John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985. As such he supported and carried out a US-sponsored policy of violations to human rights and international law. Among other things he supervised the creation of the El Aguacate air base, where the US trained Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980's. The base was used as a secret detention and torture center, in August 2001 excavations at the base discovered the first of the corpses of the 185 people, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at this base.

During his ambassadorship, human rights violations in Honduras became systematic. The infamous Battalion 316, trained by the CIA and Argentine military, kidnaped, tortured and killed hundreds of people. Negroponte knew about these human rights violations and yet continued to collaborate with them, while lying to Congress.

President George W. Bush has nominated Negroponte as head of U.S. Intellegence.

Bush: Still securing his power base and throwing more covers on the death and distruction caused by the grab for power. What a Christian!

Last night's news with Lisa Myers was yet another exposee of the abuses caused by the US in Iraq:

From MSNC: U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses
Four men say they witnessed shooting of unarmed civilians
By Lisa Myers & the NBC investigative unit
Updated: 7:43 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2005

"There are new allegations that heavily armed private security contractors in Iraq are brutalizing Iraqi civilians. In an exclusive interview, four former security contractors told NBC News that they watched as innocent Iraqi civilians were fired upon, and one crushed by a truck. The contractors worked for an American company paid by U.S. taxpayers. The Army is looking into the allegations."

These contractors worked for Custer Battles .. a company formed just to profiteer from the war in Iraq.

This company has been in the news before:
Iraq Contractor Claims Immunity From Fraud Laws
Seized Oil Assets Paid For Offshore Overbilling
by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch -- December 23rd, 2004
"Custer Battles has been accused of illegally inflating costs on plum contracts in 2003 to protect the Baghdad International Airport as well as for a massive program that replaced Iraq’s currency. Former Custer Battles employees and plaintiffs, W.D. "Pete Baldwin" and Robert Isakson, claim that the company routinely engaged in accounting trickery and used a corporate shell game involving Cayman Island subsidiaries to drum up charges by tens of millions of dollars with the clear intent to plunder funding for reconstruction efforts."

When will the criminals be held accountable? It seems that the Bush,Inc is busy building a judicial shield that will throw out ALL attempts to hold them or their lackeys to "rule of law".

Now is the time to work against the corporations that are profiting from the war. We need to support the media that brings the outrages public.

Last week the House of Representative passed HR 418 - Another VERY BAD bill. I was proud of my Representative Bob Filner and his vocal opposition to the bill. It's a strange day when the very liberal Bob Filner joins ranks with the very conservative Ron Paul... but this bill, under the guise of protecting us from terrorist and illegal aliens...moves us closer and closer to totalitarianism and fascism. It seems to establish a national ID, encourage ruthless illegal, immoral acts by bounty hunters, close the door on assylum seekers and give an unconstitutional power to the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive laws with no fear of Judicial review.

So what happened to the THREE branches of Government?

Here's just one section of this bill:
SEC. 102. WAIVER OF LAWS NECESSARY FOR IMPROVEMENT OF BARRIERS AT BORDERS.
Section 102(c) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1103 note) is amended to read as follows:
`(c) Waiver-
`(1) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.
`(2) NO JUDICIAL REVIEW- Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), no court shall have jurisdiction--
`(A) to hear any cause or claim arising from any action undertaken, or any decision made, by the Secretary of Homeland Security pursuant to paragraph (1)
; or
`(B) to order compensatory, declaratory, injunctive, equitable, or any other relief for damage alleged to arise from any such action or decision.'.

And now this response to Bush's inaugurial speech, from our very best friend, the Canadians:
"This is the boldest, most visionary and most ambitious, but also the most hubristic and vainglorious foreign policy program ever enunciated by an American president. Even World War I leader Woodrow Wilson only wanted to remake Europe.

It was impossible not to be impressed. Phrases like, "The moral choice is between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right," are the kind of inspirational language the world community needs to lift its sights above the timid and the tired.

It was equally impossible not to be scared as hell. This wasn't a vision for a Brave New World. It was Bush's personal vision. The world's role is to listen, to agree and then to applaud.

Right after Bush's speech, White House aides scurried around to tell reporters that Bush hadn't meant what he'd said. Or, since presidents are never wrong, that the reporters had been wrong to write that he was presenting his personal vision of a re-ordered world."

And from the South America:
"all the evidence suggests that the administration's actions abroad, and particularly in Latin America, will continue to be marked by a unilateralism stunning in its arrogance and an ignorance equally appalling in its breadth. It is to be hoped that a day will eventually arrive when Washington can begin to recoup the damage to its hemispheric reputation inflicted by this president's explosive combination of ideological fervor, a reckless disregard for the truth and a staff more adept at serving up elemental neoconservative dogma than sound foreign policy"

It's been almost a month since I posted a link to the latest distressing bit of news about our not so democratic, free or good governmental doings and consequences.

Since Jan 1:
I'm disturbed by the willingness of our "elected" to plan the dismantlement of a social "security" net to give more money to the gambling establishment of "Wall Street" . It feels like a governmental replacement of "humanity" by "greed". I've been following Josh Marshall for most of this unfolding.

Then I watch in sadness and disbelief as the Bush adminstration moves the country "from the frying pan into the fire". From Ashcroft who thinks all nude statues should be clothed and that the "Patriot Act" did not encrouch on personal liberties to Gonzalez who thinks that "torture" is OK for the president to ratify and that the Geneva Convention is a irrelevent contract. From Colin Powell who at least had the gumption to warn the President "you break it, you own it" and some humility, to C. Rice who for a smart lady... lies and covers major misdeeds. Wonder who we'll get to replace the younger Powell at the FCC. My bets are on someone who will continue the dismantling of a free press.

What I wonder is, how much worse does it get before we hear a ROAR from an "opposition" party rather than the lone voices.

And now following Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article "Annals of National Security - The Coming Wars" ... it seems like we are becoming a terrorist state against the world and our own people. Tom Dispatch has an excellent thread on this.
"Put another way, the legal theory that first came to light in the "torture memos" that emerged from the White House Legal Counsel's office -- that, in his role as commander-in-chief in "wartime," the President was essentially unfettered by Congress or the courts and could act as he wished -- turns out to reach way beyond the issue of torture"

The BBC aired a video last fall, The Power of Nightmares, about the use of FEAR by the government to control the people and maintain their power. "The Power of Nightmares assesses whether the threat from a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. In the concluding part of the series, the programme explains how the illusion was created and who benefits from it."