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Monday, March 13, 2006 |
Telegraph: "An SAS soldier has refused to fight in Iraq and has left the Army over the 'illegal' tactics of United States troops and the policies of coalition forces.
He said he had witnessed 'dozens of illegal acts' by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as 'untermenschen' - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human.
He added that he now believed that the Prime Minister and the Government had repeatedly 'lied' over the war's conduct."
11:38:03 AM 
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Independent: "British businesses have profited by at least £1.1bn since coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein three years ago, the first comprehensive investigation into UK corporate investment in Iraq has found.
The biggest British player, Aegis - run by Tim Spicer, the former British army lieutenant colonel who founded the security company Sandline - has a workforce the size of a military division and may rank as the largest corporate military group ever assembled, according to the report."
The top 10 firms profiting from Iraq are AMEC, Aegis, Erinys, Petrel Resources, HSBC, Cummins, PB Power, Control Risks, MerchantBridge and Global Risk Strategies.
High profile players are: Lt-Col Tim Spicer (retired, OBE, former Scots Guards, former SAS), Nicholas Soames (former Defence minister), Maj-Gen Jeremy Phipps (retired, former SAS, former head of British special forces 1989-1993), Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Tory former defence secretary), Harry Legge-Bourke (former captain in Welsh Guards, friend of Prince Charles and brother of Prince William's nanny), General Sir Michael Rose (Commander of the 22nd SAS regiment, 1979-82), Tim Bell (his firm Bell-Pottinger was awarded a £3m by the British Government to promote democracy in the run-up to the 2004 elections), Sir Jeremy Greenstock (one of Britain's foremost diplomats), Baroness Blackstone (former minister of state) and George Robertson (former secretary general of Nato and former Labour defence secretary).
The privatisation of military tasks has gone extremely far. Though private firms are legally independent from government, it is clear there is a continuous link from government to private companies. They are the same people with the same objects. The advantage of this set-up is that there is practically no control of these private companies by the taxpayer. It is used to bypass democratic procedures. There is a conflict of interests as the above people belong to the Establishment and are private businessmen. Well, in fact there is no conflict of interests, as the interests of government and corporations are the same.
11:23:53 AM
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CommonDreams: "A top Democratic senator said Sunday he plans to introduce Monday a resolution calling for President Bush to be censured for his domestic wiretapping program.
Sen. Russ Feingold, a potential presidential candidate, told ABC's 'This Week' Sunday that the resolution would not preempt discussions about changing a 1978 law governing a special court set up to approve wiretaps.
'It's an unusual step,' he said. 'It's a big step, but what the president did by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping has to be answered.
The idea that the president can just make up a law, in violation of his oath of office, has to be answered.'"
Earlier a resolution was introduced to censure Bush for failing to respond to requests for information concerning allegations that he and others in his Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for the war, countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in Iraq, and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of his Administration, for failing to adequately account for specific misstatements he made regarding the war, and for failing to comply with Executive Order 12958.
This bill is in the first step in the legislative process.
As long as the GOP mainly consists of irresponsible and criminal elements, Bush will have little to fear. Bush should be impeached.
1:58:35 AM
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