20051130
Limits easing for sharp objects on planes?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/11/30/tsa.rules/index.html
The change in rules, expected to go into effect December 20, will allow for some scissors less than 4 inches long and some tools less than 7 inches long.
As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/iraq-media-offensive.html
Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. . The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents, and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country. The Bush administration has come under criticism for distributing video and news stories in the United States without identifying the federal government as their source and for paying American journalists to promote administration policies, practices the Government Accountability Office has labeled "covert propaganda." U.S. law forbids the military from carrying out psychological operations or planting propaganda with American media outlets. Yet several officials said that given the globalization of media driven by the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, the Pentagon's efforts are carried out with the knowledge that coverage in the foreign press inevitably "bleeds" into the Western media and influences coverage in U.S. news outlets.
The Abuse of 'Democracy'
http://www.lewrockwell.com/wittner/wittner16.html
When, in the aftermath of World War II, Stalin had the Soviet Union gobble up the nations of Eastern Europe, he christened them People’s Democracies – although they were neither democratic nor meant to be. This debasement of “democracy” and other noble terms such as “freedom” and “peace” to crude propaganda was undoubtedly what George Orwell had in mind when he wrote his powerful novel, 1984, which portrayed a nightmarish society in which words were turned inside out to justify the policies of cynical and unscrupulous rulers.
Did we defeat the world communist revolution only to launch our own world democratic revolution? Did we bury the Comintern of Stalin only to create our own? What happened to the America that minded her own business?
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=8176
Why is Bush outsourcing foreign policy to neocons who are the source of most of his headaches today?
Bush's Deadly Dance with Islamic Theocrats
http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=8181
For well over a year now, Human Rights Watch has been cataloguing Interior Ministry abuses and warning about a human rights catastrophe unraveling in "our" Iraq. Last July, Peter Beaumont of the British Observer revealed that the Shi'ite religious/political powers-that-be had set up not one detention-and-torture center but a whole "ghost network" of them – in some cases, he gave locations – in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, partly financed by British and American funds originally intended for the rebuilding of the police force. In these centers, torture methods "resurrected from the time of Saddam" were being used; and the centers, in turn, were connected to paramilitary commando units (and police units) – basically kidnapping and death squads – being run by the Interior Ministry as well as by the Shi'ite religious parties. Such units are increasingly engaged in a war of revenge with Sunni insurgents and in an ever growing campaign of assassinations, summary executions, and disappearances in Sunni neighborhoods which months ago reached "epidemic levels." Human rights organizations in the country have hundreds of cases of disappearances on their lists – as well as assassinations, torture of every sort, and an endless raft of human rights violations.
¶ 30.11.05
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/11/30/tsa.rules/index.html
The change in rules, expected to go into effect December 20, will allow for some scissors less than 4 inches long and some tools less than 7 inches long.
As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/iraq-media-offensive.html
Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. . The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents, and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country. The Bush administration has come under criticism for distributing video and news stories in the United States without identifying the federal government as their source and for paying American journalists to promote administration policies, practices the Government Accountability Office has labeled "covert propaganda." U.S. law forbids the military from carrying out psychological operations or planting propaganda with American media outlets. Yet several officials said that given the globalization of media driven by the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, the Pentagon's efforts are carried out with the knowledge that coverage in the foreign press inevitably "bleeds" into the Western media and influences coverage in U.S. news outlets.
The Abuse of 'Democracy'
http://www.lewrockwell.com/wittner/wittner16.html
When, in the aftermath of World War II, Stalin had the Soviet Union gobble up the nations of Eastern Europe, he christened them People’s Democracies – although they were neither democratic nor meant to be. This debasement of “democracy” and other noble terms such as “freedom” and “peace” to crude propaganda was undoubtedly what George Orwell had in mind when he wrote his powerful novel, 1984, which portrayed a nightmarish society in which words were turned inside out to justify the policies of cynical and unscrupulous rulers.
Did we defeat the world communist revolution only to launch our own world democratic revolution? Did we bury the Comintern of Stalin only to create our own? What happened to the America that minded her own business?
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=8176
Why is Bush outsourcing foreign policy to neocons who are the source of most of his headaches today?
Bush's Deadly Dance with Islamic Theocrats
http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=8181
For well over a year now, Human Rights Watch has been cataloguing Interior Ministry abuses and warning about a human rights catastrophe unraveling in "our" Iraq. Last July, Peter Beaumont of the British Observer revealed that the Shi'ite religious/political powers-that-be had set up not one detention-and-torture center but a whole "ghost network" of them – in some cases, he gave locations – in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, partly financed by British and American funds originally intended for the rebuilding of the police force. In these centers, torture methods "resurrected from the time of Saddam" were being used; and the centers, in turn, were connected to paramilitary commando units (and police units) – basically kidnapping and death squads – being run by the Interior Ministry as well as by the Shi'ite religious parties. Such units are increasingly engaged in a war of revenge with Sunni insurgents and in an ever growing campaign of assassinations, summary executions, and disappearances in Sunni neighborhoods which months ago reached "epidemic levels." Human rights organizations in the country have hundreds of cases of disappearances on their lists – as well as assassinations, torture of every sort, and an endless raft of human rights violations.
¶ 30.11.05
