| Author | Message | | Guest | |  | | Guest | | Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 11:36 am Post subject: In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue |
| The Most Dangerous President: Pro-Oil, Pro-Israel, Anti-World:
http://www.mediamonitors.net/khodr65.html
Oil and Israel:
http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/825517.asp
In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/09/15/in-iraqi-war-scenario-oil-is-key-issue.php
Breaking the Silence on the Israeli Lobby:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/31/breaking-the-silence-on-the-israel-lobby.php
Zionism Unbound (in US Government):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/23/zionism-unbound-in-us-government.php
Israelis Want IRAQ WAR:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/16/israelis-want-iraq-war.php
US Zionist Chicken hawks Meddle for War:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/22/us-zionist-chicken-hawks-meddle-for-war.php
Abrams Back in Capital Fray at Center of Mideast Battle:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/17/abrams-back-in-capital-fray-at-center-of-mideast-battle.php
ECONOMIST TALLIES SWELLING COST OF ISRAEL TO US
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/22/economist-tallies-swelling-cost-of-israel-to-us.php
US military chiefs break ranks to say war 'will be bloody':
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/20/us-military-chiefs-break-ranks-to-say-war-will-be-bloody.php
Sharon Threatens Global Nuclear War:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/15/sharon-threatens-global-nuclear-war.php
Journalists are under fire for telling the truth
by Robert Fisk
18 December 2002
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=362545
Robert Fisk: Journalists are under fire for telling the truth
18 December 2002
First it was Roger Ailes, the chairman of the Fox News Channel, who advised the US President to take the "harshest measures possible" against those who attacked America on 11 September, 2001.
Let us forget, for a moment, that Fox News's Jerusalem bureau chief is Uri Dan, a friend of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the author of the preface of the new edition of Sharon's autobiography, which includes a revolting account of the Sabra and Chatila massacre of 1,700 Palestinian civilians and Sharon's innocence in this slaughter. Then Ted Koppel, one of America's leading news anchormen, announced that it may be a journalist's duty not to reveal events until the military want them revealed in a new war against Iraq.
Can we go any further in journalistic cowardice? Oh yes, we can. ABC television announced, a little while ago, that it knew all about the killing of four al-Qa'ida members by an unmanned "Predator" plane in Yemen but delayed broadcasting the news for four days "at the request of the Pentagon." So now at least we know for whom ABC works.
The Pentagon said that the murdered men – and let's not lose sight of the "murdered" bit, though that's not the word ABC used – were between "two to 20" of the top ranks of al-Qa'ida. Really? So were they numbers two, three, four and five in al-Qa'ida? Or numbers 17,18,19 and 20? Who cares? The press are onside. Don't ask who is resisting forthcoming US censorship of the Iraq war. Ask who is first to climb aboard the bandwagon.
In Canada, the situation is even worse. Canwest, owned by Israel Asper, owns over 130 newspapers in Canada, including 14 city dailies and one of the country's largest papers, the National Post. His "journalists" have attacked colleagues who have deviated from Mr Asper's pro-Israel editorials. As Index on Censorship reported, Bill Marsden, an investigative reporter for the Montreal Gazette has been monitoring Canwest's interference with its own papers. "They do not want any criticism of Israel," he wrote. "We do not run in our newspaper op-ed pieces that express criticism of Israel and what it is doing in the Middle East..."
But now, "Izzy" Asper has written a gutless and repulsive editorial in the Post in which he attacks his own journalists, falsely accusing reporters of "lazy, sloppy or stupid" journalism and being "biased or anti-Semitic". These vile slanders are familiar to any reporter trying to do his work on the ground in the Middle East. They are made even more revolting by inaccuracies.
Mr Asper, for example, claims that my colleague Phil Reeves compared the Israeli killings in Jenin earlier this year – which included a goodly few war crimes (the crushing to death of a man in a wheelchair, for example) – to the "killing fields of Pol Pot". Now Mr Reeves has never mentioned Pol Pot. But Mr Asper wrongly claims that he did.
It gets worse. Mr Asper, whose "lazy, sloppy or stupid" allegations against journalists in reality apply to himself, states – in the address to an Israel Bonds Gala Dinner in Montreal, which formed the basis of his preposterous article – that "in 1917, Britain and the League of Nations declared, with world approval, that a Jewish state would be established in Palestine". Now hold on a moment. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 did not say that a Jewish state would be established. It said that the British government would "view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The British refused to use the words "Jewish state".
This may not matter much to lazy writers like Mr Aspen. But when it comes to the League of Nations being involved, we really are into mythology. The League of Nations was created after the First World War – had it existed in 1917, it might have stopped the whole war – and Mr Asper is simply wrong (or, as he might have put it, "lazy, sloppy or stupid") to suggest it existed in 1917.
At no point, of course, does Mr Asper tell us about Israeli occupation or the building of Jewish settlements, for Jews and Jews only, upon Arab land. He talks about "alleged Palestinian refugees" – about as wrongheaded a remark as you can get – and then claims that the corrupt and foolish Yasser Arafat is "one of the world's cruel and most vicious terrorists for the past 30 years". He concluded his speech to Israel's supporters in Montreal with the dangerous request that "you, the public, must take action against the media wrongdoers".
Wrongdoers? Is this far from President Bush's "evildoers"? What in the hell is going on here?
I will tell you. Journalists are being attacked for telling the truth, for trying to tell it how it is. American journalists especially. I urge them to read a remarkable new book published by the New York University Press and edited by John Collins and Ross Glover. It's called Collateral Language and is, in its own words, intended to expose "the tyranny of political rhetoric". Its chapter titles – "Anthrax", "Cowardice", "Evil", "Freedom", Fundamentalism", "Justice", "Terrorism", Vital Interests" and – my favourite – "The War on..." (fill in the missing country) tell it all.
Meanwhile, rest assured, the journalists are getting onside, to tell you the story the government wants you to hear.
"Not only do we have a right to know, we have a duty to know what our Government is doing in our name... If there's a criticsm to be made today, it's that the press isn't doing enough to put the pressure on the government to provide information."
Walter Cronkite - On the 3-28-02 Media Matters Show on PBS.
PASSIONATE ATTACHMENT TO ISRAEL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/24/passionate-attachment-to-israel.php
THE PRICE OF ISRAEL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/17/the-price-of-israel.php
More & More Americans Anti-Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/23/more-more-americans-anti-israel.php
WHY TERRORIST ATTACKS ARE NOT INEVITABLE:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/11/26/why-terrorist-attacks-are-not-inevitable.php
Scott Ritter's Excellent CALTECH Speech on Nov. 13th, 2002:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/11/26/scott-ritter-s-excellent-caltech-speech-on-nov-13th-2002.php
Israeli Mossad Connection to 9/11 & Marines Beirut Bombing:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/06/israeli-mossad-connection-to-9-11-marines-beirut-bombi.php
Mega Afghan pipeline deal signed:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/29/mega-afghan-pipeline-deal-signed.php
Bush prepares final build-up for invasion:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/29/bush-prepares-final-build-up-for-invasion.php
Global Gloom and Anti-Americanism:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/30/global-gloom-and-growing-anti-americanism.php | | | | Guest | | Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 11:39 am Post subject: Liberating America From Israel |
| Liberating America From Israel
by Paul Findley
Nine-eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe the catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president during the past 35 years had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful and intimidating, but any determined president-even President Bush this very day-could prevail and win overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by laying these facts before the American people:
Israel's present government, like its predecessors, is determined to annex the West Bank-biblical Judea and Samaria - so Israel will become Greater Israel. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who maintain a powerful role in Israeli politics, believe the Jewish Messiah will not come until Greater Israel is a reality. Although a minority in Israel, they are committed, aggressive, and influential. Because of deep religious conviction, they are determined to prevent Palestinians from gaining statehood on any part of the West Bank.
In its violent assaults on Palestinians, Israel uses the pretext of eradicating terrorism, but its forces are actually engaged advancing the territorial expansion just cited. Under the guise of anti-terrorism, Israeli forces treat Palestinians worse than cattle. With due process nowhere to be found, hundreds are detained for long periods and most are tortured. Some are assassinated. Homes, orchards, and business places are destroyed. Entire cities are kept under intermittent curfew, some confinements lasting for weeks. Injured or ill Palestinians needing emergency medical care are routinely held at checkpoints for an hour or more. Many children are undernourished. The West Bank and Gaza have become giant concentration camps. None of this could have occurred without U.S. support. Perhaps Israeli officials believe life will become so unbearable that most Palestinians will eventually leave their ancestral homes.
Once beloved worldwide, the U.S. government finds itself reviled in most countries because it provides unconditional support of Israeli violations of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the precepts of all major religious faiths.
How did the American people get into this fix?
Nine-eleven had its principal origin 35 years ago when Israel's U.S. lobby began its unbroken success in stifling debate about the proper U.S. role in the Arab-Israeli conflict and effectively concealed from public awareness the fact that the U.S. government gives massive uncritical support to Israel.
Thanks to the suffocating influence of Israel's U.S. lobby, open discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been non-existent in our government all these years. I have firsthand knowledge, because I was a member of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee in June 1967 when Israeli military forces took control of the Golan Heights, a part of Syria, as well as the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. I continued as a member for 16 years and to this day maintain a close watch on Congress.
For 35 years, not a word has been expressed in that committee or in either chamber of Congress that deserves to be called debate on Middle East policy. No restrictive or limiting amendments on aid to Israel have been offered for 20 years, and none of the few offered in previous years received more than a handful of votes. On Capitol Hill, criticism of Israel, even in private conversation, is all but forbidden, treated as downright unpatriotic, if not anti-Semitic. The continued absence of free speech was assured when those few who spoke out-Senators Adlai Stevenson and Charles Percy, and Reps. Paul "Pete" McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, Earl Hilliard, and myself-were defeated at the polls by candidates heavily financed by pro-Israel forces.
As a result, legislation dealing with the Middle East has been heavily biased in favor of Israel and against Palestinians and other Arabs year after year. Home constituencies, misled by news coverage equally lop-sided in Israel's favor, remain largely unaware that Congress behaves as if it were a subcommittee of the Israeli parliament.
However, the bias is widely noted beyond America, where most news media candidly cover Israel's conquest and generally excoriate America's complicity and complacency. When President Bush welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, sometimes called the Butcher of Beirut, as "my dear friend" and "a man of peace" after Israeli forces, using U.S.-donated arms, completed their devastation of the West Bank last spring, worldwide anger against American policy reached the boiling point.
The fury should surprise no one who reads foreign newspapers or listens to BBC. In several televised statements long before 9/11, Osama bin Laden, believed by U.S. authorities to have masterminded 9/11, cited U.S. complicity in Israel's destruction of Palestinian society as a principal complaint. Prominent foreigners, in and out of government, express their opposition to U.S. policies with unprecedented frequency and severity, especially since Bush announced his determination to make war against Iraq.
The lobby's intimidation remains pervasive. It seems to reach every government center and even houses of worship and revered institutions of higher learning. It is highly effective in silencing the many U.S. Jews who object to the lobby's tactics and Israel's brutality.
Nothing can justify 9/11. Those guilty deserve maximum punishment, but it makes sense for America to examine motivations promptly and as carefully as possible. Terrorism almost always arises from deeply-felt grievances. If they can be eradicated or eased, terrorist passions are certain to subside.
Today, a year after 9/11, President Bush has made no attempt to redress grievances, or even to identify them. In fact, he has made the scene far worse by supporting Israel's religious war against Palestinians, an alliance that has intensified anti-American anger. He seems oblivious to the fact that nearly two billion people worldwide regard the plight of Palestinians as today's most important foreign-policy challenge. No one in authority will admit a calamitous reality that is skillfully shielded from the American people but clearly recognized by most of the world: America suffered 9/11 and its aftermath and may soon be at war with Iraq, mainly because U.S. policy in the Middle East is made in Israel, not in Washington.
Israel is a scofflaw nation and should be treated as such. Instead of helping Sharon intensify Palestinian misery, our president should suspend all aid until Israel ends its occupation of Arab land Israel seized in 1967. The suspension would force Sharon's compliance or lead to his removal from office, as the Israeli electorate will not tolerate a prime minister who is at odds with the White House.
If Bush needs an additional reason for doing the right thing, he can justify the suspension as a matter of military necessity, an essential step in winning international support for his war on terrorism. He can cite a worthy precedent. When President Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation that freed only the slaves in states that were then in rebellion, he make the restriction because of "military necessity."
If Bush suspends U.S. aid, he will liberate all Americans from long years of bondage to Israel's misdeeds.
Mr. Paul Findley, who served as a Republican congressman from Illinois for 22 years, is the author of 'They Dare to Speak Out' and a member of the American Educational Trust's Foreign Relations Committee. | | | | Hunni | | Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 1:22 pm Post subject: |
| | Anonymous wrote: | Fisk needs to get his oil changed.
It's about Saddam and disarming him. |
at the moment, it's about some empty warheads and thousands of sheets of paper. | | | | Guest | | Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 7:42 pm Post subject: |
| No, it's about Saddam not disarming.
Fisk needs his oil changed. It might get rid of that whiney noise he makes. | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 6:50 am Post subject: Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit in 9/11 |
| Americans are against unilateral war in Iraq:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/15/americans-are-against-unilateral-war-in-iraq.php
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,819931,00.html
Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit in 9/11
America's most controversial novelist calls for an investigation into whether the Bush administration deliberately allowed the terrorist attacks to happen
Talk: Gore Vidal on Bush
Observer Worldview
Terrorism crisis: Observer special
Sunder Katwala
Sunday October 27, 2002
America's most controversial writer Gore Vidal has launched the most scathing attack to date on George W Bush's Presidency, calling for an investigation into the events of 9/11 to discover whether the Bush administration deliberately chose not to act on warnings of Al-Qaeda's plans.Vidal's highly controversial 7000 word polemic titled 'The Enemy Within' - published in the print edition of The Observer today - argues that what he calls a 'Bush junta' used the terrorist attacks as a pretext to enact a pre-existing agenda to invade Afghanistan and crack down on civil liberties at home.Vidal writes: 'We still don't know by whom we were struck that infamous Tuesday, or for what true purpose. But it is fairly plain to many civil libertarians that 9/11 put paid not only to much of our fragile Bill of Rights but also to our once-envied system of government which had taken a mortal blow the previous year when the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected President with the oil and gas Bush-Cheney junta.'Vidal argues that the real motive for the Afghanistan war was to control the gateway to Eurasia and Central Asia's energy riches. He quotes extensively from a 1997 analysis of the region by Zgibniew Brzezinski, formerly national security adviser to President Carter, in support of this theory. But, Vidal argues, US administrations, both Democrat and Republican, were aware that the American public would resist any war in Afghanistan without a truly massive and widely perceived external threat. 'Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long-contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan ... [because] the administration is convinced that Americans are so simple-minded that they can deal with no scenario more complex than the venerable, lone, crazed killer (this time with zombie helpers) who does evil just for the fun of it 'cause he hates us because we're rich 'n free 'n he's not.' Vidal also attacks the American media's failure to discuss 11 September and its consequences: 'Apparently, "conspiracy stuff" is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.''It is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life. Yet, a year or so ago, who would have thought that most of corporate America had been conspiring with accountants to cook their books since - well, at least the bright dawn of the era of Reagan and deregulation.'At the heart of the essay are questions about the events of 9/11 itself and the two hours after the planes were hijacked. Vidal writes that 'astonished military experts cannot fathom why the government's "automatic standard order of procedure in the event of a hijacking" was not followed'. These procedures, says Vidal, determine that fighter planes should automatically be sent aloft as soon as a plane has deviated from its flight plan. Presidential authority is not required until a plane is to be shot down. But, on 11 September, no decision to start launching planes was taken until 9.40am, eighty minutes after air controllers first knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked and fifty minutes after the first plane had struck the North Tower.'By law, the fighters should have been up at around 8.15. If they had, all the hijacked planes might have been diverted and shot down.'Vidal asks why Bush, as Commander-in-Chief, stayed in a Florida classroom as news of the attacks broke: 'The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions.' He also attacks the 'nonchalance' of General Richard B Myers, acting Joint Chief of Staff, in failing to respond until the planes had crashed into the twin towers.Asking whether these failures to act expeditiously were down to conspiracy, coincidence or error, Vidal notes that incompetence would usually lead to reprimands for those responsible, writing that 'It is interesting how often in our history, when disaster strikes, incompetence is considered a better alibi than .... Well, yes, there are worse things.'Vidal draws comparisons with another 'day of infamy' in American history, writing that 'The truth about Pearl Harbour is obscured to this day. But it has been much studied. 11 September, it is plain, is never going to be investigated if Bush has anything to say about it.' He quotes CNN reports that Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to limit Congressional investigation of the day itself, ostensibly on grounds of not diverting resources from the anti-terror campaign.Vidal calls bin Laden an 'Islamic zealot' and 'evil doer' but argues that 'war' cannot be waged on the abstraction of 'terrorism'. He says that 'Every nation knows how - if it has the means and will - to protect itself from thugs of the sort that brought us 9/11 ... You put a price on their heads and hunt them down. In recent years, Italy has been doing that with the Sicilian Mafia; and no-one has suggested bombing Palermo.'Vidal also highlights the role of American and Pakistani intelligence in creating the fundamentalist terrorist threat: 'Apparently, Pakistan did do it - or some of it' but with American support. "From 1979, the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ... the CIA covertly trained and sponsored these warriors.'Vidal also quotes the highly respected defence journal Jane's Defence Weekly on how this support for Islamic fundamentalism continued after the emergence of bin Laden: 'In 1988, with US knowledge, bin Laden created Al-Qaeda (The Base); a conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells spread across 26 or so countries. Washington turned a blind eye to Al-Qaeda.'Vidal, 77, and internationally renowned for his award-winning novels and plays, has long been a ferocious, and often isolated, critic of the Bush administration at home and abroad. He now lives in Italy. In Vidal's most recent book, The Last Empire, he argued that 'Americans have no idea of the extent of their government's mischief ... the number of military strikes we have made unprovoked, against other countries, since 1947 is more than 250.'
Observer special reports
Terrorism crisis: Observer special
Observer Worldview
9/11 and after: Observer Comment highlights
The new terrorism
27.10.2002: Peter Beaumont: The new romantics of death
Worldview highlights: more from Peter Beaumont
27.10.2002: Leader: Chechnya needs a careful response
27.10.2002: The Chechen terrorist leader
News
27.10.2002: Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit in 9/11
Talk: Gore Vidal on Bush
27.10.2002: Armed forces call up medics as Britain goes on a war footing
Iraq: Observer special
After the Bali bomb
27.10.2002: Indonesia asks, who are the terrorists?
Unseen Wars: Observer Worldview
20.10.2002: Mary Riddell: Innocent? Not any more
Comment highlights: best of Mary Riddell
20.10.2002: Leader: Know the enemy
The Al Qaeda trail
20.10.2002: Jason Burke: Secret mastermind behind the Bali horror
20.10.2002: Bin Laden's $20m African 'blood diamond' deals
More from Jason Burke
Observer special reports
Observer Worldview
Terrorism crisis: Observer special
Jason Burke's terrorism dispatch
Worldview: Peter Beaumont
Worldview: Dan Plesch
Worldview: Mark Leonard
Debating American power
Liberty Watch campaign
Iraq
Iraq: Observer special
15.09.2002: Jason Burke: Return to Kurdistan
Worldview highlights: best of Jason Burke
20.10.2002: How Iraqis are facing up to the threat of a US attack
20.10.2002: War plans under fire as even Bush heartland talks peace
Afghanistan
06.10.2002: Jason Burke: One year on in Afghanistan
23.06.2002: Dan Plesch: Can the Afghan peace hold?
Afghanistan: Observer special
Observer Comment highlights: the broadest debate
Observer Terrorism Crisis comment
Iraq: Observer special
08.09.2002: Bill Clinton: My vision for peace
14.07.2002: John Pilger: The great charade
25.08.2002: Christopher Hitchens: Hawks in the dovecote
08.09.2002: Andrew Rawnsley: Why war stirs the blood of Tony Blair
18.08.2002: Dirk Winterborn: Life after death
08.09.2002: Ariel Dorfman: An open letter to America
11.08.2002: Mark Leonard: Could the left back war on Iraq?
18.08.2002: Michael Steinberg: A lonely voice of New York dissent
11.08.2002: Anthony Sampson: West's greed for oil fuels Saddam fever
11.08.2002: Nick Cohen: Who will save Iraq?
04.08.2002: Richard Harries: This war would not be a just war
03.03.2002: Paul Kennedy: Has the US lost its way?
08.09.2002: Geoffrey Robertson: Use the law, not war
18.08.2002: Walter Mosley: Time for a new Black Power movement
10.03.2002: Fred Halliday: New world, but the same old disorder
Peter Beaumont: Bin Laden's men wait to take bloody revenge
10.03.2002: Peter Beaumont: America gears up for a new kind of war
07.10.2001: Kanan Makiya: Fighting Islam's Ku Klux Klan
23.12.2001: Henry Porter: The triumph of reason
20.01.2002: Christopher Hitchens: What Bush got right
27.01.2002: Paul Rogers: American unilateralism is back
23.09.2001: Peter Carey: letter from New York | | | | Alpha | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
