If dropping hundreds of thousands of bombs on a heavily populated city
of ~5.7 million (Baghdad) is legal, then such laws mock justice. The
invasion IS a crime against humanity.

Below is plenty of testimony that indicates that the tyrants in
Washington are guilty of warmongering and genocide. When you consider
all the needless deaths and misery caused by their economic and
militaristic terrorism, it's not hard to understand why so many of our
brothers in Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Venezuela and other parts of the world
call Bush - "the devil"! The bastards hide behind the American flagand
are serving the filthy rich, not the people. They are pissing on the
people. They think that life is a game and they who amass the most
money are the winners. They are not troubled in the least if their
money is soaked with the blood of children. War is very profitable for
them. Peace is the only obstacle to that 500+ billion dollar a year
industry. That's why there are huge profits and no peace. They love
money more than anything else. They have no problems with their money
being soaked with the blood of innocent children.
RH

Pictures of Destruction and Civilian Victims of the Anglo-American
Aggression in Iraq

These photos are only of a very tiny fraction of the thousands of Iraqi
Civilian Victims who have been terrorised, humiliated, injured, maimed
and killed through British and American bombing of civilian areas in
various cities of Iraq. Due to insecurity, independent reporters could
not and still can not reach many areas to photograph and report the
atrocities. Several independent reporters and journalists were
deliberately bombed to prevent them reporting the atrocities.

Please note that some of these pictures are not suitable for small
children and those who have weak hearts.

http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_mar2003.htm

=================

Many similar pictures could also be taken of the results of the US
taxpayer funded attack against Lebanon.

EMPIRE OF SHAME, by Jean Ziegler
Book review by Luc Guillory

Well-known activist and writer Professor Jean Ziegler is the UN Special
Rapporteur on the Right to Food and is also a senior Professor at the
University of Geneva and the University of Sorbonne, Paris. He teaches
sociology and has written many books, including books about hunger. In
his book L'Empire de la Honte (Empire of Shame), he explains the
mechanisms which enable multinational corporations to behave like new
feudal rulers, and how they use debt as a weapon of mass destruction to
force national governments and their populations to give up their
sovereignty and freedom for the sake of vested interests.

"Eu tenho cola, porque no tenho vida - I have glue [to sniff]
because I have no life," a little girl in Recife, Brazil, told Jean
Ziegler while he was investigating the impact of debt and hunger in
that country. The reality of hungry or ill children with no hope,
future, education or family life can be directly attributed to the
country's foreign debt and its relations with rich countries and
multinational businesses, Ziegler says.

Between 1964 and 1985 Brazil's debt increased by 50 per cent due to
military expenditure incurred under the pretext of protecting
"national security". Foreign investors were offered incentives like
tax cuts and other financial benefits but since Brazil could not make
such provisions it was forced to become financially dependent on the
IMF, the Eximbank (an agency of the US government providing aid in
financing and facilitating imports and exports), and other private
Western banks.

Debt trap

In 1979, the USA raised its interest rates, and Brazil fell into the
debt crisis trap of having to take new loans in order to be able to pay
off interest on previous loans. Years later, President Fernando Cardoso
chose to raise interest rates in Brazil to attract desperately needed
foreign capital. The immediate impact on small businesses was
catastrophic; unable to get access to credit, they had to cut back on
their activities and dismiss employees. Worse still, the rise in
interest rates fuelled speculation. Both foreign and Brazilian
investors took personal loans at high interest rates in order to buy
Brazilian government bonds.

As the Brazilian crisis deepened, Western banks and Wall Street became
concerned about their investments and assets in Brazilian agriculture,
industry and services. To end the downward spiral the IMF stepped in
with the biggest bail-out ever - credit worth US$30 billion in 2002.
(Ironically, just a short while before that, the IMF had refused
Argentina a similar rescue package.)

A combination of "heavy Wall Street pressure" plus the IMF rescue
deal increased the pressure on the Brazilian government for further
privatizations in mines, telecommunications and the petrol and
electricity industries. Unemployment rocketted and billions of
dollars' worth of national assets were sold off to multinational
corporations.

The 'conditionality' of the loans granted by the IMF was that the
Brazilian government undertook to maintain economic growth at 3.75 per
cent per year. This guaranteed creditors that Brazil would be able to
pay back its debt and interest. As a direct consequence, social
spending budgets were inevitably slashed and the welfare of the poorest
sections of the population was sacrificed to debt servicing.

Shockingly, the Brazilian case is not unique but can be found again and
again in various countries and guises throughout the world, says
Professor Ziegler. He provides ample illustration throughout his book,
with a wide variety of concrete and detailed cases, from Mongolia to
Ethiopia and other heavily indebted nations. Each case, though
different in its pattern, ends in a similar outcome: increased poverty
and millions of homeless, deprived people.

New feudal powers

What is behind this phenomenon of whole countries going bankrupt and
being forced to sacrifice the well-being of their own populations to
foreign financial institutions?

According to Ziegler, the multinational corporations are the new feudal
powers. Their purpose is to maximize profits - whatever the human and
national cost in lost jobs, crippled welfare systems and virtually
non-existent public spending. They aim to eliminate national controls
and "social obstacles", thereby gaining control of the wealth of
individual countries.

To achieve their aims they deliberately cause a scarcity of services,
of capital and assets, so as to gain control of the global economic
system. By way of illustration: in 1964 the global debt of the 122
developing nations was $54 billion; today it is $2,000 billion. At the
same time, the net profitability of the 500 most powerful
transcontinental corporations is 15 per cent per year. According to
Standard & Poors, the financial reserves maintained by the 374 biggest
corporations amount to some $555 billion. Despite this they continue to
cause job and wage cuts and limit social spending.

Weapon of mass destruction

In 2003, the international 'aid' received by 122 developing
countries totalled $54 billion; debt repayment from those developing
countries back to the donor countries was a massive $436 billion. Debt,
Ziegler says, is the new weapon of mass destruction that the modern
feudal powers use to enslave whole countries.

The well-known British NGO Jubilee 2000 has calculated that every five
seconds a child dies because of debt. Indebted governments of the South
borrow loans with interest rates five to seven times higher than those
on the financial markets. Just the annual servicing of this debt
prevents them from making any investment in public schools, hospitals
and social security, while police and military budgets are maintained,
to protect the foreign investments, says Ziegler. Between 1992 and
1997, Cameroon allocated 4 per cent of its budget to social services,
but 36 per cent to debt repayment. In Kenya it was 12 per cent and 40
per cent and in Zambia 6 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.

Although most of these countries keep up with their repayments, their
external debt keeps on growing. There are several reasons for the
continuous increase in their debt:

· most countries produce raw materials but import industrial
equipment, the cost of which has risen enormously in the last 20 years;
· rampant corruption has led elites, with the connivance of Western
banks, to indulge in organized corrupt practices;
· astronomical profits, although made by businesses in developing
countries, are controlled by shareholders from rich industrialized
countries and sent back to the West. These profits are usually not
transferred in the local currency but in US dollars or other major
international currencies;
· most multinational companies in Developing World countries hold
patents and receive royalties which are also transferred to the West.

This, Ziegler explains, is how developing countries lose their ability
to provide for themselves. Their sources of income are stolen by
Western creditors. In the 1970s, Latin America's total foreign debt
was $60 billion. In 1980, it was $240 billion, and in 2001 it reached
$750 billion. Each individual in Latin America owes, on average, $2,250
to their Western creditors.

Ziegler shows that the gap seems to be widening. Forty years ago, he
says, some 400 million people were permanently underfed. Today, their
number has more than doubled - to a staggering 842 million people.
Meanwhile, the Return on Equity (ROE) of the 500 most powerful
transnational companies has remained at a steady 15 per cent level in
the US since 2001. Global capitalism, Ziegler explains, has reached a
stage where it now experiences a constant economic growth without
job-creation and almost no increase in the purchasing power of
consumers.

What Ziegler points up is that this issue is not simply about profit
and loss, interest rates and investment. It is about endemic violence,
hunger and death in countries that are pillaged and broken in this way.
In 2002, it is estimated that 4,000 children were killed on the streets
of Brazilian cities. The lack of education, of adequate housing and
food, the denial of access to healthcare, to paid jobs and security, as
well as the loss of personal autonomy, forces huge numbers of people
into purposeless lives.

War to serve global feudal rulers

But Ziegler goes a step further. Politics, he says, is exploited to
serve the financial interests of giant conglomerates. The war waged by
the US-led coalition in Iraq had a very important strategic purpose:
not only does Iraq have the world's second largest oil reserves but,
thanks to its particular geology, the oil reserves are only a few
metres from the surface. To produce a barrel of crude oil in Texas
costs $10; in Iraq the same barrel costs less than $1 to produce.

Quoting The New York Times, Ziegler says that in the first quarter of
2004 the net profits of the seven foremost American oil companies grew
by 43 per cent. Similarly, other big corporations in military
electronics and weapons have experienced skyrocketting profits due to
the permanent 'war on terror' waged by the American administration.

Can the indebted countries rebel against the domination of the IMF,
asks Ziegler? No, he answers, because each time they appeal to the IMF,
they have to write a 'letter of intent' in which they literally
give up their sovereignty for the sake of the creditors. There is a
conscious underlying strategy of the 'cosmocrats' to maintain those
at the bottom in utter poverty, so as to make colossal profits. The
continuation of this system of usury relies on the permanent
enslavement of whole nations.

The French revolution of 1789 was a step on the journey towards
political democracy, and a partial source of inspiration for the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. In the 20th century, the
United Nations tried to secure universal peace; substantial progress
has been made in many areas of human endeavour. But we are now facing
the most brutal attack on the people's sovereignty by the new feudal
lords. Quoting Gracchus Baboeuf, one of the leading figures of the
French Revolution and head of the revolutionary group 'Conspiracy of
the Equals', Ziegler concludes that we have to "look for the common
good", and recognize that the right to happiness, dignity, food and
freedom are basic and essential to mankind. This will require the
complete transformation of society.

Jean Ziegler, L'Empire de la Honte. Editions Fayard, Paris, France.

-------------------------------------
Quotes from Jean Ziegler:

"In a world overflowing with riches, it is an outrageous scandal that
more than 826 million people suffer hunger and malnutrition and that
every year over 36 million die of starvation and related causes. We
must take urgent action now."
Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur

In 2003, the international 'aid' received by 122 developing
countries totalled $54 billion; debt repayment from those developing
countries back to the donor countries was a massive $436 billion.

Forty years ago some 400 million people were permanently underfed.
Today, their number has more than doubled - to a staggering 842
million people.

-------------
# 2
CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN
How the U.S. Uses Globalization to
Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions

(A NY Times Best Seller!)

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/31/1546207

Watch/Listen to an hourlong interview with John Perkins, a former
respected member of the international banking community. In his book
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man he describes how as a highly paid
professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe
out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could
possibly repay and then taking over their economies. John Perkins
describes himself as a former economic hit man - a highly paid
professional who cheated countries around the globe out of trillions of
dollars.

20 years ago Perkins began writing a book with the working title,
"Conscience of an Economic Hit Men."

Perkins writes, "The book was to be dedicated to the presidents of two
countries, men who had been his clients whom I respected and thought of
as kindred spirits - Jaime Roldós, president of Ecuador, and Omar
Torrijos, president of Panama. Both had just died in fiery crashes.
Their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated because they
opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking heads
whose goal is global empire. We Economic Hit Men failed to bring
Roldós and Torrijos around, and the other type of hit men, the
CIA-sanctioned jackals who were always right behind us, stepped in.

John Perkins goes on to write: "I was persuaded to stop writing that
book. I started it four more times during the next twenty years. On
each occasion, my decision to begin again was influenced by current
world events: the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1980, the first Gulf War,
Somalia, and the rise of Osama bin Laden. However, threats or bribes
always convinced me to stop."

But now Perkins has finally published his story. The book is titled
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Watch and/or listen to the interview
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/31/1546207
read excerpt:
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/188

===================

The truth will set us free!

(from allegience to corrupt politicians who kiss the asses of the
obscenely rich while pissing on the peasants at home and abroad, and
all the horrificly miserable wars and poverty that they create).

The lies of the US establishment keep us in chains.

=============

"Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in
government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is
the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the
people." Hugo L. Black

==================
The following is an excerpt from Baghdad Burning - a young Baghdad
woman's blog called 'Baghdad Burning'
===

Rape. The latest of American atrocities. Though it's not really the
latest- it's just the one that's being publicized the most. The poor
girl Abeer was neither the first to be raped by American troops, nor
will she be the last. The only reason this rape was brought to light
and publicized is that her whole immediate family were killed along
with her. Rape is a taboo subject in Iraq. Families don't report rapes
here, they avenge them. We've been hearing whisperings about rapes in
American-controlled prisons and during sieges of towns like Haditha and
Samarra for the last three years. The naiveté of Americans who can't
believe their 'heroes' are committing such atrocities is ridiculous.
Who ever heard of an occupying army committing rape??? You raped the
country, why not the people?

In the news they're estimating her age to be around 24, but Iraqis from
the area say she was only 14. Fourteen. Imagine your 14-year-old sister
or your 14-year-old daughter. Imagine her being gang-raped by a group
of psychopaths and then the girl was killed and her body burned to
cover up the rape. Finally, her parents and her five-year-old sister
were also killed. Hail the American heroes... Raise your heads high
supporters of the 'liberation' - your troops have made you proud today.
I don't believe the troops should be tried in American courts. I
believe they should be handed over to the people in the area and only
then will justice be properly served. And our ass of a PM, Nouri
Al-Maliki, is requesting an 'independent investigation', ensconced
safely in his American guarded compound because it wasn't his daughter
or sister who was raped, probably tortured and killed. His family is
abroad safe from the hands of furious Iraqis and psychotic American
troops.

It fills me with rage to hear about it and read about it. The pity I
once had for foreign troops in Iraq is gone. It's been eradicated by
the atrocities in Abu Ghraib, the deaths in Haditha and the latest news
of rapes and killings. I look at them in their armored vehicles and to
be honest- I can't bring myself to care whether they are 19 or 39. I
can't bring myself to care if they make it back home alive. I can't
bring myself to care anymore about the wife or parents or children they
left behind. I can't bring myself to care because it's difficult to see
beyond the horrors. I look at them and wonder just how many innocents
they killed and how many more they'll kill before they go home. How
many more young Iraqi girls will they rape?

Why don't the Americans just go home? They've done enough damage and we
hear talk of how things will fall apart in Iraq if they 'cut and run',
but the fact is that they aren't doing anything right now. How much
worse can it get? People are being killed in the streets and in their
own homes- what's being done about it? Nothing. It's convenient for
them- Iraqis can kill each other and they can sit by and watch the
bloodshed- unless they want to join in with murder and rape.

Buses, planes and taxis leaving the country for Syria and Jordan are
booked solid until the end of the summer. People are picking up and
leaving en masse and most of them are planning to remain outside of the
country. Life here has become unbearable because it's no longer a
'life' like people live abroad. It's simply a matter of survival,
making it from one day to the next in one piece and coping with the
loss of loved ones and friends- friends like T.

It's difficult to believe T. is really gone... I was checking my email
today and I saw three unopened emails from him in my inbox. For one
wild, heart-stopping moment I thought he was alive. T. was alive and it
was all some horrific mistake! I let myself ride the wave of giddy
disbelief for a few precious seconds before I came crashing down as my
eyes caught the date on the emails- he had sent them the night before
he was killed. One email was a collection of jokes, the other was an
assortment of cat pictures, and the third was a poem in Arabic about
Iraq under American occupation. He had highlighted a few lines
describing the beauty of Baghdad in spite of the war... And while I
always thought Baghdad was one of the more marvelous cities in the
world, I'm finding it very difficult this moment to see any beauty in a
city stained with the blood of T. and so many other innocents...

see her blog here: http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

One way to help fight the real terrorists!
http://www.ImpeachBush.org
------------------------------------------------------------

National Impeachment Movement Ignored by Corporate Media

By Peter Phillips

If a national movement calling for the impeachment of the President is
rapidly emerging and the corporate media are not covering it, is there
really a national movement for the impeachment of the President?

Impeachment advocates are widely mobilizing in the U.S. Over 1,000
letters to the editors of major newspapers have been printed in the
past six months asking for impeachment. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette letter
writer George Matus says, "I am still enraged over unasked questions
about exit polls, touch-screen voting, Iraq, the cost of the new
Medicare...who formulated our energy policy, Jack Abramoff, the Downing
Street Memos, and impeachment." David Anderson in McMinnville, Oregon
pens to the Oregonian, "Where are the members of our congressional
delegation now in demanding the current president's actions be
investigated to see if impeachment or censure are appropriate
actions?" William Dwyer's letter in the Charleston Gazette says,
"Congress will never have the courage to start the impeachment
process without a groundswell of outrage from the people."

City councils, boards of supervisors, and local and state level
Democrat central committees have voted for impeachment. Arcata,
California voted for impeachment on January 6. The City and County of
San Francisco, voted Yes on February 28. The Sonoma County Democrat
Central Committee (CA) voted for Impeachment on March 16. The townships
of Newfane, Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro and Putney in Vermont all
voted for impeachment the first week of March. The New Mexico State
Democrat party convention rallied on March 18 for the "impeachment of
George Bush and his lawful removal from office." The national Green
Party called for impeachment on January 3. Op-ed writers at the St.
Petersburg Times, Newsday, Yale Daily News, Barrons, Detroit Free
Press, and the Boston Globe have called for impeachment. The San
Francisco Bay Guardian (1/25/06) The Nation (1/30/06) and Harpers
(3/06) published cover articles calling for impeachment. As of March
16, thirty-two US House of Representatives have signed on as
co-sponsors to House Resolution 635, which would create a Select
Committee to look into the grounds for recommending President Bush's
impeachment.

Polls show that nearly a majority of Americans favor impeachment. In
October of 2005, Public Affairs Research found that 50%% of Americans
said that President Bush should be impeached if he lied about the war
in Iraq. A Zogby International poll from early November 2005 found that
53%% of Americans say, "If President Bush did not tell the truth about
his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider
holding him accountable through impeachment." A March 16, 2006 poll by
American Research Group showed that 42%% of Americans favored impeaching
Bush.

Despite all this advocacy and sentiment for impeachment, corporate
media have yet to cover this emerging mass movement. The Bangor Daily
News simply reported on March 17 that former US Attorney General Ramsey
Clark has set up the website Votetoimpeach.org and that other groups
are using the internet to push impeachment. The Wall Street Journal, on
March 16, editorialized about how it is just "the loony left"
seeking impeachment, but perhaps some Democrats in Congress will join
in feeding on the "bile of the censure/impeachment brigades."

The corporate media are ignoring the broadening call for impeachment
- wishing perhaps it will just go away. Television news and talk
shows have mentioned impeachment over 100 times in the past 30 days,
mostly however in the context of Senator Russ Feingold's censure bill
and the lack of broad Democrat support for censure or impeachment.
Nothing on television news gives the impression that millions of
Americans are calling for the impeachment of Bush and his cohorts.

The Bush Administration lied about Iraq, illegally spied on US
citizens, and continues war crimes in the Middle East. Despite
corporate media's inability to hear the demands for impeachment, the
groundswell of outrage continues to expand.

Source: Project Censored - Sonoma State University
Immortalist wrote: