GazeboflossUK

Future of Iraq: The spoils of war How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb London Independent Sunday, January 7, 2007 # Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days. The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972. The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said. #

I hope the links don't die.

Right, eventually done......these are all in individual zips because larger files kept failing uploads... Anyway...enjoy the B-sides, Early Tracks & Demos you asked for. 1. You Say Your Sorry 2. Animals Of Many Kinds 3. City Voices 4. In Time Do You Forget 5. Medley Of Saliva, Mica & Panda (Live) 6. Misplaced 7. Nothing is Red 8. Quietly (Demo) 9. Watch This Space 10. Bones (Song For Albert) 11. Safe As Houses 12. Succubus 13. Superfriends (From Demo Cassette) 14. Forever and Ever 15. Say You're Sorry (ATFM Session) 16. Chinese Gun (Demo) 17. Superfriends (Demo from A Triumph For Man re-release) I actually need a couple of tracks that I don't have the vinyls of.... They are: Killer Like chaser Drown

I'm on uploading these: You Say Your Sorry Animals Of Many Kinds City Voices In Time Do You Forget Medley Of Saliva, Mica & Panda (Live) Misplaced Nothing is Red Quietly (Demo) Watch This Space Bones (Song For Albert) Safe As Houses Succubus Superfriends (From Demo Cassette) Superfriends (Demo from A Triumph For Man re-release) Forever and Ever Say You're Sorry (ATFM Session) Chinese Gun (Demo)

I know.......because it was a REAL terror attack. Not a fake "set-up" muslim group. All our media is utterly controlled - we only hear about terror when our criminal governments need to show off their handy work. Be it infiltrated/provoked or fully organised by criminal government factions with 'set-up' muslims who think they are taking part in a drill - it's all staged and the stakes are getting higher every time. When a "real" group of terrorists attack, admit the crime and it turns out to be none Islamic Muslims our media shifts past it far too quickly. Everyone needs to be very aware.

I sort of see your point there, yeah. However, I'd make the same point about so-called "muslim extremists" attacking within our countries. This is certainly not the International problem we are led to believe.

Report was written by an Englishman. I did see it, it was in the news yes, but it really vanished into a black hole after a couple of hours. Before I posted this I went into the living room and asked both my parents (who watch the news a bit) "did you know there was a terrorist attack on Saturday?" They both said "no". I asked seven people I know who are on my MSN list and they all except 1 person answered "no, I didn't". Then I told them what had happened - they were amazed they hadn't heard anything about it. Then I made my points about who was reportedly behind the attacks and why it just seemed to vanish from the TV in a few hours. Imagine if this had have actually been reported to be the work of 'muslims'? Nobody can tell me that it would have achieved the same amount of feable attention. There would have been a 1000% increase in coverage..... Also, if it had happened at Gatwick or Heathrow it would have been on US/UK/European news for days.

Coldplaying boss is on-side....:)

Yeah, it's the magazines that mostly create/sustain the "scenes" or "trends". If NME and similar mags started going all Hip-Hop-Funk-Disco you would eventually see bands like that pop up from all over the place. Anyway, this thread ain't about that. Couple of Song vids.. In Context http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBqx9Tpmj-U A House is Not a Home http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxrEECneF0Q

Terror's Trivial When It's Not Muslims Madrid Airport bombing receives scant attention Thursday, January 4, 2007 How many people who aren't news junkies know that Madrid Airport was bombed on Saturday? Relatively few I would venture, and that's because major western governments and their media mouthpieces don't hype terror unless Muslims are behind it. I personally only caught the story a couple of days after it happened on an obscure channel on UK digital satellite called Euro News. Operatives of the Basque separatist organization ETA packed 800kg of explosives in a car bomb that ripped apart the parking lot of Barajas Madrid Airport, killing two and injuring twenty people. Now imagine if "Al-Qaeda" bombed Heathrow or LAX. You'd never hear the end of it, the news would be on it 24/7 and entering an airport would be akin to checking into a concentration camp. And yet Saturday's blast was greeted by little more than bylines and muted dismissals by the mainstream media. Before 9/11 terrorism was seen through the prism of a criminal problem because fewer people lose their lives as a result of it than do those who get struck by lightening. There have been just 2,929 terror induced deaths since 9/11 according to the Bush administration's own numbers and more people every year die in swimming pool accidents - hardly the mega threat to western society that many have portrayed. Put in this context, Saturday's bombing would not have made the top of the news because like all terrorism that occurs in the west, it is extremely rare, random and, like murder, rape or theft, is impossible to ever truly prevent. But in the "post 9/11 world," the artificial creation and maintenance of the myth of "Islamofascism" is dependent on ceaseless obsession with the imminent threat of Muslim terror around every corner, and that's why something like the Madrid Airport bombing would have been shoved down our throats until kingdom come - but only if Muslims were behind it. Terror attacks like Saturday's become mere pre-cursors to the "and finally" puff piece if they can't be pinned on "Islamofascists" and the scam recycled. It's almost a national emergency nowadays if Muslims - God forbid - are seen praying on an aeroplane, and their every action being scrutinized as a foreboding for the apocalypse, which only breeds suspicion across all of society, has turned the land of the free into the United States of Hysteria. Swimming pools killed more Americans than terrorists today - Muslim or otherwise. Fear is a lie. False Evidence Appearing Real.

Yeah, never liked any of the supposed "trendy" NME bands that got right on my tits last year. It's about creating a 'scene' all the time. I hate it and I'm glad to be no part of it. Anyway, yes...Field Music are still a pretty small band but what they have done so far is exciting.

Thought they are due a thread by now since their superb new album is due out soon: TONES OF TOWN - OUT 22 JANUARY 2007 in UK - 20 Feb in US Tones Of Town is the follow-up to their 2005 self titled debut. For anyone new to them - From the North-east England, they were formed by original Futureheads drummer Peter Brewis, along with his brother David and Andrew Moore. They don't really sound like The Futureheads though. Anyway, I think they are a great band and a great example of some of the great, clever music being made by some of the musicians/bands in my region. That's it. Been a fan for a while yet no thread here so....

Say what you see.........I've said I think big, bad things are going to happen sooner rarther than later.....damn, I mean they are happening every day in the middle-east - but anyone with half a brain can see how our countries in the west have seriously took it too far - and the only way criminals who run our countries can deal with this? MAKE IT WORSE!....and they will, that's without "God" talking to me. (coz he can't - come on, people need to get serious and not stay Delirious) Pat Robertson: God told me of 'mass killing' in 2007 (Sure he did mate, sure) Associated Press | January 4, 2006 VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (AP) -- Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a "mass killing" late in 2007. "I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network. "The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that." Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat. God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September. Robertson suggested in January 2006 that God punished then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a stroke for ceding Israeli-controlled land to the Palestinians. The broadcaster predicted in January 2004 that President Bush would easily win re-election. Bush won 51 percent of the vote that fall, beating Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. In 2005 Robertson predicted that Bush would have victory after victory in his second term. He said Social Security reform proposals would be approved and Bush would nominate conservative judges to federal courts. Lawmakers confirmed Bush's 2005 nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. But the president's Social Security initiative was stalled. "I have a relatively good track record," he said. "Sometimes I miss." In May, Robertson said God told him that storms and possibly a tsunami were to crash into America's coastline in 2006. Even though the U.S. was not hit with a tsunami, Robertson on Tuesday cited last spring's heavy rains and flooding in New England as partly fulfilling the prediction.

Iraqis Say They Were Better Off Under Hussein Angus Reid Global Monitor Thursday, January 4, 2007 Many adults in Iraq believe the coalition effort has been negative, according to a poll by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies and the Gulf Research Center. 90 per cent of respondents think the situation in their country was better before the U.S.-led invasion. The coalition effort against Saddam Hussein’s regime was launched in March 2003. At least 3,000 American soldiers have died during the military operation, and more than 22,500 troops have been wounded in action. There has been no official inquiry on the actual number of Iraqi casualties. A volunteer group of British and U.S. academics and researchers—known as Iraq Body Count (IBC)—estimates that more than 52,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed during the military intervention. In December 2005, Iraqi voters renewed their National Assembly. In May 2006, Shiite United Iraqi Alliance member Nouri al-Maliki officially took over as prime minister. The survey was conducted in November 2006, before the publication of the Iraq Study Group’s findings in the United States, and Hussein’s execution for crimes against humanity. Late last month, Al-Maliki called on the "followers of the ousted regime" to "reconsider their stance as the door is still open to anyone who has no innocent blood on his hands to help in rebuilding Iraq." Polling Data Do you feel the situation in the country is better today or better before the U.S.-led invasion? Better today 5% Better before 90% Not sure 5% Source: Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies / Gulf Research Center Methodology: Face-to-face interviews with 2,000 Iraqi adults in Baghdad, Anbar and Najaf, conducted in late November 2006. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Counterpunch Thursday, January 4, 2007 On January 2 the BBC reported a leak from a "senior administration source" that President George W. Bush is going to give a speech, whose "central theme will be sacrifice," announcing an increase in US troops in Iraq for security purposes. Speculation abounds whether the leak is designed to block Bush's insane policy with protests or to soften its controversial edge when announced. The BBC reports that "already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland." Bush's proposal, if he makes it, is the work of retired army general Jack Keane and Frederic W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute. AEI is the second most important Israeli lobby in Washington after AIPAC. Keane and Kagan profess to believe that 30,000 more US troops can bring security to Iraq. Keane and Kagan argue that more US troops would permit the US military to retain control of an area after they had cleared it of insurgents. They ignore that Iraq has progressed from insurgency into civil war. There can be no Iraqi army independent of the sectarian conflict. The military problem for the Americans is no longer a small insurgency drawn from a minority of the population, but sectarian strife involving all of Iraq. Today the only choice for US forces is to ally with one side or the other in the civil war or to depart Iraq. Knowledgeable people regard the Keane/Kagan plan as a proposal designed to continue for a while longer the blood profits of the US military-industrial complex and to advance Israel's interests by spreading Sunni-Shi'ite conflict throughout the Middle East. The neoconservatives' original plan was to give Israel hegemony in the Middle East by using the US military to overthrow Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The failure of US forces to subdue Iraq has led to a new neoconservative plan to give Israel supremacy by spreading sectarian conflict among Muslims throughout the region. No Arab state would be stable, and Israel could proceed with its seizure of Palestine. If Bush adopts the Keane/Kagan "plan," he should be impeached for putting two special interests--the military-industrial complex and Israeli Zionist settlers--ahead of America's interests and the interests of peace in the Middle East. The crimes of the Bush regime already stand at a horrendous level. There is no support for the Keane/Kagan "plan" in the American political establishment, among Middle East experts and the American public, or within the Bush administration itself. The American electorate, or stolen elections, have put in the presidency an ignorant and moronic person who is guided not by sense and reason but by an enormous ego that can admit no mistake. In the name of a concocted "war on terror," the American public has permitted Bush an endless stream of mistakes. These mistakes are destroying any prospect for peace in the Middle East, committing America to endless and pointless conflict, destroying America's soft power while demonstrating the limits of its military power, creating a domestic police state, and endangering the US dollar. There is no imaginable gain from the Middle Eastern conflict that Bush has initiated that could possibly offset these costs to Americans. The US electorate attempted to rein in Bush in the November election by giving Democrats control of Congress. But Bush refuses to listen to the electorate as he prepares, instead, to mire America deeper in illegitimate conflict that does not serve America's interests. President George W. Bush is destroying America. Will Congress stop him?

Yeah, I saw this on U.S news yesterday. Pretty good.

Living In The "Post 9/11 World", We Have A Choice By Jon Gold 1/3/2007 Today, our beloved President decided to "write" an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal. The one thing that stood out to me, aside from the "warning" to Congress saying, "If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate. If a different approach is taken, the next two years can be fruitful ones for our nation.", was the following paragraph: "Our priorities begin with defeating the terrorists who killed thousands of innocent Americans on September 11, 2001--and who are working hard to attack us again. These terrorists are part of a broader extremist movement that is now doing everything it can to defeat us in Iraq." First of all, Iraq and the people fighting against Americans in Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush himself, admitted that the country of Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. As for the groups of people fighting our brave soldiers... If America was invaded by Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, or China, like America invaded Iraq, would Americans that actively opposed said invasion be an "extremist movement" or would they be patriots defending their country? I guess that depends on whether or not you are the invader or the invadees. People that say 9/11 happened 5+ years ago, and we need to move on as a nation, need to understand that the attacks of 9/11, dictate America's policies. That one single day has created the "Post 9/11 World" where policies the people do not agree with, become the "priority", and are passed with little to NO oversight, or opposition. I'm sure you're familiar with previous passages of bills opposed by the people like the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and so on. The "surge" of 20,000 troops hasn't been approved yet, but how much do you want to bet it will be? With the wand of 9/11, the sky is the limit. As has been proven time and time again. It doesn't have to be this way. We have a choice. We have the ability to restore sanity to the United States of America. As I said during my speech at the Philadelphia 9/11 Truth Tea Party: Our Civil Liberties are disappearing. Wars are being fought in our name, and 1000's upon 1000's of people are dying. This country has been bankrupted while the rich have become richer. Elements of our Government have used the events of 9/11 to make all of this happen, and if 9/11 wasn't what we were led to believe, then we need to know about it, and we need to know about it now. There are SEVERAL legitimate reasons to think the attacks of 9/11 were not what we were led to believe. Legitimate reasons that drove 9/11 family members Donna Marsh O'Connor, Cristina Kminek, and Michelle Little to call for a new investigation at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. Legitimate reasons that drove 9/11 family members Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg, Patty Casazza, and Monica Gabrielle to start a petition calling for the declassification of pertinent documentation related to the attacks of 9/11. Legitimate reasons that drove family members Mindy Kleinberg, Lorie Van Auken, Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Sally Regenhard, and Bob McIlvaine to endorse a documentary entitled, "9/11: Press For Truth." We can take away their "wand of 9/11". We have a choice. You just have to make it.

I'll second that ^ me too.

UN Child Sex Slave Scandals Continue Wave after wave of child abuse reports pour forward from all over the globe Steve Watson Wednesday, January 3, 2007 The UN is to investigate itself again after it was revealed by the London Telegraph today that more than twenty different cases of child sex slavery involving UN staff have been reported in southern Sudan. The Telegraph reports that it has learned of dozens of victims’ accounts claiming that some peacekeeping and civilian staff based in the town are regularly picking up young children in their UN vehicles and forcing them to have sex. The Telegraph states that it is thought that hundreds of children may have been abused. The UN has up to 10,000 military personnel in the region, of all nationalities and the allegations involve peacekeepers, military police and civilian staff. The Telegraph also states that the Sudanese government, which is deeply opposed to the deployment of UN troops to Darfur, has evidence of child sex slavery, including video footage of Bangladeshi UN workers allegedly having sex with three young girls. Stating that such events are ultimately the work of "a few bad apples", a UN spokesperson promised that they will be thoroughly investigated. Over the past few years, however, there seems to have been a hell of a lot of rotting fruit in the UN barrel. Last November a BBC Investigation found that children as young as 11 have been subjected to rape and prostitution by United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti and Liberia. A previous BBC investigation in Liberia discovered systematic abuse, involving food being given out to teenage refugees in return for sex. In both instances the UN promised to investigate. In 2003 the AP reported that UN officials were identified as using a ship charted for 'peacekeepers' to traffick young girls from Thailand to East Timor as prostitutes. In the same year it was also revealed that UN staff were guilty of raping women on a systematic scale in Sierra Leone. Previous to this, in early 2002 a massive pedophilia scandal within the UN was uncovered involving sexual abuse against West African refugee children in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. UPI reported that Senior U.N. officials knew of the widespread pedophilia and not only did they not take action against the perpetrators, they covered up the atrocities. It was later reported that after The UN's' investigating arm had cleared several U.N. workers of charges of sexual abuse against West African refugee children, it substantiated 10 new cases against aid workers. Damning cases involving workers making home porn movies and so called weapons inspectors having bizarre sadomasochistic, pansexual and leather fetishes also emerged at this time. In 2004 The New York Post reported that the UN was trying to block the publication of a book by three United Nations fieldworkers that detailed sex, drugs and corruption inside multiple U.N. missions. "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story from Hell on Earth" chronicles the experiences of a doctor, a human-rights official and a secretary in U.N. operations in Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Liberia and Bosnia. It also alleged that the UN knowingly hired freed criminals to serve as peacemakers. We have also previously reported on the intimate involvement of Dyncorp, the contractors of the international police force, in such sex scandals. One Dyncorp employee, Kathryn Bolkovac, was sacked for detailing UN workers’ involvement in the sex trade in Bosnia. Bolkovac was sacked after disclosing that UN peacekeepers went to nightclubs where girls as young as 15 were forced to dance naked and have sex with customers, and that UN personnel and international aid workers were linked to prostitution rings in the Balkans. Dyncorp was ordered to pay Kathryn Bolkovac £110,000 by an employment tribunal, yet both the British and the US governments as well as the UN continue to contract Dyncorp. It was later revealed by the Chicago Tribune that Halliburton subsidiary KBR and Dyncorp lobbyists are working in tandem with the Pentagon to stall legislation that would specifically ban trafficking in humans for forced labor and prostitution by U.S. contractors. On March 11th 2005, Representative Cynthia McKinney grilled Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers on the Dyncorp scandal. "Mr. Secretary, I watched President Bush deliver a moving speech at the United Nations in September 2003, in which he mentioned the crisis of the sex trade. The President called for the punishment of those involved in this horrible business. But at the very moment of that speech, Dyncorp was exposed for having been involved in the buying and selling of young women and children. While all of this was going on, Dyncorp kept the Pentagon contract to administer the smallpox and anthrax vaccines, and is now working on a plague vaccine through the Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program. Mr. Secretary, is it [the] policy of the U.S. Government to reward companies that traffic in women and little girls?" The response and McKinney's comeback was as follows. Rumsfeld: "Thank you, Representative. First, the answer to your first question is, is, no, absolutely not, the policy of the United States Government is clear, unambiguous, and opposed to the activities that you described. The second question." McKinney: "Well how do you explain the fact that Dyncorp and its successor companies have received and continue to receive government contracts?" Rumsfeld: "I would have to go and find the facts, but there are laws and rules and regulations with respect to government contracts, and there are times that corporations do things they should not do, in which case they tend to be suspended for some period; there are times then that the - under the laws and the rules and regulations for the - passed by the Congress and implemented by the Executive branch - that corporations can get off of - out of the penalty box if you will, and be permitted to engage in contracts with the government. They're generally not barred in perpetuity." McKinney: "This contract - this company - was never in the penalty box." Rumsfeld: "I'm advised by DR. Chu that it was not the corporation that was engaged in the activities you characterized but I'm told it was an employee of the corporation, and it was some years ago in the Balkans that that took place." Watch the video here. Rumsfeld's effort to shift the blame away from the hierarchy at Dyncorp and onto the Dyncorp employees was a blatant attempt to hide the fact that human trafficking and sex slavery is a practice condoned by companies like Dyncorp and Halliburton subsidiaries like KBR. Why should the UN be continually allowed to investigate itself and, those that it contracts, on these issues? The UN has an abysmal track record on this issue and a long history of covering up such cases. It is time for a thorough independent inquiry of the UN and its agencies and affiliates to be carried out.

I think it was a purposeful leak that shows pretty much nothing too bad in terms of graphic gore but can be shown on the news and does help to sustain the violent clashes in Iraq. If only the average man on both sides (Sonny and Cher :p) knew they were being used to stop the country ever becoming a role player in the middle-east and ultimately stopping the whole region from ever being peaceful and strong, we would be a lot better off.

I used to love going to Little Chef when I was younger. I'd always look forward to having pancakes with maple syrup for dessert and getting a lollipop on the way out. I hope it doesn't close completely because I think I might want to go now..

Oh dear.

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,

I just need someone to love.

Oh I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends