Which is more likely, that the bodies of an estimated 500-800 Al Quaeda supposedly killed by our military vanished into thin air, or that our government is full of shit? Amazingly, the brilliant success and firefight reported by the US Military at Shahikot has resulted in a paltry handful of actual dead ‘terrorists’. The US killed more people crashing helicopters in the past few weeks than they have the phantasmic Al Quaeda.
Society
16
Mar 02
CIA Anthrax
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?
15
Mar 02
Cheney’s Cave
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.
- Pictures of Site R – Raven Rock Some of the snake holes they hide in.
- Cold War Infrastructure
- Underground base and tunnel links. Very interesting.
13
Mar 02
Fuck Them
Want a glimpse of how things really work? Follow the battle between the tech industry and hollywood to stop ‘piracy’. Michael Eisner of Disney Corp., who has suggested executing pirates, is up at Capitol Hill trying to force the government to come up with mandated technological barriers to prevent copying. There is no representation for the public. The entire debate is between the manufacturers and the content producers. At issue, is the reality that people don’t check with Hollywood before changing things. Despite their best measures to control everything big media is seeing that people all over the world are doing what comes natural thing…sharing. The internet has freed books, music, and video. Why should people be compelled to pay for something which they can borrow or copy from someone else? I say, fuck Michael Eisner, Jack Valenti, and all the other leeches like them. Piracy will continue even if people have to use camcorders to copy movies. Their is no hope to protect books. Text is what computers do best. You can download a book that someone scanned and ocred and it will be anywhere from 50-100 Kilobytes. That’s nothing. You could have 1500 books per 700 MB Disc. Movies are more of a problem, but there is no way to stop it without preventing people from creating videos entirely which would be nearly impossible.
Online one can find anything. Millions of people are involved in a large-scale process to share what they have. People are collaborating to create a virtual limitless library of culture. You can find sewing patterns, crochet patterns, recipes, television episodes, movies, music, music videos, books, comic books, and even scans of magazines like Playboy. All of these things shackeled by copyright. It is an exciting time to be alive.
13
Mar 02
Lies the Pentagon Told Us
America Still Has an Office of Disinformation. It’s Called the Pentagon from CommonDreams.org
In all frankness, the only thing more dishonest than an Office of Strategic Influence aimed at deceiving foreigners is the suggestion that the Bush administration, or any other since the Second World War, likes to tell Americans the truth.
13
Mar 02
I’d have to agree
Pat Buchanan is blunt on the new American nuke policy:
Why would we use nuclear weapons on Iraq in retaliation for an attack on Israel, when Israel has its own nuclear weapons? Under what conceivable circumstances would we use atomic weapons on Syria? Does the United States claim a right of first use of atomic weapons against any “rogue state” that develops a weapon of mass destruction? If so, where does the president get the authority to launch such wars? Or was this document leaked to intimidate the “Axis of Evil”? Is it perhaps a product of the Office of Strategic Influence, the now-defunct disinformation agency of the Pentagon?
Read the rest here.
13
Mar 02
Homeland Uber Alles
The United States government is making secret deals to hand over Al-Quaeda suspects to states which use torture. The US is prohibited by the constituiton from torturing suspects, but that’s not stopping them from violating the spirit of that prohibition. As if you needed any more proof that the government has no scruples or morality. Via the Syndey Morning Herald:
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The United States has been secretly sending prisoners with suspected al-Qaeda connections to countries where torture during interrogation is legal, according to US diplomatic and intelligence sources.
Prisoners are being moved to places in Egypt and Jordan where they can be subjected to torture and threats to their families to extract information sought by the US.
13
Mar 02
They’re on the payroll
Fortune magazine had a warm and fuzzy piece on the Carlyle Group. It started out nicely and had some good stuff, but ultimately was more of a public relations profile:
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Are you the sort of person who believes in conspiracies–the Trilateral Commission secretly runs the world, that sort of thing? Well, then, here’s a company for you. The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C., buyout firm, is one of the nation’s largest defense contractors. It has billions of dollars at its disposal and employs a few important people. Maybe you’ve heard of them: former Secretary of State Jim Baker, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, and former White House budget director Dick Darman. Wait, we’re just getting warmed up. William Kennard, who recently headed the FCC, and Arthur Levitt, who just left the SEC, also work for Carlyle. As do former British Prime Minister John Major and former Philippines President Fidel Ramos. Let’s see, are we forgetting anyone? Oh, right, former President George Herbert Walker Bush is on the payroll too.
06
Mar 02
The Color of Fox
FoxNews is pure whitey. Not only that, but have you noticed how many blonde females anchor for Fox. It’s downright creepy.