Criticizing the American brand of democracy, President Ahmadinejad said that the so-called advocates of democracy backed an invasion of Lebanon which displaced about five million people and levelled their houses to ground based on a pre-meditated conspiracy.

Ahmadinejad lambasted the White House for refusing to accept his offer to hold a televised debate without any censorship with US President George W. Bush on international issues and said that they are afraid of the logic of the great nation of Iran.

"They say that Iranian nation should not acquire nuclear energy, because there may be deviation in future," he said criticizing the US lobbying with other members of the Security Council against Iranian nuclear program.

"Iranian nation has never ignored provisions of Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but, they themselves have both deviated from NPT and used weapons of mass destruction.

"So, if there should be restrictions, they should be subject to it," he said.

Ahmadinejad said that Iran had presented a reply to the package of incentives of the Group 5+1 (five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) which provides an excellent chance for moving in line with justice.

"If they are men of law and justice, they should know that Iranian nation defend their own rights," he concluded.

The videos were made after the arrests three weeks ago of suspects connected to the alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jets. Their style mimics the "martyrdom videos" of Islamic radicals.

The release of the videos on YouTube, a US-based open-access website, coincides with reports of a rise in the number of attacks on mosques.

Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said the videoed threats were extremely worrying.

"There is no question there has been an increase in attacks on mosques and Muslims," he said at the weekend.

The videos, posted between August 11 and 19, depict three men, each wearing a black terrorist-style mask.

Would-be viewers of the clips, lasting two to three minutes, are told in a YouTube warning the videos "may contain content that is inappropriate for some users".

In one video, a man with a London accent says: "I wish to know what we are going to do to fight the so-called religion of peace known as Islam."

He lists incidents including the racially motivated murder of Ross Parker, a white teenager, on September 21, 2001. The alleged airline bomb plot is also mentioned, with the masked man claiming it has resulted in "no retaliation" against Muslims.

He says: "It may be because you fear prison. Well, wake up. I am calling on England, Ulster, Scotland and Wales to stand and defend the island that we love."

Another video, dated August 19, shows a balaclava-clad man with a Welsh accent telling Muslims to "go home" or be burned.

Brandishing a 30cm-long hunting knife with a serrated blade, he says: "We are going to rip the life out of you. I am going to tear your guts out. I'll cut your head off."

In a reference that may indicate a military background, he says the slaughter would remind him of being "back in the Gulf".

Ward's resume says he has been a visiting professor at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. Federal officials believe Thailand to be a well-known destination for so-called "sex tourists" who travel there to exploit minors. Wharton's website also lists pro bono consulting work in Brazil as one of Ward's current projects.

According to published reports, in 1999 Ward was fined $2,500 and sentenced to five years probation on charges of attempting to promote prostitution and corrupt minors. In that case, he entered a plea which allowed him to acknowledge that there was sufficient evidence to convict him, without admitting guilt for those charges.

Ward's resume lists several government consulting assignments including work with the Executive Office of the President, the FCC, Department of Commerce and the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention. Many of his published works deal with the effects of television advertising and marketing on children and adolescents. According to his biography, Ward has been a marketing consultant to many top companies and lists IBM, Microsoft, General Motors, Home Depot, Exxon, Citibank and Johnson & Johnson among his clients. During the 1980s, he hosted a television program, "The Wharton Business Report" on the now defunct Financial News Network. Ward's biography also states that he was chairman of a foundation that served disadvantaged children with learning disabilities.

The University of Pennsylvania issued the following statement today, relating to Ward's arrest, "We have just learned of the arrest of Scott Ward in Virginia. At the present time, we have very few details. We are currently gathering information about the situation and will take appropriate action as soon as we know more."

Another possibility is that the president actually believes this simplistic notion picked up from the fringe writings of the radical right. He may believe that these petty groups and their posturing leaders "are successors to fascists, to Nazis, to communists and other totalitarians of the 20th century." By inflating his enemies, he raises his own perceived role in history. He becomes the Churchillian leader of "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century."

It is difficult to believe that the senior leadership in the National Security Council, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff supports this grandiose analysis. It is harder to believe that the senior analysts in the intelligence agencies have concurred with this distorted world view.

The worst case, however, is that the president will act on his vision. He expressly abandons decades of bipartisan efforts to manage world events and contain disruptive forces. "For a half-century, America's primary goal in the Middle East was stability," he says contemptuously, embracing the neoconservative notion that we use the U.S. military for serial regime change to force a new world order.

If so, this could be not just the political posturing of an election campaign but the unveiling of a new phase in the president's long war. A war, he says, in which the "fighting there can be as fierce as it was at Omaha Beach or Guadalcanal."

A grim prediction, a bizarre campaign platform, and a future we must reject.

This, at least, is what happened to Ken Roth. Roth - whose father fled Nazi Germany - is executive director of Human Rights Watch, America's largest and most respected human rights organization. (Disclosure: I have worked in the past as a paid consultant for the group.) In July, after the Israeli offensive in Lebanon began, Human Rights Watch did the same thing it has done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Congo, Uganda and countless other conflict zones around the globe: It sent researchers to monitor the conflict and report on any abuses committed by either side.

It found plenty. On July 18, Human Rights Watch condemned Hezbollah rocket strikes on civilian areas within Israel, calling the strikes "serious violations of international humanitarian law and probable war crimes." So far, so good. You can't lose when you criticize a terrorist organization.

But Roth and Human Rights Watch didn't stop there. As the conflict's death toll spiraled - with most of the casualties Lebanese civilians - Human Rights Watch also criticized Israel for indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Roth noted that the Israeli military appeared to be "treating southern Lebanon as a free-fire zone," and he observed that the failure to take appropriate measures to distinguish between civilians and combatants constitutes a war crime.

The backlash was prompt. Roth and Human Rights Watch soon found themselves accused of unethical behavior, giving aid and comfort to terrorists and anti-Semitism. The conservative New York Sun attacked Roth (who is Jewish) for having a "clear pro-Hezbollah and anti-Israel bias" and accused him of engaging in "the de-legitimization of Judaism, the basis of much anti-Semitism." Neocon commentator David Horowitz called Roth a "reflexive Israel-basher ... who, in his zest to pillory Israel at every turn, is little more than an ally of the barbarians." The New Republic piled on, as did Alan Dershowitz, who claimed Human Rights Watch "cooks the books" to make Israel look bad. And writing in the Jewish Exponent, Jonathan Rosenblum accused Roth of resorting to a "slur about primitive Jewish bloodlust."

Anyone familiar with Human Rights Watch - or with Roth - knows this to be lunacy. Human Rights Watch is nonpartisan - it doesn't "take sides" in conflicts. And the notion that Roth is anti-Semitic verges on the insane.

But what's most troubling about the vitriol directed at Roth and his organization isn't that it's savage, unfounded and fantastical. What's most troubling is that it's typical. Typical, that is, of what anyone rash enough to criticize Israel can expect to encounter. In the United States today, it just isn't possible to have a civil debate about Israel, because any serious criticism of its policies is instantly countered with charges of anti-Semitism. Think Israel's tactics against Hezbollah were too heavy-handed, or that Israel hasn't always been wholly fair to the Palestinians, or that the United States should reconsider its unquestioning financial and military support for Israel? Shhh: Don't voice those sentiments unless you want to be called an anti-Semite - and probably a terrorist sympathizer to boot.

How did adopting a reflexively pro-Israel stance come to be a mandatory aspect of American Jewish identity? Skepticism - a willingness to ask tough questions, a refusal to embrace dogma - has always been central to the Jewish intellectual tradition. Ironically, this tradition remains alive in Israel, where respected public figures routinely criticize the government in far harsher terms than those used by Human Rights Watch.

In a climate in which good-faith criticism of Israel is automatically denounced as anti-Semitic, everyone loses. Israeli policies are a major source of discord in the Islamic world, and anger at Israel usually spills over into anger at the U.S., Israel's biggest backer.

With resentment of Israeli policies fueling terrorism and instability both in the Middle East and around the globe, it's past time for Americans to have a serious national debate about how to bring a just peace to the Middle East. But if criticism of Israel is out of bounds, that debate can't occur - and we'll all pay the price.

Back to Human Rights Watch's critics. Why waste time denouncing imaginary anti-Semitism when there's no shortage of the real thing? From politically motivated arrests of Jews in Iran to assaults on Jewish children in Ukraine, there's plenty of genuine anti-Semitism out there - and Human Rights Watch is usually taking the lead in condemning it. So if you're bothered by anti-Semitism - if you're bothered by ideologies that insist that some human lives have less value than others - you could do a whole lot worse than send a check to Human Rights Watch.

rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com

Gosch said investigators confirmed the photos were authentic and likely taken within "hours or days" of the abduction. She said they were checking for fingerprints that could lead them to the source and possibly a breakthrough in a case that has long baffled authorities. The other boys in the photo were unidentified.

The photos were given to the state Division of Criminal Investigation's computer crime task force, West Des Moines police Lt. Jeff Miller said. He said police have not positively identified the boy in the photos as Johnny Gosch.

Johnny's disappearance triggered nationwide fears of child abductions. He was one of the first faces of missing or abducted children to appear on milk cartons across the country.

Several theories have developed since he vanished before dawn while delivering Sunday newspapers. His newspaper wagon was discovered near his West Des Moines home, but few substantial clues have surfaced since then.

Gosch believes her son was taken by child pornographers. She told authorities he briefly contacted her in 1997 but feared for his life and declined to give details about where he was. She believes his abductors got him involved in crimes, which is why he is hiding his identity.

The National Center for Missing Children is examining the other boys in the photograph and trying to match it with its database of missing children.

"These kids have parents someplace," Gosch said. "I'm sure they feel the same way I did. ... Hopefully we can do some good and give these parents some peace."

Johnny was Gosch's youngest of three children, and she has devoted her life to finding him, from raising money for private detectives to following her own leads and prodding police to try harder. She also wrote a book called "Why Johnny Can't Come Home."