"The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government statements-I had no idea until then that you could not rely on [them]."James W. Fulbright (1905-1995), former US senator
The misery and wholesale destruction in Afghanistan continues though it hardly makes it to the headlines anymore. The civilian population suffer not only due to lack of basic infrastructure and food, but also because they are becoming increasing targets of NATO aerial bombings. The new commander in chief of the NATO forces American General Dan McNeill is a strong advocate for massive air power, which has earned him the name 'Bomber McNeill'. The consequence is a sharp rise in civilian casualties.
Not one of the people getting on the I-35W Bridge on August 1st had any reason to suspect what was going to happen that night. The day before, and the day before that, the bridge had held just as much traffic as it did on the 1st. The bridge had held up just fine since its opening in 1967. It had a history of holding the weight of vehicles traveling across the Mississippi River without any problems.
If someone with knowledge of the bridge's lack of structural integrity stood at one end of the bridge trying to warn commuters of their imminent demise, he would've been laughed off as a nut case. Political cartoonists would have, if they had the time, probably drawn him as a long-haired, bearded, sandal-wearing lunatic carrying a sign reading "THE END IS NEAR!"
And yet, at 6:05pm on August 1st, the I-35W Bridge did collapse. The collapse was so sudden and catastrophic that some thought explosives had gone off. Cars plummeted into the water, below. A school bus full of children just managed to stop before going over the edge. Panic ensued.
You have probably heard the terms "insiders" and "ousiders" used in reference to the people in Washington. The insiders are the people who are members of the exclusive think tanks, policy organizations, lobby groups, and other groups that influence and decide policy. The outsiders are those who aren't.
The insiders are also those with connections to important sectors of the economy like the oil and gas industries, the pharmaceutical companies, the major food conglomerates, the media, the secretive Skull & Bones fraternity at Yale that counts among its members both George W. Bush and John Kerry, and long-time politicos who have made a career out of doing the bidding of the aforementioned groups. And then there is the infamous, and, according to the media, non-existent, Israel lobby, the lobby that is so strong you aren't even allowed to talk about it.
As the smell of burnt cow meat once again wafts across the southern English countryside, the stench is not only casting a pallor across the faces of Surrey farmers, but also threatening to expose the sordid relationship between the UK government, U.S. big business and the little-known world of "bio-terrorism".
I suppose it was always going to happen, and I suppose it was the fact that it was always going to happen and that 'the powers that be' knew it, that they exert so much effort in attempting to keep the people distracted. The war on terror has begun to unravel and descend into the only thing it could - farce, albeit a rather insidious and complicated one.
Today I want to review a book I have recently finished reading: The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel. Let me introduce my subject with a quote from another recent book by Nachman Ben-Yehuda, the Israeli sociologist, who writes:
"How do we perceive our culture? How do we understand ourselves as beings in need of meaning? We are socialized into and live in complex cultures from which we extract the very essence of our identity, but at the same time, we also construct these cultures. How is this process accomplished? What is the nature of those cultural processes...?
In the last 2 weeks, the mass media has been flooded with news about the Israeli release of 250 Palestinian prisoners. As a matter of fact, the propaganda exercise started 4 weeks ago on the 26th of June when this article from Reuters announced:
"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday he was ready to free about 250 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to help President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction."
Comment: A note on the video at the beginning of this editorial:
Israeli and US propaganda about the "Middle East conflict" has effectively convinced most people that there is indeed a real "conflict" going on between Israelis and Palestinians, or more to the point, that there are two sides that are in fact "at war" with each other. This is simply not true. And it is this propaganda that we sought to fight in making this video.
In general, we must consider the fact that people have been misled by this propaganda, but we cannot promote any part of this propaganda in our efforts to fight it. The reality of the situation is that, while a small percentage Palestinians have rudimentary weapons, they have no effective way to use even these weapons, meaning that they may as well not have them. In most instances, the ONLY weapons that the Palestinians have to fight back with are stones. This is the reality that is not presented by the mainstream media.
Further evidence that this is in fact the reality on the ground in Palestine is seen in the record of Israeli soldiers that have been killed by Palestinians with guns. Virtually none. Recent reports of the activities of the Fatah party and in particular Mohammed Dahlan, shows quite clearly that the weapons in the hands of Palestinians are put there by Israel and are either for propaganda purposes (to suggest that the Palestinians have an effective means to wage war against Israel) or are used to sow discord between the Palestinian factions.
As for "suicide bombings", we have already revealed the reality that lies behind this here
Every one of the 1.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza strip are targets for Israeli guns. There are 168,000 active IDF troops, ALL of them have access to the latest weaponry. Of the 1.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza strip, about 10,000 at most, are Hamas members/militia and only they have access to the weapons that are allowed them by Israel. The other 1.29 million Palestinians have stones, or nothing, as shown in the video, yet everyone on of them is a target for the 168,000 heavily armed IDF.
So basically, 10% of the Gaza population has a gun, and 100% of their enemy has a gun. Portraying the IDF Vs the Palestinians as rocks against high tech weapons is therefore a largely accurate reflection of the situation.
Picture, if you will, the scenario of a landlord and an unruly peasant worker. The peasant has insulted the "honor" of the landlord in some way and he demands "satisfaction". Basically, the landlord wants to kill the peasant, yet he does not want it to appear to others that he has murdered the peasant in cold blood. So he arranges a "duel".
Before the duel, he arranges for his men to break the peasant's arms, and then supplies the peasant with a gun that does not work with which to fight. The duel takes place with the expected results. To the onlookers however, it appears that a "fair fight" has taken place.
This scenario describes the situation in the Middle East conflict very well.
For all its contrived complexities, the Israeli/Palestine matter is not complex. It is creeping genocide. From an historical point of view, the Nazi murder of 12 million people was not "complex". It was mass murder. Exactly HOW the Nazis went about committing their crimes and how they covered it up IS perhaps complex, but the FACT of what they did is not complex. The events of Nazi Germany vis a vis the Jews and 6 million other minorities in Germany at that time provides another very real parallel to what is happening in Palestine.
Genocide is the most heinous act that can be perpetrated by psychopaths against normal human beings. In each historical instance, genocide has been carried out under a cloak of lies and subtle and not-so-subtle disinformation and manipulation of the facts of the matter by one or more of the perpetrators or "interested parties". This manipulation is always an attempt to "muddy the waters" and create the impression that the blame does not lie only with one side, but is shared between the two sides. This is a common ploy of the psychopath when committing unspeakable crimes, crimes for which they are the SOLELY responsible.
The end result of this propaganda is that the public is left with the feeling that "the truth lies somewhere in the middle", that war "just happens", that war in fact has a sort of life of its own and that no one is really responsible. Consider the fact that it is by way of this meme that ALL wars instigated by psychopaths have been and continue to be sanctioned by the masses, even those who suffer most as a result.
The only method at our disposal by which we can hope to level the playing field in favor of the victims (ultimately ALL normal human beings) is to continuously reveal the FULL Truth of the matter - that, in the case of Israel/Palestine "conflict", there is NO conflict. It is not a low level "war" between two armed forces, it is the slow creeping genocide of one defenseless people by another fully armed one.
You are however correct in stating that by presenting the Truth of the matter as we do in this video, we will likely be accused of "misleading" and "distorting the facts", even when in reality we are not. We cannot avoid this because we cannot shrink from exposing the FULL Truth of this particular matter, before it is too late, because it IS getting very late, and we would like to avoid finding ourselves in a situation where, when the "lights" finally go out over the "holy land", we are forced to admit that the FULL Truth of the true reasons for yet another round of mass murder was not laid out, at least somewhere.
Today I read the article Overcoming the conspiracy against Palestine, and I began thinking about the "Cyprus problem" and the "Palestinian problem", the sad stories behind them and the conditions that currently prevail in each country.
You see, when an army invades a country, confiscates the land and kills and imprisons the people, suddenly the whole sum of these people that have been killed, imprisoned and kicked out of their homeland become a "problem". The psychopathic leaders that caused the suffering have the gall to claim that the oppressed and beleaguered people of an invaded nation are the "problem". These psychopaths fume at the idea that their victims would dare to demand their rights, dare to talk of freedom and raise up their voices and arms towards their oppressors. Apparently those that survived the onslaught of the psychopaths in power should be grateful that their lives were spared.
It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God?
- Voltaire
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Comment: A note on the video at the beginning of this editorial:
Israeli and US propaganda about the "Middle East conflict" has effectively convinced most people that there is indeed a real "conflict" going on between Israelis and Palestinians, or more to the point, that there are two sides that are in fact "at war" with each other. This is simply not true. And it is this propaganda that we sought to fight in making this video.
In general, we must consider the fact that people have been misled by this propaganda, but we cannot promote any part of this propaganda in our efforts to fight it. The reality of the situation is that, while a small percentage Palestinians have rudimentary weapons, they have no effective way to use even these weapons, meaning that they may as well not have them. In most instances, the ONLY weapons that the Palestinians have to fight back with are stones. This is the reality that is not presented by the mainstream media.
Further evidence that this is in fact the reality on the ground in Palestine is seen in the record of Israeli soldiers that have been killed by Palestinians with guns. Virtually none. Recent reports of the activities of the Fatah party and in particular Mohammed Dahlan, shows quite clearly that the weapons in the hands of Palestinians are put there by Israel and are either for propaganda purposes (to suggest that the Palestinians have an effective means to wage war against Israel) or are used to sow discord between the Palestinian factions.
As for "suicide bombings", we have already revealed the reality that lies behind this here
Every one of the 1.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza strip are targets for Israeli guns. There are 168,000 active IDF troops, ALL of them have access to the latest weaponry. Of the 1.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza strip, about 10,000 at most, are Hamas members/militia and only they have access to the weapons that are allowed them by Israel. The other 1.29 million Palestinians have stones, or nothing, as shown in the video, yet everyone on of them is a target for the 168,000 heavily armed IDF.
So basically, 10% of the Gaza population has a gun, and 100% of their enemy has a gun. Portraying the IDF Vs the Palestinians as rocks against high tech weapons is therefore a largely accurate reflection of the situation.
Picture, if you will, the scenario of a landlord and an unruly peasant worker. The peasant has insulted the "honor" of the landlord in some way and he demands "satisfaction". Basically, the landlord wants to kill the peasant, yet he does not want it to appear to others that he has murdered the peasant in cold blood. So he arranges a "duel".
Before the duel, he arranges for his men to break the peasant's arms, and then supplies the peasant with a gun that does not work with which to fight. The duel takes place with the expected results. To the onlookers however, it appears that a "fair fight" has taken place.
This scenario describes the situation in the Middle East conflict very well.
For all its contrived complexities, the Israeli/Palestine matter is not complex. It is creeping genocide. From an historical point of view, the Nazi murder of 12 million people was not "complex". It was mass murder. Exactly HOW the Nazis went about committing their crimes and how they covered it up IS perhaps complex, but the FACT of what they did is not complex. The events of Nazi Germany vis a vis the Jews and 6 million other minorities in Germany at that time provides another very real parallel to what is happening in Palestine.
Genocide is the most heinous act that can be perpetrated by psychopaths against normal human beings. In each historical instance, genocide has been carried out under a cloak of lies and subtle and not-so-subtle disinformation and manipulation of the facts of the matter by one or more of the perpetrators or "interested parties". This manipulation is always an attempt to "muddy the waters" and create the impression that the blame does not lie only with one side, but is shared between the two sides. This is a common ploy of the psychopath when committing unspeakable crimes, crimes for which they are the SOLELY responsible.
The end result of this propaganda is that the public is left with the feeling that "the truth lies somewhere in the middle", that war "just happens", that war in fact has a sort of life of its own and that no one is really responsible. Consider the fact that it is by way of this meme that ALL wars instigated by psychopaths have been and continue to be sanctioned by the masses, even those who suffer most as a result.
The only method at our disposal by which we can hope to level the playing field in favor of the victims (ultimately ALL normal human beings) is to continuously reveal the FULL Truth of the matter - that, in the case of Israel/Palestine "conflict", there is NO conflict. It is not a low level "war" between two armed forces, it is the slow creeping genocide of one defenseless people by another fully armed one.
You are however correct in stating that by presenting the Truth of the matter as we do in this video, we will likely be accused of "misleading" and "distorting the facts", even when in reality we are not. We cannot avoid this because we cannot shrink from exposing the FULL Truth of this particular matter, before it is too late, because it IS getting very late, and we would like to avoid finding ourselves in a situation where, when the "lights" finally go out over the "holy land", we are forced to admit that the FULL Truth of the true reasons for yet another round of mass murder was not laid out, at least somewhere.