Flyby News
"News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era"
Downing Impeachment Memo * Bolivia Indigenous
07 June 2005
"It's amazing to me the way it [Downing Street memo]
escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed
on the Internet, I can tell you that."
Senator John Kerry1) Downing Street Minutes Squeezes in Meet the Press- - False freedom is very expensive
- - Kerry Touts Bush Impeachment Memo
- - John BOLTON and the Downing Street memo scandal
- - Take Back America 2005 with Bill Moyers
- - Late Friday Media Trick: Pentagon Admits Koran Abuse
- - Shut Down Guantánamo
- - US running "archipelago" of prisoners around the world
2) Indigenous Mass Protest for Bolivia democracy
Editor's Notes:A backlog is beginning - too much news to absorb and act on - yet we must continue to connect the dots. Even if humankind doesn't survive into this Century, we can go down with some integrity left. This issue is on the best hard evidence yet for impeachment of George W. Bush. Okay, let's not hold our breath, but inevitably,.. with evidence on 9/11 and other issues pending, the truth will set us all free. The second item is a mass upising in Bolivia, trying to keep resources in the care of its people, and not the IMF-Oil-terrorist-producing-suppressing policies!
In forthcoming issues we will return to the nuclear question, and on the American justice system where US tyranny doesn't just reign abroad, but in our very communities, especially that of minority races. Also, forthcoming, will be an update from Bart Jordan. After six years of researching this unique gem of a human being, his claims continue to stand up to scrutiny of his deciphering ancient languages that reveal advanced humans more than 100,000 years ago. Bart Jordan had been secretly working with NASA and the US government in sharing this knowledge, but not really until the Cassini Earth flyby has he had surfaced publically, and in his next posting, expected within a month, he will add more credibility to his claims. For now, please keep refreshed, visit FN's updated page for links, references, and resources on
Bart Jordan and evidence of technologically advanced ancient civilizations.Please note - Flyby News will be tabling at the following festivals:
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BetterWorldFestival.comSolarFest 2005 -- New England Renewable Energy Festival - July 16, and 17 - From Middletown Springs to Green Mountain College and back...almost. SolarFest's new home is on Forget-Me-Not Farm in Tinmouth, Vermont, as beautiful and Green a place as you might hope to find. SolarFest is a nonprofit organization with 501(c)(3) status. Its mission is to educate people about renewable energy by engaging the community through the performing arts. Since its inception in 1995, SolarFest has built a reputation for promoting artistic excellence and community-building, and has raised more than a few eyebrows when people realize that our entire weekend festival is run on solar energy. For details and updated information, visit
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"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
Albert Einstein
1) Downing Street Minutes Squeezes in Meet the Press- - False freedom is very expensive.
- - Kerry Touts Bush Impeachment Memo
- - John BOLTON and the Downing Street memo scandal
- - Take Back America 2005 with Bill Moyers
- - Late Friday Media Trick: Pentagon Admits Koran Abuse
- - Shut Down Guantánamo
- - US running "archipelago" of prisoners around the world
- - Chair of Republican Party Put at a Loss by Downing Street MinutesBy David Swanson, www.afterdowningstreet.org
On June 5, 2005, Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the Republican Party, was asked about the Downing Street Minutes on "NBC News' Meet the Press."
To my knowledge, this was the first serious treatment of the matter on any U.S. network news show. It still remains for a news program to report on the matter on its own behalf, as opposed to asking a Republican guest to comment on it.
The transcript is here:
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8062380 and below with commentary:
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to the now-famous Downing Street memo. This was a memo, July 23, 2002, from the head of British intelligence to Prime Minister Blair; in effect, notes taken from a briefing that was given to Prime Minister Blair after the head of British intelligence came back from a trip to Washington. It says this: "[The head of British Intelligence] reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, though military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
This is July of 2002. We didn't invade until March of 2003. And the prime minister of Great Britain is being told by the head of his intelligence that he went to Washington and believes that a decision had already been made and that the administration was fixing or manipulating the intelligence to support the policy.
MR. MEHLMAN: Tim, that report has been discredited by everyone else who's looked at it since then. Whether it's the 911 Commission, whether it's the Senate, whoever's looked at this has said there was no effort to change the intelligence at all.
[Mehlman is pretending to claim that these bodies have investigated the Downing Street Minutes and discredited them, while really claiming that these bodies discredited the idea that the Bush administration cooked the intelligence to fit its desired policy. This amounts to claiming that a new piece of evidence can be dismissed on the grounds of what authorities allegedly concluded PRIOR TO discovering the new evidence. This is absurd.]
The fact is that the intelligence of this country, the intelligence of Britain, the intelligence of the United Nations, the intelligence all over the world said that there were weapons of mass destruction present in Iraq.
[With regard to the United States and Britain, the whole point is to determine whether their "intelligence" was dishonest. The United Nations certainly never agreed with it; nor did "the world." The United Nations rejected the evidence presented by the United States, and worldwide opposition to the war was more powerful than ever before in history – much of it focused on the belief that the Bush Administration was lying.]
We knew that Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction before.
[Because we sold them to him.]
We still know that there was a weapons of mass destruction program.
[When? Just before the war? Or a program in some past year that had long since been dismantled? The former claim would be a lie, the latter an irrelevance.]
He was evading the sanctions, and he had plans to reconstitute the program.
[Actually, of course, he had complied with the sanctions and informed the world of that fact, and complied with investigations.]
We also knew that Saddam Hussein had uniquely invaded his neighbors, had uniquely supported terrorists and we all know today that we are safer because he's been removed from power.
[Actually, there is nothing unique about invading one's neighbors. Just ask Haiti. Hussein did not support Al Quaeda in any way. That lie has been endlessly debunked. And terrorist incidents have increased since the war started – which more of us would know if the Bush Administration had not ceased releasing annual statistics on the matter. In any event, the over 1600 US soldiers and 100,000 Iraqis who have been killed are not safer – they're not anything.]
So I believe that that individual report not only has been discredited
[by whom? when? where? on what grounds?]
but that the overall reasons for removing Saddam Hussein were broader than that, they were correct, and we're now safer and certainly the people of Iraq are safer now that Saddam Hussein has been removed from power.
[For the points of view of some actual Iraqis on this, see www.uslaboragainstwar.org ]
MR. RUSSERT: I don't believe that the authenticity of this report has been discredited.
MR. MEHLMAN: I believe that the findings of the report, the fact that the intelligence was somehow fixed have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it.
[Again, he means PRIOR TO emergence of this piece of evidence – a dubious assertion in itself.]
MR. RUSSERT: There--let me go back to another sentence from that report. "There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, now head of the World Bank, said the other day, "The war never ended," and the concern many Americans have, Mr. Mehlman, is that we now have 1,669 Americans who've died bravely in Iraq, 1,532 of those after the president said major combat operations were over. We have 12,762 Americans wounded or injured, 12,000 of those after the president said major combat was over. This memo seems to suggest that the head of British Intelligence told Prime Minister Blair that there was little discussion in Washington to plan for the aftermath of military action.
MR. MEHLMAN: I would respectfully disagree with that finding. I think that there was clearly planning that occurred, planning that occurred to deal with the results of the war. If you remember after the first Gulf War, whether it was the breaching of the dams that we saw all over Iraq, that didn't happen. Whether it was the fires that we saw, that didn't happen this past time. Plans were made for after the war. There's no question that there has been an insurgency. The insurgents understand the stakes of the situation in Iraq. They understand that if we're successful, their efforts to promote terrorism around the world, their efforts to defeat democracy and freedom will be hurt. And there's no question-- therefore, we need to deal with these insurgents.
[Plans were clearly made to safeguard the oil, but that hardly addresses Russert's citation of figures of deaths. Nor does Mehlman give any explanation of what in the heck he means by suggesting that Iraqis resisting the occupation are trying to "promote terrorism around the world."]
But the president has mentioned repeatedly that he thinks every day about it and meets with the families of the men and women who have given their lives in Iraq.
[Meets with them every day? How many families has he met with? More than one? Clearly he has not met with members of Gold Star Families for Peace or Iraqi Veterans Against the War or Military Families Speak Out or Military Families Against the War or Veterans for Peace. These organizations are working to end the war and are almost certainly not comforted to hear that Bush thinks about "it."]
They've given their lives for an incredibly noble cause.
[Oil?]
We did plan for the future. There are some things you can plan for. There are some things that are harder to plan for, but I believe we're doing a very important mission in Iraq, which is defeating the terrorists, promoting democracy and you've seen throughout this spring what the effects of that democracy have been in other Arab nations.
[Again, the reference to "terrorists" appears to be an attempt to dishonestly connect Iraq to 9-11. Saudi Arabia, the home of most of the 9-11 terrorists, is a US ally and the furthest thing from a democracy.]
MR. RUSSERT: The primary rationale given for the war, however, was the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. And again I refer you to the memo of the prime minister's meeting. "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than half that of Libya, North Korea and Iran."
MR. MEHLMAN: Well, the president, I think, was responsible in saying we need to simultaneously prepare for war and also try to avoid that war.
[But we now have official government minutes showing that he was not doing that. He was only telling us that he was doing that. He was lying to the American people and to Congress.]
There were simultaneous efforts at the diplomatic stages that were made and yet at the same time it would have been irresponsible for us to say we're going to wait and then plan for war later because we wouldn't have had as effective an effort as we did to remove Saddam Hussein from power, so we needed to do both at the same time.
[The point is not that the Pentagon was planning how it would fight a war if it had to do so, but that Bush had already determined to go to war and to lie about why it was necessary.]
I would also, though, disagree, as I said a moment ago, with the notion that Iraq was somehow less of a threat. Iran and North Korea hadn't invaded their neighbors. Iran and North Korea hadn't used weapons of mass destruction. Iran and North Korea hadn't, in the same way that Saddam Hussein had, been paying off suicide bombers in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. Iran and North Korea are serious challenges. So was Saddam Hussein, and removing him makes the world safer, makes America safer.
[So, the chairman of the Republican Party is better qualified than top intelligence officials to rank the members of the "axis of evil"? Why, then was the bogus justification for attacking Iraq its fictional pursuit of nuclear weapons? Meanwhile North Korea's actual possession of such weapons was not considered a danger? Please. And the comments about Iraq invading neighbors are out of place. Iraq was not threatening to invade anyone. The United States invaded Iraq while pretending that Iraq was threatening the United States. In the past, if the past is relevant, the United States has invaded far more countries than Iraq has.]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The URL for this story is:
www.afterdowningstreet.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=50 David Swanson
AfterDowningStreet.orgdavid@davidswanson.org
202-329-7847
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- - False freedom is very expensiveThe criminals foisted a Lie of Historic Proportions on the world.
By Cindy Sheehan
The evidence is overwhelming, compelling, and alarming
that George and his indecent bandits traitorously had
intelligence fabricated to fit their goal of invading Iraq.
For the complete article, see:
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9069.htmor
snipurl.com/fedx= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Kerry Touts Bush Impeachment MemoPublished by NewsMax.com
Friday, June 3, 2005 12:02 a.m. EDT
Failed presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that he intends to confront Congress with a document touted by critics of President Bush as evidence that he committed impeachable crimes by falsifying evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"When I go back [to Washington] on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," Kerry said, referring to the Downing Street Memo in an interview with Massachusetts' Standard Times newspaper.
"I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home," the top Democrat added. The Downing Street Memo, first reported on May 1 by the London Times, was drafted by a Matthew Rycroft, a foreign policy aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair. It is said to be minutes of a July 2002 meeting where Blair allegedly admitted that the Bush administration "fixed" Iraq intelligence to manufacture a rationale for war.
Citing the Downing Street Memo, former presidential candidate Ralph Nader called for an impeachment investigation on Tuesday in an op-ed piece published by the Boston Globe.
"It is time for Congress to investigate the illegal Iraq war as we move toward the third year of the endless quagmire that many security experts believe jeopardizes US safety by recruiting and training more terrorists," wrote Nader with co-author Kevin Zeese. "A Resolution of Impeachment would be a first step."
The British memo, however, contains no quotes from either Bush or Blair, and is notably slim on evidence implicating Bush in a WMD cover-up.
Though largely ignored in the U.S. outside of rabid anti-Bush Web sites like MichaelMoore.com, the Downing Street Memo won Sen. Kerry's endorsement in the Standard Times interview:
"It's amazing to me," the top Democrat said, "the way it escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."
www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/6/3/00901.shtml= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - John BOLTON and the Downing Street memo scandalFrom: "The Pen"
STOP JOHN BOLTON AND HIS IRAQ WAR LIES
By now you know from The Downing Street memo that the very highest officials of the British government said there was no just cause for war against Iraq, and that "the facts and intelligence" were "being fixed around the policy" by the U.S. to force it to happen anyway. That was 1600 American deaths, over 10,000 grievously wounded, and 300 billion missing from our treasury ago.
But now also consider that in the run up to the Iraq it was John Bolton who was PERSONALLY responsible for creating a fact sheet for the U.N. and the media containing known lies about Iraq seeking yellow cake uranium from Niger. And of course, we also know from the Senate hearings that John Bolton repeatedly manipulated intelligence, intimidating his own staffers to do so.
Put it all together and you see Bolton was one of the key players who put in the very intelligence "fix" referred to in the Downing Street memo. Then tell your senators again that this standing alone must preclude his confirmation as U.N. ambassador.
www.usalone.com/bolton.htm -
Please take action at above link, let others know, fight back!
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- - Take Back America 2005 with Bill Moyers'Writing the History of the Revolution is Now Up to You'
by Bill Moyers
Take Back America: The Conference for America's Future,
sponsored by the Institute for America's Future, in Washington, D.C.
Friday, June 3, 2005
It's good to be with you again. Your passion for democracy is inspiring and your enthusiasm contagious. I can't imagine a more exuberant gathering today except possibly at the K Street branch of the Masters of the Universe where they are celebrating their coup at the Securities and Exchange Commission
The complete transcript of the speech delivered, see
on June can be found at
www.ourfuure.org/projects/national_conference/2005/index.cfwFor the text published by CommonDreams.org of the prepared text, see:
www.commondreams.org/views05/0606-21.htm= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Late Friday Media Trick: Pentagon Admits Koran AbuseThe Old Late Friday Media Trick: Pentagon Admits Koran Abuse
Published on Saturday, June 4, 2005 by the Associated Press
[Excerpts]
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon on Friday released new details about mishandling of the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects, confirming that a soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book and that an interrogator stepped on a Quran and was later fired for "a pattern of unacceptable behavior."
In other confirmed incidents, a guard's urine came through an air vent and splashed on a detainee and his Quran; water balloons thrown by prison guards caused an unspecified number of Qurans to get wet; and in a confirmed but ambiguous case, a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Quran.
The findings, released after normal business hours Friday evening, are among the results of an investigation last month by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center in Cuba, that was triggered by a Newsweek magazine report--later retracted--that a U.S. soldier had flushed one Guantanamo Bay detainee's Quran down a toilet.
There are about 540 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Some have been there more than three years without being charged with a crime. Most were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and were sent to Guantanamo Bay in hope of extracting useful intelligence about the al-Qaida terrorist network.
Both President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have denounced an Amnesty International report that called the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay "the gulag of our time."
The president told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday that the report by the human-rights group was "absurd."
On Wednesday, Rumsfeld called the characterization "reprehensible" and said the U.S. military had taken care to ensure that detainees were free to practice their religion. However, he also acknowledged that some detainees had been mistreated, even "grievously" at times.
© The complete article is posted:
www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000946520 or
www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0604-01.htm= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Shut Down GuantánamoFrom center for constitutional rights < ccr@democracyinaction.org >
It's time to shut down the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay once and for all. Guantánamo has become a symbol world-wide of the Bush Administration's arrogant disregard for the most basic of human rights. In a hard-hitting editorial on Sunday, June 5, The New York Times wrote: "The best thing Washington can now do about this national shame is to shut it down. It is a propaganda gift to America's enemies; an embarrassment to our allies; a damaging repudiation of the American justice system; and a highly effective recruiting tool for Islamic radicals, including future terrorists."*
Please write your representatives in Congress and the members of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees and tell them to shut down Guantánamo and either try the remaining 540 detainees in a court of law or release them.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has led the fight against the detentions at Guantánamo Bay.
To find out more about this and other issues and actions, visit
ccr-ny.org= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - US running " archipelago" of prisoners around the worldAmnesty official says US running " archipelago" of prisoners around the world:
"The United States is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons into which people are being literally disappeared and in some cases, at least, we know that they are being mistreated, abused, tortured and even killed," he said.
For the complete article, see:
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9063.htmsnipurl.com/fdmw
2) Indigenous Mass Protest for Bolivia democracyMass Protests Continue in Bolivia
Democracy Now! - Headlines for June 3, 2005
Mass Protests Continue in Bolivia Massive protests continue to spread across Latin America's poorest country, Bolivia. Late yesterday, the embattled US-backed president, Carlos Mesa, signed an emergency decree ordering a referendum on greater autonomy for the richest area of the country and a vote in mid-October to elect members for an assembly to rewrite the constitution. Mesa made the announcement late yesterday after the country's Congress failed to reach a consensus for the third day in a row and with indigenous-led protests raging in the streets of La Paz, bringing the capital to a standstill.
The protests have cut off the capital from the airport and blockades have shut down two-thirds of the country's highways.
Meanwhile, the Bolivian Foreign Ministry rejected what it called "international mediation" after the US State Department said Bolivia would be discussed at the Organization of American States general assembly next week. Riot police armed with tear gas continue to guard Congress and protests have spread to other areas in the country. Jim Shultz of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba reports that there are rumors of a coup in the air and said the protests "show all the signs of growing more intense and bold in their willingness to shut the country down."
www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/03/1337216=- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - Why is Bolivia in turmoil?
By James Painter
BBC regional analyst
Published by BBC NEWS: 2005/06/03 09:33:07 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4604173.stm
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