The Anatomy of "Terror Experts." Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib,
By JAMES PETRAS, CounterPunch, August 7/8, 2004
"After reading hundreds of books and articles and listening to scores of speeches and interviews by experts on terrorism and terrorists from the US, Canada, Israel, Europe, Latin America, Asia and South Africa, I have come to recognize eerily predictable patterns. They use a common language to describe their subjects and their environment; they are extremely ideological under a thin veneer of scientific jargon; they possess a keen sense of selective observation; they always pretend to possess a psychological understanding though few if any have dealt close up with their subjects in any clinical sense except perhaps under conditions of incarceration and interrogation. Their style is self-righteous, highly moralistic, vitriolic, hyperventilating and yet slippery with euphemisms when it comes to dealing with the violence of their partisan states. Their analysis is almost always filled with highly charged personal invective. Psychobabble provides a "legitimate" sounding channel for expressing deep-seated hostility, a way of assuming a state of civilized superiority in the face of their dehumanized subjects. Indeed, the dehumanization process is central to the whole terrorist-political-academic enterprise for the purpose is to present "the terrorist" with no redeeming features, with no "place" in the world, no "time" to exist in other words worthy of physical extermination. The Terrorist Experts are the "set-up" people, the motivators. They project the violence of the rulers, their ambitions to conquer, their greed to seize land and resources, their destructive impulses on to their victims. The responses of the victims are evoked in the rhetoric of pathological behavior. Of course the truly clinical pathologies are found in the minds of the verbal assassins who cannot distinguish the savageries committed by their patron-states from the desperate cries of the excluded, displaced and exploited. Almost all the terror experts have a chronic psychological blindness to the systematic and comprehensive violence inflicted by the West and Israel on particular groups. Today it is the "Arabs", at others times it is all insurgents who respond to imperial violence with violence ... Harvard academic, Jessica Stern provides us with a typical example almost a parody of these polemical ejaculations. She describes the purpose of her study "to identify some common themes that might help to explain how violent Islamic nihilism continues to spread beyond the lawless pockets and failed states where terrorists tend to thrive and into the cities of the west".(Jessica Stern, How Terrorists Think, Financial Times, June 12/13, 2004). Nihilism presumes no goals, no values, and no alternatives. Most observers would disagree, based on a simple reading of most of the Islamic revolutionary or radical web sites: they have goals replace Western dominance with nationalist Islamic rulers. Their values include both traditional religious and modern variants and their alternatives to submission is guerrilla, mass or individual resistance. The neighborhoods, cities, and communities where the putative "nihilists" originate are far more stable, norm-guided and law-abiding before the forceful intrusion of imperial and colonial power, which tear asunder the networks that bind collectivities. "Lawless pockets", to the degree in which they exist, are products of the unwillingness or incapacity of the conquering powers and their proxies to establish a just and stable social order. Moreover, one can observe in many cases that "lawlessness" is selective: occupied peoples disobey colonial 'laws', 'edicts' or 'fiats' while abiding by the laws or rules declared by their legitimate authorities. Moreover, it is generally the case that newly liberated areas run by guerrillas are more lawful than under previous military or colonial occupation with their drugs, brothels and bars ... Through the eyes of the Terror Experts Euro-US and Israeli bombing of population centers is seen as doing "humanity" a great favor: preventing the 'spread' of terrorists into the cities of the West. The fanatic anti-Arab/Muslim rhetoric of the Terror Experts encourages 'moderate', Western politicians to impose more rigid and humiliating administrative and legal measures against Arab, Middle Eastern and South Asian travelers, immigrants, visitors, religious leaders, academicians and businesspeople. Targeted by and subject to systematic denigration by the Western mass media, state functionaries, immigration police, hostile embassy personnel, academic terror experts, the secret police and special assassination teams, oppressed people are forced to transform themselves to meet a chronic "national emergency". Ruler-ruled relations are a series of perpetual impositions, unwelcome visits by colonial operatives granted license by the imperial Terror Experts ... For example, Stern sees the committed resistance fighter as being in a "kind of trance" irrational, dogmatic and simplistic. The Terror Experts repeat ad nauseam that the "terrorists" join their organizations in their search for strength a common response of all those who engage in politics and social action. The Terror Experts thus turn a commonplace observation which has a lineage of over 3,000 years or more into a particular feature of "terrorists". The resistance fighters do have a sense of altruism and an idea of the public good which the Terror Experts refuse to take serious. To do so would require a profound re-examination of their loyalties, and collaboration with imperial/colonial powers, and a deep critical self-examination of their institutional location and motives. This would be a difficult psychological and material experience for Terror Experts since their prestige, income, status, and influence might be threatened. Their critical introspective analysis might lead them to question their paymasters, their institutions, their colonial/imperial states. What foundations would pay to have a 'renegade' Terror Expert bear witness to their prejudices, falsifications and close ties to politicians who sanction torture and murder? ... As the limbs and body parts of Palestinian babies, women and grandparents are exploded over the ruins of homes and neighborhoods, Harvey Morris , the Bureau Chief of the Financial Times in Israel writes of Israeli "retaliation", after killing dozens of children and old people. Banishing objectivity means the incapacity to empathize with the human condition of the colonized victims for that reason the experts must present the victims as sub-human. Because the Terror Experts are condemning the most abused victims in the name of the most vicious powers, they convince themselves that their vitriolic diatribes are merely a service to truth and science. The Terror Experts are masters of euphemism, especially in dealing with the muck and gore of empire building ... How is a Palestinian farmer going to "keep up" with a Jewish settler who seizes his land, water and , supported by local thugs and Israeli soldiers, blocks his access to the market? Anything short of "resentful" would be masochistic. Is it any wonder that the deraccinated and dispossessed risk their lives to convert resentment into resistance? By all means. When the tanks roll into Iraqi neighborhoods after shelling homes and mosques, is it any wonder that furious neighbors swarm around an ambushed tank and dance on the shards of smoking metal and corpses? Is it a frightful spectacle of pitiless terrorists or jubilant neighbors, who have silenced the sound of shells bursting over their heads and into some neighbors' homes?"
Political Support for Israel Indirectly Feeds Terrorism Against Palestine,
by Andrew Rasmussen, THINK & ASK, September 2004
"Throughout the past generation the United States' Foreign Policy provides many favors to Israel with cash subsidies and military weaponry. The United States in return is permitted to house certain weapons and other materials in Israel that Israel may use at their own discretion. Such support of Israel's military force, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, is akin to the United States supporting Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party of the 1930s. Sharon implores similar methods against the Palestinians, the Hitler used to exterminate Sharon's own heritage ... Since that fateful October day, more than 2,650 Palestinians have been killed with weapons supplied by the United States. Yet nothing is said to directly the link the USA, because Israeli propaganda is very predominant in the media. Many large-scale news corporations for example are owned my well to do Israeli businessmen. The media messages conveyed are biased, because Israel is portrayed as a just aggressor against a group of terrorists. There is no domination of Palestinian-based newsmakers. No news corporation shows the struggle of the Palestinians, and the news neglects to mention those men, women, and children killed in Palestine by Israeli soldiers. There appears to be no news value in the numbers of Palestinian homes razed by Israeli tanks. Nor does it seem newsworthy to mention how often Israel cuts-off electrical power and water supplies to Palestinians; or impose unnecessary curfews. There is no word of the terror and fright the Israeli army instills upon the Palestinians. Many Palestinians are unable to work because roads are closed (by Israelis) and if the Palestinians are caught in commute and with curfew imposed, they risk imprisonment or death. The tactics of race war and punishment for racial makeup implored by Sharon are very similar to those of Hitler and the Nazi party. Israel has sanctioned resources, siege hospitals and health facilities, and destroyed more than 1,620 Palestinian homes forcing more people into refugee camps. The Israelis force men and boys into tents where they are stripped and blind folded until they are categorized. Each male is given a colored hat, and based upon the hat color, the person is either set free, imprisoned, tortured, beaten or murdered. Some news reports say the Israel's army now tattoo Palestinian men with identification numbers upon arrest for unfounded terrorist activities ... The Israeli army continues to spread terror throughout the lives of the Palestinians. Israel is not justified in either their constant attacks or murders. Israel claims to be fighting "terrorism," but Israel is the only terrorist present in Palestine. The Palestinians have no outside support, unlike Israel. Palestinians have little or nothing in which to defend. Yet when a Palestinian rebels against the forces that oppress his or her people, they are considered a “terrorist”. When will Israel’s terror stop? When will the United States say, "No. No more support for the new Hitler" ... There is no justification for the type of genocide once used against the Jews, and now again used by the Jews against Palestinians."
[A Chechen view of the contexts to "terrorism" and the continued iron fist Likudization (i.e., Israelization) of Russia and the West against the Islamic world].
I fear for the future of Chechnya,
By Khassan Baiev, Boston Globe, September 9, 2004
"THE PICTURES of the children being carried out of the school in Beslan, their naked bodies splattered with blood, filled me with sorrow and anger. No excuse exists for the slaughtering of innocent civilians. No excuse exists for taking children hostage, blowing up planes, or suicide bombings. Those responsible for such carnage have forfeited their right to be called human beings. A What made those scenes from Beslan so anguishing for me was that I had seen them all before. As a wartime surgeon in Chechnya I had treated the broken bodies of children -- the young girl whose parents were blown up by a bomb before her eyes, the little boy whose hair turned white overnight, small bodies pierced by hundreds of pieces of shrapnel. And everywhere blood. I do not claim to understand the mentality of a terrorist willing to sacrifice children. However, as a Chechen and a doctor with firsthand experience of the war, I can offer some context into what turns ordinary people into extremists willing to commit such atrocities. We have been fighting Russia on and off for 400 years. Our nation is small, the size of Connecticut, with a prewar population of 1 million. In the recent 10-year war with Russia, 250,000 people died, fully a quarter of the population. Of those deaths, an estimated 42,000 were children. And our children are still dying, from gunfire, from mines, from an unexplained illness resulting from the contaminated environment caused by the war. History has taught us to fear Russia. The belief of most Chechens that the Kremlin would like to eliminate them is fueled by the deportations. In the 19th century the czarist government exiled us to Turkey, Jordan, and Syria. In the 20th century, in 1944, Stalin herded our whole population into cattle cars and shipped us to Siberia. A third of us perished on the journey or in the harsh conditions of exile. We had hoped that with the breakup of the Soviet Union we might at long last attain independence from Russia. We are Muslims. We speak a different language. We have different traditions. However, our dream of self-rule evaporated when Boris Yeltsin invaded our country with a force of 300,000 Russian soldiers on Dec. 11, 2003. For the past 10 years Chechnya has been occupied by a foreign invader. Occupation breeds violence, which invites lawlessness on both sides. The abuses of civilians by Russian soldiers have been documented by various human rights organizations -- Physicians for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Russian human rights organization Memoriale. Young Russian soldiers are also dying unnecessarily. Ordinary Chechens share my sorrow at the terrible carnage at the school in Beslan. However, they are also fearful, knowing that they will be blamed. They are bracing themselves for reprisals. The Kremlin spin doctors have done a good job of casting us as international terrorists masterminded by Muslim extremists from the Middle East. Sadly, most people believe the propaganda, even though we do not know the ethnic composition of the hostage takers in Beslan. It does not matter. The school siege resulting in the deaths of hundreds of children was a heinous crime whoever was responsible. I fear for the future of Chechnya -- and of Russia, too -- as President Putin vows to place his country on a wartime footing against terrorism. Violence begets violence. If there is no peaceful resolution to the Russian Chechen conflict, terrorism is likely to increase."
Arabs: Terror War Has Spread Instability,
Earthlink (from Associated Press), September 11, 2004
"Victims of the Sept. 11 attacks were mourned worldwide Saturday, but in the Middle East, amid sympathy for the dead, Arabs said Washington's support for Israel and the war on terror launched in the aftermath of the World Trade Center's collapse have only fueled anger and violence. From Egypt to Yemen, Arabs said the world had become less safe during the three years since 19 militants from the Middle East hijacked four passenger planes in the United States and used them to kill more than 2,900 people. "Sept. 11 was a tragic day in our history because so many innocent people were killed at the hands of militants, who find a fertile ground in our region in view of the biased U.S. policies toward Israel and against Arab causes," said 34-year-old banker Mahmoud Obeid in the Jordanian capital, Amman. The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and other bombings since have fueled widespread soul-searching among Arabs over the connection between Islamic extremism and terrorism. But that has not shaken a long-held belief that U.S. policies in the region - including Washington's support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians - are also to blame for fomenting the kind of anti-American hatred that could drive people to launch an attack of the magnitude of Sept. 11, 2001, in New York and Washington D.C. Egyptian columnist Fahmy Howeidy called for critical self analysis from people in the Middle East and Islamic worlds "because those people who committed the Sept. 11 attacks ... were (also) Muslims and Arabs." "But ... the problem is the Americans don't want to criticize themselves," he told The Associated Press. "They don't look at their policies and mistakes, like the U.S. position toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By defending the terrorism committed by Israel against the Palestinians, they are filling people with anger."
[The "terrorist" problem in nutshell: the brutal Israelification of America. CIA analyst Michael Scheuer's analysis is as accurate as it gets. Unspoken here is the inevitable spotlight of the Jewish American Lobby at center stage in future world struggles. World Jewish institutional "terrorism," inversed as an expression of "Western values," cannot, and will not, suffocate everyone forever.]
Why West is losing,
By Eric Margolis, Toronto Sun, September 12, 2004
"Three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, America's politicians and media continue to gravely deceive the public about the so-called war on terrorism. Now the definitive book on terrorism has appeared that should be mandatory reading for every thinking person. It's called Imperial Hubris: Why The West is Losing the War on Terror. The cover simply identifies the author as "Anonymous," but he's already been widely identified in the American media as Michael Scheuer, a senior terrorism analyst for the CIA. It is unprecedented that a serving CIA officer was allowed to publish a book, one that is clearly a dramatic rebuke to the neoconservatives who drove the U.S. into two wars. Scheuer's work is a goldmine of information and brilliant analysis. It breaks taboos and sweeps away the clouds of lies about al-Qaida, Iraq and Afghanistan. He says U.S. leaders refuse to accept the obvious -- "we are fighting a worldwide Islamic insurgency -- not criminality or terrorism." The U.S. has made only "a modest dent in enemy forces." None of bin Laden's reasons for waging war on the U.S., writes Scheuer, "have anything to do with our freedom, liberty, and democracy (as President George Bush claims), but everything to do with U.S. policies and actions in the Muslim world," notably unlimited support for Israel's repression of the Palestinians and the destruction of Iraq. "For cheap, easily accessible oil, Washington and the West have supported Muslim tyrannies (Osama) bin Laden and other Islamists seek to destroy," Scheuer writes. "The war has the potential to last beyond our children's lifetimes and be fought mostly on U.S. soil." A coup for bin Laden Bin Laden, argues Scheuer, is widely viewed by much of the Muslim world, infuriated by American actions in the Mideast, as neither a terrorist or madman but as a skilled warrior, the sole Muslim leader standing up to predatory western powers. Ironically U.S. and British military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq "are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world," a prime bin Laden goal. Bush's misbegotten invasion of Iraq was "icing on bin Laden's cake." The threat today facing America "is the defensive jihad (holy struggle), an Islamic military reaction triggered by an attack by non-Muslims on the Islamic faith, on Muslims, on Muslim territory." Muslims are increasingly fighting back. The Muslim world believes it is under total attack led by Bush -- a massive effort to crush all who oppose U.S. domination, destroy Islam's inherent political role, eliminate Muslim charities, impose western values on the Islamic world and maintain puppet rulers -- "spreading democracy" in Bush's lexicon. Terrorism is merely the tactics of the poor fighting the rich. The ultimate taboo "U.S. military operations in the Muslim world," he adds, "validate bin Laden's contention the U.S. is attacking Islam and supports any country willing to kill or persecute Muslims." Scheuer, breaking the ultimate taboo, observes of Washington's "one-way alliance" with Israel that "Israelis have succeeded in lacing tight the ropes binding the American Gulliver to the ... Jewish state and its policies." The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are lost causes, Scheuer concludes. The U.S. is totally unable to create legitimate governments in either chaotic nation, only puppet regimes, supported by American bayonets. If the U.S. stays, it will bleed endlessly; if it retreats, it faces political disaster. Washington, he charges, has no strategy and is merely "winging it." In one of his most acute insights, Scheuer explains the U.S. cannot, for all of its riches, buy its way to victory in Afghanistan or Iraq. "Honour is still the currency of value in the Middle East, more so than goods and services." Blood-links trump all other affiliations or loyalties. Honour is why the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden to the U.S., a man they regarded as their guest and a war hero, and why he has still not been betrayed in spite of a $25-million US reward in a nation where the annual income is $147. At least there is one person in Washington who understands the violence surrounding us -- and has the courage and patriotism to tell Americans the truth: Their own arrogance and ignorance are driving them into a no-win war against 1.3 billion Muslims."
[It's interesting how the media always runs to one of the million Jewish Lobby organizations for a soundbite of the Voice of Reason and Ethics. Ask the Jewish propagandist about the routine Israeli murder of Palestinian children.]
New Prince video sparks debate, controversy,
CTV.ca, October 15, 2004
"The musician Prince is drawing fire for a new video that portrays an Arab-American girl envisioning herself blowing up an airport. The video for the song Cinnamon Girl shows the girl, played by 14-year-old Oscar nominee Keisha Castle-Hughes of the movie Whale Rider, facing harassment from schoolmates and witnessing racism in the wake of an attack that mirrors Sept. 11. 2001. Steve Silberfarb, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota, said he applauds the anti-harassment message but found a dream sequence in which the girl detonates a bomb at an airport disturbing. "Even allowing for the right of an artist to express himself, I think it's misguided and offensive,'' Silberfarb said. "Her frustration is understandable. The violence is not.''
FBI familiar with mysterious traveler,
by Sheila K. Stogsdill, The Oklahoman, October 5, 2004
"A man responsible for the closing of a state highway in Delaware County for three hours is familiar to the FBI, Undersheriff Dale Eberle said Monday. A two-mile stretch of State Highway 20, east of Jay, was closed Saturday while an Oklahoma Highway Patrol bomb squad searched the man's car. Authorities had received a report of "possible terrorist activities." The FBI office in Tulsa was notified, and agents were called to interview the man. He was released after being held for seven hours. The driver, who identified himself as Israeli, was unable to show a passport or visa. Eberle declined to identify the man since no arrest was made. The FBI received "some hits on his name and said they had dealt with him before," he said. The man, approximately 40 years old, is married to a U.S. citizen, Eberle said. He did show an Arizona driver's license with a Gentry, Ark., address. Saturday, the Delaware County sheriff's office received a report that a man stopped at a convenience store near Jay and was asking directions to Oklahoma. He was driving a car with what appeared to be pipe bomb attached to the roof. Eberle said the "pipe bomb" was a video camera inside tubes taking pictures of the area's surroundings. The highway patrol determined the pipes did not contain explosives, he said." Another version of this story]
It looks like Israel's Mossad knew 9-11 was going to happen. Maybe they had a part in it, who knows? At the very least, it it was a ruthless way to drag the United States into Zionist desires to clean out the Middle East to Judeo-centric liking.]
Odigo says workers were warned of attack,
by Yuval Dror, Haaretz (Israel), October 12, 2004 (repost?)
"Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack. Micha Macover, CEO of the company, said the two workers received the messages and immediately after the terror attack informed the company's management, which immediately contacted the Israeli security services, which brought in the FBI ... Odigo is a U.S.-based company whose headquarters are in New York, with offices in Herzliya [Israel] ... Odigo usually zealously protects the privacy of its registered users, said Macover, but in this case the company took the initiative to provide the law enforcement services with the originating Internet Presence address of the message, so the FBI could track down the Internet Service Provider, and the actual sender of the original message."
Israel accused of masterminding attacks,
by Khaled Abu Toamah, Jerusalem Post, October 10, 2004
"The suicide bombings in Sinai have triggered a wave of conspiracy theories in Egypt, where many believe Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Jews were behind the attacks. Several Egyptians interviewed over the past few days on Arab satellite stations said they did not believe Muslim terrorists were capable of launching such massive attacks. Most interviewees agreed Israel was the only beneficiary of the bombings and claimed once again that the Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington. Egyptian journalist Nabil Sharif Eddin said numerous conspiracy theories about Israel's alleged role have flourished. "Analyses based on conspiracy theories are spreading not only on the level of the man on the street, but also among political and intellectual circles," he said. General (Ret.) Muhammad Abdel Fattah Omar, a former senior official with the Egyptian Ministry of Interior, which is responsible for the country's security services, was one of the first Egyptians to accuse Israel of masterminding the attacks. "In each operation, we should first try to find out who benefits from it," he said. "Israel is the only party that benefits from the Sinai attacks. The Israelis and their agents are the only ones who are able to enter this area without difficulty" ... Abdullah al-Ashal, a former top official with the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, said he had no doubts that Israeli hands were involved in the bombings. "Israel's ultimate plan is to bring Egypt to its knees and eliminate its regional role," he told the IslamOnline Web site. Ashal, who served as assistant foreign minister, went on to claim that by pointing a finger at al-Qaida, Israel was seeking to include Egypt in the US-led war on terror."
[JTR contributor's comment: "More parallel government for Jews":]
JA Establishes Agency to Assist Jews in Case of Terrorist Attacks,
Maariv (Israsel), October 17, 2004
"Terrorist attacks against Jewish targets and the growing threat of terrorism worldwide have prompted the Jewish Agency to establish a special international coordination apparatus that would assist Jewish communities who would be a target of a terror attack. “Today’s threats against Jews are worldwide”, JA Chairman Salai Meridor told members of the Knesset’s Immigration Absorption Committee. “The level of threat on Jewish communities abroad has increased significantly in recent years, and that requires our preparation”, he added. The decision to set up the apparatus was reached after the bombings in Istanbul last November, in which six Jews were killed in attacks on the city’s synagogues. According to Meridor, the local Jewish community then turned to the JA and requested assistance, among other things in security. Meridor noted that a similar apparatus has already been established in the US. He says it is coordinated with the JA and other agencies in Israel. “The responsibility for the well-being of Jews in the Diaspora is placed, first and foremost on the local governments”, the JA chairman stressed. “But in light of the growing threat of terrorism and the surge in terror warnings, many Jewish communities turn to us and ask for assistance. A need has risen to provide solutions to these communities, and it will be answered by this apparatus”.
[Anti-Muslim and pro-Israel propagandist Steven Emerson (shaming Ralph Waldo) is Jewish.]
Terrorism and National Security Expert Steven Emerson to Hold Morning Newsmaker News Conference Wednesday at NPC,
Yahoo! News (U.S. Newswire), October 21, 2004
"Steven Emerson, internationally recognized expert on terrorism and national security, will speak at a 'Morning Newsmaker' news conference on 'Nuisances, Metaphors and Unwinnable: Liberal Democracies, Militant Islam and the War on Terrorism,' to be held on Wednesday, Oct. 27, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. at the National Press Club, located at 529 14th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. Emerson is also a correspondent and serves as executive director of the Investigative Project, the nation's largest repository of archival data and intelligence on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups. Emerson serves as NBC's terrorism analyst and has authored or co-authored five books, including American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us (Free Press, 2002)."
What if there's a Terrorist Atack on Election Day?,
Bisnow on Business, October 11, 2004
"In this exclusive interview with Bisnow on Business a week before the Presidential election, Norm Ornstein, one of America's leading experts on electoral process and politics, warns that if a polling place is bombed on election day and in the ensuing panic virtually no one votes across the country, “We have no plan in place to do anything other than have that pass as election day.” With members of Congress scattered outside of Washington , and the air system possibly shut down in response to acts of terrorism, he sees extreme difficulty in the federal government's dealing with an electoral crisis. He also sees potential conflict between state, local, and federal officials. Ornstein, a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a CBS news analyst, also says that if terrorists were to assassinate the President and Vice-President Elect immediately prior to the meeting of Electors on December 13, there would be no time for a political party to present replacement candidates to Electors; and he also notes the possibility that if assassinations occurred after the Electors meet (either before or after Congress meets on January 6 to validate the electoral vote), a Presidential vacancy as of inauguration day on January 20 could result in the elevation of the Speaker of the House to the Presidency for an entire four year term, since there is no provision for a special election. He urges Congress even at this late date to establish contingency plans and to move the Electors meeting to a later date."
[Someone at the Anti-Defamation League finally tells the truth about something and he has to take a dive for it.]
B'nai Brith official quits after terrorism remark,
By MARINA JIMÉNEZ, Globe and Mail, November 3, 2004
"An official with B'nai Brith Canada resigned after statements he made on The Michael Coren Show that Israel's use of state-sponsored terrorism is justified to protect its citizens. Adam Aptowitzer, former Ontario chairman of B'nai Brith Institute for International Affairs, apologized for the comments, and the organization announced yesterday it had accepted his resignation. His remarks were condemned by Muslim groups, including the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Canadian Arab Federation and the National Council on Arab Relations. The groups said Mr. Aptowitzer's apparent endorsement of terrorism did not receive the same degree of scrutiny by the news media as Mohamed Elmasry's controversial statement on the same program that all Israeli citizens over 18 are fair targets for Palestinian suicide bombers. Mr. Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, later apologized for his comments, but his organization did not accept his offer to resign. Mr. Elmasry and Mr. Aptowitzer were panelists, along with Irfan Syed, a Muslim lawyer, and Peter Merrifield, a terrorism and security consultant, on the Oct. 12 Michael Coren Show, broadcast by the Crossroads Television System. In a heated debate, they discussed the topic What is a Terrorist? Faisal Joseph, the CIC's national legal counsel, said yesterday that Mr. Elmasry's and Mr. Aptowitzer's comments were divisive. "Let there be no misunderstanding. Dr. Elmasry's and Mr. Aptowitzer's comments were totally inappropriate and offensive to many Canadians, both Muslims and non-Muslims. "It was one of the first times that a national Jewish organization's representatives not only admitted that Israel uses terrorism against innocent Palestinian civilians but actually tried to justify it as an ethical use of terrorism," Mr. Joseph said. "Terror is an option to be used by states in order to prevent deaths of their own citizens and of others," Mr. Aptowitzer said. B'nai Brith said in a statement: "[We] reiterate our position that the measures Israel is forced to take to protect itself against ongoing Palestinian terrorist attacks against its civilians constitute legitimate self-defence, and not 'state terrorism.' "
Yasser Arafat: 1929-2004,
By Chris Marsden and Barry Grey, World Socialist Web Site, November 12, 2004
"Yasser Arafat will be remembered as a man of tremendous personal courage and unswerving loyalty to the cause of Palestinian liberation. Millions throughout the world will dismiss with contempt the slanders heaped on Arafat, the international symbol of Palestinian resistance for nearly four decades, by the likes of Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush, war criminals both, who have the temerity to call Arafat a terrorist. On this question, Arafat himself gave an excellent response in his speech to the United Nations in 1974: “The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which he fights. For whoever stands by a just cause and fights for freedom and liberation of his land from the invaders, the settlers and the colonialists, cannot possibly be called terrorists... As to those who fight against just causes, those who wage war to occupy, colonise and oppress other people, those are the terrorists. Those are the people whose actions should be condemned, who should be called war criminals; for the justice of the cause determines the right to struggle.”
[JTR contributor's comment: "As we learned from the "I Hate Pam" cartoon caper, there does appear to be at least one 'holy' cow: saying something like 'I don't want Isaiah down at the bank to beat me with his nose'. Our comment: No holy cows? We wonder what Israeli consumer reaction would be if someone tried to sell beef jerky using a well known image of dead bodies from a Tel Aviv "suicide bomber" attack. Or better, yet, selling a bag of potato chips with one of the photographic icons of the Holocaust era. No "holy cows," indeed.]
9/11 terror used to sell cigarettes in Israeli papers,
by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, THE JERUSALEM POST, November 14, 2004
"A local advertising agency that claims there are "almost no holy cows" is using the image of a jet about to strike the doomed Twin Towers to sell cigarettes imported from Holland. The ad for Max cigarettes, which appears in the Hebrew tabloids and was prepared by the Zarmon-Goldman agency, uses two cigarettes standing vertically, with the top quarter of one looking like it's about to fall as a plane heads for it. "The Dutch [one] that put the Americans into shock [helem, in Hebrew] and took them out of LM," says the full-page ad for Max cigarettes. The LM refers to the best-selling US brand L&M, while a slangy pronunciation of the Hebrew word for shock sounds like LM. "There's no arguing about taste; everyone has his own opinion," said Eilon Zarmon, an owner of the ad agency who was asked to say whether he thought the promotion was vulgar, given the fact that some 3,000 people died in the Islamist terror attack on New York's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. "We are not afraid of slaughtering holy cows," he added. "There is a clear message here. The idea is to attack L&M; we are not afraid to start up with a big US cigarette maker. Max cigarettes are better than L&M. They taste better and are produced better. We think this ad is humorous, creative, young and impudent," Zarmon said, declining to reveal whether he smoked them himself. There is nothing sacrosanct about the image of the exploding Twin Towers, he maintained, as "it has already been used in art and theater. One needn't get too excited about using it." The advertisement will continue to run, he said. But when asked what he would do if the US Embassy in Tel Aviv expressed revulsion over the ad, Zarmon said: "We will consider our reaction if they say so. Embassy officials were unavailable for comment, as yesterday was a US holiday, Veterans' Day. The ad agency owner was asked what he thought of a controversial potato chip ad currently running on Channel 2 TV. It shows an elderly man tripping his frail wife with his walking stick and, when she lands flat on her face, jabbing its end into her back to keep her down so she won't get her hands on a package of potato chips that fell on the floor. "It's a very funny ad," said Zarmon in admiration."
CIA has 'new guidance' on interrogation,
Washington Times, November 18, 2004
"A senior CIA official says the agency has received new guidance from government lawyers on its detention and interrogation policies.CIA acting General Counsel John Rizzo told a lawyers conference that since the repudiation earlier this year of memos arguing President Bush could lawfully order captured terrorists to be tortured, the agency had received new legal advice. "We do not operate under repudiated guidance," he said. He told the conference the CIA's policy on detention and interrogation -- which he declined to discuss in any detail -- was carried out "pursuant to the U.S. law and constitution" as interpreted by administration lawyers. "We have operated, are operating under very specific and helpful Justice Department guidance," he said."
[This is beyond pathetic. Welcome to "civilization." May God help the Jewish Lobby if people ever lift the veils and realize all the dead, waste, and disaster Israel has caused them. What havoc they've wrought on the West! -- And Islam.]
U.S. Terror War Costs Could Reach $795B in 10 Years,
By WILLIAM MATTHEWS, Defense News, December 2, 2004
"Expenses for Iraq, Afghanistan and enhanced security are expected to total about $555 billion by 2014. That’s not the complete bill for U.S. taxpayers, however. Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being funded with borrowed money, the cost of interest on the debt must be factored into the bill. That could add as much as $240 billion to the total, according to the CBO. The war in Iraq is costing the United States $4.9 billion a month, and the war in Afghanistan is costing another $0.8 billion, according to Rep. John Spratt of
South Carolina, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee. As of Oct. 1, $157 billion had been spent on Iraq and $69.2 billion had been spent on Afghanistan, Spratt said in a recent summary of war costs prepared by Budget Committee staffers and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Another $4.4 billion has been spent to enhance security in the United States and abroad. That brings spending to $231 billion for those three elements of the global war on terrorism, Spratt said. The CBO estimates that the wars could cost the U.S. government nearly twice that much over the next decade." |