To The Victor, Goes The Corporate, Trade Secrets

Allies Used Gestapo Tactics To Loot Devastated German Industry After World War 2

They came in the night. Kicking in doors, dragging people from their beds, kidnapping and forcing them into trucks and onto planes and trains that carried them away from the hometowns and families.

That description sounds very much like the way the Gestapo rounded up Jews across Europe during World War 2, and it was. But it also accurately describes the way British soldiers and private contractors abducted German scientists and corporate executives during the wholesale looting of the war-shattered nation.

Military, commercial and scientific assets and secrets were stolen by the British, and Americans (along with the French and the Russians) leaving Germany bereft of the skills and personnel and information needed to rebuild, and delaying the day when German industry could once more compete with the best of the British.

It is another example of the dirty secret financial and corporate war that raged behind the scenes of hero-packed battlefields, navies shredding each other on the world's oceans and air battles that became the stuff of legend.

More than 60 years later, the mainstream media has barely begun to scratch the surface of the other side of the World War 2 - where American corporations got rich off Nazi gas pellets, where Australian steel manufacturers shipped the material to build navies and air fleets to enemies, even when they know war was coming, and where the kings of British industry used the infamous Bomber Command to destroy their competitors in some of the most horrific scenes of mass slaughter of civilians in the history of the world : a campaign in which the first bombs were dropped before World War 2 even officially began.

Congratulations then to the UK Guardian, which has uncovered one of these remarkable secrets of the corporate war behind World War 2.

T-Force was the name of the elite British unit that abducted "hundreds of German scientists and technicians and put them to work at government ministries and private industry". But there's much more to the story than just that. Read on for a stunning memo from the British government, lost for 61 years :

The programme was designed to loot the defeated country's intellectual assets, impeding its ability to compete while giving a boost to British business.

In a related programme, German businessmen are alleged to have been forced to travel to post-war Britain to be questioned by their commercial rivals, and were interned if they refused to reveal trade secrets.

The economic warfare programmes are detailed in batches of Foreign Office files, marked "Top Secret", many of which lay unseen at the National Archives at Kew until discovered by the Guardian.

The files detail the way in which the scramble to uncover the Nazis' military secrets during the dying days of the conflict in Europe, to assist the continuing war effort in the Far East, turned rapidly to an early cold war campaign to prevent Germany's scientific and industrial assets falling into Soviet hands. This, in turn, offered the British government an opportunity to exploit the scientific and technical know-how of the defeated nation, with scientists being regarded as a form of human booty who could help give the UK an economic and commercial edge

While it has long been known that German scientists and technicians worked in the US and Britain after the war, it has generally been assumed they were all volunteers, lured by the promise of good pay and accommodation. However, the declassified papers make clear that for more than two years after the cessation of hostilities the British authorities were subjecting them to a programme of "enforced evacuation".

One memo found at Kew, written in August 1946 by a senior civil servant working with the British military government in northern Germany, makes clear how this programme worked. "Usually an NCO arrives without notice at the house or office of the German and warns that he will be required. He does not give him any details of the reasons, nor does he present his credentials. Some time later the German is seized (often in the middle of the night) and removed under guard.

"This procedure savours very much of the Gestapo methods and, quite apart from causing great and unnecessary inconvenience to the individual and to the industry employing him, it is bound to create feelings of alarm and insecurity.

"I have not been able to get to the bottom of the matter, but there appear to be two bodies which carry out these kidnappings."

While many factories were being dismantled, as part of a post-war plan to limit Germany's industrial capacity, the investigators would look for state-of-the-art machinery to be shipped back to Britain, research papers to be taken away and patents to be appropriated. These teams would often include representatives of firms such as ICI and Courtaulds, and others from the shipbuilding, steel or aerospace industries, usually wearing British army officers' uniforms. As well as deciding which equipment and documentation to take, they also identified scientists and technicians to be removed.

Many of the detainees had indeed been involved in armaments work. The papers show that among those most sought after were men with expertise in underwater acoustics, infrared technology, electron microscopes, munitions, optical glass and aircraft engine design. Other target lists at Kew reveal a determination to trace technicians with knowledge of a "method of causing temporary blindness by ultra violet rays", the manufacture of Sarin gas, and "physiological trials of chemical warfare gases" - which had been conducted on concentration camp inmates.

In November 1946 the New Statesman reported that three members of a six-strong Bios team, which included representatives of Pears Soap, Max Factor and Yardley, had called at the home of an elderly woman whose family firm manufactured 4711 eau-de-cologne, a famous brand, and attempted to bully her into handing over the recipe. When she was taken ill the team threatened to call a prison van to take her to a prison hospital. Next day they telephoned to try again.

Scientists were not the sole targets. The papers disclose brief details about Operation Bottleneck, which aimed to extract business information.

"An English manufacturer would name his German counterpart and competitor and 'invite' him to England (whether the man comes voluntarily or not is questionable). They then discuss business and the German is gently persuaded to reveal secrets of his trade. When he refuses, he is kept in polite internment until he gets so tired of not being allowed to return to his family that he tells the Englishman what he wants to know. Thus for about £6 a day the English businessman gains the deepest secrets of Germany's economic life."

The rationale for this had been set out by Herbert Morrison, lord president of the council, who told the prime minister, Clement Attlee: "It is most important at this formative stage to start shaping the German economy in the way which will best assist our own economic plans and will run the least risk of it developing into an unnecessarily awkward competitor."

The Full Story Is Here

Don't ever kid yourself that World War 2 was all about defeating those evil Nazis and stopping the spread of fascism. And don't think Australian, British and American troops who fought that war were completely ignorant about what was going on in the boardrooms of the corporations upon whose half they unofficially were fighting.

Many of those soldiers knew, and some knew more than they could live with.

As I heard one WWII veteran state in 2003, shortly before his death, his voice cracking with rage, "Where's the John Wayne movie where he humps his platoon from Europe to Wall Street to finish off the enemy?"

Where indeed.

The soldiers got shiny medals and pretty ribbons. The bankers got country estates.

Just like the Iraq War today, World War 2 was a corporate war, first and foremost.

And on the Iraq War, here's a story that will probably tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the corporate feeding frenzy going on there right now. But don't read 'The Great Iraq Swindle' after midnight. Your screams of fury and disgust just might wake up the entire neighbourhood.

During World War 1, It Was The Done Thing



100 years, 170,000 cigarettes.

Speaking at her 100th birthday party Winnie said: "I have smoked ever since infants school and I have never thought about quitting."

Infants school? Yes, infants school. Winnie started smoking at seven years old.

Why?

"It was the done thing".

But Winnie has a secret to her long life of smoking. She only puts away five a day and never inhales.

Kerouac : The Legend Of The Scroll



Like most classic literary legends, the story of how 'Beat' writer Jack Kerouac put together his ground-breaking novel of new realism, On The Road, is better in the telling than the reality.

The fable goes that Kerouac, a dirt poor, desperate writer, itching for recognition, sat down one day in the early 1950s, fed one end of a 120 feet long roll of paper into his typewriter and wrote the entire novel, no edits, no rewrites, in a few days. He took the paper roll of One The Road, written as one long paragraph, to his publisher and Kerouac then became one of the most famous writers in American history.

But the reality of the struggle Kerouac went through to finish On The Road, and to eventually get it published, would a more familiar tale to novelists than the legend.

This story in Vanity Fair, marking the first time the original text of the 120 foot long scroll version of On The Road has been published, explains the soul-gutting struggle behind the legend of Kerouac's On The Road.

In short, Kerouac did write the novel on that scroll of paper, but his publisher told him to go away when he tried to unroll it in his office. Kerouac's novel went unpublished for six long years after he wrote the first draft, and it only made its way onto bookstores shelves after a lengthy, frustrating process of rewriting, editing and honing the tone.

The paper scroll of On The Road, now fading and yellow, sold a few years back at auction for more than $2.4 million. More money than Kerouac saw in his entire, alcohol-poisoned life time.

The scroll now tours the world, in climate-controlled display cases, tended by an expert in paper preservation and detorioration.

From the VF story :

The edited book is faster than The Scroll but sadder—the changes Jack made himself in the six years before it was published reflect his growing preoccupation with mortality, which by 1954 he tried to fend off with Buddhism. As Dr. Howard Cunnell eloquently points out in his introductory essay, "Kerouac escapes this encircling loss in the act of writing. To say what happened. To get it down before it is lost. To make mythology from your life and the lives of your friends."

Go Here To Read The Full Vanity Fair Story


The 1957 New York Times Review Of On The Road That Made A Legend Overnight

The Essentials Of Spontaneous Prose By Jack Kerouac

Kerouac On 'The Technique'

An Excerpt From On The Road

Troops Move Into Washington DC

Weird. A local Orlando, Florida, newspaper writes about troops being deployed for "federal active duty" in Washington DC like they are heading into the IED-laced streets of Iraq :

The troops will be deployed for a year.

"It's going to be all right It's OK if he helps people and everything, and it's his job. He’s got to do it. He just got to do it," Jessica Ward said, whose father is being deployed.

Jessica speaks for many when she talks about her father's deployment.

Michael Ward and company are leaving for a year, and that weighs heavy on families.

They are ordered by the president to the nation's capital, where they will operate high-tech weapons systems against any potential air threat.

Yolanda McCormack is relieved husband Charles isn't headed to Iraq, but there is always a risk.

There is? Compared to Iraq today?

Considering how bitter and distraught more and more American soldiers feel about their very long 15 months of hell-time in Iraq, scoring a gig manning "high tech weapons systems" in Washington DC sounds like a bit of a vacation.

Unless Washington DC is attacked.

But is that even close to being likely in the next year? Short of an Independence Day style extraterrestrial invasion?

Are they expecting Chinese or Russian missiles to come raining down sometime soon?

Or another plane-as-bomb attack, like on September 11, 2001?

800 Iraqi Children Held In American Military Prisons

Child 'Insurgents' Taught To Read Harry Potter In Arabic



There are now more children in US detention camps in Iraq than there are foreign insurgents.

800 children, as young as 11, are now being held as war prisoners and are in the process of being 'rehabilitated'.

Since March, the child prisoner population has increased some 800%. As part of their 'rehabilitation' they taught to read and write in English, to learn 'values' and are encouraged to read Arabic translations of Harry Potter.

So desperate and wretched is the poverty in liberated Iraq, that children can earn enough to feed and house their families for two or three months by planting just one bomb to take out American troops.

Iraqi children captured during fighting, or suspected of being involved in kidnapping and killing, are held for a year by the American military before being handed over to the Iraqi judiciary.

From LA Times :

The students, a quarter of whom are illiterate, study basic Arabic, English, math, geography and science in air-conditioned tent classrooms. Dubbed the House of Wisdom, the classrooms are surrounded by concrete walls topped with razor wire.

In daily civics lessons, the boys study Iraqi history and new government institutions. A team of psychiatrists will provide regular counseling. A large library will hold 4,000 volumes and already has English textbooks, computer manuals and a set of Harry Potter books translated into Arabic.

Adult detainees try to instigate the minors by wrapping notes around stones and tossing them over the wall at their sleeping quarters or by calling out to them. The message they send is that the teachers and guards are infidels who will try to convert them to Christianity, Kareem said.

Clashes between sects led to segregation of Sunni and Shiite detainees in their sleeping quarters, but they still study, play and eat together.

In December, guards at Camp Cropper put down a riot when about 240 boys ripped toilets from the floor and hurled stones and concrete, said 1st Lt. Rob Glenn, the juvenile education administrator.

Hicham Hassan, spokesman for the Red Cross and monitor for American detention facilities, said his agency has filed a formal complaint with the military regarding the denial of access to an attorney and the courts. The military holds the boys for up to a year before they are released or forwarded to the Iraqi judicial system for trial.

The entire article is well worth reading.

It's a portrait of the utter tragedy of the Iraq War, and the dark, horrific world into which so many children there have now been drawn - by the influence of insurgents, by poverty, by hatred of the occupation of their country and through simply wanting to help their families survive, even if it means earning money by killing Americans, or their own people.

But there are some hints of hope for a few hundred of this generation of war ravaged children.


The 2nd Most Deadly Terror Attack In Modern History Already Forgotten By The West

Seven Serving American Soldiers Tell The Truth About The Iraq War - The "Surge" Has Failed - Iraqi Army And Police Teaming Up To Kill Americans

Al-Sadr's Militias Move To Take Control Of Basra As Retreat By British Sparks Chaos

We Gotta Blame Somebody - The US Political War Against The Democratically Elected Prime Minister Of Iraq Continues

Bush's 'Lost Year' In Iraq : 1000 Dead American Soldiers, Tens Of Thousands Of Dead Iraqis, $100 Billion - Because Bush Knew Better Than The US Military

How Do You Like Your Freedom And Liberty? - More Than One Million Iraqis Forced From Their Homes

Robert Fisk : 9/11 'Truther'

Six Years Later, And Important Questions About 9/11 Remain Unanswered

Former NIST Science Chief Encourages Fire Investigators To Become 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists, "But In A Proper Way"


Unlike most other journalists, Robert Fisk manages to get beyond the 'ravers', as he calls them in an interesting piece on 9/11 'truth' published today. He also quickly dismisses the standard argument blunter about a 9/11 conspiracy - BushCo. can't run a war, how could they have pulled off 9/11? - so as to get to the real red meat of the debate.

That meat being questions relating to the core mysteries of the collapse of three New York City skyscrapers on 9/11 that so very few journalists are even interested in daring to raise.

Why is that?

What are they afraid of? The reaction from NeoCons? From their own governments? From the public? From their colleagues? From the ranting ranks of propaganda-spouting right-wing blogs that believe everything President Bush tells them?

As one of the rescue workers told me in New York City, a few weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks, "this (will be) one of the biggest stories of the century, and the media won't even bother reporting it."

The rescue worker was referring to numerous eyewitness reports, some from his friends and colleagues, about explosions coming from inside the Twin Towers before they fell, and a number cars and trucks around the base of the towers that some claimed had 'blown up' before the buildings came down.

He was right. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Sydney Morning Herald, the International Herald Tribune, CNN, the London Times, the BBC, have all refused point blank to launch even the most basic of investigations into the eyewitness reports of unexplained explosions and vehicle detonations, let alone the raft of other unanswered questions about what happened on 9/11.

Curiously, many of these media outlets reported the mysterious explosions around the base of WTC 1 and 2 on September 11 & 12, and then never mentioned them again, not even to correct earlier reports.

Journalists are supposed to question what governments propose to be the truth. It is their job to challenge the propaganda and myth-making of spin doctors and government-approved investigations. They are supposed to hold our governments and authorities to account.

Six years on, and many of the questions Robert Fisk raises in his column remain mostly unanswered. At least, the answers provided by a handful of investigations, some less credible than others, have not achieved a scientific consensus, or even broad peer reviewed agreement.

Why aren't more journalists prepared to investigate these questions, and the gaping inconsistencies of the 9/11 Commission Report, and the endlessly cited, allegedly thorough debunking of 9/11 conspiracies by Popular Mechanics?

As Fisk notes in this story, six years on and there is still no peer-reviewed scientific explanation for why the WTC 7 building collapsed on the afternoon of 9/11.

You don't have to believe that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were controlling the planes of 9/11 via remote control, or some other such absurd conspiracy theory, to have doubts about the official story of what happened that morning, when 2300 Americans and international workers lost their lives in the worst non-state terrorist attack in history.

Here's Fisk writing in the UK Independent :

I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers – whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C – would snap through at the same time? (They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.) What about the third tower – the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) – which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC 7.

...what about the weird letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker-murderer with the spooky face, whose "Islamic" advice to his gruesome comrades – released by the CIA – mystified every Muslim friend I know in the Middle East? Atta mentioned his family – which no Muslim, however ill-taught, would be likely to include in such a prayer. He reminds his comrades-in-murder to say the first Muslim prayer of the day and then goes on to quote from it. But no Muslim would need such a reminder – let alone expect the text of the "Fajr" prayer to be included in Atta's letter.

...like everyone else, I would like to know the full story of 9/11, not least because it was the trigger for the whole lunatic, meretricious "war on terror" which has led us to disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan and in much of the Middle East. Bush's happily departed adviser Karl Rove once said that "we're an empire now – we create our own reality". True?

The questions about Atta's prayer are new, at least we haven't seen them raised before. You may remember that the 9/11 hijackers left their parked cars stuffed full of Korans and prayer sheets and other paraphernalia that could leave no doubt in anyone's mind that those who hijacked the planes that morning were Al Qaeda-inspired, suicide-minded Islamists.

That full "our own reality" quote Fisk mentions, supposedly muttered by Karl Rove to journalist Ron Suskind follows (Suskind is doing the quoting) :

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' ..."That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality."

We liked the reality-warping of that mindset so much, we used it to come up with a name for this blog.

Nothing sums up the Bush administration, their version of the Iraq War, or the so-called 'official story' of what happened on 9/11 more than that line : "we create our own reality."


On the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) investigation mentioned by Fisk, and referred to heavily in the supposedly credible Popular Mechanics investigation into 9/11 conspiracies, the former Chief of the Fire Science Division of NIST, Dr James Quintiere is unhappy with conclusions reached in the NIST investigations about what caused the collapsed of three skyscrapers on 9/11, and now wants the NIST reports to be peer reviewed.

Dr Quintiere voiced his concerns during a speech at the 2007 World Fire Safety Conference.

"I would really like to see someone else take a look at what they’ve done; both structurally and from a fire point of view.”

“I think the official conclusion that NIST arrived at is questionable,” explained Dr. Quintiere. “Let's look at real alternatives that might have been the cause of the collapse of the World Trade Towers and how that relates to the official cause and what's the significance of one cause versus another.”

Dr Quintiere said he had trouble getting clear answers to his own questions from the NIST panel of investigators, and remains unhappy with the conclusions reached, and the six year delay in their finalisation of a report on what caused the collapse of WTC 7.

Debunkers of even the most basic questions, or supposed conspiracy theories, of 9/11 love to claim that only nutters, ravers and people with no scientific credibility believe anything but the 'official story.

But now even the former chief of the Fire Science Division of the NIST is raising serious questions about the numerous, very valid points of contention regarding the scientific causes of the WTC collapses that remain mostly unanswered. Six years later.

There is about as much of an international consensus amongst scientists and experts on why three of the WTC towers collapsed from fire damage on 9/11 as there is a scientific consensus on the causes of global warming and climate change.


Former Chief of NIST's Fire Science Division Calls for Independent Review of World Trade Center Investigation

Via Crooks And Liars....California Considers Hemp Production

A proposed law would establish a five-year pilot program in four California counties and define "industrial hemp" as separate from marijuana under the state's health and safety code, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Unlike marijuana, hemp has less than 1 percent of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, rendering it ineffective for drug use. The United States is the only industrialized nation where hemp is not an established crop, the Chronicle said.

Hemp is used in soaps and lotions and can be converted into fully biodegradable plastics.

It can also be turned into one damn fine biofuel and help stop desertification.


Hemp Produces FOUR Times As Much Paper As Trees

Popular Mechanics, 1938 - Hemp : The Billion Dollar Crop

Hemp Biomass For Energy - Can Be Added To Coal To Reduce Emissions

Hemp For Victory - When The US Government Told Farmers To Grow Hemp To Help Fight The Second World War

5000 Years Of Cannabis - A Detailed Chronology

Canadian Police Admit They Sent Agent Provocateurs Armed With Rocks Into Peaceful Ranks Of Protesters

Incredible. Still can't work out why the Quebec police have come out and admitted they sent police officers, disguised as 'protesters',wearing hoods, and armed with large rocks, into a crowd of peaceful protesters but they've done officially done so.

Naturally the police claim the undercover officers were not acting as agent provocateurs - that is, sent in to spark violence so police had a reason to aggressively disperse the crowd - but that claim to innocence is next to worthless considering there is video evidence of the masked police officers armed with large rocks, ready to throw them at their own colleagues. The only reason they didn't start hurling the rocks is because protest organisers intervened, thus saving the police from being assaulted. By fellow police.

Go here for more on the build-up to this break news and the video which proves the agent provocateurs were supposed to spark violence amongst peaceful protesters.

As we asked in our previous story, how many of the violent, chaotic riots surrounding APEC and WO protests all over the world in the past six years were started by police in disguise? We'll post a selection of YouTube clips in the coming days to help make the point, but in almost every video of so called WTO and APEC protesters going nuts and kicking in the windows of Starbucks, or hurling barricades at police, the most violent of all are wearing ski-masks, or bandannas to hide their faces.

In the meantime, you can go look for yourself. YouTube has dozens of videos from the so-called 'Battle In Seatle' WTO meeting, showing masked people running amok, causing violence and damage, while police let them do their business, and protesters try to stop them.

This admission by the Quebec police should stand as a stark warning to everyone planning to march and protest during the early September APEC summit in Sydney, when 21 world leaders gather, including President Bush.

If you see anyone disguising their face, and acting aggressively, they must be singled out and isolated from the rest of the peaceful protesters. The rules of the game have now changed forever, thanks to the admission by the Quebec police.

If the use of agent provocateurs is a reality in Canada, then it is may also prove to be a reality in Sydney, considering police stated today that prisons have been cleared in anticipation of hundreds of arrests of protesters during a week of rallies and marches during the APEC summit.

Australian media must demand the truth from the state and federal police that they will not use masked agent provocateurs to stir up trouble amongst protesters who have no intention of causing violence and chaos.

Here's a major story from the Canadian media with more details of the admission from police :

The Quebec provincial police acknowledged in a statement Thursday that their agents had infiltrated protesters demonstrating during the recent North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que. but denied that they acted as “agent provocateurs” to instigate violence.

“They had the mandate to spot and identify violent demonstrators to avoid the situation from getting out of hand,” the Surete du Quebec said in a statement. “The police officers were identified by demonstrators when they refused to throw projectiles.”

Protesters have accused police of planting agents outside the Chateau Montebello to instigate violence during Monday’s demonstration.

A prominent labour official pointed Wednesday to video made available on Youtube and photographs of three burly men, dressed as “Black Bloc” anarchists, standing out in the midst an otherwise peaceful sit-in adjacent to Surete du Quebec and RCMP riot squads.

The video shows the three black-clad bandana-wearing men being singled out by union organizers and the crowd. Other protesters started pointing at them and crying “police.”

One of the three men is seen shoving and swearing at Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union of Canada, who is angrily confronting the trio, demanding they put down the rocks, remove their bandanas, and identify themselves.

After being backed into a corner against a line of provincial police officers in riot gear, they try to force themselves through the police line and are arrested while the crowd cheers.

“People have the right to peacefully protest something they don’t like,” said Coles this week, demanding answers from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Quebec Premier Jean Charest.

“They think that they have the right to infiltrate us as they’ve done before. But to be packing large boulders, they were going to do something with those rocks and it wasn’t peaceful.”

Steve Joseph Watson has more :

Protest organizers confirmed that four arrests had been made in total during the summit, all of legitimate demonstrators, meaning that the arrests of the "anarchists" was a staged event purely for public and media consumption to create the myth that the police were responding to the fact that one of the anarchists was wielding a rock and attempting to break through a police line.

Watching the video, it is clearly evident that as soon as the trio are exposed as police, they try to casually drift back into police ranks before cops are forced to stage their arrests.

Firstly, why should we accept the notion that it's legitimate for police officers to engage in tactics more familiar to rogue intelligence agencies by disguising themselves as anarchists in order to spy on completely non-violent protesters who are merely exercising their right to peaceably assemble?

Secondly, if the police had to go to the lengths of staging arrests to perpetuate the myth that the "anarchists" were real protesters then why should we believe for a second that they weren't intent on causing violence, since they had armed themselves with projectiles?

We shouldn't believe it. It's clear what was supposed to happen, and it's clear who stopped the violence. Not the police, but the protesters themselves.

Claim : Undercover Cop 'Caught In The Act' Of Trying To Spark Police Violence At Peaceful Protest

Riveting, and infuriating vision.

Watch the video, and then read the story beneath :




From the (Canadian) Star :

Protesters are accusing police of using undercover agents to provoke violent confrontations at the North American leaders' summit in Montebello, Que.

Such accusations have been made before after similar demonstrations but this time the alleged "agents provocateurs" have been caught on camera.

A video, posted on YouTube, shows three young men, their faces masked by bandannas, mingling Monday with protesters in front of a line of police in riot gear. At least one of the masked men is holding a rock in his hand.

The three are confronted by protest organizer Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Coles makes it clear the masked men are not welcome among his group of protesters, whom he describes as mainly grandparents. He urges them to leave and find their own protest location.

Coles also demands that they put down their rocks. Other protesters begin to chime in that the three are really police agents. Several try to snatch the bandanas from their faces.

Rather than leave, the three actually start edging closer to the police line, where they appear to engage in discussions. They eventually push their way past an officer, whereupon other police shove them to the ground and handcuff them.

Late Tuesday, photographs taken by another protester surfaced, showing the trio lying prone on the ground. The photos show the soles of their boots adorned by yellow triangles. A police officer kneeling beside the men has an identical yellow triangle on the sole of his boot.

Kevin Skerrett, a protester with the group Nowar-Paix, said the photos and video together present powerful evidence that the men were actually undercover police officers.

"I think the circumstantial evidence is very powerful," he said.

The three do not appear to have been arrested or charged with any offence.

Police confirm that only four protesters were arrested during the summit – two men and two women. All have been charged with obstruction and resisting arrest.

Veteran protester Jaggi Singh, who is helping to circulate the video as widely as possible, said all four of those arrested are known to organizers and are genuine protesters.

"But we see very clearly in that video three (other) men being arrested . . . How do (police) account for these three people being taken in, being arrested? Where did they go?" Singh said.

"I have no hesitation in saying they were police agents . . . and they were caught red-handed."

Singh, a member of the Montreal-based No One is Illegal, believes the agents were meant to provoke a confrontation and give the police an excuse to use some of their "toys," such as tear gas and rubber bullets.

"To a certain extent it's self-fulfilling logic. You provide police with this kind of equipment and they end up using it and one way to justify it is to plant some people that toss a rock or two."

Neither the RCMP nor the Surete du Quebec would comment on the video or even discuss generally whether they ever use the tactic of employing agents provocateurs.

"I cannot answer your question because I don't have the information," said Const. Kane Kramer, a spokesman for the RCMP at the summit.

Of course not. Why would a cop even think of admitting to such a thing?

He wouldn't.

You can understand that police would want to place undercover officers in large crowds of protesters, particularly when they fear there might be outbreaks of violence or looting.

But sticking undercovers into a crowd with the intention of causing a riot, or giving riot squads a reason to wade into the crowd with pepper spray, or batons or worse?

That's beyond disgusting.

But when you look around YouTube, at rallies and marches that turn violent, all over the world, again and again you see the hooded people, the ski-masked 'protesters', kicking in shop windows, throwing chairs and rocks, provoking police and ripping down barricades.

Are all of them undercover cops as well?

Probably not.

But it certainly makes you wonder how many of them are there because they're paid to be there, and they're paid to cause trouble, or spark violence.


UPDATE : Steve Watson details other infamous marches and rallies awash with violence where agent provocateurs were clearly involved :

In Seattle in 1999 at the World Trade Organisation meeting, the authorities declared a state of emergency, imposed curfews and resorted to nothing short of police state tactics in response to a small minority of hostile black bloc hooligans....the police allowed the black bloc to run riot in downtown Seattle while they concentrated on preventing the movement of peaceful protestors...the left-wing anarchist groups are actually controlled by the state and used to demonize peaceful protesters.

At WTO protests in Genoa 2001 a protestor was killed after being shot in the head and run over twice by a police vehicle. The Italian Carabinere also later beat on peaceful protestors as they slept, and even tortured some, at the Diaz School. It later emerged that the police fabricated evidence against the protesters, claiming they were anarchist rioters, to justify their actions. Some Carabiniere officials have since come forward to say they knew of infiltration of the so called Black Bloc anarchists, that fellow officers acted as agent provocateurs.

At the Free Trade Area of Americas protests in Miami in late November 2003, more provocateuring was evident. The United Steelworkers of America calling for a congressional investigation, stating that the police intentionally caused violence and arrested and charged hundreds of peaceful protestors. The USWA suggested that billions of dollars supposedly slated for Iraq reconstruction funds are actually being used to subsidize ‘homeland repression’ in America

Revealed : White House Manual Details How To Organize Fake Public Support For President Bush

Republican "Rally Squads" Used To Shout Down And 'Corral' Protesters, And Squash Dissenters

By Darryl Mason

A strategy manual put together by the White House reveals a detailed set of guidelines on how to marginalise, discredit and isolate Americans exercising their democratic rights to dissent against President Bush, during his public appearances and fund-raising rallies.

The same White House manual also details how local organizers of Bush's public appearances should carefully screen each and every ticket holder, so not one person opposed to the president's policies, on anything, gets within eyesight of the president.

That the White House would formulate such strategies, to essentially keep anti-Bush protesters out of his eyesight and away from the media, during his public appearances, should come as no surprise to the 70% of Americans who are now opposed to their own president, and the millions who want to make him aware of their displeasure.

But what is surprising, and downright disgusting, about the revelations from the White House manual, is that it also explains how local pro-Bush organisers can create fake support for the president, and organize rally squads to round up, "drown out", any and all protesters.

In short, Bush's own White House has a systematic, and years old, program to create a fake reality : that is shows of support for President Bush, through crowds of chanters, sign wavers and cheerers, where little or none genuine non-Republican lackey support actually exists, and to keep away Americans wanting to express real, passionate opinions to their elected leader.

The revelations from the White House manual also unleash a host of troubling questions :

How often does the White House help state Republican and conservative groups to organise shows of support for the president where little local support actually exists?

How many of those "USA! USA! USA!" crowds that show up at anti-war protests, waving American flags and demanding that protesters shut the fuck up and support the troops are nothing more than hired actors, or ring-ins?

How long has the mainstream media been aware that the White House creates fake public shows and rallies of support for the president, and his War On Iraq policies, and why do they so often fill stories with images of supposedly patriotic Americans who may be nothing more than fakes?

This article from the Washington Post also reveals White House strategies on carefully screening audience members at Bush public appearances to make sure absolutely no protesters, or even silent dissenters, get within a mile of the president :

...any event must be open only to those with tickets tightly controlled by organizers. Those entering must be screened in case they are hiding secret signs. Any anti-Bush demonstrators who manage to get in anyway should be shouted down by "rally squads" stationed in strategic locations. And if that does not work, they should be thrown out.

....the manual outlines a specific system for those who disagree with the president to voice their views. It directs the White House advance staff to ask local police "to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in the view of the event site or motorcade route."

The manual demonstrates "that the White House has a policy of excluding and/or attempting to squelch dissenting viewpoints from presidential events," said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Miller. "Individuals should have the right to express their opinion to the president, even if it's not a favorable one."

The manual offers advance staffers and volunteers who help set up presidential events guidelines for assembling crowds. Those invited into a VIP section on or near the stage, for instance, must be " extremely supportive of the Administration," it says. While the Secret Service screens audiences only for possible threats, the manual says, volunteers should examine people before they reach security checkpoints and look out for signs. Make sure to look for "folded cloth signs," it advises.

To counter any demonstrators who do get in, advance teams are told to create "rally squads" of volunteers with large hand-held signs, placards or banners with "favorable messages." Squads should be placed in strategic locations and "at least one squad should be 'roaming' throughout the perimeter of the event to look for potential problems," the manual says.

"These squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators," it says. "The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (USA!, USA!, USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site."

"If it is determined that the media will not see or hear (protesters) and that they pose no potential disruption to the event, they can be ignored. On the other hand, if the group is carrying signs, trying to shout down the President, or has the potential to cause some greater disruption to the event, action needs to be taken immediately to minimize the demonstrator's effect."

The manual adds in bold type: "Remember -- avoid physical contact with demonstrators! Most often, the demonstrators want a physical confrontation. Do not fall into their trap!"

Some trap.

Could Bush's public appearances be any more stage-managed? Crowds screened for dissenters, fake rallies of support, "shout down" roaming squads of anti-dissenters on the hunt for fellow Americans angry at the Iraq War, and police corrals for protesters.

The White House, and Republicans, spend an awful amount of time and money creating a fake reality for President Bush.

No wonder he believes that many Americans still support his policies. If he looks around at huge crowds at public events and fundraisers and sees nothing but cheering support, then it would have been very easy for the likes of Karl Rove to convince him that public dissent was of no great consequence and merely the opinions of a rare few, instead of the reality that is the hundreds of millions of Americans (70%) now vastly opposed to his administration.

The Last Days Of President Bush

Harper Lee Speaks

In 1961, Harper Lee published her first and only novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. Since then, she has started and abandoned a number of books, picked up a Nobel Prize, given a few private speeches, wrote a letter to Oprah Winfrey's magazine, O, on why she prefers books to the internet, and generally kept a low profile. In the 45 years since To Kill A Mockingbird was published, it has sold an astounding 30 million copies.

Harper Lee has been invited to literally thousands of book festivals and ceremonial gatherings, but she has never given a public speech at any such event.

But finally Harper Lee has broken her silence.

On Monday, Lee appeared at a ceremony to honour great Alabamians (she still lives in Monroeville, Alabama) and was invited to address the crowd.

Here's her speech in full :

"Well it's better to be silent than to be a fool."

Killer robots have trundled out of the pages of science fiction and into Iraq. Armed with high-calibre machine guns, this new generation of robots will soon be killing people in at least two war zones. If they haven't started doing that already. The US has committed $200 billion to programs that will see one-third of all American combat vehicles and weapons replaced by robots, or automatons, by 2015. One of the most amazing articles you will read this month, right here. Apparently American soldiers trialling the killer robots, and IED defusing robots, are getting a bit too attached to their new metallic friends. Wonders one captain, will we see a day when humans are sent in first to clear the way for the robots? Depends how much the robots cost. If they're more expensive than paying off the family of a dead soldier, then probably yes.

They roll, they run, they crawl, they fly. They're ready to slaughter without question, or conscience. Killer robots. Coming to a war zone near you, all too soon.


Russia and China held war games together, and Russia, China and Iran issued a joint statement aimed at the United States, warning them to stay the hell out of East Asia. It didn't get much of a mention in the Western media. Too scary? If you don't know what the SCO is and why it's already more powerful and wealthy than NATO, or the UN, it's probably time to find out.


So how bad, how truly bad, are the financial problems of the United States? Well, put it this way, American lending standards and free and easy credit have been described as "unbelievable" by a top Swiss banker, and the world's central bankers are said to absolutely shitting themselves with fear over what 's going to happen. Soon. The warning is don't be fooled by the current recovery, the horror has only just begun.


Eat Your Greens To Stay Healthy And Fight Cancer, right? Well, maybe not. At least, you might be better off eating your Reds and Blues and Purples. Seems the pigmentation of the vegetables is where all the real anti-oxidation action is.


Who needs terrorism? More than 26,000 Americans were killed by drunk driving in 2005 and 2006.


An horrific and widespread drought continues to wreak havoc on China. Farmers are being told to switch from growing rice, which uses plenty of water, to potatoes. Spuds are more drought-resistant than rice. The Chinese have been farming their lands for more than 7000 years.


You can't be too careful when screening for potential terrorists at US airports. Particularly when the person being screened, for the third time, is a seven year old kid who's just had the time of his life at Disneyworld. This is less about keeping out terrorists, and more about intimidating innocent people. The bonus is that the kids and families held up for three or more hours during questioning, because their names are a close match to names on the 'no-fly' lists are usually Muslims. If you read about this sort of crap happening in North Korea, you'd think 'dictatorship'. Pathetic.


More bullshit about online "hooligans" make life unpleasant for blog readers and blog writers. There are plenty in power, and business, who would like to see blogs shut down completely, at least the ones not attached to, or controlled, by the mainstream media. Offended by nasty blog comments? Consider the choice. Deal with the arseholes, as you are forced to do in real life, or allow censors and anti-free speech activists to take away exactly what makes most blogs worth reading. They say they are pushing for tighter controls on blogs for the good of the blogstream, and all bloggers, and their readers. But they're lying. It's about censorship and control. Nothing more. The "hooligans" and "deeply offensive" crap is the cover story to ram through the measures of control and censorship.


While BushCo. and the NeoCons are still wetting their pants over Iran, Pakistan and India, along with China and Russia, are expanding their business and energy ties with Iran. UN sanctions? What UN sanctions? Iran will be pumping natural gas to India, via a pipeline the cuts through Pakistan, in the next decade, and Russia and China have quietly warned anyone who doesn't like that idea (the US) that they are mounting their own 'War on Terror'. That is, a war against any nation, or agency, who tries to sabotage the Iran to India pipeline. Not all terror is crazed fundamentalists detonating backpacks in crowded trains. There's also plenty of state-sponsored terrorism used to benefit some of the world's biggest corporations, particularly the oil and energy giants.

Pakistan, meanwhile, a supposed key ally on the US-led 'War on Terror' is now soft-peddling the Taliban. According to Pakistan's President Musharraf, not all members of the Taliban are terrorists.


An American pastor, who has been living in Israel for two decades, and recently applied for permanent residency, has instead been told to pack his bags and get the fuck out. Why? He was preaching Christianity.


Another story about an American pastor, this one spent two days 'lost' in an American airport.


If you've had enough of the endless lies and disinformation about what is happening in Iraq, particularly to American soldiers, then get reading on this article written by seven American active duty soldiers. The war isn't lost, they say, but it will be if Iraqis are not allowed to run their own country. The "surge" isn't working, and death tolls all round are on the rise. Americans are widely seen as occupiers, and the resentment is growing by the day. Iraqi police and Iraqi Army are now teaming up to kill Americans. More truth on one page than in 50 speeches by Vice President Cheney, or George W. Bush, or the efforts of some NeoCon columnist who's been given a Truman Show like tour of the Green Zone, and caught a glimpse of manufactured peace and stability in a movie-set reality Baghdad market.


Australia's 'Next Prime Minister' has found himself caught up in a scandal surrounding a drunken visit he made to a New York strip club in 2003, while on an official visit to the UN. The strip club trip was arranged by Rupert Murdoch's favourite editor, and Kevin Rudd, currently the Australian opposition government leader, claims he didn't know he was going to a strip club until he was inside. If Rudd gets too close to actually winning the coming federal election, you can expect some photos of Rudd inside the club to suddenly be discovered and splashed across the front pages of every newspaper in the country.

Politicians are controlled by the manner in which they have allowed themselves to be compromised. Rudd will now have to play Murdoch's game if he wants to be prime minister of Australia, or he will pay a very heavy price.


"A Gentle Humping Motion" - One of Australia's most famous bloggers has been fired from his mainstream media gig for imaging what Kevin Rudd got up to in that New York strip club. He wrote about Rudd trying to grope a stripper and getting rejected, cracking a fat, dry-humping a pillow back in his hotel room and then taking care of himself, in the traditional manner. The blog was online for but a few hours. It got pulled, the whole blog was yanked, and the blogger, Jack Marx, got the sack. All on his birthday.


You can call him a war pig, a terrorist, or the Worst American President In History. And George W. Bush won't react. But if you dare to call him a 'Fashion Victim', you might just get a call from the White House.


How happy are Americans with their lives, and lifestyles? Damn happy, or at least 94% of them are fairly well satisfied with how their lives are going, according to this poll. New Yorkers remain pretty hard to please.


A NeoCon agency, posing as a group concerned with American family values, believes that President Bush is restrained by all that nasty democracy. Democracy, you see, just doesn't work. This is why Bush should wipe away all that freedom and liberty and declare himself President For Life. Then get busy nuking Iran, and nuking Iraq. Once all the Iraqis are dead, says an editor of the Family Security Matters website, then Americans can flood in and make a new America in the Middle East. You'll wish this was just some stupid joke. It's not. It's awesomely, mind-numbingly real. Save American families by nuking Iranian families? Beyond demented, and of course, buried by Fox News and all the other so-called conservative media howlers who always try to hide the darkness and puerile violent extremism within their own ranks.

Also, check out the first comment that goes with this story to find out just how much fun it is to be a Muslim nurse in America right now.


The US Army is using up so much ammunition - some one billion rounds per year - during training and fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, that police across America are facing bullet shortages, and working out ways to cope with delivery delays of up to a year for ammunition. Warehouses once full of ammo, are now empty. The vast demand for copper and lead by China has also made bullets more expensive.

BTW, if you happen to have 25 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition lying around that you want to unload, the US Army wants to hear from you. Soonish.


Iran : Evil, dangerous, deadly, want nukes, crazy, according to the NeoCons. According to a German historian, Iran has not started a war - that is it has not attacked or launched offensive military operations - for 1000 years.


UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been told by British commanders that their troops can't achieve anything more in south-east Iraq, and it's time to pull them out. Now. Some 500 British soldiers are holed up in 'Basra Palace' and are hit by an average of 60 insurgents attacks per day. The British troops are helping to hold the 'Palace', in part, because it is a location from where the CIA is said to be keeping a close eye on Iran. In Afghanistan, since April, half of all British front line troops have been wounded and "patched up".


Ground Zero, the site where the World Trade Centre once stood, before fires caused by the 9/11 attacks allegedly collapsed three skyscrapers in seconds, is still claiming the lives of firefighters. There's going to be some troubling superstitions and fears gaining credence after two firefighters died at the site yesterday. Many NYC firefighters view Ground Zero as 'sacred ground', where hundreds of their friends and colleagues lost their lives, many of whose remains were never recovered before rebuilding work began. You can expect to hear this question raised soon by the tabloid media : Is Ground Zero Cursed?


If you want to be taken seriously as a Republican candidate for president in 2008, you better be rich. That goes for the Democrats, too. A serious run at the White House is expected to now cost candidates $200-500 million. Which probably explains why only an elite group of American millionaires and billionaires who have their sights set on the West Wing have any real chance of winning.


Villagers in some of the most flood-devastated regions of India, now have to fight off starving animals for food and shelter. The toll of victims now reaches into the millions. Since mid-July, some 850 people have been killed by landslides, drowning and waterborne diseases. Misery unimaginable.


Japan recently endured its hottest day in recorded history. The shocking heat wave killed at least 13 people. The mercury hit 40.9 Celsius. That's cricket weather in Australia.


Australian cities have five to ten years to find new sources of fresh water, or they will face shortages, or even bone dry pipes. Australia is basically a huge desert and scrub land, fringed by shrinking rainforests and pasture lands. The droughts increase and spread, the deserts grow, and the city populations climb as the ground and spring water levels are depleted.


What happens when a 13 foot long saltwater crocodile takes on a huge bull shark in remote Northern Australia? Find out here.

Naked Anti-Global Warming Activists Quicken Melting Of Glacier With Body Heat



By Darryl Mason

Hundreds of naked people posed on a melting glacier in Switzerland, to highlight the fact that it's melting, and that other glaciers are melting, some of them faster than historical records would dictate to be a natural, or seasonal, occurrence. They're melting faster because of global warming claim the hundreds of naked people.

That Swiss glacier they're posing on has melted just that little bit more thanks to the body heat of the hundreds of naked people who lay down on the ice and snow for a series of photographs as part of their protest.

Switzerland has 1800 glaciers, and most of them are retreating, or melting. But some locals see an expansion of tourism opportunities in the big melt. The idea is to do boat tours to get tourists right up close to some of the more rapidly melting glaciers. Lakes beneath glaciers in Switzerland are expanding fast. Tours to watch global warming in action, right there before your eyes in the small rivers of fresh water cascading down a glacier, are expected to be very popular with foreigners.

Perhaps a world tour could be organised around this idea. Travel the globe, in boats and jets, and watch the melting glaciers, the growing deserts, the drowning polar bears, the starving penguins, the shriveling grain crops. The more popular the tours are, the more tours will need to be held, with lots more jet and boat trips, thus causing more warming all round.

The success of the Warming World Tours create even more sights to see on the next tours.

Brilliant.


Rupert Murdoch Sets Off On His Climate Change Crusade

Scientists Seek New Ways To Feed The World Amidst Global Warming

Global Warming Might Be A Hoax, But That Doesn't Mean It's Not Real

Surfing The Glaciers In Alaska - 25 Foot Tall Waves

Hot Air - The Logic Of Global Warming Jihadists

Global Warming Simplicities

A Shattered Consensus - The True State Of Global Warming

Love God? Worship The Earth - Warming Draws Evangelicals Into The Environmentalists' Fold


Darryl Mason is the author of the free online novel ED Day : Dead Sydney. You can read it here


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Wolfowitz Speaks

War On Terror Is "A Struggle For The Heart Of Islam"

No Regrets On Iraq : Needs "Some Kind Of Stability"

By Darryl Mason

In mid-2003, Invasion Of Iraq cheerleader, Paul Wolfowitz, spilled the beans when he told Vanity Fair that the 'Saddam has WMD' story was "the one issue that everyone could agree on", and was chosen for reasons of "government bureaucracy". It also happened to be the easiest way to sell Americans, and the American media, on the idea of launching the War On Iraq.

Now Wolfowitz has done it again, telling the truth, long denied by President Bush, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, and Australia's PM John Howard, about the 'War on Terror' :

"It really is a struggle for the heart of Islam..."

He should change his name to Whoops-o-witz.

So much for the WoT being a fight against terrorists, and supporters of terrorism, regardless of their religious or ideological persuasions.

Now it's about winning hearts. Specifically, winning the 'heart' of Islam.

That revelation should go down a treat with about 1.2 billion people.

Wolfowitz has emerged from his coffin in Australia and is holding forth on the Iraq War, and the 'War on Terror' and why he hasn't wrong to lie America into a savage invasion and occupation of a souvereign state who posed no threat to the United States.

Hey, he's Wolfowitz, he doesn't have to say sorry to no-one. Particularly when he has a stream of sympathetic mainstream media apologists, like this interviewer, to buff his dismal image, and reputation. And that of the NeoCons in general :

The Western press, especially the Australian press, has indulged an absurd caricature of the neo-conservatives. Wolfowitz was always concerned with human rights...There is often a sheer irrationality in the hostility directed at Wolfowitz...

He's right. It's absolutely outrageous how most Americans, and much of the rest of the world, hold Wolfowitz in absolute contempt for helping to make real the worst American foreign policy debacle in modern history, and one of the deadliest wars in decades.

Wolfowitz is concerned about human rights. His hostile critics are irrational.

The article from which these quotes are drawn, by the way, is called 'NeoCon Prophet Unbowed'.

Stop laughing, you haven't even heard what the prophet has to say yet.

So what about Iraq, Wolfowitz? Any thoughts?

"The best prospect would be some kind of stability emerging..."

Err, yeah. Brilliant plan. Stability on a level, say, equal to, I don't know, pre-invasion maybe?

"The most important thing is that it (Iraq) be able to stand on its own feet in dealing with its problems, because obviously the patience of the American people is not infinite."

The United States is getting ready to pull out of Iraq.

"But I do think the stakes are larger than just Iraq."

The NeoCons want to launch another war, this time on Iran. Or maybe Syria.

"Everyone agrees it would be good to get American troops out of Iraq but the challenge is not to leave something behind which is much worse and comes back to bite us."

Wolfowitz is talking the Russia Vs Afghanistan War of the 1980s and how the NeoCons, via the Republican Party, thought it would be a really swell idea to arm Afghans with rocket launchers and get the CIA to train them in insurgency tactics, and how to make car bombs, and how to carry out sabotage. And then invite Islamists from all over the world to come to Afghanistan and help fight those damn Russkies. To help convince the new recruits to act like suicidal maniacs, the NeoCons and the CIA resurrected hundred year old jihadist ideology and pumped them all full of it.

"...it’s now recognised we won a proxy victory against the Soviets in Afghanistan and then the country went to hell in such a way that it created the wherewithal for 9/11.

Proxy war? Yeah, righto!

Wolfowitz is full of valuable insights into what's going on in Iraq, and the broader Middle East.

"...I really do believe if things evolve the right way there are millions of Iraqis who would welcome a more moderate and stable Middle East, and would be allies in promoting it."

The vast majority of Iraqis, like the vast majority of Syrians, Iranians, Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians and Saudis, like 5.8 billion other people in the world, want to live in moderate and stable countries, without war and the threat of violence and sudden death erupting in a fireball on the streets of their hometowns.

This is some kind of revelation?

No regrets from Wolfowitz about invading Iraq, however. And he's still pumping the old Saddam-free credo :

"I think the world is much better off without Saddam Hussein. Does that mean everything was done perfectly? By no means."

Since the coalition invaded Iraq, as part of the 'War on Terror', more Iraqis have died from acts of terror than all the innocent people killed by every act of terrorism throughout the entire 20th century.

But we're not dealing with uncomfortable facts. We're dealing with Wolfowitz.

Wolfowitz still seems awed by the fact when given the chance to do so, Iraqis actively took part in democratic elections. Just like all those Palestinians when they elected Hamas. Oh wait, don't mention that democratic election.

Wolfowitz is also up to date on the latest NeoCon Talking Points regarding the 'War on Terror'.

Observe :

"I remember first hearing (former defence secretary Donald) Rumsfeld shortly after September 11 saying this would be a long struggle and he likened it to the Cold War. I thought maybe that was overstating the problem, but it didn’t take me long to realise that if anything it was understating the problem.

"It extends far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. It extends deep into various Western societies. It really is a struggle for the heart of Islam, if you like. It’s going to affect us all.

"I really believe the people we are confronting are so inhuman and so brutal and so wrong that, as in the Cold War, we should, because of the strength of free societies, come out on top."

"We should..."

Well, that's reassuring.

Clearly, NeoCon Grand Illusion Number One is still firmly wedged in place in Wolfowitz's reality zone : The NeoCons won the Cold War.

NeoCons, like Wolfowitz, now claim the 'War on Terror' is even a bigger challenge than 'defeating' the crippled and crumbling Soviet Union in the 1980s.

So, some 30-50,000 thousand demented fundamentalists, pushing mantras of pure violence that become less popular amongst Muslims by the day, and led by a barely functioning, if not already dead, ideologue pose a bigger threat to the world than a massive Communist state armed with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons?

Expect to hear that piece of fatuous propaganda tumbling from the dribbling lips of your local NeoCon talking head soon.

NeoCons really do believe their own bullshit.

Like mushrooms, they thrive on it.