Why Should He Apologise? Or Rather, Who Should Apologise?
by Gilad Atzmon
http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/livingstone.html


Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of the multi ethnic city of London, is
asked to apologise after comparing an "Evening Standard" reporter to
a "concentration camp guard". Like many other inhabitants of this
colourful metropolis, I ask myself why should he apologise? As it
seems, the answer is simple: he dared to insult a Jew. He neither
referred to any Jewish characteristic the journalist may have had ,
nor did he refer to the reporter's ethnic origin. The Mayor was
just insulting a man who happened to be a Jew. In politically
correct Britain this is unacceptable.


Mayor Livingstone wasn't referring to the journalist as a Jew; he
wasn't even equating the "Jews" with "concentration camp guards". As
a matter of fact, he was referring to a specific journalist in
reaction to his conduct.

And yet, this was enough to awaken the Board of Deputies of British
Jews, an organisation that presents itself as the "voice of British
Jews". They now publicly demand the Mayor's apology. We should ask
why British Jews feel offended by the Mayor? Did he threaten any
Jewish interests? Clearly not, and yet the Board of Deputies insist
on presenting the Mayor's comment as a racial assault. I would
maintain that once again we are presented with a glimpse into
the Jewish notion of brotherhood. Following the twisted logic of the
Jewish Board of Deputies: offending one Jew is an assault against
the entire "chosen race".

But it goes further; the incident makes it clear that in the eyes of
the Board of Deputies, WW2 is in fact an internal Jewish affair. The
fact that millions of non-Jews died in Nazi concentration camps is
completely irrelevant for them, so is the fact that Britain
scarified its best young men fighting Hitler. The Board of Deputies
is very efficient in capitalizing on the Holocaust. For them, WW2 is
an integral part of the Jewish history; no one else is allowed
in. This applies of course to the Mayor's usage of metaphorical
language and to Prince Harry's dressing code.

The Board of Deputies, demands the Mayor's apology but apparently
they are not alone. As disgusting as it may sound, another morally
deteriorated political figure has joined their demand. This is what
PM Tony Blair had to say today:

"Let's just apologise and move on." For PM Blair an apology is a
political manoeuvre. It is there to serve a political cause. In
Blair's world, an apology is merely a strategic act. If political
survival is the "one and only" goal, then every means is more than
legitimate. But then, very much in contrast, Livingstone served us
all with a far more dignified performance.

Livingstone insisted that he would not apologise because he didn't
believe that he should offer an apology. Here is what he said on
Monday: "I could apologise but why should I say words I do not
believe in my heart."

Unlike the instrumental prime minister, who is suggesting using
words tactically, the Mayor insists that apology is a sincere and
meaningful act. On the face of it, sincerity and integrity are
exactly the ingredients Blair and his cohorts are lacking badly.

We should ask ourselves why Mr Blair, once the leader of a European
political institution (he is still the leader but unfortunately they
are not an institution anymore..), joined the Jewish clannish
demand. I argue that morally deteriorated leaders often ally
themselves with Jewish and Zionist organisations.

Allying yourself with holocaust victims is proved to be the ultimate
sufficient political body armour. Being amongst the survivors makes
one look better than Hitler. Yes, let's admit, PM Blair is still far
better than Hitler but the fact that he feels a need to emphasize it
occasionally makes it clear that he owes us, the Iraqi people and
humanity a big apology himself.


Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military.
He is the author of the new novel A Guide to the Perplexed. Atzmon
is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe.
His recent CD, Exile, was named the year's best jazz CD by the BBC.
He now lives in London and can be reached at: atz@...

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Ernst Zundel - The Man, His Deeds & His Writings

http://www.rense.com/general50/ernst.htm

Below is a message written by Dr. Robert Faurisson, Europe's premier
Revisionist. I have seldom seen the essence of Ernst Zundel as
closely captured as in this one. Be sure to post it far and wide -
now that he is in prison, Ernst Zundel is getting more attention and
respect in sheer numbers, thanks to the Internet, than he ever did
in all his struggles since he declared war on the Holocaust hoax
more than thirty years ago:



By Robert Faurisson
March 21, 2004

For Ernst Zündel


These lines are not addressed to those who already know Ernst
Zündel - the man, his deeds and his writings - but to the Canadians
who know only what the mass media, taken together, have chosen to
report about him. It may be feared that those Canadians have been
led to misjudge E. Zündel and, perhaps, hate him.

To those people, who, in my view, are mistaken, I should say:
examine with care the image of this man that most of the media in
your country try to give you, whilst practically never letting you
hear his voice. Use your discernment. To start, be on your guard
against the repetitive, hollow and vague nature of the accusations
brought against him. Do not let yourselves be taken in by the
obsessive use of words like "Nazi" or "anti-Semite". These terms are
used against him as easily and mechanically as stock insults. They
are not born of any attempt at analysis. Quite the contrary: it is
people who want to spare themselves just such an effort who resort
to them. These words are employed to kill those to whom they are
applied or, at the very least, to gag or send them to prison. Most
often they are vituperations let fly to vent spleen. Uttering them
is somewhat like spitting, and spitting has never been an argument.

Ask yourselves whether E. Zündel, rather than the monster described
for you, may not quite simply be a man attached to his country of
origin, Germany, whose desire is to defend his homeland against
horrific slanders.

If you hear it said that he "denies the Holocaust of the Jews",
reflect once again. Has he really asserted that, during the Second
World War, the Jews did not suffer? The answer is "No". Has he
actually maintained that Germany had no anti-Jewish policy then? The
answer again is "No". Has he seriously claimed that Jews were not
deported to concentration camps or labour camps? The answer is yet
again "No". Has he advocated racial discrimination, or can there be
found in his past any sign of racist behaviour towards those with
whom he has had contact as, for instance, their employer? Still once
more the answer is "No".

But then, if I am right and if I take it upon myself to tell you
that E. Zündel has never held the ideas falsely ascribed to him, how
is it that the mass media, in unison, have hidden this fact from
you? Ask yourselves. And try to find the answer.

I shall briefly tell you what E. Zündel has thought and written in
the past and what he continues to think today in the prison where,
for over a year, he his being held like the most dangerous of
criminals.

Like me and a fair number of other revisionists, he challenges, on
the strength of solid arguments, documents and forensic reports, the
core of what the Jews call their "Holocaust" or "Shoah". Upon the
conclusion of his research, he found that Adolf Hitler had indeed
sought a final solution to the eternal Jewish question but, as is
spelled out in plain writing in the relevant documents,
a "territorial final solution". He also found that an extermination
of the Jews had never been contemplated, much less undertaken, but
rather, as had often happened in the history of certain countries, a
transfer of the Jews out of Europe: the "territorial final solution
was to have been the Jews' resettlement in an autonomous territory
of their own outside of Europe, anywhere except Palestine. As for
the rest of E. Zündel's findings I shall, the better to make myself
understood, draw your attention to current events and the war in
Iraq. You have heard that Saddam Hussein possessed "weapons of mass
destruction". You know that such talk is a cold lie and that this
lie made possible a military butchery, a crusade of Good against
Evil. War has always been hand in glove with propaganda, in all
times and places. Still, to take but this one example amongst
thousands of others, in the recent century, during the 1930s and
1940s, a frenzied propaganda was built up, especially in the great
democracies of the West and the Soviet Union, against the Axis
powers ("the axis of Evil", in a sense) and, especially, against
Germany. The Allies thereby stirred their own soldiers to warlike
ardour and, after the vast butchery, justified their own war and
their own war crimes by heaping gruesome accusations on Germany. It
was claimed, in particular, that Hitler had ordered the building of
weapons of mass destruction and used those weapons to kill the Jews
in a methodical manner and in industrial proportions. In fact, no
trace of any such order has ever been found, nor any trace of the
satanic weapons called "[execution] gas chambers" or "[execution]
gas vans", and all the alleged "testimonies" of the existence and
operation of such chemical slaughterhouses have shown themselves to
be fraudulent. This is what so soundly struck E. Zündel. This is
what he, ever since, has wanted to bring to the eyes of the world.
It is this staggering discovery of colossal deceit that has led him
to fight as he has done and as he will do till his dying breath. It
is for this, and solely for this, that he is now being killed by
inches.

We have all been told that the rarest of virtues is the courage to
fight for what one believes is true: the maxim is taught in the
schools and universities, in the works of great literature and in
picture books. It is a virtue much admired in certain men and women
of the past. But when, suddenly, the living example of such courage
appears in present reality, too often people fail to recognise it.
They neglect it, or are mistaken about it. Trusting in appearances,
they lend a willing ear to the rumours circulating with regard to
the extraordinary person and, one fine day, unawares, find
themselves in the camp of the slanderers. Having believed they had a
great love of justice, they show themselves ready to uphold Lynch
law in the face of this nuisance to society and to the fashionable
way of thinking.

I may add that if you knew E. Zündel you would respect him for his
open-mindedness, intelligence, understanding of the most various
kinds of people, and sincerity. Then, upon discovering the true
personality of Zündel the peasant, the artist, the thinker, you
would very likely get the idea: "I was wrong about him. I've been
fooled. In my thoughts and words, by my acts or omissions, I've
condemned a man who, in reality, is a credit to his nation, to my
own and to the whole human race". You would ask yourselves how to
right the wrongs that have been done.

I have the solution. Take your example from E. Zündel. If his ideas
do not appeal to you, leave them to him but borrow a bit of his
courage. Protest against the fate reserved for him up to today in
a "high security" cell near Toronto and denounce the sham
proceedings that an alleged justice system is conducting against
him.

In Canada, Paul Fromm organises, with the greatest selflessness, the
defence of our prisoner of conscience. To join in the support of E.
Zündel, start by helping Paul Fromm.

I thank you.

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Why did Israel release 500 Palestinian prisoners?

From: Ron Francis
Somerville Divestment Project
http://www.divestmentproject.org

Dear Friends,

More news today.  Israel releases 500 prisoners.

It has become very apparent what the strategy of the government of
Israel has been in the last two months.   They have said they will
enter talks, stop targeted assassinations, stop patrolling southern
Gaza Border, end home demolitions.  (don't believe it by the way).
Today Israel released 500 prisoners.

So what's all this about ?

It's very clear.  In exchange for Israel's actions, Israel has
entered into a deal with the US (which Sharon explcitly mentioned)
where they will follow the Road Map and essentially cement into
place the segregational system of laws that a) separate Palestinians
from their homeland and b) makes Palestinians second class citizens
in their own land.  Virtually the entire world recognizes explicitly
such laws and policies; they constitute the Crime of Aparthied by
international convention.

Isreal has made it clear that the deal is this:  In exchange for not
starving, harassing, killing and imprisoning Palestinians, the
Palestinians must forego the Right of Return, give up Jerusalem,
give up the fertile land and resources near the Green line, and
accept a system that has discriminatory laws that makes Palestinians
second class beings.

Discrimination in housing, political expression, marital laws,
Jewish only roads, the racist Law of Return for Jewish people, the
expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians, and other laws or policies
make it clear what kind of State Israel has carved out as a result
of a colonial ethnic-cleansing based conquest in 1947 and 1948.

The Road Map is based on Israel's power over Palestinians and not on
international laws and conventions such as the Declaration of Human
Rights, the Geneva Conventions or the International convention on
the Crime of Aparthied.

The international community needs to make it very clear that this is
unacceptable.  It is not sufficient in the current political context
to use strategies and language that only criticize Isreal's worst
human rights violations and not the entire discrimanatory system.

Although probably not intentional, failure to point out the
fundamental nature of the Israel's separation system is tantamount
to going along with the Bush Sharon bantustanizing apartheid model.

There is a reason why the international solidarity movement refers
to the Palestinian West Bank sections as cantons or Bantustans.  It
is to make it transparent that Israel is instituting a separation
system that meets the definition of an aparthied system under
international convention.  Omission of this type of analysis of the
situation is practically complicit in the Bush-Sharon deal.

As a solidarity organization, we need to make it clear that we
oppose the fundamental nature of the system that Israel is
instituting (by force with US help).  As long as Isreal maintains
it's rigid stance on the key final status issues of return, water
resources, Jerusalem, and a separational and discriminatory system
that lacks democracy there needs to be economic and political
sanctions applied to Israel.

Sanctions Until Return and Democracy needs to be our rallying cry.
Not surprisingly, this was our rallying cry two decades ago.

Soon I will propose that a national, resource-sharing only (no
coordinated actions at this point), network of people who are
committed to a local, grassroots, power-building approach to
organizing be established.   The proposed name will be Sanctions
Until Return and Democracy (subheading: Grassroots Actions for
Justice in Palestine)  I hope that people will step forward and join
this effort.

It will take some years to reverse Israeli apartheid but it can be
done if we are willing to do the grassroots organizing based on
clear principles.

In the 80's, we could have fashioned a movement that focused on
easing the horrific human rights violations faced by Black South
Africans and forego discussion of fundamental change.  But we
didn't.  There was a group that did however.  Led by Ronald Reagan,
they believed in "constructive engagement"  in which there were to
be no sanctions on South Africa.    Instead Reagan and big business
believed that by encouraging trade with South Africa that eventually
change would occur by osmosis.  It was bogus then and it's bogus
now.

I look forward to our work over the next 5 years.  The tide is
turning and grassroots actions will eventually bring about Justice
for Palestinians.

Ron Francis

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News about Iraq goes through filters
By DAHR JAMAIL
February 17, 2005
www.uruknet.info/?p=9726


How is it that more than 40 percent of Americans still believe Iraq
has weapons of mass destruction even though President Bush
personally has admitted there are none?

How is it possible that millions of Americans believe the recent
election in Iraq showed that Iraqis are in favor of the ongoing
occupation of their country? In reality, the determination displayed
by the roughly 59 percent of registered voters who participated in
the election did so because they felt it would bring about an end to
the U.S. occupation.

How do so many Americans wonder why more Iraqis each day are
supporting both violent and non-violent movements of resistance to
the occupation when after the U.S. government promised to help
rebuild Iraq, a mere 2 percent of reconstruction contracts were
awarded to Iraqi concerns and the infrastructure lies in shambles?

It's because overall, mainstream media reportage in the United
States about the occupation in Iraq is being censured, distorted,
threatened by the military and controlled by corporations that own
the outlets.

Recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Eason
Jordan, a CNN executive, told a panel that the U.S. military
deliberately targeted journalists in Iraq. He said he "knew of about
12 journalists who had not only been killed by American troops, but
had been targeted as a matter of policy," said Rep. Barney Frank, a
Democrat from Massachusetts who was on the panel with Jordan.

When we hear this statement with the knowledge that 63 journalists
have been killed in Iraq, in addition to the fact that in a 14-month-
period, more journalists were killed in Iraq than during the entire
Vietnam War, one begins to get the feeling that the military
clampdown on the media is more than a myth or a conspiracy theory.

(Editor's note: Jordan has since resigned from CNN, telling fellow
CNN staffers: "I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill
intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I
apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise.")

I've personally witnessed photographers in Baghdad who have had
their cameras either confiscated or smashed by soldiers, who were,
of course, acting on orders from their superiors. And no, the
journalists weren't trying to photograph something that would
jeopardize the security of the soldiers.

Even Christiane Amanpour, CNN's top war correspondent, announced on
national television that her own network was censuring her
journalism.

Most Americans don't know that on any given day, an average of three
U.S. soldiers die in Iraq as a result of 75 attacks every single day
on U.S. forces or that Iraqi civilian deaths average 10 times that
amount.

Most Americans also don't know there are four permanent U.S.
military bases in Iraq, with the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg
Brown and Root diligently constructing 10 others.

Most Americans don't know overall troop morale in Iraq resembles
that of the Vietnam War, with tours being extended and stop-loss
orders imposed.

Nor do most folks know where billions of their tax dollars have been
spent that were supposed to be used in the reconstruction of Iraq.

But who can blame Americans when the military and mainstream media
continue, day in and day out, to distort, deny and destroy the truth
before it reaches the audience back home? An international peoples'
initiative called the World Tribunal on Iraq met in Rome to focus on
media complicity in the crimes committed against the people of Iraq
as well as U.S. citizens who are paying with their blood and tax
dollars to maintain the occupation. The tribunal found Western
mainstream media outlets guilty of incitement to violence and the
deliberate misleading of people into the war and ongoing occupation
of Iraq.

Makes you wonder what else Americans aren't being told about Iraq.
After spending eight of the past 14 months reporting from Iraq, I
can tell you the points made here are just the tip of the iceberg.

Dahr Jamail, an independent reporter covering the Iraq war, has
several current speaking engagements in Western Washington. For more
info, go to www.dahrjamailiraq.com.

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Release of Indian prisoners ordered: Left leaders meet Musharraf
------------------------------------------------------------------
ISLAMABAD, March 1: President General Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday
ordered the release of 31 Indian Sikhs detained for illegal entry
and recommended that captive Indian fishermen be freed, the
foreign ministry said.

The president made the goodwill gesture during a meeting with
senior leaders of two Indian Communist parties, foreign ministry
spokesman Jalil Abbas Jillani said. Gen Musharraf expressed the
hope that Pakistan and India would address the substantive issues,
particularly the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, with the same spirit
as shown by them on reaching accord on the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar
bus service.....(Agencies)

http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top2.htm&date=20050302

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Text of Professor's article
Saturday, February 5, 2005

Ward Churchill
Boulder, Colorado
January 31, 2005


[Globalization] "Some People Push Back" On the Justice of Roosting
Chickens written by Ward Churchill 9-11-2001

When queried by reporters concerning his views on the assassination
of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm X famously - and quite
charitably, all things considered - replied that it was merely a
case of "chickens coming home to roost."

On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens - along
with some half-million dead Iraqi children - came home to roost in a
very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center.
Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the
Pentagon as well.

The Iraqi youngsters, all of them under 12, died as a predictable -
in fact, widely predicted - result of the 1991 US "surgical" bombing
of their country's water purification and sewage facilities, as well
as other "infrastructural" targets upon which Iraq's civilian
population depends for its very survival.

If the nature of the bombing were not already bad enough - and it
should be noted that this sort of "aerial warfare" constitutes a
Class I Crime Against humanity, entailing myriad gross violations of
international law, as well as every conceivable standard
of "civilized" behavior - the death toll has been steadily ratcheted
up by US-imposed sanctions for a full decade now. Enforced all the
while by a massive military presence and periodic bombing raids, the
embargo has greatly impaired the victims' ability to import the
nutrients, medicines and other materials necessary to saving the
lives of even their toddlers.

All told, Iraq has a population of about 18 million. The 500,000
kids lost to date thus represent something on the order of 25
percent of their age group. Indisputably, the rest have suffered -
are still suffering - a combination of physical debilitation and
psychological trauma severe enough to prevent their ever fully
recovering. In effect, an entire generation has been obliterated.

The reason for this holocaust was/is rather simple, and stated quite
straightforwardly by President George Bush, the 41st "freedom-
loving" father of the freedom-lover currently filling the Oval
Office, George the 43rd: "The world must learn that what we say,
goes," intoned George the Elder to the enthusiastic applause of
freedom-loving Americans everywhere.

How Old George conveyed his message was certainly no mystery to the
US public. One need only recall the 24-hour-per-day dissemination of
bombardment videos on every available TV channel, and the
exceedingly high ratings of these telecasts, to gain a sense of how
much they knew.

In trying to affix a meaning to such things, we would do well to
remember the wave of elation that swept America at reports of what
was happening along the so-called Highway of Death: perhaps
100,000 "towel-heads" and "camel jockeys" - or was it "sand niggers"
that week? - in full retreat, routed and effectively defenseless,
many of them conscripted civilian laborers, slaughtered in a single
day by jets firing the most hyper-lethal types of ordnance.

It was a performance worthy of the nazis during the early months of
their drive into Russia. And it should be borne in mind that Good
Germans gleefully cheered that butchery, too. Indeed, support for
Hitler suffered no serious erosion among Germany's "innocent
civilians" until the defeat at Stalingrad in 1943.

There may be a real utility to reflecting further, this time upon
the fact that it was pious Americans who led the way in assigning
the onus of collective guilt to the German people as a whole, not
for things they as individuals had done, but for what they had
allowed - nay, empowered - their leaders and their soldiers to do in
their name.

If the principle was valid then, it remains so now, as applicable to
Good Americans as it was the Good Germans. And the price exacted
from the Germans for the faultiness of their moral fiber was truly
ghastly.

Returning now to the children, and to the effects of the post-Gulf
War embargo - continued full force by Bush the Elder's successors in
the Clinton administration as a gesture of its "resolve" to finalize
what George himself had dubbed the "New World Order" of American
military/economic domination - it should be noted that not one but
two high United Nations officials attempting to coordinate delivery
of humanitarian aid to Iraq resigned in succession as protests
against US policy.

One of them, former U.N. Assistant Secretary General Denis Halladay,
repeatedly denounced what was happening as "a systematic
program . . . of deliberate genocide." His statements appeared in
the New York Times and other papers during the fall of 1998, so it
can hardly be contended that the American public was "unaware" of
them.

Shortly thereafter, Secretary of State Madeline Albright openly
confirmed Halladay's assessment. Asked during the widely-viewed TV
program Meet the Press to respond to his "allegations," she calmly
announced that she'd decided it was "worth the price" to see that
U.S. objectives were achieved.

The Politics of a Perpetrator Population

As a whole, the American public greeted these revelations with
yawns..

There were, after all, far more pressing things than the unrelenting
misery/death of a few hundred thousand Iraqi tikes to be concerned
with. Getting "Jeremy" and "Ellington" to their weekly soccer game,
for instance, or seeing to it that little "Tiffany" an "Ashley" had
just the right roll-neck sweaters to go with their new cords. And,
to be sure, there was the yuppie holy war against ashtrays -
for "our kids," no less - as an all-absorbing point of political
focus.

In fairness, it must be admitted that there was an infinitesimally
small segment of the body politic who expressed opposition to what
was/is being done to the children of Iraq. It must also be conceded,
however, that those involved by-and-large contented themselves with
signing petitions and conducting candle-lit prayer vigils,
bearing "moral witness" as vast legions of brown-skinned five-year-
olds sat shivering in the dark, wide-eyed in horror, whimpering as
they expired in the most agonizing ways imaginable.

Be it said as well, and this is really the crux of it, that
the "resistance" expended the bulk of its time and energy harnessed
to the systemically-useful task of trying to ensure, as "a principle
of moral virtue" that nobody went further than waving signs as a
means of "challenging" the patently exterminatory pursuit of Pax
Americana. So pure of principle were these "dissidents," in fact,
that they began literally to supplant the police in protecting
corporations profiting by the carnage against suffering such
retaliatory "violence" as having their windows broken by persons
less "enlightened" - or perhaps more outraged - than the self-
anointed "peacekeepers."

Property before people, it seems - or at least the equation of
property to people - is a value by no means restricted to America's
boardrooms. And the sanctimony with which such putrid sentiments are
enunciated turns out to be nauseatingly similar, whether mouthed by
the CEO of Standard Oil or any of the swarm of comfort
zone "pacifists" queuing up to condemn the black block after it ever
so slightly disturbed the functioning of business-as-usual in
Seattle.

Small wonder, all-in-all, that people elsewhere in the world - the
Mideast, for instance - began to wonder where, exactly, aside from
the streets of the US itself, one was to find the peace America's
purportedly oppositional peacekeepers claimed they were keeping.

The answer, surely, was plain enough to anyone unblinded by the kind
of delusions engendered by sheer vanity and self-absorption.

So, too, were the implications in terms of anything changing, out
there, in America's free-fire zones.

Tellingly, it was at precisely this point - with the genocide in
Iraq officially admitted and a public response demonstrating beyond
a shadow of a doubt that there were virtually no Americans,
including most of those professing otherwise, doing anything
tangible to stop it - that the combat teams which eventually
commandeered the aircraft used on September 11 began to infiltrate
the United States.

Meet the "Terrorists"

Of the men who came, there are a few things demanding to be said in
the face of the unending torrent of disinformational drivel
unleashed by George Junior and the corporate "news" media
immediately following their successful operation on September 11.

They did not, for starters, "initiate" a war with the US, much less
commit "the first acts of war of the new millennium."

A good case could be made that the war in which they were combatants
has been waged more-or-less continuously by the "Christian West" -
now proudly emblematized by the United States - against the "Islamic
East" since the time of the First Crusade, about 1,000 years ago.
More recently, one could argue that the war began when Lyndon
Johnson first lent significant support to Israel's
dispossession/displacement of Palestinians during the 1960s, or when
George the Elder ordered "Desert Shield" in 1990, or at any of
several points in between. Any way you slice it, however, if what
the combat teams did to the WTC and the Pentagon can be understood
as acts of war - and they can - then the same is true of every
US "overflight' of Iraqi territory since day one. The first acts of
war during the current millennium thus occurred on its very first
day, and were carried out by U.S. aviators acting under orders from
their then-commander-in-chief, Bill Clinton. The most that can
honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is that they
finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed
to their people as a matter of course. That they waited so long to
do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action at the WTC, more than
anything a testament to their patience and restraint.

They did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."

There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel
killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside
comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the
World Trade Center . . . Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall
we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme
a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of
America's global financial empire - the "mighty engine of profit" to
which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved
â€" and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse
to "ignorance" - a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" -
counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated
elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and
consequences to others of what they were involved in - and in many
cases excelling at - it was because of their absolute refusal to
see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying,
incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging
power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated,
conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the
starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more
effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty
befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting
the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested
in hearing about it.

The men who flew the missions against the WTC and Pentagon were
not "cowards."

That distinction properly belongs to the "firm-jawed lads" who
delighted in flying stealth aircraft through the undefended airspace
of Baghdad, dropping payload after payload of bombs on anyone
unfortunate enough to be below - including tens of thousands of
genuinely innocent civilians - while themselves incurring all the
risk one might expect during a visit to the local video arcade.
Still more, the word describes all those "fighting men and women"
who sat at computer consoles aboard ships in the Persian Gulf,
enjoying air-conditioned comfort while launching cruise missiles
into neighborhoods filled with random human beings. Whatever else
can be said of them, the men who struck on September 11 manifested
the courage of their convictions, willingly expending their own
lives in attaining their objectives.

Nor were they "fanatics" devoted to "Islamic fundamentalism."

One might rightly describe their actions as "desperate." Feelings of
desperation, however, are a perfectly reasonable - one is tempted to
say "normal" - emotional response among persons confronted by the
mass murder of their children, particularly when it appears that
nobody else really gives a damn (ask a Jewish survivor about this
one, or, even more poignantly, for all the attention paid them, a
Gypsy). That desperate circumstances generate desperate responses is
no mysterious or irrational principle, of the sort motivating
fanatics. Less is it one peculiar to Islam. Indeed, even the FBI's
investigative reports on the combat teams' activities during the
months leading up to September 11 make it clear that the members
were not fundamentalist Muslims. Rather, it's pretty obvious at this
point that they were secular activists - soldiers, really - who,
while undoubtedly enjoying cordial relations with the clerics of
their countries, were motivated far more by the grisly realities of
the U.S. war against them than by a set of religious beliefs.

And still less were they/their acts "insane."

Insanity is a condition readily associable with the very American
idea that one - or one's country - holds what amounts to a "divine
right" to commit genocide, and thus to forever do so with impunity.
The term might also be reasonably applied to anyone suffering
genocide without attempting in some material way to bring the
process to a halt. Sanity itself, in this frame of reference, might
be defined by a willingness to try and destroy the perpetrators
and/or the sources of their ability to commit their crimes. (Shall
we now discuss the US "strategic bombing campaign" against Germany
during World War II, and the mental health of those involved in it?)

Which takes us to official characterizations of the combat teams as
an embodiment of "evil."

Evil - for those inclined to embrace the banality of such a concept -
  was perfectly incarnated in that malignant toad known as Madeline
Albright, squatting in her studio chair like Jaba the Hutt, blandly
spewing the news that she'd imposed a collective death sentence upon
the unoffending youth of Iraq. Evil was to be heard in that great
American hero "Stormin' Norman" Schwartzkopf's utterly dehumanizing
dismissal of their systematic torture and annihilation as
mere "collateral damage." Evil, moreover, is a term appropriate to
describing the mentality of a public that finds such perspectives
and the policies attending them acceptable, or even momentarily
tolerable.

Had it not been for these evils, the counterattacks of September 11
would never have occurred. And unless "the world is rid of such
evil," to lift a line from George Junior, September 11 may well end
up looking like a lark. There is no reason, after all, to believe
that the teams deployed in the assaults on the WTC and the Pentagon
were the only such, that the others are composed of "Arabic-looking
individuals" â€" America's indiscriminately lethal arrogance and
psychotic sense of self-entitlement have long since given the great
majority of the world's peoples ample cause to be at war with it â€"
or that they are in any way dependent upon the seizure of civilian
airliners to complete their missions.

To the contrary, there is every reason to expect that there are many
other teams in place, tasked to employ altogether different tactics
in executing operational plans at least as well-crafted as those
evident on September 11, and very well equipped for their jobs. This
is to say that, since the assaults on the WTC and Pentagon were act
of war - not "terrorist incidents" - they must be understood as
components in a much broader strategy designed to achieve specific
results. From this, it can only be adduced that there are plenty of
other components ready to go, and that they will be used, should
this become necessary in the eyes of the strategists. It also seems
a safe bet that each component is calibrated to inflict damage at a
level incrementally higher than the one before (during the 1960s,
the Johnson administration employed a similar policy against
Vietnam, referred to as "escalation").

Since implementation of the overall plan began with the WTC/Pentagon
assaults, it takes no rocket scientist to decipher what is likely to
happen next, should the U.S. attempt a response of the inexcusable
variety to which it has long entitled itself.

About Those Boys (and Girls) in the Bureau

There's another matter begging for comment at this point. The idea
that the FBI's "counterterrorism task forces" can do a thing to
prevent what will happen is yet another dimension of America's
delusional pathology.. The fact is that, for all its publicly-
financed "image-building" exercises, the Bureau has never shown the
least aptitude for anything of the sort.

Oh, yeah, FBI counterintelligence personnel have proven quite adept
at framing anarchists, communists and Black Panthers, sometimes
murdering them in their beds or the electric chair. The Bureau's
SWAT units have displayed their ability to combat child abuse in
Waco by burning babies alive, and its vaunted Crime Lab has been
shown to pad its "crime-fighting' statistics by fabricating evidence
against many an alleged car thief. But actual "heavy-duty bad guys"
of the sort at issue now?

This isn't a Bruce Willis/Chuck Norris/Sly Stallone movie, after
all.. And J. Edgar Hoover doesn't get to approve either the script
or the casting.

The number of spies, saboteurs and bona fide terrorists apprehended,
or even detected by the FBI in the course of its long and slimy
history could be counted on one's fingers and toes. On occasion, its
agents have even turned out to be the spies, and, in many instances,
the terrorists as well.

To be fair once again, if the Bureau functions as at best a carnival
of clowns where its "domestic security responsibilities" are
concerned, this is because - regardless of official hype - it has
none. It is now, as it's always been, the national political police
force, and instrument created and perfected to ensure that all
Americans, not just the consenting mass, are "free" to do exactly as
they're told.

The FBI and "cooperating agencies" can be thus relied upon to set
about "protecting freedom" by destroying whatever rights and
liberties were left to U.S. citizens before September 11 (in fact,
they've already received authorization to begin). Sheeplike, the
great majority of Americans can also be counted upon to bleat their
approval, at least in the short run, believing as they always do
that the nasty implications of what they're doing will pertain only
to others.

Oh Yeah, and "The Company," Too

A possibly even sicker joke is the notion, suddenly in vogue, that
the CIA will be able to pinpoint "terrorist threats," "rooting out
their infrastructure" where it exists and/or "terminating" it before
it can materialize, if only it's allowed to beef up its "human
intelligence gathering capacity" in an unrestrained manner
(including full-bore operations inside the US, of course).

Yeah. Right.

Since America has a collective attention-span of about 15 minutes, a
little refresher seems in order: "The Company" had something like a
quarter-million people serving as "intelligence assets" by feeding
it information in Vietnam in 1968, and it couldn't even predict the
Tet Offensive. God knows how many spies it was fielding against the
USSR at the height of Ronald Reagan's version of the Cold War, and
it was still caught flatfooted by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

As to destroying "terrorist infrastructures," one would do well to
remember Operation Phoenix, another product of its open season in
Vietnam. In that one, the CIA enlisted elite US units like the Navy
Seals and Army Special Forces, as well as those of friendly
countries - the south Vietnamese Rangers, for example, and
Australian SAS - to run around "neutralizing" folks targeted by The
Company's legion of snitches as "guerrillas" (as those now known
as "terrorists" were then called).

Sound familiar?

Upwards of 40,000 people - mostly bystanders, as it turns out - were
murdered by Phoenix hit teams before the guerrillas, stronger than
ever, ran the US and its collaborators out of their country
altogether.

And these are the guys who are gonna save the day, if unleashed to
do their thing in North America?

The net impact of all this "counterterrorism" activity upon the
combat teams' ability to do what they came to do, of course, will be
nil. Instead, it's likely to make it easier for them to operate
(it's worked that way in places like Northern Ireland). And, since
denying Americans the luxury of reaping the benefits of genocide in
comfort was self-evidently a key objective of the WTC/Pentagon
assaults, it can be stated unequivocally that a more overt display
of the police state mentality already pervading this country simply
confirms the magnitude of their victory.

On Matters of Proportion and Intent

As things stand, including the 1993 detonation at the WTC, "Arab
terrorists" have responded to the massive and sustained American
terror bombing of Iraq with a total of four assaults by explosives
inside the US. That's about 1% of the 50,000 bombs the Pentagon
announced were rained on Baghdad alone during the Gulf War (add in
Oklahoma City and you'll get something nearer an actual 1%). They've
managed in the process to kill about 5,000 Americans, or roughly 1%
of the dead Iraqi children (the percentage is far smaller if you
factor in the killing of adult Iraqi civilians, not to mention
troops butchered as/after they'd surrendered and/or after the "war-
ending" ceasefire had been announced).

In terms undoubtedly more meaningful to the property/profit-minded
American mainstream, they've knocked down a half-dozen buildings -
albeit some very well-chosen ones - as opposed to the "strategic
devastation" visited upon the whole of Iraq, and punched a $100
billion hole in the earnings outlook of major corporate
shareholders, as opposed to the U.S. obliteration of Iraq's entire
economy.

With that, they've given Americans a tiny dose of their own
medicine..

This might be seen as merely a matter of "vengeance"
or "retribution," and, unquestionably, America has earned it, even
if it were to add up only to something so ultimately petty.

The problem is that vengeance is usually framed in terms of "getting
even," a concept which is plainly inapplicable in this instance. As
the above data indicate, it would require another 49,996 detonations
killing 495,000 more Americans, for the "terrorists" to "break even"
for the bombing of Baghdad/extermination of Iraqi children alone.
And that's to achieve "real number" parity. To attain an actual
proportional parity of damage - the US is about 15 times as large as
Iraq in terms of population, even more in terms of territory - they
would, at a minimum, have to blow up about 300,000 more buildings
and kill something on the order of 7.5 million people.

Were this the intent of those who've entered the US to wage war
against it, it would remain no less true that America and Americans
were only receiving the bill for what they'd already done.

Payback, as they say, can be a real motherfucker (ask the Germans).

There is, however, no reason to believe that retributive parity is
necessarily an item on the agenda of those who planned the
WTC/Pentagon operation. If it were, given the virtual certainty that
they possessed the capacity to have inflicted far more damage than
they did, there would be a lot more American bodies lying about
right now.

Hence, it can be concluded that ravings carried by the "news" media
since September 11 have contained at least one grain of truth: The
peoples of the Mideast "aren't like" Americans, not least because
they don't "value life' in the same way. By this, it should be
understood that Middle-Easterners, unlike Americans, have no history
of exterminating others purely for profit, or on the basis of racial
animus. Thus, we can appreciate the fact that they value life - all
lives, not just their own - far more highly than do their U.S.
counterparts.

The Makings of a Humanitarian Strategy

In sum one can discern a certain optimism - it might even be call
humanitarianism - imbedded in the thinking of those who presided
over the very limited actions conducted on September 11.

Their logic seems to have devolved upon the notion that the American
people have condoned what has been/is being done in their name -
indeed, are to a significant extent actively complicit in it -
mainly because they have no idea what it feels like to be on the
receiving end.

Now they do.

That was the "medicinal" aspect of the attacks.

To all appearances, the idea is now to give the tonic a little time
to take effect, jolting Americans into the realization that the sort
of pain they're now experiencing first-hand is no different from -
or the least bit more excruciating than - that which they've been so
cavalier in causing others, and thus to respond appropriately.

More bluntly, the hope was - and maybe still is - that Americans,
stripped of their presumed immunity from incurring any real
consequences for their behavior, would comprehend and act upon a
formulation as uncomplicated as "stop killing our kids, if you want
your own to be safe."

Either way, it's a kind of "reality therapy" approach, designed to
afford the American people a chance to finally "do the right thing"
on their own, without further coaxing.

Were the opportunity acted upon in some reasonably good faith
fashion - a sufficiently large number of Americans rising up and
doing whatever is necessary to force an immediate lifting of the
sanctions on Iraq, for instance, or maybe hanging a few of America's
abundant supply of major war criminals (Henry Kissinger comes
quickly to mind, as do Madeline Albright, Colin Powell, Bill Clinton
and George the Elder) - there is every reason to expect that
military operations against the US on its domestic front would be
immediately suspended.

Whether they would remain so would of course be contingent upon
follow-up. By that, it may be assumed that American acceptance of
onsite inspections by international observers to verify destruction
of its weapons of mass destruction (as well as dismantlement of all
facilities in which more might be manufactured), Nuremberg-style
trials in which a few thousand US military/corporate personnel could
be properly adjudicated and punished for their Crimes Against
humanity, and payment of reparations to the array of nations/peoples
whose assets the US has plundered over the years, would suffice.

Since they've shown no sign of being unreasonable or vindictive, it
may even be anticipated that, after a suitable period of adjustment
and reeducation (mainly to allow them to acquire the skills
necessary to living within their means), those restored to control
over their own destinies by the gallant sacrifices of the combat
teams the WTC and Pentagon will eventually (re)admit Americans to
the global circle of civilized societies. Stranger things have
happened.

In the Alternative

Unfortunately, noble as they may have been, such humanitarian
aspirations were always doomed to remain unfulfilled. For it to have
been otherwise, a far higher quality of character and intellect
would have to prevail among average Americans than is actually the
case.

Perhaps the strategists underestimated the impact a couple of
generations-worth of media indoctrination can produce in terms of
demolishing the capacity of human beings to form coherent thoughts.
Maybe they forgot to factor in the mind-numbing effects of the
indoctrination passed off as education in the US.

Then, again, it's entirely possible they were aware that a decisive
majority of American adults have been reduced by this point to a
level much closer to the kind of immediate self-gratification
entailed in Pavlovian stimulus/response patterns than anything
accessible by appeals to higher logic, and still felt morally
obliged to offer the dolts an option to quit while they were ahead.

What the hell? It was worth a try.

But it's becoming increasingly apparent that the dosage of medicine
administered was entirely insufficient to accomplish its purpose.

Although there are undoubtedly exceptions, Americans for the most
part still don't get it.

Already, they've desecrated the temporary tomb of those killed in
the WTC, staging a veritable pep rally atop the mangled remains of
those they profess to honor, treating the whole affair as if it were
some bizarre breed of contact sport. And, of course, there are the
inevitable pom-poms shaped like American flags, the school colors
worn as little red-white-and-blue ribbons affixed to labels,
sportscasters in the form of "counterterrorism experts" drooling
mindless color commentary during the pregame warm-up.

Refusing the realization that the world has suddenly shifted its
axis, and that they are therefore no longer "in charge," they have
by-and-large reverted instantly to type, working themselves into
their usual bloodlust on the now obsolete premise that the
bloodletting will "naturally" occur elsewhere and to someone else.

"Patriotism," a wise man once observed, "is the last refuge of
scoundrels."

And the braided, he might of added.

Braided Scoundrel-in-Chief, George Junior, lacking even the sense to
be careful what he wished for, has teamed up with a gaggle of
fundamentalist Christian clerics like Billy Graham to proclaim
a "New Crusade" called "Infinite Justice" aimed at "ridding the
world of evil."

One could easily make light of such rhetoric, remarking upon how
unseemly it is for a son to threaten his father in such fashion - or
a president to so publicly contemplate the murder/suicide of himself
and his cabinet - but the matter is deadly serious.

They are preparing once again to sally forth for the purpose of
roasting brown-skinned children by the scores of thousands. Already,
the B-1 bombers and the aircraft carriers and the missile frigates
are en route, the airborne divisions are gearing up to go.

To where? Afghanistan?

The Sudan?

Iraq, again (or still)?

How about Grenada (that was fun)?

Any of them or all. It doesn't matter.


The desire to pummel the helpless runs rabid as ever.

Only, this time it's different.

The time the helpless aren't, or at least are not so helpless as
they were.

This time, somewhere, perhaps in an Afghani mountain cave, possibly
in a Brooklyn basement, maybe another local altogether - but
somewhere, all the same - there's a grim-visaged (wo)man wearing a
Clint Eastwood smile.

"Go ahead, punks," s/he's saying, "Make my day."

And when they do, when they launch these airstrikes abroad - or may
a little later; it will be at a time conforming to the "terrorists"'
own schedule, and at a place of their choosing - the next more
intensive dose of medicine administered here "at home."

Of what will it consist this time? Anthrax? Mustard gas? Sarin? A
tactical nuclear device?

That, too, is their choice to make.

Looking back, it will seem to future generations inexplicable why
Americans were unable on their own, and in time to save themselves,
to accept a rule of nature so basic that it could be mouthed by an
actor, Lawrence Fishburn, in a movie, The Cotton Club.

"You've got to learn, " the line went, "that when you push people
around, some people push back."

As they should.

As they must.

And as they undoubtedly will.

There is justice in such symmetry.

ADDENDUM

The preceding was a "first take" reading, more a stream-of-
consciousness interpretive reaction to the September 11
counterattack than a finished piece on the topic. Hence, I'll
readily admit that I've been far less than thorough, and quite
likely wrong about a number of things.

For instance, it may not have been (only) the ghosts of Iraqi
children who made their appearance that day. It could as easily have
been some or all of their butchered Palestinian cousins.

Or maybe it was some or all of the at least 3.2 million Indochinese
who perished as a result of America's sustained and genocidal
assault on Southeast Asia (1959-1975), not to mention the millions
more who've died because of the sanctions imposed thereafter.

Perhaps there were a few of the Korean civilians massacred by US
troops at places like No Gun Ri during the early -50s, or the
hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians ruthlessly incinerated
in the ghastly fire raids of World War II (only at Dresden did
America bomb Germany in a similar manner).

And, of course, it could have been those vaporized in the militarily
pointless nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There are others, as well, a vast and silent queue of faceless
victims, stretching from the million-odd Filipinos slaughtered
during America's "Indian War" in their islands at the beginning of
the twentieth century, through the real Indians, America's own,
massacred wholesale at places like Horseshoe Bend and the Bad Axe,
Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, the Washita, Bear River, and the
Marias.

Was it those who expired along the Cherokee Trial of Tears of the
Long Walk of the Navajo?

Those murdered by smallpox at Fort Clark in 1836?

Starved to death in the concentration camp at Bosque Redondo during
the 1860s?

Maybe those native people claimed for scalp bounty in all 48 of the
continental US states? Or the Raritans whose severed heads were
kicked for sport along the streets of what was then called New
Amsterdam, at the very site where the WTC once stood?

One hears, too, the whispers of those lost on the Middle Passage,
and of those whose very flesh was sold in the slave market outside
the human kennel from whence Wall Street takes its name.

And of coolie laborers, imported by the gross-dozen to lay the
tracks of empire across scorching desert sands, none of them
allotted "a Chinaman's chance" of surviving.

The list is too long, too awful to go on.

No matter what its eventual fate, America will have gotten off very,
very cheap.

The full measure of its guilt can never be fully balanced or atoned
for.


Ward Churchill is professor of American Indian Studies with the
Department of Ethnic studies, University of Colorado at Boulder.


Political Gateway Special Report

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Some Iraqis protest having Saturday off.
Many associate it with Jewish Sabbath
The Associated Press
www.uruknet.info/?p=10028


BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqis are complaining about their first-ever
weekend break, and some high-school students even went to class
Saturday to protest a decision introducing a second weekly day off
that coincides with the Jewish Sabbath.

It's not that the Iraqis do not want time off — they just want the
extra day moved to Thursday.

"We don't want Saturday! It's a Jewish holiday!" students chanted as
they marched in protest last week to the governor's office in
Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

A high-school student pulled out a hand grenade and started waving
it, and police fired into the air to disperse the crowd. At least
three students reportedly were injured in the ensuing scuffle.

Schools open
At Baghdad's University of Mustansariyah, a statement issued by a
student union believed to be allied with the radical Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr described Saturday as "the Zionist holiday" and said
the government order should not be followed.

"We declare a general strike in the University of Mustansariyah to
reject this decision and any decision aimed at depriving Iraqis of
their identity," the statement said.

In predominantly Sunni Muslim Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad,
the al-Mutawakal high school opened its doors after insurgents
threatened to kill its teachers if they took the day off.

There is no clear-cut rule for weekends in the Middle East and other
Muslim countries in the region.

In Lebanon, the weekend starts at 11:30 a.m. Friday and includes
Sunday.

In Jordan, the weekend is Friday and Saturday. Bahrain, Egypt and
Kuwait have Thursday and Friday off, while conservative Iran and
Saudi Arabia only give Friday off.

In many Baghdad districts, including Shiite-dominated Sadr City,
students and civil servants ignored the decree and went to school
and work. At Sadr City's al-Fazilah secondary girls school, all 400
girls showed up for class.

"Sadr City is a Shiite Islamic city and we reject Saturday being our
holiday because it is related to the Jewish weekend," said student
union leader Safaa Dawoud Mahmoud, 18.

Sit ins threatened

The student body delivered a letter to the school's administrators
demanding that Thursday and Friday be the official weekend "because
both days were blessed in Islam and by Sharia," or Islamic law.

The students, dressed in long skirts with their hair covered by
dense black veils, vowed to stage sit-ins until the government
reverses its decision and makes Thursday the first day of a two-day
weekend.

"We will keep going to school with determination and persistence" on
Saturday, sixth-grader Nassen Dawoud said.

"We can't be like Jews. Saturday is a Jewish holiday and I hope the
government listens to us," sixth-grader Nada Alwan, said.

The influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, believed to be
close to the insurgency, said that by making Saturday a weekend "the
invaders, the occupiers are trying to impose their principles" on
Iraq.

"This decision is dangerous," it said.

In Samarra, one teacher said on condition of anonymity that he had
received death threats from militants warning him not to take
Saturdays off.

In Ramadi, the heart of the insurgency in the so-called Sunni
Triangle, the head of Anbar University decided to change the weekend
on its own.

"The official weekend is Thursday and Friday," the university
announced.

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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What Do Kuwait & Jews for Jesus Have in Common?

The answer is fake Qur'aan*.   The new AMERICAN Qur'aan!

Surprisingly this new so-called Qur'aan, entitled, "The True Furqan"
is being distributed in Kuwait!

Al-Furqan weekly magazine (unrelated to the book) has found
out that the two American printing companies; 'Omega 2001'
and 'Wine Press' are involved in the publishing of 'The True
Furqan',
a book which has also been titled 'The 21st Century Quran'!

The book is over 366 pages in both Arabic and English...
It is being distributed to children in Kuwait in the
private English schools!

It contains 77 Soorahs (or chapters). Instead of
Bismillah (In the name of God), each Soorah begins with
a longer version of Bismillah incorporating the Christian
belief of the three spirits.

This so-called Qur'aan opposes many Islamic beliefs.  For
instance, it states that divorce is not permitted, it uses
a new system of inheritance and rejects the current one,
and it states that Jihad is Haraam (prohibited).  This is another
example of brainwashing and interference in Moslems'
lives and believes, not to mention undermining their heritage
and history!  Moslem children are being brain washed
for $3 (the price of the book)  Politics and religious
intolerance are the clear motivations behind this book.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-
/1579211755/qid=1096805827/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-5627926-5299254?
v=glance&s=books


Observation and Commentary
By Hashim Al-Tawil, Ph.D., Art History Chair
Henry Ford Community College
Dearborn, Michigan

"Al-Furqan al-Haq" is the Arabic title of this infamous bilingual
publication which is funded by anti-Moslem groups in the US
and abroad.

I have a copy of this "Joke" which has been distributed free in
Dearborn and Metropolitan Detroit area through certain churches
and evangelical groups since at least 4 years ago. It is a joke
for those who have reasonable knowledge of Arabic - Islamic teaching
and culture, but it is a malicious weapon against Islam for those
who are ignorant or lack sufficient Islamic knowledge-mostly the
young generation of Moslems outside the Islamic world. This book
is a collaborative work of primarily evangelical missionaries and
Jews for Jesus groups.

The fake Qur'aan has been also offered through Amazon and
possibly other book vendors and of course free in many churches.
The "True Furqan" targets the minds of young people, especially
Moslem Americans whose knowledge of Islam and Islamic teaching
is fragile.

It is written in Arabic-with English translation, imitating the
Quranic style, but poor in quality and ridiculous in content.
However, to those who are not well versed in Arabic and Islamic
knowledge the text sounds like Quranic verses.  The content is an
endless insult to Islam as a religion, and the personality of the
prophet Mohammed, while glorifying Jesus and promoting Christianity.
It is a pathetic attempt to distort the Quranic teaching by
reproducing what looks like Quranic verses, obviously done by native
Arabic speakers. I think that it is an insult to both Moslems and
Christians.

The Arabic Text: It is a whole new product designed
to sounds like Quranic rhymed verses. The content of these
so-called verses is a deceitful manipulation of the original text.

The Amazon editorial review states:

<<Arabic and English side-by-side on every page. Prose and
poetry of the highest caliber in classical Arabic with English
interpretation. It contains 77 surahs (chapters) dealing with
as many subjects which are beautifully written and
easily understood. Love, Light, Peace, Truth, Repentance,
Women, Marriage, Fasting, Prayer, Abrogation, The Sacrifice,
Inspiration, Paradise, The Scale and The Excellent Names are
some of the chapters written in the unique style of the Quran.>>

===

Commentary by Wafaa' Al-Natheema

I remind the readers particularly in the industrial west
of the reaction by Jews and Christians toward the fiction film (not
documentary) "The Last Temptation of Christ"  The reaction
included the burning of a movie theater in France, a country
with high secular thoughts and behaviors, plus several
demonstrations at US theaters.  That was only a fiction film,
imagine changing the religious scripture and sell it to
brainwash real-life (not in the movies) teenagers and
the youth!  In fact the reaction to burn the movie theater
in France is hypocritical when one sees their intolerance
and discrimination in schools and at work against Moslem
women wearing the Hijab (head cover).

===

Commentary by Joachim Martillo

I remind the readers particularly in the industrial west
of the reaction by Jews and Christians toward the fiction film (not
documentary) "The Last Temptation of Christ"  The reaction
included the burning of a movie theater in France, a country
with high secular thoughts and behaviors, plus several
demonstrations at US theaters.  That was only a fiction film,
imagine changing the religious scripture and sell it to
brainwash real-life (not in the movies) teenagers and
the youth!  In fact the reaction to burn the movie theater
in France is hypocritical when one sees their intolerance
and discrimination in schools and at work against Moslem
women wearing the Hijab (head cover).


I am always impressed how much the current tactics of anti-Arab/anti-
Muslim racism seem to draw on the late 19th and early 20th century
tactics of Central and Eastern European anti-Jewish racism and anti-
Judaism.  Likewise the tactics of Christian proselytization of
Muslims often appear to draw on the history of more recent American
Christian missionary activities that targeted ethnic Ashkenazi
immigrants to America for conversion to Christianity.  It is
interesting that Yiddishists were not so hostile to Yiddish
translations of the Christian New Testament as were more religious
ethnic Ashkenazim, who tended to consider such literature extremely
treif (the opposite of kosher).

I have attached an article about missionary Yiddish after the
discussion of the so-called New American Quran.  The missionary
Yiddish article is interesting for mentioning in passing various
points of overlap between Zionism, Protestant proselytization and
evangelical fundamentalist institutions like the Moody Bible
Institute, which so strongly influence Christian Zionists as well as
the irredentist white racist neo-Confederate followers of George W.
Bush.

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11,000 US soldiers dead from DU poisoning
Bob Nichols, www.globalresearch.ca
February 2005
www.uruknet.info/?p=10022


11,000 US soldiers dead from DU poisoning

Heads roll at Veterans Administration Mushrooming depleted uranium
(DU) scandal blamed

Bob Nichols Project Censored Award Winner 2/2/05 S.F. Bay View

http://www.sfbayview.com/012605/headsroll012605.shtml

Considering the tons of depleted uranium used by the U.S., the Iraq
war can truly be called a nuclear war.

Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason
Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier
this month was the growing scandal surrounding the use of uranium
munitions in the Iraq War.

Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N.
Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in
New York, stated, "The real reason for Mr. Principi's departure was
really never given, however a special report published by eminent
scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive
cause of the 'Gulf War Syndrome' has fed a growing scandal about the
continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military."

Bernklau continued, "This malady (from uranium munitions), that
thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally
been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the
guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed."

He added, "Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first
Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there
were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number
of 'Disabled Vets' means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers
who served have some form of permanent medical problems!" The
disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it
was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.

"The VA Secretary (Principi) was aware of this fact as far back as
2000," wrote Bernklau. "He, and the Bush administra11,ooo US
soldiers dead from DU.ems tion have been hiding these facts, but
now, thanks to Moret's report, (it) ... is far too big to hide or to
cover up!"

"Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans
Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that 'Gulf Era
Veterans' now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739
Veterans," said Berklau.

"The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a
virtual death sentence," stated Berklau. "Marion Fulk, a nuclear
physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear
Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project,
interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the
2003 Iraq War) as 'spectacular -- and a matter of concern!'"

When asked if the main purpose of using DU was for "destroying
things and killing people," Fulk was more specific: "I would say it
is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people!"

Principi could not be reached for comment prior to deadline.

References

1. Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets: A
death sentence here and abroad" by Leuren Moret,
http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml.

2. Veterans for Constitutional Law, 112 Jefferson Ave., Port
Jefferson NY 11777, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director, (516)
474-4261, fax 516-474-1968.

3. Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter. Email Gary Kohls,
gkohls @ cpinternet.com, with Subscribe" in the subject line.

Email Bob Nichols at bobnichols @ cox.net. --

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Local Muslim leader sues FOX-25 for defamation
By Geoff Mosher
Friday, February 25, 2005
Daily News
From: Yousef Abou-Allaban <Yousefmba@...>

A local Muslim leader and physician whose practice is based in
Walpole is suing FOX-25 News for defamation and violating his civil
rights after a story the network aired claimed he was a member of an
international terrorist organization.

     The lawsuit, filed against the Dedham-based station Wednesday in
Suffolk Superior Court, alleges that Dr. Yousef Abou-Allaban,
chairman of the Board of Directors of the Islamic Society of Boston,
was falsely purported to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an
international terrorist group with branches in more than 70
countries and reputed links to Osama bin Laden.

     "Initially, I was shocked because I felt all of a sudden, I was
portrayed as a criminal for something I'd never done," said Abou-
Allaban, who says he lives in the area but is fearful of disclosing
which town. "I really couldn't believe that the media would do such
a thing."

     According to the lawsuit, the network broadcast an undercover
report Nov. 16 in which Abou-Allaban, a U.S. citizen born in Syria,
was alleged to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

     Maggie Hennessey-Ness, FOX-25 director of Community Affairs,
declined comment on the lawsuit yesterday. "We haven't even seen the
lawsuit," Hennessey-Ness said. "We wouldn't comment on pending
litigation."

     Abou-Allaban is a licensed physician and a certified
psychiatrist. He is the medical director of Boston Health Care Inc.,
a mental health group practice based in Walpole, and an assistant
professor of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical
School in Worcester.

     On Nov. 10, according to Abou-Allaban, FOX investigative
reporter Michael Beaudet, who has been with the network since 1996,
and a cameraman confronted Abou-Allaban as he was heading into his
Walpole office.

     As the camera rolled, the Walpole physician said, Beaudet asked
him whether he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Abou-Allaban
told Beaudet he was late for a patient's appointment and could not
speak with him at the moment.

     Abou-Allaban said he felt "bombarded" by the encounter, which at
least two patients witnessed. "I didn't know what he was talking
about," he said, adding that he came back outside moments later and
gave Beaudet his contact information for an interview.

     In a telephone conversation with Beaudet later that day, Abou-
Allaban said he denied any involvement with the organization. Abou-
Allaban said Beaudet asked to set up an interview that day, but due
to the doctor's busy schedule, he told the reporter he would need a
week's notice.

     On Nov. 12, an Abou-Allaban attorney faxed FOX-25 producer
Jonathan Wells a memo stating that Beaudet had "accosted" his client
two days earlier in the parking lot outside his office building, the
physician said.

     He went on to say the memo states "at least two" of Abou-
Allaban's patients observed the encounter and have "expressed
concern about what they saw" and that "any further action which
interferes with" his relationship with his patients will be "dealt
with accordingly."

     About a week later, FOX-25 included the taped exchange outside
Abou-Allaban's office in a report claiming the news channel had
uncovered a link between the Islamic Society of Boston, which is
constructing a $22 million mosque and cultural center in downtown
Boston, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

     The broadcast claimed the Muslim Brotherhood had arrived in
Boston. It called the organization the grandfather of Islamic
terrorism and said that it had launched the al Qaeda, Hamas and
Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations.

     According to a copy of the lawsuit, stock footage of Osama bin
Laden and a suicide bombing were shown, followed immediately by the
confrontation between Beaudet and Abou-Allaban. His automobile and
license plate number were clearly visible in the footage. Brief
mention was made of the fact that he had denied any affiliation with
the organization.

     FOX's sole source for Abou-Allaban's alleged ties to the Muslim
Brotherhood, the suit says, was Ahmed Elkadi, an elderly man who has
been diagnosed with "significant" dementia. Elkadi was identified as
a former president of the organization's U.S. branch.

     The lawsuit also says the broadcast included a series of
questions Beaudet had purportedly asked Elkadi, a retired physician.
However, no sound or video of Beaudet's questions and Elkadi's
answers were shown.

     The questions, according to the suit, were instead displayed on
the screen and read by Beaudet, who reported that Elkadi
answered "yes" when asked if Abou-Allaban was a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood.

     The suit goes on to say that after the story initially aired,
the exchange between Abou-Allaban and Beaudet became the subject of
a FOX-25 advertisement touting the network's "undercover" team. The
advertisement, which also did not include Abou-Allaban's denial,
aired during primetime hours for several more weeks.

     Abou-Allaban said the ads were "10 to 20 times" more damaging
than the story. He said he still has to explain to professional and
personal acquaintances that he is not a "walking terrorist."

     Soon after the broadcasts, Abou-Allaban's 8-year-old son came
from school terrified and told his father his classmates had teased
him because they saw his father on television with Osama bin
Laden. "I had to explain to my son that I'm not bad," he said.

     In addition to defamation and violation of his civil rights,
Abou-Allaban is alleging he was portrayed in a false light, and that
FOX intentionally caused him emotional distress. He also say FOX
used unfair practices in portraying him in the advertizement to tout
their news organization.

     The defendants in the suit are Beaudet, Wells and Fox Television
Stations Inc., the Delaware corporation with headquarters in Los
Angeles that is the station's license holder.

     The lawsuit states that the defendants should have had "serious
doubts" about the veracity of Elkadi's alleged statement that Abou-
Allaban was a member of Muslim Brotherhood; that they
acted "recklessly" and with "no regard for the truth;" and that
Beaudet confronted the plaintiff in a "threatening, intimidating and
coercive" manner.

     The suit further alleges that FOX's broadcasts were part of
a "relentless campaign by (the network) to defame and disparage
Muslims."

     "This so-called news report panders to the lowest stereotypes of
Muslims and is an example of the new racism that respectable news
organizations should resist," said Abou-Allaban's attorney, Harvey
Schwartz of Rogers, Powers & Schwartz of Boston.


( Geoff Mosher can be reached at gmosher@... or at 781-433-
8368. )

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THE LAW OF POWER, NOT THE POWER OF LAW
Malcom Lagauche
Thursday-Friday, March 3-4, 2005
www.uruknet.info/?p=10105


Let's go back to 1946. An International War Crimes Tribunal had just
been established in Nuremberg, Germany, to punish the aggressors who
began a war. Now, when you open the door to the courtroom, you see
Hermann Goering as the judge. Standing under Goering is the lead
prosecutor, Julius Streicher. His material witnesses include Hess,
Geobbels and Himler.

The defendants are the leaders of the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1944
and the Polish government of September 1, 1939. The leaders of the
uprising are charged with resisting an occupation and the Polish
government officials are charged with shooting back after their
country was invaded by Germany.

All court officials are members of the Nazi Party. They include a
few Poles who lived in Poland for only a short time because they
fled their country of birth and formed Polish opposition groups
while living in Germany, all the time becoming rich because of
German Nazi money being lavishly donated to their cause. The court
states that the defendants will be given a fair trial.

Sound preposterous? Yes it is, but a similar scenario is occurring
right now in Iraq.

The government of the country of Iraq is being put on trial by
quislings and other U.S. apologists. Some judges and jurists have
only recently returned to Iraq. They needed road maps to find
Baghdad.

I say the Iraqi government is being put on trial because, to this
day, not one internationally legitimate action has taken place that
has deemed the current bunch of Iraqis who were recently "elected"
to be a government. To many, the Ba'athists still represent the
Iraqi government.

In 1991, as terms of a cease-fire in the Gulf War, Iraq was ordered
by the U.N. to rid itself of what was deemed "weapons of mass
destruction." It did. By 1992, Iraq told the world, "We don't have
any more." Today, we all know Iraq told the truth.

An embargo that took the lives of almost two million people was in
place from 1991-2003. Today, we know that the embargo was based on
U.S. lies and was wrong.

With all that knowledge, the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003. More
than 100,000 Iraqis died from the military intervention. All killed
because of lies.

Months after the invasion, Secretary-General Kofi Anan of the U.N.
deemed the invasion "illegal."

Let's put all these pieces together. The U.S. attacked and occupied
Iraq without provocation. And, the act has been labeled illegal by
the head of the international governing body that regulates
international legal matters. The infrastructure of Iraq has been
destroyed, along with thousands of houses and buildings. Today,
schools, hospitals, public transportation, utilities, and many other
aspects of daily life are in shambles because of the actions of the
aggressor nations, the U.S. and, to a much lesser extent, Great
Britain.

Now, it's time for a war crimes tribunal. But, the one being set up
is similar to the fairy tale scenario I previously mentioned. The
victims are to be put on trial and the aggressors and their stooges
will run the trial. It's quite simple: things are ass-backwards.

The U.S. has killed some members of the Iraqi government and
kidnapped others. Of those kidnapped is Saddam Hussein, the main cog
in the U.S. 15-year demonizing of Iraq that led the American people
to celebrate a slaughter.

Saddam was illegally kidnapped in December 2003. Since then, he has
been in a secret jail and only allowed to see a lawyer once. His
captors have broken many international laws in keeping him in
isolation.

Over the 15 months he has been imprisoned, Saddam Hussein has been
sent millions of letters from people worldwide offering wishes of
good will. The U.S. has only delivered four to him. They were from
his family and were heavily censored.

Currently, Saddam Hussein's active legal team consists of about two
dozen lawyers. There are more than 2,000 lawyers, from many
countries, working on his behalf behind the scenes for no pay. They
have donated their time and effort because of the travesty about to
occur in Iraq.

Ziad al-Khasawna is the head of the legal team that works out of
Aman, Jordan. The group is called "The Defence and Support Committee
of President Saddam Hussein, His Comrades and All Prisoners of War
and Detainees in Iraq." The organization's name may be long-winded,
but it is relevant considering the illegal incarceration of the
Iraqi government and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.

On February 28, 2005, Al-Khasawna spoke to the Foreign
Correspondents' Club of Japan concerning the plight of President
Saddam Hussein. Al-Jazeera News covered the event and published an
article written by Juoian Ryall on its website on March 1, 2005.
Following are statements given to the assemblage by al-Khasawna:

According to international law, Saddam Hussein and his government
are still the legitimate leadership of Iraq and everything that has
happened since the start of the occupation is illegal.

The oppression of Iraq is not based on any international law but was
made under the pretext that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq confirmed it had no weapons of mass destruction, so that means
that what is going on there now is the law of power, not the power
of law.

The head lawyer then went on to describe how he has not been allowed
to see his client, despite numerous requests. He told the group that
it is difficult to defend Saddam because the occupation authorities
have placed many unreasonable restrictions in the way.

Curtis Doebbler is the leading U.S. attorney on Saddam Hussein's
defense team. Recently, well-known peace activist Ramsey Clark was
added to the squad.

On January 20, 2005, Doebbler issued a statement that covers many of
the illegalities and irregularities of the upcoming trial. Here it
is in its entirety as published by www.uruknet.info:



Update on the Representation of President Saddam Hussein
Dr. Curtis F.J. Doebbler
Member of the Legal Team representing Saddam Hussein


January 20, 2005

Although continued attempts are being made to establish access to
the President of Iraq who has been held without access to a lawyer,
only one meeting has been arranged more than one year after the
detention began. This meeting took place with one of the lawyers of
Committee under strict monitoring (both visual and audio) whereby
two US military officials were present at all times. This meeting
was not under conditions that meet the minimum standards for access
to legal counsel provided by international law (e.g. in article 14
of the ICCPR). Neither has this meeting been followed up with
additional meetings. It is estimated that counsel need at least
several hours of daily contact with their client to be able to
consult with him and to facilitate the preparation of his defense.
Unless such access is immediately provided all charges against the
defendant should be dropped because of the serious violations of his
human rights.

Furthermore, legal counsel's inability to have access to evidence or
formal charges also contributes to the irreparable violation of
defendant's rights. For more than one year, and despite statements
by United States and Iraqi government officials that huge amounts of
evidence exist, no access to any of this evidence has been granted
to defense counsel.

Finally, legal counsel for the President continue to dispute the
legitimacy of the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the following reasons:

1. The tribunal is the result of an illegal invasion of Iraq which
unequivocally violated international law, namely article 2(4) of the
Charter of the United Nations. Attempts to justify this use of force
as somehow justified by Iraq's reaction to UN Security Council
resolutions are inconsistent with statements of the majority of both
the permanent members of the UNSC and the total membership of this
body and are devoid of any legal basis. To satisfy basic principles
of justice any court concerned with trials in Iraq that have
resulted from the United States' illegal use of force must be able
and willing to try American's who have committed crimes against
peace, including American President George W. Bush.

2. The tribunal is illegal because it is constituted outside the
ordinary Iraqi judicial and as the result of steps by the United
States as the occupying power in Iraq to interfere with the existing
judicial power in Iraq in a manner that renders it liable to violate
international human rights and humanitarian law. An occupying power
is forbidden from destroying the judicial of an occupied territory
and replacing it with a judicial with allegiance to itself that will
not prosecute its own soldiers who have violated international law.
Nevertheless, the United States did just this in vetting all Iraqi
judges for their political opinions and affiliations and removing
those judges who disagreed with the occupiers' political opinion.
This action contravenes general international law that provides that
an occupation is not sovereignty and therefore prohibits the
occupier from changing the institutions of government when the
changes contribute to the violation of international law.

3. The extraordinary nature of the Iraqi Special Tribunal is
evidenced by the fact that it would have been illegal even under the
Iraqi Administrative Law of 8 March 2004, except for the special
dispensation which is given in that law. Despite the dispensation,
however, the Special Tribunal does not meet the minimum standards of
international law required for a fair trial and is thus illegitimate.

4. The Iraqi Special Tribunal does not meet the requirement of being
a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal. It is not
competent because it has been established by an occupying power in
violation of international law as an attempt to usurp the
sovereignty of the Iraqi people. It is not independent because it
his been established by the United States as the occupying power and
not a sovereign Iraqi government and because it lacks the authority
and will to trial United States citizens who have violated
international law by illegally invading Iraq. It is not impartial
because the judges remain anonymous and "faceless judges" have been
held to be prima facie violation of the requirement of impartiality.

5. The Iraqi Special Tribunal also violates international law
because it denies defendant's basic fair trial and due process
rights. Defendants have not been able to meet their lawyers in any
meaningful way. Evidence of torture and mistreatment of defendants
has not been investigated. Defendants have been denied facilities to
prepare their defense. Defendants have not been charged. Defendants
have been denied access to any of the alleged evidence against them.
All of these failures constitute violations of defendants' rights.

6. Only a tribunal created by international mandate and with truly
impartial judges sitting can try a head of state who has been
captured pursuant to an illegal invasion of his country. The Iraqi
Special Tribunal is not such a tribunal and constitutes a serious
violation of international law.

At the end of December 2004, Mr. Ramsey Clark formally joined the
defense team efforts. He will be responsible for legal action taken
in the United States and contacts with the press in the United
States. He will also advise the legal team being assembled in Jordan
under the auspices of ISNAD.

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Report: London mayor brands Sharon a war criminal
Haaretz, Israel
04/03/2005
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/548073.html


The dispute between London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Britain's
Jewish leaders was reignited Thursday night when Livingstone branded
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a war criminal, the Independent reported
on Friday.


Livingstone launched a provocative critique of Israel with
accusations of "ethnic cleansing" and demonizing Muslims before
calling for the imprisonment of Sharon, according to the British
daily.

He also claimed in his article that the Israeli government presented
a "wholly distorted picture of racism and religious discrimination
in Europe in order to convey the impression that Jews suffer most
discrimination.

"The reality is that the great bulk of racist attacks in Europe
today are on black people, Asians and Muslims - and they are the
primary targets of the extreme right."

The comments were made two weeks after the London mayor
controversially likened a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration
camp guard.

Livingstone has refused to apologize for his comments, repeatedly
emphasising his anti-racist stance and denying that his words were
anti-Semitic, the Independent reported.

His comments on Israel came to light in a written response to
criticism levelled at him by the Board of Deputies of British Jews
which was published in Friday's Guardian.

"Israel's expansion includes ethnic cleansing," he
wrote. "Palestinians who had lived in that land for centuries were
driven out by systematic violence and terror aimed at ethnically
cleansing what became a large part of the Israeli state."

He added: "Today the Israeli government continues seizures of
Palestinian land for settlements, military incursions into
surrounding countries and denial of the right of Palestinians
expelled by terror to return.

"Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who should
be in prison not in office."

In Israel, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the mayor's
comments "aren't even worthy of an Israeli response."

His comments are unlikely to ease already fraught relations between
the mayor and the Jewish community in Britain.

Tensions came to light last year when Livingstone invited the Muslim
cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi to speak at a conference in London, the
Independent reported.

However, at the crux of the current conflict are comments made last
month by the mayor to Finegold, a reporter at the Evening Standard.
His refusal to apologise for his remarks led to a media storm that
culminated in the demand by Zvi Heifetz, Israel's ambassador to
Britain, for an apology for "abusing" the memory of the six million
Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

"By using such flippant language, Livingstone not only seriously
abused the memories of all those Jews who survived the concentration
camps, but also the British troops who died fighting the Nazis and
their families," he said.

Livingstone has stood by his decision that he was not going to
apologise for his words. At one stage, he said that his words
were "not intended to cause offence" and had no intention of
trivialising the Holocaust. But he added: "The form of words I have
used are right. I have nothing to apologise for."

On Thursday, there was again no sign of apology in Livingstone's
comments.

A spokesman for the Board of Deputies told The Guardian: "Once again
the mayor has shown an inability to understand and show
consideration for the Jewish community."

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In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore.


America by the numbers
by Michael Ventura
The Austin Chronicle
http://www.citypages.com/databank/26/1264/article12985.asp


02/03/05 "ICH"  - - No concept lies more firmly embedded in our
national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the
greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous
advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office
seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In
fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're
an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a
manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from
its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is
ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really
live in:

The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York
Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical
literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth.
Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a
day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).

"The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with
less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of
the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The
European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly
Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).

Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that
American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training
(NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
"The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and
engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D)
expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

"Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest
producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).

Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation.
The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT,
Dec. 21, 2004).

Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last
year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first
time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China.
Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56
percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21,
2004). We're not the place to be anymore.

The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in
terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In
the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the
United States spends more per capita for health care than any other
nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get
lots, lots less.

"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in
the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens"
(The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South
Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're
keeping.

Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American
deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on
9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

"U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the
developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream,
p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet
it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood
poverty.

Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S.
households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to
feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went
hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22,
2004).

The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba
scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America
than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is
murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
"Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead
last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in
the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth
rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent"
(The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year
than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.

"Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500
rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The
European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best
companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European"
(The European Dream, p.69).

"Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are
European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is
the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European.
In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are
European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American
engineering and construction company is included among the world's
top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and
Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively,
in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European
companies...are first and second, and European companies make up
five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The
European Dream, p.68).

The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last
decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14,
2005).

Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment
insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers
are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).
Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our
government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep
mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and
little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT,
Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China,
because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.

Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as
the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's
largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and
tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest
beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result,
while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion
trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT,
Dec. 12, 2004).
Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible
voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's
more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't
show for their election, no country in the world will think that
election legitimate.
One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of
all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10,
2004).

"Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies,
videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).

"Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to
get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).

Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes
justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19,
2004).

"Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last
year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

"The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by
the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies
have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17,
2004).

No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10
anymore. Not even close.

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt,
and delusion.

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NSC directs curb on hate literature
------------------------------------------------------------------
ISLAMABAD, Feb 28: The National Security Council on Monday
discussed ways of promoting religious moderation and curbing the
publication and spread of hate literature.

It also reviewed the law and order situation in the country with
particular focus on Balochistan and Northern Areas.....(APP)

http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top2.htm&date=20050301

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US Consulate in Jerusalem Ignored Plea to Stop Israeli Assault on
Palestinian-American Family

Palestinian American Calls for US Investigation into Israeli Assault
By Genevieve Cora Fraser
Thursday, March 03, 2005
RamallahOnline.com

Amr Salah, a United States citizen living in Massachusetts asks for
your help in demanding a formal investigation into the deaths of his
father and brother at the hands of 1,000 Israeli troops. Dr. Khalid
Salah, age 51, and his 16 year old son, Mohammed were shot and
killed by Israeli Defense Forces on July 6, 2004 in their home in
the city of Nablus in the Israeli Occupied West Bank. Throughout the
hours of assault the Salahs were huddled together in a corner of the
apartment, contacting relatives on a mobile phone for help. Despite
an urgent call to the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, Consul General
David Pearce nor anyone else at the consulate intervened.

Dr. Salah received his doctorate in engineering at the University of
California, Davis in 1988 and was a member of the Palestine-Israeli
Peace Association at An Najah University in Nablus, where he was a
Professor of Electrical Engineering. Both Dr. Salah and his wife
Salam had permanent US resident status and had reluctantly made the
decision to leave Nablus. They were preparing to move to the United
States at the time of the assault. Their daughter Diana and son Amr
were born in California and are US citizens. The Salahs returned to
Nablus in 1989.

According to Amr, "My dad was a very gentle man who loved his
family, his work and his community. Despite living with war for many
years he remained a man of peace and often told me that Israelis
were his cousins and that he prayed that Israelis and Palestinians
could live together in harmony." Amr Salah attends Middlesex College
in Lowell, MA where he studies computer science. He plans to become
an computer engineer like his father.

"My Dad had turned down a good job offer in Silicon Valley. He
wanted to teach in his home town and help those who did not have the
educational opportunities that he had," Amr continued. "Despite the
curfews, closings and almost constant military action in Nablus
during the last 15 years, my Dad managed to stimulate young minds
with his love of science and, more importantly, with his love of
peace. My Dad hated violent words and acts and he would not tolerate
hateful words, even against the Israelis who occupied our city."

Amr alleges that his father and brother were innocent victims of
aggressive and reckless Israeli action. Shortly after the attack,
his mother and sister phoned to describe the circumstances of the
deaths of his father and brother. Amr was told that in the early
hours of July 6, his mother and father and sister Diana (22), and
brothers, Mohammed (16) and Ali (11) were asleep in their home when
they became trapped during an Israeli military pursuit of two armed
men. Their apartment building was attacked with rockets and machine
guns during the first hours of the Israeli action, he said.

"My family somehow survived this initial attack without injury and
following an Israeli command to evacuate the building, my father
spoke to the soldiers in English to tell them that their damaged
door could not be opened," Amr explained.

"The soldiers then fired through a window in the top part of the
front door and my father, and then my brother, Mohammed was both
shot. My Dad died instantly from a chest wound and Mohammed was
wounded by a bullet in the mouth when he came to help my Dad," he
continued.

"The Israeli forces then entered the apartment and forcibly removed
my mother, Diana and Ali and, despite my Mom's pleading not to
abandon him, my brother Mohammed was left by the Israelis and he
subsequently bled to death." His mother further reported that there
was no attempt to gain medical help for Mohammed or to allow local
ambulances access to the area, and that the Israeli soldiers
ridiculed and verbally assaulted her.

"The Israelis attacked an apartment building full of innocent people
with tanks, helicopters and rockets and then killed my father and
brother after they had caught the two men that they were chasing,"
Amr said.

According to eye-witness accounts, the militants were isolated and
killed in a courtyard and grounds area near the apartment building
occupied by the Salah family. Israeli sharpshooters were stationed
on rooftops and balconies throughout the neighborhood, and residents
of the apartment building had been evacuated, except for the Salahs.
The full military assault continued on the family's apartment even
after the militants had been killed.

"Newspaper reports of the incident made it quite clear that the
Israeli military were actively evacuating their wounded at the time
of the shooting," Amr stated. "When my mother returned to our home
three days later the building was damaged further from Israeli
attempts at demolition and my family home had been extensively
machine-gunned to destroy the contents."

I was first contacted by Diana Salah shortly after a memorial poem I
wrote, "Palestinian-American Family Ensnared in Israeli Death Trap,"
was published. When they learned that I planned to visit Palestine
to attend a conference held by the Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian
Peace, the family was determined that I visit.

In January, on the six-month anniversary of the attack, I met the
Salah family in Nablus. Salam now lives with her mother and sister
Fatema, in her childhood home and where she lived during her
courtship, situated on the South Mountain directly across from
Khalid's family home on the North Mountain. Accompanied by her
daughter Diana, Salam drove us in her deceased husband's car to the
site of the attack, up high on Saka Street along the south side
overlooking the city. It was her first venture outside her mother's
home since her husband and son were brutally and willfully murdered,
I was told. Salam has since lost over 40 pounds and her features
have become gaunt. Though the front door and windows were replaced,
bullet and mortar holes are still visible on the porch and
throughout the apartment. Blood stained rugs are rolled and Khalid's
and Mohammed's blood has soaked deep into tiles. She stated that
Israeli tanks fired from vantage points on Saka Street as well as
from the streets of the city below.

Salam and Diana led me into the kitchen where all the pots and pans
are riddled by bullets as well as the cupboards, refrigerator, floor
and ceiling. In the bathroom, I saw beautiful, hand-painted floral
tiles shattered along with the bathroom fixtures. The parent's and
children's bedrooms are riddled by bullet holes and their clothes
pock marked and shredded. The computer in the boy's room is also
shot-up as well as posters along the wall. Salam continues to pay
rent on the apartment and intends to keep it as a memorial to the
deaths of her beloved husband and son. She also confided she cannot
bear to have their blood further desecrated by tossing away the
tiles and discarding the rugs.

Salam said neighbors informed her that prior to the attack, the
Israelis had checked out the neighborhood and knew the names and
backgrounds of the residents and the exact location of the Salahs,
including the fact that Khalid was a well known peace activist. Two
physicians who also lived in the apartment building were evacuated
during the attack but prevented from treating Dr. Salah and his son,
despite pleas from Salam.

"Not once has anyone from the US Consulate's office in Jerusalem
contacted me to help or send someone to witness what was done,
despite the fact that Khalid had permanent US resident status, and
two of my children are American citizens with US passports," she
said. "No one from the Nablus Municipality or police has examined
the apartment nor has any effort been made to investigate the
deaths, despite that fact that the assault was widely reported by
the media." Salam finds unbearable the knowledge that one of their
relatives had successfully placed a call to the US Consulate during
the attack. They could have stopped the assault but they chose to do
nothing. They are partly to blame for the deaths of her husband and
son, she believes.

The Israeli paper Haaretz published an article in their weekly
magazine section, "Death in a Cemetery" by Gideon Levy that
described the military assault in vivid and gruesome detail. Salam
and I sat on her mother's living room couch as we leafed through the
article and others written in Arabic plus keepsakes from the
memorials and many tributes to her husband and son. Glossy posters
of the Salah martyrs are posted in the hallway, living room and
dining room as well as the bedrooms of the home. Salam dresses in
widows' black and wears a leather strap around her neck with photos
of Khalid and Mohammed. It is a struggle for her to focus on
anything but her loss though she is concerned that her surviving
children not be permanently scarred by the tragedy.

Though her grief is obvious, Diana is a bright, vivacious and
attractive young woman, quite popular with many friends. She appears
to be adjusting, but Ali is 11 years old and remains deeply affected
and somewhat withdrawn since the loss of his father and brother. He
too has many cousins and friends who shower him with attention and
seem to understand, for the children of Nablus are no stranger to
death and live with nightly assaults and rampages by the Israeli
armed forces. These assaults have continued since the election of
Abbas and the so-called truce, despite Israeli claims to the
contrary.

In the evening Salam and I watched a video that had been dropped off
by a friend of TV footage of the attack, scenes in the hospital
where the bodies of Khalid and Mohammed and the militants had been
brought, the separate funerals, and graveside observances. She is
determined that those responsible for the deaths of her loved ones
will someday be brought to justice.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Palestine was stolen - that's why the Middle East is in conflict

by Jennifer Winkler

Most people don't understand why the Middle East is plagued by
violence. It is because Israel stole vast land and property from the
Palestinians beginning in 1948 and continuing today. Among
the "achievements" of the security wall underway is further theft.

The installation of Israel in Palestine was entirely wrong. That the
United Nations, Britain or France "gave" Palestine for a Jewish
homeland is abhorrent: it was not theirs to give. (And UN "approval"
was obtained under duress: UN member countries were threatened with
loss of trade or aid if they didn't vote for the partition, which
conferred on Jews 54% of Palestine's land though they owned only 7%.
Read the details at http://www.al-bushra.org/America/ch9.html.)

Then, through the acts of Jewish terrorists, 700,000 people were
terrified into fleeing their properties. (Read at
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-
Remembered/Story674.html and http://www.al-
bushra.org/America/ch9.html .) They haven't been compensated for
their enormous losses. So naturally the Palestinians fight.

That their ancient ancestors had once lived there does not make it
legitimate for Jews to wrest the land from the people who since had
made it their home. Except of a scant portion, there had been
centuries of discontinuation in Jewish possession.

That the Old Testament decreed it is inadequate: the Old Testament
is not the universal book of man. (In any case the Bible
was "doctored" in the 20th century to strengthen the position of
Israel. Read more at
http://www.historicist.com/articles2/zionscofield2.htm.)

That the Jews were victimized during World War II is inadequate: one
victimization doesn't justify another. And that they had no home of
their own is inadequate: other people should not be dispossessed of
their homes in order to provide them one.


Jennifer Winkler

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Going Nuclear – Iran's Tug of War with America

by Dr. Habib Siddiqui

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

President Bush recently visited Europe in a five-day fence-mending
journey. Everywhere he went, if there was a persistent theme it was
that `Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.' In that he reached
agreement with leaders of the EU countries.[1] On the final leg of
his tour he even tried to persuade his post-9/11 on-again and off-
again `buddy' Vladimir Putin in the Slovak capital of Bratislava
into not selling nuclear fuel to Iran. Putin reminded Bush that he
had no proof that Iran wanted to acquire the nuclear technology for
anything but peaceful means.



Bush also tried to sell his version of `freedom' and `democracy' to
the Russian leader. There again he miserably failed to induce Putin,
who in his turn did not fail to mention that Russia would follow its
own version of the both, and did not need any lecturing on the
subject of democracy from someone who would not have graced
presidency if were it not for those appointed judges in the Supreme
Court that decided the case (four years ago), in spite of trailing
Gore in popular vote counting.[2]



Since Bush first came to power, he and his neocon advisers (most of
whom are Zionists) set up an agenda that has been doggedly anti-
Iran, alleging the latter to belong to an `axis of evil.' Iraq is
now under the U.S. occupation, in spite of not possessing the WMDs,
and North Korea has declared that it has nuclear bombs. This
declaration does not seem to alarm the Bushies as much as the
perceived threat from a `nuclear' Iran. But why, one ponders, when
North Korea (and not Iran) is closer to the USA?



It is ludicrous to think that America, with the largest stockpile of
nuclear arsenals and a yearly military budget of more than $500
billion (almost equal to the military budget of the rest of the
world), is afraid of Iran (whose military expenditure is less than a
percent of America's military budget), even if the latter were to
develop nuclear weapons.[3]



The reason for America's agitation is obvious: Israel. Everything
the neocons and the `Amen Corner' in the Capitol Hill can think or
dream about vis-à-vis the Middle East involves Israel.[4] They are
not serious about a nuclear-free Middle East but about a nuclear-
free and emasculated Arab and Muslim world that could never
challenge the Zionist state. Obviously, no one in Washington ever
dares to question why the rogue state has not signed the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory; or about an
inspection of Israel's main installations at Dimona that house a
large arsenal of around 200 nuclear missiles, as most independent
analyst believe.[5] That is the level of evil, two-facedness with
which Washington has sealed its image!



Thus, when Iran says that it wants to acquire the nuclear technology
to provide the much-needed cheap power (and clean-air) to its
people, the friends of Israel in Washington are troubled. They know
that Iran's becoming a nuclear power would alter the imbalance of
power in the Middle East, curbing the tactical advantage of Israel.
[6] It would be a stabilizing force in a much-troubled area.
Therefore, they complain: would not Iran's becoming a nuclear power
threaten our ally (and rampart) in the Middle East? They
hypocritically argue: "Why should Iran go for nuclear power, when it
sits on a sea of oil?"[7] Interestingly, when asked about the
rationale behind America's (which also sits on a large sea of oil)
own relentless obsession with nuclear technology, they don't have
any satisfactory answer.[8] If it was the threat from nations on the
other side of the Pacific and the Atlantic, should not Iran have at
least the same right to protect itself, now that it is surrounded on
all sides by hostile, pro-American satellite states (let alone
Israel, with a history of aggression against Muslim states)?



After all, whether we like it or not, nuclear power has acted as a
deterrent in many places. For example, since possessing the bomb,
India and China have not fought a single war. Nor has there been a
major conflict with Pakistan after the latter also acquired the
bomb. For France, the nuclear deterrent symbolized the country's
independence from Washington and, at one stage, from the European
Community. Truly, there has not been a single world war since
America dropped bombs in Japan.



Ayatullah Ali Khamenie, Iranian supreme leader, declared on November
5, 2004 during a Friday Khutbah that `developing, producing or
stockpiling nuclear weapons" is haram under Islam. While such a
profound statement should have been sufficient to stop the
controversy, the fact that Washington has not relented from its
accusations show the level of enmity she holds against Iran, since
the hostage crisis.



For several months, the policy planners inside the Pentagon have
been studying three major tactical options: full-scale of invasion
of Iran, surgical strikes of Iranian nuclear and missile
installations, and surrogate strike by Israel – modeled along the
lines of Osirak. None of these options are considered viable for
they would increase the prospect of counter-strikes on American
assets around the world.[9] According to investigative journalist
Seymour Hersh, Pentagon planners are considering covert actions
against Iran[10]. In a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia's
Capitol Theater in the Washington State, Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine
turned UNSCOM weapons inspector (an anti-war activist now), told
that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June
2005, and claimed that the U.S. manipulated the results of the
recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq[11]. Nothing would surprise me with
the entourage that surrounds President Bush![12]



On the day of Presidential inauguration, January 20, '05, vice
president Dick Cheney, in an interview aired on MSNBC, said, "You
look around the world of potential trouble spots, Iran is right at
the top of the list. Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy
that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis
might well decide to act first and let the rest of the world worry
about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards."[13] Is Mr. Cheney
giving the cue to Israel for preemptive strikes? Is there a
connection with the recent appointment of a former air force general
to the chief of staff position in Israel?[14] How is Iran on the top
of the potential trouble list compared to so many more deserving
contenders for the title, including Israel and the United States,
responsible for so much of human suffering since Sharon and Bush
came to power?[15] Who, one wonders, can teach new tricks to an old
dog or a prejudiced man to forego chauvinism?



On February 27, '05 to the dismay of the Bush Administration, Russia
signed an agreement to sell nuclear fuel for Iran's only nuclear
reactor at Bushehr, in southern Iran. The first consignment of
enriched uranium would be dispatched to Iran from Siberia in the
middle of the next year. The deal helps Russia in several ways,
e.g., the hard cash that it badly needs, the future bargaining power
from the G-7 countries (especially from the USA) and resurrecting
its image as an alternative world power willing to stand up to the
bullying and buying power of Washington. And the agreement could not
have come at a better time for Russia given the fact that in much of
the Muslim world there is now so much loathing and apprehension
about Bush's motives and moves. The latter's illegal invasion and
occupation of Iraq has made the country the most insecure place on
earth.[16] So, the deal helps Russia to gravitate the Muslim world
towards her. By all measures, it is a win-win situation for Russia.
And, if Putin is smart, he should not bargain this new image for a
shortsighted tactic that would only seal his nation's fate as a
double-crossing partner. (It is in Russia's interest that it should
look eastward and try to encourage the formation of an Asian Union,
modeled similar to that of the European Union. A multi-polar world
is truly more secure than a mono-polar world left to the mercy of a
Hulagu Khan wannabe.)



The deal with Iran stipulates that Russia will take the spent fuel
back home, a move that guarantees prevention of nuclear
proliferation. Yet, many in Washington are upset. John McCain, the
maverick senator from Arizona, and a leading Republican member of
the Senate Armed Services Committee, accused Putin of carrying
out `aberrational' policies and acting `like a spoiled child.' He
said that Russia should not be invited to the G8 summit in
Gleneagles in July. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham echoed
McCain: "It is time for the Russian government to pay a price for
empowering the bad guys and slipping back away from democracy."[17]
I am not at all surprised by such reactions from friends of the
rogue state. They epitomize hypocrisy and only prove that Muslims
cannot trust them for a balanced and fair foreign policy.



For the last few months, western countries have been playing the
roles of good cop and bad cop with Iran. While some progress has
been made to lessen the potential nuclear crisis diplomatically
though the mediating efforts of Britain, France and Germany, the
latest report from Reuters implies that Bush is considering joining
the Europeans in offering Iran incentives. The incentives may
include permission, long denied by the USA, for Iran to join the
WTO. If the report is true, offering economic incentives for Iran to
halt development of its nuclear program would mark a significant
shift in US policy, one not welcome in some Washington circles[18]



History is replete with examples of Western duplicity against Muslim
nations. Today it is the USA, yesterday it was France, Italy and
Britain, and the day before yesterday Spain, Holland and Russia.
And the tragic cycle of betrayal goes on, sometimes with newer
faces. The nations of the West must earn their trust before the
Muslim world will rely on them.



Iran has a long and vivacious bazaar culture that predisposes it to
be a cautious and good faith negotiator. Hopefully, an honorable and
just solution to this crisis can and will be found that won't cost
human lives.



March 3, 2005



---------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050223/ap_on_re_eu/bush

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4292807.stm;

     http://www.nj.com/newsflash/washington/index.ssf?/base/politics-
4/1109255657174350.xml&storylist=washington#continue; see also PBS

     TV discussion "Washington Week" with Gwen Ifill..

[3] See the CIA Fact sheet for comparable statistics. Iran's
military expenditure in 2003 was reported by CIA to be $4.3 billion.
According to the World Bank database (September, 2004) Iran's total
GDP in 2003 was $137 billion, which is less than America's military
budget; America's GDP was $10.9 trillion. (See also:
http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/mex_major_spenders.pdf)

[4] Philip Zelikow, a former member of a top-level White House
intelligence group PFIAB, speaking on a panel of foreign policy
experts at the University of Virginia on September 10, 2002,
said, "Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against
us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat is and actually has
been since 1990 – it's the threat against Israel." (See the article:
Iraq was invaded `to protect Israel'  – US official,  Asia Times,
Feb. 15, 2005 for details.)

[5] See, e.g., http://www.aljazeerah.info/4%20o/Israeli%20Nuclear%
20Terrorism%20By%20Steve%20Jones.htm.

[6] See, e.g., Roger Howard's articles:"Why Israel Really Fears
Iranian Nukes"  - parts 1 and 2, November  27, 2004 and February 26,
2005,

       http://www.antiwar.com.

[7] See Senator McCain's remark reported by Reuters, Feb. 27, 2005
(Sen. McCain: Bar Russia from G8 Over Iran Deal by Randall
Mikkelsen).

[8] USGS estimates the identified reserves of oil in the USA at 51
billion barrels (the comparative figure for Iran is 69.2). The
undiscovered oil in the USA is estimated at 44 billion barrels
(Iran's figure is 22 billion barrels, nearly half of the USA) (see:


http://energy.er.usgs.gov/products/papers/World_oil/oil/nam_oil_table
.htm). The total oil consumption in the USA in 2003 was approx. 20
million barrels/day.  See also:

http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/oil/. One should not also be
oblivious of the fact that America caps its own reservoirs from
producing oil while clamoring for cheap oil from outside. Truly, if
prudent methods for secondary and tertiary oil recoveries are
practiced in its oil rigs, America need not be dependent on Middle
Eastern oil for at least a couple of decades. During primary oil
recovery only about 20% (maximum) oil is recovered, leaving behind
almost 80%. (For a detailed study on viscous fingering, miscible and
immiscible fluid displacement processes in disordered porous media,
see this author's papers in the Journal of Physics and Chemical
Engineering Science, published between 1983-91.)

[9] Rep. Jim Leach, "Get Real: The Case for Restraint with Iran,"
www.antiwar.com, November 30, 2004.

[10] See Seymour Hersh's article "The coming wars: What the Pentagon
can now do in secret" in the New Yorker magazine, Jan. 24-31, 2005
for a detailed discussion on the subject.

[11] See Scott Ritter's comment:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/02/1722945.php. A recent visit to
Algeria by Hassan Rohani, secretary-general of Iran's Supreme
National Security Council, was aimed at "sending a clear message to
Washington that Iran is ready to defend its right to possess nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes,"

       (http://www.wpherald.com/Middle_East/storyview.php?
StoryID=20050227-074506-2580r).

[12] Quoting a government consultant with close ties to the
Pentagon, Seymour Hersh writes: "The civilians in the Pentagon want
to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure
as possible." He also writes, "… the Defense Department civilians,
under the leadership of Douglas Feith, have been working with
Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential
nuclear, chemical-weapons, and missile targets inside Iran. …
Rumsfeld and two of his key deputies, Stephen Cambone, the Under-
secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and Army Lieutenant General
William G. (Jerry) Boykin, will be part of the chain of command for
the new commando operations. Relevant members of the House and
Senate intelligence committees have been briefed on the Defense
Department's expanded role in covert affairs, a Pentagon adviser
assured me, …" (Op. cit.)

[13] Cheney says: Iran tops U.S. list, warns Israel, Jan. 20, 2005
(Reuters).

[14] General Dan Halutz was chosen by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz
on Feb. 22 to become the new chief of staff.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=676920&C=mideast

[15] Since September 29, 2000, Israeli Defense Forces have murdered
nearly 3600 Palestinians, and injured another 30,000. Bush, in his
turn, has killed more than 100,000 civilian Iraqis, mostly women and
children. The death toll of Afghans is estimated to be close to ten
thousand.

[16] As I write this article (February 28, 2005), more than 115
Iraqis died in a mysterious car bomb, with few hundreds injured. Per
international law, the protection of the people in the `occupied
territories' is the responsibility of the occupying force. In this,
Bush has terribly failed.

[17] CNN's "Late Edition," February 27, 2005.

[18] During Bush's visit to Europe, he said that he wants diplomacy
to succeed, while at the same time threatening that `all the options
are on  the table.' Interestingly (and not surprisingly), the latter
theme was articulated by Patrick Clawson, deputy director of WINEP
(a supporter of the Administration), in a Dec. 16, 2004 essay –
Carrots for Iran? Lessons from Libya – where he wrote: "If in fact
Europe wants to reach a trans-Atlantic consensus about Iran, then
Europe would do well to remind Iran that the military option remains
on the table." (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?
CID=2205)

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Mother of slain soldier says his life 'wasted' in Iraq:
The Associated Press - KNOXVILLE, Tenn.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=55921



The grieving Tennessee mother of a soldier who died in a shootout at
a Baghdad checkpoint says the war in Iraq "wasted" his life.

Pfc. Daniel Anderson, a 29-year-old native of Corpus Christi, Texas,
died Sunday while serving with the 3rd Infantry Division based out
of Fort Stewart, Ga.

"He was there two weeks and three days. I feel like his life was
wasted," Patricia Brady said Wednesday. "A lot of people say he's a
hero, but to me his life was wasted along with many others."

Brady said her son had visited her and other family in Cocke County,
about 45 miles southeast of Knoxville, frequently over the past
several years. She spoke at length with him about his decisions to
join the Army and then to go to Iraq.

"I am very much a pacifist," Brady said. "Danny knew this, but it
was his decision."

Brady said a casualty assistance officer said her son was manning
the checkpoint when a car with five occupants tried to speed
through. Gunfire erupted and Anderson was killed.

Anderson leaves behind a wife, a 6-year-old stepson and a 6-month-
old son, Noah.

"She isn't taking it very well," Brady said of her daughter-in-
law. "I've only talked to her once, but I know it's been very
difficult for her."

Brady said her son's body is being returned from Middle East for a
funeral in Corpus Christi.

"We've been fighting war for how many thousands of years for peace
and look where we are," she said. "We have to learn how to get
along."

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Maximum pain is aim of new US weapon
05 March 2005
New Scientist
David Hambling

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/mech-tech/mg18524894.500

THE US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a
bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for
use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain
researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been
used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be
used for torture.

"I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research,"
says Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and
Westminster Hospital in London. "Even if the use of temporary severe
pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not
believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are
unknown."

The research came to light in documents unearthed by the Sunshine
Project, an organisation based in Texas and in Hamburg, Germany,
that exposes biological weapons research. The papers were released
under the US's Freedom of Information Act.

One document, a research contract between the Office of Naval
Research and the University of Florida in Gainsville, is
entitled "Sensory consequences of electromagnetic pulses emitted by
laser induced plasmas". It concerns so-called Pulsed Energy
Projectiles (PEPs), which fire a laser pulse that generates a
burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a
person (New Scientist, 12 October 2002, p 42). The weapon, destined
for use in 2007, could literally knock rioters off their feet.

According to a 2003 review of non-lethal weapons by the US Naval
Studies Board, which advises the navy and marine corps, PEPs
produced "pain and temporary paralysis" in tests on animals. This
appears to be the result of an electromagnetic pulse produced by the
expanding plasma which triggers impulses in nerve cells. The new
study, which runs until July and will be carried out with
researchers at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, aims to
optimise this effect. The idea is to work out how to generate a
pulse which triggers pain neurons without damaging tissue.

The contract, heavily censored before release, asks researchers to
look for "optimal pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor
activation" - in other words, cause the maximum pain possible.
Studies on cells grown in the lab will identify how much pain can be
inflicted on someone before causing injury or death.

New Scientist contacted two researchers working on the project.
Martin Richardson, a laser expert at the University of Central
Florida, refused to comment.

Brian Cooper, an expert in dental pain at the University of Florida,
distanced himself from the work, saying "I don't have anything
interesting to convey.

I was just providing some background for the group." His name
appears on a public list of the university's research projects next
to the $500,000-plus grant.

John Wood of University College London, an expert in how the brain
perceives pain, says the researchers involved in the project should
face censure. "It could be used for torture," he says, "the
[researchers] must be aware of this."

Amanda Williams, a clinical psychologist at University College
London, fears that victims risk long-term harm. "Persistent pain can
result from a range of supposedly non-destructive stimuli which
nevertheless change the functioning of the nervous system," she
says. She is concerned that studies of cultured cells will fall
short of demonstrating a safe level for a plasma burst. "They cannot
tell us about the pain and psychological consequences of such a
painful experience."


+++++++

Chinese Axiom:
When things are investigated, knowledge is extended. When knowledge
is extended, the will becomes sincere. When the will is sincere, the
mind is correct. When the mind is correct, the self is cultivated.
--Confucius


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Wendy Campbell:  About Ernst Zundel and Zionism

By Wendy Campbell


My political activist colleague and boyfriend Mark Green encouraged
me to attend the rally in support of freeing political prisoner
Ernst Zundel in Los Angeles on February 9, 2005.  At first I
hesitated and tried to find an excuse not to go, because this is a
very hot issue, since it involves the Zionists' sacred cow, the
Holocaust.  Mark could not go because he had a funeral to attend.

Since I happened to be in LA at the time, and the place where they
were having the rally (in front of the Canadian embassy in downtown
LA) was actually on the way to where I was going, I realized that I
could not find any real reason NOT to go, besides confronting the
fear of being labeled a "Holocaust Denier" and "Neo-Nazi" in the
Zionized mainstream media, which is exactly what happened.

However, my desire for freedom of speech and freedom for Palestine
and freedom from Zionist tyranny overcame my fear of the ZioNazi
smear campaign against me.

The fact is that the Zionists are the new "Nazis" or "neo-Nazis"
today.  It seems quite obvious to me, and to many others.

Who is getting away with taking away the freedom of speech with
regards to the Holocaust and to apartheid Israel and the racist
ideology of Zionism?

The Zionists.

Who is getting away with stealing the land of non-Jewish indigenous
people in Palestine-Israel today?

The Zionists.

Who is getting away with rounding up thousands of non-Jewish
indigenous people in Palestine-Israel, putting entire cities under
curfew, bulldozing their homes, shooting randomly into crowds,
dropping one-ton bombs on crowded apartment buildings in order to
kill one militant, and so on and so forth?

The Zionists, the Zionists, the Zionists. That's who!

Who is pushing  the USA to go for endless war in the Middle East,
for Israel's "security" and more accurately, Israel's imperialistic
desire for a Greater Israel?

The Zionists!

Who is paying for this war?  Americans, with their tax dollars, and
some with their lives!  Palestinians and Iraqis--- with their lives!!

Why is Ernst Zundel in jail?

Because the Zionists want him there, since he has publicly
questioned aspects of their favorite obsession and political war-
time propaganda tool: the Holocaust.

Ostensibly he was arrested and hauled off for "overstaying his
tourist visa".  But it was because of Zionist pressure that he was
arrested and shipped off to Canada where he had lived previously,
and where there are LAWS against publicly questioning the Zionist
version of the Holocaust.  Since then Zundel has been in SOLITARY
CONFINEMENT WITH THE LIGHTS TURNED ON FOR 24 HOURS A DAY because of
his past "criminal record" of questioning the Zionists' version of
the Holocaust.  He has been denied medical treatment, and often his
mail. He is not allowed to wear shoes in his cold little cell.  All
because of his public questioning of the Zionists' version of the
Holocaust.  This is outrageous!

Compare that to the hundreds of Israeli spies caught in the USA
around the time of 9-11 who were quickly deported to freedom in
Israel on "visa violations"!

Now the Zionists are pressuring the Canadian government to ship
Zundel back to Germany for his "crime" of publicly questioning the
Zionists' version of the Holocaust, where he could face much more
time in jail and fines on top of that.

So, you can clearly see, that Ernst Zundel is a political prisoner,
whose only "crime" is for speaking his mind.  You should do a google-
search and find Zundel's website and decide for yourself if he
should be in jail.  Personally, I support his freedom of speech, and
as far as I can tell, he is not advocating violence against anyone,
and furthermore, has never committed violence against anyone.

Yet, Zionists are being funded with our tax dollars to ethnically
cleanse the non-Jewish Palestinians from their own homeland. This
involves killing and maiming and all kinds of persecution of non-
Jewish Palestinians, for the Jewish supremacist state of Israel.

At any rate, the following is my report of that rally:

Most of us protesting Zundel's imprisonment were there because we
support FREE SPEECH.

Many who were there also supported FREE PALESTINE and many were also
ANTI-Zionism, a racist ideology GUILTY of ethnic-cleansing and slow
genocide of non-Jewish indigenous Palestinian people and the theft
of their land for a racist Jewish supremacist state. Zionists also
put Israel's interests above the USA's interests and uses the USA
for Israel's cash cow to commit crimes against humanity.

We were all there on our own representing our own beliefs--- not a
block of people.  One young man wore a kaffiyeh (Palestinian scarf)
and identified himself as a "commie".  He recognized my name from
Indymedia.

One reporter went thru the crowd trying to find a "neo-Nazi".
Everyone except for one weird older woman said they were NOT a neo-
Nazi. The way this one weird woman who called herself a "neo-Nazi"
behaved caused me to suspect that she was actually a Zionist posing
as a "neo-Nazi".  Zionists have often been found GUILTY of this kind
of DECEPTION.

We were a motley crowd from all walks of life and creeds, but we all
support, again, FREE SPEECH.

Did you know that in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland,
Canada and France that you can actually be put in JAIL and FINED
merely for questioning in public the Zionist version of "the
Holocaust"?

By the way, I support Holocaust Revisionism NOT
Holocaust "denial".  There is no doubt that European Jews were
targeted by the Nazis, although the Nazis targeted many others as
well.  There is no doubt that the Nazis rounded up European Jews and
put them in concentration camps.  Even the US rounded up lots of
Japanese during WWII.  The Zionists are have been rounding up
Palestinians and keeping them in concentration camps as I write
this.  There is no doubt that many Jews died in the WWII
concentration camps, mostly from starvation and disease,
apparently.  Other than that, there is little actual proof of much
of the Holocaust lore. Are you going to believe what Zionists, who
are professional liars, say about ANYTHING without doing your own
research?  They want to make it a law that you MUST obey and believe
them and never debate or question them.  How un-American! How anti-
democratic! How fascist! How Nazi-like!

At any rate, NO historical event should be taboo to question or
debate or to independently research.

This is yet another way that Zionist Jews are being allowed double
standards and special priviledges and where they are abusing their
power and influence over others, because of all their huge political
clout, and money.  Yes, apparently, the GOLD rules in many ways,
which is IMMORAL as opposed to The Golden Rule, which is MORAL.

There must be no special priviledges for ANYONE, not even Zionist
Jews.

We MUST defend freedom of speech because if we don't we lose our
rights and our freedoms and our democracy and OUR COUNTRY, ourselves
even.

Zundel does not advocate the killing and stealing of anyone's land---
- Zionists do!

Zundel does not advocate putting anyone in jail for their beliefs
and thoughts and what they say---- Zionists DO!

Zionism is the biggest root of all terrorism and evil in the world
today.

Zionism must be delegitimized and completely marginalized just like
all racist ideologies have been, such as Nazism or apartheid or
segregation.

FREE ZUNDEL!  FREE SPEECH! FREE PALESTINE!

FREE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE WORLD FROM ZIONIST
TYRANNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spread the word of Truth.

No special privileges for anyone.

We are all God's children.

Remember the Golden Rule.

Go in peace.

Have a nice day.

And don't forget: equal rights for ALL, including the Palestinians!
Support the Palestinian right to return!

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:


There are definitely ZioNazi sympathizers at work at indybay, an
indymedia in San Francisco, because they are deleting and hiding MY
responses but allowing Zionists like "gehrig" to post to his puny
little heart's desire.

The fact is that the Zionized law-makers in the US, upon pressure
from Zionists, deported Zundel to Canada supposedly for "overstaying
his tourist visa"  yet what about the ISRAELI SPIES who were rounded
up in the US by the hundreds after 9-11 yet they were simply briefly
questioned, and then deported on "visa violations" to Israel to live
FREELY?

What "criminal record" did Zundel have? Simply questioning the
Zionist version of the Holocaust in public! What other historical
event is it a crime to publicly question?

This is how FASCIST and Nazi-like the Zionists are! And now they
want to get Zundel deported to Germany where it IS a crime to
publicly question the holocaust!

Make no doubt about it: Ernst Zundel is a political prisoner! He's
been in solitary confinement for TWO YEARS!  On "overextending his
tourist visa"??   No, because he publicly questions the Holocaust!

"gehrig" and all his Zionist cohorts also want to see to it that
questioning the Holocaust becomes a crime in the US as well.  Gehrig
is vying for the job of making it a crime in the USA and he's
looking forward to the day when he can put ME in jail for thought
crimes as well!  That's his big dream I'm sure.  Dream on, loser!

What a PATHETIC ZioNazi he is.  How pathetic that Indybay has
ZioNazi sympather editors as well.

All Americans MUST defend our freedom of speech!

Zionists hate our freedom of speech.

Zionism is the biggest threat to the FREE world today!

MORE COMMENTS:
The Zionist credo: Free speech for me, but not for thee.  Another
Zionist credo: Diversity for thee, but not for me.

The Zionists are: THE Champions of Censorship.

The Zionist sympathizers at indybay are denying my right to debate
and face my accuser "gehrig", and they are allowing defamation of my
character.

The Zionists are the masters of defamation while they constantly
claim that they are the victims of defamation, and are even often
caught and tried for faking anti-Semitic acts.

For more information, and for ground-breaking, myth-shattering
documentaries, please visit:
www.marwenmedia.com
www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com

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Message from Fallujah
Mark Manning, Anti-Imperialist League
http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10122&s2=05


[ What follows is an e-mail I've received from a friend who recently
was in Fallujah.

Right now, `Operation River Blitz' in the al-Anbar province goes on,
and I've noticed that it's pretty hard to find information that
wasn't distributed by the occupying forces themselves. I'm afraid
that, again, the people's voices from cities such as Ramadi,
Hadithah, Hit or Habbaniya will only begin seeping through after the
damage is done…

The only news I've found from the Iraqi resistance side was
published by The Free Arab Voice. There you can also find reports
about American soldiers who were killed in combat. The American
authorities don't want this information being revealed to the
American public, because it would make the support for this war
decline significantly.

http://www.freearabvoice.org/Iraq/Report/index.htm ]

March 4, 2005

Dear Friends,

I have been out of touch. I have been in Iraq and would like to
share a little of my story with you today.

I got back from Iraq a few weeks ago where I stayed inside the city
of Falluja and lived with the refugees of that city for over two
weeks. I decided to go there because it seems to be the heart of the
trouble in Iraq and the place to see if any sense or peace can be
found. I had also heard that the city had 250,000 citizens in it who
were told to leave when my government attacked, yet there had been
no stories of their situation in our media. As an American, I felt
responsible for this and decided to take a look myself.On February
10th 2005 I flew into Iraq and drove to the city of Falluja. For
over two weeks I was a resident and a refugee of Falluja and I am
honored and privileged for that experience. They hosted me in their
homes, and cared for me because they believed that I was there to
listen to them and to honestly bring home their stories to the
American people. I came to Falluja without military escort or armed
protection in any way. I think because of this they thought I was
crazy, but they honored what they thought was courage and they
trusted me. Trust means everything there and they look deep into
your eyes as they decide who you are. I lived with them and listened
to their stories. They told me they do not trust American
journalists to accurately tell the story of Iraq. They believe that
the American public does not know what is really happening there,
and that if they did they would feel differently about the war. They
feel that the American people are their brothers and sisters and
they are asking them for help. They wanted me to tell you their
story.

The horrors of war have been brought to the people of Falluja. The
people there say the city had 500,000 people in it, not the 250,000
quoted by our media. The refugees told me that they were given one
week notice to leave the city. After three days, they were told they
could no longer drive out, they had to walk. No camps were
established for them and no refugee location was given. There was no
planning by the American government for the people, no food, no
shelter and no water. They were just told to leave or be killed.
Anyone who stayed in the city after one week would be considered a
terrorist and would be killed.

For five months these people have been living in any location they
could find, nothing was established for them in the surrounding
areas of the Falluja countryside. They are living in tents in the
mud, schools, abandoned chicken coups, burned out buildings, cars
and other buildings that people were not using or where others have
made room for them. The weather is bad, with much rain and it is
very cold. When they were told to leave the city, it was summer and
they were not dressed for this cold and many could not carry out
their clothes. Some lucky children are going to school in tents and
all the classes have been shortened to 2 hours per day. Food is
short and they are eating what the farmers grow and the surrounding
community can spare. Again, even after five months they have
received no outside aid from either the American government or the
new Iraqi government.

The city itself has been devastated. Most houses have been seriously
damaged, with about 65% of them totally destroyed. Evidence of
depleted uranium (DU) shells is everywhere. This leaves radioactive
contamination behind which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
(See note 1). Unexploded ordinance is a common sight. Many residents
who were there speak of chemical weapons, napalm, cluster bombs and
phosphorous used by the Americans. These are all illegal weapons and
considered war crimes by the international community. Many of the
houses were fired, meaning that the troops burned them down after
searching them. Many houses with white flags and markings
stating "Family Here" were destroyed.Some families who had nowhere
to go stayed in the city during the fighting and have paid dearly. I
interviewed many people who were there and their stories will live
forever in my mind. Here are some samples:

* · A mother whose son was killed by DU shells. He was in his bed
sleeping when the shells came through the walls.· A father who at 65
years of age was shot during a raid of his house, whose son was
arrested during that raid and has not been seen since (he states
that his son was not a fighter.)
* · A 17 year old girl who hid under her bed with her 13 year old
brother during a raid of her house and witnessed her father, her
cousin, and her two sisters 18 and 19 years old, all shot to death.
She hid for three more days with the dead bodies of her family and
then they returned and shot her and her brother after finding them
under the bed. Her brother died. She survived and told me her story.
* · A Family of ten who lived through all the fighting. The kids
were 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 12. They were a mess. These kids will
never be ok. Their faces were marked with open and oozing sores and
they were exhibiting serious signs of emotional damage.

There is presently very little medical aid available to the
residents and refugees, and again, no aid has been provided to the
refugees in the surrounding area. The medical centers in the city
have been destroyed and have not been rebuilt. The main hospital has
been reopened, but to get there you have to walk, as the ambulances
are still being shot by the Americans and the Iraqi National Guard.
The doctors have been beaten and their lives have been threatened by
the Iraqi National Guard. These are the security forces that the
Americans are training. The new government has warned them not to
talk to any journalists about the conditions in Falluja. They
understand this threat to be very real and a direct threat on their
lives and the lives of their families. To walk to the hospital you
must go through checkpoints, sometimes through fighting, and only at
certain daylight hours. The checkpoints are manned by the Iraqi
National Guards and they are very hostile to the residents of
Falluja. When we were at the hospital, an old man died of a heart
attack because he was not allowed through the checkpoint. A woman
gave birth in the ambulance because they would not let the ambulance
back to the hospital after 5 pm and instead turned it away with her
in labor.We delivered by hand the medical aid provided by some of
you to the hospital in Falluja. Me and one Iraqi woman, WE were the
international medical aid to Falluja. We carried these boxes one at
a time through the checkpoints, across the bridge and into the
hospital. They would not let us drive in, we had to walk these boxes
in. We did it every day for a week, one box at a time.All of the
people I talked to had messages to the American people. They
said: "We did not attack you! We have done nothing to the Americans.
Why have you done this to us?"

These are the people who hosted me, fed me, and worried about my
safety. They took care of me and I will never forget their
generosity, compassion and grace. They want peace with America and
they want the fighting to stop. They feel they are the ones being
attacked and that the Americans are the terrorists. They see
absolutely no justification for this war and were constantly asking
me to explain how the American people can support these acts against
a civilian population. For the first time in my life, I was ashamed
to be an American.There are so many more stories to tell you and I
will be making a film about it all. But for now, what I want you to
know is that I spent two weeks in the heart of the beast. The place
where our government and media said is the heart of the resistance,
terrorists and Saddam Loyalists, and guess what; the place is full
of people. People like you and me. Kids are everywhere. The average
Fallujan family has 10 people in it. That means about 8 kids.
500,000 people in the city, you do the math. That is a lot of
kids.There are fighters in Falluja. That is a fact. But they are
surrounded by some 490,000 innocent people. As a country, we have
decided the damage to the innocents is worth the end result,
whatever that may be. These people are being shattered by this very
serious situation that they have no control over. They are the
innocent victims of this war.I cannot tell you what to do. This is a
story of just one area in Iraq. These stories are all over the area
we call the Sunni Triangle. But I was there and lived with these
people and they taught me about love, forgiveness, truth and
compassion. They, after all that has happened to them, still have
the ability to differentiate between the acts of an enemy and the
people of a nation. They cry out to us to save them from the
ignorance that has brought this destruction on them. They have
suffered 33 times 9/11. Over 100, 000 Iraqis have died at the hands
of the American invasion (note 2) and still they say that they have
nothing against the American people. This is grace. I learned from
these people how to find peace. By deeply listening to my "enemy" I
have found that the real enemy is ignorance and fear and acting from
that place of weakness.

I will never forget the people of Falluja.Thank you for listening to
them.

Your Friend,
Mark Manning
www.conceptionmedia.net

1. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/du.htm ,
http://www.sundayherald.com/32522
2. http://progressivetrail.org/articles/041029Cole.shtml

==========
AMERICAN JAILS IN IRAQ ARE BURSTING WITH DETAINEES
Edward Wong, New York Times, 3/4/05
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/04/international/middleeast/04detain.h
tml

U.S. detention centers in Iraq filling to capacity
Pre-election arrests and new offensives swell the prisoner ranks
EDWARD WONG, New York Times

March 4, 2005, 12:51AM


ABU GHRAIB, IRAQ - The American military's major detention centers
in Iraq have swelled to capacity and are holding more people than
ever, senior military officials say.

The growing detainee population reflects recent changes in how the
military has been waging the war and in its policies toward
detainees, the officials say.

The military swept up many Iraqis before the Jan. 30 elections in an
attempt to curb violence and halted all releases before the vote.
Other detainees have been captured in ambitious recent offensives
across the Sunni Triangle, from Samarrato to Fallujah to the
Euphrates River Valley south of Baghdad.

The Abu Ghraib abuse scandal also forced changes in the system, with
the military working quickly last summer to try to weed out
detainees who obviously did not belong in prison. Many of the ones
remaining are more likely to be denied release by review boards,
military officials say.

As of this week, the military is holding at least 8,900 detainees in
the three major prisons, 1,000 more than in late January. Here in
Abu Ghraib, where eight U.S. soldiers were charged last year with
abusing detainees, 3,160 people are being kept, well above the 2,500
level considered ideal, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for
the detainee system. The largest center, Camp Bucca in the south,
has at least 5,640 detainees.

One hundred so-called high-value detainees, including Saddam Hussein
and his closest aides, are being held at Camp Cropper, near the
Baghdad airport.

The surging numbers of prisoners pose important challenges for the
military. The Abu Ghraib scandal revealed that the military was
using poorly trained interrogators even as more detainees were swept
into prison in the fall of 2003.

The military must hire enough effective interrogators and military
intelligence officers to process detainees quickly, said Bruce
Hoffman, an analyst at the RAND Corp. who has worked in Iraq with
American policymakers. Otherwise, innocent people languishing in the
prisons, a fertile recruiting ground for the insurgents, could be
encouraged to take up arms when they are freed.

The U.S. military has struggled to construct a detainee system that
can handle a widespread and sophisticated insurgency, but never
before has the system had to grapple with so many detainees.

A senior American commander said there was little danger of "serious
overcrowding" in the system. At Abu Ghraib, 15 miles west of
Baghdad, the military has erected additional quarters for detainees
and has increased troop levels.

Since last May, when news reports first emerged of the grim
conditions at Abu Ghraib, formerly Saddam's main torture center, the
military has opened new compounds at the prison that "are much
better situated for both the detainees and for custody and control,"
Johnson said.

The military is considering moving the detainees from Abu Ghraib to
a more secure location around Baghdad International Airport, the
same area where Camp Cropper is situated.

In the south, the Americans are working to expand Camp Bucca to
accommodate a total of 6,000 detainees by the end of March,
officials say.

================
Turkey deploys 1,357 troops in Northern Iraq
XinhuanetTurkey has deployed 1,357 military personnel in northern
Iraq to fight against members of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party
(PKK), said Turkish National Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul on
Thursday. Gonul was quoted by semi-official Anatolia News Agency as
saying, "Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) have deployed 1,357 personnel in
northern Iraq to fight against the PKK, gather information regarding
the developments in the region and work as liaison officers under US
f! orces in Kirkuk, Mosul and Tal Afar"...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?
p=10128

============
U.S. military damages ancient city of Babylon
Deirdre Sinnott, Socialist Worker
Mar 2, 2005
http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10131&s2=05


Like the Hittites, Alexander the Great, and the Greeks before them,
the U.S. military has chosen to occupy the ancient city of Babylon.
Established almost 4,000 years ago and at 3.4 square miles the big
gest ancient settlement in Meso potamia, Babylon has been the site
of decades of archaeological study.

In a recent report by Dr. John Curtis of the British Museum on the
impact of the military occupation of Babylon, archaeologists from
Iraq, Poland and Britain documented widespread and in some cases
irreparable damage caused by the U.S. military base.

The base was established in April 2003 just after the fall of
Baghdad and the looting of the National Museum of Iraq. It covers 16
percent of ancient Babylon, including areas inside the city's inner
walls.

Land mines have prevented an appraisal of the full impact of the
U.S. military's actions, but evidence of widespread damage is
visible throughout the culturally sensitive area.

Huge trenches totaling over 1,378 feet--some three to six feet deep
and 13 feet wide--were dug through areas that contain artifacts.
Tons of material has been scooped out of its historical context and
used to fill sandbags.

Some of the artifacts including pottery, bones and bricks bearing
inscriptions from Nebuchadnezzar (1125-1104 BCE) can be seen in
sandbags and other mesh containers.

According to Curtis' report, huge areas of the site have been
leveled and "covered with gravel, sometimes compacted and chemi
cally treated, to be used as a helicopter pad and to create spaces
for vehicle parks."

Gravel now covers about 359,000 square yards. "All the gravel had
been brought in from elsewhere and will, of course, work its way
into the archaeological deposits."

"Previously undisturbed" deposits "will now be contaminated."

Brick paving stones along the Proces sional Way constructed in Sixth
century BCE have been crushed by transports of heavy equipment.

Molded brick dragon figures in the Ishtar Gate were seriously
damaged by a person trying to remove pieces of the relief.

Halliburton subsidiary Kellog, Brown and Root was responsible for
infrastructure at the base. It may, along with the U.S. military, be
responsible for much of the damage.

Some of the information in the Curtis report is not new. Newsweek
reported that Columbia University Professor Zainab Bahrani visited
Babylon in the spring of 2004 and was stunned to see the U.S.
military base there. Huge areas had been bulldozed. Blast walls were
constructed of relic rich earth. Vibrations from helicopters were
damaging ancient walls. (Aug. 30, 2004)

Other important archaeological sites around Iraq have suffered from
the war and occupation as well. According to a Jan. 24 Reuters
report, U.S. military forces have been using the ancient minaret in
Samarra as a sniper's nest. Built over 1,100 years ago, the minaret
was extremely well preserved. Now the site "may lose its protected
status" if deemed necessary to oppose the Iraqi insurgency,
according to U.S. military spokesperson Maj. Richard Goldenberg.

Looting has continued to be a major problem in Iraq. Millions of
dollars go to unscrupulous dealers who trade in the international
antiquities market. Diggers at sites throughout Iraq sell items for
a tiny fraction of their true value.

Roger Atwood, the author of "Stealing History: Tomb Raiders,
Smugglers and the Looting of the Ancient World," reported that he
was offered a cylinder seal for $200 that could fetch $30,000
outside Iraq.

Sales of looted items are hard to track. Items from Iraq appear for
sale everywhere from eBay to well-known auction houses.

Surveys of antiquities sales at Sotheby's and Christie's from 1958
through 1998 show that 90 percent of the items never appeared in any
journal or study, only becoming known when they appeared in the
sales catalogue. Once a stolen item is bought from Sotheby's or
Christie's, it gains legitimacy and can be sold at an even higher
price down the line.

According to the 1954 Hague Con vention for the Protection of
Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, "preservation of
the cultural heritage is of great importance for all peoples of the
world and it is important that this heritage should receive
international protection." This Convention, which the United States
signed but never ratified, places the responsibility on the
occupying power to stop any criminal activity with regard to such
artifacts and buildings.

=============
State Dept. Report Ignores U.S. Crimes, Tisk-tisks Iraqi Authorities
Chris Shumway, The NewStandardA new assessment of human rights
conditions around the world issued by the US State Department
acknowledges that the US-installed Iraqi government has committed
numerous abuses including politically motivated killings, torture,
rape and illegal detentions but stops short of criticizing the US
military or former occupation authorities for similar misdeeds...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?
p=10132

==============
Marines Employ Iraqi Mercenary Force to Crush Rebellion
Chris Shumway
The NewStandard
newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1514

Citing failure utilizing the traditional US military
counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, one Marine unit has set up a
special Iraqi commando outfit reminiscent of notorious Latin
American paramilitaries forces.


Mar 4 - After experiencing little success recruiting and retaining
soldiers in Iraq's formal military units and security forces, the US
military has resorted to hiring a private, homegrown armed force to
track and capture members of the Iraqi resistance, reports Reuters.

In a program that resembles rumored plans to implement what has been
dubbed "the Salvador option" in Iraq, the establishment of a
hardline indigenous paramilitary force may indicate the first step
toward a more aggressive counterinsurgency campaign modeled in part
after the notorious "death squad" campaign used to suppress a
popular revolution in El Salvador during the 1980s.

In January, US Marines established the Iraqi Freedom Guard, a unit
of 61 men, each paid $400 monthly to fight, capture and interrogate
suspected rebels in Iraq's sprawling Al-Anbar province, which
includes the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

Private militias operating outside the authority of the Iraqi
Ministry of Defense are illegal under Iraq's US-imposed interim
constitution. Article 27(b) of Iraq's Temporary Administrative Law
reads, "Armed forces and militias not under the command structure of
the Iraqi Transitional Government are prohibited, except as provided
by federal law."

But Marine commanders deny that the Freedom Guard constitutes such
an entity. Colonel Craig Tucker, regimental commander of the 7th
Marines, told Reuters the Iraqi force is comparable to the numerous
American security contractors, such as Blackwell Corporation,
working in Iraq for the military and US government officials.

Concerns that the US might establish an Iraqi paramilitary force to
more effectively pursue terrorists and resistance fighters first
emerged early this year when Newsweek reported that a "senior
military officer" said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other
Pentagon officials were seriously considering implementation of a
strategy like the one credited with the crushing of El Salvador's
FMLN guerilla movement.

Called "the Salvador option," little is known of what US military
planners had in mind for an Iraqi version of the notorious, US-
backed Central American death squads. In El Salvador, Guatemala,
Haiti and Nicaragua, as well as other countries across Latin
America, noncombatants and nonviolent activists were often killed
or "disappeared" by CIA-supported paramilitary forces operating
among the civilian population.

The Iraqi Freedom Guard's commanding officer, Monir Captain, is
reportedly a 20-year-old Iraqi with no previous military training
who speaks good English. During a mission last week, Captain said he
is fighting to protect his fellow Iraqis. "Life is starting to get
better in Baghdad, and I feel that it's because of me and my guys,
fighting here in the desert, so they can live in peace," he told
Reuters.

Brian Dominick contributed to this piece.

© 2005 The NewStandard.

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Response to Nigel Perry
By Israel Shamir
www.israelshamir.net

Mr Perry has worries. He is not worried about Palestinian refugees
or about dried up rivers of Palestine. He is worried that a
newspaper I quoted had a link with Holocaust deniers. "We are only
one click away from common or garden variety Holocaust denial».
Well, it is his worry. I am not worried at all by the `deniers'
or `revisionists'. My opinion on this subject was expressed in the
Vampire Killers. But for Perry, as for every employee of the Jewish
lobby, holocaust cult is the quintessence of holiness. You can deny
Deir Yassin or Immaculate Conception, they would not move a eyelid.
Only Holocaust is of interest for them.

Perry pushes it even further, `Shamir trying to sell apparently
stolen Nazi memorabilia to David Irving, who is arguably the most
famous Holocaust denier of our times'. In this sentence only names
are spelt correct, all the rest is a lie, but let us, for the sake
of argument, disregard it. After all, a lie speaks more than truth
about its inventor.

What is wrong, in Perry's mind, with David Irving? For me, a mass
murder is a mass murder. Mass murder of Auschwitz is not better
neither worse than mass murder of Dresden or Hiroshima. Both are
irrelevant to the Palestinian conflict. As for denial, Shimon Peres
denied the mass murder of Armenians, and somehow nobody is horrified.

On Wednesday, the 21st of June, a Paris court condemned Bernard
Lewis, professor of Middle Eastern History at Princeton University
for having denied the Armenian Genocide in an interview with "Le
Monde", one of France's most renowned dailies. On Friday, 23
June, "Le Monde" reported about the sentence, as it was ordered to
do by the court, on page 11.

It made absolutely no harm to Bernard Lewis. A leading figure of Not
In My Name, Jewish pro-Palestinian organization, did not deny but
justified the mass murder of Palestinian Christians in AD 614 (they
were bad to Jews and deserved their death, he wrote), and he
remained a best friend of Abu Nimah and Perry. Irving has his ideas
on the scope of the mass murder of Jews during WWII. These ideas
were recently voiced by the well known columnist of the Nation,
Christopher Hitchens, and the mass murderer of Cambodians, Henry
Kissinger, attacked him for `holocaust denial'.

Norman Finkelstein criticized the idea of the Jewish holocaust
having no precedents, and mentioned that proposed signs of the
Jewish holocaust's uniqueness are just specific signs of this
holocaust. All holocausts are dissimilar, as unhappy families in the
opening of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. I would add, the idea of the
Jewish holocaust's uniqueness is based on a single premise: that of
Jewish uniqueness. `Denial' or `holocaust' wasn't ever a dispute
about the events of the WWII. It is about power, about present
powerful position of the American Jewish establishment and its
Israeli offshoot. It is a frightener: whatever you say, you are not
allowed to discuss, nay, mention the question of the Jewish power in
the US.

Maxim Rodinson, a noted French Marxist and biographer of the
Prophet, defined Israel as `a settler state', a colony. But every
settler state has its mother country, the source of external power.
French Algerie was manned and supported by France. What is the
external power supporting Israel? What is its mother country? It is
not the US, it is the network of Jewish communities around the world
led by the American Jewish community, the World Jewry. The US was a
settler state, whose mother country was England. Later, the tables
were turned, and the US became more prominent. Similar development
took place in Brazil, that became more prominent than Portugal.
Maybe Israel will become more prominent than its `mother country',
the overseas Jewish communities, but it did not happen yet.

The Algerian comparison helps to understand things. Imagine you are
an Algerian visiting pre-Evian France. In these days French army
killed and tortured thousands of Algerians. In France you would meet
many French supporters of Algerian Arab people, and probably you
will come to a conclusion: it is not France fights us, it is the
French settlers in Algerie. But it would be a wrong conclusion: the
war was carried out by the might of France. France – not the French
settlers in Algerie – was criticized in the UN and demanded to put
end to the war. French supporters of Algerian Arab cause knew they
fight against France. They thought that there are things more
important than consanguinity.

American Jews, supporters of the Palestinian cause, will do well if
they will consider it. The war in Palestine is carried out by the
offshoot of the American Jewry, and it will be won or lost in the
US. The real power of the Jews is not just money, it is our strong
influence over historical narrative achieved by holding (and
sometimes misusing) important positions in the academy, media, study
of arts. It is a delicate subject, and an American Jewish thinker
Isaac Asimov turned to sci-fi in order to express his feelings. In
his Foundation, he speaks of `guardians of the historical
narrative'. Still, this subject has to be discussed, not necessarily
on a Palestinian mail list, but here too.

The permitted discourse on Palestine is a mainstream Jewish
discourse, between hard Jews of Kahane type and the soft Peace Now.
It always takes for granted necessity of sustaining Jewishness of
Israel. This precondition excludes real solution of our problems.
Nigel Perry is an enforcer of PC, Political Correctness. He proudly
mentions many years of involvement with Palestinian cause. Well,
such guys are one of the reasons why the Palestinian cause looks the
way it does. He writes: `Shamir suggested that the only thing that
would assist the cause of Palestinian liberation is the denigration
and marginalization of the American Jewish community. Needless to
say, both this analysis of the supposed problem and solution is
intellectually and morally bankrupt'.

Perry lies and misleads. To point out the excessive influence of a
group is not `to denigrate'. To pass the power of discourse to
people at large is not `to marginalize'. Yes, the discourse should
be changed and its base democratized, in America, Europe and
elsewhere. That was the great idea of Edward Said, expressed in his
Orientalism.

Present positions of the American Jewish `guardians of historical
narrative' are unsustainable, they are also damaging. Democracy in
Palestine, for me, was always a symbol of democracy for all. Removal
of Jewish extra rights in Palestine is connected with removal of
Jewish extra rights in America. People should be equal and have
equal access to discourse, in my opinion.

Maybe I am mistaken. But Perry's argument shows the true interest of
Perry. He takes care of his Jewish American employers and enforces
their line in the Palestinian circles. I worry about you, the
excluded ones, I write for you to help you with the discourse.
Perry wrote: `It is worth noting that Shamir's response to the
Abunimah/Ibish letter contains no actual denial of anti-
Semitism. "Any irrational aversion to Jews should be certainly
eradicated and condemned," is the closest he got. Not "I am not anti-
Semitic" or any formulation so simple'.

For me, the A-s word has no definite meaning. If it means biological
aversion to the descendents of Jews, I think it is bad. If it means
dissatisfaction with the important positions held by the organized
Jewry, it is reasonable. These positions are not sustainable anyway.
Ethnic and religious minorities can dominate the Imperial discourse,
as Greeks did in the Ottoman Empire, but only as long as they
identify themselves with the true imperial interest. Otherwise,
there will be a painful divorce.

The holocaust discussion appears to me a hidden crypto-religious
discourse similar to the `filioque' argument between the Orthodox
and the Catholic churches, or a dispute about Caliph succession
between Sunni and Shiah Islam. The sides say one thing, but mean
something different. It is a crypto-discussion about Jewish power,
as the Islamic discussion was an argument between power groups. I
would say: drop this oblique talk, let Auschwitz rest in peace,
speak about the real problem.

It has nothing to do with `guilt', as French feel no guilt for a
million of killed Algerians, nor Americans care about the murdered
Vietnamese. `The guilt feeling for the Jewish holocaust' is just a
form of submission to the Jewish power. In the same way, confession
of sins in the Catholic Church was a form of submission to the
Church power.

As long as the participants of the discussion accept guidance of
Nigel Perry and other crypto-supporters of Jewish exclusivity, they
are bound to lose. The Western world is ripe for the real discussion
of the real Jewish power, without fear of anti-Semitic labeling.
After all, we are able to discuss the power of aristocracy, despite
the aristocrats' enormous suffering in the terror of 1793.
Would `the hate laws' apply to a discourse on the vestiges of the
aristocracy influence?

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Statement from Ernst Zundel's Lawyers
http://www.rense.com/general63/zzdun.htm

This statement concerns the pending deportation of 65 year old Ernst
Zundel, who lived in Canada from 1958 to 2000, who has no criminal
record in Canada and who faces no criminal charges in Canada.

Mr. Zundel has been in solitary confinement for 2 years and is about
to be deported after a largely secret proceeding against him. The
Crown and the presiding judge met secretly throughout his case, in
the absence of Mr. Zundel and his lawyers. The Crown repeatedly
presented evidence and made arguments to the judge in a Star Chamber
type proceeding.

At the public proceeding, Mr. Zundel was told literally hundreds of
times, when he asked for specific evidence of the case against him,
that there was "nothing in the unclassified materials" . He was
repeatedly blocked from asking questions of witnesses on the basis
of "national security".

The presiding judge made repeated serious errors, forgot submissions
and repeatedly misstated the appropriate legal test about what
evidence should be kept secret. The same judge then evaluated the
secret evidence.

Mr. Zundel complained of reasonable apprehension of bias by that
judge. The same judge rejected Mr. Zundel's argument and later
ordered him deported.

The Federal Court of Appeal rejected his appeal regarding bias. It
appears that the Crown will not wait to see whether the Supreme
Court of Canada will hear the further appeal Mr. Zundel has already
filed on the bias issue. The Crown will deport him NOW.

The Supreme Court of Canada has been asked, in Mr. Adil Charkaoui's
case, to consider the constitutionality of the law which allows
secret evidence by which Mr. Zundel is deported. The Crown will not
wait until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear that appeal. If
the law is ultimately ruled to be unconstitutional, Mr. Zundel will
likely hear about it from a German jail cell.
Probably no one cares because Mr. Ernst Zundel is notorious and
reviled. The powerful and the popular do not need to rely on the
fairness of our legal system. The marginalized and the reviled do.
Our system has failed Mr. Zundel. We should care. But we fear most
of us don't give a damn.
Mr. Zundel will not initiate any further court proceedings in
Canada. His repeated request that Canadian courts recognize his
rights to basic fairness and justice have been unanswered. He will
not beg for those rights.

Mr. Zundel has gone through the entire security certificate process,
unfair though it was, to a conclusion. He has no right to appeal or
to judicial review. He has gone to every available level of court in
Canada.

For 42 years, he has vigorously defended his freedom of _expression
within the Canadian justice system. All legal avenues have now been
exhausted, as has his faith in the Canadian justice system and this
security certificate system, which has been characterized by a
Canadian journalist, after witnessing part of Mr. Zundel's
proceeding, as a "frightening charade of justice".

Peter Lindsay
Chi-Kun Shi
Counsel for Ernst Zundel

__________________________________________________

[nothing like making a martyr out of him. This will backfire.]

March 1, 2005

After being illegally kidnapped from the US to Canada, spending 2
years in solitary confinement, and given a kangaroo closed trial,
Ernst Zundel was taken in a special, chartered plane to Germany a
few days ago. There, he will be arrested for "Holocaust Denial"
allegedly found on the Zundelsite.org - and taken to the Mannheim
Prison.

The story of Zundel

Through the pressure of the Canadian Jewish Congress he was tried in
secret court in Canada by a Judge and not even his attorney was
allowed to see all the evidence against him. The judge in the case
is a man who sought to prosecute him years ago for his opinions. In
fact, as amazing as it may sound, the very judge of his current case
was in years past the same agent of the Crown who, testimony has
shown, permitted a terrorist bomb to be delivered through the
Canadian mails to his home! It appears that anything is permissible
when one dares to challenge Jewish sensibilities.

Now this elderly gentleman faces deportation to Germany where he
likely faces a long prison sentence, which for a man of his age
could well be a life sentence.

What was the offense of this man you ask? Was he a drug dealer, war
criminal, a murderer, gangster, rapist, or terrorist?

No, he was none of that. It is admitted by the press which always
opposed him that he was never violent, never criminal. He was never
in his whole life convicted of the slightest crime. He is in fact a
kind-hearted pacifist who has repeatedly opposed all war and all
violence. He is an artist who made his living for decades by his
beautiful paintings and illustrations. Far from being violent or
dangerous, it was he who often was the victim of violence. He was
been attacked by howling mobs. His home was firebombed. The Canadian
government tried to put him in prison.

What was his crime you ask? Why would he be attacked and his home
firebombed? Why did the Canadian government try to imprison him? All
of this was simply due to the fact that he wrote and published
politically incorrect views of the Holocaust.

Did he praise the Holocaust you might ask? No. Did he advocate it?
No. Did he deny that any atrocities were committed against Jews? No.
He simply dared to challenge in a considered and reasonable way some
of the underlying assumptions of what Dr. Norman Finklestein calls
the Holocaust Industry. He was tried for the Orwellian crime
of "falsifying history."

He simply dared to publish articles and books that differed from the
politically correct view of the Holocaust. He argued using extensive
evidence, documents and reason that some of the assumptions about
the Holocaust were incorrect. He argued for instance that although
many Jews died from the effects of their incarceration and
mistreatment, there wasn't an actual German master plan or policy to
kill all the Jews of Europe. He honestly believed that the so-called
Holocaust as presented was an extension of war propaganda that had
the intention of helping to secure support for the establishment of
the Zionist state.

The story of great crimes against Jews was the buffer which allowed
the subsequent crimes of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian
inhabitants of what is now Israel. If you read his material, it is
rational, thoughtful and not the least bit hateful. And he has
suffered tremendously for simply voicing his opinion. He exercised
something that Bush and Blair and all people like to call free
speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of conscience.

Eventually he was vindicated by the high court of Canada which ruled
that the law by which they prosecuted him violated freedom of
speech. But, the authorities, driven by the Canadian Jewish
Congress, were not finished with his persecution. By hook or crook
they were determined to silence him and put this man into prison.

Who is the man who has endured this unrelenting prosecution for his
free speech? His name is Ernst Zundel.

In the twilight years of his life he settled down to a married life
in the United States with the eloquent American writer and
playwright, Ingrid Rimland. They lived on a small farm in the
Tennessee Appalachians.

Then, two years ago all hell broke lose. Married to and living with
an American citizen, he had every right to live in the United
States, but there was a scheduling error by the government and the
authorities claimed Ernst missed a routine appointment with the INS.
On that flimsy argument, in a matter of days, with no appeal, an
armored swat team descended on their quiet property and whisked
Ingrid's husband into solitary confinement. He was locked in
conditions reserved for the worst of criminals. With hardly any
options for appeal he was finally separated from his American wife
and deported back to Canada where he had previously lived and worked
for more than three decades.

There he was also held in solitary confinement and charged
with "being a danger to the security of Canada." Was any evidence
supporting this charge presented to the Canadian court? Under
Canadian Law you can be deemed guilty of being a danger to Canadian
security without even seeing the evidence against you. He has been
in terrible conditions of imprisonment for over two years now.

Not being allowed to even see the evidence against you is against
every precept of law in every civilized nation of the world. All
that made no difference to Jewish supremacists, this thought
criminal had to be punished. He couldn't be shown to have broken any
Canadian law, so it was decided that he would be deported to Germany
where under the draconian laws there he could be jailed for years
for simply challenging any of the often-changing politically correct
versions of the Holocaust.

German courts have already ruled that in regard to the
Holocaust "truth is no defense" and that even if you show that what
you said is absolutely true, if it challenges the official Jewish
version, you have committed a serious crime. You have "defamed the
Jewish people." Even if you can prove what you say is accurate, you
are guilty of "reviling" the Jewish people and therefore face
imprisonment.

I realize that probably many of you reading this cannot believe that
this is the state of affairs in some European countries, and Canada.
After all, this gross violation of the most fundamental principles
of freedom of thought, speech and press is never discussed on the
NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN or Fox News Network. There is no protest of this
gross injustice. No civil libertarians make an issue out of it. Most
Europeans and Americans don't have the slightest knowledge of the
horrible injustice that has occurred on American soil and
subsequently in Canada.

It makes no matter that books such as Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing
Executioners argues that Germans are inherently purveyors of murder
and evil. That won't land you in jail in Germany; it will land you
on the bestseller list and rave reviews from the philo-Semitic
press. Unlike Goldhagen, poor Ernst never said that Jews were
inherently evil; he simply dared to question the orthodoxy of
the Holocaust story, a story that is not allowed in any part to be
examined, questioned, debated, or critically thought about, even 60
years after the event. Even though there are many common assumptions
about the Holocaust that are now refuted by Jewish Holocaust
historians themselves.

For instance, there are still thousands of references every year in
articles about the Holocaust that refer to Nazis as having
diabolically made soap from Jews. Yet, even the head of the Yad
Vashem Holocaust Museum and Center admits that such never
happened. ...

Jewish scholar Norman Finklestein whose own parents suffered in Nazi
concentration camps says that it is only his Jewishness that has
prevented his own prosecution for challenging the huge amount of
fraud in connection with what he calls the "Holocaust Industry." He
has written a book of the same title...

The fact that Ernst Zundel has not backed down, recanted, or caved
in the face of such horrendous treatment is a testament to the fact
that whether you agree with him or not, Ernst Zundel is man who
should be lauded for his intellectual and physical courage.

The fact that instead of being praised for his courage, he is
imprisoned at this moment, is testimony to the truth and the power
of his assertions, for if Zundel is so easily proven wrong, why the
need to stifle and punish him. What kind of truth needs to use
prison and compulsion to protect it? What kind of truth cannot
afford inspection or criticism?

His imprisonment is actually our own freedom in shackles. It is not
just Ernst Zundel who sits in that tiny cell of desolation. It is
all of us who love life and freedom. It is the spirit of our people
that suffocates on the altar of Jewish supremacism.

+++++++

Professor F. Littell has said: "You can't discuss the truth of the
holocaust. That is a distortion of the concept of free speech. The
United States should emulate West Germany, which outlaws such
exercises." --Mind-boggling! Don't you think?

http://64.143.9.197/jhr/v11/v11p365_Bennett.html

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33 Things You Should Know About the Middle East and America:

How can America ask for a "nuclear free Middle East" and still allow
Israel to
keep its atomic and hydrogen bombs? Does this make sense to you? Are
we so dumb?


33 Things You Should Know About the Middle East and America
Sam Hamod, Ph.D.
http://207.44.245.159/article8198.htm


03/04/05 "Information Clearing House" - - Some Thoughts on the
Middle East and America: 33 Things You Should Think About

What right has President Bush or Conde Rice to dictate to the
Lebanese Government?

Why is it that the "demonstrators" in Beirut, Lebanon, had all their
signs in English?

Have you considered that they were playing to the American TV
audience? In fact, the "big crowds" the American media spoke about
were less than 3000 people, but the cameras shot the crowed for
maximum effect.

Did you realize that according to the VA, 1 in 6 troops coming back
from Iraq need mental help from what they've seen and felt in Iraq?

Did these few thousand Falangists speak for all of Lebanon, or are
they "for hire" street people mixed with some students who made up
the "demonstrations?"

Who forced Karami to resign as PM? How much influence did America
have in this situation and what business was it of Bush's?

Did you realize the Falangists took their name from Franco's
Falangist/Fascists? The Gemeyal family, head of the falangists, had
close ties to the dictator, Franco.

Did you realize that the suicide rate among our American troops in
Iraq is now up 29% in the last two months? Health professionals in
the continental US are alarmed, but the Pentagon refuses to take
responsibility for these deaths.

Why is America so anxious to get Syria out of Lebanon? Is it so that
both Lebanon and Syria will be vulnerable to one front attacks by
Israel?

Have any of you considered that the oil pipeline the Israelis want
opened between Baghdad and Israel runs through Syria and Lebanon? It
does.

Why is America constantly doing the bidding of Israel—are we Israel?
Why did America not stop aid to Israel when they found out that
Israel was selling high tech American secrets to China? Why has
America not stopped this by now? What has Israel done for America
lately, other than selling its military secrets to the highest non-
American bidder?

Are you aware that more of our military in Iraq have come home with
stress disorders than any time in American history—even
outdistancing the Viet Nam war? This according to therapists at Camp
Pendleton.

Have any of you considered that Israel wants the oil, but also wants
the water, electricity and hashish that is grown in the southern
part of Lebanon?

Suppose Syria told us to get our troops out of Iraq, their neighbor—
would we listen?

Who gave America permission to invade Iraq? Certainly not the UN,
though Bush keeps claiming the UN gave him authority. If this
continues, then we will have a dog eat dog world, with the UN losing
all authority and only the strong will survive—and that means that
in the near future China will overrun America or its power in the
world or both.

Why should more Americans and Iraqis get killed, or get traumatized
for life by Bush's illegal and immoral war in Iraq?

Why is it that Bush, an AWOL chicken-hawk can sends so many of our
troops to their death in Iraq, with no progress in sight. Even
General Abizaid admitted last night, on the Newshour on PBS that the
resistance in Iraq will go on for years, with no predictable end in
sight? Would you like to go serve in Iraq? Would you like one of
your loved ones to go serve in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Has Bush or the American troops brought more peace or more suffering
to Iraq?

Is America bringing more stability to Lebanon, or is he, in league
with the Falangists making more civil unrest, and possibly civil
war, in Lebanon? You can see it coming, can't you—just admit it.
Most likely, if this continues, it will lead to civil war because
the Muslims in Lebanon will not tolerate the Falangists taking over
the government by "demonstrations."

Why doesn't Bush send his daughters as volunteers to Iraq, Rumsfeld
his kids, Cheney his children, Wolfowitz his, and let's see how long
this "democratizing " of Iraq will continue.

Are you aware most Lebanese hate the Falangists because they allied
themselves with Israel, and gave intelligence to Israel, in its
1980s invasion of Lebanon, wherein most of Beirut was destroyed,
thousands killed and the country made into a basket case. The
Falangists also are the ones who committed the atrocities at the
Sabra and Shatilla Refugee Camps wherein women, children and old men
were slaughtered as the Israeli army stood guard to stop anyone from
interfering with the massacres. Check it out in your history books
if you don't believe it, or check UN records—it's all there.

Do you realize that for the OPEC nations that denominate their oil
sales and receipts in dollars, that what was a $32.00 dollar barrel
of oil before the dollar slid so much in the past 2 years is now
equivalent to the $48-50 barrel of oil today. That is, to get the
same $32 in value, OPEC nations must charge $48-50 dollars per
barrel. That may help you understand why oil has gone up so high.
Those that pay in Euros are laughing all the way to the bank and we
are going broke, and shall go further into debt as more of the oil
pipelines are blown up because of our Middle Eastern wars and
interference in their domestic matters.

Did you realize there are very few functioning hospitals, electric
stations, water purification plants functioning in Iraq at this time
than there were in 1917? Is this "progress"?

What kind of "aid" is America giving to Iraq when they have
destroyed 90% of Iraq's infrastructure and not rebuilt it? Where is
that $9 billion dollars that disappeared under Paul Bremer?
Shouldn't we hold him financially accountable or imprison him for
graft and fraud?

Did you realize the American government and the right wing neo-cons
have shipped millions of dollars into Iraq to buy influence so that
their favorite dictator, Allawi, has a chance to become Prime
Minister? If he becomes PM, then he'll ask America to stay on, will
honor the illegal contracts signed by Paul Bremer to give all of
Iraq's resources to American companies and basically lengthen the
civil strife and resistance to America in Iraq.

Why is Conde Rice out dictating to the Palestinians to get
their "terrorists" under control, when Israel has killed more than
160 Palestinians, wounded hundreds more, and destroyed countless
houses and business buildings since the "truce" of November 2004?
By the way, Palestinian suicide people have killed less than 1 dozen
Israelis during that time until last week's attack.

Have you ever looked at the official UN records that show Israel has
killed and attacked Palestinians, their homes, their infrastructure
at a rate of 75 to 1?

Where are these billions of dollars, nay, trillions, coming from to
fight these "foreign wars" that Bush loves so much? We are paying
the bills through our increasing taxes.
Incidentally, the "defense contractors" like Halliburton, Brown &
Root, are getting rich off our backs. Do you love it?

Have you seen that Sharon, while allegedly "pulling of Gaza and the
West Bank," has approved over 6000 new Israeli homes in the West
Bank and the Palestinian area of Jerusalem? Check it out in Reuters,
BBC, China News, India Daily—you won't find it on any American media
sites or in the rags they call "newspapers" in our country.

Did you know the IMF has put America on a "financial watch list"
because of the weakness of the dollar? That means our economy is
almost bankrupt—really.

Do you realize that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
has reported that Israel has over 250 atomic and hydrogen bombs in
its arsenal, plus all the latest American stealth and military
technology? Why is it then that America is so keen on attacking Iran
and Syria to protect "tiny little" Israel?

What would you do if you had a city in America called "the city of
churches" and it was bombed by Iraqis and most of them destroyed?
That's what our troops did in Fallujah, destroyed most of the
mosques in the "city of mosques." Do you think the Muslim Iraqis
will love us for this?

How can America ask for a "nuclear free Middle East" and still allow
Israel to keep its atomic and hydrogen bombs? Does this make sense
to you? Are we so dumb?

Have you noticed that all the "news" from Iraq is from our military,
from media embedded with our troops, or from Allawi and his gang or
the Kurds, but never from the Shi'a, leading Sunnis or the anti-
American civilians? Don't you think this is a bit slanted. As a
former professor of mass media, I know it is slanted. Thus, we are
being fed only propaganda by our media, ala George Orwell's , 1984,
no real, honest "news,' just propaganda.

These are just a few things you should consider when hearing about
our "democratizing the Middle East"

Dr. Hamod was the founding editor of 3rd World News in Wash, DC;
Advisor to the State Department; Director of The Islamic Center of
Wash, DC; professor at several major universities; edits,
www.todaysalternativenews.com and appears on many websites,
newspapers and ezines. Sam Hamod, shamod @ cox.net

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Asia Tsunami Proved Biggest War Crime in History
click links below for BBC report including audio-visual


"Possible motives for this massive war crime were touched on briefly
in Part One of this report, with the nuclear reactor at Kalpakkam,
80 kilometers from Chenna, the most likely target. If this
particular reactor had cracked open like Chernobyl, the results
would have been so catastrophic that the new Russia-China-India-
Brazil coalition, a clear and present danger to Wall Street, would
have been neutered. It is not hard to imagine the glee on the faces
of members of the World Bank and IMF, as India crawled in humbly on
its belly asking for a huge loan.

             Although the Kalpakkam facility escaped major damage, it
was a very close call, with 30 atomic scientists and technicians
killed at the plant's nearby residential complex. And if the
thermonuclear weapon placed in the Sumatran Trench had been more
powerful, Wall Street might easily have scored a double whammy. A
bigger Russian-aided nuclear power complex that uses sea water for
cooling is coming up fast at Koodankulam, 900 km south of Chennai
and close to Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of the Indian
peninsula that was severely devastated by the (unique artificial)
tsunami, that in some places reached 35 feet in height."

-- Joe Vialls

http://www.vialls.com/subliminalsuggestion/tsunami2.html

The report is also posted at:-

http://www.vialls.net/subliminalsuggestion/tsunami2.html
http://www.joevialls.net/subliminalsuggestion/tsunami2.html
http://joevialls.lvo.info/subliminalsuggestion/tsunami2.html

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Protesting War In Military Town

Iraq Veterans Against the War?
Lou Plummer, www.dissidentvoice.org
www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar05/Plummer0303.htm


March 3, 2005 - Why pick a military town as the site for an antiwar
rally? As a military veteran and a resident of Fayetteville, N.C.
near Ft. Bragg, I can think of at least 50 reasons. Each of those
reasons has a name and each were members of our community prior to
their deaths in Iraq.

Some may argue that voicing opposition to war in a military town is
somehow disrespectful. Tell that to the military families and
veterans from many wars, including the current one, who plan to
gather here on March 19, the second anniversary of the invasion of
Iraq. Like the majority of Americans, we now reject the reasons used
to justify the war and many of us feel that the US government failed
to successfully plan for what has happened. That lack of planning
affects our communities more so than most.

Antiwar activism by veterans has been largely forgotten or
downplayed. During the recent election, John Kerry talked much at
length about his time in Vietnam. It wasn't his service there that
brought him to the national spotlight. It was his membership in
Vietnam Veterans Against the War and his memorable testimony before
congress. During the Vietnam War a GI-led demonstration in a park in
Fayetteville drew 4000 people, many of them servicemen. On the first
anniversary of the war last year, the park saw another
demonstration, the town's largest action for peace in nearly 35
years. For three hours groups like Military Families Speak Out and
Veterans for Peace condemned the senseless waste in Iraq.

Former N.C. based Marine, Michael Hoffman, recently announced that
the organization he co-founded, Iraq Veterans Against the War, plans
to meet in Fayetteville on March 20, the day after the rally. Formed
in the summer of 2004, the group is rapidly adding new members,
including some who served with the 82nd Airborne. That unit and
others based at Ft. Bragg produced the 20,000 Iraq vets in the local
community. Hoffman hopes to add a few of them to IVAW's swelling
ranks.

Military Families Speak Out, an organization of people who are
opposed to war in Iraq and who have relatives or loved ones in the
military formed in 2003. Its members are traveling from all over the
country to be at the rally. Several members of Gold Star Families
for Peace composed solely of those who have lost loved ones in the
war are scheduled to speak. Local officials sponsor billboards
proclaiming North Carolina to be "America's Most Military Friendly
State." These events will reflect that sentiment in a way few would
have imagined.

Protesting the war in Iraq is not a new activity in Fayetteville. A
group of local of veterans, military wives and their community
supporters conducts occasional vigils in the center of town and has
since the day the U.S. invaded. The early vigils met with catcalls.
As the disaster in Iraq became evident, derision subsided and vocal
support emerged.

Those local activists supported Army paratrooper Jeremy Hinzman who
left Ft. Bragg for Canada, applying for status as a refugee on the
grounds that he was being forced to participate in an illegal war.
He was denied conscientious objector status while serving in
Afghanistan after telling the review board that he would defend his
squad were it to be attacked at the base. The military refused to
allow him to serve as a medic, instead ordering him to continue as a
rifleman.

The national director of Veterans for Peace, Michael McPhearson is a
Fayetteville native. He served as a field artillery officer in the
first Gulf War. He has a son stationed at the Army base, Ft.
Campbell, K.Y. He will speak at the March 19 rally, just as he did
last year. McPhearson's mother sometimes stands with others at the
vigils behind a handwritten wall that now contains the 1483 names of
American servicemen dead in Iraq.

We are tired of the ubiquitous yellow ribbon magnets that command us
to "Support Our Troops." To those of us living in this military
town, real support for the troops means Bring Them Home Now!

Lou Plummer is a member of Military Families Speak Out and Veterans
for Peace. He can be reached at: lou.plumme r@ mac.com .

===

Dead Body Shrink-Wrapper

Dead Body Shrink-Wrap Machine to be Developed


The Carlyle Group (Bush, Sr.) owns Bio-Port, the ONLY company in the
U.S. licensed to make and sell ANTHRAX VACCINE.

------------

Coroner seeks big shrink-wrap machine
For corpses, plastic is seen as neater and more respectful

The Associated Press
Updated: 5:22 p.m. ET Feb. 18, 2005


OLYMPIA, Wash. - Officials in Washington state want to find a
machine that can shrink-wrap something big:

A human body.

The Thurston County Coroner's Office is on the hunt for a machine
that can wrap human remains in plastic in case of a natural disaster
or a terrorist attack.

Officials say the process would make transporting a big number of
bodies easier while sealing in biohazards like anthrax. And they say
it would be more respectful than letting bodies sit around like they
did after the Asian tsunami.

The office has started the bidding process to see who can build a
machine, which will cost about $50,000. A Homeland Security grant
will pay the bill.


URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6995040/

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Israel to seize more Palestinian land
This will further diminish the viability of a Palestinian state
By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
Thursday 03 March 2005, 19:46 Makka Time, 16:46 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A5337C8C-B448-40BC-9DC7-
E1A6BC5920E2.htm


The Israeli government has ordered the confiscation of large swathes
of Palestinian land in the West Bank.


The area to be seized encompasses more than 10sq km of land in the
southern West Bank, especially in the Hebron region.



According to the confiscation orders, which were published on
Wednesday, the Israeli army will expropriate the land extending from
the village of al-Burj to southern Yatta.



This covers hundreds of acres of farmland, including numerous olive
groves, and will further diminish the size of any prospective
Palestinian state in the West Bank.



Israel has already annexed more than a 100sq km of West Bank land,
ostensibly to build a gigantic separation wall which snakes through
Palestinian towns and villages, reducing some of them to virtual
detention camps.



Land grabs



Moreover, dozens of other Jewish settlements in the heart of the
West Bank, such as Ma'ali Adomim near Jerusalem and Ariel, south of
Nablus, continue to expand at the expense of Palestinian territory.



"They (the Israelis) act as if there is an unwritten understanding
between the US and Israel whereby US officials make statements
opposing settlement expansion while Israel keeps up the 'good work'"

Abd al-Hadi Hantash,
Palestinian analyst

Palestinian analysts say these land-grabs fly in the face of
international efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.



According to Abd al-Hadi Hantash, who has been monitoring Israeli
settlement activities for the past 25 years, the purpose of the
latest seizure is to "make any prospective Palestinian state as
small as possible and as unviable as possible".



"Israel believes that President [George] Bush is not really serious
about a viable Palestinian state, they think that he is just
bamboozling the Arabs.

"This is how they interpret American reluctance to force Israel to
halt the land confiscation and settlement expansion."



Separation barrier



He added: "They (the Israelis) act as if there is an unwritten
understanding between the US and Israel whereby US officials make
statements opposing settlement expansion while Israel keeps up
the 'good work'."



Israel says the wall is necessary
to stop attacks on Israeli civilians


A spokesman for the Israeli government told Aljazeera.net: "The
expropriation is necessary to build the separation fence to prevent
terror attacks on Israeli citizens - this is not a permanent
confiscation, it is only a temporary security measure."



However, the confiscation orders, handed over to landowners in the
Hebron area, do not state that the confiscation is temporary.



"From the very first day of the occupation in 1967, successive
Israeli governments always claimed that the recurrent confiscations
were temporary security measures. Then we ended up having more than
230 settlements, swallowing up over 55% of the West Bank," Hantash
said.


Aljazeera

===

Uri Avnery : Politics of Settlements:
Friday, March 04 2005
http://ummahnews.com/story.php?sid=20050304045959537


"For years now I have been warning that this is the intention of
Ariel Sharon, the basis of the whole settlement enterprise planned
and set up by him.."


Why did Bush suddenly make a declaration whose practical meaning is
that some of these settlement blocs must be dismantled? And why did
he make it in Brussels? He wanted to gain favour with his European
hosts. The European Union opposes the annexation of West Bank
territory to Israel. Bush said what he said in order to reduce his
differences with Europe

Seven words uttered by President Bush in Brussels have not been paid
the attention they deserve.

He called for the establishment of "a democratic Palestinian state
with territorial contiguity" in the West Bank, and then added: "A
state on scattered territories will not work."

It is worthwhile to ponder these words. Who did he point the finger
at? Why did he say this in Brussels, of all places?

Nobody warns of a danger without a reason. If Bush said what he
said, it means that he believes that someone is causing this danger.

Just who might that be?

For years now I have been warning that this is the intention of
Ariel Sharon, the basis of the whole settlement enterprise planned
and set up by him. The lay-out of the settlements on the West Bank
map is designed to cut the territory up from north to south and from
west to east, in order to forestall any possibility of establishing
a really viable and contiguous Palestinian state, a state like any
other.

If the settlement blocs that have been created are annexed to
Israel, the Palestinian territory will be sliced up into a number of
enclaves — perhaps four, perhaps six. The Gaza Strip, an isolated
ghetto by itself, will be another enclave. Each enclave will be
surrounded by settlements and military installations, and all of
them will be cut off from the world outside.

The American intelligence agencies are familiar with this picture,
of course. They can see it with their satellites. But that did not
deter President Bush from promising Sharon last year that
Israeli "population centres" in the West Bank will be annexed to
Israel.

These "population centres" are the very same settlement blocs that
were defined by the US in the past as "illegal" and "an obstacle to
peace". During the presidency of the first President Bush, the
American administration even decided to deduct the costs of new
settlement projects from the financial benefits accorded to Israel.

So why did the second Bush suddenly make a declaration whose
practical meaning is that some of these settlement blocs must be
dismantled? And why did he make it in Brussels?

It is clear that he wanted to gain favour with his European hosts.
The European Union opposes the annexation of West Bank territory to
Israel. Bush said what he said in order to reduce his differences
with Europe.

So he said it. And what is happening on the ground in the meantime?

Last Sunday the Israeli government decided for the second time to
implement the disengagement plan, a decision that was hailed by the
media as "historic". With all the hullabaloo, hardly any attention
was paid to a second resolution adopted at the same meeting: to
continue building the wall in the West Bank.

At first sight, that is a routine decision. After all, the
government argues that this is nothing but a "security fence". It
does indeed have a certain security function, and Israeli public
opinion accepts it as such. But by now, informed people must know
that this wall is intended as the future border of Israel.
Therefore, this week all government spokespersons took pains to
stress that the new path of the wall cuts off only 7-8% of the West
Bank.

The word "only" deserves attention. President Bill Clinton's last
peace plan spoke about the annexation of 3-4 percent of the West
Bank to Israel, in return for the transfer of 1 percent of Israeli
territory to the Palestinian state. Seven percent of the territory
of the Federal Republic of Germany is much more than the whole state
of Saxony. Seven percent of the territory of the United States of
America is more than the whole giant state of Texas. (Imagine:
Mexico conquers Texas, builds a wall between it and the rest of the
US and fills it with Mexican settlements.)

But the percentage game is misleading. It is not only the size of
the territory that is important, but also its location.

In this respect, the controversy between Israel and the US remains.
It concerns mainly two places, where the path of the wall causes the
dismemberment of the West Bank. If the wall is to include the
settlement town of Ariel, it will send a finger deep into the West
Bank. This finger will connect with a second one, coming from the
opposite direction — the two fingers together will cut through the
whole width of the West Bank south of Nablus. Another finger will
extend from Jerusalem to the enlarged Ma'aleh Adumim settlement
bloc, also cutting practically the full width of the West Bank.

The Americans do not yet agree. So Sharon is using one of his
typical methods: in those two places he leaves a gap in the wall. He
will build there in due course, after using a future opportunity to
wrap President Bush — so to say — around his little finger.

But the percentage account is also wrong in another respect.
Nowadays one speaks only about the wall that will separate the West
Bank from Israel proper. Nobody is talking now of the "eastern"
wall.

It is no secret that Sharon plans to build this wall in order to
complete the encirclement of the West Bank and cut it off from the
Jordan valley and the Dead Sea shore. That is a big slice of
territory, about 20 percent of the West Bank, and would cut the West
Bank off from any contact with the world. Sharon knows that he
cannot build this wall at the moment, because of the opposition of
the US and the whole world. Also, there is no budget for it.
Therefore, he is leaving it for the future.

The government decision does formally include the southern border of
the West Bank, where the planned path of the wall runs almost
completely along the Green Line. That looks really nice. But this,
too, contains a trick: Sharon does not intend to build this part of
the wall in the near future. He is postponing it for another time —
and then he will propose a different path altogether, including a
finger thrust deeply into Palestinian territory, so as to annex the
South Hebron settlement bloc, up to Kiryat Arba.

By way of deception shalt thou build settlements.

In the meantime, Sharon is keeping himself occupied with building on
the 7 percent of the territory that has been approved by the
government decision. All this area between the wall and the Green
Line — the territory already annexed in practice — is being filled
with new settlements. Among others:

* A new town called Gevaoth that is to be built west of Bethlehem,
in what is called the "Etzion Bloc". That is a mendacious name: the
original Etzion Bloc consisted of a small group of settlements near
the Green Line. It was occupied by the Arabs in the 1948 war and re-
conquered by Israel in 1967, when the former settlements were also
re-built. But then a whole new town (Efrata) was added to the east,
and beyond that a number of new settlements, until the original few
settlements had expanded into a massive settlement bloc almost
surrounding Bethlehem. Now Sharon is going to fill it with even more
settlers.

* A big new settlement called "North Tsufim" that is to be built
north of Qalqilia. This, too, will reach the proportions of a town.

* Giant housing projects, that will be set up in order to connect
the Ma'aleh Adumim bloc to Jerusalem, and just about reach the
Jordan river.

* Also in the Jerusalem area, the new (Labour) minister for housing,
Yitzhak Herzog, promises to build big housing projects from Har Homa
to Ma'aleh Adumim, while another one is going to be built east of A-
Ram. The aim is to cut Jerusalem off completely from the West Bank.

All this is happening while Israel and the world are waxing lyrical
about the "disengagement" plan — which, in essence, is nothing but a
plan to consolidate the Gaza strip as one of the enclaves in "a
state of scattered territories". (The Gaza Strip constitutes only 6
percent of the occupied territories.)

The Labour Party is a full partner in this scheme.

As far as Sharon is concerned, the disengagement plan plays with the
dismantling of some small settlements in a remote corner of the
occupied territories for the fulfilment of his grand design to take
over most of the West Bank.

Now President Bush has declared that he does not accept this design.
His European hosts smiled politely. Perhaps they believed him, and
then, maybe they did not.

-Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist. He served three
terms in the Israeli parliament (Knesset), and is the founder of
Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc)

Source: The Palestine Chronicle - www.palestinechronicle.com

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The Importance of the Right of Return to the Palestinian People
From Layla
www.divestmentproject.org

As a Palestinian whose family was dispossessed more than once, the
topic of the Right of Return is of great significance to me.  At the
core of the Palestinian issue is the right of return.  Losing one's
home is one thing, but for us it was compounded by the loss of
family connections, linguistic/cultural heritage, wealth of the
nation as that enhances or detracts from our community or personal
wealth, and the connections to our ancestral lands/ historical
connections that span millennia.



To understand that you have to imagine my family, like most
refugees, still hold on to the keys of the homes they were driven of
in Palestine.  Whether they live in the refugee camps in Jordan,
Syria or Lebanon or in the camps in the West Bank or Gaza, we all
raised their children and grand children on the hope of going home.
The one place we felt the connection to our ancestral lands and
ancestors.  Like other native and indigenous peoples, Palestinians
placed a high value on this ancestral connection.



My aunts Jamila and Farida showed us the keys and talked about the
houses, the personal belongings, the orange groves and the smell of
the sea in Yaffa.  In 1948 the Haganah regulars in the British army
joined the terrorist gangs of the Stern and Urgun and forcibly
removed the majority of the people in the Palestinian countryside,
using both fear and aggression.  My uncles held onto the deeds or
tax records to their properties and businesses in Haifa and Lidda.
We were prevented from returning.  Some of my family members and
others were shot when they attempted to return sometimes a distance
of a few thousand feet, where they were hiding till the aggression
subsided.



At the same time we as Native Palestinians with roots in the land
are denied the right of return, the new military state, Israel,
instituted the Law of Return, that allows Jews from all over the
world whether from Russia, New York or any other country to enter
and acquire our lands and properties.



Palestinians experienced this again in 1967, when the military,
settlers and government of Israel confiscated lands, movable
property, natural resources, cash and valuables from my family and
people in West Bank and Gaza.   My land that I inherited from my
father is in the hands of a Jew from Brooklyn.  He demolished most
structures, removed the orange and lemon groves to farm it in large
agribusiness with other farms he was given by the military governor.
Right of Return is not a remote notion about past losses and
aggression.  The theft and aggression continues till today.



To understand how this has worked, you need to look at the
Palestinians inside the Green Line.

They are confined to towns that have continued to deteriorate as
subjects in a state that does not recognize them as citizens,
because they are not Jewish.  That is even if they are the original
owners and have lived in Palestine for thousands of years as
descendants of the original Canaanites, Hebrews and Aramaics.  A
Palestinian cannot serve in the army and as such is denied the
benefits of work in a state that is heavily into the military or
governmental jobs.  Two of my friends are psychologists.  They
cannot work in any school, or clinic.  To borrow you need to have a
military certificate, so homes in those towns have not been repaired
in over 57 years.  They cannot repair their family homes.



Palestinians in Israel pay taxes, but get a small fraction that
compared to what Jewish towns get for water, sewer, roads, schools
and such.  Palestinians are denied permit to buy or lease any of
their lands.  The state transferred ownership to the Jewish agency
that only allows Jews to use the land.  Many Palestinians are
displaced internally under the Absentee Present Law.  This says
anyone who was not at home (maybe in his fields or next town over)
is an absentee and his property goes to the Absentee Property
Bureau.  This is one of the cleverest ways to take property away
from Palestinians.



Another way was the closed military area.  The army declares an area
closed, then confiscates the land and turns over to Jewish
settlement.  Mind you this against people who hold Israeli
passports, but are fourth class in this archaic racist state.



Over 50 villages of internally displaced persons that were started
after 1948 are unrecognized and get NO SERVICES and are in constant
danger of being removed over and over whenever a new Jewish
settlement is planned or to make room for parks  FOR JEWS ONLY.



Bedouins are removed from their pastures under similar excuses by
the military for land to be turned over for Jewish use only.
Remember this not in West Bank or Gaza, but inside the so called
democratic state.

Its all about the basic question of the Right of Return.  Once we
give it up, we give legal status to all the above mentioned
activities.  I hope many of you agree these are illegal and unjust.
That is why the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was introduced.

Layla

===

The Need:
www.lajee.org

The Aida Refugee Camp was established in 1950 by families of 27
depopulated villages, mostly from the Jerusalem area. It is located
only about 10 kilometers south of Jerusalem at the northern end of
Bethlehem. Nearly 4,500 people (55% are children) live in the camp,
confined within less than 600 meters square. On the hilltop
overlooking the camp is the large Israeli settlement of Gilo, from
which the Israelis operate a military base.

In the last four years, all the camp's residents have faced
increasing levels of violence from the Israeli military. Soldiers
routinely enter the camp, brutally beat civilians, raid our homes,
and arrest our sons and daughters. Three months ago, these invasions
intensified with the construction of Israel's separation wall only
20 meters from our homes. This completely cut us off from the
neighboring olive orchard which provided agricultural income to the
people of the camp and was the only open space in which our children
could play. People who have houses in this area have been
threatened with expulsion. With the construction of the wall, a
large portion of the camp will be encircled by military watchtowers.
This will inevitably mean constant tension, confrontation, and
clashes.

Our young people are especially impacted—both physically and
emotionally—by these hostilities. There are no play areas for
children.  Even UNWRA has placed its school facilities off-limits so
as to avoid soldiers tear gassing and firing on the playground in
off-school hours. Instead, our children play in the streets and in
the alleyways among the high-density housing units, vulnerable to
patrolling military jeeps and armed Israeli security guards. The
presence of these invading forces in their neighborhoods often
provokes our young people into throwing stones, partly as an
expression of outrage for the injustice of their situation and
partly as a passing game to break the monotony of their lives.
However, the reaction of soldiers to this "game" has had terribly
high costs during this Intifada, leaving many of our youth injured,
disabled or even dead. We are seeing increasing signs of
despair resulting from chronic trauma, even among our youngest.


Our Activities:
For many of the children of Aida Camp, the Lajee Center is their
only refuge in this hostile climate. Lajee Center—a registered,
Palestinian non-governmental, non-political organization—was
established in September 2000 by a group of young women and men from
Aida Camp. Its founders recognized the urgent need to provide the
new generation of refugee children with opportunities to gain the
skills and judgment to build a new future for themselves and their
society.

In addition to enrichment and recreation opportunities, the Center
also aims to develop social awareness in refugee youth. In
particular, we structure and implement our activities in such a way
as to eliminate discrimination against women. Activities are
organized with the goal of fostering in the participants a wider
understanding of the world in which they live, focusing on issues
relating specifically to their own society, culture and history,
as well as the global context. Our hope is to develop the social
awareness of the children, deepen their education and provide them
with the critical skills necessary for them to take on an active
role in their society. With these goals in mind, Lajee Center
organized the following programs and activities for its youth:
• Scout Group of 65 children between the ages of 7 and 14
(temporarily suspended for security reasons)
• Dance Troupe of 12 children from 9 to 15, specializing in
folkloric dancing
• Choral group consisting of 6 boys and girls and two musicians,
between the ages of 10 and 16. The group has already performed and
recorded 8 songs, written especially for them by Lajee's own poet
and musician. In September 2002, eight of the girls were invited to
Cairo where they performed (singing and dancing) in the prestigious
Cairo Opera House
• Cultural Activities: establishing a traditional dabkeh dance
troupe, putting on original theatrical performances, and recording a
CD of original songs.
• Oral History Project: recording grandparent stories of their
refugee experience and publishing these and current and historical
photographs in a CD format.
• Arts & Crafts: teaching painting, drawing, craft projects and
traditional handicrafts; conducting youth art contest and show, and
creating a child-designed community mural depicting scenes from
their lives.
• Supplemental academic classes: offering after-school study
sessions and tutoring to support regular classes.
• Annual Summer Work Camp with cultural, athletic, educational,
community improvement and recreational activities.
• Civic education courses, including democratic principles,
children's rights, community leadership-building, and civic
responsibilities.
• Library of multilingual books from around the world for all ages.
• Computer Lab with Internet access and computer skills training.
• Sports Hall: providing space for recreational activities and
dabkeh practice.
• Know Your Country this project consists of a series of trips for
youth of the Center to cities, villages, or organizations in
Palestine, with the aim of giving them the opportunity to learn
about their society, its history, and resources in a tangible way.

Organizational Background:
All our activities are organized by concerned members of the
community, and our programs depend entirely on the voluntary efforts
of our members, with some support from related institutions and
interested individuals. There are currently 21 volunteers, each of
whom pays a nominal monthly fee of 20 NIS. These fees go towards
supporting the costs of the activities and of building maintenance.
The idea of the nominal fee is also to encourage a participatory and
co-operative spirit in serving the community.

While our activities are currently concentrated in Aida Camp, we
already have some participating children from Dheisheh and Azza
Refugee Camps, and Bethlehem and Beit Jala cities. We hope to expand
our activities to include more children from the surrounding area.
We hope also to increase the number of volunteers from outside of
Aida Camp; currently our outside volunteers include one person from
Bethlehem, one from Azza Camp, one American, and one living in
Jerusalem.

===

500 Million Christians Urged To Divest
By Sam Ser
Jerusalem Post.com
2-23-5

An organization representing up to half a billion Christians
worldwide has encouraged its member churches to divest from
companies that participate in "illegal activities" in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip.

The central committee of the World Council of Churches, which
represents more than 340 Protestant and Orthodox churches in more
than 120 countries, announced the decision on Monday, toward the
conclusion of the governing body's meeting in Geneva.

It specifically noted the "process of phased, selective divestment
from multinational corporations involved in the occupation" now
being implemented by the Presbyterian Church (USA). "This action is
commendable in both method and manner, [and] uses criteria rooted in
faith," the group said in a statement.

While that campaign angered segments of the American Presbyterian
community, the WCC's international affairs expert Peter Weiderud
told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that its own statement was the
result of a "grassroots initiative" from its membership, and was not
merely the view of a limited number of senior clergy. The WCC itself
noted in another statement that it had chosen to follow a "consensus
decision-making model."

The central committee "reminded the council's member churches
that 'with investment funds, they have an opportunity to use those
funds responsibly in support of peaceful solutions' to the Israel-
Palestine conflict," the statement said.

"Multinational corporations have been involved in the demolition of
Palestinian homes, and are involved in the construction of
settlements and settlement infrastructure on occupied territory, in
building a dividing wall which is also largely inside occupied
territory, and in other violations of international law being
carried out beyond the internationally recognized borders of the
State of Israel determined by the Armistice of 1949," the statement
continued.

"The WCC governing body encouraged the council's member churches 'to
give serious consideration to economic measures' as a new way to
work for peace, by looking at ways to not participate economically
in illegal activities related to the Israeli occupation. In that
sense, the committee affirmed 'economic pressure, appropriately and
openly applied,' as a 'means of action.'"

Weiderud noted that the committee had taken into account recent
positive developments in the peace process, but, as the body itself
stated, "illegal activities in occupied territory continue as if a
viable peace for both peoples is not a possibility."

Apparently seeking to preempt criticism of the move as anti-Semitic,
the WCC's central committee "framed" its recommendation
by "recalling" its statement in 1992 that "criticism of the policies
of the Israeli government is not in itself anti-Jewish."

Moshe Fox, minister for public and interreligious affairs at the
Israel Embassy in Washington, DC, disagreed.

"While maintaining that this recommendation is neither one-sided nor
anti-Jewish, it is clearly both," Fox told the Post on Tuesday.

"At a time when Israelis and Palestinians are engaged in a political
process, returning to negotiations, this decision is utterly ill-
timed. The WCC is apparently seeking to dovetail on the Presbyterian
Church's campaign. But, while the Presbyterian Church is still
deliberating, the WCC is charging forward... [but] a boycott of
Israel will not bring the Israelis and Palestinians any closer to
the path of peace," he added.

Weiderud also said the WCC was unaware of any intimidation of
Palestinian Christians by Palestinian terrorists or desecration of
Christian holy sites. No churches under Palestinian control were
large enough to qualify for membership in the WCC, although the body
had indirect contacts with several churches there, he said.

© 1995 - 2005 The Jerusalem Post. All rights reserved.

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From Lebanon to Iraq and Back
Leon Hadar, Antiwar.com
March 5, 2005
www.antiwar.com/orig/hadar.php?articleid=5075


For Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon all the current euphoria
about the rising New Lebanon, marking the start of a revolutionary
change in the Middle East, must have the feel of déjà vu all over
again.

After all, when Israeli troops under the order of then Defense
Minister Sharon invaded Lebanon in 1982 as part of a strategy to
expel the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from that country
and to bring to power the Christian Phalangist militias, led by
Bashir Gemayel < http://www.lebanese-forces.org/bach/biography.htm
>, Israeli officials and pundits were predicting that a New Order
was about to emerge in the Middle East: an alliance between the twin
pro-Western and democratic states of Israel and Lebanon would lead
to the weakening of the PLO and Syria and help trigger similar
changes in the entire Middle East.

What had happened in Lebanon in the aftermath of the Israeli
invasion in 1982 would be later advanced by those observers who were
warning the Bush Administration in 2002 not to invade Iraq.

The Israelis did defeat the Syrian and Muslim Lebanese troops and
achieved their goal of evicting Yasser Arafat and his PLO from
Lebanon.

But Lebanon was not transformed into a stable democracy and an ally
of the West and Israel. Instead, following the assassination of
Gemayel and the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the country relapsed
into another bloody civil war that forced the deployment of
international peacekeeping troops, including American soldiers, and
eventually to the return of Syrian occupying forces to impose order
in the country.

Indeed, the main legacy of the 1982 Israeli invasion – in addition
to close to 20,000 casualties – was to strengthen the power of the
Shi'ite Muslims in Lebanon while turning them into long-term enemies
of Israel and the United States and intensifying anti-American
sentiments, including terrorism in the region.

Lebanon demonstrated then – as Iraq would 20 years later – the
dilemmas faced by an outside power as it tries to ally itself with
local national, ethnic and religious players in the Middle East.
These "allies" succeed in drawing in the outsider and in winning its
military support by pledging to promote its interests and values.

In reality, the local players, whether they are the Shi'ites and
Kurds in Iraq, or the Maronites, Druze and Shi'ites in Lebanon
regard their partnership with a power like the United States as
nothing more than an ad-hoc arrangement aimed at advancing their
particularistic interests in relation to other competing players in
the region.

They might even be willing to quote Thomas Jefferson in exchange for
American intervention on their side. But when an outsider like the
US helps tip the balance in favor of its local partner or if that
power fails to deliver the goods, the local player exposes its real
agenda: trying to win one more fight in the neighborhood in which
the spoils don't necessarily go to the good guys.

But tomorrow is another day, and in the next brawl our
current "ally" might exchange one outsider for another. Hence
Americans shouldn't have been "Shocked! Shocked! Shocked!" to learn
that while enjoying a huge American stipend, their former ally Ahmad
Chalabi was also providing tips to the Iranian security services.

And they certainly shouldn't be surprised if and when the supposedly
pro-American and democracy loving Shi'ite groups they helped bring
to power in Baghdad strengthen their links to the Shi'ite regime in
Tehran and erode the rights of women and Christians in Iraq.

Indeed, the Americans should recall how the Shi'ites in Southern
Lebanon, suffering under the domination of the PLO welcomed the
Israelis with flowers in 1982 only to launch a bloody insurgency
against them a few months later.

And it was the "pro-Israeli" and Western-oriented Maronites who
massacred Palestinian women and children in Sabra and Shatila <
http://www.indictsharon.net/ > and who urged that the Syrians return
to Lebanon after the Israelis and the Americans left Beirut.

And it is the Maronites, together with leaders of the Druze and
Sunni communities, a coalition of tribal warlords who for years were
the lackeys of the Assad family in Damascus and have been in control
of a political system that reflects narrow sectarian interests, who
have now suddenly reinvented themselves as pro-American democrats.

Hence one of these warlords, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt <
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/comments.php?id=P1841_0_1_30 >, the
leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, who told an Arab
newspaper last year: "We are all happy when US soldiers are killed
(in Iraq) week in and week out." And again: "The killing of US
soldiers in Iraq is legitimate and obligatory." But it seems he has
undergone a conversion. As he explained to an American reporter
recently: "When I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight
million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world."

What accounts for this quick conversion from a nasty anti-American
barker into a neocon cheerleader by Jumblatt and the other members
of the (current) anti-Syrian coalition is their interest in
exploiting the current weakness of the regime in Damascus to
overcome another coalition of ethnic and religious groups that is
now in power in Beirut. Contrary to the spin propagated by
Washington, this political infighting has nothing to do with pro-
American sentiments and the struggle for democracy. The new
governing coalition in Beirut would be ready to ally itself with any
outside power – if not the American, then the French – to secure
their interests.

Moreover, those Americans who are hoping that Lebanon become a full-
blown democracy should consider the following: although no reliable
statistics are available, most experts agree that as a result of low-
birth rates and emigration, the Maronites and the other Christian
sects have become a dwindling minority of about 20 per cent, while
among the Muslim majority, the Shi'ites are the rising demographic
group. Some estimates suggest they constitute about 40 per cent of
the Lebanese citizens. Sound like Shi'ite-dominated Iran and Iraq
would soon be joined by a new partner. Thanks America!

===

The "Hezbollah Model" in Lebanon and Iraq
Kurt Nimmo
March 05, 2005
kurtnimmo.com/blog/index.php?p=598



If you want to get a handle on the situation in Lebanon, read Gary
Leupp's interview with Fadi K. Agha <
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp03052005.html > , the foreign
policy advisor to president Emil Lahoud. Agha's take on the
situation—almost completely at variance with the view presented by
the corporate media here in the United States—is a short primer on
Lebanese history, Hezbollah, Strausscon intentions, and Israeli
aggression.

As Israel Shahak wrote in the preface of Oded Yinon's "A Strategy
for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties," <
http://www.geocities.com/alabasters_archive/zionist_plan.html#content
s > Israel has a burning desire to fragment "all Arab states into
smaller units," in other words balkanize the whole of the Arab and
Muslim Middle East. Israel's second invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was
but one operation of a larger plan to "see not only Lebanon, but
Syria and Jordan as well, in fragments… What they want and what they
are planning for is not an Arab world, but a world of Arab fragments
that is ready to succumb to Israeli hegemony," a plan shared by the
Bush Strausscons.

Oded Yinon writes in his report: "Lebanon's total dissolution into
five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world
including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is
already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq
later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in
Lebanon."

Israel's invasion of Lebanon essentially created Hezbollah and
the "Hezbollah model," for lack of a better term, and this model
will ultimately stymie the Likudite and Strausscon plan to balkanize
the Arab and Muslim Middle East. As Agha notes, Hezbollah "lead to
the first Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab lands UNDER DURESS.
This, and the fact that Hezbollah has been emblematic of a `culture
of resistance' in the Middle East, has never been forgiven." In
fact, the current Likudite-Strausscon machination—beginning with the
murder of Rafiq al-Hariri and the fabricated "Cedar revolution" now
emerging—is aimed at Hezbollah because the defeat of Israel as it
attempted to implement the plan detailed by Oded Yinon "has never
been forgiven." The "Hezbollah model," currently underway in Iraq—
with important differences—has demonstrated that popular resistance
can defeat the Likudite-Strausscon plan as outlined by Yinon.

Agha writes:

Tel Aviv, will not miss an opportunity to blame any calamity that
befalls it on Syria and Hezballah. The sad part is that Israel
produces "evidences" that are always "bought" in Washington. Listen,
Israel remains the only world occupying force who gets away with
murder. Constantly blaming Syria, Hezbollah … is a sorry attempt by
Tel Aviv to shift the blame for its unsuccessful policy of "security
first." Basically, one need not be a wizard to determine that a
despaired people, a humiliated people a people in CONSTANT MOURNING,
will go to any length in extracting vengeance from those who
dislocate , humiliate and murder his brethren.

And this is where the Likudite-Strausscon plan breaks down:
humiliated people will always resist invasion and occupation, as
they did in Vietnam and Algeria, to name but two of the more obvious
examples. Arabs and Muslims are no longer so easily diverted by
the "divide and rule" tactics used by colonial powers in the last
century, as the ongoing struggle against occupation in Iraq
demonstrates. Bush and Sharon want the Syrian military to leave
Lebanon and thus usher in a return to the sectarian strife and civil
war that worked so well in their favor in the not too distant past.
Israel and the United States hope for a "Cedar revolution"
government in Lebanon that will disenfranchise and demilitarize
Hezbollah. However, this will not happen—although the Hezbollah
political party may eventually be ejected from parliamentary
politics—the struggle against Israeli aggression will continue and
the resistance against American occupation of Iraq will increase and
intensify until the United States suffers the fate the Israelis
suffered in Lebanon in 2000—total defeat and evacuation with its
tail tucked between its legs.

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Five die in Afghan gunbattle
------------------------------------------------------------------
KABUL, March 5: Three insurgents and two Afghan civilians were
killed in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday after US-led troops
came under fire from unidentified militants, the US military said
in a statement on Saturday.

Three Afghan civilians and two members of the US-led coalition
were also wounded in the ensuing gunbattle, the statement
said.....(AFP)

http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top10.htm&date=20050306

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US attack against Italians in Baghdad was deliberate: companion
AFP
www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=38029

ROME, March 5, 2005 - The companion of freed Italian journalist
Giuliana Sgrena on Saturday leveled serious accusations at US troops
who fired at her convoy as it was nearing Baghdad airport, saying
the shooting had been deliberate.

"The Americans and Italians knew about (her) car coming," Pier
Scolari said on leaving Rome's Celio military hospital where Sgrena
is to undergo surgery following her return home.

"They were 700 meters (yards) from the airport, which means that
they had passed all checkpoints."

The shooting late Friday was witnessed by Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi's office which was on the phone with one of the secret
service agents, said Scolari. "Then the US military silenced the
cellphones," he charged.

"Giuliana had information, and the US military did not want her to
survive," he added.

When Sgrena was kidnapped on February 4 she was writing an article
on refugees from Fallujah seeking shelter at a Baghdad mosque after
US forces bombed the former Sunni rebel stronghold.

Sgrena told RaiNews24 television Saturday a "hail of bullets" rained
down on the car taking her to safety at Baghdad airport, along with
three secret service agents, killing one of them.

"I was speaking to (agent) Nicola Calipari (...) when he leant on
me, probably to protect me, and then collapsed and I realized he was
dead," said Sgrena, who was being questioned on Saturday by two
Italian magistrates.

"They continued shooting and the driver couldn't even explain that
we were Italians. It was really horrible," she added.

Sgrena, who was hospitalized with serious wounds to her left
shoulder and lung after arriving back in Rome Saturday before noon,
said she was "exhausted because of what happened above all in the
last 24 hours".

"After all the risks I have been running I can say that I'm fine,"
she said.

"I thought that after I was handed over to the Italians danger was
over, but then this shooting broke out and we were hit by a hail of
bullets."

The chief editor of Sgrena's left-wing newspaper Il Manifesto
Gabriele Polo meanwhile branded Calipari's death a "murder".

"He was hit in the head," he said.

Calipari will be given a state funeral Monday.


===

What does Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena know and why did the
U.S. want to kill her?
Special Report, Axis of Logic
Mar 5, 2005, 14:16
www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_16096.shtml


Editors Note: Kevin Thomson, a reader of Axis of Logic publications
sent this note and article in today regarding the release of Italian
journalist Giuliana Sgrena, followed by an attack on her car,
wounding her and others and killing Nicola Calipari, the Italian
agent who was accompanying her. We ask, "What does Giuliana Sgrena
know and why did the U.S. military want to silence her?"

Ever since the kidnappings and beheadings of non-military personnel
in Iraq began nearly 2 years ago, many observers, readers and
analysts have asked why the Iraqi resistance would commit these
crimes, knowing they would turn world opinion against them. Many ask
the same questions about the mass killings of Shiites with bombs.
The Iraqi resistance has nothing to gain from these atrocities and
the invader/occupiers have everything to gain in the propaganda war.
We know that the CIA and Mossad have been very busy in Iraq but what
kind of "work" are they doing? Many readers write to us with their
suspicions that these killings and kidnappings are the work of Black
Ops in Iraq. "The jury is out." - Les Blough, Editor

Axis Reader Kevin Thomson writes: "All the American media said the
Italian car, which was carrying the former hostage and Italian
intelligence officers, was speeding at checkpoint and thus fired
upon by American troops. However, foreign news reports it
differently. This is from AFP (French media) and published on a
Turkish web site."



US attack against Italians in Baghdad was deliberate: companion


Published: 3/5/2005

ROME - The companion of freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena on
Saturday leveled serious accusations at US troops who fired at her
convoy as it was nearing Baghdad airport, saying the shooting had
been deliberate.

"The Americans and Italians knew about (her) car coming," Pier
Scolari said on leaving Rome's Celio military hospital where Sgrena
is to undergo surgery following her return home.

"They were 700 meters (yards) from the airport, which means that
they had passed all checkpoints."

The shooting late Friday was witnessed by Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi's office which was on the phone with one of the secret
service agents, said Scolari. "Then the US military silenced the
cellphones," he charged.

"Giuliana had information, and the US military did not want her to
survive," he added.

When Sgrena was kidnapped on February 4 she was writing an article
on refugees from Fallujah seeking shelter at a Baghdad mosque after
US forces bombed the former Sunni rebel stronghold.

Sgrena told RaiNews24 television Saturday a "hail of bullets" rained
down on the car taking her to safety at Baghdad airport, along with
three secret service agents, killing one of them.

"I was speaking to (agent) Nicola Calipari (...) when he leant on
me, probably to protect me, and then collapsed and I realized he was
dead," said Sgrena, who was being questioned on Saturday by two
Italian magistrates.

"They continued shooting and the driver couldn't even explain that
we were Italians. It was really horrible," she added.

Sgrena, who was hospitalized with serious wounds to her left
shoulder and lung after arriving back in Rome Saturday before noon,
said she was "exhausted because of what happened above all in the
last 24 hours".

"After all the risks I have been running I can say that I'm fine,"
she said.

"I thought that after I was handed over to the Italians danger was
over, but then this shooting broke out and we were hit by a hail of
bullets."

The chief editor of Sgrena's left-wing newspaper Il Manifesto
Gabriele Polo meanwhile branded Calipari's death a "murder".

"He was hit in the head," he said.

Calipari will be given a state funeral Monday.

03/05/2005 13:43 GMT

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=38029

===

Giuliana Sgrena Nearly Killed by Yahoo Soldiers
Kurt Nimmo
March 05, 2005
kurtnimmo.com/blog/index.php?p=597


It was oh so considerate of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi
to "greet" Giuliana Sgrena at Rome's Ciampino airport following her
release from weeks of captivity in the hellhole of Iraq. Sgrena
almost didn't make it. She was nearly killed by trigger-happy
American GIs. Nicola Calipari, the Italian intelligence officer who
helped secure Sgrena's release, wasn't so fortunate—he was shot to
death by Americans, suffering the fate of thousands upon thousands
of Iraqis. Calipari shielded Sgrena with his body as the yahoo
Americans opened fire on the car taking the journalist to Baghdad
airport for the flight back to Italy. If not for Calipari's action,
no doubt Giuliana Sgrena would be dead.

Sgrena told Rai News 24 <
http://www.poteaudailynews.com/articles/2005/03/05/ap/headlines/d88ks
h8g0.txt > by telephone that "we thought the danger was over after
my rescue… And instead, suddenly there was this shooting. We were
hit by a spray of fire. I was talking to Nicola… when he leaned over
me, probably to defend me, and then he slumped over. That was a
truly terrible thing." Pier Scolari, the journalist's boyfriend,
said she told him: "The most difficult moment was when I saw the
person who had saved me die in my arms," according to the ANSA news
agency.

Bush disingenuously said he would investigate the shooting. Like the
so-called "investigations" into other shootings and the torture at
Abu Ghraib, the result of this investigation will be predictable—at
most some private will slapped on the hand. Meanwhile, the daily
carnage in Iraq will continue sans investigation.

Maria Sanminatatelli notes: "The shooting came as a blow to
Berlusconi, who has kept 3,000 troops in Iraq, and was likely to set
off new protests in Italy, where tens of thousands have regularly
demonstrated against the Iraq war. Sgrena's left-leaning newspaper
vigorously opposed the conflict." Sanminatatelli neglected to
mention that the vast majority of Italians also oppose
the "conflict" and Berlusconi sent Italian troops regardless.

Silvio Berlusconi—the richest man in Italy, whose empire includes
one of the most valuable soccer franchises in the world, the largest
private TV network company in Italy, a publishing conglomerate, a
bank, insurance companies, and department stores—is simply doing
what rich people do all over the world: lending a hand for imperial
adventures in a country where there is a whole lot of oil. In order
to keep up appearances, however, Berlusconi summoned the U.S.
ambassador to Rome, Mel Sembler. "The United States will continue to
provide all necessary assistance," Sembler told the media. "And we
are working with our Italian allies as we fully investigate the
circumstances of this tragedy." ABC News characterized the incident
thus, "The United States and its staunch Iraq war ally Italy face
their worst falling out in years after U.S. troops killed an Italian
secret service agent and uounded (sic) an Italian reporter." In
other words, shooting journalists looks bad—especially after they
are abducted by a shadowy "terrorist" organization nobody has ever
heard of and will probably never hear from again.

Of course, there would be no "tragedy" or "falling out" if the
United States, with the Italian government's assistance, had not
invaded and occupied Iraq in the first place. In a few days the
whole sordid affair will blow over and the media will concentrate on
the Blake murder trial and the new photos of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi <
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/05/zarqawi.pics/index.html >,
terrorist hobgoblin.

The kidnapping of Giuliana Sgrena was in essence a mission
accomplished—it prevented her from reporting on the criminal
invasion of Fallujah. Moments after Sgrena interviewed survivors of
the invasion at a mosque on the Baghdad University campus, she was
kidnapped by a Sunni group nobody has ever heard of, a news cycle
bonanza for the corporate media in its ceaseless effort to make the
Iraqi resistance out to be nothing more than terrorists and
criminals. "It is people like Sgrena who give terrorists the
intellectual fuel that feeds their anti-Americanism. She is on their
side and you don't kill an ally," wrote the blogger Jawa <
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/066825.php >.

Of course, there is no reason to kidnap "people like Sgrena" either,
especially when they have damaging reports about Fallujah, but then
maybe Jawa neglected to take his medication on the particular day he
wrote the above. In fact, it would appear Jawa had neglected to take
a month's worth of medication. "Could her own sympathies with
the `resistance' lead her to stage her own abduction?" Nothing like
blaming the victim. Author, blogger, and concentration camp
apologist Michelle Malkin apparently agrees with Jawa's delusional
explanation < http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001451.htm >.

It is, however, a mystery why Sgrena was released. It will be
interesting to read her comments on the abduction and her treatment
at the hands of an alleged Sunni resistance group. However, it makes
absolutely no sense for the resistance to kidnap Sgrena. If they did
indeed abduct her, especially at the precise moment she was about to
release information to the world about the criminal invasion of
Fallujah, they are the stupidest resistance group in recent memory.

===

Italy Rejects U.S. Version of Shooting at Freed Italian Journalist
Giuliana Sgrena
By Robin Pomeroy ROME (Reuters) -
Sun Mar 6, 2005
www.aljazeerah.info

Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena, shot and wounded after being freed
in Iraq, said Sunday U.S. forces may have deliberately targeted her
because Washington opposed Italy's policy of dealing with kidnappers.

She offered no evidence for her claim, but the sentiment reflected
growing anger in Italy over the conduct of the war, which has
claimed more than 20 Italian lives, including the secret agent who
rescued her moments before being killed.

Friday evening's killing of the agent and wounding of the
journalist, who worked for a communist daily, has sparked tension
with Italy's U.S. allies and put pressure on Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi to take a hard line with President Bush.

The United States has promised a full investigation into incident,
in which soldiers fired on the Italians' car as it approached
Baghdad airport Friday evening.

The U.S. military says the car was speeding toward a checkpoint and
ignored warning shots, an explanation denied by government ministers
and the driver of the car.

Speaking from her hospital bed where she is being treated, Sgrena
told Sky Italia TV it was possible the soldiers had targeted her
because Washington opposes Italy's dealings with kidnappers that may
include ransom payments.

"The United States doesn't approve of this (ransom) policy and so
they try to stop it in any way possible."

According to Italy's leading daily Corriere della Sera, the driver,
an unidentified Italian agent, said: "We were driving slowly, about
40-50 km/h (25-30 mph)."

In a harrowing account of her ordeal, Sgrena wrote in Sunday's Il
Manifesto newspaper that the secret agent, Nicola Calipari, saved
her life by shielding her with his body.

"Nicola threw himself on to protect me and then suddenly I heard his
last breath as he died on top of me," she wrote.

===

Giuliana Sgrena: Means, Motive and Murder
WagNews
March 5, 2005
wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/03/giuliana-sgrena-means-motive-and.html


A quick browse through mainstream news to see what they are saying
about the shooting of freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena
leaves one wondering what planet most mainstream journalists are
living on -or what colour blinkers are they wearing.

This BBC article < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4321173.stm >
focuses on the people who held her hostage, saying that "Sgrena
never thought she would be taken hostage telling the story of the
people she deeply cared for."

But how sure are we that it was the people she cared for who took
her hostage?

If anything this article highlights, without intending to, the
reasons why US forces might target her and then claim it was
an "unfortunate incident":


* "her reports filter the impact of conflict through the lives of
ordinary people"
Something which the US has tried to avoid in their invasion of Iraq

* "Sgrena was one of the founders of the peace movement in the 1980s"
Being a peace activist makes you an opponent of what the US military
are doing in Iraq.

* "She refused to become embedded with the US military during the
war."
I think it became clear early on in this invasion the attitude
towards unembedded reporters. See HERE:
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/2003/03/000469.html

* "she interviewed an Iraqi woman who said she was held at
Abu Ghraib prison for 80 days by US forces"
Interviewing a woman, who was held in the notorious prison where
torture abounded would not go down very well with the US military.

* "Sgrena's outspoken anti-war stance should have endeared her to
Iraqi insurgents
(ie RESISTANCE fighters) fighting the US-led forces"
Perhaps it did. because who is to say who took this woman hostage?

In another BBC article <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4321181.stm >:

* "Ms Sgrena told Italian radio of the "rain of fire" on her car,
which she said was not going particularly fast."
* "The reporter told her colleagues that her captors "never treated
me badly",

Today AGI confirms the severity of the gunfire by US forces:

Gabriele Polo, editor of the newspaper il Manifesto, confirmed the
violent gunfight and the fact that US soldiers shot hundreds of
shots against the car in which they were travelling, saying
that "this is what they said to us yesterday at the Prime minister's
office while it was actually happening." [AGI]

And so, to the pertinent questions.
The ones largely unasked by the media:

* Exactly who held her hostage? And what was the motive?
* Why was such a high profile, newly released hostage, not given a
military escort to the airport?
* Or was she, in fact given a military escort to the airport?
* In any event, why was there no radio contact to the US checkpoint
warning of her passage?
* Are such radio contacts part of normal protocol for routine VIP
traffic between the airport and central Baghdad?

See our companion article:
Reporter survives likely assassination bid by US Special Forces:
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/03/italian-reporter-survives-
likely.html

===

No One Safe on Baghdad's Roads, Iraqis Say
Elizabeth Piper,Reuters
iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=41893


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Jawdat Abd al-KadhUm was not surprised that U.S.
troops opened fire at a car carrying a freed Italian hostage to
safety. He lost a leg to an American bullet fired from a convoy
traveling ahead of him.

The 23-year-old says fear, confusion and misunderstandings on all
sides have made roads in Iraq's capital perilous. Now he says he
makes sure that any car he is in stops when a U.S. military convoy
transporting soldiers or equipment nears.

"There is no safety on the roads. Everyone should expect anything to
happen on these roads. Foreigners, Iraqis we are all exposed to the
same risks," said al-Kadhum, his left tracksuit trousdr leg tied
around the stump of his leg.

"Now if I 3ee an American convoy, I stop until it has gone."

Many have a tale to tell of someone they know that has been shot at,
killed or harassed by U.S. forces in convoys or at checkpoints
dotted across the country.

Security contractors, whose numbers have risen as relentless and
often indiscriminate violence grips Iraq, are accused of being
trigger-happy.

But the killing of secret service agent Nicola Calipari, who was
instrumental in gaining Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena's release
from kidnappers, has underlined what was already known to many —
U.S. checkpoints or convoys should be avoided.

STAY CLEAR

The U.S. military says it cannot discuss the rules of engagement —
procedure for dealing with threats from suicide bombers or car
bombs — due to "operational security issues."

But ex-army officers say cars should be at least 50 meters away from
any convoy, never overtake and that if a car speeds toward a
checkpoint soldiers will shoot at the engine block to make sure the
vehicle comes to a standstill.

They say unnecessary shootings happen when hand signals — a fist to
stay back — or linguistic misunderstandings take place. Cultural
differences can also prompt panic — driving slowly for an Iraqi is
not necessarily the same as for an American.
Al-Kadhum thought he knew the rules.
He was taking his uncle, who suffers from kidney disease, to
hospital just miles away from their home in al-Ghazaliyah in west
Baghdad. He says they were a safe distance from the convoy.

"I cannot remember the exact distance, but we were first behind the
convoy about 500 meters behind," he says. "But then there was an
explosion on the convoy and they started shooting. Shooting
everywhere."

His car was shot. A bullet went through his knee. He tried to press
the hole to stop the bleeding but then lost consciousness.

In hospital, his leg was amputated just above th% knee.

"I believe the Americans were confused when they attacked us. But
this confusion causes tragedies," he says, complaining that he
cannot find work and has been told he cannot claim compensation
before the formation of Iraq's new government.

"But yes I blame them. We were not guilty. What have I done to
deserve losing my leg?"

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

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