Letter Never Sent

According to this article the Bush Administration is planning on attacking Iraq this summer between July and September. No doubt near September to capitalize on the emotionalism tied up with the destruction of the World Trade Center. Imagine every red-blooded Joe Six-Pack getting tears in their eyes as we drop bombs onto hospitals and power plants. “That’s for 9-11, you ragheads! The giant has awoken!”

The real goal is to assassinate Saddam Hussein despite the talk of this being another offensive in the ‘war against terror’.

The U.S. attack, the diplomats and sources said, envisions a lightning offensive against Baghdad and the capture of key Iraqi military installations. They said the move would seek to kill Saddam or drive him out of Baghdad to eliminate the prospect of bloody resistance in the Iraqi capital.

If this doesn’t work, the diplomats and sources said, the United States would launch stage two of the military campaign. This would involve heavy air attacks on Iraqi military installations. Stage three calls for a ground attack.

Why does Saddam Hussein need to be assassinated? Why can’t he be arrested and brought to trial? In a great column by former CIA insider Al Martin he explains the reasons for this:

Regarding the Gulf War, the Bush Sr. Administration said that the reasons the US didn’t go in and get Saddam is because the American people were beginning to complain about the number of casualties we were inflicting on the Iraqis. It was a cover story pure and simple.

The truth is that the United States wanted Saddam to remain in power because there was only one shot to take Saddam out. He had to be liquidated. He couldn’t be captured even though he was under indictment in the United States for a variety of charges and also under indictment in the World Court. But the United States couldn’t afford to have Saddam a prisoner and thus be able to talk about his relationship with the Reagan-Bush Regime.

Lying is a way of life for these people. Everything they say is suspect. If Saddam Hussein somehow aided ‘terrorists’ and Bush/Reagan aided Hussein, doesn’t that make them terrorists too? If Osama bin Laden is a terrorist and Reagan-Bush aided bin Laden doesnt that make them terrorists? This might be a good time to check out the Bush family timeline.

From The Guardian: New US paper aims at Afghan war truth:

A newspaper aimed at providing news of the war in Afghanistan is to be launched this month. Its editors argue that the mainstream media in the US are not providing a full picture of the war and its effects.
War Times, produced in San Francisco, will make its first bi-weekly appearance on April 12. It will be published in English and Spanish and will be distributed throughout the US.

Its editors say it is a response to a demand for more information about what is happening in Afghanistan and the possibility of conflict elsewhere.

The venture is supported by a number of academics, including Noam Chomsky, labour organisations and anti-war groups.

Its managing editor, Bob Wing, said the response to the idea had been extraordinary. “We originally planned to print only 7,500 copies of the pilot,” he said, “but the demand was so great that we printed and distributed 100,000.”

• War-Times.org for more info
• Read entire first issue in Adobe PDF: English or Spanish

There is more evidence that the US Military has been lying about body counts. Afghan commanders have reported that as many as 1000 rebels escaped through US perimeters. This would directly contradict the US Military which asserts that that Operation Anaconda was an “unqualified and absolute success” and the suggestion that they completely annihilated the rebel forces due to the overwhelming power and ability of the American forces. However, the evidence supports the claim that the US has been less than honest about the number of enemy dead for public relations purposes. Even our Afghan allies contradict the brilliant victory reported by the US. “Only 50 to 60 were killed. Most of them escaped,” said Gulbuddin, a top aide to Afghan Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim. When asked about the US figures of 800-1000 dead Gulbuddin told Reuters: “No, no. It is not so. Most scattered across the mountains and fled.”

The US stands by their claim. Their explanation for a lack of bodies or real evidence to support their estimates? U.S. Major-General Frank Hagenbeck, commander of ground forces in Afghanistan, says that the Al Quaeda bodies were disintegrated by powerful American bombs. “When the troops went in on the ground afterwards they found 40 pairs of shoes,” Hagenbeck said. “All we saw were a couple of body parts sticking out of a 15-foot high mud heap.” This begs the question, why would 40 pairs of shoes not be similarly shredded and why is a pile of shoes considered strong evidence?

There is little reason to take the Military at its word. It has a long history of manipulating body counts and controlling media access to independent information. The Freedom of Press guaranteed by the Constitution has not kept the government from controlling the access of the press and censoring information they feel harms their public image. We may never know how many people have really died. This includes Americans, ‘terrorists’, and innocent civilians. These are troubling times when you cannot tell the good guys from the bad guys.

From a BBC tv program, the anthrax deaths as a CIA operation gone awry.

“A Newsnight investigation raised the possibility that there was a secret CIA project to investigate methods of sending anthrax through the mail which went madly out of control.

The shocking assertion is that a key member of the covert operation may have removed, refined and eventually posted weapons-grade anthrax which killed five people.

In the wake of Sept 11th, the anthrax attacks caused panic throughout the States and around the world. But has the FBI found the whole case too hot to handle?

FULL TRANSCRIPT

From December 2001: Cheney’s hiding in a cave, too….in Pennsylvania. Via Cryptome.org.

WAYNESBORO, Pa.–Three hours after Osama bin Laden turned the Pentagon into a disaster area, five helicopters touched down a few hundred yards from Hal Neill’s house at the base of Raven Rock Mountain along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border.

Within minutes, a convoy of SUVs with black-tinted windows zoomed up Harbaugh Valley Road, turned left, and deposited the weight of the free world inside Site R, the inexplicably named city-in-a-mountain from which the Pentagon has operated and, from all indications Vice President Cheney has directed his office in the days since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Site R, with its six-stories of underground offices, a subterranean water reservoir, and banks of mysterious antennas, dishes and massive, steel doors, has been a designated backup command center since it was hewn out of the mountain in 1951.

For decades, Site R’s presence was a village secret, barely acknowledged to outsiders and attracting little outside interest in turn.

”There are four entrances, but I’ve only ever been able to find three of them,” said Neill, as he stood in his back yard, looking over at the guard station next to two oversize metal doors in the hillside. Six military men in sweatsuits jogged their way down the driveway and back up again.

”They weren’t doing that before the attacks,” Neill said. ”Now they’re working out.”

The tidy equilibrium of rural life has been upended. ”Day and night, you hear the airplanes,” said Bonnie Wolfe, whose model railroad shop sits below the flight path of the military jets and helicopters that intermittently pass by, usually unseen, inevitably heard.

1. Pictures of Site R – Raven Rock Some of the snake holes they hide in.
2. Cold War Infrastructure
3. Underground base and tunnel links. Very interesting.

PBS is showing a documentary this week called The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It. It’s about people who refused the draft during World War 2 because of their pacifist beliefs.

Millions of American soldiers fought for the liberation of Europe from Hitler’s fascist grip during World War II.
Yet 40,000 Americans refused to shoulder weapons in ‘the good war’ because their consciences would not allow them to kill another human being.
In the face of criticism and scorn, these men challenged the limits of democracy in wartime. Manu participated in the social movements that transformed America in the years that followed. This is their story.”

I’m going to need to tape that. Looks good.