Wednesday, August 4, 2004

Trust & Prudence vs. Distrust & Fear FEATURED ARTICLES - US terror plot intelligence 'old',   BBC - U.S. Blue Chips Up as Attack Fears Ease, Reuters - Another F.B.I. Employee Blows Whistle on Agency, NY Times - 9/11 Commission Chimera, by Ray McGovern, TomPaine.com - Retired General: Bush Foreign Policy a 'National Disaster', CNN - Radiation in Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs, Dissident Voice QUOTE OF THE DAY "Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear." - - William Ewart Gladstone KNOW YOUR HISTORY - August 4th 1925 -- Nicaragua: US Marines leave after 13-year occupation. But not for long. As Governator Schwarzenegger puts it, "I'll be back!". 1987 -- The Federal Communications Commission voted 4-0 to rescind the Fairness Doctrine, which required radio and television stations to present balanced coverage of controversial issues. 1999 -- On the eve of congressional votes on the Republicans' $792 billion tax cut proposal, President Clinton again pledged a veto, saying the GOP package was "risky and plainly wrong." RHINO HERE: On Sunday, days after the most enthusiastic Democratic Convention in years, Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge announced the US had received "new and unusually specific information about where al-Qaeda would like to attack". He named specific building including The World Bank, The IMF, the NY Stock Exchange, etc. In response, the tri-letter news media pounded the American public all weekend and Monday morning, people trying to get to work in DC & the Big Apple were subjected to all sorts of stepped up security checks both for vehicles & pedestrians.   US terror plot intelligence 'old', BBC, 8/3/04 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3530358.stm On Tuesday, the story broke that the information the shrub gang was using for their Code Orange alert wa based on info gathered up to 4 years ago. This after they lambasted Governor Howard Dean for saying the gang uses terror threats every time they want to divert attention away from events not beneficial to their purposes. Not coincidentally, on Tuesday, the price of barrels of oil reached an all time high.  Rhino sez, "Folks, it doesn't take an intelligence analyst to connect the dots. U.S. Blue Chips Up as Attack Fears Ease, Reuters, 8/2/04 Attack Fears Ease Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is by Bob Nichols, a journalist and anti-nuclear activist from Oklahoma. In this in depth piece, he looks at the radioactive legacy our U.S. government has left not only in Iraq, not only in the areas where we've fought the last 5 wars, but also the radioactive legacy our government has infused into the gene pool of our own youth who have served in the armed forces. Trying to put the legacy in a context the American public might be able to comprehend, Nichols tells us thatl the amount of Radiation scattered around Iraq in the form of depleted uranium just during the 2003 Iraq war equals about 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs. How many Nagasaki Bombs equal the Radiation in the last Five American Nuclear Radiation Wars? Answer: About 400,000 Nagasaki Bombs. But first, a few stories about veterans of the F.B.I. & the C.I.A. as well as the former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, all speaking out against what Rhino calls the "flawed intelligence" of the shrub gang. No I'm not talking about the bad info they claim they got about Iraq. I'm talking about the outright stupidity of the gang's actions. And today, Rhino suggests every article linked here is appropriate to "SEND TO A REPUBLICAN!" Another F.B.I. Employee Blows Whistle on Agency By Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, August 2004 As a veteran agent chasing home-grown terrorist suspects for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mike German always had a knack for worming his way into places few other agents could go. In the early 1990's, he infiltrated a group of white supremacist skinheads plotting to blow up a black church in Los Angeles. A few years later, he joined a militia in Washington State that talked of attacking government buildings. Known to his fellow militia members as Rock, he tricked them into handcuffing themselves in a supposed training exercise so the authorities could arrest them. So in early 2002, when Mr. German got word that a group of Americans might be plotting support for an overseas Islamic terrorist group, he proposed to his bosses what he thought was an obvious plan: go undercover and infiltrate the group. But Mr. German says F.B.I. officials sat on his request, botched the investigation, falsified documents to discredit their own sources, then froze him out and made him a "pariah." ... MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/02/politics/02whistleblower.html 9/11 Commission Chimera Ray McGovern, TomPaine.com, August 02, 2004 There they go again, I thought to myself while listening Friday to 9/11 Commission Chair Gov. Tom Kean tell senators for the umpteenth time, "I do not find today anyone really in charge of the intelligence community."  Kane's colleagues have been singing from the same sheet of music.  Jamie Gorelick: "The authorities to act cohesively do not exist." Commission Vice Chair Lee Hamilton shared with the senators his frustration at the answer he got when he kept asking intelligence community officials who is in charge.  The president, they said. Hamilton branded this response: "not a very satisfactory answer." And added, "No one would say that the Director of Central Intelligence is in charge." It need not be so.  During my 27 years at the Central Intelligence Agency I served under nine directors and worked closely with four of them.  They were in charge... MORE: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/911_commission_chimera.php Retired General: Bush Foreign Policy a 'National Disaster' CNN,  July 31, 2004 A former Air Force chief of staff and one-time "Veteran for Bush" said Saturday that America's foreign relations for the first three years of President Bush's term have been "a national disaster" but that the president's Democratic rival was "up to the task" of rebuilding. Retired Gen. Tony McPeak, the Air Force chief of staff during the first Gulf War, delivered the Democratic radio address supporting implementation of the 9/11 commission's recommendations for national security. "As president, John Kerry will not waste a minute in bringing action on the reforms urged by the 9/11 commission," McPeak said of the Massachusetts senator nominated by the Democrats this week. "And he will not rest until America's defenses are strong."... MORE: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/31/dems.radio 7:31:09 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Radiation in Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs Radiation in Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs By Bob Nichols, Dissident Voice, July 12, 2004 As a writer I do not have a set of words to describe what 142 degrees in the shade is like. I've seen 120 degrees in Phoenix and 110 degrees in the spa's sauna I use. One hundred forty-two degrees leaves me speechless. Try to imagine 142 D temperature while wearing a helmet, long sleeve shirt, long pants, a bulletproof vest, boots, and carrying a 70-pound pack. By contrast the Inuit of Alaska and Canada are said to have 37 words to precisely talk about different kinds of snow. So, since the temperature is heating up in Iraq it seemed like a good time to float this story to different Internet sites and news publications.  There was one story in 2003 of a 19-year old British soldier whose military job was to work in a British tank. In Iraq. In the summer. Word is, from London, that he forgot to drink enough water and he literally cooked in his tank. But, this story is not about the temperature in Iraq. You can bet, though, the weather will be really important for those Americans unfortunate enough to still be in Iraq this summer. This story is about American weapons built with depleted uranium components for the business end of things. Just about all American bullets, tank shells, missiles, dumb bombs, smart bombs, 500 and 2,000-pound bombs, cruise missiles, and anything else engineered to help our side in the war of us against them has depleted uranium in it. Lots of depleted uranium. In the case of a cruise missile, as much as 800 pounds of the stuff. This article is about how much radioactive depleted uranium our guys, representing us, the citizens of the United States, let fly in Iraq. Turns out they used about 4,000,000 pounds of the stuff, give or take, according to the Pentagon and the United Nations. That is a bunch. Now, most people have no idea how much Four Million Pounds of anything is, much less of depleted uranium oxide dust (UOD), which this stuff turns into when it is shot or exploded. Suffice it to say it is about equal to 1,333 cars that weigh 3,000 pounds apiece. That is a lot of cars; but we can imagine what a parking lot with 1,333 is like. The point is this was and is an industrial strength operation. It is still going on, too... MORE: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Nichols0327.htm "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:23:31 AM    comment

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