The Ponzi to beat all Ponzi schemes

I was listening to Jim Lehrer yesterday of his interview with Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson. This discussion brings to mind a previous article I had penned back in June of this year.

I talked of our founding fathers and their declaration that "they hold these truths to be self evident" and the juxtaposition of that phrase with today's wiki-society of truth by proxy. Now, it seems, that if you can get enough people to believe the shit that spews out of your mouth then it becomes truth. As I said in the article, which you can find through the link above, Ayn Rand, the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, believed that truth exists independently of the minds and opinions of people. That there was an underlying universal self evident truth that existed beyond the scope of society and its collective manipulations that can cloud the value of universal truth.

Through the interview on the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer, yesterday, it shows clearly that the current administration still believes in the mob mentality or the control of and manipulation of the lemming minds of America. It is self evident that they maintain their belief that our society holds a truth by proxy. That has been their public relations platform to create and get away with their abuse of power and how they created a dictatorship type of Presidency under everyone's nose without hesitation.

Well, as I stated a few days ago, "There you go again." I don't understand why I feel it is amazing that they attempt to get away with this type of behavior when it works for them every time. We are allowing these fraudulent statements to carry on and their embezzlement of American tax dollars. This money is all of our future earnings being thrown to the elite. That governmental distribution of funds or the great social experiment. We used to call it the great Democratic Experiment. The recipients of all of this social distribution of tax dollars to the current tune of $270 Billion have gone solely to the elite and corporations, to which Paulson and Bush belong to, or have their hands deep into the till, and they are orchestrating the distribution of funds without means of oversight whatsoever. The incestuous means of staffing the TARP committee is simply Paulson making sure his previous business cohorts are still in and part of this ponzi scheme to which they are orchestrating.

Although, I was driving during a lot of this interview, if I were to have closed my eyes I could have switched Paulson out for Palin and we would have heard the same type of rhetoric and catch phrase lines that they calculatingly put into the ears of society. The repetition of phrases. The nonchalance of the gravity of destruction to which Paulson will sit and overview, for the American people, but of course without much, if any personal repercussions.

I wish to include the entire interview in print, but it is long so I will leave you with a link that you can directly go to and read. Or I am including a link here to on a streaming video that you can watch the interview. I feel that this is such an exemplary means of proof to the theories laid out in the "Mobs, Messiah's, and Markets" book I keep touting in this blog. I will also leave a link for you that if you wish to simply listen while you blog as you can hear the streaming download as well.


(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

What is a war crime?

I found this article to be of interest. Perhaps it is time more people become a bit more educated on the definitions of war crimes in order to find if President Bush is guilty of them. If we are to impeach him we should understand what he has done. His desire for accountability statements show us that there is much room for him to stand and deliver on his promise for this. Only it is he who should be held accountable for the actions in Iraq.

I know this goes against the grain of where I have been heading lately with the previous entries, but as a society should we not close the door of ills such as these in order to heal the wounds to be able to move forward a more learned and civil people?

What is a war crime?

By Tarik Kafala
BBC News

The arrest of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his expected transfer to The Hague throws a renewed spotlight on the prosecution of war crimes.

But what exactly are war crimes? What body of laws do they refer to and who has the right to try a suspect for such crimes?

Radovan Karadzic is set to follow Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague

The concept of war crimes is a recent one. Before World War II, it was generally accepted that the horrors of war were in the nature of war.

But during World War II the murder of several million people - mainly Jews - by Nazi Germany, and the mistreatment of both civilians and prisoners of war by the Japanese, prompted the Allied powers to prosecute the people they believed to be the perpetrators of these crimes.

The Nuremberg trials in 1945 and 1946 led to 12 Nazi leaders being executed.

A similar process started in Tokyo in 1948. Seven Japanese commanders were hanged, though the Allies decided not to put Emperor Hirohito in the dock.

These trials were essentially the precedents for the cases that the modern-day tribunal in The Hague hears.

In addition, individual governments, feeling that justice has not been done, have acted on their own initiative.

At the heart of the concept of war crimes is the idea that an individual can be held responsible for the actions of a country or that nation's soldiers

This happened most famously in 1960, when Adolf Eichmann, a high-profile Nazi closely involved in the organisation of the concentration camps and the policies of the Holocaust, was tracked down in Argentina by Israeli agents.

He was kidnapped and taken to Israel where he was put on trial and subsequently hanged.

A more recent example was the 1987 trial of Klaus Barbie - a leading Nazi during the German occupation of France. Barbie was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Body of laws

At the heart of the concept of war crimes is the idea that an individual can be held responsible for the actions of a country or that nation's soldiers.

Prosecutors aim to get justice for the victims of Bosnian war crimes

Genocide, crimes against humanity, mistreatment of civilians or combatants during war can all fall under the category of war crimes. Genocide is the most severe of these crimes.

The body of laws that define a war crime are the Geneva Conventions, a broader and older area of laws referred to as the Laws and Customs of War, and, in the case of the former Yugoslavia, the statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague (ICTY).

Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention defines war crimes as: "Wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including... wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, ...taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."

This, international lawyers say, is the basic definition of war crimes.

The statutes of The Hague tribunal say the court has the right to try suspects alleged to have violated the laws or customs of war in the former Yugoslavia since 1992. Examples of such violations are given in article 3:

• Wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity
• Attack, or bombardment, by whatever means, of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings
• Seizure of, destruction or wilful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments and works of art and science
• Plunder of public or private property.

The tribunal defines crime against humanity as crimes committed in armed conflict but directed against a civilian population. Again a list of examples is given in article 5:

• Murder
• Extermination
• Enslavement
• Deportation
• Imprisonment
• Torture
• Rape
• Persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds.

Genocide is defined by the tribunal as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

But the law on war crimes is continually evolving.

In February 2001, the tribunal in The Hague delivered a ruling that made mass systematic rape and sexual enslavement in a time of war a crime against humanity.

Mass rape, or rape used as a tool of war, was then elevated from being a violation of the customs of war to one of the most heinous war crimes of all - second only to genocide.

Spotting a war crime

It is not always easy to spot a war crime.

The displacement of civilians from their homes by an enemy army is not necessarily a war crime.

It can be argued that the displacement is being carried out for the protection of the civilians.

It only becomes a war crime if the expulsions can be proven to be part of campaign of ethnic cleansing or designed as a mass punishment of civilians.

Equally, is it a war crime for the air force of one country to bomb an enemy's television station because of the propaganda in the broadcasts?

Under the Geneva Conventions, this is not a war crime. Just about all aspects of a state's infrastructure - roads, bridges, power stations, factories - become legitimate targets if they might be put to military use.

Such attacks only become war crimes if the extent of collateral damage to civilians and civilian interests resulting from the attack would be excessive compared to the military advantage gained from the attack.

International court

International human rights groups have long called for a uniform and global legal system for dealing with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Apart from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, established in May 1993, an international tribunal was established in Arusha, Tanzania, for cases resulting from the atrocities carried out in Rwanda in 1994.

Another is trying former Liberian President Charles Taylor over war crimes committed during the civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

Although these represent significant further steps in bringing those accused of war crimes to justice, they are, like Nuremberg and Tokyo, committed to dealing with war crimes in specific conflicts.

In July 2008, Surinam became the 107th country to join the International Criminal Court, set up in 2002 as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for crimes against humanity.

The United States has refused to sign the treaty, arguing the court could be used to pursue politically motivated prosecutions. Other major powers including Russia, China and India have also refused.

The question of whether international courts of this kind are political - as defendants like Slobodan Milosevic have argued - hangs over all international legal institutions.

In a sense it is true that the tribunals are political since the international political will to establish and fund them has to exist before they can get to work.

Critics of international courts often argue that international justice can only be truly legitimate when all war crimes, committed by any county, come under the jurisdiction of a single international court.