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THE
MONTHLY SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN NEWS
 Ponerology: The Science of Evil Now Available!Preface to the book Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes by Laura Knight-Jadczyk Political Ponerology, by Dr. Andrew M. Lobaczewski, may be the most important book you will ever read; in fact, it WILL be. No matter who you are, what your status in life, what your age or sex or nationality or ethnic background, you will, at some point in your life, feel the touch or relentless grip of the cold hand of Evil. Bad things happen to good people, that's a fact. ~ Read More ~ - Order your copy now! - Is the Israeli Army not kind, gentle, and thoughtful? Under this picture, the New York Times had this caption: "A Gaza home destroyed by Israel Monday. The Israeli Army called the homeowner to warn him about the attack, and his family was evacuated.?" Which can only leave you with this impression: Is the Israeli Army not kind, gentle, and thoughtful? Qana: Exterminating the Ants In order to understand the racist brutality of the latest Qana massacre, it is instrumental to look at the previous Qana massacre. James Bovard writes: "When you see the photos of corpses of young children being dragged from the Qana rubble, remember: These are not human beings. These are terrorists. And Israel announced ahead of time that, because they were in south Lebanon, they were legitimate targets," as Haim Ramon made sure to inform us. In his blog entry, Bovard quotes from his book, Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil: The refugees' fury will be felt for generations to come Israel is seeking to cast itself as the victim even as it expels the people of Lebanon and Gaza from their homes People walk the dusty, broken roads in scorching summer heat, taking shelter in the basements of empty buildings. In Gaza and Lebanon, in the refugee camps of Khan Younis, Rafah and Jabaliya, in Tyre and Beirut, in Nabatiyeh and Sidon, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children seek refuge. As they flee, they risk the indiscriminate wrath of an enemy driven by an existential mania that can not be assuaged, only stopped. Ambulances are struck, humanitarian relief convoys are struck, UN observers are struck. Warning leaflets are dropped from the sky urging people to abandon their homes, just as they were in 1996, 1982, 1978, 1967 and 1948. The ultimately impossible decision in Gaza and Lebanon today is: where does a refugee go? End game between Israel and Hezbollah The kill ratio is becoming a problem: Israel has been killing about 40 Lebanese civilians for every Israel civilian who is killed. They are all being killed by accident, of course, but such a long chain of accidents begins to look like carelessness, and even in Israel and the United States many people are getting uneasy about the slaughter. Elsewhere, the revulsion at what is happening is almost universal, and the death of so many women and children at Qana has greatly intensified the pressure on Israel and its de facto allies, the United States and Britain, to stop the war. Qana Massacre... Although the sun is blinding this time of year in our part of the world, the Middle East is seeing some of its darkest days...I woke up this morning to scenes of carnage and destruction on the television and for the briefest of moments, I thought it was footage of Iraq. It took me a few seconds to realize it was actually Qana in Lebanon. The latest village to see Israeli air strikes. The images were beyond gruesome- body parts and corpses being hauled out from under tons of debris. Wailing relatives and friends, searching for loved ones... So far, according to humanitarian organizations, 34 were children. They killed them while they were sleeping inside their bomb shelters- much like the Amriya Shelter massacre in 1991. Israeli Propaganda: It's Everywhere  Click to enlarge
Israel Admits No Hizb'allah Rockets Fired From Qana As the Israel Air Force continues to investigate the air strike, questions have been raised over military accounts of the incident. It now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time. The Israel Defense Forces had said after the deadly air-strike that many rockets had been launched from Qana. However, it changed its version on Monday. Hizbullah's attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon NEW YORK - As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism. Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense. Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict. Mainstream Press Deliberately Misrepresents Iranian PM Yet Again By now most of the Western world believes that Iranian Prime Minister Ahmadinejad is a raving "anti-Semite", that is, that he "hates the Jewish people simply because they are Jews", and if you read today's news, (the headlines at least, which is as far as most people get) you could be forgiven for believeing that he has reconfirmed his 'Jew-hating' mania. Atrocities in Gaza, Lebanon Motivated By Talmudic Mentality One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail." (New York Daily News, Feb. 28, 1994, p.6) When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's suggested on 22 June that Jewish lives were worth more than Palestinian lives, he was actually making an ideological statement of immense significance and symbolism. The plainly racist remarks, a repugnant taboo in any western country, encapsulate the entire Zionist discourse toward non-Jews in general an Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arabs and Muslims in particular. Freedom to Fascism - A Must-See Film by Aaron Russo Aaron Russo has produced an important and powerful documentary film titled Freedom to Fascism that should be must viewing for everyone. It's now playing in theaters in selective cities around the US and hopefully will be shown abroad as well as what happens in the most powerful country on earth affects all others for better or worse. No one seeing this film will doubt it's frighteningly for the worst. Sleeping With The Enemy - The Answer To The "Why" Of War On Saturday night July 30th 2006, in the Lebanese village of Qana,64 Lebanese civilians, comprising the members of two extended families, were sleeping in an unfinished building... Exclusive interview with the Palestinian Vice-Prime Minister Naser Shaer : "The Palestinians are strongly united against the sanctions" Doctor Naser Dine Muhammad Ahmad Shaer is the Vice- Prime Minister and Minister of Education and higher earning in the Palestinian government formed by Hamas. Born in 1961, originally from Nablus, father of six children, this professor of law and legislation, rector of the Faculty of Law at the National University of Al Najah, hunted by Israel, finds himself obliged to live in clandestinity. He talks here about a subject the "West" refuses to admit: that Hamas is well integrated into the social fabric and that, confronted with Israeli oppression - as with the Lebanese and Hezbollah -Hamas is "like a fish in water" in Palestine. The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime! WorldCantWait.org
We must act now; the future is in the balance. [ Click here to participate in the October 5th day of Mass Resistance! ] Doctoring Photographs or Censoring War Crimes?The war lovers and child massacre apologists at Ynet News and obvious government psyop faux right wing cut-out alternative news site 'Little Green Footballs' (LGF) have taken the fact that a Reuters photographer, Adnan Hajj, blatantly "cloned" smoke in image of an Israeli bombing in Lebanon to not-so-subtly suggest that all of Reuters images from Lebanon might be faked and therefore that we should all ignore Israeli massacres in Lebanon. Hope Hope is often a fragile thing. We hope for so much, yet we seem to attain so little. Looking back, we see our hopes are often based upon illusion, and it is therefore not surprising that they are dashed, that they amount to nothing. And if it is so with our petty, individual hopes, what of our hopes for the world at large? What of the hope for peace, for a world free from violence and war and fear, a world where the needs of everyone are met? Kevin Zeese Challenges Rep. Cardin on Israel "Time's glory is to unmask falsehood and bring truth to light." - William Shakespeare. In an action unprecedented in Maryland politics, Kevin Zeese, an Independent candidate in Maryland for the U.S. Senate, has demanded that an incumbent congressman, who has close ties to the powerful Israel Lobby, break his silence on Israeli wrongdoing. Is Israel Allowing Hezbollah to Kill Its Citizens? For the honest historian, it comes as no surprise government either kills its own citizens or allows enemies to do the same in an effort to score propaganda points or as an excuse to commence hostilities. Examples are numerous, from FDR denying Americans passport and travel documents to let them flee the Japanese onslaught of the Philippines in the lead up to the Second World War (see US prisoners claim Roosevelt left them in Philippines deliberately) to Operation Northwoods, a plan drawn up by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to stage fake terror attacks in America (including assassination, airplane hijacking, and sinking of boats) in order to devise a pretext to invade Cuba. Strange Attractors - Is the destruction of Lebanon a prelude to a wider conflagration? Outrage, anger and disbelief seem to be the most common responses to the US/Israeli destruction of Lebanon, understandably given the sheer ferocity of the attack but let us not let it get in the way of trying to figure out why the pirates resorted to such measures that were sure to ignite a wave of resistance and horror. Did You Know Did you know that the UN in southern Lebanon suspects that Israel is manufacturing non-existent raids to pacify public opinion as Hizbollah missiles continue to fly across the frontier?! Comments on Helen Caldicott's New Book: Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer No one writes with more passion, commitment and knowledge about the immense dangers of nuclear technology in all its forms than Australian physician and nuclear expert Helen Caldicott. Since writing her first book (must reading for everyone), Nuclear Madness, in 1978, Dr. Caldicott has worked tirelessly to expose the real threat this technology from hell poses to human survival. In her first book she wrote: "As a physician, I contend that nuclear technology threatens life on our planet with extinction. If present trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard far greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced." Summer of Goodbyes... Residents of Baghdad are systematically being pushed out of the city. Some families are waking up to find a Klashnikov bullet and a letter in an envelope with the words "Leave your area or else." The culprits behind these attacks and threats are Sadr's followers- Mahdi Army. It's general knowledge, although no one dares say it out loud. In the last month we've had two different families staying with us in our house, after having to leave their neighborhoods due to death threats and attacks. It's not just Sunnis- it's Shia, Arabs, Kurds- most of the middle-class areas are being targeted by militias. Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong Whatever we think of Israel's assault on Lebanon, all of us seem to agree about one fact: that it was a response, however disproportionate, to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah. I repeated this "fact" in my last column, when I wrote that "Hizbullah fired the first shots". This being so, the Israeli government's supporters ask peaceniks like me, what would you have done? It's an important question. But its premise, I have now discovered, is flawed. Issa Nakhleh: the Fascist Character of the Israeli State Ehud Olmert's political party, Kadima, currently leading the murderous charge in Lebanon, was forged out of Likud, and Likud out of Herut, the political party of Zeev Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism, a movement at odds with socialist Zionism and taking its cues from Benito Mussolini and fascism. Thinking in terms of the other side The Israel Defense Forces is not only the biggest local player in the economy and the economy of images, but it also has learned over the years how to become the Israeli "ego ideal." Thus, the army is not only "just like us," like the neighbor across the way, whose intentions are good and who takes his dog out once a day; it is also our best, what we would like to be if we were really good. Not only is it ready to sacrifice its life; it thinks rationally, intellectually, logically, efficiently, and most of all, it has the rare ability to predict the future. Psychopaths Murder Children - You Pick Up The Tab Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "I believe this is a war which is fought by all the Jews," the Israeli prime minister said in a conference call and webcast Monday.'Blair, Olmert and Bush are murderers' "Expanding and strengthening" the onslaught against the people of Lebanon. That was Israel's response to the international outcry over the slaughter of 56 civilians, most of them children, in Qana. And with the world's eyes turned to the increasingly savage offensive in southern Lebanon, Israel has tightened the noose of collective punishment around the Palestinians in Gaza. Accompanying all this are the barely concealed calls in Washington for an assault on Iran and Syria. Into the Valley of Death: "Israel Has Made Itself the Least Safe Place in the World for a Jew to Live" "I am in blood
stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er." --Macbeth Israel's capacity to shed Arab blood has remained undiminished since its creation, winning it territory but no real friends or security and promising it a violent and unrewarding existence. One main lesson of the past three weeks---the first Middle East conflict fought on Israeli rather than Arab lands---is that Israel's aggression can no longer be conducted with impunity. Fox News Audience Laughs at Lebanese Deaths (with video) The audience for Fox News' "Dayside" sank to a new low on Tuesday (August 8, 2006) during discussion of the fighting along the Israeli-Lebanese border. FOX claims American consumers fund Hizbullah (with video) These people are truly insane. FOX wants us to believe a nitwit, who comes on national tv pimping his POS book on Hizbullah (no doubt written and produced long before the war) and insisting that Hizbullah, a national resistance organization that has its hands full defending its country against a pack of rabid Zionists in the south, has time to set up shop in the US to swindle American consumers by selling fake baby formula and fake viagra? They must be on crack. CNN Poll - Do you believe alternative theories for the September 11, 2001, attacks are credible? 70% of respondents believe 9/11 "conspiracy theories". This is the REALITY. Why isn't the mainstream press reporting it? Why is the mainstream press continuing to ridicule the rational beliefs of a majority of American citizens?? The New Middle East: Be careful what you wish for, you might actually get it. "What we're seeing here, in a sense, is the growing -- the birth pangs of a new Middle East and whatever we do we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the new Middle East not going back to the old one." -- Condoleezza Rice in a Press Conference on July 21, 2006. Madam Secretary, one question please: Will your country claim the newborn if it happens to be the wrong color? I remember reading about the new Middle East in a document written back in 1996 called A Clean Break:A New Strategy for Securing the Real (ACB) . It was authored by a group of policy advisors to Israel. Subsequently, nearly all members ascended to influential policy making positions within US government, media, and academic circles and were instrumental in taking the US to war against Iraq under false pretenses. Many of the ACB policies, such as toppling the government of Iraq, are now in full implementation and present new challenges to the global community. The ACB contained six pages of policy recommendations for then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The authors of this policy paper included Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser amongst others, who became known as the Neo-conservatives or Neocons for short. God's chosen people There is no turning back. It is time to learn a new lesson: We do no longer recognize the state of Israel. We could not recognize the South African apartheid regime, nor did we recognize the Afghan Taliban regime. Then there were many who did not recognize Saddam Hussein's Iraq or the Serbs' ethnic cleansing. We must now get used to the idea: The state of Israel in its current form is history. We Are Untouchable We are the Israeli Government. We are untouchable. No matter what we do, the international community will not act against us. Oh, there will be talks at the United Nations but we know that the United States will intervene on our behalf. There will be Arab League discussions but we know that no state will take action against us. There will be mass protests and demonstrations; there will be activists and advocates begging for peace; there will be rallies and fund-raisers to help the targets of our bombs. And we know that nothing will make a difference because we are Zionists - Jews were victims of the holocaust. Jews have suffered such that we have the right to use their suffering to make the rest of the world pay (even though organized Zionism officially declared war on Germany in 1933, long before Hitler's Final Solution and then aided the Nazis in their death camps). Because we are victims. Letter From The Palestinian Resistance, March 1988 From a letter written by members of the Palestinian underground resistance in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to a rally in Paris, France, on March 3, 1988, organized by an ad-hoc committee of supporters of Palestinian human rights. Sadly, nothing has changed in the intervening 18 years... My Mother Will Never Dance Again... Last week , (Aug 7th) the SOTT Team sat down to watch Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, which I highly reccommend to anyone who thinks that there is any semblance of honest and factual news reporting by the Zionist controlled media in the U.S. What I didn't know was that, as I was watching this documentary, my 85 year old mother, in the U.S., was having a massive stroke - what is called a CVA. I learned about it after I had gone up to get ready for bed. It was late, and the phone rang... the call you always know will come when you have an aged parent, but you never believe that today will be the day. When Contemplating the War On Terror - Beware of 'Baby Bombers' Such was the extent of the negative exposure that the British government received from reports that mothers at UK airports were being forced to taste and dump their baby milk to prove they are not "terrorists", the British government has today invented an utterly racist and xenophoic "explanation" for these obvious fascist policies... Liquid Bomb Pakistan Link Is False Flag Smoking Gun Veracity of liquid explosives method also put under dubious doubt. Revelations concerning the origins and connections of the alleged liquid bomb terror plot to Pakistan and the 7/7 bombings in London provide a strong indication that the operation, known for months yet deliberately timed for public release, was a synthetic ruse concocted by the Bush/Blair cabal to re-package the flagging war on terror. The Might Of Israel  Lebanese Abbas Wehbeh shouts
while holding his
10 day-old niece Waad, 08 August, 2006
The above picture
says it all. Can you feel
his choking rage and grief, the sting of the tears streaming down? The
dislocation of one reality into another?Tea and rockets: café society, Beirut-style This week: A close shave in downtown Beirut and why you'll never find our man in a flak jacket. In the early hours, motor-cycle riders have been racing down the Corniche outside my home. Petrol is cheap for motor-cycles, and at first I curse the roar of their machines. Then I realise that their insouciance is a form of resistance. In their special way, they are denying the war, refusing to be cowed. The New American Insurgency - Look Now Towards the Mirror Now I officially HAVE seen everything. While my calendar tells me that it's 2006, it might as well be Nazi Germany in the 1930's all over again. Newt Gingrich is calling for some new terminology for my friends and I who are non-appreciative of the current US wars. Seems that we will all be labeled as either "enemies" or part of the "insurgency." Clever way to start the civil war that divides us all quite neatly into two distinct camps, huh? That's what fascist governments have done throughout history in order to keep the people from uniting against the beast ... that is, those in control of their government. Israel Kills 38 Civilians on Eve of Ceasefire Israel Kills 38 Civilians on Eve of Ceasefire; Hersh: Israeli Campaign Dress Rehearsal for War on Iran; 250 Hizbullah Rockets Slam into northern Israel, Kill 1 Descent Into Moral Barbarism Should Alan Dershowitz Target Himself for Assassination? As Israel's military bravely fires away shells and missiles to lay waste the fragile human and physical infrastructure of Lebanon, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, waging battle on a second front to legitimize Israel's criminal aggression, bravely fires away op-eds from his foxhole at Martha's Vineyard to lay waste the fragile infrastructure of international law. These are but the latest salvoes in Dershowitz's long and distinguished career of apologetics on behalf of his Holy State. Discourse of the Mean Spirits: False Mantras, Euphemisms and Naked Hypocrisy In the face of a major Israeli war of aggression against Lebanon many politicians and pundits have sought to justify the Israeli actions, throwing in an occasional lame rebuke. It is instructive to dissect some of the commonly heard mantras that have been repeated ad nauseam, before being replaced by others. Desert of trapped corpses testifies to Israel's failure They made a desert and called it peace. Srifa - or what was once the village of Srifa - is a place of pancaked homes, blasted walls, rubble, starving cats and trapped corpses. But it is also a place of victory for the Hizbollah, whose fighters walked amid the destruction yesterday with the air of conquering heroes. So who is to blame for this desert? The Shia militia which provoked this war - or the Israeli air force and army which has laid waste to southern Lebanon and killed so many of its people? There was no doubt what the village mukhtar thought. As three Hizbollah men - one wounded in the arm, the other carrying two ammunition clips and a two-way radio - passed us amid the piles of broken concrete, Hussein Kamel el-Din yelled to them: "Hallo, heroes!" Then he turned to me. "You know why they are angry? Because God didn't give them the opportunity of dying." Apologists with evil minds There appears to be a direct relationship between the increasing ugliness and immorality of this war and the extreme lengths to which Israel's supporters will go to justify it. This was brought home to me recently in three separate debates, one in print, two on television. What I clearly saw at work in these exchanges was how Israel's apologists use verbal overkill paralleling Israel's use of overwhelming military force. They will admit no wrong. They attempt to bully opponents into submission. They deny history and morality. And, maybe most disturbing of all, they seek to present this war (as they have sought to present many of Israel's previous wars) in exaggerated and near apocalyptical terms. Mad Dog On A Leash "We should prepare to go on the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai."~~David Ben-Gurion, May 1948 I have been stunned by many things on the US political scene since I was jerked violently awake on Nov. 22, 1963. However, one thing that simply flew under the cuckoo's nest of my awareness was the total influence on our Congress; the control of our media, our courts, our universities, our entire society -- even our religion -- by the state of Israel. I had no idea. I've learned a lot about both Israel and the United States in the last five years -- most of which I fervently wish I didn't know. I learned very quickly in the wake of 9-11 that the neoconservatives in the US claim an ideological right -- the Zionists in Israel a theological right -- to do whatever they want to whomever they want whenever they want, and those who question their increasingly bloody aggression are labeled "anti-American" or "anti-Semitic." Those who protest are ostracized from both religious and patriotic society (not to be confused with "civilized" society) and are immediately bombarded with ridicule and vicious ad hominems. Some receive death threats. Some receive death. Hezbollah's Victory and the Coming Shock and Awe of Iran It is said the United States has "scaled-back" its "expectations" now that the United Nations has declared a "ceasefire" in Lebanon. "The U.N. agreement is only the most recent example in which Bush's second-term doctrine of spreading freedom has run into the realities of international and domestic politics," notes the Baltimore Sun. Actually, Bush's doctrine, which has nothing to do with democracy as most people understand the word, ran into the reality of Hezbollah, the most effective resistance movement in the world. Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible? Binary liquid explosives are a sexy staple of Hollywood thrillers. It would be tedious to enumerate the movie terrorists who've employed relatively harmless liquids that, when mixed, immediately rain destruction upon an innocent populace, like the seven angels of God's wrath pouring out their bowls full of pestilence and pain. The funny thing about these movies is, we never learn just which two chemicals can be handled safely when separate, yet instantly blow us all to kingdom come when combined. Nevertheless, we maintain a great eagerness to believe in these substances, chiefly because action movies wouldn't be as much fun if we didn't. Now we have news of the recent, supposedly real-world, terrorist plot to destroy commercial airplanes by smuggling onboard the benign precursors to a deadly explosive, and mixing up a batch of liquid death in the lavatories. So, The Register has got to ask, were these guys for real, or have they, and the counterterrorist officials supposedly protecting us, been watching too many action movies? We're told that the suspects were planning to use TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a high explosive that supposedly can be made from common household chemicals unlikely to be caught by airport screeners. A little hair dye, drain cleaner, and paint thinner - all easily concealed in drinks bottles - and the forces of evil have effectively smuggled a deadly bomb onboard your plane. Or at least that's what we're hearing, and loudly, through the mainstream media and its legions of so-called "terrorism experts." But what do these experts know about chemistry? Less than they know about lobbying for Homeland Security pork, which is what most of them do for a living. But they've seen the same movies that you and I have seen, and so the myth of binary liquid explosives dies hard. Home Front: Dispatches from the War on America While your attention has been diverted by the proxy war in Lebanon, the civil war in Iraq, the still-hot shootin' war in Afghanistan and the coming war with Iran, the Bush Regime been busy waging -- and winning -- another take-no-prisoners, give-no-quarter conflict right in the sacred Homeland itself: class war. I know, I know: we don't have "classes" in America. No, our society is flatter than a flitter; we're all born on the same level playing field, lined up together at the same starting gate, given the same amount of seed corn to plant on identical plots of rich topsoil. We're all subject to the same laws, which are applied equally to everybody, all the time, regardless of race, creed, color, national origin or sexual orientation. Who would deny these self-evident truths -- except perhaps for those same churls who refuse to acknowledge the seasonal beneficence of Santa Claus or the wonder-working power of the Easter Bunny? And in truth, the epic despoliation now being wrought by the Bush Regime upon the overwhelming majority of the American people does not fall neatly into classic (or classist) Marxist categories. For one thing, Marx's bête noir, the bourgeoisie, are getting it in the neck along with everybody else. In fact, now that the poor have essentially been erased from public consciousness, wiped out by decades of savage Right-wing rollback, and "tough love" from corporate-coddling, welfare-whacking "New" Democrats, the middle class and its "privileges" -- higher education, affordable health care, job security, pensions, government services and regulatory protections, civil liberties, etc. -- have become primary targets of the Bushists' bold attempt to return American society to the glory days of the Gilded Age, where rapacious robber barons held untrammeled sway. Venezuela Leading the Race For the UN Security Council Seat In October, elections will take place for five non-permanent UN Security Council seats to be held in 2007. One of them will be for the Latin American seat now held by Argentina. The two leading regional contenders vying to fill the opening are Venezuela and Guatemala, and the other countries in the region comprising Latin America and the Caribbean (GRULAC) will vote on which one gets it. If they're unable to reach a consensus, which may happen, the choice will be up to the General Assembly where it will take a two-thirds majority secret ballot vote process to select the winner. It's not hard to know which country the US supports and why it's doing all it can to subvert the chances of the other one. Guatemala has been a close US ally ever since the CIA fomented a coup in 1954 to oust the country's democratically elected leader Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. Ever since, the country has been run by a succession of oppressive military and civilian governments that turned Guatemala into pariah state compiling the hemisphere's worst human rights record that never ended even after the 1996 UN brokered Peace Accords that officially ended a brutal 36 year civil conflict waged mainly against the country's indigenous Mayan majority that resulted in the state-sponsored murder of 200,000 or more of its people. Wall Street Journal Rhapsodizes Over Sham UN Resolution to End Lebanon War On its editorial page at least the Wall Street Journal is consistent. It never fails to disappoint or miss an opportunity to misinform its readers. The August 16 article by the right wing Hoover Institution George Shultz Senior Fellow and former US State Department legal advisor in the 1980s Abraham Sofaer is just the latest example. The article is a typical Journal litany of propaganda, distortion, and deliberate misstatement of facts. It's what we've come to expect from an editorial page only hard right supporters and proponents of empire would love. It's not what we should expect from a former Columbia University School of Law professor who surely knows the law well and shouldn't twist it to misinform his readers when he writes about it. Why Do We Hate Them?  Fear and
Loathing in the Occident
Islamophobia
is a mental and
spiritual affliction. And our Western ruling elites bear the
responsibility for inflicting it upon the psyches of the masses.Now that the Stalinist/Maoist regimes
have collapsed or evolved toward capitalism and no fascist states with
imperial ambitions exist (besides the United States and its few
allies), the American Empire needed to find a new "enemy" to replace
Stalinists and Nazis. Much of the soft power employed by the leaders of
America's "top down democracy" stems from psychological manipulation of
"the mob". The UK Terror Plot: What's Really Going On? I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers to try and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail the so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security experts doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the very highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin machine. So this, I believe, is the true story AIPAC, the Religious Right and American Foreign Policy "Most citizens are unaware of the startling fact that for years our U.S. Middle East policy has not been crafted by seasoned experts who are committed to America's basic national interests." -- Paul Findley, U.S. Republican Congressman, (1961-83) "Thank God we have AIPAC, the greatest supporter and friend we have in the whole world," -- Ehud Olmert, Israel's Prime Minister "Either I make policy on the Middle East or AIPAC makes policy on the Middle East." -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter Administration National Security Adviser . Nobody can understand what's going on politically in the United States without being aware that a political coalition of major pro-Likud groups, pro-Israel neoconservative intellectuals and Christian Zionists is exerting a tremendously powerful influence on the American government and its policies. Over time, this large pro-Israel Lobby, spearheaded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), has extended its comprehensive grasp over large segments of the U.S. government, including the Vice President's office, the Pentagon and the State Department, besides controlling the legislative apparatus of Congress. It is being assisted in this task by powerful allies in the two main political parties, in major corporate media and by some richly financed so-called "think-tanks", such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, or the Washington Institute for Near East Policy . Israel is 'preparing for more fighting' Any chance of long-term peace between Lebanon and Israel all but vanished last night after Amir Peretz, the Israeli defence minister, said his country was preparing for another round of fighting. Mr Peretz spoke only hours after Israeli commandos mounted a raid deep inside Lebanon. Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, said it was a violation of the week-old UN ceasefire. After Lebanon, Israel is looking for more wars Late last month, a fortnight into Israel's war against Lebanon, the Hebrew media published a story that passed observers by. Scientists in Haifa, according to the report, have developed a "missile-trapping" steel net that can shield buildings from rocket attacks. The Israeli government, it noted, would be able to use the net to protect vital infrastructure -- oil refineries, hospitals, military installations, and public offices -- while private citizens could buy a net to protect their own homes. The fact that the government and scientists are seriously investing their hopes in such schemes tells us more about Israel's vision of the "new Middle East" than acres of analysis. Israel: a State built on lies The outcome of Israeli military's own inquiry into Qana II was to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International something far from the truth. HRW said that the massacre of at least 28 Lebanese - mostly children and women -- on July 30 was the "latest product" of Israel's indiscriminating bombing. Amnesty added that Israel had a history of either not investigating civilian deaths or conducting flawed inquiries. It was the same excuse this time as the one Israel offered for the horrific killing of 106 Lebanese refugees and four UN soldiers by artillery fire on a UNIFIL compound at the same village of Qana in Lebanon ten years ago. On both occasions, Israel did not know there were civilians at the targeted points. So pretended Israel's leaders. And they claimed that they were aiming only at Hezbollah each time. Where was Hezbollah? Among so many dead there was not one Hezbollah body nor any relic of its equipment either in 1996 or in 2006. No Evidence on Patsy Rashid Rauf Now that we are well on our way to instituting "behavioral profiling," that is to say "looking at your background so when your passenger list comes up we start identifying people that need more scrutiny," at airports in the United States and Britain in the wake of the "liquid bomb" non-threat a week and a half ago, the corporate media is reporting that Rashid Rauf, initially pegged as the plot "key planner" and a close relative of Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar who went over the al-Qaeda dark side, is in fact not what he is cracked up to be, or rather what the corporate media, listening to Pakistan's duplicitous ISI, basically a branch office of the CIA, made him out to be. JonBenet Ramsey and Abeer al-Janabi Overseas readers who don't watch US-based cable news may not know that there is a news blackout on the 24 hours news stations, which have shown endless hours of useless speculation on a ten year old small town murder case. Why the cable news channels in the US behave in this stupid and lemming-like fashion no doubt has to do with the severe discipline of the advertising market and its dependence on ratings. I.e., news has to generate 20 percent profits, which it cannot do, and so lurid infotainment is substituted. It is also possible that they are deliberately attempting to turn American gray matter into mush so as to ensure that nobody on this continent notices what is really going on around them. Alternatives To the Collapsed WTO Doha Round Talks On July 24, 2006, World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy was forced to halt the five years of negotiating of the so-called Fourth WTO Ministerial Doha Round that began in Doha, Qatar in November, 2001 and ended (for now, at least) in Geneva, Switzerland. The talks had been ongoing to strike a trade deal but broke down because the US, as usual, demanded all take and little give in return expecting it could strong-arm developing nations to accept whatever it proposed as it's always been able to do in the past. The Lobby On the Israel/Zionist lobby in America and its influence on US policy: Why strategically and tactically focusing on this lobby maybe important . Why did the British Empire and all colonial powers before it use "divide and conquer" while the US government seems intent on unifying diverse groups from Iraqi resistance to Sunni Hamas to Shi'i Hizballah to Arab Nationalists? This administration talks and acts based on a supposed common threat and in the process ofcourse unifying others and creating enemies. Perhaps the Zionist coined "Islamofascism" term should be a hint. Perhaps those who think tribally can only think of others as equally tribal: if there is a Jewish nation and not simply a religion then there must also be an Islamic nation and not simply a religion. If "goyim/gentiles" are inherenltly anti Jewish then it would make sense to lump Castro, Chavez, Nasrallah and Ahmedinujad (and hence help them find common ground)! Or does it? Looking carefully at these questions sometimes generates discomfort in both left and right circles. A lifelong pacifict once stated that they were put on this earth to comfort the afflicted and make the comfortable uncomfortable. It is IMHO important to engage in open discussion regardless of where one stands on these matters. The following four pages are not intended to be a comprehensive analysis but hopefully strings to begin this needed discussion. I would suggest actually that the Council for National Interest, ADC or other groups host a conference specifically to delve deeper into the questions raised. The Truth about the "Terror Plot".... and the new "pseudo-terrorism" I am disappointed to say that so far there has been very little serious critical discussion, grounded in factual analysis, of the alleged "Terror Plot" foiled on the morning of Wednesday, 10th August 2006. Except for a few noteworthy comment pieces, such as Craig Murray's critical speculations published by the Guardian last Friday, the mainstream media has largely subserviently parroted the official claims of the British and American governments. This is a shame, because inspection of the facts raises serious problems for the 10/8 official narrative. Patriot Acts Let's see. A frightened mob selects a couple victims, accuses them of being would-be criminals without any evidence whatsoever, forcibly robs them of the cost of transcontinental airfare, and threatens anyone (pilots and airline personnel) that questions either their verdict or their right to exact "justice." There's only one word for this. It's vigilantism, pure and simple. It's no different than any other kind of lynch mob. And it is beneath the dignity of a civilized society. Israel itching to finish the job Unable to achieve its goals in Lebanon, the Israeli government has been left with egg on its face. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his neophyte minister of defense, Amir Peretz, are fighting for their political lives. Israeli newspapers demand their resignations as well as that of the bungling Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, who early in the conflict chose to bomb women and children instead of risking boots on the ground. Just about the only person in the world who is publicly patting these losers on the back is the American president, George W. Bush -- kudos to him for managing to keep a straight face. What he's saying behind closed doors, though, isn't hard to guess. Indeed, some Israelis have asked whether their country's usefulness to the White House might now be severely eroded. Can Anything Be Done? Many readers have praised me for my courage in broaching taboo subjects and stating obvious truths. Others denounce me for "being unpatriotic and distrusting our government." One reader, Susan Hartman, wrote to me that I was obviously in the pay of Islamic Jihadists and that she had reported me to the FBI. Singing Paeans ToTheir Fallen Cannon Fodder  Dr. Andrej Lobaczewski writes in his seminal work 'Political Ponerology' (now available from QFGpublishing.com)... The Terrorist Patsy That Wouldn't Play Ball The problem with carrying out terror attacks and then blaming it on Muslim patsies is that if you don't silence the patsies for good, they tend to 'sing', and in the case of Muslim Cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, keep on 'singing'... The Palestinian Vice-Prime Minister kidnapped by Israel - Tasneem Shaer: "My father is not a terrorist" The Palestinian Vice-Prime Minister, Mr Naser Shaer, was kidnapped on 19 August by Israeli soldiers. Few weeks ago, Voltairenetwork published an exclusive interview with this very respectful personality by the Palestinians. Mr Naser Shaer, 45 years old, became Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of Education in the new Palestinian Government formed by Hamas on March 2006. Former rector of the Faculty of Law at the National University of Al Najah in Nablus, Mr Shaer is a moderate person. He does not belong to any political party, and is not a member of Hamas as widespread in the media. Tasneem, his eldest daughter, gives to Voltairenetwork, in a very simple and sober way, her account of the abduction of Mr Shaer and the bad and humiliating conditions of his detention. Courage and Resistance in Oaxaca and Mexico City It began on May 15 this year when teachers belonging to the 70,000 strong National Union of Education Workers in Oaxaca, Mexico took to the streets for the first time to press their demands to the state government to address their long-neglected needs. They included restructuring teachers' salaries, improving the deplorable educational infrastructure forcing teachers to conduct classes in laminated cardboard shacks, a lack of books and other educational materials and providing food for the many impoverished children who come to school each day hungry.
Wake up, America! Israel is no friend of yours While Us citizens benefit from the arab world, they don't know they're on the losing end with Israel. The so-called "special relationship" between the the US and Israeli governments is well known. It goes without saying that the vast majority of Americans wholeheartedly support their nation's love-fest with Israel. Most Americans feel an affinity with Israelis to the detriment of Arabs. How mistaken they are! The fact is that while Americans benefit hugely from the Arab world, little do they know they are on the losing end when it comes to Israel. Psychologists, Guantanamo and Torture For years, the varied mental health professions in the United States have been fighting turf wars. Psychiatrists tried to keep psychologists from being able to conduct therapy or, more recently, from prescribing psychotropic medications. Psychologists fought for rights to conduct these treatments. Psychologists, in turn, fought the attempts of their Masters-level colleagues for professional recognition. Social workers, mental health counselors, and psychoanalysts each fight for recognition against opposition from others. Third of Americans suspect 9-11 government conspiracy More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll. The Olives Have Not Departed Lebanese poet, Ghassan Matar, wrote this poem (The Olives Have Not Departed) yesterday on the massacre of Qana (my translation): "The Monster is hiding And Qana, the dark-skinned girl is sleeping by her grandmother dreaming of pretty butterflies and toys and flying in a field of olives she sits under a water wheel to lift up her hair, and she sees lighted grapes like tablets of gold, and she sees her father embedded in the rock embracing his rifle, and in his eyes are flags of dignity and rage, she gets scared, and wakes up, Why Bush's Stupidity Is a Threat The president's ignorance, on display for the world to see, would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous. "We discussed a lot of issues. The Prime Minister has laid out a comprehensive plan. That's what leaders do. They see problems, they address problems, and they lay out a plan to solve the problems. The Prime Minister understands he's got challenges and he's identified priorities." -- President George W. Bush, joint press availability with Nouri al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq, July 25, 2006The truly shocking thing about that bizarre statement is that it wasn't even in response to a question. Those were Bush's opening remarks. He did, one assumes, actually meet with Maliki. And they must have talked about something. But Bush doesn't seem to have been listening. Instead, he sounds like a college kid bullshitting in section because he didn't do the assigned reading. "We talked about security in Baghdad," Bush observed, delving into specifics. "No question the terrorists and extremists are brutal." Banking on War Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. - Dwight D. EisenhowerOnly the dead, said Plato, have seen the end of war. As true as this may be, it does beg the question: why? Why is there so much conflict in the world? Why are there so many wars? White House Proposal Would Expand Authority of Military Courts to Create Police State in U.S. A draft Bush administration plan for special military courts seeks to expand the reach and authority of such "commissions" to include trials, for the first time, of people who are not members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban and are not directly involved in acts of international terrorism, according to officials familiar with the proposal. The plan, which would replace a military trial system ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in June, would also allow the secretary of defense to add crimes at will to those under the military court's jurisdiction. The two provisions would be likely to put more individuals than previously expected before military juries, officials and independent experts said. Constitutional showdown? How openly can a president express his displeasure with a law without actually vetoing it? President Bush has been pushing the limit by offering far more statements than any of his predecessors, at the time he signs a bill into law, as to whether he will enforce certain provisions. These disapproving signing statements have come under increasing attack - as they should. Last week, Sen. Arlen Specter, who heads the Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill that would allow Congress to challenge a signing statement that disputed the words or meaning of a statute. The bill's prospects are uncertain, but at least Mr. Specter is willing to stand up to yet another assertion of power by an arrogant White House. Pulling the Plug on Israel - No Peace Without Justice, No Justice Without Truth Whether or not it has reached critical mass, there exists a heterogeneous agglomeration of Jewish people around the world-- e.g., moi--for whom the state of Israel has come to represent an 800-pound albatross that needs to be pried from our necks before it drags us over a cliff. A sense of urgency is propelled by the U.S.-sanctioned bloodletting in Lebanon and Gaza (which now seems to have been planned in advance) and the evident flimsiness of its official justification. With Israeli adventurism on the march, there are well founded fears concerning the general threat that country poses to the peace of the world. Knife in the Back The day after the war will be the Day of the Long Knives. Everybody will blame everybody else. The politicians will blame each other. The generals will blame each other. The politicians will blame the generals. And, most of all, the generals will blame the politicians. War Crimes and Responsibility of the Bush Administration "A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang." -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Father of the American Constitution. "Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime." -- Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). "It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955). Can a democracy turn fascist and militaristic? It sure can, and that is the most severe threat a democracy can ever face. The 20th Century example was Germany in the 1930's. -The Nazi Party was elected in November 1932, with only 33.1 percent of the votes, but when its leader Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933, it immediately began subverting the German Weimar Constitution by concentrating political power in its own hands, while increasing military expenditures. The Nazi government then suspended a number of constitutional protections of civil liberties under the pretext of external and internal threats to its security. The following steps taken by Nazi Germany were to initiate a series of illegal wars of aggression against other countries. This culminated with World War II in which more than 50 million people died. This draft shows who is running America's policy... Israel So the great and the good on the East River laboured at the United Nations Security Council - and brought forth a lemon. You could almost hear the Lebanese groan at this draft resolution, a document of such bias and mendacity that a close Lebanese friend read carefully through it yesterday, cursed and uttered the immortal question: "Don't these bastards learn anything from history?" And there it all was again, the warmed-up peace proposals of Israel's 1982 invasion, full of buffer zones and disarmament and "strict respect by all parties" - a rousing chortle here, no doubt, from Hizbollah members - and the need for Lebanese sovereignty. It didn't even demand the withdrawal of Israeli forces, a point that Walid Moallem, Syria's Foreign Minister - and the man the Americans will eventually have to negotiate with - seized upon with more than alacrity. It was a dead UN resolution without a total Israeli retreat, he said on a strategic trip to Beirut. Noam Chomsky on Israel, Lebanon and Palestine Do you agree with the argument that Israel's military offensive in Lebanon is "legally and morally justified?" Noam Chomsky: The invasion itself is a serious breach of international law, and major war crimes are being committed as it proceeds. There is no legal justification. The "moral justification" is supposed to be that capturing soldiers in a cross-border raid, and killing others, is an outrageous crime. We know, for certain, that Israel, the United States and other Western governments, as well as the mainstream of articulate Western opinion, do not believe a word of that. Sufficient evidence is their tolerance for many years of US-backed Israeli crimes in Lebanon, including four invasions before this one, occupation in violation of Security Council orders for 22 years, and regular killings and abductions. To mention just one question that every journal should be answering: When did Nasrallah assume a leadership role? Answer: When the Rabin government escalated its crimes in Lebanon, murdering Sheikh Abbas Mussawi and his wife and child with missiles fired from a US helicopter. Nasrallah was chosen as his successor. Only one of innumerable cases. There is, after all, a good reason why last February, 70% of Lebanese called for the capture of Israeli soldiers for prisoner exchange. Israel, Racism, and the Canadian Media In the Canadian media, Israel is provoked, and then responds. For the military attacks on the Gaza Strip in late June and early July, we are told that the provocation was the June 25 operation by Palestinian resistance fighters against a military outpost near Gaza, and specifically the capture of an Israeli tank gunner. The Palestinian operation, according to most Canadian media, was unprovoked - it could not have been provoked by the Israeli attacks leading up to the operation, though in June alone these had already killed 49 Palestinians. Nor could it have been provoked by the imprisonment of 359 Palestinian children, 105 Palestinian female adults and another 9000+ Arab males (mostly Palestinians) in Israeli jails, or by the mass starvation of Gaza. As a June 30 editorial in the Globe and Mail put it, "the onus for resolving the confrontation lies with Hamas," and while Palestinians must quietly endure tank shelling, air strikes and starvation, "Israel is within its right to respond to terrorism and violence." Where there's smoke, there's liars How do you like your lies served up? When it comes to news we care about, we all have our preferences. Especially in this part of the world, which is renowned for its cultural contributions to the art of embroidering, embellishing, dancing around, and flat-out ignoring what may be called, for lack of a more cosmetic term, the truth. In honor of this week's doctored photograph affair here are three of the more prominent variations. Take your pick: How the US fired Jack Straw Signs Comment:
Jack Straw said two things:
1) That he could not see any way in which an attack on Iran would ever be advisable. 2) That once the problems with Iran's nuclear ambitions were resolved, it would be time to move on and deal with the threat to Middle East peace posed by Israel's nuclear capability. Naturally, these remarks were not in sync with US plans for the Middle East, but more importantly, they are not in sync with Israeli plans for the Middle East. So tell me, who really holds the reins of power in this world? Is it Zionism after all? This is Zionism  This is Zionism. Raja' Abu Sha'ban, 4, was killed by Israeli missiles in Gaza yesterday. She was caught launching missiles on Israel. Don't feel sorry for her. It is Lebanon, not Israel, that faces a threat to its existence in this war The Franco-US resolution is an absurdity: it would give Israel immunity while denying Lebanon the right to defend itself. As Lebanon is brought to its knees, and Israeli leaders promise yet more of the same, there is something truly extraordinary about the manner in which the war on Lebanon is being portrayed as a war for Israel's survival, as if it were the existence of the Jewish state that were at risk. Robert Fisk: Israel's promise of humanitarian corridors is exposed as a sham So much for Ehud Olmert's "humanitarian corridors". Two weeks after the Israeli Prime Minister's comforting assertion - which no one in Lebanon believed - the Israeli air force has blown up the last bridge across the Litani river, in effect ending all humanitarian convoys between Beirut and southern Lebanon. Requests from humanitarian organisations for clearance from the Israelis are now being refused. Even the Red Cross admits there is now, in effect, a blockade on a vast area along the Lebanese border where thousands of civilians are still cowering in their homes. Israel Must Be Held Accountable For Its International Law Violations On June 25, the Palestinians responded to continued, unrelenting and unjustifiable Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) attacks against them by striking at an Israeli military post near Kerem Shalom crossing, southeast of Rafah, killing two IDF soldiers, injuring several others, and capturing (not "kidnapping) a third. It set off a swift and deadly IDF response of daily killings and mass destruction in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)against defenseless Palestinians helpless in the face of the relentless IDF onslaught. Mothers wail, 'What human would ever do this?' [Editor's note: The answer is simple: the people doing this are not human in the terms we understand] About 55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut Government University Hospital are 15 or younger, hospital records show. "This is worse than during the Lebanese civil war," Bilal Masri, assistant director of the hospital, one of Beirut's largest, told IPS. Not only are most of the patients children, but many of the injured are in serious condition, he said. "Now we have a 30 percent fatality rate here in Beirut. That means that 30 percent of everyone hit by Israeli bombs are dying. It is a catastrophe." Days of darkness In war as in war: Israel is sinking into a strident, nationalistic atmosphere and darkness is beginning to cover everything. The brakes we still had are eroding, the insensitivity and blindness that characterized Israeli society in recent years is intensifying. The home front is cut in half: the north suffers and the center is serene. But both have been taken over by tones of jingoism, ruthlessness and vengeance, and the voices of extremism that previously characterized the camp's margins are now expressing its heart. The left has once again lost its way, wrapped in silence or "admitting mistakes." Israel is exposing a unified, nationalistic face. The devastation we are sowing in Lebanon doesn't touch anyone here and most of it is not even shown to Israelis. Those who want to know what Tyre looks like now have to turn to foreign channels - the BBC reporter brings chilling images from there, the likes of which won't be seen here. How can one not be shocked by the suffering of the other, at our hands, even when our north suffers? The death we are sowing at the same time, right now in Gaza, with close to 120 dead since the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, 27 last Wednesday alone, touches us even less. The hospitals in Gaza are full of burned children, but who cares? The darkness of the war in the north covers them, too. Learning from Its Mistakes In his memoir, Not So Wild a Dream, the famous CBS correspondent Eric Sevareid recalled watching the execution of six Nazi collaborators in the newly liberated city of Grenoble in 1944. When the police van arrived and the six who were to die stepped out, a tremendous and awful cry arose from the crowd. The six young men walked firmly to the iron posts, and as their hands were tied behind the shafts they held their bare heads upright, one or two with closed eyes, the others staring over the line of the buildings and the crowd into the lowering clouds . . . There was the jarring, metallic noise of rifle bolts and then the sharp report. The six young men slid slowly to their knees, their heads falling to one side. An officer ran with frantic haste from one to the other, giving the coup de grâce with a revolver, and one of the victims was seen to work his mouth as though trying to say something to the executioner. As the last shot was fired, the terrible, savage cry rose again from the crowd. Mothers with babies rushed forward to look on the bodies at close range, and small boys ran from one to the other spitting upon the bodies. The crowd dispersed, men and women laughing and shouting at one another. Barbarous? Terror Nation: Lies, Injustice, and the American Empire's Way Terror Nation simply obliterates those who dare to challenge its rights to oppress and to exploit humanity.... Remember, good patriots, we are at war with Islam, Socialism, Communism, drugs, crime, illegal immigration, Gays, labor unions, liberal university professors, peace activists, environmentalists, Anti-Semites, secular humanists, and all those who pose a threat to the United States. Each of these groups shares culpability for the terrorism which has killed several thousand of US, British, Spanish, and Israeli citizens since 2001. They are a cancer upon the American Way and must be excised. Freedom and liberty will prevail despite their onslaught of evil. Collapse of the Flanks In Iraq and Afghanistan, the "coalition" defeats continue slowly to unroll. In Lebanon, it appears Hezbollah may win not only at the moral and mental, strategic and operational levels, but, astonishingly, at the physical and tactical levels as well. That outcome remains uncertain, but the fact that it is possible portends a revolutionary reassessment of what Fourth Generation forces can accomplish. If it actually happens, the walls of the temple that is the state system will be shaken world-wide. Mercenary Jackpot: US Pays Blackwater $320 Million in Secretive Global 'Security' Program While the Bush Administration calls for the immediate disbanding of what it has labeled "private" and "illegal" militias in Lebanon and Iraq, it is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into its own global private mercenary army tasked with protecting US officials and institutions overseas. The secretive program, which spans at least twenty-seven countries, has been an incredible jackpot for one heavily Republican-connected firm in particular: Blackwater USA. Government records recently obtained by The Nation reveal that the Bush Administration has paid Blackwater more than $320 million since June 2004 to provide "diplomatic security" services globally. The massive contract is the largest known to have been awarded to Blackwater to date and reveals how the Administration has elevated a once-fledgling security firm into a major profiteer in the "war on terror." Thank God For Non-Richochet Bullets Let me give you a little scenario to ponder: An innocent man who offers no suggestion that he is a threat in any way, is murdered on a London train with 7 point blank shots to the head of the victim over a 30 second interval by an UK police officer with Scotland Yard's elite CO19 gun squad. In a sane world, what should happen to this officer? Reprimand? Dismissal? Jail time? | ||||||||||||||
