Tim Blair

it's not the 'pay off the gas bill from the caddy' fund?

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at December 11, 2003 at 03:09 AM

Tim, I gotta coupla lazy lobsters but i ain't got no plastic. Oh well, it's the thought that counts.

Posted by: jafa at December 11, 2003 at 03:47 AM

[Overly long nazi-commie crap excised by administration. The curious may email admin--at--spleenville dot com (change "--at--" and "dot" where appropriate) for a text file of the comment. But it's not staying on this server space. Oh. And the Dumb Nazi-Commie has been banned as a spammer.]

Posted by: Some Dumb Nazi-Commie at December 12, 2003 at 02:39 AM

I'm sold. Sign me up.

Posted by: BC at December 12, 2003 at 05:56 AM

By the way, I have left the Stupid Nazi-Commie's url, so you can see for yourself that it seems to lead to some Scandinavian website.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at December 12, 2003 at 08:46 AM

IN MEMORIAM MARTYRS of OPPRESSED PEOPLES//Tribute to the VIOLENCE VICTIMS///The Saga of Daniel WRETSTRÖM///ProductZional Terrorism&organized violence and its controllants beyond the blood sucker profiteers worldwide, almost the same Imperialist falsification lobbies, nothing else...///ZioniImperialist controlled&Jewish financial supported TERROR&VIOLENCE///And this story dedicated to Comrade Daniel as a tribute; yes, this is The Saga of Daniel WRETSTRÖM; a braveheart MARTYR who sacrificed himself for next generations...(Int. English language version)

**

- TERRORISM&VIOLENCE, between system and oppressed peoples?
- Violated methodes practicing between truth seekers and the lie machines of officially parasites...

**

- Terrorism&organized violence changed its face and it turned to be a kind of "Contemporary Industry"...
- That is right!.. It has been documented that some attacks on synagogues worldwide were carried out by Jew controlled criminals, fake immigrants imported terrorists, but conveniently blamed on Patriots, dismissed cathegories in community, National Socialists, all other Socialists, Communists, Muslims, all the true Independent Human Rights activists, registrated pursued intellectuals, even Scientists who reject to be polit-whore of dominated power.
- To many, this may be surprising and unbelievable, however, there are many documented cases of Zionist terrorists lighting the fires of conflict consistent with meeting the objectives of their nefarious schemes.
- But people awakened for example thousands of peoples marched IN MEMORIAM Daniel WRETSTRÖM who been killed by the imported criminal bastards of system...
- I witnessed this wonderful marche in Scandinavia!..
- Thousands of people marching every year in Memoriam Daneiel WRETSTRÖM, all together we show our growned solidarity against the organized violence... This is a wonderful act against the Jew controlled Terrorism...
- Otherway financial lobbies support the criminal leagues, any groups of anarchist neo-liberal bourgeoisie bastards, for example eXpo&AIPAC collaborators and such labradors..
- I know, these marionettes try to sabotage anniversaries of people...
- No matter!.. There are always the willing dogs of judaic Imperialism... It's mo matter they masks themselves as "Antirasist puppies of Capitalism" but people aware that these "mobilized instruments" serve to the Zionist Racism and zionized Imperialsim, nothing else... SALEM-MARTYR marce is a wonderful lesson to demasking all these anarchists, terrorists, well-paid hired fascists...
- I agree with you and therefore we join the marche for martyrs of terrorism&organized violence.. Today we join here the marche SALEM, in memory Daniel WRETSTRÖM...
- My "thanksgiving" to the martyrs.. Daniel and all other braveheart comrades exposed that Terrorism&organized violence is a comtemporary industry in the hands of ZOG and we must never forget our martyrs...
- Where we can find a true independent and well-prepared a documentation on the Jew controlled terrorism&organized violence?..
- By Gladio and Mo$$ad, dear!..
- Don't joke, please!.. It's better the true legal way and not manipulated, I mean!..
- ...sleeping or kidding, boy?!.. You should watch the new broadcasting of Tv Independent Laponia... Redaction already prepared many interesting clips about this subject...
- It's beginning in this evening and you'll see many cases of terror&organized violence industry of contemporary imperialism... I mean, not only Daniel WRETSTRÖM or Anders GUSTAVSSON from Scandinavia... It's better to see the cases in a great perspective by such documentaries... I recommend this "true anti-terrorist&anti-violence documentation", to learn anything newest, useful; out of the medial shurks...
- Let's watch it!..

**

- Will Anyone Dare to Ask Why?
- Why, dear dare?
- Attention!! Meta-religion does not support the ideas and opinions expressed in
this article. And we are not associated in any way to the source. The ideas and
opinions expressed are responsability of the sources.
- What are you talking about?
- Clip!.. I recommend that you watch on this; "Interviews with Comrade David
Duke, National President , European-American Unity and Rights Organization
(EURO) broadcasting on September 15, 2001
- Let's watch!..
- America has a very big problem... We have just experienced the shock of the
most spectacular and deadly terror attack in modern history. In an almost
surreal scene from a Hollywood movie, on September 11, 2001 hijacked passenger
planes crashed directly into the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon in
Washington. Thousands of Americans were maimed and killed. The costs might even
go over the one trillion dollar mark, and the event may even trigger world-wide
economic depression.

These terrible acts of terrorism must be fought with every ounce of American
resolve. And those who commit such heinous acts must be punished to the fullest
severity of the law. No such acts must ever be permitted on American soil.

That being said, how then do we then protect ourselves from terror in the
future?

Because of increased scientific knowledge around the world, the next terror
could be far more deadly than what happened on September 11. The next horrific
occurrence might not even entail an explosion of any kind, but the silent mass
death of a biological or radiation attack.

The bad news is that no matter how many billions of dollars the government
spends or how many bombs it drops, it is impossible to completely protect
ourselves from these great dangers. In fact, the more bomb-dropping and
devastation we do, the more likely a future terroristic response.

We have moved into an era in which even sheer military might is no protection.
No longer can strong nations attack weak ones with impunity. The tiniest nation
or political entity can easily revenge itself with mass terror. No nation is
invulnerable, even the strongest nation on earth.

Unless we understand the why of these terroristic acts, the motivation behind
them, we can not prevent a repeat of such terrorism in the future. We Americans
must ask ourselves why we now suffer such terror.

When a clock stops, we ask why.

Is it not plugged in? Is the battery dead? Is it broken? If so, why is it
broken?

When you have a problem, if you don't ask why and get some good answers and act
on them, it will persist. It may well even become a lot worse.

The Zionist-dominated media has provided us in living color the gory details of
this bloody attack on the American people. They have even told us who might be
behind it, but so far they have carefully avoided giving an understandable
reason why the attack took place.

Calling the attackers "cowards" is, of course, untrue. The terrorists committed
an indescribably horrible and ruthless act against the American people, but
certainly they are not cowards. Kamikazes may be misguided, but sacrificing
one's own life for a cause is not cowardice. And calling the perpetrators
cowards or madmen doesn't answer the question of why these horrendous acts
occurred, unless one thinks every coward and madman wants to blow up the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Those descriptions prevent people from discovering the reasons why the event
actually occurred. And, if we want to prevent such occurrences from happening in
the future, it is absolutely vital that to understand "why."

Maybe a good first question to ask is why these "crazy," "cowardly," Arabs never
attack Switzerland or Sweden? What could it be that those countries do or don't
do that causes them to be ignored while we are targeted.

Let me be very, very blunt.

The ultimate cause of this terrorism stems directly from our involvement in and
support of the criminal behavior of Israel.

Terror in response to Terror

The Palestinians and many of their Arab allies have been the target of a half
century of unrelenting Israeli terrorism.

In the late 1940s the Zionists took over Palestine and drove out 700,000 people
from their homes through widespread acts of terrorism. Among those events was
the sadistic massacre of 254 Palestinian mostly old men, women and children at
Deir Yassin. It was an especially vicious, cold-blooded massacre characterized
by Jews cutting apart the bellies of pregnant women. 1 After the bloodletting,
the murderers then purposely publicized the event so as to make the people flee
in panic from their homes and businesses from which they still haven't been
allowed to return.

Former Israel Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, a participant in this horrendous
massacre, boasted of the importance of Deir Yassin in his book The Revolt: The
Story of the Irgun. He wrote that there would not have been a State of Israel
without the "victory" of Deir Yassin. "The Haganah carried out victorious
attacks on other fronts... In a state of terror, the Arabs fled, crying, 'Deir
Yassin. 2"

Nor did the massacres cease after the establishment of the Jewish State; they
continued in times of both peace and war. Following are the names of some of
them: Sharafat Massacre, Kibya Massacre, Kafr Qasem Massacre, Al-Sammou'
Massacre, the Sabra And Shatila Massacre, Oyon Qara Massacre, Al-Aqsa Mosque
Massacre, the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre, the Jabalia Massacre. 3

In a policy of ethnic cleansing, Israel continues to keep residents of Palestine
who were born there and whose families lived there for countless generations,
from returning home. At the same time, it gives generous incentives for genetic
Jews who never lived in Palestine to immigrate from the far corners of the
world.

The British also suffered greatly from Israeli terror, such as the horrendous
bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

Israeli terror has not stopped since. Israel has more prisoners per capita than
any other nation of the world, more than Stalinist Russia, or Red China during
its worst periods. It routinely tortures its Palestinian prisoners, and is in
fact the only nation in the modern world that legally sanctions torture. In
fact, a Jewish human rights group in Israel confirmed in a 60 page report that
85% of Palestinian detainees undergo torture while in custody. 4 Even a major
New York Times article by the Jewish Joel Greenburg, stated matter-of-factly
that Israel tortures 500 to 600 Palestinians every month. 5

Israel has targeted and assassinated thousands of Palestinian leaders, and this
includes scholars, clerics, businessmen, philosophers and poets, anyone who
inspires the Palestinian people to patriotism. These assassinations have
occurred all over the world, even in the United States. In the process they have
killed many thousands of women and children. They have even repeatedly bombed
Palestinian refugee camps packed with women and children.

Not only did they establish their Israeli state over Palestinian land, (in 1948
Palestinians personally owned over 90 percent of it) the Jews took almost all of
the Palestinian personal property: the land, farms, homes and businesses. After
they drove out the Palestinian refugees and refused their return, they then
passed an "abandoned property" law that confiscated Palestinian property and
gave to the Jews. The law even has the chutzpah to forbid ever selling any of
their stolen land to Palestinians. 6

Former Jewish Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called the death of 500,000
Iraqi children from starvation due to UN sanctions, "acceptable."
In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon. During their invasion and 18 year occupation an
estimated 40,000 civilians died. Israel relentlessly bombed and attacked cities
and villages and also many hospitals and orphanages (as documented by the
Norwegian Red Cross) and devastated the ancient and once beautiful city of
Beirut.

The current Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, doesn't dare even step foot
in Belgium or the Netherlands, fearing an indictment of the World Court for war
crimes. Sharon is responsible for the murder of two thousand of refugees in the
Sabra and Shatila camps in Lebanon.

Israel shot down a Libyan passenger airliner over the Sinai Peninsula killing
111 people.

And it is has not just been the Palestinians who have suffered from Israeli
terror.

Zionist Terror Against the United States

Americans have also suffered from Zionist terror. In fact, Israel has committed
a number of acts of war against the United States.

Israel has a long record of terrorism against the United States going all the
way back to 1954. In that year, the Israel government plotted to blow up
American installations in Cairo and Alexandria and blame it on Egyptian
nationals. By chance the plot failed and was uncovered. It was named the Lavon
Affair after the man who supposedly set up the terrorism, Pinhas Lavon, the
Israeli Defense Chief. He resigned in 1955 over the incident. 7

In 1967, Israel purposefully attacked with unmarked jet fighters and torpedo
boats, the U.S.S. Liberty, an American Navy vessel of the Sinai Peninsula, even
machine gunning the deployed life rafts of the ship. The attack killed 31
American servicemen and wounded over 170. 8 They sought to sink the ship, kill
all the Americans and blame it on the Egyptians so they could have American
support to conquer larger areas of the Arab world.

The attack on the Liberty was nothing short of a vicious act of war against the
United States by Israel. In spite of the fact that U.S. Secretary of State Dean
Rusk and navy chief Admiral Moorer said that the attack on the USS Liberty by
Israel was deliberate. The all-powerful Zionist Lobby prevented a formal
Congressional investigation. If the Lobby can even cover up horrendous Israeli
crimes against America, it's no wonder they can cover up Israel's endless crimes
against the Palestinians. Yet, after the Liberty attack America didn't even
reduce our billions of dollars of aid, in fact the story quickly vanished from
the news after a few short days.

What is left of the USS Liberty after the Israeli military attacked it on June
8, 1967. Thirty four US soldiers lost their lives.
In 1986 Israel actually caused us to wrongly go to war and militarily attack
another nation. The Mossad planted a transmitter in Tripoli, Libya and then
broadcast terrorist messages in Libyan code indicating Libyan responsibility for
killing two Americans in the bombing of the La Belle discothèque in Germany. 9
(It was later proven that Libya had nothing to do with the bombing) By use of
this fraud, Israel induced the American bombing of Libya. American bombs wrecked
havoc there. One of those killed was the infant daughter of the Libyan
President. It is certainly a dastardly act of war against a nation to induce it
into wrongly attacking another nation. Only a truly evil enemy of America would
do such a thing.

Every Palestinian and Arab is aware that Israel's half century of terror could
never have occurred without the active financial, military, and diplomatic
support of the United States. They know that the Jewish Lobby has control of
American Mideast Policy and the Zionists can get whatever they want from
Congress on issues important to them.

It was American support of Israel's brutal invasion and occupation of Lebanon in
the 1980s that led directly to the bombing of the U.S. Marine contingent,
killing 300 American young men.

The Involvement of America in Israeli Crimes

Arabs know that almost every bomb that kills their people comes from America,
Every bullet, every tank, every fighter plane, is manufactured or paid for by
American dollars. It is America's billions of dollars of support that have
enabled the Jewish state to terrorize the Arab people for half a century.

Even though Israel invaded Lebanon and killed thousands of civilians, America
never threatened to bomb Tel Aviv (as it did Iraq) if Israel refused to obey UN
resolutions to withdraw. A comparison of America's reaction to Iraq's invasion
of Kuwait to that of Israel's invasion of Lebanon is instructive.

America's one-sided policy foreign policy can be illustrated by the different
treatment afforded Israel and Iraq.

Iraq invaded Kuwait. Israel invaded Lebanon.

Perhaps 3000 Kuwait civilians died in the initial war with Iraq. 40,000 Lebanese
died from the time of the invasion through the occupation.

Iraq disobeyed UN resolutions to leave Kuwait. Israel disobeyed UN resolutions
to leave Lebanon. (for 18 years)

Iraq broke international conventions on chemical, biological and nuclear
weapons. Yet Israel is a far greater offender, having one of the greatest stores
of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in the world

Iraq refused UN inspections. Israel has always refused UN inspection.

For these violations we bombed Iraq. In response to Israel's crimes, America
just continued to send more billions of dollars.

American foreign policy was and continues to be Israeli policy. Israel was not
threatened with even a cutoff of U.S. aid as thousands of Lebanese civilians
died from the Israeli actions. Iraq was once a friend of America with whom we
bought oil and did much business. America actually supported Saddam Hussein and
Iraq's war with Iran. Iraq did nothing against the United States, but it made
the mistake of becoming a strong enemy of Israel. So the Jewish and the
Jewish-controlled gentile bureaucrats, and Jewish-dominated media quickly made
our former friend, Saddam Hussein, into our archenemy.

We dropped more explosives on Iraq country in a few weeks than we had in the
whole of the Second World War. We killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
including tens of thousands of civilians. Then we engaged in a blockade and
embargo of Iraq that even the anti-Iraq United Nations says led to the deaths of
at least 1,200,000 children and hundreds of thousands of elderly. Let those
Americans who don't understand the why of this terrorism concentrate on this
shocking fact. One million, two hundred thousand children have died as a direct
result of our policy toward Iraq.

The Jewish Lobby and the Jewish-dominated media are very careful not to let the
American people fully understand the real reason for the Iraqi war or the true
issues in the Palestinian question. They really don't want Americans to know why
so many millions in the Arab world hate us and why the number grows larger every
day.

They don't want us to know the real reasons why Americans are so hated --
because it is the Jewish bosses of American foreign policy who are the one's
responsible for this growing hatred of America. Imagine the anger and feelings
of despair that would drive men to sacrifice their own lives to get at us.

The Zionist bosses know that by America's supporting the criminal policies of
Israel spawns hatred against America. They are certainly aware that bombing and
going to war against nations solely for Israel's benefit creates dedicated and
fanatical enemies against America, enemies who will seek revenge in American
blood.

Of course, they never put America's interests first; their own Jewish interests
are always paramount. In actuality, they are fully aware that the brutal and
stupid acts of terror that recently happened in New York and Washington only
help the Zionist cause by engendering enormous American anger at Israeli
enemies, and make Americans more easily manipulated to do the bidding of Israel.

Think about who really gained from this terror. Have the Palestinians benefited?
This terrorist act destroyed all the progress the Palestinians have recently
made with world opinion. It has blinded the world to Israeli terrorism. Israel
is the only winner in this tragedy. They will now have a green light to do
anything they want against the Palestinians. They can kill any of their foes
whether they are violent or non-violent. They will get all the money they want
from the American people, and no one will be thinking about their on-going
suppression, murder and human rights violations against the Palestinian people.

No, the Zionists are the only benefactors of the horrendous day of terror on
September 11, 2001. Ironic isn't it, that although Zionist criminal actions led
to this terror, only the Zionists will benefit from it. Of course, they reason
they benefit because the American mass media is completely in their hands 10 and
it will never ask the proper questions of why these horrendous events are
happening. Unfortunately, too few people will ever hear voices such as mine who
dare to challenge the Zionist lies.

That's why we are in this mess, because a foreign power has become the most
powerful lobby in the American government and controls the direction of the mass
communication media in America.

Let me repeat that one more time. The primary reason we are suffering from
terrorism in the United States today is because our government policy is
completely subordinated to a foreign power: Israel and the efforts of world-wide
Jewish Supremacism.

American Flags are flying everywhere in America in the aftermath of the attack
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That is good, for we need to be more
patriotic. If we were more patriotic for the real interests of America rather
than for Israel, we would not now suffer from terrorism.

And truly, what could be more patriotic than wanting our own country to be led
by our own people in the service of America; not a foreign power or a powerful
minority.

Yes, we must fight tooth and nail against any terrorists who attack our country.
But, we must understand why this terror is occurring, and how it has been
spawned. It has occurred because of long-standing treason against the United
States and her people.

What has Zionism cost the American People?

The Jewish Lobby and media power has cost the United States about 6 billion
dollars a year in foreign aid and weapons, almost one third of America's entire
foreign aid budget during the last half century and as much money spent in
America's drug war.

It has poisoned our relations with the oil-rich Mideast nations. In response to
our policies, the Arabs came together and developed their "oil weapon" which has
cost Americans at least ten at least ten trillion dollars in higher oil costs.

It has alienated the entire Arab world, leading to destruction or confiscation
of billions of dollars of American property in those countries, kidnapping of
American citizens, and generated enormous hatred for the American people.

How has Israel has paid us back for our support? They have continually spied on
us on us (the Jonathan Pollard Case), sold our highest secrets (such as to the
biggest nucleur threat to us currently in the world: the Communist Chinese) 11
and stolen our enriched uranium for their illegal nucleur weapons. 12

They have launched terrorist attacks against the United States such as the Lavon
Affair and the Attack on the USS Liberty. Both these acts were nothing short of
vicious acts of war against the United States. Providing false information for
America to wrongly go to war against another country is also nothing less than
an Israeli act of war against the United States. Yet, in response to these
despicable actions against America, our Zionist controlled leaders did not even
reduce our billions of dollars of financial and military aid to Israel. We give
Israel about 6 billion dollars in aid each year, that is more than all the
nations of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and South America.

What is the latest cost of our subservience to the criminal actions of Zionism?
The latest price we have paid is the horrendous acts of terrorism on September
11, 2001.

The powerful agents of Israel in American media and government are ultimately
responsible for this terror against the United States just as surely as if they
themselves had piloted those planes into the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon.

And now they cynically plan to use the terror that they themselves created to
increase the cycle of violence against Israel's enemies. You can be sure that
the Zionist powers plan to do far more than simply punish the perpetrators of
these events. America will once again be used to strike against whoever Israel
wants.

An indiscriminate or intemperate response from America would ultimately produce
even more hatred against America, and bring more terroristic acts upon the heads
of American people. The increasing cycle of hatred is exactly want the Zionists
want, for their aim that we will fight Israel's enemies for them, spilling our
blood instead of theirs. They are only ones who truly benefit from America's
pain. Rather than Israel, we will pay the ultimate price.

Unless we heal the wounds and give America a better course, every new missile
and bomb we send, will come back to us again. Every life we take in foreign
lands will result in more American lives lost here and abroad. America will sink
more and more into uncertainty and fear.

We must have cool heads now and break this cycle of violence.

Many traitors in our government have supported Zionism's criminal activities
rather than the true interests of the American people. They have spawned the
hatred that drove these terrible acts. Unless their power is broken Americans
will be haunted by an increasing specter of terrorism.

Let us pray for the American victims of these events and for their suffering
families. Let us swiftly and harshly punish the perpetrators of these dastardly
acts.

But, even more importantly, let us understand why these events occurred and how
we can heal the hatred against our nation.

Once we understand the reason why, then we will all agree on the sure way to
prevent such terroristic acts in the future.

The solution to this huge problem is extremely obvious and it is very simple.

America must heed the farewell address of the Father of our Country and "avoid
foreign entanglements."

And we must always put America and the American People first.

**
- I understand...
- What did you understand?
- Terror is never on error... as long as thus Zionist Imperialism continues and
all the imperialists aware that terror is their product to continue sucking...
- I agree with you!..

**
- On 25 june 2003 told the correspondents mostly on the peace... The following
article was written before the announcement of a temporary ceasefire by Hamas,
Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa brigades. This ceasefire may have raised hopes
that the Road Map could bring about a sharp reduction in the bloodshed for a
sustained length of time. However, as the article explains the Road Map gives no
answers to the terrible conditions faced by the Palestinians and the huge
difficulty of achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East under capitalism. CWI
online.
Sharon's deadly assassination squads...
ARIEL SHARON appears to be biting the hand that feeds him. The assassination of
another leading Hamas activist by an Israeli hit squad has further undermined
George Bush's efforts to put a lid on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict through
its 'road map' peace initiative.
This apparent wrecking strategy of Sharon comes only weeks after the US Congress
approved a massive $9 billion loans package to bolster Israel's faltering
economy.
US secretary of state Colin Powell, attending the World Economic Summit in
neighbouring Jordan, barely concealed his anger at the Israeli government's
action. He said the murder of Abdullah Qawasmeh in Hebron was a "matter of
concern" that "could be an impediment to progress". However, Sharon had no
regrets, saying the assassination was "a vital action designed to provide
security for Israel's citizens".
In fact, such actions will guarantee a retaliatory strike against Israeli
citizens by Hamas, which has spurned attempts by Egypt and the US-approved
Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Abbas to secure a ceasefire from the various
Palestinian militias.
Another indication of Sharon's insincerity is his attitude to the 'illegal'
Jewish settlements in the West Bank. These settlements on Palestinian territory
have flourished since Sharon became PM in 2001, despite some token dismantling
in recent days of some 'hilltop settlements'. Sharon reportedly said last week
that the settlers should continue to build, albeit more discreetly.
So it's hardly surprising that most Palestinians are rightly cynical of the road
map achieving anything positive, let alone a "viable Palestinian state". What
they see is only a continuation of the occupation, oppression and impoverishment
as the Israeli government's response to the Intifada.
Many Israelis also remain sceptical of peace under Sharon's leadership. An
Israeli newspaper opinion poll found that 40% of Israelis believe that the
recent assassination attempt of Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi was a deliberate act to
wreck the road map - 67% want these assassinations to stop to enable peace
talks.
Not that the road map, with its lack of concrete measures to resolve such issues
as the right of return of Palestinian refugees, the status of Jerusalem, the
financing of a 'viable Palestinian state' etc. offers a way forward for the
working classes of the region.
George Bush's plan is designed to bolster pro-US Arab regimes whose populations
are incandescent at the US invasion of Iraq and the continuing national
oppression of the Palestinians.
The only viable solution to the wars, national conflicts, grinding poverty and
extremes of inequality of the Middle East is the transformation of the region
through the building of mass revolutionary socialist movements.

People's Mojahedin - victims of imperialist rivalry...
TWELVE MEMBERS of the exiled Iranian People's Mojahedin (MKO) have set
themselves alight in a number of European capitals, including London, in protest
at the arrest and detention of 160 MKO members in France.
The French authorities are to investigate 17 MKO members for "conspiring with a
terrorist organisation". Eleven are being held in custody including MKO leader
Maryam Rajavi.
The MKO is the political wing of the Mojahedin Khalq guerrillas who oppose the
Iranian regime. The People's Mojahedin, a curious blend of Islam and 'Marxism',
was a prominent force on the left during the early days of the 1978-79 Iranian
revolution before being banished under Ayatollah Khomeini's regime (see the
socialist 14 June).
Its 10,000-strong militia has military bases inside Iraq and had enjoyed the
patronage of Saddam Hussein. These bases were bombed by US forces during
operation 'shock and awe'. The guerrillas have subsequently agreed to disarm
since the US occupation of Iraq.
The MKO has found itself the victim of inter-imperialist rivalry between the EU,
principally the French government and the US. The US has targeted Iran as part
of an "axis of evil" that aids and abets terrorism and that is pursuing a
nuclear weapons programme. It has opportunistically encouraged regime change
during the recent student-led protests against Iran's clerical leaders.
However, the French government is pursuing its own imperialist policy to
cultivate its capitalist interests in the Arab and Muslim countries of the
Middle East. This includes maintaining friendly trade and diplomatic relations
with Tehran, hence the arrests of the MKO members at its Paris compound.

Imperialist wishes 1: AS THE US-led occupation of Iraq faces mounting
opposition, the occupying forces keep up their aim of making the country into a
'free-market economy'. The US wants more privatisation - moving resources and
workers from state enterprises to what they hope will be profit-making
private-sector ventures.
Paul Bremer, US 'civil administrator' for Iraq, acknowledged that this move
would exacerbate social relations - mainly with mass sackings. Bremer made vague
promises of some kind of "social safety net", paid for by Iraq's oil!
Who'll gain most if this plan comes to fruition? The oil companies, mainly in
the USA, and other big business enterprises, including a few Iraqi fat cats.

Imperialist wishes 2. TOP MAGAZINES in Britain's construction and civil
engineering are running a conference on business opportunities arising from the
Iraq reconstruction process.
They will advise big business (or small business wanting to grow fat) on "the
realities of doing business in Iraq", on "the challenges of doing business in a
country which has been closed to business over the past decade" and other issues
such as "developing an effective risk management strategy" in "what will become
one of the fastest growing economies in the world".
Well, that's that sorted then. After years of warfare at various levels, years
of sanctions which "closed Iraq" to trade and had a devastating effect on the
population, big business can see light at the end of the tunnel. For themselves!

Military big spenders...
THE WAR in Iraq pushed global spending on military purposes up 6% last year,
says the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Expanding at
twice the rate of the year before, it has now grown to $794 billion (£500
billion a year).
US imperialism - responsible for three-quarters of the increase - accounted for
43% of global military spending last year (up from 36%). Washington spent an
alarming $336 billion ($210 billion) on arms.
What's more, US defence budget estimates for 2003 showed a planned 32% increase
in arms procurement over the 2002-2007 period, in line with ideas of a new
global 'Pax Americana' with "full spectrum dominance".
Other world powers find it hard to keep up. Western Europe's arms spending
actually went down. Russia overtook the US as the world's biggest arms exporter
while China, with imports estimated at growing 18% in 2002, was the biggest
importer of arms.
India and Pakistan, which came close to nuclear conflagration last year, both
vastly increased their arms imports last year - India's 72% rise in imports
making it the world's second largest buyer of arms from abroad.
- The Socialist, paper of the Socialist Party, CWI in England and Wales shows
who were the true terrorists...
- Who were the "Bartards in Pentagon", ans Blix accused?
- AlterNet Channel's correspondent asked same question... Steven Rosenfeld
explains more on this subject on June 24, 2003
- Lets listen!..
- The Truth about the Lies... First we have a little notice... Editor's Note:
With many Americans still exulting in the military victory in Iraq, it's hard to
make a case that the administration's ends don't justify its means. However, the
fact the administration has not found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction goes far
deeper that whether the White House can be trusted, says Phyllis Bennis of the
Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. The lingering WMD question reveals
that this administration not only lied to Americans and the world about the
reasons it went to war, but did so with a continuing disregard for some of the
most fundamental U.S. and international laws. Phyllis Bennis was interviewed by
TomPaine.com's Steven Rosenfeld.

Hans Blix is retiring as the head of the U.N. weapons inspection teams. In
recent days, he's made some statements about the Bush administration's
characterizations of the U.N.'s work prior to the war in Iraq. What has he said?

Well the first thing he said that was significant in this recent period was, in
an exclusive interview with The Guardian in the U.K., he said that he was the
victim of a smear campaign. He said "I was smeared" and he said by "bastards" –
he used that word – in Washington.

Now when he was pressed about whether he included the members of the U.S.
administration in his characterization of "bastards," he said no, that he was
referring to former arms inspectors and a former Swedish prime minister, who he
didn't name but it was clear who he was referring to, who had spread critical
assessments of his work during the whole period.

But what's more significant, I think, is he's also taken the position that the
U.S. decision to go to war based on evidence that turned out to be faulty, calls
into question the whole issue of under what circumstances a war could be legal?
And he comes down squarely on the side of a war is only acceptable if the [U.N.]
Security Council has authorized it. Now, given the position that he's coming
from, that's a very significant statement.

Why is it significant in that context? Clearly he feels the fact that weapons of
mass destruction have not been found, en masse, is, in a sense, a vindication of
the U.N. inspection's prior work, right?

Right. I don't think the issue is so much about the prior work. The attack on
him from these unnamed "bastards" in Washington – and clearly [this includes]
the members of the administration – he's presumably too diplomatic to admit it,
but there's no doubt the members of the administration were furious with him.
And at least on a not-for-attribution basis, were prepared to smear him as he
said other bastards did from Washington.

But what's also significant about this is that he referred specifically to
earlier occasions in which the use of force had been based on intelligence
claims that turned out to be false.

He cited, specifically, U.S. attacks. He cited the bombing of the Chinese
Embassy during the Kosovo War, in Belgrade, and said that was the result of
false intelligence. He spoke of the bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in the
Sudan, having been destroyed in the same way, also based on false intelligence.
Then he went on to say, and I quote here, "A war was started based on
intelligence (referring to Iraq). We still don't know if it was accurate. But it
raises the question, on what basis can a war be started?" That's very
significant, I think.

What can one do with that question? Or where does one go from here, because
clearly that's a legitimate point. But in a certain sense, might makes right
with the Bush administration.

Well, might makes might, at least. I don't know if it makes it right. But the
power to do things gives them the willingness to do those things, and to claim
legitimacy in doing so.

I think what this speaks to is the question of how in the future, as well in the
continuing investigation on Iraq – because we should be clear that this
investigation is not over yet – the notion of resolving whether Iraq has weapons
of mass destruction has become something far more important than just
determining whether there is a remaining threat of a nuclear arsenal left over,
or some such thing, as was once claimed.

It's now a question of whether the entire episode of this U.S. war, which was
claimed to be waged in the name of weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's links
with Al Qaeda, was actually based on completely false evidence: whether that
evidence was false when it reached the White House; whether it was cooked by the
White House; whether it was both initially false and then cooked, so that all
the various players are involved. The possibilities are legion for what this
really represents.

But it's extraordinary that we have not seen yet in the United States, even with
these statements by Hans Blix; even with the recognition that no weapons of mass
destruction have been found; even with the lies of the Bush administration –
including as recently as a couple of weeks ago, when President Bush, with great
joy, it seems, announced "we have found the weapons," when he was referring to
two laboratories that had been found, in which inspectors have found absolutely
zero sign of any actual chemical or biological contaminants.

So this eagerness to move forward with their war, regardless of any actual
information, is what's really at stake here. And the question of whether, in the
future, weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq, goes directly to this
issue.

Those of us who were saying before that the weapons of mass destruction claim
was a false claim, that it was a bogus claim – it wasn't because we never
thought there could be any scrap of a weapon. There still could be. There may
well be some scraps of some left-over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I'll
say that right now just as I said it throughout the run-up to the war. But what
we do know is there was nothing that was a viable strategic threat to the United
States. That was a lie. That there were viable weapons was a lie.

And the notion that we were right and they were wrong has not yet reached a
level of outrage in the U.S. press, or among the U.S. public, it seems, in
anywhere close to the level of outrage that it has sparked in the U.K. It wasn't
only the American people who were lied to by our president. But it is the whole
world that was led down the primrose path of lies and deceit by this
administration, claiming evidence that they simply did not have.

We don't know yet, we may never know, whether the evidence was simply ignored,
made up or cooked. What we do know is they never had the evidence they claimed
to have. We never had to go to war.

Hans Blix may be trying to rescue or restore his reputation, but still the
larger question remains of who is going to hold this administration accountable.

Unfortunately, that is where the issue of might and right come into play. The
United Nations should be in a position to hold this administration accountable.
It should be U.N. weapons inspectors that are on the ground in Iraq, not the
U.S. military, led, ironically enough, by a former U.N. weapons inspector from
the earlier team – UNSCOM – the former director of UNSCOM, David Kay, has now
been appointed special advisor to CIA Director [George] Tenet, to be his chief
in charge of the weapons search. Why not go to the people who know how to do
this?

It was UNSCOM in their first years, from 1991 through 1995, who found and
destroyed virtually all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In the years
after that, what UNSCOM found was documents, not any existing weapons after
that. That situation remains in place. That's who should be in charge.

The problem is the U.S. has made clear, through its launching of this war
without Security Council authorization, that they are not prepared to accept the
legitimacy of U.N. rule, despite what the U.N. charter says, despite the U.S.
being a signatory of the U.N. charter that says that war is only legitimate,
either if it's authorized by the Security Council, which this was not, or if
it's a question of direct and immediate self-defense, which this was not.

Given that the U.S. has taken itself completely outside of the parameters and
the requirements of international law, we probably should not be surprised that
the U.N. is simply not in a position of power to hold the U.S. accountable.

Is anything that might come from Congress too little, too late?

At this point, I think it's very important that Congress move on this. It
certainly is too late. It is important that it happen in the context of the
increasing power concentration in the executive branch, which we're seeing,
which is so dangerous in how this war was launched and waged. So certainly a
congressional challenge to that concentration of power would be very important.

It's not sufficient though. This is an assault on the legitimacy of
international law as a whole, and it's a matter for the entire world. The whole
world is paying the consequences – the people of Iraq, most specifically – but
the whole world is paying the consequences for this Bush administration move,
and it should be international jurisdiction that holds the U.S. accountable.

Any likelihood of that?

No so far. I don't think we can be optimistic about that anytime soon. Member
states of the United Nations are terrified. The vote that the U.S. forced three
weeks ago, to endorse the U.S.-British occupation of Iraq, endorse the U.S. war
belatedly, came as a result of extraordinary U.S. pressure on member states.
There is no willingness to stand defiant of the U.S. right now.

We saw with the passage of the new resolution, three weeks ago, we ended an
eight-and-a-half month extraordinary moment, in which the U.N. was doing exactly
what it was designed to do by its founders: standing against war; standing
defiant of an illegal war; preventing that war from going forward.

It delayed the war. It prevented the war from happening when the U.S. wanted it.
It prevented the U.S. from waging war with an international imprimatur, an
international legitimization, and then it collapsed after eight-and-a-half
months of doing the right thing, the Security Council collapsed under U.S.
pressure.

The goal, I think, now of those of us who are committed to international law, to
internationalism, to the United Nations, is to figure out what it's going to
take to make the U.N. able to go back to that position once again.

So we're in an era where might makes right, even if it may not be right. And it
doesn't matter if it starts with a bunch of lies, because if you have the
biggest military you can just bully your way through.

Absolutely. The question is, are we going to be in a position in this country to
hold our government responsible for those violations of international law as
much as we hold it responsible for the violations of U.S. law? All of those
things are important. If we allow our government to get away with this power
grab, both domestically and internationally, we are setting the stage for a far
graver loss of democracy, both in our country and around the world, than
anything we have seen so far.
- Who is interviewed Blix?
- Steffo.. Steven Rosenfeld is a commentary editor and audio producer for
TomPaine.com.

**
- Interesting.. I have an additional offical lie, here...
- "Lying Us Into War".. prepared by Dennis Hans, AlterNet broadcasted on
February 12, 2003: President George W. Bush and his foreign-policy team have
systematically and knowingly deceived the American people in order to gain
support for an unprovoked attack on Iraq. Before I catalog the Bush
administration's "Techniques of Deceit," let me acknowledge that no U.N.
resolution requires the president to be honest with the American people. The
fine print of Resolution 1441 imposes no obligation to treat Americans as
citizens to be informed rather than suckers to be conned. He may mislead,
distort, suppress, exaggerate and lie to his heart's content without violating a
single sentence in 1441.

So if compliance with 1441 is all that matters to you, read no further. Turn on
the TV and tune in Brokaw, Rather, Jennings, Blitzer or Lehrer, to name five of
the journalistic imposters who control what you hear and see, who seem
psychologically incapable of conceiving of Bush as a liar, and who wouldn't have
the guts to call him one even if they reached that conclusion.

But if you are an American citizen who believes in the bedrock democratic
principle of "the informed consent of the governed," read on.

Why lie?

The president and many of his top advisers have wanted to invade and overthrow
the government of Saddam Hussein for a long time. But they knew they couldn't
sell such a war against Iraq to a majority of Americans and a majority in both
houses of Congress if they acknowledged just how pitifully weak and
unthreatening Iraq really is. If, however, the administration could portray Iraq
as an imminent, mortal threat to the United States – and even a shadowy
accomplice in the terrorist attacks of 9-11 – then a majority of the population
might come to see an invasion of Iraq not as unprovoked U.S. aggression but as a
wholly justified response to what Iraq did to us.

That is precisely what the administration has done. In an October poll by the
Pew Research Center for People and the Press, "66 percent believed [Saddam] was
involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States." Yes, two-thirds of
Americans had come to believe a horrible thing about Saddam that the Bush
administration knew for a fact was false, even as it encouraged its lesser
spokespeople to continue to promote the connection. According to a Knight-Ridder
poll conducted in January (.http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/4911975.htm.),
41 percent of us believe Iraq has a nuclear weapon RIGHT NOW and another 35
percent are unsure or refused to answer the question. Only 24 percent know what
Bush knows for an absolute fact: Iraq has no nukes. And even many in that 24
percent might not realize that Iraq would still be several years away from
developing a nuke even if we did the unthinkable and allowed them to import the
vast array of high-tech equipment needed just to get started.

How do people get such ridiculous thoughts in their head? A dishonest
administration plants them there with a steady drumbeat of exaggerations,
distortions and lies. In a process I call "lie and rely"
(.http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0301/S00062.htm.), the administration
relies on a cowed and craven news media to present their lies to the American
people as fact – or at a minimum, as still-to-be-confirmed assertions by
respected officials with a reputation for truth-telling. A handful of print
reporters occasionally exposing the most egregious lies can't begin to overcome
the effect of the steady drumbeat of lies reported as truth day after day on
television.

If we factored out of the opinion polls all the people who have internalized
White House disinformation as fact, support for the president's position would
plummet. Without the support of these misled millions, Bush wouldn't have been
able to ramrod through Congress a blank-check declaration. He wouldn't have had
that blank check to use as a bludgeon against the U.N., and the U.S. wouldn't be
on the verge of committing an act of unprovoked aggression.

How Bush lies: The Techniques of Deceit

Although Bush presents himself to the world as a plain-spoken, straight-shooting
friend of the common man, he regularly employs a variety of techniques to
deceive the very people most inclined to trust him.

So far, I have tallied 14 techniques. But there are more to be uncovered, and
there are far more examples than I can include here. Consider this the tip of a
deceitful iceberg.

In the paragraphs that follow I first will describe the technique of deceit.
Then I will illustrate it with one or more quotations or propaganda themes,
placing within brackets that portion of the quote that illustrates the
technique. Then I will explain how the president applied the technique. Unless
otherwise noted, the president's words are from the State of the Union address.

1) Stating as fact what are allegations – often highly dubious ones (this is a
staple of Bush's speeches and Powell's U.N. presentation; I'll limit myself to
three):

a) "From three Iraqi defectors [we know] that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had
several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ
warfare agents and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors.
Saddam Hussein [has not disclosed] these facilities. He [has given no evidence]
that he has destroyed them."

What we "know" is that defectors make this unproven claim. We don't know if they
were paid or coached to make the claim, or volunteered it on their own. For more
on this, see Point 9 of the analysis (
.http://www.traprockpeace.org/firstresponse.html.) of Powell's address by Dr.
Glen Rangwala, Lecturer in Politics at Cambridge University, an advisor to Labor
Party opponents of Tony Blair and perhaps the world's foremost authority on U.S.
claims about Iraq, which may explain why one never sees him in the U.S. media.
Rangwala notes that one defector made no mention of the labs in his first press
conferences. It was several months later, after "debriefings" by the U.S. and
the Iraqi National Congress, that he started talking about mobile labs. Hans
Blix told the Guardian newspaper of Britain
(.http://truthout.org/docs_02/020603A.htm.) he has seen no evidence that these
mobile labs exist. Acting on tips from the U.S. about labs disguised as
food-testing trucks, he investigated. "Two food-testing trucks have been
inspected and nothing has been found," he said. That doesn't mean that such labs
don't exist, but at this point there simply is no proof of that claim. It is NOT
an established fact.

b) "The British government [has learned] that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Wrong verb. What he should have said is the Brits assert this but have produced
no evidence of its veracity. The Brits have offered no date for these efforts,
but "recently," in this case, may well mean "the 1980s." IAEA director Mohamed
Elbaradei has for weeks been asking – so far, in vain – for the U.S. and Britain
to provide "specifics of when and where." He said in a Jan. 12 interview, "We
need actionable information." (Interview cited by Rangwala in his invaluable
"Counter-Dossier II," ( .http://traprockpeace.org/weapons.html.)

c) "We've [learned] that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and
poisons and deadly gases." (Bush's televised October speech)

The L.A. Times reported a few days after that speech that CIA director "Tenet's
letter was more equivocal, saying only that there has been 'reporting' that such
training has taken place. Unlike other passages of the letter, he did not
describe the reporting as 'solid' or 'credible.'"
.http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/la-na-cia11oct11.story.

2) Withholding the key fact that destroys the moral underpinning of an argument
(and, in Powell's case, reveals him to be a blood-drenched hypocrite):

"Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant, who
[has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people.]" (Bush's
October speech)

The problem here is that much of Bush's national-security team aided and abetted
those crimes. After the worst attack, on Halabja in 1988 near the end of the
Iran-Iraq war, the Reagan team covered for Saddam by implicating Iran, then
prevented Congress from imposing tough sanctions on Iraq. Joost R. Hiltermann,
an official with Human Rights Watch, shows in a recent column for the
International Herald Tribune (.http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0117-01.htm.)
that Saddam was likely emboldened to use ever more lethal concoctions to polish
off the Kurds because he knew from past gassing experience in 1983, 1984 and
1987 that he could always count on the support of Reagan, Powell and George H.
W. Bush. The latter's son has yet to mention this in any of his righteous
condemnations of Saddam. There are any number of governments who have the moral
standing to condemn Saddam's gassing of the Kurds. The one headed by George W.
Bush does not.

Powell, of course, is the current administration's knight in shining armor, the
trusted figure who commands the respect even of the European leaders who cannot
stomach Bush. But give a listen to Peter W. Galbraith, former U.S. ambassador to
Croatia and now professor of national-security studies at the National War
College in Washington, D.C.:

"the Kurds have not forgotten that Secretary of State Colin Powell was then the
national security adviser who orchestrated Ronald Reagan's decision to give
Hussein a pass for gassing the Kurds."
.http://www.boston.com/globe/magazine/2002/1215/coverstory_entire.htm.

3) Misrepresentation/Invention:

a) "I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were
denied – finally denied access, a [report] came out of the Atomic – the IAEA
that they were [six months away from developing a weapon]. I don't know what
more [evidence] we need." (Bush speaking at a news conference Sept. 7 with Tony
Blair)

As Joseph Curl reported three weeks later in the conservative Washington Times,
there was no such IAEA report: "In October 1998, just before Saddam kicked U.N.
weapons inspectors out of Iraq [actually, they were withdrawn], the IAEA laid
out a case opposite of Mr. Bush's Sept. 7 declaration: 'There are no indications
that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of
weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance,' IAEA
Director-General Mohammed Elbaradei wrote in a report to U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan" (.http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020927-500715.htm.). To this
day, the administration has yet to produce a convincing explanation for Bush's
bogus assertion.

4) Delegated lying/Team lying:

Iraq was involved with 9-11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, via an Iraqi agent who met
him in Prague in the spring of 2001, and thus the Iraqi regime may have
participated in some fashion in 9-11. (summary of major, long-lasting propaganda
theme)

For the most outrageous, easily disproved, yet highly effective lies, such as
the Iraqi connection to 9-11, sometimes the wise course is to assign personnel
far removed from the president to push the lie. That way, the president's
credibility won't suffer when the facts – known to the administration months
before it stopped peddling the lie – come out. And in a perverse fashion, the
man at the top of this disinformation pyramid, the president, GAINS credibility
for the disinformation in his own speeches, because commentators will note what
a cautious and careful performance it was, given that he steered clear of the
not-yet-confirmed 9-11 connection.

The farther out of the loop the designated lie-pushers are, the better: The
administration can more easily keep from them the intelligence data that
flat-out refutes the lie, which helpsthose lie-pushers who are more convincing
when they THINK what they're saying might be true than when they know for a fact
it's not true. For our purposes, whether the speaker believes what he says is
irrelevant. What matters is that the administration is consciously deceiving the
public.

The most aggressive pushers of this story have been neoconservative extremists
Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Ken Adelman and Frank Gaffney, who either serve on
the Defense Policy Board or are otherwise tangentially connected to the
administration. (Gaffney has even tried to link Iraq to the 1995 terror bombing
in Oklahoma City.) See this article ( .http://slate.msn.com/id/2070410/.) for
details on how this myth stayed alive long after intelligence pros definitely
disproved it. Of course, now that the Atta link has petered out, another al
Qaeda "connection" of comparable validity is being spread – this time by Powell
and Bush.

5) Straw man:

"The risks of doing nothing, the risks of assuming the best from Saddam Hussein,
it's just not a risk worth taking."

Notice that Bush doesn't name anyone who advocates "doing nothing." The whole
idea behind DOING inspections and containment is that everyone knows we can't
take Saddam at his word. Here, for instance, is former President Jimmy Carter's
eminently sensible and non-violent "do-something" strategy to ensure the
security of Iraq's neighbors as well as the United States:
.http://alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=15084..

6) Withholding the key fact that would alert viewers that the purported grave
threat is non-existent:

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of
manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical and
biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring
ways of using UAVs for missions [targeting the United States]." (October speech)

Bush omits the fact that the vehicles have limited range, thus requiring Saddam
to transport the vehicles to our coast line WITHOUT BEING DETECTED. The odds of
that happening start at a billion to one. (Dana Millbank exposed this lie last
October in the Washington Post. The Post link has expired, but you can read this
summary of the lies Millbank exposed:
.http://www.thedubyareport.com/malleablefacts.html..

7) Using mistranslation and misquotation to plant a frightening impression in
the minds of trusting citizens that is the exact opposite of what you know to be
true:

"Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a
group he calls [his 'nuclear mujahedeen' – his nuclear holy warriors]." (October
speech)

Here Bush plays on two fears of the public: of Islamist holy warriors and
nuclear weapons. But Saddam runs a secular state and has no ties to Islamist
terrorists such as al Qaeda (despite other lies to the contrary). As for nukes,
Iraq's production capabilities had been destroyed completely by 1998, and today
Elbaradei is in the process of verifying that Iraq has not taken even the first
baby steps in what would be a mammoth effort to rebuild a nuclear infrastructure
– an infrastructure that would be virtually impossible to hide.

Equally insidious on Bush's part is the mistranslation and misquotation. In
"Counter-Dossier II" ( .http://traprockpeace.org/weapons.html.), Dr. Glen
Rangwala, observes that the speech Bush is referring to was delivered by Saddam
"on 10 September 2000 and was about, in part, nuclear energy. The transcription
of the speech was made at the time by the BBC monitoring service. Saddam Hussein
actually refers to 'nuclear energy mujahidin,' and doesn't mention the
development of weaponry. In addition, the term 'mujahidin' is often used in a
non-combatant sense, to mean anyone who struggles for a cause. Saddam Hussein,
for example, often refers to the mujahidin developing Iraq's medical facilities.
There is nothing in the speech to indicate that Iraq is attempting to develop or
threaten the use of nuclear weapons."

Was Bush aware of the mistranslation and misquotation? We'd have to inject him
with truth serum to find out. Even if some senior intelligence official did the
deed and kept the accuratequote and translation from Bush, it's obvious who is
setting the deceitful tone in the administration. The official would have every
reason to believe that this is just the sort of dirty trick – played on the
unsuspecting American citizenry, not Saddam Hussein – that this president would
love.

8) Putting the most frightening interpretation on a piece of evidence while
pretending that no other interpretation exists:

"Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase
high-strength aluminum tubes [suitable for nuclear weapons production]."

Those tubes, unaltered, happen to be a perfect fit for a conventional artillery
rocket program. For details, see the tubes section in my essay "An Open Letter
to the U.N. About Colin Powell" (
.http://commondreams.org/views03/0204-07.htm.).

The Washington Post's Joby Warrick (
.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35360-2003Jan23.html.) adds
this: "The tubes were made of an aluminum-zinc alloy known as 7000-series, which
is used in a wide range of industrial applications. But the dimensions and
technical features, such as metal thickness and surface coatings, made them an
unlikely choice for centrifuges, several nuclear experts said. Iraq used a
different aluminum alloy in its centrifuges in the 1980s before switching to
more advanced metals known as maraging steel and carbon fibers, which are better
suited for the task, the experts said. Significantly, there is no evidence so
far that Iraq sought other materials required for centrifuges, such as motors,
metal caps and special magnets, U.S. and international officials said."

Following Powell's address, Susan Taylor Martin of the St. Petersburg Times (
.http://www.sptimes.com/2003/02/06/Worldandnation/A_strong_case__but_is.shtml.)
reported this: "Powell's speech was 'not quite accurate' on two points,
according to the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonpartisan
organization in Washington that deals with technical aspects of nuclear
proliferation. Contrary to Powell's claim, anodized tubes are not appropriate
for centrifuges and the anodization, designed to prevent corrosion, would have
to be removed before the tubes could be used, said Corey Hinderstein, assistant
director: 'It's not to say it would be impossible to use anodized tubes for
centrifuges but it adds an extra step.' She also challenged Powell's comment
that the tubes must be intended for a nuclear program because they meet higher
specifications than the United States sets for its own rocketry. 'In fact, we
found European-designed rockets that had exactly this high degree of
specificity,' Hinderstein said."

9) Withholding highly relevant information that would weaken your case, because
what you really want to obtain from the citizenry is "the UNINFORMED consent of
the governed":

N

Posted by: Communist Laponians&Allied all kind of Socialists Worldwide&All fractions of Anti-Imperialists World at December 15, 2003 at 07:29 AM