Fury as UK Cabinet Secretary cooks up deal to keep Blair and Bush letters secret

The Iraq War inquiry was condemned as a whitewash last night after more than 150 crucial messages from Tony Blair to George W Bush were censored.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has vetoed the release of the letters and phone calls in the run-up to the 2003 conflict, officials revealed. In them, Mr Blair is said to have promised the US President: 'You know, George, whatever you decide to do, I'm with you.'

The decision raises the possibility that the long-delayed findings of the £10million inquiry will be published before the general election. The official reason for the censorship is that publication would deter prime ministers from speaking freely in private.

Mail Online

Bush, Gog and Magog

Here's a story we should all be ashamed of missing: George W Bush attempted to sell the invasion of Iraq to Jacques Chirac using biblical prophecy.

In the winter of 2003, when George Bush and Tony Blair were frantically gathering support for their planned invasion, Professor Thomas Römer, an Old Testament expert at the university of Lausanne, was rung up by the Protestant Federation of France. They asked him to supply them with a summary of the legends surrounding Gog and Magog and as the conversation progressed, he realised that this had originally come, from the highest reaches of the French government.

President Jacques Chirac wanted to know what the hell President Bush had been on about in their last conversation. Bush had then said that when he looked at the Middle East, he saw "Gog and Magog at work" and the biblical prophecies unfolding. But who the hell were Gog and Magog? Neither Chirac nor his office had any idea. But they knew Bush was an evangelical Christian, so they asked the French Federation of Protestants, who in turn asked Professor Römer.

He explained that Gog and Magog were, to use theological jargon, crazy talk. They appear twice in the Old Testament, once as a name, and once in a truly strange prophecy in the book of Ezekiel:

And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him,
And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:
And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.

Full article by Andrew Brown on The Guardian

Dying US Veteran's Last Letter to Bush and Cheney

The Spies Who Fooled the World

BBC Panorama: On the eve of the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War, Panorama reveals how key aspects of the secret intelligence used to justify the invasion were based on fabrication and lies.

Zero Dark Thirty, Manhunt and Obama Admin. Justify Use of Torture

Recent films and Obama's lack of prosecution of CIA and Bush Cheney for torture is creating conditions for its public acceptance.
Watch full multipart The Ratner Report.

The Real News

Bush and Associates Found Guilty of Torture

Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) - The five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered a guilty verdict against former United States President George W. Bush and his associates at the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal hearing that had started on Monday.
On the charge of Crime of Torture and War Crimes, the tribunal finds the accused persons former U.S. President George W. Bush and his associates namely Richard Cheney, former U.S. Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld, former Defence Secretary, Alberto Gonzales, then Counsel to President Bush, David Addington, then General Counsel to the Vice-President, William Haynes II, then General Counsel to Secretary of Defence, Jay Bybee, then Assistant Attorney General, and John Choon Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney-General guilty as charged and convicted as war criminals for Torture and Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment of the Complainant War Crime Victims.

Earlier in the week, the tribunal heard the testimonies of three witnesses namely Abbas Abid, Moazzam Begg and Jameelah Hameedi. They related the horrific tortures they had faced during their incarceration. The tribunal also heard two other Statutory Declarations of Iraqi citizen Ali Shalal and Rhuhel Ahmed, a British citizen.
The witnesses were taken prisoners and held in prisons in Afghanistan (Bagram), in Iraq (Abu Gharib, Baghdad International Airport) and two of them namely Moazzam Begg and Rhuhel Ahmed were transported to Guantanamo Bay.

uruknet.info

9/11: A Conspiracy Theory

WideAwakeNation

Living With War

Neil Young

Tripoli Files Show CIA Working With Libya

The Central Intelligence Agency and Libyan intelligence services developed such a tight relationship during the George W. Bush administration that the U.S. shipped terror suspects to Libya for interrogation and suggested the questions they should be asked, according to documents found in Libya's External Security agency headquarters.

The relationship was close enough that the CIA moved to establish "a permanent presence" in Libya in 2004, according to a note from Stephen Kappes, at the time the No. 2 in the CIA's clandestine service, to Libya's then-intelligence chief, Moussa Koussa.  Full story on The Wall Street Journal

(September 2008) The Bush Administration considers Libya's reform as one of its top foreign policy achievements, and a model for other adversary states, such as Iran. The Rice appearance was the highest-level US visit since then vice-president Richard Nixon stopped in Libya in 1957.
Read more on The Age

George Bush Can't Travel Overseas for Fear of Arrest and Prosecution

As the news broke on Saturday that former President George W. Bush had abruptly cancelled his scheduled appearance this week in Geneva to avoid the risk of arrest on a torture complaint, my first thought was — how humiliating, not only for Bush but, by extension, for all Americans.

However, those who might have expected Bush to be down in the mouth and sulk about the embarrassment were disabused of that notion as the TV cameras caught him and Condoleezza Rice -- his former national security adviser and Secretary of State -- in seats of honor at Sunday’s Super Bowl in Dallas.

Doomed to become America’s first better-stay-at-home former president, Bush could still take consolation in getting scarce tickets to big sports events – he also attended high-profile Texas Rangers baseball games last year – and he can expect to hear some folks cheer for him, so long as he stays in Texas.

More on AlterNet

US must begin criminal investigation of torture following Bush admission

Amnesty International urges a criminal investigation into the role of former US President George W. Bush and other officials in the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" against detainees held in secret US custody after the former president admitted authorizing their use.

In his memoirs and in an interview on NBC News broadcast on 8 November 2010, the former President confirmed his personal involvement in authorising "water-boarding" and other techniques against "high value detainees".
"Under international law, the former President's admission to having authorized acts that amount to torture are enough to trigger the USA's obligations to investigate his admissions and if substantiated, to prosecute him," said Claudio Cordone, Senior Director at Amnesty International.
"His admissions also highlight once again the absence of accountability for the crimes under international law of torture and enforced disappearance committed by the USA."

In his memoirs, former President Bush focused on the cases of two detainees held in the secret program.

Abu Zubaydah was held at various undisclosed locations from April 2002 to September 2006, In August 2002, he was subjected to "water-boarding," in which water is used to begin the process of drowning, more than 80 times.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested on 1 March 2003 in Pakistan and transferred to secret CIA custody. That same month he was "water-boarded" 183 times, according to a report by the CIA Inspector General.

After three and a half years being held incommunicado in solitary confinement in secret locations, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was transferred to military custody in Guantánamo, where he and Abu Zubayhdah remain held without trial, along with more than 150 others.

Water-boarding was far from the only technique alleged to have been used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubayhdah and others held in the secret program that violated the international prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Other techniques included prolonged nudity, threats, exposure to cold temperatures, stress positions, physical assaults, prolonged use of shackles, and sleep.

"Under international law, anyone involved in torture must be brought to justice, and that does not exclude former President George W. Bush. If his admission is substantiated, the USA has the obligation to prosecute him," said Claudio Cordone.

Amnesty International USA

Bush lying about Iraq in new book

Former President George W. Bush just isn't telling the truth, says one ex-world leader in a position to know. In his new book Decision Points, Bush claims that former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder offered him full-fledged support should he decide to invade Iraq.

Bush wrote that Schroeder told him, "What is true of Afghanistan is true of Iraq. Nations that sponsor terror must face consequences. If you make it fast and make it decisive, I will be with you."

"The former American president is not telling the truth," Schroeder told the German newspaper Der Spiegel Tuesday.

"I took that as a statement of support," Bush wrote. "But when German elections arrived later that year, Schroeder had a different take. He denounced the possibility of using force against Iraq."

Schroeder said that the meeting with Bush actually was more about whether Saddam Hussein had a hand in the 9/11 attacks. "Just as I did during my subsequent meetings with the American president, I made it clear that, should Iraq ... prove to have provided protection and hospitality to al Qaeda fighters, Germany would reliably stand beside the US," Schroeder said. "This connection, however, as it became clear during 2002, was false and constructed."

Schroeder is the second former official of a foreign government to accuse the president of fibbing in his new book.

More on Raw Story

Bohemian Grove 2009

"This years elite retreat at Bohemian Grove is fast approaching. Many of the Grove’s guests will be flying into Santa Rosa Airport on the 10th of July, a Friday. They will travel West towards a small town called Monte Rio via highway 116, or River Road to discuss events and policy in private.

In the spirit of past rallies and protests organized by the Bohemian Grove Action Network, 9/11 Truth and anti-globalization activists will maintain a presence at the Grove. This is the first weekend of the retreat and they will be performing their Cremation of Care ceremony. I must mention that while the elite are here meeting privately, our focus is what the elite do outside the Grove.

Bohemian Grove 2009 Protests : Indybay

The "Cremation of Care" Ritual. Yes folks, here they are – America's corporate leaders, dressed in robes, burning their collective conscience at the feet of a statue of a 40-foot owl. Pretty weird. Or is it?  Much more information at the Bohemian Grove Action Network

Extract from Dark Secrets: Inside the Bohemian Grove Of Alex Jones. Look at the Global Elite and their strange ritual.

Cheney 'silenced CIA over spy plan'

Dick Cheney, the former US vice-president, deliberately withheld details of a secret CIA spy programme from the US congress for eight years, a newspaper has reported.

Cheney, who was vice-president to George Bush between 2001 and January this year, ordered the CIA not to tell congress of a new "counter-terrorism" programme, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

The details of the intelligence programme, launched after the attacks on the US in September 2001, remain secret.

According to the Time's sources, Cheney's role in stifling the information was revealed by Leon Panetta, who now heads the CIA and who ordered the programme to be stopped in June.

Al Jazeera

US Justice Dept. asks judge to drop Obama from suit filed by Geronimo’s heirs

The U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal judge to limit the scope of a lawsuit filed by the descendants of legendary Apache warrior Geronimo.

The suit, which names President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates along with Yale University and the secretive Order of the Skull & Bones fraternity, aims to have Geronimo’s physical remains and personal effects transported from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to southern New Mexico for a proper tribal burial.

The Justice Department’s brief, filed with the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C. on June 10, seeks to remove the president and defense secretary from the suit.

The suit alleges that members of the Order of the Skull & Bones fraternity, whose members are among the most powerful and wealthy in American history, stole some of Geronimo’s remains and moved them in secret to New Haven, Connecticut. It is rumored that a group of bonesmen, allegedly including Prescott Bush — a former U.S. Senator whose son and grandson were both Republican presidents — dug up Geronimo’s grave in 1918 and brought his skull to the society’s clubhouse.

Raw Story - US seeks to stop Geronimo lawsuit (BBC)

Also see:Yale Historian Finds Clue To Geronimo Skull and

Whose Skull and Bones? on Yale Alumni Magazine

This Alex Jones documentary exposes the connections between the Bohemian Club and Skull and Bones and other American occult secret societies.

Confidential memo reveals US plan to provoke an invasion of Iraq

A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK's role in toppling Saddam Hussein.

The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action.

Bush told Blair the US had drawn up a provocative plan "to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover". Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put the Iraqi leader in breach of UN resolutions.

The Observer

And the War continues….

LiveLeak.com - Deconstructed

Governor Bush told Houston Journalist: If Elected. "I'm Going to Invade Iraq"

Two years before the 9/11 attacks on America, George W. Bush told a Houston journalist if elected president, "I’m going to invade Iraq."
In a new book, "Media In Crisis"(Doukathsan), Baker quotes Houston Chronicle reporter Mickey Herskowitz (then working with Bush on his book "A Charge To Keep”) as telling him: "He (Bush) said he wanted to do it (invade Iraq), and the reason he wanted to do it is he had been led to understand that you could not really have a successful presidency unless you were seen as commander-in-chief, unless you were seen as waging a war."

Bush told Herskowitz that his father (President George H.W. Bush) knew that from Panama and (President Ronald)Reagan knew that from Grenada and…(UK Prime Minister)Maggie Thatcher knew this from the Falklands."
According to Baker, Bush told Herskowitz, "The ideal thing was a small war, and this is why Bush said nobody was going to be killed in Iraq because he thought it would be small war."

www.uruknet.info

Rachel Maddow Criticizes Obama on “Prolonged Detention”

US Liberals are easy — easily fooled that is. Liberals were so mesmerized by Obama’s rhetoric, the promises he had absolutely no intention of fulfilling, that they overlooked the fact he is a front man for the same sinister forces behind George Bush, who the liberals hated — and rightly so — with a vengeance. It is now impossible to ignore the fact that Obama will not only continue the policies of the Bush administration — torture, detention, war stretching out into the indeterminable future — but will build on them, as instructed. Obama will jettison his liberal followers because he no longer has use for them.  (InfoWars)

The US Media on Torture

A look at the use of the word 'torture' in the US media and other news. Listening Post - 22 May 09