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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>1/.... Spanish Inquiry of Alleged Bush-Era War
Crimes Begins Monday </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>2/.... Gore Sells but Not American Gore
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>3/.... The Carp of Truth: Jack Straw, Colin Powell
and the Smoking Guns of War Crime</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT
face=Arial>----------------------------------------------</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=post-headline>
<H1><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=4>Spanish Inquiry of Alleged Bush-Era War Crimes
Begins Monday</FONT> </FONT></H1></DIV>
<DIV class="post-bodycopy clearfix">
<P><EM><A
href="http://thedesperateblogger.com/2010/02/spanish-inquiry-of-alleged-bush-era-war-crimes-begins-monday/"><FONT
face=Arial>http://thedesperateblogger.com/2010/02/spanish-inquiry-of-alleged-bush-era-war-crimes-begins-monday/</FONT></A></EM></P>
<P><EM><FONT face=Arial>(In a break from our usual satirical content, we present
the following real news item – exclusive to The Desperate
Blogger.)</FONT></EM></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>On Monday February 15 in Madrid, Judge Baltasar Garzon will
convene an investigation of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity allegedly
committed by U.S. government officials and others during the Bush
administration.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>The first witness called to testify will reportedly be
American international human rights lawyer Dr. William F. Pepper. Dr.
Pepper, who convened the International Human Rights Seminar at Oxford
University, stated that he was, “asked by the Court to file an Opinion and
testify as an expert on the issue of jurisdiction of the Spanish Court with
respect to the various crimes being alleged.” He may also testify as to
his opinion on the validity, or invalidity, of the most likely defenses to be
offered by defendants should criminal charges result, namely ‘Sovereign
Immunity’ and ‘Superior Orders’ (more commonly known as ‘The Nuremberg
Defense’).</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>In his Opinion submitted to the Court last spring, Pepper
concluded:</FONT></P>
<P style="PADDING-LEFT: 30px"><EM><FONT face=Arial>“… from the U.S. government’s
own documents and the public statements of its leaders, that there is <SPAN
style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline">prima</SPAN> <SPAN
style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline">facie</SPAN> evidence of the following
crimes:</FONT></EM></P>
<UL>
<LI>
<UL>
<LI><FONT face=Arial><EM>Torture and the Conspiracy to Commit Torture</EM>
</FONT>
<LI><FONT face=Arial><EM>War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity</EM> </FONT>
<LI><FONT face=Arial><EM>Waging Aggressive War</EM> </FONT>
<LI><FONT face=Arial><EM>Illegal (Arbitrary) Detention</EM>
</FONT></LI></UL></LI></UL>
<P style="PADDING-LEFT: 30px"><EM><FONT face=Arial>[He] places varying degrees
of responsibility on particular government officials including George W. Bush
and Richard Cheney and dismisses as inapplicable to serious international crimes
the relevant defenses available to them and their subordinates including the
government lawyers who [he argues] have a special professional
responsibility.”</FONT></EM></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>He further concluded that the Spanish Court, <EM>“is fully
able and obligated …under international law and Universal Jurisdiction”</EM> to
prosecute if the evidence indicates that prosecutions are legally
justified.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Pepper, who in 2007 won the landmark case </FONT><A
href="http://www.nikbin.org/" target=_blank><STRONG><FONT face=Arial
color=#e0010b>Nikbin v. the Islamic Republic of Iran</FONT></STRONG></A><FONT
face=Arial> in which — for the first time in U.S. history — a sovereign state,
as opposed to individuals or government agencies, was held accountable for
torture, is no stranger to controversial cases. A friend of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. in the last year of his life, Dr. Pepper went on to represent
James Earl Ray in his quest for a new trial. After Ray’s death in 1997, he
later represented the King family in the 1999 wrongful death civil suit
</FONT><A
href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_9_117/ai_61026154/?tag=content;col1"
target=_blank><STRONG><FONT face=Arial color=#e0010b>King v. Jowers and Other
Unknown Co-Conspirators</FONT></STRONG></A><FONT face=Arial>. In that
case, after a month-long trial in which over 70 witnesses testified, the jury
found, after only 59 minutes of deliberation, that defendant Loyd Jowers and
“others, including government agencies” participated in a conspiracy to
assassinate Dr. King.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Dr. Pepper is expected to be followed to the witness-stand
on Monday by two former Guantanamo detainees.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>The investigation by the Spanish Magistrate is expected to
last several months and include testimony from a number of victims, five of whom
are Spanish citizens or residents who were allegedly detained and tortured.
Judge Garzon’s inquiry will be the first, and perhaps only, formal examination
of alleged criminal activity that could lead to a number of officials being
charged with violations of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against
Torture, both of which were signed by the United States and ratified by the U.S.
Senate.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>------------------------</FONT></P>
<H1><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=4>Gore Sells but Not American Gore</FONT>
</FONT></H1><!-- <h1 style="margin-bottom: 0px;padding-bottom: 2px;"></h1><h2></h2> -->
<DIV class=author><FONT face=Arial>by Dave Lindorff </FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 90%"><FONT face=Arial>Originally published in </FONT><A
href="http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/" target=external><FONT face=Arial>This
Can't Be Happening</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> yesterday, 14 February
2010</FONT></DIV><!-- <div class="editor" ></div><br /> -->
<DIV class=lift style="WIDTH: 524px; HEIGHT: 87px"><BR><FONT face=Arial>US
military related corporations and their political handmaidens in Congress and
the White House don’t think that showing the authenic gore of American
casualties is a good idea. It might get Americans to thinking too hard about
those wars, and about whether we ought to be fighting them. </FONT></DIV>
<P><!-- <span class="dateopen"></span> --><FONT face=Arial><SPAN
class=firstchar>NBC</SPAN>, the Military Industry Network owned by General
Electric, at least unless or until it is sold to Comcast, was, along with most
of the rest of the US corporate media, outraged when, last year, the Associated
Press circulated, and some newspapers ran, a photo of an American Marine, Lance
Cpl. Joshua Bernard, dying after being shot in battle in Afghanistan.
</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>There was all kinds of high-minded talk about the protecting
the dignity of the dead, and about how it was not appropriate to show such
images without the permission of the deceased’s close relatives.</FONT></P>
<DIV class=lift305><FONT face=Arial>But then how to explain the spectacle of
poor Notar Kumaritashvili, the 21-year-old luge rider from the Georgian olympic
team. Kumaritashvili had the misfortune of hitting the edge of the luge shute he
was on during a training run in British Columbia, and, at a speed of 89 mph, he
was thrown from his sled and over the safety wall into the air, where he hit a
steel pole, which killed him.</FONT></DIV>
<P><FONT face=Arial>NBC, which was taping the run, rushed to air the grisly
death. No attempt was made to seek permission from Kumaritashvili’s family. Hey,
this was good TV. Why risk ruining it by giving the family a veto over the
tape?Well, NBC, when criticized, claimed it was all in the interest of public
safety. They had a "legitimate need," you see, to inform the public that riding
a luge is dangerous, the network pontificated. Never mind that almost nobody
rides a luge, and that all of those who do are keenly aware that it is a
life-risking sport.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>The word for this kind of nonsense is hypocrisy. Another
word is capitalism. Blood and gore sell, and this tape meant great ratings for
NBC.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>On the other hand, you’d think that showing what the war in
Afghanistan, or the war in Iraq, look like would be good for ratings too. And
shouldn’t there be a journalistic responsibility to show Americans what is going
on in our name and with our tax dollars, in our country’s wars, not to mention
that if it’s important for potential sledders to know how dangerous a luge shute
is, shouldn’t potential military recruits be shown how dangerous wearing a
uniform can be? Anyhow, we should be able to take the real ugliness and the
blood: We Americans pay good money to see the fake gore of military
slaughter--even of Americans--in movies like Avatar, or Saving Private Ryan, or
Apocalypse Now.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>But when it comes to war, politics intervenes. The military
and its political handmaidens in Congress and the White House, don’t think that
showing the authenic gore of American casualties that occur daily in the course
of our bloody imperial adventures is a good idea. It might get Americans to
thinking too hard about those wars, and about whether we ought to be fighting
them. And so NBC, and most of the rest of the US media, politely keep those
images safely abroad.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Seriously. They have the footage, and the photos. They just
don’t let Americans see them. I was stunned, for example, when I lived in Taiwan
in 2004 for five months, to see that CNN International, which is viewed all
around the world, but not seen in the US, had plenty of film footage of dead
American soldiers. They have to air that stuff if they want to compete
commercially overseas with such other international news programs as the BBC and
Al Jazzeera. But those scenes get censored out in Atlanta, so we don’t see them
here.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>We get to see dead Haitians. We get to see dead Sri-Lankans.
We get to see dead Taliban fighters. We get to see dead Olympians--especially if
they’re foreigners like poor Kumaritashvili. They don’t get shown any “respect
for their dignity.”</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>But we don’t get to see dead or dying American soldiers.
That would be a shameful thing to do.</FONT></P>
<DIV class=close><FONT face=Arial>----- </FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial>About the author: Philadelphia journalist Dave Lindorff is a
34-year veteran, an award-winning journalist, a former <I>New York Times</I>
contributor, a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of
Journalism, a two-time Journalism Fulbright Scholar, and the co-author, with
</FONT><A
href="http://www.sevenstories.com/author/index.cfm?fa=ShowAuthor&Person_ID=170"><FONT
face=Arial>Barbara Olshansky</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>, of a well-regarded
book on impeachment, </FONT><A
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCase-Impeachment-Argument-Removing-President%2Fdp%2F031237254X%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1183118691%26sr%3D1-1&tag=webrider&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325"><I><FONT
face=Arial>The Case for Impeachment</FONT></I></A><FONT face=Arial><IMG
style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; BORDER-TOP: medium none; MARGIN: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none"
height=1 alt=""
src="mhtml:mid://00000018/!http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=webrider&l=ur2&o=1"
width=1 border=0>. His work is available at </FONT><A
href="http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/"><FONT
face=Arial>www.thiscantbehappening.net</FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial>.</FONT></P></DIV>
<P><FONT face=Arial>------------------------------------</FONT></P>
<H1><FONT face=Arial size=4>The Carp of Truth: Jack Straw, Colin Powell and the
Smoking Guns of War Crime</FONT></H1><!-- <h1 style="margin-bottom: 0px;padding-bottom: 2px;"></h1><h2><em></em></h2> -->
<DIV class=author><FONT face=Arial>by Chris Floyd..First published in </FONT><A
href="http://www.chris-floyd.com/" target=external><FONT face=Arial>Empire
Burlesque</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> yesterday, 9 February 2010</FONT></DIV>
<P><FONT size=2><FONT face=Arial><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 120%"><EM>Your bait of
falsehood takes this carp of truth:<BR>And thus do we of wisdom and of
reach,<BR>With windlasses and with assays of bias,<BR>By indirections find
directions out.</EM><BR>-- Shakespeare, <EM>Hamlet</EM></SPAN> <!-- <div class="editor" ></div> --><!-- <span class="firstchar"></span> --></FONT></FONT></P>
<DIV class=lift style="WIDTH: 509px; HEIGHT: 89px"><BR><FONT face=Arial>The
documentary evidence shows that every single purported reason or justification
for the war -- the WMD, connections to 9/11, the repressive nature of Saddam's
regime -- was false to the core, and known to be false by the leaders who put
these explanations forward. </FONT></DIV>
<P><!-- <span class="dateopen"></span> --><FONT face=Arial><SPAN
class=firstchar>B</SPAN>ritain's "Chilcot Inquiry" into the origins of the
invasion of Iraq has largely faded from the headlines, following Tony Blair's
</FONT><A title=""
href="http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1915-blood-is-his-argument-tony-blairs-gentle-cuddling-at-iraq-qinquiryq.html"
target=external><FONT face=Arial>bravura display of pious
bluster</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> before the panel of Establishment worthies
last month. And in truth, it has been a rather toothless affair, with the
already deferential worthies further constrained by the narrow confines placed
upon their investigation by the government: chiefly, the cloak of secrecy
wrapped around the many documents that detail the deceptions and manipulations
of the Bush and Blair regimes as they schemed their way to war.</FONT></P>
<DIV class=lift305><FONT face=Arial>But as </FONT><A title=""
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/08/chilcot-inquiry-iraq-jack-straw"
target=external><FONT face=Arial>Chris Ames points out in the
Guardian</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>, in the wind-up of its first phase, the
Chilcot panel seem to be trying to tell the public, obliquely, about some of the
smoking guns in these buried documents: an official record of knowing deceit
that confirms, yet again, the damning fact that the US and UK were determined to
invade Iraq no matter what: with or without UN backing, whether or not Iraq had
WMD -- and as we have pointed out here for many years, </FONT><A title=""
href="http://empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/2005/03/dark-passage-pnacs-blueprint-for.html"
target=external><FONT face=Arial>even if Saddam Hussein were no longer in
power</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>. The documentary evidence shows that every
single purported reason or justification for the war -- the WMD, connections to
9/11, the repressive nature of Saddam's regime -- was false to the core, and
known to be false by the leaders who put these explanations
forward.</FONT></DIV>
<P><FONT face=Arial>The Chilcot panelists were terribly craven when it came to
confronting Tony Blair -- and they are likely to be equally circumspect when
they politely pose a few inquiries to Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, sometime
in the next few weeks. But they seem to have chosen the odious figure of Jack
Straw -- foreign secretary at the time of the Iraq invasion, now serving,
laughably, as justice secretary -- as the outlet for their frustrations at the
strictures of the inquiry and the soft-shoe shuffling they've encountered from
witness after witness.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>And while their kid-glove massage of Blair was inexcusable,
the Chilcoteers are quite right to focus on Straw. Like so many of his "New
Labour" colleagues, this pathetic figure began his career as a radical leftist,
honed his political teeth fighting for the poor and disadvantaged during the
ravaging Thatcher years -- then transformed himself into a scurrying toady for
the powerful and the privileged, championing war, Big Money and neo-Thatcherism,
launching stern crackdowns on the "anti-social" lower classes, and imposing
draconian "security" measures that have far outstripped even the liberty-gutting
policies adopted by the U.S. government.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>What's more, aside from Blair, Straw was the only top UK
figure completely "in the loop" throughout the long, complex manipulations
toward war. Along with his American counterpart, Secretary of State Colin
Powell, Straw played a key role both in the transatlantic talks that engineered
the act of aggression and the hugger-mugger manipulations at the UN.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>And so, to close out its first phase, the Chilcot Inquiry
recalled Straw -- who had already given one sweaty, white-knuckle performance on
the witness stand a few weeks ago. With the implacable politesse of the true
British mandarin, panelist Sir Lawrence Freedman seized the opportunity to
suggest to the right honorable minister that the right honorable minister might,
perhaps, be lying through his right honorable teeth in denying that Colin Powell
had informed him quite clearly that the Americans were going to war, come hell
or high water, in March 2003. </FONT><A title=""
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/08/straw-iraq-war-inquiry-chilcot"
target=external><FONT face=Arial>As the Guardian notes</FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial>, Freedman's questions "make it clear that [he] has obviously seen
some very interesting paperwork. Here is the exchange, from the
Guardian:</FONT></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Freedman asked: Can you start by confirming that you knew
that military action was planned by the US for the middle of March come what
may? You were copied in, presumably, to reports of conversations between the
prime minister and the president?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Straw replied: Yes, I don't think there was any key
document that I should have seen that I didn't.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Freedman: Was there any point where [Colin] Powell said to
you that even if Iraq complied, president Bush had already made a decision
that he intended to go to war?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Straw replied: Certainly not to the best of my
recollection.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Freedman went on: I was going to suggest you might want to
look through your conversations and check.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Mr Straw at last got the hint: I will go through the
records because I think you are trying to tell me
something.</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Yes, Mr Straw. He is trying to tell you, and the world, that
he has the paper in his hand documenting your conversation with Colin Powell: a
clear admission of the war crime of military aggression, as it reveals that
there was not even a pretense of a legally justifiable casus belli among the
American and British leaders -- just the cold, pre-determined intention to
attack.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>(And Powell, as we all remember, </FONT><A title=""
href="http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3-articles/1633-non-je-ne-regrette-rien-obamas-new-advisor-stands-by-his-war-crimes.html"
target=external><FONT face=Arial>was the "good American,"</FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial> the "honorable American" in the run-up to war, a "decent man" who
somehow got "railroaded" into making a false case for war before the entire
world at the UN. A man so honorable and decent that the progressive Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama proudly claimed him as one of his advisers,
even as the million corpses from the war that Powell and Straw knowingly and
willingly helped launch were rotting in the ground.)</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>But, as Ames notes, these kinds of oblique references are
"the best we will get for now" from the panel: "At the end, Sir John Chilcot
said that, however revealing the sessions have been, the great bulk of the
evidence, telling us 'what really went on behind the scenes,' is in the
documents." And the documents have not been and probably will not be released --
at least not for many decades, by which time Blair and Straw and Powell and Bush
will have all lived out their days in wealth and comfort.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>But although documents can be kept under wraps, and
testimony can be falsified or prettified, the monstrous moral rot that has
infected the warmongers can never be fully hidden. <EM>"For murder, though it
have no tongue, will speak/With most miraculous organ."</EM> And Straw revealed
his own moral depravity, his own arrogant and unfeeling blindness, in his
remarks at the end of his testimony.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>In his final statement, hoping to paint himself has a decent
and honorable man (like Powell!), Straw spoke of how he "grieves" for the "huge
heartache" suffered by "those who lost loved ones out there." But he could not
resist offering up one more transparent lie -- a lie, furthermore, contradicted
by his own testimony earlier in the session. Here is the lie:</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>The last thing I would say is this: the purpose of the
action was not regime change.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Here is his testimony about an hour earlier, </FONT><A
title="" href="http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/44940/100208pm-straw.pdf"
target=external><FONT face=Arial>taken directly from the Inquiry
transcripts</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>:</FONT></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><FONT face=Arial>SIR RODERIC LYNE: ... The American administration's stated
objective was to change the regime in Iraq, and they didn't feel that further
UN authorisation for that was required. At this point, these two objectives
came to a crunch and time ran out for your diplomacy.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>RT HON JACK STRAW MP: In terms of the American objective
for regime change had gone back to President Clinton.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>SIR RODERIC LYNE: Yes, we have been through all of
that.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>RT HON JACK STRAW MP: We have been through all of
that.</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Here the right honorable Mr Straw says clearly that the
American aim was regime change, and that he knew it was regime change all along.
Therefore, when "time for diplomacy ran out," he willingly and deliberately
helped facilitate a war for regime change -- which in the circumstances
obtaining in Iraq in 2003 was, by any possible construal, a blatant war crime
under international law. It was, in terms of its illegality, the precise
equivalent to the crime of aggression for which the Nazi leaders were prosecuted
at Nuremberg. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Note too Straw's reference to "President Clinton." He
apparently thinks this nod to a good "liberal" Democratic president somehow
makes his kowtowing to the barbaric rightwingers of the Bush regime less
humiliating. [A good deal of his testimony is taken up with whining about the
"neocons" like Don Rumsfeld who put so much pressure on everybody to go to war.]
But of course this reference makes his lie about the war's aims even more
egregious, for it confirms the fact that America's intention to overthrow the
Iraq regime -- officially enshrined by Congress and signed into law by Bill
Clinton -- was known for years and years. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>But Straw is not done yet. After assuring the grieving
families of Britain that he himself -- yes, he, the great right honorable high
minister of state -- feels their pain and shares their heartache, and after
acknowledging that yes, it seems that perhaps a few mistakes were made (albeit
only with the best intentions), he goes on to justify the whole mass-murdering
enterprise:</FONT></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><FONT face=Arial>But that having happened, I think there are few in Iraq,
despite the bloodshed, would now say that they want to go back to what existed
before 20 March 2003.</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Putting aside Straw's unconscious but most apt echo of the
poet Paul Celan's phrase for the unspeakable evil of the Holocaust -- "that
which happened" -- the moral depravity on display here is astonishing,
breathtaking, obscene. The right honorable minister might consider asking the
hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by the invasion and by the virulent
extremists it loosened and empowered: would you want to go back to what existed
-- i.e., you -- before 20 March 2003? The right honorable minister might want to
ask the more than four million people driven from their homes by the war and the
savage sectarian conflicts and "ethnic cleansing" it unleashed and abetted:
would you want to go back to what existed before 20 March 2003? The right
honorable minister might want to ask the tens of millions of Iraqis who have
lost their loved ones: would you want to go back to what existed before 20 March
2003 -- and see if there were any alternatives for a better life other than a
massive, unprovoked military invasion, mass death, mass destruction, chaos,
collapse, civil war and violent terror from occupiers, mercenaries, sectarians
and criminals? </FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>O that the universe was not cold and indifferent, with no
avenging furies to drive these bloodstained, sanctimonious wretches into
soul-rending storms of madness and remorse. But there is not even an earthly
venue where the scurrying servitors of power can receive even a modicum of
justice. All we have are a few locked-down, buttoned-up, quasi-secret panels of
worthies here and there now and then, to cause, at most, a moment or two of
embarrassment before the servitors walk free to line their pockets and heap
themselves with honors. Their only punishment, I suppose, must be to be what
they are: </FONT><A title=""
href="http://empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/2010/02/mengeles-hairball.html"
target=external><FONT face=Arial>the stunted, deadened husks</FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial> of a full humanity that they have lost and will never
recover.</FONT></P>
<DIV class=close><FONT face=Arial>Chris Floyd has been a writer and editor for
more than 25 years, working in the United States, Great Britain and Russia for
various newspapers, magazines, the U.S. government and Oxford University. Floyd
co-founded the blog </FONT><A
href="http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1"
target=external><FONT face=Arial>Empire Burlesque</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>,
and is also chief editor of </FONT><A href="http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/"
target=external><FONT face=Arial>Atlantic Free Press</FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial>. He can be reached at </FONT><A
href="mailto:cfloyd72@gmail.com"><FONT
face=Arial>cfloyd72@gmail.com</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>. </FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial>This column is republished here with the permission of the
author.</FONT></P></DIV>
<P><FONT
face=Arial>------------------------------</FONT></P></DIV></FONT>
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