from:"Bill Shannon"

[CTRL] NAZI HOLOCAUST PROPAGANDA HAS DULLED THE SENSIBILITIES OF THE WORLD TO HOLOCAUSTS AGAINST ARABS

2006-07-30 Thread Bill Shannon

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"NAZI HOLOCAUST" PROPAGANDA HAS DULLED THE SENSIBILITIES OF THE WORLD TO
HOLOCAUSTS AGAINST ARABS

by Michael A. Hofman II | Sunday, July 30, 2006

Today we awaken to the dreadful news, according to the Associated Press,
that the Israelis bombed several homes in the southern Lebanon village
of Qana early Sunday, "killing at least 56 people, most of them
children, in the deadliest attack in 19 days"

Even Jack Straw, the former British Foreign Secretary, said of the
Israeli attacks: "These are not surgical strikes, but have instead
caused death and misery among innocent civilians."

This is the second Israeli mass murder at Qana. In 1996, Israelis
murdered nearly 100 Arab civilian refugees at a United Nations camp in
Qana.

The Israeli holocaust against Lebanon continues, while the world does
nothing. Ever more Arab women and children in Lebanon are murdered with
impunity. They are less than human in the eyes of the West.

Nothing like this would ever be permitted if it were Judaic children who
were dying. In such a case, the words, "The Holocaust is happening
again, the world must not stand by silent!" would reverberate from every
pulpit, radio, TV and newspaper front page in America. But since it is
the children of Lebanon who are being killed, "sub-human Amalekites"
according to the secret teaching of the Orthodox rabbis, the US
obstructs a ceasefire, with help from American journalists, editors,
clergymen and the US Congress.

This is a shame, and a disgrace. It proves that the perpetual, pious
human rights tears shed over the "Nazi Holocaust against the Jews" in
schools, churches and national museums and memorials day-in-and-day out,
have nothing to do with ensuring that it "never happens again" to "any
other people."

Rather, "The Holocaust" is a cynical power-politics hammer used to build
special privileges and a sense of sacred awe and racial superiority for
Judaics, which in turn renders them forever immune from war crimes
prosecutions, or any interdiction of the holocausts which they
perpetrate against Palestine and Lebanon.

If "The Holocaust" was a true human rights lobby for all mankind, then
Elie Wiesel, Deborah Lipstadt and Steven Spielberg would be using their
clout and prestige to demand an immediate end to Israeli mass murder in
Lebanon.

Instead, Wiesel is on record supporting Israeli bombing in Lebanon,
while the vast majority of the Israeli people, including the "Holocaust
Survivors" among them, also endorse it.

"Holocaust" propaganda has dulled the moral sense of the West. The
"Holocaust" is little more than an arm of Zionist psychological warfare
for the maintenance of Judaic superiority, racial and ethical,
throughout the earth, not for saving the lives of other marginalized
peoples.

In fact, it seems to have given the Israelis a hubris as supra-human
ethicists with a license to kill civilians without moral qualms or the
least fear of war crime prosecution.

No doubt the movie Spielberg will make about what is happening in
Lebanon, will show Israeli commanders and troops agonizing about their
bombings. But in reality there are no such reservations, just exultation
and the arrogance of stone-cold killers swaggering in the knowledge that
their murder spree is backed by US super-power money and might. (The
Israelis are not so brave when they have to confront Hezbollah
militiamen on the ground, man-to-man, rather than from 30,000 feet up in
the cockpit of a jet-bomber).

The racial and moral superiority engendered for the Israelis by "Nazi
Holocaust" propaganda is was why the massacre at Qana in 1996 was
forgotten; allowing it to happen all over again in 2006.

"Never again"? Ha!

"Never Again" does not apply when it comes to Israeli extermination of
the people of Lebanon, according to an exact Zionist timetable that
brooks no "ceasefire." The Israelis will cease fire when every Lebanese
woman and child they intend to slaughter is properly dead and buried,
and not before. And the "Nazi Holocaust"-saturated human rights
campaigners will sit on their hands, exactly as they have been trained
to do by Spielberg and Wiesel, and a parade of professors and preachers.


Tears, guilt, classroom curricula, movies and museums are reserved for
the victims of the Nazis. Cluster bombs, napalm, missiles and cannon
shells are reserved for helpless Arab mothers and their children, with
applause from Hillary, Elie and four hundred members of the House of
Representatives.

This, in part, is why I am a "Holocaust" revisionist. As grating
sanctimony, "The Holocaust" exceeds the Pharisees in bloated hypocrisy,
and as a prop for Israeli mass murder, it is a bloodthirsty alibi for
arrogant Judaic supremacy and merciless mass murder.

Copyright (c) 2006 RevisionistHistory.org










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[CTRL] The Shame of Being an American

2006-07-22 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=9381

July 22, 2006

The Shame of Being an American

by Paul Craig Roberts

Gentle reader, do you know that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon? Israel has ordered all the villagers to clear out. Israel then destroys their homes and murders the fleeing villagers. That way there is no one to come back and nothing to which to return, making it easier for Israel to grab the territory, just as Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians.
Do you know that one-third of the Lebanese civilians murdered by Israel's attacks on civilian residential districts are children? That is the report from Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator for the UN. He says it is impossible for help to reach the wounded and those buried in rubble, because Israeli air strikes have blown up all the bridges and roads. Considering how often (almost always) Israel misses Hezbollah targets and hits civilian ones, one might think that Israeli fire is being guided by US satellites and US military GPS. Don't be surprised at US complicity. Why would the puppet be any less evil than the puppet master?
Of course, you don't know these things, because the US print and TV media do not report them.
Because Bush is so proud of himself, you do know that he has blocked every effort to stop the Israeli slaughter of Lebanese civilians. Bush has told the UN "NO." Bush has told the European Union "NO." Bush has told the pro-American Lebanese prime minister "NO." Twice. Bush is very proud of his firmness. He is enjoying Israel's rampage and wishes he could do the same thing in Iraq.
Does it make you a Proud American that "your" president gave Israel the green light to drop bombs on convoys of villagers fleeing from Israeli shelling, on residential neighborhoods in the capital of Beirut and throughout Lebanon, on hospitals, on power plants, on food production and storage, on ports, on civilian airports, on bridges, on roads, on every piece of infrastructure on which civilized life depends? Are you a Proud American? Or are you an Israeli puppet?
On July 20, "your" House of Representatives voted 410-8 in favor of Israel's massive war crimes in Lebanon. Not content with making every American complicit in war crimes, "your" House of Representatives, according to the Associated Press, also "condemns enemies of the Jewish state."
Who are the "enemies of the Jewish state"?
They are the Palestinians whose land has been stolen by the Jewish state, whose homes and olive groves have been destroyed by the Jewish state, whose children have been shot down in the streets by the Jewish state, whose women have been abused by the Jewish state. They are Palestinians who have been walled off into ghettos, who cannot reach their farm lands or medical care or schools, who cannot drive on roads through Palestine that have been constructed for Israelis only. They are Palestinians whose ancient towns have been invaded by militant Zionist "settlers" under the protection of the Israeli army who beat and persecute the Palestinians and drive them out of their towns. They are Palestinians who cannot allow their children outside their homes because they will be murdered by Israeli "settlers."
The Palestinians who confront Israeli evil are called "terrorists." When Bush forced free elections on Palestine, the people voted for Hamas. Hamas is the organization that has stood up to Israel. This means, of course, that Hamas is evil, anti-Semitic, un-American and terrorist. The US and Israel responded by cutting off all funds to the new government. Democracy is permitted only if it produces the results Bush and Israel want.
Israelis never practice terror. Only those who are in Israel's way are terrorists.
Another enemy of the Jewish state is Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a militia of Shi'ite Muslims created in 1982 when Israel first invaded Lebanon. During this invasion the great moral Jewish state arranged for the murder of refugees in refugee camps. The result of Israel's atrocities was Hezbollah, which fought the Israeli Army, defeated it, and drove it out of Lebanon. Today Hezbollah not only defends southern Lebanon but also provides social services such as orphanages and medical care.
To cut to the chase, the enemies of the Jewish state are any Muslim country not ruled by an American puppet friendly to Israel. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the oil emirates have sided with Israel against their own kind, because they are dependent either on American money or on American protection from their own people. Sooner or later these totally corrupt governments that do not represent the people they rule will be overthrown. It is only a matter of time.
Indeed Bush and Israel may be hastening the process in their frantic effort to overthrow the governments of Syria and Iran. Both governments have more popular support than Bush has, but the White House Moron doesn't know this. The Moron

[CTRL] No, this is not our war

2006-07-21 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51164

No, this is not 'our war'

Posted: July 20, 20068:36 p.m. Eastern
©2006
My country has been "torn to shreds," said Fouad Siniora, the prime minister of Lebanon, as the death toll among his people passed 300 civilian dead, 1,000 wounded, with half a million homeless.
Israel must pay for the "barbaric destruction," said Siniora.
To the contrary, says columnist Lawrence Kudlow, "Israel is doing the Lord's work."
On American TV, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says the ruination of Lebanon is Hezbollah's doing. But is it Hezbollah that is using U.S.-built F-16s, with precision-guided bombs and 155-mm artillery pieces to wreak death and devastation on Lebanon?
No, Israel is doing this, with the blessing and without a peep of protest from President Bush. And we wonder why they hate us.

"Today, we are all Israelis!" brayed Ken Mehlman of the Republican National Committee to a gathering of Christians United for Israel.
One wonders if these Christians care about what is happening to our Christian brethren in Lebanon and Gaza, who have had all power cut off by Israeli airstrikes, an outlawed form of collective punishment, that has left them with no sanitation, rotting food, impure water and days without light or electricity in the horrible heat of July.
When summer power outrages occur in America, it means a rising rate of death among our sick and elderly, and women and infants. One can only imagine what a hell it must be today in Gaza City and Beirut.
But all this carnage and destruction has only piqued the blood lust of the hairy-chested warriors at the Weekly Standard. In a signed editorial, "It's Our War," William Kristol calls for America to play her rightful role in this war by "countering this act of aggression by Iran with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait?"
"Why wait?" Well, one reason is that the United States has not been attacked. A second is a small thing called the Constitution. Where does George W. Bush get the authority to launch a war on Iran? When did Congress declare war or authorize a war on Iran?
Answer: It never did. But these neoconservatives care no more about the Constitution than they cared about the truth when they lied into war in Iraq.
"Why wait?" How about thinking of the fate of those 25,000 Americans in Lebanon if we launch an unprovoked war on Iran. How many would wind up dead or hostages of Hezbollah if Iran gave the order to retaliate for the slaughter of their citizens by U.S. bombs? What would happen to the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, if Shiites and Iranian "volunteers" joined forces to exact revenge on our soldiers?
What about America? Richard Armitage, who did four tours in Nam and knows a bit about war, says that, in its ability to attack Western targets, al-Qaida is the B Team, Hezbollah the A Team. If Bush bombs Iran, what prevents Hezbollah from launching retaliatory attacks inside the United States?
None of this is written in defense of Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran.
But none of them has attacked our country, nor has Syria, whom Bush I made an ally in the Gulf War and to whom the most decorated soldier in Israeli history, Ehud Barak, offered 99 percent of the Golan Heights. If Nixon, Bush I and Clinton could deal with Hafez al-Assad, a tougher customer than son Bashar, what is the matter with George W. Bush?
The last superpower is impotent in this war because we have allowed Israel to dictate to whom we may and may not talk. Thus, Bush winds up cussing in frustration in St. Petersburg that somebody should tell the Syrians to stop it. Why not pick up the phone, Mr. President?
What is Kristol's moral and legal ground for a war on Iran? It is the "Iranian act of aggression" against Israel and that Iran is on the road to nuclear weapons and we can't have that.
But there is no evidence Iran has any tighter control over Hezbollah than we have over Israel, whose response to the capture of two soldiers had all the spontaneity of the Schlieffen Plan. And, again, Hezbollah attacked Israel, not us. And there is no solid proof Iran is in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it has signed, but Israel refuses to sign.
If Iran's nuclear program justifies war, why cannot the neocons make that case in the constitutional way, instead of prodding Bush to launch a Pearl Harbor attack? Do they fear they have no credibility left after pushing Bush into this bloody quagmire in Iraq that has cost almost 2,600 dead and 18,000 wounded Americans?
No, Kenny boy, we are not "all Israelis." Some of us still think of ourselves as Americans, first, last and always
And, no, Mr. Kristol, this is not "our war." It's your war.

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[CTRL] Nanny-Government Queefs At It Again

2006-07-19 Thread Bill Shannon

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Apparently all the murderers and rapists are under control.
This flat-out sucks.
Whatever happened to live and let live? MYOB?
This government inserts itself into every facet of our lives.
This is acceptable? Hell no!!

Bill.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/19/D8IUQT4G3.html

Sports-Betting Operation Shuts Web SiteJul 19 12:00 AM US/Eastern Email this story

By DAVID KOENIGAssociated Press Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas
An offshore sports-betting operation targeted by U.S. prosecutors shut down its Web site Tuesday night, a day after a federal judge ordered the company to stop letting Americans place wagers.
BetOnSports PLC said it was temporarily stopping all transactions while it reviewed the situation.
Earlier on Tuesday, the site had appeared to be operating normally, offering bets on Major League baseball and season-opening college football games.
The company's founder, Gary Stephen Kaplan, the biggest target in the indictment, was somewhere in Costa Rica. He had nothing to say about the case, according to a spokesman.
Trading of the company's shares was suspended in London on Tuesday. They fell as much as 24 percent Monday following news that the company's chief executive, David Carruthers, had been arrested and closed down 17 percent at 122.50 pence ($2.24).
In the fiscal year ended Feb. 5, BetOnSports reported a 65 percent gain in operating profit on continuing operations to $20.1 million. The company said it handled $1.77 billion worth of bets for the year, up 25 percent.
On Monday, federal officials unsealed a 22-count indictment that charges 11 people and four companies with conspiracy, racketeering and wire fraud in taking sports bets from U.S. residents. Authorities said BetOnSports falsely claimed that Internet and phone wagering on sporting events was legal and licensed.
Five of the 11 individuals were arrested, including Carruthers, who remained in custody in Fort Worth pending a detention hearing on Friday. Carruthers was arrested Sunday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as he waited for a connecting flight to Costa Rica.
The Justice Department is seeking the forfeiture of $4.5 billion, plus several cars, recreational vehicles and computers from the defendants. Prosecutors convinced a federal judge in St. Louis to order BetOnSports to stop accepting bets placed from within the United States.
BetOnSports hesitated for a full day before shutting down, however. A company spokesman, Kevin Smith, had said attorneys were deciding what to do next.
Americans accounted for virtually all of the company's business until recently, when it began aggressively courting bettors in Asia.
Even if BetOnSports shuts down permanently, there are plenty of sites to take its place. Costa Rica has become a haven for Caribbean online sports books and casinos in the past decade because of its light approach to regulation, experts said.
"There are probably at least 140 sports books operating down there," said Sue Schneider, president of a suburban St. Louis firm that tracks the industry.
Some online sports books might stop taking bets from U.S. residents, but only if the United States is a small part of their business, Schneider predicted.
The indictment is likely to have even less effect on online casinos _ those that take bets on poker or other games, but not on sporting events.
In the past decade, federal officials have prosecuted many operators of online sports books with U.S. ownership or operations because federal law prohibits using phone wires to place those bets, said Anthony N. Cabot, a Las Vegas lawyer who has represented traditional and online casinos.
In a celebrated case from 2000, prosecutors won a conviction against Jay Cohen, a U.S. citizen who ran an operation in Antigua that took sports bets from Americans over the Internet. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison.
But the wire law doesn't cover other types of casino betting, a federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled. That has left some doubt about whether prosecutors can shut down poker and other casino games that target American players, Cabot said.
And unless the operators set foot in the United States _ as Carruthers and Cohen did _ it's difficult to extradite them, Cabot said.

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screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
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credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

[CTRL] 3rd Intifada Coming - Thanks To Bush

2006-05-27 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50385

3rd intifada coming thanks to Bush

Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted: May 26, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
©2006Creators Syndicate Inc.
When there is no solution, there is no problem, observed James Burnham, the former Trotskyite turned Cold War geostrategist.
Burnham's insight came again to mind as President Bush ended his meeting with Ehud Olmert by announcing that the Israeli prime minister had brought with him some "bold ideas" for peace.
And what bold ideas might that be?
Olmert wants Bush to remain steadfast in refusing to talk to the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority. He wants U.S. support for Israel's wall that is fencing in large slices of the West Bank and all of Jerusalem, forever denying the Palestinians a viable state. He wants U.S. recognition of Israeli-drawn lines as the final borders of Israel. And he wants America to remove the "existential threat" of Iran.
In the six months before he proceeds unilaterally with this Sharon-Olmert plan, he will be happy to talk with Mahmoud Abbas, the isolated Palestinian president he has called "powerless."
What is the Bush plan to advance our interests in the Middle East? There is none. For five years, the Bush policy has been to sign off on whatever Sharon put in front of him. And now that Bush is weak, he is not going to pick a fight he cannot win and, in candor, he does not want.
For Bush has signed on to the Sharon agenda. And if he had a policy that clashed with the Sharon-Olmert plan, political realities would prevent his pursuing it.
Consider: Suppose Bush declared that Ehud Olmert's proposed withdrawals from the West Bank were insufficient, that an official Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem was imperative, and that the United States needed to aid the Palestinians whom Israel is starving out and to talk in back channels to Hamas, even as we talked to Libya's Col. Gadhafi to convince him to give up terrorism and his weapons of mass destruction.

Bush's and America's stock might rise worldwide. But here in the United States, it would be another story altogether.
We would hear the cry of "Munich!" from neoconservatives, echoed by evangelical Christians and the religious right. "Bibi" Netanyahu would be a fixture on Fox News, which would be asking hourly if Bush had taken leave of his senses.
Republican congressmen would be force-bused to the next AIPAC convention to repudiate the Bush policy. Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid, seeing an opening to win back Jewish votes lost to Bush, would introduce a resolution putting Congress behind Olmert, against Bush.
Then, as his father did on the loan guarantees for Israel that he briefly held up in 1991, Bush would capitulate.
Thus Israel will pursue the Sharon-Olmert plan to completion. There will be withdrawals from isolated settlements and outposts, but no negotiations with a Palestinian Authority to agree on permanent borders and two states.
The West Bank wall will soon encompass all of the suburbs of Jerusalem for miles around. Palestine will be divided into three parts: Gaza and two enclaves on the West Bank. There will be no Palestinian official presence in Jerusalem. No viable nation.
Meanwhile, America will be called upon for new sums of money to subsidize the Sharon-Olmert plan, even as we are prodded to do our duty and emasculate Iran.
As Olmert is the pilot setting the course, and Bush has signed on as crew to his "bold ideas," our destination is easy to foresee.
The United States alone will recognize Israel's new borders, and her annexations of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem as Israel's exclusive capital. Israel will ask for and the United States will accede to Israel's request that we commit ourselves militarily to defend Israel's new frontiers. No Arab government will recognize the new borders. America's Arab friends will be further estranged.
Every demagogue bidding for power in the Islamic world will, like Iran's Ahmadinejad, play the Palestinian card.
The suffering of the Palestinian people under the U.S.-Israeli sanctions regime will further radicalize them into hating us as they do Israel. The struggle between Hamas and Fatah over diminishing aid and resources will intensify, degenerating into civil war. Iran will move into the vacuum. Eventually, with aid cut off and no hope of negotiations, Hamas will revert to terror and the third intifada will begin.
Western Europe, its Muslim populations growing in numbers and militancy, will neither recognize Israel's borders nor endorse U.S. policy. Europe is not going to side with 5 million Israelis, whom they believe to be in the wrong, against 300 million Arabs, who will be 500 million at mid-century.
Rightly, Americans say we will not let Israel be destroyed. But why must we acquiesce in Israel's annexations of Arab land? Why must we remain silent to her deprivations of the Palestinians?
These questions will puzzle the historians

[CTRL] Enough Is Enough - People have had it up to HERE with THE LOBBY!!!

2006-05-27 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9045



May 26, 2006 

Enough Is Enough People have had it up to here with The Lobby 

by Justin Raimondo



Perhaps Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) didn't quite realize what she was getting into when she voted against the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, so-called, which would cut off all aid to the Palestinians, impose economic sanctions, and make it impossible for any entity, public or private, to operate in Palestine. Or maybe she's just brave. 
A liberal Democrat, Rep.McCollum had always been a strong supporter of Israel, but on the issue of how to deal with the democratically elected Hamas government of the Palestinian Authority, she had real differences with what Stephen Walt and John J. Mearsheimer call "the Lobby," in their pathbreaking and provocative study of "The Israel Lobby," published by Harvard University. In that work, the two professors have this to say about the power of the Lobby over the U.S. Congress:
"The bottom line is that AIPAC, a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress, with the result that U.S. policy towards Israel is not debated there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world. In other words, one of the three main branches of the government is firmly committed to supporting Israel. As one former Democratic senator, Ernest Hollings, noted on leaving office, 'you can't have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here.'"
What AIPAC had been giving out was that the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 was a litmus test  either you voted for it, or, as a local AIPAC representative, Amy Rotenberg, put it to Bill Harper, Rep. McCollum's chief of staff:
"On behalf of [myself] the Jewish community, AIPAC, and the voters of the Fourth District, Congresswoman McCollum's support for terrorists will not be tolerated."
Rep. McCollum's response to this smear has been exemplary  and indicative of a growing backlash against the Lobby. Her letter to AIPAC takes them out to the woodshed and gives them such a thrashing that the sound of it is reverberating throughout Washington. Averring that "During my nineteen years serving in elected office, including the past five years as a Member of Congress, never has my name and reputation been maligned or smeared as it was last week by a representative of AIPAC," McCollum goes on to say in a letter to AIPAC President Howard Kohr that "until I receive a formal, written apology from your organization I must inform you that AIPAC representatives are not welcome in my offices or for meetings with my staff."
Ouch!
That Rep. McCollum would take such a stance, shows, I think, that the power of the Lobby is waning. With an espionage investigation and upcoming trial of its chief Washington lobbyist at hand, the Walt-Mearsheimer controversy, and indications of a growing chasm between Washington and Tel Aviv over the latter's arms sales to China and covert activities in the U.S., the power of the Lobby is being openly challenged as never before. What Walt and Mearsheimer describe as the distortion of American foreign policy in favor of a foreign power  Israel  has now become a major topic of debate. And how that debate has been conducted shows that the future does not bode well for the Lobby
The response to the Walt-Mearsheimer study, for example, underscores the very point made by the authors: that the motive and purpose of the Lobby is to squelch any debate about U.S. policy in the Middle East, especially as it concerns Israel, and to smear anyone who questions the centrality of the "special relationship" to that policy as an "anti-Semite." The viciousness and volume of the attacks on Walt and Mearsheimer amply illustrate the contention of the authors: but it is the brazenness of the smears, and their complete lack of any relationship to reality, that is particularly striking. The more moderate of these compared it to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; Christopher Hitchens pronounced the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis "smelly," while the New York Sun ran a front page story reporting the "news" that David Duke agreed with it. 
On the other hand, the two really memorable responses  because they stand out for their measured reasonableness in a controversy not given to thoughtfulness  came from Tony Judt, in the New York Times, and Michael Massing, in the New York Review of Books (which also reprints the McCollum letter). The contrast with the critics of the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis could not be more telling. Not that Judt and Massing are uncritical. Massing, in particular, takes issue with much of what Walt and Mearsheimer have to say  particularly about the historical record of Israel's founding, and the moral questions involved. Yet he goes on to make a quite justified criticism when he avers that the documentation for the contention that the Lobby effectively crushes all opposition to Israel in government

[CTRL] Kudos to Congress From Israel

2006-05-27 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=9051

May 27, 2006

Kudos to Congress From Israel

by Gordon Prather

Ehud Olmert who assumed the office of prime minister of Israel earlier this month has already met with President Bush at the White House and addressed a joint session of Congress.
Now, you may remember that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, newly elected president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations shortly after he was elected last year.
Will Olmert also address the General Assembly?
Probably not. You see, the General Assembly has been passing about a dozen resolutions every year since 1976 most of them critical of Israel dealing with the seemingly irresolvable crisis created by the creation of Israel.
Israel just ignores them.
Why doesn't the UN Security Council do something about that? Well, it would, but the United States vetoes every attempt.
Many Jews Olmert among them and some Christians view the establishment of Israel to be fulfillment of the Biblical passage "I will appoint a place for my people, Israel, and I plant them in their land, and they will dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more."
"We have succeeded in building a Jewish democratic homeland. We have succeeded in creating an oasis of hope and opportunity in a troubled region.
"But there has not been one year, one week, even one day of peace in our tortured land.
"Since the birth of the state of Israel and until this very moment, we have been continually at war and amidst confrontation. The confrontation has become even more violent, the enemy turned even more inhumane due to the scourge of suicide terrorism."
And who is this enemy who has recently become even more inhumane?
Basically, it's the Palestinian quasi-government elected by Palestinians displaced almost 60 years ago by the establishment of the Jewish state. That government has just been taken over by Hamas, a Palestinian political party, which according to Olmert is "an organization committed to vehement anti-Semitism, the glorification of terror, and the total destruction of Israel."
Olmert commended Congress for "initiating the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, which sends a firm, clear message that the United States of America will not tolerate terrorism in any form."
Mission accomplished, right?
Not quite. You see, there's Iran, which Olmert claims is Hamas' chief sponsor. And Iran "stands on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. With these weapons, the security of the entire world is put in jeopardy."
Verge?
Entire world in jeopardy?
Get real, Olmert!
According to anyone who has had hands-on experience in uranium enrichment, it will take the Iranians at least five years and an eternity if they remain a signatory to the Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons to develop the capability to produce, and then to actually produce, the weapons-grade enriched-uranium required to make simple, gun-type nuclear weapons.
Furthermore, on the basis of South Africa's experience, in order to get an expected yield of 17-20 kilotons, the Iranian gun-type nukes would weigh at least a thousand pounds apiece.
So what did Ahmadinejad have to say last September to the General Assembly?
Well, he began [.pdf] by noting that
"With the passing of the era of agnostic philosophies, today humanity is once again joined in celebrating monotheism and belief in the Creator as the originator of existence. This is the common thread which binds us all. Faith will prove to be the solution to many of today's problems."
Ahmadinejad is obviously "committed to vehement anti-Semitism, the glorification of terror, and the total destruction of Israel."
And what about Iran's plans to put the entire world in jeopardy? Well, among other things;

"The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates its previously and repeatedly declared position that, in accordance with our religious principles, pursuit of nuclear weapons is prohibited."
"The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that it is necessary to revitalize the NPT and create the above-mentioned ad-hoc committee so that it can combat nuclear weapons and abolish the apartheid in peaceful nuclear technology."
"Therefore, as a further confidence-building measure and in order to provide the greatest degree of transparency the Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to engage in serious partnership with private and public sectors of other countries in the implementation of uranium enrichment program in Iran."
Well, surely they're going to withdraw from the NPT. Aren't they?
"In keeping with Iran's inalienable right to have access to a nuclear fuel cycle, continued interaction and technical and legal cooperation with the IAEA will be the centerpiece of our nuclear policy."

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[CTRL] Press Censors Iran Letter

2006-05-13 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/press_censors_iran_letter.html

PRESS CENSORS IRAN LETTER
BIG NEWS ACROSS WORLD,BUT NOT HERE IN AMERICA

Mainstream Mum on Iran Letter
Irans Ahmadinejad quizzes George Bush on human rights, Sept. 11 investigation, Christianity, Israel, terrorism, Americas looting of the world and more . . .Presented here is the abbreviated text of a letter written by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and addressed to President George W. Bush. Although the mass media in America has mentioned the letter in passing, few Americans have actually had the opportunity to read it. It is the first direct communication between the governments since the U.S. embassy was stormed and hostages seized in 1979. American Free Press is pleased to provide this slightly edited version so that readers can draw their own conclusions about the Iranian leader.MR. GEORGE BUSH,PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:For some time now I have been thinking how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arenawhich are being constantly debated especially in political forums and among students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions. . . .Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ, the great messenger of God, feel obliged to respect human rights, present liberalism as a civilization model, announce ones opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, make [opposition to] War and Terror his slogan, and finally, work toward the establishment of a unified international communitya community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, but at the same time, have countries attacked; the lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed. . . .Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around 100,000 people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps 50 years? At what price?Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries, and tens of thousands of young men and womenas occupation troopsput in harms way, taken away from family and loved ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that every day some commit suicide and those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of ailments; while some are killed.On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed.Of course Saddam was a murderous dictator. But the war was not waged to topple him, the announced goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. He was toppled along the way toward another goal, nevertheless the people of the region are happy about it. I point out that throughout the many years of the war on Iran, Saddam was supported by the West.Mr. President, I am a teacher. My students ask me how these actions can be reconciled with the tradition of Jesus Christ, the messenger of peace and forgiveness. There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay who have not received trials, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their condition and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals. Investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe, too.Young people, university students and ordinary people have many questions about the phenomenon of Israel. Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times. Students are saying that 60 years ago such a country did not exist. They show old maps and try, [but] we have not been able to find a country named Israel. I tell them to study the history of World War I and II. One of my students told me that during World War II, in which tens of millions of people perished, news about the war was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. After the war, they claimed 6 million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least 2 million families. Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalized or explained? Mr. President, I am sure you know howand at what costIsrael was established: Many thousands were killed in the process; Millions of indigenous people were made refugees; Hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland, olive

[CTRL] The Weakness of Empire

2006-05-13 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_05_22/feature.html

May 22, 2006 IssueCopyright © 2006 The American Conservative
The Weakness of Empire
History has not dealt kindly with imperial ambitions, and America, however benevolent her intent, cannot hope to be an exception.
by Michael Vlahos
Something remarkable happened on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Commentators began to declare, in somewhat exultant tones, that America had at last become a true empire. America was of course also a benevolent empire, they insisted, but that nod to altruistic tradition could not hide their excitement that America had at last joined the greatest empires of the past.
Implicit in these giddy declarations was the assumption that empire was an exalted state of power and possibility, not so unlike Rome at its zenith. Ironically, and for a historical instant, they were right. But there is one inescapable aspect of empire that the commentators missed. Empires are weak. It is republics in contrast that are strong. The United States is a republic that has been operating like an empire, and it has suffered for it. If we look at the gold standard for empireRomewe can see why.
First of all, what is an empire? Empire has less to do with scale of realm or of power than it does with one single feature. Simply, it is a polity where politics itself revolves around the person of the emperor.
This differs from the politics of kingship. Kings represent and embody a densely woven social fabric. They preside over a society of aristocracy: an extended family of rule, where the king is also father. Empires in contrast often emerge from republics. Thus Rome has been a favorite model for American commentators precisely because its successful passage from republic to empire seems close to ours.
Such post-republican emperors often inhabit the complex politics of multiple competing constituencies. These groups and factions continue to do political business within a republics constitutional framework transformed. Thus emperors find themselves consulting with and cajoling senates or assemblies; and unlike kings, they may owe their very legitimacy to these bodies.
Weakness 1: The Imperial Person
But the making and the doing in politics swirl around the imperial personindeed, politics is dependent on the imperial person. This is the first weakness of empire: because politics revolves around the emperor, the rise and fall, success and failure of state policy is ultimately his alone.
The imperial situation is thus one of continuing and always worrisome vulnerability because no matter how many supporters or factions an emperor marshals, they can vanish in an instant. No matter that they have been handsomely bought off with perquisites and gifts, no matter that they are kept in line with threats and periodic cruel example. Failure of an imperial venture puts imperial authority itself instantly at risk.
Thus emperors do their utmost to ensure that politics is stuffed with reliable personal retainers. Longstanding official empires are a bit easier on the imperial person: there may be a tradition of a submissive bureaucracy and a compliant senate, and so the emperors legitimacy is less at the mercy of policy failure. But crisis immediately opens up the prospect of rival claimants and coups, usurpations, and civil wars.
A republics robustness, in contrast, derives from its ability to replace an elected leader and his government with relative ease. This is consecrated in the U.S. Constitution by mandated quadrennial elections of its executive.
Our constitutional framework is still in place, but after 9/11 it shifted operating practice to the imperial. Basically, 9/11 created an imperial dispensation. Through it the president took on the mantle of the office of commander in chief, which under the circumstances was perfectly natural. But then he went further and announced a state of perpetual wara war of generations, a hundred years warand so transformed himself into an imperial person. The transformation here was from episodic commander in chiefwhen and where circumstances warrantedto permanent generalissimo. His primary identity was now that of the military commanding person.
U.S. tradition and precedent limited the office of commander in chief both to the duration of a specific emergency and in terms of presidential powers. The Cold War chipped away at congressional authority to limit presidential powers. But the breathtaking 9/11 attacks drove the president to expand these powers further and make them truly open-ended.
Here the imperial transformation was not simply about power. Even more persuasively, it operated in the realm of authority and expectation. The popular climate was such after 9/11 that Americans seemed to share the prospect that American energies now revolved again around a great world struggle. Here of necessityor so everyone thoughtthe entire conduct and control of this struggle should be

[CTRL] Nation of Immigrants and Emigrants II

2006-05-13 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/hardright.cgi/Nation_of_Immigrant_20060504144229.html?seemore=y

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Nation of Immigrants and Emigrants II

Juarez
Border towns are always dangerous places, because criminals can cross the border, commit a crime, then slip back into their own country. El Paso is one of the least violent cities in the US, but Ciudad Juarez, though peaceful compared with the capital, has among the highest murder rates in Mexico. While some of the crimes can be attributed to the drug wars, a more puzzling question is the high number of women who have been murdered, both in Juarez and in other parts of Chihuahua state.

Part of the problem, apparently, is caused by migrants from southern Mexico. Juarez officials naturally like to blame outsiders for the violence, but there is some truth to the story that poor men and women in southern Mexico come to Juarez hoping to take advantage of the opportunity to work in the Maquiladora factories. The women, once they find work, wish to control their money and go out with their friends on the weekends. This liberation leads to conflicts with husbands boyfriends, who take revenge by beating and killing the women. Carlos Fuentes has memorably portrayed the life of these young women in one of the stories of The Crystal Frontier. Mexicans seeking a scapegoat point the finger of blame at the US, whose Maquiladora program has lured hundreds of thousands of immigrants. They are not entirely wrong. We established these programs under the guise of doing good, but the real point was cheap labor, with no concern for what happened either to Mexicans or to displaced American workers.
The usual tensions and conflicts that have always marked the US-Mexican border have become acute in recent decades. As in Sicily, the huge profits to be made by importing drugs into the US have produced a fierce competition between rival drug lords and between the gangs and the police. The Mexican police and military play an ambiguous role. In some cases their conflicts with the drug smugglers result from their attempts to enforce the law; in others they are more interesting in extorting bribes; in still others they are merely criminals. One of the most effective death squads hired by the drug cartels, Los Zetas, consists of former Mexican soldiers. Mexicans complain, with some justice, that a large number of the hired killersa majority, according to some Mexican officialsare US citizens. Of course most of these US citizens are of MExican background, so perhaps it is only fair for us to return a favor
There are plenty of dishonest cops in the United States and even entire police forces that have been corrupted. In Mexico, however, corruption and criminality are more the rule than the exception, and border cities like Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo, and Juarez resemble battle grounds. Caught in the middle are Mexican journalists, whose courage in reporting on the drug wars has made them a target.
There is also suspicion in Juarez that soldiers from Ft. Bliss routinely cross the bridge into Mexico in order to commit crimes. The story, though absurd on the face of it, may be not entirely fantastic: the FBI reports major gang activity among Ft. Bliss soldiers. There is growing evidence that gang-bangers are being recruited by our increasingly mercenary military, but this is a story in progress.
Two Cultures of Violence
Mexico and the United States are both known as violent countries, but there are important differences in the styleand the incidenceof criminal violence. Both are complex countries with varying ethnic and regional traditions. For example, the states of the American South are proverbial for their high homicide rates, but, in contrast with the large cities of the North much of the killing in the South is done for personal motives. Crimes of violence in the US can also be broken down by ethnicity: Black and Hispanic Americans account for well over half the violent crimes, while the rate for white Americans is in line with Western Europe.
In 1999, the US homicide rate, over all, was 5.7 per 100,000. This is a high rate compared with most countries in Western Europe: Italy (2.25), Belgium and England/Wales (1.41), and Ireland (.62), but America seems safe when compared with Mexico, which despite very strict gun laws, has a homicide rate of 17.58-over three times the US rate.
It is difficult to make comparative generalizations, but according to the Overseas Security Advisory Council (a federal advisory committee whose mission is to advise Americans on security issues in foreign countries): In the categories of murder, rape and robbery, Mexicos Distrito Federal (Mexico City and the surrounding region) posts 3 to 4 times the incidence of these crimes than does New York City, greater Los Angeles or Washington, D.C.
What this means when Mexicans enter the US can be measured by the fact that in 2003, while about 27% of

[CTRL] The Iranian President's Letter to Bush: A Sincere Olive Branch

2006-05-13 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/


Wednesday, May 10, 2006

The Iranian President's Letter to Bush: A Sincere Olive Branch 


by Michael A. Hoffman IIThe letterto President Bush by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an earnest follower of "prophet Jesus," isa sincere olive branch.But the ("non-existent") Israeli lobby will not allow Bush to embrace it or even discuss it fairly.Here we are, allied with Israelis who despise Christ, while seeking to nuke a nation that holds Him in highest esteem.Somewhere in hell, the devil is laughing.The best English translation ofAhmadinejad's letter is here:http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_documents/ahmadinejad0509.pdf It is smudged and difficult to read in parts, but it is uncensored, whereas the English translation widely quoted in the establishment media is excerpted from an incomplete text at the Le Monde website in France (linked to and touted by the New York Times on its website on May 9 and 10, 2006). Le Monde's version in English is here:http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,[EMAIL PROTECTED],36-769886,0.html The Le Monde version has been redacted.Here are examples. A portion ofLe Monde's English translation ofPresident Ahmadinejad's letter, recommended by the New York Times and most of the media:"I point out that throughout the many years of the...war on Iran Saddam was supported by the West."Here is what the Iranian President actually wrote:"I point out that throughout the many years of the imposed war on Iran, Saddam was supported by the West."The word "imposed" has been omitted because it suggests that Saddam started the war with the Islamic Republic of Iran (which is true) and that the war that was imposed upon Iran by Saddam was supported by the West (i.e. the Reagan administration --also true).Another example ofLe Monde's faulty English translation, quoted throughout the US media:"The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the  of a  criminals in a village city, or convoy for example the entire village, city or convey set ablaze."Here is what the Iranian President actually wrote:The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of a few criminals in a village, city, or convoy for example, the entire village, city or convoy set ablaze."One useful aspect of the censorship is that we have prima facie evidence of what the Cryptocracy most fears; in this passage, the revelation of America's tactic of collective punishment of civilians, exactly what the Nazis were excoriated for in their retaliation against terrorist acts on the part of Communist partisans and the French Resistance.In the American version of this war crime, entire Muslim villages, cities and convoys are incinerated for Talmudic motives.The White House under Bush is Talmudic in thought, word and deed. In the eyes of the US government (not just among Israelis), the Arabs and Muslims are not human beings, they are "Amalek."Those who know little or nothing of Moses Hess and how he planted an Old Testament-hating meme in the German extreme right that preceded and shaped Hitler, will blame this modern Amalek identification on the Old Testament. But note bene, Yahweh in the Old Testament declared that He would "blot out the memory of Amalek forever."(Exodus 17:14). It is the rabbis in their sacred praxis, in defiance of God, who keep the memory of Amalek alive. This is a crucial point.In 2004, a group of esteemed rabbis, heads of yeshivas from the West Bank and the Yesha Rabbinical Council, as well as Yuval Sharlo, a head of a yeshiva in Petah Tikva , Eliezer Melamed, the head of Har Bracha yeshiva; Haim Druckman, the head of the Bnei Akiva religious youth group; Rabbi Sholom Elyashiv, inspired by the late Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, Rabbi Mordehai Eliyahu, Chabad Lubavitch rabbis, the Bostoner Rebbe, Arlou Rebbe, Sanz Rebbe, and the Pikuah Nefesh rabbinic organization, issued a public call to the Israeli government to escalate its destruction of civilians in the occupied territories, even at the cost of innocent Arab lives, declaring that "the Israeli army should show less regard for the welfare of the Palestinian civilians" if "terrorists are hiding in their midst," i.e. in a village, city or convoy(cf. Haaretz, Sept. 7, 2004).The rabbis issued their order not only to the Israeli army but to the US armed forces and its Commander-in-chief, through the Orthodox Judaic neo-cons surrounding Bush.This is why Le Monde and the New York Times, together with numerous other media who will quote from the Le Monde translation of the Iranian leader's letter, will not publish the Iranian letter as it was written. To do so would be to reveal the degree to which anger at US war crimes is perfectly appropriate and legitimate, but more importantly, the fact that those war crimes have as their root, the exterminationist philosophy of Talmudic, rabbinic killers.Ahmadinejad seems to be a

[CTRL] The Israeli/Zionist Attack On Our National Anthem

2006-05-01 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.rense.com/general70/zzin.htm

The Israeli Zionist Attack On Our National AnthemBy Christopher Bollyn5-1-6

As soon as CNN reported that an Adam Kidron, CEO of Urban Box Office, is the producer of the so-called Spanish-version of the U.S. national anthem, I noted that the "British-born music impresario" must be an Israeli, based on his surname.

This so-called Spanish version of the U.S. National Anthem is clearly meant to provoke Americans. This is a very similar scandal to the recent "Danish" anti-Muslim cartoon scandal, which was created by an Ukranian Jew who had immigrated to Denmark.

Once again, the person behind the cultural offense is a Zionist Jew with an agenda. The cartoons were an offense against every Muslim, while this ridiculous and offensive song, a so-called rendition of OUR national anthem, is an offense aimed at the heart of every American.

This Kidron must be an Israeli, I said. Kidron is, after all, an Israeli name. The action and the name are classic Israeli, therefore, an Israeli is all he possibly could be, I said.

Sure enough, Adam Kidron, the foreign-born anti-American agent provocateur is an Israeli national. Both of his parents lived in Zionist-occupied Palestine and/or Israel (post 1948). This makes him an Israeli national, whether he carries the Israeli passport or not.

He may be "British-born," but in the case of Adam Kidron this description is only used by the Zionist-controlled press as a way to deceive the public and hide his Israeli roots.

Adam Kidron is the son of Michael Kidron and Nina Gluckstein, two Jewish communists who were part of the Zionist invasion of Palestine, the Holy Land.

Michael is described as a "revolutionary socialist" who was born September 20, 1930 in Capetown, South Africa, and who died, apparently in Britain, on March 25, 2003.

After finishing high school in Tel Aviv, Adam's father went to Hebrew University. From an "ardently Zionist family," Michael became "a socialist and an internationalist, and he continued to be both, inseparably, for the rest of his life," The Times (UK) wrote in 2003.

The Times wrote that Michael corresponded with "one unhappy prostitute" who was "enchanted by his generous concern." She frequently phoned him for advice, the Times reported. He left his wife in the early 1980s and "lived with Polly" from 1991, with whom he had twins.

Michael's daughter, Adam's sister Beeban, may have used her father as the subject of her 1993 film, "Hookers Hustlers Pimps and their Johns."

The Guardian (UK) described him as "a Marxist theorist, an agitator,"

As Michael Kidron's obituary in The Times (London, April 2, 2003) wrote:

"Michael Kidron was the youngest of seven children born to Cape Town Jews. The were called Rosenberg, were related to Isaac Rosenberg, the First World War poet, and, like most Jews in South Africa, had come from Lithuania, the part of the Russian empire with strong Jewish socialist, and Zionist, movements."

Michael Kidron was a fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and was funded by the Ford Foundation and others.

Kidron's obituary says he was "a critical Marxist" and "played a key role in developing a theory, that of the permanent arms economy, to account for the west's long postwar boom, etc."

Michael Kidron married Nina Gluckstein, the daughter of another Zionist from Palestine, and they had three children, Adam, Beeban, and Cassia.

This connection is, of course, no coincidence. Marxist-Zionist Jews have used immigration as a weapon and have been behind much of the forced (im)migration issues of the past 200 years. During the Soviet Union era, mass immigration was used to destroy the national fabric of the various nations occupied by the Soviet Union.

The mass deportations to Siberia were also employed by Zionist Jews to destroy resistance to their communist kleptocracy.

In the Baltic States, for example, "Soviet" immigrants outnumbered the native population in cities such as Tallinn and Riga.

Zionist Jews are most likely behind the destructive immigration policy in occupied post war Germany in which thousands of Turks were allowed entry.

Today, these same Zionists are behind the Mexican invasion of the United States. The 12 million undocumented immigrants are NOT legally in the United States and should return to Mexico, or wherever else they may have come from.

Any company or individual who wittingly employs illegal immigrants should be punished. This is clearly the only way to reverse this invasion by immigration. The selfish crime by an employer to hire illegal aliens is clearly detrimental to the entire work force of the nation.

[CTRL] Israel: The Dead Roach in America's Salad

2006-04-16 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=8856

April 15, 2006

Israel: The Dead Roach in America's Salad

by Charley Reese

The Israeli lobby and the neoconservatives are beating the drums for war with Iran. I hope the president is not that dangerously stupid. The betting on whether he is that stupid is about even.
The neocons who, being self-centered, seemingly have no concept of human nature are advancing the premise that a military attack on Iran will cause the people to lose faith in their government and result in regime change.
A military attack on Iran will have the opposite effect. The people will rally to their government, and any hope of regime change will be dead. That people will rally around their existing leaders in the face of an attack by a foreign power is as certain as sunrise. Neither Israel nor the U.S. could do a greater favor for the ruling mullahs and Iran's president than to launch an attack. It would cement their hold on power.
The neocons' fallacious premise has already been disproved. In the first Gulf War, the first Bush administration confidently incited the Shi'ites and the Kurds to rebel after Saddam Hussein's forces were expelled from Kuwait. The administration thought that Saddam, embarrassed by a crushing military defeat, would fall from power in Iraq easily. Instead, he rallied his forces and crushed both the Shi'ites in the south and the Kurds in the north. Oops.
In the first place, it is not embarrassing for a Third World country with obsolete equipment to be defeated by the world's No. 1 military superpower. In the second place, the Sunnis, however much they might have disliked Saddam, disliked even more the thought of being ruled by Kurds or Shi'ites. In the third place, by President George H.W. Bush's decision to not go to Baghdad, Saddam could say he duked it out with the world's superpower and was still standing after the fight. That, in most eyes, could be counted as a victory.
Some months ago, an Iranian human-rights advocate pleaded with the current Bush administration to cease its rhetorical attacks on the Iranian government. She said, quite accurately, that such attacks make life impossible for Iranian reformers. Needless to say, the blockheads in Washington ignored her.
What did we do when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked? We rallied behind George W. Bush Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. That's the natural reaction of normal human beings, and the Iranians are normal human beings. Attack their country and they will rally round the flag.
The Iranians still insist they are not seeking nuclear weapons, and there's not a scrap of evidence to contradict that claim. They still adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They have often called for a nuclear-free Middle East.
Once again, the dead roach in America's salad is Israel. The U.S. hypocritically opposes a nuclear-free Middle East because Israel has nuclear weapons. We hypocritically claim the Iranians are in violation of international law when, in fact, it is Israel that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and refuses international inspections. Given our craven obedience to Israel, we have exactly zero credibility in the Arab and Muslim world.
As I have said before, I don't care if the Iranians do develop nuclear weapons. My whole adult life was lived with 30,000 Soviet nuclear weapons aimed at me. I can certainly live with the six or seven Iran might be able to scrape together in the next five to 10 years. In the meantime, the U.S. government should kick the Israeli lobby out of the country and support Iran and the Arab League in pushing for a nuclear-free Middle East.
The Israeli lobby pushing America to fight yet another war for Israel reminds me of what the French ambassador to Great Britain said at a party: "Why does the world allow this (expletive deleted) little country to cause so much trouble?"
Why indeed? You should ask your politicians that question.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

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[CTRL] Israeli military stands by its policy on shelling populated areas

2006-04-11 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/060411/w041108.html

Israeli military stands by its policy on shelling populated areas 04:10:04 EDT Apr 11, 2006
JOSEF FEDERMAN
JERUSALEM (AP) - The Israeli military said Tuesday that it stood by its new policy of firing artillery shells into populated Palestinian areas in an effort to stop rocket fire at Israel, even after a round killed an eight-year-old Palestinian girl.
"There has been no change in policy," an Israeli military spokesman said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. "We will continue to fight them (the rocket launchers) intensely, while trying to avoid hurting innocent civilians." Hadil Ghraben was killed and 13 other people were wounded when two shells blew huge holes in a concrete block house in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday afternoon.
Relatives and neighbours in private cars drove bleeding children to the small local hospital. Doctors feverishly bandaged a wailing infant on a blood-splattered hospital bed as others took away the dusty and bloody body of the dead girl.
The army confirmed it was shelling populated areas from which militants fire rockets - a policy adopted just last week.
Israel has stepped up its strikes against Palestinian rocket launchers since the new Palestinian government led by Hamas militants took power two weeks ago.
Palestinian militants have threatened revenge, but the Hamas government is quietly urging them to refrain from launching rockets at Israel without permission, officials from both sides confirmed.
Although the rocket attacks have not stopped and Hamas says it still supports armed resistance against Israel, halting the upsurge in violence would better able it to focus on other brewing crises.
Government spokesman Ghazi Hamad said Hamas, which has not been participating in the rocket attacks, would try to get control over the rocket fire by negotiating with other militant factions.
"We want resistance to be arranged and organized," Hamad said.
Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in January on a platform pledging to end government corruption and improve public services. But since being sworn into office, the government has found itself facing international isolation, a financial crisis, Palestinian infighting and now growing violence with Israel.
An Israeli security official said it appears Hamas is trying to regulate the rocket fire because uncontrolled violence is against its interests. The official was not permitted to be identified under military rules.
Islamic Jihad, which has been behind much of the rocket fire, said it would continue the attacks.
"It is time to be united against the occupation aggression and not to talk about a new period of calm," Mohammed al-Hindi, an Islamic Jihad leader, said in a radio interview.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

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[CTRL] Does Israel Conduct Covert Action in America? You bet it does.

2006-04-11 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m22398l=isize=1hd=0

Does Israel Conduct Covert Action in America? You bet it does.
Michael Scheuer

April 9, 2006Covert action is much talked about and little understood. At its most basic level, covert action is a set of intelligence operations undertaken by a specific state's intelligence agencies to advance its national interests. They are executed in a manner that limits the visibility of that state's hand in whatever is done. Ideally, covert actions cannot be traced back to their sponsor. Most people take the term covert action to mean violent actions of one kind or another: kidnapping, assassination, support for insurgents, etc. While violence can certainly be part of a covert-action campaign, the more insidious and often more effective arm of covert action is called "political action," whereby one state seeks to influence the public opinion of another by speaking through the mouths of that country's citizens. And let me stress, there is nothing wrong or immoral about covert political action. America used political action worldwide in the Cold War; Britain used it in the United States to accelerate neutral America's entry into both world wars; the Saudis pay untold amounts to retired senior U.S. officials to speak admiringly of the anti-American desert tyranny; and Israel uses it today against America to ensure unlimited and unquestioning U.S. support. It is a legitimate foreign affairs tool, and the leaders of any nation who choose not to engage in such activity are certifiably negligent fools.For years even decades U.S. citizens have been the subject of a political action campaign designed and executed by Israel. Currently, Israel's campaign is part steady-as-she-goes and part improvisation to neutralize an unexpected and for Israel worrying development. So far, Israel's covert political action is succeeding hands down. Americans are gradually being indoctrinated to believe Islamists are today's Nazis and that there is no "Israeli lobby" in America. Simply put, Israel is conducting a brilliant covert political action campaign in the United States, a campaign any intelligence service in the world would rightly be proud of.Part one of Israeli's political action consists simply of using that old standby debate-suppressor, the four-letter word "Nazi." Newspapers in Israel, of course, have long used the word to describe Israel's Muslim enemies. Recently, for example, the Jerusalem Post ran an article in which al-Qaeda is described as "yet another Nazi knockoff." This sort of language is the stuff of Israeli journalism, and not of much concern to Americans. If the Israeli press wants to teach their readers to underestimate the Islamist threat, so be it.But now the word "Nazi" is being gradually fed to Americans as a scientific definition of our Islamist enemies. Headlines such as "Hamas Uber Alles," "Hitler's Heirs in Damascus," and "The Nazi Correction to Islamic Terror" are increasingly common in U.S. media publications found in the news files Googled daily by Americans. U.S. politicians, too, are eager to jump on the call-them-Nazis bandwagon, with Secretary Rumsfeld recently saying that leaving Iraq early would be like returning postwar Germany to the Nazis, and Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) comparing the attack on the Shia shrine in Samarra to the burning of the Reichstag by the Nazis.The goal of using the Nazi analogy is to suppress any realistic debate about the pluses and minuses of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and to make sure any American raising questions about U.S. support for Israel is seen as siding with the "Islamofascists," the heirs of Nazism. Any person who knows the least bit about Islam and the Israelis know a great deal knows it is not Nazism, yet the Internet is rife with such titles as "A Manifesto Against Islamofascism" and "Islamofascism's Creeping Coup in Turkey." The best capsule description of the threat posed by Islamofascists is provided by Frank Gaffney in a recent issue of The Intelligencer, the journal of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. Listen to Mr. Gaffney, and you will almost hear Muslim jackboots striking the pavement."We are engaged in nothing less than a War for the Free World. This is a fight to the death with Islamofascists, Muslim extremists driven by a totalitarian political ideology that, like Nazism and Communism before it, is determined to destroy freedom and the people who love it."The drive to make Islamofascist the term of choice in describing America's Muslim enemies is meant to still U.S. debate about Israel and, indeed, to limit questions about any aspect of U.S. foreign policy toward the Islamic world. After all, why would anyone in their right mind care what people think, unless they are blindly and unthinkingly opposed to Islamofascism?The second part of any nation's covert political action plan is to be ready to exploit or redress unexpected developments

[CTRL] Paul Wolfowitz's Heart of Darkness

2006-04-11 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=7970

Paul Wolfowitzs Heart of Darkness

William Hughes

William Hughes
April 11, 2006

He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land. - Joseph Conrad
American policy maker Paul Wolfowitz reminds me a lot of Joseph Conrads character, Kurtz, from his seminal tome, Heart of Darkness. Kurtz never allowed himself to be judged by the same standards as other mere mortals, nor has Wolfowitz. He seems manufactured in the image and likeness of another purveyor of malevolence - Henry Kissinger! Wolfowitz has so far escaped earthly punishment for his serial wrong doings. In fact, incredibly, he has been rewarded with another high paying sinecure by the Wire Pullers.
Wolfowitz was the prime architect of the Iraqi War, when he was the Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Bush-Cheney Gang. (1) He is the father of the Pre-emptive War Doctrine. He also has close ties to the supra-hawkish Neocon, Richard Perle, and to elements within the Military-Industrial Complex. The appalling Abu Ghraib and Gitmo torture scandals happened on his watch, as did the notion that the Geneva Convention didnt apply to Muslim POWs seized by the U.S. in Afghanistan. He also wrongly predicted that the oil revenues from Iraq would finance the war. Now, Wolfowitz runs the World Bank from a plush office, located in Washington, D.C. He is also an intellectual, a former teacher, a Zionist and Israeli Firster, a fanatical disciple of the Nihilist philosopher, Leo Strauss, and a man, (thanks to Michael Moores film, Fahrenheit 9/11 for this disclosure), who isnt afraid to publicly spit on his dirty comb and apply it to his hair before doing a sound bite for a tv news program. (2)
Getting back to Conrads novel, Heart of Darkness. In the book, the sinister Kurtz insisted on being treated as a God by the natives in the Congo. His lust for the valuable ivory caused him to lose his soul and to abandon all restraints. Kurtz was a hollow man, and so is Wolfowitz, who has been morally blinded by his own Neocon-infested extremism. Kurtz sought riches and fame from the ivory. He had written an idealized document on how the natives should be treated, but it ends with these words, Exterminate all the brutes. Wolfowitz wanted to be seen by his peers as an idealistic ideologue, more specifically, a pragmatic idealist. He arrogantly believed the U.S. could export democracy to an Arab country at the barrel of a gun. As the U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, he regularly ignored the gross human rights violations of its dictator, General Suharto, particularly in East Timor. And when Wolfowitz was a State Department honcho assigned to the Philippines, he, and his then assistant, the now indicted Irv Scooter Libby, failed to curb the excesses of the thuggish Ferdinand Marcos regime. (2) What a hypocrite Wolfowitz is!
Despite how the Establishment uses its immense power to protect Wolfowitzs image, I think hes a bum. (3) Every time a bomb goes off in Iraq, I curse his name. Every time I see a dead body on the tv screen lying in the streets of Mosul, Fallujah and Baghdad, I curse him again. And when the news reader says, Four more Americans were killed in Iraq today, I curse Wolfowitz even louder. I despise him for what he has unleashed in the name of the American people in Iraq and for all of the innocent wounded and dead there; for destroying a country of over 26.7 million souls, whose roots go back into antiquity and who had never offered us any harm. I curse him, too, for the enormous cost of this conflict to our treasury. I also damn him for all of those brave men and women in our military, who have returned to their homes without their eyes and limbs; and, finally, for making more enemies for us in the Islamic World. It was the arrogant Wolfowitz, who said that the Weapons of Mass Destruction were just a convenient excuse for the war. If there is a hell, he deserves a very special place in it.
Wolfowitz is a gross distortion, a caricature of our country, its badly conned masses and its fast-fading values. He represents what can happen to a nation, when it allows a warmongering bureaucrat, without any real checks and balances on his conduct, to act out his darker, lethal impulses. Putting someone like Wolfowitz, a raving Neocon, in a position of power was like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. (4) How did this loose cannon get into a place of making our defense policy? When will our nation be rid of this dangerous Neocon menace? (5) When, if ever, will our rudderless country comes to its senses?
Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired USAF Lt. Col., who worked at the Pentagon for nearly five years, shared this keen insight into Wolfowitzs psyche. On June 30, 2003, she wrote, For a refined intellectual type, [he] has a lot to answer for in the arena of human life and death...But when the blood toll is paid, Wolfowitzs soul will resemble the Civil

[CTRL] Guest-Worker Programs - The Seeds Of Our Demise

2006-04-11 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.etherzone.com/2006/adam041206.shtml

'GUEST-WORKER' PROGRAMSTHE SEEDS OF OUR DEMISE
By: Jeff Adams

Politicians really are either the dumbest individuals around, providing a perfect example of the saying cream of the crap, or they are the most deceitful bunch of good-for-nothings to walk our streets. Perhaps they are both. For over a decade, the American people have screamed for our elected officials to do something to fix our illegal immigration problems, and have consistently denounced any idea about another amnesty for these law-breakers. So what does the U.S. Senate do? Discuss immigration, but they focused on amnesty plans (simply labeled guest-worker programs). At least on paper the House appears headed in the right direction and is taking on illegal immigration first, leaving amnesty talk for a later date.
If the government would simply enforce the immigration laws on the books today, our illegal immigrant problem would begin to be controllable. Im concerned that once all is said and done, passing more laws that go un-enforced will simply allow our problems to continue growing, and that whatever law is passed there will be no enforcement (with the exception of whatever guest-worker/amnesty part is attached and continues to allow illegals to flood our towns). This immigration debate could all be just another cruel hoax the politicians are pulling on the citizens of this country.
The Guest-Worker/Temporary Worker/Amnesty idea is not just a stupid, traitorous idea, but is one that has been tried in other countries and is a proven failure. Take a look at European attempts at temporary worker plans. The guest workers rarely go home, no matter what President Bush claims how his plan will work. Study after study has shown that illegals (soon to be guest workers?) do drive down wages, and do take jobs Americans will do (and proof of this is in the percentage of citizens vs. illegals in various work categories; illegals are a minority of workers in all categories, which means Americans make up the rest of the workers in those categories). There are no jobs Americans wont do, just jobs Americans wont do for dirt-wages.
A guest-worker program will have the adverse affect of slowing technological advancements in many of the industries where these people work. What is to motivate changes and advancements if industries can opt for short-term cheap labor, ignoring long-term consequences? It is a fact that when illegal/cheap labor is cut off, businesses look to investing in labor saving machinery and techniques. Look to our own history of slavery in America. Perpetuating slavery stifled innovation in agriculture. Once slavery was removed from the agricultural equation, advances in technology and techniques impacting agriculture started moving forward. Thanks to these advancements, we are much more productive in most agricultural areas today. Where cheap manual labor is still plentiful, technological advances are slow in coming. This scenario has been repeated throughout our history in a number of industries.

Three things concerning the guest-worker program:
First, people want our laws enforced. Before anything else can be discussed, it is a matter of our laws being broken and the government not just failing to enforce the laws, but outright refusing to enforce the laws. Enforce the laws first, then lets talk about legal and illegal immigration.
Second, the guest-worker debate is more about how congress can find a way to legitimize 12 to 20 million illegals to cover their failure to do their jobs. Rather than honestly deal with the law breakers in our midst, Congress appears to prefer to declare them all non-law breakers, as if that makes 20 million people go away, or magically, instantaneously assimilated into our society. It does not.
Third, whether they are called illegal aliens or guest-workers, allowing these people to stay here creates a large poverty class in our country with no real means of climbing out of that poverty. They are trapped by businesses wanting cheap labor. These people will not assimilate, which is key to succeeding in any country, and will remain in isolated communities that will continue to grow and eventually demand they get their way in a land not theirs, but they have convinced themselves is theirs. This is already being demonstrated by the huge protests illegals have held across our country over the last few weeks. Literally hundreds of thousands of these people fearlessly walk our city streets demanding rights they have no claim to. (Which by the way, why dont the immigration authorities show up and just round these people up while they were congregating in such large numbers in public?)
Congress needs to get realistic, and be honest about the issue of illegals and their amnesty plans. Illegals should not be given preferential treatment over the citizens of this country. A failure to aggressively address this

[CTRL] China Has US Anti-Missile Tech, Via Transfer From Israel

2006-04-07 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/06/front2453832.096526.html

China has U.S. anti-missile tech, via transfer from Israel
Special to World Tribune.com
EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COM
Thursday, April 6, 2006
China has developed its own version of the Patriot anti-missile system, according to a Chinese-owned Hong Kong newspaper.
The ground-to-air guided missile system is part of China's air shield that is similar to U.S. Patriot missiles, the March 29 Wen Wei Po reported.

-->
China covertly obtained Patriot anti-missile system technology from Israel during the 1990s, according to U.S. officials.
U.S. intelligence agencies discovered the Israel-China Patriot technology transfer in March 1993.
The transfers came from U.S.-made Patriots sent to Israel to counter Iraqi missile attacks during the Persian Gulf war.
The report described the system's command and control system, vehicles and interceptors.
In 1993, then-CIA Director Robert Gates told The Washington Times, There is some indication that they [the Chinese] have some of the technology.

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[CTRL] What Victory Lost - Where would America be if we hadnt i nvaded Iraq?

2006-04-04 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_04_10/article2.html

April 10, 2006 IssueCopyright © 2006 The American Conservative
What Victory Lost
Where would America be if we hadnt invaded Iraq?
By Wayne Merry
President Bush has enunciated an ambitious standard for success in Iraq, albeit a much more modest one than his original vision of a democratic transformation of the entire Middle East. However, even if the current U.S. program is achieved, the question remains: is this war in the national interest of the U.S.?
Success in Iraq is certainly preferable to outright failure but still may be inferior to abandonment of a policy that was erroneous from inception. Thus, even if Bush can genuinely proclaim Mission Accomplished in Iraq when he leaves office, will the war not leave America worse off both at home and in the world? By continuing to pursue our current policy at exorbitant cost and risk, may the United States achieve nothing more than a successful mistake?
While speculative about the past three years and many future developments, here are ten reasonable assertions about a no-war alternative.
First, although Saddam Hussein might still be in power, he would lack WMD or the conventional military capacity to endanger the region. Iraq would be significantly weaker than three of its neighbors (Iran, Turkey, Syria), while the others (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) would enjoy a robust and credible American security guarantee. Thus, Saddam would be effectively contained, while his economic base would continue to deteriorate even with the porous corruption of international sanctions.
Second, the United States would have much greater military and intelligence assets to devote to the vital campaign against al-Qaeda and to follow up in Afghanistan. There would be none of the critical shortages that have hampered pursuit of the Taliban and no diversion of policy-level attention from making Afghanistan a genuine success. One might hope that bin Laden would no longer be in a position to make public statements challenging the United States, or to do anything else.
Third, even with no change in U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians, the standing and influence of the United States in Arab countries and throughout the broader Islamic world would be much greater. To the Muslim television viewer, America is the crusading occupier of a weak Arab state with oil and certainly not a liberator. Washington can proclaim our benign motives till doomsday, but people in the region are not buying it. They believe what they see: Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the civilian casualties from U.S. bombing aimed at insurgents, the turmoil and desperation of daily life for average Iraqis, and the failure of the U.S. after three years to deliver what it promised at the outset of the war. While an American can assess these realities in a broader context, people in the Arab and Islamic worlds see them as proof of malign American intent and of the clash of civilizations we claim to eschew. They know that neoconservative ambitions lie well beyond Iraq: they want to establish American hegemony across the region.
Fourth, Americas global alliance system would be in better shape, with much of the post-9/11 solidarity still intact and many governments more amenable to co-operating with us on a range of issues, especially in counter-terrorism. The UN would also be a more viable instrument of U.S. policy. While most European governments have reached an overt accommodation with Washington on many aspects of our Iraq policy, this diplomatic rapprochement is a façade. Every coalition government with a substantial contingent in Iraq is getting out or preparing to do so. There is scarcely an allied state where the political elite is not jaded and distrustful of the U.S. after exposure of the WMD that werent, of prisoner scandals, and from the experience of systematic deception by Washington. Beyond the elites, public opinion among Americas allies remains overwhelmingly negative about our recourse to war, our conduct of the occupation, our motives in the Middle East, and our overall ability to use our vast power responsibly. As most of Americas allies are democratic states, elite and public attitudes limit governments in their ties with Washington. Instead of post-9/11 willing allies, we now have reluctant ones.
Fifth, Americas militaryespecially the critical Army and Marine ground forceswould be in far better shape, spared the hemorrhaging of personnel and with more progress toward post-Cold War force transformation. The administration chose to fight the Iraq War on the cheap, despite abundant historical evidence that counterinsurgency campaigns are protracted, manpower-intensive, and draining on all military units engaged. The price for not devoting adequate resources to the follow-through is paid in dead and injured troops and in the decay of combat forces. Ultimately, the condition of Iraq is of less importance to

[CTRL] Israel and Moral Blackmail - The Israel lobby is bringing out the big guns

2006-04-03 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8796

April 3, 2006

Israel and Moral Blackmail The Israel lobby is bringing out the big guns

by Justin Raimondo

The reaction to a pathbreaking or, rather, taboo-busting study of how and why Israel's interests came to be substituted for America's national interests in Washington policymaking circles, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," [.pdf] by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, has confirmed, in part, its thesis.
"The Lobby," as the authors call it, effectively works to control the debate over our Israel-centric policy in the Middle East by ensuring that there is no debate. Congress has been captured through their exemplary use of pressure tactics, and the editorial pages of the nation's newspapers and magazines are also dominated by the Israel-Firsters, where the same imbalance prevails. In a hint of what these two distinguished scholars had to go through to get their study published, they aver: "It is hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States publishing a piece like this one."
It turns out that, before turning to Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government where Walt is academic dean (albeit not for long) they attempted to get a version of their study published in an American magazine:
"John Mearsheimer says that the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful that he and co-author Stephen Walt would never have been able to place their report in a American-based scientific publication. 'I do not believe that we could have gotten it published in the United States,' Mearsheimer told the Forward. He said that the paper was originally commissioned in the fall of 2002 by one of America's leading magazines, 'but the publishers told us that it was virtually impossible to get the piece published in the United States.' Most scholars, policymakers and journalists know that 'the whole subject of the Israel lobby and American foreign policy is a third-rail issue,' he said. 'Publishers understand that if they publish a piece like ours it would cause them all sorts of problems.'"
Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor of the London Review of Books which published a shortened version tells the Guardian that the piece "was originally written for, but rejected by, the Atlantic Monthly and picked up by the LRB, when Wilmers 'became aware of its existence.'"
In an important sense, then, it appears that, like Palestine, the American literary and political scene is Israeli-occupied territory. As Mearsheimer and Walt point out, academia, too, suffers from the pro-Israel version of the Inquisition, suffering extensive efforts to "police" campuses for evidence of "anti-Israel" sentiments. As if to verify this charge, the authors have run smack up against the campus Thought Police, with Harvard University taking the unusual step of pulling its logo from their piece, altering and making a boilerplate disclaimer more prominent, and finally announcing that Walt would be resigning shortly from his post as academic dean.
This question of Walt's resignation has aroused some interest especially since it was made shortly after major Harvard contributor Robert Belfer (who gave $7.5 million to the Kennedy School in 1997) expressed his displeasure. This concatenation of events has occasioned a denial by Walt, who says that his stepping down had nothing to do with the controversy surrounding his work. This echoes the official statement put out by Harvard, as well as an e-mail to me by Melodie Jackson, the Kennedy School's director of communications and public affairs:
"There is no connection between the conclusion of Professor Walt's term as academic dean and the discussion around his recent paper. As agreed a year ago, professor Walt's term as academic dean will expire at the end of this academic year and has absolutely no connection to the current conversation around his paper."
Well, then, that's that right? Move along, nothing to see here. But not quite. As the Harvard Crimson reports:
"[Kennedy School Dean David T.] Ellwood said that he sent an e-mail to Kennedy School faculty members on Feb. 21 before the uproar over the article informing them that Walt would end his term as academic dean in June. Ellwood said he also asked professors for recommendations regarding the search for the next academic dean. "When asked to provide the Feb. 21 e-mail to The Crimson, Kennedy School spokeswoman Melodie Jackson declined to do so.
"Walt's term as academic dean will be one year shorter than that of his predecessor, Frederick Schauer, who held the post from 1997 to 2002. Though Ellwood's statement made reference to a 'normal three-year cycle' of academic deans, three-year terms have not been the norm for administrators who have held that post in recent years. "Ellwood himself held the post for a year before joining the Clinton administration in 1993, and he returned to the school in 1995 to serve a two-year term as academic dean. Alan A.

[CTRL] New Christian pro-Israel lobby aims to be stronger than AIPAC

2006-04-03 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/701583.html



New Christian pro-Israel lobby aims to be stronger than AIPAC



By Shlomo Shamir





NEW YORK - Televangelist John Hagee told Jewish community leaders over the weekend that the 40 million evangelical Christians in the United States support Israel and that he plans to utilize this power to help Israel by launching a Christian pro-Israel lobby.The lobby is slated to launch in July, during a Washington conference in which hundreds of American evangelicals are slated to participate, Hagee said at a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which represents 52 national Jewish groups. He also discussed the lobby with Israel's consul general in New York, Aryeh Mekel.Hagee said his group would be a Christian - and more powerful - version of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a large pro-Israel lobby, and would target senators and congressmen on Capitol Hill. A quarter of congressmen are evangelicals, and many American legislators represent regions that include a large evangelical population, he said.








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Hagee - the founder and senior pastor of the evangelical Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, that claims an active membership of more than 18,000 - said the lobby's activities would be a "political earthquake."In his meeting with Mekel, Hagee said he planned to establish an effective network of key activists across the United States who can be reached within 24 hours if necessary for emergency lobbying efforts. He said he has already appointed 12 regional directors who are to be responsible for lobby activities in their areas and that he plans to appoint representatives in every state and major city.Hagee also said he would head a delegation of 500 evangelicals slated to visit Israel this summer. "The evangelical population's support of Israel is very important," said Mekel yesterday.The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon, responded in a similar fashion while discussing the new lobby in February."We see Christians in the United States as true friends and important supporters on the basis of shared values, and we welcome their efforts to strengthen the ties between Israel and the U.S.," Ayalon said at the time.Anti-Defamation League director Abe Foxman was a bit more cautious. He said Hagee's project should be welcomed, but added that Jews and Israelis should be both respectful and wary. Foxman noted that Hagee told the Conference of Presidents that evangelicals support Israel from a biblical perspective, but did not explain exactly what he meant.Rabbi James Rudin, author of "The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right's Plans for the Rest of Us," said Sunday that Hagee - one of 20 evangelical leaders who met with Ariel Sharon during his last trip to Washington - has been known for many years as an enthusiastic advocate of Israel, and is a typical right-wing Christian supporter of the country.Some 400 Christian community leaders met in San Antonio in February to establish the lobby. Other than Hagee, its leaders include evangelist George Morrison; fundamentalist Baptist minister Jerry Falwell; and Gary Bauer, president of the American Values organization aimed at protecting marriage, family and faith. All are well-known supporters of Israel, and considered hawkish.








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[CTRL] The Lobby Strikes Back - Harvard study of Israeli lobby's influence costs the academic dean of the Kennedy School his job

2006-04-01 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8787



March 31, 2006 

The Lobby Strikes Back Harvard study of Israeli lobby's influence costs the academic dean of the Kennedy School his job 

by Justin Raimondo




The reaction to the Harvard University study by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," [.pdf] has been fury by the Lobby and its partisans  and a demotion for Walt, who, it was announced shortly after the paper's release, would be stepping down from his post as [academic] dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. As the New York Sun reports (via the Harvard Crimson):
"Yesterday's issue of The New York Sun reported that an 'observer' familiar with Harvard said that the University had received calls from 'pro-Israel donors' concerned about the KSG paper. One of the calls, the source told The Sun, was from Robert Belfer, a former Enron director who endowed Walt's professorship when he donated $7.5 million to the Kennedy School's Center for Science and International Affairs in 1997. 'Since the furor, Bob Belfer has called expressing his deep concerns and asked that Stephen not use his professorship title in publicity related to the article,' the source told The Sun."
The Kennedy School has removed its logo from the front page of the paper, and made more prominent a boilerplate statement to the effect that the school doesn't necessarily endorse any or all of the views expressed therein. 
Now, somebody please tell me that Mearsheimer and Walt have overplayed the power and influence of the Lobby in American political life.
The hate campaign directed at Mearsheimer and Walt underscores and validates the study's contention that all attempts to objectively discuss our Israel-centric foreign policy and the pivotal role played by the Lobby are met with outright intimidation. We have O.J. Simpson defender and pro-Israel fanatic Alan Dershowitz claiming that the scholarly duo filched the majority of their sources from "hate sites"  although how Dershowitz knows this, without having looked directly over their shoulders as they wrote, is very far from clear. But don't worry, he assures us, a "team" of researchers on his staff is looking into the matter. One wonders if this is the same "team" that looked into the evidence and concluded that Simpson was innocent.
Virtually every mention of the study informs us that David Duke is among its most fervent defenders. The Boston Globe and the Washington Post both featured Duke's endorsement in their respective summaries of the controversy, and when the shameless Joe Scarborough of MSNBC had him on, he introduced the notorious racist this way:
"Thank you for being with us tonight, Mr. Duke. You have been attacked as a former Klansman, an anti-Semite, but tonight you're in league with Harvard University. Do you feel vindicated?"
Mearsheimer and Walt are the ones who should feel vindicated, because this sort of cheap demagoguery proves their point about the Lobby's modus operandi. Always they seek to set the terms of the debate in their favor: If you disagree with them and decry their influence, you're a "Nazi." How very convenient. 
What would the Lobby do without the former Ku Klux Klan leader, who now inveighs against "ZOG" and the alleged perfidy of the Jews from somewhere in Central Europe? He ought to be getting some kind of stipend from them, in view of the tremendous service he performs: by setting up an avowed neo-Nazi as the chief spokesman for the other side, the Lobby gets to control the discourse. 
Naturally, Scarborough would never have invited anyone like, say, Juan Cole on the show to defend the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis. He might have invited any one of a number of people cited in the study's 200-plus footnotes, including Antiwar.com's Ran HaCohen. But that is expecting far too much of the Lobby and its allies: intellectual honesty is not one of their strong points.
The same trope is continued and expanded on with Max Boot's contribution to the debate, in which he conjures the ghost of Richard Hofstadter, departed neocon scholar of "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," which sought, back in the early 1960s, to show that "right-wing agitation" (i.e., mainstream conservatism) was a psychopathology, rather than a bona fide ideology, consisting of little more than paranoid fantasies brought on by acute "status resentment." Hofstadter, in turn, was simply carrying forward and applying the "social science" of Theodore Adorno, the Marxist sociologist who famously diagnosed opposition to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's policies as evidence of an Oedipal "father complex." So far, it's the same old malarkey, minus the footnotes, until, at the end, Boot bares his teeth:
"After finishing their magnum opus, I was left with just one question: Why would the omnipotent Israel lobby (which, they claim, works so successfully 'to stifle criticism of Israel') allow such a scurrilous piece of

[CTRL] The Israel Lobby Must Be Contained

2006-03-30 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-






http://mparent.livejournal.com/7366164.html



The Israel Lobby Must Be Contained 'Israel Lobby' Dean To Leave Post in June===30/03/06 
Reactions to the Israel Lobby StudyIn the three weeks since the Harvard and Chicago University professors' study of the "Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" was published in the London Review of Books and placed on Harvard's Kennedy School of Government website, there has been an enormous response from pundits in the U.S. and Israel.The initial hurt reaction of such pro-Israel personalities as Alan Dershowitz and journalist Marvin Kalb could be described as inelegant outrage. Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY), one of Israel's strongest congressional supporters, weighed in noisly, calling the study "the same old anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist drivel." In the New York Sun, he was quoted as saying,"Given what happened in the Holocaust, it's shameful that people would write reports like this."This is typical of what any objective critic of Israel receives from the Israel lobby and its supporters. It deliberately obfuscates and generally does not deal with factual analysis. The drumbeat of condemnation has been only partially balanced by responses by such figures as Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, who noted that "a sliver of the political spectrum, falsely insisting that it represents all American Jews, manages to skew U.S. politics and reporting on the issue of Palestine."In Washington, the Post waited ten days before deeming the story newsworthy enough. In a so-far unanswered letter to the ombudsman of the Post about the article, international lawyer and frequent contributor to the International Herald Tribune John Whitbeck, commented:"[The Post article] provides commentary from eight mostly peculiar sources -- of which only two (of which one is the now inevitable David Duke) are favorable while the other six are scathing (using fine analytic terms like 'ignorant propaganda,' 'masquerading as scholarship,' 'biased, one-sided, foolish, repetitive,' 'academic garbage,' 'piss-poor,' 'riddled with errors' and my personal favorite -- 'ignores previous serious work on the subject')."
The Capitol Hill establishment that unconditionally supports Israel was equally outraged and reportedly held a private meeting to discuss the position they should take on the paper. But, according to the New York Jewish-American paper the Forward, the lobby decided to bury the study with silence. Only minor coverage of the 82-page report appeared in the American press beyond the Post and scurrilous op-eds in pro-Israel newspapers. The only television coverage was a gratuitous interview with a true anti-Semite, David Duke. 
Take Action to Contain the Israel Lobby!Some years ago, the Council for the National Interest issued a brochure with remarkably similar conclusions that indeed U.S. policy makers on Capitol Hill, in the White House, and at the Department of State were under continuous intimidation and pressure on behalf of Israel.More recently, we have proposed a Foreign Lobby Registration Act (FLORA), which for the first time would bring transparency into lobbying on foreign affairs by groups tied closely to foreign governments. As Walt and Mearsheimer note in their paper, AIPAC ''is a de facto agent of a foreign government [and] has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress."The initial charges of anti-Semitism, at worse, coupled with the sudden silence indicates that there is an organized lobby on behalf of Israel. There is nothing wrong with that, but what is wrong is shutting down debate and intimidating the whole political process on behalf of Israel.At this moment lobbying legislation is working its way through Congress that is both inadequate and fails to deal with the problem of lobbies embedded with foreign governments. Read the Israel lobby report online and sign the petition supporting a Foreign Lobby Registration Act.Eugene BirdPresident

Council for the National Interest Foundation1250 4th Street SW, Suite WG-1Washington, District of Columbia 20024








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[CTRL] NEW RESEARCH SHOWS ISRAELI LOBBY IMPEDING AMERICAN INTERESTS

2006-03-27 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-






THE HOFFMAN WIRE
Dedicated to Freedom of the Press, Investigative Reporting and Revisionist History

Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Michael A. Hoffman II, Editor

Before we get to our column today, please note the following items of
interest:

Prof. David Ray Griffin's upcoming March 30 speech in Oakland,
California: "9/11: The Myth  The Reality" will be Webcast

David Ray Griffin of Claremont College will talk about "9/11: The Myth
 The Reality," on Thursday, March 30th at 7:00p.m. in Oakland,
California at the Grand Lake Theater and will be web-streamed live. You
can go to:
http://www.kmud.org/ that night and click on the "Listen Now" link.For
more information about the event, visit:
http://www.pdeastbay.org911MythReality

-

John L. Kucek on the Afghan Muslim-Christian controversy:

"Now that President Bush has made a plea for the release of the Afghan
prisoner who does not believe in the Muslim fairy tale, when is he going
to make a plea for release of the European prisoners (Rudolf, Zündel and
Irving)who do not believe in the 'Holocaust' fairy tale?"

-

Arabs are "Donkey and Beasts"
The following racist rabbinic filth is not being reported in the US
media:

"The nation of Israel is pure and the Arabs are a nation of donkeys.
They are an evil disaster, an evil devil, and a nasty affliction. The
Arabs are donkeys and beasts. They want to take our girls. They are
endowed with true filthiness. There is pure and there is impure and they
are impure."

 --Allegedly stated by Rabbi David Batzri, head of the Magen David
Yeshiva in Jerusalem, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, March
21, 2006

-

NEW RESEARCH SHOWS ISRAELI LOBBY IMPEDING AMERICAN INTERESTS

A research paper by two leading American professors, "The Israeli Lobby
and U.S. Foreign Policy,"
[access it here:
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011]
has come under attack by the usual suspects and is largely being
accorded the "silent treatment" by the establishment media.

Israeli journalist "Crazy Tom" Segev is comparing this elite academic
study of the Israeli lobby by these distinguished professors, who are
from Harvard and the University of Chicago, with the Protocols!

He writes: "Israel's influence is based on an ancient anti-Semitic myth
about the Jews who rule the world."--Tom Segev
"The Protocols of Harvard and Chicago"
Haaretz, March 23, 2006

Crazy Tom wants to warn us not to even broach the topic of "Israel's
influence" because if we do, we are implicated in racist hatred
("anti-semitism"), and lies about "Jews" ruling the world.

Hyperbole like this is evidence of extreme Zionist egoism and
schizophrenia. The poor persecuted partisans of "Israel," in the act of
explaining how powerless they are, dictate to the world the parameters
of right-think on the subject of the Middle East. Ha!

The authors of this new study of the Israeli lobby are not what you'd
call light-weights: John J. Mearsheimer is professor of political
science and a director of the Program on International Security Policy
at the University of Chicago; and Prof. Stephen M. Walt, teaches at the
John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Mearsheimer and Walt question the relationship between the two allies
from the beginning of their paper:

"The US national interest should be the primary object of American
foreign policy. For the past several decades, however, and especially
since the Six Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle East policy
has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering US
support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout
the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized US
security.

"This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the
United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to
advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond
between the two countries is based on shared strategic interests or
compelling moral imperatives. As we show below, however, neither of
those explanations can account for the remarkable level of material and
diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel."

The 81-page paper then says that the "overall thrust of US policy in the
region is due almost entirely to US domestic politics, and especially to
the activities of the 'Israel Lobby.'" While other special interest
groups have skewed US policy in their favor, the authors write that no
group has been so successful at diverting the US national interest from
what it should be as the Israel lobby, "while simultaneously convincing
Americans that US and Israeli interests are essentially identical."

The paper also says that the unquestioning relationship with Israel
actually makes winning the war on terror a much more difficult task.

More important, saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared
terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US

[CTRL] Israel's anti-Arab parties.

2006-03-27 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-







http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9F9DE416-2124-4BA6-8201-5A68D6EBE670.htm

Israel's anti-Arab partiesby Khalid Amayreh in the West BankSunday 26 March 2006 3:53 AM GMT 








Several parties who maintain anti-Arab platforms are running for seats in the upcoming Israeli general elections, with at least one having previously called for "relentless terror" against Palestinians.


The Jewish Front, headed by Baruch Marzel, is an offshoot of the Kach group, whose principles Israel's Supreme Court said incited racism.
Kach was outlawed by both the Israeli and US governments in 1994.
The Jewish Front advocates the forced expulsion of Arabs from "the land of Israel". 
According to Beny Elyaho, a co-founder of the party, the expulsion of non-Jews would resolve all of Israel's political, economic and social problems.
"Our party calls for cleansing the region extending from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean from the goyim (non-Jews) and thus guaranteeing a Jewish majority of no less than 90% throughout the land of Israel," he was quoted as saying during a party meeting in West Jerusalem last year. 
Marzel hascalled parties willing to negotiate with the Palestinians "traitors" and "criminals" and saysthe Israeli military should assassinate Uri Avnery, leader of the Gush Shalom peace activist movement.
Arab emigration
Another party, Herut, headed by Michael Kleiner, advocates legislation that would offer Palestinians and other non-Jewish citizens of Israel "financial inducements" to emigrate to the Arab world and elsewhere. 







Herut, meaning freedom in Hebrew, maintains the vision of Eretz Yisrael Hashlema (or Greater Israel) encompassing all mandatory Palestine where non-Jews are accorded inferior or no rights by virtue of being non-Jewish. 
The party also views nearly all of Jordan as part of Israel which "one day" could be "re-incorporated into Israel". 
According to the party platform, Herut stands for increasing the "Jewish bond" with the Temple Mount, a euphemism for demolishing al-Aqsa mosque and other Muslim holy places in Jerusalem. 
The National Union (Haichud Haleumi) party, comprised of the Settler Party, the Mifdal, and other Jewish groups, also calls for the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries and elsewhere. 
No Palestinian state
The party headed by Benjamin Elon, a former Israeli cabinet minister, also opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
"The National Union pledges that another political entity will not rise between Jordan and the sea. The funds which were being transferred to the Palestinian Authority by the government, will henceforth be used for reparations for the damage Israel has suffered during the period of terror," the party's website says. 




It advocates the creation of a Talmudic Jewish kingdom whereby non-Jews in general, and Palestinians in particular, are treated as "water carriers and wood hewers" in the service of Jews.
Yisrael Beitenu (Israel is Our Home), headed by Russian immigrant Avigdor Lieberman, is mainly a "Russian party" since most of its support come from Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants who moved to Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Lieberman advocates "population transfer" of Israel's Arab citizens. And according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, he also calls for ignoring the Palestinian Authority and drawing Israel's final borders with Egypt, Jordan and the road map quartet of the UN, the US, the EU and Russia.
Arab MPs in the Knesset have accused Lieberman of racism for seeking to expel Israeli Arabs, some of whom he has called extremist elements.
Likud
Likud, headed by Benyamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, has drifted further to the right since Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister who now lies in a coma, left the party to form the Kadima (Forward) party in November 2005.







Likud has called for the annexation of the bulk of the West Bank (at least 50% of the occupied Palestinian territories) and granting Palestinians a limited autonomy which could be allowed to evolve into a mini-state in the future.
According to its campaign website, Likud also opposes relinquishing control of the Golan Heights to Syria and firmly opposes Kadima's policies of unilateral withdrawals.
Racism law
Israeli law states that no one can stand for elections to the Knesset if his goal or actions "expressly or by implication", includes "incitement to racism".
But Fawaz Kamal, the head of the Israeli government press office, told Aljazeera:"The judicial system in Israel saw that there was no legal grounds for outlawing these parties or barring them from participating in the elections as long as they don't include their purported racist attitudes and views in their respective platforms."Talab al-Sani'e, a Knesset member and lawyer, said: "the Israeli High Court has effectively ignored this law and decided to let the people (voters) decide"."Only in extreme cases, such as in the case of the Kahana party,

[CTRL] Army War College Analysts Believe that Iran Would Abandon Nuclear Program if Israel Did

2006-03-26 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-








http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/israel__give_up_your_nukes.html

Israel: Give Up Your Nukes
Army War College Analysts Believe that Iran Would Abandon Nuclear Program if Israel Did
 
A report recently published by the distinguished U.S. Army War College has publicly targeted Israels controversialbut officially nonexistentarsenal of nuclear weapons of mass destruction.In the wake of a growing American media cacophony about Irans purported aims of building its own nuclear arsenalnews that has largely been stimulated by bellicose rhetoric in Israel itselfthe Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College, which is a training ground for the best and the brightest among up-and-coming military officers, has taken quite a different approach.The colleges reportwhich has never once been publicized in the major media in Americasays that neither talk of a military attack on Iran by Israel nor ongoing American diplomatic initiatives are likely to stop Iran from pursuing its goals. Either course could result in disaster, said Americas military strategists.Instead, the report, titled Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran, says, quite in contrast, that it is Israel that should take the initiative.The American military officers say that Israel should close down its Dimona nuclear reactor, turn over nuclear materiel to a third party, and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to maintain regular inspection of Israels nuclear operations. The report urges the United States to put pressure on Israel to make this possible.Americas military thinkers believe that if Israel were to curtail its nuclear offensive, the United States would be more easily able to convince other nuclear states in the Middle East to do likewise. It is, in fact, a historic truth that it was Israels determined push for nuclear weaponsa documented foundation of that nations geopolitical defense policythat led Arab nations, Pakistan and Iran to pursue nuclear weapons in response.For example, although in 2003 Syria asked for a United Nations resolution calling for nuclear arms inspections all across the Middle Eastincluding Israelfew expected that the United States would rally behind Syrias request. This came despite the official U.S. position that, according to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, the United States would like to see the entire region free of weapons of mass destruction. Nevertheless, the United States did not support Syria on banning all nukes.Even The Washington Post reported, on April 17, 2003, that Syrias current arsenal of chemical warheads and Scud [Scud-D] missiles to deliver them was started more than 30 years ago to counter Israels development and possession of nuclear weapons, according to present and former U.S. intelligence officials.The Post cited an unnamed former senior intelligence analyst as saying that Hafez al-Assad, Syrias former leader and the father of the current Syrian ruler, believed that the military aid that the Syrians received from the former USSR would never be able to match what Israel developed in the nuclear field and received from the U.S.Joseph Cirincione, head of the nonproliferation program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Post, at the time that, You cant get rid of chemical or biological or nuclear programs in Arab countries unless you also address the elimination of Israels nuclear and chemical programs.Cirincione pointed out that the primary reason for other nations in the region building their own weapons of mass destruction was due to Israels own initiatives.What is particularly notable about the recent Army War College report calling for Israel to effectively de-nuke is that the co-author of that report is Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a long and well-established pro-Israel lobby in Washington.However, WINEP is generally identified with Israels socalled peace movement, which has been at odds with the elements in Israel associated with ailing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Sharon and Netanyahu are, in turn, allied with members of the fanatic pro-Israel neo-conservative elements who have been directing U.S. Middle East policy in the Bush administration.All of this suggests that, once again, internal Israeli political conflicts are flowing over into the American political process within this instancethe top-notch officers at the Army War College allying with Israels left wing.Thus, the men who are charged with fighting Americas wars are taking a public stand that couldif their advice is followedhelp defuse the problem of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, if only Israel agrees to go along and the Bush administration sees the logic of what Americas military leaders are proposing.
(Issue #4, January 23, 2006)








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CTRL is a

[CTRL] Neocon ambitions and the spectacular disaster of Iraq

2006-03-26 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2006/March/opinion_March84.xmlsection=opinioncol=

Neocon ambitions and the spectacular disaster of IraqBY ERIC S MARGOLIS 26 March 2006

ON THE third anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, we are now able to discern the real motivation behind what Washington claimed was a pre-emptive operation to save mankind from the threat of Iraqs weapons of mass destruction.

In reality, the Bush Administration went to war to attain two objectives: 1. Seizing Iraqs vast oil reserves, and turning Iraq into a base to dominate the Middle East; 2. Destroying one of Israels two main enemies( Iran being the other).
Three years on, the first goal has not been reached while the second was decisively achieved. Large parts of Iraq once one of the Arab worlds most developed nations are in ruins, anarchy, or approaching civil war. The squabbling, US-engineered regime in Baghdad represents only the Shia majority.
US occupation forces in Iraq struggle just to defend their bases and vulnerable supply lines. Their fruitless, Vietnam-style search-and-destroy missions, like the recent Operation Swarmer, are a sure sign of strategic failure and senior officers too stupid or arrogant to draw obvious lessons from recent guerilla wars. The US military is repeating many of the same mistakes that led to its defeat in Vietnam.
Over 2,300 American soldiers have died; 16,300 are wounded and these figures are likely understated. At least 30,000 Iraqi civilians have died; some estimates put the figure far higher. The US holds 15,000-18,000 Iraqi prisoners more than Saddam Hussein ever did.
The stalemated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing Washington a staggering $US 9.8 billion monthly as the US Treasury borrows billions from China and Japan just to keep the government operating. The above figure excludes hundreds of millions in secret CIA bribes to rent cooperation from tribal chiefs and politicians, or hire mercenaries called contractors.
What was to have been a jolly, self-financing little war promoted by pro-Israeli neocons to liberate Iraqs oil has cost over $500 billion so far. Thats $50 billion more than the Vietnam Wars total cost (in 2006 dollars). Clearly, the US armed forces are too expensive to send to a war lasting longer than a few months.
While a debacle for the US and Iraq, the war has greatly benefited Iran and Israel. Saddam Hussein, responsible for over 300,000 Iranian deaths, is in jail. Irans influence in Iraq grows daily. The recent remarkable public agreement by Washington to open talks over Iraq with Great Satan Iran shows even the Bush people are finally facing reality. Besides, occupying Iraq has left the US too weak to invade Iran. Now, the Bush administration, facing rising domestic opposition over the war, is desperately trying to get Iran to help it out of the bloody mess it created in Iraq.
After getting Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in 1980, and funding the ensuing eight-year Iran-Iraq war, the US now watches helplessly as Iran slowly ingests large portions of Iraq. The US invasion of Iraq has handed power to pro-Iranian Shia religious parties. Shia spiritual leader, Ali al Sistani, warned followers they would go straight to hell and lose their wives if they did not vote for Shia religious candidates.
Israel has been the second major beneficiary of the Iraq war. The long-term strategic goal of Israels Likud Party rightists shattering unstable Arab states to leave Israel dominant in the region has been half attained by Iraqs fragmentation into three parts. Syrias regime is destabilised and faces possible civil strife. Any future challenge by Iraq to Israels Middle East nuclear monopoly has vanished.
Meanwhile, Israel has been able to cut defence spending, intensify repression of the Palestinians, and is quietly extending its influence into the semi-independent, oil-rich Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
Ironically, the third major beneficiary of Bushs war has been his nemesis, Osama bin Laden. The only way to drive US influence out of the Muslim world, Bin Laden has long maintained, is to tie it down in a series of small wars that bleed it financially. The nearly $10 billion a month wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are doing just that. Iraq, as even Bush admits, has become an incubator, magnet, and call to arms for anti-American jihadists across the Muslim World.
Worse than the billions poured into Iraq, and the $1.5 billion stolen from Iraqs government during 2004-2005, the US has lost its honour in this brutal little neo-colonial war. The neoconservatives ambitions to plunder Iraqs oil have become a mirage. An odour of pessimism and defeat hangs over the stalemated US military adventure in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Bush-Cheney presidency sinks into the quick-sand of Iraq.
Eric S Margolis, a veteran media professional based in Toronto, is contributing foreign editor of The Toronto Sun. He

Re: [CTRL] The Israel Lobby

2006-03-24 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-






You know shit.
You certainly don'tknow anything about the Middle East and as for your knowledge of9/11...I'm sure that you learned all you know fromthe neocon press...and that tells most of us all we need to know about you and your agenda.

Bill

---Original Message---


From: Conspiracy Theory Research List
Date: 03/24/06 14:58:51
To: CTRL@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject: Re: [CTRL] The Israel Lobby

-Caveat Lector-

- Original Message -
From: "flw2" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: CTRL@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: [CTRL] The Israel Lobby


 -Caveat Lector-

 I happen to be an expert on the subject. I know more truth about 9/11 and
 the
 Middle East than everything posted on this list for the last two years.
 You are out of your league-- little Nazi.
 R.

 You can be certain when someone proclaims their expertise, actual
knowledge
 is in inverse proportion to the claim. When they throw out the "N" word -
 you absolutely know they are extremely mentally challenged.
 flw


Brilliant!

I'll say it again. I know more about 9/11 than anything posted to this list
in the past
2 yrs.

I know more about the Mid East than anything that has been posted to this
list
in the last 2 yrs.

Everything I have written can be checked easily enough.
Do some real work and prove me wrong.

R.

www.ctrl.org
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:

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www.ctrl.org
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease!   These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:

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A HREF=""ctrl/A

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[CTRL] Hillary the Hawk

2006-03-22 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_03_27/cover.html

March 27, 2006 IssueCopyright © 2006 The American Conservative
Hillary the Hawk
The Democrats Athena only differs from Bush on the details.
by Justin Raimondo
When the Moose talks, Democrats listenjust like the Republicans did when he was flacking on their behalf. And the Democrat listening the closest to this Trotskyist-turned-neoconservative is Hillary Rodham Clinton, supposedly the leader of the partys far-left wing.
With his reputation for giving good quote, the Moose, a.k.a. Marshall Wittmann, formerly John McCains communications director and now a bigwig at the Democratic Leadership Council, is a legendary character in Washington circles. Once a member of the Trotskyist Spartacist League and an officer in the Young Peoples Socialist League, Wittmann, like many admirers of the Red Armys founder, moved rightward during the Reagan era and eventually wound up as the Christian Coalitions political director. From this strategic vantage point he jumped on McCains Straight Talk Expressand then jumped ship entirely, falling into the arms of the DLC and landing, as always, on his feet.
From Leon Trotsky to Ralph Reed to Hillary Clinton is a long, torturous road to follow, yet the chameleon-like Wittmannwho styles himself a Bull Moose progressive in the tradition of his hero, Theodore Roosevelthas navigated it expertly. Wittmanns new role as Hillarys unofficial Rasputin is perfectly suited to her current political needs. Eager to overcome her reputation as the leader of the partys left wing, Hillary is repositioning herself, in modern parlance, as a centrist, i.e. a complete opportunist. She could have no better teacher than Wittmann, who from the pulpit of his Moose-blog, advises her to seize the issue of Iranian nukes to draw a line in the sand. While paying lip service to multilateralism, she should make it clear that while force is the last resort, she would never take it off the table in dealing with the madmen mullahs and the psychotic leader of Iran.
This advice was proffered on the morning of Jan. 18. By that evening, when Hillary gave her scheduled speech at Princeton Universitys Woodrow Wilson School, it had clearly been taken to heart: I believe that we lost critical time in dealing with Iran, she averred. Accusing the White House of choosing to downplay the threats and to outsource the negotiations, she disdained Team Bush for standing on the sidelines.
Lets be clear about the threat we face now, she thundered. A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond. The regimes pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses. U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot and should notmust notpermit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. To be sure, we need to cajole China and Russia into going along with diplomatic and economic sanctions, but we cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iranthat they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons.
Wittmann celebrated his apparent success in influencing the Democratic presidential frontrunner by exulting that the Moose has a mind meld with Hillary. Taking the opportunity to rally the shrinking but strategically placed pro-war wing of the Democratic Party around a united front, he staked out for her a position in favor of multi-lateral action, if possible, but unilateral action, including military options, if necessary, against the growing Iranian nuclear threat.
Hillarys newfound centrism isnt completely insincere. Her bellicose interventionism has a history: it was Hillary, youll recall, who berated her husband for not bombing Belgrade soon enough and hard enough. As Gail Sheehy relates in Hillarys Choice:

Hillary expressed her views by phone to the President: I urged him to bomb. The Clintons argued the issue over the next few days. [The president expressed] what-ifs: What if bombing promoted more executions? What if it took apart the NATO alliance? Hillary responded, You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life? The next day the President declared that force was necessary.
Together with Madeleine Albrightwho famously complained to Colin Powell, What good is it having this superb military youre always talking about if we cant use it?Hillary constituted the Amazonian wing of the Democratic Party during the years of her husbands presidency. Her effort to outflank the Republicans on the right when it comes to the Iran issue is a logical extension of her natural bellicosity.
Hillary is nothing if not consistent: in her floor speech to the Senate during the debate over the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, she declared, the facts that have brought us to

[CTRL] The Lobby - Why is American policy in the Middle East skewed in favor of Israel?

2006-03-21 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8730

March 20, 2006

The Lobby Why is American policy in the Middle Eastskewed in favor of Israel?

by Justin Raimondo

American foreign policy has been weighed down for all too many years by an albatross hung round Uncle Sam's neck, one that distorts our stance especially vis-à-vis Middle Eastern issues and ultimately works against U.S. interests in the region and around the world: that albatross is unconditional support for the state of Israel. Of course, saying this amounts to a hate crime in today's political atmosphere, and it is almost impossible to criticize the Jewish state without being accused of religious bigotry, which is just how Israel's partisans want it. In the halls of Congress and the corridors of power, Israel is above criticism. But not anymore
Of course, we've been criticizing Israel, and its inordinate influence over American foreign policy, in these pages for quite some time, and we are not alone. On the Right, some conservatives, such as Pat Buchanan and The American Conservative magazine, have broken the taboo, and on the Left, too, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, James Petras, and a host of others have refused to be a part of the Israel-can-do-no-wrong consensus. In the intelligence community, Larry Johnson, Philip Giraldi, and James Bamford have been critical of Israel and its amen corner in the U.S., while among academics, Juan Cole has often provided a skeptical view of Israeli government actions and Israel's apologists in the U.S.
In the "mainstream" media, however, and certainly in Washington, D.C., the power of Israel's lobby is unchallenged. This hegemony has now been thoroughly detailed and analyzed in an important study by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, published by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison distinguished service professor of political science and a co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, is the leading advocate of the "realist" school of foreign policy. Walt is academic dean of the Kennedy School. Their study, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," [.pdf] starts out with a bang:
"The U.S. national interest should be the primary object of American foreign policy. For the past several decades, however, and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering U.S. support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized U.S. security. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state?"
This situation, I would submit, has no equivalent in the history of the world. Nation-states are notorious for jealously guarding and pursuing their own interests. Why, then, would the most powerful state on earth abjectly subordinate itself to the influence and even direction of an ally, one that, furthermore, does not reciprocate this altruism?
Answer: the Lobby.
The reality, say Mearsheimer and Walt, is that Israel is a net liability in the worldwide struggle against terrorism and efforts by the U.S. to modify the behavior of so-called "rogue states." The Israeli-centric policy pursued by Washington's warlords "exaggerates Israel's ability to help on these issues and ignores the ways that Israel's policies make U.S. efforts more difficult." Aside from that, "Israel does not act like a loyal ally." In addition to ignoring pleas to modify their own behavior in the West Bank and Gaza, the Israelis sell arms to China and continue to spy on us yes, even since Pollard.
Aside from the flaws in the practical case for an Israeli-centric policy, the moral case for elevating Israel's interests over our own is very weak. Mearsheimer and Walt note that much of the sympathy for Israel has been based on its alleged status as the underdog: David standing alone against the demographic Goliath of the Arab world. Yet this picture, strenuously promoted by the Israel lobby, is far from the truth. Israelis the underdogs? Give me a break! As the authors point out, Israel is the strongest military power in the region.
Okay, then, what about the fact that Arab regimes oppress their own people, while Israel is relatively free? In the name of promoting "democracy," the Bush administration and its predecessors have tilted toward Tel Aviv and held Israel up as a model for the region. But this is based on an incomplete analysis of Israel's internal regime. Israel a democracy? Not for the millions of Palestinian helots it rules. And what about the racist criteria for Israeli citizenship? If a Palestinian marries an Israeli, the former cannot [.pdf] be a citizen of Israel, nor even move there.
The authors

[CTRL] UPI Piece on Israel Lobby

2006-03-21 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20060320-124726-1902r
Intl. Intelligence
Pro-Israel lobby in U.S. under attack.
WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- Two of America's top scholars have published a searing attack on the role and power of Washington's pro-Israel lobby in a British journal, warning that its "decisive" role in fomenting the Iraq war is now being repeated with the threat of action against Iran. And they say that the Lobby is so strong that they doubt their article would be accepted in any U.S.-based publication.
Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, author of "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" and Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kenney School, and author of "Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy," are leading figures American in academic life.
They claim that the Israel lobby has distorted American policy and operates against American interests, that it has organized the funneling of more than $140 billion dollars to Israel and "has a stranglehold" on the U.S. Congress, and its ability to raise large campaign funds gives its vast influence over Republican and Democratic administrations, while its role in Washington think tanks on the Middle East dominates the policy debate.
And they say that the Lobby works ruthlessly to suppress questioning of its role, to blacken its critics and to crush serious debate about the wisdom of supporting Israel in U.S. public life.
"Silencing skeptics by organizing blacklists and boycotts -- or by suggesting that critics are anti-Semites -- violates the principle of open debate on which democracy depends," Walt and Mearsheimer write.
"The inability of Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these important issues paralyses the entire process of democratic deliberation. Israel's backers should be free to make their case and to challenge those who disagree with them, but efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must be roundly condemned," they add, in the 12,800-word article published in the latest issue of The London Review of Books.
The article focuses strongly on the role of the "neo-conservatives" within the Bush administration in driving the decision to launch the war on Iraq.
"The main driving force behind the war was a small band of neo-conservatives, many with ties to the Likud," Mearsheimer and Walt argue." Given the neo-conservatives' devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush administration, it isn't surprising that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli interests."
"The neo-conservatives had been determined to topple Saddam even before Bush became president. They caused a stir early in 1998 by publishing two open letters to Clinton, calling for Saddam's removal from power. The signatories, many of whom had close ties to pro-Israel groups like JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) or WINEP (Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy), and who included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had little trouble persuading the Clinton administration to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam. But they were unable to sell a war to achieve that objective. They were no more able to generate enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush administration. They needed help to achieve their aim. That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that day led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a preventive war," Walt and Mearsheimer write.
The article, which is already stirring furious debate in U.S. academic and intellectual circles, also explores the historical role of the Lobby.
"For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel," the article says.
"The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only U.S. security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?" Professors Walt and Mearsheimer add.
"The thrust of U.S. policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the 'Israel Lobby'. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and those of the other country - in this case, Israel -- are essentially identical," they add.
They argue that far from being a strategic asset to the United States,

[CTRL] Kevin Phillips and the War for Oil Mantra

2006-03-19 Thread Bill Shannon

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THE HOFFMAN WIRE
Dedicated to Freedom of the Press, Investigative Reporting and Revisionist History

Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Michael A. Hoffman II, Editor


March 19, 2006

Kevin Phillips and the "War for Oil" Mantra

by Michael A. Hoffman II

The New York Times today reviewed "American Theocracy," the new book by
Kevin Phillips. According to the Times, as reported by Alan Brinkley,
Mr. Phillips embraces the kosher-Left's war-for-oil thesis:

"The American press in the first days of the Iraq war reported
extensively on the Pentagon's failure to post American troops in front
of the National Museum in Baghdad, which, as a result, was looted of
many of its great archaeological treasures. Less widely reported, but to
Phillips far more meaningful, was the immediate posting of troops around
the Iraqi Oil Ministry, which held the maps and charts that were the key
to effective oil production. Phillips fully supports an explanation of
the Iraq war that the Bush administration dismisses as conspiracy theory
 that its principal purpose was to secure vast oil reserves that would
enable the United States to control production and to lower prices.
('Think of Iraq as a military base with a very large oil reserve
underneath,' an oil analyst said a couple of years ago. 'You can't ask
for better than that.') Terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, tyranny,
democracy and other public rationales were, Phillips says, simply ruses
to disguise the real motivation for the invasion.

"And while this argument may be somewhat too simplistic to explain the
complicated mix of motives behind the war, it is hard to dismiss
Phillips's larger argument: that the pursuit of oil has for at least 30
years been one of the defining elements of American policy in the world;
and that the Bush administration  unusually dominated by oilmen  has
taken what the president deplored recently as the nation's addiction to
oil to new and terrifying levels. The United States has embraced a kind
of 'petro-imperialism,' Phillips writes, "the key aspect of which is the
U.S. military's transformation into a global oil-protection force," and
which 'puts up a democratic facade, emphasizes freedom of the seas (or
pipeline routes) and seeks to secure, protect, drill and ship oil, not
administer everyday affairs." (End quote)

This thesis is faulty on two grounds. First, if the pursuit of oil were
the paramount policy-driver that Phillips and the dominant Zionist wing
of the Democrat Party contend, then Bush Sr. would have dumped the
Israelis, cozied up to Saddam Hussein, signed a lucrative oil
development contract with Iraq and allowed Saddam to police Iraq while
the US and its pimping little sister Britain, rebuilt the infrastructure
and pumped the oil. The same scenario could have played out in Iran and
Saudi Arabia.

Instead, Bush Jr., the messianic Zionist, severely hampers American
access to cheap oil by crusading against Israel's Iraqi and Iranian
enemies. It is a comedy of the-emperor-has-no-clothes proportions, to
argue as Phillips allegedly does, that "petro-imperialism" is the holy
grail of the Bush administration. If it were, Israel would have been
left to partner solely with its Pacific Islander allies, and US
motorists would be enjoying buck-a-gallon fuel at the gas and diesel
pumps.

Second, according to the Times, Phillips concedes, indeed highlights,
the fact that George W. Bush is enamored of "charlatan biblical
scholars" who "have identified as predictors of the apocalypse...a war
in Iraq, the Jewish settlement of the whole of biblical Israel...He
(Phillips) convincingly demonstrates that the Bush administration has
calculatedly reached out to such believers and encouraged them to see
the president's policies as a response to premillennialist thought. He
also suggests that the president and other members of his administration
may actually believe these things themselves, that religious belief is
the basis of policy, not just a tactic for selling it to the public."

Wait a minute. Doesn't Phillips claim that US policy is driven by
"petro-imperalism"? But now he's saying it's based on Bush's
Judeo-Churchian dispensational Zionism? It can't be both, so which is
it?

Clearly, it is Bush's fervor for Zionism, which coincides not just with
the dispensationalism of the fundamentalist churches, but with the
occult doctrine of the western secret societies, with which Bush is
affiliated as a member of Skull and Bones.

There's nothing Christ-like about the Bush administration or Protestant
fundamentalism. It's not just the mass murder of Muslim innocents by US
forces, or the inhuman conditions for inmates in the US prison system,
or the lethal injection of suspect felons in Texas without the testimony
of two eyewitnesses. It is also and preeminently the usury of a
financial system which, before Calvin, was denounced as Satanic by every
major Christian leader, from the popes to Martin Luther. Today,
America's economic system

[CTRL] Rachel Corrie: Too Hot for New York

2006-03-18 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.alternet.org/story/33669/

Rachel Corrie: Too Hot for New York
By Philip Weiss, The Nation. Posted March 18, 2006.

Why has a New York theater company backed off from producing a celebrated play about the moral awakening of a young American activist?

The slim book that was suddenly the most controversial work in the West in early March was not easy to find in the United States. Amazon said it wasn't available till April. The Strand bookstore didn't have it either. You could order it on Amazon-UK, but it would be a week getting here. I finally found an author in Michigan who kindly photocopied the British book and overnighted it to me; but to be on the safe side, I visited an activist's apartment on Eighth Avenue on the promise that I could take her much-in-demand copy to the lobby for half an hour. In the elevator, I flipped it open to a random passage:

I can't cool boiling waters in Russia. I can't be Picasso. I can't be Jesus. I can't save the planet single-handedly. I can wash dishes.

The book is the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie. Composed from the journal entries and e-mails of the 23-year-old from Washington State who was crushed to death in Gaza three years ago under a bulldozer operated by the Israeli army, the play had two successful runs in London last year and then became a cause celebre after a progressive New York theater company decided to postpone its American premiere indefinitely out of concern for the sensitivities of (unnamed) Jewish groups unsettled by Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections.
When the English producers denounced the decision by the New York Theatre Workshop as "censorship" and withdrew the show, even the mainstream media could not ignore the implications. Why is it that the eloquent words of an American radical could not be heard in this country -- not, that is, without what the Workshop had called "contextualizing," framing the play with political discussions, maybe even mounting a companion piece that would somehow "mollify" the Jewish community?
"The impact of this decision is enormous -- it is bigger than Rachel and bigger than this play," Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother, said. "There was something about this play that made them feel so vulnerable. I saw in the Workshop's schedule a lesbian play. Will they use the same approach? Will they go to the segment of the community that would ardently oppose that?"
In this way, Corrie's words appear to have had more impact than her death. The House bill calling for a U.S. investigation of her killing died in committee, with only seventy-eight votes and little media attention. But the naked admission by a left-leaning cultural outlet that it would subordinate its own artistic judgment to pro-Israel views has served as a smoking gun for those who have tried to press the discussion in this country of Palestinian human rights.
Indeed, the admission was so shocking and embarrassing that the Workshop quickly tried to hedge and retreat from its statements. But the damage was done; people were asking questions that had been consigned to the fringe: How can the West condemn the Islamic world for not accepting Muhammad cartoons when a Western writer who speaks out on behalf of Palestinians is silenced? And why is it that Europe and Israel itself have a healthier debate over Palestinian human rights than we can have here?
The death of a writer
When she died on March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie had been in the Middle East for fifty days as a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group recruiting Westerners to serve as "human shields" against Israeli aggression -- including the policy of bulldozing Palestinian houses to create a wider no man's land between Egypt and then-occupied Gaza. Corrie was crushed to death when she stood in front of a bulldozer that was proceeding toward a Palestinian pharmacist's house. By witnesses' accounts, Corrie, wearing a bright orange vest, was clearly visible to the bulldozer's driver. An Israeli army investigation held no one accountable.
Corrie's horrifying death was a landmark event: It linked Palestinian suffering to the American progressive movement. And it was immediately politicized. Pro-Israel voices sought to smear Corrie as a servant of terrorists. They said that the Israeli army was merely trying to block tunnels through which weapons were brought from Egypt into the occupied territories -- thereby denying that Corrie had died as the result of indiscriminate destruction. Hateful e-mails were everywhere. "Rachel Corrie won't get 72 virgins but she got what she wanted," said one.
Few knew that Corrie had been a dedicated writer. "I decided to be an artist and a writer," she had written in a journal, describing her awakening, "and I didn't give a shit if I was mediocre and I didn't give a shit if I starved to death and I didn't give a shit if my whole damn high school turned and pointed and laughed in my face."
Corrie's family felt

[CTRL] Behind the Murder (?) of Milosevic

2006-03-12 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.thenewamerican.com/birchblog/index.php?entry=entry060312-160314

Behind the Murder (?) of Milosevic
Sunday, March 12, 2006, 04:03 PM

The day before he died, releasing his soul to reside in that unpleasant realm reserved for corrupt rulers who lead their nations into unjust wars (Mr. Bush, take note), Slobodan Milosevic complained to his attorney that he was being poisoned. After the former ruler of Yugoslavia was found dead in his cell in a UN detention facility near The Hague on March 10, Zdenko Tmanovic told reporters that Milosevic had complained of being given strong drugs ... only used for treating leprosy or tuberculosis. A blood sample taken recently reportedly confirms the presence of those medications, which might have had neutralized the effect of a medication Milosevic had been taking for high blood pressure. For several weeks, the erstwhile Serbian strongman had requested permission from the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia to travel to Russia to receive treatment for his heart condition; that request was denied. He had also tried to subpoena former US President Bill Clinton as a defense witness, another request that almost certainly would have been turned down. During the Wars of Balkan Secession that resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Milosevic was depicted in the western press as a junior-league successor to Adolf Hitler, obsessed with ethnic purity and bent on creating a Greater Serbia. While he was brutal, corrupt, and opportunistic, Milosevic was not a menace to the world, or even to the Balkan region. Rather than growing through aggression, Serbia under Milosevic's murderous misrule lost four consecutive wars, and was smaller and poorer by the time he was removed from power by the election of pro-American reformer Vojislav Kostunica in 2000. Like many political leaders, both dictators and democrats, Milosevic exploited war and social upheaval to build and consolidate his power base. A lifelong Communist functionary, Milosevic was also a political chameleon, adopting whatever ideological coloration he found suitable to the needs of the moment. In 1995, Milosevic joined with Croatian ruler Franjo Tudjman and Bosnia Muslim leader Alijah Izetbegovic in signing the Dayton Peace Accords, the pact that formally ended a three-sided Balkan civil war. For signing that accord, Milosevic once denounced as Hitler's disciple was hailed by the US and our European allies as an architect of peace. During his trial at The Hague, Milosevic argued quite plausibly that given the support he received from Washington and its allies after the Dayton Accords, it was hypocritical to try him for war crimes committed prior to 1995. But just as in Soviet show trials, a guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion in Milosevic's case. Milosevic infuriated the War Party by actually defending himself at The Hague (he served as his own chief defense counsel). Just weeks before he died quite likely through deliberate poisoning Milosevic had shaken loose a little-reported revelation that probably got him killed. On February 1, British journalist Eve-Ann Prentice, testifying in defense of Milosevic, told how she had seen Osama bin Laden ushered into the Sarajevo office of Bosnian president Izetbegovic in 1994. Prentice's testimony was ruled inadmissible. This isn't because Prentice isn't credible; she is highly regarded for her on-site reporting of the hideous Balkan wars, and she mentioned a second witness to the bin Laden sighting, who could have been summoned to corroborate her account. And her testimony wasn't thrown out for lack of relevance, given that Milosevic's defense was based on the claim a correct one, in my view that the Serbs were fighting the same radical Islamist network that is now the focus of the so-called War on Terror. Prentice's account was ruled out of order because it puts flesh on a skeleton the Power Elite wants to keep locked up in an inaccessible closet: With the material aid of Washington and its allies, bin Laden and his allies seized control over Bosnia and turned it into a base for terrorist operations in Europe and beyond. Five years after Prentice saw bin Laden saunter into Izetbegovic's office, NATO conducted a 78-day terror bombing of Serbia in order to compel that nation to surrender Kosovo to the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, a squalid pack of smack-dealing Islamo-Leninists allied with bin Laden.On the eve of the Millennium, Ahmad Ressam, a bin Laden-allied would-be bomber was intercepted at the Canadian border, bound for LAX with a large quantity of explosives. Ressam had a Bosnian passport (see here; scroll down to the subhead Patriots as terrorists?) And of course, about two and a half years later came 9-11, which had several connections to Bosnia as well. In early 2002, the Bush administration demanded that Milosevic be extradited to stand trial at the UN's tribunal in the

[CTRL] Another War for Israel - The amen corner howls for war with Iran

2006-03-06 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8663

March 6, 2006

Another War for Israel The amen corner howls for war with Iran

by Justin Raimondo

A prominent public official finally said what we've been saying all along in these pages:
"The U.S. presence in Iraq is hurting the worldwide war on terrorism and benefits only Iran and al-Qaeda, U.S. Rep. John Murtha said on Sunday. 'The only people who want us in Iraq are Iran and al-Qaeda,' Murtha said on CBS's Face the Nation political talk show. 'And I talked to a top-level commander the other day and he said China wants us there also. Why? Because we're depleting our resources our troop resources and our fiscal resources.'"
Not to worry: Iran, it seems, is next on our hit list, and this is largely at the behest of the one beneficiary of the Iraq war Murtha fails to mention: Israel. The Israelis have been loudly howling for months about the prospect of a nuclear Iran: their amen corner in the U.S. has gone into overdrive, pushing for sanctions and drawing a dire picture of nuke-wielding "mad mullahs." The world was shocked when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe Israel off the map, yet it has to be said that even the maddest mullahs don't imagine nuking Washington, D.C. Iran's nukes, if it ever acquires any in 10 years' time, like the experts say will more than likely target Tel Aviv, not Toledo.
Yet in one important sense, at least, the former is just as American as the latter at least it is in the eyes of American decision-makers, who conduct U.S. foreign policy as if Israel were the 51st state. An outstanding example of this unique symbiosis is the news that the Israelis have penetrated Iran via U.S.-occupied Iraq, with the full complicity and assistance of the Americans:
"Israel's special forces are said to be operating inside Iran in an urgent attempt to locate the country's secret uranium enrichment sites. 'We found several suspected sites last year but there must be more,' an Israeli intelligence source said. They are operating from a base in northern Iraq, guarded by Israeli soldiers with the approval of the Americans, according to Israeli sources."
This sort of scuttlebutt has been knocking around ever since Seymour Hersh first broke the story of Israel's penetration of Kurdistan. The point is that the extension of American power in the Middle East has allowed Tel Aviv's tentacles to slither all the way to the Euphrates and beyond to Tehran.
The Times of London also reveals that NATO is keen to get in on the act: "multilateralism," i.e., gang-banging, is back in style. This ought to delight the Democrats, who are in some ways ahead of the Republicans (and certainly ahead of the Bush administration) on the Iran issue. Hillary Clinton has done everything but call for declaring war on the mullahs, and House Democratic mis-Leader Nancy Pelosi supported the movement to impose draconian economic sanctions on Iran. The supposedly "antiwar" Democrats are getting way out ahead of the Bush administration when it comes to Part II of the Great Middle Eastern War. With Hillary's finger on the trigger, the first shots of World War IV are almost certain to be sounded.
The dramatic narrative of the Iranian nuke crisis is going according to a familiar script, one we became well-acquainted with in the run-up to war with Iraq. All the same ingredients of the Iraqi potboiler are being thrown into the mix: a Middle Eastern country ruled by an unattractive tyrant, Israel's partisans furiously beating the drums for war, and "weapons of mass destruction" described by dubious exile groups. Playing the part of Chalabi, we have the Marxoid-feminist cult of Maryam Rajavi and her army of Amazonian fighters. Ostensibly corralled within the walls of Camp Ashraf in Iraq, these Iranian "freedom fighters" half of them women are on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. Yet I have it on good authority that American visas are being handed out to these burly gals at a fast clip: all they have to do is show up at a U.S. embassy somewhere in the Middle East say, Istanbul and they are granted "asylum" in the U.S. They constitute a reserve army ready to spring into action when the time comes to put an Iranian face on an American invasion.
The UN Security Council is slated to discuss the Iranian nuke issue shortly, and the sequence of events Western demands that Iran cease and desist, followed by angry Iranian refusals is perfectly suited to war propaganda. As the pace of the narrative picks up and the tension builds, the war drama unfolds according to a by-now-timeworn pattern. It's not the kind of screenplay that usually wins an Academy Award: this is strictly formulaic stuff, designed to give consumers of war propaganda what they need in order to rationalize mass murder. It may be crude as in the case of Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to al-Qaeda, or tales of WMD hidden beneath Saddam's

[CTRL] Arianna Huffington, Racial Profiler - She jumps on the Dubai-bashing bandwagon

2006-02-26 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8596


February 24, 2006 

Arianna Huffington, Racial Profiler She jumps on the Dubai-bashing bandwagon 

by Justin Raimondo



It was inevitable that Arianna Huffington, "compassionate conservative"-turned-limousine-liberal, would join the bipartisan chorus of voices screaming bloody murder over the Dubai port deal. After all, it wasn't that long ago that she was canoodling with Newt Gingrich and cavorting with the neocons. And if there's anything the neocons hate, it's those inherently violent and even terroristic Ay-rabs. Here she is jumping on the Arab-bashing bandwagon, denouncing the Bush administration's "jaw-droppingly bad decision" and affecting shock  shock!  that her fellow bandwagoneers seem to be mostly conservative Republicans:
"It's been getting harder and harder to tell the (R)s from the (D)s on a growing number of issues, including Iraq, the drug war, and the fight to cut pork-barrel spending. But the dubious Dubai deal has the potential to be the most division-blurring of all  and the most damaging to Karl Rove's dreams of turning 2006 into a replay of 2004."
She's right that the pro-war, pro-spending, pro-big government consensus extends to both parties, overarching the Left and the Right, but she seems blithely unaware that her own commentary best reflects the staleness of this orthodoxy. Nothing exemplifies this better than her view of the controversy surrounding the granting of Dubai Port World (DPW), an international shipping and port management company based in the United Arab Emirates, a franchise to manage maritime facilities in major American cities, including New York, Baltimore, and New Orleans.
According to Arianna and her army of "progressive" blogger-harpies, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a snakepit of radical Islamism, the lair from which Osama and his fellow vipers sallied forth to strike out at the West:
"You don't need to be a member of the Council on Foreign Relations to grasp that a country that embraced the Taliban, was a financial hub for the 9/11 attackers, and whose own ports were used by notorious Pakistani scientist A.Q. Kahn to smuggle nuclear components to Iran, Libya, and North Korea, probably shouldn't be handed the keys to shipping operations in New York, New Jersey, Miami, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New Orleans (I mean, c'mon, haven't Bush and Chertoff done enough damage to the Big Easy?)."This deal is a nonstarter and a no-brainer. A Harriet Miers debacle to the hundredth- power. Next thing you know, the president will be assuring us that he knows what's in the heart of Dubai Ports World, Inc."
In politics, one should always follow the money  and, as I've said before, on this occasion someone's financial interests seem to be intertwined with the effort to smear DPW. In a similar vein, when it comes to internet journalism, one should follow the links  and, in Arianna's case, the result is  baffling. 
Let's take the first link reproduced above: this takes us to a Martini Republic blog post that reproduces testimony in front of the 9/11 Commission, which, among other things, informs us that in 1998 a missile strike targeting bin Laden was called off because he might have been in the company of certain royal personages from UAE. This meeting  supposedly a falconing expedition  is being touted on Democratic Party hack sites like DailyKos.com as the "smoking gun" that identifies Dubai and its government as a terrorist "hub." Yet this argument is self-refuting: after all, the strike was reportedly called off precisely because the Americans were afraid to hit visitors who weren't and aren't terrorists or sympathizers. 
Yes, the UAE established diplomatic relations with the Taliban after Mullah Omar and his gang took over Afghanistan, but, like Arianna, the Martini Republicans fail to mention that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, two of our staunchest allies in the region, also sent ambassadors to Kabul. 
The first link cherrypicks every mention of Dubai in the 9/11 Commission report, and yet only establishes that the Dubai royals and bin Laden were engaged in what appeared to be a state visit  which the latter, as the head of an international organization with standing in the Arab world, surely merited. Killing the future planner and sponsor of the 9/11 attacks on that occasion would have made no more sense than the CIA taking out Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev when he paid a state visit to the U.S. in 1959.
The second link, which goes to a post on AmericaBlog, is frankly ludicrous, and I reproduce it here, in full, so as to capture the full flavor of Arianna's utter flakiness:
Does Bush even know that Al Qaeda used Dubai as 'a logistical hub'? by Joe in DC - 2/21/2006 06:36:00 PM 
"Today, your President posed this challenge to the critics of his plan to turn over American port security to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates: 
"'I want those who are questioning it to step up and

[CTRL] Putin the Peacemaker

2006-02-13 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8539



February 13, 2006 

Putin the Peacemaker He's showing Washington up 

by Justin Raimondo




Russian President Vladimir Putin's invitation to the leaders of Hamas to come to Moscow killed two birds with one stone: it elevated his international stature to statesmanlike proportions, and it showed up American policymakers as a bunch of petulant ideologues. 
Putin not only invited Hamas for talks, but explicitly rejected the U.S.-Israeli position that Hamas is a terrorist organization with which it is impermissible to deal. "Maintaining our contacts with Hamas, we are ready in the near future to invite the Hamas authorities to Moscow to hold talks," said Putin:
"We haven't considered Hamas a terrorist organization. Today we must recognize that Hamas has reached power in Palestine as a result of legitimate elections and we must respect the choice of the Palestinian people.  We are deeply convinced that burning bridges is the easiest, but not a very promising activity."
This is a direct challenge to the Americans, whose ties to Israel prevent them from looking at the region in more realistic terms  and even from pursuing their own national interests instead of Israel's. It is also a political masterstroke, with Putin moving quickly into the yawning gap between American rhetoric about "democracy" and Washington's reaction to the results of the Palestinian poll. 
U.S. policymakers are still reeling and have yet to come up with a coherent response to this upending of their democratist doctrine, which assumed that the democratic process would give birth to pro-American  or, at least, more amenable  governments in the Middle East. On the one hand, President Bush flat-out declared that the U.S. will not deal with Hamas:
"A political party that articulates the destruction of Israel as part of its platform is a party with which we will not deal."
On the other hand, he spent the rest of his interview with Reuters laying down the very conditions under which the U.S. would deal with Hamas: they must renounce terrorism, disband their armed wing, and give official recognition to the government of Israel: 
"Although Hamas has rejected the U.S. demands, Bush said in the interview that it was possible for the militant group to change and that it had a responsibility to do so to improve the lives of Palestinians. 
"'Many of them ran for office on a platform that said "we're against corruption, we are for better schools and better hospitals." On the platforms I saw I didn't see a lot of people saying "vote for me, I'm for war,"' Bush said."
While this may seem hopeful, by setting down preconditions for negotiations, the U.S. effectively sabotages its own "peace process." As Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel  now at the Brookings Institute's Saban Center for Middle East Policy  put it:
"I wouldn't make too much out of it because Hamas is not about to do any of those things [that Bush insists on], so it's much more likely that the United States would not deal with that government."
As for the Israelis, they are livid: the Putin initiative is "a knife in the back," screeched Meir Sheetrit, the education minister. The headline of the popular daily Yediot Aharonot pretty much summed up the general reaction: "Anger in Israel: Putin Is Spitting in Our Face." Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni declared that the international community was in danger of going down a "slippery slope" in granting legitimacy to Hamas:
"The Russian position is currently not accepted in the international community. Part of the danger is going down the slippery slope of first talking, then starting to understand why, then supporting with money, then granting legitimacy. This is a phenomenon that needs to be acted against."
The French pulled the rug out from under Ms. Livni's apparent self-appointment as a spokeswoman for "the international community" by promptly endorsing Putin's proposal: more defections from the Anglo-American-Israeli position of putting preconditions on negotiations with a Hamas-led government will doubtless follow. Aside from that, the U.S. has indicated it will continue to deal with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and all the threats of cutting off aid to the PA will likely prove hollow: here Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice avers that a Hamas-run government won't get a dime of American aid, while here Asharq al-Awsat reports:
"Rice denied that the U.S. administration will cut off aid to the Palestinians but indicated 'When the matter is related to backing a government run by a movement classified as terrorist, the U.S. administration cannot offer its support.'"
My guess is that aid monies will not be cut off but instead will be funneled through the office of Abbas. As antithetical as the policies of this administration are to foreign policy realism, in this case they have no choice but to deal with the reality of Hamas in power. 
The

[CTRL] Hamas and Democracy

2006-02-06 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=8494

February 6, 2006

Hamas and Democracy

by Charley Reese

I laughed when Hamas swept the Palestinian elections. After all, President Bush and his gang of neoconservative ideologues have been preaching that democracy in the Middle East will lead to peace.
Oops. Now the president will once more have to expose himself as the hypocrite he is. Democracy is good, in Mr. Bush's view, only if it elects the people he wants in office. The choice of the Palestinian majority, expressed in what all the observers said was a free and fair election, is not acceptable to Mr. Bush.
Hamas, you should know, has been around for a long time, and for most of that time, the United States did not label it a terrorist organization. Hamas has a military wing, but the majority of its efforts have been in providing welfare, medical care, and education to dirt-poor Palestinians who would have to do without but for Hamas. Unlike the corrupt Fatah, the Palestinian party Mr. Bush apparently wanted to win, Hamas has a reputation for being honest.
If there is anything American politicians fear, it is an honest man. More than one is even worse. How can the Bush administration bribe the Palestinian Authority into keeping quiet while Israel unilaterally consolidates its position if the elected people won't accept bribes for selling out their constituents? No wonder the Bush White House is worried.
If I were the leader of Hamas, I would send President Bush a message that said essentially this: "Don't worry about not talking to us. We have no desire to talk to you. For 39 years you Americans have talked about peace processes and have not recovered one square centimeter of Palestinian land. On the contrary, Israel has expanded into Palestinian territory while you prevented the United Nations from taking any action to stop it.
"The conflict in Palestine is quite simple. In 1967, Israel invaded and has since occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem. We lack the military power to eject the Israelis and therefore have zero influence on them. You, who have given Israel more than $90 billion, do have influence. So, instead of talking to us, talk to the Israelis. As soon as the Israeli occupation is ended, the problem in Palestine will go away. In the meantime, we have a lot of domestic problems to solve, which was the platform we ran on anyway."
As for the suicide bombings Hamas has carried out, I have said before that the method of delivery is irrelevant. We and the Israelis deliver our bombs from airplanes, helicopters, and artillery tubes. Since the Palestinians are denied modern weapons, they have to walk or drive their bombs to the targets. Morally, there is no difference whatsoever between bombs delivered by air or by foot. It is an undeniable fact that we have killed a thousand times more civilians in Iraq, Panama, Libya, Serbia, Grenada, and Vietnam than Hamas has killed Israelis. Naturally, we dismiss the civilians we kill as "collateral damage."
The death toll in the latest intifada, by the way, is 1,084 Israelis killed by Palestinians and 3,786 Palestinians killed by Israelis. Not all of those Israelis were killed by Hamas. Fatah also has a military wing, and there are other resistance organizations.
But back to the president's strategic blunder. He should have read my column. I've said over and over that the largest group of people in the Middle East pushing for democracy is the Islamic parties, and the only "friends" we have in the Middle East are the rulers we pay to be our friends. You will notice that Egypt, Jordan, and the Saudis, all on our payroll in one way or another, were the first to call on Hamas to moderate its stand.
I doubt Hamas will do so. That's the trouble with honest people of sincere faith. They believe they must answer to a higher authority, and their loyalty is not for sale. Palestinians, like everyone else on Earth, have an inalienable right to resist occupation of their homeland. It is to our shame and disgrace that we side with the occupiers. At any rate, Mr. Bush and the neocons had better be more careful about what they wish for.

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[CTRL] Bristling Defiance - In Retreat

2006-02-03 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48648

Bristling defiance in retreat

Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted: February 3, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
©2006WorldNetDaily.com

"The road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline," railed President Bush in his State of the Union. Again and again, Bush returned to his theme.
"America rejects the false comfort of isolationism ...
"Isolationism would not only tie our hands in fighting enemies, it would keep us from helping our friends in desperate need ...
"American leaders from Roosevelt to Truman to Kennedy to Reagan rejected isolation and retreat."
Why would a president use his State of the Union to lash out at a school of foreign policy thought that has had zero influence in his administration? The answer is a simple one, but it is not an easy one for Bush to face: His foreign policy is visibly failing, and his critics have been proven right.
But rather than defend the fruits of his policy, Bush has chosen to caricature critics who warned him against interventionism. Like all politicians in trouble, Bush knows that the best defense is a good offense.
Having plunged us into an unnecessary war, Bush now confronts the real possibility of strategic defeat and a failed presidency. His victory in Iraq, like the wars of Wilson and FDR, has turned to ashes in our mouths. And like Truman's war in Korea and Kennedy's war in Vietnam, Bush's war has left America divided and her people regretting he ever led us in. But unlike the world wars, Korea and Vietnam, Bush cannot claim the enemy attacked us and we had no choice. Iraq is Bush's war. Isolationists had nothing to do with it. To a man and woman, they opposed it.
Now, with an army bogged down in Afghanistan and another slowly exiting Iraq, and no end in sight to either, Bush seeks to counter critics who warned him not to go in by associating them with the demonized and supposedly discredited patriots of the America First movement of 1940-41. His assault is not only non-credible, it borders on the desperate and pathetic.
"Abroad, our nation is committed to a historic long-term goal. We seek the end of tyranny in our world," said Bush. "Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends upon it."
Intending no disrespect, this is noble-sounding nonsense. Our security rests on U.S. power and will, and not on whether Zimbabwe, Sudan, Syria, Cuba or even China is ruled by tyrants. Our forefathers lived secure in a world of tyrannies by staying out of wars that were none of America's business. As for "the end of tyranny in our world," Mr. President, sorry, that doesn't come in "our world." That comes in the next.
"By allowing radical Islam to work its will, by leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself, we would signal to all that we no longer believe in our own ideals or even in our own courage," said Bush.
But what has done more to radicalize Islam than our invasion of Iraq? Who has done more to empower Islamic radicals than Bush with his clamor for elections across a region radicalized by our own policies? It is one thing to believe in ideals, another to be the prisoner of some democratist ideology.
Bush has come to believe that the absence of democracy is the cause of terror and democracy its cure. But the cause of terror in the Middle East is the perception there that those nations are held in colonial captivity by Americans and their puppet regimes, and that the only way to expel both is to use tactics that have succeeded from Algeria in 1962 to Anbar province in 2005.
Given the franchise, Arab and Islamic peoples from Pakistan to Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and Egypt have now voted for candidates with two credentials. They seemed to be devout Muslims, and they appeared dedicated to tossing America out of the region and the Israelis into the sea.
With opposition also rising to his free-trade policy, Bush reverted to the same tactic: Caricature and castigate critics of his own failed policies. "Protectionists," said Bush, pretend "we can keep our high standards of living, while walling off our economy."
But it was protectionists from Lincoln to Coolidge who gave us the highest standard of living on earth. And the record of Bush's merry band of free-traders? The largest trade deficits in history, a $200 billion trade surplus for Beijing at our expense in 2005, and 3 million lost manufacturing jobs since Bush first took the oath.
If America is angry over what interventionism and free trade have wrought, George Bush cannot credibly blame isolationists or protectionists. These fellows have an alibi. They were nowhere near the scene of the crime.
It is George W. Bush who is running out of alibis.

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[CTRL] A Treasonous Camarilla - AIPAC espionage case points to larger spy scandal

2006-02-03 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8491



February 3, 2006 

A Treasonous Camarilla AIPAC espionage case points to larger spy scandal 

by Justin Raimondo




"Phase two" of the investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence into how we got it wrong on Iraq has been delayed for quite some time, initially because of Sen. Pat Roberts' outright blocking tactics, and now, apparently, due to a Pentagon internal investigation into the activities of former Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, who oversaw a key albeit little-known and highly secretive intelligence-gathering unit, the "Office of Special Plans." A central figure in Washington's neoconservative network, Feith resigned a year ago, just as suspicion was falling on him and his subordinates in a string of interconnected scandals: the WMD "intelligence" flap, Ahmed Chalabi's connections to Iranian intelligence, and the AIPAC spy case. 
Last May, I speculated that these matters might have something to do with Feith's sudden resignation, and now it looks like I was right. Raw Story is reporting that "phase two" of the SSCI investigation is being held up by the Pentagon's self-probe, while the senators await
"A report from the Pentagon inspector general as to Feith's alleged role in manipulating prewar intelligence to support a case for war. Feith, who is also being probed by the FBI for his role in an Israeli spy case, resigned in January 2005. One former intelligence source points to 'a bigger can of worms' that a Feith investigation may unravel, pointing to the Israeli spy case  in which Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin passed classified information to a pro-Israeli lobby  and to the Defense Department's own inability to address security breaches."
Feith is one of the more ideological neocons, with connections to the far-right wing of Israel's Likud Party and the settler movement. He presided over a newly created team of intelligence analysts  the Office of Special Plans (OSP)  whose job it was to think up the War Party's talking points. According to Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired Air Force officer and Pentagon analyst, Feith's Office of Special Plans was created from a narrow range of neoconservative think tanks  most notably the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a think tank founded by AIPAC officials and long associated with Israel's Washington lobby. Among the neocon activists who worked with the Near East and South Asia (NESA) bureau, we have one David Schenker, previously a WINEP research fellow, and Churchill expert Michael Makovsky, younger brother of senior WINEP fellow David Makovsky, formerly executive editor of the Jerusalem Post. It was a tightly knit little group, Kwiatkowski has testified:
"Career Pentagon analysts assigned to Rumsfeld's office were generally excluded from what were 'key areas of interest' to Feith, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld, notably Israel, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. 'In terms of Israel and Iraq, all primary staff work was conducted by political appointees; in the case of Israel, a desk officer appointee from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.'"
The Larry Franklin-AIPAC-WINEP connection strongly suggests that what we are dealing with here is not simply a domestic group that had somehow seized control of U.S. foreign policy in order to pursue their interventionist agenda, but a foreign-directed and assisted covert operation designed to subvert the institutional foundations of various key government agencies and hijack U.S. military might in order to serve the interests of a foreign power, i.e., Israel. This suspicion is particularly strong when it comes to Feith, who had his security clearance revoked in 1982. The charge: leaking information to the Israeli embassy.
Rumsfeld restored Feith's clearance when the Bushies came to Washington and he was appointed a deputy at Defense, in charge of the policy shop where convicted spy Franklin worked. What is intriguing about the Franklin case is that much of the top-secret information and documentation that came into that fervent neocon's possession was way above Franklin's pay-grade. The big question, in the AIPAC spy case, is: who else in DoD was he working with? 
One bright day last year, the FBI knocked on the door of the Pentagon and began administering lie-detector tests to DoD employees. Could that be what is holding up the Senate's investigation into bogus Iraq "intelligence"? Is this why Feith and others have gotten themselves all lawyered-up? 
Franklin is taking the fall for higher-ups, including Feith. As law enforcement agencies continue to investigate the circumstances  and government personnel  that surround the AIPAC spy case, the evidence clearly points in a disturbing direction. Come to think of it, an inordinately large number of neoconservatives working in government have had their security clearances revoked, and all for the same reason: passing classified information

[CTRL] Auschwitz is sacred, but not Muhammad

2006-01-30 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/

Auschwitz is sacred, but not Muhammad 


by Michael A. Hoffman IICopyright ©2006 All Rights Reservedwww.revisionisthistory.orgHere below is another tale of allleged Muslim perfidy retailed by the US media. What abominable hypocrisy on the part of the New York Times to take Muslims to task for what Judaics do with impunity! When "Holocaust" revisionists are jailed in Germany (publisher Enst Zündel and scientist Germar Rudolf) and in Austria (historian David Irving), for blaspheming the Judaics' sacred gas chamber icon, there is no talk of "pitting freedom of the press against religious sensitivity." Rather, the imprisonment of Zündel, Rudolf and Irving is framed by the US media in righteous terms of appropriate punishment of anti-Judaic hate and bias. No mention of the role of Judaic religious fanaticism in interdicting the freedom of press of revisionists is raised. Muslims are portrayed as religious zealots who are intolerant of western freedoms and liberties when they seek to protect the sacred aura of Muhammad. Yet many Judaics are at least as intolerant when their sacred images are violated, but the NY Times will not acknolwedge this, because to do so would create an even playing field on which the issue of religious fanaticism in general, be it Judaic or Islamic, can be discussed, debated and placed in the context of fundamentalism worldwide, whether Israeli or Arab, rather than fabricating a category of Islamic particularism in this regard.The New York Times does not want it known that many Zionists and Judaics are intolerant of western freedoms and liberties and seek to protect the sacred aura of Auschwitz gas chambers from revisionist satire or investigative scrutiny by jailing those who engage in those activities.For the Zionist New York Times, blasphemers of Auschwitz are rightfully imprisoned, whereas to boycott, protest or otherwise disturb blasphemers of Muhammad is a troubling indication of the degree to which Muslims are neanderthal and in need of reeducation in western "virtues" (i.e. Talmudic double-standards).Islam is made to look like an exception to a general western milieu of religious moderation prevailing in liberal capitalism and Judaism. But the fate of Zündel, Rudolf and Irving puts paid to that lie. They are in jail for being insensitive to Judaic religious sensibilities which have rendered the Auschwitz gas chambers a sacred relic on par with the sacred image of Muhammad. Since major Judaic organizations and spokesmen support the imprisonment of "Holocaust" revisionists, why is it wrong for Muslims to supoport a boycott of Denmark for defiling the Prophet?Portrayal of the Prophet Prompts a Boycott of Danish GoodsNY Times January 30, 2006DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Jan. 30  A long-running controversy over a Danish newspaper's caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad boiled over today with a boycott of Danish products across the Middle East and an assault on Danish interests. Muslim activists have incited a consumer uproar in one of the fastest-growing markets for packaged goods, pitting freedom of the press against religious sensitivity in a conflict played out in the arenas of diplomacy and global trade.In recent days, Saudi Arabia and Libya have recalled their ambassadors to Denmark, protests have been held in places like Dubai, where they are virtually unheard of, and Arab and multinational companies have placed ads in local newspapers denying any connection to Denmark or Danish companies.Today, Denmark called for its citizens in the Middle East to exercise extra vigilance. A Danish manufacturer, Arla Foods, which normally sells $1.5 million of dairy products a day in the region, announced that sales there had come to a complete halt. Two of its employees in Saudi Arabia were beaten by angry customers, The Associated Press reported."This is a public uprising," said Louis Honoré, a spokesman for Arla, Europe's second largest dairy company. "This has spread through the region like wildfire. And the boycott has been practically 100 percent."Other Danish companies reported dramatic sales dropoffs as well. Trade between Denmark and the Persian Gulf amounts to about $1 billion a year, Denmark's consul general in Dubai, Thomas Bay, said."Consumers have a lot of power today," he said. "I'm a little shocked we were not able to settle this issue before."The controversy centers on the September 2005 publication of 12 caricatures in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, depicting the Prophet Muhammad, including one depicting him wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb with its fuse lit. Islam forbids depictions of the prophet for fear that they may lead to idolatry.The cartoons, says Flemming Rose, the newspaper's culture editor, who commissioned the works, were not intended to offend, but were in keeping with a tradition of satirical cartoons."These were not directed against Muslims, but against people in cultural life

[CTRL] When Pigs Fly

2006-01-29 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=8458

January 28, 2006

When Pigs Fly

by Gordon Prather

After every deep-serious meeting with Russian and/or Chinese leaders, Secretary of State Condi Rice emerges to tell her media sycophants that the Russians and/or Chinese basically agree with our position on Irans nuclear programs.
Condis position is that Irans nuclear programs widely expected to be certified in March by Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to be fully Safeguarded and completely peaceful in nature are merely a cover for a nuclear weapons program ElBaradei cant find. Hence, she hopes youll believe that the Russians and Chinese share her beliefs.You've all heard that _expression_, "Yeah right, when pigs fly"?Well, the belief the Russians and Chinese share with Condi-baby about Iranian nuclear programs is the rough equivalent of a belief that for a variety of reasons pigs probably ought to be discouraged from trying to fly. By "diplomatic means," of course, if at all possible.
And by March, at the very latest.
Of course, the Russians and Chinese dont share Condis belief that pigs are secretly trying to fly. In fact, theyve seen no evidence whatsoever that pigs even want to fly.
And they cant believe that Condi insists on referring the "grave threat" of pigs wanting to fly to the UN Security Council for "possible" punitive action.
What punitive actions?
Economic sanctions, at first, under Article 41 of the UN Charter. But if that doesnt discourage pigs from wanting to fly, the use of force under Article 42.
According to Condi the Iranians are lying when they insist they not only dont have a nuclear weapons program, but dont need or even want to have nukes.
Now, General Musharraf, dictator of Irans nuke-armed Islamic neighbor, Pakistan, publicly declares that if Iran is threatened by some other nuke-armed state such as Israel, for example he believes that Iran has the right to develop nukes.
That would, of course, mean that Iran would have to withdraw from the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear weapons, to which Iran is a signatory, but to which neither nuke-armed Pakistan or nuke-armed Israel has ever been.
In any event, Musharraf has pledged to assist Iran should it be attacked by nuke-armed states, such as the US and/or Israel.
You might have wondered whether Musharraf really means that. After all, Pakistan along with Israel is our "Non-NATO ally."
But Pakistan defied Bush by signing on last year to be a partner in the construction and operation of a multi-billion dollar Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline.
Then, last week, the CIA killed a dozen or so Pakistani men, women and children with missiles launched in Pakistani airspace by US Predator un-manned aircraft.
Perhaps as a result of intense spontaneous Pakistani outrage, Musharraf announced that the CIA hadnt asked his permission to do it and that theyd better not do such a thing ever again.
What was Bushs response to those warnings by Pakistan?"I am deeply concerned about Iran, as should a lot of people be concerned about Iran. I am concerned when Iran's president announces his desire to see that Israel gets destroyed."Bush was apparently referring to what neo-crazy media sycophants falsely reported as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threat to "wipe Israel off the map." What Ahmadinejad actually said on several occasions was that the State of Israel was imposed on the Islamic world by American and European Zionists, displacing the state of Palestine and most of its people. And that the State of Israel had become a tumor or a "stain" on the "face of the Islamic world" and should be removed or "wiped off."
How?
Well, how about moving the Zionist state to America or Europe?
"Israel's our ally. We're committed to the safety of Israel, and it's a commitment we will keep.
Secondly, I'm concerned about a nontransparent society's desire to develop a nuclear weapon."
Apparently hes referring to Iran here, not Pakistan or Israel, and shares Condis belief that pigs want to fly.
"The world cannot be put in a position where we can be blackmailed by a nuclear weapon. I believe it is very important for the Iranian government to hear loud and clear from not only the United States, but also from other nations around the world."
Fair enough. But the Iranian government apparently already agrees that is "very important" for the US to honor the commitment made on our behalf by President Clinton at the 6th NPT Review Conference to "an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals."
Will Bush honor that commitment?
When pigs fly.

[CTRL] Blog - Judy Miller and the AIPAC Spy Case

2005-11-03 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-







http://www.antiwar.com/blog/


Wed Nov 02, 2005

Judy Miller and the AIPAC Spy Case
A report from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on the latest developments in the AIPAC spy case notes that "defense sources say they have reason to believe that the defendants relationship with a New York Times reporter might have been monitored."Could this possibly refer to She Of The Turning Aspens? Read on As I pointed out here, the indictment against AIPAC chief lobbyist Steve Rosen and his sidekick, AIPAC policy analyst Keith Weissman, details one incident that occurred on June 3, 2003, when the Pentagon's top Iran policy analyst, Larry Franklin met with Israeli diplomat Naor Gilon at the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club:"The discussion centered on a specific person, not in the United Status government, and her thoughts concerning the nuclear program of the Middle Eastern country and, separately, certain charity, efforts in Foreign Nation A [Israel]."At the time of the Franklin-Gilon tete-a-tete, the first inquiries into Valerie Plame's role in sending her husband to Niger were being made, including by Walter Pincus of the Washington Post. The previous week, on May 29, Libby had made inquiries at the State Department about Plame: by the end of the first week in July, Libby was moving into high gear on the Plame matter, going to the CIA, and the State Department, and finally confirming Plame's identity and background with Vice President Dick Cheney on June 12. If the woman described in the AIPAC spy indictment is Judy Miller -- and I'd be willing to bet the farm that it is -- we have to ask: what kind of a "relationship" did Rosen and Weissman, both accused of spying for Israel, have with Scooter Libby's confidante? 
Posted by: Justin Raimondo on Nov 02, 05 | 4:09 pm | Comments? | link








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[CTRL] Was Plame Outed by a Foreign Spy? - The Larry Franklin-Plame connection

2005-10-21 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7717

October 21, 2005

Was Plame Outedby a Foreign Spy? The Larry Franklin-Plame connection

by Justin Raimondo

For a good many years, I have been writing about the tremendous influence of the neoconservatives in formulating and implementing U.S. foreign policy, and maintaining that their role has not just been important it has been decisive. For underscoring the neocons' pivotal role since before the Kosovo war I have been called a lot of uncomplimentary names, the least of which is "conspiracy theorist," and for a while there Antiwar.com's insistence on emphasizing this theme tended to isolate us from antiwar leftists, as well as alienating the more "mainstream" types who doubted whether such an abstruse ideological movement could possibly wield the sort of clout I was describing.
No more. Now the lefties over at, say, DailyKos.com, are hip to the magnitude of the threat and are busy poring over old PNAC position papers [.pdf] looking for clues to our present predicament. Even the word neocon, once all but unrecognizable to the great majority of readers, is now firmly embedded in the American political lexicon even as the consequences of their policies exact an ever increasing toll. Yet still there are some doubters: how could such a small group of people exercise such power especially considering that they aren't exactly a mass movement. Someone once quipped that there are only about 20 or so neocons but 18 of them are major newspaper columnists. Yet there is more to it than that, and now that Scooter-gate is unfolding before the astonished eyes of official Washington, the neocons' ubiquity in the mid-to-upper levels of the U.S. government's national security and foreign policy bureaucracy is all too obvious. General Anthony Zinni was one of the first to call attention to the dangers inherent in the neocons' foreign policy specialization, and now we have another major senior figure in the Washington policy establishment coming forward to confirm, in no uncertain terms, the nature and extent of the problem.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson was Colin Powell's chief of staff over at the State Department, where he formerly served as associate director of policy planning. Before that, he was the director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College. At a recent talk given at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., Col. Wilkerson described the dysfunctional mess the national security bureaucracy finds itself in these days, due in large part to the sheer complexity of the problems we face. He emphasized the need for dissent, because the would-be central planners can't possibly know all there is to know about even a single issue say, nuclear proliferation and must depend on others who have no compunctions about speaking freely, without fear of violating some party line. Yet that, he sadly avers, is not the case today:
"And when I say that is not the case today, I stop on 26 January 2005. I don't know what the case is today; I wish I did. But the case that I saw for four-plus years was a case that I have never seen in my studies of aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations, changes to the national security decision-making process. What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made. And then when the bureaucracy was presented with the decision to carry them out, it was presented in a such a disjointed, incredible way that the bureaucracy often didn't know what it was doing as it moved to carry them out."
A cabal it's such a cool word, I try not to overuse it. Slightly foreign-sounding and somehow exotic, it has the advantages of being short and unambiguous as to its exact meaning. The members of a cabal are engaged in a conspiracy, usually of a criminal nature, and they are often to be found in the upper reaches of powerful institutions, especially government institutions, plotting coups d'etat. The Roman senators who murdered Caesar belonged to a republican (small "r") cabal, whose members resented the conqueror of Gaul's determination to take their republic down the road to empire. In our own time, as Wilkerson and his former boss observed, another sort of cabal seized control of the U.S. government and steered it down the same road. As Seymour Hersh put it:
"The question we have to say to ourselves is, OK, so here's what happens, a bunch of guys, 8 or 9 neoconservatives, cultists not Charles Manson cultists, but cultists get in and it's not, with all due respect to Michael Moore, and you'll read it, his movie's fine, but it's not about oil, it's not even about protecting Israel, it's about a Utopia they have, it's about an idea they have. Not only about democracy can be spread in a sense, I would say Paul Wolfowitz is the greatest Trotskyite

[CTRL] Judy Miller's War

2005-10-19 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08182003.html

August 18, 2003
CounterPunch Diary
Judy Miller's War
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Lay all Judith Miller's New York Times stories end to end, from late 2001 to June 2003 and you get a desolate picture of a reporter with an agenda, both manipulating and being manipulated by US government officials, Iraqi exiles and defectors, an entire Noah's Ark of scam-artists.
And while Miller, either under her own single by-line or with NYT colleagues, was touting the bioterror threat, her book Germs, co-authored with Times-men Steven Engelberg and William Broad was in the bookstores and climbing the best seller lists. The same day that Miller opened an envelope of white powder (which turned out to be harmless) at her desk at the New York Times, her book was #6 on the New York Times best seller list. The following week (October 21, 2001), it reached #2. By October 28, --at the height of her scare-mongering campaign--it was up to #1. If we were cynical...
We don't have full 20/20 hindsight yet, but we do know for certain that all the sensational disclosures in Miller's major stories between late 2001 and early summer, 2003, promoted disingenuous lies. There were no secret biolabs under Saddam's palaces; no nuclear factories across Iraq secretly working at full tilt. A huge percentage of what Miller wrote was garbage, garbage that powered the Bush administration's propaganda drive towards invasion.
What does that make Miller? She was a witting cheer-leader for war. She knew what she was doing.
And what does Miller's performance make the New York Times? Didn't any senior editors at the New York Times or even the boss, A.O. Sulzberger, ask themselves whether it was appropriate to have a trio of Times reporters touting their book Germs on tv and radio, while simultaneously running stories in the New York Times headlining the risks of biowar and thus creating just the sort of public alarm beneficial to the sales of their book. Isn't that the sort of conflict of interest prosecutors have been hounding Wall Street punters for?
The knives are certainly out for Miller. Leaked internal email traffic disclosed Miller's self-confessed reliance on Ahmad Chalabi, a leading Iraqi exile with every motive to produce imaginative defectors eager to testify about Saddam's biowar, chemical and nuclear arsenal. In late June Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post ran a long story about Miller's ability in recent months to make the US Army jump, merely by threatening to go straight to Rumsfeld.
It was funny, but again, the conflicts of interest put the New York Times in a terrible light. Here was Miller, with a contract to write a new book on the post-invasion search for "weapons of mass destruction", lodged in the Army unit charged with that search, fiercely insisting that the unit prolong its futile hunt, while simultaneously working hand in glove with Chalabi. Journalists have to do some complex dance steps to get good stories, but a few red flags should have gone up on that one.
A brisk, selective timeline:
December 20, 2001, Headline, "Iraqi Tells of Renovations at Sites For Chemical and Nuclear Arms".
Miller rolls out a new Iraqi defector, in the ripe tradition of her favorite, Khidir Hamza, the utter fraud who called himself Saddam's Bombmaker.
Story:

"An Iraqi defector who described himself as a civil engineer said he personally worked on renovations of secret facilities for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in underground wells, private villas and under the Saddam Hussein Hospital in Baghdad as recently as a year ago.
"The defector, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, gave details of the projects he said he worked on for President Saddam Hussein's government in an extensive interview last week in Bangkok. The interview with Mr. Saeed was arranged by the Iraqi National Congress, the main Iraqi opposition group, which seeks the overthrow of Mr. Hussein.
"If verified, Mr. Saeed's allegations would provide ammunition to officials within the Bush administration who have been arguing that Mr. Hussein should be driven from power partly because of his unwillingness to stop making weapons of mass destruction."
Notice the sedate phrase "if verified". It never was verified. But the story served its purpose.
September 7, 2002: Headline: "US says Hussein intensifies quest for a-bomb parts".
This one was by Miller and Michael Gordon, promoting the aluminum tube nonsense: "In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium." All lies of course. Miller and Gordon emphasize "Mr. Hussein's dogged insistence on pursuing his nuclear ambitions, along with what defectors described in interviews as Iraq's push to improve and expand Baghdad's chemical and biological arsenals".
Another of Miller's defectors takes a bow:

"Speaking on the condition

[CTRL] Faith-Based War

2005-10-19 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

October 19, 2005

Faith-Based War

by Patrick J. Buchanan

"This is a very positive day for world peace," said President Bush, following the referendum on a new Iraqi constitution. "Democracies are peaceful countries." Considering that Iraq is perhaps the least peaceful country on earth, the statement seemed jarring.
It should not be. For it reflects a quasi-religious transformation in George W. Bush his political conversion to democratism, a faith-based ideology that holds democracy to be the cure for mankind's ills, and its absence to be the principal cause of terror and war.
In the theology of a devout democratist, if Americans will only persevere in using their power to convert the Islamic world, then the whole world, to democracy, we will come as close as mankind can to creating heaven on earth.
As Bush said in his second inaugural, "So, it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
Speaking two weeks ago to the 20th birthday conclave of the National Endowment for Democracy, Bush recited the true believer's creed: "If the peoples [of the Middle East] are permitted to choose their own destiny by their participation as free men and women, then the extremists will be marginalized and the flow of violent radicalism to the rest of the world will slow and eventually end."
The president was seconded by Vice President Cheney on CNN: "I think we will, in fact, succeed in getting democracy established in Iraq, and I think that when we do, that will be the end of the insurgency."
Upon this faith Bush has wagered his presidency, the lives of America's best and bravest, and our entire position in the Middle East and the world. But as the Los Angeles Times' Tyler Marshall and Louise Roug report, U.S. field commander George Casey is skeptical that any election where Iraq's Sunnis are dispossessed of preeminence and power will ensure an end to terror. It may, he warns, bring new Sunni support for the insurgency.
Also challenging the Bush faith is Brian Jenkins, a terrorism specialist at RAND. He cites Colombia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Northern Ireland as countries where democracy has failed to end political violence.
Nathan Brown, a Mideast expert at the Carnegie Endowment, agrees: "The democratic process as it has worked so far [in Iraq] has certainly done nothing to undermine the insurgency."
But the most sweeping challenge to President Bush's faith-based war comes from F. Gregory Gause III in Foreign Affairs. Writes Gause: "There is no evidence that democracy reduces terror. Indeed, a democratic Middle East would probably result in Islamist governments unwilling to cooperate with Washington."
In Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, it is anti-American Islamists who seem positioned to seize power should it fall from the hands of the authoritarian rulers the National Endowment for Democracy and its neoconservative allies seek to destabilize and dump over.
If Gause is right and Bush wrong, the fruits of our bloody war for democracy in Iraq could mean a Middle East more hostile to American values and U.S. vital interests than the one Bush inherited.
That would be a strategic disaster of historic dimension.
Not only does democracy offer no guarantee against terror, writes Gause, democracies are the most frequent targets of terror. Not one incident of terror was reported in China between 2000 and 2003, but democratic India suffered 203. Israel, the most democratic nation in the Middle East, endured scores of acts of terror from 2000 to 2005. Syria's dictatorship experienced almost none. While Saddam's Iraq was terror-free, democratic Iraq suffers daily attacks.
Researching 25 years of suicide bombings, scholar Robert Pape found the leading cause was not a lack of democracy, but the presence of troops from democratic nations on lands terrorists believe by right belong to them.
The United States was hit on 9/11 because we had an army on Saudi soil. Britain and Spain were hit for sending troops to occupy Iraq. Russia was hit at Beslan because she is perceived as occupying Chechnya.
Democracy is thus no more a cure for terror than its absence is the cause. Osama has no moral objection to dictatorships. He means to establish one, a caliphate where mosque and state are joined, and sharia law is imposed without recourse to referendum.
As with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ho, and Castro, so, too, with bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Such men seek absolute power and use revolutionary terror as the means to establish their dictatorships.
By January, we shall know whether Iraqi democracy is the antidote to terror Bush believes it to be. If it is not, he and we will have to face the grim consequences of his conversion to a utopian ideology in the name of which he pursued a potentially calamitous three-year war.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS

[CTRL] Bush's Satanic Verses - He hears God or does he?

2005-10-07 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

October 7, 2005

Bush's Satanic Verses He hears God or does he?

by Justin Raimondo

George W. Bush was under orders from God to invade Iraq. That's what he told the Palestinians, according to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who describes what transpired during his first meeting with the American president in June 2003. According to Abbas, Bush told the Palestinian leaders:
"God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."
Unlike your typical secular liberal, I am not one to snark at any mention of a divine entity, be it Jehovah or Phoebus Apollo. Instead, I wonder: how does Bush know the voice he's hearing is God's? What if it's the Devil's?
God, it seems to me, is the strong, silent type; it's the Other Guy who's a bit of a chatterbox, always whispering in people's ears, trying to get them to do cool-but-forbidden stuff, tempting and flattering them at the same time. If Bush is hearing voices in his head, then I fear we ought to be very worried, because it's either the delusions of a dry alcoholic, or something far more sinister.
If Bush thinks God Almighty wants him to "stay the course," then that explains his imperviousness to facts, his fanatic certitude, when it comes to Iraq, and foreign policy in general. His most recent speech, delivered in front of that most useless and dangerous of government agencies, the National Endowment for Democracy, exemplifies the sort of worrisome dogmatism that seems to animate him. It is worth trying to understand what, exactly, is going on here, if only because we want to know how and why we're being led to ruin and utter damnation.
Bush opens by conjuring the specter of 9/11, perhaps in the hope that fear and anger can still overcome reason and the likelihood of reassessing a foreign policy that reaped the whirlwind. The biggest terrorist attack in American history was a boon to the War Party, one that empowered them to unleash their armies on the world. That's why they constantly hark back to it, like the memory of first love. However, even someone who hears voices in his head cannot miss the point that the American people don't see the connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda: they don't believe Saddam Hussein plotted the 9/11 attacks, and they are coming to realize that you don't stick your hand inside a hornet's nest without expecting to get stung, perhaps quite badly. So it's time to bring out the big guns
A specter is haunting the world, says the president, the specter of "Islamofascism"! Aside from the laptop bombardiers of the "blogosphere," however, it's hard to know whom this is meant to thrill. Christopher Hitchens? Andrew Sullivan? He's already got them on his side. While American armies sweep through the Middle East, wreaking destruction and calling their blitzkrieg a "liberation," it isn't the dispersed networks of Islamic radicals who come across as "fascists."
As red-state fascism fastens its grip on the president's followers, and the White House embraces a foreign policy that owes more to the Jacobins than the Jeffersonians, the only proper response to the president is: look who's talking!
Fascism is metastasized nationalism and abhors any sort of decentralism: yet, as the president said early on in his speech, al-Qaeda is "more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command." What kind of "fascism" is that? Fascism is a product of Western modernity that operates according to a super-centralist leader principle. Unless the term is now reduced to a simple epithet, bereft of any real meaning, bin Laden and his followers have little if anything in common with Mussolini, Juan Peron, or the German National Socialists. Bin Laden doesn't advocate nationalism, which romanticizes a given geographical area and its culture: his movement and the ideology that motivates it is explicitly supranational. It isn't blood-and-soil but blood-and-spirit that energizes the worldwide Islamic insurgency spearheaded by al-Qaeda.
"We know the vision of the radicals," avers the president, "because they've openly stated it in videos and audiotapes and letters and declarations and Web sites." What follows, however, is proof that Bush neither understands the enemy, nor does he have the slightest idea how to combat a danger he likens to international communism:
"First, these extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace and stand in the way of their ambitions."
This misunderstands the essentially religious character of the radical Islamist "vision," which is readily apparent in the very next sentence of Bush's peroration:
"Al-Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, has called on Muslims to dedicate, quote, 'their

[CTRL] AIPAC and Espionage: Guilty as Hell

2005-09-30 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://antiwar.com/justin/

September 30, 2005

AIPAC and Espionage: Guilty as Hell Pentagon analyst plea bargains, threatens to expose Israel's Washington cabal

by Justin Raimondo

The plea bargain struck by former Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin charged with five counts of handing over classified information to officials of a pro-Israel lobbying group, who passed it on to Israeli diplomatic personnel has delivered a body blow to the defense of the two remaining accused spies. Steve Rosen, who for 20 years was the chief lobbyist over at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's top foreign policy analyst, befriended Franklin and pumped him for top-secret information including sensitive data about al-Qaeda, the Khobar Towers terrorist attack, Iran's weapons program, and attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Now they face the likely prospect of Franklin testifying to their treason in court.
For months, AIPAC's defenders have been bruiting it about that this prosecution is persecution, that the whole thing is a "setup." What Rosen, Weissman, and Franklin are accused of is routine, said their defenders "everybody does it" and the decision to go after AIPAC is thinly disguised anti-Semitism, the 21st century American equivalent of Kristallnacht. They have impugned the FBI as some sort of neo-Nazi outfit, exonerated the accused before even hearing the charges, and engaged in a smear campaign against anyone who wonders why it is that a purportedly American organization is engaged in an intelligence-gathering operation involving the transfer of top-secret information to a foreign government.
Now the man they portrayed as being a persecuted victim is admitting that, yes, he spied for Israel, and, furthermore, the clear implication of this apparent plea bargain is that he is prepared to expose the spy ring that Israel was and perhaps still is running inside AIPAC, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington.
This case has received relatively little publicity in relation to its importance. It isn't just the fact that, for the first time in recent memory, Israel's powerful lobby has been humbled. What is going on here is the exposure of Israel's underground army in the U.S. covert legions of propagandists and outright spies, whose job it is to not only make the case for Israel but to bend American policy to suit Israel's needs (and, in the process, penetrate closely-held U.S. secrets).
Particularly fascinating is the apparent longevity of the ongoing investigation: the implication of the latest indictment [.pdf] is that FBI counterintelligence officials have been looking into Israel's covert activities in the U.S. since at least 1999, when Rosen apparently was observed telling a "foreign official" that he (Rosen) had "picked up an extremely sensitive piece of intelligence" identified as "codeword protected." At this meeting, the indictment avers, Rosen handed over this information regarding "terrorist activities in Central Asia" to the foreign official.
The AIPAC spy nest has been burrowing deeply into Washington's official secrets without regard for propriety or party. The indictment describes the duo's extensive contacts with a wide range of U.S. government officials, Israeli diplomats, and other individuals, none of them identified by name. However, two have been subsequently outed in the media by sources close to the investigation: they are David Satterfield, a deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs and now the second most senior U.S. government representative in occupied Iraq, and Kenneth Pollack, who served on the National Security Council in the Clinton administration. Said Pollack: "I believe I am USGO-1," identified in the second indictment as having met with Rosen and Weissman on Dec. 12, 2000. Pollack handed over classified information about "strategy options" against an unidentified "Middle Eastern country."
Pollack, a key Democratic Party foreign policy adviser, authored an influential book, The Threatening Storm, which convinced many liberals to jump on board the pro-war bandwagon. "If we observe how we were lied into war with Iraq, and by whom," I wrote in May, "the whole affair looks more like an Israeli covert operation by the day." The AIPAC spy scandal is confirming this in spades and much else, too. It is also showing that the Israelis were not about to stop with Iraq, but were and are lobbying furiously for more military action in the Middle East, this time aiming for regime change in Tehran. The indictments issued against Franklin, Rosen, and Weissman describe a systematic attempt by Israel's fifth column in Washington to garner top-secret U.S. intelligence about Iran, its weapons program, and U.S. deliberations about what action to take.
The chief beneficiaries of the conquest of Iraq, and subsequent threats against both Iran and Syria, have been, in descending

[CTRL] The Joy of Schadenfreude

2005-09-28 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-










http://antiwar.com/justin/



September 28, 2005 

The Joy of Schadenfreude The War Party is having a bad time of it  hooray! 

by Justin Raimondo



Ah, the joy of schadenfreude! There's really nothing quite like it. Wikipedia tells us there is no equivalent word in English, and defines this German _expression_ as meaning "pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune" or "shameful joy." In short, it means gloating, albeit of a very special kind, and these days there is plenty of opportunity to indulge in it to our heart's content  and I intend to take full advantage of the opportunity. 
Let's start with the neocons' reactions to the gigantic antiwar march held in Washington this past weekend: if you like your humor dark  and I do  you'll get a horse laugh out of poor old David Horowitz, whose bile threatens to eat away at his insides until all that's left is a hollow husk: "100,000 Zarqawi supporters mass in D.C.," he screeches. Now there's a headline that surely deserves some sort of special recognition: Smear of the Year, or perhaps a prominent entry in Hysterical Outbursts of Note. And what vivid imagery it conjures! Seen through a Horowitzian prism, those 200,000-plus Americans from every walk of life who came to Washington to protest an unjust and intolerable war were really turbaned terrorists: instead of chanting "Peace, now!" what they were really saying was "Zar-qa-wi! Zar-qa-wi!" 
People like Horowitz, who made an abrupt right turn after signing on with the New Left in the 1960s  and, in his case, filled a special niche as one of the leading groupies of the Black Panther Party  are suffering from a severe form of ideological whiplash. So abrupt and traumatic was their turnaround, that, in many cases, they took leave of their senses: their brain rattled around in their skull so violently that the result was madness. The particular variety of mental derangement suffered by Horowitz manifests as a kind of political coprolalia. Although there may have been a time when he knew how to frame a real argument and make his case, his expostulations have degenerated, over the years, until they consist primarily of epithets. "Communist" and "Jew-hater" are two of his more mild descriptions of the marchers. By the beginning of the second paragraph, he is already comparing them to Hitler. 
This progressive derangement is not limited to Horowitz, but extends to his followers and employees (or do I repeat myself?). A recent item on Horowitz's appropriately named "Moonbat Central" blog denounces Lew Rockwell  a man who would repeal the 20th century, and might not even stop there  for being "leftist-like." The hallucinatory effects of drinking the Horowitzian Kool-Aid are readily apparent: if you don't support the war, the neocons, and the Bush regime, you're a "leftist." These people are so indoctrinated, so unwilling to consider anything outside their own narrow and cartoonishly simple paradigm, that they're no longer capable of perceiving even the vaguest outlines of reality. In this, they resemble nothing so much as old-time Stalinists, of the sort that Horowitz in his New Left Period at least pretended to abhor. 
This is fitting, as the American stance abroad increasingly takes on both the substance and style of Soviet policy toward Eastern Europe at the height of the Cold War era. Cato Institute analyst Justin Logan trenchantly describes our foreign policy as a "harebrained, warmed-over version of the Brezhnev Doctrine"  the "Bushnev Doctrine"  and the Sovietization of the conservative movement is one bizarre consequence of this development. 
Speaking of cartoons, another symptom of the ex-leftist-turned-neocon syndrome is the tendency to become a caricature of oneself, and surely Christopher Hitchens fits the bill in this regard. His reaction to the weekend's massive antiwar mobilization is that it represented a Popular Front of "fascism, Stalinism, and jihadism." No one can be sincere in opposing this war, according to Hitchens: we were all manipulated by an evil cabal consisting of the Workers World Party, which supposedly controls the International ANSWER coalition that co-sponsored the Washington march. No one has told Hitchens that Workers World has split into two rather tiny factions, and has left ANSWER: the two splinter groups, together no more than a few hundred, are hardly in a position to manipulate anyone. 
The main work of the march was accomplished by United for Peace and Justice, which Hitchens describes, somewhat grandiloquently, as 
"A very extended alliance between the Old and the New Left, some of it honorable and some of it redolent of the World Youth Congresses that used to bring credulous priests and fellow-traveling hacks together to discuss 'peace' in East Berlin or Bucharest."
The hallucinatory effects of the neocon Kool-Aid are particularly strong in this little essay, where, it seems, time has run back. Suddenly we are living in the heyday of

[CTRL] Bizarro Basra - Two special-ops Brits in wigs, 'tradition al Arab dress' and a car full of explosives?

2005-09-24 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://antiwar.com/justin/

September 23, 2005

Bizarro Basra Two special-ops Brits in wigs, 'traditional Arab dress' and a car full of explosives?

by Justin Raimondo

The closer we look at what happened in Basra the other day, the murkier and more suspicious the picture gets. Two British undercover operatives fired at the Iraqi police, killing one and injuring another, and were taken into custody, then "rescued" as British tanks laid siege to police headquarters. The incident culminated in a pitched battle between Iraqi and British forces, and in its aftermath a war of words is heating up that threatens to expose a widening chasm between these two ostensible "allies."
We are told that our enemy in Iraq is a shadowy network of al-Qaeda-affiliated suicide bombers who will do anything to disrupt that country's march toward "democracy," but instead we find coalition troops shooting at the very Iraqi police we are investing so much money, effort, and hope into.
What in blazes is going on?
The two sides do not agree on even the most basic facts. The Brits aver that the two arrested special ops soldiers members of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment were moved from the Basra jail to a private home during the negotiations for their release. After British tanks knocked down a wall, troops busted into the jail, held the Iraqi police at gunpoint until they revealed the soldiers' whereabouts, and the pair were freed.
The Iraqis, in the person of Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, say the soldiers never left the jail, were not handed over to a militia group, and that the whole incident was provoked by a "rumor" that the pair were about to be executed. The Iraqis, for their part, have their own version of what went down, as the Washington Post reports:
"Iraqi security officials on Monday variously accused the two Britons they detained of shooting at Iraqi forces or trying to plant explosives."
Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive: they could have been shooting at Iraqi forces indeed, they killed at least one policemen, when he approached the pair and trying to plant explosives. But never mind
At any rate, the disagreements continue over what was found in the pair's possession. In spite of initial BBC Radio reports that the car the Brits were cruising around in was packed full of explosives, the BBC News site now avers that the Iraqis found nothing more untoward than "assault rifles, a light machine gun, an anti-tank weapon, radio gear, and medical kit. This is thought to be standard kit for the SAS operating in such a theater of operations."

An antitank weapon standard operating equipment? That sounds rather doubtful. Look at this photo of what was recovered from the car, and you tell me if that haul seems rather a lot more than just your Spooks' Standard Issue spying kit. On the question of what was found in the car, Sheik Hassan al-Zarqani, a spokesman for the Mahdi Army, the organization headed up by firebrand Shi'ite leader Moqtada Sadr, had this to say:
"What our police found in their car was very disturbing weapons, explosives, and a remote control detonator. These are the weapons of terrorists. We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets, and thanks be to god they were stopped and countless lives were saved."
Furthermore, Sheik al-Zarqani says, the two Brits were not just in "traditional Arab dress," as several news reports aver, but were disguised in the uniform worn by members of the Mahdi Army. The Brits, says the Sheik, have some 'splaining to do:
"Why were these men dressed as Mahdi Army? Why were they carrying explosives and where were they planning to detonate their bomb?"
Good questions, all and perhaps some context will give us at least a direction to go in for some answers. The Washington Post reports the latest attacks, attributed either to Sunni insurgents or to al-Qaeda and the network associated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:
"In continuing violence elsewhere in Iraq Monday, a car bomb exploded amid Shi'ite pilgrims marching and driving to the holy city of Karbala, killing five and wounding 12, said Capt. Muthanna Ahmed, a spokesman for Babil province police. Iraq's Shi'ites head to the holy city at this time in an annual ritual to mark the birthday of the Imam Mahdi. "The car bombing occurred in Latifiya, an insurgent stronghold 25 miles south of Baghdad, and was followed 10 minutes later by mortar shells that wounded four more people, Ahmed said. One of those killed and four of the wounded belonged to the Mahdi Army, the Shi'ite militia led by Sadr, said Sahib Amiri, one of Sadr's aides in Najaf."
Okay, let's look at this timeline: On Sunday, a cleric associated with the local Sadrist group is arrested by the British, along with two others. On Monday a Mahdi Army militant is killed in a "terrorist" bombing, leaving four others injured. That same day, a Sadrist demonstration demanding the

[CTRL] Major Air Route Closed--No Reason Given

2005-09-13 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=Board=news_newsNumber=293964913

Major Air Route Closed--No Reason Given [ Post 293964913 ]

Category: News Opinion (General)Topic: News Current Events

Synopsis: "I have never seen a major international route closed like this."

Source: unknowncountry

Published: September 13, 2005Author:

For Education and Discussion Only.Not for Commercial Use.A temporary flight restriction has been issued by the FAA for a major North Pacific air corridor, covering air routes R-222, R-580 and A-590. The restriction covers the dates September 10-15. The cloture of these major routes is highly unusual, is said to be due to a Department of Defense Strategic Defense Initiative, but the nature of that initiative has not been revealed. The FAA has said that aircraft can fly north of the affected routes into Russian airspace, but Russian security regulations limit the number of available altitudes, raising a safety question during high-traffic periods on these major routes. Extra time and fuel will be needed to fly the alternate routes. An airline pilot comments, "I have never seen a major international route closed like this." Inquiries to the FAA and the Defense Department have gone unacknowledged. In the past routes in this area have been closed at times due to plumes from volcanos on the Kamchatka penninsula, but there are no such volcanic plumes at this time. There is also no known exercise, satellite or missile re-entry to explain the cloture. Normally, a major military exercise, even if its nature was classified, would be announced well in advance.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

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[CTRL] KATRINA REFUGEES: BLAME GAME BECOMES CONTROL GAME

2005-09-10 Thread Bill Shannon

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www.WorldAffairsBrief.com
KATRINA REFUGEES: BLAME GAME BECOMES CONTROL GAME
Summary On the Ground (or Water): New Orleans will have to be abandoned for at least nine months, and many of its people will remain homeless for up to two years. Many currently salvageable properties will forever be ruined because government won't be able to get to them like owners would. They will be left to rot. What will be left will be the largest urban renewal project in the world, just ripe to be picked by Halliburton and other government connected "rebuilders." Now we have our own Iraq to deal with.
Fox news reports, "As floodwaters receded inch-by-inch Tuesday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin authorized law enforcement officers and the U.S. military to force the evacuation of all residents." The trouble here is that this will be indiscriminately enforced -- even upon people who are on dry ground and who have stored resources.
Meanwhile, people left homeless by Hurricane Katrina have told horrific stories of rape, murder, and trigger-happy guards at the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center -- which have become places of violence and terror rather than refuge. People have accused the police and National Guard of standing by, ignoring their pleas for help. People trying to walk out were forced back at gunpoint -- for their own safety, they were told -- yet were provided no protection from predators inside the buildings. A Louisiana National Guard soldier said, "We are doing the best we can with the resources we have, but almost all of our guys are in Iraq (6,000 of them)." By Friday morning only two buses had arrived at the Convention Center to transport those inside out of the city, according to several trapped inside. As the repeated promises of buses fail to materialize, people in the shelters have started stealing cars.
Government At Its Worst: These stories and more indicate the state of chronic paralysis present at the highest levels of the relief operation. As the government bureaucracy mixes with such a large-scale disaster, painful inaction combines with ineffective or counterproductive action to exacerbate the tragedy. One witness said, "We had to wrap dead people in white sheets and throw them outside while the police stood by and did nothing... The police were in boats watching us. They were just laughing at us. Five of them to a boat, not trying to help nobody. Helicopters were riding by just looking at us. They weren't helping. We were pulling people on bits of wood, and the National Guard would come driving by in their empty military trucks." In another case, authorities decided to flood one New Orleans district that was dry in an apparent attempt to lower some of the water that had submerged a neighboring district.
Hundreds of police and postal workers are missing or AWOL. Scores of police officers are said to have resigned from the force, complaining their jobs had become too dangerous. Some are said to have committed suicide. Two African-American New Orleans women police officers were filmed at Wal-Mart helping themselves to merchandize -- in front of TV cameras (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2005/050905policelooting.htm). Having seen videos of some of the low caliber people they hire in New Orleans for "public safety" it's little wonder they performed so poorly. Obviously, there are many valiant ones as well, who aren't getting any press.
Privatization Scandal: On June 3, 2004, IEM Inc., a Baton Rouge-based emergency management and homeland security consultancy (that has ties to the Bush administration) issued the following press release: "IEM will lead the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for Southeast Louisiana and the City of New Orleans under a more than half a million dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)." The company took down the page as Katrina hit, when it became obvious this company failed to produce anything of value for its $500k (though the page now appears to be back online).
The insider dealing continues even after the disaster: According to Wayne Madsen (reported on rense.com), "Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has announced that she is hiring Witt [James Lee Witt Associates. Witt was FEMA Director under Bill Clinton. --ed] to assist in the hurricane recovery. Just a minute here. His firm (which includes retired Gen. Wesley Clark) was part of the IEM team that came up with the non-existent $500,000 FEMA New Orleans-Southeast Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane Disaster Plan. Why pay this guy again for his incompetence? Republicans + Democrats = Partners in Crime."
Refugee and Host Woes: Many thousands of those who remained in ravaged New Orleans in the aftermath of the disaster are problematic minorities with a history of corruption, crime, drugs, and welfare dependency. Many are overweight, unhealthy, and totally dependent upon a state and local government

[CTRL] GULF STATES HURRICANE DISASTER -- LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

2005-09-03 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief at www.WorldAffairsBrief.com.
GULF STATES HURRICANE DISASTER -- LESSONS TO BE LEARNED
Hurricane Katrina was a category four storm, with winds of 145 mph. It wiped out nearly every non-concrete building within a half mile of the coastline from Grand Isle, Louisiana to the Mississippi/Alabama border; hundreds of small towns and settlements are simply gone. It penetrated deep into Mississippi with hurricane force winds as far north as Jackson. Even moderate sized cities were heavily damaged, with a large percentage of wood dwellings virtually beyond repair. Many of the South's poor live in very dilapidated, uninsured wood structures, which did not survive the storm. Even the rich were touched by this monster. The giant storm turned beachfront mansions along the Gulf Coast into million-dollar junkyards. They were all insured, but even insurance can't repay for irreplaceable personal items, or the time out of one's life it takes to rebuild.
The wrath of nature's God seemed to particularly target "sin city" wannabees like Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi with their multiple floating casinos. All the casinos were heavily damaged and more than half destroyed. Several of these huge floating gambling barges were swept ashore by the sea surge and wind, some ramming nearby hotels repeatedly, causing grave damage to both. The financial damage alone is staggering. Each of the casino/hotel complexes was pulling in from $1 million to $2 million a day in revenue. Even state coffers are reeling from the gambling loss, as the state's share is estimated at a half million dollars a day. Job losses among the work force at casinos and hotels exceeds 20,000 people.
The human suffering, of course, is much worse and is borne primarily by the poor, who didn't have much to start with and who have lost everything. What we are witnessing in photographs and commentary is war-like destruction -- not only in terms of the massive and total destruction of wide swaths of property, but the complete overwhelming of rescue and relief services. Establishment governor Haley Barbour told the press, "This calamity overwhelmed the system." Indeed it has, many times over its capacity.
Here's the situation in New Orleans, where 80% of the city is flooded. New Orleans borders a huge lake on the north, Lake Pontchartrain. Parts of the city are below that lake level, so levees keep the water in check. The levies to the south are 3 meters higher than those along the lake, to keep out the waters of the Mississippi. Water pouring in from the lake has stopped, because the lake's water level is now equal to that of the water level in the city. The big problem is how to get the water back out. It has to be pumped, but the pumps and their engines are under water. Catch-22.
White House priorities partly responsible: Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Will Bunch reports that President Bush's Iraq agenda may be in large part responsible for cut back in levee construction that led to the flooding in New Orleans. "[A]fter 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA [the Louisiana flood control program] dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
"Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: 'No one can say they didn't see it coming... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation'... On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: 'It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.' Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi... [told the Levee Authority], 'The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement... The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them.'... One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday... Local officials are now saying [according to the Newhouse News], that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including

[CTRL] Why Neoconservatives Won't Back Down

2005-09-03 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

Why Neoconservatives Wont BackDown

by Karen Kwiatkowskiby Karen Kwiatkowski

Homer Simpson is known, among other things, for his schemes. Often, as the situation deteriorated, his schemes got crazier and his hold on ground truth more wobbly.
Rube Goldberg-style, the neoconservatives are offering a superior solution than solemn statesmen, grieved parents, and American (small-r) republicans. They will not be bested by famous cartoon characters. They aim to win in Iraq, no matter how many steps it takes. In fact, the more steps, the better!
I think I understand it now. Neocons worship a god named Homer Simpson. Their Holy Ghost is Rube Goldberg, and the Son Im guessing here must be Chaos.
Jude Wanniski asks "when will the pundits apologize?" When will they admit their mistakes and grave errors to the families of the dead on all sides and to the people of America? Homer Simpson answers for them, "I don't apologize. I am sorry Lisa, that's the way I am." And so it is with the neoconservatives who clamored for war and cakewalks and slam-dunks. You will hear the inconsistency in their voices. You will see their pain in the Sunday morning talk shows. But you will never hear those responsible for designing a flawed policy in the Middle East, destroying the U.S. Army and its Guard and Reserve system, and Iraq as a nation ever say theyre sorry.
Cindy Sheehan asks our president, who is looking more and more in dire need of a donut and a coffee break, for what noble purpose her son, and nearly 2,000 other American sons and daughters have died over the past two and a half years of combat in Iraq.
But take a moment to remember. Congress never declared war. The military is conducting an occupation complete with prisons and torture and punitive annihilation of Iraqi cities on behalf of a republic? Why, of course not. The war is for the unstated desires and justifications known to the heads of the American empire, and they answer to no one. However, perhaps she can find comfort in Homers words, "Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!"
Urged by neoconservative ravings of Pentagon appointees, the administration, and several major national newspapers and TV stations, Republicans and Democrats alike trumpeted and brayed the false rationale for the Iraq invasion in 2002 and 2003. Neither party challenged the Presidents agenda, or the Pentagons plan, or its lack of a plan. Like bouncy but brain-dead cheerleaders, they jostled, competing to be heard screaming "War, War, War!"
Today, while Cindy Sheehan clearly and correctly calls the President a liar, CNN and Fox attempt unsuccessfully to get any member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, to themselves say that the President lied. What is so hard about that! He lied, they lied, Congress was lied to, plus the mainstream media transmitted the lies to the rest of us with nary a whisper of doubt. It was a veritable liefest, a flood of falsehoods, a barrage of bull. The legacy of those lies is lived by soldiers in Iraq, every member of the military and the intelligence community, all of Washington, and throughout our nation today.
Why can no one admit the lies, even now? Homer again, is wise. "Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen." All participants are culpable.
So, what are we going to do now in the Middle East? Many in the antiwar movement and in various political parties that embrace the Constitution are actively working and praying for wisdom to prevail in Washington, and for peace to prevail in places where Americans find themselves. They want us out of Iraq now, and in the Middle East by invitation only.
But the neoconservatives are not working in this direction. Huddled over their nascent machine, they worry that (barring martial law and a suspension of presidential elections in 2008) their time is running out. They worry that their Great Leader (or Great Puppet, depending on your perception) and his party will be ejected, and the successor party will be either split, or at least too substantially troubled by what 20 years of pitiful post-Cold War leadership in Washington has wrought to "stay the course."
Reality is clear enough for those of us who operate in the reality-based world. Charley Reese nailed it in his article about a united Iraq as a Western joke. Stan Goff nailed it with his exit strategy. But for busy neoconservatives, a Goldberg winning plan is in the works.
Weve all heard that Dick Cheney has called for the nuking of Iran in response to any big attack on America (I hope it wont be Hurricane Katrina and her impact on Gulf of Mexico pumping and refining operations!). Now, that "plan" might seem the epitome of simplicity, a case of Occams Razor versus Rube Goldberg. Not to mention incredibly stupid. But consider this
As Charley Reese and many others have correctly observed, Iraq as a U.S. controlled entity, is in dire straits and tanking. The concept

[CTRL] How New Orleans Was Lost

2005-09-01 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7131

September 1, 2005

How New Orleans Was Lost

by Paul Craig Roberts

Chalk up the city of New Orleans as a cost of Bush's Iraq war.
There were not enough helicopters to repair the breached levees and rescue people trapped by rising water. Nor are there enough Louisiana National Guardsmen available to help with rescue efforts and to patrol against looting.
The situation is the same in Mississippi.
The National Guard and helicopters are off on a fool's mission in Iraq.
The National Guard is in Iraq because fanatical neoconservatives in the Bush administration were determined to invade the Middle East and because incompetent Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld refused to listen to the generals, who told him there were not enough regular troops available to do the job.
After the invasion, the arrogant Rumsfeld found out that the generals were right. The National Guard was called up to fill in the gaping gaps.
Now the Guardsmen, trapped in the Iraqi quagmire, are watching on TV the families they left behind trapped by rising waters and wondering if the floating bodies are family members. None know where their dislocated families are, but, shades of Fallujah, they do see their destroyed homes.
The mayor of New Orleans was counting on helicopters to put in place massive sandbags to repair the levee. However, someone called the few helicopters away to rescue people from rooftops. The rising water overwhelmed the massive pumping stations, and New Orleans disappeared under deep water.
What a terrible casualty of the Iraqi war one of our oldest and most beautiful cities, a famous city, a historic city.
Distracted by its phony war on terrorism, the U.S. government had made no preparations in the event Hurricane Katrina brought catastrophe to New Orleans. No contingency plan existed. Only now after the disaster are FEMA and the Corps of Engineers trying to assemble the material and equipment to save New Orleans from the fate of Atlantis.
Even worse, articles in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and public statements by emergency management chiefs in New Orleans make it clear that the Bush administration slashed the funding for the Corps of Engineers' projects to strengthen and raise the New Orleans levees and diverted the money to the Iraq war.
Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune (June 8, 2004): "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
Why can't the U.S. government focus on America's needs and leave other countries alone? Why are American troops in Iraq instead of protecting our own borders from a mass invasion by illegal immigrants? Why are American helicopters blowing up Iraqi homes instead of saving American homes in New Orleans?
How can the Bush administration be so incompetent as to expose Americans at home to dire risks by exhausting American resources in foolish foreign adventures? What kind of "homeland security" is this?
All Bush has achieved by invading Iraq is to kill and wound thousands of people while destroying America's reputation. The only beneficiaries are oil companies capitalizing on a good excuse to jack up the price of gasoline and Osama bin Laden's recruitment.
What we have is a Republican war for oil company profits while New Orleans sinks beneath the waters.
* * * * *
On the day Katrina devastated New Orleans, America lost its most optimistic pundit, Jude Wanniski, who died of a heart attack at age 69. Jude often misplaced his optimism, but he was never without it. Jude never gave up on anyone and would invest his persuasive talents on everyone who would listen and even on those who wouldn't. Jude was not an economist, but he understood long before most economists that fiscal policy changed incentives and affected aggregate supply in contrast to the Keynesian emphasis on aggregate demand. Jude rose to fame as the publicist for supply-side economics. As a journalist, he was a natural. Robert Bartley, the Wall Street Journal editorial page editor, once told me that Jude had the best nose for news of any journalist he had ever known. Those he favored with his missives will miss his insights.

[CTRL] Katrina, Iraq, and the Know-It-All Syndrome - The soil erosion equipment we need to save New Orleans is in Iraq

2005-09-01 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

September 2, 2005

Katrina, Iraq, and theKnow-It-All Syndrome The soil erosion equipment we need to save New Orleans is in Iraq

by Justin Raimondo

Holed up on the tenth floor of a building in downtown New Orleans, one Michael Barnett, a former Special Forces soldier who works for the domain registrar Directnic.com, sends out this distress signal:
"In case anyone in national security is reading this, get the word to President Bush that we need the military in here NOW. The Active Duty Armed Forces. Mr. President, we are losing this city. I don't care what you're hearing on the news. The city is being lost. It is the law of the jungle down here. The command and control structure here is barely functioning. I'm not sure it's anyone's fault I'm not sure it could be any other way at this point. We need the kind of logistical support and infrastructure only the Active Duty military can provide. The hospitals are in dire straights. The police barely have any capabilities at this point. The National Guard is doing their best, but the situation is not being contained. I'm here to help in anyway I can, but my capabilities are limited and dropping. Please get the military here to maintain order before this city is lost."
Sorry, Mike, but nobody in national security is paying the least amount of attention. As the situation in Katrina-stricken New Orleans metastasizes out of control, we have word from the U.S. military:
"There will be no large-scale shifting of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan to help with disaster relief in Louisiana and Mississippi, a U.S. Central Command spokesman said Thursday."
Nothing is going to divert our leaders' attention away from their war to "liberate" the Middle East, not even a calamity on the scale of what is happening to New Orleans. The costs of the Iraq invasion and occupation have already exceeded the bill for the Vietnam war, and yet Congress, at the behest of this president, cut the budget for flood control and levee-building in New Orleans drastically:
"In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding. It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said."
Billions for offense, but not one cent for our own people: that's the slogan of this administration, and of the War Party generally. George W. Bush has vowed to "save" New Orleans, but his fan club over at National Review exhibits the true feelings of Beltway power-brokers for those peons stuck in the Big Easy, as when Jonah Goldberg opined:
"ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS [Jonah Goldberg] I think it's time to face facts. That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While you're working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he's not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It's never too soon to be prepared."
Professor Stephen Bainbridge, a conservative law professor at UCLA and a blogger of note, took Goldberg to task for this particularly heartless comedy routine: Goldberg, however, refused to apologize:
"Perhaps Professor Bainbridge of whom I am a fan thinks something really awful will befall the denizens of the Superdome and therefore making a joke at their expense is wrong. My guess is that it will simply be a really unpleasent [sic] time for the remainder of the day, but hardly so unpleasent [sic] as to sanctify them with refugee or some other victim status."
No one who isn't, say, Ahmad Chalabi, or an Israeli "settler" in Gaza, deserves official "victim status" over at National Review. In a remarkably laconic (considering the source) note of contrition, Goldberg eventually conceded that "After sleeping on it, I decided I probably could have waited longer for the levity." The problem, of course, isn't that he should have held his fire until later, but that he should have kept his mouth shut to begin with. Undeterred by simple decency or common sense, however, National Review editor Rich Lowry defends Goldberg's remarks:
"Personally, I thought the Jonah Superdome riff was funny and clearly was poking fun at the media frenzy around Katrina at a time when it seemed especially over-blown."
It was all, suggests Lowry, a matter of bad timing, but rather than excusing Goldberg, this observation only underscores the underlying attitude that animates these heartless Bourbons. Lowry is saying that Goldberg couldn't have known how the New Orleans disaster would turn out, but clearly Goldberg had a fairly strong opinion that the "denizens of the Superdome" would merely

[CTRL] Israel and 9/11: New Report Connects the Dots - What the 9/11 Commission didn't tell us

2005-08-31 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://antiwar.com/justin/



August 31, 2005 

Israel and 9/11: New Report Connects the Dots What the 9/11 Commission didn't tell us 

by Justin Raimondo



This news report in the Philadelphia Times Herald might shock the average reader, but its subject is surely familiar to longtime readers of Antiwar.com:
"A memorandum sent to the 9/11 Commission, and Senate and House intelligence committees in September 2004, suggests that young Israelis who canvassed dozens of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) offices in 2000 and 2001 trying to sell paintings to federal workers, may have been spying not only on the DEA, but also on Arab extremists in the United States  including the Sept. 11 hijackers who were living in Florida and New Jersey."
The author of this memorandum [.pdf] is Gerald Shea, a retired corporate lawyer. Shea  an alumnus of Phillips Academy, Yale (1964), and Columbia Law School  was associated for many years with one of New York's most prominent law firms, in New York and Paris, and his memo reads like a lawyer's brief: it is written with the same meticulous attention to details of time and place, and with a lawyerly regard for maintaining a high standard of evidence. 
Shea comes to substantially the same conclusion that I did in a series of columns I started writing in late December 2001, the substance of which is contained in a short book, The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection: that the Israelis were engaged in spying on U.S. soil in the months leading up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, that these agents were concentrated in the two areas where the 9/11 hijackers lived and planned their atrocities  Hollywood, Fla., and two counties in New Jersey, Bergen and Hudson  and that they did not share all they knew about preparations for the attack with U.S. authorities. Shea writes:
"Why the Israeli government decided not to share with us all the critical information they had, and the extent of that information, is a subject for the public inquiry. They may have thought some sort of warning prudent in the event their surveillance activities later became a matter of public knowledge. But any energetic Israeli effort to assist the United States in preventing the attacks would not have served their strategic interest, in view of the disastrous effect those attacks were likely to have on the relationships between the United States and the Arab world. As a leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group said when he was arrested on the afternoon of September 11, 'We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems.'" 
Students of this subject will not be surprised by much of what is contained in the Shea memorandum, but there are significant new details unearthed by Shea's research and his thoroughness, particularly in tracing the parallel movements of the 9/11 hijackers (and their known associates) and the Israelis. Shea shows the Israelis had the means, the motive, and the physical proximity to track the hijackers' movements and intercept the details of their plans. Of particular interest is how some of the hijackers came to be put on the FBI's watch list  too late to do any good, but in time to provide the Israelis with a cover story if their shadowing activities came to light  which suggests a cover-up of major proportions. 
The "Able Danger" data-mining operation that supposedly uncovered the New Jersey cell of the 9/11 plotters was  for some reason yet to be determined  blocked and prevented from apprehending key figures in the plot, according to the testimony of at least three people who have direct knowledge of this matter. Shea's memo opens up a possibility that may relate to (and explain) the "Able Danger" blockage: was surveillance of Arab terrorist groups in the U.S. subcontracted out to the Israelis, with the knowledge and complicity of the CIA, so that "Able Danger" was considered poaching on the Israelis' preserve? Shea cites a piece in The Forward that describes Israeli covert activities in the U.S. as a violation of "a secret gentleman's agreement between the two countries," and avers:
"The real question today, however, appears to be whether the 'gentlemen's agreement' did indeed prevail here and, because we lacked adequate warning from our surrogates who were keeping the Arabs under surveillance, helped bring us to disaster."
Discussion of this subject is, of course, considered a hate crime: I was attacked by David Frum and others for even raising the question of Israeli foreknowledge  although, tellingly, Frum never mentioned the Fox News four-part series by Carl Cameron that brought this story to widespread public attention. What could he say, after all  that Fox News is a bastion of liberal bias, and prejudiced against Israel? I don't think so. 
Of particular interest are the various appendices. The DEA report on the "Israeli art students" has been public for some time, but readers will find Exhibit B very informative:

[CTRL] Americans Surrendering Liberties

2005-08-27 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

Americans Surrendering Liberties:
Shades Of German HistoryChuck BaldwinAugust 23 2005
It appears that a strengthened U.S.A. Patriot Act will soon sail through Congress with little opposition or consternation on the part of the American people.
The new Patriot Act is even more stringent than the original.
In addition, many of the more egregious elements of the Patriot Act which were originally scheduled to sunset are made permanent in the latest version.
And the vast majority of the American people do not seem to mind.
For one thing, Americans seem to have accepted the notion that they must rely on the federal government to take care of them.
Lost to most is an independent, self-reliant spirit.
After all, Americans already look to Uncle Sam for food stamps, welfare payments, commercial and farm subsidies, and faith-based handouts; why should they object to the federal government's promise to now provide their complete security even if it does mean the sacrifice of their liberties?
To most Americans, security seems much more valuable than freedom!
It is incumbent upon each of us to remember that this is exactly the way Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took control in Germany.
They did not seize power by force; the German people happily gave them power on the promise of national security.
Since 9/11, even those Americans who in the past have championed freedom and independence now demonstrate an obvious readiness to gladly yield their liberties.
It does not seem to matter one iota that they are losing their right of privacy and their right to be secure in their own homes.
When told that the Patriot Act is practically a carbon copy of Hitler's Enabling Act, most Americans either yawn with indifference or retort with disbelief.
They seem to be oblivious to reality.
For some, their personal support for President Bush will not allow them to look objectively at the details of his Patriot Act (or virtually anything else he does).
They truly don't want to believe that Bush could ever promote something untoward.
Yet, was this not the same reasoning used by the German people in the 1930's?
They loved and trusted Hitler so much, they could not bring themselves to believethat anything he did could be wrong.
Americans need to reread the principles expressed by their Founding Fathers.
Specific to the topic, Thomas Jefferson rightly said,
"In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
It would seem many Americans today no longer believe that.
For others, the fact that they do not believe themselves to have yet been personally affected by the new Gestapo-like powers given to the executive branch by the Patriot Act gives them a sense of (false) peace.
Their attitude is usually expressed by statements such as, "Well, if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to fear."
Of course, such thinking is extremely naive and short-sighted.
Our entire way of life is predicated upon the conviction that we are presumed innocent of any wrongdoing and only by a substantiated and cumbersome process of discovery and prosecution can that assumption be aken away from us.
The Patriot Act totally reverses that historic principle.
Now Americans are presumed to be guilty of wrongdoing and mechanisms are in place to begin the process of proving it; and, furthermore, the discovery portion of this process may now be done under cover of darkness and secrecy.
Gone is the presumption of innocence.
Under the Patriot Act,
gone is the right to an attorney.
Gone is the right to habeas corpus.
Gone is the right to a speedy trial.
Gone is the right to be secure in your papers and effects.
The Patriot Act is turning America into a Nazi-style police state.
And that is not hyperbole!
Furthermore, Americans need to wake up to the reality that there already exists a gargantuan effort afoot to put a military-style federal apparatus in place.
For example, according to syndicated columnist Charley Reese,"In recent years, federal law enforcement has expanded to the point where there is now an equivalent of five military divisions armed and invested with the power to make arrests."
And this does not include the fact that certain of our military and C.I.A. personnel are also being trained and instructed in domestic law enforcement.
Can people not see the writing on the wall?
Another thing people need to think about is the definition of "wrongdoing."
The argument that, "If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about" loses its legitimacy when "the powers that be" can alter what "wrong" is at will.
The Patriot Act so loosely defines "terrorism" that virtually anyone or anything could be considered "an act of terrorism" including speech!
Plus, Bush lovers need to remember that Dubya will not be president forever.
They need to think about the likes of Hillary Clinton or Janet Reno interpreting and

[CTRL] Gaza Evacuation Should Be Americans' Last Straw

2005-08-22 Thread Bill Shannon

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Gaza Evacuation Should Be Americans' Last Straw

Charley Reese August 20, 2005 As I watched the extensive, plainly sympathetic coverage of Jewish settlers being evicted from their Gaza homes, I couldn't help but take note once again of the striking double standard applied by American news media as well as the U.S. government. I cannot recall any sympathetic coverage of Palestinians being evicted from their homes. No interviews with weeping mothers or fathers. No discussions of whether the evictions were right or wrong. This is obviously a deliberate policy on the part of America's television networks, for after all, they had 4,170 opportunities to report on Palestinian evictions since September 2000. That's how many homes were destroyed, and, of course, doesn't count the orchards and olive trees bulldozed by the Israeli army or Israeli settlers. Of course, Palestinians were not evicted by sympathetic soldiers or promised huge amounts of money to relocate. No, they were brutally told to get out of their houses, which were then blown up or bulldozed into rubble by decidedly unsympathetic Israeli soldiers. What little they had was destroyed, and they were offered nothing except verbal abuse by the Israelis and invisibility by the American media. One idealistic American girl who tried to stop an Israeli bulldozer from destroying a Palestinian home was crushed to death by the bulldozer. Naturally, the United States government did nothing, and the American media obediently either ignored her death or accepted the Israeli excuse that the driver couldn't see her, which is bull. She was killed in broad, sunny daylight while wearing a blaze-orange jacket and standing atop a pile of dirt. As an American consumer of commercial news, you should protest. You are being denied the balanced coverage of this conflict that would allow you to form an intelligent opinion. You are, in effect, being fed Israeli propaganda, and if all you know is what you read in most newspapers and see on television, then you would surely think the Palestinians are a faceless mob of howling savages. Actually, they are among the most highly educated and industrious people in the Middle East. A considerable number of them are Christians. I'm sure you are aware of the Israeli children who have been killed in this current intifada, which started Sept. 29, 2000. There were 122. But are you aware of the 686 Palestinian children who have died? About 1,000 Israeli adults have been killed, while 3,653 Palestinian adults have been killed. About 7,000 Israelis have been wounded; 29,014 Palestinians have been wounded. The Palestinians have nothing with which to resist the occupation of their land except rifles, pistols, homemade bombs and small rockets. Israel, of course, is ranked fifth in the world as a military power and has all the modern weaponry America can supply. The West Bank and Gaza are not "disputed territory," which is the latest Israeli propaganda term adopted by the American lickspittle politicians. Under international law, the West Bank and Gaza are illegally occupied by the Israeli military. They were seized in 1967 in Israel's blitzkrieg war. The Palestinians, who even then had no government and no army, did not provoke the war. The tragic truth is that the Palestinian majority that wants peace has not been allowed to have a functioning government and is therefore helpless to stop independent groups from carrying out attacks against the Israeli occupiers. The Palestinian Authority was denied the tools necessary to govern from the get-go. I will say this about the Israelis: They have chutzpah. Evacuating a minuscule number of settlers from Palestinian land, they tell the Palestinians it is now up to them to live peacefully. Of course, Gaza will be a fenced-off prison. That's the equivalent of the Nazis telling the Poles after the German invasion that it was up to them to live peacefully if they didn't want to be murdered and imprisoned. The illegal settlements in Gaza were put there despite America's opposition and in disregard of international law. Now, of course, the Israelis want the American taxpayers to pay $2.2 billion to correct their mistake made in defiance of U.S. policy. They expect us to pay for the transfer of the Israeli settlers. If the U.S. government goes along with this outrageous request, that ought to be the last straw for every patriotic American. www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=7022

[CTRL] So-Called Disengagement from Gaza IS a RUSE

2005-08-17 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/08/323156.shtml

So-Called Disengagement from Gaza Is a Ruse
author: jdc

I just wrote this op-ed to coincide with the so-called "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip by Israel. I am a Portlander who has been to Palestine several times, and am fed up with the media coverage of the issue in this country. I hope this article will give you a little more insight into this issue than CNN or the corporate news has been doing in their cheerleading for Israel this week.

The American, Israeli and even Palestinian media have been raving this week about Israel's "move toward peace" with their plan of "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip. Look a bit more closely, however, and you will see that disengagement is in fact a distraction, a magician's trick, to keep the world looking at one hand while the magician makes the rabbit disappear from the other. In this case the magician's rabbit is the West Bank and Jerusalem, the OTHER part of the Palestinian Occupied Territories, the part where "disengagement" is NOT taking place. In fact, the exact opposite is happening - while 6,000 Israeli settlers living in the Palestinian Gaza Strip are being forcibly removed in a big publicity show this week (and being highly compensated and put up in expensive Israeli hotels I might add - great treatment for people whose actions in invading and settling Palestinian land were, are and have always been highly illegal)... ... .while this great show by the Israelis is being performed this week, behind the curtain of the illusion of "disengagement" lies a very different reality. Settlements being moved, not removed The first thing I need to point out about the so-called "disengagement plan" is that there are approximately 6,000 Israeli settlers being removed from the Palestinian Gaza Strip in the plan. Meanwhile, a much greater number of settlers -- over 200,000who are living illegally in the Palestinian West Bank are not "disengaging" in the least. So while a small number of settlers ARE being removed from one section of Palestinian land, the vast majority of the colonizing settlers remain untouched, deeply entrenched and rapidly expanding their land base in the other. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in 2002 that "the present National Unity Government, under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has officially declared that it will not build any new settlements", but on 21 March 2005, Israel approved plans to build 3,500 new housing units between the Jewish settlement of Ma'ale Adumim and Jerusalem (E-1 Plan). The new units will consolidate Israel's control over East Jerusalem and divide the West Bank in half. Since January of 2005, the Israeli government has issued nearly 200 tenders for new settlements in the Palestinian West Bank. According to a 2004 report by the Israeli group Peace Now, approximately 51 new outposts were established between March 2001 and November 2004. Altogether, approximately 100 new settlements have been established since 1996 in the Palestinian West Bank. In Jerusalem, where 200,000 Palestinians live, the Israeli annexation wall is being constructed even as the so-called "disengagement" plan is being carried out. About 175,000 Israeli settlers live on illegally seized land in Palestinian East Jerusalem (and this is in addition to the 200,000 illegally living in the West Bank). The Israeli cabinet recently approved a decision to complete Israel's wall in East Jerusalem by the end of August, while the world is focusing on the Gaza disengagement. On 20 February 2005, the Israeli government approved a "new" Wall route. However, 80 percent of the Wall's route remains inside the Occupied Palestinian Territory, thereby annexing about 10 percent of the West Bank and leaving 240,000 Palestinians outside the Wall. Moreover, the new route leaves intact most Wall sections deep inside the northern and central West Bank, while making only minor changes in the northwest Jerusalem area. The revised route would circle the Ariel settlement and several other settlements known as the "Ariel Finger." The Ariel settlement of some 20,000 settlers is 17 km (10.5 mi) inside the West Bank. For Sharon , withdrawing from Gaza is merely a tactical sacrifice that Israel must make in order to gain its strategic goal of control of the West Bank. Sharon's adviser Dov Weisglass stated last year, "The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians," and enables Israel "to park conveniently in an interim situation that distances us as far as possible from political pressure." So while the world focuses on the magician's left hand, where a few thousand settlers are moved from the Gaza Strip (and given huge compensation packages of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for their relocation), the magician's right hand is seizing control of the West Bank and

[CTRL] AIPAC Spy Nest Exposed - New indictments implicate unnamed government officials and reporters

2005-08-05 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://antiwar.com/justin/



August 5, 2005 

AIPAC Spy Nest Exposed New indictments implicate unnamed government officials and reporters 

by Justin Raimondo



The other shoe has finally dropped in the case of the spy scandal involving the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In addition to five espionage-related charges filed against former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, two counts of conspiracy to communicate classified information to a foreign power have been lodged against former AIPAC foreign policy director Steve Rosen, and a single count of conspiracy against Rosen's assistant, former AIPAC Iran specialist Keith Weissman. The latest indictment [.pdf] reads like a spy thriller, and, while some of the elements were already known, there is much that is surprising, including the information that Rosen has apparently been under surveillance since at least 1999. 
On April 13, 1999, Rosen had a conversation with someone identified as "Foreign Official 1" (FO-1): the AIPAC director told FO-1 that he (Rosen) had "picked up an extremely sensitive piece of intelligence" described by Rosen as "codeword protected intelligence." According to the indictment, "Rosen then disclosed to FO-1 national defense information concerning terrorist activities in Central Asia."
While the identity of "Foreign Official 1" is not yet known, there is no doubt about what foreign country we're talking about: it is Israel, and without doubt the individuals being observed were officials of the Israel embassy. One of these has already been identified in the media as Naor Gilon, the embassy's chief political officer, recently recalled home; the FBI is seeking to interview him, and other Israeli officials who may have been part of the spy cell. Three are mentioned in the indictment.
What is striking is that the FBI  or whoever  was hot on the trail of AIPAC and "FO-1" even at this early date, listening in on their phone calls and following them around as they met for lunch over spilled beans. Yet in order to get authorization for wiretaps, especially of an American citizen, law enforcement must go to a federal judge for authorization  and, remember, this was before 9/11, when the legal bar was set far higher. So they had a good reason to be listening in on Israeli officials and their American sock puppets, and shadowing their movements. The discovery that AIPAC officials were in possession of highly classified top-secret information procured from U.S. government officials was apparently part and parcel of an ongoing investigation  but into what? Sparked by what? 
We don't yet know the answers to those questions, but what we do know is this: the idea, floated by some writers on this subject, that the investigation was initiated by Condoleezza Rice in response to Israeli efforts to stop a proposed meeting between President George Bush and Yasser Arafat, is flat out wrong. The roots of this probe go much deeper. As I wrote in The American Conservative in June:
"Like a dorsal fin poking just above the water, the Franklin spy trial promises us a glimpse of a creature much larger than appears at first sight."
However, not even I imagined the monstrous scale of this submerged giant: the earliest I could trace its movements was back to just before 9/11, based on the reporting of UPI's Richard Sale. But 1999? Who woulda thought? And it isn't just the timeline that's disturbing: it seems that a number of apparently senior U.S. government officials are about to be dragged into this imbroglio of trouble and treason. 
AIPAC was pretty busy that summer, particularly Rosen and Weissman; not only were they picking up "codeword protected" intelligence and passing it on to Israeli officials, but the latter was also telling "FO-1" about a "secret FBI, classified FBI report" (the indictment cites snippets of wiretapped conversations throughout) about the Khobar Towers bombing. Weissman was boasting to his Israeli handler that he had gotten the information from "three different sources, including United States government officials." 
The indictment fails to name names, but at the trial  if it comes to that  all will be revealed. These officials will be "outed," and perhaps face charges themselves. The only question now is: how far up the totem pole will the indictments go?
The indictment outlines a series of meetings between Rosen, Weissman, and U.S. government officials ("USGO-1" and "USGO-2") about "classified United States strategy against a Middle Eastern country" and top-secret intelligence regarding al-Qaeda, which the AIPAC officials related to various individuals identified as "a foreign national" and "Foreign Official 2 (FO-2)." These meetings spanned a time frame from the winter of 2000 to the winter of 2002. 
Much of the timeline related in this superseding indictment was detailed in the first indictment [.pdf], but there is much new material, such as the information that the Rosen-Weissman spy

[CTRL] With Friends Like This U.S.-Israeli rift clouds the spe cial relationship

2005-08-04 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://antiwar.com/justin/

August 3, 2005

With Friends Like This U.S.-Israeli rift cloudsthe "special relationship"

by Justin Raimondo

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was due for a visit to Washington last week, but failed to show: the excuse given was another uptick in violence on the West Bank, but Israeli sources indicated the real reason: Mofaz is miffed that the U.S. is now demanding a written apology for Israeli arms sales to China.
The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz was first to break the story that Israel faced U.S.-imposed sanctions as a result of selling replacement parts for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to China, Harpy Killer unmanned attack drones, designed to take out radar systems just the sort of thing the Red Army needs in order to make good on its threat to invade Taiwan.
U.S.-Israeli relations are in crisis, as the Americans demand that Israel fess up to the details of more than 60 secret agreements with the Red Chinese. U.S. technology transfers to Israel, in the guise of "foreign aid," have been funneled through the back door to Beijing via Tel Aviv and the U.S. is trying to put a stop to it once and for all.
Israeli officials argue that, in the case of the UAVs, they were merely repairing older model drones that had been legally exported from the U.S. to Israel. The reality is that these drones received a major upgrade using technology developed by the U.S. and shared with the Israelis. A few months after the sanctions were imposed, some Chinese general was boasting about how easy it would be to nuke a few American cities, and the neocons were demanding a bigger defense budget to counter a purported threat from Beijing one their Israeli friends are helping to create.
"If things were done that were not acceptable to the Americans, then we are sorry," Israel's Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom avers, "but these things were done with the utmost innocence."
Yeah, sure, Shalom: that's why Israel has been sneaking around behind our back, selling Phalcon AWACS and F-35 JSF fighters to China and India until they were caught red-handed. That's why they've been leaking U.S.-produced military technology like a sieve, and why they are now chafing at signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. about future weapons sales. Yet Shalom has the nerve to protest: Who us?
The sheer arrogance of the Israelis is breathtaking. So accustomed are they to the best military equipment U.S. tax dollars can buy that their sense of entitlement blinds them to our need to maintain our own security. Why aren't we putting Israel first? This certainly seems to be a change in policy direction, and it's an inconvenience they find quite irritating. Writing in Ha'aretz, Ze'ev Schiff complains:
"The American side is broadcasting that it has been burned by Israel several times, and this time it has decided to be firm. Because they feel affronted, they are not taking into account the political situation in Israel, and are trying to dictate to the Knesset, in an insulting manner, a timetable for its decisions. An agreement is meant to end a crisis, and not to force a friendly nation to agree to be punished in stages. Even a banana republic would not sign such an agreement."
The U.S. provides $2 billion per year in military aid to Israel, not counting all the "special" dispensations demanded by Tel Aviv every time they are somehow maneuvered into making minor concessions to the Palestinians. Without Uncle Sam, Israel would sink not so slowly beneath a giant demographic wave, buried alive under an Arab population tsunami that would soon overwhelm the Zionist experiment. Yet they turn around, and, without the least compunction, sell advanced weaponry created by American technology and tax dollars to a country that has the potential to become our main military competitor.
What's up with that?
What's up is the seemingly obvious point that Israel, after all, is not the 51st state, as much as it acts like it at times, and even though its supporters in this country treat it as if it were. Israel is a separate nation, with its own national interests quite distinct from our own. Increasingly, in the post-9/11 world, those interests are in opposition, in spite of the mythos pushed by Israel Firsters in the U.S. that the age of terrorism has brought the two countries closer together.
Our reflexive support for Israel's depredations in Palestine empowers the worldwide Islamist insurgency against the U.S., and undermines our position vis-à-vis the existing Arab states. Up until this point, the Bush administration has been motivated by political considerations on the domestic front, which require pacifying a vocal Christian fundamentalist faction that supports Israel for theological reasons. Yet pressing geostrategic and military considerations have lately necessitated a modification of U.S. policy: the global "struggle against extremism," AKA the "war on terrorism," means we

[CTRL] Americas Descent Into the Third World

2005-07-30 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/roberts.cgi/The%20Economy/Outsourcing/2005/07/25/America_s_Descent_I

Monday, July 25, 2005

Americas Descent Into the Third World

The June payroll jobs report did not receive much attention due to the July 4 holiday, but the depressing 21st century job performance of the U.S. economy continues unabated.
Only 144,000 private sector jobs were created, each one of which was in domestic services.
Fifty-six thousand jobs were created in professional and business services, about half of which are in administrative and waste services.
Thirty-eight thousand jobs were created in education and health services, almost all of which are in health care and social assistance.
Nineteen thousand jobs were created in leisure and hospitality, almost all of which are waitresses and bartenders.
Membership associations and organizations created 10,000 jobs, and repair and maintenance created 4,000 jobs.
Financial activities created 16,000 jobs.
This most certainly is not the labor market profile of a First World country, much less a superpower.
Where are the jobs for this years crop of engineering and science graduates?
U.S. manufacturing lost another 24,000 jobs in June. A country that doesnt manufacture doesnt need many engineers. And the few engineering jobs available go to foreigners.
Readers have sent me employment listings from U.S. software development firms. The listings are discriminatory against American citizens. One ad from a company in New Jersey that is a developer for many companies, including Oracle, specifies that the applicant must have a TN visa.
A TN or Trade NAFTA visa is what is given to Mexicans and Canadians who are willing to work in the United States at below prevailing wages.
Another ad from a software consulting company based in Omaha, Neb., specifies it wants software engineers who are H-1B transferees. What this means is that the firm is advertising for foreigners already in the United States who have H-1B work visas.
The reason the U.S. firms specify that they have employment opportunities only for foreigners who hold work visas is because the foreigners will work for less than the prevailing U.S. salary.
Gentle reader, when you read allegations that there is a shortage of engineers in America, necessitating the importation of foreigners to do the work, you are reading a bald-faced lie. If there were a shortage of American engineers, employers would not word their job listings to read that no American need apply and that they are offering jobs only to foreigners holding work visas.
What kind of country gives preference to foreigners over its own engineering graduates?
What kind of country destroys the job market for its own citizens?
How much longer will parents shell out $100,000 for a college education for a son or daughter who ends up employed as a bartender, waitress or temp?
COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

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[CTRL] Deep Background 8/1/05

2005-07-29 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.amconmag.com/2005_08_01/article3.html

Deep Background
In Washington it is hardly a secret that the same people in and around the administration who brought you Iraq are preparing to do the same for Iran. The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheneys office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doingthat Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attackbut no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

* * *
A CIA internal review of the agencys performance prior to 9/11 is harshly critical of former CIA Director George Tenet, former Director of Operations James Pavitt, and the former chief of the Counterterrorist Center, Cofer Black, for not doing everything possible to confront terrorism. Pavitt, who was reluctant to take on risky missions against bin Laden encouraged by the National Security Council during the second term of President Bill Clinton, is particularly criticized. The report, completed by CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, is especially acerbic regarding the failure of the agency to stop two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, as they entered the United States. Black did not share information on the two men with the FBI agents assigned to the Counterterrorist Center at the CIA and also turned down a request for a formal memorandum to be sent to FBI Headquarters. The report will be finalized and given to Congress after those criticized in it add their own comments. Pavitt, as head of the Operations Directorate, has publicly accepted full responsibility for the agencys failure, but Black has not acknowledged any deficiencies in his performance. Tenet has not yet responded.

* * *
There is increasing evidence that the Iraqi police forces, now under Shiite control, are carrying out systematic revenge killings against Sunnis in Baghdad. The bodies now showing up at the morgue have obvious signs of handcuffing and blindfolding and evidence of being tortured before death. U.S. sources indicate that the suspicious killings have reached the rate of almost 700 per month. The police are supervised by the Shiite-run Ministry of Interior, which claims that the killings are being carried out by insurgents wearing stolen police uniforms. But American intelligence sources disagree, noting that many of the killers appear to be actual policemen carrying the expensive standard-issue Glock automatics and driving official Toyota Land Cruisers.

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[CTRL] Blowback in Iraq - The U.S. invasion empowered Iran: was that the agenda all along?

2005-07-27 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://antiwar.com/justin/


July 27, 2005 

Blowback in Iraq The U.S. invasion empowered Iran: was that the agenda all along? 

by Justin Raimondo



In an eye-opening interview with Aaron Glantz, a Pacifica Radio reporter and author of How America Lost Iraq, Iraqi Minister of Civil Affairs Ala'a al-Safi echoes the demand that many in Congress, and certainly those of us who opposed this war from the beginning, have been advancing for quite some time:
"Now we are asking for the Americans to draw a timeline of leaving Iraq, and we will make it a priority too, if they force us to make a bad relationship with our neighbors."
What is striking about this interview, which appeared exclusively on Antiwar.com, is how quickly a government installed by American force of arms is turning against its creators. Not that we are literally its creators, since it was the Ayatollah Sistani, Iraq's Shi'ite spiritual leader, who forced the occupation authorities to abandon plans to install U.S. sock puppets, led by Ahmed Chalabi, at the helm. It was Sistani who demanded real elections, which carried the largely Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance slate to an overwhelming victory. 
Usually, it takes more than a few years for the consequences of our foreign policy to blow back in our faces  as in Afghanistan, where our errors percolated for a good decade before they finally mutated into what we now know as al-Qaeda, and yesterday were calling the Afghan "freedom fighters." By invading Iraq and shattering the Sunni monopoly on state power, we unleashed forces we can neither control nor, in good conscience, support.
In this case, however, they are turning on us quickly, and with a vengeance. We are seeing the sort of instant "blowback" we seem to be experiencing all too frequently of late, as in the London bombings, where Western hubris immediately boomerangs into some disastrous event. Dwarfing even our apparent inability to defeat the burgeoning insurgency, America's biggest failure is "liberated" Iraq's growing ties with the government of Iran. This is a policy boomerang of epic proportions. 
The debacle is underscored by Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's recent trip to Iran, where he laid a wreath at the tomb of the Ayatollah Khomeini, concluded an economic cooperation pact that links up Iraq's oil fields with Iranian refining facilities, and made noises about a future security pact that has American policymakers plenty worried. 
Not that this turn of events was entirely unexpected. When the Iranian foreign minister made a trip to Baghdad in May, he met with the Ayatollah Sistani  a courtesy the spiritual leader and de facto ruler of the country hasn't once extended to the American occupiers. The week before Jaafari's arrival, Iraq's new defense minister, Saadoun Dulaimi, showed up in Tehran for preliminary talks aimed not only at securing the porous Iraqi-Iranian border, over which militants of one sort or another pass frequently, but to explore the possibility of Iranian military assistance in bringing Iraq's nascent security forces up to par. As Juan Cole put it:
"One can only imagine that Washington went ballistic and applied enormous pressure on Jaafari to back off this plan. The Iraqi government abandoned it, on the grounds that an international agreement had already specified that out-of-country training of Iraqi troops in the region should be done in Jordan. But the Iraqi government did give Tehran assurances that they would not allow Iraqi territory to be used in any attack on Iran  presumably a reference to the United States."
Jaafari's return to Tehran  he spent the 1980s there, as an exile leader subsidized and supported by Iran's mullahs  symbolizes the future of the region, which we have delivered into the hands of the Shi'ite theocracy. Khomeini's heirs are the real victors in this war, and Jaafari's visit was a formal acknowledgement of the new strategic reality  a disaster of our own making. 
The biggest winner of Iraq's elections, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), was personally created by Khomeini when he demanded that the Iraqi Shi'ite exiles unite in a single organization. Jaafari's party, Da'wa, is a nominally independent offshoot of the SCIRI. As Jaafari laid a wreath of flowers at the old tyrant's grave, the Tehran Times reported,
"He called the late Imam Khomeini the key to the victory of the Islamic Revolution, adding, 'We hope to eliminate the dark pages Saddam caused in Iran-Iraq ties and open a new chapter in brotherly ties between the two nations.'"
The real power relations in occupied Iraq are just beginning to manifest themselves: we may have 130,000 or so troops in the country, but Iran has the political and religious allegiance of the Shi'ite leadership and the weight of the Shi'te majority behind them. 
Politically, the influence of revolutionary Khomeini-ism is being felt in the struggle over the Iraqi constitution, which must be

[CTRL] Israel- The Source of Atrocities

2005-07-27 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.rense.com/general67/source.htm

Israel - The Source Of AtrocitiesBy Ted Lang7-27-5

It is why they so desperately need "hate crimes" legislation, and an "Anti-Defamation League" to defame anyone who opposes their racist crimes of apartheid and genocidal mass murder. It is why they require and consistently rely on the best intelligence organization in the world, which, when it partners with our own CIA, creates the false flag operations necessary to incite Americans to war, and which has also resulted in the total destruction of our basic human freedoms via the USA PATRIOT Act. The terrorist acts perpetrated against US and the slaughter of over 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, was just such an operation.

Human lives mean absolutely nothing to these sociopathic, lying, conniving psychopaths. They have bribed and bought the loyalty of virtually every member of Congress, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives. They have annexed Washington, D.C. and rendered it a mere suburb of Tel Aviv. They control the White House. They have taken over and commandeered our own Pentagon, and conspired and arranged to have our own military fight wars selected and deemed necessary by their vicious, cruel and inhumane government. They call themselves "Israel," yet another atrocity, this one an historical and sacrilegious falsehood directed at the Old Testament.

As perceived enemies of the Bush regime draw near to expose the latter's disloyalty, lies, treason and its collaboration in false flag operations to ignite wars orchestrated by Israel, Zionists will smear, whine, deny, flee, bribe, discredit, blackmail and conceivably even kill to avoid both the exposure of their conspiratorial activities as well as the resultant total elimination of their influence. Should Americans ever find out precisely what happened on 9-11, their power will be forever neutralized and they will eventually be totally destroyed. Yet the truth will set US free!

Israel's primary mission here is to protect the criminal regime of President George W. Bush. It is Bush and his support from Congress that is directing our youth to fight and die for Israel, the ploy being that once "our ally" gets total control of the Middle East, oil accessibility will be a "cakewalk." Nonsense! When our troops were running low on ammunition, Israel offered ammunition they acquired free from the American taxpayer - but for a price! Israel is not our ally - Israel is now America's most dangerous enemy!

Israel, and more to the point, Zionism, is indeed the tool of the Illuminati. And we're not talking about Dan Brown's [Angels Demons - The Da Vinci Code] ancient Illuminati cult - we're talking about the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, Skull and Bones, Thule Society, etc. The Rothschild-Rockefeller international bankers plotting the New World Order have acquired untold wealth by orchestrating wars, thereby generating the enormous military spending on the part of the belligerents for whom they provide funding. A World War III would fit quite nicely into their plans for the human race; the United States of what?

So, as Bush enemies approach, Zionism strikes! Congressman John Conyers' inquiry into the Downing Street Memo was crushed by the usual charges of "anti-Semitism" from the usual anti-think/pro-Israel shills, schmucks and schlocks. The domination of our corporate establishment mainstream media by Zionists and dual-loyalty Jews supports the ring of protection the Bush regime needs to conduct its war crimes against humanity. This is why there was little or hardly any mention of the Memo in the MSM. This is why there's no journalistic follow-up on the AIPAC scandal or the White House/Washington pedophile ring.

As acts of conspiracy are uncovered distractions and smears will increase. No sooner had I pointed this out and the London bombings followed. And as I also pointed out afterwards, there was Israel again, smack, dab in the middle of things along with Benjamin Netanyahu. When terrorism strikes, can Israel and its Mossad be far away?

Now we learn that we have a "shoot-to-kill" policy on the part of London police; and where did they learn such brutal, cold-blooded techniques in unjustly and violently terminating human life? From the "experts" of course: Israel!

These are the same "experts" who encouraged US to ignore all international laws and moral standards, precisely as they have, to commit torture and atrocities against both POWs and rounded-up civilians. These are the "experts" who taught US how to use female interrogators to sexually humiliate Muslims so they no longer wished to return to their homes and people. These are the demolition "experts" who have crushed people and homeowners to death while they were still inside their homes using huge D9 Caterpillar bulldozers, and killing old people and those on crutches who were unable to evacuate in a

[CTRL] Cheney's Plan: Nuke Iran

2005-07-25 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://antiwar.com/justin/

July 25, 2005

Cheney's Plan: Nuke Iran Stand athwart the apocalypse, and shout: "No!"

by Justin Raimondo

A recent poll shows six in ten Americans think a new world war is coming: the same poll says about 50 percent approve of the dropping of the on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Somewhat inexplicably, about two-thirds say nuking those two cities was "unavoidable." One can only wonder, then, what their reaction will be to this ominous news, revealed in a recent issue of The American Conservative by intelligence analyst Philip Giraldi:
"The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections."
Two points leap out at the reader or, at least, this reader quite apart from the moral implications of dropping nukes on Iran. The first is the completely skewed logic: if Iran has nothing to do with 9/11-II, then why target Tehran? As in Iraq, it's all a pretext: only this time, the plan is to use nuclear weapons. We'll wipe out the entire population of Iran's capital city because, as Paul Wolfowitz said in another context, "it's doable."
The other weird aspect of this "nuke Iran" story is the triggering mechanism: a terrorist attack in the U.S. on the scale of 9/11. While it is certain that our government has developed a number of scenarios for post-attack action, one has to wonder: why develop this plan at this particular moment? What aren't they telling us?
I shudder to think about it.
The more I look at it, and the more I think of it, the more I sense a monumental evil casting its shadow over the world, and I have to tell you, it makes me wonder how much more time I want to spend on this earth. In my more pessimistic moments, I doubt whether we can avoid the horrific fate that seems to await us just around the next corner, the next moment, looming over the globe like a gigantic devil stretching its wings and blotting out the sun.
It seems to me that the question of whether life is really worth living anymore is inextricably bound up with the question of whether or not these madmen can be stopped. If not, then the only alternative is to live it up while we can and laugh defiantly in the face of the apocalypse. Why write columns, why comment at all, if we can't have any effect on the outcome? On the other hand, some ask
"Surely the New York Times and the Washington Post can find a lede here: 'US has plan to nuke Tehran if another 9/11.' Can we get at least a bloody story out of this?"
Might I suggest another lede?: "Armageddon approaches." Or perhaps, for the literary-mind secularists among us: "After many a summer dies mankind."
Where oh where is the "mainstream" media on this? That's a laughable question, because the answer is heartbreakingly obvious: they are nowhere to be found, and for a very good reason. As the Valerie Plame case is making all too clear, the MSM has been a weapon in the hands of the War Party at every step on the road to World War IV. It's an American tradition. As William Randolph Hearst famously put it to an employee in the run-up to the Spanish-American conflict of 1898:
"You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war."
Any objective examination of the Anglo-American media's role as a megaphone for this administration's "talking points" would have to conclude that the Hearst school of journalism has been dominant since well before the invasion of Iraq. Aside from the post-9/11 hysteria that effectively swept away all pretenses of a critical stance, the MSM was well acclimated to simply reiterating the U.S. government line on matters of war and peace all through the Clinton era, when friendly media coverage of the Balkans and numerous other Clintonian interventions habituated the press corps to a certain mindset. By the time the Bush administration set out on a campaign of deception designed to lie us into invading and occupying Iraq, the MSM was largely reconciled to playing the role of the government's

[CTRL] LONDON MINI-EXPLOSIONS: FOR PANIC EFFECT ONLY

2005-07-23 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-
World%20Affairs%20Brief%20July%2022,%202005%20Copyright%20Joel%20M.%20Skousen.%20Partial%20quotations%20with%20attribution%20permitted.%20Cite%20source%20as%20Joel%20Skousen's%20World%20Affairs%20Brief%20at%20
Pepe Escobar of Asia Times gives his impressions of the situation [my comments in brackets]: "The European Union will be waiting, breathlessly, for this deadline set by the al-Qaeda-connected Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades -- which has claimed responsibility for the Istanbul, Madrid and London bombings. After August 15, 'It will be a bloody war in the service of God', or the dreaded possibility of more attacks against 'the crusaders who are still present in Iraq -- Denmark, the Netherlands, Britain, Italy and ... other countries'. The Brigades seem bent on avenging 'blood that has been shed in the land of Islam -- in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine'. 'EU counterterrorism analysts are not taking the threat lightly -- even if its authenticity is not yet proven' [and it never can be -- but it will be touted nevertheless]. This 'message' means that Salafi-jihadis are officially proclaiming that the attacks on London on July 7 were blowback caused by Iraq -- a connection also established by two-thirds of Britons answering a Guardian/ICM poll and by a report conducted by the Royal Institute of International Affairs [CFR's sister global conspiracy organization]. Prime Minister Tony Blair's government -- toeing the Bush administration line -- denies everything. As EU diplomats have assured this correspondent, Europe by no means is going to vote the adoption of a US-style Patriot Act. Nor is anybody contemplating an EU Guantanamo." [End Escobar quote.] 
I'm not too sure about no US-style PATRIOT Act. Britain already is doing the same types of things the American dark side forces have been doing -- it's now only a matter of experiencing enough "terror" to justify codifying it into law. Already, the London bombings have allowed proponents of the USA PATRIOT Act this week to successfully move the House of Representatives to make permanent the most controversial aspects of the Act, which codify government's long-standing policy of illegal surveillance and unlimited detention without being charged. The vote was 251 to 171, mostly following party lines. It's a continuing sad commentary to see liberty being snuffed out by the Republicans who traditionally have been its champions. This undermining of liberty will only become more pervasive, and not just confined to the US, as the globalist agenda plays out.
The underlying agenda to these attacks: If my theory is correct (see the "Strategic Threats" article on my website), the Anglo-American globalists are intent on fomenting a huge backlash against the United States and Britain (by Russian and China, in "defense" of their Slavic and Muslim allies) in order to force the western world into a global government with real power over nation states. These government-agent-created "al Qaeda" threats, and the subsequent bombings that will follow, will be used to separate Europe from its ties to US warmongering -- thus illuminating only the US and British as the true culprits -- and justifying some future pre-emptive attack (with an appropriate provocation brought on by a crisis in the Middle East or Taiwan). The reason for targeting only the US and Britain in the war is because Russia and China would undoubtedly like to avoid a total holocaust of the Western economy and are hoping, as the conflict escalates, to blackmail Europe into submission, after taking out the two "bullies of the world." 








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[CTRL] John Bolton Was Regular Source for Judith Miller WMD and National Security Reporting

2005-07-23 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000798.html

July 22, 2005SCOOP: John Bolton Was Regular Source for Judith Miller WMD and National Security Reporting
TWN has just learned from a highly placed source -- and in the right place to know -- that John Bolton was a regular source for Judith Miller's New York Times WMD and national security reports.
The source did not have any knowledge on whether Bolton was one of Miller's sources on the Valerie Plame story she was preparing, but argues that he was a regular source otherwise.
It's all "thickening."
-- Steve ClemonsPosted by steve at July 22, 2005 03:45 PM

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[CTRL] Why Jefferson Opposed The Creation of a Central Bank

2005-07-16 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.barnesreview.org/March_2005/Jefferson/jefferson.html

Why Thomas Jefferson Opposed The Creation of a Central Bank
A Founding Fathers Opinion Concerning the Constitutionality of a Federal Bank, 1791
Though it is common to discuss Andrew Jacksons opinion about a national bank, it is far less common to hear Thomas Jeffersons version of things. Here, Jefferson lays out, systematically, his views on finance and the nature of a bank. The existence of the Federal Reserve in contemporary times simply shows how far the present regime is from the mind of the Founding Fathers.

By Thomas Jefferson

The bill for establishing a national bank undertakes among other things: 1.) To form the subscribers into a corporation; 2.) To enable them in their corporate capacities to receive grants of land; and so far is against the laws of mortmain;1 3.) To make alien subscribers capable of holding lands, and so far is against the laws of alienage; 4.) To transmit these lands, on the death of a proprietor, to a certain line of successors; and so far changes the course of descents; 5.) To put the lands out of the reach of forfeiture or escheat, and so far is against the laws of forfeiture and escheat; 6.) To transmit personal chattels to successors in a certain line and so far is against the laws of distribution; 7.) To give them the sole and exclusive right of banking under the national authority; and so far is against the laws of monopoly; 8.) To communicate to them a power to make laws paramount to the laws of the States; for so they must be construed, to protect the institution from the control of the State legislatures, and so, probably, they will be construed.
I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people. [12th Amendment] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.
The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution.

BANKING POWERS NOT ENUMERATED BY THE CONSTITUTION

They are not among the powers specially enumerated: for these are:
1.) A power to lay taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States; but no debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid. Were it a bill to raise money, its origination in the Senate would condemn it by the Constitution.
2.) To borrow money. But this bill neither borrows money nor ensures the borrowing of it. The proprietors of the bank will be just as free as any other money holders, to lend or not to lend their money to the public. The operation proposed in the bill first, to lend them $2 million, and then to borrow it back again, cannot change the nature of the latter act, which will still be a payment, and not a loan, call it by what name you please.
3.) To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the States, and with the Indian tribes. To erect a bank, and to regulate commerce, are very different acts. He who erects a bank creates a subject of commerce in its bills, so does he who makes a bushel of wheat, or digs a dollar out of the mines; yet neither of these persons regulates commerce thereby. To make a thing which may be bought and sold, is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling. Besides, if this was an exercise of the power of regulating commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to the internal commerce of every State, as to its external. For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen), which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes. Accordingly the bill does not propose the measure as a regulation of trace, but as productive of considerable advantages to trade. Still less are these powers covered by any other of the special enumerations.

NOT COVERED IN ANY SPECIAL PHRASES

Nor are they within either of the general phrases, which are the two following:
1. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare. For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose, for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as

[CTRL] Why are they killing us?

2005-07-13 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45259

Why are they killing us?Patrick J. Buchanan

Who carried out the London massacre, we do not know. But, as to why they did it, we are already quarreling.
President Bush says that the terrorists are attacking our civilization. At Fort Bragg, N.C., he explained again why we are fighting in Iraq, two years after we overthrew Saddam Hussein. "Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war," he said, in "a global war on terror."
"Many terrorists who kill ... on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of citizens in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home."
Bush was echoed by Sen. John McCain. Those terrorists in Iraq, McCain told Larry King, "are the same guys who would be in New York if we don't win." We fight the terrorists over there so we do not have to fight them over here.
But is this true?
Few Americans have given more thought to the motivation of suicide-bombers than Robert Pape, author of "Dying to Win: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism." His book is drawn from an immense database on every suicide-bomb attack from 1980 to early 2004. Conclusion: The claim that 9-11 and the suicide-bombings in Iraq are done to advance some jihad by "Islamofascists" against the West is not only unsubstantiated, it is hollow.
"Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think," Pape tells the American Conservative in its July 18 issue. Indeed, the world's leader in suicide terror was the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. This secular Marxist group "invented the famous suicide vest for their suicide assassination of Rajiv Ghandi in May 1991. The Palestinians got the idea of the vest from the Tamil Tigers."
But if the aim of suicide bombers is not to advance Islamism in a war of civilizations, what is its purpose? Pape's conclusion:

[S]uicide-terrorist attacks are not so much driven by religion as by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide terrorist campaign over 95 percent of all incidents has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.

The 9-11 terrorists were over here because we were over there. They are not trying to convert us. They are killing us to drive us out of their countries.
Before the U.S. invasion, says Pape, "Iraq never had a suicide attack in its history. Since our invasion, suicide terrorism has been escalating rapidly, with 20 attacks in 2003, 48 in 2004 and over 50 in just the first five months of 2005. Every year since the U.S. invasion, suicide terrorism has doubled ... Far from making us safer against terrorism, the operation in Iraq has stimulated suicide terrorists and has given suicide terrorism a new lease on life."
Pape is saying that President Bush has got it backward: The Iraq war is not eradicating terrorism, it is creating terrorists.
The good news? "The history of the last 20 years" shows that once the troops of the occupying democracies "withdraw from the homeland of the terrorists, they often stop and stop on a dime."
Between 1982 and 1986, there were 41 suicide-bomb attacks on U.S., French, and Israeli targets in Lebanon. When U.S. and French troops withdrew and Israel pulled back to a six-mile buffer zone, suicide-bombings virtually ceased. When the Israelis left Lebanon, the Lebanese suicide-bombers did not follow them to Tel Aviv.
"Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism," says Pape, "the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies ... is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us."
What Pape is saying is that the neocons' "World War IV" our invading Islamic countries to overthrow regimes and convert them into democracies is suicidal, like stomping on an anthill so as not to be bitten by ants. It is the presence of U.S. troops in Islamic lands that is the progenitor of suicide terrorism.

Bush's cure for terrorism is a cause of the epidemic. The doctor is spreading the disease. The longer we stay in Iraq, the greater the number of suicide attacks we can expect. The sooner we get our troops out, the sooner terrorism over there and over here will end. So Pape says the data proves. This is the precise opposite of what George Bush argues and believes.
How would we defend our vital interests in the Gulf?
Answers Pape: As we did in the 1970s and 1980s. By getting our troops out, removing the cause of suicide-terror, leaving behind stocked bases and putting U.S. carrier and air forces over the horizon to ensure the Gulf

[CTRL] The Logic of Suicide Terrorism

2005-07-11 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.amconmag.com/2005_07_18/article.html

July 18, 2005 IssueCopyright © 2005 The American Conservative
The Logic of Suicide Terrorism
Its the occupation, not the fundamentalism
Last month, Scott McConnell caught up with Associate Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, whose book on suicide terrorism, Dying to Win, is beginning to receive wide notice. Pape has found that the most common American perceptions about who the terrorists are and what motivates them are off by a wide margin. In his office is the worlds largest database of information about suicide terrorists, rows and rows of manila folders containing articles and biographical snippets in dozens of languages compiled by Pape and teams of graduate students, a trove of data that has been sorted and analyzed and which underscores the great need for reappraising the Bush administrations current strategy. Below are excerpts from a conversation with the man who knows more about suicide terrorists than any other American.
The American Conservative: Your new book, Dying to Win, has a subtitle: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Can you just tell us generally on what the book is based, what kind of research went into it, and what your findings were?
Robert Pape: Over the past two years, I have collected the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004. This research is conducted not only in English but also in native-language sourcesArabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Tamil, and othersso that we can gather information not only from newspapers but also from products from the terrorist community. The terrorists are often quite proud of what they do in their local communities, and they produce albums and all kinds of other information that can be very helpful to understand suicide-terrorist attacks.
This wealth of information creates a new picture about what is motivating suicide terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think. The world leader in suicide terrorism is a group that you may not be familiar with: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
This is a Marxist group, a completely secular group that draws from the Hindu families of the Tamil regions of the country. They invented the famous suicide vest for their suicide assassination of Rajiv Ghandi in May 1991. The Palestinians got the idea of the suicide vest from the Tamil Tigers.
TAC: So if Islamic fundamentalism is not necessarily a key variable behind these groups, what is?
RP: The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaignover 95 percent of all the incidentshas had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.
TAC: That would seem to run contrary to a view that one heard during the American election campaign, put forth by people who favor Bushs policy. That is, we need to fight the terrorists over there, so we dont have to fight them here.
RP: Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism, the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies over there, if you would, is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us.
Since 1990, the United States has stationed tens of thousands of ground troops on the Arabian Peninsula, and that is the main mobilization appeal of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. People who make the argument that it is a good thing to have them attacking us over there are missing that suicide terrorism is not a supply-limited phenomenon where there are just a few hundred around the world willing to do it because they are religious fanatics. It is a demand-driven phenomenon. That is, it is driven by the presence of foreign forces on the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. The operation in Iraq has stimulated suicide terrorism and has given suicide terrorism a new lease on life.
TAC: If we were to back up a little bit before the invasion of Iraq to what happened before 9/11, what was the nature of the agitprop that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were putting out to attract people?
RP: Osama bin Ladens speeches and sermons run 40 and 50 pages long. They begin by calling tremendous attention to the presence of tens of thousands of American combat forces on the Arabian Peninsula.
In 1996, he went on to say that there was a grand plan by the United Statesthat the Americans were going to use combat forces to conquer Iraq, break it into three pieces, give a piece of it to Israel so that Israel could enlarge its country, and then do the same thing to Saudi Arabia. As you can see, we are fulfilling his

[CTRL] Nobody Attacks Civilization

2005-07-10 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

July 9, 2005

Nobody Attacks Civilization

by Charley Reese

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush went into their standard routine after the London bombings. This was an attack against civilization and all civilized nations, they said.
That's bosh and hokum, and it does a disservice to the people. The first step always in solving any problem is to define the problem correctly. There are no terrorists anywhere in the world whose goal is the destruction of civilization, Western or otherwise.
The terrorist attacks against the U.S., Great Britain and Spain are motivated exclusively by Western policies toward the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the presence of Western military forces in Islamic countries. Al-Qaeda, the ideological source of these attacks, has always been crystal-clear and specific about its reasons for declaring war against the United States.
You can't win a war unless you know who your enemy is, know why he is your enemy and know what his objectives are. Only then can you properly direct your military and political forces to combat him successfully.
Unfortunately, very early on, President Bush decided to create a mythical enemy of vague and ambiguous proportions and irrational motives. This was done to give carte blanche to the government to pursue policies that really had nothing to do with fighting al-Qaeda e.g., invading Iraq, putting North Korea and Iran in the "axis of evil" and including groups on the enemies list that were in fact not our enemies.
The confusion this causes was illustrated by television coverage of the London attacks. Several commentators lumped together the terrorist attacks against public transport in Moscow, Madrid and London. However, the Moscow attack had nothing to do with the attacks in Madrid and London, or with us. Moscow is fighting Chechen rebels who want independence for Chechnya. Chechen attacks against Russia, like Palestinian attacks against Israel, are not directed at us. They are motivated by specific political objectives. Chechens and Palestinians have no desire to destroy civilization; they simply wish to take their place in the family of nations as independent countries.
You can't have a war against terrorism because, as many people have pointed out, terrorism is a tactic employed by people who have no real military power. It is not an entity. There is no worldwide terrorist organization.
Terrorist tactics work because we live in a wired world. Ten or 12 people can set off a few bombs in London, and the world turns its electronic eyes on the story and chats, discusses and shows video clips until some other event distracts it. The media attention and the inflated rhetoric of politicians magnify the terrorist act far beyond its actual import.
These attacks pinpricks, really, in terms of any damage they do to national power cannot be completely stopped. A few malcontents inspired by someone's rhetoric can get together and set off a bomb or two or shoot some people. Terrorists should be considered criminals, and their acts as ordinary crimes. Physically dealing with terrorists is properly ordinary police work. There is no war involved.
What the United States should be doing, instead of invading and occupying countries, is re-examining its foreign policy vis-à-vis the Islamic world. There is no natural conflict between the West and Islam. The followers and true believers of Osama bin Laden are a tiny minority. The best way to cut the ground out from under him is to develop and pursue policies that treat all of the Islamic countries with fairness and respect.
We don't do that at the present time. Because of the power of the Israeli lobby to skew our policy to benefit Israel, our Middle East policies are riddled with double and triple standards and reek of hypocrisy. Because of that, we are the best recruiter Osama bin Laden has.
But in the meantime, remember that terrorist attacks are primarily media events. You still have more to fear from the flu or accidents than you do from terrorists.

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[CTRL] Fw: Out of Office AutoReply: [CTRL] Nobody Attacks Civilization

2005-07-10 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-






So we have an ADL monitor, eh???
Interesting.

---Original Message---


From: Cantor, David
Date: 07/10/05 13:36:57
To: Bill Shannon
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: [CTRL] Nobody Attacks Civilization

I no longer work for the ADL. Please send inquiries and information to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]. Thank you.
.








www.ctrl.org
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
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screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease!   These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

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[CTRL] How to End the War: Negotiations Now!

2005-07-01 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://antiwar.com/justin/

July 1, 2005

How to End the War: Negotiations Now! A breakthrough for peace is now possible

by Justin Raimondo

In an excellent piece in the UK's premier conservative magazine, the Spectator, Michael Wolff, a Vanity Fair columnist who covered the invasion from Centcom headquarters, sums up the present moment in Iraq quite well:
"All in all, after more than two years of combat and any number of cycles of triumphalism followed by dismal comeuppance, you'd have to be a cockeyed nitwit not to realize that the Iraq war might not end happily. People are now talking of a new Tet moment. During the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam, the Vietcong, who were said to be demoralized and on the run, were suddenly storming the doors of the American embassy (and on television). In Iraq the insurgents, with their supposedly poor leadership and declining support, are suddenly upping their kill rate, with attacks of terrible ferocity and obvious strategic smarts."
More Vietnam deja vu: the U.S. public is moving rapidly toward its own Tet moment, regardless of whether the insurgents pull off a major offensive on the ground in Iraq. Polls show 60 percent want us to start withdrawing troops, and, even more significantly and ominously for the Party of Bush the majority now believe the administration deliberately misled the American people in order to goad us into supporting the invasion of Iraq. People don't like being lied to, and they don't like liars: if the GOP is going to avoid being punished at the polls, they're going to have to come up with some kind of viable exit plan before the situation goes into total meltdown.
In the wake of Bush's "stay the course" speech, however, things look grim all 'round: the president isn't budging he isn't even acknowledging the dire straits he's in. Congressional Republicans, however, have no choice but to face reality, at least in this particular instance: after all, another election is coming up, and they sense their vulnerability. Which is perhaps why Republicans are beginning to speak out against the war. A bipartisan "Homeward Bound" resolution [.pdf file] co-sponsored by conservative Rep. Walter "French Fries" Jones and libertarian Republican Ron Paul, as well as two liberal Democrats, targets Oct. 1, 2006, as the day we begin to bring the troops home.
Significantly, the president was forced to take on this proposal in his recent speech, denouncing it as "an artificial timetable" one wonders what would be a natural timetable and averring that it
"Would send the wrong message to the Iraqis, who need to know that America will not leave before the job is done. It would send the wrong signal to our troops, who need to know that we are serious about completing the mission they are risking their lives to achieve. And it would send the wrong message to the enemy, who would know that all they have to do is to wait us out. We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed and not a day longer."
Who or what decides when our presence is no longer required: what, in short, does "victory" look like? The president gave us no answer to that question, but instead demanded that we give him a blank check to pursue his policy to the last National Guardsman. Trust me, he's telling us: I know what's best for the nation. But how many Americans who have come to believe they were lied into war are now willing to trust the liar-in-chief? Even those elite Special Forces soldiers who constituted his live audience at Fort Bragg sat there in stony silence as he explicated why we must continue to pursue an increasingly costly and murky mission.
It isn't just Walter Jones and Ron Paul, along with various and sundry congressional Democrats, who are giving the president a hard time. He's facing a double-pronged political assault, including one emanating from Iraq. Ayham al-Samarie, former minister of electricity in Iraq's provisional government, and the broker of recent talks between the occupation forces and the insurgents, has announced that he is forming a political party, the National Council for Unity and Construction of Iraq, to give voice to the demands of what he calls the "resistance." Samarie, a dual Iraqi-American citizen, claims to speak for those insurgent groups that have not been targeting civilians, and the central plank in the platform of the new party is a timetable for U.S. withdrawal.
Samarie, who was once received by President Bush at the White House, is the ideal candidate for leader of the growing movement inside Iraq to get the Americans out: now if only he can wangle himself another White House audience. He is no Islamist: far from being a terrorist or one of Saddam's former lieutenants, he supported the "liberation" enough to be appointed to the provisional government, and now wants to involve the recalcitrant Sunnis in the political process a goal supposedly shared by the Americans, who continually point to their

[CTRL] Larry Franklin wanted to sway policy, not just spill intel.

2005-06-21 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.amconmag.com/2005_06_20/feature.html

June 20, 2005 IssueCopyright © 2005 The American Conservative
State of the State Secrets
Larry Franklin wanted to sway policy, not just spill intel.
by Justin Raimondo
The circumstances surrounding the arrest of Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin for passing classified information to two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) would make a good thriller. Acted out against a backdrop of war and terrorism, its a cloak-and-dagger tale swathed in mystery, pregnant with political implications, and hinting at a subtext of hostility beneath the special relationship binding the U.S. to Israel. It has all the elements of good fictiona strong plot, a fascinating set of characters, and a theme that will have the audience buzzing long after they leave the theater. Better yet, it looks like the dramatic climax will come in the form of a courtroom drama in a legal battle pitting the watchdogs of Americas vital secrets against a shadowy fifth column.
For years the FBIs counterintelligence unit has been tracking a major espionage cell operating on behalf of Israel. Franklin stumbled into it one summer day in 2003, when he showed up at Tivoli restaurant outside Washington and met with two AIPAC officialsSteve Rosen, AIPACs longtime foreign-policy director, and Keith Weissman, AIPACs top Iran specialist. Franklin, described by his colleagues as a naïve ideologue who, as Haaretz put it, believes wholeheartedly in the neo-conservative approach, revealed classified information about possible Iranian-sponsored attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq. Franklin was apparently worried that U.S. policymakers were insufficiently alarmed over the alleged Iranian threat to our interests in Iraq and was looking to enlist AIPACand the Israeli governmentin pressuring policymakers to take a harder line on Tehran.

What he didnt know, as he spilled U.S. secrets, was that the FBI was recording his every word. It would be a while before he found out. Until then, he was watched, his phone conversations were recorded, and agents observed him trying to pass classified documents to an individual already under surveillance. However, as Newsweek described it, the unidentified Israeli spy was too smart for that, and insisted Franklin relate the information verbally.
An analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency, Franklin served in the Air Force Reserve and did several tours of duty attached to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. As Iran desk officer with the Defense Undersecretary for Policy, Near East South Asia, Franklin later moved to Douglas Feiths Office of Special Plans (OSP), where he and his fellow neocons cooked the intelligence on Iraq according to Ahmad Chalabis special recipe and then served it up piping hot to Dick Cheneys boys, who delivered it straight to the White House. As Seymour Hersh relates, they called themselves the Cabala bit of self-mockery that, in retrospect, seems all too descriptive. OSP functioned, in effect, as a parallel intelligence agency. Its mission was to bypass the CIA, the DIA, and the mainline intelligence community and give the War Party the answers they wanted. The cabalists did not limit their activities to writing up talking points, however, but also engaged in field operations that caught the attention of the State Department and the CIA.
In December 2001, Franklin, along with Harold Rhode, a Middle East expert and Franklins colleague in Feiths policy shop, and neoconservative writer Michael Ledeenat the time working for Feith as a consultantmet with the infamous Manucher Ghorbanifar, of Iran-Contra fame, and a group of Iranians, including a former high official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Also in attendance: Nicolo Pollari, head of the Italian intelligence service, and Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino. As writer Laura Rozen tells it, Ghorbanifar told me he has had fifty meetings with Michael Ledeen since September 11th, and that he has given Ledeen 4,000 to 5,000 pages of sensitive documents concerning Iran, Iraq and the Middle East, material no one else has received.
In trying to discover how Iran had gotten its hands on vital U.S. secrets, including information on how the U.S. was eavesdropping on the Iranian governments encrypted internal communications, the FBI must surely have taken some interest in these activities. Their chief suspect, after all, was Chalabi, whose Iraqi National Congress supplied much of the grist for the OSPs mill.
A raid on Chalabis Baghdad headquarters brought the whole affair into the open, and the Chalabi investigation has reared its head again in the Franklin affair. The Washington Post reports that the initial stage of the inquiry into Chalabis activities as a double agent focused on the activities of a US military reservist who was serving at the US Embassy in Israel.
When the FBI confronted Franklin and searched his home

[CTRL] US Hypocrisy on Ukraine

2004-12-09 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=4135

December 9, 2004

US Hypocrisy on Ukraine

by Rep. Ron Paul

President Bush said last week that, "Any election [in Ukraine], if there is one, ought to be free from any foreign influence." I agree with the president wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, it seems that several U.S. government agencies saw things differently and sent U.S. taxpayer dollars into Ukraine in attempt to influence the outcome.
We do not know exactly how many millions or tens of millions of dollars the United States government spent on the presidential election in Ukraine. We do know that much of that money was targeted to assist one particular candidate, and that through a series of cut-out non-governmental organizations (NGOs) both American and Ukrainian millions of dollars ended up in support of the presidential candidate, Viktor Yushchenko.
Let me add that I do not think we should be supporting either of the candidates. While I am certainly no supporter of Viktor Yushchenko, I am not a supporter of his opponent, Viktor Yanukovich, either. Simply, it is none of our business who the Ukrainian people select to be their president. And, if they feel the vote was not fair, it is up to them to work it out.
How did this one-sided U.S. funding in Ukraine come about? While I am afraid we may have seen only the tip of the iceberg, one part that we do know thus far is that the U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), granted millions of dollars to the Poland-America-Ukraine Cooperation Initiative (PAUCI), which is administered by the U.S.-based Freedom House.
PAUCI then sent U.S. government funds to numerous Ukrainian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This would be bad enough and would in itself constitute meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation. But, what is worse is that many of these grantee organizations in Ukraine are blatantly in favor of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko.
Consider the Ukrainian NGO International Center for Policy Studies. It is an organization funded by the U.S. government through PAUCI. On its Web site, we discover that this NGO was founded by George Soros' Open Society Institute. And further on we can see that Viktor Yushchenko himself sits on the advisory board!
And this NGO is not the only one the U.S. government funds that is openly supportive of Viktor Yushchenko. The Western Ukraine Regional Training Center, as another example, features a prominent USAID logo on one side of its Web site's front page and an orange ribbon of the candidate Yushchenko's party and movement on the other. By their proximity, the message to Ukrainian readers is clear: the U.S. government supports Yushchenko.
The Center for Political and Legal Reforms, another Ukrainian NGO funded by the U.S. government, features a link at the top of its Web site's front page to Viktor Yushchenko's personal Web site. Yushchenko's picture is at the top of this U.S.-government-funded Web site.
This May, the Virginia-based private management consultancy Development Associates, Inc., was awarded $100 million by the U.S. government "for strengthening national legislatures and other deliberative bodies worldwide." According to the organization's Web site, several million dollars from this went to Ukraine in advance of the elections.
As I have said, this may only be the tip of the iceberg. There may be many more such organizations involved in this twisted tale.
It is clear that a significant amount of U.S. taxpayer dollars went to support one candidate in Ukraine. Recall how most of us felt when it became known that the Chinese government was trying to funnel campaign funding to a U.S. presidential campaign. This foreign funding of American elections is rightly illegal. Yet, it appears that that is exactly what we are doing abroad. What we do not know, however, is just how much U.S. government money was spent to influence the outcome of the Ukrainian election.
Dozens of organizations are granted funds under the PAUCI program alone, and this is only one of many programs that funneled dollars into Ukraine. We do not know how many millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) sent to Ukraine through NED's National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute. Nor do we know how many other efforts, overt or covert, have been made to support one candidate over the other in Ukraine.
That is what I find so disturbing: there are so many cut-out organizations and sub-grantees that we have no idea how much U.S. government money was really spent on Ukraine, and most importantly how it was spent. Perhaps the several examples of blatant partisan support that we have been able to uncover are but an anomaly. I believe Congress and the American taxpayers have a right to know. I believe we urgently need an investigation by the Government Accounting Office into how much U.S. government

[CTRL] The Stop Loss Scam --- It's based on a lie

2004-12-08 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://antiwar.com/justin/

December 8, 2004

The 'Stop Loss' Scam It's based on a lie

by Justin Raimondo

"I believe I served my country honorably," says Specialist E-4 David W. Qualls:
"Even though I did not expect to be rotated to Iraq, I did my time and served to the best of my ability. And I was proud to serve. But the Army made an agreement with me and I expected them to honor it. Iraq is a very dangerous place and I have a family to support. I did what I said I would; it's only fair that the Army do the same."
Qualls and seven unidentified plaintiffs have filed a class action suit: they are suing the U.S. government for breach of contract. The target of their ire is the Pentagon's "stop loss" edict that permits the military to keep them far beyond the stretch they signed up for in effect, indefinitely.
Involuntary servitude was supposedly abolished with the Emancipation Proclamation: will we need another one that covers members of our supposedly volunteer military? Apparently so.
The legal basis of the "stop loss" scam is contained in an executive order issued by George W. Bush invoking "the authority vested in me as president by the Constitution" yes, but of what country? Venezuela?
Surely he cannot mean the U.S. Constitution, which nowhere gives the president the authority to declare a national emergency, never mind unilaterally declare specific emergency measures without the consent of the people's representatives. These brazen blasphemers invoke the Constitution, even as they violate it. But the lies don't end there.
The executive order also refers to the president's authority according to
"The laws of the United States of America, including the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and in furtherance of the proclamation of September 14, 2001, Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks, which declared a national emergency by reason of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, New York, New York, and the Pentagon, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States."
U.S. law, however, does not, give the president a blank check when it comes to declaring "national emergencies." As a check on presidential power, the U.S. code provides that:
"Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated."
If such a momentous act as the declaration of a national emergency has been passed by Congress twice a year since 2001 then certainly we would have heard about it. The news media, ever-vigilant for new causes of panic (especially during the holiday season) would surely have trumpeted the news. But we haven't heard a word. What's up with that?
The legal mystery is not clarified by consulting Title 3, section 301 of the U.S. Code, which simply allows the president to delegate his duties but not to expand his powers beyond those granted by the Constitution, or the law of the land.
While Specialist Qualls fully supports the Iraq war, and argues simply that he did his duty, and now it's time to move on, this class-action suit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights strikes at the very heart of the president's rationale for the conquest and occupation of Iraq. The argument of the War Party has been, from the beginning, that Iraq posed a direct threat to the United States that the war was and still is the central front in a more generalized "war on terrorism." This administration labored mightily to convince itself, and then the rest of the country, that Saddam Hussein was somehow connected to the 9/11 attacks but only Laurie Mylroie believes that, now, along with a few die-hard delusional neocons over at the Weekly Standard.
If this administration is concerned about the imminence of another terrorist attack, similar to the events of 9/11/01, then why doesn't our commander-in-chief bring U.S. troops home from Iraq to guard our porous borders? There have been several cases in which suspicious individuals with possible links to al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have attempted to cross into the U.S. from Mexico; and Canada, not exactly friendly territory these days, has notoriously lax immigration laws. In short: forget Fallujah. There is more danger of another 9/11 emanating from south of the Rio Grande and north of Niagara Falls, than there ever will be in the Sunni triangle.
In terms of Bush's post-9/11 declaration, and according to the law, the president's authority to call up the military reserves under the colors of a "national emergency" is limited in scope and duration unless, that is, the administration follows its typical post-9/11 pattern of arguing that the new doctrine of presidential

[CTRL] 63 Years Of Lies

2004-12-07 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/gregory/gregory27.html

Sixty-Three Years of Lies
byAnthony Gregory

Sixty-three years ago, on December 7, 1941 , more than three hundred Japanese planes descended upon Pearl Harbor in a horrendous surprise attack. Or, at least it was a surprise for the American servicemen and civilians who resided at the base, some 2,400 of whom perished in the terrible onslaught.
Despite the difficulties confronted by historians and others who attempted to reveal that Franklin Roosevelt likely had foreknowledge of these attacks, the case is fairly solid now. Robert Stinnetts groundbreaking book, Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, contains the best argument and evidence, so far. The US government had broken the codes necessary to learn of an imminent threat, and FDR had pursued a deliberate policy of provoking the Japanese cutting off their oil supply, assisting their enemies in China, ignoring their diplomatic attempts to ensure peace with the United States, and placing US military personnel in harms way near Japan in order to get them to fire the first shot and open a backdoor into a war against Germany. Others have compellingly argued that the US government also wanted to exert US global dominance in the Pacific, which it feared would be undercut by the Japanese.
Of course, you can expect to hear the establishment media wax patriotic today, drawing similarities between 12/7 and 9/11 as days that the United States was attacked without provocation or warning, simply because out countrys freedom and greatness enrage foreign aggressors and incite them to attack us. Both historical events, say the hawkish American media and intelligentsia, demonstrate that the US government must engage in active military campaigns overseas, and eschew the traditional US foreign policy of military isolation prescribed by so many wise men of America s founding generation, lest America will be attacked, anyway, unready to defend itself.
We fight them there so we dont have to fight them here. We occupy, terrorize and bomb Iraq to stop 9/11s here, just as we firebombed dozens of Japanese cities to prevent future Pearl Harbors.
Nearly every one of the US wars has a pervasive, insidious mythology of lies surrounding it. Strangely enough, America was always attacked first. The Maine . The Lusitania . Pearl Harbor , the Gulf of Tonkin and 9/11. These were what convinced so many Americans to follow their government into war, and each time America was portrayed as the unquestionable victim that wished to live peacefully with the world and mind its own business but was tragically forced into war by foreigners who couldnt mind their own.
Since Pearl Harbor , the government lies have mounted at a disgusting and alarming pace. Nowadays, politicians will lie about anything and everything.
They will lie about budgets and fiscal solvency, saying we had budget surpluses in the late 1990s, ignoring the Social Security receipts and other off-budget expenses that caused the debt to increase continually despite the surpluses, and saying that the budget can be cut in half in five years at the current rate of congressional and presidential fiscal irresponsibility.
They will lie about drugs, saying that marijuana is a gateway drug as dangerous and addictive as cocaine, and that the Netherlands has a worse drug problem than America because the Dutch drug laws are insufficiently draconian.
They will say that the Federal Reserve keeps inflation low, even though central banking constantly devalues the dollar and only appears not to at times because the natural deflation of the market offsets the inflation.
They will lie about guns, saying that gun control makes us safer and that people are criminals simply for owning certain firearms.
They will say they respect the Constitution, even though practically every single thing they do violates multiple provisions of the document, even by the most statist, Hamiltonian interpretation of its text.
They will lie about what produces wealth and from where rights originate, implying and outright saying every chance they get that the government deserves credit for both.
They will lie to children in schools, telling them that the government saved America from the Great Depression, combated racism whenever it was sufficiently empowered to do so, and has protected the land, water and air from greedy businessmen who have always wanted nothing more than a laissez faire economy.
They will lie about war the most, saying the US government has always supported freedom and hasnt made deals with Iran or Saddam Hussein or the Khmer Rouge or a dozen other corrupt dictators and regimes, when it most certainly has, and saying the government has always supported democracy, when it most certainly has not.
They will say that the US government saved the world from fascism in World War II and from Communism in the Cold War, and is in the

[CTRL] Is France Really Our Enemy?

2004-12-07 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://vdare.com/williamson/041206_france.htm

December 06, 2004
Miller Watch (Resumed): Is France Really Our Enemy?
By Chilton Williamson Jr.
John J. Miller was described as the most unscrupulous of contemporary immigration enthusiasts by Peter Brimelow in the new Afterword to Alien Nation because of his uninhibited habit of simply lying about statistics and what his opponents were actually saying. Millers hiring by National Review immediately after John OSullivan firing as editor in 1999 was a clear sign that owner William F. Buckley had caved on immigration reform. At VDARE.COM, we started a Miller Watch series to keep him line. We succeeded too well, because he stopped writing about immigration altogether. Now it appears he has transferred his technique to diplomatic history.
One word I can think of to describe Miller and Mark Moleskys book Our Oldest Enemy: A History of Americas Disastrous Relationship With France is vulgar. Another is naïve. Still another is just plain silly. [Vdare.com Note: Foreign Affairs Magazine likes "shoddy and biased"]
Miller and his co-author (an old school chum who teaches history at Seton Hall University), are very angry with France and with the French. The proximate reason is President Chiracs opposition to the Iraq War. An amazing list of more distant reasons is also adduced, ranging from the French-Indian Wars of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the XYZ and Citizen Genet Affairs of the 1790s, Napoleons insults to the young American republic, Napoleon IIIs contemplated support of the Confederacy and his invasion of Mexico (perhaps if hed won, the Border Patrol would today be arresting Frenchmen in berets along the U.S.-Mexican border?), Clemenceaus bamboozling of President Wilson at Versailles, Jean-Paul Sartre, Charles De Gaulle, and Deconstructionism.
Only at the conclusion of the book, with its coy references to the French peoples historic levels of anti-Semitic sentiment and the French governments failure to grapple with a rising tide of anti-Semitic sentiment, are we given a hint at what is really eating the authors.
Miller and Molesky have chosen such a long and improbable way around to make their point (somewhat on the order of attacking Iraq in order to defend the United States) that somehow we have ceased to care when finally they get around to it.
Like An End to Evil by Richard Perle and Millers colleague at National Review, David Frum, Our Oldest Enemy comes just a few months too late to deliver whatever conviction it might ever have carried. Trying to make Jacques Chirac a villain when he deserves rather to be treated as a prophet and a hero, having his health toasted in Beaujolais nouveau from the Azores to the Danube, is as absurd as it is childish.
There are no demonstrations in Paris or Berlin demanding that the French and German governments revisit their decision against sending troops to reinforce President Bushs Grand Coalition in Iraq. On the contrary, Spains conservative government has been ousted for signing on with the United States, Berlusconis in Italy is threatened, and Tony Blairs is a shambles.
If anything remains to be said about M. Chirac in this regard, it is that he has behaved in a gentlemanly way during the course of the American debácle in Iraq, never once giving rein to what must be the certain temptation to say, I told you so. For some people, it seems, civility is simply not an ordeal.
Meanwhile, concerning this oldest enemy business, a few thoughts at random:

Our oldest enemy, even by Millers Moleskys account, is not the French; it is the American Indian.

France in the colonial period, and during the American Revolution, was not fighting Americans or America, as such: It was fighting its centuries-old enemyEnglandand the Empire the British had created.
France was, in fact, playing what came in the late nineteenth century to be called the Great Game. (Miller Molesky admit as much in their discussion of Frances role in aiding the American revolutionists.) If the authors believe the Worlds Sole Superpower they are eager to defend at every turn is not engaged today in a Great Game of its own, they have no business writing about world politics at all.

Our first enemy - after the Noble Red Man, of coursewas our parent people, the British. They not only interfered as often as the French in the affairs of our young republic for a century following independence (they fought an actual war with us in 1812), but who condescended to and insulted us equally.
Molesky Miller are offended by a nineteenth-century French author who described Americans as
a people of ignorant shopkeepers and narrow-minded industrialists, who do not have on the whole surface of their continent a single work of artwho do not have in their libraries a single science book not written by the hand of a foreigner; who do not have a single social institution not patterned after an

[CTRL] Iraq War's Grave Toll

2004-12-07 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-







http://vdare.com/roberts/041207_toll.htm


December 07, 2004
Iraq Wars Grave Toll
By Paul Craig Roberts
On December 6, Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld promised four more years of death and destruction in Iraq. 
Assuming the war continues to cost the US taxpayers $6 billion per monthnot including reconstruction costs, fat no-bid contracts for the Bush administrations major contributors, and replacement costs of the military equipment that is being blown apart and worn outthat comes to $288 billion. Add that sum to the $149 billion the war has already cost US taxpayers for a total of $437 billion.Turning to the human toll, from March 20, 2003 to December 7, 2004 (approximately 21 months) the Pentagon says 1,280 US troops have been killed and 9,765 wounded in Iraq. 
The Pentagons wounded figure conflicts with the report from the US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, that as of Thanksgiving week the hospital has treated almost 21,000 Americans injured in Iraq. 
According to the hospital, more than half were too badly injured to return to their units. Assuming no escalation in the insurgency, a continuation of four more years of war would result in another 2,925 US troops being killed for a total of 4,205. Using the Pentagons wounded figure, 22,320 more US troops would be injured for a total of 32,085. Using the US military hospitals figure, another 48,000 US troops would be wounded for a total of 69,000.Assuming the US is able to keep 138,000 US troops in Iraq during Bushs second term, US dead and wounded (Pentagon figure) would comprise 26% of the US force in Iraq. 
Using the military hospitals figure, US dead and wounded would comprise 53% of our entire army in Iraq.The present military manpower system cannot provide replacements for these losses. Current troop strengths are being maintained by calling up reserve and National Guard units and by extending soldiers tours of duty beyond the contractual period, a practice that US troops are contesting in court. 
Tens of thousands of careers, marriages, and family finances are being disrupted and destroyed by the commitment of reserve and National Guard units to war in Iraq. What is Bush achieving in return for such horrendous costs?Bush has destroyed our alliances and the good will of a half century of US foreign policy.Bush has created an insurgency were there was none.Bush has destroyed US prestige in the Middle East and reduced Americas support among Middle Eastern populations to the single digits.Bush has made Osama bin Laden a hero and recruited tens of thousands of terrorists to his ranks, while simultaneously alienating Middle Easterners from the secular puppet rulers we have imposed on them.At a minimum Bush is responsible for between 14,619 and 16,804 Iraqi civilian deaths during the 21 months since the invasion. 
Compiled from hospital, morgue, and media reports, these figures understate civilian deaths. In keeping with Islams quick burial requirement, many Iraqis were buried in sports fields and in back gardens during protracted US assaults on urban areas. A recent report in the British medical journal, The Lancet, estimates that 100,000 Iraqis have been killed since March 20, 2003. 
This figure does not include the large number of Iraqi deaths from the embargo and US bombing for more than a decade prior to the US invasion.Projecting the reported Iraqi civilian deaths for four more years of US occupation produces a figure of 51,621 civilians killed as collateral damage. Projecting The Lancets figure produces a figure of 328,571 civilian deaths by the end of Bushs second term. Then there are the civilian injured, for which there appear to be no figures. If we assume the same ratio of killed to wounded for civilian deaths as holds for the US military, the reported death figure gives a civilian wounded figure of 392,320. The Lancet estimate gives a wounded figure of 2,497,139.The ratio of 7.6 wounded US troops for each soldier killed is probably low for calculating civilian Iraqi wounded. US forces travel in armored vehicles, are protected with helmets and body armor and are not on the receiving end of artillery and massive bombs that kill everything in a quarter mile radius. 
The ratio could easily be 10 or 15 wounded Iraqi civilians for every one killed. Did the Americans who reelected Bush know that the president who will admit to no mistake is locked on a course that will squander a half trillion dollars for no purpose other than to kill and wound between 36,290 and 73,205 US troops, with collateral damage to Iraqi civilians ranging from 443,941 to 2,825,710 dead and wounded?If Saddam Hussein is a mass murderer, what does that make President Bushand those who reelected him?








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[CTRL] The New Cold War

2004-12-06 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://antiwar.com/justin/



December 6, 2004 

The New Cold War We're in a "war of civilizations"  and not just against Islam 

by Justin Raimondo



The U.S. effort to export "democracy" to Ukraine has some skeptics of interventionism baffled and confused. A seeming throwback to the Soviet era, Leonid Kuchma, and his chosen heir, ward-heeler Viktor Yanukovich, were widely perceived as having stolen the election, and the Ukrainian Supreme Court, supposedly a tool of the regime, agreed. While one may argue about which side engaged in election fraud, and to what extent, in any case the Yanukovich crowd is closer to the Sopranos than the Boy Scouts, and anything would seem to be an improvement. Hundreds of thousands of orange-clad protesters seem to think so. But the view from Kiev is quite different from that of Washington, where the Ukrainian divide is depicted in more realistic terms: as the latest front in a geopolitical struggle for power. 
Listen to neoconservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, who writes with eye-watering clarity about the hypocrisy and double standards employed by Western liberal cheerleaders for Yushchenko who question the bona fides of the U.S. effort to implant "democracy" in Iraq:
"Zbigniew Brzezinski, a fierce opponent of the Bush administration's democracy project in Iraq, writes passionately about the importance of democracy in Ukraine and how, by example, it might have a domino effect, spreading democracy to neighboring Russia. Yet when George Bush and Tony Blair make a similar argument about the salutary effect of establishing a democracy in the Middle East  and we might indeed have the first truly free election in the Middle East within two months if we persevere  'realist' critics dismiss it as terminally naive."
The conflict dividing Ukraine, Krauthammer writes, is "civilizational" war, with an evil authoritarian Russia on one side and the angels of the West on the other:
"So let us all join hands in praise of the young people braving the cold in the streets of Kiev. But then tell me why there is such silence about the Iraqis, young and old, braving bullets and bombs, organizing electorate lists and negotiating coalitions even as we speak. Where is it written: Only in Ukraine?"
Critics of Western intervention in Iraq questioned the democratic-liberal bona fides of an "opposition" headed by an embezzler with a deserved reputation as a ruthless opportunist, whose U.S.-funded Iraqi National Congress fed our intelligence agencies  and the American media  a steady diet of lies about nonexistent Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction." But their skepticism evaporates like dew in the morning sun when it comes to those two dubious vessels of Ukrainian "democracy," former prime minister and head of the central bank Viktor Yushchenko and oligarch Yulia Timoshenko (his sidekick and probable prime minister in a "reform" government). 
Yushchenko, as head of the National Bank of the Ukraine (NBU), presided over an unprecedented case of fraud, which enriched certain oligarchs and especially the firebrand Timoshenko and her faction, who control the western part of the country: their power is centered in the energy monopoly that is the domain of the "gas princess," as Timoshenko is popularly known. Remember that Chalabi, too, was a banker, but with this difference: while the Ali Baba of the neocons stole millions, not only from the Jordanian Petra Bank but also from U.S. taxpayers, and used it to benefit himself directly, scandal swirls around Yushchenko, but never actually touches him personally. He is seen as a "reformer" because he never enriched himself, only his cronies and political supporters.
Timoshenko's patron, the embezzler Pavlo Lazarenko  who, with the complicity of the NBU, stole a good portion of the International Monetary Fund bailout money and laundered it in the West  eventually had to flee the country, and was indicted and jailed in the U.S.
Yushchenko's Chalabi-esque tendency to spin some very tall tales is evidenced in his insistence that he was poisoned by some sinister conspiracy involving the pro-Yanukovich forces  darkly implying the KGB did it. This story has been trumpeted from here to Kingdom Come by the pro-Yushchenko Western media, but its ubiquity is reminiscent of the sort of open-mouthed credulity that accompanied Chalabi's lies about Iraqi WMD: as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, California, "There is no there there." The New York Times ran a story completely denying Yushchenko's contention, and then followed up with a more sympathetic but still skeptical and very revealing account:
"The candidate refused a biopsy of his face because he did not want to campaign with stitches. But dioxin and related toxins are detectable in the body years after exposure. [Yushchenko press secretary Irina] Gerashchenko said such tests had still not been performed."
Okay, so let's see if we get this straight: He was willing to campaign with a

[CTRL] What Are We Up to in Ukraine?

2004-12-06 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

December 6, 2004

What Are We Up to in Ukraine?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

In the 1940s, as Stalinists were seizing Czechoslovakia, ex-OSS agents were running bags of money to Italy and France to ensure the Communists were defeated in national elections.
In the 1950s, using a rent-a-mob, the CIA effected the ouster of an anti-American regime in Iran and the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala. In the 1980s, after Solidarity was crushed by Gen. Jaruzelski, Ronald Reagan secretly aided the Polish resistance.
Many of us applauded these Cold War means, as we believed that the ends security of the West and survival of freedom justified them.
But when news broke that South Africa was maneuvering to buy the Washington Star in the 1980s, this city was ablaze with indignation. How dare they seek to corrupt American media! In the 1990s, when China was caught using cutouts to funnel cash to the Clinton campaign, we were full of righteous rage.
Given this history, several question arise. Are we today using Cold War tactics in a post-Cold War era? Are we guilty of the same gross interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine, trying to fix their election, we would consider outrageous and criminal if done to us?
Are we Americans hypocrites of global democracy?
Consider what we have apparently been up to in Ukraine.
According to the Guardian and other sources, NED the National Endowment for Democracy and USAid, Freedom House, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and George Soros' Open Society Institute all pumped money or sent agents into Kiev to defeat the government-backed Viktor Yanukovich and elect Viktor Yushchenko as president. Allegedly in on the scheme is the supposedly objective and neutral Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The Guardian's Jonathan Steele describes how we put the fix in:
"Yushchenko got the Western nod, and floods of money poured in to groups which support him, ranging from the youth organization, Pora, to various opposition websites. More provocatively, the U.S. and other Western embassies paid for exit polls ..."
Those polls showed Yushchenko winning by 11, demoralizing the opposition and convincing most Ukrainians he was the next president.
But, on Election Day, Yushchenko, like Kerry, lost by three, as the populous eastern Ukraine delivered the same huge margins for favorite son Yanukovich as did western Ukraine for Yushchenko.
Into the streets came scores of thousands of demonstrators, howling fraud and demanding that Yushchenko be inaugurated. Engaging in civil disobedience, and backed by the West, the crowds intimidated parliament, President Kuchma and the judiciary into declaring the election invalid.
John Laughland writes in the Guardian of the double standard our media employ: "Enormous rallies have been held in Kiev in support of the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, but they are not shown on our TV screen. ... Yanukovich supporters are denigrated as having been 'bussed in.' The demonstrators in favor of Yushchenko have laser lights, plasma screens, sophisticated sound systems, rock concerts, tents to camp in and huge quantities of orange clothing; yet we happily dupe ourselves that they are spontaneous."
Laughland is saying the Yushchenko demonstrations may be as phony as that U.S-Albanian war in the Dustin Hoffman-Robert DeNiro film Wag the Dog. He calls Pora "an organization created and financed by Washington," like Otpor and Kmara, which were used in Serbia and Georgia to oust leaders Washington wished to be rid of. Pora's symbol, writes Laughland, depicts "a jackboot crushing a beetle."
If the United States has indeed been interfering in Ukraine to swing the election of a president who will tilt to NATO, against Moscow, we are, as Steele writes, "playing with fire."
"Not only is [Ukraine] geographically and culturally divided a recipe for partition or even civil war it is also an important neighbor of Russia. ... Ukraine has been turned into a geostrategic matter not by Moscow, but by the U.S., which refuses to abandon the Cold War policy of encircling Moscow and seeking to pull every former Soviet republic to its side."
Our most critical relationship on earth is with the world's other great nuclear power, Russia, a nation suffering depopulation, loss of empire, breakup of its country, and a terror war. That relationship is far more important to us than who rules in Kiev.
For us to imperil it by using our perfected technique of the "post-modern coup" as we did in Serbia and Georgia and failed to do in Belarus to elect American vassals in Russia's backyard, even in former Soviet republics, seems an act of imperial arrogance and blind stupidity.
Congress should investigate NED and any organization that used clandestine cash or agents to fix the Ukrainian election, as the U.S. media appear to have gone into the tank for global democracy, as they did for war in Iraq.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS

[CTRL] Preemption for All!

2004-12-06 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

December 6, 2004

Preemption for All!

by Paul Craig Roberts

Has President Bush lost his grip on reality?
In his Dec. 1 speech in Halifax, Nova Scotia, President Bush again declared his intention to preemptively attack "enemies who plot in secret and set out to murder the innocent and the unsuspecting." Freedom from terrorism, Bush declared, will come only through preemptive war against enemies of democracy.
How does Bush know who and where these secret enemies are? How many more times will his guesses be wrong like he was about Iraq?
What world does Bush live in? The U.S. cannot control Iraq, much less battle the rest of the Muslim world and beyond. While Bush threatened the world with U.S. aggression, headlines revealed the futility of preemptively invading countries: "Pentagon to Boost Iraq Force by 12,000," "U.S. Death Toll in Iraq at Highest Monthly Level," "Wounded, Disabled Soldiers Kept on Active Duty."
We are getting our butts kicked in Iraq, and Bush wants to invade more countries? It is clear as day that we do not have enough troops to deal with Iraq. The 12,000 additional troops "to improve security" are being acquired by extending the combat tours of troops already on duty in Iraq. More U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq in November than in any previous month. The U.S. is so hard-up for troops that the Pentagon is deploying soldiers who have lost arms and legs in combat. On Dec. 1, the Washington Post reported: "U.S. armed forces have recently announced new efforts to keep seriously wounded or disabled soldiers on active duty."
Redeploying the disabled is presented as a heroic demonstration of our gung-ho warriors' fighting spirit. But what it really means is we have no more troops to throw at the few thousand lightly armed Iraqi insurgents who have tied down eight U.S. divisions.
According to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, the hospital has treated 20,802 U.S. troops for injuries received in Iraq. According to the Pentagon's figures, 54 percent of the wounded are too seriously injured to return to their units. If that figure is correct, it would mean that the insurgents have put 11,233 U.S. troops out of action. Add in the 1,254 U.S. troops who have been killed for a total of 12,487. That's 9 percent of our total force in Iraq and a much higher percentage of our combat force.
There is no indication that we have put 12,487 Iraqi insurgents out of action. Indeed, until very recently, the U.S. military estimated that there were only several thousand active insurgents in all of Iraq.
Someone needs to tell Bush that terrorists are stateless and that invading states creates insurgencies. In Iraq, our soldiers are not fighting terrorists. They are fighting an insurgency that Bush created by invading Iraq. Bush's preemptive wars are a good way to depopulate the U.S. and bankrupt our country.
For all our firepower, we are not winning the war. Fallujah has been destroyed, but the U.S. military can claim only 1,200-1,600 insurgents were killed. Many of the dead counted as insurgents are probably civilians killed by the U.S. military's indiscriminate use of high explosives. But even if we assume the military's estimate of enemy dead is accurate, it is an unimpressive figure in view of the 850 wounded and 71 dead Americans. U.S. Fallujah casualties of 921 is a strikingly high figure considering the heavy armor, artillery, helicopter gunships, jet fighters, and sophisticated communications that back up U.S. troops.
Why was Bush in Nova Scotia advocating preemptive invasion unless Bush has other Middle Eastern countries targeted? Iran and Syria are the only two remaining Middle Eastern countries that are not ruled by U.S. puppets.
Lacking sufficient military forces to successfully occupy Iraq, how is Bush going to engage in preemptive wars against Iran and Syria without bringing back the draft? If eight U.S. divisions can't do the job in Iraq, 16 U.S. divisions won't be enough for Iran. Defeating standing armies is a different game from occupying a hostile country. The U.S. military is good at the former, not at the latter.
Bush would serve our country and the rest of the world far better by ceasing his macho aggressive talk and working to create trust and good will. Bush is a very foolish man if he thinks America will bear no consequences for his support of Israel's appalling treatment of the Palestinians. Is Bush really as stupid as he sounds? Is the president of the United States so poorly informed that he believes that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have nothing to do with U.S. support of Israel's destruction of the Palestinian people?
Surely the American president is not so dumb as to believe that Osama bin Laden went to all the trouble of bringing down the World Trade Center simply because Muslims hate freedom and democracy? If all terrorists want to do is to show their disdain for Western freedom and democracy, they

[CTRL] Time For An Iraq Exit Plan

2004-12-05 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://vdare.com/guzzardi/041203_vfl.htm

View From Lodi, CA: Time For An Iraq Exit Plan
By Joe Guzzardi
For those of us who came of age during the Vietnam War, one question wont go away:
Will Iraq turn into another Vietnam?
While it may be too early to answer conclusively, there are enough parallels to cause concern.
In 1965, shortly after he was re-elected in a landslide, Lyndon Johnson spoke these words referring to Vietnam. They could easily be part of any recent George W. Bush speech about Iraq:
"Why must we take this painful road? Why must this nation hazard its ease, and its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away? We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny. And only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure."
As with Vietnam, U.S. soldiers face a determined enemy who will resort to whatever tactic availableterrorist attacks, village assassinations and car bombings.
Iraq, like Vietnam, is an ugly guerilla land war fueled by growing anti-American sentiment.
The Bush administration is at a crucial juncture. Bush faces the same choices as Johnson did nearly four decades ago:

Escalate the war to salvage his mission
Wind it down, declaring victory and going home
Maintain the status quo
To escalate presents serious problems.
Bush would have to realistically assess the troop needs in Iraq, something he seems unable to do. The consensus is that to stabilize Iraq about 400,000 additional troops are required.
Where will they come from? The Bush administration insists there will be no draft. But the Reserve and National Guard are close to fully mobilized. About 40% of the soldiers in Iraq are made up of Reservists or the National Guard.
Quotas for new enlistments have not been met. And, as reported by the Los Angeles Times in its November 25th story titled [Guardsmen Say Theyre Facing Iraq Ill-Trained,By Scott Gold] morale is dismally low and new recruits will be hard to come by. What options remain but the draft?
If you believe, as I do, that things are very bad in Iraq and if you further believe, as I do, that Bush will not walk away from Iraq, then a draft is inevitable.
But ratcheting up the Iraq Warand footing the post-war reconstruction billmeans that other Bush programs will suffer especially in light of the existing record deficits.
Remember that Johnson could not pull off his Guns and Butter approach to waging war in Vietnam and building the Great Society at home.
Option number two, winding the war down, might be the best solution but is inconsistent with anything Bush has indicated he is willing to do.
The Vietnam War dragged on for more than a decade before the U.S. finally pulled out. And since we have only been in Iraq for eighteen months, it seems improbable that the administration would consider withdrawing.
The final option, maintaining the status quo, is perhaps the least desirable of all. The current planif you can call it thatis headed toward disaster.
Things in Iraq did not improve after we conquered Baghdad or after we killed Uday and Kusay or after we captured Saddam or after we turned over sovereignty.
And conditions will not improve if and when January elections are held.
The reason is simple: insurgents cannot be defeated on their own turf.
So the Bush administrationand the nationfinds itself between a rock and a hard place regarding Iraq.
The stakes are high.
One of the soldiers who was willing to be interviewed for the record by the Los Angeles Times is Staff Sgt. Lorenzo Dominguez, 45.
Knowing that his candor could result in court-martial, Dominguez nevertheless spoke out about what he described as the demoralized, prison-like camp he finds himself part of:
Some of us are going to die there (Iraq) and some of us are going to die unnecessarily because of the lack of training. So I dont care. Let them court-martial me. I want the American people to know what is going on.
President Bush has not yet begun his second term.
In his inaugural address, if not before, he should come clean with the American people.
We deserve to know what his exit plan is for Iraq.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

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[CTRL] Kerik Is Not Fit To Serve As Homeland Security Chief

2004-12-04 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

Kerik Is Not Fit To Serve As Homeland Security Chief

DemWatch | Dec 04 2004
A few reasons why Bernard Kerik is not fit to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security...
1. Kerik has furthered the lie that Iraq was involved with 9/11:
New York Newsday, 10/20/03 (reposted here)
"Saddam didn't do 9/11. But did Saddam fund, and train al-Qaida? The answer is yes. Then ask yourself, who hit the towers?"
2. Kerik does not believe in the right to free political _expression_:
Also from New York Newsday, 10/20/03 (reposted here)
"Political criticism is our enemies' best friend."
3. Kerik may have perjured himself before the 9/11 Commission:
New York Times, 5/20/04
"On Tuesday, the first day of the hearings, Bernard B. Kerik, the former police commissioner under Mr. Giuliani, offered a version of events that conflicted with the accounts of virtually every senior official in the Fire Department. Mr. Kerik testified that he saw police officers serving as liaisons to the Fire Department at the main fire command post on West Street. Mr. Kerik identified only one of those officers, a police sergeant who died in the collapse."
4. Kerik has extensive ties to the terrorist-funding Saudi royal family:
BBC, 5/16/03
"Mr Kerik says he speaks a smattering or Arabic - from four years spent in Saudi Arabia training security staff."
Update: As Michael pointed out in the comments, this is kind of weak as criticism goes. To a certain extent, he's right. However, considering both the Saudi royal family's history of funding terrorists and their history of brutal repression of their own people, the fact that Kerik worked for them in security is pretty unattractive. Were Kerik looking at a job heading up security for a major international corporation, I'd shrug it off. But we're talking about the future Secretary of Homeland Security here. The Saudi ties are not something to be taken lightly.
5. Kerik's tactics as head of security the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority disturbed our British allies and inflamed tensions with Iraqi citizens:
London's Financial Times, 7/10/03
"Some UK officials have been appalled by the language and tactics used by the US security supremo, Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner dubbed the "Baghdad terminator" because of his uncompromising style.
"The Americans need to learn that civil policing is not about 'kicking ass', it is about democracy. There are going to be problems if we continue with our different philosophies and different approaches to law enforcement," one UK official said."
6. Kerik's term as head of security the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority was abruptly cut short, with no explanation, contradicting months of statements Kerik had made about his long-term commitment to the job:
May 2003: "I will be there at least six months - until the job is done."June 2003: "By the time he leaves -- in three to six months -- Kerik must create a police force that understands, as he puts it, 'the principles of a free and democratic society,' but has enough public respect to maintain order"No one, not even Kerik, thinks the task will be complete by then."August 2003: " 'We've only been here for 100 days and you want what? Come on!'"He predicts his job will be completed in the next two months, and then he will leave."September 2003: "The Bush administration's top security adviser in Iraq has completed his stint and is returning to the United States, the Pentagon said Friday."Kerik's departure comes amid severe security problems in Iraq."[D]efense officials said Friday that Kerik was scheduled to leave this summer and actually had 'extended his stay to finish his ongoing projects.'"A spokeswoman for Kerik in New York said his job was supposed to have lasted only 90 days."
7. During the recent Presidential campaign, Kerik openly employed fear as a political weapon, such as in this op-ed column:
New York Post, 11/1/04
"... the next plot might not be against our skyscrapers but our schools, that the next Madrid could be Penn Station and the next Beslan, Russia could be Bayonne, New Jersey."
8. Kerik's tenure as the head of NYC's Department of Corrections was marked by scandal:
New York Times, 12/3/02
Bernard B. Kerik, the man atop the Correction Department, administered Mr. Giuliani's unapologetic zero-tolerance approach faithfully, and his work in the jails ultimately led to his appointment as police commissioner in August 2000.
But now, a range of investigations into the conduct of some of the top lieutenants credited with the transformation of the city's jail system is threatening to sully one of Mr. Giuliani's accomplishments.
Mr. Kerik's successor, William J. Fraser, who had been one of Mr. Kerik's top officers, resigned last week after reports surfaced that he had used correction officers to do work at his house in Belle Harbor, Queens.
Both the Manhattan district attorney's office and its Bronx counterpart are also looking into concerns about senior officers at

[CTRL] Kerik's Life Not All Open Book

2004-12-04 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-







http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nyplaz034063980dec03,0,6336366.column?coll=ny-news-columnists


Kerik's life not all an open book




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The story of Bernard Kerik, who sources say President George W. Bush has tapped as Homeland Security director, is literally one of rags to riches.It is the story of a man who overcame economic hardships and a lack of formal education through the sheer force of his personality.It is also a story of a man whose life and career have been dogged by charges of impropriety, although none have stuck.And it is a story of mystery as key details of Kerik's life remain untold.According to his autobiography, "The Lost Son," Kerik grew up in Paterson, N.J., the son of an alcoholic father and a mother who abandoned him to become a prostitute.Kerik, a high school dropout, enlisted in the Army at age 19 and was sent to Korea, where he fathered a daughter. He spent two years in Saudi Arabia as a contract military employee, then returned to New Jersey and joined the Passaic County sheriff's department, becoming warden of the county jail.While in Saudi Arabia, he applied to the NYPD but never received a reply. With a flourish characteristic of many of his actions, he wrote a letter of complaint to then mayor Ed Koch. An application was sent forthwith.Joining the NYPD in 1986, he became an undercover narcotics detective. In 1991, as Rudolph Giuliani began his campaign for mayor, Kerik volunteered as his driver and advance man. After his election, Giuliani appointed him correction commissioner.There, Kerik was said to have boosted staff morale and reduced inmate-on-inmate crime.In August 2000, Giuliani appointed Kerik to succeed Howard Safir as police commissioner. He selected Kerik, an eight-year veteran and third-grade detective, over First Deputy Joe Dunne, a 30-year veteran. Kerik's selection came despite the fact that he lacked a college degree - a requirement established in 1985 by then-Commissioner Ben Ward for anyone promoted above captain.Kerik continued to keep crime down, while mending relationships with blacks and Hispanics, which deteriorated under Safir largely because of the Amadou Diallo shooting and the sodomizing of Abner Louima.Then, 9/11 occurred. With Giuliani, Kerik became a constant presence at the World Trade Center site.At the same time, Kerik was accused of using photographs taken by detectives at the WTC site for his book, which was published that November. He agreed to pay $2,500 to settle a Conflict of Interest Board finding that he had improperly used three city cops to travel to Ohio to learn details about his mother for the book.After his publisher, Judith Regan, complained her cell phone was stolen while she was on a Fox television show, detectives were sent to the homes of Fox employees who were on the set at the time.He was also accused of awarding the department's top medals to his cronies, one of whom was the chief who sent the detectives to the homes of the Fox employees. A second was one of the cops who traveled to Ohio.Earlier this year, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly raised questions about Kerik's ordering four $50,000 high-tech doors for One Police Plaza, although no one has produced any evidence of this.Nonetheless, Kerik's aura from 9/11 was such that during the 2001 mayoral campaign, Michael Bloomberg told voters he had asked Kelly to persuade Kerik to stay as commissioner. Instead, when Giuliani's term ended, Kerik resigned. The Bernard B. Kerik correction complex on Center Street is named for him. He also had the Police Foundation, a non-profit group that funds the commissioner's pet projects, pay a few thousands dollars for miniature busts of him to be given to his friends.At Kerik's retirement dinner at the Sheraton in 2002, his long-lost Korean daughter appeared at his table. She and Kerik had recently reunited and she was already accepted into his family.Then, in 2003, Kerik announced he was taking a six-month government assignment in Iraq to train the national police. He left after three months for reasons he has never explained.In 2002, he joined the board of Taser International. Last month, as Taser's president and chief executive each sold $20 million of stock, Kerik sold his for $5.7 million.Recent disclosures have questioned the safety of Taser's electrical guns, which are used by thousands of police departments. Did Kerik sell because he anticipated his Homeland Security appointment? Or is this the latest Kerik mystery? 








Let us

[CTRL] Fallujah Residents Face Choice: Retina Scan and Take ID Card....Or Die

2004-12-04 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2004/021204facechoice.htm

Fallujah Residents Face Choice: Retina Scan and Take ID CardOr Die
Alex Jones Show | December 2 2004
A caller to the Alex Jones show played a segment from Tom Brokaw's last broadcast on NBC which featured a report from Iraq clearly stating that residents of Fallujah (civilians, NOT insurgents) would be forced to give fingerprints, retina scan and take an ID card or be killed.
Here is the transcript from the report
-
Reporter: "So far the plan is for most of the city's 250,000 residents to return in stages and first only a few thousand will be let in.
They'll be fingerprinted, given a retina scan and then an ID card, which will only allow them to travel around their homes or to nearby aid centers which are now being built.
The Marines will be authorized to use deadly force against those breaking the rulesTom?"
Brokaw: "Richard, what's the latest on the election? "
-
Alex has been documenting for years in his acclaimed Police State videos the fact that this same system is being introduced in the US.
The so-called 'liberation' of Iraq is a test run for when the soldiers over there now become police in the US. From sound wave weapons to detention camps and torture, everything being inflicted on the Iraqis is being introduced in America.
Alex Jones comments
In 1999 I traveled to Oakland California to cover the Marine Corps execution of Operation Urban Warrior. Thousands of Marines opnely trained to biometrically scan American citizens, seperate the men, women and children in a concentration camp environment, and conduct interrogations. Video in my film, Police State 2000 shows Marine Corps officers questioning role-players who were posing as American resistance fighters. Loudspeakers informed the population of the mock camp filled with hundreds of role-players, that if they tried to escape or resist they would be killed.
Now the public consciousness is so seared that an NBC reporter can just nonchalantly talk about an instant death penalty for anyone that doesn't have their biometric card in order or that strays off pre-determined paths on their way to authorized destinations. The Nazis did the same thing in the Polish ghettos. This is total seige, it is the highest _expression_ of pure martial law. ID cards are now being issued across Iraq, the entire country and its 23 million inhabitants are simply being straight-jacketed so the Globalists can continue the oldest form of total war - seige - upon them.
From thousands of credible reports, from reporters on the ground, we know that Iraq is now descending into a black hole. And I want all of the soft, decadent, bloated, demon-possessed, Neo-Con followers to enjoy themselves. Sit in your easy chairs, cheer the slaughter of over a hundred thousand innocent people. Feel like you're part of this global iron fist. Look at it from your coddled position and know - you don't have to fear the CIA controlled Al-CIAda, you had better fear your Globalist masters because they don't give a damn about you. I've got the government documents, I've got the video. The government's been training to do this to you for a long time. So cheer like it's a football game. Cheer the death of all those innocent children. And know that through your weakness and your lack of historical understanding, you have allowed America to lose its soul. Now prepare to reap what you sow. And as your Globalist owners are raping the hell out of you financially, spiritually, mentally, I know you're so weak-minded you'll thank them for it and blame some imaginary turban-headed bogeyman.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

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[CTRL] Baby Gap --- How Birthrates Color The Electoral Map

2004-12-04 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.amconmag.com/2004_12_06/cover.html

December 20, 2004 issueCopyright © 2004 The American Conservative
Baby Gap
How birthrates color the electoral map
By Steve Sailer
Despite the endless verbiage expended trying to explain Americas remarkably stable division into Republican and Democratic regions, almost no one has mentioned the obscure demographic factor that correlated uncannily with states partisan splits in both 2000 and 2004.
Clearly, the issues that so excite political journalists had but a meager impact on most voters. For example, the press spent the last week of the 2004 campaign in a tizzy over the looting of explosives at Iraqs al-Qaqaa munitions dump, but, if voters even noticed al-Qaqaa, their reactions were predetermined by their party loyalty.
The 2000 presidential election, held during peace and prosperity, became instantly famous for illuminating a land culturally divided into a sprawling but thinly populated red expanse of Republicans broken up by small but densely peopled blue archipelagos of Democrats.
Four years of staggering events ensued, during which President Bush discarded his old humble foreign policy for a new one of nearly Alexandrine ambitions. Yet the geographic and demographic profiles of Bush voters in 2004 turned out almost identical to 2000, with the country as a whole simply nudged three points to the right.

Only a few groups appeared to have moved more than the average. The counties within commuting distance of New Yorks World Trade Center became noticeably less anti-Bush. Yet even the one purported sizable demographic changethe claim by the troubled exit poll that Bush picked up nine points among Hispanicsappears to be an exaggeration caused by small sample sizes and poor survey techniques. In the real world, Hispanic counties swung toward Bush only about as much as everybody else did.
That the president launched a war under false pretenses no doubt caused a few highly-informed constituencies, such as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the subscribers to this magazine, to shift many of their votes, but almost every group large enough to be measurable by exit polling was relatively stable. If they supported Bushs foreign policy in 2000, they supported his contrary stance in 2004 and vice versa.
Still, this doesnt mean voters are choosing red or blue frivolously. Indeed, voters are picking their parties based on differing approaches to the most fundamentally important human activity: having babies. The white people in Republican-voting regions consistently have more children than the white people in Democratic-voting regions. The more kids whites have, the more pro-Bush they get.
Ill focus primarily on Caucasians, who overall voted for Bush 58-41, in part because they are doing most of the arguing over the meaning of the red-blue division. The reasons blacks vote Democratic are obvious, and other racial blocs are smaller. Whites remain the 800-pound gorilla of ethnic electoral groups, accounting for over three out of every four votes.
The single most useful and understandable birthrate measure is the total fertility rate. This estimates, based on recent births, how many children the average woman currently in her childbearing years will have. The National Center for Health Statistics reported that in 2002 the average white woman was giving birth at a pace consistent with having 1.83 babies during her lifetime, or 13 percent below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. This below-replacement level has not changed dramatically in three decades.
States, however, differ significantly in white fertility. The most fecund whites are in heavily Mormon Utah, which, not coincidentally, was the only state where Bush received over 70 percent. White women average 2.45 babies in Utah compared to merely 1.11 babies in Washington, D.C., where Bush earned but 9 percent. The three New England states where Bush won less than 40 percentMassachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Islandare three of the four states with the lowest white birthrates, with little Rhode Island dipping below 1.5 babies per woman.
Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility (just as he did in 2000), and 25 out of the top 26, with highly unionized Michigan being the one blue exception to the rule. (The least prolific red states are West Virginia, North Dakota, and Florida.)
In sharp contrast, Kerry won the 16 states at the bottom of the list, with the Democrats anchor states of California (1.65) and New York (1.72) having quite infertile whites.
Among the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., white total fertility correlates at a remarkably strong 0.86 level with Bushs percentage of the 2004 vote. (In 2000, the correlation was 0.85.) In the social sciences, a correlation of 0.2 is considered low, 0.4 medium, and 0.6 high.
You could predict 74 percent of the variation in Bushs shares just from knowing each states white fertility rate.

[CTRL] Jail the War Party

2004-12-03 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://antiwar.com/justin/

December 3, 2004

Jail the War Party For treason

by Justin Raimondo

It was very obviously a well-planned operation, executed with military precision: the FBI moved in on a nondescript office building near the Capitol, Wednesday morning, arriving at 10, and staying until past 4. p.m. According to one source, "this was a massive raid the FBI surrounded" the place and carted away a load of evidence. "This is no joke," the source told journalist Laura Rozen.
Another raid on an Islamic charity with alleged ties to terrorists? A drug bust? A hit on a child porn ring? No, none of the above: instead, the G-men's target was the Washington headquarters of what Fortune magazine has rated the second most powerful lobbying outfit in the nation's capital: the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
This will make the second time this year that the feds have come knocking on AIPAC's door: the first was in late summer, when the Larry Franklin case first surfaced and was trumpeted on major news media outlets, including CBS. Franklin, mid-level Pentagon official, had been caught red-handed supplying Israeli government officials with classified information via two AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. As the story began to come out, it became apparent that Franklin was just a small fish in a much larger aquarium, and had been scooped up in this web of intrigue almost by accident. As Laura Rozen and Jason Vest relate in The American Prospect:
"In late July, as this debate raged, a Pentagon analyst named Larry Franklin telephoned an acquaintance who worked at a pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)."
Franklin, who works in the policy shop run by the neocons' man on the ground, Douglas Feith, told his AIPAC friend that he was worried about U.S. government inaction in the face of alleged attempts by Iran to penetrate southern Iraq and counter growing Israeli influence in Kurdistan. A meeting was arranged. A few weeks later, as Rosen and Vest report, FBI agents showed up at the door of Franklin's friend, asking about the Iran analyst in what seemed like a routine background check.
In truth, the agents were interested in far more than Franklin: the FBI's counterintelligence unit had been eavesdropping on AIPAC for over two years, in what appears to be a wide-ranging and rapidly developing investigation into Israeli penetration of U.S. government agencies. Franklin had been swept up in a massive and ongoing counterintelligence operation aimed at a cabal of high-level Israeli moles.
The Franklin affair was leaked to the media, and the FBI, which had been hoping to catch bigger fish than a mid-level analyst, was forced into action: they raided AIPAC's headquarters, copied computer disks belong to Rosen and Weissman, and conducted interviews with a number of employees. Rosen and Weissman soon stopped answering questions, however, and demanded legal counsel.
The story gathered headlines for a few days, and then disappeared off the radar screen as quickly and mysteriously as it had appeared until now. In this latest raid, the feds not only carried away bales of evidence, but they also came bearing gifts: four subpoenas summoning AIPAC's executive director, Howard Kohr, managing director Richard Fishman, research director Raphael Danziger, and Renee Rothstein, the group's communications director, to testify before a grand jury. The investigation, formerly conducted by FBI counterintelligence czar David W. Szady, was transferred to the jurisdiction of U.S. attorney Paul J. McNulty, in Alexandria, Virginia: the Financial Times reported, just before the presidential election, that agents were being told to turn down the heat. But the heat is on again, and there is every prospect that it will get much hotter for AIPAC and Israel's amen corner in the U.S. even as the winter cold sets in.
The simple reason for a sudden change in the weather is that, as one official put it, "This is no joke." What is involved here is nothing less than treason a spy ring far more sophisticated and dangerous to U.S. national security than the infamous Jonathan Pollard espionage operation conducted by Israel in the 1980s. The AIPAC spy scandal goes way beyond Franklin, as the Washington Post reported back in the beginning of September:
"The FBI probe is actually much broader, according to senior U.S. officials, and has been underway for at least two years. Several sources familiar with the case say the probe now extends to other Pentagon personnel who have a particular interest in assisting both Israel and Chalabi, the former Iraqi dissident who was long a Pentagon favorite but who has fallen out of favor with the U.S. government."
Post reporters Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks identified "at least two common threads" in this complex and multi-pronged investigation:
"First, the FBI is investigating whether the same people passed

[CTRL] Deer-Hunter Slayings: Why Immigrants Kill

2004-12-01 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Francis/Principalities.html

November 30, 2004

DEER-HUNTER SLAYINGS: WHY IMMIGRANTS KILL by Samuel Francis

Just exactly how many murders will it take to convince the Open Borders lobby, whose leader now seems to be President Bush, that mass Third World immigration is not such a good idea? Up in Wisconsin, a gentleman named Chai Soua Vang, a 36-year-old Hmong immigrant, just blew away six people, apparently because they threw him out of their privately owned deer stand he had decided to take over for his own use.Ten years ago, immigration expert Roy Beck wrote a path-breaking article in the Atlantic Monthly about the Hmong immigrants in Wausau, Wisc.a discussion he repeated in his later book, "The Case Against Immigration.""The number of Southeast Asians burgeoned, and the city's ability to welcome, nurture, accommodate and assimilate the larger numbers shrank. Most immigrants were unable to enter the mainstream of the economy. Residents resented the social costs of caring for many more newcomers than anybody had been led to believe would arrive. ... Inter-ethnic violence and other tensions proliferated in the schools and in the parks and streets of a town that formerly had been virtually free of social tensions and violence."That's only a selection, but what Beck described is the predictable result of the mass immigration of a radically different people into a homogeneous community.Obviously, not all or even most immigrants turn out to be spree killers, and obviously there are plenty of homegrown onesCharles Manson, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, et al. But in recent years immigrants, and especially those from non-Western and non-white parts of the world, have contributed more than their fair share to the annals of atrocity crimes.The most obvious is the World Trade Center in 2001, but well before that Jamaican immigrant Colin Ferguson murdered six passengers on a commuter train on Long Island in 1993. Pakistani immigrant Mir Aimal Kansi murdered two people outside CIA headquarters in the same year, which was the year after aliens first tried to blow up the World Trade Center. In 1997, immigrant Ali Abu Kamal shot up the tourists at the Empire State Building, and later two more immigrants were arrested for trying to blow up the New York subway system. There are a number of other cases that made national news at the time.Are they all just coincidences? Not exactly. The link between immigration and violence is that the aliens lack roots in the society and civilization into which they import themselves. The people they see aren't their people, and their moral and social norms aren't theirs, either. Being strangers in a strange land, they feel little obligation to it or its members. For immigrants on the fringe, the resulting tensions can overflow, and it's not easy even for those not so fringe.Thus, The Washington Post, not exactly a hotbed of nativist bigotry, offers this editorializing in its news article about the Wisconsin killings."Rules and etiquette on American hunting passed from generation to generation have proved unfamiliar to many Hmong, who come from Laos, where hunting is a practiced skill. The Lao mountains are among the wildest and least populated areas of the world. There are no regulations about what, where or when to hunt. Conservation officers and property owners in several states have reported conflicts with the Hmong over their hunting practices, often because they did not understand American traditions. Four years ago, Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources hired a Hmong officer to teach the community about local hunting and fishing rules."Well, I guess maybe the Department of Natural Resources didn't do such a bang-up job, and who can blame it? Why should we need government bureaucracies to explain our traditions and values to masses of aliens who have no business coming here at all? The "conflicts with the Hmong" the Post mentions so demurely are not just about hunting, and the conflicts are not confined to the Hmong. The exact same kinds of conflicts are obvious to anyone who deals with Third Worlders on any large scale.Will the Wisconsin mass murders of which Vang is accused lead the dominant culture to start rethinking immigration and its social consequences? Not a bit. Here's what ABC News found to worry about in the incident:"Vang's arrest left some Hmong citizens in his hometown fearful of a backlash. About 24,000 Hmong live in St. Paul, the highest concentration of any U.S. city. And the shooting has already provoked racial tension in an area of Wisconsin where deer hunting is steeped in tradition."That's the real problem, you see, not immigration but the racial "backlash" that may or may not come about from the white people whose friends and neighbors Vang slaughtered. Maybe the Department of Natural Resources can send in a team to teach them about racism.

To find out more about Samuel Francis, and read

[CTRL] Time to Engage Iran?

2004-12-01 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

December 1, 2004

Time to Engage Iran?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Iran does not want a clash with the United States. And unlike Milosevic and Saddam, neither of whom wanted a war, either, Iran is determined not to give the neoconservatives the pretext to launch one.
This is behind Tehran's grudging acceptance of the British-French-German initiative to arrest Iran's nuclear program by forcing a shutdown of its facilities for enriching uranium. Iran claims the fuel was to be used in power plants. America says and Europe fears that any Iranian facility that enriches uranium for power plants could also be used to enrich uranium for atom bombs.
As of today, there is no hard evidence that Iran has a bomb or the fissile material to build one, or the operating facilities to produce the plutonium or highly enriched uranium needed to create one. But there are reasons to believe Iran is entertaining a nuclear option.
First, its nuclear program had been kept secret. Second, given what happened to neighboring Iraq, the mullahs, in facing President Bush, might well prefer the nuclear ambiguity of a North Korea's Kim Jong-Il to the nuclear nakedness of a Saddam Hussein.
Third, Iran is surrounded by nuclear neighbors, many of them hostile. U.S. forces are in Turkey, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, and Afghanistan. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, as does India. Russia, which occupied northern Iran after World War II, is a great nuclear power, as is China. Israel, which has threatened to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, has hundreds of nuclear weapons.
But there are also arguments for Iran's not going nuclear. While having a bomb might deter some enemies, to be caught secretly building one could provoke Israel or the Americans into a preemptive strike, and the Saudis and Turks into building their own bombs. How would that make Iran more secure?
However, if Iran would suffer grievously in a war with the United States losing its nuclear facilities, navy, and air force, and being set back years it is hard to see how America would benefit.
U.S. strikes would likely unite the Iranians behind the regime, and retaliation might come in the form of "volunteers" for a Shia uprising in Iraq and attacks on U.S. interests across the Middle East. Pro-American governments could be destabilized and an oil boycott imposed that could send prices to $70 or $80 a barrel.
But if neither we nor Iran would benefit from war between us, is there common ground on which we might stand to attain a cold peace?
Indeed, there is. Iran has already benefited from the U.S. ouster of the detested Taliban and Saddam, and it would surely not object to a Shi'ite government in Baghdad. And we both have a vital interest in a Persian Gulf kept open. Yet, the conflicts between us cannot be minimized.
First, the Iranian revolution is a failure, having created neither a great nor universally respected nation. Unlike the French Revolution, it has been unable to export or replicate itself. Twenty-five years after the fall of the shah, no nation looks to Iran as a model or inspiration. Twice, Iranians have voted in landslides for reformers to ameliorate mullah rule.
But while Tehran has an incentive to integrate the nation into the modern world, any such integration would dilute revolutionary purity and zeal, and could further estrange the regime from the people.
What makes détente with America almost impossible is that the ayatollah's revolution was as much anti-American as anti-Shah. Enmity toward the "Great Satan" legitimizes the regime. But should America suddenly no longer be an enemy, but a partner, Iran's people might ask: Why not open our country up to tourism, trade, and cultural contact with America? For communist Europe, that was the end.
What are the elements of coexistence between us?
Return to Iran of the billions she is owed by the United States, an end to U.S. sanctions and an invitation into the World Trade Organization. For America, it would require an end to Iran's sponsorship of terror, cooperation in Iraq, and restraint on Hizbollah as we try to broker a peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
As for its nuclear program, the United States could ensure Iran's access to peaceful nuclear power in return for a verifiable agreement not to build nuclear weapons. The problem? Iran may believe having a bomb is a better guarantor of her security than any U.S. promise. And, frankly, who could blame them?
As for the neocons' insistence on "regime change" in Iran, that is a deal-breaker, which is why Israel and the neocons have made it their non-negotiable demand. They don't want a deal. They want a war.
But what is best for America?

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[CTRL] What Became Of Conservatives?

2004-12-01 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Roberts/NewsPCR113004.html


November 30, 2004

WHAT BECAME OF CONSERVATIVES? by Paul Craig Roberts

I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns over the air. That was before I became a critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration and the neoconservative ideologues who have seized control of the U.S. government.America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war, and fully half of the country's population is enthusiastic. Many Christians think that war in the Middle East signals "end times" and that they are about to be wafted up to heaven. Many patriots think that, finally, America is standing up for itself and demonstrating its righteous might. Conservatives are taking out their Vietnam frustrations on Iraqis. Karl Rove is wrapping Bush in the protective cloak of war leader. The military-industrial complex is drooling over the profits of war. And neoconservatives are laying the groundwork for Israeli territorial expansion.The evening before Thanksgiving, Rush Limbaugh was on C-SPAN TV explaining that these glorious developments would have been impossible if talk radio and the conservative movement had not combined to break the power of the liberal media.In the Thanksgiving issue of National Review, editor Richard Lowry and former editor John O'Sullivan celebrate Bush's re-election triumph over "a hostile press corps." "Try as they might," crowed O'Sullivan, "they couldn't put Kerry over the top."There was a time when I could rant about the "liberal media" with the best of them. But in recent years, I have puzzled over the precise location of the "liberal media."Not so long ago I would have identified the liberal media as The New York Times and The Washington Post, CNN and the three TV networks, and National Public Radio. But both the Times and the Post fell for the Bush administration's lies about WMD and supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq. On balance, CNN, the networks and NPR have not made an issue of the Bush administration's changing explanations for the invasion.Apparently, Rush Limbaugh and National Review think there is a liberal media because the prison torture scandal could not be suppressed and a cameraman filmed the execution of a wounded Iraqi prisoner by a U.S. Marine.Do the Village Voice and The Nation comprise the "liberal media"? The Village Voice is known for Nat Henthof and his columns on civil liberties. Every good conservative believes that civil liberties are liberal because they interfere with the police and let criminals go free. The Nation favors spending on the poor and disfavors gun rights, but I don't see the "liberal hate" in The Nation's feeble pages that Rush Limbaugh was denouncing on C-SPAN.In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals, pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in public places, Darwinism and attacks on religion. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us."This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits no facts or analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right, and everyone else is wrong. End of the debate.That, gentle reader, is the full extent of talk radio, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, National Review, The Weekly Standard and, indeed, of the entire concentrated corporate media where non-controversy in the interest of advertising revenue rules.Once upon a time, there was a liberal media. It developed out of the Great Depression and the New Deal. Liberals believed that the private sector is the source of greed that must be restrained by government acting in the public interest. The liberals' mistake was to identify morality with government. Liberals had great suspicion of private power and insufficient suspicion of the power and inclination of government to do good.Liberals became Benthamites (after Jeremy Bentham). They believed that as the people controlled government through democracy, there was no reason to fear government power, which should be increased in order to accomplish more good.The conservative movement that I grew up in did not share the liberals' abiding faith in government. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."Today it is liberals, not conservatives, who endeavor to defend civil liberties from the state. Conservatives have been won around to the old liberal view

[CTRL] Commissar Aaronovitch

2004-12-01 Thread Bill Shannon

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http://antiwar.com/justin/


December 1, 2004 

Commissar Aaronovitch Ex-commie takes aim at Antiwar.com  and misses 

by Justin Raimondo



They don't have neocons in Britain: over there, they're called Blairites, or New Labourites. But it's essentially the same thing: they love the State, they love themselves, and, most of all, they love war  in the name of idealism, you understand, which, in Blairite circles, amounts to what passes these days for "humanitarian" interventionism. In any case, I suppose it was inevitable that the British wing of the species would one day deign to notice Antiwar.com's existence  and in the same vehemently uncomplimentary vein as their American cousins  but David Aaronovitch, writing in the Guardian, doesn't even come close to matching the virulence of our very own Davids  Frum, Horowitz, take your pick. I expected rather more from the author of a book entitled Arson, Rape, and Bloody Murder.
However, the theme and subject matter of Aaronovitch's 2002 memoir  his trials and travails as the son of dedicated Communist Party members, and a Commie youth leader himself in the 1970s  might have given me a clue as to what to expect. The Communists have always had a characteristic way of arguing, one that manages to avoid confronting  or even mentioning  their political opponents' views, while linking all such "enemies of the people" together in a vast conspiracy of White Guards, Hitlerites, and top-hatted capitalists. Having reached middle age, these types often change their views radically  becoming, in the case of Horowitz, at least, Bizarro World versions of their old political personas  but the overall pattern of their thinking remains pretty constant. Their polemics, once pointed like an ice-pick at dissident Trotskyites and other deviationists, are directed at new enemies: yet they remain true to form in shaping their argument in conspiratorial terms.
Aaronovitch's ire is directed at anyone who has dared challenge the cult of Viktor Yushchenko, around which transnational progressives and neoconservative internationalists are converging in an intellectual Ribbentrop Pact of mutual convenience. His primary target is John Laughland, the politically unclassifiable Euroskeptic author and publicist, whose book The Tainted Source is a panoramic and revealing historical overview of the European Idea and its dubious origins in prewar fascist thought:
"Whenever, as this past week, eastern Europe is on the news, so too is a man called John Laughland. Last Sunday he was playing Ukrainian expert on the BBC's The World This Weekend, the day before he was here in the Guardian defending the Ukrainian election 'result', and at the beginning of the month he was writing for the Spectator  also on Ukraine. 
"Laughland's great strength is that he sees what no one else in the west seems to. Where reporters in Kiev, including the Guardian's own Nick Paton-Walsh, encounter a genuine democracy movement, Laughland comes across 'neo-Nazis' (Guardian), or 'druggy skinheads from Lvov' (Spectator). And where most observers report serious and specific instances of electoral fraud and malpractice on the part of the supporters of the current prime minister, Laughland complains only of a systematic bias against (the presumably innocent) Mr Yanukovich."
One has to note, first of all, that Aaronovitch starts out his indictment with an _expression_ of sheer annoyance that Laughland is even allowed to voice his opinion on major media outlets: This, according to the moral strictures of the neocon-neocommie mindset, is his real crime. Why, Aaronovitch wants to know, is everyone paying so much attention to this upstart?
As for seeing what no one else sees  millions were sent to the Gulag for less! When Laughland reports the very real presence of neo-Nazis in the ranks of Ukrainian "reformers," Aaronovitch, rather than come right out and accuse him of lying, wonders why no one else has noticed this. Then again, no one but a few Russian émigrés and isolated right-wingers noticed the Soviet gulags when they were filling up with victims.
The accusation that Laughland's complaints lack specificity, on close inspection, appears to be utterly specious. You can't get much more specific than this:
"We are told that a 96 per cent turnout in Donetsk, the home town of Viktor Yanukovich, is proof of electoral fraud. But apparently turnouts of more than 80 per cent in areas that support Viktor Yushchenko are not. Nor are actual scores for Yushchenko of well over 90 per cent in three regions, which Yanukovich achieved in only two. And whereas Yanukovich's final official score was 54 per cent, the Western-backed President of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, officially polled 96.24 per cent of the vote in his country in January. The observers who now denounce the Ukrainian election welcomed that result in Georgia, saying that it 'brought the country closer to meeting international standards'. We

[CTRL] The Yushchenko Mythos

2004-11-29 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

http://antiwar.com/justin/

November 29, 2004

The Yushchenko Mythos Don't believe the U.S. government's fairy tale about what's happening in Ukraine

by Justin Raimondo

According to the U.S. government, and commentators on the left as well as the (neoconservative) right, the crisis in the Ukraine is a clear-cut case of "democracy" versus authoritarianism, "the people" versus "the oligarchs," and the forces of enlightened Europhilia up against the sinister specter of a resurgent Russia and a revivified KGB.
The only problem with this narrative is that it is unmitigated bunk.
Let's start with the central figures in this drama: the two Viktors Yushchenko and Yanukovich. To begin with, you'll note that the former has a website in English, while the latter's site is only in the native Ukrainian and Russian. Yushchenko's audience is primarily the West, while Yanukovich is speaking to his own people. Right off the bat, the line of demarcation is drawn.
According to the conventional wisdom, Yanukovich is a dark demonic figure, a Soviet-type bureaucrat whose ties to Russia and the eastern power base of the ruling elite, automatically make him the bad guy. Besides that, we are told, Yanukovich is a man with a "criminal record," who served two jail terms. What they don't tell you is that Yanukovich was jailed by the Soviet regime on charges of robbery and assault. As the Los Angeles Times noted:
"A biography distributed on behalf of Yanukovich says that 'having suffered through a very tragic and tough childhood . . . the prime minister acknowledges regrettable youthful indiscretions, resulting in criminal charges that were eventually overturned by a Ukrainian court.'"
On the other hand, Yushchenko's indiscretions which are not being reported in the Western media at all were neither youthful nor the occasion for his public repentance. And if a youthful Yanukovich held up a Ukrainian gas station or knocked someone upside the head and took his wallet, Yushchenko was a key figure in a conspiracy to defraud the West of over $600 million.
The idea that Yushchenko is some kind of outsider, whose victory will cause the fresh winds of free-market reform to blow through the sealed chamber of corruption that is the Ukrainian economy is another Western fairy tale that has no basis in reality. Yushie is a key figure in the oligarchic system of "crony capitalism" that has enriched the few at the expense of the many since the fall of the USSR. He rose to power as head of the Ukrainian central bank through a good deal of the 1990s, and then as prime minister in the thuggish Leonid Kuchma's government in 1999 on account of the power of the oligarchs. These "entrepreneurs" who made their fortunes on the strength of their connections to the Communist apparatus control the commanding heights of the Ukrainian economy, and what is happening today in the Ukraine is a civil war involving the various oligarchic clans. As a Carnegie study of the Ukrainian political landscape by Anders Aslund puts it:
"In Russia, the financial-industrial groups provide financing to various parties and to the government. In Ukraine, the economic-political groups rather tend to own political parties. Lazarenko and Timoshenko created the parliamentary party Hromada, as a company party of the Unified Energy Systems. Vadim Rabinovich has reportedly 'bought' the Green Party. Surkis and Medevedchuk reportedly own the United Social Democratic Party. However, Bakai, Pinchuk and the Franchuks support Kuchma directly and possibly his party the National-Democratic Party. Characteristically, all these oligarchic parties are considered centrist, that is, always prepared to make a deal without any real ideology."
Yushchenko is a creature of this system, and his tenure at the National Bank of the Ukraine was marked by the corruption so characteristic of the political culture: a scandal involving falsification of the country's credit ledger essentially lying to the International Monetary Fund about the quantity of Ukrainian cash reserves. As the Financial Times reports:
"Under his control, the bank was involved in a damaging row with the International Monetary Fund over the use of IMF loans to falsify the country's credit position - allowing some politicians, but not Mr Yushchenko, to benefit personally. He survived the ensuing scandal."
A PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) audit confirmed the suspicions of IMF officials that Western lenders have been systematically deceived by Yushchenko's NBU:
"By giving a misleading impression of the size of Ukraine's reserves, the NBU's reserve management practices may have allowed Ukraine to receive as many as three disbursements under the stand-by arrangement in effect at that time that it might not otherwise have been able to obtain. The three disbursements in question that would have been affected by the transactions examined in the PwC report were based on October, November, and December

[CTRL] Why Israel Really Fears Iranian Nukes

2004-11-29 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-











http://www.antiwar.com/orig/howard.php?articleid=4065


November 27, 2004 

Why Israel Really Fears Iranian Nukes Tel Aviv's concern about an Iranian bomb is more likely political rather than military 

by Roger Howard



Israel's leaders are apt to portray the prospect of an Iranian nuclear warhead in highly apocalyptic terms. Earlier this year, for example, Ariel Sharon was prepared to call Iran "the biggest danger to the existence of Israel" and warned that "Israel will not allow Iran to be equipped with a nuclear weapon." 
But though the image of fanatical mullahs brandishing nuclear weapons is of course a terrifying one, and a reality that the outside world must of course try very hard to prevent, the real reasons for Israel's alarm are, on closer inspection, easy to misapprehend.
Tel Aviv's concern is not, for example, likely to be based on narrowly military considerations. If Israel's main installations at Dimona really do house a large arsenal of around 200 nuclear missiles, as most independent analysts believe, and of course it has such close relations with the world's biggest nuclear power, the United States, why would the Iranians dare to provoke the massive and devastating retaliation that any foolish nuclear move would inevitably provoke?
The same logic holds true about the supposed risk that hardliners in Tehran could pass nuclear materials into the hands of terrorist third parties whose fanaticism renders them immune to the mutually assured destruction their actions would invite. But don't the mullahs know that any such move could easily be traced back to Iran and would therefore prompt a similarly devastating response?
Nor would an Iranian bomb make any difference to the state of play on the ground between the Israeli Defense Forces and Tehran's supposed protégés in the Middle East such as the Lebanese militia Hizbollah. As Basil Liddell Hart once argued, a nuclear weapon will deter only nuclear blackmail but will make no difference to the behavior of conventional forces in the field. Consider, after all, how many nuclear states have been attacked by the conventional forces of the non-nuclear  America in Vietnam, Britain in the Falklands, and Israel during the Yom Kippur War.
It seems likely, then, that there are other, more convincing, reasons why Israel is concerned about an Iranian bomb. One possibility, for example, is that Tel Aviv is deeply concerned that such a development could potentially create deep splits in the U.S.-Israel alliance.
Consider, for example, what would happen if Tehran, having developed a warhead and withdrawn from the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, offered to reduce the size of or even eliminate its own nuclear arsenal in return for similar moves  all UN-monitored  by Tel Aviv. 
This would be a typically calculating and manipulative ploy by an Iranian regime playing the Israeli card to bolster its support at home and in the Islamic world as a whole. But any such ploy by Tehran would also seek to divide the more moderate European governments from a U.S. administration that has consistently been far more skeptical of Iranian nuclear assurances.
This might prove an adept move by posing a very difficult dilemma for an administration anxious to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability but equally reluctant to pressure its key Middle Eastern ally.
Any subsequent U.S. diplomatic pressure on Tel Aviv would infuriate Israeli leaders, who have long considered their nuclear arsenal as their best deterrent against what they regard as a hostile and numerically vastly superior Arab world. On two occasions, during the wars of 1967 and 1973, IDF chiefs ordered the preparation of their nuclear missiles against enemy forces.
But because the Israelis have frequently fended off intense U.S. diplomatic pressure before now, this is probably not the real reason why Tel Aviv would fear any such Iranian move. More important, perhaps, is the possibility that it would pose awkward questions, or even a far-reaching debate, in Washington and amongst the American public in general about the cost to America of an unquestioning loyalty to Israel. 
In short, the development of a nuclear bomb has not just obvious military implications; it also brings far-reaching political fallout of which Israeli chiefs must be very conscious.








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[CTRL] The case for not attacking Iran

2004-11-26 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

Issue: 27 November 2004
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?id=5309issue=2004-11-27

The case for not attacking Iran
by Andrew Gilligan

Do the last few days remind you of anything, by any chance? Presidential heavy breathing about a rogue Middle Eastern state; a supporting chorus of exiles with dramatic new claims; and a senior member of the US government bearing intelligence which turns out to be more spin than spine-chilling. Less than a month after the presidential election, the Bush White House has begun its campaign against Iran. In the week that Americans break for Thanksgiving, it might seem that, for Washington, the festival of the moment should really be Groundhog Day.
Yet while the methods and timing are about as surprising as a delay on the Tube, and while we may be tempted to say that all the neocons have done is to change the q to an n in the name of the target, there are excellent reasons not to dismiss the latest American sabre-rattling.
This time there really can be very little doubt that Iran has weapons of mass destruction, chemical and probably biological, and that it wants to obtain something even more destructive, a nuclear weapon, in fairly short order. In 2002, Tehran was forced to own up to enriching uranium, an important prerequisite for the development of a nuke, at a secret plant called Nantaz. Not incontrovertible proof of anything: indeed, the Iranians said it was for civil use. But Iran has the Middle Easts third largest oil and gas reserves, and does not need nuclear electricity. Why, also, was Nantaz kept secret, in defiance of Irans international treaty obligations, if its purpose was entirely peaceful?
Since that dramatic discovery, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear inspectorate, has had several other unpleasant surprises in the Islamic Republic. Inspectors have been repeatedly misled, sometimes directly, sometimes by omission; other secret facilities have not been declared; promises and undertakings have been broken; and the history of the last two years has been of constant Iranian brinksmanship, with agreements we thought wed signed having to be re-agreed later. Even this week, as the Iranians agreed to suspend enrichment under the threat of referral to the UN Security Council, they insisted that it would only be temporary.
An obscure substance, polonium 210, may become as familiar to us in the next few months as were the now-forgotten Iraqi buzz words of the Tuwaitha weapons plant, the al-Dawra vaccine factory and the al-Hussein conventional missile. Polonium 210 is an unstable element whose only real use is as an initiator for a nuclear weapon. The UN has discovered that it has been produced in Iran. (Tehran says it is for nuclear batteries to be used in the countrys space programme, which is not yet operational.)
Buoyed by high oil revenues, Irans nuclear programme has seldom been so flush. The Israelis say that Iran could have the bomb within a year. It is unlikely to be that early, but most experts agree that if the programme continues, the mullahs will be nuclear within five years. The striking thing, really, is no longer the concealment; it is Irans relative openness, even brazenness, about its atomic ambitions. It knows exactly the calculations which we in the West are making, and it wants us to carry on making them.
Politically, the picture is equally bleak. Iran is no Saddam-style tyranny, but the reform movement which gave such hope of a rapprochement with the West in the 1990s is at a desperately low ebb. The moderniser, Mohammad Khatami, remains as Prime Minister, but has effectively lost his struggle with the religious conservatives. In this years parliamentary elections, they managed to get a quarter of the candidates and 87 of the sitting MPs disqualified for being too progressive. A mass reformist boycott, a sullen electorate and a low turnout saw substantial conservative gains. Irans hardline rulers have now embarked on what some call a modified China model. Petty social restrictions on things like womens dress have been eased, to reduce pressure for change but political repression remains as strong as ever.
Iran continues to sponsor terrorism, although not against the West. It was an Iranian-made arsenal that was found on the Karine A, the ship caught by Israel on a smuggling run, allegedly to the Palestinian Authority, possibly to Hezbollah. The arms had been loaded at an Iranian port. As far as the Israelis were concerned, the Karine A wrote the death warrant for the Palestinian peace process.
Yet should this mean that Iran is just Iraq with one of the letters changed? Absolutely not. Except in the minds of the most hysterical hawks, a capability does not constitute a threat. A threat arises when there is capability plus intention. And there is no evidence that Iran has the intention to attack us. Irans relative flaunting of its nuclear ambitions may even, in

[CTRL] What Became of Conservatives?

2004-11-26 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-










http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=4056



November 26, 2004 

What Became of Conservatives? 

by Paul Craig Roberts



I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns over the air. That was before I became a critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration, and the neoconservative ideologues who have seized control of the U.S. government. 
America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war, and fully half of the country's population is enthusiastic. Many Christians think that war in the Middle East signals "end times" and that they are about to be wafted up to heaven. Many patriots think that, finally, America is standing up for itself and demonstrating its righteous might. Conservatives are taking out their Vietnam frustrations on Iraqis. Karl Rove is wrapping Bush in the protective cloak of war leader. The military-industrial complex is drooling over the profits of war. And neoconservatives are laying the groundwork for Israeli territorial expansion. 
The evening before Thanksgiving, Rush Limbaugh was on C-Span TV explaining that these glorious developments would have been impossible if talk radio and the conservative movement had not combined to break the power of the liberal media. 
In the Thanksgiving issue of National Review, editor Richard Lowry and former editor John O'Sullivan celebrate Bush's reelection triumph over "a hostile press corps." "Try as they might," crowed O'Sullivan, "they couldn't put Kerry over the top." 
There was a time when I could rant about the "liberal media" with the best of them. But in recent years I have puzzled over the precise location of the "liberal media." 
Not so long ago, I would have identified the liberal media as the New York Times and Washington Post, CNN and the three TV networks, and National Public Radio. But both the Times and the Post fell for the Bush administration's lies about WMD and supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq. On balance, CNN, the networks, and NPR have not made an issue of the Bush administration's changing explanations for the invasion. 
Apparently, Rush Limbaugh and National Review think there is a liberal media because the prison torture scandal could not be suppressed and a cameraman filmed the execution of a wounded Iraqi prisoner by a U.S. Marine. 
Do the Village Voice and The Nation comprise the "liberal media"? The Village Voice is known for Nat Hentoff and his columns on civil liberties. Every good conservative believes that civil liberties are liberal because they interfere with the police and let criminals go free. The Nation favors spending on the poor and disfavors gun rights, but I don't see the "liberal hate" in The Nation's feeble pages that Rush Limbaugh was denouncing on C-Span. 
In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant, and irrational e-mails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush. 
The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals, pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in public places, Darwinism, and attacks on religion. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us." 
This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits of no facts or analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right and everyone else is wrong. End of the debate. 
That, gentle reader, is the full extent of talk radio, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, National Review, the Weekly Standard, and, indeed, of the entire concentrated corporate media, where non-controversy in the interest of advertising revenue rules. 
Once upon a time there was a liberal media. It developed out of the Great Depression and the New Deal. Liberals believed that the private sector was the source of greed that must be restrained by government acting in the public interest. The liberals' mistake was to identify morality with government. Liberals had great suspicion of private power and insufficient suspicion of the power and inclination of government to do good. 
Liberals became Benthamites (after Jeremy Bentham). They believed that as the people controlled government through democracy, there was no reason to fear government power, which should be increased in order to accomplish more good. 
The conservative movement that I grew up in did not share the liberals' abiding faith in government. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." 
Today it is liberals, not conservatives, who endeavor to defend civil liberties from the state. Conservatives have been won around

[CTRL] The Lying Game, Revisited

2004-11-22 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-










http://antiwar.com/justin/



November 22, 2004 

The Lying Game, Revisited Iran has nukes  they really really do! Scout's honor! Cross my heart and hope to die! 

by Justin Raimondo



We live in a recurring nightmare. That's the only conclusion one can draw from today's headlines, which, as we draw closer to a confrontation with Iran, bear an eerie resemblance to yesterday's breaking news. It seems like only yesterday that a Middle Eastern exile group  the Iraqi National Congress (INC)  was feeding the U.S. government "intelligence" that drew a fearsome portrait of Saddam Hussein's supposedly burgeoning nuclear arsenal. The Iraqi dictator was said to be plotting with Al Qaeda to knock off a few more American skyscrapers, and, at one point, George W. Bush even conjured visions of Iraqi drones flying over our airspace and raining death and destruction on American cities.
While readers of Antiwar.com discovered early on it was all a lie, a good deal of the rest of the world was led down the primrose path and only stumbled over the truth after they had reached the very end.
But is it the end  or is the path just branching out in another direction?
The startling announcement by lame-duck Secretary of State Colin Powell that Iran  contrary to its public declarations, and the spirit if not the letter of Tehran's recent preliminary agreement with the EU to temporarily halt the uranium enrichment process  is working on a nuclear missile delivery system has Washington in a frenzy of speculation, and, yes, shock. The latter is over Powell's extraordinary willingness to reveal information that was reportedly unvetted, and from a single source, and repeat it as fact. 
The provenance of this bit of "intelligence" ought to evoke, in the careful reader, a sense of déjà vu. Here is the Washington Post on the mysterious circumstances of its arrival on Powell's desk:
"According to one official with access to the material, a 'walk-in' source approached U.S intelligence earlier this month with more than 1,000 pages purported to be Iranian drawings and technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to deliver an atomic strike."
This is reminiscent of nothing so much as the infamous Niger uranium forgeries, which, you'll remember, were accepted as fact by the Bush White House until they were exposed as fraudulent by International Atomic Energy Agency scientists, after a few hours with Google.
I wonder if the U.S. government would be interested in what a "walk-in" has to say about the overwhelming lack of evidence that Iran is building or intends to build nuclear weapons  and how long it would take for 1000-plus pages of debunking to percolate up to the office of the secretary of state. In all likelihood, the debunker probably wouldn't get past the front door, let alone be lent credence by top officials. 
Porter Goss has put a memo out to all of our spooks deploring leaks and warning Company employees to stop haunting this administration with doubts about American policy in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter. In a manner of hours the memo was on the internet (hat tip to Laura Rozen):
"We are a secret Agency. Of necessity, we must assiduously follow the law to honor the trust placed upon us. We have rules to govern our conduct of business and rules designed to facilitate our mission's success and to build public confidence. Since 9/11 everything has changed. The IC and its people have been relentlessly scrutinized and criticized. Intelligence related issues have become the fodder of partisan food fights and turf-power skirmishes. 
" I also intend to clarify beyond doubt the rules of the road. We support the Administration and its policies in our work. As Agency employees we do not identify with, support, or champion opposition to the Administration or its policies. We provide the intelligence as we see it - and let the facts alone speak to the policymaker." [Emphasis in original]
A word to the wise: just tell us what we want to hear. Under these circumstances, perhaps as part of the re-organization and "reform" of our intelligence capabilities, we ought to re-name the CIA. How about the Central Propaganda Agency? Or, better yet, the Ministry of Truth.
A three-pronged propaganda campaign is now underway to justify a preemptive military strike  either by the U.S., or Israel  against Iran's alleged nuclear weapons facilities. It just so happened that, on the very day Powell blurted out his accusation against Iran, a Paris-based Iranian exile group, the "National Council of Resistance," held a widely-publicized press conference stating that Iran is continuing to enrich uranium  and claiming that, sometime in the mid-1990s, Tehran acquired a bomb blueprint from Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. As the Los Angeles Times points out, "many of the group's previous statements have been inaccurate, though it

[CTRL] Not What You Think

2004-11-21 Thread Bill Shannon

-Caveat Lector-

November 20, 2004

Not What You Think

by Charley Reese

With all of the political hoopla and heifer dust that is spread about the Middle East, you might think we are totally dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Actually, we are not.
The United States imports about 62 percent of its oil and other petroleum products. Only about 11 percent of domestic usage comes from the Persian Gulf countries. Saudi Arabia, for example, supplies about 7.2 percent of domestic usage.
Our main imports by far come from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria. From January to July 2004, Saudi Arabia was fourth, just ahead of Nigeria and behind Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela. Iraq was sixth. These figures [.pdf] are from the American Petroleum Institute.
We are bogged down in the Middle East because of Israel, not oil. Iraq was perceived as a threat to Israel, not to Saudi Arabia and certainly not to us. A man who at one time prepared the president's daily intelligence briefing told me years ago that there was never any indication whatsoever that Iraq was going to invade Saudi Arabia. We just used that as an excuse for the first Gulf War.
The majority of American diplomatic efforts in the Middle East are directed at trying to persuade Arab countries to accept Israel. Their relationship to Israel is really none of our business.
I realize that members of a Christian cult that originated in the 19th century believe they have a biblical obligation to love Israel. Well, people are entitled to their religious beliefs, but none of them has any business being used as a basis for American foreign policy. We have one, and only one, interest in the Middle East. That is access, at a fair market price, to oil. Whether the countries from which we buy oil like or don't like Israel, are democracies or monarchies or dictatorships, is immaterial and irrelevant.
I harbor no ill feelings toward Israel. In many ways, it is an admirable country, but it is a foreign country, and the United States should treat Israel the same as it treats every other foreign nation. We should make it clear, for example, that Israel's enemies are not our enemies. If the Israelis and the Syrians don't get along, that's their business. Our relations with Syria should be based strictly on how Syria treats Americans and America's interests.
Unfortunately, Israel has a very powerful lobby in the United States. Even though our intelligence people said Syria was cooperating with the United States in the war on terrorism, we nevertheless applied sanctions, not because of anything Syria said about us or did, but because Syria allows some Palestinian organizations opposed to Israeli occupation to operate inside Syria.
When Jimmy Carter was president, we ended up in effect paying bribes both to Israel and to Egypt so they would sign a peace treaty. That was a dumb thing to do. It was in their interest, not ours, to sign a peace treaty. Why should the American taxpayers be dunned to pay for it?
The whole underlying basis of the neoconservative cockamamie idea of democratizing the Middle East at the point of a gun is the theory that if the Arab countries are democracies, they will accept and get along with Israel. I seriously doubt that, as their dispute with Israel is not over forms of government but over Arab land Israel has seized and refuses to relinquish.
George Washington advised us to harbor neither habitual enmity nor habitual friendship for any foreign country. He also advised us to beware of foreign influence in our domestic affairs. Both pieces of good advice, and both ignored because too many politicians in Washington are wet-pants scared of the Israeli lobby.
We should not be involved in the Middle East at all except as purchasers of oil, but we will go on spending treasure and blood in that area until the American people elect some politicians brave enough to face down the Israeli lobby.
Establishing a modern state of Israel in the middle of the Arab world was a British colonial idea. Americans should not pay with their lives and tax dollars for a British blunder.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

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