America allegedly was attacked by 19 criminals who purported to espouse Islam, and Catholic members of the IRA launched terrorist attacks on Britain. However, there is a difference: The British did not advocate infiltrating Catholic churches or treating Catholics differently from other groups as a result. Just imagine the international outcry were that to have happened.

Where was this "free press" in Iraq when the death toll was skyrocketing towards 100,000? So far, we we,ve seen nothing of the devastation in Falluja where more than 6,000 were killed and where corpses were lined along the city's streets for weeks on end. Is death less photogenic in Iraq? Or, are there political motives behind the coverage?

We have mistakenly acted as though terrorism was a thing or a group against which one can fight. But terrorism is merely a tactic that can be used by anyone. Ancient Britons used it against the Romans, the Zionists against the British, the Algerians against the French, the French against the Nazis, the Chechens against the Russians, the Basques against the Spaniards, and so on. It is the traditional “weapon of the weak,” who resort to it when all else fails.

Unwilling to control immigration and the cultural disintegration it causes, the authorities instead control the law-abiding.

This is precisely the bizarre system of misrule I have elsewhere described as "anarcho-tyranny"—we refuse to control real criminals (that's the anarchy) so we control the innocent (that's the tyranny).

"In any event, if 2003 was the year of the liar, and 2004 the year of the war criminal, then let 2005 be the year of justice. That is not a prediction, but only a hope. "

The most significant socio-political shift in our time has gone almost completely unremarked, and even unnoticed. It is the dramatic shift of the red-state bourgeoisie from leave-us-alone libertarianism, manifested in the Congressional elections of 1994, to almost totalitarian statist nationalism. Whereas the conservative middle class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal government, it now celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its military wing.

The WTO and the United Nations, wrote Senator Malone in his prophetic 1958 book Mainline, are two arms of "a pincers movement … both on the domestic and on the international scene." One arm of that pincers was political -- the steady entanglement of our nation in international alliances and multilateral bodies, particularly the UN. The other arm was economic -- created by the Trade Agreements Act of 1934, in which Congress ceded to the Executive Branch the power to control our nation's trade policy.

This makes one wonder whether other so-called conspiracy theories might be more worthy of consideration than we've been led to believe. Some months ago I wrote an article originally published in Popmatters magazine about this. In light of subsequent events, the time was right to revisit it -- particularly since the political climate in America, with its indefinite detentions and pointless color-coded alerts, has taken a more Orwellian turn than anyone ever imagined possible.

In this great tradition of violence starting with Cowboys against Indians, Osama is an exotic but a perfect fit. Produced in Washington D.C., directed by the CIA, and filmed in Afghanistan, Osama is cast as a millionaire hero, the 17th son from a family of 50, who speaks softly but carries a cane, who prays five times a day and inspires his Men to terminate Soviet helicopters flying low over the mud houses of a wretched Afghan population.

Israel has cancelled plans to send a 150-person rescue mission to Sri Lanka after the devastated island objected to the military composition of the team.

But to suppose that the United Nations will reform itself from within is to miss the eerie unreality of the place. It is not simply changes in some of the staffing that are needed, or U.N. commissioned reports recommending that the U.N. "reform" by way of doing even more of whatever it does already. What's needed is something that among sovereign states we have come to call regime change--the basic alteration of a system that in its privileges, immunities and practices resembles rather too closely some of the dictatorships that still pack its ranks.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) recently signed an historic document that spells out collaborative efforts the agencies have undertaken. The document provides an overview of more than thirty activities initiated by the two agencies to link their sources, data holdings, information infrastructure, and exploitation techniques.

The real purpose of the police is not to protect the public, it is to protect the bankers and politicians who quite literally own the public, especially when that astonished and outraged populace realizes it has been betrayed, and attempts to turn on its keepers. The cops and the judges and the senators and the mayors will not be on your side, because they derive their authority as well as their affluence from the perverse plunderers who seek to wring every last penny from the hapless human herd they control and manipulate.

So government programs - whatever their nature - essentially transfer wealth from the less governmentally connected to the more politically powerful.

Many conservatives agree with such "public choice" analyses on domestic programs but naively believe that all government spending on defense is for legitimate purposes of national security. This is hardly the case.

FLASHBACK: Iran earthquake triggered by HAARP?

Let's now explore what has been, and what is being done in the area of geophysical manipulations. The primary focus here will be human-induced earthquakes, as this is a main area of Elite interest. This is, of course, because earthquakes are so profound and have the most dramatic effects for purposes of controlling populations. Most people may never comprehend the fact that human beings have the capability to produce such things, or that humans would ever do such things to each other.

Although Indybay tries to present themselves as an enlightened, free, open, non-censored, progressive collective, non-racist, non sexist...what they really prove themselves to be are phony progressives, phony peace activists, haters of women, haters of free speech and totally screwed-up.

As libertarians and neo-cons badgered the Republicans into ignoring the immigration issue totally, it was probably only a matter of time before someone not at all a conservative perceived what the immigration issue could gain him (or her).

If Mrs. Clinton lights her path toward the White House with the issue of immigration control in a serious way, the Open Borders Republicans may find they merely dug their own political graves.

Gaining control over oil is crucial to extending U.S. power, and will be even more so in the coming years as the world's easily-accessible oil reserves are depleted, creating ever fiercer competition for what remains.

All this will make controlling the Middle East that much more crucial. Or, as Cheney put it in a speech to the London Institute of Petroleum in 1999, when he was CEO of oil giant Halliburton: "The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

That unfortunate reality is that the practical efforts of the paleos are hopeless presidential bids, ultra esoteric legal ruminations and legislative efforts that never go anywhere. The American right is adamant in it's assumption against reason and practice that the failed strategies & proto ideologies of the past will succeed according to some unstated mechanism leaving wonder smugly along the road to serfdom and non-existence.

Now my intention is to not be wholly critical of American paleos as it's obvious that a great many of them are well intentioned, decent people who in their personal lives have resisted the decadence of the age. However, after living in the states for many years, being active in paleo circles, reading the their publications and knowing literally over a hundred of them fairly well it's obvious that they are going nowhere very slowly and will continue as such if the paleo tendency doesn't radically change.

"There's some flexibility in approaching this problem," a White House official told the New York Times. "There's a willingness to play with the end result - not changing the numbers, but maybe guaranteeing that a certain number of seats go to Sunni areas even if their candidates did not receive a certain percentage of the vote."

The question is how rigorous the U.S. government will be toward Annan after the Iraqi election. Powell has a long-standing relationship with Annan, but he is leaving. Powell's successor, Condoleezza Rice, has been characteristically prudent in reacting to the UN scandal. According to Capitol Hill sources, she remained mute after Coleman briefed her on Annan and the scandal.

"Dissent in wartime can be the highest form of patriotism. If citizens believe that our military or political leaders have blundered or our reasons for fighting are unjust, they must voice these concerns if they are to meet their responsibilities in a self-governing society. Dissent is not disloyal."

The president must answer in his heart this question: Exactly how much more blood and money is he willing to plunge into a war for democracy in Iraq, and at what point must he decide – as LBJ and Nixon did in Vietnam – that the cost to America is so great that we must get out and risk the awful consequences of a mistaken war that we should never have launched?

The top 10 stories they chose were: 1. the U.S. election; 2. Iraq; 3. Florida hurricanes; 4. abuses of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison; 5. release of the final report of the Sept. 11 Commission; 6. homosexual "marriage"; 7. the death of Arafat; 8. the death of Reagan; 9. the seizure of a Russian school by Chechen guerrillas in Beslan; and 10. the train bombings in Madrid by Islamist militants and the subsequent election defeat of the pro-Bush government there.

Federal Observer Articles - Federal Observer

One thing America's founders could not envision was a time when Christian people within the several states would be denied the basic freedoms to publicly express their reverence for God. Never could they have imagined that the day would come when citizens of the sovereign states (each with a state constitution protecting religious liberty) would be denied their right to pray in school, or to place Nativity scenes on public property, or to hang copies of the Ten Commandments on court house walls. Truly, John Quincy Adams and the signers of The Mayflower Compact must be rolling over in their graves!

VDARE.com: 12/23/04 - Christmas And The National Question (2): Thumbs Down On Dionne

The Christmas wars just won't stop, even though Christmas is right upon us, at least for a year and maybe forever, if the anti-Christmas warriors have their way.

While the warriors have been waging their crusade to make everyone from school kids to presidents say "the holidays" instead of "Christmas," their allies in the media have been pretending the whole war is just a conservative fantasy.

David Smith-Ferri: The UN's Real Disgrace was the Sanctions Regime

As the riptide of voices seeking to drown Kofi Annan and the UN Oil-For-Food Program strengthens, it is interesting to note not only what is being said about the Program's shortcomings, but also what isn't being said. In order to do that, however, it is first necessary to at least mention something that many critics of the Oil-For-Food Program seem to have forgotten: the Program's original intent.

Capitol Hill Blue: Immigration Fight Could Split Republicans:

"President Bush's cordial relationship with the Republican-controlled Congress is encountering turbulence over the issue of immigration as he looks ahead to his second term, perhaps indicating that the next four years won't provide him with the legislative success he experienced during the first."

HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: Pastors Found Guilty of Religious Vilification of Muslims by Robert Spencer

With religious vilification laws now coming to Britain and no doubt soon also elsewhere in the West, Scot's question rings out with global implications, and must be answered. If it is inciting hatred for Muslims simply when non-Muslims explore what Islam and the Qur'an actually teach, then there will be a chill on reasonable public discussion of Islam -- a public discussion that is crucial to hold in this age of global jihad terrorism. Such laws actually make Muslims a protected class, beyond criticism, precisely at the moment when the Western republics need to examine the implications of having admitted into their countries people with greater allegiance to Islamic law than to the pluralist societies in which they've settled.

Alex Jones' Rebuttal To Allegations Made By Michael Ruppert Concerning Gary Webb's Death

An article written by Michael Ruppert concerning the funeral of Gary Webb contained a number of allegations directed towards Alex Jones. Here is our response to those allegations.

Federal Observer Articles - Federal Observer: "Feds are the problem, not the cure, on illegal immigration"

Here is a quote from U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) regarding the driver's license provision that she helped kill "These were highly controversial and divisive provisions, many of which were opposed by the administration."

The president of the United States led the fight to remove the provision that would deny driver's licenses to illegal aliens in the United States.

Paul Craig Roberts: America Locked Up

Unless you believe that Americans are more criminally inclined than other humans, what can explain the US incarceration rate being so far outside the international mainstream? I can think of the following reasons:

(1) In order to prove that they are "tough on crime," politicians have criminalized behavior that is legal elsewhere.

(2) Many innocent Americans are in jail.

The Great American Treason

How did America arrive at this sordid state, where fraud masquerades as democracy, where so-called "morality" apparently does not condemn the "bearing of false witness" to wage illegal wars, and where a man as venal, megalomaniacal, ignorant, dishonest and hypocritical as George W. Bush is viewed by many as a paradigm of virtue?

Alexander Cockburn: Why They Hated Gary Webb

So why did the top-tier press savage Webb, and parrot the CIA's denials. It comes back to this matter of Uncle Sam's true face. Another New York Times reporter, Keith Schneider was asked by In These Times back in 1987 why he had devoted a three-part series in the New York Times to attacks on the Contra hearings chaired by Senator John Kerry. Schneider said such a story could "shatter the Republic. I think it is so damaging, the implications are so extraordinary, that for us to run the story, it had better be based on the most solid evidence we could amass."

WHAT IS A CONSERVATIVE?--- FIVE NECESSARY INGREDIENTS

The one prominent example of a conservative left in our system is a congressman by the name of Dr. Ron Paul. He appears to be our last surviving American statesman. Unlike GW Bush, Paul is a real Texan as well as a real conservative. He is also widely known in libertarian circles, and he once ran for President on the Libertarian Party ticket. Because he runs under the GOP banner, he is frequently referred to as a "libertarian hybrid". Which is precisely to the point.

What is a conservative? A conservative is a libertarian who believes in traditional values.

SIGNING OFF!--- GOODBYE, AND GOOD LUCK!

We’ve lost it, and I feel permanently. I had illusions that I could make a difference. Since I started writing, things have gotten much worse. I started by believing Barry Goldwater, the Republican Party and Rush Limbaugh, and voted for George Bush in 2000. Today, I’m ashamed of having been a Republican these past forty years, and now Bush and the Republicans have made me ashamed of being an American.

The Three Stooges - by Charley Reese

When a leader makes it clear that he doesn't want anyone around who will tell him things he doesn't want to hear, he guarantees that he will be surrounded by sycophants and manipulators. Great leaders, whether military or civilian, do exactly the opposite. They surround themselves with smart people who aren't afraid to speak up during the decision-making process.

Sobran's --- The Reluctant Anarchist

For most people, anarchy is a disturbing word, suggesting chaos, violence, antinomianism — things they hope the state can control or prevent. The term state, despite its bloody history, doesn’t disturb them. Yet it’s the state that is truly chaotic, because it means the rule of the strong and cunning. They imagine that anarchy would naturally terminate in the rule of thugs. But mere thugs can’t assert a plausible right to rule. Only the state, with its propaganda apparatus, can do that. This is what legitimacy means. Anarchists obviously need a more seductive label.

WarFolly.com - The Plot To Kill Us All - by John Kaminski

Listen to the national debate you hear on your electronic squawk boxes. Totally inconsequential trivia. Brought to you by the same men who are doing all these other things and making trillions by doing it.

The media leads us around like that childhood board game, where it was easy to draw the devil with a magnet. We’re the metal shavings being shaped into monsters of malign design by the magnet that is our misanthropic mass media.

We invented games, and let our world slip away.

VDARE.com: 12/16/04 - David Brock, Phony 'Media Watchdog,' Demands I Be Muzzled

"We strongly condemn the clear bigotry of this column," Mr. Brock pontificated, the "bigotry" presumably being my dim view of interracial marriage.

Well, I'm sorry, but I do take a dim view of it, for the simple reason that I would like my race—whites—to survive.

As I noted in the column, "Blacks are permitted to notice race," and so are most other minority groups. But "whites aren't." That's why, and if whites do notice race, they get denounced for "bigotry" and the people who publish them are invited not to do so, with subtle little hints that if they don't stop publishing them, they will be punished themselves.

Reality Catching Up to Empire? - by Alan Bock

Perhaps the most significant signal that erring grievously – so long as the mistakes were made in pursuit of a presidential enthusiasm – will not only not be punished in this administration but rewarded, was the decision to give the previously prestigious Medal of Freedom to three of the more notable screw-ups in the administration.

HoustonChronicle.com - Buckley: Illegalize illegals -- Time for showdown in open frontier:

"The immigration problem is the primary unmet challenge of modern times. It is so because the whole of our political establishment cringes at any suggestion that the United States is inhospitable to immigration. We do have laws on the books, but they are apparently made for the sole purpose of flouting them. Time magazine published the most florid essay on the question, estimating the annual flow of illegal immigration at more than 2 million persons."

Base Politics Versus The Body Politic

The bottom line is that our democratic system has become dysfunctional. As the Democratic Party leadership meets to select new leaders, it should heed the advice of former Governor Howard Dean: Do not move to the right in search of Republican-like bases. Recreate the picture of national interest that is built upon the interests of the great majority of Americans. This may need to be a third party, because any viable future party must get away from the idea of secure political bases and start serving the American people, rather than its oligarchic minorities. Don,t go to Washington or other capitals to get rich. Go to retrieve and protect our system of government.

Michael Neumann: How We Became Barbarians

We see ourselves as fighting for some good cause, but that, according to neo-Christian moralities of intention, is nothing but an arrogantly vague excuse. Most people who commit most atrocities think they're fighting for some good cause. This no more exonerates them than it does the child molester who just wants love, or the murderer who wants to right the wrongs done to his family.

VDARE.com: War Against Christmas 2004 Competition [IX]: An Orwellian Christmas

A society that treats “Christmas” as a dirty word and assiduously tries to prevent school children from learning anything about it - especially the parts of Christmas that are beautiful or sublime - is unlikely to add to that beauty, or even pass along the beauty it received from earlier generations untouched by the War against Christmas.

The Greatest Gift for All by Paul Craig Roberts

All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak.

Christianity’s emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ’s birthday celebrates a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.

ConspiracyPenPal Newsletter:

"I pointed out to my son that the 'Church/State Separation' thing simply is a myth, albeit one adopted by virtually all of American society. In fact, the Constitutional mandate about religion is found in the 'Establishment Clause' of the First Amendment, quoted above. "

A Personal Experience With Gary Webb:

"The treatment the powers that be gave Webb's story was predictable. First, there was utter silence. He had this amazing tale to tell, and not one other paper in America reported it. But this story was launched in full detail on the Web. Accompanying the stories, for a journalistic first, were scans of court documents, audio files of testimony, pages from notebooks, and all kinds of supporting documentation. It was truly wonderful. For once, the public didn't have to take on faith what a reporter said. He shared his best evidence with everyone in the world who had Internet access. And the supporting documentation was impressive. "

The Yushchenko 'Poison Plot' Fraud- by Justin Raimondo

As a testament to the foresight with which George Orwell wrote about the instant "rewriting" of history, our own unofficial Ministry of Truth has dropped Dr. Wicke down the Memory Hole – the last mention of him in the "mainstream" media that I can find is in a dispatch from the Associated Press that reports the "anonymous" threats against him, and also notes a story in The Times of London citing Dr. Nikolai Korpan, the original source of the poisoning scenario:

HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: Christianophobia Highlighted at Christmas by Patrick J. Buchanan:

"It needs to be said. What we are witnessing here are hate crimes against Christianity -- the manifestations, the symptoms of a sickness of the soul, a disease a Vatican diplomat correctly calls 'Christianophobia,' the fear and loathing of all things Christian, coupled with a fanatic will to expunge from the public life of the West all reminders that ours was once a Christian civilization and America once a Christian country. "

WorldNetDaily: The killing machine that is Marxism

Our academic and intellectual Marxists today are getting a free ride. They get a certain respect because of their words about improving the lot of the worker and the poor, their utopian pretensions. But when empowered, Marxism has failed utterly, as has fascism. Instead of being treated with respect and tolerance, Marxists should be treated as though they wished a deadly plague on all of us.

The Great Divide: The Urban-Rural Rift :: Intervention Magazine :: War, Politics, Culture: "By Gerald Rellick"

In the end, rural America has been used and abused--utterly duped, a victim of the Republican propaganda machine. There will be no further talk from the Republicans about the evils of big government or about family values—that is, not until the next election cycle.

VDARE.com: 12/13/04 - War On Christmas Is A War On The West:

"It's a festival that comes from the heart of the traditional West, which is why music, literature, films and common social customs center around it so much.

At least some of the people who want to abolish it are not intentionally anti-Western. They're people who have simply disengaged themselves from their own civilization and are entirely indifferent as to whether it survives or not. "

Marc Rich - All Purpose Swindler

A principal partner to Marc Rich and his pirates has been the Family of George Herbert Walker Bush---that is, the Elder Bush and his sons, George W., Jeb, and Neil. As shown by secret Federal Reserve wire transfer records, the Bush Family laundered the proceeds from worldwide illegal dealings through a joint account with the Queen of England, through the Bank owned by the British Monarch, Coutts Bank London.

Read Your Newspaper by Fred Reed

The media can’t change. They are too close to being part of the government they purport to cover, too steeped in the artificial egalitarianism of the newsroom, too afraid of each other, of advertisers, of being racist or sexist, too big and smug and ossified. They cannot report anything that might disturb blacks, women, homosexuals, Jews, Latinos, or mental defectives.

Nation-Building Is Not Conservative - by Ron Paul

Non-interventionism was the foreign policy ideal of the Founding Fathers, an ideal that is ignored by both political parties today. Those who support political and military intervention in Iraq and elsewhere should have the integrity to admit that their views conflict with the principles of our nation's founding.

Rubber checks that don't bounce

Foreigners put up 90 percent of the $2 billion required every day to make sure Uncle Sam's checks don't bounce. The profligate uncle thus can write checks that are accepted as payment as long as they are never cashed. This sleight-of-hand shell game is what keeps the international monetary system from imploding. Shakedown rackets and Ponzi schemes are usually less transparent.

Suppressed News: News for America

After three years, al-Qaeda no longer inspires dread; it hasn't mounted anything resembling the terrible assault of 9/11, and the war on Iraq seems to have nothing to do with it: It has neither eliminated terrorism, as the hawks predicted, nor increased its frequency, as we doves expected. It has apparently diminished for lack of energy and resources. It was never the omnipotent force we feared after its great surprise attack, which was probably unrepeatable.

The Washington Dispatch

In 1965, California enjoyed 17 million people. But as immigration floodgates opened, the Golden Bear State burst out of its Oshgosh overhauls like a fat man at an all-you-can-eat Ponderosa buffet having exploded to 36 million people. California will add 20 million in 30 years at the current rate of immigration. Colorado will add five million as will Arizona. The entire U.S. population will double to 600 million around mid century.

This article is a sequel to my cover story, "Baby Gap: How Birthrates Color the Electoral Map" in the Dec. 20, 2004 American Conservative. I can now reveal on VDARE.COM some new and improved insights into the two underlying demographic factors that molded, to a quite astonishing degree, the last two Presidential elections.

Vince Foster, Part XXXV

Why did Hillary Rodham Clinton call 202-628-7087 at 10:41 p.m., Little Rock Time, on July 20, 1993, the evening following Vince Foster's death? The number is a CIA number, one that by- passes control, and that is intended to be used only in an emergency. Who was Hillary talking to at CIA and why? Unlike Bill Clinton, who was recruited for the CIA by Cord Meyer while Bill was in London, Hillary was never a CIA employee. Why would she have the number in her possession, and--more importantly--who was she talking to?

Blind faith is not a plan for any society’s future survival; neither is it cognition worthy of the fully developed human mind. Blind faith is just a pretty mask that hides the ugly face of ignorance. Today, America wears that mask, and it does not represent the moral or ethical or religious “values” of its most rational citizens. Neither is it fooling anyone but other Americans.

The American Spectator

When the Democrats say something is "un-American," they usually mean something very American that they don't want in America anymore. Very reasonable American expectations fortified by history and custom, such as placing crosses and creches in public places, are suddenly declared "un-American" when what the Democrats really mean is un-European.

Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source:

"Of course, no one can deny the US its right to protect its people from terrorism, but the US government must start to apply the same standards of justice to Islamic charities and those who run them as it does to other areas of public life - if not for the sake of America's own integrity, then at least for the sake of raw self-interest and preventing what seems like almost certain disaster. "

Benign Neglect of a Dying Dollar

While there appears to be a growing recognition of the gravity of America’s condition—the prospect of endless deficits, a dollar in a death spiral, constant hemorrhaging of manufacturing and high-tech jobs to Asia, growing dependency on imports for the vital necessities of our national life—there seems to be neither the will nor vision in Washington to arrest an inexorable U.S. decline.

Madness

All of the great ethical/religious systems of the world say the same thing; we are all children of the Same Source, and we should treat one another with care and respect for the sake of ourselves and our own happiness and fulfillment. I will use Jesus as my example because He is the one most familiar to most Americans, and the one I am most comfortable with.

The Washington Dispatch:

"What needs to be done to keep the US safe yes, safe not safer -- at home and abroad is to think in fresh, original, provocative terms. In terms that revise, reassess, rethink the nature of governance and government completely:"

More Important Than Reality :: Intervention Magazine :: War, Politics, Culture

This toxic brew of Machiavelli, economic Darwinism, and religious demagoguery also produces a foul-smelling gas that seems to induce a comatose state among American voters. When faced with a threat from outside our borders, such as Al Qaeda, we seem to forget about the threats from within to personal liberties, due process, the separation of church and state, and the separation and balance of power among the three branches of government. We must keep in mind the importance of a healthy middle-class and the long-term consequences for an imperialistic nation that engages in pre-emptive war based upon poor intelligence at best or fabricated intelligence at worst.

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Afraid to look in the moral abyss

Americans, meanwhile, are so confused about religion that we have just been through an election in which "religious values" were defined as key, but precisely in ways that kept the war out of the discussion. America's purpose in Iraq is a compound of such deflection, self-deception, half-measures, and shallow thinking. The opposition, meanwhile, is absolute and unblinking. That difference partly answers the question with which this column began, but mainly we avert our eyes because the war is a moral abyss. If we dare to look, as Nietzsche said, the abyss stares back.

Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source: "By Tomas Jones and Marc Erikson "

For a dozen years or more, things have been going from bad to worse at the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Some, of course, may welcome this. They should note the following, however: for better or for worse, the United States - militarily and economically - is the world's most powerful nation. When its foreign-intelligence service stumbles from intelligence failure to intelligence failure, mis-assessment to mis-assessment, and, finally, a near-collapse of its discipline, integrity and morale, more than just US national security is put at risk. Avoidable, globally destabilizing catastrophic events occur. Unnecessary wars are fought. Were US public and private financial and economic leadership beset by the same degree of incompetence as witnessed at the CIA, the US and large parts of the world economy that depend on it would be in a shambles.

Family Research Council: Thursday, December 9, 2004 "PR04L04"

Charles Pickering, the Mississippi judge whose nomination to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was opposed by Democrats, and who was then placed on the court by recess appointment, announced that he will retire rather than seek re-nomination and go through another Senate hearing.

The Washington Dispatch: "Get Out Of The UN, Start Over "

The current UN cannot live without the United States. We pay about a quarter of its budget and for what? To have us slapped down by a group of bloodthirsty dictators who hate our system of government? To have human rights abuses investigated by a committee composed of the worst human rights violators on the face of the earth? To have UN people run for cover as soon as the situation gets tough in Iraq? For the life of me I can’t figure out any benefit to staying in the UN.

The American Spectator

This is a game of political brinksmanship, and nothing more. Our leaders today believe only audacious claims will ever capture our attention, so they forego truth and reason in search of a promise unlike any other we've heard before. Then they issue a press release and forget the whole thing ever happened, because it's off to the next race. These people's words and deeds should deliver them shame, not trust; ridicule, not fawning respect. And we will never be safe so long as our leaders are so pathetically craven and weak.

Sobran Column --- Let the Blue States Go!

“One nation, indivisible”? This has been our mantra for over a century. Today’s mantra, “diversity,” is in important respects closer to the original spirit of the Republic — before it was welded into an unwieldy and centralized monolith.

“Mightier than armies is an idea whose time has come.” We are dealing with an idea whose time has come back.

House Bill Fails Intelligence Test: Borders Still Unguarded by Don Collins

Another chance to fix a broken system is gone. Until we gain control of our borders by stopping the employment of illegal aliens by our own businesses, we simply won’t have fixed anything but our own sure descent to 3rd-class nationhood and the increased chance of massive terrorist attack.

Amnesty vs. Border Control: 12 Questions the White House Must Answer About Bush's Temporary Worker Plan -- TEAM AMERICA PAC

President Bush announced in a meeting with Mexico's President Vicente Fox in November that he will give "high priority" in 2005 to his guest worker plan that will grant legal status to the four to six million Mexican nationals (and others) now working in the United States illegally. That proposal was first announced in January of 2004 as a set of "principles."

However, since it was never introduced in Congress as legislation, no details are known about the plan. The public needs answers to the many questions raised by the proposal. Among those questions are the following:

Pro-War Christians Should Come Clean - by Darrell Dow

As importantly, when did it become the obligation of the United States to secure "liberty" in other lands? Trying to find some plausible explanation for the war, Mr. Bush said that, "The establishment of a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution. Our commitment to the global expansion of democracy ... as the alternative to instability and to hatred and terror is ... the third pillar of security." Since when did "democratic revolution" become orthodoxy for Christians, or conservatives? Mr. Bush's rhetoric, which has been endorsed by Christian leaders, is Wilsonian and humanist to the core.

I have decided that our American lexicon needs a new word - Dominionistas, noun, plural, definition - groups whose religious beliefs obstruct critical thinking on matters of fairness, equity, Christ-like qualities, confusion between goodness and sin; cultists; persons of Neocon beliefs, fascists, persons of narrow mindedness.

Paul Craig Roberts: War Crime

Did the Americans who reelected Bush know that the president who will admit to no mistake is locked on a course that will squander a half trillion dollars for no purpose other than to kill and wound between 36,290 and 73,205 US troops, with "collateral damage" to Iraqi civilians ranging from 443,941 to 2,825,710 dead and wounded?

The UN Charter has always allowed for self-defense against "imminent" attack, but not against a suspected "threat." This report lays out five "criteria of legitimacy" for using force: seriousness of the threat, proper purpose, last resort, proportional means, and balance of consequences. But it reaffirms the need for Council authorization, which carries the weight of international law.

Conservatives see the way the President treats open borders advocate President Vicente Fox of Mexico, as contrasted with the disrespect Tom Tancredo receives, and they scratch their heads. Believe me, most of them can relate to Tancredo a lot easier than they can to Fox.

How many Hispanic votes Mr. Bush won this year is important, because as Mr. Mehlman acknowledges, it tells the party at which demographic groups it should direct its appeals and "outreach," and what issues (and policies) the party should support (or avoid) that are likely to attract (or alienate) those groups.

With Hispanics, the main issue will be immigration, and unless the blood of political reality can start flowing through the party's mental arteries again, the errors now blocking those arteries will keep Mr. Bush and his party on the wrong side of the coming immigration battle.

What appears to be emerging from the mainline Protestant establishment is a counterbalance to what has heretofore been the domination of U.S. government policy toward Israel and the Middle East by a religiously tormented coalition that is reckless, biased, and deeply fatalistic.

The Presbyterians' decision to consider divesting such businesses from its $8 billion portfolio, coupled with the prospect that the Episcopal Church and other churches might do the same, is adding to tensions that have risen over recent years between mainline Protestant churches and the American Jewish community over their differing views of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

Mr Annan asserted that his son, Kojo, whose relationship with a Swiss inspection firm implicated in the oil for food investigations has come under scrutiny, had never lobbied him on behalf of anyone.

“He knows that I have always been very sensitive about conflict of interests and it is not something that I would appreciate,” Mr Annan said.

To prepare for Round 2, Mr. Bush should order a short-term analysis of agencies such as Education, HHS, HUD, Interior, Labor, and the rest. To reduce their budgets substantially, it will be necessary to cut their authorized activities, which Mr. Bush should prepare to try. If their programs can be cut -- by ten or twenty percent – billions can be saved, the deficit can be reduced, and our economic strength guaranteed for the next decade or more. Take a shot at it, Mr. President. When you take the oath of office some time before noon on January 20, it could be just another cold Washington day. But it could be morning in America, all over again.

Most intelligence is worthless, and with the scant truthful stuff rapidly deep-sixed. Whatever makes its way onto the desks of presidents or congressional overseers is 100 per cent "political". Anyone who wants to find out what's happening in the world would be better advised to ask a taxi driver.

If, as Bush asserts, terrorism suspects, Taliban, and Muslim mujahedeen fighters not in uniform deserve no protection under the laws of war and may be jailed and tortured at presidential whim, then what law protects from abuse or torture all the un-uniformed U.S. Special Forces, CIA field teams, and those 40,000 or more U.S. and British mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan euphemistically called "civilian contractors"?

Bush would serve our country and the rest of the world far better by ceasing his macho aggressive talk and working to create trust and good will. Bush is a very foolish man if he thinks America will bear no consequences for his support for Israel’s appalling treatment of the Palestinians. Is Bush really as stupid as he sounds? Is the President of the United States so poorly informed that he believes that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have nothing to do with US support of Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian people?

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty requires all signatories not already having nuclear weapons to negotiate and conclude a Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, with a view to preventing diversion of "source or special fissionable material" – whether it is being produced, processed, or used in any principal nuclear facility or outside any such facility – from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons.

It has been my observation from reading history that no great nation or empire has ever survived the softness enabled by its successes. It has also become my conclusion that unless there is serious comprehensive change, America is entering its final days in accordance with that principle.

What is noteworthy is the utter indifference of most of the governing authorities to the "day laborer problem" at all. Of course there is no "day laborer problem"—the people of whom President Bush smugly remarked a few days ago, "We'd much rather have security guards running down terrorists or drug runners or drug smugglers than people coming to work."

Everyone, even the Bushists who manufactured the war from whole cloth, admits that Iraq never had weapons that could hurt us or means to hit us with them if they had. And we know that they didn't attack us--not on 9/11, not ever. Our soldiers may be doing their duty, fighting fiercely, and giving their lives in the bargain. But since Iraq neither threatens our freedom nor our borders, they're neither protecting our freedoms or fighting for America. The best anyone can say is that they're fighting for our country's geopolitical interests--and what those are is subject to interpretation.

The halls of United Nations headquarters crawl with conspiracy. During the Cold War the conspiring was done mainly for political advantage. Now it is for that and for lucrative deals. There will be needed many more retirements before the United Nations' integrity is restored. For now our government ought to be demanding reform and refusing to send this corrupt institution any more money until reform begins.

Under Plan Colombia, which must be re-funded by Congress in 2005, Washington has provided nearly $3 billion in assistance – most of it in aid to Colombian military and security forces – since 2000, making Bogotá the third biggest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, after Israel and Egypt.

If you like illegal immigration you’ll love the FTAA! FTAA advocates favor open borders. Although keeping the general public in the dark as to their real plans, FTAA sponsors admit that the FTAA is intended to follow in the footsteps of the EU – and so will lead to the abolition of meaningful national borders. National borders will become like state borders. There will no longer be an immigration problem, because there will be no more immigration – only migration of populations at will.

At the heart of a dispute over legislative intelligence reform are confidential meetings between the defense secretary and the CIA director during which they decided where to point spy satellites.

The director of central intelligence (DCI) "gave the DoD's [Department of Defense] collection requirements the highest priority during each of these conflicts; no transfer of authority was necessary," says the paper, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times. "During conflicts, the DCI has ensured that DoD requirements are satisfied before any other requirements are addressed."

A conservative believes that not only should the Supreme Court strictly construe the Constitution, but so should the president, the House, the Senate, governors, mayors and everybody else. A conservative does not approve of wars, except in defense of the land and the people, and only upon a declaration of war by both houses of Congress. A war to liberate somebody else from a nasty government is unconstitutional, illegal and immoral.

Return to Iran of the billions she is owed by the United States, an end to U.S. sanctions and an invitation into the World Trade Organization. For America, it would require an end to Iran's sponsorship of terror, cooperation in Iraq, and restraint on Hizbollah as we try to broker a peace between Palestinians and Israelis.