Norway up in arms after author asserts
Israel has lost right to exist
By Assaf Uni, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/749493.html


An article in a leading Norwegian newspaper last weekend lambasted
Israel and Judaism and said Israel has lost its right to exist in its
present form.

Entitled "God's chosen people," the article by author Jostein Gaarder
in Aftenposten is raising a storm in Norway. Gaarder, author of the
book "Sophie's World," links the Israel Defense Forces' acts in
Lebanon to Jewish history and foresees the coming dismantling of the
state as it exists today, with the Jews becoming refugees.

In an interview with Haaretz Gaarder said Thursday that he was
misunderstood. "As John Kennedy declared in Germany 'I am a Berliner'
¬ I say now 'I am a Jew,'" he said.
  Advertisement

The article compares Israel's government, the Afghan Taliban regime
and South African apartheid, and states, "We no longer recognize the
State of Israel" and "the State of Israel in its current form is
history."

"We call child murderers 'child murderers,' and will never accept
that they have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages,"
Gaarder writes. "Shame on ethnic cleansing, shame on every terrorist
strike against civilians, be it carried out by Hamas, Hezbollah or
the State of Israel!"

Gaarder repeatedly refers to the role Judaism plays in Israel's
territorial aspirations, writing, "We don't believe in the notion of
God's chosen people. We laugh at this nation's fancies and weep over
its misdeeds."

He writes, "It is the State of Israel that fails to recognize,
respect or defer to the internationally lawful Israeli state of 1948.
Israel wants more; more water and more villages. To obtain this,
there are those who want, with God's assistance, a final solution to
the Palestinian problem."

The article has triggered off thousands of comments and dozens of
stormy debates in the Norwegian media. It also has sparked off a
debate about Gaarder's alleged anti-Semitic tendencies and the right
to criticize Israel.
The Jewish journalist and music critic Mona Levin spoke out in public
against Gaarder and said she was shocked by the Norwegian
government's silence. She blasted the cabinet for not denouncing what
she described as "the most appalling thing I've read since 'Mein
Kampf.'"

"We're dealing with an ignorant man, a hate-filled man who derides
Judaism," she said in an interview from Oslo. Levin said it was
unacceptable that a man of such international repute (26 million
copies of his book have been sold) could attack an entire ethnic
group and that politicians would remain silent.

"This is a classic anti-Semitic manifesto, which cannot even disguise
itself as criticism of Israel," said Professor Dina Porat, head of
the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-
Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University.
"The writer does not address the conflict in its contemporary context
but reaches back thousands of years to assert that the Jewish people
have traits of cruelty that have remained unchanged and account for
the current war," she says.

Porat says that according to the European Union, denying Israel's
right to exist ¬ arguing that its existence is racist ¬ is an anti-
Semitic statement. She also finds in Gaarder's text the use of
classic anti-Semitic symbols, like infanticide.

"I've been head of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-
Semitism for 15 years and it's not every day that I get to read such
a radical document, in terms of its content and rhetoric," she said.

Gaarder writes, among other things, "We do not believe that Israel
mourns 40 killed Lebanese children more than it has lamented for more
than 3,000 years 40 years in the desert. We note that many Israelis
celebrate such triumphs like they once cheered the scourges of the
Lord as 'fitting punishment' for the people of Egypt."

He writes that the first Zionist terrorists started operating in the
days of Jesus.

Speaking to Haaretz on Tuesday, a day before he stopped talking to
the media, Gaarder said he was misunderstood and emphasized that he
is a friend of Israel and the Jews.

"I think what Hezbollah is doing is terrible," he said, adding that
he supports Israel's right to exist as a national homeland for the
Jews since 1948.

Gaarder said he does not question Israel's right to exist, "but not
as an apartheid state." He said he could understand how his article
could be interpreted as "anti-Jewish" and admitted that if he were to
rewrite it, he would change a few things.

He is aware he has hurt the Jews in Norway, he said, adding that he
would make sure the article is not translated into other languages.
However, Gaarder refused to retract publicly his main theme.

Aftenposten's political editor Harald Stanghelle said he saw no
problem publishing Gaarder's article.

"Of course I don't agree with what he says," he said. "But an open
debate on the issue is better than a covert one.

"Gaarder's voice is important in the Norwegian discourse and it was
right to publish the article," he said.

Meanwhile, the furor over Gaarder's article coincides with a series
of anti-Semitic incidents in Norway, including the desecration of an
Oslo Synagogue and cemeteries and the assault and battery of a
skullcap-wearing youngster.

Quotes from article were taken from an unofficial translation

===

Norwegian ex-premier counters anti-Semitism accusations, slams Israel
Haaretz Israel
http://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=2712


Ex-Norwegian prime minister Kεre Willoch spoke out Thursday against
Israel and a group of Israeli scholars who earlier this week held a
symposium in Jerusalem devoted to accusing the Scandinavian countries
of racism, anti-Semitism and Israel-hatred.

"It's a traditional deflection tactic aimed at diverting attention
from the real problem, which is Israel's well-documented and
incontestable abuse of Palestinians," Willoch, who presided as
Norway's prime minister in the 1980s, told a Norwegian daily.

Willoch, a long-time critic of Israel, was reacting to accusations
leveled at an event hosted on Tuesday by the Jerusalem Center for
Public Affairs, which, as reported by Haaretz, is described by the
organizers as "probably Israel's first comprehensive discussion into
Scandinavia's approach to the Jewish people and state."


The English-language event attracted approximately 50 listeners,
including at least five Scandinavian journalists, who later wrote
about the event.

"Norway is the most anti-Semitic country in Scandinavia," Dr. Manfred
Gerstenfeld, a scholar of Western European anti-Semitism from the
Center said at the symposium.

Gerstenfeld, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Israel many years
ago from Holland, projected cartoons he had found in Norwegian
mainstream press over the past few years.

One cartoon, which appeared in Dagsavisen, the same paper which
published the ex-premier's reaction, showed an ultra-Orthodox Jew
engraving "thou shall murder" into an alternative Decalogue. Another
cartoon from the daily Dagbladet showed Ehud Olmert dressed up as a
guard at a death camp, smiling and holding a rifle.

"These cartoons are one of many ugly anti-Semitic phenomena in
Norway," he said.

"There is something wrong with a society which is willing to accept
these Nazi cartoons. With a Jewish population of only 1,300, Norway
has led the pack in anti-Semitism before, during and after WWII."

In his reaction, former premier Willoch said: "Anyone who accuses
Norway of anti-Semitism is closing his eyes and ears." Other
Norwegian politicians were also quoted in the article in similar
context.

Besides Gerstenfeld, the humble-sized event offered two more
speakers: Zvi Mazel, a former ambassador to Sweden who spoke of
a "deep-rooted" anti-Semitism in Sweden, and Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the
U.S.-born director of the Wiesenthal Center in Israel - which co-
sponsored the event - who addressed Norway and Sweden's failure to
prosecute Nazi war criminals.

Earlier this year, the three men contributed to a recently-published
book entitled "Behind the Humanitarian Mask," which served as the
kernel for the symposium. The book accuses the Scandinavian countries
of adhering to a form of "a white supremacist" approach, which views
non-whites such as the Palestinians as eternal victims and aid-
recipients who are not responsible for their actions.

The Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Danish ambassadors were invited
to the event but did not come. However, five Scandinavian journalists
were in attendance to counter some of the allegations.

"Why is criticism of Israel automatically considered anti-Semitism,"
Louise Stigsgaard Nissen, Middle East Bureau chief for the Danish
daily Berlingske Tidende, asked. "Why can't one criticize Israel as
one criticizes the U.S. without being called an anti-Semite?"

While Zuroff argued that Israelis generally accept harsh criticism
when they do not suspect anti-Semitism, Gerstenfeld quoted the
European Union's definition of anti-Semitism as a double
standard. "One cannot criticize Israel for things other countries
also do while refraining from criticizing those countries," he said.

Another Danish reporter said that by closing Gaza to reporters when
international organizations speak of a humanitarian crisis there,
Israel was "inevitably rendering itself suspect in human rights
violations" and "inviting hostile treatment."

Each such statement was received by the audience with disapproving
mumbles, until the guests began to argue aloud with the
Scandinavians - who argued right back. "It's good to see some action
around here," one JCPA regular said. "Usually these lectures end with
a few approving nods and hear-hears."

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Libya begins payments for US terror victims
By MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081009/ap_on_re_af/us_libya


WASHINGTON - Libya has started making payments into a fund to
compensate the families of American victims of Libyan-linked terror
attacks in the 1980s, another step in the full normalization of long-
strained ties between Washington and Tripoli, a senior U.S. official
said Thursday.

The "substantial amount" deposited into a U.S. bank account is not
the full amount needed to fulfill a compensation agreement reached
earlier this year, but the official said it demonstrated Libya's
willingness to resolve outstanding claims, particularly over the 1988
Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland and the 1986 bombing of a
German disco.

"We believe that direct deposit of these funds ... is evidence of
Libya's commitment to fully implementing the claims settlement
agreement," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity
ahead of a formal announcement.

"This initial deposit to implement the claims agreement demonstrates
Libya's commitment to fully resolving outstanding claims," the
official said. "We will continue to work with Libya to ensure the
expeditious receipt of the remaining agreed funds to compensate the
victims and families."

The official would not quantify the amount of the payment or say
whether it had been deposited by the Libyan government or private
Libyan entities that have paid similar compensation in the past.
Under the agreement, the Bush administration pledged to restore the
Libyan government's immunity from terror-related lawsuits and dismiss
pending cases, but the official stressed that it is not obligated to
do so until the full compensation is paid.

The first payment had been expected in early September but was
inexplicably delayed.

It was received just days after the opening of a U.S. commercial
office in Libya's capital and a historic visit there last month by
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was the highest-ranking U.S.
official to visit the country in more than 50 years.

U.S.-Libyan relations hit a low point in the 1980s but began to
improve after Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi — whom President Reagan
called the "mad dog of the Middle East" — renounced weapons of mass
destruction and terrorism in 2003.

The rapprochement stalled after Libya halted payments to the families
of Lockerbie victims under a previous compensation deal and in the
absence of an agreement on the La Belle disco bombing in Berlin.

But it picked up again in August when Libya and the United States
agreed to a new, comprehensive compensation package for both U.S. and
Libyan victims of 1980s-era attacks. The exact amount of the package
has never been made public, but it is believed to be in the range of
hundreds of millions of dollars.

All 269 passengers and crew, including 180 Americans, on the Pan Am
flight and 11 people on the ground were killed in the Lockerbie
bombing. Three people, including two American soldiers, were killed
and 230 wounded in the Berlin disco attack. That attack prompted
Reagan to order airstrikes on targets in Tripoli and Benghazi that
Libyans say killed 41 people, including Gadhafi's adopted daughter.

Numerous lawsuits have been filed in both countries seeking damages
for the attacks, and the settlement scheme is intended to satisfy all
U.S. and Libyan claims. No U.S. taxpayer money will be used to
compensate the Libyan families, officials say.

The developments come amid a huge increase in interest from U.S.
firms, particularly in the energy sector, to do business in Libya,
where European companies have had much greater access in recent
years. Libya's proven oil reserves are the ninth largest in the
world, close to 39 billion barrels, and vast areas remain unexplored
for new deposits.

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Iran sent intelligence officer to replace Mughniye
The Daily Star, Lebanon
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?
article_ID=96657&categ_ID=2&edition_id=1


Iran has sent an intelligence agency officer, Mohammad Rida Zahidi,
to replace Hizbullah's top military commander Imad Mughniyeh who was
assassinated in Damascus in February, Italian newspaper Corriere
della Sera reported on Thursday. The paper added that Zahidi, who is
nicknamed "Hassan Mahdawy," will coordinate between Hizbullah and the
Syrian intelligence agencies, help build new locations in South
Lebanon for military training and ensure the flow of weapons to
Hizbullah.

Lebanese sources told the paper that Zahidi was responsible for the
committee in charge of protecting Tehran's major figures and was the
second secretary in the Iranian Embassy in Lebanon between 1998 and
2000.

In a separate development, Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's
much-promised retaliation for the assassination of Mughniyeh is
reportedly coming. The daily Al-Akhbar, which is close to Hizbullah,
said on Wednesday that Nasrallah renewed his vow to retaliate for the
killing during a recent "semi-internal" meeting.

There will be "no backing off from the decision to avenge the
assassination of Hajj Mughniyeh," Nasrallah was quoted as
saying, "and no backing off from carrying out the 'big surprise'
against the enemy."

Nasrallah has promised Israel a "big surprise" if it attacks. On
Monday, Al-Akhbar published a report that questioned whether Israel
had factored the "surprise" into its decision-making process. Al-
Akhbar made the comments in a piece published under the
headline: "Israel is threatening to destroy Lebanon. What will happen
to it during wartime?"

The newspaper, which usually uses reliable sources from within
Hizbullah, warned that Israel needs to seriously consider the
ramifications of a future attack on Lebanon.

"What do they imagine Hizbullah 's reaction will be? They actually
say it has 40,000 missiles ... Are they preparing for things that
they have not considered and that others have not considered?" asked
Al-Akhbar.

"Who said that Hizbullah does not think about all of the options
which the enemy will use, including those which have been mentioned
recently."

Senior Israeli military officers have said that if another war were
to break out, Lebanon's army and civilian infrastructure would again
be classified as legitimate targets. The remarks prompted
condemnation from Hizbullah and Lebanese officials.

In an interview published in an Israeli newspaper Friday, the general
in charge of Israel's northern border region said the country's
military planned to use the "Dahiyeh doctrine," a war-plan that would
see the template of heavy bombardment that targeted Beirut's southern
suburbs during the summer 2006 war expanded to cover vast swathes of
Lebanese territory.

General Gadi Eisenkot said Israel was planning to "use
disproportionate force" against villages from which Israel is fired
on. "This isn't a suggestion," he said. "This is a plan that has
already been authorized."

His comments have been backed in recent days by other senior Israeli
military figures. In an article due to be published this week, Major
General Giora Eiland, a senior reserve commander, has recommended
making the Lebanese state rather than Hizbullah the target of an
Israeli military campaign.

Eiland condones attacking the Lebanese Army and the country's
civilian infrastructure and says the Lebanese government should be
warned as soon as possible that the whole country will be in the line
of fire during the next conflict. "People won't be going to the beach
in Beirut while Haifa residents are in shelters," he writes.

- The Daily Star

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Neocon Flap Highlights Jewish Divide

by Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lubanlobe.php?articleid=13232
<http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lubanlobe.php?articleid=13232>


A mushrooming media controversy pitting neoconservatives against a
prominent Jewish-American political commentator could mark a new stage
in the growing battle over who speaks for the US Jewish community on
foreign policy issues, particularly regarding the Middle East.

Time columnist Joe Klein's accusations that Jewish neoconservatives, who
played a particularly visible role in the drive to war in Iraq and have
since pushed for military confrontation in Iran, sacrificed "US lives
and money...to make the world safe for Israel," have spurred angry
charges of anti-Semitism and personal attacks from critics at such
neoconservative strongholds as the Weekly Standard, National Review, and
Commentary.

But the fierceness of the controversy surrounding Klein, generally
considered a political centrist, highlights the growing antagonism
between neoconservative hardliners and prominent US Jews whose more
moderate views are aligned more closely with those of the foreign policy
establishment.

The controversy began Jun. 24, when Klein argued in a Time blog post
that the "fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives – people
like [independent Democrat Sen.] Joe Lieberman and the crowd at
Commentary – plumped for this war [in Iraq], and now for an even
more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties."

Within a day, Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League,
accused Klein of espousing ,"age-old anti-Semitic canards about a Jewish
conspiracy to control and manipulate government."

The reaction from the right-wing press was even harsher. Commentary
editor John Podhoretz reiterated the accusation of "anti-Semitic
canards," and called Klein "manifestly intellectually unstable."

Writing in National Review, former George W. Bush speechwriter Peter
Wehner called Klein "a man who cannot control his anger and even
hatred."

But Klein has refused to back down, accusing his attackers of using
charges of anti-Semitism to silence criticism of neoconservative
policies.

"When [Commentary writer] Jennifer Rubin or Abe Foxman calls me
anti-Semitic, they're wrong," he said in an interview. "I am
anti-neoconservative."

In its broad contours, the controversy is a familiar one, as critics
accuse neoconservatives of exercizing pernicious influence on US Middle
East policy and neoconservatives reply with charges of anti-Semitism and
conspiracy-mongering.
What distinguishes the recent furor over Klein, however, is that it
involves someone who is widely regarded as an exemplar of the centrist
political establishment.

Klein is best known for his 1996 novel Primary
Colors<http://www.amazon.com/Primary-Colors-Novel-Politics/dp/0446604275\
/antiwarbookstore
<http://www.amazon.com/Primary-Colors-Novel-Politics/dp/0446604275/antiw\
arbookstore> > a thinly-veiled and largely unflattering portrait of Bill
Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign that was originally published
anonymously and subsequently made into a Hollywood movie. A frequent
critic of Clinton, Klein has at times expressed admiration for George W.
Bush.

He also endorsed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (although he has since
expressed regret for his support) and describes himself as "a strong
supporter of Israel."

The Klein dust-up is the latest in a series of events over the last
several years that have placed neoconservatives both in the spotlight
and on the defensive.

Neoconservatism, a predominantly – but by no means exclusively –
Jewish movement, got its start in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when a
small but influential group of Democrats began distancing themselves
from the party which, in their view, had become too dovish toward the
Soviet Union and too sympathetic toward Arab demands against Israel.

By 1980, most had become strong supporters of Ronald Reagan. A number of
prominent neoconservatives joined his administration, including many who
would later play key roles in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.

Consigned to the political wilderness under President George H.W. Bush,
the neoconservatives became increasingly identified in the 1990s with
Israel's right-wing Likud Party. It was also during the same period that
they began agitating for "regime change" in Iraq, arguing that such a
move would transform the balance of power in the Middle East decisively
in favor of both Israel and the US.

They experienced a rebirth with the election of Bush's son in 2000, and
particularly after the 9/11 attacks, when they played a major role, both
inside the administration and in the media, in rallying the public and
Congress behind war in Iraq.

But with the deterioration of the situation in Iraq, the influence of
neoconservatives inside and outside the administration began to wane,
and critics began charging that they had led the US astray.

A series of incidents also focused critical scrutiny on the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful lobbying group
whose hawkish right-wing leadership has often defied both the views of
the broader US Jewish community and the policies of Israeli governments.

In 2004, the Justice Department charged Pentagon staffer Lawrence
Franklin with passing classified US government documents to two AIPAC
lobbyists, who had then given the documents to an Israeli Embassy
official. In January 2006, Franklin was sentenced to more than 12 years
in prison, while the AIPAC staffers are still awaiting trial.

In March 2006, the well-respected and staunchly realist international
relations scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt published the
article "The Israel Lobby" in the London Review of Books. That article,
which charged that the lobby had for decades skewed US policy towards
Israel in a direction detrimental to US interests, became the basis for
their 2007 book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign
Policy<http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/03741777\
24/antiwarbookstore
<http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374177724/ant\
iwarbookstore> >.

Mearsheimer and Walt's thesis was instantly controversial. Like Klein,
they were accused by critics, including the ADL and Commentary, of
anti-Semitism and of perpetrating stereotypes about shadowy Jewish
conspiracies.

But as a result of their stature, the two authors' work clearly created
political space for those, both within the foreign policy establishment
and within the US Jewish community, who had been long privately critical
of the neoconservatives but had been worried about the consequences of
going public with their misgivings.

More recently, AIPAC has come under fire for its close alliance with
right-wing Christian Zionists, particularly controversial pastor John
Hagee and his organization Christians United for Israel (CUFI).

Hagee views an undivided Israel as a precondition for precipitating the
Armageddon, and his group has accordingly pushed for hawkish US policies
in the Middle East that have been consistent with the neoconservatives'
own preferences.

Matters came to a head earlier this year, when Republican presidential
candidate John McCain was compelled to repudiate Hagee's endorsement
after comments came to light in which the pastor suggested that the
Holocaust was biblically ordained in order to force Jews to resettle in
Israel.

Nonetheless, Hagee and CUFI have maintained close ties with the
neoconservatives, and a collection of prominent Israel hawks, including
Senator Lieberman, spoke at CUFI's summit in Washington earlier this
month.

The belief that AIPAC has failed to accurately represent the views of
the US Jewish community led to the foundation earlier this year of J
Street, a Jewish lobbying group that aims to push for a more moderate
stance on Middle East issues.
In the wake of these developments, many observers have taken Klein's
comments – and particularly his refusal to back down in the face of
withering criticism from neoconservatives – as a sign that new
political space is being created for the public airing of more moderate
views on Middle East policy.

M.J. Rosenberg, a former AIPAC staffer now associated with the moderate
Israel Policy Forum, expressed the hope that commentators would stop
equating neoconservatism with Judaism and start treating it as a
political movement subject to political criticism.

"Although most neocons are Jews, few Jews are neocons," he wrote
Wednesday. By equating the two groups, "[the neocons] want Americans not
to follow the trail of war-mongering that leads not to Jews but to
them."
(Inter Press Service)

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Judges Hear Arguments on Muslim Cop's Head Dress
Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.policelink.com/news/51107-judges-hear-arguments-on-muslim-
cops-head-dress?comment_page=2&page=1


PHILADELPHIA, PA – A three-judge appellate panel heard arguments
yesterday on whether to reopen a case concerning a Muslim
Philadelphia police officer who wants to wear a religious head scarf
while on duty.

Last year, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed a suit filed by
Officer Kimberlie Webb, writing that the Police Department
could "subordinate individuality to its paramount group mission" of
protecting lives and property.

Attorney Jeffrey M. Pollock, representing Webb in her appeal, told
the judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
yesterday that the case represented a "fundamental liberty right" and
asked them whether wearing a scarf was "such a violent religious
symbol that we can't tolerate that."

Eleanor Ewing, a lawyer for the city, said the uniform policy was
intended to maintain religious neutrality. Decisions about what
officers are allowed to wear should be left to the police
commissioner.

Pollock said the department had tacitly allowed officers to wear
Christian crosses and angel pins and ash on their foreheads on Ash
Wednesday.

Webb, 46 and a mother of six, became a Muslim in 1995, the year she
joined the Police Department.

In court yesterday, she wore her traditional khimar over her hair and
around her neck. In Islam, it is part of the hijab or modesty in
clothing.

For work, she has a custom khimar with a Velcro fastener so that it
breaks away if someone grabs at it. It is also less noticeable under
a police hat than her other scarves.

Outside court, Webb said she had been allowed to pray in Muslim
fashion at the 35th Police District station where she works.
She wrote memos requesting permission to wear her scarf on
duty. "They just said no," she said.

After Muslim men on the force were allowed to wear beards, which
required a policy change to accommodate them, she decided she had a
right to wear a khimar.

In 2003, she appeared at work three days in a row with her scarf.
Each time she was told to remove it and refused. And each time she
was sent home. She was then suspended.

She filed a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission and won. Then she sued.

Her civil case was based on a narrow claim and did not allege
violations of her constitutional right to freedom of religion and
speech, which her new attorneys now assert.

Ewing called the appeal "a request for a do-over" and a request for
the judges to consider facts and arguments not introduced in the
original case.

Webb is represented pro bono by Pollock, a New York lawyer, and Seval
Yildirim, a professor at Whittier Law School in California.
Pollock said the appeals court probably would rule in 60 to 90 days.

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This message is a mixture of rants and raves as well as one of abject
sadness and despair.


HOME OF THE BRAVE ? LAND OF THE FREE ?
http://www.freedomisnotdead.org
www.grannywarriors.com


I have spent the past couple of days talking to the court system
officials here in NC. Not a easy thing to do as many are so ignorant
that even I can see they don't have a clue to what their job is or
how to do it other than prosecuting traffic violations or grabbing
the spotlight with more visible murder, rape and robbery cases. None
have ever prosecuted a "Elected Public Official". None really want to
tackle it. You can see the look of disbelief on their face when you
ask the proper proceedure for doing such. When asked if they have
taken a "Oath of Office" which states they will defend the
constitution they look like "Yeah Soooooo?" When informed they will
be held to that oath you can see they are thinking yeah right, make
me, well folks we have to Make them. Force them to uphold their sworn
oath of office. These people are scared of the public, they do not
want to be held up as failures or lose their precious positions. WE
ARE THE PUBLIC. We have the responsibility to make sure these
officials do their job. The problems we have now are due to our
neglect in this area.

Every Senator and Congressman who voted for this bailout should be
arrested for treason against the Constitution immediately. We all
know that here in America the bad guys get away with murder
(literally). We can not expect the treasonous Bastards in the Senate
and Congress to police themselves.

The Constitution was written to limit the power of government. Our
government is out of control. Thank goodness our founding fathers
understood full well the reality of throwing out the government, when
it becomes a enemy to the people and our Constitution.

Both Candidates for President voted for the Bailout. Ask these
candidates to show you where in the Constitution they have the
authority to take our money and transfer it to their Wall Street and
other buddies. . They have no answer, because there is NO AUTHORITY
in the Constitution for this type of action against the people of the
US.

Now comes the hard part, we all know this is all against our
Country's basic foundation. It is up to us, those of us that have the
nerve and knowledge of what is going on to actually do something. Go
to your local prosecutors office, find out the exact details of
filing a Criminal complaint against a Public Official.( Do not name
anyone just a hypothetical Official) Either tape the conversation or
make notes and have him sign off on the notes.. Get him on record.
Put him in a position he cannot retract or deny his words. First ask
if he has sworn a Oath of Office and ask to see it. This may take a
while but get that document on record first. This will hold him
liable himself if he refuses to assist you. Once you have that sworn
Oath in hand you have the upper hand, he can either be honorable, and
most of them will be faced with a voter and citizen who is in his
face or he can refuse to talk, in that case find another prosecutor
to speak with, do not give up. There will be one that wants to prove
himself to the public. With the details of how to go about
prosecution of a Public Official you can now really start to research
your local representive's background. It is all a matter of public
record. Check his voting, his actions private and public, everything.
There are very few that will not have some violations in their past
or present. Once you have the facts follow the steps given to you in
how to file this complaint and then DO IT. Whether or not the case is
tried is mute at this point. Most of the officials are Attorneys, did
you know if only 2 criminal complaints are filed against a attorney
he loses his Mal Practice Insurance? They do not have to be found
guilty just have charges filed against them. None of them want this
notoriety. Actually being a Attorney is reason for them to be removed
from office in the first place. TREASON IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE.! Using
the Constitution it will be fairly simple to charge every single one
of the Congress and Senate that voted for the bail out as a
Treasonist.

What is needed is for thousands of people to do this in every state,
district and city. Now all we have to do is find these people who
will actually take the time and effort and have the nerve to stand up
and take back their country. I start on Monday filing charges here in
NC.

With all the banner waving, protesting and rallys we have gained
nothing other than being called misfits, cult members and sore
losers. I have been a big part of these projects having organized
many of them myself and have gained absolutely nothing for the
country's relief. I had fun as all of us have with the big rallys and
parades, marching, walking, yelling and screaming our anger and
concern. But no real effect on the sector we wanted to come to our
aide and service. Petitions, emails and calls have not worked. We
have worked uselessly for a couple of years. Think seriously what has
all these events proven? What effect have they had on the Government?
You can scream "END THE FED" till your voice is gone and what good
will it actually do? Do you think there is even a small chance that a
protest will make the officials do what is right? If you do you are
still living in La La Land. You can walk a thousand miles with signs
and banners and even get into a small towns news but in the end what
did you accomplish? You say we woke up a lot of people, that may be
true but where are all these people? What are they doing with that
awakening?

It is time to get down to programs which will have some effect. Tom
Cryer has a project going to unite all of us into one big movement
which will have some effect. He has a step by step plan which will be
easy to follow. Instead of donating thousands of dollars to these
rallys and protests where the organizers are putting money in their
own pockets and building up their own egos on the events why not send
your money to a project that is planned out with results in mind? I
support Tom and will do everything I can to promote his plan of
action.

Get your food storage, and water filter, guns and ammo, gold and
silver and get it all as fast as you can, while you still can.

The time for Americans to sit idly by and petition, plead, call and
march against our government, while they destroy us and our country,
is over.

A minority of Americans, and thousands illegal aliens, will vote for
our next President soon.

We' ll get two of the four Idiots currently being presented for our
selection. It won't make a difference which we get. If you think it
does I have some waterfront property in the desert for sale.

Our next administration will continue to tax, spend, militarily
invade or occupy and destroy other countries, shred the Constitution
and our Bill of Rights (remember when we had free speech?), poison
our air food and water, erase our borders, flood our nation with
illegal alien invaders, crank up the printing presses even more and
destroy the final 1% of the Dollar' s value left from our original
1913 Dollar before they replace it with the Amero.

I could go on and on but will spare you the ordeal for now.

America and the world is being taken down the sewer by a few thousand
really evi and conniving individuals. It is not a accident.

You will ultimately either serve your masters or resist them. But you
will not escape their grasp. One way or the other, you will have to
choose.

Thank you for your continued support, without it I could not continue
to flood your mail boxes with these messages of doom and gloom. There
is a light at the end of the tunnel, but it will take every one of us
with the courage and knowledge to reach that light for the whole
country's benefit. Please don't sit in your chair in front of the
computer sending out emails which are simply deleted, marching and
chanting in front of Buildings that have no ears or concern for your
voice. Please get out of your comfort zone and take steps to get
events going that will make a dent in these evil leaders power. It is
up to each and every one of us, we cannot depend on someone else, it
has to be us. Our courage is the only solution.

Stay independant from the hand of Big Brother.

Go to http://www.rwefree.com and look at some of the information on
that site.

Join us in our quest to prosecute some of the more blatant corrupt
congressmen and senators

http://www.freedomisnotdead.org

www.grannywarriors.com


The future of this country is strictly up to us.

===

Tom's Plan


TRUTH TROOPERS' KOMBAT KIT

THE GAME IS AFOOT!!  NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT!
LET'S GIVE THE IRS AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT A
TRUTH ATTACK!!

	 There are a lot of things wrong with the income tax on our
labor and each of us has his own reasons for knowing that the
Constitution forbids the federal government from taxing labor.  Many
of those reasons are complex and difficult to explain and understand,
but we do not need to give the public a legal education for them to
know what we know:  THE TAX IMPOSED BY THE IRS ON LABOR IS A FRAUD!

	 The leadership of all of the groups comprising the Tax
Honesty Movement realize that if we continue to work separately the
IRS will continue to pick us off, one by one, until we are no more
and Truth will have no one to defend it.  We are now united, ONE, and
no matter what our additional knowledge of the issue may be, we are
all agreed and know that
THERE IS NO LAW!!
making the average American liable for income taxes because
HIS WAGES ARE NOT INCOME!!
That is our message, one we can easily explain and verify and one the
public can easily see and understand.

	 YOU!  The Truth Troopers, are the only way the public is
going to receive that message.  The government refuses to respond to
demands that it provide the law justifying its theft of trillions of
dollars from hardworking American households and the media refuses to
help.
	 We know that you are committed to the Constitution and the
republic it promised, to a free country for your children and
grandchildren and to the subservience of government to the people,
but we all must follow through on that commitment right now and
pledge our every effort and means to that end.  Otherwise, all those
that follow will have nothing and they will be entitled to look back
at us and ask "Why?"
	 This is not going to be an easy, simple or quick task.  We
are up against the most powerful and dangerous organization in the
world and it will do everything in its power to stop us and snuff out
the truth.  But there are far too many of us for them to take on if
we all move and ACT at the same time, and that is exactly what we
will and must do.  Individually they can take us one at a time and we
are helpless, but with all of us acting together they are helpless.

WE ARE ALL, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US, TOGETHER, UNITED AND ON THE
TRUTH ATTACK!

This TRUTH TROOPER KOMBAT KIT contains everything you need to win
this war on lies and theft.  If we all, every one of us, take all the
actions described in this Kombat Kit WE WILL SUCCEED because when the
PEOPLE see the TRUTH, they will recognize it and once we get the
truth to them no matter how hard the government tries, it
CANNOT UNRING THAT BELL!

ARE YOU READY?  ARE YOU COMMITTED? ARE YOU PREPARED TO STOP TALKING
AND START DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT?  IF SO, THEN

LET'S ROLL!!


FIRST, WHAT NOT TO DO:

Nothing is served by your permitting the IRS to attack you
personally.  Big government versus single citizen is the IRS's
favorite position because it is basically a bully.  It fears all of
us but fears no one of us.  So,

„« If you are currently in "compliance", continue to "comply".
Now is not the time to provide the IRS with more propaganda fodder.
The Court is not a refuge for us because the judges are just as
afraid of the IRS as everyone else, so if you are not already cross-
threaded with the IRS, stay in the crowd and don't do anything that
will allow them to single you out.

„« When writing, emailing or speaking to anyone with the IRS or
other government agency be careful to avoid threats, profanity or
other language that could "justify" their designating you as a PDT,
a "potentially dangerous taxpayer" (this is political and in
politics "image" is 90%).

„« During demonstrations, personal encounters with IRS or IRS
paid "sympathizers" and while attending court proceedings, remember
and observe all rules to the letter (Permit?  Private property?
Courtroom etiquette?) and, again, no threats or profanity.

„« In communicating with the press or media do not permit your
anger and frustration to lead you to outrageous or threatening
statements.  It is possible to express anger and frustration without
appearing on the verge of violence.  Image.  Keep the white hat on
while you put the black hat on them.

„« Finally, DO NOT STRAY FROM THE MESSAGE:  THERE IS NO LAW and
MY WAGES ARE NOT INCOME (FOR NOTHING)!!  No matter what other
problems you know about the IRS and the tax laws, save those for
later.

Now that we know what not to do, it's time to get to work:

Correspondence

Let's start by engaging in some friendly (and fun) correspondence
with the enemy.  Write demanding letters (examples in your KK, below)
not demanding that they "show you the law" but telling them there is
no law.

President George Bush
The White House
Washington, D.C.  20500

Henry Paulson
Secretary of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington, D.C.  20220

Mark W. Everson
Commissioner of the IRS
500 N. Capitol St. N.W.
Washington, D.C.  20221

Both of your Senators
	 and
Your Congressman
(Click here to get their addresses)

Your local IRS office (Go to IRS.gov and click Contact, then "Contact
My Local Office")

Finally, send a copy to your local paper

Now, that's seven letters to the government and another to the paper,
but we can do better.  Write another set of letters for your spouse,
for each of your children and for the family pet(s).  Multiply that
number by seven and remember there are tens of thousands of us doing
the same thing.  You're beginning to get the picture.  You have just
made a major political impact for the price of a handful of postage
stamps.

(It's even more fun when you think about the fact that every Senator
and Congressman will automatically forward all those letters to the
IRS for response and they have to respond to Congressional inquiries
within 24 hours.  Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall?)

THEN GET YOUR CALENDAR and mark it for every two weeks from the day
you sent out the letters.  There is no way any government official or
representative will respond in two weeks, so you send another barrage
of follow-up letters from you and all your family, including the
pets, (example in your KK, below) every two weeks, demanding an
answer to your first letter.

IF AND WHEN YOU DO GET A RESPONSE, it will not be sufficient because
they cannot admit that there is no law and they cannot show you a law
making you liable, so you and your entire household continue to
follow-up every two weeks with the insufficient response letters
(example in your KK, below).

E-Correspondence

But that‘¦s not all, we're going to do some emailing, now.  Write an
email saying the same thing as the initial demand letter and send it
to:

The White House
president@...

The Secretary of the Treasury
(Go to congress.org, click "federal agencies", select Department of
the Treasury and click "Go", then select the envelop next to Paulson
and fill out the email form)

Both of your Senators and your Congressman
(Click here to obtain emails)

Again, send a copy to your local and area newspaper(s).

You can send the same email to all of them at the same time, but make
all of the addresses blind copies so they can't tell you have sent it
to others.

THAT WAS FRUITFUL, SO LET'S MULTIPLY.  Create at least four more
screen names for your email with your ISP, they're free.  Then send
another set of emails from each of those screen names.  This may take
a few minutes, but the effect, multiplied by tens of thousands of
others doing the same thing will be phenomenal.

NOW GO BACK TO YOUR CALENDAR and mark it for every week starting with
the day you sent out the emails.  There is no way any government
official or representative can respond in one week, so you send
another barrage of follow-up emails just like the follow-up letters
every week, demanding an answer from the first.

IF AND WHEN YOU DO GET A RESPONSE, it will not be sufficient because
they cannot admit that there is no law and they cannot show you one
because there is no law, so you continue to follow-up every week with
emails just like the insufficient response letters.

LOOK BACK AT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!  Add up the number of letters and
emails you've sent out with virtually no effort or expense and
multiply that by 150,000.  That's what you've just accomplished!

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?  WELL, WE'VE ONLY BEGUN TO FIGHT!

	 Now that you've thrown your first bucket of water on the bad
guys, let's turn our attention to the good guys, everyone else.  It's
time to tell everyone the truth about the income tax.

	 REMEMBER TO STAY ON THE SINGLE MESSAGE AT ALL TIMES.  THERE
IS NO LAW! and MY WAGES ARE NOT INCOME (FOR NOTHING)!  No need to
embellish this message with other grounds and theories which will
only cloud the issue.

Word of Mouth

	 Make a list of everyone you know, starting with family, in-
laws, then friends, neighbors and coworkers.  TALK to these people,
but before you do, print up a set of letters for whoever you are
going to break the truth to.
	 Understand that they are where you used to be, and just as
you could not believe the truth when you first heard it they will be
slow to accept it.  BE PATIENT BUT PERSISTENT.
If they do see the truth, then present them with the letters to sign
(and mail them yourself to make sure they go out), then either have
them enlist as Truth Troopers on the website and download their KK
from the site or you enlist them and provide them with their KK (on
disk so they can use the templates).  Follow up with your recruits to
ensure that they are following up.
If they cannot accept the truth, offer to prove it to them and
present them with the letters to sign so they can see for themselves
that the officials and representatives will not be able to cite any
law making them liable for the income tax (again, mailing them
yourself to make sure they go out).  Follow up with your truth
prospect list to see what, if any, response they received.  Cite
absence of response or insufficient response as proof and bring them
to the light.  Once convinced, again, either have them enlist as
Truth Troopers on the website and download their KK from the site or
you enroll them and provide them with their KKs.
Stay on your list until every one of them is in the movement and
follow up with them to make sure they are doing their part.

(NOTE:  Many may not share your passion for the Constitution or
Freedom, and you may have to do some or most of their work for them.
Be prepared to write their follow-up letters for them and to
encourage and energize them.)

Letters to the Editor

Compose and send letters to the editor.  Do not be discouraged if
they are not published.  The letters will raise the issue at the
paper and enough letters from enough people will make the issue
appear newsworthy.  Major media WILL NOT TOUCH THIS ISSUE, so the
locals are our best route to the public.

Remember, STAY ON MESSAGE.  It is tempting to inject our own
additional grounds for invalidity of the tax, but it only takes one
arrow so long as we push it deep, hard and long enough.  STAY ON
MESSAGE:  THERE IS NO LAW! and MY WAGES ARE NOT INCOME (FOR NOTHING)!

Your Attorney and Tax Preparer

These call for a little more finesse because they "know more than you
do." Call your attorney and your tax preparer and any other tax
expert, such as CPA's that you know.  Tell them that you have heard
that there is no law making you liable for the income tax and ask
them to find it for you.  If you don't hear back from them in a week,
call again.  You really want to know what the law is that makes you
liable for the income tax.  They will not be able to find it,
learning the truth for and from themselves, the only ones they
believe know what they are talking about.  This is the best way to
get the truth to folks who think they know more than others.

Once they realize, and admit, there is no law, recruit them as T-
Troopers just as with your friends and family.

Assemble the Troops

	 Touch base with other tax honesty people you know in your
community.  Soon you will receive an update giving you the names and
contact information for other T-Troopers in your state.  Contact
those in your area and arrange to meet to coordinate efforts and
compare results.
Check the T-Trooper list for lawyer members and PR members so you can
call upon them for assistance in planning and conducting FREE
Seminars and demonstrations.
	 Also check the site for events in your area (Schedule of
Events) and, in particular, any IRS proceedings in your area (Hot
Spots).

Terminology

	 He who defines the terms wins the debate.

REFERENCE IRS TERM USE, INSTEAD:
Tax Honesty
  Movement/Groups
Tax Protester Groups
Tax Honesty Patriots
Truth Attack Tax Protester Group Tax Honesty Patriots
IRS "Criminal"
Targets Tax Cheats
Tax Frauds Martyrs for Truth
Patriots
IRS Prisoners Inmates/Body Count Political Prisoners
Truth Troopers Tax Protesters  Truth Troopers
Patriots
IRS IRS IR "SS" /Gestapo
Attack Monkeys (Oz)
Slave Raiders
I Rob Slaves
Tax Frauds
Your Favorite
Income Tax Income Tax Tax on Labor

	 Use these terms, not the IRS's terms, in your talking with
people, FREE Seminars, flyers, ads and demonstrations.


FREE Seminars

	 Who:  YOU (and, yes, you CAN do it), but even better, you and
other T-Troopers in your community.  If there is a lawyer T-Trooper
in your area (Check your list), arrange for him or her to participate
and answer the legal side of the issue and verify the message.

	 What:  Called FREE because it is more about FREEDOM than
money.  FREE Seminars are one of your best tools for getting the
truth out AND for recruiting new T-Troopers.

	 When:  Pick a date far enough off that you can get your FS in
the paper's schedule of events.  If finances permit it, an ad in the
paper will increase attendance.  Check your T-Trooper list for a PR T-
Trooper in your area, who can assist you in publicizing your FS.
Don't forget to notify TruthAttack.org of the date and place so we
can post it on the Schedule of Events!

	 Where:  There are a lot of options, many at no expense.
Local malls usually have a community room that is available.  So do
area hotels and motels, although a small charge may be required.
Area schools, businesses and churches can also be an option for a
meeting place.  If no other place is available, someone's home can
serve.

	 Preparation:

1)   The Communications Committee will later provide us with a
slide show or video for FREE Seminars, but until then, obtain a copy
of the DVD of America:  Freedom To Fascism by Aaron Russo [Click
Here].

2)   Publicize your FS in local newspaper and TV events
listings, which are usually free, and, if funds are available place
ads in the paper or area classified ads circular (Thrifty Nickel,
etc.) and list the FS on the TA.org Schedule of Events.

3)    Prepare a simple flyer (see example below) for
distribution to attendees stating the message clearly and simply.
STAY ON MESSAGE and KEEP IT SIMPLE.

4)   Prepare a sign-in sheet calling for name, address, phone
number and email so you can follow-up on those who need a second
truth injection.

5)    Prepare sets of letters to government targets as above.

6)   Prepare forms providing the information needed for you to
enroll them as Truth Troopers.

7)    Prepare KKs (on disks) to distribute to the new recruits.

8)    Depending upon finances and how fancy you want to make it,
put out some refreshments (some will be angered by the news, so
alcohol is not recommended).

9)   Make sure there will be a TV large enough for all to see
the movie and a DVD player on hand (make a test run to avoid fumbling
around while the group waits and watches you look inept).

10) Make sure other T-Troopers in your area (or even nearby
towns) know when and where the FS will be held and encourage them to
attend.  (NOTE:  If you can, attend someone else's FS and be vocal in
your "acceptance" and support of the message, AND your anger, which
will prompt others in the audience to follow your lead.  OK, so
you're a shill, a plant.  This is politics, not law.)

How:  This is going to be a lot easier than you think.  Once the
group is assembled, and starting ON TIME, which is a way of showing
your group you respect their time, simply follow these steps:

1. Welcome those in attendance and praise them for having a
civic interest in their government and Constitution, then get right
to the program (remember, respect their time).

2. Go straight to the movie and play Part I on the tax issue.
(It isn't that the Fed issue is unimportant.  It is important, but it
isn't the issue you are dealing with here)  STAY ON MESSAGE.

3. Now, you're up, keep it short and sweet and, mostly SIMPLE!
Ask the group by show of hands if they believe the government is
hiding something from us.  Ask them how many want to know the
secret.  Then tell them (STAY ON MESSAGE) that the secret is that

A. THERE IS NO LAW making the average working American liable
for the income tax.

B. The reason there is no law is that the Constitution does not
allow the government to tax labor.  That YOUR WAGES ARE NOT ALL
PROFIT and that YOUR RIGHT TO EARN A LIVING IS A FUNDAMENTAL,
CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED RIGHT THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT TAX, just as
it cannot tax your free speech or going to church.

C. The IRS, not Congress or the law (and the IRS cannot make
law), says that your wages are 100% PROFIT.  The IRS says your
personal earnings are paid to you in exchange for NOTHING, that YOUR
LABOR is WORTHLESS.

D. Taxpayers who don't work for their money are not taxed on the
part of their receipts that they invested in order to receive their
gross receipts, but those who work for their money are not allowed
ANY credit for what they invest to receive those earnings.  THAT IS
NOT ONLY WRONG, IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND THAT IS WHY THERE IS NO
LAW!

STOP!!
DON'T DO IT!!
RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO STRAY FROM THE MESSAGE AND REINFORCE IT WITH
OTHER GROUNDS AND THEORIES.  THOSE GROUNDS ARE OVER THEIR HEADS FOR
NOW.  YOU HAVE ALREADY GIVEN THEM A BIG JOLT TO PROCESS AND ACCEPT
AND THAT IS ENOUGH.
IF YOU START ON OTHER ISSUES THEY WILL TUNE YOU OUT AND YOU
WILL    LOSE    THEM!!

STAY‘XON‘XMESSAGE!!

E. Eliminate the Belief Resistors.  DO NOT WAIT for them to
bring up resistance to belief, because then you will be on the
defensive and you can't advance on defense.  YOU bring them up
yourself and dispel them:

Admit that you didn't believe it at first, either, and then hit the
resistors:


RESISTOR ANTIDOTE
It's been done this way for almost 100 years Not really, not until
after WWII, when people were asked to voluntarily pay income tax to
support the war and in 1945 the IRS started TELLING people they HAD
to file and pay taxes on labor.  A LIE!
Tax Lawyers and CPA's couldn't have missed such a big hole in the law
	 Tax Lawyers and CPA's work for businesses, not Joe Sixpack,
and, frankly, they are as afraid of the IRS as anyone else.
Sometimes something is so obvious no one can see it.  Some HAVE known
about it for years, but the IRS has been getting gag orders
prohibiting them from telling anyone.
It is embarrassing to think we've been fooled by the government We
haven't just been fooled, we've been threatened, intimidated and
frightened.  We haven't been duped, we've been robbed.  As
individuals we are justified in not fighting back, but as a group, a
LARGE group, they can't hurt us.  It's time to stand up to them, all
of us together, and make them obey the law.  It's payback time.
It's awful risky taking on the IRS If one of us does, he is
doomed, but if all of us do the IRS is doomed.  There are already
thousands of people standing up at the same time RIGHT NOW!  They
can't round up the whole population.  The government has already
received hundreds of thousands of letters demanding the return to the
rule of law, because we are Americans and no person or agency, no
matter how powerful, can tell us what to do and we are not going to
pay them "protection money" when THERE IS NO LAW saying we must and
the Constitution says they cannot tax our property, our labor.

Someone has to pay for government Give them the test (below),
then show them the budget breakout (below) showing that 56% of the
federal budget is for UNAUTHORIZED expenditures.  Money they have no
right to spend that way, and, therefore, no need to take from us in
the first place.

F. If you have an attorney T-Trooper present, ask him to verify
that there is no law and that a man's labor is his property and the
Constitution does not allow the federal government to tax our
property or our fundamental rights and liberties.

G. By a show of hands, ask how many are tired of being victims,
tired of being afraid of their own government and ready to do
something about it.  If it is not unanimous, then ask those who are
not convinced if they would be willing to conduct a test to prove
what you are saying is true?

H. For those who are convinced, pass out enlistment
questionnaires for them to fill out and give them a set of letters to
fill in their names and return addresses and sign.  For husband and
wife attendees, give EACH of them a set.

I. For those who are not convinced, pass out a set of letters
for them to fill in their names and return addresses and sign in
order to prove to them that the government cannot show them any law
requiring them to pay income taxes on their personal earnings.

J. Gather up all the enlistments and letters, which you mail
yourself to make sure they don't end up on the back of someone's
kitchen countertop, and hand out KKs (on disks) to the new recruits,
pointing out that when they get home they need to start with the
letters from the rest of the "family" and the emails as shown on the
KK.

K. Thank all of them, recruits and doubters, alike, for their
time and SHUT IT DOWN.

THINGS YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO AT A FREE SEMINAR:

DO NOT stray from the message:  THERE IS NO LAW! and MY WAGES ARE NOT
INCOME (FOR NOTHING).  DON'T DO IT!!

DO NOT engage in a debate with anyone.  Simply say all you can do is
tell them the truth, but you respect their right to refuse to believe
and their right to refuse to care and DROP IT‘XMOVE ON!

(NOTE:  There will be poo-pooers, courtesy of you know who.  You will
know them because they will continue to interrupt and harass you.
When you get one of them, "I know your bosses have sent you to
disrupt this meeting, and now that you have, either shut up or
leave.")

DO NOT rest on your laurels.  We are a long way from finished.  Start
planning your next FREE Seminar right then and there, asking your new
recruits to bring their friends, family and co-workers.

Demonstrations

	 Check the website in "Hot Spots" for locations of IRS
proceedings ("beatings in progress").  If there are, then get with
your area Legal T-Trooper on do's and don'ts for a demonstration and
whether any permit is required in your community.  Assemble the other
T-Troopers in your area for a planning session and make plans to
stage a demonstration at the courthouse on the next day the IRS
proceeding is being held, either for arguments, hearings or trial.
Don't forget to report the demonstration to TruthAttack.org so we can
include it on the Schedule of Events.  You will be surprised at how
far many Patriots and T-Troopers will travel to help!
	 Plan, also, to pack the courtroom.  You can get away with
showing some disapproval, but you cannot openly demonstrate in the
courtroom.  You want the court and, if present, the jury, to know
whose side you're on, but you don't want to press the envelop too
far.  Each judge has a different level of tolerance, so watch the
judge's temperament and don't give them the satisfaction of holding
you in contempt or ejecting you from the courtroom.
	 If there are no IRS beatings in progress in your area, target
your local IRS offices.
	 In either forum, a few people, even one or two, can create a
large presence, but the more people involved the better, so ask
friends and neighbors, whether in or out of the movement, to come
along for the ride.  Including them in the fun and games will make
them feel they are insiders of the group and enlistment will almost
automatically follow.
	 Be sure and let the local paper and TV and radio stations
know about the demonstration in advance so they can arrange for
coverage.
Plan and conduct the demonstration on a NAZI I-Are-"SS" and GESTAPO
or a Slavery theme (because taking your labor or any part of it IS
slavery).  Be creative.  Address and VERBALLY (ONLY) confront any IRS
employees coming or going, demanding that they "Show Me The Law" and
that they "Free the Slaves" or "Show me your goose step, Gestapo
Boy!"  Every other sign should be "NO LAW, NO TAXES". IRS employees
are fair game for insults, humiliation and embarrassment
(demoralizing), but stop there.  No profanity.  No threats.  No
arguing or debating, just insults and demands.  You aren't there to
discuss anything, you are there to demand the rule of law.  Don't
touch anyone and don't go on private property.  Your Legal T-
Trooper's advice should be followed to the letter.
	 Again, STAY ON MESSAGE.
	 Be LOUD, BE OBVIOUS, BE CONSPICUOUS.  You have Truth and
Justice and thousands of T-Troopers and Patriots on your side.
	 Use the demonstration to pass out simple flyers (if legally
permitted) and, if there is a FS planned, include that on the flyer.
The demonstration isn't supposed to prove anything, it is supposed to
generate discussion and make people aware there is an issue.  Once
they know there is an issue, then they will automatically formulate
an opinion on it.  Public opinion, not law, is what this is all about.

Keep TruthAttack.org Informed

Success stories to include in Updates and Press Releases, scheduling
of demonstrations and FREE Seminars to include in the Schedule, new
IRS proceedings to include on Hot Spots and suggestions are all
important.

Problems you are having are just as important as successes, since we
may be able to help with some problems.

You are TA's eyes and ears and we need to be able to see and hear
what is going on, what is working and what is working better.  Then
we can distribute that information through updates and upgrades to
the site to allow everyone to have the benefit of that knowledge.

Finally, Support the Truth Attack with Your Contribution

No matter how large or small, with everyone chipping in TA can
provide a lot of support for you and make your efforts count for even
more.  We have $0 to start with, not even money to pay for the
website construction and hosting, which our webhost has extended at
both discount and on credit.

We would like to be able to produce videos, PowerPoint slide show
presentations and printed and digital materials for you to use in
your seminars and with your personal contacts.  With funding we can
do that and provide them at cost of replacement to every T-Trooper.
The same goes for printed signs and push cards for demonstrations.

With enough funding we can underwrite the cost of advertising for
FREE Seminars and conduct other, bigger events like rallies and
bringing in key speakers and celebrities.  We even hope, ultimately,
to help pay to launch a legal assault on the application of the
income tax, giving our campaign a second important front against the
big lie.

We ask no one to do themselves financial injury, but please
contribute what you can and contribute regularly.  A campaign of this
magnitude and importance does not run on sweat alone.  Contributions
can be made on line through the website.



SAMPLE DEMAND LETTER

Re:  Unauthorized Taxing of Labor
[Don't "Gang" write these.  Separate letter for each official or
representative]
Dear Mr. President/Mr. Secretary/Mr. Commissioner or
Dear Senator or Congressman (Name) or
Dear IRS [your local office]:

I have learned that there is no law making the average working
American, myself included, liable for the income tax and that the IRS
has lied in order to steal trillions of hard-earned dollars without
legal justification.  I find that very disturbing.

The IRS and the Treasury Department have for years refused to respond
to any inquiry regarding what law makes the average working American,
myself included, liable for the tax.  The reason they have refused is
that there is no law.

I have also learned that the IRS contends my labor, my skill and my
personal effort, and even my worklife span, which are my property and
are depleted every day, are not only worthless, but that I have given
absolutely nothing in exchange for my earnings.  I deeply resent and
am profoundly offended by that claim.

I have also learned that the tax, applied to 100% of my earnings, is
taxing my human capital, what I have given up and invested in order
to receive and EARN (NOT been given for nothing) my earnings.  As
applied, the IRS is taxing my property, my capital, which the
Constitution prohibits without apportionment among the states.

My right to earn a living for myself and my family by engaging in any
lawful occupation is my God-given, natural, fundamental right, and is
exempt from taxation.

I therefore demand that this unlawful and unconstitutional practice
of conning and extorting money from hardworking Americans cease
immediately.  I await and expect your prompt and favorable reply.

Respectfully,

[your signature followed by your name and address]

SAMPLE FOLLOWUP LETTER

Re:   Unauthorized Taxing of Labor
	 SECOND request [or third, fourth, etc.]


Dear Mr. President/Mr. Secretary/Mr. Commissioner or
Dear Senator or Congressman (Name) or
Dear IRS [your local office]:

I recently wrote you urgently seeking a response to my recent
discovery that there is no law making the average working American,
myself included, liable for the income tax and that neither the law
as written nor the Constitution as intended permit such a tax to be
levied or collected on our labor, which is not only our property, but
is the exercise of a fundamental and Constitutionally guaranteed
freedom and right.

I also indicated how extremely offended I am by the IRS's position
that my work and my work life span are worthless, and that I have
contributed nothing through my employment to my employer in exchange
for my earnings.

Your failure to respond to my letter serves only to confirm the facts
that have come to my attention and to add still another personal
insult to that conveyed by the IRS's calling me worthless and an
economic parasite.

Please favor my letter with a reply, if not for your duty as a public
servant, then as a common courtesy.

Respectfully,

[your signature followed by your name and address]

SAMPLE REPLY LETTER

Re:   Unauthorized Taxing of Labor
	 Your Inadequate Response


Dear Mr. President/Mr. Secretary/Mr. Commissioner or
Dear Senator or Congressman (Name) or
Dear IRS [your local office]:

Thank you for your response to my recent letter.  It is, however, a
completely inadequate response.

Not only do you fail to provide any law that entitles the IRS to
assess liability for any income tax upon the average working
American, myself included, your letter fails to afford a remedy to
either the unconstitutional taxation of my property, my human capital
and my life itself, without benefit of apportionment to the states,
and the unconstitutional taxation of my exercising my
Constitutionally protected right to earn a living by any lawful
occupation.

I therefore must and do hereby demand that the continued taxing of
personal earnings, neither authorized by any law nor permitted by the
Constitution, cease immediately.

I await and expect your immediate action to remedy this totally
unacceptable breach of the law by the IRS and of the Constitution by
the federal government.

Respectfully,

[your signature followed by your name and address]


SAMPLE FLYER
ATTENTION ALL WORKING AMERICANS

DID YOU KNOW

THERE IS NO LAW
MAKING MOST AMERICANS LIABLE FOR THE INCOME TAX?

YET THE IRS CONTINUES TO DEMAND TAXES FROM YOU

THAT YOUR PERSONAL EARNINGS ARE NOT ALL INCOME?

BECAUSE YOU GIVE SOMETHING IN RETURN FOR YOUR EARNINGS, SO THEY ARE
NOT 100% PROFIT, BUT:

THAT THE IRS CLAIMS YOUR PERSONAL EARNINGS ARE ALL PROFIT AND THAT
YOU GIVE NOTHING IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR HARD-EARNED PAY?

DON'T BELIEVE IT?  ATTEND A FREE SEMINAR AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF

[INSERT DETAILS]

CONNECT THE POWER TO THE ACTION
(Pay special attention to the underlined departments)
		 POWER 			 ACTION
To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises

To borrow Money

To regulate commerce with foreign Nations, among the States and with
Indian Tribes

To establish uniform Rules of Naturalization

To enact Laws on Bankruptcy

To coin Money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign Coin

To fix the Standard of Weights and Measures

To provide for Punishment of counterfeiting

To establish Post Offices and post Roads

To make Patent and Copyright laws

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high
Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations

To declare War, Grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal and make Rules
concerning Captures on Land and Water

To raise and support and regulate Armies and a Navy and to regulate
the Militia

To call out the Militia

To govern the District of Columbia

To make laws "necessary and proper" to enforce the Constitution

To enforce 13th Amendment (abolition of slavery)

To enforce 14th Amendment (equal protection of the law)

To enforce 15th Amendment (right to vote)

To enforce 19th Amendment (women's suffrage)

To enforce 23rd Amendment (prohibition of poll tax) Department of
Agriculture

Department of Commerce

Department of Defense

Department of Education

Department of Energy

Department of HHS (Welfare)

Department of Homeland Security

Department of Housing/Urban Dev.

Department of the Interior

Department of Justice

Department of Labor

Department of State

Department of Transportation

Department of Treasury

Department of Veteran's Affairs

Environmental Protection Agency

General Services Administration

NASA (Maybe under defense?)

Office of Personnel Management

Social Security Administration

AND, (just for fun)

School lunch menus

Drinking age

Speed limits

School bus seating assignments

Home loans

Traffic Signals

Baseball Leagues

2007 BUDGET
(IN BILLION$)


EXPENDITURE

TOTAL INSIDE
CONST.
AUTH. OUTSIDE
CONST.
AUTH.
Legislative Branch 4.4 4.4
Judicial Branch 6.4 6.4
Executive Office of the President 19.5 19.5
Department of Agriculture 92.8  92.8
Department of Commerce 6.6 6.6
Department of Defense 558 558
Department of Education 64.5  64.5
Department of Energy 21.4  21.4
Department of Health and Human Services 699.6  699.6
Department of Homeland Security 43.6 43.6
Department of Housing and Urban Development 44.7  44.7
Department of the Interior 9.4  9.4
Department of Justice 24.7 24.7
Department of Labor 53.4  53.4
Department of State 14.5 14.5
Department of Transportation 65.7  65.7
Department of Treasury 494.3 494.3
Department of Veteran's Affairs 73.8 73.8
Environmental Protection Agency
7.9
7.9
General Services Administration 0.9 0.9
National Aeronautics and Space Admin. 16.4 16.4
Office of Personnel Management 67.3 67.3
Social Security Administration 622.7  622.7
Other Independent Agencies 27.8  27.8
Allowances 5.5 ? 5.5

	 3045.8 1335.9 1709.9

	 100% 43.86% 56.14%





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US Journalists & War-Crime Guilt
By Peter Dyer
Liberty Underground news - libertyuv@...


Editor's Note: This year, the U.S. news media cheered the opening of
the $450 million Newseum in Washington, a self-congratulatory
celebration of American journalism.

However, rather than giving themselves that expensive pat on the
back, the major U.S. media organizations might have done something to
show remorse for their complicity in the Bush administration's
propaganda that justified the invasion of Iraq.

As freelance journalist Peter Dyer notes, prosecutors at the
Nuremberg Tribunals deemed such journalistic support for war crimes
to be a capital offense:

October 16 is an anniversary that should hold considerable interest
for American journalists who have written in support of "Operation
Iraqi Freedom" – the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

===

Sixty-two years ago, on Oct. 16, 1946, Julius Streicher was hanged.

Streicher was one of a group of 10 Germans executed that day
following the judgment of the first Nuremberg Trial – a 40-week trial
of 22 of the most prominent Nazis.

Each was tried for two or more of the four crimes defined in the
Nuremberg Charter: crimes against peace (aggression), war crimes,
crimes against humanity, and conspiracy.

All who were sentenced to death were major German government
officials or military leaders. Except for Streicher.

Julius Streicher was a journalist.

Editor of the vehemently anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stόrmer,
Streicher was convicted of, in the words of the judgment, "incitement
to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were
being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitut
(ing) … a crime against humanity."

Presenting the case against Streicher, British prosecutor Lieutenant
Colonel M.C. Griffith-Jones said: "My Lord, it may be that this
defendant is less directly involved in the physical commission of the
crimes against Jews. ... The submission of the Prosecution is that
his crime is no less the worse … that he made these things possible –
made these crimes possible which could never have happened had it not
been for him and for those like him. He led the propaganda and the
education of the German people in those ways."

The critical role of propaganda was affirmed at Nuremberg not only by
the prosecution and in the judgment but also in the testimony of the
most prominent Nazi defendant, Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering:

"Modern and total war develops, as I see it, along three lines: the
war of weapons on land, at sea and in the air; economic war, which
has become an integral part of every modern war; and, third,
propaganda war, which is also an essential part of this warfare."

Two months after the Nuremberg hangings, the United Nations General
Assembly passed Resolution 59(I), declaring:

"Freedom of information requires as an indispensable element the
willingness and capacity to employ its privileges without abuse. It
requires as a basic discipline the moral obligation to seek the facts
without prejudice and to spread knowledge without malicious intent."

The next year another General Assembly Resolution was adopted: Res.
110 which "condemns all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country
conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage
any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression."

Although UN General Assembly Resolutions are not legally binding,
Resolutions 59 and 110 carry considerable moral weight. This is
because, like the United Nations itself, they are an expression of
the catastrophic brutality and suffering of two world wars and the
universal desire to avoid future slaughter.

Propaganda Crimes

Most jurisdictions have yet to recognize propaganda for war as a
crime. However several journalists have recently been convicted of
incitement to genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda.

Because there is stiff resistance, especially from the United States,
the effort to criminalize war propaganda faces an uphill battle.

However in legal terms it seems relatively straightforward: if
incitement to genocide is a crime, then incitement to aggression,
another Nuremberg crime, could and should be as well.

After all, aggression – starting an unprovoked war – is "the supreme
international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it
contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole," in the
words of the judgment at Nuremberg.

Criminal or not, much of the world now sees incitement to war as
morally indefensible.

In this light and in light of Goering's three-part recipe for war
(weapons, economic war and propaganda) it is instructive to look at
the role which American journalists and war propagandists have
recently played in bringing about and sustaining war.

The Bush administration began to sell the invasion of Iraq to the
American public soon after 9/11.

In order to coordinate this effort President Bush's chief of staff,
Andrew Card, established the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) in the
summer of 2002 expressly for the purpose of marketing the invasion of
Iraq.

Among the members of WHIG were media figures/propagandists Karen
Hughes and Mary Matalin.

WHIG was remarkable not only for its recklessness with the truth but
for the candor with which it acknowledged it was running an
advertising campaign. A Sept. 7, 2002, New York Times article
entitled TRACES OF TERROR: THE STRATEGY; Bush Aides Set Strategy to
Sell Policy on Iraq reported:

"White House officials said today that the administration was
following a meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the
Congress and the allies of the need to confront the threat from
Saddam Hussein….

'' `From a marketing point of view,' said Andrew H. Card Jr., the
White House chief of staff who is coordinating the effort, `you don't
introduce new products in August.' ''

It was as if the "product" – the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign
state – was a consumer good, like a car or a TV show. The sales pitch
was the manufactured "imminent threat" of Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction.

In other words, the business of WHIG was incitement to aggressive war
primarily through the propaganda of fear.

Along those lines WHIG's most prominent member, National Security
Advisor Condoleezza Rice, invoked the specter of an Iraqi-generated
nuclear holocaust in a Sept. 8, 2002, CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer:

"We do know that there have been shipments going into Iran, for
instance – into Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are
only suited to – high-quality aluminum tools that are only really
suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs. ... The
problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how
quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking
gun to be a mushroom cloud."

The smoking gun/mushroom cloud images were among the most memorable
of all the White House war propaganda. They were generated just a few
days earlier in a WHIG meeting by speechwriter Michael Gerson.

The existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was central to the
Bush administration's campaign for war. Other important elements were
Saddam Hussein's ties with Al Qaeda and the strongly implied
association of Iraq with the tragedies of 9/11.

All were false. In propaganda, though, selling the product trumps
truth.

Unquestioning Submission

The role played by American mainstream media during the run-up to the
invasion of Iraq was marked by widespread unquestioning submission to
the Bush administration and abandonment of the most fundamental
journalistic responsibility to the public.

This responsibility is embodied not only in Resolution 59 but in the
Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics as well, which
states: "Journalists should test the accuracy of information from all
sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error."

The failure of influential American journalists, such as the New York
Times' Judith Miller, to test the accuracy of information played a
critical role in the Bush administration's successful effort to
incite the American public to attack a country which was not
threatening us.

Though she was far from alone in selling the case for war, Miller --
through her seemingly uncritical reliance on dodgy informants -- was
probably responsible to a larger degree than any other American
journalist for spreading the fear of nonexistent Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction.

As such she and other influential journalists who failed in this way
bear a share of moral, if not legal, responsibility for hundreds of
thousands of deaths, millions of refugees and all the other carnage,
devastation and human suffering of "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Some prominent American media figures, however, went considerably
further than simple failure to check sources. Some actively and
passionately encouraged Americans to commit and/or approve of war
crimes, before and during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Prominent among these was Fox News' Bill O'Reilly who – regarding
both Afghanistan and Iraq – advocated such crimes forbidden by the
Geneva Convention as collective punishment of civilians (Gen. Con.
IV, Art. 33); attacking civilian targets (Protocol I, Art. 51);
destroying water supplies (Protocol I Art. 54 Sec. 2) and even
starvation (Protocol I, Art. 54 Sec. 1).

Sept. 17, 2001: "The U.S. should bomb the Afghan infrastructure to
rubble: the airport, the power plants, their water facilities, and
the roads" in the event of a refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden to
the U.S.

Later, he added: "This is a very primitive country. And taking out
their ability to exist day to day will not be hard.  … We should not
target civilians. But if they don't rise up against this criminal
government, they starve, period."

On March 26, 2003, a few days after the invasion of Iraq began,
O'Reilly said: "There is a school of thought that says we should have
given the citizens of Baghdad 48 hours to get out of Dodge by
dropping leaflets and going with the AM radios and all that. Forty-
eight hours, you've got to get out of there, and flatten the place."
[See Peter Hart's "O'Reilly's War: Any rationale—or none—will do"
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, May/June 2003]

Collective Punishment

Another tremendously influential journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner
and former executive editor of the New York Times, the late A.M.
Rosenthal, also advocated attacking civilian targets and collective
punishment in regard to waging war against Muslim nations in the
Middle East.

In a Sept. 14, 2001, column, "How the U.S. Can Win the War",
Rosenthal wrote that the U.S. should give Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran,
Libya, Syria and Sudan three days to consider an ultimatum demanding
they turn over documents and information related to weapons of mass
destruction and terrorist organizations.

During these three days, "the residents of the countries would be
urged 24 hours a day by the U.S. to flee the capital and major
cities, because they would be bombed to the ground beginning the
fourth day."

Right-wing media figure Ann Coulter, on the Sean Hannity Show on July
21, 2006, called for another war and more punishment of civilians,
this time in Iran:

"Well, I keep hearing people say we can't find the nuclear material,
and you can bury it in caves. How about we just, you know, carpet-
bomb them so they can't build a transistor radio? And then it doesn't
matter if they have the nuclear material."

This pattern of the major U.S. news figures advocating aggressive
wars even predated 9/11. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas
Friedman published a strident call for war crimes including
collective punishment of Serbs and the destruction of their water
supplies over the Kosovo crisis:

"But if NATO's only strength is that it can bomb forever, then it has
to get every ounce out of that. Let's at least have a real air war.
The idea that people are still holding rock concerts in Belgrade, or
going out for Sunday merry-go-round rides, while their fellow Serbs
are `cleansing' Kosovo, is outrageous. It should be lights out in
Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related
factory has to be targeted.

"Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs
certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week
you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by
pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can
do 1389 too." [New York Times, April 23, 1999]

These casual -- even joking -- comments about inflicting war on
relatively weak countries came from American journalists and media
figures at the very top of their profession. Each was addressing an
audience of millions. It is difficult to overstate their influence.

Over the past decade alone, the massive destruction and carnage
wreaked by American pursuit of "the supreme international crime" of
aggression has been enabled by negligent, reckless and/or malicious
use of this influence.

Sadly, the words of Nuremberg Prosecutor Griffith-Jones concerning
the propaganda of German journalist Julius Streicher hold
considerable meaning today for some of the most prominent journalists
in the country which, 60 years ago, provided the guiding light at
Nuremberg:

Streicher "made these things possible – made these crimes possible
which could never have happened had it not been for him and for those
like him."

In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 127 in
which "the General Assembly … invites the Governments of States
Members … to study such measures as might with advantage, be taken on
the national plane to combat, within the limits of constitutional
procedures, the diffusion of false or distorted reports likely to
injure friendly relations between States."

Unfortunately, 60 years later, little progress has been made. War
propaganda is still legal and very much alive – flourishing, in fact,
as demonstrated by periodic calls for one more invasion of a country
which has never threatened the U.S.: Iran.

As matters stand today, with the United States still the world's
preeminent military power, the American propagandists who enabled
Operation Iraqi Freedom and other wars of aggression have little need
to worry about their legal responsibilities under the Nuremberg
principles.

A strong case can be made, though, that they have blood on their
hands.


Peter Dyer is a freelance journalist who moved with his wife from
California to New Zealand in 2004. He can be reached at
p.dyer@... .

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Mail carriers to bring drugs in anthrax attack
By Will Dunham
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4906HH20081001
<http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4906HH20081001>


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Government mail carriers would deliver emergency
supplies of antibiotics to people in U.S. cities in the case of an
anthrax attack, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials
said on Wednesday.

The system has been tested in three large cities -- Seattle,
Philadelphia and Boston -- and a pilot program is set to begin soon in
the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in Minnesota.

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said there was no evidence any attack was
imminent but that it was important for authorities to have a quick
distribution system ready.

The U.S. Postal Service carriers who would bring the antibiotics from
door to door all would be volunteers who would have advance supplies of
antibiotics to protect themselves and their families, officials said.

Attacks involving anthrax-laced letters in the United States in 2001
killed five people, including two U.S. Postal Service workers from a
facility in Washington, D.C., and made 13 sick. Thousands were given
antibiotics to prevent disease.

The letter carriers would deliver thousands of doses of doxycycline, an
antibiotic that can treat anthrax infection as well as some causes of
pneumonia and Lyme disease.

Anthrax infections can affect the skin and gastrointestinal system and
are easily treated if caught early. But if spores are inhaled, the
symptoms are difficult to diagnose and by the time a patient is really
sick, it is often too late to save him with antibiotics.

After the 2001 attacks more than 10,000 people took antibiotics to
prevent infection in case they were exposed to the spores, which infect
the lungs. The drugs they took included Bayer AG's ciprofloxacin, or
Cipro, doxycycline and other antibiotics.

Following any new attacks, the mail carriers would be escorted by local
police as they deliver supplies of a few days' worth of antibiotics
directly to residences throughout an affected community, Leavitt said.

"The intentional release of anthrax spores is one of the most
significant biological threats we face," Leavitt said.

"We have stockpiled millions of doses of antibiotics -- enough to meet
the needs of several large cities. But terrorists attack without
warning, and many people could fall ill from inhalation anthrax before
we get them the stockpiled drugs," Leavitt added.

William Raub, science advisor to Leavitt, cited as one possible scenario
an attack using a crop-dusting airplane dumping anthrax spores over a
city.

He said authorities would like to have at least half of the letter
carriers in a given city take part in the scheme. They would deliver a
bottle of pills and a fact sheet on anthrax.

In Minneapolis and St. Paul, authorities will contact about 700 mail
carriers to see if they would be willing to volunteer. Officials said
more cities could be added starting next year, but none has been
selected yet.

"We have found letter carriers to be the surest way of getting pills to
whole communities of people anywhere in the country," Leavitt said.
After they undertook the initial deliveries, public health authorities
would set up centers to resupply the community with antibiotics.


(Editing by Maggie Fox and David Storey)

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bush Declares Exceptions to Sections of Two Bills He Signed Into Law
By CHARLIE SAVAGE, The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/washington/15signing.html?_r=1&oref=sl\
ogin
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/washington/15signing.html?_r=1&oref=s\
login>


WASHINGTON — President Bush asserted on Tuesday that he had the
executive power to bypass several parts of two bills: a military
authorization act and a measure giving inspectors general greater
independence from White House control.

Mr. Bush signed the two measures into law. But he then issued a
so-called signing statement in which he instructed the executive branch
to view parts of each as unconstitutional constraints on presidential
power.

In the authorization bill, Mr. Bush challenged four sections. One forbid
the money from being used "to exercise United States control of the
oil resources of Iraq"; another required negotiations for an
agreement by which Iraq would share some of the costs of the American
military operations there.

The sections "purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the
president's ability to carry out his constitutional
obligations," including as commander in chief, Mr. Bush wrote.

In the other bill, he raised concerns about two sections that strengthen
legal protections against political interference with the internal
watchdog officials at each executive agency.

One section gives the inspectors general a right to counsels who report
directly to them. But Mr. Bush wrote in his signing statement that such
lawyers would be bound to follow the legal interpretations of the
politically appointed counsels at each agency.

The other section requires the White House to tell Congress what each
inspector general said about the administration's budget proposal
for their offices. Such a requirement, Mr. Bush wrote, would infringe on
"the president's constitutional authority" to decide what to
recommend to Congress.

Mr. Bush will not submit another budget request before his
administration ends in January, so his objections are unlikely to face a
test on his watch. Still, the bill's sponsor, Representative Jim
Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee, said he hoped that the next president
would overturn Mr. Bush's signing statements.

"These things create uncertainty in the law that should not be
there," Mr. Cooper said.

The White House has defended Mr. Bush's use of signing statements as
lawful and appropriate. But in 2006, the American Bar
Association<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organiza\
tions/a/american_bar_association/index.html?inline=nyt-org
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/ame\
rican_bar_association/index.html?inline=nyt-org> > called the device
"contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of
separation of powers."

Mr. Bush has used the signing statements to assert a right to bypass
more than 1,100 sections of laws. By comparison, all previous presidents
combined challenged about 600 sections of bills.

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Experts say children turn to drugs to lessen the pain and horrors of
violence.


Iraq's Children Drug Addicts, Dealers
By  Afif Sarhan, IOL Correspondent
http://www.islamonl ine.net/servlet/ Satellite? c=Article_
C&cid=1230108463947&pagename=Zone- English-News/ NWELayout


BAGHDAD — In new Iraq, many children do not go to school or play in
the streets but rather hid in corners to take drugs or even worse
sell them.

Ahmed, 12, is one of them.

"Smoking marijuana makes me happy even being orphan," the child, who
has lost his parents to the bloody violence, told IslamOnline. net.

Iraq's Lost Children
Iraq Orphans Neglected, Abused

"I like to feel the sensation that, for a period of time, can help me
forget all the problems I have," said Ahmed, not his real name.

"I do it as much as I want, until I feel safe again just like I used
to feel before my parents were killed."

Experts say many children, especially orphans, have fallen prey to
drugs over the past few years.

"Prior to the 2003 US-led invasion, drug addiction, mainly among
children, was practically non-existent, " said Ameer Mohammad Bayat,
a psychologist working with child addicts.

He notes that in many cases children turn to drugs to lessen the pain
and sufferings inflicted by the war.

"Years of violence have driven those innocent to drugs."

Other children, who suddenly found themselves the breadwinners of
their families, also find their way to drug addiction on the streets,
Bayat added.

UNICEF reports have warned that drug addiction is becoming more of a
phenomenon amongst Iraqi children.

There has been a 30 percent increase in addiction among children
since 2005, according to specialists.

Since last year alone, the number of child addicts jumped by nearly
10 percent, they estimate.

Dealers

The problem goes far beyond addiction, with many children being
trapped in a thriving drugs trade in new Iraq.

"There is a huge market for drugs in Iraq where children are the main
columns inside the drug dealing gangs," Yehia Khalil, who works for a
local NGO tackling the issue in Baghdad, told IOL.

He said gangs usually target children who lost a beloved one or those
working on the streets.

"The dealers offer job and relief, easily bringing drug dependence
among those innocent kids."

It is not uncommon to see children selling drugs in some districts of
the capital as well as in some poor neighborhoods in southern
provinces.

"Children can move easily delivering drugs without raising
suspicion," says Khalil.

The scenario is almost the same in all cases.

Children roam the streets, showing themselves to residents who get
used to their faces and when they need, they ask the child for the
specific drug and quantity.

After less than hour, another child delivers the drug and takes the
money.

Children can also find easier access to selling drugs near and inside
schools.

Raid Abdullah, 13, is working for drug gangs.

Everyday, he roams Baghdad streets looking for "clients".

"My main clients are young men but women are also buying a lot and
pay even better," he told IOL.

"They [gang] pay me five percent from all my selling, and once a week
I get some marijuana for my personal use," Abdullah said.

"I have to divide the drug with my brother who found the job for me."

Neglected

Experts lament that the children drug plight goes unnoticed by the
government.

"[The problem is] worsened as the government neglects the chaotic
situation children are living in," said Bayat, the psychologist.
He notes that the only help children get comes from independent aid
agencies and volunteers, who usually face a tough, sometimes
dangerous, mission.

"Security issues make it harder for volunteers to reach dependent
children and offer help, as armed drug dealers can anytime take
revenge against aid agents who try take children off the streets."
Khalil, the NGO worker, agrees.

"Anyone who tries to help them [children] puts himself in harm's
way."

He cites how two volunteers of his agency were killed last year while
trying to take addict children to a rehab center.

Rand, not her real name, was lucky enough to find somebody to help.
She was forced by her addict uncle, whom she moved in with after her
parents' death during the invasion, to sell drugs in order to get him
free stuff.

Soon after, she became an addict herself.

A couple of weeks ago, Rand was raped by a drug dealer who told her
that he had bought her uncle's silence with a large quantity of
cocaine.

She managed to run away, and it was then that a local aid agency
found the traumatized child and offered her treatment and protection.
"I feel empty inside, but thank God there are still good people in
this world who want to help people like me," she said tearfully.
"Drugs are the worst things in life."

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SHIFT IN GLOBAL POWER: THE RISE OF EURASIA
Come Carpentier de Gourdon
Convenor of the Editorial Board
World Affairs Journal, New Delhi, India
Dty. Director, Euro-Asia Institute, India


The post-modern world, characterized so far by the predominance of
a "unipolar" power is increasingly taking on a multi-polar character,
primarily due to the rise of China as the "world's factory" (what the
USA was with regard to the declining British Empire until the
aftermath of the second World War) and by the expansion of Europe
which, howbeit tied to the USA and mostly deferential to American
leadership, is gradually regaining some independence, as an
inevitable consequence of the decline of the United States and the
gradual strengthening of European institutions.

Russia's return as a major actor on the world stage is also a factor
that has helped regional powers such as India, Brazil, Venezuela, the
ASEAN countries, Turkey, Iran and other Middle Eastern oil and gas
producing states to exercise a larger influence in their regional
neighbourhoods and in the world at large.

By countering the hegemonic power of the USA and its Atlantic allies,
China and Russia have ressuscitated the Eurasian Katechon, a
theological and political concept borrowed from Saint Paul's Epistles
(2 Ts,2, 6-7) by the influential German political philosopher and
jurist Carl Schmitt.

Schmitt in his mature, definite works such as  "The Earth's Nomos"
(Der Nomos des Erde, 1950)"Three Possibilities for a Christian Vision
of History" (1950) and "The unity of the World" (Die Einheit der
Welt,1951)  envisions the Katechon  as a factor of order, for the
true conservation of essential values and eventually for their
restoration, against the dissolving and subversive influence of
the "Enemy", the Antikeimenos who in Theology is alluded to as the
Antechrist and in its modern geopolitical incarnation is the
technocratic, utopian, liberal-consumeristic imperialism promoted by
the sea powers (i.e. the Britain and the USA to which he had
specifically referred in his Beschleuniger wider Willen oder:die
Problematik der Westlichen Hemisphare  (1942)). To the Promethean
scientific-technological, materialistic and pragmatic philosophy of
the Anglo-Saxon empire Schmitt opposed an Epimethean doctrine,
fundamentally Christian in that it is  aware and respectful of the
mystery that surrounds mankind's true role and destiny, in line with
the theo-political tradition of the Medieval Holy Roman Empire as
articulated by the great scholar and statesman Otto von Freising.

However, this reverence for transcendence and this search for an
optimal order, as opposed to the maximalistic call for agnostic self-
liberation championed by both Communism and Capitalism applies to all
great religions which remind us that without mysticism all reality is
mere abstraction, in the words of contemporary philosopher Constantin
von Barloewen in his Anthropologie de la Mondialisation (Ed des
Syrtes, 2003).

If in Eastern Europe, the Orthodox Churches may be better candidates
to embody the Katechon than modern Catholicism which is so pervaded
by left-wing social theories and abstract views on human rights as to
become inconsistent with its own traditional doctrine.

In China Confucianism, in India Hinduism and in its traditional
sphere of influence Islam may also represent diverse avatars of the
Katechon through their various ways of resisting a westernization
which is at once anarchic and totalitarian under the pretense of
imposing freedom. In his "The Concept of the Political" (Der Begriff
des Politischen) (1932) Schmitt observes: "…We know that today the
most terrible war can only be waged in the name of peace, the most
ruthless oppression in the name of freedom and the most infamous
inhumanity in the name of humanity" (this author's translation).

The reemergence of Geopolitics in the public discourse, after decades
of eclipse when it was regarded as immoral ( it is in fact merely
amoral) because of its explicitly realistic take on events, is a
consequence of the demise of the ruling ideologies of the twentieth
century. If Leninist universalism is long dead, its Wilsonian-
Rooseveltian enemy twin is still standing tall but is increasingly
discredited after showing its true colours as a servant of American
imperialism.

Though the USA still tries to claim moral superiority, the
intellectual, financial and strategic bankruptcy of its system in the
last few years, highlighted by the current global recession and the
military failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have practically wiped out
its credibility as a self proclaimed "force for good".

The USA is now forced to fight bare-faced and admit that it is mainly
concerned with preserving or extending its global empire and more
specifically with protecting the interest of its ruling elites and
their allies and subordinates abroad, which is hardly a democratic
ideal even if we acknowledge that it is a traditional national
imperative.

The return of geopolitics however, paradoxically allows for a return
of the moralistic notion of Justus Hostis , (just foe) invoked by the
Carl Schmitt against the current US-supported theory of Justum Bellum
which implies the diabolization or dehumanization of the enemy and
justifies his extermination in the name of the God-given duty to
eradicate Evil. The principle of Justus Hostis, adhered to during
much of European history under the Church-inspired system of Jus
Gentium (reaffirmed by the 17th Century Westphalian Treaties after
the breakup of Christendom into Catholic and Protestant states), but
also in ancient civilizations such as India's and within the Islamic
Ummah implies that the adversary is given full consideration as a
human being against whom military recourse might be required but must
be limited in its means, ends and duration.

The eclipse of the "Sea Power" successor to the British Empire which
Schmitt described as the thalassocratic Leviathan, is bringing the
world's centre of gravity back towards the Eurasian island where it
remained for most of the last 4 000 years. The concurrent rise (or
rebirth) of China and Russia in all dimensions, replaces the axis
firmly in the heartland of the "world island" evoked by late 19th
century geopoliticians in Central Asia, and around it revolve the
reemerging rimland powers  in concentric circles: Turkey, Iran, India
and Japan… and in the outer reaches, the Arab states of the Near
East, the EU and the ASEAN nations.

This new global configuration calls for the institution of new Jus
Gentium as Schmitt advocated, at least in the Eurasian mass that by
definition constitutes what he called a Grossraum, a great
geographical and political space, a pluralistic and diverse medium
term between an empire and a mere free trade area.

Let us consider what influence this emerging power configuration may
have on the evolution of the mega-trends which David Pearce Snyder,
the lifestyle editor of the Futurist Magazine defines as key factors
in the ongoing global transformation. He identifies five and
specifies that they are "composites of trends" and "evolutionary
system-wide developments":


1-             Cultural modernization which both assaults and
undermines traditional cultures and values and simultaneously sends
the societies that embrace it on a path of consumeristic excess and
demographic decline. Some response to this threat may be contained in
the Confucean-Buddhist revival in China and in the Orthodox
Renaissance in Russia, as envisioned by the late Alexandr
Solzhenitsyn who saw the Church as one of the two pillars of a reborn
authentic Russia striving to avoid the West's "horrifying culture of
intellectual self-indulgence, licentiousness and spiritual poverty"
as George Friedman put it in his eloquent article (vijayvaani,
September 7th, 2008) on Solzhenitsyn. Friedman concludes
that "Today's Russia is…moving in the direction that Solzhenitsyn
wanted. And that could make (her) extraordinarily powerful".

2-             Economic Globalization. It is significant that China
is at present the biggest beneficiary of this process, alongwith some
other Asian and Latin American states. Oil and gas producing nations
such as Russia and the Gulf states profit from the high prices and
rising demand in developing countries while the richer nations are
suffering from their uncompetitive wage levels, onerous social
welfare systems and aging demographics which put them at a major
disadvantage and lead to an inevitable fall in western incomes and
standards of living as a global leveling and equalization gradually
take place.

3-             Universal Connectivity. By 2012 one third of the
world's population, that is 2 billion people will have access to the
Internet, mostly through web-enabled phones and many sociologists
conclude that this widespread connectivity will bring about
the "death of distance" and truly globalize the consumer culture,
especially in the youth. However, the flip side of this uncontrolled,
unpredictable phenomenon is what the recent report in Jane's
Strategic Weekly from the Joint Doctrine and Concept Centre of the
British Armed Forces describes: a breakdown of the global order and a
fragmentation of most states, political and social institutions
leading to worldwide chaos and an uncontrollable atomization of
societies and organizations
(www.janes.com/events/conferences/uxdc2007). That result was indeed
foretold by Schmitt in his unforgiving analysis of the American-led
technocratic liberal utopia. The digital ethnologist Mark Pesce
describes an "accelerating disintegration of hierarchies of all
kinds – economic, academic, cultural and…political".


4-             Transactional Transparency. The current demand for
transparency is in principle to be welcomed as manifestation of the
revolt against oligarchic secrecy which protects corruption and other
very visible ills. However the infinite proliferation of information
and disclosure which has already yielded significant exposures about
some of the great state-sponsored and supranational conspiracies of
the present age also leads to information overload and confusion.
Faced with the precipitous increase in the amount of data and
allegations made available to all about everything, societies that
want to protect themselves will have to find together a new "modus
vivendi"


5-             Social Adaptation. The decline and rejection of
traditional institutions such as organized religion and the state are
manifest in  all "advanced" countries of the techno-scientifically
developed world, as people are trying to become more self-regulated
and are listening less and less to traditional hierarchical
authorities. This is also an unpredictable trend which can easily
lead to conflict amongst spontaneously constituted groups within the
same disintegrating society whose  ability to mediate their
differences and enforce order is waning. Barloewen warns us
that "Demos (the democratic system) can have an effect only within a
given myth which provides to a culture its inner balance, its
consensus" (ibid.).

Snyder concludes that the three great cultural consequences of
industrialization, namely urbanization, work institutionalization and
family atomization are already being reversed as a result of changing
circumstances. In the USA for instance, in the nineties people tended
to migrate back to rural and semi-rural (exurban) areas for the first
time in nearly a century.

What effect the current rise in gas prices and concurrent economic
crisis has on this trends which makes people more dependent on
transportation (by road or rail) is still to be assessed but the
parallel trend for people to work more from their homes may be
reinforced by the energy price factor. Also, the rising tendency for
middle aged people to live together with their parents and adult
children is caused by straitened financial circumstances but it harks
back to the days of the joint or extended family of pre-Industrial
ages.

Those post-industrial trends may take some time to reach emerging
societies which are still going through the ascending part of the
curve but since in our information age all processes are dramatically
accelerated or even collapsed, the developing countries should learn
from the experience of their  predecessors and draw solutions from
their own unbroken traditions of collective solidarity and family-
based coexistence. Mark Pesce points out that "50,000 years of
cultural development (are collapsing) in about 20". We can no longer
assume that we have the time to se change coming and adapt to it
gradually.

The laws of economics and power dynamics are compelling the USA to
become gradually more authoritarian, arbitrary and threatening to
others in order to enforce the mounting human, financial and
political costs of its empire on the rest of the world and on the
majority of its own population as it can no longer secure a global or
at least a sufficiently broad international support for its policies
which are inevitably proving increasingly harmful to most nations and
peoples.

In the last few decades the USA has had almost a monopoly on the
discretionary use of military force in the international arena, which
has enabled it to impose its views on others but in the emerging
multipolar world Russia and major Asian states are able to call
Washington's bluff and thereby put an end to a dangerous and
unsustainable unipolarity, as was recently shown in the case of
Georgia's failed attempt to regain control of  South Ossetia with US
backing.

The realist analysis of globalization describes it not as a
spontaneous, inevitable phenomenon but as the outcome as systematic,
intentional policy pursued by a leading actor, mainly the USA in our
time since the current system of international relations is still
based on the role of states.

Ian Clark (in "Globalization and Fragmentation: International
Relations in the 20th Century"(1998)) pictures the interplay of two
opposing but dynamically entwined tendencies that swing the historic
pendulum between the twin poles of individualism and collectivism,
manifested at various levels as nationalism, regionalism and
heterogeneity for the former and as universalism or homogeneity for
the latter.

After the uninhibited and triumphant individualism championed by the
USA and neoliberal economic policies in the last thirty years, we are
witnessing a return of the communitarian, social aspirations that
Asian countries and Russia traditionally upheld. Borrowing Boguslaw
von Selchow's terminology, we could say that the latest age
of "Ichzeit" is being replaced by a new era of "Wirzeit" but, given
the context of global interdependence, we need to achieve an
awareness of "Allzeit" which von Selchow described as a defining
feature of the Holy Roman Empire's worldview.

However what we are witnessing now is a new war between open and
closed economic systems, as defined by Charles Maier (in his
book "`In Search of Stability" (1988)), since the US-dominated global
regime is falling apart, as it did already once in 1929. The EU and
other giant blocs are becoming or are likely to turn into closed
economic systems like the British and French Empires, the Third
Reich, Italy and Japan were until the end of the second world
conflict, when the victorious USA imposed its Bretton Woods regime on
both the defeated and the allied powers. In the light of Clark's
analysis, the last century can be divided into three successive eras:
the Age of catastrophy between 1914 and 1945, the Golden Age from
1945 to 1971 and the Age of systemic breakdown that began after 1973
and is leading to a multiplication and a rise in military tensions.
Indeed, as was the case in the years just before World War II, more
and more countries are having recourse, by choice or obligation, to
military options to addresse challenges or crises, as we have seen in
Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, lately in Georgia and now in
Pakistan.

Protectionism, which was gradually scrapped away under US influence,
especially between 1960 and 1973, is making a comeback as the rich
states are less and less able or willing to bear the internal costs
(unemployment, deregulation, privatization and dismantling of the
welfare state) of the globalized free-market. However, the
transnational economy is now largely autonomous from its US godfather
and can survive the withering away of the latter. International
society is also, on the other hand giving strength and support to new
pockets of ethnic and cultural resistance to globalization which are
replacing the weakened and largely discredited nation states in what
was their primary role.

The discontented sectors that are often coming together in that
ideological and existential insurgency include, across the political
spectrum, the working classes that see their livelihood shrink or
disappear, the politicians who are afraid of losing their power bases
and traditional societies whose ethno-cultural identity is at risk.

According to the analysis of Anthony D. Smith, modern technology
disintegrated many traditional communities but has also built new
social networks and reinforced some older ones. Their increasingly
coordinated resistance to the diktat of an arbitrary, utopian and
anti-juridical one-world system shows the very limits of Karl
Popper's paradigm of a supposedly boundless open society.

Between diverse regional, ethnic, religious and occupational
communities, instead of the supposedly universal laws of "Free Market
Liberal Modernity", we must envision a dialogue based on what Kimmel
calls "Intercultural Exploration" ("Cultural Perspectives on
International Negotiations" in Journal of Social Issues, April 1994,
vol. 50, n.1) in order to properly comprehend and take into account
alien values and characteristics hitherto largely ignored or
neglected by dominant western societies which were taught to regard
them as being "pre-modern", hence destined to disappear and unworthy
of serious considerations outside the province of cultural
anthropology. On the other hand, cultural pluralism is linked with
its political counterpart and, to quote Barloewen once more,
interculturality is a philosophical imperative for building a
civilization of the "Holos", i.e. a holistic, sustainable, balanced
global community.


The author wishes to acknowledge his debt to the articles by Massimo
Maraviglia and Stefano Vernole in the EURASIA Rivista Issue no. 1,
2008, vol. 5.

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Displaced Iraqi Christians Await Christmas Amid Wishes
to Return Home Voices of Iraq

Ninewa, 22 December 2008 ( Voices of Iraq )


Displaced Christians from the city of Mosul await Christmas and New
Years celebrations amid wishes to return to their cities and
celebrate with their families and friends.

"We found security here in al-Hamadaniya district but we miss our
Mosul so much, especially as Christmas is coming," Misko Bahnam, an
old woman in black and lives with her grand daughter, told Aswat al-
Iraq. "We used to gather in Christmas, our families and neighbors, to
celebrate," she said.

"I am so worried about my son who heads everyday for Mosul to work
there and to inspect our house," she also said. "I hope our lovely
days come back again as we used to go to church during Christmas, I
miss these days so much and I miss the family atmosphere also," the
30-year-old grand daughter said.

"We used to gather and prepare the finest food for the Christmas, but
recently we have not gone to the church because of the bad security
condition," she added.For his part, Khaled Youssef, 40, told Aswat al-
Iraq "When we were in Mosul, we know all people in the church despite
they were coming from remote places, but now in al-Hamadaniya we do
not know anyone.

""Yes here we can find security, but I find difficulty adapting with
the country atmosphere; I lived in Mosul and suddenly found my self
in a village and there is no job opportunity for me here," he said.On
the contrary, his mother, Katrina, said "I hope I live in a village,
because when I go visit Mosul city I see and hear the terrified
explosions.

""When we were in Mosul, we used to gather with our friends and
relatives and make lunch, but now and because of our economic
condition we cant do this nice and socials things," she noted.Several
Christian families have fled Mosul during the past weeks, while Iraqi
security sources said that a few Christians were killed in separate
incidents in the city, signaling an increase in the wave of attacks
against religious communities in the northern volatile city.Mosul,
the capital city of Ninewa, lies 405 km north of Baghdad.

The original city of Mosul stands on the west bank of the Tigris
River, opposite the ancient biblical city of Nineveh on the east
bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass
substantial areas on both banks, with five bridges linking the two
sides.Despite having an amount of Kurdish population, it does not
form part of the area controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government
(KRG).

There are different communities in Mosul like Christians, Shiites and
Kurds along with a Sunni majority.The fabric Muslin, long
manufactured here, is named for this city. Another historically
important product of the area is Mosul marble.The city is also a
historic center for the Nestorian Christianity of the Assyrians,
containing the tombs of several Old Testament prophets such as Jonah,
Yunus in Arabic, and Nahum.

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How public education cripples our kids, and why


AGAINST SCHOOL
By John Taylor Gatto
http://www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm


I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan,
and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in
boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the
kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the
same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense,
that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing
something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn't
seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren't interested
in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every
bit as bored as they were.

Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has
spent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, the
whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why
they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might
expect. Who wouldn't get bored teaching students who are rude and
interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are
themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school
programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school
personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than
those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?

We all are. My grandfather taught me that. One afternoon when I was
seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the
head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence
again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The
obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and
people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if
possible. Certainty not to be trusted. That episode cured me of
boredom forever, and here and there over the years I was able to pass
on the lesson to some remarkable student. For the most part, however,
I found it futile to challenge the official notion that boredom and
childishness were the natural state of affairs in the classroom.
Often I had to defy custom, and even bend the law, to help kids break
out of this trap.

The empire struck back, of course; childish adults regularly conflate
opposition with disloyalty. I once returned from a medical leave to
discover t~at all evidence of my having been granted the leave had
been purposely destroyed, that my job had been terminated, and that I
no longer possessed even a teaching license. After nine months of
tormented effort I was able to retrieve the license when a school
secretary testified to witnessing the plot unfold. In the meantime my
family suffered more than I care to remember. By the time I finally
retired in 1991, 1 had more than enough reason to think of our
schools-with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of
both students and teachers-as virtual factories of childishness. Yet
I honestly could not see why they had to be that way. My own
experience had revealed to me what many other teachers must learn
along the way, too, yet keep to themselves for fear of reprisal: if
we wanted to we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old,
stupid structures and help kids take an education rather than merely
receive a schooling. We could encourage the best qualities of
youthfulness-curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for
surprising insightsimply by being more flexible about time, texts,
and tests, by introducing kids to truly competent adults, and by
giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a
risk every now and then.

But we don't do that. And the more I asked why not, and persisted in
thinking about the "problem" of schooling as an engineer might, the
more I missed the point: What if there is no "problem" with our
schools? What if they are the way they are, so expensively flying in
the face of common sense and long experience in how children learn
things, not because they are doing something wrong but because they
are doing something right? Is it possible that George W. Bush
accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no child
behind"? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not
one of them ever really grows up?

Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced
schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year,
for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so,
for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a
rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that
banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerable
number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year
wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right.
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham
Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products
of a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from a
secondary school. Throughout most of American history, kids generally
didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals,
like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like
Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and
Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty
recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon
as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very
good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was
happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel
Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not
uneducated.

We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think
of "success" as synonymous with, or at least dependent
upon, "schooling," but historically that isn't true in either an
intellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughout
the world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting to
a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble
prisons. Why, then, do Americans confuse education with just such a
system? What exactly is the purpose of our public schools?

Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the
United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much
earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The
reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural
traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:

1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each
person his or her personal best. These goals are still trotted out
today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or
another as a decent definition of public education's mission, however
short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong.
Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds
numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory
schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L.
Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the
aim of public education is not

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their
intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The
aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the
same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put
down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States...
and that is its aim everywhere else.

Because of Mencken's reputation as a satirist, we might be tempted to
dismiss this passage as a bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. His article,
however, goes on to trace the template for our own educational system
back to the now vanished, though never to be forgotten, military
state of Prussia. And although he was certainly aware of the irony
that we had recently been at war with Germany, the heir to Prussian
thought and culture, Mencken was being perfectly serious here. Our
educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is
cause for concern.

The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again
and again once you know to look for it. William James alluded to it
many times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of
Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publicly
denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s.
Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State
Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land of
Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to be brought here.
That Prussian culture loomed large in America is hardly surprising,
given our early association with that utopian state. A Prussian
served as Washington's aide during the Revolutionary War, and so many
German-speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congress
considered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws.
But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the
very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system
deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring
the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and
to ensure docile and incomplete citizens 11 in order to render the
populace "manageable."

It was from James Bryant Conant-president of Harvard for twenty
years, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive on the atomic-bomb
project, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany after
WWII, and truly one of the most influential figures of the twentieth
century-that I first got wind of the real purposes of American
schooling. Without Conant, we would probably not have the same style
and degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would we
be blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000
students at a time, like the famous Columbine High in Littleton,
Colorado. Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant's
1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and was
more than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that the
modem schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered
between 1905 and 1930. A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but he
does direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918
book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this
revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."

Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it
perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was
intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a
fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened
to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining
table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a
sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these
underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant
rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was
unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood,
would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole.

Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem
schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to
curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three
traditional goals listed earlier:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed
habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical
judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that
useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't
test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids
learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the
conformity function," because its intention is to make children as
alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of
great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor
force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to
determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging
evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As
in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has
been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only
so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not
one step further. So much for making kids their personal best. 5) The
selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to
Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he
called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things
along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock.
Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial
placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers
will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the
reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations
from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the
drain.
6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these
rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small
fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this
continuing project, how to watch over and control a population
deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might
proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient
labor.


That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in
this country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a
rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should
know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant
himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned
tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same
lines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory
schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian
system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a
servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. In
time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the
enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending just such a
herd via public education, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D.
Rockefeller.

Tre you have it. Now you know. We don't need Karl Marx's conception
of a grand warfare between the classes to see that it is in the
interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people
down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to
discard them if they don't conform. Class may frame the proposition,
as when Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said
the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in
1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and
we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of
necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal
education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual
tasks." But the motives behind the disgusting decisions that bring
about these ends need not be class-based at all. They can stem purely
from fear, or from the by now familiar belief that "efficiency" is
the paramount virtue, rather than love, lib, erty, laughter, or hope.
Above all, they can stem from simple greed.

There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy based
on mass production and organized to favor the large corporation
rather than the small business or the family farm. But mass
production required mass consumption, and at the turn of the
twentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and
unwise to buy things they didn't actually need. Mandatory schooling
was a godsend on that count. School didn't have to train kids in any
direct sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it did
something even better: it encouraged them not to think at all. And
that left them sitting ducks for another great invention of the modem
era - marketing.

Now, you needn't have studied marketing to know that there are two
groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than
they need to: addicts and children. School has done a pretty good job
of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular
job of turning our children into children. Again, this is no
accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew
that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of
responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the
trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would
grow older but never truly grow up. In the 1934 edition of his once
well-known book Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P.
Cubberley detailed and praised the way the strategy of successive
school enlargements had extended childhood by two to six years, and
forced schooling was at that point still quite new. This same
Cubberley - who was dean of Stanford's School of Education, a
textbook editor at Houghton Mifflin, and Conant's friend and
correspondent at Harvard - had written the following in the 1922
edition of his book Public School Administration: "Our schools
are ... factories in which the raw products (children) are to be
shaped and fashioned .... And it is the business of the school to
build its pupils according to the specifications laid down."

It's perfectly obvious from our society today what those
specifications were. Maturity has by now been banished from nearly
every aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need to
work at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscal
self-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn to
entertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to ask
questions. We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender
our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial
blandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions,
and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy
computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy
$150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart
too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that
they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down
in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer
tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having
been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the
free. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, has
seen to it.

Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern
schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School
trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be
leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively;
teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled
kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an
inner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on the
serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature,
philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuff
schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with
plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company,
to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to
dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the
TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships
quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a
more meaningful life, and they can.

First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are:
laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the
habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory
education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to
turn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoods
extended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of
a captured British warship as a pre-teen, if Thomas Edison could
publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could
apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself
through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today),
there's no telling what your own kids could do. After a long life,
and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that
genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we
haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men
and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them
manage themselves.


John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City
Teacher of the Year and the author, most recently, of The Underground
History of American Education. He was a participant in the Harper's
Magazine forum "School on a Hill," which appeared in the September
2003 issue.

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Australian victim of faulty terror arrest speaks out
Praveen Menon and Mitya Underwood
December 24, 2008
http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2008/12/australian-victim-of-faulty-
terror.html


An Indian doctor whose arrest and subsequent release may lead to a
change in Australia's antiterrorism law said yesterday that for now
he just wants to get on with his new life in the UAE.Dr Mohammed
Haneef was arrested in Brisbane Airport in July 2007 for a suspected
connection with attacks in London and Glasgow. His visa was also
cancelled. A judicial inquiry by the retired judge John Clarke into
the circumstances of Dr Haneef's arrest found no evidence of a link
to the attacks.

The report was commissioned by Robert McClelland, the attorney
general, who later said that changes would be made in Australia's
antiterrorism law in light of Dr Haneef's case.The report, to be
released in the next few days, found that he should not have been
charged and has recommended wide-ranging changes to the Australian
Federal Police, immigration intelligence and the nation's
antiterrorism laws, according to The Australian.

The report found the Australian government innocent of any improper
behaviour, conspiracy or political agenda in ordering the doctor's
arrest and subsequent deportation, the newspaper said.Dr Haneef, who
now works at a private health clinic in Umm Al Quwain, said he
would "like an apology but that is all" from the Australian
government, and was not seeking compensation.

"I am very, very pleased that Mr Clarke has made the clear finding
that I was totally innocent in the matters that were alleged against
me.

"This is definitely the decision I wanted but at the same time I
would like the Government, especially the ministers involved, to
acknowledge the report and its findings."He said he now wanted to get
on with his life with his wife and daughter."I do not want anything
further from them. It is now up to the Government to act on the
findings and address the issues raised. I am not an expert but Mr
Clarke has made some recommendations which I think would be good to
act upon."

===

Apology to Mohamed Haneef 'could lead to compensation'
The Herald Sun, Australia
December 24, 2008
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24840365-
5005961,00.html


The Federal Government says it won't apologise to Mohamed Haneef
because it could open avenues for compensation.

An inquiry has found the Indian-born doctor was wrongly charged and
detained on the Gold Coast last year over suspected links to
terrorism in the UK.

Dr Haneef says he has no resentment towards the former Howard
government over being held in custody for nearly two weeks without
charge, but wants an apology and compensation.

Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the Federal
Government would not apologise at this stage of the legal process.

"My responsibility as the attorney general ... is to represent the
interests of the commonwealth in litigation that is being
foreshadowed," Mr McClelland said on ABC television.

"Representing the interest of the commonwealth and the taxpayers of
Australia, it's not appropriate for me to make any admissions."

Opposition attorney-general spokesman George Brandis supported the
statement.

"I think Mr McClelland took quite a sensible position," Senator
Brandis said on ABC television.

"Dr Haneef's lawyers ... are talking about large sums of money.

"It would be quite inappropriate ... for the Government to make any
admissions that might expose the Commonwealth to a liability."

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Israel sentences PFLP leader to 30 years
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=79524§ionid=351020202
Thu, 25 Dec 2008


Ahmed Saadat the leader of Palestinian Front for the Liberation of
Palestine


An Israeli court has sentenced the leader of the leftist Palestinian
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to 30 years in prison.

On Thursday, Ahmed Sa'adat the leader of Palestinian Front for the
Liberation of Palestine was sentenced to 30 years in prison, for
allegedly leading an "illegal terrorist organization" according to an
Israeli military source.

Sa'adat released a message on Thursday before his sentencing
asserting that he did not recognize the authority of the Israeli
military courts.

"I don't stand to defend myself before your court, as I emphasized
before. I don't recognize this court, which is an extension of
occupation which international law considers illegal. Our people have
the right to resist occupation, and this court is based on the
British emergency law of 1945 which is worse than Nazi laws,"
Sa'adat's message read.

The PFLP also slammed the verdict as political.

"When the Israelis arrested him, they accused him of having killed
(Rehavam) Zeevi , but this accusation did not appear in the
sentencing which proves that his arrest was political and was not
related to security issues," PFLP member Khalida Jarar told AFP.

Sa'adat and the four other PFLP members, convicted of Zeevi's killing
were seized during a controversial raid on Jericho prison in the West
Bank in March 2006 when Israeli troops stormed the jail shortly after
British guards left their posts.

The PFLP claimed the killing of Zeevi after its leader Abu Ali
Mustafa was assassinated by Israeli troops in Ramallah on August 27,
2001.

Saadat was a popular leader in the first Palestinian uprising in 1987
and he was electied as PFLP leader in October 2001.

Saadat gained a reputation as a man of the people who was much more
charismatic than his PFLP predecessor, Abu Ali Mustafa.

Rehavam Zeevi was an ultra rightwinger and supported the ideology
of "transfer," which would see all Palestinians in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip expelled to neighbouring Arab countries.

===

On the imprisonment of Ahmad Sa'adatώ


Jericho was first and should be the last!
Palestine Times
By Samah Jabr*


Jericho is the oldest city yet discovered—a little oasis town in the
Jordan Valley that has always been a warm, pleasant haven in
wintertime for many Palestinians and tourists alike. People come to
Jericho to explore the ruins of King Herod's and Caliph Hisham's
palaces from the time of the Umayyad Dynasty.

A mosaic floor that was found in its entirety in the Hisham palace in
Jericho attributed to Moslem art in the eighth century presents a
violent hunting scene. A tree, whose rich branches are entwined and
bear apples or citrus fruits attached by thin and delicate stalks,
holds centre stage with two very different scenes depicted on each
side of it. On the left, a lion is attacking a deer that is trying to
escape, while on the right two deer are grazing in the pasture. I was
told that this scene is known as the Life's Tree.
Jericho is also known as the location of one of the Bible's difficult-
to-understand stories—the story of Joshua and his army of nomads.
Some 40,000 Israelite men, descendants of the Hebrew slaves who fled
Egypt, emerged from the desert. They destroyed the well-prepared
Canaanites who lived there using only trumpets that caused the walls
of Jericho to crumble! Joshua and his army then conquered the city,
massacring every person they found. Only Rahab—a Canaanite prostitute
and a collaborator—and her family were saved. The once mighty city of
Jericho had been set alight. Joshua and his people then continued
their campaign to destroy other towns and cities, resulting in
Joshua's successful conquering of all of Canaan.
Maybe the story of Joshua is a parable to tell humankind some of
life's facts: that one man's liberation is another man's oppression,
but not a call for repetition and perpetration. Whatever the truth is
behind the story of Joshua and the tumbling walls of Jericho, the
fact is, we are still barbarians, and military might is currently the
only decisive factor.

On 14 March, only two days after Shimon Peres—Israeli vice Premier
Minister—met with Palestinian Minister Abu Mazen in Jordan in "an
official meeting," Israeli occupation forces attacked the Palestinian
prison of Jericho, which was transformed from a fort built by the
British in the 1930s and named after its designing engineer
(Taggart). The attack started early in the morning, minutes after the
British and American pull-out from the prison, with tanks and
bulldozers demolishing its walls with blasts—not trumpets—to capture
six men wanted by Israel who had been held there for four years. The
most prominent member of the detainees is Ahmad Sa'dat, the leader of
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who had been taken
to Jericho in 2002, with British and American security experts
monitoring their detention as part of a deal to end Israel's siege of
the Ramallah headquarters of Yasser Arafat. This agreement, like many
others, was shameful right from the beginning. Sa'dat, accused of
being behind the killing of the Israeli minister and inciter of
Palestinian transfer, Rahabam Ze'evi, was arrested by the Palestinian
intelligence head, Tawfeeq al-Teirawy, in January 2002. This was
against the will of the general prosecutor, Khaled al-Qedreh. By the
end of March 2002, the Israeli occupation forces besieged the
headquarter of Arafat and the Nativity Church, until Arafat agreed—
against Palestinian law and public opinion—to send Sa'dat and others
to the Jericho prison to rest there forever and to be guarded by
British and American guards. In June of the same year, Sa'dat was
found not guilty by the Palestinian Supreme Court, but his
predicament had not been brought to the attention of the masses until
after the election of the new government, which gave Palestinians
some hope for national liberation. What is really expected of
Palestinians? To imprison this man until the last day of his life!

Even if the Israeli accusation against Sad'at was true, he would not
be any different than the innumerable Israeli generals who were
behind killing Palestinians while still wandering around as free men;
many of them were awarded medals of courage and bravery.  In fact,
this whole story is not about revenge or retaliation, legal or
illegal murder, but rather the heart of the whole mess lies in the
decades of the long, brutal and illegal occupation.

Demonstrative of their exhibitionism of power and might, Israeli
forces brought their cameramen along with them on that operation to
show Palestinian surrender and nudeness live, all day long, on all
news channels. The images of our prisoners as well as security forces
clad only in their underwear, blindfolded and raising their arms high
above their heads was meant to break the Palestinian public
psychologically as well as to warn those who remain freedom fighters
among us. Using this bloody operation (and others like Olmert's
statement to include the Ariel settlement as part of a unilateral
separation with the Palestinians, and Israel's closure of al-
Mintar/Karny entrance to Gaza with the aim of starving Palestinians
there) in the Israeli electoral campaign with its resulting immediate
significant support it gave to the Kadima party is evidence of the
sadistic pathological mood of the Israeli street.

The operation resulted in the death of three Palestinians, the injury
of many and the arrest of all prisoners, as well as the total
destruction of the Jericho prison.

Despite of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's claims that their
monitors pull-out was not coordinated with the Israelis and that it
was done secretly to ensure the safety of the four British and
American guardians (so much for the safety of 300 Palestinian
prisoners,) Israeli acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert affirmed the
American and British "full support" of the Israeli operation in
Jericho.

It's not unreasonable to believe that Israeli authorities were,
indeed, given notice of the monitors' pull-out, or maybe the
monitors' pull-out came as a result of an Israeli, British and
American collusion scheme. Whatever has been said about releasing
Sa'dat, the fact remains he was still held in that prison, and
however many times Jack Straw had written letters to caution the
P.A., it's still uncanny that Israeli tanks were waiting outside the
jail the minute the monitors left. This kind of behaviour—the little
consideration given to the impact of pulling out the monitors and the
complete absence of a diplomatic approach that could have thwarted
the Israelis from attacking as they did—will in no way help the cause
of the Palestinians given that the British Council is supposed to be
there to help Palestinians.

This has awakened the resentment reserved for Britain as a former
colonial power in Palestine. The British mandate clearly provided for
the establishment of a Jewish national home and encouraged the
settlement of Jews in Palestine. This operation has been an important
factor in shaping the Palestinian collective persuasion that the U.S.
and Britain are doing Israel's bidding and have always been witnesses
to the falsity against Palestinians and their rights. What right did
Britain or the League of Nations have to dispose of Palestinian
territory, formerly ruled by the Ottoman Empire, to third parties? As
much right as British South Africa had to dispose of native lands in
Central Africa to white settlers! A legal title to stolen goods would
not change the fact that they remain stolen goods.

This incident does not come as a surprise to anyone; Israel has a
free licence to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, since
any action against them in the United Nations has always been
derailed by the U.S. veto or a threat to do so. As recently as March,
Israelis claimed the right to assassinate whomever the new
Palestinian parliament selects as the new Prime Minister.

The Palestinians have learned many important lessons from this
experience: the U.S. and Britain care less not only for the safety of
Palestinian prisoners, but also for the position of the Palestinian
Authority. The role of our security forces, who were the first to
surrender, is to protect only the security of the Israelis in
complete compliance with the orders given to them and with the
normalization education they have been fed over the last several
years. Ironically, this operation took place the day the previous
Authority party, Fatah, was discussing with Hamas the participation
in a national unity government and their attempt to condition Hamas
into honouring all the signed agreements of the previous Authority—
the agreements of humiliation and misery, like those which hand over
Palestinian freedom fighters to their enemies and prevent our
security forces from firing any bullet against the attacking Israeli
occupation forces, even in defence of their very lives. It is
particularly shameful that our own security forces opened fire
against Palestinians rioting in Gaza on the same day, killing and
injuring some of them.

"Jericho First" was the name of the first stage of the Oslo agreement
whose Declaration of Principles implied self-rule in the Gaza Strip
and Jericho and created a framework for areas of negotiation. But,
linked to the same agreement were those major fundamental and
controversial issues, such as Jerusalem, the future of Israeli
settlements in the West Bank, and the Palestinian refugees (from 1948
and 1967), supposedly deferred to the permanent status negotiations.
Thus, "Jericho First" became an infamous title symbolizing the loss
of our national rights to opposing Palestinians, many of whom marched
in the streets at the time chanting, "Gaza, Ariha, Fadiha" (Gaza,
Jericho is a scandal."

In the eyes of many Palestinians, Jericho was the beginning of the
moral collapse of Palestinians; the successive string of humiliating
concessions that started in Jericho should end there. Palestinians
should stand tall as they have always and never again compromise on
their national dignity and personal human rights, nor on the
emancipation of the future generations.


*Samah Jabr is a psychiatrist and life-long resident of Jerusalem.

*********************************************************************

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Neoconservative Think Tank Influence on US Policies:
Overall US Foreign Policy
http://islamozionism.blogspot.com/2008/09/neoconservative-think-tank-
influence-on_3867.html


1969: Young Neoconservatives Intern with Cold War Think Tank

Influential policy analyst Albert Wohlstetter (see 1965) sends two of
his young proteges, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, to work on the
staff of Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA—see Early 1970s), a
conservative hawk committed to working on behalf of the US defense
industry. That summer, Wohlstetter arranges for Wolfowitz and Perle
to intern for the Committee to Maintain a Prudent Defense Policy, a
Cold War think tank co-founded by former Secretary of State Dean
Acheson and former Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze.

Early 1970s: Neoconservatives Coalesce around Conservative Democratic
Senator

The recently formed neoconservatives, bound together by magazine
publisher Irving Kristol (see 1965), react with horror to the
ascendancy of the "McGovern liberals" in the Democratic Party, and
turn to conservative senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) for
leadership. Jackson calls himself a "muscular Democrat"; others call
him "the Senator from Boeing" for his strong support of the US
defense industry. Jackson merges a strong support of labor and civil
rights groups with a harsh Cold War opposition to the Soviet Union.
Jackson assembles a staff of bright, young, ideologically homogeneous
staffers who will later become some of the most influential and
powerful neoconservatives of their generation, including Richard
Perle, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams, Abram Shulsky, and Paul
Wolfowitz. Jackson's office—"the bunker," to staffers—becomes a home
for disaffected, ambitious young conservative ideologues with a
missionary zeal for change. Jackson presides over the cadre in an
almost fatherly fashion.
History of Two Dictators - Many of Jackson's neoconservative
disciples came of age either fighting two foreign dictators—Stalin
and/or Hitler—or growing up with family members who fought against
them. Wolfowitz's father's family perished in the Holocaust; he will
later say that what happened to European Jews during World War
II "shaped a lot of my views." [New York Times, 4/22/2002] Feith will
tell the New Yorker in 2005, "[My] family got wiped out by Hitler,
and… all this stuff about working things out—well, talking to Hitler
to resolve the problem didn't make any sense." Most neoconservatives
like Feith and Wolfowitz tend to look to military solutions as a
first, not a last, resort. To them, compromise means appeasement,
just as Britain's Neville Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler. Stefan
Halper, a White House and State Department official in the Nixon,
Ford, and Reagan administrations, will say of the
neoconservatives, "It is use force first and diplomacy down the line."
Former Trotskyites - On the other hand, many neoconservatives come to
the movement from the hardline, socialist left, often from
organizations that supported Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky.
Trotskyites accused Stalin of betraying the purity of the Communist
vision as declaimed by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. "I can see
psychologically why it would not be difficult for them to become
[conservative] hard-liners," says Harvard Sovietologist Richard
Pipes, himself a hardliner whose son, Daniel Pipes, will become an
influential neoconservative. "It was in reaction to the betrayal."
Many neoconservatives like Stephen Schwartz, a writer for the Weekly
Standard, still consider themselves to be loyal disciples of Trotsky.
Richard Perle is a Trotskyite socialist when he joins Jackson's
staff, and will always practice what author Craig Unger calls "an
insistent, uncompromising, hard-line Bolshevik style" of policy and
politics. Like Trotsky, Unger writes, the neoconservatives pride
themselves on being skilled bureaucratic infighters, and on trusting
no one except a small cadre of like-minded believers. Disagreement is
betrayal, and political struggles are always a matter of life and
death.

Summer 1972 and After: Neoconservatives Work to Toughen US Policy
towards Soviet Union

Neoconservatives see Democratic presidential candidate George
McGovern's floundering campaign and eventual landslide defeat (see
November 7, 1972) as emblematic of, in author Craig Unger's words,
everything that is wrong with the "defeatist, isolationist policies
of the liberals who had captured the Democratic Party." If the
neoconservatives had had their way, their favorite senator,
Henry "Scoop" Jackson (see Early 1970s), would have won the
nomination. But the Vietnam War has put hawkish Cold Warriors like
Jackson in disfavor in the party, and Jackson was set aside for the
disastrous McGovern candidacy. The Republicans offer little interest
themselves for the neoconservatives. Richard Nixon is enamored of one
of their most hated nemeses, National Security Adviser Henry
Kissinger, whose "realpolitik" did nothing to excite their
ideological impulses. And under Nixon, the icy Cold War is slowly
thawing, with summit meetings, bilateral commissions, and arms
limitations agreements continually bridging the gap between the US
and the neoconservatives' implacable foe, the Soviet Union. In
Nixon's second term, the Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM)—
populated by Democratic neoconservatives like Jackson, Irving
Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, Daniel Patrick Moynihan
(Nixon's domestic adviser), Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ben Wattenberg, and
James Woolsey, and joined by 1968 Democratic presidential candidate
Hubert Humphrey, will pressure Nixon to adopt a tough "peace through
strength" policy towards the Soviet Union. Although it will take
time, and the formation of countless other organizations with similar
memberships and goals, this group of neoconservatives and hawkish
hardliners will succeed in marginalizing Congress, demonizing their
enemies, and taking over the entire foreign policy apparatus of the
US government.

August 15, 1974: Neoconservatives Begin Moving to Influence US
Foreign Policies

Conservative Democratic senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) meets
with President Ford as part of a discussion about the standoff with
the Soviet Union over trade and emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel.
Jackson—hawkish, defense-minded, and solidly pro-Israel—sees the
standoff as an opportunity to undercut Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger. Jackson is a forerunner of what in later years will be
called "neoconservatism" (see 1965), an ideology mostly espoused by a
group of Democratic lawmakers and intellectuals who have abandoned
their support for Rooseveltian New Deal economics and multilateralist
foreign policies (see Early 1970s). Jackson and his outspoken pro-
Israel aide, Richard Perle, view Kissinger as far too conciliatory
and willing to negotiate with the Communist bloc. Jackson and Perle
see the Soviet Union, not the Israeli-Palestine conflict, as the
chief threat to US interests in the Middle East and the control of
that region's oil fields. They see a strong, powerful Israel as
essential to their plans for US domination of the region. Jackson
resists a proposed compromise on the number of Soviet Jews the USSR
will allow to emigrate to Israel—the Soviets offer 55,000 and Jackson
insists on 75,000—and many in the meeting feel that Jackson is being
deliberately recalcitrant. "It made mo sense to me because it was
sure to be counterproductive," Ford later writes, "but he would not
bend, and the only reason is politics." For his part, Kissinger
respects Jackson's political abilities, but to his mind, Perle is
a "ruthless… little b_stard." Kissinger knows that Republican hawks
as well as the burgeoning neoconservative movement will pressure Ford
to abandon Richard Nixon's policies of moderating relations with the
Soviet Union and Communist China. But, author Barry Werth writes in
2006: "what Kissinger and now Ford would chronically underestimate
was the neoconservatives' argument that the United States should not
so much seek to coexist with the Soviet system as to overthrow it
through direct confrontation. Or the extent to which the
neoconservatives would go to exaggerate a foreign threat and stir up
fear."

1976: Neoconservatives, Cold Warriors Revive Committee on the Present
Danger; Group Heralds Ideological Split in GOP

A group of hardline Cold Warriors and neoconservatives revive the
once-influential Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) in order to
promote their anti-Soviet, pro-military agenda. Its members include
CIA spymaster William Casey, iconic Cold War figure and "Team B"
member Paul Nitze (see Late November, 1976), and rising
neoconservative stars like Jeane Kirkpatrick and Richard Perle.
Author Craig Unger will later write: "Ultimately, in the CPD, one
could see the emerging fault lines in the Republican Party, the
ideological divide that separated hardline neocons and Cold Warriors
from the more moderate, pragmatic realists—i.e. practitioners of
realpolitik such as Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, George H. W.
Bush, and James Baker. All of the latter were conspicuously absent
from the CPD roll call." According to a 2004 BBC documentary, the CPD
will produce documentaries, publications, and provided guests for
national talk shows and news reports, all designed to spread fear and
encourage increases in defense spending, especially, as author Thom
Hartmann will write, "for sophisticated weapons systems offered by
the defense contractors for whom neocons would later become
lobbyists." [Common Dreams (.org), 12/7/2004; BBC, 1/14/2005]

Late November, 1976: Team B Breaches Security to Successfully Whip up
Fears of Soviet Threat

Although the entire "Team B" intelligence analysis experiment (see
Early 1976, November 1976, and November 1976) is supposed to be
classified and secret, the team's neoconservatives launch what author
Craig Unger will call "a massive campaign to inflame fears of the red
menace in both the general population and throughout the [foreign]
policy community—thanks to strategically placed leaks to the Boston
Globe and later to the New York Times." Times reporter David Binder
later says that Team B leader Richard Pipes is "jubilant" over "pok
[ing] holes at the [CIA]`s analysis" of the Soviet threat. Team B
member John Vogt calls the exercise "an opportunity to even up some
scores with the CIA."
Used to Escalate Defense Spending - The experiment is far more than a
dry, intellectual exercise or a chance for academics to score points
against the CIA. Melvin Goodman, who heads the CIA's Office of Soviet
Affairs, will observe in 2004: "[Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld
won that very intense, intense political battle that was waged in
Washington in 1975 and 1976. Now, as part of that battle, Rumsfeld
and others, people such as Paul Wolfowitz, wanted to get into the
CIA. And their mission was to create a much more severe view of the
Soviet Union, Soviet intentions, Soviet views about fighting and
winning a nuclear war." Even though Wolfowitz's and Rumsfeld's
assertions of powerful new Soviet WMD programs are completely wrong,
they use the charges to successfully push for huge escalations in
military spending, a process that continues through the Ford and
Reagan administrations (see 1976) [Common Dreams (.org), 12/7/2004;
BBC, 1/14/2005] , and resurface in the two Bush
administrations. "Finally," Unger will write, "a band of Cold
Warriors and neocon ideologues had successfully insinuated themselves
in the nation's multibillion-dollar intelligence apparatus and had
managed to politicize intelligence in an effort to implement new
foreign policy."

Kicking Over the Chessboard - Former senior CIA official Richard
Lehman later says that Team B members "were leaking all over the
place… putting together this inflammatory document." Author and
university professor Gordon R. Mitchell will write that B's practice
of "strategically leaking incendiary bits of intelligence to
journalists, before final judgments were reached in the competitive
intelligence exercise," was another method for Team B members to
promulgate their arguments without actually proving any of their
points. Instead of participating in the debate, they abandoned the
strictures of the exercise and leaked their unsubstantiated findings
to the press to "win" the argument. [Quarterly Journal of Speech,
5/2006 pdf file]
'One Long Air Raid Siren' - In 2002, defense policy reporter Fred
Kaplan will sardonically label Team B the "Rumsfeld Intelligence
Agency," and write: "It was sold as an `exercise' in intelligence
analysis, an interesting competition—Team A (the CIA) and Team B (the
critics). Yet once allowed the institutional footing, the Team B
players presented their conclusions—and leaked them to friendly
reporters—as the truth," a truth, Team B alleges, the pro-detente
Ford administration intends to conceal. Kaplan will continue, "The
Team B report read like one long air-raid siren: The Soviets were
spending practically all their GNP on the military; they were
perfecting charged particle beams that could knock our warheads out
of the sky; their express policy and practical goal was to fight and
win a nuclear war." Team B is flatly wrong across the board, but it
still has a powerful impact on the foreign policy of the Ford
administration, and gives the neoconservatives and hardliners who
oppose arms control and detente a rallying point. Author Barry Werth
will observe that Rumsfeld and his ideological and bureaucratic ally,
White House chief of staff Dick Cheney "drove the SALT II
negotiations into the sand at the Pentagon and the White House."
Ford's primary opponent, Ronald Reagan, and the neocons' public
spokesman, Senator Henry Jackson, pillory Ford for being soft on
Communism and the Soviet Union. Ford stops talking about detente with
the Soviets, and breaks off discussions with the Soviets over
limiting nuclear weapons. Through Team B, Rumsfeld and the neocons
succeed in stalling the incipient thaw in US-Soviet relations and in
weakening Ford as a presidential candidate.

1981: Italian Neofascist Organization P-2 Banned; Had Ties to
American Neoconservative Ledeen

"Propaganda Due," or P-2, an informal, parallel Secret Service in
Italy led by neofascist and Freemason Licio Gelli, is banned by the
Italian Parliament, though the organization continues to function.
(Gelli is expelled from the Masons the same year as P-2 is banned.)
It had a penchant for secret rituals and exotic covert ops against
what it considered Communist-based threats. P-2 members swear to have
their throats slit and tongues cut out rather than break their oaths
of secrecy and loyalty. Author Craig Unger characterizes the
organization as "subversive, authoritarian, and right-wing." It was
sometimes called the "P-2 Masonic Lodge" because of its ties to the
Freemasons. It served as a covert intelligence agency for militant
anticommunists. It was also linked to Operation Gladio, a secret
paramilitary wing of NATO that supported far-right military coups in
Greece and Turkey during the Cold War. P-2 is banned by the Italian
Parliament after an investigation found that it had infiltrated the
highest levels of Italy's judiciary, parliament, military, and press,
and was linked to assassinations, kidnappings, and illicit arms deals
around the world. The critical event was the murder of Freemason and
bank president Roberto Calvi, who was found hanging from a bridge in
London; the investigation found that P-2 may have been involved in
Calvi's murder. American neoconservative Michael Ledeen, who has long
if murky connections with both US and Italian intelligence agencies,
was a part of two major international disinformation operations in
conjunction with P-2 and SISMI, the Italian military intelligence
agency (see October 1980 and Mid-1981 through Late 1981). [BBC,
10/16/1998; Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon, 12/14/2004; ]

1991-1997: Group of Foreign Policy Analysts Recommends
Interventionist Policy

Morton Abramowitz, president of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, establishes a number of blue-ribbon commissions,
headed by a select group of foreign policy elite, to create a new
post-Cold War foreign policy framework for the US. Some of the
group's members are Madeleine Albright, Henry Cisneros, John Deutch,
Richard Holbrooke, Alice Rivlin, David Gergen, Admiral William Crowe,
Leon Fuerth, as well as Richard Perle and James Schlesinger, the two
token conservatives who quickly resign. The commission will issue a
number of policy papers recommending the increased use of military
force to intervene in the domestic conflicts of other countries. Some
of the commission's members are appointed to brief Democratic
presidential candidates on the commission's reports ahead of their
release. [American Spectator, 6/1999]

Abramowitz is also influential in the career of
counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke, who refers to Abramowitz as
his "boss and mentor" at the State Department.

February 1992: Former Reagan Appointee Chosen to Create Publicity
Campaign for Carnegie Endowment

John B. Roberts II, a writer and television producer who worked in
the Reagan administration from 1981-1985, is asked to develop a
publicity campaign to create public support for the forthcoming
foreign policy recommendations of the Carnegie Endowment's blue-
ribbon commissions to create a new post-Cold War foreign policy
framework for the US.(see 1991-1997). Morton Abramowitz makes it
clear to him that the commission's recommendations need to play a
prominent role in upcoming presidential elections. The commission's
final report will be released shortly before the Democratic National
Convention. [American Spectator, 6/1999]

July 1992: Think Tank Publishes Book Proposing Policy of Unilateral
Interventionism in the Name of Humanitarianism

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace publishes "Self-
Determination in the New World Order" by Morton H. Halperin (head of
State Department policy planning under Madeleine Albright) and David
Scheffer (Albright's special envoy for war crimes issues). The book
proposes a set of criteria for the US to use in responding to the
independence and separatist movements that have arisen since the
break-up of the Soviet Union. The authors argue that in certain
circumstances, such as when civil unrest threatens to create a
humanitarian crisis, "American interests and ideals" compel the US to
assume "a more active role." Interventions "will become increasingly
unavoidable," the authors write. Foreshadowing the unabashed
unilateralist foreign policy adopted by the Bush administration after
the September 11 attacks, they write that "the United States should
seek to build a consensus within regional and international
organizations for its position, but should not sacrifice its own
judgment and principles if such a consensus fails to materialize."
[Review of International Affairs, 4/2000]

July 1992: Think Tank Asserts that Interventions May Be Necessary to
Avert Humanitarian Crises

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace publishes "Changing
Our Ways's Role in the New World." The book is the final report of a
commission that was asked to recommend a new post-Cold War foreign
policy framework (see 1991-1997). The report calls for "a new
principle of international relations" asserting that "the destruction
or displacement of groups of people within states can justify
international intervention." It advises the US to "realign" NATO and
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to
deal with these new security problems in Europe. [American Spectator,
6/1999]

1996: Wolfowitz Argues for New Team B Exercise

Neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz, currently a professor at Johns
Hopkins University, argues strenuously for the need for a
second "Team B" competitive intelligence analysis (see November 1976)
of the US's foreign policies as the Cold War is ending. Wolfowitz,
himself a former Team B member, writes: "The idea that somehow you
are saving work for the policymaker by eliminating serious debate is
wrong. Why not aim, instead, at a document that actually says there
are two strongly argued positions on the issue? Here are the facts
and evidence supporting one position, and here are the facts and
evidence supporting the other, even though that might leave the poor
policymakers to make a judgment as to which one they think is
correct." Wolfowitz does not consider the fact that the Team B
procedures and findings were almost immediately discredited .
[Quarterly Journal of Speech, 5/2006 pdf file]

July 1998: Rumsfeld Commission Wildly Inflates Threat from Iran,
North Korea

The "Team B" intelligence analysis exercise of 1975, which so
disastrously overestimated the Soviet threat (see November 1976),
returns in the form of the "Rumsfeld Commission," which issues its
report this month. Conservative commentators and former participants
have called for a second "Team B"-style competitive intelligence
analysis ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall (see 1990, 1994, and
1996). The "Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the
United States" (see July 15, 1998), led by former Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, is packed with conservative and neoconservative
hardliners much as the original Team B cadre was; it includes some
former Team B members such as former Pentagon official Paul
Wolfowitz. Like the original Team B, the Rumsfeld Commission
challenges CIA estimates of foreign military threats; like the
original Team B, the Rumsfeld Commission wildly overestimates the
impending threat from countries such as Iran and North Korea, both of
which it judges will be capable of striking the US with nuclear
weapons in five years or perhaps less. The original Team B findings
impelled thirty years of full-bore military spending by the US to
counter a Soviet threat that was fading, not growing; the Rumsfeld
Commission's equally alarmist findings impels a new push for spending
on the so-called "Star Wars" ballistic missile defense system (see
March 23, 1983). Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly will observe
that the Rumsfeld Commission's report "provided Congress with enough
talking points to win the argument [on missile defense] both in the
strategic arena and in the 20-second soundbite television debates."
Former State Department intelligence analyst Greg Thielmann will
later observe, "time has proven Rumsfeld's predictions dead wrong."
Author and professor Gordon R. Mitchell will write that the
second "Team B" exercise shows "that by 1998, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz
had honed the art of intelligence manipulation through use of
competitive intelligence analysis. Retrospective assessments
revealing serious flaws in the Team B work products came long after
political officials had already converted the alarmist reports into
political support for favored military policies." [Quarterly Journal
of Speech, 5/2006 pdf file]

Late December 2000 and Early January 2001: Bush Transition Teams
Install Neoconservatives in Key Offices

The Bush team moves into Washington. Neoconservative Zalmay Khalilzad
heads the Pentagon transition team, and he ensures that plenty of his
friends and colleagues move into the civilian offices of the Defense
Department. Four of the most influential advocates for the US
overthrow of Iraq's Saddam Hussein—Elliott Abrams, Douglas Feith,
Richard Perle, and Abram Shulsky—are waiting to learn where they will
serve in the department. But Vice President Cheney is still concerned
with ensuring the placement of his own colleagues and cronies who
will help him build what many will call the "imperial presidency."
Secretary of State Colin Powell, Cheney's ideological rival, is
working to install his friend and colleague Richard Armitage as
deputy secretary of defense. For Cheney, Armitage would be a calamity—
although Armitage is sufficiently hardline and in line with
conservative foreign policy aims, he is far too centrist for Cheney
and the neoconservatives. The neoconservative magazine the Weekly
Standard alerts the faithful to the potential problem with an article
entitled "The Long Arm of Colin Powell: Will the Next Secretary of
State Also Run the Pentagon?" Powell does not get his wish; Armitage
eventually becomes deputy secretary of state. Abrams will join the
National Security Council; Khalilzad, Feith, and Shulksy will join
the Defense Department; and Perle will head the Defense Policy Board,
an independent group that advises the Pentagon. [Weekly Standard,
12/25/2000 pdf file; ]

December 2002: Abrams Appointed to Senior NSC Position

Elliott Abrams, a special assistant to President George W. Bush on
the National Security Council [NSC] and a well-known neoconservative
and former Iran-Contra figure, is appointed to senior director for
Near East and North African affairs within the NSC. Neoconservatives
working at the Pentagon's Near East South Asia (NESA) desk worked
hard to get Abrams appointed. "The day he got (the appointment), they
were whooping and hollering, `We got him in, we got him in,'" Karen
Kwiatkowski, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, tells Inter
Press Service. Abrams, a controversial figure with close ties to
Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, had been convicted of withholding
information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, though he
was later pardoned by George W. Bush's father. [Insight, 12/28/2002;
Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003]

February 13, 2003: Neoconservative Ledeen Says Iraq Invasion Could
Be `War to Remake the World'

At a press conference, neoconservative author and academic Michael
Ledeen celebrates the imminent Iraq war, saying that now is the time
for the US to "destroy [its enemies] to advance our historic mission.
… I think we are going to be obliged to fight a regional war, whether
we want to or not. It may turn out to be a war to remake the world."

April 20, 2008: Neoconservative Writers Dismiss Pentagon Propaganda
Operation as Business as Usual, Challenge New York Times's Patriotism

Neoconservatives Max Boot and John Podhoretz weigh in on the New York
Times story exposing the Pentagon propaganda operation (see April 20,
2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond). Boot writes that the program is
nothing more than "the Pentagon tr[ying] to get out its side of the
story about Iraq to the news media." "[I]t's no secret," he
writes, "that the Pentagon—and every other branch of government—
routinely provides background briefings to journalists (including
columnists and other purveyors of opinion), and tries to influence
their coverage by carefully doling out access. It is hardly unheard
of for cabinet members—or even the president and vice president—to
woo selected journalists deemed to be friendly while cutting off
those deemed hostile. Nor is it exactly a scandal for government
agencies to hire public relations firms to track coverage of them and
try to suggest ways in which they might be cast in a more positive
light. All this is part and parcel of the daily grind of Washington
journalism in which the Times is, of course, a leading participant."
Boot believes he has found "the nub of the problem" further into the
article when reporter David Barstow wrote that the Pentagon's
operation "recalled other administration tactics that subverted
traditional journalism." Boot retorts, in a backhanded criticism of
the Times's patriotism: "[I]t's one thing to subvert one's country
and another thing to subvert the MSM [mainstream media]. We can't
have that!" Boot concludes: "The implicit purpose of the Times's
article is obvious: to elevate this perfectly normal practice into a
scandal in the hopes of quashing it. Thus leaving the Times and its
fellow MSM organs—conveniently enough—as the dominant shapers of
public opinion." [Commentary Magazine, 4/20/2008] Writing for the
influential conservative blog PowerLine, Boot's fellow
neoconservative John Podhoretz echoes Boot's dismissal of the Times's
expose: "Barstow's endless tale reveals nothing more than that the
Pentagon treated former military personnel like VIPs, courted them
and served them extremely well, in hopes of getting the kind of
coverage that would counteract the nastier stuff written about the
Defense Department in the media." [Think Progress (.org), 4/20/2008]

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Child Martyrs
International Solidarity Movement
December 4, 2008
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m49323&hd=&size=1&l=e


ISM Gaza Strip

On Tuesday 2nd December 2008 Gaza Strip, Palestine added two more
child martyrs to its already long list of thousands of dead children,
the products of U.S. tax-payer money providing the ways and the means
for Israel to continue its genocidal occupation and siege.



Omar Abu-Hamad
15 year-old Omar Abu-Hamad, born 28th January 1993 and 19 year-old
Ramzi El Dahini were blown to bits standing in the street outside
their homes – they both lived in the same neighborhood and were also
cousins. Two other children were seriously injured and taken to Al-
Najar hospital in Rafah, Gaza Strip. Their injuries were so serious
that they are being transferred to a hospital inside Israel, since
the hospitals in Gaza are so very limited in the treatment they can
give to those who need urgent emergency care.

According to Omar's family, he and his mother were home when they
both heard an explosion. It sounded like a gas canister and they went
out to see what happened. An Israeli remote operated drone plane had
shot a missile nearby. Omar's mother came back into the house and
heard another explosion. She had thought that Omar had come back into
the house with her, but he wasn't around. She went back outside
looking for him. She questioned the people in the street about Omar
and the neighbors said that he wasn't there in the street among the
dead, for her to look elsewhere. But her heart told her that he was
there in the street, blown to bits by the remote controlled missile.
She saw a shoe in the street and recognized it as her son's and knew
that he was dead.

She went to the hospital and asked about her son, they didn't want to
let her see him, he was in parts, no longer in one recognizable body.

Omar's brothers, 17 year-old Emad, 12 year-old Ibrahim, and 10 year-
old Mahmoud told everyone how they had found out about Omar's death.
Emad was at home when the shooting took place. He went outside and
was told like his mother that Omar was not dead, but Emad insisted on
going to the hospital. Once there he went to the morgue and told the
technicians to open the refrigerator where they store the dead
bodies. He saw Omar's pants and one of his legs and before seeing the
rest of the blown apart body knew that it was Omar. Ibrahim had come
home from school and asked about Omar, his mother told him that he
had been killed. Mahmoud came home from school and found a house full
of women and he was told "your brother was killed". The people in the
street also told him that Omar was dead.

Amal, Omar's 18 year-old sister was at the clinic the day he was
killed. She came home from the clinic and they chatted and then he
went outside and was killed. She didn't believe that he was dead.

ISM Gaza Strip volunteers had gone to the home of Omar to pay
respects and some of the family were reminiscing about him. When Omar
was still going to school, in the morning he would stop by at a poor
woman's house in the neighborhood and bring her bread. One day when
he went there he found her dead in her bed. After looking closer he
saw bullet holes in her wall and saw that she had been killed by
being shot by a bullet. This incident impacted him so strongly that
he couldn't focus on his studies and stopped going to school.

His mother reminisced that he was very clever, he could fix anything –
  the computer, the closet – just give it to him and he would find a
way to fix something broken or to build something that was needed. He
was also very clever in school.

His sister, Amal, talked about his personality – he would make jokes
and he was very helpful. Everyday he would get up at 6:00am and go to
his step-mother's house to take his step brother to the store. She
remembered that he had planted the trees outside of their home and
had painted his name on the walls of the house. How can they continue
to live in this house now?

The family continued to talk about Omar, saying that he had a sheep
which had recently had a lamb. The family had decided to not
sacrifice the sheep or the lamb for Eid Al-Adha, but to keep them
both in remembrance of Omar.

The family talked about the relationship of the father with Omar. The
father has been in an Israeli prison for the last 9-10 months and he
still does not know that Omar has been killed, murdered by the
Israeli occupation force army. His health is suffering and the family
is concerned about how the news might affect him. The father used to
say that Omar was his right arm and in his letters to the family he
would mention how much he depended on him. The family also mentioned
that the father had told Omar to write a letter expressing how he
felt. Omar asked him to whom he should write the letter and the
father told him to write it to a good friend. Omar said the children
are my friends. The family remembered that Omar would call a 10 month-
old child his son and one of Omar's younger brothers would call
him "Ba", another Arabic name for father.

Ramzi was at home before the incident, when a friend called by and
asked him to go to help repair his bicycle. He joined a group of
young people who were sitting on a fence at the side of the road just
in front of his house, chatting. A few minutes later the Israeli
drone fired a missile. People in the neighborhood had observed the
drone flying west, away from the area, and thought it was safe. But
then the drone returned. Ramzi's mother said she heard a loud
explosion and ran out of the house to see what had happened.

She saw the bodies of the teenagers not realizing that one of them
was her son. She went back into her house to get some blankets to
cover the bodies as the ambulance hadn't arrived yet. Ramzi's brother
was on the scene. She asked him if Ramzi was one of the people killed
and he told her that he was. It was a huge shock. She later commented
that she raised her son for nineteen years only for the Israeli army
to steal his future.

The families of Omar and Ramzi are still in shock over the sudden
loses of their beloved sons, brothers, cousins and uncles. Unarmed
children standing in a field after one explosion hit the area, torn
to smithereens by a second murderous missile. These families will
have a gaping hole of loss for the rest of their lives. It was a
genocidal attack that killed also the future generations of these two
man-children. The loss of life reverberates throughout the world –
this genocide of Palestinians can be stopped, it must be stopped, the
only question is when?!

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Middle East Needs to Follow Malaysia's Lead on Halal Food Standards
12/17/2008
http://midamar.com/scripts/news_details.asp?I=1133


Halal World Expo plays key role as industry strives to build consumer
trust Abu Dhabi, UAE, 13th November, 2008: The UAE and other Middle
East countries need to follow Malaysia's example in regulating Halal
food production in order to prevent governments and consumers from
being defrauded, an industry expert says.

Midamar Director Jalel Aossey said at Halal World Expo in Abu Dhabi
today that close cooperation between governments and active
certifiers in the region can help block the flow of non Halal food
items reaching supermarket shelves as Halal products.

While Malaysia and Brunei have well established regulatory bodies to
verify products that are Halal compliant and levels of protection are
in place in countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, there is a
growing demand for a universal standard across all Halal products.

"Of the American products that are found on supermarket shelves in
the UAE and other parts of the Gulf region, about 95 per cent will be
the same products that you see in US supermarkets," said Aossey. "But
some how, on the way from the US to the Middle East, these products
magically become Halal. Consumers are no doubt becoming more aware of
this reality and want to know what is being done to protect their
religious beliefs."

"On one side you have producers who genuinely don't know what they
have to comply with because of a lack of education from the industry.
But you also have companies and exporters that are deliberately
defrauding governments and consumers by not complying with
regulations because they don't want to pay the fees and the
transition costs to make Halal products."

This is what the industry is trying to clean up, and this is why
events like Halal World Expo are so important, because what is needed
is continuous dialogue and action, like we're having in Abu Dhabi
this week."

Organised by IIR Middle EastIIR Middle East, the Middle East's
leading showcase for the US$2.1 trillion global Halal industry was
reaching its conclusion tonight (Thursday).

Representing North America's largest supplier of high quality US
Halal meats, Aossey was one of the key speakers at the Halal World
Expo Forum, running alongside the exhibition at the Abu Dhabi
National Exhibition Centre.

He said: "People have to realise that it is not impossible, and that
it's not too costly, to put the correct Halal standards in place
here. There's a big misconception about how difficult this process
is."

"Inspection teams can be sent to the various countries where food is
being produced to allow it to be inspected, at that country's cost.
This is nothing when you consider the huge dollar volume of food
products exported to the UAE and other Gulf countries. Malaysia has
set the stage for the rest of the world to follow."

Aossey said regional governments need help from the industry to
combat fraudulent Halal food certification practices and build
consumer trust.

"In the US there is no regulation of Halal certification," he
said. "Anybody can get hold of a good printer and turn out a
certificate that looks genuine. Corrupt certifiers get a taste for
the money generated producing "paper Halal certificates" for
companies without actually performing any work, and it's all too easy
for them to operate in an unregulated industry. Credible certifiers
however, send slaughter teams and auditors to production plants to
check that processes are fully Halal compliant. There is a cost in
doing so and therefore they charge more."

"Exporters, rather than the manufacturers approach the corrupt
certifiers, acquire Halal certification, put Arabic labels on the
product and ship it to the Middle East. The manufacturer may not have
a clue where the product ends up or more important that their
products are being misrepresented as Halal."

"This couldn't happen in the US because of consumer legislation. But
it is very easy to combat in the Middle East. What's needed is
cooperation between governments and the active certifiers in this
region."

"The bottom line is there is hope. It will take time and as events
like Halal World Expo gain momentum year to year, government and
industry relations will prosper and a set of standards will be
developed that will meet the needs of consumers. We must believe a
solution is close at hand."

===

Halal market expansion raises questions of Halal fraud
10/21/2008
http://midamar.com/scripts/news_details.asp?I=1116


When most people go shopping for meat, they don't put much thought
into the task beyond the quality and the price.

Show the same meat to observant Muslims, and they will ask you a
whole slew of questions: is the meat from an animal that can be
eaten; was it slaughtered properly; did someone say a blessing before
it was slaughtered; was it marinated in alcohol; did it come into
contact with wine?

The industry of halal, foods that are permitted for consumption
according to Muslim law is gaining a strong foothold – both in the
United States and beyond – and has an estimated global turnover of
$580 billion a year, catering for many non-Muslims as well as Muslims.

But the swell in demand for halal products has given rise to fraud,
where companies and exporters are labeling foods as halal, when, in
fact, this is not the case.

The problem is causing Muslims worldwide to rethink the halal
certification process and minimize instances in which Muslim beliefs
are being exploited for the sake of a fast buck.

With this in mind, the World Halal Forum, which convened in Malaysia
at the beginning of May, has established an International Halal
Integrity Alliance, which aims to counter halal deception and
standardize halal regulations.

The alliance technically works on a voluntary basis in which
companies will adopt the IHI standards. If a halal certifier is
recognized by the IHI, this will give them more credibility in the
eyes of the consumer.

"This is a group of people who have no vested interest except for
integrity," Nordin Abduallah, deputy chairman of the World Halal
Forum, told The Media Line.

Islam currently has some 1.5 billion followers, many of whom are
observant, and their numbers are continuously increasing. Food
manufacturers have a vested economic interest in labeling a product
permissible for consumption by Muslims, since it can boost the sales
considerably.

Up until now there has been no centralized body that defines the
standards of halal and accredits certification organizations.

The lack of order in the halal certification industry has been
problematic in some countries, including the Middle East, home to a
significant percentage of the world's Muslim population.

The U.S., surprisingly, has a relatively good record on halal
certification, but there have been problems there too, and Muslims
are now trying to make the process more systematic.

"Especially now, with the devaluation of the U.S. dollar, there's an
increase in demand for American goods in the Muslim world," says
Jalel Aossey, director of business development at Midamar, a U.S.-
based company which manufactures and exports halal foods.

Manufacturing companies are supplying to the Middle East and they are
seeking halal certification, he says.

While truth in labeling laws in the U.S. is quite stringent and any
false information can involve heavy penalties, the laws regarding
food exports are more lax.

Aossey explains that, "Many exporter consolidators buy American food
products that are knowingly not halal and they will put either a
sticker on it or they will get a supposed halal certifier that will
give them a certificate. That certificate is separate from the
product and they send that product overseas. The importer, in Arab
countries in particular, needs that certificate in order to clear the
goods and show that it's halal."

The vast majority of U.S. food products are not identified on their
packaging as halal, he says. However, the certificate will say it is
a halal product slaughtered according to Muslim law and that slip of
paper makes the products permissible for Muslims.

"You can go to any supermarket in the Middle East and find American
goods that are being sold as halal, but you would never find that
product sold as halal in the United States," Aossey says. "I think it
would be shocking if people really knew how few products are actually
halal in this part of the world that are being sold as such."

Consumers in the Middle East are becoming increasingly aware of this
problem and are being asked to play a more active role in determining
what is permissible according to Islamic law.

Midamar is creating a consumer organization, which will contact
American food manufacturers and ask them in writing whether their
foods are halal or not. It is a relatively simple process to find out
whether a certificate is legitimate or not, Aossey says.

If the American manufacturer says it does not produce halal products,
but it is reaching countries overseas as halal, this indicates that
someone in the U.S. is "making" the product halal before it leaves
the country.

In some ways, the halal industry is learning from the Jewish kosher
industry, in which products have to be identified as kosher directly
on the packages.

"The product is only kosher if identified with the seal on the
package. They do not accept paper certificates for obvious reasons,
as the halal industry is learning now," Aossey says.

Surprisingly, Southeast Asian countries and not the Middle East are
spearheading efforts to make the halal certification more regulated.

In Malaysia, for example, there is already a system in place where a
consumer can pull a product off a shelf in the supermarket and send
the number of the barcode in a text message to a central database.
The consumer then receives a text message back informing him or her
whether the product is registered with the Malaysian halal
certification authority or not.

Halal fraud can be done with malice or it can be purely accidental,
Abdullah says.

"Maybe there are some clever marketing people who want to put a halal
logo on a product because it then sells better in the Middle East,
without knowing what this really represents," he says.

"The other level is people who know there are pork-based components
in the product and do it anyway. Every few weeks we find a company
that does that. We think that with the increase of Internet usage
those companies will find it's not worth the risk, because people
send an e-mail out, and the information gets around very quickly."

On the other hand, Abdullah says, this is being abused for purposes
of slander, where people will accuse a company – perhaps a
competitor – of halal fraud when in fact there is nothing wrong with
their conduct.

"The International Halal Integrity Alliance is playing an
increasingly regulatory role because it protects the companies that
are doing things properly and it also protects the consumer," he
says.

Aossey believes that while some people in the industry are
intentionally practicing deception, there is also a lack of education
about what it takes for a food product to be halal certified.

"Some companies think it's just paperwork. They don't understand
there's a true process from the slaughter to the processing," he says.

What is halal?

Halal is an Arabic word meaning permissible, and refers to anything
permitted according to Shari'a, or Muslim law, as opposed to haram,
which means unlawful or forbidden.

The word halal is usually used in the context of foods that are
permitted for consumption by Muslims.

The Quran, the holy book in Islam, instructs followers of Islam as to
what is haram.

"Forbidden to you (for food) are: dead meat, blood, the flesh of
swine and that on which hath been invoked the name of other than
Allah, that which hath been killed by strangling or by a violent
blow, or by a headlong fall or by being gored to death; that which
hath been (partly) eaten by a wild animal unless ye are able to
slaughter it (in due form); that which is sacrificed on stone
(altars); forbidden also is the division (of meat) by raffling with
arrows; that is impiety."

(The Quran, Al-Maida, Sura 5 verse 3, translation published by the
Amana Corporation, 1989)

Based on this source and other scriptures, The Islamic Food and
Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA) outlines the following as foods
that are haram, and not permitted for consumption by Muslims:
Swine or pork and their by-products
Animals improperly slaughtered or dead before slaughtering
Animals killed in the name of other than Allah (God)
Alcohol and intoxicants
Carnivorous animals, birds of prey and land animals without external
ears
Blood and by-products of blood
Foods contaminated by any of the above products
Food containing ingredients such as gelatin, enzymes and emulsifiers
are mashbouh, or questionable, because the origin of these
ingredients is unknown and more information is needed in order to
categorize them as halal or haram.

For the meat to be halal, some rules must be followed in the interest
of animal welfare: the animal must be fed as normal and given water
prior to slaughter; the animal must not witness another animal being
slaughtered; the knife must be razor sharp and must slit the animal's
throat from vein to vein with one swipe; and the slaughterer and the
animal should be facing Mecca.

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Countrywide crackdown on Dawa intensified
Dawn Report
http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top2.htm&date=20081213


ISLAMABAD, Dec 12: Several offices and other facilities of Jamaatud
Dawa were sealed and a large number of its members arrested as the
countrywide crackdown on the organisation continued on Friday after
the United Nations declared the group as a `terrorist outfit'.

The government placed Dawa Amir Hafiz Mohammad Saeed under house
arrest for three months and sealed Al-Qaadsia Mosque, the
headquarters of the organisation, on Thursday.

Over 181 workers of the Dawa were arrested and 46 offices sealed
across the Frontier province on Friday.

Police sources said that Dawa's provincial office in Peshawar's
Fawara Chowk was sealed on Thursday night while other offices in the
province on Friday morning.

Dawa spokesman Attiq-ur-Rehman Chohan told reporters outside the
sealed office at Fawara Chowk that workers were arrested from offices
in Mardan, Mansehra, Abbottabad, Haripur, Malakand, Swabi and other
districts of the province.

He said the government action would deprive over 400,000 people
displaced by the military operation in the Bajuar Agency of food,
medicines and other items.

He said Dawa leaders were in touch with the NWFP government to find a
solution to the problems. He said that leaders of the Pakistan Muslim
League-N, Jamaat-i-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and other parties
were also being contacted to raise the issue in the Senate and
National Assembly.The cantonment police sealed an office of the Dawa
at a mosque in Jangle Khel area of Kohat district.

The caretaker of the office, Qari Naseeruddin, and his deputy Maulana
Imshad had gone underground on Wednesday after collecting hides of
sacrificial animals, witnesses said.

However, a seminary of the organisation in the Mir Ahmed Khel
village, which remained closed for Eid holidays, was not sealed
because of fear that its closure may fuel sectarian violence in the
area.

Police sealed a school and a dispensary of the Dawa in Mansehra
district and arrested a dozen workers.

In Mardan, an office of the organization was sealed and four workers
were arrested.

Police sealed three offices of the religious outfit each in Haripur,
Nowshera and Attock.

In Lahore, police arrested six activists and sealed three offices of
the Dawa in Faisal Town, Regal Chowk and on Lytton Road.

According to police sources, a list of 28 activists of the Dawa and
23 of Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Muhammad had been prepared and
handed over to law-enforcement agencies.

Police sealed six offices in Lodhran, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur,
and Dera Ghazi Khan and arrested an activist of the organisation,
Imran Sarwar, in Rajanpur. A district president of the Dawa was
detained on Thursday.

Three offices and a dispensary of the organisation were sealed and
two dispensers and a telephone operator arrested in Gujranwala.

Police also sealed three offices of the Dawa in Toba Tek Singh, two
in Sahiwal, six in Kasur, two in Gujrat and one in Sheikhupura.

Jhelum police sealed two offices and a dispensary of the group in the
district. DPO Waqar Ahmed Chohan told Dawn that the action had been
taken on a directive of the interior ministry. An ambulance of the
dispensary was also seized.

He said that police were conducting raids to arrest 13 activists of
the organisation.

In Azad Kashmir, authorities have sealed Jamaatud Dawa's offices and
other facilities in all eight districts, including two madressahs, a
healthcare unit, a middle school and a workshop.

Additional home secretary Mohammad Zafar Khan told Dawn that eight
members of the organisation had been detained in Muzaffarabad and
Kundal Shahi (Neelum valley).

The head of Dawa's AJK chapter, Maulana Abdul Aziz Alvi, was placed
under house arrest in his native Karyan village, 19kms north of
Muzaffarabad.

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"The amount of death and destruction is inconceivable"


Safa Joudeh writing from the occupied Gaza Strip,
Live from Palestine, 27 December 2008
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10059.shtml


Blood bags at a Gaza City hospital, 27 December 2008. (Sameh Habeeb)

It was just before noon when I heard the first explosion. I rushed to
my window and barely did I get there and look out when I was pushed
back by the force and air pressure of another explosion. For a few
moments I didn't understand but then I realized that Israeli promises
of a wide-scale offensive against the Gaza Strip had materialized.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzpi Livni's statements following a meeting
with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the day before yesterday had
not been empty threats after all.

What followed seems pretty much surreal at this point. Never had we
imagined anything like this. It all happened so fast but the amount
of death and destruction is inconceivable, even to me and I'm in the
middle of it and a few hours have passed already passed.

Six locations were hit during the air raid on Gaza City. The images
are probably not broadcasted on US news channels. There were piles
and piles of bodies in the locations that were hit. As you looked at
them you could see that a few of the young men were still alive,
someone lifts a hand, and another raises his head. They probably died
within moments because their bodies were burned, most had lost limbs,
some of their guts were hanging out and they were all lying in pools
of blood. Outside my home which is close to the two largest
universities in Gaza, a missile fell on a large group of young men,
university students. They'd been warned not to stand in groups as it
makes them an easy target, but they were waiting for buses to take
them home. Seven were killed, four students and three of our
neighbors' kids, young men who were from the Rayes family and were
best friends. As I'm writing this I can hear a funeral procession go
by outside; I looked out the window a moment ago and it was the three
Rayes boys. They spent all their time together when they were alive,
they died together and now they are sharing the same funeral
together. Nothing could stop my 14-year-old brother from rushing out
to see the bodies of his friends laying in the street after they were
killed. He hasn't spoken a word since.

What did Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert mean when he stated that
we the people of Gaza weren't the enemy, that it was Hamas and
Islamic Jihad which were being targeted? Was that statement made to
infuriate us out of out our state of shock, to pacify any feelings of
rage and revenge? To mock us? Were the scores of children on their
way home from school and who are now among the dead and the injured,
Hamas militants? A little further down my street about half an hour
after the first strike, three schoolgirls happened to be passing by
one of the locations when a missile struck the Preventative Security
Headquarters building. The girls' bodies were torn into pieces and
covered the street from one side to the other.

In all the locations, people are going through the dead, terrified of
recognizing a family member among them. The streets are strewn with
their bodies, their arms, legs, feet, some with shoes and some
without. The city is in a state of alarm, panic and confusion, cell
phones aren't working, hospitals and morgues are backed up and some
of the dead are still lying in the streets with their families
gathered around them, kissing their faces, holding on to them.
Outside the destroyed buildings old men are kneeling on the ground,
weeping. Their slim hopes of finding their sons still alive vanish
after taking one look at what had become of their office buildings.

And even after the dead are identified, doctors are having a hard
time gathering the right body parts in order to hand them over to
their families. The hospital hallways look like a slaughterhouse.
It's truly worse than any horror movie you could ever imagine. The
floor is filled with blood, the injured are propped up against the
walls or laid down on the floor, side by side with the dead. Doctors
are working frantically and people with injuries that aren't life-
threatening are sent home. A relative of mine was injured by a flying
piece of glass from her living room window and she had deep cut right
down the middle of her face. She was sent home; too many others
needed more urgent medical attention. Her husband, a dentist, took
her to his clinic and sewed up her face using local anesthesia.

More than 200 people dead in today's air raids. That means more than
200 funeral processions, a few today, most of them tomorrow,
probably. To think that yesterday these families were worried about
food and heat and electricity. At this point I think they -- actually
all of us -- would gladly have had Hamas forever sign off every last
basic right we've been calling for the last few months if it could
have stopped this from ever having happened.

The bombing was very close to my home. Most of my extended family
live in the area. My family is OK, but two of my uncles' homes were
damaged,

We can rest easy, Gazans can mourn tonight. Israel is said to have
promised not to wage any more air raids for now. People suspect that
the next step will be targeted killings, which will inevitably means
scores more of innocent bystanders whose fates have already been
sealed.

===

Safa Joudeh writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine
28 December 2008


The longest night of my life
Safa Joudeh


The scene of an Israeli missile strike in Rafah refugee camp,
southern Gaza Strip, 28 December 2008. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)

Here's an update on what's happening here from where I am, the second
night of Israeli air (and sea) raids on Gaza.

It's 1:30am but it feels like the sun should be up already. For the
past few hours there's been simultaneous, heavy aerial bombardment of
Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip. It feels like the longest
night of my life. In my area it started with the bombing of workshops
(usually located in the ground floor of private/family residential
buildings), garages and warehouses in one of the most highly
condensed areas in Gaza City, "Askoola."

About an hour ago they bombed the Islamic University, destroying the
laboratory building. As I mentioned in an earlier account, my home is
close to the university. We heard the first explosion, the windows
shook, the walls shook and my heart felt like it would literally jump
out of my mouth. My parents, siblings and cousins, who have been
staying with us since their home was damaged the first day of the air
raids, had been trying to get some sleep. We all rushed to the side
of the house that was farthest from the bombing. Hala, my 11-year-old
sister stood motionless and had to be dragged to the other room. I
still have marks on my shoulder from when Aya, my 13-year-old cousin
held on to me during the next four explosions, each one as violent
and heart-stopping as the next. Looking out of the window moments
later the night sky had turned to a dirty navy-gray from the smoke.

Israeli warships rocketed Gaza's only sea port only moments ago; 15
missiles exploded, destroying boats and parts of the ports. These are
just initial reports over the radio. We don't know what the extent of
the damage is. We do know that the fishing industry that thousands of
families depend on either directly or indirectly didn't pose a threat
on Israeli security. The radio reporter started counting the
explosions; I think he lost count after six. At this moment we heard
three more blasts. "I'm mostly scared of the whoosh," I told my
sister, referring to the sound a missile makes before it hits. Those
moments of wondering where it's going to fall are agonizing. Once the
whooshes and hits were over the radio reporter announced that the
fish market (vacant, of course) had been bombed.

We just heard that four sisters from the Balousha family were killed
in an attack that targeted the mosque by their home in the northern
Gaza Strip.

You know what bothers me more than the bangs and the blasts, the
smoke, the ambulance sirens and the whooshes? The constant, ominous,
maddening droning sound of the Apache helicopters overhead that has
been buzzing in my head day and night. It's like I'm hearing things,
which I'm not, but I am.


Safa Joudeh is an master's candidate in public policy at Stony Brook
University in the US. She returned to Gaza in September 2007 where
she currently works as a freelance journalist.

===

The Dead Were Piled on Top of Each Other Outside'

By Sami Abdel-Shafi in Gaza city

I am safe, and yet I feel like a walking dead person. Everything
around me shows it. It is hard to write something of any coherence
while exposed to cold winter air and to the smell that lingers after
the detonation of Israeli bombs.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21549.htm

===

Christmas In Gaza : No More Room In The Morgue.

'Little Baghdad' in Gaza - Bombs, Fear and Rage

By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent

Relatives search among the bodies and the wounded in order to bring
the dead quickly to burial. A mother whose three school-age children
were killed, and are piled one on top of the other in the morgue,
screams and then cries, screams again and then is silent.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21551.htm

===

Hamas Calls for Third Intifada

By Al Jazeera

In an interview on Al Jazeera, Meshaal said: "We called for a
military intifada against the enemy. Resistance will continue through
suicide missions."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21548.htm

===

UN Blasts Israel Over Gaza Massacre

Video By Russia Today

Click To View
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21550.htm

===

Gaza: The Untold Story

By Ramzy Baroud

The fact is that there is more to the Gaza Strip than 1.5 million
hungry Palestinians, who are supposedly paying the price for Hamas's
militancy, or Israel's 'collective punishment' whichever way the
media decide to brand the problem.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21552.htm

===

Egyptian forces kill one Palestinian wound 15 others
[ 29/12/2008 - 12:42 AM ]




RAFAH, (PIC)-- The Egyptian forces stationed at the Rafah border
crossing killed a Palestinian man when a group of Palestinian managed
to make an opening in the border fence and bring 12 trucks loaded
with aid into the Strip.

Local sources told PIC correspondent that the Egyptian forces killed
Muhammad Ismail al-Kurd, 21, and wounded 15 others when they opened
intensive fire at a group of Palestinians who managed to breach the
border fence.

The Egyptian forces fired at a group of Palestinians near the border
fence after the Israeli occupation airforce destroyed 40 tunnels used
for smuggling essential goods to the besieged Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses said that a number of Palestinians managed to make a
hole in the border fence and let 12 stranded trucks at the Egyptian
side and loaded with medical aid into the Gaza Strip.

Egypt refused to allow those trucks through the Rafah border crossing.




http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%
2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%
2bi1s70yaeOoOZ9oQwJuphPnMLveRUTksTdjcFKIfyrUm3NtF6JPhcEgRj6XESSOD4dwf7
PesgSAAoRqm%2bnzCRlTkOE0jBbQZTMLA680c0jo3jdes%3d




===

Gaza braces for all-out war


Children were among the hundreds of casualties from the bombardment
of Gaza [AFP]

Israeli forces have been massing on the border of the Gaza Strip as
warplanes and helicopter gunships continue to pound the territory.

In the latest attacks overnight, Israeli aircraft bombed the Islamic
university and a government compound in Gaza City.

Almost 300 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began the
offensive on Saturday.
The ministry of health in Gaza has said that about five per cent of
the dead were children, while the UN relief and works agency said
figures gathered from local medics showed that 51 civilians have been
killed.

A 14-month-old child, two women and a man were killed in an attack on
the Jebaliya refugee camp near Gaza City late on Sunday, Palestinian
medics said.
Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, told the US media that
Israel was only targeting Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups.
"Unfortunately in a war ... sometimes also civilians pay the price,"
she said.

She also told NBC's Meet The Press: "Our goal is not to reoccupy Gaza
Strip."

Military build-up

However, with hundreds of troops and tanks being deployed along the
edge of the territory there were growing fears that the offensive
could escalate.

"The indications here on the ground are certainly that the build-up
is there, that the preparations are there for a ground offensive," Al
Jazeera's Hoda Abdel Hamid, reporting from Izmit in Israel, said.
IN VIDEO

  Bombardment of Gaza continues
  US backs Israeli air raids
  Gaza hospitals struggle to cope
The Israeli cabinet approved the call-up of 6,500 military reservists
and Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, has warned that the air
raids could be followed by a ground offensive.

"If it's necessary to deploy ground forces to defend our citizens, we
will do so," Barak's spokesman quoted him as saying.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli aircraft bombed the length of the Gaza-
Egypt border, taking out tunnels used to smuggle in vital goods to
the besieged strip.
Dozens of tunnels are said to criss-cross between southern Gaza and
Egypt's Sinai desert, providing a lifeline to residents who are
starved of basic supplies due to an 18-month-long Israeli blockade.
Avital Leibovitch, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said: "The air force
just attacked over 40 tunnels found on the Gaza side of the border.
"We believe [they] were used for smuggling weapons, explosives and
sometimes people," she said. "The pilots notified direct hits on
these targets."

'Devastating blow'

Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Rafah, a town split in
half by the border, said at least one person died and 42 others were
injured in the attacks on the tunnels.
"It's certainly a devastating blow to the civilian population in
Gaza," he said, adding that speculation the tunnels might be hit had
already caused the price of fuel and other goods to soar.
Palestinians attempting to flee the Israeli bombardment managed to
breach the border fence with Israel, prompting clashes with security
forces during which at least one person was killed.

Tensions at the crossing with Egypt, bypassing Israel, had risen
during the day, with Egypt blaming Hamas for not letting wounded
Palestinians through and Hamas asking for medical aid to be handed
over.

Israel said it began its aerial assault on Gaza in response to rocket
attacks launched by Hamas fighters into the south of the country.

A six-month truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip ended on
December 19.
  Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/20081229239159782
9.html

===

gaza

http://muslimmatters.org/2008/12/28/the-gaza-massacre-a-humanitarian-
disaster/

===

Report: Egypt stabbed Hamas in back
Sun, 28 Dec 2008
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=79746§ionid=351020202


Egypt collaborated with Israel by deliberately misleading Hamas and
allowing Tel Aviv to deal a blow to the movement, a report claims.

Citing diplomatic sources, the London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi
reported Sunday that Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman had
deceived Hamas into believing that Israel would not launch an attack
on the Gaza Strip in the near future.

According to the report, the misinformation lured Hamas into not
evacuating its security compounds and headquarters.

Suleiman convinced a number of Arab leaders that Israel was intending
to launch only limited operations into the Gaza Strip to mount
pressure on Hamas ahead of signing a new ceasefire agreement, the
report added.

Egypt told Hamas on Friday evening that Israel had agreed to begin
talks on a ceasefire and would not attack Gaza before Cairo ended its
diplomatic efforts, the daily quoted Hamas sources close to former
Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar as saying.

The report added that Egypt's assurance persuaded Hamas not to
evacuate its security compounds in accordance with routine procedures
in place after any threats by Israel.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Saturday blamed Hamas
for provoking Israel into attacking the strip. "Egypt warned for a
long time, and someone who ignores warnings is responsible for the
outcome," said Gheit.

Israel launched a massive attack on the Gaze Strip on Saturday
killing or wounding hundreds of people.

===

Five Qassam fighters killed within the past few hours
24/12/2008
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%
2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%
2bi1s70U39NoYsZFyfvef4qhhdQ1VNWW0IxiMn3gVoliLv9MGC1jFgA1y685t%
2bxHYf4Nwc4AE%2bpccnEWm5wGKbrgy6Y%2baLAjlWqUIeHpviZjFntsQ%3d


KHAN YOUNIS, (PIC)-- Five members of the Qassam Brigades, the armed
wing of Hamas, were killed over the past few hours three in Israeli
occupation forces' shooting and two while on "Jihad mission", the
armed wing announced in a communiquι on Wednesday.

The communiquι said that Islam Jadallah, 23, and Mohammed Al-Halabi,
21, were killed at dawn Wednesday while on a "Jihad mission" east of
Khan Younis, to the south of the Gaza Strip.

The armed wing also announced that three Palestinian resistance
fighters that the IOF soldiers had shot and killed at a late hour on
Tuesday were members of its special unit and held the IOF fully
responsible for consequences of their assassination.

The Qassam Brigades in retaliation to the IOF crimes fired 17 mortar
shells at five Israeli army positions and settlements to the north
and south of the Gaza Strip.

It said that fire was seen in Nahal Oz military post after the
shelling.

===

Israel not to free Palestinian prisoners
Sat, 06 Dec 2008
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=77658§ionid=351020202


Palestinian sources say Israel has called off its premier Ehud
Olmert's earlier promise that it would release 250 prisoners this
week.

According to the sources, the Palestinian Authority (PA) received a
message from the caretaker Israeli government saying that 'huge
pressure was put on Olmert and forced him to review his promise' made
to Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas in al-Quds last month.

Following Olmert's pledges to Abbas, the Israeli cabinet On Sunday
approved the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill
gesture to Mahmoud Abbas.

More than 11,500 Palestinian prisoners, including women and children,
are still held in Israeli jails.

Last November, Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed at a US-hosted
conference, held in Maryland's Annapolis, to reach a comprehensive
peace deal before President George W. Bush leaves office in January
2009.

Little visible progress has been achieved since then as Israel
refuses to compromise on key issues including the status of al-Quds
(Jerusalem), the fate of Palestinian refugees, final borders, Israeli
settlements and prisoners.

*********************************************************************

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Mazin Qumsiyeh Reports from Bethlehem

Comment by Joachim Martillo
eaazi.blogspot.com


I have known Mazin Qumsiyeh for almost 10 years and have always
considered him far too moderate with regard to the nature of Zionist
crimes and the Zionist states. Like most Palestinians he lacks much
knowledge of the context of more than 150 years of ethnic Ashkenazi

     * targeted assassinations (including the three defining murders
of Russian history: Alexander II, Stolypin, and Nicholas II),
     * sabotage,
     * revolutionary violence, and
     * mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide (in both E. Europe
and the ME).

Until ethnic Ashkenazim and Jews in general acknowledge, regret and
repent the crimes that grow out of Jewish politics just as Jews
demand of non-Jews, no peace deal with Jewish Zionist hypocrites is
possible because there is no reason to believe that Jewish Zionists
will not commit exactly the same crimes in the future.

Decent Americans should be particularly incensed at Zionist crimes in
Gaza because we have paid for all the weaponry, greenlighted the
Israeli attacks, and even approved -- thanks to the manipulations of
Jewish Neocon Zionist policy makers -- of the Gaza blockade that led
most directly to this situation.

This attack has potential dire consequences for the US economy
because the USA has formally requested at least $300 billion (and
informally suggested at least $600 billion) in loans from Arab
Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs).

In other words, because the US keeps Israel afloat and because money
is by definition fungible, the USA is asking Arabs to support Israel
as the Zionist state genocides the native Palestinian Arab population.

It is hard to see how the USA can legitimately expect much aid from
Arab countries in fixing the US economy under such circumstances.

The request is even more laughable because the US economic disaster
is wholly attributable to the US-Israeli alliance, which is
responsible for more than half of the US national debt.

Non-Jewish and Jewish anti-Zionist Americans have to start asking
Jewish Zionist Americans hard questions:

     * Why do you believe that Jews have the right to plunder and to
kill non-Jews?
     * Why are supporting the continued existence of the murderous
genocidal terrorist Zionist state when manipulating the US government
into such a policy amounts to destroying US jobs and taking food from
the mouths of American children in order to transfer wealth from the
USA to Jewish Zionists (both in the USA and in Israel) so that the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) can kill Arab children?

===

Sometimes the Dead are Envied
by Mazin Qumsiyeh, Bethlehem, Occupied Palestine
27 December 2008
http://qumsiyeh.org


It was not possible to sleep here for two nights now. The events and
the images of death and carnage of children, of policemen, of people
that look like my mother and my son and my sister and my friends were
simply too much. Gaza has run out of stretchers and many are now
carried to hospitals (which are running out of supplies) and morgues
on commercial street signs, in blankets or simply by their limp
limbs. Three mosques were destroyed. I recalled the Israeli attacks
on the Church of Nativity which was minor compared to this. I was
watching Israel shell the University in Gaza city including its
faculty of science and a residence dorm for female students and was
thinking of my university and my lab and office at Bethlehem
University. I was then shocked into more horrific scenes and news. In
one house five young sisters killed. In another six family members
including four children killed while eating breakfast. In a scene
that haunted me where four children were killed with their mother, I
saw rescue workers try frantically to pull the remaining surviving
girl whose legs were crushed under a huge boulder from the roof. As
some of them were calming her down and working hard, just next to
them other workers pulled the dead body of her sister (looked like 3-
4 year old). They quickly covered her but I think her sister noticed.
Sometimes the dead are envied for their suffering has ended. Her
suffering is just beginnig. I thought of all the thousands of
relatives of all the victims and how they feel…..I thought of friends
I lost and talks with people in Gaza...I thought of my mother who at
76 has seen so much suffering and still she cried at the new images
of new atrocities…

My heart aches and struggles with my scientist brain. The latter
wants to focus on facts and figures. The attack in its second day was
in the words of Israeli leaders "the beginning" and is intended "to
send Gaza back decades". So far over 300 were killed and over 1000
injured (200 of those critically), 35% women, children and elderly. I
examine numbers of homes, police stations, civil society building
destroyed. I read the Al Mezan Center for human rights which
rationally states that most Gaza victims are civilians [1]. But even
my rational mind refuses to deal with these things. How could it
handle just that one image of the young girl's anguished pained look
under the rubble of her house and so tears stream down again to to
try to wash the image to no avail…..How could my mind examine
rationally the statements of "leaders" saying this carnage is not the
fault of the bombers and war criminals, but of Hamas!

Protests were organized around the world and more are being planned
[2]. The demonstrations helped vent some frustration and we hope will
herald a reawakening of the heart of humanity that has been
sputtering. But we hope it will go much farther to changing the
rotted system of elites in power ignoring people's rights for
political expediency and for profit.

In the Bethlehem demonstration, we pounded on the permanently closed
gate of the apartheid wall with deafening sound and the soldiers in
the tower started to through stun grenades and tear gas. Injuries
were sustained for activists....Our lungs still ache but our hearts
ache more for the criminality of the apartheid regime, and the
collaboration of the world governments. The Israeli occupation army
killed two protesters with live ammunition in other parts of the West
Bank [3].

Can someone asks western media or the Western governments ruled by
elite racists who keep spouting the nonsense about "Hamas"
and "rockets" (projectiles that are militarily of little use and have
no explosives, killed one person this year), why targeting civilian
police stations, mosques, homes with children, ports, fishing
vessels, streets, and more in one of the most densely populated areas
on earth murdering hundreds of civilians would be an acceptable
action (I don't say response because Israel was killing people and
massacring them for 60 years before)? And what would they expect from
a starving 1.5 million people to do? Especially when one million of
those are refugees or displaced people denied their rights to return
to their homes and lands for 60 years while settlers live across the
borders on their lands in areas like "Sderot" and "Netviot"? Would
they not expect some resistance from some of those? Isn't that
codified in International law for the right of occupied people to
resist including violently? (note that I personally support civil
forms of resistance). Even if one buys the US/Israeli government
propaganda, would it be acceptable to bomb cities in Europe and the
US for any perceived or actual crime of a portion of their society or
even their leaders (Bush and Blair in Iraq?)?

But again I think it is not best for me to try and reason things
through in such times of calamities and little sleep. I got so many
letters of support but please redirect your letters and energies
elsewhere. Redirect them to challenge the injustice directly [4].
Jesus made a statement directly relevant for us today:

"You are the earth's salt. But if the salt should become tasteless,
what can make it salt again? It is completely useless and can only be
thrown out of doors and stamped under foot. You are the world's
light - it is impossible to hide a town built on the top of a hill.
Men do not light a lamp and put it under a bucket. They put it on a
lamp-stand and it gives light for everybody in the house."

It is thus the time when people who claim they want peace and justice
to stop talking about it and actually work for it. Put your lamp
higher. It is time for real change...It is time for a world Intifada
(uprising against injustice). It is time to do something concrete
(like throwing our shoes at someone?)

Below are a press release from human rights organizations in
Palestine (please circulate to media and politicians) and a letter
from a friend worth reading.


Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

===

Palestinian human rights community calls for international action

Palestinian human rights organizations strongly condemn the recent
military attacks carried out by the Israeli occupying forces in the
Gaza Strip on 27 December 2008. The attacks began at approximately
11:30 am and lasted for approximately three hours. These attacks have
destroyed most of the Gaza security offices including police
stations, resulting in the deaths of over 200 Palestinians. More than
350 have been injured with over 120 critically.

The number of deaths resulting from these attacks indicates a willful
targeting of the civilian police forces in these locations and a
clear violation of the prohibition against willful killings. Willful
killings are a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention under
Article 147 and therefore, a War Crime. Both the time and location of
these attacks also indicate a malicious intent to inflict as many
casualties as possible with many of the police stations located in
civilian population centres and the time of the attacks coinciding
with the end of the school day resulting in the deaths of numerous
children.

The ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip has left medical facilities in
the Strip incapable of meeting the needs of the hundreds more who
have been injured which will likely lead to an increase in the number
of deaths. According to Israeli officials, these attacks are only the
beginning of an open military campaign in Gaza. It is therefore
imperative that the international community not stand in silence
while Israel moves forward with impunity.

Despite repeated calls from the Palestinian human rights community
with regard to Gaza, the international community has failed to act.
We are now on the brink of an explosion of violence as result of this
failure and are pushed once again to call for action.

In light of the above, Palestinian human rights organizations urge:

     * The UN Security Council to call an emergency session and adopt
concrete measures, including the imposition of sanctions, in order to
ensure Israel's fulfilment of its obligations under international
humanitarian law.
     * The High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to
fulfil their obligation under common Article 1 to ensure respect for
the provisions of the Conventions, taking appropriate measures to
compel Israel to abide by its obligations under international
humanitarian law, in particular placing pivotal importance on the
respect and protection of civilians from the effects of the
hostilities.
     * The High Contracting Parties to fulfil their legal obligation
under Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to prosecute those
responsible for grave breaches of the Convention.
     * EU institutions and member states to make effective use of the
European Union Guidelines on promoting compliance with international
humanitarian law (2005/C 327/04) to ensure Israel complies with
international humanitarian law under paragraph 16 (b), (c) and (d) of
these guidelines, including the adoption of immediate restrictive
measures and sanctions, as well as cessation of all upgrade dialogue
with Israel.


Al-Haq
Addameer Prisoners' Support & Human Rights Association
Ad-Dameer Association for Human Rights
Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights
Defence for Children International
Ensan Center for Democracy & Human Rights
Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR)
Jerusalem Legal Aid & Human Rights Center (JLAC)
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the
Legal Profession - Musawa
Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People (PCR)
Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies (RCHRS)
Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC)
Women's Studies Center
The Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations' Network - PNGO
======================
Letter From Jenka (US citizen married to a Palestinian who was
paralyzed by an Israeli bullet in the back but continues to have hope
and work for peace -- and also for our International Middle East
Media Center) 12/27/08

I sit in front of the computer, editing the article, trying, as
always, to maintain objectivity, "Israeli airstrikes kill 205
Palestinians in Gaza".....my eyes begin to blur .....images of
bodies, of wailing mamas screaming for their sons, of children
missing limbs, hospital crews running, rushing....bodies
everywhere......I can no longer see the computer screen through the
tears. I think of our friends in Gaza -"Are they ok?" .....I try to
think of an appropriate response: a protest at the Israeli consulate?
A petition? A boycott campaign? They all seem so trivial, so
ineffective. Send ANOTHER letter to my congressman, only to be
rebuffed again with a form letter stating that the Congressman is in
full support of Israel and their War on Terror?

I'm thinking about an article I read yesterday, about Muntadhar al-
Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush just
last week. The article was by Ramzy Baroud, who said that the reality
of the world outside the Green Zone had finally broken into the
carefully-scripted press conferences of Bush lies and al-Maliki
smiles....

"What also confused the script is that al-Zaidi was not al-Qaeda, or
an al-Qaeda sympathizer, not a foreign fighter, not a member of the
dissolved Ba'ath Party, nor was he affiliated with it in any way, and
not even an Iraqi Sunni, for any such affiliation would fit perfectly
in the political and media scripts that would demonize the man as an
enemy of the Iraqi people, stability, democracy, freedom, and the
rest of the redundant clichιs. Al-Zaidi is simply an Iraqi man who
has, as a journalist, highlighted the suffering of his people as
politely, `objectively' and `professionally' as he could, and when he
could no longer tolerate the lies told in the Green Zone's ever
malicious drama, he scrapped the script altogether, chucking his
shoes at the main actor: This is a farewell kiss, you dog! This is
from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." His
words, although uttered for the first time in the Green Zone theater,
echoed the voices of millions of Iraqis outside, who have chanted
these words, for six long, tragic years."

He was fed up! He tried to be objective, kept reporting the daily
toll of deaths, the daily violence of the occupation, the never
ending river of blood and bodies.....and finally, after nothing he
reported changed anything, he risked his career, and his life, to
break the script at the press conference and express the rage and
fury of the millions of Iraqis suffering and dying in the daily
brutality of Bush's war. He has been tortured and beaten senseless
for his deed, by Iraqi security, who, Baroud says, "must've tried to
impress their American security `counterparts' by teaching the poor
al-Zaidi a lesson in good manners, Abu Ghraib-style".

That article can be found here.

As I look again at the toll of today's Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, my
eyes glance across a headline in one of the Israeli papers: "White
House blames Hamas" .....and the fury and grief flow through me
again. Israel drops 60 bombs on the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of
civilians, wounding and maiming many more, and the first thing the
White House has to say is that it is Hamas' fault! For what? For
having been elected as the Palestinian government in uncontested and
fair elections? For taking the unprecedented step of engaging in a
unilateral ceasefire against Israel for the last six months, which
was never reciprocated or even recognized by the occupying Israeli
army? For begging Israel for a ceasefire this last week, but being
rebuffed at every turn? The truth is, it doesn't matter what Hamas
does, it is their very existence that Israel is trying to eradicate,
with full US support. The fact that there is an Islamic movement that
stands in resistance to the Israeli occupation is something that
Israel cannot stand, and it's clear from their targets in today's
airstrikes: Hamas government buildings, police stations, municipal
headquarters, offices of the bureaucrats of an elected government.
And they struck during rush hour, when the streets were full, in one
of the most crowded places on earth, so as to maximize casualties.

And the US blames Hamas.

What eventually becomes clear, to any Palestinian, or any Iraqi for
that matter, is that their occupier can do anything they want, with
impunity, and no matter what, they, the occupied, will be blamed.

And the other thing that becomes clear, after day after day of this
violence, month after month, year after year, is that the world, or
at least those with the power to change anything, do not care.

It's like Ward Churchill said in his post-9/11 speech that got him
fired from the University of Colorado despite his tenure: if you are
a person in the Arab world and you see Madeline Albright up there on
60 Minutes saying, "Yes, we know that 500,000 Iraqi children have
died from the sanctions, but we think the price is worth it", well,
what are you SUPPOSED to think??? There's no other conclusion that
you can reach except that the piles and piles of corpses, the
thousands of innocent children, do not matter to Madeline Albright,
or to the American people! The American people DO NOT CARE!

And no amount of objective journalism on the subject can make people
care.

And what now - Barack Obama is supposed to be some kind of savior and
change everything? I don't think so. My email after his election was
mainly just surprise that there was not another Supreme Court-decided
debacle. But he's not going to change US policy toward Israel. He's
never said that he would. I think maybe people just hoped that he
would, with no evidence in his record that he would - just because
people want someone to save them. But his appointment of Rahm
Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff, as his FIRST cabinet appointment, set
the tone for what the Palestinians can expect from Barack Obama.
Emmanuel's dad told an Israeli paper, "Of course my son will have a
big influence on Obama regarding Israel - what, do you think he's
going to be sweeping the floors of the White House? He's not an Arab!"

This is the kind of outright racism that Obama's dear friend Rahm
Israel Emmanuel was raised with.

There's no chance whatsoever that he'll change US policy toward
Israel. He's said so himself, many times.

What can we do?

Every day I edit articles coming out of the occupied Palestinian
Territories, on the website http://www.imemc.org .....will that
really change anything? I don't know.

But at least it's a record, documenting the daily Israeli crimes
against the Palestinian people.

Every week the Palestinian Center for Human Rights publishes a
detailed record documenting the Israeli crimes for that week.

The record of Israeli crimes is all there, verifiable and well-
documented. But the US government does not, and will not, care. As
far as I can tell, the State Dept. bureaucrat directing policy toward
Israel is: Director of the Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs
Thomas Goldberger 202-647-3672

Maybe the least we can do is to flood his office with calls,
demanding that the US stop supporting an illegal occupation that
engages in daily violations of international human rights law and
completely disregards the internationally-recognized rights of the
Palestinian people.

Right now, though, I kind of feel like throwing my shoes.

================

[1] http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10063.shtml

[2] http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1773)

[3] see example here

http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=109&Itemid=1 )

[4] Gaza Massacre must spur us to action (See article written even
before three families were targeted killing 10 children)

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10055.shtml

[5] Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk5ZTy7sERY

http://www.aljazeera.net/Channel/KServices/SupportPages/ShowMedia/show
Media.aspx?fileURL=/mritems/streams/2008/12/28/1_881090_1_12.wmv

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How Israeli Leaders Kill for their People's Votes


Eine Kleine Nacht Murder
By Gilad Atzmon
Dec 29th, 2008
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/12/29/gilad-atzmon-eine-kleine-
nacht-murder-how-israeli-leaders-kill-for-their-peoples-votes/


In order to grasp the latest devastating murderous Israeli expedition
in Gaza one must deeply comprehend the Israeli identity and its
inherent hatred towards anyone who fails to be Jewish and a hatred
against Arabs in particular. This hatred is imbued in the Israeli
curriculum, it is preached by political leaders and implied by their
acts, it is conveyed by cultural figures, even within the so-
called `Israeli Left'.

I grew up in Israel in the 1970's people of my generation are
nowadays the leaders of the Israeli army, politics, economy, academia
and the arts. We were trained to believe that `a good Arab is a dead
one'. A few weeks before I joined the IDF in the early 1980's,
General Rafael Eitan, the Chief of Staff at the time announced that
the "Arabs were stoned cockroaches in a bottle".  He got away with
it, he also got away with the murder of many thousands of Lebanese
civilians in the 1st Lebanon war. In a word, Israelis manage to get
away with murder.

Luckily enough, and for reasons that are still far beyond my
comprehension, at a certain stage I woke up out of that Hebraic
lethal dream. At one point I left the Jewish state, I evaded the
Jewish hate mongering, I had become an opponent of the Jewish state
and any other form of Jewish politics. However, I am utterly
convinced that it is my primary duty to inform every being that is
willing to listen about that which are we up against.

As much as Zionism was there to transform Jews, and by "giving them a
State of their own" make them like any other people, it failed
miserably.  The Israeli barbarism as we have seen this week and too
many times before is far beyond bestiality. It is killing for the
sake of killing.  And it is indiscriminate.

Not many people in the west are aware of the devastating fact that
killing Arabs and Palestinians in particular is a very effective
Israeli political recipe.  The Israelis are indeed confused people.
As much as they insist upon seeing themselves as a `Shalom
seeking'[1] nation, they also love to be led by politicians with an
astonishing record of unlawful murderous activity. Whether it was
Sharon, Rabin, Begin, Shamir or Ben Gurion, Israelis love
their `democratically elected leaders' to be belligerent hawks with
their hands dripping with blood and backed by a solid record of
crimes against humanity.

We are weeks before an election in Israel and as it seems, both
Kadima PM candidate Foreign minister Tzipi Livni and Labour PM
candidate Defence minister Ehud Barak, are trailing well behind Likud
PM candidate the notorious Hawk Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu.  Livni and
Barak need their little war. They must prove to the Israelis that
they know how to engage in mass slaughter.

Both Livni and Barak have to provide the Israeli voter with some real
exhibition of devastating carnage, so the Israelis can trust their
leadership. This is their only chance against Netanyahu. Seemingly,
Livni and Barak are throwing tons of bombs on Palestinian civilians,
schools and hospitals because this is exactly what the Israelis want
to see.

Unfortunately, Israelis are not known for mercy and grace. Instead
they are appeased by retaliation and vengeance, they are cheered by
their own limitless brutality. When an Ex-Israeli Air Force Chief
Commander Dan Halutz was asked how it feels to drop a bomb on a
highly populated neighbourhood in Gaza, his answer was short and
precise. `It feels like a light bump on the right wing'. Dan Halutz's
cold deadly manner was enough to secure his promotion into the IDF
Chief of Staff post shortly thereafter. It was General Halutz who led
the Israeli army into the second Lebanon war, it was this man who
perpetrated the destruction of Lebanese infrastructure and large
parts of Beirut.

Seemingly, in Israeli politics, Arab blood is translated into votes.
It would obviously be very reasonable to charge Livni, Barak and the
current IDF Chief of Staff Ashkenazi with first-degree murder, crimes
against humanity and the obvious breach of the Geneva Convention. But
it would be far more intelligible to take into account that Israel is
a `democracy'. Livni, Barak and Ashkenazi are giving the Israeli
people that which they want: it is called Arab blood and it must come
in vast quantity.  This repetitive murderous practice, conducted by
Israeli politicians reflects on the Israeli people as a whole rather
than just a few politicians and generals.  We are dealing here with a
barbarian society that is politically driven by bloodthirstiness and
lethal inclinations. There should be no mistake, there is no room for
these people amongst nations.

Why the Israeli are people so remote from any notion of humanism is a
big question. The generous and naοve humanists amongst us may argue
that the Shoah left a big scar in the Israeli soul.  This may explain
why Israelis are obsessively cultivating that very memory with the
support of their Diaspora brothers and sisters. The Israelis
say `never again' and what they mean is that Auschwitz should never
reoccur, this somehow allows them to punish the Palestinian for the
crimes committed by the Nazis.  The realistic amongst us do not buy
this argument anymore. They start now to admit that it is more than
possible that the Israelis are so incredibly brutal just because this
is how they are. It goes far beyond rationality or pseudo-analytical
assumptions. They say, `this is what the Israelis are and there is
not much we can do about it anymore'. The realistic amongst us come
to admit that killing is how the Israelis interpret the meaning of
being Jewish. Gravely, many of us come to admit that there is no
alternative humanist secular Jewish value system to replace the
Hebraic murderous one. The Jewish state is there to prove that Jewish
national autonomy is an inhuman concept.

I grew up in post-1967 Israel. I was raised in the wake of the
Israeli mythical victory, we were trained to worship the "Israeli who
shoots from the hip" the platoon commando who shoots his Uzi
automatic rifle in the direction of the Arabs and manages to win
against four armies in just six days.

It may have taken me two decades too long to understand that the
Israeli who `shoots from the hip', was actually the master of
indiscriminate killing. Barak was one of those 1967 heroes, he was a
master indiscriminate killer. Apparently, the Israeli cabinet has
just approved his plan for the biggest raid on Gaza since 1967. Livni
is more or less my age, as we read the news, she internalised the
message. She is now accumulating the necessary credentials as an
indiscriminate murderer. Both Barak and Livni are taking Israel and
Palestine into an election campaign of slaughter. Arab and
Palestinian blood is the fuel of Israeli politics.

I may just suggest to Livni and Barak that it may not help them in
the polls. Netanyahu is a genuine authentic hawk. He doesn't have to
pretend to be a murderer, and as much as I despise him, he has yet to
take Israel into a war. He probably understands better than them what
power of deterrence is all about.


[1] Do not confuse `shalom' with `peace' or `salam'. While peace and
salam refer to reconciliation and compromise, shalom means security
to the Jewish people on the expense of their surrounding environment.


SEE video here that Gilad Atzmon discovered revealing the great
humanitarian Elie Wiesel as well as other videos with Gilad on
http://palestinethinktank.com/ptt-tv/

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Mumbai, the Hindu Right, and the Problem with Sonal Shah
By Svati P. Shah - <svasreally@...>,
Postdoctoral Fellow, Duke University
December 5, 2008
www.asata.org


Dear all,

Sonal Shah is on the shortlist for Energy Secretary.  I had started
writing this op-ed before the Bombay attacks, and have revised it now
to reflect the connection between those attacks and Sonal Shah's
appointment.  I'm trying to place this in the mainstream American
press, and have sent it to the NY Times and the Chicago Tribune.
I've never tried to have something like this published, but feel that
we need to push this story out into the open as much as possible.
I'm writing in case any of you may have contacts that could help to
place this somewhere.  I'd really welcome editorial feedback, as well.

warmest regards,
Svati

===

Like so many others, I was glued to my computer for days during the
Mumbai attacks.  In the aftermath of the terrible human tragedy that
reverberates from those long hours, I share the universal concern
about the political context for these attacks, a context that is
about to change as the governments of India and the U.S. each undergo
another major transition. In his response to the attacks, President-
Elect Barack Obama said that militants based in South Asia represent
the biggest threat to the United States.  South Asia is about to
become a foreign policy priority for the Unites States like never
before, and this should give us pause.

While Obama's response intends to reassure, it also implies that this
incident will lead to a set of foreign policy moves that will
continue to conflate "Muslim" with "terrorist," missing a host of
extremist movements and their consequences in the process. A case in
point is a controversy that lit up the Indian American press and
blogosphere a week before these attacks, one surrounding Sonal Shah,
a Google executive who is a member of the Obama's Transition Team,
and is on the shortlist of candidates for Energy Secretary.  The
controversy was triggered by the publication of an online article
that recounts Shah's affiliation with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad-
America (VHP-A), a Hindu fundamentalist organization that is part of
a network of right wing organizations in the U.S. and India committed
to creating a 'Hindu nation' in India.  The VHP-A and its sister
organizations, known collectively as the 'Sangh Parivar' ('Family of
Associations') have either supported or have been directly implicated
in bloody attacks on Muslims, Christians, and Dalits ('untouchables'
in India's caste system) in India.  The Hindu nationalist project of
these organizations is being waged against history as well.  In 2006,
the VHP-A waged a campaign to have California's history textbooks
edited such that they would conform to the Hindu fundamentalist view
that all non-Hindus in India, especially Muslims, are 'invaders' that
should be eliminated.  This genocidal view essentially seeks to
rewrite history itself.

The public debate on Shah's appointment is worth paying attention to,
especially as South Asia, and India, come into sharper focus for the
anti-terrorism establishment.  To my generation of second Indian
Americans - who, like Ms. Shah, immigrated to the United States at a
very young age, or whose parents immigrated in the late 1960s or
1970s - India seems worlds closer than it did when we were children.
At the same time, the U.S. is more unequivocally our home than ever
before, as we happily participate in mainstream American culture and,
now, politics, as well.  However, it seems to me that Indian
Americans often marvel at our newfound representation in mainstream
American politics without pausing to ask what the terms of this
representation might be.  Many bloggers immediately came to Ms.
Shah's defense, saying Shah was being attacked unfairly via
the 'politics of association,' although there is ample documentation
of her holding key leadership roles in the VHP-A in 1998 and in 2001,
and of her having received an award on behalf of her organization
Indicorps in 2004 from Narender Modi, the Chief Minister of the
Indian state of Gujarat, who was directly implicated in the murderous
attacks on Muslims by Hindu mobs in that state in 2002 which left
2000 dead and 150,000 homeless.  Three years ago, Modi was denied a
visa to the U.S. because of his role in these attacks.  An Energy
Secretary would have considerable power to undo this precedent,
giving operators like Modi far more legitimacy than he already enjoys.

For her defenders, South Asian and non-South Asian alike, Shah's glib
disavowal of the accusations against her, along with her ivy league
pedigree and corporate experience, made her the iconic innocent
victim of left wing attack, and a deserving member of Obama's 'dream
team.'  Unfortunately, this rationale does not satisfy me as a basis
for her defense, nor does it satisfy countless others who know that
India, like the U.S., must remain a secular nation explicitly
committed to ensuring the legal rights of all of its citizens,
regardless of their religion. We also know that the money and
infrastructure that the Hindu right has built in the U.S. constitute
a serious threat to India's secular democracy.  These issues are even
more critical in the wake of the attacks in Mumbai.
Shah's appointment ultimately raises questions about the new
transparency of political appointments under an Obama administration,
described by the New York Times as the most stringent governmental
vetting process ever.  However, in an era when American organizations
with ties to 'terrorists' in the Muslim world are coming under
unprecedented scrutiny, the free pass that Shah is being given is in
stark relief.  To ignore the political significance of Hindu
extremism is worse than folly – it is to accept a half-truth about
the world in which we live.


The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA) works to educate,
organize, and empower the Bay Area South Asian communities to end
violence, oppression, racism and exploitation within and against our
diverse communities.

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US warns Russia against Iran missile sales,
says it threatens troops in Iraq, Afghanistan
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
The Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6514894


WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials said Monday that they want answers from
Russia on whether it is selling advanced surface-to-air missiles to
Iran, a move the U.S. insists could threaten American troops in Iraq
and Afghanistan. A senior military intelligence official said that
while Moscow has sent out conflicting responses to reports on the
sale of long-range S-300 missiles, the U.S. believes it is taking
place. However, it appears that no equipment has yet been delivered
to Iran, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Russia's state arms export agency said Monday it is supplying Iran
with defensive weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, but did
not say whether they include sophisticated long-range S-300 missiles.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the U.S. is seeking
clarification from Russia.

"We have repeatedly made clear at senior levels of the Russian
government that we would strongly oppose the sale of the S-300," Wood
said. "As the U.S. government has said before, this is not the time
for business as usual with the Iranian government."

Iran currently has an antiquated missile defense system, dating back
to the 1960s and 1970s, so the Russian sale would provide Tehran a
much longer range, more mobile and lethal capability. With a range of
roughly 75 miles, the Russian system would allow Iran to reach
coalition forces operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, if the missiles
were moved near the borders.

Both the U.S. and Israel have strongly opposed the sale, saying that
supplying such an advanced anti-aircraft system to Iran would shift
the military balance of power in the Middle East. It also would make
any strike at Iran's first nuclear power plant — which Russia is
helping to build — more difficult.

There have been indications that Russia intends to supply only
defensive weapons to Iran, thus keeping in line with U.N. Security
Council resolutions that impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to
halt its uranium enrichment and prohibit supplying Iran with
materials that could contribute to its nuclear program.

Officials acknowledge that the sale of the S-300 system is not
prohibited by the resolution.

Israel and the United States fear that Iran could use the S-300
missiles to protect its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz or the
country's first atomic power plant now under construction at Bushehr
by Russian contractors.

The U.S. and other nations believe Iran is secretly developing
nuclear weapons, but Iran insists its uranium enrichment program is
intended solely for civilian energy needs.

While the possibility that the U.S. might launch an attack against
Iran's nuclear facilities faded about a year ago, Israel has never
ruled out a strike of its own, and is considered the nation most
likely to take action.

Iran's president has said that Israel should be "wiped off the map."
The sale of S-300 missiles, said the military intelligence official,
presents a decision point for Israel, since once the anti-aircraft
system is in place it could deter any strike.

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Pakistan Senate slams India for creating war hysteria
By Mumtaz Alvi
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=19168


ISLAMABAD: The Senate on Tuesday castigated India for staging a drama
to implicate Pakistan in the Mumbai attacks without solid proofs, as
the legislators displayed complete unanimity in their resolve to
safeguard national integrity in case of any aggression from across
the border.

Lawmakers from across the divide challenged New Delhi to come up with
evidence, if any, of Pakistan or its citizens' involvement in the
last month's incidents. Some saw the Indian war hysteria as a global
conspiracy to disintegrate the country and a senator referred to a
New York Times report in this context.

They emphasised the need for dispatching delegations to various world
capitals to project the country's stance on terrorism and its
position in the post-terror scene that Pakistan was the biggest
victim of terrorism.

Opposition senators decried the absence of both the foreign minister
and the defence minister from the House at this critical juncture,
when vital issues relating to the nation's security in the wake of
the India's threats were being discussed.

The latest visit of Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral
Mullen, to Pakistan also echoed in the House, when Leader of the
Opposition Kamil Ali Agha raised the issue on a point of order
immediately after recitation from the Holy Qura'an.

Citing a report, he asked the government whether it was true that the
US admiral was here to exert pressure on the government to let India
hit targets inside Pakistan. "The US is behind India at a time, when
we say, the entire nation is united on the issue of security, then
how can the Americans put pressure on Pakistan," he wondered.

The senator wondered as to why the US ambassador was not summoned and
a protest lodged on this interference and why Mullen was not sent
back.

Leader of the House Mian Raza Rabbani, who usually comes to the House
well-prepared to explain the governmentνs position on issues raised
in the Senate, asserted that Pakistan was a sovereign country and
would not tolerate interference in its internal affairs.

Responding to some points the senators raised during their speeches,
Rabbani made it clear that India had provided no proofs, whereas
Pakistan had offered to form a joint probe commission.However, he
maintained that India was engaged in a unilateral blame game, adding,
even if it provided evidence, the culprits would be tried inside
Pakistan according to its own laws.

Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party's Abdur Rahim Mandokhail called upon
the government to counter the challenges of extremism and militancy
across Pakistan, especially in the tribal areas and in the NWFP,
urging a realistic approach in this regard.

He said the country was facing serious challenges and making
emotional statements at this stage was not advisable."Today Pakistan
is passing through a critical phase and there is no one in the entire
world, including the United Nations, to support us. Even our
neighbouring countries no more trust us," he lamented.

The nationalist party lawmaker emphasised: "First of all we should
bring our house in order and establish the writ of the government.
Moreover, the issue of terrorism should be dealt with seriously as it
is our own issue."

The legislator spoke highly of the steps the government has taken
after the Mumbai tragedy and said war was no solution to problems.Dr
Muhammad Sa'ad of the Jamaat-e-Islami said no-go areas have surfaced
from Mingora to Kalam, turning the once popular tourist paradise into
bloody hell.

Referring to the regional instability, he said as long as allied
forces are in Afghanistan, there are no chances of lasting peace in
the region.Sami Siddiqui of the PML-Q said Pakistan had adopted a
defensive line immediately after the Mumbai attacks. Quoting a report
of the New York Times, she said: "The US wants to break Pakistan with
the connivance of India."

Pakistan should, she stressed, highlight Indian atrocities on
minorities, adding, India and Israel were involved in the Mumbai
attacks. She called for convening a joint session of parliament and
adopting a resolution on the issue.

Another PML-Q Senator Wasim Sajjad noted that Pakistan was facing a
grave crisis, which required seriousness. He pointed out that despite
the passage of so many days, India had failed to give any solid
evidence and instead immediately after the Mumbai attacks it started
blame game.

He made it clear that neither India was the US nor Pakistan was
Afghanistan and maintained the entire nation was united on the
question of Pakistan's security and defence.Wasim Sajjad said India
needed to probe how a group of 10 persons sneaked into its territory
and reached Mumbai on a boat from Karachi and fought with the
country's elite force for three days. From where, it got the logistic
support after reaching Mumbai? And if the one Ajmal Kasab was a
Pakistani, why was not he disclosing the names and addresses of other
nine accomplices?

He said the incidents were the reaction of suppressed minorities of
India and those being subjected to the state terrorism in held
Kashmir.Muhammad Azam Swati appreciated the performance of the
government in handling the issue. He said calling sessions of both
the Houses of parliament reflected seriousness of the government.

He said all the political and religious parties, including the
opposition, were united and would not hesitate to give any sacrifices
for the integrity and defence of Pakistan.

Swati believed that efforts were afoot to malign Pakistan, adding,
the Mumbai attacks were a conspiracy against Pakistan hatched by a
nexus of the US, India and Israel.

Raza M Raza of the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party said Pakistan's
survival lay in launching a crackdown on the militants and their
camps in different parts of Pakistan. "Even if India does not go to
war with us, the entire world is against us for our role in the
past," he said.

Babar Ghauri of the MQM contended μit was the failure of our foreign
policy that Pakistan today stood alone in the world and the world
opinion is against Pakistan despite the fact that India has not
provided solid proofs about the Mumbai blasts to usξ.

He said it was a major diplomatic failure that there was no one to
present Pakistan's case at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
when it recently passed a resolution."What our government has done
about the UNSC resolution on the issue of Kashmir? We should have
linked the implementation of the resolution to the one on Kashmir,"
he said.

He pointed out the banned outfit had its network from Karachi to
Kashmir and there was wall-chalking all around about Jihad. "Are not
they involved in training and brain-washing," he asked. Referring to
the security and law and order situation, Ghauri said that Swat did
not share border with any other country, then how the militants had
reached there and trained and acquired arms and ammunition in huge
quantity?

Senators Fauzia Fakharzaman, Naeem Hussain Chattha, Kamran Murtaza
and Kausar Firdous also spoke on the occasion.The House will now
reassemble on Wednesday at 10am to resume the debate on national
security.

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Ron Paul: No Such Thing as an Independent Israel
By Jihan Hafiz
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21560.htm


Sun, 28 Dec 2008 - "Press TV" - Washington --- The following is an
exclusive Press TV interview with US congressman Ron Paul, a unique
conservative politician who wants an end to US military presence on
foreign soil, advocates US withdrawal from the UN, NATO and the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and opposes the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS).

Ron Paul, House representative of the 14th district of Texas, believes
that US foreign policy must be reformed to avoid conflicts around the
world.

The interview was conducted outside the Foreign Relations Committee.

Press TV: What is your opinion on the idea of the US blocking Iran's
oil exports and preventing its gasoline imports from reaching the
country (based on H. Con. Res. 362 previously sought by US congressmen)?

Paul: I think it is an outrage I think it is a blockade. It is the use
of force to stop the inflow of petroleum products and people and
goods, banking, trains, cars, trucks, cargos. It's all prohibited. How
can we stop that without the use of the navy and without the use of
force? This idea is not a blockade it is just pure silliness on their
part [US senators and congressmen].

If we bomb them, that's the start of hostilities. They (US policy
makers) are never willing to take anything off the table, which
includes a nuclear-first strike. So, if they do that do you think the
Iranians are going to sit still? They are going to react!

The opposition said that, well, we don't want them to block the Strait
of Hormuz [the Persian Gulf waterway which allows the passages of a
third of the world's daily oil supply]. They ought to change their
policy because they are more likely to get the Strait of Hormuz
blocked if we persist on this. If we do any bombing or we put on a
blockade, it's going to lead to big trouble.

Press TV: There has been a lot of speculation that Israel may act on
its own and conduct an independent air strike on Iran's nuclear
facilities. Do you think that's possible?

Paul: I don't think there is such a thing as an independent Israel
doing anything, because I think no matter what they do its our money,
its our weapons, and their not going to do it without us approving it
and if they get into trouble we're going to bail them out, so there is
no separation between the two.

Press TV: During your line of questioning at the Foreign Relations
Committee you mentioned the Seymour Hersh article, which was among the
articles that revealed that the Congress had awarded the Bush
administration hundreds of millions of dollars for a covert operation
to overthrow the Iranian government. Why did you mention those stories?

Paul: Well it's something that I have known about and heard about and
it does go on. It goes on all around the world. To me it was a
surprise that it was news, because we have been doing that and people
do talk about it. I think it's an outrage. How would we react if
somebody did it to us? We would be infuriated, willing to go to war.
The fact that somebody came and tried to undermine our government.
Press TV: How do you think the new administration will handle the war
in Iraq?

Paul: The same way the old administration had. I don't think expect a
whole lot of changes although he [US President-elect Barack Obama] had
promised to bring the troops home in 16 months, now he isn't out on
this because of the so-called agreement.

But I don't think he was ever serious about changing foreign policy. I
think foreign policy in this country always stays the same whether the
Republicans or Democrats lead it, because when you look at what George
Bush ran on in the year 2000, he was strongly critical of Clinton's
foreign policy of too much nation building and too much policing of
the world, because the American people liked to hear that. But once
they get in they do same thing.

So, I don't expect much change in Iraq. At the same time, he doesn't
even pretend to have a difference of opinion on Afghanistan. So it
isn't so much the individual countries, what he's going to do, as much
as he overall endorses foreign interventionism.

And it is just of a matter of how fast you move and which leaders you
have but essentially he picked all the leaders John McCain loves. The
neocons love the foreign policy group that he has put together. So it
is just a matter of time before the Democrat base that did not want
him to continue the Bush-McCain policies... they are going to get
pretty upset I think pretty soon.

Press TV: What do you think about the situation in Afghanistan?

Paul: More of these attacks and this week this serious mistake of the
Afghani police being killed, but equally important is the attacks into
Pakistan and innocent people are getting killed and everybody is
pretending that it's no big deal. But it is a big deal, so it's just
radicalizing the fringes.

See I don't happen to believe that the Pakistani government is stupid
enough to say well lets go into India and start a war, but I believe
no matter which society or which country it is, there is always one
group that can get radicalized, and this is just more motivation. So
the more people we end up killing, innocent people and civilians, or
the pretence -- oh yeah this is just a terrorist we just killed a
bunch of terrorists. Well… How do they know? Did they catch them and
try them?

So no, I think the whole process is very bad, and I condemn it out of
our own self interest. I think it's bad for America. I think the more
of this we do the more costly it is in terms of money and lives. And,
the more likely it is that some day we are going to be subject to a
terrorist attack here at home.

You know we're over there we're easy targets. But they are capable of
coming back here too. I don't believe terrorists don't have
motivations and we need to think more about where the motivations come
from.

Press TV: Do expect to see more of these airstrikes inside sovereign
territory, inside Pakistan?

Paul: I don't see that ending. I think Obama will do it, because I
think foreign policy is controlled over and above the political
parties. I don't think our political parties have that much say in the
matter. So I expect those attacks are going to continue.

And, unfortunately, I think Obama's been pretty adamant about how to
treat Iran. He has said that maybe we will talk to them a little bit,
but he is not talking about never having a blockade on Iran and if
they even look like they are going to have a weapon, we have a moral
obligation to stop them.

Well, did we stop Pakistan? Did we stop India? Did we stop Israel from
having a weapon? So what's the big deal? But he has been very adamant.
He spoke to the foreign policy of the internationalists -- the people
who direct both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

Press TV: It's been a year since the National Intelligence Estimate
(NIE) dismissed the claims that Iran is producing a nuclear weapon.
Yet we are seeing a lot of war-talk here in Washington. Why do you
think that is?

Paul: Well, I think there are a lot of reasons. I think oil is an
important reason. I think the neocon mentality of we're good people
and we going to impose our goodness on people. I think Israel has to
do something with it.

And I think some people honestly say, you know they get convinced,
they say 'Iranians are bad people they might bomb us'. So for these
various reasons they all come together. Same reasons they went
together to go after the Iraqis. So it's a lot of misinformation,
emotional reactions. But, unfortunately, if you're talking
generalities, the American people don't want this.

In a way the candidate who argues more for peace wins. So, Obama was
sort of the peace candidate. He wanted less intervention. But it
didn't matter anyway.

But when it comes to dealing with policy, I think that our policies
are locked in place. The saving grace may be that our bankruptcy in
this country will make it very difficult for us to afford it just like
the Soviets had to leave Afghanistan because they ran out of money and
there system failed. Our system could fail and it might be a blessing
in disguise.

Press TV: Do you think with the incoming administration we will see a
difference in policies toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Do you
think Hamas could be part of the solution.

Paul: I don't expect any significant changes there. I think he's not
going to be more sympathetic toward the Palestinians. He may pay lip
service to it, but if it's something that Israel doesn't endorse, it's
not going to happen.

Press TV: Lets move to the economy. Why have you introduced this bill
to end the Federal Reserve.

Paul: Because the Federal Reserve is a central bank that under our
constitution is illegal, there is no authority for it, and it is of no
value to us. It does nothing but harm because it has the power to
create money out of thin air. We have legalized counterfeiting.
Why an individual like myself that cherishes personal liberty is so
opposed is that it allows governments to grow because they don't have
to be responsible. If you were in a free society with sound money, you
would have to appropriate money, tax the people, spend the money and
know exactly what was going on. But, if a secret bank can just create
money out of thin air then they [the government] can circumvent the
people and circumvent the Congress, and they can go fight wars and not
be responsible.

See, if we tax the American people for all that we do overseas, it
would end in weeks, because we don't have the money, but if you
inflate the currency you can delay the payment… you worry about high
prices down the road. And we have been sort of lucky to have the
reserve currency of the world and we haven't suffered from the inflation.

So it just enhances big government and besides its illegal and morally
its wrong. It's wrong to allow an individual to counterfeit money. Why
do we allow a secret bank to counterfeit money. There are many reasons
why we shouldn't have a central bank and why it's so damaging.

Early parts of a cycle where the government inflates a currency, there
are some benefits because it look likes you're real wealthy but its
only temporary. Now, what we are seeing the market catching up and
saying that this was not such a good idea. It was a bubble.

And the bubbles that the Federal Reserve created are now coming apart
and the ultimate bubble to come unglued or come apart will be dollar
bubble. And we are now billing everybody to the point of trillions of
dollars which means that the dollar won't be able to withstand this
and eventually the world will reject the dollar -- which for us here
means higher interest rates and higher prices and a country that's
going to be a lot poorer.

Press TV: Why are you always referred to as the true constitutionalist?

Paul: Because I do, I follow the constitution. And it is an
old-fashioned idea that you believe in it literally. Our Article 1,
Section A lists what we can do, and it also says by our ninth and
tenth amendment that if it's not authorized, you are not allowed to do
it. So all governments should be local, and yet we have drifted away
from that for the last 100 years and I just thought that it was a
pretty good idea.

The founders had a pretty good idea about the constitution, to make
the government very local and divide it and only have a few things
bring us together as a country such as sound money and free trade.

So, I think it was a great idea. It's the oath that we all take and
everybody else ignores it. I didn't think that very many people in
this country cared. But to my surprise in the presidential campaign we
discovered a lot. They said hey that sounds like a good idea I am so
glad; I have been waiting for somebody to say something like that. So
it's been very encouraging.

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NY man pleads guilty to broadcasting Hezbollah TV
Dec 23, 2008
Reuters North American News Service
http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2008/12/ny-man-pleads-guilty-to-broadcasting.html



NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York City man pleaded guilty Tuesday to
providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization by
broadcasting Hezbollah television channel Al Manar to U.S. customers,
federal prosecutors said.

In a plea deal, Javed Iqbal, 45, a Pakistani who moved to the United
States more than 25 years ago, admitted that between about September
2005 and August 2006 he provided satellite transmission services
through his Brooklyn-based company HDTV Ltd to Al Manar, in exchange
for thousands of dollars payment.

Hezbollah, an Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shi'ite Muslim group with a
powerful guerrilla army, was designated by the U.S. State Department
as a terrorist organization in 1997.

The U.S. Treasury branded Al Manar a terrorist organization in March
2006, saying it supported Hezbollah's fund-raising and recruitment
activities.

Iqbal was arrested and initially charged in August 2006.

Saleh Elahwal, who lives in New Jersey and who prosecutors say also
operated HDTV, faces similar charges and his trial is set to start on
Jan. 5.

Iqbal faces up to 15 years in prison and will be sentenced on March 24.

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Taliban Controls Afghanistan, Closing a Noose around Kabul
YVONNE RIDLEY
12 December, 2008
http://www.dailymuslims.com/Columns/Yvonne-Ridley/Taliban-Controls-Afghanistan,-\
Closing-a-Noose-Closing-a-Noose-.html


THE Taliban now holds a permanent presence of 72 per cent of
Afghanistan according to the latest report by an influential think tank.

But within hours of the International Council on Security and
Development (ICOS) releasing this news various politicians and
ambassadors from Afghanistan, America and Britain criticised its contents.

  The reality is none of these people really know what is happening on
the ground in Afghanistan because it is not safe to travel and if any
of them do venture out it is rarely beyond the confines of Kabul.

  The reason I know the ICOS report carries weight is because I have
just returned from Afghanistan myself and, unlike most politicians,
diplomats and journalists who go to the country, I went in unescorted.

The Taliban is forming an ever tightening noose around Kabul with, as
ICOS says, three out of four main highways into the capital city now
compromised by Taliban.
  How do I know? Because I drove around Afghanistan with film-maker
Hassan al Banna Ghani and saw the evidence with my own eyes - we
nearly got our heads blown off for our troubles as well, having
inadvertently driven into a firefight between Taliban fighters and
Afghan police 30 minutes from Kabul on the main road to Ghazni.

  We drove up from Peshawar, through the dramatic and historic Khyber
Pass, down into Torkham and from there we had a straight run via
Jalalabad to Kabul.

  It's an amazing drive, possibly one of the most scenic routes in the
world but it wasn't the backdrop of the Hindu Kush or the fertile
green valleys cloaked in a gossamer-like morning mist peaking out from
rows of jagged mountain peaks ahead which took my breath away on this
occasion.

  It was the fresh roadside carnage which punctuated the drive to the
Afghan capital. We must have seen the skeletons of nearly 20 oil
tankers targetted by rocket propelled grenade launchers in the hands
of the Taliban.

  These are images British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, US President
elect Barack Obama or Hamid Karzai are unlikely to see for themselves
because the only safe way to get to Kabul is to fly in to the airport.

  We didn't have the luxury of choice, so our decision to drive this
treacherous route was based on the fact we couldn't hang around
Islamabad for another we before getting a seat on a flight.

  But I am glad we did because it gave us a chance to see for ourselves
what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan. it gave us an
opportunity to talk to ordinary people who have to live day in and day
out without the luxury of a heavily armed military escort, or a
heavily fortified place to work and an even more heavily guarded place
to sleep.

  For the next week we travelled by road, by car, unescorted in to
areas and provinces that other foreigners dare not go and as I said
earlier, we nearly paid a heavy price for our amazing footage.

  And thanks to that experience, I can read the ICOS report coming from
a point of knowledge that the Western leaders and all of their
advisers simply do not have.

That is why it would be foolish to dismiss ICOS claims that the
Taliban now holds a permanent presence in 72% of Afghanistan, up from
54% a year ago. They have advanced from their southern heartlands,
where they are now the de facto governing power in a number of towns
and villages, to Afghanistan's western and north-western provinces, as
well as provinces north of Kabul.

  Norine MacDonald QC, President and Lead Field Researcher of ICOS told
a London press conference: "The Taliban are now controlling the
political and military dynamic in Afghanistan.

  "Despite increasingly dire levels of security in Afghanistan in
recent months, there has been surprisingly little change in response
from the international community. The insurgency continues to turn
NATO's weaknesses into its own strengths," she added.

  "The Taliban are closing a noose around Kabul, and there is a real
danger that the Taliban will simply overrun Afghanistan under the
noses of NATO," said Paul Burton, Director of Policy for ICOS.

   The British Ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles
commented on the report on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme on Monday
morning in a dismissive fashion, saying: "I'm afraid the methodology
in the report is seriously flawed.  I mean for example its map of
Kabul, which I have in front of me, shows the area where I'm sitting
talking to you from now, across which I drove this morning to see
President Karzai, as being under heavy Taliban influence.

  "It's quite the reverse: Afghans are strolling in the streets,
celebrating the Eid.  It counts as one incident in the province the
size of Yorkshire, meaning that that province is under permanent
Taliban control.  It's a very thin peace of work".

  The arrogance and ignorance of Sir Sherard is nothing short of
breath-taking. No foreigner dare venture out for a stroll in Kabul
unescorted because of kidnap fears. And I'd like to bet he went under
heavily armed escorts to do his interview.

  I have seen the British Embassy in Kabul - it is hidden behinds vast
mounds of concrete bunkers, barbed wire and a heavily armed guard
presence. You can't just stroll in to the embassy there like I did in
March 2003.

  I know nothing about Sir Sherard, but I'd like to bet he doesn't go
for a stroll anywhere in Kabul, but I do know Norine MacDonald, author
of the report. She is one gutsy lady who comes from a point of
knowledge because she does get out on the ground - Kabul and beyond.

  Furthermore I've seen her sit on her hunkers and talk with Afghan men
- and women - about their hopes, needs and fears in some of the most
dangerous areas of Afghanistan.

  Also speaking on the Today programme was Afghan MP Shukria Barakzai
who when asked about the report said: "I'm surprised.  This is not the
truth.  If Taliban's that much powerful so where's these Coalition
forces and Afghan Government themselves?  I don't think the Taliban
will be that much powerful although there is a lack of security, this
is the truth.

  "The Taliban is still a threat for security and somehow the Coalition
forces, also in some places they are threat for security, particularly
for civilians, but I completely disagree with such figures which has
been made."

  I've also had the pleasure of meeting Shukria, an amazing woman from
an extremely wealthy and privileged background - being rich is not a
crime but I can tell you that Shukria will not have stepped outside of
Kabul unless by air.

  She is a bright, intelligent woman and I was delighted when she
became an MP because she has a good heart and a deep love for her country.

  I am really fearful about plans to vastly increase the US and British
presence in Afghanistan. I can tell you the Taliban are rubbing their
hands with glee at the thought of what they regard as a "bigger army,
bigger target and more shiny new weapons to take from the toy soldiers".

   The American presence is loathed in Afghanistan even among those who
don't want to see the Taliban back in power. This is down to many
things not least of all their arrogance, refusal to acknowledge or
even try and understand the culture and their habit of shooting at any
motorist who tries to overtake their slow-moving convoys.

  Think about it - when you have an open road ahead why should you have
to sit behind a bunch of armoured personnel vehicles doing less than
20mph.

  And try talking to an Afghan motorist who sits patiently in a traffic
jam only to have his car scrunched and shunted to the side by a US
convoy which has decided to create its own traffic free lane. he will
tell you exactly what he thinks about the behavior of Uncle Sam's boys.

  Then there's the endless list of US missile strikes on wedding
parties which have slaughtered innocent Afghans - very rarely are
these murders followed up by an apology but they continue to happen.

  Norine also called for a free and open media - that would be nice but
there is also documented evidence that anyone writing against the US
occupation can expect a visit from the Americans. I spoke to one young
such journalist who ended up being kidnapped, beaten and thrown in a
cell in Bagram for 18 hours after revealing out of date US army
rations were being sold on the black market in Kabul.

  Guess what, the story is true as I found out trolling through the
goods on sale at an open air market in Kabul. There indeed were US
army rations on sale - and we have Hassan's film to prove it.

  The western leaders can either choose to remain in denial and send in
more troops while listening to pompous civil servants, politicians and
diplomats who say only what they think their masters want to hear, or
they can sit down and read the ICOS report and act upon it.

  There are solutions to the Afghan crisis and removing the arrogant,
ignorant US military is one way - and take out the Brits too because
Afghans can no longer distinguish between the two.

  Bombard the people with genuine aid and not artillery shells and give
the Afghan Government real support instead of aid with conditions
attached.

  Genuine job creation schemes offering decent money is a good start.
And while it might be nice to have career women emerging from the
rubble of Kabul, start with the men first. Give them their dignity
back by providing real jobs.

  Given the choice between starvation or fighting for the Taliban for
around $40 dollars a month, I know what decision I would make. Think
about it - it's a no brainer.


  * Yvonne Ridley and Hassan al Banna Ghani's documentary: In Search of
Prisoner 650 will be broadcast on Press TV in early 2009.

===

Afghanistan, Another Untold Story
by Michael Parenti
December 7, 2008
GlobalResearch.com
Author's website: www.michaelparenti.org.


Barack Obama is on record as advocating a military escalation in
Afghanistan. Before sinking any deeper into that quagmire, we might do
well to learn something about recent Afghan history and the role
played by the United States.

Less than a month after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, US leaders began an all-out aerial
assault upon Afghanistan, the country purportedly harboring Osama bin
Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist organization. More than twenty years
earlier, in 1980, the United States intervened to stop a Soviet
"invasion" of that country. Even some leading progressive writers, who
normally take a more critical view of US policy abroad, treated the US
intervention against the Soviet-supported government as "a good
thing." The actual story is not such a good thing.

Some Real History

Since feudal times the landholding system in Afghanistan had remained
unchanged, with more than 75 percent of the land owned by big
landlords who comprised only 3 percent of the rural population. In the
mid-1960s, democratic revolutionary elements coalesced to form the
People's Democratic Party (PDP). In 1973, the king was deposed, but
the government that replaced him proved to be autocratic, corrupt, and
unpopular. It in turn was forced out in 1978 after a massive
demonstration in front of the presidential palace, and after the army
intervened on the side of the demonstrators.

The military officers who took charge invited the PDP to form a new
government under the leadership of Noor Mohammed Taraki, a poet and
novelist. This is how a Marxist-led coalition of national democratic
forces came into office. "It was a totally indigenous happening. Not
even the CIA blamed the USSR for it," writes John Ryan, a retired
professor at the University of Winnipeg, who was conducting an
agricultural research project in Afghanistan at about that time.

The Taraki government proceeded to legalize labor unions, and set up a
minimum wage, a progressive income tax, a literacy campaign, and
programs that gave ordinary people greater access to health care,
housing, and public sanitation. Fledgling peasant cooperatives were
started and price reductions on some key foods were imposed.

The government also continued a campaign begun by the king to
emancipate women from their age-old tribal bondage. It provided public
education for girls and for the children of various tribes.

A report in the San Francisco Chronicle (17 November 2001) noted that
under the Taraki regime Kabul had been "a cosmopolitan city. Artists
and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture,
engineering and business at the city's university. Afghan women held
government jobs—-in the 1980s, there were seven female members of
parliament. Women drove cars, traveled and went on dates. Fifty
percent of university students were women."

The Taraki government moved to eradicate the cultivation of opium
poppy. Until then Afghanistan had been producing more than 70 percent
of the opium needed for the world's heroin supply. The government also
abolished all debts owed by farmers, and began developing a major land
reform program. Ryan believes that it was a "genuinely popular
government and people looked forward to the future with great hope."

But serious opposition arose from several quarters. The feudal
landlords opposed the land reform program that infringed on their
holdings. And tribesmen and fundamentalist mullahs vehemently opposed
the government's dedication to gender equality and the education of
women and children.

Because of its egalitarian and collectivist economic policies the
Taraki government also incurred the opposition of the US national
security state. Almost immediately after the PDP coalition came to
power, the CIA, assisted by Saudi and Pakistani military, launched a
large scale intervention into Afghanistan on the side of the ousted
feudal lords, reactionary tribal chieftains, mullahs, and opium
traffickers.

A top official within the Taraki government was Hafizulla Amin,
believed by many to have been recruited by the CIA during the several
years he spent in the United States as a student. In September 1979,
Amin seized state power in an armed coup. He executed Taraki, halted
the reforms, and murdered, jailed, or exiled thousands of Taraki
supporters as he moved toward establishing a fundamentalist Islamic
state. But within two months, he was overthrown by PDP remnants
including elements within the military.

It should be noted that all this happened before the Soviet military
intervention. National security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski publicly
admitted--months before Soviet troops entered the country--that the
Carter administration was providing huge sums to Muslim extremists to
subvert the reformist government. Part of that effort involved brutal
attacks by the CIA-backed mujahideen against schools and teachers in
rural areas.

In late 1979, the seriously besieged PDP government asked Moscow to
send a contingent of troops to help ward off the mujahideen (Islamic
guerrilla fighters) and foreign mercenaries, all recruited, financed,
and well-armed by the CIA. The Soviets already had been sending aid
for projects in mining, education, agriculture, and public health.
Deploying troops represented a commitment of a more serious and
politically dangerous sort. It took repeated requests from Kabul
before Moscow agreed to intervene militarily.

Jihad and Taliban, CIA Style

The Soviet intervention was a golden opportunity for the CIA to
transform the tribal resistance into a holy war, an Islamic jihad to
expel the godless communists from Afghanistan. Over the years the
United States and Saudi Arabia expended about $40 billion on the war
in Afghanistan. The CIA and its allies recruited, supplied, and
trained almost 100,000 radical mujahideen from forty Muslim countries
including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Algeria, and Afghanistan
itself. Among those who answered the call was Saudi-born millionaire
right-winger Osama bin Laden and his cohorts.

After a long and unsuccessful war, the Soviets evacuated the country
in February 1989. It is generally thought that the PDP Marxist
government collapsed immediately after the Soviet departure.

Actually, it retained enough popular support to fight on for another
three years, outlasting the Soviet Union itself by a year.

Upon taking over Afghanistan, the mujahideen fell to fighting among
themselves. They ravaged the cities, terrorized civilian populations,
looted, staged mass executions, closed schools, raped thousands of
women and girls, and reduced half of Kabul to rubble. In 2001 Amnesty
International reported that the mujahideen used sexual assault as "a
method of intimidating vanquished populations and rewarding soldiers.'"

Ruling the country gangster-style and looking for lucrative sources of
income, the tribes ordered farmers to plant opium poppy. The Pakistani
ISI, a close junior partner to the CIA, set up hundreds of heroin
laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA's
arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland became the biggest
producer of heroin in the world.

Largely created and funded by the CIA, the mujahideen mercenaries now
took on a life of their own. Hundreds of them returned home to
Algeria, Chechnya, Kosovo, and Kashmir to carry on terrorist attacks
in Allah's name against the purveyors of secular "corruption."

In Afghanistan itself, by 1995 an extremist strain of Sunni Islam
called the Taliban---heavily funded and advised by the ISI and the CIA
and with the support of Islamic political parties in Pakistan---fought
its way to power, taking over most of the country, luring many tribal
chiefs into its fold with threats and bribes.

The Taliban promised to end the factional fighting and banditry that
was the mujahideen trademark. Suspected murderers and spies were
executed monthly in the sports stadium, and those accused of thievery
had the offending hand sliced off. The Taliban condemned forms of
"immorality" that included premarital sex, adultery, and
homosexuality. They also outlawed all music, theater, libraries,
literature, secular education, and much scientific research.

The Taliban unleashed a religious reign of terror, imposing an even
stricter interpretation of Muslim law than used by most of the Kabul
clergy. All men were required to wear untrimmed beards and women had
to wear the burqa which covered them from head to toe, including their
faces. Persons who were slow to comply were dealt swift and severe
punishment by the Ministry of Virtue. A woman who fled an abusive home
or charged spousal abuse would herself be severely whipped by the
theocratic authorities. Women were outlawed from social life, deprived
of most forms of medical care, barred from all levels of education,
and any opportunity to work outside the home.

Women who were deemed "immoral" were stoned to death or buried alive.
None of this was of much concern to leaders in Washington who got
along famously with the Taliban. As recently as 1999, the US
government was paying the entire annual salary of every single Taliban
government official. Not until October 2001, when President George W.
Bush had to rally public opinion behind his bombing campaign in
Afghanistan did he denounce the Taliban's oppression of women. His
wife, Laura Bush, emerged overnight as a full-blown feminist to
deliver a public address detailing some of the abuses committed
against Afghan women.

If anything positive can be said about the Taliban, it is that they
did put a stop to much of the looting, raping, and random killings
that the mujahideen had practiced on a regular basis. In 2000 Taliban
authorities also eradicated the cultivation of opium poppy throughout
the areas under their control, an effort judged by the United Nations
International Drug Control Program to have been nearly totally
successful. With the Taliban overthrown and a Western-selected
mujahideen government reinstalled in Kabul by December 2001, opium
poppy production in Afghanistan increased dramatically.

The years of war that have followed have taken tens of thousands of
Afghani lives. Along with those killed by Cruise missiles, Stealth
bombers, Tomahawks, daisy cutters, and land mines are those who
continue to die of hunger, cold, lack of shelter, and lack of water.

The Holy Crusade for Oil and Gas

While claiming to be fighting terrorism, US leaders have found other
compelling but less advertised reasons for plunging deeper into
Afghanistan. The Central Asian region is rich in oil and gas reserves.
A decade before 9/11, Time magazine (18 March 1991) reported that US
policy elites were contemplating a military presence in Central Asia.
The discovery of vast oil and gas reserves in Kazakhstan and
Turkmenistan provided the lure, while the dissolution of the USSR
removed the one major barrier against pursuing an aggressive
interventionist policy in that part of the world.

US oil companies acquired the rights to some 75 percent of these new
reserves. A major problem was how to transport the oil and gas from
the landlocked region. US officials opposed using the Russian pipeline
or the most direct route across Iran to the Persian Gulf. Instead,
they and the corporate oil contractors explored a number of
alternative pipeline routes, across Azerbaijan and Turkey to the
Mediterranean or across China to the Pacific.

The route favored by Unocal, a US based oil company, crossed
Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. The intensive
negotiations that Unocal entered into with the Taliban regime remained
unresolved by 1998, as an Argentine company placed a competing bid for
the pipeline. Bush's war against the Taliban rekindled UNOCAL's hopes
for getting a major piece of the action.
Interestingly enough, neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations
ever placed Afghanistan on the official State Department list of
states charged with sponsoring terrorism, despite the acknowledged
presence of Osama bin Laden as a guest of the Taliban government. Such
a "rogue state" designation would have made it impossible for a US oil
or construction company to enter an agreement with Kabul for a
pipeline to the Central Asian oil and gas fields.

In sum, well in advance of the 9/11 attacks the US government had made
preparations to move against the Taliban and create a compliant regime
in Kabul and a direct US military presence in Central Asia. The 9/11
attacks provided the perfect impetus, stampeding US public opinion and
reluctant allies into supporting military intervention.
One might agree with John Ryan who argued that if Washington had left
the Marxist Taraki government alone back in 1979, "there would have
been no army of mujahideen, no Soviet intervention, no war that
destroyed Afghanistan, no Osama bin Laden, and no September 11
tragedy." But it would be asking too much for Washington to leave
unmolested a progressive leftist government that was organizing the
social capital around collective public needs rather than private
accumulation.

US intervention in Afghanistan has proven not much different from US
intervention in Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua,
Grenada, Panama, and elsewhere. It had the same intent of preventing
egalitarian social change, and the same effect of overthrowing an
economically reformist government. In all these instances, the
intervention brought retrograde elements into ascendance, left the
economy in ruins, and pitilessly laid waste to many innocent lives.
The war against Afghanistan, a battered impoverished country,
continues to be portrayed in US official circles as a gallant crusade
against terrorism. If it ever was that, it also has been a means to
other things: destroying a leftist revolutionary social order, gaining
profitable control of one of the last vast untapped reserves of the
earth's dwindling fossil fuel supply, and planting US bases and US
military power into still another region of the world.

In the face of all this Obama's call for "change" rings hollow.


Michael Parenti's recent books are Contrary Notions: The Michael
Parenti Reader and the forthcoming God and His Demons. For further
information, visit www.michaelparenti.org.

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Somali infighting leaves 13 dead
Fri, 05 Dec 2008
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=77559§ionid=351020501


Al-Shabaab fighters in Somalia


Thirteen gunmen died in armed clashes between Somali opposition
fighters and another armed group Ahl-ul-Sunna wal- Jamaa in central
Somalia.

The fighting broke out in the town of Guri-El in the Galgaduud region
after the Ahl-ul Sunna gunmen attacked Al-Shabaab fighters, the Press
TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported.

The spokesman for the influential Hawiye clan, Ahmed Dirie Ali,
condemned the bloodshed.

All the fighters are affiliated with the Somali Union of Islamic
Courts (UIC) and oppose the leadership of the transitional federal
government, accusing its leadership of excessive reliance on foreign
support.

===

Somali President sacks Prime Minister
Sun, 14 Dec 2008
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=78420§ionid=351020501


Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein
Somali President Abdulahi Yusuf has sacked Prime Minister Nur Hassan
Hussein, accusing him of inability to perform his duties.

"As of now, I have sacked the prime minister and his current
government and I will nominate a new prime minister within days,"
Yusuf said.

Somalia's transitional parliament will have to approve the move as the
president alone does not have the power to sack the prime minister.
Yusuf, however, has expressed confidence that parliament will validate
his decision.

"Should parliament reject my desire to look for a new prime minister,
I will comply with their decision and the current government will
continue its tenure," the President has said.

The Somali premier has challenged the move.

In a telephone interview with a PressTV correspondent Nur Hassan
Hussein said according to the law of the transitional government the
President has no authority to fire him and that that decision could
only be made by the parliament, 159 of which are on my side."

Hussein said he will have a press conference later in the day to
explain his position at this critical juncture.

===

Newly appointed Somali premier resigns
Wed, 24 Dec 2008
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=79387§ionid=351020501


Mohamud Mohamed Guled


Somalia's new prime minister resigns nearly a week after being
appointed, saying he does not want to be an obstacle to the peace
process.

"I decided to resign as premier of Somalia after considering many
situations in the country," Mohamud Mohamed Guled told reporters in
the capital Mogadishu on Wednesday.

Some reports say Guled decided to step down 'in a political effort to
end the arguments among top leaders'.

On December 16, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed unilaterally
sacked Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein and appointed interior
minister Mohamud Mohamed Guled as the new premier.

Yusuf said he sacked the premier and the entire cabinet because
Hussein's government 'failed to bring peace and security' to the nation.

The dismissal caused outrage among lawmakers, who described the move
as unconstitutional. The lawmakers accused the president of being a
'dictator' and disturbing the peace process in the war-torn country.

The Somali Parliament also voted for Hussein to continue working as
prime minister.

The president has not yet commented on Guled's resignation and whether
he would support Hussein as prime minister again.

However, a presidential aide said that Yusuf has called for a special
parliamentary session on Saturday and that it is possible he may resign.

The prospect of Yusuf's resignation grew stronger, when the US
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer,
mounted Washington's pressure on the Somali president calling on him
to leave office.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since
warlords toppled Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The ongoing violence in
Somalia has resulted in the death and displacement of countless
civilians.

===

Somali president replaces prime minister
Tue, 16 Dec 2008
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=78614§ionid=351020501


Mohamod Mohamed Guled has also served as the Somali interior minister.

The Somali president has appointed a new prime minster despite the
parliamentary objection to the dismissal of the previous premier.

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed has appointed Mohamud Mohamed
Guled to replace Nur Hassan Hussein, a Press TV correspondent in
Mogadishu reported.

Hussein and the entire Cabinet were sacked on Sunday for what Yusuf
described as their failure to bring security to the nation.

"The country was not having a functioning government and this is why I
nominated a new prime minister," Yusuf said.

The ousted prime minister shot back on Monday, accusing Yusuf of being
"the obstacle" to his government.

The dismissal caused outrage among lawmakers, who described the move
as unconstitutional.

Parliament speaker Sheikh Adan Mohamed has criticized Yusuf for
"taking the wrong steps".

"The president is not able to sack the premier of Somalia," he told
lawmakers on Monday.

The two leaders have been at odds in recent months mainly on efforts
to strike a reconciliation agreement with the Djibouti-based Somali
opposition, the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS).

Despite a UN-brokered peace deal, signed between the Somali government
and the opposition in Djibouti in October, skirmishes and bloody
insurgency continue unabated in Somalia.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since the downfall of
dictator Said Barre in 1991.

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Palestinians are at a loss to describe this latest catastrophe.
International civil society must act now


We have no words left
Ali Abunimah
The Guardian, UK
Monday 29 December 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/29/israel-gaza-attack-palestini\
an-reaction


"I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing."
Those chilling words were spoken on al-Jazeera on Saturday by Ofer
Shmerling, an Israeli civil defence official in the Sderot area
adjacent to the Gaza Strip. For days Israeli planes have bombed Gaza.

Almost 300 Palestinians have been killed and a thousand injured, the
majority civilians, including women and children. Israel claims most
of the dead were Hamas "terrorists". In fact, the targets were police
stations in dense residential areas, and the dead included many police
officers and other civilians. Under international law, police officers
are civilians, and targeting them is no less a war crime than aiming
at other civilians.

Palestinians are at a loss to describe this new catastrophe. Is it our
9/11, or is it a taste of the "bigger shoah" Matan Vilnai, the deputy
defence minister, threatened in February, after the last round of mass
killings?

Israel says it is acting in "retaliation" for rockets fired with
increasing intensity ever since a six-month truce expired on 19
December. But the bombs dropped on Gaza are only a variation in
Israel's method of killing Palestinians. In recent months they died
mostly silent deaths, the elderly and sick especially, deprived of
food, cancer treatments and other medicines by an Israeli blockade
that targeted 1.5 million people - mostly refugees and children -
caged into the Gaza Strip. The orders of Ehud Barak, the Israeli
defence minister, to hold back medicine were just as lethal and
illegal as those to send in the warplanes.

Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, pleaded that Israel wanted
"quiet" - a continuation of the truce - while Hamas chose "terror",
forcing him to act. But what is Israel's idea of a truce? It is very
simple: Palestinians have the right to remain silent while Israel
starves them, kills them and continues to violently colonise their land.

As John Ging, the head of operations for the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, said in November: "The people of
Gaza did not benefit; they did not have any restoration of a dignified
existence ... at the UN, our supplies were also restricted during the
period of the ceasefire, to the point where we were left in a very
vulnerable and precarious position and with a few days of closure we
ran out of food."

That is an Israeli truce. Any act of resistance including the peaceful
protests against the apartheid wall in the West Bank is always met by
Israeli bullets and bombs. There are no rockets launched at Israel
from the West Bank, and yet Israel's extrajudicial killings, land
theft, settler pogroms and kidnappings never stopped for a day during
the truce. The western-backed Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas
has acceded to all Israel's demands. Under the proud eye of United
States military advisors, Abbas has assembled "security forces" to
fight the resistance on Israel's behalf. None of that has spared a
single Palestinian in the West Bank from Israel's relentless colonisation.

The Israeli media report that the attack on Gaza was long planned. If
so, the timing in the final days of the Bush administration may
indicate an Israeli effort to take advantage of a moment when there
might be even less criticism than usual.

Israel is no doubt emboldened by the complicity of the European Union,
which this month voted again to upgrade its ties with Israel despite
condemnation from its own officials and those of the UN for the
"collective punishment" being visited on Gaza. Tacit Arab regime
support, and the fact that predicted uprisings in the Arab street
never materialised, were also factors.

But there is a qualitative shift with the latest horror: as much as
Arab anger has been directed at Israel, it has also focused intensely
on Arab regimes - especially Egypt's - seen as colluding with the
Israeli attack. Contempt for these regimes and their leaders is being
expressed more openly than ever. Yet these are the illegitimate
regimes western politicians continue to insist are their "moderate"
allies.

Diplomatic fronts, such as the US-dominated Quartet, continue to treat
occupier and occupied, coloniser and colonised, first-world high-tech
army and near-starving refugee population, as if they are on the same
footing. Hope is fading that the incoming administration of Barack
Obama is going to make any fundamental change to US policies that are
hopelessly biased towards Israel.

In Europe and the Middle East, the gap between leaders and led could
not be greater when it comes to Israel. Official complicity and
support for Israel contrast with popular outrage at war crimes carried
out against occupied people and refugees with impunity.
With governments and international institutions failing to do their
jobs, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National
Committee - representing hundreds of organisations - has renewed its
call on international civil society to intensify its support for the
sanctions campaign modelled on the successful anti-apartheid movement.
Now is the time to channel our raw emotions into a long-term effort to
make sure we do not wake up to "another Gaza" ever again.


• Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of
One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
electronicintifada.net

===

"I Heard the Missile Coming"
Sameh A. Habeeb, B.A., Gaza
Monday, December 29, 2008
www.gazatoday.blogspot.com


GAZA CITY — Ali Abu-Fatahi will never forget the terrifying sound of a
missile fired by an Israeli warplane as it zoomed in on his house.

"I was having my dinner when I heard the missile's whistle," a
helpless Abu-Fatahi told IslamOnline.net from his bed at Al-Shifa
hospital in Gaza City.

In just seconds, the missile hit his family's house in the Dir
Al-Balah City, razing it to the ground.

"I flew in the sky and then I found myself lying on the floor at our
neighbors' house," he recalled the harrowing moments with tears
flashing in his eyes.

Abu-Fatahi can't remember what happened next.

* Gaza Holocaust Museum
* Killed in Cradle

He woke up with head injuries. It was later that he knew that all his
15 family members who were in the house were also hospitalized.

"All my family members were hit."

At least 345 people were killed and more than 1,650 wounded since
Israel blitzed the Gaza Strip with massive air strikes on Saturday,
December 27.

The aggression against the impoverished seaside territory, the world's
most densely populated area, continued on Sunday, killing scores of
Palestinians and wounding hundreds.

From his bed, Abu-Fatahi can hear his traumatized brother, Mahmoud,
screaming.

He is still suffering from the shock of seeing his neighbors torn into
pieces by the killer bombing.

"My sister who is only 2 is in another room."

Mass Grave


Across Gaza, many are still frantically looking for bodies of their
beloved ones under the rubbles. (Reuters)Across Gaza, many are still
frantically looking for bodies of their beloved ones under the
rubbles. (Reuters)
The battered Gaza Strip has turned into a mass grave.

The scene of people screaming in grief while taking their family
members to burial is repeated over and over.

Civil defense forces are desperately trying to help people moving the
corpses found buried under the rubbles of flattened buildings.

"We have dug out many bodies with no legs or heads," a civil defense
officer told IOL.

In mass funeral processions, formed outside almost every Gaza house,
the sound of Qur'an recitation is mixed with the distant sound of
explosions.

The wailing of the grief-stricken and prayers for the departed are
mixed with calls for reprisal.

Other Gazans, however, are still frantically looking for their beloved
ones among the dead bodies.

"My sons have left the house at 10 am. I went to search for them in
all hospitals but in vain," a shocked Om Ahmed Abu-Aqal said, with
tears rolling down her cheeks.

Her sons were among scores of people inside one of the security
compounds bombed out on Saturday.

"I came here to see if they are alive or dead under the rubbles of
this building," said the weeping mother.

"I need to know what happened to them, where are they? Anyone tells me."

===

Witness describes Gaza attacks:

Fikr Shallpoot, a health worker and resident in Gaza, spoke to the BBC
about the attacks that she witnessed.

Bombing took place in residential areas while students changed shifts
for school.

http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 1/hi/world/ middle_east/ 7801291.stm

===

Scenes of destruction in Gaza
http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/middle_ east/7801012. stm

===

Scores die in Israeli air strikes
http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/middle_ east/7801128. stm

===

West Bank unrest after Gaza attacks

Hundreds of Palestinians have taken to the streets of the West Bank
following Israel's air raids on Gaza City.
Israeli soldiers fired tear gas grenades as youths threw rocks and stones.

http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/middle_ east/7801311. stm

===

News Update from Gaza
From: Sam_hab@...
Sunday, December 28, 2008


Dear Editors and Colleagues,
I'm writing to you late due to limited access to the Internet. My
house was exposed to many shrapnel of Israeli rockets. I would not be
able to update you hourly through the Internet. Thus, for media
reports, breaking news and accounts you could reach me on my Mobile or
landline below. You could send me e-mails and I would do my best to
answer you.


In addition to the below info, Gazans are still out of Gas, power and
bread!

===

News Update from Gaza
Daily Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb


-Victims of Israeli air raids are 300 while wounded up to 1000.

-Around 80 air raids took place in Gaza strip from the early morning
of Sunday till 7pm in the evening. Around 300 air raids are the total
outcome of the latst 2 days.

-Trauma spreads across Gaza residents especially children due to the
loud voices of the heavy bombs of F16s.

-Israeli air forces bombarded 40 targets across the strip between
civil and security buildings.

-Israeli F16 bombarded 2 mosques in Khan Yonis City.

-Apache Helicopters hit commercial shops at Jabalia town leaving many
children injured.

-Israeli F16 bombarded a house for a Hamas key leader east of Khan
Yunis City.

-Israeli F16s raided on south of Rafah destroying more than 40 tunnels.

-One Palestinian and Egyptian solider killed in exchange of fire in
Rafah City. Many Palestinians tried to overstep the borders with Egypt
but failed due to excessive presence of Egyptian forces. The militants
succeeded in opening army while trying to flee to Egypt.

-Hamas government: Rafah Crossing still closed and casualties unable
to leave for Egypt to get treatment.

-More troops, tanks and heavy guns arrived on Gaza borders. Israel
vows of a ground invasion sooner. Israel calls on 6500 reserve
soldiers to be ready for the military operation in Gaza.

-Around 24 homemade light rockets fired from Gaza hit the bordering
areas of Gaza. The rockets hit Asklon and Ashdod leaving few wounded.

-Air raid killed a man and a woman in Al zaytoun area mid of Gaza City.

-Six Israeli heavy missiles launched by F16 destroyed "Al Safina
security Bulidng" which was previously the compound of Palestinian
intelligence in Gaza.

-Around 40 civic targets were hit today by Israel. Some of the targets
where houses and some others are charities.

-Israel hits all mobile targets such as motorcycles and cars in Gaza.
Therefore, people are early committed to their houses.

-Israel army tunes threats through breaking into local radio stations
in addition of mass phone calls for Gaza civilians.

-Israeli heavy bomb hit Al-Shati Refugee camp Police station. Some
civilians injured in the densely populated camp.

-Air raid destroyed Al shija'ya police station early in the morning.

-Israeli air raids destroyed a tank truck of fuel in Rafah City
causing fire into 20 t0 30 houses early in the morning of Sunday.

-Israeli Air force destroyed Al Saraya security compound leaving some
of prisoners dead and causing a total damage.

-Many workshops destroyed due to Air raids in Gaza and Mid areas.

-Al Shifa' hospital transforms Burnt and birth units into urgent
surgeries.

-OXFAM organization announced inability of running work due to Gaza war.

-Demonstrations across the West Bank leaving 2 Palestinians dead.

-Hamas clams Arabs and International community the responsibilty of
the messacres.

-Jordanian lawmakers burnt Israeli flag in the parliament while
Lebanese protesters tried to break into the Egyptian embassy mid of
Bairout. Protests took place in the Arab countries of Yemen, Egypt,
Sudan, Syria and Iraq.

Meantime, heavy shelling and air raids at Jabalia Camp!
10 Bombings in Khanyonis City!
No news coming up yet.

===

A Bloody Day in Gaza: Over 230 killed, hundreds injured
Sameh A. habeeb
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/12/27/sameh-habeeb-a-bloody-day-in-gaza/


More than 230 killed, hundreds injured due to Israeli bombings against
Gaza

Israel is phoning civilians requesting they evacuate houses or they
will be bombed

More bombings taking place Now
Casualties up to 230

Israeli army targets Al Shifa' hospital and a mosque


Gaza Strip, 27 Dec, 2008- Saturday morning started as usual but
dramatically changed by 11AM. Sixty Israeli F16s bombarded around 100
police stations, civil and governmental offices across Gaza Strip. The
bombardment which simultaneously took place left (at the time of
writing)160 people killed and around 3 hundred wounded. A number of
wounded is expected to die while many corpses still lie under the
rubble of buildings.

Palestinian victims were an amalgamation of policemen and civilians
who were visiting some police stations for civic affairs. Al Jawazat
police station witnessed the bloodiest Israeli attack in which around
70 were killed, mostlypolicemen. The victims of police of Al Jawzat
were holding a graduation ceremony for new young police groups.

A family of 9 members, 15 young children, and some women were killed
but not recognized. The Ministry of Health is not able to recognize
the ID's of casualties. Tawfiq Jaber, Director of Gaza police was
killed in the air raids along with Ismail El Jabari head of the
security section in the police. Governor of central Gaza governorates
and camps was killed as Israel hit his car.

Ma'waya Hasanian, head of Emergency and Ambulances said that around
230 people were killed and 200 injured. He added that a big number of
victims were civilians from women, children and old people. Civilian
cars referred wounded civilians to the hospitals due to lack of
medical cars and vehicles.

Gaza hospitals announced inability of receiving the wounded due to
lack of medical equipment and tools. Corpses of Palestinians were
thrown on the corridors, rooms and units of hospitals. Meanwhile 2-3
wounded victims shared one bed due to lack of medical equipment, a
result of the Israeli siege imposed 2 years ago. Basim Nai'm, Health
Minster in Gaza said that Gaza medical sector needs tens of kinds of
medical equipment and tools. A number of 70 wounded were referred to
an Egyptian hospital.

According to Naser Al laham, Chief-Editor of Maan News Agency said
that around 60 Israeli warplanes carried out the Massacre which
surprisingly took place in Gaza.

The raids targeted all areas of Gaza Strip, cities, villages and
towns. The hit cities are Gaza, Rafah, Khanyonis, Nusairat, Maghazi,
Bait Lahia, Jabalia, Bait Hanoun. Refugee camps of Jabalia, Al Shati',
Rafah an mid areas were targeted as well. Some of the destroyed
compounds included Palestinian prisoners under penal detention for
criminal issues.

The Israeli bombings flagrantly violate all laws which call for
protecting civilians. This was so obvious from the number of civilian
casualties. The brutal bombings happened in time of school children
were going home, after a normal day of study. A considerable number of
children were killed, but medical soruces didn't announce official
numbers in this respect. Identities of killed people are still unknown
but a very few ones.

On the other side, Israel officially announced the start of a
full-scale military operation in Gaza. She has called on settlers to
go down to bunkers bordering Gaza after 1 Israeli was killed and
several injured in a homemade rocket fired from Gaza.

Israeli official Television broadcasted footage of the settlements hit
by Gazan fighters and ironically ignored what's happening in Gaza. The
television stated that today's military operations is the start of a
long-term massive war action against Gaza. Israeli army named the
operation in Gaza "Lead Pouring Out" which entirely means surprisingly
decapitation of Palestinian factions in Gaza.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared the 20 square kilometers
of Gaza a "special military zone." The classification is one degree
below a declaration of total war against an enemy state. The
announcement was made Saturday morning.

Israeli Channel 10 announced that the current situation does not
amount to a declaration of war, but the operation against the Gaza
Strip is intended to last throughout Saturday and perhaps into Sunday.
It asserted that Israel prepared an operation that could take several
weeks. Preparations have also been taken to contain any expected
response in the West Bank.

Ehud Barak said that this operation would roll out in all Gaza's areas
and it will last for a longer time. He vowed of a painful military
strike of Hamas pointing out "there is a time for peace and time for
War." According to Barak the operation aims at toppling down Hamas
government and stopping the homemade rockets.

Maan Agency reports: Israeli sources also asserted that the operation
would not topple Hamas, but rather will ensure that homemade
projectiles from the Gaza Strip will stop. This was confirmed in a
statement released by the Prime Minister's office as well.

Regional efforts are being exerted to put pressure on Israel to
immediately stop the war crimes perpetrated in Gaza. Turkey expressed
its deep anger towards the surprising actions done by Israel. Turkish
government held a meeting to discuss the possibilities of reaching a
truce. Premire of Turkey, Abdallah Gul, condemned the Israeli brutal
actions in Gaza.

Meanwhile Syrian President, Bashar Al Asad, Yemeni Presdient Ali
Abdallah Saleh called for an immediate meeting for Arab league to
discuss Gaza's situation. Additionally Qatar and the Sudan called on
that too. An expected session for the United Nations would be heled
upon a request from Arab countries.

On the popular level, demonstrations took place in the West Bank
cities, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan. Lebanese people protest in front of
the Egyptian embassy in Beirut considering it has part of the siege on
Gaza.

Israel warcraft still hovers on low distance on Gaza vowing of a hot
night!


To Be Continued.

===

Gaza massacres must spur us to action
By ALI ABUNIMAH
http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2008/12/gaza-massacres-must-spur-us-to-action.html


"I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing."
Those were the words, spoken on Al Jazeera today by Ofer Shmerling, an
Israeli civil defense official in the Sderot area adjacent to Gaza, as
images of Israel's latest massacres were broadcast around the world.

A short time earlier, US-supplied Israeli F-16 warplanes and Apache
helicopters dropped over 100 bombs on dozens of locations in the
Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip killing at least 195 persons and injuring
hundreds more. Many of these locations were police stations located,
like police stations the world over, in the middle of civilian areas.
The US government was one of the first to offer its support for
Israel's attacks, and others will follow.

Reports said that many of the dead were Palestinian police officers.
Among those Israel labels "terrorists" were more than a dozen traffic
police officers undergoing training. An as yet unknown number of
civilians were killed and injured; Al Jazeera showed images of several
dead children, and the Israeli attacks came at the time thousands of
Palestinian children were in the streets on their way home from school.

Shmerling's joy has been echoed by Israelis and their supporters
around the world; their violence is righteous violence. It is
"self-defense" against "terrorists" and therefore justified. Israeli
bombing -- like American and NATO bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan --
is bombing for freedom, peace and democracy.

The rationalization for Israel's massacres, already being faithfully
transmitted by the English-language media, is that Israel is acting in
"retaliation" for Palestinian rockets fired with increasing intensity
ever since the six-month truce expired on 19 December (until today, no
Israeli had been killed or injured by these recent rockets attacks).

But today's horrific attacks mark only a change in Israel's method of
killing Palestinians recently. In recent months they died mostly
silent deaths, the elderly and sick especially, deprived of food and
necessary medicine by the two year-old Israeli blockade calculated and
intended to cause suffering and deprivation to 1.5 million
Palestinians, the vast majority refugees and children, caged into the
Gaza Strip. In Gaza, Palestinians died silently, for want of basic
medications: insulin, cancer treatment, products for dialysis
prohibited from reaching them by Israel.

What the media never question is Israel's idea of a truce. It is very
simple. Under an Israeli-style truce, Palestinians have the right to
remain silent while Israel starves them, kills them and continues to
violently colonize their land. Israel has not only banned food and
medicine to sustain Palestinian bodies in Gaza but it is also intent
on starving minds: due to the blockade, there is not even ink, paper
and glue to print textbooks for schoolchildren.

As John Ging, the head of operations of the United Nations agency for
Palestine refugees (UNRWA), told The Electronic Intifada in November:
"there was five months of a ceasefire in the last couple of months,
where the people of Gaza did not benefit; they did not have any
restoration of a dignified existence. We in fact at the UN, our
supplies were also restricted during the period of the ceasefire, to
the point where we were left in a very vulnerable and precarious
position and with a few days of closure we ran out of food."

That is an Israeli truce. Any response to Israeli attacks -- whether
peaceful protests against the apartheid wall in Bilin and Nilin in the
West Bank is met with bullets and bombs. There are no rockets launched
at Israel from the West Bank, and yet Israel's attacks, killings, land
theft, settler pogroms and kidnappings never ceased for one single day
during the truce. The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has acceded to
all of Israel's demands, even assembling "security forces" to fight
the resistance on Israel's behalf. None of that has spared a single
Palestinian or her property or livelihood from Israel's relentless
violent colonization. It did not save, for instance, the al-Kurd
family from seeing their home of 50 years in occupied East Jerusalem
demolished on 9 November, so the land it sits on could be taken by
settlers.

Once again we are watching massacres in Gaza, as we did last March
when 110 Palestinians, including dozens of children, were killed by
Israel in just a few days. Once again people everywhere feel rage,
anger and despair that this outlaw state carries out such crimes with
impunity.

But all over the Arab media and internet today the rage being
expressed is not directed solely at Israel. Notably, it is directed
more sharply than ever at Arab states. The images that stick are of
Israel's foreign minister Tzipi Livni in Cairo on Christmas day. There
she sat smiling with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Then there are
the pictures of Livni and Egypt's foreign minister smiling and
slapping their palms together.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported today that last wednesday the
Israeli "cabinet authorized the prime minister, the defense minister,
and the foreign minister to determine the timing and the method" of
Israel's attacks on Gaza. Everywhere people ask, what did Livni tell
the Egyptians and more importantly what did they tell her? Did Israel
get a green light to turn Gaza's streets red once again? Few are ready
to give Egypt the benefit of the doubt after it has helped Israel
besiege Gaza by keeping the Rafah border crossing closed for more than
a year.

On top of the intense anger and sadness so many people feel at
Israel's renewed mass killings in Gaza is a sense of frustration that
there seem to be so few ways to channel it into a political response
that can change the course of events, end the suffering, and bring
justice.

But there are ways, and this is a moment to focus on them. Already I
have received notices of demonstrations and solidarity actions being
planned in cities all over the world. That is important. But what will
happen after the demonstrations disperse and the anger dies down? Will
we continue to let Palestinians in Gaza die in silence?

Palestinians everywhere are asking for solidarity, real solidarity, in
the form of sustained, determined political action. The Gaza-based One
Democratic State Group reaffirmed this today as it "called upon all
civil society organizations and freedom loving people to act
immediately in any possible way to put pressure on their governments
to end diplomatic ties with Apartheid Israel and institute sanctions
against it."

The global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement for Palestine
(http://www.bdsmovement.net/) provides the framework for this. Now is
the time to channel our raw emotions into a long-term commitment to
make sure we do not wake up to "another Gaza" ever again.


Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One
Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
(Metropolitan Books, 2006).

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