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That governments have permitted terrorist acts against their own people, and have even themselves been perpetrators in order to find strategic advantage is quite likely true, but this is the United States we're talking about.

That intelligence agencies, financiers, terrorists and narco-criminals have a long history together is well established, but the Nugan Hand Bank, BCCI, Banco Ambrosiano, the P2 Lodge, the CIA/Mafia anti-Castro/Kennedy alliance, Iran/Contra and the rest were a long time ago, so thereâ(TM)s no need to rehash all that. That was then, this is now!

That Jonathan Bushâ(TM)s Riggs Bank has been found guilty of laundering terrorist funds and fined a US-record $25 million must embarrass his nephew George, but it's still no justification for leaping to paranoid conclusions.

That George Bush's brother Marvin sat on the board of the Kuwaiti-owned company which provided electronic security to the World Trade Centre, Dulles Airport and United Airlines means nothing more than you must admit those Bush boys have done alright for themselves.

That George Bush found success as a businessman only after the investment of Osamaâ(TM)s brother Salem and reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mahfouz is just one of those things - one of those crazy things.

That Osama bin Laden is known to have been an asset of US foreign policy in no way implies he still is.

That al Qaeda was active in the Balkan conflict, fighting on the same side as the US as recently as 1999, while the US protected its cells, is merely one of history's little aberrations.

The claims of Michael Springman, State Department veteran of the Jeddah visa bureau, that the CIA ran the office and issued visas to al Qaeda members so they could receive training in the United States, sound like the sour grapes of someone who was fired for making such wild accusations.

That one of George Bush's first acts as President, in January 2001, was to end the two-year deployment of attack submarines which were positioned within striking distance of al Qaeda's Afghanistan camps, even as the group's guilt for the Cole bombing was established, proves that a transition from one administration to the next is never an easy task.

That so many influential figures in and close to the Bush White House had expressed, just a year before the attacks, the need for a "new Pearl Harbo

For some details about weapons deals between the west and Indonesia, read "Hidden Agendas" by John Pilger. Or read about the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia and the massacre of its people.

suffering which the usa is hard at work relieving by putting in place democratic institutions which will promote peace and prosperity where there currently is none

You really didn't understand a single thing I wrote now did you? Again - you're NOT doing anything good in those countries. You're NOT on your way to "help" them become democratic. You're NOT the saviour of the world - and you would know all this if you actually studied the facts instead of listening to the official doctrine along with the rest of the american sheeple.

Start here.

Just as the "Project for a New American Century" (PNAC) *needed* a "Pearl Harbor" to implement its police state plans, the forces that wish to shut down and control the information age need a "Digital Pearl Harbor" to implement their digital police state plans.

The phrasing "Digital Pearl Harbor" is used in a fashion very similar to how "Pearl Harbor" is used in the PNAC documents.

For further reading (also: google "PNAC pearl harbor")

Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush said what America needed was "a new Pearl Harbor". Its published aims have, alarmingly, come true. : John Pilger :12 Dec 2002

The cabal of war fanatics advising the White House secretly planned a "transformation" of defense policy years ago, calling for war against Iraq and huge increases in military spending. A "catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor" -- was seen as necessary to bring this about.

March 10 -- Years before George W. Bush entered the White House, and years before the Sept. 11 attacks set the direction of his presidency, a group of influential neo-conservatives hatched a plan to get Saddam Hussein out of power. (...) And in a report just before the 2000 election that would bring Bush to power, the group predicted that the shift would come about slowly, unless there were "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor."

So when events start leading up to "Digital Pearl Harbor" ... make sure you've got all the apps and source code you care about on local storage. Because everything that in any way possible could be utilized by a "digital terrorist" is going to be banned and taken off the net.

Those bombed by the US.

hint: In the views of some, the persons killed in WTC also died as an unfortunate result of military operations against an enemy.

Why do you think it's somehow more justified when you kill innocent civilians?

Thanks to the US, Afghanistan is now back as the number one heroin-provider to the world, and girls still cannot go to school.

Pilger on Afghanistan after the US invasion

I saw this "Breaking the Silence" report on the telly the other night... very well worth watching, and rather disturbing. I just wish he'd do something with his hair.

http://pilger.carlton.com/
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/09/272644.sh tml
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article48 51.htm

Well there's the obvious invasion of Yugoslavia and installing a US friendly leader who dissolved the country into Serbia and Montenegro, and was then promptly assassinated.
But there's also the enforcing of murderous sanctions that were, up until the second Iraq invasion a few months ago, killing 5000 children each month (UN and WHO numbers). And the bombings in the illegally enforced no-fly zones which included the bombing and killing of dangerous and deadly sheep.
Of course there's also helping turkey massacre 30,000 kurds. Giving the draconian and terrorist government of Colombia billions in military aid. Increasing weapons sales to Indonesia and trying to cover for them, and delay the UN in acting to stop the massacre in East Timor.

'course I don't know if any of that stuff is as bad as getting a blowjob from Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky is ugly!

In England, one of the main cinema advertising agencies (Carlton, who also have a TV station) have a star for a logo. In the ident for their cinema ads, the logo becomes a branding iron, which is shoved in your face. Makes me want to go to the movies even more!

Carlton also have some damn fine TV idents, which are simply eye droppingly cool. even better, they were rendered on Linux! W00t! See them here in glorious RealVideo, but please be gentle...

Yes, it is. Let me give an example from the last Gulf War:

The votes of the non-permanent members of the Security Council were crucial... Only Cuba and Yemen held out. Minutes after Yemen voted against the resolution to attack Iraq, a senior American diplomat told the Yemeni ambassador: "That was the most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast." Within three days, a US aid programme of $70m to one of the world's poorest countries was stopped. Yemen suddenly had problems with the World Bank and the IMF; and 800,000 Yemeni workers were expelled from Saudi Arabia... The punishment of impoverished countries that opposed the attack was severe. Sudan, in the grip of a famine, was denied a shipment of food aid. None of this was reported at the time. By now, news organisations had one objective: to secure a place close to the US command in Saudi Arabia. At the same time, Amnesty International published a searing account of torture, detention and arbitrary arrest by the Saudi regime. Twenty thousand Yemenis were being deported every day and as many as 800 had been tortured and ill-treated.

Neither the BBC nor ITN reported a word about this. "It is common knowledge in television," wrote Peter Lennon in the Guardian, "that fear of not being granted visas was the only consideration in withholding coverage of that embarrassing story."

The Prisoner was by Polygram, currently owned by Carlton TV. It was a commercial TV series, not from the BBC.

Cheers,
Ian

Because I don't just believe what I read in the newspapers. Try here for a starting point.

How to look an idiot by forgetting to close quotes. Try looking here.