Israel issues 1460 new housing permits for East Jerusalem settlements

Ongoing construction at the untra-Orthodox Beitar Ilit settlement



Israel issues 1460 new housing permits for East Jerusalem settlements

In another blatant violation of the promise made in Annapolis in September 2007 by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to halt settlement construction, the Israeli Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim announced Friday that he will be issuing permits for 1,460 new housing units in three Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land in East Jerusalem.

The announcement came just days before the Israeli Prime Minister plans to visit Washington to report on the progress of the peace process. After the so-called 'Annapolis Summit', which was a one-day meeting between Israeli and Palestinian factions in Annapolis, MD in the US, Ehud Olmert announced that all new construction in Israeli settlements must be approved by both himself and the Defense Minister. But despite that promise, construction has continued unabated in a number of West Bank settlements.

Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim said in an interview with the Kol Hai radio station on Friday that the permits for the 1,460 new units were meant as a “gift to the city [of Jerusalem] on the 41st anniversary of its emancipation." This is a reference to the creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian land in 1947, and the subsequent disenfranchisement of the hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians living on the land.

The settlements in question are: Har Homa, built on land stolen from the Palestinian residents of Beit Sahour municipality, Pisgat Ze'ev, built on land stolen from the Palestinian village of Hizma, and Beitar Ilit, built on land stolen from Palestinians south of Jerusalem. The new units to be constructed will be 120 units in Har Homa, 600 units in the settlement of Beitar Ilit and 700 units in Pisgat Ze'ev.

In April, when the permits for the new units gained initial approval, Israeli journalist Uzi Benjamin wrote in the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, “There is no doubt about it: The ultra-Orthodox factions have become the spearhead of the settlement enterprise over the Green Line, and they are busy competing with one another over which of them will lead it...Olmert tries to pretend that his response to their demands is mere small change, but in fact they are dictating the agenda with regard to settlement over the Green Line and, in this way, they have an influence over the entire Israeli-Palestinian arena.”

In 2006, when these three settlements were widely expanded with the approval of the Israeli government, Palestinians pleaded with Israel to cease the ever-increasing encroachment onto Palestinian land in the West Bank. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said at the time, “This act of expanding settlements, is a choice for more obstacles and more problems and more violence. I really hope that the new government will stop this.” Instead, the government of Ehud Olmert announced a plan to lay down final borders for the Israeli state by 2008.

Over 30,000 Orthodox Jews live in Beitar Ilit alone. All Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem are in direct violation of international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.

Depleted Uranium Destroys Iraq's Genetic Future

An Iraqi child and the effects of US/Israel's depleted uranium warfare



Depleted Uranium Destroys Iraq's Genetic Future

(NaturalNews) The use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by the U.S. military may lead to a death toll far higher than that from the nuclear bombs dropped at the end of World War II.

DU is a waste product of uranium enrichment, containing approximately one-third the radioactive isotopes of naturally occurring uranium. Because of its high density, it is used in armor- or tank-piercing ammunition. It has been fired by the U.S. and British militaries in the two Iraq wars and in Afghanistan, as well as by NATO forces in Kosovo and the Israeli military in Lebanon and Palestine.

Inhaled or ingested DU particles are highly toxic, and DU has been classified as an illegal weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.

The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority has estimated that 50 tons of DU dust from the first Gulf War could lead to 500,000 cancer deaths by the year 2000. To date, a total of 2,000 tons have been generated in the Middle East.

In contrast, approximately 250,000 lives were claimed by the explosions and radiation released by the nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"More than ten times the amount of radiation released during atmospheric testing [of nuclear bombs] has been released from DU weaponry since 1991," said Leuren Moret, a U.S. nuclear scientist. "The genetic future of the Iraqi people, for the most part, is destroyed. The environment now is completely radioactive."

Because DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, the Middle East will, for all practical purposes, be radioactive forever.

The two U.S. wars in Iraq "have been nuclear wars because they have scattered nuclear material across the land, and people, particularly children, are condemned to die of malignancy and congenital disease essentially for eternity," said anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott.

Since the first Gulf War, the rate of birth defects and childhood cancer in Iraq has increased by seven times. More than 35 percent (251,000) of U.S. Gulf War veterans are dead or on permanent medical disability, compared with only 400 who were killed during the conflict.

Doesn't this just make you wanna kill somebody? I'm neither Iraqi nor Afghan but this just makes me see red! So sick, what America and Israel have become...

IBB wants Obasanjo probed

IBB wants Obasanjo probed

Former Military ruler and self-styled evil genius, General Ibrahim Babangida has endorsed the probe of the eight years rule of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, saying it is a welcome development for Nigeria.

Babangida who spoke in Sagamu, Ogun State said there was nothing unusual to probe the tenure of Obasanjo in view of the series of allegations of corruption leveled against the former President and members of his cabinet, noting that former president Obasanjo embarked on similar excercise when he took over in 1999.

"There is nothing new in the probe. Obasanjo did the same when he first came and it is not a new thing if he is probed," IBB said while answering questions from reporters.

THE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), had said it had commenced investigation into the eight-year administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Olusegun Obasanjo

Announcing the commencemnet of the probe of the Obasanjo administration,the Head, General Investigations of the anti-graft agency, Mr. Sanda Umaru, said: "We are fighting the same cause. The truth of the matter is that we are on that issue (probing Obasanjo administration) at the moment. We want everyone to know that we are on it and definitely we will get to where we are going.

The probe of Obasanjo was sequel to series of petition sent to the EFCC from various interest groups and the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP).

CNPP had urged the EFCC to " invoke the powers of the Commission as provided in the EFCC Act, to investigate and prosecute Chief Olusegun Obasanjo's clan of lucrative holdings."

The specific allegations levelled against Obasanjo by CNPP include that he withdrew over N1trillion from the NNPC and Federation Accounts with neither authority nor appropriation by the National Assembly. CNPP described such withdrawals as "gross economic and financial crime. The Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission severally fought to stem the tide of the withdrawals scourge; as a last resort it has no alternative but sue the Executive." It said Obasanjo even wrote to the Senate requesting for the dismissal of the RMAFC chairman, Alhaji Hamman Tukur, be cause of the suit.

CNPP also charged that Chief Obasanjo, "during his tenure, illegally appointed himself the minister of petroleum resources, contrary to section 147 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Secondly, his activities in the oil industry were shrouded in secrecy, as he never rendered proper accounts of the oil revenue to relevant agencies like the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC). Thirdly, it is also on record that neither Federal Executive Council nor National Assembly was ever presented memoranda or budget of the oil industry."

The petitioners said, "As Petroleum Minister, the transaction detail was only between himself and the Managing Director of NNPC. Our investigation shows that between 2000 and 2006, Nigeria lost over $130billion unaccounted revenue. A thorough investigation will crack the secrecy and reveal the wanton billon of dollars and that had vanished from the sales book."

Another allegation was that "between 1999 and 2006, over $ 1billion was spent on refineries rehabilitation. The rehabilitation failed and Nigeria was criminally left at the mercy of international oil market fluctuation". In the twilight of his regime, CNPP said, Obasanjo "sold the refineries to his cronies as scraps. For simple logic dictates that equipment is more profitably marketed if functional than sold a scrap. In the case of Kaduna refinery he spent over $200m to repair it and auctioned it at $106m."
advertisement

With regards to NITEL's sale during the Obasanjo era, CNPP said Investors International Limited (ILL) of London, which at first bought NITEL, "is owned by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo cronies and was induced into buying up NITEL. In the process First Bank Plc. was approached to raise the loan for the payment of 10% first payment in to bid of $1.37billion. The bank in obedience to Mr. President lent $100m (One Hundred Million Dollars) to ILL, which the company paid as part of the required 10% deposit to Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) in lieu of NITEL shares. The loan became controversial as a lot of questions were raised as it contravened Bank and Other Financial Institution Act (BOFIA) 1991. The BOFIA states clearly that no Bank can give a loan to a single client in excess of 35% of the value of its shareholders fund. In the midst of the controversy, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo withdrew $100m from the Federation Account without appropriation by National Assembly to offset NITEL indebtedness to the bank, just before the auction took place."

Among other Obasanjo-era transactions that CNPP wants EFCC to probe are the sale of the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) to the second highest bidder, the Russian firm Russel, for $205million even though the American company BFIG made the highest offer of $410m. CNPP said "Russel was paid $160m for the dredging of Imo River, allowed to open an escrow account, which BFIG was denied." It also said, "The puzzle today is that ALSCON was handed over the Dayson Holding BVI and not Russel. We appeal to EFCC to unravel who owns the offshore company Dayson Holding and how much was paid to Nigeria through the BPE."

CNPP also asked for probes of the sales of Ajaokuta Steel Company, Hilton Hotel, and NICON Insurance Plc, the Integrated Power Projects and University Teaching Hospital equipment contracts, which it said "were awarded by presidential fiat," as well as the $7.7billion spent to build substations, transmission lines and gas pipelines which have not taken off. "Geregu, Omotosho, Papalanto and the seven power projects are without gas pipelines, substations and transmission lines and will not in the near future supply us energy", it said.

CNPP also wants EFCC to probe the Egbin power station contracts, the sales of Federal Government houses "at pea-nut prices", the N10 billion it said was spent on poverty alleviation projects, the N100 million Plateau State ecological fund money that former governor Chief Joshua Dariye said he donated to the Obasanjo campaign, the N6.4billion Obasanjo Presidential Library project and Bell Schools, the many Customs duty waivers granted by the Obasanjo regime, and the 200 million Transcorp shares that Obasanjo bought.

115 US soldiers committed suicide in 2007...

115 US soldiers committed suicide in 2007

A US soldier killed
two US officers & attempted
to kill several other US officers

American soldiers committed suicide in 2007 at the highest rate on record, and the toll is climbing ever higher this year as long war deployments stretch on. At least 115 soldiers killed themselves last year, up from 102 the previous year, the Army said Thursday.

Nearly a third of them died at the battlefront — 32 in Iraq and four in Afghanistan. But 26 percent had never deployed to either conflict.

"We see a lot of things that are going on in the war which do contribute — mainly the longtime and multiple deployments away from home, exposure to really terrifying and horrifying things, the easy availability of loaded weapons and a force that's very, very busy right now," said Col. Elspeth Ritchie psychiatric consultant to the Army surgeon general.

"And so all of those together we think are part of what may contribute, especially if somebody's having difficulties already," she told a Pentagon news conference.

Some common factors among those who took their own lives were trouble with relationships, work problems and legal and financial difficulties, officials said.

More U.S. troops also died overall in hostilities in 2007 than in any of the previous years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Violence increased in Afghanistan with a Taliban resurgence, and U.S. deaths increased in Iraq even as violence there declined in the second half of the year.

Increasing the strain on the force last year was the extension of deployments to 15 months from 12 months, a practice ending this year.
advertisement

The 115 confirmed suicides among active-duty soldiers and National Guard and Reserve troops who had been activated amounted to a rate of 18.8 per 100,000 troops — the highest since the Army began keeping records in 1980. Two other deaths are suspected suicides but still under investigation.

So far this year, the trend is comparable to last year, said Lt. Col. Thomas E. Languirand, head of command policies and programs.

As of Monday, there had been 38 confirmed suicides in 2008 and 12 more death that are suspected suicides but still under investigation, he said.

The rate of suicide continues to rise despite a host of efforts the Army has made to improve the mental health of a force under unprecedented stress from the longer-than-expected war in Iraq and the long and repeated tours of duty it has prompted.

The efforts include more training and education programs for troops and their families. Officials also have hired more mental health workers, increased screening to measure the psychological health of soldiers and worked to reduce any stigma that keeps them from going for treatment when they have symptoms of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress and other emotional problems.

"More than any time in history, our soldiers and their commanders are armed with information about combat and its impact on psychological health," said Brig. Gen. Rhonda L. Cornum, assistant surgeon general for force protection.

"We still believe there is more to be done, and we are committed to maximizing prevention" and treating those who need help, she said.

Suicides have been rising nearly each year of the five-year-old war in Iraq and the nearly seven years of war in Afghanistan. The 115 deaths last year and 102 in 2006 followed 85 in 2005 and 67 in 2004. The rate of 18.8 per 100,000 last year compared to a rate of 17.5 in 2006 and 9.8 in 2002 — the first full year after the start of the war in Afghanistan.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the suicide rate for U.S. society overall was about 11 per 100,000 in 2004, the latest year for which the agency has figures. The Army said that when civilian rates are adjusted to cover the same age and gender mix that exists in the Army, the civilian rate is more like 19.5 per 100,000.

Other findings in the 2007 report included:

*93 of the 115 suicides were active duty troops; 22 were members of the Army National Guard or Reserve who had been mobilized, five were women.

*In addition to completed suicides, there were 166 attempted suicides among troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and 935 over the whole Army.

*Young, white, unmarried junior enlisted troops were the most likely to attempt suicide.

*Firearms were the most common method for those who succeeded in killing themselves. Overdoses and cutting were the most common for all attempts.

*30 percent of all cases reportedly involved drugs and/or alcohol; rates were higher for failed attempts.

*The majority of people who committed suicide did not have known histories of mental disorders.

*Six percent of suicides and eight percent of attempts reportedly were among people who had prior diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

*Fifty percent of soldiers who killed themselves had recently suffered a failed relationship with a spouse, girlfriend or other loved one.

*Seven percent of those who killed themselves — and of those who attempted to — had served multiple tours of duty to the wars.

*The highest number of attempts occurred among soldiers who were in the second quarters of their tours.

The Army, which is the largest force serving in both of the wars, is the only service to release annual figures on suicides as well as lengthy reports it gathers every year by polling troops at the war fronts on mental health issues.

President Bush's buildup of forces in Iraq last year — the number peaked at over 170,000 — led officials to increase tour lengths to 15 months. With a drawdown under way, officials are terminating the longer tours and returning to 12-month deployments.

Officials said they hoped that would help ease the strain on troops. But a number of other efforts have failed to make a dent in the rising suicide rates.

Among those efforts are a bolstered suicide prevention program, as well as a program last year in which 900,000 troops were taught how to recognize mental health problems in themselves and others.

Since troubled relationships rate as a main trigger for suicides, the chaplain corps is expanding its "Strong Bonds" program to teach troops and families how to improve relationship-building skills.

The "Battlemind" program helps troops and family member on what to expect before a deployment and identifies problems to look for after homecoming.

Officials also approved the hiring of more than 300 additional psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals and have so far hired 180 of them.

Hundreds of New testament text burned in Israel

Remember when the Nazis did it too?



Hundreds of New testament text burned in Israel

(CNN) -- Police in Israel are investigating the burning of hundreds of New Testaments in a city near Tel Aviv, an incident that has alarmed advocates of religious freedom.

Investigators plan to review photographs and footage showing "a fairly large" number of New Testaments being torched this month in the city of Or-Yehuda, a police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said Wednesday.

News accounts in Israel have quoted Uzi Aharon, the deputy mayor of Or-Yehuda, as saying he organized students who burned several hundred copies of the New Testament. The deputy mayor gave interviews to Israeli radio and television stations after word of the incident surfaced about two weeks ago.

Soon he was talking with Russian, Italian and French television stations, "explaining to their highly offended audiences back home how he had not meant for the Bibles to be burned, and trying to undo the damage caused by the news (and photographs) of Jews burning New Testaments," The Jerusalem Post reported.

Aharon told CNN on Wednesday that he collected New Testaments and other "Messianic propaganda" that had been handed out in the city but that he did not plan or organize a burning. Instead, he said, three teenagers set fire to a pile of New Testaments while he was not present. Once he learned what was going on, he said, he stopped the burning.

The episode has worried defenders of Israel's minority population of Messianic Jews, who consider themselves Jewish but believe in the divinity of Jesus, as do Christians. It also has concerned evangelical Christians in North America, Europe and Asia, who visit Israel by the hundreds of thousands.

Calev Myers, an attorney for Messianic Jews in Israel, told CNN he plans to file a formal complaint Thursday with the national police at the request of the United Christian Council in Israel, an umbrella organization for a few dozen Christian organizations outside Israel.

"I hope the people who are responsible for breaking the law will be indicted and prosecuted," he said.

About 200 New Testaments were burned, Aharon said, but he saved another 200.

His goal was to stop attempts to distribute Christian literature in the city, he said.

Myers, however, said he doubts that Messianic Jewish missionaries distributed the New Testaments. He said it's not clear how the volumes found their way into homes in Or-Yehuda.

The deputy mayor told CNN he respects the New Testament and would not do what has been done to the Jews in the past -- a reference to Nazi burning of Jewish and other books in the 1930s, and other occasions when Jewish texts, including sacred ones, were burned.

Myers said his complaint will ask the authorities to investigate possible violations of two Israeli laws. One forbids the destruction or desecration of any religious icon or item that a group holds sacred. Another bans people from speaking publicly in a way that offends or humiliates a certain religion.

Both laws are meant to prevent people from inciting religious violence, he said.

The burning controversy has unfolded against the backdrop of other instances that Myers cited as examples of discrimination against Messianic Jews in Israel.

About two months ago, the teenage son of a Messianic pastor was severely injured when a package delivered to his home exploded, Myers said. In addition, several rabbis urged students to boycott further participation in a Bible competition after they learned that one winner -- a high-school student in Israel -- was a Messianic Jew, he said.

Groups such as the Anti-Defamation League have sharply criticized the burning of New Testaments.

"We condemn this heinous act as a violation of the basic Jewish principles and values," said Rabbi Eric J. Greenburg, director of interfaith policy for the Anti-Defamation League. "It is essential that we respect the sacred texts of other faiths. The Jewish people can never forget the tragic burning of sacred Jewish volumes at many points in history."

"While there may be legitimate concerns of proselytizing, these matters must be addressed through the proper legal channels," Greenburg said in a statement. "It is unacceptable and not legitimate to burn someone else's sacred texts."

Israel wipes out Palestinian food bowl, kills farmer

Israel wipes out Palestinian food bowl, kills farmer

May 21, 2008

GAZA, (PIC)-- The agriculture ministry in the PA legitimate government in Gaza Strip asserted on Wednesday that the IOF troops had bulldozed vast agricultural areas in the eastern sector of the Gaza Strip which is considered the food basket of the 1.5 million Palestinians living there.

According to a report issued by the ministry and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC, the Israeli occupation army uprooted fruitful trees and destroyed greenhouses and artisan wells in Shokeh and Sofa villages, east of Khan Younis city over the past week in addition to ruining poultry farms estimated at 1.5 million dollars.

The report, furthermore, added that Palestinian farmers in Qarara and Al-Buraij areas, east of Deir Al-Balah city, weren’t able to reach and cultivate their farms for fear that the IOF troops stationed opposite to their farms could shoot and kill them "in cold blood" any time.

Palestinian farmer Ali Al-Dahdouh, 32, was killed with IOF bullets while cultivating his farm in Juhr Al-Deik area, east of the tiny Strip, a couple of days ago.

Raising the alarm, the ministry warned that the brutal IOF practices against the Palestinian people and land were badly affecting the food basket of the Gaza Strip in addition to jeopardizing all aspects of life there.

For its part, the Authority of Environment Quality (AEQ) in the Gaza Strip seconded the warning of the PA agriculture ministry, warning further that cutting of trees and using them for cocking due to the severe shortage in the cocking gas as a result of the Israeli embargo would badly affect the Gaza Strip's ecology, and would contribute to increasing the temperature there.

The Israeli occupation government had been imposing a wing-clipping comprehensive economic blockade on the populated Strip that had, so far, reaped the lives of more than 160 Palestinian patients suffering of chronic diseases but were banned by the IOA from receiving medical treatment outside the beleaguered Gaza hospitals.

In this concern, the AEQ urged the international community and all concerned organizations to immediately intervene and pressure the occupation to stop its aggression against the Gaza Strip and its people.

Anti-semitism; a Jewish fraud?

Anti-Semitism; a Jewish fraud?

When you have built a house of cards, it is important that none of the cards is removed or of course the house will fall. Lets say for example you represent that the ace of spades in your deck is that the Jews of Modern Israel are somehow genetically related to the Judeans of the Bible. For this reason you assert a claim to Palestine. The king of clubs that Palestine was a land without a people and that modern Jews were a people without a land(pay no attention to those refugee camps). The queen of hearts that your people are long suffering, even more than the run of the mill person burned at the stake for not embracing Jesus in the Middle Ages. The jack of diamonds that Israel sitting on it's nuclear stockpile and modern weaponry provided by its American benefactor is somehow threatened by it's neighbors. And well you get the idea. If anyone challenges any of these assertions you have a problem. You need a term that will strike terror in the hearts of any of those who would actually challenge your fraudulent assertions. A term that would come to represent something far worse than racism, murder, rape or child molesting. That term....anti-Semitism. Only with control of the printing presses(publishing houses), air waves(all television networks) and the big screen(Hollywood of course) however can you conceal the fraud of all frauds. You have stolen another's religion, identity, land and other property and hell now you even now claim the falafel as your own. If you are now squirming in your chair after reading this post, congratulations your Zionist socialization is complete. Oh and one more thing. You cannot be a patriotic American if you don't love Israel.

The term anti-Semitism is just one more fraudulent card in Israel's house of cards. The term Semite is a reference to those who speak Semitic languages( Arabic dialects e.g. Hebrew Aramaic, etc.) Most of the original inhabitants of modern Israel spoke Yiddish, their native Eastern European tongue(where they ended up after their diaspora from Khazaria). The original Semites of Palestine (the real ancestors of Jesus) are now being brutalized, oppressed and ethnically cleansed from their homeland by a group of White Eastern European Pretenders (white people just like many of the rest of us but with a different set of religious delusions). But if you notice you are an "anti-Semite". Do you see how it works now?

America Don't Worry...

America Don't Worry, Israel is behind you

Nadia Hassan















I remember a few years ago, walking through the wonderful narrow streets of the occupied Old city of Jerusalem, seeing a small shop managed by an old Palestinian man who was selling souvenirs to the tourists. I entered the shop, not because I wanted to buy something, I cannot be a tourist in my own land (despite the Zionist entity that is occupying our land, allowing me to enter there just as a tourist) but because I was captured by the smell of fresh coffee that beckoned me from inside the shop. As I know my people, I knew that as soon as I set foot inside the shop I would be welcomed with this hot and stimulating beverage. I was right, after just a minute I was enjoying my drink and having a nice talk with the man. I made the rounds of his shop, looking at the hundreds small plates, pictures, colorful fabrics of all kinds of imaginative maaterials and very original T-shirts hanging on one of the wall. T-shirts with pictures of Jerusalem, with Holy Land slogans, with IDF motifs (always wondering who would buy one of those!) and I saw one that scared me the most because of its realism. It was a simple T-shirt with the slogan: “America Don’t worry, Israel is behind you!”

When I left the shop I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I didn’t get it, I was thinking that the right way to say it is “Israel Don’t worry, America is behind you!” not the opposite way. Anyway, after a few minutes of confusing thoughts about which comes first, the egg or the chicken, I forget the whole thing and continued my walk in the Old city of Jerusalem.

This happened 3 years ago.

Today, watching the news and thinking of what is going on in the Arab Homeland, this slogan came to my mind out of the blues and I started to realize the real meaning of it.

The recent events in Lebanon and in recent months in the Occupied Palestinian Territory of Gaza Strip proves that certain international and regional powers are continuing efforts to implement their “master plan” of chaos for the region as the first step to the greater plan of making their domination permanent.

This is not a conspiracy theory as many are saying, it's just the result of decades of efforts from the imperialistic powers to gain control of certain strategic areas in the Arab Homeland and control Arab oil, monopolizing their market. For that reason, these incidents are not limited just to Lebanon. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed with the huge amount of propaganda that we are not able to see the whole picture, the clear chain of events with similar patterns from the Gaza Strip to Baghdad, Somalia, Darfur and to Beirut. Some elements can be different in each case, but they have one thing in common, the master colonialist project of the United States and the high security risks that these events cause to its main settlement in the region, Israel. These places are strategically interconnected and the success of the US plan in the region depends on being able to control them.

Today, US-led imperialism is threatening national sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries. All recent interventions of imperialistic powers in different regions have resulted in divisions of countries and separation of peoples by ongoing wars. Kosovo and Iraq are just examples of the implementation of “divide and rule” policy of the imperialists. And the new states that are the outcome of these policies are not more than controlled states which serve as bases for imperialistic activities.

The Arab region is not an exception and as long as the Arab ruling classes are either unable to protest or are participating in these externally designed and oriented plans, the only alternative will be popular resistance. Resistance movements of any kind are a just threat for this goal.

The pro-imperialistic Arab regimes understand that their position are extremely fragile since they don’t have the support of the masses, and they compromised their own people’s sovereignty and development for the sake of their own survival. Adel Samara, in his book “Epidemic of Globalization” describes this situation very well: “As long as each regime is guarding a set of foreign interests inside the Arab Homeland, that regime has no alternative but to oppress the popular classes whose interests are in contradiction with the ruling comprador and its western capitalist allies. These interests vary from the plunder of raw material and oil to an open market where the regime becomes the agent that saturates it with foreign products and permits the spread of multinational corporations with their branches in many Arab countries chasing cheap and oppressed labor“.

To protect these interests and to guarantee their share, the trickle-down reward, Arab regimes suppressed all forms of liberties and the current situation in Lebanon is just an example of that. Siniora’s government didn’t have another option than to back down the parliament decision of last week to make the communication system of Hezbollah illegal due to pressure from the supporters of the resistance, but immediately (as if on cue) the Arab League foreign ministers expressed support for Siniora, despite the fact that they were aware of the root causes of Lebanon’s crisis.

Israel is not standing on the sidelines in what is going on here, in fact it is very afraid that any resistance movement against its own expansionist and imperialist plans can bring about control of a portion of what it considers its own domains. Israel is the central Key in this puzzle due to its strategic location. For that reason, Israel is also doing its part of the deal calling the International Community to take a look at the situation in Lebanon and in the Gaza Strip and do whatever it can to stop this frightening crisis to the security of its own state. Indeed, it insists that the International Community consider only the security interests of Israel alone as they attempt once again to convince us that religion and sectarian fights are the main reason for the disputes in the area. In doing so, they cover the political motivations and especially the economic interests involved in the whole process.

How funny is that? Calling upon the International Community to take an action for a state which is ‘celebrating’ 60 years of occupation of others’ land, 60 years of dispossession of other people, 60 years of terror against civilians and 60 years of neglecting every single thing the international community has asked for.

If the US and all the western pro-imperialistic governments for that matters lose control over this area, the whole plan can come to an end, since they are not in a position to attack another country and take the control of all the natural resources without some kind of convincing explanation for doing so, or at least not without a propagandist campaign prior to the invasion to make it look like a “rescue plan” from the jaws of evil. What made the US hesitate in launching new occupation is Iraqi resistance, which has truly worn down the US army. This is another reason why the target of all formal regimes in the west is the Resistance.

Escalation of tensions and conflicts in Lebanon and Palestine is in the American regime’s best interests because they know that no matter what happens, Israel is there for doing what they have so far been doing better than anyone else: oppressing others, occupying, attacking and killing in “security’s name”, everything that is needed to make the master plan succeed. Anyway, they have more than 60 years’ experience doing just that.

Many Arabs like myself during those walks in the Old city of Jerusalem 3 years ago, developed a false thinking that the Jews control the US. This is a miserable way of thinking. Israel is the product of the interests and needs of the capitalist core, two centuries before the Zionist organization of Theodor Herzl was even founded. Israel is doing a job in the Arab Homeland; its role is functional. The last proof of that is the fact that, while Israel tried to end its aggression against Lebanon in 2006, given the unsuccessful campaign, the US ordered Israel to continue until its final defeat!

And yes, America Don´t worry, Israel is behind you!

Nadia Hasan is a Palestinian activist who was born in Chile and who lives between various nations of South America and the Middle East. Her site is Palestina Resiste! and she dreams of the day when all Palestinians can exercise their Right of Return.

U. S Soldiers are chemically modified

U. S Soldiers are chemically modified


Armed with potent drugs and new technology, a dangerous breed of soldiers are being trained to fight America's future wars.

Amphetamines and the military first met somewhere in the fog of WWII, when axis and allied forces alike were issued speed tablets to head off fatigue on the battlefield.

More than 60 years later, the U.S. Air Force still doles out dextro-amphetamine to pilots whose duties do not afford them the luxury of sleep.

Through it all, it seems, the human body and its fleshy weaknesses keep getting in the way of warfare. Just as in the health clinics of the nation, the first waypoint in the military effort to redress these foibles is a pharmaceutical one. The catch is, we're really not that great at it. In the case of speed, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency itself notes a few unwanted snags like addiction, anxiety, aggression, paranoia and hallucinations. For side-effects like insomnia, the Air Force issues "no-go" pills like temazepam alongside its "go" pills. Psychosis, though, is a wee bit trickier.

Far from getting discouraged, the working consensus appears to be that we just haven't gotten the drugs right yet. In recent years, the U.S., the UK and France -- among others -- have reportedly been funding investigations into a new line-up of military performance enhancers. The bulk of these drugs are already familiar to us from the lists of substances banned by international sporting bodies, including the stimulant ephedrine, non-stimulant "wakefulness promoting agents" like modafinil (aka Provigil) and erythropoietin, used to improve endurance by boosting the production of red blood cells.

As the chemical interventions grow bolder and more sophisticated, we should not be surprised that some are beginning to cast their eyes beyond droopy eyelids and sore muscles. Chief among the new horizons is the alluring notion of psychological prophylactics: drugs used to pre-empt the often nasty effects of combat stress on soldiers, particularly that perennial veteran's bugaboo known as post-traumatic stress disorder syndrome. In the U.S., where roughly two-fifths of troops returning from combat deployments are presenting serious mental health problems, PTSD has gone political in form of the Psychological Kevlar Act, which would direct the Secretary of Defense to implement "preventive and early-intervention measures" to protect troops against "stress-related psychopathologies."

Proponents of the "Psychological Kevlar" approach to PTSD may have found a silver bullet in the form of propranolol, a 50-year-old beta-blocker used on-label to treat high blood pressure, and off-label as a stress-buster for performers and exam-takers. Ongoing psychiatric research has intriguingly suggested that a dose of propranolol, taken soon after a harrowing event, can suppress the victim's stress response and effectively block the physiological process that makes certain memories intense and intrusive. That the drug is cheap and well tolerated is icing on the cake.

Propranolol has already been dubbed the "mourning after pill," largely by those who argue that its military use amounts to medicating away pangs of conscience. For the time being, though, we can set aside our dystopian visions of zombies with guns, since the tranquilizing effects of beta-blockers are unlikely to permit their widespread use on the battlefield. But pharmacology moves more swiftly with each passing year -- especially when helped along by defense-research dollars -- and we may need to revive those visions sooner than we think.

The Mediated Soldier

In the new model army, brute force and viscera are out. Cutting edge gadgetry, omniscient surveillance and precision long-distance termination is in. What motivates it all is the type of war we fear we'll be fighting.

On this, the strategists have spoken: with Iraq and Afghanistan as the testing grounds, the conflicts of the future will be guerrilla wars, open-ended, with no battle lines, no rules of engagement and ambivalent or openly hostile civilian populations in which any man, woman or child can turn combatant.

In breeding a future soldier for these future wars, we will inevitably leave behind the mere rectification of human weakness and enter into the realm of the superhuman. Glimpses of this realm have already become commonplace in the form of ceramic-Kevlar body armor and night-vision goggles -- wizardry that transforms squishy pink men into bullet-proof creatures of the night.

Such magic will continue apace under the auspices of dozens of military development initiatives across the globe, creating a species known variously as the Future Force Warrior by the U.S., FIST by the British Army, Félin by the French. All are merely the human components of broader visionary projects for what has been called "the army after next," the most noteworthy of which being the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems. With a budget clocking in at $160 billion or so, FCS is not just one of history's most costly weapons programs; it is an all-encompassing modernization program, one that will usher in a total re-imagining of the armed forces. What FCS and its kin have imagined for soldiers is a battlefield experience increasingly mediated by technology, insulated in a cocoon of "force multipliers" -- military parlance for anything that allows you to accomplish more with fewer personnel. In concrete terms, that translates into an array of tools designed to enhance lethality and survivability: next-generation sidearms; headsets that provide live command and control, detailed geographic data and the ability to fire around corners; smart suits equipped with ultralight nanotech armor, micro-climate conditioning, real-time health monitoring and even automated medical care like CPR and drug delivery. Also on the docket are robotic exoskeletons that allow the soldiers wearing them to carry hundreds of pounds -- even while running -- without breaking a sweat, as well as handheld imaging equipment that grants the ability to see targets through walls.

This is serious... whatever for? Israel, Oil and water?

U.S tortures prisoners-Jimmy Carter

U.S. tortures prisoners-Jimmy Carter, Former U.S president

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said Wednesday.

Former President Carter says the U.S. "has abandoned the basic principle of human rights."

"I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused."

Carter also said President Bush creates his own definition of human rights.

Carter's comments come on the heels of an October 4 article in The New York Times disclosing the existence of secret Justice Department memorandums supporting the use of "harsh interrogation techniques." These include "head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures," according to the Times.

The White House last week confirmed the existence of the documents but would not make them public.

Responding to the newspaper report Friday, Bush defended the techniques used, saying, "This government does not torture people."

Asked about Bush's comments, Carter said, "That's not an accurate statement if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored -- certainly in the last 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated.

"But you can make your own definition of human rights and say we don't violate them, and you can make your own definition of torture and say we don't violate them."

After reading a transcript of Carter's remarks, a senior White House official said, "Our position is clear. We don't torture."

The official said, "It's just sad to hear a former president speak like that."

Carter also criticized some of the 2008 Republican presidential candidates, calling former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani "foolish" for his contention the United States should be open to use force on Iran.

"I hope that he doesn't become president and try to impose his conviction that we need to go to war with Iran," Carter said.

The Giuliani campaign declined to comment on Carter's criticism.

The former president didn't spare the rest of the GOP field either.

"They all seem to be outdoing each other in who wants to go to war first with Iran, who wants to keep Guantanamo open longer and expand its capacity -- things of that kind," Carter said.

"They're competing with each other to appeal to the ultra-right-wing, war-mongering element in our country, which I think is the minority of our total population."

Carter declined to say which Republican candidate he feared the most.

"If I condemn one of them, it might escalate him to the top position in the Republican ranks," he said.

Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois also drew Carter's criticism for refusing recently to pledge to withdraw all troops from Iraq by the end of their first terms if they win the presidency in 2008.

"I disagree with their basic premise that we'll still be there; I think the American people want out," Carter said. "If there is an unforeseen development where Iraqi people request American presence over a period of time I think that would possibly be acceptable, but that's not my personal preference."

My very own jewel on the Nile... thank you for speaking out, and may history reward you accordingly.

Play video

3 years of Arab/Foreign Intel ruined-Zeevi

3 years of Arab/Foreign intel ruined-Zeevi
Aaron Zeevi Farkash

10/05/2008: The former head of Israel's intelligence Aaron Zeevi Farkash said that he had warned Washington against relying on its allies in Lebanon. "We advised the CIA not to rely on Walid Jumblatt or Saad Hariri because we tested them in 2006 and they proved helpless in the face of Hezbollah."
In an interview with Filkka-Israel site on the internet, Zeevi stressed "Israel has given Lebanese Forces (of Samir Geagea) men the best training and they will appear in any future confrontation. Lebanese Forces fighters will hold on much longer in Hezbollah's faces, but eventually they will be defeated."
The former intelligence chief said Tel Aviv and Washington are in a dilemma because "no force in Lebanon can strike Hezbollah and we are not ready yet to take this step. All the Americans can do is send some guards to the dwellings of Saniora, Jumblatt and Hariri."

When asked if the Americans are going to embark in Lebanon, Zeevi said that "this is what Condi told Saniora. He collapsed and accused Jumblatt of cowardice and fleeing from the battle. So she promised Saniora to get a presidential decree to send the Marines to central Beirut only to protect his headquarters."

The reporter asked Zeevi about the reason behind the failure of the assassination plot against Hezbollah's chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah on the 25th of April. "I don't know why, but killing Nasrallah was not impossible with the presence of thousands of Lebanese informers working with the Americans. Everything is lost now. Three years of intelligence efforts by international and Arab sides have gone overnight. Most intelligence agents have left Beirut and the Lebanese are no longer able to move under the cover of their daily mission, each according to his rank in some security services. The west has lost a lot after Nasrallah surprised their allies," Zeevi said.

On the assassination of top resistance commander martyr Imad Moghniyeh, Zeevi revealed that a "Lebanese side had provided Israel with the picture of Moghniyeh showing his real face. Only one person knew who (Hajj Radwan) was. He is a Lebanese leader whose security bodyguards were trained by Moghniyeh."
When the reporter asked: Is he Jumblatt?
Zeevi said: No comment.

AIDS: The 'perfect' disease

AIDS: The 'perfect' disease

The AIDS epidemic, caused by a mysterious monkey immunosuppressive virus that suddenly crossed into humans and caused an epidemic of cancer, did not catch the entire medical community off guard. Quite the contrary. For decades prior to the AIDS outbreak, cancer virus researchers had been creating, manipulating, studying and testing immunosuppressive viruses with selective immune system damaging and cancer-causing properties remarkably similar to AIDS. Moreover, several of these immunosuppressive viruses (including those from monkeys and humans) were being grown in human cell cultures shortly before the AIDS epidemic broke out in humans.

These unique viruses were created as part of the U.S. government’s war on cancer in a crash program to develop vaccines. These experimental immunosuppressive viruses, which were isolated from mice, cats, cows and monkeys in the 1960s and 1970s, were successfully used to destructively manipulate the immune systems of a variety of lab animals as a means of controllably increasing susceptibility to cancer. This research was conducted so that scientists could learn more about precisely how immune system dysfunction contributed to cancer growth. The innovative research with these novel immunosuppressive viruses provided valuable information on the role that various components of the immune system played in cancer prevention and aided the development of various means of manipulating the immune system to prevent cancer in animals.

Interestingly, the selective immune system damage caused by the AIDS epidemic in humans is supplying cancer researchers with invaluable data eerily similar to that which they obtained in the 1970s by deliberately injecting the immunosuppressive viruses they created in animal test subjects. This is so because the cancer epidemic initiated by AIDS is providing observant researchers a wealth of invaluable data about how cancer grows, from its earliest to its latest phases, in human subjects with selectively impaired immune systems. By constructing huge databases on how cancer grows in AIDS patients as their immune systems systematically degrade, researchers are quietly finding such powerful clues as to the mechanisms behind the increased susceptibility to cancer in human AIDS patients, especially those cancers thought to be caused by viruses...that many are now confidently predicting the imminent development of human cancer vaccines. Such a phenomenal development would mirror similar progress made earlier in animal cancer research with immunosuppressive and cancer viruses.

It is at this point that a terrible question must be asked: Could HIV, and the epidemic of human cancers and death resulting from it, be the result of a sinister cross-species experiment with a monkey cancer virus designed as a means of intentionally inducing cancer in human subjects as a research and diagnostic tool in the development of human cancer vaccines? If so, was such an experiment modeled after decades of similar animal experiments in which well-characterized immunosuppressive viruses similar to HIV were injected in test subjects so that cancer researchers could monitor the progress of induced cancer growth as the animals’ immune systems deteriorated? And was this why researchers were growing monkey and human immunosuppressive viruses in human cell cultures, determining the pathogenic effects on T-cells, shortly before HIV began to destroy T-cells in the immune systems of human populations?

Unfortunately, there are numerous disturbing precedents indicating that cancer researchers would do this very thing. These precedents supply deeply disquieting evidence consistent with the terrifying hypothesis that the AIDS epidemic, caused by a simian virus that has resulted in an unprecedented international human cancer epidemic, is the result of the wider application of shockingly unethical and dangerous human cancer experiments with simian cancer viruses conducted throughout the 1950s and 60s.

As will be discussed in greater detail in a later section, in one set of these cross-species cancer vaccine experiments, immunosuppressed rats and humans were given the same set of cancer-inducing virus injections so that the tumors that developed in each species could be systematically compared. In a similar set of such immunosuppressive experiments, tumors were deliberately induced in human subjects as a result of injections with monkey tumor and cancer viruses, so that researchers could compare the resultant human tumors with those that grew in the monkeys. As an extension of this type of work, in the 1970s, shortly before AIDS began in human populations, researchers began combining primate cancer viruses that had been injected in human subjects with primate immunodeficiency viruses in human cell cultures.

For example, while the public is completely ignorant of this fact, simian immunosuppressive viruses (SIVs) such as the Mason Pfizer Monkey Virus, one of 3 types of SIV, were available to researchers as early as 1970, when the virus was grown in cell cultures. Well before AIDS, the Mason Pfizer Monkey Virus (MPMV) was shown to induce immunodeficiency states in monkeys in the early 1970s, as well as the 1980s. Even more provocative is the fact that cancer researchers were coaxing this immunosuppressive monkey virus to grow in human cells in the late 1970s, just before HIV broke out in human populations and caused an epidemic of sarcoma. In these experiments, MPMV was mixed with SV40, a monkey cancer virus (which had already been injected in humans to cause cancer) and the Rous sarcoma virus in human cell cultures. Since HIV is thought to be caused by an SIV, it is amazing that these intriguing pre-AIDS experiments have not been publicized.

The national security establishment, which worked closely with the viral cancer research community, is likewise not a disinterested party in the AIDS epidemic. While cancer researchers are benefiting from the selective depopulation of certain cells in the immune systems of HIV victims, it could be argued that the national security planners in fact are benefiting from the resultant selective destruction of human populations. This depopulation effect is fulfilling national security goals for the Third World, where 90% of AIDS deaths occur and where 95% of world population growth occurs, that were outlined in classified national security planning documents shortly before AIDS broke out.

The latter section of this study will examine the hypothesized linkage between cancer research and the interests of the national security community. Specifically, evidence will be presented to support the thesis that the AIDS epidemic was deliberately started as an exercise in biowarfare conducted under the cover of a human cancer experiment. This would explain why the HIV epidemic is selectively depopulating regions of the globe that the national security establishment had targeted for depopulation in the 1970s as a means of maintaining access to resources in the developing world. Additionally, the "cancer vaccine experiment" theory of the origin of AIDS could also explain not only why the AIDS virus selectively depopulates the exact components of the immune system that cancer researchers had been targeting for decades prior to AIDS but why homosexual populations are disproportionately infected by HIV and rare cancers. And finally, there is credible evidence that AIDS vaccine research vehicles have a linkage to the Gulf War Syndrome.

* * * * *

Hitler is winning

Although the cruelty and utter disregard for human life displayed by the Nazis during the World War II era are widely recognized, the true origin of the infamous Nazi ideology of racial supremacy (which provided the rationale for the Nazis’ unprecedented crimes) has been one of the better-kept secrets of the postwar years.

As will be shown in this book, the deadly philosophy of racial purity which was used to justify the Nazi mass murder of millions of people was far from being the isolated viewpoint of a few Teutonic madmen. Far from it. Contrary to this carefully created and widely held perception, the Nazi philosophy of Aryan supremacy was the natural outgrowth of what was, at the time, considered to be a “respectable” international intellectual movement known as the eugenics movement. This movement was created and nurtured by a powerful economic elite through its financial power long before Adolph Hitler arrived on the scene to implement its theories in practice.

The international elite who subsidized the eugenics movement not only assisted Hitler with the development of his eugenics philosophy and its implementation in Nazi Germany, but assisted him in his attempts to implement it on a global scale. This criminal assistance, which took the form of direct and prolonged financial and technical aid to Hitler’s war machine (which is only now making international headlines as a result of a flood of Holocaust-related lawsuits), was to have an unprecedented and devastating impact on the world. Without this crucial and treasonous aid and trade on the part of America’s most powerful economic and political elites and their allies, Hitler would never have been able to conduct his murderous military (and eugenic) campaigns across Europe.

Unfortunately, despite the magnitude of their crimes, the global financiers and industrialists who subsidized the eugenics movement at large and its specific manifestation in Hitler’s Germany went largely unpunished after the war (as did their German counterparts). This was due to their ability (through control of the press and government policy making) to hide their role in creating the international eugenics movement as well as their ability to obscure the links between this eugenics movement and Nazi Germany.

In addition to allowing those truly responsible for the Holocaust to go unpunished, the hidden role played by the eugenic elite in creating the international eugenics movement and Nazi Germany has provided another result – the uninterrupted continuation of the eugenics movement to the present day, despite its horrific consequences in Nazi Germany.

This book will unmask this incredibly dangerous eugenics movement – still existing under various guises. In order to expose this ongoing eugenics movement, a brief history of the movement and its basic tenets will first be presented. In subsequent chapters the present state and trends of the eugenics movement will be discussed along with what I believe to be the future of the eugenics movement – based on these trends. As horrible as it sounds, it is possible that a component of this alleged modern-day, applied eugenics program included the deliberate creation and unleashing of the AIDS virus. The fantastic benefits that the AIDS catastrophe is quietly providing the eugenics movement will be discussed in Appendix A of this study, as will be the relationship between the research that made the epidemic possible and research conducted in Nazi concentration camps. Appendix B reveals that, thanks to the U.S. government, German and Japanese war criminals from the Second World War were placed in positions to help implement such a crime, which would essentially be an extension of the acts they carried out during the war.

Culled from books by Jerry Leonard

About the author:
Jerry Leonard is a physicist who has been actively involved in microelectronics research and production for over 15 years. He has been studying the documented history of cancer research, the development of immunosuppressive viruses and unethical government experimentation on human subjects...including the use of monkey cancer viruses... Mr. Leonard also studied the documented history of Nazi Germany, the eugenics movement... and mind control research on human subjects for over ten years.

ADD TO SHOPPING CART

The Iraq/Iran fusion

The Iraq/Iran fusion



It is 1939 all over again. The world waits helplessly for the next act of naked aggression by rogue states. Only this time the rogue states are not the Third Reich and Fascist Italy. They are the United States and Israel.

The targeted victims are not Poland and France, but Iran, Syria, the remains of the Palestinian West Bank and southern Lebanon.

The American mass media is overjoyed. War coverage attracts viewers and sells advertising.

The neoconservatives are ecstatic. Hegemony uber alles is back on track.

The US Air Force can’t wait “to show what it can do.”

Defense contractors see no end of the profits.

Under cover of the mayhem and propaganda, Israel can grab the remains of the West Bank and have another go at grabbing the water resources of southern Lebanon.

Unlike the US and Israel, Iran is neither occupying any other country’s territory nor threatening to invade another country. Nevertheless, propaganda against Iran is spouting from US and Israeli mouths at an increasing rate. Lie after lie rolls off the tongues of leaders of the “two great democracies.”

On April 27 Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, blamed Iran for “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq. Has Admiral Mullen forgot that it is the US, not Iran, that is responsible for as many as one million dead Iraqis and four million displaced Iraqis, the “collateral damage” of a “cakewalk war” now into its sixth year?

On April 26 the Washington Post reported that “the Pentagon is planning for potential military courses of action” against Iran.
The Bush Regime’s national security advisor says Iran is a threat in Iraq, an accusation echoed endlessly by secretary of defense Robert Gates, secretary of state Rice, vice president Cheney, and president Bush. The US, which has 150,000 troops in Iraq, is not a threat. The US troops are protecting Iraq from Iran, al Qaeda, and the Taliban. Just ask Fox “News.”

Doing its part to egg on war with Iran, the US TV news program, “60 MInutes,” gave air time to the commander of the Israeli Air Force, General Eliezer Shkedi, who declared in a special interview that Iranian president Ahmadinejad was the new Hitler and that we must not again make the mistake of disbelieving a Hitler.

There are better candidates for the role than Ahmadinejad.
Gen. Shkedi himself sounds like Hitler blaming Poland for the outbreak of the second world war. Ahmadinejad has attacked no country, whereas Israel repeatedly invades its neighbors and continues 40-year occupations of Syrian and Palestinian territory.

As Noam Chomsky has written, the US government thinks that it owns the world (Chomsky could have added that Israel thinks it owns the Middle East and America). Americans can wallow in indignation over China’s occupation of Tibet, but be perfectly content with America’s occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel can wax eloquently about “Palestinian terrorism” while its military and Zionist settlers terrorize Palestinians.

Americans see no hypocrisy in “their” government’s damning of Russia for opposing the incorporation of former Russian satellites and constituent parts in a US military alliance.

Americans see manifest destiny, not US aggression, when “their” government drops bombs on Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Pakistan. Americans do not think it is aggression for them to develop war plans to attack Iran or China or N. Korea or whomever, or to maintain hundreds of military bases all over the globe. The same Americans work themselves into hysterical frenzies over “Iranian influence in Iraq” and “al Qaeda plans to bring the war to America.”

As Chomsky says, we own the world. No one else counts.

Except Israel.

Israel counts so much that every presidential candidate has declared his and her willingness to expend whatever American blood and treasure are necessary “to protect Israel.” There are no limits on the promise “to defend Israel,” no matter what Israel does, no matter if Israel initiates (yet again) war with its neighbors, no matter if it continues to force Palestinians out of their homes and villages in order to “create living room” for Israelis.

With this sort of promise, why should Israel ever settle for anything less than “greater Israel”?

Just as the US government launched its illegal invasion of Iraq on the back of lies about weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds, the US government claims it must attack Iran or Iran will build a nuclear weapon. The Bush Regime has learned never to discard a lie as long as it works.

The lie works for the US Congress, the US media and much of the US public, but it is breaking down abroad. On April 27 the British newspaper, the Independent, responded to the recent US government claim that the Syrian facility attacked last September by Israel in an act of naked aggression was a nuclear reactor built by N. Korea:

“There is no independent way to verify any of this, especially since the installation has now been destroyed. We must rely on the integrity of the Israeli and US intelligence. That is where we hit a problem. The former US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented similar evidence to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 showing what we were told was strong evidence of Iraqi storage of weapons of mass destruction. As we all know, that intelligence turned out to be bogus.”

A needless war, a country destroyed, all for bogus intelligence.

Why must we repeat our crime in Iran?

Why do we persist in our crime in Iraq? On April 27 McClatchy Newspapers reported that 50 Iraqi political leaders representing numerous political groups including Sunnis went to Sadr City to protest the siege by the US military. Why is al Sadr under seige?

He called for a halt to bloodshed between Iraqis, for a “liberation of ourselves and our lands from the occupier,” for “a real government and real sovereignty.” However, for the Bush Regime, rhetoric about “freedom and democracy” is but a mask behind which to impose a US puppet government. Real Iraqi leaders like al Sadr are “terrorists” who must be eliminated.

Why do the American people and “their” representatives in Congress continue to tolerate a criminal Bush Regime that uses lies and propaganda to mask its acts of naked aggression, war crimes under the Nuremberg standard?

Why does the rest of the world continue to receive political representatives from a war criminal government?

What if the rest of the world told the US to close its bases, its embassies, its CIA operations and to go home?

Self-righteous Americans would regard such demands as effrontery! We own the world.

Doesn't it just make you wonder looking at that tiny map of Israel? We own the world, it's our promised land... Hmm.

Shameful days

Shameful days

The last ten days have been among the most shameful in the history of American journalism.

On April 20th, the New York Times published its expose of the Bush administration's use of Pentagon-approved, prepped, and financially-enriched "military analysts" to appear on TV to help sell the invasion of Iraq, and then put a positive spin on the occupation -- even as conditions on the ground deteriorated.

It was a powerful illustration of the Bush administration's commitment to propaganda and disinformation. But it was also a damning indictment of the mainstream media's complicity in the wholesale deception of the American public on the single most important decision a country can make -- the decision to go to war.

How big a story was it? John Stauber of the Center for Media and Democracy called it the Pentagon Papers of the Iraq war.

So it only stands to reason that a story this explosive would quickly become the subject of extensive follow-ups by TV and print journalists, and endless debate on the political talk shows, right?

Wrong.

Instead of opening their reportorial and analytical floodgates, the mainstream news media have all but ignored the story.

The Times did a brief followup to its original story and, six days later, published a single editorial. Howard Kurtz wrote about the story the next day in his WaPo column and discussed it on CNN. Keith Olbermann and Wolf Blitzer gave it brief mentions. And that's about it.

A Lexis/Nexis search turned up no other coverage of this should-be major story. Nothing from Brian Williams or Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson. Nothing from Anderson Cooper or Lou Dobbs or Larry King or Campbell Brown. Nothing from Chris Matthews or Dan Abrams. Nothing from Tim Russert or George Stephanopoulos or Bob Schieffer. Nothing from anyone on Fox News.

This near-complete blackout imposed by the culpable news organizations is a despicable abdication of their central role in our society -- and has raised the ire of many in the blogosphere.

Glenn Greenwald decries the media invoking "the Kremlin-like methods of Dick Cheney -- they refuse to comment, refuse to reveal even the most basic facts about what they did, and do everything possible to hide behind the wall of secrecy they maintain." And he's incredulous that "these news outlets misleadingly shoveled government propaganda down the throats of viewers on matters of war and terrorism and they don't feel the least bit obligated to answer for what they did or knew about any of it."

"Mum's been the word on [the Times'] bombshell throughout the megamedia," writes DailyKos poster Meteor Blades. "The talking point - or perhaps the memo from on high - seems to be: Don't talk.... A hundred years of scrubbing will not remove the blood from their hands."

We've been told again and again that when it comes to Washington scandals, the cover up is worse than the crime (see Watergate and Bill Clinton not having sex with that woman). In this case, the lack of follow up is at least as bad as the crime. It is indicative of the MSM's disdain for the public and their willingness to trade their commitment to the truth for access to the halls of power.

As I've been giving interviews and speeches about my new book, specifically the points it makes about the role the media have played in the allowing the Right to hijack our democracy, I've been struck by the public's frustration at the mainstream media's Attention Deficit Disorder -- the failure to pursue important stories that, once exposed, are quickly forgotten.

Whether it's the increasing use of mercenary soldiers like those from Blackwater, corporate profiteering in the wake of Katrina, the advice of military commanders in Afghanistan being rebuffed by the Bush administration, or the military analysts scandal --- the mainstream media repeatedly allow stories to, in essence, die on the front page.

Fitzgerald said there were no second acts in American life. And it seems as if the MSM are committed to there being no second acts in American political scandals. At the end of Act I, the curtain comes down and we are quickly asked to leave the theater, left to wonder about what happens next.

We should do more than wonder. We should demand that the media mavens who enabled the Pentagon's disinformation campaign -- and, indeed, the administration's across the board effort to sell us this war -- be held accountable.

Carl Levin and others are calling for investigations into the military analysts scandal. That's good, but the cozy relationship between the White House and ABC, NBC, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, as well as the print outlets that gave space to the Pentagon's propagandists, should be investigated as well.

Mainstream news organizations have never be very good at self-scrutiny -- look how long it took the New York Times to offer its Judy Miller/Iraq war mea culpa. And some might suggest that expecting the MSM to publicly dissect their complicity in duping the American public would be like expecting OJ Simpson, Robert Blake, and Phil Spector to find the "real killers" of Nicole, Bonny Lee, and Lana.

But that deceitful trio doesn't claim to be in the business of uncovering the truth, or functioning as a constitutionally protected check on our government.

As Justice Potter Stewart wrote on the Pentagon Papers, "without an informed and free press there cannot be an enlightened people."

And, he might have added, a free press not in bed with the government it is supposed to keep an eye on.


Arianna Huffington@huffingtonpost.com

See her must-read new book







Please click here to order Arianna's new book.

Why Israel at 60 is no cause for celebration

Why Israel at 60 is no cause for celebration

Mazin Qumsiyeh of the excellent Wheels of Justice peace initiative has drafted this list furnishing facts about why good people of conscience everywhere will not be celebrating Israel at its 60th anniversary this month, just as apartheid-era South Africa was not accepted or celebrated. There are many more reasons, and he invites people to add to it.

Israeli psychologist and exile Avigail Abarbanel notes, “If a day comes, and I hope it does, when Israelis decide to stop living in denial, they will have to realise that real peace will only come through justice. Justice in this context means one thing, that the ideal of an exclusively Jewish state at the cost of an entire people might have to be abandoned. Only a bi-national state and a right of return for the Palestinian refugees will come close enough to rectifying some of the injustices committed in 1948 and since. Having been ethnically cleansed, this is also what the Palestinians are entitled to under international law and common human decency.“

* Ethnic cleaning and ongoing genocide: Between December 1947 and December 1950, over 530 Palestinian villages and towns were destroyed. Half of the Palestinians were ethnically cleansed by underground Zionist forces even before Israel was unilaterally declared a state. Palestinians call these events of the late 1940s the Nakba (Catastrophe).

* The Palestinian refugees are the largest remaining refugee population in the world. Seven million of the ten million Palestinians are refugees or displaced people. They are prevented from returning to their homes and lands even though International law and UN resolutions demand it.

* The Israeli “Knesset” adopted a set of laws that are contrary to International law that ensured no refugees are allowed to return (as customarily happens at the end of a war) and that their land is confiscated for use by Jews only (“absentee property” laws). The removal of 75-80% of non-Jews from what became Israel by 1950 was a necessary but not sufficient condition for creating and maintaining a Zionist-defined Jewish state. What the nascent state did subsequently was expand its borders and continue to appropriate native Palestinian lands, expel many of them and discriminate against those who remained at all odds.

* Israel has no constitution but promulgated a set of basic laws that govern it essentially “for the benefit of the Jewish people”. These laws recognize members of a particular religion (including converts) as nationals of the state regardless of where they live or their current citizenship. In Israeli law, all Jews are part of Am Yisrael (the people of Israel). To get papers of citizenship all they have to do is show up in the state and claim their automatic citizenship.

* Israel is unique among the nations in not being a country of its citizens but of “Jewish people everywhere”. No other country defines itself as a country for members of a particular religion (including converts) regardless of where they live. No other country has supranational entities that have authority superseding state authority and native rights. For example, the Jewish National Fund is not a state agency but it has on its own website the amazing statement that “The Jewish National Fund is the custodian of the land of Israel on behalf of its owners, Jewish people everywhere.” 91% of the land (most taken from the 530 Palestinian towns and villages depopulated between 1947-1949) is not privately owned but turned over from the custodian of “absentee property” to the JNF for lease by Jews.

* Israeli law considers one fourth of the remaining Palestinians (300,000 of the 1.3 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship) as “present absentees”. This means that their land and/or homes were confiscated from them and turned to the Jewish Agency/JNF. By international law they are considered internally displaced people (refugees).

* Israel maintains an illegal occupation and colonization of the West Bank and Gaza for 40 years. This includes: 133 illegal Israeli settlements, 562 military checkpoints, 610 flying checkpoints, Israeli-only roads and settlements built on Palestinian lands, denial of residency rights, 11,500 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and, just in the past 7 years alone, 35,000 more Palestinians were made homeless by home demolitions and land confiscations. The Gaza Strip was turned into a large concentration camp where 1.5 million Palestinians (most refugees) are held in a desert strip with what the UN Human Rights commissioner declared as “catastrophic” conditions.

* Israel is funded to the tune of $5 billion (3 billion in direct aid, 2 billion other) from our (US) taxes and shielded from International law and basic human rights conventions by our government (e.g. 37 vetoes at the UN security Council). We thus hold special responsibility in this situation (and in the atrocities in Iraq that derive from it), which is not the same for example for Darfur, Sudan (where our government is not funding oppression but is actually at least verbally trying to stop it).