Pain Compliance. Coming Soon to an Antiwar Demo Near You?

Last September, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne indicated the military would use “nonlethal weapons” against “fellow citizens” before they use them in “a wartime situation.” In other words, the American people are considered little more than guinea pigs, especially dissenting Americans in need of “crowd control.”

Before zapping antiwar demonstrators with an ADS beam—that’s short for “Active Denial System”—the military or police may request they remove glasses, contact lenses, and take coins and keys out of their pockets. “Precautions used to test U.S. military’s microwave weapon ADS for crowd control have raised questions about its safety, says a report,” explains United Press International. “These precautions raise concerns about the ADS in real crowd-control situations, the New Scientist reported… The ADS fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam, which is supposed to heat skin and to cause pain but no physical damage, the report said. Until now little information about its effects had been released.”

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CBS: Three weeks after Blackwater shooting, FBI ignores key evidence

Hm, I wonder why?

CBS News reported on Tuesday that the FBI’s investigation of last month’s Blackwater shooting incident in Baghdad appears to be ignoring evidence that might support the Iraqi government’s version of events and hold Blackwater at fault.

“The FBI investigation is supposed to wrap up in days, not weeks, but there’s still a lot of work to do,” reports CBS. “Our investigation turned up many witnesses who haven’t yet been interviewed, not to mention vehicles that are key evidence still driving around the streets of Baghdad.”

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Dick Cheney Disagreed With President Bush Over Donald Rumsfeld Dismissal

 Vice President Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney disagreed with President Bush over the president’s decision last year to remove Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from office, the vice president told FOX News in an exclusive interview.

Cheney said despite Rumsfeld’s controversial handling of the war in Iraq, the secretary of defense was managing the war successfully.

Speaking openly with Bret Baier in the new documentary, “Dick Cheney: No Retreat,” the vice president said he “thought that in terms of the way forward, Don was the right guy to continue to lead the Department of Defense.”

Click here to view outtakes from the interview.

Cheney had reason to defend Rumsfeld. He was, after all, the man who gave the vice president his start in Washington, D.C.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t been for what Don Rumsfeld was willing to do,” Cheney said, pointing to “the opportunity he was willing to give me nearly 40 years ago.”

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Muslim Leaders Send Peace Message

Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007 By JUMANA FAROUKY/LONDON

Mustafa Ceric addresses worshippers at the Begova mosque in the old part of Sarajevo.

Damir Sagolj / Reuters

It is time that Muslims and Christians recognized just how similar they are — the fate of the world depends on it. That’s the message being sent out today by 138 Muslim leaders and scholars in an open letter to their Christian counterparts saying that world peace hinges on greater understanding between the two faiths.

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Erik Prince and the Council for National Policy: Armageddon Soon

So now we have a groups of loonies helped by a crazy rich guy with a private army running around causing mayhem in the part of the world that they deem to be the theater of the coming Armageddon.

Today, Blackwater founder Erik Prince defended all of his company’s actions in Iraq to the Congress (and to the American people) as being as close to earthly perfection as humans can achieve on god’s earth. Prince, who is a also a founder of a right-wing foundation called “Freiheit,” which is German for “liberty,” aimed a laser-like scowl at the forehead of Chairman Henry Waxman and the other Democrats as they dared to ask questions of a CEO who has clearly grown accustomed to operating without oversight.

Herr Prince’s appearance before the committee led me to wonder what he has been discussing behind closed doors lately as a member of the super-secret “Council for National Policy.” Other right-wing luminaries who belong to the Council for National Policy include the Armageddonist novelist Tim LaHaye, and the right-wing evangelical leaders Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Gary Bauer, and Ralph Reed. The late Jerry Falwell was also a member. There also close ties between the CNP and the beer magnate Holland Coors, the NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, Phyllis Schlafly, Oliver North, Grover Norquist, and Frank Gaffney.

The Council for National Policy recently held a top-secret meeting in Utah that Vice President Dick Cheney attended. “The media should not know when or where we meet,” the Council instructs its members, “or who takes part in our programs, before or after a meeting.”

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America’s Armageddonites

Some interesting tidbits you might want to know.

Gary Bauer, former presidential candidate, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson are  or were in the case of Jerry Falwell, all members of the very secretive and ultra right wing Council for National policies. The organization was heavily financed by the Prince family. Yep, the one of Erik Prince fame.
Gary Bauer helped start up the PNAC project in 1997, the same year that Erik Prince’s Blackwater USA became operational. 

Additionally Erik Prince interned under Gary Bauer  when he was 18 with the Family Research council  before interring in the white house under the first Bush.
The secretary of defence at the time was Dick Cheney. It was at this time that Dick Cheney authorised Halliburton to come up with a way to privatise the army. After his tenure as SOD he went to work for Halliburton.

Utopian fantasies have long transfixed the human race. Yet today a much rarer fantasy has become popular in the United States. Millions of Americans, the richest people in history, have a death wish. They are the new “Armageddonites,” fundamentalist evangelicals who have moved from forecasting Armageddon to actually trying to bring it about.

Most journalists find it difficult to take seriously that tens of millions of Americans, filled with fantasies of revenge and empowerment, long to leave a world they despise. These Armageddonites believe that they alone will get a quick, free pass when they are “raptured” to paradise, no good deeds necessary, not even a day of judgment. Ironically, they share this utopian fantasy with a group that they often castigate, namely fundamentalist Muslims who believe that dying in battle also means direct access to Heaven. For the Armageddonites, however, there are no waiting virgins, but they do agree with Muslims that there will be “no booze, no bars,” in the words of a popular Gaither Singers song.

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