SADDAM: THE $1 BILLION OFFER

Saddam offered to leave Iraq in exchange for $1 billion. Bush himself said that Saddam could leave the country and the invasion would be called off (no one took that seriously, but still, he said it).

We've spent over 500 times that on our invasion and killed over a million people and lost tens of thousands in deaths and injuries (the cost of which will be in the billions as time goes on).

9/11 Every Day For Over 10 Years

Many will dispute the 1 million casualty estimate. They will do so because it's a conscience-pricking number. That number of deaths, proportionally speaking, is equivalent to a 9/11 casualty rate EVERY DAY in Iraq for over 10 years.

But suppose you argue that the 1 million casualty figure is impossibly high. OK, let's cut it in half--that's an equivalent 9/11 every day for 5 years in Iraq. Or take a fifth of that--an equivalent 9/11 every day for one year (this illuminating device stolen directly from Arthur Silber).

Support Our Troops--They're Fighting For Our Slavery

So Saddam offered to leave if we'd pay him 1/500 of what we have ended up paying. SO FAR.

But they turned him down. Because the war wasn't about bringing democracy to Iraq. It was about extending the arm of the corporatocracy and using the war as an excuse to increase the power of the government at home while decreasing our civil liberties.

And now that we're in Iraq, we'll be there for decades. They aren't building the largest embassy in the history of the world just for shits and giggles, you know. They're building it to keep us in endless war, which is "patriot" code for endless slavery.

WHO IS THE "STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR?"

Isn't this the pot calling the kettle black?

"Ahmadinejad's trip to New York ignited a debate this week over his rejected request to lay a wreath at ground zero. The State Department calls Iran a state sponsor of terror, and politicians and families of Sept. 11 victims were outraged that its president might visit the site of the 2001 terror attacks."

The United States is the biggest "state sponsor of terror." Our invasion of Iraq has now killed over 1,000,000 people. That's 1/25 of the population of Iraq. And that's just for starters. We overthrew Mossadegh in 1953 through the use of terror attacks and we're still doing that today:

"As earlier reported on the Blotter on ABCNews.com, the United States has supported and encouraged an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, that has conducted deadly raids inside Iran from bases on the rugged Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan 'tri-border region.'"

In other words, we're sponsoring terror. Here's some more about our sponsorship of terrorism:

"TEHRAN, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Explosive devices and arsenals used in a terrorist attack in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan on Wednesday came from the United States, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Saturday.

Relevant documents, photographs and film footage, which show that the explosives and arsenals used in the attack were American, would soon be made public, an "informed source" was quoted as saying.

The source further pointed out that Jundallah, a shadowy Sunni militant group, had several plots for assassinating Sunni and tribal leaders to sow discord and foment conflicts between the Shiite and Sunni citizens in Sistan-Baluchestan province."

We're not the good guys. In fact, there are no good guys--only varying degrees of bad guys. Seriously, is that how one "fights terror?" By engaging in it?

AND SO BEGINS WWW III...

...and so ends our republic.



When the British wanted to invade Iran some 50-odd years ago, the American press wasn't much in favor of such a plan, according to "All The Shah's Men." According to author Stephen Kinzer, they knew that war with Iran would not be good:

"The Philadelphia Inquirer warned that a British invasion of Iran might bring 'a quick outbreak of World War III.'(p. 113)"

Kinzer goes on to note that:

"A popular CBS commentator, Howard K. Smith, asserted that many countries in the Middle East and beyond supported Iran, and that an invasion might 'stir all the Southern Asians to a rebellion against the Western foreigner and cause serious trouble for both Britain and the United States.'(p. 113)"

How have we managed to regress instead of progress in the last 50 years?

Hope we can all afford the gas prices that are about to shoot up along with the cost of anything else that is brought to market by a vehicle that uses gas.

Which of course is only everything.

ASK A QUESTION, GET TASERED AS JOHN KERRY LOOKS ON--WTF?

Ummm...watch this video of a student being Tasered after asking John Kerry some pointed questions. If you're not disturbed, ask yourself why? Why should a student be Tasered for asserting his First Amendment rights as police officers try to deprive him of those rights? Either we have a First Amendment or we don't, and this video makes it fairly clear that we don't.

As I watched it, I was reminded of the Who concert in Cincinnati at which people were trampled to death as the band played on. Kerry goes on speaking as if nothing is happening. The audience members sit passively as the First Amendment is raped.

I asked myself if I would sit passively like that, and you know what? I'm afraid I probably would. What is one supposed to do in that situation? You can't call the cops--it's the cops that are running roughshod over the Constitution. If you try to intervene, they'll slap some charges on you.

It seems to me that Kerry could have appealed to the cops to stop what they were doing. He's a United States Senator, for God's sake--surely the cops would've listened to him. All Kerry had to do was shout out "Stop that! Let this man hear answers to his questions! Leave him alone! He's merely exercising his First Amendment rights!"

But Kerry did no such thing...

9/11 LIES VS. 9/11 TRUTH

Hmmm. 6 years since 9/11. I have to admit that even I went jingo there for a while. I bought into the lie. But I remember why I did--I didn't pay enough attention. I let myself be manipulated by the official story.

And it's hard not to be manipulated if you don't have your bullshit detector set on maximum sensitivity at all times. That's why the official line is that "conspiracy theories" are crazy. Bush himself said we shouldn't "tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty," blah blah blah.

The term "conspiracy theorist" is usually meant in a pejorative sense, but why? Why, when there are in fact many conspiracies that are confirmed daily? It's because they want to manipulate you the way I was manipulated. I shouldn't have been so easily manipulated about 9/11. I should have looked for the real story from the very beginning.

But my good friend Joe Given of Techno Slavery woke me up. He gave me a copy of "Loose Change." If you haven't seen it, watch it. Of course, by then my jingoism had abated and I could think clearly again.

I opposed the Iraq war from the minute I heard about it. My wife and I put a makeshift sign in our yard--it was made from an old door and spray-painted "No War In Iraq" on it and put it out front. I don't know why we never took a picture of it. We used the door so that no one could or would just drive by the house and quickly snatch it out of our yard.

Bullshit Detectors--On!
Anyway, whatever. As you can probably tell, I don't have a whole lot to say about this except that your bullshit detector must alway be on. Like when it comes to talk about going to war with Iran because they somehow threaten us. Or when Bush says he'll bring home 30K troops by next summer (if the progress he wants has been made). Both of those are complete and utter bullshit.

In that Bush story, notice some other bullshit. At the very bottom of the story, there is this statement about the Petraeus hearings (more heaps of steaming bullshit):

The hearing fell on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Does the AP really believe or really expect us to believe that the Petraeus hearings "fell on the anniversary" of 9/11 just by chance? That sir, is utter bullshit. Just like it's utter bullshit that the new "bin Laden" video or Bush's announcement of a possible troop withdrawal all just happened you know, by chance, to fall on or very near the sixth anniversary of 9/11. It's complete bullshit.

"BIN LADEN" VIDEO OBVIOUSLY FAKE

Mos Def was badass on this topic:



The "bin Laden" video freezes at 1:58 while the audio continues for 10 + minutes. The video then unfreezes at 12:30 and syncs with the audio again--it's a fake, and not even a GOOD fake.

Also, the London Telegraph is reporting that "American spy chiefs" say American Adam Pearlman wrote "large sections" of the script that "bin Laden" reads in the video.

CONFIRMED: BUSH KNEW IRAQ DIDN'T HAVE WMD

In Salon magazine, Sidney Blumenthal reports that on 9-18-02, George Tenet briefed Bush on the fact that the CIA had confirmed that, according to Saddam's foreign minister at the time, Iraq had no WMD.

The foreign minister's name is Naji Sabri, and he turned informant for the CIA prior to the war. The account of the Sabri saga was first told by former CIA operative Tyler Drumheller in 2006 and has now been confirmed by two other former CIA agents:

"Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it. They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that Tenet never shared Sabri's intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to the former officers, the intelligence was also never shared with the senior military planning the invasion, which required U.S. soldiers to receive medical shots against the ill effects of WMD and to wear protective uniforms in the desert.

Instead, said the former officials, the information was distorted in a report written to fit the preconception that Saddam did have WMD programs. That false and restructured report was passed to Richard Dearlove, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), who briefed Prime Minister Tony Blair on it as validation of the cause for war."

Again, it's obvious that this war is, was, and will be based on LIES. We must end it now.

FREE SPEECH OUTLAWED IN MS CODE 97-45-17?

The more I think about it, the more I have to ask whether or not the law under which Yuri Wainwright was charged is an attempt to outlaw "free speech."

Why would I say this? Consider the following:

1. The term "injury" isn't defined in the chapter in which this anti-free-speech law in contained.
2. Any "message" posted in "any medium of communication" is subject to this law.
3. The "injury" claim can come from "any person," not just the person who may or may not be mentioned in the "message."

The only mitigating factor, the only part left up to a jury, is whether or not the "message" is "for the purpose of causing injury to any person." Intent, I would think, is fairly difficult to prove. But not impossible--all it would take is a slick lawyer making a case to a dumbed-down jury.

What is "injury?"

Since "injury" isn't defined in the code, how is that word defined in say, the dictionary? Dictionary.com lists a legal definition of injury as:

4. Law. any wrong or violation of the rights, property, reputation, etc., of another for which legal action to recover damages may be made.

So according to this definition, a person's reputation can in fact suffer "injury." At what point does injury to a reputation become illegal? It would be helpful if this law would tell us, but it does not. We know that Yuri Wainwright was not satisfied with the quality of his education. If he posted a message that said "I think the University of Southern Mississippi's architecture department is useless," could that be construed as causing "injury" to the reputation of the university and/or one of its academic departments? Of course it could--and probably should.

But is it illegal--or more precisely, should it be illegal to express one's opinion about the architecture department? I should think that this goes to the very essence of the First Amendment. For example, if I say that "George W. Bush is a moron and is unfit to be president," could I, under MS Code 97-45-17, be charged by not just Bush, but any and/or all of his supporters who feel that I have injured Bush's reputation as well as the reputations of his supporters? I'd argue that yes, under the vague language of this law, I could be prosecuted for saying that.

Should I be able to be prosecuted for saying that? I'd like to think that the First Amendment and related judicial precedents would render the very question inane, but 97-45-17 seems to render the likelihood of my prosecution for such a statement a very open question indeed.

Was Wainwright in fact arrested for something that's been "hiding in plain sight" on his MySpace page? In his "About Me" section, he says the following:

"Yuri switched his alliterative identity of a pothead philosopher to an alcoholic architect. As soon as he graduates from a rinky dink excuse for a school(with good teachers, amazingly), he will promtly move to a different place where the scenery doesnt quite match the morass of its inhabitants."

The University of Southern Mississippi is not mentioned by name on Wainwright's page. But someone with an axe to grind against Wainwright could conceivably argue that he caused injury to the university's reputation among people who knew he was USM student, including the faculty member who supposedly turned him in.

Is that far-fetched? Well, consider the fact that, according to the Hattiesburg American, Wainwright "has been placed on interim suspension by Southern Miss." For that status to apply to Wainwright, all that must happen is that
"the president of the university or a designated administrator determines that the presence of a student would reasonably constitute clear and present danger to the university community or property" (Section 11 of USM Student Handbook). Would someone bad-mouthing the university "reasonably constitute" a "clear and present danger" to the university? Probably not. Unless Wainwright saw something involving a professor that he wasn't supposed to see and let it be known that he was going to go public or something. Or something similar--who knows?

But I'm getting away from my point. It strikes me that 97-45-17 of the MS Code is unconstitutional and should be struck down. Maybe Wainwright's case will help that happen--if they ever get off their ass and try him.

EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES SHOULD CARE ABOUT YURI WAINWRIGHT'S CASE...

New story about the lack of information in the Yuri Wainwright case today...

Here's what I wrote about it at the Hattiesburg American forum...

Stonewalling=Lack of guilt?

Wainwright has been rotting in jail for over four months. It is long past time for "the law" to bring a case against him or let him go. I've said it before and I'll say it again--there is no way that this case can be as complicated as Weathers and Hopkins have made it out to be. Either Wainwright made a threat on the Internet or he didn't.

The stonewalling of Weathers and Hopkins makes it pretty clear that Wainwright did NOT make a threat on the Internet. After all, if Wainwright had written something that was clearly a threat, no one would've had any qualms about publicizing what it was that he wrote that was so bad.

How do we know this? By comparing Wainwright's situation to that of Tosin Oduwole, a student at Southern Illinois University.

Wainwright vs. Oduwole: Contrast & Compare

The police supposedly found a note in Oduwole's abandoned car that said:

"if this account doesn't reach $50,000 in the next 7 days then a murderous rampage similar to the VT shooting will occur at another highly populated university. THIS IS NOT A JOKE!"

Not only that, Oduwole had recently placed online orders for semiautomatic weapons. Oduwole also had a loaded gun in his dorm room.

Note that what Oduwole supposedly wrote appeared in the very first stories about his arrest. That's because in America, when someone is hauled off to jail for engaging in a constitutionally-protected activity--in this case, exercising the freedom of speech--the public has a right to know how that constitutionally-protected activity crossed a line if in fact a line has been crossed.

Why This Concerns Every American

Everyone in America should be concerned about Wainwright's incarceration and the authorities' apparent lack of justification for it. I don't care if Bob Hopkins is a smart, likable guy as I've repeatedly been told. He owes the university, nay, the Hattiesburg community, nay--the people of the United States some concrete reason for putting Yuri Wainwright behind bars on $1 million bond.

If they can put Wainwright in jail for over four months with no apparent end in sight to his incarceration, what's to stop them from putting any one of us in jail merely on their say-so? Apparently all that has to be done to take a citizen's freedom is to make a vague accusation under a (probably intentionally) vague statute (in Wainwright's case, it's "Posting of Messages through Electronic Media for Purpose of Causing Injury to Any Person," which is from MS Code 97-45-17).

Is that the impression John Mark Weathers and Bob Hopkins intend to leave for the citizens of this city, state, and country? I sincerely hope not--but what other conclusion are we to draw?

What, exactly, is "injury?"

Read the statute--it went into effect in July of 2003. It's likely that it hasn't even been tested in court yet. The standard it uses--that a "message" must "have the purpose" of "causing injury to any person"--is so vague that it could apply to anything. In fact, if Bob Hopkins or John Mark Weathers were to read this post, they might try to argue that this "message" has the purpose of "causing injury" to them, or their reputations, or their feelings, or whatever.

After all, what, pray tell, is meant by "injury?" How can it be proved whether or not a message "has the purpose" of "causing injury?" As far as I can tell by just using Google, MS is the only state with a statute like this. That doesn't mean other states don't have similar laws, I just can't find them easily/quickly.

Not only on the Internet

But also take note, the statute in question here is not limited to only the Internet. It says if you purposely create a "message" that has the purpose of causing "injury" (physical? social? mental? all of the above? any of the above?) to "ANY person," you could be charged under this act if you use "ANY means of communication."