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The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.
Allan Bloom The Closing of the American Mind

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." - Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. --Voltaire--

Faith of consciousness is freedom
Faith of feeling is weakness
Faith of body is stupidity.
Love of consciousness evokes the same in response
Love of feeling evokes the opposite
Love of the body depends only on type and polarity.
Hope of consciousness is strength
Hope of feeling is slavery
Hope of body is disease. [Gurdjieff]

Life is religion. Life experiences reflect how one interacts with God. Those who are asleep are those of little faith in terms of their interaction with the creation. Some people think that the world exists for them to overcome or ignore or shut out. For those individuals, the worlds will cease. They will become exactly what they give to life. They will become merely a dream in the "past." People who pay strict attention to objective reality right and left, become the reality of the "Future." [Cassiopaea 09-28-02]

March 11, 2003 Today's edition of Brought to You by The Bush Junta, Produced and Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry Kissinger, with a cast of billions.... The "Greatest Shew on Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor, don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen." If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the kitchen!

You mean saddam didn't gas his own people? Very little attention has been paid to Stephen Pelletiere’s op ed piece in the New York Times (Jan. 31, “A War Crime or an Act of War”). Pelletiere was the CIA’s senior political analyst on Iraq during the 1980s war between Iraq and Iran, and later served as a professor at the US Army War College (1988-2000). His op ed piece attacks the theory that Saddam gassed the Kurds. You know, “Saddam gassed his own people.” That oft-repeated charge that makes up a significant part of the administration’s argument for war now.

Pelletiere had access to a lot of the classified data that was generated around the Kurd matter. He was in charge of the 1991 Army probe that investigated the question: How would Saddam fight a war against the US? The major gassing incident occurred in March 1988 at a town called Halabja. “But the truth is,” Pelletiere writes, “all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day.” This occurred near the end of the Iraq-Iran war.

Pelletiere writes, “…immediately after the battle [at Halabja] the United States Defense Information Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.” Obviously, this report has been intentionally ignored by several presidents and their major mouthpieces.

Pelletiere goes on to write that both the Iraqis and the Iranian troops used gas at Halabja. “The condition of the dead Kurds’ bodies, however, indicated that they had been killed with a blood agent---that is, a cyanide-based gas---which Iran was known to have. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.” If Bush were simply saying that Saddam deserves to die because he used mustard gas, then Bush might want to mention, as well, that the US employed tons and tons of Agent Orange (a chemical, the last time I looked) in Vietnam.

Then Pelletiere raises and answers a very interesting question. Why was the battle of Halabja fought? “…Iraq has the most extensive river system in the Middle East…Iraq had built an impressive system of dams and river control projects, the largest being the Darbandikhan dam in the Kurdish area. And it was this dam the Iranians were seeking to take control of when they seized Halbja.”

Pelletiere points out that a water pipeline through Iraq “could bring the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the parched Gulf states, and by extension, Israel.” To date that pipeline has not been built. But after Gulf War 2? Would Israel become one of the prime beneficiaries in the aftermath? Remember, the charge that has been leveled at Saddam is, he gassed his own civilians. Pelletiere is offering evidence collected by US intelligence and military analysts that refutes that charge. Bush, Powell, Blair, and the rest of the crew are brushing all this off without a glance. Comment: Lets face it folks NOTHING that we have been told by the "powers that be" has anything to do with the truth. We have been systematically lied to about just about everything of significance. The evidence is all there, it is your choice to choose to open your eyes and see or remain asleep in fantasy land. The fact that it is extremely hard and distasteful to shake ourselves out of the coma in which we have been with respect to reality does not mean that the unsavoury facts which greet us are false, rather it is directly proportional to the depth and all-encompassing nature of the lie we have been fed.

Khalid Capture In Conflict: ISI Shows “Faceless” Arrest Tape Foreign journalists had to give their head a shake today when they attended a first-ever press briefing by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), a dog-and-pony show to tout what they claim is their “independent” capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Addressing journalists from CNN, ABC and other major media at the ISI headquarters in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, in what appears to be an effort to counter growing US criticism of Pakistan's efforts to apprehend “terrorists”, events immediately got off to a bad start.

Journalists were required to hand over cells phones at the door Monday morning which they gladly obliged but the further request to leave their notepads and pencils outside was another matter. After media members objected saying that these tools of the trade were necessary to ensure their story was told accurately, ISI officials reneged and allowed them to bring in their pens and papers. In the just over one hour long briefing, a senior ISI official said that the raid that supposedly netted Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, billed by the US as the alleged mastermind of the September 11 terror attacks and the attacks' financier, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, was an initiative “purely conducted by ISI” however later, another senior official said that the CIA provided “some electronic intelligence”.

Then came the main event and what is poised to be the conflict, albeit maybe short-lived. Eight minutes of footage (in English) was shown of the arrest of Mohammed and al-Hawsawi. Broken doors, blood-stained walls and wrists in handcuffs were all shown but curiously, no face shots of these high profile individuals - not even the well publicized “arrest” photo of Mohammed that has been widely circulated and questioned. When one CNN reporter, Tom Minter asked why, the ISI said the tape had been edited but that the actual footage did record his face but had been edited out for the presentation. At the close of the session, journalists asked for their customary “dups” – a copy of the tape for their networks which ISI officials laughed at. When journalists pressed, the tune changed and ISI officials said they “would look into it” however no tape has yet been released.

If this was the highest profile Al-Qaida arrest for the Pakistani's, why the missing head shots? Further, if this arrest footage does not show the identities of those captured and it has not been released, it begs the question, who is the person in the picture that has been aired morning, noon and night in America that has raised so many questions? To date, we have not seen a single picture of any of the so-called high profile operatives that have allegedly been arrested. We have never seen Abu Zubaydah, said to be Osama Bin Laden's Operations Chief, allegedly captured March 28, 2002, either during his arrest or in captivity. Contradictory reports at the time countered that Zubaydah died in the raid.

The footage of the alleged arrest of Ramzi Bin al-Shibh did not show his face either nor have we seen his face since alleged capture. If these are such big catches and they are being held at “undisclosed locations” why not show us their faces instead of FBI most wanted photos? The party line is that this would compromise security. How, if they are in custody? Doesn't the public relations benefit far outweigh the risk? Now when we see the ISI’s footage of Mohammed and al-Hawsawi, we once again can not identify these captives. Press reports a year ago said Mohammed was killed in the Bin al-Shibh raid however contradictory reports from Arab sources reported both were alive and well.

For at least a moment this morning, even mainstream reporters began to question these “capture reports” that continue to conveniently come at a time when the Bush administration needs public support the most and then they “sing like birds”, proving the administrations progress in what is supposed to be their primary war – a war against Al-Qaida. It has long been known that the ISI has affiliations with Muslim “fundamentalists” having supported initiatives throughout the Islamic world for decades, including acting as the paymaster on behalf of many countries, including America, during the ten-year long Afghan-Russian conflict.

President Mushareef must satisfy both the US and the rising anti-American sentiment within his country if he is to continue to hold power. Are these so-called arrests simply for show to satisfy the US? If not, why not show a nervous public, worried that the invasion of Iraq will compromise the war on "terror", current pictures of all three of these individuals, along with footage of their arrests? That’s was the question among some journalists at least, who openly questioned during their live reports Monday morning why Mohammed’s face was omitted from the arrest tape. Unfortunately, most of these questions didn’t last to the evening news Comment: Another story that stinks. The ISI were instrumental in carrying off the 9/11 fiasco and are the US' "running mates" in the perpetuation of the Bin Laden lie. This is a show that will be kept running to aussage growing public anger at the fact that the US government has essentially forgotten about Bin Laden and has moved on to the next target in its global war, until of course he is called upon as the fall guy for further US orchestrated "terrorist attacks".

Pakistan Accused of Staging Bin Laden Aide Arrest A grainy video purporting to show the arrest of two al Qaeda leaders has done little to deflect accusations that Pakistan may have staged this month's raid to give it leeway to abstain in a U.N. vote on an Iraq war. On Monday, the powerful military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) held an unprecedented news conference to show foreign journalists what it said were images of a March 1 raid in Rawalpindi that netted al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. But few of journalists present were convinced the video -- which did not show Mohammed's face nor any sign of a struggle -- was genuine. Many said it looked like a crude reconstruction.

On Tuesday, a former ISI chief said he believed Mohammed was actually arrested some time ago in a different city. "They are trying to cover up," Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul told Reuters. "I believe he was arrested before, probably in Karachi." One intelligence source said Mohammed had been arrested three days before, from the Tench Batta suburb of Rawalpindi. Rumors of Mohammed's arrest had circulated in Pakistan for months, but were consistently denied. Gul said news of the arrest appeared to have been leaked at a critical time, just as Pakistan was facing huge U.S. pressure to support a U.N. SecurityCouncil vote authorizing war on Iraq.

On Monday night, a senior ruling party official told Reuters the government, under massive domestic pressure to oppose war on a fellow Muslim state, had decided to abstain in the vote, news that shocked British and American diplomats in Islamabad. The ISI earlier said it had called its first news conference in Pakistan's history to counter criticism in the Western media that it had not done enough in the war on terror. Gul said the raid may have been staged -- and news of the arrest leaked -- for the same reason, against the backdrop of the U.N. vote. Gul, who ran the ISI from 1987 to 1989, said the raid was conducted in far too casual a fashion to have been real, with police failing to properly surround or secure the house in a middle-class Rawalpindi suburb.

Relatives, neighbors contradict authorities. Relatives of Ahmed Quddus, the son of the house owner, have maintained he was the only man in the house at the time of the raid. Neighbors said they heard no sound of gunfire -- contradicting the official account, which maintains that Mohammed shot one intelligence agent in the foot with an AK-47 rifle.

Within hours, news of the raid and arrest was leaked to foreign news agencies, something Gul also found incredible. "He has to be questioned, before you present him to the public eye," he said. "You don't present news like that." In the video, an ISI officer is seen briefing half a dozen agents about the impending raid -- in English, as opposed to Pakistan's Urdu mother tongue. Officials explained this was a reconstruction of the original Urdu briefing, but said the rest of the video was genuine.

But many journalists were unconvinced as a calm cameraman shone his lights on the raiding party, and followed agents as they casually broke into the compound and the house, and walked up the stairs. There was no sign of a struggle -- or of any urgency. The cameramen then focused on the back and neck of the man officials said was Mohammed, before the man was swiftly hooded. The video has not been released to the media for broadcast.

Mohammed is identified by the United States as the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. The ISI says the financier of the attacks, Saudi national Ahmed al-Hawsawi, was also arrested in the same raid. But one Pakistani source said al-Hawsawi had been picked up at least one month before the announcement of his arrest, and that intelligence agents had voiced delight at the time. On Tuesday, Quddus was remanded in judicial custody for 14 days, and lawyers said his trial could start this month on charges of possessing weapons, resisting arrest and terrorism. The intelligence source said Quddus' family was suspected of having sent Mohammed food, and Mohammed was said to have visited the house four or five times.

Quddus is the son of an official in the Jamaat-e-Islami party, a key member of a religious alliance that opposes the military-backed government and has organized big street protests against war on Iraq. Authorities say at least two other al Qaeda suspects have been arrested in houses linked to Jamaat-e-Islami members, but Gul said the party could be the victim of an official campaign to blacken their name. "Jamaat has never had any contacts with the Arabs (al Qaeda)," said Gul. "They are at loggerheads with U.S. policy...and at this stage it would be an advantage to have them labeled as terrorists."

Bush and Blair face diplomatic disaster Britain is now firmly committed to military action The French and Russian announcements that they will use their vetoes at the United Nations Security Council spell diplomatic disaster for the American and British effort to get a second resolution. If the veto is used, there will simply be no resolution. The best that President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair could hope for would be the so-called "moral majority" - nine of the 15 votes. But a "moral majority" has no legal status.

The vote is unlikely now before Wednesday at the earliest and could be later in the week. It is possible that the US and UK will have to withdraw the new resolution if it is clear they are isolated, although last week President Bush said he wanted countries to "show their cards" in a vote. Other countries on the council, still undecided, might be strengthened in their opposition knowing that the French and the Russians, together with the Germans and possibly the Chinese, are holding firm.

The intervention of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who said that action outside the UN would break the UN charter, presents another problem, especially for Mr Blair who is facing domestic dissent. President Bush would not worry. He has already said that he doesn't need anyone's permission to act. This doesn't mean that war will be stopped - the US, probably supported by the UK, will go ahead anyway - the Security Council will be in disarray
The British Government would be thrown back on claiming that Resolution 1441 and previous resolutions warning Iraq give authority for military action. This doesn't mean that war will be stopped. The US, probably supported by the UK, will go ahead anyway. Read more Comment: Neither Bush nor Blair, or more importantly the forces behind them that are "pushing the buttons" are stupid. Despite what it might look like now, they will get their way and there will be continue to be "war without end". The events unfolding now are too long in the planning to allow anything to derail them. The "ace" that both Bush and Blair can count on is that "terror attacks" have the marvellous effect of silencing dissenters. And of course CIA asset and family friend of the Bushs' Osama Bin Laden or some other boogey man will step up on cue.

Moran Said Jews Are Pushing War Jewish organizations condemned Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) yesterday for delivering what they said were anti-Semitic remarks at an antiwar forum in Reston, where he suggested that American Jews are responsible for pushing the country to war with Iraq and that Jewish leaders could prevent war if they wanted to. At the forum, attended by about 120 people at St. Anne's Episcopal Church on March 3, Moran discussed why he thought antiwar sentiment was not more effective in the United States.

"If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this," Moran said in comments first reported by the Reston Connection and not disputed by Moran. "The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going, and I think they should." Read more Comment: If this war on Iraq leads ultimately to mass deaths in the middle east as seems likely, then let it be recorded that it was the Jewish cabal in Israel and the US, in their crazed push for control and power, that were instrumental in bringing it about and let that then be a testimony to the level of control under which this planet and its inhabitants find themselves, that we can be manipulated to bring about our own destruction, either actively or passively.

The 'macho president' ignores calls for peace President Bush's prime-time televised news conference provided him a great opportunity to make his case that Saddam Hussein's Iraq is a ''direct threat'' to the United States. Bush failed to do so, mainly be- cause the facts don't support his viewpoint. The president certainly convinced me that he will go to war against Iraq within days. The overwhelming theme of his Thursday evening news conference is that war is inevitable, no matter what the U.N. Security Council decides. The event seemed timed to preempt chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix's report on Iraq's compliance with disarmament directives.

''Saddam Hussein and his weapons are a direct threat to this country, to our people and to all free people,'' Bush said. ''We are determined to confront threats wherever they arise,'' he added. ``And I will not leave the American people at the mercy of the Iraqi dictator and his weapons.'' It apparently does not matter to Bush that some longtime U.S. allies -- as well as Russia and China -- oppose his plans for war. That is typical of his whole go-it-alone approach to foreign policy.

Although he produced no proof, Bush kept trying to link Hussein with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. His lame reasoning seemed to go like this: ``Iraq is a part of the war on terror. Iraq is a country that has got terrorist ties. It's a country with wealth. It's a country that trains terrorists; it could arm terrorists.'' The usually macho president was strangely tranquil throughout the news conference, speaking in a monotone, picking out reporters to call on from a prepared script. Bush insisted that he had tried ''diplomacy'' with Hussein, but it did not work. During the Bush administration, I have never seen any U.S. peace overtures to Iraq, although there were some conciliatory gestures made at the United Nations to ease sanctions on food and medicine.

Bush seems on a messianic mission and believes that war will bring great benefits to the Iraqi people under the occupation and rule of the United States. The Democratic congressional leaders, including Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, are becoming restive about Bush's war plans and are urging more time for inspections. Also, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is having second thoughts about having voted last October for the resolution authorizing the president to take military action against Iraq. He accused Bush of acting like ''a cowboy who rode out of Texas'' with ''all guns blazing'' instead of seeking a diplomatic solution. There is no doubt that Bush's hawkish advisors, who have Iraq as our Enemy No. 1 and coveted U.S. dominance of the Persian Gulf, are having their day with the president.

ABC-TV's Ted Koppel Nightline program recently discussed reports that Bush has been influenced by the Project for the New American Century, which proposes that the United States assume military control of the Gulf region. Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz are members of the advisory committee for the project. It is a pity that only the ultra conservatives influence Bush, a neophyte in foreign affairs. He apparently hears no other voices. Representatives of church and peace groups are not welcome to the White House these days. Bush did meet with the papal emissary in the White House recently, but Bush aides tried to play it down. Oval Office news coverage was limited to photographers. That's a sad commentary on the president's ability to tolerate other points of view, particularly on the question of war and peace. Comment: It has been said here before and will be said many times again as this situation follows its seemingly "predestined" course, something is very wrong with this picture. The whole show stinks of a setup on a grand scale. Why is it that the vast majority of people are utterly confused and aghast at what has happened to the world over the last year and a half since 9/11? Where did it all go wrong? How the hell did we go suddenly from a "seemingly" stable "geopolitical" situation to the perpetual war we are now in the middle of, and more importantly, who the hell is directing it? Because directing it someone surely must be. Why can no one stop Bush? What is behind his mad push for a war that almost no one else wants and will surely lead to devastation on a scale not seen here in a very long time? When a situaion has no logical explanation, we must look deeper and even resort to the "apparently" illogical and even unthinkable to find the truth. The truth, as we see it, is that Bush is a dupe, a puppet, with the perfect mental makeup to be goaded into fulfilling a plan that has been in the making for a many many years, a plan that involves finally fully igniting the tinderbox that is the middle east, causing the destruction of the semitic peoples, along with many millions of others in various parts of the world, not least the USA. As to the ultimate goal, well we suspect that the current events represent the culmination of said plan and signal the approach of a critical turning point in our spiritual evolution. Looking at things as they stand, we must say that it does NOT look good, however, the very unveiling of the final piece of the puzzle holds the potential for us to truly see the nature of our reality, our place in it and the truth about those that have sought to control us. If we are willing to open our eyes and reject the lies that have keep us asleep and oblvious to our predicament, then there yet remains the possibility to literally change the future. As the Cassiopaeans have said: "Only you can choose. The choice comes by nature and free will and looking and listening. Where you are is not important. Who you are is and also what you see."

Boycott Alive and Well A boycott of Israeli products in Europe has forced the New York-based Freeman Center to start an e-mail campaign to help Israeli-made beauty and skin products Ahava.

According to the e-mail, “Ahava has lost its entire European market due to their boycott of Israel.” The e-mail also urges consumers to bypass stores and to buy directly from the manufactures. And interestingly enough it also urges consumers to stop buying European products and instead purchase Israeli-made alternatives.

“If you wish to help against the boycott, when you go to the drug store, grocery or department store, take a break from your usual store brands (many of which are European-made products) and purchase Israeli products.” “When you go to the supermarket, go to the international foods aisle and purchase Israeli products instead of the ones you normally purchase. When you go to purchase bedding, beauty products, clothing, leather products, gems, etc... look at the packaging, ask the salesperson, look at the tags.”

The author of the e-mail is a representative of Coalition for Jewish Concerns a Jewish grass-roots activist organization located in the United States. Ironically the e-mail is also making the rounds by supporters of the European boycott, and is being seen as a sign of success. This version of the e-mail has the heading: “The boycott is working, please continue your efforts.” The boycott is a reaction to continuing Israeli aggression in the West Bank and Israel’s failure to comply with over 60 UN resolutions. Comment: Anyone get the impression that the planet's nations are very quickly being polarised into one of two oppposing camps? Can we say, "end times"?

Air Force tests 'monster bomb' 21,000-pound explosive similar to small nuclear weapon The Pentagon has plans for a show-and-tell for Iraq that will consist of footage of a massive 21,000-pound bomb live-tested for the first time in the Florida panhandle today. The MOAB, or "massive ordnance air burst" bomb – affectionately called the "mother of all bombs" by military insiders – was tested on the western range of Eglin Air Force Base at approximately 1 p.m. Central Standard Time.

The massive blast rivals that of a small nuclear weapon, though the damage from it is much less, reports the Pensacola News Journal. Air Force officials yesterday alerted residents of communities surrounding Eglin's 724-square-mile military installation and told them they may hear an explosion that sounds like thunder or a slamming door. Depending on the wind, some may not even hear the blast.

Eglin officials told Pensacola News Journal they would do everything possible to ensure the safety of surrounding communities, and that the test would only be conducted under "optimum" weather conditions to minimize its impact. A resident of Navarre, Fla., reported to Fox News he heard something similar to a sonic boom, which shook the house.

The Pentagon videotaped the results of today's test. The Evening Standard reports the footage would be used as a warning to Iraq of what the U.S. could inflict. Military planners believe the footage could scare Iraqi soldiers into surrendering. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at a briefing today the phsychological effects of the MOAB "are obvious" and that it could be used in Iraq to convince soldiers that resistance would be futile.

The GPS-guided MOAB is an updated version of the 15,000-pound BLU-82. The BLU-82, nicknamed "Daisy Cutter," had been considered the world's most powerful non-nuclear bomb. Daisy Cutters were first used in Vietnam to create jungle clearings for use as helicopter landing areas. It was used in the Persian Gulf War to clear minefields and most recently dropped in Afghanistan on caves where al-Qaida leaders were suspected of hiding.

Like the Daisy Cutter, MOAB is shoved out of the back of C-130 cargo planes. It produces a "mushroom" cloud of smoke and dust similar to that created by a nuclear explosion, and creates a force sufficient to knock over tanks and kill any people within several hundred meters of the detonation, according to StrategyPage.com. Former Secretary of the Air Force F. Whitten told Fox News the MOAB is "meant to spread and kill or shock over a large area." Comment: Dosent it give ya a great feeling to know your tax dollars are hard at work inventing more and more colorful ways to kill and maim innocent Iraqis?

March 10, 2003 Today's edition of Brought to You by The Bush Junta, Produced and Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry Kissinger, with a cast of billions.... The "Greatest Shew on Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor, don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen." If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the kitchen!

One of the weapons historians use to defend their discipline from the ill-disciplined hordes from commerce, computer and media studies is a banner with the slogan "to understand the present you must understand the past". I've tried this tactic myself — and have been bowled, banner and all, into the gutter as battalions of first-years head for the computers and move, as their counter-slogans say, "into the future". And yet increasingly over the past few months, as the latest world crisis moves towards war, it is not the future but history, the tragic and terrifying past, of which I am reminded. It is time for history to reclaim and regain its place as the discipline not only of the past, but of the future.

Let's look at an event from South Africa's past. One-hundred-and-twenty years ago the most powerful country in the world came to the conclusion that it should force a change in the geo-politics of a distant part of the world in which it had an interest. It was time, this great power felt, to bring progress to the region. If this meant removing some of the less progressive individuals and states from the equation well, who could object to the march of civilisation and of Christianity? The most powerful country was, of course, Great Britain. The obstacle to the plan to bring about a unified, progressive, capitalist South Africa was the Zulu kingdom under Cetshwayo kaMpande. How was the plan carried out? First the argument had to be individualised it is easier to hate a person than a people and a case was devised against the Zulu king.

The press and MPs in London were fed reports showing that Cetshwayo was a cruel despot. His people yearned to be released from the tyranny of his rule. His army was a "celibate man-slaying machine" that posed a threat to peace and progress in South Africa. He was in contact with other African leaders, urging them to resist white rule and restore the idle savagery of traditional Africa. The safety and security of South Africa, it was argued, depended on the removal of the Zulu king, and thousands of British troops were ordered to the borders of the Zulu kingdom to prepare for this. But not everyone agreed that war was necessary. A commission was set up to examine the boundary dispute between the Zulu and the Boers and it found in favour of the Zulu.

But the finding was not made public. Instead an ultimatum was drawn up: if the Zulu king did not disband his army within 30 days, then the British army would do so by force. Of course it was known that the Zulu king would never abandon his sovereignty. In January 1879 the British invaded the Zulu kingdom. It is all so reminiscent of what is happening today in the plans to invade Iraq. I am not, of course, arguing that the historical links are direct: a Zulu king is not like an Iraqi dictator; and the reasons that those who rule the United States need to control the Middle East today are not the same as those that drove Britain to gain control of South Africa more than a century ago. But if we step back from these events and take the broader perspective, then the landscape becomes familiar it is the landscape of imperialism.

And this is what we see. A distant, sovereign state gets in the way of the plans of a world power to extend its interests. In order to get rid of this nuisance it is decided to use war to bring about regime change. Of course this can't be said openly, so a great moral purpose freedom for the oppressed is invoked. The media are fixed, allies are bribed, attempts at peace are subverted, an individual is depicted as the epitome of evil. Massive numbers of troops are moved into the region and an ultimatum is drawn up to provide the pretext for war.

It is such themes that link the imperial past with events in the contemporary world. It is these imperatives — when those with power use moral arguments to justify their destruction of the less powerful —that characterise so many imperial wars. It is these themes that the British invasion of the Zulu kingdom of 1879, and the intended invasion of Iraq today, have in common. And it is these shared themes that give me the confidence to write on my banner the embattled historians' slogan: "to understand the present we must understand the past". And my confidence in history extends further. If I am correct in suggesting that, despite the enormous differences in specific details, it is still possible to use imperial wars of the past to understand the imperial wars of the present, then it might also be possible to use the past to gain some insight into what's going to come. Let's look at what happened in the Zulu kingdom after the invasion began.

Firstly, the invading force's modern military technology — rifles, machine guns, artillery and rockets — inflicted terrible casualties on men armed with assegais. Then there was the damage that occupation by an invading army did to the non-combatants — the women, the children and the aged. In the end the Zulu terminated their military resistance to limit this collateral damage. They surrendered, the king was exiled and the victors divided the country among those who had opposed the old order. Civil war broke out: various forces sitting on the ex-kingdom's borders moved in to get hold of what pieces were left. The result? The Zulu lost their independence, their autonomy, the products of their labour and their land. It has never been recovered.

So the lessons to be learned from imperial history are severe. Once the war plan goes into action dreadful suffering will be visited on the people in whose name the war is waged. They will then be liberated from despotic rule: a liberation that will prove hollow as the new rulers fight for their share of the spoils. There can be no democracy: democracy is too difficult to manipulate. The people in whose name the war was waged will lose again just as the people of the Zulu kingdom lost the moment they were liberated by the British from the despotic rule of their king. The lessons from history about the future are therefore gloomy, dreadfully gloomy: victory for cultural arrogance, media spin, lies, for those who already possess by far the greatest holdings of the world's weapons of mass destruction, the further suffering of a people who have already suffered more than enough.

But we can't leave it at that and there is a third slogan that those who believe in the importance of history like to use. It is one that carries a warning: "Unless we understand the mistakes of the past we are condemned to repeat them." And here there is a suggestion that we are learning at last; a hint that we are beginning to understand something about the history of imperial power, about the use of force in the making of our global world, about the lies propagated in pursuit of Western civilisation. The hopeless inadequacy of the men and women pursuing war in the Middle East, the transparency of their diplomatic manoeuvring, has become apparent to the people of the world, and millions are coming to realise that the imperial process has to be halted.

On February 15 the ordinary people of the world went on to the streets to show their opposition to this latest imperial adventure. It was the largest popular demonstration in the history of the world. We often hear how the global economy is made possible by the instant movement of capital. Now the people of the globalised world are on the move. At last we have not just an empire, but protest at empire, upon which the sun never sets. The struggle for people's rights, for democracy, for the end of the system of lies and deceit by which the global few rule the global many, is only just beginning. The disparities in power and control remain immense. Our understanding of the way in which imperialism has worked against popular aspirations has yet to be developed and spread.

A closer examination of what happened in the South African past, of how the exercise of imperial violence shaped South Africa, does enable us to understand the present more clearly through the past. Hopefully, we will also be able to use this understanding to avoid repeating past mistakes. For, in spite of the obvious differences, it is still possible to discern in the preparations being made for war today, the echoes of other imperial wars, like the war that was made on the Zulu kingdom, so long ago in terms of years, and yet so close to us in terms of the broad objectives of those who prosecuted it, and the methods they used. We have to find ways to stop it happening yet again, to anyone, anywhere.

Boys quizzed about their terrorist boss father Two young sons of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, are being used by the CIA to force their father to talk. Yousef al-Khalid, nine, and his brother, Abed al-Khalid, seven, were taken into custody in Pakistan in September when intelligence officers raided a flat in Karachi which their father had fled hours earlier. They were found cowering behind a wardrobe with a senior al-Qaeda member.

The boys have been held in Pakistan, but this weekend they were flown to America to be questioned about their father. CIA interrogators confirmed on Saturday that the boys were staying at a secret address. "We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children," said an official. "But we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care."

Their father, Mohammed, 37, is being interrogated at the Bagram US military base in Afghanistan. He is being held in solitary confinement and subjected to "stress and duress" interrogation. He has been told that his sons are being held and is being encouraged to divulge future attacks against the West and the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. "He has said very little so far," one CIA official said Saturday. "He sits in a trance-like state and recites verses from the Koran. But while he may claim to be a devout Muslim, we know he is fond of the Western-style fast life. His sons are important to him. The promise of their release and their return to Pakistan may be the psychological lever we need to break him."

A former Taliban diplomat said bin Laden was in the southern Afghan province of Nimroz days before US forces launched an operation to arrest him. Naseer Ahmed Roohi said yesterday he had information from reliable sources that bin Laden had been in the Siakoh mountain range straddling the south-western Afghan provinces of Nimroz, Helmand and Pakistan's Baluchistan province.

"Bin Laden, with a few companions, shifted to an unknown area, just days before the US-led operation in the area," Mr Roohi said. Searches for bin Laden and other al-Qaeda operatives have intensified since the capture last weekend of Mohammed. Five suspected Islamic fighters who were arrested in Spain on Friday are believed to have helped finance al-Qaeda. The Interior Ministry did not say whether they were linked to a truck bombing of a synagogue which killed about 20 people in Tunisia last year - an attack claimed by al-Qaeda.

The Interior Ministry reported that the suspects were also believed to have helped deploy and hide members of the al-Qaeda network. Egyptian police have arrested 15 people accused of belonging to the banned Jihad group of bin Laden's top aide, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Police, who made the arrests in the Mediterranean region of Alexandria, found arms and leaflets calling for the overthrow of the Egyptian Government in their homes, sources said. Comment: This is about as low as you can go...7 years old!? If anyone was in doubt about the nature and intent of the US security state then this makes it clear. To arrest, imprison and interrogate two small boys about the dealings of their father and to use them as part of the torture, or "stress and duress" as the alphabet soup guys like to call it, is deplorable, even more so in light of the fact that this is all being done to continue the grand deception. Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network includng the boys father, are well known to the CIA, being their boogey men of choice, who are taken our and dusted off whenever they are needed to keep the public in it's terrorised state.

Making the World Safe for Sharon’s Israel Perle’s favorite “democracy,” Israel, has just elected a new regime that is slightly to the right of Genghis Kahn. It will be led by the 75-year-old crackpot, Ariel Sharon. "Thanks to Perle’s persuasion, along with that of other members of what the Washington Post (02/09/03) labeled the 'Likudnik cabal,' the American president is preparing to export 'democracy' to Iraq .. Who invented democracy? Here in the Christian West, we have always given credit to the Greeks. This was long before one of democracy’s most fraudulent adherents, the odious Richard Perle, appeared on the world stage. He wants to use what HE calls, “democracy,” to make the Middle East safe for Israel. And he cleverly pretends his scheme is in our national interest. As a Missouri farmer might say of him, “That guy is full of it!”

Now, thanks to Perle’s persuasion, along with that of other members of what the Washington Post (02/09/03) labeled the “Likudnik cabal,” the American president, George W. Bush Jr., is preparing to export “democracy” to Iraq. It will be delivered via a massive military invasion. No vote by the Iraqi people will be permitted on this question. Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia, too, may be next on our “democracy” hit list.

Since there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein posed a direct threat to the U.S. or that he had any connections whatsoever to the terrorist al-Qaeda outfit and 9/11, another “causa belli” had to be found: It’s democracy! This will be the U.S. battle cry for the conflict with Iraq.

This is reminiscent of President Woodrow Wilson’s sloganeering the U.S. into WWI. He wanted to “make the world safe for democracy.” It’s too bad that campaign ended up so miserably. It helped to create conditions that gave rise to Adolph Hitler, the notorious Balfour Declaration, the fall of Mother Russia, and the partitioning of Ireland, among other dubious achievements. We can only wait to see where this latest “democracy crusade” will plunge mankind.

The shadowy Perle is a former defense department official in the Reagan administration. He is presently the chief honcho of the powerful Pentagon Defense Policy Board. Back in 1996, he, along with other Likudnik brainstormers, helped to publish a policy paper, “A Clean Break,” for the Israelis. It advocated the U.S. taking out Iraq (see, Bill and Kathleen Christison’s “Too Many Smoking Guns” expose’, 01/25/03, and “Is War Inevitable?” by Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com, 02/26/03, for more particulars).

In Bush’s remarks, 02/26/03, before the American Enterprise Institute, a neo-conservative think tank, he said, “A free Iraq” could become “a beacon of democracy across the Middle East.” This could only happen, the president added, “After the growing threat from Saddam is gone.” This speech was Perle’s “Get Iraq Doctrine” being transformed into holy dogma. What a proud moment it must have been for a man, like Perle, who is so intimate with Israeli insiders, such as its ex-premier, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Paul Craig Roberts, an intrepid pundit, predicted all of this for LewRockwell.com, on 12/31/02. He wrote, “In 2003, the story will be confirmed that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a ‘secret Israeli plan’ designed to involve the U.S. long-term in the Arab-Israeli conflict, cynically sold to the Bush White House by ‘neo-conservatives’ as a reflective strategy.” Well, this is 2003. Perle is “Mr. Neo-conservative” and the “secret Israeli plan,” is out in the open. (See also, William Rivers Pitt’s excellent “Blood Money” article, in Truthout, 02/27/03, for more background on this subject matter.)

Meanwhile, Perle’s favorite “democracy,” Israel, has just elected a new regime that is slightly to the right of Genghis Kahn. It will be led by the 75-year-old crackpot, Ariel Sharon. One of the parties, the National Union, that makes up his extremely hawkish Likud coalition, openly advocates the “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinians. Lt. General Shaul Mofaz, a prime architect of the IDF’s rampage at Jenin, will return as the defense minister.

For untold reasons, Israel’s barbarous treatment of the Palestinians is a mostly taboo subject. Its death squads, and collective punishment and torture of the Palestinians, are hardly ever mentioned in the media. It has also been stealing hundreds of thousands of acres of land from the Palestinians, since 1948. Unlike Iraq, Israel stands in violation of 68 Resolutions of the UN. The hypocrisy of the U.S. supposedly fighting to establish “democracy” in Iraq, while aligning itself with the undemocratic Sharonists, staggers the imagination. Finally, any U.S. led war with Iraq will not really be about bringing democracy to that country, or about removing Saddam from power. It will mostly be about making the world safe for Sharon’s Israel. For that foul deed, the repulsive Richard Perle, who has been pulling wires for decades, will take a bow. Comment:The above does indeed seem to be true, what also seems to be the case is that ""payday" is coming for the main protagonists for their crimes against humanity that they have perptrated in the name of "freedom and democracy" since the creation of Israel as a state (and before). And we suspect that "the gulity" are not just the leaders who have directed the carnage but also the citizens who, in the act of choosing to believe the lie, even now when they are being asked to "see" yet refuse to do so. For those who do not fully understand what this "war without end" actually means for the victims, and who perhaps need more evidence then I offer these pictures as a way to bring home the reality of believeing the lies of Geroge Bush and Co.

Iraqi soldiers wave white flag of surrender Saddam's troops try to give themselves up to Brits practicing war exercises. Terrified Iraqi soldiers who thought the war had already started, crossed the Kuwait border and tried to surrender to British forces, according to a report in the London Sunday Mirror. The drama unfolded last Monday, when a dozen troops waved the white flag as British paratroopers tested mortars and artillery weapons to make sure they were working. The Iraqis found a way across the fortified border, which is sealed off with barbed-wire fencing, watchtowers and huge trenches.

The stunned troops were forced to tell the Iraqis they weren't firing at them, and ordered them back to their home country, telling them it was too early to surrender. "The British guys on the front-line could not believe what was happening. They were on pre-war exercises when all of a sudden these Iraqis turned up out of nowhere, with their hands in the air, saying they wanted to surrender.

"They had heard firing and thought it was the start of the war,'' a British Army source in Kuwait told the Mirror. ''The Paras are a tough, battle-hardened lot but were moved by the plight of the Iraqis. There was nothing they could do other than send them back. ''They were a motley bunch and you could barely describe them as soldiers – they were poorly equipped and didn't even have proper boots. Their physical condition was dreadful and they had obviously not had a square meal for ages. No one has ever known a group of so-called soldiers surrender before a shot has been fired in anger,'' the source said. Comment: This just further proves that Bush's allegations that Iraq is a threat to its neighbours is hubris, any war on Iraq will constitute a crime against humanity and will bring repercussions that will be felt the world over, not least in the US.

US will attack Iraq even if UN vetoes strikes, says Israel The United States will launch its offensive against Iraq even if the UN Security Council vetoes the move, Israel's head of military intelligence, General Aharon Zeevi, said Sunday. Zeevi told the weekly cabinet meeting that Washington would launch its strikes "next week," Israeli broadcast media said.

France, Russia and China, three permanent members of the Security Council, are opposed to a US offensive against the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and are expected to veto US moves to secure a new UN resolution green-lighting such an attack. Zeevi said Washington was waiting to see if Turkey would give permission for US troops to deploy on its territory along Iraq's northern border before launching its major offensive.

He said the US administration was also urging "calm on the Palestinian and Kurdish fronts," to faciliate its planned military strike. Zeevi said last week that Iraq had not deployed missiles in the west of its territory, from where it could hit the Jewish state. In the last Gulf War in 1991, Iraq fired some 40 long-range Scud missiles at Israel, killing two people and injuring hundreds more. In addition, Israel has since then developed its own Arrow missile system which it says is capable of shooting down incoming Scuds, and its batteries are backed up by US Patriot missiles serving the same function. Comment: "I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it." -- Ariel Sharon to Shimon Peres, October 3rd, 2001, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.

China brinksmanship behind North Korea? Beijing could pull plug on nuclear threats against U.S. by neighbor-ally at any time. China is pulling the strings of North Korea in its bellicose, nuclear-armed defiance of the United States, reports the latest issue of G2 Bulletin, the online, subscription intelligence resource created by Joseph Farah, the founder of WorldNetDaily.

"North Korea is a small neighbor to China," says the report. "It could not be threatening the U.S. with nuclear missiles, as it is, without at least China's tacit support. Clearly, North Korea and China are allies. The Chinese want Taiwan. The North Koreans want South Korea. The only nation preventing both goals is the U.S."

As late as Friday, a top North Korean official warned the United States again that it now had the capability of hitting the world's lone superpower with intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. G2 Bulletin reports that a secret deal between Washington and Beijing calls for China not to veto a new U.N. resolution authorizing force on Iraq in return for a pledge from Washington not to attack North Korea.

Though China knows the U.S. is not going to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea without provocation and the U.S. knows China is not going to veto the U.N. resolution, G2 Bulletin's source say this agreement is a way for Beijing to let the West know that Pyongyang is part of its geo-strategic orbit by acting as its protectorate as well as assuming a higher profile internationally.

"Could it be North Korea is not so much a 'rogue' state, as U.S. diplomats describe it, as it is a strategic ally of China?" asks G2 Bulletin. North Korea's Kim Jong-il visited both Moscow and Beijing in the last half of 2002, the report points out. Jiang Zemin and Vladimir Putin both visited Kim in Pyongyang last year, too.

"China and North Korea negotiated expanded trade agreements – very one-sided agreements because North Korea has nothing China needs," reports G2 Bulletin. "Meanwhile, Russia and North Korea prepared the new Friendship and Cooperation Treaty, and North Korea got greater access to Russian weaponry. In the context of those meetings and those agreements, North Korea hardly looks like a rogue state at all. It looks more like a significant component of a growing Russian-Chinese alliance."

U.S. officials are concerned that North Korea could export plutonium from its nuclear weapons program, as well as weapon-design data, to Iran and other Middle East nations willing to pay for it. In the worst-case scenario, the Koreans move forward with the production of nuclear bombs and then stockpile enough to have a surplus for sale to the highest bidders. What can be done about this? Precious little, say G2 Bulletin intelligence sources.

"North Korea is already thought to have the ability of hitting U.S. West Coast targets with nuclear missiles," the report says. "Recently, a North Korean warhead from a test-fire was reportedly found in Alaska. Should the U.S launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korea's nuclear facilities, it would have no defense against a limited nuclear attack. The U.S. has no missile defense system."

In addition, North Korea also threatens to launch a conventional invasion of South Korea, a war that could cost the U.S. tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of casualties. "It seems China, and Russia, don't have much to lose in backing North Korea's bellicose stand against the U.S." concludes G2 Bulletin. "Not much to lose and, perhaps, plenty to gain."