Barack Wows Them in Pennsylvania

As the Pennsylvanians rose to give Obama a standing ovation, I saw the shock and dismay on many faces. That a candidate expressed their feelings came as a shock to them. No candidate in living memory has been that sensitive to them. Their sad expression reflects the knowledge that it's a long road back.
Hillary and her kind never propose anything. They hang back until they see an opening they can exploit. In their terms an elitist is a person capable of independent thought. Very few people with clear thinking have made it through the public school system in the last three generations.
They are as scarce as whistle blowers.

Sibel Edmonds - the Great Escape

SIBEL The GREAT ESCAPE

The Great Escape

CD: So what happened after? As far as I know, Jan Dickerson has quit the FBI and re-located to Belgium. Was she forced out when your story broke? Did she flee? And is her husband still in the Air Force?

SE: I assume that at the time of that conversation in our house, in December 2001, Douglas Dickerson was in the USAF because finally in August of the next year, the USAF held a formal investigation and confirmed this. This was a major violation of his high-level security clearance. By law he is required to report it if his wife or family members are involved with illegal activities.

Mysteriously enough, only two weeks after the formal Air Force investigation began, they both left the country, on September 9, 2002.

CD: Why did the government just let them escape?

SE: Well, after my case began in June 2002, the judge subpoenaed them and ordered the DOJ not to let them leave the country. But the Air Force gave them a free pass – by sending Major Dickerson off to Belgium to work something with NATO, a minimum two-year assignment.

CD: With NATO? Doing what?

SE: I don't know exactly, just that it was with NATO. So before leaving, a pretty angry Doug Dickerson had to make a declaration under oath that if he was requested by the court at any time he would return, and the FBI would pay for his flight.

CD: So there is still a chance that they will face justice someday?

SE: Well, we discovered that the Dickerson's also had bank accounts in several countries, some of which didn't have the appropriate extradition treaties with the U.S. … so I don't think so, no, I don't think it's likely. They're gone.

But the really outrageous thing is that, for the whole month we were subpoenaing them, starting in June 2002, Jan Dickerson was still working away in the FBI translations department, with her top-security clearance. This even though the FBI had simultaneously admitted to a congressional committee that not only had Jan Dickerson worked for this suspect organization in the past, but that she had maintained ongoing relationships with at least two individuals under investigation.

Mordechai Vanunu Whistle Blower

By Eileen Fleming, Arabisto

Vanunu's Fifth Year of Restrictions Begins and Norway Caves

April 09, 2008 06:52 PM

[East Jerusalem] On April 7, 2008 Mordechai Vanunu, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee for the last twenty-two years learned that Israel has continued the restrictions against his right to leave the state or to speak with human beings if they are not Israelis.




On April 9, 2008 it was reported

that now Norway has joined Sweden, Canada and Denmark in refusing asylum to Vanunu.



Norway's Bergens Tidende recorded "that Vanunu's application for asylum in Norway had in fact been approved by the country's immigration agency UDI (Utlendingsdirektoratet) back in 2004. UDI was overruled, however, by Norway's center-right government at the time. Political considerations, not least Norway's efforts to remain on good terms with Israel and the US, were more important than Vanunu's human rights." [1]




UDI officials have a mandate to make asylum decisions without political interference. UDI officials had determined that Vanunu qualified for asylum and immigration authorities had determined that his application should be granted.



Israel developed its nuclear program with the help of Norwegian heavy water and between 1976 and 1985; Vanunu was employed as a mid level technician and shift manager at the Dimona nuclear weapons facility underground in the Negev desert where it was utilized.



In 1986, Nuclear Physicist, Frank Barnaby was employed by the London Sunday Times to interrogate Vanunu and review the 57 photos he had obtained at various restricted/secret locations in the Dimona. Barnaby spent three days with Vanunu in London before he was lured and abducted by the Mossad from Rome. Barnaby also attended Vanunu's closed door trial and was called by the defense to give expert testimony.


Barnaby testified, "I found the fact that Vanunu was able to smuggle a camera and films into and out of Dimona and photograph highly sensitive areas in the establishment astonishing…I very vigorously cross-examined Vanunu, relentlessly asking the same questions in a number of different ways and at different times…I found Vanunu very straightforward…[After questioning him] about his motives for violating Israel's secrecy laws he explained to me that he believed that both the Israeli and the world public had the right to know about the information he passed on. He seemed to me to be acting ideologically. Israel's political leaders have, he said, consistently lied about Israel's nuclear-weapons programme and he found this unacceptable in a democracy…The knowledge that Vanunu had about Isreal's nuclear weapons, about the operations at Dimona, and about security at Dimona could not be of any use to anyone today. He left Dimona in October 1985 and the design of today's Israeli nuclear weapons will have been considerably changed since then…Modern nuclear weapons bear little relationship to those of the mid-1980."[2]




In a phone call with Vanunu on April 9, 2008, he expressed disappointment but no surprise that political motives were behind the rejection of his Norway asylum application or that, "For the fifth year Israel has continued the restrictions against me. They say I am a danger to their security if they let me go."


Vanunu has not set foot into the Dimona for over twenty-two years and international inspectors never have. America's politicians declare that no option is off the table to stem Iran's nuclear ambitions while the Israeli government fails to secure the health and safety of it own citizens.


In November 2007, the London's Sunday Times reported that "Israel put defenses around its Dimona nuclear reactor on 'red alert' 30 times…The Dimona...is the region's largest nuclear plant and sole producer of atomic weapons materials…Dimona is no Chernobyl. It generates only about 5 percent of that failed Soviet reactor's power. Still, the plant - along with its spent nuclear fuel, extracted plutonium, and nuclear reprocessing waste - poses significant radiological hazards that a military strike [against it] could disperse into the environment…during the June 1967 war Israel shot down one of its own Mirage jet fighters when it strayed over the facility. In 1973, Dimona's defenders downed a wayward Libyan civilian airliner heading for the reactor, killing 108 people. But the 1991 Gulf War upset whatever solace Israel could take from the past. Iraqi Scud missiles hit Tel Aviv, and one came close to hitting Dimona. Hizbullah's bombardment of northern Israel in 2006 further demonstrated the country's vulnerability to missile attack…Dimona has produced all the plutonium that Israel reasonably needs, and the reactor - one of the worlds oldest - has suffered minor mishaps and evident deterioration, raising the specter of more serious accidents." [3]




Vanunu had previously informed me that, "The Dimona is 46 years old; reactors last 25 to 30 years. The Dimona has never been inspected and Israel has never signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty but all the Arab states have...Twenty years ago when I worked there they only produced when the air was blowing towards Jordan ten miles away. No one knows what is happening now.


"The world needs to wake up and see the real terrorism is the occupation and the Palestinians have lived under that terror regime for 40 years. When I decided to expose Israel's nuclear weapons I acted out of conscience and to warn the world to prevent a nuclear holocaust."

"Israel is only a democracy if you are a Jew."


During our April 9, 2008, phone call, I asked Vanunu if he thought that Israel had intended to drive him insane during his solitary confinement and had hoped to make an example of him to others who might speak up about Isreal's WMD Program.


Vanunu agreed and also added that he believed Israel had hoped he would end up homeless for he has not been employed since 1986. Vanunu is dependent on friends and supporters to eat and pay his lawyers. Since April 2004, Vanunu has lived in a guestroom at St. George's Cathedral, a hostel with twelve others packed into one room and is currently sheltered in a $10.00 a night hotel.


I also asked Vanunu if it were true that just prior to his release from 18 years in an Israeli jail, John Bolton then Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security for the George W. Bush Administration traveled to Israel to demand they not allow Vanunu to leave Israel because it would embarrass this Administration that was hunting for WMD's in Iraq while ignoring them in Israel.

Vanunu replied, "I heard this too, but I cannot prove it."


Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East but has a policy of neither confirming nor denying its arsenal. American corporate media and politicians play along; as they also do that Israel is a democracy.

1 http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article2357455.ece

2. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/barnaby.pdf

3. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=87599#

---

TO DONATE TO VANUNU'S DEFENSE FUND and Help Him Survive:

BY CHECK IN USA:

Payable to: Trust For Mordechai Vanunu

Account Number: 8785737S1

Mail to:
Postal Credit Union
8499 Tamarack Road
Woodbury, MN 55125

Everywhere else in the world please donate through his Pay Pal @ www.vanunu.com

Note: In my opinion Mr Vanunu has made a great contribution to peace within our region.

Whether or not Israel has nuclear weapons, the possibility exists as a real deterrent.

Conversely, Israel can not stage a false flags nuclear event without raising strong suspicions.

Clearly, Mr Vanunu's human rights have been grossly violated. He should be free to go where he desires and to speak as he wishes.

Sibel Edmonds - The Fateful Visit

Sibel The Fateful Visit

The Fateful Visit

CD: Now let's fast-forward to November 2001, when Jan Dickerson joined you at the FBI. What were her duties?

SE: She was a "monitor," the second type of translator, because she didn't have the scores on one of her two language proficiency exams. As a monitor she was supposed to make general summary translations, not verbatim.

CD: Did you have any idea at the time about her suspect allegiances?

SE: I had no idea at first. It was only after some suspicious behavior and then her and her husband's unannounced visit to our house that everything became clear.

One day in December [2001], my husband and I were at our home in Alexandria, Va., when the doorbell rang. It was Jan and Doug Dickerson. They also lived in Alexandria, so I didn't think of it as suspicious at first. I think the point for her was to introduce her husband to mine. We invited them in for coffee, and –

CD: She started trying to recruit you for their illegal activities?

SE: No, actually she herself did not. It was the husband who started talking about this semi-legitimate organization: "Hey, have you ever heard of this group?" he said, casually mentioning this organization to my husband. He replied, "Yeah, I know about them." And I started sweating, because I knew this organization was under FBI investigation, and I was by law not allowed to discuss anything about it with my husband.

CD: But, for your husband to have heard of it, it had to have been a group that was well known to the public as something fairly innocuous, right?

SE: Yes, as I said, a legitimate front. And Dickerson asked my husband if he'd ever thought of joining the organization.

CD: So there was something socially desirable about belonging in this group?

SE: Correct. And so my husband was kind of surprised, you know, because this wasn't the sort of group just anyone could belong to. "But I thought you had to be such and such a person, with such and such connections and references to get in," my husband was saying.

And then Major Douglas Dickerson smiled and pointed at me. "All you have to do is tell them where your wife works and what she does, and they will let you in like that," he said [snapping his fingers]. They wanted to sell me for the information I could provide, basically.

CD: What did you take this to mean? You would have to hand over classified FBI information –

SE: Correct. The information I could give these people would be worth a lot of money.

CD: And what would you get out of it?

SE: Well, money, and we could leave the country, you know, live a very comfortable life wherever we wanted. We would never have to work again, they promised.

CD: So what did you do then, with him propositioning your husband right in front of you?

SE: I tried to change the subject, because anything I might say on the subject would have been against the law, considering the ongoing investigation.

CD: When you went back to work, did you bring the matter up?

SE: I reported it two days later to my direct supervisor, a former Arabic translator. He told me he would file it immediately with the security department. This was in December 2001. When nothing happened, I pursued the matter with a special agent who had also been getting suspicious about some of Jan Dickerson's translations. When we finally got through to the security department, they said they'd never been notified in the first place about my complaint. I have all of the dated documents, emails, etc., still to prove it.

CD: Did Dickerson's protection of the suspects, and their larger infiltration of the American security apparatus, did these things have a deleterious effect on bureau investigations?

SE: As a result of their penetration, certain people who had been detained were released – people who had valuable information. And other targets of this investigation, key people, were allowed to flee the country, right up through January and February of 2002.

CD: These were foreign nationals based in the United States?

SE: Correct.

CD: Did you have any awareness of this exodus?

SE: I reported some of the suspects' names higher up as I came across them in our investigation. And you know what? Within two weeks, they had all left the country. Just vanished.

Blowing the World Bank Whistle in Armenia

Blowing the World Bank Whistle

Bruce Tasker

Blowing the World Bank Whistle is an ongoing effort which started in 2004 with a Parliamentary Commission study into a World Bank financed project in the Republic of Armenia, and it continues on to an effort to persuade the Bank’s watchdog organisation, the Department of Institutional Integrity (INT), to instigate a full investigation into the wide-ranging and high-level fraud, corruption and embezzlement, exposed by the study.

In 2004, the Commission reported the fraud, corruption and embezzlement to the World Bank Armenia Country Manager and to the Department of Institutional Integrity, but by the end of 2006, rather than the problems being resolved, the individual who managed the study found that he had become the subject of World Bank ‘Whistleblower’ reprisals.

The whistleblower then found that the Bank's own Department of Institutional Integrity often prefers to punish whistleblowers rather than to solve the problems within the Bank and despite ever-increasing commitments by the major international institutions to clamp down on corruption, it is virtually impossible to find an organisation to support a claim against the Bank.

But Washington’s most influential human rights and freedom of speech organisation, the Government Accountability Project (GAP), after carefully studying the study documents, submitted a 'Demand Letter' to the INT, in support of a claim by the Whistleblower against the Bank. Later, the British Government, which had been informed of the problems since the time of the study in 2004, formally added its support.

On the 6^th September, GAP released a report of its study into the INT and highlighted four claims of corruption in World Bank projects. This claim was one of those projects, and because of the wide-ranging nature of the corruption, plus the comprehensive and compelling evidence, GAP singled it out with a special request to the INT to conduct a full investigation. Armenia’s Municipal Development Project is now featured on GAP’s website.

Just prior to the GAP report, Mr. Shapiro of the World Bank’s Department of Institutional Integrity eventually responded to the letters from GAP, explaining that the INT has three categories for claims, ‘High’, ‘Medium’ and ‘Low’, and Armenia is ‘Medium’. Mr. Shapiro however declined to commit to when a full investigation will be carried out.

This claim has also been officially registered with the Volcker Panel, which has been studying INT operations and which released its report on the 13^th September. The report does not feature any specific projects, because although according to the Volcker report, the “INT plays an important role in the Bank’s overall good governance and anti-corruption drive”, the “Purpose and Scope” of the Volcker Panel study was to “carry out a comprehensive review of the INT to assess how it can best contribute to the Bank’s poverty reduction mission and to safeguard the institution from legal, fiduciary and other risks”.

It is clear from the Purpose and Scope of the Volcker Panel study that the Bank is more concerned about its own security than about protecting the interests of those who would like a reduction in the level of corruption in World Bank projects, those generally referred to as ‘Whistleblowers’.

Prior to reading the Volcker Panel study report, it was assumed that the Armenian claim was near the bottom of the INT list for investigation, because according to INT procedures, low category claims are simply filed and receive no further attention. But the Volcker study has found that “Generally, INT has been able to investigate only high priority cases” and normally medium priority cases are NOT investigated.

So although an Armenian Parliamentary Commission has submitted comprehensive and compelling evidence to the World Bank, claiming tens of millions of dollars worth of corruption, according to Volcker, the Armenian people should not expect an INT inquiry.

In July the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office established an ‘International Development Committee’, which invites organizations and individuals to “submit 'evidence' to ensure that assistance delivered through the World Bank is in line with the priorities and objectives of the Department for International Development (DFID)”. Details of this claim are being prepared as the basis for ‘evidence’ for the committee and that will include how the UK representation at the World Bank in Washington continually ignores letters from the British Ambassador in Armenia, in which he requests their support and information about the status of the claim.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will be meeting in Washington at the end of October to present requests for continued finance to the U.S. Congress. GAP will be working with Congress to make sure it is aware of how inadequately the INT responds to claims of World Bank corruption. That will be followed by work with the U.S. Senate, which has just unanimously voted to investigate World Bank corruption.

Whilst the INT is deciding on how and when it may be able to respond to the 'Demand Letter' it received from GAP in March this year, Armenian corruption is being subjected to high-level exposure in Washington and in London; corrupt World Bank consultants continue with their corruption in Armenia; the World Bank Armenia country manager is free to orchestrate more corruption (now in Kyrgyzstan), and nine months after his departure from Armenia, the World Bank's Armenia office still awaits the arrival of its replacement country manager.

This blog covers the process from the beginning; it details the fraud and corruption, the Bank’s reprisals to the whistleblower, and continues with the ongoing action to persuade the Department of Institutional Integrity to initiate a full investigation into the matter.

Bruce Tasker

Senior Specialist

Armenian Parliamentary Commission (2004)

Posted by Background 2 comm

Armenia: Paykar Hunger Strike

DECLARATION - 4.1.08
We, the representatives of political opposition forces in the recent elections, imprisoned on false charges regarding our beliefs and political activities, declare ourselves political prisoners, and announce, in protest, a hunger strike with an undefined endpoint and with the following demands:

--the declaring illegitimate the results of the presidential elections of February 19th, 2008.
--the commencement of an independent international investigation to expose and punish the criminals responsible for the bloody crimes of March 1st.
--the release all political prisoners.
--the cessation of the pursuit of a single-party system.
--the safeguarding of access to information, assembly, freedom of speech, and other human rights.

These demands are directed to the present government, their international accomplices, and independent governments who through their efforts, or lack of efforts, aid the criminal takeover of the government that is taking place in Armenia, today.

Vladimir Arakelian
Marzpetuni Aivazian
Sayad Hovanessian
Armen Grikorian
Shmavon Galstian
Yura Simonian

Posted by Armen Filadelfiatsi

Sibel Edmonds: Whistle Blower

SIBEL CORRUPTION THE KEVIN TASKASEN AFFAIR

This is a snippet describing the corruption in a small part of the FBI. Many employees take part in the theft. Others know what’s going on, but are afraid to say anything. As a result, the taxpayers foot the bill for money laundering, drug smuggling and the theft of national secrets. No one works to limit the damage.

Incompetence, Corruption and Cover-ups: The Kevin Taskasen Affair

CD: In your October 25 2002 interview with 60 Minutes, "Lost in Translation," you charged the FBI with incompetence and greed – and also of allowing infiltration by foreign intelligence outfits. Some of these charges have also been substantiated by other sources, both congressional and from inside the bureau. For example, there's the Guantanamo Bay Turkish-English translator who actually didn't know either language very well, Kevin Taskasen, I believe? And he worked with you at some point?

Sibel Edmonds: Correct.

CD: And also, your bosses told you to work more slowly, in some cases not at all, so that the department's seemingly huge workload would mean more funding the next year, right?

SE: Correct.

CD: Can you provide any more details on these subjects?

SE: Well, as for Kevin – he was this poor little guy who was very nice, his only fault as a translator being that he, well, didn't speak English.

CD: Really! Where was he from? How did he get that job, anyway?

SE: Kevin was from Turkey. He had met an American woman there, married her, and moved to America. But his lower-elementary-school-level English was only enough to get him a job as a busboy/dishwasher in a restaurant.

However, his wife worked in the languages testing center at FBI headquarters in Washington. Hers was the office that takes in the applications of aspiring translators and schedule language proficiency tests.

CD: So in other words, she used her connections to get him a job in the FBI, even though he wasn't qualified?

SE: Correct. There was an Arabic language supervisor in our department, who had about seven or eight family members under his wing, working away in the Arabic language section even though several of them weren't qualified, hadn't passed the proficiency test in either English or Arabic…

CD: So they made a bargain?

SE: Yes, he had made a deal with this woman, Kevin's wife. She had approved all of his extended family members to work for the FBI translations center, and so she then asked to do the same with her poor husband. And I can't really blame him at all, he was just a nice guy who dreamed of opening his own restaurant. But that's not likely to happen when you're working as a busboy for $6.50 an hour.

CD: How much do they pay in the translating department that he was hired to?

SE: The average is $40 an hour.

CD: So basically, what you had was a nudge-nudge wink-wink thing going on between the woman in the application office and the head honcho in the translation center.

SE: Correct. In light of what she'd done for him, the deal was that he [the Arabic supervisor] would turn a blind eye to her poor husband's incompetence for 3 years. He agreed and in October 2001 it started. Again, I can't blame Kevin. He would be coming to me every five minutes asking, "What does this word mean?" He was really trying, but he was struggling because he just didn't know English well enough. So I ended up having to do his work for him too.

CD: How long did this go on for? Did you alert your supervisors?

SE: Yes. I went to them and asked, "what is he doing here?" But nothing was done and only a few months later, in February of 2002, he was given a TDY [travel assignment] – to translate the testimony of Turkic-speaking detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

When told of this assignment, Kevin stood in front of all the other translators. He was crying, and said, "I can't do it, I just can't." I told him to go to the boss – and just say no, if he didn't feel capable. But he didn't.

CD: Come on! One would think that for the marquis interrogation center in the war on terror, the government would send only the best and brightest. Why did they even think of sending him?

SE: Aside from sending Kevin, the FBI had only two options, neither of them good for them. They could send me, as I was the only qualified Turkish linguist, but this raised a red flag considering that I had already started to make a fuss about how the game was being played. Their other choice was to humbly ask the NSA or DIA or another agency to borrow a Turkish-language translator. But they couldn't do this because there is all this intra-agency competition. None of them would ever let it look like their people weren't as good as the other agencies'. So it was partly a matter of pride.

CD: Do you know what happened to Kevin in Guantanamo?

SE: He didn't come back till mid-April [2002]. But surely while there he had heard information he wasn't able to convey properly in English. Maybe clues about 9/11, or about future terrorist attacks in the works. Or maybe information proving that some detainees had been wrongfully imprisoned.

That's another thing. What if a military detainee is on trial? You have to, you simply have to double-check the translations that are being used as evidence against the detainee. After all, you might be sending someone to his death based on faulty evidence! But all too often, they just put the stamp of approval on anything that says "FBI translation," because that is supposed to indicate automatically a certain unassailable level of quality.

CD: After coming back, and after the story broke proving he wasn't a qualified translator, what happened then? Did he get fired?

SE: No. After all that, he is back in Washington D.C., and is the head of the Turkish department in the FBI translations center. As far as I know, he is the only Turkish-speaking translator there now. Even after all this.

CD: Good God! One translator – and an incompetent one at that! Isn't that a national security liability?

SE: Yes, but you have to look at it from their perspective. What if they let him go, and he starts talking about what he knows? Either way, it's about control. If they fire someone, they might either corroborate my story, or even release documents that could prove damning for the FBI … it works out to be more of a liability for them to fire someone than to keep them in the office, where they can continue to compromise our national security.

A full script available at Pogo.org

Antiwar.com conducted many of these interviews.

Sibel Edmonds

Cruelty Begins at Home

Some Americans may grieve about the tortures of Abu Grahib. A number of Germans may remember the sins committed at Auschwitz. A few Catholics might regret becoming Altar Boys.

They believe the specific crimes against humanity as originating in a particular time and place. This is not true. Cruelty is a universal affliction.

In Israel we see cruelty on a massive scale every day. It may have started out as a noble Zionist endeavor. At first there was the fear the Arabs would eventually outnumber us.
As we suppressed them, the cruelty spread nationwide to include Jewish inhumanity to Jews.
It has become a national characteristic a blot on the Jewish tradition. Many people are abusive within the family and without.
Perhaps half the population has been abused verbally, physically or sexually.
The ones who don't participate are the heroes, deviants and whistle blowers. Lord knows we save our worst punishments for them.
Although I come from a very different culture, I know the trials and tribulations of native Americans, of Naomi Wolf and of Sibel Edmonds to name but a few.
Fascists begin life watching dad beat up mom. It goes downhill from there.

You Get What You Pay For

To buy cigarette lighters at three for a dollar, the customer has no choice in what he receives. My treasure included Frankenstein, Osama bin Laden and a purple happy face. For me, this replaces astrology charts from expensive newspapers. As you can read, it also provides stunning material for articles

With the decline of the Red Menace, the USA needed a new Frankenstein a godless psychopath to prop up as villain. Already the recipient of WMD, Saddam seemed to be a good paper tiger villain of choice. Adept at murdering his countrymen, he had no makings of a viable international threat.

Osama bin Laden showed more promise. The chances are he bombed the World Trade Center underground parking lot in 1993. This effort unsatisfactory, the CIA undertook false flag operations in Europe and Asia. The attacks increased the scope, but not the severity.

To be a viable threat, the Arabs needed more clout. The US began to sell nuclear secrets to the Arab States. This strategy relied on disinformation and public ignorance. There is a long road from knowing how to build a bomb and actually constructing one. The process involves considerable financial planning, brainpower and patience rare qualities in Arabia.

To enlist US public participation in the program, the officials attacked the rule of law. Major results from the 9/11 tragedy were widespread fear of the Arabs and a loathing for the rule of reason. The people perceived democracy as weakness and were willing to sacrifice civil liberties for safety.

The public is not angry at the administration for poor management of the Iraq War, but for failing to win it. The people do not understand the object for the military/industrial complex. An outbreak of peace is disastrous for profits.

The prudent administration always takes it easy on the adversary until they can prop up another despot as an appropriate villain.

What happened to the purple smiley face?

He is mocking us. Nobody twisted our arms to drown the country in greed, bigotry and fear. Where are the whistle blowers? Where are the investigative journalists? They are in hiding in a country that punishes doubters and tortures activists.

We can’t all flee to Paraguay.