OpEdNews - Diary: MEDIA SHAM for Iraq War

..."The current media travesty is a drumbeat for the idea that the US war effort must keep going."

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DIANE'S NEWS CLIPS begins here :)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~> IF LINK DOESN'T WORK, THEN PASTE ARTICLE LINK(S) INTO YOUR BROWSER -- OR GO DIRECTLY TO >> http://www.truthout.org Norman Solomon | MEDIA SHAM for Iraq War - IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120606L.shtml Norman Solomon writes: "The current media travesty is a drumbeat for the idea that the US war effort must keep going. And again, in its news coverage, the New York Times is a bellwether for the latest media parade to the cadence of the warfare state." ----- Jesse Jackson | Congress Must Insist Bush Isn't Above Law http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120606J.shtml Jesse Jackson begins: "Should President Bush be impeached? The very idea seems extreme, if not loony. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has explicitly ruled impeachment off the Democratic majority's agenda. But activists and legal scholars are organizing to pressure Democrats to begin impeachment hearings. And the incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, has issued two remarkable studies on abuses of presidential authority, raising the question of impeachable offenses." ----- Richest 2 Percent Own Half the Wealth http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120606P.shtml The richest 2 percent of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute. ----- The Independent | Iraq: One by One, They Tell the Truth http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120606C.shtml "As Tony Blair flies out to meet George Bush, the latest admission of failure in Iraq has made the two leaders appear even more isolated." The editors of the Independent wonder when they will join the others who are telling the truth about Iraq. ----- Robert Scheer | Becoming What We Despise http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120606E.shtml ----- Michael Schwartz | The Myth of More http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120606F.shtml Michael Schwartz describes the Myth of More: "Almost without exception, whatever proposals are being raised about changing Iraq policy avoid mentioning, or explicitly reject, the idea that the United States should abandon its three-year-old attempt to occupy Iraq and actually withdraw its troops. Instead, each new suggestion or set of recommendations calls for the United States to do not less, but a whole lot more of something that is already a part of existing policy." ----- Alps Warmest in 1,300 Years as "Winter" Sets In http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/120606EA.shtml It is warmer in Europe's Alpine region now than at any time in the past 1,300 years, the head of a wide-ranging climate survey said on Tuesday. ----- Paris Talks Can't Reach Iran Deal http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120606M.shtml ----- Al-Maliki to Call for Regional Meeting http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120606N.shtml ----- Courageous Chinese Lawyers http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120606G.shtml Harassed when they defend individuals against local government abuses, these courageous Chinese lawyers deserve vast international support. ----- VIDEO | Democrats Caucus on Iraq | A Report by Geoffrey Millard and Scott Galindez http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120606B.shtml _________________________________ Submitted by: .ron corvuswire@verizon.net SPECIAL REPORTS US and Israel targeting DNA in Gaza? Part 2 of 3: The DIME bomb, yet another genotoxic weapon ... By James Brooks ... Online Journal Contributing Writer "Horrific" wounds in Gaza may be warfare of the future. In early July, shortly after the beginning of Israel's bloody military siege of the Gaza Strip, reports began to appear that Israeli forces were using a new weapon that inflicted strange and untreatable wounds, and significantly increased the death tolls of Israel's attacks. [1] [2] [snip] Continued >> http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1507.shtml ----- Israeli-sponsored "crypto-war" is laying waste in Iraq Sunnis and Shiites have lived in peace for thousands of years, yet as soon as Americans show up with their 'Israeli Advisors' and 70,000 mercenaries, then Iraq turns into hell. Tuesday's bomb on a Shiite market wasn't some Sunni farmer, janitor, college professor or truck driver - this bomb was Israeli. Picture a rural Mississippi town of 8,000, that sits on a giant oil field, and suddenly 500 New York Zionists show up. They elect a new sheriff and buy the newspaper. Mysteriously the Presbyterian Church's annual bazaar is hit by a massive bomb and a note is found saying the local Catholic church did it. During Sunday services at the Catholic church, a bomb kills fifty. Next you have the town leaders being assassinated by people 'posing' as police. High school teachers kidnapped, and found with their throats slit in a field. In the meantime the Zionist newspaper screams 'Religious war.' "The town's leaders are dead, and people start selling and leaving. Guess who will be buying up the land, and bringing in the oil rigs?" http://judicial-inc.biz/fo.rty_three_dead_in_baghdad_atta.htm _________________________________ http://jablankfort@earthlink.net Excerpted from: http://www.counterpunch.org/ When Will Kristof Visit the Occupied Territories? Gaza and Darfur .................By ALEXANDER COCKBURN As a zone of ongoing, large-scale bloodletting Darfur in the western Sudan has big appeal for US news editors. Americans are not doing the killing, or paying for others to do it. So there's no need to minimize the vast slaughter with the usual drizzle of "allegations." There's no political risk here in sounding off about genocide in Darfur. The crisis in Darfur is also very photogenic. When the RENAMO gangs, backed by Ronald Reagan and the apartheid regime in South Africa were butchering Mozambican peasants, the news stories were sparse and the tone usually tentative in any blame-laying. Not so with Darfur, where moral outrage on the editorial pages acquires the robust edge endemic to sermons about inter-ethnic slaughter where white people, and specifically the US government, aren't obviously involved. Since March 1 the New York Times has run seventy news stories on Darfur (including sixteen pieces from wire services), fifteen editorials and twenty-one signed columns, all but one by Nicholas Kristof. Darfur is primarily a "feel good" subject for people here who want to agonize publicly about injustices in the world but who don't really want to do anything about them. After all, it's Arabs who are the perpetrators and there is ultimately little that people in this country can do to effect real change in the policy of the government in Khartoum. Now, Gaza is an entirely different story. The American public as well as the US government have a great deal of control over what is happening there. And it is Israel, America's prime ally in the Middle East that is, on a day-to-day basis, with America's full support, inflicting appalling brutalities on a civilian population. To report in any detail on what's going on in Gaza means accusing the United States of active complicity in terrible crimes wrought by Israel, as it methodically lays waste a society of 1.5 million Palestinians. Of course the death rate is a fraction of what's alleged about Darfur, but all the same, we are talking here about a determined bid by Israel, backed by the U.S. and E.U. to destroy an entire society. http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn12042006.html _________________________________ Excerpted from: alternet@democracyinaction.org http://www.alternet.org/topstories/ Justice: Still Not an Option for American Muslims By Chris Hedges, Truthdig Rights and Liberties: Victimized by outrageous attempts in U.S. courts to tie him to terrorists groups, Sami Al-Arian, a tenured Palestinian professor who was fired from the University of South Florida, has spent many months in prison even after a jury failed to convict him. >> http://www.alternet.org/rights/45100/ ----- Tax Evaders: Multinationals are Selling the Country Short By Peter Rost, AlterNet When drug companies dupe the IRS by shifting their profits to low-tax countries, the rest of us have to pay billions of dollars in unnecessary taxes to make up for the shortfall. http://www.alternet.org/story/45019/ ----- Iraq Study Group Offers No Real Plan for Withdrawal By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com War on Iraq: If we were to follow the recommendations of James Baker's Iraq Study Group, we'd be embedded in Iraq for at least another three to five years. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/45091/ ----- Rethinking Terrorism: A Jewish American Crosses into Hezbollah Territory By Nathaniel Hoffman, AlterNet One journalist spends 10 days in Lebanon, sipping coffee and talking politics with members of Hezbollah, the Islamic militant group Americans have branded as terrorists. http://www.alternet.org/story/45101/ ----- Baker-Hamilton Won't Solve Iraq, Just DC's Iraq Hangover By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com Column: For the Iraq disaster to end, someone in DC is actually going to have to make a difficult decision -- admit defeat, invite a bloody civil war, lose face before a pair of rogue terror-supporting states -- and it's obvious that no one's ever going to do that, not until there's absolutely no choice. http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/45136/ _________________________________ Excerpted from: http://mediamatters.org In articles on Bolton resignation, four major newspapers failed to quote a single Senate opponent Read more >> http://mediamatters.org/items/200612050009?src=other ----- Rep. Wolf's '05 Iraq report and op-ed undermined NPR claim that Wolf "decided" then that war "not going well" In introducing her interview with Rep. Frank Wolf, National Public Radio's Deborah Amos stated that, after his 2005 trip to Iraq, Wolf "decided the [Iraq] war was not going well," and "came up with the idea for an independent panel to analyze U.S. policy," which "became the Baker-Hamilton Study Group." In fact, shortly after his return, Wolf wrote an official trip report and an op-ed in which he stressed that "real progress is being made [in Iraq], despite the ongoing security concerns." Read more >> http://mediamatters.org/items/200612050005?src=other ----- On Hardball, Brokaw exaggerated McCain's independence from Bush Read more >> http://mediamatters.org/items/200612050007?src=other ----- NBC's Mitchell: Bush's reversals are "pragmatic" -- but Kerry's changes were "flip-flops" Read more >> http://mediamatters.org/items/200612050008?src=other _________________________________ In case you missed these: By Doug Thompson Iraq Study Group Report: Smoke, Mirrors And The Fog Of War According to all that collected brain power in the Iraq Study Group, conditions in President George W. Bush's failed Iraq war are "grave and deteriorating" and the United States must find a way to get the hell out. This is news?................... [snip] http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_doug_tho_061206_iraq_study_group_rep.htm ----- By Robert Parry Democrats Cave On Gates Nomination http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_robert_p_061206_democrats_cave_on_ga.htm ----- By Allen L Roland JOSE PADILLA / SMOKING GUN OF BUSH'S ONGOING ABUSE OF POWER For a rare glimpse of what the Cheney/Bush administration is doing, even to U.S.Citizens ~ please read the enclosed Ethan Heitner expose on the treatment of Jose Padilla ~ which is an obvious example of the abuse of power that is being carried out under the rationale of the War on Terror. Please read this shocking article and links carefully ~ it could one day be yourself . http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_allen_l__061205_jose_padilla__2f__smok.htm ----- Thousands Of Somalis Protest As Bush Attempts To Ease Arms Embargo Protestors accuse Bush of preferring 'war games to stability.' Leaders say a "grave" mistake to approve Washington's proposals, recalling that a previous US military foray into Somalia in the early 1990s resulted in the death of thousands of Somalis. I bet Bush cronies will make a bundle from the arms trades. http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/link.html?id=27185 ----- Neocons Follow Their Dreams -- Straight To Hell On the occasion of John Bolton's ouster, Germany's Der Spiegel celebrates the demise of the Neocons with an article entitled "Bye-Bye, Blockheads." click here _________________________________ KEEPING SYNTHETIC HORMONES OUT OF DAIRY PRODUCTS Since our founding in 1998, the OCA has been a leading force educating consumers about the serious human and animal health hazards of Monsanto's recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). The synthetic hormone rBGH (sometimes called rBST) is a genetically engineered drug designed to force non-organic dairy cows to produce more milk. This controversial and inhumane animal drug has been banned in Europe, Canada, and Japan, due to concerns over increased risks for breast and colon cancer and antibiotic resistance, yet it is still used on many factory farms in the U.S. Thanks to ongoing consumer pressure by OCA and our allies, a growing number of mainstream dairy producers and distributors went rBGH-free in 2006. Several months ago, in response to increasing grassroots demand, Dean Foods and Wal-Mart (the largest dairy and grocery chain in the U.S.) began asking their dairy suppliers to stop injecting their cows with rBGH. In October, Vermont's Secretary of Agriculture called on the state's farmers to stop using rBGH. As a result, Monsanto has been forced to cut back production of rBGH, while informed sources tell the OCA that Dean Foods and Starbucks--long time targets of OCA pressure--will soon announce a ban on rBGH milk. Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm _________________________________ http://www.nathannewman.org | http://thomasmc.com | http://mparent7777.blog-city.com _________________________________ IF YOUR BROADBAND IS SLOW, TRY THIS TWEAK John in Boston called because his broadband speeds are slow. He's heard there's a way to tweak XP. Well, John, you heard correctly. There is a way in Windows XP Professional (not Home) to increase your broadband speed. By default, Windows reserves some of your connection's bandwidth. But you can change that easily. Click Start>>Run. Type gpedit.msc and click OK. The Group Policy Box will open. You will see Local Computer Policy. Click the plus sign to expand the Administrative Templates section. Next, click the plus sign to expand the Network section. Highlight QoS Packet Scheduler. In the right side of the box, double-click Limit Reservable Bandwidth. Check Enabled. Change Bandwidth limit to 0 percent. Click Apply>>OK. When you restart your computer, the effect should be immediate. Enjoy your blazing broadband speeds!Put the oomph back in Wi-Fi. > http://www.komando.com/tips/index.aspx?id=1534 Guide to buying a wireless extender.> http://www.komando.com/buyguide/index.aspx?id=2329 | Be sure to listen to me Monday through Friday. Use my map to find me near you http://www.komando.com/listen/index.aspx _________________________________ eHEALTHY NEWS Three Reasons Why You are Struggling Financially - Get rid of your limiting beliefs about money, and start focusing on what you want. http://www.mercola.com/2006/may/18/three_reasons_why_you_are_struggling_financially.htm ----- FINALLY, Doctors Waking Up to How Important Exercise Is - The American Academy of Pediatrics encourages children, doctors, and parents to shape up. click here _________________________________ VIDEO: The Day After The Day After Christmas | United States | 6:00 | Mike Dobler 'Tis better to give than to receive, especially when it comes to gifts like the one featured here... A woman finds a discarded Christmas present and decides to keep it for herself. That's her first mistake. http://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/day_after _________________________________ NationalGeographic.com http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/ _________________________________ NASA Astronomy picture of the day http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html _________________________________ Live every day as if it were your last and then some day you'll be right. ~ H.H. "Breaker" Morant