More than one million Iraqis dead since 2003 invasion: study

More than one million Iraqis have died because of the war in Iraq since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to a study published Wednesday.

A fifth of Iraqi households lost at least one family member between March 2003 and August 2007 due to the conflict, said data compiled by London-based Opinion Research Business (ORB) and its research partner in Iraq, the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies (IIACSS). (...)

Eurozone inflation soars to 14-year high

Eurozone inflation has surged to a 14-year high of 3.2 per cent, strengthening the European Central Bank’s case for resisting interest rate cuts even as the region’s growth slows.

The surprise pick-up in inflation, from December’s 3.1 per cent, indicated that the “hump” in inflation caused by higher fuel and food prices is proving larger and longer-lasting than the ECB anticipated. January’s rate was the highest since the ECB took responsibility in 1999 for monetary policy in the eurozone, which now covers 15 countries. It is also above its target of an annual rate “below but close” to 2 per cent. (...)

Fed cuts interest rates by 50 basis points

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut interest rates by another 50 basis points and signalled that the door was open to further reductions in an aggressive move to combat the risk of a US recession.

The move to cut rates to 3 per cent initially triggered a broad rally in stocks – the S&P 500 jumped 1.7 per cent in the first 45 minutes after the announcement – only for the market to turn lower just before the closing bell.

The dollar meanwhile fell to a record low against the euro before closing slightly higher. (...)

NATO and Israel: Instruments of America's Wars in the Middle East

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

If the U.S. or Britain were to take the initiative to launch another war, their political leaders would face fierce opposition from public opinion, which could threaten the Anglo-American political establishment and even create national instability. But if Israel were to launch a war the situation would be quite different.

If Israel were to launch a war on the pretexts of defending itself from a growing Iranian menace, the U.S. and NATO would intervene to “protect Israel” from Iranian reprisals without appearing to have started another illicit international war.

Blame would be shouldered on the Israelis for the war rather than on the U.S. administration and its indefectible British ally. Western political leaders would argue that it is their national duty to protect Israel regardless of the Israeli breach of international laws. (...)

Mukasey Offers View on Waterboarding

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said Tuesday that the harsh C.I.A. interrogation technique known as waterboarding was not clearly illegal, and suggested that it could be used against terrorism suspects once again if requested by the White House.

“If this were an easy question, I would not be reluctant to offer my views,” Mr. Mukasey wrote to Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the committee.

“But with respect, I believe it is not an easy question,” he said. “There are some circumstances where current law would appear clearly to prohibit the use of waterboarding. Other circumstances would present a far closer question.”

The letter did not define any of the circumstances. (...)

Russia to rearrange troops due to U.S. missile shield

Russia's Defense Ministry plans to change the configuration of troops in Kaliningrad in response to U.S. missile shield plans in Central Europe, a high-ranking army official said on Wednesday. (...)

Paul Wolfowitz named to chair advisory panel

Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq war who was forced to resign from the World Bank because of an ethics scandal, will chair a U.S. advisory panel on arms control, the State Department said on Thursday.

The former deputy secretary of defense and advocate of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq will head the State Department's International Security Advisory Board, which gives the department independent advice on arms control, disarmament, international security and other matters. (...)

US vice-president pushes for renewed wiretap powers

US Vice President Dick Cheney called on Congress Wednesday to make permanent legislation permitting security agencies to tap foreign telephone calls and emails in the US "war on terror."

Cheney stressed that any update of FISA must offer the telephone and Internet carriers protection from lawsuits for alleged complicity in privacy rights violations.

The 30-year-old FISA was amended by Congress last year to make clear the National Security Agency and other intelligence operations were legally empowered to tap into electronic communications when one or more of the targets is in a foreign location, without first obtaining the permission of a special FISA court.

Cheney said FISA needed a permanent update to address changes in communications technology since it was first put into law in 1978, including empowering intelligence agencies to freely monitor communications between suspects located outside the United States that are routed through infrastructure inside the country.

Human rights experts have argued that US privacy guarantees mean the intelligence agencies should seek court warrants to conduct such spying inside the country.

"Congress never intended to grant privacy rights to enemies overseas, yet because of modern technology, the law began to have that very effect," Cheney insisted. (...)

According to Cheney every person outside the US is an "enemy". Even worse, all these arguments are meaningless - protection from lawsuits in practice means ALL calls and emails may be tracked, including domestic ones.

Barroso urges 'tax' for green plans

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso says Europeans would each pay three euro (£2.20) a week under plans to limit global warming.

The European Union plans to slash greenhouse gases by a fifth by 2020, imposing costs on major polluters and rapidly scaling up how much energy it draws from windmills, solar panels and energy crops.

"The additional effort needed... would be to less than 0.5 % of gross domestic product by 2020. This amounts to about three euro a week for everyone." (...)

By the way, that also amounts to 624€ a year for a family of four. They have to hurry with all the taxes and regulations though, because once temperatures start to drop, it will be much harder selling them...

The Bush Dollar Trap

by Dave Lindorff

The first government response to America's sinking economy was denial. We were told as recently as a month ago by administration officials and Wall Street charlatans that the economy was robust and that there would not be a recession. Now we are told that the economy is in trouble, but that the government is taking decisive action to shore it up. (...)

Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war

President Bush and his top aides publicly made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001, according to a study released Tuesday by two nonprofit journalism groups. (...)

Russian scientist says Earth could soon face new Ice Age

Temperatures on Earth have stabilized in the past decade, and the planet should brace itself for a new Ice Age rather than global warming, a Russian scientist said in an interview with RIA Novosti Tuesday.

"Russian and foreign research data confirm that global temperatures in 2007 were practically similar to those in 2006, and, in general, identical to 1998-2006 temperatures, which, basically, means that the Earth passed the peak of global warming in 1998-2005," said Khabibullo Abdusamatov, head of a space research lab at the Pulkovo observatory in St. Petersburg.

According to the scientist, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has risen more than 4% in the past decade, but global warming has practically stopped. It confirms the theory of "solar" impact on changes in the Earth's climate, because the amount of solar energy reaching the planet has drastically decreased during the same period, the scientist said. (...)

Al Qaeda and the "War on Terrorism"

by Michel Chossudovsky

One of the main objectives of war propaganda is to "fabricate an enemy". The "outside enemy" personified by Osama bin Laden is "threatening America".

Pre-emptive war directed against "Islamic terrorists" is required to defend the Homeland. Realities are turned upside down. America is under attack.

In the wake of 9/11, the creation of this "outside enemy" has served to obfuscate the real economic and strategic objectives behind the war in the Middle East and Central Asia. Waged on the grounds of self-defense, the pre-emptive war is upheld as a "just war" with a humanitarian mandate. (...)

This should be required reading on every History or politics class. But it's not...

Intelligence officials on both sides of the Atlantic question al Qaeda role in Bhutto killing

by Larisa Alexandrovna

Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, President Bush, CIA Director Michael Hayden, and news reports have all claimed that al Qaeda was responsible. However, some current and former US and British intelligence officials now say the evidence points instead to Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence Agency (ISI), the country’s security services. (...)

Russia ready to use nuclear weapons if threatened - army chief

Russia's top military commander said on Saturday that the country is prepared to use its nuclear weapons to defend itself and allies in the event of a severe external threat.

The Chief of the Russian General Staff, Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, told a conference at the Academy of Military Sciences in Moscow: "We do not intend to attack anyone, but consider it necessary that all our partners clearly understand, and that no one has any doubts, that the Armed Forces will be used to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, including preventative action, and including the use of nuclear weapons." (...)

Anti-Iran Coalition in the Gulf? Read This.

by Jim Lobe

If President George W. Bush’s main purpose in visiting the Gulf last week — as indicated by his call in Abu Dhabi last Sunday to confront Iran “before it is too late” — was to rally Washington’s Sunni-led regional allies, particularly Saudi Arabia, behind a containment-and-isolation strategy against Iran, especially in the wake of last month’s National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), it appears that he fell far short of his goal. Indeed, it now appears to have been counter-productive.

While in the run-up to Bush’s visit to Saudi Arabia, its foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, was quoted in some of the mainstream press as warning against U.S. efforts to pit the Gulf states against Iran in this way, a remarkably blunt editorial, entitled “Peace Now,” that appeared in the Jeddah-based English-language Arab News on the second day of the president’s sojourn in Saudi Arabia — two days after his Abu Dhabi speech — received virtually no notice. It should have, because it is probably unprecedented in its bluntness about the kingdom’s honored guest, constituting what the former U.S. ambassador to Riyadh, Chas Freeman, today called “a notable …breach of standard Arab etiquette” and one that was presumably condoned, if not approved, by senior members of the royal family. No one from the News has since been publicly admonished or dismissed, let alone arrested; indeed, no official has distanced the government from the sentiments expressed in it. The entire text, which is reproduced below, warrants attention, but the last paragraph — in which U.S. policy is described as “madness” — is not a little breathtaking, considering that the presidential party probably received complimentary copies with their morning coffee. (...)

How the Pentagon Planted a False Hormuz Story

by Gareth Porter

Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the Jan. 6 U.S.-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows.

The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defence for public affairs in charge of media operations Bryan Whitman, contained similar information that has since been repudiated by the Navy itself. (...)

Japanese Parliament 9/11 Debate (with subtitles)

(...)

Bush Avoids Criticism of Mubarak

President Bush lavished praise on President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt on Wednesday, emphasizing the country’s role in regional security and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process while publicly avoiding mention of the government’s actions in jailing or exiling opposition leaders and its severe restrictions on opposition political activities. (...)

Hypocrisy in politics?! And I thought I'd seen everything...

Gulf allies turn their backs on Bush

by M K Bhadrakumar

So, it was Filipino Monkey, after all. The Pentagon has admitted that the footage of the famous incident of January 6 when five speedboats of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)"buzzed" three US Navy warships in the Strait of Hormuz could have been compromised. (...)

Romney: It's not torture unless you admit it

CNN's Wolf Blitzer assails GOP presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney over his lack of a definite opinion on whether the widely debated interrogation method known as "waterboarding" is torture.

Even as competitor and Arizona senator John McCain, along with United States Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, define "waterboarding" as torture, Romney remains strategically undecided.

"I just don't think it's productive for a president of the United States to lay out a list of what is specifically referred to as 'torture,'" he responds.

Citing "ticking time bomb" scenarios, Romney disagrees with the notion of admitting that a particular practice could violate the Geneva Convention, thereby preventing its utilization by the United States in the event of an urgent need to extract information to, for example, prevent a nuclear attack.

Says Romney, "We have found it wise in the past not to describe precisely the techniques of interrogation that are used here in this country--also, so that people who are captured don't know what might be used against them."

(...)

Sickening.

Bush Tells Israelis He Doesn't Believe Iran NIE Report

In public, President Bush has been careful to reassure Israel and other allies that he still sees Iran as a threat, while not disavowing his administration's recent National Intelligence Estimate. That NIE, made public Dec. 3, embarrassed the administration by concluding that Tehran had halted its weapons program in 2003, which seemed to undermine years of bellicose rhetoric from Bush and other senior officials about Iran's nuclear ambitions. But in private conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week, the president all but disowned the document, said a senior administration official who accompanied Bush on his six-nation trip to the Mideast. "He told the Israelis that he can't control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE's] conclusions don't reflect his own views" about Iran's nuclear-weapons program, said the official, who would discuss intelligence matters only on the condition of anonymity. (...)

Transcript of Japanese Parliament's 9/11 Debate

by Benjamin Fulford

«Prime Minister, you were Chief Cabinet Secretary at the time and as somebody has already noted, this was an incident of the sort that humanity had never previously experienced. Also, there appears to be a lot more information about this incident coming out now than came out in the months after the attacks. Now that we are an internet and visual society, this information is being made public so if we look at the situation now, the whole starting point for these two laws , the start of the war on terror itself, as you have seen from the information I have presented, has not been properly investigated or analyzed. So I do not believe the government has acted properly by investigating this incident or asking the U.S. government for an explanation. So far we have not started refueling U.S. ships yet so I think we need to go back to the beginning and not just simply and blindly trust the U.S. government explanation and indirect information provided by them. There were too many victims so I think we need to start again from the beginning. We need to ask who the real victims of this war on terrorism are. I think the citizens of the world are its victims. Here in Japan we have disappearing pensions and disappearing records about victims of Hepatitis C contaminated blood but everything I have presented on facts and confirmable evidence. Let us talk about the vanishing black boxes, vanishing airplanes and vanishing remains. Also lots of the remains of these buildings have disappeared. Even FEMA says that prevented it from carrying out a proper investigation. We need to look at this evidence and ask ourselves what the war on terrorism really is. I can see the ministers nodding in agreement but I would like to ask Prime Minister Fukuda. Please look at me. I have heard that when you were Chief Cabinet Minister at the time you felt many strange things about these attacks. Do you not think it was strange?» (...)

Bush Urges Arab Allies to Confront Iran

President Bush urged wary Persian Gulf allies on Sunday to rally against Iran “before it is too late,” even as the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that the country had agreed to answer outstanding questions about its nuclear programs within four weeks.

In an address to government and business leaders here, Mr. Bush focused not only on what the United States suspects are Iran’s nuclear ambitions but also its suspected support for Islamic groups and militants in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. He called Iran’s government “the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism” and accused it of imposing repression and economic hardship at home.

“Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere,” Mr. Bush said. “So the United States is strengthening our longstanding security commitments with our friends in the gulf and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late.” (...)

Member of Japanese Diet Doubts Official 9/11 Fairy Tale

by Kurt Nimmo

Don’t expect the New York Times or CNN to report on Fujita Yukihisa’s grilling of Japanese PM Fukuda over the official 9/11 fairy tale.

Yukihisa is a member of the House of Councillors in the Diet, that is to say the national legislature of Japan, and his questions about the transparent sham that is the official version of events is indeed a big deal — but not as important in America as the travails of Britney. Yukihisa’s presentation was all the more important due to the fact he was the Chief Cabinet Secretary under former PM Junichiro Koizumi in 2001.

[from 911.video.de]
On January 11th 2008 member of Parliament Yukihisa Fujita of the Japan Democratic party, made a 20 minute long statement at the House of Councillors, the upper house of the Diet (parliament) of Japan. He questioned the official version of 9/11 presented to the Japanese government and the public by the US administration in a session of the defense commission.

He asked whether Terrorism is crime or war. Some Japanese people were killed, so he believes this was a crime, so Japanese police should investigate the real suspect even though Japanese government assumed that the suspect was Al-Qaeda since Bush told Koizumi so and sent the self-defense force to Iraq. Can Japanese police arrest president Bush if he was one of the suspects?

He concluded that the japanese governments support of the “war against terror” is solely based on information provided by the US-administration. He demanded further investigation in the face of the governments drive to support the war more actively.

Yukihisa Fujita was elected to the House of Councillors for the first time in 2007

The Democratic Party of Japan (Minshinto) is a social liberal political party founded in 1998 by the merger of several smaller parties.

It is the second-largest party in the House of Representatives and the largest party in the House of Councillors, and it constitutes the primary opposition to the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party. (...)

Interrogation of Japanese PM for 30 minutes about the truth concerning 9/11

9/11 Blogger

(...)

Even without understanding a word, this is AMAZING! When will something like this happen on European and American "democracies"? To be continued...

The Winning Ticket: Hillary and Diebold in 2008

by Mike Whitney

Something doesn't ring true about Hillary's “upset” victory in the New Hampshire primary. It just doesn't pass the smell test. All the exit polls showed Clinton trailing Obama by significant margins. In fact, in the Gallup Poll taken just days before the election, "Crocodile tears" Hillary was down by a whopping 13 points. Her “turnaround” was not only unexpected, but downright shocking. The results for the rest of the candidates--excluding Clinton and Obama---were all within the margin of error. Clinton was the only anomaly. Surprise, surprise.

If this election had been conducted in any other country in the world, the Bush administration would have immediately dispatched an independent team of election observers and demanded a recount. But not in the good old USA, where stealing elections is replacing baseball as the national pastime. Would it surprise you to know that (according to Black Box Voting) the Marketing and Sales Director of the company that tallies the votes (LHS) “was arrested, indicted, and pleaded guilty to "sale / CND" and sentenced to 12 months in the Rockingham County Correctional facility, and fined $2000.” That would be LHS Sales Director Mr. Ken Hajjar. Here's an excerpt from Bev Harris's Black Box Voting web site:

“The Diebold ballot printing plant at the time we got records on the overages (that is, more ballots than needed for election; MW) was being run by a convicted felon who had spent four years in prison on a narcotics trafficking charge. No, not New Hampshire's voting machine programming exec Ken Hajjar, who cut a plea deal in 1990 for his role in cocaine distribution. This was another convicted felon, John Elder, who ran the Diebold ballot printing plant; he's now an elections consultant.” ( http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/71260.html )

Still feel confident about the election results? (...)

Did Hillary Really Win New Hampshire?

by Dave Lindorff

Polls taken as late as the day before the Tuesday vote showed Obama up by 10 to 15 points over Clinton, whom he had just beaten the week before in Iowa, but when the votes were counted, Clinton ended up beating Obama in New Hampshire 39.4 per cent to 36.8 per cent. In a replay of what happened in Ohio in 2004, exit polling reportedly also showed Obama to be winning the New Hampshire primary.

When that's not what happened, shocked polling firms and surprised pundits, all of whom had been expecting a big Obama win, were left stumbling for explanations for the Hillary comeback from an 8 per cent drubbing in Iowa (even the Clinton campaign, whose own internal polling had predicted her defeat, were at a loss). Explanations ranged from her teary eyed final public appearance before primary day and some sexist heckling she had received, to dark talk about a wave of hidden racism in the voting booth.

But there were anomalies in the numbers that have some people suggesting something else: vote fraud.

What has had eyebrows raised is a significant discrepancy between the vote counts done by voting machine, and the ones done by hand.

In New Hampshire, 81 per cent of the voting was done in towns and cities that had purchased optical scan machines from the Diebold Election Systems (now called Premiere Election Solutions), a division of Diebold Corp., a company founded by and still linked to wealthy right-wing investors. In those towns, all voting was done on the devices, called Accuvote machines, which read paper ballots completed by voters who use pens or pencils to fill in little ovals next to the candidate of their choice. The ballots are then fed into, read, and tallied by the machines. The other 19 per cent of voting was done in towns that had opted not to use the machine, and to use hand-counted paper ballots instead.

The machine tally was Clinton 39.6 per cent, Obama 36.3 per cent - fairly close to the final outcome. But the hand-counted ballot count broke significantly differently: Clinton 34.9 per cent, Obama 38.6 per cent. (...)

Saudi cannot be launchpad for Iran attack: report

A leading Saudi newspaper on Saturday ruled out any attempt by the United States to use the oil-rich Gulf kingdom as a launchpad for a possible war on Iran over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme.

Two days before a visit to Saudi Arabia by US President George W. Bush, the pro-government daily Al-Riyadh said: "We refuse to be used to launch wars or tensions with Iran. (...)

US-Iranian naval clash: Radio trolls probably to blame

by Lewis Page

Just to offer a bit of background, your correspondent has transited the Straits of Hormuz with the Royal Navy (a few years ago now), and in fact the idea that a third party made the threat as a prank is entirely plausible.

Anyone who has spent time bridge watchkeeping at sea east of the Suez Canal will be aware of what's known as the "Filipino Monkey" phenomenon. All ships at sea are required to maintain a listening watch on VHF marine channel 16, so as to hear distress messages, collision warnings or other calls.

In northern waters, this is what happens. Once you get down into points south and east, the knowledge that large numbers of people absolutely have to listen to you - like it or not, as a requirement of maritime law and professional seamanship - seemingly becomes an irresistible temptation for a lot of people in possession of VHF sets.

It sounds absolutely 100 per cent believable to me that some rapier wit down in the Straits, hearing the Americans asking the [Revolutionary Guards] to keep clear, decided to chip in for a laugh. In fact it sounds more likely than one of the Iranian speedboat crews making the transmission, especially with the recent comparative chillout of the US-Iranian who's-the-most-evil diplomatic flame war. (...)

Or, maybe, it was more than just "for a laugh"...

Kucinich Seeks NH Dem Vote Recount

Democrat Dennis Kucinich, who won less than 2 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, said Thursday he wants a recount to ensure that all ballots in his party's contest were counted. The Ohio congressman cited "serious and credible reports, allegations and rumors" about the integrity of Tuesday results.

Kucinich alluded to online reports alleging disparities around the state between hand-counted ballots, which tended to favor Sen. Barack Obama, and machine-counted ones that tended to favor Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. He also noted the difference between pre-election polls, which indicated Obama would win, and Clinton's triumph by a 39 percent to 37 percent margin. (...)

Chris Matthews: Raw EXIT POLL Data 'Indicated Significant Victory' for Obama in NH

by Brad Friedman

Even the Exit Polls showed that Obama should have won, according to Chris Matthews on Hardball today. It's the first specific indication that we've seen that the raw, unadjusted Exit Poll data, which only corporate mainstream media folks, not mere mortals, are allowed to see, confirmed all of the pre-election polling which predicted an Obama win.

He introduced his segment today this way:

MATTHEWS: So what accounts for Hillary Clinton's victory in New Hampshire? What we don't know is why the victory is so much different in fact, then the polling ahead of time, including what we call the Exit Polls were telling us. Obama was ahead in those polls by an average of 8 points, and even our own Exit Polls, taken as people came out of voting, showed him ahead. So what's going on here?

Good question. And one that we asked, verbatim, all night long last night.

"Why were the polls taken, of people coming out of the booth, so off?," Matthews tries to ask his guests again and again. And again.

All of them twisted and turned and contorted and grappled and speculated, coming up with every possible unverifiable, backwards-engineered explanation, save for the one that must not be named. The 600 lb. canary in the virtual living room...the fact that no human being has bothered to check what was actually on NH's vast majority of ballots (80%) which were "counted" by error-prone, hackable Diebold optical-scan machines, all controlled by one bad, horribly irresponsible private company, who has no business being anywhere near a public election... (...)

Vote counting is now a huge problem in America.

U.S.: Voices on Recording May Not Have Been From Iranian Speedboats

Just two days after the U.S. Navy released the eerie video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships, which featured a chilling threat in English, the Navy is saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship.

The near-clash occurred over the weekend in the Strait of Hormuz. On the U.S.-released recording, a voice can be heard saying to the Americans, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes."

The Navy never said specifically where the voices came from, but many were left with the impression they had come from the speedboats because of the way the Navy footage was edited.

Today, the spokesperson for the U.S. admiral in charge of the Fifth Fleet clarified to ABC News that the threat may have come from the Iranian boats, or it may have come from somewhere else.

We're saying that we cannot make a direct connection to the boats there," said the spokesperson. "It could have come from the shore, from another ship passing by. However, it happened in the middle of all the very unusual activity, so as we assess the information and situation, we still put it in the total aggregate of what happened Sunday morning. I guess we're not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we're not saying it absolutely didn't." (...)

Or perhaps it came from the American helicopter!...
Meanwhile, neocons at the Weekly Standard already have their own conspiracy theory.

Iran airs own video of US ship incident

Iran on Thursday aired its own video of an incident in the Strait of Hormuz with US warships, in a bid to counter Pentagon accusations that the Iranians warned they could blow up the American vessels.

The video broadcast by Iran's English-language channel Press-TV showed an Iranian commander in a speedboat contacting an American sailor via radio, asking him to identify the US vessels and state their purpose. (...)

It's a Fake

by Hooman Majd

The Pentagon's version of the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday morning, involving U.S. Navy warships and Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrol boats is, at the very least highly suspicious. On Tuesday, the Navy released video footage and an audiotape to back its claims that the Iranian boats acted in a threatening and provocative manner, but neither the video nor the audio are particularly convincing as proof that Iran had hostile intentions. The video, which shows what is claimed are Iranian boats speeding around U.S. ships, doesn't show any of the boats hurtling directly towards any of the navy ships, nor does it show what the Pentagon claimed the Iranians then did, namely dropped "white boxes" in the water. (I would have opened fire at those, wouldn't you?) The audio tape is even less convincing, mainly because the person speaking doesn't have an Iranian accent and moreover, sounds more like Boris Karloff in a horror movie than a sailor in the elite branch of Iran's military. (The tape is also separate from any video.) Any Iranian can immediately identify Persian-accented English, particularly if the speaker has had little contact with the West, as is the case with Revolutionary Guardsmen and sailors. Iranians, you see, have difficulty with two consonants such as "p" and "l" next to each other; even Iranians who have lived in America for years will often pronounce "please" as "peh-leeze", or in this case, "explode" as "exp-eh-lode". On the tape, "explode" is pronounced perfectly, albeit as if the speaker was a villain addressing a superhero. Further, it is unimaginable, given what is known about the Revolutionary Guards (and I have met many), that one of its corps would speak in a such a manner, even if the accent were correctly Persian. (...)

Declassified study puts Vietnam events in new light

The Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred in early August 1964. On Aug. 2, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked a US destroyer, the USS Maddox, in the Gulf of Tonkin, an arm of the South China Sea off Vietnam's northeastern coast. Mr. Johnson warned the North that another such attack would bring "grave consequences." On Aug. 4, Johnson announced that another attack had occurred and asked Congress to vote him powers to respond. On Aug. 7, Congress gave him those powers in the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which became the legal foundation for increased US involvement.

Even at the time, some doubted that the second attack had occurred. Yet the Johnson administration produced what seemed a key piece of evidence – a North Vietnamese Navy after-action report, intercepted by the NSA, which appeared to discuss the battle.

In fact, the intercept had been mistranslated, according to the just-released report. The Vietnamese word for "military operations" can also mean "long movement," and the intercept in reality referred to the towing of two North Vietnamese patrol boats some distance for repairs. (...)

Chilling similarities. And what timing for the release of this report...

Report reveals Vietnam War hoaxes, faked attacks

But he said that probably the "most historically significant feature" of the declassified report was the retelling of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident.

That was a reported North Vietnamese attack on American destroyers that helped lead to president Lyndon Johnson's sharp escalation of American forces in Vietnam.

The author of the report "demonstrates that not only is it not true, as (then US) secretary of defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was 'unimpeachable,' but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that 'no attack happened that night,'" FAS said in a statement.

"What this study demonstrated is that the available intelligence shows that there was no attack. It's a dramatic reversal of the historical record," Aftergood said.

"There were previous indications of this but this is the first time we have seen the complete study," he said. (...)

Bush warns Iran of consequences if US ships attacked

U.S. President George W. Bush warned Iran on Wednesday of "serious consequences" if it attacked U.S. ships in the Gulf.

"My advice to them is don't do it," Bush said at news conference in Israel, days after Washington said Iranian boats aggressively approached three U.S. Naval ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route off Iran's coast, and threatened that the ships would explode.

"We have made it clear publicly and they know our position, and that is there will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple," Bush said.

US warns Iran of consequences of any new naval crisis

"This was a very provocative act by the Iranians and ... came very close to resulting in an altercation between our forces and their forces," said Stephen Hadley, President George W. Bush's national security adviser.

"They've got to be very careful about this because if it happens again they are going to bear the consequences," Hadley told reporters travelling with Bush on his first official visit to Israel. (...)

Iran says US video was fabricated

The US has released grainy footage, apparently showing small boats speeding near the American warships.

In an audio recording, an Iranian radio operator appears to say "I am coming at you; you will explode".

The Iranian parliamentary speaker has dismissed the affair as being part of a US propaganda campaign against Tehran.

"The footage released by the US Navy are file pictures and the audio has been fabricated," Iranian state-run TV quoted a Revolutionary Guards source as saying. (...)

Bush's last throw against Iran

by M K Bhadrakumar

No doubt, the Strait of Hormuz incident comes in very handy. Whether Washington orchestrated the incident, we will never know. But the incident most certainly makes out a neat case for the massive arms deals worth US$20 billion that Washington is offering pro-Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf.

It corroborates US Defense Secretary Robert Gates' recent call for the establishment of an "air and missile defense umbrella" over Persian Gulf states to deter missile attacks by Iran. (It is immaterial whether the real US target is Iran, or Russia.)The Pentagon announced last month proposed sales of Patriot missile defense and early warning systems to the UAE and Kuwait worth more than $10 billion. The Pentagon also notified the US Congress of a sale to Saudi Arabia of upgraded airborne warning and control systems worth $400 million. (...)

Pakistan and the "Global War on Terrorism"

by Michel Chossudovsky

These various "terrorist" organizations were created as a result of CIA support. They are not the product of religion. The project to establish "a pan-Islamic Caliphate" is part of a carefully devised intelligence operation.

CIA support to Al Qaeda was not in any way curtailed at the end of the Cold War. In fact quite the opposite. The earlier pattern of covert support not only extended, it took on a global thrust and became increasingly sophisticated.

The "Global War on Terrorism" is a complex and intricate intelligence construct. The covert support provided to "Islamic extremist groups" is part of an imperial agenda. It purports to weaken and eventually destroy secular and civilian governmental institutions, while also contributing to vilifying Islam. It is an instrument of colonization which seeks to undermine sovereign nation-states and transform countries into territories.

For the intelligence operation to be successful, however, the various Islamic organizations created and trained by the CIA must remain unaware of the role they are performing on geopolitical chessboard, on behalf of Washington. (...)

Recession in the US 'has arrived'

The feared recession in the US economy has already arrived, according to a report from Merrill Lynch.

It said that Friday's employment report, which sent shares tumbling worldwide, confirmed that the US is in the first month of a recession. (...)

US-Iran tension on the rise after standoff in Strait of Hormuz

Washington on Tuesday warned Iran against making threatening maneuvers towards American ships after a tense weekend standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, while Tehran denied anything other than "routine" interaction between the fleets.

As US President George W. Bush prepared to depart for a week-long Middle East trip partly designed to seek a united front against Tehran, his spokeswoman blasted Iran's alleged menacing moves toward a American destroyer and two US frigates.

"It was out of the ordinary, it was reckless," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "Our position is they should not do it again," she said.

For its part, Iran on Tuesday repudiated charges that patrol boats attached to its Revolutionary Guard had threatened to blow up American ships in the Strait of Hormuz. (...)

Osama and the CIA sponsored "War on Terrorism": Americans are being killed by American trained Islamists

by Peter Chamberlin

The CIA plot to create a credible enemy that would fight against US Army and Marine troops has started to bear fruit. Their plan is working.

Americans are being killed by American-trained Islamists all over the place. If Congress allows it to go forward (both Democrats and Republicans will support the plan enthusiastically), this may prove to be the elusive path to world war III that Cheney and the neocons have been frantically searching for. At least that's what New Delhi news analyst Aijaz Ahmad foresees as Pakistan's fate, if it fails to "disengage from the US war on terrorism." (...)

A cold spell soon to replace global warming

by Oleg Sorokhtin

Earth is now at the peak of one of its passing warm spells. It started in the 17th century when there was no industrial influence on the climate to speak of and no such thing as the hothouse effect. The current warming is evidently a natural process and utterly independent of hothouse gases.

The real reasons for climate changes are uneven solar radiation, terrestrial precession (that is, axis gyration), instability of oceanic currents, regular salinity fluctuations of the Arctic Ocean surface waters, etc. There is another, principal reason—solar activity and luminosity. The greater they are the warmer is our climate.

Astrophysics knows two solar activity cycles, of 11 and 200 years. Both are caused by changes in the radius and area of the irradiating solar surface. The latest data, obtained by Habibullah Abdusamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory space research laboratory, say that Earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012. Real cold will come when solar activity reaches its minimum, by 2041, and will last for 50-60 years or even longer. (...)