March 28, 2008
The Reflecting Pool
BY Joel S. Hirschhorn author of Delusional Democracy and Friends of the Article V Convention Whether you see yourself as a truth seeker, patriotic American, independent thinker or voter, or just someone with bad memories of 9/11, you should make...
February 7, 2008
Cul de sac: 9/11 and the paradox of American power
By Carl Conetta, of Project on Defense Alternatives (Research Monograph #13) Contrary to the popular aphorism, the world did not change fundamentally on 11 September 2001 - nor did the challenges facing the United States change. By 9/11, America's battle...
January 15, 2008
Twenty-five U.S. Military Officers Challenge Official Account of 9/11
By Alan Miller of Patriots Question 9/11. This article is republished from OpEdNews Official Account of 9/11: "Impossible", "A Bunch of Hogwash", "Total B.S.", "Ludicrous", "A Well-Organized Cover-up", "A White-Washed Farce" January 14, 2008 - Twenty-five former U.S. military officers...
January 9, 2008
Eight U.S. State Department Veterans Challenge the Official Account of 9/11
By Alan Miller of Patriots Question 9/11. This article is republished from OpEdNews...
December 19, 2007
9/11 Truth Manifesto
BY Joel S. Hirschhorn author of Delusional Democracy and Friends of the Article V Convention For evidence that America's political system is a criminal conspiracy, open your mind to piles of new analyses that prove beyond doubt that the official...
December 14, 2007
Seven Senior Federal Engineers and Scientists Call for New 9/11 Investigation
By Alan Miller of Patriots Question 9/11. This article is republished from OpEdNews Official Account of 9/11: "Impossible", "A Bunch of Hogwash", "Fatally Flawed" December 13, 2007 - Seven former senior engineers and scientists of the Federal government have severely...
December 9, 2007
Eight Senior Republican Appointees Challenge Official Account of 9/11 - "Not Possible", "a Whitewash", "False"
By Alan Miller of Patriots Question 9/11. This article is republished from OpEdNews Eight former senior Republican administration appointees have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and several have called for a new investigation. "I find the facts against...
November 23, 2007
Is Impeachment Still Off the Table Pelosi?
Hey Pelosi? Is impeachment still off the table with the information from Scott McClellan's publisher that he was told to lie about the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity by Cheney and Bush (along with Card, Libby, and Rove)?...
October 16, 2007
The Coup Started Before September 11, 2001
For some it is no surprise that the illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens began prior to September 2001. The Bush administration went into office with the plan to "transform" the power of the president with its attempts to implement the...
September 13, 2007
September 11 - the world changed
On September 11, 2001 a series of horrendous events happened. Planes brought down two buildings of the World trade Center complex in New York City; the Pentagon was hit; and another crashed in a Pennsylvania field. It was a shock...
January 11, 2007
Bush's Stunning Speech
I must say that I was stunned by Bush's speech regarding committing more U.S. troops to Iraq. It was not that I expected a change of course. It was clear that was not going to happen. What was stunning was...
December 10, 2006
Iraq, The Study Group, and Bush's 'Stay the Course'
The Iraq Study Group released its report on December 6, 2006. It has generated tremendous commentary and response. Much has been made of the 79 recommendations made in the report. However, one must wonder if they have generated so much...
September 16, 2006
Tortured Times
Back on September 9th, I raised concerns about the current legislative push before the October recess. Well today, part of the President's agenda came to a head with Bush responding to the Senate Armed Services Committee "rebellion" (transcript)....
September 11, 2006
September 11 - An Infamous Day
Five years ago this morning I was watching the morning news when they jumped to the burning WTC tower 1. Within minutes, I watched another plane crash into tower 2. There seemed no doubt that this was deliberate. Like the...
September 10, 2006
The Haunting Past Is the Daunting Present
The "Iran Problem" is on the table with the US pushing the UN Security Council for sanctions, and Russia blocking sanctions. I get a haunting feeling of deja vu, or perhaps the past is never the past....
September 7, 2006
The wages of war: Global terrorism up since 9/11 attacks
By: Carl Conetta of Project on Defense Alternatives - orignial article link Published with author permission. (Excerpted from Carl Conetta, Pyrrhus on the Potomac: How America's post-9/11 wars have undermined US national security, PDA Briefing Report #18, 05 September 2006.)...
May 17, 2006
A Slow Motion Coup
"A coup d'etat ... or just coup ... for short, is the sudden overthrow of (taking over from) a government. Unlike a revolution, which usually takes large numbers of people to take over, a coup can be done by a...
May 16, 2006
Pentagon Releases 9/11 Videos
The Pentagon has released two video clips of the explosion at the Pentagon on 9/11/01. Here are the links to those videos: video 1, and video 2. I downloaded the videos and watched them frame by frame using Video Edit...
February 18, 2006
Making the Illegal Legal
As I watch the news and Congressional testimonies stimulated by the breaking of the Bush NSA program(s), I am both angry and frightened. What started with Bush declaring that he had (and has) "all the authorization he needs" to engage...
December 23, 2005
They Call It A 'Patriot Act'
I am so tired of hearing and seeing the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act referred to as the "Patriot" Act or the "USA Patriot" Act. The title has nothing to do with the Untied States of America (USA) or with patriotism. The name...
December 21, 2005
U.S. Constitutional Abuses
There are three critical "intelligence" events that have occurred undermining civil liberties and Constitutional protections: Bush's authorization of warrantless wire taps on U.S. citizens, the FBI's use of National Security Letters to avoid warrants, and the Pentagon collecting data on...
September 16, 2005
Back to 9/11
Anyone who has read Uncommon Thought for a while knows that I think the Bush administration was at least complicit in the events of September 11, 2001. That has labeled me as a "conspiracy theorist" in some quarters, but the...
September 12, 2005
Familiar Names and the Cost of Loyalty
Names we have become all too familiar with in the Iraq "bonanza" are reaping the rewards of Katrina as well - Halliburton, Bechtel, Flour, GRSI - and believe it or not, Blackwater....
July 24, 2005
How Much Is Too Much?
Historically, the domestic operations of the U.S. military have been legally constrained. Starting with the "war on drugs," but accelerating with the "war on terrorism," there has been increasing incursion into domestic affairs. What started with the transfer of military...
July 18, 2005
Silencing Dissent In the Name of Security
As many of us expected, the "war on terrorism" and the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism)Act, has reintroduced COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program). A coalition of civil rights, peace, and...
July 17, 2005
Oiligarchy
The oiligarchy is narrowing down to the biggest consumer and the fastest growing competitor - The United States and China. I have been watching China boom and sneak into the news, it is clear that China has entered a head...
July 9, 2005
A Plethora Of Intelligence Agencies
Do you remember September 11, 2001? Do you remember the claims that there was poor coordination and information sharing among the U.S. intelligence agencies? Do you remember that the argument for creating the Department of Homeland Security was to provide...
June 22, 2005
Shush! It's A Secret
You have to wonder about the childhood of George W. Bush. What drives such a penchant for secrecy with the man? This is not a post 9/11 thing. From the moment Bush and crew entered the Whitehouse they have been...
May 23, 2005
Recruiting Student Spies
As a teacher in higher education, I have watched with some alarm as there has been mobilization to "crack down" on "radical" professors. Starting officially with Lynne Cheney's American Council of Trustees and Alumni and their attack on those they...
March 9, 2005
"Sacrifices," the Cost of War and "War-Resistance" in the Ranks
By: Jack Dalton This March 19th is the two year "anniversary" of the Bush and Company war of choice in Iraq. To put it another way, it's the anniversary of the unleashing of war in "perpetuity" or, as Gore Vidal...
February 14, 2005
Where Lies Take Us
Since the dreadful events of September 11, 2001, we have heard a string of lies. Lies, leading to other lies leading to more lies. Lies leading to death, leading to war and war again, and on the horizon another war....
December 10, 2004
Secret Laws, Secret Programs, Secret ?
Since the first Bush Jr. administration in 200, we have had an onslaught of issues, directives, decisions, plans, etc, that apparently must be kept from the public's eyes for reasons of "national security." This only accelerated with the legislation following...
December 8, 2004
Black Ops and a $40 Billion Untraceable Budget
I imagine over the next couple of weeks we will be getting more information about the so-called "Intelligence Reform" legislation that will likely go to Bush for signing this week. What we do know, is that there was (is?) a...
December 7, 2004
Musharraf and Bush - You Have to Scratch Your Head
On one hand, you could say that the relationship between Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf and US President George W. Bush is on excellent terms. They certainly seem friendly in front of the cameras (not always the case with Bush...
September 23, 2004
And the Beat Goes On
Watching our elected representatives in action, I am getting deja vu of the legislative flurry after 9/11/01. When the public complained about things such as the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, or giving Bush a blank check, or abdicating the Congress's Constitutional...
September 4, 2004
Secret Trades before 9/11
To the best of my knowledge, none of the various official reports on 9/11 even mentioned the issue and it is a glaring omission in those reports. It is an omission that dramatically undermines the credibility of the various investigations,...
May 22, 2004
Fascism USA
Merriam Webster Dictionary fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and...
April 11, 2004
9/11 Warnings - August 6, 2001 PDB was not all that was available
The White House has released and orginally redacted version of the now famous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (full text of briefing). Michael Rupper has pointed out that the 8/6/01 PDB is in many ways a distraction from the...
March 27, 2004
Trust
Trust has become a scarce commodity. In a world of spin, propaganda and disinformation, who do we believe? How do we sort out the wheat from the chaff? I wish that I could answer those questions, but it is at...
March 23, 2004
Power Play?
With the hearings by the 9/11 Commission going on, and all kinds of questions being asked, it seems like a good time to repost and article I did in May of 2002. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" -...
January 13, 2004
Secrecy and democracy don't mix
One of the things that I think escapes most US citizens is that secrecy in a democracy can be very dangerous to democracy. Last week I wrote a piece about detainees (Democracy vs Totalitarianism). In today's news Supreme Court rejects...
November 27, 2003
The Saudis, the Bushs, and the investigations into September 11, 2001
There was an interesting piece on the relationships between the Bush family and the Saudis (particularly the bin Ladens) done by CBC News (Canadian Broadcast Company - Coincidence or Conspiracy - first aired 10/29/03. It traces a rather intricate series...
November 8, 2003
Parallel Universes
I saw a Nova special the other night on string theory. It is another attempt to explain everything and essentially posits multiple universes wrapped around each other as "strings." I know nothing about either the physics or the mathematics of...
October 20, 2003
The Moussaoui Case - Why we should all be worried about abuse of power
The FBI believes Moussaoui not involved in 9/11 (AFP, 10/19/03). Perhaps it is believed that the public has a short memory, but I do not. On October 4, 2003, Judge Brinkema ruled that the Justice Department could not claim that...
October 6, 2003
No moral base to stand on - Israel and the US
Yesterday Israel launched an attack on a suspected Islamic Jihad base about twent miles outside of of Damascus, Syria (Syria: Israel attacked civilian area, Al Jazeera, 10/06/03). Syria says that it was not a terrorist site and there are some...
September 14, 2003
Economic Crisis
Maybe it's just that it's getting more play, but interesting tidbits have floated past my brain the last few days. First there was the Bush request for an addition $87 billion for Iraq. Then I heard Paul Krugman interviewed on...
August 6, 2003
Mechanisms of control
One might wonder how things seem to move so smoothley along the Bush - Neocon approved path. What happened to all those career folks who are in government service? You know, those folks who are there administration after administration? Folks...
August 3, 2003
Terror and Air Marshals
You may have heard that there is a "credible threat" of terrorist attacks in the US - again - but the terror alert isn't going up. Actually, the warnings started 7/30/03 (Hijack Warning Won't Budge Terror Alert Level Feds Say...
July 29, 2003
DARPA's FutureMAP - trading in terrorism
Watching the news last night, I saw Ron Wyden (D-Oregon, Senator) on a 10 second soundbite lambasting a "terrorism lottery" being paid for with our tax dollars. The newscasters gave no explanation of what in the world he was talking...
July 18, 2003
Let's get things straight - reasons for invading Iraq
Yesterday Bush & Blair took their little dog and pony show to The Cross Hall (Transcript of Bush, UK PM Blair Discuss War on Terror "discussion"). If you listened to Blair speak, he did an excellent job all round. But...
June 26, 2003
It's a long history
I have been reading a book that I highly recommend to everyone. The New Rulers of the World by John Pilger. Pilger is an Australian-born investigative journalist with an excellent reputation. Here's his home page so you can check out...
April 6, 2003
Illegal War Documentation
Specific links to agreements that makes the US/UK invasion of Iraq illegal.
March 28, 2003
Why do we believe?
I'm a sociologist. Years of training and research leave me confused about the reported popular support for the war in Iraq. I keep trying to make sense of comments like "Saddam is a bad guy" and "I support our troops."...
February 23, 2003
Bush and Al-Arian
Sami Al-Arian and Bush connections.
February 22, 2003
How effective is the PATRIOT Act?
It is a bit difficult to evaluate whether the law changes that are gobbling up out Bill of Rights and targeting millions of our citizens are effective or not when we don't get good information.
But now we have some new information .....
December 2, 2002
Homeland Security?
Well, President Bush signed the Homeland Security Act into law this week, and already it is hard at work protecting us. How you might ask? Well for starters, it protects pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits for their vaccines. While the innocent...
