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Bush’s Iraq chickens come home to roost
Related to country: United States

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Bush’s Iraq chickens come home to roost

By Naomi Wolf

Background The First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practised in Iraq, subduing "unruly individuals", and the management of a national emergency.

I am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now.

Amy Goodman reported that an army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non-lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.

George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for military to patrol the US. He has also legally established that in the "War on Terror", the US is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus the US is also a battlefield.

He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader powers in the event of a loosely defined "insurrection" or many other "conditions" he has the power to identify. The US Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus — habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held without trial — in the event of an "insurrection". With his own army force now, his power to call a group of protesters or angry voters "insurgents" staging an "insurrection" is strengthened.

US Rep Brad Sherman of California said to Congress, captured on C-Span and viewable on YouTube, that individual members of the House were threatened with martial law within a week if they did not pass the bailout Bill:

"The only way they can pass this Bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere . . . Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this Bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no."

If this is true and Rep Sherman is not delusional, I ask you to consider that if they are willing to threaten martial law now, it is foolish to assume they will never use that threat again. It is also foolish to trust in an orderly election process to resolve this threat. And why deploy the First Brigade? One thing the deployment accomplishes is to put teeth into such a threat.

I interviewed Vietnam veteran, retired US Air Force colonel and patriot David Antoon for clarification:

"If the president directed the First Brigade to arrest Congress, what could stop him?"

"Nothing. Their only recourse is to cut off funding. The Congress would be at the mercy of military leaders to go to them and ask them not to obey illegal orders."

"But these orders are now legal?"

"Correct."

"If the president directs the First Brigade to arrest a bunch of voters, what would stop him?"

"Nothing. It would end up in courts but the action would have been taken."

"If the president directs the First Brigade to kill civilians, what would stop him?"

"Nothing."

"What would prevent him from sending the First Brigade to arrest the editor of the Washington Post?"

"Nothing. He could do what he did in Iraq — send a tank down a street in Washington and fire a shell into the Washington Post as they did into Al-Jazeera, and claim they were firing at something else."

"What happens to members of the First Brigade who refuse to take up arms against US citizens?"

"They’d probably be treated as deserters as in Iraq: arrested, detained and facing five years in prison. In Iraq a study by Ann Wright shows that deserters — reservists who refused to go back to Iraq — got longer sentences than war criminals."

"Does Congress have any military of their own?"

"No. Congress has no direct control of any military units. The governors have the National Guard but they report to the president in an emergency that he declares."

"Who can arrest the president?"

"The Attorney-General can arrest the president after he leaves or after impeachment."

[Note: Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi has asserted it is possible for district attorneys around the country to charge President Bush with murder if they represent districts where one or more military members who have been killed in Iraq formerly resided.]

"Given the danger do you advocate impeachment?"

"Yes. President Bush struck down Posse Comitatus — which has prevented, with a penalty of two years in prison, US leaders since after the Civil War from sending military forces into our streets — with a ‘signing statement’. He should be impeached immediately in a bipartisan process to prevent the use of military forces and mercenary forces against US citizens."

"Should Americans call on senior leaders in the military to break publicly with this action and call on their own men and women to disobey these orders?"

"Every senior military officer’s loyalty should ultimately be to the constitution. Every officer should publicly break with any illegal order, even from the president."

"But if these are now legal. If they say, ‘Don’t obey the commander-in-chief,’ what happens to the military?"

"Perhaps they would be arrested and prosecuted as those who refuse to participate in the current illegal war. That’s what would be considered a coup."

"But it’s a coup already."

"Yes."

l This article was first posted on www.alternet.org on October 8, 2008. The author, Naomi Wolf, is the author of Give Me Liberty (Simon and Schuster, 2008), the sequel to the New York Times bestseller The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green, 2007).

October 13, 2008 | 6:26 AM Comments  0 comments

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Standing on solid ground
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Standing on solid ground
Lovemore Nyatsine




THE events over the last few weeks have led many people to do some soul searching. The centre of power has shifted in both South Africa and Zimbabwe. A cataclysmic financial crisis is rocking the world at the moment with a devastating ripple effect on the whole world’s financial markets.

As I write the rand is on R9.60 to the US Dollar (a level it last reached six years ago!)

How the US financial system which is the doyen of prudent financial practice resorted to sub prime lending policies beats me. Would you rather be run over by a tractor or by Schumacher? The US chose the former. Even banks in the developing world know the basics of prudent credit policy.

The bottom line is that the foundations have been shaken. Institutions of confidence such as governments and financial houses are now dens of robbers and habitations of cruelty.

If anyone had put faith in the government and financial systems of this world, all that is now shattered. In order to stand when the storms of life come you need to stand on principles.

The importance of principles

Principles do not change because the world around you has changed. They are like laws, such as the law of gravity. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, whatever goes up will still be pulled down by the force of gravity. It’s a law! I always like to use the example of a plane flying on GPS (Global Positioning System). Even if there is turbulence, the plane will stay the course. Principles are like an internal compass or GPS – they will take you where you must go. I would like to share important principles which you need to cultivate in your life. These principles provide a source of strength and stability in times of turbulence and anchors in life’s ocean.

Principle of security

This refers to your sense of worth, emotional anchorage, self esteem, personal strength and identity. Who are you and who you are? The best part you can play in life is simply the one which expresses who you are. If you are secure in your identity, you approach life with confidence. One of things which destroy potential is to allow others to label you...stupid, lazy, useless or confused. The labels become a self fulfilling prophecy. Self-awareness enables you to examine your paradigms, to look at your glasses as well as through them, to think about your thoughts, and to enlarge the separation between stimulus and response. Self-aware, you can take responsibility for reprogramming or rescripting yourself out of the stimulus-response mode. You can face today and tomorrow with a sure confidence because you know who you are and you are in charge.

Principle of wisdom

Wisdom refers to your perspective on life; your sense of balance and understanding, judgment, discernment and comprehension. Wisdom is the highest level on the knowledge continuum (knowledge, understanding and wisdom). This is respectively gnosis, phronesis and sophia in Greek. These have a deeper meaning in the Greek but for time and space we won’t go there. If you only have knowledge but have no understanding, you are like a car without an engine. Wisdom includes both the engine and the driver.

The principle of wisdom means you know what, how, where and when to do and with who. The financial mandarins at Lehman Brothers or Merrill Lynch are no better than the guy who caused the Barings Bank collapse. Wisdom is the principle thing which makes you operate with discernment, insight, moderation and comprehension. You can easily navigate the mine fields of life. You can never get a foot wrong when you operate in wisdom.

Principle of independent will

Independent will is your capacity to act, the power to transcend your paradigms, to swim upstream, to re-write your scripts, to act based on principles rather than reacting based on emotions, moods, or circumstances. While environmental or genetic influences may be very powerful, they do not control you. You are not a victim. You are not the product of your past. You are the product of your choices. You are "response-able," meaning you are able to choose our response. This power to choose is a reflection of your independent will. This means you can never allow despots, inflation, economy, geography or anything or anybody for that matter to interfere with your destiny. This principle means no more excuses – you can walk away or you can rewrite your own rules.

Principle of conscience

Conscience puts you in touch with something within you even deeper than your thoughts and something outside you more reliable than your values. It connects you with the wisdom of the ages and the wisdom of the heart. It is an internal guidance system that allows you to sense when you act or even contemplate acting in a way that's contrary to your deepest values and "true north" principles. This principle is important because it is what makes you to act with integrity when you would rather take the easy way out. The voice of conscience is so important in a world with so many noises and where many have seared their conscience. How can 80% of a whole nation starve while politicians play power games?

Principle of creativity

Creative imagination empowers you to create beyond your present reality. It enables you to write personal mission statements, set goals or visualize yourself living your vision even in the most challenging circumstances. You can imagine any scenario you want for the future. Memory is limited. It's finite because it deals with the past. Imagination is infinite; it deals with the present and the future, with potential, with vision and mission and goals with anything that is not now but can be. You can create and imagine a way out of any situation.





http://www.talkzimbabwe.com/news/138/ARTICLE/3493/2008-10-09.html