Signs of the Times - 2003-09-19

"I just wake up in the morning and tell myself, 'There's been a military coup'. And then it all makes sense."

At least three American soldiers died in attacks in Iraq yesterday as the US pro-consul in Baghdad gave warning that Iran should halt its plots to destabilise the country. [...]

Comment: The audacity of the psychopath knows no bounds. Imagine going into a country, bombing it back into the stone age, murdering over 10,000 civilians, and then blaming someone else for the problems when those invaded don't just say "thank you oh great master."

Who are the real destabilizers of Iraq? Who invaded the country and lied about the reasons to do so? It appears that Iran is being set up. They may be fighting for their lives soon from a U.S./Israel invasion and watching their children wither from depleted uranium radiation. At least the ones that aren't out right blown up from cluster bombs.

Several US occupation soldiers are believed to have died in the Iraqi town of Khaldiya in one of the fiercest resistance attacks to date.

Witnesses reported seeing several soldiers being evacuated from their badly burnt vehicles after a US convoy came under attack as it passed through the town on the way to Ramadi from Fallujah.

"A bomb exploded underneath a troop transport. It caught fire. The rest of the convoy tried to continue and was hit by rocket-propelled grenades," a local resident said.

[...] US soldiers courted further trouble in Iraq, killing an Iraqi teenager and wounding four others in the flashpoint town of Fallujah.

The soldiers opened fire when their convoy drove near a house where a wedding was under way and shots were being fired in the air in celebration.

Fourteen-year old Sudian Dawud was shot dead, and four people including two women were wounded in the incident.

I came back from a visit to Washington this week with one overwhelming impression: US thinking on the Middle East is going through a profound revolution. Public opinion is beginning to rebel against the failed policies of the Bush administration - and against their enormous costs in money, human casualties, and chaos.

The tide is turning against the architects of these policies - in particular against Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his closest Pentagon aides, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith - who now find themselves on the defensive, having got the US in the mess it is in. Some observers of the American political scene believe these men could lose their jobs before the end of the year, and many think they should.

President Bush has said that there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. A strange admission — because no one with even the most basic understanding of the Middle East believed that Saddam was in any way linked with the attack. Yet a poll in the US indicates that 70 percent of Americans believe it. A substantial number of them also think that Iraqis were involved in the attack, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

The blame lies entirely with the Bush administration. From the president downward, the US government has for the past two years deliberately clouded what were two distinct issues: Sept. 11 and the Iraqi regime. They confused the public and the media alike into believing that there was a link by constantly talking about Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda in the same breath. Only last week, Vice President Dick Cheney was still refusing to rule out a link between Iraq and Sept.11 , saying “we don’t know.”

[...] The appalling reality is that Americans were ready to believe anything about Saddam Hussein because he has been so demonized by American officialdom and the media. And so too has Yasser Arafat; if asked, Americans would probably answer that he too was involved in Sept.11 . It does not stop there. The anti-Saudi, anti-Muslim current flowing through American politics and media shows no sign of abating. Nor is it being countered, other than with complaints. There is no point expecting the American media or public to start seeing the Middle East as it is.

A look at comments made by Bush administration officials about Iraq and smallpox: [...]

Iraq's last reported smallpox outbreak came in 1972, the same year Iraq started biological weapons research. A World Health Organization report estimated 800 people were infected in that outbreak, which spread to Iran, Syria and Yugoslavia.

U.S. intelligence agencies believe that any smallpox samples Iraq might possess would come from the 1972 outbreak rather than from rogue Russian scientists or other external sources, U.S. officials said. And Iraq was not believed to have weaponized smallpox.

U.N. inspectors have made little mention of it as a threat. In a March paper outlining unresolved issues, the United Nations suggested Iraq provide information on any work done on smallpox after 1972 plus any other documentation relating to research on camelpox.

Clark Says He Would Have Voted for War

Gen. Wesley K. Clark said today that he would have supported the Congressional resolution that authorized the United States to invade Iraq, even as he presented himself as one of the sharpest critics of the war effort in the Democratic presidential race.

Comment: Sounds like 'ol Wesley will fit right in to the world of American political doublespeak

The mantra that Arafat crack down on terror has always been a fraud. Who is to do this cracking down? Obviously, Palestinian police, security forces and courts. But they are the chief target of Sharon's murderous onslaught. Sharon's strategy today is the same as it was in Beirut in 1982. He wants to destroy and discredit the Palestinian Authority so as to ensure the Palestinians are left without a credible leadership. Chaos and anarchy on the West Bank would then provide Israel with the justification it needs to drive out the indigenous population and render the territory governable.

This has been longstanding Israeli policy. Starting in the late 1970s Israel helped build up the most fanatical and intolerant fundamentalist Muslims as rivals to the nationalist PLO. The terrorist organization Hamas is largely an Israeli creation. A UPI story last year quoted a U.S. government official as saying: "The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the other groups, if they gained control, would refuse to have anything to do with the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place."

The PLO has long been aware of Israeli strategy. In their 1989 book, Intifada, Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari write that Fatah "suspected the Israelis of a plot first to let Hamas gather strength and then to unleash it against the PLO, turning the uprising into a civil war [...]

According to Robert Fisk, Israeli support for Hamas continued after the signing of the Oslo accords. One can be pretty sure that this strategy received strong encouragement from Washington, which has also seen the advantage of financing and supporting the most vicious and narrowminded Islamic terrorists on account of their antinationalist and antisocialist credentials.

Hamas also served Israel's purpose admirably by suggesting to the American public that the conflict in the Middle East pitted democratic Israel against all-or-nothing fanatics who wanted to drive the Jews into the sea.

Israel's refusal to surrender conquered land and its continued building of settlements in violation of innumerable UN resolutions could then all be justified as perfectly reasonable responses to an implacable enemy.[...]

Comment: For more information on the Machiavellian tactics being empolyed by Sharon see here and here

The old Likudnik Barbara Amiel wrote in the Daily Telegraph that Yasser Arafat was a terrorist and a murderer responsible for the attack during the Olympic games in 1972, adding that killing him would be a "moral deed;" but the question is: is killing him of any use?

The easiest and clearest response would be that Ariel Sharon is a terrorist slayer who is responsible for both Qibya and Sabra and Shatila massacres, as well as all the slaughters having taken place, even Jenin, Hebron and Khan Younis; hence, killing him is a thousand times a good deed, as he deserves to die as many times as the number of Palestinians and Israelis who lost their lives because of his radicalism, extremism and Nazism.

We can even say that killing all those who support him or support his criminal government would be a "good deed," as the instigator of a murder is a murderer himself.

However, we are not saying that this should happen, as I personally hope that Sharon lives long enough to witness the consequences of his actions, and that Barbara Amiel enjoys the same long life so as she could watch the rise of a Palestinian state that would rub her nose in the mud. [...]

The members of the Israeli government want to assassinate Arafat, while Olmert asserts the news and the Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom denies it. This entire issue is based on the fact that the members of the Israeli government are all professional murderers, and some of them such as Hanegbi and Lieberman are as veterans as the Mafia people, knowing that each one of them thinks like a small Mafioso, while others try to cover up for their crimes by focusing on Arafat.

I'm not defending the Palestinian President, and all those who read my column know how hard I've been on him for the past days and weeks, as well as each time he makes a mistake.

Although I might accuse Arafat of failure, which is a crime against Palestinians, this man cannot be accused of terrorism while trying to liberate his nation from a terrorist who is condemned worldwide and wanted for crimes he has committed all through his dark life.

Personally, I despise Sharon's followers and defenders more than I despise him. All I can do is compare their participation in the crime to my attempt and that of all those who support the Palestinian cause into persuading Hamas and the Islamic Jihad of ceasing their suicide operations; we almost made it once, had the Israeli government not carried out an assassination or an invasion each time we would be close to convincing them of an agreement.

Just like Amiel philosophized the decision to assassinate Arafat, I found that a Zionist Likudnik writer of her type, called Steven Bollard, had written in the same newspaper, insisting on Israel's right to assassinate the Hamas leaders.

The problem of this logic is that it makes the other party support the assassination of Israel, although I don't, and I shall settle with some reverse logic in Bollard's writing, as he introduces his topic by saying that Arafat is responsible for the fact that Hamas killed 15 Israelis on the first week of September 2003, because he refused to take measures against the "terrorists."

What did Arafat do? Hamas is a Palestinian movement of opposition, which is also against Arafat and his Authority; it has carried out suicide operations and claimed responsibility for them, while the Israeli supporter, Bollard, wants the isolated and besieged Arafat to fight it on behalf of Israel. Then the writer contradicts himself when he says that Hamas will still exist in the near future, and it is this movement that represents the heart of the problem, not Arafat.

I believe that no peace can be accomplished as long as Sharon is in the rule, when people like Amiel and Bollard (there is no space left for me to discuss Robert Satloff's provoking article in the Los Angeles Times) encourage and instigate him, but then accuse the victim.

Palestinians are once more stunned by the recent U.S. veto in the U.N. Security Council to block a resolution demanding an Israeli retraction from a decision to expel President Yasser Arafat. They recollect a series of such vetoes almost all of which targeted their national rights of security and protection. Every time the international community opts to defend the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, to rid them or less from the Israeli atrocities or to condemn the settlement activities in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, the Americans step in to provide a safety net for the Israeli aggressions.

What is the meaning of the latest American veto at the Security Council? Simply, it is a repeated announcement of the enmity against the Palestinian people, over and above their president, and an insistence on protecting the Israeli occupation force, even when the latter takes measures that trigger the international community's anger and repulsion.

[...] It is no longer a secret that the superpower's policy is ruled by mob methods; the whole world is now aware of the filth behind the scenes of this policy. It is also known that it relies on the strongest military and economic arsenal. But this does not mean that it is right, or that it has become habilitated to distinguish right from wrong. Wrong policies only produce mistakes, and these include this terrorism which the U.S. pretends to be fighting, when it is only sowing its seeds and making it come out again in an even fiercer way.

It was particularly disturbing to see Al-Sirhan effectively condemn the thesis of my book “Final Judgment”, which documents — to the satisfaction of many people worldwide — the strong likelihood of a role by Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Al-Sirhan’s remarks were particularly stinging since, among other things, my book has been published in Arabic by the distinguished Beirut-based firm of Dar El Ilm Lilmalayin, and even more so because I learned some years ago — after my book was published — that Gen. Mustafa Tlass, the highly-regarded longtime Syrian defense minister, had made public statements to the effect that it was his opinion that there was in fact a Zionist role in the JFK assassination.

In addition, in1992 , former US Congressman Paul Findley (R-Ill.), who has been an outspoken advocate for the Palestinian cause — and who suffered Zionist lobby’s retribution as a consequence — published an article in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in which he stated: “It is interesting — but not surprising — to note that in all the words written about the Kennedy assassination, Israel’s Mossad has never been mentioned. And yet a Mossad motive is obvious.

On this question, American reporters cannot bring themselves to cast Israel in an unfavorable light — despite the obvious fact that Mossad complicity is as plausible as any of the other theories.” And I can tell you here — publicly, for the first time — that it was Findley who directed me to a French intelligence source who provided me very crucial information regarding the Mossad connection to the JFK assassination conspiracy.

[...] My own address to the Zayed Center, by the way, was largely devoted to the topic of what is no secret in the Arab world: The fact that a tightly-knit conglomeration of families and financial interests, all of them with close ties to Israel, dominate the American media. In the United States, it is true, it is “extremist” to say these things, but I am appalled that an Arab intellectual such as Al-Sirhan would call me an extremist in the same manner that the Zionist lobby in America does.

I should mention, for the record, that purportedly anti-Semitic statements I made in my address to the Zayed Center — as cited by the ADL — were direct quotations from the book “The Sacred Chain” by Dr. Norman Cantor, an American Jewish academic.

That the Israeli lobby in America will not be satisfied until the Arab world is subjugated under a new imperium dictated by Israel’s so-called neoconservative partisans whose influence reaches through both major political parties in America.

Britain’s ruling Labour party has been soundly beaten in a local by-election, in a result seen by commentators as a barometer of the government’s waning popularity.

Sarah Teather, of Britain’s third party, the Liberal Democrats, snatched a large majority from Labour to win the parliamentary seat for the London constituency of Brent East by over a thousand votes.

Teather, 29, will become parliament’s youngest member. She received 8158 votes (39%) while Labour’s candidate Robert Evans trailed with 7040 (34%). The Conservative party, who also backed the invasion of Iraq, languished far behind with 3368 (16%).

While the result seems close, the results are a devastating defeat for Tony Blair's Labour in what was considered a safe seat. In the 2001 general election, the party won with 63% of the vote, with the Conservatives second with 18% of votes cast and the Liberal Democrats getting just 10%.

Labour has not lost a seat in the House of Commons in a by-election for 15 years. [...]

It would be comforting to believe that the financial Establishment of the United States and the leaders of American industry were united in a common purpose following the Day of Infamy, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Certainly, the American public was assured that Big Business along with all of the officials of government ceased from the moment the war began to have any dealings whatsoever with the enemy. That assurance sustained the morale of millions of Americans who bore arms in World War II and their kinfolk who stayed at home and suffered the anguish of separation.

But the heartbreaking truth is that a number of financial and industrial figures of World War II and several members of the government served the cause of money before the cause of patriotism. While aiding the United States' war effort, they also aided Nazi Germany's.

[...] What would have happened if millions of American and British people, struggling with coupons and lines at the gas stations, had learned that in 1942 Standard Oil of New Jersey managers shipped the enemy's fuel through neutral Switzerland and that the enemy was shipping Allied fuel? Suppose the public had discovered that the Chase Bank in Nazi-occupied Paris after Pearl Harbor was doing millions of dollars' worth of business with the enemy with the full knowledge of the head office in Manhattan?

Or that Ford trucks were being built for the German occupation troops in France with authorization from Dearborn, Michigan? Or that Colonel Sosthenes Behn, the head of the international American telephone conglomerate ITT, flew from New York to Madrid tot Berne during the war to help improve Hitler's communications systems and improve the robot bombs that devastated London?

Or that ITT built the Focke-Wulfs that dropped bombs on British and American troops? Or that crucial ball bearings were shipped to Nazi-associated customers in Latin America with the collusion of the vice-chairman of the U.S. War Production Board in partnership with Göring's cousin in Philadelphia when American forces were desperately short of them? Or that such arrangements were known about in Washington and either sanctioned or deliberately ignored?

For the government did sanction dubious transactions—both before and after Pearl Harbor. A presidential edict, issued six days after December 7, 1941, actually set up the legislation whereby licensing arrangements for trading with the enemy could officially be granted. Often during the years after Pearl Harbor the government permitted such trading. [...]

Comment: The thief in the White House has publicly admitted that Saddam had no ties to 9/11, but still manages to stammer out something about him have Al-Qada "ties".

Will U.S. Citizens admit to being duped, or will cognitive dissonance set in, as they continue to justify their belief in America: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave? It has not been that way for some time. There is plenty of evidence the U.S. was duped in WW II, as they sent their sons and husbands to die, while crooks funded both sides, and that it is still not widely acknowledged. Something very similar is going on today, Saddam being a CIA ally.

It's time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy. [...]

Is this a test of American citizens will? Will they stand up their own free will, or will they continue to ask to be told lies? There have been large protests against the war and The Patriot Act, even though the protesters are more than likely being profiled and marked as "disgruntled Americans" which equals terrorist. They are not being defended by those who disagree with them, since patriot now means someone who rolls over, and shuts up except when calling those who don't like the fascist state unpatriotic. This is the sad state we live in. It appears that fascists have their finger on the trigger.

Germany, France to back EU military alliance

Thursday, 18 September , 2003

Berlin: Germany and France pledged Thursday to push ahead with plans to develop an autonomous EU military capability, despite criticism that it would double up with NATO.

They committed themselves to transforming the European security and defence policy into a full-scale defence union "so that the EU can emerge as a full and equal partner on the world stage."

The statement was issued at the end of government talks chaired by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac.

They said the defence union would be open to all EU members. But the idea of developing an EU military capable of acting on its own has not gone down well in Washington, which fears it may undermine the US-dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

An April meeting between Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg, at which they proposed an autonomous European military command headquarters near the Belgian capital, was derided by the United States as a gathering of "chocolate makers." [...]

The leaders of Germany and France announced a grandiose multi-billion pound investment programme yesterday, despite criticism that their spending is already out of control.

At their meeting in Berlin, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder and President Jacques Chirac announced a vast programme that would include spending on 10 infrastructure programmes designed to boost growth in the sluggish euro zone.

Other projects under the pact include an annual Franco-German day on January 22, the creation of a joint history book for schools, and eventually, dual citizenship.[...]

U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow and Afghanistan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai Treasury Secretary John Snow says the rest of the world must join the United States in providing funding for Afghanistan. While Mr. Snow is upbeat on Afghanistan's recovery, some observers say the country still has a long way to go.

Comment: Is it just us, or is this extremely arrogant? The US bombs Afghanistan back to the stone age - killing 5,000 civilians - kick starts opium production, flooding the streets of Europe, Russia and Iraq with heroin, using the proceeds to fund more CIA and Mossad Black OPs, and then demands that other people pay for the reconstruction...

ADL Commends Dalai Lama for Remarks Condemning Terrorism

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today commended the Dalai Lama for his important statement condemning terrorism and the need to take "countermeasures" including force, to check this "worst kind of violence."

"The Dalai Lama's important statements recognize the need for the international community to take strong action against terrorism," said Abraham H.

Foxman, ADL national director. "His comments acknowledge the battle the United States, Israel and other democracies around the world have been forced to engage in against the scourge of terrorism."

"Recent statements by Mel Gibson paint the portrait of an anti-Semite," Foxman told The Jewish Week Tuesday. While the debate has been raging for months over 'The Passion' and its negative portrayal of Jews, no mainstream Christian or Jewish community leader has until now made such a direct charge against Gibson, who is directing and financing his $30 million labor of love. Interfaith critics instead have focused on the bloody movie, saying that by promoting the 2,000-year-old charge of Christ killers against Jews, the film would fuel anti-Semitism around the world. [...]

Foxman adds that it is clear the actor doesn't fall far from the tree. Gibson's 85-year-old father, Hutton, has been quoted as saying far fewer Jews died in the Holocaust than 6 million, and is a conspiracist who says Jews are behind recent Vatican reforms. [...]

Boyer reports that Gibson accuses "modern secular Judaism" of blaming "the Holocaust on the Catholic Church. And it's a lie. And it's revisionism. And they've been working on that one for a while." "When you put those things together," said Foxman, "that is a portrait of an anti-Semite. To me this is classic anti-Semitism." [...]

Foxman's declaration comes on the heels of several significant developments about the movie, slated for release next spring. Two senior Vatican officials publicly endorsed the film and made ominous statements about its critics. [...]

[L]ast week Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the top Vatican official in charge of the Congregation for the Clergy, a Vatican subcommittee charged with implementing religious decrees, hailed the movie as a "triumph of art and faith" after seeing it in Rome. "I would like all our Catholic priests throughout the world to see this film," he told an Italian television reporter. "I hope all Christians will be able to see it and all people everywhere." He disputed the notion that the film is in any way anti-Semitic.

Further, Archbishop John Foley, an American serving in the Vatican communications office, told the Associated Press he thought the film was excellent based on trailers he saw. (Trailers can be accessed on the Internet). He doubted the validity of criticism. "I don't think they would be well-founded criticisms because all the material in the film comes directly from the Gospel accounts. So if they're critical of the film, they would be critical of the Gospel," Archbishop Foley said.

But Rev. John Pawlikowki, director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program at Chicago's Catholic Theological Union, who criticized the script as being anti-Jewish and violating Church teachings last April with an ad hoc group of Catholic and Jewish scholars, said the Church officials are ignoring the real issue. "I regret that none of the Catholic leaders have addressed the substance of our critique," he told The Jewish Week Monday. "That substance is that the main story line puts the primary responsibility for the death of Jesus on the Jewish cabal led by Caiphas [the Jewish high priest].

This is contrary to the recent Catholic documents and modern biblical scholarship. Until they show in a concrete way how the script squares with these documents and with modern biblical scholarship their endorsements ring hollow."

Comment: Speaking of modern Biblical Scholarship that does not support the story of the "death of Jesus," perhaps Rev. John Pawlikowki is referring to the studies that suggest the Bible was written to justify political controls and genocide? See our series: Who Wrote The Bible? As well as our article on Christianity.

A New York-based organization that fights anti-Semitism and bigotry is giving Premier Silvio Berlusconi its Distinguished Statesman Award next week, despite controversy over the Italian leader's recent comment that Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini never killed anyone.

The Anti-Defamation League's award highlights mixed feelings raised by Berlusconi, who shows strong support for Israel while sometimes serving up awkward public comments.

"People have been calling me, 'Are you canceling the dinner?"' said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which will give the award Tuesday. "The answer is no. He's a friend, he's a good friend. But he's a flawed friend."

Mel Gibson's controversial film "The Passion" has won another Vatican endorsement, with a top cardinal rejecting suggestions the movie may offend Jewish sensibilities and promote anti-Semitism.

"Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, distorts the truth by putting an entire race in a bad light. This film does nothing of the kind," Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos said in an interview published Thursday in the newspaper La Stampa.

Many conservative Christians say the unreleased film powerfully depicts the last 12 hours of Jesus' life. But Jewish leaders say the work suggests Jews were responsible for the death of Christ, and could trigger anti-Semitic attacks.

[...] The cardinal told La Stampa he saw an unfinished version of the film that Gibson brought to Rome recently.

"I felt moments of deep spiritual intimacy with Jesus Christ," Hoyos was quoted as saying.

BOSTON - With fists and middle fingers upraised, a booing, hissing and chanting crowd of about 1,200 people awaited United States Attorney General John Ashcroft when he arrived at Faneuil Hall at Boston University Tuesday morning, decrying his support of what some protesters called government policies undermining civil rights.

Ashcroft was bombarded by cries of "Shame!" and the sound of the "Imperial Death March" from the movie "Star Wars" as he entered a meeting with law enforcement officials in Faneuil Hall.

The meeting, which was closed to the general public, was billed as a briefing on the particulars of the USA PATRIOT Act, a federal anti-terrorism initiative, according to The Boston Globe.

The act, passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, allows government officials to, among other things, step up surveillance and increase information sharing between government agencies.

The nation's controversial USA Patriot Act, which broadens powers to investigate terrorism, is brewing "a culture of spying," a federal defense attorney said Wednesday.

"Spying on your neighbors, spying on your co-workers," added Deborah Euler-Ajayi during a town hall meeting sponsored by Paul Charlton, the U.S. attorney in Phoenix. [...]

While "Whoopi" makes America's fear of terrorism into a bad joke, "Threat Matrix" turns it into an electronic sedative. The new ABC series actually converts the incendiary subject of post-9/11 domestic danger into just another TV drug of choice, a Thursday night opportunity to turn on, tune in, and zone out. If you're anxious about a repeat of the World Trade Center attack, take a dose of "Threat Matrix" and call me in the morning.

The series, which premieres tonight at 8 on Channel 5, revolves around a secret FBI-CIA-NSA task force designed to catch terrorists, and just in the nick of time. But this isn't like "24," with its wacky plot twists and its assertion that things can and do go very wrong. This is a paint-by-

numbers crime series built on guaranteed weekly resolutions and the infallibility of our protective agencies. The fact that the show is an unwavering vote of confidence for the real Department of Homeland Security doesn't make it intrinsically bad, by any means, but it does limit the possibilities of realism and suspense. It also implies that the writers won't be going deep on interesting questions of privacy and racial profiling.[...]

Comment: Ah Television! The (Afghan) opium of the masses, and your benevolent government knows it only too well. Sit back and enjoy your daily dose of subtle lies, programmed into you in the comfort of your own home, courtesy of the 70% Zionist-owned, all-American media.

It's a shell game, with money, companies and corporate brands switching in a blur of buyouts and bogus fronts. It's a sinkhole, where mobbed-up operators, paid-off public servants, crazed Christian fascists, CIA shadow-jobbers, war-pimping arms dealers -- and presidential family members -- lie down together in the slime. It's a hacker's dream, with pork-funded, half-finished, secretly programmed computer systems installed without basic security standards by politically partisan private firms, and protected by law from public scrutiny.

It's how the United States, the "world's greatest democracy," casts its votes. And it's why George W. Bush will almost certainly be the next president of the United States -- no matter what the people of the United States might want.

JEDDAH, 19 September 2003 — The Shoura Council has called off a scheduled visit of a delegation to Canada in protest against what it sees as a campaign in the Canadian media which also involved some officials, the Saudi Press Agency said yesterday.

Chairman of the Shoura Council Sheikh Saleh ibn Humaid conveyed the council’s protest to Canada’s ambassador in Riyadh during a meeting on Wednesday. The planned visit to Canada was to have been part of a tour by council members that also includes Hungary and Poland.

The Canadian leg of the tour was canceled to protest against allegations from a Canadian citizen, William Sampson, who was held and convicted here in connection with a series of bombings in Riyadh three years ago. The Canadian media widely reported Sampson’s contention that he was tortured in Saudi jails.

KATHMANDU, Nepal, Sept. 18, 2003 -- The United States government has expressed its willingness to help Nepal defeat Maoist rebels here amid a political crisis that has deepened with the breakdown of peace talks and a ceasefire with the Maoists and a widening rift between the political parties and the king. [...]

The Syrian Prime Minister has announced a new cabinet but has left the key posts of foreign affairs, interior affairs, defence and economy unchanged.

The appointments on Thursday by Muhammad Naji al-Otari mean more than half the faces in the new government, dominated by members of the country's ruling party, are new.

(...) It was the second reshuffle that al-Assad - who took office in 2000 vowing economic and political reform - has carried out since he became president.

It coincides with mounting US pressure on Syria over its support for Lebanon's Hizb Allah and Palestinian resistance fighters, as well as accusations of meddling in Iraq to undermine the US-led occupation of the country.

French sex scandal collapses

French prosecutors have dropped an investigation into allegations of rape against senior politician Dominique Baudis.

"We have no evidence linking him to any crime," prosecutor Michel Breard said in a interview in Le Monde newspaper published on Thursday.

The move comes after a prostitute, known as "Fanny", withdrew allegations that Mr Baudis raped her in a brothel in the southern city of Toulouse in 1990.

The army chief of Guinea-Bissau has taken over as the tiny west African country's new president hours after carrying out a bloodless coup.

General Verissimo Correia Seabra declared himself as the interim president on Sunday, as the country's deposed president and the prime minister were being held in the army headquarters.

"I am going to assume the presidency of the republic until there are elections," General Seabra announced.

The army headquarters said the coup was staged because of the inability of the government to resolve the country's most pressing problems.

Guinea-Bissau is a country of about 1.5 million people which gained independence from Portugal in 1974.

The military junta, which overthrew President Joao Bernardo Vieira in 1999, relinquished power to Yalla the following year after he won presidential elections.

Portugal, meanwhile, condemned the coup and called the military to allow elections to go ahead.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hurricane Isabel pounded the East Coast power grid on Thursday, knocking out electricity to more than 2 million homes and businesses as it continued its destructive romp from North Carolina to Washington, D.C.[...]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The death toll from flash flooding in western Haiti two weeks ago has risen to 24, officials said Tuesday.

Hours of torrential rains caused rivers to burst over their banks and flood the town of St. Marc, about 45 miles northwest of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

PATNA: There is no let-up in the flood situation which has devastated a major part of 24 districts of the state killing 173 persons so far. In all, 4,445 villages of 163 blocks are submerged in the flood water.

There was no change in the overall flood situation in Bihar on Thursday with the Ganga and other major rivers continuing to flow above the red mark as the toll shot up to 168 with four more deaths reported from flood-hit Muzaffarpur district during the past 24 hours, official sources said.[...]

Sept 17 : Shortage of foodstuff in the local markets of the northern region has been reported, signaling the advent of Monga - the famine-like situation during Bengali months of Ashwin and Kartik.

Prices of essential commodities have increased after the recent flood while lack of job opportunities has worsened the situation. Poor people are taking stale food causing diarrhoea and other intestinal diseases. [...]

MARK COLVIN: The drought may have eased in many parts of Australia but in East Timor the long dry has left one in six people on the verge of starvation. More than 150,000 people are experiencing a food crisis many are being forced to scavenge in the bush just to survive. [...]

America's richest tycoons increased their personal wealth over the past 12 months, partly reversing a two-year decline, according to Forbes magazine's annual snapshot of America's super-wealthy.

The total net worth of the 400 wealthiest people in the US rose by 10% over the year to $955bn (£573bn).

Their wallets were fattened by renewed gains in internet and technology stocks, after the huge losses of the 2000 dotcom crash, and subsequent doldrums for IT stocks, according to Forbes.

DAR ES SALAAM - Some seven million people in southern Africa, most in Zimbabwe, face famine without international food handouts, officials said yesterday.

That despite Zambia and Malawi - two of the six countries that faced severe food shortages last year - expected to record surpluses this year alongside economic powerhouse South Africa, Tanzanian Foreign Minister Jakaya Kikwete said in Dar es Salaam.[...]

The participants in the round table meeting on the famine of 1932-33 have described it as genocide against Ukrainian people, and urged the country's leaders and the international community to officially recognize that.

Taking part in the meeting, which was held in Kyiv within the framework of the 8th Ukrainian World Congress, were Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church Head Lubomyr Huzar, MPs Ivan Pliusch and Vitaliy Kononov, Congress President Askold Lozynsky, as well as diplomats, scientists and delegates to the Congress, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.

Some say they are disgusted, others feel disappointed, but most Arabs are resigned to Israel's participation at a global economic meeting being held for the first time ever in an Arab country.

Israel's presence at the 18-24 September World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meeting in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates has caused a stir in the region, as anger at Israel runs deep. Particularly so, over its recent decision to expel or kill Palestinian President Yasir Arafat.

Many say that the expected participation of Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reviled by many Arabs since his days as prime minister, adds insult to injury.

"If I were in Dubai, I would feel disgusted and pissed off at seeing Israelis come and go in an Arab country," said Jumana Heresh from Jordan, which has a peace agreement with Israel, but whose largely Palestinian population is furious with Israel.

Comment: They should be as ashamed of having the World Bank and International Montetary Fund as of having the Israelis.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) [...] Malaria, the ancient mosquito-borne disease that was rolled back by medical advances in the mid-20th century, is making a deadly comeback.

Strains of the disease are becoming increasingly resistant to treatment, infecting and killing more people than ever before - sickening as many as 900 million last year, according to estimates by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

More than 1 million people - and as many as 2.7 million by some estimates - of those victims died. The vast majority of the deaths were in Africa.

[...] "Overall, the resources available in most countries are inadequate for the effective conservation and enhancement of protected areas," said a document approved by the 2,500 delegates attending the congress in the eastern port city of Durban.[...]

Comment: But in the psychopath's world there is plenty of money to rape and pillage countries already weakened by unfair embargoes.

Urgent action is required to address the lack of protection given to freshwater sites, oceans and unregulated "high seas", currently the greatest long-term threat to biodiversity, the World Parks Congress said Wednesday. [...]

If you felt the earth move Wednesday, don't worry. You weren't imagining things. According to the United States Geological Survey, a small earthquake rolled through our area about 11:00. The quake measured 2.7, and was centered about 8 miles east, southeast of Boulder City. [...]

Astronomers have been so horrified by press scares over asteroids that they are toning down the scale they use to rate the threat posed in an attempt to discourage journalists from covering potential collisions. The most prominent recent furore involved asteroid QQ47, which briefly had a one-in-a-million chance of crashing into our planet in 2014. [...]

But despite disagreements over how best to avoid crying wolf too often, astronomers insist keeping the data secret is not an option. "I hope people take away the idea that if there is actual news, it will be out in the open," says Binzel.

Comment: The campaign to supress the public knowing about scientific discovery goes into full swing, making an example of anyone who releases information the puppet masters wishes to keep to themselves.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) Calvin College senior Andrew Vanden Heuvel recently made a stellar find when he came across a previously unobserved asteroid.

Asteroids are small, rocky objects that measure several hundred feet to several hundred miles in diameter. More than 1 million are believed to orbit the sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The asteroid that Vanden Heuvel found measures about five-eighths of a mile across.[...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Brazil's northern Amazon region, once thought to have been pristine until modern development began encroaching, actually hosted sophisticated networks of towns and villages hundreds of years ago, researchers said on Thursday.

Archeological evidence and satellite images show the area was densely settled long before Columbus and European settlers arrived, with towns featuring plazas, roads up to 150 feet wide, deep moats and bridges, the researchers found.

The report, published in the journal Science, suggests a society that was advanced and complex, and that found alternative ways to use the Amazon forest without destroying it. [...]

Herds of buffalo-sized guinea pigs roamed South America millions of years ago, according to a study of a fossil that is today recognised as the biggest rodent ever discovered. [...]

[...] The strange object in the picture appears to have an entirely symmetrical structure, with two "broom like" extentions on either end of a classic 'cigar' or cylinder shaped UFO body. There is also a bright 'orb' of light below it.

Almost every conceivable UFO shape has been reported over time -- from cylinders to columns to snake-like or even 'organic' looking structures to the classic saucer or sphere. Could we be seeing yet another remarkable ship design in Mona's photo?

At last week's British Association meeting, Professor Robert Morris of Edinburgh University's Koestler parapsychology unit announced that his team's experiments continue to suggest the reality of telepathy. [...]

One in four fighters in Colombia's guerrilla war is a child, forced to kill comrades, attend torture sessions and commit gruesome war crimes as members of right-wing death squads or Marxist rebel armies, a rights group said.

Chilling accounts by former child fighters, some of whom enlisted as young as seven, were released on Thursday in a 150-page report by Human Rights Watch entitled: "You'll Learn Not to Cry: Child Combatants in Colombia."

"They'd kill three or four people each day in the (training) course," said Oscar, a former paramilitary fighter recruited as a boy. He described watching prisoners mutilated with knives or chainsaws, as part of his "conditioning." [...]

EPHRAIM, Sanpete County — Ephraim police are trying to figure out who placed heads and body parts of cats in what appeared to be the shape of a cross on a grave in the Ephraim City Cemetery. [...]

Bird horror 'work of satanists"

East London - "I believe it was the work of satanists," says bird breeder Lyn Morgan of the horror when the heads were ripped off nearly 100 of her cockatiels. [...]

Two police officers likely will be disciplined for their response to an alleged attack on a black teenager and her friends by white youths, the police commissioner and the officers' attorney said Thursday.[...]

Rachel Carter, 18, who is black, and a group of white and Hispanic friends have said that they told the officers that the white youths uttered racial slurs while attacking them with a sickle and a broken bottle in a Staten Island park.

The Dutch Government is worried that too many of its police officers are getting stoned on and off duty, and is to ban them from coffee shops that sell marijuana.

The Interior Minister, Johan Remkes, fears the spectacle of spliff-wielding police - in or out of uniform - is chipping away at the force's image, and opening it to accusations of hypocrisy.

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