Justice DeLayed? GOP Rewrites Rules to Protect House Majority Leader if Indicted (re: Tom Delay)

Source: Toronto Star
By Thomas Walkom
Nov 16, 2004

When U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Ottawa — probably later this year — should he be welcomed? Or should he be charged with war crimes?

It's an interesting question. On the face of it, Bush seems a perfect candidate for prosecution under Canada's Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

This act was passed in 2000 to bring Canada's ineffectual laws in line with the rules of the new International Criminal Court. While never tested, it lays out sweeping categories under which a foreign leader like Bush could face arrest.

In particular, it holds that anyone who commits a war crime, even outside Canada, may be prosecuted by our courts. What is a war crime? According to the statute, it is any conduct defined as such by "customary international law" or by conventions that Canada has adopted.

War crimes also specifically include any breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, such as torture, degradation, wilfully depriving prisoners of war of their rights "to a fair and regular trial," launching attacks "in the knowledge that such attacks will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians" and deportation of persons from an area under occupation.

Outside of one well-publicized (and quickly squelched) attempt in Belgium, no one has tried to formally indict Bush. But both Oxfam International and the U.S. group Human Rights Watch have warned that some of the actions undertaken by the U.S. and its allies, particularly in Iraq, may fall under the war crime rubric.

The case for the prosecution looks quite promising. First, there is the fact of the Iraq war itself. After 1945, Allied tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo — in an astonishing precedent — ruled that states no longer had the unfettered right to invade other countries and that leaders who started such conflicts could be tried for waging illegal war.

Concurrently, the new United Nations outlawed all aggressive wars except those authorized by its Security Council.

Today, a strong case could be made that Bush violated the Nuremberg principles by invading Iraq. Indeed, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has already labelled that war illegal in terms of the U.N. Charter.

Second, there is the manner in which the U.S. conducted this war.

The mistreatment of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison is a clear contravention of the Geneva Accord. The U.S. is also deporting selected prisoners to camps outside of Iraq (another contravention). U.S. press reports also talk of shadowy prisons in Jordan run by the CIA, where suspects are routinely tortured. And the estimated civilian death toll of 100,000 may well contravene the Geneva Accords prohibition against the use of excessive force.

Canada's war crimes law specifically permits prosecution not only of those who carry out such crimes but of the military and political superiors who allow them to happen.

What has emerged since Abu Ghraib shows that officials at the highest levels of the Bush administration permitted and even encouraged the use of torture.

Given that Bush, as he likes to remind everyone, is the U.S. military's commander-in-chief, it is hard to argue he bears no responsibility.

Then there is Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. says detainees there do not fall under the Geneva accords. That's an old argument.

In 1946, Japanese defendants explained their mistreatment of prisoners of war by noting that their country had never signed any of the Geneva Conventions. The Japanese were convicted anyway.

Oddly enough, Canada may be one of the few places where someone like Bush could be brought to justice. Impeachment in the U.S. is most unlikely. And, at Bush's insistence, the new international criminal court has no jurisdiction over any American.

But a Canadian war crimes charge, too, would face many hurdles. Bush was furious last year when Belgians launched a war crimes suit in their country against him — so furious that Belgium not only backed down under U.S. threats but changed its law to prevent further recurrences.

As well, according to a foreign affairs spokesperson, visiting heads of state are immune from prosecution when in Canada on official business. If Ottawa wanted to act, it would have to wait until Bush was out of office — or hope to catch him when he comes up here to fish.

And, of course, Canada's government would have to want to act. War crimes prosecutions are political decisions that must be authorized by the federal attorney-general.

Still, Prime Minister Paul Martin has staked out his strong opposition to war crimes. This was his focus in a September address to the U.N. General Assembly.

There, Martin was talking specifically about war crimes committed by militiamen in far-off Sudan. But as my friends on the Star's editorial board noted in one of their strong defences of concerted international action against war crimes, the rule must be, "One law for all."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Walkom writes every Tuesday. twalkom@thestar.ca.

Kmart Takeover of Sears Is Set; $11 Billion Deal

Source: New York Times
By CONSTANCE L. HAYS
Nov 18, 2004

mart will buy Sears, Roebuck for $11 billion, the companies announced yesterday, a deal that unites two struggling merchants in an effort to survive against rivals like Wal-Mart, which passed both in the 1990's on its way to becoming the nation's largest retailer.

The companies plan to maintain largely separate identities, at least at first. But shoppers can expect to find Sears moving beyond its base in suburban malls as hundreds of freestanding Kmarts are eventually transformed into Sears stores.

The deal will create the nation's third-largest retailer, behind Wal-Mart and Home Depot, with annual revenue of about $55 billion from nearly 3,500 stores.

Once the transaction is completed, most likely by March, Kmart products like Martha Stewart Everyday housewares should soon start appearing in Sears stores. Kmart stores are expected to begin selling Sears exclusives like Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances and Lands' End apparel.

The takeover is a triumph for Kmart's largest shareholder, Edward S. Lampert, a billionaire investor who pushed the company to emerge from bankruptcy barely 18 months ago, shut many stores and sold dozens of others to Sears as he presided over a run-up in Kmart's value on Wall Street.

The move will combine Kmart, one of the original discounters - whose "Blue Light Specials'' and "Attention Kmart shoppers" announcements are embedded in the American lexicon - with Sears, a middlebrow department store that blazed a mercantile trail across the country starting in the 19th century but has been on the wane for the last 40 years.

Whether the two retailers can be winningly put together is uncertain, and the ultimate strategy has not been fully spelled out. The goal is less to compete with Wal-Mart directly and more to focus on profitable opportunities in selected markets.

Its success, analysts said, will largely depend on whether the new company can achieve cost savings through economies of scale, and whether it can bring itself up to speed with technology that has been so beneficial to Wal-Mart and Target.

It also hinges on the new company's finding a strong identity - one that will persuade shoppers to come to its stores. Customer traffic and sales have been sluggish at both Kmart and Sears.

"This is going to be an enormous undertaking," said Mr. Lampert, who is Kmart's chairman and will become chairman of the new company, to be called Sears Holdings. "We're really not looking to have two separate cultures. We're hoping to blend these into one great culture."

Whenever the deal receives regulatory approval, Mr. Lampert is sure to dominate the new company, with Kmart having seven board seats and Kmart's newly minted chief executive, Aylwin B. Lewis, running both retailers. Sears will name three directors, including its current chief executive, Alan J. Lacy.

Though Kmart's team will control the finances, the Sears name is expected to be front and center for consumers.

Expressing faith in Mr. Lambert's track record of squeezing profit from poorly managed companies, Wall Street cheered the news yesterday. The share price of Kmart rose nearly $8, to close at $109. Sears, Roebuck jumped $7.79, or more than 17 percent, to $52.99.

Under the deal's terms, Kmart shareholders will receive one share of Sears Holdings for every Kmart share they own; Sears stockholders will have a choice of $50 in cash or half a share of the new company.

Sears employees learned of the announcement through an e-mail message sent early yesterday, and many watched a Webcast featuring Mr. Lacy, Mr. Lambert and Mr. Lewis addressing a Midtown Manhattan news conference.

Mr. Lacy, the chief executive of Sears who will become vice chairman of the new company, said the deal would add impetus to his existing strategy of opening more Sears stores outside shopping malls, where nearly all Sears's 870 stores are situated.

A number of stores are likely to be sold, Mr. Lacy said.

While insiders said discussions between the companies had been under way for months, the deal was put together in a rush over the last couple of weeks.

Mr. Lampert said his goal was to make all the stores in the combined empire profitable. "I don't think any retailer should aspire to have its real estate be worth more than its operating business,'' he said.

Sears achieved higher sales in its stores compared with Kmart, calling this a reason to switch hundreds of Kmarts to the Sears name.

"If we ever achieve that level of productivity in Kmart stores, whether as Kmarts or as Sears, you're talking about an $8 billion opportunity," Mr. Lampert said.

Others saw the deal as having far less to do with what is sold in the stores than with the ground beneath them. "This appears to be a heavily real estate-oriented deal, not a merchandise-oriented one," said Eugene Fram, a marketing professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. "You really need star power in this case. Both of these companies are faltering, and if you take a look at the size of the new company, it's still only 20 percent of Wal-Mart in terms of sales."

The sale of Sears also appears to spell opportunity for Martha Stewart's company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which sells a line of products exclusively through Kmart in the United States. In a statement, its new chief executive, Susan Lyne, said the merger "will create for us a broader retail presence that reaches millions of new consumers." Its stock rose $1.09, to $18.49.

Mr. Lampert, an often maverick investor from Greenwich, Conn., bought up chunks of Kmart debt while it was operating under bankruptcy protection two years ago. With an investment estimated at $700 million to $1 billion, he won control of the emerging company, and pushed it to close stores and make other strategic changes during and after its reorganization.

All the while, he has remained a large stakeholder in Sears, which has been struggling to reinvent itself while larger and more nimble chains, including Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot and Lowe's, spirited away once-loyal Sears customers with better merchandise, better prices or both.

Sears began in 1886 as a watch dealer, progressed to mail-order merchant and by 1925 opened its first stores, becoming the nation's dominant retailer before World War II.

But by the 1970's its retail fortunes were in decline, and with the hope of diversifying, it adopted a "socks and stocks" strategy, entering the financial services business in 1981 with its purchases of Dean Witter and Coldwell Banker. Twelve years later, it sold or spun them both off, along with a mortgage division.

Sears sought more buyers for its refrigerators, stoves and other appliances with the help of its credit division, which was started at the depths of the Depression. But after higher-than-expected defaults by cardholders in recent years hurt earnings, it sold the unit to Citigroup last year.

Sears is seeking to attract a fresh clientele to its stores by designing new formats and adding to its selling floors brands like Lands' End, the mail-order clothing company it bought in 2002 for $1.9 billion.

It is not clear whether Mr. Lampert lost patience with Mr. Lacy's efforts to turn around Sears and decided to force a strategy of his own on the company. But it is clear that as Sears ploddingly created its freestanding "Sears Grand" prototype stores, opening the first outside Salt Lake City a year ago and since adding three more, competitors like Wal-Mart, Target and Lowe's were opening stores far faster. Wal-Mart held 300 ribbon cuttings last year and has announced plans for as many as 500 in the coming year.

Kmart and its predecessors also have a long history, starting in 1899 as the five-and-dime S. S. Kresge. It took an early lead in discount retailing after it opened the first Kmart stores in 1962. But by the 1980's, the renamed Kmart had lost ground to Wal-Mart, which emerged from small-town roots to consistently offer lower prices, more products in stock and a more efficient supply network.

Kmart fell from its perch as the biggest discounter and became better known for corporate bumbling than for anything it sold; by the 1990s, customers who found its ad circulars in their Sunday papers often expected not to find the featured items in the stores.

In autumn 2001, Kmart's chief executive embarked on a plan to sell thousands of products at prices that undercut Wal-Mart's. The strategy was widely seen as worsening Kmart's financial woes, and by January 2002, it had filed for bankruptcy protection, the biggest retail bankruptcy in American history.

Combined, the two companies are expected to save money on back-office operations and purchasing, experts said. Executives forecast $200 million in savings from cross-selling merchandise and converting some Kmarts to Sears stores, along with $300 million in savings from tighter purchasing and a streamlined supply chain. But to survive as retailers over the long haul, they will need to find a successful sales formula.

Peter J. Solomon, an investment banker who advised Lands' End during its sale to Sears and owns a minority stake in Mr. Lampert's company, ESL Partners, said: "If you eliminate $500 million of overhead, you can create very valuable earnings and cash flow without ever changing the merchandising. I would say that Eddie has done that to a great extent at Kmart."

Justice DeLayed? GOP Rewrites Rules to Protect House Majority Leader if Indicted (re: Tom Delay)

Source: Pacific Radio/DemocracyNow.org
Nov 18, 2004

Republicans in the House of Representatives yesterday changed their rules to allow Majority Leader Tom DeLay to keep his post even if a grand jury indicts him. We speak with Lou DuBose, author of The Hammer: Tom Delay, God, Money and the Rise of the Republican Congress.

Emboldened by their success in the November 2 election, Republicans in the House of Representatives yesterday changed their rules to allow Majority Leader Tom DeLay to keep his post even if a grand jury indicts him. A Texas grand jury is investigating whether Delay committed campaign finance violations in 2002 when he helped state Republicans gain control of the Texas State House. In September a Texas grand jury indicted three political operatives with ties to Delay as well eight companies who made donations to a political action committee created with help from Delay. Yesterday's vote by GOP lawmakers was held behind closed doors and was unrecorded. It effectively overturns a 1993 party rule that required leaders who are indicted to step down. DeLay told reporters yesterday he doesn't expect to be indicted but supported the rule change.

The Republicans" defended their vote yesterday, saying that Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle is on a partisan witch-hunt against DeLay and that all they're doing is taking steps to prevent Democrats from dictating the leadership of their caucus. DeLay himself says that Earle is "trying to criminalize politics and using the criminal code to insert himself into politics." DeLay is also deploying a team of Republicans to wage a PR war against the District Attorney. New York's Peter King called Earle a "runaway prosecutor," while Henry Bonilla of Texas labeled him a "partisan crackpot district attorney."

But in a recent New York Times profile of Earle, the paper points out that during his tenure, he has prosecuted 12 Democratic officials and 4 Republicans. Earle is quoted as saying, "The only people I antagonize more than Republicans are Democrats."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, of California said, "Republicans have reached a new low. It is absolutely mind-boggling that as their first order of business following the elections, House Republicans have lowered the ethical standards for their leaders."

Lou Dubose, author of a new political biography on Tom Delay called The Hammer: Tom Delay, God, Money and the Rise of the Republican Congress.

House G.O.P. Acts to Protect Chief (re: Tom Delay)

Source: New York Times
By CARL HULSE
Nov 18, 2004

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - Spurred by an investigation connected to the majority leader, House Republicans voted Wednesday to abandon an 11-year-old party rule that required a member of their leadership to step aside temporarily if indicted.

Meeting behind closed doors, the lawmakers agreed that a party steering committee would review any indictments handed up against the majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, or any other members of the leadership team or committee chairmen, to determine if giving up a post was warranted. The revision does not change the requirement that leaders step down if convicted.

The new rule was adopted by voice vote. Its chief author, Representative Henry Bonilla of Texas, said later that only a handful of members had opposed it.

The Republicans' old rule was adopted in August 1993 to put a spotlight on the legal troubles of prominent Democrats. Mr. Bonilla said revising it had been necessary to prevent politically inspired criminal investigations by "crackpot" prosecutors from determining the fate of top Republicans.

"Attorneys tell me you can be indicted for just about anything in this country, in any county or community," said Mr. Bonilla, an ally of Mr. DeLay. "Sometimes district attorneys who might have partisan agendas or want to read their name in the paper could make a name for themselves by indicting a member of the leadership, regardless of who it may be, and therefore determine their future. And that's not right."

Mr. DeLay said he had not instigated the change. But he applauded it nevertheless, saying it could deprive "political hacks" of an ability to influence the makeup of the Republican leadership.

Republican lawmakers "fixed the rules so that Democrats cannot use our rules against us," he said.

Mr. DeLay said he did not expect to be indicted, but added, "This has nothing to do with whether I was going to be or not going to be.''

The comments of Mr. DeLay and Mr. Bonilla were clearly directed at Ronnie Earle, the district attorney in Travis County, Tex., including Austin, who won indictments earlier this year against three political associates of the majority leader. The investigation by Mr. Earle, a Democrat, involves charges of illegally using corporate money to help Republicans win state legislative races in 2002. Those Republican victories in turn gave the state party enough legislative muscle to win redistricting changes that helped Congressional Republicans gain five additional seats in Texas on Nov. 2.

Despite the indictments of his associates, Mr. DeLay has not been called to testify, and Mr. Earle has not said whether the congressman is a target.

Not all Republicans agreed with Wednesday's rule change, which was adopted after some two and a half hours of debate.

"This is a mistake," said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut.

When the Republicans gained control of the House in the elections of 1994, "we were going to be different,'' Mr. Shays said.

But "every time we start to water down what we did in '94," he said, "we are basically saying the revolution is losing its character."

Democrats and outside watchdogs bitterly criticized the change.

"Today Republicans sold their collective soul to maintain their grip on power," said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic whip. "They unabashedly abandoned any pretense of holding themselves to a high ethical standard, by deciding to ignore criminal indictments of their leaders as reason for removal from leadership posts in the Republican Party."

Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a group that follows campaign finance issues, said: "With this decision, we have gone from DeLay being judged by his peers to DeLay being judged by his buddies. It's an absurd and ludicrous new rule and an affront to the American people."

Republicans said Democrats had no standing to criticize them, since House Democratic rules have no provision to remove indicted party leaders, though they do require indicted committee chairmen to step aside. The minority leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, said Wednesday that her party would quickly expand the provision to cover leadership posts as well.

"Republicans have reached a new low," Ms. Pelosi said. "It is absolutely mind-boggling that as their first order of business following the elections, House Republicans have lowered the ethical standards for their leaders."

The change follows two admonitions that Mr. DeLay received from the bipartisan House ethics committee this fall, one involving a House floor vote, the other a fund-raiser. Mr. DeLay has built strong loyalty in the House over the years by helping raise campaign money and paying close attention to the personal legislative interests of Republican lawmakers, and the ethics committee's action angered some of his supporters in the chamber.

Mr. DeLay and many other House Republicans have criticized Mr. Earle's inquiry as highly partisan. "Ronnie Earle is trying to criminalize politics," Mr. DeLay said. "I think that is wrong."

Mr. Earle, in a statement issued by his office, said the Republican rule change would have no effect on the continuing investigation. But he added, "It should be alarming to the public to see their leaders substitute their judgment for that of the law enforcement process."

House Republicans did not dispute the idea that the change had been brought on by the events in Texas but said most of the majority's lawmakers had also concluded that the rule was simply unfair.

"In my sincere opinion, it only provoked the timing" of the change, Representative Trent Franks of Arizona said of the Texas inquiry. "When you look at the rule, it is an outrageous rule."

The new rule says that upon the return of an indictment against a committee chairman, a subcommittee chairman or a party leader, a steering committee made up of House leaders other than the accused lawmaker will have 30 days to recommend to the full Republican conference "what action, if any, the conference shall take concerning said member."

Though the change had been a subject of discussion for the last week, it was not submitted by Mr. Bonilla until right before a Tuesday deadline that Republicans had set to offer proposals for rules in the new Congress. Mr. Bonilla and others said the Republican conference, including many members elected only two weeks ago, had been insistent on the revision.

"It is the right thing to do," said Representative John Carter of Texas, a former judge.

While House Republicans were acting on the rule, Congress continued its reorganization for 2005. House Democrats and Senate Republicans re-elected their leadership teams for the most part. In the only real race, Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina gained a one-vote victory over Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota to head the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which provides guidance and money for Republican candidates.

The Failure of the Corporate Media's Coverage in Iraq

Source: Pacific Radio/DemocracyNow.org
Nov 18, 2004

As the situation in Iraq continues to grow more bloody by the day, we hear an address by Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani discussing the corporate media's coverage of Iraq and the U.S. assault on Fallujah.

As the situation in Iraq continues to grow more bloody by the day, the unelected interim government of Iyad Allawi continues its crackdown on the Iraqi media. Last week, Allawi's government threatened media organizations that do not report on the Iraqi governments spin on the siege of Falluja, saying reporters must differentiate between, "innocent citizens of Fallujah who are not targeted by the military operations and between the terrorist groups who infiltrated the city and took its people hostage under the pretext of resistance and jihad."

But these instructions to journalists appear to be contradicted by the US military's own statistics. Earlier this week, the military said that of the roughly 1,000 prisoners taken in Fallujah, only 15 are believed to be foreigners.

The Iraqi government also warned journalists not to add patriotic descriptions to members of the Iraqi resistance. Journalists were told to underscore that "these military operations did not come about until all peaceful means were attempted." It is unclear what will happen to news organizations that break the new guidelines. Meanwhile, stark differences continue in how the embedded correspondents report on the siege of Fallujah and how Arab media are covering the US offensive. While most reports on US networks focus on what they call the house to house fighting in Fallujah, Arab media are showing images of bodies piled on the streets, dead children and corpses covered by flies, decomposing. One of the few unembedded correspondents in the city-an Arab reporter from the BBC- has described a stench in areas of Fallujah from the dead bodies.

Earlier this week at a forum here in New York on The New York Times coverage of US foreign policy, Professor Mahmood Mamdani of Columbia University addressed the situation in Fallujah. Mamdani is the author of "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror." Here is Professor Mahmood Mamdani.

Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University. He is also the Director of the Institute of African Studies at SIPA. He is the author of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror.

Elton John blasts off
at George Bush

Source: MSNBC.com
Nov 18, 2004

(Gotta luv the spin they put on Elton as a crazy guy! ...typical mainstream media)

Another day, another Elton John outburst — and this one was directed at George W. Bush.

In recent weeks, the Rocket Man has exploded at a variety of targets, including Madonna and Taiwanese photographers. Now he’s taken aim at the newly re-elected president, calling him “the worst thing that has ever happened to America.”

“I’ve never lived in a time that’s been so vexing,” John told the British mag, Time Out. “I just wanna scream. It’s a nightmare. Bush and this administration are the worst thing that has ever happened to America.”

Why It's Called Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of The American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
by Michael C. Ruppert

Source: FromTheWilderness.com
By Jamey Hecht
Oct 29, 2004

When Caesar led his army into Italy, he triggered a civil war which destroyed Rome's republican form of government, a form which the Romans had cherished for centuries to their cultural, economic, and military advantage. Like every form of government, the Roman Republic was profoundly flawed. But it did much to establish a discursive society, one in which policy was shaped by the power of eloquence and rational debate, as well as by money and war. After Caesar's reign, republican institutions withered on the vine; the intellect became a decorative, effeminate thing associated with the East and the past. Force and the threat of force, punishment and deterrence, war and extortion became the basis of the Roman state and of Roman identity. While these are generalizations which dispense with the nuances of scholarship, the overall pattern they name is unmistakable, even proverbial.

Every moment in time is a transition, and every day of a person's life is the threshold that determines the sequel. But one moment will bear more weight than others, as if a larger portion of the universe were hinged upon it. The murder of President Kennedy meant that Vietnam must go on --- and this drained the US gold reserves, which made for the floating petrodollar, and the third world debt crisis, and the outsourcing of American jobs. Vietnam also caused the failure of Johnson's underfunded "War on Poverty," which Reagan stigmatized as a discredited liberalism while he shredded what remained of domestic social hope in the United States. It also helped murder three million Indochinese. Some moments are special transitions.

The American state-terror of 9/11 represented a shift in the relationship between governing elites and the governed: a shift from neglect to abuse, from exploitation to murder; from contempt to hatred. The Patriot Act did not merely cage or restrict the Constitution, it wounded it. Mike Ruppert's book, Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, is about the threshold between a nominally democratic republic and an overtly militaristic empire. But it also illuminates other, more subtle thresholds whose importance may be even greater. For example, there is a point in time at which it becomes too late to quit using oil --- if the alternatives have not been developed in quantity and commercialized by that point, then the starvation of hundreds of millions becomes almost inevitable.

To put the matter more substantially, there is a well-known ecological relationship between the size of a population and the carrying-capacity of its habitat. In the human society of our time, almost nobody can feed himself, and all consumption is mediated by commerce. So the polarization of wealth and debt is a third factor, along with resource depletion and population growth; they combine to create a danger of immeasurable suffering and loss. A bad system has been made worse by decades of bad policy. Wait long enough, and we cross a line beyond which meaningful reform becomes impossible -- not just because the political will is undermined and coercion replaces debate, but because the toxicity of the air and water, the radioactivity of the soil, and the emptiness of the gas tank forbid it. Distribute goods as fairly as you may: people will starve if there are not enough goods to distribute. The Rubicon is the boundary between a world in which it is still possible to stave off hell by changing policy, and a world of regret in which policy has no meaning.

Election Myth #1: George Bush Fights Muslim Terror

Source: The Emperor's New Clothes - Investigative Journalism
By Jared Israel
Nov 1, 2004

I am preparing some articles on foreign policy illusions that have been fostered or strengthened during this presidential election. It is my contention that groups with various foreign policy concerns are sold custom-designed story lines, providing them with Establishment figures to believe in and root for, even though said story lines have nothing to do with reality.

The three groups I am focusing on are:

a) strong defenders of Serbia, who get sold on the Republican story line;

b) strong defenders of Israel, who get sold on the Republican story line;

and

c) strong opponents of the Iraq war, who get sold on the Democratic story line.

In fact US foreign policy has flowed remarkably smoothly from Bush Senior to Clinton to Bush Junior, despite phony public posturing and misleading media coverage, which create the imaginary story lines.

Take the question of terror.

========================================================

The Story line: Democrats are soft while Republicans are tough on terror

========================================================

Summary

Over the past few days I've received quite a bit of email from supporters of both Yugoslavia and Israel containing one-sided 'evidence' supporting the Bush-is-sincere-about-fighting-terror story line.

One such email reprinted a November 2000 Wall Street Journal article by reporter Steven Emerson, who specializes in terrorism. The article charged that Hillary Clinton had invited Islamic extremists into the White House, thus greatly enhancing their political strength among Muslims.

The article was published just before the 2000 election, when Ms. Clinton was running for the US Senate.

Emperor's Clothes has posted much evidence that Islamic terror in the Balkans and also in Central Asia and the Middle East could not exist absent the covert support of the US and European Establishments. [1]

However, in this present article I'll stick to Steven Emerson's much more limited accusation. I will argue that Emerson is right concerning Hillary Clinton's legitimization of Islamic extremists, but that his other, implied argument - that the Republicans are better - is a spectacular deception.

According to Mr. Emerson, in 1996 Ms. Clinton began "reaching out" to the American Muslim Council (AMC), founded in 1990 by one Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi.

Emerson writes that this was serious because al-Amoudi and other AMC leaders are extremists who openly support Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood. By inviting al-Amoudi to the White House, the Clintons were telling Muslims all over the world that the US government has no problem with Muslim leaders who support terror.

Emerson's accusations make sense. The only problem is, he doesn't discuss the Republicans.

As we shall see, before Clinton was elected, the administration of President Bush, Sr. worked closely with Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi to set up a Muslim Chaplain program in the most sensitive area possible - the US military.

The current President Bush catapulted al-Amoudi's credibility sky high by casting him as a moderate Muslim leader at a highly publicized 'national prayer day' on September 14, 2001 (three days after 911).

Two years later, al-Amoudi was arrested while apparently using a million dollars of Libyan money to arrange the assassination of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. He has pled guilty and was sentenced October 16th. His lawyer says he is cooperating, naming names.

This means al-Amoudi was a major player in the world of international terror. It is difficult to believe US intelligence had no inkling of this, especially since al-Amoudi's access to the US military and three administrations would trigger serious security investigations, at least from the Secret Service. So what does this say about George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and the "fight against terror"?

========================================================

Hillary Clinton and the American Muslim Council

========================================================

Emerson writes that by 1966 the AMC:

"... had clearly established a record in support of radical Islam. In a letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer published on Oct. 14, 1994, Mr. Alamoudi stated that the 'major Islamic parties in Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Turkey are undeniably moderates.' This is plainly false. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the Jordanian Islamic Action Front, Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front and the Pakistani Jamaat-Islami have all endorsed or carried out violence. Mr. Alamoudi specifically declared in a March 5, 1993, Fox Television interview: 'I am for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.'" [2]

The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent of virtually every terrorist group in the Middle East and has provided the ideological impetus for moving Muslim-dominated states (such as Sudan) in a fanatical direction. [3]

The Brotherhood's motto is:

"Allah is our objective.
The messenger is our leader.
Quran is our law.
Jihad is our way.
Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." [4]

So Mr. Emerson is quite right about Mr. al-Amoudi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Emerson goes on to quote various pro-terrorist statements made by AMC leaders after 1996, when Ms. Clinton began "reaching out" to them. For example:

"On Oct. 13, 2000, CAIR and the AMC sponsored a rally outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington where the speakers led the crowd in a chant: Khybar, Khybar, ya, ya Yahood, jesh Mohammed sofa ya'ud. (Translation: 'Khybar Khybar, oh Jews, the army of Mohammed is coming for you.') It is a refrain used by [the Muslim Brotherhood group] Hamas threatening the annihilation of Jews as was done to the Jewish tribe in Khybar, Saudi Arabia, by Mohammed in the year 628." [2]

As described by Mr. Emerson, the AMC in general and Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi in particular are violence-supporting extremists, not moderate Muslims. This is not hyperbole. Two weeks ago, Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi was sentenced to 23 years in jail after pleading guilty to receiving $1 million USD from Libya's Moammar Gadhafi for the purpose of assassinating Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. The assassination plot apparently resulted from a personal squabble between Gadhafi and Abdullah, which Gadhafi tried to resolve gangster style:

[Excerpt from Washington Times starts here]

In the statement [issued when he pleaded guilty], al-Amoudi said he contacted Saudi dissidents in London for Libyan government officials who wanted them to kill Prince Abdullah, and that he had been summoned to Tripoli by a Libyan official angry over the treatment of leader Moammar Gadhafi by the crown prince during an Arab League Conference in March 2003.

Two weeks after the summit, the statement said, the Libyan official told al-Amoudi he wanted to punish the Saudis and cause "headaches" and disruptions in Saudi Arabia. Later, the statement said, al-Amoudi was told by Libyan officials - including one identified in the document as "high-ranking" - to have the Saudi dissidents arrange to assassinate Prince Abdullah. [5]

[Excerpt from Washington Times ends here]

Mr. al-Amoudi was sentenced to 23 years:

[Excerpt from Contra Costa Times starts here]

[...]

His lawyers urged a lighter sentence, portraying Alamoudi as a minor player in the bizarre scheme to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

But Alamoudi pleaded guilty in July to illegally moving cash from Libya, admitting that he pocketed nearly $1 million and used it to pay conspirators in the plot, which sources said came close to succeeding before it was broken up by Saudi intelligence officials. [6]

[Excerpt from Contra Costa Times ends here]

(The argument attributed to Al-Amoudi's lawyers is manifestly absurd. How can one describe as a "minor player" the person who sets up an assassination by distributing a million dollars to the hit men?)

The point of Steven Emerson's article - and the reason it is being sent around the Internet just before today's presidential election - is that Hillary Clinton, meaning the Democrats, embraced al-Amoudi. This despite al-Amoudi's publicly proclaimed terrorist sympathies. Of course, the Secret Service does security checks on people invited to the White House, so the Clintons would have been informed that al-Amoudi was a Muslim extremist. And knowing this they still boosted him with White House invitations.

Certainly a Republican president would never have done such a thing…would he?

After some flak about al-Amoudi, Ms. Clinton returned 50,000 USD to the AMC. George W. Bush returned one thousand dollars. Given the relatively small amount the AMC had donated to Bush, one could speculate that the Bush people hadn't bothered to check who he was. But of course, from then on, and certainly after Emerson's article, they would stay away from him, right?

Wrong.

As you may recall, after 911 Bush said repeatedly that a) the US would not tolerate any nation which in any way gave comfort to terrorists and b) that the US was fighting extremists, not Islam, which, Bush explained, is a religion of peace.

To drive this home, on September 14th the Bush people staged a 'National Prayer Day' at the National Cathedral and invited a few, supposedly moderate Muslim leaders to attend. As reported by Fox News, which is friendly to the Republicans:

"One of the leaders invited to appear with Bush was Abdurahaman Alamoudi [Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi], the president of the American Muslim Council. Three days after the hijackings, Alamoudi joined Bush at a prayer service dedicated to the victims of the attack." [7]

If the Secret Service did routine security checks on visitors to the Clinton White House, imagine the care with which they checked Muslim leaders invited to a "national prayer day" with Bush following 911!

It is impossible that Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi and other Muslim leaders with similar views were invited by mistake. Rather, at a time when the US was supposedly fighting Muslim terror, the Bush government was deliberately broadcasting to Muslims in this country and around the world that it *favored* Muslim extremists.

========================================================

Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi assists Clinton and Bush, Sr. with… the US military?

========================================================

In December 1993, the US Army swore in the first Muslim Chaplain. Al-Amoudi's AMC was involved:

"The search for a Muslim chaplain began in 1983 and was propelled in the past three years by the creation of the American Muslim Council and statute changes in Defense Department requirements for military chaplains." [My emphasis] [8]

Clinton became President in January 1993, so the first Muslim Chaplain was sworn in while he was President. But as the article above reports, "The search for a Muslim chaplain…was propelled in the past three years by the creation of the American Muslim Council…"

Al-Amoudi set up the AMC in 1990. From 1990 to the end of 1992, al-Amoudi was working with the Bush administration to create a Muslim presence in the US army. Wouldn't Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney order a routine security check on a Muslim group before involving them in such a sensitive project? Of course he would. Once again, by putting al-Amoudi and his extremist AMC in a position of such conspicuous prestige, the Bush people were sending a message to Muslims - and to the US army.

In his Wall Street Journal article, Steven Emerson noted that when confronted about her relationship to Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, Mrs. Clinton said that although she "would have had serious disagreements" with things said by some of the people invited to the White House, it was OK to invite al-Amoudi because:

"...[the Clinton] administration has tried to...promote a framework for peace, [which]...certainly included lines of communication to many different groups and many different individuals." [2]

This is double talk. If the Clinton government were seriously fighting Muslim extremism, then the last thing they'd want would be to give a leading extremist the credibility of Presidential access. Obviously, the desire to have "lines of communication" doesn't require a) that said lines be open to everyone or b) that all such "communication" be conducted publicly, let alone in the White House.

So much for Hillary Clinton's explanation.

But consider how Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer tried to justify having Muslim extremists at the Sept. 14, 2001 'prayer day':

[Excerpt from Fox News transcript starts here]

"White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer emphasized that inviting the clerics did not mean the president saw eye-to-eye with them.

'I don't think it would surprise anybody that the President often has meetings to discuss a whole host of issues with people that he may not agree with everything they may have said in the course of their lives or careers,' Fleischer said." [9]

[Excerpt from Fox News transcript ends here]

Keep in mind that a) not only is this the same sort of double talk used by Ms. Clinton to justify her government playing footsy with al-Amoudi but b) it's a plain lie. Bush didn't *meet* with Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi and other extremist Muslim leaders to discuss issues; he *showcased* them in a national day of mourning, thus giving them star status among Muslims - they were the Muslim leaders with access to the President after 911!

And this took place a year *after* Steve Emerson's article exposing al-Amoudi in the widely read Wall Street Journal.

========================================================

Let us assess...

========================================================

First, regarding the apparent assassination attempt, Gadhafi had a fight on live TV with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah at an Arab Summit meeting March 1, 2003. The two Arab dictators accused each other of being stooges for the US:

[Vancouver Province article starts here]

[...]

Gadhafi charged in the full glare of the TV cameras that Saudi Arabia's King Fahd had been ready to "strike an alliance with the devil" [i.e., the US - EC] to defend the kingdom after Iraq's 1990 invasion of neighbouring Kuwait.

Millions of TV viewers across the Arab world were able to see Abdullah cursing Gadhafi before Egyptian state TV pulled the plug on the live feed from the conference hall.

"Who exactly brought you to power?" the Saudi royal asked the Libyan leader, alluding to suggestions his 1969 overthrow of the British-backed monarchy enjoyed U.S. support.

"You are a liar and your grave awaits you," he spat. [10]

[Vancouver Province article ends here]

Sounds like gangsters kept by the US having a cat fight, doesn't it?

"The spat sparked demonstrations by thousands of Libyans near the Saudi embassy here, and on Monday Saudi daily newspaper Okaz said Kadhafi's regime posed more of a threat to the Arab world than foreign powers and should be toppled."[11]

Based on that, Gadhafi allegedly decided to have Abdullah bumped off. Hence he gave al-Amoudi a million dollars to organize the hit.

Second, the Federal prosecutors who just got Al-Amoudi sentenced to 23 years in jail do *not* refer to the assassination plot as 'alleged' but as quite real. Indeed, so does US Attorney General John Ashcroft:

[Associated Press dispatch starts here]

Bush administration officials sought to portray the prosecution as a victory in the war against terrorism.

The sentence "shows that the system works: a terrorist facilitator has been sentenced to jail and we have reason to suspect that through his cooperation, we will obtain intelligence that will assist us in our ongoing efforts to advance these critical investigations," Attorney General John Ashcroft said. [12]

[Associated Press dispatch ends here]

But if Federal law enforcement officials say the assassination plot was real and stopping it was a great victory against terrorism, why does the Bush administration continue to act as if nothing had happened? In September, the US lifted economic sanctions against Libya and freed over a billion dollars in Libyan assets. At the end of September, Secretary of State Powell met for the first time in many years with the Libyan Foreign Minister. Following that meeting a "senior State Department official" told the New York Times that the US:

"...continues to have 'serious concerns' that Libya may have plotted to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia...'We are committed to working step by step through these issues,' the official said.'" [13]

"Serious concerns?" And, "Working through it step by step"?

During the first presidential debate, George Bush said:

"...[W]e've affected the world in a positive way. Look at Libya. Libya was a threat. Libya is now peacefully dismantling its weapons programs. Libya understood that America and others will enforce doctrine [?], and the world is better for it." [14]

Third, Moammar Gadhafi is no small-time gangster. He can afford to hire the best. He would never have trusted al-Amoudi with a million dollars, let alone a super-sensitive plot to assassinate the Saudi head of state, unless al-Amoudi were a known factor, an established international terrorist operative. Which means he has been organizing terrorist attacks on ordinary people around the world.

That being the case, two things follow. First, al-Amoudi has the blood of ordinary people on his hands - certainly Israelis, probably people in the Balkans and Chechnya as well. Second, al-Amoudi worked with the Clintons and both Bush administrations. He was a guest at the White House. He was allowed to operate within the US military, setting up Muslim religious services. (Not bad for a "terrorist facilitator"!) Given all this, it is inconceivable that he was not subjected to security checks. Are we to believe US intelligence had no idea who he was? Especially when he was publicly saying things that really made it quite clear:

"At another Washington rally, on Oct. 28, 2000, the AMC's Mr. Alamoudi led the thousands in attendance to chant their support for Hamas and Hezbollah. 'Hear that, Bill Clinton, we are all supporters of Hamas,' he declared. 'I wish they argued that I am also a supporter of Hezbollah.' (When the New York Daily News asked about these comments earlier this week, Mr. Alamoudi denied making them, telling the reporter: 'You better check your Arabic.' When the reporter noted that he had given the speech in English, Mr. Alamoudi replied, 'It was in English? Oh my God, I forgot!')" [2]

So what do we have? First, to put it bluntly, the US and the Europeans are the biggest sponsors of Muslim extremist and secessionist terror in the world. Witness Kosovo, which NATO has quite literally turned into an attack base for the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army. [1]

Second, the Saudi dictatorship is a US client state depending entirely on US arms (it gets more than any other country in the world! [15]) and military protection. Saudi Arabia spends billions of dollars sponsoring Muslim extremist mosques and schools around the world. Schools for terror.

Third, Gadhafi, also a sponsor of terrorism, though on a more modest scale, and who (according to Prince Abdullah) was put in power by the US, decides to assassinate Abdullah. Whom does he hire? Why, naturally, that 'moderate' Muslim leader al-Amoudi from the US, the guy who worked with the first Bush and Clinton administrations creating a Muslim presence in the US military, and who shared a nationally publicized 'day of prayer' with Bush, Jr. after September 11th. (This even as he was functioning as an international "terrorist facilitator" and publicly declaring his desire to murder all Jews.)

The plot is revealed, but the US continues improving relations with Libya. Bush Sr. welcomed al-Amoudi to work with Muslims in the US military. Bush Jr. treated al-Amoudi as a hero. But following the revelation that al-Amoudi is a "terrorist facilitator," Bush Jr. does not resign from the US presidency along with his entire cabinet, which in a normal world is exactly what he would have to do after it became clear that he had given aid and comfort to the worst enemies of ordinary Americans. No, not just aid and comfort - George Bush did much worse than that. Bush exalted a "terrorist facilitator". Instead of resigning, Bush acts as if nothing has happened, nothing at all. And John Kerry, the 'opponent,' says nary a word.

Which brings us back to the question of people being sold phony 'story lines' about the Democratic and Republican parties. I began researching al-Amoudi three days ago, after receiving an email which used him as evidence that the Democrats were soft on terror. The woman who sent that email is an American who witnessed first hand Western support for Muslim terrorists in Bosnia. She is honestly devoted to getting out the truth about Yugoslavia. But I think she *clings to the hope* that one side of the US Establishment is somewhat sincere about fighting terrorism, because the alternative view, that neither the Democrats or Republicans are sincere, means that ordinary people must rely on their own organizing, not friends in high places, in trying to change US policy.

The US Establishment is fully aware that ordinary people cling to hope about 'the system,' and therefore stories are designed to make Establishment figures appealing to different groups. The story that 'gives hope' to people like my friend is: The democrats are soft on (or even influenced by) terrorists, but Republican leaders at least want to try to fight terror.

And so my friend sends around Steven Emerson's article, which a) leaves out the role of the US in *sponsoring* terror - which my friend has witnessed! - and b) attacks only the Democrats, thus serving to whitewash the Republicans.

Steven Emerson, the terrorism expert, attacked Hillary Clinton for her dealings with al-Amoudi. Fair enough. But why has he not uttered a squeak about George Bush's elevation of Al-Amoudi to exalted status at that 'day of prayer,' September 14th 2001?

Following the arrest of al-Amoudi as an international "terrorist facilitator," why hasn't the media demanded an investigation of the intimate dealings between Mr. al-Amoudi and the Clintons and Bush's?

Why not?

Jared Israel
Editor in Chief, Emperor's Clothes

GUILTY FOR 9-11: BUSH, RUMSFELD, MYERS

Source: The Emperor's New Clothes - Investigative Journalism
by Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel
Nov 14, 2004

Dedicated to the firemen of New York.

Andrews Air Force Base is a huge military installation just 10 miles from the Pentagon.

On 11 September there were two entire squadrons of combat-ready fighter jets at Andrews. Their job was to protect the skies over Washington D.C. They failed to do their job. Despite over one hour's advance warning of a terrorist attack in progress, not a single Andrews fighter tried to protect the city.

The FAA, NORAD and the military have cooperative procedures by which fighter jets automatically intercept commercial aircraft under emergency conditions. These procedures were not followed.

Air Force officials and others have tried to explain away the failures:

"Air Force Lt. Col. Vic Warzinski, another Pentagon spokesman, [said]: 'The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way, and I doubt prior to Tuesday's event, anyone would have expected anything like that here.'"
--'Newsday,' 23 September, 2001

Using information from the mass media and official Websites, we will show that this is lie.

Some of what happened on 9-11, such as planes flying into buildings, is unusual. But most of what happened, such as commercial jets flying off-course, transponder failures and possible hijackings, are common emergencies. We will show that these emergencies are routinely handled with expert efficiency based on clear rules.

The crash of the first hijacked jet into the World Trade Center made it clear the United States was faced with an extraordinary situation. This should have intensified the emergency responses of the air safety and defense systems.

The whole country was aware. For example, at 9:06 AM the NY Police broadcast:

" 'This was a terrorist attack. Notify the Pentagon.'"
--'Daily News' (New York) 12 September 2001 (1)

'American Forces Press Service' reported that ordinary people working at the Pentagon worried they could be next:

"'We were watching the World Trade Center on the television,' said a Navy officer. 'When the second plane deliberately dove into the tower, someone said, 'The World Trade Center is one of the most recognizable symbols of America. We're sitting in a close second.'"
--'DEFENSELINK News', Sept. 13, 2001 (2)

U.S. air safety and air defense emergency systems are activated in response to problems every day. On 9-11 they failed despite, not because of, the extreme nature of the emergency. This could only happen if individuals in high positions worked in a coordinated way to make them fail.

Such operatives would almost surely have failed if they tried to disrupt and abort routine protection systems without top-level support. The failure of the emergency systems would be noticed immediately. Moreover, given the catastrophic nature of the attacks, the highest military authorities would be alerted. Acting on their own, the operatives could expect that their orders would be countermanded and that they themselves would be arrested.

The sabotage of routine protective systems, controlled by strict hierarchies, would never have been contemplated let alone attempted absent the involvement of the supreme U.S. military command. This includes at least U.S. President George Bush, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the then-Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Richard B. Myers.

In the following summary of evidence we will demonstrate probable cause for charging the above-named persons with treason for complicity in the murders of thousands of people whom they had sworn to protect.

The summary of evidence covers the following areas:

* Andrews Air Force Base and the myth of 'no available planes;'

* The air safety/air defense systems and the myth that they were not prepared;

* The actions of George Bush on 9-11 that clearly violated his positive legal and constitutional obligations and demonstrated consciousness of guilt;

* The testimony of General Richard B. Myers at Senate hearings on his nomination as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In these hearings, the contents of which were reported accurately by one lone journalist, General Myers attempted to cover up what had happened 9-11 when he was Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He offered three mutually contradictory cover stories and demonstrated consciousness of guilt;

* The cover story floated by CBS evening news, September 14th.
Until that time, officials reported that no planes had been 'scrambled' to intercept the hijacked planes. But following Gen. Myers disastrous Senate testimony, CBS broadcast an improved version of 9-11. In the new script, fighter jets from Otis and Langley Air Force Bases did try, but failed, to intercept the hijacked planes. This is now presented as the official NORAD story and has been repeated uncritically by media and government officials alike. We will demonstrate that this cover story is both weak and incriminating.

SECTION ONE: Why did no fighter jets 'scramble' to protect Washington D.C.?

LIE #1: 'NO COMBAT READY FIGHTERS WERE STATIONED NEAR THE PENTAGON'

As noted, Andrews Air Force base is 10 miles from the Pentagon. The media has mainly avoided talking about Andrews. An exception is 'USA Today,' the second-highest circulation newspaper in America. On one day it published two contradictory stories to explain the failure to scramble jets from Andrews prior to the Pentagon crash:

FIRST 'USA TODAY' STORY:

"Andrews Air Force Base, home to Air Force One, is only 15 miles [sic!] away from the Pentagon, but it had no fighters assigned to it. Defense officials won't say whether that has changed."
--'USA TODAY,' 17 September 2001 (3)

SECOND 'USA TODAY' STORY:

"The District of Columbia National Guard maintained fighter planes at Andrews Air Force Base, only about 15 miles [sic!] from the Pentagon, but those planes were not on alert and not deployed."
--'USA TODAY' September 17, 2001 (4)

Both stories are false.

Only one newspaper told the truth. That was the 'San Diego Union-Tribune':

"Air defense around Washington is provided mainly by fighter planes from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland near the District of Columbia border. The D.C. Air National Guard is also based there and equipped with F-16 fighter planes, a National Guard spokesman said.

"But the fighters took to the skies over Washington only after the devastating attack on the Pentagon..."
--'San Diego Union-Tribune' 12 September 2001. (5)

Andrews Air Force Base is a huge installation. It hosts two 'combat-ready' squadrons:

* the 121st Fighter Squadron (FS-121) of the 113th Fighter Wing (FW-113), equipped with F-16 fighters;

* the 321st Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA-321) of the 49th Marine Air Group, Detachment A (MAG-49 Det-A), equipped F/A-18 fighters.

These squadrons are served by hundreds of full-time personnel.

THE 121st FIGHTER SQUADRON, 113th FIGHTER WING

"Éas part of its dual mission, the 113th provides capable and ready response forces for the District of Columbia in the event of a natural disaster or civil emergency. Members also assist local and federal law enforcement agencies in combating drug trafficking in the District of Colombia. [They] are full partners with the active Air Force"
--DC Military (6)

THE 321st MARINE FIGHTER ATTACK SQUADRON (VMFA-321)

"In the best tradition of the Marine Corps, a 'few good men and women' support two combat-ready reserve units at Andrews AFB.

"Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 321, a Marine Corps Reserve squadron, flies the sophisticated F/A-18 Hornet. Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 49, Detachment A, provides maintenance and supply functions necessary to maintain a force in readiness. "
--DC Military (6)

So Andrews AFB had at least two 'combat-ready' squadrons.

The above quotes are from www.dcmilitary.com, a private Website authorized by the military to provide information for members of the armed forces. We discovered it 24 September. A month later we found that the address had been changed and the Andrews information posted in the smallest type size. Similarly, the official Andrews AFB Website has been 'down' since mid-September. Fortunately, it can be accessed by going to www.archive.org and entering www.andrews.af.mil .

On the Andrews main page, front and center there is a direct link to DC Military. The information on the Andrews Website confirms the information on DC military. We urge everyone to check these links and download the pages as soon as possible because they may be moved or removed yet again. For Andrews, go to www.archive.org and then enter www.andrews.af.mil

Our research has been carried out mainly by volunteers. Newspapers and TV news departments have full-time research staffs. The important media have bureaus in Washington DC, just a few miles from the Andrews airbase. Why haven't newspapers and TV news programs reported the truth: that Andrews job was to protect DC?

This failure is especially striking because some media did report that fighters scrambled from Andrews, but only after the Pentagon was hit. Thus they were aware that Andrews was supposed to defend D.C.:

For example:

" Within minutes of the attack American forces around the world were put on one of their highest states of alert - Defcon 3, just two notches short of all-out war - and F-16s from Andrews Air Force Base were in the air over Washington DC."
--'Sunday Telegraph,' (London), 16 September 2001 (7)

And:

"WASHINGTON - Éan audible gasp went up from the rear of the audience as a large black plume of smoke arose from the Pentagon. Terrorism suddenly was at the doorstep and clearly visible through the big glass windows overlooking the Potomac River. Overhead, fighter jets scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base and other installations and cross-crossed the skiesÉ

"A thick plume of smoke was climbing out of the hollow center of the Pentagon. Everyone on the train understood what had happened moments before."
--'Denver Post,' 11 September 2001 (8)

And:

"It was after the attack on the Pentagon that the Air Force then decided to scramble F-16s out of the DC National Guard Andrews Air Force Base to fly cover, a--a protective cover over Washington, DC."
--NBC Nightly News, (6:30 PM ET) 11 September 11 2001 (9)

The media should have demanded to know the truth about why fighter jets assigned to protect Washington didn't scramble an hour BEFORE the Pentagon was hit.

Besides fighters, tanker planes and AWACS were also readily available.(An AWACS is a flying communication center equipped with radar which can scan at least 250 miles. This is almost the full distance from the West-Virginia/Ohio/Kentucky border, where American Air Flight 77 turned around before flying back to DC.) Both General Myers and Vice President Cheney admit that these planes did not go into the air over Washington until after the Pentagon was hit.

Here is General Myers, testifying 13th September:

"When it became clear what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACS, radar aircraft and tanker aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other aircraft showed up in the FAA system that were hijacked."
--Gen. Richard B. Myers at Senate confirmation hearing 13 September 2001 (10)

And Richard Cheney on 'Meet the Press:

"VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, the--I suppose the toughest decision was this question of whether or not we would intercept incoming commercial aircraft.

"MR. RUSSERT: And you decided?'

"VICE PRES. CHENEY: We decided to do it. We'd, in effect, put a flying combat air patrol up over the city; F-16s with an AWACS, which is an airborne radar system, and tanker support so they could stay up a long time." --NBC, 'Meet the Press' (10:00 AM ET) 16 September 2001 (11)

As we shall see, Mr. Cheney's statement that "the toughest decision was this question of whether or not we would intercept incoming commercial aircraft" is a lie. Publicly available FAA documents prove that fighter jets routinely intercept commercial aircraft under certain designated circumstances without requiring or asking for approval from the White House.

Summary of evidence is CONTINUED IN PART II

FOOTNOTES:

(1) 'Daily News' (New York), 12 September 2001, Wednesday,
NEWS SECTION; Pg. 24: 'THE TRAGIC TIMELINE The sad events of the day.'
the full text is available at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/dn912.htm

(2) 'DEFENSELINK News,' "It Was Business as Usual,
Then 'Boom'" By Jim Garamone, 'American Forces Press Service,' Sept. 13, 2001
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2001/n09132001_200109132.html
Backup at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/def.htm

(3) 'USA TODAY,' 17 September 2001, Pg. 5A,
"Military now a presence on home front," by Andrea Stone.
Web version is at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/16/military-home-front.htm
Backup at:
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/usa-1.htm

(4) 'USA TODAY,' September 17, 2001 Monday, FINAL EDITION, Pg. 5A,
"Shoot-down order issued on morning of chaos," by Jonathan Weisman, WASHINGTON
Web version is at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/16/pentagon-timeline.htm
Backup at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/usa2.htm

(5) 'San Diego Union-Tribune,' 12 September 2001
Homepage at: http://www.signonsandiego.com
Article at: http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/sd.htm

(6) As of 14 November 2001, the active link is:
http://www.dcmilitary.com/baseguides/airforce/andrews/partnerunits.html
Backup at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/dcmil.htm

(7) 'Sunday Telegraph,' (London), 16 September 2001
Article at:
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/16/
wcia16.xml
Backup at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/tel16.htm

(8) 'Denver Post,' 11 September 2001
To view this article on the Web, search for Article ID: 1075896 on:
http://www.denverpost.com
Or look at backup at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/dp11.htm

(9) 'NBC Nightly News,' "Attack on America," (6:30 PM ET) 11 September 11 2001,
"Tuesday President Bush returns to White House on Marine One,"
Anchor: Tom Brokaw, Jim Miklaszewski reporting.
See transcript at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/nbc911cover.htm

(10) Gen. Richard B. Myers at Senate confirmation hearing 13 September 2001
Full text at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/mycon.htm
This particular quotation was also reprinted by many mainstream media sources.

(11) 'NBC, Meet the Press' (10:00 AM ET) Sunday 16 September 2001.
Full transcript at:
http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/629714.asp?cp1=1
Backup transcript at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/nbcmp.htm

Postal Experts Hunt for Missing Ballots in Florida

Source: Reuters
by Michael Christie
Oct 27, 2004

MIAMI - U.S. Postal Service investigators on Wednesday were trying to find thousands of absentee ballots that should have been delivered to voters in one of Florida's most populous counties, officials said.

The issue evoked memories of the polling problems that bedeviled the Florida election in 2000 and which the state has been trying to address before next Tuesday's presidential election, which is again expected to be a very tight race.

Broward deputy supervisor of elections Gisela Salas said 60,000 absentee ballots, accounting for just over 5 percent of the electorate in the county north of Miami, were sent out between Oct. 7 and Oct. 8 to voters who would not be in town on election day.

While some had begun to be delivered, her office had been inundated with calls from anxious voters who still had not received their ballots.

"It's really inexplicable at this point in time and the matter is under investigation by law enforcement," Salas told Reuters.

"It was basically our first major drop of the absentee ballots," Salas said. She said postal service officials had assured Broward elections supervisor Brenda Snipes that the ballots had moved out of the post office to which they had been taken by the elections office.

U.S. Postal Service Inspector Del Alvarez, whose federal agency is independent from the U.S. Postal Service, said it had yet to be determined if the ballots reached the post office.

"It's highly unlikely that 58,000 pieces of mail just disappeared," he said. "We're looking for it, we're trying to find it if in fact it was ever delivered to the postal service."

In 2000 the race in Florida, on which the national presidential contest ultimately depended, was so close it prompted five weeks of lawsuits and recounts.

The U.S. Supreme Court eventually halted the recounts, handing President Bush a 537-vote victory in Florida and the White House, and infuriating Democrats who insist their candidate Al Gore won the popular vote in the state.

The punch card ballots that were at the heart of the disputed 2000 election have been replaced by touchscreen voting machines in 15 of Florida's 67 counties, and just over half the state electorate will use them. The other counties will use optical scanning machines to read paper ballots.

But poll watchers still fear another legal maelstrom if the race in Florida, or any other critical swing state, is close and there are suspicions that some voters were denied a ballot.

Salas said the missing absentee ballot forms did not yet represent a major election problem because people had the option of voting early before next Tuesday, when Bush is being challenged by Democratic Sen. John Kerry.

Poll workers will be able to cross-check through lap top computers hooked up to a central database whether voters had already sent in absentee ballots. On election day itself, those who requested absentee ballots will only be able to vote in person if they bring the blank absentee forms with them.

"A lot of people are very concerned because they think that just because they requested an absentee ballot, now they're stuck in a limbo situation where they don't have their ballot and they can't vote," Salas said.

"So most definitely we want to get the message out that yes they can go to an early voting site and cast their ballot and that's what we would encourage them to do," she said.

Ex-Guantanamo Detainees from Britain Sue Rumsfeld

Source: Reuters
Oct 27, 2004

WASHINGTON - Four British ex-inmates of the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay sued Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others on Wednesday saying they were tortured in violation of U.S. and international law.

The four former detainees are seeking $10 million in damages but primarily want Rumsfeld and other defendants to be held accountable for their actions, said Eric Lewis, the lead lawyer in the case.

"This is a case about preserving an American ideal -- the rule of law," Lewis said at a news conference. "It is un-American to torture people. It is un-American to hold people indefinitely without access to counsel, courts or family. It is un-American to flout international treaty obligations."

The plaintiffs are Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed, all of Tipton, England and Jamal al-Harith of Manchester. Al-Harith was picked up in Pakistan and the other three in Afghanistan after the 2001 U.S. Afghanistan invasion.

The federal court suit alleges they faced repeated beatings, death threats, interrogation at gunpoint, forced nakedness and menacing with unmuzzled dogs, among other mistreatment, during more than two years at Guantanamo Bay.

The Pentagon had no immediate comment on the suit.

The Bush administration has had several legal setbacks in its policy of detaining suspects, including at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on Cuba, without charges and without legal representation.

The latest suit charges the Defense Department chain of command authorized this treatment, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Conventions and other laws.

All four were released without in March 2004 and returned to England.

Besides Rumsfeld, the suit also names Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff; Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, former commander at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base; Gen. James Hill, commander at U.S. Southern Command, as well as other named officials and up to 100 "John Does" who allegedly were "involved in the illegal torture of plaintiffs" at Guantanamo.

US Bush Website Blocked Outside US

Source: BBC News
Oct 27, 2004

Surfers outside the US have been unable to visit the official re-election site of President George W Bush.

The blocking of browsers sited outside the US began in the early hours of Monday morning.

Since then people outside the US trying to browse the site get a message saying they are not authorised to view it.

The blocking does not appear to be due to an attack by vandals or malicious hackers, but as a result of a policy decision by the Bush camp.

Traffic control

The international exclusion zone around georgewbush.com was spotted by net monitoring firm Netcraft which keeps an eye on traffic patterns across many different sites.

Netcraft said that since the early hours of 25 October attempts to view the site through its monitoring stations in London, Amsterdam and Sydney failed.

By contrast Netcraft's four monitoring stations in the US managed to view the site with no problems.

The site can still be seen using anonymous proxy services that are based in the US. Some web users in Canada also report that they can browse the site.

Readers of the Boingboing weblog also found that viewers could get at the site by using alternative forms of the George W Bush domain name.

The pattern of traffic to the website suggests that the blocking was not due to an attack by vandals or politically motivated hackers.

Geographic blocking works because the numerical addresses that the net uses to organise itself are handed out on a regional basis.

On 21 October, the George W Bush website began using the services of a company called Akamai to ensure that the pages, videos and other content on its site reaches visitors.

Mike Prettejohn, president of Netcraft, speculated that the blocking decision might have been taken to cut costs, and traffic, in the run-up to the election on 2 November.

He said the site may see no reason to distribute content to people who will not be voting next week.

Managing traffic could also be a good way to ensure that the site stays working in the closing days of the election campaign.

However, simply blocking non-US visitors also means that Americans overseas are barred too.

Akamai declined to comment, saying it could not talk about customer websites.

US Gave Date of War to Britain in Advance, Court Papers Reveal

Source: lndependent/UK
By Colin Brown
Oct 27, 2004

Secret plans for the war in Iraq were passed to British Army chiefs by US defense planners five months before the invasion was launched, a court martial heard yesterday.

The revelation strengthened suspicions that Tony Blair gave his agreement to President George Bush to go to war while the diplomatic efforts to force Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions were continuing.

Alan Simpson, the leader of Labour Against the War, said the documents were "dynamite", if genuine, and showed that Clare Short was right to assert in her book, serialized in The Independent, that Mr Blair had "knowingly misled" Parliament.

The plans were revealed during the court martial of L/Cpl Ian Blaymire, 23, from Leeds, who is charged with the manslaughter of a comrade while serving in Iraq. Sgt John Nightingale, 32, a reservist from Guiseley, West Yorkshire, died after being shot in the chest on 23 September last year.

The court, at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, heard that contingency plans were drawn up by Lt Col Christopher Warren, staff officer at Land Command, Salisbury, Wiltshire, who was responsible for operational training.

Lt Col Warren said US planners had passed on dates for which the invasion was planned. The hearing was told Army chiefs wanted the training for the Army to start at the beginning of December 2002. However, due to "sensitivities" the training was delayed.

The court heard the training for the TA began two months late and for the regular Army one month late. Lt Col Warren was asked what the sensitivities were. He replied: "Because in December there was a world interest. If the UK had mobilized while all this was going on that would have shown an intent before the political process had been allowed to run its course."

The hearing was adjourned.

Amnesty: US 'War on Terror' Mentality Leads to Torture

Source: Agence France Presse
Oct 27, 2004

The United States is more concerned with getting around international laws which prohibit torture than with safeguarding human rights as it wages its "war on terror", Amnesty International said in a report.

The report, a 200-page analysis of the practices and decisions that led to torture in Iraq, and alleged abuse in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, argues that Washington's "war mentality" led it down a slippery slope toward disregard for the rule of law.

"It is tragic that in the 'war on terror', the USA has itself undermined the rule of law. Its selective disregard for the Geneva Conventions and international human rights law has contributed to torture and ill-treatment," it wrote.

"The torture and ill-treatment of Iraqi detainees by US agents in Abu Ghraib prison was -- due to a failure of human rights leadership at the highest levels of government -- sadly predictable," it continued.

The report comes just a week ahead of the US presidential election Tuesday between Republican incumbent George W. Bush and Democratic Senator John Kerry.

Photos depicting torture at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, which first emerged in late April, shocked the world and left a lasting smear on the US reputation as a defender of human rights.

US government documents suggest that "far from ensuring that the 'war on terror' would be conducted without resort to human rights violations, the administration was discussing ways in which its agents might avoid the international prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," the Amnesty report said.

"The war mentality the government has adopted has not been matched with a commitment to the laws of war," it added.

Instead, the strategy of the US government has been to deny detainees prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions, and to restrict access to detainees citing military necessity -- both of which have allowed abuse to go by unnoticed and largely unpunished, the group said.

Bush and his leadership also contribute to the slippery slope by refusing to use "torture" to describe Abu Ghraib, but only call events that took place there as "abuse", it said.

Amnesty, the London-based global rights campaigner, reiterated its call for an independent commission to investigate alleged abuse in the war on terror which would be mandated to investigate the highest echelons of government.

It also outlined 12 recommendations for Washington, including the need to improve access to detainees, totally condemn torture and ratify international treaties to that effect and prosecute wrongdoers.

The group criticized what it termed US government hypocrisy to denounce torture and and yet refuse to address its own instances of mistreatment.

In a bitter ironic passage, it noted that when "it suited the US government's aims in its build-up to the invasion of Iraq", the Bush administration cited Amnesty International's reports on torture under Saddam Hussein's rule in that country.

The 202-page report draws largely on a wide source of information, including the US government and non-governmental organizations, as well as press reports of abuse cases and Amnesty's own investigations.

The Power of Nightmares: Baby It's Cold Outside: Should we be worried about the threat from organised terrorism or is it simply a phantom menace being used to stop society from falling apart

Source: BBC News
Oct 19, 2004

In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares.

The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams were not true, neither are these nightmares.

In a new series, the Power of Nightmares explores how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion.

It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media.

At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists.

Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world.

These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended.

Together they created today's nightmare vision of an organised terror network.

A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.

The rise of the politics of fear begins in 1949 with two men whose radical ideas would inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the neo-conservative movement that dominates Washington.

Both these men believed that modern liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together.

The two movements they inspired set out, in their different ways, to rescue their societies from this decay. But in an age of growing disillusion with politics, the neo-conservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their vision.

They would create a hidden network of evil run by the Soviet Union that only they could see.

The Islamists were faced by the refusal of the masses to follow their dream and began to turn to terror to force the people to "see the truth"'.

The Power of Nightmares, a three part series begins on Wednesday, 20 October 2004 at 2100 BST on BBC Two with Baby It's Cold Outside.

====================================================================
II. The Power of Nightmares: The Phantom Victory
The Power of Nightmares continues its assessment of whether the threat from a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. Part two, the Phantom Victory looks at how two groups, radical Islamists and neo-conservatives with seemingly opposing ideologies came together to defeat a common enemy.


On 25 December 1979, Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan.

Moscow was able to install a friendly government in a neighbouring country but at a price.

The invasion gave a common cause to an extraordinary alliance of radical Islamists in Afghanistan and around the world and to the neo-conservatives in the US.

It was a key battleground of the Cold War.

Washington provided money and arms including even Stinger missiles capable of shooting down Soviet helicopters.

But it was Islamic Mujahideen fighters who would fire them.

Among the many foreigners drawn to Afghanistan was a young, wealthy Saudi called Osama Bin Laden.

Long before 9/11, he would have been seen by neo-conservatives in Washington as one of their foot soldiers, helping fight America's cause.

After nearly 10 years of fighting, Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan.

Both the neo-conservatives and the Islamists believed that it is they who defeated the "evil empire" and now had the power to transform the world.

But both failed in their revolutions.

In response, the neo-conservatives invented a new fantasy enemy, Bill Clinton, focusing on the scandal surrounding him and Monica Lewinsky.

Meanwhile, the Islamists descend into a desperate cycle of violence and terror to try to persuade the people to follow them.

Out of all this comes the seeds of the strange world of fantasy, deception, violence and fear in which we now live.

The Power of Nightmares, the second episode of a three part series was broadcast on Wednesday, 27 October 2004 at 2100 BST on BBC Two with The Phantom Victory.

====================================================================
III. The Power of Nightmares: The Shadows In The Cave - The Power of Nightmares assesses whether the threat from a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. In the concluding part of the series, the programme explains how the illusion was created and who benefits from it.

In the wake of the shock and panic created by the devastating attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September, 2001, the neo-conservatives reconstructed the radical Islamists in the image of their last evil enemy, the Soviet Union - a sinister web of terror run from the centre by Osama Bin Laden in his lair in Afghanistan.

There are dangerous and fanatical individuals and groups around the world who have been inspired by extreme Islamist ideas, and who will use the techniques of mass terror - the attacks on America and Madrid make this only too clear.

But the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organisation waiting to strike our societies is an illusion.

Wherever one looks for this al-Qaeda organisation, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the "sleeper cells" in America, the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy.

But the reason that no-one questions the illusion is because this nightmare enemy gives so many groups new power and influence in a cynical age - and not just politicians.

Those with the darkest imaginations have now become the most powerful.

In part one, the programme looked at the origins of the neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists in the 1950s.

The second part of the series examined how the radical Islamists and neo-conservatives came together to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

The Power of Nightmares, the final episode of the three part series will be broadcast on Wednesday, 3 November 2004 at 2100 GMT on BBC Two with The Shadows In The Cave.

Target Wellstone: American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone


Source: FreezerBox.com
BY RUSS WELLEN
Sep 7, 2004

Book: American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone
By Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer
Vox Pop, 199 pages, $14.00

So fierce is the competition in the crime fiction market today that only the cozy genre of mystery can still get away with a single murder victim. In padding the body count, however, authors lose sight of the first rule of a good crime novel: reanimate the corpse. In other words, the reader must get to know and care about the deceased.

When the plane carrying Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone to the funeral of a state lawmaker's father crashed, his wife, daughter, three staff members, and two pilots died as well. By writing American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone (on Sander Hicks's new Vox Pop imprint), Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer honor all the victims. But demonstrating that a crime--massacre actually--was committed requires showing how Wellstone's Senate career constituted a monument to humanitarianism that demanded to be toppled as sure as Saddam's statue in Firdos Square, Baghdad.

Unfortunately, sniping from the left that he failed to hew to the party line obscured Wellstone's achievements (documented in an appendix to the book). In fact, his comprehensive approach to progressive causes, from reforming American farm policy to opposing GATT and NAFTA, paralleled how the right leaves no stone unturned in its relentless quest to roll back any legislation that could conceivably be called enlightened.

In light of the suspicious circumstances under which he died, you can't help but think that the right saw him as not one, but a plague of gadflies that had to be eradicated. He was in fact exposed to aerial spraying--intentionally, the authors maintain--while inspecting the effect of glycophospate on Colombian coca fields. With each vote, Wellstone more and more resembled a man marching to his doom.

Not only the mainstream, but also most of the independent media has used Wellstone campaign manager Jeff Blodgett's profession of certainty that pilot error was at fault to back off from allegations of foul play. In other words, don't let them tar you with that darn conspiracy theory label because when you try to peel it off your skin comes with it.

But conspiracy theories don't only play with the Generation X-Files crowd; now they're scrutinized by the ever-more-credentialed, such as Dr. David Ray Griffin, the author of The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11. Like Griffin, Jim Fetzer is a professor of philosophy (at the University of Minnesota, Duluth) and he's polished his philosopher's stone with three books on the death of JFK. Co-author Four Arrows is an associate professor at Northern Arizona University. (Though the authors fail to describe the division of duties, the interviews Arrows conducts suggests he's the leg man.)

Applying the principles of philosophy to the crime, Fetzer claims that when an investigator examining a hypothesis violates "the requirement of total evidence," "special pleading"--intentionally selecting evidence to create a biased result--occurs.

Excluding, and perhaps removing, evidence is exactly what official bodies seem to have set out to do. Only an hour after first responders arrived on the crash site at 11 a.m., the FBI materialized on the scene. In other words, they would have departed from St. Paul at 9:30--when Wellstone's plane was taking off.

After possibly spiriting away the cockpit voice recorder, the FBI announced the crash wasn't the work of terrorists. Meanwhile, the National Traffic Safety Board's lead investigator, Frank Hildrup, when asked why there was no public hearing, responded that they were reserved for "high profile cases."

As for the cause, at first the NTSB blamed icy conditions. However, when the plane didn't land at the Eveleth-Virginia (Minnesota) Airport, its assistant manager, Gary Ulman, had no qualms about immediately taking off to search for the crash site. Others, such as National Center for Atmospheric Research meteorologist Ben Bernstein, downplayed the icing theory as well.

Besides, the Beechcraft King Air A-10 boasted an elaborate de-icing system--you learn a lot about aviation in this book--such as pneumatic de-icing boots that inflate and deflate to break ice from the leading edges of the wing and tail. And when the King Air's maintenance records turned out to be in order, mechanical problems, along with the icy conditions, were disqualified as causes.

The NTSB then turned to the highly rated pilot, Richard Conry, a favorite of Wellstone's who had passed an FAA flight check two days before. Sixty seconds after his last conversation with the ground, during which he reported no problems, the King Air began drifting south, whereas a normal landing would have continued straight west. In other words, discounting his turn in the opposite direction before crashing, the NTSB adopted the conclusion that Conry and co-pilot Michael Guess's approach was too slow, stalling the plane and causing it to crash.

But even if the pilots failed to check airspeed and altitude--an almost unimaginable lapse--they would have been alerted by an alarm in plenty of time to regain speed. In other words, by arriving at this conclusion the NTSB demonstrated the same lack of concern for public scrutiny as the FBI did when it arrived early at the crash scene. More likely, the authors maintain, the King Air lost airspeed and altitude because the pilots were unable to control it.

Understanding the crash, they believe, requires establishing why the King Air suddenly stopped communicating. Another man on his way to the funeral, driving within a couple blocks of the airport at the time of the crash experienced otherworldly cell-phone interference. He reported hearing a sound "between a roar and loud humming voice...oscillating...screeching and humming noise."

Most responsible for narrowing the authors' search for a cause was the blue smoke typical of electrical fires that streamed out of the King Air's sheared fuselage for hours after the crash.

In an arresting passage, the authors cite a Time magazine article describing microwave weapons the US is developing to knock out enemy electronics. Supposedly they're capable of unleashing in an instant as much power as the Hoover Dam cranks out in a day. The authors report, among other accidents, an F-111 that crashed or aborted due simply to the radio transmissions (electromagnetic pulses) of other US military aircraft.

Suddenly the idea of electronic-jamming equipment sending a decoy VOR (landing guidance system) signal to the King Air becomes plausible. Obeying instrumentation that's tricked into believing the plane is several degrees off course, the pilot follows the signal straight into the ground.

Possible means mapped out, what about more specific motives than the general pugnaciousness of this former wrestler's progressivism? First, at the time of the crash the Republicans' Senate majority was in jeopardy because Vermont's Jim Jeffords had bolted the party. In an attempt to redress the balance, they threw all their support behind Norm Coleman, Wellstone's opponent in the upcoming election. When Wellstone voted against granting the president power to invade Iraq, his popularity surged.

Wellstone reported that before the Senate vote on Iraq, Dick Cheney had warned him that bucking the administration could result in severe consequences for both him and the state of Minnesota. Neither was the vice president happy about the legislation Wellstone had introduced to improve protection against asbestos poisoning. Cheney had left Halliburton in a position to be sued by its insurer for asbestos claims staggering in their potential for remuneration. Only his assumption of the vice presidency granted him immunity from deposition.

After Wellstone's funeral, you may remember how Republicans claimed the event was partisan, essentially garnering Democrats free campaign airtime. This, of course, stood in contrast, to the heartfelt way the Republican party grieved--by transferring money designated to fight Wellstone to defeating Democratic Georgia Senator Max Cleland. Corporate America was equally broken up: From the instant Wellstone's death was reported by AP--the rise in corporate fortunes that a Republican Senate signified needed no spelling out to investors--the Dow rose steadily.

By unraveling the conditions under which he died, Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer have not only paid tribute to Paul Wellstone, they've brought to light the facts surrounding yet another suspicious plane crash in a lineage that extends back to Governor Mel Carnahan and Senators John Tower and Hale Boggs.

Finally, let us recall the prescience Wellstone demonstrated in his statement to the Senate on Iraq: "The United States should unite the world against Saddam and not allow him to unite forces against us."