Challenging Cheney

1. Challenging Cheney...


"It doesn't matter whether he takes Amnesty International seriously;
he doesn't take torture seriously;
he doesn't take the Geneva Convention seriously;
he doesn't take due process seriously;
and he doesn't take Internatonal Law seriously!"

A statement made by William Schultz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA,
in response to VP. Dick Cheney's comment that he wasn't putting much weight on Amnesty's criticism of US treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.



2. "We owe respect to the living, to the dead we owe only truth!"
(Voltaire, Oeuvres VolI, P.15)

Fallujah- The Hidden Massacre!

Incinerating Iraqi's- The Napalm and White Phosphorus Coverup,

U.S. Military Veteran Admits: Bodies Melted Away Before Us...

WARNING: Very Graphic Scenes...For Mature Audiences!

Please Click on the link below and watch the video...

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article10907.htm

The Vanity Of Regret

Nothing in this world of ours
flows as we would have it flow,
what avail, then, careful hours,
thought and trouble, tears and woe?
Through the shrouded veil of earth,
life's rich colors gleaming bright,
though in truth of little worth,
yet allure with meteor light.

Life is torture and suspense;
thought is sorrow-drive it hence!
with no will of mine I came,
with no will depart the same...


(By-Omar Khayyam)

De Villepin Attacked For Imposing Riot Law
By-Peggy Hollinger in Paris
November 8 2005

Dominique de Villepin, France's Prime Minister, was accused on Tuesday of losing his sang-froid after resorting to a state of emergency to quell riots that have set the suburbs of France's biggest cities alight during the past 12 days.

Le Monde, the Newspaper of France's Political Elite, accused the Prime Minister of sending a message of "Staggering Brutality" to the youth of the suburbs, who are for the most part children and grandchildren of African immigrants.

By invoking a law created in 1955 to put down unrest during the Algerian War of Independence, Le Monde said, Mr. de Villepin had "lost his sang-froid" and was sending the message that "France intends to treat them [the French-born children of immigrants] as it did their grandparents. The Prime Minister should remember that this spiral of incomprehension, of martial fever and powerlessness has driven the Republic to its worst setbacks."

Mr. de Villepin, speaking yesterday to deputies in an emergency parliamentary debate on the crisis, said the French Republic was facing its "moment of truth...what is in question today is the effectiveness of our model of integration."

The government has struggled to put down the most serious wave of riots since the student unrest of 1968. The law will allow local authorities to impose a curfew, restrict movement and launch raids on residences day or night where it is deemed necessary.

One man has died and 6,000 cars have been torched during the riots, which began after two boys from immigrant families died in an apparent attempt to escape police.

The unrest became a stark symbol of France's failure to integrate the minority communities, most of which live in the bleak suburbs of France's cities, and where the jobless rate among young people is often two or three times the national average.

While France's political parties support the government's decision to impose a state of emergency to restore order-albeit with some reservations-a number of deputies and mayors said yesterday they would refuse to implement the measures.

Andre Labarrere, a Socialist Senator and Mayor of the South-Western City of Pau, said he was "totally opposed" to the state of emergency. "It is a form of discrimination that will be very badly received."

Jean-Marc Ayrault President of the Socialist Party, said the opposition was prepared to accept the measures because of the urgent need to restore order. However, he warned against using the state of emergency, which will be in place for the next 12 days, as a smokescreen to cover up deeper social problems.

It was "first and foremost a social state of emergency," he said. "The young people in revolt are the lost children of a liberal society."

The criticism came as Mr. de Villepin announced a package of measures to redirect resources to France's most deprived urban areas. They include accelerating training and job seeking programmes for unemployed youths from these areas, increasing aid for urban renewal and measures to boost education resources and scholarships.

Aziz Senni, a Moroccan-born businessman and author of the book 'the social escalator is broken, I took the stairs,' was disappointed by the response. "What is needed today is political courage, which I have not seen from either the President or the Prime Minister."

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/4677d0c4-508a-11da-bbd7-0000779e2340.html

The following link is for an author who lived in France for 10 years and gives a nice historical background on the unfortunate events that occurred within the past 50 years of the 20th Century that culminated to the riots:

The title of the article is:
Why is France Burning? the Rebellion of a Lost Generation...

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/11/why_is_france_b.html

Love On Through

1. There is a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
when two, that are linked in one heavenly tie.


With heart never changing, and brow never cold
love on through all ills, and love on till they die!



One hour of a passion so sacred is worth
whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss;
and O, if there be an elysium on earth,
its is this, it is this.


(T. Moore- Lalla Rookh, "light of the harem')



2. As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean
sweet flowers are springing, no mortal can see,
so deep is my soul the still prayers of devotion
unheard by the world, rises silent to thee.
(Moore)

Song Of The Flower

I am a kind word uttered and repeated
by the voice of nature;
I am a star fallen from the
blue tent upon the green carpet.

I am the daughter of the elements
with whom spring gave birth;
I was reared in the lap of summer and
I slept in the bed of autumn.

At dawn I unite with the breeze
to announce the coming of light;
at eventide I join the birds
in bidding the light farewell.

The plains are decorated with
my beautiful colors, and the air
is scented with my fragrance.

As I embrace slumber the eyes of
night watch over me, and as I
awaken I stare at the sun, which is
the only eye of the day.

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to
the voices of the birds, and dance
to the rhythmic swaying of the grass.

I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath;
I am the memory of a moment of happiness;
I am the last gift of the living to the dead;
I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow.

But I look up high to see only the light,
and never look down to see my shadow.
This is wisdom which man must learn...


By-Khalil Gibran

Al-Qaeda Prison Break
Four Arab Captives, Including A Top Terror Operative, Manage To Slip Through Three Rings Of Security.
By-Michael Hirsch
Newsweek.

Nov. 14, 2005 Issue- Bagram airbase is home to one of the most heavily fortified military prisons in the World. Located in the shadow of the Hindu Kush about 30 miles North of Kabul, the facility holds hundreds of alleged Jihadists at the center of three tight rings of security, surrounded by US and Afghan troops.

To enter through a labyrinth of concrete and dirt-filled-wire barriers that are overlooked by two-story-high observation posts. The prisoners, dressed in Orange Jumpsuits, are kept in wire cages in the middle of an old Warehouse. Somewhat like Hannibal Lecter in "silence of the lambs." The Warehouse in turn is ringed by razor wire and finally the fences and guard posts of the airbase itself.

Yet in the early Morning hours of July 11, 2005, US officials say, four of these brightly attired men somehow penetrated each of the three security cordons and slipped through a Soviet-era Minefield just outside the base, one purposely left active. Then the escapees disappeared into the darkness, managing even to elude local Tajik Villagers who are generally hostile to foreign fighters.

It was, almost everyone agreed, an astonishing feat. "If this really happened as reported, it makes the great escape of World War II look like an outward bound exercise," said one US defense analyst familiar with detainee operations who would speak only if he were not named.

On wanted posters that were displayed around Bagram at the time, the escapees were identified vaguely as foreigners who had come to join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan-a Kuwaiti, a Syrian, a Libyan and a Saudi. But last week Pentagon officials were forced to admit that one of the fugitives was not who they said he was.

Originally identified as one Mahmoud Ahmad Mohammed of Kuwait, he was actually Omar Al-Faruq, a well-known Qaeda leader in Southeast Asia who had been handed over to the Americans by Indonesian authorities in 2002.

Faruq's true identity emerged after defense lawyer at the Texas trial of a US soldier accused of brutality at Bagram called Faruq as a witness-only to be told by the US Army he was no longer there.

What really happened at Bagram last July? no one knows, or at least those who know aren't saying. But coming at a time when America's detention policies in the Global War on Terror are underfire, Faruq's disappearance raises new questions about whether the system with so little transparency, accountability and oversight can continue.

Bagram is an open book compared with those secret facilities around the World that are run by the CIA but not publicly acknowledged.

Even at the agency, "senior people are saying we've got to have an endgame to this," says one career CIA official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "this isn't sustainable."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told Newsweek "this is a field facility. It isn't Rikers [Island]."
"this is not the first time that prisoners have escaped from military facilities in Afghanistan as well as Iraq."

But few Afghans seem to believe an escape from Bagram is possible, and that has given rise to rumors about the July 11 breakout. According to one fugitive Taliban commander interviewed by a Newsweek reporter last Week, the four men were actually exchanged in secret for captured US Special-Operations troops. Whitman called that account "absolutely absurd and completely untrue."

Two US Counterterrorism officials also sought to play down Faruq's importance. One official, who would speak only if he were not identified, said Faruq had been held elsewhere in the secret US detention system oversees but was then transferred to Bagram, which normally houses ordinary foot soldiers in the Jihadist movement.

Yet this seemed to contradict previous accounts in which Bush administration officials-before Farouq got away-emphasized his Stature in Al Qaeda, "he was the top Qaeda guy in Southeast Asia," says Zachary Abuza, an expert on Asian Jihadist groups at Simmons College in Boston.

"He was one of the first guys who was part of the CIA's Rendition Program," in which terror suspects are ferried abroad.

The Indonesians also believe Faruq is quite a big fish-and still very dangerous. In June 2002, Indonesian Intelligence officers arrested Faruq and handed him over to US officials. They have come to regret it. Because the Bush administration has viewed this as a War without traditional rules, it has largely denied Jakarta and other governments legal access to detainees like Faruq.

Jakarta repeatedly requested-but never got-the right to question Faruq to support its legal case against the alleged spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, Abu Bakar Bashir.

Much remains to be learned about the great escape from Bagram. But the tale may bolster the case of those who argue that handling detainees in such an extralegal, secretive was is only hurting the antiterror campaign.

After a few Months, most detainees are milked of all Intelligence value and are useful mainly as witnesses, Terror Experts Say.

"There has got to be some resolution," say the CIA.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9938331/site/newsweek/

Not In My Name!

Threats never uttered are whispered verbatim,
creating fear of a hypothetical Invasion,
as media strings play methodical hype,
orchestrating the public, to conform to type...

spoon fed with fear on news laden,
heaped with visual connotations,
of danger lurking at our doors,
of certain death for those who Ignore,
the hypothesis laid down as fact.
The Incessant chitter, Incessant Chat,
gets us addicted to leader's projection...

dependent and needy,
craving, hungry, greedy.
surrounded by blue teeth grinning barbarity,
sneering, seething Images of vulgarity...

so our boys are pushed up to the wire,
shot with drugs so they will not tire,
of protecting their families at home,
from evil doers looking to dethrone,
the powers that watch over us,
the nervous dependent populous...

we must be saved from the supposed threat.
we must Invade the terrorist nest.
we must kill the alien foe.
we must,
we must,
we must overthrow.

but first we must trust the source of the truths,
before we feed the war, any more youths,
before the troops, lose one more brave soul,
before the powers, reach any more goals,
before Libya and Syria,
Iran and North Korea,
fall foul of our leaders' dictates of behaviour,
refuse to appreciate us as their saviour,
before we beat them Into submission,
may be we could establish just whose permission,
was granted before we shed more blood,
before a trickle was blasted Into a flood,
before the next purple tipped finger is crushed.

we must realise that "We The People" have been hushed,
for too long now, kept in our place,
as fellow humans are easily erased,
by bold leaders' brandishing our names,
claiming we desired all of this shame.

Not In My Name! Not In My Name! Not In My Name!



(By-Tina Louise)
Sept. 26, 2005

Beating Plowshares Into Swords

1. If you open your mind for me
you won't rely on open eyes to see
the walls you built within
come tumbling down and
a new world will begin.
Living twice at once you learn
you're safe from pain
In the dream domain
a soul set free to fly...
(Queens Ryche)



2. O' Beautiful for Spacious Skies
but now those skies are threatening
they're beating plowshares Into swords
for this tired old man we elected king.
Armchair Warriors Often Fail
and we've been poisoned
by these fairy tales
the lawyers clean up all details
since daddy had to lie.
But I know a place where we can go
and wash away this sin
we'll sit and watch the clouds roll by
and the tall grass wave in the wind.
Just lay your head back on the ground
and let your hair spill all around me
offer up your best defence,
but this is the end,
this is the end,
of Innocence...
(Don Henley)

Ultimate Morons!

1. 'with a little help from our friends'
Police from Oakland, California spent 2 hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home.
After firing ten gas canisters,
officers discovered that the man was standing beside them in the police line, shouting,
"Please come and give yourself up!!!"



2. 'what was Plan-B?'
An Illinois man, pretending to have a gun, kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different ATM's, wherein the kidnapper proceeded to withdraw money from his own Bank Accounts!



3. 'The Getaway!'
A man walked into a Topeka, kansas Kwik-Stop, and asked for all the Money in the Cash Register. Apparently the take was too small, so he tied up the Store Clerk, and worked the counter himself for 3 hours until police showed up and arrested him.



4. 'Did I Say That?'
Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn't control himself during a lineup. When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words,
"give me all your money or I'll shoot!"
the man shouted, "that's not what I said!"



5. 'Are we communicating?'
A man spoke frantically into the phone,
"my wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart!"
"Is this her first child?" the Doctor asked,
"no!" the man shouted,
"this is her husband!"



6. 'Not the sharpest tool in the shed!'
In Modesto, California, Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold up a Bank of America Branch without a weapon.
King used his thumb and index finger to simulate a gun,
but unfortunately, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket.