20060519
White blogule to Kofi's last throes of morality
Anyway, both Japan and the US do as if nothing happened. Toni Snow said "everything that is done in terms of questioning detainees is fully consistent with the boundaries of American law" and I'm afraid he is right : Amerika's administration changed America's laws to allow torture, illegal tapings, illegal abductions among other small steps for W but giant leaps backwards for humanity.
20060302
Red blogule to the imPOTUS - America vs Amerika class action lawsuit
As Michael Brown puts it, the tapes of the FEMA briefing about Katrina speak for themselves : thousands of people died and this man is guilty.
Let's not wait for the elections, nor for the Dems to wake up. The US citizens must stand up and right now. Let's call this case America vs Amerika.
* see all previous blogules since 2003.
20051212
Red blogule to CENTCOM pictures incorporated
The US have nerves, all right. This telegenic bravado is supposed to remind the audience Amerika is not the only country fighting this nasty war, but it should remind everybody this war wasn't necessary. There were other ways of castrating Saddam Hussein, and there were certainly other things to do to truly fight terror.
20051208
White blogule to the Law Lords - find another al-Libi, Dubya
In London, the Law Lords just ruled that evidence obtained under torture (even on a foreign soil) could not be used in British courts.
The US have used the "foreign soil" loophole since the Cold War and torture has been banned since 1640 in England.
Talking about cold wars and smoking guns... Amerika's Real Estate Agent Condi Rice just clinched a deal with Romania where 4 US military bases will be installed. This former Soviet satellite enjoys a view on the European Gulf (the Black Sea ? an epitome of the Bush doctrine : a major oil and gas hub and an environmental nightmare), locates in Europe but not yet in the EU (perfect timing as far as the European agenda is concerned), and happens to be neither too close from the Middle East (the Gaza Tigers can draft Roger Clemens, their stones will never reach the Constanta shores), nor too far (when the boys are withdrawn, their toys will remain nearby). Of course, today's EU members won't budge and The Company Airlines gets all the time slots they need.
20051117
White blogule to Bob Woodward - Blowing another fuse
They easily replaced Scooter with another hawk : the only specie to avoid the laws of evolution does breed by entire flocks at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, USA (watch out : herd flu hazards). David Addington is already at work to please his masters Lobby Dick and King Dubya, revising the U.S. Army Field Manual in order to allow torture and escape such un-american and un-patriotic documents as the Geneva Convention, the UN Convention Against Torture or the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights.
If he were to chose, W could pick Rummy instead of Dick or even Alberto. He would then please a great part of the Army and even find an alibi to change strategies in Iraq, "his" Rep majority pushing harder than ever for a clear withdrawal agenda before 2006 elections.
20051025
White blogule to John McCain vs cruel, inhuman, or degrading Amerika
His amendment specifying no "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment should be performed by the US against detainees puts the Commander-in-thief in front of a dilemma : if I veto the bill (since, as McClellan put it, it "would limit the president's ability as commander-in-chief to effectively carry out the war on terrorism"), I may have to renegociate a $400bn check. If I don't veto it, I'm losing the face as a commander-in-chief.
McCain said : "The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don't deserve our sympathy. But this isn't about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies." How about Saddam's trial ?
Saddam Hussein's trial is only about who he is, not about who we Western democracies are : the only charge is about a massacre of villagers. Relevant, but nothing about gassing the populations (with gas manufactured in Germany or in Iraq with French & US facilities). Nothing about the ugly war against Iran (sponsored by the US and "old Europe"). Nothing about the post Gulf War I retaliation on Kurds (abandonned by Dubya's father). Nothing about the honoris causa Doctor Hussein behind the evil Mister Saddam.
20050822
Red blogule to "Intelligent Design" - Fundamentals and fundamentalism - Creationism and cretinism
Bush's position on evolution resembles that of Revisionists on gas chambers : since there are alternative theories, students should be taught both angles*. This image may strike you as indecent and it is, but it clearly exposes the loopholes in the argumentation.
I'm not making any sick parallel between the existence of gas chambers and the existence of God, nor between proven facts and beliefs : I'm comparing people who knowingly manipulate opinions through biased rethorics.
I'm not even defending the theory of evolution, which is the best to date but won't explain everything. I just think the fundamentals of human society should be protected from religious fundamentalism.
Creationism** puts faith at the same level as science and that is the very negation of science. You can believe in ID if you want but you cannot call this science (and of course you have no right to believe in the non-existence of gas chambers).
Just the same, you cannot call "democracy" any approach of politics based on nor even mixed with religious beliefs. That is one of the reasons why, once again, Bush thinks and acts as an enemy to democracy, justice or science.
* or as the Washington Post relates it : "Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about". You want to "teach" about Creation, Dubya ? If there were a place for it in school, it would be the History of Religions (with a "S" so that, this time, all angles could be presented). And you want "debate" now ? That's what I call "evolution" : you've been avoiding the debate on every other issue and the one you picked doesn't rely on any facts. Can you believe it ? No one can contest your belief !
** I realize that up to now my blogules on this issue have been spilled in French (see "National Geographic - Points de vue et images du monde" or "Creationism & Cretinism"). And I guess "creationism" should be rebranded into something more suitable : I suggest a generic term like "Religion-Based Beliefs" for all the likes of Creationism.
20050816
Red blogule to US - Japan erasers
They knew the proof was in the US, they now know why it landed there in the first place : the US purchased all data related to Japan's sick medical experiments on civilians of occupied countries. Actually, they bribed the perpetrators to get the exclusivity and even granted them immunity for this favor. This completed the scandalous Hiroshima-Nagasaki cleanup : you don't sue us for using weapons of mass destruction against your civilians, we don't sue you for committing atrocities on civilians from other countries. The 1951 San Francisco Treaty put an ultimate lid on this sick stew between one of History's most fascist regimes and the World's most cynical country.
Sixty years have passed and Japan is just realizing it may have to postpone its claim for a permanent seat at the UN council. Ten years from now, all witnesses and survivors to their atrocities will have vanished. Japan's radical old guard too, but they've made sure younger generations got overwhelmed by their forgetful propaganda and textbooks.
The US ? Don't worry about them : they know propaganda by heart. Hell : it didn't take them sixty years to have most people believe they defeated the Nazis singlehandedly (if it weren't for another master in propaganda - Vladimir Putin - who would remember the lighter side of Uncle Joe ?). And if you ask US citizens about the use of WMDs or torture against civilians, they point the finger to some far away Evil.
20050801
Red blogule to Hiroshima-Baghdad parallels
Yet. A sick parallel could be done - the "overall, lives were saved" kind of parallels, the "democracy has a price" kind of parallels.
Just like with Hiroshima, the people of Baghdad well-foundedly feels victimized : the people is paying for the leaders. Unlike the Japanese people, the German people did admit his guilt for the country's extremist past and yet, the people of Dresden feels just the same.
The fact is the bombers never truly said they were sorry. They never asked for forgiveness.
It's high time for the Allies to do it, to admit their share of the crimes committed during WWII.
Should the United States do it for Hiroshima's 60th anniversary, they necessarily would have to do it for their Iraq aggression. Can the Stubborn Again Christian leading this country truly make an act of contrition ? I doubt it.
Too bad : the US proved they could liberate people, but they also proved they didn't care for the long term consequences of the liberation of unhuman forces : dropping atomic bombs on civilians then, gassing fighters with agent orange in the 70s, torturing detainees today.
"What do I do when lightning strikes me ?" Bush answered wrongly. Among other things, he forgot those were the lyrics of a song called "Sorry seems to be the hardest word".
20050727
Red blogule to semantic transfusions
Could this also mean the "last throes of neocons against World peace" (did Dick dig that one ?) or an end to the "global destruction of the American ideal by warmonger fanatics" ? No way Jose : they're talking about "violent extremism", which is so much unlike White House extremism. When a "violent extremist" performs torture, he is attacking civilization. When a White House extremist makes torture legal, he is protecting the nation.
It took them four years to realize the solution was "more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military" ? It won't take long for the World to remember diplomacy and economy are in the hands of Lobby Dick Cheney while politics remain in the pristine claws of Karl Rove.
20050708
Red blogule to Bush's terrorist training camps
As terror strikes London like Baghdad any given day, as Bosnia / Chechnya veteran fighters start messing with what's left of Afghanistan, one can only imagine how long the World will pay for the US historical suicide in Iraq. Thanks to Uncle Sam, today Iraq is a much easier training camp for foreign terrorists than 1980s Afghanistan, 1990s Bosnia or 2000s Chechnya.
Bush keeps talking about good vs evil and the use of force to retaliate - Blair keeps talking about attacks against civilization... but such speeches are music to the ears of fundamentalists. What these leaders need to protect is not their own "way of life" but the basic rights of moderate majorities under the spell of extremist minorities.
After this awful wake up call in the deadest middle of the G8 meeting, will the World eventually admit how wrong that war was ? Back then, Iraq had nothing to do with terror, and Saddam was more under stronger control than ever (even he wouldn't have performed that much destruction that quickly) - a smarter approach was possible and almost under way. The US is not only wasting people and key ressources in Iraq ; it keeps fueling the extremists with more energy. Off course Iraq shouldn't be abandoned now, but the World would be safer without this unnecessary front.
Removing the Talibans was a true war on terror, but the right way to fight terror was and still remains at its very roots : solving the Palestine issue (following the footprints and roadmaps of moderate 1995 leaders), supporting the moderates versus the fanatics and moreover eradicating the very world poverty G8 members were supposed to meet for...
20050628
Red Blogule to JFK - Out of the blue(s) ?
Not as thrilling as "I was a teenage mutant presidential candidate", but better than "John Edwards is a former North Carolina senator and now a sorry podcaster (does One America Committee have more than one member ?)".
The said speech doesn't bring any news but the fact Senator Kerry is still alive and not kept hostage in a dark Abu Ghraib / Gitmo / Congress cell. Yet the torture must have been intense : being deprived of media exposure for over half a year can drive any warrior insane. But Senator Kerry is not insane. Just unlucky enough to have faced Karl Rove at his best - that is at his worst.
In the meanwhile, my Yee-haaoo! Mail box got saturated by Howard Dean's deep thoughts. The laxative kind you got for attending the second part of Saturday Night Live. Only not as funny.
In the meanwhile, Hillary tries to raise other things than eyebrows in front of her latest hairdo.
In the meanwhile, Barack does his job and listens to the next plans of the Architect for Illinois.
20050614
Red blogule to President Cheney and his "unlawful combatants"
According to the NYT, the man a heartbeat away from becoming the world leader of democracy said Guantanamo detainees do not qualify for treatment under the Geneva Conventions because they are "unlawful combatants" who have not "operated in accordance with the laws of war" because they don't wear uniforms and have targeted civilians.
Here are the facts, Mr Cheney :
- Yes, atrocities are also committed by American people because you told them not to abid to any laws. Refusing the Geneva Conventions and any other kind of accountability goes beyond "unlawfulness" : you are training outlaws and torturers and this administration brought the shame on your country like no other one before.
- Yes, terrorists did and do commit atrocities - against the American people but more fundamentally (indeed !)against moderate muslims who are now defenseless because of the illegal war you sold - these are the perfect target civilians who get killed while you, as usual, stay safe far away from the actual war.
- Yes, this can also be said about you : you are "unlawful", you have not "operated in accordance with the laws of war", you don't wear uniforms and your so called war on terror mainly targeted civilians (the fact that US soldiers die because of you doesn't hurt the feelings of your buddies : after all, you traded their big corporation losses for a massive public deficit).
You say you want to bring Osama to justice but I wonder what kind of justice USA can bring under the helm of a known promoter of torture and at a time when even paedophiles are acquitted.
20050609
White blogule to impeachment
Here is the closest thing to a dictator Amerika ever had, the biggest insult to the spirit of the US constitution, an almost farcical caricature of what a ruler shouldn't be. A notorious dodger, cheater and lyar. Unlike Nixon, Bush didn't have the other party's quarters taped, but he manipulated the total mediasphere of his country and people died for the wrong reasons.
Yet, no one ever mention impeachment.
What is wrong with the people of America ? What is wrong with the people of France ? What is wrong with democracy ?
20050501
Red blogule to the "oil for fools" program
Jeb should answer "sorry Georgie but I'm affraid you ain't. Bush '08 relies on the Architect's craft again. Say... what have you done for America ?"
Terror is on the rise (and the next generation gets all the motivation it needs from Uncle Sam), WMDs are blooming in North Korea and still nowhere to be found in Iraq, and George II is almost rejoicing to the perspective of using anti-nuclear devices against his fellow tyrant Kim Jong-Il. Besides, lies and torture have been institutionalized by Amerika and the "age of diplomacy" is about destroying the international bodies the Bush Administration snubbed during the first mandate (in order to get rid of these embarrassing bodies, Bolton is supposed to act as a UN-bomber and Wolfie to take the money and run). The Axis of Evil got stronger, the Axis of Weasels exhibited courage and King Dubya is still leading the Axis of Liars, a lame duck asking for a few lame bucks...
Yet, Neocondi still has a crush on "my husband", and her disdainous snarl keeps resembling that of Lobby Dick by the day.
Barf bag anyone ?
20050323
Red blogule to the Department Of Justice - "Preserving life and liberty" or Propaganda 101
Note the site's title : this Administration sure knows how to preserve liberty (at the cost of thousands of lives, the apology of torture and the negation of justice), and it just proved it knew how to preserve life (theotherapeutical harassment for Terri Shiavo, not one finger lifted for Columbine II).
Right under the title lies a quote from the Declaration of Independence : "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted..." And that's it. They don't go any further. "Governments are instituted" in this context means this is the right, self-evident unalienable and secure body which shall do the job. Yet, I'll complete the quote, just for the education of the masses (not for fun, alas) : "... among Men, deriving their JUST POWERS from the CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED, that WHENEVER ANY FORM OF GOVERNMENT BECOMES DESTRUCTIVE OF THESE ENDS, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR TO ABOLISH IT, AND TO INSTITUTE NEW GOVERNMENT." This site is definitely a masterpiece in editing for the sake of Propaganda...
Their justifications are very clear : the Patriot act...
... "Allows law enforcement to use surveillance against more crimes of terror" ("courts could permit law enforcement to conduct electronic surveillance to investigate many ordinary, non-terrorism crimes"... translation : we decide who is a terrorist)
... "Allows federal agents to follow sophisticated terrorists trained to evade detection" (translation : federal agents can act as terrorists, kidnap anyone anywhere anytime and evade the detection of human right groups)
... "Allows law enforcement to conduct investigations without tipping off terrorists" (translation : get rid of all safeguards to democracy. tipping off journalists is just as dangerous as tipping off terrorists so lets get rid ov'em too)
..."Allows federal agents to ask a court for an order to obtain business records in national security terrorism cases" (strange : they care about legality only when corporate money is involved)
... "Enhanced the inadequate maximum penalties for various crimes likely to be committed by terrorists" (translation : illegal detention without any proof, torture or death for the luckiest. shall we consider "likely to be" as "not committed yet but with such a profile it's just as well" ?)
... "Enhanced a number of conspiracy penalties" ("conspiracy" as in "I wish Bush weren't reelected" ? "penalties" as in "torture" ?)
The propaganda goes on with the "support of the people" section where polls justify the Patriot Act :
=> These two questions were asked by USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll on August 29, 2003, at a time when the heat was not at its peak on the Patriot Act : "Do you think the Bush administration has gone too far, has been about right, or has not gone far enough in restricting people's civil liberties in order to fight terrorism?" and "Based on what you have read or heard, do you think the Patriot Act goes too far, is about right, or does not go far enough in restricting people's civil liberties in order to fight terrorism?".
=> These two questions were asked even earlier (July 31, 2003) by a very trustable propaganda tool (Fox News/Opinion Dynamics) : "After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress passed the Patriot Act which, in part, gives federal officials wider authority to use wiretaps and other surveillance techniques. Some people say the Patriot Act is a necessary and effective tool in preventing terrorist attacks, while others say the act goes too far and could violate the civil liberties of average Americans. Which comes closer to your view - overall, would you say the Patriot Act is a good thing for America or a bad thing for America?" and "To the best of your knowledge have you or a member of your family had your civil rights affected by the Patriot Act?"
Now moving on to the "stories and articles" section : the first quote is an editorial from a very conservative magazine, National Review and the rest is a selection you would expect from a political brochure but not from a Government's official site.
This is a textbook example of a dictatorship justifying itself. Stephane MOT on a forum
20050313
Red blogule to the Contra-terrorism squad
- John Poindexter : the new Information Awareness Office Director at the Pentagon lied to the Congress and was convicted several times
- Elliot Abrams : this man pleaded guilty to have not disclosed information about the scandal. Five years later Bush I forgave him and now Bush II appoints him head of his Middle East task force
- Otto Reich : from the State Department, Reich would be involved in illegal pro-Contra propaganda. He's now working for the Western Hemisphere Affairs.
20050125
White blogule to the Straw man - pet stop boy
Actually, the agenda may be set by North Korea, where gimchi will hit the fan much earlier than scheduled. Stephane MOT
* Sunday Times 20050123 "Straw snubs US hawks on Iran"
20050122
Red blogule to the Rotten Globe Awards - Invasion of the buddy snatchers
- "The invasion of the buddy snatchers" : a remake of Romero's masterpiece directed by Karl "The Architect" Rove, "The invasion" turns Joe Sixpack into a zombie voting machine unable to utter any word but "freedom" or "terror", contaminating friends & neighbors across the county ("you're against Him ? You're not one of us").
- "Lara Whitchcraft" : in this sick parody of America's Funniest Home Videos, GI Jane becomes a shameless torturer. X rated. Explicit material and language. A tremendous success for director Gonzales - even the boldest piracy won't deter much awaited sequels.
- "Shock & Awe" : and you thought Godzilla was the only towering menace to civilization ? The trillion dollar deficit is back, baby : angry and hungry.
- "Donald's wonderful adventure" : thanks to a powerful lobbying, Disney's creatures won't fall into the public domain anytime soon. But Rummy is very much likely to fall back into the private sector after january the 30th (ballot in Iraq ? pentagone out of track). Money, power, greed, handshakes with dictators... expect the most gruesome moments of animated movie.
- "The exorcist - reloaded" : brother Jeb is plagued with floods and hurricanes, father Herb's running out of stamina but Saint George has the power to defeat the dragon once again with a double barrel tommy gun. Mel Gibson's brilliant (err... make that "enthusiastic" instead) impersonation of "never doubting dubya" brings tears to the audience and blood all across the Middle East.
20050115
Red blogule to Uncle Sam's cabin - A day in the life of US led democracy in Iraq :
. 28 prisoners (including foreign fighters) managed to escape during a transfer from Abu Ghraib (guards to busy torturing car thieves ?)
. US soldier found guilty of killing a teenager (did that one steal some candies ?)
. The Patriotic Front of Iraqi Tribes (275 candidates) calls for a boycott of the elections - 3 M people may follow
. Baghdad election center director gets killed
. Allawi admits the turnout may not be successful in some "pockets" across the country (this great democrat seems to care more for the pockets of the people he bribes)
. Prayers will be performed at Bush's inauguration - a judge made sure a lawsuit launched to prevent this violation of the constitution failed. Dubya's spin doctors will especially pray for a good cover up of the massive protests around the event, just like 4 years ago.