Zionism's Useful Idiots : That's You and Me, The Taxpaying US Citizens !!

by Kurt Nimmo

Kurt Nimmo is a photographer, multimedia artist and writer living in New Mexico.

We're useful idiots for the Zionists in Washington and Tel Aviv.

Useful because our hard-earned paychecks can be harvested to pay for war and mass murder in the Middle East, idiots because we don't do anything about it.

So outraged were the Sons of Liberty over British taxation without representation, they pitched a whole lot of Darjeeling tea into the Boston Harbor.

Now?

We're couch potatoes, useful idiots more interested in Bachelor Bob, than the possibility of an apocalyptic war that will consume the lives of our children and our wealth.

So usefully idiotic are we, that treacherous neocons no longer bother to offer threadbare lies to cover their murderous tracks.

On Thursday, November 20, the former lead conspirator of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and long-time accused Israeli spy, Richard Perle, proudly admitted Bush's invasion of Iraq was illegal. "I think international law stood in the way of doing the right thing," he brazenly told a London audience.

In other words, laws reached by international consensus, agreed upon by the vast majority of civilized people on the planet for centuries, are little more than doormats for Zionist gangsters such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, to name but the most obvious, and their bosses, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

Like their philosophical and spiritual swami, Ariel Sharon, these criminals not only thumb their noses at their foes, but also target them for assassination if they get in the way.

It's as if Perle and his ruthless gang have suddenly decided to dump the philosophy of the neocon cognoscenti of Machiavellian lying and deception, Leo Strauss.

Instead of telling lies and building half-ass fabrications in preparation for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the name of a clan of Likudites in Israel and corporate mobsters close to the Bushites in America, the neocons now seem more than happy to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may.

It's easier, less hassle, and besides Joe Taxpayer doesn't really seem to care one way or the other if he's lied to, told the truth straight up, or kept in the dark entirely. He's essentially imperturbable, or maybe semi-comatose.

So long as the ultimate cost, in lives and hard cash, remains an abstraction in the short term, well, nobody on Main Street's going to complain too much.

Maybe a few anti-war types here and there will hoot and holler, but they can easily be sloughed off -- or ignored entirely -- by the Bush Ministry of Disinformation (i.e., Fox, ABC, CNN, CBS, etc.) as hate America firsters or a meaningless focus group.

Death on such a magnitude cannot remain an abstraction forever, especially now with coffins (the Pentagon calls them "transfer tubes") and wounded coming home in ever-increasing numbers.

For now, however, the wounded piling up at Walter Reed and Fort Stewart, and the dead arriving daily at Dover, will not make prime or any other time.

"I don't understand why these guys are so hidden, why there are no pictures of them," Cher lamented recently.

Well, Cher, that's a no-brainer.

The Bush neocons understand something very essential - people, that is average, every day people - will do almost anything to avoid war, mostly because they are the ones to pay the highest price for it.

Roosevelt understood this -- and that's why he steered the Japanese into invading Pearl Harbor. Something outrageous has to push the people into war, be it the prospect of rapacious Japanese murdering defenseless GIs or Saddam conniving with Osama to murder Americans with weapons of mass destruction.

Never mind that the Japanese had no intention of killing Americans until Roosevelt embargoed their oil. Never mind that Osama hates Saddam and, besides, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

It was, and is, murderous deception.

The recalcitrant Herman Goering mused at the Nuremberg trials.

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.

That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

If the average American were suddenly exposed to an endless parade of coffins and the gruesome stories of those seriously wounded in Iraq, the dreaded Vietnam Syndrome would come screaming back - in other words, people would demand an end to war, like they did during the Vietnam war -- and the neocon jihad against the Arab Third World in the name of Zionism and neoliberal corporate theft would be throttled in short order.

Obviously, the Perles and the Wolfowitzes and the Cheneys and Rumsfelds and their ideological bedfellows outside of the White House and Pentagon are not going to let this happen.

They're going to do whatever it takes to keep the "war on terrorism" moving forward, even if it means another attack on the American heartland. Even if it means another slaughtered 3,000 office workers, or a dirty bomb going off during Christmas rush in the parking lot of the Mall of America.

These people are sincerely immoral, even sociopaths. Their legacy is Operation Northwoods, the firebombing of Hamburg, Tokyo, Dresden, Kobe, and the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's the deliberate murder of 500,000 Iraqi children, the spreading of depleted uranium across the globe, the methodical serial murder of nearly 3,000,000 Vietnamese.

Of course, the average American -- the sheepish Untermensch, the useful idiot for Zionism, the guy who unconsciously donates part of his paycheck to Israel every year -- he's immersed in an entertainment fog, the modern equivalent of Roman bread and circuses, so he's essentially clueless to what's going on.

Since he rarely ventures beyond Fox, the Bush Ministry of Disinformation, for his "news," he knows nothing about Zionist control of not only the White House, but also Congress and the very media he's passively consuming.

He's (the average American) a blinkered cash cow. Maybe, as well, his kid's a bullet stopper for a Zionist settler who thinks Americans should die so he can steal land from Palestinian Arabs, so no powerful rival will emerge in the Arab world to challenge Israeli crimes against Arabs.

"An immensely wealthy and powerful republic has been hijacked by a small cabal of individuals, all of them unelected and therefore unresponsive to public pressure," explains Edward Said.

This small cabal," writes Edward Herman, consists of

".. the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States, which advances Israeli interests by pushing for U.S. aid and protection to Israel, and, currently, by pressing for a war against Iraq, which again will serve Israeli interests.

This lobby has not only helped control media debate and made congress into 'Israeli occupied territory', it has seen to it that numerous officials with 'dual loyalties' occupy strategic decision-making positions in the Bush administration."

You can't get much more "strategic" than Dick Cheney, vice president, the guy right below Bush (or some would say Bush is below Cheney).

Here's (Cheney), a former advisor for JINSA, short for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, running the executive branch of the government. Directly below him are staunch Israeli-firsters, friends of the war criminal and mass murderer Ariel Sharon and the criminal, Arab (and British and American) killing machine, also known as the Likud Party, a gangster organization based on "revisionist" Zionism, in other words the philosophy of Vladimir (Zeev) Zabotinsky, a fascist Arab hater who harbored warm and fuzzy feelings for Benito Mussolini.

The Israel-firsters in the Bush administration, according to Ann Pettifer,

"pursue political power not in order to make the US a better place, to right wrongs or to fight inequality here, but to promote Israel's pre-eminence in the Middle East, to confine Palestinians to a couple of Bantustans or, better still, engineer their expulsion to Jordan.

.....Wolfowitz and fellow Jewish neo-cons Richard Perle and Douglas Feith have emerged as the Pentagon's Paladins, their aim being to subdue the Islamic world through decisive, pre-emptive use of American military superiority."

In other words, chew up US treasure and kill American kids who thought they joined the military to defend their country - or, like the hapless Jessica Lynch, joined up because they couldn't get a job or an education anywhere else.

The streets of Iraq have become in short order murderous hellholes designed by malevolent former Ba'athists -- who were brought to power by the CIA in the 60s -- to kill US soldiers. Bush, of course, and the Likudite Zionists who run his illegally appointed administration don't give a rat's ass about the lives of a few thousand American soldiers or, for that matter, 28 million odd Iraqis.

Israel, and the racist colonialist mentality of the Zionists, is all that matters. It's currently what the foreign policy of the United States is all about.

All of us, especially the Arabs, are expected to pay homage to the Zionists. Those of us who live in the United States and pay our (war) taxes, we ante up every week or two weeks, certain our money will go to build Israel's apartheid wall, pay for new settlements on Arab land, or grease the gears of bulldozers that smash down ancient olive trees.

We (US citizens) pay dearly for Israeli ethnic cleansing.

Meanwhile, by default or mere stupidity and ignorance, the American people remain useful idiots for Zionism.

They may not realize George Bush's so-called "war on terrorism" is actually, as the neocons deem it, the opening salvos of World War IV (according to neocon and former CIA director James Woolsey).

It's a war Bush has declared will last a long time, possibly for the rest of our lives, generations, but few Americans seem to glimpse the obvious implications - more mass murder, increasing hardship, loss of constitutional liberties, maybe even nuclear Armageddon.

Stupid Americans.

As Wilhelm Reich knew, the "little man" will invariably embrace not only his enslavement, but also revel in his own denigration. He not only supports dictators such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin (and now Bush), but admires them as well.

"You give impotent people with evil intentions the power to represent you," Reich wrote. "Only too late do you realize that again and again you are being defrauded."

Now's the time to stop the fraud.

But I don't know if the useful idiots of Zionism are up to it.

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  The Year 2003: President Bush's 10 Most Outstanding Achievements

by
Ben Ehrenreich
LA Weekly
DEC. 26, 2003 - JAN. 1, 2004

1. The War.
   
   At last count: 530 coalition soldiers dead, between 8,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians killed and many more uncounted Iraqi military casualties, all of these dead shamelessly defamed by Bush administration lies, from the fictional Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda ties which provided the pretext for the war to the staged spectacles of the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad and Jessica Lynch’s “rescue,” to the daily press-briefing play-acting about how it’s all going "Just Fine. "
   
   The president continues to debase the dead with bottomlessly hypocritical macho posturing — his clownish May 1 flight-suit stunt on the USS Abraham Lincoln; his brave “Bring ’em on” challenge to Iraqi insurgents; his braver Thanksgiving oath to the troops, during his 140-minute tour of duty in Iraq, that “We will stay until the job is done.”
   
   And guess who still hasn’t attended a single soldier’s funeral for fear he might be associated with the rising Iraqi death toll?
   
   
2. The Occupation.
   
   From the beginning — allowing the plundering of museums and hospitals while taking pains to secure the oil ministry, handing Dick Cheney’s friends at Halliburton a $1.7 billion no-bid contract while refusing local contractors, firing on unarmed protesters — the paternalistic pretexts for the occupation have been difficult to swallow.
   
   Now, with a more “aggressive stance” against the insurgency, including Israeli-loaned tactics such as bulldozing homes and razor-wiring off whole villages, and mafia-loaned tactics like imprisoning the families of your enemies, it’s getting hard not to choke on it all.
   
   
3. The Abandonment of Afghanistan.
   
   Despite all his grand promises, Bush did not include a single penny for Afghan reconstruction in his 2003 budget request. Most of the money that has since been allocated for Afghanistan will go toward U.S. military goals, not to rebuilding the ravaged country.
   
   There is perhaps no better symbol of the effect of the U.S. military’s efforts than the damage done by two recent air strikes, one on a Friday night in Gardez, the other the next day in Ghazni province, which between the two of them left 15 children dead. Three adults were also killed, but the targets of the strikes, suspected Taliban, were not among them.
   
   
4. The Detainees.
   
   With a tongue-out, pants-down, spittle-soaked fuck-you to international law, the Bush administration continues to detain over 600 uncharged prisoners at a hastily constructed prison camp in the naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
   
   Nearly 30 have attempted suicide so far. The military admitted in April that a “handful” of the detainees are children between the ages of 13 and 15.
   
   A Pentagon spokesman insisted that, “despite their age, these are very, very dangerous people.”
   
   
5. The Other Detainees.
   
   Following its recent decision to grant U.S. citizen and “enemy combatant” Yaser Esam Hamdi access to legal counsel, the Bush administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court asserting its right NOT to do so, basically insisting that the executive branch trumps the judiciary until it decides the war without end has ended.
   
   The Defense Department has for the last year and a half denied Jose Padilla, another citizen held incommunicado and in solitary confinement in the same South Carolina brig as Hamdi, access to his lawyer on the grounds that it would disrupt the “trust and dependency . . . essential to effective interrogation,” as if the possibility of that disruption were not the very purpose of the Fifth Amendment.
   
   
6. Balls.
   
   There are few tidier examples of the Bush administration’s continuing effort to give the phrase “imperial arrogance” new currency than its request, prior to Bush’s visit to London, that the British government grant Secret Service sharpshooters immunity from prosecution should they carelessly take out a bystander or six.
   
   Tony Blair briefly sprouted a pair, and refused.
   
   
7. Rogue States.
   
   Funny behavior for someone who claims such grave distaste for weapons of mass destruction, but after sneaking the repeal of a ban (signed by his father!) on their development into his $400 billion military appropriations bill, Bush approved $13.5 million for research into developing “bunker-busting” and low-yield nuclear weapons and another $25 million to ready a site in Nevada for testing.
   
   
8. The Simple Life.
   
   In the midst of it all, another tax cut, marketed as a gift to the middle class, but which will have a net effect of transferring billions (an “itty bitty” $350 billion, to borrow the president’s locution) straight into the pockets of the rich.
   
   
9. The Secure Homeland.
   
   It wasn’t hard to see this one coming: the use of anti-terrorism laws to quell domestic dissent, from charges against protesters in Vieques to L.A.’s own Sherman Austin, who was sentenced to a year in federal prison in August.
   
   
10. And Counting.
    
    The quiet butchering of the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act and clean water regulations, the gutting of the Labor Department’s regulations on overtime pay and of FCC media consolidation rules, the proposed expansion of the Patriot Act, and and and . . .

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  Israel's Messiah: Right Wing Christian Fundamentalists from USA

Read Here full article by Craig Nelson in the Altlanta Journal-Constitution.

December 25, 2003

Pat Robertson, the right wing extremist Christian fundamentalist preacher was given a raptuous applause when he visited Israel. When he told his mostly non-Christian listeners, "Be strong! Be strong!" they jumped to their feet to give him a boisterous round of applause. The same preacher who said "Muslims are worse than Nazis"

Unfortunately, he, including another right wing extremist Christian fundamentalist preacher, Jerry Falwell, who said Islam is evil and Prophet Muhammad was a terrorist, have the ears of President George Bush. Bush himself said God told him to attack AlQaeda and to attack Iraq.

This is one example of conservative right wing American Christians who muddled themselves into Israel's politics, destabilising the fragile Middle East, while the Holy Land's indigenous Christian communities are being "crucified" by Ariel Sharon's Israeli army with missiles, F-18s, tanks, Black Dawn helicopters and bombs funded by US taxpayers' money through the multi-billion dollar US aid to Israel.

Below excerpts from Craig Nelson's article:

Calling themselves Christian Zionists, the evangelicals are increasingly viewed as a political lifeline by influential Israelis who are eager for allies to fight what they see as a rising global tide of hate aimed at Jews and Israel.

The strategic alliance with "groups that are friends and special allies" --- including 70 million U.S. evangelicals and 600 million worldwide, according to estimates by the movement's leaders --- comes at an opportune time, according to Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

"This is a war, a war of images that reverberate throughout the world," Eckstein said last week in this seaside town. "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the cusp of becoming, God forbid, a worldwide conflict between Jews and Muslims."

In October, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon addressed 3,000 visiting evangelical Christians from 80 countries, including about 450 Americans. "We love you!" Sharon told the gathering. In a march through the streets of Jerusalem, they returned the affection, waving signs such as "Oklahoma Loves Israel" and shouting "Hallelujah to the God of Israel!"

The same month, several thousand evangelical Christians flocked to Washington to participate in a "Christian Solidarity for Israel" rally sponsored by the Christian Coalition.

Just days later, about 16,000 U.S. churches, many of them in the South, participated in a one-day "Stand for Israel" prayer campaign co-chaired by Ralph Reed, who formerly headed the Christian Coalition and is now the Atlanta-based head of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign in the South.

The swelling support of evangelical Christians has paid political dividends for Israel --- so much so that creation of a special parliamentary committee to steer Israel's relationship with them is under consideration.

In a campaign orchestrated by Robertson, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and leading Christian Zionist Gary Bauer, hundreds of thousands of e-mails and letters poured into the White House last year after President Bush, in a Rose Garden speech, appeared to equate the Israeli army's actions in the West Bank with Palestinian terrorism.

In April, Bush's call on Israel to remove its tanks from Palestinian territories in the West Bank triggered a similar flood.

Earlier this year, when Bush was rumored to be preparing to pressure Sharon to make concessions in the interest of the U.S.-backed "road map" to peace, Bauer and other evangelical leaders warned Bush in a letter that any attempt to be "evenhanded" between the Israelis and Palestinians would be "morally reprehensible."

Israel receives more than political support from the movement. Eckstein's Chicago-based International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is Israel's largest private philanthropy, according to a survey conducted this month by the Israeli daily Ha'aretz. Last year, the organization and its 250,000 evangelical donors gave $20 million to various Israeli causes.

To make up for the shortfall in tourism caused by the war and suicide bombings, Israel's Tourism Ministry earlier this year began targeting evangelical Christians with appeals based on theology and politics. It is buying time on Christian radio stations in the United States and deploying representatives to evangelical churches across America to air its pitch: Show your support for Israel in its travails by vacationing there.

By all accounts, Israeli tourism officials say, the campaign has been a resounding success, despite a State Department travel advisory issued Oct. 20 warning U.S. citizens against traveling to Israel due to violence.

Not all Israelis are knowledgeable about, let alone comfortable with, the support they are receiving from Christian Zionists. In a primer on the movement for the Herzliya gathering last week, Eckstein tried to debunk what he described as myths about it.

Eckstein accused the media of propagating the notion that Christian Zionists support Israel only as a prelude to the second coming of Christ, when, according to a literal interpretation of the Bible, all Jews will be converted to Christianity or wiped out in Armageddon. "It is incorrect," he told the Israeli audience. "The real reason [Christian Zionists] support Israel is because of the Bible: 'God will bless those who bless Israel, curse those who curse Israel.' "

Apocalypse, however, was not far from Robertson's mind. "The entire world is being convulsed in a religious struggle --- the struggle is whether Hubal, the Moon God of Mecca, known as Allah, is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, God of the Bible, is supreme," the televangelist and former Republican presidential candidate told his Israeli listeners.

Robertson also delighted many when, in remarks to local reporters, he called for "elimination" of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and warned that any attempt by Bush to force Israel to cede East Jerusalem to the Palestinians as a capital would cost the president "an enormous amount of support among the evangelical votes in the U.S."

Robertson, of course, is no stranger to controversy. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he agreed when Falwell, whom he was interviewing on his TV show, said feminists and homosexuals were partly responsible for the Sept. 11 atrocities because they had angered God. Falwell later apologized for his statement, and Robertson demurred that he had been confused during his lengthy discussion with Falwell.

Ironically, Robertson also has been accused of anti-Semitism. His 1992 book, "The New World Order," expounded conspiracy theories about all-powerful Jewish bankers. Robertson later apologized.

But his contentious past has not dogged him in Israel, said Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee. Most Israelis are not familiar with the controversies and they do not care, he said. "Even if they did, it wouldn't make any difference. The past three years have elicited reminders of the historical traumas of the Jewish people. Israelis say, 'We can't be too picky or discriminating about our friends when there is such hostility toward us.' "

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WE WISH ALL NEWS COMPASS READERS

A MERRY CHRISTMAS

AND

A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR

2004

STAY SAFE WHATEVER YOU DO

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  Scott Ritter: "Bush Lied...What are you going to do about it?"

Former US Marine and U.N. Weapons Inspector, Scott Ritter, recently returned from the Middle East, and challenged students at three high schools to hold Bush accountable for his lies that encouraged the American people to support his war on Iraq.

He spoke to an assembly of over 400 students at Mohawk Regional High School, Massachusetts.

MUST LISTEN AUDIO !!!! Click here to read a summary of his talk and then download the audio file of his talk to listen from the website . The audio program is 16.9 Mb . Faster downloading on broadband.


Click Here to Read Articles or Listen on Other Speeches, Talks by Scott Ritter

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  The Bad News: The Town where Christ was Born is Now Encircled in Steel by Israel

Read Here full article by Justin Huggler (in Bethlehem) for Independent UK
20 December 2003

EXCERPTS

It should be a time of celebration for the city where Christ was born.

Unlike last year, this Christmas there are no Israeli soldiers in Bethlehem's streets and the tanks have gone.

"But it's worse." says Yaqub Kasis, a member of Bethlehem's dwindling community of Palestinian Christians .

Israel's "security fence" has arrived in Bethlehem. It snakes through the suburbs, close to the old stone houses.



Click Here to View Photos of Separation Wall and Fence, Settler Bypass Roads and Road Blocks in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Click HERE to View Satellite Images of the Fence / Security Barrier / Separation Barrier built by Israel to separate the Palestinian people from their lands

But the term "fence" is misleading. The section built in Bethlehem is made up of a triple layer concrete wall and two metal fences, one equipped with electronic sensors. The space between the two fences is patrolled by Israeli army jeeps.


Israel's Concrete Wall Surrounding Palestinian People

The pilgrims who travel to Bethlehem for Christmas this year will find that the city of Christ's birth is being walled off. Fears are growing that the city may soon be surrounded.


The Completed Wall Around Southern Bethlehem

Mr Kasis said: "Can you imagine Bethlehem without Christians? The Church of the Nativity without Christians?". He looks from his balcony to where the route of the fence is being prepared. " That's why they (Israelis)are doing this," he said. "To make us leave."

The Israeli army wants to demolish Mr Kasis's home in Beit Sahour, a suburb of Bethlehem with a large Christian population, to make way for the fence.

"If they demolish it, I will live on the rubble," says Mr Kasis. "I have nowhere else to take my children." Mr Kasis used to work in Israel, but since the Israeli military closures that have been imposed during the intifada, he has been unemployed. Mr Kasis lives on land that was given free for new housing by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

"They are turning Bethlehem into a ghetto," says Dr Jad Isaac, the head of Arij, a Palestinian group which monitors Israeli construction in the West Bank. (Jewish ghettoes in Nazi Germany ? )

Israel is building hundreds of miles of fence across the West Bank. The Israeli army says that the wall will not encircle the city - one quarter will remain open to the West Bank, it says. But the Palestinian group Arij, claims that the Israelis are planning to close the last quarter with two bypass roads. One road has already been completed near the north-eastern edge of the city and is cut off by its own protective fence.

It is a fate which has already befallen the Palestinian cities of Qalqilya and Tulkarem further north in the West Bank. Qalqilya is surrounded by a concrete wall complete with pillboxes from which Israeli soldiers look down on the city. The only way in and out is through Israeli army checkpoints.


Satellite Image of Israel Walling Palestinian Towns. This is the town of Qalqilyah in the West Bank. The Wall was paid for by American Taxpayers through US Aid to Israel


Known as the "Pillbox"

According Dr Isaac, if Bethlehem is completely enclosed, the population will become increasingly crammed in as it continues to grow. Bethlehem could come to resemble the already fenced Gaza Strip, where the cities cannot expand and the population density is 4,500 people per square kilometre - one of the world's most crowded places.

Israel says the wall will stop suicide bombers crossing from the West Bank into Israel. "If that were true, why don't they build it on the Green Line? " says Dr Isaac.

The Israeli government refuses to build the fence on the Green Line, the internationally recognised border between the West Bank and Israel. Instead, it cuts many miles into the West Bank, so that Jewish settlements can be included on the "Israeli" side.

Merry Christmas to ALL Christians around the world fortunate enough NOT having to live in the same town where Christ was born.


One Final Note:
Read HERE article " The Holy Land Needs Bridges, Not Walls" by Corinne Whitlatch, Executive Director, Churches for Middle East Peace

" Imprisoned Bethlehem : In a "Statement Regarding the Separation Wall," the Bishops and Patriarchs of Jerusalem wrote that the consequences of the separation wall around Bethlehem "will be devastating to the Christian Community; not least the psychological impact on daily life. The community will be isolated following the deprivation of access to land and freedom of movement." They express their "determination to do all in our power to work for peace in this Holy Land - a peace that is concerned with the well-being of every resident of this land, be they Israeli or Palestinian."

Suggested Action:

There is no quick fix to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, there are numerous action and policy changes that can be undertaken immediately that could improve peoples' lives and awaken hope for peacemaking. One of the most concrete and visible actions would be for Israel to tear down the Separation Wall that has been built on West Bank land.

This is unlikely unless the United States government uses its considerable influence to convince Israel and Israel's supporters in the United States that this is necessary and in Israel's best interest as well.

Call on the White House and Congress to tear down the separation wall.

Make these points:

* I am deeply distressed by the building of the separation wall by Israel.

* The wall is resulting in the de facto imprisonment of the Palestinian population and eliminates hope for a peaceful resolution of the Middle East conflict.

* Reducing the loan guarantees is only symbolic unless construction of the wall ends.

* I join with the National Council of Churches and call for Israel to tear down the separation wall that is being erected.

* Or, I agree with Pope John Paul that the Wall is an obstacle on the road to peace. The Holy Land does not need walls, but bridges.

This is a hot issue and calls are certain to be tabulated. Tell the receptionist that you want to leave a message about foreign policy; you may be transferred to the Foreign Policy Legislative Aide's phone. Identify yourself by name, and church or denomination if you're comfortable with that.

The White House Comments line is (202) 456-1111.
Call the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121 to reach your Representative and two Senators.

You can also leave a message on the website of some Representatives and Senators. Go to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov.

The National Council of Churches' General Assembly, on November 6, adopted a Resolution on the Conflict in the Middle East, "...based on our faith that 'Now in Christ Jesus, he has broken down the dividing wall that is the hostility between us.'" (Eph.2:14)

Reiterating support for a Palestinian State alongside the State of Israel, and an open, shared Jerusalem, the General Assembly calls for the tearing down of the Separation Wall. The National Council of Churches' resolution, and all documents mentioned, are posted our website (www.cmep.org). Check out our resource center about the wall at http://www.cmep.org/documents/separationwall.htm
- Corrine Whitlatch

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  The Good News: Email Spammers Are Being Sued in Court

If you have been deluged with garbage emails from spammers in your emailbox, there is hope. Microsoft and the New York Attorney-General are suing the companies sending out those garbage emails to you, intentionally into bankruptcy.

Read Here the Supreme Court of New York lawsuit filed by the AG New York. This is in pdf format (needs Acrobat Reader).

Read Here Press Release on the lawsuit by the Office of the New York Attorney General New York

As evidence in the lawsuit, e-mail exchanges among employees and principals of the companies that were sued were subpoenaed. Here (see below) is one email that was subpoenaed by the Attorney General's office to give you an idea the extent of spamming being conducted.

From: SRich10195@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 12:34 p.m.
To: Robert J. Aitken
Cc: Justin Champion
Subject: Re: More complaints from false headings

We send out 10 million plus emails a day and you on average send me 2 complaints or less in a day. Today 3 complaints. I think 1 complaint per 3 million is real good.

We average about 1 in 5 million but still we have generated over 19,984 leads for items in offerstream this month and I have logged from you guys less then [sic] 20 complaints this month being sent to us. If your [sic] having issues with your ISP maybe something else is the reason

Read Here full article by SAUL HANSELL in New York Times

Excerpts:

The New York state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, and Microsoft each filed suits today charging one of the nation's most prominent e-mail marketers with fraud stemming from sending unsolicited commercial e-mail, commonly known as spam.

The suits name three companies, including OptInRealBig, which is run by Scott Richter, the third-largest source of spam in the world, sending more than 250 million messages a day.

"We will drive them into bankruptcy," Mr. Spitzer said in a news conference today in New York.

President Bush had signed a law that makes it a crime to send deceptive commercial e-mail. But even in advance of that law, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, state and federal authorities have started to move more aggressively against some of the most prominent bulk e-mailers and companies advertised by spam.

Last week, Virginia indicted two North Carolina men whose e-mail marketing to members of America Online generated 100,000 complaints in a single month. A week earlier, federal agents arrested Vineet K. Chhabra, operator of one of the largest Internet pharmacies selling diet drugs and Viagra, largely through spam

Last year, Mr. Spitzer sued MonsterHut, a marketing firm, claiming it defrauded advertisers by sending their e-mail messages to addresses it had stolen, although it said it marketed only to people who asked to receive promotions.

In May, his office charged Howard Carmack of Buffalo with credit card fraud in a lawsuit involving spam. That case is scheduled to be tried next month.

Mr. Spitzer's office contends Delta Seven Communications, an e-mail company run by Paul Boes and Denny Cole, sent marketing pitches that forged return addresses and were sent through computers hijacked from unsuspecting home and office users, a technique that is now commonly used by spammers trying to hide their tracks.

Mr. Boes now works for MaxxLength, a Seattle firm that sells penis enlargement pills, Mr. Richter said.

The lawsuits also are expected to name Synergy6, a New York marketing company, whose Web site, AmericanGiveaways.com, was promoted by Delta Seven's mailings.

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  In the Town where Christ was born, it is Gloomy Christmas, Not Merry Christmas

Read Here full article by LARA SUKHTIAN for AP

Excerpts

Bethlehem faced another gloomy Christmas as the West Bank town has been battered by relentless Palestinian-Israeli violence that has decimated its tourism-based economy, throwing thousands out of work, closing shops and leaving the town's residents with little to celebrate.

Arafat, a Muslim, had attended Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve in Bethlehem each year after Israel turned Bethlehem over to his Palestinian Authority in 1994.

Israel has barred Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat — a symbol of pride for most Palestinians — from Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem for a third straight year.

Arafat told a Christian delegation at his sandbagged headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah Tuesday that he hoped to take part in the Christmas festivities this year in Bethlehem. "I haven't missed it, except since being besieged in this building," Arafat said.

This year,Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser expects only a few hundred visitors.

The Israelis are never far from Bethlehem, in fact or in spirit, and Nasser said that their measures are harming the town. For example, he said, a security barrier Israel is building to keep West Bank attackers out has cut 4,000 Palestinians off from their town while confiscating part of its land.

Last Christmas, the Vatican complained to Israel about access to Manger Square in Bethlehem because it was again under Israeli military occupation. The Israelis had moved back into the town in response to violence, but pulled their tanks back just before Christmas.

The conflict has reached into the Church of the Nativity, marking the traditional birthplace of Jesus. Last year the church bell ringer, Samir Ibrahim Salman, was killed on his way to the holy site, apparently by a stray bullet, as Israeli forces traded gunfire with Palestinian militants holed up inside the church.

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  Political Cartoon of the Year Award 2003

The Political Cartoon of the Year Award is a national cartoon competition in UK with representatives from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Eire. It is the only competition where cartoonists are actually judged on their work rather than on their reputation.

All the leading political cartoonists in the UK, as well as two from the USA (who also draw for British publications), submitted what, in their opinion, was their best cartoon of the year.

This year there was the largest field in the competition's history, making it this country's premier award for cartoonists.

Held on 25 November at the Economist, former Minister for Overseas Aid, Clair Short MP, presented the sterling silver 'Gillray' Goblet to winning cartoonist, Dave Brown of the Independent.

The runners up prize, the Tenniel Tankard, went to KAL of the Economist.

Third was Matt of the Daily Telegraph and fourth was Steve Bell of the Guardian, winner in 2001. .

Click here to view the winning political cartoon for Year 2003: Submitted by Dave Brown of the Independent " Ariel Sharon Eating Palestinian Babies "

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  Saddam's Capture: Still Does Not Justify Invasion of Iraq

" It doesn't change the basic situation on the ground in Iraq. It doesn't make the U.S. right for going in there. This war was sold on a whole set of lies. Capturing Saddam Hussein doesn't change that.''
-Jackie Cabasso, executive director, Western States Legal Foundation, USA

"Gloating over Hussein's capture doesn't make the situation over there any prettier. It's a mess. Things are not going well. And the international community is saying, 'The U.S. got itself into this mess, we're not going to send our troops in there to die, too.' ''
- Medea Benjamin, founding director of Global Exchange, San Francisco, USA

Joan Ryan wrote in San Francisco Chronicle:

If we can take Bush at his word, then Saddam's capture should mark the beginning of the war's end. We feared nuclear weapons, Bush said, even if Iraq didn't have an actual weapon yet, because Saddam was such a madman.

He was so intent on destroying the U.S., we were told, that he eventually would find a way to build something capable of mass destruction. So we had to get in there before it was too late.

After the tragedy of Sept. 11, national security adviser Condoleeza Rice said repeatedly, the American people would rather be safe than sorry. That's what justified the preemptive strike. Read More.....

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  Pat Buchanan: Have the Guts to Stand Up to Ariel Sharon, Mr. President !

Israel is a “thunderously failed reality” that “rests on a scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression and injustice.”

Were these words spoken by an American leader, he would be denounced as an anti-Semite.

But these are the words of a former speaker of the Israeli Knesset who cries for his country.

“The countdown to the end of Israeli society has begun,” writes Avraham Burg, “the end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep.”

“Israel, having ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centers of Israeli escapism.”

Ayalon and Palestinian academic Sari Nusseibeh have issued a declaration of principles calling for Israel’s withdrawal to her 1967 borders. Ex-Justice minister Yossi Beilin has negotiated a detailed accord with a former Palestinian minister. Colin Powell wrote a letter of support.

Where is George W. Bush? Why is he silent when Sharon has led us into a cul-de-sac from which he cannot find an exit? Why is our president letting Sharon ravage what is left of our reputation in the Arab world?

If Mr. Burg can stand up to Sharon, why cannot Mr. Bush?

Click Here to read the full essay by Pat Buchanan

Other News

If Americans Knew.... "Americans have an enormous, often little known, connection to the ongoing and dangerous tragedy that is Israel and Palestine. As lives of the young and old are increasingly lost and devastated, due in part to short-sighted US policies, it is inevitable that these policies will endanger American lives as well. American citizens have the power to end this carnage." Read More....

Israeli forces shot and killed two unarmed Palestinians early yesterday and were hunting for three others in southern Israel after the group approached the fence that separates between Israel and the Gaza Strip, the army said. Read More....

The Israeli occupation army in Gaza has destroyed 22 Palestinian homes in the town of Khan Yunis, leaving about 200 people homeless. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) based in Gaza area says the occupation troops entered the southern strip shortly after midnight on Monday. Read More....

"Jews are afraid these days. I'm Jewish, so I'm afraid too..... I am afraid for the Jews of Israel...My parents rise up from the grave, demanding to know: How has it come to this? How did a great and persecuted people become the persecutors? Essay by Grace Paley. Read More....

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  The Aftermath of Saddam Hussein's Capture

Germany, France, China and Russia -- nations strongly opposed to the Iraq conflict -- said they hoped Saddam's capture could foster stability and democracy in Iraq and reconcile the world community. Read More

Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, reached at his home on Sunday, said, “It’s great that they caught him. The man was a brutal dictator who committed terrible crimes against his people. But now we come to rest of story. We didn’t go to war to capture Saddam Hussein. We went to war to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons have not been found.” Read More

From Robert Fisk: For Saddam has bequeathed to his country and to its would-be "liberators" something uniquely terrible: continued war. And there was one conclusion upon which every Iraqi I spoke to yesterday agreed.This bedraggled, pathetic man with his matted, dirty hair, living in a hole in the ground with three guns and cash as his cave-companions - this man was not leading the Iraqi insurgency against the Americans. Indeed, more and more Iraqis were saying before Saddam's capture that the one reason they would not join the resistance to US occupation was the fear that - if the Americans withdrew - Saddam would return to power. Now that fear has been taken away. So the nightmare is over - and the nightmare is about to begin. For both the Iraqis and for us. Read More..

It was pretty much of a shock to learn of Saddam Hussein's capture so soon. This capture comes timely for the incumbent President, and the immediate propaganda value will be enormous. But has Bush walked into a trap? Read MORE

Some specialists warned even before Sunday's announcement that Saddam's death or detention would prove largely irrelevant to the difficult problems faced by US and coalition forces in Iraq, both because loyalty to Hussein – or even to his Ba'ath Party – had ceased to be a catalyst for the insurgency long before and because the complex internal political situation in Iraq has begun to fuel more tension and violence in any event. Some even suggested that Saddam's capture might actually create new problems for the occupation by empowering sectors in the country's Shi'a community to test the occupation and back up their demands for direct elections to a new Iraqi government with more militant tactics. Read More

"I only wish it was not the Americans who got him. I don't like Saddam but as an Arab I wouldn't like to see them (Americans) dragging him around Baghdad," said Syrian student Abdul-Nasser. For others, the capture was disappointing news. Saddam may have been seen as a dictator who oppressed his people, but many also saw him as the only Arab leader who stood up to the United States, which they said rode roughshod through the region. "Of course it's bad news. To us, Saddam was a symbol of defiance to the U.S. plans in the region. And we support any person who stands in the face of the American dominance," said Azzam Hneidi, an Islamist member of Jordan's parliament. Read More

President Bush made a televised statement from the White House, saying: "The capture of this man was crucial to the rise of a free Iraq." But will the capture of the man designated by the Pentagon as the "Ace of Spades" end the Iraqi resistance? Will the Iraqi people now embrace the Bush administration's conception of "freedom"? Read More

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a Shiite member of Iraq's interim Governing Council, his voice filled with emotion, says, "This is really a great day for all Iraqis." He predicts the insurgency will cease. "Absolutely this is the end of it. There is no doubt in my mind. This is very demoralizing and devastating for them [the insurgents]." But outside Iraq, Arab leaders generally do not believe the capture of Hussein will bring an end to the violence, says Hisham Yusuf, spokesman for Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa. "We believe that the resistance in Iraq is a result of something different [from one organized by Saddam]. Some of them are from the former regime. But some are ordinary Iraqis who want to see an end to the occupation. The Iraqi situation will improve only when the Iraqi people are given a clear timetable for the end of occupation," he says. The US military also is signaling caution at overly optimistic expectations. Read More

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  Yes ! The Prisoner IS Saddam Hussein

According Reuters, Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, in U.S. custody for seven months, helped to confirm the identity of Saddam Hussein after his capture.

Quote:

" This was the man who was the honour guest of the city of Paris when Mr Chirac was mayor and when the French could see the Jacobins in his bloody regime.

This was the man who negotiated with the UN secretary generals Perez de Cuellar and Kofi Annan, who had chatted over coffee to none other than the now US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, who had met Ted Heath and Tony Benn and a host of European statesmen.

It took just 600 American soldiers to capture the man who was for 12 years one of the West's best friends in the Middle East and for 12 more years the West's greatest enemy in the Middle East."
- Robert Fisk

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  Iraq: Have They Finally Caught Him ?

Latest !!!!: IS THIS HIM ?.... US officials and Bremer think so.

(Video image of captured former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein displayed at a news conference in Baghdad. Photograph: AP)




Saddam Hussein, Iraq's deposed leader, was last night found by US forces at the bottom of a hole near his home town of Tikrit, it was announced today. Without a shot being fired, members of the US army's 4th infantry division and special forces closed in at 8.30pm (5.30pm GMT) yesterday on a small walled farming compound 10 miles south of the city where they discovered the hiding place. Video footage of Saddam's medicial inspection after he was pulled from the hole showed a dishevelled figure with unkempt dark hair and a thick beard that had become grey. Read Here for More

U.S. military captured a man in the basement of a building in Tikrit, Iraq during raids seeking Saddam Hussein, and initial efforts to verify his identity indicate he is the deposed Iraqi dictator, U.S. officials said. Read More....

The Iranian agency quotes a top Iraqi leader, Jalal Talabani, as saying Saddam was arrested in his hometown of Tikrit. Read More

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  REMINDERS: Why the US went to war with Iraq in the first place

The Speakers

This is a Flash Movie:
Put Your Computer Speakers ON.

Sit Back and Listen to the Exact Words Spoken from the "horses' mouths".

DON'T MISS THE ENDING.... The Flag and the "Stars and Stripe Forever " Anthem.. and President Bush's statements after the Iraq War.

Click HERE to listen and view "Remind us:Why did the United States Invade Iraq ?

OR

Click HERE

Please Wait and be Patient... as loading may be slow if you have a slower computer system

(Don't forget to put your speakers on)

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  Iraqis Welcome Coalition Forces in May 2003

The current problems faced by US and Coalition Forces in Iraq are best illustrated by the following photo, showing Iraqis welcoming the victorious US and Coalition Forces into Baghdad.

The visual message was never taken seriously by the Coalition Forces. The Coalition's Central Military Command was still hoping for kisses and hugs on the streets of Baghdad.

Wishful reminiscences of the moods of Allied victory in Europe after the Second World War. Sadly,in Iraq, it wasn't to be the case.

(this photo was posted on Newscompass on 4th May 2003)

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  Grabfest for Spoils of Iraq War: Greed or Sheer Arrogance ?

Latest: Read Here the Editorial in Washington Post "Boomerang Diplomacy " :Quote:

'Mr. Bush and his Pentagon hawks may believe they are meting out just punishment to countries that have opposed the mission in Iraq. But there will be little cost to Germany, France, Canada or Russia. Instead, the real price will be paid by Iraqis and the American soldiers and civilians trying to help them.'
-Washington Post

The US has decided to exclude France, Germany, Russia and other anti-war nations from bidding for $25 billion in Iraqi reconstruction contracts. But at the same time, President Bush has asked France, Germany and Russia to forgive Iraqi debts.

US President George W. Bush defended the decision to cut foes of the Iraq war out of reconstruction contracts there but said he would be "very grateful" if those countries help reduce Iraq's debt. Read More

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov responded to the U.S. announcement by telling journalists there would be no debt deal. Read More

In Moscow, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov threatened a tit-for-tat response. Russia could also retaliate against the U.S. decision by switching its oil exports to euro-denominated prices. Read More

Many of the US firms which won lucrative Iraqi reconstruction contracts are major donors to President George W Bush's political campaigns, according to a new report. The report, by Centre for Public Integrity (CPI), claims that most of the contractors gave more money to Mr Bush's 2000 presidential campaign than to any other in the last 10 years. Read More... and also Read Here CPI's report on list of US contractors for Iraq

Australia, Britain, Japan, Italy and Spain are among 61 countries that supported the US-led war and are welcome to bid for the 26 US-funded contracts, which range from rebuilding Iraq's electricity, water and oil infrastructure to equipping its new army. Read here for more

The Pentagon said on Thursday it would likely issue tenders for $18.6 billion in U.S.-funded contracts to rebuild Iraq in the next few days and played down a delay in advertising the lucrative deals. Read More

New Zealand has been named in a controversial list of countries eligible to bid for lucrative contracts in Iraq because of their backing of the United States. Read more

The Pentagon yesterday banned Canadian companies from bidding for contracts worth $18.6 billion (U.S.) to help reconstruct Iraq because of Canada's opposition to the U.S.-led war in the Persian Gulf nation.

Neocon William Kristol writes to say Bush should reverse Pentagon's decision on the Iraqi contracts. " A deviously smart American administration would have quietly distributed contracts for rebuilding Iraq as it saw fit, without any announced policy of discrimination", he said.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder hit out Thursday at the United States for barring countries that opposed the Iraq war from bidding for reconstruction contracts Read More

Europe's foreign affairs chief called the U.S. decision to bar opponents of the war in Iraq from reconstruction contracts "gratuitous and unhelpful'' when unity is needed. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan echoed that theme, telling reporters in Berlin the decision was "unfortunate'' and "not unifying'' at a time when diplomats were seeking to rebuild an international consensus on Iraq. Read MORE

Israel does not appear on the list of countries from which companies can bid on 26 infrastructure projects in Iraq, though Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in counter-insurgency operations in Iraq. Read MORE

Indian companies banned from bidding for a primary share of the $18.6 billion worth of Iraq reconstruction contracts being awarded through the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority in that country. Read More

The European Union said yesterday that it will examine whether the United States violates world trade rules with its decision to bar countries that opposed its war in Iraq from bidding for $18.6 billion worth of reconstruction contracts. Read More

Prospective bidders are salivating over new Iraqi business worth up to $18.7 billion, from sellers of trucks and power generators to construction giants and oil refinery specialists. A sold-out Pentagon conference for contractors at an Arlington, Virginia, hotel on Wednesday had the heady feeling of a Gold Rush

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  Afghanistan: US Soldiers are killing Afghan Children

Four days ago, on Saturday, nine children were killed during an American air assault in neighboring Ghazni Province. The U.S. forces were targeting the homes of suspected Islamic extremists but instead inadvertently killed civilians in the area.

And now, another six children and two adults were crushed to death under a toppled wall Friday during an air and ground assault by U.S. military forces on a farm compound in eastern Paktia Province.

U.S. military officials in Afghanistan have confirmed of the incident on Wednesday.

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, the U.S. military spokesman at Bagram Air Base, said the bodies of two adults and six children were discovered inside by soldiers Saturday after the Friday night raid. Read Here for more...

The US military tactics in Afghanistan are sounding more and more like Israeli-styled military offensives in the Palestianion territories where more innocents are killed in the hunt for their targets.

It is not surprising given that it is now known that Israelis are being asked to help train US assassination squads.

Latest: Read HERE article by Helena Cobban 'Made in Israel' Crackdowns in Iraq Won't Work

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  Israel's F-16 and Black Hawk Pilots Refused to Obey Orders to Kill Innocent Palestinians

by Chris McGreal
The Guardian

'We're air force pilots, not mafia. We don't take revenge'

For two months, a rebel group of Israeli Black Hawk helicopter and F-16 fighter pilots has been denounced as traitors for saying they will no longer bomb Palestinian cities.

Until now they have maintained a resolute silence on their motives, preferring to limit their criticism of Ariel Sharon's war to a letter signed by 27 reserve and active duty pilots refusing to carry out what they described as illegal orders, and denouncing the occupation as eating at the moral fabric of Israel.

Now, having been thrown out of the air force, they are talking publicly about what brought members of the most revered branch of the Israeli military to make an unprecedented challenge to the handling of the conflict with the Palestinians.

The line was crossed for most of the pilots with the dropping of the one-tonne bomb last year on the home of a Hamas military leader, Salah Shehade, killing him and 14 of his family, mostly children.

One captain described the bombing as deliberate killing, murder even. Another called it state terrorism, though some colleagues swiftly stomped on that interpretation.

But they all agreed that the attack sowed the doubts that resulted a year later in the letter that sent shockwaves through the Israeli military.

More than 30 pilots have now endorsed the letter refusing to fly bombing raids on Palestinian cities, although four retracted, one an El Al pilot threatened with dismissal, and another a reserve pilot who lost his civilian job.

At its core, the letter questions the legality of the "targeted assassinations" that have claimed the lives of more civilian bystanders than their Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade targets.

In October, 14 civilians were killed when the air force fired missiles at a car in Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp.

The pilots' stand shook Israeli society.

There is no shortage of critics of the prime minister's militarist tactics but those of the peace camp are widely viewed as pacifists and marginal. Doubts raised by the army chief of staff, Moshe Ya'alon, and four former heads of the Shin Bet intelligence service alarmed many Israelis, but the criticisms were focused solely on whether Mr Sharon's tactics were fuelling terrorism.

The pilots straddle both issues, raising moral and legal questions on the conduct of the war and challenging the government's claim its strategy is about defending Israel.

Many who poured scorn on the pilots accused them of wading into politics for going beyond questions about the legality of their orders and challenging the occupation.

Captain Alon R, who, like all the younger pilots, hopes to return to combat flying and so declines to use his full name in order to retain his security clearance. said :

"I served more than seven years as a pilot.

In the beginning, we were pilots who believed our country would do all it could to achieve peace. We believed in the purity of our arms and that we did all we could to prevent unnecessary loss of life.

Somewhere in the last few years it became harder and harder to believe that is the case.

The Shehade incident was a red light for us, a final warning. With Shehade I began to re-evaluate my beliefs. We killed 14 innocent people, nine of them children.

After my commander gave an interview in which he said he sleeps well at night and his men can do the same. Well, I can't. We refused to see it as an innocent mistake.

Is it legitimate to take F-15's and helicopters designed to destroy enemy tanks, and use them against cars and houses in one of the most heavily populated places in the world?

Because of the terrorism, we have become blinded by the blood on our own faces.

We cannot see that on the other side, beside the terrorists, is a whole nation of innocent people. It's important that we recognise that, and that, as military people, we say that."

Capt Assaf L, who served as a pilot for 15 years until sacked for signing the letter, had similar doubts. He said:

"You don't have to be a genius to know that the destruction from a one-tonne bomb is massive, so someone up there made a decision to drop it knowing it would destroy buildings.

Someone took the decision to kill innocent people. This is us being terrorists. This is vengeance.

Our government's policy is to maintain fear in the public. We're not weak.

It's not 1967 or 1973, with the Syrian army on the border waiting to attack us.

This is maintaining a war to maintain the occupation. We've the strongest nation in the Middle East. The terrorists are bastards, but we must fight to not become terrorists ourselves.

(Major-General Dan) Halutz said we were traitors. In our eyes, what we did is a very Zionist act. We did it to save Israel."

Lieutenant-Colonel Avner Raanan is among the most respected pilots to have signed the letter. He served for 27 years and was awarded one of Israel's highest military decorations in 1994. He scoffs at the accusation that the pilots have denigrated their uniforms by wading into political issues. He said:

"If you look at the past three years, you see that, if we had a suicide bombing, the Israeli air force made a big operation in which civilians were killed, and that looks to innocent eyes like revenge.

You hear it in the streets of Israel; people want revenge. But we should not behave like that. We are not a mafia.

The air force commander spoke in favour of the [Jewish] settlements while sitting in uniform next to Sharon at a Likud party convention. That is political.

This country has a defence minister who, as army chief of staff, was the most political ever.

It is hypocritical to say lower ranking officers cannot express an opinion. What they mean is, we can be political so long as we agree with the government. Well that's not democracy."

According to Capt Jonathon S:

"We cannot separate the two. We are not pacifists. We don't think we should sit back and let suicide bombers attack us. But all this is a direct result of our being in the [occupied] territories. Our fight to keep the settlements and suppress the Palestinian people is killing us.

It is killing our right to live safely in the country of Israel. A very small group of radical Israelis is leading the sane majority to catastrophe."

The pilots say they have received more than 500 letters of support, including one from a Holocaust survivor, and numerous calls from fellow pilots. Several leftwing former cabinet ministers praised the pilots' stand, saying it proved the armed forces were moral.

Concern in the air force prompted its commander, Major-General Dan Halutz, to meet groups of pilots to tell them that "targeted assassinations" were not a war crime.

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  Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq

by Julian Borger

The Guardian
Tuesday December 9, 2003

Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, US intelligence and military sources said yesterday.

The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has sent urban warfare specialists to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the home of US special forces, and according to two sources, Israeli military "consultants" have also visited Iraq.

US forces in Iraq's Sunni triangle have already begun to use tactics that echo Israeli operations in the occupied territories, sealing off centres of resistance with razor wire and razing buildings from where attacks have been launched against US troops.

But the secret war in Iraq is about to get much tougher, in the hope of suppressing the Ba'athist-led insurgency ahead of next November's presidential elections.

US special forces teams are already behind the lines inside Syria attempting to kill foreign jihadists before they cross the border, and a group focused on the "neutralisation" of guerrilla leaders is being set up, according to sources familiar with the operations.

"This is basically an assassination programme. That is what is being conceptualised here. This is a hunter-killer team," said a former senior US intelligence official, who added that he feared the new tactics and enhanced cooperation with Israel would only inflame a volatile situation in the Middle East.

"It is bonkers, insane. Here we are - we're already being compared to Sharon in the Arab world, and we've just confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and setting up assassination teams."

"They are being trained by Israelis in Fort Bragg," a well-informed intelligence source in Washington said.

"Some Israelis went to Iraq as well, not to do training, but for providing consultations."

The consultants' visit to Iraq was confirmed by another US source who was in contact with American officials there.

The Pentagon did not return calls seeking comment, but a military planner, Brigadier General Michael Vane, mentioned the cooperation with Israel in a letter to Army magazine in July about the Iraq counter-insurgency campaign.

"We recently travelled to Israel to glean lessons learned from their counterterrorist operations in urban areas," wrote General Vane, deputy chief of staff at the army's training and doctrine command.

An Israeli official said the IDF regularly shared its experience in the West Bank and Gaza with the US armed forces, but said he could not comment about cooperation in Iraq.

"When we do activities, the US military attaches in Tel Aviv are interested. I assume it's the same as the British. That's the way allies work. The special forces come to our people and say, do debrief on an operation we have done," the official said.

"Does it affect Iraq? It's not in our interest or the American interest or in anyone's interest to go into that. It would just fit in with jihadist prejudices."

Colonel Ralph Peters, a former army intelligence officer and a critic of Pentagon policy in Iraq, said yesterday there was nothing wrong with learning lessons wherever possible.

According to Col Peters:

"When we turn to anyone for insights, it doesn't mean we blindly accept it. But I think what you're seeing is a new realism. The American tendency is to try to win all the hearts and minds. In Iraq, there are just some hearts and minds you can't win. Within the bounds of human rights, if you do make an example of certain villages it gets the attention of the others, and attacks have gone down in the area."

The new counter-insurgency unit made up of elite troops being put together in the Pentagon is called Task Force 121, New Yorker magazine reported in yesterday's edition.

One of the planners behind the offensive is a highly controversial figure, whose role is likely to inflame Muslim opinion: Lieutenant General William "Jerry" Boykin.

In October, there were calls for his resignation after he told a church congregation in Oregon that the US was at war with Satan, who "wants to destroy us as a Christian army".

"He's been promoted a rank above his abilities," he said. "Some generals are pretty good on battlefield but are disastrous nearer the source of power

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  Update: Coalition Casualties in Iraq - as of 8th December 2003

Coalition servicemen killed in the war against Iraq:

Total announced as of 8th of December: 531

447 US,
53 UK,
1 Denmark,
10 Spain,
1 Ukraine,
1 Poland,
18 Italian

Total BEFORE 1st of May: 171

Total from 1st of May to 31st October: 244

Total AFTER 1st of November: 116


Casualties divided by service branch:

Note! The number in brackets indicates how many of the total casualties are from Territorial Army, National Guard or Reserves.

87 (US Marine Corps)
341 [35] (US Army)
5 [1] (US Air Force)
6 (US Navy)
8 (US Special Operations Command)

6 (Royal Navy)
4 (Royal Air Force)
11 (Royal Marines)
32 [3] (Royal Army)

1 (Danish Army)
1 (Ukrainian Army)
8 (Spanish Intelligence)

Source: Department of Defense (US), Ministry of Defence (UK), Centcom, CJTF-7, Haerens Operative Kommando (Denmark), Ministerio de Defensa (Spain), Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej (Poland), Il Ministro della Difesa (Italia), Graphs by Polaria

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  Russia's Counter-Offensive To US/Israeli Interests in Middle East

NEW!! Read HERE Martin Reimer's article ''Russia and U.S. Spar in 'Allah's Mountains'''

Read HERE M. Raphael Johnson's article "Are the Israelis willing to start World War III?"

MUST READ ARTICLE: "Russia Ready to Vaporize the Jewish State, and then kick America out of the Eastern Hemisphere’s oilfields" by Joe Vialls.

" Each Sunburn will hurtle out of its launcher riding on the white-hot tail of a booster rocket, while its special ramjet lights and cycles up to full thrust. Then rapidly sinking back to an undetectable cruising altitude of approximately 60 feet, each missile will accelerate to Mach 2.2 [1,520 mph] in less than 30 seconds, with a total flight time from Damascus to Tel Aviv of around three minutes.

When the end finally comes for Israel, it will all be over in microseconds. Flying faster than rifle bullets, the Sunburns will approach Tel Aviv and Haifa at twice the speed of sound, detonating in blinding white 200 Kiloton flashes designed to instantly transform animal vegetable and mineral into heat and light."-Joe Vialls

Below transcribed article by M. Raphael Johnson

According to a recent article by veteran British military analyst Joseph Vialls, Russia has sent the most advanced and feared missile in the world, owned only by Russia and China, the P270 Moskit, also known as the “Sunburn,” to Damascus and Tehran.

Read Here and HERE "Russia sold China the "Sunburn" Missiles

This can only be understood as a counter to the Israeli threats to use nuclear weapons against their enemies.

About one month ago, Russia discreetly invoked MAD again, but this time in the Middle East in direct response to hysterical Israeli threats to nuke Iran with submarine-launched American Harpoon missiles.

Quietly and with the minimum of fuss, Russia deployed its most advanced tactical nuclear missiles and crews to both Syria and Iran, thereby sending an unmistakable diplomatic signal that if Israel attacked Tehran or Damascus with nuclear weapons, Russia would in return instantly and anonymously vaporize the Jewish State.

This is not an idle or exaggerated threat.The Russian missile type deployed in Syria and Iran is the P270 Moskit [Mosquito], known in NATO circles as the SS-N-22 "Sunburn", once described by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher as "the most dangerous anti-ship missile in the Russian, and now the Chinese, fleet.”
- Joe Vialls

The Sunburn flies at an altitude of 60 feet and is nearly impossible to defend against.

A few fired at Israel could make that state “history.”


"Sunburn"

Add to this a new Russian air force installation near the Kyrgystan/Russia border, coupled with a Chinese base just over their western border with Kyrgystan, and Armageddon may be on the horizon.

All Russian jets at this new base just outside of Bishkek are equipped with Sunburn missiles.

Vialls writes:

The gloves are off, and with America and Israel still unable to steal any oil from Iraq because someone keeps blowing the pipelines, Russian and Chinese firepower buildup suddenly slammed the door firmly shut on Caspian oil reserves in the old Soviet republics.

For more than a decade American oil multinationals have been conducting “joint ventures” in the former Soviet republics bordering the Caspian Sea, with the stated intent of pumping stolen crude oil out through Turkey, then on to western markets. Now this route has been blocked permanently, and America is in no position to do anything about it, because a large part of the U.S. conventional army is currently bogged down in Iraq, being shot at and killed on a daily basis.

For many who have been watching this region as a confrontation between the United States and Israel versus Russia largely over the control of the biggest gas and oil deposits in the world, a new front has been opened.



As a response to this checkmate, Sharon recently visited Putin on Nov. 3 to meet with him concerning the nuclear issue in Iran. Quickly, Sharon permitted Palestinians to return to their jobs and eased their travel restrictions.

Since the end of the Gorbachev era, the Russian oligarchs, nearly all Jewish by ethnicity (with the noticeable exception of Vladimir Potanin), have controlled nearly all key sectors of the Russian economy. This, of course, includes Russia’s major ace-in-the-hole, oil and gas.

The giant YUKOS conglomerate is presently one of the largest oil companies in the world, valued at about $40 billion.

YUKOS is the result of a “loans for shares” deal brokered through the semi-coherent Boris Yeltsin in 1995. Here, the liberal Russian government swapped loyalty from the oligarchs in exchange for privatization at prices far below that of the market.

This $40 billion giant was bought for about $300 million, thus looting the entire Russian economy for the benefit of a handful of Israeli citizens living in Russia.

When YUKOS’s chair, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was arrested at the end of last month, the American capitalist establishment went orbital. Forgetting the 1999 New York Times’s expose on massive money laundering and fraud from YUKOS, the conservative establishment began to lionize oligarchy and, specifically, Khodorkovsky.

Recently, The Financial Times weighed in with a giggly piece from Chrystia Freeland, which referred to the oligarch as a “democratic activist.” About a paragraph later, the writer said—without irony—that the oligarch’s model for economics is the robber baron factories of the early American 20th century. Fox News, on Nov. 3, referred to YUKOS as the most progressive corporation in Russia.

According to a Nov. 3 Agence France-Presse story, Khodorkovsky made a deal with Jacob Rothschild this year that control of the YUKOS giant would pass to Rothschild in the event of Khodorkovsky’s arrest. However, the Russian government has frozen all YUKOS assets for the time being.

It is significant that YUKOS’s liberal pressure group, the Open Russia Foundation, is completely controlled by Rothschild now that its founder is in jail. As their official mission statement reads, “The motivation for the establishment of the Open Russia Foundation is the wish to foster enhanced openness, understanding and integration between the people of Russia and the rest of the world.”

Their board of trustees includes Rothschild and Henry Kissinger. The Washington, D.C. launch of the organization included Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Librarian of Congress James Billington, one of the leading voices against Russian traditionalism in the academic establishment.

Significantly, the Open Russia Foundation recently provided Yale University with substantial grants to study the Russian economy as well as providing the Carnegie Foundation with 3 percent of its entire operating budget.

It seems that the drive to control the globe’s energy is progressing. The American empire’s battles in Serbia, Central Asia, Iraq and Chechnya are one and the same war. Other than fighting Israel’s enemies, these adventures are also wars to control Central Asian oil and natural gas (one of the main pipelines from the Caspian Sea went straight through Serbia).

The control of this wealth by the United States and Israel necessitates bypassing Russian channels. This means that the Jewish oligarchy in Russia would become the central actor in world politics.

The Israeli/CIA complex was using Khodorkovsky to sell off the assets of YUKOS to Exxon/Mobil (as well as a smaller piece to Texaco), hence bringing Russia’s pipelines into the hands of the western powers. The Nov. 5 New York Times also indicated that the Bush family’s Carlyle Group was involved.

It was not long after Putin began threatening the YUKOS conglomerate that neo-conservative pundits such as William Kristol and Ariel Cohen began calling Putin a “communist,” “another Stalin” and “tyrannical.”

The basis of these wild accusations, of course, is the fact that Putin stands in the way of Zionist domination.

From this, the roles of several other variables and players develop clearly. The State Department/Harvard University alliance was meant to “deregulate,” or “privatize” much of the Russian economy precisely to keep the Russian state out of the equation. Therefore, pro-Israel oligarchs (that is, Israeli citizens living in Russia) then benefited, placing most of the economy in their hands, and, by extension, Israel’s.

Russia’s response has been to clamp down on further foreign penetration into defense and other sensitive industries, and specifically, to target those believed to be working for both the CIA and Mossad and attempting to control Central Asian oil.

It needs to be reiterated that where the CIA goes, Mossad goes as well. Israeli and American interests have come together in the dominance of the Central Asian region and therefore, so have liberal ideology, the Beltway set, neo-conservatism, Ivy League eggheads, Christian Zionism, the Rothschilds and the American media.

Afghanistan through the Caspian Sea through to Georgia, Azerbaijan and into the Balkans (not to mention pipelines leading to oil-hungry China), have become one single theater of war over trillions of dollars in oil and gas wealth, incorporating every single power center in global politics.

The battle against the New World Order is being decided in Moscow.

Therefore, all anti-Russian alliances in the region, from Islamic fundamentalism to Slavic separatism to the George Soros “Open Society” Foundation, are in the interests of the CIA/Exxon/Ivy League/NWO complex.

In Azerbaijan, for example, American elites have pushed for a “democratic” state, that is, a state not under the control of pro-Moscow Heydar Aliev, thus leaving the country open to U.S. oil investment. Aliev, of course, is promoting Russian interests in the region, and thus, has become a “tyrant” in the Beltway mind.

The American response to this situation within this region is to create the GUAAM pact, including, Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova. Cohen gives us a clue as to why this entity was brokered under NATO auspices: “The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline will export up to 1 million barrels per year of high quality Caspian crude oil by 2005.” In other words, billions of dollars of oil are slated to be pumped through this region very soon, and the economic/military alliance of GUAAM is the means to ensure American control over it. This connects the Serbian, Afghan and Iraqi wars.

Russia’s response to Israel’s terror threats against most of the Islamic world is fully understood as both a political and economic question. Further, increasing cooperation between Russia and India, as well as China, are clear markers that Putin, one of the few actually competent leaders in world politics, is building an anti-imperialist and anti-NATO alliance with the aim of countering American/Zionist moves for the world’s oil and gas wealth.



The interests, however, go even further than Zionist control over American foreign policy decision-making.

Vialls writes on another topic: that the existence of the American/Zionist empire is based on the victory of American forces over the Russian and Islamic. Of course, both in Bosnia and Chechnya, the Mossad/CIA operatives have not hesitated to assist fundamentalists in fighting Slavic nationalism, largely because Slavicism is a greater threat with Putin firmly in the saddle.

Islam, divided and leaderless, with a history of centuries of defeat and colonialism behind it, is only a potential force in world politics.

Note: The Russians refused to sell any SS-N-22s to Vice Admiral Bowes in 1995,(see below), but they later made a very public sale of more than 100 Sunburns to the Chinese, who mounted them on frigates and corvettes, which they stationed near Taiwan.

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