Nebuchadnezzar

God has given to his Church, the living blocks of his Heavenly Kingdom, many gifts, each member has a unique anointing from God. 1 Cor 12 (((But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.))) When God has given you an anointing or special gift there are always going to be those who fight it. Those who don

Reporter Apologizes for Iraq Coverage By Editor & Publisher Staff Sunday 29 March 2004 NEW YORK In the wake of Richard Clarke's dramatic personal apology to the families of 9/11 victims last week -- on behalf of himself and his government -- for failing to prevent the terrorist attacks, one might expect at least a few mea culpas related to the release of false information on the Iraq threat before and after the war. While the major media, from The New York Times on down, has largely remained silent about their own failings in this area, a young columnist for a small paper in Fredericksburg, Va., has stepped forward. "The media are finished with their big blowouts on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and there is one thing they forgot to say: We're sorry," Rick Mercier wrote, in a column published Sunday in The Free Lance-Star. "Sorry we let unsubstantiated claims drive our coverage. Sorry we were dismissive of experts who disputed White House charges against Iraq. Sorry we let a band of self-serving Iraqi defectors make fools of us. Sorry we fell for Colin Powell's performance at the United Nations. Sorry we couldn't bring ourselves to hold the administration's feet to the fire before the war, when it really mattered. "Maybe we'll do a better job next war." Mercier admitted that it was "absurd to receive this apology from a person so low in the media hierarchy. You really ought to be getting it from the editors and reporters at the agenda-setting publications, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post." Mercier, an editor and writer at the newspaper who writes a column two or three times a month, told E&P that the column was sparked by what he saw as "a need for accountability and reflection" given the seriousness of the current conflict in Iraq and the failure to find WMDs there or a strong Saddam link to al Qaeda. He saw little of that soul-searching in the one-year anniversary coverage. "By neglecting to fully employ their critical-thinking faculties, the media not only failed their readers and viewers, they failed our democracy," Mercier said. Concluding his column, Mercier declared, "there's no excusing that failure. The only thing that can be said is, Sorry."

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

Cheney, Energy and Iraq Invasion By Larry Everest The San Francisco Chronicle Sunday 21 March 2004 Supreme Court to Rule on Secrecy The case Cheney vs. U.S. District Court is scheduled to be heard before the Supreme Court next month and could end up revealing more about the Bush administration's motives for the 2003 Iraq war than any conceivable investigation of U.S. intelligence concerning Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction. The plaintiffs, the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, the conservative legal group based in Washington, argue that Vice President Cheney and his staff violated the open-government Federal Advisory Committee Act by meeting behind closed doors with energy industry executives, analysts and lobbyists. The plaintiffs allege these discussions occurred during the formulation of the Bush administration's May 2001 "National Energy Policy." For close to three years, Cheney and the administration have resisted demands that they reveal with whom they met and what they discussed. Last year, a lower court ruled against Cheney and instructed him to turn over documents providing these details. On Dec. 15, the Supreme Court announced it would hear Cheney's appeal. Three weeks later, Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent a weekend together duck hunting at a private resort in southern Louisiana, giving rise to calls for Scalia to recuse himself. So far, he has refused. Why has the administration gone to such lengths to avoid disclosing how it developed its new energy policy? Significant evidence points to the possibility that much more could be revealed than mere corporate cronyism: The national energy policy proceedings could open a window onto the Bush administration's decision-making process and motives for going to war on Iraq. In July 2003, after two years of legal action through the Freedom of Information Act (and after the end of the war), Judicial Watch was finally able to obtain some documents from the Cheney-led National Energy Policy Development Group. They included maps of Middle East and Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, two charts detailing various Iraqi oil and gas projects, and a March 2001 list of "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," detailing the status of their efforts. The documents are available at www.judicialwatch.org. These documents are significant because during the 1990s, U.S. policy- makers were alarmed about oil deals potentially worth billions of dollars being signed between the Iraqi government and foreign competitors of the United States including France's Total and Russia's LukOil. The New York Times reported the LukOil contracts alone could amount to more than 70 billion barrels of oil, more than half of Iraq's reserves. One oil executive said the volume of these deals was huge -- a "colossal amount." As early as April 17, 1995, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. petroleum giants realized that "Iraq is the biggie" in terms of future oil production, that the U.S. oil companies were "worried about being left out" of Iraq's oil dealings due to the antagonism between Washington and Baghdad, and that they feared that "the companies that win the rights to develop Iraqi fields could be on the road to becoming the most powerful multinationals of the next century." U.N. sanctions against Iraq, maintained at the insistence of the United States and Britain, prevented these deals from being consummated. Saddam Hussein's removal in 2003 has left the deals in a state of limbo, but the Bush administration's insistence that only countries supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom are eligible for postwar reconstruction does not bode well for French and Russian concerns. An April 2001 report by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and the Baker Institute for Public Policy -- commissioned by Cheney to help shape the new energy policy -- also devoted serious attention to Iraq. The report, "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century," complained about Hussein's oil leverage: "Tight markets have increased U.S. and global vulnerability to disruption and provided adversaries undue potential influence over the price of oil. Iraq has become a key 'swing' producer, posing a difficult situation for the U.S. government. ... Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. "Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets." Significantly, the report concluded that the United States should immediately review its Iraq policy, including its military options. There are many other indications that, despite the Bush administration's repeated and insistent denials, petroleum politics may have played a crucial role in the U.S. invasion of Iraq. For instance, both the State Department and the Pentagon had pre-war planning groups that included a focus on Iraq's oil industry; protecting the industry was an early U.S. objective in the war. In October 2002, Oil and Gas International reported that U.S. planning was already under way to reorganize Iraq's oil and business relationships. In January 2003, the Wall Street Journal reported that representatives from Exxon Mobil Corp., ChevronTexaco Corp., ConocoPhillips and Halliburton, among others, were meeting with Vice President Cheney's staff to plan the post- war revival of Iraq's oil industry. Cheney is said to have once remarked that the country that controls Middle East oil can exercise a "stranglehold" over the global economy. One-time Bush speech writer David Frum wrote in "The Right Man," his 2003 biography of his boss, that the United States' "war on terror" was designed to "bring new freedom and new stability to the most vicious and violent quadrant of the Earth -- and new prosperity to us all, by securing the world's largest pool of oil." Further records from Cheney's Energy Task Force could shed more light on the inner workings of the Bush administration's march to war in Iraq. The first question, though, is whether the Supreme Court will lift the Bush-Cheney veil of secrecy.

The U.S. concentration camp in Guantanamo, wasn't designed to fight terrorism; it's designed to advance terrorism -- state terrorism. Its purpose is to establish the principle of arbitrary rule -- above the rule of law, in America and around the world. It's part of a system of terror -- aggressive war, assassination, detention, torture -- employed to achieve the Bush Regime's openly stated ideological goal: "full-spectrum dominance" of global politics and resources, particularly energy resources. Al-Qaida has the same goal, and uses the same methods, although on a much smaller scale.

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that is not only a lie, it is a malicious lie with an intent to incite hatred. You should be ashamed of yourself. I know I'm ashamed of you. Ha! Every day I see on the news, more house demolitions, more farm land destroyed, fruit trees cut down, more settlements, ethnic cleansing continues unabated. You can spout out all of your venom on me but it doesn

Thanks for that Pie, yum! you asked Do you believe the existence of Israel is threatened? Yes I do! If Israel keeps up its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, not only the Israelis existence, but the existence of many nations are in the balance. The Islamic terrorism that is circling the world has its root cause in this conflict. If Israel doesn

The history of Israel is shaping up to be much like the history of America, where millions of natives were either slaughtered or herded onto reservations. The histories are very similar, early Americans did it in the name of Manifest-destiny and Israel in the name of God. Ha! At least it would be funny is it wasn

Tuesday, Honduras announced it would pull its contingent of 300 soldiers, which are part of the Spanish-led brigade, out of Iraq in July, although it said the move had already been planned and was not a result of Madrid's decision. An international poll released Tuesday by the Washington-based Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found a strong anti-U.S. sentiment spreading across Europe and the Muslim world. The survey of nearly 8,000 people in nine countries found overwhelming opposition to Mr. Bush outside the United States, ranging from a high of 96 per cent in Jordan to a low of 57 per cent in Britain. While Mr. Bush avoided any direct criticism of Spain, which suffered train bombings last week that killed more than 200 people, the White House warned governments against buckling in the face of terrorism. "It is a terrible message to send," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "We must send a message of unity, of strength and of resolve in the war on terrorism. . . . Terrorists cannot think they can influence elections or influence policy." But in Spain, exactly that may have happened. Voters apparently changed their minds in the wake of the Madrid bombings, turning against the Conservative government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, a staunch ally of Mr. Bush. It is unclear, however, whether voters were angry over Mr. Aznar's backing of the war in Iraq, or at his government's initial attempts to blame Basque militants for the attacks. Other coalition allies appear shaky about their commitment in Iraq. Mr. Bush met Tuesday with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, who pointedly declined to say how long 1,300 Dutch troops would stay there. In the Netherlands, as in Spain, opinion surveys show that most people want their soldiers brought home.

Yes, we all know Saddam had weapons of mass destruction before the 1st gulf war. The reason we know this is because America gave them to him to fight the Iranians with. However, this was not the argument the Bush regime was using to deceive the world with. What Bush was saying, was that Saddam had reconstituted his weapons program and was concealing there whereabouts. Powell told the UN that America knew where these hidden laboratories were, that they knew where Saddam

Jesus did not answer Pilate

In a congressional report Compiled by Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee, the report examined assertions made by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice who made a combined total of 237 misleading public statements on the threat posed by Iraq. Most of the statements were misleading because they expressed certainty where none existed or failed to acknowledge the doubts of intelligence officials, this demonstrated a systematic distortion of the intelligence on Iraq, Hans Blix, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector, said that the Bush administration convinced itself of the existence of banned weapons based on dubious findings before invading Iraq and was not interested in hearing evidence to the contrary. "They wanted to come to the conclusion that there were weapons," he said. "Like the former days of the witch hunt, if you see a black cat, well, that's evidence of the witch." .

Luke 12:3 Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. (((((The Associated Press reports that Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski - a strong White House ally - now says he was "misled" about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before the war. Poland, which has about 2,400 troops in Iraq, has been touted by President Bush for its leadership, and the Administration has repeatedly cited Poland as one of the key allies in Iraq. Kwasniewski told a small group of European reporters, "I feel uncomfortable about Iraq due to the fact that we were misled with the information on weapons of mass destruction." The remarks come just a few days after the House Government Reform Committee released a comprehensive database of "237 specific misleading statements" before the war about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq.)))) Facts need no clarification. Despite repeated warnings from the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, President Bush and his administration hyped and distorted the threat that Iraq posed. And now that reality is setting in, the President wants to pin the blame on someone else. We can't let him.

I guess you can

Debate on United States foreign policy by William Blum On October 9, 2003 a debate was held at venerable Trinity College in Dublin. Organized by the University Philosophical Society, the proposition to be debated was: "America's foreign policy does more harm than good." Supporting the proposition were: William Blum, American author; David Barsamian, American radio journalist and author; and Tom Hanahoe, Irish author. Arguing against the proposition were: John Bruton, former Irish prime minister; Bill Rammell, British MP and minister in the Foreign Office; and Gideon Rose, Managing Editor of "Foreign Affairs", the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, and former member of the Clinton National Security Council. Near the conclusion of the debate, Bill Rammell was reduced to calling David Barsamian "anti-American". And Gideon Rose, the most fervent of the opposing speakers, was reduced to asking the audience to please understand that the choice is "a world run by the United States or a world run by Osama bin Laden". I would place Rose in the category of "the best and the brightest", the type that brought us Vietnam and now brings us Iraq. At the end of the evening the large audience, by calling out "Aye" or "Nay", overwhelmingly declared those supporting the proposition to be the victors. My opening presentation was as follows: Let me take you back to the year 1975. There was a committee of the US congress called the Pike Committee, named after its chairman Otis Pike. This committee investigated the covert side of US foreign policy and discovered a number of scandalous secrets, some of which were leaked to the public, while others remained secret. In an interview Congressman Pike stated that any member of Congress could see the entire report if he agreed not to reveal anything that was in it. "But not many want to read it," he said. The interviewer asked him "Why?" And Pike replied: "Oh, they think it is better not to know. There are too many things that embarrass Americans in that report. You see, this country went through an awful trauma with Watergate. But even then, all they were asked to believe was that their president had been a bad person. In this new situation they are asked much more; they are asked to believe that their country has been evil. And nobody wants to believe that." The word for that is of course "denial". The fact that we are here to discuss the question of whether American foreign policy does more harm than good is further proof of that denial, for the question has been answered many times over. I could fill up this entire room with books floor to ceiling and wall to wall documenting the great harm done to every corner of the world by American foreign policy. Here is a short summary of what Washington has been engaged in from the end of World War II to the present: >> Attempting to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments. >> Unprovoked military invasion of some 20 sovereign nations. >> Working to crush more than 30 populist movements which were fighting against dictatorial regimes. >> Providing indispensable support to a small army of brutal dictatorships: Mobutu of Zaire, Pinochet of Chile, Duvalier of Haiti, Somoza of Nicaragua, the Greek junta, Marcos of the Philippines, Rhee of Korea, the Shah of Iran, 40 years of military dictators in Guatemala, Suharto of Indonesia, Hussein of Iraq, the Brazilian junta, Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, the Taliban of Afghanistan, and others. >> Dropping powerful bombs on the people of about 25 countries, including 40 consecutive days and nights in Iraq, 78 days and nights in Yugoslavia, and several months in Afghanistan, all three of these countries having met the first requirement as an American bombing target -- being completely defenseless. And not once ever has the United States come even close to repairing the great damage caused by its bombings. Afghanistan and Iraq are of course the latest examples. >> Increasing use of depleted uranium, one of the most despicable weapons ever designed by mankind, which produces grossly deformed babies amongst its many endearing qualities, and which, in a civilized world not intimidated by the United States, would be categorically banned. >> Repeated use of cluster bombs, another fiendish device designed by a mad scientist, which has robbed numerous young people of one or more limbs, and some of their eyesight, and continues to do so every day in many countries as the bombs remain on the ground. >> Assassination attempts on the lives of some 40 foreign political leaders. >> Crude interference in dozens of foreign democratic elections. >> Gross manipulation of labor movements. >> Shameless manufacture of "news", the disinformation effect of which is multiplied when CIA assets in other countries pick up the same stories. >> Providing handbooks, materials and encouragement for the practice of torture. >> Chemical or biological warfare or the testing of such weapons, and the use of powerful herbicides, all causing terrible effects to the people and environments of China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Panama, Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia and elsewhere. >> Encouragement of drug trafficking in various parts of the world when it served the CIA's purposes. >> Supporting death squads, particularly in Latin America. >> Causing grievous harm to the health and well-being of the world's masses by turning the screws of the IMF, World Bank, WTO, and other international financial institutions, as well as by imposing unmerciful sanctions and embargoes. >> Much of the above has led to millions of refugees wandering homeless over the earth. And what do those who champion the mystique of "America" offer in defense of this record? Well, denial is the first line of defense -- Well-known and respected foreign policy analysts in the United States write entire books on American foreign policy with little more than a hint of what I've just mentioned. When all else fails, they fall back on the argument that "The United States means well." It may sometimes blunder, even occasionally do a bit more harm than good as things turn out ... but the intention is always benevolent. Let us look at a recent example of what some people would say was evidence of US foreign policy being a force for good -- Afghanistan, where the awful Taliban were overthrown. How can one argue against that? Well, in the past two years, US bombings and ground combat have taken the lives of many thousands of innocent civilians in addition to killing many so-called combatants, who are simply anyone defending against the US invasion; countless homes and other buildings have been demolished; depleted uranium has begun to show its ugly face; the warlords have returned to extensive power; opium cultivation is booming anew; crime and violence have once again become a daily fact of life; the president is nothing less than an American puppet; and the country is occupied by foreign troops (i.e., American) who often treat the population badly, including the use of torture; Afghanistan has become a protectorate of the US and NATO. And remember, the awful Taliban regime would never have come to power in the first place if the United States, in the 1980s and 90s, had not played an essential role in the overthrow of a secular and fairly progressive government, which allowed women much more freedom than they'll ever have under the current government. The problem, then as now, is that the consequences for the people of Afghanistan have been a matter of imperial indifference. On Washington's agenda in this case are secure oil and gas pipelines, military bases, and, if and when security can be instituted, the forces of globalization will march in. Meanwhile in Iraq, what the US bombing, invasion and occupation have brought to the people there is every bit as appalling. William Blum is the author of: "Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II"

But hey, at least they all came out of it alive unlike 30.000 other Iraqi civilians killed by the Americans, all in the name of enduring freedom. But death is enduring freedom, I guess?

The majority of the population was against the war already and Zapatero

Atlantans Commemorate the Death of Rachel Corrie and Call for Justice We Remember the Death of Rachel Corrie: One Year Later, Justice is Still Not Served Tuesday, March 16th, 2004, 4pm-6pm Georgia State Capitol (Washington Street side) ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Unfortunately it is the Israeli brutality against the Palestinians that is the root cause of Arab anger. Israel's treatment of the Palestinians has violated every law and moral standard on the books. Some 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in 1948-1949, and since then thousands more have been pushed out by force, their houses demolished. I don

It looks like the leaders who staunchly supported Bush's trumped up war against the wishes of their populations are paying the price. First we had the unexpected victory of anti-war German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, now in Spain we have another European political casualty of the Iraq war. Blair is not even likely to remain in power until the next election in England. It looks like even though Bush

We both know that the intention of the Israelis is to move all the Palestinians out of Eretz Israel and the ethnic cleansing will not stop until that is accomplished.

I see you

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's incoming leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero indicated Monday he would pull Madrid's troops out of the "disastrous" occupation of Iraq in a major swing from his predecessor's pro-American foreign policy. The European Union (EU), concerned by growing signs that Thursday's Madrid train bombings may have been carried out by Islamist militants, called emergency counter-terrorism talks. Zapatero's Socialists swept to office at the weekend in what some analysts said could constitute an alarming first case of Islamist militants influencing, by violence, the outcome of a major Western election. Zaptero himself called his triumph a first consequence of the Iraq war's unpopularity with Spaniards. "The second will be that the Spanish troops will come back," he told a Spanish radio station. "Mr Blair and Mr Bush must do some reflection and self-criticism... you can't organize a war with lies," he said in remarkably frank comments for the next prime minister of Western Europe's youngest democracy and fifth largest economy. President Bush called to congratulate 43-year-old Zapatero. "The two leaders said they both looked forward to working together particularly on our shared commitment to fighting terrorism," a White House spokesman said. Zapatero, due to take office within the next month, repeated several times Monday his campaign pledge to pull out troops unless the United Nations takes charge in Iraq by mid-year -- but added in his radio interview that scenario was unlikely. Spain has 1,300 troops in parts of south-central Iraq. Critics of the government have argued that the Madrid bombings were the price Spain paid for backing the Iraq occupation. RANCOUR REMAINS OVER ETA BLAME Most commentators saw Zapatero's shock election victory as driven by anger over Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's handling of the suspected al Qaeda attack on Madrid commuter trains last Thursday that also wounded 1,500 people. After Thursday's attacks Aznar's government initially blamed the armed Basque separatist group ETA, which denied involvement Sunday would go down in history as "the day when Islamic fundamentalism was seen as dictating the outcome of a European election," said Wilfried Martens, head of the European People's Party, an umbrella group for European conservative parties. With almost all votes counted, the Socialists had won 42.6 percent of the vote to the PP's 37.6 percent. With 164 seats in the lower house of parliament, 12 short of an absolute majority, Zapatero has said he intends to govern through dialogue with other groups. He ruled out the possibility of a coalition with regional parties. But the PP will remain by far the largest single force in the upper house or Senate, potentially making it difficult for a Socialist government to pass legislation. MARKETS HURT The Spanish stock market dropped sharply Monday amid mounting suspicions of al Qaeda involvement in the bombings and uncertainties over the Socialist party's economic agenda. Some 12 billion euros was wiped from the value of leading companies. But in a nod to investors in Spain, Zapatero lined up well-known free-marketeer Miguel Sebastian as his chief economic advisor. Sebastian is tipped to take the economy ministry. Zapatero said his immediate priorities would be "fighting terrorism" and a more "pro-European" foreign policy. The EU's Irish presidency announced that EU justice and home affairs ministers would hold emergency counter-terrorism talks in Brussels Friday. Germany had requested the meeting. Zapatero's surprise win has changed the EU's balance of power, robbing pro-U.S. supporters of the Iraq war, led by Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, of an important ally. It may also open the way for compromise on a stalled EU constitution blocked by Aznar to defend Spain's voting power. Aznar's closeness to Blair and President Bush was unpopular at home. Zapatero said he wanted "cordial" ties with Washington but used the word "magnificent" to describe the relations he sought with France, Germany and other EU members. Sunday, the government revealed it had a videotape, purportedly from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, saying it carried out the attacks in retaliation for Spain's support for the U.S.-led war on Iraq. A senior U.S. official said Monday he believed al Qaeda was involved. "I'm satisfied there are connections to al Qaeda," U.S. Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson said. El Pais newspaper reported that Spanish police suspected the bombings were carried out by the same radical Islamist group, with indirect ties to al Qaeda, which killed dozens in a series of blasts in Casablanca last year.