Seen through a Syrian lens, 'unknown Americans' are provoking civil war in Iraq
30 April 2006 17:20

Robert Fisk
Published: 28 April 2006
In Syria, the world appears through a glass, darkly. As dark as the smoked windows of the car which takes me to a building on the western side of Damascus where a man I have known for 15 years - we shall call him a "security source", which is the name given by American correspondents to their own powerful intelligence officers - waits with his own ferocious narrative of disaster in Iraq and dangers in the Middle East.

His is a fearful portrait of an America trapped in the bloody sands of Iraq, desperately trying to provoke a civil war around Baghdad in order to reduce its own military casualties. It is a scenario in which Saddam Hussein remains Washington's best friend, in which Syria has struck at the Iraqi insurgents with a ruthlessness that the United States wilfully ignores. And in which Syria's Interior Minister, found shot dead in his office last year, committed suicide because of his own mental instability.

The Americans, my interlocutor suspected, are trying to provoke an Iraqi civil war so that Sunni Muslim insurgents spend their energies killing their Shia co-religionists rather than soldiers of the Western occupation forces. "I swear to you that we have very good information," my source says, finger stabbing the air in front of him. "One young Iraqi man told us that he was trained by the Americans as a policeman in Baghdad and he spent 70 per cent of his time learning to drive and 30 per cent in weapons training. They said to him: 'Come back in a week.' When he went back, they gave him a mobile phone and told him to drive into a crowded area near a mosque and phone them. He waited in the car but couldn't get the right mobile signal. So he got out of the car to where he received a better signal. Then his car blew up."

Impossible, I think to myself. But then I remember how many times Iraqis in Baghdad have told me similar stories. These reports are believed even if they seem unbelievable. And I know where much of the Syrian information is gleaned: from the tens of thousands of Shia Muslim pilgrims who come to pray at the Sayda Zeinab mosque outside Damascus. These men and women come from the slums of Baghdad, Hillah and Iskandariyah as well as the cities of Najaf and Basra. Sunnis from Fallujah and Ramadi also visit Damascus to see friends and relatives and talk freely of American tactics in Iraq.

"There was another man, trained by the Americans for the police. He too was given a mobile and told to drive to an area where there was a crowd - maybe a protest - and to call them and tell them what was happening. Again, his new mobile was not working. So he went to a landline phone and called the Americans and told them: 'Here I am, in the place you sent me and I can tell you what's happening here.' And at that moment there was a big explosion in his car."

Just who these "Americans" might be, my source did not say. In the anarchic and panic-stricken world of Iraq, there are many US groups - including countless outfits supposedly working for the American military and the new Western-backed Iraqi Interior Ministry - who operate outside any laws or rules. No one can account for the murder of 191 university teachers and professors since the 2003 invasion - nor the fact that more than 50 former Iraqi fighter-bomber pilots who attacked Iran in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war have been assassinated in their home towns in Iraq in the past three years.

Amid this chaos, a colleague of my source asked me, how could Syria be expected to lessen the number of attacks on Americans inside Iraq? "It was never safe, our border," he said. "During Saddam's time, criminals and Saddam's terrorists crossed our borders to attack our government. I built a wall of earth and sand along the border at that time. But three car bombs from Saddam's agents exploded in Damascus and Tartous- I was the one who captured the criminals responsible. But we couldn't stop them."

Now, he told me, the rampart running for hundreds of miles along Syria's border with Iraq had been heightened. "I have had barbed wire put on top and up to now we have caught 1,500 non-Syrian and non-Iraqi Arabs trying to cross and we have stopped 2,700 Syrians from crossing ... Our army is there - but the Iraqi army and the Americans are not there on the other side."

Behind these grave suspicions in Damascus lies the memory of Saddam's long friendship with the United States. "Our Hafez el-Assad [the former Syrian president who died in 2000] learnt that Saddam, in his early days, met with American officials 20 times in four weeks. This convinced Assad that, in his words, 'Saddam is with the Americans'. Saddam was the biggest helper of the Americans in the Middle East (when he attacked Iran in 1980) after the fall of the Shah. And he still is! After all, he brought the Americans to Iraq!"

So I turn to a story which is more distressing for my sources: the death by shooting of Brigadier General Ghazi Kenaan, former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon - an awesomely powerful position - and Syrian Minister of Interior when his suicide was announced by the Damascus government last year.

Widespread rumours outside Syria suggested that Kenaan was suspected by UN investigators of involvement in the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in a massive car bomb in Beirut last year - and that he had been "suicided" by Syrian government agents to prevent him telling the truth.

Not so, insisted my original interlocutor. "General Ghazi was a man who believed he could give orders and anything he wanted would happen. Something happened that he could not reconcile - something that made him realise he was not all-powerful. On the day of his death, he went to his office at the Interior Ministry and then he left and went home for half an hour. Then he came back with a pistol. He left a message for his wife in which he said goodbye to her and asked her to look after their children and he said that what he was going to do was 'for the good of Syria'. Then he shot himself in the mouth."

Of Hariri's assassination, Syrian officials like to recall his relationship with the former Iraqi interim prime minister Iyad Alawi - a self-confessed former agent for the CIA and MI6 - and an alleged $20bn arms deal between the Russians and Saudi Arabia in which they claim Hariri was involved.

Hariri's Lebanese supporters continue to dismiss the Syrian argument on the grounds that Syria had identified Hariri as the joint author with his friend, French President Jacques Chirac, of the UN Security Council resolution which demanded the retreat of the Syrians from Lebanese territory.

But if the Syrians are understandably obsessed with the American occupation of Iraq, their long hatred for Saddam - something which they shared with most Iraqis - is still intact. When I asked my first "security" source what would happen to the former Iraqi dictator, he replied, banging his fist into his hand: "He will be killed. He will be killed. He will be killed."

Carl Schmitt and the Bush Dictatorship
Sunday April 30th 2006, 4:43 pm

If you need evidence the Straussian neocon controlled Bush administration is a dictatorship, consider the “decider” in the White House, according to the Boston Globe, “has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution,” or rather his trashing of the Constitution. No doubt Bush has never read the Constitution, not that it matters—he is president in name only and the executive branch is controlled by a cabal of Straussians who believe in Machiavellian dictatorship, not a constitutionally limited republic. “Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ‘whistle-blower’ protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.”

Once upon a time, Congress had the power to write laws and to the president a duty ‘’to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” but in Bushzarro world this tradition is turned on its head. In effect, there is no reason for Congress to convene because the Straussian fascists have declared Ausnahmezustand (state of emergency under the pretense of a bogus war on terrorism) and now the executive is free to break laws of all sort, both national and international.

Bush, not Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, is the “new Hitler” and the Patriot Act and subsequent legislation and executive orders serve as the neocon Reichstag Fire Decree (in essence, a continual state of emergency). Bush’s Straussians have put into practice the political philosophy of Carl Schmitt, who wrote Die Diktatur (On Dictatorship) and believed the office of the Reichspräsident should rule supreme and transform the juridical system into a deadly juggernaut.

“These ideas came to neoconservatism both directly through Carl Schmitt and through Leo Strauss who has taught many of the most prominent neoconservatives in the present administration and indeed in neoconservative think-tanks throughout the city, and indeed, throughout the country,” writes the political theorist Anne Norton.

“Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush’s theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts,” the Globe continues. “There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government,” explains Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor. ‘’This is really big, very expansive, and very significant.” It is the ideology of Strauss and Schmitt in action.

It should also be remembered that Carl Schmitt formulated the idea of “friend and enemy,” that is to say that the enemy is whoever is “in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible.” In the current context, the vaunted “Clash of Civilizations” launched against the Muslim world is just such an “extreme case,” resulting in not only a lot of death and misery in the Middle East but the destruction of “liberalism” here in America (classic liberalism, i.e., the ideas put forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights). For Schmitt, it does not matter who the enemy is, so long as enmity is manifestly present and works to strengthen the executive and bring about totalitarianism.

“No wonder that Schmitt admired thinkers such as Machiavelli and Hobbes, who treated politics without illusions,” writes Alan Wolfe. “Leaders inspired by them, in no way in thrall to the individualism of liberal thought, are willing to recognize that sometimes politics involves the sacrifice of life. They are better at fighting wars than liberals because they dispense with such notions as the common good or the interests of all humanity…. Schmitt’s German version of conservatism, which shared so much with Nazism, has no direct links with American thought. Yet residues of his ideas can nonetheless be detected in the ways in which conservatives today fight for their objectives.” Of course, Wolfe has it wrong—Schmitt’s fascism, his desire for totalitarian dictatorship, has nothing to do with conservatives, although it has everything to do with what we now call neoconservatives, more accurately defined as Straussian neocons.

Bush may break laws willy-nilly and legal experts may tell us this is wrong—but it is only a small footnote to a larger and grimmer story. Bush—once again, when I say “Bush” I mean the Straussian neocons, since George W. Bush is a near meaningless figurehead, practically a useful idiot hailing from an elite family of long-term fascists, law-breakers, and Nazi collaborators—is on the Straussian path leading to the ultimate destruction of America (or at minimum turning it into something unrecognizable to many of us). If we are to survive, we must keep in mind Carl Schmitt’s idea of “friend and enemy.”

If you easily dismiss the viciousness of Ann Coulter, Michael “Savage” Weiner, and Rush “doctor shopping” Limbaugh as theatrics, think again—it is the very essence of Schmitt’s “friend and enemy” philosophy in action, even if these “media personalities” are not aware of it.

It has the very real and scary potential to become excessively nasty—even lethal—and soon.

No way to treat the dead or the living By Mike Carlton
April 29, 2006

LOSING Private Kovco was not a good look. The Prime Minister was desperately sorry and very sad. It was just one of those incredibly unfortunate things.

The Defence Minister announced that it was a terrible, unacceptable mistake.

The Chief of the Defence Force was very upset. Everything was being done to establish the facts.

And on it went. A Government which so efficiently sends live soldiers to war should have devised a foolproof system for bringing dead ones home again, but not so. The Kovco family had every right to give John Howard an earful.

In fairness, the blunder is probably the fault of the American contractor hired to transport the casket from Kuwait to Australia, a firm named Kenyon International.

Here the plot thickens. Kenyon's parent company, Service Corporation International (SCI), boasts that it is "the dominant leader in the North American death care industry". It is based in Houston, Texas. You will not be surprised, therefore, to hear that SCI's billionaire founder, one Robert Waltrip, is an old buddy of the Bush family and a big-money donor to the two Georges.

Back in 1999, when George jnr was beginning his run for the White House, SCI was embroiled in a grisly scandal known as Funeralgate. A whistleblower accused the company of "recycling" graves. Old corpses had been removed and replaced by new ones. At two Jewish cemeteries in Florida, bodies were exhumed and dumped in the woods to be eaten by wild hogs.

I am not making this up. The scandal ran through the Texas courts, reaching all the way to, yep, Governor George W. Bush. There were uncomfortable questions about the donations he had accepted from SCI.

Happily, the whistleblower was paid off and everything smoothed over in time for Dubya to win the Republican presidential nomination. SCI later paid compensation of $US100 million to its victims' relatives.

And who fixed this? Why, none other than Harry Whittington, the Texas lawyer shot by Deadeye Dick Cheney on that famous hunting trip in February.

This is the crew handling our fallen soldiers. I don't suppose anyone told John Howard any of this. They never do.

THE truly appalling blunder, though, is home-grown. Last Saturday, Brendan Nelson told us Jacob Kovco had shot himself. The soldier had been "simply handling his weapon, and maintaining it as soldiers are required to do", he said. "For some unexplained reason, the firearm discharged, and a bullet unfortunately entered the soldier's head."

Come last Thursday, that story had changed. "He wasn't in fact cleaning his weapon," Nelson revealed. "It was near him … and he made some kind of movement which suggests that it discharged."

The Government's confusion is unforgivable. Talk about going off half-cocked. Private Kovco's family knew him to be a skilled handler of firearms, and not only through his army sniper training. A country boy, he had been around guns since childhood. They were horrified at the suggestion he had killed himself through carelessness.

"The things in the paper about him accidentally shooting himself, we all knew in our family that he did not do that," said one of his cousins on radio on Thursday.

"I can see the way everybody is talking, the Government and everything, we're never going to be told the truth about what happened to him."

POLITICIANS, of course, love a bemedalled veteran even more than a bemedalled Olympian.

But with the Anzac Day flags put away for another year, here's another story of rank injustice. Civilian nurses who served in the Vietnam War have been left out in the cold by successive Australian governments, callously denied the repatriation benefits automatically available to their sisters in defence force uniform.

I met one of them on Tuesday. Jan Bell was nursing at Sydney's Concord Hospital in 1967 when volunteers were sought to go to Vietnam to help win the locals' hearts and minds. Young, and keen for a bit of adventure, she found herself working in a Vietnamese civilian hospital at the coastal town of Vung Tau, near the Australian base there.

She risked her life in the carnage of war, most especially during the famous Tet offensive of 1968, when the dead and the dying - women, children and infants - were piled in a bloody shambles in her emergency ward. Some 120 of her civilian colleagues gave similar noble service to our country.

Jan is now a handsome, grey-haired woman in her 60s. These many years on, she has been diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress disorder, the result of her wartime experience.

Had she been a uniformed army nurse, she would have been offered all the medical and other benefits available to returned veterans. Instead, she and her colleagues are on the same sort of compo entitlements as a Canberra public servant who stabs himself with a paper clip.

These women have campaigned about this injustice for years, to Labor and Coalition governments, but they get nowhere. Is there no female member of the Federal Parliament who will fight for them?

smhcarlton@hotmail.com

The End Game Stategy

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The end game strategy

The purpose of our quest:
Terminating the perpetual Holocaust




By John Kaminski
skylax@comcast.net


for B-r and Maisoon


"The minute you let her under your skin, then you begin to make it
better."
— The Beatles, Hey Jude

"Anyone who criticises Israel's actions or argues that pro-Israel
groups have significant influence over US Middle East policy," the
authors have written, "...stands a good chance of being labelled an
anti-Semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israeli
lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-Semitism ...
Anti-Semitism is something no-one wants to be accused of." This is
strong stuff in a country where - to quote the late Edward Said - the
"last taboo" (now that anyone can talk about blacks, gays and lesbians)
is any serious discussion of America's relationship with Israel.
— Robert Fisk, Breaking the Last Taboo,
The United States of Israel






The woman I love speaks of the need for "an end game," something that
will begin to resolve this cancerous impasse that separates spin from
reality and gives us wars for profit and misery for all those not on
the inside of the big money game.

She more than I knows that the Jewish question — and its manipulative
influence on every aspect of human endeavor — is the pivot point of any
possible solution. The actual Jewish question is simply this: How
dangerous is it for everybody else when one group, acting only in the
interests of itself because this is its stated goal — gains ascendance
over every other group when this stated goal is the destruction or
subjugation of every other group?

How dangerous is it? Just look at the world.

The epiphany that triggers the "end game" investigation is realizing
that this calculated ascendance has already happened, and that the
preponderance of people in the world are ruled by the vicious mercy of
those who control the money. If you have any question about who
controls the money then you are deficient in history, as is most of the
world’s human population.

The necessity for "an end game" strategy, she told me, was to avoid a
worldwide Jewish holocaust — a new, real one, not like the fake, old
one — because once everybody found out what was really going on — and
what had been done to them and those they love — every Jew anywhere
would be in very serious trouble. The backlash when you realize the
monstrous magnitude of the manipulation and the thievery — not to
mention the outright senseless slaughter — would be chilling.

Now, you may ask, what have Jews done to deserve such rancor and alarm?

The answer depends of how much of the story you think you know — how
much of the history of destabilized societies (think Bolshevik
Revolution, a wholly Jewish enterprise), of gaining control of other
religions (think Scofield Bible and Martin Luther, not to mention those
televangelists who profane their pulpits), and think most relevantly
about who presently dominates world wide media.

Do you know about Palestine, really? Jewish media flipped the labels:
the real story is Palestinian freedom fighters and Jewish terrorists.
Israel is a “country” founded on terror and maintained in the same way.

Most importantly, remember this. Use of the word "holocaust" triggers a
pre-programmed response in everyone, due to four decades of intense
propaganda about the abuse of Jews by Germans. The dumbed-down American
populace (you know! the bunch that accepts torture as part of
democracy) now fully endorses the fabricated Jewish media view of the
events of World War II, even though it was principally invented and
embellished in the 1960s. The mainstream accounts of the Holocaust are
so phony that many countries controlled by Jews have passed laws making
it illegal to even discuss these matters as a way to stifle the debate,
maintain the mindset, and conceal the fraud.

Yet a majority of the world's people — especially savvy politicians who
realize what it takes to get ahead — accept this fiction as the cost of
doing business. It is called selling your soul.

The dead children of Palestine and the radioactive families of Iraq are
an acceptable cost of doing business to the creeps who push the buttons
and drop the bombs — all of them guilty of genocide under the terms of
Nuremburg and Geneva. At whose behest were these crimes committed? That
is the question everyone in the world needs to ask.

Remember? When Poppy Bush told reporter Sarah MacClendon: "If people
really knew what we're doing, they'd drag us out into the streets and
hang us." This is the future each Jew faces when the general public
finally learns what has been done to them over time by a small group
which, through control of money and media, has finally managed to turn
the society of humans into a flouride-numbed herd of programmable
consumers with consciences permanently anesthetized.

Those who would defend the Hebrew tribe would counter: It has always
been this way. Why blame Jews?

Because Judaism and its unnatural offspring Christianity and Islam are
at the center of all this turmoil back to time immemorial. And because
today, Jewish money controls all of the banks and newspapers in the
entire Western world, at least through advertising pressure, but
principally by actual ownership.

The answer would be (and the knowledge every member of the tribe seeks
to conceal) that "yes, it has always been this way", is precisely
BECAUSE OF the history of the tribe, which even in the days before
Babylon was establishing itself as a divisive force in ancient India
before it brought the scourge of religious mind control into the
palaces of Western civilization. Now we see it clearly in the depleted
uranium dust now wafting around the world as America strangles itself
for the profit of its Jewish overlords.

The report by Walt and Mearsheimer referred to by Robert Fisk at the
top of this essay was a recent brouhaha created for media consumption
to test the public's perception of Israel's rule of the United States.
Now, of course, Israel doesn't rule the United States, the Jewish
community that lives in the U.S. and supports Israel rules the United
States.

The Walt-Mearsheimer report merely restates the obvious: that no one
gets elected to Congress without Jewish support. Thus we have a
one-sided view of events in the world which is shaped by bought-off
legislators and reinforced by media, all controlled by the Jewish
community.

Public response to these conclusions has been muted and in fact barely
heard as big media has stifled its dissemination except in some obvious
cases of character assassination, principally by Alan Dershowitz and
other kneejerk Jewish spin doctors.

The public can't understand the events of the world because virtually
all the information disseminated about it is controlled by Jewish
partisans, from twisted schoolbooks to dangerous medical myths to
popular movies that denigrate the family and promote irresponsible
promiscuity and betrayal.

Worse, otherwise principled news outlets are intimidated not run
stories germane to this critical theme because of potential and
inevitable losses to their profitmaking future.

And principled historians who attempt to point out the fraud of this
Jewish Holocaust mystique remain moldering in European jails,
imprisoned for "defaming the memory of the dead." Free speech crushed
under the Jewish media heel.

What will happen when everybody finds out about Jewish control of
medicine through the invention of psychology? Or how the American
family system was undermined and destroyed by Jewish media and a wholly
Jewish women’s liberation movement? What will happen when everybody
finds out that America's higher educational system is now completely
controlled by those who control the thoughts of those young malleable
minds it molds? And feeds them fatal drugs as it does so.

How do we stop this madness? By identifying what is being done to us,
and who is doing it.

When the world does that (IF the world ever does that), then Jews will
certainly need protection from the surviving irate victims of the harm
they have done with their selfish social engineering schemes.

But the alternative to considering potential "end game" strategies is
even worse.

It means we will never find out who we really are, or what kind of
world we really live in. It means a perpetual future of semi-conscious
slavery, with no chance of transcending the controls that diminish our
lives.

It means we give up the last chance we’ll ever have to attain genuine,
self-actualized freedom, because every single second and every single
cell in our bodies will have been taken over and polluted by the forces
of evil now running the world.

And if you don’t believe that, just sit back and listen to the bombs
until it’s your turn to cry.




John Kaminski is a writer who lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
“Recipe for Extinction,” his latest collection of Internet essays which
are seen on hundreds of websites around the world, is now available for
purchase at http://www.johnkaminski.com/

what can you say to the continued slaughter..............

Teenager shot dead after children's funeral


3:01:46 PM

Israeli troops have shot dead a Palestinian teenager during clashes after the funerals of five children.

Soldiers fired stun grenades and live rounds, killing a 15-year-old boy, said Palestinian doctors.

The army said it only fired warning shots in the air, and did not see anyone being hit.

Earlier Israel was accused of assassinating the five Palestinian children who died in an explosion on their way to school.

The deaths were originally thought to have been caused by an unexploded tank shell which one of the children kicked.

But reports say Israeli troops may have planted a bomb in the Khan Younis refugee camp to target Palestinian gunmen.

Liz Cheney and the New OSP

Saturday, April 29, 2006
Team8Plus: Regime change in Iran...a new group to promote war
FPF-fwd. from Team8Plus - a specialized 9/11 research team:

The Bush administration has established a new group to promote war against Iran, similar to the Office of Special Plans which was used in the runup to war against Iraq, the Iran-Syria Operations Group, a unit within the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, headed by Elizabeth Cheney, the eldest daughter of VP Dick Cheney:

REGIME CHANGE IN IRAN... a new group to promote war

REMEMBER THE WHITE HOUSE IRAQ GROUP?

AND THE PENTAGON'S OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS?

Basically, they were organizations designed to sidestep the moldy old national security bureaucracy and market the war with Iraq directly to the American public. And while in retrospect some may have questioned their, um, dedication to precise and sober analysis, you can't deny they were effective.

WELL, GUESS WHAT? LAWRENCE KAPLAN REPORTS THAT WE NOW HAVE A SIMILAR ORGANIZATION FOR IRAN: http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=13282

Although a spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) declines to comment on its existence, and the press has yet to carry a single mention of it, last month the administration formed something called the Iran-Syria Operations Group (ISOG) — a group headed by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Liz Cheney, the purpose of which is to encourage regime change in Iran.

IT'S NO SECRET THAT CHENEY HAS OVER $80 MILLION AT HER DISPOSAL TO PROMOTE DEMOCRACY IN IRAN.

But ISOG isn't simply about promoting democracy. It's about helping to craft official policy, doing so not with one but two countries in its sights, and creating a policymaking apparatus that parallels — and skirts — Foggy Bottom's suspect Iran desk.

Kaplan, for reasons that are obscure, apparently accepts at face value the official explanation that "ISOG has no role to play on security issues, doesn't coordinate at all with White House efforts against Iran at the United Nations, and confines itself to promoting regime change from within."

SURE IT DOES. THAT'S WHY THE VICE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER IS IN CHARGE OF IT.

In any case, connect the dots. "Promoting regime change from within" = the Iranian exile community.

The Iranian exile community = source of dubious intelligence about Iran's nuclear program.

Iran's nuclear program = excuse to go to war. Why change a winning game plan?

[enditem] - team8plus.org - Url: http://tinyurl.com/qhtxa

Source: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_04/008597.php

Background Article on Elizabeth Cheney: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cheney

Fwd. by:

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://forpressfound.blogspot.com/
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl

Death:Made in Amerikka

Death Made In America
Wondering if your conscience is still anesthetized
Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, MA, PhD
Mdmiraki@ameritech.net
4-29-6

A LITTLE TERRORIST: ENJOY YOUR HANDIWORK USA




I took this photo on the last day of my journey: one the triplets

Afghanistan is has become the disaster words could not describe, hence, I decided to illustrate this disaster via these photos of babies born deformed.

On many occasions, I pointed out that we need funds to build a research institute and the linked monitoring stations. Unfortunately, majority of you simply brushed off my request. I wonder if these photos could elevate your humanity that has been overwhelmed by your comfortable life and materials desires.
Again, it is up to you, to do whatever you think is human; that should not be too difficult. The funds for the research institute are very small price you have to pay after all your tax dollars have created this disaster. Whether you like it, admit or deny it, it does not absolve you from the indirect complicity in these war crimes.

If everyone visiting this web site pays the amount they spend on soft drinks in a month, we would have the funds to build our research facility:





AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN ACTION-"FREEDOM IS ON THE MOVE" RIGHT? YOUR GOVERNMENT is CRIMINAL BUT YOU ARE equally RESPONSIBLE.






YOU MIGHT SAY, "THAT'S LIFE WHAT COULD I DO" PAY FOR THE RESEARCH FACILITY-A TOTAL COST OF FIVE MILLION DOLLARS-PEANUTS COMPARE TO THIS PAIN.






I HOPE YOU COULD EAT TONIGHT AND LOOK AT YOUR CHILDREN AND SAY IT IS OKAY TO REMAIN INDIFFERENT. I WOULD NOT BE SURPRISED AFTER ALL IT IS OKAY-YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT, RIGHT? You had everything to do with it, your tax dollars paid for their misery!!!





HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF YOUR CHILDREN WERE BORN LIKE THIS?





FROM THE AMERICAN GIFT (URANIUM MUNITIONS) THAT KEEPS ON GIVING





HORRORS UNLIMITED: MADE IN USA
The parents of this child do not give a damn about your freedom BS or some other garbage





OUR CHILDREN WOULD BE BORN THIS WAY FOR EVER THANKS TO THE URANIUM MUNITIONS USED BY YOUR ARMED FORCES PAID FOR BY YOUR TAX DOLLARS.

OH A FEW MINOR DETAILS ABOUT SITUATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN:

URANIUM MUNITIONS

Due to the use of massive amount of uranium munitions used by the US forces in the initial bombing and subsequently, massive amount of congenital deformities occur all over Afghanistan. The rate of various cancers has gone up significantly. Leukemia and esophageal cancers are very high among children. According to doctors at maternity and children hospitals in Kabul, the rate of various congenital deformities have increased by many folds since the US invasion. In fact, the magnitude of man made isotopes was established by the Uranium Medical Research Center after their investigators made to trips to Afghanistan and collected urine and soil samples. They established that the rate of man made isotopes was gone up 2000 times in some subjects located near the bombed areas.

Since uranium used in the weapons have a half-life of 4.5 billion years, the US forces ensured that generations of Afghans suffer from cancers and deformities. This is certainly not development. In fact, it is the biggest crime ever committed by anyone in the history of humanity.


RECONSTRUCTION

There has been a lot of talk of reconstruction and rebuilding, but this issue could only be understood if one compares the substance against the rhetoric and the large amount of money allocated for the so-called reconstruction. Of all the whooplas made of reconstruction, the US and its client regime has only inaugurated the truck route-highway-between Kabul and Kandahar. This hallmark of achievement that the US brags about was completed 40 percent during the Taliban government. While the highway is inaugurated, it still needs significantly additional work to remain intact. The inauguration of the highway was a political ploy aimed to convince the critiques that the reconstruction has been going smooth. It is hardly so.

When I entered Afghanistan from Pakistan, the lack of achievement was evident. For the past three years, there have been construction efforts underway to pave the road from Torkham, the entry point from Pakistan to Afghanistan, to the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Pakistani contractors are more interested to have their tea breaks rather than to do any rebuilding. I brought up this issue with the authorities in Kabul, but to avail.

After reaching Jalalabad, I was further surprised to see the roads in the city with massive potholes, unpaved roads, hence, tremendous amount of dust blown in every direction. The reason for the lack of work in Jalalabad, as is the case almost every where in Afghanistan, corrupt officials eager to make money than to worry about the welfare of the people.

If a Mayor is appointed to a town or city, the would be mayor has to pay $40,000 bribe since he would be making more than $400,000 in selling government land to the highest bidder.

The magnitude of corruption is not limited to a province, but rather officials in the central government in Kabul are equally complicit in massive corruption and inefficiency which I would discuss shortly. Since the main road to Kabul is under construction for the past three years-we had to take a mountain pass called Lataband, which is a very rugged mountain terrain with huge rocks and massive potholes widespread for miles on. Once I reached Kabul, I stopped complaining about the Lataband road-after all Lataband is a mountain pass-Kabul the capital city lacked paved roads with exception of very few. The government in Kabul has not done anything of substance whether it pertains to infrastructure, housing, sanitation or drinking water. These are the essential elements of survival in any city. There are several reasons for the lack of progress. Some of the reasons are fundamentally flawed while others are bureaucratic hurdles and corruption. The fundamental flaws are situated in the free market approach superimposed on Afghanistan. There are two aspects of the free market that impedes the reconstruction of basic infrastructure in Kabul, one is the idea that money spent has to be invested with a return in mind, second, basic development should be contracted to private sector. Both of these issues have impeded the rebuilding of infrastructure.

In the first half of the 20th century, the Afghan government asked for a loan from the US government to build basic infrastructure-paved roads in Kabul, the government and the bank refused the loan on the ground that building roads in Kabul is not profitable investment. The government in Kabul at that time, argued that for any profitable enterprise to succeed basic infrastructure has to be built. So there is very little amount allocated for rebuilding basic infrastructure. It is worth noting that part of the blame goes to the international reconstruction aid as it is dispersed in such a way that some amount is allocated to the government in Kabul while the rest goes to the countless NGOs. Since the first problem, namely investment with a profit in mind, does not materialize in the construction of roads, efforts are made to resolve that problem through contracting out construction of roads to private sector. Thus, contracting out roads to private sector would mean money for contractors, hence, compensate for the lack of profitability associated with paving roads. This created another problem.

Once a road is contracted out, the private contracting firm resort to delaying tactics associated with feasibility study and other related issues in order to fatten its return. This delayed tactic does not serve peoples' needs and the roads remain unpaved. For example, the road from Kabul's airport to the presidential palace was contracted out three years ago it was still not built. This practice of contracting out projects adds to unemployment. Had the government adopted a different method, perhaps by hiring local laborers and using machinery, the chronic unemployment would be reduced, thus, people would have some food on the table.

Three weeks ago, Karzai announced that the road in the Dasht-e-Barchi area repaired and built. The allocated funding is $10,000000 ten million dollars. This is an outrage. Ten million dollars could repair all the roads in the capital, Kabul if only the function is taken over by the ministry of public works.

The Free Market Nonsense:

In order to please the US administration, the regime in Kabul advocated the notion of 'free market' as if this would become a panacea for the national economy. On the contrary, the so-called free market scheme had been tried in the past-the 1930s-- that resulted in fruitless consumerism of imported goods, which otherwise would have been produced domestically. Moreover, the consumption of luxuries received more priority than investment in productive sectors of the economy. A handful of businessmen and investors became rich while the rest of the country remained poor and destitute. Today, in the post-Taliban Afghanistan, the consumption of goods such as television sets and satellite dishes are more important than worrying about clean water and proper schooling. After all, as long as capitalism had brought the culture of corruption and entertainment, other necessities become secondary. Meanwhile, people with money import these goods, pocket their profits and leave. The desire of the installed regime to collect custom duties contributes to the perpetuation of underdevelopment.

Corruption also plays a significant role in the continuation of import than investment in productive infrastructure. For example, for the past 2-3 years over 100,000 tons of cement is imported while the construction plans of four cement factories collect dust. The official reason is that the country does not have a mining law. This year alone 380,000 tons of cement is imported this year alone. The question is how long does it take to formulate a mining law; it has been three years. The profit margin for dealers has skyrocketed while the long-term development prospects have waned down with every imported bag of cement.

AMERICAN CRIMES AND ORGANIZED CRIMES

With the collapse of Taliban, a very profitable, yet nasty sector of the economy has risen to new heights. Organized crime is an extension of what used to be warlords and their armies of bandits. With the warlords and other officials of the Northern Alliance occupying official positions, their former foot soldiers are equipped with new weapons and Toyota trucks, Landcruisers, with only one aim to kidnap people from diverse backgrounds for large sums of money. Once the money is secured, the government officials, who are also leading these bandits, keep 80 percent for themselves and 20 percent for their men.

The Italian aid worker, who was kidnapped in Kabul in broad daylight, was a victim of these organized bandits. After she was released, the government claimed that it secured the release of the aid worker through negotiation, but the truth is otherwise. The kidnappers received 5 million dollars. Those poor souls that can not afford paying ransoms end up dead.

Other groups of criminals kidnap children for money as well as for their organs. This is an epidemic that people sought Talibans' assistance for in the mid-1990s, however, it appears that this is no longer an issue for the US occupation force and their puppets after all when it comes to crimes what could be more criminal that using WMD against civilian population. The US forces have used uranium weapons against the people of Afghanistan, and continue to commit crimes that dwarf what the organized criminals are doing. The followings are some of the examples of the brutality of the US forces in Afghanistan:


Rape and Murder by the US forces

In the Bagrami area of Kabul, the US forces assaulted a small enclave of nomads. The US forces flew over this enclave and saw nomad women near their tents. They landed their helicopter and kidnapped these women by gunpoint. Subsequently, the US soldiers flew away with these women to some location, where these women are gang-raped. After these women were raped and died in the process, the soldiers flew them back to the community from where they were kidnapped. However, this time the helicopter did not land, instead, the women were thrown down from the helicopter. This is not unique for the US forces since they committed similar crimes in Vietnam. American forces are too much of cowards to have landed because they knew they would be shot in revenge.

Another incident occurred when a US helicopter spotted an old shepherd grazing his animals. The shepherd was 70 years old but this did not appear to matter to the US forces. The helicopter landed and raped the old man. His relatives told me that on the one hand we are furious about the crime committed by these beasts, but on the other hand we are curious "what kind of rotten people Americans are."

In another incident, a truck driver was driving his truck north from the Kabul, passing the US base in Bagram when the US patrol stopped him. In the passenger seat of the truck a young boy was sitting. This young man wanted to learn driving a truck, but tragically for him, the Americans noticed him and asked him to step out. The young man stepped out and the soldiers took him away from the truck and gang raped him. When the boy returned to the truck, he was crying and furious. Later that day, he committed suicide. This is another gift of the US's democracy.
In the American military base Bagram, north of Kabul, 15 translators while working for the US forces were gang raped by the very forces for which they worked. Although I have no sympathy for those that work for the US forces, however, no one should be subjected to such extreme cruelty. One of the translators said,

"Around 25 to 30 American soldiers enter the area where we were sleeping and started raping us. I was conscious until to the third soldier started raping me and then lost consciousness." (Hamid-translator for the US forces, June 2005)

In Badakhshan province, the US soldiers had taken forty (40) women and extracted their teeth for oral sex. One member of the parliament, who is a close supporter of Karzai, said:

"The issue of these women treated in such a miserable way was about to get some publicity, however, the US officials made sure that this does not happen." (Parliament member--I can not reveal his name)

In another incident, the US forces were searching local houses between JalaAbad and Kabul, when they entered and tried to search the house, they came across the woman of the house, since she was very beautiful, the soldiers decided to take her to the US base. The husband was not at home. When he returned from Peshawar, he went to get his wife. He told his wife,

"To me you are now my mother and sister, I can not touch you any more, but tell me if they have violated your dignity? 'They raped me by force, I was conscious for the first three men, then lost consciousness'." (The husband whose name I can not reveal his name. He joined Taliban afterward and I do not blame him.)

A young man committed suicide in the Laic-e-Mariam in KairKhana area after the Americans in an NGO raped his sister.

These are some of the very few examples of the many crimes committed by the US forces in Afghanistan, but unfortunately, the coward officials of the puppet regime call it reconstruction. To add insult to injury, the two American soldiers, who murdered two detainees at Bagram airbase, received only 2 and 3 months in jail for crime ruled homicide by the US medical examiners. The two detainees were beaten at their legs while hanging from the ceiling until their legs "pulverized". The term "pulverized" was used by the medical examiner to articulate the magnitude of the fatal injury and the inhumane way of murdering. When one of the victims asked for water, the soldier poured water over his face; subsequently, the poor man died. This is American reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Life for Ordinary People

There is absolutely no hope for the Afghans. The billions of dollars of development aid did not benefit ordinary Afghans. Abject poverty is the rule of the day. Orphans and widows roam the streets to make a living. The NGOs and foreign advisors enjoy life to the fullest. They are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, enjoy luxury vehicles and houses, while ordinary Afghans die from homelessness, hunger and disease.

In light of the London donor conference, which would amount to nothing considering the legacy of so-called reconstruction in Afghanistan; it is prudent to make some points.
It is a tragedy of immense proportion that no one even dare to address the abomination that is called life with inevitable demise at every corner resulting from the massive amount of uranium munitions used by the American forces and their allies. Our so-called Afghans self-sold surrogates are more than happy to jump on the bandwagon and express their gratitude for the token thrown at our people when in fact their entire existence is put in question by the massive use of weapons of mass destruction. Let the progress of the Bonn agreement tell the children of Tora Bora and Shah-e-Kot suffering from Leukemia and Esophageal cancers, or the massive number of sudden abortions occurring among women and animals in those areas.

Another legacy is the corruption of bribery and sheer robbery by the officials of this puppet regime eager to make dollars. Unfortunately, they do not even accept Afghan currency but rather demand dollars. According to an Afghan commission, the amount of bribes paid in Afghanistan ranges from 20 Afghani to 15,000000 Dollars. In a country where an experience medical technologist is paid $40/month, the millions of dollars paid in bribe point to the magnitude of profit individuals and companies expected to enjoy.

Abject poverty is every where and hopes of revival are no where. The billions of dollars donated went into the pockets of NGOs and powerful government officials, while the poor remains poor.

Another problem is Americanization of the system, namely whole sale firing of professionals with decades of experience under the pretext of making hospitals and offices efficient. The truth is the US wants to implement capitalism in Afghanistan and bring open market when in fact no has food to eat or money to pay for healthcare. The shortage of physicians and health technicians is ignored for the sake of this garbage called free market. Now there are no private companies to hire these professionals with decades of experience. It would have been nice if other opportunities existed, but there are none.
Today in Afghanistan, there are a few very rich and the rest extremely poor thanks to the United States of America.


Afghan Resistance and US losses:

The Afghan resistance fighters consist of Pashtuns, entirely. The East, Southeast, South and Southwest, West and part of Central area of Afghanistan are the most volatile. The US forces have lost a lot of soldiers there. In fact, ordinary Afghans used to wondered about the US losses and started to believe a myth that the soldiers that are killed in Afghanistan must come from orphanages in the US, hence, their death is not missed by anyone. To the Afghans, it does not make sense when so many soldiers lose their lives and yet there has not been any outrage on the part of the families of those soldiers. Thus, ordinary Afghans started this myth that the soldiers that are killed in Afghanistan are from orphanages since this was the only rational explanation they could find.

Before going to Afghanistan, different sources claimed that American dead were kept refrigerated on board ships in the Arabian Sea and at US bases in the Middle East. When I went to Afghanistan, many people within the Afghan Ministry of Defense told me similar stories that American dead are stored in refrigerated containers on board ships and at the US bases in the Middle East. In fact, one translator, who was working with the US forces, told me that he had seen refrigerated containers filled with dead US soldiers. The following two incidents should give a glimpse into the US losses and lies about those losses there.

Around June 12, 2005, an Afghan resistance fighter rammed an explosives laden vehicle into the US military convey in Kandahar. The result was severe losses for the US military. Initially, the media reported that five American soldiers were killed, then later that figure was abandoned and replaced with only four wounded. However, the truth was completely different. An eyewitness, Haji Habib told us an entirely different account of the losses:

"A suicide bomber slammed his vehicle into the US convey. The vehicle must have been full of powerful explosives because the explosion was really loud and shattering. After the dust and smoked settled, I counted the charred bodies. There were 39 charred bodies. The American cleanup team came with cranes and picked the destroyed armored vehicles and dead bodies before anyone could take photographs." (Haji Habib: June 14, 2005-my first trip)

In another incident around the 22nd of May 2005, the US forces lost 75 soldiers along with three tanks and three armored vehicles in Helmand province in Southwestern Afghanistan. This occurred when the US unit went to the province and arrested a former Mujahideen commander. The eyewitness, a translator, who witnessed and counted the dead bodies at Kandahar airport after being transported from Helmand described the operation as follows:

"The Americans went to Helamd to arrest a former commander. When they arrested him, his villagers and former Mujahideen fighters blocked the retreat of the US forces. The US forces fired at the men standing in their way, killing six of them. Since the rest of the fighters had already taken positions, the Americans were bombarded with RPG-7 grenade-launchers and heavy machinegun fire. In the firefight, the arrested commander was also martyred but also 75 American soldiers were killed, three of their tanks and three armored vehicles were also destroyed. When the American reinforcement arrived, all the Mujahideen fighters were long gone. Instead, the US helicopters bombed civilian areas." (Abdul Ali-eyewitness to the fight)

At the end of February 2006, in Uruzgan province an American convey was ambushed and 29 American soldiers were killed, while officially they admitted only four. These are just few of the many unreported losses of the US soldiers in Afghanistan.


FINAL NOTE

For those of you who would make the argument that we were attacked by Bin Laden and the Taliban refused to hand him over even though we refused to show his involvement, here is a piece of information revealed by Vice President Cheney. His answer to a question from the Tony Snow Show via telephone, and the link below is that of the White House:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060329-2.html


Q: I want to be clear because I've heard you say this, and I've heard the President say it, but I want you to say it for my listeners, which is that the White House has never argued that Saddam was directly involved in September 11th, correct?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's correct. We had one report early on from another intelligence service that suggested that the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, Czechoslovakia. And that reporting waxed and waned where the degree of confidence in it, and so forth, has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place. So we've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden [sic] was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming. But there -- that's a separate proposition from the question of whether or not there was some kind of a relationship between the Iraqi government, Iraqi intelligence services and the al Qaeda organization.

So the US bombed Afghanistan and killed tens of thousands of people and turned the country into a uranium hellhole on a hunch?
Obviously so, and that is why, they could never produce an ounce of proof of his complicity in the attacks.





SEE IF YOU COULD EXPLAIN THAT TO HIS PARENTS

IF YOU WANT TO DONATE GO TO: www.afghandufund.org

Or
http://www.ihcenter.org/groups/afghandufund.html


Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, MA, PhD
Director Afghan DU & Recovery Fund
www.afghandufund.org

My contact: mdmiraki@ameritech.net

Osama, Abu, and Ayman: al-CIA-Duh Telethon
Friday April 28th 2006, 10:54 pm

First it was Osama bin Laden, then Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and now Ayman al-Zawahiri. In the span of a week, these three al-CIA-duh heavyweights (two from beyond the grave) have issued communiqués. “Al-Qaeda in Iraq alone has carried out 800 martyrdom operations in three years, besides the victories of the other mujahidin. And this is what has broken the back of America in Iraq,” al-Zawahiri, or somebody we are expected believe is al-Zawahiri, said in a videotape released this evening. Ayman al-Zawahiri made this latest tape—or somebody in the basement of the CIA building did—from the wilds of Pakistan, Afghanistan, or from his prison cell in Iran (on February 18, 2002, the Guardian reported al-Zawahiri was imprisoned in the Evin prison in Iran). Of course, the Iraqi resistance is responsible for breaking the back of the occupation, not al-CIA-duh, the spook league of patsies and useful idiots.

It is interesting to note this latest production “was first obtained by IntelCenter, a United States government contractor that does work for various intelligence agencies,” according to the New York Times. According to former Army intelligence analyst and consultant William M. Arkin, IntelCenter is one of many cottage industries that have “sprung up since the early 1990’s to feed at the counter-terrorism trough” and its “primary client base is comprised of military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the US and other allied countries around the world,” in other words the folks who have a vested interest in making sure al-Zawahiri and the half-wit al-Zarqawi—by way of magic trick and computer graphics—check in every so often and make absurd claims, stealing the thunder of the Iraqi resistance.

“American counterterrorism officials were aware of the video and analyzing it. One American official said it was part of Al Qaeda’s ongoing propaganda campaign to try to demonstrate that it remained relevant,” the New York Times concludes. No doubt these “counterterrorism officials” will give the video a stamp of approval, as they routinely do to most al-CIA-duh communications, even those demonstrated to be crude forgeries in short order. Naturally, “al-Qaeda” must remain “relevant” (i.e., take all the credit for the Iraqi resistance), otherwise the “long war” would soon peter and fizzle out. Osama and crew must remain front and center, lest the attention of the fickle and generally peace-loving American public turns elsewhere.

“Zawahri also called for the overthrow of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who has survived several al Qaeda-inspired assassination attempts since allying himself with Washington. Pakistan has captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda members,” reports the CIA’s favorite newspaper. Musharraf has long claimed to have “completely shattered” al-CIA-duh in Pakistan. But like a game of whack-a-mole, the head of “al-Qaeda” keeps cropping up. Moreover, there seems to be an “al-Qaeda” training camp within shouting distance of Musharraf’s Rawalpindi headquarters, according to Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a Pakistani politician and friend of the Taliban (another CIA and ISI created monster). “That’s a bit like having a terrorist training camp on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.,” mused Richard Clarke, the nine eleven opportunist. “It is a fact that the Musharraf regime was the biggest supporter of the Taliban, who harbored al-Qaeda, which was recruiting and training men for terrorism prior to 9/11,” Benazir Bhutto, daughter of former premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, told the Asia Times in late 2004. Recruiting Musharraf to go after “al-Qaeda” is like recruiting a pimp to stamp out prostitution.

But never mind. Our rulers need these cardboard villains and it is brand recognition alone that drives the “long war” and its transparent propaganda effort. “In his last Internet message in March, Zawahri called for attacks on the West, urging similar strikes as those against New York, London and Madrid,” the Washington Post adds, attacks that have yet to occur. Of course, as time creeps forward, and the coming maelstrom aimed at Iran picks up steam, such attacks become more likely. Bush’s approval ratings are in the dumpster and with every passing day he looks more and more like Richard Nixon—although Nixon’s crimes were small time by way of comparison

Asshat

Blood payments for Flawed Leadership

"As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."
-- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,

By Mike Whitney

04/28/06 "ICH" -- - Bad news continues to pile up around Don Rumsfeld like garbage at a land fill. The latest blast came from an unlikely source, The Army Times”, which conducted a poll showing that 64% of enlisted men think Rumsfeld should tender his resignation immediately.

It would be impossible to find a more conservative publication than the Army Times or a more compelling reason for stepping down. Still, the recalcitrant Rumsfeld shows no sign of caving in or loosening his withered grip on the levers of power.

Earlier in the week, an equally devastating article appeared in the New York Times “Criticism of Rumsfeld Widens to Young Officers” echoing that younger officers are just as sick of the glib Rummy as their elders. One anonymous officer noted, “We have not lost a single tactical engagement on the ground in Iraq….The mistakes have all been at the strategic and political levels." Confidence in the Secretary is deflating more rapidly than the air leaving a punctured tire.

Most of the grumbling about Rumsfeld seems to center on his two salient attributes; arrogance and ineptitude, the twin-axels of predictable failure. There isn’t one part of the 3 year occupation he hasn’t mishandled, mismanaged or completely bungled. His tenure at the War Dept represents the greatest collapse of leadership in the history of the republic.

You’re doin’ a heck-uva job, Rummy.

It was Rumsfeld who refused to commit enough troops to the original invasion making it impossible to establish order; just as it was Rumsfeld who left the armories and munitions dumps unattended, disbanded the Iraqi military, and dismantled the government through de-Ba’athification. All these proved to be costly and avoidable mistakes which made reconstruction difficult and security impossible.

Rummy has brushed aside such idle criticism saying, “Stuff happens”.

Rumsfeld’s only success has been in alienating the Iraqi people by authorizing the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib as well as the gratuitous destruction of Falluja; two events which galvanized the Iraqi resistance and savaged any chance of winning over Iraqi “hearts and minds”.

Now, Iraq is in the throes of deadly guerilla war with casualties mounting by the day and not a glimmer of light in the tunnel. The responsibility for the deteriorating situation mainly rests with one man, Don Rumsfeld, the primary architect of America’s desert “cakewalk”. .

Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton's summarized Rumsfeld’s abysmal performance best when he said that Rumsfeld was "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq."

The problem with Rumsfeld runs deeper than his failure to stabilize Iraq. His “Strangelovian” ideas of military transformation have no place in a democracy. His efforts to convert the military into a martial-force for private industry have eroded America’s moral standing in the world and put allies and enemies on alert.

We can see now that Guantanamo, Bagram, and Abu Ghraib are not anomalies, but vital gears in a global war machine controlled from Washington.

A Washington Post article last Sunday “Rumsfeld OKs wider anti-terror role for Military”, exposed another frightening part of Rumsfeld’s “transformative” vision. Following the next terrorist attack on American soil, Rumsfeld plans to deploy “elite Special operations troops” to conduct military operations in countries outside of war zones. Under the secretary’s direction, 53,000 paramilitaries and Green Berets will be released into sovereign nations in violation of international law, conducting renditions, assassinations, sabotage, and acts of piracy. Rumsfeld’s plan abandons all prior constraints on the military and converts the entire world into a “free-fire” zone.

There’s no doubt that Rumsfeld’s malignant strategy encompasses the American “homeland” as well. It was Rumsfeld who pushed the Posse Comitatus law towards extinction by setting up NorthCom, a military command post within the United States. This creates the possibility that future military operations will target the American people, a threat which was anticipated by the founding fathers. Under new legislation the military is free to spy on American citizens, deploy mercenaries to natural disasters, and, in the event of a terrorist attack, arrest citizens without charges.

All this leaves little doubt that Rumsfeld’s ultimate goal is to remove the military from all congressional oversight and create a global policing apparatus for transnational corporations. The final component of his plan will be set in motion following the next terrorist attack.

Rumsfeld’s ambitions are worrisome but we should not ignore how dramatically public opinion has shifted against both him and the entire administration. Bush’s dwindling popularity is bound to frustrate any scheme to militarize the nation.

We should also be encouraged by the extraordinary catalogue of failures that Rumsfeld has amassed in just 6 short years. His record does not support his lofty dreams of global domination. We expect he will fail in this endeavor as well.

Regrettably, the price of ambition tends to be quite high. As Marine Lt. General Greg Newbold opined, “The cost of flawed leadership continues to be paid in blood.”

Rabbi Steals $2.3 Trillion!

zakheimmastermind911.blogspot – April 10, 2006


"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." -- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11

On September 10, 2001, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld held a press conference to announce that $2.3 TRILLION was missing from Pentagon coffers and could not be located. Amid the following months of dust and rubble at the World Trade Center, the question of this missing money was never heard again.
Dov Zakheim, former Comptroller in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, and also one of the architects of a document called "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century" published by The American Enterprise's "Project for a New American Century", called for "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor" being necessary to foster the frame of mind needed for the American public to support a war in the Middle East that would politically and culturally reshape the region.

Is this all just a coincidence? Or a well thought out, diabolical plot, by traitors within the highest levels of the US government? Any person with the ability to think, should at least consider the possibility.

While Americans were caught up in the confusion, and emotional turmoil stirred up by the zionist controlled media in the aftermath of September 11th 2001 attacks, attention was immediately focused on a wild conspiracy theory, that 19 Arab hijackers, armed with nothing more than box cutter knives, pulled off the biggest crime of the 20th century, and out smarted America's multi-billion dollar national defense system!

The fact that most Americans believe this foolishness, is proof of the power, that the zionist controlled media and Hollywood, have over their minds, and the results of over half a century of demonizing the Arab people.


"The great masses of people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. Especially if it is repeated over and over."
-- Adolph Hitler
http://zakheimmastermind911.blogspot.com/




Also see:
Dov Zakheim and the 911 Conspiracy
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2775

The Mastermind Behind 911?
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1927

Last updated 28/04/2006

THREE Stage Terror Drill to Take Place in Chicago: May 2-4


Gary Franchi - Chicago, IL 4-20-06 One of our Loyal Lone Lanterns has just informed us that the National Guard will be doing a training assignment in Chicago. This field exercise will be to simulate a chemical attack, whereby the National Guard will coordinate with local police, fire depts, and hospitals. One of the hospitals participating will be Rush.

1) Exercise starts as a response to a pandemic spreading throughout Chicago. It could be anything from a terrorist attack to bird flu. Nobody knows.

2) As the different groups are responding to this pandemic, there is a dirty bomb attack which releases a chemical agent.

3) If all of that is not enough, the dirty bomb collapses a building.

We do not have an exact location where this is happening, the National Guard doesn’t even know. It is supposed to simulate a real life situation so, nobody knows until it starts.

It will be May 2-4.

Considering that "drills" were taking place the morning of 9/11 and 7/7 there is always the remote possibility that this is cover for another "inside job". We pray to God that it is not.

Chicago, be alert that Tuesday, May 2nd, Wednesday, May 3rd, and Thursday, May 4th.


REPORT FOLLOW UP:

RED ALERT: "CHICAGO 911" CONFIRMED (May 2-4, Terror Exercises)

By Capt. Eric H. May, MI/PAO, Ghost Troop Commander

I will answer email queries to the information below, and will provide documentation and links. This email/article is now part of official recording the Texas City Nuclear Inquest at http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/GhostTroopCommand/. CPTMAY

Witnesses:

Colonel Tim Franklin, PAO, Illinois National Guard Captain Lisa Kopczynski, PAO, Indiana National Guard Officer Kubiak, Chicago Police Public Information Officer
In the last 24 hours, the police and military officers in above have confirmed the following exercise scenario, about to be conducted in
Chicago:

Homeland Security is the "main proponent" (the command) for an exercise May 2-4, 2006, rehearsing a response to a WMD attack and building collapse in Downtown Chicago. State of Illinois civil assets, National Guard assets, Chicago area police assets and hospital assets will collectively be
working under Homeland Security.

This is an uncomfortable confirmation of the alarming email/article I received, and promised to forward to you:

Webster Tarpley was also taking about this on crisis radio yesterday it is in the archives of www.rbnlive.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let Us Now Spit Upon The Earth
You can do it the old way, or you can do it like Bush -- with smirks, mountain bikes and oil
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, April 28, 2006


Look, see those tire marks? That ungainly footprint? Feel that breath of humid doom upon your skin? Yes, the president was just here. Up in Napa Valley, riding his official Trek Mountain Bike One over the rocks and down the trails and through the cool California mud, a small army of handlers and Secret Service agents and emergency medical personnel by his side and/or rumbling along behind him in big black SUVs. It was very cute, in a fingernail-yanked-with-pliers sort of way.

It was Earth Day weekend. The president talked about how mountain biking helped him "settle his soul" and "burn off excess energy when you're living life to its fullest," which apparently means blindly running your nation into a bloody flaming wall at full speed like a drunk NASCAR driver on Ambien. He talked about how he enjoyed mountain biking because it had such minimal impact on the pristine, wild surroundings. Shockingly, lightning did not strike him dead on the spot.

Later on, the prez talked up the need for wildly implausible hydrogen-powered cars to the California Fuel Cell Partnership, a group who, if they had a drop of integrity and brains among them, didn't believe a single word he said.

Bush on Earth Day. It's like Satan talking up the joys of Easter. It's like Paris Hilton chatting about treading the planet with humility and grace. It's like Jerry Falwell gushing about his love of Brokeback Mountain, Eli Lilly extolling the virtues of meditation and green tea. It is, in a word, embarrassing. Humiliating. Intellectually bludgeoning. And hypocritical in a way, and at a depth, that is as nauseating to stomach as the testosterone levels at a Duke lacrosse frat party.

This much we know: Bush is, it has been widely noted, the worst environmental president in modern America history. He has done more to eliminate protections and pollute the air, sell off national forests, whore the waterways, drill for oil and eviscerate pollution regulation than any president on the books. His environmental record is abysmal, shameful, and includes installing two of the worst secretaries of the interior in history, the abominable Gale Norton and now her male counterpart Dirk Kempthorne, who have turned around and reduced protections and sold off more forestland to private concerns -- oil, timber, coal, you name it -- since the Harding administration.

And of course, we are the only "enlightened" nation in the world to publicly spit upon the Kyoto Treaty, a landmark global pact to reduce CO2 emissions that is still only considered the first baby step in tackling the very, very dire problem of global warming.

Bush is, after all, a failed oilman. He has done all he can to ensure we will be dependent on the black death for the next two decades, minimum, which is, not surprisingly, the average remaining life span of his favoritest CEO cronies in the oil business. Serve the masters first, the Saudi sheiks second, the American people about, oh, 157th. It is the BushCo way.

No matter. Up in Napa, the president talked about connecting with nature, about getting his heart rate up by getting out there and challenging himself against the rugged terrain. Nature, of course, was unimpressed, sort of neutral on the whole thing, Bush just another animal scratching tracks on her incredibly resilient skin. Nature has a Zen-like quality about such things -- or perhaps more like Vishnu-Brahma-Shiva, creator and preserver and destroyer, watching it all, shrugging, sighing, taking the long view. If nature could talk, she would tell Bush he will be worm food very soon, and by the way, the worms are furious. She would then go back to watching the baby giraffes play in Africa.

There is no beauty in American political policy toward the Earth. There is no poetry or grace or true heart in how politicians -- especially Republican politicians -- view our natural commodities, no respect unless it is based on fear, unless it is begrudging and resentful, like when a hurricane makes a mockery of the president's feeble and unconvincing attempts to prove he cares. Has it always been this way? Maybe. But some leaders are far, far worse than others.

This is perhaps the most frightening thing about the Bush visit, about him having the nerve, the sheer vulgar gall to discuss the quality of his soul while biking through a natural habitat his administration so violently works to defile. It is this: He actually meant it. Bush was probably genuinely heartfelt about enjoying his ride through our troubled trees. He thinks he is attuned and connected. He thinks nature is nifty and calming. And, simply put, there is no more dangerous a leader on the face of the earth who, in every policy and every law and every action, abuses and distorts and molests the world around him, and yet who can turn on an ideological dime and calmly glorify that very thing which he helps destroy.

Recall former Spokane Mayor Jim West, big scandal just recently, an outspoken and homophobic über-Republican on the outside, a guy who helped pass anti-gay legislation in Washington state and railed against gay rights in public, but who happily turned around and for over 20 years solicited 18-year-old boys in gay chat rooms at night and offered them free candy, T-shirts, sex, jobs. Bush is just like that. Abuse your issue openly during the day, screw it at night. And worst of all, give not a single thought to the brutal dichotomy.

Are there levels to hypocrisy? Degrees? Rings of hypocritical hell? It would appear so. After all, there are the common varieties of minor hypocrisies most of us live with every day, like claiming a deep concern for the planet but still using plastic bags and shopping at Target and enjoying a long summer drive. Like swooning over super-cute animals but never considering giving up our cool leather jackets and smokin' snakeskin boots. Like loathing obnoxious cell phone users but never thinking we might actually, you know, be one.

Hypocrisy is, verily, the American national pastime. It is part of our national character. But there is a point where hypocrisy takes a turn toward the abusive, toward the spiritually debilitating. It becomes less like livable hypocrisy and more like a mental condition, a barely functional psychosis.

And right now, we are, it seems, living smack in the middle of a decade of just such madness, led by a bumbling and confused, tepid little devil himself, happily biking through the trees as the forest groans.

Hastert: Addicted To Foreign Oil...
Friday, April 28 2006 @ 01:33 AM EDT
Contributed by: Monkeyfister





Denny Hastert Wheezes His Obscenely Fat-Ass Over To His Petrol-Powered Smog Machine, After A “Way Too Clean” Ride In A Hydrogen-Powered SUV Following Another Foolish Photo-Op.



House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Ill., center, gets out of a Hydrogen Alternative Fueled automobile, left, as he prepares to board his SUV, which uses gasoline, after holding a new conference at a local gas station in Washington, Thursday, April 27, 2006 to discuss the recent rise in gas prices. Hastert and other members of Congress drove off in the Hydrogen-Fueled cars only to switch to their official cars to drive back the few block back to the U.S. Capitol. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Oh. It looks like my caption differs from the official version some... Nothing a bit more Ham Gravy won't fix. Hastert... You're a fucking PUTZ.

United States of Israel

United States of Israel?

When two of America's most distinguished academics dared to suggest that US foreign policy was being driven by a powerful 'Israel Lobby' whose influence was incompatible with their nation's own interests, they knew they would face allegations of anti-Semitism. But the episode has prompted America's Jewish liberals to confront their own complacency. Might the tide be turning?

By Robert Fisk

04/27/06 "The Independent" -- - Stephen Walt towers over me as we walk in the Harvard sunshine past Eliot Street, a big man who needs to be big right now (he's one of two authors of an academic paper on the influence of America's Jewish lobby) but whose fame, or notoriety, depending on your point of view, is of no interest to him. "John and I have deliberately avoided the television shows because we don't think we can discuss these important issues in 10 minutes. It would become 'J' and 'S', the personalities who wrote about the lobby - and we want to open the way to serious discussion about this, to encourage a broader discussion of the forces shaping US foreign policy in the Middle East."

"John" is John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. Walt is a 50-year-old tenured professor at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. The two men have caused one of the most extraordinary political storms over the Middle East in recent American history by stating what to many non-Americans is obvious: that the US has been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of Israel, that Israel is a liability in the "war on terror", that the biggest Israeli lobby group, Aipac (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), is in fact the agent of a foreign government and has a stranglehold on Congress - so much so that US policy towards Israel is not debated there - and that the lobby monitors and condemns academics who are critical of Israel.

"Anyone who criticises Israel's actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle East policy," the authors have written, "...stands a good chance of being labelled an anti-Semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israeli lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-Semitism ... Anti-Semitism is something no-one wants to be accused of." This is strong stuff in a country where - to quote the late Edward Said - the "last taboo" (now that anyone can talk about blacks, gays and lesbians) is any serious discussion of America's relationship with Israel.

Walt is already the author of an elegantly written account of the resistance to US world political dominance, a work that includes more than 50 pages of references. Indeed, those who have read his Taming Political Power: The Global Response to US Primacy will note that the Israeli lobby gets a thumping in this earlier volume because Aipac "has repeatedly targeted members of Congress whom it deemed insufficiently friendly to Israel and helped drive them from office, often by channelling money to their opponents."

But how many people in America are putting their own heads above the parapet, now that Mearsheimer and Walt have launched a missile that would fall to the ground unexploded in any other country but which is detonating here at high speed? Not a lot. For a while, the mainstream US press and television - as pro-Israeli, biased and gutless as the two academics infer them to be - did not know whether to report on their conclusions (originally written for The Atlantic Monthly, whose editors apparently took fright, and subsequently reprinted in the London Review of Books in slightly truncated form) or to remain submissively silent. The New York Times, for example, only got round to covering the affair in depth well over two weeks after the report's publication, and then buried its article in the education section on page 19. The academic essay, according to the paper's headline, had created a "debate" about the lobby's influence.

They can say that again. Dore Gold, a former ambassador to the UN, who now heads an Israeli lobby group, kicked off by unwittingly proving that the Mearsheimer-Walt theory of "anti-Semitism" abuse is correct. "I believe," he said, "that anti-Semitism may be partly defined as asserting a Jewish conspiracy for doing the same thing non-Jews engage in." Congressman Eliot Engel of New York said that the study itself was "anti-Semitic" and deserved the American public's contempt.

Walt has no time for this argument. "We are not saying there is a conspiracy, or a cabal. The Israeli lobby has every right to carry on its work - all Americans like to lobby. What we are saying is that this lobby has a negative influence on US national interests and that this should be discussed. There are vexing problems out in the Middle East and we need to be able to discuss them openly. The Hamas government, for example - how do we deal with this? There may not be complete solutions, but we have to try and have all the information available."

Walt doesn't exactly admit to being shocked by some of the responses to his work - it's all part of his desire to keep "discourse" in the academic arena, I suspect, though it probably won't work. But no-one could be anything but angered by his Harvard colleague, Alan Dershowitz, who announced that the two scholars recycled accusations that "would be seized on by bigots to promote their anti-Semitic agendas". The two are preparing a reply to Dershowitz's 45-page attack, but could probably have done without praise from the white supremacist and ex-Ku Klux Klan head David Duke - adulation which allowed newspapers to lump the name of Duke with the names of Mearsheimer and Walt. "Of Israel, Harvard and David Duke," ran the Washington Post's reprehensible headline.

The Wall Street Journal, ever Israel's friend in the American press, took an even weirder line on the case. "As Ex-Lobbyists of Pro-Israel Group Face Court, Article Queries Sway on Mideast Policy" its headline proclaimed to astonished readers. Neither Mearsheimer nor Walt had mentioned the trial of two Aipac lobbyists - due to begin next month - who are charged under the Espionage Act with receiving and disseminating classified information provided by a former Pentagon Middle East analyst. The defence team for Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman has indicated that it may call Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to the stand.

Almost a third of the Journal's report is taken up with the Rosen-Weissman trial, adding that the indictment details how the two men "allegedly sought to promote a hawkish US policy toward Iran by trading favours with a number of senior US officials. Lawrence Franklin, the former Pentagon official, has pleaded guilty to misusing classified information. Mr Franklin was charged with orally passing on information about a draft National Security Council paper on Iran to the two lobbyists... as well as other classified information. Mr Franklin was sentenced in December to nearly 13 years in prison..."

The Wall Street Journal report goes on to say that lawyers and "many Jewish leaders" - who are not identified - "say the actions of the former Aipac employees were no different from how thousands of Washington lobbyists work. They say the indictment marks the first time in US history that American citizens... have been charged with receiving and disseminating state secrets in conversations." The paper goes on to say that "several members of Congress have expressed concern about the case since it broke in 2004, fearing that the Justice Department may be targeting pro-Israel lobbying groups, such as Aipac. These officials (sic) say they're eager to see the legal process run its course, but are concerned about the lack of transparency in the case."

As far as Dershowitz is concerned, it isn't hard for me to sympathise with the terrible pair. He it was who shouted abuse at me during an Irish radio interview when I said that we had to ask the question "Why?" after the 11 September 2001 international crimes against humanity. I was a "dangerous man", Dershowitz shouted over the air, adding that to be "anti-American" - my thought-crime for asking the "Why?" question - was the same as being anti-Semitic. I must, however, also acknowledge another interest. Twelve years ago, one of the Israeli lobby groups that Mearsheimer and Walt fingers prevented any second showing of a film series on Muslims in which I participated for Channel 4 and the Discovery Channel - by stating that my "claim" that Israel was building large Jewish settlements on Arab land was "an egregious falsehood". I was, according to another Israeli support group, "a Henry Higgins with fangs", who was "drooling venom into the living rooms of America."

Such nonsense continues to this day. In Australia to launch my new book on the Middle East, for instance, I repeatedly stated that Israel - contrary to the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists - was not responsible for the crimes of 11 September 2001. Yet the Australian Jewish News claimed that I "stopped just millimetres short of suggesting that Israel was the cause of the 9/11 attacks. The audience reportedly (and predictably) showered him in accolades."

This was untrue. There was no applause and no accolades and I never stopped "millimetres" short of accusing Israel of these crimes against humanity. The story in the Australian Jewish News is a lie.

So I have to say that - from my own humble experience - Mearsheimer and Walt have a point. And for a man who says he has not been to Israel for 20 years - or Egypt, though he says he had a "great time" in both countries - Walt rightly doesn't claim any on-the-ground expertise. "I've never flown into Afghanistan on a rickety plane, or stood at a checkpoint and seen a bus coming and not known if there is a suicide bomber aboard," he says.

Noam Chomsky, America's foremost moral philosopher and linguistics academic - so critical of Israel that he does not even have a regular newspaper column - does travel widely in the region and acknowledges the ruthlessness of the Israeli lobby. But he suggests that American corporate business has more to do with US policy in the Middle East than Israel's supporters - proving, I suppose, that the Left in the United States has an infinite capacity for fratricide. Walt doesn't say he's on the left, but he and Mearsheimer objected to the invasion of Iraq, a once lonely stand that now appears to be as politically acceptable as they hope - rather forlornly - that discussion of the Israeli lobby will become.

Walt sits in a Malaysian restaurant with me, patiently (though I can hear the irritation in his voice) explaining that the conspiracy theories about him are nonsense. His stepping down as dean of the Kennedy School was a decision taken before the publication of his report, he says. No one is throwing him out. The much-publicised Harvard disclaimer of ownership to the essay - far from being a gesture of fear and criticism by the university as his would-be supporters have claimed - was mainly drafted by Walt himself, since Mearsheimer, a friend as well as colleague, was a Chicago scholar, not a Harvard don.

But something surely has to give.

Across the United States, there is growing evidence that the Israeli and neo-conservative lobbies are acquiring ever greater power. The cancellation by a New York theatre company of My Name is Rachel Corrie - a play based on the writings of the young American girl crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003 - has deeply shocked liberal Jewish Americans, not least because it was Jewish American complaints that got the performance pulled.

"How can the West condemn the Islamic world for not accepting Mohamed cartoons," Philip Weiss asked in The Nation, "when a Western writer who speaks out on behalf of Palestinians is silenced? And why is it that Europe and Israel itself have a healthier debate over Palestinian human rights than we can have here?" Corrie died trying to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian home. Enemies of the play falsely claim that she was trying to stop the Israelis from collapsing a tunnel used to smuggle weapons. Hateful e-mails were written about Corrie. Weiss quotes one that reads: "Rachel Corrie won't get 72 virgins but she got what she wanted."

Saree Makdisi - a close relative of the late Edward Said - has revealed how a right-wing website is offering cash for University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) students who report on the political leanings of their professors, especially their views on the Middle East. Those in need of dirty money at UCLA should be aware that class notes, handouts and illicit recordings of lectures will now receive a bounty of $100. "I earned my own inaccurate and defamatory 'profile'," Makdisi says, "...not for what I have said in my classes on English poets such as Wordsworth and Blake - my academic speciality, which the website avoids mentioning - but rather for what I have written in newspapers about Middle Eastern politics."

Mearsheimer and Walt include a study of such tactics in their report. "In September 2002," they write, "Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes, two passionately pro-Israel neo-conservatives, established a website (www.campus-watch.org) that posted dossiers on suspect academics and encouraged students to report behaviour that might be considered hostile to Israel... the website still invites students to report 'anti-Israel' activity."

Perhaps the most incendiary paragraph in the essay - albeit one whose contents have been confirmed in the Israeli press - discusses Israel's pressure on the United States to invade Iraq. "Israeli intelligence officials had given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq's WMD programmes," the two academics write, quoting a retired Israeli general as saying: "Israeli intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American and British intelligence regarding Iraq's non-conventional capabilities."

Walt says he might take a year's sabbatical - though he doesn't want to get typecast as a "lobby" critic - because he needs a rest after his recent administrative post. There will be Israeli lobbyists, no doubt, who would he happy if he made that sabbatical a permanent one. I somehow doubt he will.

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