Eulogy to Rachel

By Colonel Maguire

(maguiresez@...)



Sixteen hundred years ago in 404 AD the Christian monk Telemachus
travelled
from Asia Minor to Rome with a fixed purpose: end the gladiatorial
combats.
Upon arriving in Rome  he ran into the arena crying out "In the name
of
Christ, forebear!"  Telemachus interposed his body between the
combatants to
try to stop the gladiators.  But the gladiators and their crowds, many
'Christians' among them, didn't forebear his interference in their
ancient
traditions.   Together they killed Telemachus. But Honorius, the
Christian
Roman Emperor of the West, was stricken in his conscience. He did
forebear
and that very evening he outlawed all future gladiatorial contests.



Recently another pilgrim from afar interposed her frail body crying
out
'Forebear!' By her side stood a man in fervent and reverent prayer
appealing
to Heaven for her success. We can imagine 1600 years ago other
Christians
praying as Telemachus interposed his body between the gladiators.
Like
Telemachus, Rachel Corrie was mercilessly crushed by the heartless
ones
heedless of her pleas and angered by her message. In the tiers of the
worldwide videodrome the watching mob, many Judeo-Christians among
them,
also roared out "kill, kill".   So far our analogy is exact.



The utter callousness of this documented war crime, the premeditated
character of the Israeli driver's acts; and also of the by-standing
Israeli
security troops who couldn't be bothered for 10 seconds of pepper
spray to
move Rachel and friends aside, all of this defies our comprehension.
We know
none of these Zionist occupation troops go into the Gaza Strip alone
to
demolish a home.   But to complete this scene from Dante's Inferno, to
perfect the satanic insult to Christ, afterwards some Pharisees
passed by
and refused their medical help to this woman lying broken in the
dust.  This
happened not far from where the merciful Samaritan's wounded wayfarer
lay
two millennia ago. It's not just the killing but the casual
gratuitousness
of it all. One can imagine demons in Hell behaving this way with the
damned,
but nowhere else.



The aftermath however is quite different.  Instead of outlawing
demolitions
the Israeli government declares the driver 'not guilty' in a rigged
investigation, while proclaiming the activity itself legal. The
videodrome
mob continues to cry out for more blood.   Can anyone still question
that
here indeed is the Kingdom of the Anti-Christ, populated by Zionist
Jews and
Zionist Gentiles alike?   Does any question remain that God has
delivered
these people over for utter destruction?



And what, you may ask, has the government of the United States of
America
under the leadership of President George W. Bush done about this
atrocity?
After all, Rachel Corrie was an American citizen.   Nor is the Gaza
Strip
sovereign Israeli territory.  Israeli troops illegally occupy this
land in
contemptuous defiance of multiple UN Security Council resolutions
demanding
their immediate withdrawal.   If ever there was a clear cut
international
war crime, here it is, complete with multiple human witnesses and
recorded
live in full colour video.



In these circumstances should not the People and Government of the
United
States demand an apology? Should not the President call a press
conference
and demand that Sharon's government arrest the perpetrators, both the
guilty
soldiers directly involved and their military and civilian superiors?
Should not these war criminals be extradited to the United States to
stand
trial and be brought to justice? Should not the government of the
United
States immediately end all aid to the Zionist State until it bows to
international law and the dictates of common humanity?





It is not surprising that President Bush has not made so much as a
single
peep of protest to the Israelis. It is understandable because, quite
frankly, the Jews and Israel dominate this corrupt administration.
They own
Mr. Bush, they control his Deparment of Defense and he, their obedient
puppet, faithfully does their bidding.



And where are the voices of those who claim to speak for Christ
today, that
evangelical Christian leadership we see daily on Jewish owned
television
channels?   These self-appointed prophets, men like Pat Robertson,
Jerry
Falwell, James Dobson, and Billy Graham could not care less about what
happened to Rachel Corrie. They preach that Israel can do no wrong;
they are
concerned only with promoting Zionist political ambitions and they
gladly
ignore any Christian principles which do not fit the Israeli agenda.

Nor have the media-CNN, FOX, ABC,CBS, the Associated Press and
newspapers
across North America, uttered more than a passing reference about the
tragic
events of last March 16, when young Rachel Corrie's life was snuffed
out by
cruel and sadistic Israeli killers. They, too, you see, are owned and
controlled by Zionist Jewish interests. They, too, like Bush, his
Washington
D.C. cohorts, and the pro-Zionist Christian lobby, are complicit in
the
murder of Rachel Corrie".

----------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3025016.stm


The Israeli army has closed an investigation into the death of a US
peace activist crushed by one of its bulldozers, saying it was an
accident and that no action would be taken against the soldiers
involved.
Rachel Corrie died in March during a protest against the demolition
of a house in the southern Gaza Strip.

She suffered multiple injuries when an Israeli Army bulldozer ran
over her and later died in hospital.

Eyewitnesses, including fellow protesters from the International
Solidarity Movement for whom Corrie was a volunteer, said that the 23-
year-old was clearly visible to the bulldozer operator and was
deliberately killed.

However, the army said that military police investigating the
incident found that Corrie was killed by earth and building rubble
falling on her as she tried to climb on a pile of earth while the
bulldozer was operating.

It also said that, while it expressed sorrow for any incident in
which innocent people are harmed, it felt that the "illegal and
irresponsible" actions of the ISM "contributed to the tragic and
distressing results of this incident".

'Full investigation'

The ISM, a pro-Palestinian activist group that uses 'non-violent
direct action' to challenge the Israeli activities in Palestine, were
protesting against the destruction of a home in the town of Rafah in
the Gaza Strip when the incident occurred.

Her colleagues said that Corrie, wearing an orange fluorescent jacket
to identify herself as an activist, was killed after climbing onto a
mound of dirt in front of the bulldozer when it refused to stop.

However, the Israeli investigation said in a statement that the army
team involved in the incident did not see the activist, because she
was standing behind the mound of earth "and it was not possible to
see her or to hear her voice".

"It is clear the death of Ms Corrie was not caused as a result of a
direct action by the bulldozer or by its running her over," it said.

The army said its investigation had taken into account the
interrogation of the soldiers involved, eyewitness statements, the
findings of the autopsy and the collection of evidence.

Crackdown

An ISM spokesman said the group was not surprised by the findings.

"We have received so many negative signals from them," Ghassan Andoni
told the Associated Press news agency.

"Their only concern is to protect their people and not arrive at the
truth."

Shortly after Corrie's death the Israeli army clamped down on the
ISM's activities and those of other peace groups.

It ordered all foreigners intending to enter areas under Palestinian
control to sign waivers that absolve Israel from responsibility
should they be killed or injured in the occupied territories.


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Conjoined twins in critical stage



Dr. Alex Lee, left, and Dr. Ong Biauw Chi, right, work to separate
the twins as the operation began in Singapore Sunday.


Ladan, left and Laleh Bijani, both 29, said they'd rather risk the
surgery than continue living joined together.

Surgery to separate Iranian sisters could take 4 days


ASSOCIATED PRESS

       SINGAPORE, July 7 —  Neurosurgeons performing a dangerous,
marathon operation to separate Iranian sisters joined at the head
grappled Monday with rerouting a vein as thick as a finger that helps
blood flow through the twins' brains.


  `While we are cautiously optimistic, there are some twists and turns
that we will have to navigate.'
— DR. PREM KUMAR
          AN INTERNATIONAL team of five neurosurgeons probed the
brains of 29-year-old Ladan and Laleh Bijani as a crucial phase began
in a historic operation expected to last two to four days, said a
spokesman for Singapore's Raffles Hospital.
        Surgeons planned to begin separating the twins' brains later
Monday after encountering an unexpected delay in cutting through the
skulls when the bone turned out to be denser than previously thought,
Dr. Prem Kumar said at a news conference.
        "The procedure took six hours — longer than originally
expected — because the bones were thick and compact, especially in
the areas where the two skull bones fuse," Kumar said.
        But he stressed the delay was not a problem.
        "While we are cautiously optimistic, there are some twists and
turns that we will have to navigate. The twins are taking to the
procedure quite well," he said.
        The operation could kill one or both of the sisters, but after
a lifetime of compromising on everything from when to wake up to what
career to pursue, the Bijani sisters said they would rather face
those dangers than continue living joined.
           "Both of them have an equal chance (to live), we're giving
them an equal chance, we're not compromising," Kumar said.
        The shared vein is the biggest obstacle in the surgery: Other
than sharing the vein, the women's brains are not joined — though
they touch inside their skulls. Their bodies are otherwise distinct.
        German doctors told the twins in 1996 that the shared vein,
which drains blood from their brains, made surgery too dangerous.
        Doctors on Sunday removed a vein from Ladan Bijani's thigh and
will use that to compensate for diverting the shared vein to one
sister's brain. Doctors have not yet determined which sister will
keep the finger-thick vein and which will receive the graft, Kumar
said.
        Surgeons worked simultaneously in front of and behind the
twins, who are sitting in a custom-built brace connected to an array
of lines feeding them intravenously and monitoring their vital
signs.

           The twins spent months training at a gym to build up
strength for the surgery and Kumar said they could be kept asleep for
four days if necessary.
        The twins said they wanted to walk into the operating room as
a sign of courage, but they were brought in by wheelchair because
they were too tired to stand, Kumar said.
        The neurosurgeons are used to working 12-hour stretches
without pause, Kumar said. Participating neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin
Carson, the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins
Children's Center in Baltimore, has successfully separated three sets
of craniopagus twins — siblings born joined at the head.
        However, this is the first time surgeons have tried to
separate adult craniopagus twins. The surgery has only been performed
successfully since 1952 on infants, whose brains can more easily
adapt and recover.

   Doctors work to separate Iranian sisters
July 6, 2003 — Two adult sisters from Iran -- joined at the head --
are undergoing surgery to be separated. But NBC's Don Lemon reports
the procedure also carries with it the ultimate risk.

        "If God wants us to live the rest of our lives as two
separate, independent individuals, we will," Ladan Bijani said before
the operation.
        The Bijani sisters were born in Firouzabad in southern Iran in
1974. In a statement read on state-run Iran television late Sunday,
President Mohammad Khatami hoped for success.
        "The prayers of the Iranian nation are with you," Khatami said
in a message addressed to the medical team. "I hope to see my patient
daughters Laleh and Ladan healthy and fresh as soon as possible."
        An international team of 28 doctors and about 100 medical
assistants were enlisted for the surgery. The $288,000 cost of the
operation surgery is being underwritten by Raffles Hospital, and the
doctors' fees are being waived.

        © 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


http://www.msnbc.com/news/935135.asp

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Kabul to send team to border
------------------------------------------------------------------
KABUL, July 5: Afghanistan will send a high-level delegation to
its eastern border on Sunday to investigate alleged border
violations by Pakistani soldiers, the government said in a
statement on Saturday.

"The transitional government of Afghanistan will tomorrow send a
high-ranking government delegation to the eastern areas to assess
probable violation (of the border) by Pakistani troops and report
to the government," President Hamid Karzai's press office
said.....(AFP)

http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top13.htm&date=20030706

------------------------------------------------------------------
Eight die in Afghan factional fighting

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, July 5: Eight people have been killed in the latest
clashes between factions in northern Afghanistan where British forces
are heading this month to help the government tackle lawlessness.

The violence came after the Afghan government said it had worked out
a plan to ease tension in the volatile north and the two main
factions had agreed to demilitarize its main city, Mazar-i-Sharif.

Fighters from the two main rival factions, both of whose leaders are
members of the transitional government, have clashed repeatedly in
Mazar-i-Sharif and surrounding areas since the Taliban's demise in
2001.

In the latest fighting, two people were killed and one wounded on
Friday night in a battle between the forces of ethnic Uzbek warlord
General Abdul Rashid Dostum and ethnic Tajik commander Ustad Atta
Mohammad, a senior official in Atta's force said on Saturday. But an
official in Dostum's faction said his men were not involved in the
fighting. -Reuters

http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top14.htm&date=20030706

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This is the research based on hadith

that the sign of imminent appearance of the Antichrist (Dajjal), Imam
Mahdi and the second coming of Jesus Christ will be the occurrence of
both a solar and a lunar eclipse in the Islamic holy month of
Ramadan. It is said that the war of the Antichrist will take place in
the year following these occurrences.

So here is url which proves that eclipse of  2005 is the one after
which all these events will occur .

See http://santanu.virtualave.net/timing.htm

May Allah make us able to prepare for great jihad which is comming
ahead after some years.
Allah Hafiz

A Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to
Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops
"Bring 'Em On?"

by
Stan Goff
July 3, 2003

In 1970, when I arrived at my unit, Company A, 4th
Battalion/503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, in
what was then the Republic of Vietnam, I was charged
up for a fight. I believed that if we didn't stop the
communists in Vietnam, we'd eventually be fighting
this global conspiracy in the streets of Hot Springs,
Arkansas. I'd been toughened by Basic Training,
Infantry Training and Parachute Training, taught how
to use my weapons and equipment, and I was confident
in my ability to vanquish the skinny unter-menschen.
So I was dismayed when one of my new colleagues--a
veteran who'd been there ten months--told me, "We are
losing this war."

Not only that, he said, if I wanted to survive for my
one year there, I had to understand one very basic
thing. All Vietnamese were the enemy, and for us, the
grunts on the ground, this was a race war. Within one
month, it was apparent that everything he told me was
true, and that every reason that was being given to
the American public for the war was not true.

We had a battalion commander whom I never saw. He
would fly over in a Loach helicopter and give cavalier
instructions to do things like "take your unit 13
kilometers to the north." In the Central Highlands, 13
kilometers is something we had to hack out with
machetes, in 98-degree heat, carrying sometimes 90
pounds over our body weights, over steep, slippery
terrain. The battalion commander never picked up a
machete as far as we knew, and after these directives
he'd fly back to an air-conditioned headquarters in LZ
English near Bong-son. We often fantasized together
about shooting his helicopter down as a way of
relieving our deep resentment against this faceless,
starched and spit-shined despot.

Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief
George W. Bush, in a moment of blustering arm-chair
machismo, sent a message to the 'non-existent' Iraqi
guerrillas to "bring 'em on," the first image in my
mind was a 20-year-old soldier in an ever-more-fragile
marriage, who'd been away from home for 8 months. He
participated in the initial invasion, and was told
he'd be home for the 4th of July. He has a newfound
familiarity with corpses, and everything he thought he
knew last year is now under revision. He is sent out
into the streets of Fallujah (or some other city),
where he has already been shot at once or twice with
automatic weapons or an RPG, and his nerves are raw.
He is wearing Kevlar and ceramic body armor, a Kevlar
helmet, a load carrying harness with ammunition,
grenades, flex-cuffs, first-aid gear, water, and
assorted other paraphernalia. His weapon weighs seven
pounds, ten with a double magazine. His boots are
bloused, and his long-sleeve shirt is buttoned at the
wrist. It is between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit at
midday. He's been eating MRE's three times a day, when
he has an appetite in this heat, and even his urine is
beginning to smell like preservatives. Mosquitoes and
sand flies plague him in the evenings, and he probably
pulls a guard shift every night, never sleeping
straight through. He and his comrades are beginning to
get on each others' nerves. The rumors of 'going-home,
not-going-home' are keeping him on an emotional roller
coaster. Directives from on high are contradictory,
confusing, and often stupid. The whole population
seems hostile to him and he is developing a deep
animosity for Iraq and all its people--as well as for
official narratives.

This is the lad who will hear from someone that George
W. Bush, dressed in a suit with a belly full of rich
food, just hurled a manly taunt from a 72-degree
studio at the 'non-existent' Iraqi resistance.

This de facto president is finally seeing his poll
numbers fall. Even chauvinist paranoia has a half-life,
it seems. His legitimacy is being eroded as even the
mainstream press has discovered now that the pretext
for the war was a lie. It may have been control over
the oil, after all. Anti-war forces are regrouping as
an anti-occupation movement. Now, exercising his one
true talent--blundering--George W. Bush has begun the
improbable process of alienating the very troops upon
whom he depends to carry out the neo-con ambition of
restructuring the world by arms.

Somewhere in Balad, or Fallujah, or Baghdad, there is
a soldier telling a new replacement, "We are losing
this war."

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Stan Goff is the author of "Hideous Dream: A Soldier's
Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti" (Soft Skull Press,
2000) and of the upcoming book "Full Spectrum Disorder"
(Soft Skull Press, 2003). He retired in 1996 from the
US Army, from 3rd Special Forces. He lives in Raleigh.
He can be reached at: stan@...

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AN EXAMPLE OF POSITIVE MUSLIM ACTIVISM

Zahid Kaleem of Connecticut took his family to the Science Center of
Connecticut in West Hartford, Conn. While watching a show, he heard a
remark offensive to Muslims. Kaleem took the issue to the directors
of the museum and as a result, the offensive remarks were removed.

Kaleem sent the following e-mail to CAIR:

"We were watching laser show named 'Laser Laugh' in the 1st
segment...there was song about Elvis Presley during that song they
showed a man walking with a shopping cart...all of a sudden Elvis
appeared in front him...and then in the song says, 'He thought he is
Allah, but he is Elvis'...and then they showed this man prostrating
in front of Elvis...

I felt so offended and sick to my stomach, but I decided to stay to
watch entire show to see if there are any more mockeries in the show.

At the end of the show I spoke to Peter Claffey (Assistant Guest
relation manager), he instantly apologized and promised that he will
speak to Jason T Archer (Planetarium Director) and the segment will
be withdrawn.

On Wednesday Mr. Archer called and told me that segment has been
removed from the show…"

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Conjoined Iranian twin sisters die


Raffles Hospital spokesman Dr. Prem Kumar asks the public to pray on
Tuesday for Iranian conjoined twins Ladan and Laleh Bijani prior to
their deaths.


Ladan, left and Laleh Bijani, both 29, said they'd rather risk the
surgery than continue living joined together.

       SINGAPORE, July 8 —   Pioneering surgery to separate Iranian
twins joined at the head ended in tragedy Tuesday when the women died
from massive blood loss on the operating table in Singapore soon
after doctors separated their enmeshed brains.


  `We knew that one of the scenarios was that we may lose both of
them. Ladan and Laleh knew it too. We were hoping to try and do
better than the worst odds. But alas we didn't make it.'
— LOO CHOON YONG
Raffles Hospital chairman

THE DEATHS OF Laleh and Ladan Bijani, 29, abruptly halted a historic
50-hour operation by a team of 28 specialists and 100 assistants to
separate siblings fused at the head, or craniopagus twins, as doctors
call the condition.
        The twins' homeland of Iran was plunged into shock and grief
after television there broke into regular programming to announce the
news. President Mohammed Khatami had pledged on Monday to pay the
cost of the operation, estimated at $300,000.
        At Raffles Hospital in Singapore, hundreds of supporters and
friends of the twins wept and hugged each other.
        "When we undertook this challenge we knew the risks were
great," hospital chairman Loo Choon Yong told reporters. "We knew
that one of the scenarios was that we may lose both of them. Ladan
and Laleh knew it too.
        "We were hoping to try and do better than the worst odds. But
alas we didn't make it."
        Ladan began to lose blood at around 2 p.m. (2 a.m. ET), and
died at 2:30 p.m. (2:30 a.m. ET), doctors said. Brain surgery
continued on Laleh, who died at 4 p.m. (4 a.m. ET)

          "Raffles Hospital regrets to announce that the Bijani twins,
Ladan and Laleh, have both passed away during surgery to separate
them," the hospital said. "The twins lost a lot of blood and were in
a critical situation as the surgery was coming to an end."
        Ladan, the more outspoken twin, had wanted to lead a separate
life as a lawyer in her home town of Shiraz, while Laleh said before
the operation she wanted to be a journalist in Tehran. Both held
degrees in law.
        The unprecedented operation led by neurosurgeon Dr. Keith Goh
ran into several major complications and took far longer than
expected. The women's blood pressure had been fluctuating and
surgeons discovered the brains were more closely linked than had
previously been thought.

TEARS AND ETHICAL DILEMMA
        Dozens of supporters of the Bijanis broke down and cried in
the hospital. A group of weeping Iranian expatriate women were
escorted away by friends.

           "I was shocked. I still don't believe it. Ladan was very
friendly, she always liked to joke," said Hossein Afkami, 42, an
Iranian who has lived in Singapore for 15 years.
        After the operation began on Sunday, doctors opened the joined
skull of the pair, peeling a strip of scalp from each woman. The bone
proved surprisingly thick, causing delays.
        The surgical team then battled to reroute a shared vein on
Monday that drained blood from the twins' brains to their hearts.
Then five neurosurgeons began the extremely delicate process of
prying apart the brains millimeter by millimeter.
        Ladan had been considered more at risk after receiving a new
vein about the size of a finger grafted from her thigh.
        Singaporean Armila Teo, 48, wept in the hospital lobby after
the news of Ladan's death. "I'm very upset," she said. "Even if I'm
not related, the emotion just overcame me."
        German doctors turned the Bijanis away in 1996, saying it
could prove fatal to separate the two. But they were determined to
lead separate lives, and came to Singapore in November to undergo
months of tests.
  The operation has reawakened the ethical concerns that surround high-
risk surgery when a life is not at stake.

          Twins joined at the head occur only once in every two
million live births, and successful separation is even rarer.
        Singapore doctors did a similar operation in 2001 on infant
girls from Nepal, but experts said an operation on adult twins was
unprecedented.
        Goh was assisted by Dr. Walter Tan, a plastic surgeon, and Dr.
Ben Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore. Carson separated twin boys joined at the
head in Germany in 1987 and 6-month-old twin girls in 1997.
        The operation has reawakened the ethical concerns that
surround high-risk surgery when a life is not at stake.
        Dr. Richard Ashcroft, head of medical ethics at London's
Imperial College, said last week there would be no controversy if the
sisters were at risk of dying without the operation. But they were
not.
        "It's a genuine moral dilemma," he said. "And where you have a
dilemma, people will make different decisions because there is no
obvious answer what the right thing to do is."

        © 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or
redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the
prior written consent of Reuters.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/935135.asp

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4 'JIHAD' DEFENDANTS GRANTED BAIL
Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY, 7/2/03
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-07-02-jihad-usat_x.htm

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Four men accused of being part of a "jihad network"
were granted bail Wednesday. The move raises questions about
allegations that they were Muslim warriors preparing to fight against
U.S. allies overseas.

U.S. Magistrate T. Rawles Jones Jr. said none of the defendants pose
a threat to the community. The men are accused of training for combat
while on paintball outings in the Virginia countryside.

In the case of one defendant, Hammad Abdur-Raheem, 29, Jones referred
to a solid work history, strong family ties and military service that
he said appeared to defy the government's claims...

He ordered the men released after they met bail conditions, including
a requirement that they submit to electronic monitoring while
awaiting trial.

The decision appeared to undermine the government's terror-related
claims in a 42-count indictment unsealed last week. The court
documents allege that the defendants were among 11 people who
obtained weapons and trained to fight in Chechnya, Kashmir, the
Philippines and elsewhere...

ALSO SEE:

4 TERROR SUSPECTS ORDERED RELEASED PENDING TRIALS
Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, 7/3/03
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/03/national/03TERR.html

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 2 - A federal judge delivered an unusual rebuke
to the Justice Department in a major terrorism prosecution today,
ruling that four men accused of having links to a Kashmir terrorist
group should be freed from custody until their trials.

The judge, Magistrate Judge T. Rawles Jones Jr., said he was not
convinced that the men posed a danger to the community or a risk of
fleeing the Washington area if they were released, and he raised
questions about the strength of the government's case against them.

But the men remain in custody, pending appeals that the prosecutors
vowed to bring in federal court. Prosecutors also persuaded another
judge today to keep a fifth defendant in custody despite an order
this week that he, too, be freed.

The five men, along with six others, were indicted last week on
terrorism-related and weapons charges for reportedly organizing a
paramilitary training group in the Washington area in support of
a "jihad network" committed to driving India out of Kashmir.

The men, nine of whom are United States citizens, have depicted
themselves as victims of anti-Muslim harassment, and defense lawyers
accused the Justice Department in court today of exploiting their
Islamic backgrounds and their passion for engaging in paintball war
games in rural Virginia to unfairly portray the men as terrorists.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, federal judges have given the
Justice Department wide latitude in incarcerating terrorism suspects
without bail as their cases progressed in court. Hundreds of illegal
immigrants and several people the government has declared "enemy
combatants" were also held in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks,
prompting accusations from civil liberties advocates that they had
been denied due process...

---

FEDERAL COURTS CLASH OVER VIRGINIA TERROR SUSPECTS
Jerry Markon, Washington Post, 7/3/03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1963-2003Jul2.html

A federal judge yesterday granted the government's request to jail a
member of what prosecutors call a violent Virginia jihad network,
even as another judge ordered the release of four other alleged
members of the group.

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in Alexandria said she
accepted the government's argument that Masoud Ahmad Khan is "a
danger to the community" and ordered him detained until trial. A U.S.
magistrate judge, T. Rawles Jones Jr., earlier this week had ordered
Khan released, which triggered an urgent government appeal to
Brinkema, a higher-ranking judge.

Even as Brinkema issued her ruling, Jones ordered the release of four
other men charged last week with training with terrorists to fight
for Muslim causes abroad. He immediately delayed the ruling as
federal prosecutors said they would again appeal the release of all
but one of the men.

The unusual back-and-forth between two federal judges came on a
chaotic day at the Alexandria courthouse and underscored the debate
over the charges. Khan and 10 other Washington area Islamic men were
charged last week with training with and fighting for Lashkar-i-
Taiba, a group that is trying to drive India from Kashmir and has
been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
Authorities have said there is no evidence that the men were plotting
attacks in the United States.

While Justice Department officials hailed the arrests as an important
step in the war on terror, Muslim groups and lawyers for the men said
the group's actions have been misconstrued and that they have done
nothing wrong...

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Pakistani president: We must weigh opening ties with Israel

By Yossi Melman

Haaretz
30 June 2003

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=312742&
contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday said that his country
should seriously consider recognizing Israel and establishing
diplomatic relations with it.

Speaking in an interview with the private Geo Television station
upon his return from a two-week tour of Europe and the United
States, Musharraf said: "This is the responsibility of the nation to
decide. This should be seriously thought over. The media should have
an open debate on this ... The

debate should be serious. There should be no emotionalism of the
extremists."

"What is our dispute (with Israel)?" he continued. "We should think.
I have been saying: `Should we be more Catholic than the pope or
more pious than the pope or more Palestinian than the Palestinians
themselves?' Is this the right attitude or should there be some
change in it? There should be national consensus on it."

Musharraf had made similar comments before setting off on his tour,
but Israel interpreted these as a largely meaningless gesture meant
to shore up his image in the U.S. Yesterday's remarks, however, were
both far more forceful than his previous comments and were made
after President George Bush had already publicly promised him a $3
million aid package. As a result, a senior Israeli source said, "his
intention truly appears to be serious, not aimed merely at
conciliating U.S. public opinion."

Nevertheless, Israeli officials stressed, Musharraf is unlikely to
follow through on this opening unless he musters significant public
backing for such a step.

Musharraf's remarks yesterday were preceded by the visit to Israel
last week of a Pakistani businessman who is considered one of the
president's close associates. The businessman was apparently sent to
"test the waters" as to whether Israel, which has close ties with
Pakistan's traditional foe, India, would be interested in relations
with Pakistan as well.

Israel currently has no ties of any kind with Pakistan, and
Pakistani passports even state that they are valid for entry into
any country but Israel. Israeli sources attributed Musharraf's
apparent change of heart regarding ties with Israel to his new
strategic alliance with the U.S. and the recent thawing of relations
between India and China. China has always backed Pakistan against
India, but Musharraf fears the new Sino-Indian rapprochement could
leave him increasingly isolated.

http://www.iap.org E-mails: iapinfo@...



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Say It: This Is a Quagmire

by
Tom Hayden
July 7, 2003

On the day U.S. soldiers occupied Baghdad, draped the
American flag over Saddam Hussein's statue and pulled
it down, 103 GIs had died in the Iraq war. The number
killed since that supposedly triumphal moment on
April 9 may double in this coming week, in a war that
an American general now admits is ongoing.

The total number of American soldiers killed since
the toppling of Saddam's statue is 93 by July 4,
including the nine Americans killed in the bombing in
Saudi Arabia. That makes a total of 196 dead so far,
not including the six British soldiers killed last
month.

The media is being forced to recognize this reality,
but continues to minimize the numbers. Using the
definition "killed in hostile encounters" and May 1
as the date when President Bush declared the
cessation of hostilities, the reported death toll is
lowered to "about 24" Americans, according to the New
York Times front-page spin based on figures from Paul
Bremer III. (NYT, July 4). The official non-fatal
casualty number acknowledged since May 1 is 177
Americans. Most of the dead and wounded are grunts,
"low-ranking ground troops who are performing mundane
activities like buying a video, going out on patrol,
or guarding a trash pit."

The manipulation of the American body count, like the
earlier manipulation of the costs of war and
occupation, only feeds the growing anger among
military personnel and their families, as cited in
the New York Times. During the Vietnam war, troop
demoralization rose as Americans continued to die
while President Nixon promised that the war was
winding down. A similar phenomenon appears to be
happening already in the 115-degree temperatures of
occupied Iraq. No one wants to sacrifice his life for
President Bush after he's held an aircraft-carrier
press conference declaring "mission accomplished." No
family wants the death of a son or daughter minimized
to airbrush the President's victory image.

Contrary to the expectations promoted by the
Administration and media, Iraq is now a quagmire, not
a cakewalk. Remember Jay Garner? Gone. Remember the
cheering Iraqis with flowers? Never appeared.
Remember the nukes and weapons of mass destruction?
We're bribing and threatening informants. General
Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
said last week that "intelligence doesn't necessarily
mean something is true. I mean, that's not what
intelligence is."

No one in the media, military or political
establishment can use the "Q-word" apparently, for
fear of dredging up the images of Vietnam that they
have been trying to erase for the past generation.

Quagmire is not a metaphor for Vietnam, but has a
specific meaning. It is a strategic defeat. The
occupier can't declare victory and can't withdraw.
It's too early to be certain, but quagmire is
becoming an accurate description of the American
crisis:

* The occupation forces are stretched thin, forced
   into non-military roles such as policing and
   infrastructure repair, which makes them vulnerable
   to small-scale ambushes. A single suicide bomber
   could wreak havoc;

* the occupation forces cannot withdraw, for that
   would mean humiliation and failure;

* nor can the occupation forces expand significantly,
   not only for political reasons, but because they
   are bogged down in Afghanistan, Bosnia and many
   smaller destination spots in the U.S. Empire;

* the original plan for installing a new regime has
   stalled for reasons never adequately explained. Gen.
   Garner was forced out, and the Pentagon's favorite
   government-in-exile led by Ahmed Chalabi is
   marginalized and quarreling;

* Like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, the imperial
   mindset is dangerously incapable of understanding
   its opposition. The Iraqis must be fighting not
   because they oppose the occupation but because
   Saddam Hussein is secretly manipulating them from
   hiding.

* the most dangerous characteristic of quagmires is
   that there is no way out for the occupiers except
   through acknowledging the mistake. The longer the
   denial, the worse the quagmire.

* Opposition parties like the Democrats become sunk
   in quagmire as well. Some of them can declare "I
   told you so," but they fear the consequences of an
   American military withdrawal.

* Often, it takes the military, starting with the
   soldiers on the ground, to bring the nature of the
   quagmire to public attention. That may be beginning
   to happen. Last week, military officials needed
   military escorts to escape "seething spouses" at a
   military base in Georgia. (NYT, July 4)

Ending a quagmire eventually requires a strong peace
movement and public frustration. The American people
have little patience with quagmires, at least those
with televised casualties. That is why the percentage
of Americans who think the war is going badly has
shot up from 13 percent to 42 percent since Bush
declared it over. In a quagmire, when body counts,
costs and credibility are sufficiently worrisome,
politicians step forward with plans to save the
larger system by strategic retreat.

This trapped imperial mindset is always on display in
Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard, edited by
aristocratic neo-conservatives like William Kristol,
as in the glory days after President Bush's media
adventure aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. "Victory!"
proclaimed the neo-cons, for "The Restoration of
American Awe and the Opening of the Arab Mind." (May
12, 2003). Sounding unconsciously like the Crusades,
the magazine announced proudly that we had taken away
Saddam's "hayba," his aura of invincible authority.

The danger to America and the world is that the Bush
Administration believes this analysis, which is
nothing more than a projection of our own
insecurities onto Saddam as "the Other." It is the
Bush Administration, after all, that insists on
projecting an American hayba, or image of
invincibility, as its new National Security Strategy.

Who knows, the Americans may overpower the remaining
Iraqi resistance, get the electricity and water
running in due time, set up some Fort Apache outposts,
manage to make the media withdraw, and create another
... Afghanistan. But for now, it's time to break
through the denial of the media and the politicians
before more Americans die while guarding Baghdad
trash pits. It's time to call it what it is, a
deepening quagmire.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Hayden is a long time anti-war activist.  He was
a founding member of Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS) during the Vietnam War and was one
of the "Chicago Seven" in the 1969-70 trial of seven
anti-war activists  accused of conspiring to incite a
riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in
Chicago. Tom Hayden was married to actress Jane
Fonda and later served for many years on the California
State Legislature both as an Assemblyman and as
a Senator.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Forwarded by
La Voz de Aztlan
http://www.aztlan.net


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A MISSION OF MERCY FOR ALI
Lewis Kamb, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7/7/03
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/129773_ali07.html

As he stepped onto American soil with his little boy for the first
time yesterday, Mousa Soudi Ayes put his feelings simply.

"An opportunity of a lifetime," the Iraqi national said.

His arrival at Sea-Tac Airport was, indeed, the opportunity of a
lifetime -- or rather, an opportunity at life for his 8-year-old son,
Ali.

For more than five years, Ayes, a 40-year-old teacher and father of
four, has watched helplessly as a tumor in his son's neck has grown
to the size of a football, stealing away Ali's breath, and with each
day, a little bit more of his heart.

"He is a shy boy," Ayes said of his son. "He feels sad when people
look at him."

But in Ayes' homeland, there has been little the boy's father could
do to help Ali. Since 1998, Ayes' pleas to the Iraqi Ministry of
Health have been met with a consistent response: The operations would
be too complicated and too costly.

"The government refused to give me any assistance," Ayes said. "Now
the tumor is growing and affecting his breathing and swallowing.
Without the operations, he will die."

But opportunity came through the fallout of war, a father's
persistence and compassion from a stranger...

For the next three to six weeks, while doctors examine and operate on
Ali, he and his father will stay at Larson's home in Bellevue.
Meanwhile, Mercy Corps, joined by the American Arab Community
Coalition and the Council of American Islamic Relations -- Seattle
Chapter, are hoping to raise money to defray the medical and travel
costs…

HOW TO HELP

Mercy Corps is accepting contributions to defray the costs of medical
care and travel aid for Ali Mousa. Any donations made beyond those
costs will go toward basic health and education for other Iraqi
children.

Tax-deductible donations can be made to:

Ali's Fund
Mercy Corps
P.O. Box 2669
Portland OR 97208-2669

Please notify CAIR of any donations sent to help Ali. E-mail:
cair@...


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Palestinian Rights Activist Jailed Indefinitely Without Charge

July 8, 2003

AL-AWDA ACTION ALERT: SUPPORT AMER JUBRAN

Al-Awda calls on its members and supporters to
intensify their protests against attempts by the U.S.
government to deport Palestinian activist Amer Jubran.
Specifically, we call on all people of conscience
to show their support for Amer by attending his
trial on July 24th, 2003 at the JFK Federal
Building, Government Center, Boston, Massachusetts.

BACKGROUND

On the morning of November 4, 2002,
well-known Palestinian rights activist Amer
Jubran was arrested by INS ( renamed the
Bureau of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement ) agents
at his home in Cumberland, Rhode Island.
Only two days earlier, Amer had helped to lead
a march for Palestinian rights in Boston-the
first demonstration organized by the New England
Committee to Defend Palestine, a group
which he had helped to create. The details
of his arrest make it clear that he was
the object of political targeting:

The arrest was a joint operation carried
out by agents of the FBI and the INS.
The FBI attempted to question Amer
about his legitimate political activities
and explicitly threatened him with
indefinite INS detention if he refused to
cooperate.

The arrest took place only after Amer
insisted on his right to have a
lawyer present for this attempted
interrogation. The INS proceeded to
hold Amer for 17 days at the
Adult Correctional Institution in
Cranston, RI, without bail. They i
informed his lawyer that they intended to hold
him  indefinitely, but refused to cite any
charges or infractions of INS regulations
that would warrant such detention.
After a concerted international campaign
of public pressure, the INS finally
agreed to hold a bond hearing. Amer was
released on minimum bond on November 21st.

The INS has nevertheless continued its
illegitimate harassment. Amer now
faces an BICE (formerly INS) order
of deportation based on false allegations of
technical violations in his green card status.

These actions conform to a pattern
that is increasingly clear under John
Ashcroft's Department of Justice.
The INS is now regularly used in
concert with the FBI as a political
tool to target Muslims, Arabs, and
political activists. Hundreds, and
possibly thousands, of Arab and
Muslim men have been subjected
to indefinite detention without trial
since September 11.

Racial profiling, politically motivated
arrests, and detention without
due process violate both the principles
of the U.S. Constitution and
fundamental rights guaranteed by
international law.

WHAT CAN YOU DO

1. Weekly Pickets

Join protestors outside the Bureau
of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(BICE, formerly INS), every Thursday
at noon infront of the JFK Federal
Building, Government Center, Boston.

2. Phone-in Days

Flood the government's offices with
phone calls. There will be four phone-in
days to the Bureau of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement: Tuesday, Jul 1st,
Thursday, July 3rd, Monday, July
21st, and Wednesday, July 23rd.

Please make three phone calls on
each of these days:

Phone call 1 to Steven Farquharson,
Interim Director, BICE in Boston, at
617-565-4214. Request the immediate
dismissal of all charges against
Amer Jubran. Also, please ask about
the status of the complaint Amer
Jubran filed against BICE in January.
If you are not forwarded directly
to Farquharson, ask for the voice
mailbox of Public Affairs Director
Paula Grenier.

Stress that the INS and FBI collaborated
to target a political activist
Demand that the government
end its politically motivated deportation
proceedings against Amer Jubran

If you previously wrote a letter,
refer to it and express your
dissatisfaction if the Boston office
has failed to respond to your
concerns

Identify any important qualifications
or community standing that you may
have.

Phone call 2 regarding the complaint
filed by Amer Jubran against the
government for its handling of his detention.
Contact the Office of Internal Audit,
U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security,
BICE, in Washington at 202-514-5765.
Ask for Acting Director William Rightor.
If you cannot reach him, ask for
Acting Asst. Director Ron Fortin, the head of
internal investigations.

In light of the illegal aspects of his
arrest and detention, Mr. Jubran
filed a formal complaint with the INS
Regional Office in Boston on
January 30th and forwarded complaint
letters to the Regional District
Director on February 5th. To date,
he has still not received a response
to this complaint.

Ask what specific actions the INS has
taken to respond to the formal
complaint filed by Mr. Jubran on
January 30th. Has there been a formal
investigation? Have the INS agents
involved in his arrest been
questioned or received any formal reprimand?

If they state that they are not at liberty
to discuss the case, ask why
it is that Mr. Jubran has not received
a response to a complaint filed
in January. What is the typical processing
time for an investigation into a complaint
filed about civil liberty violations?

Phone call 3 to U.S. Senator Patrick
Leahy of the Senate Judiciary
Committee at 802-863-2525. Use the
talking points for Phone Calls 1 and
2 above.

3. Letter and Fax Campaign

Please continue writing and faxing
letters to the Bureau of Immigration
and Customs Enforcement during
the week of July 1st and 21st. It is
most strategic to fax letters on our
phone-in days (July 1st, 3rd, 21st,
and 23rd). Sample letters could be found at
http://www.amerjubrandefense.org/ins_letters.html

Use the following contact information:

Mr. Stephen J. Farquharson,Interim Director
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Room 1700, JFK Federal Building
Boston, MA 02203
Fax: 617-565-3097

Senator Patrick Leahy
Senate Judiciary Committee
Courthouse Plaza, 199 Main St.
Burlington, VT 05401
Fax: 802-658-1009

CC copies to:

Michael Garcia, Assistant Secretary
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
425 I Street NW
Washington, DC 20536

Mr. William Rightor
Acting Director
Office of Internal Audit
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
425 I. Street NW, Rm 3260
Washington, DC 20536

Senator Edward M. Kennedy
2400 JFK Federal Building
Boston, MA 02203

Senator John Kerry
One Bowdoin Square, Tenth Floor
Boston, MA 02114

Senator Lincoln Chafee
170 Westminster St. Suite 1100
Providence, RI 02903
Fax: 401 453 5085

Senator Jack Reed
201 Hillside Rd, Suite 200
Cranston RI 02920
jack @reed.senate.gov
Fax: 401-464-6837

USEFUL LINKS

http://www.onepalestine.org/
http://iacboston.org/answer
http://internationalanswer.org


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MUSLIM LEADER CAN'T COME BACK FROM JORDAN, COURT SAYS
Mike Robinson, Associated Press, 7/3/03
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/070303_ns_muslimleader.html

CHICAGO - A federal appeals court has upheld a government decision to
bar a Chicago-area Muslim leader who went on a visit overseas from
returning to the United States, citing national security.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday reversed a lower
court decision that would have allowed Sabri Samirah, head of the
United Muslim Americans Association, to re-enter the United States.

Samirah, 36, a Jordanian citizen but a U.S. resident for 15 years,
left on Dec. 28, saying he would visit his sick mother in Jordan. He
was stopped at Shannon airport in Ireland en route back to the United
States.

American officials there told him he was being barred not only on
national security grounds but also because he had a problem
immigration status.

Samirah, whose has three children who are U.S. citizens, returned to
Jordan and has been trying to get back to the United States ever
since to see his wife and children.

Federal officials did not specify why they consider Samirah a threat
to national security...

ALSO SEE:

RULING SAYS U.S. CAN KEEP MAN OUT
Matt O'Connor and Kim Barker, Chicago Tribune, 7/3/03
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-
0307030244jul03,1,2597185.story


A federal judge overstepped his authority in ruling Chicago-area
Muslim leader Sabri Samirah could return to the United States despite
unspecified national security concerns raised by the government, a
federal appeals court decided Wednesday.

A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
federal courts don't have jurisdiction to review discretionary
decisions of the attorney general such as blocking Samirah, who is
not a naturalized citizen, from returning to the U.S.

In December Samirah had obtained approval from the U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service, now part of the Department of Homeland
Security, to travel to his native Jordan to visit his mother.

He was granted "advance parole," authorizing him to travel outside
the U.S. while his application for permanent residency was pending.

But in January, the INS revoked his parole on the attorney general's
behalf, based on information he was a "security risk to the United
States." It barred his re-entry during a stopover in Ireland...

SEE ALSO:

UMAA NEWS RELEASE

MUSLIMS ARE DISAPPOINTED AT APPEALS COURT RULING

Dr. Sabri Samirah to Consider Options to End Government's Blocking of
His Return
(Greater Chicago, IL, July 3rd, 2003) - The American Muslim community
is greatly disappointed at the Seventh Circuit Court yesterday's
ruling in favor of the government to block the return of Dr. Sabri
Samirah to the United States. The Appeals Court reversed a previous
District Court ruling that ordered the INS to facilitate the
immediate return of Dr. Samirah.  Muslims are facing more
discriminatory governmental decisions while the court system being
afraid to be trapped in security cases.

Dr. Samirah, a prominent Muslim community leader and the president of
UMAA, was granted permission to visit his sick mother in December
2002 by the INS, but that permission was revoked one day before he
was to return.  In March of this year, Judge James Moran ruled that
the government violated his constitutional rights by revoking his
advance parole document that would grant him re-entry into the United
States.  The government appealed immediately.

Dr. Samirah is in communication with his legal team to decide which
option to pursue.

The following is a statement from Dr. Samirah: "I am so saddened and
surprised.  I thought that the court will not be intimated by the
government's scary allegations connecting me to terrorism.  Time will
come where all people will see that the government is politically
motivated under pressure from pro-Israeli groups and Israel.  It is
obvious that they are sending a clear message to the Muslim and Arab
community that any challenge to the violations of their rights will
be futile.  The government is bent on doing all that it can to keep
me from my work of politically organizing American Muslims and
Arabs.  The only threat that I pose to this country is against those
who wish to unstitch Islam, Muslims, and Arabs from the American
fabric, and my only weapon is the ballot box.  This is not homeland
security, it is government political insecurity, and I reaffirm again
that I will not rest until my rights are restored and my name is
cleared. Even if that happens after lengthy years.  This experience
has taken a devastating toll on me, my beloved ones, and my
community, both emotionally and financially.  I have my faith and the
support of my beloved ones and community, which will sustain me in
this struggle."

United Muslim Americans Association (UMAA)
10661 S. Roberts Rd. #202, Palos Hills, IL. 60465
Tel. (708) 974-4472   Fax (708) 974-4479    www.theumaa.org

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MUSLIM YOUTH CAMP IN IOWA STIRS IRE
Jill Burcum, Star Tribune, 7/3/03
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/3969141.html

NORTH LIBERTY, IOWA -- Right now, what will be one of the nation's
first and biggest Muslim youth camps is just a sunny southeast Iowa
ridgetop where wild roses and poison ivy flourish under tall,
graceful ash trees.

But the tranquility of the site, a former Girl Scout camp, belies the
uproar created by the lodge, prayer tower and cabins planned by the
Iowa-based Muslim Youth Camps of America. After the 9/11 attacks, the
proposed camp has rippled the waters far beyond the muddy Coralville
Reservoir, whose shoreline forms the site's southern and eastern
boundaries.

Along with environmental concerns, fears that the camp will train
terrorists have stirred up many Iowans and others across the country.
The Army Corps of Engineers, which will lease the federal land to the
Muslim nonprofit group, gave the go-ahead Tuesday for a scaled-down
version of the project. That only served to fuel the controversy.

Weeks of news coverage and sometimes nasty letters to the editor were
capped Wednesday by a visit from conservative radio talk-show host
Mike Gallagher.

Turning his show into a self-proclaimed town hall forum at an Iowa
City hotel, Gallagher held court as about 250 people took turns at
the microphone and cheered or jeered guests on the New York-based
show.

Muslim community leaders in the Twin Cities and across the nation
have monitored the debate over the camp, and view its approval as a
key victory for religious tolerance in post-9/11 America.

"I think everyone would recognize that if we were talking about a
Baptist youth camp, we wouldn't even be having this discussion," said
Ibrahim Hooper, a Burnsville man who is now director of the Council
on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington, D.C. "We no
longer have Communists to go after. Now it's the Muslim bogeyman," he
said...

ALSO SEE:

TALK SHOW IGNITES HEATED DEBATE
Deidre Bello, Iowa City Press-Citizen, 7/3/03
http://www.press-citizen.com/news/070303gallagher.htm

Dialogue about a planned Muslim youth camp in North Liberty quickly
deteriorated into an argument Wednesday about whether all Muslims are
potential terrorists - all broadcast live on Mike Gallagher's
national radio talk show that originated in Iowa City.

"I have never seen a debate so full of hatred as I have today," said
Iowa City resident Asma Taha, one of about 200 people who attended
Gallagher's show at the downtown Sheraton Hotel...

The sometimes tense, three-hour town hall broadcast was carried live
on KXIC-AM 800.

The show came two days after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed
to accept an environmental assessment report that said the camp would
not significantly affect the site - 106 acres two miles northeast of
North Liberty near the Coralville Reservoir - but only if it was
scaled back.

The report was issued Monday by Col. William J. Bayles, the Corps'
Rock Island, Ill., district commander. The Muslim Youth Camps of
America, a Cedar Rapids-based organization, is deciding whether to
scale back its proposal by 50 percent.

The scaled-back design would provide for 60 campers and staff per day
for 10 weeks during the summer months, with intermittent recreational
and educational use by up to 1,500 participants during the rest of
the year...

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Is Israel a democracy or a terrorcracy?

by Khalid Amayreh

30 June, 2003 (IAP News)

One of the most enduring myths about Israel is the often-made claim
that it is a democracy. The big lie is marketed effectively in many
Western countries where Zionist-controlled or Zionist-influenced
media has a definite stranglehold on public opinion. consequently,
the "veracity" of the myth is taken for granted by many politicians,
journalists, intellectuals and ordinary people, and is used as
a ready-made weapon against Israel's critics.

The truth of the matter, however, is that Israel is not a  real
democracy but rather a nefarious ethno-centric terrorocracy that
heavily employs state-terror as official policy.

  This terror, with all its evil manifestations, is sanctioned by the
law of the land and defended doggedly by a potent propaganda machine
comprising hundreds of news outlets from Sidney to California.

For skeptics who might still be induced to give Israeli "democracy"
the benefit of the doubt, let us consider the following facts.

Israeli leaders from Ben-Gurion to Ariel Sharon committed
incalculable crimes against innocent civilians. Some of these crimes
assumed genocidal dimensions, such as the Dir Yasin, Tantura, Jenin
and Sabra and Shatilla massacres.

The First Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion,  directed and
presided over the utter destruction and obliteration of as many as
500 Palestinian towns and villages. The remains and relics of some of
these towns and villages are documented in Walid Khalidi's
masterpiece, "All that remains."

That was  ethnic cleansing on a very large scale, a crime against
humanity by every conceivable standard. Needless to say,  the Israeli
state committed this genocidal crime willfully for the purpose of
effecting Zionism, and building a purely racist Jewish state with as
few non-Jews as possible.

Another Prime Minister, the infamous Menachem  Begin, praised the Dir
Yasin massacre, calling it a "miracle."

Another Israeli Premier, Yitzhak Shamir, masterminded the killing of
hundreds of Palestinian and British civilians. His responsibility for
the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem prompted the British
government to place him on its most wanted list.

Even, Yitzhak Rabin, the celebrated "peace maker" and  Nobel Prize
laureate, had carried out several atrocities against Palestinian
civilians in Lud and Ramleh. And while acting as Defense Minister
during the first Palestinian uprising against Jewish colonialism, he
ordered  his soldiers to break Palestinian youngsters' bones.

When Rabins' ideological son,  Ehud Barak, sought to convince Israeli
Jews to elect him as Prime Minister, he had to remind them of the
most graphic details of how he murdered three Palestinian leaders in
Beirut in the late 1970s. The grisly reminder worked effectively, and
the decorated terrorist became Prime Minister.

Then came the arch-terrorist of them all, Herr Ariel Sharon, Der
Fuhrer, a certified war criminal of Hitler's and Saddam Hussein's
ilk. Sharon, whom the ignoramus of the White House so
unscrupulously   called "a man of peace," is responsible for shedding
more innocent blood than any other Israeli leader. Here are some of
Sharon's known infamies: The wicked former general slaughtered
scores of  innocent peasants at the village of Kfar Kassem in the mid
1950s. In 1956, he slaughtered hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war
by ordering them crushed under the treads of Israeli tanks in the
Sinai Peninsula in 1956.  And in 1982, during the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon,  Sharon oversaw the mass slaughter of some 2000 unsuspecting
boys, women and children.

  Sharon never really regretted the killing, and his atrocities
eventually earned him the glorious title of "malich Yisrael" or "King
of Israel." Far from trying and punishing him for his diabolical
crimes, Israel actually elected  him twice as Prime Minister, with a
landslide majority.


For the past 30 months, Sharon has been carrying out one of the
ugliest reigns of terror in the history of humanity, prompting the
former Israeli minister of education, Shulamit Aloni, to remark
that "we have become a barbarian people."

Sharon's crimes against the unprotected and largely unarmed
Palestinians transcend reality and defy human imagination.

Sharon has presided over  killing and maiming of tens of thousands of
civilians, the destruction of thousands of homes, orchards, farms,
fields, and  civilian infrastructure, forcing many conscientious Jews
and non-Jews to draw comparisons between the Nazi holocaust against
the Jews and the Israeli war of liquidation against the Palestinians.

Over a year ago, a  Jewish British Member of Parliament, Paul
Kaufman, remarked that "Sharon has made the Star of David look like
the Swastika of Hitler."

Oona King, another British Jewish MP and a member of the Jewish
Council for Racial Equality, remarked that "Gaza is the same in
nature as the Warsaw Ghetto." She added that "as a Jew, I hoped I
would never live to see the day I was ashamed of the actions of the
Jewish state."

The honorable Jewish lady knew what she was talking about. She was
referring to Pregnant Palestinian women shot dead or forced to give
birth at Israeli roadblocks, having been barred access to nearby
hospitals by Zionism's heroic soldier

She was alluding to hundreds of Palestinian towns, villages, hamlets
and refugee camps reduced by the Israeli army to huge, open-air
concentration camps, only lacking the gas chambers.

  She was talking about the attempted systematic elimination of a
people whose only crime is its enduring desire for freedom from a
Satanic military occupation unparallel in the human history.

The conscientious Jewish lady  was speaking of a helpless and
defenseless people forced into very much the same situation that Jews
encountered in Nazi-occupied Europe more than half a century ago.

Does a democracy allow soldiers to shoot and kill pregnant women on
their way to hospital for no other reason than  the fact the poor
women adhere to the "wrong" religion and belong to the "wrong" tribe?

Does a  democracy instruct soldiers to plant landmines in the
vicinity of schools in order to kill and maim as many "children of a
lesser God" as possible?

Does a democracy dispatch warplanes to pour death at apartment
buildings and crowded streets and neighborhoods under the pretext of
fighting terror?

Does a democracy murder suspects and opponents  without charge or
trial?

Does a democracy practice collective punishment, including hermetic,
suffocating and  open-ended  against their citizens and subjects?

Indeed, does a democracy practice apartheid in its ugliest forms
against a sector of its citizens because they happen to belong to
the "wrong race."

Is occupying, tormenting, enslaving and dispossessing another people
compatible with democracy.?

Can a racist apartheid be a true democracy? If the answer for these
questions is in the affirmative, then Israel is a democracy. If not,
we must not hesitate to call the spade a spade.

In short, Israel is a terrorocracy, not a democracy.

-----------------
amayreh@...


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D A W N    I n t e r n e t    N e w s A l e r t
------------------------------------------------------------------
                     Friday, 11 July, 2003
------------------------------------------------------------------
Two killed as bomb blast rocks Karachi:
Updated @ 09:05 PST
------------------------------------------------------------------
KARACHI, July 11: A huge bomb explosion ripped through a
multi-storey commercial building in Karachi early today, killing
at least two people and injuring others, police said. "It was a
bomb explosion and the device was placed near a pillar at the
entrance to the 12-storey plaza," police officer Ajmal Magsi told
AFP. According to initial reports at least two people were dead,
he said adding that an undetermined number of people were also
injured. (AFP)

For more latest news, please visit:
http://www.dawn.com/2003/07/11/welcome.htm


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ALL ARABIC, ALL THE TIME - IN VERMONT
Susan Taylor Martin, St. Petersburg Times, 7/7/03
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/07/07/Worldandnation/All_Arabic__all_the_t
.shtml

MIDDLEBURY, Vermont - Despite the wilting heat, a dozen students
listen intently as instructor Ghazi Abu Hakmeh fires off a series of
questions:

Does George Bush have children? Does George Bush have sons? How many
girls does George Bush have?

The questions might seem silly, given that this is a class at
Middlebury College, one of the nation's top liberal arts schools. But
what makes the rapid-fire exchange unusual is that it is being
conducted entirely in Arabic. Even more remarkably, it has been just
10 days since the students began learning the language...

Few places could be farther removed from the deserts of the Middle
East than the verdant hills and rolling farmlands of New England. Yet
in this incongruous setting, 97 men and women from government,
academia and other fields are spending their summer in what's
considered one of the world's best and most rigorous Arabic language
programs.

Unique among such courses, Middlebury's Arabic School requires
students to take a "language pledge" - vowing to speak, read and
write nothing but Arabic from the time they get up until they
collapse into bed after hours of homework. They read Al-Hayat, watch
Al-Jazeera and dine on kashtaliya, a Syrian dessert prepared by one
of several Arabic clubs on campus...

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CONFESS OR DIE, US TELLS JAILED BRITONS
Outrage over plight of Guantanamo detainees
Martin Bright, Kamal Ahmed and Peter Beaumont, Observer, 6/7/03
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,992467,00.ht
ml

The two British terrorist suspects facing a secret US military
tribunal in Guantanamo Bay will be given a choice: plead guilty and
accept a 20-year prison sentence, or be executed if found guilty.

American legal sources close to the process said that the prisoners'
dilemma was intended to encourage maximum 'co-operation'.

The news comes as Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, prepares to urge
US Secretary of State Colin Powell to repatriate the two Britons. He
will say that they should face a fair trial here under English law.
Backed by Home Secretary David Blunkett, Straw will make it clear
that the Government opposes the death penalty and wants to see both
men tried 'under normal judicial process'.

Lawyers acting for Moazzam Begg, 35, from Sparkbrook, Birmingham, and
Feroz Abassi, 23, from Croydon, said that any confessions gathered
while the men were kept without charge or access to lawyers in Bagram
airbase in Afghanistan and Camp Delta in Cuba would have no status in
international law and would be inadmissible in British courts...

According to US legal and constitutional experts, the Final Rule, the
regulations that will govern the military commissions, has rendered a
fair trial almost impossible...

'The trial system in Guantanamo Bay allows a whole series of serious
breaches of defendant rights that would mean that they could never
come to trial in the US...

ALSO SEE:

STANDARDS FOR DETAINEES
Wash. Post, 7/6/03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13643-2003Jul5.html

FIGHTING THE WAR on terrorism has forced the government to confront
profoundly vexing questions concerning the people it captures. Are al
Qaeda members criminals who should be prosecuted, members of a
strange species of foreign army, or somehow both? And if, as U.S.
authorities quickly concluded, they are both, when should they be
treated as criminals in civilian courts, when should they go before
military tribunals and when should they be held with no trial at all
and under what circumstances? We would have hoped that nearly two
years after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration would have made
a stab at addressing these questions. And in a sense, it has: It is
claiming the authority to unilaterally decide how any captive is
legally designated and held -- and to unilaterally change that
designation at any time. This system is convenient for the
government, offering all of the legitimacy the criminal justice
system can confer without any of its discipline. As a legal regime,
however, it is unacceptable...

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MUSLIMS IN U.S. FEEL TARGETED BY ANTI-TERROR BUSINESS POLICIES
Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post, 7/9/03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29610-2003Jul8.html

Dokhi Fassihian is passionate about Iran, and her resume reflects it.
The policy analyst has written articles on Iran, helped with a book
about the country and even worked there. So she was stunned when the
Monster online service informed her recently that it would remove the
word "Iran" from her resume to comply with U.S. sanctions against
that country.

"How can you be an Iran specialist and not have the word 'Iran' on
your resume?" demanded Fassihian, 27, of Arlington, who immigrated to
Virginia at age 3 and holds a master's degree in international
studies from Johns Hopkins University. "I'm an American. I've lived
in this country all my life . . .This is the first time I'm feeling
discriminated against."

The e-mail notices sent to Fassihian and thousands of other Monster
customers provoked an uproar. The popular Internet career site
quickly clarified that it intended to target resumes only from people
living or job hunting in the seven countries designated by U.S.
authorities as sponsors of terrorism, including Iran.

But Iranian Americans, including members of the largely middle-class
community in the Washington area, are fighting to have the company
drop the practice altogether...

The controversy reflects a new concern rippling through Muslim and
Arab American communities, already on edge because of hate crimes and
a law enforcement crackdown since the 2001 terror attacks. Now some
Muslims say they fear that businesses are singling them out unfairly
in an effort to comply with U.S. anti-terrorism measures.

In recent weeks, national Islamic groups have expressed alarm about
reports of Muslims in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and other
states facing demands by banks and credit card companies for extra
information -- or finding their accounts closed without explanation.
The customers had been asked to provide tax and banking records,
residency documentation and proof of identity, the organizations
said. And some immigrants in Washington and other areas say they have
been distressed by extra questioning they have faced at money-
transferring institutions.

National Muslim groups are trying to put together a registry of
incidents to gauge the extent of the situation....

"We see evidence that the wolf has been in the neighborhood, but we
want to confirm it," said Khurrum Wahid, legal adviser to one such
group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "We want to see if
this is truly a systemic problem or just one or two banks that might
have gone about it the wrong way..."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations recently took up the case
of a New Yorker named Muhammad Ali, who had tried to send $80 to his
brother in Connecticut from a Western Union office in Brooklyn. The
company's main office subsequently called Ali, an African American,
and told him his order would be blocked until he provided more
identification...



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Dr. Siegfried E. Tischler, (setex01@...) a philosopher from
Austria, is a visiting professor in Indonesia.


Manufactured Truth and Emergent Reality

We live in a time which resembles an aquarelle painting that had been
left out in the rain: we still (seem to) recognize the outlines of
what the artist had wanted to present. But the colours are running
into each other and we are at a loss when we try to make sense of
what it really is, that we see.

It can be no surprise that (some) psychoanalysts present their
patients with ink blots and ask them "what they see". This is
supposed to "trigger" associations of hidden thought-patterns in the
mind of the patient (and the "analyst"?). A half Millennium before
Confucius, Wen Weng (about 1,150 B.C.) is traditionally thought to
have added moral counsel to the original divining function of the
hexagrams of the age-old I Ching. Confucius and his followers later
turned pure numerology into philosophical commentary (this is the
spiritual equivalent of the "water to wine" trick..).
             Both the old oriental and modern occidental methods of
"divination" of what the practitioners call "truth" are- to put it
bluntly-make-belief! What prompted the jutting down of this short
note is the realisation that we neither have to go and consult a
psychoanalyst nor a practitioner of Confucian divination in order to
have our truth "created" ... this is done for us courtesy of
the "stupefying machine", an amalgam of science, religion and
politics which uses as their "transmitter" the Free (when "The Price
Is Right") Media.

The "News-Bulletins" we get served up as a "side dish" over
breakfast, lunch and dinner are of the "instant", convenience
type, "nourishment" which was prepared totally hygienically with the
help of machines and algorithmic mental patterns. The same content
gets regurgitated at the top and bottom of the hour; in
small "spoons" comes the worst possible content, always wrapped in
glossy advertising for items which only the owners of TV-stations can
ever afford. What started over breakfast as a minor earth tremor, has
at lunch-time consumed a few thousand lives and by dinner is a full-
blown catastrophe! The "fast food" we get has been prepared in
accordance to strict rules which ensure that we do not ingest any
possibly nasty "natural" stuff. We sip fruit-juices which have
been "pasteurized" (better be safe than sorry - some of the pathogens
which scientists of dubious morality and highly questionable
ethics "create" in their (weapons-) laboratories may "escape" and
endanger not only foes but also ourselves!); those fruit-juices
(or any other mass-produced foods we ingest) resemble in no way any
of the natural goodness which the labels on their glossy containers
advertise. We might as well drink distilled water and eat "fortified"
(this enhanced and that reduced - as if anybody really knew what they
are doing) saw-dust! There is one thing which most people obviously
overlook entirely: life is lethal! We will all "cark" it at some
stage - just like living is a "matter of degree", so is dying: sooner
or later, quick or slow - we will all end up as metabolic waste for
nature to take care of.

When in 1918 in many major cities of the world (on all continents)
simultaneously an unknown strain of flue "broke out", MILLIONS of
people were dead within a matter of days[1]! As there was nothing
resembling even remotely the instantaneous connectivity of the
present-day Internet, it took decades to wake up to the fact, that
the world was hit by a pathogen, which had probably come from space;
(towards the End of WW II. a similar, but more restricted, episode
went almost totally unnoticed due to the overall carnage)[2]. At a
time, when it took weeks for people to cross a major ocean, a
pathogen could not have "hit" at the same time all over the world
in any other way. Such logical arguments are sidelined by paradigmatic
scientists with the simple argument that since they cannot explain
it, it is (simply!) not possible.

On 15.03.2003 the World Heath Organization issued its first "Global
Health Warning" since 1993: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
had until 11.04.2003 killed (world-wide) a total of 106 patients
(mainly in Asia) and was declared "incurable". Channel News Asia
(27.03.2003) reported, that the first cases of SARS had been
recognized in November the previous year. If we now (arbitrarily)
take the onset as the 15.11.2002, then until 14 March 2003, while
some 12,000 people had died in the USA of "curable" respiratory
diseases (99 dead per day is the American average as per
redflagweekly.com - a bottomless well of information on Health
Matters). Less than 1% of the fatalities due to respiratory disease
were caused an "incurable" new strain. That the other 99% died
of "complications" in the treatment of "curable" strains is
reminiscent of Medieval Nominalism! This is one face of Janus.

Where was the WHO when near enough a MILLION people died of the
perfectly curable disease of genocide in Rwanda not a decade ago? Was
this not a "health problem"? At about that time WHO warned the world
of a virulent strain of tuberculosis ...

In the new Millennium a child (mainly in Africa - where else?) dies of
Malaria every 30 seconds; this "tallies" to some 2,900 people a day
or over a Million (!) per year (BBC World News with reference to WHO
data, reported on 08.02.2003). WHO - or should we say who - "cares"?
This is "only" about one percent of the annual increase of world
population and - as such - by far not enough to maintain a
sustainable population of the genus Homo on this Earth. The USA is
now home to some 280 Million people (who let themselves be counted) -
Africa but holds some 700 Million people[3]- or (for this purpose)
more than twice as many people as North America) include Mexicans,
Canadians and Polar Bears. If we now "normalize" these numbers, we
will come to realize, that just about ten times as many Africans die
of ("curable") Malaria than Americans die of "curable" pulmonary
disease.

One could dwell on such "order of magnitude" games endlessly - but
the point has already been made: there are three (main) issues to be
considered:

1)     <them and us>. Who cares, when untold numbers of negroes hack
them-selves to (dead) pieces in Africa? SO WHAT? They are where they
are! "Darwinists" call them prototypes - at best.
2)     <doctors are only human> and sometimes death cheats them!
3)     VIAGRA has "solved" the most obvious impotence problem and so
we consider anything that is "impossible" as an existentially
threatening issue!

This entire situation took on a diabolical dimension two days after
the WHO warning: a (some insist) illegitimate American President, a
British Prime Minister "out of steam" and other "Allies" decided
to "have a go" at an entirely harmless (as it turns out) foe. Totally
immoral and unethical scientists provided a "smoke-screen": SARS was
elevated from what it really is (evidence to the fact that "modern
medicine" is little more than an exercise in trial and error) to
a "global threat".

For a while all of Singapore resembled an isolation ward at a
hospital. Even at that time, when it was already known that the SARS
virus does not get air-borne (the Hong Kong Prince of Wales hospital
ward 8A in which early cases were treated shared an air-conditioning
duct with an adjacent ward 8B in which no cases of SARS occurred;
veteran Hong Kong Journalist Nuri Vittachi reported on 08.04.2003).
The face mask-/ disinfectant mania in places like Singapore was
simply a clever money making scheme. In and around Toronto/ Canada,
the few deaths attributable to SARS pale in significance to
the number of fatalities due to entirely "curable" diseases and
avoidable accidental deaths. While over ten thousand people had died
in the USA of complications of "curable" respiratory illnesses, a few
dozen people had died world-wide of an "incurable" disease.

Nothing is more infuriating and debilitating to the "powerful" than
the realization of impotence! SARS has over its short "career" killed
more businesses than people! This is where Lucretius would have
wagged a finger and admonished to always lift the edge of the carpet
to see what dirt had been shoved under it! Not long ago it was
HIV/AIDS, which being incurable presented a mental juggernaut. The
realization that by exercising a few simple rules the average man on
the street is nearly totally protected from HIV/AIDS has still not
really "sunk in". With SARS- going on the little that is known- it
seems to be a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time;
statistically it is probably as likely to win the lotto-jack-pot as it
is to "catch" SARS.

Not long ago, the entire "cabal" had been lying in
newspaper "morgues" and the files of hospitals, waiting for an
enterprising medical researcher to be "dug up". The Land of the Proud
and the Free is now blindsided with scare-mongering Media-reports on
SARS[4]. A few weeks ago it was duct-tape, rations and batteries!
Before that it was "white powder" ..! Is this the vindication of
Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer, who already half a century
ago have opined that "Civilization and Terror are inseparable"[5]?
Those, who consider themselves the most highly civilized nation on
Earth also live under the heaviest strain from fear of
(retributionary?) terror.

Americans will view a repeat of 09-11 as a diabolical misfortune.
Anybody versed in "oriental" thinking will simply- again- call it a
karmic occurrence! While science-fiction is given wide berth in
Encyclopaedias and popular brain-washing "literature", anybody daring
to try and elucidate reality is usually called a subversive
character! Big-Bang Cosmology, Freudian Psychology and (worst of all)
the Evolutionary Principle have been used for 50, 100 and 150 years
now respectively to bamboozle the overwhelming majority of mankind to
explain (in the sense of justify) the unethical behaviour of science
and scientists. That these fairy-tales ever made it into the "Text-
Books" at all, is nothing less than astonishing: in a way it all
comes back to (judeo-christian) religious dogma having used
Procrustian methods on the thinking of mankind in general and
scientists in particular. Those who dared to speak out against this
nonsense were lucky to get away with only their feet being put to the
fire ... ! Giordano Bruno burned on this Earth for popularizing the
ideas of Kopernicus, the Living Earth has been put to the torch when
the ideas of Charles Darwin were used to "explain" (as in justify)
the worst systemic misbehaviour possible. Soon all of Mankind (bar a
handful profiteers) will burn when the latest "turn of the screw"
will be made.

The SARS episode will go down as a smoke-screen behind which the two
new religions of the Holocaust Industry and Globalism were merged
into the new creed of the elites: Mammonism by way of systemic terror
against the people of Iraq and the World at large. Whoever believes
that Iraq was anything else but a stepping-stone will soon have a
nasty awakening - when he looks down the barrel of an American gun
pointed at him! On 26.04.2003 the Institute of "Science in Society"
(London; http://www.i-sis.org.uk/) added another twist to this
situation. With all of the genome of the SARS virus "mapped", it
appears to have similarities to both the bovine- and avian bronchitis
viruses; I-SIS calls for an investigation into the possibility, that
the SARS virus is an "inadvertent" outcome of recombination! When one
also learns how the Pharma-Industry "wines and dines" the foremost
researchers in the field of corona-visuses, then it becomes quite
obvious what we (may be or) are looking at: a Faustian deal with the
devil: <Pharmageddon> or the race for a new vaccine to immunise the
general population against a pathogen which was (possibly/probably?)
created by the Pharma-Industry! Who else but a human agent could
combine bovine and avian viruses? Nature may be cruel, but it is not
stupid! SARS - as an epidemiological "scare-crow" is a classical non-
starter: over about a half a year it has managed to kill less than
400 people world-wide. In the USA 38 people die every day from gun-
shot wounds. About 17 times as many people have died in the USA from
the results of (street-) crimes than have fallen victim to SARS
globally over the same period of time.

A curious twist in it all is it, that epidemiologists and geneticists
have teamed up to claim that a feline-looking Mungo in rural China
(Paguma larvata) may be the culprit and have introduced SARS into
the "human world". At the same time David Whitehouse (BBC
ScienceNewsOnline) reports on June 12, 2003 that a genetic study
suggest that SIV - the Aids-like virus that infects monkeys - came
about through the combination of two viruses in chimpanzees. Are we
now to believe that Mungos and Apes dabble in gene-splicing (in
their "spare-time", when they are not being used as guinea-pigs)?
The latest "fad" of the "Beautiful People" could also be seen as the
most perverse elitist scheme so far: the kind of people who have to
consult a psychotherapist once they notice the first wrinkle in their
face used to be referred to a plastic surgeon - now they get
injections of Clostridium botulinus into the tissue which shows signs
as to the ephemeral nature of beauty. Botulism (in small doses)
simply kills off the old tissue and Nature does the rest! Given a bit
of mental agility one "smells a rat". When Theophrastus Bombastus
Paracelsus (1493-1541) returned to Central Europe after a "stint" in
Constantinople, he brought with him the knowledge of "inoculation":
he infected people with small bits of small-pox infested tissue and
so made them immune from this scourge of mankind[6]. That nobody
took him serious postponed the eradication of small-pox by over 4
centuries - until 1979, when WHO triumphantly pronounced the disease
"extinct"[7]. Encyclopaedias name the discovery by Edward Jenner
(1749-1823) - he suggested to do as Paracelsus did before him over
200 years earlier -the most monumental progress in Medicine; it took
another 200 years plus to be a total success.
             What now goes by the name of non-invasive cosmetic
correction is an elitist scheme to vaccinate the "beautiful people"
against botulism, one of the most sinister biological "weapons" that
crank-scientists (as Astronomer Royal Martin Rees called them in an
interview The Guardian; Simon Hattenstone 04. 24, 2003) have given to
the "brass-monkeys" sitting on the backs of ruthless (or just plain
stupid) politicians.

That there is not a massive outcry of protest from concerned medical
practitioners goes a long way to explain "where they are coming
from". But surely, we do not want to go there - do we?


Catastrophes and Religions - how do they relate?

Whoever engages in literary "Archaeology" will stumble across numerous
parallelisms of events and processes. That man generally dies in
events which represent the "eventual" outcomes of "historical
processes" obscures this inter-relation to a large degree- hence the
dependence on literature! Whenever a string of "thoughts" (be they
imagined or the residue of experience) are "written down", they are
in danger of getting twisted- be this involuntarily or purposely / by
the writer himself or by the copyist (plagiator- as the case may be).
This is where a bag of "salt-grains" comes handy ... cum grano
salis..!

Historians are a very conservative lot and will not change "written"
history even in the face of most contradictory factual evidence.
Illig did for European Medieval History what Topper did for Egyptian
Antiquity, what Feuerstein, Kak & Frawley did for Vedic India, what
Gavin Menzies did for North-America , and what Mike Xu did for Middle
America[8]: they pointed out that the pillars of our
historical "knowledge" rest in quick-sand! Lorraine Evans presented a
master-piece of detective work on Bronze Age history of Europe[9],
the result of which lets the conventional wisdom of most
historical "Text" Books appear to be just "stories"! Paradigmatic
historical science generally uses the cheap shot of calling such
subversive research not Archaeology- but Grave Robbery. Come to think
of it: where is the difference in the first place?

How much more convoluted does the picture get, when we look at the
History of Religions! If we use Ocham's Razor and cut away a lot of
the trimmings, we are left with "found" Polytheisms and "made"
Monotheisms. Which begs the ques-tion of who found and who made.!
Half a century ago Immanuel Velikovsky was ridiculed by
the "institutional" historical establishment when he
pointed out, that all old religions contain (what a Chaos-
theoretician would call "irreducible complexity") the myth of a Great
Flood[10]. Haeckel pointed out, that in Chinese mythology the "Noah /
Ark Theme" is present[11] and Keys describes age-old Andean
mythology, which is eerily reminiscent of the "Adam & Eve Theme"[12].
Over thousands of years (if we take the global cataclysm which geo-
science dates at 12,500 years ago[13] as the trigger for the Great
Flood) the myths were structured into the Polytheisms of India,
Egypt and Mesopotamia; also the development of writing and religion
of the Maya is dated at between 2,000 and 1,500 B.C.[14]. That was
the time when early human agricultural and technical enterprise had
deforested the rim of the Mediterranean and started to turn a lush
green paradise into the present day reality of the Middle East and
the other "cradles of civilization". When we factor in recent
research on the climatic effects of present-day agriculture in many
parts of the world, then the Maya may well have kicked themselves out
of their paradise (another recurring theme!) as well! People were
starving and fighting over the last available "good" land and were at
the mercy of "pied pipers".

When we consult Hetmann and his survey of Creation Myths"[15], then
we will see, that the emergence of what we now call "Science" in
Babylonia was followed soon by the migration (flight?) of Abraham and
his followers to what is now Palestine; this started the misery of
the aboriginal people in the region which is about to culminate in a
(global?) catastrophe.
             In the second Millennium B.C., when people invented
writing, established an equivalence of natural values with
abstractions ("money") and started to understand the "ways of
Nature", it was a sequitur that some people would start to question
age-old beliefs in many different Gods. These early "reductionists"
depopulated a lusty Pantheon into a cage where Yahweh, the "perfect"
God (he could do everything, knew everything, was everywhere etc.)
was driven to insanity in solitary confinement. At roughly the same
time Pharaoh Amenhotep IV "purged" the Egyptian Pantheon and left
only Aten ("Ra") to adore himself; The Pharaoh called himself
henceforth Akhenaton and demanded of everybody to adore him. When the
Aegean volcano Santorini "blew its top", darkened the sky and caused
widespread misery (it is now also argued that the "Biblical Plagues"
were caused by it!; see a BBC Special on that theme: by Dr. Daniel
Stanley, January, 2003), the Egyptian Gods came back into their
Pantheon and cut Ra down to size, while Yahweh got ever more
bitter and vengeful! How do we know of that? Well, it stands in
the "Good Book"..!

Lao Tse and Confucius in China, Nataputta Mahavira and Siddhartha
Gautama in India, Socrates in Greece and Zarathustra in Persia came
up with their methods of finding salvation, as "praying" to gods
evidently did little if anything to better the lot of humanity. All
those thinkers advocated- at practically the same time- more moral /
ethical ways of living. While Taoism was radical in its denial,
the "Fire"-Religion of Persia still had "mumbo-jumbo" to help people
towards thinking in a New Way.
             Large scale deforestation of the rim of the Mediterranean
and overuse of land in what is now the Middle East had turned formerly
self-sufficient small communities into large masses with ever greater
demands on resources. "Civilization" had made people mobile[16] and
problems were not solved "inside" of communities anymore, but
externalized. Along came Jesus - his major achievement was the
introduction of the concept of forgiveness.[17] What used to be
an "eye for an eye" became a "turning of the other cheek". That the
Jews could not permit such a non-elitist way of thinking proved to be
their undoing: in the year 70 of our Age, the son of Roman emperor
Vespasian [who is still quoted for his saying: pecunia non olet ó
money does not smell when being given the fees levied at public
rest-rooms] Titus drove the Jews out of Palestine and into the
Diaspora. In a way he externalised the problem of the Palestinians
into the world as such. Almost 2,000 years later, Zionism gave the
problem back to the long-suffering people of Palestine. While Israel
(it is estimated that 85% of all Jews are Askhenazim = ethnically
Turks [18]!) is the most Anti-Semitic state in the world (Semites are
killed there as "par for the course") the World is not permitted to
discuss such issues, as this smacks of Anti-Semitism. This is a
classical circular argument and the sooner the world wakes up to the
absurdity of it, the better for all concerned!

What goes in the main unnoticed and is never commented on in coram
publico is the simple fact that Judaism is an exclusive, non-
proselytizing elitist religion, while the "derivatives" -
Christianity and Islam are inclusive belief-systems aiming at
communal salvation. That despite this dichotomy they are commonly
grouped into the "Abrahamic Religions" is what Friedrich Hacker has
bluntly termed "Labeling-Fraud"[19].

After the Great Cataclysm in 535/536 (described by Keys, op.cit, as an
eruption of the Krakatoa) which saw all great empires of the world
wither away in a short period of time, Mohammed was divinely guided
to create what Christianity had been supposed to be. Whether he likes
it or not - the most fundamentalist Muslim is (de facto) a "better"
Christian ("person") than the most bigotted and Bible-thumping
(Protestant) Christian. More or less savage in-fighting among clerics
had perverted the salvation religion of Jesus, to make it into the
control-mechanism which the epileptic genius Paul of Tarsus had
started. In China, the deposits from this volcanic eruption had
covered the land in a thick blanket of volcanic ash, brought untold
misery for the people and the newly arrived Buddhism split into a
Northern and Southern School and one cannot help but wonder whether
Lucretius would not have offered his timeless advise: <Nothing comes
from Nothing> to help us comprehend!

Martin Luther, Huldreich Zwingli and John Calvin reformed Catholicism
back into a hateful and vengeful creed which was practically and
essentially what Jesus Christ had stood up against! While Luther had
tried to also eradicate the formal weaknesses introduced by clerics,
Zwingli (and more effectively) Calvin moved against the
functional "softness" of real Christianity. With that they did not
reform Christianity, but re-established the Judaism of the
Torah under another name[20]. Moses Hess was wondering in 1862
whether the "intermediate stage" of passing through "Christianity"
(he surely meant fundamentalist Protestantism) would be more
effective than giving a "body to the soul" (a state - Israel - to re-
make the Jewish Nation)[21]. That American Protestants embrace among
their midst a huge number of "conversos" [22] becomes comprehensible!
It need not be said, but the schism of Christianity spilled over into
the Americas and caused the greatest genocide of all times there,
while and after turning Europe into a battlefield and graveyard!

The 19th century saw the emergence of two new Religions: Marxism and
Darwinism were based on antipathetic dogma: <together we are
stronger> stood against <the survival of the fittest>. At a time when
science and technology started to change the world (just as they had
done more than some 3,000 years earlier, when a "developing" Babylon
proved too restrictive/reactionary (?) for the Israelites), new
creeds had to provide a framework of thinking for non-elitist mankind
which was beginning to even outpace Malthusian geometric growth.
Marxism provided a philosophy of struggle for the masses, while
Darwinism seemed to justify the emergence and dominance of the Middle
Class. Both these 19th century control-mechanisms which
represented logical ("natural") sequiturs of technological
development and colonial history have been the reason for (and
excuse/ "legitimisation" of) hitherto unseen mass slaughter and
suffering in the name of the communist- and evolutionary "manifesto".
Some 150 years later they have been overcome by new, this time
elitist, religions. Mankind is just too sloppy in reading
the Cartesian <cogito - ergo sum> and fails to see the "g" in the
first word. The elites have "tossed the towel" and are working on
an "exit strategy"..

The newest global "Religions" emerged after the insanities of the 20th
century: Holocaust and Globalism "Religions" have their Prophet
(s):    Elie Wiesel and F.v. Hayek, Samuel Huntington, Jürgen
Habermas etc., Holy Shrines: Auschwitz and the Federal Reserve
Building in New York; they are militant in their fundamentalist
dogmatism: <you are either with us or against us> (there can be no
middle ground for either of them); heresy or even simple questioning
are punishable by imprisonment or impoverishment. Such an analysis
is "hung up" on one curious factor: Norm Finkelstein points out
that the "God" of the Holocaust Religion (he calls it
an "industry"[23]- is there a difference for "believers"?) is Mammon,
while Sri Dr. M. ahathir, Prime Minister of Malaysia, calls Mammon
also the God of the Globalists[24]. If it walks like a duck and
squawks like a duck - what is it likely to be? When, in due course,
the mist clears and the picture becomes clearer, both the Holocaust-
and Globalism Religions will turn out to be just different
interpretations of Mammonism (or "Donaldism"- for those with avian
inclinations). If it were not all so awfully serious, we could all
have a good laugh about it!

In the words of the French journalist Alphonse Karr (1809-1890) such a
whirl-wind survey of world Religions shows, that <the more things
change, the more they stay the same>! Is all of this to
be "understood" by simply looking at "Religions" or do we have to dig
deeper? For one thing, ALL religions try to pass themselves off as
means of salvation of the Eternal Soul. Why then is religious strive
causing so much misery? Was Friedrich Nietzsche right, when he envied
Henry Beyle ("Stendhal") for his frustrated exclamation: <the only
excuse for God is that he does not exist>? Maybe we have not "dug"
deep enough!
             When we construct a time-line for the emergence of
religions, we cannot help but notice, that there is a constant
pattern: natural catastrophes are followed by the "emergence" of
religions; man-made catastrophes are either caused or followed
by "reformations". And so it goes: on and on and on!

If history (not the paradigmatic accounting of people killed and
fortunes made in the course of it, but a karmic succession of crime
and punishment- sensu Dostoyevsky) is anything to go by, humanity
is "in" for a nasty surprise from nature! The net-effect of globalist
thinking (acting) on nature will go a long way to either compound or
trigger the next cataclysm.





[1] Kolata, G.B.: Flu : The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of
1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It. Touchstone; ISBN:
0743203-984 ; 2001
[2] Hoyle, F. & C. Wickramasinghe: Diseases from Space, Harper & Row,
New York, 1979
[3] Ayittey, G.B.N.: Africa in Chaos. Griffin Trade Paperback; ISBN:
0312217870; 1999
[4] on 04.05.2003 The Straits Times (Singapore) quotes Dr. Mark Salter
(Virologist with WHO) as saying that the mortality rate of SARS-
victims is at between 6-10% (up from about 4% when it was initially
discovered. Again - with a total of 393 victims world-wide over some
180 days, all numbers-games are just that - games!). To speak of an
incurable disease is Media-Hype and Labeling Fraud, scare-mongering
or worse! At some stage every disease known to man was "incurable".
[5] Adorno, Th. & M. Horkheimer: The Dialectic of Enlightenment.
Herder, N. Y., 1944
[6] Strathern, P.: Mendeleyew's Dream, Berkley Books, New York, ISBN
0-425-18467-6, 2000
[7] Why then is it, that in the USA "systemically important" people
get inocculated against an extinct disease? Is there a manifest
reason to fear a repeat of the "Anthrax" episode?
[8] Illig, H.: Das Erfundene Mittelalter. Econ & List, München, ISBN
3-612-26492-3, 1998 / Topper, U.: "Erfundene Geschichte- Unsere
Zeitrechnung ist gefälscht. Wir leben im Jahr 1702", Herbig-Verlag,
München, ISBN 3 77662085 4, 1999 / Feuerstein, G; S.Kak & D.Frawley:
In Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on Ancient India.
Quest Books; ISBN: 0835607208; 1995; Menzies, G.: 1421, William
Morrow; ISBN: 0060537639;2003. Discovery of North America was in 1241
by a fleet of chinese ships during the first circum-navigation of the
globe (Magellan was not the first either!) / M. Xu on Olmec Culture
as derivate of pre- Qin-Dynasty chinese culture (November 2002 - US
NEWS and WORLD REPORT)
[9] Evans. L.: Kingdom of the Ark. S. 63, Simon & Schuster, London,
ISBN 0671029568, 1997
[10] Velikovsky, I.: Worlds in Collision. Doubleday, New York, 1950
[11] Häckel, E.: Die Welträthsel. Gemeinverständliche Studien über
Monistische Philosophie. A. Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart, 1899
[12] Keys, D.: Catastrophe. An Investigation into the Origins of the
Modern World. S. 326 ff. Arrow, London, ISBN 0 09 9409844, 2000
[13] Cremo, M.A. & R.L. Thompson: The Hidden History of the Human
Race. Govardhan Hill, Badger, CA., ISBN 0 963 5309-6-8; 1994 [Plato
timed the destruction of Atlantis well in <Timeios> at 9,000 before
his time! Only "know-it-all" Historians can avoid hypothesizing a
causal link..]
[14] Coe, M.D.: Early steps in the evolution of Maya writing. In:
Origins of religious art and iconography in pre-classic Meso-America.
Ed.:. Nicholson, U.C.L.A., Los Angeles, CA, 1976.
[15] Hetmann, F.: Die Göttin der Morgenröte. Schöpfungsmythen aus
aller Welt. Fischer, Ff/M., ISBN 3596228670, 1988
[16] Diamond, J.: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human
Societies.
S.131 ff. W.W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 0393317552; 1999
[17] a most insightful article has just been published on this
subject: Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, graduate of Yale Divinity School,
and "Beren Fellow" at Yeshiva University, points out in <The Virtue
of Hate> First Things (an orthodox Christian Periodical; February
2003 edition) this fundamental difference of Judaism and early
Christianity. [The protestant Reformation turned the clock back to
old-testamentarian fundamentalism as is so prevalent now in Anglo-
Saxon Protestantism, which brought protestant Christianity back (full-
circle) to economic barbarism and political vengefulness. Non-
Christians are begged to take note of that distinction!]
[18] Köstler, A.: The Thirteenth Tribe. Hutchinson, London, ISBN 0
394 40284 7, 1976
[19] Hacker, F.: Aggression. S.82, Rororo, Hamburg, ISBN 3499 168073,
1973
[20] Benjamin Disraeli (as British Prime Minister) had called
Christianity "Judaism for non-Jews" - what he may well have meant was
Judaism for people who did not want to be known as Jews.
[21] Rome and Jerusalem: A Study in Jewish Nationalism. Boch
Bublishing Co., N.Y., 1918 (reprint)
[22] Netanyahu, B.: The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth
Century Spain. Random House, New York, ISBN 0-679-41065-1, 1995 [The
converso-issue is nowhere dealt in a more comprehensive way then in
this extremely detailed account of how and why the Sephardim Jews-
they were the ones driven by Titus in 70 A.D. from Palestine- were
persecuted].
[23] Finkelstein, N.G.: The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the
Exploitation of Jewish Suffering. Verso Books; ISBN: 1859850730; 2000.
[24] At the occasion of the opening of a symposium on the spiritual
integration of Buddhism with other Religions in Malaysia at Shah Alam
(Kuala Lumpur) on 10.12. 2002 he gave a clinical diagnosis of the
present State of the World, when he argued that the messianism of the
liberal-democrats are (like) a religious movement which adulates
Mammon but is bar of all morality




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'Madressah reform being introduced'


By Our Correspondent

WASHINGTON, July 11: The government is introducing a $255 million
plan for reforming madressahs, says a policy brief distributed in
Washington on Friday by the Pakistan embassy.

The three-year plan aims at "bridging the existing gulf between the
mainstream formal education system and the traditional religious
schools in Pakistan by introducing a new, integrated curriculum,"
says the brief sent to policy planners and think-tank experts and
other officials in the United States.

The new curriculum introduces such modern subjects as English,
mathematics, Pakistan studies, social studies, and general sciences
to the madressahs from the primary to the secondary level.


http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top10.htm&date=20030712

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9/11 INQUIRY ALLEGES WITNESS INTIMIDATION
Julian Borger, Guardian, 7/10/03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,994933,00.html

A US panel investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks yesterday
accused the Pentagon and the justice department of obstructing the
inquiry and said witnesses were being intimidated.

The federal commission of inquiry was appointed eight months ago by
the White House, which was under intense congressional pressure to
look into allegations that the CIA, the FBI and the Pentagon could
have done more to prevent the 2001 al-Qaida attacks.

Among a string of apparent intelligence failures, the commission will
be asking why the FBI failed to heed warnings from some of its agents
that al-Qaida could be planning to hit targets with hijacked
airliners.

The investigation has been hampered by the withdrawal of its original
chairman, Henry Kissinger, on grounds of conflict of interest, and
funding difficulties. The bipartisan panel now says its work has been
blocked by the bureaucracy...


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JUDGES LOOKING SKEPTICALLY AT SOME TERRORISM CHARGES
Laura Sullivan, Baltimore Sun, 7/11/03
http://www.sunspot.net/news/custom/attack/bal-
te.justice11jul11,0,4551021.story

WASHINGTON - When Justice Department officials held a news conference
two weeks ago to say they had broken up a "Virginia jihad network,"
they called the group violent and dangerous and "a stark reminder
that terrorist organizations of various allegiances are active in the
United States."

But a week later, in what was expected to be a series of routine
hearings, a federal magistrate judge, T. Rawles Jones Jr., ordered
that five of the men be freed without bond until trial. Challenging
their evidence, Jones rebuffed prosecutors' claim that the men posed
a serious threat.

Three of the five have since been released. A fourth will appear
today before Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in U.S. District Court in
Alexandria, Va., to contest prosecutors' appeal of his release.
Brinkema has said she is inclined to let the man go until trial. She
freed one of his co-defendants Tuesday.

For two judges, from one of the nation's most conservative federal
courts, to free defendants in what prosecutors billed as a high-
profile terrorism case was a rebuke to the Justice Department. It
marked the first time the department had failed in its efforts to
hold suspects on terrorism-related charges.

Some legal analysts suggest that after a long period since Sept. 11,
2001, during which the government enjoyed broad discretion to bring
terrorism cases and to hold suspects, the pendulum is starting to
swing the other way, with greater scrutiny of the government's
evidence.

"The administration is having something of a boy-who-cried-wolf
problem," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington
University who has been involved in national security cases as a
lawyer.

"The administration has been making these fairly outlandish claims to
the public ... and it's caught up with them. The courts are beginning
to balk."

The court's action follows a sharply critical report issued last
month by the Justice Department's inspector general. The report
found "significant problems" in the seizure of illegal immigrants
after Sept. 11. It said many suspects who had no links to terrorists
were jailed under severe conditions without access to a lawyer.

The inspector general also found that some senior Justice officials
dismissed concerns raised by others in the department about whether
such actions were legal…


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ISRAELI ARAB WINS ASYLUM IN U.S.
Court finds Jewish nation's navy persecuted man who now lives in San
Jose
Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, 7/12/03
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
file=/c/a/2003/07/12/MN37369.DTL

An Israeli Arab who lives in San Jose was found eligible for
political asylum Friday by a federal appeals court, which said
Israeli naval forces attacked and harassed him for a decade in his
homeland as the child of a mixed marriage.

The attacks on Abrahim Baballah in the Israeli town of Akko on the
Mediterranean, where he worked as a fisherman, included firing shots
over his fishing boat, destroying the boat in a purported rescue and
wrecking his livelihood, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
in San Francisco. The court said Baballah was persecuted because of
his religion and ethnicity.

The ruling bars deportation of Baballah, his wife, Ula, and their
Israeli-born son. The case is rare and perhaps unique; both the
family's lawyer, Haitham Ballout, and Karen Musalo, an immigration
expert and resident scholar at UC's Hastings College of the Law in
San Francisco, said they knew of no previous ruling granting asylum
to an Israeli Arab...

Baballah was the child of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father, the
only mixed marriage in Akko, the court said. He said employers
refused to hire him when they learned about his parents, so he worked
as a fisherman and became a target of daily harassment by the Israeli
navy.

Naval crews circled Baballah's boat, sprayed it with water hoses,
fired bullets over it, pelted him and his crew with eggs and damaged
his fishing nets with their propellers, the court said. On one
occasion, a naval crew boarded the boat, tied Baballah's brother to a
pole, sprayed him with water in freezing weather, then had the
brother arrested and imprisoned for more than a year, the court said.

Later, when Baballah's boat ran adrift, he accepted help from an
Israeli naval crew, which pulled the boat in a way that split it
apart and laughed as the boat broke up, the court said.

Sailors also followed Baballah in town and called him "goy," which
means non-Jew and has a derogatory meaning to Arabs, the court said…

The constant taunt of "goy" showed that Baballah's tormentors were
motivated by his ethnicity and religion, which are legal grounds for
asylum, Paez said.

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Marriage expenses to be restricted

ISLAMABAD, July 11: The Law and Justice Commission has prepared draft
of a new Marriage Expenses, Dowry and Bridal Gifts (Restriction) Act
2003 to provide relief to the public by placing curbs on ostentatious
displays in marriage ceremonies , limiting the value of dowry and
bridal gifts and enhancing penalty upon violation.

The draft is to be presented in a national workshop
entitled "Prohibiting excessive expenditure on marriage ceremony and
dowry" on July 25-26. Chief Justice of Pakistan Sheikh Riaz Ahmad
will be the chief guest at this workshop, to be organized by the Law
Commission.

The proposed Act would come into force after its approval in the form
of a government notification.

It recommends placing a value limit on dowry and bridal gifts, and an
enhanced penalty in case of this law's violation.

The proposed law seeks to relieve the people of the burden of having
to observe unnecessary social customs.

The total expenditure on marriage, excluding the value of dowry,
bridal gifts and presents, but including the expenses of mehndi,
baraat and valima shall not exceed Rs50,000, according to the draft
law.

No meal except soup or hot/cold soft drinks will be served in the
marriage function in the club, hotel, restaurant, wedding hall,
community park or any other place.

However, this condition will not apply on eating of meals within the
house by the members of the family celebrating the marriage and the
house guests.

The proposed Act prohibits decorating the street, road or public park
or any other place other than the house or a building where marriage
ceremony is being held. The use of firecrackers or other explosive
devices shall stay banned on such occasions.

The ministers, elected public representatives, judges, government
servants, army officers and Nazims will not be allowed to receive any
present in connection with his marriage or that of his son and
daughter except from his relations (Khandan).

This condition will not apply on officials serving in grade below 17,
who do not exercise any judicial, revenue or executive authority.

The parents of each party to a marriage will need to furnish to the
Nikah Registrar the lists of dowry and bridal gifts given or
received. In case of property given or accepted before or at the time
of marriage, the list will be furnished within fifteen days of its
being given or accepted.

According to the recommendations, each party shall submit details of
expenditure incurred on the marriage, duly signed or thumb-marked by
them, within one week. The Nikah Registrar shall forward the lists
and details of expenditure to the Nazim union council within 15 days
of receipt of such lists or details of expenditure.

A minimum of Rs100,000 and a maximum of Rs300,000 fine have been
proposed, depending on the degree of violation of this act.

The property confiscated in case of contravention would be used for
the marriage of poor girls in such a way as may be prescribed by the
rules. -APP

http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top6.htm&date=20030712


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Peace activists reopen Jenin road

JENIN, July 11: A group of some 30 foreign peace activists, assisted
by local residents, on Friday reopened a road east of the northern
West Bank city of Jenin that had been closed since the start of the
intifada.

With rudimentary equipment, members of the International Solidarity
Movement (ISM) removed the concrete blocks which had movement
impossible for cars between Jenin and a number of villages to the
east.

Some of the activists were carrying banners calling on Israel to
reopen the roads in the West Bank, most of which has been reoccupied
by the army for more than a year.

"Open the roads for peace!", said some of them.-AFP

http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top18.htm&date=20030712

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Talks with Pakistan under way: Rumsfeld


By Fakhr Ahmad

LOS ANGELES, July 10: Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen
Tommy Franks on Wednesday said talks are underway with India and
Pakistan for sending their troops to Iraq.

Rumsfeld and Franks were testifying before the Senate's armed
services committee.

About 19,000 troops from 19 countries in addition to the US were in
Iraq, Rumsfeld said. Nineteen more countries, he said, had committed
a total of 11,000 troops while discussions were underway with 11
other countries.

Gen Franks, who testified along with Mr Rumsfeld, said talks were
continuing with Pakistan and India, Los Angeles Times reported on
Thursday.

Recently, army officials had warned that the heavy and prolonged
commitment of the US troops in Iraq "straining the military's ability
to protect against potential threats elsewhere.

Referring to the length of the US troops' stay in Iraq, he said: "We
intend to see it through, and it's going to take some patience."

"The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic
new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction,"
Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light through
the prism of our experience on 9/11." He estimated that US military
operations in Iraq were costing $3.9 billion a month.

Rumsfeld's testimony came a day after the White House acknowledged
that President Bush's assertion, which he had made during his State
of the Union speech, that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa was
based, in part, on forged documents.

http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top9.htm&date=20030711

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General Says 'We're Still at War' in Iraq as Attacks Continue
By AMY WALDMAN


BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 3 - Two months after President Bush declared the
end of major combat, the commander of allied forces in Iraq
acknowledged today that ``we're still at war,'' and the United States
announced a reward of up to $25 million for the capture of Saddam
Hussein or confirmation of his death.

The statement from the Army commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez,
came on a day in which 10 American soldiers were wounded in three
separate attacks.

With the violence seemingly escalating daily, the offer of a bounty
for Mr. Hussein seemed to reflect the renewed urgency that allied
officials and military commanders attach to finding the deposed Iraqi
leader and his two sons, whose specter they believe is fueling the
growing resistance to the American occupation.

``Until we know for sure, their names will continue to cast a shadow
of fear over this country,'' L. Paul Bremer III, the American
civilian administrator of Iraq, said in his weekly address to the
Iraqi people.

In Washington today, a group of senators just back from a three-day
visit to Iraq were even more emphatic about the need to capture or
kill Mr. Hussein.

``There's a pervasive climate of fear that is impeding the recovery,
particularly in central and southern Iraq,'' said Senator Susan
Collins, a Maine Republican. ``There is a fear that he will return,
that he will come back. And that fear prevents us from making
progress as rapidly as we otherwise would, and that fear emboldens
those who would attack our troops.''

The $25 million reward for Mr. Hussein is the same amount offered for
Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda. Mr. Bremer said that up to
$15 million apiece would be offered for similar information on Mr.
Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay.

Mr. Bremer said in an interview on Sunday that the ``general
assessment'' of people he talked to was that Saddam Hussein was still
in Iraq. Referring to the recent capture of Mr. Hussein's
presidential secretary, Mr. Bremer said, ``The noose is going to get
tighter and tighter.''

While Mr. Bremer maintained that the threats and violence against
American soldiers and civilians, as well as the Iraqis working with
them, would not deter reconstruction, General Sanchez made clear at a
news conference today that rebuilding the country and fighting the
enemy would have to take place side by side.

While saying the daily attacks on American forces did not appear to
be centrally or even regionally coordinated, the commander
acknowledged that there had been an ``increase in sophistication of
the explosive devices.'' He said 25 soldiers had been killed in
action and 177 wounded since May 1, when Mr. Bush declared the
official cessation of major hostilities.

The multiple attacks today came a day after Mr. Bush essentially
dared militants to attack American soldiers, saying, ``Bring `em
on.'' The American-led alliance, he said, has adequate force to deal
with the security situation.

Today's attacks seemed to defy that assertion. They also suggested
that sapping the resistance might not be as simple as capturing or
killing Mr. Hussein. The attacks occurred in diverse locations: a
Sunni area west of Baghdad that staunchly supported the former
government, a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad that did not and the
center of the city.

In the Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiya today, a gunman opened fire
on a group of soldiers from the First Armored Division on foot patrol
at 2:30 a.m. local time, wounding one of them. The soldiers returned
fire, killing the gunman and wounding a 6-year-old boy with him,
according to an American military spokesman.

In the city of Ramadi, about 65 miles west of Baghdad, six soldiers
were wounded when their two-vehicle convoy drove over an improvised
explosive device at 6:30 a.m. The city's Sunni Muslim residents were
among the core of Mr. Hussein's base of support, serving as army
officers and officials in his government.
Ramadi has become a center of resistance to the American-led
occupation. It is about 30 miles west of Falluja, where an explosion
at a Sunni mosque killed at least six people on Monday night. An
allied investigation blamed a bomb-making class being held in a
building adjacent to the mosque, although Reuters today quoted a
senior military intelligence officer in Falluja as saying the
investigation had so far not been that conclusive. Many residents
accused the Americans of firing a missile into the mosque and
promised revenge against American troops.

In Baghdad, just before 10 a.m. today, a man on foot fired a rocket-
propelled grenade at a three-vehicle military convoy moving down
Haifa Street, a busy thoroughfare. One Humvee was struck, wounding
three soldiers, witnesses and a military spokesman said.

Witnesses also said that in response, soldiers in one of the other
vehicles opened fire indiscriminately, seriously wounding, and
possibly killing, at least one Iraqi driver nearby. Blood pooled next
to the driver's blue Volkswagen Passat soon after the attack.

The attack suggested that the urban warfare that had so concerned
military planners before the fall of the Hussein government was
materializing in unexpected forms. The attack against the three-
vehicle convoy on Haifa Street was at least the second rocket-
propelled grenade assault in Baghdad during daylight hours this week.

In both cases, the attackers escaped. Whether out of fear or sympathy
for their cause, bystanders and witnesses have done nothing to help
allied forces apprehend attackers.

Soldiers who arrived at the scene of the rocket-propelled grenade
attack in Baghdad this morning crouched by their vehicles or pointed
their weapons at the high-rise apartment buildings lining that
section of the street. In the distance, an AK-47 rifle sounded.

A crowd of people gathered around the destroyed Humvee and looted it,
taking whatever they could remove. Children and adults climbed on
top, stomping on it and chanting, ``God bless Muhammad!'' Then
someone set the vehicle on fire, and the crowd backed away, watching
it slowly burn. Children hurled stones at the blazing vehicle.

More American reinforcements arrived to clear the crowd and guard the
vehicle. An armored vehicle drove through and paused, training its
gun first on the crowd and then on the apartments above. Helicopters
circled low overhead.

Some bystanders expressed support for the attack. ``All men should
fight,'' Nidhal Latif Tawfiq said. ``If I wasn't a woman, I would go
to that car,'' she said of the Humvee surrounded by looters. ``I have
no job.''

The crowd's ire seemed to be fueled as much by a lack of jobs and
electric power in Baghdad - most parts of the city still have no more
than 8 to 10 hours of electricity a day - as by anti-American
sentiment.

``It's not because of Saddam that people are doing these things,''
one man said. ``It is because there's no government, there's no
electricity and just false promises.''

A 12-year-old boy, Ghanim Hamid, carrying part of a military food
ration taken from the Humvee, asked if it was true that the Americans
were withholding water and power from the Iraqis because Iraqis were
shooting at the troops.

``Get out from our country,'' someone had scrawled on a wall nearby.
It was written in English, so for the soldiers passing by there would
be no mistaking its meaning.

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If you wish to participate or host the WHEELS OF JUSTICE tour,
contact Ceylon Mooney of Voices in the Wilderness at ceylon@...
and 917-567-5048.


		 WHEELS OF JUSTICE TOUR
Nonviolent education and action against war and occupation in Iraq and
Palestine

Members of Voices in the Wilderness, Al-Awda, the International
Solidarity Movement, and Middle East Children's Alliance take to the
road in a colorfully decorated full-size school bus for the Wheels of
Justice Tour. Starting in mid-August 2003, this tour will canvass the
western United Sates to challenge and educate North Americans on the
occupation of Palestine and Iraq.

Having seen and lived with war, terror and occupation in Iraq and
Palestine, participants in the Wheels of Justice offer first-hand
experience irrespective of partisan politics and sound bite
sloganeering. To build upon and reassert the massive domestic
opposition to war against Iraq and occupation of the Palestinians,
the Wheels of Justice Tour will travel all across the western
United States for education, outreach, nonviolence/action training,
active resistance, and community-building.

The Wheels of Justice Tour Platform:

We call for adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Through education, outreach, nonviolent actions and personal witness,
we stand in opposition to the violence and injustice of war and
occupation.

We recognize that to find peace, the root injustices must be sought,
seen and directly dealt with.

We seek and practice nonviolent alternatives to the current violence
and advocate solutions to the roots of war in Iraq and
Palestine/Israel and our own communities.


Truth-Telling:

We must address Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestine.
This occupation continues a legacy that began in 1947 with Israel's
death squads killing and expelling Palestinians to make room for
foreign settlers. The apartheid laws, ongoing displacement of native
Palestinians, and numerous injustices under Israel's 36-year military
occupation of Palestinian land perpetuates the bloodshed. The
violence suffered by Israelis and Palestinians will continue as long
as the foundation upon which it stands--direct military occupation
and human rights abuses--remains.

  We must address the ongoing legacy of U.S. involvement in Iraq. The
current U.S. occupation of Iraq, the lifting of sanctions under U.S.
military rule, and the continued local instability deny the Iraqi
citizenry the very self-determination championed by the United
States. The cultural, political and economic institutions of Iraq
belong to the Iraqis, not to Washington; the hijacking of Iraq's
culture and resources by a foreign power exacerbates and prolongs the
consequences of the 13-year U.S.-led war, and the ordinary people of
Iraq still have no self-governance.

You cannot have peace without justice, you cannot see justice without
actively resisting injustice, and you can't nourish a nonviolent
resistance without a supportive community. The consequences of these
wars and occupations fall upon the shoulders of the poor and
oppressed, the refugees and the marginalized, and those in our own
communities whose needs are neglected by governments' costly pursuit
of foreign wars; the human cost is paid for by the innocent and most
vulnerable, here and abroad. To see an end to the violence and
injustice of war and occupation, we must invest in justice and human
rights for those living with and living under occupation and war.

The Only Roadmap for Peace: Justice and Human Rights

As people of conscience working for peace, we see that the only
roadmap for peace is justice and human rights. We call upon all
parties involved to recognize and adhere to the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, and we call for nonviolent resistance to this
violence of war, terror and occupation.

As much of this violence is supported by our tax dollars and by our
elected officials, Americans bear a great responsibility. The people
of the world know this, and U.S. government policy provokes rage and
retaliation against Americans.

Further, draining our treasury on weapons and wars helps prolong and
exacerbate our economic crisis and diverts resources greatly needed
to build American schools and infrastructure and provide employment
and healthcare to our own citizens.  To break the cycle of violence
we must change our roles in these conflicts; as individuals and as a
nation, we must move from instigator to negotiator, from enabler to
resister.


Educational Focus:

*Self-determination for both Iraqis and Palestinians versus
occupation and colonization (drawing parallels to the dispossession
and oppression of other peoples, including American Indians, African
Americans, South African blacks under Apartheid, etc.)
*Universal Human Rights and equality under the law
*Effects of war and occupation on civilians in Palestine/Israel and
Iraq, including house demolitions, armed conflict, apartheid laws,
collective punishment, and degrading humanitarian conditions
*US taxpayers' footing the bill and bearing the consequences of
flawed US foreign policy in Iraq and Palestine/Israel.


Action Focus:

*Promote solidarity with Iraqis and Palestinians under war and
occupation.
*Cultivate, promote and take nonviolent direct action for peace and
justice.
*Build and strengthen networks of action groups in states visited.
*Engage in advocacy with elected and appointed officials; challenge
pro-war and pro-occupation officials in public.
*Engage in mass media campaigns.
*Raise material support for home rebuilding, refugee aid, and
advocacy work.


	 Brought to you by

	 Voices in the Wilderness
	 Middle East Children's Alliance
	 Al-Awda, the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition
	 Affiliates of the International Solidarity Movement


The WHEELS OF JUSTICE bus tour starts in mid-August. Leaving from the
Chicago area, we will head north and west, passing through and
stopping in Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho,
Washington...we start moving south when we hit the west coast; next,
we start heading east from southern California through Nevada,
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, the plains, Oklahoma, Texas; then
northbound from Louisiana through Mississippi and Arkansas. This is a
HUGE territory we wish to cover in 6 months, and we will not be able
to visit everywhere in one itinerary. There is the possibility of
doing simultaneous mini-tours to locations, which we'll have to
bypass on the main route. Simon Harak and Ceylon Mooney are exploring
a few different itinerary options.

Here are a list of activities we'd like to co-organize and
participate in with host organizations and individuals:
*press conferences
*blood drives: donor donates in the name of Iraqi or Palestinian
civilians killed/wounded by u.s. weapons
*teach-ins, lectures, presentations, slide shows in public and
private venues
*faith-related activities, religious services for justice and peace
in Iraq and Palestine Israel
*movie screenings
*slide shows
*letter-writing, outreach and lobby training
*appearances at campaign rallies and events featuring elected and
selected public officials
*events and public appearances of company executives (from boeing,
caterpillar, etc) who indirectly or directly participate in
war/occupation and related activities
*nonviolence and direct action training/orientation
*poetry events/open mike
*"bands against bombs" concerts and musical performances
*community-building events, like potlucks and strategizing local
resistance and peacemaking efforts
*vigils, protests, and nonviolent actions at military facilities and
war-related corporate locations (Boeing, Bechtel, Lockheed-Martin,
Caterpillar, DynCorp, etc)
*using BIO DIESEL to fill up our school bus

Here is the travel route through December 23:

July 20 Sun. Milwaukee
July 21 Mon. Racine
July 22 Tue. Madison
July 23 Wed. Sheboygan, 7 pm, at the Library
July 24 Thur. West Bend
July 25 Fri.   Stevens Point, PM

July 30-Aug 3 Toledo or western Illinois (tentative)

aug 13, 14 Green Bay, Wisconsin
aug 15 Lacrosse, WI
aug 16-21 Minnessota
aug 22-29 North Dakota
aug 30-sept 5 South Dakota
sept 6  leave SD and drive
sept 7-12 Nebraska
sept 13-21 Colorado
sept 22-25 Wyoming
sept 26-oct 3 Montana
oct 4-6 Spokane, Washington
oct 7-18 more Washington
oct 19-27 Oregon
oct 28-nov 2 Idaho
nov 3   drive
nov 4-9 Utah
nov 10 drive
nov 11-16 upper Nevada
nov 17-dec 7 California
dec 8 drive
dec 9-12 lower Nevada, Vegas, etc
dec 13-23 Arizona

after the new year:
New Mexico
The Republic of Texas
Louisiana
Mississippi
Tennessee

…then we start the next tour of the deep south. Then up the east
coast. Then into Canada.


If you wish to participate or host the WHEELS OF JUSTICE tour,
contact Ceylon Mooney of Voices in the Wilderness at ceylon@...
and 917-567-5048.


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Amid propaganda campaign over Iraq:
Guatemala's mass graves ignored by mass media

by
Bill Vann
July 2,  2003

Last month, the people of Xiquin Sanahi, a small
village in the Guatemalan highlands, reburied the
remains of 75 of their family members and neighbors
who were massacred two decades ago by the Guatemalan
army. The skeletal remains had been exhumed a year
earlier by a team of forensic anthropologists.

A moving report on the reburial ceremony written by
T. Christian Miller of the Los Angeles Times
("Dignity Recovered at last," June 26, 2003) was all
the more notable because of its rarity. The mass
media has virtually ignored what is a gruesome
ongoing exposure of massive atrocities carried out
during a protracted US-backed counterinsurgency
operation.

Given the voluminous coverage given to the unearthing
of similar mass burial sites in Iraq "universally
proclaimed by government officials and media hacks in
the US and Britain alike as an ex post facto
justification for an illegal war of aggression" the
near-total silence over the harvest of remains in
Guatemala speaks volumes.

"Of the 44 bodies whose sex and age could be
determined, only seven were adult men,"  Miller wrote.
"The rest were women and children. The estimated ages
range from 5 months to 87 years." Most were shot,
some beaten to death and at least three decapitated.

The reporter described how, due to a bureaucratic
error, one set of remains, those of a 15-year-old
cousin of Juliana Diaz, were brought late to the
ceremony. There, they were taken from a manila
envelope and placed in a plain pine box.

"As the worker was about to shut the lid, Diaz
stopped her, and pulled a white handkerchief from her
bag," Miller writes. "She laid it across the bones,
then closed the lid. Later she explained that she did
not want her cousin to be cold. `I wanted to feel
like he was a little bit dressed,' she said."

These exhumations and reburials are taking place
across Guatemala. While remains have been exhumed at
some 250 secret cemeteries, those involved in the
effort say that there are thousands of such sites
scattered around the country, enough to keep them
digging for another 10 years.

The effort to recover remains has confirmed claims
long made by Guatemalan human rights advocates--and
dismissed by governments both there and in
Washington--as to the scale of the bloodletting. It is
now generally accepted that more than 200,000
people--most of them from the country's Mayan Indian
majority--were slaughtered by a succession of military
and military-backed regimes representing Guatemala's
ruling oligarchy.

In their vast majority, the victims were killed
simply because they were poor and oppressed and
therefore suspected of sympathizing with a guerrilla
movement that advocated a more equitable distribution
of the country's wealth.

US backing for this carnage dates back to 1954, when
the Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated a
military coup to overthrow President Jacobo Arbenz.
The elected government of Arbenz had run afoul of
Washington by introducing a limited agrarian reform
that infringed upon the vast holdings of the
politically influential United Fruit Company. The
carnage reached its apogee in the early 1980s, when
the Guatemalan right forged the closest political
ties with the Republican administration of Ronald
Reagan.

In those years, the Guatemalan military unleashed a
sadistic "scorched earth" campaign modeled in large
part on lessons that its US advisors had drawn from
the war in Vietnam. Basing itself upon the murderous
theory that the only way to combat guerrilla
resistance was to "empty the sea" in which the
guerrillas swam, the army set about to bleed and
break the population. In addition to the hundreds of
thousands slaughtered, over a million were displaced
from their homes and countless thousands were
tortured and raped.

This is not a matter of a dark but closed chapter in
Central American history. The CIA and other US
agencies still refuse to declassify documents
containing information ranging from the identity of
individuals responsible for these crimes against
humanity to the actual location of secret prisons and
mass graves.

With an election set for November in Guatemala, the
candidate of the ruling party is General Efrain Rios
Montt, the leader of a 1982 military coup that
brought to power the most ruthless in a long line of
murderous regimes. His 18-month junta carried out the
biggest bloodbath in the country's history. While the
Guatemalan constitution bars coup leaders from
running for president, the ruling Guatemalan
Republican Front has packed the country's Supreme
Court with its own nominees and expects to prevail
against legal challenges.

In the runup to the elections, human rights workers,
journalists and Mayan priests involved in the
exhumations have been attacked and killed. Forensic
anthropologists working at the gravesites have been
subjected to mounting death threats, presumably from
those implicated in the mass killings.

It is worthwhile keeping the case of Guatemala in
mind when considering the Bush administration's
seizing upon the discovery of mass graves in Iraq as
the ultimate answer to charges that the US president
lied to the American people about alleged Iraqi
"weapons of mass destruction" and launched an illegal
war based on false pretexts.

Thus, Bush's national security advisor Condoleezza
Rice recently admonished the public not to "lose
sight of the mass graves that are being found there
that are a testament to what this regime was like."

Another staunch defender of Bush's war, Republican
Senator John McCain, told ABC News: "The day I saw
the mass graves uncovered, it was ample testimony of
the brutality and repressiveness of this regime. It
was the day that I believe our liberation of Iraq was
fully vindicated."

This argument was summed up most crudely by the New
York Times' contemptible foreign columnist Thomas
Friedman, who wrote a column last April titled "The
meaning of a skull,"  referring to a picture published
on the Times front page of a skull unearthed from a
mass grave in Iraq.

"As far as I'm concerned, we do not need to find any
weapons of mass destruction to justify this war,"
Friedman wrote. "That skull, and the thousands more
that will be unearthed, are enough for me. Mr. Bush
doesn't owe the world any explanation for missing
chemical weapons...Who cares if we now find some
buried barrels of poison? Do they carry more moral
weight than those buried skulls? No way."

The argument is hypocritical and fraudulent. The
claims by the Bush administration and its apologists
that the Iraqi graves legitimize US military
occupation are evidently not shared by the Iraqi
people. In the predominantly Shi'ite south, where
many of the graves have been unearthed, it is widely
understood that those whose remains are being
recovered were the victims not only of Saddam
Hussein's regime, but of US policy as well.

At the close of the first Persian Gulf war in 1991,
George Bush senior called upon the Iraqi people to
revolt against Saddam Hussein. When the Shi'ite
population, backed by the Kurds in the north, did
just that, the Bush government panicked. It had
counted on a coup by Hussein's military, which failed
to materialize.

Fearing a revolution that could spread throughout the
Shi'ite population of the gulf region, Washington
signaled the regime in Baghdad that it would tacitly
support its suppression of the revolt. As the Wall
Street Journal--a paper not unsympathetic to either
Bush administration--reported at the time: "A decision
had been made to let Saddam suppress the
rebellion...the quicker the better. Having decided it
did not want Iraq's revolts to succeed, the
administration stood fast as the slaughter
continued..."

Moreover, the Ba'athist regime was itself brought to
power in a coup aided by the CIA. Throughout most of
his career, Saddam Hussein's regime was a trusted
client of Washington, which supported its
catastrophic war against Iran as well as the
continuing suppression of the both the Shi'ites in
the south and the Kurdish minority in the north.

So, what is the "meaning of a skull" unearthed in
Iraq? As the Iraqis know, it is far more complicated
than the self-serving propaganda peddled by Rice,
McCain and Friedman.

And what of the "meaning" or "moral weight" of a
skull dug from the soil of Guatemala? What does it
say about the claims that US foreign policy is
dedicated to the liberation of the oppressed and the
toppling of tyrants everywhere?

The answers are suggested by the media's guilty
silence about Guatemala's mass graves. The horrific
death toll in that country is ultimately the product
the US banks', corporations' and government's
determination to stamp out any challenge to their
unfettered hegemony over a region that Washington has
long regarded as its "backyard." The same essential
impulse--now extended to the Persian Gulf and the
world as a whole--has driven the US military
occupation of Iraq.

The profoundly reactionary attempt to recolonize Iraq
in order to assure US hegemony over strategically
vital oil supplies can only be realized through
barbaric methods of repression, much like those
employed in Guatemala. Before this criminal project
is brought to an end, it will fill many new graves,
both in Iraq and in the US.

* * * * * * * * * * *
Forwarded by
La Voz de Aztlan
http://www.aztlan.net



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