFFERENCE TO CITY CODE IN WTC DISASTER
Permanent site with story links: http://prorev.com/wtc.htm

HOW WALTER JONES GREW A CONSCIENCE
Jan Frel, AlterNet
After some soul-searching about the war in Iraq, the NorthCarolina congressman made one of the most staggeringpolitical about-faces seen in Washington since George W.Bush took office.
http://www.alternet.org/story/22281/

DON'T DISMISS DOWNING STREET
Molly Ivins, AlterNet
I don't know if these memos represent an impeachable offense. But they strike me as a hell of lot worse than anything Richard Nixon ever contemplated.
http://www.alternet.org/story/22282/

DOING SOMETHING ABOUT WAL-MART
Danny Glover, AlterNet
The renowned actor describes how Wal-Mart puts childrenaround the world at risk -- and tells how we can help holdthe megastore accountable.
http://www.alternet.org/story/22246/

Global Green Trade
by Joseph E. Stiglitz,TomPaine.com
Looking for a way to reduce global warming and Third World poverty while saving the world's forests? Look no further. http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050608/global_green_trade.php

Still Not Private After All These Years
by Elizabeth Borg, TomPaine.com
Forty years ago, our nation took a great step forward by enshrining privacy as a right. Now's not the time to roll it back. http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050608/still_not_private_after_all_these_years.php

MEN AND WOMEN REACT DIFFERENTLY TO SEX BUT BOTH PREFER HAVING SOCKS ON

MEN AND WOMEN REACT DIFFERENTLY TO SEX BUT BOTH PREFER HAVING SOCKS ON (AT LEAST IN BRITAIN)

MARK HENDERSON, TIMES UK - Men and women experience sexual pleasure in strikingly different ways, the first brain scans taken during orgasm show. While male brains focus heavily on the physical stimulation involved in sexual contact, this is just one part of a much more complex picture for women, scientists in the Netherlands have found. The key to female arousal seems rather to be deep relaxation and a lack of anxiety: direct sensory input from the genitals plays a less critical role.
The scans show that during sexual activity the parts of the female brain responsible for processing fear, anxiety and emotion start to relax and reduce in activity. This reaches a peak at orgasm, when the female brain's emotion centres are effectively closed down to an almost trance-like state.
The scientists found the male brain harder to study during orgasm because of its shorter duration in men. The scans nevertheless revealed important differences. Men's emotion centres are also deactivated, although apparently less intensely than in women, and men also appear to concentrate more on the sensations transmitted from the genitals.
This suggests that for men the physical aspects of sex play a much more significant part in arousal than they do for women, for whom ambience, mood and relaxation are at least as important.
The experiments also revealed a surprising fact: both sexes found it easier to have an orgasm when they kept their socks on. Draughts in the scanning room left couples complaining of "literally cold feet", and providing a pair of socks allowed 80 per cent, rather than 50 per cent, to reach a climax while being scanned.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1662498,00.html


THERE GOES THE EMPIRE. . .


AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - In another display of China's growing economic clout, appliance maker Haier has entered the bidding to take over Maytag Corp., a proud but struggling icon of the US white goods industry. Maytag said late Monday that it had received a "preliminary non-binding proposal" worth 1.28 billion dollars in cash from Haier America Trading and two US buyout groups -- Bain Capital Partners and Blackstone Capital Partners IV. . . The Haier Group, headquartered in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao, has focussed in the United States on selling lower-end microwaves, televisions and refrigerators out of budget store chains such as Wal-Mart. But acquiring Maytag would vault Haier America into the big league of US appliance makers. It already has a refrigerator plant in South Carolina and has opened a 15 million dollar headquarters in New York.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050621/ts_alt_afp/uschinacompany_050621201537


NY TIMES - A Chinese state-controlled oil company made a $18.5 billion unsolicited bid for Unocal today, igniting the first-ever takeover battle between corporations in China and the United States. The bold bid by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC, may be a watershed in Chinese corporate behavior and demonstrates the increasing influence of Wall Street's bare-knuckled tactics in Asia. The offer also illustrates how crucial oil and gas resources are to China given its huge growth. CNOOC's bid, which comes two months after Unocal agreed to be sold to the American energy giant Chevron for $16.8 billion, is expected to provoke a fierce debate in Washington about the nation's trade policies with China and the role of the two governments in the growing trend of deal making between companies in both countries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/business/worldbusiness/22WIRE-CNOOC.html?ei=5065&en=4d771759a933fc89&ex=1120104000&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print\


CIVIL LIBERTIES


The American Taliban

HOUSE PASSES FLAG BURNING AMENDMENT

MIKE ALLEN WASHINGTON POST - A constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to ban flag burning passed the House yesterday, and congressional leaders said it has a strong chance to clear the Senate for the first time, sending it to the states for ratification. The House has passed the measure four times before, but it has always fallen short of the two-thirds vote needed in the Senate. But changes in the Senate's makeup shifted several votes to the bill's supporters, and a lobbyist who leads the opposition said the absence of one or two senators could mean that the measure would pass.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/22/AR2005062202155.html

The Most Cowardly War in History

By Arundhati Roy

World Tribunal on Iraq

Friday 24 June 2005

Opening Statement of Arundhati Roy on behalf of the jury of conscience of the world tribunal of Iraq.

Istanbul, Turkey - This is the culminating session of the World Tribunal on Iraq. It is of particular significance that it is being held here in Turkey where the United States used Turkish air bases to launch numerous bombing missions to degrade Iraqs defenses before the March 2003 invasion and has sought and continues to seek political support from the Turkish government, which it regards as an ally. All this was done in the face of enormous popular opposition by the Turkish people. As a spokesperson for the jury of conscience, it would make me uneasy if I did not mention that the government of India is also, like the government of Turkey, positioning itself as a ally of the United States in its economic policies and the so-called War on Terror.

The testimonies at the previous sessions of the World Tribunal on Iraq in Brussels and New York have demonstrated that even those of us who have tried to follow the war in Iraq closely are not aware of a fraction of the horrors that have been unleashed in Iraq.

The Jury of Conscience at this tribunal is not here to deliver a simple verdict of guilty or not guilty against the United States and its allies. We are here to examine a vast spectrum of evidence about the motivations and consequences of the US invasion and occupation, evidence that has been deliberately marginalized or suppressed. Every aspect of the war will be examined - its legality, the role of international institutions and major corporations in the occupation, the role of the media, the impact of weapons such as depleted uranium munitions, napalm, and cluster bombs, the use of and legitimation of torture, the ecological impacts of the war, the responsibility of Arab governments, the impact of Iraqs occupation on Palestine, and the history of US and British military interventions in Iraq. This tribunal is an attempt to correct the record. To document the history of the war not from the point of view of the victors but of the temporarily - and I repeat the word temporarily - anquished.

Before the testimonies begin, I would like to briefly address as straightforwardly as I can a few questions that have been raised about this tribunal.

The first is that this tribunal is a Kangaroo Court. That it represents only one point of view. That it is a prosecution without a defense. That the verdict is a foregone conclusion.

Now this view seems to suggest a touching concern that in this harsh world, the views of the US government and the so-called Coalition of the Willing headed by President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have somehow gone unrepresented. That the World Tribunal on Iraq isn't aware of the arguments in support of the war and is unwilling to consider the point of view of the invaders. If in the era of the multinational corporate media and embedded journalism anybody can seriously hold this view, then we truly do live in the Age of Irony, in an age when satire has become meaningless because real life is more satirical than satire can ever be.

Let me say categorically that this tribunal is the defense. It is an act of resistance in itself. It is a defense mounted against one of the most cowardly wars ever fought in history, a war in which international institutions were used to force a country to disarm and then stood by while it was attacked with a greater array of weapons than has ever been used in the history of war.

Second, this tribunal is not in any way a defense of Saddam Hussein. His crimes against Iraqis, Kurds, Iranians, Kuwaitis, and others cannot be written off in the process of bringing to light Iraqs more recent and still unfolding tragedy. However, we must not forget that when Saddam Hussein was committing his worst crimes, the US government was supporting him politically and materially. When he was gassing Kurdish people, the US government financed him, armed him, and stood by silently.

Saddam Hussein is being tried as a war criminal even as we speak. But what about those who helped to install him in power, who armed him, who supported him - and who are now setting up a tribunal to try him and absolve themselves completely? And what about other friends of the United States in the region that have suppressed Kurdish peoples and other peoples rights, including the government of Turkey?

There are remarkable people gathered here who in the face of this relentless and brutal aggression and propaganda have doggedly worked to compile a comprehensive spectrum of evidence and information that should serve as a weapon in the hands of those who wish to participate in the resistance against the occupation of Iraq. It should become a weapon in the hands of soldiers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, and elsewhere who do not wish to fight, who do not wish to lay down their lives - or to take the lives of others - for a pack of lies. It should become a weapon in the hands of journalists, writers, poets, singers, teachers, plumbers, taxi drivers, car mechanics, painters, lawyers - anybody who wishes to participate in the resistance.

The evidence collated in this tribunal should, for instance, be used by the International Criminal Court (whose jurisdiction the United States does not recognize) to try as war criminals George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard, Silvio Berlusconi, and all those government officials, army generals, and corporate CEOs who participated in this war and now profit from it.

The assault on Iraq is an assault on all of us: on our dignity, our intelligence, and our future.

We recognize that the judgment of the World Tribunal on Iraq is not binding in international law. However, our ambitions far surpass that. The World Tribunal on Iraq places its faith in the consciences of millions of people across the world who do not wish to stand by and watch while the people of Iraq are being slaughtered, subjugated, and humiliated.


Arundhati Roy received the Booker Prize for literature in 1997. Presently, one of the most eloquent voices for the global justice and anti-war movement, she was also awarded, among many others, the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004, and the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize in 2002.

Winners and Losers: Moving out of the Superpower Orbit

By Tom Engelhardt

Of the two superpowers that faced each other down in an almost half-century-long Cold War, one -- the United States -- emerged victorious, alone in the world, economically powerful, militarily dominant; the other, never the stronger of thetwo, limped off, its empire shattered and scattered, its people impoverished and desperate, its military a shell of its former self. This is a story we all know, and more or less accept. Winner/loser, victor/vanquished. It makes sense. That's the way we expect matches, competitions, struggles, wars to end. But what if, as I've suggested recently, the Cold War turned out to be a loser/loser contest? That may seem counterintuitive.

In regards to the U.S., itwould have been considered laughable not so long ago, except to a few scholars of imperial decline like Immanuel Wallerstein, and yet it may be an increasingly plausible thought. Let me start, however, with the obvious loser of the Cold War, and with the semi-secret -- or at least not particularly well covered -- tale of how the victorious U.S. superpower attempted to finish off its former rival, the Russian remnant of the USSR and its last outlying regions of control, its "near abroad."

By the 1980s, the USSR was an overstretched empire -- economically worse than shaky, its military overblown, its money going down an imperial rat hole -- and then, of course, there was Afghanistan. (Anything already sound a little familiar here?) Afghanistan was Russia's Vietnam, exactly as several American administrations wanted it to be -- the difference being that Vietnam was a resounding regional defeat for us; while Afghanistan was a politically and economically empire-shattering defeat for the Soviet Union. After the Berlin Wall came down, U.S. administrations, especially the present one, poured money (direct and indirect), effort, and planning into the penetration of, and stripping away of, Russia's "near abroad." By now, the old Baltic SSRs of the former Soviet Union have entered NATO (and American jets fly missions over them); Romania and Bulgaria are readying themselves for possible future American bases; Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan have all had at least semi-democratic revolutions (Orange, Rose, and Tulip), led by oppositions at least partly funded (in all sorts of complex ways) and organized through the good offices of the U.S. government and allied foundations (using "methods[that] have matured into a template for winning other people's elections"). TheU.S. now has military bases in the former Central Asian SSRs of Uzbekistan andKyrgyzstan, and may conceivably already have more military bases (and missions) in the far-flung imperial regions of the former USSR than do the Russians. (It's not even a contest if you throw in Afghanistan.) Our Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice, in her confirmation hearings, tossed the last remaining western edge of the old Soviet Union, the "democratic" dictatorship of Belarusinto her new list of "outposts of tyranny."

When it comes to Russia, the Bush administration has moved U.S. policy from the Cold War position of "containment" to the Cold-Warrior dream-state of "rollback." And despite the President's friendly invocations of "Vladimir" in his press conferences and elsewhere, administration officials undoubtedly yearn for, or are even aiming for, "regime change" in Putin's Russia. In the meantime,Russia's "near abroad" has been largely stripped away under the banner of the administration's latest crusader slogan -- distinctly it's most user-friendly one -- "democracy." Though it's certainly been a selling slogan, as JonathanSchell has pointed out, the administration's enlistment of "democracy" (as well as the genuine democratic urges of peoples all around the rim of the old SovietUnion) in its drive for global domination has also been a corrupting one. In all of this, the Cold War's "winner" has been highly successful in at least one aspect of its global imperial mission: penetrating previously off-limits regions of the former imperial foe, setting up its own military outposts there, and supporting whatever new Bush-friendly (or NATO-friendly) regimes emerged. Unsurprisingly, this has been especially true in regions capable of contributing to nailing down control over the Middle Eastern (and Caspian) oil heartlands of the planet.

There are, however, limits to such a strategy. Two of them are Russian in nature. The first is that, at a time when (despite recent dips) oil and natura lgas prices are on the long-term rise, the Russians sit on significant reserves of both, which translate into power reserves in every sense. But Putin's regime sits on another kind of "power reserve" as well. However unmentioned these days, this reserve -- the second limit -- effectively constrains American action in the world. Militarily, Russia may be only a shadow of the former USSR, but it still has a world-ending supply of nuclear weapons. While no longer a global superpower, in this single arena it remains just that -- no small matter at a time when, defying all odds, nuclear weapons have become the global coin of the realm, more so perhaps than in the old two-superpower universe. A third limit on American power is only now coming into sight: the beginning of the formation of regional power blocs (not necessarily military in nature) in opposition to the lone superpower's various goals. While Greater Europe, still in formation, represents one of these blocs; and some greater Asian combination another (as was indicated by the surprising, if tentative, recent détente between China and India as well as the shaky proto-military alliance between Russia and China); perhaps the least expected and commented upon of these blocs lies far closer to home, consisting of a growing set of left-leaning democracies in Latin America determined to pursue their own collective interests whatever the Bush administration has in mind.

Coup-making in Our Backyard

The key to these developments lies in Iraq -- or rather in the Bush administration's 2001 decision that ultimate global power and its own fate lay in the Middle East. If Afghanistan was the USSR's Vietnam (only worse in itseffects), Iraq may prove the American Afghanistan (even without an oppositional superpower funding the insurgency in that country). The greatest gamble of the Bush administration -- made up of the greatest gamblers in our history since Jefferson Davis's secessionists -- was certainly its "regime change" leap, under the guise of the Global War on Terror, via cruise missiles and tanks, into the occupation of Iraq. With no end in sight, the draining Iraq War has already trumped much of the rest of the Bush administration's aggressive foreign policy (especially in Asia) and has left the administration thoroughly distracted when it comes to whole regions of the world.

As Chris Nelson of the Washington-insider Nelson Report put matters this week: "All this by way of saying that we can now see even more clearly than before the import of Secretary of State Condi Rice's extraordinary interview last week in the Wall Street Journal. The former Soviet expert repeatedly made clear that the entire focus of Bush Administration policy is and will continue to be on the Middle East. All responsibility for coming up with a solution to the North Korea problem Rice cheerfully consigned to China."The war in Iraq has also left the Middle East increasingly destabilized; oil prices on the rise; the dollar undermined; and the U.S. military desperately overstretched, if not incapable of dealing with other major global challenges. No wonder the President clutched the hand of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah the other day down in Crawford. He needs whatever help he can get.

This, in turn, has opened a remarkable space for experimentation and change in, of all places, the little attended to "near abroad" of the winning superpower --a space Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has recently been playing with for all he's worth. A former military man with his own shadowy past of coup d'états, Chavez, the twice elected and popular president of Venezuela, is the sort of figure that American administrations once dealt with decisively. But Chavez, who finds himself in control of the third largest source of U.S. imported oil (to the tune of 15% of all our oil imports, almost as much as Saudi Arabia), has in the last months managed to: make energy deals with super-competitor China and super-hated Iran (Hey, that's our energy!); form a thumb-your-nose informal economic alliance with super-hated Cuban leader Fidel Castro, part of an attempt to create an alternative to the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas (from which Cuba is excluded); buy arms from Russia and Spain; threaten to cut off Venezuelan oil supplies to the U.S. if his government should be endangered or blockaded by Washington; and last week -- in the ultimate insult to the Bushadministration (for whom foreign policy and military policy are almost the same thing) -- throw the U.S. military out of Venezuela. That this happened without evident retaliation was a milestone of some sort; for Chavez suddenly broke off military-to-military relations, just about the only kind the Bush administration ever promotes, and threw out "a small group of U.S.officers who were teaching and studying in Venezuela," accusing them of encouraging plots against his government. He also ended joint military exercises, suspended all military exchanges, and even threatened to try in Venezuelan courts any American military officer found spying.

As background to this on going imbroglio: In April 2002, Venezuelan military officials and business leaders launched a coup d'état against Chavez, forcing his government out of power for 47 hours. During those hours, as Marc Cooper of the Nation has written, "[a]lthough the coup was denounced by nineteen Latin American heads of state as a violation of democratic principles, the Bush Administration publicly countenanced the military takeover." (After the coup collapsed, President Bush stated that he hoped Chavez had "learned his lesson.") The U.S. government initially denied that it had had any role in, or knew anything about, the coup before it took place. Documents soon came to light, however, showing that, at a minimum, the U.S. intelligence community was"getting a steady stream of reports on planning for this coup" and that these had been distributed at high levels in the Bush administration. Soon after the coup collapsed, the reliable Ed Vulliamy of the British Observer reported that the "failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the [Central American] 'dirty wars' of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time." These figures included Otto Reich and Elliot Abrams. Reich, once U.S. ambassador to Venezuela and a key Bush administration policy-maker on Latin America, reportedly met with the coup plotters over many months. There is now an acceptable formula for describing what the U.S. did inVenezuela, which can be found regularly in press accounts, as in a recent NewYork Times piece (U.S. Considers Toughening Stance Toward Venezuela) by reporterJuan Forero: "...the United States tacitly supported a coup that briefly oustedMr. Chavez in April 2002." Here's another version from Ray Suarez of PBS'sNewshour: "[E]lements in the U.S. Government, in the Bush administration, knew that there was a coup under way in Venezuela, and did not rise to support the current government." Given the history of the United States in Latin America, when a coup occurs in a situation like this, it should really be assumed that the U.S. government was involved in plotting it, not just "tacitly supporting" it. (A decade or three from now, when it no longer matters, we'll undoubtedly have the documentation on this one.) In any case, in the wake of the "botched coup" meant to overthrow the elected government of Venezuela, the U.S., according to a Newsday investigation, began "pumping money into Venezuela immediately... creating a new 'Office ofTransition Initiatives' in Caracas" to distribute funds to those opposed to Chavez. For instance, the "civic group" run by Corina Machado, who signed the decree designed by the coup plotters "that would fleetingly transform the fragile democracy into a dictatorship... was awarded tens of thousands of American tax dollars from two major U.S. agencies -- The National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The funds were used partly to encourage voter participation in a subsequent effort to oust Chavez,this time through a recall referendum." Late this March, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, soon to be on his way toIraq, Afghanistan, and Kyrgyzstan, toured Latin America denouncing Chavez's government -- as did Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week. As Rice hopped from country to country in our near abroad, she called for a "free and completely democratic Venezuela." In addition, Forero tells us: "While President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela veers toward greater confrontation with Washington, the Bush administration is weighing a tougher approach, including funneling more money to foundations and business and political groups opposed to his leftist government, American officials say."It's the Ukrainian approach, but against a democracy. What's at stake, as Forero's article (egregiously anti-Chavez in tone) makes clear, is oil. "TheUnited States, said [a high-ranking Republican aide on Capitol Hill who works on Latin America policy], is particularly concerned because Venezuela is one off our top providers of foreign oil to the United States. 'You can't write him off,' the aide said of Mr. Chávez. 'He's sitting on an energy source that's critical to us.'"

The American Near Abroad Peels Away

Still, the escalating tussle with Venezuela is but the tip of the near-abroad iceberg. Just last week, for example, with Secretary of State Rice in Latin America and lobbying hard, the Organization of American States elected a Chilean socialist, Interior Minister Jose Miguel Insulza -- the very candidate she had lobbied against (until the last second) -- to be its secretary general. "It is the first time in the organization's history," reports Larry Rohter of the NewYork Times, "that a candidate initially opposed by the United States will lead the 34-member regional group." As a candidate, Insulza "not only favored steps to bring Cuba back into the organization but also had the support of Mr.Chávez." Call it a sign of changing times. Perhaps a greater sign of those changing times was the fact that, on their separate trips across the continent, both Rumsfeld and Rice made clear attempts to back up a crescendo of warnings about and threats against Chavez with some communal action -- and failed dismally. As Rohter put it, "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited South America last month in what was seen as an effort to stitch together an anti-Chávez coalition, but got nowhere. Ms. Rice came to the region this week with much the same mission and received the same chilly reception from governments for whom the principles of nonintervention and sovereignty are nearly sacred."Or take the response of Brazilian Defense Minister Jose Alencar in a press conference with Rumsfeld in late March. Just after Rumsfeld questioned Chavez's motives in buying 100,000 AK-47's from Russia (" I can't imagine what's going tohappen to 100,000 AK-47s. I can't imagine why Venezuela needs 100, 000AK-47s."), Alencar was asked by a reporter if he was "concerned about Chavez."His response was: "Brazil has always defended and will continue defending the self-determination of the different peoples and non-intervention in the affairs of other countries. Obviously, here in Brazil, which is a country historically pacific (peaceful), obviously we would like to increasingly deepen our diplomatic and trade relations with our countries, with the objective of achieving the common good."In diplomatic-speak, that meant: Back off, Don.

Let's try to put this in context: Unlike in areas bordering Russia and in theMiddle East, the United States has put no money into a "Latin Spring," and yet it's happened anyway. We may, in fact, already be at the very start of something like a Latin Summer. Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico -- the largest countries in the region -- are all now democracies; and all but Mexico are led by socialists or independent-minded leaders. This trend hasn't been restricted to the more economically powerful countries in the region either. It has taken hold from Uruguay to Ecuador. Next year, if the leftist mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is elected president, Mexico will put a stunning cap on the process. Two-thirds of Latin America is now considered left-leaning. Latin America, of course, has long been thought of as the imperial backyard of the United States. From the 1950s through the 1970s, from Guatemala to Argentina, Brazil to Chile, we encouraged, funded, organized, and sometimes (as in Guatemala and Chile) led or all but led military takeovers of democracies.

As it happened, the militaries of those countries, with their carefully nurtured ties to the U.S. military, proved far easier to topple than the one-party, one-leader system that has ruled Cuba through a forty-odd year American siege. In those decades, throughout the region, our representatives (ordinarily fromthe CIA) taught the local police and military torture techniques of an Abu-Ghraib variety, backed regimes renowned for disappearances, and generally helped impose a blanket of draconian rule on the continent in the name of anti-communism. In the 1980s, with the help of a number of people who are now household names, including new intelligence "tsar" John Negroponte, the Reagan administration repeated the process in Central America, supporting death squads, military killers, and right-wing thugs in a counter-revolutionary terror. We poured multimillions into this process; later invaded the Caribbean island of Grenada and then Panama; and finally worked hard to impose an impoverishing economic system ("neoliberalism") on the continent in the 1990s.

Leaving the Imperial Orbit

Given all this, it's remarkable what the Bush administration can't do today in its own backyard. It can't fully isolate Cuba; it can't create a regional"coalition of the willing" against Venezuela; it can't simply impose its version of economics on the continent; it can't stop a number of countries in the region from making energy deals of one sort or another with China, Iran, India, andother potential energy competitors. (And if, for a moment, you were to glance north, rather than south, you might notice that it was recently unable to impose its pet boondoggle, the Star Wars anti-missile system, on our recalcitrant northern neighbor. Another small sign of the times.)

There is perhaps no area of the world where the Bush administration has been less successful in fostering the military-to-military relations that are seen are crucial to its plans. Part of this has been due to its tunnel-vision unilateralism. In an attempt to prevent U.S. soldiers or officials from ever ending up in a foreign or international court on any kind of war crimes charges, it sent the American Service Members Protection Act (ASPA) winging through Congress. This "prohibits U.S. security assistance funds and most military cooperation unless a country rejects the U.N.-backed ICC [International CriminalCourt] or signs a bilateral immunity agreement with the United States." It then pursued such agreements with just about every nation on the planet. As it happens, 11 of the nations that have ratified the ICC agreement and refused to grant the United States bilateral immunity are in Latin America. Another sign of the times. As Pamela Hess, UPI's Pentagon correspondent, put the matter: "[E]xcept for Colombia and Argentina, all the major countries of South America are on the ASPA black list: Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay and Brazil. Prior to the passage of the ASPA, the major South American players had nearly 700 officers in training in U.S. military schools under the International Military Education and Training program. That number is essentially down to zero, say U.S. Southern Command sources. 'We have lost access to a whole generation of military officers,' a Southern Command source told UPI. "'Extra-hemispheric actors are filling the void left by restricted U.S. military engagement with partner nations. We now risk losing contact and interoperatibility with a generation of military classmates in many nations of the region, including several leading countries,' [Southern Command chief Gen.Bantz Craddock told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March.]. The void left by the United States after ASPA is increasingly being filled by China,Craddock warned."

More striking yet has been the rise of a new kind of "people power" -- a term we usually associate with Soviet-controlled Poland or the Marcos-controlledPhilippines -- throughout Latin America. It could most recently be observed in Ecuador, where popular demonstrations drove the Bush-administration-backed President, Lucio Gutiérrez, who had only recently illegally dissolved the Supreme Court, out of the country; and again, only a week ago, in Mexico City where an estimated 1.2 million people turned out in a "silent march" to support Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, that city's left-wing mayor and the country's leading candidate for president in next year's election, after Vincente Fox's ruling party had tried to railroad him out of the race and into jail on a trumped-up charge. As Danna Harman of the Christian Science Monitor wrote of the march (People power rattling politics of Latin America), while discussing "the weakening of authoritarian regimes [in Latin America] and the growing self-assurance of the people -- including, in the case in Bolivia, the indigenous": "Chalk up another victory for Latin American people power.

In the 1990s, what politicians feared most was apathy. But lately, Latin Americans from Mexico Cityto Quito, Ecuador -- much like the citizens of Ukraine and Lebanon -- have been taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers."Harold Meyerson, writing in the Washington Post in mid-April on earlier Mexican protests over Obrador, commented (Greetings from Mexistan): "Apparently, there are several kinds of capital city rallies. There are those in Kiev, where multitudes turned out to protest the subversion of a national election and the attempted murder of the opposition leader. There are those in Beirut, where people gathered to protest the murder of an opposition leader and to demand self-determination. These were outpourings that our government encouraged. "And there was the one last Thursday in Mexico City, where 300,000 protesters filled the Zocalo... And what was the response of our government?... Did we tell the crowds gathered in the Zocalo that America walks at their side? "Not quite. While Condi Rice waxes eloquent about our concern for democratic rights in Central Asia and the Middle East, the most the Bush administration has managed to say about democracy in the unimaginably faraway land of Mexico has been the comment of a State Department spokesman that this is an internal Mexican affair.

Democracy may be all well and good, but Lopez Obrador is just not Bush's kind of guy. As mayor of Mexico City, he's increased public pensions to the elderly and spent heavily on public works and the accompanying job creation. He's criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement as a boon for the corporate sector and a bust for Mexican workers..."As it turned out, the Mexican people didn't need George Bush's funding or organizational support; nor, it seems, did any other manifestation of "people power" to our south.

For what we have been seeing throughout Latin America -- as along Russia's border -- has been a serial revolt in country after country against the Cold War world and the imperial orders it imposed on its near abroads. Once upon a time, an American administration would have put such revolts down serially, using the CIA, military to military relations, economic power, and aid of various sorts; but, though events in Latin America are finally making the Bush administration sit up and take note, its ability to act is more limited than usual.

After all, Iraq is proving a black hole for American power and something of a graveyard for the administration's global ambitions and energies -- giving new meaning to that old Vietnam-era word "quagmire." There can be little question that, in the superpower-funded revolt of the Russian near-abroad and the unsupported revolt of the American near-abroad, you find similar impulses. When imperial power anywhere begins to crumble, it naturally creates space for local and regional experiments in new kinds of power relations. Unfortunately, all our covert (and less than covert) help in"organizing" democracy movements from Ukraine and Georgia to Kyrgyzstan and Belarus gives our leaders the feeling, I fear, that they are actually creating democracies by manipulation in someone else's near abroad. My own guess is that, given crumbling Russian power and the space it's left open, democracy movements would have developed apace (as in Latin America), even had our help never been offered.

Of course when our leaders come across "people power" that has developed without their imprimatur (not always a pretty sight)-- whether in the form of brutal struggles for national sovereignty (as in Iraq) or in their democratic form in Latin America -- they are invariably caught offguard and generally appalled. But it's only in looking at these forms of popular power -- whether violent or peaceful -- that you can see the genuine strangeness of what may turn out to be our loser/loser superpower world.

No one should, of course, underestimate the power of an empire to, as George Lucas might say, "strike back." And yet, let's hold out hope of a sort agains tempire and its plans for domination. Despite our recent emphasis in "the homeland" on security and borders, what are borders really? What are they actually capable of keeping out? It's strange sometimes how permeable walls and borders prove. As Paul Woodward, the canny editor of the War in Context website wrote recently: "People power's a fine thing for shaking up Eastern Europe and the Middle East, but as it spreads to the Americas, it could be coming uncomfortably close to home.

What if people power caught on in the United States? What if accountability was being demanded not just from governments in Kiev and Beirutbut also those in London and Washington? The bread and circuses approach to democracy has so far been an effective guarantor of political apathy across America, but what if Americans in large numbers were to one day wake up from their political slumber and demand that they too deserve a truly representative government?"What if, indeed. What if we all began slipping out of the imperial orbit?

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), where this article first appeared, is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War.

[Special thanks go to Nick Turse for his invaluable research assistance.]

Uncommon Denominator

Newsletter of the Commonweal Institute
www.commonwealinstitute.org

"Righteousness, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque."-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

CONTENTS
Talking Points: Journalism's throes
Wit and Wisdom: The Organic Rebellion
Check It Out: The Skeptic's Dictionary
Poll-Watch: On political cleavages
Quoted! Tom Coburn on breast implants
Featured Article: "Deliver Us From Wal-Mart?"
Happenings: Monthly round-up
Endorsements: Mike Honda
Get Involved: Spread the word; become a contributor


TALKING POINTS

It's probably no exaggeration to say that the mainstream American media, as an institution, are in crisis. Between falling revenues (from both subscriptions and advertising) and falling public confidence (a recent Harris Poll found that only 12 percent of the public have a high degree of trust in the media) the newspapers and television news programs that once largely shaped the knowledge that Americans brought to their daily lives and political positions now have to scrape for every reader and every dollar, and many of them are not succeeding. On balance, this is not a good thing, but there are still positive aspects to it, and hopeful opportunities involved. To boil it down, the traditional American news business faces four serious and interconnected threats:

* The first is the rise of alternative sources of information, principally the Internet and its array of independent bloggers, e-zines, newsletters, and the like -- all of which are highly maneuverable, and therefore capable of targetting specific audiences and siphoning off readers from the mainstream outlets.

* The second threat is the relentless drumbeat of anti-journalistic criticism that the political Right has kept up ever since Vietnam, which has slowly but surely nurtured the myth of an unreliable "liberal media" at odds with American values.

* The third runs deeper: That is the increasingly skeptical, even jaundiced, attitude of modern Americans toward the usual figures and institutions of cultural authority, and toward the reliability of knowledge itself. For all the hostility aimed at the "postmodern" mindset, with its supposed "moral relativism" and lack of conviction, its basic vision of the contingency of truth and the inadequacy of representation is one that many people bring to their encounter with news, whether they realize it or not.

* Finally, journalism suffers from the control excersised over the mainstream media by major corporations that, when the chips are down, will tend to put profit before journalistic integrity. This has limited the coverage of topics that might be uncomfortable for corporate sponsors and compromised the financial commitments necessary for the pursuit and presentation of difficult or complicated stories.

These four factors reinforce each other: as the quality of news reporting deteriorates, the public trusts the mainstream media less, alternative sources become more attractive, establishment journalism become more vulnerable to conservative attacks, and media owners and publishers seek then to appease the accusers with less balanced programming. There's something salutary here, however, and that's the fact that readers have become more assertive and questioning about the information they receive (or gather), and that they are able to get that information from a greater diversity of sources (despite the agglomerating tendencies of corporate news organizations).

Yet with the sheer quantity of available information, and the deliberate undermining of professional journalism by conservatives, the question of how to evaluate sources of information has become ever more pressing and ever more vexed. Anybody with access to a computer now inhabits (if they want to) an absolute wilderness of facts, ideas, perspectives, stories, claims, and counter-claims. On what basis should we ground our evaluation of what we read or hear? Is the capacity for misinformation (or disinformation) heightened or diminished by a wider array of news sources? By what standards do we compare differing representations of the world in which we live?

From one perspective, it's a positive development that people have become more skeptical about journalistic objectivity. That skepticism recognizes a whole host of factors that mediate what we receive as news -- factors ranging from corporate influence to government spin to editorial mandates to the human limitations of individual reporters. The problem, or the risk, is that this skepticism can become debilitating or nihilistic -- that people will end up seeing everything as equally truthful or equally untruthful, or that in the Babel of contending voices the impulse will be to tune them all out, from despair or frustration.

The body blows to the mainstream news business have been coming hard and fast, and they have seriously undermined the public's trust in the very notion of journalistic integrity. The current brouhaha about Newsweek's retracted story of Koran desecration at Guantanamo Bay is only the latest installment in a long run of bad press for the press. Partly, this is itself a classic instance of news distortion or magnification, in which one dramatic story (e.g., vicious dog attack) stimulates others of the same ilk (vicious dog attacks across the country), whether or not the reality bears out all the attention. Yet the crisis of American journalism is a real one, and the wounds are bleeding. As news organizations struggle to survive in an adrenalized and hyper-competitive business environment, and in a more cynical political culture, they risk both self-inflicted and deliberately inflicted wounds.

Most notably, the excessive reliance on anonymous sources not only makes readers suspicious, but also increases the potential for manipulation of stories, or even the planting of false information, by sources with an agenda who prefer to remain in the shadows. Who, after all, outed Valerie Plame as a CIA agent? An anonymous source with an agenda. Who provided the forged document about President Bush's National Guard service to CBS? An anonymous source with an agenda -- but was the target really the President, or was it CBS? Ad nauseum. Anonymity allows the reporter to "get the story," but it now seems to entail unjustified risks. Then, of course, the pressures of the high-speed news market have provoked media organizations into rushing flawed stories into print or onto the air, and made plagiarism or corrupt reporting both more tempting for journalists and more difficult for editors to prevent. The reporter Jack Kelley's elaborate fabrications, for instance, found fertile soil not just in his imagination, but in the lax newsroom culture of USA Today, while Jayson Blair at the New York Times operated with little editorial oversight but with strong incentives to get the scoop.

In turn, the same competition for readers and advertising dollars translates into pressure to pander to the lowest common denominator by making the news "entertaining." This has had the paradoxical effect of turning off the very audience it was meant to woo -- for there is, believe it or not, a longing and a market for sober reportage. Less visibly, the quick-and-easy cost-cutting strategies of both print and television news, particularly the reduction of the number of professional correspondents and the growing reliance on non-staff reportage, have made the problem worse by increasing the potential for error and constricting the range of coverage. The amount of information goes down, while the amount of opinion goes up; hard facts become scarcer, while "perspectives" propagate; news from Pakistan takes a back seat to news from Hollywood. All that said, the most serious wounds to the reputation of the media are those inflicted from without. The conservative movement has had its sights set on the journalistic establishment for 35 years, and takes every error, every lapse, as an opportunity to pile on. The goal is very clear: to discredit or destroy non-conservative points of view by intimidating the media from reporting them, to hamper the media's traditional "watch-dog" function, and to shift public attitudes rightward by framing centrist or neutral reportage as "liberal" bias.

At the same time, the current administration has virtually gotten into the news business itself, using the fake White House correspondent Jeff Gannon (real name James D. Guckert) to lob softball questions at press conferences, and paying conservative columnist Armstrong Williams, through the Education Department, to promote the No Child Left Behind Act. The problem, beyond the obvious one of government propaganda, is that these shenanigans don't just redound to the credibility of the administration, but to the reliability of news generally. Who knows, on any given day, where our information is coming from? What's its provenance, its history, its purpose? Those are the kinds of questions that can lead people to dismiss everything, to throw out the baby with the bath-water -- and God knows there's a lot of bath-water out there. So what to do? How should we hew our way through the jungle of information that surrounds us?

For their part, consumers of the news need to be active gatherers and interpreters of knowledge. Obviously, that means evaluating any particular purveyor news according to the standards of good journalism: Do they have an established history of getting the facts straight? Professional reputation does matter. Do they seem to aim for objectivity (elusive though it may be) instead of copping out with mere "balance"? Simply quoting two sides of an issue is no substitute for independent analysis. Are they honest about their limitations and their perspective? Much better to have a forthright argument than covert spin. Is the reasoning strong when it comes to complex issues?

Few things offend the principle of informed democracy more than intellectual superficiality. Which sources have been consulted, and how knowledgeable and/or neutral do they seem? Being active, engaged consumers of news also entails the recognition that each of us will probably gravitate toward sources that reflect our own pre-existing biases and inclinations, and that we have to get outside our comfort zone to be fully informed. That might mean putting down the Utne Reader and picking up The Economist, or -- if the example is not too outlandish -- flipping the dial from Rush Limbaugh to NPR. Certainly it involves acquiring the critical mass of information needed to judge the validity of new information or unfamiliar claims.

Finally, however, readers have a responsibility to be skeptical of skepticism, which too easily grades into laziness or apathy. Question authority, but also respect institutional histories. Read the blogger, but also respect the credentials of the paid professional. In today's information whirlwind, the credibility of particular media outlets may be a hard thing to judge, but it's still possible to separate the wheat from the chaff. The wheat's there, and it nourishes us all.

Next month: Specific ideas for how journalism can work to restore its cultural authority -- without which it cannot fulfill its indispensable democratic purpose.

WIT AND WISDOM

Obi Wan Cannoli? Princess Lettuce? Tofu-D2? Indeed. These are among the characters in the Organic Rebellion, fighting against the evil corporate empire and the Dark Side of the Farm. In the short online movie "Store Wars," the Organic Trade Association "hopes to attract a new generation of organic consumers, especially 'Gen Xers' who grew up loving Luke, Leia and Han, and are now increasingly concerned about making healthy food choices for their families." The spoof is hilarious. Mandatory viewing for all Uncommon Denominator readers.

CHECK IT OUT

At a time when "faith-based" solutions to social problems are growing in popularity; when international politics has become increasingly theologized; when critical thinking as a schools subject is at low ebb; when the forces of superstition, fundamentalism, and mythologization are waging a rear-guard campaign against reason and science -- at this time the voice of the skeptic is more important than ever. Far from being nihilistic, skepticism celebrates independence of thought, affirming the ability of people to think for themselves, and to avoid the snares of a labyrinthine world. There's help, fortunately, for those skeptics who want some more hard information to bring to the fray. In a work called The Skeptic's Dictionary, Robert T. Carroll has compiled a long list (451 entries and counting) of "Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions," and provided information and guidance for "how to think critically about them." From the Cardiff Giant to the philosopher's stone, from Holocaust denial to past life regression, from Aleister Crowley to Deepak Chopra, Carroll sets his sights on anything that smacks of intellectual sloppiness or legerdemain. Be skeptical, of course, of what you find in The Skeptic's Dictionary, but do check it out.

POLL-WATCH

The most recent Pew Research Center Political Typology survey revealed significant cleavages within both the Right and the Left, as well as expected differences between those two major divisions of the American electorate. The 2005 Political Typology sorts voters into nine homogeneous groups based on values, political beliefs, and party affiliation. The current study is based on two public opinion surveys -- a nationwide poll of 2,000 interviews conducted Dec. 1-16, 2004, and a subsequent re-interview of 1,090 respondents conducted March 17-27 of this year. Overall, the most dramatic contrast between Right and Left is on matters dealing with force, pre-emptive strikes, and the Patriot Act. Within the Right block, there are differences between the highest income subgroup and those who are less well off, in attitudes about economic and domestic issues, and the role of government in helping people. Within the Left block, the most notable differences have to do with social and personal values. While the majority of the public continues to get most of its news from television, there are interesting differences within the political divisions. The Right favors Fox News and among the Right-leaning groups, the subgroup with the highest income is the most dependent on Fox. Young, well-educated people, regardless of political orientation, favor the Internet over any individual TV news source. These differences and many others revealed by the survey may offer opportunities to break apart the existing political divisions. This is particularly important for progressives -- with fewer media resources and hardly any political infrastructure at this point, we need to be smarter and more focused in our efforts at change, and attentive to ways in which we can pull together the fledgling progressive movement. Consider this poll report a must-read if you're interested in changing America's political landscape. As part of the release of the 2005 Political Typology, the Pew Research Center has created an interactive website where users can find out where they fit in the Political Typology, and to see how the various typology groups feel about major issues of the day.


-- Katherine Forrest, M.D. QUOTED!"I thought I would just share with you what science says today about silicone breast implants. If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows. . . . In fact, there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and, in fact, they make you healthier."
-- Freshman U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), arguing against class-action lawsuits, as quoted in the Feb. 7, 2005, Washington Post.

FEATURED ARTICLE

The following is an excerpt from Jeff M. Sellers's "Deliver Us From Wal-Mart?" which appeared in the May 2005 edition of Christianity Today.
"As it has grown into a powerhouse with sales of $256.3 billion-more than the sales of Microsoft and retail competitors Home Depot, Kroger, Target, and Costco combined-Wal-Mart has become a lightning rod nationwide in local tempests of moral outrage. Church leaders (primarily mainline, liberal, and Roman Catholic) have joined grassroots activists fearful that mindless global market factors will steamroll human dignity. "'Wal-Mart's practices are immoral and unfair,' says Reginald Williams Jr., associate pastor for justice ministries at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Pastors at the 8,500-member Trinity United and eight other African American congregations in Chicago called for a boycott of Wal-Mart. "Such anger perplexes other Christians who think of Wal-Mart as a family-friendly place and a company founded on the biblical values of respect, service, and sacrifice. Founder Sam Walton's autobiography indicates he taught Sunday school in his church, prayed with his children, and had a strong sense of calling to better people's lives. With the Protestant values of respect for the individual, thrift, and hard work, Walton was eager to improve customers' living standards through low prices…. "Some Christians may be thankful for the values behind the Wal-Mart phenomenon, but others are voicing some of the unprecedented hostility toward the company. A biblical look at the retailer's labor issues may help Christians, among the one-third of Americans who visit Wal-Mart at least once a week, to discern whether they honor God in purchases and investments in the company." Click here to read the whole article.

HAPPENINGS

New Fellow -- The Commonweal Institute is pleased to welcome Chris Bowers as a new Fellow. Chris is the lead blogger for My Due Diligence, and is on the executive committee of BlogPac. He has a B.A. in English from Ursinus College, where he taught for two years, and an M.A. in English from Temple University, where he taught for five years and completed his coursework for a Ph.D. Mr. Bowers has also worked as a political consultant and as a union organizer for the American Federation of Teachers.

ENDORSEMENTS

"Moderate and progressive members of Congress need a substantial resource that can develop public support for our whole range of issues in a timely fashion, and defend our gains from right wing attacks. The Commonweal Institute is positioned to be that organization. I hope to see them grow quickly." -- Congressman Mike Honda, D-San Jose, CA

GET INVOLVED

f you agree with Mike Honda (see above), there are a number of ways you can help the Commonweal Institute achieve its goals.Right now, as you read, you can simply forward the Uncommon Denominator to friends and family who might be interested in learning about the Commonweal Institute. Getting the word out is crucial.You can also join our network of donors building the Commonweal Institute. Your tax-deductible contribution is vital to making the Commonweal Institute an effective organization. $100 would help so much! Even a contribution of $10 or $20 will make a difference because there are so many moderates and progressives. Click here to contribute online. Or call 650-854-9796. Your support is essential.

© 2005 The Commonweal Institute

To subscribe to this free e-newsletter, send a blank message to: ci-newsletter-subscribe@svpal.org.

-- or --

To subscribe from an email address other than your regular one, go to mailman.svpal.org/mailman/listinfo/ci-newsletter, and then enter your name and email address and click on "Subscribe."

Privacy Policy: The Commonweal Institute does not share subscriber information with any other organization or with individuals.

Why the US invaded Iraq

Why the US invaded Iraq
By Noam Chomsky January 2005

Let’s just imagine what the policies might be of an independent Iraq, independent, sovereign Iraq, let’s say more or less democratic, what are the policies likely to be?

Well there’s going to be a Shiite majority, so they’ll have some significant influence over policy. The first thing they’ll do is reestablish relations with Iran. Now they don’t particularly like Iran, but they don’t want to go to war with them so they’ll move toward what was happening already even under Saddam, that is, restoring some sort of friendly relations with Iran.

That’s the last thing the United States wants. It has worked very hard to try to isolate Iran. The next thing that might happen is that a Shiite-controlled, more or less democratic Iraq might stir up feelings in the Shiite areas of Saudi Arabia, which happen to be right nearby and which happen to be where all the oil is. So you might find what in Washington must be the ultimate nightmare—a Shiite region which controls most of the world’s oil and is independent. Furthermore, it is very likely that an independent, sovereign Iraq would try to take its natural place as a leading state in the Arab world, maybe the leading state. And you know that’s something that goes back to biblical times.

What does that mean? Well it means rearming, first of all. They have to confront the regional enemy. Now the regional enemy, overpowering enemy, is Israel. They’re going to have to rearm to confront Israel—which means probably developing weapons of mass destruction, just as a deterrent. So here’s the picture of what they must be dreaming about in Washington—and probably 10 Downing street in London—that here you might get a substantial Shiite majority rearming, developing weapons of mass destruction, to try to get rid of the U.S. outposts that are there to try to make sure that the U.S. controls most of the oil reserves of the world. Is Washington going to sit there and allow that? That’s kind of next to inconceivable.

What I’ve just read from the business press the last couple of days probably reflects the thinking in Washington and London: “Uh well, okay, we’ll let them have a government, but we’re not going to pay any attention to what they say.” In fact the Pentagon announced at the same time two days ago: we’re keeping 120,000 troops there into at least 2007, even if they call for withdrawal tomorrow.
http://www.irc-online.org/content/chomsky/2005chomsky-iraq.php

Comment: And I want to add, why did the Israeli work so hard to help the Bush crime family to put out disinformation about Iraq's WMD and I suspect ... in helping take out the Twin Towers on 9-11. "Poisoning the Well" is a long established tradition with any intelligence agency, in which provably bogus disinformation is interjected with real evidence or theories, for the express purpose of raising doubts of validity of ALL evidence provided by an individual. see below evidence.

Twin Towers/WTC/9-11

Comment: The evidence of a very complex conspiracy are unfolding. This includes even attempt to plant false information to discredit conspiracy researcher.
Take for example an eye witness's statement that the FBI show up "within minutes" This quick action by the FBI just doesn't happen. It takes time for the FBI to organize a crime scene and task individual agents.

Velasquez slammed down the receiver and raced outside when he felt the gas station he supervises suddenly begin to tremble from a too-close airplane. "It was like an earthquake," the Costa Rican native said last week. What Velasquez felt above him almost within touching distance was American Airlines Flight 77 just seconds before impact. ..Velasquez says the gas station's security cameras are close enough to the Pentagon to have recorded the moment of impact. "I've never seen what the pictures looked like," he said. "The FBI was here within minutes and took the film."

One thing an intelligence analysis does is to learn unusual facts, plant them his/her mind and when a pattern comes up, this rings a bell in his/her mind. What rang my bell is the fact that a similar thing happen in the crash of Sen.Wellstones airplane wherein he was killed. That is, the "FBI" arrived at the crash sight in a very unusually short period of time if not impossibly short period of time.

Now this doesn't happen unless the incident was planned. And who is to say these were real FBI agents?

Flight 77- Pentagon

American Airlines Flight 77 was a Boeing 757-223 flying from Dulles Airport outside Washington to Los Angeles with 11,489 gallons of fuel, 58 passengers, 4 flight attendants and 2 pilots.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
assertion: I have seen tons of evidence that a plane hit the Pentagon, including a documentary that went through step by step how the damage was caused and interviewed eyewitnesses.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've never made the argument that something other than a jet plane hit the Pentagon.
In fact, I think this missile theory is totally bunk, and may in fact be a classic "poisoning the well" scenario. "Poisoning the Well" is a long established tradition with any intelligence agency, in which provably bogus disinformation is interjected with real evidence or theories, for the express purpose of raising doubts of validity of ALL evidence provided by an individual.
In this case, if people are discussing a "missile" theory, and they can be proved wrong, then all their other analysis is equally suspicious.

The well is poisoned...

There are many who debate purely on the single axis of "Flight 77 vs. Missile",
and overlooking all the evidence that suggests something else entirely: a smaller plane with American Airlines markings hitting the Pentagon on Sept 11th, 2001.

I know this is lengthy, but here's my reasoning...

Eyewitness Accounts:

I'd recommend taking a look at the eyewitness accounts again. I've seen this page and others with numerous eyewitness accounts. Many who actually refer to the size of the jet actually call it a "small or medium sized jet", or a commuter jet with American Airlines markings.
Of course, others talk about a "very very big jet".

Often, these are people who were either almost or directly under the path of the plane.
The majority of eyewitnesses that imply a larger plane are those who refer to it as "Flight 77" or a 757, which, to me, is evidence that they are injecting 3rd party knowledge from media reports into their own accounts.

There are also numerous accounts of a second plane, often identified as a C-130 cargo plane, although according to the "official story" there was no military plane there. Almost every eyewitness who mentions the "C-130" says it was almost directly above and behind the impact plane.

Another interesting point about eyewitness accounts is that more than one person specifically mentions the smell of the explosive cordite.

In an informal look at the eyewitness accounts, when the eyewitness location at the time of impact is known, it appears that those futher away from the direct path of the plane describe it as something smaller than a 757.

They are much more likely to have seen the C-130 than those directly or almost directly under the plane.

Based on eyewitness accounts alone, the most likely scenario is that a small plane
being closely tailed by a C-130 impacted the Pentagon.

Video Evidence

There were at least 4 video sources (but probably more) that, barring equipment malfunction, captured the Pentagon crash.

1) The gas station camera which was situated across the highway, and pointed at the impact point. This tape was confiscated within moments.

2) The hotel security tape, which also recorded the impact, as hotel employees were viewing it when it was also confiscated. Since then, said employees have not said (AFAIK) what exactly happened.

3) More than on traffic camera would have caught the approach and impact at the Pentagon. Confiscated

4) Finally, the only footage ever "released" is five frames from a security booth.

These images were used in the NIST report on the Pentagon crash, so regardless of being accurate, they are "official".

I'll tackle the "security footage" first.

IF this is legit untampered footage, then it clearly suggests a plane smaller than a Boeing 757.
by Bionic Antboy, Jan 4 2005
http://0911.site.voila.fr/BionicAntboy.htm

Air traffic controller recalls event and Precise Maneuvering

At the Dulles tower, O'Brien saw the TV pictures from New York and headed back to her post to help other planes quickly land. "We started moving the planes as quickly as we could," she says. "Then I noticed the aircraft. It was an unidentified plane to the southwest of Dulles, moving at a very high rate of speed ... I had literally a blip and nothing more." O'Brien asked the controller sitting next to her, Tom Howell, if he saw it too. "I said, 'Oh my God, it looks like he's headed to the White House,'" recalls Howell. "I was yelling .. 'We've got a target headed right for the White House!'" At a speed of about 500 miles an hour, the plane was headed straight for what is known as P-56, protected air space 56, which covers the White House and the Capitol. "The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane," says O'Brien. "You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe." The plane was between 12 and 14 miles away, says O'Brien, "and it was just a countdown. Ten miles west. Nine miles west ... Our supervisor picked up our line to the White House and started relaying to them the information, [that] we have an unidentified very fast-moving aircraft inbound toward your vicinity, 8 miles west." Vice President Cheney was rushed to a special basement bunker. White House staff members were told to run away from the building. "And it went six, five, four. And I had it in my mouth to say, three, and all of a sudden the plane turned away. In the room, it was almost a sense of relief. This must be a fighter. This must be one of our guys sent in, scrambled to patrol our capital, and to protect our president, and we sat back in our chairs and breathed for just a second," says O'Brien. But the plane continued to turn right until it had made a 360-degree maneuver. "We lost radar contact with that aircraft. And we waited. And we waited. And your heart is just beating out of your chest waiting to hear what's happened," says O'Brien. "And then the Washington National [Airport] controllers came over our speakers in our room and said, 'Dulles, hold all of our inbound traffic. The Pentagon's been hit.'"
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/2020/2020_011024_atc_feature.html)

eye-witness:

Steve Patterson, 43, said he was watching television reports of the World Trade Center being hit when he saw a silver commuter jet fly past the window of his 14th-floor apartment in Pentagon City. The plane was about 150 yards away, approaching from the west about 20 feet off the ground, Patterson said. He said the plane, which sounded like the high-pitched squeal of a fighter jet, flew over Arlington cemetary so low that he thought it was going to land on I-395. He said it was flying so fast that he couldn't read any writing on the side. The plane, which appeared to hold about eight to 12 people, headed straight for the Pentagon but was flying as if coming in for a landing on a nonexistent runway, Patterson said. "At first I thought 'Oh my God, there's a plane truly misrouted from National,'" Patterson said. "Then this thing just became part of the Pentagon ... I was watching the World Trade Center go and then this. It was like Oh my God, what's next?" He said the plane, which approached the Pentagon below treetop level, seemed to be flying normally for a plane coming in for a landing other than going very fast for being so low. Then, he said, he saw the Pentagon "envelope" the plane and bright orange flames shoot out the back of the building. "It looked like a normal landing, as if someone knew exactly what they were doing," said Patterson, a graphics artist who works at home. "This looked intentional."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/daily/sep01/attack.html

Ms. Ladner said the Phoenix staff never suspected that Mr. Hanjour was a hijacker but feared that his skills were so weak that he could pose a safety hazard if he flew a commercial airliner.
Ultimately, administrators at the school told Mr. Hanjour that he would not qualify for the advanced certificate. But the ex-employee said Mr. Hanjour continued to pay to train on a simulator for Boeing 737 jets. "He didn't care about the fact that he couldn't get through the course," the ex-employee said.

Comment: Could it possibly be that Mr Hanjour never really planned to fly a 737, but he was just part of a deception story to plant this fact in the minds investigators and news reporters?. The story that he flew a 757 into the Pentagon, is a load of crap......... just like the story that Oswald shot Kennedy. Why is this important? Well, unless you have flown an airplane or shot a rifle, you wouldn't know that some people just can't learn to do these task. Oswald was a very bad shot with a rifle in the Marine corps

Staff members characterized Mr. Hanjour as polite, meek and very quiet. But most of all, the former employee said, they considered him a very bad pilot."I'm still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon," the former employee said. "He could not fly at all."
http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/04/national/04ARIZ.html

But The debris is an eloquent witness to the but not the crash of a Boeing 757.
· The original Pentagon press conferences said there was no significant sized debris from an airliner.
· There is insufficient debris on the lawn of the Pentagon for it to have been the crash of a Boeing 757.
· The upright cable spools are independent proof in their own right that a Boeing 757 did not crash into the Pentagon on 9/11.
· The debris is inconsistent with the crash of a Boeing 757.
· The debris is consistent with the crash of a small jet aircraft, or possibly an unmanned AV if it were capable of launching a "bunker-buster" missile.
· At first glance, in the ruble photographed at the exit hole, there is no debris reminiscent of an airliner - just office debris.
· The sole piece of crash debris purporting to be from a Boeing 757 was probably planted as it comes from the wrong side of the plane.
· Some pieces of the wreckage was carried away by Air Force personnel.
http://911review.org/Wiki/PentagonAttack.shtml,

Also worrying is that some of the photos of the debris removal work at the Pentagon long after the attack indicate that they are taking against contamination, perhaps because of the presence of http://911revieworg/Wiki/DepletedUranium.shtml. Depleted uranium is sometimes used in commercial aircraft (but apparently not in the Boeing 757)

Threading a Plane through the Eye of a Needle..

result < 30m vs 38m (757) wingspan. the hole is too small & perfect symmetry around the impact, 4m left & 4m right are missing for a 757 wingspan (impact angle taken into account ) as the plane approaches, the left engine would be already duggen meters in the ground, in the greens *,

This composite image shows the extent of damage to the Pentagon facade before it collapsed, and the proportional size of the Boeing as it approached. How is it possible that the jetliner could have passed through that tiny hole? (Source: http://0911.site.voila.fr/index2.htm ).
One point that ALL the skeptics are missing, the left engine but there is definitely no trace in the lawn..
http://www.geocities.com/pentalawn2000/


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. MY NEWSLETTER has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is MY NEWSLETTER endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewsViewsnolose