Filed under: 9/11, airstrikes, Bloggers, bush surge, George Bush, george w. bush, Iraq, journalism, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, nation building, neocons, occupation, Ronald Reagan, Shock and Awe, Texas, Troops, war crime, War Crimes | Tags: Family of Secrets, Herskowitz, Karen Hughes, media in crisis, Mickey Herskowitz, Russ Baker, William Morrow
Governor Bush told Houston Journalist: If Elected. “I’m Going to Invade Iraq”
Global Research
June 2, 2009
Two years before the 9/11 attacks on America, George W. Bush told a Houston journalist if elected president, “I’m going to invade Iraq.”
Bush made the comments about starting an aggressive war to veteran Houston Chronicle reporter Mickey Herskowitz, then working with Bush on his book “A Charge To Keep,” later brought out by publisher William Morrow.
This disclosure was uncovered by Russ Baker, an award-winning investigative reporter when he interviewed Herskowitz for his own book, “Family of Secrets” (Bloomsbury Press) about the Bush dynasty. However, Baker says, when he approached The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times with the potentially devastating story to President Bush prior to the 2004 presidential election, they declined to publish it.
In a new book, “Media In Crisis”(Doukathsan), Baker quotes Herskowitz as telling him: “He (Bush) said he wanted to do it(invade Iraq), and the reason he wanted to do it is he had been led to understand that you could not really have a successful presidency unless you were seen as commander-in-chief, unless you were seen as waging a war.”
Bush told Herskowitz that his father (President George H.W. Bush) knew that from Panama and (President Ronald)Reagan knew that from Grenada and…(UK Prime Minister)Maggie Thatcher knew this from the Falklands.”
According to Baker, Bush told Herskowitz, “The ideal thing was a small war, and this is why Bush said nobody was going to be killed in Iraq because he thought it would be small war.”
Bush co-authored his book “A Charge To Keep” with Karen Hughes. In his introduction to the work, Bush wrote, “I thank Mickey Herskowitz for his help and work in getting the project started.”
Baker said he believed if a major daily ran his Herskowitz interview it “could have changed the election” but “I could not get it published.” The story was turned down by both The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. He described the Post as “scared because of the Dan Rather thing, and they said to me, ‘What do you have in the way of evidence?’” Baker replied, “Here’s a tape of Mickey Herskowitz, who’s published 20-some books, long-time journalist of the Houston Chronicle, friend of the Bush family, telling me this story.” The Post said, “It’s not enough. In this climate, we need Bush on tape saying this.” Expressing his disappointment over the rejection, Baker said, “Well, that standard has never applied anywhere.”
The story about Bush’s comments to Herskowitz is one of many about the frustrations journalists face in getting the truth to the public that appear in “Media In Crisis.” The book contains the comments of five Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, among others, and officials of various journalism foundations, as well as veteran broadcasters. The book also covers the economic woes of daily newspapers and their future, the rise of Internet bloggers and other news-purveying media, the quality of reporting, and the quality of instruction in journalism schools.
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 4th amendment, ACLU, Big Brother, California, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Control Grid, corporations, data mining, Dictatorship, Dissent, DNI, Empire, Executive Order, Fascism, FBI, federal crime, FISA, FOIA, free speech, George Bush, LAPD, mukasey, Nazi, neocons, NSA, Oppression, Police State, Protest, Ronald Reagan, Spy, stasi, stasi tactics, Surveillance, US Constitution, virginia, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap, White House | Tags: Director of National Intelligence, Executive Order 12333, fusion centers, Lexis-Nexus, LocatePlus, maryland, TLA, Virginia General Assembly
“Fusion Centers” to Gather Intelligence on Peaceful Protesters
The Progressive
July 30, 2008
On the heels of the Maryland State Police spying scandal, the ACLU is ringing the alarms over “fusion centers.”
These are the state-by-state groupings of various law enforcement agencies working together at all levels, from local police to the FBI, NSA, and CIA, ostensibly to share terrorism threat information. But, as we saw in the Maryland case, they may sometimes just be sharing information about lawful, peaceful First Amendment-protected speech.
There is “mission creep from watching out for terrorism to watching out for peace activists,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, in a press conference July 29. She called the fusion centers an incipient “domestic intelligence apparatus.” And she warned that the kind of spying that occurred in Maryland was “very dangerous to our democracy.”
In December 2007, the ACLU published a report “What’s Wrong with Fusion Centers?”
It noted that there are more than 40 fusion centers already created. And it cited several problems with them, including the participation of military personnel in law enforcement, as well as “private sector participation.” “Fusion centers are incorporating private-sector corporations into the intelligence process, breaking down the arm’s length relationship that protects the privacy of innocent Americans who are employees or customers of these companies.”
On July 29, the ACLU issued an update to that report.
The fusion centers represent an attempt to create a “total surveillance society,” the update says.
It notes that the LAPD fed into its fusion center an array of ““suspicious activity reports” that included such innocuous activities as “taking notes” or “drawing diagrams” or “using binoculars.” (Since one out of six Americans is a birdwatcher, this last item could really swell the files.)
The “suspicious activity” criteria of the LAPD “gives law enforcement officers justification to harass practically anyone they choose, to collect personal information, and to pass such information along to the intelligence community,” the update says.
Frighteningly, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has called the LAPD program “a national model.”
The Director of National Intelligence urges state and local law enforcement to “report non-criminal suspicious activities,” the update says. According to the standards of the Director of National Intelligence, these activities are defined as “observed behavior that may be indicative of intelligence gathering or pre-operational planning related to terrorism, criminal, or other illicit intention.”
The ACLU notes that “other illicit intention” is not defined, and that fusion centers are fed intelligence before “reasonable suspicion” is established.
Fusion centers also engage in data mining, as they rely not only on FBI and CIA records. They also often “have subscriptions with private data brokers such as Accurint, ChoicePoint, Lexis-Nexus, and LocatePlus, a database containing cell phone numbers and unpublished telephone records,” the ACLU notes, referring to a Washington Post article from April 2.
The ACLU calls fusion centers “out-of-control data-gathering monsters.”
While the government is gathering more and more information about us citizens, it’s trying to shield itself from telling us what it’s doing. “There appears to be an effort by the federal government to coerce states into exempting their fusion centers from state open government laws,” the ACLU notes. “For those living in Virginia, it’s already too late: The Virginia General Assembly passed a law in April 2008 exempting the state’s fusion center from the Freedom of Information Act.”
As I noted in “The New Snoops: Terrorism Liaison Officers, Some from the Private Sector”, the Department of Justice has come up with “Fusion Center Guidelines” that flat-out recommend that “fusion centers and their leadership encourage appropriate policymakers to legislate the protection of private sector data provided to fusion centers.”
The ACLU is absolutely right: Congress must investigate these fusion centers and exercise appropriate oversight before law enforcement agencies and their private sector partners violate the rights of more Americans and usher us all into the total surveillance society.
Bush turning intelligence agencies on Americans
Raw Story
July 31, 2008
President Bush seems to be slowly turning the nation’s massive surveillance apparatus upon its citizens, and some worry that administration assurances to protect civil liberties are nothing but empty promises.
With his update to a decades-old executive order governing the Intelligence Community, Bush is giving the Director of National Intelligence and the 16 agencies of the US Intelligence Community more power to access and share sensitive information on Americans with little to no independent oversight. The update to Executive Order 12333, first issued by former President Ronald Reagan, introduces a more prominent role for the Attorney General in approving intelligence gathering methods, calls for collaboration with local law enforcement agencies, eases limits on how information can be shared and urges cooperation between the IC and private companies.
“This Intelligence Community that was built to deal with foreign threats is now being slowly and incrementally turned inward,” says Mike German, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, in an interview with RAW STORY.
Bush’s latest update of a decades old executive order governing intelligence activities is a “lit fuse” that could end with the Constitution’s immolation, another ACLU official says.
“This kind of concentrated power, exercised in secret, is a lit fuse with our Constitution likely in danger of being burned,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington legislative office.
The White House insists that the update to Executive Order 12333 maintains protections for Americans’ civil liberties, but senior administration officials who briefed reporters Thursday provided little reassurance that the new order would correct some of the Bush administration’s most egregious abuses.
Peaceful Activist labeled a “terrorist” in a federally-funded domestic terrorism database
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/07/19/..d-spy-on-protest-groups/
Filed under: 2-party system, 2008 Election, Alan Greenspan, Alex Jones, amnesty, Barack Obama, bilderberg, Bohemian Grove, Bush Sr., California, Child Abuse, child sex slavery, Colin Powell, David Rockefeller, franklin coverup, George Bush, global elite, global government, Globalism, Henry Kissinger, homosexual, homosexual prostitution, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, International Bankers, internationalists, jeff gannon, john decamp, John McCain, La Raza, left right paradigm, manhattan project, Mexico, neocons, Neolibs, New World Order, obama, paul bonacci, richard nixon, Ronald Reagan, san fransisco, scandal, secret meetings, Secret Societies, Sex Scandal, Tony Blair, trilateral commission, White House | Tags: effigy, human sacrifice, molech, moloch, owl
Bush, McCain & Obama To Visit Bohemian Grove?
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
July 11, 2008
Outgoing President George W. Bush and both of his presumptive replacements John McCain and Barack Obama are rumored to be in attendance at this year’s Bohemian Grove gathering, an annual get-together of the global elite staged inside a sprawling forest encampment which kicks off tonight and runs until July 27.
Bohemian Grove is a 136-year-old all-male encampment complete with restaurants, bars, stages and lodges, which caters to around 2,000 members of the global elite along with Californian hoi polloi on a yearly basis in July. The camp is set within a 2,700 acre secluded forest replete with giant redwood trees.
Former attendees include Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, who both went on to become President, as well as regulars like Henry Kissinger, Alan Greenspan, David Rockefeller, Colin Powell, as well as George W. Bush and his father.
In 2000 radio host and film maker Alex Jones infiltrated the gathering and caught exclusive video footage of a bizarre mock human sacrifice ritual, known as “the cremation of care”, under a 40 foot stone owl that the members refer to as Molech.
Homosexual orgies are known to be part of the festivities enjoyed by the predominately “Christian conservative” leaders who go there. Former attendee Richard Nixon once referred to the Grove as, “the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine.”
A reader who got a summer job working at the Grove in 2005, Chris Jones, told us that he was regularly propositioned for sex by the old men attending the encampment and asked if he “slept around” and wanted to have some fun.
Jones was later sentenced to three years in jail by California authorities for simply showing a tape of his visit to minors.
However, the media’s attitude to hundreds of powerbrokers attending an event at which the Manhattan Project was known to have been born, while frolicking around dressed up as women pissing up trees and having gay sex, has been sophomoric to say the least.
One such hit piece in the Sacramento News & Review, which ties the Grove as well as public organizations such as the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission with shape-shifting reptoid conspiracies, is useful for only one piece of information – the claim that Presidential hopeful John McCain may be attending this year’s gathering.
George W. Bush and his father give a lakeside talk at Bohemian Grove in this photo from the Grove’s annual yearbook.
In addition, according to an Arizona Daily Star report about a different subject, President Bush’s schedule for next week has not been released, meaning Bush, a regular attendee with his father to Bohemian Grove in past years, could be set to make a visit at some point to mark the last year of his presidency.
Tellingly, both McCain and Democratic candidate Barack Obama will be in California from Saturday to Tuesday, during which time both candidates are scheduled to speak at the National Council of La Raza, a racist Mexican separatist group that advocates a violent overthrow of the southwestern U.S. states.
Their schedule puts them in the perfect location to enjoy a night at the Grove this weekend.
Two years ago we were able to accurately surmise then British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s visit to the Grove, which coincided with a visit to San Francisco where he met with powerbrokers.
Thus far, there has only been one other mainstream report concerning the event, an article entitled Power brokers due at Bohemian Grove, appearing in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, a local paper that routinely covers the gathering.
“Critics, who until recent years mounted protests outside its gates, say the gatherings serve as strategy sessions for a New World Order operating outside democratic institutions,” states the article.
“Most critics raise the specter of national policy with global implications coming from behind the gates of an exclusive, closed-door gathering of largely conservative, wealthy white men.”
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/ar..e=Bohemian_Club_convenes_tonight
Bohemian Grove White Wash Piece
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=690215
Power brokers due at Bohemian Grove
http://www.pressdemocrat.com..ers_due_at_Boho_Grove
Filed under: 2008 Election, Argentina, Arizona, Barack Obama, bernanke, Bill Clinton, Bolivia, brazil, Britain, CAFTA, Canada, Central Banks, CFR, Chile, colombia, Euro, Europe, european union, FARC, Federal Reserve, George Bush, global elite, global government, Globalism, Hugo Chavez, i-69, John McCain, Mexico, Military, NAFTA, NAFTA Superhighway, NAU, New World Order, North American Union, paraguay, Peru, Real ID, Ronald Reagan, single currency, South America, South American Union, SPP, trans texas corridor, TTC, United Kingdom, uruguay, us sovereignty, Venezuela | Tags: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
South American Union To Have Single Currency
Natural News
June 21, 2008
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva recently revealed that the South American countries are planning for a common currency as part of the integration of the individual countries into the Union of South American Nations. This integration is patterned after the formation of the European Union, and parallels the plan for the North American Union.
The union of South American nations would create a trade block designed to be competitive with the European and North American trade blocks. Central to the formation of the union is the creation of a central bank to oversee the new common currency that would replace the currencies of the individual countries in the block. In a recent broadcast, President Lula stated that he sees the implementation of this plan as not being a fast one.
In his message, the president stressed the need to help the countries of South America that are economically weak, such as Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia. “We have to help them because the stronger the countries in South America economically are, the more tranquility, peace, democracy, trade, companies, jobs, incomes and development”, he is quoted at ((http://www.nuwireinvestor.com/articles/…) .
Another unfolding feature of the South American Union similar to that of the North American Union is its dependence on newly created infrastructure. The South American alliance will promote the cross-nation construction of railroads, highways, bridges and transmission lines that will connect the entire region resulting in smooth interaction and movement within the trading block. The NAFTA and CAFTA Superhighways epitomize the infrastructural development of the North American Union trading block.
The union plan also calls for a regional defense council, apparently the beginning of the imposition of a regional government. This council would resolve regional conflicts, promote military cooperation and allow for the regional coordination of weapons production, much as the military integration of Canada and the U.S. initiates the unification of governments in the North American Countries.
The plan to establish a new common currency for the Union of South American Nations is the latest development in the initiation of common currencies representative of multi-country trading blocks. The euro was the first trade block currency, established as part of the European Union. The amero is the name of what may be the North American Union’s counterpart to the euro, debuting after economic integration and homogenization of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada have been completed, at exchange rates that represent the lowered standard of living of the Americans and the Canadians.
Critics of the Union of South American Nations’ efforts to establish a common currency see it as playing right into the hands of the world banking cartel. The clustering and assimilation of currencies facilitates the eventual merger into a one world currency promoted by the Council on Foreign Relations and its political puppets. They see the move toward the South American Union with its single currency as easily fitting with the European Union and current efforts to establish the North American Union. Once the formation of these major trading blocks is completed, the next step would be the unification of the blocks into a one world government.
This one world government is sometimes referred to as the New World Order. The Council on Foreign Relations has openly stated that its intentions are to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty of the national independence of the U.S. with the aim of creating a one world government. The Council, referred to as CFR, has influence in all vital areas of American life and around the world. Members have run or are running the major media outlets including NBC, CBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many other publications.
CFR members dominate the political world. U.S. presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have been CFR members, with the exception of Ronald Reagan. CFR members also dominate the academic world, top corporations, unions and the military. They are on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve. Barack Obama and John McCain are CFR members, as well as the Bushes and the Clintons. There are many corporate members of the CFR. CFR plans are not subject to the scrutiny, debate, or vote of the people. Discussion of the plans has been conspicuously absent from the endless debating of the presidential candidates.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7417896.stm
Arizona Governor Approves Prohibition on Real ID
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Feature-Article.htm?InfoNo=034608
Bill C-51 Codex & The SPP
http://intelstrike.com/?p=277
SuperCorridor Defeat? Don’t Bet On It
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/06/supercorridor-defeat-dont-bet-on-it.html
Comments At 4th Annual North America Forum
http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/06/13/02404.html
North American Union agenda whether Canadians want it, or not, is a top priority for elite interests
http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/06/13/02404.html
Filed under: Afghanistan, Brownshirt, Coup, Dictatorship, False Flag, Genocide, George Bush, Habeas Corpus, Iran, Iraq, Larry Craig, Nazi, Paul Craig Roberts, Preemptive Strike, Ronald Reagan, Saber Rattling, Shock and Awe, Troops, War Crimes, ww4
Former Reagan aide: ‘Brownshirt’ Bush among top ‘mass murderers of all time’
Raw Story
August 31, 2007
President Bush’s apparent plans for a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran will only add to the civilian death toll as a result of US intervention that has placed the president “high on the list of mass murders of all time,” a former aide in President Ronald Reagan’s administration known for strident anti-Bush rhetoric said Friday.
“Bush is too self-righteous to see the dark humor in his denunciations of Iran for threatening ‘the security of nations everywhere’ and of the Iraqi resistance for ‘a vision that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit of political power,'” writes Paul Craig Roberts, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury. “Those are precisely the words that most of the world applies to Bush and his Brownshirt administration.”
Roberts, who has emerged as a fierce critic of Bush’s war policies, accused the president of ignoring habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions, justifying torture and demonizing critics as anti-American.
“Bush … is responsible, according to Information Clearing House, for over one million deaths of Iraqi civilians, which puts Bush high on the list of mass murderers of all time,” Roberts writes in a column published Friday on antiwar.com. “The vast majority of ‘kills’ by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan are civilians.”
A report last month found that US and NATO troops killed more Afghan civilians in the first half of this year than the Taliban.
Roberts said the media is too concerned with stories like Sen. Larry Craig’s (R-ID) arrest for allegedly soliciting sex, and Miss Teen South Carolina’s inability to answer a question.
“The war criminal is in the living room, and no official notice is taken of the fact,” Roberts writes. “Lacking US troops with which to invade Iran, the Bush administration has decided to bomb Iran ‘back into the stone age.'”
Roberts cites a recent RAW STORY report that the US is preparing a “massive” military strike against Iran to support his assertions.
“Encouraged by the indifference of both the American media and Christian churches to the massive casualties inflicted on Iraqi civilians, the Bush administration will not be deterred by the prospect of its air attacks inflicting massive casualties on Iranian civilians. … Clearly, turning the Muslim Middle East into a wasteland is the Bush policy,” Roberts writes. “For Bush, civilian casualties are a non-issue. Hegemony uber alles.”
Filed under: Bill Clinton, CFR, global government, global tax, Globalism, New World Order, Ronald Reagan, UN
Is the U.S. Senate Willing to Torpedo the Law of the Sea Treaty?
Brian Farmer
JBS
August 2, 2007
It’s not surprising that the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) would support the Law of the Sea Treaty. After all, the CFR has always believed that promoting world government is a good idea.
Follow this link to the original source: “Is the United States Ready to Approve the Law of the Sea Treaty?“
COMMENTARY:
Back in the 1970s, the United Nations launched its plan for a global program of taxation. The objective was the transfer of wealth and technology from the developed world to the Third World, under the direction of the UN. A cornerstone of this international wealth transfer scheme was the so-called “Law of the Sea Treaty” (LOST).
LOST would give the UN power to tax businesses that wanted to develop the oceans’ resources, which has been a long-time dream of the global government enthusiasts. LOST also would establish an international court system to enforce its provisions and rulings.
The treaty attempts to conceal the power to levy international taxes by labeling the taxes with such euphemisms as “assessments,” “fees,” “permits,” “payments,” or “contributions.”
Under LOST, an “International Seabed Authority” would control the minerals and other resources of the oceans’ seabed. After taking its own cut, this UN body would transfer whatever is left to select Third World governments and non-governmental organizations.
Fortunately, when LOST came before President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, he refused to sign the treaty. It appeared that the push toward global governance was halted, at least temporarily.
But that was not the end of LOST. Determined proponents of the treaty worked to “fix” its most objectionable parts, in hopes that the United States would then support it. The UN and its supporters know that, without the participation of the United States, their schemes will not succeed.
In the 1990s, LOST supporters sent the treaty to President Bill Clinton, who quickly signed the treaty and sent it to the Senate for ratification. Fortunately, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then headed by Senator Jesse Helms, concluded that, despite cosmetic changes, LOST remained hopelessly flawed. Taking no action on the treaty, he sent it back to the president in 2000.
It appeared that LOST was finally dead. But it wasn’t. Undeterred, LOST supporters in the State Department sent the treaty back to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2003. The Committee voted to send the treaty to the full Senate for ratification in February of 2004. LOST currently sits before the Senate, available at any time for a full Senate vote on ratification.
Let us hope that the Senate does the sensible thing and rejects LOST, along with any future UN encroachments on our sovereignty!
noworldsystem.com 