The Real Reason for the Vietnam Invasion- OIL
El Kabong
Herbert Hoover, later to become President of the United States did a
study that showed that one of the world's largest oil fields ran along
the coast of the South China Sea right off French Indo-China, now
known as Vietnam.
- Denny, Ludwell, We Fight of Oil, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1928.
Ralph McGehee was a CIA agent for 25 years, active mainly in
South-East Asia, and received a career achievement medal upon
retirement. Initially a gung-ho anti-communist crusader, McGehee's
experiences in Vietnam, where he witnessed American bombing and
napalming of villages, and of the men, women and children who lived in
them, led him to examine closely what the CIA was really all about. He
concluded that:
"Essentially the CIA stopped all accurate info on Vietnam while
conducting a propaganda campaign to keep us in this war that was
unwinnable. We were there to impose a US-controlled regime over
Vietnam....We refused to admit the real strength of the South
Vietnamese Communists. Had we ever done it, then we would have to come
up with totally new justifications for being there or just pulled
out."
"The CIA is not now nor has it ever been a central intelligence
agency. It is the covert action arm of the President's foreign policy
advisers. In that capacity it overthrows or supports foreign
governments while reporting "intelligence" justifying those
activities. It shapes its intelligence, even in such critical areas as
Soviet nuclear weapons capability, to support presidential policy.
Disinformation is a large part of its covert action responsibility,
and the American people are the primary target of its lies."
After a long legal battle with the CIA censors Ralph McGehee published
in 1983 his account of the CIA in his book Deadly Deceits (from which
the paragraph above is quoted). A synopsis of this book is at Ralph
McGehee, The CIA and Deadly Deceits
http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/mcgehee.htm
The 'official' or commonly accepted version of how and why the U.S.
was involved in Vietnam sort of goes along the following lines:
Non-communist South Vietnam was invaded by communist North Vietnam
The United States came to the aid of the regime in the South.
The regime in the South was democratic
Yet, it turns out that this is untrue, and it required massive
propaganda to create this standard and accepted image.
A lot of the info on the webpage Media, Propaganda and Vietnam is a
summary of part of journalist John Pilger's book, Heroes, (Jonathan
Cape 1986, Vintage 2001), mainly chapters 15 and 20, mostly written in
the 1980s (and reprinted in 2001, from which the citations are taken.
Where page numbers are cited in parenthesis, it is from this book
unless indicated otherwise). He was in Vietnam many times, during the
war, and returned on various occassions as well. He received a number
of awards for his Vietnam reporting.
Media, Propaganda and Vietnam
http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Propaganda/Vietnam.asp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
"The power of accurate observation is called cynicism
by those who have not got it." - G. B. Shaw
Want to know what's really going on in Iraq?
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/wakeup.html
The Rise and Fall of the Holy Roller Empire
The God-Awful Truth about Christian Zionism
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/armageddon.html
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
Rev. P.J. Billy Bob Bubba, Jr.
testified that he found extensive bruising when he examined Mowhoush
shortly after he died. "So, at some point prior to the 26th, he had
been beaten," Ryan said.
An autopsy revealed that Mowhoush had also suffered broken ribs,
testimony showed.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=533&e=4&u=/ap/20050402/ap_on_re_us/prisoner_abuse
By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer
FORT CARSON, Colo. - Previously secret court testimony indicates an
Iraqi general imprisoned by U.S. forces was badly bruised and may have
been severely beaten two days before he died of suffocation during
interrogation.
References to the alleged beating appear in a transcript, released
under court order, from a military preliminary hearing for three
soldiers charged with murder and dereliction of duty in the death of
Maj. Gen. Abed Mowhoush on Nov. 26, 2003. A fourth soldier faces the
same charges but waived a hearing.
During the interrogation, Army prosecutors claim Mowhoush was put
headfirst into a sleeping bag, wrapped with electrical cord and
knocked down before the soldiers sat and stood on him, prosecutors
said. The cause of death was determined to be suffocation.
The defendants — Chief Warrant Officers Lewis Welshofer and Jefferson
Williams, Sgt. 1st Class William Sommer and Spc. Jerry Loper — have
all denied wrongdoing, saying commanders had sanctioned their actions.
According to the transcript, witnesses said others had also beaten
Mowhoush days before the Army interrogation. Their names and agencies
were blacked out.
Col. David A. Teeples, the men's commander, said during the closed
hearing: "My thought was that the death of Mowhoush was brought about
by .... (blacked out) and then it was unfortunate and accidental, what
had happened under an interrogation by our people."
According to the transcript, Army special investigator Curtis Ryan
testified that he found extensive bruising when he examined Mowhoush
shortly after he died. "So, at some point prior to the 26th, he had
been beaten," Ryan said.
An autopsy revealed that Mowhoush had also suffered broken ribs,
testimony showed.
Rev. P.J. Billy Bob Bubba, Jr.
was an American problem, that's bullshit. It's a worldwide plague
that has been going on for over 1000 years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3937203.stm
Thursday, 29 July, 2004, 15:24 GMT 16:24 UK
Vatican gags sex scandal bishop
An investigator sent by the Vatican to look into a sex scandal at
seminary in Austria has banned the local bishop from talking to the
media.
Bishop Klaus Kueng, who was named as investigator by Pope John Paul
II, said the gagging order was necessary to halt the damage being done
by the scandal.
Photographs have appeared in Austrian media of clerics at St Poelten
seminary kissing and fondling student priests.
Local bishop Kurt Krenn caused outrage by describing the incidents as
pranks.
The director of the Roman Catholic priests' training college and his
assistant have already resigned, but Bishop Krenn has so far resisted
calls by some of his congregation to quit his post.
The appointment of Bishop Kueng, of the Austrian city of Feldkirch, by
the Pope followed a 27-year-old Polish student from the seminary being
charged with the possession and distribution of child pornography.
The affair has shocked Austria and embarrassed the Catholic Church.
-----------------
"Archbishop Paetz has been accused by fellow priests of paying night
visits to the lodgings of seminarians, cuddling up to young clerics in
public and using an underground tunnel to pay unannounced visits to
his targets. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1898532.stm
Thursday, 28 March, 2002, 11:39 GMT
Polish archbishop quits in sex row
A Polish archbishop under investigation by the Vatican has resigned
amid accusations that he molested young clerics.
Underground tunnel
Archbishop Paetz has been accused by fellow priests of paying night
visits to the lodgings of seminarians, cuddling up to young clerics in
public and using an underground tunnel to pay unannounced visits to
his targets.
He is the highest-ranking prelate to be brought down by a scandal of
this kind since Austrian Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer was forced to
give up all his duties in 1998, amid allegations that he had molested
young boys.
------------------------
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/13/1089694354244.html?from=storylhs
Sex scandal in Austrian seminary
By Ian Traynor
Vienna
July 14, 2004
The Austrian Catholic Church has been plunged into its second big sex
scandal in a decade when a seminary run by arch-conservatives was
alleged to be the site of orgies among young priests and their
teachers.
The church announced yesterday that it would investigate charges of
homosexuality between priests and seminarians at a seminary outside
Vienna.
A church panel in the Sankt Poelten diocese west of the capital agreed
to the inquiry after the news magazine Profil published photographs
showing leading clerics of the local seminary fondling and kissing
student priests.
Profil said investigators had also found at least 40,000 mostly
pornographic photographs at the seminary.
The director of the seminary and his assistant have both quit as
details of the scandal emerged in recent days. The seminary in St
Poelten, west of Vienna, comes under the authority of the conservative
Bishop Kurt Krenn.
While the Austrian Bishops' Conference issued a statement declaring
that homosexuality and pornography had no place at the seminary,
Bishop Krenn refused to resign and appeared to compound the crisis by
saying: "This has got nothing to do with homosexuality. It's just
boys' pranks."
---------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1020400,00.html
Vatican told bishops to cover up sex abuse
Expulsion threat in secret documents
Read the 1962 Vatican document (PDF file)
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Observer/documents/2003/08/16/Criminales.pdf
Antony Barnett, public affairs editor
Sunday August 17, 2003
The Observer
The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up
cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church.
The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the
secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for
deception and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child
abuse victims has described it as 'explosive'.
The 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII was
sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a policy
of 'strictest' secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and
threatens those who speak out with excommunication.
They also call for the victim to take an oath of secrecy at the time
of making a complaint to Church officials. It states that the
instructions are to 'be diligently stored in the secret archives of
the Curia [Vatican] as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be
published nor added to with any commentaries.'
The document, which has been confirmed as genuine by the Roman
Catholic Church in England and Wales, is called 'Crimine
solicitationies', which translates as 'instruction on proceeding in
cases of solicitation'.
It focuses on sexual abuse initiated as part of the confessional
relationship between a priest and a member of his congregation. But
the instructions also cover what it calls the 'worst crime', described
as an obscene act perpetrated by a cleric with 'youths of either sex
or with brute animals (bestiality)'.
Bishops are instructed to pursue these cases 'in the most secretive
way... restrained by a perpetual silence... and everyone... is to
observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of
the Holy Office... under the penalty of excommunication'.
Texan lawyer Daniel Shea uncovered the document as part of his work
for victims of abuse from Catholic priests in the US. He has handed it
over to US authorities, urging them to launch a federal investigation
into the clergy's alleged cover-up of sexual abuse.
He said: 'These instructions went out to every bishop around the globe
and would certainly have applied in Britain. It proves there was an
international conspiracy by the Church to hush up sexual abuse issues.
It is a devious attempt to conceal criminal conduct and is a blueprint
for deception and concealment.'
British lawyer Richard Scorer, who acts for children abused by
Catholic priests in the UK, echoes this view and has described the
document as 'explosive'.
He said: 'We always suspected that the Catholic Church systematically
covered up abuse and tried to silence victims. This document appears
to prove it. Threatening excommunication to anybody who speaks out
shows the lengths the most senior figures in the Vatican were prepared
to go to prevent the information getting out to the public domain.'
Scorer pointed out that as the documents dates back to 1962 it rides
roughshod over the Catholic Church's claim that the issue of sexual
abuse was a modern phenomenon.
He claims the discovery of the document will raise fresh questions
about the actions of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the
Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.
Murphy-O'Connor has been accused of covering up allegations of child
abuse when he was Bishop of Arundel and Brighton. Instead of reporting
to the police allegations of abuse against Michael Hill, a priest in
his charge, he moved him to another position where he was later
convicted for abusing nine children.
Although Murphy-O'Connor has apologised publicly for his mistake,
Scorer claims the secret Vatican document raises the question about
whether his failure to report Hill was due to him following this
instruction from Rome.
Scorer, who acts for some of Hill's victims, said: 'I want to know
whether Murphy-O'Connor knew of these Vatican instructions and, if so,
did he apply it. If not, can he tell us why not?'
Larry Drivon, a lawyer who represents alleged victims of sexual abuse,
called the document "a blueprint for deception."
"It's an instruction manual on how to deceive and how to protect
pedophiles," Drivon said.
------------------------
Thursday January 31, 2003
Church Offers Payout for Sex Abuse
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has agreed
to a landmark $110 million payment to Irish children sexually abused
by its clergy over decades. Sex abuse campaigners and opposition
lawmakers brand the offer as inadequate.
The deal late Wednesday was designed to conclude a 10-year struggle by
the church in this predominantly Catholic nation to overcome sex
scandals going back to the 1940s. More than 20 priests, brothers and
nuns have already been convicted of molesting children, with much of
the abuse taking place in state-funded, church-run schools.
The court cases are cited as one factor fueling a steady decline in
Mass attendance in this country of 3.8 million people, more than 90
percent of whom are baptized Catholics.
-----------------------------------------------
Catholic priests have been raping little boys for 1500 years:
The Emotional Life of Nations
by Lloyd deMause
Chapter 8----The Evolution of Childrearing
But placing boys as oblates into monasteries only made them available
for rape by monks, who could not keep their hands off them. One abbott
wrote about an infant boy brought to the monastery by his father:
...the man turned the child over to me altogether, and I received the
baby with pleasure and joy and a clean heart. [But] when the boy got
older and had reached the age of about ten...I was tortured and
overwhelmed by an obscene desire, and the beast of impure lust and a
desire for pleasure burned in my soul...I wanted to have sex with the
boy...1
Sex with boys was the central obsession of monks beginning with the
early anchorites who went to the desert; Macarius saw so many monks
having sex with boys in the desert that he strongly advised monks not
to take them in.2 But the need was too strong, and even rules such as
those requiring boys to have escorts when going to the lavatory did
not prevent monks from routinely using their oblates sexually.3 So
many monks raped their novices that there was a common saying, "With
wine and boys around, the monks have no need of the Devil to tempt
them."4 Priests also commonly used confessions to solicit sex with
boys, but early Christian penitentials assessed penances only for the
boys, since they were blamed for their own rape. Peter Damian said in
the eleventh century that sex with boys in monasteries "rages like a
bloodthirsty beast in the midst of the sheepfold of Christ with bold
freedom" and suggested both the man and boy be punished as accomplices
for a "sin against nature."5
1. John Boswell, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe. New York:
Villard Books, 1994, p. 247.
2. Aline Rousselle, Porneia, p. 148.
3. Patricia A. Quinn, Better Than The Sons of Kings: Boys and Monks in
the Early Middle Ages. New York: Peter Lang, 1988, p. 165.
4. Elizabeth Abbott, A History of Celibacy, p. 101.
5. Peter Damian, Book of Gomorrah. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier
University Press, 1982, pp. 27, 42.
"Who would not shudder if he were given the choice of eternal death or
life again as a child? Who would not choose to die?"
St. Augustin
Rev. P.J. Billy Bob Bubba, Jr.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1451137,00.html
Fury at 'shoot for fun' memo
Outburst by US security firm in Iraq is attacked by human rights
groups
Mark Townsend
Sunday April 3, 2005
The Observer
One of the biggest private security firms in Iraq has created outrage
after a memo to staff claimed it is 'fun' to shoot people.
Emails seen by The Observer reveal that employees of Blackwater
Security were recently sent a message stating that 'actually it is
"fun" to shoot some people.'
Dated 7 March and bearing the name of Blackwater's president, Gary
Jackson, the electronic newsletter adds that terrorists 'need to get
creamed, and it's fun, meaning satisfying, to do the shooting of such
folk.'
Human rights groups said yesterday that the comments raised fresh
questions over the role of civilian contractors operating in Iraq and
other world flashpoints.
'We are very concerned about the increased use of security companies,
there needs to be more inspection and regulation of these companies,'
said a spokesman for Amnesty International.
Blackwater has already been the subject of lobbying efforts to
introduce tighter regulations on private military operations in Iraq.
It is one of the fastest growing private security firms in the world,
and achieved global prominence last year when four of its men were
ambushed by a crowd of Iraqis and their bodies mutilated and dragged
around the Iraqi city of Falluja.
The controversial wording of the Blackwater bulletin appears to be an
attempt to criticise the 'righteous outcry' that followed a recent
statement from a senior US Marine general who, on returning home from
Iraq, claimed it was 'fun to shoot some people'. While the views of
Lieutenant-General James Mattis drew a frosty response from the
Pentagon, others said his observations reflected the harsh realities
of war.
Blackwater's entry to the debate appears to suggest that satisfaction
can be drawn from combat if 'the bad guys' get what they deserve.
'All of us who have ever waited through an hour and a half movie, or
read some 300 pages of a thriller, to the point when the bad guys
finally get their comeuppance know this perfectly well,' says the
opening address of the six-page bulletin, which The Observer believes
to be authentic.
Called Blackwater Tactical Weekly, the newsletter was sent to
environmental activist Frank Hewetson as well as the firm's staff.
Last year Hewetson was offered a job by Blackwater with a salary of up
to £85,000 plus health benefits to work with its 'military crisis
operations support team.' Although he declined, Hewetson remains on
the firm's database.
The 7 March bulletin also features a plug for Blackwater's training
academy which offers potential recruits an eight-week course that
includes training in various firearms, close quarter protection,
physical security as well as 'ground fighting.'
Among its various roles in post-war Iraq, Blackwater has guarded
provincial outposts for the Iraqi coalition provisional authority and
had the contract to keep former chief US envoy Paul Bremer alive.
The company has been praised for its role in the rescue of a wounded
soldier in Najaf. Defence experts have described Blackwater as a major
player in the field of private arms with an important role to play in
aiding American security in the war on terror.
Other Blackwater emails seen by The Observer, from last year, indicate
the large market for civilian contractors in war zones. 'We will
probably require at least 3000-4000 professionals above and beyond
what we have in the Blackwater employment and resource system,' states
one.
There are thought to be as many as 20,000 private enterprise soldiers
in Iraq, with the US military an advocate of their use. This system
allows governments to save money on paying permanent soldiers, and
offers the political bonus that it is unlikely to attract as much
media attention as conventional troops.
The Observer made numerous attempts to contact Blackwater's head
office in North Carolina, but no calls were returned. There is,
however, no evidence that company staff have ever shot people for fun.
----------------------------------------
Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens for Legitimate Government
April 3, 2005
All links to articles as summarized below are available here:
http://legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
US relied on 'drunken liar' to justify war [No, not Bush, another
'drunken liar'] 'Crazy' Iraqi spy was full of misinformation, says
report --An alcoholic cousin of an aide to Ahmed Chalabi has emerged
as the key source in the US rationale for going to war in Iraq.
According to a US presidential commission looking into pre-war
intelligence failures, the basis for pivotal intelligence on Iraq's
alleged biological weapons programmes and fleet of mobile labs was a
spy described as 'crazy' by his intelligence handlers and a
'congenital liar' by his friends.
Green light for Iraqi prison abuse came right from the top
--Classified documents show the former US military chief in Iraq
personally sanctioned measures banned by the Geneva Conventions.
America's leading civil liberties group has demanded an investigation
into the former US military commander Iraq [Lt General Ricardo
Sanchez] after a formerly classified memo revealed that he personally
sanctioned a series of coercive interrogation techniques outlawed by
the Geneva Conventions. The group claims that his directives were
directly linked to the sort of abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib.
Sanchez Orchestrated Torture Tactics in Iraq --It was claimed that
General Richardo Sanchez, a US military commander in Iraq, determined
the interrogation techniques applied on Iraqi prisoners by US
soldiers.
US General Approved 'Extreme' Interrogation Methods --The
highest-ranking US general in Iraq authorized the use of interrogation
techniques that included intimidation through the use of dogs "to
exploit Arab fears" of them, stress positions, and sensory
deprivation. A total of 29 interrogation techniques were approved,
including 12 which "far exceeded" US military regulations as well as
the Geneva Conventions covering prisoners of war.
L Alpert
> http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1451137,00.html
>
> Fury at 'shoot for fun' memo
>
> Outburst by US security firm in Iraq is attacked by human rights
> groups
>
> Mark Townsend
> Sunday April 3, 2005
> The Observer
>
> One of the biggest private security firms in Iraq has created outrage
> after a memo to staff claimed it is 'fun' to shoot people.
>
> Emails seen by The Observer reveal that employees of Blackwater
> Security were recently sent a message stating that 'actually it is
> "fun" to shoot some people.'
>
> Dated 7 March and bearing the name of Blackwater's president, Gary
> Jackson, the electronic newsletter adds that terrorists 'need to get
> creamed, and it's fun, meaning satisfying, to do the shooting of such
> folk.'
>
So why aren't these human rights groups attacking the terrorists? I would
have to think that Mr. Jackson has a valid point.
Rev. P.J. Billy Bob Bubba, Jr.
U.S. ENCOURAGED BY VIETNAM VOTE;
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
By PETER GROSE Special to The New York Times - Sep 4, 1967, pg. 2
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nytimes/82602711.html?did=82602711&FMT=ABS&FMTS=AI&date=Sep+4%2C+1967&author=By+PETER+GROSE+Special+to+The+New+York+Times&desc=U.S.+ENCOURAGED+BY+VIETNAM+VOTE
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 United States officials were surprised and
heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential
election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.
According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million
registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked
reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.
The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to
destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a
preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete
returns reaching here.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
John Pilger finds our children learning lies
In our schools, children learn that the US fought the Vietnam war
against a "communist threat" to "us". Is it any wonder that so many
don't understand the truth about Iraq?
John Pilger
02/05/17 "New Statesman" - - How does thought control work in
societies that call themselves free? Why are famous journalists so
eager, almost as a reflex, to minimise the culpability of a prime
minister who shares responsibility for the unprovoked attack on a
defenceless people, for laying waste to their land and for killing at
least 100,000 people, most of them civilians, having sought to justify
this epic crime with demonstrable lies? What made the BBC's Mark
Mardell describe the invasion of Iraq as "a vindication for him"? Why
have broadcasters never associated the British or American state with
terrorism? Why have such privileged communicators, with unlimited
access to the facts, lined up to describe an unobserved, unverified,
illegitimate, cynically manipulated election, held under a brutal
occupation, as "democratic", with the pristine aim of being "free and
fair"? That quotation belongs to Helen Boaden, the director of BBC
News.
Have she and the others read no history? Or is the history they know,
or choose to know, subject to such amnesia and omission that it
produces a world-view as seen only through a one-way moral mirror?
There is no suggestion of conspiracy. This one-way mirror ensures that
most of humanity is regarded in terms of its usefulness to "us", its
desirability or expendability, its worthiness or unworthiness: for
example, the notion of "good" Kurds in Iraq and "bad" Kurds in Turkey.
The unerring assumption is that "we" in the dominant west have moral
standards superior to "theirs". One of "their" dictators (often a
former client of ours, such as Saddam Hussein) kills thousands of
people and he is declared a monster, a second Hitler. When one of our
leaders does the same he is viewed, at worst, like Blair, in
Shakespearean terms. Those who kill people with car bombs are
"terrorists"; those who kill far more people with cluster bombs are
the noble occupants of a "quagmire".
Historical amnesia can spread quickly. Only ten years after the
Vietnam war, which I reported, an opinion poll in the United States
found that a third of Americans could not remember which side their
government had supported. This demonstrated the insidious power of the
dominant propaganda, that the war was essentially a conflict of "good"
Vietnamese against "bad" Vietnamese, in which the Americans became
"involved", bringing democracy to the people of southern Vietnam faced
with a "communist threat". Such a false and dishonest assumption
permeated the media coverage, with honourable exceptions. The truth is
that the longest war of the 20th century was a war waged against
Vietnam, north and south, communist and non-communist, by America. It
was an unprovoked invasion of the people's homeland and their lives,
just like the invasion of Iraq. Amnesia ensures that, while the
relatively few deaths of the invaders are constantly acknowledged, the
deaths of up to five million Vietnamese are consigned to oblivion.
What are the roots of this? Certainly, "popular culture", especially
Hollywood movies, can decide what and how little we remember.
Selective education at a tender age performs the same task. I have
been sent a widely used revision guide for GCSE modern world history,
on Vietnam and the cold war. This is learned by 14- to-16-year-olds in
our schools. It informs their understanding of a pivotal period in
history, which must influence how they make sense of today's news from
Iraq and elsewhere.
It is shocking. It says that under the 1954 Geneva Accord: "Vietnam
was partitioned into communist north and democratic south." In one
sentence, truth is despatched. The final declaration of the Geneva
conference divided Vietnam "temporarily" until free national elections
were held on 26 July 1956. There was little doubt that Ho Chi Minh
would win and form Vietnam's first democratically elected government.
Certainly, President Eisenhower was in no doubt of this. "I have never
talked with a person knowledgeable in Indo-Chinese affairs," he wrote,
"who did not agree that . . . 80 per cent of the population would have
voted for the communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader."
Not only did the United States refuse to allow the UN to administer
the agreed elections two years later, but the "democratic" regime in
the south was an invention. One of the inventors, the CIA official
Ralph McGehee, describes in his masterly book Deadly Deceits how a
brutal expatriate mandarin, Ngo Dinh Diem, was imported from New
Jersey to be "president" and a fake government was put in place. "The
CIA," he wrote, "was ordered to sustain that illusion through
propaganda [placed in the media]."
Phoney elections were arranged, hailed in the west as "free and fair",
with American officials fabricating "an 83 per cent turnout despite
Vietcong terror". The GCSE guide alludes to none of this, nor that
"the terrorists", whom the Americans called the Vietcong, were also
southern Vietnamese defending their homeland against the American
invasion and whose resistance was popular. For Vietnam, read Iraq.
The tone of this tract is from the point of view of "us". There is no
sense that a national liberation movement existed in Vietnam, merely
"a communist threat", merely the propaganda that "the USA was
terrified that many other countries might become communist and help
the USSR - they didn't want to be outnumbered", merely that President
Lyndon B Johnson "was determined to keep South Vietnam communist-free"
(emphasis as in the original). This proceeds quickly to the Tet
Offensive of 1968, which "ended in the loss of thousands of American
lives - 14,000 in 1969 - most were young men". There is no mention of
the millions of Vietnamese lives also lost in the offensive. And
America merely began "a bombing campaign": there is no mention of the
greatest tonnage of bombs dropped in the history of warfare, of a
military strategy that was deliberately designed to force millions of
people to abandon their homes, and of chemicals used in a manner that
profoundly changed the environment and the genetic order, leaving a
once-bountiful land all but ruined.
This guide is from a private publisher, but its bias and omissions
reflect that of the official syllabuses, such as the syllabus from
Oxford and Cambridge, whose cold war section refers to Soviet
"expansionism" and the "spread" of communism; there is not a word
about the "spread" of rapacious America. One of its "key questions"
is: "How effectively did the USA contain the spread of communism?"
Good versus evil for untutored minds.
"Phew, loads for you to learn here . . ." say the authors of the
revision guide, "so get it learned right now." Phew, the British
empire did not happen; there is nothing about the atrocious colonial
wars that were models for the successor power, America, in Indonesia,
Vietnam, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, to name but a few along modern
history's imperial trail of blood of which Iraq is the latest.
And now Iran? The drumbeat has already begun. How many more innocent
people have to die before those who filter the past and the present
wake up to their moral responsibility to protect our memory and the
lives of human beings?
This article first appeared in the New Statesman. For the latest in
current and cultural affairs subscribe to the New Statesman print
edition.
Copyright: New Statesman.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=2507
Torture Is News But It's Not New
May 8, 2004
by John Pilger
When I first went to report the American war against Vietnam, in the
1960s, I visited the Saigon offices of the great American newspapers
and TV companies, and the international news agencies.
I was struck by the similarity of displays on many of their office
pinboards. "That's where we hang our conscience," said an agency
photographer.
There were photographs of dismembered bodies, of soldiers holding up
severed ears and testicles and of the actual moments of torture. There
were men and women being beaten to death, and drowned, and humiliated
in stomach-turning ways. On one photograph was a stick-on balloon
above the torturer's head, which said: "That'll teach you to talk to
the press."
The question came up whenever visitors caught sight of these pictures:
why had they not been published? A standard response was that
newspapers would not publish them, because their readers would not
accept them. And to publish them, without an explanation of the wider
circumstances of the war, was to "sensationalize."
At first, I accepted the apparent logic of this; atrocities and
torture by "us" were surely aberrations by definition. My education
thereafter was rapid; for this rationale did not explain the growing
evidence of civilians killed, maimed, made homeless and sent mad by
"anti-personnel" bombs dropped on villages, schools and hospitals.
Nor did it explain the children burned to a bubbling pulp by something
called napalm, or farmers hunted in helicopter "turkey shoots," or a
"suspect" tortured to death with a rope around his neck, dragged
behind a jeep filled with doped and laughing American soldiers.
Nor did it explain why so many soldiers kept human parts in their
wallets and special forces officers who kept human skulls in their
huts, inscribed with the words: "One down, a million to go."
Philip Jones Griffiths, the great Welsh freelance photographer with
whom I worked in Vietnam, tried to stop an American officer blowing to
bits a huddled group of women and children.
"They're civilians," he yelled.
"What civilians?" came the reply.
Jones Griffiths and others tried to interest the news agencies in
pictures that told the truth about that atrocious war. The response
often was: "So what's new?"
The difference today is that the truth of the equally atrocious
Anglo-American invasion of Iraq is news. Moreover, leaked Pentagon
documents make clear that torture is widespread in Iraq. Amnesty
International says it is "systematic."
And yet, we have only begun to identify the unspeakable element that
unites the invasion of Vietnam with the invasion of Iraq. This element
draws together most colonial occupations, no matter where or when. It
is the essence of imperialism, a word only now being restored to our
dictionaries. It is racism.
In Kenya in the 1950s, the British slaughtered an estimated 10,000
Kenyans and ran concentration camps where the conditions were so harsh
that 402 inmates died in just one month. Torture, flogging and abuse
of women and children were commonplace. "The special prisons," wrote
the imperial historian V.G. Kiernan, "were probably as bad as any
similar Nazi or Japanese establishments."
None of this was news at the time. The "Mau Mau terror" was reported
and perceived one way: as "demonic" black against white. The racist
message was clear, but "our" racism was never mentioned.
In Kenya, as in the failed American attempt to colonize Vietnam, as in
Iraq, racism fueled the indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and the
torture. When they arrived in Vietnam, the Americans regarded the
Vietnamese as human lice. They called them "gooks" and "dinks" and
"slopes" and they killed them in industrial quantities, just as they
had slaughtered the Native Americans; indeed, Vietnam was known as
"Indian country."
In Iraq, nothing has changed.
In boasting openly about killing "rats in their nest," US marine
snipers, who in Fallujah shot dead women, children and the elderly,
just as German snipers shot dead Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, were
reflecting the racism of their leaders.
Paul W Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defense Secretary who is said to be the
architect of the invasion of Iraq, has spoken of "snakes" and
"draining the swamps" in the "uncivilized parts of the world."
Much of this modern imperial racism was invented in Britain. Listen to
its subtle expressions, as British spokesmen find their weasel words
in refusing to acknowledge the numbers of Iraqis killed or maimed by
their cluster bombs, whose actual effects are no different from the
effects of suicide bombers; they are weapons of terrorism. Listen to
Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, drone on in parliament,
refusing to say how many innocent people are the victims of his
government.
In Vietnam, the shooting of women and their babies in the village of
My Lai was called an "American Tragedy" by Newsweek magazine. Be
prepared for more of the "our tragedy" line that invites sympathy for
the invaders.
The Americans left three million dead in Vietnam and a once bountiful
land devastated and poisoned with the effects of the chemical weapons
they used. While American politicians and Hollywood wrung their hands
over GIs missing-in-action, who gave a damn for the Vietnamese?
In Iraq, nothing has changed.
First published in the Mirror
frederick...@lycos.com
Wonko The Sane wrote:
> >
> I hope they beat him to death with the thigh bone of a victim
> exhumed from one of Saddam's mass graves.
Now that you mention it, where are all those mass graves?
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1263901,00.html
Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by
Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves'
is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered.
The claims by Blair in November and December of last year, were
given widespread credence, quoted by MPs and widely published,
including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet on Iraq's
mass graves.
In that publication - Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves
produced by USAID, the US government aid distribution agency, Blair is
quoted from 20 November last year: 'We've already discovered, just so
far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.'
On 14 December Blair repeated the claim in a statement issued by
Downing Street in response to the arrest of Saddam Hussein and posted
on the Labour party website that: 'The remains of 400,000 human beings
[have] already [been] found in mass graves.'
The admission that the figure has been hugely inflated follows a
week in which Blair accepted responsibility for charges in the Butler
report over the way in which Downing Street pushed intelligence
reports 'to the outer limits' in the case for the threat posed by
Iraq.
Downing Street's admission comes amid growing questions over
precisely how many perished under Saddam's three decades of terror,
and the location of the bodies of the dead.
The Baathist regime was responsible for massive human rights
abuses and murder on a large scale - not least in well-documented
campaigns including the gassing of Halabja, the al-Anfal campaign
against Kurdish villages and the brutal repression of the Shia
uprising - but serious questions are now emerging about the scale of
Saddam Hussein's murders.
----------------------------------------------
The US mass graves expert is Sandra Hodgkinson, who has worked
with the "Iraqi opposition" and Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress
since 1998.
http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/8_26/national_news/24050-1.html
Sandra Hodgkinson, the Coalition Provisional Authority's director of
human rights
Under the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998, defense officials provided
some war crimes and crimes against humanity training at the Defense
Institute of International Legal Studies in Newport, R.I., for the
Iraqi opposition. "I was the course coordinator and an instructor for
that program," Hodgkinson said".
In her civilian capacity, Hodgkinson has participated in the State
Department's Future of Iraq Project, and about two years ago, she
spoke at a Human Rights and Transitional Justice seminar arranged by
the Iraqi National Congress in London. In February she began working
with the Defense Department's Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance, deploying first to Kuwait and then to Baghdad
on March 16
Read the news article at the bottom, wherein is stated:
"A Defense Intelligence Agency internal review determined that much of
the information Iraqi defectors gave to U.S. officials could not be
substantiated or was otherwise unusable.....
"that they and others now question the credibility of the group's
leader, Ahmad Chalabi, as well as doubt the Iraqi National Congress. "
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=8&u=/nm/2003110...
Investigators Say Iraqi Mass Graves Hold 300,000
By Andrew Hammond
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi and U.S. rights investigators said on
Saturday they suspected Iraq had up to 260 mass graves containing the
bodies of at people murdered by the former regime of Saddam Hussein.
"We have reports of 260 mass graves and we have confirmed
approximately 40 of them," said Sandra Hodgkinson, director of the
Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA) mass grave action plan'.
________________________
Iraqi Defector Information Unreliable
Sept. 29, 2003
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Defense Intelligence Agency internal review
determined that much of the information Iraqi defectors gave to U.S.
officials could not be substantiated or was otherwise unusable, the
New York Times reported on Monday, citing federal sources.
Also, some defectors from Iraq that the Iraqi National Congress had
introduced to U.S. intelligence officials gave false information about
their credentials and misled interviewers about how much they knew
about the Iraqi government's weapons program, said the paper.
No more than one-third of the information gained from the defectors
was potentially useful and many leads did not pan out, officials told
the daily.
Some of the intelligence in question includes information on Iraq's
suspected program for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Data
provided about the Iraqi government is also doubted, the officials
informed the Times.
The arrangement between the United States and the exile group, which
was funded by taxpayers, may have wasted more than $1 million,
officials informed the Times, adding that they and others now question
the credibility of the group's leader, Ahmad Chalabi, as well as doubt
the Iraqi National Congress.
peace2005
El Kabong
"The rally must be peaceful. You should demand the withdrawal of the
occupation forces and press for quicker trials for Saddam Hussein and
his aides before an Iraqi court," Suwaidi told worshippers in
Baghdad's Sadr City.
Sunni clerics from the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), which
organised a boycott of the January elections, urged followers to join
the protest.
Iraq call for demo against US presence
Friday 08 April 2005, 20:35 Makka Time, 17:35 GMT
Iraqi leaders have called for a mass demonstration against the US-led
troop presence on the second anniversary of the overthrow of Saddam
Hussein's government.
Preachers called on their congregations to rally in Firdus Square on
Saturday in central Baghdad where US troops helped haul down a statue
of Saddam Hussein in footage that was beamed around the world.
Both Shia and Sunni leaders joined forces in calling for the protest.
Withdrawal demand
"To mark the anniversary of the start of the occupation, I call on all
Iraqis to demonstrate tomorrow in Firdus Square where Saddam's statue
was toppled," said Shaikh Abd al-Zahra al-Suwaidi, a supporter of Shia
leader Muqtada al-Sadr.
"The rally must be peaceful. You should demand the withdrawal of the
occupation forces and press for quicker trials for Saddam Hussein and
his aides before an Iraqi court," Suwaidi told worshippers in
Baghdad's Sadr City.
Sunni clerics from the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), which
organised a boycott of the January elections, urged followers to join
the protest.
"I ask all Iraqis to join in peaceful demonstrations tomorrow against
the occupation," said Shaikh Harith al-Dhari.
"The people must speak with one voice and say: 'No to the occupation;
the occupiers must leave.'
"Two years have passed and all we see is bloodshed, destruction and
looting."
The AMS has lines of communication to the Sunni Arab fighters
operating in Iraq.
Fighters loyal to al-Sadr mounted two uprisings against US-led troops
in central and southern Iraq last year before accepting a truce
brokered by the Shia leadership.
RBRK
The government of Iraq is young and it will be supported
garbage exploded
El Kabong
PHOTO:
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20050409/lthumb.bag11504091041.iraq_bag115.jpg
Iraqis burn an American flag during a demonstration in Baghdad, Iraq
Saturday, April 9, 2005. Tens of thousands called Saturday for
American forces to withdraw from Iraq. The demonstration overflowed
Firdos Square, where U.S Marines pulled down a towering statue of
Saddam Hussein two years ago to the day.(AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
Iraqis urge US exit as soldiers killed
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Tens of thousands of protestors poured into Baghdad's
Firdos square to demand US troops leave the country, as 15 Iraqi
soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing.
Chanting "No, no, USA," protesters converged Saturday on the square, a
symbol of the ouster of former president Saddam Hussein, two years to
the day since Baghdad fell to US forces.
The rally is believed to be the largest demonstration since US troops
entered the country.
"Oh God, cut off their necks, the way they are cutting off our necks
and terrorising us," said Sadr representative Sheikh Nasir al-Saaidi,
reading a speech from his boss. "There will be no peace, no security,
until the occupation leaves."
Iraqi flags fluttered in the sea of demonstrators, many of whom were
dressed in black, the uniform of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia. Many wore
green and black Islamic headbands.
Some waved the notorious picture of a hooded naked Iraqi detainee,
with wires attached to his body. It was released during the Abu Ghraib
prison scandal last year that blemished the US record in Iraq.
Demonstrators also carried signs saying "No to the occupation," "No to
the devil" as they descended on the square from north, east and west.
Sunni clerics from the Committee of Muslim Scholars, which organized a
boycott of historic January elections, also urged followers to join
the protest.
"The war has been finished for two years. What did we get? Nothing.
Our country has become the centre of terrorism," said Ali Hussein, 30,
from Sadr City, who was dressed all in black. "There is no
electricity, no services, no nothing."
A shopkeeper from Sadr City, Baqr Mussa, vented frustration at the
continuing US presence and the failure by the Americans to execute
Saddam. He was dressed in white religious robes, symbolic of
martyrdom.
"We are very angry. We don't believe we've just lived two years since
the war. All the buildings are still burnt and destroyed," Mussa said.
PHOTOS:
http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20050409/s/r1306355167.jpg
Thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites hold a protest in Baghdad April 9, 2005.
The rally was called on the second anniversary of the fall of Baghdad
with protesters demanding an end to the U.S. military presence in Iraq
and a speedy trial for former president Saddam Hussein. REUTERS/Ali
Jasim
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20050409/lthumb.bag10804091002.iraq_bag108.jpg
Iraqis demonstrators carry cut outs of U.S. President George W. Bush,
right, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a rally in
Baghdad, Iraq Saturday, April 9, 2005.
http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20050409/s/r2498563933.jpg
Iraqi Shi'ite demonstrators march past a U.S. Army tank en route to a
protest in Baghdad April 9, 2005. The rally was called on the second
anniversary of the fall of Baghdad with protesters demanding an end to
the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20050409/s/r3088539917.jpg
An Iraqi Shi'ite waves the Iraqi flag during a protest in Baghdad
April 9, 2005. The rally was called on the second anniversary of the
fall of Baghdad with protesters demanding an end to the U.S. military
presence in
Wonko The Sane
message news:iott41prmbirkfuba...@4ax.com...
> According to the transcript, Army special investigator Curtis Ryan
> testified that he found extensive bruising when he examined Mowhoush
> shortly after he died. "So, at some point prior to the 26th, he had
> been beaten," Ryan said.
treat their POW's
http://www.ogrish.com/archives/russian_soldier_beated_and_beheaded_by_chechen_rebel_Apr_09_2005.html
Hü©klëßë®®ÿ Hö§hïmötö
El Kabong
By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops fired at a group of
Palestinians in a southern Gaza Strip refugee camp Saturday, killing
three teenagers in the deadliest incident in Gaza since Israel and the
Palestinians declared a cease-fire two months ago.
The incident in the Rafah camp, located along the border with Egypt,
shattered weeks of calm and added to tensions surrounding plans by
Jewish extremists to march on a disputed holy site in Jerusalem.
Ali Abu Zeid, a 22-year-old Rafah resident, said a group of boys were
playing soccer in an open area when the ball was kicked toward the
border fence.
"The kids ran after it, and that's when we heard gunfire," he said.
Palestinian hospital officials said the two of the dead youths were 15
years old and the third was 14.
ARIEL BOLUDOVSKY
> Ali Abu Zeid, a 22-year-old Rafah resident, said a group of boys were
> playing soccer in an open area when the ball was kicked toward the
> border fence.
Playing soccer, my ass. Israel Radio reports that the boys were smugglers
and didn't heed warning shots. Well done IDF!
BOLUDOVSKY
--
----------------------
EIN ARAVIM, EIN PIGUIM
----------------------
RBRK
news:Xns9633CDB34...@130.133.1.4:
> El Kabong <poki_pongo at yahoo.com> dixit:
>
>> Ali Abu Zeid, a 22-year-old Rafah resident, said a group of boys were
>> playing soccer in an open area when the ball was kicked toward the
>> border fence.
>
> Playing soccer, my ass. Israel Radio reports that the boys were
> smugglers
> and didn't heed warning shots. Well done IDF!
>
> BOLUDOVSKY
>
>
It is known that some pali whores bear children, & raise them to be used by
terrorists at $5000.00 per head.
El Kabong
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5339113.html
-In a development the Bush regime had hoped to avoid, the stories of
about 60 detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base have
spilled out in court papers. A U.S. college-educated detainee asks
plaintively in one: "Is it possible to see the evidence in order to
refute it?'' In another transcript, the unidentified president of a
U.S. military tribunal bursts out: "I don't care about international
law. I don't want to hear the words 'international law' again. We are
not concerned with international law.''
El Kabong
Munaf Abbas, 25, a chemical engineer from the southern city of Amarah,
blamed the presence of U.S. troops for rising violence in Iraq.
"America is the mother of terrorism," he said. "All the explosions are
happening because they are here."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq10apr10,0,1677779.story
Livid Iraq Protesters Tell U.S. to Get Out
By Edmund Sanders, Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD — Chanting "Death to America!" and burning effigies of
President Bush and Saddam Hussein, tens of thousands of Iraqis flooded
central Baghdad on Saturday in what police called the largest
anti-American protest since the fall of Baghdad exactly two years ago.
Once staunch supporters of the U.S. invasion to oust the dictator who
ruthlessly suppressed them, many Shiite Arabs in Iraq have grown so
frustrated by the lingering military occupation, with its checkpoints,
raids and use of force, that they took to the streets to demand a
deadline for the withdrawal of troops.
At the same time, the fact that so many protesters were able to gather
and voice their opinions without bloodshed or insurgent attacks
suggests Iraq is making progress toward establishing a democratic
system and creating a strong security force.
Carrying banners that read "Go Out" and "Leave Our Country," marchers
hit the streets early Saturday, blocking roads and causing traffic
jams around the capital. Most of the protesters came from the Baghdad
slum of Sadr City, but busloads arrived from Kut, Amarah, Baqubah and
other cities. Some estimates put the number of protesters at 300,000.
"The American people need to know that they can't suppress us anymore,
even with all their strength and power," said Mohammed Salih Khalaf, a
54-year-old day laborer from Sadr City.
Raising fists and shouting in unison, protesters chanted, "No, no to
America! No, no to occupation!" Many waved Iraqi flags and carried
pictures of Sadr and his revered father, Mohammed Sadeq Sadr, who was
assassinated during Hussein's rule. One protester dragged a picture of
Hussein through the gutter. A few Iraqi police officers observing the
scene raised their own fists in unity.
Munaf Abbas, 25, a chemical engineer from the southern city of Amarah,
blamed the presence of U.S. troops for rising violence in Iraq.
"America is the mother of terrorism," he said. "All the explosions are
happening because they are here."
El Kabong
Sunday 10 April 2005, 12:38 Makka Time, 9:38 GMT
Islamic Jihad leader Muhammad al-Hindi warned of violence
A political leader of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has
joined thousands of Muslim demonstrators for a rally in Jerusalem's
al-Aqsa mosque compound despite a ban by Israeli authorities,
witnesses said.
Shaikh Hasan Yusuf, who was recently released from Israeli prison, was
not entitled to enter occupied east Jerusalem on Sunday.
Thousands of Palestinians have gathered inside the al-Aqsa mosque
since Saturday night to protect al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble
Sanctuary, from an Israeli extreme-right group that threatened to
march on it.
"Around 15,000 Palestinian worshippers have prayed the dawn prayer
here," Yusuf told Aljazeera on Sunday. He said 3000 had spent the
night there.
"We call on Arab and Islamic nations and all people to immediately
move to save the blessed al-Aqsa mosque," he said. "This is our soul,
and a body can never live without a soul."
Yusuf said the gathering would continue indefinitely.
"We have announced there is an open sit-in. The battle will not end in
hours or days. We have called on all our people in Jerusalem and the
land occupied in 1948 to head towards al-Aqsa mosque," he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------
"..... whether it is prudent in modern times to permit direct contact
between the mohel's mouth and the baby's sex organ."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/552094.html
Wed., March 23, 2005 Adar2 13, 5765 Israel Time: 01:24 (GMT+2)
Freedom of circumcision v. health hazard
By Nathan Guttman
WASHINGTON - The tragic death of an infant in New York's Haredi
ultra-Orthodox community has put brit milah (Jewish ritual
circumcision) in the spotlight over the past few weeks. The debate,
which includes rabbis, mohels (ritual circumcisers) and American
health authority representatives, centers on the question of how the
mohel should draw blood after performing a circumcision, and whether
it is prudent in modern times to permit direct contact between the
mohel's mouth and the baby's sex organ. Beyond the issue of this
practice itself, the discussion has extended to questions of freedom
of religion versus the intervention of authorities and the sanctity of
ancient practices versus scientific innovations.
The tragedy in question occurred last year in the Haredi community of
Monsey, New York. The mohel, Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, circumcised twins
in a double ceremony. The circumcision was performed in the
traditional manner accepted among many Haredim, and consists of three
stages - incision of the foreskin, its retraction and removal, and
drawing of blood. According to ultra-Orthodox practice, this is done
directly, with the mohel's mouth on the site of the incision.
Ten days after the brit, one of the babies died, and an examination
revealed that the cause of death was herpes. The second twin also
tested positive for herpes, and after New York City health authorities
opened an investigation, they discovered the virus in another baby who
had been circumcised by Fischer.
The public health department's initial conclusion was that there was a
reasonable suspicion that all three babies had been infected by
Fischer when he drew blood with his mouth. The authorities immediately
forbade Fischer from performing any more oral procedures, ordered him
to work only while wearing sterile gloves, and filed a complaint
against him at the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, demanding that
he cooperate with the investigation and refrain from drawing blood
orally until the matter is resolved.
A dangerous custom
Fischer was to report to the courthouse for a hearing on the matter
yesterday, but even before it can receive full legal attention, all of
the parties already are raising their claims. Fischer's lawyers,
attorney Mark Kurzmann and his son Hillel Kurzmann, say that their
client has been fully cooperating with the investigation, so any legal
action against him is superfluous.
"The city apparently has a much broader agenda, beyond the actual
investigation," says Mark Kurzmann, noting that according to his
understanding, the debate is not over the medical question concerning
the transmission of herpes, but the broader issue of freedom of
religion. To prove his point, Kurzmann notes that even before
completion of the investigation, the New York health commissioner
declared that the oral drawing of blood "constitutes a threat to the
public health."
Fischer, who declined to be interviewed for this article on his
lawyers' advice, underwent a series of medical tests to detect the
herpes virus, and is continuing to perform circumcisions in New York,
for the time being without oral suction. Even before the current
incident made headlines, Fischer would use a glass tube if the baby's
parents requested it.
The Jewish community is divided on the question of the continued
practice of direct oral contact during the brit. While many in the
Haredi and Orthodox community believe direct contact between the
mohel's mouth and the site of the cut foreskin is necessary, many
others have adopted the more modern approach in which the blood is
drawn through a small, sterilized glass tube that ensures no direct
oral contact in order to avoid the risk of infection.
The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), America's largest Orthodox
rabbinical organization, issued a statement supporting the use of the
glass tube two weeks ago.
"The requirement [of drawing blood] is fulfilled completely and
unambiguously by the use of oral suctioning through a tube," declared
the RCA, adding, "One absolutely fulfills the precept whilst placing
the infant and mohel at no additional risk."
Executive VP of the RCA, Rabbi Dr. Basil Herring, who initiated the
declaration, says the organization felt the need, in light of the
current debate, to clarify that from a halakhic (Jewish legal) and
health perspective, and for the sake of appearances, it is preferable
to use the tube rather than the direct oral contact method.
This approach is also in line with a study conducted and published by
the Pediatrics medical magazine last year. The 12 researchers who
prepared the report concluded that oral contact with the baby
constitutes a risk of the transmission of herpes from the mohel to the
baby. The researchers reached this conclusion after examining eight
cases in which babies contracted herpes two weeks after their brit.
Among the signatories of the report is Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler, who
teaches biology at New York's Yeshiva University.
Tendler stressed in interviews granted to the U.S. Jewish media that
herpes is much more common than many people think, and direct oral
suction of blood is certainly a dangerous custom. Tendler added that
even after this fact became well known, and after studies were
published proscribing that adherence to the custom of oral suction
needlessly endangers a baby, some parents still insist that the mohel
follow the custom, and there are mohels who still continue with this
hazardous practice.
Not everyone accepts this approach, even when it is presented by an
Orthodox authority.
"For tens of thousands of believing Jews in the New York area, this
practice is an integral part of the fulfillment of the circumcision
commandment; to them it is not optional," Kurzmann says, noting that
only part of the Jewish community has adopted the changes instituted
in the suction method in the past 150 years.
No one has data on the proportion of circumcisions that use direct
oral suction, but Orthodox community sources estimate that thousands
are performed annually.
Furthermore, certain circles that had displayed lenience toward the
use of the glass tube are now returning to direct oral suction and
have banned the tube.
RBRK
heehee
Hey Gyra
Leave it to the dune coons to want Saddam back. Lesson learned: Camel
jocks don't want democracy. Were it not for the oil we could abandon them
to their fate and Ayatollahland would be just another forgettable turd-world
backwater like Sub-Saharan Africa ---
L Alpert
Hoooooold on thar a minute, Bobalooee, I'll do all the thinnin' 'round
here......
El Kabong
Reports from Iraq
* Please pass these reports on and take any action you can. We as
Americans are the only ones who can force our Congress to end the
occupation in Iraq and bring our troops home. The Iraqis send this
message and are pleading for us to take action. Click the link at the
end of this message to take action: "No more money for Iraq war."
Imagine the GOOD this money could do for us instead.
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/
Last night independent journalist Dhar Jamail came to my hometown and
gave a presentation of photographs of the Iraq war. His work has since
been picked up by "The Nation" magazine and other news outlets. His
reports give an entirely different depiction of events and conditions
in Iraq in contrast to the US mainstream media. It is tragic because
Europe and the rest of the world know what is really going on with the
US occupation in Iraq, only Americans are in the dark.
Dhar Jamail described two aspects to the war that we need to be aware
of: US troops may be enthusiastic about fighting for Iraqi "freedom"
when they first arrive but after about three months they see the
actual plight of the Iraqis and are soon acquainted with the dangerous
hopelessness of carrying out the occupation. As an aside, a cartoon by
Nicolas Anderson shows a rich American with his new Hummer that he
bought with his tax cuts, proudly displaying a "support our troops"
magnet. Meanwhile in Iraq US soldiers drive broken down Hummers, that
are missing armor.
Dhar Jumail focused mostly on the battle of Falluja and described a
situation where the 350,000 citizens of that religious city have been
massacred by the US soldiers and contract mercenaries. Falluja has
been destroyed. This was painfully made clear by a six minute film
that Dhar Jamail showed which is a stunning story in itself: An
American from Santa Barbara Calif. went over to Iraq and shot hours
and hours of video footage. He flew back to the US and after meeting
his girl friend, they dropped off his cameras and equipment in a hotel
and went to the beach. While at the beach, their car was broken into
and their belongings stolen. When they went to back to the hotel room
all of his equipment from his trip to Iraq, including hours of film of
the war was gone. His lap top was not stolen. All that was left of his
film was six minutes that he took of Falluja after the siege. It
showed a a devasted city, deserted, most of the building are in
rubble. This man was contacted by a mysterious "homeless person" who
claimed to have stolen the camera equipment. He gave a veiled "death
threat" if the footage of Iraq was made public.
What took place in the battle of Falluja is nothing like the media's
version. The US military came in and bombed the city and massacred as
many people as possible, mostly women and children. They used illegal
methods and chemical weapons. When the city was attacked the skilled
doctors and all but 25,000 Iraqis left the city. The Iraqis that
stayed did only because they had no way of leaving, no money, no
transportation or they were disabled. What's left of Falluja is a
ghost town. The hospital has little or no medical supplies to help the
Iraqis that have been mortally wounded. The young medical staff that
stayed behind are interns and barely trained doctors. The city has
little to or no electricty, water or gas. Iraqis have to drink the
contaminated water and are getting cholera and diarrhea. The thousands
of Iraqis that fled Falluja have had no where to go, there are some
refugee camps, but those camps have no water or medical supplies.
These dire conditions caused by the US occupation are illegal.
What is also falsely reproted by the LA TImes, The New York Times, the
Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post is that American tax payer
money is paying for the reconstructiuon of Falluja. Dhar Jamail's
photographs show that this is simply not happening. Little rebuilding
has occured. The hospitals are unsanitary pits, buildings and homes
continue to be piles of rubble. Where are the billions of dollars
awarded to Bechtel and Halliburton for the reconstruction contracts?
Dhar Jamail says no one knows where the money has gone. Enron deja vu?
The US media claims that the dangerous "insurgents" are provoking the
heavy hand of the US military. The insurgents are just native Iraqis
who are the brothers, fathers and sons of the women, children and
elderly who were massacred during the seige. I think Americans would
resist if our families were killed by an occupying force. The recent
January elections is a farce, the Iraqi people do not trust nor
believe the new leadership will bring stability or recontruction to
their ravaged country.
It is clear that the US military, without the permission of the
American people have pre-empitively attacked Iraq. According the
Lancet report done by Columbia University we have killed at least
100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians. The US is building permanent bases.
Scott Ritter former Marine and weapons inspector claims Bush plans to
repeat this war scenario in Iran, starting in June 2005. Please, do
not believe the US media propaganda. Take action to save the Iraqis
and the US troops from this evil war.
Please call Congress: No more money for Iraq:
http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/callalert/index.tt?alertid=7329151&type=CO
Cost of Iraq war -- with a calculator for each state. And this is
only in money, not lives:
More on the Iraq war and its profiteering:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0316-12.htm
http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/1800/1/39?TopicID=1
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/newsletter/issue22/issue22_part9.htm
Wounded American soldiers moved to Walter Reed at night, out of sight
of cameras:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/03/08/night_flights/print.html
Chip Anderson
news:ns1i511gkkaiiqes5...@4ax.com:
>
>
>
> Munaf Abbas, 25, a chemical engineer from the southern city of Amarah,
> blamed the presence of U.S. troops for rising violence in Iraq.
>
> "America is the mother of terrorism," he said. "All the explosions are
> happening because they are here."
>
-->snip<--
He is a fool and fools are easy to find. All of the explosions are
happening because of the terrorists, which is why the U.S. troops are still
there, at the behest of the sovereign Iraqi government.
--
---
Chip
"Oderint dum metuant."
- Lucius Accius
~ Typhøid Mary ~
> Munaf Abbas, 25, a chemical engineer from the southern city of Amarah,
> blamed the presence of U.S. troops for rising violence in Iraq.
>
> "America is the mother of terrorism," he said. "All the explosions are
> happening because they are here."
>
>
>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-
> iraq10apr10,0,1677779.story
>
> Livid Iraq Protesters Tell U.S. to Get Out
>
> By Edmund Sanders, Times Staff Writer
>
>
--
The cautious seldom err.
--Confucius
edi...@rcn.com
Except that the operational definition of "terrorist" is anyone shot by
occupation forces
Chip Anderson
news:1113215252.2...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
Not so, the troops make the occassional error.
Puffy The Vampire
"Chip Anderson" <b_ander...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:Xns963565A652BE6b...@216.77.188.18...
...when they intentionally shoot at a journalist...
nice try Cow-Chip...
Chip Anderson
news:ozB6e.10864$H_5.2718@trnddc01:
Only when they are aiding and abetting terrorists. Otherwise, human error.
El Kabong
"I fear that our democracy is in much worse shape than I had imagined,
and that even the appearance of democracy we now have might be quickly
swept aside. "
http://independent.com/news/news906.htm
Thinking Unthinkable Thoughts
Theologian Charges White House
Complicity in 9/11 Attack
by Nick Welsh
There’s nothing the least bit wild-eyed or hysterical about David Ray
Griffin. In person, he’s disarmingly calm, and speaks in the
unflappably precise and deliberate style of a lifelong academic. Which
is exactly what Griffin is. A respected philosopher of religion at the
Claremont School of Theology since the 1970s and longtime Santa
Barbara resident, Griffin is now raising questions that even President
Bush’s harshest critics are afraid to think, let alone ask aloud.
In his latest book, The New Pearl Harbor — released just two weeks ago
— Griffin all but accuses the Bush administration of taking a dive on
September 11 and giving Al Qaeda terrorists an unobstructed shot at
the World Trade Center. According to Griffin, a case can be made that
the Bush administration arranged the attack, or allowed it to happen.
He is aware that he may be dismissed as a conspiracy nut, but given
the “transcendent importance” of the issue, Griffin is willing to
assume that risk and has taken to repeating Michael Moore’s line on
the subject: “Personally, I’m not into conspiracy theories except
those that are true.” I met with Griffin over coffee to discuss his
book and the September 11 investigation. The following is an edited
account of their conversation.
NICK WELSH:
Is there a smoking gun that shows the Bush administration knew 9/11
was likely to happen and did nothing about it?
DAVID RAY GRIFFIN: I think there are four. One is the fact that
standard operating procedures for dealing with possibly hijacked
airplanes were not followed on 9/11. Those procedures call for fighter
jets to be sent out immediately upon any sign that a plane may have
been hijacked. These jets typically get to the plane within no later
than 15 minutes anywhere in the United States. And on that day, there
were four airplanes that went for a half-hour or more after they were
hijacked without jets intercepting them.
What’s the official explanation of that?
I’m afraid the press has not done its job. They have not forced
government officials to explain why standard operating procedures were
not followed that day, nor have they pressed the FAA (Federal Aviation
Administration) to explain why they didn’t report these hijackings as
they were supposed to. The official story is that [the fighter jets]
were very late.
And the other smoking guns?
The second strongest piece of evidence I would say is the crash at the
Pentagon. The physical evidence contradicts so violently the official
account, that the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757 — Flight 77, that
is. The physical evidence, photographs, and eyewitness testimony say
that the Pentagon was hit by something that caused a hole no larger
than 18 feet in diameter. The story the Pentagon put out, and was
published by the Washington Post, was that the hole in the Pentagon
was five stories high and 200 feet wide. If you look at the
photographs taken by Tom Horan of the Associated Press — that’s just
not the size of the hole.
But if the hole was only 18 feet wide, it had to have been created by
something other than a Boeing. Whatever went into the Pentagon pierced
six reinforced walls. This was the west wing, the part of the Pentagon
being refurbished and reinforced. These walls were extra strong, and
yet whatever it was went through six walls creating a hole about seven
feet in diameter in the sixth wall. This had to have been something
with a very powerful head on it. A Boeing 757 has a very fragile nose,
and would not have pierced through all those walls; it would have been
crushed by hitting the Pentagon. And given that it only penetrated
these three rings, the rest of the aircraft would have been sitting
outside on the yard. And yet the photographs taken just as the fire
trucks got there — very shortly after the crash — show no plane
whatsoever.
What do they show?
They show no aircraft whatsoever. And everyone agrees on this. The
official story is that the whole aircraft went inside the Pentagon.
The problem with that — the firefighters in there would have seen the
airplane. They would have seen the engines, they would have seen the
aluminum fuselage, but they reported nothing. Ed Plower, the fire
chief, when asked what he saw, said, “I didn’t see any big pieces, no
fuselage, no engines, no nothing.” But about a month later, when asked
he said, “Oh yes, I saw all that.” His memory had had time to be
refreshed.
If what you’re saying is accurate — that it was a missile — then what
happened to the plane and all the people on it?
That’s why I stress I’m not trying to give an account of what really
happened. I have no idea what happened to Flight 77.
President Bush has also been criticized for behaving somewhat
bizarrely that day.
As he and the Secret Service got word that a second plane had crashed
into the World Trade Center and that three planes had been hijacked,
there could have been no possible doubt in their mind that the United
States was under terrorist attack . . . The most horrendous attack the
United States had ever suffered. And they would have had to assume
that one or more of them were heading toward President Bush himself.
And so upon learning about this, the Secret Service surely would have
whisked him away immediately. In fact, one Secret Service agent on the
scene said, “We’re out of here.” But obviously he got overruled
because President Bush stayed there. After Andrew Card reported the
second crash on the World Trade Center, the president just nodded as
if he understood and said, “We’re going to go ahead with the reading
lesson.” And he sat there another 15 minutes listening to the children
read a story about a pet goat. This was a photo op and when it was
over he lingered around talking to the children and talking to the
teacher.
Bill Sammon, of the Washington Times, wrote a very pro-Bush book, yet
he comments how casual and relaxed the president was given the fact
he’d just learned the country was under attack. He said Bush took his
own sweet time and in fact called him “Our Dawdler in Chief.” And then
the president went on national TV, going forward with an interview
that had been planned and announced in advance . . . then they took
their regularly scheduled motorcade back to the airport. In other
words, [Bush and the Secret Service] showed no fear whatsoever that
they would be targeted for attack, which strongly suggests they knew
how many aircraft were being hijacked and what their targets were.
Couldn’t it have been that he was trying to project calm in the eye of
the storm, that this was Bush projecting Churchillian resolve in the
face of calamity?
People who want to believe such things can, of course, imagine such
scenarios. But the president in a situation like that does not make
the decisions; the Secret Service team makes the decisions. And the
guys in the Secret Service are trained to be ready for a catastrophe
like this where they make snap decisions and whisk the president to
safety immediately. They would have had an escape route planned; they
would have had contingencies planned — they always do. It is at least
not very plausible to think they would have remained there and
endangered the lives of all the children and teachers at that school
in order to exude that Churchillian confidence.
What about the plane thatcrashed down?
We know that on Flight 93, which crashed over Pennsylvania, the
passengers were trying to get control of the aircraft. They had
decided the hijackers did not have bombs and probably didn’t even have
guns. And because their plane didn’t take off until a half-hour after
the others, they knew that the others had crashed into the World Trade
Center — so they knew they were going to die anyway, even if they
didn’t do anything. So as one of the passengers is saying, “They’re
doing it, they’re forcing their way into the cabin, they’re going to
make it.” As soon as that happened, with the FBI listening in, the
plane went down. There was a whoosh, then the sound of wind. And
people on the ground reported hearing what Vietnam veterans said
sounded like a missile. Furthermore, there was debris from the plan
eight miles from the crash site, suggesting the plane had been hit and
stuff started falling out. And one of the engines was found over a
mile from the crash site. Of course, if it had been a missile that
downed the plane, it most likely would have been a heat-seeking
missile that would have found the engine and knocked it off.
Why would the government have an interest in doing this?
So the hijackers couldn’t speak to anyone?
That would be a very good reason. If it were a conspiracy and the
hijackers knew about it, it would have been very threatening to those
who made the plan to have anybody left alive. Again, I don’t pretend
to know, but that’s at least a plausible scenario. There were many
rumors that day that the plane was shot down, but the government
denied it.
You suggest that the World Trade Center buildings must have been
detonated with explosives to account for the heat generated and the
speed the structures collapsed on themselves. That sounds extreme.
What’s the evidence?
The evidence is cumulative — several things that point to controlled
demolition. First, a steel-framed building, according to all the
reading I’ve done, has never collapsed solely because of fire. They
will bend and buckle in a very large all-consuming fire that lasts for
a very long time. But they have never collapsed.
But it was not just fire — it was fire and impact at the same time.
The twin towers were very large buildings and extremely well built
with a lot of redundancy. Even people who believe the official theory
say that the crash of the plane into the towers should have been
insignificant, that the shock would have been immediate, but it was
over very soon and that the buildings were extremely solid and stable
and not moving. In the south tower, much of the fuel from it spilled
outside as it collided into the corner. So there was a giant firebomb
which looked very impressive, but what that means is that most of the
fuel was burned up within a minute, so there was not much fuel inside.
Therefore, the fire in the south tower had almost gone out in less
than an hour. And that brings us to another strange fact about the
towers. If the official story were correct, that the combination of
the crash and the fire brought the buildings down, we would expect the
north tower to have come down first, because it was hit first. And yet
the south tower collapsed first. It collapsed in less than an hour.
That makes perfect sense if you’re willing to accept that it was
caused by controlled demolition, meaning the building was wired with
explosives. And if the official story has it that the buildings were
brought down by fire, you’d want the buildings to go down before the
fire had completely gone out.
What you’re suggesting sounds like something from. X-Files. But on
X-Files, you always had agents Scully and Mulder trying to get the
truth out. Here we don’t have any Scullys and Mulders. You’d think
this whole new unilateral expression of military supremacy might have
opponents within the administration coming unglued and that they’d be
leaking info damaging to Bush, but we don’t hear those voices. Why
not?
Members of the FBI, the CIA, and other intelligence agencies have
taken oaths to not reveal things they’ve been told not to reveal . . .
and if they violate this oath, repercussions may occur. You have a
wife and children, and somebody says to you, “If you go public with
that I cannot guarantee the safety of your family.” Would you go
public with that? You have to choose between your family’s welfare and
the welfare of the nation, and your story might not do that much good.
You might just be denounced as a conspiracy kook. The press would
ignore you, belittle you. People might look into your past and find
that you had done some things you’re not so proud of. People would
learn very quickly to keep their mouths shut.
Let’s say there has been this complicity. To what end?
There were several benefits that could have been anticipated from
9/11. One was the so-called Patriot Act. It did appear that the
Patriot Act, given how fast it was rushed into Congress, voting had
already been prepared. The Patriot Act is so large that it’s
inconceivable it could have been written after 9/11. Rushing it
through Congress when most members had not even read a small portion
of it was clearly one benefit, giving the government increased powers.
Also, there was the desire to wage war in Afghanistan to force out the
Taliban and put an American-friendly government in place because of
the desire of Unical and other gas companies to build an oil pipeline,
which they felt was too dangerous with the Taliban in power. There was
a meeting in Berlin in July 2001, a final effort to get an agreement
between the Taliban and the United States that would allow a sort of
joint government, where the Taliban would share power with more
American-friendly leaders. The Taliban refused, at which point they
were told, “If you don’t take our carpet of gold, we’ll bury you under
a carpet of bombs.” The Pakistani representative at this meeting said
the Americans told him that the war would start before the snows came
that October. And after 9/11 happened, there was exactly the right
amount of time for the U.S. forces to get organized to begin the war,
and the war began on October 7.
Another benefit is that many senior members of the Bush administration
had for a long time wanted to attack Iraq. Getting control of the oil
there was one motive; the more general motive was to secure a military
presence in that part of the world.
Don’t you think it’s a good thing that Saddam Hussein was taken out,
and don’t you think Bush had a moral obligation to do so because it
was his father who was responsible for building up Hussein in the
first place?
Certainly you can say there were some benefits to the people of Iraq.
But if we had an obligation to take out Saddam Hussein then we have
obligations to take out many other nefarious leaders around the world,
many of whom are far worse, believe it or not, than Saddam Hussein.
And the sorry history is that we have in fact supported such leaders
and that Saddam Hussein was in power only because of American support.
He remained in power after gassing the Kurds became common knowledge.
Donald Rumsfeld himself visited Saddam at that period. Actually our
aid to Saddam went up after we knew that he had done this.
So you think this is mostly about oil.
It is to a significant extent about oil, given the projections that
the world is beginning to run out
of oil. The United States wants to get control of it because our way
of life, which is so dependent upon oil, is nonnegotiable. And also
because military dominance itself runs to great extent on oil. But
it’s not just about oil. It’s about geopolitical dominance. And this
brings up the U.S. Space command. In the document “Rebuilding
America’s Defenses,” published in 2000 by the Project for the New
American Century — an organization founded by people such as [Richard]
Perle and [Paul] Wolfowitz and [Dick] Cheney and Rumsfeld — there is a
statement in there that says we need to move forward with this
revolution in military affairs. The central feature of this is the
augmentation of the U.S. Space Command through which the United States
would have what’s called now Full Spectrum Dominance. In addition to
having dominance over land, air, and sea, we would have dominance in
space. But building the space stations and the satellites for the
weaponization of space will be an extremely expensive undertaking. One
projection has the first stage of it being about a trillion dollars.
So an enormous amount of money has to be shifted from the American
taxpayers and other parts of the economy to the military and the space
command. The document states that such a revolution in military
affairs will probably proceed very slowly absent some catastrophic and
catalyzing event such as a new Pearl Harbor.
Hence the title of your book . . . You’ve complained the American
media has been asleep at the switch on this. How do you account for
this?
It is very difficult for Americans to face the possibility that their
own government may have caused or deliberately allowed such a heinous
event. Secondly, one can understand that insofar as the media is owned
by companies like General Electric, which is one of the largest makers
of weapons, stations like NBC that are owned by GE would not wish to
publicize these connections. And finally, 9/11 was immediately treated
not only as a matter of patriotism but almost as a religious event.
Bush declared his war on terrorism from the national cathedral. And so
from then on, any questioning of the official account could be and was
criticized as being undemocratic and almost sacrilegious.
I at least hope that if we can begin to get a public discussion of
9/11 and of the many, many discrepancies between the official story
and what at least appear to be the facts, that some of those people
might be emboldened to step forward.
How has researching and writing this book affected you personally?
I fear that our democracy is in much worse shape than I had imagined,
and that even the appearance of democracy we now have might be quickly
swept aside.
El Kabong
"I don't speak English and so I said to the Iraqi translator with
them, 'Tell them that I am a member of parliament,' and he replied,
'To hell with you, we are Americans,"' Sheikh told parliament,
fighting back tears as he recounted the story.
The U.S. military said it was investigating the incident.
"We are aware of the reported incident involving a member of Iraq's
Transitional National Assembly and we are investigating it at this
time," a military spokesman said.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=682884
Apr 19, 2005 — By Waleed Ibrahim
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi lawmaker accused a U.S. soldier of
grabbing him by the throat and shoving him to the ground Tuesday after
he parked his car in Baghdad's Green Zone.
Fattah al-Sheikh, an independent, said he had parked his car before a
session of parliament when U.S. troops approached him and told him he
didn't have the right permit.
He said a soldier then kicked his car, insulted him and grabbed him by
the throat with both hands as others looked on, before tying his hands
behind his back with white plastic cuffs and shoving him to the
ground.
"I don't speak English and so I said to the Iraqi translator with
them, 'Tell them that I am a member of parliament,' and he replied,
'To hell with you, we are Americans,"' Sheikh told parliament,
fighting back tears as he recounted the story.
The U.S. military said it was investigating the incident.
"We are aware of the reported incident involving a member of Iraq's
Transitional National Assembly and we are investigating it at this
time," a military spokesman said.
Sheikh said other members of parliament were present during the
scuffle, which took place at one of the main entrances to the Green
Zone, a fortified compound in central Baghdad that houses the
parliament, the U.S. embassy and other buildings.
"I can still feel the pain around my neck," Sheikh said. It was not
clear how he came to be freed.
After hearing his account, the speaker of parliament said he would
call on Iraq's new prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, to demand a
full apology from the U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
The U.S. embassy said it was looking into the affair.
"We are looking at this at a very senior level. We have an officer
down there looking at it right now," Bob Callahan, a spokesman for the
U.S. embassy, said. "Once we have investigated we will decide what
course of action to take."
RBRK
Get the hell out.
El Kabong
By Sidney Blumenthal
Salon.com
Thursday 21 April 2005
Cardinal Ratzinger handed Bush the presidency by tipping the Catholic
vote. Can American democracy survive their shared medieval vision?
Look at the evil nazis:
http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_01/3.042105H.jpg
(Photo: salon.com)
President Bush treated his final visit with Pope John Paul II in
Vatican City on June 4, 2004, as a campaign stop. After enduring a
public rebuke from the pope about the Iraq war, Bush lobbied Vatican
officials to help him win the election. "Not all the American bishops
are with me," he complained, according to the National Catholic
Reporter. He pleaded with the Vatican to pressure the bishops to step
up their activism against abortion and gay marriage in the states
during the campaign season.
About a week later, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent a letter to the
U.S. bishops, pronouncing that those Catholics who were pro-choice on
abortion were committing a "grave sin" and must be denied Communion.
He pointedly mentioned "the case of a Catholic politician consistently
campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws" --
an obvious reference to John Kerry, the Democratic candidate and a
Roman Catholic. If such a Catholic politician sought Communion,
Ratzinger wrote, priests must be ordered to "refuse to distribute it."
Any Catholic who voted for this "Catholic politician," he continued,
"would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy to
present himself for Holy Communion." During the closing weeks of the
campaign, a pastoral letter was read from pulpits in Catholic churches
repeating the ominous suggestion of excommunication. Voting for the
Democrat was nothing less than consorting with the forces of Satan,
collaboration with "evil."
In 2004 Bush increased his margin of Catholic support by 6 points
from the 2000 election, rising from 46 to 52 percent. Without this
shift, Kerry would have had a popular majority of a million votes.
Three states -- Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico -- moved into Bush's column
on the votes of the Catholic "faithful." Even with his atmospherics of
terrorism and Sept. 11, Bush required the benediction of the Holy See
as his saving grace. The key to his kingdom was turned by Cardinal
Ratzinger.
With the College of Cardinals' election of Ratzinger to the
papacy, his political alliances with conservative politicians can be
expected to deepen and broaden. Under Benedict XVI, the church will
assume a consistent reactionary activism it has not had for two
centuries. And the new pope's crusade against modernity has already
joined forces with the right-wing culture war in the United States,
prefigured by his interference in the 2004 election.
Europe is far less susceptible than the United States to the
religious wars that Ratzinger will incite. Attendance at church is
negligible; church teachings are widely ignored; and the younger
generation is least observant of all. But in the United States, the
Bush administration and the right wing of the Republican Party are
trying to batter down the wall of separation between church and state.
Through court appointments, they wish to enshrine doctrinal views on
the family, women, gays, medicine, scientific research and privacy.
The Republican attempt to abolish the two-centuries-old filibuster --
the so-called nuclear option -- is only one coming wrangle in the
larger Kulturkampf.
Joseph Ratzinger was born and bred in the cradle of the
Kulturkampf, or culture war. Roman Catholic Bavaria was a stronghold
against northern Protestantism during the Reformation. In the 19th
century the church was a powerful force opposing the unification of
Italy and Germany into nation-states, fearing that they would diminish
the church's influence in the shambles of duchies and provinces that
had followed the breakup of the Holy Roman Empire. The doctrine of
papal infallibility in 1870 was promulgated by the church to tighten
its grip on Catholic populations against the emerging centralized
nations and to sanctify the pope's will against mere secular rulers.
In response, Otto von Bismarck, the German chancellor, launched
what he called a Kulturkampf to break the church's hold. He removed
the church from the control of schools, expelled the Jesuits, and
instituted civil ceremonies for marriage. Bismarck lent support to
Catholic dissidents opposed to papal infallibility who were led by
German theologian Johann Ignaz von Dollinger. Dollinger and his
personal secretary were subsequently excommunicated. His secretary was
Georg Ratzinger, great-uncle of the new pope, who became one of the
most notable Bavarian intellectuals and politicians of the period.
This Ratzinger was a champion against papal absolutism and church
centralization, and on behalf of the poor and working class -- and was
also an anti-Semite.
Joseph Ratzinger's Kulturkampf is claimed by him to be a reaction
to the student revolts of 1968. Should Joschka Fischer, a former
student radical and now the German foreign minister, have to answer
entirely for Ratzinger's Weltanschauung? Pope Benedict's Kulturkampf
bears the burden of the church's history and that of his considerable
family. He represents the latest incarnation of the long-standing
reaction against Bismarck's reforms -- beginning with the assertion of
the invented tradition of papal infallibility -- and, ironically,
against the positions on the church held by his famous uncle. But the
roots of his reaction are even more profound.
The new pope's burning passion is to resurrect medieval authority.
He equates the Western liberal tradition, that is, the Enlightenment,
with Nazism, and denigrates it as "moral relativism." He suppresses
all dissent, discussion and debate within the church and concentrates
power within the Vatican bureaucracy. His abhorrence of change runs
past 1968 (an abhorrence he shares with George W. Bush) to the
revolutions of 1848, the "springtime of nations," and 1789, the French
Revolution. But, even more momentously, the alignment of the pope's
Kulturkampf with the U.S. president's culture war has also set up a
conflict with the American Revolution.
For the first time, an American president is politically allied
with the Vatican in its doctrinal mission (except, of course, on
capital punishment). In the messages and papers of the presidents from
George Washington until well into those of the 20th century, there was
not a single mention of the pope, except in one minor footnote. Bush's
lobbying trip last year to the Vatican reflects an utterly novel turn,
and Ratzinger's direct political intervention in American electoral
politics ratified it.
The right wing of the Catholic Church is as mobilized as any other
part of the religious right. It is seizing control of Catholic
universities, exerting influence at other universities, stigmatizing
Catholic politicians who fail to adhere to its conservative credo,
pressing legislation at the federal and state levels, seeking
government funding and sponsorship of the church, and vetting
political appointments inside the White House and the administration
-- imposing in effect a religious test of office. The Bush White House
encourages these developments under the cover of moral uplift as it
forges a political machine uniting church and state -- as was done in
premodern Europe.
The American Revolution, the Virginia Statute on Religious
Liberty, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights were fought for
explicitly to uproot the traces in American soil of ecclesiastical
power in government, which the Founders to a man regarded with horror,
revulsion and foreboding.
The Founders were the ultimate representatives of the
Enlightenment. They were not anti-religious, though few if any of them
were orthodox or pious. Washington never took Communion and refused to
enter the church, while his wife did so. Benjamin Franklin believed
that all organized religion was suspect. James Madison thought that
established religion did as much harm to religion as it did to free
government, twisting the word of God to fit political expediency,
thereby throwing religion into the political cauldron. And Thomas
Jefferson, allied with his great collaborator Madison, conducted
decades of sustained and intense political warfare against the
existing and would-be clerisy. His words, engraved on the Jefferson
Memorial, are a direct reference to established religion: "I have
sworn eternal warfare against all forms of superstition over the minds
of men."
But now Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay threatens the
federal judiciary, saying, "The reason the judiciary has been able to
impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the
Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them." And Senate Majority
Leader Bill Frist will participate through a telecast in a rally on
April 24 in which he will say that Democrats who refuse to
rubber-stamp Bush's judicial nominees and uphold the filibuster are
"against people of faith."
But what would Madison say?
This is what Madison wrote in 1785: "What influence in fact have
ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances
they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the
Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the
thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been seen the
guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert
the public liberty may have found an established Clergy convenient
auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it
needs them not."
What would John Adams say? This is what he wrote Jefferson in
1815: "The question before the human race is, whether the God of
nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and
kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
Benjamin Franklin? "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of
reason."
And Jefferson, in "Notes on Virginia," written in 1782: "It is
error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by
itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your
inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as
well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce
uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desireable? No more than of
face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there
is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a
size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of
opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the
office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable?
Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction
of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we
have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the
effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other
half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
The Republican Party was founded in the mid-19th century partly as
a party of religious liberty. It supported public common schools, not
church schools, and public land-grant universities independent of any
denominational affiliation. The Republicans, moreover, were adamant in
their opposition to the use of any public funds for any religious
purpose, especially involving schools.
A century later, in 1960, there was still such a considerable
suspicion of Catholics in government that the Democratic candidate for
president, John F. Kennedy, felt compelled to address the issue
directly in his famous speech before the Houston Ministerial
Association on Sept. 12.
What did Kennedy say? "I believe in an America where the
separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic
prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act,
and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to
vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds
or political preference ... I believe in an America that is officially
neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish -- where no public official
either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the
Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical
source -- where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or
indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its
officials."
Now Bush is attempting to create what Kennedy warned against. He
claims to be conservative, but he seeks a rupture in our system of
government. The culture war, which has had many episodes, from the
founding of the Moral Majority to the unconstitutional impeachment of
President Clinton, is entering a new and far more dangerous phase. In
2004, Bush and Ratzinger used church doctrine to intimidate voters and
taint candidates. And through the courts the president is seeking to
codify not only conservative ideology but religious doctrine.
When men of God mistake their articles of devotion with political
platforms they will inevitably stand exposed in the political arena.
When politicians mistake themselves for men of God, their religion,
however sincere, will inevitably be seen as contrivance.
As both president and pope invoke heavenly authority to impose
their notions of tradition, they have set themselves on a collision
course with the American political tradition. In the name of the
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,
democracy without end. Amen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to
President Clinton and the author of The Clinton Wars, is writing a
column for Salon and the Guardian of London.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/042105H.shtml
El Kabong
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4468585.stm
Thursday, 21 April, 2005, 10:53 GMT 11:53 UK
Israel lobby in US 'fires staff'
Aipac is said to wield great influence among US politicians
A powerful pro-Israel lobby group in Washington has fired two top
employees said to be involved in an FBI spying investigation, US
newspapers report.
The New York Times and Washington Post say the men from the American
Israeli Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) are suspected of passing
secrets to Israel.
Nobody has been charged with wrongdoing and lawyers for the dismissed
men say they did not break any rules.
Aipac said the action was taken after "recently learned information".
Spokesman Patrick Dorton said the "conduct that Aipac expects of its
employees" was also a factor in the decision.
Lawyers for the dismissed men - policy director Steve Rosen and senior
analyst Keith Weissman - said they have never "solicited, received or
passed on any classified documents".
"They carried out their job solely to serve Aipac's goal of
strengthening the US-Israel relationship," a statement from the
lawyers said.
Fears over Iran
The Pentagon revealed in August last year that a senior official was
under investigation for giving Israel access to secret information
about US policy towards Iran.
The suspected spy, Lawrence Franklin, worked in the office of Douglas
Feith - an official who played a key role in planning the Iraq war,
along with the Deputy Defence Secretary at the time, Paul Wolfowitz.
Reports at the time said Mr Franklin was suspected of using his ties
to Aipac to pass on the information, though the exact nature of the
contacts is not known.
According to the Washington Post newspaper, the FBI raided Aipac's
offices twice last year.
Mr Franklin was briefly suspended from his job but is now back at
work, though he has reportedly been stripped of security privileges.
Aipac was ranked alongside the National Rifle Association as one of
the most effective lobby groups in Washington, often playing a pivotal
role in US relations with Israel.
lo yeeOn
Maybe that's why Bush was so happy to congratulate the new pope even
though the papacy is supposedly a religious matter, separate from the
matter of the state of which he is an official part, and inspite of
Ratzinger's Nazi past (there were Germans who risked imprisonment or
went into hiding to stay out of the Hitler Youth but Ratzinger tried
to explain away his darker past by claiming that he joined to avoid
the penalty of having to pay tuition for his schooling).
A crucial sign of the Bush-Ratzinger relationship will come when the
pope reveals where he stands as Bush launches his next aggression, the
much anticipated one against Iran and Syria this summer.
lo yeeOn
========
Mr & Mrs. Bush Congratulate Pope Benedict XVI
Wednesday, 20 April 2005, 10:51 am
Press Release: The White House
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 19, 2005
President and Mrs. Bush Congratulate Pope Benedict XVI
The South Lawn
THE PRESIDENT: Laura and I offer our congratulations to Pope Benedict
XVI. He's a man of great wisdom and knowledge. He's a man who serves
the Lord. We remember well his sermon at the Pope's funeral in Rome,
how his words touched our hearts and the hearts of millions. We join
with our fellow citizens and millions around the world who pray for
continued strength and wisdom as His Holiness leads the Catholic
Church.
El Kabong
Ruzicka refused to accept the official line that the U.S. military
does not keep track of civilian casualties, writing in an op-ed piece
the week before she was killed that this position "outraged the Arab
world and damaged the U.S. claim that its forces go to great lengths
to minimize civilian casualties."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=533&e=8&u=/ap/20050423/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_american_activist
Slain U.S. Activist's Project Stalls
Sat Apr 23,
By JAMIE TARABAY, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq -
A one-woman human rights movement, Ruzicka was instrumental in
securing millions of dollars in aid for distribution in Iraq. She'd
been traveling to and from the country since U.S.-led forces invaded
in March 2003, often going door-to-door to meet wounded Iraqis and
collect the figures for her surveys on the number hurt and killed.
She badgered the military for numbers and Washington for money. She
sweet-talked journalists and soldiers alike into helping her out. And
everyone got a hug.
Ruzicka refused to accept the official line that the U.S. military
does not keep track of civilian casualties, writing in an op-ed piece
the week before she was killed that this position "outraged the Arab
world and damaged the U.S. claim that its forces go to great lengths
to minimize civilian casualties."
An Associated Press survey of deaths in the first 12 months of the
occupation found that more than 5,000 Iraqis died violently in just
Baghdad and three provinces. Since then, however, neither U.S. nor
Iraqi officials have produced a complete tally.
Ruzicka thought she was close to uncovering the figures.
"Recently, I obtained statistics on civilian casualties from a
high-ranking U.S. military official. The numbers were for Baghdad
only, for a short period, during a relatively quiet time," she wrote
in the article published posthumously in USA Today and posted on her
Web site.
It wasn't clear if the deaths were caused by U.S. troops or
insurgents, she wrote, but it was clear the U.S. military did actually
keep track of the civilian dead. A U.S. official told her it was
"standard operating procedure for U.S. troops to file a spot report
when they shoot a noncombatant," she said.
The U.S. military did not immediately respond to her claims.
Ruzicka was on her way to visit an Iraqi girl injured in a bomb blast
when she was killed, according to her colleagues from the Campaign for
Innocent Victims in Conflict, the organization she founded.
El Kabong
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Angry Arab protestors mobbed the Greek Orthodox
patriarch during a religious procession in Jerusalem's Old City,
enraged over a scandal involing the alleged sale of politically
sensitive land to Jewish investors.
As hundreds of Christian pilgrims waving palm branches flocked to the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate Orthodox Palm Sunday, scores
of Arab Christians joined the crowds, booing and shouting "Shame on
you" as Patriarch Irineos I left the basilica following a three-hour
service, an AFP correspondent said.
Shouting angrily in Arabic and Greek, they waved posters bearing
slogans denouncing Irineos, one of which read: "Judas, betrayest thou
the Son of Man with a kiss?" in reference to the betrayal of Jesus by
one of his disciples just before he was crucified.
Surrounded by scores of Israeli riot police, the 65-year-old patriarch
waved feebly as scores of protestors tried to push towards him, one of
whom lobbed a bottle of water at him.
Scuffles broke out between the protestors and between several visiting
Greek Orthodox pilgrims carrying Greek flags, who tried to tear down
the posters and stop the demonstration.
The Greek Orthodox patriarchate of Jerusalem was thrown into crisis in
mid-March after an Israeli newspaper reported that the church had sold
a large tract of politically-sensitive land in the Old City to
ideologically-motivated Jewish investors.
El Kabong
http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0516,curtis,63147,20.html
A British filmmaker deconstructs the politics of fear exploited by
radical Islamists and American neocons alike.
by Adam Curtis
April 19th, 2005 11:25 AM
LONDON—Last week the British media were promised a sensation. A terror
trial was about to reach a climax. The jury was to give its verdicts
on five Algerian men who were accused of being an Al Qaeda sleeper
cell that had planned to poison hundreds of innocent civilians.
Government ministers had privately told journalists that the
convictions would prove there was a hidden network of terror inside
Britain that, in their words, "threatened the life of the nation."
The jury delivered a very different sensation. They acquitted four of
the men and convicted the fifth only of "conspiracy to cause a public
nuisance." The man who was convicted, Kamel Bourgass, was indeed a
dangerous fanatic who had also been convicted of killing a police
officer, but the jury decided that there was no concrete evidence of
the nightmare vision of an organization with sleeper cells across the
world that was dedicated to the overthrow of the West.
This spectacular failure fuels the growing question that was raised
last fall when a documentary series called The Power of
Nightmares—which I wrote and produced—aired on BBC TV in prime time:
Does Al Qaeda really exist?
The Power of Nightmares—which receives its first New York screenings
at the Tribeca Film Festival this week—does not say that the Islamist
terrorist threat is an illusion. The West does face a deadly threat
from groups and individuals inspired by dangerous ideas—the horrific
attacks on America and the bombings in Madrid and Bali make this only
too clear. But the film also argues that the true nature of this
threat has been completely misunderstood by governments, security
services, and the international media. It has been distorted and
exaggerated to create a vision of a unique threat unlike anything we
have faced that justifies extreme countermeasures. This fantasy, which
has trapped our leaders and our media, prevents us from comprehending
and dealing with the dangers we face. The film tells not only how it
was created but also why, and in whose interest.
At the heart of the story, which begins 50 years ago, are two groups:
the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists. Both were
idealists born out of the failure of post-war liberal optimism, and
both had very similar explanations for why that failure had occurred.
Both groups did change the world—but not in the way either intended.
My original aim was not to make a documentary about the events of
September 11. The project started as a series about the history of
conservative political ideas and their resurgence in America and
Britain over the past 30 years—a worthy project for the BBC perhaps,
but not something that was going to challenge the way people see the
contemporary world.
As I researched the subject, I stumbled on the work of a little-known
Arab political writer called Sayyid Qutb, who visited America in 1949
and came away with a deeply pessimistic vision of post-war consumer
culture. He believed that the rise of individualism had unleashed a
selfishness on the world that was tearing away the moral bonds that
held society together. Qutb was no alien thinker: He had read
Nietzsche, Marx, and Sartre, and his criticism of modern America,
though Islamic in origin, was also born out of a Western conservative
tradition. Qutb's ideas would directly inspire those who flew the
planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11,
2001.
At the same time, I was reading about the history of the
neo-conservative movement and its theoretical background. This led me
to the works of a political theorist called Leo Strauss. His analysis
of modern democracy was that its shared moral values were in danger of
corrosion by a selfish individualism that questioned everything. He
too took a great deal from Nietzsche. Strauss's ideas were to become
one of the important forces that shaped the thinking of the
neo-conservative movement.
My aim in The Power of Nightmares was to trace what happened to Qutb's
and Strauss's ideas as they were taken up by the Islamists and the
neo-conservatives. The film does not—despite allegations from some
neo-conservative outriders—make a direct comparison between the ideas
and actions of Islamists and neo-conservatives. But it does argue that
both groups share a pessimism about the unbridled individualism of
consumerist culture and a desire to re-create a society of shared
moral values. They are the last political idealists in a world where
grand political ideas have disappeared to be replaced by a managerial
politics that serves only the demands of the modern self.
Tracing the history of the two groups, and how their different ideas
developed, leads one to look at 9-11 in a very different way. By the
end of the 1990s, the Islamist movement had failed as a mass attempt
to transform the world. Revolutions in Egypt and Algeria had not been
the spark for an uprising across the Arab world. The attacks on
America in 2001 were born out of that failure, and they were the work
of a small splinter group led by Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin
Laden. This group had no formal organization, and this new policy of
attacking the West directly was opposed by the majority of Islamists.
The assault on America was a desperate lashing out by a movement that
was facing failure.
But the effect of the attacks on the neo-conservatives was dramatic.
For most of the 1990s they were a marginalized group. In the wake of
9-11 shock and panic, powerful and influential again with figures like
Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz in the Bush White House, the
neocons reconstructed the Islamists in the image of their last evil
enemy, the Soviet Union. They created a simplified fantasy of the
Islamist threat—a sinister web of terror run from the center by bin
Laden in his lair in Afghanistan—and discovered that with the fear
this nightmare image produced, they could unify the nation and
rediscover a grand purpose for America—the very thing for which they
had been searching for over 30 years.
When The Power of Nightmares aired last fall, it caused a sensation in
Britain. Thousands of articles, websites, and blogs discussed the war
on terror and its underlying reality. It was an astonishing response
that the BBC had not anticipated. Prior to transmission, there were
serious worries about the public reaction, but when thousands of
e-mails poured in, a statistical analysis found that over 96 percent
were firmly in favor of the program (some viewer responses can be
found at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/4202741.stm
The film touched a nerve—a public feeling that there was something not
quite right or real about the fundamentals of the war on terror. No
U.S. networks have so far expressed any interest in showing it. If
they did, they might find, as the BBC did, that the public is tiring
of the politics and journalism of fear. People want to make sense of
the bewildering mood of uncertainty and doubt that has surrounded them
since 9-11. Terrorism is an enemy that can be dealt with bravely and
intelligently, as Europeans have done in the past. It is fear that
really undermines a nation's power and confidence in the world.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Curtis has made a wide range of political documentaries for the
BBC. His most recent work prior to The Power of Nightmares was a
series about the social and political use of Sigmund Freud's ideas
called The Century of the Self (it will open at Cinema Village this
summer).
El Kabong
The Iraq Survey Group believes "it was unlikely that an official
transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place."
April 25
U.S. Weapons Inspector Finishes Iraq Work
By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - In his final word, the CIA's top weapons inspector in
Iraq said Monday that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction has
"gone as far as feasible" and has found nothing, closing an
investigation into the purported programs of Saddam Hussein that were
used to justify the 2003 invasion.
"After more than 18 months, the WMD investigation and debriefing of
the WMD-related detainees has been exhausted," wrote Charles Duelfer,
head of the Iraq Survey Group, in an addendum to the final report he
issued last fall.
"As matters now stand, the WMD investigation has gone as far as
feasible."
In 92 pages posted online Monday evening, Duelfer provides a final
look at an investigation that occupied over 1,000 military and
civilian translators, weapons specialists and other experts at its
peak. His latest addenda conclude a roughly 1,500-page report released
last fall.
On Monday, Duelfer said there is no purpose in keeping many of the
detainees who are in custody because of their knowledge on Iraq's
weapons, although he did not provide any details about the current
number. A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the
ultimate decision on their release will be made by the Iraqi
authorities.
Among unanswered questions, Duelfer said a group formed to investigate
whether WMD-related material was shipped out of Iraq before the
invasion wasn't able to reach firm conclusions because the security
situation limited and later halted their work. Investigators were
focusing on transfers from Iraq to Syria.
No information gleaned from questioning Iraqis supported the
possibility, one addendum said. The Iraq Survey Group believes "it was
unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria
took place."
Kavik Kang
news:hu9r61lcbjqpm13a2...@4ax.com...
>
> The Iraq Survey Group believes "it was unlikely that an official
> transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place."
>
>
> April 25
>
> U.S. Weapons Inspector Finishes Iraq Work
>
>
> By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer
>
> WASHINGTON - In his final word, the CIA's top weapons inspector in
> Iraq said Monday that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction has
> "gone as far as feasible" and has found nothing, closing an
> investigation into the purported programs of Saddam Hussein that were
> used to justify the 2003 invasion.
She's a pretty bad writer. She obviously meant to say "one of the many
justifications for the 2003 invasion."
Paulo Gomes Jardim
wrote:
"the one issue that everyone could agree on"
(Wolfowitz)
--
"Humanity has many enemies. The worst of them are ignorance, arrogance,
extremism, and violence" - Abbas Kadhim
Kavik Kang
news:opsptnn4wcurn6af@paulo...
> On Tue, 26 Apr 2005 02:38:39 GMT, Kavik Kang <Kavik...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > "El Kabong" <poki_pongo at yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:hu9r61lcbjqpm13a2...@4ax.com...
> >>
> >> The Iraq Survey Group believes "it was unlikely that an official
> >> transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place."
> >>
> >>
> >> April 25
> >>
> >> U.S. Weapons Inspector Finishes Iraq Work
> >>
> >>
> >> By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer
> >>
> >> WASHINGTON - In his final word, the CIA's top weapons inspector in
> >> Iraq said Monday that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction has
> >> "gone as far as feasible" and has found nothing, closing an
> >> investigation into the purported programs of Saddam Hussein that were
> >> used to justify the 2003 invasion.
> >
> > She's a pretty bad writer. She obviously meant to say "one of the many
> > justifications for the 2003 invasion."
>
> "the one issue that everyone could agree on"
> (Wolfowitz)
Actually the one issue that they could all agree on was that we were at war
with radical fundamentalist islam, so he obviously missed at least one other
issue when he said that. He missed many others, too.
Osric
Kavik Kang <Kavik...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Bqkbe.1080$Oz2...@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
Of which there was bugger all in Iraq.
--
Osric
THE BORDERS OF MY COUNTRY
RUN AROUND THE SOLES OF MY FEET
Kavik Kang
news:d4l4am$da2$1...@nwrdmz03.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
What are you talking about? Iraq is right in the center of the heart of the
Islamic world. Attacking anywhere else wouldn't make much sense, now, would
it?
Osric
You talked about radical fundamentalist Islam, one thing that Saddam Hussein
wouldn't tolerate. If you wanted to attack a country at the centre of the
Islamic world you should have attacked Saudi Arabia, the country most
represented by the 9/11 bombers and the centre of Wahabism.
Kavik Kang
You really need to get a map... Iraq is clearly at the center of the the
region from which attacks against us eminate. Saudi Arabia is not really
well-located for our goals. It's pretty obvious if you just look at a map.
It's a really bad idea to attack the United States:-)
El Kabong
26 Apr 2005 21:50:13 GMT
Source: Human Rights Watch
(New York, April 27, 2005)- The crimes at Abu Ghraib are part of a
larger pattern of abuses against Muslim detainees around the world,
Human Rights Watch said on the eve of the April 28 anniversary of the
first pictures of U.S. soldiers brutalizing prisoners at the Iraqi
jail. Human Rights Watch released a summary (below) of evidence of
U.S. abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay,
Cuba, as well as of the programs of secret CIA detention,
"extraordinary renditions," and "reverse renditions."
"Abu Ghraib was only the tip of the iceberg," said Reed Brody, special
counsel for Human Rights Watch. "It's now clear that abuse of
detainees has happened all over-from Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay to
a lot of third-country dungeons where the United States has sent
prisoners. And probably quite a few other places we don't even know
about."
Human Rights Watch called this week for the appointment of a special
prosecutor to investigate the culpability of Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld and ex-CIA Director George Tenet, as well as Lt. Gen.
Ricardo Sanchez, formerly the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Gen.
Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of the prison camp at Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba in cases of crimes against detainees. It rejected last
week's report by the Army Inspector General which was said to absolve
Gen. Sanchez of responsibility.
"General Sanchez gave the troops at Abu Ghraib the green light to use
dogs to terrorize detainees, and they did, and we know what happened,
said Brody. "And while mayhem went on under his nose for three months,
Sanchez didn't step in to halt it."
Human Rights Watch also expressed concern that, despite all the damage
that had been done by the detainee abuse scandal, the United States
had not stopped the use of illegal coercive interrogation. In January
2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claimed in a written response
during his confirmation hearings that the prohibition on cruel,
inhuman, or degrading (CID) treatment does not apply to U.S. personnel
in the treatment of non-citizens abroad, indicating that no law would
prohibit the CIA from engaging in CID treatment when it interrogates
non-Americans outside the United States.
Human Rights Watch said that the U.S. government was still withholding
key information about the treatment of detainees, including directives
reportedly signed by President George W. Bush authorizing the CIA to
establish secret detention facilities and to "render" suspects to
countries where torture is used.
"If the United States is to wipe away the stain of Abu Ghraib, it
needs to investigate those at the top who ordered or condoned abuse
and come clean on what the president has authorized," said Brody.
"Washington must repudiate, once and for all, the mistreatment of
detainees in the name of the war on terror."
Reda about U.S. Abuse of Detainees around the World
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/0a95a728282ef1cf141236fe2b3827fb.htm
+
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
"Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their
dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens."
- William H. Beveridge, 1944
Osric
LOL. Your justificastion for invading a country is that it is geographically
in the centre of the Muslim world irrespective of whether it has any role in
international terrorism? And in any event if you wanted to invade a country
that is geographically in the centre of the Muslim world perhaps the US
should have invaded Sri Lanka as Malaysia is a Muslim country. Sri Lanka
itself had nothing to do with the War on Terror, but who cares, geography is
what counts eh?
Kavik Kang
You are making progress in understanding what a war is. We didn't start
WWIII, they did. That makes us the "defenders" and them the "aggressors".
The last place a war with us is ever going to take place is in America.
This is no different than almost any other war we have been in. Like I keep
saying, when Japan attacked us we invaded Tunisia first and Japan last. You
do seem to be making progress in understanding what a war is.
> And in any event if you wanted to invade a country
> that is geographically in the centre of the Muslim world perhaps the US
> should have invaded Sri Lanka as Malaysia is a Muslim country. Sri Lanka
> itself had nothing to do with the War on Terror, but who cares, geography
is
> what counts eh?
Pretty much, yes. You really are starting to get this whole war thing. But
Sri Lanka isn't in the right place, Iraq is, hence, our pressence there.
Osric
So to cut to the chase its your position is that if a country is on the
receiving end of a terrorist attack they are then justified in invading any
country they feel like?
Kavik Kang
Not exactly, but close...
A direct attack on the United States may be a terrorist attack, but is is
also an act of war. Radical fundamentalist islam started WWIII with the US
on 9/11/01. Since they are cowards and believe that they can hide among
their own civilian populations, they have endangered those civilian
populations. We are not going to sit by doing nothing after WWIII has been
started with us, we will not allow their cowardice and lack of a defined
"nation" to win the war for them. They leave us with no choice but to hunt
them down and kill them "wherever they may be". It is they who have created
this situation, not us. Our enemy primarily eminates from the
middle-eastern Arab world, so that is where the war will take place and
those are the people who will be forced to endure WWIII. We did not create
this situation, our attackers did. Since Iraq is at the center of the
region from which our enemies are based, it should be expected that Iraq
would be the first nation to be invaded in our defensive war against the
radical fundamentalist agrressors. It is radical fundamentalist islamic
nutcases who have caused the war in Iraq, not the United States. We are
merely defending ourselves from their attacks. This is how America defends
itself, and always has been, nothing is different from any past US war. It
really is a bad idea to attack the United States...
I doubt that you'll actually understand this, it's most likely that your
response will be a lame attempt to turn this around in some way, but this is
the true reality of the situation. But to answer your question in a single
sentance... Yes, if the United States is attacked we are justified in
attacking whoever we want, wherever we want, however we want, based solely
on our assesment of the situation. It really and truly is a really bad idea
Osric
Its a great idea if you lack widespread support and you want to provoke a
reaction that ensures a steady stream of recruits.
Kavik Kang
Sounds like a good plan too me. The cowards like to hide, anything that
will bring them out of hiding is a good thing. Anyone who decides to join
terrorists, would have become one some day anyway, so the sooner they join
up the better, that way we can get it over with as soon as possible. We
have been attacked at home, we aren't leaving the middle east until radical
fundamentalist islam is in the same condition as Neo-Nazi's are here in
America. So the faster all these "new recruits" join up, the faster we can
kill them, and the faster WWIII will end.
As for "widespread support"... who cares? We have been attacked at home, we
don't care if the entire world is against us (which it is not), we will win
the war they started. It's a totally different thing when we've been
attacked at home, we will win at any cost. This is not Vietnam. Radical
fundamentalist islam is a dead cult, it's only a matter of how long it takes
to achieve, but the US will be at war until it is a dead cult. The more
people in the middle east help us, the shorter the war will be, and that is
the ONLY means of shortening the war. Like I keep saying, it's a really bad
Paulo Gomes Jardim
wrote:
>> Its a great idea if you lack widespread support and you want to provoke
>> a
>> reaction that ensures a steady stream of recruits.
> Sounds like a good plan too me. The cowards like to hide, anything that
> will bring them out of hiding is a good thing.
The recruits ususllay go into hiding, not the opposite.
Kavik Kang
> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 03:00:23 GMT, Kavik Kang <Kavik...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> Its a great idea if you lack widespread support and you want to provoke
> >> a
> >> reaction that ensures a steady stream of recruits.
>
> > Sounds like a good plan too me. The cowards like to hide, anything that
> > will bring them out of hiding is a good thing.
>
> The recruits ususllay go into hiding, not the opposite.
Which is why the war will be shorter if the local people help us. But if
they don't, that won't change anything, except that the war will be longer.
Paulo Gomes Jardim
wrote:
> "Paulo Gomes Jardim" <darwin...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
> news:opspy6yig1urn6af@paulo...
>> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 03:00:23 GMT, Kavik Kang <Kavik...@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >> Its a great idea if you lack widespread support and you want to
>> provoke
>> >> a
>> >> reaction that ensures a steady stream of recruits.
>>
>> > Sounds like a good plan too me. The cowards like to hide, anything
>> that
>> > will bring them out of hiding is a good thing.
>>
>> The recruits ususllay go into hiding, not the opposite.
>
> Which is why the war will be shorter if the local people help us. But if
> they don't, that won't change anything, except that the war will be
> longer.
Often Local people = Recruits on the hiding. :P
You don't have a way out of this using your outdated strategies of
conventional war.
El Kabong
Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar told CBS television show 60 Minutes that he
believes "only a few dozen" of the 600 detainees at the camp were
terrorists and that little information was obtained from them.
"Interrogations were set up so the VIPs could come and witness an
interrogation ... a mock interrogation, basically," Saar told the
program, to air on Sunday.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=10&u=/nm/20050428/ts_nm/security_guantanamo_dc
Interrogations Faked at Guantanamo, Witness Says
Thu Apr 28, 3:50 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Authorities at Guantanamo Bay staged
interrogations of detainees for visiting politicians and generals to
give the impression that valuable intelligence was regularly being
gathered, according to a former Army translator at the camp.
Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar told CBS television show 60 Minutes that he
believes "only a few dozen" of the 600 detainees at the camp were
terrorists and that little information was obtained from them.
"Interrogations were set up so the VIPs could come and witness an
interrogation ... a mock interrogation, basically," Saar told the
program, to air on Sunday.
"They would find a detainee that they knew to have been cooperative.
They would ask the interrogator to go back over the same information,"
he said, calling it "a fictitious world" created for the visitors.
Saar worked at Guantanamo from December 2002 to June 2003.
The Defense Department did not immediately return calls seeking
comment. CBS said the Army declined comment.
Saar also recalled interrogation techniques he witnessed at
Guantanamo, including one previously reported incident where a female
officer behaved in an overtly sexual fashion while interrogating a
devout Muslim, at one point smearing ink which she told the detainee
was her menstrual blood on his face.
Kavik Kang
> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 04:28:25 GMT, Kavik Kang <Kavik...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > "Paulo Gomes Jardim" <darwin...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
> > news:opspy6yig1urn6af@paulo...
> >> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 03:00:23 GMT, Kavik Kang <Kavik...@hotmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >> Its a great idea if you lack widespread support and you want to
> >> provoke
> >> >> a
> >> >> reaction that ensures a steady stream of recruits.
> >>
> >> > Sounds like a good plan too me. The cowards like to hide, anything
> >> that
> >> > will bring them out of hiding is a good thing.
> >>
> >> The recruits ususllay go into hiding, not the opposite.
> >
> > Which is why the war will be shorter if the local people help us. But
if
> > they don't, that won't change anything, except that the war will be
> > longer.
>
> Often Local people = Recruits on the hiding. :P
> You don't have a way out of this using your outdated strategies of
> conventional war.
You haven't got any smarter yet, huh? You're right, the US could never
possibly defeat a powerhouse like Iraq... You just don't realize that
nothing has changed, Iraq is no different than any other war. All of these
same things always happen, none of this is new. You are still just as big
of an idiot as you were 3 months ago, don't you ever learn anything?
Paulo Gomes Jardim
wrote:
[..]
> You haven't got any smarter yet, huh? You're right, the US could never
> possibly defeat a powerhouse like Iraq... You just don't realize that
> nothing has changed, Iraq is no different than any other war. All of
> these
> same things always happen, none of this is new. You are still just as
> big
> of an idiot as you were 3 months ago, don't you ever learn anything?
3 months... 30 years ago...Yes, maybe Iraq is no different than some
other, previous wars.
Today is Saigon Liberation Day, an explendid occasion for US introspection.
Meanwhile, the rest of the World is toasting to the day the US got
expelled from Vietnam land.
Cheers! :)
Kavik Kang
> On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 04:12:22 GMT, Kavik Kang <Kavik...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> [..]
> > You haven't got any smarter yet, huh? You're right, the US could never
> > possibly defeat a powerhouse like Iraq... You just don't realize that
> > nothing has changed, Iraq is no different than any other war. All of
> > these
> > same things always happen, none of this is new. You are still just as
> > big
> > of an idiot as you were 3 months ago, don't you ever learn anything?
>
> 3 months... 30 years ago...Yes, maybe Iraq is no different than some
> other, previous wars.
> Today is Saigon Liberation Day, an explendid occasion for US
introspection.
> Meanwhile, the rest of the World is toasting to the day the US got
> expelled from Vietnam land.
> Cheers! :)
In other words, you have no response so you decided to change the subject.
Yes, you are still an idiot.
Paulo Gomes Jardim
wrote:
>
> "Paulo Gomes Jardim" <darwin...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
> news:opsp1v04iourn6af@paulo...
>> On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 04:12:22 GMT, Kavik Kang <Kavik...@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> [..]
>> > You haven't got any smarter yet, huh? You're right, the US could
>> never
>> > possibly defeat a powerhouse like Iraq... You just don't realize that
>> > nothing has changed, Iraq is no different than any other war. All of
>> > these
>> > same things always happen, none of this is new. You are still just as
>> > big
>> > of an idiot as you were 3 months ago, don't you ever learn anything?
>>
>> 3 months... 30 years ago...Yes, maybe Iraq is no different than some
>> other, previous wars.
>> Today is Saigon Liberation Day, an explendid occasion for US
> introspection.
>> Meanwhile, the rest of the World is toasting to the day the US got
>> expelled from Vietnam land.
>> Cheers! :)
>
> In other words, you have no response so you decided to change the
> subject.
Who changed the subject?
Read your own words: "nothing has changed, Iraq is no different than any
other war.".
Down to US backed South Vietnam, long live to self ruled, unified Vietnam.
shemr
are ignorance, arrogance, extremism, and violence" - Abbas Kadhim
What an idiot this self-hating anthrophobe Abbas Kadhim must be. He
blames the individual and not the ideology or the system. He thinks
that if everybody in the world was a pious godfearing person (an
impossibility), then we would not have any issues in society! As if
Islamic dictatorships are not run by such individuals. No sir, it is
the ideology that is at fault. Ignorance is the mainstay of Islam.
Extremism and violence are the byproducts of Islam.
I dare this idealistic anthrophobe to define "arrogance". LOL
Please don't repeat nonsense on this newsgroup.
Paulo Gomes Jardim
1. Ignorance, arrogance, extremism and violence are concepts that can be
applied to individuals as well as to societies and ideologies. Thus your
ad hominems against Abbas are void.
2. The Q'ran previleges knowledge and learning, and so do most of his
sects, including the most important in numbers and influence:
"Read in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who creates; Creates man, out
of a (mere) clot of congealed blood; Read! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful;
He Who teaches (the use of) the pen; teaches man that which he knows not"
(Sura 96:1-5)
> Please don't repeat nonsense on this newsgroup.
(*Which* newsgroup? I'm counting 5 on this thread)
--
shemr
kidding? Go and get an education in language first. It is obvious
that Kadhims gibberish is aimed at people and individuals. "concepts"
and "categories" dont rule the world. You have individuals, some who
may carry a nefarious ideology, within certain systems that make up
society.
These language games you and Kadhim play are good for the illiterates
and the ignorants that you so much decry. Go back to the mosque you
came from and preach to your own ignorant kind.
2. Quran says that the earth is not spherical, and that mountains are
only there to stop earthquakes. Your silly Quran, recited by an
epileptic in coma, is full of errors. Semen is not congealed blood,
and only half the DNA of the fetus comes from semen. What a disaster
this Quran and what an asshole to have written it.
Get an education and then come back to talk.
El Kabong
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the case for war was "thin" because
"Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his WMD (weapons of mass
destruction) capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or
Iran."
Straw proposed giving Saddam an ultimatum to allow in U.N. weapons
inspectors, provoking a confrontation that would "help with the legal
justification for the use of force."
Britain's spy chief, Sir Richard Dearlove, fresh from a trip to
Washington, had concluded that war was "inevitable" because "Bush
wanted to remove Saddam through military action," and "intelligence
and facts were being fixed around the policy."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&e=10&u=/nm/20050501/wl_nm/iraq_britain_dc
UK Document Leak Shows Early Plan to Topple Saddam By Peter Graff
LONDON (Reuters) - President Bush and British Prime Minister
Tony Blair were determined to topple Saddam Hussein at least nine
months before they launched the war in Iraq, British documents
leaked in a Sunday newspaper say.
The secret documents could have a late impact in Britain's election
next Thursday, in which Iraq -- and whether the prime minister told
the truth when making his case for war -- has resurfaced as an issue
in the final week of campaigning.
Blair has always maintained that he did not commit Britain to
attacking Iraq until Saddam had been given a final chance to abandon
banned weapons, and that "regime change" -- overthrowing Saddam -- was
never his aim.
Despite hostility to Blair over his Iraq policy, polls show he is
likely to win a third term in the election, though his huge
parliamentary majority is expected to shrink.
Blair has been careful to say he believes the election result may
still be in doubt. In an interview with the Observer newspaper, he
urged anti-war voters not to cast a protest vote.
"There will be people who will feel very, very strongly over Iraq. But
if they vote Liberal Democrat in a seat where the Conservatives are
second, it is not policy on Iraq that will change -- it's the policy
on the economy, on the health service, on schools, on the minimum
wage," he said.
The Sunday Times printed what it said were secret minutes of a
top-level cabinet meeting held in July 2002 to discuss Iraq, nine
months before the invasion.
According to the minutes, Blair spoke to his cabinet explicitly in
terms of toppling Saddam.
"If the political context were right, people would support regime
change," Blair is recorded as saying. "The two key issues were whether
the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to
give the military plan the space to work."
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the case for war was "thin" because
"Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his WMD (weapons of mass
destruction) capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea
or Iran."
Straw proposed giving Saddam an ultimatum to allow in U.N. weapons
inspectors, provoking a confrontation that would "help with the legal
justification for the use of force."
Britain's spy chief, Sir Richard Dearlove, fresh from a trip to
Washington, had concluded that war was "inevitable" because "Bush
wanted to remove Saddam through military action," and "intelligence
and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Blair ordered his chief of defense staff, Sir Michael Boyce, to
present him with war plans later that week, the minutes said.
El Kabong
Top US financier takes over as Israeli central bank chief
Sun May 1, 8:36 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Top American financier Stanley Fischer was due to be
granted Israeli citizenship at a ceremony, enabling him to take up his
new role as governor of the central bank.
Four months after he was nominated, the new 61-year-old governor was
to be sworn in at an official ceremony in Jerusalem by Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon after receiving his new identity card from
Interior Minister Ophir Pines.
The surprise nomination of the former vice chairman of Citigroup --
one of the largest financial groups in the world -- marked the first
time a non-Israeli citizen had been named to head the central bank.
The business world hopes Fischer, a former top official at the
International Monetary Fund, will mobilise his experience and prestige
to cultivate foreign investment and nail down a full recovery after
years of depression.
His nomination was approved by both a committee of senior Israeli
civil servants and last month by the government and rubber stamped by
President Moshe Katzav.
El Kabong
By Scott Ritter
Sunday 01 May 2005
In the months that have passed since Iraq's much-hyped democratic
elections, one word keeps creeping into my mind as I assess the tragic
events unfolding in Mesopotamia today: Vietnam.
The American press and punditry, intimidated and compensated into
slavishly reporting on Iraq solely along lines that will not overly
alienate them from the powers that be inside the administration of
George W Bush, have long ago foregone drawing comparisons between the
ongoing conflict in Iraq and the one America lost in Southeast Asia
some three decades in the past.
The lack of a basis for direct comparison makes accomplishing the
denigration of any such correlation between conflicts all-too-easy for
the uninformed consumer of what passes for "news" in America today:
the terrain is different, the scale of violence is different, the Cold
War is over, and, of course, everything changed after 9/11.
Recently, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard
Myers, insisted, at a press conference, that the US and coalition
forces were winning the war in Iraq, and noted that he was confident
of a military victory.
"I'm going to say this: I think we are winning, okay. I think we're
definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time," Myers
said.
Public posturing
Myers' statements, mirroring his earlier pronouncements, as well as
those of his fellow joint chiefs, represent a posturing for the public
that is not matched by the reality on the ground in Iraq.
For every general who speaks of 'winning the war', there are hundreds
of soldiers and marines, veterans of the harsh reality of ground truth
in Iraq, who believe otherwise.
A typical example is the experience of the third battalion, seventh
marines, who are based in 29 Palms, California. This battalion was
assigned the task of securing the area around the western Iraqi city
of al-Qaim in April 2004.
"The marines", the battalion commander Lieutenant-Colonel Lopez wrote
in a letter to families back in the US, "are hard at work establishing
security and bringing a better life to the people of al-Qaim ... we
are actively engaged in establishing local governance, local Iraqi
police forces, and improving schools".
However, the reality of al-Qaim was much different. The marines
entered what they called "silent war", where they engaged in
unforgiving combat with faceless insurgents that killed and wounded
them in alarming numbers, and which went largely unreported back home
in America.
Al-Qaim incident
The anonymity of their struggle briefly lifted in mid-April 2004, when
the town of Husaybah, located near al-Qaim along the Syrian border,
exploded into violence when some 300 well armed and well organized
Iraqi insurgents launched a coordinated attack on the marine
positions.
The marines were able to repel their attackers, but at a high cost:
five marines killed, and another nine wounded.
Back home, marine families and friends communicated back and forth
about this fight: "No better friend, no worse enemy", one wrote in a
blog.
"It's not a question of 'if'', it's 'when'. In this battle, it took
less than 10 hours. We'll grieve with the families of our fallen
heroes, knowing that their sons and husbands made a difference. Semper
Fi."
But this chest-pounding bravado wasn't shared by the marines walking
the ground. "I guarantee you that people don't understand what we're
going through," one young officer was quoted as saying.
"Sometimes, you walk right by a bomb, and there's just nobody there to
push the button."
Waste of time
The third battalion, seventh marines returned home in September 2004,
having suffered 17 dead and many dozens wounded.
The marines of this proud battalion were deeply scarred by their
experiences in Iraq. This was the same unit that had, in April 2003,
spearheaded the American assault on Baghdad, helping liberate Iraq
from Saddam Hussein. During that phase of the war, not a single marine
from 3/7 was killed.
This time it was different. Rather than a sense of victory, the
marines were struck by the futility, and tragedy, of what they had
gone through.
"I feel like I wasted my time, caring about something that doesn't
have any meaning anymore", one marine was quoted as saying, speaking
of his time in al-Qaim. "I felt like I was wasting time and the
taxpayers' money."
His battalion commander concurred, noting that while much had been
accomplished on the surface, little had fundamentally changed in Iraq
as a result of the sacrifices of his marines.
"If we can't turn the corner on turning security and governance over
to the Iraqi people", Lopez said, "we will continue to be frustrated."
'Dereliction of duty'
Myers knows this reality, and yet, he ignores it. His words and
actions, together with his fellow joint chiefs, remind me of another
generation of American generals, who occupied the office of joint
chiefs of staff, those written about so devastatingly by HR McMasters
in his classic book, Dereliction of Duty.
McMasters details how general officers could, and did, forsake their
fellow warriors by glossing over the reality of what was transpiring
in a conflict in the name of political expediency, designed to further
their own personal careers and reputations.
As McMasters points out, however, careers may be salvaged, but
personal reputations stained by such cowardice cannot stand the test
of time and history.
Myers and his fellow joint chiefs, like those of their ilk who so
shamefully served during the Vietnam era, have committed a massive
dereliction of duty in the manner in which they so brazenly embraced
an illegal war of aggression.
This embrace has led to an acceptance of an ongoing brutal occupation
that only deepens the social and political divides inside Iraq,
guaranteeing that so long as American forces remain in that embattled
nation, the only path our forces are on is one leading inexorably
towards civil war, and more death and destruction.
"Go tell it to the marines". This slogan has long signified the
reality that America's marines were the first to fight in our nation's
wars, and, therefore, the ones who bore the brunt of the sacrifice,
and were in the best position to gauge reality.
Snapshot in time
"I told the marines we were there to begin a process and turn it over
to other marines," Lopez said of his time in al-Qaim. "Ours was a
snapshot in time."
Another marine battalion now occupies al-Qaim. Far from the optimistic
mission of "nation building" the marines of 3/7 had embarked on in
April 2004, the marines of the third battalion, second marines are
more concerned with security and stability operations.
In early April 2005, these marines withstood a massive assault on
their positions by more than 100 enemy fighters, equipped with mortars
and explosive-laden vehicles.
The marines repelled the attack, suffering no significant losses,
through a combination of skill, bravery and good fortune.
The "snapshot in time" Lopez spoke of is a much different one for the
marines of 3/2. And it is a far cry from any viable notion of victory
that could be imagined when listening to General Myers' speak of
"winning" the war in Iraq.
Go tell it to the marines, General Meyers. You might be surprised by
the answer you get.
Scott Ritter is a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, and a former
major in the US marines, having served for 12 years, including in the
first Gulf War in 1991. Author of Iraq Confidential, to be published
by IB Tauris (London) in the Summer of 2005.
El Kabong
move to safe areas.
The protesters chanted "Death to America" and smashed car windows and
damaged shops.
Protests also spread to the south-eastern city of Khost, where
hundreds of students took to the streets.
In Jalalabad, buildings belonging to the United Nations are reported
to have been attacked and the offices of two international aid groups
are said to have been destroyed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4535491.stm
Wednesday, 11 May, 2005, 10:52 GMT 11:52 UK
Riots over US Koran 'desecration'
At least four people have been killed and many injured after police
opened fire to break up an anti-US protest in eastern Afghanistan,
officials say.
Hundreds of students rioted in the city of Jalalabad over reports that
the Koran was desecrated at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba.
President Hamid Karzai has said the violence showed the inability of
Afghan authorities to handle such protests.
The US authorities have said they are investigating the allegations.
"Obviously the destruction of any kind of holy book... is something
that is reprehensible and not in keeping with US policies and
practices," state department spokesman Tom Casey said.
President Karzai, who is in Brussels, told Nato that his country would
need international assistance "for many, many years to come".
Buildings burned down
Afghan National Army soldiers, supported by US units, are out on the
streets of Jalalabad to try and control the situation.
Protests also spread to the south-eastern city of Khost, where
hundreds of students took to the streets.
In Jalalabad, buildings belonging to the United Nations are reported
to have been attacked and the offices of two international aid groups
are said to have been destroyed.
Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, Rustam Shah Mohmand, told the BBC
the Pakistani consul's house had also been burned down and two cars
torched.
One international aid worker in Jalalabad told the BBC that he could
see smoke rising from points across the city.
He said there were groups of people running along the streets,
reportedly looking for foreigners and anyone working for
non-governmental organisations.
The BBC's Andrew North in Kabul says the violence comes after several
months of mounting concern among foreign aid workers in Afghanistan
over their security.
All UN and other foreign aid workers in the city have been told to
move to safe areas.
The protesters chanted "Death to America" and smashed car windows and
damaged shops.
"Police opened fire in the air to control the mob, and some people
were injured," Jalalabad police chief, Abdul Rehman, told Reuters news
agency.
Jalalabad is 130km (80 miles) east of the Afghan capital, Kabul, close
to the Pakistani border.
Reports of abuse
The unrest follows a report in the American magazine, Newsweek, that
interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had placed copies of the Koran on
toilets in order to put pressure on Muslim prisoners.
On Sunday, the Pakistani government said it was "deeply dismayed" over
the reports about the Koran.
Islamist parties there have called for a nationwide strike on Friday.
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are close allies of the US in its war
against terror.
Insulting the Koran or Islam's Prophet Mohammed is regarded as
blasphemy and punishable by death in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
RBRK
economy by destroying shops
They are just upset that another lie of Mohoammd was exposed.
Nobody turns into stone if they desecrate koran
El Kabong
U.S. army probes why troops go wild in Colombia
By Luis Jaime Acosta
SUMAPAZ, Colombia (Reuters) - The U.S. military is investigating what
has gone wrong with its operations in Colombia, where troops have been
arrested on suspicion of smuggling drugs and selling arms to far-right
militias, a senior U.S. officer said on Wednesday.
Gen. Bantz Craddock, commander of the U.S. military's Southern
Command, said he was concerned by the recent incidents.
"I have talked to the commander of the units involved. We are
initiating a complete review of our procedures, our processes and our
security standards," Craddock told Reuters while visiting Colombian
troops on a high mountain plain above Bogota -- recently a strategic
transit route for Marxist rebels -- as a Black Hawk helicopter whirred
overhead.
Colombian police arrested two American soldiers last week on suspicion
of planning to sell stolen ammunition to the United Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia, an outlawed far-right militia group classified as
"terrorist" by the United States.
Just over a month earlier, another five troops were detained in the
United States for allegedly trying to smuggle hundreds of thousands of
dollars worth of cocaine on a U.S. military aircraft leaving Colombia.
The arrests damaged the image of the large U.S. anti-drug operation
here and led to calls by some Colombian officials and lawmakers for
revision of a treaty granting immunity from prosecution to American
personnel.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=8&u=/nm/20050511/ts_nm/colombia_usa_dc
Deev
"RBRK" <Sar...@Irani.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9653560467...@216.77.188.18...
RBRK
"Deev" <De...@hotmail.com> wrote in news:nwVge.1327448$8l.1062291@pd7tw1no:
El Kabong
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/05/13/losing_hearts_and_minds/
Losing hearts and minds --by Derrick Z. Jackson "NPR reporter Philip
Reeves followed American soldiers around Mosul. At one point, the
soldiers decided to take over a civilian house for two hours as a
surveillance post. ...When the family continue to appear to be
'baffled and unhappy,' another soldier stepped in and said (with
obscenities bleeped out by NPR): ''Look, check this out. You tell them
this. You're not [bleep] leaving. Nobody's [bleep] leaving this house.
You're not using the phone. Anybody comes, they're going to [bleep]
stay here. OK? You give me a [bleep] hard time, I'll turn you [bleep]
guys into the commandos, and they'll [bleep] you up.' ...Bush has
boasted how 'Iraqis have laid the foundations of a free society, with
hundreds of independent newspapers.' The reality was a bit more
totalitarian."
El Kabong
involvement.
http://www.cnn.com/video/us/2001/09/11/brown.ensor.cnn.low.ram
I can't believe it's still on CNN!
Here's the bin Laden statement from Sept. of 2001:
- Source: Ummat, Urdu-language daily newspaper based in Karachi,
Pakistan - Friday, 28 September 2001 - pages 1, 7. - Source: BBC
Monitoring Service. -
Usama bin Laden Says Israeli Regime is Behind the 9-11 Attacks
KABUL, Afghanistan (Ummat): Prominent Arab mojahed (freedom fighter)
Usama bin Laden or the Al-Qaida group has nothing to do with the 11
September attacks on the Bush Administration, according to an Usama
bin Laden interview with Ummat, the Karachi-based Pakistani daily
newspaper. In his interview, Usama bin Laden pointed out that the
Israeli regime is behind the 9-11 attacks. He expressed gratitude and
support for Pakistan, urging the Pakistani people to continue their
jehad against dictators, tyrants, traitors, crooks, criminals,
dictatorships and tyrannies. Following is the text of Usama Bin
Laden's interview conducted by a "special correspondent" and published
in the daily Ummat on Friday, 28 September 2001. [The place and date
of the interview was not given by Ummat.]
Daily UMMAT: You have been accused of involvement in the attacks in
New York and Washington. What do you want to say about this? If you
are not involved, who might be?
USAMA BIN LADEN: In the name of Allah (God), the most beneficent, the
most merciful. Praise be to Allah, Who is the creator of the whole
universe and Who made the Earth as an abode for peace, for the whole
humankind. Allah is the Sustainer, who sent Prophet Muhammad (saw) for
our guidance. I am thankful to The Ummat Group of Publications, which
gave me the opportunity to convey my viewpoint to the people,
particularly the valiant and momin (true Muslim) people of Pakistan
who refused to believe the lies of the demon (Pakistani military
dictator General Pervez Musharraf).
I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks
in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a
lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the
killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable
act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children
and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a
battle. It is the United States, which is perpetrating every
maltreatment on women, children and common people of other faiths,
particularly the followers of Islam. All that is going on in Palestine
for the last 11 months is sufficient to call the wrath of God upon the
United States and Israel. There is also a warning for those Muslim
countries, which witnessed all these as a silent spectator. What had
earlier been done to the innocent people of Iraq, Chechnya and Bosnia?
Only one conclusion could be derived from the indifference of the
United States and the West to these acts of terror and the patronage
of the tyrants by these powers that America is an anti Islamic power
and it is patronizing the anti-Islamic forces. Its friendship with the
Muslim countries is just a show, rather deceit. By enticing or
intimidating these countries, the United States is forcing them to
play a role of its choice. Put a glance all around and you will see
that the slaves of the United States are either rulers or enemies of
Muslims.
The U.S. has no friends, nor does it want to keep any because the
prerequisite of friendship is to come to the level of the friend or
consider him at par with you. America does not want to see anyone
equal to it. It expects slavery from others. Therefore, other
countries are either its slaves or subordinates. However, our case is
different. We have pledged slavery to God Almighty alone and after
this pledge there is no possibility to become the slave of someone
else. If we do that it will be disregardful to both our Sustainer and
his fellow beings. Most of the world nations upholding their freedom
are the religious ones, which are the enemies of the United States, or
the U.S. itself considers them as its enemies.
The countries which do not agree to become the U.S. slaves are China,
Iran, Libya, Cuba, Syria [Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iraq,
Sudan, Indonesia, Malaysia] and Russia. Whoever committed the act of
11 September are not the friends of the American people. I have
already said that we are against the American system, not against its
people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been
killed. According to my information, the death toll is much higher
than what the U.S. Government has stated. But the Bush Administration
does not want the panic to spread. The United States should try to
trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; the people who
are a part of the U.S. system, but are dissenting against it. Or those
who are working for some other system; persons who want to make the
present century as a century of conflict between Islam and
Christianity so that their own civilization, nation, country, or
ideology could survive. They can be anyone, from Russia to Israel and
from India to Serbia. In the U.S. itself, there are dozens of
well-organized and well-equipped groups, which are capable of causing
a large-scale destruction. Then you cannot forget the American Jews,
who are annoyed with President Bush ever since the elections in
Florida and want to avenge him.
Then there are intelligence agencies in the U.S., which require
billions of dollars worth of funds from the Congress and the
government every year. This [funding issue] was not a big problem till
the existence of the former Soviet Union but after that the budget of
these agencies has been in danger. They needed an enemy. So, they
first started propaganda against Usama and Taleban and then this
incident happened. You see, the Bush Administration approved a budget
of 40 billion dollars. Where will this huge amount go? It will be
provided to the same agencies, which need huge funds and want to exert
their importance. Now they will spend the money for their expansion
and for increasing their importance. I will give you an example. Drug
smugglers from all over the world are in contact with the U.S. secret
agencies. These agencies do not want to eradicate narcotics
cultivation and trafficking because their importance will be
diminished. The people in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Department are
encouraging drug trade so that they could show performance and get
millions of dollars worth of budget. General Noriega was made a drug
baron by the CIA and, in need, he was made a scapegoat. In the same
way, whether it is President Bush or any other U.S. President, they
cannot bring Israel to justice for its human rights abuses or to hold
it accountable for such crimes. What is this? Is it not that there
exists a government within the government in the United Sates? That
secret government must be asked as to who carried out the attacks.
Daily UMMAT: A number of world countries have joined the call of the
United States for launching attacks on Afghanistan. These also include
a number of Muslim countries. Will Al-Qaida declare a jehad against
these Islamic countries as well?
USAMA BIN LADEN: I must say that my duty is just to awaken the
Muslims; to tell them as to what is good for them and what is not.
What does Islam says and what the enemies of Islam want? Al-Qaida was
set up to wage a jehad against infidelity, particularly to counter the
onslaught of the infidel countries against the Islamic states. Jehad
is the sixth undeclared pillar of Islam. [The first five being the
basic holy words of Islam (There is only one God in the entire
universe and Muhammad is the last Prophet of God), prayers, fast,
pilgrimage to Mecca and giving alms (zakat).] Every anti-Islamic
person is afraid of jehad. Al-Qaida wants to keep jehad alive and
active and make it a part of the daily life of the Muslims. It wants
to give it the status of worship. We are not against any Islamic
country. We do not consider a war against an Islamic country as jehad.
We are in favour of armed jehad only against those infidel
governments, which are killing innocent Muslim men, women and children
just because they are Muslims. Supporting the U.S. act is the need of
some Muslim countries and the compulsion of others. However, they
should think as to what will remain of their religious and moral
position if they support the attack of the Christians and the Jews on
a Muslim country like Afghanistan. The orders of Islamic Shariah
[jurisprudence] for such individuals, organizations and countries are
clear and all the scholars of the Muslim brotherhood are unanimous on
them. We will do the same, which is being ordered by the
Ameer-ul-Momeneen [the commander of the faithful Afghans] Muhammad
Omar and the Islamic scholars. The hearts of the people of Muslim
countries are beating with the call of jehad. We are grateful to them.
Daily UMMAT: The losses caused in the attacks in New York and
Washington have proved that giving an economic blow to the U.S.is not
too difficult. U.S. experts admit that a few more such attacks can
bring down the American economy. Why is Al-Qaida not targeting their
economic pillars?
USAMA BIN LADEN: I have already said that we are not hostile to the
United States. We are against the [U.S. Government] system, which
makes other nations slaves of the United States, or forces them to
mortgage their political and economic freedom. This system is totally
in control of the American-Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not
the United States. It is clear that the American people are themselves
the slaves of the Jews and are forced to live according to the
principles and laws laid by them. So, the punishment should reach
Israel. In fact, it is Israel, which is giving a blood bath to
innocent Muslims and the U.S. is not uttering a single word.
Daily UMMAT: Why is harm not caused to the enemies of Islam through
other means, apart from the armed struggle? For instance, urging the
Muslims to boycott Western products, banks, shipping lines and TV
channels.
USAMA BIN LADEN: The first thing is that Western products could only
be boycotted when the Muslim fraternity is fully awakened and
organized. Secondly, the Muslim companies should become
self-sufficient in producing goods equal to the products of Western
companies. Economic boycott of the West is not possible unless
economic self-sufficiency is attained and substitute products are
brought out. You see that wealth is scattered all across the Muslim
World but not a single TV channel has been acquired which can preach
Islamic injunctions according to modern requirements and attain an
international influence. Muslim traders and philanthropists should
make it a point that if the weapon of public opinion is to be used, it
is to be kept in the hand. Today's world is of public opinion and the
fates of nations are determined through its pressure. Once the tools
for building public opinion are obtained, everything that you asked
for can be done.
Daily UMMAT: The entire propaganda about your struggle has so far been
made by the Western media. But no information is beingreceived from
your sources about the network of Al-Qaida and its jehadi successes.
Would you comment?
USAMA BIN LADEN: In fact, the Western media is left with nothing else.
It has no other theme to survive for a long time. Then we have many
other things to do. The struggle for jehad and the successes are for
the sake of Allah and not to annoy His bondsmen. Our silence is our
real propaganda. Rejections, explanations, or corrigendum only waste
your time and through them, the enemy wants you to engage in things
which are not of use to you. These things are pulling you away from
your cause. The Western media is unleashing such a baseless
propaganda, which makes us surprise but it reflects on what is in
their hearts and gradually they themselves become captive of this
propaganda. They become afraid of it and begin to cause harm to
themselves. Terror is the most dreaded weapon in modern age and the
Western media is mercilessly using it against its own people. It can
add fear and helplessness in the psyche of the people of Europe and
the United States. It means that what the enemies of the United States
cannot do, its media is doing that. You can understand as to what will
be the performance of the nation in a war, which suffers from fear and
helplessness.
Daily UMMAT: What will be the impact of the freeze of Al-Qaida
accounts by the U.S.?
USAMA BIN LADEN: God opens up ways for those who work for Him.
Freezing of accounts will not make any difference for Al-Qaida or
other jehad groups. With the grace of Allah, Al-Qaida has more than
three alternative financial systems, which are all separate and
totally independent from each other. This system is operating under
the patronage of those who love jehad. What to say of the United
States, even the combined world cannot budge these people from their
path. These people are not in hundreds but in thousands and millions.
Al-Qaida comprises of such modern educated youths who are aware of the
cracks inside the Western financial system as they are aware of the
lines in their hands. These are the very flaws of the Western fiscal
system, which are becoming a noose for it and this system could not
recuperate in spite of the passage of so many days.
Daily UMMAT: Are there other safe areas other than Afghanistan, where
you can continue jehad?
USAMA BIN LADEN: There are areas in all parts of the world where
strong jehadi forces are present, from Indonesia to Algeria, from
Kabul to Chechnya, from Bosnia to Sudan, and from Burma to Kashmir.
Then it is not the problem of my person. I am a helpless fellowman of
God, constantly in the fear of my accountability before God. It is not
the question of Usama but of Islam and, in Islam too, of jehad. Thanks
to God, those waging a jehad can walk today with their heads raised.
Jehad was still present when there was no Usama and it will remain as
such even when Usama is no longer there. Allah opens up ways and
creates loves in the hearts of people for those who walk on the path
of Allah with their lives, property and children. Believe it, through
jehad, a man gets everything he desires. And the biggest desire of a
Muslim is the life after death. Martyrdom is the shortest way of
attaining an eternal life.
Daily UMMAT: What do you say about the Pakistan Government policy on
Afghanistan attack?
USAMA BIN LADEN: We are thankful to the Momin and valiant people of
Pakistan who erected a blockade in front of the evil forces and stood
in the first file of battle. Pakistan is a great hope for the Islamic
brotherhood. Its people are awakened, organized and rich in the spirit
of faith. They backed Afghanistan in its war against the Soviet Union
and extended every help to the mojahedeen (freedom fighters) and the
Afghan people. Then these are very Pakistanis who are standing
shoulder by shoulder with the Taleban. If such people emerge in just
two countries, the domination of the West will diminish in a matter of
days. Our hearts beat with Pakistan and, God forbid, if a difficult
time comes we will protect it with our blood. Pakistan is sacred for
us like a place of worship. We are the people of jehad and fighting
for the defense of Pakistan is the best of all jehads to us. It does
not matter for us as to who reforms Pakistan. The important thing is
that the spirit of jehad is alive and stronger in the hearts of the
Pakistani people.
- Source: Ummat, Urdu-language daily newspaper based in Karachi,
Pakistan - Friday, 28 September 2001 - pages 1, 7. - Source: BBC
Monitoring Service. -
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape.html
Taenia Solium
Good interview.
Well worth reading.
Bin Laden makes some good points.
He also rants a bit. But so does Bush.
CTG
Apart from some arabs that took control of the planes , what other evidence
is available that proves he did this .?
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news:87psvtn...@kafka.homenet...
El Kabong
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1515&e=1&u=/afp/20050516/wl_mideast_afp/mideastjerusalem_050516140932
Israelis arrested for plotting attack on Islam's third holiest shrine
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Nine Jewish extremists were arrested last month on
suspicion of preparing a rocket attack against Islam's third holiest
shrine.
The nine were arrested after an operation led by the Shin Beth
internal security agency on suspicion they intended to buy one or more
anti-tank missiles for the planned attack on Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa
Mosque compound, , Israeli security sources revealed Monday.
They also tried to acquire grenades for the attack, which they
intended to launch from the terrace of a religious school close to the
compound, the sources said.
Most of the group, including three members of one family from
Jerusalem, were held for more than a fortnight but released without
charge on April 22, one of the group's lawyers said.
One of the nine was a radical rabbi but he was only briefly detained,
the sources said.
One of the nine suspects was arrested on suspicion of planning to buy
a miniature remote-controlled plane, stuff it with explosives and
bring it down over the compound, said police.
El Kabong
By Debbie Stevenson
FORT HOOD, Texas (Reuters) - A soldier accused of abuses at Iraq's
Abu Ghraib prison had written home days before the most notorious
photographs were taken there to say she would document bad behavior by
other American guards, according to a letter introduced at her
court-martial on Monday.
"Kelly, I don't like that any more. At first it was funny, but these
people are going too far," U.S. Army Spc. Sabrina Harman wrote to her
roommate on October 20, 2003. "At first I had to laugh. The only
reason I want to be there is to get the pictures to prove the U.S. is
not what they think."
"But I don't know if I can take it mentally. What if that was me in
their shoes? These people will be our future terrorists. Kelly, it's
awful ... Both sides of me think it's wrong. I thought I could handle
anything; I was wrong."
The defense introduced the handwritten letter to Harman's best friend
and roommate Kelly Bryant in explaining why the former pizza store
worker had photographed scenes of abuse which sparked global anger
against the United States.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=5&u=/nm/20050517/ts_nm/iraq_abuse_dc
El Kabong
Past U.S. administrations have stood firm in the face of Israeli
appeals to free Pollard, who was sentenced to life in prison without
parole in 1986 for passing secrets to Israel.
Former CIA director George Tenet reportedly threatened to quit in
1998 after then-U.S. President Bill Clinton agreed to review the
case, which jarred Israel's ties with its chief ally.
Tenet's successor Porter Goss, then a congressman, in 1999 sponsored a
House resolution demanding Pollard be kept behind bars, saying: "The
amount of information he sold is immense, the American lives he has
put at risk are irreplaceable and the damage he did to our national
security is incalculable."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=7&u=/nm/20050517/ts_nm/israel_usa_pollard_dc
Israelis 'hopeful' on release for U.S. spy Pollard
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel expects imminent progress in its bid to
secure the release of Jonathan Pollard, an ex- U.S. Navy intelligence
analyst convicted of spying for the Jewish state in the 1980s,
political sources said on Tuesday.
They said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, keen to shore up support
among Israeli right-wingers split by his plan to withdraw from the
occupied Gaza Strip this summer, raised the issue with Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice last month.
Israel's ambassador to Washington, Danny Ayalon, was to meet Pollard
in prison on Tuesday -- the first such visit by an Israeli envoy -- to
deliver an "expression of concern" from Sharon, a Foreign Ministry
spokesman said.
"We believe and hope there will be progress in the matter of Pollard
during the summer," a source in Sharon's office said.
Past U.S. administrations have stood firm in the face of Israeli
appeals to free Pollard, who was sentenced to life in prison without
parole in 1986 for passing secrets to Israel.
Former CIA director George Tenet reportedly threatened to quit in
1998 after then-U.S. President Bill Clinton agreed to review the
case, which jarred Israel's ties with its chief ally.
Tenet's successor Porter Goss, then a congressman, in 1999 sponsored a
House resolution demanding Pollard be kept behind bars, saying: "The
amount of information he sold is immense, the American lives he has
put at risk are irreplaceable and the damage he did to our national
security is incalculable."
El Kabong
U.S. government pressure following their call for holy war.
"The regret and retraction by the magazine clearly came after the
issue of our deadline," he said.
Another member of the council said if the clerics did not approve
jihad against the United States, then Badakhshan's clerics would push
in parliament for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&e=6&u=/nm/20050518/wl_nm/religion_afghan_dc
Afghan clerics defer jihad call against U.S.
By Qurban Ali Hamzi FAIZABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A group of
Afghan Islamic clerics have deferred a call for holy war against the
United States over a magazine report that U.S. interrogators
desecrated the Koran after the report was retracted.
"We will consult and discuss our next move with other Ulemas," said
the head of Badakhshan's council of clerics, Mullah Sadullah Abu Aman,
when asked about the jihad call.
Ulema are Islamic scholars. Representatives will be sent out for talks
with other clerics, he said.
"We are keen to take a unanimous decision about this," he said.
Aman said he suspected Newsweek had retracted the story because of
U.S. government pressure following their call for holy war.
"The regret and retraction by the magazine clearly came after the
issue of our deadline," he said.
Muslim clerics have traditionally been teachers and leaders in Afghan
society and throughout its history they have rallied public opinion
and sometimes led uprisings against unpopular rulers and foreign
occupiers.
The Afghan protests against the United States were the worst since
U.S. forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001 for sheltering Osama bin
Laden and his al Qaeda network.
Another member of the council said if the clerics did not approve
jihad against the United States, then Badakhshan's clerics would push
in parliament for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Afghans go to the polls on Sept. 18 to elect a parliament.
"Badakhshan's delegates in parliament will push for the withdrawal of
American forces and will stand against their bases in Afghanistan,"
said Mawlavi Abdul Samad.
Acharya
based on inciting violence not knowledge.
"El Kabong" <poki_pongo at yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:9mbm81hss44aujdc5...@4ax.com...
El Kabong
peaceful Food Not Bombs activists for harassment, political
surveillance
The documents reveal that the FBI is particularly interested in Food
Not Bombs, which opposes the government’s prioritization of war and
military programs over social programs. Twice a week in Denver for the
last six years, Food Not Bombs has been providing free vegetarian
meals in a picnic setting in public parks to anyone who is hungry.
Autonomous chapters of Food Not Bombs carry out in similar activities
in Boulder, Fort Collins and Durango, as well as numerous cities
throughout the country.
Colorado ACLU statement
http://www.aclu-co.org/news/pressrelease/release_JTTF051805.htm
Please review one of the FBI memos about Food Not Bombs
http://www.aclu-co.org/docket/200406/JTTF_file_sarah_bardwell_12-07-04.pdf
###
Protesters Subjected To 'Pretext Interviews'
By Dan Eggen
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/17/AR2005051701240.html
New FBI documents to be released today show that anti-terrorism
agents who questioned antiwar protesters last summer in Denver were
conducting "pretext interviews" that did not lead to any information
about criminal activity.
The memos were obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union as part
of ongoing litigation and provide a glimpse of the FBI's controversial
efforts to interview dozens of members of leftist protest groups
before the party conventions last year in Boston and New York.
FBI officials and then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said at the
time that the interviews were based on indications that radical
protesters may be planning violent disruptions. Authorities said one
specific threat involved plans to blow up a media van in Boston.
But the new memos provide no indication of specific threat
information. Instead, one heavily censored memo from the FBI's Denver
field office, dated Aug. 2, 2004, characterized the effort as "pretext
interviews to gain general information concerning possible criminal
activity at the upcoming political conventions and presidential
election."
Another memo from December 2004 indicated that Sarah Bardwell, one of
the Denver activists singled out for interviews, was targeted because
she had helped organize an antiwar protest and was a member of a group
called Food Not Bombs, which the memo characterized as having a "close
association" with a radical anarchist group.
ACLU officials said yesterday that the documents show that
investigators from the FBI and the local Joint Terrorism Task Force
were on a fishing expedition.
"These documents confirm that the FBI's anti-terrorism force has been
collecting information about peaceful protesters and dissenters and
targeting people for attention on the basis of constitutionally
protected association and advocacy," said Mark Silverstein, legal
director of the ACLU's Colorado chapter. "It lends credence to what a
lot of critics have said: that the FBI is starting to regard some
forms of dissent as potential terrorism."
FBI officials said the interviews stemmed from specific threat
information, but they declined to provide details.
"The interviews reflected in these isolated documents were based on a
specific and credible threat received by the FBI regarding potential
violent criminal activity that could have caused death or serious
bodily injury and was to occur during the Democratic National
Convention," the bureau said in a statement. "It is the FBI's top
priority to prevent any act of terrorism, which requires special
agents of the FBI to thoroughly investigate every credible threat
received."
Bardwell, 21, who helped organize antiwar protests on behalf of a
local chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, said she had
no plans to attend either of the political conventions and was
troubled by the FBI's attempt to interview her and her friends. None
of the activists consented to the interviews.
"It's very clear to me that the purpose of those interviews was to
intimidate activists in the Denver area from exercising their First
Amendment rights," she said.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
Colorado ACLU statement
http://www.aclu-co.org/news/pressrelease/release_JTTF051805.htm
FBI memo
http://www.aclu-co.org/docket/200406/JTTF_file_sarah_bardwell_12-07-04.pdf
San Francisco Police 1988 wiretap memo
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/wiretap1.html
U.S. Justice Departments letter
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/justice_department_letter.html
25 years of Food Not Bombs
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El Kabong
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/17/AR2005051701315.html
Desecration of Koran Had Been Reported Before
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 18, 2005; Page A12
Newsweek magazine's now-retracted story that a military guard at the
U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flushed a copy of the Koran down
a toilet has sparked angry denunciations by the White House and the
Pentagon, which have linked the article to Muslim riots and deaths
abroad.
But American and international media have widely reported similar
allegations from detainees and others of desecration of the Muslim
holy book for more than two years.
James Yee, a former Muslim chaplain at the prison who was investigated
and cleared of charges of mishandling classified material, has
asserted that guards' mishandling and mistreatment of detainees'
Korans led the prisoners to launch a hunger strike in March 2002.
Detainee lawyers, attributing their information to an interrogator,
have said the strike ended only when military leaders issued an
apology to the detainees over the camp loudspeaker. But they said
mishandling of the Koran persisted.
Erik Saar, a former Army translator at Guantanamo Bay who has written
a book about mistreatment of detainees at the military prison, said in
interviews and in his book that he never saw a Koran flushed in a
toilet but that guards routinely ignored prisoners' sensitivities by
tossing it on the ground while searching their cells.
And numerous detainees, whose stories are uncorroborated, have said to
various media outlets that at detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay
and Afghanistan, the Koran was stepped on, tossed on the floor and
placed in latrines.
"They tore the Koran to pieces in front of us, threw it into the
toilet," former detainee Aryat Vahitov told Russian television in June
2004.
Under fire from the White House, Newsweek on Monday retracted the May
9 article in which it reported that a government investigation had
confirmed an instance of a Koran being put in the toilet. Newsweek
editors now say their source, a senior government official, is no
longer sure that the alleged incident is confirmed in the
investigation.
Yesterday, the administration called on Newsweek to explain how it got
the story wrong and to report about U.S. military efforts to ensure
that the Koran is handled with respect. The White House, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have
cited the damage done to the United States' reputation in the Muslim
world by Newsweek's original report.
Yesterday, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita said previous
detainee allegations have not been considered credible.
"I'm not aware that we've ever had any specific, credible allegations
to investigate. We certainly didn't investigate detainees' lawyers on
television saying, 'This is what happened to my detainee,' " he said.
But he added that "in the wake of the Newsweek piece, we thought it
useful to go back and review to be sure."
To Muslims, the Koran is a sacred text that should never be dropped,
defiled or ridiculed. When Newsweek's report was reprinted in the Arab
media, it sparked public protests and riots in Afghanistan and other
countries that left 16 people dead.
Several lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees contended yesterday that
other forms of alleged mistreatment of detainees, some reported in
e-mails by FBI personnel stationed at Guantanamo Bay, have helped fuel
anti-American sentiment in Arab countries. They accused the White
House of being disingenuous about the insults it has already
acknowledged occurred at the base.
The government has acknowledged that two female interrogators have
been reprimanded, one for making sexually suggestive remarks to a
detainee, and the other for smearing fake menstrual blood on a
captive. Detainee lawyers said the purpose of the tactics was to cause
stress based on the prisoners' religious beliefs that they would be
unclean and could not pray.
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FBI allegations of harsh treatment of captives are under investigation
by the Pentagon.
"It's a measure of how deeply our global credibility has suffered that
this inflammatory allegation was given immediate credence," said
Joseph Margulies, an attorney for former detainee Mamdouh Habib. "You
are only prepared to believe this if the U.S. reputation has fallen so
badly. If you learned that a female interrogator smeared fake
menstrual blood on a detainee, as we did learn, then, of course,
you're going to believe that they could throw a Koran in a toilet."
Dozens of detainees have said in declassified court records that
Guantanamo Bay detention officials and military guards engaged in
widespread religious and sexual humiliation of detainees. Detainees
said the goal was to make them feel impure, shake their faith and try
to gain information.
Yesterday, several former detainees said they witnessed military
police and guards at Guantanamo Bay throwing their copies of the Koran
on the ground, stomping on them with their feet, and tossing them into
buckets and areas used as latrines.
Former detainee Abdallah Tabarak told a Moroccan newspaper in December
that he saw guards throw Korans in the toilet, according to a BBC
translation of the article.
"When I wanted to pray, they would burst into my cell with police dogs
to terrorize me and prevent me from praying," he said. "They also
would trample the Koran underfoot and throw it in the urine bucket. We
staged protests in the prison about the desecrating of the Holy Koran,
so the management promised us that they would issue orders to the
American soldiers not to touch the copies of the Koran again."
The Pentagon issued those rules on Jan. 19, 2003, requiring that the
Koran not be placed on "the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the
feet, or dirty/wet areas."
gab
IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY AND CONTINUES TO THIS DAY.news:m3fn81pcfqo8rs678...@4ax.com...
Osric
gab <gab@realitymail.> wrote in message
news:lBPie.232$Eb5....@nnrp1.ozemail.com.au...
> DESECRATION OF CHURCHES AND SYNAGOGUES STARTED BY MUSLIMS IN
CONSTANTINOPLE
> IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY AND CONTINUES TO THIS DAY.
LOL it was the Crusaders that trashed Constantinople
--
Osric
THE BORDERS OF MY COUNTRY
RUN AROUND THE SOLES OF MY FEET
Don W. McCollough
>
> Desecration of Koran Had Been Reported Before
>
> By Carol D. Leonnig
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Wednesday, May 18, 2005; Page A12
>
> Newsweek magazine's now-retracted story that a military guard at the
> U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flushed a copy of the Koran down
> a toilet has sparked angry denunciations by the White House and the
> Pentagon, which have linked the article to Muslim riots and deaths
> abroad.
Or maybe the Pentagon is lying...making false excuses. How many
copies of Newsweek (arabic) make it Iraq anyway?
Norma
"Don W. McCollough" <nos...@thisaddress.com> wrote in message
news:xcQie.7297$6d.4120@trnddc04...
>
> "El Kabong" <poki_pongo at yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:m3fn81pcfqo8rs678...@4ax.com...
>>
>>
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/17/AR2005051701315.html
>>
>> Desecration of Koran Had Been Reported Before
>>
>> By Carol D. Leonnig
>> Washington Post Staff Writer
>> Wednesday, May 18, 2005; Page A12
>>
>> Newsweek magazine's now-retracted story that a military guard at the
>> U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flushed a copy of the Koran down
>> a toilet has sparked angry denunciations by the White House and the
>> Pentagon, which have linked the article to Muslim riots and deaths
>> abroad.
>
> Or maybe the Pentagon is lying...making false excuses. How many
> copies of Newsweek (arabic) make it Iraq anyway?
I don't know numbers, but there is an International edition sold on the
newstands all over the Middle East. I lived there and used to buy all the
news mags.
Norma
<snip>
Felix D.
>
>
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1515&e=1&u=/afp/20050516/wl_mideast_afp/mideastjerusalem_050516140932
>
> Israelis arrested for plotting attack on Islam's third holiest shrine
>
>
> JERUSALEM (AFP) - Nine Jewish extremists were arrested last month on
> suspicion of preparing a rocket attack against Islam's third holiest
> shrine.
>
> The nine were arrested after an operation led by the Shin Beth
> internal security agency on suspicion they intended to buy one or more
> anti-tank missiles for the planned attack on Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa
> Mosque compound, , Israeli security sources revealed Monday.
Now if it had been Arab terrorist plotting to blow up a church or a
synagogue, the PA would do nothing.
Right here is a demonstration of Moslem moral inferiority.
gab
"Osric" <os...@nospambtinternet.com> wrote in message
news:d6gi69$g0b$1...@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
>
> gab <gab@realitymail.> wrote in message
> news:lBPie.232$Eb5....@nnrp1.ozemail.com.au...
>> DESECRATION OF CHURCHES AND SYNAGOGUES STARTED BY MUSLIMS IN
> CONSTANTINOPLE
>> IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY AND CONTINUES TO THIS DAY.
>
> LOL it was the Crusaders that trashed Constantinople-
> YOU ILITERATE FOOL: WAS IT THE CRUSADERS WHO DEFACED THE CATEDRAL sANCTA
> SOPHIA? DID THEY CHANGE IT FROM A CHURCH TO AMPSQUE? IDIOT!
Don W. McCollough
> news:m3fn81pcfqo8rs678...@4ax.com...
>>
>>
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/17/AR2005051701315.html
>>
>> Desecration of Koran Had Been Reported Before
>>
>> By Carol D. Leonnig
>> Washington Post Staff Writer
>> Wednesday, May 18, 2005; Page A12
>>
>> Newsweek magazine's now-retracted story that a military guard at the
>> U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flushed a copy of the Koran down
>> a toilet has sparked angry denunciations by the White House and the
>> Pentagon, which have linked the article to Muslim riots and deaths
>> abroad.
>
> Or maybe the Pentagon is lying...making false excuses. How many
> copies of Newsweek (arabic) make it Iraq anyway?
My bad...that would be Afghanistan. Again, the question stands; How many
copies of Newsweek end up in Afghanistan.
El Kabong
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4560881.stm
Wednesday, 18 May, 2005,
Iraq abuse allegations revealed
Three UK soldiers were dismissed from the Army over the abuse
A lawyer for nine Iraqis who claimed they were tortured by UK soldiers
has revealed details of their allegations of abuse at a camp in Basra
in 2003.
Phil Shiner said evidence from the alleged victims had been "swept
under the carpet" at a court martial that convicted four soldiers from
the camp.
It is alleged an Iraqi was asked to cut off another man's finger and
another kicked so hard he became infertile.
The MoD said all the allegations made by Mr Shiner were being
investigated.
They include allegations from a man who claims he was the victim in
the now notorious photograph of a bound Iraqi suspended from a
forklift truck.
"Trophy" photos of this and other alleged abuse led to the court
martial at Osnabrueck in Germany, but Mr Shiner described it as a "put
up job". Two of the soldiers are appealing.
ALLEGED ABUSE
Iraqis beaten with iron bars
Made to drag cart
Put in cage and bombarded with scrap metal
Kicked in genitals
Told to cut off man's finger
Made to run holding cement blocks
Mr Shiner said a number of the victims had volunteered to give
evidence at the court martial but they were not called and their
accounts were ruled inadmissible.
The lawyer says he was told he could not reveal the victims' evidence
during the trial as this would be regarded as contempt of court.
But Attorney General Lord Goldsmith denies issuing a "gagging order".
He said the new allegations could be investigated fully.
This was now being undertaken by the Royal Military Police, he added.
Mr Shiner accused the attorney general of being "grossly deficient" in
exercising his duties which include supervising the Army Prosecuting
Authority.
If Lord Goldsmith did not grant a public inquiry within 14 days Mr
Shiner would go to the High Court, he said.
"Here there is the clearest evidence that the military are incapable
of prosecuting and investigating themselves.
"If they are allowed to, all we get is a whitewash and a few bad
apples thrown to the dogs."
The MoD said all the allegations were already being investigated, and
that four cases had been referred to prosecutors for a decision on
whether to bring charges.
"There is no evidence of any systematic or repeated abuse by any
members of the armed forces," a spokesman said.
"But nevertheless the Army has decided that two senior officers should
review the evidence emerging from the court martial relating to
incidents of deliberate abuse with a view to learning lessons and
making recommendations to the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir
Michael Jackson."
The alleged victims say Iraqis were beaten by soldiers with iron bars,
made to run around a shed holding cement blocks above their head and
put in an iron cage while soldiers threw scrap metal at them.
One man says he was given a knife and told to cut off the finger of
another man. That man was forced to simulate oral sex.
It is also alleged a soldier made an Iraqi tow a cart, while beating
him with a car aerial.
Another man said he was kicked in the genitals so hard that a doctor
has told him he cannot have children.
Steve Walker
> On Thu, 19 May 2005 07:01:02 -0400, El Kabong <poki_pongo at
> yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>> ALLEGED ABUSE
>> Iraqis beaten with iron bars
>> Made to drag cart
>> Put in cage and bombarded with scrap metal
>> Kicked in genitals
>> Told to cut off man's finger
>> Made to run holding cement blocks
>
Would you tell Ken Bigley's family that he was a cry baby?
Me
"Steve Walker" <spam...@beeb.net> wrote in message
news:3f3eteF...@individual.net...
>
El Kabong
PHOTO
http://story.news.yahoo.com/photo/050519/photos_wl_me_afp/050519102551_148uflnj_photo0
A man paints the US flag on the ground in the southern Iraqi city of
Najaf. Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr urged Muslims across Iraq to paint
US and Israeli flags at mosque entrances for worshippers to walk on in
protest at the alleged desecration of the Koran at the US detention
camp in Guantanamo.(AFP/Qassem Zein)
Sadr urges Iraqis to trample on US flag over Koran desecration
NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) - Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr urged Muslims across
Iraq to paint US and Israeli flags at mosque entrances for worshippers
to walk on in protest at the alleged desecration of the Koran at the
US detention camp in Guantanamo.
"In the name of God, the faithful of Iraq, especially those resisting
the occupiers, have to respond to the desecration of God's immortal
book by drawing the Israeli and US flags at the entrances of mosques
and husseiniyas (prayer rooms) and all places of worship," said a
statement issued by Sadr's movement.
Iraqis at several Shiite mosques in Baghdad and the holy city of Najaf
where Sadr lives had started painting the flags on Thursday, AFP
correspondents reported Thursday.
"Whoever does that will be waging a jihad (holy war) against infidels
and unbelievers," the fiery cleric said in his statement.
El Kabong
Sister Meriam from Occupied Iraq - Today's Alternative News
May 18, 2005
We want the Americans to go back home. Iraq is our country, not
theirs.
However, the Americans seem to think it is their country. It is not
theirs now, nor will it ever be theirs, unless they kill all of us,
men, women and children.
We are raising our children to resist this illegal, this immoral, this
un-Christian occupation. I am a Christian, my husband is a Muslim, we
both want the Americans out. They are causing us nothing but harm,
sickness, poverty and lawlessness.
We did not like Saddam Hussein, but at least under him we had clean
drinking water, good hospitals, food on the table, safety in the
streets and our homes were not attacked day and night by foreign
troops. All we have now is misery, poverty, disease and fear. We never
know when American troops will raid our homes, steal our jewels and
money, rape our women, beat our men and scare our chidren.
I am an educator in Baghdad. The trauma suffered by our children will
last for generations. This trauma will also make these children hate
the Americans and the British, but the Americans more because we know
that George Bush Jr. was behind this rape our country, its schools, it
culture and its people.
We will continue fighting back against this occupation, this rape, so
long as any of us has a breath or an ounce of blood. We also know our
Arab and Muslim and Christian brothers and sisters will come from
other lands to help us drive out these devils that dress in the
clothes of Americans. We also know that there are many Israelis here,
both the Mossad and military advisors, and investors who are trying to
steal our oil, our land and our resources. One day, we shall drive
them all out, and may God punish these evil-doers. May Jesus Christ
himself lead the charge against these devils who call themselves
Christians and Jews. My husband prays that all Muslims will come to
our aid, and I hope for Christians to stand up in their lands and
condemn these devils who wear come to do us great harm.
I hope this letter will awaken some to understand that we do not want
the Americans here and we will do all we can to drive them out and we
will not rest until they are all gone.
Go home to your wives, your children, to your loved ones, do not stay
here to torture and kill us, for us if stay, God will surely punish
you and your country and you will lose your limbs, your life and also
eventually your souls, your families and you will end us with
nightmares and sickness from the Depleted Uranium and your own sense
of guilt for having killed Iraqis for the devil himself, George W.
Bush — may he be damned unto hell itself and burn eternally.
Article nr. 11844 sent on 19-may-2005 02:13 ECT
The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=11844
Paulo Gomes Jardim
<nos...@thisaddress.com> wrote:
> Or maybe the Pentagon is lying...making false excuses. How many
> copies of Newsweek (arabic) make it Iraq anyway?
Newsweek never claimed that the history was false.
The only thing they said was that the source had misidentified the
military report on which his story was based and, on Newsweek opinion, was
no longer reliable.
--
"Humanity has many enemies. The worst of them are ignorance, arrogance,
extremism, and violence" - Abbas Kadhim