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Letters to the editor, April 12-13, 2003 This website is not related to Al-Jazeera TV This page contains news and commentaries sent by Al-Jaeerah Readers |
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Wake up America By Janis Schmidt
Suppose you woke up one morning and discovered that your parents were mass murderers? Would you be in a state of denial? Suppose this had been going on for years, from your grandparents, way back? Suppose you thought your parents were going to work at some respectable job. After all, it seems like they always provided for you. Just like an abused child, from a very disfunctional home, you support your parents, no matter what. You would even fight for them, which is admirable. As a child, you have no other recourse.
Also, you have no way of knowing better.
But you know they don't take good care of you. Deep down,
you feel like the unwanted child. Then, suddenly, Dad said it
was time for you to go to work, and sent you out on a job.
You were so proud to be working with Dad.
All that freedom and responsibility. But you had a rude
awakening. All the time you thought Uncle Daddy was fighting
dragons and evil monsters, here Dad was going around the neighborhood,
pillaging and looting, shooting anyone that stood in the way.
Only this time, he took Mom and Sister
along, and made them watch. Are you in a state of
shock and awe?
What would you do?
All of a sudden, everything is revealed.
It appears that Dad's job was theft and murder, which is how he
accumulated his wealth, to provide you with your happy home.
What would you do?
I wish to God that this was simply a
hypothetical question. But it is not. I am not talking
about your parents, per se, but about your government. America
has a lot of blood on its hands, ever since Columbus. Did you
know that you could add up all the war dead, and it still would not
equal the number of Indians killed by Americans who now proclain
Indian country to be their country? This country was founded on
murder, theft, fraud and deception. And it continues up to the
present day. Murder is the means by which America progresses.
Murder is called defending national security. Murder is called
preemptive security. And it has been going on for a long time.
How did you not know this?
There will be a price to pay for having
shed so much innocent blood. That time is now upon us.
America has so criminally abused the Natives of the world, that the
victims are finally saying, "No more. America, you
have raped and murdered, pilaged and plundered enough. I'm not
going to take it any more. I can't and survive. You leave
me no choice."
The whole world is looking at America,
wondering if democracy is dead, and wondering what kind of monster is
rising from the ashes. America is not home to artists and
intellectuals. It is no longer home of the free or land of the
brave, if indeed it ever was. It is now home of the thugs, a
land of snitches and flag waving simpletons who mistake murder and
extortion for freedom and democracy.
I don't know about you, but I object to
that. I was born here.
America, the whole world knows you are not
innocent. But America is the father of freedom.
Or at least that's what the Constitution tells me. But what the
hell is going on? Is that how you feel? I am sorry to say,
you have been violated. You have been forced to watch the
rape of the Cradle of Civilization. You are know longer
innocent. What do you do? Your eyes have been opened.
Now, what?
You must cleanse and purify yourself.
You must admit any culpability, and correct your behavior. If
you do not do this, you will remain a loutish cretin, someone that one
one wants to have around, indeed, the unwanted child.
You have been damaged, against your will,
I hope. But now you must do something about it. I am going
to be offering lessons in humanities on my web site, www.lakotaperspectives.com,
for starters. This will be a hands on approach to relearning the
virtues and values in which to live by in order to live a good life.
I am not using any startling new discovery. Instead, I model my
discourse after Socrates who said, "The active pursuit of
the virtues will lead to the best possible person living in the best
possible society."
I was reading through some American
weblogs today. I found a lot of damaged people there.
People saying things like, "I hate the French."
and "Lets bomb the anti-war protesters." and all
kinds of foul language, so devoid of any grace or beauty. I
notice radio talk show full of hate and jingoism, urging people to
adopt their message of hate in the spirit of patriotism. How far
you have strayed from the truth.
I hear and see a nation with a very
damaged psyche. Is this also collateral damage? Let us
find our way back. Just like the victims in the trade towers,
let us go hand in hand. We are trapped in a building
that is on fire. It may not survive. We may not survive.
The only thing we know for sure is that
we cannot afford another false move, and
we do not have the luxury of sitting on the fence. Remember,
nothing was ever created out of hate, but out of love. And, a
journey of a thousand miles begans with the first step. Our
house is on fire. We must find our way out in the dark.
Shall we begin?
A pattern of conquest and neglect
The Bush way
IHT Saturday, April 12, 2003
Credit where credit is due: The hawks were right to say
that a whiff of precision-guided grapeshot would lead to the collapse
of Saddam Hussein's regime. But even skeptics about this war expected
a military victory. Instead, we worried - and continue to
worry - about what would follow. As one skeptic, Michael
Kinsley of Slate, wrote Thursday: "I do hope to be proven wrong.
But it hasn't happened yet."
Why worry? I won't pretend to have any insights into
what is going on in the minds of the Iraqi people. But there is a
pattern to the Bush administration's way of doing business that does
not bode well for the future - a pattern of conquest followed by
malign neglect.
One has to admit that the Bush people are very
good at conquest, military and political. They focus all their
attention on an issue; they pull out all the stops; they don't worry
about breaking the rules. This technique brought them victory in the
Florida recount battle, the passage of the 2001 tax cut, the fall of
Kabul in Afghanistan, victory in the midterm elections and the capture
of parts of Baghdad.
But after the triumph, when it
comes time to take care of what they've won, their attention wanders,
and things go to pot.
The most obvious example is Afghanistan, the
land the Bush administration forgot. Most of the country is back under
the control of fundamentalist warlords; unpaid soldiers and police
officers are deserting in droves. (Remember that the Bush
administration forgot to include any Afghan aid in its latest budget.)
President Hamid Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai,
told an Associated Press reporter: "It is like I am seeing the
same movie twice, and no one is trying to fix the problem.
What was promised to Afghans with the collapse
of the Taliban was a new life of hope and change. But what was
delivered? Nothing. Everyone is back in business."
The same pattern can be seen on the U.S. economic
front. President George W. Bush won a great triumph in 2001 when he
pushed through a huge tax cut - saying that his plan was just the
medicine to cure the economy's ills. What has happened since?
The answer is that things have gradually fallen apart.
There was one quarter of good growth, early in 2002 - and there were
cries of triumph over the policy's success. After that, however,
things went steadily wrong. Growth was too slow to create jobs: At the
end of 2002, after a year of "recovery," fewer people were
working than at the end of 2001.
And in the last two months the situation has
deteriorated rapidly. In February and March the U.S. economy lost
465,000 jobs, bringing the total job loss since the recession
officially began in March 2001 to more than 2 million.
At this point the employment decline has been
bigger, and has gone on longer, than the slump that took place during
the first Bush administration. And there's no sign of an upturn: New
claims for unemployment insurance are still running well above the
level that would signal an improving labor market.
Some hope that the U.S. economy will turn around of its
own accord - that consumers and businesses, relieved that the war has
gone well, will begin spending freely. But hope is not a plan. What is
the plan?
The answer seems to be that there is no plan for the
economy. Instead, the White House is fixated on achieving another
political triumph - the elimination of taxes on dividends - that has
little or no relevance to America's current economic troubles.
I could demonstrate this irrelevance by going through
an economic analysis, but here's a telling political clue: USA Today
reports that the administration, faced with concerns in Congress about
budget deficits, has indicated that it is willing to consider a
phase-in of its dividend plan.
That is, it's willing to forgo immediate tax cuts - the
one piece of its proposal that might actually help the economy now -
in order to be able to pass its long-run proposal intact, and hence
claim total victory.
The scary thing is that this slash-and-burn
approach to governing may continue to work for Bush's people,
because the initial triumphs get all the headlines. Unfortunately, the
rest of the world has to live in the wreckage they leave behind.
Global domination carries grave risks
Tipping the balance
William
Pfaff IHT
Saturday, April 12, 2003
PARIS
Statements by both President George W. Bush and
Secretary of State Colin Powell at the start of last week made it
clear that the United States does not intend to give the United
Nations a political role of any consequence in postwar Iraq.
Washington says that as the United States and Britain
waged and won the war they will also manage the peace. The United
Nations, a Pentagon official says, will have no role ‘‘in
constructing a democratic Iraq.’’
The intellectual and political position of the
administration and its supporters is that the United States, as sole
superpower, legitimately defends international order because the
United Nations has defaulted on this responsibility, having never
enforced its resolutions demanding Saddam Hussein’s disarmament.
Unilateralism and preemptive war are said to
be necessary to defend the United States, and to establish
and maintain a democratic international order, which the United
Nations cannot or will not do.
However, Iraq is not that simple. The
Fourth Geneva Convention imposes on the military occupier full
responsibility for the well-being of the civil population. It
severely restricts the occupier’s right to make use of the
occupied country’s resources.
No one is going to stop
Washington from doing what it pleases in Iraq, but if it goes
against international law it will have to pay and stay.
The Bush administration would
prefer to have the international community pay for
reconstruction and have other countries’ forces do the
peacekeeping.
Otherwise some kind of deal will have to be struck
with the members of the self-proclaimed ‘‘peace camp’’ in
the Security Council, and with the European Union, the principal
potential international source of reconstruction aid.
This confronts the United
States with a problem the Bush administration is unwilling to
acknowledge.
The Iraq intervention destroyed
‘‘the reputation the United States has enjoyed for so long as a
benevolent power,’’ to quote Robert Pape of the University of
Chicago, writing in The Boston Globe.
Pape says that the United States broke the
rule ‘‘that democracies do not wage preventive wars’’ by
doing what no other democratic state has done in the more than 200
years of the American nation’s existence.
The government of George W. Bush has made it American
security policy to prevent any other nation from attempting to equal
the United States in military strength. This is unprecedented.
It has inevitably produced a fundamental change in
how other nations see the United States. It has caused some other
democracies to resort to classic countermeasures against a
government newly perceived as a potential threat.
These measures are not military but diplomatic and
economic, which are more relevant, and to which Washington is more
vulnerable. Thus France, Russia, Germany, Belgium and China used
diplomatic methods to isolate the United States on Iraq.
The same methods may be used again in the developing
controversy over a UN role in Iraq and over the contribution of the
international aid community to war reconstruction.
Pape notes that the European Union is now a
more powerful economic and trading power than the United States and
argues that if there were a concerted effort to require oil
suppliers to bill in euros rather than dollars, this would undermine
the position of the dollar as a reserve currency.
A move out of dollars by Asian or
European investors would contribute to making it impossible for the
Bush government to continue to run its enormous budget deficit. The
University of Chicago political scientist estimates that a fall of 1
percent or more in U.S. gross national product could result.
By renouncing America’s traditional foreign policy
and adopting one of global military domination, the Bush
administration has made a fundamental change in the international
balance.
It seems proud to have done so. It seems not to understand
that this has been to its own potential disadvantage and to the
American nation’s future risk.
washingtonpost.com > Moran Draws Fire With New Remark> Congressman Says Pro-Israel Lobby Plans to 'Take Over' Efforts to > Defeat Him By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, > April 10, 2003; Page B03 > A Jewish civil rights organization and some > Alexandria Democrats have criticized Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) > for suggesting at a recent party meeting that a major American > pro-Israel lobbying group will raise $2 million and "take over" > efforts to unseat him next year. > > In comments likely to prolong controversy over Moran's views toward > Israel and U.S. Jewish groups and constituents, the seven-term > incumbent said the American Israel Public Action Committee (AIPAC) has > begun organizing against him and will "direct a campaign against me > and take over the campaign of a Democratic opponent," according to > notes taken by a person in attendance and corroborated by three > others. > > AIPAC spokeswoman Rebecca Dinar called Moran's comments "ridiculous" > and said the organization "had no idea" what the congressman was > talking about. AIPAC, an influential and prominent Washington-based > lobby, is not a political action committee, by law cannot raise money > for candidates and by policy does not endorse candidates, Dinar said. > > David Friedman, D.C. regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, > said Moran's remarks were divisive and intended to isolate and > exaggerate the role of his Jewish critics: "This only confirms what we > already knew: that Jim Moran is a bigoted man who perpetuates age-old > canards and stereotypes about Jews." > > Moran appeared before the Alexandria Democratic Committee on Monday > night to disavow and apologize again for remarks he made last month at > a Reston peace vigil. At the vigil, Moran said that American Jews were > pushing the country toward war with Iraq and that Jewish leaders could > prevent the war if they chose to do so. In the ensuing controversy, > six Jewish Democratic members of Congress who had supported Moran > repudiated him for appealing to anti-Semitic stereotypes, and Moran > resigned a junior House leadership position. > > In an interview yesterday, Moran defended his latest statement, saying > he was speaking hypothetically about what AIPAC and its supporters > "could do" in a nomination fight. Anything could happen, Moran added. > For instance, he said, his would-be challengers -- Fairfax County > Board of Supervisors Chairman Katherine K. Hanley, state Sen. Leslie > L. Byrne (Fairfax) and former Gore campaign aide Jeremy B. Bash are > publicly considering bids -- could refuse to accept money from members > of AIPAC. > > Moran said he was simply "relaying what I had heard" from a fellow > House member about fundraising activity against him by AIPAC members > in Florida. "I don't know that's the case," Moran said. "I can't > verify it, but it is some cause for concern. It's conceivable." > > He added: "You'd have to be naive not to recognize that AIPAC is a > very important network of people organized around a cause. . . . It's > going to take time, a lot of effort on my part and sincere > communication with the Jewish community to heal this rift. But if I > have to run against a national network that I don't have the ability > to communicate with, it's going to be very difficult." > > In fact, the latest dispute seems likely to widen that divide and > further split local Democrats. > > Bash, a Washington lawyer who worked in AIPAC's public relations > office from 1993 to 1995 and is Jewish, said Moran "continues to > disappoint, divide and insult many of his own constituents with > remarks like these." The Alexandria committee condemned Moran's Reston > remarks, but reaction to his new comments was mixed. Committee > Chairwoman Susan B. Kellom declined to comment on the dispute, while > expressing pleasure that Moran entered a dialogue. > > But member Jerome Chapman, a lawyer and Moran critic who took notes of > his comments, said the congressman used AIPAC as a code word for > Jewish in fluence. "He regrets and repudiates his words, but he hasn't > altered his mode of discourse," Chapman said. > > Alexandria rabbi Jack Moline, who attended the meeting, said Moran > spoke in disregard of the truth about AIPAC and was playing with fire. > > "If it's fair game to run against the National Rifle Association, it's > fair to run against AIPAC. That's politics," he said. "But there's no > doubt that if he chooses to make AIPAC his opponent, he's going to > cause a whole segment of the population to line up against him . . . > whatever differences people have with AIPAC." >
New Statesman April 7, 2003 How neoconservatives conquered Washington -- and launched a war
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Frenzy
Over Ali, But There are Thousands of Children Like Him
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by Kim Sengupta in Baghdad, the Independent
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"Why do you all want to talk to Ali? There are hundreds of children suffering like him, and we are getting more every day," said Moufak Gabriel, the hospital director, as we arrived to see Ali Ismail Abbas, the injured 12-year-old boy who has become the center of a British media frenzy. All around him at the Saddam General, the worst-equipped hospital in Baghdad, in its most violent slum, Saddam City, there was pandemonium. Staff were barricading the gates as dozens of people, some ill, some seemingly healthy, struggled to get in. The danger lay beyond them – groups of men with guns, knives and staves silently watching. Every other big hospital in Baghdad including Al-Kindi, where Ali was initially treated, had been ransacked by mobs of looters.So he had been transferred here and now he lay on a soiled bed, under a neon light, in a room with broken windows and water on the floor.
The pitiful pictures of Ali, his arms reduced to bandaged stumps and his body covered in burns, biting his lip in pain and grief, have been carried by newspapers around the world. He will become one of the enduring images of war. For millions of people around the world, Ali is already the face of this conflict. Perhaps one boy's tragedy is easier to comprehend than the enormity of grief and pain visited on an entire nation. Yet three weeks of war have certainly left scars on countless other Iraqi children. There are no reliable figures for the numbers killed, orphaned or maimed. Thousands will have been affected by contaminated water as the power supplies in cities such as Basra and Baghdad were bombed. The immune systems of these children were already depressed by malnutrition after years of sanctions. Even before the war, experts warned the UN that Iraqi children were already suffering "significant psychological harm" from the fear of bombing and death. The facts of what happened to Ali are as follows: an American missile smashed into his home in the village of Zafaraniya, 30 miles from Baghdad, as his family slept, just after midnight. He was severely burnt and both his arms had to be amputated. His father, Ismail, and mother, Azhar, who was pregnant, were killed. Ali has black curly hair and hazel eyes. His aunt Jamila and a nurse brushed away the flies. "If I had hands, I would shake your hand," he said. "They cut them off after the bomb. I want my hands." We stood there awkwardly. Rahim al-Kinani, the doctor treating him, said he had been told that newspapers in Britain had launched an appeal on his behalf and that he would have artificial arms soon. How much of this Ali understood was not clear. He wanted new hands, he said, but he definitely did not want to go to Britain. This may be a problem, for a number of tabloids are competing to raise funds for an airlift to have him treated at a London clinic. Ali cried a little and then, unprompted, began to say what happened that night. "We had all gone to bed and there was this loud noise and smoke. I felt very scared and I was in much pain. I kept shouting for my mother. I did not know at the time what had happened to her. "I do not remember much after that. I was taken to a hospital in Zafaraniya. After that they brought me here and the doctors cut off my arms." Ali has six sisters, aged from six to 20, and a 10-year-old stepbrother. They are now being looked after by an uncle. His favorite subject at school was, he said, geography. He has suffered third-degree burns over 60 per cent of his body. His chances of survival, said Dr Kinani, were 50-50. "The main problem we face now is septicaemia. Infection is a real problem and, as you can see," he added, "we are not exactly in the most perfect of conditions." "If he gets through the next phases, there will, in time, be skin grafts. But that is a very difficult process and I am afraid the boy will face pain for a very long time." His aunt Jamila used a corner of her chador to wipe the boy's eyes. "He cries all the time. There is nothing I can really say to console him," she said. "He has heard about these people in England getting him new arms. I do not know whether he understands what it means. But he is really building up his hopes." Two floors away, in another ward of Saddam General, lay 11-year-old Fouad Abu Haidar. He has lost his left arm, half his face is hidden by bandages and he may lose one of his eyes. He suffered his injuries during another air attack, 10 days ago, near Iskandiriyah, in the southern suburbs of Baghdad. A 14-year-old cousin, Karim, died when the missile struck their house just after nine o'clock in the evening. Fouad has not had anyone visit him from the Western media, and no promises that he will also benefit from the generosity of the British people. His father, Haidar Hussein, said he was glad to know about the concern of the British people but felt nothing but anger about what had happened. "No one has told me anything about any money from Britain. But this is a war by Bush and Blair. They did this to my son and other children, women, men. Why didn't the British and American people stop their leaders from doing this? What is the justification in bombing ordinary people? "Now the Americans are in Baghdad, and look what is going on here. There is looting and killing and the Americans are also killing Iraqis. What is their justification?" There are other wards and other young victims. A three-year-old boy with a fractured skull, and Jenan, a girl of nine with her foot blown off who has also had to be transferred from Al-Kindi. She said: "It hurts a lot, all the time. I do not think I will be able to walk again. I do not know what is going to happen to me. I feel very, very sad." Her grandmother, sitting beside her, started to cry. |
Feelings
by Edgar J. Steele
April 11, 2003
Feelings, feelings
Like I've never lost you
And feelings like I'll never
Have you again in my heart.
Feelings, for all my life I'll feel it.
---"Feelings," by Morris Albert, 1975
(Since established that Albert
plagiarized his single hit from "Pour Toi," by French composer
Louis Gaste.)
Here's a first: I'm at a loss for words.
I just don't know what to say about the senseless murdering rampage
that America, my America, has inflicted upon yet another all-but-
defenseless third-world country. So many already have said it so
well.
The internet is surging with condemnation and exposure of the
government/
media lies, from both ends of the political spectrum, from Michael Moore
to Joe Sobran. There really is nothing original that I can add to
what
already has been said so thoroughly by those more eloquent than I.
But I've never let that stop me before.
Picture Katie Couric sitting in my living room. "Well, Edgar,
you must
really be proud to be part of the liberation of Iraq from its
oppressive,
dictatorial regime, huh? Tell us how you feel."
Like my heart has been broken for the first time, that's how. Yes,
it
happened long ago and several times since, but this time in a totally
different place. A special place never before violated. The
place where
I have held a special pride for being part of the best of the best -
the best country, the best economy, the best people...you know.
It's like learning your father has just been arrested for raping and
killing the neighbor's ten-year-old girl and then seeing the pictures
on the front page of the morning paper. Followed by TV news
footage
of him beaming proudly and saying, "She was asking for it. It
was her
own fault. She made me do it."
That's how I feel.
How can I ever feel the same again?
The media propaganda barrage has been relentless and of one voice
with the American military. Those journalists out of step simply
have been fired, ejected from Iraq or killed. This is the first
war
in which the press corps suffered a higher mortality rate, as a
percent of its total number, than any of the combatants.
As one of the neocon Chosen, by and for whom this "war" was
prosecuted in my name, among so many other Americans, put it in
yesterday's New York Post: "(T)he antiwar movement consists
not of thinkers but of true believers; indeed, it's more akin to
a religious cult than a political cause, hoist on tenets of faith
rather than points of evidence...As the Iraqi people rise up to
cheer the American troops, the true believers will claim the scenes
are staged. As chemical and biological weapons are uncovered, the
true believers will claim they were planted. As an interim government
is established, the true believers will claim it's a puppet for
American interests. As the oil wealth of Iraq is translated into
prosperity for the people, the true believers will claim American
companies are hogging profits." Mark Goldblatt,
"Antiwar: Movement
or Cult?" New York Post, April 10, 2003.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/73100.htm
So - those of us who disfavor American imperialism are cultists, eh?
Presumably, then, only the clearheaded favor the dismemberment of
small children in pursuit of Pax Americana. This, from the very
people who demonstrated so vehemently against the Viet Nam war
(which, after all, was not in Israel's interest, was it?). And,
remember, I'm a right winger, like so many others opposed to this,
America's first war of pure aggression. For once, we stand
alongside
our leftist brethren, now that they have been deserted by those now
calling themselves neoconservatives.
Well, guess what - the scenes are staged:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2842.htm
When and if chemical/biological weapons are uncovered, they will
have been planted. Saddam would have used them if he had them,
after all.
The "interim government," already selected, is an American
puppet.
Actually, it is an Israeli puppet, but I repeat myself.
American companies are hogging the oil profits. In fact, many
of the contracts have already been signed, with Dick Cheney's
Halliburton one of the biggest pigs at the trough. Iraq's existing
contracts with France, Germany, Turkey and Russia will be voided,
as the administration has already indicated.
Typically, the wife of the convicted child molester/killer divorces
him on the spot and moves elsewhere for a fresh start. Frankly,
I am so disgusted that I would do the same, if there were someplace
safe in the world to which I could move - safe from America, that is.
But, as Bush the Second so eloquently put it, "Yer either with us
or
agin us." Anyplace "with" America won't be safe for
the foreseeable
future because of the mortal enemies now created throughout the
world. Of course, anyplace "agin" America might well
suffer Iraq's
fate. Given the rate at which American ire has been generated
against France, anything seems possible.
Russia, believe it or not, seems to possess the new wellspring
of personal freedom, liberty and opportunity and is one of only
two countries America dare not attack. American expatriates
living there report that, already, they have far greater freedom
than currently exists in the United States. However, I honestly
fear for Russia's future, bound up with the Muslim world as it is.
If America doesn't end up nuking it, you can bet Israel will.
Of course, this all presumes that WWIII has begun. What do
you think? I know what those in the Middle East think.
New America. An idea whose time has come.
-ed
"I didn't say it would be easy. I just said it would be the
truth."
-
Morpheus
T
H E M U S L I M C O U N C
I L O F B R I T A I
N
11
April 2003
UK Muslims Reject Neo-Conservative/Zionist Plans For Iraq
Following the collapse of
Saddam Hussein's repressive and brutal ba'thist regime in Iraq, the Muslim
Council of Britain views with concern moves by the United States to
replace it with a pliant regime.
"The imminent US announcement stating that the pro-Israeli Retired
General Jay Garner is to head an interim Iraqi administration, coupled
with the crass threats against Syria and Iran from the most senior US
officials only serve to confirm the worst fears of those who assert that
the real objective of the war against Iraq was to promote US/Israeli
geo-political interests in the Middle East, and not freedom, democracy or
human rights," said Mr Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary-General of the
Muslim Council of Britain.
The MCB believes it is crucial that the Prime Minister Tony Blair ensures
that the United Nations - and it alone - is empowered to administer Iraq
for the shortest possible interim period and that full control is then
transferred to a truly representative Iraqi government.
"We do not want to see Britain being viewed in the Muslim world and
beyond as an accomplice to this neo-Conservative-Zionist design for a
post-Saddam Middle East," said Mr Sacranie.
The MCB considers that the responsibility for causing the tragic
humanitarian disaster unfolding in all parts of Iraq lies entirely with
the US and UK governments which launched this war in utter disregard of
world opinion.
We call upon the international community to give this tragedy their urgent
attention and we also call upon the US/UK governments to withdraw their
troops from Iraqi soil immediately. It is unlikely that the Iraqi people
will tolerate for long the replacement of a hated dictator with an
occupying force," added Mr Sacranie.
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For
further information please contact: The Muslim Council of Britain,
Unit 5, Boardman House, 64 Broadway, Stratford, London E15 1NT |
TARGETING THOSE ON ISRAEL'S
HIT LIST
Jewish warmongers now eye Syria
ŒNeo-cons¹ want
Syrian Œrégime change¹ By JOSEPH MILLIS
Jewish Chronicle,
London April 11, 2003 / 10 Nissan 5763 Shabbat
WASHINGTONA group of Bush Administration hawks,
many
of them Jewish, has begun openly portraying Syria as the next
candidate for ³régime change² in the Middle East‹though
making clear they do not envisage Iraq-style US military
intervention.
Widely described in Washington political and media circles
as the ³Neo-conservatives²‹³Neo-cons,² for short‹the group
includes deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and
Richard Perle, a close adviser to Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld. Among other leading lights are William Kristol,
editor of the right-wing Weekly Standard, who is close to
Vice-President Dick Cheney, and the syndicated columnist
Charles Krauthammer.
Speaking on NBC¹s ³Meet the Press² at the weekend,
Mr Wolfowitz reiterated US allegations that the régime of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had been allowing military
equipment and fighters into Iraq to support its fight against
US and British forces.
³There¹s got to be a change in Syria,² he said. ³The Syrians
need to know Š they¹ll be held accountable.²
Emphasising what he saw as the longer-term impact of the
defeat of Saddam Hussein¹s régime, he said: ³I think a lot
of countries, including Syria, will eventually get the message Š
that it¹s much better to come to terms peacefully with the
international community, to not acquire weapons of mass
destruction, not use terrorism as an instrument of policy.²
Mr Perle said in an interview this week: ³You can arrive at
Damascus and ask a taxi driver to take you to one of several
terrorist organisations.²
But on the issue of possible US military action, he added:
³There are different ways to get people to change, and I hope
the example of Iraq after Afghanistan will prove persuasive Š
³We should be using all the instruments of US influence to
accomplish that purpose, and most of those instruments
are not military.²
Some in the Bush Administration were explicitly playing
down the prospect of direct US action against Damascus‹
and of possible links between the Syrians and Saddam
Hussein.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
said there was ³no evidence² to support recent allegations
by Israeli leaders‹and some US intelligence officials‹
which suggested Iraq might have moved weapons of mass
destruction across the border into Syria.
<http://thejc.com/News.asp?Page=3&Type=4>
Operation Iraqi Chaos
By Firas Al-Atraqchi
For two days running, mainstream media has bombarded the
viewing public with the same images of Saddam Hussein's toppling statue,
filmed from numerous angles. Cheering Iraqis stomping on, ripping, or
burning pictures of Saddam seemed to portray that the war in Iraq had come
to an end; victory, freedom, liberty -- all at arm's reach. However, the real war, the true test of U.S. President
George Bush's and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair's resolve is yet to come.
Ominously, the past two days of toppled statues showed
nothing of the carnage in Baghdad hospitals. The International Committee
of the Red Cross revealed that Iraqi hospitals were so overwhelmed that
the injured were lying bleeding in hallway floors awaiting treatment and
care. This is where the real war begins. "When the al-Kindi hospital, one of Baghdad's key
medical facilities, was attacked by armed looters, U.S. troops failed to
intervene, saying they had no orders to do so," said the BBC's Rageh
Omar in Baghdad.
The Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies have called
the collapse of the Iraqi health sector a "scandal."
Germany joined a growing number of voices calling on U.S.
troops to protect world embassies in Baghdad after looters ransacked and
tore down fixtures, window frames, door knobs, chairs, lamps, etc.
Al Jazeera TV showed looters fighting one another to stake
a claim on Uday Hussein's prized horses. The Al Jazeera cameraman managed
to capture scenes of one horse being run over by a pickup truck. It is
likely the horses will be slaughtered for their meat, a commodity hardly
savored by the downtrodden Iraqis of Saddam City.
In Basra, looters broke into a local bank. In the recently
"liberated" northern city of Kirkuk, looters broke into two
local banks and made off with anything they could find.
On Friday, Reuters reported that U.K. forces were fired
upon after trying to detain a number of armed looters robbing a bank. U.K.
forces engaged the looters and killed five.
Back in Baghdad, five government ministries and several
commercial buildings continued to burn well into their third night. No
local fire brigades were called in. The Ministry of Sport and Youth,
formerly headed by Uday Hussein, has been burning for two days.
In the Palestine Hotel in central Baghdad, Iraqis began to
grasp the calamity of their situation. While they did make idle chatter
with U.S. Marines who are hoping to befriend the Iraqis, many Iraqi
citizens expressed concern that there was a complete breakdown in civil
order with no visible civil administration in control.
The Marines for their part admit they are not there to
play a political role.
A cook at the hotel said, "we have no electricity; we
have no bread; we have nothing."
On Friday, Agence France Presse reported that mobs in
Baghdad have looted Iraq's largest archaeological museum. AFP also
reported that there were dozens of bodies strewn alongside roads in the
city, some of paramilitary units, others of women and children: "The
putrid, fly-covered corpses were being buried in a mass grave along the
side of the road by volunteers whose noses were covered with scarves
against the stench, according to the photographer."
"If the price of freedom is this, we don't want
it," one Iraqi helping at the scene told the AFP.
BBC's Omar reports that "the Iraqi capital is prey to
gangs of armed looters who have raided government buildings, shops,
private homes and even hospitals."
By Friday night, the situation in Mosul was no different.
However, Mosul residents have banded together and formed street patrols
preventing any looters from escaping with their cache. All retrieved items
are being stored in local mosques.
On Thursday night, ABC Australia filmed a U.S. Marine unit
pummel a pickup truck with hundreds of machine gun rounds. Apparently, the
truck had come too close to the convoy carrying the Marines. ABC Australia
later reported that the pickup truck was carrying three civilians, all
dead.
However, chaos in Iraq was not limited to looting and
vandalism. In the holy city of Najaf, a reconciliation meeting went
horribly wrong as a crowd rushed and hacked to death two Shiite Muslim
clerics -- one a Saddam Hussein supporter, the other a returning exile who
had urged support for U.S. troops. Iraqi exiles claim this underscores the
inner upheaval within the Shiite community in Iraq.
Amidst the looting and lawlessness, Iraqis are beginning
to fear the specter of revenge killings and the settling of scores.
In a Friday Pentagon press briefing, U.S. Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld blamed the international media for the looting in
Baghdad, claiming that it was not as widespread as cameras were showing.
"Stuff happens," he said, apparently irked by
some of the questions regarding White House planning to restore civil
order in Iraq.
[Firas Al-Atraqchi, B.Sc (Physics), M.A. (Journalism
and Communications), is a Canadian journalist with eleven years of
experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and the
telecom industry.]
Firas Al-Atraqchi encourages your comments: fatraqchi@YellowTimes.org
YellowTimes.org
Unfortunately, the BBC reported early Thursday that looting had become so
rampant in Baghdad that Iraqi doctors were begging U.S. Marines to stand
guard outside local district hospitals and prevent armed brigands from
stealing vital medical equipment. The Marines failed to comply.
RED CROSS DENIES AID TO IRAQI CHILDREN
RIA Novosti
April 11, 2003
http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=3166567&startrow=31&date=2003-04-11&do_alert=0
MOSCOW, APRIL 11, 2003. /from a RIA NOVOSTI correspondent/. - At the
outset of the war in Iraq known Russian paediatrician Leonid Roshal came
forward with the initiative to establish a "green corridor" for
evacuating injured children from the war-stricken country. Now he accuses
the International Committee of the Red Cross /ICRC/ of the failure of his
initiative. It was the Red Cross that must have arranged the corridor,
but did not even make an attempt, the doctor said at a Moscow news
conference Friday. He believes the ICRC was scared.
The Committee offered weak excuses, according to Mr Roshal, saying the
kids should not be separated from their parents and should be given aid
in Iraq. The idea to evacuate wounded children worked perfectly well in
Afghanistan, recalled the medic. He insisted the Committee's arguments
were formal.
The Red Cross is doing a great job providing humanitarian aid /to Iraq/.
However, it appears to be afraid of taking certain decisions. Maybe a new
organisation of that type should be set up, employees of which would not
be scared to perform their duty, the doctor asked rhetorically.
Russia has not thus far received the ICRC's reply as to how many children
have been wounded in Iraq and what assistance they need, recalled Mr
Roshal.
http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=3166567&startrow=31&date=2003-04-11&do_alert=0
U.S. Threatens Iraqi Scientists
Islam Online
April 12, 2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-04/12/article02.shtml
photos:
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-04/12/images/pic02.jpg
Iraqi scientists accused U.S. forces of encouraging looting of
universities
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-04/12/images/pic02a.jpg
Mrs. Ammash has been placed on the U.S. most-wanted list of 55
-----------------------------------
CAIRO, April 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Appealing to the
world community to protect them from the U.S. aggression aimed at
obliterating Iraq’s minds, a number of Iraqi scientists and university
professors sent an SOS e-mail complaining American occupation forces were
threatening their lives.
In their e-mail, a copy of which was sent to IslamOnlin.net Friday, April
11, they said they have dictated their message to a respected Iraqi
scientist in the Netherlands over phone, urging him to circulate it to
all parties concerned to protect them from the arbitrary inquires and
arrests by the U.S. occupation forces.
Iraqi scientists asserted that occupation troops demanded them,
particularly physicists, chemists and mathematicians, to hand over all
documents and researches in their possession.
The appeal message also said that looting and robberies were being taken
place under the watchful eye of the occupation soldiers.
The occupation soldiers, the e-mail added, are transporting mobs to the
scientific institutions, such as Mosul University and different
educational institutions, to destroy scientific research centers and
confiscate all papers and documents to nip in the bud any Iraqi
scientific renaissance.
The frantic scientists also underlined that some of them were placed
under house arrest and deprived of going to their laboratories and
universities.
Some of them were also approached by agents from the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) to entice them away to foreign scientific
centers, the message cautioned.
The e-mail also noted that occupation forces had drawn up lists of the
names, addresses and researches of the Iraqi scientists to assist them in
their harassment tasks in light of the chaos and anarchy that sit in
after the toppling of the Iraqi regime on April, 9.
Reports Claim Scientists Fled To Syria
As part of the "concerted campaign" campaign against Syria, The
Washington Times newspaper claimed Saturday, April 12, that some of
Iraq's top scientists have already fled their country and are in Syria,
from where they may seek political safety in France.
Quoting U.S. administration officials, the American paper said there are
intelligence reports that Iraqi scientists are seeking safety in France.
According to the daily, U.S. officials declined to put a number on how
many Iraqi weapons scientists have entered Syria, but estimated it is
fewer than 10 at this point.
Among those claimed to have made it to Syria are Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash
and Rihab Taha, both top scientists in Iraq's alleged biological-weapons
program, said The Washington Times.
The two women are notable not only for their scientific expertise, but
also because they attained senior positions among the male-dominated
Ba'ath Party, the paper said.
Mrs. Taha, a British-trained microbiologist, is married to Iraq's oil
minister Amir Rashid Mohammed Ubaydi, on the American most-wanted list of
55.
The Times claims she ran Iraq's biological-warfare program at a research
lab in the town of Hakam beginning in the mid-1980s.
Mrs. Taha was not listed, although she is wanted for questioning.
Mrs. Ammash has been photographed at Saddam's Cabinet meetings, and at a
meeting with his son, Qusay, according the U.S. daily.
On Friday, April 11, Mrs. Ammash's picture and name were listed by the
U.S. Central Command as one of 55 “most-wanted” Iraqis.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has warned Syria several times
publicly to stop helping the Iraqi regime, asserting that some Iraqi
leaders had fled to the country.
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-04/12/article02.shtml
Anti-war protesters march across Europe
ABC
Sunday, April 13, 2003
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s830952.htm
Thousands of peace campaigners poured onto the streets of Europe this
weekend, switching their focus from preventing war on Iraq to protesting
against the continuing US and British military presence.
Although US and British officials say the military operation is drawing
to an end after the fall of President Saddam Hussein's government,
activists said their concerns were as grave as ever.
"It is good Saddam has gone but we cannot forget this war is illegal and
without the sanction of the United Nations. It is setting a very
dangerous precedent of pre-emption," Pakistani politician and former
international cricketer Imran Khan said as he joined a mass rally in
London's Hyde Park.
"No country should have the right to be judge, jury and executioner. That
is the reason the UN was set up - to protect the weak from the strong.
But this war sets a precedent where might is right and undermines the
UN."
Organisers estimated 100,000 people marched through the city centre,
waving banners saying "No Occupation of Iraq" and chanting "Bush, Blair,
CIA, how many kids have you killed today?".
Police put the numbers at closer to 20,000.
In the Italian capital Rome, a march originally organised to call for an
end to the fighting changed its slogan to "No to an infinite and global
war".
"This war is far from over and anyway it will have terrible effects on
the Middle East and maybe on the whole world," university professor
Umberto Allegretti who joined the protest.
In Paris, about 11,000 people marched through the streets demanding an
immediate ceasefire in Iraq and the withdrawal of US and British troops.
Demonstrators, led by several prominent French Communist politicians,
carried banners reading "Stop the occupation in Iraq" and "Yes to a
democratic and independent Iraq".
In Berlin, about 12,000 protesters marched past the headquarters of the
opposition CDU conservatives, who have backed the US-led campaign,
shouting "peace not occupation".
In Dhaka, Bangladesh, tens of thousands burned effigies of US President
George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair while in Calcutta,
about 15,000 demonstrators formed a human chain around the US and British
consulates, shouting "Iraq will become another Vietnam for America".
Although the turnout in London was far below the roughly million anti-war
protesters who marched through the capital in February, organisers said
numbers exceeded their expectations.
"It shows there are still plenty of people still horrified by this
illegal war," said Andrew Burgin from the Stop the War Coalition, which
organised the event along with the Muslim Association of Britain.
"They have not found any weapons of mass destruction. It is an illegal
occupation in terms of the international community and it has been an
illegal war," he said.
Washington launched the war three weeks ago to destroy Iraq's alleged
banned weapons, but has not found any so far.
Most of Saturday's protests were peaceful and there were few arrests.
Iraq’s Liberation Front Attempts To Assassinate Chalabi
By Abdul Raheem Ali, IOL Cairo Staff
Islam Online
April 12, 2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-04/12/images/pic08.jpg
Iraqi opposition leader Chalabi escaped an assassination attempt
unscathed
CAIRO, April 12 (IslamOnline.net) - A number of armed people belonging to
the nascent National Front For The Liberation of Iraq (NFLI) tried
Friday, April 11, to assassinate Ahmad Chalabi, one of the prominent
exile leaders and head of the Iraqi National Council (INC), in the
southern city of An-Nasiriyah.
“They attacked a camp of Chalabi’s devotees, leaving a number of them
killed,” Abdul Amir El-Rakabi, an Iraqi exile, told IslamOnline.net on
Saturday, April 12.
“They narrowly missed Chalabi,” he added.
The NFLI released Friday a statement entitled "Aggression Ends,
Liberation Begins", a copy of which was obtained by IslamOnline.net [see
http://islamonline.net/english/news/2003-04/11/article16.shtml ].
The statement said the new front “comprises local representatives of
armed groups and resistance brigades, some still manning positions in
Iraq along with Arab volunteer fighters.”
“The front also is regrouping a host of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard
units and special forces after being disintegrated. Iraq may lose the
war, but it would never surrender or die," underlined the statement.
As for the U.S. plans to install former army general Jay Garner in power
in post-war Iraq, the Liberation Front underlined that the “Iraqi people
will neither allow this Zionist general who is a personal friend to the
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to rule them nor the thief of Baghdad
Ahmad Chalabi.”
The front further rebuffed other prominent Iraqi exiles such as Nezar
al-Khazrgi, Nuri Abdul Razek, Mahdi Hafez, Adham al-Samra’I and their
“ilk, as well as CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and Mossad (Israeli
Intelligence) agents.”
Opposition Leaders Flock Home
In the meantime, a number of the national Iraqi exiles came home to heal
the rift and help regroup Iraq’s mosaic powers to stand up to the
invaders and force them out.
Rakabi said that Mohammed Baqir An-Nasiri, a prominent Shiite figure,
came back to his home town of An-Nasiriyah, where he was given a welcome
reception.
“His comeback would definitely produce a ground-shaking effect since he
is one of Iraq’s national icons, who vehemently oppose colonialism and
the U.S. presence in Iraq. He would boost the morale of the Iraqis and
make them act in unison in the face of the occupying forces,” he said.
Was the destruction of the Baghdad Museum collection an intentional plot
by the The Regime against Iraq? The answer is yes.
Here's the smoking gun from the article below that indicates that the
Antichrist occupying the White House knew full well and far in advance
the importance of protecting the Baghdad museum from raiders:
"For weeks before the war, archaeologists and other scholars had alerted
military planners to the risks of combat, particularly postwar pillage of
the country's antiquities. These include 10,000 sites of ruins with such
resonating names as Babylon, Nineveh, Nimrud and Ur. Experts reminded the
Defense Department that after the Persian Gulf war of 1991, 9 of Iraq's
13 regional museums were plundered. The Baghdad museum was spared then
because the end of war had left the government still in power and
policing the city."
Despite this criminal outrage - a depredation against the whole human
race - don't expect to hear much more about this enormous loss to all
mankind other than a brief squeak or two from the western media. After
all, the 170,000 artifacts lost from the Baghdad museum are not nearly as
valuable as a couple of very worn-down Buddha statues in Afghanistan and
therefore won't be discussed endlessly for months as they were.
Art Experts Fear Worst in the Plunder of a Museum
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
New York Times
April 13, 2003
The looting of the National Museum of Iraq, a repository of treasures
from civilization's first cities and early Islamic culture, could be a
catastrophe for world cultural heritage, archaeologists and art experts
said on Friday.
"Baghdad is one of the great museums of the world, with irreplaceable
material," said Dr. John Malcolm Russell, a specialist in Mesopotamian
archaeology at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston.
Though he and other scholars of antiquities were alarmed by the reports
of looting, they were not surprised. They said they feared the next
cultural target could be the important museum in Mosul, a northern city
that is also in turmoil. The Mosul museum holds many Assyrian artifacts
from the nearby Nineveh ruins.
Concerned archaeologists urged United States military leaders to take
more forceful steps to protect Iraqi's cultural treasures and to restore
control of them to the local Department of Antiquities. For weeks before
the war, archaeologists and other scholars had alerted military planners
to the risks of combat, particularly postwar pillage of the country's
antiquities. These include 10,000 sites of ruins with such resonating
names as Babylon, Nineveh, Nimrud and Ur.
Experts reminded the Defense Department that after the Persian Gulf war
of 1991, 9 of Iraq's 13 regional museums were plundered. The Baghdad
museum was spared then because the end of war had left the government
still in power and policing the city.
American archaeologists who studied the looting suspected that some of it
was driven by the illicit trade in antiquities.
At some remote and poorly guarded dig sites, Dr. McGuire Gibson of the
University of Chicago wrote recently that illicit digging in most cases
started as attempts simply to find something to sell to put food on the
table. "This work soon grew to an industry," he said, "financed from
abroad and engaging hundreds of diggers at some sites."
The reported museum looting that began on Friday in Baghdad would be the
war's first known plundering of Iraqi antiquities.
Reacting to the report, Dr. Philippe de Montebello, director of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, said, "We can't conquer and
then shirk further responsibility by allowing anarchy in the cities and
allowing Iraq's ancient heritage to be pillaged."
Dr. de Montebello complained of the apparent lack of effective policing
by American troops. He said that he and other museum officials and
archaeologists had already held meetings to explore what must be done "to
help the Baghdad museum and Iraqi's antiquities authorities to restore
themselves."
By chance, the damage to the Baghdad museum came as the Metropolitan was
preparing a major new exhibition, "Art of the First Cities: The Third
Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus." It is to open May
8. About 400 rare works of art will be displayed, many of them from Iraq,
though no works from the Baghdad museum were available.
More than 230 scholars of ancient Mesopotamian history from 25 countries
have signed a petition to be delivered to the United Nations on Monday.
Drafted by researchers at Yale and Oxford Universities, the petition
urges military leaders and postwar administrators of Iraq to safeguard
cultural artifacts "for the future of the Iraqi people and for the
world."
American archaeologists said that they had lost contact with their Iraqi
colleagues in recent weeks. The last they had heard was that several
antiquities officials and researchers had barricaded themselves in the
Baghdad museum. They had hidden some of the most precious artifacts
elsewhere, and protected others with sandbags.
At last report, just before the outbreak of war on March 21, Dr. Russell
said that Dr. Donny George, the research director of antiquities who is
known for his heft, was seen to be thin and exhausted from the stress of
preparing to defend the museum.
Of the several thousand artifacts at the museum, Dr. Russell said some of
his favorites were the stone birds from Nemrik, north of Mosul. The site,
investigated in the last decade, is one of the world's first villages,
from about 8,000 B.C.
The museum's collection includes a cult vase from Uruk decorated with
some of the earliest narrative pictures from the Sumerian culture. The
pictures show fields and flocks and people making offerings to the
goddess Inanna, the Sumerian version of Ishtar.
"That's a beautiful, important piece," Dr. Russell said.
Pictures Of Bush Statue After Being Pulled Down
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/1599620.php
Jubilant Crowd Dismantles Statue of Bush
San Francisco Residents Topple George W. Bush, Symbol of Oppression
Progressive Junta
April 12, 2003
http://www.progressivejunta.org/exploits/bushstatue/
SAN FRANCISCO, APRIL 12 — In a visual moment that will go down in
history, a jubilant San Francisco crowd toppled a statue of George W.
Bush, a symbol of the illegitimate regime that had long oppressed the
American people. Emboldened by the arrival of a massive, unarmed
pro-peace force, a celebrant crowd of Americans beheaded a toppled statue
of George W. Bush, which towered over the Civic Center Plaza of San
Francisco.
“We stood in the oppressive shadow of that monument, held fast by its
cruel gaze and menacing sneer, ever since its erection earlier this
morning,” reported one American brandishing a sledge hammer, “Now the
peace marchers are here, and the ones who speak English are promising us
that our liberation is at hand.” A crowd of Americans dragged the
statue’s massive head through the city streets. “It’s ironic that we so
feared this figurehead of totalitarianism,” observed one jubilant
American, “the head is completely hollow after all.”
The crowd succeeded in destroying the likeness of their unpopular,
un-elected ruler at approximately 11:14 AM Saturday morning. They spent
the remainder of the day in close proximity to the gathering peace
forces, likely fearful of retribution at the hands of pockets of
resistance still loyal to the Bush regime.
“We understand that this is just a symbol,” said American Alex Brusht,
“though inevitable, the long hard work of regime change in this country
is still ahead of us.”
For more information about current and future actions, go to
*News updated Thursday, April 10, 2003 19:15 GMT
***Where, oh where, are the CLG newsletters going? Where, oh where, can they be? I have been sending the CLG newsletters to our list and they seem to be arriving... nowhere, since April 7. Please know that we are updating the CLG website throughout the day anyway. [Perhaps the CLG newsletter has also been "liberated" (i.e. OBLITERATED) by the Bush regime. --Michael Rectenwald and Lori Price] http://www.legitgov.org/mike_lori_replyto_u_leftwing_idiots_041003.html
Michael Rectenwald* responds to a CLG visitor who exclaims, "u left wing dickheads are such idiots" *Lori Price chimes in, too!
After Iraq, rogue nations won't be spared: Hoon --If you thought the war on Iraq is over, wait. This could be just the first of many more to come. British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has said that pre-emptive military strikes against rogue nations that sponsor terrorism are likely to become more common... With the future of the UN under threat already, an Anglo-American military axis is now seen as emerging, with the attack on Iraq as only its first venture.
Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President [sic] --A secret blueprint for US global domination reveals that Dictator Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power [yes, literally 'took' power] in January 2001. The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- pResident), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb [mega barf alert: Jeb's involvement] and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff).
Iraq war planned long in advance; banned arms not the priority: Blix --The invasion of Iraq was planned a long time in advance, and the United States and Britain are not primarily concerned with finding any banned weapons of mass destruction, the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said.
Iraqi Shi'ite leader assassinated --Senior Iraqi Sh'ite leader Abdul Majid al-Khoei and his aide have been assassinated in an attack in the holiest shrine in the central Iraqi city of Najaf, members of his family foundation have told Reuters.
Suicide Attack Kills 'Some' Soldiers in Baghdad, US Says --A suicide bomber killed "some" American soldiers at a military checkpoint in Baghdad Thursday, a U.S. officer said. Asked by reporters how many U.S. servicemen had died in the attack, Marine officer Matt Baker told a Reuters correspondent in the Iraqi capital: "Some are dead in the attack but I don't know how many."
Staged 'toppling' of Iraqi regime a Propagnda Stunt [This is a MUST SEE; photographic evidence.]
Baghdad: a battle that did not happen --The minimal resistance U.S. troops faced in Baghdad and the quasi-collapse of President Saddam Hussein's regime came as a surprise to many Arabs Wednesday, triggering speculation about the unimpeded advance of U.S. forces into the capital.
Air Force moving several MOAB bombs to Gulf region: Pentagon --The US Air Force is moving several 21,000-pound MOAB bombs, the largest US conventional bomb, to the Gulf region, a US defense official said.
Troops fired on ambulance: doctor --Two Iraqis were killed and three others wounded when US troops shot at an ambulance on a central Baghdad street, a doctor has said.
US-backed militia terrorises town --Hay Al Ansar, on the outskirts of Najaf in Iraq, was glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party government, when the city was seized by US forces last week. But they appear to be just as terrified, if not more so, of their new rulers -a little-known Iraqi militia backed by the US special forces and headquartered in a compound nearby.
Bodies litter streets of Baghdad suburb --Around 20 bodies and burnt-out cars littered the streets of the southwestern Baghdad neighbourhood of Al-Dora, an AFP photographer reported.
Iraqi Girl’s Foot Liberated From Leg (Satire on US-UK terrorism in Iraq from Babylon Express) "Baghdad: US military officials are hailing the liberation of a 12 year old Iraqi girl’s left foot from her leg as a 'huge step forward' in winning the battle for the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Iraqi people."
'We shoot them down like the morons they are': US general --Hundreds of Muslim fighters, many of them non-Iraqis, were putting up a stronger fight for Baghdad than Iraq's Republican Guard or the regular army, a top United States military officer said yesterday. "They stand, they fight, sometimes they run when we engage them," Brigadier-General Terrorist John Kelly said. "But often they run into our machine guns and we shoot them down like the morons they are."
U.K. Forces Committed Mass Killing In Umm Qasr: Iraqis --The U.K. troops in the Iraqi southern port city of Umm Qasr set up mass graves in the city to cover up hard evidence of committing massacres that claimed the lives of some 200 Iraqis in the first days of the war, unleashed on March 20, eyewitnesses told IslamOnlin.net Tuesday, April 8.
Bombs Blast Homes Instead of Saddam Hussein --by Peter Arnett "Yarub al-Sadoon recognised me from my days with CNN. He lives in a house across the alleyway. Yarub was thrown to the ground by the explosion but he and his family were unhurt. Outraged he prodded my chest saying: 'You won't even cover this. The Americans don't want to hear this. I defy you to cover it. Is this freedom that you bring us? All you come here for is to kill innocent people. You bring us death.'"
Injured overwhelm hospitals --Health organisations have warned that hospitals in Baghdad have been swamped with casualties now that fierce urban combat has erupted across the city, with supplies dwindling and medical personnel caught in the crossfire and unable to report to work.
U.S. Troops Kill 1,000 In 72 hours Near Najaf: Commander --A U.S. commander acknowledged Wednesday, March 26, that U.S. troops have killed 1,000 Iraqis in the past 72 hours.
Agency wages media battle --Team makes sure war message is unified, positive --The Office of Global Communications, a controversial agency created by Dictator Bush in January, has blossomed into a huge production company, issuing daily scripts on the Iraq war to U.S. spokesmen around the world, auditioning generals to give media briefings and booking regime stars on foreign news shows. [Rove's "Joseph Goebbels Office of Global Propaganda" --Lori Price]
US fires on Russian diplomats fleeing Baghdad --Five Russian diplomats were injured April 6 as they attempted to leave Baghdad, when their convoy was fired on by American forces west of the Iraqi capital. The wounded included Ambassador Vladimir Titorenko, who later told Moscow media that he was lucky to be alive.
Editors blast Rumsfeld over 'reckless' US strike --Representatives of editors in 115 countries have written to Donald Rumsfeld to condemn the "inexcusable" and "reckless" American attack on a hotel in Baghdad, which left two journalists dead and several injured.
A contemporary chronology of Iraq: 1916 to 1991
Iraqis have paid the blood price for a fraudulent war --The crudely colonial nature of this enterprise can no longer be disguised "In reality, the course of the conflict has strengthened the case against a war supposedly launched to rid Iraq of 'weapons of mass destruction' - but which has now morphed into a crusade for regime change as evidence for the original pretext has so embarrassingly not materialised."
SYRIA and those elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction --by Lisa Walsh Thomas "Thank goodness OGL (Our Great Leader) is taking the time to explain it all to those of us who have trouble keeping numbers in our heads when we put on a new bonnet..."
Busted, broke, and on the back burner --The Bush dictatorship is breaking its vow to rebuild Afghanistan. Why should we believe it will do a better job in Iraq? --by Richard Byrne "White House officials apparently forgot to request funds to rebuild the country they bombed to such hoopla shortly after the September 11 attacks. Congressional staffers who caught the slip eventually requested $300 million for reconstructing Afghanistan."
India has developed chemical weapons of mass destruction : Rashid --Federal Minister for Information and Media Development Sheikh Rashid Ahmad on Monday warned India of grave consequences against any misadventure of attacking Pakistan saying his country also has the right [thanks to BushMaggot's setting the precedent] of pre-emptive strikes. He accused India for secretly developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.
106th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 1146 --To end membership of the United States in the United Nations. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES A BILL To end membership of the United States in the United Nations. Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) re-introduced H.R. 1146 in March 2003. The bill was referred to the House Committee on International Relations. Cosponsors as of March 12, 2003: Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Maryland), Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.), Rep. Terry Everett (R-Ala.), and Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.)
NY Police Admit Keeping Anti-War Protest Database --New York police admitted on Thursday to compiling and then destroying a database of people arrested during anti-war protests, but rights groups decried the practice as an erosion of civil liberties in the name of the U.S. war on terrorism.
Denver Men Are Ordered Released in Terror Probe Charges Against Two Not Proved, Judge Says --A federal judge rebuffed the government's Joint Terrorism Task Force today and ordered the release of two Pakistanis living in Denver whom the FBI has described as potential terrorists eager to wage war against the United States.
Houston on list of top terror targets --Homeland Suckyourity Secretary Tom Ridge has identified Houston as one of seven cities most vulnerable to a terrorist attack, based on criteria that include population density [?!?] and intelligence squeezed from al-Qaida detainees[!?!] [not to mention, the pet pork-barrell projects that will suck the Homeland Suckyourity funds, too. --Lori Price]
House Passes Gun Lawsuit Immunity Bill --A bill giving gun manufacturers and dealers broad protection from civil lawsuits arising from the misuse of firearms easily passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday.
Well That's Okay --by Mary MacElveen "I mainly preach to the choir in my articles, but this one, I intend to reach out to those who support George W. Bush. A megalomaniac that rules and does not serve." http://www.legitgov.org/essay_macelveen_well_thats_okay_041003.html
Dead Al Jazeera correspondent deliberately targeted --Colleagues of the Al-Jazeera correspondent killed on Tuesday when two US missiles struck the Baghdad offices of the Qatar-based channel have said they believe they were deliberately targeted.
Pentagon Threatens to Fire on Independent Reporters in Iraq (March 10, 2003) The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares.. ..They've been warned."
Journalist Casualties in Iraq War --Three journalists were killed in Baghdad on Tuesday in two separate incidents involving U.S. forces leading the war in Iraq.
US accused of plans to loot Iraqi antiques --Fears that Iraq's heritage will face widespread looting at the end of the Gulf war have been heightened after a group of wealthy art dealers secured a high-level meeting with the US regime.
Lawmakers want tribunal to try Iraqis --Lawmakers called Tuesday for international tribunals to prosecute Iraqi war crimes, including suicide car bombings that have killed U.S. soldiers. [The CLG wants a tribunal to try Bush et al. for international war crimes.]
U.S. Says Syria May Be Helping Move Out Iraqis --Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld charged on Wednesday that Syria might be helping Saddam Hussein's supporters to flee Iraq. [Looks like the Bush terrorist team is trolling for more invasions... --Lori Price]
Israel eyes Iraqi oil --An Israeli minister says he wants to reopen a pipeline which has been closed for more than fifty years to bring Iraqi oil through Jordan to Israel's Mediterranean coast.
Will Oil Flow Again From Iraq to Israel? [LOL! That would be "Duh!"] --News media worldwide, from the Aftenposten in Norway and the The Balochistan Post in India to the Washington Post and Forbes Online, are quoting a source from Israels National Infrastructures Ministryas saying that Israel and Jordan have started talks on reopening the old Iraq-Israel oil pipeline.
Baghdad Diary --7 April 3 pm and 7.15 pm: Dr. Geert Van Moorter en Dr. Harrie Dewitte by satellite phone (WARNING: Graphic photos of US-UK invaders' terrorism committed against Iraqis) "An 'embedded' journalist, thinking I was a colleague of his, told me something fearful", [Dr.] Geert [Van Moorter] adds. 'American soldiers shot two Iraqi soldiers that had surrendered! He saw pictures of this but knows they won't be shown on CNN. The pictures show two Iraqi soldiers with their hands on their heads. As they are lying down, G.I.s step forward and shoot them in cold blood!'
Russia Denies Its Baghdad Embassy Sheltering Saddam --Russia denied on Wednesday Arab and Western media reports that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was in the compound of its embassy in Baghdad.
Liberation by murder: Baghdad falls to American invasion --After three weeks of death and destruction, the US media on Wednesday finally captured on film the scene it had been waiting for: the city of Baghdad falling to Amerikan tanks and troops.
Britain Claims 'Breakdown' Of Iraqi Regime --With Arab and foreign TV channels showing footage of reported looting of government buildings and U.N. office in Baghdad, Britain said Wednesday, April 9, that Iraq's command and control structure appears to have broken down but admitted resistance to advancing U.S. troops were still quite fierce.
Iraqi Regime Collapses, Baghdad Under U.S. Control --After a blistering three-week of U.S.-led aggression on Iraq and as a sign that the Iraqi regime would soon be history, U.S. tanks and troops poured into the heart of Baghdad Wednesday, April 9, amid scenes of jubilation from the Iraqis.
Iraqi government collapses --United States-led forces have snapped the spine of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein government but the war is not yet formally over, the US military has declared.
Boy Bomb Victim Struggles Against Despair --Ali Ismaeel Abbas, 12, was fast asleep when war shattered his life. A missile obliterated his home and most of his family, leaving him orphaned, badly burned - and blowing off both his arms... [Another "liberated" Iraqi]
King George Returns --Neo-imperialism and the 'Anglosphere' – pro-war immigrants want an American Empire --by Justin Raimondo "The tax burden alone is enough to permanently crush any hope of freeing up the American economy, and, besides that, an empire cries out for an Emperor – or a President with monarchical powers. The Founders warned against the dangers of foreign entanglements and overseas wars precisely because they feared the restoration of royalism."
StopJayGarner.com is an international coalition advocating for the United Nations - not weapons maker Jay Garner --to oversee Iraq's transition to democracy. As a former Army General who until recently was building weapons systems now being used in the Iraq war, Jay Garner is no man of peace. In fact, he's just the man to inflame Iraq and the region.
The Reason Why --by George McGovern 'Thanks to the most crudely partisan decision in the history of the Supreme Court, the nation has been given a President [sic] of painfully limited wisdom and compassion and lacking any sense of the nation's true greatness. Appearing to enjoy his role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces above all other functions of his office, and unchecked by a seemingly timid Congress, a compliant Supreme Court, a largely subservient press and a corrupt corporate plutocracy, George W. Bush has set the nation on a course for one-man rule."
94 Arrested In Protest On 5th Ave. --Nearly 100 anti-war protesters were arrested in midtown yesterday after they blocked the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue while protesting the Carlyle Group, which they accused of profiting from the war against Iraq, police said.
UA student arrested during anti-war demonstration --A Fayetteville man was arrested for criminal trespass Saturday at the Northwest Arkansas Mall when he and other members of a University of Arkansas student group attempted to enter the facility wearing T-shirts emblazoned with antiwar slogans.
German Professors Declare War on English Terms --A group of German university professors, angered by the U.S.-British war against Iraq, have launched a campaign to replace many popular English-language words used in Germany with French terms.
Readers mad that Chronicle ran ad to impeach Bush [Too bleeping bad!!] --Monday's ad, which typically would cost about $45,000, called for the impeachment of Bush, Vice pResident Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Sickko Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashkkkroft. The ad charged that all four have committed war crimes and crimes against the Constitution. In the course of the war in Iraq and the campaign against terrorism, the Bush dictatorship has "ordered and directed the violent overthrow of sovereign states, disappearances, kidnappings, assassinations, summary executions, murders and torture," the ad continued.
Republicans Want Terror Law Made Permanent --Working with the Bush dictatorship, Congressional Republicans are maneuvering to make permanent the sweeping antiterrorism powers granted to federal law enforcement agents after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said today.
News Corp. Agrees to Buy Hughes Electronics Stake --News Corp. agreed to buy a 34 percent stake in Hughes Electronics Corp. for $6.6 billion, giving Chairman Maggot Rupert Murdoch control of the DirecTV satellite system and extending his global broadcasting operation.
Town Seeks to Ban Political Smirks --A raised eyebrow, loud guffaw, smirk or other facial expressions could all be banned in future political debate under rules proposed for the city council of the Californian city of Palo Alto.
Honourable Kings, Presidents and
Rulers of Muslim Countries Is it not true that most of you have huge palaces like
Saddam Hussein while most of the people in your countries live in
substandard houses? I have seen miles and miles of long palaces in
Muslim countries while widows and orphans begged in the downtown of
the same city.
Is it not true that you enjoy the most luxurious
lifestyle on earth while an overwhelming majority of your citizens are
deprived of basic human needs? Just like Saddam Hussein and the people
of Iraq.
Is it not true that you and the people of your inner
circles use country's resources without any accountability while the
ordinary citizens in your countries are accountable for everything?
Is it not true that you can not tolerate any
opposition in your country just like Saddam Hussein could not tolerate
any opposition?
Is it not true that most of you have imposed
yourselves upon your people like Saddam Hussein did?
Is it not true that most of you get elected through
fake elections (one man, one party referendum), just like Saddam
Hussein used to get elected?
Is it not true that most of you have killed or sent in
exile, hundreds of citizens who tried to challenge your rule?
Is it not true that some of you have established
parliaments because of western pressure but the actual power is in
your hands? The parliaments are only for symbolic purposes.
Is it not true that you have manifested all powers and
authorities in yourselves?
Is it not true that in your countries the laws made by
you supersede the laws given to Muslims by Almighty Allah (Qur'an) and
His Messenger (Peace be upon him)?
Is it not true that the justice for an ordinary person
is different than the justice for a privileged person in your
countries?
Is it not true that when a wrong is committed by a
poor person, he/she is punished to the fullest while a wrong committed
by a privileged person in your countries does not get noticed? Therefore, sooner or later your fate will not be different
than Saddam Hussein unless you repent and fear ONLY Almighty Allah and
establish justice and freedom for the ordinary citizens of your countries. Withdraw all the laws, which conflict with the Divine
laws of Islamic Shari'a. Fear only Allah. Love Allah's Messenger
(Peace be upon him) more than any thing else and respect ordinary
human beings.
Establish transparent justice system in your country
including for the non-Muslim minorities. Allah may tolerate a
non-Muslim government with justice but will not tolerate a Muslim
government without justice (Imam Taymiyah).
Let the people choose their leader / ruler through
unrestricted, uncontrolled and fair elections.
Convert all these large palaces and huge government
buildings into housing projects for the homeless and the poor. Give
back people's money and respect.
Empower ordinary citizens. Let them enjoy Allah's
given freedom.
Your standard of living should be similar of an
average citizen of your country. And above all;
You should like for yourselves what you like for
others.
Unite Muslim countries. Instead of Arab League, ICO,
GCC and other useless organizations establish your own United Nations
of Islamic Countries (UNIC). The current UNO has lost its face and
value. The current UNO can not protect poor countries from the
aggression of powerful countries. Honourable Kings, Presidents and Rulers of the Muslim
Countries,
Assalamo Alaikum wa Rahmatullah wa Barakatuh
The recent fall of one of your colleagues, Saddam Hussein and his regime
has a big lesson for all the rulers of the Muslim world. As Almighty Allah
says in the Glorious Qur'an, Hence, take a lesson O the people
possessing insight (59: 2). Earlier, you had seen the disgraced
and humiliated fall of King Raza Shah of Iran, Eidee Ameen of Uganda,
President Suharto of Indonesia, and several other rulers of the Muslim and
non-Muslim world. These rulers never imagined that such humiliation and
destruction would fall upon them. You too are not immuned from such
humiliation and destruction? Today, you may be in the good book of US
government but you can be removed from this good book at anytime. US
government will never scarify the American interest over you or your
countries. For US governments, Muslims and Muslim governments have been
and will always be like a napkin. When they are needed they can be put on
the eyes and the cheeks but when napkin becomes dirty or torn it goes into
the trash. What makes you think that, soon or later, you will not be
trashed by the US?
As Allah reminds Muslims in the Glorious Qur'an, And such are the
days We alternate among human beings (3:140). Please don't be
foolish like Saddam Hussein. Please learn from the history.
The only way you (the current Muslim rulers) can avoid destruction and
forceful removal from power, regardless whether you are a US ally or enemy
is by realizing the TRUTH.
Let me ask you a question. Why did the US forces face
humiliation and defeat in Vietnam but not in Iraq? Please compare Saddam
Hussein and yourselves with Ho Chi Min. Ho Chi Min did not have large
palaces. His standard of living was similar as an average Vietnamese at
that time. He "empowered " ordinary citizens. That is why each
old and young, men and women became part of Northern Vietnam army in
defending the country. US forces had to kill each Vietnamese in order to
occupy the country. That is why US forces failed in Vietnam. In the case
of Iraq, for years, the ordinary citizens were robbed and oppressed by
Saddam. How could they fight for such a tyrant? Please be honest to
yourselves. You have the same situation in your countries. May Allah keep
all Muslims countries safe but the reality is knocking at the door. People
will not fight for you. Your elite armies can fight few days and that's
it. In order to keep your honour and your country safe please do the
following. You will see how ordinary citizens will standup in defending
the country against any aggression and how Almighty Allah will help you
and your country.
US forces have tasted sweet victory and the taste of this victory is not
going to disappear soon. Soon, one more Muslim country will be facing this
aggression and if you will not change, the change will be forced upon you
just like in Afghanistan and Iraq, so far.
Muslims must establish Khilafah. This will require scarify from the Muslim
rulers. You should scarify with honour now before you loose everything
like Saddam Hussein.
The model rulers for all of you is Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and
Khilafat-e-Rashidah. Remember, when Ameer-ul-Mo'mineen, Sayyidna Umar ibn
Al-Khattab (May Allah be pleased with him) entered into Jerusalem as a
Commander in Chief of a victorious Muslim army, he was walking with the
camel and his slave was riding on the camel. He showed utmost respect for
the people of all Faiths in Jerusalem. We need Salahuddin Ayyubi (May
Allah shower His blessings upon him) - a Kurd by background who defeated
Crusaders and re-captured Jerusalem from them. If you want to succeed like
Sayyidna Umar ibn Al-Khattab and Sayyidna Salahuddin Ayyubi you must adopt
their values and lifestyle.
Let me remind you and myself, Allah says in the Glorious Qur'an, Whoever
recommends and helps a good cause becomes a partner therein: and whoever
recommends and helps an evil cause shares in its burden: and Allah has
power over all things (4:85)
O who believe! if you comply with who disbelieve, they shall turn you back
and then, you shall turn losers. On the contrary, Allah is your protector:
and He is the best helper. (3: 149-150)
You must neither flag (lose vigour) nor grieve and you shall have victory,
if you are (true) believers. (3: 139)
May Allah keep the world in peace from the tyrants of the East and the
West. Amen.
Thank you,
Your brother in Islam
Syed Soharwardy
Sent by Al-Wilayah
http://www.nowarforisrael.com/
Have
a look at some facts:
1. As late as 1998 the US was paying the salary of every single
Taliban official in Afghanistan.
2. USA supported Bin Laden and the Taliban for years, and viewed
them as freedom fighters against the Russians.
3. There is more oil and gas in the Caspian Sea area than in Saudi Arabia,
but you need a pipeline through Afghanistan to get the oil out.
4. UNOCAL, a giant American Oil conglomerate, wanted to build a 1000 mile
long pipeline from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea.
5. UNOCAL spent $10,000,000,000 on geological surveys for pipeline
construction, and very nicely courted the Taliban for their support in
allowing the construction to begin.
6. All of the leading Taliban officials were in Texas negotiating with
UNOCAL in 1998.
7. In 1998-1999 the Taliban changed its mind and threw UNOCAL out of
the country and awarded the pipeline project to a company from Argentina.
8. John Maresca VP of UNOCAL testified before Congress and said no
Pipeline until the Taliban was gone and a more friendly government
established.
9. In 1999-2000 The Taliban became the most evil people in the world.
10. Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior
American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan
would go ahead by the middle of October.
11. On 9/11 WTC disaster occured. Bush goes to war against Afghanistan
even though none of the hijackers came from Afghanistan.
12. The Taliban offered to negotiate to turn over Bin Laden if US showed
them some proof. US refused; US bombed.
13. US have a new government in Afghanistan.
14. The leader of that government formerly worked for UNOCAL. -
Coincidence?
15. Bush appoints a special envoy to represent the US to deal with that
new government, who formerly was the "chief consultant to
UNOCAL".
16. The Bush family acquired their wealth through oil.
17. Bush's Secretary of Interior was the President of an oil company
before going to Washington.
18. George Bush Sr. now works with the "Carlysle Group"
specializing in Huge oil investments around the world. - Coincidence?
19. Condoleezza Rice worked for Chevron before going to Washington.
20. Chevron named one of its newest "supertankers" after
Condoleezza.
21. Dick Cheney worked for the giant oil conglomerate Haliburton before
becoming VP.
22. Haliburton gave Cheney $34,000,000 as a farewell gift when he left
Haliburton.
23. Haliburton is in the pipeline construction business. - Mere
Coincidence??
24. There is $6 Trillion dollars worth of oil in the Caspian Sea area.
25. The US government quietly announces Jan 31, 2002 we will support the
construction of the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline.
26. President Musharref (Pakistan), and Karrzai,(Afghanistan -Unocal)
announce agreement to build proposed gas pipeline from Central Asia to
Pakistan via Afghanistan. (Irish Times 02/10/02)
-------------------
Surah 100 verses 1-8 is also a nice Surah to reflect on. Pickthall english
translation of the meaning notes that he cannot understand what verse 1-5
mean. I dont know if it could refer to this "shock and awe" of
Rumsfeld bombs and missles. According to official Pentagon figures,
6,000 precision-guided bombs were dropped on Iraq, 675 Tomahawk cruise
missiles were fired, more than 1,000 missions were flown, during the first
ten days of the invasion.
1. By the (steeds) that run, with panting
2. Striking sparks of fire (by their hooves).
3. And scouring to the raid at dawn.
4. And raise the dust in clouds the while.
5. And penetrating forthwith as one into the midst.
6. Verily, man (wrongdoer) in ungrateful to his Lord.
7. And to that he bears witness (by his deeds).
8. And verily, he is violent in the love of wealth.
"The Curse of Allah is on the wrong doers." (Quran 7:44)
And it is the disbelievers who are the wrong-doers (Quran 2:254)
America's Sovereign Right To Do As It Damn Well Pleases
John Chuckman
Yellow Times via Information Clearinghouse
I read that the U.S. is claiming a "sovereign right" to try Iraqi
officials as war criminals. I thought it was a nice touch, including, as
it does, an allusion both to Bush's scholarly observations on Nazis and
an assertion of rights. Rights are always good, aren't they? Even when
they are the rights of conquest?
So, you attack a country for no other reason than an arrogant demand for
"regime change," overwhelm its relatively puny armed forces, kill
thousands of people, and claim a "sovereign right" to bring its leaders
to trial? This threatens to become the model for international affairs in
the twenty-first century, the banana-republic concept applied on a world
scale.
America has refused to have anything to do with the International Court
for War Crimes, but then the Creator never granted international
institutions that purity of essence that is America's peculiar
birthright. International institutions are corrupt. They are foreign. And
they are not inclined to do things in the American way.
America, blubbering endlessly about its rights and the way it sees
things, so often displaying impatience over listening to the other 95% of
the human race, easily forgets the many incontestable horrors it has
bestowed upon the world. General Pinochet's murder of perhaps 15,000
Chileans plus a few Americans who got in his way gets barely a nod of
drowsy recognition. The "boyz" chugging down frosty Cokes while napalming
Vietnamese villages or the blood-soaked savagery of Cambodia's rice
patties are mostly forgotten. Few Americans ever caught, or cared to
imagine, the screams of the Shah's victims having their finger nails
extracted.
There have been so many of these good works that a full list would
resemble a reference book rather than an article. Dealing with them on
American television would make evening watching a drag, so they are
forgotten, and America lumbers on to its next bellowing claim that
something about the world stands in the way of its full enjoyment of
rights and privileges.
Of course, none of America's chosen monsters ever saw a trial or tribunal
by the United States. A few of them still live in quiet retirement. Why?
Because they served American interests faithfully. If Hussein is tried,
it will be precisely because he failed to do so. That's certainly an
inspiring reason for bombing the hell out of a country.
But America is doing its very best, with precision missiles and gigantic
bunker-busting bombs, to be sure Hussein is murdered rather than
captured. His trial, even if it does happen to fall to America as a
sovereign right, would be exceedingly inconvenient for relations with the
Arab world.
The United States asserts another arrogant claim, wrapped in different
words, to justify its mistreatment of prisoners from Afghanistan. It
ignored the Geneva Conventions, shackled hundreds of them up, flew them,
blindfolded and strapped into cargo planes, to new homes in Cuba, which
consist of cages far away from everything they know, with no access to
lawyers or relatives, a form of slow torture used to extract information.
Never mind that information gathered in this way is more likely to tell
you what you want to hear than what actually is, and never mind that
treating people in this way violates every principle America likes to say
it holds sacred.
There is still another such claim, again expressed with altered words, to
proclaim its right to determine who will govern Iraq when America's
destructive tantrum is over. After all, it has had such success in
Afghanistan on which to build. After killing thousands of innocent people
there, wrecking the country's infrastructure, and sending tens of
thousands fleeing their homes in terror, it set up a government whose key
achievement to date is monthly assassinations.
That dire concern over women's rights in Afghanistan, something carefully
tailored to the psychological needs of soccer moms who might have had a
doubt or two about bombing villages, has faded into the mountain mists.
An excellent proxy measure of America's violent achievement in
Afghanistan is offered by a Canadian documentary film maker who observed
that outside Kabul, virtually 100% of women still wear the burka. The
figure in Kabul, the only place policed by foreign troops, is about 70%
and that comes with a great deal of abuse.
With a record like that, why wouldn't you feel justified in violently
reordering the affairs of the planet? Quick success in Iraq will
undoubtedly set Washington's ideologues' glands pumping and mouths
watering. There's already talk about blasting Syria. Clearly, Iraq's
shell game with weapons of mass destruction was continued on a grander
scale, with the elusive weapons shifted to Syria for safekeeping, perhaps
shipped in milk trucks by night. Hussein wouldn't use them to protect his
life. No, after defeating the United States, he undoubtedly planned to
reclaim them for another diabolical plot.
The possibilities must seem endless to Cheney, Condi, Rumsfeld, and Co.
And, indeed, regretfully for the rest of the planet, they undoubtedly
are.
John Chuckman is a contributing writer for Liberal Slant. He is also a
13 April 2003
They lie across the floor in tens of thousands of pieces, the priceless antiquities of Iraq's history. The looters had gone from shelf to shelf, systematically pulling down the statues and pots and amphorae of the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Medes, the Persians and the Greeks and hurling them on to the concrete.
Our feet crunched on the wreckage of 5,000-year-old marble plinths and stone statuary and pots that had endured every siege of Baghdad, every invasion of Iraq throughout history only to be destroyed when America came to "liberate" the city. The Iraqis did it. They did it to their own history, physically destroying the evidence of their own nation's thousands of years of civilisation.
Not since the Taliban embarked on their orgy of destruction against the Buddhas of Bamiyan and the statues in the museum of Kabul perhaps not since the Second World War or earlier have so many archaeological treasures been wantonly and systematically smashed to pieces.
"This is what our own people did to their history," the man in the grey gown said as we flicked our torches yesterday across the piles of once perfect Sumerian pots and Greek statues, now headless, armless, in the storeroom of Iraq's National Archaeological Museum. "We need the American soldiers to guard what we have left. We need the Americans here. We need policemen." But all that the museum guard, Abdul-Setar Abdul-Jaber, experienced yesterday was gun battles between looters and local residents, the bullets hissing over our heads outside the museum and skittering up the walls of neighbouring apartment blocks. "Look at this," he said, picking up a massive hunk of pottery, its delicate patterns and beautifully decorated lips coming to a sudden end where the jar perhaps 2ft high in its original form had been smashed into four pieces. "This was Assyrian." The Assyrians ruled almost 2,000 years before Christ.
And what were the Americans doing as the new rulers of Baghdad? Why, yesterday morning they were recruiting Saddam Hussein's hated former policemen to restore law and order on their behalf. The last army to do anything like this was Mountbatten's force in South-east Asia, which employed the defeated Japanese army to control the streets of Saigon with their bayonets fixed after the recapture of Indo-China in 1945.
A queue of respectably dressed Baghdad ex-cops formed a queue outside the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad after they heard a radio broadcast calling for them to resume their "duties" on the streets. In the late afternoon, at least eight former and very portly senior police officers, all wearing green uniforms the same colour as the uniforms of the Iraqi Baath party turned up to offer their services to the Americans, accompanied by a US Marine. But there was no sign that any of them would be sent down to the Museum of Antiquity.
But "liberation" has already turned into
occupation. Faced by a crowd of angry Iraqis in Firdos Square demanding a
new Iraqi government "for our protection and security and
peace", US Marines, who should have been providing that protection,
stood shoulder to shoulder facing them, guns at the ready. The reality,
which the Americans and, of course, Mr Rumsfeld fail to understand
is that under Saddam Hussein, the poor and deprived were
always the Shia Muslims, the middle classes always the Sunnis, just as
Saddam himself was a Sunni. So it is the Sunnis who are now suffering
plunder at the hands of the Shia.
And so the gun-fighting that broke out yesterday between property owners and looters was, in effect, a conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims. By failing to end this violence by stoking ethnic hatred through their inactivity the Americans are now provoking a civil war in Baghdad.
Yesterday evening, I drove through the city for more than an hour. Hundreds of streets are now barricaded off with breeze blocks, burnt cars and tree trunks, watched over by armed men who are ready to kill strangers who threaten their homes or shops. Which is just how the civil war began in Beirut in 1975.
A few US Marine patrols did dare to venture into the suburbs yesterday positioning themselves next to hospitals which had already been looted but fires burnt across the city at dusk for the third consecutive day. The municipality building was blazing away last night, and on the horizon other great fires were sending columns of smoke miles high into the air.
Too little, too late. Yesterday, a group of chemical engineers and water purification workers turned up at the US Marine headquarters, pleading for protection so they could return to their jobs. Electrical supply workers came along, too. But Baghdad is already a city at war with itself, at the mercy of gunmen and thieves.
There is no electricity in Baghdad as there is no water and no law and no order and so we stumbled in the darkness of the museum basement, tripping over toppled statues and stumbling into broken winged bulls. When I shone my torch over one far shelf, I drew in my breath. Every pot and jar "3,500 BC" it said on one shelf corner had been bashed to pieces.
Why? How could they do this? Why, when the city was already burning, when anarchy had been let loose and less than three months after US archaeologists and Pentagon officials met to discuss the country's treasures and put the Baghdad Archaeological Museum on a military data-base did the Americans allow the mobs to destroy the priceless heritage of ancient Mesopotamia? And all this happened while US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, was sneering at the press for claiming that anarchy had broken out in Baghdad.
For well over 200 years, Western and local archaeologists have gathered up the remnants of this centre of early civilisation from palaces, ziggurats and 3,000-year-old graves. Their tens of thousands of handwritten card index files often in English and in graceful 19th-century handwriting now lie strewn amid the broken statuary. I picked up a tiny shard. "Late 2nd century, no. 1680" was written in pencil on the inside.
To reach the storeroom, the mobs had broken through massive steel doors, entering from a back courtyard and heaving statues and treasures to cars and trucks.
The looters had left only a few hours before I arrived and no one not even the museum guard in the grey gown had any idea how much they had taken. A glass case that had once held 40,000-year-old stone and flint objects had been smashed open. It lay empty. No one knows what happened to the Assyrian reliefs from the royal palace of Khorsabad, nor the 5,000-year-old seals nor the 4,500-year-old gold leaf earrings once buried with Sumerian princesses. It will take decades to sort through what they have left, the broken stone torsos, the tomb treasures, the bits of jewellery glinting amid the piles of smashed pots.
The mobs who came here Shia Muslims, for the most part, from the hovels of Saddam City probably had no idea of the value of the pots or statues. Their destruction appears to have been the result of ignorance as much as fury. In the vast museum library, only a few books mostly mid-19th-century archaeological works appeared to have been stolen or destroyed. Looters set little value in books.
I found a complete set of the Geographical Journal from 1893 to 1936 still intact lying next to them was a paperback entitled Baghdad, The City of Peace but thousands of card index sheets had been flung from their boxes over stairwells and banisters.
British, French and German archaeologists played a leading role in the discovery of some of Iraq's finest treasures. The great British Arabist, diplomatic schemer and spy Gertrude Bell, the "uncrowned queen of Iraq" whose tomb lies not far away from the museum, was an enthusiastic supporter of their work. The Germans built the modern-day museum beside the Tigris river and only in 2000 was it reopened to the public after nine years of closure following the 1991 Gulf War.
Even as the Americans encircled Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's soldiers showed almost the same contempt for its treasures as the looters. Their slit trenches and empty artillery positions are still clearly visible in the museum lawns, one of them dug beside a huge stone statue of a winged bull.
Only a few weeks ago, Jabir Khalil Ibrahim, the director of Iraq's State Board of Antiquities, referred to the museum's contents as "the heritage of the nation". They were, he said, "not just things to see and enjoy we get strength from them to look to the future. They represent the glory of Iraq".
Mr Ibrahim has vanished, like so many government employees in Baghdad, and Mr Abdul-Jaber and his colleagues are now trying to defend what is left of the country's history with a collection of Kalashnikov rifles. "We don't want to have guns, but everyone must have them now," he told me. "We have to defend ourselves because the Americans have let this happen. They made a war against one man so why do they abandon us to this war and these criminals?"
Half an hour later, I contacted the civil affairs unit of the US Marines in Saadun Street and gave them the exact location of the museum and the condition of its contents. A captain told me that "we're probably going to get down there". Too late. Iraq's history had already been trashed by the looters whom the Americans unleashed on the city during their "liberation".
"You are American!" a woman shouted at me in English yesterday morning, wrongly assuming I was from the US. "Go back to your country. Get out of here. You are not wanted here. We hated Saddam and now we are hating Bush because he is destroying our city." It was a mercy she could not visit the Museum of Antiquity to see for herself that the very heritage of her country as well as her city has been destroyed.
Where
Does the Anti-War Movement Go From Here?
Now!
Anger is appropriate.
It should should go to the impeachment of Bush and Blair and
exposure of Colin Powell and their cronies for lying to the American and
British peoples, and lying to the United Nations, that Iraq was concealing
weapons of mass destruction that were a threat to peace, and the object of
making war was "to disarm Saddam Hussein."
The death of every person killed by this war is their reposnsibility. The
destruction of every building, the concequences of every act of war.
Further, this is the time to expose those who advised these men.
This should be the task of every person who understands it.
Subj:
ZIONIST JEWS DROVE USA INTO MIDDLE EAST WAR
Date: 4/12/2003 10:59:35 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Lewisrw@earthlink.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)
JEWISH WRITERS SAY THAT POWERFUL ZIONIST JEWS DROVE USA INTO MIDDLE
EAST WAR FOR SAKE OF ISRAEL!
THE WEEKLY INFORMANT
http://www.theweeklyinformant.com/arishavit.htm
April 12, 2003
When Congressman James Moran (D-VA) told an audience that the leaders of
American Jewish groups were pushing America into a war with Iraq, he was
denounced as an "anti-Semite" and pressured to resign.
When Syndicated columnist and former Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan
accused Jewish neo-conservatives and the US-Israeli lobby of pushing
America into a war against Israel's enemies, he was also widely denounced
as an "anti-Semite."
But what are we to make of the many outspoken Jewish writers, Jewish
intellectuals and Jewish activists who have been warning us about the
exact same thing? Should we dismiss these jews as "anti-Semites"
or "self-hating Jews"?
Following are some very revealing quotes from just a few of these Jewish
writers and journalists.
_______________________
Joe Klein, Time Magazine, Time.com, February 5, 2003
"A stronger Israel is very much embedded in the rationale for war
with Iraq. It is a part of the argument that dare not speak its name, a
fantasy quietly cherished by the neo-conservative faction in the Bush
Administration and by many leaders of the American Jewish community.
The fantasy involves a domino theory. The destruction of Saddam's Iraq
will not only remove an enemy of long-standing but will also change the
basic power equation in the region. It will send a message to Syria and
Iran about the perils of support for Islamic terrorists. It will send a
message to the Palestinians too: Democratize and make peace on Israeli
terms, or forget about a state of your own."
_______________________
Michael Kinsley, Slate Magazine, October 24, 2002
Tariq Aziz has a theory. Saddam Hussein's deputy told the New York
Times this week, "The reason for this warmongering policy toward Iraq
is oil and Israel." Although no one wishes to agree with Tariq Aziz,
he has put succinctly what many people in Washington apparently believe.
The lack of public discussion about the role of Israel in the thinking of
"President Bush" is easier to understand, but weird
nevertheless. It is the proverbial elephant in the room: Everybody sees
it, no one mentions it. The reason is obvious and admirable: Neither
supporters nor opponents of a war against Iraq wish to evoke the classic
anti-Semitic image of the king's Jewish advisers whispering poison into
his ear and betraying the country to foreign interests.
_______________________
Ari Shavit, April 5, 2003 Haaretz News Service (Israel)
"The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative
intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to
change the course of history.
In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in the town
(Washington): the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was
disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of
them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard
Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams,
Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one
another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force
of history."
_______________________
James Rosen, April 6, 2003 The Sacramento Bee (California)
"In 1996, as Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to
take office, eight Jewish neoconservative leaders sent him a six-page memo
outlining an aggressive vision of government. At the top of their list was
overthrowing Saddam and replacing him with a monarch under the control of
Jordan.
The neoconservatives sketched out a kind of domino theory in which the
governments of Syria and other Arab countries might later fall or be
replaced in the wake of Saddam's ouster. They urged Netanyahu to spurn the
Oslo peace accords and to stop making concessions to the Palestinians.
Lead writer of the memo was Perle. Other signatories were Feith, now
undersecretary of defense, and Wurmser, a senior adviser to John Bolton,
undersecretary of state.
Fred Donner, a professor of Near Eastern history at the University of
Chicago, said he was struck by the similarities between the ideas in the
memo and ideas now at the forefront of Bush's foreign policy."
_______________________
Thomas Friedman, April 4 2003 New York Time Columnist
I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this
moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled
them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have
happened.
It is not only the neo-conservatives who led us to the outskirts of
Baghdad. What led us to the outskirts of Baghdad is a very American
combination of anxiety and hubris."
_______________________
Dr. Henry Makow Phd., February 10, 2003 Writer
If the U.S. gets bogged down with heavy casualties on both sides,
Americans are going to blame big oil and Zionism for getting them into
this mess.
Everybody knows that:
# The only country that fears Iraq's WMD's is Israel;
# American-Jewish neo-conservatives on the Defence Policy Board
(Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz) planned this war in 1998 and made it Bush
Administration policy;
# The purpose of the war is to change the balance of power in the
Middle East so Israel can settle the Palestinian issue on its own terms;
and
# Congress trembles in fear before the Israeli Lobby, "AIPAC."
At this perilous juncture in US history, there is no effective opposition
because Zionist Jews appear to control both parties. The Jewish "Anti
Defamation League" considers it a barometer of anti Semitism to say,
"Jews have too much power." But is something anti- Semitic if it
is true? Anti Semitism is racial prejudice. Zionist power is not a racial
prejudice; it is a fact of life. When a special interest group hijacks
American foreign policy, it is a patriotic duty to say so.
In recent decades, Zionists have succeeded in making support for Zionism
synonymous with "Jewish." They have made Israel appear to be a
vulnerable country facing annihilation in a sea of bloodthirsty Arabs. In
fact, Israel has 200-400 nuclear bombs and is one of the most powerful
nations on earth. It has evaded many opportunities for a just peace
because it's secret agenda is to dominate the region. Israel keeps this
quiet because most Jews, including Israelis, did not sign on for that.
_______________________
Israel Shamir, Israeli Author
"The old adage has it that, when visiting a foreign country, to
ascertain who really runs things, one need determine only who is spoken
about in whispers, if at all." Judged by this measure, the Jews rule
supreme. Indeed, when I referred to 'Jewish media lords' during a UNESCO
conference in the summer of 2001, the audience's hearts missed a beat.
The yet-unfought War on Iraq changed this. The American Ultimatum date was
set on 17 March, the Jewish feast of Purim. Purim, 1991 saw destruction of
Iraqi armies and death of 200,000 Iraqis. Too many coincidences for a
purely American war."
"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 administrationŠ"
_______________________
Jack Bernstein, Author, The Life of An American Jew in Racist
Israel (following prediction was made in 1984!)
"The Zionists who rule Israel and the Zionists in America have
been trying to trick the U.S. into a Mideast war on the side of Israel.
They almost succeeded when U.S. Marines were sent to Lebanon in 1982. The
blood of the 250 American Marines who died in Lebanon is dripping from the
hands of the Israeli and American Zionists.
If more Americans are not made aware of the truth about Zionist Israel,
you can be sure that, sooner or later, those atheists who claim to be
God's Chosen People will trick the U.S. into a Mideast war against the
Arabs who in the past have always been America's best friends. ###
Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.
