The Militant Libertarian

I'm pissed off and I'm a libertarian. What else you wanna know?

Thursday, August 02, 2007

The 2008 Campaigns for President Are Rife With Questionable Funding

by Aaron Turpen, The Militant Libertarian

In reviewing the campaign funding for those running for President in 2008, I noticed an appalling trend amongst most of the “front-runners.” According to www.opensecrets.org, much of the funding candidates are receiving is unaccounted for (in other words, it may have come from anywhere).

Let's take a look at some of them, as of the last required reporting date (end of June, 2007):

Hillary Clinton (D): $63.07 million raised, $17.8 million spent, $45.2 million in the bank, and $3.02 million in debts. Surprisingly, only 11.4% of her campaign's income is undisclosed. That's pretty good compared to some of the others.

Mitt Romney (R): $44.4 million raised, $32.3 million spent, $12.1 million in the bank, $8.9 million in debts. A big 16.4% of his campaign's income is from undisclosed sources. On top of that, he's one of the few candidates who has received PAC donations (about 1% of his total income).

Barack Obama (D): $58.9 million raised, $22.6 million spent, $36.2 million in the bank, and $0.9 millionin debts. A whopping 29.8% of his contributions were from undisclosed sources!

Rudy Giuliani (R): $35.6 million raised, $17.3 million spent, $18.3 million in the bank, no debts. Rudy has also received about 1% of his financing from PACs. More interesting, though, nearly 20% of his income has been from undisclosed sources.

John McCain (R): $25.3 million raised, $21.9 million spent, $3.2 million in the bank, and $1.7 million in debts. 2% of his income has been from PACs and about 15.5% of it from undisclosed sourrces.

Bill Richardson (D): $13.3 million raised, $6.2 million spent, $7.1 million in the bank, and debts of $0.6 million. PAC contributions make up 1% of his income, but he has the best undisclosed income record with only 4.2% of his income being from undisclosed sources.

Ron Paul (R): $3 million raised, $0.6 million spent, $2.3 million in the bank, and no debts. His undisclosed income accounts for about 10.7% of of his total income.

I could go through all of the candidates, one by one, but most of them tell the same stories. You can find out the details for all of these candidates at http://www.opensecrets.org.

So looking at the numbers listed, let's compare the candidates on two levels: first, how much of their money is somewhat questionable. Admittedly, a lot of “undisclosed” income is cash handed over or mailed in without an accompanying form, but some of it could be “on the down-low”. Second, we'll look at how much debt they have incurred, which could be a harbinger of how they plan to run the nation's economy.

Undisclosed Income: Obama tops the list in undisclosed income (by percentage) while another Democrat, Richardson, comes in at the lowest. Giuliani, considered the GOP's “favorite” for 2008, has 20% of his income from undisclosed sources, with Romney coming in close behind at well over 16%. Ron Paul comes in at the best in undisclosed income.

This means that the lowest score amongst the “front-runners” for the 2008 election are all getting over 10% of their income from undisclosed sources. For some campaigns (such as Hillary Clintons, which only gets 11.4% of its money from undisclosed sources), this means more than it does for others (such as Ron Paul's at 10.7%). Not in terms of percentages, but in terms of actual dollars. It's easier to justify, for instance, Paul's undisclosed income of $180,000 or so than it is to justify Hillary's $5.4 MILLION in undisclosed income.

Now, when we look at debt, we can see which candidates are probably more likely to spend on credit (meaning take the nation into debt) versus those who are not likely to do so. Some credit, of course, is expected through the normal course of business for any endeavor – be it a political campaign or a nation.

When you look at the huge amount of debt some of these campaigns have incurred, however, you begin to wonder about the fiscal policies of the candidate associated with it. For instance, Ron Paul has a debt of zero dollars and has cash on hand. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, has a debt of over $8.9 million, which means his debt accounts for over 73% of his cash on hand! In fact, compared to the fiscal status of the other candidates, Mitt looks like Paris Hilton with an American Express card on Friday night.

To put it bluntly, of all of the candidates on the roster, only Romney appears to have little financial responsibility. Every other candidate has zero or near-zero debt when compared to their cash on hand. The next-highest irresponsible candidate is John McCain who has a debt-savings ratio of about 53%. Most candidates are well under the 10% range.

So what does this mean? In my mind, it's a good indicator of two things: what the candidate expects to get in contributions in the future and, more importantly, how well the candidate plans ahead and budgets his or her money. I think in Mitt's case, he knows he has substantial resources at his disposal (his own personal fortune), so he's probably banking on that being his fall-back – a fall-back he won't have when the national budget is at issue. As for the other candidates, they seem to realize that it's still early in the campaign and that a large amount of debt is a bad idea at this point. If only they could carry this thinking into the White House...

Unfortunately, once in office, most candidates seem to think that the purse of this nation is bottomless and that spending has no limits. Except Ron Paul, of course, who for ten terms in Congress has consistently voted against any unbalanced budget offered. Mitt Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, balanced the state budget, but did that through increasing taxes, fees, and the gasoline tax. Maybe that's how a business mogul balances budgets, but that's not the way to make government do it, in my mind.

So the numbers of the campaign tell an interesting tale. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

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Truckers4RonPaul.org Announces Ron Paul DVD Giveaway

Truckers4RonPaul.org, an independent site supporting the presidential campaign of Congressman Ron Paul, has announced that they will be giving away free DVDs about Ron Paul's campaign.

The DVDs were produced by and are supplied courtesy of the Ron Paul – President '08 Salt Lake County, Utah Meetup Group and are being offered free-of-charge on the Truckers4RonPaul.org website.

“We're hoping this outreach will help to spread the word about Ron Paul's campaign and get some more people interested in his important message,” says Aaron Turpen, founder of Truckers4RonPaul.org.

This offer as been provided by several cooperating groups and supporters of Ron Paul and will be extended until the DVDs run out. So get yours today! Just visit http://www.Truckers4RonPaul.org, click on the link to the free DVD, and input your postal address in the form provided.

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New Blog

I've begun a new blog called "Militant Reviews" where I will be doing book and movie reviews. So go check it out!

http://militantreviews.blogspot.com/

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Operation FALCON

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=431

Operation FALCON - The USA is turning into a Police State
by Mike Whitney


On 29th June, 1934, Chancellor Adolph Hitler, accompanied by the Schutzstaffel (SS), arrived at Wiesse, where he personally arrested the leader of the Strum Abteilung (SA), Ernnst Roehm. During the next 24 hours 200 other senior SA officers were arrested on the way to Wiesse. Many were shot as soon as they were captured but Hitler decided to pardon Roehm because of his past service to the movement. However, after much pressure from Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler, Hitler agreed that Roehm should die. At first Hitler insisted that Roehm should be allowed to commit suicide but, when he refused, Roehm was shot by two SS men. (Spartacus.schoolnet.co)

Later, Hitler delivered a speech at the Reichstag in which he justified the murders of his rivals saying:

"If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people. It was no secret that this time the revolution would have to be bloody; when we spoke of it we called it 'The Night of the Long Knives.' Everyone must know for all future time that if he raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot."

The Night of the Long Knives is seen by many as the turning point where Hitler made it clear that he was above the law and the supreme leader of the German people.

Operation Falcon: Blueprint for removing dissidents and political rivals

The Bush administration has carried out three massive sweeps in the last two years, rolling up more than 30,000 minor crooks and criminals, without as much as a whimper of protest from the public.

So far, not one of the more than 30,000 victims has been charged with a terror-related crime. So far, not one of the more than 30,000 victims has been charged with a terror-related crime.Operation Falcon is the clearest indication yet that the Bush administration is fine-tuning its shock-troops so it can roll up tens of thousands of people at a moment's notice and toss them into the newly-built Halliburton detention centers. This should be a red flag for anyone who cares at all about human rights, civil liberties, or simply saving his own skin.

Operation Falcon was allegedly the brainchild of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his counterpart in the US Marshal's office, (Director) Ben Reyna. But its roots go much deeper into the nexus of right-wing Washington think tanks where fantasies of autocratic government have a long history. The name, Falcon, is an acronym for "Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally." It relates to the more than 960 state, local and federal agencies which are directly involved in the administration's expansive criminal dragnets.

Typically, law enforcement agencies are protective of their own turf and wary of outside intervention. The Falcon program overrides these concerns by streamlining the information-sharing processes and setting up a chain-of-command structure that radiates from the Justice Department. This removes many of the traditional obstacles to agency interface. It also relocates the levers of power in Washington where they can be manned by members of the Bush administration.

Dictatorships require strong centralized authority and the Falcon program is a logical corollary of that ambition. It creates new inroads for Bush to assume greater control over the nationwide police-state apparatus. That alone should be sufficient reason for alarm.

The first Operation Falcon took place during the week of April 4 to April 10, 2005. According to the US Marshal's official website, "The emphasis centered on gang related crimes, homicides, crimes involving use of a weapon, crimes against children and the elderly, crimes involving sexual assaults, organized crime and drug related fugitives, and other crimes of violence." More than 10,000 criminal suspects were arrested in a matter of days. It was the largest criminal sweep in the nation's history and, according to U.S. Marshall chief Ben Reyna, "produced the largest number of arrests ever recorded during a single initiative." The Washington Times noted, "The sweep was a virtual clearinghouse for warrants on drug, gang, gun and sex-offender suspects nationwide."

The emphasis was clearly on quantity not quality.

Still, this doesn't explain why state and federal agencies had to be integrated with local law enforcement simply to carry out routine police work.

More importantly, it doesn't explain why local police ignored their duty to protect the public just so they could coordinate with outside agencies. According to one report "162 accused or convicted of murder" were picked up in the first sweep. That means that the police knowingly left murderers on the street and put the public at risk while they orchestrated their raids with federal agencies?

That's irresponsible. It also suggests that there may be a more sinister motive behind the program than just ensuring public safety. The plan appears to have been devised to enhance the powers of the "unitary" executive by putting state and local law enforcement under federal supervision. Once again, it's an attempt by the administration to extend its grip to the state and local level. We saw a similar strategy unfold after Hurricane Katrina when the Bush administration used the tragedy to seize control of local police and National Guard units so they could establish de facto martial law. Troops, armored vehicles and mercenaries were deployed to New Orleans to fight lawlessness and looting even though desperate people were still stranded on their rooftops waiting for food, water and medical attention.

Operation FALCON II was another massive dragnet which covered the western half of the country and focused primarily on "violent sex offenders". The raids took place from April 17-23, and succeeded in apprehending 9,037 alleged fugitives. The US Marshals web site boasts that the operation "took some of the country's most dangerous wanted criminals off the streets and made America's communities safer".

Nonsense. Despite the claims of success, only 462 "violent sex crime" suspects were arrested, along with 1,094 "unregistered sex offenders" and other minor "sex crime" suspects. That leaves 7,481 suspects who were rounded up for other unrelated reasons.

Who are they and what crime did they commit? Were these drug violations, dads who were delinquent on child-support payments, traffic tickets, jay-walking?!?

7,481 people who were incarcerated are unaccounted by the government's estimate. This means that the bulk of them were probably undocumented workers who were shunted off to the INS (Immigration and Naturalization) or dispatched to Cheney's tent-city gulags in western Texas. (See: Democracy Now "Human Rights Groups Call for Closure of Texas Jail Holding Undocumented Immigrants" 2-23-07)

Similar inconsistencies appear in "Operation FALCON III, which covered the eastern half of the country from October 22 - 28, 2006." State, local and federal police-units arrested 10,773 fugitives; including 1,659 sex offenders, 971 unregistered sex offenders, 364 gang members, 140 homicide suspects, and 3,609 drug violations. Once again, the US Marshal's official tally doesn't pencil out. This time, 4,030 extra people were rounded up without any further explanation.

Who are they and have they been charged with a crime?

Furthermore, sex offenders, drug users and gang-bangers are not what we normally consider "some of the country's most dangerous wanted criminals". In fact, there are indications that the great majority of these people are not violent at all. For example, of the 30,110 total fugitives who were apprehended in all three Falcon sweeps, a measly 586 firearms were seized.

Clearly, the people who were arrested for the most part were not "armed and dangerous" nor were they a serious threat to public safety. They were probably just the unwitting victims of an overzealous US Marshals office and an ideologically-driven Justice Department.

So, what was the real impetus for the Falcon raids? Was it just a bean-counting exercise to see how many people would fit in the back of a Paddy-wagon or are they a dress rehearsal for future crackdowns on potential enemies of the state?

Bogus News Reports

The Falcon operation illustrates the incestuous relationship between the media and the state. They are two wings on the same plane. The Justice Department provided the TV networks with official footage of policemen and government agents raiding homes and handcuffing suspects; and the media dutifully aired the video on stations across the country. The scenes were accompanied by a reassuring commentary lauding the administration's new crime fighting strategies and linking homeland security with the nebulous war on terror.

Attorney General Gonzales told reporters, "Operation FALCON is an excellent example of President Bush's direction and the Justice Department's dedication to deal both with the terrorist threat and traditional violent crime." He added, "This joint effort shows the commitment of our federal, state, and local partners to make our neighborhoods safer, and it has led to the highest number of arrests ever recorded for a single initiative of its kind."

So far, not one of the more than 30,000 victims has been charged with a terror-related crime.

The media-hype surrounding the raids has been celebratory and uniform; cookie-cutter articles appeared throughout the US press (most of them unsourced) highlighting the cooperation between the divers agencies while providing an upbeat account of what amounts to police repression. Thousands of nearly identical articles appeared in the nation's newspapers which seem to have been authored by high-ranking officials at Homeland Security and protégés of George Orwell; although the difference between the two is far from certain.

Even stranger, most of the articles in the mainstream media can no longer be retrieved via a Google search. They seem to have vanished into the black-hole of Homeland propaganda.

No matter. If the media was supposed to make Gestapo-like crackdowns look like normal police operations; they succeeded admirably. Mission accomplished.

Former Governor of Louisiana, Huey Long once opined, "When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in an American flag." Indeed, he could have added that the corporate media will gladly provide the flag and the public relations campaign as they have with Falcon.

Falcon; new drills for a new world order

The Falcon operations can only be understood in the broader context of the ongoing assault on the constitutional system of checks and balances; including the repeal of habeas corpus, warrantless wiretaps and searches, and the use of torture.

For the last 6 years, the Bush administration has been busy dismantling the legal safeguards which protect the citizen from the arbitrary and, oftentimes, ruthless actions of the state. To that end, detention camps are being prepared by Halliburton within the U.S., secret courts have been established which deny due process of law, American citizens are arrested without charge, law enforcement is increasingly militarized, and the media has strengthened its alliance with the central government.

Additionally, in October 2006, George Bush quietly changed the Insurrection Act, which prevented the President from deploying troops inside the United States. Bush's revision effectively overturns the Posse Comitatus Act which put strict limits on the executive's power to use US troops in domestic situations. Just days earlier Bush signed a similar bill, "The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" which gives Bush the power to take command of National Guard units across the country which are traditionally under the control of the state governors.

Without fanfare, Bush has taken control of all armed forces and militias inside and outside of the country and now has a monopoly on all the state-sanctioned tools of organized violence. It's a coup that could never have succeeded without the tacit cooperation of the media.

Bush is now free to declare martial law in response to a natural disaster, a pandemic or a terrorist attack. The congress is powerless to stop him.

Also, Bush recently signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which allows the president to arbitrarily declare citizens and non citizens "enemy combatants" and imprison them indefinitely without charge. The new law gives Bush the authority to disregard the Geneva Conventions and the 8th amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual" punishment and apply "harsh interrogation" which may include torture. The act effectively repeals habeas corpus, the cornerstone of American jurisprudence and the Bill of Rights.

The Military Commissions Act cannot coexist with the US Constitution; the two are mutually exclusive.

The Military Commissions Act, The John Warner Defense Authorization Act, the Homeland Security Act, the Patriot Act, and the myriad presidential signing statements have conferred absolute power on George Bush. The question is whether or not some incident will arise that will persuade Bush to use his extraordinary new powers.

General Tommy Franks predicted that a "massive, casualty producing event" might cause "our population to question our own Constitution and begin to militarize our country;" a scenario that many see as likely now.

Is that it? Will another terrorist attack provide the rationale for overturning republican government and declaring martial law?

If so, then we should know what to expect.

According to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) it would mean "the suspension of the normal functions of civilian government, implying the cancellation or postponement of state and federal elections." (Global Research) It would also "close public and government facilities not critical for continuity of essential operations." (FEMA)

Northern Command would assume control and under "the classified 'Continuity of Government" (COG) Operations Plan' a secret 'shadow government' would become functional, redeploying key staff to secret locations." (Global Research)

Also, "all forms of public gatherings or citizen's protests which question the legitimacy of the emergency procedures and the installation of a police state" would be banned. The military would be deployed to carry out "police and judicial" functions.

Martial law in the US would be applied with the utmost attention to public sensibilities and perceptions, avoiding the garish display of force we see in Iraq. It would be a "kinder and gentler" martial law with a limited number of military personnel on the streets (just enough to remind us that things have changed) and an emphasis on "preemptive" policing operations. (Expect Falcons' 4, 5 and 6 etc) It would probably be disguised by a carefully crafted public relations campaign and a predictably cheery moniker, such as, "The Security Enhancement and Homeland Fortification Act". The possibilities are limitless.

The Bush administration is also prepared if some unforeseen tragedy befalls congress, like another anthrax attack.

In fact, the American Enterprise Institute, to which the Bush team is closely aligned, has already "issued proposals for the operation of Congress following a catastrophic terrorist attack". They advocate the "APPOINTING" of individuals to the House of Representatives "to fill the seats of dead or incapacitated members, a first in American history" "The Continuity of Government Commission is self-commissioned', its members being neither elected nor appointed by any government body and mostly made up of professional lobbyists". ( Read the whole article ) (Coincidentally, Newsweek article "White House Rehearses for Domestic Attack" 2-23-07; "The White House is staging a high-level exercise Saturday to test responses to the prospect of a massive domestic terrorist attack." These drills are a critical part of the C.O.G. regimen dating back to the Reagan administration)

According to the AEI's plan, the future United States congress will be comprised of lobbyists and industry representatives. What else would one expect from an organization that believes that corporate interests should determine policy?

These are the chilling precedents which have paved the way for further government lawlessness and abuse. They foreshadow the ominous transition from representative government to autocratic rule; from inalienable rights to martial law.

The Falcon operations are just a small part of this larger paradigm. The program is not designed for rounding up minor crooks and drug dealers, (which no one really cares about anyway) but for removing leftists, dissidents and political rivals. These are the real targets. The power of the state is measured in terms of how effectively it defeats or eliminates its enemies. And, the Bush administration has shown a remarkable aptitude for crushing its rivals.

The Crawford Fuehrer

One day, after a particularly savage domestic purge; we can expect President Bush to stride to the presidential podium and reiterate the same words that were uttered by his German predecessor 60 years ago:

"If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the American people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the American people..Everyone must know for all future time that if he raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot."

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Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Church and Morality

Not sure where this came from originally, but it's a great little piece:

Political columnist Mike Adams - whose writings I generally enjoy, especially when he’s slaying political correctness on college campuses - had an interesting observation in his column today regarding church and morality.

A friend of his said “believed in God although he had not been to church regularly in a number of years” and maintained “he was leading a ‘moral life’ without going to church.” To which Adams immediately asked himself, “How does one know he lives a moral life if he does not ever attend church?”

Well, that’s easy. Don’t lie. Don’t cheat. Don’t steal. Don’t kill anybody. Don’t assault anybody. Love your neighbor…but not biblically unless they are your spouse. Treat others as you’d like to be treated. That would be a pretty good start.

In fact, if all the church-goers would just stick with that script, we’d all live in a much-better, some might even say “moral,” world.

I understand that many church-goers wish non-church-goers would accept that they can’t live moral lives without sitting in a church pew for an hour every Sunday listening to a non-relevant, if not sleep-inducing, sermon. But the fact is going to church can’t make an immoral person moral just as ethics laws can’t make an unethical politician ethical.

And if I remember correctly, Michael Corleone was a regular church-goer. So were certain Catholic priests…but let’s not go there.

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Monday, July 30, 2007

George W. Bush, Purveyor of Infanticide

by Aaron Turpen, http://www.MilitantLibertarian.org

Most conservatives are against abortion, including our current President George W. Bush. This is a rarely disputed fact. However, with the emergence of the so-called “neo-cons” or “neo-conservatives” (“neo” meaning “new”), the way this is viewed is very different.

Most right-thinking people are against the killing of babies. Infanticide is not the same as abortion, since it refers specifically to babies which have already been born, whereas abortion refers to babies still in the womb. (See Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/infanticide) In fact, most would argue that the killing of babies already born is one of the most heartless crimes imaginable, since it requires a malice and absence of conscience beyond anything conceivable to the normal person.

Many historians are now arguing that the neo-con movement began well before the current administration's rise to power and probably before even the Clintons took office. George Bush, Sr. is seen as the beginnings of this movement, though many argue it began much, much earlier. Regardless of when it began, it has been in full swing for several years. One of its defining hallmarks is an unrelenting push for and unfailing support of the Wars in Iraq.

The current war is ongoing and seemingly without end. The Gulf War, where it all began, was the actual beginning of the current conflict, with the intervening ten years being used to oppress through embargo and bombings. The resulting chaos and mass deaths are rivaling anything seen in recent times, including the upheavals and genocides of Darfur, Africa.

What is not well-publicized about the Iraq War is one of the natural by-products of warfare: an increase in infant mortality rates. These are babies born alive who then die within their first year of life, usually as a result of environmental causes (warfare, famine, disease, etc.).

Here's a startling statistic you don't hear often: the current infant mortality rate in Iraq is 1 in 10, more than double that of pre-war Iraq under Saddam Hussein!

That's right. Since the Bushes have taken over in Iraq, the infant mortality rate has more than doubled!

Here's the hard numbers, so that you can put this into context. In 1960, the infant mortality rate in Iraq was 117 per 1,000 (or 11.7%). In 1990 (before the first Iraq War), that rate had fallen to 40 in 1,000 (or 4%). In 1995-2005, the rate rose to 100 per 1,000 (or 10%). In other words, during the entire period of the Wars in Iraq, the infant mortality rate more than doubled from 4% to 10%! “Where We Stand” by Seymour Garte, Ph.D., Amacom, 2007.

Who is responsible for the War in Iraq? The neo-cons, lead by George W. Bush. Therefore, who is responsible for the more than doubling of infant mortality rates during this War? The neo-cons, lead by George W. Bush. Who is, therefore, in favor of infanticide – the murdering of babies? The neo-cons, lead by George W. Bush.

The crimes of the neo-conservatives and their ilk continue to mount. Pressed forward by their lusts for power and their unfailing support of anti-American, Zionistic ideals, these people continue to rape, pillage, and murder throughout the world in the name of the United States of America. At the very top of their lists of crimes, I ad the crime of baby murdering: infanticide.

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Sunday, July 29, 2007

A free press or a Ministry of Truth?

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2205.shtml
by Paul Craig Roberts

In his novel 1984, George Orwell portrayed a future time in which the explanations of recent events and earlier history are continually changed to meet Big Brother's latest purpose. Previous explanations disappear down "the memory hole."

Sound familiar? Any American who pays attention can observe the identical phenomenon occurring in the US today.

Think about the Bush Regime's changing explanations for the failed US occupation of Iraq. Shortly after Bush's May 2003 announcement of "mission accomplished," the mission revealed itself to be very much unaccomplished. Americans were told that the cause of the snafu was a small Sunni insurgency of two or three thousand at the most inspired by "diehard Baath party remnants." Remember the propagandistic deck of cards identifying the most wanted down to the less wanted? Americans were assured that once Saddam Hussein and his relatives and henchmen were rounded up, our troops would be pelted with the promised flowers instead of roadside bombs.

When the roundups, trials, and executions failed to fix the problem, the "diehard" explanation disappeared. A new explanation, with no continuity to the old, took its place.

The new explanation was that Syria was allowing foreigners to cross its border into Iraq to commit jihad against the American troops. This explanation lasted until it became all too clear, despite the propaganda, that the "foreign fighters" were remarkably well accepted by, and concealed within, the Iraqi communities that were suffering all the collateral damage of the conflict.

When it came time for the US to create an Iraqi government, it was evident that it would be one dominated by Shi'ites. Then, for a limited time, it was permissible to recognize that the insurgency was popularly based in the Sunnis.

As the insurgency evolved into what the Iraq Study Group described as a Sunni-Shi'ite civil war [ PDF ] with US troops unclear on which side they stood, the Bush Regime and the captive media began blaming Al Qaeda for the escalating violence. Americans were assured by the Ministry of Truth that there wasn't a civil war, just outsiders stirring up conflict. This enabled Big Brother to deny that there was a civil war and to revive fear of terrorist attacks in the US and UK, the new Oceania.

The Al Qaeda explanation was soon discarded into the memory hole. The explanation implied that Oceania's invasion of Iraq had greatly expanded the ranks and strength of Al Qaeda, thus contradicting big Brother's claim that his war in Iraq was making Oceanians safe by stamping out terrorism. The Al Qaeda explanation had to depart for another reason as well. Cheney, Israel, and the neocons, the rulers of the new Oceania, plan to attack Iran, and so the insurgency in Iraq is now being blamed on Iran.

The Ministry of Truth has accommodated the latest explanation, just as it did all others before, without remarking on the funeral of the previous explanation. All of a sudden, a new explanation appears and is repeated until it, too, goes down the memory hole.

The American and British media work the same way as the Ministry of Truth in Oceania. A day arrives when the "truth" no longer serves the empire or hegemonic power or center of moral purpose in the world, or for short, the regime. When that day arrives, a new explanation appears and is repeated until it, too, is discarded down the memory hole.

In recent weeks Americans have been fed a series of reports from official sources that Iran is arming both Iraqi insurgents and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Experts, both within the government and without, who have been made more attentive by the Bush Regime's false charges of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, have disputed the news reports.

But the reports keep on coming. As I write, the latest story is that the US military "discovered a field of rocket launchers near a US army base south of Baghdad armed with 34 Iranian-made missiles." Can you imagine? The insurgents went to the trouble of lugging powerful missiles within striking distance of a US base and just left them there unfired to be discovered by the Americans. To further serve Cheney's plan to attack Iran, the media report states: "Earlier this month, US commanders stepped up the charges [against Iran], claiming that senior leaders of Iran's special forces and of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militia have trained Iraqi fighters and provided other support." [US finds Iranian rockets aimed at Iraq base, Agence France Presse, July 14,2007]

Notice that none of the explanations fed to Americans over the years have ever mentioned, even as a faint possibility, that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq might be the cause of the violence in Iraq.

Allegedly, the US is a free and open country with a free press and a government accountable to the people. Yet, the information fed to the American people is as thoroughly false as that fed to the citizens of Oceania by Big Brother through the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's famous novel.

In Orwell's novel, despite the totalitarian power of the government, nothing happens to people as long as they accept the government's intrusive monitoring of their lives and do not become interested in truth or facts. In such a world, truth and individuality pass out of human consciousness and become unimportant. Citizens survive by accepting Big Brother's ever-changing reality.

This is what the mainstream media in the US and UK are enabling the new Oceania to accomplish. It is pointless to complain about a few Judith Millers here and there at the New York Times, or the obvious warmongers at the Weekly Standard, Fox "News," and Wall Street Journal editorial page. The entire corporate media is behaving as a Ministry of Truth.

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow's Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

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