General admits to secret air war - Sunday Times - Times Online

The Times reporter keeps up pressure over the Iraq conspiracy.
But where is any means of remedy in these islands?

By the time the war officially started and parliament voted the war was really pretty much won. They simply had not walked in.

Yesterday Bush exorted Americans to keep up their fight for freedom.

Mr Bush, there can be no freedom without truth honesty international law, a free press. and a properly representative democracy.

We shoud be fighting the perpetrators of 911. It was you and your friends, the saudis.

There never has been a connection with Iraq.

"General admits to secret air war

Michael Smith
THE American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began.

Addressing a briefing on lessons learnt from the Iraq war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley said that in 2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties, dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 “carefully selected targets” before the war officially started.

The nine months of allied raids “laid the foundations” for the allied victory, Moseley said. They ensured that allied forces did not have to start the war with a protracted bombardment of Iraqi positions."

WTI : World Tribunal on Iraq : PRESS RELEASE about JURY STATEMENT

The verdict on our Government is out.
We voted this Government back in after all these war crimes.
Shame on the British people.



"On the basis of the preceding findings and recalling the Charter of the United Nations and other legal documents, the jury has established the following charges against the Governments of the US and the UK:

• Planning, preparing, and waging the supreme crime of a war of aggression in contravention of the United Nations Charter and the Nuremberg Principles.
• Targeting the civilian population of Iraq and civilian infrastructure
• Using disproportionate force and indiscriminate weapon systems
• Failing to safeguard the lives of civilians during military activities and during the occupation period thereafter
• Using deadly violence against peaceful protestors
• Imposing punishments without charge or trial, including collective punishment
• Subjecting Iraqi soldiers and civilians to torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment
• Re-writing the laws of a country that has been illegally invaded and occupied
• Willfully devastating the environment
• Actively creating conditions under which the status of Iraqi women has seriously been degraded
• Failing to protect humanity’s rich archaeological and cultural heritage in Iraq
• Obstructing the right to information, including the censoring of Iraqi media
• Redefining torture in violation of international law, to allow use of torture and illegal detentions
"

t r u t h o u t - Is This What They Call Democracy?

Other playwrights and writers are leading the way in challenging the obscenity of the Blair Bush war. Check this out.

"Eva Ensler, member of the WTI jury and American playwright most famous for her award-winning 'Vagina Monologues,' told reporters that both the UN and national governments had failed the Iraqi people and that 'the people's movement across the world that rose up is an opportunity for the conscience of the world to be heard.'

Iraqi and US military testimony was joined by former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations Denis Halliday, who argued that the Tribunal has an 'obligation to demand full international prosecution of US/UK war leaders as war criminals involved in the destruction of Iraq, the lives of its people and their human rights and well being, through unlawful and unjustifiable armed invasion and military occupation.'

For many Iraqis at the proceedings, the Tribunal offered an opportunity to seek justice. Hana Ibrahim, director of the Women's Cultural Center in Baghdad, maintained the WTI's 'task in the world is to judge the war criminals, to warn the people of the world, and to leave a trace in history.'"

t r u t h o u t - Brendan Smith | The "Tribunal Movement"

This tribunal movement is very interesting. Roy's comment that we appear to be living in a world where real life has become more satirical than satir can ever be seems to me to be a pertinent fact.

The Bremner Brd and Fortune TV satire programme stopped being funny when it became a watered down version of thehideous political truth.

However, if you wanted news you would get more of it on Bremner and Co than on the BBc news programmes.

"Drawing on the tradition of Bertrand Russell's 1967 International War Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam, the WTI jury heard expert testimony from eminent lawyers and scholars on the application of international humanitarian law to US and British conduct in Iraq. The jury will also hear testimony from Iraqi victims of alleged American war crimes, including residents of Fallujah, survivors of carpet bombing, and victims of torture.

There have been twenty similar tribunals held in South Korea, Paris, Brussels, New York, and elsewhere around the world over the last three years. According to Professor Richard Falk, author of more than 30 books on international law, this 'Tribunal movement' works 'to reinforce the claims of international law by filling in the gaps where governments and even the United Nations are unable and unwilling to act, or even speak. When governments are silent, and fail to protect victims of aggression, tribunals of concerned citizens possess a law-making authority.'

After hearing evidence, the Tribunal jury will 'draw legal, moral, and political conclusions,' as well as offer recommendations and send the various witness depositions to the International Criminal Court.

Arundhati Roy responded to accusations that the Tribunal is a Kangaroo Court that represents only one point of view. She said this claim seems to suggest 'a touching concern that in this harsh world the views of the US Government ... have somehow gone unrepresented.'

According to Roy, 'If someone can seriously hold this view, then we really do live in an age when satire has become meaningless because real life is more satirical than satire can ever be.'"

t r u t h o u t - How 'Britain's Deep Throat' Leaked the Memos

The truth keeps seeping out on the conspiracy to deveive the public and start an iilegal war of aggression in Iraq.

The line taken by the Today Programme when it surfaced here again the other day was that we should not be backward looking.
It was Minges Cambpell who was drawn onto the programme again.
The Tories, it seems can only gaze at their navels.

My MP, David Cameron, has promised to raise it in Parliament. So far I have heard nothing more from him.

" Last week one US blogger, Larisa Alexandrovna of RawStory.com, unearthed more unsettling evidence. It was an overlooked interview with Lieutenant-General T Michael Moseley, the allied air commander in Iraq, in which he appears to admit that the 'spikes of activity' were part of a covert air war.

From June 2002 until March 20, when the ground war began, the allies flew 21,736 sorties over southern Iraq, attacking 349 carefully selected targets. The attacks, Moseley said, 'laid the foundations' for the invasion, allowing allied commanders to begin the ground war.

The bloggers may have found their own smoking gun."

Town hall meeting: reclaiming democracy

I am hoping people will come to the Oxford Town Hall on Tuesday at 7.30 p.m. to explore whether democracy can be reclaimed or if it is true as Tony Benn quoted Peter Mandelson that "the era of representative democracy is coming to an end"

Please leave a comment if you find this a worthwhile exploration. I can feed your thoughts into the meeting.

It will be organised in a circle with everyone's view given equal weight. No dominant speakers.
I will try to use my slightly rusty facilitation skills.

t r u t h o u t - Arundhati Roy | The Most Cowardly War in History

There is something called the world tribunal on Iraq meeting in Turkey at present. It aims to hold Blair Bush and their minions to account for the Iraq invasion. I hope a few more people will learn aboutthis and support it by discovering it here on Blairy England.

"There are remarkable people gathered here who in the face of this relentless and brutal aggression and propaganda have doggedly worked to compile a comprehensive spectrum of evidence and information that should serve as a weapon in the hands of those who wish to participate in the resistance against the occupation of Iraq. It should become a weapon in the hands of soldiers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, and elsewhere who do not wish to fight, who do not wish to lay down their lives - or to take the lives of others - for a pack of lies. It should become a weapon in the hands of journalists, writers, poets, singers, teachers, plumbers, taxi drivers, car mechanics, painters, lawyers - anybody who wishes to participate in the resistance.

The evidence collated in this tribunal should, for instance, be used by the International Criminal Court (whose jurisdiction the United States does not recognize) to try as war criminals George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard, Silvio Berlusconi, and all those government officials, army generals, and corporate CEOs who participated in this war and now profit from it."

Blair planned Iraq war from start - Sunday Times - Times Online

"For the secret documents seen by The Sunday Times reveal that on that Tuesday in 2002:

# Blair was right from the outset committed to supporting US plans for regime change in Iraq.

# War was already seen as inevitable.

# The attorney-general was already warning of grave doubts about its legality."

I apologise for linking to an old times story.

However, it is so full and complete an account of how the Blair Government planned and started a war for Mr Bush with no legal moral or National case for it that I must put it into Blairy England.

We have been waiting a long time for this deep throat.

But is this country able to listen and take notice.

Or is this country now a dictatorship?

Memos Show British Fretting Over Iraq War

So far it seems the British version of "Deep throat" has given Smith at least 8 memos which show the decision and actuality of war beginning against iraq a year before the official start and unauthorised by the Congress or the UN. Blair knew war as regime change was illegal but went along with it anyway.

yet he was prepared to destroy the top management of the BBC for daring to tell at least a bit of the truth.

It was far more than sexing up. It was all lies and deciey Mr Blair.

And your chickens are coming home to roost.

"The eight memos ��� all labeled 'secret' or 'confidential' ��� were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.

Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.

The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have circulated widely). A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the material.

The Sunday Times this week reported that lawyers told the British government that U.S. and British bombing of Iraq in the months before the war was illegal under international law. That report, also by Smith, noted that almost a year before the war started, they began to strike more frequently.

The newspaper quoted Lord Goodhart, vice president of the International Commission of Jurists, as backing the Foreign Office lawyers' view that aircraft could only patrol the no-fly zones to deter attacks by Saddam's forces.

Goodhart said that if 'the purpose was to soften up Iraq for a future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces were acting without lawful authority,' the Sunday Times reported.

The eight documents reported earlier total 36 pages and range from 10-page and eight-page studies on military and legal options in Iraq, to brief memorandums from British officials and the minutes of a private meeting held by Blair and his top advisers.

Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert who teaches at Queen Mary College, University of London, said the documents confirmed what post-invasion investigations have found.

'The documents show what official inquiries in Britain already have, that the case of weapons of mass destruction was based on thin intelligence and was used to inflate the "

The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Election 2004 did Bush steal the 2004 election

This post refers you to a book that has come out on Bush'e stealing of the 2004 election. Check it out.

You should note that the exit polls gave victory to Kerry.
Over here they prdicted the British election to within a single marginal seat.

I ask you one thing. How did the result swing 5% from the exit poll?

The same deviation in outcome caused a revolution in Kiev.



"Introduction: Did George W. Bush steal America's 2004 election?
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
June 16, 2005

The following text is the Introduction to the 767 page: Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? Essential Documents. You can buy the book here.

This volume of documents is meant to provide you, the reader, with evidence necessary to make up your own mind. "

Liberty Belle Log.Downing Street Cover up reaches critical mass

I am copying this Liberty Belle Log in full as I believe it is a very important document.
I think it demonstrates that we are at the start of Bush's impeachment.
It also reveals that the Americans are coming over here to pick up the issue with Blair.
The parliamentary group tring to impeach Blair needs to be restimulated.
I will write to my MP again.
Todays news has it that he is gaining momentum in his bid to be the new leader of the conservative party.

"Liberty Belle Log
June 17, 2005
DOWNING STREET COVER-UP REACHES CRITICAL MASS
The GOP is running scared. When Congressman John Conyers, ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, announced plans to hold hearings on the damning allegations raised in the Downing Street Minutes, Republican leaders refused to provide a hearing room in the Capitol.
Under pressure, the GOP leadership ultimately condescended to allow Conyers to hold his hearings yesterday in the Capitol basement—in a room so small that it would hold only 20 people, including media members. But the GOP’s dictatorial cover-up tactics have failed to suppress the truth.
Witness after witness presented compelling evidence that President Bush and his administration intentionally deceived Congress and the American people into supporting a war on Iraq. An Associated Press story on the hearings included this salient quote from Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): “Was the president of the United States a fool or a knave?”
Following the hearing, Conyers led a boisterous crowd in a march to the White House gates, where he delivered a petition signed by 122 Congressional cosponsors and over half a million citizens demanding a formal inquiry with subpoena powers. A White House staffer was eventually dispatched to accept it; in a further show of arrogance, Bush has thus far refused to acknowledge the petition. If the President has nothing to hide, why doesn’t he welcome an inquiry to clear his name? Instead, his administration is stonewalling in a fashion remarkably reminiscent of Richard Nixon in the throes of Watergate.
Perhaps the admission of “Deep Throat” to his role in aiding Woodward and Bernstein helped inspire the British informant who leaked the Downing Street Minutes to the London Times. Now, more damning documents have emerged—all confirming allegations that our President lied to start a war.
At last, the mainstream media has realized that the genie is out of the bottle. No longer able to ignore the Downing Street Memo, every major TV network covered the Conyers hearings. Editorials condemning the President, including some openly discussing impeachment, have appeared in major newspapers across the country and are now filtering into even smaller community publications. The Wisconsin Democratic Party passed a resolution urging Congress to impeach Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
How compelling is the truth? An MSNBC poll, run in conjunction with a story on the Conyers hearing, asked if the President misled the nation in order to go to war with Iraq. Astoundingly, 94% replied “Yes.”
There’s more good news. Several Republicans in Congress have called for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Some, citing the President’s deceptions in the lead-up to war, now say that they would have voted against authorizing the war if they’d known the truth. Key Republicans this week also called for closure of Guantanamo. Several GOP members also joined with Democrats to amend the Patriot Act, removing one of the worst provisions. Whether honest Republican officials are finally coming to their senses, or merely jumping off a sinking ship of state, we cannot fathom. But the Downing Street Minutes have become the political equivalent of an immovable iceberg—making Bush’s poll ratings sink faster than the Titanic.
What is Conyers planning next? Liberty Belle has the inside scoop. According to a very reliable source, this tireless patriot will soon be traveling to England—where he plans to compile more evidence to corroborate allegations raised in the Downing Street Minutes, further implicating the Bush administration in illegal and unconscionable acts.
For those of you too young to remember Watergate, it began with a small story on a second-rate burglary. At a recent press gathering, CBS correspondent Dan Rather revealed how the Nixon White House pressured CBS to suppress the story, hoping to confine the damning revelations to the Washington Post. Reportedly, Rather grew teary-eyed as he compared the Watergate story to current events—and implored an audience of journalists last week to tell America the truth.
Thankfully, some journalists in the corporate-owned press appear to have found the courage to take Rather’s advice to heart—as the groundswell of public outrage becomes too great to ignore.
-- Liberty Belle"

'Downing Street's Deep Throat'

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

t r u t h o u t - New Memos Reveal Bush Deception on Iraq

Someone is letting all the evils of the plotters hatch out.

After the Downing Street memo a string of new documents shows us how Bush Blair set about creating a false case for regime change in Iraq.

Campbell's charge against the BBC that it had not sexed up the case for war is now utterly untenable

Greg Dyke and/or the BBC of today shgould be suing the Government.

"Manning told Blair that given Bush's eagerness for British backing, the prime minister would have 'real influence' on the public relations strategy, on the issue of encouraging the United States to go first to the United Nations and on any U.S. military planning.

Manning said it could prove helpful if Hussein refused to allow renewed U.N. weapons inspections.

'The issue of weapons inspectors must be handled in a way that would persuade Europe and wider opinion that the U.S. was conscious of the international framework, and the insistence of many countries on the need for a legal basis. Renewed refusal by Saddam to accept unfettered inspections would be a powerful argument,' Manning wrote Blair.

Four days after the Manning memo, Christopher Meyer, then the British ambassador in Washington, wrote to Manning about a lunch he had with Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the U.S. deputy secretary of Defense and a leading proponent in the administration of confronting Hussein. Meyer said in the memo that he had told Wolfowitz that U.N. pressure and weapons inspections could be used to trip up Hussein.

'We backed regime change,' he wrote, 'but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe.'

Meyer wrote that he had argued that Washington could go it alone if it wanted to. 'But if it wanted to act with partners, there had to be a strategy for building support for military action against Saddam. I then went through the need to wrong-foot Saddam on the inspectors and the [U.N. Security Council resolutions] and the critical importance of the [Middle East peace process] as an integral part of the anti-Saddam strategy. If all this could be accomplished skillfully, we were fairly confident that a number of countries would come on board.'"

Reality is finally seeping through the media spin on Iraq

A substantial majority of Aericans no longer believe the lies they were told on Iraq. Over here they don't even ask us anymore.

"In the Gallup Poll, 56% say the Iraq war wasn't “worth it,” essentially matching the high-water mark of 57% a month ago.

•Of those who say the war wasn't worth it, the top reasons cited are fraudulent claims and no weapons of mass destruction found; the number of people killed and wounded; and the belief that Iraq posed no threat to the United States.

•Of the 42% who say the war was worth it, the top reasons cited are the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the need to stop terrorism and a desire to end the oppression of the Iraqi people."

t r u t h o u t - Memogate: More Documents Allege Fixing of Intel

The Downing Street Memo has reached the front page of the Washington Post. The papers are being assembled from leaks and many other sources as shown below that the war was fought on a fabricated false premise.
To make matters worse it becomes ever clearer that the US had no idea how to win the peace. It left the defense department in charge.
It may be they did not care at all about peace as long as they could militarily take control of the oil supply.

"As you know, the Downing Street Minutes said the Bush administration 'fixed' the intelligence around its policy of attacking Iraq. The British Briefing Papers lend further credence to this point.

British Knew Iraqi WMD Were Not a Threat: 'There is no greater threat now that [Saddam] will use WMD than there has been in recent years, so continuing containment is an option.' [Iraq: Options Paper]

Evidence Did Not Show Much Advance In Iraq's Weapons Programs: 'Even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years on [the] nuclear, missile or CW/BW fronts: the programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up.' [Ricketts Paper, 3/22/02]

Evidence Was Thin on Iraq/Al Qaeda Ties: 'US is scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al [Qaida] is so far frankly unconvincing.' [Ricketts Paper, 3/22/02]

'No Credible Evidence' On Iraq/Al Qaeda Link: 'There has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL and Al Qaida.' [Straw Paper, 3/25/02]

Wolfowitz Knew Supposed Iraq/Al Qaeda Link Was Weak: Wolfowitz said that 'there might be doubt about the alleged meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker on 9/11, and Iraqi intelligence (did we, he asked, know anything more about this meeting?).' [Meyer Paper, 3/18/02]

The full British Briefing Papers have been attached below. When reading them, keep in mind that these Papers were written approximately a full year before the invasion of Iraq. The Papers present a shockingly accurate forecast of what has transpired in the years since, and suggest the Bush administration chose to ignore the advice of our key ally when it came to dealing with Iraq.

British Iraq Options Paper
Manning Paper
Meyer Paper
Ricketts Paper
Straw Paper
British Legal Background Paper

"

Prosecute Blair in Britain now

"However, the ICC is unlikely to open a case against the British in Iraq. For starters, the member states have only agreed to include the crime of aggression in the ICC's statute (alongside war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide) in 2009. At the ICC's first major press conference in The Hague (July 16 2003), the Chief Prosecutor acknowledge that nearly 1/4 of the 'communications' his office had received in the institution's first year concerned complaints related to Iraq. But, said Mr. Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC did not envision taking up these cases due to the principle of complementarity, which says that national courts have the first chance to investigate and prosecute incidents attributed to its nationals. "

The Downing Street memo and its more recent follow up so clearly indicate a war of aggression by Blair and Bush we should start a National prosecution now.

The International Court is very unlikely to act until we set our own house into order.

Dear people of Oxfordshire

I write to you as a poet, political commentator and ambassador of the Power Enquiry (details below) to ask you to attend and speak to a meeting of people concerned that we do not at present live in a real democracy and want change.RSVP to the e-mail address above.

POWER - An independent inquiry into Britain's democracy
Home
About us
The Commission
The Commission
Publications
Witness Sessions
Give evidence
Get involved
Events
News
Blog
POWER Ambassador events

There will be an event at Oxford Town Hall at 7.30 p.m. Theme RECLAIMING DEMOCRACY



POWER Ambassadors are the public face of the POWER Inquiry in local areas. They are local people ? with knowledge of local community networks and how to reach them ? who have volunteered to organise meetings and events in their local area, publicise them in their local press, ensure they are well attended with a variety of people and make sure that the meetings generate evidence for the Inquiry which is returned to us. There are over 80 POWER Ambassadors. Ambassadors are voluntary unpaid roles. We ask for a minimal commitment of at least one form of evidence gathering.We are still looking for people all around the country to become our POWER Ambassadors, to be our point of contact in their community or town and to help the Inquiry organise events and consultations where they live or work. All evidence gathered by the POWER Ambassadors will be submitted to the research team and the Commission, which is made up of ten people from a variety of backgrounds and interests, from both inside and outside of the traditional world of politics.? Power 2004-05 Contact us About this site Links Top

Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’ - Sunday Times - Times Online

What a story!
I will ask my MP to pick up on this


"Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’
Michael Smith
MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal."

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Britain accused of creating terror fears

"Lord Steyn hailed the Belmarsh ruling as 'a great day for the law', and 'a vindication of the rule of law, ranking with historic judgments of our courts'.

He added: 'Nobody doubts in any way the very real risk of international terrorism. But the Belmarsh decision came against the public fear whipped up by the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom since September 11 2001 and their determination to bend established international law to their will and to undermine its essential structures.'"

Blair and Bush are a double-act. Together, they arer destroying the fabric of human freedom in a just society and replacing it with a police state.

Blair has the support of just one voter in five for his laws.

PUBLIC MEETING, OXFORD TOWN HALL, 7.30PM JUNE 28.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS.

Bush is spinning the earth backwards

"Documents released by a watchdog group, the Government Accountability Project, show that as chief of staff for the White House council on environmental quality, Philip Cooney watered down government scientific papers on climate change and played up uncertainties in the scientific literature. Mr Cooney is a law graduate and has no scientific training."

We know now that the Iraq invasion was the result of putting a false spin on our feeble intelligence.
Now it has been shown that the world's climate has been changed to fit in with Mr Bush's version of reality.

Bush/Cheney know all about peak oil and all about climate change. That is the only credible reason why they are doing everything to expand the military at a time when their is no real opposition to them. They will invade anywhere and everywhere to keep the resources flowing to America at the expense of the rest of us here on this planet.

Why else send an ambassador to the UN whose main goal is to destroy it.

Come on somebody out there, give me another explanation.

t r u t h o u t - Memogate Hearings Scheduled for June 16

Could this be the start of impeachment for Bush?
Will the potential Tory leadership candidate, David Cameron, pick up the DSM as he promised with Blair and Co?

These matters will continue to be unfolded here in Blairy England.


"On Thursday June 16, 2005, Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of House Judiciary Committee, and other Democratic Members will hold a Democratic hearing to hear testimony concerning the Downing Street Minutes and the efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence.

On May 1, 2005 a Sunday London Times article disclosed the details of a classified memo, also known as the Downing Street Minutes, recounting the minutes of a July 2002 meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair that describes an American President already committed to going to war in the summer of 2002, despite contrary assertions to the public and the Congress. The minutes also describe apparent efforts by the Administration to manipulate intelligence data to justify the war. The June 16th hearing will attempt to answer the serious constitutional questions raised by these revelations and will further investigate the Administration's actions in the lead up to war with new documents that further corroborate the Downing Street memo.

Those expected to testify include Joe Wilson, Former Ambassador and WMD Expert; Ray McGovern, 27-year CIA analyst who prepared regular Presidential briefings during the Reagan administration; Cindy Sheehan, mother of a fallen American soldier; and John Bonifaz, renowned constitutional lawyer and co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org.

Directly following the hearing, Rep. Conyers, Members of Congress, and concerned citizens plan to hand deliver to the White House the petition and signatures of over a half million Americans that have joined Rep. Conyers in demanding that President Bush answer questions about his secret plan for the Iraq war.

AfterDowningStreet.org is a rapidly growing coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activist groups, which launched on May 26, 2005, a campaign to urge the U.S. Congress to begin a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed "

Justice pursues Bush and Blair

There are movements for justice on Iraq formed all over the world slowly moving forward in their efforts to bring our war criminal leaders to justice.
Check out this story.

"The World Tribunal on Iraq
In 1967, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell convened the International War Crimes Tribunal. The Tribunal was charged with conducting �a solemn and historic investigation� of U.S. war crimes in Vietnam in order to �prevent the crime of silence.�
Drawing on this tradition, the WTI�composed of lawyers, former parliamentarians and judges, journalists, artists, and victims of U.S. aggression�has held people�s tribunals on multiple continents in order to build �a moral, political, and judicial record that contributes to build a world of peace and justice� as part of a broader campaign to �put an end to impunity enjoyed by the United States and its allies.�1"

Articles, government corruption, freedom of speech, truth

The Americans are thinking of rewriting their declaration of Independence brfore Bush takes it all away.

My American friend reminds me that we are all mere subjects subjected to the Royal Will over here.

The European commissioner fro Human rights says we are at fault on that score.

What about an update on madna carta

the original is certainly not a lot of good to us.

"'What we will need as a nation to overcome this continual lying and deceit from our own government is a new Declaration of Independence, modified from it's original state to declare that we, as Americans, will stand united against the tyranny brought about by the current Bush administration and his band of followers,' said Glenn, adding that he is seeking assistance from others more skilled at literary and legal matters as he is not a trained writer or lawyer"

POWER - An independent inquiry into Britain's democracy

I have become a Power ambassador.
I am organising a meeting in Oxfordshire to get feedback on what is wrong with democracy locally and what we can do about it.

More later.

POWER - An independent inquiry into Britain's democracy: "
The POWER Inquiry has been set up to explore how political participation and involvement can be increased and deepened in Britain. It is based on the primary belief that a healthy democracy requires the active participation of its citizens.
Since the historically unprecedented decline in turnout in 2001 many political organisations have put considerable effort into analysing the roots of voter abstention and the current state of political engagement in the UK. This widely shared concern over declining electoral turnout is our starting point for a broader investigation into the health of the connections between the public and the political process.
The Inquiry aims to understand why the decline in popular participation and involvement in formal politics has occurred and to provide concrete and innovative proposals to reverse the trend."

When is Someone Going to Toss Rumsfeld Into a Cage? (mparent7777.blog-city.com)

"'See, in my line of work, you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda,' Bush said."

Tell a big lie often enough and forcefully enough and the people will believe it.
that is the business you are in Mr Bush

You keep telling us there is no problem with Global warming.
Sorry to tell you that we don't believe you. The worlds scientists are getting together to tell you that.

But you like propaganda rather than truth, don't ya Mr Dubbya.

The Bush Bolton version of the United states

The fight to keep Bolton out of the U.N. is a very important one. Listen to his opinions, look at him speak.
Bush wants to replace the U.N. with the U.S.
So maybe any other choice he makes will be as bad.

So, hey, lets look forward to Pax Americana, the new world empire.

Bush makes Ghengis Khan look civilised.

The Other Bomb Drops (mparent7777.blog-city.com)

It looks like the democrats are so mired in resonsibility for the Iraq war they dare not start to impeach Bush for starting the war without the blessing of congress or the U.N.
It is now crystal clear that the war was begun a very long time before troops moved into Iraq, and its defences were already pulverised. No wonder they reached Baghdad so quickly.

My M.P. a contender for the Tory leadership, has promised to ask the right questions on my behalf in Parliament and report back. Are the Tories willing to make an issue of it here when they backed the war so strongly.

We shall see.

Sadly it will take a lot of energy to impeach Blair. I expect he will run away long before it gets to that here.

"It only takes one member of Congress to begin an impeachment process, and Conyers is said to be considering the option. The process would certainly be revealing. Congress could subpoena Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Gen. Richard Myers, Gen.Tommy Franks and all of the military commanders and pilots involved with the no-fly zone bombings going back into the late 1990s. What were their orders, both given and received? In those answers might lie a case for impeachment.
But another question looms, particularly for Democrats who voted for the war and now say they were misled: Why weren't these unprovoked and unauthorized attacks investigated when they were happening, when it might have had a real impact on the Administration's drive to war? Perhaps that's why the growing grassroots campaign to use the Downing Street memo to impeach Bush can't get a hearing on Capitol Hill. A real probing of this 'smoking gun' would not be uncomfortable only for Republicans. The truth is that Bush, like President Bill Clinton before him, oversaw the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam against a sovereign country with no international or US mandate. That gun is probably too hot for either party to touch. "

The Lone Star Iconoclast Online

The U.S. Britain and Israel have used these Depleted Uranium weapons of mass destruction. Other counties have been sold them.

It should be headlines everywhere. But it stays a dirty big secret.


"ICONOCLAST: Essentially then, you�re saying that we�re conducting a nuclear war.

MORET: Yes, and that�s exactly what it is. We�ve conducted four nuclear wars since 1991. Yeah, these are nuclear wars. DU is a nuclear weapon.

ICONOCLAST: From the point of view of a scientist, what needs to happen to correct this?

MORET: Well, we need to stop the use of it. We�ve built an international movement to stop the use, the manufacture, the storage, the sales, and the deployment of depleted uranium weapons.

ICONOCLAST: Are the munitions we sell to other countries contained with depleted uranium?

MORET: We have. In 1968 the first depleted uranium weapons systems that we found a patent for suddenly appeared in the U.S. patent office. It was for the Navy. It was sort of a Gatling gun style weapon system that you mounted on ships. It rapidly fires like 2,500 bullets a minute. It�s over 3,000 now. They�ve improved the design. Then in 1973, we gave depleted uranium weapons systems to the Israelis and supervised their use. They used them in the Arab-Israeli war and completely wiped out the Arabs in five days. Then the show was on the road. That was the first actual battlefield demonstration of this new weapon system.
Hughes Aircraft developed the full-length system which is for the Navy. That�s the Gatling gun system. They still use it. That was produced in 1974 and tested. Within six months the U.S. government had sold the DU weapons system to 12 entities which included many branches of the U.S. military and other counties. We�ve sold DU weapons systems to about � we don�t know exactly for sure � it�s been about 12 or 17 countries. The good news is that normally such a weapons system that effective would have been sold to 80, 100, or 120 countries by now. But because"

Crime against humanity

The strongest motivation for my writing Blairy England has continued to be this country's use of depleted uranium as a tool of wars against people on this planet. It was the pictures of what this stuff is doing to the unborn children of Earth that made this writing more important than novels, plays or poetry. But it is taking a very long time for the message to start to penetrate; unlike the DU, which penetrates humans like it was oxygen, even though the victims include the wests own troops and their unborn children. One study claims 67% of U.S. veterans have had children with birth defects after Gulf War 1.

"But the worst horrors for our soldiers--and for children here at home--may be yet to come. I have never read a more chilling account than the Texas Iconoclast’s interview this week with Lauren Moret, a world-renown scientific expert on depleted uranium. How can a leader who touts “family values” force our soldiers and their families to suffer such unspeakable nightmares as these?

Moret tells of teenage women soldiers returning from Iraq with uterine cancer and male soldiers with rectal cancer, caused by sitting on crates of depleted uranium weapons in their fighting vehicles. She warns of birth defects likely to occur in children of these soldiers, based on Gulf War vets who fathered children born with missing limbs, brains, and eyes. Depleted uranium in our atmosphere is contaminating every portion of our planet. Left unchecked, Moret predicts grimly, “It’s going to kill off the world’s population.”

Open letter to David Cameron, M.P.

Dear David Cameron,

I am writing an urgent open letter to you as an aspirant and possible future leader of the Tory party on this matter of great National importance,

You once wrote to me that we should have invaded Iraq bwcause we "all know he has W.M.D." We all know now he did not. The evidence is becoming overwhelming now that this was an illegal war of aggression, as Ms Wilshurst described it at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Please respond to a report in the London Times on Sunday, May 29, indicating that British and U.S. aircraft increased their rates of bombing in 2002 in order to provoke an excuse for war in Iraq. Much of this information is provided by the British Ministry of Defense in response to questions posed by Liberal Democrat Sir Menzies Campbell.
As you may know, on May 6, John Conyers wrote to President Bush, along with 88 of his colleagues in the House of Representatives, asking him to respond to allegations first revealed in the London Times on May 1, that the U.S. and British government had a secret plan to invade Iraq by the summer of 2002, well before the Bush Administration requested authorization for military action, from the U.S. Congress. A response is still pending on that request.
The allegations and factual assertions made in the May 29 London Times are in many respects just as serious as those made in the earlier article. They include the following:
"The RAF and U.S. aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs in 2002 .... The attacks were intensified from May .... By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive." Then British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon reportedly told a British Cabinet Meeting in July, 2002, that by this time "the U.S. had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime." The newly released information also appears to show that "the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001."
According to the article, this increase in the rate of bombing was "an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war." As I am sure you are aware, allied commander Tommy Franks has previously acknowledged the existence of increased military operations which he asserted were needed "to 'degrade' Iraqi air defenses in the same way as the air attacks that began the 1991 Gulf War."
The new information goes on to indicate that our military decided "on August 5, 2005, for a 'hybrid plan' in which a continuous air offensive and special forces would begin while the main ground force built up in Kuwait for a full-scale invasion." According to the article, "despite the lack of an Iraqi reaction, the air war began anyway in September with a 100-plane raid."
If true, these assertions indicate that not only had the Administration secretly and perhaps illegally agreed to go to war by the summer of 2002, but it also took specific and tangible military actions before asking Congress or the United Nations for authority, and absent an actual or imminent threat.
Thus, while there is considerable doubt as to whether the U.S. had authority to invade Iraq, given, among other things, the failure of the U.N. to issue a follow-up resolution to the November 8, 2002, Resolution 1441, it would seem that the act of engaging in military action via stepped up bombing raids that were not in response to an actual or imminent threat before our government asked for military authority would be even more problematic from a legal as well as a moral perspective.
As a result of these new disclosures, I would ask that you, as my Member of Parliament, take up this issue as promptly as possible with the British Government as to the following questions:

Did the RAF and the United States military increase the rate that they were dropping bombs in Iraq in 2002? If so, what was the extent and timing of the increase?

What was the justification for any such increase in the rate of bombing in Iraq at this time? Was this justification reviewed by legal authorities in the U.K.?

Was there any agreement with any representative of the U.S. Government to engage in military action in Iraq before authority was sought from the Congress or the U.N.? If so, what was the nature of the agreement?

In connection with all of the above questions, please ask the Government to provide you with any memorandum, notes, minutes, documents, phone and other records, e-mails, computer files (including back-up records) or other material of any kind or nature concerning or relating thereto which are in the possession of or accessible by the Department of Defense.

I would encourage you to provide responses to these questions as promptly as possible, as they raise extremely grave and serious questions involving the credibility of our Administration and its constitutional responsibilities. In the interest of time, please feel free to forward me partial responses as they become available.

Sincerely,

'Tank Girl' Army Accused of Torture

The Brits are arming the women of Iran to start a revolution against the Mullahs?! What a story for the Guardian. Pity about the use of torture, but I expect it is just "torture light"; the feminine touch and all that.
Once was a time we were busy arming Mr Saddam Hissein to go gas the Mullahs. Those Mullahs must be real bad guys. I guess they are just not good Christians. Is this more evidence of the Blair Government's born-again nature?



"'Tank Girl' Army Accused of Torture
Guardian and Human Rights Watch find evidence of abuse by Iranian revolutionaries under US protection

by David Leigh in Nijmegen, Netherlands

A bizarre revolutionary army supported by British politicians who want more 'regime change' in the Middle East, has been accused of torture and brainwashing.
Evidence obtained by the Guardian backs a report by Human Rights Watch. This makes detailed accusations of abuse, including deaths under interrogation, against the 'People's Mujahideen' of Iran (MKO).
The Mujahideen are a 4000-strong anti-Iranian dissident army, currently under US protection in a camp in Iraq. They have a vociferous public relations campaign in Britain and the backing of some Washington neo-conservatives.
The group, known as the 'tank girls' because of the preponderance of women in its ranks, has also won the support of the Daily Telegraph, which wants it to help overthrow the mullahs in Tehran. It says in a leader: 'We should back the main resistance group, the People's Mujahideen ... Give them the tools and they will finish the job'. "