Moral Volcano is the (now abandoned) web log of V. Subhash. It was started when the HUMOUR section of Virtual V. Subhash (www.vsubhash.com) started overflowing. The name Moral Volcano is from the short story Journalism in Tennessee written by the American writer Mark Twain.
Moral Volcano is not a real volcano; just the name for this website. This site has absolutely no information on morals or volcanoes. You need to improve your search skills. Select this link to find information about real volcanoes. If you were looking for ideas for a class project, then try How To Build a Volcano at About.com. For stories with a moral, visit the site maintained by Srinivas Padmanabhuni. Bye-bye.
MORAL VOLCANO IS UNSAFE FOR CHILDREN AND PREGNANT WOMEN. ADULTS MAY EXPERIENCE DISCOMFORT WHEN READING MORAL VOLCANO. SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT IS RECOMMENDED.
Any good search engine will bring you here if you type in "moral volcano".
Think George W. is bad? Wait till you read about his father!
Inheritance of Nazi fortunes, financial scandals, coups, assassinations, links to drug trade, and coverups; - all make the former CIA Director and later U.S. Vice President and President George Bush Sr. an unmatchable piece of work.
Buy this book from Amazon.com .
Or, read the free online version at www.tarpley.net
In Jerzy Kosinski's novel Being There, a middle-aged man called Chance Gardener, who has the mental age and development of a six-year-old, goes on to become the President of United States with the help of a few powerful friends while he himself is blissfully unaware of the situation. Peter Sellers chose this novel to make his final film (his masterpiece). Both the novel and the movie were released years before George W. came to the White House. Read my review here.
Gobbledegook! All the time he talked gobbledegook! An' it's for sure a White man's world in America. Hell, I raised that boy since he was the size of a pissant an' I'll say right now he never learned to read an' write - no sir! Had no brains at all, was stuffed with rice puddin' between the ears! Short-changed by the Lord and dumb as a jackass an' look at him now! Yes, sir - all you gotta be is white in America an' you get whatever you want! Just listen to that boy - gobbledegook!
Guess Who Came
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Head For The Exit!A Nut Has Brought
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In 1983, Donald Rumsfeld went to Baghdad as Ronald Reagan's special envoy and met Saddam Hussein, despite evidence that Iraq possessed chemical weapons and had used it on civilians in Iraq and on soldiers in Iran. After his return, Rumsfeld successfully lobbied for financial and military aid for Iraq's war with Iran. Chemical and biological intermediaries and labs were provided by the US to Iraq. Other western countries followed suit. Predictably, Saddam used the weapons in the Kurdish north. In one instance, a set of Hughes helicopters provided by Ronald Reagan was used in a chemical attack that left 5000 dead in a Kurdish village called Halabja. Following this, the US Senate passed a Prevention of Genocide Act, which would have imposed sanctions on the Hussein regime but the Reagan White House blocked it.
Between 1983 and 1988, Saddam used chemical weapons 195 times against Iran killing about 50,000 of their soldiers. In 1987, an Iraqi Exocet missile hit an American destroyer, the USS Stark, in the Persian Gulf killing 37 crewmen. Incredibly, the United States excused Iraq for making an unintentional mistake and instead used the incident to accuse Iran of escalating the war in the gulf. The American tilt to Iraq then became more pronounced. U.S. commandos began blowing up Iranian oil platforms and attacking Iranian patrol boats. In 1988, an American warship in the gulf shot down an Iranian Airbus killing 290 civilians. Within a few weeks, Iran, fearing American intervention, gave up its war with Iraq.
George Bush Sr., as Vice President and later as President, used a number of covert and overt schemes to help with Baghdad's WMD programme. Strangely enough, Israel was one of the countries that helped in the transshipment of banned weapons. Saddam was so encouraged by this level of support that he thought he could get away with an invasion Kuwait. Sam Gejdenson, chairperson of a subcommittee in the US Congress investigating US exports to Iraq, disclosed that between 1985 and 1990 the US government approved 771 licenses for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech equipment used for military applications.
To build the case for the war against Iraq, the Bush administration used the anthrax scare to frighten lawmakers into submission. The US Secretary of State Colin Powell, accompanied by CIA Directory George Tenet, even gave an anthrax demo in the UN Security Council. Interestingly, the anthrax found in Capitol Hill was found to be the same grade as those in the stocks of the US military.
US envoy Bill Richardson with Taliban leaders (circa 1998). See the BBC report for that day.Taliban played host to top US officials including former US assistant secretary of state for South Asia Robin Raphel, her successor Karl Inderfurth, deputy secretary for political affairs Thomas Pickering, and the then-US ambassador to the UN, Bill Richardson. Within hours of Taliban's capture of Kabul, Washington moved quickly to announce that it would establish diplomatic relations with the Taliban government. However, the rash statement was quickly retracted. Afghanistan continued to be officially represented at the UN by the defunct government headed by Banruddin Rabbani and the Taliban greatly resented this. Robin Raphael went to the UN to lobby the international community to ignore the extremist threat posed by the Taliban and recognise the government headed by the group. Contrary to popular belief, Afghanistan has significant oil and gas deposits. During the Soviets' decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, Moscow estimated Afghanistan's proven and probable natural gas reserves at around five trillion cubic feet and production reached 275 million cubic feet per day in the mid-1970s. Nonstop war since has prevent further exploitation, but that soon changes. According to the Houston Chronicle, the country may also have as much copper as Chile, the world's largest producer, and significant deposits of coal, emeralds, tungsten, lead, zinc, uranium ore and more. |
In 1989, the former Soviet Union was forced to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan after fighting a prolonged guerilla war with the Mujahideen. The Mujahideen grew opium, which was then marketed in Europe and North America. Law enforcement agencies in these countries also turned a blind eye to the trafficking business. Proceeds from the trade were then used to buy weapons for the Mujahideen. The Russians left behind a government headed by the former intelligence chief Najibullah. The breakup of the Soviet Union made Najibullah's position weaker and he offered to step down in March 1992. This news triggered a wave of defections by Uzbek and Tajik militias, which were allied to his government. In April 1992, a prominent Mujahideen commander Ahmed Shah Masood (Lion of Panjshir valley) moved into Kabul. Najibullah then took refuge in the UN compound in Kabul. Between 1992 and 1996, Afghanistan was in semi-anarchy, as the country was carved into individual fiefdoms by the warlords.
In 1996, Unocal of the U.S. and Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia became interested in mineral wealth of Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. The ideal route to bring oil from the Caspian sea and gas from the Daulatabad gas field (in Turkmenistan) would have been via Iran. Because of US policy of isolating Iran, Unocal and Delta oil thought of building a pipeline via Afghanistan.
Unfortunately for them, Afghanistan did not have a strong regime in place, which could guarantee security for the pipeline. For this purpose, Pakistan created the Taliban with funds from Saudi Arabia and UAE. They took into their rolls thousands of Pasthuns who had enrolled in madrasas adjoining Afghanistan. Because these men had never taken part in war, they were secretly trained and led by officers from the Pakistani army. Arms and ammunition including tanks, howitzers, and other military vehicles were provided Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. In 1996, The Taliban crossed the border into Afghanistan. Initially, they were dismissed as a joke but in September 1996, they had captured Kabul. (Also, see Amnesty International reports on Taleban atrocities.)
However, the Taliban could not occupy all of Afghanistan. (They did occupy 90% of it at one time.) At one point when the Taliban was overstretched and the Northern Alliance was poised to attack, the Clinton administration despatched UN envoy Bill Richardson and Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth to Afghanistan to broker a ceasefire and an arms embargo. While the Northern Alliance was being bamboozled, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sent several planeloads of arms and ammunition to Kabul and managed to fully rearm the Taliban. Soon after, the ceasefire failed. This was six months before the US embassies in Africa were attacked and two months after al-Qaeda issued a declaration of jihad to "kill the Americans and their allies - civilian and military."
In 1998, the Al-Qaeda attacked U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Despite this, money continued to flow. Both the Clinton and the Bush administrations gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban under the guise of aid. As late as July 2001, Christina Rocca, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, met Taliban officials in Islamabad and announced $43 million in food and shelter aid, bringing to $124 million the U.S. contribution for that year alone. The U.S. government did not insist on knowing how the money was spent and the flow of dollars did not stop until the attacks on the World Trade Center occurred. It is quite possible that that American taxpayers' money was used to finance the attacks.
To save serious embarassment to the Bush administration, the U.S. media, led by the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and others, has created a notion that the Taliban fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan by tracing its origins to the Mujahideen. The truth however is that the Taliban was not in existence at that time. Taliban was created to fight the Mujahideen, not the Soviets. For more, read CIA and a Blowback World by Tom Engelhardt and Chalmers Johnson.
Interviewer: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Interviewer: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Interviewer: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentlaism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
After Libya revealed that it had sourced components and technology for its clandestine nuclear weapons program from a worldwide network of nuclear arms dealers, Dr. A. Q. Khan, the father of the Islamic nuclear bomb, was named as one of the prime movers in this network. On February 4, 2004, Khan confessed on Pakistan's national television that he had hawked Pakistan's nuclear weapons secrets to other countries and begged forgiveness. With American blessings, Gen. Musharraf wasted no time in granting a pardon for Khan. Gen. Mush also claimed that Mr. Khan acted alone and that no one else was involved in the transfer of the technology, which went to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
No action will be taken on Libya because the Bush administration has shown interest in oil wealth of the country. With the exception of Iraq, Libya is the only OPEC country with spare oil capacity. The two Libyan intelligence officials who were suspects in the Lockerbie bombing are under house arrest and not in prison.
Curiosly, a BBC Scotland news report says that a former Scottish police chief had come forward with the information that the key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated and planted by the CIA. In another bizzare happening, the Amsterdam court that had tried Khan in absentia has claimed that it has "lost" the Khan case files. Before coming back to Pakistan, Khan worked as an engineer in the Netherlands at Urenco, an uranium enrichment plant in the 1970s from where he is suspected of stealing nuclear secrets.
As revealed by former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawas Sharif, the Pakistani military establishment including President Musharraf are part of the nuclear trade. North Korea made shipments of missile components to Pakistan in exchange for shipments of wheat from Pakistan. Similarly, China had made shipments of ring magnets and other nuclear eqiupment to Pakistan. But illegal trade in nuclear and missile technology and components is not limited to the Third world. During the Clinton years, US aerospace companies (Loral/Hughes) provided China with technologies that were originally banned for export. The clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons programme was aided by voluntary/involuntary transfer of men, material, and technology from the U.S., Britain, and several other European countries.
The prediction that when Nazism goes to America it will be wrapped in an American flag has become a reality. Nazis believed that if you kept on repeating the same lies again and again, the masses would eventually accept them as truth. Yet again, the Nazis have been proved right. The American people have accepted blatant falsehoods as the truth not because they have been presented with some really great evidence but because they have been repeatedly lied to. And the campaign by faux journalism and the resultant faux news is not limited to the U.S. It is being applied all over the world where phoney revolutions have been staged to put phoney democrats in power. From Lebanon to Ukraine to East Timor, falsehoods have won. The strategy may seem to have failed in Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia but the setbacks are only temporary. In important countries like Mexico, elections are conducted by private American companies and the electoral rolls are also maintained by them. As there is no paper trail, it is easy to fix the elections.
American diplomats decide who should win elections in Eastern Europe and Third World countries. Western consultants manage everything on the ground - from running opinion/exit polls (so they can claim election fraud) to training volunteers, journalists, and more importantly "pro-democracy protestors" (vital for any regime change that does not involve the U.S. military). Billions of dollars of U.S. government funds are pouring into the coffers of opposition parties and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Their mandate is simple - bring down the current dispensation and put pro-Western stooges in power.
Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) such as Freedom House (run by billionaire George Soros) play an important role in all this. If U.S. media claims are to be believed, Soros is a philanthropist who "promotes democracy movements" in Eastern Europe. However, funds for these activities come from the American government - mainly from USAID (United States Aid for International Development). Perusing the USAID Yellowbook for 2001, one will be surprised to note that one of the many Ukraine contracts received by Freedom House is worth almost $2 billion. This is interesting because, among other things, USAID even refuses funds for AIDS treatment in Africa. Reason for this anomaly becomes clear if one reads USAID's mandate - to promote U.S. "stategic interests" worldwide.
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Apart from USAID, a wide range of semi-government and non-governmental institutions are involved to promote U.S. strategic interests - National Democratic Institute (NDI) of the Democratic Party, International Republican Institute (IRI) of the Republican Party, U.S. billionaire George Soros' outfits Open Society and Freedom House. The role of intelligence agencies and diplomatic corps requires no mention. The role of the media is curiousy naieve.
Politicians who have take money are identified as "liberals," while those who have not done so are simply called "hardliners." The result is that artificially created protests are considered by the outside world as spontaneous and indigenous. History then gets replaced by the faux news.
American officials openly ask the U.S. Congress for money to "promote democracy" in other countries. (This happens in between demands for huge budget cuts in social spending for American citizens.) No one in America seems to find it odd that democracy could be promoted with money from a foreign country. What is all the more ironical because it was an American who said democracy is by the people, for the people, and of the people.
During the Cold War, intelligence agencies were entrusted with the task of distributing money. Mark Almond, who describes himself as an old cold war swagman who carried tens of thousands of dollars to Soviet-bloc dissidents alongside much better respected academics, is nostalgic about how things have changed. In an article in Guardian he says:
Back in the 1980s, our media portrayed Prague dissidents as selfless academics who were reduced to poverty for their principles, when they were in fact receiving $600-monthly stipends. Now they sit in the front row of the new Euro-Atlantic ruling class. The dowdy do-gooder who seemed so devoted to making sure that every penny of her "charity" money got to a needy recipient is now a facilitator for investors in our old stamping grounds. The end of history was the birth of consultancy.
In many countries, it is not just the manipulation of elections; civil war is encouraged by exacerbating ethnic or religious divisions. One side is provided with with arms and ammunition and the other side is provoked into causing enormous casualities on civilians. Western government, NGOs and media then allege genocide. UN "peacekeepers" arrive, a referendum on secession is held, and a nation is born. What is not mentioned is that the new country is so weak financially that they can't even afford to open embassies in other countries. West-backed politicians who run the country prefer to listen to foreign investors than to their own people. In the end, "poor people" become more poor and less free. The application of "genocide revolutions" found great success in East Timor and is now being actively pursued in Darfur (Sudan) and several other places.
East Timorese people languish in extreme poverty because their government gets very little in revenue. The government has just one purpose - provide security to Western diplomatic corps and foreign investors (made up of solely oil companies). It has no money either for development or for providing essential services. East Timor, it must be noted, has huge reseverves of gas and oil. It could have easily become a rich country but foriegn oil companies have other plans. Australia has claimed that its maritime border extends for 85% of the 600-mile sea separating the two countries. Under international laws, the border should have been drawn halfway between the two countries, which would have given East Timor 100% of its petroleum resources including the oil-rich Greater Sunrise field. In March 2003, tiny East Timor was forced to cede 79.9 percent of the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field to big nieghbour Australia. The entire worth of the field was an estimated $50 billion.
Also, read
Back when I was in school, there was this program on TV called Race To Save The Planet. Every Sunday, it had this wonderful chick, clad in T-shirt and jeans, sitting on a tree stump with her arms around her knees, talking seriously about future climate change. Climate change? Well, it was supposed to take longer than a lifetime to notice any changes. Only future generations were going to be seriously affected. Unfortunately, climate change seems to have arrived earlier than expected. We have seen some very unprecedented floods induced by torrential floods in various parts of the country and even around the world. (circa 2005) The floods were also preceded by periods of unusually hot weather. My guess is that extreme weather conditions are going to be the norm in future but with increasing severity.
The rise in greenhouses gases in the atmosphere and the consequent rise in global temperatures was expected to cause a slow melting of the ice caps. But, scientists have noted that the area under permafrost around the Arctic circle is fast receding. When peat bogs under the permafrost gets exposed, they start releasing new amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As this picks up momentum, global temperatures will not just rise but will attempt a high jump.
And, the transition from ice to water occurs over a few degrees. So, the ice cap will not just melt, it will break apart! Large sheets of ice will suddenly break off the North pole and swamp countries in its wake downstream. This ice will break off in such huge proportions that countries near the poles will experience doomsday-size floods that will last for several months. Worse, there will be several floods like that; some of them going on simultaneously. And, that means goodbye to countries like Canada and most of Europe. Large parts of the U.S. and Russia will also dissappear. Antartica will only melt because it is on land and does not float on water like the Arctic. Still, large portions of low-lying land in the southern hemisphere will be eaten away by the sea, leaving hundreds of millions without land under their feet.
Possible Solution: Jaime Pressly |
The treatment that our society gives to rape requires drastic change. Instead of considering rape as a form of physical assault, unnecessary emotional baggage is added to it. In our stupid feature films, if a woman is raped, she has to commit suicide. Or, worse, marry the rapist (if it is the hero guy). But real rape victims cannot commit suicide or marry the rapist! Sadly, our society places a high high value on a woman's character. Feminist propaganda does not help either. The lesbians want death sentence for rapists, making it incumbent on rapists to also kill their victims!
Women's activists portray rape as some kind of unbelievably horrible crime that is simply beyond human nature. Flawless as they are made up to be, women DO commit serious crimes! It has been reported that it is usually a woman who harrases her daughter-in-law for more dowry. Many a woman has handed over the matchbox when her son douses his wife with kerosene. And who do you think snuffs the life out newborn girl children? WOMEN!!!
And, they keep on asking when all women will be safe. It is an incredibly stupid question! Will households ever be safe from burglars? Burglaries will occur just as some marriages will end in divorces. Rapes will occur just as some murders are going to be committed. Deviancy is part of any society. It is an inescapable fact of life, unless of course your marooned on uninhabited island.
What can be done is placing necessary measures to ensure speedy justice; not just for rape but for all crimes. Instead, a fuss is created. Names are published. Photos are printed. In the end, the victim wishes she did not have to survive the trauma. Should not rape victims be able to recover from the incident like from a minor road accident? More than the actual crime itself, it is the way society receives the victim that seems to have a lasting effect.
| Trauma | Victim | Victim's Family |
| Road Accident | gets sympathy | finds social support |
| Sexual Assault | gets a stigma | loses social standing |
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Why is the U.S. very much against labelling GM food? In the U.S., we have a policy. If you have a final product that is a substantial equivalent to a conventional product, you need not have to label that it contains GMOs [genetically modified organisms] just because it is a product of GMO; it is a process involved. At the end of the day, it is considered equivalent to the conventional product and so we don't believe in labelling. On the other hand, if you have nutrient enhanced product or a product that contains allergens or toxin, then labelling is required. So we don't believe in process labelling and that is the difference between the U.S. and other countries.Same day as this interview was published in The Hindu, the newspaper's supplement Metro Plus carried the following information in Health Capsules (a syndicated American newspaper cartoon feature):
How do I know if my fish or shellfish is wild, not farm-raised? Beginning in April 2005, all retail fish and shellfish [in the U.S.] were required to be labelled farm-raised or wild-caught and with their country of origin.
A kid who hates freedom. |
"I am not even interested," said Charlie Chaplin when asked whether he was going to have his latest film shown in the U.S. Why, what was wrong? "There is nothing wrong with the American people. It is the top who decay and putrify!," Chaplin explained. Harsh words, no doubt but why? The movie A King In New York was set in New York and yet here was Chaplin (in London, circa 1956) refusing to release the movie in the United States. What made him feel so disgusted and angry? Welcome to the the land of the free.
What many people see of America is not really America; it is Hollywood. Not just foreigners, even Americans see America through the eyes of Hollywood. Take World War II. Many Americans think that it was they who saved the world! (It was actually Russia, led by like-it-or-not Stalin, which was the first to inflict a defeat on the Nazis, free a host of countries from occupation, enter Berlin and take charge of Hitler's bunker.)
Not many know that not until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, America had never entered the War on the side of Britain and France. Or, more correctly, they have absolutely no idea of the significance of this decision. Like the grandfather of George Bush, America was busy trading with Nazi Germany. Many, like Bush family patron William Farris (of Standard Oil, now Exxon), were making their fortunes off Nazi slave labour. The U.S. had also closed its gates to European Jews wanting to flee persecution; (forcing them to go to Palestine where they established Israel and have since remained in conflict with the original owners of the land and with their Arab neighbours.) Franklin Roosevelt spent much of his time assuring his nation that he would NEVER send "their children in harm's way" - certainly a poor foil alongside real heroes like Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle or even Josef Stalin. It was precisely this geographic and political isolation from the conflict, which drew people in the war zone like a magnet to the American continent.
"DO YOU WANT TO DENY YOURSELF THE RIGHT TO BE A MAN?" reads this psy-ops leaflet, dropped by Americans in Vietnam. You don't see RAMBO dropping leaflets like these! He he he! |
So, after sheep-faced Americans joined the war, films like Casablanca were released, which had Americans showing hitherto unseen courage and sparing no effort to save hapless Europeans from evil Nazis. Sure, these films helped sell a lot of "war bonds" to aid the war effort but "war films" continued to be made even after the real war was over - all of them showing Americans as the selfless saviours of the world; all of them conveniently ignoring the enormous sacrifices made by the Russians and the heavy losses made to bear on civilians in the Axis nations. During the War, American soldiers like good soldiers everywhere went about raping and pillaging when they were not busy fighting. In almost all of the war films, Americans GIs were models of good behaviour. It is this image that generations of Americans have believed in, rather than in what history books would have had to offer.
In his book Know Thine Enemy, Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA man who worked in the US consulate in Istanbul during the 1980s, provides an insight into how Freedom™ typically operates. Gerecht's job was to debrief would-be Iranian defectors:
"I'd let hundreds of desperate Iranians languish in Turkey. People who'd given me insights never found in books. I'd watched mothers with children drop to their knees and beg for my help... They didn't want money, just a little kindness, a visa out of their personal hell ... [they met] a sympathetic man waiting in a warm room full of food, coffee, tea, alcohol and cigarettes. A US official who'd politely strip them of all their memories and every corpuscle of information and then reopen the street-side door."
Rambo II, starring Sylvester Stallone, has Islamic fighters in Afghanistan portrayed as brave freedom fighters, quite in line with government policy at that time. By the time True Lies starring Arnold Schwarznegger was made, the "freedom fighters" had become "terrorists" both on screen and in the real world! Movies that romanticises military life (aiding recruitment, usually from poorer sections of the American society) such as Top Gun or Black Hawk Down get active cooperation (and under-publicised editorial input) from the U.S. military while others that question military postures have to rope in a foreign government for using their military hardware.
AVERAGE VOTER IN A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY IS A MORON! |
In May 2003, an Iraqi boy who suffered burns all over his body, had his arms amputed above the elbow, and lost 20 members of his family after an American missile hit his home became subject of a media frenzy. Although the boy refused American offers of free medical treatment, Hollywoood went ahead and made a movie starring George Clooney with an expectedly different story ending. In the Balkans, American soldiers have been indicted of raping women and forcing them into prostitution but that did not stop Hollywood from making a movie, which showed the opposite - an American soldier killing another soldier to prevent a rape from happening! George Bush and 9/11 was also subject of a movie. However, it featured no pet goat. In sharp contrast, Micheal Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which attempted to come to terms with truth, was received with unrepressed hostility.
With every war, the deception continues to grow. Even though the fall of the Saddam statue in the middle of Baghdad or the rapturous welcome given to Ahmed Chalabi on his return to Iraq or the daring rescue of Private Jessica Lynch are considered as classics among military psy-ops films, Hollywood remains unbeaten in their effort at perpetuating myths for the U.S. government.
FAKE NEWS = FREEDOM NEWS? |
Sure, Hollywood has no designs on the world and they are in it with the American war machine only because it is a mutually rewarding relationship. However, truth becomes a casualty - not just in war but also in peace. This blackout is made complete by sanitised coverage of world events by the American media.
In Iraq, for example, news reports are solely based on the version provided by the U.S. military spokesman. American journalists rarely leave the safe confines of the fortified "Green Zone" in Central Baghdad. However, to fool the American public, videos shot by Iraqi journalists are placed in the background. The American journalist wears a bullet-proof vest, stands in front of the camera and then files his "report." A white screen (not seen by viewers) placed behind this brave journalist allows video technicians in a New York or Washington D.C. studio to be able to seamlessly mix the two videos, creating the illusion of the journalist having actually visited the scene. With this kind of deception, the American military remains free to drop bombs on houses of innocent people.
Several decades ago, Jawaharlal Nehru remarked,
"They shoot and kill and destroy only for the good of the people shot down. The novel feature of the modern type of imperialism is its attempt to hide its terrorism and exploitation behind pious phrases."
His words remain true to this very day. And, "they" continue to do it with the approval of the American people. Yet, when a 911 happens, you will hear Americans asking, "Why do they hate us so much?"
THIS IS NOT A JOKE. There were actually two pages on the CIA website under the title Iraqi Rewards Program offering rewards for information regarding Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). One web page was in English (at http://www.cia.gov/cia/english_rewards.htm) and the other was in Arabic (at http://www.cia.gov/cia/arabic_rewards.htm, still present.) The CIA removed the English version after a short time. I had saved a copy of the English version, I put it up here and later moved it to www.vsubhash.com. I also added a timeline of the Iraqi Rewards Program.
In case you are wondering, rest assured that the cia.gov domain is used only to host their website. The domain ucia.gov (unclassified CIA) is used for other unclassified purposes. You can see their updates page for references to ucia.gov.
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Moral Volcano has stuck to its time-honored tradition of not using vulgar language, but after the recent perfidy of George W Bush, it may all change. (Sure, Moral Volcano called Colin Powell a "sly bastard," but "bastard" is an old word. It has been mentioned 3 times in the bible. If you are interested, the word "whore" is mentioned 76 times and the word "damn" 13 times.) Please take a cup of coffee for some heady stuff is coming up. It is unprecedent as far as Moral Volcano's chequered history is concerned.
Over 70% of Americans strongly believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 tragedy. (The rest probably don't get fair & balanced news from Fox and can be conveniently ignored.) News anchors and talk show hosts have spent thousands of hours drilling the idea into people's heads. Respectable journalists in respectable newspapers have written thousands of articles on it. If so many people say that's the case, then how can it be not true? Are those talk show hosts, news anchors, journalists, columnists, and editors totally stupid morons?
Yet, George W Bush went ahead and said that there was no link between Saddam and 9/11. I mean he actually said it. For his exact words, see the video clip at Gallery @ Virtual V. Subhash. Has he gone crazy? I was about to nominate him for The Prize Ass of the 21st Century award and he blew his chances away. Now, I will have to give it to his Vice President Dick Cheney. Moral Volcano wants to ask a question that somebody at Unanswered Questions raised, "Does he blow goats?" No, not that one. Or rather it is the "Is he in league with Saddam and/or the terrorists themselves?" I mean, what's wrong with him? All these years, he has been talking like an idiot and now he is trying to be Johnny Straight & Okay? Why?
I suggest he be impeached like they tried with Bill Clinton. They ought to get Kenneth "Porn" Starr and pile a mountain of horseshit on him. Or, Dubya can go to Iraq and join some anti-American crowd. You know the ones that gather around burnt-out military vehicles and chant, "With our blood, with our souls, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Saddam." Or, or, or, he could go somewhere and ...
* - Bill Clinton was almost impeached on the charge that he lied.
Link to Moral Volcano's Impeach Bush: He Lied!*
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What do you do if you can't find weapons of mass destruction? You visit a site where weapons of mass destruction were previously used! Well, this seems to be the latest brain wave of the Bush administration as they sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to the town of Halabja where 5000 Kurdish people were gassed to death by Saddam forces in the 80s. The event is fully of ironies.
The man chosen for sympathizing with the survivors of the attack, why Colin Powell? This was the guy who helped cover up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam that left over 500 men, woman, and children dead. In his memoirs, Powell mentions
If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM (military age male), the pilot would circle and fire in front of him.. If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him.
Strangely, many people thought he was a dove and would not support the war against Iraq, but he proved to be a sly bastard himself. Also read Questions For Colin Powell
The Bell "Huey" helicopters that were used in the attack in Halabja were American-made and were provided to Saddam after intense lobbying by people like Donald Rumsfeld, George Shultz, etc., despite opposition from the American Congress. According to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, in a December 15, 1986 article, the CIA began to secretly supply Iraq with intelligence in 1984 that was used to “calibrate” mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. Sam Gejdenson, chairperson of a Congressional subcommittee investigating US exports to Iraq, disclosed that from 1985 until 1990
the US government approved 771 licenses [only 39 were rejected] for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech equipment with military application …
A 1994 US Senate report revealed that US companies were licenced by the commerce department to export a "witch's brew" of biological and chemical materials, including bacillus anthracis (which causes anthrax) and clostridium botulinum (the source of botulism). The American Type Culture Collection made 70 shipments of the anthrax bug and other pathogenic agents. The report also noted that US exports to Iraq included the precursors to chemical warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological warfare facilities and chemical warhead filling equipment. German firms even sold Iraq entire factories capable of mass-producing poison gas. Much of this was purchased with funds freed by the US Agriculture Department's Commodity Credit Corporation.
In March 1984, the UN released a report that said that bis-(2-chlorethyl)-sulfide, also known as mustard gas, and ethyl N, N-dimethylphosphoroamidocyanidate, a nerve agent known as Tabun were used against Iran. On the same day, as revealed by the American Gulf War Veterans Association, Donald Rumsfeld was in Baghdad and the New York Times in its report said that
American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States, and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name.
There are no indications that Secy. Powell is going to Iran to do some sympathizing there. After the attack on Halabja, U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell got the American Senate unanimously pass the Prevention of Genocide Act, which would end U.S. subsidies, U.S. purchases of Iraqi oil and ban the export to Iraq of technology that would help advance its weapons programs. The White House made sure the Act would not be put to use. An internal memo circulated by State Department said
Human rights and chemical weapons use aside, in many respects our political and economic interests run parallel with those of Iraq.
Just four months after the Halabja attack, Washington said that it stood by Iraq, as the US giant Bechtel corporation (where George Schultz works now) won a contract to build a huge petrochemical plant that would give the Hussein regime the capacity to generate chemical weapons.
Link to Moral Volcano's Secy. Powell Visit To Halabja Brings Back Old Issues
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In the aftermath of 9/11, Donald Rumsfeld wanted the Pentagon to launch a war against Iraq. Military and intelligence officials said there were no apparent connections between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. Rumsfeld then asked them to come up with whatever evidence that MIGHT SEEM to indicate some connections between the two. Whatever was offered by these officials was then souped up by Rumsfeld and his team and then vetted by pliant officials in the security establishment (Tenet, Rice, etc.). This was how G. W. Bush made the Niger uranium claim.
The neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC) reveals in a paper that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq for "regime change" even before assuming power in January 2001. The document was authored by Dick Cheney (now the vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff).
George Shultz of Bechtel wrote an op-ed article in The Washington Times, months before the invasion, saying that "a strong foundation exists for immediate military action against [Saddam] Hussein and for a multilateral effort to rebuild Iraq after he is gone." Bechtel received a no-bid $1 billion reconstruction contract. Halliburton (which formerly employed Dick Cheney) has been a recipient of numerous no-bid contracts in Iraq. Its subsidiary, Kellog, Brown & Root is the largest private military company employed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Carlyle group, where George Bush Sr. & James Baker work, stands to make huge gains from war.
These people are the ones who decide whether the US goes to war or not. It is their interests that rank above the rest. American soldiers getting killed or maimed in Iraq or elsewhere is of no concern to them. In any case, the bulk of US forces in Iraq are made up from minority groups like blacks and Hispanics.
President Bush said Iraq was a throbbing hub of terror. But, all the terror in Iraq seems to be produced by Iraqis themselves. After an attack on American soldiers guarding a hospital, an Iraqi was intereviewed and he said, "If at all these soldiers should be attacked, then I hope they do it some place away from the hospital." This is the reality in Iraq. There is no love lost between Americans and Iraqis. Dreamed-up publicity stunts such as the ones at Halabaja have no value whatsoever.Checkout:
Link to Moral Volcano's The Reason For The War In Iraq
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I had been so anti-Bush that I had to start this blog when the HUMOUR page on my original website started overflowing with that kind of content. Even a letter sent to the The Economic Times newspaper did not seem enough. Just then, The Economic Times reprinted an editorial from an American newspaper, which among other things mentioned a Democratic Presidential hopeful who actually opposed the war in Iraq!
I was surprised because I thought common sense had disappeared from the mindspace of Americans who could not see right from wrong after the 9/11 tragedy. On further investigation, this guy turned out to be a Governor of an small state in the US. In politics for more than two decades but only limited to the state of Vermont, Howard Dean had a good record. What most surprising was that his campaign was largely Internet-driven. His finances came from ordinary people from the grassroots of America rather than rich ones and special interests groups. One important thing he said was that America had to rely less on fossil fuels and more on clean energy. For me, all wasn't lost and here was a cause to promote.
So, I put a small box in the DOWNLOADS section, which provided some links to his campaign blogs. In my over-enthusiasm, I mentioned that George W. Bush was "behaving like a jackass" and bringing down the prestige of America. I received two mails, one assailing me for the "jackass" comment and another one trying to reason with me in a more pleasant manner. I gave my reasons (see Link I and Link II) in the Discussion Forum, but I received no reply. I then removed the affronting comment and instead put some of the links that were originally available in the HUMOUR section.
With the support of ordinary Americans who networked over the Internet, Mr. Dean's campaign went from strength to strength and became the leading candidate in the race to win the Democratic Party nomination. I then discovered that almost all of the mainstream media in the US was against him and trying to belittle him and said, he was "too much of a liberal" to beat George W. Bush. I then decided to conduct an online poll in the DOWNLOADS section. The poll initially had some pro-Dean material and the votes cast were mostly for Dean. I then removed the pro-Dean stuff and it shows an even contest with Dean in the lead.
I was hoping to see Dean in action for many days without success. I saw a 2-minute clip on the BBC giving his speech at the first Democratic Party debate conducted at Albuquerque. The second time was on the VOA and it lasted for a much longer. Surprisingly, almost all of Dean's competitors were speaking the same language as Dean. They were attacking President Bush and the war in Iraq, spoke of the need for a universal health insurance, clean fuels, and jobs.
The support for clean fuels was what surprised me most. Even Bill Clinton, who was there, was for it. As articulated by those spoke at the event, the US had to go to war many times because of its heavy dependance on fossil fuels. If this indeed is the predominant thinking within the Democratic Party, then it augurs well for the environment as well as for peace, both in the US and rest of the world. Certainly, it will put terrorists without a ruse to justify their actions.
Sen. Harkin: He wondered how the Governor of the state of California was facing a recall election for running up a deficit of $30 billion, when George W. Bush dug up a deficit of $600 billion for the whole country.
Bill Clinton: He said that when someone was in a hole, people say "Stop digging." Republicans, he said, instead ask, "Give me a bigger shovel." He also mentioned how Bush's tax cuts were offset by laying of thousands of policemen, cutting spending for federal programs for daycare centers, etc. He charged Republicans of trying to lower environmental standards. In one particular instance, Republicans tried to increase the minimum permissible level of arsenic in drinking water but did not do so as "even Republicans" would have to eventually drink it. He said many people did not know about things like this and would not vote Republican if only they knew.
Carol Mosely Braun: Among the many points she touched, the most interesting one was about how Americans were being asked to "support our troops," while the troops had been subject to pay cuts by the Republicans.
Howard Dean:"We need jobs in this country again, Mr. President, jobs. You have lost us 3 million jobs in the United States of America since you have been in office; 2 million of those jobs have been good paying manufacturing jobs… to go to Mexico… Mr. President, we need a balanced budget, Mr. President. No Republican President has balanced the budget in 34 years in this country. If you want to trust your hard-earned taxpayer dollars of the federal government, you'd better elect a democrat 'cause you cannot trust a Republicans with your money. And I love it when you gotta whole group of Democrats hooting and hollering over the balanced budget 'cause we know who the party of fiscal responsibility is. They are the party of borrow & spend, borrow & spend, borrow & spend; the credit-card Presidendency. Guess we can do better than that. I want a country where we have a foreign policy that is consistent with American values. You know, I supported the Gulf war because one of our allies have been attacked, not that we owed it to them to come to their defence. I supported the Afghan war because they killed 3000 of our people and I thought we had a right to defend ourselves, but this time the President told us that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were making a deal together to attack America that turned out not to be true. Told us that they were purchasing uranium from Africa. That turned out not to be true. Vice-President told us they were about to get atomic weapons. That turned out not to be true. The Secretary of Defense told use he knew exactly were the weapons of mass destruction were right near Tikrit and Baghdad. That turned out not to be true. As commander-in-chief, I will never hesitate to send American troops anywhere in the world to defend America, but as Commander-In-Chief of the United States military, I will never send our sons and our daughters and our brothers and sisters to a foreign land, put them in harm's way without telling the truth to the American people about why they are going. My state everybody under 18 has health insurance,… If we can do that in a small rural state, which balances its budget every single year surely the most powerful and wealthy nation on the face of the earth can join with the British and the French and the Japanese, and the Germans and the Irish, the Italians, the Israelis, the Canadians, the Danes, the Swedes; they all have health insurance that nobody can take away, Mr. President. I'm tired of being a second-class citizen. The United States of America deserves health insurance for every single man, women, and child in America…"
Check Out: All The President's Men
Link to Moral Volcano's Howard Dean And His Clones
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In my first entry on this blog, I had mentioned how I received a invitation from a nancy boy. That happened when my main website was on Geocities. When I checked the Geocities Statistics section, I found that a search engine had brought someone to my website for the search for madras homo sex people wanted. This was because all these words occurred at various places on the humour page. Search engines still continue to do their mischeif. Here is a sample of some strange search requests that they have brought my websites to recently.
Link to Moral Volcano's Strange Search Requests - I
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I began reading The Hindu after it broke the story about the Bofors scandal. I really enjoyed reading the paper for several years until Mr. N. Ram became its editor. Today, I prefer to call it "India's Leading Anti-National Newspaper."
C. Raja Mohan, the paper's strategic affairs editor, seems to be more like an employee of the United States Information Service (USIS) than that of The Hindu. Everything that he wrote were and continue to be more like handouts from the USIS. American officials wanting to put their propaganda into Indian media must have found him very useful since other Indian publications pick up news stories from The Hindu. If on one day he had interviewed an American official, then for the next several days he would continue to yap about the topic.
When the US was promoting the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) and when the public opinion was overwhelmingly against it, Mr. Mohan would simply gush about the benefits of joining that losers' club. Fortunately, India did not sign it. India's stand has been vindicated now that the US is trying to resume testing.
When Robin Raphael, a rather insignificant American diplomat, made a comment that Kashmir was a "disputed" territory, Mr. Mohan inflated it on the front page of the newspaper. When the national media picked it up, it created a big controversy. The US then began to lecture India about "human rights" and "aspirations" of the "Kashmiri people." The Americans stopped their nonsense after several foreign tourists were taken hostage and were later killed by the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM decided to call themselves Al Faran for that particular incident). Robin Raphael was later seen in action in Afghanistan where she tried to bring international recognition and support for the Taliban regime.
When an American company Unocal was trying to lay a pipeline across Afghanistan, Mr. Mohan wanted the Indian government to provide assurances to the Taliban government. When the same company was trying to impress upon the Bangladesh government about the advantages of exporting gas to India, Mr. Mohan wanted the Indian government to push for the project. Even recently, when the US was asking for Indian troops for Iraq, Mr. Mohan promoted the idea as "a new chapter" in the history of Indian diplomacy. The editor of The Hindu also supported the idea, but in a later editorial he pretended he was totally against it.
It is not just with Mr. Mohan, other stringers for the US get their articles published in the op-ed page of the newspaper. Some of the prominent ones are Kuldip Nayyar and Gail Omvedt. In each of the latter's articles, Ms. Omwedt puts out some strange and loosely-woven theories denouncing Indian heritage only to find them shredded to pieces by indignant but well-informed readers. Mohammed Yunus has accused Kuldip Nayyar of being a US defense asset. His actions do not belie this. Even though he criticises the authorities and political parties for their mistakes, there should be no doubts as to where his loyalties lie. When the USIS organises candle-light vigils at the Wagah post, you can expect Mr. Nayyar in charge of the ceremonies on this side of the border.
American State Department officials checking to see if Mr. Nayyar is doing his assignments properly.
When J. Jayalalitha (AIADMK) was in power, the paper made some just criticism of her government's policies and her party activities. Jayalalitha hounded the newspaper and The Hindu completely lost it cool and its objectivity. They then openly aligned with the M. Karunanidhi (DMK) and his allies. Since the DMK had a special relationship with the forest bandit Veerappan, the editor of The Hindu even signed a clemency petition for the bandit despite the fact that Veerappan had killed over 1000 elephants for their tusks and had also murdered or maimed hundreds of men and women including many police officers.
Link to Moral Volcano's The Hindu In Its 125th Year Of Existence
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In the entry titled Backseat Driver, I hinted how George Bush Sr. could be running the show behind his son's government. Now, I am pretty sure that is the case. On the anniversary of the 911 tragedy, I saw on television the US Ambassador to the UK addressing a memorial ceremony. His name? William Farish III. According to Bush's unauthorised biography,
When George Bush was elected Vice President in 1980, Texas mystery man William ("Will") Stamps Farish III took over management of all of George Bush's personal wealth in a "blind trust." Known as one of the richest men in Texas, Will Farish keeps his business affairs under the most intense secrecy. Only the source of his immense wealth is known, not its employment
So, what was the source? Webster and Chaitkin, the authors of the biography, explain
On March 25, 1942, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold announced that William Stamps Farish (grandfather of the President's money manager) had pled "no contest" to charges of criminal conspiracy with the Nazis. Farish was the principal manager of a worldwide cartel between Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey and the I.G. Farben concern. The merged enterprise had opened the Auschwitz slave labor camp on June 14, 1940, to produce artificial rubber and gasoline from coal. The Hitler government supplied political opponents and Jews as the slaves, who were worked to near death and then murdered.
Arnold disclosed that Standard Oil of N.J. (later known as Exxon), of which Farish was president and chief executive, had agreed to stop hiding from the United States patents for artificial rubber which the company had provided to the Nazis.
Link to Moral Volcano's Bushmen Are Crawling All Over The Place
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When Ronald Reagan was President, the United States followed a policy of arming and equipping Saddam Hussein in his fight against Khomeni's Iran. Biological and chemical intermediaries/labs were provided to Iraq and the "weapons of mass destruction" created from them were not only used against Iranian soldiers, but also on Iraqi people. Donald Rumsfeld (now Secretary of Defense) and George Shultz (now with Bechtel) were among those who lobbied for financial and military aid for Iraq. For more info, click here. Link to Moral Volcano's Why US/UN Personnel Are Under Attack In Iraq
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In my previous entry, I mentioned how a site called Unanswered Questions, raised some disturbing issues. While there, I found a link to an unauthorised biography of George Bush Sr. The book's contents can be freely viewed at the site. I had read only the first two chapters, but the book promises to be even more scarier.
Webster G. Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, the authors who wrote George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, are no conspiracy theorists. Their thorough investigation into the former CIA director and President is also backed up by an impressive bibliography.
It turns out that the Bush family with its huge interests in powerful banking circles had for generations been profiting from war and international conflicts. A case point is J. P. Morgan. This bank had bankrolled Hitler at the behest of Prescott Bush, G1's father. The same bank has been chosen to run the Iraq Trade Bank set up by the present US administration in Iraq.
Link to Moral Volcano's Backseat Driver
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The original text that I wanted to put down for this entry is as follows.
The rise of neocon elements in the US has bad portents for the US and the rest of the world. Internally, the US is being turned into a police state. Externally, the increasingly belligrent and bellicose behaviour is winning legions into the anti-American crowd. The fact that the US lets Israel commit genocide against Palestine and the fact that the state of Israel is more or less sponsored by American aid are not lost upon these people, particularly in the Middle East. With the complete domination of the neocons of the American mindspace, it seems quite certain that George W Bush is going to return to the White House for a second term.
American forces in Iraq are being plagued by a melange of fighters both from inside and outside Iraq. American plans to install a democratic state (whether under American tutelage or otherwise) is not going to be tolerated by its neighbours. Nor will its entry into the international oil market be welcomed. If militants wanting to take potshots at American forces or saboteurs wanting to blow up oil installations wish to cross into Iraq from Iran or Syria or even Saudi Arabia, they are not going to meet with any opposition. Neither will any of the guerilla groups with which the US had joined forces to topple Saddam going to let American companies make a profit without being suitably compensated. The "Ayotollah" who returned from exile from Iran may have been eliminated, but his specter will hang around the place for long.
If George W Bush is reelected, anti-American feelings will continue to consolidate and get larger. If the US tries its hand at any more regime changes, then it is in for a serious radioactive baking. Unlike Iraq, its neighbours have weapons of mass destruction and are quite capable of using them on the American mainland. Terrorists might also try to detonate renegade or hand-assembled nuclear weapons in highly populated areas.
In this context, it wouldn't be wise for the Indian government to be seen as siding with any segment. Our troops can find plenty of action within the country thanks to Pakistan's ISI. We should stop worrying about world affairs for as long as neocons rule the White House. If not, we will have to share some "atomic [sic] sunshine" that Gen. MacArthur reminded the Japanese about.
Before putting the above into words, I followed up on a link that said that George W Bush was in league with the 9-11 terrorists, hoping to be amused. From there, I ended up at a site called Unanswered Questions. It had many consipiracy theories that were very shocking in their implications despite my deep-routed skeptism. I knew George Bush prevented a top FBI official from pursuing Bin Laden financiers but I thought he was only trying to save US-Saudi relations and American oil interests in Saudi Arabia. Anthrax spores used in the aftermath of the bombing were the same grade used the US military. I thought their stocks might have been stolen. But for questions as to how 911 became reality, I had no real answers. First of all, it seemed implausible that planes could be diverted without triggering alarms. It was also not possible for badly trained pilots to handle sophisticated passenger aircraft and navigate them exactly to their intended targets. Details of the investigation into the incident are still shrouded in secrecy. While I had these doubts, I was quite sure that the job was the handiwork of terrorists. When a British mullah suggested to Tim Sebastian of BBC's Hard Talk programme that the buildings were sabotaged from within, I had then laughed. Now, I am not so sure if that wasn't the case. One of the questions asked how it was possible for the pilots who flew the planes to get their training from facilities run by the US government. Apparently, this information is whetted by top publications in the US.
Though the questions on the page were extremely upsetting, some of the questions thankfully provided comic relief. Here are some of the best.
After reading so much conspiracy theories, I decided to come up with one myself. Where is Osama? He is selling pens in Italy. If you don't believe me, then check out www.OSAMA.com
Link to Moral Volcano's Atomic Sunshine
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During the recent Iraqi invasion, a British military spokesman would dish out stories of a civilian revolt in Basra and the BBC would repeat them without questioning their authenticity. People lining up at coalition water trucks would be shown as a joyous welcome to invading forces. A publicity stunt orchestrated by the American military as a welcome ceremony to INC leader Ahmed Chalabi was portrayed as evidence of his popularity and acceptance of his leadership. Lyse Doucet, BBC's Amman correspondent, tried unsuccessfuly to coax commentator after commentator to say good things about the invasion, while they would only focus on the bombing campaign and enormous loss of life it caused. When the port at Umm Qasar was blocked, the BBC news anchor would say that if the port was opened, it would help bring in humanitarian aid. A defence analyst pulled the pants or skirt off her by saying that the Americans wanted the port be opened so that military supplies could come in and replenish their forces. To say that the port would be opened to bring in "humanitarian aid" was, he said, "unethical." When a large number of Iraqi "soldiers" in civilian clothes were captured by the coalition forces, their faces were shown by the BBC. When Al Jazeera television showed the faces of captured American POWs, the BBC interviewed legal experts on whether this was against the Geneva convention.
I had known that BBC lacked credibility for long, but I was clearly surprised to learn that many Americans consider the BBC as a source of real unbiased objective news. This is because Fox News (owned by Rupert Murdoch and a beneficiary of Republican Party largesse) had been whipping up war fever to hysterical levels. Though other American news channels tried to ape Fox News, they could not achieve the same level of success.
I hope that gives you a clear picture of everything. Now, just imagine this: if Americans think BBC was good, then just how bad Fox News must have been? Can you now understand why people in America are so ignorant of what's happening outside their country?
Link to Moral Volcano's Laugh, Americans Think The BBC Is Objective!
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When Rajiv Gandhi visited the United States as Prime Minister, he was asked why he had not given Indian radio and television complete freedom. He replied that the Indian press was free but they were "worse than you [American Press] are." Though his excuse was lame, the following incident may seem to add credence to his line.
During the Gujarat riots, a photograph of a Muslim youth begging the police to save his life was published all across the national press and it has since remained etched in everyone's memory.
The youth apparently survived the incident but subsequently found it difficult to go back to his usual life. Being a daily labourer, he found it difficult to obtain jobs as everyone recognised him and faulted him for giving Gujarat a "bad name." On learning his plight, the leftist government in West Bengal offered him a government job in that state. Though he did not want to leave his native Gujarat, the situation seemed to force him.
At a media conference, he asked the press to stop publishing his photograph. This turned out to be a mistake because he was snapped again and his photo published all over the press on the next day. Some newspapers, wanting to apprise their readers who might have forgotten, published the old photograph showing him crying and begging for his life alongside the new one.
Link to Moral Volcano's Mission Accomplished: A Refugee Created By The Media
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