Saudi Arabian Terrorist Make Up Half of the Foreign Fighters in Iraq

This is an interesting article. It claims that 45% of the foreign fighters in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia. Not surprisingly the White House and the State Department declined to comment. If it was Iran they wouldn't be able to help themselves in commenting about it. The government is more concerned with protecting it's own interest than the American people.

Colin Powell Tried to Talk Bush Out of Invading Iraq

Colin Powell openly admits he virtually got down on his hands and knees, begging Bush not to attack Iraq :

“I tried to avoid this war,” Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. “I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.”

There have been other instances where other people have come forward saying that Powell disapproved of President Bush and his Neoconservative allies but this is the first time he brought it out into the open. It is no wonder that he called the Neocons "F-- crazies" in a conversation with British Foreign Minister Jack Straw. The Neocons want to maintain the American Empire and bring democracy to those who don't understand it. They have a website called the Project of a New American Century online.

Bush kicked Powell out early in his second term because he wanted ideological purity and had no more use for Colin Powell after he went to the altar of the UN to sacrifice himself for a cause he didn't believe in. Bush used one of his servants to deliver the message to Colin Powell that he was fired:

"The president would like to make a change," [Chief of Staff Andrew] Card said, using a time-honored formulation that avoided the words "resign" or "fire." He noted briskly that there had been some discussion of having Powell remain until after Iraqi elections scheduled for the end of January, but that the president had decided to take care of all Cabinet changes sooner rather than later. Bush wanted Powell's resignation letter dated two days hence, on Friday, November 12, Card said, although the White House expected him to stay at the State Department until his successor was confirmed by the Senate.

Colin Powell as well as other Generals have pointed out that the problem in Iraq is political so Bush can surge and mistakenly train and arm the Mahdi army but his goals are probably not going to be met unless he wants destruction and mayhem, so he can bleed the American Treasury for the Military Industrial Complex. The Iraqi Government has yet to try to reconcile the differences among Iraqis.

Illegal Immigration, Slave Economy, Guest Worker Program, Republican and Democrat Politicians: The Immorality Of It All

Slavery was vital to the global economy in the 18th and 19th Centuries:

The vast majority of enslaved Africans employed in plantation agriculture were field hands. Even on plantations, however, they worked in other capacities. Some were domestics and worked as butlers, waiters, maids, seamstresses, and launderers. Others were assigned as carriage drivers, hostlers, and stable boys. Artisans—carpenters, stonemasons, blacksmiths, millers, coopers, spinners, and weavers—were also employed as part of plantation labor forces.

Enslaved Africans also worked in urban areas. Upward of ten percent of the enslaved African population in the United States lived in cities. Charleston, Richmond, Savannah, Mobile, New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans all had sizable slave populations. In the southern cities they totaled approximately a third of the population.

The range of slave occupations in cities was vast. Domestic servants dominated, but there were carpenters, fishermen, coopers, draymen, sailors, masons, bricklayers, blacksmiths, bakers, tailors, peddlers, painters, and porters. Although most worked directly for their owners, others were hired out to work as skilled laborers on plantations, on public works projects, and in industrial enterprises. A small percentage hired themselves out and paid their owners a percentage of their earnings.

Each plantation economy was part of a larger national and international political economy. The cotton plantation economy, for instance, is generally seen as part of the regional economy of the American South. By the 1830s, "cotton was king" indeed in the South. It was also king in the United States, which was competing for economic leadership in the global political economy. Plantation-grown cotton was the foundation of the antebellum southern economy.

But the American financial and shipping industries were also dependent on slave-produced cotton. So was the British textile industry. Cotton was not shipped directly to Europe from the South. Rather, it was shipped to New York and then transshipped to England and other centers of cotton manufacturing in the United States and Europe.

As the cotton plantation economy expanded throughout the southern region, banks and financial houses in New York supplied the loan capital and/or investment capital to purchase land and slaves.

Recruited as an inexpensive source of labor, enslaved Africans in the United States also became important economic and political capital in the American political economy. Enslaved Africans were legally a form of property—a commodity. Individually and collectively, they were frequently used as collateral in all kinds of business transactions. They were also traded for other kinds of goods and services.

Today the same type of people who practiced slavery want a guest worker program and illegal immigrants. However when they have to pay them minimum wage their support vanishes:

For example, the Florida sugar cane industry began importing Caribbean workers to hand cut cane in 1943 and maintained that cane harvesting could not be mechanized because unique muck soils would bog down machines. But after a lawsuit was filed in the early 1990s alleging that workers guaranteed $5.30 an hour and required to cut one ton of cane per hour should be paid $5.30 a ton, rather than the $3.70 a ton they were paid, cane companies mechanized the harvest within three years.

Politicians like President Bush, Senator John McCain, Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator Lindsay Graham want to continue using poor people from other countries as slaves, wanting to continue the treatment of them as second class citizens. Politicians and Businesses don't care about these human beings. People like Bush, McCain, Fred Thompson, Ted Kennedy should help these people instead of legalizing their exploitation.

This is pathetic:

Affidavits allege that Insolia preferred to hire illegal immigrants because they were desperate for jobs and willing to put up with atrocious working conditions. He even helped them secure forged identity papers, referring them to vendors who would produce the documents for about $120. As for the working conditions, workers were routinely denied overtime pay, docked 15 minutes for every minute late and fined for talking on the job or spending more than two minutes in the plant's "squalid" rest rooms. Sure, but at least the vests and backpacks were made in America!

I would be ashamed if I was one of the Americans eagar to continue this horrid abuse like Bush, McCain and Ted Kennedy.

President Bush Calls Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill Amnesty

Did President George W. Bush have a freudian slip or was it a simple mistake?

He said:

"You know, I've heard all the rhetoric -- you've heard it, too -- about how this is amnesty. Amnesty means that you've got to pay a price for having been here illegally, and this bill does that."

The Whitehouse is working hard to refute critics of the bill. Bush's slip of the tongue isn't doing him or his fellow ideologues any favors.

Bush Administration and Giuliani Accused of Misleading New Yorkers, Concerning the Health Risk of Being Exposed to the Debris of the Twin Towers

New Yorkers exposed to the debris of the Twin Towers have developed respiratory ailments/lung damage from the dust and may develop cancer from the toxins released. The Bush Administration and Giuliani are implicated in lying to New Yorkers about the Air Quality:

The American College of Preventive Medicine, meanwhile, has expressed fears that deadly, malignant mesothelioma could develop in those exposed. Scores of rescue workers - 40 per cent of whom have no medical insurance - have already developed rare blood-cell cancers and thousands of firefighters have been treated for serious respiratory problems.

"The 9/11 health crisis is an emergency on a national scale, and it requires a federal response," says Carolyn Maloney, Democratic congresswoman from New York, who adds that citizens from all 50 states in the Union as well as foreigners are affected.

The scandal is that the Bush administration knew almost immediately of the dangers of the toxic New York air, but lied. The public could breathe free, secure in the knowledge that "it is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances", according to Christine Todd Whitman, the former New Jersey governor appointed by Bush to lead the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in January 2001. Speaking seven days after the attacks, she said: "I am glad to reassure the people of New York . . . that their air is safe to breathe." The then mayor, Rudy Giuliani, chimed in to say that air quality was "safe and acceptable". Both Whitman and Giuliani, subsequent investigations suggest, were under pressure from the White House to provide these reassurances in order to keep Wall Street operating.

In the words of O'Clery, "we were systematically misled". Dr Cate Jenkins, a senior EPA scientist who has kept her job despite accusing Whitman and others of lying, says the EPA knew all along that the air hundreds of thousands were breathing was potentially as "caustic and corrosive as Drano", the best-known American drain declogger.

Dr Marjorie Clarke - an environmental scientist at the City University of New York - like-wise contradicted the Bush administration when she warned a Senate committee that, far from it being the case that the air in New York was safe to breathe, the attacks had "produced uncontrolled emissions equivalent to dozens of asbestos factories, incinerators and crematoria, as well as a volcano". These "created an unpre cedented quantity and combination of dozens of toxic and carcinogenic substances" and were "dispersed over a large area for several months", including parts of New Jersey. "US Geological Survey aerial maps in late September 2001," she found, "show asbestos contamination in Manhattan miles from the WTC."

Christine Whitman, the former EPA Chief was questioned by Congress. Whitman tried to deflect attacks, claiming the terrorist should be blamed and not the Government, but Democrat Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York pointed out that she was a liar.

Most US Presidential Hopefuls Lack Military Experience

Only Duncan Hunter and John McCain have combat experience. Jim Gilmore served in West Germany, Ron Paul was a flight surgeon, Chris Dodds and Tommy Thompson were in Army Reserve. Unless we elect someone like Ron Paul we may very well have another incompetent fool in the White House, trying to police the world unless Pro-war Conservatives start supporting Duncan Hunter or find one of those Four Star Generals who rejected Bush's overtures to be his War Czar. Do we really need more posturing with no substance?

Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO Commander-in-Chief, and U.S. Atlantic Command. A highly decorated warrior:

His decorations and medals include: the Defense Distinguished Service Medal; Silver Star Medal; Defense Superior Service Medal; Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V” and gold star in lieu of a second award; Purple Heart with gold star; the Defense Meritorious Service Medal; Meritorious Service Medal; Army Commendation Medal; Navy Achievement Medal; Combat Action Ribbon; Presidential Unit Citation; Navy Unit Commendation; National Defense Service Medal with one bronze star; Vietnam Service Medal; Southwest Asia Service Medal with two bronze stars; Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with silver star; and the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces Honor (First Class).

He said, "[t]he very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going, so rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' ", believing Cheney and the Neocons are more powerful in the White House than pragmatist trying to find a way out of Iraq.

It is telling when someone as decorated and knowledgeable as Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan rejects a position offered by the President of the United States because there is a lack of intelligent thought in the Executive Branch. We need someone like him as President if we are to continue our present foreign policy.

Vice President Richard Cheney's Take on Presidential Authority.

Richard Cheney believes that it is the Presidents prerogative to decide how war is conducted without any restraints from National Laws or Treaties such as the Geneva convention. Human Rights groups took Cheney to task when he said in an interview that "a dunk in the water" for terrorism suspects during questioning in order to save American lives was a "no-brainer". President Bush and Cheney defended themselves saying that the US doesn't commit torture and that he wasn't advocating torture.

George W. Bush and Richard Cheney subscribe to the Unitary Executive Theory. They have been able to expand the Executive Branch's power, virtually ending the Posse Comitatus Act, so the President can control and use the United States Military against Americans in the United States as he or she sees fit. Governors are fighting back hard to regain the exclusive power of controlling the National Guard in their home states.

Free Speech Zones

WorldNetDaily reports that Atlanta Officials have decided that people of opposing viewpoints may not participate in the Atlanta Pride Festival. This is ridiculous because you must allow for speech you don't like so you can have speech that you do agree with. This disrespect for freedom is shown at the highest levels of government.

The American Conservative points out that Bush throws out dissidents during his appearances even for something as small as holding a sign up critical of him:

When Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up “free speech zones” or “protest zones” where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event.

When Bush came to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, “The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us.” The local police, at the Secret Service’s behest, set up a “designated free-speech zone” on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush’s speech. The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, though folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president’s path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign. Neel later commented, “As far as I’m concerned, the whole country is a free speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind.”

At Neel’s trial, police detective John Ianachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine “people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views” in a so-called free speech area. Paul Wolf, one of the top officials in the Allegheny County Police Department, told Salon that the Secret Service “come in and do a site survey, and say, ‘Here’s a place where the people can be, and we’d like to have any protesters put in a place that is able to be secured.’” Pennsylvania district judge Shirley Rowe Trkula threw out the disorderly conduct charge against Neel, declaring, “I believe this is America. Whatever happened to ‘I don’t agree with you, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it’?”

What kind of a country has the United States become where an elected servant can have someone arrested for using their freedom of speech or a city can ban peaceful protest if they don't agree with the stance of the protesters?