Great Speeches Consigned to History's Inside Jacket Pocket: Failure to Re-achieve Lunar Escape Velocity, Tranquility Base, 1969

To : H. R. Haldeman
From : Bill Safire
July 18, 1969.
IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:
Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.
These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.
They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.
In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied.

But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.


For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

PRIOR TO THE PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT:
The President should telephone each of the widows-to-be.

AFTER THE PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT, AT THE POINT WHEN NASA ENDS COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE MEN:
A clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to "the deepest of the deep," concluding with the Lord's Prayer.

Nixonalia: Nixon and Democracy, the CIA and Fascist Subversion

Come Home, America...

"Of all the men that have run for president in the twentieth century, only George McGovern truly understood what a monument America could be to the human race. "

Hunter S. Thompson 

"If the current polls are reliable... Nixon will be re-elected by a huge majority of Americans who feel he is not only more honest and more trustworthy than George McGovern, but also more likely to end the war in Vietnam. 

The polls also indicate that Nixon will get a comfortable majority of the Youth Vote. And that he might carry all fifty states... 

This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. 

The tragedy of all this is that George McGovern, for all his mistakes... understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon. 

McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose... 

Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?"

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

OF

SENATOR GEORGE MCGOVERN

Democratic National Convention

Miami Beach, Florida

July 14, 1972

Chairman O’Brien, Chairwoman Burke, Senator Kennedy, Senator Eagleton and my fellow citizens, I’m happy to join us for this benediction of our Friday sunrise service.

I assume that everyone here is impressed with my control of this Convention in that my choice for Vice President was challenged by only 39 other nominees.

And I can tell you that Eleanor is very grateful that the Oregon delegation at least kept her in the race with Martha Mitchell.  So I congratulate you on your patience and I pay my respects to those two superb presiding officers of this convention, Larry O’Brien and Yvonne Braithwaite Burke. 

So tonight I accept your nomination with a full and grateful heart. 

This afternoon I crossed the wide Missouri to recommend a running mate of wide vision and deep compassion, Senator Tom Eagleton. 

I’m proud to have him at my side, and I’m proud to have been introduced a moment ago by one of the most eloquent and courageous voices in this land Senator Ted Kennedy.

My nomination is all the more precious and that it is a gift of the most open political process in all of our political history.

It is the sweet harvest of the work of tens of thousands of tireless volunteers, young and old alike, funded by literally hundreds of thousands of small contributors in every part of this nation.

Those who lingered on the brink of despair only a short time ago have been brought into this campaign, heart, hand, head and soul, and I have been the beneficiary of the most remarkable political organization in the history of this country.

It is an organization that gives dramatic proof to the power of love and to a faith that can literally move mountains.

As Yeats put it, “Count where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say: My glory was I had such friends.”

This is the people’s nomination and next January we will restore the government to the people of this country.

I believe that American politics will never be quite the same again.

We are entering a new period of important and hopeful change in America, a period comparable to those eras that unleashed such remarkable ferment in the period of Jefferson and Jackson and Roosevelt.

Let the opposition collect their $10 million in secret money from the privileged few and let us find one million ordinary Americans who will contribute $25 each to this campaign, a Million Member Club with members who will not expect special favors for themselves but a better land for us all.

In the literature and music of our children we are told, to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.  And for America, the time has come at last.

This is the time for truth, not falsehood. In a Democratic nation, no one likes to say that his inspiration came from secret arrangements by closed doors, but in the sense that is how my candidacy began.  I am here as your candidate tonight in large part because during four administrations of both parties, a terrible war has been chartered behind closed doors.

I want those doors opened and I want that war closed. And I make these pledges above all others: the doors of government will be opened, and that war will be closed.

Truth is a habit of integrity, not a strategy of politics, and if we nurture the habit of truth in this campaign, we will continue to be truthful once we are in the White House.

Let us say to Americans, as Woodrow Wilson said in his first campaign of 1912, “Let me inside the government and I will tell you what is going on there.”

Wilson believed, and I believe, that the destiny of America is always safer in the hands of the people then in the conference rooms of any elite.

So let us give our – let us give your country the chance to elect a Government that will seek and speak the truth, for this is the time for the truth in the life of this country.

And this is also a time, not for death, but for life. In 1968 many Americans thought they were voting to bring our sons home from Vietnam in peace, and since then 20,000 of our sons have come home in coffins.

I have no secret plan for peace.  I have a public plan. And as one whose heart has ached for the past ten years over the agony of Vietnam, I will halt a senseless bombing of Indochina on Inaugural Day.

There will be no more Asian children running ablaze from bombed-out schools. There will be no more talk of bombing the dikes or the cities of the North.

And within 90 days of my inauguration, every American soldier and every American prisoner will be out of the jungle and out of their cells and then home in America where they belong.

And then let us resolve that never again will we send the precious young blood of this country to die trying to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship abroad.

This is also the time to turn away from excessive preoccupation overseas to the rebuilding of our own nation. America must be restored to a proper role in the world. But we can do that only through the recovery of confidence in ourselves.

I treasure this nomination, especially because it comes after vigorous competition with the ablest men and women our party has to offer.

-- my old and treasured friend and neighbor, Hubert Humphrey;

-- a gracious and a good man from the state of Maine, Ed Muskie;

-- a tough fighter for his own convictions, Scoop Jackson of Washington;

-- and a brave and spirited woman, Shirley Chisholm;

-- a wise and effective lawmaker from Arkansas, Wilbur Mills;

-- And the man from North Carolina who over the years has opened new vistas in education and public excellence, Terry Sanford;

-- the leader who in 1968 combined both the travail and the hope of the American spirit,  Senator Eugene McCarthy;

-- And I was as moved as well by the appearance in the Convention Hall of the Governor of Alabama, George Wallace. His votes in the primaries showed clearly the depth of discontent in this country, and his courage in the face of pain and adversity is the mark of a man of boundless will, despite the senseless act that disrupted his campaign. And, Governor, we pray for your full recovery so you can stand up and speak out for all of those who see you as their champion. 

Now, in the months ahead I deeply covet the help of every Democrat, of every Republican, of every Independent who wants this country to be a great and good land that it can be.

This is going to be a national campaign, carried to every part of the nation -- North, South, East and West. We’re not conceding a single state to Richard Nixon.

I should like to say to my friend, Frank King, that Ohio may have passed a few times in this convention, but Tom Eagleton and I are not going to pass Ohio.

I shall say to Governor Gilligan, Ohio is sometimes a little slow in counting the votes, but when those votes are counted next November, Ohio will be in the Democratic victory column.

Now, to anyone in this hall or beyond who doubts the ability of Democrats to join together in common cause, I say never underestimate the power of Richard Nixon to bring harmony to Democratic ranks. He is the unwitting unifier and the fundamental issue of this national campaign and all of us are going to help him redeem a pledge made ten years ago -- that next year you won’t have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore.

We have had our fury and our frustrations in these past months and at this Convention, but frankly, I welcome the contrast with the smug and dull and empty event which will doubtless take place here in Miami next month.

We chose this struggle, we reformed our Party, and we let the people in. So we stand today not as a collection of backroom strategies, not as a tool of ITT or any other special interest. So let our opponents stand on the status quo while we seek to refresh the American spirit.

I believe that the greatest contribution America can now make to our fellow mortals is to heal our own great but very deeply troubled land. We must respond -- we must respond to that ancient command: “Physician, heal thyself.”

Now, it is necessary in an age of nuclear power and hostile forces that we’ll be militarily strong.  America must never become a second-rate nation. As one who has tasted the bitter fruits of our weakness before Pearl Harbor in 1941, I give you my pledge that if I become the President of the United States, America will keep its defenses alert and fully sufficient to meet any danger.

We will do that not only for ourselves, but for those who deserve and need the shield of our strength -- our old allies in Europe and elsewhere, including the people of Israel who will always have our help to hold their Promised Land.

Yet I believe that every man and woman in this Convention Hall knows that for 30 years we have been so absorbed with fear and danger from abroad that we have permitted our own house to fall into disarray.

We must now show that peace and prosperity can exist side by side. Indeed, each now depends on the existence of the other. National strength includes the credibility of our system in the eyes of our own people as well as the credibility of our deterrent in the eyes of others abroad.

National security includes schools for our children as well as silos for our missiles.

It includes the health of our families as much as the size of our bombs, the safety of our streets, and the condition of our cities, and not just the engines of war.

If we some day choke on the pollution of our own air, there will be little consolation in leaving behind a dying continent ringed with steel.

So while protecting ourselves abroad, let us form a more perfect union here at home. And this is the time for that task.

We must also make this a time of justice and jobs for all our people. For more than three and half years we have tolerated stagnation and a rising level of joblessness, with more than five million of our best workers unemployed at this very moment. Surely, this is the most false and wasteful economics of all. 

Our deep need is not for idleness but for new housing and hospitals, for facilities to combat pollution and take us home from work, for better products able to compete on vigorous world markets.

The highest single domestic priority of the next administration will be to ensure that every American able to work has a job to.

That job guarantee will and must depend on a reinvigorated private economy, freed at last from the uncertainties and burdens of war, but it is our firm commitment that whatever employment the private sector does not provide, the Federal government will either stimulate or provide itself.

Whatever it takes, this country is going back to work. America cannot exist with most of our people working and paying taxes to support too many others mired in a demeaning and hopeless welfare mess.

Therefore, we intend to begin by putting millions back to work and after that is done, we will assure to those unable to work an income fully adequate to a decent life.

Now beyond this, a program to put America back to work demands that work be properly rewarded.  That means the end of a system of economic controls in which labor is depressed, but prices and corporate profit run sky-high.

It means a system of national health insurance so that a worker can afford decent health care for himself and his family.

It means real enforcement of the laws so that the drug racketeers are put behind bars and our streets are once again safe for our families.

And above all, above all, honest work must be rewarded by a fair and just tax system.

The tax system today does not reward hard work: it’s penalizes it. Inherited or invested wealth frequently multiplies itself while paying no taxes at all. But wages on the assembly line or in farming the land, these hard – earned dollars are taxed to the very last penny.

There is a depletion allowance for oil wells, but no depletion for the farmer who feeds us, or the worker who serves as all.

The administration tells us that we should not discuss tax reform and the election year. They would prefer to keep all discussion of the tax laws in closed rooms where the administration, its powerful friends, and their paid lobbyists, can turn every effort at reform into a new loophole for the rich and powerful.

But an election year is the people’s year to speak, and this year, the people are going to ensure that the tax system is changed so that work is rewarded and so that those who derive the highest benefits will pay their fair share rather than slipping through the loopholes at the expense of the rest of us.

So let us stand for justice and jobs and against special privilege.

And this is the time to stand for those things that are close to the American spirit. We are not content with things as they are. We reject the view of those who say, “America -- love it or leave it. “ We reply, ”Let us change it so we may love it the more.”

And this is the time.  It is the time for this land to become again a witness to the world for what is just and noble in human affairs. It is time to live more with faith and less with fear, with an abiding confidence that can sweep away the strongest barriers between us and teach us that we are truly brothers and sisters.

So join with me in this campaign. Lend Senator Eagleton and me your strength and your support, and together we will call America home to the ideals that nourished us from the beginning.

From secrecy and deception in high places; come home, America

From military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation; come home, America.

From the entrenchment of special privileges in tax favoritism; from the waste of idle lands to the joy of useful labor; from the prejudice based on race and sex; from the loneliness of the aging poor and the despair of  the neglected sick -- come home, America.

Come home to the affirmation that we have a dream. Come home to the conviction that we can move our country forward.

Come home to the belief that we can seek a newer world, and let us be joyful in that homecoming, for this “is your land, this land is my land -- from California to New York island, from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters -- this land was made for you and me.”

So let us close on this note: May God grant each one of us the wisdom to cherish this good land and to meet the great challenge that beckons us home.

And now is the time to meet that challenge.

Good night, and Godspeed to you all.

I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. 

I am fed up with a system which busts the pot smoker and lets the big dope racketeer go free. 

I am 1,000 percent for Tom Eagleton and I have no intention of dropping him from the ticket. 

The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain. 

No man should advocate a course in private that he's ashamed to admit in public. 

The Establishment center... has led us into the stupidest and cruelest war in all history. That war is a moral and political disaster - a terrible cancer eating away at the soul of our nation. 

The whole campaign was a tragic case of mistaken identity. 

Politics is an act of faith; you have to show some kind of confidence in the intellectual and moral capacity of the public. 

The longer the title, the less important the job. 

You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing...

 

Dead Socialists Society - Robin Cook MP

"I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support"



Robin Cook MP, Resignation Speech pre-Iraq War





Robin Cook's resignation speech in the House of Commons, won applause from some backbenchers in unprecedented Commons scenes.





"This is the first time for 20 years that I have addressed the House from the back benches.



I must confess that I had forgotten how much better the view is from here.



None of those 20 years were more enjoyable or more rewarding than the past two, in which I have had the immense privilege of serving this House as Leader of the House, which were made all the more enjoyable, Mr Speaker, by the opportunity of working closely with you.



It was frequently the necessity for me as Leader of the House to talk my way out of accusations that a statement had been preceded by a press interview.



On this occasion I can say with complete confidence that no press interview has been given before this statement.



I have chosen to address the House first on why I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support.



Backing Blair



The present Prime Minister is the most successful leader of the Labour party in my lifetime.



I hope that he will continue to be the leader of our party, and I hope that he will continue to be successful. I have no sympathy with, and I will give no comfort to, those who want to use this crisis to displace him.



I applaud the heroic efforts that the prime minister has made in trying to secure a second resolution.



I do not think that anybody could have done better than the foreign secretary in working to get support for a second resolution within the Security Council.



But the very intensity of those attempts underlines how important it was to succeed.



Now that those attempts have failed, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance.



French intransigence?



France has been at the receiving end of bucket loads of commentary in recent days.



It is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany wants more time for inspections; Russia wants more time for inspections; indeed, at no time have we signed up even the minimum necessary to carry a second resolution.



We delude ourselves if we think that the degree of international hostility is all the result of President Chirac.



The reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading partner - not NATO, not the European Union and, now, not the Security Council.



To end up in such diplomatic weakness is a serious reverse.



Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible.



'Heavy price'



History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition.



The US can afford to go it alone, but Britain is not a superpower.



Our interests are best protected not by unilateral action but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules.



Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened: the European Union is divided; the Security Council is in stalemate.



Those are heavy casualties of a war in which a shot has yet to be fired.



I have heard some parallels between military action in these circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo. There was no doubt about the multilateral support that we had for the action that we took in Kosovo.



It was supported by NATO; it was supported by the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven neighbours in the region. France and Germany were our active allies.



It is precisely because we have none of that support in this case that it was all the more important to get agreement in the Security Council as the last hope of demonstrating international agreement.



Public doubts



The legal basis for our action in Kosovo was the need to respond to an urgent and compelling humanitarian crisis.



Our difficulty in getting support this time is that neither the international community nor the British public is persuaded that there is an urgent and compelling reason for this military action in Iraq.



The threshold for war should always be high.



None of us can predict the death toll of civilians from the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq, but the US warning of a bombing campaign that will "shock and awe" makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at least in the thousands.



I am confident that British servicemen and women will acquit themselves with professionalism and with courage. I hope that they all come back.



I hope that Saddam, even now, will quit Baghdad and avert war, but it is false to argue that only those who support war support our troops.



It is entirely legitimate to support our troops while seeking an alternative to the conflict that will put those troops at risk.



Nor is it fair to accuse those of us who want longer for inspections of not having an alternative strategy.



For four years as foreign secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment.



Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam's medium and long-range missiles programmes.



Iraq's military strength is now less than half its size than at the time of the last Gulf war.



Threat questioned



Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam's forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days.



We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.



Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.



It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories.



Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create?



Why is it necessary to resort to war this week, while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of UN inspectors?



Israeli breaches



Only a couple of weeks ago, Hans Blix told the Security Council that the key remaining disarmament tasks could be completed within months.



I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to complete disarmament, and that our patience is exhausted.



Yet it is more than 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.



We do not express the same impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply.



I welcome the strong personal commitment that the prime minister has given to middle east peace, but Britain's positive role in the middle east does not redress the strong sense of injustice throughout the Muslim world at what it sees as one rule for the allies of the US and another rule for the rest.



Nor is our credibility helped by the appearance that our partners in Washington are less interested in disarmament than they are in regime change in Iraq.



That explains why any evidence that inspections may be showing progress is greeted in Washington not with satisfaction but with consternation: it reduces the case for war.



Presidential differences



What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops.



The longer that I have served in this place, the greater the respect I have for the good sense and collective wisdom of the British people.



On Iraq, I believe that the prevailing mood of the British people is sound. They do not doubt that Saddam is a brutal dictator, but they are not persuaded that he is a clear and present danger to Britain.



They want inspections to be given a chance, and they suspect that they are being pushed too quickly into conflict by a US Administration with an agenda of its own.



Above all, they are uneasy at Britain going out on a limb on a military adventure without a broader international coalition and against the hostility of many of our traditional allies.



From the start of the present crisis, I have insisted, as Leader of the House, on the right of this place to vote on whether Britain should go to war.



It has been a favourite theme of commentators that this House no longer occupies a central role in British politics.



Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for this House to stop the commitment of troops in a war that has neither international agreement nor domestic support.



I intend to join those tomorrow night who will vote against military action now. It is for that reason, and for that reason alone, and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the government."





Former Cabinet minister Robin Cook, 59, has died after collapsing while hill walking in north-west Scotland.





"In early August 2005, Cook and his wife, Gaynor, took a two-week holiday in the Highlands of Scotland.



At around 2:20 pm, on 6 August 2005, whilst walking down Ben Stack in Sutherland, Scotland, Cook suddenly suffered a severe heart attack, collapsed, lost consciousness and fell about 8ft down a ridge."





It is believed he was taken ill while walking with his wife Gaynor near the summit of Ben Stack, at around 1420 BST, Northern Constabulary said.



Mr Cook was flown by coastguard helicopter to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, where he was pronounced dead, said an NHS Highland spokesman.



RAF Kinloss Assistant controller Tom Docherty said the centre had received a call about a "collapsed male walker".





Mr Cook was walking near the summit of Ben Stack

"He was given CPR with instructions over the telephone from ambulance control staff at Inverness."



It is understood Mr Cook, who has two adult sons, arrived at hospital at 4pm, about 90 minutes after his collapse and was declared dead five minutes later, said an NHS Highland spokesman.



It was more than three hours before police confirmed his death, as it is believed family members were being informed.



Following Mr Cook's death, a report will be prepared for the Procurator Fiscal, as is usual in such circumstances.

The Livingston MP, who lived in Edinburgh, was a keen walker and cyclist and a keen follower of horse racing.

A spokesperson for NHS Highland said that Mr. Cook arrived at hospital 90 minutes after his collapse, and was reported dead five minutes later. A postmortem examination has concluded that he died from hypertensive heart disease."



A post-mortem examination has found former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook died of hypertensive heart disease.

The MP for Livingston collapsed and fell while hillwalking in Sutherland at the weekend.



The examination confirmed that he died from his illness rather than injuries sustained in the fall.



Mr Cook's funeral will be held at St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh on Friday morning. Prime Minister Tony Blair is on holiday and will not attend.



The eulogy at Friday's funeral will be delivered by Chancellor Gordon Brown.



Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is also expected to attend.



Mr Cook, 59, was pronounced dead after being airlifted to hospital on Saturday.



He fell 8ft down a ridge near the summit of the 2,365ft Ben Stack in Sutherland.



The post-mortem examination was conducted at the Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.





Downing Street said Mr Blair was not expected to break off from his holiday for the funeral at 1100 BST and his deputy, John Prescott, will attend.



The prime minister may attend a memorial service later this year.



Mr Blair had paid tribute to Mr Cook, calling him an "outstanding, extraordinary talent".



Foreign Secretary Jack Straw described him as "the greatest parliamentarian of his generation".



Channel 4 racing pundit John McCririck accused the prime minister of snubbing the family and the memory of Mr Cook by not attending his funeral.





Mr Cook had been with his wife Gaynor when he collapsed

Mr Cook had resigned from Mr Blair's Cabinet in 2003 over the Iraq War.



Mr McCririck, a friend of horseracing fan Mr Cook for 20 years, will be among those speaking at the funeral service.



He said: "Robin's criticism of government policy was dignified, and never became personal or vindictive.



"If Margaret Thatcher can bring herself to attend Ted Heath's service, then surely Mr Blair ought, at least publicly, to show respect and gratitude to Robin."



A Crown Office statement said: "The procurator fiscal for Tain and Dornoch can confirm that a post-mortem examination following the death of Robin Cook MP has established the cause of death as hypertensive heart disease.



"Next of kin has been informed of the cause of death, and a death certificate has now been issued."



28 Days Earlier...



"Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians"





The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means - The G8 must seize the opportunity to address the wider issues at the root of such atrocities



Robin Cook

The Guardian, Friday 8 July 2005 15.00 BST

"I have rarely seen the Commons so full and so silent as when it met yesterday to hear of the London bombings. A forum that often is raucous and rowdy was solemn and grave. A chamber that normally is a bear pit of partisan emotions was united in shock and sorrow. Even Ian Paisley made a humane plea to the press not to repeat the offence that occurred in Northern Ireland when journalists demanded comment from relatives before they were informed that their loved ones were dead.

The immediate response to such human tragedy must be empathy with the pain of those injured and the grief of those bereaved. We recoil more deeply from loss of life in such an atrocity because we know the unexpected disappearance of partners, children and parents must be even harder to bear than a natural death. It is sudden, and therefore there is no farewell or preparation for the blow. Across London today there are relatives whose pain may be more acute because they never had the chance to offer or hear last words of affection.



It is arbitrary and therefore an event that changes whole lives, which turn on the accident of momentary decisions. How many people this morning ask themselves how different it might have been if their partner had taken the next bus or caught an earlier tube?



But perhaps the loss is hardest to bear because it is so difficult to answer the question why it should have happened. This weekend we will salute the heroism of the generation that defended Britain in the last war. In advance of the commemoration there have been many stories told of the courage of those who risked their lives and sometimes lost their lives to defeat fascism. They provide moving, humbling examples of what the human spirit is capable, but at least the relatives of the men and women who died then knew what they were fighting for. What purpose is there to yesterday's senseless murders? Who could possibly imagine that they have a cause that might profit from such pointless carnage?



At the time of writing, no group has surfaced even to explain why they launched the assault. Sometime over the next few days we may be offered a website entry or a video message attempting to justify the impossible, but there is no language that can supply a rational basis for such arbitrary slaughter. The explanation, when it is offered, is likely to rely not on reason but on the declaration of an obsessive fundamentalist identity that leaves no room for pity for victims who do not share that identity.



Yesterday the prime minister described the bombings as an attack on our values as a society. In the next few days we should remember that among those values are tolerance and mutual respect for those from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Only the day before, London was celebrating its coup in winning the Olympic Games, partly through demonstrating to the world the success of our multicultural credentials. Nothing would please better those who planted yesterday's bombs than for the atrocity to breed suspicion and hostility to minorities in our own community. Defeating the terrorists also means defeating their poisonous belief that peoples of different faiths and ethnic origins cannot coexist.



In the absence of anyone else owning up to yesterday's crimes, we will be subjected to a spate of articles analysing the threat of militant Islam. Ironically they will fall in the same week that we recall the tenth anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica, when the powerful nations of Europe failed to protect 8,000 Muslims from being annihilated in the worst terrorist act in Europe of the past generation.



Osama bin Laden is no more a true representative of Islam than General Mladic, who commanded the Serbian forces, could be held up as an example of Christianity. After all, it is written in the Qur'an that we were made into different peoples not that we might despise each other, but that we might understand each other.



Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.



The danger now is that the west's current response to the terrorist threat compounds that original error. So long as the struggle against terrorism is conceived as a war that can be won by military means, it is doomed to fail. The more the west emphasises confrontation, the more it silences moderate voices in the Muslim world who want to speak up for cooperation. Success will only come from isolating the terrorists and denying them support, funds and recruits, which means focusing more on our common ground with the Muslim world than on what divides us.



The G8 summit is not the best-designed forum in which to launch such a dialogue with Muslim countries, as none of them is included in the core membership. Nor do any of them make up the outer circle of select emerging economies, such as China, Brazil and India, which are also invited to Gleneagles. We are not going to address the sense of marginalisation among Muslim countries if we do not make more of an effort to be inclusive of them in the architecture of global governance.



But the G8 does have the opportunity in its communique today to give a forceful response to the latest terrorist attack. That should include a statement of their joint resolve to hunt down those who bear responsibility for yesterday's crimes. But it must seize the opportunity to address the wider issues at the root of terrorism.



In particular, it would be perverse if the focus of the G8 on making poverty history was now obscured by yesterday's bombings. The breeding grounds of terrorism are to be found in the poverty of back streets, where fundamentalism offers a false, easy sense of pride and identity to young men who feel denied of any hope or any economic opportunity for themselves. A war on world poverty may well do more for the security of the west than a war on terror.



And in the privacy of their extensive suites, yesterday's atrocities should prompt heart-searching among some of those present. President Bush is given to justifying the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that by fighting terrorism abroad, it protects the west from having to fight terrorists at home. Whatever else can be said in defence of the war in Iraq today, it cannot be claimed that it has protected us from terrorism on our soil."

Mit Romney - Iran Contra Money Launderer?

173% Return for SEVEN YEARS STRAIGHT????

Protecting Sir Jimmy Saville OBE and Quasi-Satanic Ritual Abuse on Jersey since 1967...

Let's substitute the word "Conspiracy" with "Networking" and see what happens....

Conspiracy

Definition:
Business networking is the process of establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with other business people and potential clients and/or customers.

Notice that I don't say anything about meeting people in this definition; the ever-increasing slew of business networking meet-and-greet events have given business networking a bad name.

The key to true business networking is the establishment of a mutally beneficial relationship, and that's an incredibly rare event at the standard shake-hands-and-exchange-your-business-card events that are touted as business networking "opportunities".

The purpose of business networking is to increase business revenue - one way or another. The thickening of the bottom line can be immediately apparent, as in developing a relationship with a new client, or develop over time, as in learning a new business skill.

The best business networking groups operate as exchanges of business information, ideas, and support. The most important skill for effective business networking is listening; focusing on how you can help the person you are listening to rather than on how he or she can help you is the first step to establishing a mutally beneficial relationship.

Also Known As: Networking.

Examples:
Jim learned a lot about how to improve his customer service through his business networking group.