Letter to President Bush Concerning "Downing Street Memo"

As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.
1) Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
- from Representative John Conyers, Jr's letter to President Bush
sign the letter now: Write Bush about the Downing Street Memo

Guys, this isn't a game. Bolton is a threat to our security.

PLEASE! REPUBLICAN Voinovich is pleading that you don't subject America to a Bolton confirmation.

Stand up and support a man who is opposing a wrong based on principle. Voinovich is a Republican and obviously he is concerned about the harm that Bolton can do. Voinovich said in his letter, "In these dangerous times, we cannot afford to put at risk our nation's ability to successfully wage and win the war on terror with a controversial and ineffective ambassador to the United Nations.

"I worry that Mr. Bolton could make it more difficult for us to achieve the important U.N. reforms needed to restore the strength of the institution." He said Bolton's lack of interpersonal skills, tendency to abuse people who disagree with him and propensity to stray from his mission made him unsuitable for the job.

write the media and tell them to show this video of Bolton for God sakes!! (WHY isn't the media showing this video of Bolton?)

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/boltonun_300k.mov

mirrors:

http://www.zencabin.com/boltonun_300k.mov
http://texasturkey.us/backup/boltonun_300k.mov
http://politicalwebsolutions.com/assets/applets/boltonun_300k.mov

Write your Senators!! Also write Senator Voinovich ans support his efforts!!

Dear Senator Voinovich,

Please confront the mainstream media for not showing all the dirt on Bolton. The mainstream media is keeping the public ignorant of just how dangerous Bolton is by not showing them.

Ask the media why they aren't showing America the examples of Bolton in action (see the clips below) Mainstream media is simply not showing all of Bolton that needs to be shown. Seantor, please confront the mainstream media and demand that they show America what you already know. Demand that the media aloow the public to see ow exxtreme Bolton is. The clips are available, WHY AREN'T WE SEEING THEM ON TV?

Senator Voinovich, you can amplify out efforts to defeat a Bolton confirmation by issuing a press statement asking why the media is shielding the public from these dramatic clips of Bolton.

Sincerely,
Tom Murphy

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/boltonun_300k.mov

mirrors:
http://www.zencabin.com/boltonun_300k.mov

http://texasturkey.us/backup/boltonun_300k.mov

http://politicalwebsolutions.com/assets/applets/boltonun_300k.mov

Over at "Oh, That Liberal Media!" Black Jack responds to the facts with this: "I looked at it ... I just took a second look and came to the same conclusion: Viscous anti-American twerps smear our troops with bogus charges"

Black Jack, now you are really embarrassing yourself. Do you have absolutely no respect for yourself at all? Are you lying when you said you looked at it twice? Otherwise you are showing readers here that you are mentally challenged.

You think the Army, military officials, the Army Criminal Investigation Command are "Viscous anti-American twerps"?!?

You are making it crystal clear that you simply cannot be reasoned with. If you have this extreme a problem, why the hell don't you see a doctor instead of annoying people who are trying to have a logical discussion?

In case you missed it: Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said, "Although other major news organizations had aired charges of Qur'an desecration based only on the testimony of detainees, we believed our story was newsworthy because a U.S. official said government investigators turned up this evidence. So we published the item."

Red Cross Says It Told U.S. in 2002 About Alleged Mishandling of Koran "The International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday that it repeatedly expressed concern to the U.S. government in 2002 and early 2003 about a series of credible detainee allegations that military guards at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba had mishandled and shown disrespect to the Koran."

Ari Berman makes the case that Newsweek Was Right Berman quotes from the article NYT article Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo Bay posted over at Remote Post :

"Contrary to White House spin, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo such as those described by Newsweek on 9 May 2005 are common among ex-prisoners and have been widely reported outside the United States. Several former detainees at the Guantanamo and Bagram airbase prisons have reported instances of their handlers sitting or standing on the Koran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and urinating on it.

One such incident (during which the Koran was thrown into a pile and stepped on) prompted a hunger strike among Guantanamo detainees in March 2002. Regarding this, the New York Times in a 1 May 2005, article interviewed a former detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, who said the protest ended with a senior officer delivering an apology to the entire camp. And the Times reports: "A former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an interview with the Times, confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans." (Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt, "Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo Bay," New York Times, May 1, 2005, p. 35.)

Caving in to pressure from the Pentagon and the White House, Newsweek magazine Monday retracted a story on anti-Muslim abuse of detainees held in the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp. Notice that with all the talk about Newsweek the fact that these specific allegations have already been reported (March 26, 2003 in the Washington Post for example) is really not made clear to the American public. Returning Afghans Talk of Guantanamo: “others complained that American soldiers insulted Islam by sitting on the Koran or dumping their sacred text into a toilet to taunt them.”

See my post But was the Newsweek story about the Quran actually wrong?

"More than any other newspaper, the New York Times influences how policymakers, journalists and the general public understand important issues. Unfortunately, Times' news reporters continue to misrepresent the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by failing to acknowledge the broad international consensus that Israel's settlements and West Bank Wall violate international law. Times' reporters instead present Palestinian and Israeli views using a 'he said, she said' formula, without an appropriate framework to help readers evaluate competing claims." International Law Not Fit to Print: The New York Times and Israel/Palestine

Kenneth Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is aggressively pressing PBS to correct what he considers "liberal bias."

Yet PBS does not have a "liberal bias." Look at PBS's content as a whole, it is not "liberal"! Especially look at all the nightly news on PBS: PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Lehrer stubbornly refuses to explain why he had such a bias AGAINST a critic of Bush administration policies. See link: http://www.fair.org/activism/newshour-parenti.html and http://www.fair.org/activism/newshour-parenti-update.html

Sign the petition to oust Tomlinson: http://www.freepress.net/action/pbs

posted over at Z's Ominous Psyops Blog post Laura Flanders Interview: Mubanga Saw Korans Desecrated

About the the Newsweek Quran desecration story, I don't think it is accurate to say "the source recanted"

I think "recanted" is what the White House and Mainstream Media want the public to think, the details get ignored. It is actually the case that the source is not sure the evidence is in the particular report that Newsweek cited but that "it might have been in another document"

I think this is how information gets twisted or ignored to fit what powerful interests want. The media is playing along with powerful interests.
The fact is the MSM has not made it clear.
This is what I found in an AP report: "Whitaker added that the magazine's original source later said he could not be sure he read about the alleged Quran incident in the report Newsweek cited, and that it might have been in another document."

From the same AP article: "...a review of the military's investigation concluded "it was never meant to look into charges of Quran desecration."

"never meant to'? The whole thing stinks.

HARVARD'S TABOO SUBJECT: SHOULD THERE BE A JEWISH STATE IN PALESTINE? by John Spritzler
WILL THE HARVARD CENTER FOR HEALTH AND HUMAN RIGHTS TAKE A STAND FOR ARTICLES 13 AND 17 OF THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS?

Black Jack,
Is there a reason you have abandoned this thread?:Newsweek Retracts Their Koran Story

There are facts there that undermine the entire premise of the "liberal media".
Brent Bozell has exposed the fact that his (and your) premise is wrong since mainstream media didn't effectively report the Army's own reports about the homicides. Bozell was ignorant of the reports and he is supposed to be the top guy in analyzing mainstream media for "bias"!
Not only that, Bozell has access to the media an is spreading disinformation.

Once again Brent Bozell displays his ignorance:

JENSEN: But in the context of the proved abuses by U.S. officials in these prisons, not just in Guantanamo, but in others, Abu Ghraib and, of course, in Bagram, we have a repeated record of up to and including homicide in these prisons. So is it so hard to believe...

BOZELL: Oh, come on. Just stop that. Just stop that.

(CROSSTALK)

JENSEN: No, the record is clear.

BOZELL: Just stop that.

JENSEN: So, if you want to talk about what the United States news media had and has not done, my argument is—would be, it has not been aggressive enough.

Now, did “Newsweek” perhaps represent a source‘s words improperly? Yes. Should it be corrected? Yes. But it doesn‘t go to the question of this pattern of abuse in U.S. facilities, both in Guantanamo and in the Middle East and Central Asia.

SCARBOROUGH: Brent Bozell, respond.

(CROSSTALK)

BOZELL: Let me put you on the record right now. You cite me the evidence of American soldiers murdering people in prisons. (Bozell's denial is incredible. It also highlights the fact that the mainstream media is not performing as Bozell insists. Here is just one citation: US Army says prison deaths are homicides )

JENSEN: Well, these are in reports that...

(CROSSTALK)

BOZELL: No, don't give me reports. You give me the evidence.

JENSEN: No, the evidence is from the Army's own reports. There have been homicides in these prisons. We have photographic evidence of the routine sexual humiliation of prisoners.

BOZELL: I'm didn't say about routine sexual humiliation. I talked about murders. You're accusing the American military of murder. If you don't back it up, back off.

(CROSSTALK)

JENSEN: Well, I'm not at my computer. I'll send you the sites tomorrow, Brent. You might want to put them up on your Web site.

BOZELL: In other words, you can't do it?

JENSEN: No, I can. If you want to talk about the—if you don‘t believe the government's own reports about homicides in these prisons...

(CROSSTALK)

BOZELL: I'm saying, don't make allegations you can't back up on national television.

JENSEN: I'll back them up to you tomorrow, Brent. Give me a call.

BOZELL: Send it tomorrow.

JENSEN: The point is that there's a pattern of this kind of abuse. And to pretend that this story about the Koran is sort of fanciful I think is to ignore reality.

I also think that you're willfully distorting the reality of these protests in places like Afghanistan. These are not simply a reaction to this. These are not simply spontaneous protests. There's a political process going forward in Afghanistan. And many people, not just ex-Taliban or al Qaeda, but many people, disagree with the U.S. occupation. They disagree with long-term presence of U.S. military troops.

And this event is being used - yes, it's being used to whip up people's opposition, but that opposition is real.

SCARBOROUGH: All right. I'll tell you what, Professor. I invite you back tomorrow night. If you could get us those names.

Brent Bozell is one of the biggest mouths that scream about a supposedly "liberal media" On Scarborough Country of May 16 Bozell and Scarborough continue the suppression of the fact that the Army has said that soldiers have committed homicides. and gave the false impression that it didn't happen! (note mainstream media has basically not reported the story or severely under-reported it.)

Not only is Brent Bozell wrong, his ignorance shows that the mainstream media did not report this story effectively where he would know about it. Remember, an entire trend of not reporting, a clear bias in the direction of hiding evidence of homicides that the US Army itself has admitted.

Brent not only is ignorant of it, his ignorance shows that he is wrong with his "liberal media" claim.

David Ben Gurion's quote was posted on Craigslist: "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" *SEE NOTE BELOW:

You asked, "I have tried to find the source for this "quote" ... Please can somebody tell me where"

I posted:
David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), p. 99. *NOTE: Full quote is here: Conversation between David Ben Gurion and Nahum Goldmann 1956 from The Jewish Paradox

You responded to the source of the Ben Gurion quote with: ""the jewish paradox" hahaha ... you just made my point!!! A whole book dedicated to maligning Jews .... and I am supposed to believe the quotes contained therein? Tell me When and where Ben Gurion said this statement, and in what context. Surely the ORIGINAL text must exist somewhere besides a jew hater book or website ... or maybe not? DBG NEVER made those comments or anything resembling them ....."

You really are an obnoxious fool. You never read the book and know nothing about it, so stop with your BULLSHIT! Do you even know who the author of the book is?

"Together with Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion, Nahum Goldmann is one of the truly towering figures of modern Jewry and has often been called one of the architects of modern Israel." (from the front flap of The Jewish Paradox)

Also "in 1934 Goldmann and Stephen Wise laid the foundations of the World Jewish Congress. ... Between 1956 and 1968 Goldmann combined the presidency of World Jewish Congress with that of the World Zionist Organization." The Jewish Paradox p2 Introduction by Leon Abramowicz

OK guy? You don't know what the hell you are talking about, so stop with your hahaha's. Yes, David Ben Gurion said the quote, he said it directly to Nahum Goldmann in 1956. In the copy of The Jewish Paradox I have right in front of me the quote is on page 99.

( *NOTE: Full quote is here: it has slightly different wording, the book is a translation from the original in French: "Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generation's time, but for the moment there is no chance. So it's simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out")

The 8.8 billion Rip Off

$8.8 Billion dollars is missing, the Coalition Provisional Authority doesn't know where the money went. $8.8 Billion dollars The US was the main power controling the Coalition Provisional Authority and $8.8 Billion dollars is missing.

"The audit by the Coalition Provisional Authority's own Inspector General blasts the CPA for ``not providing adequate stewardship'' of at least $8.8 billion from the Development Fund for Iraq that was given to Iraqi ministries."

“At least $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, according to a draft U.S. audit set for release soon.”

$8.8 Billion in Iraqi Funds Missing What in God’s Name is Going On? Al Franken writes, "The Sunday morning after the White House Correspondents dinner, I ran into Senator George Allen at a brunch thrown by John McLaughlin and his wife. Allen had never heard of the missing $8.8 billion, or at least that's what he told me. And he's on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."

By Griff Witte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 5, 2005; Page A22

Investigators have opened a criminal inquiry into millions of dollars missing in Iraq after auditors uncovered indications of fraud in nearly $100 million in reconstruction spending that could not be properly accounted for.

The money had been intended for rebuilding projects in south-central Iraq. But auditors with the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that of $119.9 million allocated, $7.2 million could not be accounted for at all, and $89.4 million in reported spending could not be backed up with sufficient documentation, according to a report released yesterday

Delete or dot, dot, dot

More of media's service to Zionism. (this kind of stuff goes on all the time)

Latest example, MSNBC had quoted Galloway's comment, "“I want to turn the tables on this neocon, pro-Israel, pro-war, Republican lynch mob.” on their page about Galloway's testimony but has now removed that sentence. Check the link to see what MSNBC did
(I will put a copy of this page at my web site because it won't stay forever at Google News.)

Also, Reuters felt it necessary to use an ellipsis to replace the word "pro-Israel" in the lead, quoting Galloway this way: "neo-con … pro-war, Republican lynch mob"

My letter to Reuters:

Regarding Sue Pleming's May 17, 2005 article about British MP George Galloway.

An ellipsis was used to replace the word "pro-Israel" in the lead. Pleming, quoting Galloway, wrote: "neo-con … pro-war, Republican lynch mob"

Why was an ellipsis used in the lead? In the third paragraph, Galloway's unedited sentence was used: "I want to turn the tables on this neo-con, pro-Israel, pro-war, Republican lynch mob."

No answer from Reuters yet.

Someone on craigslist is claiming that no women were abused at Abu Ghraib Prison!
The denial is increadible, did they read the Taguba report?!? It clear states, "A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee"

Also, Senior US military officers who escorted journalists around Abu Ghraib on Monday admitted that rape had taken place in the cellblock where 19 "high-value" male detainees are also being held. source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1214698,00.html

Also, Professor Shaker, a political scientist at Baghdad University, recalled her abuse, "He pointed the laser sight directly in the middle of my chest," said "Then he pointed to his penis. He told me, 'Come here, bitch, I'm going to fuck you."

"Most of the coverage of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib has focused on Iraqi men. But there is compelling evidence that several female prisoners, who are in a minority at the jail, were abused as well. "

And it didn't stop at abuse (although the media liked using the word abuse an avoided for ther most part using the word "torture" or "rape": General: Some Abu Ghraib abuse was torture. Latest report finds ties to military intelligence personnel

Costs are socialized, profits are privatized

Chomsky points out how our economy really works, most Americans are ignorant of this fact. I was flipping through the channels and just happened to catch a mention of something called the "National Nanotechnology Initiative" for a few seconds on the History Channel. It said that the budget was $961 million in 2004. I thought "holy crap", yet another example that puts a lie to the "Capitalist economy" that the public is brainwashed with.

I looked up the "National Nanotechnology Initiative" on the Internet and found it was yet another example of government money being given as a gift to the private sector. The average American is fed the story that we are a Capitalist economy and that companies invest in their business and reap the returns. The reality is that huge amounts of taxpayer money is used to keep big companies in business, welfare for the rich that many Americans are unaware of.

From the Funding page of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, this paragraph is very revealing: "The Federal government historically has funded R&D where there is potential for a technology to greatly impact the national economy, but where adequate private investment is lacking due to early stage technical risks. The success of this investment strategy is reflected in papers supporting recent patents, nearly two-thirds of which cited federal support for the relevant research."

This violates the basic logic of our so called "Capitalist System"! The average American is sold the story that Capitalists take the risks with their money, that they invest in business and that they deserve the huge returns because they risked their own money. The above sentence is another example that exposes the fact that the big boys play by different rules.

"Federal funding for nanotechnology R&D has increased sixfold, from $116 million in 1997 to an estimated $961 million in 2004. The 2005 budget request that President Bush has sent to Congress calls for a total NNI budget of $982 million, which represents an additional 2% increase." Funding THis now at a time when the little people are told that they must tighten their belts yet the super rich get their handouts increased.

Keep in mind that the Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is just one of the federal R&D programs that pump taxpayer money into private pockets. Chomsky explains, " It’s not simply the subsidies to agribusiness and the protection, that’s a small part of it; the major part is that there is a dynamic state sector in the economy which is the core of economic innovation and development. Research and development takes place mainly in the state sector. Take the entire new economy, computers, telecommunications, the internet, now biotechnology and so on, the costs are largely socialized through various mechanisms such as the institution we’re now talking in (MIT) which is part of the system. Costs are socialized, risks are socialized and if anything comes out decades later it’s handed over to private power"

also see my post The Fraud of Neoliberal Economic Theory

But was the Newsweek story about the Quran actually wrong?

Mainstream Media News of Newsweek's retraction often leaves out important facts.

Where did Newsweek get the report that American interrogators put copies of the Quran on toilets and in one case, flushed one down a toilet come from? From a senior government source. Newsweek also ran it by DOD official who did not call for the story about desecration of the Quran to be removed.

Isn't the real story that a senior government source "got it wrong". And why are so many people so quick to believe that this senior government source actually "got it wrong" and not that he changed his story because of all the negative reaction. Notice that the detail about where the story came from is not made clear in most of the mainstream media.

Why are so many people willing to believe the story was false? Isn't it more likely that the senior government source has simply backed away from the story because of the pressure?

Looks like I am not the only one not buy the retraction: "This is a decision by America to save itself. It comes because of American pressure. Even an ordinary illiterate peasant understands this and won't accept it," says Islamic cleric Mullah Sadullah Abu Aman.

Keep in mind what Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker has said the information about the Quran desecration came from "a knowledgeable U.S. government source,"

DINO HAZELL Associated Press Writer Dino Hazell writes, "Whitaker says that the magazine's information came from "a knowledgeable U.S. government source," and before it published the item, writers Michael Isikoff and John Barry sought comment from two Defense Department officials. One declined to respond, and the other challenged another part of the story but did not dispute the Quran charge, Whitaker said.

But on Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told the magazine that a review of the military's investigation concluded "it was never meant to look into charges of Quran desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them 'not credible.'"

Whitaker added that the magazine's original source later said he could not be sure he read about the alleged Quran incident in the report Newsweek cited, and that it might have been in another document."

Note that the senior government source isn't saying that the story is false! Is the mainstream media making this clear?

Like I said, this isn't the first report of this kind of thing. There have been verified reports of abusing Muslims.

Verified: "An FBI agent saw a prisoner draped with an Israeli flag, accompanied by loud music and flashing strobe lights."

(The "New York Times story on the FBI documents neglects to mention this torture-by-Israeli-flag" )

Link to that FBI document

Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker also said, "Although other major news organizations had aired charges of Qur'an desecration based only on the testimony of detainees, we believed our story was newsworthy because a U.S. official said government investigators turned up this evidence. So we published the item."

This quote is another example of the continuing insult to the American people: "If our nation’s cultural underpinnings are in conflict with religious dogma and values that are intent on replacing or even eradicating them, should not children and their teachers be made aware?"

It is disgrace that there are people and organizations duping fellow citizens about why we are targets of terrorism.