BBC confirms: Blair manipulated intelligence to justify war.

Just like you thought; Bush or Blair, Sharon, Berlusconi or Dutch PM Balkenende: the war criminals walk among us...time to take'm to Court...

Blair manipulated intelligence to justify war, says BBC film

by Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent

Monday March 21, 2005 - The Guardian - UK

The BBC last night gave another sign that it is determined to maintain its editorial independence by screening a Panorama programme strongly critical of Tony Blair's manipulation of thin intelligence, on the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

In the programme, Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, was reported as having told Mr Blair that Washington had fixed policy on a war against Iraq and was going to fit the intelligence around that policy.

Despite the humiliation of losing its director general, Greg Dyke, over its allegations concerning David Kelly, the government arms control officer, the film contained powerful condemnation of the government.

It included interviews with former officials who had al ready broken in public with the government's Iraq strategy. It also quoted extensively from leaked documents first revealed by the Daily Telegraph.

In the most startling revelation, the programme claimed that at a meeting on July 23 2002, Sir Richard said a war was inevitable, adding that the facts and the intelligence were being fixed round the policy set out by George Bush's administration.

The claim was based on several reliable sources, Panorama said.

It claimed that Sir Richard briefed Mr Blair that the quality of intelligence sourcing for some claims made in the run-up to the publication of the intelligence dossier was developmental, adding: "The source remains unproven."

Nevertheless, Mr Blair told MPs two weeks later: "The intelligence picture they paint is one accumulated over the past four years. It is extensive, detailed and authoritative."

The programme also claimed that British intelligence was unable to convince neutral members of the UN security council, such as Mexico, of the dangers of Iraq's stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

The programme quoted Adolfo Zinser, former Mexican ambassador to the UN, referring to a meeting with MI6. Mr Zinser said: "I asked them: 'Do you have full proof of the existence of these weapons at any one of these particular sites that you are referring to? The MI6 officers told me: "No."

Mr Zinser added: "It was very clear they didn't have proof, they had circumstantial evidence of a funny behaviour, of a suspicious behaviour. But I knew that ... because that was what we were getting from the [UN] inspectors."

The programme also interviewed Sir Stephen Wall, Mr Blair's former European adviser, who said of the legal case for war: "We stretched the legal argument to breaking point, and the fact that we do not have authority does set a dangerous precedent."

Sir Stephen also alleged that No 10 wilfully misrepresented remarks by the French president, Jacques Chirac, on the eve of war to suggest that France would never support a second UN resolution necessary to go to war.]

[end item - Guardian - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3rr77]

Blair knew beforehand that US "fixed" case for Iraq war:
Google 'BBC + Bush' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/4nzyp

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://tinyurl.com/4f6u
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/5zmhl
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

The Dutch author this far has worked abroad 4 decades for international media as a fully independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism ! At present 'Persona non Grata' in Holland :-)

He who travels far will often see things

Far removed from what he believed was the Truth.

When he talks about it in the fields at home,

He is often accused of lying,

For the obdurate people will not believe

Inexperience, I believe,

Will give little credence to my song.

'Journey to the East' - Hermann Hesse

'The war in Iraq is illegal' says United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

A 55' seconds 'sound bite' concerning the US-Israeli 'Dogs of War' 'bringing democracy' everywhere. Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5u98v

Former PM 'Wim Kok' and other Dutch Govt's Warcriminals in Court - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/662pp

Sued: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Over U.S. Torture Policies - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3tgo3

It can and must be done!

Help the troops come home! Url.: http://www.bringemhome.org - We need them badly to fight our so called 'governments' - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

HR

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
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BBC confirms: Blair manipulated intelligence to justify war.

Just like you thought; Bush or Blair, Sharon, Berlusconi or Dutch PM Balkenende: the warcriminals walk among us...time to take'm to Court...

Blair manipulated intelligence to justify war, says BBC film

by Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent

Monday March 21, 2005 - The Guardian - UK

The BBC last night gave another sign that it is determined to maintain its editorial independence by screening a Panorama programme strongly critical of Tony Blair's manipulation of thin intelligence, on the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

In the programme, Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, was reported as having told Mr Blair that Washington had fixed policy on a war against Iraq and was going to fit the intelligence around that policy.

Despite the humiliation of losing its director general, Greg Dyke, over its allegations concerning David Kelly, the government arms control officer, the film contained powerful condemnation of the government.

It included interviews with former officials who had al ready broken in public with the government's Iraq strategy. It also quoted extensively from leaked documents first revealed by the Daily Telegraph.

In the most startling revelation, the programme claimed that at a meeting on July 23 2002, Sir Richard said a war was inevitable, adding that the facts and the intelligence were being fixed round the policy set out by George Bush's administration.

The claim was based on several reliable sources, Panorama said.

It claimed that Sir Richard briefed Mr Blair that the quality of intelligence sourcing for some claims made in the run-up to the publication of the intelligence dossier was developmental, adding: "The source remains unproven."

Nevertheless, Mr Blair told MPs two weeks later: "The intelligence picture they paint is one accumulated over the past four years. It is extensive, detailed and authoritative."

The programme also claimed that British intelligence was unable to convince neutral members of the UN security council, such as Mexico, of the dangers of Iraq's stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

The programme quoted Adolfo Zinser, former Mexican ambassador to the UN, referring to a meeting with MI6. Mr Zinser said: "I asked them: 'Do you have full proof of the existence of these weapons at any one of these particular sites that you are referring to? The MI6 officers told me: "No."

Mr Zinser added: "It was very clear they didn't have proof, they had circumstantial evidence of a funny behaviour, of a suspicious behaviour. But I knew that ... because that was what we were getting from the [UN] inspectors."

The programme also interviewed Sir Stephen Wall, Mr Blair's former European adviser, who said of the legal case for war: "We stretched the legal argument to breaking point, and the fact that we do not have authority does set a dangerous precedent."

Sir Stephen also alleged that No 10 wilfully misrepresented remarks by the French president, Jacques Chirac, on the eve of war to suggest that France would never support a second UN resolution necessary to go to war.]

[end item - Guardian - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3rr77]

Blair knew beforehand that US "fixed" case for Iraq war:
Google 'BBC + Bush' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/4nzyp

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://tinyurl.com/4f6u
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/5zmhl
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

The Dutch author this far has worked abroad 4 decades for international media as a fully independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism ! At present 'Persona non Grata' in Holland :-)

He who travels far will often see things

Far removed from what he believed was the Truth.

When he talks about it in the fields at home,

He is often accused of lying,

For the obdurate people will not believe

Inexperience, I believe,

Will give little credence to my song.

'Journey to the East' - Hermann Hesse

'The war in Iraq is illegal' says United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

A 55' seconds 'sound bite' concerning the US-Israeli 'Dogs of War' 'bringing democracy' everywhere. Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5u98v

Former PM 'Wim Kok' and other Dutch Govt's Warcriminals in Court - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/662pp

Sued: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Over U.S. Torture Policies - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3tgo3

It can and must be done!

Help the troops come home! Url.: http://www.bringemhome.org - We need them badly to fight our so called 'governments' - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

HR

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
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The Optimism of Uncertainty

The Optimism of Uncertainty

by Howard Zinn

09/15/04 "The Nation" - - In this awful world where the efforts of caring people often pale in comparison to what is done by those who have power, how do I manage to stay involved and seemingly happy? 

I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world. 

There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people's thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible. 

What leaps out from the history of the past hundred years is its utter unpredictability. A revolution to overthrow the czar of Russia, in that most sluggish of semi-feudal empires, not only startled the most advanced imperial powers but took Lenin himself by surprise and sent him rushing by train to Petrograd. Who would have predicted the bizarre shifts of World War II--the Nazi-Soviet pact (those embarrassing photos of von Ribbentrop and Molotov shaking hands), and the German Army rolling through Russia, apparently invincible, causing colossal casualties, being turned back at the gates of Leningrad, on the western edge of Moscow, in the streets of Stalingrad, followed by the defeat of the German army, with Hitler huddled in his Berlin bunker, waiting to die? 

And then the postwar world, taking a shape no one could have drawn in advance: The Chinese Communist revolution, the tumultuous and violent Cultural Revolution, and then another turnabout, with post-Mao China renouncing its most fervently held ideas and institutions, making overtures to the West, cuddling up to capitalist enterprise, perplexing everyone. 

No one foresaw the disintegration of the old Western empires happening so quickly after the war, or the odd array of societies that would be created in the newly independent nations, from the benign village socialism of Nyerere's Tanzania to the madness of Idi Amin's adjacent Uganda. Spain became an astonishment. I recall a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade telling me that he could not imagine Spanish Fascism being overthrown without another bloody war. But after Franco was gone, a parliamentary democracy came into being, open to Socialists, Communists, anarchists, everyone. 

The end of World War II left two superpowers with their respective spheres of influence and control, vying for military and political power. Yet they were unable to control events, even in those parts of the world considered to be their respective spheres of influence. The failure of the Soviet Union to have its way in Afghanistan, its decision to withdraw after almost a decade of ugly intervention, was the most striking evidence that even the possession of thermonuclear weapons does not guarantee domination over a determined population. The United States has faced the same reality. It waged a full-scale war in lndochina, conducting the most brutal bombardment of a tiny peninsula in world history, and yet was forced to withdraw. In the headlines every day we see other instances of the failure of the presumably powerful over the presumably powerless, as in Brazil, where a grassroots movement of workers and the poor elected a new president pledged to fight destructive corporate power. 

Looking at this catalogue of huge surprises, it's clear that the struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience--whether by blacks in Alabama and South Africa, peasants in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Vietnam, or workers and intellectuals in Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union itself. No cold calculation of the balance of power need deter people who are persuaded that their cause is just. 

I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?), but I keep encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young people, in whom the future rests. Wherever I go, I find such people. And beyond the handful of activists there seem to be hundreds, thousands, more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But they tend not to know of one another's existence, and so, while they persist, they do so with the desperate patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing that boulder up the mountain. I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement. 

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don't "win," there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. 

An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.

[HR: I think and hope Zinn is writing about people like von Stauffenberg, who tried to blow Hitler to his forefathers - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/466l2]

If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

March 2005 The Nation 

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


HR

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Doubling illiteracy: If you keep'm stupid, I'll keep'm poor...

Numbing down by dumbing down.

80 percent of American blacks had achieved literacy by 1940, but...

Henk Ruyssenaars

FPF-March 20 - 2005 - It was thanks to intelligent american singers like Tom Paxton, that some decades ago already skeptical people could enjoy texts about what 'innocent' children learned at school.

Paxton gave a good example concerning indoctrination in the schools:

''I learned that Washington never told a lie;

I learned that soldiers seldom die;

I learned that everybody's free,

And that's what the teacher said to me''...

Tom Paxton, and many other good singers warned about the coming disasters and claims by the 'leaders' who are not what they look like:

I learned our government must be strong,

It's always right and never wrong,

Our leaders are the finest men

And we elect 'em again and again,

And that's what I learned in school today

That's what I learned in school.*

And how 'heroic and good' a war was they singsong nowadays too.*

How bitter is reality anno 2005, when the results of the dumbing down are staring all of us in the face. Whether black or white, yellow or whatever, we should never forget the underlying reasons and ultimate results.

People who prefer books to guns will never be 'cannon fodder' nor 'sheeple'.

It was a keystone of slavery that blacks must be kept illiterate,
which kept them dependent. And that goes for everybody...

And while 80 percent of American blacks had achieved literacy by 1940; the 'National Adult Literacy Survey' and the 'National Assessment of Educational Progress' tell us that by the year 2000, six decades of our vastly expensive modern government schools had reduced black literacy to a mere 60 percent.

The government schools - our largest and most expensive collectivist welfare
program - managed to double black illiteracy in only 60 years. [end quote]

The formula is used by many so called 'governments' and their minions:
If you keep'm stupid, I'll keep'm poor.

Propaganda-education, and a diet of hamburgers, Coca Cola
and the lies and rants of the 'McMedia' have done the rest.

Time for the 'sheeple' to get hold of the hayfork...?

HR

By Dr. Teresa Whitehurs - 'US Kids recruited through School TV' ? -
Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6npzv

Full story on the dumbing down: - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/g6zx

What did you learn at school today? Tom Paxton -
Url.:http://tinyurl.com/3n3bv

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FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://tinyurl.com/4f6u
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/5zmhl
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

The Dutch author this far has worked abroad 4 decades for international media as a fully independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East.

Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism !
At present 'Persona non Grata' in Holland :-)

He who travels far will often see things

Far removed from what he believed was the Truth.

When he talks about it in the fields at home,

He is often accused of lying,

For the obdurate people will not believe

Inexperience, I believe,

Will give little credence to my song.

'Journey to the East' - Hermann Hesse

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Bush's Herds - The Rise and Fall of the US Reich

"We Weren't in Any Hurry to Call the Medics"

Bush's Herds: Ready to Kick Anyone in the Face

By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY

Reuters, March 7: "Soldiers depicted in the new video would not face criminal charges, the Pentagon said. One section of the video showed a bound and wounded prisoner sprawled on the ground, and showed his bullet entry and exit wounds. At one point, a US soldier kicked the prisoner in the face.

Army documents quoted a soldier at the scene as saying he 'thought the dude eventually died. We weren't in any hurry to call the medics'."

This is no surprise, because there are energetic Christians in America who applaud the murder of wounded prisoners. They think it is wonderful to kill them. They are proud that US soldiers kill helpless people. Doubt me? Read on.

Here is an email sent me following my piece in Counterpunch on March 7, from "Yours sincerely, Todd Hale, Senior Church Image Consultant (http://www.faithHighway.com/ and, who is one sick citizen, and wrote:

"You asked the question 'What was the reaction of most of the American people to the murder of a wounded, unarmed Iraqi lying helpless and barely conscious on the floor of a mosque in his own country?'

I think, based purely on the exit poll results of the recent Presidential election, re-affirming the current administration's stance on the war on terror, including Iraq, that most of the Americans, or at least 65 some odd million of them again based on the election results would be like mine; "Sucks to be him, he should not be fighting for an evil regime like Saddam Husseins, that aids and supports terrorists and has killed thousands of his own people with chemical weapons, and if said man does fight for Saddam, he risks death, even if he's wounded and lying on the floor of his mosque.

I only hope that someone shared the good news of the saving grace of Jesus Christ with him before he died. You asked. May God Bless your liberally challenged mind!" [Emphasis in original.]
Let us all take a deep breath after these kindly words from a devout Christian and consider the rest of the Reuters' report: "Army criminal investigators looked into the matter and decided no criminal charges were warranted against the soldiers.

Documents showed that the Army deemed the actions shown on the video "inappropriate" rather than criminal. 'It didn't rise to the level of criminal abuse, according to the investigations,' said LtCol Jeremy Martin, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. 'Clearly, the soldiers probably exercised poor judgment . . . and I'm sure that they were admonished by their command for their actions'."

Sure; the world can be certain that "their command" took disciplinary action. Like issuing a bag of cookies and ten days' leave. It is incredible to be told that a soldier who kicked a wounded prisoner was considered to have "exercised poor judgment".

The US military thug--for he cannot be dignified by the name of 'soldier'--kicked a helpless man in the face, but LtCol Jeremy Martin, US Army, then spits in the faces of all of us when he says that the kicking "didn't rise [he meant, presumably, 'descend'] to the level of criminal abuse".

LtCol Jeremy Martin should go join Mr Todd Hale, the equally caring Senior Church Image Consultant, because they would have a lot to agree about.

LtCol Jeremy Martin of the Pentagon has no conscience. He is a robot, poor fellow. He is doing his duty as he sees it, of course, in the same fashion as the Army face-kickers and the Guantanamo Bay torturers and the Marine who murdered the unarmed, wounded prisoner lying semi-conscious on the floor of a mosque in Iraq last November, to the approval of millions of Americans.

He is a performing puppet, an unthinking, manipulated, rag-doll-in-uniform who does his best to please his masters, like countless other grey people for whom individual thought is a terrifying concept.

And this is the big problem for America. It is the little people, the Jeremy Martins of the uniformed brothers and the Todd Hales of the church brothers, who lead the populace in endorsing and actively supporting evil. They are just folks like other folks, of course. They live down the street or on the next block and they have 1.7 kids, an SUV and a couple of bicycles, a liking for the local baseball team, clean living and Church cookouts, and a deep and terrible ignorance of humanity, history, and tolerance.

Does anyone read William Shirer's 'Berlin Diary: Journal of a Foreign Correspondent' nowadays? He was a gifted American reporter who described life in Nazi Germany from 1934 through 1941 (and in 1959 wrote his masterpiece, 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich') , but the diary itself is a story of personal despair and recounts the series of Germany's national catastrophes that "slipped inexorably towards the abyss of war and self-destruction".

Bush has plunged America into the abyss of everlasting war, and the parallels between what Bush America is becoming and what Hitler's Germany became in the 1930s are as startling as they are repellent.[ ]

Pls. read the full story - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/43lvc

HR