I hear so many people today complain that the Bush-Cheney organized crime group is going to walk away without being held accountable for the illegal war and the war crimes it ordered to take place. They are not being held accountable because we, collectively, have failed to accept our responsibility as the guardians of our democratic republic.

I know there have been marches and protests with funds spent on ballons and barbecue that could have been spent on actions that would have put these people in check. I think court cases in civil court would have accomplished much more than marching in the streets wearing masks of Bush and carrying card-board replicas of coffins. But it seems that we are more concerned with putting on a good show than actually working on solutions that would stop this and prevent it from happening again.

We are about to reap what we have sown Americans and I hope you are ready to live under totalitarianism because it has sprung up and it is spreading its nasty coverage all across the country. We deserve what is coming because we did nothing to effectively stop it. I feel sorry for the coming generations because they will grow up in this environment never knowing anything different than the government boot on their throats.

I say that we have at least one hundred million out of the three hundred and thirty million citizens who should be able to stand United against the criminals in the government but we are too caught up in our own little world to see and work effectively against the coming government control of every aspect of our lives. There are only five hundred-thirty-five members of congress, nine supreme court justices, and two members of the executive branch of our government.

This adds up to five hundred-fourty-six people, are you telling me that this small number have the rest of us so beat down and cowed that we cannot come up with a better solution to their crimes than putting caricature ballons of them on the mall in D.C. ??!!!!!

I have been told that I am mean and abusive for pointing these things out to the people who the idea originated with, but I ask you, if you think this is mean and abusive what are you going to feel like when the jack-booted thugs kick your door down in the middle of the night and drag you away? I hope we can find it in our collective selves to prevent it getting that bad but, at this stage in the game, I don't think we can.

Evidently, this is the truth because the Republicans who are in congress go along with anything George says and the Democrats who supposedly are there to keep him in check will not do what it takes to rein him in. It is a shame they are all in on this free-fall from democracy into totalitarianism in our country. The Republicans have abandoned any shred of pretending to follow the constitution and are falling all over themselves to give away the rights that were won at so great a cost to the people who fought the Revolutionary War.

There are some who feel that by going to Washington , marching around the mall and pretending to die to represent the casualties of the demise of democracy is going to make a difference. I do not think this will help as this is a different time than the Sixties and protest marches will not affect those who have no conscience. At least Nixon had enough integrity to resign the presidency when it was obvious he was responsible for what had happened under his watch. The regime we now have has no such intention because they are deliberately eroding the U.S. Constitution and they have planned this for some time. I will be highly surprised if George leaves office in Jan 2009 as is required by our constitution because he has written an executive order that will preclude his leaving if there is a “catastrophic event” in our nation.

The work to turn our nation around will not be easy and it is going to require us to get out of our comfort zone and make some sacrifices if we really believe what we say about wanting to remain a true democracy. We have to be willing to defend our constitution if we want to keep the rights it affords us and right now our constitution is under attack, not by the “insurgents” or al-Quaeda as some would like you to believe. No our constitution is under attack from those here in this country who are drunk with the thought of having power. But their power is weak as it is not gained through hard work and respect but through fear and intimidation.

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday summoned to New York top U.N. officials from a meeting abroad to find out how a potentially lethal chemical warfare agent was stored in U.N. offices in Manhattan .

U.N. weapons inspectors announced on Thursday they had found small amounts of phosgene, a World War I chemical warfare choking agent that attacks the lungs. The vials were brought from Iraq to New York and stored in U.N. offices more than 10 years ago.

Ban's inquiry will examine the circumstances under which the substances were brought to New York from Iraq , the reasons why the items were discovered only in 2007 and "the safety procedures in place at headquarters and in the field offices as well as the extent to which these procedures are followed," said U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe.

Top U.N. officials had been attending or were about to leave for a senior leadership meeting in Turin, Italy , which Ban is chairing. The secretary-general canceled participation in the session of Undersecretaries-General David Veness, in charge of safety and security and Alicia Barcena, in charge of management, as well as Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro and chief of staff Vijay Nambiar.

The FBI on Thursday carted away the materials from the U.N. Monitoring and Verification Commission, known as UNMOVIC, which is closing down its operations and sorting materials in 125 filing cabinets.

'NO MORE SURPRISES' Experts from the commission said the substance, left in a metal container by UNMOVIC’s predecessor, the U.N. Special Commission, were under seal and posed no hazard to the public. The commission's offices are in a separate building, about a block from the main U.N. complex in New York . Brian Mullady, an expert with the U.N. commission, said that since the discovery, a sweep had been made of stored materials "to be sure that we have no more surprises, and we don't."

The inspectors have ended a 16-year effort to destroy Iraq 's weapons of destruction, which apparently had been accomplished by 1998. The Bush administration, in an effort to justify the March 2003 invasion, had said that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein continued to produce unconventional weapons. But U.S. investigators found no weapons.

The phosgene was recovered in 1996 from a former Iraqi chemical weapons facility, al-Muthanna, north of Baghdad . Mullady said artifacts were stored in New York, including a Scud missile engine and gyroscopes, while other materials were held at the commission's offices in Larcana, Cyprus and in Iraq .

Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the commission, said the containers were discovered last Friday but an inventory of the contents was not located until Wednesday. Ban immediately "sought and was given confirmation that the materials in the custody of UNMOVIC posed no risk to the staff or general population," Okabe said. "All necessary safety measures continued to be taken."

I challenge anyone who is wanting to continue this illegal war in Iraq to put their money where there mouth is; go to the local military recruiter of your choice in your area, join the branch you want, have them put in your contract you are to go to Iraq as soon as your training is over, make it where you are to be there for fifteen months and that you are willing to do multiple tours there.

 If you are not willing to do this then you need to shut the hell up about staying the course in Iraq .

We have made such a mess of that country it is pathetic, and we cannot continue to lay all of the blame at the feet of this administration. We have our culpability in this debacle as well as anyone. If you are a citizen and you did not work to actively prevent this from happening you are as responsible as George and Dick. I am responsible for it as well because I did go over there as a United States Soldier, but I did not think I would be used in such an outrageous manner as this. This has nothing to do with defending the United States Constitution and the moment I realized that I could no longer participate in it.

I did speak out about the things going on over there to the Senators from the state of Tennessee as the time by writing letters to them about the things I knew were going on over there. Senator Bill Frist and Senator Fred Thompson received letters from me stating things that were happening I knew were out of control.  I made the attempt to fix some of the things I saw and it didn’t get me anywhere but in military prison.

I want the rest of you who feel afraid to stand up and demand your constitutional rights to think about something, what scares you more, doing the right as an American citizen or facing the possibility of losing what is left of your constitutional rights? I can’t speak for anyone else but me, I do not want to lose anymore of my rights and I am going to continue to fight back against the people who want to take them away.

I suggest if you want to remain a free and lawful people, that you do the same. If you think the people in this cabal will hesitate to start water boarding American citizens I suggest your think again. I learned of an incident at the Ft. Lewis Regional Corrections Facility while locked up, of a inmate who was kept in the device known as a restraint chair for (4) four days and was not let out to use the toilet or shower or even eat by himself. Guards fed him some granola bars and gave him some water and he was lucky to get that. This United States citizen was tortured right here in the United States while everyone went about their daily routine. You know why this treatment was applied to this person? Because he had the audacity to point out the facility was not following its own rules. The situation came up because the regulation stated that female guards were not allowed to be on the cell block where the male inmates could be seen using the toilet and showers. Well the command element of the facility decided they did not have to follow the regulations and would assign duties of this type to female guards anyway. The inmate questioned this practice and pointed out that this was against the regulations and he ultimately wound up in the chair for that period of time.  While in the chair he relieved himself there because he was not allowed out of the chair on the orders of one SFC Parham.

Let’s recall the things this cabal has enacted that will allow this to happen on a widespread basis in America; The USA ANTIpatriot Act, Illegal wiretapping of Americans telephone and e-mail (to which some phone companies freely followed unquestioningly), executive orders stating that in an emergency, to be determined by George, he will become the sole authority of the United States removing all powers of congress and other branches of government. (I wish I were delusional and making this up but you can read it for yourselves, if you care to)

 And the hits just keep on coming, I suggest to all Americans to stand up for your constitution now or forever hold your peace.

I have received e-mails and phone calls from people telling me how scared they are to speak out about what is happening in our country now. Again, I have to ask, what is scarier, demanding your legal rights or totalitarianism?

As I listened to a NPR program the other day Zalmay Khalilzad, our esteemed ambassador to Iraq and the U.N. came on to say the U.N. needed to do more to help stabilize Iraq. This is coming from one of the members of the Project for the New American Century who screwed it up in the first place. Did you know that prior to our invasion and occupation of Iraq , they never in their history had a suicide bombing there? Think about that for a minute would you?

Now this administration is trying to make it sound as  though the U.N. would not help in Iraq from the beginning of this mis-guided and apparently illegal war. I recall this administration saying they did not want anyone’s help because they knew just what to do. It seems to me they have screwed this up so royally it will be years before the Iraqi people will be able to sort this mess out.

But it will be the Iraqis who have to straighten it out because we cannot tell them how to run their country. This country had to fight a war between its citizens in order to determine the path it wanted to take and so will the Iraqi people. It is unfortunate that we, the American people sat back and watched this happen. I cannot believe there are some in this country who are still blind to what George is up to.

They have destroyed our constitution and our freedoms and yet some continue to support this insanity. Congress just let him walk all over the fourth amendment to the Constitution by expanding the warrant-less wire tapping of Americans. This is supposed to be the congress elected in 2006 to put an end to this and they rolled over and gave him more power. Are they in on it as well? Are they more concerned with maintaining their power than following the will of the American people and the United States Constitution?

People, our freedoms are being destroyed. Are we going to continue to wait on a spineless congress to do the right thing and impeach the entire lot of criminals currently in the White House? If the congress will not follow the law of America then we must, we are responsible for ensuring the laws of this nation are being implemented.

Read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and you will see where it gives the responsibility to the people and not to governments. The reason this is so is because they knew the people in government becomes corrupt and drunk with their so called power over the regular people. Well, they are not elite and this no such thing as a “regular" American in the sense they want to impose on us. They will have you believe they are our superiors and we are just the poor little creatures they pity and shower with their kindness.

I say it is far past the time to break that mindset and stand up and be AMERICANS, the kind of people who can stand on their own and do the things for themselves the government has no business meddling with. If we do this together we can make America what we want it to be and not the aggressive war starting and military occupation entity these individuals want it to be.

I can’t speak for anyone else but I know my ancestors did not make the sacrifices they did so these people could use America to further their twisted view of the world. I am against this cabal who would use every one of us to benefit themselves only. I am for us, the United States citizens, working together in our communities to straighten out the problems we face. I know we can do it and I am ready to commit myself whole-heartedly to this idea.

Are you? 

This movie can make more money in a weekend than I have been able to raise for the returning United States service members in more than three years. Monica and I have been working on this program for about 3 years now and you want to know how much we have received? Well, I will tell you, it is a measly Seventy-five thousand dollars. We need about one million dollars all told to get this program up and running for the American soldier, after which it will become self-sustaining. But we cannot even get the American public to get out of the self induced fog they live in to do something real.

We see the very substandard care the service members get from the government and we get all up in arms for a very short moment and then we go to the Simpson’s movie. Or we watch Lindsay Lohan or Brittany Spears have an alcoholic moment and we forget about the wounded soldiers coming home to this……….

The film took $29.1 million on its opening day in the United States , the eighteenth highest grossing opening day, and third highest non-sequel opening. It grossed a combined total of $74 million in its opening weekend, taking it to the top of the box office, and making it the fifth highest opening weekend for a July release ever, and highest July opening for a non-sequel, thus outperforming the expectation of $40 million that Fox had for the release. It set several American box office records, including the record for highest grossing opening weekend for a non-CG animated film, surpassing The Lion King; the record for highest grossing opening weekend for a film based on a television series, surpassing Mission Impossible II; and overall it had the third highest grossing opening weekend for an animated film, behind Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third. It opened at the top of the international box office taking $96 million from seventy-one overseas territories, including $27.8 million in the United Kingdom, Fox's second highest opening ever in the country. It helped break the record for the highest weekend attendance to British cinemas, with 5.5 million overall seeing a film that weekend with 2.6 million seeing The Simpsons Movie. In Australia , it grossed $13.2 million, the biggest opening for an animated film and third largest opening weekend in the country. The film has a current worldwide gross of $218.8 million.

The apathetic American public needs to pull their heads out of the comfortable little hole in the sand where it has been for far too long and do something about the way our country is being stolen from us by an administration that has its well-being and only its well- being in mind.

Our congressional representative have no spine when it comes to doing what needs to be done to stop the war that the Project for the New American Century has pushed down the throats of the American public. This group has hi-jacked the country out from under us and we are standing by and letting them get away with it.

I remember my father watching the Watergate trials of the Nixon White House and I remember the nation having the spine to go after them with a vengeance for something that is much less worse than what the current White House is doing. The Nixon White House wanted to know what the opposition party was doing to get elected to the presidency and so they staged the break-in of the opposition headquarters to get that information.

President Nixon was impeached for this and yet we sat back and let a so called President violate the United States Constitution, The Geneva Convention, and the Nuremberg Tribunals by starting a war in Iraq . This is a country that has been proven time and time again to have nothing to do with the September, 11^th 2001 attacks on our country.

The “interrogation” methods used and authorized by this administration very specifically violate our constitution because our constitution states that any treaty we sign and ratify becomes the law of the land. We signed and ratified the Geneva Conventions of 1949 which made it a law of America .

“Article. VI. - Debts, Supremacy, Oaths” “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

Below is the date the United States congress signed and ratified the Geneva Convention into United States law.

Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. signed 12-08-1949 and 02-08-1955

More people in this country are worried about the latest gossip about Hollywood than things that really matter. I can’t believe I went to jail for trying to defend my constitution from this group of anti-constitutionalists while the country just sets back and watches while it takes place. I also cannot believe the people who put those magnets on their car and then think that absolves them of any responsibility to do anything more substantial than this. If this is the best you can do to support the “troops”, then don’t bother yourself.                                        

Never mind that soldiers are dying every damn day in Iraq .

I was told by many groups that I would have their un-ending support for taking a principled stand against this, but as I sat in military prison waiting to see some justice from the people who should come up with a sound and reasoned argument that would put and end to this madness, I watched those same groups go their merry way.

For those who did support me as much as they could I am very grateful, but for those who went and bought pink shirts and paid for balloons to put on the mall in Washington , thanks for nothing. These actions have done nothing to hold this administration to account for starting this war, as a matter of fact; these actions have hindered those of us who are working on a serious plan to provide some real assistance to the service members that continue to die in this war of choice (of choice for a select few).

I am posting this story from today's headlines about the house of representatives passing a bill that would give the American service members as much time at home as they are deployed. The republicans and President Bush are saying they oppose the measure, which leads me to ask, WHY?

All of the hoopla they put out about how much they care about our men and women in the armed services and this is how their true colors look. I have said time and time again this group of people who are hi-jacking our country from under us care only for themselves.

In 2004 I sent an e-mail to George and I told him that he was not worth the dust off the soldiers' boots. Well, I will reiterate that today and I will include any republican congress member who continues to side with George over the men and women who serve this nation. They swore to defend the constitution of the United States, the least the United States could do for them is to give them the true respect they have earned.

America, it will take much more than just putting one of those stupid magnets on your car to really help the people who serve in the military. It will require us to show some true back bone and to stand up to this group of demagogues who are doing a very good job of destroying every thing our constitution and our country stands for.

Democrat-backed House bill requires more troop rest

30 billion here, 20 billion there and pretty soon we are talking about some real money. Why should we worry about improving our schools and making prescriptions meds more affordable? Why should we worry about making college more accessible to our children? We are setting in motion the solution to those problems now, we are creating the environment where we can continue to have war in the future so we can get as many of our citizens killed as possible. 

Think of the money we will save as a nation by not having to provide retirement to all of the soldiers we get killed in the war of choice. We will not have to worry about getting them educated either because they will be too busy trying to survive the next big war that we could be working to avoid, but no, we are actually creating the need for future wars with our actions today. I say we because, we the people, own the responsibility for these wars we have allowed to take place. Oh, I know that it is easy to blame "them", but we have to accept our responsibility for it as well. 

There are over 300 million Americans and there are 535 congressional people, 2 members of the executive branch of government, ( no matter what Dick says about the VP position) and 9 members of the supreme court. All of the people in our government are accountable to us. But in order for us to be an effective part of our government we have to become aware of what is happening. We are the fourth branch of government, not the press corps as they want you to believe, and we are going to have to become much more informed about what our hired help are up to. Actually we are the first branch of government because our constitution gives us the ultimate responsibility for ensuring our nation follows the ideals on which it was founded.

Eisenhower tried to warn us about the military-industrial complex but we did not heed his words very well. It is sad that we, the people of the United States, have sat back and let this combination of special arms interests and weak and complacent congressional representatives take our country down this path. As I look back at some of the things I have seen in my life I realize this is exactly what these people want; for us to blindly accept whatever they say as the gospel. We cannot lay all of the blame on those people though, we have to accept our share of the blame as we deserve because we have not ensured the checks and balances of power, as envisioned by the framers of the constitution, are being enforced.

I have been as guilty of accepting the politicians words as anyone else but now I can no longer not see what has been right in front of me all along. These people do not care about a constitutional form of government, they only use the words democracy and freedom to advance their agenda of increasing their wealth and their power over us. I have been studying the constitution very much recently and I realize the true authority over the American people isn't the people we hire to do the work of the government, no, it is not them at all,  it is us.

What the hell is this administration thinking? If I remember correctly, Osama Bin Ladin is Saudi and fourteen of the eighteen hi-jackers on September 11th 2001 were Saudis. If this administration considers this good for America, then God help us. We need to wake up and see what it going on here people. The people in government at this time care nothing about you and I. They are only concerned with making their bank accounts larger and maintaining their power.

But maybe this is what we need, to give the opportunity to the ones who really hate us, the equipment to really do some damage to America if there is another attack. The newer and high tech equipment could really do some major damage to us if the next Bin Ladin pops up from Saudi Arabia and decides to use this stuff against us. We need to stop arming the people who would do us harm. We haven't learned anything.

We sold chemical weapons and provided military training to Saddam Hussein in the eighties so he would fight Iran;

We sold arms to Iran in the eighties and gave the money to Nicaraguan contras to fight the Sandanistas;

We provided arms and  military training to Afghanistan in the eighties so they would fight the Russians;

We did all of this under the great Ronald Reagan and we know who his vice president was, now don't we?

If we don't wake up soon we are going to sell more arms and then we will fight more wars and get more people killed and we will do it in a self fulfilling prophecy. We create our own enemies so we can fight more wars and this is insanity.

U.S. plans big arms sale to Saudi Arabia: report

Sat Jul 28, 2007 7:44AM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve arms sales totaling $20 billions over the next decade for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors, The New York Times reported in Saturday editions.

Coming as some U.S. officials contend that the Saudi government is not helping the situation in Iraq, the proposal for advanced weapons for Saudi Arabia has stoked concern in Israel and among its U.S. backers, the Times said. The package of advanced weaponry includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades for its fighters and new naval vessels.

Senior officials, including State Department and Pentagon officials who outlined the deals' terms, told the Times they thought the Bush administration had resolved those concerns, partly by offering Israel more than $30 billion in military aid over the next 10 years, which would be a significant increase over recent levels.

Administration officials remain concerned, however, that the package could draw opposition from Saudi critics in Congress, which is to be notified formally about the deal this autumn, the newspaper said.

The State Department and the White House had no comment on the Times' article, and a Pentagon spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.

Assurances from the Saudis about being more supportive in Iraq were not sought by the administration as part of the deal, U.S. officials told the newspaper.

The Times said officials described the plan as intended to bolster Gulf countries' militaries in a bid to contain Iran's growing strength in the region, as well as to demonstrate Washington's commitment to its Arab allies.

But they added that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates still plan to use their joint visit to Saudi Arabia next week to press for help with Iraq's government.

"The role of the Sunni Arab neighbors is to send a positive, affirmative message to moderates in Iraq in government that the neighbors are with you," the newspaper quoted a senior State Department official as saying.

The official added that Washington wants Gulf states to stress to Sunnis that engaging in violence is "killing your future."

Other salves to Israel in light of the proposed deal include asking the Saudis to accept restrictions on the range, size and location of the satellite-guided bombs, the Times said. The Pentagon is also asking for a commitment not to store the weapons at air bases close to Israeli territory, it added.

Along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are likely to receive equipment and weaponry from the arms sales under consideration, the Times said.

 

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

Reuters journalists are subject to the Reuters Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.