US Financial Meltdown in Weeks?
Fortis Bank predicts US Financial market meltdown within weeks… Fortis is a large bank and insurer in the Netherlands and Belgium. It took over ABN Amro last year, together with RBS and another bank.
That explains, according to Fortis, the series of interventions of last Thursday to retrieve € 8 billion. “We have been saved just in time. The situation in the US is much worse than we thought”, says Fortis chairman Maurice Lippens.
Fortis expects bankruptcies amongst 6000 American banks which have a small coverage currently - also Citigroup, General Motors. "There is starting a complete meltdown in the US.”

Dear Colin Powell: This Is What A Good Soldier Does
It's called loyalty to a higher principal than "your leader." A higher principle than "following orders."
It's a different code of conduct than Colin Powell's keeping one's mouth shut and not rocking the boat. It's what democracy is looking for in its leaders--military and civilian.

Something to salute.

General Accuses WH of War Crimes
This is fascinating, while America looks aside, it's leaders are being accused of war crimes.
"It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws that govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials.
"The quintet of lawyers, who called themselves the 'War Council,' drafted legal opinions that circumvented the military's code of justice, the federal court system and America's international treaties in order to prevent anyone -- from soldiers on the ground to the president -- from being held accountable for activities that at other times have been considered war crimes. . . .

Human Rights Group Says It Has Proof of Detainee Abuse
General Taguba’s judgment was far more severe. “There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” he wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

Law School to Plan Bush War Crimes Prosecution

A conference to plan the prosecution of President Bush and other high administration officials for war crimes will be held September 13-14 at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover .
"This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred," said convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the school. "It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth."

Bush On Iraq War: "I Don't Care If It Created More Enemies"
Bush admits to Engel that going to war was a decision based on his personal instinct and not on any long-range strategy for the Mideast:
"I know people are saying we should have left things the way they were, but I changed after 9/11. I had to act. I don't care if it created more enemies. I had to act."