Lies and More Lies

Susan Brannon
11 September 2011
A few Lies Thousands of Deaths Gulf War to Today

It is a sad day when one wakes up in the morning and realizes that we have been lied to by the same leaders that we pay to protect our families and fellow citizens.  This “awakening”, has created a division within America between the citizens and political parties, between the government and the citizens and from those who live in other parts of the world.  No one trusts anyone; we do not trust the banks, we do not trust the economy, we do not trust the corporations and specifically we do not trust the leaders worldwide.

Not only does this happen in America, it is happening all over the place, in the Middle East, Israel, Africa, India, Pakistan, Greece, Spain, Italy, Japan, S. Korea and the list continues.

We can now gain and become bombarded with information thanks to the Internet, blogs, You Tube, and social networking sites. The sharing of information across borders and somehow allowed us to identify with other cultures in their different situations. It is through these means that many can read and view voices from around the world. 

How can we decipher all this information, from the reality and propaganda handed down from our governments and other radical groups?  A normal person does not have enough time in the day to search and read all viewpoints to make the decision on their own.  How can we know that the sources are trusted?  News agencies and citizen journalists can edit a news story simply with the view of their camera, making a small crowd into a large one or by creating texts that imply a different story than the reality.

Some of the “lies” that was discovered has created decisions that killed thousands of people, created starvation, refugees, homelessness, job losses and torture.  These manipulations evolve between American leaders and sometime with collaborations with foreign leaders.  The trend has swelled from country to country.  Some of these “lies” did not make headlines and hardly anyone talks about them, but they have changed the world that we all live in.

The result of the Gulf War with President Bush Sr. and the connection to President George Bush Jr. created the wars that we deal with today, the unnecessary deaths and suffering both for Iraqi’s and Americans. A mess has been created that generated outrageous spending and high debts. The U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken 225,000 lives and will ultimately cost more than $3 trillion, according to a one-of-a-kind study by Brown University that aims to put a price tag on the U.S. response to 9/11.  (Boston Herald) http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/remembering_911/view.bg?articleid=1364645




Bush Sr.  Falsifying Gulf War

In October, 1990, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, identified only as Nayirah, appeared in Washington before the House of Representatives' Human Rights Caucus. She testified that Iraqi soldiers who had invaded Kuwait on August 2nd tore hundreds of babies from hospital incubators and killed them.  The news jumped on the story and generated opposition to Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein.  He was referred to as the “Bucher of Baghdad” and “A tyrant worse than Hitler.”

President Bush Sr, referred to the story six times in one month, “312 premature babies at Kuwait City’s maternity hospital who died after Iraqi soldiers stole their incubators and left the infants on the floor”  or he would say, "babies pulled from incubators and scattered like firewood across the floor."  He would remind the Democrats who were against going into war, and wanted sanctions only against Iraq.  Which would cause thousands of Iraqis to die of hunger and disease, but that’s not the point. 
In the end, Nayirah, was hidden and kept from the public.  After all, she was the daughter of Saud Nasir Al-Sabah, Kuwait’s ambassador to the United States.  Some of the congressional leaders and reporters knew who Nayirah was, but no-one spoke up sharing that “minor” detail with the American people.

It was all a lie, plain and simple.  It was a manipulation tactic to justify bombarding Iraq to get rid of the brutal leader who ruled the helpless people.  Yes, America, comes to save the day from the killing of babies!  Of course, no one would ask if the story was true and no one would ask is it our business?

According to Dr. Mohammed Matar, director of Kuwait's primary care system, and his wife, Dr. Fayeza Youssef, who ran the obstetrics unit at the maternity hospital, there were few if any babies in the incubators at the time of the Iraqi invasion.  The truth is that some babies did die after the invasion, the doctors and nurses stopped working or fled the country.  They were at war.

Imagine that the aristocratic ambassadors’ daughter was sitting alone in a children’s hospital in Kuwait. (Indymedia)
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/03/475135.html

Fake Satellite Photos: 
The claim that satellite photos revealed that Iraq had troops poised to strike Saudi Arabia was also fabricated by the PR firm. Hill & Knowlton http://www.hillandknowlton.com/ was paid between $12 million (as reported two years later on "60 Minutes") and $20 million (as reported on "20/20") for "services rendered." The group fronting the money? Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a phony "human rights agency" set up and funded entirely by Kuwait's emirocracy to promote its interests in the U.S.

The owners resided in the UK and it gave the company political power to manipulate the democratic and political processes.  This happened 10 years ago, and look where we are today.

In a “Behind-the scenes true story” of the Gulf War by HBO, the revealed that the war resolved nothing, and the US made Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other allies pay and estimated $100-$150 billion. (ATimes)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DH27Ak01.html

Not only was Saudi and Kuwait let down, but the Turkish President Turgut Ozal was seduced through US hints of winning the lost Kurdish areas in Northern Iraq.  However, instead of getting oil rich from Mosul and Kirkuk, the sanctions against Iraq caused the pipeline to closure and cost Ankara $50 billion in lost trade.

The result?  Attack on the World Trade Centers on September 11 in the attempt to rid of the American regimes?  Do I blame them?

In spite of the known consequences of the false war, President Clinton needed a new look, he needed to polish his image.  While the rockets red glare, smart bombs bursting in air, 250,000 people died….Mr. Clinton hired Hill and Knowlton to do his public relations work in 1998.

Bush admitting that there are no weapons of mass destruction. (Sept 2004)

The American Operation Iraqi Freedom documents refers to some 48,000 boxes of documents, audiotapes and videotapes that were captured by the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Associated Press reported, "Repeatedly in the transcripts, Saddam and his lieutenants remind each other that Iraq destroyed its chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s, and shut down those programs and the nuclear-bomb program, which had never produced a weapon."  Many of these documents seem to make clear that Saddam's regime had given up on seeking a WMD capability by the mid-1990s.

At one 1996 presidential meeting, top weapons program official Amer Mohammed Rashid, describes his conversation with UN weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus: "We don't have anything to hide, so we're giving you all the details." At another meeting Saddam told his deputies, "We cooperated with the resolutions 100 percent and you all know that, and the 5 percent they claim we have not executed could take them 10 years to (verify). Don't think for a minute that we still have WMD. We have nothing."[114] U.S. Congressman Peter Hoekstra called for the U.S. government to put the remaining documents on the Internet so Arabic speakers around the world can help translate the documents.

http://articles.cnn.com/2004-10-06/world/iraq.wmd.report_1_nuclear-weapons-charles-duelfer-iraq-s-wmd?_s=PM:WORLD

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7634313/ns/world_news-mideast/n_africa/t/cias-final-report-no-wmd-found-iraq/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3718150.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/18/iraq.iraq1

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134625,00.html

Even obedient weapons inspector Richard Butler told the US Senate that there was no evidence that Iraq had passed weapons technology to non-Iraqi terrorist groups. Scott Ritter, another former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, has said that the US has not produced enough hard evidence to justify an attack. Rolf Ekeus, the Swedish arms inspector from 1991 to 1997, accused the US of manipulating the UN mission for its own ends. The US was more keen on tracking Saddam's whereabouts, which "could be of interest if one were to target him personally".
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DH27Ak01.html

The whole thing is only accentuating the image of the "Ugly American". A respected non-partisan US think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a recent report to the White House, "Around the world, from western Europe to the Far East, many see the United States as arrogant, hypocritical, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and contemptuous of others."

As Bush found in Afghanistan, whacking foreigners is popular with many Americans and wins votes. Iraq and hapless Iraqis would fit and foot the bill. Moreover, an attack would distract attention from financial scandals which threaten to enmesh both president and vice president. To many, it seems that the US administration represents but narrow corporate interests, and already, in this respect, the impending war seems to be going rather well.

Watch: http://youtu.be/bvay28lZiHU

Who would have know that after the Gulf War, we would be involved in other wars, based on lies, who would have known that the global economy would start to crumble, who would have known that President Obama, would fail on removing the troops from Iraq after his election...we are all still waiting.

The Movement:  Occupy Wall St.
Resources:
Occupy Together
Twitter: @occupywallst

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Making Sense of the Failing Economy and the Debt Deal/Downgrade

Making Sense of the Failing Economy

Susan Brannon
9 August 2011

First, I want to make it clear that I am not an economist, however, I do understand the basics in balancing a budget, the consequences for borrowing money, spending more than I make, credit card fees and interest on borrowed money and how it seems that I can never get that student loan paid off and…of course, paying taxes.

The mainstream news is finally printing articles about things that most of us already knew.  We knew that the economy was bad, that there are no “real” jobs to be found and our neighbors or ourselves lost all that we had saved up for that day when we were supposed to be able to travel the world and start on our passions during retirement.  Nothing was getting better, it seemed to only be getting worse.  Yet, once the American credit rating was downgraded, the mainstream media could not ignore the fact any longer and they had to start telling the world about the American woes.

In reality, I was shocked that the American people did not demonstrate like in the Arab Spring and join the revolution.  Stories of government corruption has been hitting the front pages for a few years now, corporate, bank and wall street corruption had created this mess.  It took thirty years on average for the Arab nations to wake up and fight and I surly hope that it does not take the Americans that long.  However, I feel that in reference to the economy, it is a bit too late.

We can give thanks to the efforts of Eric Cantor and Michele Bachmann (who is now running for President in 2012)  for the future of America.  The republicans in their ignorance and propaganda blame Obama and Timothy Geithner.  Yet this economical collapse has been a long time coming and in reality was caused by the republicans themselves.  Yes, I am disappointed in Obama, he did not stand tall as he showed during the election, he seems to have bowed down to the republican  scheme of keeping the rich rich and dissimulating the middle class making the hard working American poor.  Obama did not take up the fight as the Americans wanted, he did not flex his muscles for the people of the country.  In the end, this is what will lead to his non re-election in the upcoming presidential campaign.

I must admit, the downgrading by Standard and Poor (S&P) was a deserved one.  They did so because of the immaturity of the Republican tea-party and lack of willingness to really create a plan that would get America out of the debt mess.

The Republicans and Democrats spend all their time pointing fingers at each other, and are not looking at the real picture.  First, who is S&P and what gave the rating agencies so much power?  What gives them the right to play political games with countries economy?  They are privately owned and have a massive list of “conflicts of interest” in this game of economics and policymaking.

First, these rating agencies are usually paid to rate companies and their products by the very same companies.  Wait a minute! Did I just write that?  Yes, Those who need to be rated pay the rating agencies.   Second, during the savings and loan debacle in the 1980’s, to the Asian financial crisis of the 90’s to Enron and the sub-prime bubble the three big rating agencies (S&P, Moody’s & Fitch) they were in the wrong by assuring creditors that the risks of a bank, a company or minimal.  While the Lehman Brothers were on the brink of bankruptcy, S&P gave them an A rating.  Ummm…interesting.  All three rating agencies failed to see the credit crisis coming and for years they provided a AAA rating on bundles of mortgage bonds, even when the securities were questionable.  Many investors purchased the securities based on the AAA ratings and when the mortgages went sour, investors lost billions of dollars that kicked off the financial crisis.  (NYT)

Third, they do not deserve the power that they have in running policymaking and the global economy.  The rating agencies have a huge impact on the media and political debate.

In the end, it is America’s fault to allow them to dominate the economic discussion.  S&P did not make their downgrade because of America’s position but because “the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions that have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges”  This was the tea-parties downgrade.

What is the economic reality? 
The U.S. national debt is rising fast;
•    First, the major tax cuts on the corporations and the rich in the 1970’s and more in 2000 has reduced the revenues;
•    Second, the cost of wars has increased government spending;
•    Third, the bailouts of dysfunctional banks, insurance companies and large corporations since 2007 increased the government spending. 
All the above with less revenue coming from the corporations and rich, more spending on wars and bailouts, the government had to borrow the difference.

Unfortunately, the debt deal did not cover any of these items listed above.  The two parties pretend concern about the debt with only how to cut government spending on the people and instead focus on the 2012 election.

The result?
Here are some numbers:
13.9 million unemployed  known unemployed (12%  Center on Budget and Policy)
6.8 million fewer jobs since the start of the recession
40% and more looking for work for more than 6 months
29.1 million underemployed; those who work in the labor force for low wages
22% unemployed and underemployed
3.5 million homeless (an estimate, it is hard to know this number because of movements)
1.5 million homeless children
45.6 million receiving food stamps
60,000 new fired government workers
14 million in January not to receive unemployment checks
2,000.000.000 homes repossessed
1 in 7 homes now in foreclosure
50 million on Medicare
57 million without insurance

What does the debt plan do?

The reality is that nothing has been done yet…there is no concrete plan. The government started a Joint Select Committee.  They must measure “deficit savings against an “existing-law baseline,” under which letting President Bush’s tax cuts for upper-income households expire wouldn’t count as reducing deficits because they (along with the rest of the Bush tax cuts) are scheduled to expire at the end of 2012 under current law.” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

Here are some key points:

•    $1.1 trillion (or $840 billion, depending on the budget baseline used) in discretionary (i.e., non-entitlement) spending cuts over ten years, enforced by binding annual caps through 2021
•    Joint Select Committee to reduce the deficit by at least another $1.5 trillion over ten years, and for the House and Senate to consider the proposal under fast-track procedures that guarantee an up-or-down vote in both bodies, with a simple majority needed for passage.
•    Multi-year discretionary caps – However, establishing multi-year discretionary caps without an agreement on increased revenues makes it even harder to secure revenue increases for deficit reduction in the future. “because the only way to secure a bipartisan agreement that includes increased revenues is to provide anti-tax policymakers with significant spending cuts in return, likely including substantial savings from imposing discretionary caps. With 10-year discretionary caps already in place (and with the potential for across-the-board cuts that would further cut discretionary programs), there will be little prospect to exchange substantial discretionary cuts in return for revenue increases” (CBPP)
•    The joint committee will have the legal authority to produce a balanced package that includes revenue increases as well as program cuts. But House Speaker John Boehner, in an effort to secure votes for the deal, is undermining the joint committee before it's even established. Boehner has circulated documents to his caucus claiming the agreement requires the use of a "current-law revenue baseline," thus "making it impossible for Joint Committee to increase taxes."  The problem is that Speaker Boehner pledged not to raise the taxes, it gives the committee two places to go;
o    Cuts in entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security)
o    Cuts in discretionary programs (Highways, Agriculture, Energy, Interior, Education, Housing)

The Problem:

Currently the democrats will not agree on entitlement cuts or a mixture of entitlement and deeper discretionary cuts.  Speaker Boehner honors his pledge to keep revenue increases off of the table, so what do we get?  We get a stalemate.  Unless, Boehner will budge and they can meet their goals of a savings close to 1.2 trillion, triggering staggering cuts that will remain in place for nine years.  If it becomes “lame-duck”  then the crisis will loom and there will have to be:
•    cuts across the board  in 2013 after the election.
•    The scheduled expiration of President Bush’s tax cuts at the end of 2012
•    Renewed default if the policymakers do not raise the debt ceiling once again.

If the game of hostage taking continues and proves functional for those who play the games are also playing with the very lives of the American people that will all drown in the turmoil.
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Florence

This is one of my last days in Florence. I decided that it is about time that I took some photos.
It is a beautiful city, full of tourists, American students, and the economy is based on those facts.
The locals do not seem very happy, tourism is down and the student enrollment is also down.
Many of the shops shut down and the locals are moving out of the city because it is too expensive.