9/11: The Day The Towers Fell

New 9/11 Tapes Released Days Before Tenth Anniversary Of Attacks

Only days before the United States marks the tenth anniversary of the horrifying 9/11 attacks, we’re hearing, for the first time, the full audio recordings of communications between military and civilian air traffic controllers on that fateful day.

The multimedia document, published by the Rutgers Law Review, provides a rare look at how government agencies responded -- blow-by-blow -- to the hijacking of the four planes as the drama was actually unfolding, according to ABC News, which played the tapes on Good Morning America on Thursday.

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"We have a problem here. We have hijacked aircraft headed towards New York and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up here to help us out," a worker at Boston Center's Traffic Management Unit said at 8:37 a.m., according to the tapes.Read more.

Bush Era Torture Probe Urged

Written by John Berthelsen

Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Put down that suitcase, George, we aren't going anywhere Fear of arrest appears to be deterring top administration officials from venturing overseas The top members of the administration of former US President George W Bush have considerable reason not to venture outside the United States, according to a new report issued today by the Washington, DC-based Human Rights Watch, which declares that "overwhelming evidence" exists of torture of prisoners by the Bush administration. It also says the Obama administration has failed to meet its commitments under the Convention Against Torture to investigate the allegations. It is probably doubtful that the Obama administration will do any such thing. But the report opens up an interesting new dimension that applies to top Bush officials: it might not be wise for them to leave US borders because they could be arrested for war crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction. It appears that the former officials are aware of the danger. Bush himself cancelled a trip to Switzerland in February where alleged victims of torture were waiting to ambush him with a criminal complaint. Few others have ventured outside the US, although former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did attend a ceremony in Prague earlier this month to name a street after the late President Ronald Reagan and made it without being arrested. The Bush administration, in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Towers in New York and the near destruction of the Pentagon in Washington, DC, authorized a flurry of highly controversial measures aimed at forcing detainees to give them information. Many of the measures have been criticized by human rights organizations for years although Bush administration figures have defended them, saying that was the only way they could gather intelligence on the movements of such Al Qaeda figures as Osama Bin Laden. Some detainees appear to have actually been killed by interrogators. The 107-page report, titled Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatments of Detainees, singles out Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and CIA Director George Tenet, for ordering practices such as waterboarding, the use of secret overseas CIA prisons, and the transfer of detainees to countries where they were tortured. Although the odds that Attorney General Eric Holder would initiate such an investigation are extremely low, Human Rights Watch said, "If the US government does not pursue credible criminal investigations, other countries should prosecute US officials involved in crimes against detainees in accordance with international law." That raises interesting questions for a long list of former US government officials including, according to the report, Rice, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, the former counsel to the president and later attorney general; Jay Bybee, head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, John Rizzo, the acting CIA general counsel, David Addington, counsel to Cheney, William J. Haynes II, the Department of Defense general counsel, and John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general in the legal counsel?s office. All played a role in crafting the legal advice that allowed for such practices as waterboarding, in which those being interrogated are made to believe they are drowning, as well as "rendition" of prisoners to hidden CIA prisons where they could be tortured out of the sight of human rights organizations, and other controversial practices. Arrest of government officials outside their home countries became a reality in 1998 when the onetime Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations in Chile by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon despite the fact that Pinochet had been granted amnesty in Chile itself. He was arrested in London six days later while on a visit to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and finally released by the British government in March 2000. It was the first time European judges had applied the principle of universal jurisdiction, declaring themselves competent to judge crimes committed by former heads of state despite local amnesty laws. The principle had been relatively obscure until the Pinochet arrest. Originally formulated to govern crimes involving piracy and slave-running, it was used against fugitive Nazis after World War II. In brief, it allows any state to prosecute individuals who are believed to have committed certain international crimes, even if the prosecuting state has no link to the crime in question other than "the bonds of common humanity." At first the law was used only against relatively low-ranking war criminals fleeing prosecution from atrocities in the Balkans, Ruanda and other places. It had never been used against a head of state until Pinochet was arrested in the UK. That arrest "changed everything," Diane F. Orentlicher, professor of international law and director of the War Crimes Research Office at Washington College of Law in Washington, DC in a 2003 paper. "It was a moment when international law seemed to plunge forward rather than advance at its more usual lumbering pace. Indeed, the case transformed the landscape of international law and practice in respect to universal jurisdiction." Read more.

George Bush:Grand Master Of Torture

Hantu Laut

It would be interesting to know what other form of torture he sanctioned.

Water boarding is not torture? He must be joking!

I would like to ask Mr Bush how come the victim confessed if there was no pain.

Here it is, Mr Bush.Read it.

Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing the subject on his/her back with the head inclined downwards; water is then poured over the face into breathing passages, thus triggering the mammalian diving reflex causing the captive to experience the sensations of drowning.^[1][2] In contrast to submerging the head face-forward in water, waterboarding precipitates an almost immediategag reflex.^[3] It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage and, if uninterrupted, death.^[4] Adverse physical consequences can manifest themselves months after the event, while psychological effects can last for years.^[5] The term waterboardingwas coined in 2004.^{[6][7] From Wikipedia.}

How would he likes someone to waterboard him so he can enjoy telling us all his misdeeds while in office.

George W Bush: 'waterboarding' saved British lives

George W Bush, the former United States president, has insisted that the "waterboarding" of terrorist suspects by the CIA saved British lives by stopping Islamist attacks on Heathrow and Canary Wharf.

In an interview publicising his new book “Decision Points”, Mr Bush vigorously defended waterboarding, a kind of simulated drowning that was known as an “enhanced interrogation technique” by the Bush administration but regarded as “torture” by many opponents, some allies and a few internal dissenters.

“Three people were waterboarded and I believe that decision saved lives,” said Mr Bush, who denied that the practice amounted to torture. When asked if he authorised of waterboarding to gain information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the captured al-Qaeda leader, he responded: “Damn right!”

In his book, Mr Bush writes: “Their interrogations helped break up plots to attack American diplomatic facilities abroad, Heathrow airport and Canary Wharf in London, and multiple targets in the United States.”

He writes that although the procedure was "tough", it was legal.

The British government has long viewed waterboarding as torture. Last month, Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, said in a speech that Britain had "nothing whatsoever" to do with torture. Mr Bush was being interviewed by The Times, which is serialising the book. He hailed Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, as a modern-day Winston Churchill but was dismissive of the significance of British public opinion during the run-up to the Iraq war and subsequently.

Mr Bush recalled that when Mr Blair faced a possible Parliamentary vote of no confidence in on the eve of the Iraq invasion he gave him the chance to decide not to send British troops to Iraq because “rather than lose the Government, I would much rather have Tony and his wisdom and his strategic thinking as the prime minister of a strong and important ally”.

According to Mr Bush, Mr Blair responded: “I’m in. If it costs the Government, fine.”

In the book, Mr Bush also:

• Recounts his reaction after a third hijacked plane hit its target, the Pentagon, on September 11th 2001. He writes: “My blood was boiling. We were going to find out who did this, and kick their ass."

• Discloses that he ordered the Pentagon to draw up plans an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

• Describes how he considered a covert attack on Syrian nuclear facilities but decided against it when the CIA judged it too risky. Israel carried out a similar attack instead.

• Acknowledges he took "too long" to act over the Hurricane Katrina disaster that engulfed New Orleans in 2005, killing more than 1,800 people, but describes being accused of racism (many victims were black) as the lowest point of his presidency.

The Telegraph

Iraq,Afghanistan And Gaza Crisis:Have America Ever Won A War ?

Hantu Laut

The American and the Jews did it again.

This time they have probably disturbed a bigger hornet's nest.

There will be implosion of Islamic fervour to hit back at the West.The imminent increase in terrorists activities when Muslim militants unleashed their anger against the West for what had happened in Gaza would not only endanger the Western countries but also other parts of the world where security is less vigilant.

The American and the Jews never seemed to have learned anything from their experience of 9/11 and other terror attacks or they are just too arrogant. It seems like, if you Muslim killed one of us we will kill hundreds of you or we will invade you country and teach you a lesson that you would never forget in a thousand years.It appears to be the policy of the mighty US and Israel against weak Muslim nations.

Most Muslims nations are weak and it is of their own making.Corruption of all descriptions and dimensions are causes of their weaknesses.Hamas has to carry some of the blame for the flare-up and invasion of Gaza.It is their stupidity that have brought Israeli's invasion.

The US believe they are the only superpower left in the world after the breakup of the Soviet Union and no other country have the same military capability to take them on to stop their aggression.

The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were most unwarranted.How the American lied about the WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) in Iraq as an excuse to go after Saddam Hussein and destroy the country's infrastructures.Have they achieved what they are supposed to do in Iraq? After having killed hundred of thousands of Iraqis, have Iraq becomes a peaceful and prosperous nation under the American appointed puppet government?

The invasion of Iraq was launched in March 2003 and after 5 years the country is still in a state of turmoil and lawlessness.Getting killed by militants bullet or suicide bombing are common occurrences in the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere in the country.Yet the American had the cheek to say that they came to save the Iraqis from Saddam and bring peace to the country.They built a fortress for themselves in Baghdad to protect against militants attack and let poor Iraqi civilians be the victims.

The whole of Afghanistan's population suffered and many innocent civilians killed during the bombings and military invasion of the country..... just to get one man, Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda. After killing thousands of innocent Afghans they still have not caught or killed Osama.Even if Osama had been killed, which I believe so, the American must have kept it a secret so they can keep their presence in the country as long as possible.

The Taliban, whether you like it or not was the legitimate government at the time of the invasion and whom they have fought with and removed from power and replaced with their puppets and cronies.The invasion was launched in October 2001 and the war has been going on for seven years. Was there peace in Afghanistan? You hear of people getting blown up by suicide bombers or shot by militants or shot by American soldiers almost every day.

To keep the war going the US have decided to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.Just imagine what a horrible and badly planned military stratagem and military generals they have. For seven years, with their sophisticated weaponry and equipments they can't even fight and vanquish the Taliban foot soldiers.These are soldiers who are only armed with AK47 and rickety rocket launchers and occasionally drive ramshackle Toyota Land Cruisers.Even with their unsophisticated weapons and limited military training the Taliban had managed to re-grouped and taken back certain part of their country.

They have also infiltrated into Pakistan and are in control of some provinces in the northern part of the country bordering Afghanistan.There is strong fear in Pakistan that the Taliban might take over the town of Peshawar at any time and some even believe the fall of the city to the Taliban is imminent.Peshawar sits on the strategic supply route to Afghanistan.It would be a prize catch for the Taliban.

The war and atrocities committed by the Jews in Gaza are going to inflame Islamist's anger and passion for vengeance and the Islamic militants that would be the first to rise to embolden the strike would be in Afghanistan and Pakistan.There would also be attempts to cause massive damage to lives and properties in other places especially where there are big concentration of American and European and in those areas less vigilant and alert to take precautions against terrorist attacks.

We are all impressed by the American military wares, their huge aircraft carriers,battle ships, tanks, fighter jets and hundreds of other different kind of weaponry.From their nuclear submarines to their stealth bombers, they have the most awesome killing machines, unrivalled to any other nations.

Have the American ever actually won a war? Other than dropping the two H-Bomb on Japan to end the Second World War, which conventional war have they won? With The Korean War, they managed to split the country into two, which was not a victory by any sense.In Vietnam they fought for more than 10 years and was finally trashed by the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army like dogs and have to run home with their tails in between their legs.In Afghanistan, they have been in the country seven years and the Taliban is gaining strength and making a come back, believe me, they will be defeated.You can fight guns but you can't fight ideals.That's what 'Pashtunwali' is all about, ideals.In Iraq, they have been in there five years and they are still rummaging through their drawers looking for the battle plan.They have already killed more than enough Iraqis and still couldn't figure out why there are still militants wanting to kill them and people dying on the streets blown up by bombs that they have no bloody idea where it coming from.

That tells you how mighty America has one of the most useless military in the world and with all their sophisticated weaponry and military strategists they still couldn't sought out their enemies.

If they had not dropped the H-Bomb on Japan, all of us including them would probably be living under a Japanese empire.The only war they have ever won was in Hollywood.They can only fight in a war using their high flying bombers to bomb indiscriminately killing innocent civilians on the ground.Put them to fight in a conventional war, they are fucked.

Look what happened in Gaza.The aerial bombing that kill women,children and other innocent civilians.It makes your blood boil to see those dead and dying children in the arms of their parents.We live in the twenty-first century yet this kind of things were allowed to happen.The Jews have learned from them how to conduct a war without engaging the enemies.Just strafe the civilian population and hope it would kill some of the enemies.

I would like to quote Liaqat Ali Toor, a retired brigadier from the Pakistan Army who said "Terrorism will continue to breed so long as the world's leading powers treat the humanity of weaker nations as less human than their own citizens,"

That's What America is all about, it treats citizens of poorer nations like shit, so it's alright to let them die or kill them.

I hope Obama takes note of this and not let power gotten into his head like the maniacal Bush who is a wolf in sheep's clothing, a white supremacist hiding under the skirt of his wife.

Gaza:Dirty American,Ruthlessly Cruel Jews And Stupid Arabs

Hantu Laut

When Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006 what did the United States do ? Hamas took 76 out of 132 parliamentary seats thus making it the legitimate government.

The world's biggest hypocrite the United States of America refused to recognise the legitimacy of this democratically elected government.It also cut off all aids to the Palestinian people and imposed sanctions.This so called guardian of democracy is the epitome of human wickedness,hypocrisy and the true devil incarnate.

YOUR PICTURE GALLERY IS NOW LOADING... Fighting is still raging in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, a day after Israel sent in troops and tanks to tackle militants who have been firing rockets into southern Israel. A BBC correspondent says the fighting now appears to have moved deeper into the territory, with Israeli forces dividing it into two.

Intensive aerial, land and naval bombardment of Gaza.

While it interfered and launched full military force to evict the Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait it approved and allowed the invasion of Gaza by its ally Israel.Indiscriminate aerial bombings had taken many innocent lives including women and children.The assault on Gaza is an atrocity committed by both the US and Israel.Civil infrastructures had completely broken down.Water and electricity supplies have been cut off and the whole country had been cordoned off making sure nobody can leave the area.Gaza is now one big concentration camp in the middle of a war zone and the killing of civilians continues.

YOUR PICTURE GALLERY IS NOW LOADING... Fighting is still raging in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, a day after Israel sent in troops and tanks to tackle militants who have been firing rockets into southern Israel. A BBC correspondent says the fighting now appears to have moved deeper into the territory, with Israeli forces dividing it into two. The Israeli ground operation is being supported by intensive aerial, land and naval bombardment of Gaza.

A Palestinian child and a dry tap.Water had been cut off.

The Gaza strip is not exactly a country by any sense, it is only about 360 sg.km.Although, they have given up governing Gaza in 2006 the Israel still controls Gaza's air space, territorial waters and offshore maritime access, as well as its side of the Gaza-Israel border.It means Gaza is actually one big prison and the access to supplies of food, medicine and other resources are control by the Israelis.

Israel excuse for the bombardments and invasion of Gaza is defensive action against Hamas regular rocket attacks on Israel.What ? Against rickety rockets that have so far killed only one Israeli.Do you really need full military retaliation that so far had killed over 500 mainly innocent Palestinians and displaced hundred thousands more civilians by cutting off their supplies of water,electricity, food and medical supplies.This is cruelty of the first order and only the Zionists are capable of such inhumane treatment supported by their master, the evil empire, the United States of America.

This war is not about religion.This is a war of people deprived off their ancestral land by the Western powers who created Israel out of the 'Land of Palestine'.Not all Palestinians are Muslims, there are also Christian Palestinians but they are in the minority.

The ruthlessness,selfishness and cruelty of the Jews had always been the cause of their persecution since biblical days.History have shown that they have been persecuted by almost everyone else they come into contact with and the worst was by their own Caucasian cousins, the Europeans who are now protecting them and allow them free rein to unleash their military might against defenceless Palestinians.

Many in the West, especially the hypocrites, would say it is politically incorrect to say such thing because they don't want to be reminded of the atrocities committed by them against the Jews.Their past misdeeds and atrocities against the Jews had made them conscience-stricken.Now, they are repeating the same mistake and did what they have done before, allow the persecution of another race of people and what could not be better than using those you have persecuted to do the dirty job for you.

If the Americans and Europeans are sincere they could have stopped Israel, but they are not, they actually wanted the Palestinians out of Israel by allowing the Jews to systematically persecute and kill them through ethnic cleansing.The Jews are not sending pop corns into Gaza they are mobilising a full invasion using heavy artillery, tanks and aerial bombings on a population that have nothing to defend themselves with.This disproportionate war is to ensure maximum casualty and damage on lives and properties of the Palestinian people.

Not to be sounding racist or rude and with due respect to them it is the Arab's mentality to think that they are better than everyone else and inconsideration for others are common denominators among the Arabs.

Most sensible people would evaluate their own strength first before taking on an opponent and Hamas, for all intent and purpose, is very stupid for having ignored the ceasefire and sent their rickety rockets to Israel that could hardly kill an ant.Isn't that looking for trouble and stupid ?

In this crisis the American should carry the biggest blame because they have the power to stop it.The man behind all this is none other than that soon be leaving moron in the White House George Bush the mass murderer.He blames Hamas for the crisis but this wouldn't have happened if he didn't choke Hamas and the Palestinians.

It is also his farewell gift for Obama.He has another 14 days left before handing over to Obama, maybe, he should bomb Iran before leaving.

Paying for Eight Years of Bush’s Delusions

He should be tried by the World Court under the Geneva Convention after he stepped down as President.He has done more harm to world peace and the global economy than any other President or leader of any nation.He has killed more Muslims out of revenge and put Islamic nations in turmoil than any other President before him.He deserved to be locked up...... Hantu Laut.

By Robert Fisk

American lawyers defending six Algerians before a habeas corpus hearing in Washington this week learned some very odd things about U.S. intelligence after 9/11. From among the millions of “raw” reports from American spies and their “assets” around the world came a CIA Middle East warning about a possible kamikaze-style air attack on a U.S. navy base at a south Pacific island location. The only problem was that no such navy base existed on the island and no U.S. Seventh Fleet warship had ever been there. In all seriousness, a U.S. military investigation earlier reported that Osama bin Laden had been spotted shopping at a post office on a U.S. military base in east Asia.

That this nonsense was disseminated around the world by those tasked to defend the United States in the “war on terror” shows the fantasy environment in which the Bush regime has existed these past eight years. If you can believe that bin Laden drops by a shopping mall on an American military base, then you can believe that everyone you arrest is a “terrorist”, that Arabs are “terrorists”, that they can be executed, that living “terrorists” must be tortured, that everything a tortured man says can be believed, that it is legitimate to invade sovereign states, to grab the telephone records of everyone in America. As Bob Herbert put it in The New York Times a couple of years ago, the Bush administration wanted these records “which contain crucial documentation of calls for a Chinese takeout in Terre Haute, Indiana, and birthday greetings to Grandma in Talladega, Alabama, to help in the search for Osama bin Laden”. There was no stopping Bush when it came to trampling on the US Constitution. All that was new was that he was now applying the same disrespect for liberty in America that he had shown in the rest of the world.

But how is Barack Obama going to repair the titanic damage which his vicious, lying predecessor has perpetrated around the globe and within the U.S. itself? John F Kennedy once said that “the United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.” After Bush’s fear-mongering and Rumsfeld’s “shock and awe” and Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantanamo and secret renditions, how does Obama pedal his country all the way back to Camelot? Our own dear Gordon Brown’s enthusiasm to Hoover up the emails of the British people is another example of how Lord Blair’s sick relationship with Bush still infects our own body politic. Only days before the wretched president finally departs from us, new U.S. legislation will ensure that citizens of his lickspittle British ally will no longer be able to visit America without special security clearance. Does Bush have any more surprises for us before 20 January? Indeed, could anything surprise us any more?

Obama has got to close Guantanamo. He’s got to find a way of apologising to the world for the crimes of his predecessor, not an easy task for a man who must show pride in his country; but saying sorry is what – internationally – he will have to do if the “change” he has been promoting at home is to have any meaning outside America’s borders. He will have to re-think – and deconstruct – the whole “war on terror”. He will have to get out of Iraq. He will have to call a halt to America’s massive airbases in Iraq, its $600m embassy. He will have to end the blood-caked air strikes we are perpetrating in southern Afghanistan – why, oh, why do we keep slaughtering wedding parties? – and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths: that America can no longer remain uncritical in the face of Israeli army brutality and the colonisation for Jews and Jews only on Arab land. Obama will have to stand up at last to the Israeli lobby (it is, in fact, an Israeli Likud party lobby) and withdraw Bush’s 2004 acceptance of Israel’s claim to a significant portion of the West Bank. U.S. officials will have to talk to Iranian officials – and Hamas officials, for that matter. Obama will have to end U.S. strikes into Pakistan – and Syria.

Indeed, there’s a growing concern among America’s allies in the Middle East that the U.S. military has to be brought back under control – indeed, that the real reason for General David Petraeus’ original appointment in Iraq was less to organise the “surge” than it was to bring discipline back to the 150,000 soldiers and marines whose mission – and morals – had become so warped by Bush’s policies. There is some evidence, for example, that the four-helicopter strike into Syria last month, which killed eight people, was – if not a rogue operation – certainly not sanctioned by Washington or indeed by US commanders in Baghdad.Read more.........

Bush's America Busted The World

Hantu Laut

As I have said earlier in my article 'American Get Screwed' it is still a big question mark whether the US$700 billion is sufficient to bail out the sick US economy and predicted that the shock waves would hit the shores of other countries soon.It has begun and is only the beginning.The real tsunamis have not started yet.

The domino effect will certainly take place as many of the markets are indirectly links through many of the huge hedge funds that placed their portfolios in the global baskets. Wall Street has always, for some unknown reasons, been the barometer for other markets to follow. It's the triggering mechanism for boom or bust.

It is not the collapse of the stocks markets that is most worrying and one that could cause major catastrophe, it is the banking system that would decide whether we would go into a major financial disaster or not.As long as the banking system is sufficiently liquid the world major economies would be safe.If it is not than a major catastrophe is not a figment of one's imagination.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers was most unexpected and the US government has allowed it to be the sacrificial lamb and sent it to the grave to save some other bigger monsters. The unprecedented major equity taking in AIG by the US government could be a trend of things to come as it implements it rescue plan.The government could end up becoming reluctant shareholders in many major corporations.

In 1979 when the US Congress agreed to bailout Chrysler there were major outcry, protest and objection from the business community and Lee Iacocca ridiculed by the press for his effort to convince Congress.The rescue package was only US$1.5 billion then, not in cash or equity, but in loan guarantees and was paid back by Chrysler ahead of schedule. Today the enormity of the rescue package and the number of companies to be rescued is mind-boggling and nobody blamed or ridiculed George, his Treasury and Federal Reserve for the failure to regulate the banking system.Because they all wanted George Bust to get the money for them so they wouldn't go bust.

The man who now handles the rescue package is Henry Paulson the Treasury Secretary who gave the US$700 billion to a 35-year old wiz-kid from Wall Street to head and manage the rescue plan.

The de-regulation of the of the financial system was the biggest culprit to this messy affairs for which the Bush Administration and his financial regulating arms should take full responsibility.As President he had failed to take action to reverse the laissez-faire and take immediate action to regulate and stop the greed and excesses in the system.

Although it may be too late to lay the blame, the American people should be made to know that they have a President who are more prepared to show the world the military might of the nation by going to wars at the expense of the American taxpayers and the innocent lives of non-American people abroad.

The next US President that carry on the same policy would also fail to arrest the economic problems as what had happened under Bush's policies.He spent more time with the generals than with the economists and failed to see the even bigger danger than Osama Bin Laden and his band of terrorists, the internal threat of a failed economy that can bankrupt the nation.

With banking failures occurring in almost every major economies the doom scenario could only be averted if those governments took immediate measures to save the financial system from breaking down.

The financial meltdown in the West may not necessary affect the Asian financial markets in the presence but would certainly affect the GDP growth in most Asian countries that have huge export bills to the West.The problem that can eventually affect Asian major economies is if the West is unable to recover and its recession turned to depression.

A loss of confidence in the banking system and attempts to taking money out of it by panicky depositors causing serious run on banks in any of the major economies could contagiously spread panic and run on the entire banking system of the world.

By then,the US Government can keep on printing the worthless 'greenback' and bankrupt every nation on this earth.

When that happened, only God and Robert Mugabe can help us.

America A Bankrupt Nation: Mahathir Was Right

Hantu Laut

President Bush appealed to the nation on Wednesday night to support the bailout financial package of $700 billion to avert a financial meltdown on Wall Street and a prolonged recession that could have serious repercussions on the nation and American people."Our entire economy is in danger" he said.

America is now in early stage of insolvency.Without the rescue package it would be a bankrupt nation.

In the 1997 East Asian financial crisis almost the entire East Asian countries were not spared the effect of the meltdown.The crisis was triggered by the collapse of the Thai baht in July 1997 which led to currency and financial crisis with domino effect that eventually affected other countries in the region.The financial anomaly led to recession in most of those countries.

However, the Malaysian economy and population were not as badly affected by the recession as compared to Thailand,Indonesia and South Korea.Although Malaysia indebtedness was quite high at that time the foreign debt was much lower and unlike Indonesia was not in default of its repayment.Its foreign liabilities did not exceed its foreign exchange reserves so the country was not in dire need of emergency credit facilities including those from IMF (International Monetary Fund)

The meltdown was due to highly speculative currency trading that was traced to one of the biggest fund managers and currency traders George Soros as the culprit who speculated in currency of the regions making billion of dollars for his hedge funds and himself and caused those currencies to collapse.Subsequently, the stock market collapsed and the KLSE Composite Index which stood at 1300 in early 1997 dropped to a low of 262 by September 1998. Mahathir the prime minister at that time blamed Soros and took defensive action to avert a financial disaster by pegging the ringgit.The peg slowed down the flights of capital and ended with war of words between Mahathir and Soros and criticism by the Western media and Western governments of Mahathir's unilateral action.Even his own finance minister at that time didn't agree with him and was one of the many things than that drove them apart.

The 1997 financial meltdown caused the Malaysian government to restructure and amalgamate its financial institutions and bailouts some of the troubled government linked companies

The American government was highly critical of Mahathir's political and financial policies at that time and didn't foresee that they would one day face even worse and more embarrassing situation.They accused Mahathir of bad governance,corruptions and a government that is not accountable to the people.

What causes the financial meltdown in America.A number of things and GREED is top of the list.

Highly speculative trading on Wall Street, over extended sub-prime sector, pay for failures CEO with huge paychecks, over-innovative financial system, poor financial governance and a society that live on credit.

The American stock markets and financial system are tailored to make the rich get richer. Short selling which is a dangerous form of share trading is rampant on Wall Street and financial institutions are willing to finance this risky business because they are conducted by big hedge funds and investment banks.

Britain is contemplating a permanent ban on short selling after the bashings of bank shares in the past weeks.Prime Minister Gordon Brown defending the recent ban said "when a group of people are exploiting a difficult economic situation, it is right to stop it." and said "I think you'll find new rules come in for the future...We have very unusual and volatile financial markets . It would be wrong for good companies to be brought down by speculators."

This will be the most expensive bailouts in the history of the US.Where are the money coming from ? Print more greenback, sell more Treasury Bills or go to war and sabotage the economy of other countries ?

If the American economy collapse and the greenback become useless many countries would go down with America. Their foreign reserves would be devalued and become almost worthless.

Mahathir was the only man who foresees this coming over a decade ago and the West ridiculed him and branded him as anti-Westerners.They condemned him for pegging the ringgit and the bailouts of some of the troubled government-linked companies during the Asian financial crisis.The man certainly has vision 20/20.

George W.Bush is going to put the money where his mouth is and hand over a very shattered economy to his successor.

The rest of the world have no choice.Rescue America or go down with it.

Another Idiot For American President

Hantu Laut

If you think George Bush is a moron and our Prime Minister is a flip-flop, listen to this man who would likely be the next President of the United States.



So, don't take it too hard on Badawi, he is smarter than Bust and McCain put together.

Come on people of America, be smart, vote for Obama.