What Your Tax Dollars Buy (Mar 26, 2002)

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TiM GW Bulletin 2002/3-4

Mar. 26, 2002Apr. 9, 2002

A Special Truth in Media Mini-Series: What Your Tax Dollars Buy...

Maggots, Flying Coffins, Bad Food Aid, Nazi Symbols on US Stamps

Maggots in Patient Noses at VA Hospital; Apache Helicopters, $39 Million-Flying Coffins That Cannot Fire Missiles; Afghan Food Aid That Can Hurt, Kill; Humiliation of Our Highest Office by Sharon/Israel

Israel 4. Futility of Violence: “Tempt Not a Desperate Man” (Shakespeare)Apr. 4, 2002

Phoenix 5. The Fourth Reich? Nazi Symbols Creeping Up in “Land of the (Once) Free”Apr. 5, 2002

New York 6. Say Goodbye to Privileged Client-Attorney CommunicationsApr. 9, 2002

PHOENIX, Mar. 26 - With the tax deadline looming only a few weeks away, we thought it may be instructive to share with you some of the things your tax dollars buy while Washington lines the “death merchants’” and other war-profiteering vermin’s pockets with our money (see “Bush League All-Stars”, Feb. 2002 and “Dubya Dubya Dubya Dot Warmonger Dot Com” in “Weep Mankind!” -Jul 26, 2000).

So here’s the first of a TiM mini-series on the subject of “What Your Tax Dollars Buy.” We received the maggot story from Randy Givens, a Texas-based retired Special Forces colonel, along with his following comment:

“While the officials claim the maggots did not harm the patients, I think they got rid of the wrong maggots.... The maggots I'm talking about were the officials who were responsible to keep the premises clean in the first place.

Can you imagine being an official, running a cafeteria, and serving food to helpless Veterans - when your cafeteria and food storage area haven't been cleaned in a year??? Note that the article says nothing about discipline for those official vermin.”

And why should we be surprised.... An old East European proverb says, “fish always stinks from the head.” Has anyone been ever disciplined for the greatest government and intelligence services failure in this nation’s history? (September 11). So what’s a little maggot here, a little maggot there… in Kansas City, with so many of them on the loose in Washington, DC?

With that as a preamble, here is one example of “What Your Tax Dollars Buy.” Hope you don’t upchuck your meal after you read this excerpt from a Kansas City Star Tribune story:

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Mar. 25 (AP) - Maggots were born in the noses of two comatose patients four years ago at a city Veteran's Administration hospital infested by mice and flies, according to a medical journal report released Monday (Mar. 25). Maggots were found in the nostrils of one patient on July 22, 1998, the article said. Maggots were found in the nose of a second patient on Sept. 30, 1998.

The story in the Archives of Internal Medicine details the 1998 infestation. It said mice would sometimes dash over the feet of employees in the hospital director's suite.

Hospital officials said the hospital no longer has any cleanliness problems. Barbara Shatto, the hospital's quality manager, said the hospital scored 99 out of 100 when it was inspected by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospital Organizations in October. […]

The infestation started with a housecleaning oversight, according to the article. Dr. Stephen Klotz, then the hospital's chief of infectious disease, said the mice moved in after the cafeteria and food storage areas were dropped from a cleaning list. Some areas weren't cleaned for at least a year, according to the article.

By July 1998, a pest control contractor put out bait and glue boards to kill the mice. Inspectors later found dead mice in food storage rooms, mouse nests behind boxes on food shelves, and mouse droppings on the floor of a cafeteria work room. Live mice were found in a large wastebasket. […]

LONDON, Mar. 25 - Remember when the former NATO “Supreme Being,” Gen. Wesley Clark, wanted to use the Apache attack helicopters against the Yugoslav Army which was then defending Kosovo, and was overruled by the Pentagon brass? (see “Flying Coffins? Apache Helicopters on Hold; Gen. Clark Impatient to Kill More Troops,” TiM Bulletin S99-81, Day 55, May 17, 1999).

Well, it appears that the Pentagon brass must have known what a bunch of multi-million dollar flying lemons (or coffins) the Apaches were. But it took an article in the British media to tell us the truth about “our” (meaning American-made) “death merchants” junk (by Boeing, in this instance, the Pentagon’s second biggest supplier with over $12 billion in Defense Dept. revenues in 2000 - see Top 50 Pentagon Vendors in “Bush League All-Stars”, Feb. 2002).

THE Army's new Apache attack helicopter cannot fire its Hellfire anti-tank missiles for fear that debris ejected on launching could cause catastrophic damage.

The problem is confirmed by a Ministry of Defence document leaked to The Telegraph.

The MoD was unable to say how much damage could be caused. It was working with the makers to solve the problem, officials said. But defence sources said there were serious concerns that the debris could damage the main or tail rotors, causing the helicopter to crash.

The Army is buying 67 Apache helicopters at a cost of at least £27 million ($39 million - TiM Ed.) each. They are being built in Britain by Westland under licence from the US manufacturers Boeing.

The US has restricted its Apache helicopters to firing missiles only during wartime and to launching them only from the right-hand side of the aircraft to try to ensure that the debris does not hit the tail rotor which is on the left-hand side.

The WAH-64 Apache, which is due to take over the anti-tank role currently performed by about a quarter of the Army's Challenger 2 tanks in three years' time, normally carries a total of eight Hellfire missiles, four on each side.

The problem comes amid worrying signs from Afghanistan that the helicopter, which is seen as providing devastating frontline firepower, may not be as effective as was hoped, particularly in hot, dusty conditions.

Five out of the seven Apache attack helicopters sent to attack al-Qa'eda terrorists during Operation Anaconda two weeks ago were disabled by machinegun fire or ancient Soviet RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers fired from the ground.

The five helicopters had to be taken back to the US base at Bagram, north of Kabul, and replaced by new aircraft flown out from America. […]

For the full Guardian story, click here. The highlighted emphasis was added by Col. Randy Givens who also added in his note to TiM:

Note, at the end of the story, that the Brit's acquisition of military equipment is about as bad as ours.... they bought a rifle which jammed in combat, and took 12 years to try and buy a radio... and gave up, just before their troops were committed into combat. The soldiers ended up using cell phones.

Looks like the best thing we could do is give Al Qaeda some of our British and American military equipment purchasing agents.

And just think, such travesties are happening at the same time as our Pretzel Prez in Washington and his warmongering “death merchant” Veep have managed to push through Congress huge increases in our military spending. Here’s what we said about it in our “Bush League All-Stars”, Feb. 2002 report:

Wasting no time for chance to gouge the flag-waving public, the Bush administration has already marshaled huge increases in our nation’s defense spending (an additional $59 billion in fiscal 2003 alone; $675 billion over the next 10 years - see the chart). No wonder the shares of the top Pentagon contractors are thriving on Wall Street…

… as the lives of our servicemen hit a new low, endangered by the Pentagon’s flying lemons (or “flying coffins,” as we put it in 1999), and not just by the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

Just a few “cheery” thoughts to keep in mind about “What Your Tax Dollars Buy” before you send that tax check to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service).

BOSTON, Mar. 26 - Continuing our mini-series of articles on the topic “What Your Tax Dollars Buy,” we bring you another unmitigated disaster that the Bush administration has pitched to the nation as an unmitigated success - the Afghan food aid. It was supposed to be winning the poor starving Afghans to our side. Instead, it has turned many into even greater enemies of America than they were before September 11.

Consider the following excerpts from a Mar. 26 front page story published by the Boston Globe. It was preceded and followed by utter silence by our lamestream media and by our Pretzel Prez, who hailed the effort at the outset. The only other newspaper we are aware of that carried this story was the Austin Statesman (click here to read it):

The Bush administration's much publicized food ration airdrop in northern Afghanistan - hailed by the Pentagon as a way to feed starving residents while winning their loyalty - achieved neither goal in many targeted areas, military experts, aid workers, and a report by retired US special forces officers now conclude.

The report, recently circulated in the Defense Department and on Capitol Hill, found the airdrops so problematic that it called for an end to the project, saying it was not winning the Afghans' trust and was thus "in direct opposition to US military goals." In their report, obtained by the Globe, the retired officers studied the drops during a two-week period in November in parts of northern Afghanistan.

Their findings were echoed by some military officials and aid workers, who said the airdrop last fall of 2.5 million pre-packaged meals, while it brought food to some, was largely ineffective and at times counterproductive (emphasis added - TiM Ed.).

The bright yellow plastic-wrapped meals ruptured upon impact because they were dropped from too high an altitude and spoiled, endangering the Afghans who ate them, the report by the retired officers said (emphasis added - TiM Ed.).

Moreover, the meals often were collected by local warlords and sold for a profit at Afghan markets and seldom reached hungry families, according to aid workers. In other cases, Afghans were lured by the bright packages into minefields or confused them with cluster bombs of the same color (emphasis added - TiM Ed.).

"The impact was marginal," said Kenneth Bacon, the former Pentagon spokesman who now heads Refugees International in Washington, D.C. "Still, some food is better than no food." […]

Daily from October through December, C-17 cargo planes dropped between 34,000 and 70,000 Humanitarian Daily Rations, known as HDRs, mostly over remote areas of northern Afghanistan that aid groups then could not reach.

Hundreds of soldiers were needed to load the planes. Pilots then flew them under hazardous conditions, protected by fighter jets. Defense Department officials have not put a price tag on the overall effort. But each meal cost about $4.50.

From the beginning, aid groups criticized the effort as a propaganda campaign that endangered their work by mixing humanitarian needs with military objectives. Now, interviews with more than a dozen aid workers and former and current US Army special forces officers in Afghanistan point to technical problems with the airdrop project.

"We immediately recognized there was something really, really, wrong," said Lieutenant Colonel Greg Long, a retired special forces officer on a civilian mission in Afghanistan last fall, who contributed to the critical report by the nonprofit Partners International Foundation.

Long was stunned to find a child grasping one of the yellow food packages - its wrapping ruptured, possibly from impact - with spoiled food inside.

He went on to examine at least 500 food parcels collected from Northern Alliance territory - from Khojabahuddin and Cha-e Ab to Kunduz in the first two weeks of November. He found that nearly 70 percent of the packages ruptured and exposed their contents. About 90 percent of those had spoiled food. (emphasis added - TiM Ed.).

"The majority of them had a gaseous odor and foul smell," said Long. "There were some Afghans that would eat them. But the majority of them would not."

The foundation's report stated: "Food packs that make [Afghanistan's] people sick is just one more reason to hate the United States in an already volatile environment." […] (emphasis added - TiM Ed.).

NOTE: As we said in our TiM Bulletin story, Futility of Violence: “Tempt Not a Desperate Man” (Shakespeare), "come to think of it, consider this (Israel’s pogroms against Palestinians) a Part 4 of our "What Your Tax Dollars Buy" mini-series." We do invoke it here by reference. You can also regard parts of the latest TiM readers forum as such.

5. The Fourth Reich? Nazi Symbols Creeping Up in “Land of the (Once) Free”

PHOENIX, Apr. 5 - The image was too much to take even for a writer who discerned as far back as Sep. 20, that what was happening in America in the aftermath of Sep. 11, was reminiscent of the early days of Nazi Germany (see “War on Terrorism in America: Clash of Greens,” Sep 28, 2001).

Yet, when I first saw an e-mail from a TiM reader a couple of days ago, enclosing the column “Imperial State Power in America,” by Al Martin, a former U.S. Navy officer and a Washington government whistleblower, I could not believe my eyes. Nazi symbols creeping up in the “land of the free?” It can’t be!

It can. They are. It is happening, right here in the Imperial States of America, the Fourth Reich.

Here’s what Al Martin said in that e-mail on Apr. 2 that grabbed my attention instantly (excerpted):

“Now even US postage stamps will project the supremacy of American Imperial Power into the world. The new 57-cent stamp shows an eagle, which is an exact copy of the symbol of the Waffen SS (not “an exact copy,” but pretty close - see the images below - TiM Ed.), which in turn was taken from the Imperial Praetorian eagle of Ancient Rome. This is one of the first in a new series of postage stamps being released by the US Post Office to commemorate the New Age of State Power. […]

The stamp portrays an eagle resting on triple-perched pediments. It's a beautifully executed design, if one wants to portray State Power. This eagle is man's most ancient and recognizable symbol of State Power. The seven pediments on the eagle's chevron shaped breastplate represent the seven hills of Rome. The three Ionic columned perch represents Order, Discipline and Obedience, which was the pledge undertaken by the Obsidian Order.

Any philatelist would recognize this eagle and any numismatist, who collects Third Reich or Caesarian coins, would also know it. This iconography is not original with the Third Reich, of course, since they borrowed it from the ancient Romans.

The symbolism is stark. The Germans also duplicated it during the time of the monarchy in the 18th century. During the subsequent reign of the House of Hohenzolleren, you'd see many flags with the expression: Ruhe, Ordnung und Sichheit (Calm, Order and Security).

The eagle then is not only a symbol of imperial power, but of the unity of the State. As long as the State remains unified under the symbol of Imperial State Power, then Calm, Order, Security, Discipline and Obedience will prevail. It took the Romans centuries to squash out dissent. This is a sublime warning for the people to be united under one banner, and that banner is the imperial power of the State. In Ancient Rome, it constituted a warning to any dissidents.

To get back to the design, the eagle is perched on the famed triple Ionic column, which was the symbol of the much feared and dreaded Obsidian Order of the Imperial Praetorian Guard, also called the Black Order. Obsidian is a very hard lustrous black stone that has been used for thousands of years.

In Ancient Rome, the Obsidian Order was the most elite of the elite Praetorian Guard, containing Caesar's assassins. They specialized in liquidating dissidents… The Obsidian Order was the group, which quietly liquidated those who dissented and any who threatened to tell the truth.” […]

Immediately upon reading the Al Martin piece, this writer went to the local Phoenix post office. “Do you have a 57-cent stamp?”

The clerk returned with two sheets of stamps - one with a bluish background (57 cents) the other golden (55 cents). I examined them carefully. I vaguely remembered seeing pictures of Nazi rallies at which Hitler spoke under such gigantic eagles in the background (see the photo of one at our web site with the US stamp superimposed on it).

“That’s the one,” I said. “That’s what somebody told me was a Nazi eagle.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know about that,” the clerk hedged uncomfortably. “We call it an art deco eagle.”

“Well, you’ve got it right then. That’s the right era the 1930s. So it must have been done deliberately.”

I bought the stamps and then added to those images the original Nazi symbols, both the German Army insignia and the Nazi stamps (the latter, courtesy of Dr. Alexis Menander). If you go to our web site, you can see for yourself the Nazi symbols in the “land of the (once) free” which your tax dollars bought. They are on sale now, at your local U.S. Post Office.

Of course, the EU (European Union) beat us to it. Longtime TiM readers may recall our Nov. 1999 story about the new Lenin stamp being issued by Belgium (click here at our web site to see it again).

Nazi symbols in the U.S., commie symbols in the EU… The new era of totalitarianism is evidently upon us. As Al Martin put it…

“If you don't believe it… look at the new Ed McMahon commercials for the Department of Justice. Start looking for your new triangular State Security street signs. And the orange knit capped people on your street with clipboards.

…I said, if you give the average downtrodden citizen an orange and black cap that says State Security and a clipboard, a whistle and an armband that puts a little sense of power in their bellies, there's going to be a hell of a lot of people, who not only get into it, but get into it in a big way. It'll go to their heads. If you give the little guy a little sense of power, he's going to run with it; and he's not going to want to give it up; and he's going to do what he's told in order to keep it. That's human nature.”

Just like in Nazi Germany in the 1930s (see “War on Terrorism in America: Clash of Greens,” Sep. 28, 2001). Or the Praetorian Guards. Welcome to the Imperial States of America, the Fourth Reich!

New York Attorney Arrested; Ashcroft - Tough on American Liberties, Soft on Israeli Spies; Sharon/Israel Humiliates Office of the President

PHOENIX, Apr. 9 - Say goodbye to another one of cherished American liberties. Privileged client-attorney communications are no longer privileged in this country. Here's an excerpt from an Apr. 9 Associated Press story that just hit the wires:

NEW YORK (AP) - An attorney and three other people were indicted Tuesday on charges they helped an Islamic militant imprisoned in the United States communicate with his followers in Egypt.

The indictment accuses the defendants of supporting the Egyptian-based terrorist organization known as the Islamic Group by passing messages "to and from the imprisoned Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman."

Among the four is Lynne Stewart, a lawyer for the sheik. The indictment charges that the unlawful communications with the sheik happened during prison visits and attorney telephone calls involving Stewart and Mohammed Yousry, an Arabic translator who was also charged.

[...] The attorney general (John Ashcroft - TiM Ed.) announced (Tuesday, Apr. 9) that the Justice Department had, for the first time, invoked the authority to monitor communications between Abdel-Rahman and his attorneys.

"The sheik is a person whose leadership is substantial in the community of terrorists," he said. He added that the indictment didn't allege there were any conversations about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. [...]

Welcome back to the Imperial States of America! (as we put it in Item 5 of this TiM Bulletin re. the new Nazi look-alike eagle stamps). What will come next - Gestapo?

If you want to let our Washington "Nazis" know how you feel about their ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL usurpation of yet another of our liberties, here are John Ashcroft's coordinates:

E-mails to the Department of Justice, including the Attorney General, may be sent to AskDOJ@usdoj.gov. Phone - Office of the Attorney General - 202-353-1555.

To help you along with the composition of your note, here’s a copy of the letter/e-mail this writer has just sent to the U.S. Attorney General:

I was appalled to read today's AP story about the arrest of a New York attorney on the basis of your ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL (!) eavesdropping on her communications with her client.

Aren't you supposed to dispense justice rather than vengeance? Aren't you supposed to protect our liberties rather than destroy them?

TiM Ed.: What makes the latest Ashcroft assault on our liberties especially galling is the way he and his Justice Department have handled the Israeli spy ring - by letting the suspects leave the country.

Here’s a copy of a (until now) private note this writer had sent in early March to a friend, after having read a Le Monde (Paris, France) Mar. 5 story about the Israeli spies in the U.S.:

Since you speak French, I am sending it to you in the original form (click here) . There have been also reports published about the Le Monde article in English (in Britain), but NONE in the major U.S. media!? (at least none that I am aware of). Here’s just one British example (The Independent).

Did you also see the Fox News four-part series on this that aired Dec. 11-14? I was out of the country at the time. But I understand that after airing it, the Zionist lobby brought such a pressure on Fox News that they yanked the stories from their web site. As of Dec. 21, 2001, “This story no longer exists,” reads the terse Fox News explanation. You can check it out yourself.

Not exactly the proudest moment of American journalism, is it? Of course, the most disgraceful thing about the whole sordid spying and media-muzzling affair is that there is not a peep about it in the REST OF THE AMERICAN MEDIA! Nor is the fact that the U.S. media have spiked the story even though newswires, such as Reuters and Associated Press, have also carried it.

TiM Ed.: At the time this message was sent (Mar. 7), the four Fox News URLs were still accessible on the Net. Now, Fox News has evidently removed them altogether. All that one gets now when clicking on them is an error message. Another “proud moment” of the American journalism!

As for Washington, which is supposed to defend our national interests, not to mention its citizens' security and lives, our government (e.g., the FBI) seems to have joined Israel in muzzling the media, and covering up the existence of this spy ring. Such attitude defies logic and common sense.

Why would the Justice Dept. deport these Israelis merely for immigration violations (for which millions of other illegal immigrants are NOT deported!), especially if they were (only) spying on Al Qaeda members in the U.S? You would think the Israelis would be given a reward for it, wouldn't you?

Oh well, rephrasing that A.J. Liebling media quote, "the government is only fair if you own it." The Zionist lobby evidently does "own" Washington, and not just the major media.

For some older stories (from May 2000) about the Israeli spying in America, check out “Spies Galore, Enemy Within, Foxes at the Gate” (May 13, 2000) . As you can see, Jonathan Pollard (a convicted Israeli spy) was not an exception.

Why should we be surprised that the attorney general Ashcroft is tough on American liberties while being soft on Israeli spies? Just look at his boss - our Wimp-in-Chief. It has been now five days since George W. Bush said “enough is enough,” and told Ariel Sharon to pull his rampaging troops from the West Bank. Only to be snubbed by the Israeli prime minister:

Just hours after President Bush's stern call for a withdrawal, Israeli forces pulled out of the West Bank towns of Qalqiliya and Tulkarem early Tuesday (today, Apr. 9 - TiM Ed.), but troops remained in the towns of Nablus, Bethlehem, Jenin and Ramallah. Sharon has said the offensive would continue until Palestinian militias were crushed. (click here to read the original story).

Check out also this Reuters photo, for example, of a six-year old Palestinian girl, one of two schoolchildren killed by the Israeli troops - in southern Ghaza! (click here).

Or this 10-year old Palestinian girl injured today near Hebron (West Bank - click here) .

Or this Reuter’s photo of a Palestinian girl under sniper fire in the Old City of Bethlehem (click here) .

Check out also this AP photo of the fire raging at the Bethlehem Church of the Nativity - the place where Christ is believed to have been born - after the Israelis opened fire at the building (click here).

Over the past 1,600 years, the Church of the Nativity has seen everything from fire, earthquakes and looters to clerics coming to blows with chains and broomsticks over who has the right to care for each stone and beam. The basilica's sanctity may have been tarnished at times, but historians say the violent standoff between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers at one of Christianity's holiest shrines - now in its eighth day - is unprecedented. (emphasis added - TiM Ed.)

One saving grace in this disgrace of the American presidency… at least now Americans can see quite plainly who is really calling the shots in Washington; who is the master and who is the puppy. As Pat Buchanan put it in his today’s (Apr. 9) column:

“If the president is not to be seen in the ~~Arab~~ world as Sharon's poodle, he is going to have to stand up one day on his hind legs and bite his perceived master. Is he up to it? Again, we're going to find out.”

The only change we would make is to strike the word “Arab” from the above paragraph.

And that's also what your tax dollars buy - humiliation of our nation's highest office by a country that's been getting billions of dollars every year from the American taxpayer.