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Iraq Inquiry bombshell: Secret letter to reveal new Blair war lies
By Simon Walters, Mail on Sunday Political Editor
Last updated at 1:48 AM on 29th November 2009
An explosive secret letter that exposes how Tony Blair lied over the legality of the Iraq War can be revealed.
The Chilcot Inquiry into the war will interrogate the former Prime Minister over the devastating 'smoking gun' memo, which warned him in the starkest terms the war was illegal.
The Mail on Sunday can disclose that Attorney General Lord Goldsmith wrote the letter to Mr Blair in July 2002 - a full eight months before the war - telling him that deposing Saddam Hussein was a blatant breach of international law.
It was intended to make Mr Blair call off the invasion, but he ignored it. Instead, a panicking Mr Blair issued instructions to gag Lord Goldsmith, banned him from attending Cabinet meetings and ordered a cover-up to stop the public finding out.
He even concealed the bombshell information from his own Cabinet, fearing it would spark an anti-war revolt. The only people he told were a handful of cronies who were sworn to secrecy.
Lord Goldsmith was so furious at his treatment he threatened to resign - and lost three stone as Mr Blair and his cronies bullied him into backing down.
Sources close to the peer say he was 'more or less pinned to the wall' in a Downing Street showdown with two of Mr Blair's most loyal aides, Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan.
The revelations follow a series of testimonies by key figures at the Chilcot Inquiry who have questioned Mr Blair's judgment and honesty, and the legality of the war.
The Mail on Sunday has learned that the inquiry has been given Lord Goldsmith's explosive letter, and that Mr Blair and the peer are likely to be interrogated about it when they give evidence in the New Year.
Lord Goldsmith gave qualified legal backing to the conflict days before the war broke out in March 2003 in a brief, carefully drafted statement. As The Mail on Sunday disclosed three years ago, even that was a distortion as Lord Goldsmith had told Mr Blair a week earlier he could be breaking international law.
But today's revelations show that Lord Goldsmith told Mr Blair at the outset, and in writing, that military action against Iraq was totally illegal.
The disclosures deal a massive blow to Mr Blair's hopes of proving he acted in good faith when he and George Bush declared war on Iraq. And they are likely to fuel further calls for Mr Blair to be charged with war crimes.
Lord Goldsmith's 'smoking gun' letter came six days after a Cabinet meeting on July 23, 2002, at which Ministers were secretly told that the US and UK were set on 'regime change' in Iraq.
The peer, who attended the meeting, was horrified. On July 29, he wrote to Mr Blair on a single side of A4 headed notepaper from his office.
Friends say it was no easy thing for him to do. He was a close friend of Mr Blair, who gave him his peerage and Cabinet post. The typed letter was addressed by hand, 'Dear Tony', and signed by hand, 'Yours, Peter'.
In it, Lord Goldsmith set out in uncompromising terms why he believed war was illegal. He pointed out that:
* War could not be justified purely on the grounds of 'regime change'.
* Although United Nations rules permitted 'military intervention on the basis of self-defence', they did not apply in this case because Britain was not under threat from Iraq.
* While the UN allowed 'humanitarian intervention' in certain instances, that too was not relevant to Iraq.
* It would be very hard to rely on earlier UN resolutions in the Nineties approving the use of force against Saddam.
Lord Goldsmith ended his letter by saying 'the situation might change' - although in legal terms, it never did.
The letter caused pandemonium in Downing Street. Mr Blair was furious. No10 told Lord Goldsmith he should never have put his views on paper, and he was not to do so again unless told to by Mr Blair.
The reason was simple: if it became public, Lord Goldsmith's letter could make it impossible for Mr Blair to fulfil his secret pledge to back Mr Bush in any circumstances. More importantly, it could never be expunged from the record as copies were stored in No10 and in the Attorney General's office.
Although Lord Goldsmith had Cabinet status, he attended meetings only when asked. After his letter, he barely attended another meeting until the eve of the war. Mr Blair kept him out to reduce the chance of him blurting out his views to other Ministers.
When Mr Blair is quizzed by the Chilcot Inquiry, he will be asked why he never admitted he was told from the start that the war was illegal.
Equally ominously for Mr Blair, a defiant Lord Goldsmith is ready to defend the letter when he appears before the inquiry. Friends of the peer, widely derided for his role in the Iraq War, believe it will vindicate him.
A source close to Lord Goldsmith said: 'He assumed, perhaps naively, that Blair wanted a proper legal assessment. No10 went berserk because they knew that once he had put it in writing, it could not be unsaid.
'They liked to do things with no note-takers, and often no officials, present. That way, there was no record. Everything could be denied.
'Goldsmith threatened to resign at least once. He lost three stone in that period. He is an honourable man and it was a terribly stressful experience.'
Lord Goldsmith's wife Joy, a prominent figure in New Labour dining circles, played a crucial role in talking him out of quitting.
'Joy was always very ambitious on Peter's behalf and did not want to see him throw it all away,' said a source.
Lord Goldsmith's letter contradicts Mr Blair's repeated statements, before, during and after the war on its legality.
In April 2005, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman repeatedly asked him if he had seen confidential Foreign Office advice that the war would be illegal without specific UN support.
Mr Blair said: 'No. I had the Attorney General's advice to guide me.' At best, it was dissembling. At worst, it was a blatant lie.
Mr Blair knew all along that Lord Goldsmith had told him the war was illegal, and that when the peer finally gave it his cautious backing, he did so only under extreme duress.
The Mail on Sunday has also obtained new evidence about the way Lord Goldsmith was bullied into backing the war at the 11th hour.
He was summoned to a No10 meeting with Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer and Baroness Sally Morgan, Mr Blair's senior Labour 'fixer' in Downing Street. No officials were present.
A source said: 'Falconer and Morgan performed a pincer movement on Goldsmith. They more or less pinned him up against the wall and told him to do what Blair wanted.'
After the meeting, Lord Goldsmith issued his brief statement stating the war was lawful.
Lord Falconer said in response to the latest revelations: 'This version of events is totally false. The meeting was Lord Goldsmith's suggestion and he told us what his view was.'
Baroness Morgan has also denied trying to pressure Lord Goldsmith.
The legal row came to a head days before the war, when the UN refused to approve military action. Stranded, Mr Blair had to win Lord Goldsmith's legal backing, not least because British military chiefs refused to send troops into action without it.
On March 17, three days before the conflict started, Lord Goldsmith said the war was legal on the basis of previous UN resolutions threatening action against Saddam - even though in his secret letter of July 2002, he had ruled out this argument.
A spokesman for Lord Goldsmith said: 'This letter is probably in the bundle that has been supplied to the inquiry by the Attorney General's department. It is presumed they will want to discuss it with him. If so, Lord Goldsmith is content to do so.
'His focus is on the legality of the war, its morality is for others.'
A spokesman for the Chilcot Inquiry said: 'We are content we have obtained all the relevant documents.'
A spokesman for Mr Blair refused to say why the former Prime Minister had not disclosed Lord Goldsmith's July 2002 letter.
'The Attorney General set out the legal basis for action in Iraq in March 2003,' he said. 'Beyond that, we are not getting into a running commentary before Mr Blair appears in front of the Chilcot committee.'
Leading international human rights lawyer Philippe Sands said: 'The Chilcot Inquiry must make Lord Goldsmith's note of 29 July, 2002, publicly available to restore public confidence in the Government.'
Diary of deceit ... and how the Attorney General lost three stone
2002
April 6: Blair meets Bush at Crawford, Texas. They secretly agree 'regime change' war against Iraq.
July 23: Blair tells secret Cabinet meeting of war plan. Goldsmith is asked to check legal position.
July 24: Blair tells MPs: 'We have not got to the stage of military action...or point of decision.'
July 29: Goldsmith secretly writes to Blair to tell him war is illegal.
July 30: No10 rebukes Goldsmith. He is excluded from most War Cabinet meetings.
November 8: UN urges Saddam to disarm, but stops short of backing war.
2003
March 7: Despite duress from No10, Goldsmith tells Blair war could be unlawful.
March 13: Goldsmith is allegedly 'pinned against wall' by Blair cronies Charlie Falconer and Sally Morgan.
March 17: UN rules out backing war.
March 17: Goldsmith U-turn. In carefully worded brief 'summary', he says war is lawful.
March 20: War begins.
2005
April 21: Jeremy Paxman asks Blair if he saw Foreign Office advice saying war was illegal. Blair says: 'No. I had Lord Goldsmith's advice to guide me.'
April 24: Mail on Sunday reveals Goldsmith told Blair two weeks before war that it could be illegal.
2009
November 24: Chilcot Iraq War Inquiry begins.
Today: Mail on Sunday reveals Goldsmith's 'smoking gun' letter to Blair in July 2002.
Blair 'knew WMD claim was false'
By the time Tony Blair led Britain to attack Iraq, he had stopped believing his own lurid claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, according to an unpublished interview with the late Robin Cook, the former Leader of the Commons who resigned from the Cabinet just before the invasion in March 2003.
In the interview, which Cook gave me in 2004, the year before his death, he described Blair's actions as 'a scandalous manipulation of the British constitution', adding that if the then Prime Minister had revealed his doubts, they would have rendered the war illegal.
Cook, who was in almost daily contact with Blair in the months before his resignation, said that in September 2002, when the Government published its infamous dossier claiming Saddam had tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons and could deploy WMDs within 45 minutes, Blair did believe these claims were true. But he added:
'By February or March, he knew it was wrong. As far as I know, at no point after the end of 2002 did he ever repeat those claims.'
On March 18, Blair had to face the Commons to ask it to vote for war but he knew, Cook added, 'that if he now publicly withdrew the dossier's claims, his position would be lost'.
Therefore Blair kept silent and so secured the war resolution, though 139 Labour MPs voted against him.
Cook added that if Blair had revealed his doubts, this would also have made it impossible for Lord Goldsmith to issue the fateful legal advice that Britain's Service chiefs had been demanding: that war would be lawful.
'What I've never seen satisfactorily defended by the Government is whether that opinion still stands up if the premise on which it was based - the claims in the dossier - turn out to be false,' Cook said.
'Tony didn't focus on WMDs only for political reasons, but for legal reasons. He knew he was not going to get the Attorney General on side on any basis other than that Saddam had illegal weapons and could not be disarmed by any means other than war.'
Cook's is not the only bombshell that remains unpublished. Last week, Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, told the Chilcot Inquiry that though Blair kept insisting almost to the end that 'nothing was decided' on Iraq, his decision to support the invasion actually went back to April 2002, when he visited President Bush's Texas ranch.
However, both Meyer and other British and American officials told me in 2004 that Blair made up his mind even before April and that even then, Blair was saying in private that Britain would join the attack as long as Bush got UN backing. That meant proving Saddam had active WMDs, as the UN would not authorise an attack on any other basis.
Meyer told me: 'Some time during the first quarter of 2002, Blair had become resigned to war.'
Having committed himself to war, Blair believed he had to get military action approved by the UN to make the invasion legal, and to get the support of his own party back home. But leading figures close to Bush were deeply hostile to this idea, and would have much preferred to attack unilaterally.
Perhaps the most shocking disclosures concerned Blair's propensity to bend the truth. For example, on July 26, 2002, Clare Short, then International Development Secretary, asked Blair whether war was looming.
His response was that she should go on holiday untroubled, because 'nothing had been decided, and would not be over the summer'.
In fact, at that very moment, his adviser Sir David Manning was engaged in feverish diplomacy in Washington - because although Blair thought Bush had promised to go to the UN, he seemed to be changing his mind. Manning even had a personal audience with Bush.
A few days later, Bush and Blair spoke by telephone. A senior White House official who read the transcript told me: 'The way it read was that, come what may, they were going to take out the regime. I remember reading it and thinking, "OK, now I know what we're going to be doing for the next year."'
Later, both leaders would state repeatedly that they had not decided to go to war. But the official said: 'War was avoidable only if Saddam ceased to be president of Iraq. It was a done deal.'
Yet the hawkish neo-conservatives at the Pentagon were still fighting hard to avoid the UN route, which would require a narrowing of focus on to WMDs. The crunch came at a summit at Camp David on September 7, 2002, when, most unusually, not only Bush but the neo-con vice president Dick Cheney met Blair. Cheney's role, Meyer said, was solely to try to persuade Bush not to go to the UN.
In desperation, Blair, according to another White House official, told Bush and Cheney that he could be ousted at the Labour conference later that month if Bush ignored the UN. Afterwards, the official said, he and his colleagues pored over the party's constitution, discovering that it was most unlikely that this threat would materialise.
But by then it was too late: a week after the summit, Bush spoke at the UN General Assembly, and announced America would be seeking what became Resolution 1442 - the resolution that, in Lord Goldsmith's eyes, allowed British soldiers to kill Iraqis without being prosecuted for murder.
But not all who once saw Blair as a friend have forgiven him. 'Blair was absolutely the reason why we went to the UN, because it was believed that his political fortunes absolutely demanded it,' said David Wurmser, formerly Cheney's chief Middle East adviser. 'It really was a political concession to Blair - and also a disastrous misjudgment.'
source:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231746/Secret-letter-reveal-new-Blair-war-lies.html
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Attack at Complex Nightclub in St. Louis
Attack at Complex Nightclub in St. Louis
By 365gay Newswire
11.30.2009 11:45am EST
KSDK reported that three gay men were attacked early Saturday morning when leaving The Complex Nightclub in St. Louis.
One of the men attacked, Jacob Piwowarczyk said, “I have a soft tissue bruise on my elbow. I have six stitches in my eye and I have a mild concussion.”
Piwowarczyk recalled there were four attackers. “They came up out of the car and they start calling us faggots.”
He continued, “We kept telling them please leave us alone, we’re fine. From there, the one kid didn’t like what we told them and decided to punch me in the eye and I fell to the ground. And at that time my friend was laying on the ground and they started kicking him in the face.”
Gay rights advocates say existing state and new federal laws on hate crimes could mean harsh penalties for the attackers.
According to the Vital Voice, Missouri was one of the first states to include both sexual orientation and gender identity protections in its 1999 Hate Crimes Law.
Piwowarczyk said, “Health-wise we’re all fine. We’re just lucky to be alive. Could have turned out worse.”
KSDK also reported that the other two victims suffered a broken nose and fractured cheekbone.
The police department is still investigating.
By 365gay Newswire
11.30.2009 11:45am EST
KSDK reported that three gay men were attacked early Saturday morning when leaving The Complex Nightclub in St. Louis.
One of the men attacked, Jacob Piwowarczyk said, “I have a soft tissue bruise on my elbow. I have six stitches in my eye and I have a mild concussion.”
Piwowarczyk recalled there were four attackers. “They came up out of the car and they start calling us faggots.”
He continued, “We kept telling them please leave us alone, we’re fine. From there, the one kid didn’t like what we told them and decided to punch me in the eye and I fell to the ground. And at that time my friend was laying on the ground and they started kicking him in the face.”
Gay rights advocates say existing state and new federal laws on hate crimes could mean harsh penalties for the attackers.
According to the Vital Voice, Missouri was one of the first states to include both sexual orientation and gender identity protections in its 1999 Hate Crimes Law.
Piwowarczyk said, “Health-wise we’re all fine. We’re just lucky to be alive. Could have turned out worse.”
KSDK also reported that the other two victims suffered a broken nose and fractured cheekbone.
The police department is still investigating.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Are We Going to Let John Die?
Are We Going to Let John Die?
Health Care Reform
Unfortunately, an emergency room won’t help — indeed, the closest E.R. has told him not to come back, he says. So, for those members of Congress who are wavering on health reform, listen to John’s story.
John is a sawmill worker from Yamhill County, Ore., where I grew up. He was a foreman at a mill, he felt strong and healthy, and he had very basic insurance coverage through his job. On April 18, he was married, at age 23, and life was looking up.
Ten days after the wedding, he was walking in his backyard carrying a neighbor’s dog — and he suddenly blacked out. That led, after rounds of CAT scans, M.R.I.’s and other tests, to the discovery that the left parietal lobe of his brain has a cavernous hemangioma. That’s an abnormal growth of blood vessels, and in John’s case it is chronically leaking blood into his brain.
John began to have trouble walking and would sometimes collapse. He developed spasms and restless leg syndrome, he began to use a cane, and his mind suffered.
“He forgets stuff a lot, he bumps into things,” said his new wife, Esther Brodniak. “But he keeps things light. He jokes about it.”
Perhaps the worst is the pain — blinding, incapacitating headaches that have left him able to sleep only in short intervals. He vomits daily when the pain surges.
“The pain is constant,” John said. “It’s a 7 or 8 on a scale of 10, and then it hits the high peaks and makes me vomit.”
With John unable to work, he lost his job — and his insurance coverage. Esther had insurance for herself and for her two children (from a previous marriage) through her job building manufactured homes. But she couldn’t add John to her plan because of his pre-existing condition.
Without insurance, John has been unable to get surgery or even help managing the pain. When he collapses or suffers particularly excruciating headaches, Esther rushes him to the emergency room of one hospital or another, but an E.R. can’t do much for him. One hospital has told them not to come back unless he gets insurance, they say.
Esther used up her family leave time to look after her new husband. “Then I went back to work, and he fell several times,” she said. “I told my boss that I had to quit. Taking care of John was more important than building someone else’s house.”
That meant that the couple had no income — and no insurance for anyone in the family, including the children. Neighbors have helped, and a community program has paid the rent so that they are not homeless. But bills are piling up, and John and Esther don’t know how they will cope.
The doctors warn that pressure from the growth could lead a major blood vessel nearby to burst, killing him. “They tell me I’m a time bomb,” John said. With a touch of bitterness, he adds, “It sort of feels as if they’re playing for time to see if it bursts, to save them from doing anything.”
I’m not a physician, and I certainly can’t speak to the medical issues here. But I have examined John’s medical records, and they appear to confirm his story.
John says the principal obstacle to treatment appears to be simply his lack of insurance. In August, he qualified for an Oregon Medicaid program, but he hasn’t been able to find a doctor who will accept him as a patient for surgery, apparently because the reimbursements are so low. Doctors tell him that his condition is operable — but that they can’t accept him without conventional insurance. He is increasingly frustrated as he watches his family crushed by the burden of his illness.
“The mill won’t let me go back to work until a doctor gives me a note saying I can go back,” he said. “I tried with several doctors. I said, ‘Just give me a note. ... I’ve got to do something for my family. But they won’t.” John and Esther agreed to tell me their story in hopes that somehow it would lead to medical help.
John’s story is not so unusual. A Harvard study, to be published next month in the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that almost 45,000 Americans die prematurely each year as a consequence of not having insurance. John may become one of them.
If a senator strolled indifferently by as John retched in pain, we would think that person pitiless. But isn’t it just as monstrous for politicians to avert their eyes, make excuses and deny coverage to innumerable Americans just like John?
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/opinion/29kristof.html?ref=opinion
--
Health Care Reform
Unfortunately, an emergency room won’t help — indeed, the closest E.R. has told him not to come back, he says. So, for those members of Congress who are wavering on health reform, listen to John’s story.
John is a sawmill worker from Yamhill County, Ore., where I grew up. He was a foreman at a mill, he felt strong and healthy, and he had very basic insurance coverage through his job. On April 18, he was married, at age 23, and life was looking up.
Ten days after the wedding, he was walking in his backyard carrying a neighbor’s dog — and he suddenly blacked out. That led, after rounds of CAT scans, M.R.I.’s and other tests, to the discovery that the left parietal lobe of his brain has a cavernous hemangioma. That’s an abnormal growth of blood vessels, and in John’s case it is chronically leaking blood into his brain.
John began to have trouble walking and would sometimes collapse. He developed spasms and restless leg syndrome, he began to use a cane, and his mind suffered.
“He forgets stuff a lot, he bumps into things,” said his new wife, Esther Brodniak. “But he keeps things light. He jokes about it.”
Perhaps the worst is the pain — blinding, incapacitating headaches that have left him able to sleep only in short intervals. He vomits daily when the pain surges.
“The pain is constant,” John said. “It’s a 7 or 8 on a scale of 10, and then it hits the high peaks and makes me vomit.”
With John unable to work, he lost his job — and his insurance coverage. Esther had insurance for herself and for her two children (from a previous marriage) through her job building manufactured homes. But she couldn’t add John to her plan because of his pre-existing condition.
Without insurance, John has been unable to get surgery or even help managing the pain. When he collapses or suffers particularly excruciating headaches, Esther rushes him to the emergency room of one hospital or another, but an E.R. can’t do much for him. One hospital has told them not to come back unless he gets insurance, they say.
Esther used up her family leave time to look after her new husband. “Then I went back to work, and he fell several times,” she said. “I told my boss that I had to quit. Taking care of John was more important than building someone else’s house.”
That meant that the couple had no income — and no insurance for anyone in the family, including the children. Neighbors have helped, and a community program has paid the rent so that they are not homeless. But bills are piling up, and John and Esther don’t know how they will cope.
The doctors warn that pressure from the growth could lead a major blood vessel nearby to burst, killing him. “They tell me I’m a time bomb,” John said. With a touch of bitterness, he adds, “It sort of feels as if they’re playing for time to see if it bursts, to save them from doing anything.”
I’m not a physician, and I certainly can’t speak to the medical issues here. But I have examined John’s medical records, and they appear to confirm his story.
John says the principal obstacle to treatment appears to be simply his lack of insurance. In August, he qualified for an Oregon Medicaid program, but he hasn’t been able to find a doctor who will accept him as a patient for surgery, apparently because the reimbursements are so low. Doctors tell him that his condition is operable — but that they can’t accept him without conventional insurance. He is increasingly frustrated as he watches his family crushed by the burden of his illness.
“The mill won’t let me go back to work until a doctor gives me a note saying I can go back,” he said. “I tried with several doctors. I said, ‘Just give me a note. ... I’ve got to do something for my family. But they won’t.” John and Esther agreed to tell me their story in hopes that somehow it would lead to medical help.
John’s story is not so unusual. A Harvard study, to be published next month in the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that almost 45,000 Americans die prematurely each year as a consequence of not having insurance. John may become one of them.
If a senator strolled indifferently by as John retched in pain, we would think that person pitiless. But isn’t it just as monstrous for politicians to avert their eyes, make excuses and deny coverage to innumerable Americans just like John?
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/opinion/29kristof.html?ref=opinion
--
When It Comes to Enabling the Terrorism of Gun Deaths in America, No One Beats the NRA
When It Comes to Enabling the Terrorism of Gun Deaths in America, No One Beats the NRA
By Mark Karlin
Did you know that the shooter at Fort Hood did not use an army issued gun? No, he bought his weapon legally at a firearms store with the name of "Guns Galore":
Law enforcement officials say a 5.7-millimeter pistol used in the Fort Hood shooting rampage was purchased legally at a Texas gun store.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.
Records indicate Hasan bought the FN 5.7 at store called “Guns Galore” in Killeen, Texas, well before the attack that left 13 people dead. The pistol has been dubbed a “cop killer” by those who have tried to stop its use.
The most powerful type of ammunition for the gun is available only to law enforcement and military personnel. Gun control advocates call it a “cop killer” weapon because that ammo can pierce bulletproof vests, and its use by Mexican drug cartels worries police.
The National Rifle Association has made all this possible, including using its nearly omnipotent clout to forbid the FBI from stopping suspected terrorists from buying guns. That's right, the NRA believes people believed to possibly be terrorists have a "2nd Amendment" right to own guns!
While the right wing nut jubs revel in the politics of paraonia against anyone who is Islamic, the NRA is enabling around 10,000 gun homicides a year in the United States by good 'ole Americans. Now, that's a far larger death toll than 9/11 or Fort Hood.
The NRA represents a fanatical philosophy that is akin to the fundamentalism underlying terrorism, and -- as a result -- is our chief domestic enabler of terrorism (along with the right wing media) by making sure that guns are readily available to just about anyone with the cash to pay for them.
We have become so numb to everyday shooting deaths in America that we focus on tragic and sensational losses, such as Fort Hood, but can't see the forest through the trees. The NRA is so extremist, it even has kept a military sniper rifle on the market that can assassinate a person (public official) from nearly a mile away with accuracy. Given the heightened number of death threats against President Obama, you would think a .50 caliber sniper rifle would be banned for civilian purchase, but not with the NRA around to champion terrorist weapons. (Only the State of California bans civlians from purchasing the .50 caliber sniper rifle.)
Over Thanksgiving, I read of numerous shootings -- as is daily the case in America. There's always one or two that especially stick out, such as this massacre in Florida in which 4 members of a family were shot dead, allegedly by a cousin: "Six-year-old Makayla Sitton didn't get to act in The Nutcracker Ballet. The night before she was to go on stage, she was shot to death with three others in a home in Jupiter, Florida."
There could be effective regulation of firearms in the United States, but the NRA is more dangerous in terms of yearly homicides by resisting logical legislation than any terrorist acts we have experienced thus far in the United States.
The NRA ensures that there is a ready supply of guns that kill about 100,000 Americans in a decade in homicides, and many more in suicides and accidents.
No terrorists can match that figure, and if they tried, they would likely buy arms in the U.S., as the Fort Hood shooter did, not meant for civilian use and capable of either mass murder or an assassination.
When it comes to the terrorist watch list, the NRA -- which fans the flames of armed militia and white male paranoia in the U.S. -- should be at the top of the list.
They are primarily responsible -- along with the gun manufcaturers -- for turning America into a shooting gallery, with a mind-boggling death toll.
More:
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/9917
--
By Mark Karlin
Did you know that the shooter at Fort Hood did not use an army issued gun? No, he bought his weapon legally at a firearms store with the name of "Guns Galore":
Law enforcement officials say a 5.7-millimeter pistol used in the Fort Hood shooting rampage was purchased legally at a Texas gun store.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.
Records indicate Hasan bought the FN 5.7 at store called “Guns Galore” in Killeen, Texas, well before the attack that left 13 people dead. The pistol has been dubbed a “cop killer” by those who have tried to stop its use.
The most powerful type of ammunition for the gun is available only to law enforcement and military personnel. Gun control advocates call it a “cop killer” weapon because that ammo can pierce bulletproof vests, and its use by Mexican drug cartels worries police.
The National Rifle Association has made all this possible, including using its nearly omnipotent clout to forbid the FBI from stopping suspected terrorists from buying guns. That's right, the NRA believes people believed to possibly be terrorists have a "2nd Amendment" right to own guns!
While the right wing nut jubs revel in the politics of paraonia against anyone who is Islamic, the NRA is enabling around 10,000 gun homicides a year in the United States by good 'ole Americans. Now, that's a far larger death toll than 9/11 or Fort Hood.
The NRA represents a fanatical philosophy that is akin to the fundamentalism underlying terrorism, and -- as a result -- is our chief domestic enabler of terrorism (along with the right wing media) by making sure that guns are readily available to just about anyone with the cash to pay for them.
We have become so numb to everyday shooting deaths in America that we focus on tragic and sensational losses, such as Fort Hood, but can't see the forest through the trees. The NRA is so extremist, it even has kept a military sniper rifle on the market that can assassinate a person (public official) from nearly a mile away with accuracy. Given the heightened number of death threats against President Obama, you would think a .50 caliber sniper rifle would be banned for civilian purchase, but not with the NRA around to champion terrorist weapons. (Only the State of California bans civlians from purchasing the .50 caliber sniper rifle.)
Over Thanksgiving, I read of numerous shootings -- as is daily the case in America. There's always one or two that especially stick out, such as this massacre in Florida in which 4 members of a family were shot dead, allegedly by a cousin: "Six-year-old Makayla Sitton didn't get to act in The Nutcracker Ballet. The night before she was to go on stage, she was shot to death with three others in a home in Jupiter, Florida."
There could be effective regulation of firearms in the United States, but the NRA is more dangerous in terms of yearly homicides by resisting logical legislation than any terrorist acts we have experienced thus far in the United States.
The NRA ensures that there is a ready supply of guns that kill about 100,000 Americans in a decade in homicides, and many more in suicides and accidents.
No terrorists can match that figure, and if they tried, they would likely buy arms in the U.S., as the Fort Hood shooter did, not meant for civilian use and capable of either mass murder or an assassination.
When it comes to the terrorist watch list, the NRA -- which fans the flames of armed militia and white male paranoia in the U.S. -- should be at the top of the list.
They are primarily responsible -- along with the gun manufcaturers -- for turning America into a shooting gallery, with a mind-boggling death toll.
More:
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/9917
--
Facing a sixth trial for the same crime
Facing a sixth trial for the same crime
By Tom Mangold
Radio 4, Crossing Continents
Curtis Flowers, a 39-year-old African-American is to stand trial for an unprecedented sixth time for the murder of four people in Mississippi in 1996. So far, two of his trials have resulted in mistrials and three in convictions that were later overturned.
James Bibbs, also an African-American, was a juror in Mr Flowers's 2008 trial, which ended in a mistrial. He was the only one of the 12 to vote against a conviction.
At the end of the trial, Mr Bibbs was hauled in front of the judge, harangued, threatened, arrested in court, led away in handcuffs, charged with perjury and spent the night in prison.
Mr Bibbs is in his early 60s. He's a retired school teacher, a Vietnam veteran, a local football referee - a patently decent man who was shocked by what had happened.
"The judge got real loud, and he said 'you are lying, you committed perjury'. I was disappointed, all these years you do all these things for the community, then you are called a liar like that out in the public, it was degrading."
The judge's outburst (the perjury charge has since been quietly dropped) came in a case that is extraordinary for many reasons.
Unprecedented
The prosecution of Curtis Flowers casts a sharp light on racial attitudes in America's South one year after the election of the nation's first black president.
He has been sentenced to death three times, only for each verdict to be overturned on appeal because of what the Mississippi Supreme Court described as prosecutorial misconduct. In one further trial, the jury failed to agree after dividing broadly on racial lines.
In the fifth trial, James Bibbs voted for acquittal, and a unanimous verdict was required.
Mr Flowers has spent 13 years on remand in prison.
The local district attorney, desperate to score a conviction in such a high-profile case, has played it dirty to win.
One of his tricks, exposed by a refreshingly impartial Mississippi Supreme Court, was to fiddle the jury selection to exclude black jurors.
Paradoxically, the DA is not generally held to be a racist himself.
Just to complicate matters even further, Curtis Flowers does have a strong case to answer.
He had a motive.
Mr Flowers had been employed by the owner of a furniture store who sacked him. There was a dispute about money owing.
Subsequently someone walked into the store, shot the owner and then coldly massacred three other employees. Mr Flowers has never produced an alibi for that terrible morning.
For his defence, the forensic evidence against him is wafer thin, and some witness evidence is contentious.
Post-racial society
The murders took place in the small town of Winona, in the heart of a state with the worst civil rights record in the US.
Winona is not far from Philadelphia, where three civil rights workers were infamously murdered in the early 60s - a story captured in the film Mississippi Burning.
The lynchings, the cross burnings, the overt violence and discrimination have long since disappeared.
But even one year after Barack Obama and the dream of a post-racial society, the Flowers case shows how short the march away from old attitudes has been.
The local state senator, Lydia Chassaniol has won few African-American hearts by introducing a bill that would widen the jury pool in such a way that critics say would make it easier to select an all-white jury.
She has joined a local chapter of the right-wing Council for Conservative Citizens and addressed their annual conference.
"I'll talk to anyone who wants me to talk to them," the senator told me, stressing her role as official tourist booster for the state.
But meet members of the council, as I did, in a modest motel outside Winona, and the nature of this rump of the red-neck, good 'ole white boys, confederate-flag-wavers is striking.
Their hatred of inter-racial marriage, homosexuals, liberals (aka communists) identifies an atavistic streak that still remains 150 years after slavery.
As one of them told me: "It's all right for them (non-whites) to practise their culture but they should not take ours away from us. We are probably the most discriminated race in the country."
Mr Flowers faces a sixth trial next June. In Britain, natural justice would have made it likely that the prosecution would be dropped after the second mistrial.
But this is Winona, Mississippi and a black man accused of a quadruple murder will not be allowed to walk away.
Black president or not, the state and its judicial servants are not ready for that yet.
Crossing Continents: Mississippi Smouldering is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday, 26 November 2009 at 1100 GMT and repeated on Monday, at 2030 GMT.
You can also listen to Crossing Continents on the
or subscribe to the
.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8377236.stm
Published: 2009/11/26 13:03:46 GMT
By Tom Mangold
Radio 4, Crossing Continents
Curtis Flowers, a 39-year-old African-American is to stand trial for an unprecedented sixth time for the murder of four people in Mississippi in 1996. So far, two of his trials have resulted in mistrials and three in convictions that were later overturned.
James Bibbs, also an African-American, was a juror in Mr Flowers's 2008 trial, which ended in a mistrial. He was the only one of the 12 to vote against a conviction.
At the end of the trial, Mr Bibbs was hauled in front of the judge, harangued, threatened, arrested in court, led away in handcuffs, charged with perjury and spent the night in prison.
Mr Bibbs is in his early 60s. He's a retired school teacher, a Vietnam veteran, a local football referee - a patently decent man who was shocked by what had happened.
"The judge got real loud, and he said 'you are lying, you committed perjury'. I was disappointed, all these years you do all these things for the community, then you are called a liar like that out in the public, it was degrading."
The judge's outburst (the perjury charge has since been quietly dropped) came in a case that is extraordinary for many reasons.
Unprecedented
The prosecution of Curtis Flowers casts a sharp light on racial attitudes in America's South one year after the election of the nation's first black president.
He has been sentenced to death three times, only for each verdict to be overturned on appeal because of what the Mississippi Supreme Court described as prosecutorial misconduct. In one further trial, the jury failed to agree after dividing broadly on racial lines.
In the fifth trial, James Bibbs voted for acquittal, and a unanimous verdict was required.
Mr Flowers has spent 13 years on remand in prison.
The local district attorney, desperate to score a conviction in such a high-profile case, has played it dirty to win.
One of his tricks, exposed by a refreshingly impartial Mississippi Supreme Court, was to fiddle the jury selection to exclude black jurors.
Paradoxically, the DA is not generally held to be a racist himself.
Just to complicate matters even further, Curtis Flowers does have a strong case to answer.
He had a motive.
Mr Flowers had been employed by the owner of a furniture store who sacked him. There was a dispute about money owing.
Subsequently someone walked into the store, shot the owner and then coldly massacred three other employees. Mr Flowers has never produced an alibi for that terrible morning.
For his defence, the forensic evidence against him is wafer thin, and some witness evidence is contentious.
Post-racial society
The murders took place in the small town of Winona, in the heart of a state with the worst civil rights record in the US.
Winona is not far from Philadelphia, where three civil rights workers were infamously murdered in the early 60s - a story captured in the film Mississippi Burning.
The lynchings, the cross burnings, the overt violence and discrimination have long since disappeared.
But even one year after Barack Obama and the dream of a post-racial society, the Flowers case shows how short the march away from old attitudes has been.
The local state senator, Lydia Chassaniol has won few African-American hearts by introducing a bill that would widen the jury pool in such a way that critics say would make it easier to select an all-white jury.
She has joined a local chapter of the right-wing Council for Conservative Citizens and addressed their annual conference.
"I'll talk to anyone who wants me to talk to them," the senator told me, stressing her role as official tourist booster for the state.
But meet members of the council, as I did, in a modest motel outside Winona, and the nature of this rump of the red-neck, good 'ole white boys, confederate-flag-wavers is striking.
Their hatred of inter-racial marriage, homosexuals, liberals (aka communists) identifies an atavistic streak that still remains 150 years after slavery.
As one of them told me: "It's all right for them (non-whites) to practise their culture but they should not take ours away from us. We are probably the most discriminated race in the country."
Mr Flowers faces a sixth trial next June. In Britain, natural justice would have made it likely that the prosecution would be dropped after the second mistrial.
But this is Winona, Mississippi and a black man accused of a quadruple murder will not be allowed to walk away.
Black president or not, the state and its judicial servants are not ready for that yet.
Crossing Continents: Mississippi Smouldering is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday, 26 November 2009 at 1100 GMT and repeated on Monday, at 2030 GMT.
You can also listen to Crossing Continents on the
or subscribe to the
.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8377236.stm
Published: 2009/11/26 13:03:46 GMT
Hitting the Brakes on Afghanistan
http://www.fpif. org/fpifzines/ wb/6599
Hitting the Brakes on Afghanistan
By John Feffer
Foreign Policy in Focus: 11/23/09
Imagine finding yourself in the driver's seat of a car heading directly at a
brick wall. You panic: What to do?
Fortunately, there are three people in the car with you, and they all have
very firm advice. The person in the passenger seat tells you to push the
pedal to the metal. Right behind you in the back seat, your friend is urging
you to accelerate only modestly. And the fourth person in the car recommends
that you maintain your current speed.
You might be thinking: These are my only choices? I'll hit the brick wall
either really quickly, rather quickly, or pretty darn soon. The end result
will be the same. The car will be destroyed and all four of you will be in
the hospital.
Since these are the choices now being presented to President Barack Obama
for his Afghanistan policy, who can blame him for being slow to make up his
mind? His top general is telling him to send 40,000 troops. His vice
president is telling him to send 10-15,000 troops. And his secretary of
state and Pentagon chief are urging the middle course of 30,000 troops.
Isn't anyone out there telling the president that he has more levers at his
disposal than simply the gas pedal? Isn't anyone pointing out the obvious?
The brake, Mr. President, the brake!
Frankly, the car metaphor isn't precise. It's actually a bus heading toward
that brick wall. A really, really big bus. And we're all on board, the
entire U.S. population. The president's advisors are all clustered up at the
front. Their voices are pretty loud. But we can all make our voices heard if
we all shout together from the back of the bus.Call the White House at
202-456-1111 and keep the message simple: Don't send more troops to
Afghanistan, Mr. President.
Peace groups around the country are coordinating this call-in campaign in
these few days before Thanksgiving so that the president knows, before the
expected announcement of his Afghanistan policy next week, that there are
other choices. Here's a link to some additional talking points about
different congressional options.
"It is unlikely that we will soon have another president with the moral and
rhetorical force to talk us out of a foolish commitment that cannot be
sustained without shame and defeat," writes Garry Wills in The New York
Review of Books. "If it costs him his presidency, what other achievement can
match it? During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he would
rather be a one-term president than give up on his goals. Here is a goal no
other president we can imagine would have a possibility of reaching.
Presidents who just kick the can down the road are easy to come by. Lost
lives and limbs are not."
The crash can be avoided. But we must call the White House and let the
driver-in-chief know that we're here, we're clear, and we don't want this
war no more.
***
Hitting the Brakes on Afghanistan
By John Feffer
Foreign Policy in Focus: 11/23/09
Imagine finding yourself in the driver's seat of a car heading directly at a
brick wall. You panic: What to do?
Fortunately, there are three people in the car with you, and they all have
very firm advice. The person in the passenger seat tells you to push the
pedal to the metal. Right behind you in the back seat, your friend is urging
you to accelerate only modestly. And the fourth person in the car recommends
that you maintain your current speed.
You might be thinking: These are my only choices? I'll hit the brick wall
either really quickly, rather quickly, or pretty darn soon. The end result
will be the same. The car will be destroyed and all four of you will be in
the hospital.
Since these are the choices now being presented to President Barack Obama
for his Afghanistan policy, who can blame him for being slow to make up his
mind? His top general is telling him to send 40,000 troops. His vice
president is telling him to send 10-15,000 troops. And his secretary of
state and Pentagon chief are urging the middle course of 30,000 troops.
Isn't anyone out there telling the president that he has more levers at his
disposal than simply the gas pedal? Isn't anyone pointing out the obvious?
The brake, Mr. President, the brake!
Frankly, the car metaphor isn't precise. It's actually a bus heading toward
that brick wall. A really, really big bus. And we're all on board, the
entire U.S. population. The president's advisors are all clustered up at the
front. Their voices are pretty loud. But we can all make our voices heard if
we all shout together from the back of the bus.Call the White House at
202-456-1111 and keep the message simple: Don't send more troops to
Afghanistan, Mr. President.
Peace groups around the country are coordinating this call-in campaign in
these few days before Thanksgiving so that the president knows, before the
expected announcement of his Afghanistan policy next week, that there are
other choices. Here's a link to some additional talking points about
different congressional options.
"It is unlikely that we will soon have another president with the moral and
rhetorical force to talk us out of a foolish commitment that cannot be
sustained without shame and defeat," writes Garry Wills in The New York
Review of Books. "If it costs him his presidency, what other achievement can
match it? During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he would
rather be a one-term president than give up on his goals. Here is a goal no
other president we can imagine would have a possibility of reaching.
Presidents who just kick the can down the road are easy to come by. Lost
lives and limbs are not."
The crash can be avoided. But we must call the White House and let the
driver-in-chief know that we're here, we're clear, and we don't want this
war no more.
***
Irish Priest Admits Abusing 100 Kids
Irish Priest Admits Abusing 100 Kids
By Daniel Florien on November 28, 2009
The Pope Looking EvilA new report is out showing the Most Holy Chaste Catholic Church has been covering up child sex abuse for decades:
Following a three-year investigation in the Dublin Archdiocese, the country’s largest, the report concluded that four archbishops routinely protected abusers and failed to inform police of the allegations. One priest admitted to sexually abusing over 100 children, while another confessed that he had abused on a fortnightly basis over 25 years.
“The volume of revelations of child sexual abuse by clergy over the past 35 years or so has been described by a Church source as a ‘tsunami’ of sexual abuse,” said the report….
The judicial probe discovered that the archbishops did not report abuse to police until the 1990s as part of a culture of secrecy and to try and avoid damaging the reputation of the Church.
The report said: “All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities”.
It found children who complained “were often met with denial, arrogance and cover-up and with incompetence and incomprehension in some cases. Suspicions were rarely acted on”.
Some of my Catholic friends boycott large companies because they have donated to gay rights or pro-choice organizations. Yet they give their money and loyalty to an organization that has been abusing children and covering it up for decades (though it’s probably been more like 1,700 years). It’s mind-boggling.
source:
BBC - Prisoners Of Katrina
BBC - Prisoners Of Katrina
The shot of thousands of orange-clad prisoners, murderers and rapists among them, crouching on a broken bridge, held at bay, at gunpoint by a few overstretched guards, was one of the iconic images of the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina. But who were those prisoners? ‘What about the prisoners in the jail?’ the Sheriff had been asked as city leaders ordered the people of New Orleans to flee the hurricane heading their way. “The prisoners will stay where they belong” he decided.
This is the untold story of almost 7,000 inmates, some never even charged, who found themselves in Orleans Parish Prison as it flooded. A year after the hurricane, find out what happened inside the jail as panicked inmates, left without food or water, rioted and broke out. Olenka Frenkiel reports on a justice system, already near to collapse - and on its final tipping point - Katrina.
Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563503/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563512/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.002
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563509/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.003
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563504/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.004
The shot of thousands of orange-clad prisoners, murderers and rapists among them, crouching on a broken bridge, held at bay, at gunpoint by a few overstretched guards, was one of the iconic images of the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina. But who were those prisoners? ‘What about the prisoners in the jail?’ the Sheriff had been asked as city leaders ordered the people of New Orleans to flee the hurricane heading their way. “The prisoners will stay where they belong” he decided.
This is the untold story of almost 7,000 inmates, some never even charged, who found themselves in Orleans Parish Prison as it flooded. A year after the hurricane, find out what happened inside the jail as panicked inmates, left without food or water, rioted and broke out. Olenka Frenkiel reports on a justice system, already near to collapse - and on its final tipping point - Katrina.
Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563503/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563512/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.002
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563509/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.003
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563504/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.004
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