Waxman Launches New Committee to Monitor Bush Administration / Terror’s Trivial When It’s Not Muslims / 10% of Active Journalists in Iraq Were Killed in 2006 / Army Attempts to Redefine Free Speech

Ray McGovern and W. Patrick Lang | CIA Immune System Still Working
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010507M.shtml
“Lies have consequences. All those who helped President George W. Bush launch a war of aggression â€” termed by Nuremberg ‘the supreme international crime’ â€” have blood on their hands and must be held accountable. This includes corrupt intelligence officials. Otherwise, look for them to perform the same service in facilitating war on Iran,” write Ray McGovern and W. Patrick Lang.

Waxman Launches New Committee to Monitor Bush Administration
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010507N.shtml
Representative Henry Waxman (D-California), the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has created a new subcommittee that will tackle decisions made by the Bush administration regarding which government records should be made available to the public.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mary_sha_061121_22_2c000_show_up_to_pr.htm
By Mary Shaw
22,000 Show Up To Protest U.S. Torture School
The school’s name has changed, but not its curriculum of torture.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_j_m__ber_061121_terry_nichols_3a_i_hav.htm
By J.M. Berger
Terry Nichols: I Have Evidence Of OKC Conspiracy
Convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols says he is prepared to name names and hand over evidence of additional conspirators.

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http://propagandamatrix.com/articles/january2007/040107terrortrivial.htm

Terror’s Trivial When It’s Not Muslims
Madrid Airport bombing receives scant attention

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, January 4, 2007

How many people who aren’t news junkies know that Madrid Airport was bombed on Saturday? Relatively few I would venture, and that’s because major western governments and their media mouthpieces don’t hype terror unless Muslims are behind it.

I personally only caught the story a couple of days after it happened on an obscure channel on UK digital satellite called Euro News. Operatives of the Basque seperatist organization ETA packed 800kg of explosives in a car bomb that ripped apart the parking lot of Barajas Madrid Airport, killing two and injuring twenty people.

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Bush Signing Statement Claims Power to Open Americans’ Mail
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010407R.shtml
President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant. The president asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on December 20, followed by a “signing statement.”

Pelosi Becomes Speaker, Preparing to Confront Bush
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010407S.shtml
Nancy Pelosi, making history today as the first female speaker of the House, is taking office with two goals: becoming an effective counterweight to President Bush, and proving that a woman can thrive at the summit of US political power.

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http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/46219/
10% of Active Journalists in Iraq Were Killed in 2006
By Mohammed A. Salih, IPS News. Posted January 3, 2007.

After 64 journalists were killed in Iraq in 2006, Reporters Without Borders has described the country as “the world’s most dangerous” for the media.

After an estimated 10 percent of active journalists in Iraq died in 2006, the rest are asking themselves what lies ahead for them in the New Year.

A report released by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RWB, also known as Reporters sans Frontieres), on the last day of 2006 described Iraq as “the world’s most dangerous country for the media.” The group said it had called upon Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to put a stop to “hostile accidents” against journalists.

The RWB says 64 journalists and media assistants were killed in Iraq during 2006, “more than twice the number in the 20-year Vietnam war.” Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, 139 journalists have been killed in Iraq, 90 percent of them Iraqis, RWB says.

The survey says what journalists in Iraq know too well.

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_matt_kje_061121_what_else_is_the_mai.htm
By Matt Kjeldsen
What Else Is The Mainstream Media Lying About?
The mainstream media in the US lies to us daily and systematically. We are the least informed citizens amongst the developed nations of the world. Is it any wonder they’re lying about the biggest event in our history?

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Must Watch:
A Soldier’s Duty? The Ehren Watada Story – 18 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ9sV3Nmwpg

US Army Lieutenant Ehren Watada is the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq. For refusing to participate in an illegal and immoral war, Lt. Watada is facing 6 years in prison and a military court martial on Feb. 5, 2007 and a pre-trial hearing on Jan. 4, 2007.
http://thankyoult.org/

Letter Writing Action to gain support for Ehren!
http://thankyoulthawaii.org/

A. Write individual and organizational letters of support for Lt. Watada to the U.S. Army.
Ask the Army to accept Lt. Watada’s resignation and to give him a discharge. Letters should be directed to:

Commanding General
Fort Lewis and I Corps
Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik
Bldg. 2025 Stop 1
Fort Lewis WA 98433

Copy to:

The Honorable Francis J. Harvey
Secretary of the U.S. Army
1500 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-1500

Also copy your Congressional member in House and Senate
B. Request that your member of Congress write a letter of support to the U.S. Army.
The Congressional request to the Army should be to accept Lt. Watada’s resignation from the U.S. Army.
This request would bring Lt. Watada’s court martial to a close.

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http://www.alternet.org/rights/46142/
Army Attempts to Redefine Free Speech
By Sarah Olson, AlterNet. Posted January 2, 2007.

When does political speech become a crime punishable by imprisonment? When the Army doesn’t like what it hears. One journalist shares the battle she and her source face against censorship.

In May of this year, I conducted an independent news interview with Ehren Watada while working as a freelance journalist. Watada is a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and is the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse orders to deploy to Iraq. In his interview, Lieutenant Watada asserted that he had a duty as a U.S. Army officer to evaluate the legality of his orders and conduct himself accordingly. For this reason he said that he could not participate in the Iraq War because it was “manifestly illegal” and that his participation would make him a party to war crimes.

In June, Lieutenant Watada made national headlines when he refused to deploy to Iraq.

Lieutenant Watada continues to report for duty at Fort Lewis in the state of Washington while awaiting a February 2007 court-martial on one charge of “missing movement” and four charges of “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.” Each of the latter four charges is based entirely on political speech. If convicted on all charges, Lieutenant Watada could spend up to six years in prison.

As an element of their prosecution, the U.S. Army has cobbled together portions of my interview with Lieutenant Watada and, together, these statements comprise the foundation of one charge of conduct unbecoming an officer. To substantiate this alleged crime, the U.S. Army has subpoenaed me to testify on behalf of the prosecution against my source. The dynamics of the situation are clear. When the military chooses to prosecute a soldier for expressing dissenting political positions to a member of the press, that journalist is unwittingly and inevitably forced into the middle of the conflict.

Among multiple issues this raises, the circumstance begs a central question: Doesn’t it fly in the face of the First Amendment to compel a journalist to participate in a government prosecution against a source, particularly in matters related to personal political speech? continued at link..

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From the Brigadier Generals New Blog, link provide by opednews.com

http://generalwilmot.blogspot.com/

BRIGADIER GENERAL RICHARD WILMOT

Thus Spake the Neocons

The January 2007 edition of Vanity Fair magazine features an article by David Rose concerning comments made by several neo-conservatives during his interviews with them. Those interviewed come down hard on the administration blaming it for the many problems we face in Iraq.

Richard Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, said with regard to Iraq that, â€œThe unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the administration of President Bush. The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didnâ€™t get made in a timely fashion and the differences were argued out endlessly—at the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible—I donâ€™t think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty.â€

Kenneth Adelman said, â€œI just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since the Truman era was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era. Not only did each of them individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly dysfunctional.â€

David Frumm, the Presidentâ€™s speech writer, said in his interview, â€œI always believed as a speech writer that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And, that is the root of, maybe everything.â€

Tough comments all those above, yet I ask myself could they be on the mark with their criticism? If decisions were slow in coming and if issues were tied up with the Presidentâ€™s advisors for months on end before any decision could be reached—if the President wasnâ€™t really committed—-all of that is simply intolerable. And if true, it yet again demonstrates how lackadaisical and blundering the government can be in handling problems.

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Of course we are not winning the war. We have been in second position since the militants, in all their forms, decided to come to life. A foreign power cannot simply walk into another country and take over. Why did we walk into Iraq? Everyone remembers: The administration talked about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and made it the rationale for invasion. When we could not find any big bombs, we developed a new reason for spending lives and bucks in Iraq. We decided to believe that we were needed and that the Iraqis wanted us to liberate them. Some Iraqis believe we are in their country for the long haul. Let us see this clearly and begin to recognize we are not wanted in Iraq.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070103/ts_nm/usa_gulf_navy_dc
Second U.S. carrier group to deploy to Gulf: sources
By Kristin Roberts
Wed Jan 3, 4:40 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon will send a second aircraft carrier and its escort ships to the Gulf, defense officials said on Wednesday, as a warning to Syria and Iran and to give commanders more flexibility in the region.Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Bremerton, Washington-based USS John C. Stennis strike group would deploy this month. It will put 5,000 more U.S. sailors in the region, bringing the total to 16,000.The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier group entered the Gulf in December.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to comment, saying the Defense Department would not discuss future deployments or ship movements. But military analysts said the move was intended to demonstrate U.S. resolve in the face of acts by Iran and Syria that it sees as provocative, such as Tehran’s pursuit of its nuclear program.

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Another 11 (January 11) …. see http://www.angelsfortruth.com/The%20Numbers%20Game.html

Ann Wright | Guantanamo’s Cost to Our Humanity
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010407N.shtml
“January 11, 2007, will mark the fifth anniversary of the first detainees to be imprisoned in the US military prison at the US Naval Base, Guantanamo, Cuba.” Ann Wright asks, “What are the costs to our own humanity when, after five years of imprisonment, only ten of 770 prisoners have been charged by the ‘Guantanamo process’ and most have suffered abuse at the hands of the American military and CIA?”

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http://propagandamatrix.com/articles/january2007/050107peanutskill.htm

Peanuts Kill More Americans Than Terrorists
If western governments were really trying win the “war on terror” they wouldn’t give terrorists so much credit

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, January 5, 2007

The menace of global terrorism has been labeled the greatest threat to western civilization since communism and yet swimming pools, peanuts and lost deer kill more Americans every single year. Why are our governments facilitating the terrorist’s agenda by hyping a peril that simply doesn’t exist?

The number of Americans killed as a result of international terrorism since the 1960′s gives us a benchmark from which we can correctly identify and target other dire dangers to our very way of life.

- Allergic reactions to peanut – Accident causing deer – Lightning strikes

That’s correct – all of the above have killed an equal number of Americans since 1960 as terrorism. One could even categorize M&M’s, lost deer and the weather as an “axis of evil arming to threaten the peace of the world,” as George Bush famously once said.

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dave_lin_061121_congress_should_imme.htm
By Dave Lindorff
Congress Should Immediately Terminate The 2001 AUMF
Congress can pull the rug out from under President Bush and his Constitution shredding ways by simply revoking the act he has been using as his justification for dictatorship.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jane_sti_070102_twilight_zone_3a_where.htm
By Jane Stillwater
Twilight Zone: Where Even The Lowly RUPEE Is Stronger Than The Dollar!
It used to be that the dollar would hold its own against ANY currency. Now, in India, even the most desperate bazaar hawkers are turning up their noses at the dollar — and the rupee has gained 7 whole points just since Christmas.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jayne_ly_061121__22waking_up_the_coast.htm
By Jayne Lyn Stahl
“Waking Up The Coast” / “El Despertar De La Costa”
The unsung heroes in the battle to protect civil liberties… since January, 2006, some 75 journalists have been killed worldwide making this the deadliest year, on record, for those in the news reporting business, according to the World Association of Journalists. Over the past decade alone, more than 500 journalists have been slain; most of whom are, and will most likely remain, cold cases.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_liz_rich_061121_stephen_heller_3a__ame.htm
By Brad Friedman
Stephen Heller: Modern-Day American Hero
Case just closed: Stephen Heller, the Diebold whistle-blower whose revelations led to the decertification of those machines in CA, struck a plea deal on felony charges. General counsel for the National Whistleblower Center said “This is a very rare instance. In fact, the only one of which I’m aware, in which a whistleblower has been charged with a felony. I find it outrageous.” SH will reveal the entire story in the coming days

Arlen Parsa | Torture, Lies, and Videotape
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010307B.shtml
Arlen Parsa writes: “Not long before Christmas Day 2002, a young man was being held in a US facility known as the Bagram Collection Point, in Afghanistan. Like many other Afghan nationals, he had only one name: Dilawar. He led a simple, quiet life. He had a wife, a young daughter, and one friend. He was 22 years old, and weighed only 122 pounds. Most of his captors believed he was not guilty of anything and had ‘simply driven his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.’ He died on December 10th. The incident was covered up by the Pentagon.”

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/link.php?id=28345
Action Alert! Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing Heads To DC
Does the Election Center lobby for the voters or for the interest of the voting industry? Who are the ‘members’ of the Election,and on whose behalf of whose interests will the lobbying efforts be directed?If you read the fine print, the Election Center counts voting machine vendors among its members.The Election Center is “improving democracy” while protecting the bottom line of the businesses that benefit from its decisions…

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_charles__070103_soldiers_and_imperia.htm
By Charles Sullivan
Soldiers And Imperial Presidents
America’s armed forces are in Iraq under false pretenses that have nothing to do with democracy or liberation. They are there for reasons that are as nefarious as they are treasonous; and, more than anyone, the men and women in the military need to know this.

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http://infowars.net/articles/january2007/030107UN_Sex.htm

UN Child Sex Slave Scandals Continue
Wave after wave of child abuse reports pour forward from all over the globe

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Wednesday, January 3, 2007

The UN is to investigate itself again after it was revealed by the London Telegraph today that more than twenty different cases of child sex slavery involving UN staff have been reported in southern Sudan.

The Telegraph reports that it has learned of dozens of victimsâ€™ accounts claiming that some peacekeeping and civilian staff based in the town are regularly picking up young children in their UN vehicles and forcing them to have sex. The Telegraph states that it is thought that hundreds of children may have been abused.

The UN has up to 10,000 military personnel in the region, of all nationalities and the allegations involve peacekeepers, military police and civilian staff.

The Telegraph also states that the Sudanese government, which is deeply opposed to the deployment of UN troops to Darfur, has evidence of child sex slavery, including video footage of Bangladeshi UN workers allegedly having sex with three young girls.

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http://thinkprogress.org/iran-military-option

Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran

ThinkProgress has created a graphic database featuring quotes from prominent analysts and officials who believe there are no good military options in Iran. The document will be updated as more experts weigh in â€” if weâ€™re missing someone, let us know HERE or in the comments section.

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FBI Details Possible Detainee Torture
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010307K.shtml
Documents released Tuesday by the FBI offered new details about torture and the harsh interrogation practices used by military officials and contractors when questioning so-called enemy combatants. The documents were released in response to a public records request by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing Rumsfeld and others on behalf of former military detainees who say they were abused.

Activists Seek Bolder Approach to War, Spying
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010307L.shtml
Activists will greet the new Congressional leaders at the Capitol tomorrow demanding a ban on torture, an end to warrantless domestic spying, and a restoration of curbed civil liberties. The rally will be followed by an evening forum calling for the president’s impeachment, led by the Center for Constitutional Rights, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, and a pro-impeachment group called World Can’t Wait.

Ann Wright | Arrested on the Golden Gate Bridge
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010307M.shtml
Retired colonel Ann Wright writes: “We must bring extraordinary pressure on the new Congress to stop the funding to this war and bring our troops home. Join us in Washington, DC, January 3 and 4 and January 27-29 to tell Congress: Stop This War and Bring Our Troops Home!”

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16054.htm

US Hypocrisy Reaches All Time High

By Paul Craig Roberts

01/03/06 “Information Clearing House” — – One of the lessons of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials of Germans after Germanyâ€™s defeat in WW II was that obeying orders is no excuse for war crimes. US prosecutors took the position that the German military should have refused to obey Hitlerâ€™s orders.

Chief US prosecutor Robert Jackson established that military aggression was a war crime.

US Army Lieutenant Ehren Watada took the Nuremburg lesson to heart. He refused to deploy to Iraq on the solid grounds that the war is illegal, which it is under the Nuremburg standard, and that he cannot order troops under his command to commit illegal actions.

Watada is correct. If the US general staff had the integrity of Lt. Watada, America and Iraq would have been spared the pointless and bloody conflict. Bush was able to illegally initiate the conflict, because the American military behaved exactly as the German military and followed the orders of a criminal commander-in-chief. Watada must be court-martialed in order to protect Bush and his obedient commanders from war crimes charges.

By prosecuting Lt. Watada, the US military has demeaned the Nuremburg trials and demoted them to merely the revenge of the victorious. Watadaâ€™s prosecution demolishes the illusion that the Nuremburg trials established a civilized principle of international law. All it did was to reaffirm that might is right. Germanyâ€™s ideology of domination was a war crime, but Americaâ€™s ideology of domination is not.

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http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
SPECIAL REPORTS
Last Updated: Jan 4th, 2007 – 01:08:31

Scaramella-Berezovsky link to World Trade Center security firm emerges in Italian prosecutors’ investigation
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Jan 4, 2007, 00:50
(WMR) — Mario Scaramella, the Italian interlocutor for the poisoned Alexander Litvinenko and Russian-Israeli media/mobster tycoon Boris Berezovsky, is now under investigation by prosecutors in Rome, Naples, and Bologna for international arms smuggling, divulging official judicial secrets, conspiracy, international trafficking in radioactive materials, and the dumping of hazardous waste through unauthorized third parties.

Scaramella was arrested last month by Italian police and his offices have been searched by police several times.

The Italian media is reporting on transcripts of phone conversations between Scaramella and two former U.S. intelligence officers. One conversation, reported in La Repubblica, is a January 25, 2006, conversation between Scaramella and a mysterious ex-CIA agent from California who uses the name “Perry.” In the conversation, Scaramella stresses to Perry that his activities are not “just my activity, but the activity of the organization.’ It is becoming clear that the rganization” to which Scaramella is referring is a private and global intelligence organization involving former members of the KGB and Russian Federal Security Bureau (like Litvinenko), private military and intelligence companies, and ex-CIA and British intelligence officers. Scaramella discussed the political dirty Ã¬trickÃ® they are preparing for Italian center-left leader Romano Prodi and it is clear from the conversation that Perry gives Scaramella his orders, though politely. When Scaramella goes into a tangent on his international activities, Perry merely replies, ‘You must work on the Italian politics.’ When Scaramella presents a list of the possible future options open to him, Perry very curtly suggests, Ã¬You could be part of the cabinet of the minister.Ã® But Scaramella is pessimistic when he states, Ã¬most probably Prodi will win, even if we will launch our attack . . .”

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http://www.alternet.org/audits/46262/

Ten Things I Learned from the Pentagon’s Prayer Team

By Jeff Sharlet, The Revealer. Posted January 4, 2007.

The “Christian Embassy” quietly proselytizes inside the Pentagon, but their mission surpasses this simple ministry.

Little while ago I received a phone call from Mikey Weinstein, the prime mover behind the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, created in the wake of 2005′s revelations of widespread evangelical proselytizing at the Air Force Academy. Weinstein told me that he’d spent Thanksgiving morning reading my December, 2006 Harper’s feature, “Through a Glass Darkly” (online in January), which included a brief discussion of the now infamous Christian Embassy video [watch here] featuring high-ranking military officers testifying testifying in uniform on behalf of the behind-the-scenes fundamentalist organization, an apparent violation of military regulations. Weinstein has since launched a secular crusade of his own in response to the video, with the backing of a group of generals determined to maintain separation of church and state in the military.

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