Why and When the Use of Drones is Unconstitutional

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Why 'instant justice' via drones is an evil, pernicious, insidious, undemocratic outrage to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, specifically the Fourth Amendment:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

--U.S. Constitution, Fourth Amendment

On its a face, the use of a drone means that the people are NOT '...secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects' should some asshole in government merely DEEM you to be a threat in any way whatsoever! If the use of domestic drones should result in but one civilian death, the people are then justified to OVERTHROW, by any means, the government in D.C.. and replace it!

Death by anything other than the judgement of a jury having heard a case brought upon probable cause is MURDER --pure and simple. The people must NOT stand for it!

A final observation: under U.S. leadership and prosecution, the Nuremberg Trial of NAZIS resulted in the hanging death of several Nazis. Some died for less egregious crimes than that of ORDERING an anonymous drone hit on citizens!

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The Time has Come to Indict and Try George W. Bush/U.S War Criminals

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It has been said that George W. Bush is immune from prosecution for war crimes. I do not believe that that is the case. Treaties to which the U.S. is signatory and obliged say otherwise. I know of no act of Congress rescinding U.S. obligations to the Principles of Nuremberg.

Congressional Repeal of Treaties.—It is in respect to his contention that, when it is asked to carry a treaty into effect, Congress has the constitutional right, and indeed the duty, to determine the matter according to its own ideas of what is expedient, that Madison has been most completely vindicated by developments. This is seen in the answer which the Court has returned to the question: What happens when a treaty provision and an act of Congress conflict? The answer is, that neither has any intrinsic superiority over the other and that therefore the one of later date will prevail leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant. In short, the treaty commitments of the United States do not diminish Congress’ constitutional powers. To be sure, legislative repeal of a treaty as law of the land may amount to a violation of it as an international contract in the judgment of the other party to it. In such case, as the Court has said: “Its infraction becomes the subject of international negotiations and reclamations, so far as the injured party chooses to seek redress, which may in the end be enforced by actual war. It is obvious that with all this the judicial courts have nothing to do and can give no redress.”

Cornell University Law School, ANNOTATED CONSTITUTION, Article II, 303

In fact, the United State is credited with supporting, perhaps insisting upon the adoption of the Nuremberg Pinciples. The U.S. is obliged to Nuremberg and no clause exempts U.S. politicians of any office from prosecution should he/she violate those principles.

Nazi war criminals --likewise --thought they were 'immune' and said as much at Nuremberg where the principles were conceived and applied. High ranking Nazi war criminals were tried, sentenced and hanged.

That is the lesson of Nuremberg. Hitler himself would have been tried, found guilty and hanged had he not cheated the hang man. Immunity for Bush? If a real international tribunal were HONEST it could seek out bush, arrest him and try him.

"Principle III

The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law. http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/full/390"

Principle I. Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

Principle II. The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

Principle III. The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

Principle IV. The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Principle V. Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.

Principle VI. The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:
      (i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in        violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
      (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

(b) War Crimes:

Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave-labour or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.

(c) Crimes against humanity:

Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.

Principle VII. Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.

In addition, these principles have been spelled out over the years. For instance, since the rather “archaic” Nürnberg rules on participation in criminal conduct (Gerhard Werle, Individual Criminal Responsibility in Article 25 ICC Statute, Journal of International Criminal Justice, vol. 5, 2007, p. 953), the principles on the various modes of international criminal liability have been considerably developed. The definitions of the crimes have also evolved since Nuremberg. For instance, crimes against humanity now explicitly include the element of a “widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population” (art. 7 ICC Statute). The ICC Statute also contains four new categories of punishable acts as crimes against humanity: torture (art. 7(1) (f)), sexual crimes (art. 7(1) (g), enforced disappearance of persons (art. 7(1) (i)) and the crime of apartheid (art. 7(1) (j)).

Finally, in 1948, the General Assembly approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which confirmed that genocide is a crime under international law. Genocide was also provided for in the statutes of the ICTY, ICTR and ICC (arts. 4 ICTY Statute, 2 ICTR Statute, and 6 ICC Statute). In light of the adoption of so many treaty or quasi-treaty provisions prohibiting and punishing genocide, and of the case law on the matter, it can now safely be held that genocide is a crime proscribed by customary international law.

--Affirmation of the Principles of International Law recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribuanal, General Assembly Resolution 95, New York, 11 December 1946

Interestingly, the three arguments for 'conservativism' ---tradition, religion, man's depravity --are all of an authoritarian nature. All result in decrees issued from on high --a throne, a board room, a war room. Take your pick. Depravity may exist but is most often found in the eye of the beholder. Religion is 'holy' for those already committed to it either by upbringing or social pressure. The 'war room' results from all of the above. Wars against the 'infidel' remain the norm. Bush, for example, demonized 'Islam' and apparently got away with it because fundamentalist Christians are as intolerant of Islam as fundamentalist Islam is intolerant of those who love Jesus.

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Gen. Smedley Butler: 'War is a Racket'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

This is a well-known classic but cannot be repeated or posted often enough as millions still seem not have to 'gotten' the message: WAR IS A RACKET!

The author --Gen. Smedly Butler --should know. This is essential reading as was Former President Dwight Eisenhower's famous farewell warning of the growing power of the Military-Industrial Complex.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the many.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long.

I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

--Gen. Smedley Butler, War is a Racket

General Butler was eminently qualified to write and speak as he did. He was the most decorated U.S. Marine in history '... and very nearly became Commandant of the Marine Corps.' By the time of his retirement, he had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He received the Brevet Medal and TWO Medals of Honor (April 22, 1914 – Mexican Campaign in Veracruz Mexico; and November 17, 1915 – Haiti Campaign), all for separate actions.

Smedley Butler: War is a Racket

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911: High Treason and Conspiracy to Commit Mass Murder

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Only the guilty or accomplices are sufficiently motivated to cover up a crime. 911 was a crime. The entity bearing most if not all of the responsibility for the cover up of this crime of mass murder and high treason is the U.S. Government itself with help from Citizen 'Lucky' Larry Silverstein.

If the government participated in any way with either the planning, the crime or the cover-up of this crime against a sovereign people, then the government is no longer legitimate and those ordering these crimes against the people are subject to the penalty of death. This government, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson and our founders at the Constitutional Convention must be replaced.

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 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, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
--Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

Round Up the Usual Suspects

The 'usual suspects' are those having method, motive and opportunity. Those ordering the cover-up top the list of suspects, at the top: George W. Bush who most certainly gave Dick Cheney the green light, the wink, the nod, the back slaps on behalf of Dick Cheney's co-conspirators who must, as beneficiaries of this heinous crime, bear their fair share of the responsibility.

• Bush is personally responsible for his order to destroy physical evidence of mass murder and/or high treason destroyed. Bush's orders are crimes in themselves and evidence of his complicity in the very crimes that they were intended to cover up.
• Bush opposed the creation of the 911 Commission and worked to subvert it when it was created.
• Bush warned against 'outrageous conspiracy theories' when, in fact, it was his administration that offered up the most outrageous conspiracy theory of them all: a ludicrous story that reads like a re-write of Ala Baba and his 40 thieves.
• It is the pernicious legacy of 911 that it was exploited by Bush, the GOP, the U.S. right wing to silence dissent, to silence America.

By their actions, verifiable in the public record, the entire administration of Bush/Cheney should be immediately charged with acts of obstruction of justice. Bush himself tried to protect himself and his co-conspirators, denouncing 'conspiracy theorists' as he attributed 911 to a conspiracy of Middle Eastern terrorists. It was Bush who actively participated in one and benefited from it.

The Bush attack on Iraq was --on its face --a war of naked aggression in violation of US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441. Bush should be required to prove his baseless assertion that Iraq posed an imminent threat, an impossible task in light of:

• the 'dodgy dossier'
• UN reports denying that WMD existed
• US failure to find the alleged WMD
• Dick Cheney's pre-war plans to carve the oil fields of Iraq among oil industry partners et al.

PNAC 'plans' confirming the conspiratorial nature of Bush/Cheney designs on the oil fields of the Middle East include the infamous PNAC document, a product of the NEOCON Project for a New American Century. It outlines the NEOCON agenda:

• Attack Iraq upon a 'caltalyzing event'
• Seize the oil fields of the middle east.

Smoking gun: Bush's NAME on the order to attack, invade Iraq is a rather open and shut case.

911?

Johnny Cochran said: "If it does not fit, you must acquit!" Likewise, if there is no wreckage, the Bush cover story falls apart. Similarly, if there is no wreckage traceable to a 757, then you must discard the Bush official conspiracy theory. The house of cards has already collapsed.

If a 757 had crashed the Pentagon, the wings would have been found on the Pentagon lawn. They were never found!

If a 757 had crashed the Pentagon, two huge titanium/steel alloy engine rotors, each about 12-15 ft in diameter, would have been recovered; they were, after all, designed to withstand the intense heat inside jet engines. Those rotors were never found. Don't let anyone tell you that they 'vaporized'!

If a 757 had crashed the Pentagon, wreckage totaling about 60 to 80 tons would have been recovered, and, as was the case at Lockerbie and every other airliner crash, re-assembled as a part of a real investigation. Matter does not disappear, vanish, or pop through wormholes at speeds less than that of light. It's an elementary principle: the conservation of matter and energy. Nevertheless, upon orders from George W. Bush no such investigation was ever undertaken.
Only one engine compressor rotor was found. It is about one third the size of each of two rotors that would have been found had a 757 crashed the Pentagon. High rez photos of this single rotor are available on the internet.

It is, however, just about the right size to have been left behind by a U.S. Global Hawk, a payload carrying missile that was, in fact, flown from the west coast to Australia (where it was landed) all completely by remote control. I urge the Rolls-Royce company to come forward; identify this wreckage from the high rez photos which survived. Bushco, of course, ordered the real thing destroyed or disposed up along with everything else that was recovered on the Pentagon lawn. [The U.S. Global Hawk above, painted or 'shopped', to look enough like an AA airliner to have crashed the Pentagon. It has one rotor. Only one rotor was found!]

Where Were the 'Dead' Hijackers?

That no one knows is a big and fatal hole in the 'official conspiracy theory' of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and fellow conspirators Larry Silverstein, Condo Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and schlemiels throughout the so-called "Jewish Lobby" on K-street!

Craig [Bonesman Greg Craig] concealed the financial funding for 9/11 that was tied to the Deutsche Bank and an Israeli Mossad company on German soil named International Consultants on Targeted Security, which is tied directly to an East German DVD cargo company named Seehafen Rostock, which is owned by none other than 9/11 co-conspirator, Israeli Mossad asset Larry Silverstein who had an AIG insurance policy on the World Trade Center twin towers on the day of 9/11 itself.
-- Skull and Bonesman Greg Craig Indicted

If Arab hijackers were known by name and additionally 'known' to have been on board Flt 77, it is reasonable to conclude, therefore, that they were autopsied as were other victims. But where were their bodies? Where are their names on the only official, admissible document relating to the crash of Flt 77: the official autopsy report? There are --in fact --no Arab names whatsoever on the only official list of victims, the official autopsy report that was released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request.

Let's consider a few of these anomalies that render the official theory not only impossible but ludicrous. The belief in it should embarrass anyone claiming to be a skeptic, humiliate any 'scientist' failing to point out the astronomically improbable succession of miracles that are required for such a thing to happen. Are you reading this Michael Shermer? What was that about skepticism?

To believe Bushco's 'not ready for Vegas' routine:

1. You must believe that a 757 crashed into the Pentagon and disappeared without a trace, a violation of the laws of physics, specifically, the conservation of matter and energy.
2. You must believe that soft aluminum can penetrate hard steel despite the fact that if that were so Wenger would make the blades of its Swiss Army knives of Aluminum. They don't!
3. You must believe that for some weird and un-recorded reason airlines decided to press into service flights that had not/were not scheduled to fly (mothballed) for some six months.
4. You must believe that Arab hijackers were either 'raptured' or jumped out of Flt 77; there are absolutely no Arab names on the official autopsy report, no hard or admissible evidence that they ever existed.
5. You must believe the aluminum body of a 757 vaporized as no scrap traceable to an airliner of any sort was ever found at the Pentagon.
6. You must believe that Hani Hanjour got on board without a ticket and without creating any kind of suspicion prior to his boarding. Perhaps he made himself invisible!
7. You must believe that Hani Hanjour, like David Copperfield, walked through a closed door! NTSB data released via an FOIA proves that the cabin door was never opened during the flight. How did Hani get in? For that matter --how did he get on board? There is, in fact, no evidence whatsoever that he did! Nor is his name or the names of any other 'terrorist/Arab' to be found on the only official list of passengers --the OFFICIAL autopsy report.
8. You must believe that Flt 77 managed to manifest itself in two places at the same instant: NTSB puts Flt 77 at some 200 ft above the Pentagon at the time of impact.
9. You must believe that because no fuselage traceable to a 757 was ever found at the Pentagon, it must have 'vaporized' in the heat.
10. You must believe that the source of that heat was greater than that on the surface of the sun itself --some 10000 degrees F. Al will not vaporize at temperatures less than 11000 degrees F!

And while believing that the fuselage vaporized, you must also believe that victims were DNA identified. But --how is that possible? DNA literally melts at varying temps between about 400 to 500 degrees F.

So --which is it? Were they DNA ID'd? Or did the Aluminum fuselage vaporize?

Which is it?

It cannot be both ways! In fact, it is neither! This merely proves how utterly ludicrous is this theory and more so because seemingly 'intelligent' people have succumbed to this utter crap!

Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes said:

"When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!"

You can eliminate the 'official conspiracy theory of 911' as being utterly impossible. That it is also ludicrous and insulting to intelligent people merely belabors the point.
Silverstein had Method, Motive and Opportunity.

Of itself, this aspect of the story is worthy of several books. The curtain rises upon a despondent, ugly gnomish schlemiel named 'Lucky' Larry Silverstein who is, interestingly, on record, video tape to be precise, saying in fact that WTC 7, his property, was 'pulled'. 'Pulled' means 'controlled demolition'. Controlled demolition means that the building so 'pulled' was prepped carefully in advance. In advance of what? A pretext! A cover! Lucky Larry was not just lucky. No one rolls the dice on a bet of several billion bucks. Lucky Larry was not lucky, just crooked!
When someone like Lucky Larry buys a nearly worthless building --at any price --you have good reason to question his motives and his plans. We are not talking about a weekend 'fixer upper' to be flipped within a week or a month. No --the World Trade center buildings were huge, expensive, asbestos-ridden white elephants. It would have cost several fortunes to demolish them. But Lucky Larry got an offer he could not refuse, in fact, a Faustian bargain! Oy vay! Such a deal, already!!

Within a mere six weeks of his purchase, Larry doubles his insurance policy. Just six weeks later, Lucky Larry sees his property destroyed in an act of precise timing not witnessed since Moses (or was it God) parted the Red Sea. Within six weeks, Lucky Larry sees his property, his white elephant, his money pit, utterly destroyed. So far, Lucky Larry is on a roll and has gotten away with it.

Silverstein's 911 insurance payoff is estimated at some 17-billion-dollars. Let me repeat that: that's BILLION dollars! But IF 911 had NOT occurred, Silverstein would most certainly have lost his schlemiely ass. The May 2001 issue of Business Ins. mag reports that critical money hemorrhaging at the white elephants of the WTC plagued by low vacancy rates and the utter lack of modern communications. Larry's decision to take out a 99-year-lease on WTC makes absolutely no sense unless he knew something that few others knew. Indeed, Lucky Larry took over the rest of the World Trade Center on July 24th, 2001--a mere 6 weeks before 911.

The previous owner was the New York Port Authority which had carried a grand total of 1.5 billion dollars of insurance for all of the buildings. Lucky Larry, upside down at the the time, demanded, got, 3.5 billion worth of insurance, payable in cash if the WTC were to be destroyed. It was destroyed and Larry was seen smiling on 911.

I am naming names. There is probable cause to arrest and charge Lucky Larry right now! Many another less well-connected crook has been indicted upon much less 'probable cause' in other cases. But --as we have learned --911 is a special case which suspended habeas corpus, the burden of proof, the rule of law, indeed, the Constitution itself!

Lucky Larry just happened to have been a very close personal friend of Benyamin Netanyahu, a radical zionist credited with having invented the "war on terror" back in 1979. Netanyahu is on record celebrating the 911 attacks! This man is a friend??

1. Some facts about 911: NO STEEL BUILDING has ever collapsed due to fire
2. NO steel building has ever 'just weakened' to the point of collapse.
3. the presence of nano-thermite has been confirmed and peer-reviewed by some 20 or so physicists
4. Physicists have like-wise confirmed that 'steel' was --in fact --turned to dust at WTC on 911.

Turning steel to dust requires serious planning and demolition. Kerosene fires were spent very rapidly. Kerosene cannot account for the reduction of industrial steel to dust! That so many have bought this lie is an indictment of the American educational system at all levels.

I am not an 'anomaly theorist'. The word anomaly, often used by Bush partisans and official theorists, does not prove or support Bush's official conspiracy theory of 19 hijackers. Anomaly is a cop out! There is no record, no proof, no evidence that any alleged hijacker ever got on any flight on 911. Chalking it all up to 'anomaly' is a cop out that neither explains nor proves anything.

The Washington Post said that Hani Hanjour did not have a ticket. Then how did he get on baord Flt 77? For that matter, how did he get off? There is no wreckage traceable to ANY 757 at the pentagon. NONE. Nor are there any Arab names on the official autopsy report! Explain that! Are Arabs magicians or something? Are we expected to believe that Muslims were raptured by a Christian 'God'?

About New York --WTC 7 was not struck by airliners; yet its collapse was reported by the BBC before it occurred. But why did it collapse? It was prepared well in advance as any CD expert will tell you is required. Who else but Silverstein could have taken out the insurance policy on this property?

We need to hear the whole story about what happened on 9/11/01. But no one is going to give it to us. This is my story, which is at least plausible and probably quite more than that. I am sure it is not perfect and would welcome new, more relevant facts or corrections. Here are the kinds of people necessary to carry out the plot that I have just described:

Plotters

Obviously, 9/11 was the result of much planning. No one, not even those who support the official theory, disputes that this event was the result of a conspiracy. And those who conspire are criminals. We need to find those who fit the typical definition of a criminal suspect, those who had the means, the motive and the opportunity to commit the crime: Means ± They had to have the ability to jam or confuse air defense, schedule simulations,directly influence or control mass media, control public opinion and federal courts over a close election (2000) to ensure George W. Bushs installation as president, place explosives and/or usenew technology to demolish WTC buildings.

Motive

They had to belong or sympathize with groups like PNAC, the Project for the New American Century (which wanted a ³New Pearl Harbor´ to give the government latitude to start perpetual wars), declare our enemy (Osama bin Laden, Muslims, Arabs, etc.), unite the nation behind the radical neo-con/PNAC strategy, and put the public in emergency mode where they are susceptible to drastic measures like Patriot Act. Opportunity ± They needed to take advantage of one day when the plan came together without warning to everyone but them. Who has all three of these factors? ± One person has all three factors without a doubt and should be the leading suspect: then-Vice President Dick Cheney. He also had access to help from several groups of people, such as neo-conservatives and Mossad agents, who had access to airports and airplanes used in the plot. So, what was their plan? Obviously, we cannot go inside their minds as they prepared the plot, but we can look back at what happened and surmise their intentions.

The Plan The plotters used a handful of intelligence agents to board or pretend to board specific flights and who secretly went to operation center to fake cell phone calls to family and friends of the fake passengers. They made sure enough people were killed at the World Trade Center and Pentagon by explosives and/or other devices to scare the public into accepting ³retaliation´ on new enemies like Afghanistan (whom the Bush Administration had already secretly planned to invade). They covered up evidence that contradicts official story, for example by feeding information to the mass media about specific planes, passengers, etc. They may have used mock funerals (based on the Operation Northwoods plan) to convince the public of plane passenger deaths.

Dean Hartwell, Misdirection: The Real Terrorists Copyright 2010

Also see: Dean T. Hartwell: Misdirection: Following the Plot, Execution and Cover-up of 9/11 Crimes

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How the War Depresses the U.S. Economy

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The cost of Bush's war on Iraq, left to Obama to 'finish' and clean up, passed the one trillion dollar mark some time ago but has yet to support or prove the old lie that 'wars are good for the economy'. Where is the evidence that the $Trillion$ spent murdering and torturing people in a nation that was, in fact, no threat to the United States, has created a single job on the home front? In fact, those $Trillion$ blown up in Iraq are lost forever --not having created a single new job.

Instead, manpower that might have been employed in productive industries was diverted to destructive and false causes. Instead of creating futures, we will be lucky to escape a tragic end!

The fact is, war is parasitic, destructive not of enemies but of the home front economy. Even if the U.S. should win militarily, the war is lost on the home front where it continues to be paid for by the subversive and depressive effect it has had upon productive industries and activities that provide real jobs, viable opportunities, exports!

War is not only a 'racket', as Gen. Smedley Butler so famously declared, it is a parasite!

What is often overlooked is the military example Bastiat uses in the essay. He discusses the demobilization of one hundred thousand soldiers from the French army – a prospect many entertain with dread, for what will these men do for a living? And what about the foregone stimulus to French businesses previously provided by the military’s expenditures on wine, clothes, and weapons for these men? Of course, such critics are focusing once again only on what is seen. They fail to consider that the money that had previously been confiscated from the taxpayers in order to support the soldiers will now be available for other purposes, including expenditures on goods that these demobilized soldiers can devote themselves to producing. Likewise, the money the military once spent on wine, clothes, and weapons can now be spent on other things, so here again economic activity is none the worse for the soldiers’ demobilization

--Thomas Woods, Jr., The Neglected Costs of the Warfare State

Only the Military/Industrial complex benefits from war; what is good for the MIC is NOT good for the country. The MIC is a drag on the economy, an economic black hole into which is drained the economic and creative resources of the nation. War itself is a Faustian bargain in which the soul of a nation is eagerly exchanged for short-term war booty, in this case, oil! When the U.S. itself produced oil, jobs were created in the 'drilling industry'. Stealing the oil resources of a foreign nation which had nothing whatsoever to do with 911 has surely created a net deficit of jobs as the final figures, I am sure, will prove.

The war of aggression against the people of Iraq by an imperial nation will be shown to have been the primary cause of the recent economic crises, all which are related to the more fundamental fact that the U.S. is no longer a productive nation. The proof of that may be found at the CIA's 'World Fact Book' which lists the U.S. at the bottom of a list with the world's largest negative 'Current Account Balance'; China tops the list with the world's largest positive 'Current Account Balance'. If the U.S. were still productive and exporting the products of its labor, it would at least be nearer the top! But the U.S. is on the very rock bottom, a position resulting directly from the incompetence of GOP regimes: Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush!

As Gore Vidal maintained in his 'Decline and Fall of the American Empire', the economic benefits of building a tank are temporary. Once built, the tank is a drag, requiring more to upkeep than war booty can justify. In the meantime, monies used to build the tank are lost to outcomes more productive at home and less destructive abroad, outcomes upon which a viable economy absolutely depends. In the end, only the military contractors building the tank or maintaining it have benefited but they will have done so at taxpayer expense. In the end, the building of a tank and the other weapons of war will have returned absolutely nothing for the investment. The taxpayer will have underwritten a war crime with their taxes. On a larger scale, the Pentagon itself is an economic black hole, having sucked the life blood from the US economy.

The idea that wars and military spending increases are good for the economy is sold and promoted. In fact, new studies now confirm what I have always believed and what Gore Vidal had stated in his classic: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has blamed the Iraq war for sending the United States into a recession. On Wednesday, he told a London think tank that the war caused the credit crunch and the housing crisis that are propelling the current economic downturn. Testifying before the Senate's Joint Economic Committee the following day, he said our involvement in Iraq has long been "weakening the American economy" and "a day of reckoning" has finally arrived.

--Is the Economy a Casualty of War?

Now --war critics have the economic data and models proving that military spending 'diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment.' This thesis is likewise confirmed in a paper by Thomas E. Woods at: http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/woods2.pdf

Sadly, few progressives have had the courage to state the obvious: the war against Iraq is 'instant Karma', its own revenge upon the deterioration of American values and its converse: the rise of imperial arrogance and the resulting fascist state! While still in office, Bush stated that "spending on the war might help with jobs"! Consider the psychopathic arrogance betrayed in that one statement alone! Bush said, in effect, that it is OK to murder people abroad if it provides jobs at home. It is OK to wage war upon civilians in order to juice up jobs on the home front. Doubly tragic, it failed even that. Chalk up yet another cold-blooded lie to Bush and his crime syndicate --the GOP!

When the stats are all in, Bush Jr will rank with his father and Ronald Reagan among the very worst U.S Presidents in terms of job growth/creation, worst among all U.S. Presidents in terms of GDP growth! Claims that the 'recession' was due to a 'housing bubble' are hollow, disingenuous, or, at best, naive! In the meantime, the GOP will willingly bomb hell out of a sovereign nation which it knew had no WMD in order to get the jobless off the streets of shell cities like Detroit and into the front lines in Iraq. Ancient Rome could not have been or done worse and didn't!

The heights of absurdity issued from the mouths of those who should know better, specifically, Desmond Lachman, economist and resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. He said that simply removing the billions of dollars a year in Iraq spending from the economy without replacing it could actually make the recession worse, because the spending drives demand and keeps people employed. "War spending helped the U.S. get out of the Great Depression," Lachman says. He misses at least two points while betraying a psychopathic lack of 'humanity'. Lachman, in effect, believes that Iraqi lives are worthless and that their deaths are but a means by which Americans may avoid an inconvenience or temporary hardship. Additionally --he is wrong about 'war' as an economic cure-all. For example, the U.S. did not begin a real or lasting recovery until about one year after World War II was over and therefore could not have contributed to the recovery. The other point missed is that those moneys 'blown up' in Iraq have now been lost forever to the U.S. economy. Result: contraction. The other word for contraction is 'depression'.

White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey was the exception to the rule, offering an "upper bound" estimate of $100 billion to $200 billion in a September 2002 interview with The Wall Street Journal. That figure raised eyebrows at the time, although Lindsey argued the cost was small, adding, "The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy.”

--Cost of Iraq war could surpass $1 trillion

The U.S. has been in a state of perpetual war since the so-called Spanish-American war made of this nation an empire. But it was, specifically, according to Gore Vidal in The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, the moment at which the US became a net debtor nation that the US empire ceased to be a viable nation. It is fair to ask: is America a 'failed state'?

Americans are led to believe that the US can simply 'war' its way out of economic disaster. In fact, the US fights wars with monies it doesn't have in the expectation of booty it may never realize, booty that, in any case, has never benefited the economy. The Iraq war may, indeed, finish us off.

Washington, DC: The Center for Economic and Policy Research released a report today estimating the economic impact of increased US military spending comparable to the spending on the Iraq war. The report, presenting the results of a simulation from the economic forecasting company Global Insight, shows the increased level of military spending leads to fewer jobs and slower economic growth.

For the report, The Economic Impact of the Iraq War and Higher Military Spending, by economist Dean Baker, CEPR commissioned Global Insight to run a simulation with its macmacroeconomic del. Global Insight's model was selected for this analysis because it is a commonly used and widely respected model. It estimated the impact of an increase in annual US military spending equal to 1 percent of GDP (approximately equal to the military spending increase compared with pre-September 11th baseline).

The projections show the following:

-- After an initial demand stimulus, the effect of increased military spending turns negative around the sixth year. After 10 years of higher defense spending, there would be 464,000 fewer jobs than in the baseline scenario with lower defense spending.

-- Inflation and interest rates are considerably higher. After 5 years, the interest rate on 10-Year Treasury notes is projected to be 0.7 percentage points higher than in the baseline scenario. After 10 years, the gap would rise to 0.9 percentage points.

-- Higher interest rates lead to reduced demand in the interest-sensitive sectors of the economy. After 5 years, annual car and truck sales are projected to go down by 192,200 in the high military spending scenario. After 10 years, the drop is projected to be 323,300 and after 20 years annual sales are projected to be down 731,400.

-- Construction and manufacturing are the sectors that are projected to experience the largest shares of the job loss.

"It is often believed that wars and military spending increases are good for the economy," said Baker. "In fact, most economic models show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment."

The report recommends that Congress request the Congressional Budget Office produce its own projections of the economic impact of a sustained increase in defense spending. If wars are disastrous for the economy, then why does government insist upon fighting them when clearly 'national security' is simply not at risk?

--Report Shows Increased US Military Spending Slows Economy

America's ruling elite have found nirvana --a war which need never end, a war in which victory is impossible to define and would not be recognized, a war in which victory is, in fact, impossible. A war which achieves precisely what it is intended to achieve: the enrichment of a tiny ruling elite for whom your rights mean absolutely nothing.

For big government we now have "The Perfect War," everywhere and nowhere, secret and interminable. The war will justify ever expanding police powers, higher taxes, and more controls over the citizenry. You can see easily how Washington thrives on war. Since Sept 11th, there have been no nasty challenges to government spending and waste, no tedious debates over things like social security "lockboxes," nor "political" attacks upon the Presidency. Congressmen and Think Tank experts get lots of TV time and most everyone jumps to obey government orders and support more regulations. Any groups opposed to American military interventions overseas appear unpatriotic and are marginalized, while press coverage of the war is restricted, using the last Gulf War as a model. Big Government, as Orwell wrote, thrives from unwinnable wars; it doesn't get any better than this.

--John Basil Utley, Alternative to Unending War, Ludwig von Mises Institute

War is no longer waged by nations but by huge multi-national corporations. They have hijacked the apparatus of state in order to wage war, and wage war in order to maintain elite status. It's a malevolent scheme in which a ruling elite of just one percent of the population benefits from the U.S. war crime against the people of Iraq. Simply, the big corporations --of late accorded rights that should, by right, belong only to real people --make their 'living' killing real people. Real people are now victimized by a souless machine with whom the U.S. Supreme Court is complicit, ergo: illegitimate! The 'Supremes' have anointed Moloch.

The most obvious beneficiaries of this new 'Moloch' are gun and armament manufacturers and the hired killers of Blackwater, Bush's Praetorian Guard.

A tyrant is a single ruler holding vast, if not absolute power through a state or in an organization. The term carries connotations of a harsh and cruel ruler who place their own interests or the interests of a small oligarchy over the best interests of the general population which they govern or control. This mode of rule is referred to as tyranny. Many individual rulers or government officials get accused of tyranny, with the label almost always a matter of controversy.

- Tyranny

One is reminded of John Maynard Keynes' prescription for full employment.

If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.

Certainly --there are more productive, meaningful and creative ways of keeping the genius and labor of good people employed for the greater good of our species and the precious earth we live on. Keynes was correct, however, when he proposes that just 'digging' up bank notes in a landfill is preferable to the destructive and insidious 'industry of war'!

---

Death to 'Corporate Comrade' Halliburton

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Halliburton, for whom George W. Bush hijacked the US military to wage war and perp capital crimes against the people of Iraq, may be and should be subject to severe penalties, perhaps death, as a result of the 'personhood' granted them recently by the US 'Supreme' Court. If Halliburton is a 'person', then Halliburton must be charged with multitudinous crimes, tried, found guilty and 'put to death' but not before it is literally 'fined' out of existence for the monetary damages it has inflicted upon the world environment.

The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.

The lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig last week.

The accident has led to one of the largest ever oil spills in U.S. water and the loss of 11 lives. On Wednesday federal investigators said the disaster is now releasing 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf, up from original estimates of 1,000 barrels a day.

U.S. regulators don't mandate use of the remote-control device on offshore rigs, and the Deepwater Horizon, hired by oil giant BP PLC, didn't have one. With the remote control, a crew can attempt to trigger an underwater valve that shuts down the well even if the oil rig itself is damaged or evacuated.

The efficacy of the devices is unclear. Major offshore oil-well blowouts are rare, and it remained unclear Wednesday evening whether acoustic switches have ever been put to the test in a real-world accident. When wells do surge out of control, the primary shut-off systems almost always work. Remote control systems such as the acoustic switch, which have been tested in simulations, are intended as a last resort.

--Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device

Let's clear up an important point at the outset. No corporation has an inherent 'right' to exist. Since their inception as 'Royal Charters', corporations have been and remain 'artificial creations' and, as such, have no rights whatsoever but the 'privileges' that are extended to them by the 'sovereign! In the U.S., the 'sovereign' is the 'people' collectively. SCOTUS is wrong. Corporations have no rights whatsoever!

I might not oppose 'corporate personhood' if corporations were held to the same laws as are 'real people'. But ---clearly ---they are not and never have been. No corporation committing murder has ever been put to death by electrocution, hanging or the current 'fashion': the lethal needle.

Either the law applies equally or it does not. If not then the resulting inequities are unjust and, by common law, render the inequitable laws moot! Ergo: if corporations are to be considered people, then, by law, they should be subject to the same penalties and sentences that are exacted of real people for the same crimes! Clearly --the Supreme Court had no such intention. Clearly --the Supreme Court had precisely the opposite outcome in mind. Clearly the high court ruled unjustly, not upon law but upon prejudices, their preference for the corporate position, corporate rule.

Moreover --the 'privileged' position presently enjoyed by corporations violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees 'Equal protection' under the law! In other words --no person (real or otherwise) is either exempted or singled-out. Justice applies equally or, by definition and the 14th amendment, it does not apply at all!
Halliburton's latest outrage lies just offshore in the Gulf of Mexico where due to indifference and/or incompetence, an oil spill threatens marine life throughout the gulf, the southern coast of the United States from Florida to Brownsville, TX, and the eastern coast of Mexico.

The leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico did not have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills, reports The Wall Street Journall.

The article, which is available today on the Journall's Web site, states that the lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig last week.

Some 5,000 barrels a day are now estimated to be leaking from the well, Coast Guard officials said Wednesday night. Officials had been saying for days that it was 1,000 barrels a day.

The resulting slick on the Gulf surface is expected to touch the southern tip of Louisiana as early as Friday afternoon. If it hits Mississippi, it will likely do so over the weekend.

--Leaking oil well lacked safeguard device, reports Wall Street Journal

As a 'corporate person' Halliburton should be tried for crimes that when 'real' people commit them are charged, tried and when found guilty locked up or, in cases of murder, executed!

The US 'adventure' in Iraq was inspired and urged by Dick Cheney whose 'Energy Task Force' met to 'carve up the oil fields of the middle east'. As this 'war of aggression' had nothing whatsoever to do with 911, the attack violates US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 which requires the death penalty.

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > §2441. War crimes (a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

The 'corporate person' Halliburton conspired to seize the oil fields of Iraq. The 'corporate person' Halliburton and Halliburton in the 'person' of Dick Cheney urged and/or advised the sitting President of the United States, George W. Bush, to order the attack and invasion; therefore: Halliburton must be charged with murder for each Iraqi death at the hands of any US soldier.

The 'corporate person' --Halliburton --resides in Texas where 'persons' convicted of murder are given the 'lethal needle'. For the many deaths resulting from Halliburton --now a person residing physically in Texas --I demand that the corporate person Halliburton be arrested, charged, tried and when found guilty of mass murder and war crimes in Iraq be given the 'lethal needle'.

That means the corporation cease and desist all corporate operations immediately upon being found guilty. That means that Halliburton cease to exist as a legal and/or business entity in any form whatsoever. It means that all contracts entered into are made null and void upon conviction except those Halliburton liabilities to be paid by the complete liquidation of all 'corporate' assets. It means that culpable, convicted decision makers be imprisoned on Texas death row until they can be executed for murder.Those those having guilty knowledge and benefiting most by the capital crimes committed by Halliburton are to be charged as co-conspirators or accessories and tried.

Now --about conspiracies. Don't even think about telling me that they do not exist. Secondly, if you don't think they exist, I suggest you visit Findlaw or the Cornell University Law Library online. You will find hundreds if not thousands of cases of 'conspiracy' case law. In fact, almost all crimes of any significance are conspiratorial. One person alone has difficulty robbing a convenience store. Who will drive the get-away car if not a co-conspirator? Conspiracies exist!

Dare we hope that the idiots on the high court outsmarted themselves? Dare we suppose that the right wing criminals in charge are fallen into their own trap? Dare we suspect that the gang of fascists, liars and criminals who have seized power in the United States have tripped themselves up?

Last year, Halliburton was implicated for its cementing work prior to a massive blowout off the coast of Australia, where a rig caught fire and spewed hundreds of thousands of gallons into the sea for ten weeks.

In that incident, workers apparently failed to properly pump cement into the well. That's according to Elmer Danenberger, former head of regulatory affairs for the US Minerals Management Service, who testified to an Australian commission probing that accident.

Giant oil-services provider Halliburton may be a primary suspect in the investigation into the oil rig explosion that has devastated the Gulf Coast, the Wall Street Journall reports.

Though the investigation into the explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon site is still in its early stages, drilling experts agree that blame probably lies with flaws in the "cementing" process -- that is, plugging holes in the pipeline seal by pumping cement into it from the rig. Halliburton was in charge of cementing for Deepwater Horizon.

"The initial likely cause of gas coming to the surface had something to do with the cement," said Robert MacKenzie, managing director of energy and natural resources at FBR Capital Markets and a former cementing engineer in the oil industry.

The problem could have been a faulty cement plug at the bottom of the well, he said. Another possibility would be that cement between the pipe and well walls didn't harden properly and allowed gas to pass through it.

The possibility of Halliburton's culpability was first reported Monday by HuffPost's Marcus Baram.

According to a lawsuit filed in federal court by Natalie Roshto, whose husband Shane, a deck floor hand, was thrown overboard by the force of the explosion and whose body has not yet been located, Halliburton is culpable for its actions prior to the incident.

--Halliburton May Be Culprit In Oil Rig Explosion

The war against the people of Iraq was fought for the benefit of Dick Cheney's Halliburton, the world's second largest oil field services corporation. Subsidiary KBR was given no bid contracts.

Do we all remember the Cheney Energy Task Force? That was at the beginning of the regime, when The Bush Grindhouse became an Energy Jamboree, so evil were the wheeling-and-dealing, so many hands were stained with the payola, that they went to court to suppress having any of the information of the meetings see the light of day

A few years later, we got a glimpse' Papers Detail Industry's Role in Cheney's Energy Report

In all, about 300 groups and individuals met with staff members of the energy task force, including a handful who saw Cheney himself, according to the list, which was compiled in the summer of 2001. For six years, those names have been a closely guarded secret, thanks to a fierce legal battle waged by the White House. Some names have leaked out over the years, but most have remained hidden because of a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that agreed that the administration's internal deliberations ought to be shielded from outside scrutiny.

--Cheney, Baby Cheney

Among many reasons to smash up the biggest corporations and deny them 'personhood' is this: urged by then V.P. Dick Cheney, Congress granted Halliburton a BIG LOOP HOLE excluding Halliburton from the Clean Water Drinking Act. This has placed Halliburton above the law. As a result, Halliburton may pollute the environment at will.

Yet, in 2005, at the urging of Vice President Dick Cheney, Congress created the so-called "Halliburton loophole" to the Clean Water Drinking Act (CWDA) to prevent the US Environmental Protection Agency from regulating this process, despite its demonstrated contamination of drinking water. (In 2001, Cheney's "energy task force" had touted the benefits of hydrofracking, while redacting references to human health hazards associated with hydrofracking; Halliburton, which was previously led by Cheney, reportedly earns $1.5 billion a year from its energy operations, which relies substantially on its hydrofracking business.)[4]

--Halliburton, Polluting the Environment, and the "Halliburton loophole"

As Congress placed Halliburton above the law, SCOTUS was busy turning mere legal abstractions into people, granting 'corporations, rights to include free speech. But should real persons pollute the waters --as Halliburton is licensed to do --the 'real person' would be arrested and prosecuted! 'Real persons' would be locked up! So --is Halliburton a real person or not? SCOTUS, and the co-conspirator Halliburton, want it both ways.

These exceptions have created and given official blessings to an unacceptable and utterly repugnant 'two-tiered' system of justice in which the business community may ravage the environment, cheat its customers, purchase the services of the government and the MIC for the purposes of looting foreign nations, seizing their natural resources, torturing their citizenry for daring to oppose our corporate aggressions! Revolutions have begun for much, much less. In a stroke, SCOTUS confirmed the fascist nature of the American 'state'.

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded last week was not outfitted with a safety device that might have prevented the massive oil spill now nearing the US Gulf Coast. The device, known as an acoustic switch, is a last-resort protection against underwater spills, and is required by regulators in Norway and Brazil. Unfortunately, the US has no such regulation for oil wells operating off of its shores.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, an acoustic switch is a remote control device that a crew can use in an attempt to trigger an underwater valve that shuts down a well that’s damaged. The switch is meant as a last resort, as the primary shut-off systems almost always work on wells when they are out of control. It can be triggered from a lifeboat if an oil platform has to be evacuated.

According to the Journal, U.S regulators did consider requiring the acoustic switch on offshore wells, but drilling companies resisted because of its cost, and questions about its effectiveness. To be fair, the switches have never been tested in real-world situations, only simulations. US regulators also maintain they are prone to causing unnecessary shutdowns.

Still, while US regulators and some oil producers have doubts about the acoustic switch, a spokesperson for Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority told the Journal the switches have a good track record in the North Sea. In addition to mandates in Norway and Brazil, some oil producers, including Royal Dutch Shell PLC and France’s Total SA, sometimes use the device even when it’s not required, the Journal said.

Industry critics cite the lack of the device as a sign US drilling policy has been too lax, and say it shows the oil industry has too much say in what regulations are adopted here.

A spokesperson for the US Minerals Management Service told the Journall that the agency ultimately decided against requiring acoustic switches because it determined most rigs already had back-up systems of some kind.

BP, which leases the Deepwater Horizon rig from TransOcean Ltd, has had no success using such back-up systems to stem the oil leaking from that well. As a result, the well is now spilling as much as 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill is moving closer to shore, and could hit the coast tomorrow. An environmental disaster of epic proportions may be in the offing.

--Could Additional Safety Device Have Prevented Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill?

This is utterly and without exception unacceptable in a 'free' society, a 'Democracy' as we were once told America was. Now --even the crassest liars seem embarrassed when they try to tell us that the United States is 'free', that it is a 'Democracy', that the government is subject, as are all of us, to the 'rule of law'! How utterly hollow those words seem now!

When a corporation commits a crime, nobody goes to jail. When wars come, they don’t fight, they simply rake in cash. When children are poisoned or workers are killed, they seldom even pay a fine. However, when they want something, billions in tax money for “bail outs” or fat contracts or special laws, they have always gotten it. It has been a battle to control corporations for 140 years. Sometimes the American people have lost, sometimes they have won. Our greatest presidents are the ones who reined in corporate power and kept the influence of money over humanity in check. Think of Theordore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy.

--Veterans's Today, Call for Immediate Arrest of 5 Supreme Court Justices

As Albert Speer said of Hitler's Third Reich, we must now say of the US government that it is built upon utterly 'meaningless platitudes'!

At the end of a revolution in which 'real people' require power to assert the 'sovereignty' that was stolen from them, it would be irresponsible of the provisional tribunal to let stand an idiotic decision of an incompetent, criminal 'supreme' court. At the end of a real revolution, the slate is wiped clean and no precedents written or influenced by Antonin Scalia, Roberts, Alito et al remain to pervert future generations.

There are no guarantees. Things will surely get worse, decisions more absurd, the economy more inequitable (if that's possible), futures even bleaker! That and more will happen before anything is or can be done. The entrenched power not only has all the money (or some 99.9999 percent of it) and all the guns. Kent State proved that --yes --civilians daring to exert their rightful power over 'their' government will be fired upon and killed. It is the price that the few have paid for the freedoms of the many.

---

---

U.S. Atrocities: Collateral Murder

The following is excerpted verbatim from Wikileaks. It is an account of the murder of civilians by the U.S. military which has absolutely NO legitimate business in Iraq in the first place! Out of Iraq now! Round up and charge ALL U.S. personnel involved must be arrested, charged and detained until they can be tried for murder.

Additionally, every U.S. government official involved in the U.S. government's conspiracy to attack and invade Iraq upon lies and deceptions should be arrested now and detained until they can be tried for capital war crimes including overt violations of U.S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441, war crimes for which the penalty is death.

Not only are the perps depicted in the act of committing murder, they lied about afterward. That's a crime in and of itself!

International law and common decency requires that every member of the U.S. government materially involved in the illegal war crime --the U.S. attack and invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq be held to account now!

Overview

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.

WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.

WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.

Why I moderate comments

• SPAM: 'comments' that link to junk, 'get rich' schemes, scams, and nonsense! These are the worst offenders.
• Ad hominem attacks: 'name calling' and 'labeling'. That includes the ad hominem: 'truther' or variations!

Also see:

• A Spiritual Mind Movie
• How the US Became a Vassal State of China
  
• Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes
  
• The US Army Document That Proves the US is the World's Number One Sponsor of World Terrorism
• Dissecting the Scrambled Brains of the GOP
  
• Why the CIA is the World's Number One Terrorist Organization
  [w/LINKS]
• Why the CIA is the World's Number One Terrorist Organization [PDF]
• How the GOP Pays Off its 'Base' of Elites
  

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'Conspiracies of Rich Men' to Commit War Crimes and Aggression

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The establishment derides conspiracies and, for awhile, it was fashionable to deny their existence. In fact, conspiracies are how things get done. Very little is accomplished by one person working alone. If what is to be accomplished is illegal, the 'conspiracy' is called a 'crime syndicate' or 'organized crime'.

If the 'conspiracy' in question is legal, however questionable, it is called a corporation or a business enterprise. Theorists on the high court have said that corporations are people! But if should you call the five idiots who have conspired to subvert the U.S. Constitution by the term 'conspirators', you will be denounced as a nut job! But what term best describes a body of jurists who believe that mere words on paper are a real, living breathing persons! I am referring to the SCOTUS decision which makes 'corporations' people! Any rag tag collection of crooks, ne'erdowells and/or robber barons can send money to the Secretary State in Delaware and receive in return a nice binder with impressive documents in it along with a genuine Delaware corporate seal! Thereafter, you --to0 --will be a real person! The Delaware Secretary of State had made it so! Now --I ask you --who is nuts?

The government often cites the specter of 'organized crime' in order to rally voters to a 'right wing' cause like 'law and order', a big issue in the 1960s. What is organized crime if not a conspiracy? In order to fully exploit this 'threat', this 'clear and present danger' to the lives of middle America, it was necessary to promote all kinds of fears --hippies, black people, rock n' roll, and crime syndicates.

But what are 'crime syndicates' if not conspiracies? The right wing establishment are themselves conspiracy theorists when it is useful but not otherwise. 911 is a case in point. The official theory of 19 Arab Hijackers is a conspiracy theory favored by the Bush administration though there is absolutely no admissible evidence to support it. It is 'Orwellian' that anyone proposing any 'other' conspiracy theory is labeled a 'conspiracy theorist' and reviled or called other names.

This tactic is transparent, sophomoric, stupid, fallacious and harmful. It has forever divided America and it is hard not to believe that was its major objective. If so, it succeeded. Unless the guilty are arrested, tried and held to account, generations hence will still debate whether or not 911 was an 'inside job' though there was never and never will be a shred of hard or admissible evidence to support a word of it.

Law and order was a big issue among the 'sixties' GOP hoping to exploit fears of 'hippies' and 'black people' --both of whom were unhappy with increasing poverty, denial of rights, the seemingly endless, mindless and destructive war in Viet Nam, a war fought on behalf of a 'conspiracy of rich men' --ITT, Honeywell et al --all of whom hoped to make a killing with defense contracts. They succeeded in making a killing!

George H. W. Bush, otherwise called Sr now, had hoped to achieve high office by exploiting those fears. It is no stretch to conclude that George H. W. Bush had made a Faustian bargain with the leadership of GOP. George H. W. Bush --by the time I met him --had already sold his soul to what St. Thomas More has already described as a 'conspiracy of rich men to procure their commodities'.

The Senior Bush won two elections for a seat in the House of Representatives, but lost two bids for a Senate seat. It was in during one of his Senate races that I met the Senior Bush who was not so well known at the time.

After Bush's second race for the Senate, President Nixon appointed him U.S. delegate to the United Nations. He later became Republican National Committee chairman. He headed the U.S. liaison office in Beijing. It was years later, in Houston, that the Senior Bush would regale me with a story about how he was 'duped' into eating 'dog lips' --apparently a Chinese delicacy --at a formal in the Forbidden City.

Bush would eventually become Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. At the time, many wondered what, precisely, was it that qualified Bush to head up the CIA, an agency that I have called 'World's Number One Terrorist Organization'. Despite his criticism of Reagan's “voodoo economics", Bush became Reagan's running mate in 1980; by 1984, Bush had won acclaim for his devotion to Reagan's conservative agenda. Thus would espouse an utterly failed policy and one that he himself has opposed.

Reagan's 'voodoo economics' caused a two year long recession, the deepest and most severe depression since Hoover's great depression of 1929. But that clearly did not matter to Bush Sr. He would hitch his wagon to whatever star was ascendant and, at the time, it was Ronald Reagan who was ascendant. It was Ronald Reagan who would preside over a 'conspiracy' to sell arms to Iran, which was, at the time, an officially declared enemy of the United States, a sponsor of world wide terrorism. This 'conspiracy' on behalf of rich men would then funnel the proceeds of those sales to the so-called Contras in Nicaragua. There is a word for a conspiracy of this type: traitors guilty of high treason:

The Iran/contra investigation will not end the kind of abuse of power that it addressed any more than the Watergate investigation did. The criminality in both affairs did not arise primarily out of ordinary venality or greed, although some of those charged were driven by both. Instead, the crimes committed in Iran/contra were motivated by the desire of persons in high office to pursue controversial policies and goals even when the pursuit of those policies and goals was inhibited or restricted by executive orders, statutes or the constitutional system of checks and balances.

The tone in Iran/contra was set by President Reagan. He directed that the contras be supported, despite a ban on contra aid imposed on him by Congress. And he was willing to trade arms to Iran for the release of Americans held hostage in the Middle East, even if doing so was contrary to the nation's stated policy and possibly in violation of the law.

The lesson of Iran/contra is that if our system of government is to function properly, the branches of government must deal with one another honestly and cooperatively. When disputes arise between the Executive and Legislative branches, as they surely will, the laws that emerge from such disputes must be obeyed. When a President, even with good motive and intent, chooses to skirt the laws or to circumvent them, it is incumbent upon his subordinates to resist, not join in. Their oath and fealty are to the Constitution and the rule of law, not to the man temporarily occupying the Oval Office. Congress has the duty and the power under our system of checks and balances to ensure that the President and his Cabinet officers are faithful to their oaths.

--Lawrence Walsh, Special Prosecutor, Concluding Observations, FINAL REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL FOR IRAN/CONTRA MATTERS

No one ever called the Sr a Bush a 'conspiracy theorist'. That's because he was not a theorist; he was a 'conspirator' for real!

"I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth."

- Sir Thomas More (1478 - 1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia

Last time I checked the Cornell Univ Law Library and FINDLAW, I found hundreds if not thousands of court decisions, including SCOTUS, having to do with conspiracies large and small, of one sort or another. Someone should inform SCOTUS that conspiracies do not exist, but, I suspect, the very fact that they are recognized by the higher courts, including SCOTUS, creates them if they had not existed prior.

In his 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', William Shirer described what St. Thomas More would have called a 'conspiracy of rich men'! This conspiracy of Hitler, his minions and financiers, was a conspiracy in which a record survives. It was --in fact --a conspiracy consisting of Adolph Hitler and his corporate/business supporters to invade the nations of Europe, steal their resources and divide up the booty.

Goebbels was jubilant. "Now it will be easy," he wrote in his diary on February 3, "to carry on the fight, for we can call on all the resources of the State. Radio and press are at our disposal. We shall stage a masterpiece of propaganda. And this time, naturally, there is no lack of money."(2)  

The big businessmen, pleased with the new government that was going to put the organized workers in their place and leave management to run its business as it wished, were asked to cough up. This they agreed to do at a meeting on February 20 at Goering's Reichstag President's Palace, at which Dr. Schacht acted as host and Goering and Hitler laid down the line to a couple of dozen of Germany's leading magnates, including Krupp von Bohlen, who had become an enthusiastic Nazi overnight, Bosch and Schnitzler of I. G. Farben, and Voegler, head of the United Steel Works. The record of this secret meeting has been preserved.

Hitler began a long speech with a sop to the industrialists. "Private enterprise," he said, "cannot be maintained in the age of democracy; it is conceivable only if the people have a sound idea of authority and personality . . . All the worldly goods we possess we owe to the struggle of the chosen . . . We must not forget that all the benefits of culture must be introduced more or less with an iron fist." He promised the businessmen that he would "eliminate" the Marxists and restore the Wehrmacht (the latter was of special interest to such industries as Krupp, United Steel and I. G. Farben, which stood to gain the most from rearmament). "Now we stand before the last election," Hitler concluded, and he promised his listeners that "regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat." If he did not win, he would stay in power "by other means . . . with other weapons." Goering, talking more to the immediate point, stressed the necessity of "financial sacrifices" which "surely would be much easier for industry to bear if it realized that the election of March fifth will surely be the last one for the next ten years, probably even for the next hundred years."

All this was made clear enough to the assembled industrialists and they responded with enthusiasm to the promise of the end of the infernal elections, of democracy and disarmament. Krupp, the munitions king, who, according to Thyssen, had urged Hindenburg on January 29 not to appoint Hitler, jumped up and expressed to the Chancellor the "gratitude" of the businessmen "for having given us such a clear picture." Dr. Schacht then passed the hat. "I collected three million marks," he recalled at Nuremberg.(3)

--William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The Nazification of Germany: 1933–34

We are fortunate that no one 'informed' informed Shirer that conspiracies do not exist before he bothered unearthing the mountain of Nazi documents that prove the meeting, the Nazi conspiracy to wage war and genocide for the benefit of global corporations that participated. This meeting of 'industrialists' took place just as surely as did the meeting of Dick Cheney's 'Energy Task Force' in which the oil fields of the the Middle East, Iraq in particular, were 'divvied' up among the conspirators long before the events of 911 would give these 'conspirators' the pre-text they would require to attack Iraq, wage war upon that nation and, in the process, steel its resources for the likes of Dick Cheney's own Halliburton and other members of an energy consortium i,.e, 'conspiracy'.

The results were published in a 'National Energy Policy' report in May 2001 [PDF], several months before 911 would give them the pretext to make the report come true. This is precisely the kind of of conspiracy that had been described so accurately, precisely by St. Thomas More in his "Utopia", a classic of English literature.

I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth. They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth's sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws. But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their insatiable covetousness divided among themselves all those things, which would have sufficed all men, yet how far be they from the wealth and felicity of the Utopian commonwealth? Out of the which, in that all the desire of money with the use of thereof is utterly secluded and banished, how great a heap of cares is cut away! How great an occasion of wickedness and mischief is plucked up by the roots!
Sir Thomas More (1478 - 1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia

Another example is Heinrich Heydrich's infamous meeting at Wansee, attended by Nazi bureaucrats, and corporate kiss ups. Over a civilized lunch, this 'conspiracy of rich men' planned the extermination of the Jews of Europe.

... within a few months after the meeting, the first gas chambers were installed in some of the extermination camps in Poland. These six camps, Belzec, Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka were in operation in Poland.

Responsibility for the entire project was placed in the hands of Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS, and head of the Gestapo and the Waffen-SS.
The Wannsee Conference did not mark the beginning of the "Final Solution." The mobile killing squads were already slaughtering Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. Rather, the Wannsee Conference was the place where the "final solution" was formally revealed to non-Nazi leaders who would help arrange for Jews to be transported from all over German-occupied Europe to SS-operated "extermination" camps in Poland. Not one of the men present at Wannsee objected to the announced policy. Never before had a modern state committed itself to the murder of an entire people.

--The Wannsee Conference, Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

Very little is ever accomplished by one person working alone unless you happen to be Michelangelo. Conspiracies exist! Our own Supreme Court has said so and, by law, they have defined themselves as 'infallible'. They are, themselves, of late, a conspiracy of Republicans to subvert the Constitution. It is SCOTUS who has proclaimed that corporations are people even as the right wing is proven to have a stake in convincing you that conspiracies do not exist.

Because conspiracies exist, wars will continue to be fought by the poor for the benefit of the rich. The mechanism by which this is accomplished is called the military-industrial complex --a conspiracy of 'rich men' so accurately described by St. Thomas More. It's job is to divide the spoils of war among Dick Cheney's oil buddies and other 'paid thugs' like Blackwater, who conveniently hide behind the monicker --'defense contractor'.

For eons wars have been fought for booty! That's why the US fights them today. Rome invaded Dacia for that nation's gold. The Roman sesterces was worthless. When the empire was, in fact, sold to nobleman Didius Julianus the transaction was completed in in Greek Drachmas not worthless Roman sesterces.

The U.S. wages war in the Middle East for oil, the booty du jour! To deny one the right to oppose those wars --as Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes denied Eugene Debs --is a recipe for military dictatorship. In a text-book example of the false analogy, Holmes likened Debs' opposition to U.S. entry in WWI to yelling "shouting fire in a crowded theater" Holmes' stated that "the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." I submit that Debs did not shout 'fire' falsely. Debs, indeed, perceived a 'clear and present danger' to the Republic. I submit that it is more dangerous NOT to shout fire if the theater really is on fire?

Today --the theater is on fire. Our government has repeatedly failed us on almost every front. We are expected to die abroad to enrich numerous conspiracies of rich men --oil barons, arm merchants, the very minions of the Military-Industrial Complex. Corporations, we are told, are people. We are told that by the Supreme Court where at least five of the nine members are co-conspirators in a 'conspiracy of rich men'.

If the Military-Industrial Complex is not a 'conspiracy of rich men', then what is? If the Supreme Court has not deteriorated into a conspiracy of right wing ideologues, then why are not the dictionaries re-written and the thousands of pages of case law burned or dumped offshore? The 'conspiracy rich men' has been careless. Nevertheless, we are expected to buy the lies and die for this wicked, venal conspiracy.

St. Thomas More would have called the Military-Industrial complex and their shills on K-street a "conspiracy of rich men to procure their commodities in the name and title of the commonwealth!" [See: Thomas More, Utopia] This is why wars have been waged throughout the ages! If Justice Holmes were alive, I would tell him that it is wrong NOT to yell fire in a crowded theater if the theater is, indeed, on fire! At this moment in our history, the American republic is threatened, and among those threatening it is the US Supreme Court itself!

I am yelling FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

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