DISCOVERY – HEGEMONY – PROPHECY – CONSPIRACY – ESCHATOLOGY – ANTHROPOLOGY – COSMOLOGY – PHILOSOPHY .

302-FEB03

Rural photographer snaps

unusual object in SA skies
A
N Adelaide photographer was unaware he had MAIN IMAGE: The photograph taken by
captured an enigmatic image while using his Nigel Parsons last month showing a Barossa
digital Nikon. Only later, when reviewing his Valley farmer loading hay.
day’s work, did Mr Nigel Parsons notice a structure in INSET: A close-up of the anomolous object
the photograph. seen in the frame. Note the main flare
Nigel was taking photographs in the Barossa Valley underneath and three smaller flares of
last month for a national agricultural publisher. One brightness around the top surface.
assignment called for pictures of a farmer reaping hay.
On returning to the publisher ’s office Nigel reviewed
his day’s work. As was his routine, he went through What the--------------------------------?
the images in sequence, deleting frames he knew
would not be used.
Nigel deleted a frame and moved on to the next, of
the same scene, taken about a second later.
A dark spot with bright illuminations caught his eye.
It was in the centre of the frame, apparently suspended
in a cloudless sky.
Mr Parsons and work colleagues speculated on the
nature of the strange structure: one suggestion was that
a bird had flown through the frame, another was that
the flash gun had illuminated a piece of chaff flying
through the air.
Mr Parsons, pointed out that with the shutter speed
set at 500ths of a second any normal movement should
have been frozen in time and sharply defined and that
therefore the object was unlikely to be a bird.
The proposal that the object was very close to the
camera, too close to be within focal range would
explain the bluriness however so far the jury’s opinion
is that the the flares and shadows do not readily
suggest a simple piece of straw or chaff.
– abk

Did you see Sauros 142? THIS ISSUE

Saros 142: The total eclipse over South Australia on nWas shuttle blasted
December 4 last year was the 22nd of 72 eclipses in out of the sky? 3
the Saros series number 142. The Saros cycle is a
nPyramids of Giza
period of about 6585.3 days (18 years 11 days 8 being walled in 4
hours). Two eclipses separated by one Saros cycle
have similar geometry (similar duration, same time of nGuru lives on light 6
year, etc.). The periodicity and recurrences of solar n Bush a psychpath? 7
eclipses as governed by the Saros is useful for nWar without end 8
organizing eclipses into families. A typical Saros series nBush: not a moron 9
lasts about 12 to 13 centuries and nWar planned 5 years
contains 70 or more eclipses. (Saros ago as oil strategy 9
142 has 72 eclipses spanning about
1280 years.) The most recent eclipse n Iraq invasion may
wreck economy 12
NASAsatellites have lately been capturing images with in Saros 142 occurred on November
22, 1984 and the next will occur on nWeb News 13
lights such as this. The shape, including the flare below,
bears a resemblance to the picture taken by Mr Parsons December 14, 2020.
last month.
www.alienation-news.blogspot.com

The STS-107 crew. Seated in front are astronauts Rick Husband,
commander, and Willie McCool, pilot. Standing are (from left) mission
specialists Dave Brown, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Mike Anderson
(payload commander) and payload specialist Ilan Ramon, representing
the Israeli Space Agency. Photo: NASA.
Shuttle likely
'prevent another catastrophic space shuttle accident'.
During his last 11 years at Nasa, Nelson served as a mission
operations evaluator for proposed advanced space transportation
projects. He was on the initial design team for the space shuttle.
He participated in every shuttle upgrade until his retirement.
Listing a series of mishaps with shuttle missions since 1999,
Nelson warned in his letter that Nasa management and the
Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel have failed to respond to the
growing warning signs of another shuttle accident. Since 1999 the
vehicle had experienced a number of potentially disastrous
problems.
Last April by the former chairman of the Aerospace Safety
Advisory panel, Richard Bloomberg, said: 'In all of the years of
my involvement, I have never been as concerned for space shuttle
safety as now.'
In addition space agency officials discovered in late 1999 that

T
HE Space Shuttle Orbiter horrendously expensive and
many employees didn't have the necessary skills to properly
intrinsically more dangerous than other technologies, so
manage avionics, mechanical engineering and computer systems,
why fly it? One reason is that the gigantic aerospace
according to a General Accounting Office report.
industry in the US lobbies very hard to keep the current program
The Soviet space program also built a shuttle, called Buran, with
active because they are making a motza from it.
almost exactly the same dimensions and capacities as its
Capitalism, of course, is supposed to weed out inefficiencies.
American counterpart. However instead of thousands of
But in the American system, the shuttle's expense made the
individually shaped ceramic tiles Buran has something like a
program politically attractive. Originally projected to cost $5
blanket insullation. Buran flew to orbit once and was canceled, as
million per flight in today's dollars, each shuttle launch instead
it was ridiculously expensive and impractical.
runs to around $500 million. Aerospace contractors love the fact
Reports being made soon after this recent disaster were that one
that the shuttle launches cost so much.
of the tiles had been damaged by debris during the launch.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin split roughly half the shuttle
A missing or damaged tile was suspected because Nasa
business through an Orwellian-named consortium called the
engineers know that heat reaching the airframe proper can cause
United Space Alliance. It's a source of significant profit for both
other tiles to come off - known as the zipper effect.
companies; United Space Alliance employs 6,400 contractor
As the investigation unfolded
personnel for shuttle launches
alone. Many other aerospace Challenger showed how though, Nasa concluded that the
debris (insulating foam from the
contractors also benefit from
the space-shuttle program. dangerous the shuttle is: booster rockets) would not have had
the mass required to inflict
Any new space system that
reduced costs would be, to the Columbia proved it once again cataclysmic damage.
Shuttle program manager Ron
contractors, killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Just a few
Dittemore, who is heading the investigation into the tragedy, said
weeks ago, NASAcanceled a program called the Space Launch
"It does not make sense to us that a piece of debris could be the
Initiative, whose goal was to design a much cheaper and more
root cause for the loss of Columbia and its crew," Dittemore said.
reliable replacement for the shuttle. Along with the cancellation,
"There has got to be another reason."
NASAannounced that the shuttle fleet would remain in operation
Despite the weaknesses inherent in its operational systems, the
until 2020, meaning that Columbia was supposed to continue
shuttle needs to be robust enough to withstand the impact of the
flying into outer space even when its airframe was more than 40
thousands of pieces of man-made junk orbiting the earth, and the
years old! True, B-52s have flown as long. But they don't endure
occasional piece of meteoric material.
three times the force of gravity on takeoff and 2000 on re-entry.
After a mission it is not uncommon to find chips and scratches
Large manned-space-flight centers that depend on the shuttle are
from these impacts and more than once the outer windshield has
in Texas, Ohio, Florida and Alabama. Congressional delegations
been pitted.
from these states fought frantically against a shuttle replacement.
Although the impacts force NASAto regularly replace pitted
The result was years of generous funding for constituentsand now
window panes and repair or replace damaged ceramic tiles
another tragedy.
provide insulation from the heat of reentry, a shuttle had never
Of the hundred and something missions the US shuttes have
suffered serious damage from debris.
flown two have ended in a fiery finish taking the lives of all crew
The Pentagon's Space Control Center in Cheyenne Mountain in
on board. Not good odds.
Colorado tracks more than 8,500 manmade objects and has
Fears of a catastrophic shuttle accident were raised last summer
warned NASA12 times to move the shuttle out of the way of a
with the White House by a former Nasa engineer who pleaded for
potential collision. The space station has moved six times after a
a presidential order to halt all further shuttle flights until safety
military warning.
issues had been addressed.
But an estimated 95 percent of the objects that could cause
In a letter to the White House, Don Nelson, who served with
critical damage to the shuttle are not tracked by the military
Nasa for 36 years until he retired in 1999, wrote to President
because they are too small.
George W. Bush warning that his 'intervention' was necessary to
www.alienation-news.blogspot.com PAGE 2 #302-FEB03
hit in space: latest opinion
Dittemore said shuttle flights have averaged about 100 strikes of
debris to the delicate tiles, which protect the spacecraft during the
infernal heat of reentry. Of those, he said, an average of 25 to 35
impacts have usually been deeper than an inch.
At the same time, Dittemore acknowledged that the
overwhelming preponderance of the evidence continues to suggest
that some kind of damage to Columbia's left wing triggered its
demise. Eight minutes before ground controllers lost contact with
the spacecraft, data from temperature sensors in the left wing
abruptly ceased, and others recorded a rise of about 40 degrees
Fahrenheit in the left wheel well on the wing's underside.
Subsequent computer analysis indicated that the shuttle's
computerized flight control system was battling mightily against
something creating increasing drag on the left wing.
Dittemore said he was evaluating the small but distinct
possibility that Columbia was hit by a piece of space debris, such
as from long-destroyed rockets or satellites or even a meteorite.
The shuttle administrator called this scenario remote, but that is FIRSTAND LAST: The space shuttle Columbia first lifted off on April
also true of other possible scenarios. 12, 1981. Its final flight began on January 16, 2003.
"We have had impacts with space debris. There are small pieces
sky moving from right to left (the planet Venus is also in frame).
of debris in space. It's remote they will hit the orbiter, but we have
Halfway through the nine-second video segment, the light from
seen it. How likely is it? I don't know."
Columbia brightens abruptly and the condensation trail at the
Strange and provocative images point where this happened continues to glow brightly after the
Pieces of photo evidence that have come to light are rather more shuttle has moved.
enigmatic than conclusive, however they offer some compelling Paranoid conspiracy angle
insights.
Of course no story from the US involving Nasa, the military
According to a San Francisco Gate newspaper reporter a San
industrial complex and Bush’s oil-soaked junta would be
Francisco amateur astronomer who photographs the space shuttles
complete without the PCA(paranoid conspiracy angle). In this
whenever their orbits carry them over the Bay Area captured five
case it comes in the form of chanelled communications from
strange and provocative images of the shuttle Columbia just as it
‘sixth density beings of light’– the makers of the crop circles, no
was re-entering the Earth's atmosphere before dawn.
less.
The images, not yet made public but shown to the reporter,
In the chanelling session of February 2, the following exchange
reveal what appear to be bright electrical phenomena flashing
took place:
around the track of the shuttle's passage. Q: One of the first questions we want to ask tonight is about the event
"They clearly record an electrical discharge like a lightning bolt of the Space Shuttle that was lost. First, was it an explosion, or was it
flashing past, and I was snapping the pictures almost exactly . . . just disintegration, or breaking up?
when the Columbia may have begun breaking up during re-entry," A: It was a “direct hit”.
the source said. Q: A direct hit by what?
The reporter said the images show a bright scraggly flash of A: EM pulse. [Electromagnetic pulse]
Q: (S) What was the source of the EM pulse?
orange light, tinged with pale purple, and shaped somewhat like a A: 3/4th density Consortium. [ie the secret government and other
deformed L. The flash appears to cross the Columbia's dim beings]
contrail, and at that precise point, the contrail abruptly brightens (A) Where did the EM pulse come from?
and appears thicker and somewhat twisted as if it were wobbling. A: From space based satellite.
"I couldn't see the discharge with own eyes, but it showed up Q: (A) Does NASAknow about the cause?
clear and bright on the film when I developed it," the A: There are some who suspect.
[From cassiopaea.org]
photographer said. "But I'm not going to speculate about what it
might be."
Another piece of amateur footage, which can be viewedonline
(see link below) shows what is purported to be Columbia on final
orbit. The video shows the craft as a bright light in the pre-dawn

SOURCES
The Washington Post Company, Rob Stein, Margot Williams.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32154-2003Feb5.html
Time, Gregg Easterbrook, http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030210/sceasterbrook.html
The Observer, Peter Beaumont, http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,887236,00.html
SF Gate Newspaper, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/02/MN221641.DTL
Video footage, http://www.rgj.com//news/files/2003/02/01/21413.mov
Cassiopaea (Quantum Future School, http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/

www.alienation-news.blogspot.com PAGE 3 #302-FEB03

 Pyramids, Sphinx being enclosed
DIAMOND GIZA! by fortress of newly built walls
DR JJ HURTAK
Since the beginning of 2002, Dr.
JJ Hurtak and a European team
of investigators and explorers
have been recording the
construction of a massive system
of walls being built around the
What is going on in Giza? The historic pyramidal sites and the
Great Pyramids and Sphinx are larger unexcavated area of Giza,
Egypt, an area covering
being walled in inside an eight approximately 8sq km. Why?
square kilometre compound with Are there new treasures of
walls seven metres high built on ancient Egypt to be uncovered
that require sophisticated
steel-reinforced concrete technology and surveillance
foundations laid almost a metre platforms, to protect the ongoing
deep in the ground. research along the Giza plateau?
Has, perhaps, an area been
What the----?
ABOVE: The walls have been built in stages. Images taken in
February 2002 reveal walls extending far out into the desert
where, for the most part, they have not been noticeed by the
average visitor. LEFT: Two metre deep foundation with
massive reinforcing-iron bars.
http://www.initiation.cc/Giza_Update/giza_update.html
discovered that shows tracings of
rare earths and unique minerals?
Or is it simply, as some officials
are claiming, a move to protect
the plateau from terrorists and
control the masses of tourists
visiting the area?
The standard argument for the
creation of such a wall is “crowd
control”, but the details of this
new construction suggest an
initiative that is both multi-
purpose and grand scale: the wall
near Nazlat al Salman will be, at
a minimum, 7 meters (22 feet)
high. Crowd control?
The walls have been carefully
constructed on a 2m deep and
wide foundation of steel
reinforced concrete and with
room for a special attachable
cover. This suggests a massive
wall.
So vast is this structure that some
local village homes have been
removed. Not only are the
aboveground structures contained
in this “new zone”, but also any
underground structures yet to be
uncovered.
Guards stationed as sentries at
intervals along the entire wall
carries the intrigue of a major
feature film. Indeed, are the
mysteries being closed in the
21st century to students of world
culture and gifted explorers? We
hope that there will be no
concealment of important
historical information that could
bring a higher knowledge and
unity to all humankind.

Edgar Cayce, predicted 2001 discovery

BY NOW, according to Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) – America's
greatest ‘sleeping prophet’ – a h u g e c h a m b e r l o c a t e d
beneath the Sphinx, near the great pyramid, should
have been discovered and opened.
Cayce described the chamber as a place containing
an Atlanteans library containing information which
would rock the world.
The secret chambe was supposed to be under the
left paw of the Sphinx.
The subject of Atlantis accounted for about a third
of his utterances over his 21-year channelling
c a r e e r.
He said the telepathic Atlanteans invented
electricity around 50,000BC. They also used nuclear
e n e rg y b u t a b a n d o n e d i t i n f a v o u r o f c r y s t a l e n e rg y.
The Kentucky-born Cayce became one of America's
great ‘sleeping prophets’ – people who prophesy
while in a trance state.
In his waking state he worked with his wife as a
professional photographer until he devoted himself
full-time to his readings although, typically, he
made no money from his gift.
Cayce's trances brought forth information about the
genesis of humanity, the nature of the soul, medical
remedies, auras, reincarnation, the future, among
many other subjects.
In his lifetime he was labelled the ‘Father of
holistic medicine’ and he had some spectacular
results. Cayce provided healing advice in hundreds
of seemingly insoluble cases.
A girl in a faraway city was described to him as
being ‘mad’. He said a wisdom tooth had impacted a
nerve affecting the girl's brain. He was proved right
and the girl made a swift recovery.
At other times he prescribed outdated medicines and
even described where to find rare stocks.
Like several other seers and clairvoyants he
maintained that the missing link didn't exist. He
said God's will had been imbued in an ape, gifting
the species with creativity, foresight and language.

www.alienation-news.blogspot.com PAGE 4 #302-FEB03


Almond-eyed ‘grey alien‘ on
walls of tomb of Ptah-Hotep, at
Saqqara, Egypt.
Came across this
picture taken inside
the Tomb of Ptah-
Hotep, at Saqqara,
Egypt, which dates
back to the 5th
Dynasty. The picture
shows servants
offering food to the
Egyptian sage and
Philosopher Ptah-
Hotep (who is sat at a
table to the left of this
part of the picture).
Ptah-hotep served
during the reign of
Izezi as a sage. His
maxims are in the
Prisse Papyrus which
are in the Louvre. Izezi
was the eighth king of
the 5th Dynasty and
ruled Egypt from 2388
till 2356 BC.
A picture showing this
same mural is in an
old book called ‘In The
Shadow Of The
Pyramids – Egypt
during the Old
Kingdom’.
www.alienation-news.blogspot.com
Golod's pyramids
mathematical
and medicinal
BY NICK ALLEN
MOSCOW – People fearful of epidemics, terrorism, regional
conflicts and earthquakes need fret no more – the solution,
apparently, lies in the numerous pyramids rising on Russia’s
skyline.
They may pale beside the Great Pyramids of Giza, but 24 smaller
examples built in Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan by
mathematician Alexander Golod, including a 44-metre-high
showpiece in Moscow, have baffled scientists with their healing
and preserving properties.
As for cataclysms and global misfortunes, they result from
distortion of the space around us, says Golod, 53. Not to worry,
the pyramids’harmonising power radiates ever further beyond
Russia.
“The effect is European. I think in another couple of years Berlin
will also see a sharp statistical drop in cases of diseases like flu,”
he predicts, pointing to Moscow’s lowest influenza rates in a
century since the largest structure was completed in 1999.
Made of fibreglass with no metal fastenings or nails, they are all
aligned with the Pole Star, like those at Giza (which Golod says
have “the wrong form” to correctly harness the forces around us
today).
It’s hard to say where straight physics moves into the uncharted
realms of science or meets cosmic mysticism and the power of
faith.
Tests by the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper among others
showed that food items stored inside the large pyramid in summer
kept longer than in comparable conditions elsewhere.
No mystery here, says Dr. Arif Narimanov of the Russian
Academy of Sciences’Institute for Theoretical and Experimental
Biophysics. Temperature distribution and air circulation is
different in a pyramid because of its shape, causing moisture to
evaporate twice as fast, he explains.
The pyramid works like both a refrigerator and a drying machine,
allowing better storage of meat or milk – or an Egyptian mummy.
From this point on it gets tricky, as staff of the academy’s
Mechnikov Vaccine Research Institute found out at Golod’s 11-
metre structure at Ramenskoye near the Russian capital.
Batches of mice were kept a few days in the pyramid and others
in control conditions outside. They were all then infected with
typhus.
“Groups that were in the pyramid showed a considerably higher
resistance to infections. I can find no explanation,” Professor
Natalya Yegorova told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa). Her
findings cited in Golod’s books gave “pyramid mice” a ten-fold
greater survival rate.
Objects kept in the pyramids like water, rocks and crystal matrices
also seem to absorb and convey positive effects if removed.
Down the corridor from Narimanov at the biophysics institute,
cell research expert Dr Yury Korystov cites his own experiments
two years ago involving water ‘charged’in the 44-metre structure.
Mice who drank the water sustained far less cell degeneration in
conditions of stress, he told dpa. And, again: “I can’t explain
why.”
PAGE 5 #302-FEB03
Scientists study guru on 411-day fast
In an interview with India Post,
Shri Hira Ratan Manek said that he
has not eaten food since 1995.
BY BINEETA MISHRA
HE Tibetan (Alice Bailey’s teacher) predicted that in the
T near future, we shall become the next race of men/women.
At that time we shall operate upon mental energy, magnetic
energy, sun energy. Scalpels and chemical agents will no longer
be necessary. There is some evidence that this shift is beginning,
such as an individual, whom I believe is a realized being, who
illustrates how this movement forward may be happening now.
I had the privilege to meet and spend personal time with HRM
(Sri Hira Manek Ratan Ji). HRM came to the US to offer himself
for study at various institutions. More than that, he offered his
body as an experimental station for the betterment of humanity.
He is well-known in his native country, India, for having fasted
on water alone, for 411 days! He has done this by training himself
to look into the sunlight at dawn (carefully, and very little by very
little) and to walk on the hot earth, in this way absorbing energy
from both earth and sun. He believes this is an ability that can be
cultivated in all people. He believes and hopes that this will lead
to a higher and greater civilization, and most certainly a purer
body.
I had the opportunity to spend time with him because of the
generosity of his host, Dr. Anil Patel. Dr. Patel is well known in
the field of herbal research and Ayurvedic medicine. He is on the
streering committee of the University of Pennsylvania (among
other credits) for the incorporation of Ayurvedic medicine into the
roster of Integrative medicine.
Sri HRM’s story
HE had studied the ancient literature and had learned of advanced
humans (throughout the ages) who had the ability to fast for
extremely long periods of time, and who had taken their energy
from the sun. This was the highly regarded literature of the Vedas
and Upanishads. He was, by training, a mechanical engineer. In
1962, he stumbled upon Sri Aurobindo’s ashram in Pondicherry.
There he met The Mother (Aurobindo’s partner, who carried on
Aurobindo’s work after his death). The Mother looked at HRM
and said, “You must bring down the sun’s energy to the earth, in
order to help the Supermind to descend upon humanity.” He did
nothing with that for quite a while.
Much later he met a Rishi. A Rishi is a human (or someone
beyond human) so advanced that he has extraordinary powers and
knowledge. Many people were visiting him (for he made himself
accessible). He looked over the crowd, and his gaze rested
directly on HRM. He told him that he must bring the sun’s energy
down to earth. This stirred HRM, his imagination and his
excitement and his commitment. But he was puzzled about what
to do next. He walked in the sun for long periods. He left his
profession and dedicated himself entirely to his spiritual
commitment. As he kept walking in the sun, he felt progressively
energized. He also felt less and less need to eat food. There was
no compulsion to do a fast; no will power was necessary, just a
lessened desire for food, but an increase in energy. One day, he
came to the conclusion that he must bring the sun’s energy
directly into his brain – and the best way to do that would be
through the eyes. Whole civilizations have given themselves to
www.alienation-news.blogspot.com
the worship of the sun. Rudolph Steiner (spiritual scientist and
originator of anthroposophy) taught that the Christ being
inhabited the sun and spread his energy thus, from the sun to us.
Aurobindo taught that the sun was the seat of the Supermind
energy[1]: “It (the mind) always vaguely remembers the
fundamental unity at its base; therefore it cannot but persistently
try to recover that unity, which is the clouded sun behind all
human strivings. It is that sun, that unity, the Supermind which
upholds all existing things, even when they apparently seem to be
separated or self-existent.”
HRM decided to experiment cautiously. He also submitted
himself to medical study as he began to look at the sun for
seconds at a time, during the early dawn when the sun was
weakest. He increased his ability little by little, until he was able
to gaze for a full 30 minutes. He also walked barefooted. His
explanation was that not only was he able to absorb the sun’s
energy through the eyes but also that he was able to draw force up
from the earth especially through the feet.
He found that there is a north-south flow, the earth being the
north, the sun being the south – and flowing through the central,
governing vessel of the body. He made certain that he was
followed by and advised by physicians, who constantly studied
him. When asked if he would be willing to give a year to science,
his answer was ‘yes’. Accordingly, he left his family (with their
consent) and was asked to fast for 365 days. However, because of
certain indications in the Hindu literature, he felt that 411 days
was a more auspicious time. And so the date was set.
In the beginning he lost perhaps 90 pounds, but no muscle
tissue. He found himself to be progressively healthier, calmer,
happier. Former disorders such as anxiety, fear, worry and self-
occupation left him. Physical ailments were no longer present. He
lived on water and sunlight alone.
Now he has come to this country by invitation, and is being
studied by Dr. Patel, by Jefferson University, and by other
institutions here.
His body looked so whole: slender, but graceful, firm, with
smooth and elegant movements. He had a calmness about him
that was also accompanied by a quiet self-assuredness. His
dedication to bringing this to our civilization is real.
He feels that anyone can accomplish what he has. In fact he has
perhaps 4000 or more followers throughout the world, who have
incorporated this new way of life, and this new source of energy.
It is his offering of himself to the service of humanity that is the
mark of a realized being. It is his absolute faith in the process, in
the bringing down of the Supramental (as Aurobindo described it)
through the sun. It is his desire to give a gift to humanity in that
disease, disorder and hunger can be wiped out.
Dr. Patel, amongst others, will study this gentleman, and I will
participate, to understand the changes in psychology and spiritual
reach which accompany this type of evolutionary adventure.
The very fact of being among such realized humans, is in itself a
gift.
1.Georges Van Vrekehm, Overman, p.97, Rupa & Co.
(2001); New Delhi
http://www.jsocf.org/hrm1.htm
PAGE 6 #302-FEB03
Big 'Dubbya' a psychpath?
BY JOHN CHUCKMAN
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)

RANOISE Ducros, director of communications for

F Canada’s Prime Minister Jean Chretien, said in a private

conversation that Mr. Bush was a moron for the way he
pushed his obsession over Iraq at a NATO meeting in Prague that
had other, important issues to treat. Most informed people on the
planet would classify her observation in about the same category
as “sugary cereal makes a terrible breakfast,” but it is so rare to
hear even the slightest truth expressed regarding America’s
pathetic chief executive that a bit of a flap has arisen.
This happened only because her private remark was reported by
a newspaper founded by Canadian press baron, Conrad Black, a
man who gave up his citizenship in order to accept membership in
Britain’s House of Lords, something which enables him to
pontificate in neo-gothic halls while costumed in a sweeping
scarlet robe topped with puffs of white fluff. But his good works
in Canada continue behind him, and the absurdly-biased paper he
founded, The National Post, goes right on doing its duty - in this
case, the reporting of an unmistakably-private remark just to
embarrass Canada’s Liberal Prime Minister.
I don’t know what it is about the “neocon” crowd, perhaps it is
their affinity with the flaky religious right, perhaps it is stunted
emotional development, but they have this urge to crawl about
sniffing into the private affairs of others. They sniff around
bathroom stalls, under beds, or into the soiled contents of laundry
hampers on their quest for suitable political material - the absurd
impeachment of President Clinton being the century’s greatest
product of their strange urge.
A stain on a dress, a few weasel-words by a President, naturally
enough, anxious to avoid embarrassment, and voila, you spend a
hundred million dollars, tie up an entire nation for months, and German Justice Minister, Herta Dubler-Gmelin, another tough,
publish as official government documents, available for any astute woman, made the observation recently that Bush’s
young child to read, words and descriptions best suited to the approach to avoiding domestic difficulties through war had
fiction genre known as bodice-rippers. previously been tried by Hitler. Students of history will know that
One of Canada’s feeble, American-neocon wannabes, her statement was no more than dry fact, but to this day
summoning every ounce of authority his pinkish, plump, baby Washington’s Baby-Face-in-Chief refuses even to meet with the
face is capable of displaying (ever notice how many of these German Chancellor, a pathetic display for a man holding such
people resemble plump babies? Gingrich, Falwell, Robertson, power. Any politician with some effective intelligence would
Limbaugh, etc. Likely there’s a solid clue here to some unknown allow the matter to pass, calling upon a quality variously called
syndrome or genetic abnormality.) demanded an apology and the grace or largesse or class, but don’t waste your time looking for
dismissal of Ms. Ducros. But Prime Minister Chretien is made of that quality in America’s “neocon” crowd.
sterner stuff. He was photographed in Parliament with his hand Bush’s petulance over an inconsequential remark highlights why
covering a yawn. we now are made to orbit dangerously around Iraq, a fairly
To my mind these events add considerable force to arguments inconsequential country, already beaten-down by war and
for women’s greater involvement in politics. Women have embargo. Saddam embarrassed Dad, and that’s reason enough to
demonstrated a superior ability to recognize the embarrassing endanger, quite literally, the future of world peace. We are to have
nakedness of a very eccentric emperor. Clinton’s impeachment re-staged on an epic scale and set to
Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, daughter of a former Wagnerian music drenched with blood and mysticism.
prime minister, last year made the private observation at a dinner The obsession is particularly distressing acted out against a
in America that Bush “is totally an asshole.” This, again background of revelations that North Korea, a bizarre regime if
publicized by “neocons,” of course, involved precisely the word ever there was one, likely has a couple of atomic bombs and
Bush himself had used himself during his election campaign to certainly has a very active program for manufacturing fissile
describe, not a politician who threatened the world’s peace, but a material. North Korea also has missiles that can reach several
newspaper reporter whose honesty he resented. Bush refused to major population centers in Asia.
apologize for what was a private remark made before a live The obsession is acted out, too, against a background of
microphone. Tanaka’s remark, too, was private, but she was soon explosive instability in the Middle East. Mr. Bush simply ignores
forced out of the Japanese government. America’s immense obligations there. He refuses to see that his

www.alienation-news.blogspot.com PAGE 7 #302-FEB03

Media war
without end
BY NORMAN SOLOMON
HE nation’s Fourth Estate is

T functioning largely as a fourth

branch of government.
In the wake of September 11, the White
House has repeatedly sent news executives
and working journalists an unsubtle
message: Exercise too much independence
and you’ll risk accusations of giving aid
and comfort to the terrorist enemy. While a
few American journalists made feisty
noises during the first tumultuous weeks of
autumn, for the most part they eagerly
went along to get along with the war-
makers.
Breaking new ground in news
management, the Bush administration has
indicated that it foresees a war without
end. So we should understand that what’s
underway amounts to far more than
temporary incursions on the First
Amendment.
This fall, the news media of the US have
been sliding down a long-term slippery
slope. Television networks in particular are 'We look forward to That suits wealthy owners, large
running scared — accelerating their advertisers and government officials. But
already appreciable zeal to serve the working with you, to what about democracy?
propaganda agendas of top officials in covering your In early May of 1991, two months after
Washington. administration.’ the Gulf War ended, the Washington
The day before George W. Bush became editors for 15 major American news
president, a CNN anchor interviewed the CNN ANCHOR, JUDY WOODRUFF organizations sent a letter of complaint to
incoming White House chief of staff and then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.
to quid pro quos. Officials dispense leaks
then bade him farewell. “All right, Andy They charged that the Pentagon had
to reporters with track records of proven
Card,” said Judy Woodruff, “we look exerted “virtually total control” over
willingness to stay within bounds. “It is a
forward to working with you, to covering coverage of the war. The letter represented
bitter irony of source journalism,” Karp
your administration.” completion of a ritual for American media
observed, “that the most esteemed
If major news outlets were committed to coverage of US military actions: news
journalists are precisely the most servile.
independent journalism, Woodruff’s outlets routinely engage in self-censorship
For it is by making themselves useful to
statement on national television January 19 and sometimes grouse – especially after
the powerful that they gain access to the
would have caused quite a media stir. But the fact – that the government has imposed
‘best’sources.” While some fine
it was just another sign of media coziness too many restrictions on the press.
journalism, assertive and carefully
with power brokers in Washington. This fall, scant objections came from big
researched, gets into print and onto
Leading journalists and spinners in high media institutions or high-profile
airwaves every day, the islands of such
places are accustomed to mutual reliance. journalists when the Defense Department
reporting are drowned in oceans of
That’s good for the professional made clear its intentions to place severe
glorified leaks and institutional handouts.
advancement of all concerned. But the limits on war-related information. “The
On the surface, concerns about scant
public’s right to know is another matter. press policies in the war on terrorism are
separation of press and state might seem to
“The first fact of American journalism is looking a lot like the Gulf War policies
be misplaced. After all, don’t we see
its overwhelming dependence on sources, established by Bush’s father, Dick Cheney
network correspondents firing tough
mostly official, usually powerful,” Walter and Colin Powell,” said University of Iowa
questions at politicians? Isn’t the press
Karp pointed out in Harper ’s Magazine a journalism professor Jeffrey A. Smith, a
filled with criticism of policymakers? Yet
dozen years ago. Since then, the problem scholar on wartime news coverage. “There
we’re encouraged to confuse partisan
has grown even more acute. A multitude of is denial of access. The press pools have
wrangles and tactical disputes with wide-
journalists advance their careers by (in not been activated. The press briefings
ranging debate and free flow of
Woodruff’s words) “working with” movers have been few and inadequate.”
information. To a great extent, mainstream
and shakers in government. Rather than balk at such signals of news
media outlets provide big megaphones for
Behind the scenes, the tacit deals amount Continued page 10
those who already have plenty of clout.
www.alienation-news.blogspot.com PAGE 8 #302-FEB03
Bush anything but moronic
Dark overtones in his
malapropisms
BY MURRAY WHYTE
WHEN Mark Crispin Miller first set out to
write Dyslexicon: Observations on a
National Disorder, about the ever-growing
catalogue of President George W. Bush’s
verbal gaffes, he meant it for a laugh. But
what he came to realize wasn’t entirely
amusing. Since the 2000 presidential
campaign, Miller has been compiling his
own collection of Bush-isms, which have
revealed, he says, a disquieting truth about
what lurks behind the cock-eyed leer of
the leader of the free world. He’s not a
moron at all on that point, Miller and
Prime Minister Jean Chrtien agree.
But according to Miller, he’s no friend.
“I did initially intend it to be a funny book.
But that was before I had a chance to read
through all the transcripts,” Miller, an
American author and a professor of culture
and communication at New York
University, said recently in Toronto.
“Bush is not an imbecile. He’s not a
puppet. I think that Bush is a sociopathic
personality. I think he’s incapable of
empathy. He has an inordinate sense of his
own entitlement, and he’s a very skilled
manipulator. And in all the snickering
about his alleged idiocy, this is what a lot
of people miss.”
Miller’s judgment, that the president might
suffer from a bona fide personality
disorder, almost makes one long for the
less menacing notion currently making the
rounds: that the White House’s current
occupant is, in fact, simply an idiot.
If only. Miller’s rendering of the president
is bleaker than that. In studying Bush’s
various adventures in oration, he started to
see a pattern emerging.
“He has no trouble speaking off the cuff
when he’s speaking punitively, when he’s
talking about violence, when he’s talking
about revenge.
“When he struts and thumps his chest, his
syntax and grammar are fine,” Miller said.
“It’s only when he leaps into the wild blue
yonder of compassion, or idealism, or
altruism, that he makes these hilarious
mistakes.”
While Miller’s book has been praised for
its “eloquence” and “playful use of
language,” it has enraged Bush supporters.
Bush’s ascent in the eyes of many
Americans his approval rating hovers at
near 80 per cent was the direct result of
www.alienation-news.blogspot.com
tough talk following the September 11
terrorist attacks. In those speeches, Bush
stumbled not at all; his language of
retribution was clear.
It was a sharp contrast to the pre-9/11
George W. Bush. Even before the Supreme
Court in 2001 had to intervene and rule on
recounts in Florida after a contentious
presidential election, a corps of journalists
were salivating at the prospect: a
bafflingly inarticulate man in a position of
power not seen since vice-president Dan
Quayle rode shotgun on George H.W.
Bush’s one term in office. But equating
Bush’s malapropisms with Quayle’s
inability to spell “potato” is a dangerous
assumption, Miller says.
At a public address in Nashville, Tenn., in
September, Bush provided one of his most
memorable stumbles. Trying to give
strength to his case that Saddam Hussein
had already deceived the West concerning
his store of weapons, Bush was scripted to
offer an old saying: Fool me once, shame
on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
What came out was the following:
“Fool me once, shame ... shame on ...
you.” Long, uncomfortable pause. “Fool
me can’t get fooled again!”
Played for laughs everywhere, Miller saw
a darkness underlying the gaffe.
“There’s an episode of Happy Days, where
The Fonz has to say, ‘I’m sorry’ and can’t
do it. Same thing,” Miller said.
“What’s revealing about this is that Bush
could not say, ‘Shame on me’to save his
life. That’s a completely alien idea to him.
This is a guy who is absolutely proud of
his own inflexibility and rectitude.”
War concoted 5 years
ago as oily cover
Back in 1997, in the years of the Clinton
administration, Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and
a bunch of other right-wing men most
involved in the oil business created the
Project for the New American Century, a
lobby group demanding "regime change" in
Iraq. In a 1998 letter to President Clinton,
they called for the removal of Saddam
from power. In a letter to Newt Gingrich,
who was then Speaker of the House, they
wrote that "we should establish and
maintain a strong US military presence in
the region, and be prepared to use that
force to protect our vital interests [sic] in
the Gulf and, if necessary, to help remove
Saddam from power".
http://argument.independent.co.
uk/commentators/story.jsp?stor
y=370328
If what Miller says is true and it would
take more than just observations to prove
it then Bush has achieved an astounding
goal. By stumbling blithely along, he has
been able to push his image as “just folks”
a normal guy who screws up just like the
rest of us. This, in fact, is a central cog in
his image-making machine, Miller says:
Portraying the wealthy scion of one of
America’s most powerful families as a
regular, imperfect Joe.
But the depiction, Miller says, is also
remarkable for what it hides imperfect,
yes, but also detached, wealthy and unable
to identify with the “folks” he’s been
designed to appeal to.
An example, Miller says, surfaced early in
his presidential tenure.
“I know how hard it is to put food on your
family,” Bush was quoted as saying.
“That wasn’t because he’s so stupid that he
doesn’t know how to say, ‘Put food on
your family’s table’ it’s because he
doesn’t care about people who can’t put
food on the table,” Miller says.
So, when Bush is envisioning “a foreign-
handed foreign policy,” or observes on
some point that “it’s not the way that
America is all about,” Miller contends it’s
because he can’t keep his focus on things
that mean nothing to him.
“When he tries to talk about what this
country stands for, or about democracy, he
can’t do it,” he said.
This, then, is why he’s so closely watched
by his handlers, Miller says not because
he’ll say something stupid, but because
he’ll overindulge in the language of
violence and punishment at which he
excels.
“He’s a very angry guy, a hostile guy. He’s
much like Nixon. So they’re very, very
careful to choreograph every move he
makes. They don’t want him anywhere
near protestors, because he would lose his
temper.”
Miller, without question, is a man with a
mission and laughter isn’t it.
“I call him the feel bad president, because
he’s all about punishment and death,” he
said. “It would be a grave mistake to just
play him for laughs.”
http://www.torontostar.com/NASA
pp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_ses
sion_id_=b0c132ce27f707f9&pagen
ame=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1
&c=Article&cid=1035774887712&cal
l_pageid=968332188492&col=9687
93972154
PAGE 9 #302-FEB03
From page 8
management, many in network news operations seemed to
welcome them. Dan Rather drew a lot of media comment for
breaking into sobs during his September 17 appearance on David
Letterman’s show, but the CBS news anchor didn’t get much flak
for his pledge of loyalty. “George Bush is the president,” Rather
said, “he makes the decisions.” Speaking as “one American,” the
newsman added: “Wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me
where. And he’ll make the call.”
With the overwhelming bulk of news organizations already
serving as amplification systems for Washington’s warriors in
times of crisis, the White House found itself in a strong position
to retool and oil the machinery of domestic propaganda after
September 11. When confronted with claims about “coded
messages” that Osama bin Laden and his henchmen might be
sending via taped statements — as though other means like the
Internet did not exist — TV network executives fell right into
line.
Tapes of Al Qaeda leaders provided a useful wedge for the
administration to hammer away at the wisdom of (government-
assisted) self-censorship. Network execs from ABC, CBS, NBC,
Fox and CNN were deferential in an October 10 conference call
with Condoleeza Rice. The conversation was “very collegial,” Ari
Fleischer told the White House press corps. The result was an
agreement, the New York Times reported, to “abridge any future
videotaped statements from Osama bin Laden or his followers to
remove language the government considers inflammatory.” It was,
the Times added, “the first time in memory that the networks had
agreed to a joint arrangement to limit their prospective news
coverage.”
News Corp. magnate Rupert Murdoch, speaking for Fox,
promised: “We’ll do whatever is our patriotic duty.” CNN, owned
by the world’s largest media conglomerate AOL Time Warner,
was eager to present itself as a team player: “In deciding what to
air, CNN will consider guidance from appropriate authorities.”
“Guidance” from the “appropriate authorities” is exactly what
the president’s strategists had in mind — brandishing a club
without quite needing to swing it. As longtime White House
reporter Helen Thomas noted in a column, “To most people, a
‘request’to the television networks from the White House in
wartime carries with it the weight of a government command. The
major networks obviously saw it that way...” The country’s TV
news behemoths snapped to attention and saluted the commander
in chief. “I think they gave away a precedent, in effect,” said
James Naughton, president of the Poynter Institute for Media
Studies. “And now it’s going to be hard for them not to do
whatever else the government asks.”
Ostensibly concerned about coded messages, administration
spinmeisters were after much more sweeping leverage over all
types of mainstream media. The compliant network executives
explained that the coded-messages matter “was only a secondary
consideration,” the New York Times recounted. “They said Ms.
Rice mainly argued that the tapes enabled Mr. bin Laden to vent
propaganda intended to incite hatred and potentially kill more
Americans.” (There was, of course, no need to curtail the
broadcasting of propaganda intended to incite hatred and
potentially kill more Afghans.) Four days after the bombing of
Afghanistan started, Fleischer urged newspapers not to print full
texts of statements by bin Laden and his cohorts. “The request is
to report the news to the American people,” he said. “But if you
report it in its entirety, that could raise concerns that he’s getting
his prepackaged, pretaped message out ... putting it into the hands
of people who can read it and see something in it.” Newspapers
were a bit less inclined than the networks to comply with such
www.alienation-news.blogspot.com
“requests,” but a chill was in the air. The First Amendment
shivered.
“The government’s attempts to pressure the media regarding the
airing of bin Laden’s statements are totally illegitimate,” said Jane
Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of
Minnesota. “Government directives like this, especially to a
regulated industry like broadcast and cable, carry the force of
coercion, if not the force of law.” TV and radio executives are
acutely aware that the Federal Communications Commission –
more corporate-friendly and authoritarian than ever – would
frown on independent behavior in the industry. The FCC chair,
Michael Powell, is significantly to the right of his father, the
Secretary of State. And with the few dominant media
conglomerates seeking even more deregulation to assist with
mergers and boost market share, there are powerful incentives to
go along with any ‘request’from the Bush administration about
limiting news coverage of the latest war.
Meanwhile, at print outlets with outsized journalistic
reputations, some similar precedents are in place. “There have
been instances,” the late Washington Post publisher Katharine
Graham acknowledged, “in which secrets have been leaked to us
which we thought were so dangerous that we went to [US
officials] and told them that they had been leaked to us and did
not print them.” In November 1988, speaking to senior CIA
officials at the agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, she said:
“There are some things the general public does not need to know
and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the
government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when
the press can decide whether to print what it knows.”
Just before the bombing of Afghanistan got underway on
October 7, the Post reported that US intelligence had informed
members of Congress that the Al Qaeda network was very likely
to strike again soon in the US. It was hardly startling news —
Attorney General John Ashcroft had already said as much on
television – but alarm bells went off at the White House, and CIA
director George Tenet swung into action to wave the Post away
from further unauthorized reporting. Tenet “had been forced to
persuade the newspaper not to publish even more sensitive
material,” according to the New York Times. The next day, the
Times quoted the Post’s executive editor, Leonard Downie Jr.,
who said that – “a handful of times” during the month since
September 11 – administration officials called the Post and
Veteran White House reporter
Thomas a lone voice of dissent
AS longtime White House reporter Helen Thomas noted in a
column, “To most people, a ‘request’ to the television networks
from the White House in wartime carries with it the weight of a
government command. The major networks obviously saw it that
way...” The country’s TV news behemoths snapped to attention
and saluted the commander in chief. More recently, Thomas
persisted with questions that made Bush mouthpiece Ari Fleischer
squirm: "At the earlier briefing, Ari, you said that the president
deplored the taking of innocent lives," she began. "Does that apply
to all innocent lives in the world?" It was a simple question -- and,
unfortunately, an extraordinary one. Few journalists at the White
House move beyond the subtle but powerful ties that bind
reporters and top officials in Washington. Routinely, shared
assumptions are the unspoken name of the game. In this case,
Thomas wasn't playing – and Fleischer's new year wasn't exactly
off to a great start. His tongue moved, but he declined to answer
the question. Instead, he parried: "I refer specifically to a horrible
terrorist attack on Tel Aviv that killed scores and wounded
hundreds." She didn't stop there: read the rest at:
www.fair.org/media-beat/030109.html
PAGE 10 #302-FEB03
“raised concerns that a specific story or more often that certain
facts in a certain story, would compromise national security.”
Those calls were fruitful, Downie said: “In some instances we
have kept out of stories certain facts that we agreed could be
detrimental to national security and not instrumental to our
readers, such as methods of intelligence collection.”
But it is the content of collected intelligence and other secrets
that top US officials often seem most anxious to keep under
wraps. A frequent excuse is that details of Uncle Sam’s troop
movements must be tightly controlled. But the government is
eager to keep crucial information from the American public —
information that might undermine Washington’s pro-war line.
Concerned about reports of civilian casualties that gradually
increased during the first days of bombing Afghanistan, the US
government took action – not by curtailing the slaughter but by
foreclosing public access to detailed photos that otherwise would
have been available from space. “The Pentagon has spent millions
of dollars to prevent western media from seeing highly accurate
civilian satellite pictures of the effects of bombing in
Afghanistan,” the London-based Guardian reported on October
17. At issue were photos from the Ikonos satellite, which takes
pictures at such high resolution that “it would be possible to see
bodies lying on the ground after last week’s bombing attacks.”
When the Defense Department moved to prevent media access
to such pictures, it did not invoke provisions of American law
allowing “shutter control” over US launched civilian satellites in
wartime. Instead, the Guardian reported, “the Pentagon bought
exclusive rights to all Ikonos satellite pictures of Afghanistan off
Space Imaging, the company which runs the satellite. The
agreement was made retrospectively to the start of the bombing
raids.”
Buying up all of the satellite’s pictures was a much more
effective way to thwart media access than seeking a legal ban
would have been. Because photos of carnage in Afghanistan from
the air war “would not have shown the position of US forces or
compromised US military security, the ban could have been
challenged by news media as being a breach of the First
Amendment,” the Guardian explained. According to the
newspaper, “the only alternative source of accurate satellite
images would be the Russian Cosmos system. But Russia has not
yet decided to step into the information void created by the
Pentagon deal with Space Imaging.”
Eleven years ago, during the lead-up to the Gulf War, photos
from a Soviet satellite indicated that the Bush-Quayle
administration was lying when it claimed that at least 250,000
Iraqi troops and 1500 tanks were in Kuwait by the second week
of September 1990. Much of the initial public rationale for a US
military buildup in the Persian Gulf that fall was based on the
claim that those troops represented an imminent threat to invade
Saudi Arabia (at a time when more than 100,000 US soldiers were
already stationed in that country).
After purchasing photos of the region from a Soviet commercial
satellite agency, the St. Petersburg Times published a front-page
article on January 6, 1991 — more than a week before the Gulf
War began — reporting that “Soviet satellite photos of Kuwait
taken five weeks after the Iraqi invasion suggest the Bush
administration might have exaggerated the scope of Iraq’s military
threat to Saudi Arabia at the time.” Analysis of the photos
indicated that the actual Iraqi troop strength in Kuwait was
perhaps 25 percent of the figure that the White House had
trumpeted while building its war agenda.
The St. Petersburg Times reporting on the satellite photos got
little play in the national media. (Similar information had gotten
only a few drops of media ink in autumn 1990 without gaining
any prominent media attention.) But the story was irksome to war
www.alienation-news.blogspot.com
The Pentagon bought exclusive
rights to all Ikonos satellite
pictures of Afghanistan off the
company which runs it, a much
more effective way to thwart
media access than seeking a
legal ban would have been.
planners in Washington. This time around, the Bush
administration is striving to do an even better job of bottling up
information that might undercut enthusiasm for the current war.
Meanwhile, the press corps has mostly contented itself with the
official news flow. A week and a half into the air war, Pentagon
correspondents got an affirmative response to requests for formal
spoonfeeding at day-in day-out news conferences. Defense
Secretary Rumsfeld was understandably upbeat. “Let’s hear it for
the essential daily briefing, however hollow and empty it might
be,” he said. “We’ll do it.”
The media war overseas has been more awkward. Some US
officials fret about losing ground in a global propaganda war. In
early October, Colin Powell urged the emir of Qatar to lean on the
Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite TV network, which broadcasts
news to 35 million Arabic-speaking viewers worldwide. The
effort, coming from a government that is fond of preaching about
free speech, was rich with irony and hypocrisy. Al Jazeera has
raised the ire of numerous repressive Arab regimes because of its
independent reporting. Since the network went into operation in
1996, an Australian journalist noted, “it has infuriated every
government from Libya to Kuwait — each of whom have at
various times threatened to withdraw their ambassadors from
Qatar in protest.”
Reporting from Cairo, a correspondent for the San Francisco
Chronicle remarked on “the sight of the United States, the
defender of freedom and occasional critic of Arab state
repression, lobbying one of the most moderate Arab leaders to
rein in one of the region’s few sources of independent news.”
After failing at its efforts to stigmatize and isolate Al Jazeera, the
Bush administration abruptly shifted tactics. In mid-October,
Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld went out of their way to
appear on the network in sit-down interviews.
“The Taliban have kept reporters out,” foreign correspondent
Robert Fisk wrote in the London Independent shortly after the
bombing of Afghanistan began. “But does that mean we have to
balance this distorted picture with our own half-truths?” He asked
another key question: “Why are we journalists falling back on the
same sheep-like conformity that we adopted in the 1991 Gulf War
and the 1999 Kosovo war? ... Is there some kind of rhetorical fog
that envelopes us every time we bomb someone?”
On the home front, a fierce media war is underway. “The
president has stated repeatedly that this will be a long war —
which means the long-term threat to our First Amendment
guarantee of free speech and freedom of the press will be
enormous,” writes Charles Levendosky, editorial page editor of
the Casper Star-Tribune in Wyoming. “Whether the First
Amendment ever recovers its broad protection of speech and the
people’s right to know depends upon the public and advocates
who fight for our liberties.”
In these ominous times, our only hope for reviving the First
Amendment is to make full use of it.
Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for
Public Accuracy. © Dec 2001 www.zmag.org.
www.accuracy.org/zmag1101.htm
PAGE 11 #302-FEB03
Invasion of Iraq
may collapse
global economy
N THE next few weeks, the struggling global economy may be
I put to the test if Washington chooses to invade Iraq. There are
many risks involved in bombing Baghdad, the most important
being a spike in oil prices. With oil prices already over $30.00 a
barrel, increased pressure has been put on the global economy as
more money is spent on importing oil. Should the United States
attack Iraq, there is a real possibility that Middle East oil
shipments will be disrupted. U.S. oil inventories are already
running low due to the nearly two-month long PDVSA oil strike
in Venezuela. While it takes only one week for Venezuelan oil
exports to reach the United States, it takes four to five weeks for
them to arrive from the Middle East.
During an American attack on Iraq, an errant bomb could destroy
or interfere with oil operations, halting Iraq’s 1-2 million barrels
per day (bpd) in exports. Compounding the American threat, Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein could opt to damage his own oilfields, by
ordering troops to light them on fire, as was done to Kuwait in
1991.
In order to prevent a spike in oil prices, any reduction in Iraqi oil
exports will need to be compensated by an increase in oil exports
from OPEC nations and non-OPEC nations alike. However, most
OPEC nations are already producing at capacity, such as
Indonesia and Qatar; the biggest oil producers outside of OPEC --
Russia, Norway and Mexico -- cannot increase their output since
their pumps are already running at full capacity. This likely
scenario has worried economists; it could result in oil prices as
high as $40.00 a barrel, possibly causing extensive damage to the
global economy. However, the Bush administration believes that
the end result of the invasion will be economic growth rather than
economic recession. The fate of the economy will rest on how fast
the United States can get oil flowing again after the war; once oil
production has stabilized again, the United States will likely be
able to increase capacity by updating Iraq’s oil infrastructure.
While before the Gulf War Iraq was exporting 3.5 million barrels
per day, it is predicted that Iraq may be able to increase
production up to 5 million bpd with U.S. assistance.
Larry Lindsey, former top economic adviser to President Bush,
supported this prediction in a statement last fall: “When there is
regime change in Iraq, you could add three million to five million
barrels [per day] of production to world supply. The successful
prosecution of the war would be good for the economy.” Indeed,
this scenario would provide a boon to the global economy by
increasing oil supply, dropping prices down to $15 to $20 a
barrel.
But successful “regime change” might not be as easy as it seems.
Iraq’s oil infrastructure is already in bad shape and the prediction
is that it will take 5 to 10 years for Iraqi oil output to reach such
levels, if at all; in addition, there is no guarantee that the new
Iraqi government will be willing to export such an inflated
amount of oil. However, any new administration will most likely
be installed and protected by U.S. troops, thus reducing the
government’s actual independence from Washington.
The other most dangerous scenario is whether an invasion by
Washington will heighten tensions in the Middle East in such a
www.alienation-news.blogspot.com
Mine's about
this big, says
US Defence
Secretary
Donald
Rumsfeld.
way that militant groups will attack oil interests when the U.S.
and global economy are most vulnerable. Indeed, if militants
inside Saudi
Arabia attempted to sabotage major oil facilities within the
country, limiting exports, oil prices would skyrocket since other
nations would not be able to supplement the amount of oil Saudi
Arabia exports.
This would possibly send oil prices to over $50 a barrel, or cause
prices to become static at $40.00 a barrel for many months.
Indeed, Gary Hufbauer, of the Institute for International
Economics, stated in the Baltimore Sun last October that a
sustained rise in oil prices at a level of $45 or $50 a barrel could
“turn [the economies of] the United States and Japan into a
recession.”
Should the two largest global economies -- the United States and
Japan -- enter a recession, or even suffer further economic setback
due to increased oil prices, it would greatly add to the misery of
other suffering states and impact emerging market economies.
South American states, for instance, have had difficulty accessing
global capital markets due to the economic uncertainty in Brazil --
which has been flirting with economic disaster -- and the recent
economic meltdown of Argentina. Paraguay and Uruguay too
have been hit by their neighbors’economic troubles, with the
former suffering from low tax revenues and a stagnant economy.
If the global economy were to deteriorate, it could create a
scenario where Argentina would have to default on its debts to the
International Monetary Fund (IMF). If Argentina were to default,
and other countries soon followed, it would compromise the
Fund’s own financial position and economic assistance to needy
economies would falter, further spiraling the world economy
toward a grave future. Along with South America, Asia will also
be pushed into economic disaster should oil prices spike for a
prolonged period. In addition to putting Japan into recession,
South Korea, fraught with its own economic woes due to a rapid
increase in real estate prices and unemployment, is also
vulnerable. Seoul cannot rely on domestic spending to stimulate
its economy due to ballooning household debt, a situation that
increased oil prices would only exacerbate.
Singapore, too, is walking on the edge of economic demise.
Narrowly missing a double-dip recession this last year, weak
demand for the city-state’s key electronics exports and
manufactured goods led to further job losses, ballooning its
unemployment level to a 15- year high.
Therefore, these concerns will be carefully weighed by the Bush
administration as they consider whether or not to invade Iraq.
With the global economy in such a precarious position,
Washington will be hedging its bets; a war will either provide
great economic gains, or colossal economic ruin.
The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication
that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various conflicts,
regions and points of interest around the globe. PINR approaches a subject
based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to
the reader. PINR seeks to inform rather than persuade. This report may be
reproduced, reprinted or broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies
the original source, http://www.pinr.com. All comments should be directed to
content@pinr.com.
PAGE 12 #302-FEB03
 news WEB NEWS from national and
from international sources.
the web ALL LINKS available online
alienation-news.blogspot.com
alienation-news.blogspot.com
Keep February 22 free: war begins
Middle East intelligence sources have revealed that a massive
aerial assault on Iraq will begin in the early hours of February
22nd, give or take a day. Since September 2002, the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia has privately implored the U.S. not to launch an
attack on Iraq before the Eid-al-Adha, one of Islam’s greatest
Feast holidays. The Greater Eid marks the end of Hajj, Muslim
pilgrimage to Mecca, on February 16th.
US ally in ‘Evil’ Korea arms deals
Since 1997, the CIAsaid, Pakistan had been sharing sophisticated
technology, warhead-design information, and weapons-testing
data with the Pyongyang regime. Pakistan, one of the Bush
Administration’s important allies in the war against terrorism, was
helping North Korea build the bomb.
Pakistan began paying for missile systems from North Korea in
part by sharing its nuclear-weapons secrets. According to the
report, Pakistan sent prototypes of high-speed centrifuge
machines to North Korea. And sometime in 2001 North Korean
scientists began to enrich uranium in significant quantities.
Pakistan also provided data on how to build and test a uranium-
triggered nuclear weapon, the CIAreport said.
Cowboy Bush leaves Europe cold
“Terrorists are a hundred times more likely to obtain a weapon of
mass destruction from Pakistan than from Iraq,” one senior
European official said, not permitting a reporter to identify even
his nationality because tensions with Washington are so high.
“North Korea is far more likely to sell whatever it’s got. But can
we say this in public? Can we have a real debate about priorities?
Not with George Bush.”
And while Vice President Dick Cheney has argued that a show of
military might will begin to change the map of the Middle East,
German and French officials say it will more likely lead to a
radicalization of the Arab world, a fractured Iraq and a prolonged
struggle with Washington over who will pick up the pieces.
US may use WMD on Iraq
THE United States is considering using nuclear weapons in a
possible future war against Iraq to stop Iraqi forces from using
weapons of mass destruction, a top US private military expert has
warned. Citing multiple sources, William Arkin said plans for
using nuclear weapons against Iraq are being fleshed out at the
US Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska; inside planning
offices of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon and at an “undisclosed
location” in Pennsylvania where US Vice-President Dick Cheney
used to spend time during terrorism alerts.
www.alienation-news.blogspot.com
Alleged pedophiles at helm of
Britain’s war machine
A child-sex scandal that threatened to destroy Tony Blair’s
government last week has been mysteriously squashed and wiped
off the front pages of British newspapers. Operation Ore, the
United Kingdom’s most thorough and comprehensive police
investigation of crimes against children, seems to have uncovered
more than is politically acceptable at the highest reaches of the
British elite.
Rumsfeld makes up the rules ad hoc
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s briefings to the press
are feisty affairs, in which the secretary sometimes debates the
premise of reporter’s questions. When reporters get frustrated or
try to press him, Rumsfeld often breaks into laughter.
This gives his appearances a free-wheeling affair. As he said to
reporters earlier this week, between chuckles, “Oh, we make up
the rules as we go along. What the heck.”
Everest melting? climate change?
A team sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme
has found signs that the landscape of Mount Everest has changed
significantly since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s visit
in 1953. A primary cause is the warming global climate.
The team found that the glacier that once came close to Hillary
and Norgay’s first camp has retreated three miles (five
kilometers). A series of ponds that used to be near Island Peak —
so-called because it was then an island in a sea of ice — had
merged into a long lake.
Tashi Janghu Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountain
Association, “told us that he had seen quite rapid and significant
changes over the past 20 years in the ice fields and that these
changes appeared to be accelerating.
Microchip Implants, Mindcontrol
Thirty years ago brain implants showed up in xrays the size of
1cm. Subsequent implants shrunk to the size of a grain of rice.
They were made of silicon, later still of gallium arsenide. Today
they are small enough to be inserted into the neck or back, and
also intravenously in different parts of the body during surgical
operations, with or without the consent of the subject. It is now
almost impossible to detect or remove them.
It is technically possible for every newborn to be injected with a
microchip, which could then function to identify the person for
the rest of his or her life. Such plans are secretly being discussed
in the US without any public airing of the privacy issues
involved.
PAGE 13 #302-FEB03
 news WEB NEWS from national
from and international
the web sources. ALL LINKS
available online
alienation-news.blogspot.com
Researchers find new UFO evidence
The museum of the unexplained, located in Reeds Spring
Missouri, has obtained new information concerning an object
recovered by Bob White in the 80s. To present this new
information to the press and to the public, a press conference was
scheduled for February 5 in Nevada. The press conference was by
invitation only. The object was put on display to the general
public and experts were available to take questions. It bears a
striking similarity to an object recovered in Denmark 40 years
earlier. See next issue for the outcome
Mobile phone patents: safety issues
Last year a study reported no ill effects from the radiation emitted
by mobile cell phones, however even as major cell phone
manufacturers argued that phones pose no health risks, the
companies were filing patents for devices such as antenna shrouds
designed to protect users from radiation emitted by the phones.
Aliens were 'definitely'
involved in 911 attacks
Some residents of the American counter-cultural center
Berkley, California, believe that the White House was
concealing the truth about the attacks of September 11.
People think that the twin towers of the World Trade Center
were destroyed not by terrorists, but by aliens.
After Flight 93 plane fell in Pennsylvania, local residents
heard the sound of some flying object. What was that? Any
flights were prohibited. And where are the bodies of those
people that died in the WTC? They were taken away for tests
and experiments. Aliens were definitely involved in the
events of September 11. This is the common opinion amid
some of Berkley residents.
Berkley is celebrated for its protests against the war in
Vietnam and hippie meetings in the 1960s. Local book stores
have special sections devoted to various conspiracy theories.
Each resident of the town has his or her own point of view on
what exactly happened on that tragic day.
There are a lot of rumors and myths going around the date of
September 11. This is a usual thing for all other non-ordinary
events. Myths and rumors were basically stirred up by the
questions, to which there were no answers. A lot of
conspiracy theory fans paid attention to the plane that fell in
Pennsylvania. They cannot understand, how could the
fragments of the plane be scattered around the area of eight
miles? FBI affirms that it was caused by the strong wind. Yet,
the sceptics stick to the opinion, according to which the plane
was downed by a pursuit plane. The great number of such
theories does not testify to the mass psychosis of American
people. It only proves that the people do not believe their
own government.
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/09/13/
36569.html
Comet plunges toward the Sun
Comet C/2002 X5 (Kudo-Fujikawa) is plunging toward the
Sun. On Jan. 29th, it passed closer to our star than the
planet Mercury. Intense sunlight hid the encounter from
sky watchers, but not from the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO), which is able to block the Sun’s glare
using onboard coronagraphs. C/2002 X5 will enter SOHO’s
field of view this
weekend and remain visible until approximately the end of
the month. How bright will the comet become? How big will
its tail grow? Will the comet break apart? No one knows.
Watch the encounter by following links from spaceweather.com.
Bushfire ruins black hole
telescope plans
Bushfires have destroyed an astronomical instrument under
construction which would have put the Gemini North Telescope
on Mauna Kea in the forefront of certain infrared astronomical
studies. The $3 million Near-infrared Integral-Field Spectrograph,
under construction since 1999 at Australia’s Mount Stromlo
Observatory, was six months short of completion and installation
on the Gemini North telescope, said Gemini spokesman Peter
Michaud. The instrument would have been used to study the area
around black holes at the centers of galaxies and to study star
formation elsewhere.
Supernova explosions loom
The center of our Milky Way Galaxy is inching toward an era of
intense fireworks when stars will be born 100 times more
frequently than today and many will die quick, explosive deaths,
according to new research. A huge and dense ring of interstellar
gas is collecting near the galactic center and approaching a
density that will, in about 200 million years, generate a burst of
star formation that could transform the very appearance of our
galaxy as seen from afar.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/
boom_times_020610-1.html
'Oldest star chart' found
The oldest image of a star pattern, that of the famous constellation
of Orion, has been recognised on an ivory tablet some 32,500
years old.
The tiny sliver of mammoth tusk contains a carving of a man-like
figure with arms and legs outstretched in the same pose as the
stars of Orion.
The claim is made by Dr Michael Rappenglueck, formerly of the
University of Munich, who is already renowned for his pioneering
work locating star charts painted on the walls of prehistoric caves.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2679675
.stm
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