“Only in the most direct sense is the Bush administration’s Iraq policy directed against Saddam Hussein. In contrast to all the loud talk about terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and human rights violations, very little is being said about oil. The administration has been tight-lipped about its plans for a post-Saddam Iraq, and has repeatedly disavowed any interest in the country’s oil resources. But press reports indicate that U.S. officials are considering a prolonged occupation of Iraq after a war to topple Saddam Hussein. It is likely that a U.S.-controlled Iraq will be the linchpin of a new order in the world oil industry. A war against Iraq may well herald a major realignment of the Middle East power balance.“

Following the infamous September 11 terrorist attacks, there’s been an active international debate surrounding the Bush administration’s secret oil negotiations with the Taliban earlier in the summer of 2001. U.S. oil giant Unocal proposed a massive natural gas pipeline project extracting oil and gas from former Soviet Central Asian republics through then-Taliban ruled Afghanistan to its final destination in Pakistan.

The recently revised and expanded English edition of Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy And The Failed Hunt For Bin Laden details the Bush administration’s threats against the Taliban a month prior to the 9/11 events. French intelligence experts Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquié suggest that Bush administration threats stating that “Either you accept our carpet of gold or we’ll carpet you with bombs,” led to the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

So let’s join Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Logistics and Technol- ogy Edward C. “Pete” Aldridge at a recent Pentagon press briefing, where he’s addressing concerns about the Pentagon’s bold new plan to have Admiral John Poindexter personally review exactly what you bought in Safeway last week and all the dirty movies you ordered up in Motel 6 last time you were on the road.

Poindexter, you’ll recall, is the bespectacled seadog who, as one of Reagan’s National Security chieftains, instrumented another bold effort in synergy, later known as Iran/Contra, which involved shuffling money and guns along the axis of evil from Iran to the Nicaraguan contras in defiance of U.S. laws at the time. Poindexter got nailed for lying to Congress but was later pardoned.

The Columbus Free Press is launching its own Office of Total Counter-Information Awareness. In the last few months, we’ve accumulated enough information to warrant the impeachment of President George Bush.

First, let’s recall Bush’s strange relationship with that bizarre little company in Lansing, Michigan, known as Bioport. The company, despite failing various FDA inspections and being accused of bad record-keeping, holds the only federal contract for producing the anthrax vaccine. Bush has rewarded Bioport with favors such as ongoing military protection, and within weeks of 9/11 granted them a contract that tripled the price per vaccine. Now, add into the mix that the Strangelovian CIA-connected Battelle and Britain’s top secret Porton Down labs are partners with Bioport.

Although virtually unnoticed in Columbus, Dr. Jonathan I. Groner, the Trauma Medical Director at Children’s Hospital, is spearheading an international debate on the role of U.S. doctors in carrying out prison executions by lethal injection. After being rejected by American medical journals, Groner’s article “Lethal Injection: A stain on the face of medicine” was published in the November 2, 2002 issue of the British Medical Journal. Groner’s article questions the ethics of U.S. doctors who willingly participate in the execution of inmates. The article also points out parallels between the government’s use of doctors to administer lethal injection and a similar procedure that was administered by doctors in a Nazi Germany “euthanasia” program.

Within days of publication, the French newspaper Le Figaro interviewed Groner about the article. “By entering the death chamber, not only do they [U.S. doctors] destroy their relationship with their own patients, but they take the world medical community hostage. Imagine if all the doctors refused, execution would stop in this country, unless a corp of medical executioners was created,” Groner told Le Figaro.