Tuesday, June 3, 2003

Illustration: Bush the war criminal; poster by Nigel Ayers.

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So much for democracy in Iraq. "Iraq's American occupiers last night abandoned plans to hold a national congress to select an embryonic interim government," reports the UK Telegraph. "Instead the US will appoint a council of 25 to 30 senior figures from across the religious and ethnic spectrum who will shadow the current administration in preparation for taking power."

In other words, it's colonialism as usual.

Meanwhile, as to be expected, resistance is growing in the streets.

"Gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles attacked an American military convoy late today in the neighborhood where Saddam Hussein made his last public appearance on April 9, the day the capital fell to allied forces," writes the New York Times. "The attacks came as the American military was preparing to send significant forces west of Baghdad to quell pockets of resistance in several cities. The strikes indicate there is still armed resistance to the allied occupation within the capital, especially in the Adhamiya neighborhood where Mr. Hussein had climbed atop a vehicle and exhorted a crowd to resist American forces before he went into hiding... The gun battle took place at one end of the city just as a pivotal political meeting was under way at the Republican Palace between the United States' top civilian administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, and Iraqi political figures who have been pressing the occupation authorities to appoint an interim government of Iraqis... But a senior American official here made clear that whatever role the Iraqis played during the period of occupation, 'the ultimate authority' would remain with the allies until they were ready to turn over power to an elected Iraqi government. He said he could not estimate how long that might take."

It will take forever, if the Americans have their way, because the Iraqis will surely vote for an anti-American government, be it Shi'ite dominated or otherwise.

"Life was good during the days of Saddam Hussein. We had security and food. We all want Saddam," Adel Abdul-Hussein, a man from Basra, told the New York Times.

"The daily calorie intake of Iraqi citizens fell from 3,120 calories/day in 1989 to 1,300 calories/day in 1999," UNICEF's Child and Maternal Mortality Survey reported in 1999. "Conditions in the health sector as a whole are poor due to shortages in medications, medical supplies and equipment. For example, in the 1980s, the Iraqi government imported medical supplies to the tune of $500 million a year. Under the sanctions, it could only import $50 million worth up to the end of 2002. Between 1989 and 2000 there was an increase of 1,800% in contagious respiratory diseases, and of 1,224% in intestinal infections, according to Iraqi health ministry data from September 2002."

"In 1990, there were 32.003 (thousand) reported cases of pneumonia among children under the age of 5 in Iraq. In 2000, there were 152.932 (thousand) reported cases of pneumonia," reports WHO. "In 1987, there were 4,753 reported cases of tuberculosis in Iraq. In 1999, there were 29,897 reported cases of tuberculosis in Iraq... In Iraq, the rate of deaths due to heart disease has increased by 942% from 1989 to 2000; a 724% increase in the death rate due to diabetes, and a 577% increase in the death rate due to malignancies (cancers)... 800,000 children under 5 are chronically malnourished... High prevalence of anemia in school children... Rickets (Vitamin D deficiency) is still being reported... Diarrhea contributing to malnutrition is high... Wasting (low weight for height) in under 5 is over 10%."

If these are the attributes of Bushite (and Clinton and Bush Senior) democracy, is it any wonder so many Iraqis believe life wasn't so bad under Saddam Hussein?

Sunday, June 1, 2003

Photo: British Foreign Secretary and war criminal Jack Straw. Both Colin Powell and Straw had reservations about the claim Iraq possessed WMD, but they didn't say anything about it. In a perfect world, they would be explaining this omission before the International Criminal Court. But the way things are going, both will probably retire and write best selling books.

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It's nothing short of remarkable how quickly the morale of US troops in Iraq has declined. "There is growing resentment and declining morale in the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq," the New York Times will report tomorrow, according to Drudge, the National Enquirer of the right."Many soldiers believed that the way home was through Baghdad, and they fought their way to the capital only to find out just a few days ago that the Army had another mission for them."

"The soldiers are irritated and tired," said Capt. Christopher Carter, the commander of Company A, 3-7 Infantry. "Of course, they are going to go in and do the job, and they will do it professionally as if they had been told all along that they were going to have to do it," he said. "But they almost feel betrayed. You put a nice prize in front of them and now you yank it away from them."

Let that be a lesson to any kid who thinks joining the US military is a good deal. Uncle Sham doesn't give a damn about Johnny from Nebraska or Sarah from South Carolina. The vicious neocons believe these kids are there to be used -- so Halliburton can make big bucks and the racists in Israel can move forward with their agenda. Every single kid that signed up to "defend our freedom" -- i.e., defend the profits of multinational corporations -- is a pawn.

"At least one American soldier and two Iraqis have been killed and several more people wounded in a grenade attack on a U.S. tank in central Baghdad, al-Jazeera television reports... It said the attack occurred in front of the city's main mosque, the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Aadhamiya district, adding that more Americans troops and Iraqis were wounded... US troops have come under attack several times in recent days from Iraqis who resent their presence."

Of course, it will only get worse. There's no way in hell the US will be able to stop the swelling tide of resentment against Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq. More Johnnys and Sarahs, unfortunately, will die in the process -- completely avoidable deaths that now stand to cover George Bush's lies about WMD in Iraq, the prima facie of his illegal invasion.

As it now appears, the so-called "mobile production plants" the military found in Iraq were producing nothing more than hydrogen gas. "The CIA says that hydrogen production is a 'plausible cover story' for the mobile production plants recently found in Iraq. However, this 'cover' story seems to match exactly what was found, whereas the germ production theory is a bit of a stretch," writes Marc Pienaar.

"According to the CIA, we are missing the required additional trailer or trailers which must be 'equipped for growth media preparation and post-harvest processing and, we would expect, have equipment such as mixing tanks, centrifuges, and spray dryers'... There is no biocontainment system to safeguard the scientists or technicians who worked inside the trailer from exposure to deadly germs. In other words, it looks a bit like 'Oh, here's a stainless steel tank. Such a tank can be used as a fermentation vessel (among many other things). Germ production requires a fermentation vessel. Ergo, a germ factory. Now, where are all the other goodies we need for a germ factory? Umm, errr, well we haven't found the other truck yet; and of course the Iraqi's wouldn't bother to protect their workers...'"

I said weeks ago these trailers were a ruse -- it now appears I was right. Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. You see, when dealing with the Bushites, you have to assume everything that comes out of their mouth is a lie -- a big fat Straussian lie devised to mislead the American public, which is far too gullible as it is. Scott Ritter said it was nearly impossible for the Iraqis to have biological weapons after all these years -- bio weapons have a shelf life, just like the mayonnaise in your fridge -- and the telltale signatures of nuclear weapons development were missing. The Bushites knew this, of course. They simply lied through their teeth and far too many people gobbled it up and asked for seconds. Now all of us have to live with the result.

Meanwhile, the Bush poodle, Tony Blair, is saying "British authorities in Iraq had more urgent priorities than finding weapons of mass destruction," according to the Independent. "As question marks continued to hang over the evidence that Iraq had illegal weapons, which was used to justify the war, Mr Blair dismissed as 'completely absurd' claims that politicians had added their spin to intelligence reports on the issue."

In other words, Blair knew it was all a lie.

"In Warsaw yesterday Mr Blair was visibly annoyed that questions on the missing weapons had not gone away and that there were allegations that British politicians had added their spin to intelligence reports to justify a war. The Prime Minister said: 'I have just caught up overnight with some of the allegations that have been made. Let me just say this: the evidence that we have of weapons of mass destruction was evidence drawn up and accepted by the joint intelligence community. That evidence of weapons of mass destruction is evidence the truth of which I have absolutely no doubt at all. The idea that we authorized or made the intelligence agencies invent some piece of evidence is completely absurd.'"

Oh, I guess he's talking about that pilfered grad student's thesis that was used as an excuse to kill a few thousand Iraqis.

"An unnamed diplomatic source reveals to a national newspaper today that the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, also privately exchanged serious doubts about the chemical weapons capability of Iraq before the war."

In other words, both of them are vicious charlatans, or cowards. Of course, Powell has a history of covering things up -- like the slaughter of 347 Vietnamese, including babies, at My Lai in Vietnam.

Saturday, May 31, 2003

Photo: Sean Penn talks about the big bucks he shelled out in order to get his opinion on Bush's lies published as an advert in the corporate media (see post below).

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"Today weâre dealing with an enemy that seems to be falling into the population, taking advantage of his ability to meld into the population," General William Wallace told CBS News.

That's because the "enemy" is the Iraqi people. No melding is necessary. Either Wallace is being disingenuous, or he is really stupid. The Bushites know the vast majority of the Iraqi people are against the occupation. That's why they are going house-to-house confiscating weapons.

"Wallace himself is not safe on these streets since he is a prime target for any lurking Saddam supporter," writes CBS. "But the risks, it seems, are all in a dayâs work."

Make that "any lurking Iraqi who hates the occupation of his country." As for "all in a day's work," Wallace should be at home protecting America against attack, not directing illegal occupation forces in Iraq.

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"The U.S. government this week launched its Arabic language satellite TV news station for mostly Muslim Iraq. It is being produced in a studio -- Grace Digital Media -- controlled by fundamentalist Christians who are rabidly pro-Israel," write Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman.

So, the US will attempt to brainwash the Iraqis the same way they brainwash the cattle-like American public. Well, it won't work. In order to understand the reality of Iraq the way it is "on the ground," all the average Iraqi need do is glance away from his tube -- that is if he has electricity to run a television -- and look out the window.

"According to its web site, Grace News Network is 'dedicated to transmitting the evidence of God's presence in the world today.'"

Mind you, that's the God of the Christian Zionists, not Muslims.

"Grace News Network will be reporting the current secular news, along with aggressive proclamations that will 'change the news' to reflect the Kingdom of God and its purposes."

In other words, these Christers will aggressively tell Iraqi Muslims that Islam is a false religion. Can you think of anything more arrogant and presumptuous -- Christian Zionists who hate other religions telling you how to run your country and what god to worship.

"Christian Zionists have historically pointed to Genesis 12:3-96 -- I will bless those who bless you. And the one who curses you, I will curse," Don Wagner, a professor of religion and director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at North Park University, an evangelical Christian college in Chicago, told Mokhiber and Weissman. "They have interpreted this to mean that individuals and nations who support the state of Israel will be blessed by God. It has come to mean political, economic and moral support, often uncritically rendered to the state of Israel."

Before Bush bombed Iraq, it was one of the most vocal critics of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. Arabs all across the Middle East are outraged over Israel's treatment of Palestinians. It now appears Iraqis will turn on their televisions and be subjected to pro-Israel propaganda brought to them by rich white Christers from America.

"BBG [the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the US government agency producing the television news broadcasts for Iraq] says it sees no problem in having Grace produce the evening news broadcast for Iraq. Given the brewing anti-American revolt through all sectors of Iraqi society, maybe it should reconsider."

No kidding.

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"We see Bechtel. We see Halliburton. We see Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld. We see dead Iraqi civilians. We see no WMDs. We see chaos in the Baghdad streets. But no WMDs. We see the disappearance of a murderous Iraqi dictator, who relented his struggle and ran without the use of WMDs," writes Sean Penn in a New York Times essay (sold as an advert, reportedly at the none too shabby price of $135,000). Last year Penn wrote about the Bushite "intolerance of debate" in the Washington Post (cost: $56,000). "I was hit by a tidal wave of media misrepresentation, and even accusations of treason," Penn wrote in the Times advert/essay about what happened after the Post piece appeared.

This is American democracy, circa 2003 -- you have to be rich to express your opinions in the corporate media (the media whores may serve as the Bush Ministry of Disinformation, but when it comes down to money they will usually stray from the path, as do all whores).

Not all celebrities are against the Bushite master plan to kill Arabs and steal their oil, however. Take Charlie Daniels, the 1970s relic who can't seem to learn anything about history or reality. "Why you bunch of pitiful, hypocritical, idiotic, spoiled mugwumps. get your head out of the sand and smell the Trade Towers burning," wrote Daniels in his Open Letter To The Hollywood Bunch. "Do you think that a trip to Iraq by Sean Penn did anything but encourage a wanton murderer to think that the people of the U.S.A. didn't have the nerve or the guts to fight him?"

Um, Charlie? Saddam Hussein didn't have anything to do with "the Trade Towers burning," regardless of what the pathological liars in the Bush administration say.

"Sean Penn, youÕre a traitor to the United States of America. You gave aid and comfort to the enemy. How many American lives will your little, 'fact finding trip' to Iraq cost? You encouraged Saddam to think that we didn't have the stomach for war. You people protect one of the most evil men on the face of this earth and won't lift a finger to save the life of an unborn baby."

Interesting. I don't recall Charlie harping about "the most evil men on the face of this earth" back when the Reagan administration and Bush Senior were facilitating the sale of made-in-the-USA chemical and biological weapons to Saddam Hussein. I don't recall Charlie's self-righteous disgust surfacing after Rummy shook hands with Saddam. Exactly what abortion has to do with any of this is beyond me. But then right-wing nut cases like Daniels usually roll all of their political and social issues up into one convenient ball of ideological fecal matter.

"America is in imminent danger. You're either for her or against her. There is no middle ground. I think we all know where you stand. I will stand with the soldiers, airmen, and sailors. The hard working men and women of this great country. Not the overpaid, pansy ass, Hollywood wimp wanna be's, and has beens, who can't hold a candle to real (sic) American's, the middle class blue collar workers."

Yeah, "America is in imminent danger" from its elitist New World Order "leaders" (most of them unelected by the good people Daniels likes to glorify), not from Saddam Hussein who never invaded America or supported al-Qaeda (as for supporting al-Qaeda, that was left up to the CIA, Reagan, and Dubya's daddy). I guess Daniels doesn't consider himself "overpaid," and maybe he isn't since I can't recall any of his so-called music on the top ten since "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" umpteen years ago. Maybe the patriotic bandwagon is exactly what Daniels needs -- and trashing Sean Penn and other Hollywood types will get him there.

Penn should be commended for spending nearly $200,000 of his own money to express his opinion on Bush's illegal and immoral invasion. Daniels, on the other hand, is obviously looking for a way to cash in on Bush's invasion by producing pandering nonsense such as "This Ain't No Rag, It's A Flag."

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Maybe Charlie's next CD will be about how the Bushites lied and misled the American public. "A group of former US intelligence officials has written to President Bush claiming that the US Congress and the American public were misled about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the war," reports Times Online. "The former CIA officials were supported by a current official in the Pentagonâs Defense Intelligence Agency, who told The New York Times yesterday: 'The American people were manipulated.'"

The CIA, of course, has done plenty of its own manipulation over the years -- and this current tattle may be little more than an intelligence turf war, exemplified by Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans, an intelligence unit inside the Pentagon. Nonetheless, the revelations show just how far the Bushites will go with their Straussian deceptions and lies.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Rancho Palos Verdes, he ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, says the Iraqi WMD sham "could be the greatest intelligence hoax of all time... US credibility is at stake... Especially if there is an interest in another military adventure, we need the facts."

Good luck getting them, Jane. The Bushites are gearing up to invade Iran. They are using the same bogus canard for their planned invasion and organized mass murder -- WMD, nukes, and al-Qaeda.

Recall the Bushites claiming Iraq had 500 tons of mustard gas and nerve gas, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, and dozens of Scud missiles to deliver them. "It is also possible that they decided they would destroy them prior to a conflict," explained Rummy, taking all of us for idiots. That's some clean up job, since not a trace has been found. Moreover, even if this outrageous assertion is true, it would mean Iraq complied with the United Nations to destroy its WMD and there was no reason for Bush to invade.

Now we're asked to believe the Bushites essentially flipped a coin in an effort to decide on an excuse. "For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Vanity Fair.

"If many more months go by and our troops are still there, the Iraqis are still fighting each other and us, and we still haven't found any WMD, there will be hell to pay," mused a senior national security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"It was a surprise to me then -- it remains a surprise to me now -- that we have not uncovered weapons,'' Lt. Gen. James Conway, the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, told reporters at the Pentagon in a video teleconference. "Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there.''

Meanwhile, Bush acts like a child who can't stop lying, even though he's been caught red-handed. "We found the weapons of mass destruction," he told a Polish television network. "We found biological laboratories... and we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, we found them.'

"The charge of deception is inescapable,'' said Germany's largest newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, just as Bush arrived in Europe.

Thursday, May 29, 2003

Surely, the US military is becoming more and more like the IDF. In fact, they seem to be doing Israel’s bidding in more ways than one. For instance, on Thursday, “U.S. troops raided the Palestinian Authority's mission in Baghdad and arrested 11 people after ransacking the building,” reports the Austin American-Statesman. The detained men included charge d'affairs Majah Abdul Rahman, who was running the mission in the ambassador's absence, mission official Mohamed Abdul Wahab said. They were taken to a U.S. base in the center of the city and have not been released, he said... U.S. troops have conducted numerous sweeps against suspected criminals and loyalists of Saddam Hussein's regime."

Oh, I see. So why don't they arrest Rumsfeld? He went to Iraq as a "presidential envoy" for the Reagan administration in 1983. Nobody helped out the Ba'athists more than the US government. It was the CIA and British MI6 that put Saddam Hussein in power "A young Baath party enforcer named Saddam Hussein played a significant role in the coup, and was said to have had links to CIA and MI6," writes Eric Margolis. "We came to power on a CIA train," admitted Ali Saleh Sa'adi, the Baath Party secretary general. If the US wants to arrest and detain those who were "loyal" to the brutal Ba'athists, maybe they should be turning in some folks at the CIA, Reagan, Rummy the double-dealer, and others in Washington.

"[Palestinian mission official Mohamed Abdul] Wahab said dozens of U.S. troops escorted by several armored vehicles arrived at the building in Baghdad's embassy district Wednesday morning. After the guards opened the gate, soldiers burst into the building and detained officials, drivers and gardeners."

Gardeners? Did they arrest the janitors, too?

"Wahab said the soldiers used shotguns to blast open office doors, though he said all were unlocked or had keys in them. Many of the doors in the building bore the marks of combat boots and several had their locks shot off. An embassy safe appeared to have been opened after the door hinges had been broken off, and file cabinets were standing open with all of their contents removed. An official photo of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was smashed on the floor."

IDF goons and US soldiers, apparently there's no difference.

Imagine this: armed Palestinians enter a US mission and stomp a picture of Bush, kick in doors, wreck stuff. Can you imagine the result? Bush would likely bomb the West Bank. Fox News would have a field day. Nobody in the corporate media would notice the double standard.

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"After an attack today that left another U.S. soldier dead, the commanding general of U.S. ground forces in Iraq acknowledged that 'the war has not ended' and signaled the start of a new military push to root out what he described as die-hard supporters of Saddam Hussein," reports the Washington Post.

From now on, all Iraqis who engage in armed resistance against the US occupation of their country will be called "die-hard supporters of Saddam Hussein." This so-called "new military push" is doomed to failure. The only way the US will stem the growing tide of anti-US resistance in Iraq will be if they can somehow replace every human in Iraq with Stepford humans -- or spike the drinking water (already polluted and undrinkable) with massive amounts of Thorazine.

"Lt. Gen. David McKiernan said he was considering plans that would send troops from the Third Infantry Division, which fought its way into Baghdad on April 9, against an armed Iraqi resistance that has killed five U.S. soldiers this week. A U.S. soldier was killed this morning on a highway north of Baghdad when a military convoy was attacked in a roadside ambush."

He means bribed their way into Baghdad. We can expect more ambushes and dead US soldiers as Iraqis begin to organize their resistance to occupation. If you want to know what the situation will look like in Iraq in six months to a year, take a look at what's going on in Afghanistan. "Member of the RF Presidential Commission for Internees and Missing Persons Leonid Biryukov returned from his business trip in Kabul a week ago," wrote Pravda last August. "In an interview, he stated that over 100 Americans are missing in Afghanistan and have given up every hope that the US authorities would pay attention to their problem."

"The key question, some Afghan officials and diplomats say, is how the Afghan government and US supporters respond to apparent resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. Along the Pakistani border, leaflets have begun to appear, calling for resistance to the government of President Hamid Karzai, in part because it relies on US support, and in part because it has not substantially improved the lives of Afghans," observes the Christian Science Monitor."Most worrisome, Afghan intelligence officials say, are the activities of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former hero of the war against the Soviets who now openly supports Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Mr. Hekmatyar's party, Hizb-I Islami, still retains strong ties throughout ethnic Pashtun areas across the south..."

Hekmatyar, like Osama, was a CIA asset. "During the 1980s he received fully 90% the CIA-supplied funds doled out via Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) to the Mujahadeen Islamic warriors," writes Gary Leupp. "These funds amounted to some half-billion dollars per year throughout the 1980s, matched by equal sums from that other enthusiastic Mujahadeen patron, acting in close cooperation with the US: Saudi Arabia... Hekmatyar is Mr. Blowback, among the most vicious of former US clients now at odds with their one-time paymasters."

The CIA assembled a terror network that remains a cause of misery worldwide. CIA Director William Casey called it "the kind of thing we should be doing." According to standard sources, aid to extremist groups in Afghanistan was a response to the Soviet invasion. The truth is that President Carter gave the green light for covert support to the Mujaheddin six months before the December 1979 invasion. In the words of then National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, a major architect of Carter's policy, they were "drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap." The US supported seven fundamentalist extremist groups throughout the 1980s and into the early 90s with cash, sophisticated weapons, and training to the tune of $5 billion -- according to official figures. The secret Black Budget of the CIA reportedly quadrupled to $36 billion per year when Reagan became president in 1980, and some of this money went to support secret operations in Afghanistan. Some of the earliest training exercises took place inside the US, including rifle shooting at the High Rock gun club in Naugtuck, Connecticut. More technical training took place at the CIA's Camp Peary, nicknamed "The Farm," northeast of Williamsburg, Virginia. Among the topics covered by training sessions were surveillance and countersurveillance, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics and paramilitary operations. (The War in Afghanistan and the CIA)

So maybe the Marines should surround the CIA and tell them to come out with their hands up? Nothing will change so long as the CIA and political renegades like Bush and the neocons are allowed to operate. How many dead American soldiers will it take before the American people say enough is enough and take back their government from these psychopaths?

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Photo: December 11, 2000, in the vicinity of the U.S. Supreme Court as it heard arguments in the case of Bush v. Gore...

Soon thereafter, Bush was appointed "president" and we had our first dictator, unelected by the people. Now we're paying for it, big time.

If you are concerned about voting fraud and stolen elections, read on...

Please follow the link below and sign the petition. This is well worth the minute or two it will take.

Stop the Florida-tion of the 2004
election Computers threaten accountability of voting system

Today, there is a new and real threat to voters, this time coming from touchscreen voting machines with no paper trails and the computerized purges of voter rolls.

You can join SCLC President Martin Luther King III and investigative reporter Greg Palast in opposing the "Florida-tion" of the 2004 Presidential election by signing this petition. A complete copy of the petition will be delivered by Working Assets to Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Dear Attorney General John Ashcroft,

Today, there is a new and real threat to voters, this time coming from touchscreen voting machines with no paper trails and the computerized purges of voter rolls.

In 2002, Congress passed the wrongly-named "Help America Vote Act" which requires every state to computerize, centralize and purge voter rolls before the 2004 election. This is the very system which the state of Florida used to remove tens of thousands of eligible African-American and Hispanic voters from voter registries before the Presidential election of 2000.

The Act also lays a minefield of other impediments to voters: an effective rollback of the easy voter registration methods of the Motor Voter Act; new identification requirements at polling stations; and perilous incentives for fault-prone and fraud-susceptible touch-screen voting machines.

We, the undersigned, demand security against the dangerous "Florida-tion" of our nationâs voting methods through computerization of voter rolls and ballots. Computers were part of the problem in Florida, not the cure. We, the undersigned, hereby demand that NO voter be purged from centralized voter rolls without proof positive that the voter is ineligible. We also demand a halt to further computerization of balloting until such methods are made unsusceptible to political manipulation, fraud, and racial bias.

Signed,

Martin Luther King III President, Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Greg Palast Author, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

(your name here)

[This petition will be delivered to Attorney General John Ashcroft]

Sign the petition here.

--

Yes, this Palestinian child wet his pants. Of course, considering how many children Israel has killed in its war against the Palestinian people, this boy may have all the reason in the world to wet himself -- health officials of the PA reported on April 8 536 murders committed by the IDF, 470 males and 66 females, under the age of eighteen, since the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada. During the same period 13,610 children were hit by Israeli bullets. "Israeli occupation forces continue the operations of demolishing houses and deliberate killing, displacing of families and preventing the access of patients and ambulances to hospitals noting that 33 Palestinian children of both sexes died because the Israeli forces obstructed access of ambulances arrival," reports ArabicNews.

The spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-orthodox Shas party said yesterday that Arabs were reproducing like insects and "in the old city of Jerusalem they're swarming like ants". In his Friday sermon which is broadcast on Israeli army radio Rabbi Ovadia Yossef went on to say 'they should go to hell -- and the Messiah will speed them on their way"... [Shas] holds 17 out of the Israeli parliament's 120 seats... Earlier this month Israeli tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi referred to Palestinians as "lice" and a "cancer"... The racism that pervades Israeli society has contributed to the dehumanization of the Palestinians, and so when faced with that choice of firing or not firing at an unarmed Palestinian demonstrator, irrespective of their age, it is easier to shoot. Stopping cars at checkpoints and humiliating the occupants is uncomplicated as they are somehow not the same as the soldiers. Denying access to medical treatment is not such a moral dilemma if the patient is "not like us". The extra judicial assassination of Palestinians is not regarded as the immoral crime that it in reality is.

Israeli racism threatens the futures of both Israelis and Palestinians

Imagine a Republican or Democratic leader calling an African-American a "nigger" or a Hispanic a "spick" -- what do you think the result would be? What happened to Trent Lott for simply associating with racists? But things are different in Israel -- it's acceptable to call Arabs cockroaches and lice; in fact, it's part of Israeli tradition to refer to Arabs in this way. It's OK for Israelis to be racists. And yet we hear so little about it in the corporate media. Why? Because America has a love affair with the racist Zionists. Our government gives them billions every year... and the result is dead children.

Obviously, there are two standards -- one for the Zionist colonialists, another for everybody else.

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin: "[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs."

Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine: "Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."

Yitzhak Ginsburg: "The killing by a Jew of a non-Jew, i.e. a Palestinian, is considered essentially a good deed, and Jews should therefore have no compunction about it."

Israeli Rabbi Ovadia Yosef : "May the Holy Name visit retribution on the Arab heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them... It is forbidden to have pity on them. We must give them missiles with relish, annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones."

Yitzhak Rabin: "We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters."

David Goldman: "We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours."

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian."

Ariel Sharon: "It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."

Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel: "The Intifada is the Palestinian's people's war of national liberation. We [Israel] enthusiastically chose to become a colonialist society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the Occupied Territories, engaging in theft and funding justification for all these activities.. we [Israel] established an apartheid regime."

Racist Zionist Quotes

The Zionists admit their plans, they are not shy -- in fact, their history is replete with instances of racism, murder, cruelty, and crimes against humanity. And yet the US Congress and the Bushites fawn all over them. Religious leaders in America kiss their ass and shower them with gobs of money. Is there something wrong with this picture? How can believers in Christ support mass murder and genocide? Why does the American public allow its government to send billions of dollars to the Israelis? As an American tgaxpayer, you have shelled out $134,791,507,200 to Israel over the years, money used to shoot babies in the head and deny old women medical care.

Imagine giving the KKK billions of dollars to victimize African-Americans. This is essentially what's happening when you pay your taxes, you're paying for the harrassment, eviction, and murder of Palestinians Arabs. You're paying for the bullets to kill and cripple Palestinians pre-teens.

Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world's population and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes. Indeed, Israel's GNP is higher than the combined GNP of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. With a per capita income of about $14,000, Israel ranks as the sixteenth wealthiest country in the world; Israelis enjoy a higher per capita income than oil-rich Saudi Arabia and are only slightly less well-off than most Western European countries.

(...)

Probably the only members of Congress who even suspect the full total of U.S. funds received by Israel each year are the privileged few committee members who actually mark it up. And almost all members of the concerned committees are Jewish, have taken huge campaign donations orchestrated by Israel's Washington, DC lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or both. These congressional committee members are paid to act, not talk. So they do and they don't.

(...)

It would be interesting to know how many of those American taxpayers believe they and their families have received as much from the U.S. Treasury as has everyone who has chosen to become a citizen of Israel. But it's a question that will never occur to the American public because, so long as America's mainstream media, Congress and president maintain their pact of silence, few Americans will ever know the true cost of Israel to U.S. taxpayers.

U.S. Financial Aid To Israel: Figures, Facts, and Impact

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As evidence of the insanity-producing effect of Christian Zionism, consider the following email I received after my article, The Hardness of Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress of Israeli Myths, appeared on Counterpunch:

After reading your entire article, I see that you conveniently failed to mention the fact, which Condi Rice knows as well...

All of the land in question belongs to the Jews of Israel, it was granted to them by God several thousand years ago. If you need this information, I'll do the research for you.

Source; NIV Bible at http://bible.gospelcom.net

Genesis 12:1 through 3

1 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.

2 "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

Take a guess here who you curse and who I bless ?

Furthermore;

Genesis 15: 1-10

1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:

"Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, [1] your very great reward. [2] "

2 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD , what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit [3] my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir." 4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars-if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 6 Abram believed the LORD , and he credited it to him as righteousness. 7 He also said to him, "I am the LORD , who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." 8 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD , how can I know that I will gain possession of it?" 9 So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." 10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.

Notice how after Abram says that he is childless therefore a servant in Abram's household will be his heir, God says "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." This means that Ishmael the father of the Palestinians who was born of Hagar an Egyptian maid and Abram is not the heir to the land promised to Abram nor is Eliezer of Damascus, but a child from Abram's own flesh and blood, this would be Isaac, who then fathered the Jewish people.

Furthermore:

Genesis 15:13 through 14

Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.

and finally Genesis 15:17 through 21 17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river [4] of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates- 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."

This passage clearly draws out the boundary of the land granted to the sons and daughters of Abram, the Jews of Israel.

Choose not to believe the bible perhaps? That's your prerogative and your mistake, but don't expect me nor the millions of people like me that do believe it, to abandon our brethren the Jews, as God clearly said those that bless them will be blessed and those that curse them will be cursed. Also don't expect the hundreds of thousands of Jews that believe the word of God to simply give up their right granted to them by God to this land. Alas, peace will only come after one side fully destroys the other, as the PLO and Yasser openly admit their objective is not only the removal of the Jews from the area of land in question but the total destruction of Israel as well. And unfortunately, I have read the outcome of this war, it is detailed quite eloquently in the book of Revelations and the war prophesied by Daniel. I'll give you a little spoiler, the Jews with the help of the returning Jesus win = )

Have a great day my liberally slanted friend !

(name omitted)

"Thank God we have a President in place with the intestinal fortitude to do what's Morally Right instead of what's Politically Correct! Proudly exposing the holes in the arguments from the liberal left, one gigantic void at a time since 1968!"

In other words, it's OK to kill Arabs because the Christian Zionist god said so. Seriously, this demented god makes Jeffrey Dahmer, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Albert DeSalvo, and Edmund Kemper look like pikers by way of comparison. The Son of Sam may have received his instructions to murder from his neighbor's dog, the Christian Zionists get their instructions from the Old Testament.

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A week ago Wednesday, May 21, 2003, US troops shot to death four Afghani soldiers in front of the US embassy in Kabul. The Afghani's were being trained by the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) guarding the city, comprised of German, French, and others, located right across the street. The Afghani soldiers were in uniform and carrying weapons, and the US troops apparently mistook them for enemy combatants. For the next five days, angry Afghanis held a protest in front of the US embassy, at the site of the killings.

Lockdown at the US Embassy in Kabul, by Paul Wolf

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"A team of CIA monitors and advisers on security have arrived in Cairo, and will soon move to the Gaza Strip, senior Palestinian Authority sources told The Jerusalem Post. The team will advise the PA in reorganizing its security, and is part of the team that will monitor both sides' implementation of the road map."

Translation: it's business as usual in Israel, meanwhile, in the occupied territories, there will be a new Gestapo to deal with Palestinian nationalism. I mean, seriously, what does the CIA do?

"Despite its name, the Central Intelligence Agency's main purpose is, and has always been, carrying out covert operations involving economic warfare, rigged elections, assassinations and even genocide," writes Mark Zepezauer.

"...stirring up deadly ethnic and racial strife has been a standard technique used by the CIA," notes John Stockwell. "Now more clearly than ever, the CIA, with its related institutions, is exposed as an agency of destabilization and repression. Throughout its history, it has organized secret wars that killed millions of people in the Third World who had no capability of doing physical harm to the United States."

"Israel will consider handing over any part of the Gaza Strip to the control of PA security services if they prove their willingness to combat terror, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told Israeli military reporters in a briefing in Ankara on Monday... An example of this, Mofaz said, could be the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun, where troops are currently operating."

"The significance of the suicide bombings inside Israel, of which there have been about 60, is that they are an opportunity for Sharon and the Israel Defense Forces to respond by destroying more of the PA and to confiscate more territory," writes William James Martin. "With every suicide bombing, Sharon can blame Arafat, gain support from George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, increase the economic strangle hold of the Palestinians, and destroy more of the underpinnings of a viable Palestinian society, while keeping the focus on Arafat rather than on Israel's disregard for international law."

Sunday, May 25, 2003

Photo: Opium, the CIA's drug of choice.

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In September of last year, DEBKA-Net-Weekly reported on CIA penetration of the Sistan Baluchistan province of Iran. "Its assignment is to stir up dissent among the largest population in the area, the Baluchi tribes... The Baluchis, one of Iranâs impoverished and neglected minorities, control the dope and contraband smuggling routes from Iran to the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf destinations... al Qaeda fugitives, including some 4,000 Saudis, began using these obscure routes on their way from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Lebanon and other points in the Middle East. The CIAâs undercover unit has undertaken the tall order of closing this al Qaeda escape route, while gathering intelligence on its nefarious traffic."

Or maybe the CIA is scouting another drug operation. "In my 30-year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA," says Dennis Dayle, former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit.

"For criminal organizations, participating in covert operations offers much more than money. They may get a voice in selecting the new government," They may get a government that owes them for help in coming to power, They may be able to use their connections with the United States government to enhance their political power at home and to wave off the efforts of the American law enforcement community," Jack Blum, a former special counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, told the Senate Select Intelligence Committee in October 1996.

"The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA's covert operations," notes Michel Chossudovsky. "Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. In this regard [Professor] Alfred McCoy's study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, 'the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world's top heroin producer, supplying 60 per sent of the U.S. demand... The Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In the last few months there is evidence that Mujhideen mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of the KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia."

"In many regards, the trade in narcotics as well as the drug routes to the European and North American markets are considered to be "strategic". There are powerful financial interests behind the drug trade, which have a pervasive influence, behind the scenes, on the conduct of US foreign policy," writes Chossudovsky on the CRG website.

These multibillion dollar revenues of narcotics were deposited in the Western banking system. Most of the large international banks -- together with their affiliates in the offshore banking havens -- laundered large amounts of narco-dollars. In other words, Afghanistan, the poorest country on earth, was the source of tremendous financial wealth derived from the drug trade to financial institutions, business syndicates and organized crime. Part of the drug related revenues accrue to the CIA, which continues to protect both the Asian and Latin American drug trade.

"After a decade as the sites of major CIA covert operations, Burma and Afghanistan ranked respectively the world's largest and second largest suppliers of illicit heroin in 1989," according to research by Wake Up Magazine. "Today, the 'Golden Crescent', as the opium growing regions in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan are called, accounts for 75% of all the heroin in Western Europe and 50% of the heroin in the U.S."

Since the trade in opium is a source of financing for both Wall Street and the CIA's covert wars in the Third World, Bush will never put an end to it. "The Bush administration has decided not to destroy the opium crop in Afghanistan," NewsMax reported early last year. "President Bush, who previously linked the Afghan drug trade directly to terrorism, has now decided not to destroy the Afghan opium crop... Several sources inside Capitol Hill noted that the CIA opposes the destruction of the Afghan opium supply because to do so might destabilize the Pakistani government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. According to these sources, Pakistani intelligence had threatened to overthrow President Musharraf if the crops were destroyed." This is a red herring -- both the CIA and Pakistan's ISI need the money generated from the opium trade to finance their operations.

According to the Financial Times, "Pakistan's illegal heroin economy has kept its legitimate State economy sustained since 1990 and prevented its collapse. It has also enabled it to maintain a high level of arms purchases from abroad and to finance its proxy war against India through the jehadi organizations... In the 1980s, at the insistence of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), [ISI]... started a special cell for the use of heroin for covert actions." The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2001 that "opium cultivation and heroin production in Pakistan's northern tribal belt and adjoining Afghanistan were a vital offshoot of the ISI-CIA cooperation. It succeeded in turning some of the Soviet troops into addicts. Heroin sales in Europe and the US, carried out through an elaborate web of deception, transport networks, couriers and payoffs, offset the cost of the decade-long war in Afghanistan."

"Our main mission was to do as much damage to the Soviets," Charles Cogan, the former CIA Director of the Afghan operation, told Australian television. "We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade. I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout. There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes, but the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan."

It will now be the CIA's "mission" to "do as much damage" as possible to the government in Iran. The CIA will work with the drug smuggling Baluchi tribes in the Sistan Baluchistan province of Iran "to stir up dissent," in other words wage a drug financed covert war, as per the wishes of the Bushite neocons.

The Bushite with the most experience in turning illegal drugs into covert warfare: Richard Armitage. "The appointment of career covert operative and Annapolis graduate Richard Armitage as Deputy Secretary of State under Colin Powell only underscores the clear message that the Bush administration is sending to the world," warns Chicago Media Watch. "Armitage -- better known as 'Armitage The Executioner' -- was denied a 1989 appointment as Assistant Secretary of State because of his links to Iran-Contra and other scandals. He served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Reagan years. US government stipulations in the Oliver North trial specifically named Armitage as one of the officials responsible for illegal transfers of weapons to Iran and the Contras. Activist group Voices from the Wilderness notes: 'Armitage has also been routinely exposed as a Bush-era covert functionary who has been linked to covert operations, drug smuggling and the expansion of organized crime operations in Russia, Central Asia and the Far East.' Clearly, the Iran-Contra team is coming back to power with a vengeance."

"In 1965 to 1975 there is one CIA in Laos, his name was Shakley. He was involved the narcotics business. And we know that Shakley used one civilian to organize trafficking. His civilian name was Santos Trafficante. He was the organizer of trafficking for Shakley. This was financed by Richard Armitage who stayed in Vietnam. After the Vietnam war Richard Armitage was a prominent trafficker in Bangkok. This was between 1975 to 1979 he was a very active trafficker in Bangkok. He was one of the embassy employees. Then after that in 1979 he quit from embassy and then he established a company name the Far East Trading company. Then he used the name of his company under the table for drug trafficking. He then used the drug money to support the Lao anti-communist troops." (Colonel Bo Gritz Addressing the American Liberty Lunch Club.)

"A drug warlord in Burma accuses Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard L. Armitage and others of drug trafficking to fund anti-communist operations, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported Thursday... In a three-hour videotape interview smuggled out of Southeast Asia within the past week, Khun Sa said high-ranking American officials were involved in drug trafficking between 1965 and at least 1979," reported the Associated Press way back in 1987.

Of course, we may never know if the CIA and the Bushites are financing a war against Iran with drug profits. "The Department of State is under growing pressure from the Central Intelligence Agency to destroy its inventory of an official history of U.S. relations with Greece during the 1960s and to replace it with a new, sanitized version," reports the Federation of American Scientists. "The sticking point appears to be a handful of documents that allude to CIA intervention in the electoral process in Greece some 35 years ago. ... Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet has gotten personally involved in the matter, attempting to enlist the help of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in blocking release of the official history. According to one source, Mr. Tenet contacted Mr. Armitage to discuss the matter as recently as the night of September 10, at a time when his attention might have been more profitably directed elsewhere. A State Department official would not confirm or deny that the September 10 conversation took place."

"I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things," Dubay told the Washington Post (the article is conveniently missing from the Washington Post archive). "That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

In other words, the Bushites may or may not be funding the war against Iran with drug money. We will probably never know for sure. But keep in mind these guys are amoral Straussians -- they will do whatever it takes to get their way.

Saturday, May 24, 2003

Photo: Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah, and neocon pick to lord over Iran.

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Once again, the State Department is at odds with the demented neocons in the Bush administration. Just like they have told us all along, the Pentagon neocons want to take out Iran and the mullahs of Tehran. "The Pentagon has proposed a policy of regime change in Iran, after reports that al-Qaida leaders are coordinating terrorist attacks from Iran," writes the Guardian. Allowing al-Qaeda to use your country as a base of operations, of course, is suicide, but then it's difficult to stop the CIA from doing covert ops -- they've had decades to perfect their loathsome and murderous art.

"The Pentagon plan would involve overt means, such as anti-government broadcasts transmitted to Iran, and covert means, possibly including support for the Iraq-based armed opposition movement Mojahedin Khalq (MEK), even though it is designated a terrorist group by the state department."

This how it all began in Iraq. Bush Senior, Clinton, and Bush Junior all supported covert ops against Saddam Hussein. Dubya even gave the CIA the go to assassinate Saddam. Bush Senior gave a wink and a nod to the Kurds and the Shi'ites to rise up against Saddam -- and then he did a Bay of Pigs at the last minute, insuring their slaughter. The MEK may suffer the same fate. As for "anti-government broadcasts," give me a break. The Iranian population is steeped in decades of anti-American propaganda. They know all about the CIA overthrowing the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq and installing Reza Pahlevi and his CIA-trained Gestapo, SAVAK.

"Iranians have been skittish about the possibility of American intervention for 50 years," writes William O. Beeman. "Ever since 1953, when the CIA overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq to install the U.S.-backed Shah, they have assumed that the United States wanted to take over their nation in one way or another. The Iranian revolution of 1978-79 expelled the United States. But just 25 years later, Iranians find themselves caught in an uncomfortable American pincer movement, between U.S. troops to the west in Iraq and in Afghanistan to the east."

"There's no question but that there have been and are today senior al-Qaida leaders in Iran, and they are busy," said Rummy. According to the Bushites, Saif al-Adel is in Iran. If this is true, the Iranians may as well walk around with big sandwich board signs: BOMB US PLEASE.

"The Iranian government has denied sheltering al-Qaida, and claims to have deported about 500 al-Qaida suspects in the past two years to other Islamic states. Iranian officials are also reported to have told UN officials that it had al-Qaida suspects in custody. Washington is skeptical and is waiting to see if Tehran hands over the suspects before deciding its policy... Saeed Pourazizi, an adviser to President Khatami, said on Thursday that Iran had a clear policy of fighting al-Qaida, and accused Washington of pursuing a long-term strategy to put pressure on the government."

This is all too familiar. Recall the Taliban offering to turn over Osama bin Laden, only to be rebuffed by the Bushites who wanted an excuse to bomb and invade Afghanistan. Osama conveniently disappeared. Now so has Saddam Hussein.

But Iran is not Afghanistan or Iraq.

"It is certain that any strike against Iran would be enormously more complex than the present invasion of Iraq, and would likely be more than America could handle in a ground war," notes Beeman. "Iran is almost four times the size of Iraq, with a complex terrain involving some of the most formidable mountains and deserts in the world. The population is three times as large as Iraq's, and Tehran, the capital, has more than 12 million people. The young Iranian population provides a potential fighting force of 10 million males."

"It should not be necessary to remind our leaders, in government and in the media, that Iran is the mother of modern terrorism, the creator of Hezbollah, the protector of al Qaeda, the engine of Islamic Jihad, and the supporter of Hamas," spouts crackpot neocon Michael Ledeen. "The president has given three magnificent statements about the evil of the Iranian regime and the bravery of the Iranian people. Both as a matter of national strategy and as a question of national honor, we should be helping the Iranians battle their oppressors, just as we supported the Yugoslavs against Milosevic and the Poles against the Kremlin... Failure to do so will cost us heavily in the coming war."

Note the "coming war" conclusion -- killing thousands of Iranians is a forgone conclusion in the feverish minds of the chicken hawk neocons. It's part of their Master Plan, a component of "universal fascism," a topic Ledeen likes to write about. "We should have no misgivings about our ability to destroy tyrannies," Ledeen brags. "It is what we do best. It comes naturally to us, for we are the one truly revolutionary country in the world, as we have been for more than 200 years. Creative destruction is our middle name. We do it automatically, and that is precisely why the tyrants hate us and are driven to attack us."

Ledeen and the neocons are historical revisionists par excellence. First off, Iran did not create Hezbollah, although they did support them. Hezbollah was a response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon, an organized uprising of Lebanese Shi'ites that eventually kicked the Israelis out of Lebanon. As for Hamas, they are essentially a creation of Israel and Mossad, a well documented fact. Like al-Qaeda, Hamas serves as an excuse to continue the "war on terrorism," in other words a war on Arab nationalism, be it religious or secular (in fact, Israel supported the fanatically religious Hamas precisely because they wanted to defeat Palestinian nationalism). Interestingly, Ledeen claims "we" supported the Yugoslavs against Milosevic. The civilian victims of US cluster bombs in Yugoslavia, however, may beg to differ. As usual, US military action against "evil... oppressors" translates into "creative destruction" against helpless and innocent civilians.

"A total war strategy does not have to include the intentional targeting of civilians, but the sparing of civilian lives cannot be its first priority ... The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people group," admits Adam Mersereau, a former Marine Corps officer and Ledeen colleague. "Limited war pits combatants against combatants, while total war pits nation against nation, and even culture against culture."

In other words, mass murder and genocide.

"It is no surprise that Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah, has arisen seemingly out of nowhere to become the leading opposition figure, not only among Iranians in Los Angeles, but among Iranians still living under the mullahs in Tehran," writes Michael Rubin, who works for the Pentagon's "special plans" office, a small unit set up to gather intelligence on Iraq, but is apparently also working to undermine Iran.

Yeah, an "opposition figure" groomed by the neocons and, more than likely, the CIA (consider Reza Pahlav's father was catapulted to power by the CIA; according to the Association for Responsible Dissent, by 1987 "6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations").

"According to a report in the May 9 London Financial Times," writes Doug Lorimer, "'exiled Iranian monarchists are developing an alliance in Washington with influential neo-conservatives as well as Pentagon officials'. The FT reported that Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of the ousted shah of Iran, enjoys support 'inside the office of Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy' as a potential head of a US-backed regime in Tehran."

"The emerging coalition is reminiscent of the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, with Pahlavi possibly assuming the role of Iraqi exile opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi, a favorite of neoconservatives," notes Marc Perelman. "Like Chalabi, Pahlavi has good relations with several Jewish groups. He has addressed the board of the hawkish Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and gave a public speech at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and met with Jewish communal leaders."

In other words, the monarchist Pahlavi is more or less hand-picked by the Zionists.

"These [Iran, Libya, and Syria] are irresponsible states, which must be disarmed of weapons mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve," Sharon told US congressman earlier this year. US Undersecretary of State John Bolton, no slouch when it comes to cheerleading the fascistic doctrines of the racist Likudites, reassured Sharon "America would attack Iraq, and that it would be necessary thereafter to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea."