I think it must have been very hard for NeoCons to anticipate all the consequences of their actions, but I don't really think some of them cared. It's not like their goals were altruistic or made with the best interests of most Americans in mind anyway.

we have gone from most popular to maybe one of the leastpopular countries in the world

Popularity can be judged by many factors. Given the number of immigrants that continue to migrate to the US along with those presently here (they certainly don't seem to be leaving in droves; quite the opposite), illegal and otherwise, I'd say the US is still very popular among those with a capitalistic bent.

I suppose it depends on where your focus lies.

I'm confused...we are a nation of 300 million. The world's population is approximately 6 billion. Over 1 billion of those are Muslims. Assuming 1/4 of those Muslims to be adult Muslim males, that would mean there are about 250 million adult Muslim males. Because our population also includes women and children, that Muslim population would be more than adequate to wipe the US off the face of the earth, if, indeed, they hate us so badly as you proclaim.

The lack of a significant increase in terror attacks since 9/11 would indicate that either our government's intel is SUPERB (surely, you CAN'T believe THAT...I certainly don't), or that we're not as hated on the world stage as some media sources would have you believe.

Yawn

So who do you think this years homecoming queen will be?

I Am Angry

Dear Lew, the Honorable Ron Paul’s piece on why Americans are angry really stirred me to respond. Mr. Paul’s piece speaks about many issues facing Americans today.

I am a 51-year-old woman. I have been married to the same man since 1976. I am the secretary/office manager for a small legal firm in the D.C. suburbs. My husband manages a wine and spirits store. I have two sons, aged 26 and 22. After realizing it wasn’t possible to support themselves and the government at the same time, both returned to the nuclear nest. Along with most people in my economic situation, I believe I am living what is supposed to be the American dream. I know why I am an angry American. I am frightened because America isn’t the same country it was when I was my children’s age. Allow me to share with you some of the reasons why I am an angry American.

I am angry because my government has been taken over by liars, thieves, thugs, deviants, and micromanagers. The propaganda it produces rivals that of the most fascist dictatorship.

I am angry that my government perceives my intelligence to be that of a jar of pickles incapable of making the smallest decision.

I am angry that my government takes it upon itself to shove its clucking nose into my pantry, medicine chest, bedroom, family room, doctor’s office, workplace, and everywhere else it thinks I need guidance to keep me safe from myself.

I am angry that the will of the American people is ignored on every issue imaginable. If voting really mattered, it would have been outlawed long ago.

I am angry that I am called a conspiracy theorist because I dare to think on my own and question authority and its lies.

I am angry that the more I read about 9-11 the more it looks like an inside job that was allowed to happen, enabling the Patriot Act to be conveniently enacted into law with the ensuing \"war on terrah\" following closely on its heels.

I am angry that the evil puppets in power think laws are created for the peon masses and it is their right to ignore the ones that get in the way of their agenda.

I am angry that the media has sold its soul to the evil forces running the world.

I am angry that my \"leaders\" have taken to calling my country the \"homeland.\" It reeks of socialism.

I am angry that my government has invaded yet another sovereign nation and caused untold death and destruction based on a flimsy lie. I am expected to believe that weapons of mass destruction threatened my freedom and then I am told several years and billions of squandered dollars later that a massive intelligence network got the wrong information. A select group of businesses profit enormously from war. When Bush announced his intention to save Iraq from itself and that its oil would pay for the overthrow of Hussein, I laughed so hard I nearly choked. I remember the instability in the Middle East during the 1970s and the gas \"shortages\" that followed. I knew which direction gas prices would go. How stupid does Mr. Bush and his cronies think I am?

I am angry that the world stands silently by while my government bombs foreign lands with weapons containing depleted uranium and the news magazines wonder on their front covers why lung cancer has increased six-fold in the last year.

I am angry that Americans accept as gospel the propaganda that is routinely cranked out of the Washington lie machine. The lies become more transparent and brazen with each passing year, yet the only thing that seems to matter in living rooms across America is who will be the next American Idol.

I am angry that I am punished with high energy and gas prices and the resulting inflation because tree-hugging terrorists masquerading as environmentalists have handcuffed my country’s ability to produce its own energy. It would be easy to tell the Middle East what to do with their oil if restrictions on exploration and production were lifted in our own backyard.

I am angry that I am constantly admonished by minimalists for being a greedy consumer because I live where I choose, drive the vehicle of my choice, eat meat, and use tin foil to cover my leftovers.

I am angry that my life doesn’t belong to me anymore.

I am angry that I am required to obtain permission, fill out mandated paperwork in quadruplicate, and obtain the correct license or permit for just about everything imaginable. The tentacles of government are strangling my freedom, choice, and privacy at an alarming rate. The wrath of the machine is a constant threat should I dare do anything without leaving a neon paper trail and of course ignorance of the law is never an excuse.

I am angry that property rights are a thing of the past thanks to court-approved eminent domain theft.

I am angry that the Constitution is routinely declared irrelevant making it easier for a fascist police state and new world order to take over.

I am angry that legislation is in the works that will require me to carry \"papers\" to \"prove\" who I am. Another coming law I will ignore.

I am angry that my right to own and carry a firearm is drastically regulated and restricted.

I am angry every time I see a young person detained on the side of the road while cops paw through their possessions looking for anything that could enable them to be arrested and dragged through the criminal justice system. This has become so commonplace it is now the accepted norm.

I am angry that roadblocks are set up under the guise of keeping roads free of drunk drivers. What has happened to my right to travel freely? Why am I presumed guilty without probable cause? I am afraid to have a few drinks when I go out to dinner for fear I will be pulled over and end up in court-ordered drug rehabilitation.

I am angry when I read stories of Americans terrorized in airports and treated like common criminals by government minions after they have paid for the right to travel within a private system, yet pilots are blocked from carrying firearms.

I am angry that America has become a nation of busybodies. We are constantly bombarded with messages to be on the lookout for terrorists around every corner, report \"suspicious activity,\" and rat on our neighbor whenever the opportunity presents itself. Is this not how the Nazis gained control of Germany and then most of Europe?

I am angry that the government requires me to sign a form every time I purchase a prescription. Whose business is it that I choose to take a thyroid medication, an antibiotic, a painkiller, an appetite suppressant, or any other substance? Am I dying of cancer? Am I facing debilitating chronic pain? Do I simply want to get HIGH? Heaven forbid someone out there might get their hands on something that might make them FEEL GOOD! No substance should be illegal or unobtainable. If a person wishes to self-medicate, that is their right. The government should not be in the business of criminalizing personal choices of any kind as long as those choices don’t infringe on another’s rights.

I am angry that my government meddles in the lives of people all over the world but looks the other way on the catastrophic issue of what to do about the millions of illegals who have crashed the gates of this nation. My country’s laws are ignored and mocked, yet I am told I must accept with open arms those who are here illegally. My taxes are used to educate their children in their native language. Hospitals are overrun with indigent people seeking medical care. Untaxed dollars earned in the underground economy are sent to the family back home while social services here are stretched to the limit. I read job want ads stating if you aren’t bilingual don’t bother to apply. What would happen to me if I placed an ad that said don’t bother to apply if your English isn’t understandable? Marches are conducted in my cities’ streets waving their countries’ flags as they shamelessly demand their \"rights.\" I am told they deserve the same opportunities that brought my forefathers here. I am scolded that it is un-American to ask why they are not sent home. I am told that the term \"illegal alien\" offends them and that they prefer to be called \"undocumented workers\" and that my economy would die without them. I will happily pay more for fruits and vegetables if it means enforcing sensible immigration laws. But immigration isn’t about the cost of lettuce. It is another facet of an agenda that is bent on changing the face of America. When America is no longer a wealthy country of white European descent, it will be a place worse than anything Orwell could have imagined.

I am angry that my country is the only nation on earth who declares that a baby born on its soil is automatically an American citizen.

I am angry that the thugs that run my country don’t have the guts to declare English my nation’s official language.

I am angry that I have to search a package for English and push a button on every telephone system and ATM machine to continue in English.

I am angry that Washington, D.C.’s Metro is now being pressured to replace every station sign with bilingual verbiage to the tune of millions of dollars. Are bilingual road signs going to be the next mandated law of the land? I am currently forced to pay for voting ballots printed in 15 different languages and my tax dollars pay for interpreter services for people who are summoned to court for breaking laws. If English is the international language of the world, why isn’t it good enough to be the official language of the United States?

I am angry when I am told I am a bigot when I thumb my nose at political correctness.

I am angry when I wonder whether an expressed belief or opinion could land me in litigation if someone doesn’t like what I said and wants to silence my voice.

I am angry that diversity and sensitivity training is being forced on people whose only crime is to dare to speak freely.

I am angry that the symbols, customs, and roots of my Judeo-Christian country are being systematically outlawed because my culture offends newcomers. When we freely choose to go somewhere, are we not accepting the customs and cultures of that place? I am weary of being made to feel guilty for being an American.

And finally, I am angry that after working my entire adult life, I don’t see retirement in my life’s picture. My husband and I earn over a hundred thousand dollars a year, but by the time we pay federal taxes, state taxes, social security taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, energy taxes, telecommunication taxes, savings taxes, fees, permits, etc., there isn’t much left. But please don’t think that I mind supporting every deadbeat and down-and-outer with his hand out for a piece of my pie that I worked so hard for. I love supporting the world. After all, it’s the American way, isn’t it?

July 5, 2006

Susan Fassanella was born in Washington, D.C. and resides in Frederick County, Maryland with her husband and two sons.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAUcRA0Z2cs&NR

Cut'n'paste, little kid, you've nothing to say.

Nineteen-year-old Jason Chelsea was buried on August 25. The young infantryman from Wigan, Lancashire killed himself on August 14, taking an overdose of painkillers and cutting his wrists. It was just days before he was to begin his first tour of duty in Iraq, as part of the King’s Lancaster Regiment.

Jason had joined the British army aged just 16, proudly informing his parents that it would be his life’s pursuit.

According to his family, the young man was terrified at what he would face in Iraq. His fear was not only the result of justified concern for his own life—some 115 British soldiers have been killed in Iraq—but that he might be forced to take morally repugnant actions against the civilian population.

In the days leading up to his suicide, Jason had told his parents that commanding officers had warned him he could be ordered to fire on children considered to be a threat.

The night of his death, he wrote a note to his parents explaining, “Really sorry, mum and dad. I’m just no good for you. I have got to finish it. I am just a waste.”

Jason then swallowed 60 painkillers and slashed his wrists.

His mother, Kerry, said that as he lay dying he told her, “I can’t go out there and shoot at young children. I just can’t go to Iraq. I don’t care what side they are on. I can’t do it.”

His father, Tony, has said, “My son was made very, very lonely by what was happening to him. He was very sad inside and he bottled up what was causing it. It was only after the overdose that he told us about his fears over what might happen in Iraq.

“In training, they were made to wrestle with dummies. Jason said they were also told they might have to fight kids and that they might have to shoot them because they were carrying suicide bombs. He said the policy [where there was a suspected suicide bomber] was to shoot first and ask questions later.”

His mother added: “Jason said that during the training for Iraq he had been told that children as young as two carry bombs and the time may come when he would have to shoot one to save himself and his friends. I think they need to think again about the training they give to young soldiers before Iraq.”

The Independent newspaper reported that the Ministry of Defence has begun an investigation into the young man’s death, and that whilst official guidelines for British troops offer no warning on child suicide bombers, “defence sources confirmed that the details of the advice given to soldiers are decided by each regiment.”

Jason’s suicide occurred exactly two years to the day of the funeral of another British soldier who had taken his life over the war in Iraq.

Peter Mahoney, a 45-year-old father of four, died of carbon monoxide poisoning after gassing himself in the family car on August 3, 2004. Mahoney, who was wearing his Territorial Army (TA) uniform when he died, was found by his wife, Donna.

Peter was an outspoken critic of the invasion of Iraq and was said to have been profoundly disillusioned by his experiences in the country where he was attached to the Royal Logistics Corps. Just before his death he had told his local newspaper in Carlisle that his view of the war as an act of aggression which Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George Bush had sought to legitimise through lies was widely shared by other soldiers.

“The general consensus among the troops was that we were in Iraq so George Bush could seize control of the oilfields,” he told the newspaper.

“All this talk of weapons of mass destruction was simply a smokescreen as far as we were concerned. There was certainly no evidence they existed. From what we saw, Saddam’s regime did not have advanced weapons. Iraqi troops were using ancient Russian machines. They were firing sticks and stones. They might as well have had catapults.”

His wife explained that Peter had left the TA as a result, but that “Iraq changed him. I don’t know what happened because I wasn’t in his head, but it changed him. He was a broken man. I really don’t know what happened out there.”

At least five British soldiers connected with Iraq have died in suspicious circumstances, although the army does not keep exact figures. The numbers of those deserting or going “absent without leave” has also risen.

The Blair government has placed many soldiers in an impossible situation. They are the frontline of an illegal occupation that is bitterly resented by many Iraqis. Identified as a hostile invasion force, they face violent and growing resistance. Bush and Blair have repeatedly insisted that foreign soldiers will not leave Iraq until the opposition is dealt with, i.e., that the resistance must be bloodily suppressed. It is in this context that the abuses at Abu Ghraib and in numerous other instances have occurred.

That British soldiers are expected to do whatever they are commanded, irrespective of its lawfulness, has been made plain by the new Armed Forces Bill of 2006. Under its provisions those refusing to take part in “military occupation of a foreign country or territory” can be sentenced to life imprisonment.

In April a court martial sentenced a British Royal Air Force doctor to eight months imprisonment for failing to comply with orders when he refused to cooperate in training and deployment for a third tour of Iraq.

Dr. Kendall-Smith said he had refused to serve in Basra because he believed that the invasion of Iraq was illegal and did not want to be complicit in an “act of aggression” contrary to international law. Ordering his imprisonment the judge stated, “Those who wear the Queen’s uniform cannot pick and choose which orders they will obey. Those who seek to do so must face the serious consequences.”

At the same time, the government is making increasing inroads into budgets for military equipment in order to help fund its imperialist adventures abroad. A confidential financial expenditure document leaked last month emphasises the need for “high impact” cost-cutting measures that will cause “pain” and result “in severe impediment to the delivery of operational capability.”

According to the Sunday Telegraph, Land Command, which is responsible for ensuring equipment and training to British troops, has been ordered to cut more than £40 million from its budget in the next eight months.

The document was drawn up just as a board of inquiry into the Sergeant Steven Roberts, 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, found that he would have survived a bullet to his chest had he been protected by body armour.

The inquiry was the outcome of extensive campaigning by Roberts’s family. He was the first soldier to die in action in the 2003 war in Iraq. He died after handing over his body armour to another solider because of an equipment shortage.

Earlier this month, Pauline Hickey, whose 30-year-old son Christian was killed by a roadside bomb in Basra in October 2005, said equipment shortages had also played a major role in her son’s death. Christian had even had to use his birthday money to buy his own army boots, she said. An all-party Defence Select Committee has admitted British troops in Iraq are “under-equipped” and overstretched.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dDeS3nv3SQ

I Am Angry

I am angry that you can't find the couple relevant points in an article full of vitriolic, hateful sputum and dump the rest into the ether . . . what a joke.

Same goes for you, Apocalypse Pony. If I wanted to read these articles, I'd go find 'em myself.

This anonymous cut'n'paste shit must go.

I was in China when a July Harris Poll reported that 50 percent of Americans still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when Bush invaded that country and that 64 percent of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links with al-Qaida.

The Chinese leaders and intellectuals with whom I was meeting were incredulous. How could a majority of the population in an allegedly free country with an allegedly free press be so totally misinformed?

The only answer I could give the Chinese is that Americans would have been the perfect population for Mao and the Gang of Four, because Americans believe anything their government tells them.

Americans never check any facts. Who do you know, for example, who has even read the report of the 9-11 commission, much less checked the alleged facts reported in that document. I can answer for you. You don\'t know anyone who has read the report or checked the facts.

The two co-chairmen of the 9-11 commission report, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, have just released a new book, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9-11 Commission. Kean and Hamilton reveal that the commission suppressed the fact that Muslim ire toward the United States is due to U.S. support for Israel\'s persecution and dispossession of the Palestinians, not to our \"freedom and democracy,\" as Bush propagandistically claims. Kean and Hamilton also reveal that the U.S. military committed perjury and lied about its failure to intercept the hijacked airliners. The commission even debated referring the military\'s lies to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. Why should we assume that these admissions are the only cover-ups and lies in the 9-11 commission report?

How do you know that 9-11 was a Muslim terrorist plot? How do you know that three World Trade Center buildings collapsed because two were hit by airliners? You only \"know\" because the government gave you the explanation of what you saw on TV. (Did you even know that three WTC buildings collapsed?)

I still remember the enlightenment I experienced as a student in Russian studies when I learned that the Czarist secret police would set off bombs and then blame those whom they wanted to arrest.

When Hitler seized dictatorial power in 1933, he told the Germans that his new powers were made necessary by a communist terrorist attack on the Reichstag. When Hitler started World War II by invading Poland, he told the Germans that Poland had crossed the frontier and attacked Germany.

Governments lie all the time – especially governments staffed by neoconservatives whose intellectual godfather, Leo Strauss, taught them that it is permissible to deceive the public in order to achieve their agenda.

Some readers will write to me to say that they saw a TV documentary or read a magazine article verifying the government\'s explanation of 9-11. But, of course, these Americans did not check the facts, either – and neither did the people who made the documentary and wrote the magazine article.

Scientists and engineers, such as Clemson University Professor of Engineering Dr. Judy Woods and BYU Professor of Physics Dr. Steven Jones, have raised compelling questions about the official account of the collapse of the three WTC buildings. The basic problem for the government\'s account is that the buildings are known to have fallen at free-fall speed, a fact that is inconsistent with the government\'s \"pancaking\" theory in which debris from above collapsed the floors below. If the buildings actually \"pancaked,\" then each floor below would have offered resistance to the floors above, and the elapsed time would have been much longer.

These experts have also calculated that the buildings did not have sufficient gravitational energy to accommodate the government\'s theory of the collapse. It is certainly a known and non-controversial fact among physicists and engineers that the only way buildings can collapse at free fall speed into their own footprints is by engineered demolition. Explosives are used to remove the support of floors below before the debris from above arrives. Otherwise, resistance is encountered and the time required for fall increases.

Engineered demolition also explains the symmetrical collapse of the buildings into their own footprints. As it is otherwise improbable for every point in floors below to weaken uniformly, \"pancaking\" would result in asymmetrical collapse as some elements of the floor would give sooner than others.

Scientific evidence is a tough thing for the American public to handle, and the government knows it. The government can rely on people dismissing things that they cannot understand as \"conspiracy theory.\" But if you are inclined to try to make up your own mind, you can find Jones\' and Woods\' papers, which have been formally presented to their peers at scientific meetings, online at www.st911.org/

Experts have also pointed out that the buildings\' giant steel skeletons comprised a massive heat sink that wicked away the heat from the limited, short-lived fires, thus preventing a heat buildup. Experts also point out that the short-lived, scattered, low-intensity fires could barely reach half the melting point of steel even if they burned all day, instead of merely an hour.

Don\'t ask me to tell you what happened on 9-11. All I know is that the official account of the buildings\' collapse is improbable.

Now we are being told another improbable tale. Muslim terrorists in London and Pakistan were caught plotting to commit mass murder by smuggling bottles of explosive liquids on board airliners in hand luggage. Baby formula, shampoo and water bottles allegedly contained the tools of suicide bombers.

How do we know about this plot? Well, the police learned it from an \"Islamic militant arrested near the Afghan-Pakistan border several weeks ago.\" And how did someone so far away know what British-born people in London were plotting?

Do you really believe that Western and Israeli intelligence services, which were too incompetent to prevent the 9-11 attack, can uncover a London plot by capturing a person on the Afghan border in Pakistan? Why would \"an Islamic militant\" rat on such a plot even if he knew of it?

More probable explanations of the \"plot\" are readily available. According to the Aug. 11 Wayne Madsen Report, informed sources in the United Kingdom say that \"the Tony Blair government, under siege by a Labor Party revolt, cleverly cooked up a new \'terror\' scare to avert the public\'s eyes away from Blair\'s increasing political woes. British law enforcement, neocon and intelligence operatives in the United States, Israel and Britain, and Rupert Murdoch\'s global media empire cooked up the terrorist plot, liberally borrowing from the failed 1995 \'Oplan Bjinka\' plot by Pakistan- and Philippines-based terrorist Ramzi Ahmad Yousef to crash 11 trans-Pacific airliners bound from Asia to the U.S.\"

There are other plausible explanations. For example, our puppet in Pakistan decided to arrest some people who were a threat to him. With Bush\'s commitment to \"building democracy in the Middle East,\" our puppet can\'t arrest his political enemies without cause, so he lays the blame on a plot.

Any testimony against Muslim plotters by \"an Islamic militant\" is certain to have been bought and paid for.

Or consider this explanation. Under the Nuremberg standard, Bush and Blair are war criminals. Bush is so worried that he will be held accountable that he has sent his attorney general to consult with the Republican Congress to work out legislation to protect Bush retroactively from his violations of the Geneva Conventions.

Tony Blair is in more danger of finding himself in the dock. Britain is signatory to a treaty that, if justice is done, will place Blair before the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

What better justification for the two war criminals\' illegal actions than the need to foil dastardly plots by Muslims recruited in sting operations by Western intelligence services? The more Bush and Blair can convince their publics that terrorist danger abounds, the less likely Bush and Blair are ever to be held accountable for their crimes.

But surely, some readers might object, our great moral leaders wouldn\'t do something political like that!

They most certainly would. As Joshua Micah Marshall wrote in the July 7 issue of Time magazine, the suspicion is \"quite reasonable\" that \"the Bush administration orchestrates its terror alerts and arrests to goose the GOP\'s poll numbers.\"

Marshall proves his conclusion by examining the barrage of color-coded terror alerts, none of which were real – and, yes, it all fits with political needs.

And don\'t forget the plot unearthed in Miami to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. Described by Vice President Cheney as a \"very real threat,\" the plot turned out to be nothing more than a few harmless wackos recruited by an FBI agent sent out to organize a sting.

There was also the \"foiled plot\" to blow up the Holland Tunnel and flood downtown New York City with seawater. Thinking New Orleans, the FBI invented this plot without realizing that New York City is above sea level. Of course, most Americans didn\'t realize it, either.

For six years, the Bush regime has been able to count on the ignorant and naive American public to believe whatever tale that is told them. American gullibility has yet to fail the Bush regime.

The government has an endless number of conspiracy theories, but only people who question the government\'s conspiracies are derided for \"having a conspiracy theory.\"

The implication is even worse if we assume that the explosive bottle plot is genuine. It means that America and Britain by their own aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by enabling Israel\'s war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon, have created such hatred that Muslims, who identify with Bush\'s, Blair\'s and Israel\'s victims, are plotting retaliation.

But Bush is prepared. He has taught his untutored public that \"they hate us for our freedom and democracy.\"

Gentle reader, wise up. The entire world is laughing at you.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu8ZSIGO9lo

Gullible Americans
by
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration.

www.doublestandards.org/roberts5.html

Well this article is toast....might as well shut her down.

actually,,,i am quite pleased at the response,,,nice to see people continuing to wake up and smell the coffee.

actually,,,i am quite pleased at the response,,,nice to see people continuing to wake up and smell the coffee.

I guess it doesn't take much to make you happy. I'll be glad to have a friend make a bot (cause I'm no good at programing) that will post cut and paste replies that agree with your point of view if you want. Or do you really believe that each name is actually a different person?

You're the most gullable person I have met here so far. You and Col gene definitely go hand in hand.