November 5, 2009 archive

Fmr Ambassador to Uzbekistan: CIA had people raped with broken bottles


“I was absolutely stunned — it changed my whole world view in an instant — to be told that London knew [the intelligence] coming from torture, that it was not illegal because our legal advisers had decided that under the United Nations convention against torture, it is not illegal to obtain or use intelligence gained from torture as long as we didn’t do the torture ourselves,” Murray said.

Craig Murray was the UK’s ambassador to Uzbekistan until 2004, when he was let go for bringing up his concerns about these heinous and disgusting crimes.


“I’m talking of people being raped with broken bottles,” he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. “I’m talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I’m talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on.”

So this is your “war on terror”.   Torture people until they confess to whatever you want, then call it “intelligence” and send your forces, the guys who would take a bullet for you, the guys who think they’re doing what’s right, off on wild goose chases.

Nice.

What’s really disgusting is that the United States thought this would all be nice and legal since it was outsourced.  You know, it’s like thinking that hiring the hitman to kill your wife makes it ok, since you’re not the one pulling the trigger.

How the HELL could these idiots think this was legal?

It sure as hell isn’t legal if I hire someone to do something extremely illegal.  Not if it’s little old me, here in the United States.  But I guess the wizards like Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo were paid big bucks to come up with ways that we could torture people in the most medivel ways and get away with it.  

Oh, and if you thought somehow this was actually about a “war on terrorism”?  

Wrong.  It’s about natural gas, and pipelines.


Murray asserts that the primary motivation for US and British military involvement in central Asia has to do with large natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As evidence, he points to the plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan that would allow Western oil companies to avoid Russia and Iran when transporting natural gas out of the region.

Murray alleged that in the late 1990s the Uzbek ambassador to the US met with then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to discuss a pipeline for the region, and out of that meeting came agreements that would see Texas-based Enron gain the rights to Uzbekistan’s natural gas deposits, while oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline.

“The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan,” Murray noted.

Murray said part of the motive in hyping up the threat of Islamic terrorism in Uzbekistan through forced confessions was to ensure the country remained on-side in the war on terror, so that the pipeline could be built.

“There are designs of this pipeline, and if you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you’ll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It’s what it’s about. It’s about money, it’s about oil, it’s not about democracy.”

The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is slated to be completed in 2014, with $7.6 billion in funding from the Asian Development Bank.

What this means is that the “war on terror” isn’t even real.  The terror isn’t even real.  People are being boiled alive, and watching their children being tortured in front of them, so they’ll CONFESS to being terrorists, so we have an EXCUSE to keep our military there, and take over the country.

That’s about as evil as evil gets.

And our guy Obama seems to think it’s just a-ok to keep covering this up.  To do nothing about it.  Doesn’t that make him an accomplice?   I think it does.

9/11 and Antiwar

“They do not understand that if you grant the government its premise for war, it is impossible to oppose the war.”

I thought that was an interesting statement made by Paul Craig Roberts in the following article about how propaganda works on a population. (Why Propaganda Trumps Truth)

http://www.bushstole04.com/new…

Roberts was actually referring to many antiwar writers and internet sites that skirt around the 9/11 issue for fear of being labeled as “terrorist sympathizers” or conspiracy theorists and risk discrediting their opposition to the wars, such as it is. He particularly pointed out antiwar.com and referenced how that site seems to be having trouble with it’s fundraising, with the inference that this skirting around the reason for the wars is hurting their overall message.  

For the public at large, he related that as far as propaganda goes, big lies are the way to go, as Adolf Hitler knew so well.

“In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained the believability of the Big Lie as compared to the small lie: “In the simplicity of their minds, people more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have such impudence. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and continue to think that there may be some other explanation.”

It’s pretty common knowledge now that the Iraq war was based on lies and therefore an illegal attack of another country.  9/11 is not mentioned as the rationale for that war except from the most severely ignorant among us, and certainly no longer in mainstream television and internet.  Even though it is not disputed, there still is no significant public outcry for accountability of the architects of this clearly illegal war.   The promises by our new emperor Obama to get out of the country have duly placated the American public and most of the western world.  

But our occupation of Afghanistan is another story, and the story that is now front and center with the antiwar movement because of the possible escalation decision coming from our government.   The antiwar writers and blogs talk about how Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, that we can’t possibly win there.  As Roberts points out, they don’t talk about the fact that the occupation in Afghanistan is based on lies as well.  For that, 9/11 has to be brought into the discussion, and most antiwar writers won’t go there for fear of being labeled with the red A and becoming null and void.

The 9/11 truth movement has been painted by the propaganda machine as consisting of wackos and flakes.  This wasn’t by accident.  As Hitler said himself,  the people don’t want to believe the big lie so it isn’t hard to tell them they are right to do so and anyone who says differently is simply crazy.  Big lies are simply too hard to believe.  But it’s ridiculous to ignore the many intelligent, professional and knowledgeable people who are questioning the official version of 9/11.  Engineers, architects, pilots, firefighters, police, clergy, Survivors, and even Political Leaders have joined in the effort to find the real truth of the 9/11 incidents.

What is truly amazing about the closed 9/11 book is the fact that history is not stagnant.  It is not written in stone at the time it happens, except of course by the victors.  History is continually being rewritten based on new discoveries and evidence.  Any rational person should agree with that.  An example of this in the political realm is the recent disclosures concerning Sirhan Sirhan and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.  

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

Researchers and activists are constantly on the prowl for new information in their quest for the truth.   The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is constantly used in an effort to get information from the government to try and piece together our history.  It should be considered no different than archeologists constantly seeking new information to better define our entire human history.  A example of that is the recent discovery of a possible missing link in the evolution of the human being.

http://news.nationalgeographic…

The only real naysayers to that type of research are the bible thumpers.   Researchers seemingly finding evidence for evolution, that would put in doubt the story of the Bible, are discredited by religious groups because they do not want to consider that possibility.  That is the same mindset Adolf Hitler talked about in Mein Kampft.  Those that believe in the Bible and call themselves Christians can’t bring themselves to believe something they consider a big lie.  There is no truth, no history, except that which they believe.

The general public won’t question the big lie.  As Roberts says,  “The US government’s response to 9/11, regardless of who is responsible, has altered our country forever. Our civil liberties will never again be as safe as they were. America’s financial capability and living standards are forever lower. Our country’s prestige and world leadership are forever damaged. The first decade of the 21st century has been squandered in pointless wars, and it appears the second decade will also be squandered in the same pointless and bankrupting pursuit..  The most disturbing fact of all remains: The 9/11 event responsible for these adverse happenings has not been investigated.”

I would correct Roberts on that last statement.  The 9/11 event was investigated by the 9/11 Commission in 2004, three years after the event.   The case was closed as decreed by our government.  Anyone who further questioned that decision was forever more considered a conspiracy theorist, and not credible.  The public has accepted that because they cannot consider the Big Lie.  If that’s the standard we want to apply, then let’s stop trying to prove evolution.  

Changiness

OFA Email (h/t John Aravosis @ AmericaBlog).

Friend —

One year ago today, you made history.

We all knew that electing Barack Obama President was only the opportunity to bring about change; that we would all have to keep working to fulfill the promise our victory offered.

And you’ve come through — by making hundreds of thousands of calls to Congress to push health reform forward, by pouring your effort into seemingly insurmountable challenges time and again, and, since January, by building on the power of our campaign to create Organizing for America.

And now, with the finish line on health reform in sight, we need your voice more than ever before.

To mark this special day, President Obama just recorded a video for supporters like you — please watch his message, and sign up to join OFA in your community today.

Thank you so much for fighting so hard and giving so much to make the promise of a stronger, more just and prosperous America in the years ahead a reality:

http://my.barackobama.com/Year

My best,

David Plouffe

Overnight Caption Contest

Obama came to town today. Free Speech took a hit.

President Obama was in my City this afternoon, for a speech on education at Wright Middle School.

Since the location had been announced too late for the normal permit process, the Madison Peace Action Coalition contacted the Police Department, and were told they’d be allowed to conduct a rally at a reasonable location a block away.

Come 10:45, the rules changed, and they were booted to a spot a few  blocks farther, all but out of line of sight. According to this Wisconsin State Journal account, pedestrians without signs were still allowed in th area from which the protest had been evicted. This makes clear it was a speech motivated ban, not strictly speaking a legitimate security matter.

In The Nation, Madisonian John Nichols suggests that Obama should have marked the anniversary of his election with a big noontime rally at the State Capitol, as well as the school speech, but at the Capitol, they wouldn’t have been able to protect him from seeing the “Out of Afghanistan” signs. Can’t have that, Presidents who run “dumb wars” have to live in a bubble. see UPDATE, partial retraction below

(The State Capitol Police these days have more respect for the 1st Amendment than their City of Madison counterparts. I won a suit v Tommy Thompson in 1987, establishing that, under the State Constitution’s Free Speech clause, anyone has a right to display any placard on the Capitol grounds at any time.)

Wassup?

I originally posted this here on October 24, 2008….

World Series Liveblog

Take me out to the ball game,

Take me out with the crowd;

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,

I don’t care if I never get back.

Let me root, root, root for the home team,

If they don’t win, it’s a shame.

For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,

At the old ball game.

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