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.
The funny thing is, the day before we watched P, P &PL, I had the urge to watch Steel Magnolias again. This is one of my favorite movies because it reminds me so much of my home, my family, what the world was like when I was growing up. And when the wedding reception dance scene comes, I always tell anyone who is watching it with me that "My mother put Ginger Rogers in the shade..." and my fondest memories are of watching the floor clear at any gathering when she was dancing.
Mother won't be dancing anymore. For the past week, as I have had to deal with the many details that come with such a situation (made worse by having to do it long distance), I have had difficulty stopping the flow of tears. Every day I wake up and everything is fine... until I remember.
Did you know that deaths from cardiovascular diseases and stroke are the leading cause of death in 31 of the 35 Western Hemisphere countries that report disease related mortality statistics? Did you know that the highest of these mortality rates are found in the English-speaking Caribbean, USA, Canada, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay? Did you know that mortality rates from these causes are increasing in the Central American and Latin Caribbean regions as they come more and more under the sway of Western capitalism?
It seems that "Death by Democracy" isn't the only thing that the U.S. is exporting.
Getting back to Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, it was strange to watch this powerful piece of reporting that demonstrates unequivocally what a strangle-hold Israel has on the minds of the average American, and then, within the next few days, to witness the very process of "distract and confuse" activated in real time with the so-called London Terror Scare. What a piece of propaganda that is! And are they ever using it to the hilt! Today I read: "Among would-be bombers arrested - mothers who were to use their babies as cover... tootled from the Zionist Right-Wing propaganda site: Drudge Report. Shades of the Iraqi Incubator Scandal.
On October 10, 1990, as the Bush administration stepped up war preparations against Iraq, [public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, on behalf of the Kuwaiti government, presented 15-year-old "Nayirah" before the House Human Rights Caucus. Passed off as an ordinary Kuwaiti with firsthand knowledge of atrocities committed by the Iraqi army, she testified tearfully before Congress:
"I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital...[where] I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where 15 babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."
Supposedly fearing reprisals against her family, Nayirah did not reveal her last name to the press or Congress. Nor did this apparently disinterested witness mention that she was the daughter of Sheikh Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's ambassador to the U.S. As Americans were being prepared for war, her story - which turned out to be impossible to corroborate - became the centerpiece of a finely tuned public relations campaign orchestrated by H&K and coordinated with the White House on behalf of the government of Kuwait and its front group, Citizens for a Free Kuwait. (CFK)
In May 1991, CFK was folded into the Washington-based Kuwait-America Foundation. CFK had sprung into action on August 2, the day Iraq invaded Kuwait. By August 10, it had hired H&K, the preeminent U.S. public relations firm. CFK reported to the Justice Department receipts of $17,861 from 78 individual U.S. and Canadian contributors and $11.8 million from the Kuwaiti government. Of those "donations," H&K got nearly $10.8 million to wage one of the largest, most effective public relations campaigns in history.
From the streets to the newsrooms, according to author John MacArthur, that money created a benign facade for Kuwait's image:
"The H&K team, headed by former U.S. Information Agency officer Lauri J. Fitz-Pegado, organized a Kuwait Information Day on 20 college campuses on September 12. On Sunday, September 23, churches nationwide observed a national day of prayer for Kuwait. The next day, 13 state governors declared a national Free Kuwait Day. H&K distributed tens of thousands of Free Kuwait bumper stickers and T-shirts, as well as thousands of media kits extolling the alleged virtues of Kuwaiti society and history. Fitz-Pegado's crack press agents put together media events featuring Kuwaiti "resistance fighters" and businessmen and arranged meetings with newspaper editorial boards. H&K's Lew Allison, a former CBS and NBC News producer, created 24 video news releases from the Middle East, some of which purported to depict life in Kuwait under the Iraqi boot. The Wirthlin Group was engaged by H&K to study TV audience reaction to statements on the Gulf crisis by President Bush and Kuwaiti officials. "
All this PR activity helped "educate" Americans about Kuwait - a totalitarian country with a terrible human rights record and no rights for women. Meanwhile, the incubator babies atrocity story inflamed public opinion against Iraq and swung the U.S. Congress in favor of war in the Gulf.
This free market approach to manufacturing public perception raises the issue of:
...whether there is something fundamentally wrong when a foreign government can pay a powerful, well-connected lobbying and public relations firm millions of dollars to convince the American people and the American government to support a war halfway around the world. In another age this activity would have caused an explosion of outrage. But something has changed in Washington. Boundaries no longer exist.
One boundary which has been blurred beyond recognition is that between "propaganda"-which conjures up unpleasant images of Goebbels-like fascists-and "public relations," a respectable white collar profession. Taking full advantage of the revolving door, these lobbyists and spinmeisters glide through Congress, the White House, and the major media editorial offices. Their routine manipulations-- like those of their brown shirted predecessors -- corrode democracy and government policy. H&K's highly paid agents of influence, such as [former] Vice President Bush's chief of staff Craig Fuller, and Democratic power broker Frank Mankiewicz, have run campaigns against abortion for the Catholic Church, represented the Church of Scientology, and the Moonies. They have made sure that gasoline taxes have been kept low for the American Petroleum Institute; handled flack for Three Mile Island's near-catastrophe; and mishandled the apple growers' assertion that Alar was safe. They meddle in our political life at every turn and apparently are never held accountable. Not only do these PR firms act as foreign propaganda agents, but they work closely with U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies, making covert operations even harder to control.
It certainly makes one suspect that the whole "UK Terror Scare" of the past week is nothing more than a public relations campaign. Just to drive home that point, have a look at the third video on this site: US citizens who say "NO!" There you will hear Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law recount:
I spoke with the head of the IDF, and I said, "you know, it's clear that your people are inflicting Nuremberg Crimes on the Palestinians, exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews. What's your explanation?" He said, "Military necessity." Notice, he didn't disagree with me. I said, "That argument was rejected at Nuremberg when the lawyers for the Nazis made it." He said, "Well, we have Public Relations people in the United States and they handle these matters for us."
It seems that, in the broader scheme of things, Arabs and Muslims have to be made to look bad to Americans and Americans have to be made to look bad to the Muslims - and the broker of this "diplomacy" is Israel. To what end?
It is a fact that governments have - during all of recorded history - invented threats in order to pursue aggression and make their people sacrifice their lives, wealth and freedom.
One of the oldest written stories about this sort of thing is found in II Chronicles, Chapter 18, that I recounted in my Blog Post: V is for Vendetta.The fact is, if you believe that the U.S., UK, and even Israel were under threat by Islamic extremists and that this is what caused 911, you have been deceived. That's not to say that the actions of the U.S. and Israel since 911 (and, in Israel's case, even before 911), will not have created a whole generation of Islamic extremists that are NOW wishing to see every Jew and American dead and rotting.
But the fact remains: there is overwhelming evidence that Israel was deeply involved in the 9-11 attack and their "Public Relations" firms are putting in some late hours plotting new and scarier "Terror Scenarios" to remind everyone that there is an Islamic Extremist under every bed in America, the UK and Israel. More than that, that they are there for no good reason! Well, actually, the reason given is because they just mindlessly "hate us for our freedoms!" Never mind that we don't have any now because we had to give them all up to fight people that hate us for what we no longer have... Figure that one out.
Now, what is the basis for suspecting the involvement of Israel in the 911 attacks in the U.S.? There is actually a great deal of evidence, and it is not all just circumstantial evidence surrounding the various reports of Israeli Spy Rings, Israelis doing the Happy Dance, or MOSSAD Moving Companies. In fact, in June of 2002, a purported top-secret report from the German external intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) prepared with assistance from an internal German intelligence agency, the BfV, was published. Among the startling claims this report makes is that German intelligence agents "disclosed in late May of 2001 that an attack was to be made against certain specified targets in the American cities of Washington and New York. But it was apparent that the Mossad was not only fully aware of these attacks well in advance but actually, though their own agents inside these Arab groups, assisted in the planning and the eventual execution of the attacks.
"That the Israeli government was fully aware of these attack is absolutely certain and proven. Diplomatic traffic between the Israeli Embassy in the Federal Republic and the Israeli Foreign Office made it very clear that Minister President Sharon was fully aware of this pending attack and urgently wished that no attempt was made to prevent the attacks."
"On August 6,2001, the German ambassador Ischinger informed George W. Bush of the exact time and place of the attack. He thanked the ambassador and said that he already knew. Subsequently, his administration urgently requested the suppression of information on this warning."
It seems that, despite angry denunciations of the authenticity of the report from various other quarters, the German government itself has not issued a denial of the authenticity of this report.
LEBANON
According to a recent editorial in "The Jerusalem Post," Israel "is fighting the terrorist arm of the megalomaniacal regime in Iran, which has openly proclaimed its ambition to commit genocide against the Jewish nation. If this were not enough, the same regime wants to dominate the Muslim world, and from that base, subdue the entire West."
Terrorists? Self-defense???
Let me give you a little history lesson here.
During WW I , most of the area of Palestine was still under the control of the Ottoman Empire, and the borders of what would become Palestine had been outlined as part of the May 16, 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France. This was a secret understanding between the governments of Britain and France defining their respective spheres of post-World War I influence and control in the Middle East. The boundaries of this agreement still remain in much of the common border between Syria and Iraq. The agreement was negotiated in November 1915 by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and British Mark Sykes. Britain was allocated control of areas roughly comprising Jordan, Iraq and a small area around Haifa. France was allocated control of South-eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The controlling powers were left free to decide on state boundaries within these areas. The area which subsequently came to be called Palestine was for international administration pending consultations with Russia and other powers.
This agreement is viewed by many as conflicting with the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence of 1915–1916. The conflicting agreements are the result of changing progress during the war, switching in the earlier correspondence from needing Arab help to subsequently trying to enlist the help of Jews in the United States in getting the US to join the First World War, in conjunction with the Balfour Declaration, 1917. The agreement had been made in secret.
The agreement was later expanded to include Italy and Russia. Russia was to receive Armenia and parts of Kurdistan while the Italians would get certain Aegean islands and a sphere of influence around Izmir in southwest Anatolia. The Italian presence in Anatolia as well as the division of the Arab lands was later formalized in the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920.
How do we know about the Sykes-Picot agreement?
The Russian Revolution of 1917 led to Russia being denied its claims in the Ottoman Empire. At the same time Lenin released a copy of the confidential Sykes-Picot Agreement as well as other treaties causing great embarrassment among the allies and growing distrust among the Arabs.
The agreement is seen by many as a turning point in Western/Arab relations, as it negated the promises made to Arabs through T.E. Lawrence for a national homeland in the Syrian territory in exchange for their siding with British forces against the Ottoman Empire and gave the national homeland of the Arabs, the land where they had been living under the control of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, to European and American and Russian Jews in exchange for dragging the United States into the war.
Now, let me give you some perspective here: The number of World War I casualties (military and civilian) was over 37 million - over 15 million deaths and 22 million wounded. This includes almost 9 million military deaths and about 6.6 million civilian deaths. The United States lost 126,000 military personnel and brought home over 234,000 wounded - many disabled for life. That was the consequence of the Balfour Agreement, the double-crossing deal the Brits made with the Jews.
In his November, 2002 interview with the New Statesman magazine, the UK Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has blamed Britain's imperial past for many of the modern political problems, including the Arab-Israeli conflict.
"The Balfour declaration and the contradictory assurances which were being given to Palestinians in private at the same time as they were being given to the Israelis—again, an interesting history for us, but not an honourable one," he said.
British imperial designs were undoubtedly the primary political motivation in drawing influential British politicians to support the Zionist project. However, it is clear that the latter were predisposed to Zionism and to enthusiastically supporting the proposals of Herzl and leading Zionist officials such as Chaim Weizmann due to their Christian Zionist backgrounds. Balfour’s famous speech of 1919 makes the point:
“For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country…The four great powers are committed to Zionism, and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”
The phrases “rooted in age-long traditions” and “future hopes” were perhaps grounded in Balfour’s British imperial vision, but they were also buttressed by his understanding of Bible prophecy, which undergirded his bias toward the Zionist project as well as his grand designs for Britain’s colonialist policy.
Journalist Christopher Sykes (son of Mark Sykes, co-author of the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916), noted in his volume Two Studies in Virtue that Lloyd-George’s political advisers were unable to train his mind on the map of Palestine during negotiations prior to the Treaty of Versailles, due to his training by fundamentalist Christian parents and churches on the geography of ancient Israel. Lloyd-George admitted that he was far more familiar with the cities and regions of Biblical Israel than with the geography of his native Wales – or of England itself.
So, let's get it straight: Even Balfour admitted that there were over 700,000 occupants of Palestine when the land was given to the European, American and other Jews who then moved in, and occupied the land belonging to people who had been living there for over a thousand years.
So what right does Israel have to claim that their self-defense takes precedence over the self-defense of the original population of Palestine?
The fact is, the Zionist controlled American media - the "Public Relations Firm" mentioned by the head of the IDF quoted above - is deliberately creating the conditions for a bogus "Clash of Civilizations".
Why?
Going in another direction, it seems that COINTELPRO Pied Piper Alex Jones is now predicting a 90% chance of a nuclear terror attack in the U.S. and the beginning of World War III within the next couple of months.
As it happens, there is an Alex Jones Video from Wednesday July 25 2001, warning about september 11th and Osama Bin Laden, months before it happened! As anybody with two firing neurons can figure out, the only way Jones could have known about 911 in advance was if he had inside knowledge and that suggests "insider connections" which suggest Israel. In short, it looks like Jones was being prepared even before 911 for the "alternative news" role he has played all along... mostly truth, but with a particular spin.
And what is that spin?
Well, go and listen to the alleged broadcast from July 25th and notice that Jones is following the line of blaming everything on the U.S. administration.
Well, of course we know that the U.S. Administration is a REAL terrorist organization. But what Jones, Tarpley, and others in the 911 Truth Movement fail to mention is WHY the U.S. Administration is a terrorist organization: because it is infiltrated and controlled by Israel.
Jones and Tarpley spend a lot of time pointing the finger at the U.S. ALONE, and assiduously avoid the hand pulling the strings: Israel. Tarpley pretty much blames everything on the "Bush Crime Family" and its cronies and the CIA and so on. But I have discovered that Tarpley doesn't really do his homework (I'll write more about that later). He takes everything to a certain "layer" of conspiracy, makes a big splash claiming he's got the goods, and goes no further.
Who does this benefit?
Why, Israel, of course. Israel will soon own all of the oil assets of the Middle East (if its plans go as intended) and the U.S. will be reduced to an impoverished client state of Israel and in such a position, Israel will be the undisputed master of the world. This is Israel's goal. And, from Israel's point of view, a Revolution in the U.S. would be a good thing.
If you look at this page on the SOTT forum: where I have posted the Vanity Fair article about the alternative media video hit Loose Change, you will see in the last few paragraphs of this article that Revolution is what Dylan Avery is proposing as the solution to the 911 issues and we can pretty well bet that if Vanity Fair published it, that is what Israel wants in the U.S. That is what is behind the so-called 911 Truth Movement that does not acknowledge Israel as the Mastermind of Global Terrorism.
A Revolution in the U.S. will be a bloody and horrible event; millions will die and the U.S. infrastructure will be destroyed. Americans will be reduced to a savage existence, while all the major assets of the U.S., including its vast stockpile of armaments, will be transferred to Israel.
Think about it.
The Master Race of Ashkenazi Jews (read this thread on the SOTT forum for the evidence) was created during WW II by culling the herd of Jews - eliminating the real Jews and preserving the Ashkenazi who have a particular genetic history - and this race of psychopaths seeks to take over the world. And Alex Jones and most of the 911 Truth Movement are Israel's minions whether they realize it or not, whether it is conscious or not, and Jones and Tarpley are leading the pack while Rense and Micheal Rivero are fanning the flames of Revolution.
Or so it seems to me.
The fact is, young Americans and Israelis are little more than cannon fodder for the Israeli globalist's plans to build a "new Middle East," and perhaps even a New World Order with Israel at its head.
Why?
From Norman Finkelstein's book "Beyond Chutzpah":
"In the course of preparing the chapters of this book devoted to Israel's human rights record in the Occupied Territories, I went through literally thousands of pages of human rights reports, published by multiple, fiercely independent, and highly professional organizations - Amnesty International, Human Rights Watchs, B'Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights - Israel - each fielding its own autonomous staff of monitors and investigators.
Except on one minor matter, I didn't come across a single point of law or fact on which these human rights organizations differed.
In the case of Israel's human rights record, one can speak today not just of a broad consensus - as on historical questions - but of an UNQUALIFIED consensus.
All these organizations agreed, for example, that Palestinian detainees have been sytematically ill treated and tortured, the total number now probably reaching the tens of thousands.
Yet if, as I've suggested, broad agreement has been reached on the FACTUAL record, an obvious anomaly arises: what accounts for the impassioned controversy that still swirls around the Israel-Palestine conflict?
To my mind, explaining this apparent paradox requires, first of all, that a fundamental distinction be made between those controversies that are real and those that are contrived.
To illustrate real differences of opinion, let us consider again the Palestinian refugee question.
It is possible for interested parties to agree on the facts yet come to diametrically opposed moral, legal, and political conclusions.
Thus, as already mentioned, the scholarly consensus is that Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948.
Israel's leading historian on the topic, Benny Morris, although having done more than anyone else to clarify exactly what happened, nonetheless concludes that, morally, it was a good thing - just as, in his view, the "annihilation" of Native Americans was a good thing - that, legally, Palesitnians have no right to return to their homes, and that, politically, Israel's big error in 1948 was that it hadn't "carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole country - the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan" of Palestinians.
However repellant morally, these clearly can't be called FALSE conclusions.
Returning to the universe inhabited by normal human beings, it's possible for people to concur on the facts as well as on their moral and legal implications, yet still reach divergent POLITICAL conclusions.
Noam Chomsky agrees that, factually, Palestinians were expelled; that, morally, this was a major crime; and that, legally, Palestinians have a right of return. Yet, politically, he concludes that implementation of this right is infeasible and pressing it inexpedient, indeed, that dangling this (in his view) illusory hope before Palestianian refugees is deeply immoral.
There are those, contrariwise, who maintain that a moral and legal right is meaningless unless it can be exercised and that implementing the right of return is a practical possibility.
For our purposes, the point is not who's right and who's wrong but that, even among honest and decent people, there can be a real and legitimate differences of political judgment.
This having been said, however, it bears emphasis that - at any rate, among those sharing ordinary moral values - the range of political disagreement is quite narrow, while the range of agreement quite broad."
It is quite clear that those individuals running Israel - not to mention the Neocon Administration - are psychological deviants without consciences.
Relating this to Ponerology, we note that psychologist Andzrej Lobaczewski writes:
Psychopaths are conscious of being different from normal people. That is why the "political system" inspired by their nature is able to conceal this awareness of being different. They wear a personal mask of sanity and know how to create a macrosocial mask of the same dissimulating nature. When we observe the role of ideology in this macrosocial phenomenon, quite conscious of the existence of this specific awareness of the psychopath, we can then understand why ideology is relegated to a tool-like role: something useful in dealing with those other naive people and nations. [...]
Pathocrats know that their real ideology is derived from their deviant natures, and treat the "other" - the masking ideology - with barely concealed contempt." [...]
"This privileged class of deviants feels permanently threatened by the "others", i.e. by the majority of normal people. Neither do the pathocrats entertain any illusions about their personal fate should there be a return to the system of normal man.
If the laws of normal man were to be reinstated, they and theirs could be subjected to judgment, including a moralizing interpretation of their psychological deviations; they would be threatened by a loss of freedom and life, not merely a loss of position and privilege. Since they are incapable of this kind of sacrifice, the survival of a system which is the best for them becomes a moral imperative. Such a threat must be battled by means of any and all psychological and political cunning implemented with a lack of scruples with regard to those other "inferior-quality" people that can be shocking in its depravity. ...
Thus, the biological, psychological, moral, and economic destruction of the majority of normal people becomes, for the pathocrats, a "biological" necessity. Many means serve this end, starting with concentration camps and including warfare with an obstinate, well-armed foe who will devastate and debilitate the human power thrown at him, namely the very power jeopardizing pathocrats rule: the sons of normal man sent out to fight for an illusionary "noble cause." Once safely dead, the soldiers will then be decreed heroes to be revered in paeans, useful for raising a new generation faithful to the pathocracy and ever willing to go to their deaths to protect it. ...
...the masses must be educated and channeled in the direction of imperialist strivings. Such goals must be pursued doggedly so that everyone knows what is being fought for and in whose name a harsh discipline and poverty must be endured. This latter factor effectively limits the possibility of 'subversive' activities on the part of the society of normal people. ...
A normal person's actions and reactions, his ideas and moral criteria, all too often strike abnormal individuals as abnormal. For if a person with some psychological deviations considers himself normal, which is of course significantly easier if he possesses authority, then he would consider a normal person different and therefore abnormal, whether in reality or as a result of conversive thinking. That explains why such people's government shall always have the tendency to treat any dissidents as "mentally abnormal".
Operations such as driving a normal person into psychological illness and the use of psychiatric institutions for this purpose take place in many countries in which such institutions exist. Contemporary legislation binding upon normal man's countries is not based upon an adequate understanding of the psychology of such behavior, and thus does not constitute a sufficient preventive measure against it.
Within the categories of a normal psychological world view, the motivations for such behavior were variously understood and described: personal and family accounts, property matters, intent to discredit a witness' testimony, and even political motivations. Such defamatory suggestions are used particularly often by individuals who are themselves not entirely normal, whose behavior has driven someone to a nervous breakdown or to violent protest. Among hysterics, such behavior tends to be a projection onto other people of one's own self-critical associations. A normal person strikes a psychopath as a naive, smart-alecky believer in barely comprehensible theories; calling him "crazy" is not all that far away. [...]
The abuse of psychiatry for purposes we already know thus derives from the very nature of pathocracy as a macrosocial psychopathological phenomenon. After all, that very area of knowledge and treatment must first be degraded to prevent it from jeopardizing the system itself by pronouncing a dramatic diagnosis (Ed: i.e. exposing the pathocrats), and must then be used as an expedient tool in the hands of the authorities. In every country, however, one meets with people who notice this and act astutely against it. [...]
The pathocracy feels increasingly threatened by this area whenever the medical and psychological sciences make progress. After all, not only can these sciences knock the weapon of psychological conquest right out of its hands; they can even strike at its very nature, and from inside the empire, at that. Political Ponerology
The pathocracy ensures its continued hold on power by periodically engaging
in reduction of the population of normal people - culling the herd - chiefly
by means of manufactured war. As Lobaczewski says, "an obstinate and
well-armed foe" is used to throw legions of normal people (in the form
of the military) at this foe and thereby debilitate and subdue the normal
peoples of the world - the only threat to the ruling pathocracy.
Notice also the devilish manipulation whereby these soldiers, deliberately
and needlessly sacrificed by the pathocrats, are then lauded as heroes to
ensure future generations of cannon fodder. Notice the real life evidence
of this where millions of American citizens cry "support our troops".
What are they supporting but the futile sacrifice of their own sons and daughters,
brothers and sisters, and all to serve the agenda of the psychopaths in power?
A clearer description of what is happening right now in modern day America is
unlikely to be found. Expansionism has been made a virtue by the American pathocracy.
Bush claims that the U.S. military is spreading "freedom and democracy" when
in fact he is pursuing an imperialist agenda. Lobaczewski says:
"This goal must be pursued doggedly so that everyone knows what is being fought for and in whose name harsh discipline and poverty must be endured."
Reference the fact that Americans are being told that they must sacrifice
their liberties in order for the government to better wage the "war
on terror" and the clampdown on anti-Bush demonstrations because they "harm
the war on terror". As regards "creating conditions of poverty" in
order to limit the possibility of "subversive" activities on the
part of the society of normal people: there is much evidence that the American
economy is set for a major nose-dive. When it does, the effect on a large
percentage of ordinary Americans (all those not part of the 'monied classes')
will be a dramatic re-prioritization, leaving them concerned chiefly with
their ability to feed themselves and their families.
But this is only the background of the "psychic driving" that is being
done to the American people AND peoples all over the world; pathocracy is not
restricted to the U.S. The psychic driving is done via mass media productions
including the 911 attack and how it was spun and utilized as described above.
More than that, our entire social system is a form of "psychic driving."
The fact is that the present fake war on Terror is just a ruse to send millions of normal human beings to their deaths in a war against an "obstinate, well-armed foe who will devastate and debilitate the human power thrown at him, namely the very power jeopardizing pathocrats rule: the sons of normal man sent out to fight for an illusionary "noble cause."
A June 6, 2002 report informs us that Iran already has nuclear weapons. Up to this point, including the insulting interview conducted by Mike Wallace over the weekend, Iran has behaved with great circumspection. However, that may definitely change if there is a fake terror attack in the U.S., UK or elsehwere, and Iran and Syria are attacked which seems very likely to be the plan.
China and Russia are - at the present moment - behind Hezbollah and Iran. One even suspects that there is some superior intell and strategists behind the Lebanese, otherwish how could Israel end up with so much damage, including its reputation? One suspects that they are not going to take this lying down and the recent UK Terror Scare was cooked up rather quickly to distract attention away from Israel with the black eye and re-focus it on those "eeeevil Islamic terr'rists."
Getting back to Israel's delusional "self defense", Henry Makow mentions the monograph "Israel's Sacred Terrorism" (1980) by Livia Rokach, which suggests that Israel's defensive posture is a ruse. Rokach quotes from the personal diary of Moshe Sharett, who was Israeli's first Foreign Minister from 1948-1956, and Prime Minister from 1954-1956 in which he wrote that the "Jewish state" always planned to become the dominant power in the region, and "invented dangers" in order to dupe its citizens and provoke war. Sharett writes:
"The state.... must see the sword as the main if not the only instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may -- no it MUST -- invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation and revenge.... And above all, let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space."
The fact is, Israel was not created for the Jews to have a "national homeland," it was created to control the oil in the region. However, once having created the Frankenstein, the UK lost control of its monster and we all must deal with the consequences.
The main problem facing all of us is the "Public Relations" firms mentioned by the head of the IDF quoted above, i.e. the entire mainstream media in the U.S. and MOST of the Alternative Media as well. You don't think they are going to put billions of dollars into such "Public Relations" and NOT also have a hand on the pulse of the internet, do you? With that kind of money, they own most of it, of that you can be sure.
That is the lynchpin, in my opinion. The media presents a sort of "Peer Pressure," and pretends to be the voice of the people - and manufactures "social proof". It is "canned consent" and induces silence the same way "canned laughter" on televison induces people to think they are watching something funny.
To discover why canned laughter is so effective, we first need to understand the nature of yet another potent weapon of influence: the principle of social proof. This principle states that we determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct.
The principle applies especially to the way we decide what constitutes correct behavior. We view a behavior as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.
Whether the question is what to do with an empty popcorn box in a movie theater, how fast to drive on a certain stretch of highway, or how to eat the chicken at a dinner party, the actions of those around us will be important guides in defining the answer.
The tendency to see an action as appropriate when others are doing it works quite well normally. As a rule, we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than by acting contrary to it. Usually, when a lot of people are doing something, it is the right thing to do.
This feature of the principle of social proof is simultaneously its major strength and its major weakness. Like the other weapons of influence, it provides a convenient shortcut for determining the way to behave but, at the same time, makes one who uses the shortcut vulnerable to the attacks of profiteers who lie in wait along its path.
In the case of canned laughter, the problem comes when we begin responding to social proof in such a mindless and reflexive fashion that we can be fooled by partial or fake evidence. Our folly is not that we use others' laughter to help decide what is humorous; that is in keeping with the well-founded principle of social proof. The folly is that we do so in response to patently fraudulent laughter. Somehow, one disembodied feature of humor - a sound -works like the essence of humor. ...
In the process of examining the reactions of other people to resolve our uncertainty, however, we are likely to overlook a subtle, but important fact: Those people are probably examining the social evidence, too.
Especially in an ambiguous situation, the tendency for everyone to be looking to see what everyone else is doing can lead to a fascinating phenomenon called pluralistic ignorance. A thorough understanding of the pluralistic ignorance phenomenon helps explain a regular occurrence in our country that has been termed both a riddle and a national disgrace: the failure of entire groups of bystanders to aid victims in agonizing need of help.
Katherine Genovese, was killed in a late-night attack on her street as she returned from work. Murder is never an act to be passed off lightly, but in a city the size and tenor of New York, the Genovese incident warranted no more space than a fraction of a column in the New York Times. Catherine Genovese's story would have died with her on that day in March 1964 if it hadn't been for a mistake.
The metropolitan editor of the Times, A. M. Rosenthal, happened to be having lunch with the city police commissioner a week later. Rosenthal asked the commissioner about a different Queens-based homicide, and the commissioner, thinking he was being questioned about the Genovese case, revealed something staggering that had been uncovered by the police investigation. It was something that left everyone who heard it, the commissioner included, aghast and grasping for explanations.
Catherine Genovese had not experienced a quick, muffled death. It had been a long, loud, tortured, public event. Her assailant had chased and attacked her in the street three times over a period of 35 minutes before his knife finally silenced her cries for help.
Incredibly, 38 of her neighbors watched from the safety of their apartment windows without so much as lifting a finger to call the police.
Rosenthal, a former Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, knew a story when he heard one. On the day of his lunch with the commissioner, he assigned a reporter to investigate the "bystander angle" of the Genovese incident. Within a week, the Times published a long, front-page article that was to create a swirl of controversy and speculation. The initial paragraph of that report provided the tone and focus of the story:"For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens." ...
The psychologists speculated that, for at least two reasons, a bystander to an emergency will be unlikely to help when there are a number of other bystanders present. The first reason is fairly straightforward.
With several potential helpers around, the personal responsibility of each individual is reduced: "Perhaps someone else will give or call for aid, perhaps someone else already has." So with everyone thinking that someone else will help or has helped, no one does.
The second reason is the more psychologically intriguing one; it is founded on the principle of social proof and involves the pluralistic ignorance effect Very often an emergency is not obviously an emergency. Is the man lying in the alley a heart-attack victim or a drunk sleeping one off? Is the commotion next door an assault requiring the police or an especially loud marital spat where intervention would be inappropriate and unwelcome? What is going on?
In times of such uncertainty, the natural tendency is to look around at the actions of others for clues. We can learn from the way the other witnesses are reacting whether the event is or is not an emergency. [Robert Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice]
It is "social proof" via the media that is being used as a control weapon against the masses of humanity.
What is even worse is that "social proof" is also being produced by the Zionist Media and Pathocrats as a means of not only inducing silence, but active complicity on the part of human beings who would otherwise not participate in the madness that has overtaken our world.
In a pathocracy, all leadership positions, (down to village headman and community cooperative managers, not to mention the directors of police units, and special services police personnel, and activists in the pathocratic party) must be filled by individuals with corresponding psychological deviations, which are inherited as a rule. However, such people constitute a very small percentage of the population and this makes them more valuable to the pathocrats. Their intellectual level or professional skills cannot be taken into account, since people representing superior abilities are even harder to find.
After such a system has lasted several years, one hundred percent of all the cases of essential psychopathy are involved in pathocratic activity; they are considered the most loyal, even though some of them were formerly involved on the other side in some way. [...]
[T]o mitigate the threat to their power, the pathocrats must employ any and all methods of terror and exterminatory policies against individuals known for their patriotic feelings and military training; other, specific "indoctrination" activities such as those we have presented are also utilized. Individuals lacking the natural feeling of being linked to normal society become irreplaceable in either of these activities. Again, the foreground of this type of activity is occupied by cases of essential psychopathy, followed by those with similar anomalies, and finally by people alienated from the society in question as a result of racial or national differences.
The phenomenon of pathocracy matures during this period: an extensive and active indoctrination system is built, with a suitably refurbished ideology constituting the vehicle or Trojan horse for the purpose of pathologizing the thought processes of individuals and society.
The goal- forcing human minds to incorporate pathological experiential methods and thought-patterns, and consequently accepting such rule - is never openly admitted. This goal is conditioned by pathological egotism, and the possibility of accomplishing it strikes the pathocrats as not only indispensable, but feasible. Thousands of activists must therefore participate in this work.
We see this in the mainstream media, on the internet, in the 911 Truth Movement, everywhere. It is a concerted effort to produce "social proof" and thereby to pathologize the minds of normal human beings. And we can easily see that literally thousands upon thousands of deviant persons are employed in this activity.
We view a behavior as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.
It is THIS that we must overcome FIRST, before anything else can be done. That means that we need thousands of activists to counteract the activists of the Pathocrats and the Zionist controlled media.
But, in order to get the needed numbers of people on the job, doing what needs to be done, there has to be agreement as to where and how to apply the pressure. This is constantly being foiled by the COINTELPRO of the 911 Truth movement and the alternative media.
And so, yes, it is possible that World War III will erupt in the coming months... But it is not for the reasons posited by the Mainstream Media and even by most of the Alternative Media. It is all about a war between genetically different human beings, psychologically different by virtue of their genetics: deviants, psychopaths, and the masses of normal humans who - unless they wake up in a hurry - will pay the price once again. In short, the objective fact is: "the biological, psychological, moral, and economic destruction of the majority of normal people becomes, for the pathocrats, a "biological" necessity."
That IS their goal.
Once you truly understand the nature of the psychopath, what to do about it? Once you know that they are truly mad-dog, consciencless killers under a mask of sanity, in a three piece suit, or in a General's uniform, what do you do about it? And most particularly, what do you do about it when they are in positions of almost absolute power?
When you see the scenario as set up in the movie, V for Vendetta, you can see that it is almost exactly the problem we face. How do you get such creatures as that OUT of power?
On August 7th, 2006, 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.
My mother will never dance again; question is: will my children, or my children's children?
How do we return to that world of my childhood - the world of Steel Magnolias - where my mother could put Ginger Rogers in the shade?
What about YOUR children? Did you teach them to dance?
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But first, you'll need a little background in the form of three recent stories:
Blair's Approval Rating Hits Record Low
Olmert's Approval Over Lebanon Invasion Plunges
Bush's rating drops on nearly every issue
Furnished with those details, you are now ready to read and fully understand exactly why the gutter-press UK tabloid 'The Sun' is today reporting:
Hunt on for baby bombers
HATE-filled mums willing to sacrifice themselves and their BABIES are being hunted in the war on terror.
Security sources confirmed last night that alleged "baby bombers" were among those arrested over the plot to massacre thousands by downing transatlantic flights.
Those being quizzed included a husband and wife with a six-month-old infant.
The discovery prompted fears that there were fanatical mothers in secret al-Qaeda cells in Britain ready to become suicide bombers - and to die with their tots in their arms.
And it emerged as the reason why women at airports were ordered to drink from their babies' bottles before being allowed to board flights during last week's massive alert.
One senior Government security adviser warned of a race against time to identify individuals who might pose a threat.
The adviser said: "It may be beyond belief, but we are convinced that there are now women in Britain who are prepared to die with their babies for their twisted cause. They are ruthless, single-minded and totally committed."
The nightmare is that mums carrying tiny tots would provide "very good cover" and not raise suspicions among even the most alert security guards.
The threat was identified along with an additional warning that as many as two dozen terror cells may still be active in Britain.
The source added: "We believe all the known players involved in last week's plot have been detained. Our biggest concern now is all the unknown players who may be out there.
"And that includes mothers who are ready and willing to see their little ones die. It is a race against time." Women around the world have carried out suicide attacks in the past.
Two female Chechen terrorists blew themselves up on separate flights in Russia two years ago.
An intelligence source said: "Al-Qaeda specialises in attempting the unexpected. What could be more unexpected in Western eyes than women willing to die with their babies?"
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.
Media reports in the days following the alert cite Pakistan's ISI as having identified Rashid Rauf as, "the link between the plot's planners and British-based Muslims who were allegedly preparing to carry out attacks on transatlantic flights."
According to former NSA official Wayne Madsen, the Lashkar-e-Toiba terror group, to which Rashid Rauf is affiliated, is wholly operated and funded by the Pakistani ISI.
The Pakistani ISI is a CIA front and controls terror cells at the discretion of the highest levels of the US military-industrial complex. This means that the potential mastermind of the liquid bomb plot, Rashid Rauf (pictured), was operating under the oversight and direction of Pakistani and by proxy American intelligence agencies.
To understand why the Pakistan link strongly indicates that Thursday morning's terror alert was a manufactured ruse, it is necessary to understand the the nexus that connects Pakistani intelligence, the CIA and terrorist organizations.
In October 2001, under the headline 'Pakistani Intelligence Had Links to Al Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say,' the New York Times reported, "The intelligence service of Pakistan, a crucial American ally in the war on terrorism, has had an indirect but longstanding relationship with Al Qaeda, turning a blind eye for years to the growing ties between Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, according to American officials."
The ISI has received CIA funds to create and control militant organizations, including the Taliban and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Funds transferred from Pakistan bankrolled the alleged 9/11 hijackers before the attack. Ahmad Umar Sheikh wired $100,000 from Karachi to alleged lead hijacker Mohammed Atta at the behest of ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad. If this isn't a direct link from the ISI to Al-Qaeda then nothing is.
Porter Goss, later appointed as director of the CIA, was having breakfast with the money man behind the terrorists as the planes crashed on the morning of 9/11. Ahmad had also met with top defense and intelligence officials in Washington in the days before the attack, including then CIA director George Tenet, Pentagon officials, and White House personnel.
The fact that the Pakistani financier of the alleged hijackers was meeting with the top brass of the US government in the week before the attack was never investigated by the 9/11 Commission.
In addition, alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was repeatedly protected by the ISI, according to Josef Bodansky, the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare.
Defense Intelligence Agency documents dated from 2001 clearly indicate that the CIA is aware that Pakistan's ISI supports and bankrolls Al-Qaeda groups but they have deliberately chosen to ignore the connection.
This rich history of ISI creation and protection of terrorist cells, allied with the fact that the ISI is a known CIA front, and added to the revelation that the mastermind of the liquid bomb plot Rashid Rauf is under ISI control, it is therefore obvious to conclude that the entire charade was cooked and orchestrated by elements of the Bush/Blair cabal and sold as promotional propaganda for the increased surveillance and behavioral control of UK and US citizens.
At the very least, the terror cell had been fully infiltrated for months - this has already been admitted - and the snap "foiling" of the attack was coordinated and stage-managed for purposes of political grandstanding on the part of Bush, Blair and the Neo-Fascist apparatus that seeks to use the ailing justification of the war on terror for a future military incursion into Iran.
Another dimension to the indication that we are being fed another hoax, are reports detailing the alleged plot's links to the 7/7 London bombings.
As this website has exhaustively documented for over a year, the 7/7 bombings and the patsies that were used to take the fall for them, were controlled and engineered by the British intelligence apparatus.
The alleged ringleader of the attack which targeted three tube trains and one bus, Mohammed Siddique Khan, was an MI5 informant, according to former London Metropolitan Police detective and terror expert Charles Shoebridge. Therefore, in the case of the liquid bomb plot suspects, any link to the London bombers is a link to MI5.
It is clear that the scope of the attack has been greatly exaggerated by the British government to maximize fear and subservience engendered by images of alarmed and frightened airliner passengers.
Doomsday proclamations of ten planes exploding into balls of flames in mid-air do not correlate with the capacity of the liquid explosives the alleged terrorists were to use.
The only other example where terrorists used liquid explosives was the December 1994 Philippines Airline Boeing 747 incident, a dry run for a bigger plot conducted by Ramzi Youssef.
In this case, Youssef planted the explosives explosives under one of the seats in the airliner and timed them to detonate after he disembarked for a connecting flight. The subsequent explosion killed only the Japanese businessman who was sitting directly above the bomb. Besides five people with minor injuries, the other 200-plus passengers were unharmed and the plane landed safely.
Only liquid explosives in large and noticeable amounts can have any literal chance of "blowing up" a plane in mid-air. Confiscating pregnant white women's lip gloss is completely insane and proves in itself that the new airport measures are purely designed to act as a PR coup for the police state.
In addition, photographs of passengers being ordered to pour liquids into one single container completely belies the claim that the alleged terrorists planned to mix the liquids to create the deadly explosives. If mixing liquids was a key component of the bomb making process then why are airport security ordering people to mix liquids?
World Affairs Brief editor Joel Skousen highlights prescient questions about the inconsistencies of the properties of the alleged liquid explosives in relation to the much vaunted scale of the foiled attack.
"The supposed explosive device this
time was a Peroxide-based explosive, which is mildly explosive and can be
prepared from acetone, hydrogen Peroxide, and an acid catalyst. This type
is claimed by governments to be "widely in use by terrorist groups,"
though we have no known terrorist events where it has been used, except
by one Palestinian terrorist, and then as a detonator only-not as the main
charge. This explosive material is usually known by its abbreviation TATP
(Tri Acetone Tri Peroxide)," writes
Skousen.
"Both Peroxide and Acetone are clear liquids, but acetone (laquer thinner)
is easily identifiable by smell and its high rate of evaporation. Experts
indicate it is very unstable and highly unlikely to be a stand-alone explosive
to take down an airliner. The quantities would have to be large enough to
be easily noticed. Thus, even though this is a theoretical threat, banning
all cosmetics and lotions is stupid and banning all liquids is unnecessary.
Only clear liquids need checking. There is cheap test equipment for TATP,
and simple ways for TSA employees to quickly check for acetone and peroxide."
Returning to how the latest plot is a mirror image of Operation Bojinka - the Ramzi Youssef link is also telling because Youssef has been protected and coddled by the US government at every juncture.
In September of 1992 Youssef entered the US with Ahmad Ajaj. Ajaj's luggage contained documents on how to make bombs and was stuffed with fake passports and ID's. Ajaj was arrested - amazingly Youssef was released.
Youssef later masterminded the WTC '93 bombing with the gracious help of FBI agents. Having penetrated the group before the bombing, the FBI's mole, Emad Salem, was told to arm the terror cell with dummy explosives so a sting operation could ensnare the perpetrators. Salem was mystified when the orders changed, the sting was called off and the FBI allowed the bombing to go forward. This was all admitted in an October 1993 New York Times front page story.
Again, any Operation Bojinka or Ramzi Youssef link in the case of the liquid bomb plot is a link back to western intelligence agencies.
Within three days of its exposure, Tony Blair and MI5 are already milking the alleged plot for political purposes in re-introducing the argument for 90-day detention without charge legislation. Blair suffered his only defeat to date in the Commons last November when the bill was shot down by Labour rebels - a humiliating rejection of the so-called 'liberal' government's feverish bloodlust for authoritarian control.
Reports of criminal insider trading on airline stocks before the announcement of the alleged foiled plot, specifically British Airways stocks, have also started to filter in and will be the subject of a follow-up investigation.
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?
Perhaps we remember a time when our grief consumed us to the point we were barely able to function; our arms were trembling, we could not see for the tears that obscured our vision, we could not think because all we wanted was our loved one back in our arms or to release the fire of revenge; when all we wanted was to vent our rage on the evil who took away our reason for living. Or perhaps we are those who would feel a dull numbness from the shock-wave that takes away all semblance of meaning, all the joy of what makes u human.
There is the kind loss that empties you of your sensibilities and rational thoughts, just tosses your identity away so that you are a husk of what you once were. Maybe you have experienced this acidic pain that flays your heart and hangs it from a sharp hook, raw and bloody. If so, then your reality is changed, your reality can also be shared in silent communion whatever the ideology and the nation. Pain is understood by some and the gnawing loss is known across the ridiculous need of boarder mentalities and cultural divides.
The Israeli government, its military and other pathocratic governments linked by the same will to deceive and destroy are scraping out the insides of those who can empathise with their fellow man. They are dehumanizing all those who can remember what it is to feel for another across the illusion of distance. They are destroying piecemeal all those who have the seeds of that humanity within them. Here now, in the hi-tec false sophistication of the 21st century, there are people -'leaders' - murdering fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, children and their grandparents, in this case, all for the Greater Israel; all for a violent, false ideology that is predicated on a monumental lie.
Just as those in China who shot dead the young student activist who had the temerity to act on her humanity; just as those in the U.S. justify democracy by genocide in Iraq; and just as Tony Blair has the astonishing audacity to talk of peace while being instrumental in the modern day success of U.K. and U.S. colonialism - these are all spawned from the same pathology that has oh, so cleverly insinuated itself into the heart of nations, that has distorted the very structures of our societies, until we have taken on their "normality."
For those of us who cannot ignore conscience, who are jarred into reality when we see that the world being inexorably shaped into the pathocrat's image, the time is coming to make a choice as to how best we can transmute that shared inner suffering that demands to be released.
Propaganda from the mind dross of Fox News; the terminal lies of the U.S. Government; the habitually lackluster performance of UN resolutions; to the results of formerly and officially sanctioned historical genocide for economic and corporate gain - it is as terminal as it is ubiquitous. The allure of apathy pretends that we have no part in such crimes. This serves to confirm the arrogance and audacity of those in power who use innocent human lives as literal fodder for their war games and deluded visions of totalitarian rule.
Little Waad a 10 day-old baby was a legitimate target for those "machines" that sit in smug certainty that their psychotic morality will shape the actions of every one o us. Behind mahogany desks, the shuffling of official documents and easy, comfortable chairs they direct their brain-dead troops to do their bidding. This psychopathology is what has led us to our current low point in what is euphemistically called 'human evolution'. The physical distance that exists between us and the abject suffering of our fellow human beings applies a temporary cerebral band-aid to the shock of seeing the truth of our reality and prevents us from entering fully into our own humanity. What is happening now in Lebanon and Palestine is not just a repeating pattern of the same old Middle Eastern turmoil, it is a prelude to a game-plan that will involve every single person on this planet, and that includes you.
Every single one of us. Wherever we are and whoever we maybe. How we react to the horror we see before us will determine all of our futures.
There is a vacuum being carefully created and we can get sucked into the propaganda of those who are whipping up the frenzy of conflict for a variety of deluded ideologies or self-aggrandising missions and visions, or we can simply say enough is enough and stake our own claim for truth. We stand up and when confronted with the umpteenth civilian death, innocent people who were living their lives with the same hopes and dreams as you and I, we use the fire of indignation and we mold it into our own personal outpost; our strategic enclosure which houses all the rage and grief, all the empathy that can so often turn back into itself and do us harm, so that we may then build such energy into a creative force.
This outpost resists the fear and the apathy that so often results daily atrocities in the guise of noble ideals and grounds us in our own humanity. From there we can re-affirm that we do in fact have a conscience, and that it is based on a firm foundation of our own making. We are able to express it through our actions however limited in their scope and perceived effects. We no longer yield to programs of required conformity that are both subtle and crude, we do not slip into complacency and compliance that will ultimately transform us into the living dead searching for their elusive essence that has long since been buried, extinguished by our own hand.
Once those who truly fear the networked ignition of conscience begin to sense its rise, perhaps hope can be justified. Until then, we can add our own voice to the chorus of outrage and build our outpost brick by brick, again and again to keep that faith alive and to emblazen on that wall the image of Waad and millions of others like her. Perhaps then, we can allow our conscience to at last taste the true freedom it has been seeking.
Sunday, 6 August
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.
A friend calls from Tyre where Palestinians are welcoming Shia refugees from the hill villages of southern Lebanon into their homes. One old Palestinian lady turned on her guest with memories of her own endless exile since 1948. "Better to die in your home than run away," she shouts. Too many journos are wearing flak jackets and helmets, little spacemen who want to show they are "in combat" on television. I notice how their drivers and interpreters are usually not given flak jackets. These are reserved for us, the Westerners, the Protected Ones, Those Who Must Live.
I used to wear a flak jacket in Bosnia, but no more. Ever since a bullet penetrated the neck of a colleague and was kept within his body by the iron jacket - going round and round until it had destroyed his kidneys, liver and heart - I have refused to touch these things. Better to die in shirtsleeves.
Monday, 7 August
A pilotless drone buzzes over my home at 4am. To Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp to talk to Suheil Natour, the human rights man for the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. A book-crammed room that smells of paper and cups of tea - always a good sign - and he goes through the options of the Israelis and Hizbollah.
Do the Israelis want to draw the Palestinians into their battle, to help destroy Hamas? "Do you realise that the largest community in Lebanon - the Shias - are now spread as refugees in every other area of Lebanon for the first time ever?" he asks.
As I leave his office, I hear the drone again, surveying the camp. I do an interview with New Zealand television on the Beirut seafront and a group of young Shia men and women - the latter all in brown scarves - stand behind the camera to listen.
I talk about Lebanese history, the Ottoman empire, the disasters of the Shias, the Israeli invasions/bombardments of 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and now. Even the threats of the PLO, Hizbollah and the Israelis are the same.
When I've finished, one of the young men translates for his extended family. He is from Qana, he says. They fled after last week's massacre of 28 civilians who were hiding from Israel's bombing in a basement. The Israelis dropped a bomb that exploded in the basement.
Tuesday, 8 August Ed Cody and I pick up Hassan and the "Death Car" to race to the southern suburb of Shiyah, where the Israelis have fired two missiles into an apartment block. Rubble, muck, body parts, shrieking men and women - the death toll of 20 soon to rise to 63, all civilians.
Some idiot had heard a drone over the street and opened fire on it. and within minutes an Israeli plane - or maybe the drone itself, so wonderful is American technology - had demolished the nearest building.
We drive across to the Mount Lebanon Hospital to talk to the wounded. How different it all is from Europe or America, where a journalist visiting a hospital is regarded as a vulture feasting on human misery. In Lebanon, we are always greeted by the head doctor, taken immediately to the wards, encouraged to talk to any of the patients.
And the patients brighten up when the foreigners arrive and talk happily. They want to shake hands and try to discuss their torment and pain and misery. It is always the same, at every hospital in the Middle East. We are welcome. Dr Nazih Gharios orders tea and asks his secretary to find out the name of the little boy in the mortuary who was brought dead to the hospital after the bombing.
The morning papers carry an odious speech by an American diplomat visiting Beirut. He is David Welch and he manages to express his love for a country his nation is helping Israel to destroy while avoiding any journalists' questions.
"I am late for another meeting," he pants. But get this for a quote: "Much has happened [sic] in the past three weeks, but the commitment of the United States to Lebanon remains firm; it remains enduring and it is not negotiable. The relationship of the United States with Lebanon is based on mutual respect..."
At no point does he mention the word "Israel". Of course not. The US embassy in Ulan Bator would beckon if he did.
Wednesday, 9 August
Oil from the burning fuel storage depot at Jiyeh is washing up on the shore opposite my home, dead birds, black fish and the smell of a refinery. It's broken up into thick black balls that lie on the rocks and sand when the tide goes out.
In the Chouf, the Druze are now caring for 100,000 Shia refugees. "There is not a single man between 25 and 40 among them," the wife of a Druze official remarks. I have a shrewd idea where all those men have gone.
To a hubble-bubble café in the evening where the oil-sogged waves slosh around the feet of a Lebanese fisherman perched on an old concrete pillar in the water. He wears a straw hat and I think at first he's a statue for tourists until he turns to put an oily fish into the basket on his back. "We have no food and we have stopped selling alcohol," the waiter proudly tells me. Well, I say, that's really going to bring in the customers!
The BBC is back to its old craven self, referring in a report from Israel to the tiny sliver of Lebanese territory taken at great cost by Israeli troops as Israel's "security zone" - Israel's own preposterous title for what must be the most insecure piece of land on earth.
It is, of course, an "occupation zone" but not, it seems, if it's occupied by the Israelis. Had Hizbollah seized Israeli territory - they did after all provoke this savage conflict with their own reckless crossing of the border - would the BBC be calling it Hizbollah's "security zone" in northern Israel? Would they hell.
Thursday, 10 August
To the City Café to meet Leena Saidi, Lebanese journalist and formerly one of the national television station's top newsreaders. City Café is definitely upmarket, opposite a traffic circle but filled with boring old men smoking cigars and discussing the future of Lebanon and elegant ladies in silk skirts, and one or two women whom my Mum used to describe as "mutton dressed as lamb".
We order green tea and then there's the roar of an explosion in the sky. An Israeli missile screeches right past us and crashes into the old French Mandate lighthouse, a brown-stone tower built in 1938 from which the Vichy French once sent out their propaganda.
Never have I seen the great and the good of Beirut society hurl themselves from their seats at such speed, overturning tables amid splintered glass, racing from the café for their chauffeur-driven cars, crashing into each other's vehicles - and failing to pay their bills. I see a panic-stricken motor-cyclist thrown on to the road. He rolls down the side of the traffic island, then runs for his life.
A second missile streaks past us into the tower. Do the Israelis think that Hizbollah's television station is broadcasting from here?
"Fisk!" Leena roars, almost as loudly as the rocket. "Why do you always bring trouble with you?" We finish a second cup of green tea and The Independent pays the bill. I am left wondering: what has Israel got against the French Mandate?
Friday, 11 August
I visit the barber. "Thanks to the God!" cries George when he sees me. It is lunchtime, and I am his first customer. Every Lebanese believes that we journos know the future, and we have to pretend that we do so that they will tell us what they know.
Ceasefire? Will Hizbollah fire more rockets into Israel? Photographs on the Lebanese front pages show burning Israeli tanks near Khiam. Shortage of newsprint. One of my morning papers is now only four pages - it was blown off my balcony by the wind this morning and I had to run down the street to retrieve it. But a bad thought. I like small newspapers. Less to read. More time to report.
Saturday, 12 August
A long radio interview with an Israeli professor who says "the number of people killed [in this war] doesn't reflect morality". Well, at more than a thousand Lebanese civilians dead against a few dozen Israelis, it can't reflect morality because, if it did, that would suggest Israel was committing war crimes.
But Hizbollah will also have their day of reckoning. Who gave them the right to bring this cruelty down upon the head of every Lebanese? Who gave the Shias permission to go to war for Lebanon? There will be questions in Israel too. How come the Israel Defence Forces, famous in legend and song, could not defend the people of Israel, despite slaughtering so many Lebanese civilians?
Cody has invented a great new word: to "flamboozle". It's what politicians do to their people when they go to war. Ehud Olmert has been flamboozling the Israelis and Sayed Hassan Nasrallah has been flamboozling Lebanon's Shias. We may have a ceasfire at the weekend. So the end of the flamboozling may be nigh.
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' Rumsfeld is very uneasy with the unquestioning support for the Israeli offensive because of the impact it will have on American troops in Iraq. His point to Bush and Rice is that Iraq's Shias will not stand by while their Lebanese Shia brothers are destroyed. He has pointed out to them -- to Rice and Bush -- that there are close family and political ties between the Moqtada al-Sadr family and the Musa al-Sadr and the close friendship between Maliki and Nawaf Moussawi, the foreign minister of Hezbollah. That Hezbollah worked to free the Dawa 17 at one point in its history was a surprise to Rice, as well as to Bush. With American casualties mounting in Iraq Rumsfeld does not believe we need to make enemies of the Shia. The demonstration of last week shook him -- and American commanders. '
' A U.N.-brokered ceasefire to end the month-old conflict in Lebanon came into force on Monday but intense fighting continued right up to the deadline for the guns to fall silent. In the first reaction to the truce, Israel Army Radio said the Jewish state's naval and air blockade will remain in effect for the present, Haaretz reported.
Israel launched an 11th-hour wave of air strikes on Lebanon and Hizbullah fighters unleashed a barrage of rockets just hours before the agreed "cessation of hostilities" took effect at 8 a.m. Beirut time (0500 GMT).
Israeli forces shelled areas around Tyre and Khiam in the war-battered south of the country, while combat jets flew over Beirut, dropping warning leaflets, and bombarded the ancient eastern city of Baalbek.
At least 38 Lebanese civilians and four soldiers were killed by Israeli fire Sunday as fighter jets kept up their deadly bombing in Beirut and across the country. Five Israeli soldiers were also killed in action. '
'
In one of the deadliest raids Sunday, at least 15 people were killed, including three children, by Israeli air strikes that hit eight buildings and a mosque in Beirut's southern suburbs, emergency services said . . .
At least eight people were also killed near Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, security officials said. '
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Comment on this Editorial
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Contained wars can be "good" for the markets, stimulating profits in corporations located far from the fighting. It is hard to see how an uncontained, global conflagration can be any good, though. But the "cease fire" announced (but not implemented) late last week gave hope to the markets that the Middle East wars will remain contained.
But looking only at "markets" obscures the larger economic significance of the events. To see that, it can help to look at events in terms of imperial competition to secure natural resources and control over cheap labor. Among those who see the wars in the Middle East as essentially imperial wars, wars to secure power and wealth, there is some dispute as to whether the United States or Israel is in the driver's seat.
Gold closed at 642.40 dollars an ounce on Friday, down 2.4% from $658.10 at the close of the previous Friday. The dollar closed at 0.7855 euros last week, up 1.2% from 0.7765 euros at the end of the previous week. That puts the euro at 1.2732 dollars compared to 1.2878 at the close of the Friday before. Gold in euros, then, would be 504.56, down 1.3% from 511.03 for the week. Oil closed at 74.30 dollars a barrel Friday, down 0.4% from $74.57 at the close of the previous Friday. Oil in euros would be 58.36 euros a barrel, up 0.8% from 57.90 for the week. The gold/oil ratio closed at 8.64 Friday, down 2.5% from 8.43 at the close of the previous week. In the U.S. stock market, the Dow closed at 11,088.03 Friday, down 1.4% from 11,240.35 at the close of the Friday before. The NASDAQ closed at 2,057.71 Friday, down 1.3% from 2,085.05 for the week. In U.S. interest rates, the yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 4.97%, up eight basis points from 4.89 for the week.
The markets were fairly steady again last week, when the world situation was anything but steady:
Financial markets weather global turmoil
by Ben Perry
Sun Aug 13, 4:25 AM ETAFP - Global financial markets are seeing limited reactions to geopolitical jitters as investors become used to events such as the alleged plot to destroy US-bound passenger planes, analysts say.
Markets recovered Friday after being rattled by news that police had foiled a scheme to blow up jets flying from Britain to the United States.
Investor sentiment also recovered quickly this year following sharp price movements caused by Iran's nuclear programme and violence in the Middle East.
"Financial markets are aware of the risk associated with geopolitical tension," said Jeremy Batstone, director of private client research at Charles Stanley stockbrokers, in the wake of the latest scare.
The thwarted bomb plot "wasn't an attack on the financial system, it was a commercial target. The financial market's behaviour was appropriate".
Batstone added, however, that had planes been destroyed, the consequences would have been "horrific" for trading sentiment.
World oil prices tumbled more than two dollars a barrel Thursday on forecasts that air traffic could suffer.
"I think that was a knee-jerk reaction of the market," said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based analyst with energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz.
Crude futures recovered Friday in New York and London and the International Energy Agency (IEA) said fresh geopolitical tension could send oil prices even higher.
Oil prices which hit a record high 78.64 dollars per barrel in London on Monday are widely regarded as a key barometer of the global economy because they impact equity, foreign exchange and commodity markets.
In its latest monthly report, the IEA said Friday that disruptions to oil supplies, the threat of platform damage from hurricanes, turmoil in the Middle East and concern over Iran presented a tight picture for the crude market.
But "scratch below the surface ... and these geopolitical and supply issues are less defining for the oil market than they appear", it added.
European stock markets tumbled Thursday as well, hammering share prices across the airline sector.
British Airways closed down 5.0 percent as the airline cancelled most short-haul flights departing from its hub at London's Heathrow airport.
Air France-KLM and German carrier Lufthansa both finished more than three percent lower on Thursday, but Air France-KLM recovered slightly on Friday.
"It's worth remembering that markets tend to be pretty resilient," said Henk Potts, equity strategist at Barclays Stockbrokers.
"When we have seen events in the past, such as the London attacks (on July 7, 2005), stocks have bounced back."
Wall Street shares actually gained ground on Thursday even though US airline stocks came in for a rocky ride.
On currency markets, the pound dropped on news of the Britain-US bomb scare but the dollar climbed on better-than-expected US trade data for June.
"The markets anticipate terrorist threats these days," said Steven Saywell, a currency analyst with US group Citibank.
"The initial September 11 attack was the first of its kind and the market did not know what the outcome would be," he said in reference to the 2001 strikes on the United States.
"But now there is now a much more muted response to these attacks."
The price of gold, which traditionally benefits from safe-haven status in times in geopolitical instability, steadied as police updated media on the latest terror probe.
Contained wars can be "good" for the markets, stimulating profits in corporations located far from the fighting. It is hard to see how an uncontained, global conflagration can be any good, though. But the "cease fire" announced (but not implemented) late last week gave hope to the markets that the Middle East wars will remain contained.
But looking only at "markets" obscures the larger economic significance of the events. To see that, it can help to look at events in terms of imperial competition to secure natural resources and control over cheap labor. Among those who see the wars in the Middle East as essentially imperial wars, wars to secure power and wealth, there is some dispute as to whether the United States or Israel is in the driver's seat. Bill Van Auken argues that the United States, as the leading power in world capitalism, is:
Bush's "strategy" is to widen the wars for "regime change" in the Middle East that began with the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. When the American president - whose closest allies in the region are the police state regimes and absolutist monarchies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan - uses the words "freedom" and "liberty," he is talking about the freedom of American banks and corporations to exercise exclusive domination over Middle East and its oil wealth.
Facing a catastrophe in its occupation of Iraq (with thousands of US forces now being sent back into Baghdad to resecure the capital and confront its restive Shiite population), the Bush administration has decided that the solution is not to withdraw, but rather to launch new wars, not only in Lebanon, but ultimately against Syria and Iran.
There is undoubtedly an element of madness in this strategy of escalating militarism, but this is not merely the lunacy of America's dim-witted president and his advisors. Rather, it reflects an irrational social system based on private ownership of the planet's productive forces and vital resources and the division of a globally integrated world economy into rival nation states.
US policy is essentially to utilize its military power to assert domination over the oil resources of the Middle East and Central Asia, and thereby assure American capitalism both a secure energy supply and the ability to dictate terms to its economic rivals.
The turn to escalating militarism is also driven by the profound internal contradictions of American society, dominated by an unprecedented polarization between a wealthy elite and the masses of working people, and faced with a growing prospect of economic slump combined with rising inflation - a recipe for social explosions.
A military attack on Syria and Iran has the gravest implications. With US military forces already stretched to the limit by the failing imperialist adventure in Iraq, a new war will inevitably bring with it the reinstitution of the draft, forcing American young people to serve as cannon fodder for the conquest of Iranian oil fields.
Moreover, a war against Iran has the most deadly implications. A US attack would provoke an Iranian response against Israel, and, in turn, a possible nuclear retaliation by Israel. The path now being taken by US imperialism leads to the death of millions.
The carnage in Lebanon has demonstrated that there exists no genuine political opposition to this turn towards global warfare within the US political establishment, with the ostensible opposition party, the Democrats, seeking to outdo the Republicans in their support for Israel. At the same time, the draft resolution produced by the US and France makes it clear, once again, that the European bourgeoisie is incapable of mounting any opposition to US militarism, and that the UN itself serves only as a tool for imperialist policy.
Mike Whitney, on the other hand, sees the Israeli aggression against Lebanon as an attempt to establish Israel as at least an imperial equal to the United States:
Israel, oil and the "planned demolition" of Lebanon
Mike Whitney
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Aug 8, 2006...The media portrayal of the current conflict is blatantly absurd. It has nothing to due with "captured soldiers" or Israel's "right to defend itself." This is a traditional war with clear territorial and political objectives. The border controversy is nonsense. Israel is trying to seize more land to realize its vision of "Greater Israel," while reducing an adjacent Arab country to a "permanent state of colonial dependency."
This explains the vast and deliberate destruction to Lebanon's civilian infrastructure. Israel's dominance requires that its neighbors endure abject poverty and oppression. By destroying the infrastructure and life-support systems, Israel hopes to eliminate the rise of a potential rival as well as to diminish the ability of the Lebanese resistance to wage war against the Jewish state. Once Lebanon is decimated, it will be delivered to Zionists at the World Bank (Paul Wolfowitz) who will apply the shackle of reconstruction loans and structural readjustment, which will keep Lebanon as an indentured servant to the global banking establishment. This model of economic servitude has been used throughout the developing world with varying degrees of success. It anticipates Israel's regional ascendancy while ensuring that Lebanon's sovereignty will be compromised for decades to come.
The United States has played a unique role in Israel's war on Lebanon. In its 230-year history, the US has never deliberately assisted in an attack on an ally. That record will end with Lebanon.
Lebanon's was a demonstrably "pro-American" government on friendly terms with Washington. In fact, American NGOs and intelligence organizations helped to activate the "Cedar Revolution," which gave rise to the Fouad Siniora government and the eventual expulsion of Syrian troops. To a large extent, Washington and Tel Aviv had achieved what they wanted to by meddling in Lebanon's political affairs. The country was singled out as a shining example of Bush's "global democratic revolution," which was the stated goal of American intervention in the Middle East.
Lebanon has since been rewarded for its cooperation by the total obliteration of its economy and infrastructure. The Bush administration has abandoned any pretense of being an "honest broker" and is now providing Israel with precision-guided missiles to prosecute a war against a (mainly) civilian population. They are also actively collaborating with the Olmert regime to foil all plans for an immediate cease-fire. The United States is a fully engaged partner in the premeditated destruction of a democratic country. It is as much a part of the Israeli aggression as any IDF tank commander rumbling towards Beirut.
The United Nations has been sidelined by the administration's obstructionism at the Security Council. The efforts of the Bolton-Rice team are tantamount to a "declaration of war." So far, the Israeli offensive has uprooted nearly 1 million people in the south; making refugees of approximately 25 percent of Lebanon's total population. The UN has done nothing to respond to this calamity. Its ineffectiveness casts doubt on whether it will survive the present crisis. Security in the new century will ultimately depend on alliances between the individual countries. The UN model of one, monolithic international institution trying to "preserve the peace" has proved to be a wretched failure.
The scene in the south of Lebanon is hauntingly similar to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948; the Nakba. Once again, Israel is seen driving Muslims from their homes in an attempt to expand its territory. The "deliberate" attack on Qana, which killed 57 civilians, as well as the bombing of clearly marked ambulances and "white flag-waving" mini-buses chock-full of fleeing villagers, shows that the Israeli high-command still understands the importance of using terror as a means of controlling behavior. Israel's carefully calculated atrocities have had the desired effect; triggering the mass-exodus of hundreds of thousands of frightened civilians and leaving Hezbollah guerillas to fight it out with the IDF.
The Bush administration is now attempting to pacify its critics by pushing a resolution that calls for a "full cessation of hostilities." The resolution does not demand that Israel stop attacking Hezbollah nor does it require the IDF to leave Lebanon. It is Munich all over again; a miserable "sell-out" by the Security Council that guarantees a steady increase in the violence as well as an intensification of the rage that is sweeping across the Muslim world. The UN has unwittingly endorsed Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and created the foundation for another generation of terrorists. The resolution shows that the UN is nothing more than a "cat's paw" for US/Israeli geopolitical ambitions and that the "post-colonial" European allies are willing to succumb to the neocon plan for a "New Middle East..."
What does Israel want?
The only way that Israel can maintain its dominance in the region is by becoming a main-player in the oil-trade. Otherwise it will continue to be dependent on the United States to strengthen its military and defend its interests. Israel's determination to "stand on its own two feet" is outlined in the neocon plan for "rebuilding Zionism" in the 21st century; "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." The document is the blueprint for redrawing the map of the Middle East and eliminating rivals to Israeli power. Most of the attention has been focused on the parts of the paper which presage the attacks on Iraq, Lebanon and Syria; including this ominous passage:
Securing the Northern Border:
Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which America can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principle agents of aggression in Lebanon, including by:
- paralleling Syria's behavior by establishing the precedent that Syria is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces.
- striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove to be insufficient, string at select targets in Syria proper." ("A Clean Break"; Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser)
Clearly, this is the basic schema for US/Israeli aggression in the region. What has been overlooked, however, is Israel's determination to "break away" from its traditional dependence on American support.
As stated in the text: (Israel intends to) "forge a new basis for relations with the US -- stressing self-reliance, maturity, strategic cooperation on areas of mutual concern, and furthering values inherent to the West. This can only be done if Israel takes serious steps to terminate aid, which prevents economic reform. Israel can make a clean-break from the past and establish a new vision for the US-Israeli partnership based on self-reliance, maturity, and mutuality -- not one narrowly focused on territorial disputes. (Israel) does not need US troops in any capacity to defend it . . . and can manage its own affairs. Such self-reliance will grant Israel greater freedom of action and remove a significant lever of pressure used against it in the past. . . . No amount of weapons or victories will grant Israel the peace it seeks. When Israel is on sound footing, and is free, powerful, and healthy internally, it will no longer simply manage the Arab-Israeli conflict; it will transcend it."
Israel's "economic freedom" depends in large part on its ability to become a central petroleum-depot for the global oil trade. In Michel Chossudovsky's recent article "Triple Alliance: US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon," the author provides a detailed account of the alliances and agreements which underscore the current war. As Chossudovsky says, "We are not dealing with a limited conflict between the Israeli Armed Forces and Hezbollah as conveyed by the Western media. The Lebanese War Theater is part of a broader US military agenda, which encompasses a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean into the heartland of Central Asia. The war on Lebanon must be viewed as 'a stage' in this broader 'military road map.'"
Chossudovsky shows how the recently completed Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline has strengthened the Israel-Turkey alliance and foreshadows an attempt to establish "military control over a coastal corridor extending from the Israeli-Lebanese border to the East Mediterranean border between Syria and Turkey."
Lebanese sovereignty is one of the unfortunate casualties of this Israel-Turkey strategy.Most of the oil from the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline will be transported to western markets but, what is less well-known, is that a percentage of the oil will be diverted through a "proposed" Ceyhan-Ashkelon pipeline which will connect Israel directly to rich deposits in the Caspian. This will allow Israel to supply markets in the Far East from its port at Eilat on the Red Sea. It is an ambitious plan that ensures that Israel will be a critical part of the global energy distribution system. (See Michel Chossudovsky, The war on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, July 2006)
Oil is also a major factor in the calls for "regime change" in Syria. An article in the UK Observer "Israel Seeks Pipeline for Iraqi Oil" notes that Washington and Tel Aviv are hammering out the details for a pipeline that will run through Syria and "create and endless and easily accessible source of cheap oil for the US guaranteed by reliable allies other than Saudi Arabia." The pipeline "would transform economic power in the region, bringing revenue to the new US-dominated Iraq, cutting out Syria, and solving Israel's energy crisis at a stroke."
The Israeli Mossad is already operating in northern Iraq where the pipeline will originate and have developed good relations with the Kurds. The only remaining obstacle is the current Syrian regime which has already entered the US/Israeli crosshairs. The Observer quotes a CIA official who said, "It has long been a dream of a powerful section of the people now driving this administration and the war in Iraq to safeguard Israel's energy supply as well as that of the US. The Haifa pipeline was something that existed, was resurrected as a dream, and is now a viable project -- albeit with a lot of building to do."
Former US Ambassador James Atkins added, "This is a new world order now. This is what things look like particularly if we wipe out Syria. It just goes to show that it is all about oil, for the United States and its ally."
The Middle East is being reshaped according to the ideological aspirations of Zionists and the exigencies of a viciously-competitive energy market. Behind the bombed-out ruins of Qana and the endless sorties laying Lebanon to waste, are the tireless machinations of the energy giants, the corporate media, the banking establishment and Israel.
Don't expect a quick return to peace. This war is just beginning.
Regardless of who is driving, especially since it is essentially the same group controlling both Israel and the United States, the aggressive moves of both of these powers obscure the fact that both of them are losing wars. Losing wars is never a sign of a rising imperial power. Since Great Britain and the United States have dominated world financial system for two centuries, an end to that system will provide a test to see how truly "global" world markets really are. Does it still matter to the multinational corporations which currency dominates the world? Does it even matter to the wealthy in any country? We shall see.
In the meantime, the weaknesses of the U.S. economy become more apparent. The economist Nouriel Roubini sees a bad recession in the United States in 2007:
The Next Move by the Fed Will be a Cut, Not a Hike, as the US Slips into a Recession...
Nouriel Roubini
Aug 09, 2006As I pointed out in my previous blog, markets and investors are behind the curve in terms of their views of what the Fed will do next. The debate and commentary among markets, bloggers and investors - based on yesterday's FOMC statement - is still on the question of whether the Fed will keep its pause in the fall or whether - given rising inflation - it will tighten again some time in 2006. The reality is that the next move of the Fed will be an easing - i.e. a cut in the Fed Funds rate - not a tightening, most likely in the fall or winter of this year.
My out-of-consensus call for the next Fed move to be an easing - rather than a hike - is based on a simple point: the U.S. economy is headed towards a sharp recession by early 2007 . Thus, while most commentators are still pondering and stressing the alleged "tightening bias" in yesterday's FOMC statement, it is because they are still deluding themselves that the economy will face a soft landing; unfortunately the landing will be hard and ugly with a severe recession. Thus, unless core inflation sharply rises (as it could if oil goes sharply higher from here), there is only one choice and direction for the Fed ahead: to cut the Fed Funds rate as soon as there are strong signals that the economy is spinning into a recession. Such recession signals would - with one caveat - certainly lead to a cut in the Fed Funds rate as - unless stagflationary effects of higher oil become much larger - the inflation rate will tend to fall in the coming recession as demand falls, the unemployment rate goes up and wage growth slows down once workers lose jobs.
The only caveat to this easing call is a nightmare scenario where you have true stagflation, rather than stagflation-lite: i.e. a scenario where oil price keep on rising and get into core inflation via second and third round effects while the economy is spinning into a sharp recession. I.e. you need the anti-inflationary forces of lower demand and higher unemployment to be weaker than the inflationary forces of geopolitical shocks bringing oil prices higher (as non-energy commodity prices will start to fall sharply as soon as the U.S. recession trend is evident) for inflation to significantly rise in the coming recession.
Could this true stagflation (inflation sharply up while growth goes to zero and then negative) occur? It is possible only if geopolitics (tensions with Iran, a worsening security situation in Iraq, a wider Middle East conflict, a worsening civil war in Nigeria, a greater confrontation with Chavez) or "nature" (a major Katrina-style hurricane, even worse pipeline problems in Alaska or somewhere else, another workers' strike in the North Sea) lead to sharply higher oil prices. During recessions, usually prices for energy and non-energy commodities sharply fall (as both demand and supply are price inelastic); but while a US recession and global slowdown will sharply hit non-energy commodity prices, energy prices may remain close to current levels - rather than sharply fall - if geopolitics or "nature" causes another supply shock.
But barring such a major oil supply shock, as the economy spins into a recession, inflationary pressures will dampen over time (with a possible lag given the inflation pressures in the pipeline) and the Fed will get into a panic mode of having realized that it overreacted - with excessive tightening until now - and will thus cut rates. This is the same pattern that we observed in 2000-2001. Then, the Fed expected a soft landing and paused in June 2000 six months before the onset of the recession. But the tech bust led to a growth slump and then recession - like the housing bust will now lead to a recession - and, once the Fed realized too late at Christmas in 2000, that the recession was coming it started to cut the Fed Funds rate - in between FOMC meetings - as early January 2001. This Fed Fund aggressive easing in 2001 did not prevent the mounting recession; and the Fed easing this fall or winter will - similarly - not prevent the coming US recession.
...So, leading Fed watcher John Berry - citing my recession call and that of DeLong - says today that no one at the Fed is yet worried about a recession. But Fed officials are much more worried about the recession risk than they are claiming or admitting in public. The simple proof: why would the Fed ever pause, as it did yesterday, when all inflationary signals and pressures are mounting (headline, every measure of core, wage growth, falling productivity growth, sharply rising unit labor cost, oil, commodities, you name it)?
Why? The only and simple answer is: they are starting to get scared of the coming recession. Their official argument or excuse for the pause is, of course, that the delayed effects of previous tightening that are in the pipeline and the slowing economy will lead to a slowdown in inflation. But investors should read more carefully the FOMC statement. I have been speaking for the last 8 months of the Three Ugly Bears of slumping housing, high oil prices and the delayed effects of rising interest rates triggering a recession. And yesterday the FOMC endorsed the Three Bears view by stating: "Economic growth has moderated from its quite strong pace earlier this year, partly reflecting a gradual cooling of the housing market and the lagged effects of increases in interest rates and energy prices.?" Three Bears! Is that plain English clear or what?
Then, the Fed also added: "inflation pressures seem likely to moderate over time, reflecting contained inflation expectations and the cumulative effects of monetary policy actions and other factors restraining aggregate demand." So, lagged monetary policy will slow down the economy by pushing demand down and unemployment up thus leading to lower inflation; and, on top of the "other factors restraining aggregate demand" will slow down inflation. What are those factors? In Q2 a fall in residential housing, a fall in consumption of durables, a fall in real investment in software and equipment, an increase in inventories as demand slows relative to output. And, as the Fed says, these forces will be stronger ahead: in fact, if these anti-inflationary forces did not prevent a rise in inflation in Q2, the Fed must believe that the fall in durables consumption, in housing, in non-residential investment and in other components of aggregate demand will be larger in H2 than in H1 to trigger the fall in investment. The Fed is telling you that it expects demand to slow further - regardless of the effects of past monetary tightening - and thus lead to lower inflation. Since any basic macro model - say the well respected model of Larry Meyer's Macroeconomic Advisers that is closely followed by the Fed - tells you that only a significant increase in the unemployment rate will stabilize and then reduce core and headline inflation, if the Fed truly believes that inflation will peak and stabilize or fall in H2 or by early 2007 it must also believe that the growth slowdown will be much more severe than it is admitting it in public. So, there are only two options: either the Fed does not believe that inflation will stabilize in which case it is pausing now because it is already panicky about the recession; or, if it truly believes its own forecast of slowing inflation, it must be expecting a sharp economic slowdown, a much sharper one than the Bernanke forecast or the Fed forecast of a soft landing.
Indeed, Berry, after citing my views on the risks of a recession said: "Well, Fed officials recognize there are substantial risks ahead, particularly given the pressure of high energy prices on both inflation and consumer spending. None of them is expressing concern that a recession is likely." So, while Fed officials may not believe that a recession is likely, they are not excluding - now in public via the mouthpiece of the only Fed watcher who is a true FOMC insider - that there are "substantial risks" to the growth outlook. Is that clear? Substantial risks...Also, as Berry put it: "Nevertheless, Fed officials are generally sticking by their collective forecasts of slower, but still solid, growth in the second half of the year, though they have to be somewhat troubled by the unexpected dip in business investment in new equipment and software in the second quarter." So, again, Fed officials are troubled that non-residential investment that was supposed to pick up and sustain aggregate demand at the time when housing is falling and consumption growth is slowing, is instead headed south. This fall in non-residential investment is not a surprise, as I have argued before: corporations are flush with cash and profits but they do not see any good real investment opportunities as there is excess capacity and as demand is now slumping. Thus, the unprecedented share buyback bonanza - the biggest in US history - which we are now experiencing proves that firms do not have any good productive investment use for all the profits they have; and they are thus returning these profits to shareholders. Of all bearish signals in the economy, this investment slump and buyback bonanza is one of the strongest leading indicators of the coming recession.
It is true that the Fed has kept a formal tightening bias by suggesting that additional firming of the Fed Funds rate cannot be ruled out given current inflationary pressure; but it clearly stated that "extent and timing of any additional firming that may be needed to address these risks will depend on the evolution of the outlook for both inflation and economic growth, as implied by incoming information." So, the Fed is fully data dependent. And this means that if the economy slows down more than expected, there will be no firming and a pause that becomes a stop may end up being a cut. The risks are clearly balanced now in the Fed view: there are downward risks to growth and upward risks to inflation that, in the Fed view, will be moderated by the economic slowdown.
In conclusion: investors are still behind the curve debating whether the FOMC statement suggests a further hike sometime in the fall. The reality is different: the next move of the Fed will be easing, most likely in the fall when the signals of a recession become too self-evident for the Fed to ignore them. The only thing that could prevent a Fed Funds rate cut (and lead the Fed to keep a pause or even hike) or postpone the cut into 2007 is a sharp spike in core and actual inflation driven by a further oil shock or a build-up of domestic inflationary forces. But that would be a true nightmare scenario for the Fed and for the economy: a recession with a sharply rising inflation. Then, if the Fed lost control of the inflationary process, it may well be forced to hike even during an ongoing recession. But this scenario is, still, highly unlikely. The most likely scenarios is a slowdown and recession that cools down inflationary pressures (or, at least, does not stoke them further) and forces the Fed to cut the Fed Funds rate. But, as I have persistently argued, even such Fed ease will not prevent the coming recession. The recession boat has left the harbor and there is very little the Fed can do to prevent it. In 2000 the Fed failed to achieve a soft landing; this year we will get the same pattern as in 2000-2001 but a much harder landing than in the previous recession.
Roubini may be too optimistic about avoiding stagflation (the "true nightmare scenario"). What he wrote about it above seems only too likely:
Could this true stagflation (inflation sharply up while growth goes to zero and then negative) occur? It is possible only if geopolitics (tensions with Iran, a worsening security situation in Iraq, a wider Middle East conflict, a worsening civil war in Nigeria, a greater confrontation with Chavez) or "nature" (a major Katrina-style hurricane, even worse pipeline problems in Alaska or somewhere else, another workers' strike in the North Sea) lead to sharply higher oil prices.
The following piece in the New York Times last week has a sample of views on the "soft landing" issue:
Economy Often Defies Soft Landing
By Edmund L. Andrews
WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - In the cool and quiet marble corridors of the Federal Reserve, the strategy for taming inflation sounds painless, even soothing: a "soft landing" for the economy after several years of flying high.
As the central bank contended on Tuesday, when it decided to pause in its two-year effort to raise interest rates, inflation is "elevated" right now but will begin to decline because economic growth is poised for a modest slowdown.
Many economists, though, warn that the soft landing may seem anything but soft, and suggest that the Fed is either too rosy about the looming slowdown or naïve about the difficulty of reaching its goal for inflation.
In practice, the Fed has achieved only one true soft landing - in 1994-95, when, under the leadership of Alan Greenspan, it was able to slow the economy enough to cool spending and ease inflation pressure but not so much as to cause a big jump in unemployment. But even Mr. Greenspan, whose ability to fine-tune policy made him famous, presided over two formal recessions, in 1991 and in 2001.
This time, many analysts say that the Fed and its new chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, face considerably tougher challenges. Crude oil, at more than $70 a barrel, is selling at prices that would have been unthinkable in 1995. Productivity growth, which was accelerating in 1995, is slowing these days. The dollar, which was climbing against other major currencies in 1995, is declining against most of them now.
Analysts and other experts say that if Mr. Bernanke is serious about his goals for controlling inflation, at least two million more workers may have to lose their jobs over the next two years.
"The economic slowdown has to be much more substantial than anybody in the Federal Reserve or on Wall Street is expecting," said Robert J. Gordon, a professor of economics at Northwestern University, who has analyzed the trade-off between inflation and unemployment for the last several decades.
Mr. Bernanke and other Fed officials say they want to keep core inflation, the main measure of retail prices excluding energy and food, below 2 percent a year. But core inflation is already 2.9 percent and almost certain to climb as the cost of oil pushes up prices for items as diverse as air fares and plastics.
Mr. Gordon said the last few decades had shown a grim but consistent trade-off: to reduce inflation by one percentage point, the unemployment rate has to rise by about two percentage points for a full year.
To reduce inflation to the upper limits of what Mr. Bernanke and other Fed officials consider acceptable, more than three million jobs would be lost, a bigger drop than in the recession of 2001.
And that is Mr. Gordon's relatively upbeat hypothesis, which assumes no other shocks to the economy - no additional increases in energy prices, no collapse in the dollar's value, no collapse in housing.
"I think the Fed is facing an absolutely classic case of stagflation," Mr. Gordon said, "a situation in which they cannot win."
He is not alone. Many other economists contend that inflation is more entrenched and will be more painful to reverse than the Fed thinks. Others predict that inflation will indeed subside, but only because the economy will weaken much more than the Fed is expecting.
The chief forecaster at Decision Economics, Allen Sinai, said unemployment would have to rise to at least 5.5 percent, from 4.8 percent today, putting a million more people out of work, before inflation begins to decline.
The chairman of Roubini Global Economics Monitor, Nouriel Roubini, predicted that the economy would fall into a recession early in 2007 as a result of high energy prices, higher interest rates and a housing collapse.
"Either the Fed does not believe its own inflation forecast, which I don't think is the case," Mr. Roubini said, "or the slowdown is going to be greater than what they have been saying. They can't have it both ways."
To be sure, economists differ on how weak the economy already is or how severe inflation pressure is. And skepticism abounds on the chances of achieving a true soft landing.
The very idea of such a thing is only about a decade old. It was conceived by Mr. Greenspan, then the Fed chairman, as a way to attack inflation before it started, by shrewdly using the levers of monetary policy to slow the economy just enough to keep it from overheating.
Mr. Greenspan's greatest success was in the mid-1990's, when the economy had been expanding for nearly four years. Though inflation was declining and was lower than it is today, the Fed doubled short-term interest rates, to 6 percent from 3 percent, in just over a year.
At the time, the result seemed neither soft nor smooth. Several financial institutions, caught by surprise, found themselves in big trouble. The economy slowed for a while, and unemployment edged up.
But by 1996, the economy was rapidly growing again and the nation enjoyed several years of booming stock markets, falling unemployment and relatively low inflation.
The success, along with Mr. Greenspan's growing aura as a wizard of monetary nimbleness, prompted the Fed to step in and help soften the blows of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, the stock market collapse of 2000, the recession of 2001 and the surge of unemployment that followed.
He failed in preventing the 2001 recession, but the Fed cut interest rates so deeply that this started a boom in housing prices and home refinancing that kept consumers spending even as incomes stagnated and unemployment moved higher.
Laurence H. Meyer, a former Fed governor and now a chief forecaster at Macroeconomic Advisers, said Mr. Bernanke needed to do more than simply duplicate Mr. Greenspan's one soft landing.
Mr. Greenspan was not trying to reduce inflation, but merely to keep it from going up. Mr. Bernanke, by contrast, is trying to reduce it substantially.
..."Soft landings are much more frequent in forecasts than in real life," Mr. Meyer said. "With a computer, I can give you a soft landing if you give me 10 or 20 runs. But in real life, you only have one run."
Uncertainties and disagreement among experts about the economy's direction are now unusually high. A big uncertainty is whether the nation is near full employment.
Many economists contend that the country is essentially at full employment, meaning that additional demand for workers will tend to push up wages. Because wages account for more than three-quarters of total production costs, Fed officials view them as inflationary if they rise significantly faster than productivity.
Specialists like Mr. Gordon at Northwestern and Mr. Meyer maintain that the labor market is already very tight and predict that wages will soon start to push up inflation.
But others disagree, arguing that wages over the last five years have lagged behind increases in productivity and have barely kept up with inflation. The bigger risk, according to that school of thought, is to make the situation worse by driving up unemployment.
"We have no clue about labor market tightness right now," said J. Bradford De Long, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, who argues that workers still have little bargaining power.
Depending on one's perspective, Mr. De Long said, the Fed's attempt at a soft landing is either a display of cool-headed technocracy or murky witchcraft.
Right now, he said, "this is on the witchcraft side."
"The restrictions were as extreme as making mothers or someone from a family group taste milk or baby food to prove it was not chemicals that could be used to blow up an aircraft."From CTV.ca:
"Mothers were forced to taste baby bottles in front of airport security guards to prove it contained milk or formula and not a component of an explosive."From Fijilive:
"Overseas media reported that mothers travelling to the United States were made to taste their baby's milk before being allowed into their flight."From CNNMoney:
"The new rules even go so far as to require mothers who are carrying milk for their infants to taste the contents of the bottle."
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Suspects led 'fish and chip' lives: A university student, a pregnant woman, an airport worker
Toronto Star
13/08/2006
London - A pizza delivery guy, a security guard, a university student, an odd-jobs construction worker and a part-time electronics salesman are among the young British men suspected of plotting to blow up passenger jets headed to the United States.
The profile emerging of the alleged homegrown terrorists arrested by police in raids late Wednesday night and Thursday morning is of ordinary working-class people, most with jobs and close family ties.
Neighbours in the three communities where a total of 22 men and two women were taken into custody talk about normal, soccer-loving young men, most the sons of Pakistani immigrants who grew up eating fish and chips and watching British sitcoms in typical suburban townhouses.
Meanwhile, as investigators on three continents worked to flesh out details of the plot, Pakistani officials reported they had arrested as many as 17 more suspected conspirators in recent days. One of those, a British national named Rashid Rauf, is believed to have been the operational planner and to have connections with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistani and U.S. officials told Associated Press.
At least three of those arrested in Britain are converts to Islam, one just within the last six or seven months, and another one is a security guard at Heathrow airport, the scene of passenger chaos on Thursday as hundreds of flights were cancelled as authorities came to grips with drastic new security measures aimed at keeping planes safe in the air.
No details have been released about the two women arrested, one of whom is reported to be pregnant while the other is the mother of an infant. Both are believed to be the wives of two of the accused men. Those arrested range in age from 17 to 35.
One of the arrested men, Waheed Zaman, 23, is a well-known Muslim representative on the student council at London's Metropolitan University, where he studies biochemistry.
His sister, who was with him in the family's east London house when police arrived to arrest her brother, told Britain's Sun newspaper he is a mainstream Muslim who is a proud Briton.
"He loves fish and chips and Liverpool football club," she said, adding that he is a "great believer in the importance of integration between our community and the Western world."
But for the better part of a year, police here have been shadowing the suspects as they went about their seemingly normal "fish and chip" lives, tracking their cellphone conversations, email and Internet access, bank accounts and even using GPS tracking devices on at least 12 cars belonging to suspects.
Details of how police managed to break up an alleged suicidal plan to detonate disguised liquid explosives aboard as many as 10 planes bound from Britain to the U.S. continued to emerge yesterday - although British authorities remain reluctant to disclose too much information, sensitive to the justice system still to be navigated once the terror suspects are formally charged.
Media reports in Britain suggested the investigation into the bomb plot goes back almost a year after a tip-off from an informant in east London's Muslim community that led police to begin monitoring Internet traffic among several men. At least three of those men were already on the police radar, suspected of extremist tendencies.
What has yet to emerge is how the various suspects might be connected to one another. While more than half of those arrested come from the same east London suburb, there is no obvious connection between them and the group of four arrested in the north London suburb of High Wycombe or the two arrested in Birmingham.
Yesterday, police seized hard drives from Internet cafes in Reading and east London as they continued to gather vast amounts of evidence. The record of financial transactions, along with phone and computer records, could help investigators trace more people involved.
In recent months, police here have confirmed they believe there are as many as 1,000 Muslims living in Britain who sympathize with suicide bombings against western targets and who could be persuaded to join jihadist groups. In December, the probe intensified as Britain's domestic spy agency MI5 called in the anti-terrorist branch of Scotland Yard to help.
The Guardian newspaper reported police decided to end their surveillance operation and launch the raids Wednesday night after a "go" message was forwarded to one of the alleged terrorists by an accomplice in Pakistan. The coded message, which the Guardian said was deciphered by the spy agency, followed the transfer of large amounts of money to the suspects - money investigators believe was to be used to buy airline tickets for would-be bombers.
Other media reports suggest police intercepted plans for a "dry run" to be carried out yesterday whereby the bombers would have carried the ingredients for liquid bombs through airport security to test whether their false-bottomed energy drink and pop bottles raised suspicion. The Times newspaper said police felt they could not risk letting the bombers take another step closer to endangering planes and launched their simultaneous raids.
London's Evening Standard reported the plotters apparently chose next Wednesday as a target date, since they had tickets for a United Airlines flight that day. There were signs preparations stepped up recently. One of the houses raided by British police this week had been bought last month by two men in an all-cash deal, in a neighbourhood of $300,000 houses, neighbours said.
Early yesterday, the Bank of England website posted the names of 19 of the men in custody and stated their assets had been frozen by order of the government. The move came as the police followed the routine practice of not formally naming the suspects until they are officially charged. One of the 24 detainees was freed later yesterday, but Scotland Yard didn't identify that person.
Pakistani officials, meanwhile, said British information led to the first arrests in Pakistan about a week ago, of two British nationals, including Rauf, called a "key person" by the Pakistani foreign ministry.
Elsewhere, police in Italy raided Internet cafes, money-transfer offices and long-distance phone call centres catering to Muslims and arrested 40 people in a crackdown linked to Britain's announcement it had foiled the plot, authorities said.
On the streets of the east London neighbourhood of Walthamstow yesterday, young Muslim men gathered to denounce the arrests and voice skepticism that their neighbours might be capable of what police describe as "mass murder on an unimaginable scale."
"They've got the wrong guys. I know they have," said Amir Gull, who said he works nearby. "I know these people and I know that they are peaceful people. They would not do this."
Others rallied around to point out that just two months ago, police raided a nearby house and arrested two brothers as terrorist suspects, accidentally shooting one of them in the shoulder. A week later, both were released without charge and police confirmed they acted on false intelligence.
Almost all of the latest British suspects still lived with their immigrant parents in working-class communities and held various part- or full-time jobs while attending prayers at mosque regularly. Only one was attending university and almost all wore traditional Islamic dress.
Amin Asmin Tariq, 23, was the exception. The Heathrow Airport security guard dressed in western-style clothing and was not considered by friends or neighbours to be religious. He is married with a young child. Airport authorities said Tariq was not assigned to passenger screening.
Muslim convert Oliver Savant, 26, was recently married to a Muslim woman and runs a business with his brother, who told the Sun newspaper yesterday that Savant, who now goes by the first name Ibrahim, is a loyal Briton. It was believed Savant's pregnant wife is among the suspects being held by police.
In the upscale London suburb of High Wycombe, police evacuated homes and businesses around one raided business, where a string of garages in the back were cordoned off, leading to suspicion the property was being used as the bomb factory.
Police also arrested recent convert Don Stewart-Whyte, 21, as he arrived home with is wife. Stewart-Whyte, who changed his name to Abdul Waheed after his conversion early this year, is the half-brother of a former supermodel. His mother is a local high school teacher and his late father was a Conservative party worker.
At Britain's airports yesterday, flights were getting back to normal after a long day of confusion on Thursday that saw hundreds of flights cancelled. A spokesperson for BAA, which operates several major airports including London's Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, said about 70 per cent of domestic and short-haul flights would be taking off, but warned of continued delays.
Comment: Conclusion? Patsies.
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Authorities release one airline terror suspect
WABC
August 11, 2006
We have learned that one of the suspects arrested by British authorities in the airline terror plot has just been released. Scotland Yard has not given any further details on which suspect or why they were let go.
John Reid, UK Home Secretary: "This is an ongoing operation and so the joint terrorism analysis center has advised that the threat level remain at critical, a precautionary measure to protect the public."
Airport terror plot: Details of the deadly liquid explosive
The deadly liquid explosive the terrorists were planning to use aboard the planes is so lethal it's known as "Mother of Satan."
The material is called acetone peroxide - a deadly explosive. It is believed each terrorist would bring ingredients on board, and assemble them while on the plane.
Then someone would use a spark from a disposable camera's flash as the detonator. Law enforcement officials say they are fighting a losing battle as long as the hunt is for a bomb not the bomber.
The names released are of British citizens with Muslim names, many common in Pakistan. But as police patrolled in Pakistani neighborhoods outside of London, many here just didn't believe the story. But some are willing to wait for the evidence.
The men arrested yesterday were British, but sources say they had handlers from both Karachi and Lahour in Pakistan. As many as 10 people have been arrested there as facilitators of the plot, and when they were arrested late last week, others allegedly sent that message to great Britain: do your attacks now.
One of those arrested in Pakistan, Rashid Rauf, is believed to be the mastermind of this plot, a man with strong ties to Al Qaeda and who was found as he was headed to the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
It was only when the arrests were made in Pakistan, the the order was sent to those in England to put the plot in motion.
Comment: Conclusion? This was a fake terror alert and the arrested normal average people are all Patsies.
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Prohibited Air Travel Items As Specified By The US Government
Signs of the Times
14/08/2006
All creams and lotions (i.e. ointments, suntan lotion, topical creams)
Bug sprays
Bubble bath
Bubble bath balls (gel)
Eye drops/ gels
Gel deodorants (solid stick is permitted)
Gel caps
Hair styling gels
Hair sprays, including aerosols
Hair straightener or detangler
Lip gels
Lip glosses / liquids (solid lip glosses and blushes are permitted)
Liquid foundations
Liquid medications (up to 4 oz.of non-essential)
Liquid sanitizers
Liquid soaps (bar soap is permitted)
Nail polishes, such as those shown here, are now prohibited from the security checkpoint and in your carry-on baggage. Make up removers / facial cleansers
Mascara
Mouthwash
Nail polish
Nail polish removers
Perfumes / colognes
Saline solutions
Toothpaste
Foods and Drinks
All beverages
Camelbaks,similar backpacks and water bottles must be empty
Gel based sports supplements
Jellos
Puddings
Yogurts (or gel like substances)
Baby teethers (with gel or liquid inside)
Children's toys with gel inside
Gel candles
Gel shoe inserts
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Where will all that liquid contraband go?
Aug. 11, 2006
MSNBC
ATLANTA - Loads of liquid goods discarded by airline passengers at security checkpoints will end up in the trash, not in the pockets of airport employees or others, officials at airports across the country promised Friday.
No exceptions - not even for cases of Napa Valley wine.
"We had people throw away a whole case of wine, or try to drink their wine in line," said San Francisco's International Airport duty manager Lily Wang.
Airport security screeners scrambled to implement a new ban on all liquids and gels - from lip gloss and toothpaste to perfume and tequila - in carry-on luggage after British authorities announced Thursday the arrest of 24 people in an alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound planes. Baby formula, prescription medication and essential nonprescription medication are still allowed.
From Atlanta to Albuquerque, N.M., airport maintenance crews were ordered to dump any confiscated items along with the rest of the garbage.
"They seal it, they do not touch it, they dispose of it as they would other garbage," said Daniel Jiron, spokesman for the Albuquerque International Sunport.
All the waste irked some passengers.
"I know they have to do this, but I think they went overboard," said Terry Asbury, an Ohio resident who flew from Albuquerque to Cincinnati on Thursday and had to throw out her cosmetics. "I literally lost about $50 or $60 worth of things we were told to throw out."
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More terror attacks 'likely' - Reid
Press Association
Sunday August 13, 2006 7:28 PM
Home Secretary John Reid has warned that fresh attacks on the UK were "highly likely" as he revealed that police were investigating around two dozen major terror plots.
As police continued to hold 23 men over airline liquid bomb allegations, Mr Reid said that at least four major terror plots had been foiled since last year's London bombings.
Amid anger over the handling of delays in British airports, Mr Reid said the Government had been responding to "extraordinary circumstances", with a plan to blow up multiple aircraft believed to have been imminent.
Britain was put on "critical" alert - the highest level of terror warning - up from "severe", early on Thursday morning as police launched raids in London, Birmingham and High Wycombe, Bucks.
Mr Reid told the BBC News 24 Sunday programme today: "Even if on the basis of our intelligence ... we reduced from 'critical' to 'severe' ... it is highly likely there will be another terrorist attempt and that is one thing of which we can be sure."
Responding to a report in The Observer that "up to two dozen" terror probes were operating across the country, the Home Secretary said that there could also be unknown threats.
"I'm not going to confirm an exact number, but I wouldn't deny that that would indicate the number of major conspiracies that we are trying to look at," he said. "There would be more which are not at the centre of our considerations and there may be more that we don't know about at all."
Asked how many terror plots capable of causing major loss of life had been foiled since July 7 last year, he said: "I can tell you that at least four major plots have been thwarted."
He also warned that despite the police operation, members of the alleged terror ring could still be "out there".
"We believe it was a major, major plot," he said. "We believe ... that we have the main targets from that particular surveillance and plot, as I said there are still people out there who would carry out such attacks."
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Glad The 'Biggest Threat To Britain's Security Since World War Two' Isn't Ruining Your Holiday, Mr Blair
UK Mirror
12/08/2006
TERROR alert? What terror alert? Tony Blair throws back his head and laughs aboard a luxury yacht in the Caribbean yesterday.
The PM showed no signs of embarrassment at plainly relishing his holiday as Britain was put on red alert.
While tens of thousands of passengers suffered cancelled or delayed flights amid the crisis, Mr Blair splashed about in the sea off the paradise Grenadine Islands.
After a quick change of clothes, he joined wife Cherie and pals for a spin in a dinghy. The Blairs were guests on the 62ft catamaran Good Vibrations, which usually costs £1,800 per night to hire.
They set sail from St Lucia on Tuesday after jetting in from Gatwick - 48 hours before tightened security caused chaos at UK airports.
The Blairs will be guests of Sir Cliff Richard at his Barbados villa, where they've stayed every year since 2002.
But as he relaxes in his garish beachwear the PM should be worried... he could get stuck in the Bermuda Triangle.
Comment: Conclusion? This was a fake terror alert designed to scare the population and push foward British and US government plans for an covert (or overt) police state
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Bush links Hezbollah and 'plot'
BBC
13/08/2006
US President George W Bush says Hezbollah and alleged UK air plot suspects share a "totalitarian ideology" they are seeking to spread.
Linking their actions with insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said they all wanted to "establish safe havens from which to attack free nations".
Mr Bush said the UK terror plot was a "reminder that terrorists are still plotting attacks to kill our people".
He made the comments in his weekly radio address to the American people.
'Worst attacks yet'
"The terrorists attempt to bring down airplanes full of innocent men, women, and children," Mr Bush said.
"They kill civilians and American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they deliberately hide behind civilians in Lebanon. They are seeking to spread their totalitarian ideology."
Mr Bush said that the alleged terror plot, which UK intelligence services claim involved a plan to destroy US-bound passenger planes using liquid explosives smuggled in drinks bottles, was "further evidence that the terrorists we face are sophisticated, and constantly changing their tactics".
US officials say that if the plan had not been foiled, the subsequent attacks would have been the worst since those on Washington and New York on 11 September 2001.
Since the 2001 attacks, Mr Bush has said that the US is engaged in a global war on terror.
He says that as well as intelligence efforts to foil terror plots against US civilians, the ongoing military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq are part of that same battle, as is Israel's conflict with Lebanon.
Comment: Blah, blah, blah. More nonsense from the idiotic mouthpiece. Hizb'allah has an ideology alright, it involved protecting Lebanese Muslims from the predations of Bush and Olmert. As for the recent UK "terror alert"; it is absolutely comical, and the REAL reason for such scaremongering is outlined in the following story...
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US accused of jumping the gun in blaming al-Qaeda
August 12, 2006
UK Times
BRITISH officials are furious with the US Administration for "jumping the gun" by declaring that al-Qaeda was behind the airline terror plot, The Times has learnt.
Although the capture yesterday of seven people in Pakistan is being seen as further evidence of an "Afghanistan al-Qaeda connection", the UK remains deeply wary of crediting the terror network with the plan.
It is understood that Britain asked the US to avoid making any such assertion, but diplomats believe that the request was ignored by Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security chief. There is suspicion that the speed with which the US linked al-Qaeda to the plot was motivated by political considerations because, before the November mid-term Congressional elections, Republicans are keen to stem voter anger against the Iraq war by focusing on national security.
One senior UK source said that with the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaching, "al-Qaeda is a term which is understood by swing voters". He added: "We regard this as simplistic."
On Thursday morning Mr Chertoff, the Homeland Security Secretary, used a press conference to point the finger of blame directly at al-Qaeda. Initially, he picked his words carefully, saying that the sophistication of the operation was "suggestive of alQaeda", while acknowledging this was a "sensitive area for the British legal system".
He later said that the plan was reminiscent of that "hatched by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [the al-Qaeda mastermind behind 9/11] in the 1990s" to blow up aircraft travelling over the Pacific.
American television stations have been broadcasting a tape made by bin Laden this year in which he gave a warning that preparations were under way for another attack "in the heart of your land".
The remarks in the US were in sharp contrast to statements by the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police.
"We don't deal with hypothesis," said a Met spokeswoman, "and we don't discuss matters of intelligence - we never have and never will."
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Bush says British terror threat may not be over
By Steve Holland
Reuters
Aug 12, 2006
CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush cautioned on Saturday the threat from a plot to detonate liquid explosives on commercial flights may not have passed and denied Democratic charges he was trying to use the crisis for political gains in an election year.
"We believe that this week's arrests have significantly disrupted the threat," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Yet we cannot be sure that the threat has been eliminated."
British authorities arrested two dozen suspects on Thursday for allegedly plotting to use liquid explosives to blow up airliners flying from Britain to the United States.
The arrests prompted the United States to raise its terror alert to the highest level ever and prompted airports to ban passengers from taking liquids, gels and creams on planes.
Bush, who returns to Washington on Sunday after a 10-day working vacation at his ranch, urged air travelers to be patient with the stricter security measures.
"The inconveniences you will face are for your protection and they will give us time to adjust our screening procedures to meet the current threat," he said.
Democrats on Friday accused Vice President Dick Cheney of trying to use this week's arrests in Britain to Republican advantage in November congressional elections, which will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. Congress.
'AL QAEDA TYPES'
Cheney said on Wednesday the Democrats' defeat of Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman in the state's primary on Tuesday because of his support of the Iraq war could embolden "al Qaeda types."
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement on Friday: "Once again, GOP (Republican) leaders are using terrorism and our national security as a political wedge issue. It is disgusting -- but not surprising."
Bush said the suspected plot in Britain "reminds us of a hard fact: The terrorists have to succeed only once to achieve their goal of mass murder, while we have to succeed every time to stop them."
"Unfortunately, some have suggested recently that the terrorist threat is being used for partisan political advantage. We can have legitimate disagreements about the best way to fight the terrorists, yet there should be no disagreement about the dangers we face," he said.
Democrats in their weekly radio address charged Bush has shortchanged domestic security needs and the war on terror, and they blamed him for bungling the Iraq war.
Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas said the administration's "poor management" in Iraq "has created a rallying cry for international terrorists" and "diverted our focus, our military and more than $300 billion from the war on terrorism."
Pryor said U.S. ports, borders and chemical plants remain unsecured, emergency personnel lack critical resources and the military, including the National Guard, was stretched.
"It's time for Washington to be tough and smart about the threats we face," he said. "Americans deserve real security, not just leaders who talk tough but fail to deliver."
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Hunt on for baby bombers
The Sun
By John Kay
14/08/06
HATE-filled mums willing to sacrifice themselves and their BABIES are being hunted in the war on terror.
Security sources confirmed last night that alleged "baby bombers" were among those arrested over the plot to massacre thousands by downing transatlantic flights.
Those being quizzed included a husband and wife with a six-month-old infant.
The discovery prompted fears that there were fanatical mothers in secret al-Qaeda cells in Britain ready to become suicide bombers - and to die with their tots in their arms.
And it emerged as the reason why women at airports were ordered to drink from their babies' bottles before being allowed to board flights during last week's massive alert.
One senior Government security adviser warned of a race against time to identify individuals who might pose a threat.
The adviser said: "It may be beyond belief, but we are convinced that there are now women in Britain who are prepared to die with their babies for their twisted cause. They are ruthless, single-minded and totally committed."
The nightmare is that mums carrying tiny tots would provide "very good cover" and not raise suspicions among even the most alert security guards.
The threat was identified along with an additional warning that as many as two dozen terror cells may still be active in Britain.
The source added: "We believe all the known players involved in last week's plot have been detained. Our biggest concern now is all the unknown players who may be out there.
"And that includes mothers who are ready and willing to see their little ones die. It is a race against time." Women around the world have carried out suicide attacks in the past.
Two female Chechen terrorists blew themselves up on separate flights in Russia two years ago.
An intelligence source said: "Al-Qaeda specialises in attempting the unexpected. What could be more unexpected in Western eyes than women willing to die with their babies?"
MI5 chiefs are jubilant over cracking the plan to disguise bombs as soft drinks or baby bottles - but warned that other forms of transport are massively at risk from suicide attacks.
The Government source said: "There are dozens of other outrages being plotted on all forms of transport because they offer the highest potential body count."
Yesterday it emerged that among those detained in last week's raids is believed to be a key al-Qaeda figure.
A senior Government official said: "He is not al-Qaeda's Mr Big in Britain but he is certainly a very important player."
It is now almost certain that a dummy run for an attack had been planned by terrorists for a flight over the weekend.
"We now think that was on," said the source.
Last night 23 people arrested in raids in London, Birmingham and High Wycombe, Bucks, remained in police custody.
Twenty-two can be detained until Wednesday and a decision on another individual has been adjourned until today.
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A 4th Day of Slow Going in Britain
Washington Post
Monday, August 14, 2006
Airports Remain on Alert; Another Plot Called 'Highly Likely'
Thousands of travelers in Great Britain slogged through the fourth day of heightened security at airports as more than 210 flights were canceled, some delays dragged on for hours, and one airline executive called on the British government to bring in the army and police to help move passengers and avoid the collapse of the country's main airport.
British Home Secretary John Reid said Sunday that another attempted attack is "highly likely." He said authorities have thwarted four major terrorist plots since the July bombings in London last year. British police are holding 23 suspects -- most of them London-based Muslim men in their twenties -- in connection with an alleged terrorist plot unveiled last week to blow up as many as 10 airliners leaving Britain and bound for the United States.
"We think we have the main suspects in this particular plot. I have to be honest and say, on the basis of what we know, there could be others out there," Reid said in an interview on BBC television. "So the threat of a terrorist attack in the U.K. is still very substantial."
Reid said al-Qaeda had first attempted to attack Britain in 2000, and he suggested that more than 20 terrorist conspiracies are currently being investigated in the country.
Responding to a question about a report in the British press that there were "two dozen" terror cells under investigation, Reid said: "I'm not going to confirm an exact number, but I wouldn't deny that that would indicate the number of major conspiracies that we are trying to look at. There would be more which are not at the center of our considerations, and there may be more that we don't know about at all."
At London's Heathrow Airport on Sunday, security officials hand-searched every passenger, which created four times the normal workload and caused lines of passengers to stretch out of the terminal. Airlines operating from Heathrow canceled about 130 flights, people were prohibited from bringing any hand luggage onto airplanes, and some flights left without passengers who couldn't arrive in time, said British Airports Authority spokesman Duncan Bonfield.
"These are unprecedented circumstances: four times the volume of searches in the busiest international airport in the world," Bonfield said. "There has been a significant disruption, but I think people do understand that their safety and security is paramount.
"As yet we've had no indication whatsoever from the government about how long it's going to go on," he added.
One of the airlines operating in Britain, Ryanair, criticized the government's "heavy-handed" security measures that disrupted the travels of thousands of British passengers. The airline said in a statement that it was in favor of "all sensible and effective security measures" but that they should be limited so that fewer people are searched.
"If the main U.K. airlines are forced to continue to cancel flights because the airports cannot meet these security requirements then the extremists will have succeeded," the company said.
Ryanair's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, said his airline cannot cope with the security measures and asked the British government for security personnel to help with the searches.
"If the British government is serious about defeating terrorism and not allowing the terrorists to disrupt normal, everyday British life, then it must provide the additional security staffing -- either police or army reserve personnel -- immediately to prevent London's main airports from grinding to a halt over the coming days," O'Leary said, according to wire service reports.
Airport officials expected the problems to continue into the week, and British Airways on Sunday was planning to cancel 20 percent of its Monday flights from Heathrow to comply with a British Airports Authority directive.
[Late Sunday, U.S. Homeland Security cut the threat level for U.K-U.S. flights to orange, or high, from red, or severe, the Reuters news agency reported.]
Comment: Conclusion? Fake terror alert designed to scare the population into believing that a threat to their lives really exists and they NEED their freedoms taken away and an authoritarian government to "protect" them.
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Our Orwellian World: Which Travelers Have 'Hostile Intent'? Biometric Device May Have the Answer
By JONATHAN KARP and LAURA MECKLER
Wall Street Journal
August 14, 2006
At airport security checkpoints in Knoxville, Tenn. this summer, scores of departing passengers were chosen to step behind a curtain, sit in a metallic oval booth and don headphones.
With one hand inserted into a sensor that monitors physical responses, the travelers used the other hand to answer questions on a touch screen about their plans. A machine measured biometric responses -- blood pressure, pulse and sweat levels -- that then were analyzed by software. The idea was to ferret out U.S. officials who were carrying out carefully constructed but make-believe terrorist missions.
The trial of the Israeli-developed system represents an effort by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to determine whether technology can spot passengers who have "hostile intent." In effect, the screening system attempts to mechanize Israel's vaunted airport-security process by using algorithms, artificial-intelligence software and polygraph principles.
Neither the TSA nor Suspect Detection Systems Ltd., the Israeli company, will discuss the Knoxville trial, whose primary goal was to uncover the designated bad guys, not to identify threats among real travelers. They won't even say what questions were asked of travelers, though the system is generally designed to measure physical responses to hot-button questions like "Are you planning to immigrate illegally?" or "Are you smuggling drugs."
The test alone signals a push for new ways to combat terrorists using technology. Authorities are convinced that beyond hunting for weapons and dangerous liquids brought on board airliners, the battle for security lies in identifying dangerous passengers.
The method isn't intended to catch specific lies, says Shabtai Shoval, chief executive of Suspect Detection Systems, the start-up business behind the technology dubbed Cogito. "What we are looking for are patterns of behavior that indicate something all terrorists have: the fear of being caught," he says.
Security specialists say such technology can enhance, but not replace, existing detection machines and procedures. Some independent experts who are familiar with Mr. Shoval's product say that while his technology isn't yet mature, it has potential. "You can't replicate the Israeli system exactly, but if you can incorporate its philosophy, this technology can be one element of a better solution," says Doron Bergerbest-Eilon, chief executive of Asero Worldwide consulting firm and a former senior official in Israel's security service.
To date, the TSA has more confidence in people than machines to detect suspicious behavior. A small program now is using screening officers to watch travelers for suspicious behavior. "It may be the only thing I know of that favors the human solution instead of technology," says TSA chief Kip Hawley.
The people-based program -- called Screening Passengers by Observation Technique, or SPOT -- began undergoing tests at Boston's Logan Airport after 9/11 and has expanded to about a dozen airports. Trained teams watch travelers in security lines and elsewhere. They look for obvious things like someone wearing a heavy coat on a hot day, but also for subtle signs like vocal timbre, gestures and tiny facial movements that indicate someone is trying to disguise an emotion.
TSA officers observe passengers while consulting a list of more than 30 questionable behaviors, each of which has a numerical score. If someone scores high enough, an officer approaches the person and asks a few questions.
"All you know is there's an emotion being concealed. You have to find out why the emotion is occurring," says Paul Ekman, a San Francisco psychologist who pioneered work on facial expressions and is informally advising the TSA. "You can find out very quickly."
More than 80% of those approached are quickly dismissed, he says. The explanations for hiding emotions often are innocent: A traveler might be stressed out from work, worried about missing a flight or sad because a relative just died. If suspicions remain, the traveler is interviewed at greater length by a screener with more specialized training. SPOT teams have identified about 100 people who were trying to smuggle drugs, use fake IDs and commit other crimes, but not terrorist acts.
The TSA says that, because the program is based on human behavior, not attributes, it isn't vulnerable to racial profiling. Critics worry it still could run afoul of civil rights. "Our concern is that giving TSA screeners this kind of responsibility and discretion can result in their making decisions not based on solid criteria but on impermissible characteristics such as race," says Gregory T. Nojeim, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office.
Mr. Shoval, the Israeli entrepreneur, believes technology-based screening is the key to rolling out behavior-recognition techniques in the U.S. With experience in counter-terrorism service and the high-technology industry, Mr. Shoval developed his Cogito device with leading former Israeli intelligence officials, polygraph experts and computer-science academics.
Here is the Cogito concept: A passenger enters the booth, swipes his passport and responds in his choice of language to 15 to 20 questions generated by factors such as the location, and personal attributes like nationality, gender and age. The process takes as much as five minutes, after which the passenger is either cleared or interviewed further by a security officer.
At the heart of the system is proprietary software that draws on Israel's extensive field experience with suicide bombers and security-related interrogations. The system aims to test the responses to words, in many languages, that trigger psycho-physiological responses among people with terrorist intent.
The technology isn't geared toward detecting general nervousness: Mr. Shoval says terrorists often are trained to be cool and to conceal stress. Unlike a standard lie detector, the technology analyzes a person's answers not only in relation to his other responses but also those of a broader peer group determined by a range of security considerations. "We can recognize patterns for people with hostile agendas based on research with Palestinians, Israelis, Americans and other nationalities in Israel," Mr. Shoval says. "We haven't tried it with Chinese or Iraqis yet." In theory, the Cogito machine could be customized for specific cultures, and questions could be tailored to intelligence about a specific threat.
The biggest challenge in commercializing Cogito is reducing false results that either implicate innocent travelers or let bad guys slip through. Mr. Shoval's company has conducted about 10 trials in Israel, including tests in which control groups were given terrorist missions and tried to beat the system. In the latest Israeli trial, the system caught 85% of the role-acting terrorists, meaning that 15% got through, and incorrectly identified 8% of innocent travelers as potential threats, according to corporate marketing materials.
The company's goal is to prove it can catch at least 90% of potential saboteurs -- a 10% false-negative rate -- while inconveniencing just 4% of innocent travelers.
Mr. Shoval won a contract for the Knoxville trial in a competitive process. Next year, Israeli authorities plan to test Cogito at the country's main international airport and at checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank, where the goal will be to catch genuine security threats while testing the logistics of using the system more broadly. The latest prototype costs about $200,000 a machine.
Even though his expertise is in human observation, U.S. behavior-recognition expert Dr. Ekman says projects like Cogito deserve a shot. He expects technology to advance even further, to devices like lasers that measure people's vital signs from a distance. Within a year, he predicts, such technology will be able to tell whether someone's "blood pressure or heart rate is significantly higher than the last 10 people" who entered an airport.
Write to Jonathan Karp at jonathan.karp@wsj.com and Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com
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They remain convinced: U.S. behind 9/11
Sun Washington Bureau
12/08/2006
WASHINGTON -- The sudden collapse, the seamless downward cascade of the crumbling World Trade Center towers planted doubt in Bruce Henry's mind.
The way the buildings fell didn't seem right. The implosion-like plummeting, the absence of central beams and girders refusing to fall, the speed of the collapse -- all raised suspicion for the retired mathematics professor from Worcester.
"That was the seed," said Henry, who taught at Worcester State College. "To me it seems so transparent with a minimal amount of reflection that there's something catawampus," or cockeyed, with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Finally, he came to a shocking conclusion that runs counter to the accepted history of America's darkest day: The towers, he believes, "were brought down by planted explosives."
He's not alone.
Henry and several other Bay State residents are members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a controversial group that claims elements of the U.S. government, not Osama bin Laden, masterminded the deadly attacks that killed almost 3,000 Americans.
Members of the group, including about 80 professors nationwide, generally believe the attacks were designed around building support for an aggressive U.S. strategy in the Middle East.
Members point to a string of what they describe as discrepancies in the accepted history of the attacks, including continuing uncertainty about why a third World Trade Center tower, known as Building 7, collapsed without being struck by a plane.
"There is something hugely wrong with the official story," said Gwendolyn Atwood, 45, of Lincoln, a clinical psychologist trained at Harvard University and a group member.
The group's theories collide with the findings of the 9/11 Commission and an exhaustive investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a government agency, launched to determine the cause of the buildings' collapse.
Fires resulting from the impact of the fuel-laden airliners destroyed the twin towers, according to reports by the NIST, which assigned 200 employees to the two-year investigation.
The agency interviewed more than 1,000 people near the scene of the attack or who helped design the buildings, analyzed 236 pieces of metal from the wreckage and studied 150 hours of video and almost 7,000 photographs capturing the collisions and collapses.
The agency's final report rejects "alternative hypotheses suggesting the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to September 11, 2001."
Many people, however, are not convinced.
A poll released this week by Scripps Howard News Service found that 36 percent of Americans believe "people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted to United States to go to war in the Middle
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The Reason? Try These
Blair's Approval Rating Hits Record Low, U.K. Mori Poll Shows
July 31 2006
Bloomberg
Prime Minister Tony Blair's approval rating dipped to a record low, while popularity for David Cameron, the leader of the U.K.'s opposition Conservative Party, also slipped, a poll by Ipsos Mori showed today.
Sixty-seven percent of voters said they were dissatisfied with the way Blair is doing his job, while 23 percent said they approved of what he's doing. The gap of 44 points against was the lowest since Blair took office in 1997, Mori said.
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Bush's rating drops on nearly every issue
Aug. 11, 2006
MSNBC
Republicans determined to win in November are up against a troublesome trend - growing opposition to President Bush.
An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted this week found the president's approval rating has dropped to 33 percent, matching his low in May. His handling of nearly every issue, from the Iraq war to foreign policy, contributed to the president's decline around the nation, even in the Republican-friendly South.
More sobering for the GOP are the number of voters who backed Bush in 2004 who are ready to vote Democratic in the fall's congressional elections - 19 percent. These one-time Bush voters are more likely to be female, self-described moderates, low- to middle-income and from the Northeast and Midwest.
Two years after giving the Republican president another term, more than half of these voters - 57 percent - disapprove of the job Bush is doing.
Control of the House
"The signs now point to the most likely outcome of Democrats gaining control of the House," said Robert Erikson, a Columbia University political science professor.
Democrats need to gain 15 seats in the House to seize control after a dozen years of Republican rule, and the party is optimistic about its chances amid diminishing support for Bush and the GOP-led Congress.
Republicans argue that elections will be decided in the 435 districts and the 33 Senate races based on local issues with the power of incumbency looming large.
"This election will be less about a political climate that is challenging for both parties, and instead about the actual candidates and how their policies impact voters on the local level," said Tracey Schmitt, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman.
But fewer than 100 days before the Nov. 7 election, the AP-Ipsos poll suggested the midterms are clearly turning into a national referendum on Bush.
Protest vote
The number of voters who say their congressional vote this fall will be in part to express opposition to the president jumped from 20 percent last month to 29 percent, driven by double-digit increases among males, minorities, moderate and conservative Democrats and Northeasterners.
"I don't feel like the war was the answer," said Paula Lohler, 54, an independent from Worcester, Mass., who is inclined to vote her opposition to Bush. "It seems like it's going on and on and on and nothing's being done."
That attitude propelled anti-war challenger Ned Lamont to Tuesday's Democratic primary win over Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a stalwart supporter of Bush on the war.
Trouble in the South
"I think it's going to be similar to what we saw in 1994 and the tremendous dissatisfaction with Democrats," said Dick Harpootlian, the former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. "Republicans are going to feel the wrath, feel the pain of being associated with President Bush."
In the South, Bush's approval ratings dropped from 43 percent last month to 34 percent as the GOP advantage with Southern women disappeared.
House Republican candidates looking to oust incumbent Democrats seized on the silver lining of the AP-Ipsos poll. Many of the 1,001 adults and 871 registered voters surveyed Aug. 7-9 said they've had enough with the status quo. Only 26 percent of adults said the country was on the right track, and just 29 percent approved of the job Congress is doing.
"It's a good year to be running against an incumbent," said Republican David McSweeney, an investment banker looking to unseat first-term Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean in the Chicago suburbs.
"Approval ratings for Congress are below where the president is," said Jeff Lamberti, a Republican taking on five-term Iowa Rep. Leonard Boswell. "It's a real opportunity for a challenger."
Democrats hopeful
A Democrat seeking an open seat in a competitive Colorado district - Ed Perlmutter - is certain his party will capitalize on the national mood.
"There's a point where people just get mad," said Perlmutter, a winner in Tuesday's primary.
On the generic question of whether voters would back the Democrat or Republican, 55 percent of registered voters chose the Democrat and 37 percent chose the Republican, a slight increase for Democrats from last month.
"I'm not too happy with Bush at the moment," said dental lab employee Chrissie Clement, 36, of Poynette, Wis. "I think he could do more for this country. We need to get somebody new in there and get a different party in charge."
Charles Taylor, 56, who works on newspaper presses and lives near Roanoke, Va., said, "I would like to see Republicans keep control of Congress. I vote Republican to support the president."
Republican consultant Kevin Spillane said August polls typically have been filled with bad news for Bush and the GOP, but they eventually turn it around in November. Still, he said, "The bottom line from the numbers is no Republican incumbent should be caught unprepared for November."
The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for adults and 3.5 percentage points for registered voters.
Comment: Who cares? Not the Bushites or Neocons for sure. They stole both elections in 2000 and 2004, so what voters think means nothing to them.
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Olmert's Approval Over Lebanon Invasion Plunges
Boston.com
14/08/2006
Weekend opinion polls suggested that Israelis did not believe Olmert handled the crisis successfully. Only 20 percent of respondents to a survey for Haaretz believed Israel had "won" the conflict against Hezbollah, with 30 percent saying Israel was losing. The same poll saw Olmert's approval rating plunge to 48 percent from 75 percent a month ago. [...]
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Iranian president lambasts US on new blog
Sun Aug 13, 2006
Reuters
TEHRAN - Iran's president has launched a Web log, using his first entry to recount his poor upbringing and ask visitors to the site if they think the United States and Israel want to start a new world war.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose speeches are riddled with anti-U.S. rhetoric (not rhetoric - facts), also described how he was angered by American meddling in Iran even when he was at elementary school.
Ahmadinejad swept to a surprise victory in last year's presidential race by promising the country's poor a fairer share of Iran's oil wealth and emphasizing his own humble origins that led many to vote for him as an "outsider" to Iran's ruling elite.
"During the era that ... living in a city was perfection, I was born in a poor family in a remote village," he wrote in a blog dated Friday, after opening with Islamic greetings.
His origins as the son of "a hard-bitten toiler blacksmith" may have been humble, but he says he excelled at school where he said he came 132nd out of 400,000 in exams to enter university.
As well as promising a better life to the poor, Ahmadinejad has sought to bolster support by refusing to bow to what he says is Western pressure to stop Iran's civilian nuclear program. The West says Iran is building an atomic bomb.
His defiance in the stand-off with the West has often played well in the Muslim world, where many are angered by U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
Analyst Saeed Laylaz said the site -- available in Persian, Arabic, English and French at www.ahmadinejad.ir -- may be seeking to win support from abroad.
"Do you think that the U.S. and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another world war?" the president asks visitors to the site, offering them the choice to vote 'yes' or 'no'. [...]
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Rally Near White House Protests Violence in Mideast
August 13, 2006
NY Times
Thousands of people rallied near the White House on Saturday to protest what they described as Israeli aggression in Lebanon and the United States' unwavering support for Israel.
Others rallied Saturday, including a San Francisco face-off over Israel.
The diverse crowd included many Arab-Americans and Muslims, college students and families, as well as veterans of prior demonstrations against the war in Iraq.
"We want to know why our tax money is going to support war crimes," said Mounzer Sleiman, vice chairman of the National Council of Arab-Americans, one of more than 15 speakers who addressed the protesters gathered in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, under a cloudless sky.
The crowd erupted periodically in chants, "Israel out of Lebanon now" and "Free, free Palestine."
Dr. Khalil A. Katato of West Bloomfield, Mich., an oncologist who came to Washington by bus with his wife and five children, said, "We are protesting U.S. support of Israeli aggression on the Palestinian and Lebanese people."
His wife, Daad Katato, said she made the trip to protest the war in Iraq, and to show sympathy for children killed or injured during Israel's military operations in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
The criticism of Israel at Saturday's rally contrasted with the sentiment in Congress, where support for Israel is overwhelming and bipartisan. By a vote of 410 to 8, the House last month expressed "strong support" for Israel and condemned Hezbollah and Hamas for armed attacks on Israeli territory. The Senate approved a similar resolution by voice vote.
President Bush was at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., winding up a 10-day vacation. He was due back at the White House on Sunday.
At the rally on Saturday, the prevailing sentiments were expressed in signs held aloft by marchers: "Occupation is a crime - Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine." "Stop Israeli terrorism." "No justice, no peace."
Brian Becker, national coordinator of a coalition called Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, a sponsor of the rally, asserted that President Bush had given Israel a green light to crush Hezbollah in Lebanon, then "sent cluster bombs to the Israeli Defense Forces to kill Lebanese children." Israel has asked the Bush administration to speed delivery of rockets armed with cluster munitions, which could be used to strike Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon, and a senior American official said this week that the request was likely to be approved.
Several speakers at the rally criticized Mr. Bush for mentioning the religious background of those arrested this week in a plot to blow up airplanes flying from Britain to the United States. Mr. Bush said the plot showed that "this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."
Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, said Mr. Bush owed Muslims an apology. "There is no Islamic fascism," Mr. Bray said. "There is no doctrine of fascism in Islam."
Esam Omesh, president of the Muslim American Society, said, "We all stand united against the violence and the killing in the holy land."
Ramsey Clark, the former attorney general, drew cheers when he said, "We have a solemn obligation to impeach President Bush." Mr. Clark, who has served on the defense team for Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, also advocated the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Two students from George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. - Ali Khan, 28, a Pakistani-American, and his wife, Afnan Khan, 22, who was born in the United States to Iraqi parents - were less strident. They said they were protesting the death of civilians, especially Lebanese children.
"They are all innocent," Mr. Khan said.
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Sheehan: Hospital stay won't stop me
By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press
Sat Aug 12, 2006
WACO, Texas - Peace mom Cindy Sheehan spent the night in a hospital for a gynecological procedure and treatment of dehydration but said Saturday that wouldn't stop her protest against the Iraq war on land she bought near President Bush's Crawford ranch.
Sheehan was listed in stable condition at Providence Health Center in Waco, about 20 miles east of Crawford.
She said she could be released later in the day but probably would miss an afternoon barbecue at Camp Casey, the protesters' campsite named for her soldier son who was killed in Iraq in 2004.
"Everything will still go on," Sheehan, 49, told The Associated Press. "I hope I can get there soon."
The anti-war demonstration is to continue through Sept. 3, although Bush's 10-day ranch vacation is to end Sunday.
Sheehan returned to Texas on Friday after a few days in Seattle at the Veterans for Peace convention. She planned to resume the war protest she started Aug. 6, the first anniversary of the beginning of her 26-day peace vigil that drew thousands of anti-war demonstrators and spurred counter demonstrations by Bush supporters.
Instead, friends took her from the airport to the hospital. After being on a liquid diet as part of the nationwide "Troops Home Fast" hunger strike, Sheehan had been treated at a Seattle emergency room Thursday, and ate for the first time in about 37 days, said her spokeswoman Tiffany Burns.
Doctors in Waco stopped uterine bleeding, gave her a blood transfusion and planned a biopsy, she said. Sheehan was dehydrated again Friday, but said it was probably from the bleeding.
Sheehan paid for a 5-acre lot about 7 miles from Bush's ranch last month so protesters would have a place to gather while the president is at his ranch. Last year, she started out camped in ditches along the road leading to Bush's ranch, until county officials banned roadside parking and camping. A sympathetic landowner then let the group gather on his 1-acre lot near the ranch.
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Bush 'helped Israeli attack on Lebanon'
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Monday August 14, 2006
The Guardian
The US government was closely involved in planning the Israeli campaign in Lebanon, even before Hizbullah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross border raids in July. (Ed. Note: It was Israel that crossed into Lebanon) American and Israeli officials met in the spring, discussing plans on how to tackle Hizbullah, according to a report published yesterday.
The veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh writes in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine that Israeli government officials travelled to the US in May to share plans for attacking Hizbullah.
Quoting a US government consultant, Hersh said: "Earlier this summer ... several Israeli officials visited Washington, separately, 'to get a green light for the bombing operation and to find out how much the United States would bear'."
The Israeli action, current and former government officials told Hersh, chimed with the Bush administration's desire to reduce the threat of possible Hizbullah retaliation against Israel should the US launch a military strike against Iran.
"A successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign ... could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations," sources told Hersh.
Yesterday Mr Hersh told CNN: "July was a pretext for a major offensive that had been in the works for a long time. Israel's attack was going to be a model for the attack they really want to do. They really want to go after Iran."
An unnamed Pentagon consultant told Hersh: "It was our intention to have Hizbullah diminished and now we have someone else doing it."
Officials from the state department and the Pentagon denied the report. A spokesman for the National Security Council told Hersh that "The Israeli government gave no official in Washington any reason to believe that Israel was planning to attack."
Hersh has a track record in breaking major stories. He was the first to write about the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and has written extensively about the build-up to the war in Iraq. He made his name when he uncovered the massacre at My Lai during the Vietnam war. Most recently he has written about US plans for Iran, alleging that US special forces had already been active inside the country.
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Hard-line Neo-Cons Assail Israel for Timidity
Jim Lobe
Aug 11 2006
(IPS)
While much of the world has criticised Israel for carrying out a "disproportionate" war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, hard-line neo-conservatives have attacked the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for timidity.
As noted by diplomatic correspondent Ori Nir in this week's edition of The Forward, the U.S.' most important Jewish newspaper, the Israeli government and its military's chief of staff, Gen. Dan Halutz, have been subjected to unusually harsh criticism, including the charge that, by failing to wage a more aggressive war, they were jeopardising Israel's long-term strategic alliance with Washington.
"(Hezbollah) is today the leading edge of an aggressive, nuclear-hungry Iran," wrote Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer earlier this week. "...(Olmert's) search for victory on the cheap has jeopardised not just the Lebanon operation but America's confidence in Israel as well. The tremulous Olmert seems not have a clue."
In particular, Krauthammer and other leading neo-conservatives have assailed Olmert for not launching a massive ground invasion from the outset which, in their view, could have effectively crushed Hezbollah's military capabilities, if not the organisation itself.
"Hezbollah can only be destroyed by a ground campaign," wrote National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg early in the campaign. "If Israel doesn't launch one, it will be worse off."
Still others attacked him for failing to widen the war beyond Lebanon to Hezbollah supporters, Iran and Syria.
"(While) Iran may be too far away for much Israeli retaliation beyond a single strike on its nuclear weapons complex," wrote Max Boot, a Council of Foreign Relations fellow, in the Los Angeles Times, "...Syria is weak and next door. To secure its borders, Israel needs to hit the (President Bashir) Assad regime."
He was joined by in that appeal by Meyrav Wurmser, director of the neo-conservative Hudson Institute Centre for Middle East Policy and, significantly, the Israeli-born spouse of David Wurmser, a top Middle East adviser of Vice President Dick Cheney.
"The bottom line is that Israel's gripe is not with Lebanon; it (is) with Syria and Iran," she wrote in National Review Online (NRO). "Given the explosive nature of the situation, Israel ought not let its adversaries define the battleground. Rather, it ought to carry the battle to them."
These public attacks are widely believed to reflect the positions of hard-line neo-conservatives within the administration of President George W. Bush, centred, in particular, in Cheney's office and that of Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld.
They have largely been confined, however, to the more extreme elements in the neo-conservative movement, particularly those most closely associated with the right wing of Israel's opposition Likud Party.
With the exception of Krauthammer, they have strongly opposed former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement from Gaza and have been using the ongoing crisis there, as well as the war in Lebanon, to discredit Olmert's "convergence" strategy -- his plan to dismantle many Jewish settlements in all but about 10 percent of the occupied West Bank.
More pragmatic neo-conservatives, such as those clustered around Weekly Standard editor William Kristol (who, however, called in the early days of the war for a quick U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities), have generally refrained from second-guessing Olmert's leadership and the conduct of the war.
Instead, they have focused on framing Israel's war against Hezbollah as part and parcel of Washington's larger "global war on terror". They have discouraged any suggestion that Washington seek to restrain Israel in its conduct of the war or impose a premature ceasefire, and have assailed "realist" and State Department proposals to directly engage Syria and Iran in efforts to stop the fighting or at least de-escalate the crises in which Israel finds itself as "appeasement".
Even these positions, however, have not been entirely appreciated by Olmert's government, according to Nir. He told the Voice of America (VOA) last week that he had "ascertained for a fact" that Israel had asked the Bush administration to use its influence with the Syrian government to gain the release of the three soldiers abducted by Hamas and Hezbollah, but that Washington -- no doubt as a result of internal neo-conservative influence -- had declined to do so. It was "quite a disappointment for Israel," he said.
Of the hard-line criticisms of Olmert, the most controversial has been the charge that, by failing to prosecute the war more vigorously, his government was undermining the administration's confidence in Israel as an effective ally in the war on terror.
Because of Hezbollah's strategic importance to Iran, "America wants, America needs, a decisive Hezbollah defeat," wrote Krauthammer in his Aug. 4 column, which noted that the existence of a "fierce debate in the United States about whether, in the post-Sep. 11 world, Israel is a net asset or liability."
"Hezbollah's unprovoked attack on Jul. 12 provided Israel the extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate its utility by making a major contribution to America's war on terrorism," but Olmert's "unsteady and uncertain leadership" had put that in question.
"The United States has gone far out on a limb to allow Israel to win... It has counted on Israel's ability to do the job. It has been disappointed," according to Krauthammer, who is known to be a favourite of Cheney.
Although Krauthammer's message was particularly crude, it was echoed in part by hard-line neo-conservative editorial writers in both the National Review and the Wall Street Journal, which repeatedly called for Olmert to take stronger action more quickly lest, as the Journal put it, "President Bush's entire vision for the Middle East ...suffer a severe setback."
"Let's face it: Nobody likes a pushover; nobody likes a weakling," Ariel Cohen, a neo-conservative at the Heritage Foundation, told Nir. "This is something Olmert and (Defence Minister Amir) Peretz have to think about: how Israel is perceived not only in Europe and the Arab world, but also in the United States."
These criticisms have provoked outrage from some quarters, particularly among mainstream leaders in the U.S. Jewish community.
Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, told the Forward that it was "inappropriate" for non-Israelis "who don't take the consequences of their advice, especially when it comes to issues of life and death, to become backstage generals, sitting in Washington or in New York, trying to manage Israel's war."
"(Krauthammer) is one of those armchair General Pattons who rarely, if ever, indicates that he feels pain about the loss of soldiers whether in Lebanon, Iraq, or anywhere else," noted M.J. Rosenberg, an analyst at the Israel Policy Forum (IPF), who strongly favours diplomatic efforts -- including with Syria -- to end the fighting.
"Some on the right would rather blame Israel for its hesitation about fighting than consider how much better off Israel if it didn't have to fight at all," he wrote in his weekly newsletter.
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Collapse of the Flanks
by William S. Lind
LewRockwell.com
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.
One pointer to a shift in the tactical balance is the comparative casualty counts. According to the Associated Press, as of this writing Lebanese dead total at least 642, of whom 558 are civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers (who, at least officially, are not in the fight) and only 55 Hezbollah fighters. So Israel, with its American-style hi-tech "precision weaponry," has killed ten times as many innocents as enemies. In contrast, of 97 Israeli dead, 61 are soldiers and only 36 civilians, despite the fact that Hezbollah's rockets are anything but precise (think Congreves). Israel can hit anything it can target, but against a Fourth Generation enemy, it can target very little. The result not only points to a battlefield change of some significance, it also raises the question of who is the real "terrorist." Terror bombing by aircraft is still terror.
Understandably, these events keep Americans focused on the places where the fighting is taking place. But more important developments may be occurring on the flanks, largely unnoticed. An analysis piece in the Sunday Cleveland Plain Dealer by Sally Buzbee of AP notes:
Anger toward America is high, extremists are on the upswing, and hopes for democracy in the Middle East lie dashed....
"America, we hate you more than ever," Ammar Ali Hassan wrote in the independent Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, in the kind of visceral, slap-in-the-face rhetoric boiling across the region...."
Even many Arab reformers now believe the United States cares more about supporting Israel than anything else, including democracy.
Egypt is one of the three centers of gravity of America's position in the Middle East, the others being Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. An article by Michael Slackman in the Sunday New York Times suggests that Egyptians' anger is turning on their own government:
For decades, the Arab-Israeli conflict provided presidents, kings, emirs and dictators of the region with a safety valve for public frustration....
That valve no longer appears to be working in Egypt....
"The regular man on the street is beginning to connect everything together, said Mr. (Kamal) Khalil, the director of the Center for Socialist Studies in Cairo. "The regime impairing his livelihood is the same regime that is oppressing his freedom and the same regime that is colluding with Zionism and American hegemony."
Today, in an interview with the BBC, Jordan's King Abdullah warned that the map of the Middle East is becoming unrecognizable and its future appears "dim."
Washington, which in its hubris ignores both its friends and its enemies, refusing to talk to the latter or listen to the former, does not grasp that if the flanks collapse, it is the end of our adventures in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also, in a slightly longer time frame, the end of Israel. No Crusader state survives forever, and in the long term Israel's existence depends on arriving at some sort of modus vivendi with the region. The replacement of Mubarak, King Abdullah and the House of Saud with the Moslem Brotherhood would make that possibility fade.
To the region, America's apparently unconditional and unbounded support for Israel and its occupation of Iraq are part of the same picture. For a military historian, the question arises: will history see Iraq as America's Stalingrad? If we kick the analogy up a couple of levels, to the strategic and grand strategic, there are parallels. Both the German and the American armies were able largely to take, but not hold, the objective. Both had too few troops. Both Berlin and Washington underestimated their enemy's ability to counter-attack. Both committed resources they needed elsewhere and could not replace to a strategically unimportant objective. Finally, both entrusted their flanks to weak allies - and to luck.
Let us hope that, unlike von Paulus, our commanders know when to get out, regardless of orders from a leader who will not recognize reality.
August 12, 2006
William Lind [send him mail] is an analyst based in Washington, DC.
Copyright © 2006 William S. Lind
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Terror suspects not guilty, wife says
By JAMIE STENGLE
Associated Press
August 13, 2006
DALLAS - The wife of one of three Texas men arraigned on terrorism-related charges in Michigan says her husband and his relatives are not terrorists, but are simply trying to make money by reselling cell phones.
"They're locked up in jail for something that they didn't do," 20-year-old Lina Odeh told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Her husband, Louai Abdelhamied Othman of Mesquite, along with his brother, Adham Abdelhamid Othman of Dallas, and their cousin Maruan Awad Muhareb of Mesquite, are charged with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and surveillance of a vulnerable target for terrorist purposes.
Police found about 1,000 cell phones in the men's minivan. Authorities have not said what they believe the men intended to do with the phones, most of which were prepaid TracFones. But the police chief in Caro, Mich., where they were arrested, said cell phones can be used as detonators, and prosecutors in a similar case in Ohio have said that TracFones are often used by terrorists because they are not traceable.
Odeh said the men were buying the phones to sell to a man in Dallas for a profit of about $5 per phone. She said they were in Michigan because so many people in the Dallas area are doing the same thing that the phones are often sold out.
Odeh said she thought her husband and her relatives were targeted because of their Arab descent. The men's families come from Jerusalem, she said.
The men were stopped early Friday about 80 miles north of Detroit after purchasing 80 cell phones from a Wal-Mart. Police said they found about 1,000 phones in their minivan. The men were arrested Friday afternoon.
No pleas were entered at the arraignment Saturday at a District Court in Caro. A magistrate set bond at $750,000 apiece and the men were being held at the Tuscola County Jail, police said.
"All we did is buy the phones to sell and make money," Louai Othman told the magistrate. He said authorities had previously stopped the group in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Muhareb told the magistrate: "This is a misunderstanding." He said he was selling the phones to earn money to help pay for his brother's college education.
Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark E. Reene told The Saginaw News in Michigan that investigators believe the men were targeting the Mackinac Bridge, which connects Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas. He declined to say what led investigators to that belief.
Reene and the FBI did not return phone messages Saturday from The Associated Press.
Odeh said the family is working to get an attorney for the men.
"I just want everyone to know that they're innocent and they shouldn't be locked up in jail without any evidence," she said.
Her husband is a college student and they have a 2-month-old baby, Odeh said.
A pretrial hearing has been set for Friday and a preliminary exam for Aug. 24.
The arrests in Michigan came three days after two men were arrested in Marietta, Ohio, where police said they aroused suspicions when they acknowledged buying about 600 phones in recent months at stores in southeast Ohio.
Ali Houssaiky and Osama Abulhassan, both 20 and from the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, have been charged with two felonies - money laundering in support of terrorism and soliciting or providing support for acts of terrorism - and misdemeanor falsification. A preliminary hearing on the felony counts was set for Tuesday.
Defense lawyers said Houssaiky and Abulhassan planned to resell the phones simply to make money. They say the men were targeted only because they are of Arab descent.
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Survey: U.S. gas prices hit another high
AP
August 13, 2006
CAMARILLO, Calif. - Nationwide gas prices hit yet another record in the last three weeks, rising just over one cent to nearly $3.03 per gallon, according to a survey released Sunday.
The national average for self-serve regular stood at $3.025 a gallon Friday, up 1.06 cents since July 21, according to the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations across the country.
The price exceeds the previous high of $3.015 set in July, analyst Trilby Lundberg said.
A gallon of mid-grade gasoline averaged around $3.13, and premium averaged $3.23.
Nationwide, the lowest price for regular was $2.82 a gallon in Charleston, S.C., while the highest - $3.29 a gallon - was in Chicago.
Among California cities surveyed, the lowest price was in Sacramento at about $3.05 a gallon for regular, Lundberg said, while the highest price was $3.24 in San Diego. The state's average fell about 3 cents over the past three weeks to $3.17.
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Hezbollah distributes 'victory' leaflets
AP
14/08/2006
Hezbollah today distributed leaflets congratulating Lebanon on its "big victory" and thanking citizens for their patience during the 34-day war with Israel.
Supporters of the guerrilla group were seen passing out leaflets to cars heading south on the Zahrani highway, which connects the hard-hit southern cities of Nabatiyeh, Tyre and Sidon.
"Congratulations to you on the big victory, with the support of God, the mujahedeen (holy warriors) and your patience," it read.
The flyers also warned people not to touch any suspicious objects, which could be unexploded ordnance.
Israeli warplanes had blanketed leaflets over large areas of Lebanon during the month-long war.
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Jonathan Cook: How Indiscriminate is Hezbollah's Shelling?
Jonathan Cook
12/08/2006
Israel's military censor is preventing foreign journalists based in Israel, myself included, from discussing where Hizbullah rockets are landing.
A reader recently emailed to ask if anyone else was suggesting, as I have done, that Hizbullah's rocket fire may not be quite as indiscriminate or maliciously targeted at Israeli civilians as is commonly assumed. I had to admit that I have been ploughing a lonely furrow on this one. Still, that is no reason in itself to join everyone else, even if the consensus includes every mainstream commentator as well as groups such as Human Rights Watch.
First, let us get my argument straight. I have not claimed that Hizbullah targets only military sites or that it never aims at civilians. According to the Israeli army, more than 3,300 rockets have hit Israel over the past four weeks. How can I know, or even claim to know, where all those rockets have landed, or know what the Hizbullah operatives who fired each rocket intended to hit? I have never made such claims.
What I have argued instead is twofold. First, we cannot easily know what Hizbullah is trying to hit because Israel has located most of its army camps, weapons factories and military installations near or inside civilian communities. If a Hizbullah rocket slams into an Israeli town with a weapons factory, should we count that as an attack on civilians or on a military site?
The claim being made against Hizbullah in Lebanon -- that it is "cowardly blending" with civilians, according to the UN's Jan Egeland -- can, in truth, be made far more convincingly of the Israeli army. While there has been little convincing evidence that Hizbullah is firing its rocket from towns and villages in south Lebanon, or that its fighters are hiding there among civilians, it can be known beyond a shadow of a doubt that Israeli army camps and military installations are based in northern Israeli communities.
An obvious point that no one seems to be making -- and given a news blackout that lasted several hours, Israel clearly hoped no one would make -- is that the 12 soldiers who were killed on Sunday in Kfar Giladi by a Hizbullah rocket were, under Egeland's definition, "cowardly blending" with the civilian population of that community. We know there are still civilians in Giladi because their response to the rocket barrage was quoted in the Israeli media.
My second claim was that Israel's military censor is preventing foreign journalists based in Israel, myself included, from discussing where Hizbullah rockets are landing, and what they may be aimed at. Under the censorship rules, It is impossible to mention any issue that touches on Israeli security or defense matters: the location of military installations, for example, cannot be divulged. It is arguable whether it would actually be possible to report a Hizbullah strike that hit a military site inside Israel.
I therefore have to tread carefully in what I say next, relying on information that is already publicly available, but which at least challenges the simplistic view that Hizbullah is firing rockets either indiscriminately or willfully to kill civilians. I draw on two pieces of coverage provided by BBC World.
On Tuesday, the BBC's Katya Adler reported from the northern community of Kiryat Shmona, which has taken the heaviest pounding from Hizbullah rockets and from which many of the local residents have fled over the past month. As she stood on a central street describing the difficult conditions under which the remaining families were living, she had to shout over the rythmic bark of what sounded like an Israeli tank close by firing into Lebanon. She made no mention of what was doing the firing -- and given the censorship laws, my assumption is she cannot. But it does raise the question of how much of a civilian target Kiryat Shmona really is.
Consider also this. Throughout the four weeks of fighting, the BBC have had a presenter and film crew at the top of an area of Haifa known as the Panorama, above the beautiful Bahia Gardens. As the name suggests, from there the film crew have had an unrestricted view of the port and docks below and the wide arc of heavily developed shoreline that stretches up to Acre.
The spot where the BBC presenters have been standing, telling us regularly that they can hear the wail of sirens warning Haifa's residents to head for the shelters, is in the centre of this sprawling ridge-top city, in one of the most heavily built up and inhabited areas of Haifa. So why have the BBC's presenters been standing there calmly every day for weeks under the barrage of rockets?
Because all the evidence suggests that Hizbullah has not been trying to hit the centre of Haifa, where it would be certain of inflicting high casualties, whether its rockets were on target or slightly adrift. Instead, as BBC presenters have repeatedly shown us, the overwhelming majority of rockets land either in the mostly-abandoned port area or fall short into the bay -- and on the odd occasion travel a little too far, as one did on Sunday landing on an Arab neighbourhood near the port and killing two inhabitants.
If Hizbullah's primary goal is to kill as many civilians as possible in Haifa, it seems to be going about it in a very strange manner indeed -- unless we are to believe that none of its rockets could be fired the extra 1km needed to hit central Haifa. Instead, as is clear from the view shown by BBC cameras, the port includes many sites far more "strategic" than the roads, bridges, milk factories and power stations Israel is destroying in Lebanon: it has the oil refinery, the naval docks and other installations that, yes, I cannot mention because of the censorship laws.
At the very least, we should concede to Hizbullah that it is not always targeting civilians, and very possibly is not mainly targeting civilians, which might in part explain the comparatively low Israeli civilian casualty figures.
That said, there are two valid criticisms, both made by Human Rights Watch, of Hizbullah's rocket fire -- though exactly the same or worse criticisms can be made of the Israeli army. Those, unlike HRW, who single out Hizbullah are being either disingenuous or hypocritical. One is that Hizbullah has filled many of its rockets with ballbearings. Most critics of Hizbullah take this as conclusive proof that the group's only intent is to kill and injure civilians. Anyone who has seen the damage done by a katyusha rocket will realise that it is not a very powerful weapon: it essentially punches a hole in whatever it hits. The biggest danger is from the shrapnel and from anything added -- like ballbearings -- that spray out on impact. The shrapnel can kill civilians nearby, of course, but it can also kill soldiers -- as we saw at Kfar Giladi -- and can puncture tanks containing flammable liquids like petrol, causing explosions.
The damage inflicted by the ballbearings is not in itself proof that Hizbullah is trying to kill Israeli civilians, any more than Israel's use of far more lethal cluster bombs is proof that it wants to kill Lebanese civilians. Both are acting according to the gruesome realities of war: they want to inflict as much damage as possible with each rocket strike. That is deplorable, but so is war.
The second criticism made by HRW is that because Hizbullah's rockets are rudimentary and lack sophisticated guidance systems they are as good as indiscriminate. That conclusion is wrong both logically and semantically. As I have tried to show, the rockets are mostly not indiscriminate (though presumably some misfire, as do Israeli missiles); rather, they are not precise.
This, according to Human Rights Watch, still makes Hizbullah's rocket attacks war cimes. That may be true, but it of course also means Israel's missile strikes and bombardment of Lebanon are war crimes on the same or a greater scale. Hizbullah's strikes against civilians may be intentional or they may be the result of inaccurate guidance systems trying to hit military targets. Israel's strikes against civilians are either intentional or the result of accurate guidance systems and very faulty, to the point of reckless, military intelligence.
Finally, what about the defense offered by Israel's supporters that its air force tries to avoid harming Lebanese civilians by leafletting them before an attack to warn them that they must leave? The argument's thrust is that only those who belong to Hizbullah or give it succor remain behind in south Lebanon and they are therefore legitimate targets. (It ignores, of course, hundreds of civilians killed in areas that have not been leafletted or who were trying to flee, as ordered, when hit by an Israeli missile. )
Hizbullah, of course, has done precisely the same. In speeches, its leader Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly warned Israeli residents of areas like Haifa, Afula, Hadera and Tel Aviv that Hizbullah will hit these cities with rockets days before it has actually done so. Hizbullah can claim just as fairly that it has given Israelis fair warning of its attacks on civilian communities, and that any who remain have only themselves to blame.
This debate is important because it will determine in the coming months and years who will be blamed by the international community -- and future historians -- for committing war crimes. Hizbullah deserves as fair a hearing as Israel, though at the moment it most certainly is not getting it.
Like every army in a war, Hizbullah may not acting in a humane manner. But it is demonstrably acting according to the same standards as the Israeli army -- and possibly, given Israel's siting of military targets in civilian areas, higher ones. The fact that the contrary view is almost universally held betrays our prejudices rather than anything about Hizbullah's acts.
-Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His book, Blood and Religion: the Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State, is published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net
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The Net Result?
Terror alert: Blair to force through 90-day detention
Scotsman
13/08/2006
TONY Blair is planning to push through 90-day detention without charge for terror suspects following the alleged plot to murder thousands of airline passengers by blowing their jets out of the sky.
Senior ministers believe public concern about terrorism is now at such a level that they will be able to reintroduce the controversial detention powers, which were rejected in favour of a 28-day limit following the 7/7 attacks.
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A senior government source confirmed that Blair, Chancellor Gordon Brown and Home Secretary John Reid all believed that the UK's apparently narrow escape from a major disaster proved the case for a clamp-down on "the enemy within".
The source said: "It is one of the few things that Brown, Blair and Reid can agree on."
The 90-day proposal - rejected following a humiliating rebellion by Labour MPs last November - is expected to form the centrepiece of further anti-terror powers to be included in the Queen's Speech this autumn.
The uncompromising response to the growing threat came as it emerged that the ban on hand luggage on British aircraft is set to continue indefinitely, and could be bolstered by stringent new security screening at all the nation's airports.
Britain remained on its highest state of terror alert last night as detectives continued to question more than 20 suspects over the alleged plot to bring down airliners by using liquid explosives.
As UK detectives interrogated suspects seized in Thursday's dawn raids, officials in Pakistan arrested British-born Rashid Rauf, saying his detention and that of others in the country had "triggered" the raids in London, Birmingham and High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
But suggestions that the government was ready to return to the fray over 90-day detention have been greeted with horror by opponents, who claim the original drive to extend police powers was a draconian attack on human rights.
David Winnick, the veteran Labour MP who put forward the 28-day "compromise" limit agreed by Parliament last year, said the move would be "totally unjustified", but added that he fully expected ministers to use the latest terror scare to push for a longer period.
He told Scotland on Sunday: "Under no circumstances should they be allowed to raise the limit. My view remains that if the police have got evidence they should charge.
"Going back only a few years ago, police had just two or three days to release or charge suspects and that figure has repeatedly been increased by Parliament with little opposition.
"The danger is that by increasing it steadily, you get up to 90 days and then people will start saying 90 days isn't enough."
A spokeswoman for human-rights watchdog Liberty warned that the government should not try to "legislate its way to safety".
She added: "The doubling of the detention limit - from 14 days to 28 - only took effect last month. We should be observing how satisfactory that is before rushing off and demanding a higher limit."
Former home secretary Charles Clarke argued that the 90-day proposal, put forward by the police, was required to help them carry out the enormous and meticulous counter-terror investigations demanded by the modern threats.
But the plan was rejected by 49 Labour MPs, who helped deliver Blair's first Commons defeat as leader.
Clarke hinted earlier this year that he had not given up hope that the 90-day limit would feature in future government proposals when he confirmed plans to produce another Terrorism Bill next year or in 2008.
The momentum gathered last month, when a report from the MPs' Home Affairs Committee concluded that the number and scope of investigations, and the requirement to move in to make arrests at an earlier stage meant the 28-day limit would have to be extended at some stage.
Brown has publicly stated his support for extending police powers to detain without charge, although he insists that there must be "safeguards" in place to ensure suspects are not unfairly imprisoned.
Government aides last night claimed that the scale of the alleged bomb plot reinforces their repeated warnings about the threat facing the country. Communities and Local Government Secretary Ruth Kelly will attempt to improve co-operation with British Muslims through a renewed "roadshow" tomorrow.
But more senior colleagues in the Cabinet are considering a less conciliatory response to the threat.
"We are concentrating on the threat which is in front of us right now," a Home Office source said last night.
"But there is a consensus about what we require to tackle this threat. The government has never hidden its views on detention."
Ministers are understood to be considering new bomb-detecting screening systems for British airports in the wake of last week's scare.
The current machines are unable to pick up the cocktail of liquid chemicals which the alleged terrorists were planning to smuggle onto flights.
New so-called 'puffer machines', which shoot jets of air at passengers and gather particles of skin and clothes to check for evidence of explosive material, are likely to be considered.
Similar machines have been installed in several American airports and are being tested to see if they successfully identify chemicals used to make bombs.
Alternatively, airports could install X-ray machines which can pick up organic materials used in many explosives.
Ministers met on Friday to discuss introducing new technology into airports to counter the growing threat.
One insider said: "They are going away to think up a system that the airlines can deliver, that is safe and people will tolerate.
"They are looking at new technology that might be delivered without taking up too much of passengers' time."
Comment: 90 days without trial, for anyone deemed to be an "enemy of the state". Right now, most British citizens are docile sheep, in the near future however, many of them may have cause for protest. At that point in time, they may regret their support for their government's measures to "keep them safe". Of course, British citizens have real cause to trust in the integrity and efficency of their government and military leaders, as the next story shows...
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'Every Muslim a Suspect'
Aug 11 (IPS)
Sanjay Suri
LONDON - The arrest of 19 people -- all Muslims -- over what the police have described as a sinister plot to blow up U.S. bound aircraft from London, has cast a shadow of suspicion over the entire Muslim community in Britain.
Dramatically released information on the cracking of the suspected conspiracy led to cancellation of several flights in and out of Britain Thursday. Many flights remained disrupted Friday. Passengers were being allowed almost no hand luggage on board.
The extent of security precautions dominated news, and with that provoked new suspicions about Muslims, estimated to number about two million in a population of 59 million.
The plotters, as they have come to be called, were arrested in London, High Wycombe, just north of London and in and around Birmingham, about 100 miles north of London. Most of the raids leading the arrests were carried out in Muslim middle class neighbourhoods.
The arrests came just days after Tarique Ghafur, Britain's highest ranking Muslim police officer, warned that Muslim youth were becoming disaffected and hostile because they felt picked upon by the police as supporters of terrorist activities.
Ghafur said at a meeting of an association of black police officers that Muslims were being frequently stopped and searched under new police powers. The searches were "more based on physical appearance than intelligence," he said.
"We have young people telling us all the time that we have no respect, no dignity, that we are called Paki (a word of abuse in Britain)," Ghiyasuddin Siddiqui, head of the Muslim Institute, a leading independent Muslim group in Britain told IPS. "They tell us we have British passports, but what is the use of that if we are being treated like this."
But for the moment many Muslims are not convinced that the police have strong evidence on the arrested men.
"First they made the arrests, and then they tell us that now they are looking for the evidence," Siddiqui said. "But the whole publicity has been damaging."
Many Muslims are now recalling the botched police raid at a house in Forest Gate in East London in early June in which a 23-year-old Muslim was shot in the chest. He was suspected of making chemical bombs inside the house. A four-day search after the raid by 250 armed police officers led to nothing.
"Who knows what the police have found in these houses," Sultan Miah, a Labour Party local leader in Walthamstow in East London told IPS. Eleven of the arrests were made in his neighbourhood.
"They are talking of liquid bombs," he said. "They have to show us what they found. We do not know anything, nobody in our neighbourhood or in our mosque knows anything. And still we are all being looked on like we are terrorists. Media is specially bad."
But Muslims have been on the defensive ever since the Jul.7 bombings of last year in which four young suicide bombers killed 52 other people. The anniversary of that event last month led to several new assessments of the views of Muslims, and about them.
One of the most telling was a survey conducted by the Times Online news service that indicated that more than one in ten Muslims in Britain believes that the terrorists who blew themselves up Jul. 7 should be regarded as "martyrs". That itself is a number close to 200,000.
"Just when we were beginning to recover from July 7, this survey planted new suspicion in people's minds," Miah said. "And now we have this news of the bombing plot. Life for us Muslims here is becoming very, very hard."
There is little doubt that the vast majority of Muslims in Britain oppose terrorism, but the minority that could at least be in sympathy with violent ways seems to be a fairly significant one, going by the survey, and now by police reports of the new terror plot. Several Muslims believe that it is rising prejudice against the whole community that is being used to recruit many of the young to terrorist paths.
"Jihadis are managing to convince some young Muslims that the war on terror is a war on Islam," Siddiqui said. "And this is affecting everyone, even those who are peaceful and want to live peacefully. For a long time many Muslims have been trying to break out of their ghettos, all this is only driving them back to their ghettos."
But the news of the terror plot is also sending another kind of signal to Muslims who believe that the arrested people were in fact plotting to blow up aircraft. It is the signal that many others are prepared for suicide bombing missions after the Jul. 4 group.
After those bombings the police announced a recruitment drive for intelligence agents to be let loose among groups that could be seen as suspect. That move was driven by fears of further conspiracies, but the close police watch and the frequent stop and search operations that target Muslims could be provoking hostility rather than curbing it.
"We can only hope that sanity will prevail," said Siddiqui. "The kind of prejudices building up should not drive more and more young people to think that they are being seen as terrorists. That will be very damaging to the community."
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All Terrorism All the Time: Fear Becomes Reality Show
New York Times
August 12, 2006
By yesterday the morning shows were back to consumer tips - only the advice was about packing for red alerts, not campgrounds and water parks. An expert on "Today" instructed Ann Curry on how to "be a minimalist." On CBS, Harry Smith performed a cheery show-and-tell about the risks of carrying aboard lip gloss, conditioner and, most of all, nail polish remover.
Even "The Insider," the syndicated gossip show, found its own way to the foiled terrorist plot: on Thursday night's edition, it reported on celebrities - Kim Cattrall and Kevin Spacey - who were delayed at Heathrow.
The averted bombings - an extensive attack that may have been timed to coincide with the anniversary of Sept. 11 - does not answer the question of whether the public is safer now than it was five years ago. European and American security forces are more vigilant, but terrorists have also grown more virulent.
What the close call did show is how far terrorism has metastasized on television. It's a fact of life at airports and on news programs, but even entertainment shows feel compelled - or entitled - to weigh in. Islamic terrorism is woven into the fabric of prime-time thrillers like "24" and "The Unit," but it also surfaces on police shows and legal dramas. The first season of the Showtime series "Sleeper Cell," about an undercover agent who infiltrates a cell of Muslim conspirators in Los Angeles, eerily presaged the London plot - including terrorists who are Westerners who converted to Islam.
Through magnification and repetition, cable news does two opposite things at once: it stokes fear and inures viewers to danger. CNN chose a relatively prosaic rubric for its report, "Security Alert," while Fox News chose the more vivid title "Terror in the Sky." (MSNBC went for the wordier "Target America: Terror in the Sky.") All the cable news programs used music and graphics to hype any new development as a "breaking news" bulletin so important it would seem to merit interruptions by the Emergency Alert System. ("If this had been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed where to tune in your area for news and official information.")
Yet the fact that the United States raised the security alert level to a limited red for the first time was relayed quite calmly. Yellow alerts have come and gone over the past few years, and this terrorist attack, however elaborate and deadly, was safely defused before the public knew of it. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff made appearances on almost every news program imaginable to reassure the public that this was just a precaution to match Britain's security rating, but also, perhaps, to take the victory lap that the British officials who broke up the plot were too busy to make.
Comedians felt safe enough to joke about it. On Comedy Central, Stephen Colbert said he had elevated his show's security level to brown. ("Somebody spilled coffee on the chart.")
CNN and others kept repeating the rules of the liquid ban (no to baby oil, yes to baby formula) long after travelers had caught on and airport delays had abated - mostly because the piles of discarded shampoos and after-shave provided a way to illustrate a story that fortunately had few vivid images. By late afternoon yesterday, even CNN was making light of the restrictions on lotions and creams, showing a lively montage of passengers tossing out toiletries. (A woman who threw away an $80 tube of foundation winced and said, "That hurt.")
Television labeled the changes "the new normal," a catchphrase that by yesterday had spread throughout the spectrum, from the "NBC Nightly News" to Tucker Carlson debating, on his MSNBC show, "Tucker," whether the administration was right to secretly beef up surveillance measures.
These kinds of precautions are not new, and they certainly are not normal. It's the coverage that has normalized.
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Government loses 24,000 ID passes
Scotsman
14/08/2006
MORE than 24,500 government security passes giving access to military sites and sensitive Whitehall offices have gone missing in the past three years, fuelling fears about the British state's vulnerability to terrorism.
The startling number of government identity documents unaccounted for has been revealed in a series of internal audits conducted by Whitehall departments and seen by The Scotsman.
Since last week's foiling of an alleged UK terrorist plot to bomb US-bound airliners, all government facilities have been placed at a high state of alert, and opposition MPs said the loss of so many security passes was deeply troubling.
The majority of the missing security passes were issued by the Ministry of Defence to members of the armed forces. In all, the MoD has lost track of 22,731 forces passes since the start of 2004. More than 4,600 military passes have gone missing since the start of this year alone.
The MoD's civilian staff are also understood to have lost hundreds of identity passes, but the ministry has admitted it does not keep a count of how many of its civilian ID cards have been lost.
Official figures show that staff at several other major Whitehall departments have also mislaid identity passes.
The passes have the legal status of official government documents and anyone finding them is obliged to hand them to the police, but many never are.
The Cabinet Office, which houses several intelligence-related bodies and adjoins No 10, mislaid more than 50 passes in a single year. In all, the department's staff lost 20 passes during 2004 while another 31 were reported stolen.
In less than three years, staff at Gordon Brown's Treasury headquarters have lost 62 passes. Another four have been stolen from officials on the Chancellor's staff.
Among the other government departments that have mislaid passes according to official internal counts:
- The Department of the Environment, Food Rural Affairs has lost 382 passes. Another 37 have been stolen.
- The Department of Trade and Industry reported losses and thefts of 582.
- The Department for Constitutional Affairs - lost 713, stolen 52.
- The Department for International Development - lost 105, stolen five.
The ministries were forced to tally and disclose their lost passes by Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat president, in a string of parliamentary requests.
Illustrating the sensitivity of the figures, several of the departments chose to issue their answers to Mr Hughes' questions in the last days of the parliamentary session last month, when ministries traditionally try to slip out potentially embarrassing information.
The MoD waited until parliament had actually begun its 76-day summer break before publishing its figures, meaning even MPs would have little access to the data until October.
"These figures are worrying in these days of heightened concern about security. The Ministry of Defence in particular - but other departments as well - should be concerned that so many official documents allowing entry to sensitive sites are lost or stolen," Mr Hughes said.
Patrick Mercer, the Tory homeland security spokesman, said: "Identity passes are a vital security tool and their loss is likely to compromise the efforts of the police and others to safeguard British national security."
In a written statement, Tom Watson, a defence minister, downplayed the risk. "Identity cards carry a photograph of the holder and other features that inhibit their fraudulent replication," he said.
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U.S. to roll out electronic passports
By DAN CATERINICCHIA
AP Business Writer
Fri Aug 11, 2006
WASHINGTON - Despite ongoing privacy concerns and legal disputes involving companies bidding on the project, the U.S. State Department plans to begin issuing smart chip-embedded passports to Americans as planned Monday.
Not even the foiled terror plot that heightened security checks at airports nationwide threatens to delay the rollout, the agency said. Any hitches in getting the technology to work properly could add even longer waits to travelers already facing lengthy security lines at airports.
The new U.S. passports will include a chip that contains all the data contained in the paper version - name, birthdate, gender, for example - and can be read by electronic scanners at equipped airports. The State Department says they will speed up going through customs and help enhance border security.
Privacy groups continue to raise concerns about the security of the electronic information and a German computer security expert earlier this month demonstrated in Las Vegas how personal information stored on the documents could be copied and transferred to another device.
But electronic cloning does not constitute a threat because the information on the chips, including the photograph, is encrypted and cannot be changed, according to the Smart Card Alliance, a New Jersey-based not-for-profit made up of government agencies and industry players.
"It's no different than someone stealing your passport and trying to use it," Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the alliance, said in a statement. "No one else can use it because your photo is on the chip and they're not you."
Yet the ability to clone the information on the chips may not be the sole threat, privacy advocates argue. A major concern is that hackers could pick up the electronic signal when the passport is being scanned, said Sherwin Siy, staff counsel at the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, a leading privacy group.
"Many of the advantages the industry is touting are eliminated by security concerns," Siy said.
After testing the passports in a pilot project over the past year, the government insists they're safe.
Numerous companies competed the last two years to provide the technology. One winner was San Jose-based Infineon Technologies North America Corp., a subsidiary of Germany's Infineon AG. Another was French firm Gemalto, which earlier this month announced that it had received its first production order from the Government Printing Office. It is producing the passports for the State Department, using the Infineon technology.
Another company, On Track Innovations Ltd., was notified July 31 that it had been eliminated from consideration and is appealing the decision, a spokeswoman for the Fort Lee, N.J. company said this week. On Track previously had been eliminated but appealed that decision in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., which found in favor of the company and ordered it be reinstated.
Infineon has been approved for production-quantity orders but hasn't received any because of the unresolved legal dispute, said Veronica Meter, a spokeswoman for the Government Printing Office. The rollout that begins Monday will use technology built up during the pilot project.
Neville Pattinson, director of technology and government affairs for Gemalto in Austin, Texas, would not discuss financial terms of the contract. He acknowledged the economic potential is massive, noting that the State Department issued 10 million passports in 2005 and expects that to increase to 13 million this year.
Citizens who get new passports can expect to pay a lot more. New ones issued under this program will cost $97, which includes a $12 security surcharge added last year. Not all new passports will contain the technology until it's fully rolled out - a process expected to take a year. Existing passports without the electronic chips will remain valid until their normal expiration date.
American Depository Shares of Infineon fell 12 cents to $10.65 Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.
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22 suspects questioned about terror plot
By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press
August 13, 2006
LONDON - British police questioned 22 suspects Sunday in the alleged plot to bomb trans-Atlantic jetliners in mid-air, and the country's top law-and-order official warned that the risk of another attack still remained high.
Home Secretary John Reid said the threat "is a chronic one and it is a severe one."
Reid repeated the assertion, made before by police, that Britain has foiled four major terrorist plots since the July 7, 2005, London transit bombings, and said police were conducting about 24 anti-terrorist investigations.
Britain's terrorist threat level remained "critical" - its highest designation - and delays, flight cancellations and intense security continued to greet many travelers at London airports.
"We believe we have the main targets from this particular surveillance and plot," Reid told British Broadcasting Corp. television. "(But) there are still people out there who would carry out such attacks."
Police arrested 24 people across England on Thursday, saying they had thwarted a plot to blow up as many as 10 passenger planes flying between Britain and the United States. One suspect was released without charge, and a court will decide Monday on the detention of another. The suspect cannot be questioned in the interim.
The rest - most young British-born Muslims - were being questioned at high-security police stations. Under tough new anti-terrorism laws, authorities can hold suspects up to 28 days before they must be charged or released.
Among the leads British police were following was whether any of the suspects have connections to the 2005 London transit suicide bombers, or whether any others among them visited Pakistan in recent months. They are also examining Internet cafes near the suspects' homes with the possibility of tracking Web based e-mails or instant messages.
The international investigation has zeroed in on brothers Rashid and Tayib Rauf, the former arrested in Pakistan, the latter in Britain. Their father, Abdul Rauf, immigrated to Britain from the Mirpur district of Pakistan several decades ago, and his five children were all born in Britain.
Rashid Rauf was arrested about a week ago along the Pakistan-Afghan border, and Pakistani officials have named him as a "key person." They say there is evidence he was linked to an "Afghanistan-based al-Qaida connection" but have given no details.
His 22-year-old brother Tayib was taken into custody in Britain, and there were unconfirmed reports a third brother may have been detained.
Relatives and other neighbors of the Raufs expressed shock that they were caught up in the inquiry, but the family is no stranger to the authorities. The Raufs' terraced home was first searched during a 2002 investigation into the fatal stabbing of Mohammed Saeed, the Rauf brothers' uncle, police said.
Rashid Rauf was reportedly a suspect in that slaying, and is believed to have left England for Pakistan shortly after Saeed's death. The home was searched again in connection with a murder during race riots in 2005.
Pakistan is questioning at least 17 people, including Rauf and one other British national whose name has not been released. A senior Pakistani security official told The Associated Press that Rauf's arrest prompted an accomplice in the southern city of Karachi to make a panicked phone call to a suspect in the United Kingdom, giving the green-light for the airliner plot to move forward urgently.
"This telephone call intercept in Karachi and the arrest of Rashid Rauf helped a lot to foil the terror plan," the official said.
A second intelligence official described the accomplice as "inexperienced," and said the caller "alerted his associates about the arrest of Rashid Rauf, and asked them to go ahead." Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of their work.
While authorities in Pakistan believe they have nabbed the main players in the plot, the official said there are two or three people still at large, including Matiur Rahman, a senior figure in the al-Qaida-linked Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Rahman's name was mentioned by one of the detainees during interrogation.
Many in Britain's Muslim community are deeply distrustful of the police following high-profile blunders in the past, including the killing of a man mistaken for a suicide bomber and the shooting of another man in a raid that resulted in no charges.
Prominent British Muslims, including three members of Parliament, also complained in an open letter Saturday that Britain's intervention in Iraq and the failure to secure an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah were providing "ammunition to extremists who threaten us all."
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Arab Americans Arrested As "Terrorists" For Possessing Cell Phones
Associated Press
Sun Aug 13 2006
DALLAS - The wife of one of three Texas men arraigned on terrorism-related charges in Michigan says her husband and his relatives are not terrorists, but are simply trying to make money by reselling cell phones.
"They're locked up in jail for something that they didn't do," 20-year-old Lina Odeh told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Her husband, Louai Abdelhamied Othman of Mesquite, along with his brother, Adham Abdelhamid Othman of Dallas, and their cousin Maruan Awad Muhareb of Mesquite, are charged with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and surveillance of a vulnerable target for terrorist purposes.
Police found about 1,000 cell phones in the men's minivan. Authorities have not said what they believe the men intended to do with the phones, most of which were prepaid TracFones. But the police chief in Caro, Mich., where they were arrested, said cell phones can be used as detonators, and prosecutors in a similar case in Ohio have said that TracFones are often used by terrorists because they are not traceable.
Odeh said the men were buying the phones to sell to a man in Dallas for a profit of about $5 per phone. She said they were in Michigan because so many people in the Dallas area are doing the same thing that the phones are often sold out.
Odeh said she thought her husband and her relatives were targeted because of their Arab descent. The men's families come from Jerusalem, she said.
The men were stopped early Friday about 80 miles north of Detroit after purchasing 80 cell phones from a Wal-Mart. Police said they found about 1,000 phones in their minivan. The men were arrested Friday afternoon.
No pleas were entered at the arraignment Saturday at a District Court in Caro. A magistrate set bond at $750,000 apiece and the men were being held at the Tuscola County Jail, police said.
"All we did is buy the phones to sell and make money," Louai Othman told the magistrate. He said authorities had previously stopped the group in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Muhareb told the magistrate: "This is a misunderstanding." He said he was selling the phones to earn money to help pay for his brother's college education.
Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark E. Reene told The Saginaw News in Michigan that investigators believe the men were targeting the Mackinac Bridge, which connects Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas. He declined to say what led investigators to that belief.
Reene and the
FBI did not return phone messages Saturday from The Associated Press.
Odeh said the family is working to get an attorney for the men.
"I just want everyone to know that they're innocent and they shouldn't be locked up in jail without any evidence," she said.
Her husband is a college student and they have a 2-month-old baby, Odeh said.
A pretrial hearing has been set for Friday and a preliminary exam for Aug. 24.
The arrests in Michigan came three days after two men were arrested in Marietta, Ohio, where police said they aroused suspicions when they acknowledged buying about 600 phones in recent months at stores in southeast Ohio.
Ali Houssaiky and Osama Abulhassan, both 20 and from the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, have been charged with two felonies - money laundering in support of terrorism and soliciting or providing support for acts of terrorism - and misdemeanor falsification. A preliminary hearing on the felony counts was set for Tuesday.
Defense lawyers said Houssaiky and Abulhassan planned to resell the phones simply to make money. They say the men were targeted only because they are of Arab descent.
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Chertoff Says U.S. Needs More Authority
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Star Tribune
The nation's chief of homeland security said Sunday that the U.S. should consider reviewing its laws to allow for more electronic surveillance and detention of possible terror suspects, citing last week's foiled plot.
Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, stopped short of calling for immediate changes, noting there might be constitutional barriers to the type of wide police powers the British had in apprehending suspects in the plot to blow up airliners headed to the U.S.
But Chertoff made clear his belief that wider authority could thwart future attacks at a time when Congress is reviewing the proper scope of the Bush administration's executive powers for its warrantless eavesdropping program and military tribunals for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"What helped the British in this case is the ability to be nimble, to be fast, to be flexible, to operate based on fast-moving information," he said. "We have to make sure our legal system allows us to do that. It's not like the 20th century, where you had time to get warrants."
The Bush administration has pushed for greater executive authority in the war on terror, leading it to create a warrantless eavesdropping program, hold suspects who are deemed as "enemy combatants" for long periods and establish a military tribunal system for detainees that affords defendants fewer rights than traditional courts-martial.
Congress is now reviewing some of the programs after lawmakers questioned the legality of the eavesdropping program and the Supreme Court ruled in June that the tribunals defied international law and had not been authorized by Congress.
On Sunday, Chertoff said the U.S. is remaining vigilant for other attacks, citing concerns that terror groups may "think we are distracted" after last week's foiled plot. Attaining "maximum flexibility" in surveillance of transactions and communications will be critical in preventing future attacks, he said.
"We've done a lot in our legal system the last few years, to move in the direction of that kind of efficiency," Chertoff said. "But we ought to constantly review our legal rules to make sure they're helping us, not hindering us."
He said he expects the Bush administration to keep the U.S. on its highest threat alert for flights headed to the U.S. from the United Kingdom and at its second-highest level for all other flights.
"We haven't fully analyzed the evidence, and therefore, we're still concerned there may be some plotters who are out there," Chertoff said. "We also have to be concerned about other groups that may seize the opportunity to carry out attacks because they think we are distracted with this plot."
Still, Chertoff said he believed that the nation's airline screeners were well-positioned to catch future terrorists. He did not anticipate greater restrictions beyond the current ban on carrying liquids and gels onto airliners, such as barring all carry-on luggage.
"We don't want to inconvenience unnecessarily," he said. "I think we can do the job with our screening, screening training and our technology without banning all carry-on luggage."
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Call to send troops into airports
Press Association
Sunday August 13, 2006
Troops should be sent into major airports to help with security checks and ease delays in the wake of Thursday's bomb plot security alert shadow home secretary David Davis said.
A third of flights due to leave Heathrow on Sunday have been cancelled despite a plea by the airlines for measures to alleviate the problems caused by new anti-terror measures.
Airlines are at loggerheads with operator British Airports Authority (BAA) over who is to blame for the continuing delays and cancellations.
BA chief executive Willie Walsh accused BAA of being unable to deal with increased security and budget airline Ryanair called for urgent Government action to stop airports grinding to a halt.
Home Secretary John Reid said that the ultra-tight security measures would be "time limited" and said the Government was working closely with all parties.
But Mr Davis suggested Britain should follow the example of the US and draft in the security forces to help out.
"In America, for example, troops are being used - probably National Guardsmen I imagine - to help with the searches and help with the security oversight, which accelerates it somewhat.
"It may well be that the smart thing for the Government to do now is to see whether or not they can divert some resources to helping out BAA.
"BAA are clearly not set up for this level of scrutiny and it does seem to me there is an argument for some resources being put in there, and put in there quickly, to try and rescue as many holidays as we possibly can."
BAA's chief executive officer for Heathrow, Tony Douglas, blamed the measures themselves, saying they were "not sustainable". And they were backed by some other airlines.
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Which Travelers Have 'Hostile Intent'? Biometric Device May Have the Answer
Wall Street Journal
14/08/2006
At airport security checkpoints in Knoxville, Tenn. this summer, scores of departing passengers were chosen to step behind a curtain, sit in a metallic oval booth and don headphones.
With one hand inserted into a sensor that monitors physical responses, the travelers used the other hand to answer questions on a touch screen about their plans. A machine measured biometric responses -- blood pressure, pulse and sweat levels -- that then were analyzed by software. The idea was to ferret out U.S. officials who were carrying out carefully constructed but make-believe terrorist missions.
The trial of the Israeli-developed system represents an effort by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to determine whether technology can spot passengers who have "hostile intent." In effect, the screening system attempts to mechanize Israel's vaunted airport-security process by using algorithms, artificial-intelligence software and polygraph principles.
The Israeli-developed system combines questions and biometric measurements to determine if a passenger should undergo screening by security officials.
Neither the TSA nor Suspect Detection Systems Ltd., the Israeli company, will discuss the Knoxville trial, whose primary goal was to uncover the designated bad guys, not to identify threats among real travelers. They won't even say what questions were asked of travelers, though the system is generally designed to measure physical responses to hot-button questions like "Are you planning to immigrate illegally?" or "Are you smuggling drugs."
The test alone signals a push for new ways to combat terrorists using technology. Authorities are convinced that beyond hunting for weapons and dangerous liquids brought on board airliners, the battle for security lies in identifying dangerous passengers.
The method isn't intended to catch specific lies, says Shabtai Shoval, chief executive of Suspect Detection Systems, the start-up business behind the technology dubbed Cogito. "What we are looking for are patterns of behavior that indicate something all terrorists have: the fear of being caught," he says.
Security specialists say such technology can enhance, but not replace, existing detection machines and procedures. Some independent experts who are familiar with Mr. Shoval's product say that while his technology isn't yet mature, it has potential. "You can't replicate the Israeli system exactly, but if you can incorporate its philosophy, this technology can be one element of a better solution," says Doron Bergerbest-Eilon, chief executive of Asero Worldwide consulting firm and a former senior official in Israel's security service.
To date, the TSA has more confidence in people than machines to detect suspicious behavior. A small program now is using screening officers to watch travelers for suspicious behavior. "It may be the only thing I know of that favors the human solution instead of technology," says TSA chief Kip Hawley.
The people-based program -- called Screening Passengers by Observation Technique, or SPOT -- began undergoing tests at Boston's Logan Airport after 9/11 and has expanded to about a dozen airports. Trained teams watch travelers in security lines and elsewhere. They look for obvious things like someone wearing a heavy coat on a hot day, but also for subtle signs like vocal timbre, gestures and tiny facial movements that indicate someone is trying to disguise an emotion.
TSA officers observe passengers while consulting a list of more than 30 questionable behaviors, each of which has a numerical score. If someone scores high enough, an officer approaches the person and asks a few questions.
"All you know is there's an emotion being concealed. You have to find out why the emotion is occurring," says Paul Ekman, a San Francisco psychologist who pioneered work on facial expressions and is informally advising the TSA. "You can find out very quickly."
More than 80% of those approached are quickly dismissed, he says. The explanations for hiding emotions often are innocent: A traveler might be stressed out from work, worried about missing a flight or sad because a relative just died. If suspicions remain, the traveler is interviewed at greater length by a screener with more specialized training. SPOT teams have identified about 100 people who were trying to smuggle drugs, use fake IDs and commit other crimes, but not terrorist acts.
The TSA says that, because the program is based on human behavior, not attributes, it isn't vulnerable to racial profiling. Critics worry it still could run afoul of civil rights. "Our concern is that giving TSA screeners this kind of responsibility and discretion can result in their making decisions not based on solid criteria but on impermissible characteristics such as race," says Gregory T. Nojeim, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office.
Mr. Shoval, the Israeli entrepreneur, believes technology-based screening is the key to rolling out behavior-recognition techniques in the U.S. With experience in counter-terrorism service and the high-technology industry, Mr. Shoval developed his Cogito device with leading former Israeli intelligence officials, polygraph experts and computer-science academics.
Here is the Cogito concept: A passenger enters the booth, swipes his passport and responds in his choice of language to 15 to 20 questions generated by factors such as the location, and personal attributes like nationality, gender and age. The process takes as much as five minutes, after which the passenger is either cleared or interviewed further by a security officer.
At the heart of the system is proprietary software that draws on Israel's extensive field experience with suicide bombers and security-related interrogations. The system aims to test the responses to words, in many languages, that trigger psycho-physiological responses among people with terrorist intent.
The technology isn't geared toward detecting general nervousness: Mr. Shoval says terrorists often are trained to be cool and to conceal stress. Unlike a standard lie detector, the technology analyzes a person's answers not only in relation to his other responses but also those of a broader peer group determined by a range of security considerations. "We can recognize patterns for people with hostile agendas based on research with Palestinians, Israelis, Americans and other nationalities in Israel," Mr. Shoval says. "We haven't tried it with Chinese or Iraqis yet." In theory, the Cogito machine could be customized for specific cultures, and questions could be tailored to intelligence about a specific threat.
The biggest challenge in commercializing Cogito is reducing false results that either implicate innocent travelers or let bad guys slip through. Mr. Shoval's company has conducted about 10 trials in Israel, including tests in which control groups were given terrorist missions and tried to beat the system. In the latest Israeli trial, the system caught 85% of the role-acting terrorists, meaning that 15% got through, and incorrectly identified 8% of innocent travelers as potential threats, according to corporate marketing materials.
The company's goal is to prove it can catch at least 90% of potential saboteurs -- a 10% false-negative rate -- while inconveniencing just 4% of innocent travelers.
Mr. Shoval won a contract for the Knoxville trial in a competitive process. Next year, Israeli authorities plan to test Cogito at the country's main international airport and at checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank, where the goal will be to catch genuine security threats while testing the logistics of using the system more broadly. The latest prototype costs about $200,000 a machine.
Even though his expertise is in human observation, U.S. behavior-recognition expert Dr. Ekman says projects like Cogito deserve a shot. He expects technology to advance even further, to devices like lasers that measure people's vital signs from a distance. Within a year, he predicts, such technology will be able to tell whether someone's "blood pressure or heart rate is significantly higher than the last 10 people" who entered an airport.
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Report: Deadliest Month in Gaza since October 2004
Palestine Chronicle
12/08/2006
From the time the offensive began until August 8, the monitoring group said at least 170 Palestinians had been killed, of whom 138 were civilians.
GAZA - Last month was the deadliest in the Gaza Strip for nearly two years, a Palestinian research group said on Thursday, as Israel's six-week offensive in the territory led to a surge in killings.
The Palestinian Monitoring Group said 151 people were killed in the coastal strip during July, the highest total since October 2004, when 166 people died. Of those killed, the majority were civilians, the group said in a report.
"The spiraling civilian casualties caused by Israeli actions throughout the region serve to strengthen extremists, weaken peace advocates and exacerbate the conflict," said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, commenting on the findings.
Israel launched an offensive in Gaza in late June after an Israeli soldier was abducted by Palestinian fighters in a cross-border raid.
From the time the offensive began until August 8, the monitoring group said at least 170 Palestinians had been killed, of whom 138 were civilians and a quarter children. Other reports have put the death toll from the offensive at 200.
When the offensive was launched, Israeli warplanes bombed and partly destroyed Gaza's only power plant and also hit several bridges. The flow of gasoline, food and other essential supplies into the strip was also repeatedly interrupted.
The United Nations says the densely populated territory is now facing some of the worst humanitarian conditions in years. In a report released on August 7, the UN said the capacity of a waste-water treatment plant in the northern Gaza Strip had reached a "critical point," with sewage ponds threatening to flood nearby populated areas, potentially spreading disease.
It also said that more than 70 percent of the population was now reliant on emergency assistance to meet daily food needs, while prices of essential goods, such as wheat flour and sugar, had risen by between 15 percent and 33 percent since the beginning of the year.
The ability to coordinate relief has been complicated by an attack by Palestinian demonstrators on the main UN compound on July 30, when UN cars were smashed and offices ransacked. Adding to the hardship, the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was closed Thursday for security reasons only after re-opening for the first time in three weeks, officials said.
"The terminal closed at 11 p.m. after the Israeli Army requested it for security reasons," a spokeswoman for the European Union Border Assistance Mission told AFP.
She added that efforts were under way to reopen the crossing, the only gateway to the world that bypasses Israel, as soon as possible. The closure came only hours after an announcement that the crossing would reopen for humanitarian cases from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and thousands of Palestinians had started massing at the border.
Meanwhile, an Israeli air strike destroyed a Palestinian militant's house in the Gaza Strip on Thursday after residents said they received a telephone call from the military giving them 15 minutes to evacuate. Neither the Islamic Jihad member nor his relatives were hurt in the air strike on Beit Hanun, a town on Gaza's northern border with Israel. -
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The land of the free - but free speech is a rare commodity
Henry Porter
Sunday August 13, 2006
The Observer
You can say what you like in the US, just as long as you don't ask awkward questions about America's role in the Middle East..
It used to be said that academic rows were vicious because the stakes were so small. That's no longer true in America, where a battle is underway on campuses over what can be said about the Middle East and US foreign policy.
Douglas Giles is a recent casualty. He used to teach a class on world religions at Roosevelt University, Chicago, founded in memory of FDR and his liberal-inclined wife, Eleanor. Last year, Giles was ordered by his head of department, art historian Susan Weininger, not to allow students to ask questions about Palestine and Israel; in fact, nothing was to be mentioned in class, textbooks and examinations that could possibly open Judaism to criticism.
Students, being what they are, did not go along with the ban. A young woman, originally from Pakistan, asked a question about Palestinian rights. Someone complained and Professor Giles was promptly fired.
Leaving aside his boss's doubtful qualifications to set limits on a class of comparative religion - her speciality is early 20th-century Midwestern artists such as Tunis Ponsen (nor have I) - the point to grasp is that Professor Giles did not make inflammatory statements himself: he merely refused to limit debate among the young minds in front of him.
This might be seen as a troubling one-off like the story involving the president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, who suggested that innate differences between the minds of men and women could be one reason why fewer women succeed in science and maths careers and was then ousted. But Giles's sacking is far more important because it is part of the movement to suppress criticism of Israel on the grounds that it is anti-semitic. A mild man, Giles seems astonished to find the battle for free speech in his own lecture theatre.
'It may be sexy to get on a bus and go to DC and march against war,' he said to me last week. 'It is much less sexy to fight in your own university for the right of free speech. But that is where it begins. That is because they are taking away what you can talk about.' He feels there is a pattern of intolerance in his sacking that has been encouraged by websites such as FrontPageMag.com and Campus Watch.
Joel Beinin of Stanford University is regularly attacked by both. Beinin is a Jew who speaks both Hebrew and Arabic. He worked in Israel and on an assembly line in the US, where he helped Arab workers understand their rights. Now, he holds seminars at Stanford in which all views are expressed. For this reason, no doubt, his photograph recently appeared on the front of a booklet entitled 'Campus Support for Terrorism'.
It was published by David Horovitz, the founder of FrontPageMag.com who has both composed a bill of rights for universities, designed to take politics (for which read liberal influence and plurality) out of the curriculum and a list of the 100 most dangerous academics in America, which includes Noam Chomsky and many other distinguished thinkers and teachers.
The demented, bullying tone of the websites is another symptom of the descent of public discourse in America and, frankly, one can easily see the attractions of self-censorship on the question of Middle East and Israel. Read David Horovitz for longer than five minutes and you begin to hear Senator Joseph McCarthy accusing someone of un-American activities.
At Harvard, a few weeks after what was called Summers's 'mis-step', a much greater row ensued when John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard published a paper called 'The Israel Lobby'. Brave because the alleged distortion of US pro-Israel foreign policy is unmentionable in American public life.
Their paper was printed only in the UK, in the London Review of Books. In America, there then followed what has been described as the massive 'Shhhhhhhhh!' Apart from the mud-slinging from sites such as Campus Watch and FrontPageMag, it has had little mainstream circulation and there has been no real debate.
I have read it several times and cannot disagree with an early point made by the authors. 'There is a strong moral case for supporting Israel's existence, but that is not in jeopardy. Viewed objectively, its past and present conduct offers no moral basis for privileging it over the Palestinians.' That is the crux. All Americans, to say little of the British who have been reluctantly welded to US policy, surely deserve the chance to know about the influence that lobbies such as the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) exert at times like these.
'The bottom line,' say Mearsheimer and Walt, 'is that AIPAC is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress, with the result that US policy is not debated there, even though the policy has important consequences for the entire world. In other words, one of the three main branches of the government is firmly committed to supporting Israel.'
Later they say: 'The lobby's influence causes trouble on several fronts. It increases the terrorist danger that all states face, including America's European allies. It has made it impossible to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a situation that gives extremists a powerful recruiting tool, increases the pool of potential terrorist and sympathisers and contributes to Islamic radicalism in Europe and Asia.'
You could add that the lobby's influence may, in the long run, be very much against Israel's interests.
That is my belief, but these things are rarely discussed in America. People look vaguely queasy when you raise the subject of the Israeli lobby, as though the only concern in American discourse is not to appear anti-semitic, a fear which, I suggest, is sometimes shamelessly played upon.
The right of people like Mearsheimer, Walt, Beinin, Giles and even Summers to say what they think must remain inviolate if we are not to lose the values the West insists its fighting for. A little boldness is called for on both sides of the Atlantic to question the pressure coming from both Jewish and Muslim quarters not to discuss issues openly because of various sensibilities.
In Britain, we should deplore with equal vehemence the temptation to give into special pleading from, for instance, the Muslim businessmen who do not want the film of Monica Ali's Brick Lane made in their area. They have no right to dictate to this ancient democracy of ours - now theirs - and so stifle free expression.
Last week, during Jon Snow's fascinating Channel 4 documentary about Muslim attitudes in this country, a woman said that British society was too decadent for her to allow her children to integrate completely. A moment's thought suggested that British democracy had much to offer over the appalling civic values found in most Muslim countries, the oppression of women in Islam, the untold domestic abuse and the tens of thousands of children sold into bonded labour in Pakistan - her husband's country of origin. Her prim separatism fails to grasp the value of our democratic institutions when set against societies run by Sharia law and so undermines them.
My view is that in America and Britain, we should think of free speech as an article of faith, as one of the ways that we define our civilisation against the forces that were to be unleashed on us this week, as well as the influences that stifle criticism of Israel and so enable the disgraceful actions in south Lebanon.
The interests of extreme proponents of Muslim and Jewish faiths combine in one way or another to assault our ancient democratic traditions and we must resist them.
Let the students like those in Douglas Giles's class ask whatever they like.
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BSO officer apologizes for off-color comments about protesters on video
Madeline Baró Diaz
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
August 10 2006
One of the most striking moments captured on camera during the protests occurred when Miami attorney Elizabeth Ritter, in business attire with a red jacket, held a sign that said "Fear Totalitarianism" while standing in front of a row of police in riot gear. The officers opened fire with rubber bullets, hitting Ritter as she walked away from them. While she crouched behind her sign, a bullet hit her in the head. On the training tape, released to the media Wednesday, the deputies make fun of Ritter.
"You see that lady with the red dress?" said Sgt. Michael Kallman, addressing the hooting and cheering deputies. "I don't know who got her, but when it went through the sign it hit her smack dab in the middle of the head."
"Can I get a little piece of her red dress?" called a voice off camera.
Sheriff's spokesman Elliot Cohen said the tape was reviewed "a long time ago" and it was determined to have broken no department rules.
"There's a difference between violating department procedure and just being inappropriate," he said.
Ritter, who said she was protesting the fact that her hometown had become a "veritable police state" where even the courts were afraid to open during the protests, said she had not considered legal action until she saw the tape.
"I was appalled and shocked that they would be applauded and congratulated for that kind of egregious conduct against a citizen," she said. "It's going to take some form of civil rights action to help modify the training ... or the type of individual the Broward Sheriff's Office sees fit to employ as an officer of the law."
The ranking Broward Sheriff's officer shown on a training tape in which deputies made fun of protesters at a free trade summit apologized Wednesday, but said his deputies did not violate department policy.
"The comments were inappropriate and unprofessional and I shouldn't have made them," Major John Brooks said during an interview at the Sheriff's Office headquarters in Fort Lauderdale. "I'm apologizing to the people being talked about, I'm apologizing to the BSO and to the public.
The tape that featured Brooks was a training video made during and after protests that took place during the 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas summit in Miami. In the video, one deputy refers to the protesters as "scurrying cockroaches."
During the summit, police from agencies throughout South Florida dressed in riot gear and met the protesters with a show of force and non-lethal weapons.
A day after demonstrators clashed with police, the training tape captured Brooks discussing the confrontation with his riot gear-clad troops.
"I just keep thinking back on the events ... the rocks and chunks of bricks that were coming at us and all of a sudden you hear pop, pop, pop, pop, pop," he said on the tape, referring to the sound of guns firing rubber bullets and pepper spray pellets. "That weapon saved us a lot of injuries."
One deputy handed him a black cloth that could have been a hood or facemask "from one of the scurrying cockroaches," the deputy said, referring to the protesters.
"This is going in my office forever," Brooks replied, "and it's going to bring some very good memories."
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Mich., Texas airports see disturbances
AP
Sat Aug 12, 2006
ROMULUS, Mich. - The Customs area at a Detroit airport was briefly shut down Saturday after a passenger claimed he had contaminated everyone on a flight with a biological agent, officials said.
Meanwhile, in Dallas, officials evacuated part of a terminal airport because a suitcase was smoking and leaking liquid.
At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a U.S. citizen got of a Northwest Airlines flight and implied to the crew he had a biological agent of some sort and had contaminated the flight, U.S. Customs agent Ron Smith said.
Airport emergency medical technicians examined the man and decided that he did not pose a health risk. He was eventually allowed to leave, Smith said.
Meanwhile, officials evacuated portions of a terminal at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport for about three hours while officials inspected a suitcase emitting smoke and liquid.
Authorities tracked down the bag's owner and determined the suspicious item was an aerosol hairspray can.
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Fake Terror At Home = Real Terror Abroad
Ongoing heavy civilian toll in Lebanon 'unacceptable': Red Cross
AFP
August 13, 2006
GENEVA - The International Committee of the Red Cross slammed the ongoing heavy civilian casualties in the conflict in Lebanon as "unacceptable".
"The ICRC has repeatedly expressed its concerns about insufficient precautions taken in attacks by the parties to the armed conflict," the agency said in a statement Sunday.
"It is unacceptable that after more than 30 days of ongoing military operations, all necessary precautions to spare civilian life and those engaged in medical work have still not been taken," it said.
The humanitarian agency highlighted an Israeli air strike Friday on hundreds of people fleeing the area of Marajayoun by car, in which six were killed and 32 were wounded.
A Lebanese Red Cross volunteer, Mikhael Jbayleh, was killed in the raid while trying to give first aid to a wounded person, it said.
Two other Lebanese Red Cross volunteers were injured when their ambulance was hit by "two projectiles" east of Tyre, although no fighting was taking place nearby, the statement said. The source of the projectiles was not identified.
"The ICRC deplores the heavy impact of hostilities on civilians and on Lebanese Red Cross emergency medical personnel and assets."
It also deplored "the continuing lack of respect for the rules governing the conduct of hostilities, such as the distinction between military objectives and civilian persons and objects", the statement added.
The Israeli military has banned the movement of all vehicles in the region south of the Litani river, including near Tyre, warning they will be considered to be supporting the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah and attacked.
Only Red Cross and UN vehicles are exempted, but they still need prior authorisation from the Israelis to travel.
In a newspaper interview Sunday, the head of the ICRC's office in the embattled city of Tyre, Roland Huguenin, highlighted direct warnings to Israeli authorities.
"I tell and keep on repeating to Israeli authorities that they must respect the rights of victims," he told the Swiss newspaper Le Matin, after being asked about an overall lack of distinction between civilian and military assets in the conflict.
Huguenin said the air strikes were also affecting attempts to rescue civilians buried under bombed buildings.
"The Israeli air force is shooting at all vehicles except those of the ICRC.
"As a result, when a building collapses, machines such as diggers cannot intervene to lift concrete blocks and save the people stuck in the ruins," he explained.
Huguenin said he had been trying to help a woman and three children in a village 15 kilometres (10 miles) from Tyre who were sleeping in the cellar of their home when it was destroyed.
Although voices could be heard, rescuers could not bring in digging equipment to break through the ruins.
"I don't see in what way the outcome of the conflict could be changed by allowing rescuers to get civilians out of the ruins," he commented.
Alongside its role as a relief agency, the ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, which guarantee protection for civilians and the wounded in conflicts.
Comment: "The source of the projectiles [that hit the Red Cross ambulance] was not identified." Let's think about this: Say your country is invaded by a foreign army. Many civilians are killed in the name of battling "terrorists", and much of the infrastructure of your country is obliterated. You know that food, clean water, and medical supplies will become very scarce very quickly, and disease could become a very big problem. A Red Cross ambulance drives up and treats the wounded. Do you:
a) shoot a missile into the ambulance?
b) welcome the ambulance and help them out?
It isn't too hard to figure out who was shooting at the Red Cross, given this particular side's blatant disregard for civilian lives. Over 1100 Lebanese have died, mostly civilians. 151 Israelis have died, and they were mostly soldiers.
Who benefits? You do the math.
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Thirteen killed as Israel keeps up strikes on Lebanon
by Jihad Siqlawi
AFP
August 13, 2006
TYRE, Lebanon - Thirteen civilians, including a mother and three children, were killed as Israel pounded targets across Lebanon despite expectations of an impending ceasefire.
Israeli troops were continuing to battle Hezbollah militants through the night near the southern port city of Tyre, after the military suffered its biggest single-day death toll of the month-old war, losing 24 soldiers.
Al-Arabiya news channel said Sunday seven Israeli soldiers were killed in the clashes on Sunday, but there was no confirmation from the Israeli army.
The bloodshed continued even after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan announced that the governments of Israel and Lebanon agreed to halt fighting on Monday.
Police said the mother, her three young children and their Sri Lankan maid were killed overnight when Israeli bombs flattened their home in the southern village of Burj el-Shemali.
Neighbours tried in vain to dig them out and rescue services had still not arrived at the site two hours later because Tyre was coming under continued raids.
Patients in a hospital in Tyre were in danger of suffering smoke inhalation after Israeli warplanes bombed a nearby filling station, sparking a huge fire, hospital director Jawad Najm told AFP.
Two rescue workers, including the chief of the Lebanese Red Cross in Tyre, Salam Daher, were wounded by shrapnel during raids near the hospital where they had been rushing to help extinguish the fire, police said.
Israeli raids killed two Palestinians and wounded seven others in the Tyre area as well as in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon, police said.
Three civilians were killed and 15 others wounded when Israeli war planes destroyed a house and a prayer building in the village of Ali an-Nahri east of the ancient city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon.
Two civilians were killed and six others wounded in Israeli bombardments on a pick-up carrying gas canisters at the entrance of Baalbek.
In northern Lebanon, Israeli fighter-bombers destroyed two bridges in the northern Akkar plains that link the main city in north Lebanon, Tripoli, with the Syrian border, wounding six people.
The air strike on the bridge at Halba destroyed a large number of homes, causing the civilian casualties, said a hospital worker.
Two Lebanese soldiers stationed nearby were also wounded in the attacks, but none needed to be hospitalized.
The bridge in adjoining village was also destroyed. Eight other bridges in the area have already been knocked out.
Three buildings near a Lebanese army barracks at the southern entrance of Tyre were targeted by bombardments that left one civilian killed, four wounded and two still missing under the rubble.
Israeli fighter-bombers carried out over three dozen raids in the eastern Nabatiyeh region, destroying a three-story building and two structures used by Hezbollah's rescue service. Police were unable to provide any information about casualties.
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Israeli cabinet approves UN call to end fighting
Reuters
August 13, 2006
JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet on Sunday approved a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a cessation of hostilities with Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, a political source said.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan had said the prime ministers of Israel and Lebanon agreed the fighting would end on Monday at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT).
Olmert had urged the cabinet to accept the U.N. resolution.
All but one of the cabinet voted for the resolution that was approved by the Security Council on Friday to end a month-old war that has killed over 1,060 people in Lebanon and 140 Israelis. Shaul Mofaz, the former defense minister, abstained.
The resolution envisages a phased withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon when violence subsides and deployment of 15,000 Lebanese troops and 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers.
Hostilities began on July 12 when Hizbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid, then unleashed rocket fire at northern Israel after Israel launched an aerial offensive in Lebanon.
Despite the resolution, Israel has expanded its offensive in south Lebanon, tripling its forces there on Saturday in a bid to wipe out Hizbollah rocket launch sites before the ceasefire takes effect.
Nearly 30,000 troops were operating against Hizbollah targets in southern Lebanon on Sunday.
Comment: How well do you think Israel leaders will abide by the cease fire if their first response is to triple Israeli forces in south Lebanon to hurry up and wage more war before the cease fire begins?!
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Annan says Lebanon fighting to end but Israel pushes assault
by Jihad Siqlawi
AFP
August 13, 2006
TYRE, Lebanon - Israel carried out waves of deadly bombing raids on Lebanon, flattening homes, bridges and setting petrol stations ablaze even after UN chief Kofi Annan said a ceasefire in the devastating month-old war would take effect on Monday.
And as the Israeli government met to give its verdict on the UN ceasefire resolution, thousands of Israeli troops pressed on with a bloody ground offensive to rout Hezbollah from a large swathe of land in southern Lebanon.
Annan said Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had agreed that a cessation of hostilities will enter into force at 0500 GMT on Monday, following a UN Security Council resolution adopted unanimously on Friday after protracted diplomatic wrangling.
"Preferably, the fighting should stop now to respect the spirit and intent of the Council decision, the object of which was to save civilian lives, to spare the pain and suffering that the civilians on both sides are living through," Annan said Sudnay.
The Lebanese government on Saturday approved the Resolution 1701 -- albeit with reservations -- while Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said his Shiite Muslim movement would abide by an agreed ceasefire but also vowed to continue fighting as long as Israeli troops remained on Lebanese soil.
The worst cross-border conflict in a quarter century has killed more than 1,100 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and at least 151 Israelis, most of them soldiers, and laid waste to much of Lebanon's infrastructure.
Israel's cabinet was meeting Sunday to give its verdict on the resolution, which calls for a full cessations of hostilities and the deployment of a 15,000-strong international force in southern Lebanon.
But with Hezbollah vowing to fight until the last Israeli soldier leaves Lebanon and Israel stressing that it will respond to any attack on its troops or rocket fire, hopes of complete ceasefire in the immediate future looked dim.
Israel's massive assault involving 30,000 troops was continuing after the killing of 24 soldiers in its highest single-day death toll of the conflict, and troops were clashing with guerrillas near the southern port city of Tyre.
Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television reported that another seven Israeli soldiers were killed Sunday but this was not confirmed by the Israeli army.
In what the media have said is the largest ground operation since the 1973 Middle East war, Israel is sweeping through south Lebanon where Hezbollah is rooted -- some troops reaching the strategic Litani River which runs as far as 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the border.
Fighter jets also pounded targets in the south, east and north of Lebanon, and at least 11 civilians were killed, including a mother and her three children, Lebanese police said.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres sought to put a postive spin on the war's outcome despite the failure to stem the hail of Hezbollah rockets on the north of the country, which killed a 70-year-old man on Sunday.
"I think that we have finished more or less the victors both militarily and politically," Peres told army radio, predicting that Hezbollah would end with "its tail between its legs."
Trade Minister Eli Yishai also issued a stark warning to Lebanon even if the ceasefire comes into force, saying: "If a single stone is thrown at Israel from whatever village that happens, it should be turned into a pile of stones."
In Tyre, warplanes bombed five petrol stations, sparking a huge fire that threatened to engulf a nearby hospital.
"The flames are lashing the building, our ill and wounded patients are threatened with smoke inhalation," hospital director Jawad Najm told AFP. "Nobody has come to help. Not the firefighters, not neighbours."
Fierce clashes between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops continued through the night southeast of Tyre, on the outskirts of the bombed-out militant stronghold of Khiam.
The International Committee of the Red Cross slammed the continuing heavy civilian casualties as unacceptable.
"It is unacceptable that after more than 30 days of ongoing military operations, all necessary precautions to spare civilian life and those engaged in medical work have still not been taken," the agency said.
In addition to the heavy death toll in Lebanon, more than 900,000 people have been displaced by Israeli bombardments that have left much of the country's infrastructure in ruins.
The Israeli general in charge of the northern command said he hoped troops involved in the expanded offensive will have secured control of most of south Lebanon by Monday.
"I think we will be in a much better situation (on Monday) than we are today," General Udi Adam said. "Assuming that the ceasefire will take effect, we will stop the moment we are told. If it doesn't, we could continue."
The Litani has served as a tactical boundary for Israel's operations in Lebanon since it first invaded its northern neighbour in 1978, leading to a long and bloody occupation that ended only six years ago.
The UN resolution, drafted by the United States and France, calls for all Israeli troops to withdraw from southern Lebanon after an end to the fighting.
It also calls for the release of the two captive Israeli soldiers whose seizure on July 12 triggered the conflict, and for a solution to the issue of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.
The resolution authorizes an increase in the current UN Interim Force in Lebanon's strength to a maximum of 15,000 troops from about 1,990 now. They will be matched by the 15,000 troops Lebanon plans to send to the south.
While approving the resolution, the Lebanese cabinet expressed reservations that it did not go far enough in condemning the large-scale Israeli destruction and that it failed to address the issue of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa farms.
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Israel triples troop levels in Lebanon
AP
12/08/2006
JERUSALEM -- Israel has nearly tripled the number of forces in Lebanon as part of its expanded ground war in Lebanon and expects to fight for another week despite a U.N. cease-fire deal, the Israeli army chief said Saturday.
Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz said Israeli troops would stay in Lebanon until an international force arrives.
"We have almost tripled our forces that our operating in Lebanon," Halutz told reporters. In the first stage of the ground war, some 10,000 forces operated in Lebanon. A tripling of troops would mean Israel now has a fighting force of some 30,000 soldiers in Lebanon.
Under the truce deal, approved by the U.N. Security Council on Friday, some 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers would be deployed along the Israel-Lebanon border to keep Hezbollah guerrillas away from Israel.
Israel has accepted the deal, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it still needs to be approved by his Cabinet on Sunday.
Israeli officials said late Friday that troops are to make a final push to clear as much territory as possible of Hezbollah gunmen to make it easier for the international force, along with 15,000 Lebanese soldier, to take over.
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Israel says it can target Hizbollah arms despite truce
By Adam Entous
Reuters
Sun Aug 13, 2006
JERUSALEM - Israel believes it will be entitled to use force to prevent Hizbollah from rearming and to clear guerrilla positions out of southern Lebanon after a U.N. truce takes effect, Israeli officials said on Sunday.
Israeli officials said such operations are "defensive" in nature and therefore permissible under a
U.N. Security Council resolution which calls for Israel to halt "all offensive military operations."
Western diplomats and U.N. officials said they feared Israel's broad definition of "defensive" actions could lead to a resurgence in large-scale fighting, preventing the swift deployment of international troops meant to monitor a ceasefire.
The Israeli operations could include air strikes against arms convoys traveling anywhere in Lebanese territory, a senior Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Major-General Benny Gantz, head of the ground forces branch, told reporters that the Israeli army will cease fire if Hizbollah will cease fire.
But he added: "The ceasefire is not a cessation of Israeli army activity in the Lebanon arena ... It will protect its troops and civilians."
Like Israel, Hizbollah has said it will abide by the U.N. resolution. But the guerrilla group said it will carry on confronting any Israeli soldiers on Lebanese soil.
"It will be a fragile truce," said a Western diplomat involved in the deliberations.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet formally approved the resolution on Sunday. The United Nations said Israeli and Lebanese leaders had agreed a truce would take effect at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Monday.
CLEARING OUT HIZBOLLAH
The truce will mark the end of Israel's offensive operations, senior Israeli officials said.
But they said the army would press ahead with operations aimed at "clearing out" Hizbollah fighters from areas in southern Lebanon where some 30,000 Israeli troops have been deployed ahead of the truce.
A Western diplomat said the United States and other major powers would not object to such "mopping up" operations, provided they are restricted to the south.
The resolution also imposes an arms embargo in Lebanon on the delivery of weapons or military equipment to "any entity or individual" excluding the Lebanese army and U.N. troops.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the embargo means that any "arms entering Lebanon for Hizbollah would be a violation of the resolution."
"As a result, if no one else was acting to prevent that violation, Israel would be entitled to do so," Regev said, without going into details.
Israel has attacked vehicles it said were carrying weapons to Hizbollah during the month-long war. But some convoys turned out to be carrying civilians, not weapons. An air strike on a convoy on Friday killed a Lebanese Red Cross worker and six other civilians.
A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel was very concerned that the embargo outlined in the resolution will not be enforced, putting the onus on Israel to act militarily.
"We will not allow the re-supply of rockets and ammunition to Hizbollah if they try to do it under the pretext of the cessation of hostilities," the official said.
"Violation of the embargo... is something that is clearly an offensive move against Israel. It is therefore something that we cannot accept and we have full right to take defensive measures again," the official added.
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Israeli Army Cause Serious Head Injury to Israeli Lawyer at Demonstration
Scoop.NZ
12/08/2006
Earlier today, August 11, the Israeli Army and Border Police shot an Israeli demonstrator with rubber bullets from close range in the head and neck, causing serious injuries. The man, who is a lawyer, was taken by the army to Tel Hasomer hospital from where he is reported to have suffered brain damage.
In total 9 people were shot with rubber bullets in a non-violent demonstration in Bil'in. Those shot included 2 villagers of Bil'in as well as citizens of Denmark, France, USA, Japan and Israel. Other people from United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark were beaten, struck with rifle butt or injured by sound grenade fragments.
About 200 demonstrators joined the peaceful march from the Bil'in mosque to the Apartheid Wall about 1 km away. The purpose of the march was to demonstrate against the 'New Style of Killing' where even children are targetted by Israeli military forces. The marchers carried 5 mock bodies symbolising an entire family killed by Israeli military action.
Before the marchers were able to leave the village soldiers blocked their route, announced the demonstration illegal and then immediately fired sound grenades and rubber bullets from close range. The solders' commander claimed the demonstration was illegal although an Israeli court has previously confirmed the right of Bil'in villagers to hold demonstrations.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led non-violent resistance movement committed to ending Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian land. We call for full compliance with all relevant UN resolutions and international law.
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Food running out in south Lebanon
Aug 11, 2006
Reuters
Humanitarian agencies sought ways to get aid to an estimated 100,000 people trapped in southern Lebanon on Friday and the mayor of Tyre said the port city could run out of food in two days.
United Nations and other convoys have been unable to deliver supplies to the region since an Israeli air strike destroyed the last bridge across the Litani river on Monday.
"We have not received any aid since the last route was cut off. We have enough food supplies for no more than two days," Tyre's mayor, Abdel-Mohsen al Husseini, told a news conference.
"We contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross to try to set up a humanitarian crossing over the Litani river but we have yet to receive an answer," he said.
The ICRC said it had not been able to reach villages where it had hoped to take several hundred people, including wounded, to safety in the north. "Obviously we will continue to try to reach and supply these villages and evacuate the wounded and sick," said spokeswoman Antonella Notari.
ICRC chief Jakob Kellenberger said after talks in Jerusalem on Thursday: "The time for improved access is long overdue."
Israel's month-old war with Hizbollah guerrillas has killed at least 1,023 people in Lebanon and destroyed an estimated $2.5 billion of infrastructure, while 123 Israelis have been killed.
The U.N. World Food Program, overseeing logistics for U.N. agencies, said a 15-truck convoy to the eastern town of Baalbek halted at the city of Zahle due to shelling on the road ahead.
It also received Israeli clearance for convoys to Nabatiyeh, a town north of the Litani, but could not reach Tyre, the biggest city south of the river, or border villages.
"We have clearance for everything north of the Litani," said WFP spokesman Robin Lodge. "Below that it's still a no-go area."
The World Health Organization was receiving requests for fuel from at least 24 private hospitals and was looking into transporting a 10-day supply for those in most urgent need.
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Iran says disarming Lebanese Hizbollah "illogical"
Reuters
August 13, 2006
TEHRAN (Reuters) -
Iran welcomed on Sunday a planned ceasefire to halt the month-long war between Lebanon's Hizbollah and
Israel but described the
U.N. Security Council's call for disarming the Iranian-backed group as "illogical."
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The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution on Friday calling for a "full cessation of hostilities" and for the implementation of a previous U.N. resolution requiring the disarming of armed groups including Hizbollah.
"We are happy for the ceasefire in Lebanon. But the resolution is not balanced," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a weekly news conference.
"It does not condemn the Zionist regime (Israel) and its crimes in Lebanon."
Asked about the call for disarming Hizbollah, Asefi said: "This is a totally unreasonable demand. It is illogical."
"Let us not forget that as long as there is occupation there is resistance," he added.
Israel accuses Iran of providing Hizbollah with missiles used against civilian and military targets. Although Iran armed and funded Hizbollah during the 1980s, Tehran now insists it provides only moral support to the group.
Opposition to Israel was one of the founding principles of the Islamic Republic. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
Comment: Of course, this propaganda article must be ended with the claim that the Iranian leader called for Israel to be destroyed. Unfortunately, it seems Ahmadinejad never said Israel should be "wiped off the map".
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Cease Fire Charade
Arab News
13/08/2006
By the time the Israeli Cabinet meets today to consider Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's recommendation that the UN cease-fire resolution be accepted, Israel's major new thrust toward the Litani River in southern Lebanon will probably have expanded the conflict with Hezbollah. The slightest hint of a Hezbollah counterattack, under the one-sided terms of Friday's Resolution 1701, will permit the Israeli military to mount "defensive" operations and thus keep the conflict going. We can confidently expect that Olmert's Cabinet will willingly agree to the cease-fire - just as soon as Hezbollah stops its attacks. Israel is a past master at kicking its boot into the hive and then protesting that it must take action against the resulting swarm.
Will the Security Council allow itself to be manipulated into remaining silent about Israel's massive new push into Lebanese territory? And on the very eve of the council's vote, such a thing is custom-made to make an early cease-fire less likely. Security Council members should not forget the rebuke of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan after their vote. The resolution, he said, had taken far too long and as a result the reputation of the UN had been seriously tarnished. If the organization is to play a real role in the restoration of peace and Lebanese sovereignty, it must now be seen to be acting firmly in assessing who is doing what to sabotage and delay the cease-fire.
Resolution 1701 already rides roughshod over the legitimate concerns of the Arab world about protecting both Lebanese sovereignty and Lebanese civilians. It places immediate pressure on the cease-fire process which could cause the whole process to fail and thus allow Israel to continue with its own brutal solution, based on purely "defensive" grounds. How "defensive" does the UN Security Council consider the attack Friday on the hundreds of vehicles fleeing north from the Israeli-occupied Lebanese town of Marjayoun? At least seven people were killed when an Israeli drone fired rockets at the convoy which was heading away from the fighting. The Israelis knew that very well since they had watched it leave the town. And they also knew that in that long line of vulnerable vehicles were 350 members of the Lebanese Army and security forces, the very people whom the Israelis pretend they want to be in control of southern Lebanon.
As long as Israeli troops continue their incursions into Lebanon, they know those incursions will be resisted and, according to 1701, resistance will give them the excuse to continue their bloody depredations. It will also enable them to try to throw the blame for the worsening humanitarian crisis onto the Hezbollah fighters who oppose them. Even though it is Israeli weapons that have cut roads and bridges, Israeli warplanes that have destroyed vehicles - even those transporting innocent civilians who want only to flee to safety - the Israelis will deny the death and destruction are their responsibility.
Can the Security Council possibly accept so brazen a distortion of what the whole world knows is true?
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How London's Terror Scare Looks From Beirut
August 13, 2006
Robert Fisk
UK Independent
When my electricity returned at around 3am yesterday, I turned on the BBC World Service television. There were a series of powerful explosions which shook the house--just as they vibrated across all of Beirut--as the latest Israeli air raids blasted over the city. And then up came the World Service headline: "Terror Plot". Terror what, I asked myself? And there was my favorite cop, Paul Stephenson, explaining how my favorite police force--the ones who bravely executed an innocent young Brazilian on the Tube, taking 30 seconds to fire six bullets into him--had saved the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians from suicide bombers on airliners.
I'm sure our readers will join me in watching how many of the suspects--or "British-born Muslims" as the BBC defined them in its special form of "soft" racism (they are surely Muslim Britons or British Muslims, are they not?)--are still in custody in a couple of weeks' time.
And I'm sure it's quite by chance that the lads in blue chose yesterday--with anger at Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara's shameful failure over Lebanon at its peak--to save the world. After all, it's scarcely three years since the other great Terror Plot had British armored vehicles surrounding Heathrow on the very day--again quite by chance, of course--that hundreds of thousands of Britons were demonstrating against Lord Blair's intended invasion of Iraq.
So I sat on the carpet in my living room and watched all these heavily armed chaps at Heathrow protecting the British people from annihilation and then on came President George Bush to tell us that we were all fighting "Islamic fascism". There were more thumps in the darkness across Beirut where an awful lot of people are suffering from terror--although I can assure George W that while the pilots of the aircraft dropping bombs across the city in which I have lived for 30 years may or may not be fascists, they are definitely not Islamic.
And there, of course, was the same old problem. To protect the British people--and the American people--from "Islamic terror", we must have lots and lots of heavily armed policemen and soldiers and plainclothes police and endless departments of anti-terrorism, homeland security and other more sordid folk like the American torturers--some of them sadistic women--at Abu Ghraib and Baghram and Guantanamo. Yet the only way to protect ourselves from the real violence which may--and probably will--be visited upon us, is to deal, morally, with courage and with justice, with the tragedy of Lebanon and "Palestine" and Iraq and Afghanistan. And this we will not do.
I would, frankly, love to have Paul Stephenson out in Beirut to counter a little terror in my part of the world--Hizbollah terror and Israeli terror. But this, of course, is something that Paul and his lads don't have the spittle for. It's one thing to sound off about the alleged iniquities of alleged suspects of an alleged plot to create alleged terror--quite another to deal with the causes of that terror and to do so in the face of great danger.
I was amused to see that Bush--just before my electricity was cut off again--still mendaciously tells us that the "terrorists" hate us because of "our freedoms". Not because we support the Israelis who have massacred refugee columns, fired into Red Cross ambulances and slaughtered more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians--here indeed are crimes for Paul Stephenson to investigate--but because they hate our "freedoms".
And I notice with despair that our journalists again suck on the hind tit of authority, quoting endless (and anonymous) "security sources" without once challenging their information or the timing of Paul's "terror plot" discoveries or the nature of the details--somehow, "fizzy drinks bottles" doesn't quite work for me--nor the reasons why, if this whole panjandrum is correct, anyone would want to carry out such atrocities. We are told that the arrested men are Muslims. Now isn't that interesting? Muslims. This means that many of them--or their families--originally come from south-west Asia and the Middle East, from the area that encompasses Afghanistan, Iraq, "Palestine" and Lebanon.
In the old days, chaps like Paul used to pull out a map when faced with folk of different origins or religion or indeed different names. Indeed, if Paul Stephenson takes a school atlas, he'll notice that there are an awful lot of violent problems and injustice and suffering and--a speciality, it seems, of the Metropolitan Police--of death in the area from which the families of these "Muslims" come.
Could there be a connection, I wonder? Dare we look for a motive for the crime, or rather the "alleged crime"? The Met used to be pretty good at looking for motives. But not, of course, in the "war on terror", where--if he really searched for real motives--my favorite policeman would swiftly be back on the beat as Constable Paul Stephenson.
Take yesterday morning. On day 31of the Israeli version of the "war on terror"--a conflict to which Paul and the lads in blue apparently subscribe by proxy--an Israeli aircraft blew up the only remaining bridge to the Syrian frontier in northern Lebanon, in the mountainous and beautiful Akka district above the Mediterranean. With their usual sensitivity, the pilots who bombed the bridge--no terrorists they, mark you--chose to destroy the bridge when ordinary cars were crossing. So they massacred the 12 civilians who happened to be on the bridge. In the real world, we call that a war crime. Indeed, it's a crime worthy of the attention of Paul and his lads. But alas, Stephenson's job is to frighten the British people, not to stop the crimes that are the real reason for the British to be frightened.
Personally, I'm all for arresting criminals, be they of the "Islamic fascist" variety or the Bin Laden variety or the Israeli variety--their warriors of the air really should be arrested next time they drop into Heathrow--or the American variety (Abu Ghraib cum laude) and indeed of the kind that blow out the brains of Tube train passengers. But I don't think Paul Stephenson is. I think he huffs and he puffs but I do not think he stands for law and order. He works for the Ministry of Fear which, by its very nature, is not interested in motives or injustice. And I have to say, watching his performance before the next power cut last night, I thought he was doing a pretty good job for his masters.
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US forces arrest 60 in Baghdad
By Alister Bull
Reuters
Sat Aug 12, 2006
BAGHDAD - U.S. troops rounded up 60 suspected militants overnight in a security clampdown to stem violence in the capital and killed 26 insurgents in a rebel Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad.
Two bombs killed six people and wounded 11 in more bloodletting in the capital on Saturday, Iraqi police said, while two U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.
The sweep through the southern Baghdad district of Arab Jabour targeted a suspected bomb-making cell linked to attacks across the city of seven million.
"The group has been reported to be planning and conducting training for future attacks, like the attack in Mahmudiya July 17 that killed 42," the U.S. military said in a statement.
In a separate operation in a south Baghdad district called Um al-Maalif, Iraqi soldiers killed eight militants.
Beefed-up U.S. and Iraqi forces this week began a systematic operation to claim back Baghdad's most dangerous rebel strongholds in an attempt to restore security and shore up confidence in the new Shi'ite-led government.
U.S. officers now talk openly about the risk of a full-scale civil war unless they can calm conditions in Baghdad.
Some 50,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces are taking part in Operation Together Forward. Similar campaigns have failed in the past but Washington hopes to cut violence significantly by the end of September.
LITTLE SUCCESS
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in power since May, has had little success in bringing the country's rival factions together, and about 100 Iraqis die every day.
A suicide bomber killed 35 people on Thursday near one of the most revered sites in the Shi'ite world, the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, in the bloodiest single attack since mid-July.
U.S. Marines and soldiers killed 26 insurgents and wounded six in prolonged fighting overnight Friday in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, said the military.
"Marines and soldiers...were attacked at multiple locations with rocket-propelled grenades, medium machinegun fire and small arms fire from buildings targeting outposts in the northwest portion of the city," the U.S. military said in a statement.
Ramadi is a bastion of the Sunni-led insurgency trying to topple the government, and violence has also spread to the Shi'ite south.
Three died in a bomb blast in Basra, the country's second largest city, where Maliki has been forced to tighten security after a spike in violence between Shi'ite gangs and militias.
In central Baghdad, police said two civilians were killed and three wounded in a roadside bomb attack aimed at a police patrol on one of the city's main highways.
In Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, seven policeman were wounded in a roadside bomb and gunmen assassinated a police captain.
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Mercenary Jackpot: US Pays Blackwater $320 Million in Secretive Global 'Security' Program
Jeremy Scahill
August 11, 2006
The Nation
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."
Blackwater's highly lucrative "diplomatic security" contract was officially awarded under the State Department's little-known Worldwide Personal Protective Service (WPPS) program, described in State Department documents as a government initiative to protect US officials as well as "certain foreign government high level officials whenever the need arises."
A heavily redacted 2005 government audit of Blackwater's WPPS contract proposal, obtained by The Nation, reveals that Blackwater included profit in its overhead and its total costs, which would result "not only in a duplication of profit but a pyramiding of profit since in effect Blackwater is applying profit to profit." The audit also found that the company tried to inflate its profits by representing different Blackwater divisions as wholly separate companies.
The WPPS contract awarded in 2004 was divided among a handful of companies, among them DynCorp and Triple Canopy. Blackwater was originally slated to be paid $229.5 million for five years, according to a State Department contract list. Yet as of June 30, just two years into the program, it had been paid a total of $321,715,794. When confronted with this apparent $100 million discrepancy, the State Department could not readily explain it. Blackwater's two years of WPPS earnings exceed many estimates of the company's total government contracts, which the Virginian-Pilot recently put at $290 million combined since 2000. Six years ago the government paid Blackwater less than $250,000.
"This underscores the need for Congress to exercise real oversight on the runaway use of secret companies that have strong connections to the Bush Administration, for clandestine services all over the world," says Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, a leading Congressional critic of private military companies.
"This whole business of security is just insidious," says former Assistant Defense Secretary Philip Coyle, who worked at the Pentagon from 1994 to 2001. "The costs keep going up and there is no end in sight to what you can spend. What happens is you keep raising the threat levels to require more actions and more contracts to overcome these imaginary threats. It's an endless spiral."
In soliciting bids for the 2004 global contract, the State Department cited a need born of "the continual turmoil in the Mid East, and the post-war stabilization efforts by the United States Government in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq." It said the government "is unable to provide protective services on a long-term basis from its pool of special agents, thus, outside contractual support is required." Former Assistant Defense Secretary Coyle, now with the Center for Defense Information, believes the privatization of security duties historically fulfilled by US Marines and other active-duty military is directly related to the Iraq occupation. "Obviously the military could do it, but indeed the Administration is looking for places to get more troops for Iraq," Coyle says.
While the WPPS program and the broader use of private security contractors is not new, it has escalated dramatically under the Bush Administration. According to the most recent Government Accountability Office report, some 48,000 private soldiers, working for 181 private military firms, are deployed in Iraq alone. Blackwater, now one of the most prominent and successful companies providing soldiers in Iraq, was relatively unknown until March 31, 2004, when four of its contractors were ambushed and killed in Falluja [see Scahill, "Blood Is Thicker Than Blackwater," May 8]. In the days and weeks that followed, company executives hired ultra--connected lobbyists and were welcomed by powerful government officials as heroes, allowing the firm to solidify its role in the Bush Administration's foreign policy apparatus.
Since 2003 Blackwater has held the high-profile job of guarding senior US officials in Iraq, including all three occupation-era ambassadors. The vaunted WPPS contract was awarded at the end of Paul Bremer's tenure in Baghdad. Blackwater, which did not respond to repeated requests for comment, refuses to divulge where its forces are deployed under the program. WPPS documents say contractors may be dispatched almost anywhere, including on US soil. The State Department says explicitly there is a "long-term" need for these "protective services." Schakowsky says she will request a formal explanation from the department of the WPPS contract: "We need to know why the Bush Administration keeps writing blank checks to Blackwater and others, while it keeps Congress and the American people in the dark."
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Meanwhile...
Chaos follows in Chinese typhoon's wake
By Ben Blanchard
Reuters
Sat Aug 12, 2006
LANPING VILLAGE, China - Lin Xianglian was cowering in his kitchen from the strongest typhoon to hit China in half a century when he heard a roar and the house next door collapsed.
"I didn't dare go look what was happening. The wind was so strong my wife and I together were leaning on the front door to stop it blowing in and water was flooding in the back," recalls farmer Lin, 68, sipping tea from a metal bowl.
"We could do nothing as my two neighbors got buried alive."
Aid arrived in time for them to be dug out alive, but Lin says he has no idea where his friends are now or if they survived their injuries.
"Nobody has told us anything. Nobody has been round to help clear up. It seems we've been left on our own," he says through metal-capped teeth in uncertain-sounding Mandarin.
Typhoon Saomai punched into Cangnan county, where Lin's village is located in the eastern province of Zhejiang, on Thursday after authorities had moved hundreds of thousands in the densely populated commercial province to safety.
The official death toll stood at 105 on Saturday with at least 190 missing. The authorities mobilized 10,000 troops, paramilitary police and rescue workers in Zhejiang alone to help with a massive clean-up operation, state television reported.
Bulldozers started clearing the wreckage of more than 50,000 homes flattened by the storm as relief workers handed out bottles of water, rice and cooking oil. A dozen psychiatrists arrived to counsel survivors, Xinhua news agency said.
Some residents of the remote, mountainous region said they suspect the death toll could be much higher.
"I heard hundreds died. The government has shut off villages where the death toll is really high to stop news getting out," said a fashionably dressed youth who declined to be identified.
The Communist government, determined to maintain stability at all costs, has a habit of covering up bad news, although disaster death tolls are no longer supposed to be state secrets.
Mistrust of the government is common in Zhejiang, which is far from the capital and where a strong entrepreneurial spirit has bred a flourishing private sector.
Numerous mutually incomprehensible dialects add to a sense of independence and wariness of authority.
STINKING FLOOD WATERS
In Cangnan town itself, knee-deep floodwater, fetid and mixed with silt, sewage and motor oil, lapped at pedestrians' feet and flowed into shops on the main street.
More than a day after the storm had passed, rubbish sat stewing in the more than 30 degree Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) heat.
"The quality of people isn't very good here. Nobody wants to clear up," said resident Chen Shaohe, holding his daughter's hand and surveying the damage from a dry spot. "The reaction of the government has been slow, but what do you expect?"
Further down the road, Zhang Shiqiu looked forlornly at the remains of her red-brick, black-tiled house, crying quietly. "Gone, all gone," she whispered, rocking slowly backwards and forwards from a perch on the rubble.
In the fishing village of Xiaguan -- where Saomai hit with winds of 216 km (134 mph) per hour, more powerful than a 1956 typhoon that killed more than 3,000 -- one house appeared to have exploded outwards, blasting bricks into the street.
Workers offloaded blocks of ice, to help preserve bodies, for the two-hour drive up a narrow road clogged by fallen trees and rocks that runs so high it passes through cloud, toward the worst-hit villages in Cangnan county.
At least 41 villagers, including eight children, were killed when a house collapsed in the town of Jinxiang, an hour's drive from where the typhoon made landfall, a local official said.
In Lanping village, Lin sat in his candle-lit kitchen and pondered rebuilding his own damaged house. He was philosophical. "I saw the great typhoon of 1956. This one was only so-so compared to that," he said.
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Research vessel burns off coast of La.
AP
Sat Aug 12, 2006
GRAND ISLE, La. - A research vessel off the coast of Louisiana continued to burn Saturday, a day after the U.S. Coast Guard rescued 40 people from the ship.
"The vessel is still afloat and they're working diligently to put out the fire," Petty Officer Susan Blake said.
Two men suffered minor injuries fighting the fire that started in the engine room and were transported by helicopter to West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero.
"One fellow has some smoke inhalation and the other guy had a few lacerations," Blake said Saturday. "Neither one looked serious."
The names of the men were not available.
The rest of the crew was taken from the 175-foot Odyssey Voyager, located 10 miles off the coast, to Fourchon.
The Coast Guard planned to investigate the cause of the blaze.
It was not immediately known what type of research the crew was conducting.
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Philippine volcano shows signs of imminent eruption
By Manuel Tecson
Reuters
Sun Aug 13, 2006
LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines - Mount Mayon, a volcano in the central Philippines, showed signs a major eruption was imminent as it belched smoke and spewed burning rocks and mud, scientists said on Sunday.
Four explosions have been recorded since Saturday. One mild eruption shot gray ash columns into the air and sent heated volcanic debris cascading down Mayon's slopes, said the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs).
"This could be the beginning of a big bang events," Ed Laguerta, a vulcanologist, told reporters.
"This could be an indication that a hazardous explosion may very imminent due to the flow of pyroclastic materials on Saturday," he said as rain and dark clouds covered the mountain, hiding the summit.
Last week, Phivolcs scientists warned that the 2,462-meter (8,077 foot) Mayon, the country's most active volcano, could explode any time, raising the alert level to 4 and forcing more than 40,000 people to move from an 8-km danger zone on Mayon's southeast flank.
A major hazardous eruption had been expected Wednesday night due to the possible gravitational pull of a full moon, but the volcano calmed for the next three days.
A full moon coincided with at least three of Mayon's nearly 50 explosions over the last 400 years, including the two most recent in 2000 and 2001.
On Saturday, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo toured some school buildings and public parks serving as temporary shelter areas for people who have fled their homes and farms since the volcano started acting up last month.
Arroyo, who initially gave disaster officials about 250 million pesos ($4.8 million), promised more relief goods to feed displaced people and ordered the provision of permanent structures and sanitation facilities to prevent an outbreak of diseases.
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7 hurt as train and car collide in L.A.
AP
August 13, 2006
LOS ANGELES - A commuter train collided with a car near the Staples Center arena, injuring seven people, authorities said.
The car was attempting a left turn across the tracks Saturday night when an oncoming Metro Blue Line train smashed into it and dragged it for several hundred feet before coming to a stop, authorities said.
The car's driver, a 40-year-old man, and a passenger, a 46-year-old man, had moderate injuries, said Fire Capt. Brian Ballton. Five passengers on the train were treated for minor injuries, Ballton said.
Their identities were not released.
The train was heading from Union Station to Long Beach. It was about to enter a subway tunnel when it hit the car.
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Strong quake rocks northwest Indonesia
AP
Fri Aug 11, 2006
JAKARTA, Indonesia - A strong earthquake rocked parts of Indonesia's Sumatra island early Saturday, causing some people to flee their homes, but there were no reports of damage and no tsunami was triggered.
The 6-magnitude quake struck at 3:54 a.m. and was centered under the Indian Ocean 175 miles northwest of Sumatra, the
U.S. Geological Survey said.
"It felt pretty strong," state news agency Antara quoted one villager as saying. "The whole family and our neighbors ran out from our house, but there was not a massive panic."
Officials on Sumatra were not available for comment early Saturday. There were no immediate reports of damage.
Sumatra was hardest hit by a powerful December 2004 earthquake and tsunami. More than 216,000 people in Indian Ocean nations were killed or missing in the disaster.
The region is rocked by many earthquakes, including a magnitude 8.7 quake in March last year that killed about 900 people on an outlying island.
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Jellyfish ruin Mediterranean beach; Another Sign of Global Warming?
By LISA ABEND AND GEOFF PINGREE
Time.com
Sunday, Aug. 13, 2006
Stifling heat, sunburn - to the peculiar pleasures of Spain's beaches in August, add the sting of the jellyfish.
In the last couple of weeks, fleets of bloblike Pelagia noctiluca have reached beaches from Barcelona to Málaga.
In Catalonia alone, the Red Cross has treated 14,044 bathers for the painful stings. Local governments in Benidorm and elsewhere have posted signs in three languages warning of the dangers. The Interior Ministry has publicized advice for those who are stung - wash the affected area with salt water, don't rub it, seek assistance. (In rare cases, an allergic reaction to the sting can prove deadly.) The Environment Ministry is sending out boats armed with large nets to snare the jellyfish before they reach shallow water.
And Spain is not the only country on the defensive: red warning flags have been hoisted on beaches in France, Sicily and along the Italian Riviera. Josep-María Gili, a marine biologist at the Institute of Ocean Science in Barcelona, attributes the surge in the jellyfish population to overfishing of its predators.
But he has another explanation for why so many jellyfish are reaching the beach: global warming. "Less rain and higher temperatures have made the coastal waters as salty and warm as those in the middle of the ocean," says Gili. "The invasion of the jellyfish is a message telling us that we have to take better care of the sea."
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China drought leaves 17 million without water: media
Reuters
Sun Aug 13, 2006
BEIJING - About 17 million people in southwest China don't have access to clean drinking water due to sustained drought, state media reported on Sunday.
Crops on large tracts of farmland in Sichuan province and the nearby Chongqing municipality have withered due to the month-long drought, causing economic losses of 9.23 billion yuan ($1.15 billion), the Beijing News and the Xinhua news agency said.
Local governments have allocated funds to help residents fight the drought by tapping ground water and improving water conservation facilities, Xinhua said.
The searing heat meant 14 million people in Chongqing and three million in Sichuan lack clean drinking water, the media said.
State television showed pictures of trucks transporting water to the worst-hit areas and villagers digging wells.
The water level in the Chongqing section of the Yangtze river -- China's longest river -- hit 3.5 metres (11.5 feet), its lowest in 100 years, the online edition of state broadcaster CCTV said.
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U.S. walks fine line with China, Taiwan
By PETER ENAV
Associated Press
Sat Aug 12, 2006
ILAN, Taiwan - The weaponry is heavily American - F-16s bombarding a simulated Chinese flotilla, Cobra helicopters targeting invading ground troops, Patriot missiles streaking across the azure Asian sky.
The annual war games are Taiwan's way of showcasing its readiness to repel an attack by neighboring China, and they also serve as a reminder that the island's back-up muscle comes from Washington, long its major supporter.
The exercise highlights a rivalry between democratic Taiwan and its giant communist neighbor that potentially could draw the United States into a conflict with a China that is fast emerging as a global heavyweight.
Talk is tough on both sides of the 100 mile-wide Taiwan Strait separating the island and the mainland. But as with Korea, Asia's other unfinished civil war, this one reflects a complex set of priorities that range from domestic politics to international economics, regional rivalries to global strategic interests.
China and Taiwan split in 1949, and since then Beijing has never abandoned its position that the island is part of its territory, to be recovered by force if necessary.
The stakes involved in the Taiwan-China standoff are incalculable. Both sides are workshops of the consumer world. The seas around them are heavily traveled by ships carrying their vast output of consumer goods to the West. Chinese purchases of American debt, which sustain the value of the U.S. dollar, would almost certainly evaporate if the U.S. sided with Taiwan in a confrontation over the island. And a war would severely rattle Japan, which harbors its own suspicions of China's rising might.
Beijing has an estimated 800 missiles pointed at Taiwan, and has warned repeatedly it will go to war if the Maryland-sized island declares independence.
"We will do our utmost with all sincerity to strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification," said Chinese President
Hu Jintao at a White House appearance with
President Bush in April. "This being said, we will by no means allow Taiwan independence."
An outsider would be hard-pressed to define what's not "independent" about Taiwan. It may look like China, but it elects its own president, makes its own laws, issues its own passports and currency, and treasures its vibrant democracy.
But in fact, both sides have shared one pillar of ideology since the split of 1949 - that there is one China and it should someday be reunited. As long as Taiwanese governments stuck to that mantra, China could live with the division. But with the passage of 57 years, the 23 million Taiwanese have grown apart from the mainland, and their democracy has given them a president who came to office as an outright opponent of unification, and is doing everything he can to prevent it.
Washington adheres to the one-China doctrine and has recognized Beijing as its government since 1979. But it has always maintained an intimate connection to Taiwan, providing it with the means to defend itself, and warning Beijing against mounting an attack.
Backing up the warning are 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan, concentrated in Okinawa, 400 miles from here. In 1996, when China was dropping missiles off the Taiwan coast out of displeasure at a perceived drift toward independence,
President Clinton sent in the Seventh Fleet to deter it.
In 2002 Bush pledged to "help Taiwan defend itself if provoked."
But U.S. support for Taiwan is hardly open-ended.
Earlier this year it complained when President Chen Shui-bian scrapped the government body charged with overseeing eventual union with the mainland. The U.S. feared Beijing would read it as a downgrading of the emphasis on the one-China doctrine and take it as an excuse to attack.
Now in his seventh year in power, Chen advocates incrementally pushing the envelope on independence with measures designed to foster separateness, such as making schools teach Taiwanese history first, Chinese history second.
Washington's criticisms of Chen's actions symbolize the fine line it must tread between supporting separateness without letting it become permanent.
Some influential Americans fault the U.S. position; they see democratic Taiwan as a bulwark against communist China fully deserving of independent status. But the official view is much more circumspect.
"We want to be supportive of Taiwan, while we're not encouraging those that try to move toward independence," Deputy Secretary of State
Robert Zoellick told a congressional hearing. "Because let me be very clear: Independence means war."
Underlying Zoellick's caution is concern about China's modernizing military, and the difficulties America would presumably have fighting two wars simultaneously - one in
Iraq, the other in the Pacific.
Over the past 10 years Beijing has enhanced its ability to stand up to the U.S. military, improved its intercontinental ballistic missiles, and armed itself with sophisticated Russian equipment. Its 2.5 million-strong military outnumbers Taiwan's more than eight to one.
"There is a growing reluctance among American military planners to engage China in a conflict because of the improvement in its armed forces and its ability to strike U.S. targets with nuclear weapons," said Wendell Minnick of Washington-based Defense News.
Beijing's rapid buildup is also an issue in Japan, Washington's most important Pacific ally.
Much to the Taiwanese government's delight, Tokyo is taking an increasingly vocal stand against China's growing power. Some Japanese politicians have even suggested Japan strengthen its security alliance with the United States to bolster Taiwan's capacity to withstand a Chinese attack.
But Japan's 20th century militarism is still a sore point in Asia, especially in China which was invaded by Japan in the 1930s, and the Koreas which were a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945. That makes a deployment of Japanese troops in the Taiwan Strait unlikely.
"For Japan to engage in military operations over Taiwan would break with constitutional prohibitions against Japanese belligerency," said Robert Dujarric of the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo. "Helping the United States logistically in a Taiwan conflict is one thing, but getting involved in the fighting is another."
Beijing's reaction to Japan's perceived pro-Taiwanese position is implacably hostile, and fits in neatly with its drumbeat of pro-unification rhetoric.
But recently it has begun showing a willingness to let others help its cause, rather than confront Taiwan directly. In the case of the unification body, for example, it left the scolding to the United States.
David Zweig, director of the Hong Kong-based Center on China's Transnational Relations, thinks this reflects China's concern that it too has much to lose in a war.
"They do not want confrontation because of economic development," he says. "It's of critical importance to them."
Another factor, Zweig says, is China's belief that Taiwanese politics are working in its favor because the favorite in Taiwan's 2008 presidential election, Ma Ying-jeou, is presumed to support unification.
"With Ma waiting in the wings, they feel they are winning the Taiwan battle on the ground," Zweig says. "They think he will be much more flexible to deal with than Chen Shui-bian."
But like some presidents before him, Ma adheres to another of the mantras that govern Taiwan's policy toward China: that unification can only be considered when China sheds communism and becomes democratic.
That's a distant prospect, and meanwhile, Taiwan's military is taking no chances.
At Ilan beach, the war games arena 40 miles southeast of the capital, Taipei, a quartet of F-16s roars over the dun colored sand and two Knox-class frigates train their guns on a flotilla of simulated Chinese invaders among the rolling waves.
According to U.S.-Taiwan defense doctrine, the Taiwanese military would have to fight an invasion alone for at least four days until American naval forces arrive.
But China could also go with a so-called decapitation strategy - coordinated commando attacks and pinpoint bombing of the island's leaders and key institutions to paralyze the island before American reinforcements can arrive.
"An invasion is always possible," said Taiwanese army Col. Yu Chung-ji, shielding his eyes from the sun as a Cobra helicopter whirred by. "But personally, I think it is more likely they will choose the decapitation option."
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Fierce fighting in Sri Lanka kills 127 as truce appears in tatters
by Amal Jayasinghe
AFP
Sat Aug 12, 2006
COLOMBO - Sri Lankan war planes have bombed Tiger rebel positions as the fiercest fighting since a 2002 ceasefire left at least 127 people dead, the military said, amid mounting concern for civilians.
The government said Saturday that the new fighting was undermining a Norwegian-backed peace initiative and accused the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of seeking to return the island to full-scale war.
"The LTTE has intensified its terrorist activities to such an extent it appears that they want a full-scale confrontation," government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said.
"It may appear that we are at war," he said.
Sri Lankan war planes pounded Tamil rebel gun positions at Pooneryn near the Jaffna peninsula in the country's north with heavy shelling reported throughout the night, the defence ministry said.
Fighter planes also bombed rebel positions in Trincomalee in the northeast, sending hundreds of civilians fleeing to schools and churches while troops and rebels traded artillery fire for an hour, officials and residents said.
The fierce fighting Saturday in the north and northeast from the bombing and the clashes left at least 100 Tigers and 27 security personnel dead and another 280 on both sides wounded, military spokesman Athula Jayawardena said.
"We estimate at least 100 to 150 Tigers were killed and 200 to 250 were wounded," Jayawardena said.
"We had our share of casualties too with three officers and 22 other rankers (non-commissioned soldiers) and two sailors killed. Eight officers and 72 other rankers were wounded. They have all been evacuated for treatment."
Sri Lanka's key foreign aid donors expressed serious concern over a growing humanitarian crisis stemming from the worsening ethnic conflict and called for an immediate halt to hostilities.
The United States, Japan, the
European Union and Norway said they were "deeply concerned" by the continued violence which they feared was "seriously unraveling" the 2002 ceasefire agreement.
The Tigers and the Sri Lankan government have blamed each other for the upsurge in violence, which has claimed over 1,200 lives by official count since December, despite the February 2002 truce arranged by peacebroker Norway.
The bombings ended a brief lull in fighting between the two sides which have been pounding each other since July 26 with artillery and mortars in a bitter battle for a waterway in Trincomalee district.
International relief agencies have urged the government to allow them access to deliver aid to people most affected by the latest fighting.
The Tigers said 42,000 people have been displaced in areas under their control on top of 30,000 people who in the past two weeks had moved away from troubled areas in the northeast and sought shelter in government-held towns.
Saturday's fighting in the north lasted nearly 10 hours as the guerrillas fired heavy artillery towards military bunkers as well as the main airfield in the northern edge of the Jaffna peninsula, Jayawardena said.
An airforce Bell 212 helicopter as well as other equipment were damaged, he said. He dismissed a report on the pro-rebel tamilnet.com website that the guerrillas used an aircraft to attack the Palaly airbase on the peninsula.
"We didn't see even a kite of the Tigers," he said, adding that the military repulsed the guerrilla offensive and carried out aerial attacks against Tiger gun positions in the north.
The guerrillas also used boats to land their fighters at Kayts near Jaffna, but army commandos attacked them, Jayawardena told reporters.
The Tiger rebels blamed the military for starting the fighting on Friday and keeping up the attacks till Saturday.
An estimated 60,000 people have been killed since the Tamil insurgency began around three decades ago.
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Mexico leftist to protest if court chooses rival - Claims recount proves fraud
By Frank Jack Daniel
MEXICO CITY, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Mexico's opposition leader, rallying supporters amid a sea of tents that has brought chaos to Mexico City's center, said on Sunday he could lead protests against a disputed presidential vote for years if his rival is declared victor.
Speaking at a rally of thousands in the capital's central square, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who claims fraud in the election he narrowly lost to conservative Felipe Calderon, said he would keep fighting even if the country's electoral court ruled against him.
"We will not allow an illegitimate and illegal government to be installed in our country," he said. "We are prepared to resist for as long as is necessary and we could be here for years if the circumstances merit it."
For more than two weeks leftists, often accompanied by Lopez Obrador, have been protesting the election result by camping out in the giant Zocalo square, the symbolic center of power in Mexico since the country was ruled by the Aztecs.
The tent city spills from the Zocalo onto a long section of Mexico's historic Reforma Avenue and has frozen the center of the city, slashing hotel occupancy rates in the popular tourist zone.
The electoral court must declare a new president by September 6. It is not legally possible to appeal the ruling.
Calderon, favored by the Mexican and international business community in Mexico for his free-market policies, says the election was fair and expects to be declared president-elect.
"It seems to us they are trying to ... impose themselves as authorities without the backing of the majority of citizens," said German Martinez, who represents Calderon's National Action party, PAN, at the electoral institute. "The PAN challenges them to accept once and for all that they have lost the presidency."
Lopez Obrador suggested his supporters protest outside the offices where Calderon would be declared president if the court does not accept claims of major irregularities at polling centers throughout the country during and since the July vote.
Attendance at Sunday's rally, estimated at about 20,000 people, was much lower than at similar meetings held most weekends since the election.
Some protesters pushed into a mass in the cathedral that looms over the Zocalo, shouting demands that Cardinal Norberto Rivera stay out of politics. Security guards ejected the leftists, Reforma newspaper reported.
Many on the left accuse the Catholic Church of backing Calderon, whose party has opposed some forms of contraception.
Lopez Obrador called for a major rally in September to decide the future political role of his resistance movement, which this week blocked Mexico's stock exchange, foreign banks and government offices.
"Calderon is not going to be president, he would be an usurper of the presidency," said lawyer Ludivina Hernandez, standing among food stalls at the rally.
Lopez Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, has promised to end two decades of free-market reforms and help the country's millions of poor with welfare programs and infrastructure spending.
A partial vote recount at 9 percent of polling stations ordered by the court last week is due to be ready on Sunday.
Lopez Obrador says the recount shows that more than 100,000 votes were wrongly tallied initially and wants the electoral court to annul the results at thousands of polling stations and declare him the winner.
He is also calling for a vote by vote recount at every polling station in the country.
Calderon won by about 244,000 votes, or 0.58 of a percentage point, and his ruling party says the recounts show only minor changes in the results. European Union electoral observers say they detected no major problems in the election.
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Things Ain't So Good In General
Is an armament sickening U.S. soldiers?
By DEBORAH HASTINGS
AP National Writer
Sat Aug 12, 2006
NEW YORK - It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills - morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves.
Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.
Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.
There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick.
In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers. An internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist. He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price.
"I'm just a zombie walking around," he says.
Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life.
He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the
Pentagon's arsenal of it - thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.
A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.
Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life.
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk.
"We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. "The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.'"
Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area.
But the medic knew something the others didn't.
Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins.
"We got on the Internet," Reed said, "and we started researching depleted uranium."
Then they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas.
Then they hired a lawyer.
___
Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003, while they bounced for months between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came.
The analyses were done in Germany, by a Frankfurt professor who developed a depleted uranium test with Randall Parrish, a professor of isotope geology at the University of Leicester in Britain.
The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks.
The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe, and not that worrisome.
Four of the highest-registering samples from Frankfurt were sent to the VA. Those results were negative, Reed said. "Their test just isn't as sophisticated," he said. "And when we first asked to be tested, they told us there wasn't one. They've lied to us all along."
The VA's testing methodology is safe and accurate, the agency says. More than 2,100 soldiers from the current war have asked to be tested; only 8 had DU in their urine, the VA said.
The term depleted uranium is linguistically radioactive. Simply uttering the words can prompt a reaction akin to preaching atheism at tent revival. Heads shake, eyes roll, opinions are yelled from all sides.
"The Department of Defense takes the position that you can eat it for breakfast and it poses no threat at all," said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, which helps veterans with various problems, including navigating the labyrinth of VA health care. "Then you have far-left groups that ... declare it a crime against humanity."
Several countries use it as weaponry, including Britain, which fired it during the 2003 Iraq invasion.
An estimated 286 tons of DU munitions were fired by the U.S. in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. An estimated 130 tons were shot toppling Saddam Hussein.
Depleted uranium can enter the human body by inhalation, the most dangerous method; by ingesting contaminated food or eating with contaminated hands; by getting dust or debris in an open wound, or by being struck by shrapnel, which often is not removed because doing so would be more dangerous than leaving it.
Inhaled, it can lodge in the lungs. As with imbedded shrapnel, this is doubly dangerous - not only are the particles themselves physically destructive, they emit radiation.
A moderate voice on the divisive DU spectrum belongs to Dan Fahey, a doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley, who has studied the issue for years and also served in the Gulf War before leaving the military as a conscientious objector.
"I've been working on this since '93 and I've just given up hope," he said. "I've spoken to successive federal committees and elected officials ... who then side with the Pentagon. Nothing changes."
At the other end are a collection of conspiracy-theorists and Internet proselytizers who say using such weapons constitutes genocide. Two of the most vocal opponents recently suggested that a depleted-uranium missile, not a hijacked jetliner, struck the Pentagon in 2001.
"The bottom line is it's more hazardous than the Pentagon admits," Fahey said, "but it's not as hazardous as the hard-line activist groups say it is. And there's a real dearth of information about how DU affects humans."
There are several studies on how it affects animals, though their results are not, of course, directly applicable to humans. Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes. Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations, and pass from mother to unborn child, resulting in birth defects.
Iraqi doctors reported significant increases in birth defects and childhood cancers after the 1991 invasion.
Iraqi authorities "found that uranium, which affected the blood cells, had a serious impact on health: The number of cases of leukemia had increased considerably, as had the incidence of fetal deformities," the U.N. reported.
Depleted uranium can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust, which can by carried by wind and sandstorms.
In 2005, the U.N. Environmental Program identified 311 polluted sites in Iraq. Cleaning them will take at least $40 million and several years, the agency said. Nothing can start until the fighting stops.
___
Fifteen years after it was first used in battle, there is only one U.S. government study monitoring veterans exposed to depleted uranium.
Number of soldiers in the survey: 32. Number of soldiers in both Iraq wars: more than 900,000.
The study group's size is controversial - far too small, say experts including Fahey - and so are the findings of the voluntary, Baltimore-based study.
It has found "no clinically significant" health effects from depleted uranium exposure in the study subjects, according to its researchers.
Critics say the VA has downplayed participants' health problems, including not reporting one soldier who developed cancer, and another who developed a bone tumor.
So for now, depleted uranium falls into the quagmire of
Gulf War Syndrome, from which no treatment has emerged despite the government's spending of at least $300 million.
About 30 percent of the 700,000 men and women who served in the first Gulf War still suffer a baffling array of symptoms very similar to those reported by Reed's unit.
Depleted uranium has long been suspected as a possible contributor to Gulf War Syndrome, and in the mid-90s, veterans helped push the military into tracking soldiers exposed to it.
But for all their efforts, what they got in the end was a questionnaire dispensed to homeward-bound soldiers asking about mental health, nightmares, losing control, exposure to dangerous and radioactive chemicals.
But, the veterans persisted, how would soldiers know they'd been exposed? Radiation is invisible, tasteless, and has no smell. And what exhausted, homesick, war-addled soldier would check a box that would only send him or her to a military medical center to be poked and prodded and questioned and tested?
It will take years to determine how depleted uranium affected soldiers from this war. After Vietnam, veterans, in numbers that grew with the passage of time, complained of joint aches, night sweats, bloody feces, migraine headaches, unexplained rashes and violent behavior; some developed cancers.
It took more than 25 years for the Pentagon to acknowledge that Agent Orange - a corrosive defoliant used to melt the jungles of Vietnam and flush out the enemy - was linked to those sufferings.
It took 40 years for the military to compensate sick World War II vets exposed to massive blasts of radiation during tests of the atomic bomb.
In 2002, Congress voted to not let that happen again.
It established the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses - comprised of scientists, physicians and veterans advocates. It reports to the secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Its mandate is to judge all research and all efforts to treat Gulf War Syndrome patients against a single standard: Have sick soldiers been made better?
The answer, according to the committee, is no.
"Regrettably, after four years of operation neither the Committee nor (the) VA can report progress toward this goal," stated its December 2005 report. "Research has not produced effective treatments for these conditions nor shown that existing treatments are significantly effective."
And so time marches on, as do soldiers going to, and returning from, the deserts of Iraq.
___
Herbert Reed is an imposing man, broad shouldered and tall. He strides into the VA Medical Center in the Bronx with the presence of a cop or a soldier. Since the Vietnam War, he has been both.
His hair is perfect, his shirt spotless, his jeans sharply creased. But there is something wrong, a niggling imperfection made more noticeable by a bearing so disciplined. It is a limp - more like a hitch in his get-along.
It is the only sign, albeit a tiny one, that he is extremely sick.
Even sleep offers no release. He dreams of gunfire and bombs and soldiers who scream for help. No matter how hard he tries, he never gets there in time.
At 54, he is a veteran of two wars and a 20-year veteran of the New York Police Department, where he last served as an assistant warden at the Riker's Island prison.
He was in perfect health, he says, before being deployed to Iraq.
According to military guidelines, he should have heard the words depleted uranium long before he ended up at Walter Reed. He should have been trained about its dangers, and how to avoid prolonged exposure to its toxicity and radioactivity. He says he didn't get anything of the kind. Neither did other reservists and National Guard soldiers called up for the current war, according to veterans' groups.
Reed and the seven brothers from his unit hate what has happened to them, and they speak of it at public seminars and in politicians' offices. It is something no VA doctor can explain; something that leaves them feeling like so many spent shell rounds, kicked to the side of battle.
But for every outspoken soldier like them, there are silent veterans like Raphael Naboa, an Army artillery scout who served 11 months in the northern Sunni Triangle, only to come home and fall apart.
Some days he feels fine. "Some days I can't get out of bed," he said from his home in Colorado.
Now 29, he's had growths removed from his brain. He has suffered a small stroke - one morning he was shaving, having put down the razor to rinse his face. In that moment, he blacked out and pitched over.
"Just as quickly as I lost consciousness, I regained it," he said. "Except I couldn't move the right side of my body."
After about 15 minutes, the paralysis ebbed.
He has mentioned depleted uranium to his VA doctors, who say he suffers from a series of "non-related conditions." He knows he was exposed to DU.
"A lot of guys went trophy-hunting, grabbing bayonets, helmets, stuff that was in the vehicles that were destroyed by depleted uranium. My guys were rooting around in it. I was trying to get them out of the vehicles."
No one in the military talked to him about depleted uranium, he said. His knowledge, like Reed's, is self-taught from the Internet.
Unlike Reed, he has not gone to war over it. He doesn't feel up to the fight. There is no known cure for what ails him, and so no possible victory in battle.
He'd really just like to feel normal again. And he knows of others who feel the same.
"I was an artillery scout, these are folks who are in pretty good shape. Your Rangers, your Special Forces guys, they're in as good as shape as a professional athlete.
"Then we come back and we're all sick."
They feel like men who once were warriors and now are old before their time, with no hope for relief from a multitude of miseries that has no name.
Comment:"Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003..."They have DU in their urine. They are sick. The US government has a history of denying the effects of its weapons of war - just look at Agent Orange. So, what's the problem? Isn't the answer obvious?? It is for the Dutch:"Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins."
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Grass attacked over SS confession
By Erik Kirschbaum
Reuters
August 13, 2006
BERLIN - Germany's Nobel prize-winning author Gunter Grass has come under attack from writers, literary critics, historians and politicians for his belated confession he was once a member of Hitler's Waffen SS.
The shock admission from the 78-year-old, famous for his 1957 novel "The Tin Drum," came in a newspaper interview on Saturday before the release in September of his autobiography "Peeling Onions" in which he explains why he joined at age 17.
"Grass's confession right before the publication of his autobiography leaves behind a bad taste of book promotion," wrote Bild am Sonntag newspaper columnist Helmut Boeger.
"Even after his admission, Grass remains Germany's most important living author. But he has lost his standing as a moral authority. He cannot be castigated for being a member of the SS ... But he can be for lying about it for 60 years."
Hellmuth Karasek, a leading literature critic, agreed there was no reason to reproach Grass for his membership of the Nazi's elite SS. Grass now admitted he volunteered for submarine duty at 15 but was rejected. He was later called up to the SS at 17.
Grass had previously said he was drafted in 1944 as a flak helper and held as a prisoner of war until 1946. After the war, he become an outspoken pacifist and icon of the German left.
"The fact he was in the SS at 17 is by itself a misdemeanor -- had Grass not been one to throw his weight around as a moral authority so much since then," Karasek told German radio.
"If I were cynical, I would say he did not reveal it sooner at the risk of not winning a Nobel prize. Don't misunderstand me: Grass deserved the Nobel prize more than any other German writer. But everything now has to be seen in a new light."
Grass told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Saturday the dark secret had been weighing on his mind and was one of the reasons he wrote the book which details his war service.
"My silence through all these years is one of the reasons why I wrote this book," he said. "It had to come out finally."
Grass had for decades demanded that Germans come to terms with their Nazi past by coming clean on it. He won the Nobel prize for literature in 1999.
"After 60 years, this confession comes a bit too late," Joachim Fest, a leading historian, told Der Spiegel magazine. "I can't understand how someone who for decades set himself up as a moral authority, a rather smug one, could pull this off."
Grass biographer Michael Juergs was dumbfounded.
"I feel a personal disappointment," Juergs said.
One of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany, the SS was first an elite force of volunteers that played a key role in the Holocaust, operating the death camps in which millions died. But by the war's end, most were drafted and many under 18.
Ralph Giordano, a leading German-Jewish writer, said he would not condemn Grass and praised his belated confession.
"It's good what Gunter Grass has now done," Giordano said. "What's worse than making a mistake is not coming to terms with it. His example also shows how seducible young people can be."
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European Commission ruling says that employers can sack workers who light up - even if only out of office hours
By JEFFREY IVERSON
Time.com
Sunday, Aug. 13, 2006
Is it the boss's business if you have a cigarette after dinner? After an Irish job ad stipulated that "smokers need not apply," that
question was put to the European Commission, which decided that employers refusing to hire smokers do not breach European antidiscrimination laws.
"The Commission can legislate on age, disability, sexual orientation, religion, race and gender," says Commission spokesperson Katharina von Schnurbein. "For all other areas, it's the member state's responsibility." Critics fumed that though some countries, such as France and Belgium, have laws requiring employers to hire on qualifications alone, the Commission is doing nothing to stop growing numbers of employers from prying into the lifestyles of potential recruits.
The Geneva-based World Health Organization launched a hiring ban on smokers in December 2005, the same month Sophie Blinham was fired just minutes into her new job at an English data communications firm after admitting she smoked. Von Schnurbein insists the Commission's decision is not "a green light for employers to discriminate," but Tom Jenkins of the European Trade Union Confederation disagrees. "This opens the possibility for all kinds of discriminations," he says, citing the obese and alcoholics. The Dublin Internet entrepreneur who placed the ad, Philip Tobin, was quoted as saying that smokers "stink."
If you eat a pungent lunch, says Jenkins, "you might stink, too."
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A COP today attacked bosses for wasting £450,000 over £90 Expenses
UK Sun
14/08/2006
A COP today attacked bosses for wasting £450,000 investigating him over an expense claim for just £90.
PC Jason Lobo was suspended on full pay for THREE YEARS while a probe was carried out into the petrol bill.
A court cleared him of any wrongdoing last year - but Lancashire police pressed ahead with their own investigation.
At a hearing this week, PC Lobo admitted he had mistakenly claimed £90 expenses, and was fined seven days' pay.
Bosses have told him he can return to work after concluding the over-claim was a genuine mistake.
But PC Lobo, 37, from Blackburn, is now suing the force for racial discrimination.
In a statement, he said: "I loved my job, but now need time to reflect and consider whether the police service is an organisation that I still wish to be part of.
"Throughout the last three years my name has been publicly damaged, my integrity has been questioned and I have been accused of being corrupt.
"I believe this has been a gross misuse of public money for which somebody ought to be held accountable."
The Lancashire Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, is demanding a review of disciplinary procedures.
Chairman Steve Edwards said: "This case has removed a dedicated police officer from the streets for three years."
Lancashire police declined to comment.
Comment: Justifying budgets anyone?
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'iPods could make you hallucinate'
Evening Standard
25 July 2005
In May, a Bristol audiology expert warned that listening to music at high volume could cause tinnitus and inner ear damage. Dr Aziz said the condition he is warning about causes the brain to hear phantom music. This is different from the common occurrence of having a song "stuck" in your head because the sound is continuous and appears real.
Dr Aziz, whose research involving 30 sufferers is published this week in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, said: "Having a song in your head every now and then is quite normal but musical hallucinations can be quite distressing." He predicted the condition will become more common as people are inundated with music from their iPods, radios and TVs, plus music played in public places.
"People who are bombarded by music tend to hear music," said Dr Aziz. "I suspect the rates of hallucinations in orchestral players will be higher than normal. So, as we hear more music every day, cases will probably go up."
His research suggests sound hallucinations occur when people move from a stimulusrich environment to one with few auditory stimuli - for instance, from using an iPod on the Tube to entering a quiet office.
With no sound via the ears, the brain generates random impulses it interprets to be sound. It then matches these to memories of music and a song begins in the head. This may explain why Beethoven was able to compose after going deaf.
Officially, one in 10,000 people over 65 suffers but Dr Aziz believes younger people are also affected and the true number with the condition is higher due to poor diagnosis. Some sufferers find the condition a comfort. One 28-year-old said it was like a film soundtrack. Twenty patients reported hearing religious music, with six hearing the hymn Abide With Me.
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Panel Suggests Using Inmates in Drug Trials
NY Times
August 7th 2006
An influential federal panel of medical advisers has recommended that the government loosen regulations that severely limit the testing of pharmaceuticals on prison inmates, a practice that was all but stopped three decades ago after revelations of abuse.
The proposed change includes provisions intended to prevent problems that plagued earlier programs. Nevertheless, it has dredged up a painful history of medical mistreatment and incited debate among prison rights advocates and researchers about whether prisoners can truly make uncoerced decisions, given the environment they live in.
Supporters of such programs cite the possibility of benefit to prison populations, and the potential for contributing to the greater good.
Until the early 1970's, about 90 percent of all pharmaceutical products were tested on prison inmates, federal officials say. But such research diminished sharply in 1974 after revelations of abuse at prisons like Holmesburg here, where inmates were paid hundreds of dollars a month to test items as varied as dandruff treatments and dioxin, and where they were exposed to radioactive, hallucinogenic and carcinogenic chemicals.
In addition to addressing the abuses at Holmesburg, the regulations were a reaction to revelations in 1972 surrounding what the government called the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, which was begun in the 1930's and lasted 40 years. In it, several hundred mostly illiterate men with syphilis in rural Alabama were left untreated, even after a cure was discovered, so that researchers could study the disease.
"What happened at Holmesburg was just as gruesome as Tuskegee, but at Holmesburg it happened smack dab in the middle of a major city, not in some backwoods in Alabama," said Allen M. Hornblum, an urban studies professor at Temple University and the author of "Acres of Skin," a 1998 book about the Holmesburg research. "It just goes to show how prisons are truly distinct institutions where the walls don't just serve to keep inmates in, they also serve to keep public eyes out."
Critics also doubt the merits of pharmaceutical testing on prisoners who often lack basic health care.
Alvin Bronstein, a Washington lawyer who helped found the National Prison Project, an American Civil Liberties Union program, said he did not believe that altering the regulations risked a return to the days of Holmesburg.
"With the help of external review boards that would include a prisoner advocate," Mr. Bronstein said, "I do believe that the potential benefits of biomedical research outweigh the potential risks."
Holmesburg closed in 1995 but was partly reopened in July to help ease overcrowding at other prisons.
Under current regulations, passed in 1978, prisoners can participate in federally financed biomedical research if the experiment poses no more than "minimal" risks to the subjects. But a report formally presented to federal officials on Aug. 1 by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences advised that experiments with greater risks be permitted if they had the potential to benefit prisoners. As an added precaution, the report suggested that all studies be subject to an independent review.
"The current regulations are entirely outdated and restrictive, and prisoners are being arbitrarily excluded from research that can help them," said Ernest D. Prentice, a University of Nebraska genetics professor and the chairman of a Health and Human Services Department committee that requested the study. Mr. Prentice said the regulation revision process would begin at the committee's next meeting, on Nov. 2.
The discussion comes as the biomedical industry is facing a shortage of testing subjects. In the last two years, several pain medications, including Vioxx and Bextra, have been pulled off the market because early testing did not include large enough numbers of patients to catch dangerous problems.
And the committee's report comes against the backdrop of a prison population that has more than quadrupled, to about 2.3 million, over the last 30 years and that disproportionately suffers from H.I.V. and hepatitis C, diseases that some researchers say could be better controlled if new research were permitted in prisons.
For Leodus Jones, a former prisoner, the report has opened old wounds. "This moves us back in a very bad direction," said Mr. Jones, who participated in the experiments at Holmesburg in 1966 and after his release played a pivotal role in lobbying to get the regulations passed.
In one experiment, Mr. Jones's skin changed color, and he developed rashes on his back and legs where he said lotions had been tested.
"The doctors told me at the time that something was seriously wrong," said Mr. Jones, who added that he had never signed a consent form. He reached a $40,000 settlement in 1986 with the City of Philadelphia after he sued.
"I never had these rashes before," he said, "but I've had them ever since."
The Institute of Medicine report was initiated in 2004 when the Health and Human Services Department asked the institute to look into the issue. The report said prisoners should be allowed to take part in federally financed clinical trials so long as the trials were in the later and less dangerous phase of Food and Drug Administration approval. It also recommended that at least half the subjects in such trials be nonprisoners, making it more difficult to test products that might scare off volunteers.
Dr. A. Bernard Ackerman, a New York dermatologist who worked at Holmesburg during the 1960's trials as a second-year resident from the University of Pennsylvania, said he remained skeptical. "I saw it firsthand," Dr. Ackerman said. "What started as scientific research became pure business, and no amount of regulations can prevent that from happening again."
Others cite similar concerns over the financial stake in such research.
"It strikes me as pretty ridiculous to start talking about prisoners getting access to cutting-edge research and medications when they can't even get penicillin and high-blood-pressure pills," said Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News, an independent monthly review. "I have to imagine there are larger financial motivations here."
The demand for human test subjects has grown so much that the so-called contract research industry has emerged in the past decade to recruit volunteers for pharmaceutical trials. The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, a Boston policy and economic research group at Tufts University, estimated that contract research revenue grew to $7 billion in 2005, up from $1 billion in 1995.
But researchers at the Institute of Medicine said their sole focus was to see if prisoners could benefit by changing the regulations.
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Crack in Microsoft Windows worries US anti-terror officials
AFP
11/08/06
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) urged personal computer owners to immediately fix a dangerous vulnerabililty in Microsoft's Windows operating systems.
Windows runs most of the world's computers and has been a constant target of attacks by worms, trojans, viruses and other malicious software. Microsoft routinely releases security updates and patches.
However, it was unusual for the US government's anti-terrorism department to call on the public to seal a crack in Windows before attackers broke in.
"This vulnerability could impact government systems, private industry and critical infrastructure, as well as individual and home users," the DHS said in a release.
Attackers could take advantage of the software weakness to remotely take control of computers, according to the DHS.
PC users were called on to apply Microsoft security patch MS06-040 "as quickly as possible."
The department said its Computer Emergency Readiness Team was working with Microsoft to protect or minimize the damage to government machines.
Attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in operating systems typically spike in the days after security patches are released.
Computer security professionals advise people to keep their operating system software current and use up-to-date anti-virus programs.
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Spy cameras to reduce street crime don't work
By Matthew Cella
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 13, 2006
Surveillance cameras like those authorized by the D.C. Council for police investigations and now being put in place have shown limited success in decreasing violent crime in other cities.
Baltimore, for example, set up about 80 cameras in May 2005 in high-crime neighborhoods. Volunteers and retired law-enforcement personnel monitor the images in real time, but the cameras have not helped put criminals behind bars.
"Generally, the State's Attorney's Office has not found them to be a useful tool to prosecutors," office spokeswoman Margaret Burns said. "They're good for circumstantial evidence, but it definitely isn't evidence we find useful to convict somebody of a crime."
Miss Burns said Baltimore prosecutors kept detailed statistics from the first nine months of the camera program. Most of the 500 cases forwarded to prosecutors were quality-of-life crimes, she said, and 40 percent of those cases were dropped by prosecutors or dismissed by the courts.
"We have not used any footage to resolve a violent-crime case," she said.
Miss Burns said police sometimes misidentify suspects because the cameras produce "grainy" and "blurry" images.
"We have had that happen more than once," she said.
The D.C. Council, faced with a sharp increase in crime, passed emergency legislation July 19 that allows the Metropolitan Police Department to use surveillance cameras in neighborhoods as part of an emergency plan.
D.C. workers on Thursday began installing the first four of an expected 47 cameras throughout the city. Officials said the four cameras are temporary and will be replaced by permanent ones later this month. About 24 cameras will be deployed by the end of August, and 23 more will be added in September, police said.
Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey is required to notify only two persons about plans to place a camera in any given neighborhood: an advisory neighborhood commissioner and the appropriate council member. The cameras will operate 24 hours a day, but police will review the images only when a known crime may have been recorded.
Chicago deployed a few dozen cameras in neighborhoods in July 2003. Authorities there captured their first drug transaction 19 months later, in February 2005.
Police arrested three suspects and confiscated 12 packets of heroin. However, the cameras have not helped in criminal investigations.
"From my perspective, I would love it if we had footage of the murderer leaving the house, but that hasn't happened yet," said Kevin Smith, a spokesman for Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communications, which administers and monitors the 170-camera network.
Police in San Francisco said a camera paid off in an investigation for the first time in June, when they arrested a man in connection with a shooting in April.
Nine months after the first cameras were installed in neighborhoods, a camera captured the image of a man getting out of a car. The man subsequently shot at another man and missed, injuring a 13-year-old girl. The image was not recorded, but police said the camera was key to the investigation.
Surveillance cameras also have generated headlines for the wrong reasons.
In April 2005, a San Francisco police officer was suspended from the department for using surveillance cameras to ogle women at San Francisco International Airport.
New York officials say surveillance cameras in public-housing projects have led to substantial decreases in crime.
Written policies and random audits help guard the system against abuse, but that proved ineffective when the tape of a 22-year-old man who fatally shot himself in the lobby of a housing project in March 2004 surfaced on a pornographic Web site.
Critics argue that cameras only push criminals into unobserved areas. A University of Cincinnati study in 2000 concluded that surveillance cameras have a short-term deterrent effect, which likely would increase when the public is notified about their presence.
Cameras in Baltimore, Chicago, New York and San Francisco are labeled as police property. No police department logos are affixed to the D.C. cameras that were in place before the recently crime emergency.
D.C. police spokesman Kevin Morison said police are required to post signs indicating that an area is under surveillance. He could not say whether such notification would be required under a clause dealing with "exigent" circumstances.
Mr. Morison said several neighborhood leaders have requested cameras.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the District-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, said he has heard neighborhood leaders express approval of the cameras at hearings but is not sure whether most residents share that support.
"It's very difficult to get a clear read on whether this is something that residents really want," Mr. Rotenberg said. "I don't think people understand that if you put these cameras in residential communities, you're talking about a telescopic lens that can zoom in and a 360-degree casing that can look into your bedroom."
Comment: So if they are not for street crime...what are they for?
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A Special Place in Hell: Postwar self test: Are you an anti-Semite?
By Bradley Burston
Ha'aretz
14 August 06
One of the more fruitless debates between critics and supporters of Israel, is where to draw the line between candid criticism of Israeli policy, and anti-Semitism.
As a public service, we present the following post war self-test, to assist readers in placing themselves along the continuum which stretches from taking rational issue with Israeli policy, and ends in Jew-hate.
Comment: Hmmm. Rational issue vs Jew hate. It will be interesting to see the way the authors of the test define each of these poles. Yes, one can be rational in criticising Israeli policy, and there are certainly people who engage in Jew hate. The question is, of course, what these labels really mean and how are they defined for the purposes of this little poll.
1. There is only one neighborhood grocery store [makolet] still operating in the Katyusha-shredded northern town of Kiryat Shmona. Up from the bomb shelters during a lull in attacks, shoppers seeking milk, bread, infant formula and other staples, congregate outside the grocery, waiting to enter.
A Hezbollah rocket attack on the crowd is:
Comment: Before we look at the answers, let's look at the question. Hezbollah does not have spy planes. There are indications that they have certain sources of intelligence inside Israel, but not of the kind that could say, "OK, the Israelis have just come up from their bomb shelters, so it is now time to attack". However, the way the question is framed suggests that a Hezbollah rocket attack is aimed at those Israelis standing in queue at the store, that it is aimed at civilians. Look at the statistics as of last Saturday:Casualties so far:
Lebanon yesterday
Civilians 15 killed, 18 wounded
Hizbullah 50 (Israeli claim)
To date
Civilians 1,056 killed
Hizbullah 100 (Israel claims up to 500 have been killed)
Israel yesterday
Military 1 killed, 9 wounded
Civilians 7 wounded
To date
Military 79 killed
Civilians 37 killed
So, to date, Israel has killed 10 times the number of civilians as members of Hezbollah. Hezbollah has killed twice as many soldiers as civilians. From this simple fact, it should be easy to draw the conclusion which side is aiming at soldiers and which side is aiming at civilians.
A. Morally indefensible. Israel is careful to bomb only Hezbollah targets, many of which the organization regrettably locates among civilians, who are thus forced to act as human shields.
Comment: What about Israel placing their equipment in Israeli Arab communities in Israel when they launch attacks so that the targets of the retaliation wil be Arabs and not Jews?
B. Wrong, if understandable in the context of guerilla warfare. Both sides should make every effort to keep non-combatants from being hurt.
C. Heroic. An example of self-defense. The rockets, a relative slingshot compared to the Israel's Goliath-scale arsenal, cause negligible damage in comparison to the slaughter which Israeli has inflicted in massacre after massacre from air, land and sea. Moreover, there are no non-combatants in Israel. Every infant is a potential soldier, women serve in the army, even the handicapped and elderly volunteer for service in the armed forces.
Comment: Leaving out the judgment "heroic", isn't the beginning of the third answer as close a description of reality as one could find? At least up to the final sentence. The final sentence is tacked on to put the Israeli point of view about Arabs into the mouths of supposed "anti-Semites". It is the Israelis that have said anyone in southern Lebanon is a target if they are still there. It is the Israelis who have been practicing collective punishment against the Palestinians by destroying houses of families because they accuse one member of that family of being in the resistance, or by waging war against the entire Gaza Strip because one Israeli corporal was captured, or by treating the entire Palestinian population as less than human simply because they are Palestinian and had the unfortunate bad luck of living in the area the British decided would be "given" to the Jews.
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2. You are handsome, famous and inebriated when you are stopped driving in Malibu, California by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept. Suspecting the arresting officer of Judaism, you consider informing him that "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."
You would take this course of action:
A. Over your dead body.
B. Only after 6-8 drinks.
C. Cold sober.
Comment: Yes, there are real Jew-haters in the world. Just as there are Black haters, Arab haters, French haters, Commie haters, and some people who just hate anything that is different from themselves. This hatred of difference is stoked and provoked by the real enemy of mankind, the psychopaths in power. It is used to keep the rest of us divided.
The one big difference between the other kinds of hatred and anti-Semitism is that Jews have a power in some countries that vastly out-weighs their numbers. This, too, can be used against Jews, because ordinary Jews are as much the enemy of the psychopathic Jews as ordinary Americans are the enemy of people like Cheney.
A question such as this does nothing but reinforce the official version of "anti-Semitism". Of course, the entire poll serves to reinforce the official position. More on that below.
_______
3. You are CNN. When Lebanese civilians are killed, injured or rendered homeless in Israeli air strikes, you identify the victims as Lebanese civilians and elaborate on their suffering. When Israeli civilians are killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks, you should:
A. Identify them as Israeli civilians and elaborate on their suffering.
B. Identify them as Israelis, thus calling into question whether they are civilians.
C. Omit them, and elaborate on the suffering of Lebanese civilians.
Comment: What about telling the truth: that Israel is the aggressor in this war. Israel is bombing the entire country because Hezbollah captured three Israeli soldiers, after years of putting up with daily Israeli flights over their territory, Mossad assassinations in Lebanon, lands mines left on their land that kill their children, and Israel refuses to hand over the maps that would permit the Lebanese to disarm them. During the six years since the Israelis withdrew from most, but not all, of the territory they occupied in Lebanon, they have remained the aggressor. The Isreals refuse to release the Lebanese prisoners being held in Israeli prisons. The plan for this attack was drawn up long before Hezbollah captured the soldiers. Israel was waiting for an excuse to destroy Lebanon.
So Israel has brought on this suffering of their own citizens through their actions. The leaders of Israel don't care if Israeli civilians die because they can then wave the flag of victimization yet again.
Moreover, we all know the name of the one Israeli corporal who was captured in Gaza. How many people can name at least one of the Palestinian or Lebanese dead?
_______
4. The Jewish lobby in the United States:
A. Represents Israel's interests as pro-Arab lobbyists represent theirs.
B. Crosses the line at times, but serves a legitimate role.
C. Runs everything.
Comment: What about: the Jewish Lobby in the United States is the strongest lobby in the country. It finances trips to Israel for US politicians. It includes people in positions of power throughout the US goernment, including many with double Israeli-US citizenship. Through its links in the media, it can promote Israeli interests every day, all day long, without giving any voice to the Arabs. Israelis have a voice in the US government that no other country in the world can hope for.
By setting answer C as "Runs everything", while leaving the only alternative as "sometimes crosses the line", the truth of its power is never described. It is consciously hidden in order to manipulate public opinion.
_______
5. Jostein Gaarder, author of the book "Sophie's World," last week sparked a storm in his native Norway by writing, in the context of IDF operations in Lebanon, that Israel had lost its right to exist.
Referring to the killing of Lebanese children, Gaarder said "We note that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs like they once cheered the scourges of the Lord as 'fitting punishment' for the people of Egypt."
Gaarder also wrote that the first Zionist terrorists started operating in the days of Jesus.
The proper response to Gaarder is:
A. Condemn him, to the point of boycott.
B. Encourage rational debate on the issues he raises, bearing in mind his subsequent statement saying that he was misunderstood.
C. Applaud him for braving the media's censorship of honest discussion of Israel and its supporters.
Comment: Notice there are no direct quotes from Gaarder. Notice as well he raises the weak point of the Jewish claim to land: the claims made in the Bible, inthe Torah. People who truly speak out about the horrors committed by Israel will always find themselves facing such criticism.
Gaarder said that Israel had lost the right to exist as it is now. That means, with its current criminal policies. The state led by Saddam Hussein was brought down, we were told, for massacring its citizens. Does the fact that the Palestinians are not citizens, are treated much worse, justify that they be massacred without international reaction?
The article compares Israel's government, the Afghan Taliban regime and South African apartheid, and states, "We no longer recognize the State of Israel" and "the State of Israel in its current form is history."Do the Israeli's murder Palestinian and Lebanese children? Of course they do. Should the international community allow this to happen? Of course not.
"We call child murderers 'child murderers,' and will never accept that they have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages," Gaarder writes. "Shame on ethnic cleansing, shame on every terrorist strike against civilians, be it carried out by Hamas, Hezbollah or the State of Israel!"
Gaarder repeatedly refers to the role Judaism plays in Israel's territorial aspirations, writing, "We don't believe in the notion of God's chosen people. We laugh at this nation's fancies and weep over its misdeeds."
He writes, "It is the State of Israel that fails to recognize, respect or defer to the internationally lawful Israeli state of 1948. Israel wants more; more water and more villages. To obtain this, there are those who want, with God's assistance, a final solution to the Palestinian problem."
_______
6. The Jewish people
A. Have a right to a state of their own in the Holy Land.
B. Have a right to an independent state alongside Palestine
C. Have no inherent right to a state, nor an inherent right to reside in Palestine.
Comment: What is the basis of the claim of the Jewish people to Palestine? That it was given to them by their god three thousand years ago. Where in the world could anyone walk into a court of law and base any argument whatsoever on "God gave it to my ancestors"? It is absurd.
Why should the people practicing any religion have the right to a state of their own? Any Israeli with a conscience would recognize that they have stolen the land from another people and would leave. Any Jew of conscience would stop supporting such a state.
It is that simple.
_______
7. You are watching BBC coverage of the Israeli military reading Guardian coverage of the Israeli military. Your blood pressure:
A. Goes through the roof. The aneurism light is on.
B. Is unchanged.
C. Improves.
Comment: The BBC and the Guardian? Yeah, our blood pressure goes up because this is what passes for objective reporting! This is what passes for "fair and balanced" reporting! Western media that dares criticise Israel in the slightest way, in the humblest way, and who give a certain amount of space to the killing and bloodshed.
______
8. Rising gasoline prices are a result of:
A. Oil industry profiteering, global warming, and growing consumption in the U.S., China, and elsewhere.
B. War and political instability in the Middle East.
C The actions of Israel and its supporters.
Comment: Oil and gas prices are going up because the pathocrats in power the world over have it in for the ordinary citizens of every country. That answer doesn't appear. The "Peak Oil" manipulation is designed to provide the cover for higher prices and the coming artificial scarcity.
______
9.Israel's actions in Lebanon were:
A. Expressions of self-defense.
B. Misguided expressions of self-defense.
C. Worse than the Nazis.
Comment: Again, the choices are completely biased. A is false. B is false. What about giving an answer that reflects the truth: the invasion of Lebanon is an illegal, brutal, ruthless act that no person of conscience can possibly condone. It is an act of state terrorism.
Yes, the Nazis engaged in such activities, as does the United States, and all of the other Western powers, although often it was done in their colonies where it "didn't count". Making the third answer "Worse than the Nazis" is just a way to discount the very real crimes Israel is committing.
_______
10. When Iranian President Ahmadinejad calls the Holocaust a myth and says that Israel should be erased from the map he:
A. Should be taken seriously, as Hitler's Mein Kampf should have been,
B. Should be viewed as a demagogue, exploiting and inciting Muslim anger at Israel.
C. Saying what millions of people honestly believe, and with good reason.
Comment: Ahmadinejad never said that Israel should be erased from the map. He proposed that all of the inhabitants of the land be given a free vote in deciding the future of the land, Palestinians and Israelis alike. If one raises the question of why his words were twisted and distorted by the media, and if it has anything to do with the glaring bias of that media, and with its ownership, then one is accused of anti-Semitism.
Very convenient.
_______
To Rate Yourself:
Score 10 Points for every answer A.
Score 20 Points for every answer B.
Score 30 points for every answer C.
If you scored between 100-150:
You are not an anti-Semite, though you may have some issues with Arabs.
If you scored between 150-220
You are not an anti-Semite, though some to your right may call you one.
If you scored between 230-300
Just because you don't think of yourself as a flaming anti-Semite ...
Comment: Although offered up "in fun", this little poll is a sinister example of the way mind control works. Look at the way the answers are conceived. The answers that most closely reflect the truth, that is, the facts on the ground, are "anti-Semitic". So the MAIN problem we face is, certainly, the Zionist control of the media. That is the lynchpin. The media presents a sort of "Peer Pressure," and pretends to be the voice of the people - and manufactures "social proof". It is "canned consent" and induces silence the same way "canned laughter" on televison induces people to think they are watching something funny.
To discover why canned laughter is so effective, we first need to understand the nature of yet another potent weapon of influence: the principle of social proof. This principle states that we determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct.It is "social proof" via the media that is being used as a control weapon against the masses of humanity.
The principle applies especially to the way we decide what constitutes correct behavior. We view a behavior as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.
Whether the question is what to do with an empty popcorn box in a movie theater, how fast to drive on a certain stretch of highway, or how to eat the chicken at a dinner party, the actions of those around us will be important guides in defining the answer.
The tendency to see an action as appropriate when others are doing it works quite well normally. As a rule, we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than by acting contrary to it. Usually, when a lot of people are doing something, it is the right thing to do.
This feature of the principle of social proof is simultaneously its major strength and its major weakness. Like the other weapons of influence, it provides a convenient shortcut for determining the way to behave but, at the same time, makes one who uses the shortcut vulnerable to the attacks of profiteers who lie in wait along its path.
In the case of canned laughter, the problem comes when we begin responding to social proof in such a mindless and reflexive fashion that we can be fooled by partial or fake evidence. Our folly is not that we use others' laughter to help decide what is humorous; that is in keeping with the well-founded principle of social proof. The folly is that we do so in response to patently fraudulent laughter. Somehow, one disembodied feature of humor - a sound -works like the essence of humor. ...
In the process of examining the reactions of other people to resolve our uncertainty, however, we are likely to overlook a subtle, but important fact: Those people are probably examining the social evidence, too.
Especially in an ambiguous situation, the tendency for everyone to be looking to see what everyone else is doing can lead to a fascinating phenomenon called pluralistic ignorance. A thorough understanding of the pluralistic ignorance phenomenon helps explain a regular occurrence in our country that has been termed both a riddle and a national disgrace: the failure of entire groups of bystanders to aid victims in agonizing need of help.
Katherine Genovese, was killed in a late-night attack on her street as she returned from work. Murder is never an act to be passed off lightly, but in a city the size and tenor of New York, the Genovese incident warranted no more space than a fraction of a column in the New York Times. Catherine Genovese's story would have died with her on that day in March 1964 if it hadn't been for a mistake.
The metropolitan editor of the Times, A. M. Rosenthal, happened to be having lunch with the city police commissioner a week later. Rosenthal asked the commissioner about a different Queens-based homicide, and the commissioner, thinking he was being questioned about the Genovese case, revealed something staggering that had been uncovered by the police investigation. It was something that left everyone who heard it, the commissioner included, aghast and grasping for explanations.
Catherine Genovese had not experienced a quick, muffled death. It had been a long, loud, tortured, public event. Her assailant had chased and attacked her in the street three times over a period of 35 minutes before his knife finally silenced her cries for help.
Incredibly, 38 of her neighbors watched from the safety of their apartment windows without so much as lifting a finger to call the police.
Rosenthal, a former Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, knew a story when he heard one. On the day of his lunch with the commissioner, he assigned a reporter to investigate the "bystander angle" of the Genovese incident. Within a week, the Times published a long, front-page article that was to create a swirl of controversy and speculation. The initial paragraph of that report provided the tone and focus of the story:"For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens." ...
The psychologists speculated that, for at least two reasons, a bystander to an emergency will be unlikely to help when there are a number of other bystanders present. The first reason is fairly straightforward.
With several potential helpers around, the personal responsibility of each individual is reduced: "Perhaps someone else will give or call for aid, perhaps someone else already has." So with everyone thinking that someone else will help or has helped, no one does.
The second reason is the more psychologically intriguing one; it is founded on the principle of social proof and involves the pluralistic ignorance effect Very often an emergency is not obviously an emergency. Is the man lying in the alley a heart-attack victim or a drunk sleeping one off? Is the commotion next door an assault requiring the police or an especially loud marital spat where intervention would be inappropriate and unwelcome? What is going on?
In times of such uncertainty, the natural tendency is to look around at the actions of others for clues. We can learn from the way the other witnesses are reacting whether the event is or is not an emergency. [Robert Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice]
What is even worse is that "social proof" is also being produced by the Zionist Media and Pathocrats as a means of not only inducing silence, but active complicity on the part of human beings who would otherwise not participate in the madness that has overtaken our world.
Andrew Lobaczewski wrote:We see this in the mainstream media, on the internet, in the 911 Truth Movement, everywhere. It is a concerted effort to produce "social proof" and thereby to pathologize the minds of normal human beings. And we can easily see that literally thousands upon thousands of deviant persons are employed in this activity.
In a pathocracy, all leadership positions, (down to village headman and community cooperative managers, not to mention the directors of police units, and special services police personnel, and activists in the pathocratic party) must be filled by individuals with corresponding psychological deviations, which are inherited as a rule. However, such people constitute a very small percentage of the population and this makes them more valuable to the pathocrats. Their intellectual level or professional skills cannot be taken into account, since people representing superior abilities are even harder to find.
After such a system has lasted several years, one hundred percent of all the cases of essential psychopathy are involved in pathocratic activity; they are considered the most loyal, even though some of them were formerly involved on the other side in some way. [...]
[T]o mitigate the threat to their power, the pathocrats must employ any and all methods of terror and exterminatory policies against individuals known for their patriotic feelings and military training; other, specific "indoctrination" activities such as those we have presented are also utilized. Individuals lacking the natural feeling of being linked to normal society become irreplaceable in either of these activities. Again, the foreground of this type of activity is occupied by cases of essential psychopathy, followed by those with similar anomalies, and finally by people alienated from the society in question as a result of racial or national differences.
The phenomenon of pathocracy matures during this period: an extensive and active indoctrination system is built, with a suitably refurbished ideology constituting the vehicle or Trojan horse for the purpose of pathologizing the thought processes of individuals and society.
The goal- forcing human minds to incorporate pathological experiential methods and thought-patterns, and consequently accepting such rule - is never openly admitted. This goal is conditioned by pathological egotism, and the possibility of accomplishing it strikes the pathocrats as not only indispensable, but feasible. Thousands of activists must therefore participate in this work.We view a behavior as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.It is THIS that we must overcome FIRST, before anything else can be done. That means that we need thousands of activists to counteract the activists of the Pathocrats and the Zionist controlled media.
But, in order to get the needed numbers of people on the job, doing what needs to be done, there has to be agreement as to where and how to apply the pressure. This is constantly being foiled by the COINTELPRO of the 911 Truth movement and the alternative media.
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