| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 3:50 am Post subject: PENTAGON NEOCON CABAL ORDERED IRAQ PRISON TORTURE |
| The following article (via the following URL link) is the latest one by Seymour
Hersh for the New Yorker magazine as it conveys that orders were given by
Rumsfeld (who is basically the front man for the neoconservative cabal at the
Pentagon which had the USA invade Iraq for Israel) for the torture (to include
sexual abuse) at the prison (s) in Iraq:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact
More on the neoconservative (Israel firster) cabal in the Bush regime is
mentioned in the following articles:
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/conc_toc.htm
http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/12/Counterpunch_1.html
http://www.vdare.com/misc/macdonald_neoconservatism.htm
Justin Raimondo has the following mention in his latest article at
http://www.antiwar.com/justin (also access the 'Who is John Israel' article
which is linked in the right margin at http://www.antiwar.com/justin):
On November 19, 2003, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez handed "tactical control" of the
prison over to Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade.
The Defense Department's position, as expressed by Stephen Cambone,
undersecretary of defense for intelligence, is to blame Karpinski: Taguba, on
the other hand, while not excusing Karpinski's lack of oversight, assigns the
primary blame to Pappas and two civilian contractors, Steven Stefanowicz and
the enigmatic John Israel, for "directly or indirectly" encouraging the seven
reservists from Maryland to act as they did. Cambone made quite a show of
disagreeing with Taguba, and this point of contention was explored by Senator
Birch Bayh in the following interchange with Cambone....
John Israel (with Titan) is apparently associated with Israeli intelligence
(Mossad or similar) as one should really focus on him and the other private
contractors if as the neocons at the Pentagon will try to really pin the prison
scandal on the seven enlisted soldiers while covering up the Israeli
intelligence association to the torture/abuse as much as they can.
Forwarded:
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen05102004.html
May 10, 2004
The Israeli Torture Template
Rape, Feces and Urine-Dipped Cloth Sacks
By WAYNE MADSEN
With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and
General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by
the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally
interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to
examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to
understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to
new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are
released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."
According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S.
intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of
Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the "R2I"
(Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were
developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on
the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself.
Clues about worse photos and videos of abuse may be found in Israeli files
about similar abuse of Palestinian and other Arab prisoners. In March 2000, a
lawyer for a Lebanese prisoner kidnapped in 1994 by the Israelis in Lebanon
claimed that his client had been subjected to torture, including rape. The type
of compensation offered by Rumsfeld in his testimony has its roots in cases of
Israeli torture of Arabs. In the case of the Lebanese man, said to have been
raped by his Israeli captors, his lawyer demanded compensation of $1.47
million. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel documented the types of
torture meted out on Arab prisoners. Many of the tactics coincide with those
contained in the Taguba report: beatings and prolonged periods handcuffed to
furniture. In an article in the December 1998 issue of The Progressive, Rabbi
Lynn Gottlieb reported on the treatment given to a 23-year old Palestinian held
on "administrative detention." The prisoner was "cuffed behind a chair 17 hours
a day for 120 days . . . [he] had his head covered with a sack, which was often
dipped in urine or feces. Guards played loud music right next to his ears and
frequently taunted him with threats of physical and sexual violence." If
additional photos and videos document such practices, the Bush administration
and the American people have, indeed, "seen nothing yet."
Although it is still largely undocumented if any of the contractor named in the
report of General Antonio Taguba were associated with the Israeli military or
intelligence services, it is noteworthy that one, John Israel, who was
identified in the report as being employed by both CACI International of
Arlington, Virginia, and Titan, Inc., of San Diego, may not have even been a
U.S. citizen. The Taguba report states that Israel did not have a security
clearance, a requirement for employment as an interrogator for CACI. According
to CACI's web site, "a Top Secret Clearance (TS) that is current and US
citizenship" are required for CACI interrogators working in Iraq. In addition,
CACI requires that its interrogators "have at least two years experience as a
military policeman or similar type of law enforcement/intelligence agency
whereby the individual utilized interviewing techniques."
Speculation that "John Israel" may be an intelligence cover name has fueled
speculation whether this individual could have been one of a number of Israeli
interrogators hired under a classified contract. Because U.S. citizenship and
documentation thereof are requirements for a U.S. security clearance, Israeli
citizens would not be permitted to hold a Top Secret clearance. However, dual
U.S.-Israeli citizens could have satisfied Pentagon requirements that
interrogators hold U.S. citizenship and a Top Secret clearance. Although the
Taguba report refers twice to Israel as an employee of Titan, the company
claims he is one of their sub-contractors. CACI stated that one of the men
listed in the report "is not and never has been a CACI employee" without
providing more detail. A U.S. intelligence source revealed that in the world of
intelligence "carve out" subcontracts such confusion is often the case with
"plausible deniability" being a foremost concern.
In fact, the Taguba report does reference the presence of non-U.S. and
non-Iraqi interrogators at Abu Ghraib. The report states, "In general, US
civilian contract personnel (Titan Corporation, CACI, etc), third country
nationals, and local contractors do not appear to be properly supervised within
the detention facility at Abu Ghraib."
The Pentagon is clearly concerned about the outing of the Taguba report and its
references to CACI, Titan, and third country nationals, which could permanently
damage U.S. relations with Arab and Islamic nations. The Pentagon's angst may
explain why the Taguba report is classified Secret No Foreign Dissemination.
The leak of the Taguba report was so radioactive, Daniel R. Dunn, the
Information Assurance Officer for Douglas Feith's Office of the Under Secretary
of Defense, Policy (Policy Automation Services Security Team), sent a May 6,
2004, For Official Use Only Urgent E-mail to Pentagon staffers stating, "THE
INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO
READ OR OBTAIN A COPY." Considering Feith's close ties to the Israelis, such a
reaction by his top computer security officer, a Certified Information System
Security Professional (CISSP), is understandable, although considering the fact
that CISSPs are to act on behalf of the public good, it is also regrettable..
The reference to "third country nationals" in a report that restricts its
dissemination to U.S. coalition partners (Great Britain, Poland, Italy, etc.)
is another indication of the possible involvement of Israelis in the
interrogation of Iraqi prisoners. Knowledge that the U.S. may have been using
Israeli interrogators could have severely fractured the Bush administration's
tenuous "coalition of the willing' in Iraq. General Taguba's findings were
transmitted to the Coalition Forces Land Component Command on March 9, 2004,
just six days before the Spanish general election, one that the opposition
anti-Iraq war Socialists won. The Spanish ultimately withdrew their forces from
Iraq.
During his testimony before the Senate Armed Service Committee, Rumsfeld was
pressed upon by Senator John McCain about the role of the private contractors
in the interrogations and abuse. McCain asked Rumsfeld four pertinent
questions, ". . . who was in charge? What agency or private contractor was in
charge of the interrogations? Did they have authority over the guards? And what
were the instructions that they gave to the guards?"
When Rumsfeld had problems answering McCain's question, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith,
the Deputy Commander of the U.S. Central Command, said there were 37 contract
interrogators used in Abu Ghraib. The two named contractors, CACI and Titan,
have close ties to the Israeli military and technology communities. Last
January 14, after Provost Marshal General of the Army, Major General Donald
Ryder, had already uncovered abuse at Abu Ghraib, CACI's President and CEO, Dr.
J.P. (Jack) London was receiving the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah's Albert
Einstein Technology award at the Jerusalem City Hall, with right-wing Likud
politician Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and ultra-Orthodox United Torah
Judaism party Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski in attendance. Oddly, CACI waited
until February 2 to publicly announce the award in a press release. CACI has
also received grants from U.S.-Israeli bi-national foundations.
Titan also has had close connections to Israeli interests. After his stint as
CIA Director, James Woolsey served as a Titan director. Woolsey is an architect
of America's Iraq policy and the chief proponent of and lobbyist for Ahmad
Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. An adviser to the neo-conservative
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Jewish Institute of National
Security Affairs, Project for the New American Century, Center for Security
Policy, Freedom House, and Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Woolsey is
close to Stephen Cambone, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, a key
person in the chain of command who would have not only known about the torture
tactics used by U.S. and Israeli interrogators in Iraq but who would have also
approved them. Cambone was associated with the Project for the New American
Century and is viewed as a member of Rumsfeld's neo-conservative "cabal" within
the Pentagon.
Another person considered by Pentagon insiders to have been knowledgeable about
the treatment of Iraqi prisoners is U.S. Army Col. Steven Bucci, a Green Beret
and Rumsfeld's military assistant and chief traffic cop for the information
flow to the Defense Secretary. According to Pentagon insiders, Bucci was
involved in the direction of a special covert operations unit composed of
former U.S. special operations personnel who answered to the Pentagon rather
than the CIA's Special Activities Division, the agency's own paramilitary
group. The Pentagon group included Arabic linguists and former members of the
Green Berets and Delta Force who operated covertly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran,
Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. Titan also uses linguists trained in the languages
(Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu, and Tajik) of those same countries. It is
not known if a link exists between Rumsfeld's covert operations unit and
Titan's covert operations linguists.
Another Titan employee named in the Taguba report is Adel L. Nakhla. Nakhla is
a name common among Egypt's Coptic Christian community, however, it is not
known if Adel Nakhla is either an Egyptian-American or a national of Egypt. A
CACI employee identified in the report, Steven Stephanowicz, is referred to as
"Stefanowicz" in a number of articles on the prison abuse. Stefanowicz is the
spelling used by Joe Ryan, another CACI employee assigned with Stefanowicz to
Abu Ghraib. Ryan is a radio personality on KSTP, a conservative radio station
in Minneapolis, who maintained a daily log of his activities in Iraq on the
radio's web site before it was taken down. Ryan indicated that Stefanowicz (or
Stephanowicz) continued to hold his interrogation job in Iraq even though
General Taguba recommended he lose his security clearance and be terminated for
the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
In an even more bizarre twist, the Philadelphia Daily News identified a former
expatriate public relations specialist for the government of South Australia in
Adelaide named Steve Stefanowicz as possibly being the same person identified
in the Taguba report. In 2000, Stefanowicz, who grew up in the Philadelphia and
Allentown areas, left for Australia. On September 16, 2001, he was quoted by
the Sunday Mail of Adelaide on the 911 attacks. He said of the attacks, "It was
one of the most incredible and most devastating things I have ever seen. I have
been in constant contact with my family and friends in the US and the mood was
very solemn and quiet. But this is progressing into anger." Stefanowicz
returned to the United States and volunteered for the Navy in a reserve status.
His mother told the Allentown Morning Call in April 2002 that Stefanowicz was
stationed somewhere in the Middle East but did not know where because of what
Stefanowicz said was "security concerns." His mother told the Philadelphia
Daily News that her son was in Iraq but she knew nothing about his current
status.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist.
He served in the National Security Agency (NSA) during the Reagan
administration and wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth. He is the
co-author, with John Stanton, of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George
Bush II." His forthcoming book is titled: "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops, and
Brass Plates."
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
http://www.antiwar.com/justin
Who is John Israel?
He could be one of the secret masterminds behind the Abu Ghraib outrage
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2558 | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 3:53 am Post subject: Pentagon Israel 1st'er Feith set stage for Iraq abuse |
| Subject: Pentagon Israel 1st'er Feith set stage for Iraq abuse
From: infoguy123@aol.com (InfoGuy123)
Date: 5/16/04 7:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time
AntiWar.com
May 16, 2004
Feith Sidelined JAGs
JAG lawyers are blaming Bush administration political appointees, specifically
Douglas Feith, for blocking them from the Iraqi prison system because they
insisted on humane treatment and Geneva Convention protections for detainees,
setting the stage for the torture chambers that developed in the military
detention facilities in Iraq.
As the military's uniformed lawyers, JAG officers are in charge of instructing
military commanders on how to adhere to domestic and international rules
regarding the treatment of detainees.
"If we — 'we' being the uniformed lawyers — had been listened to, and what
we said put into practice, then these abuses would not have occurred," said
Rear Admiral Don Guter (ret.), the Navy Judge Advocate General from 2000 to
2002.
Specifically, JAG officers say they have been marginalized by Douglas Feith,
undersecretary of defense for policy, and William Haynes II, the Pentagon's
general counsel, whom President Bush has nominated for a judgeship on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Feith, predictably, denies it. However, a group of JAG officers consulted the
New York City Bar Association twice in 2003, a measure of their extreme
concern.
Matters got so frustrating that in May and October 2003, eight senior JAG
officers took the rare step of going outside the chain of command to meet
secretly with the New York City Bar Association, warning of a "disaster waiting
to happen".
"They felt that there had been a conscious effort to create an atmosphere of
legal ambiguity surrounding these detention facilities, and that it had been
done to give interrogators the broadest possible latitude in their conduct of
operations," Scott Horton, former chair of the New York City Bar Association's
Committee on International Human Rights, told ABCNEWS. Horton's meeting with
the JAG officers was first reported by Salon.com.
This "atmosphere of legal ambiguity," JAG officials told ABCNEWS, began in
early 2002, when the Bush administration decided the Geneva Conventions' rules
for humane treatment of prisoners did not apply to the war on terror, and to
the suspects seized in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo. For the war in Iraq,
the Geneva Conventions were supposed to apply … but JAG sources say there was
little to no clarification of that.
"When you say something down the chain of command like, 'The Geneva Conventions
don't apply,' that sets the stage for the kind of chaos that we've seen," said
Rear Admiral John Hutson (ret.), who was the Navy Judge Advocate General from
1997 to 2000.
Feith responds with this joke: "There has not been, ever, any ambiguity about
the strong support that the leadership of this department gives to the Geneva
Conventions." They "strongly support" the Geneva Conventions, they just don't
think they apply to anyone they capture or detain.
Rep. Steve Buyer, (R-Ind.), a JAG in the Army Reserves, wanted to offer his
services in Iraq. But even though the Army wanted him there, Pentagon political
appointees vetoed him going. Buyer told ABCNEWS' John Cochran that he tried to
convey to his Pentagon civilian contact how important it was to ensure against
the abuse of Iraqi prisoners and detainees, telling him: "You have to get
somebody that's qualified in international law and the Geneva Conventions to
serve in that brigade … I'm pretty shocked that this never happened."
Buyer was referring to the 800th Military Police Brigade, seven of whose
reservists are now facing charges in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal.
Buyer isn't the only one to question why there didn't seem to be a significant
JAG presence for interrogations at detention centers like Abu Ghraib. Horton
says the JAGs who reached out to the New York City Bar Association complained
about a new "practice" of keeping JAGs away. And Admiral Guter says when he was
Navy JAG from 2000 until 2002, "JAGs were clamoring for assignments of this
kind of importance, so I know they were available. And if they're available and
you don't send them, then I have to say you don't send them on purpose."
"If ye love wealth better than liberty ... servitude better than ... freedom,
go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsel or your arms ... May your
chains set lightly upon you. May posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 5:24 am Post subject: Kerry-McCain Neocon War Duo |
| Subj: Kerry-McCain Neocon War Duo
Date: 5/16/04 9:57:52 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: hectorpv@comcast.net
To: hectorpv@comcast.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Friends,
Kerry-McCain Neocon War Duo
As the Iraq war oscillates between tragedy and farce, the mainstream has presented the Bush administration (quite fairly) in a negative light, which would seem to boost the Kerry campaign—although Bush has a large basic core of conservative, Middle American supporters who are immune to the mainstream media. But while criticizing particular aspects of the Bush war, Kerry has never indicated in the least that he would withdraw American troops from Iraq or pursue a less militaristic foreign policy in the Middle East. Kerry has capped this off by recently announcing that he would like arch- war hawk John McCain as his Secretary of Defense. Kerry and McCain are supposedly close personal friends. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/192880p-166663c.html
Yes, McCain is doing a good job criticizing the prison atrocities. But McCain has long been the quintessential war hawk. McCain was, in fact, THE FAVORITE CANDIDATE OF THE NEOCONS in the 2000 Republican Primary. As Franklin Foer, editor of the liberal New Republic, put it during the 2000 campaign: "Jewish neoconservatives have fallen hard for John McCain. It's not just unabashed swooner William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard. McCain has also won over such leading neocon lights as David Brooks, the entire Podhoretz family, The Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz, and columnist Charles Krauthammer, who declared, in a most un-Semitic flourish, ‘He suffered for our sins.’" [On the net at "Zeus Worshippers for McCain," http://www.free-market.info/main0002b/messages/658007236.html ]
While Dubya never referred to Saddam in 2000, McCain was openly calling for the removal of Saddam and he had been a leader in pushing though the "Iraq Liberation Act"in Congress. McCain, in fact, was advocating the elimination of all rogue states with his proclamation of "rogue state rollback." "Rogue states," of course, include all of Israel’s enemies. [http://www.antiwar.com/justin/pf/p-j021800.html]
Neoconservatives were initially attracted to McCain for his support of the US war on Serbia, on which many conservatives were decidedly cool. In fact, McCain criticized Clinton for being too soft in his war policy because of his refusal to send in ground troops.
It is highly significant that with disenchantment with the war growing, Kerry would identify so openly with a major war hawk and thus possibly drive away some antiwar voters. (Columnist Robert Scheer says that it would be politically wise for Kerry to take an antiwar position http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6092.htm) However, Kerry probably considers the identification with McCain as a political plus. McCain has been high in the polls with the media image of an independently-minded statesman (and war hero) of great integrity and as a "moderate" who does respectable things such as championing campaign finance reform and criticizing the Christian Right. Kerry and his political strategists must believe that he gains more politically by identifying with the pro-military McCain—thus combating the charge that he is "soft on defense." Presumably, the winning of potential Bush voters by this gambit would more than offset the loss of any peace voters to Nader. But no matter what Kerry’s motivation, the upshot of his identification with McCain underscores the war orientation of a future Kerry administration.
McCain especially takes a very pro-Israel position and had been doing so for some time, unlike Bush’s father who had been considered hostile to Israeli interests. McCain, on the other hand, was presented with the Defender of Jerusalem award—among previous winners were Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Abe. Rosenthal--by the National Council of Young Israel in 1999 for his efforts on behalf of the Jewish state. In his acceptance speech for this award, McCain told his Jewish audience that the US should be prepared to make war for Israel. McCain said: "Certainly, no one would argue with the proposition that our armed forces exist first and foremost for the defense of the United States and its vital interests abroad. . . . We choose, as a nation, however, to intervene militarily abroad in defense of the moral values that are at the center of our national conscientiousness even when vital national interests are not necessarily at stake. I raise this point because it lies at the heart of this nation’s approach to Israel. The survival of Israel is one of this country’s most important moral commitments. . . .Like the United States, Israel is more than a nation; it is an ideal. . . ." [Joseph Sobran, The Wanderer, February 24, 2000, p. 6]
Maybe Kerry and McCain could do now do more for the neocon agenda than the discredited Bush administration. Neocons have no loyalty to the Republican Party or to the conservative movement (which they are currently using as an instrument for their agenda.) In his support for McCain in 2000, Bill Kristol pronounced the conservative movement to be dead. "Leaderless, rudderless and issueless, the conservative movement, which accomplished great things over the past quarter-century, is finished." [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/2000-02/02/046r-020200-idx.html]
Because of some dissension on the war in conservative ranks, Kristol recently been hinting that the neocons move over to the war liberals. While saying that he still preferred Bush to Kerry, Kristol stated that "If we have to make common cause with the more hawkish liberals and fight the conservatives, that is fine with me, too."
Referring to a famous aphorism of his neocon father, Irving Kristol, that a neoconservative was "a liberal who has been mugged by reality," Bill Kristol joked that now the neocons might end up as neoliberals — defined as "neoconservatives who had been mugged by reality in Iraq." http://nelmezzo.typepad.com/nel_mezzo/2004/04/kristol_to_cons.html
War liberals such as Andy Sullivan want a Kerry- McCain ticket. And this unlikely development has been bandied about. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/04/13/slamming_the_door_on_a_kerry_mccain_ticket/] Now this is highly unlikely; it is even unlikely that McCain would become part of Kerry’s cabinet, but Kerry’s willingness to identify with McCain underscores his explicit pro-war orientation.
____________________________
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/v-pfriendly/story/192880p-166663c.html
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Kerry: McCain as defense sec'y
Thursday, May 13th, 2004
ORLANDO - John Kerry knows whom he wants running the Pentagon: Republican John McCain.
The Democratic presidential hopeful said yesterday the fellow Vietnam War vet would be his top pick to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who Kerry thinks should resign following revelations of the torture of Iraqi prisoners.
"I'm not the President today," Kerry told Don Imus on his radio show, but, "I have any number of people that I would make Secretary of Defense, beginning with our good friend John McCain, as an example."
The Arizona senator's name has surfaced on the long list of potential running mates for Kerry, but he has denied any interest.
"No thanks, no thanks," McCain said in Washington yesterday, when asked about Kerry's latest comments about the top Defense Department job.
Kerry added that "there are a number of people [who] are unbelievably capable." Other possible Pentagon bosses he said he would support include Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John Warner (R-Va.), the top-ranking members of the Armed Services Committee.
News Wire Services
__________________
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=express&s=sullivan051104
DAILY EXPRESS
That's the Ticket
by Andrew Sullivan
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 05.11.04
There is one obvious possible result of the Abu Ghraib fiasco, and it affects the presidential election profoundly: It has, I think, made the possibility of a Kerry-McCain ticket much more imaginable. In fact, in some ways, a Kerry-McCain pairing would be an almost painfully appropriate response to the recent loss of confidence both in the war and in the Kerry candidacy. Such a bipartisan ticket remains highly unlikely, but recent events make it less so.
Here's why. There is no one better suited in the country to tackle a difficult war where the United States is credibly accused of abusing prisoners than John McCain. He was, after all, a victim of the worst kind of prisoner torture imaginable in the Hanoi Hilton. His military credentials are impeccable but so are his moral scruples and backbone; that's a rare combination. As a vice-presidential candidate, he would allow Kerry to criticize the conduct of the war and occupation, but also to pursue them credibly. He would give Kerry credibility on national defense, removing the taint of an "antiwar" candidacy headed by a man who helped pioneer the antiwar forces during Vietnam. He would ensure that a Kerry victory would not be interpreted by America's allies or enemies as a decision to cut and run from Iraq.
In office, McCain could be given real authority as a war-manager, providing a counterweight to Kerry's penchant for U.N.-style non-solutions. There's a precedent for such a powerful vice-president who could not credibly be believed to have designs on the Oval Office himself: Dick Cheney. Why no credible ambitions for the presidency himself? If McCain agreed to run with Kerry, he would also have to agree to support Kerry for possible reelection. There's no way that McCain could credibly run for president in eight years' time--as a Democrat or as a Republican. So he could become for Kerry what Cheney has been for Bush: a confidant, a manager, a strategic mind, a guide through the thicket of war-management. But he could also be more for Kerry: He could be a unifying force in the country in the dark days ahead.
Domestically, a Kerry-McCain ticket would also go a long way toward healing the Vietnam wound, now rubbed raw again by recent events in Iraq. The two men represent very different responses to that war, and could help unite their generation--finally!--over it. To have two combat veterans up against Bush and Cheney would also eviscerate Republican attempts to paint Kerry as weak on defense and in the war on terror. Besides, McCain represents a real and utterly unrepresented constituency in America: the fiscally conservative, socially tolerant hawks, usually described as "independents." By bringing these people into the Democratic big tent, Kerry could not only win the election, but help position the Democrats to regain majority status. It would be, for the Democrats, a strategic coup de main.
McCain, of course, is a Republican. But he has worked with many Democrats, including Kerry, and has been systematically excluded by the increasingly fundamentalist caste of the Republican establishment. On domestic issues, such as campaign finance reform, corporate scandals, and the deficit, he might actually be more comfortable in conservative Democratic ranks. He is pro-life, which makes him anathema to Democrats. But this year, with Kerry under fire from the Catholic hierarchy on the abortion question, picking McCain would enable the Democratic candidate to insist that there is real diversity within his own party, and that he respects those who disagree with him on abortion. His position would remain the same, but he could go a long way to reversing the unfortunate litmus test among Democrats and Republicans that abortion has become.
Would McCain agree? The one sticking point has been his loyalty to his party. That counts for something. But we are now in a national crisis of confidence in the middle of a crucial war. The next president, whomever he is, may well have to encounter seismic shocks from new terrorist atrocities in America and the world. Under those circumstances, America cannot afford more polarization, partisan division, and acrimony. In parliamentary democracies, such crises sometimes provoke the formation of a "national government" in which both major parties serve together. (People forget that Churchill staffed his war cabinet with a plethora of Laborites.) The American tradition demands otherwise. But the need to heal divisions and yet fight on in Iraq and around the world would lead naturally to a particularly American version of the national government in the shape of a unity ticket.
McCain could say that this national crisis demands that he put country ahead of party and serve. His loyalty to his party would therefore be trumped by loyalty to his country. Kerry could also say that his impulse is to be a "uniter, not a divider," and that, unlike Bush, he will actually show it in his pick for the vice-presidency. Their platform? Winning the war, cutting the deficit, reforming corporate excess. A Kerry-McCain ticket, regardless of the many difficulties, would, I think, win in a landslide. Will it happen? Still unlikely. But Abu Ghraib has shortened the odds; and the arguments for such a dramatic innovation just got a lot stronger.
Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at TNR. | | | | Alpha | | | | Shnozzle | | Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 4:19 pm Post subject: |
| Attaboy Alpha,
Thanks for the info. Good stuff.
Here is interesting info on Zionist Advocacy (ako Propaganda)
-----------------------
As intifada rages, advocacy efforts are hatched in living room meetings.
... Last month, the 'Israel Project' launched a 'Press Ambassadors' program that will train Israel advocates across America to serve as liaisons to local journalists and editors whose input shapes coverage of the conflict. ..
... the word “advocacy” immediately brings to mind biased media coverage ...
.. training session in Los Angeles for 'Stand With Us' activists ...
.. 'Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America' ..
... 'Honest Reporting' ..
.. In communities across the country, scores of informal media monitoring groups have cropped up to keep tabs on local news organizations. Local JCRCs, as well as the national Jewish defense organizations, offer guidance. ..
.. 'Israel 21C' and 'Access/Middle East' ..
... Does Israel need so many approaches to building positive public opinion? ...
http://jta.org/page_view_story.asp?strwebhead=Grass%2Droots+pro%2DIsrael+leaders+spring+up&intcategoryid=4 | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 6:18 pm Post subject: R.Paul: Don't start a war with Iran re HR 398 |
| Subj: R.Paul: Don't start a war with Iran re HR 398
Date: 5/16/04 9:12:31 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: rbleier@igc.org
To: rbleier@igc.org
Sent from the Internet (Details)
May 15, 2004
Don't Start a War With Iran
by Rep. Ron Paul
Republican from Texas --1988 Libertarian candidate for president
Statement on H. Con. Res. 398: Expressing the concern of Congress over Iran's development of the means to produce nuclear weapons, 6 May 2004.
I rise in strong opposition to this ill-conceived and ill-timed legislation. Let's not fool ourselves: this concurrent resolution leads us down the road to war against Iran. It creates a precedent for future escalation, as did similar legislation endorsing "regime change" in Iraq back in 1998.
I find it incomprehensible that as the failure of our Iraq policy becomes more evident – even to its most determined advocates -we here are approving the same kind of policy toward Iran. With Iraq becoming more of a problem daily, the solution as envisioned by this legislation is to look for yet another fight. And we should not fool ourselves: this legislation sets the stage for direct conflict with Iran. The resolution "calls upon all State Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), including the United States, to use all appropriate means to deter, dissuade, and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons..." Note the phrase "...use all appropriate means...."
Additionally, this legislation calls for yet more and stricter sanctions on Iran, including a demand that other countries also impose sanctions on Iran. As we know, sanctions are unmistakably a move toward war, particularly when, as in this legislation, a demand is made that the other nations of the world similarly isolate and blockade the country. Those who wish for a regime change in Iran should especially reject sanctions – just look at how our Cuba policy has allowed Fidel Castro to maintain his hold on power for decades. Sanctions do not hurt political leaders, as we know most recently from our sanctions against Iraq, but rather sow misery among the poorest and most vulnerable segments of society. Dictators do not go hungry when sanctions are imposed.
It is somewhat ironic that we are again meddling in Iranian affairs. Students of history will recall that the US government's ill-advised coup against Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and its subsequent installation of the Shah as the supreme ruler led to intense hatred of the United States and eventually to the radical Islamic revolution of 1979. One can only wonder what our relations would be with Iran if not for the decades of meddling in that country's internal affairs. We likely would not be considering resolutions such as this. Yet the solution to all the difficulties created by our meddling foreign policy always seems to always be yet more meddling. Will Congress ever learn?
I urge my colleagues to reject this move toward war with Iran, to reject the failed policies of regime-change and nation-building, and to return to the wise and consistent policy of non-interventionism in the affairs of other sovereign nations.
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/paul/index.php | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 7:22 pm Post subject: MEMRI and the neocon web |
| From: "Sami AlBanna" <salbanna@a...>
Date: Sun May 16, 2004 8:52 pm
Subject: Funny Mirrors < By Ahdaf Soueif < Index on Censorship 06JUN03>
ADVERTISEMENT
One more valuable contribution from Ahdaf Soueif about MEMRI and the neocon web. Thanks Ahdaf.
Sami
-------
[QUOTE]
Paragraph 10 ...
Most of the US administration's and media's information on the Arabs is now
derived from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), co-founded by Meyrav Wurmser, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute. According to the Guardian, MEMRI is connected with Israeli Army Intelligence and feeds the media and politicians with highly selective quotations from extreme Arab publications.(4)
Footnote 4 ....
4. Meyrav Wurmser's husband, Davis Wurmser, heads Middle East Studies at
Richard Perle's American Enterprise Institute.
[UNQUOTE]
-----Original Message-----
From: Ahdaf Soueif
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 5:52 PM
To: salbanna@attglobal.net
Subject: RE: FW: FW: The Iraqi File ( 16/05/2004 )
Sami:
My piece published in Index on Censorship June 6 2003. Note particularly
the paragraph 10 and footnote 4.
Take care
Ahdaf
--------------------
Once again it's funny mirrors time. The world watches the meetings taking
place by the Red Sea, and western media see one process taking place while
the Arabs generally see another.
Interpreting these meetings is largely a matter of how you view the
relationship between the USA and Israel. A few weeks ago I heard a
well-known British columnist say he was sick of being told that the
Palestinian/Israeli conflict was the 'litmus test' for how people can expect the American Imperium to influence the world. Yet "Freedom for Palestine" was the demand on millions of the banners in the anti-war demonstrations that swept the world last February.
America's support for Israel dates to the beginning of the Zionist project
in the late 19th century and grew stronger throughout the 20th. From 1949 to the present, for every dollar the US spent on an African, it spent $250.65 on an Israeli, and for every dollar it spent on someone from the Western Hemisphere outside the US, it spent $214 on an Israeli.(1) As Israel grows stronger the support becomes more solid. According to Stephen Zunes, Chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at San Francisco University, "99 percent of all US aid to Israel took place after the 1967 war."(2)
In the United Nations the US has used its veto against 34 resolutions
related to the Arab/Israeli conflict.
US support for Israel has involved turning a blind eye not only to Israeli
flouting of international law, but to Israeli anti-American activities such
as: spying (Jonathan Jay Pollard 1985 and David Tenenbaum 1997), selling
arms to China (1990 onwards), espionage against American companies (cited in the Wall Street Journal, 1992) and attacks on the dignity and the lives of American subjects as in the bombing of the USS Liberty in 1967, the beating by Israeli police of David Muirhead who was working on an American-financed project to restore the main street in al-Khalil (Hebron) in 1997, the turning back of a US Congressional delegation from the Allenby Bridge in August 2002 and, in April, the Israeli Army's shooting of peace activist
Brian Avery in Jenin and its killing of Rachel Corrie in Rafah.
Washington matches actions with words. On May 18th 2000, the Democratic
candidate for the Presidency, Al Gore, addressing the powerful pro-Israeli
Washington lobby, AIPAC, was able to say: "The United States has an
absolute, uncompromising commitment to Israel's security and an absolute
conviction that Israel alone must decide the steps necessary to ensure that
security. That is Israel's prerogative. We accept that. We endorse that.
Whatever Israel decides cannot, will not, will never, not ever alter our
fundamental commitment to her security."
You might have thought support couldn't come much stronger. But the group
now known as the 'neo-cons', who became established in George W Bush's
administration, were waiting for a chance to demonstrate higher levels of
commitment. The policies they dreamed of before coming to power are
well-documented (3). They were handed the opportunity to leverage these
policies into action by the murderous attacks on the Twin Towers and the
Pentagon on the morning of 11 September 2001. That day four major Israeli
politicians, Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak and Benyamin Netanyahu,
took to the TV screens to assert that the terror just suffered by the
Americans was the identical terror endured by Israel since its establishment - to drive home the point Israel had been pushing for years: that Israel's enemies were America's enemies.
But this was not always the case. Arabs (and some Israelis) believe that
without American support Israel would have had to reach a just accommodation with the Palestinians. But since the ‘Sixties at least the yardstick used by the US to measure the acceptability/goodness of an Arab country has been its government's stance towards Israel. The softer the stance the more
'moderate' or 'friendly' the country has been considered. It therefore came
as a shock to the US public that the 19 hijackers who crashed aeroplanes
into the Trade Towers and the Pentagon with such deadly results were from
Egypt and Saudi-Arabia: countries regarded as 'moderate'. The true albeit
unpopular answer to this puzzle is that the more friendly, (ie. subservient) a regime is to an America which so identifies itself with (an intransigent) Israel the harder that regime has had to oppress its own people and to close off all their legitimate means of political opposition. This is possibly one of the most terrible effects the American-Israeli alliance has had on the Arab world: that most of the Arab men and women who could have played important roles in developing their countries' civil and political institutions have been de-activated. Some have ended up feeling that the only path left open to them is the path of extremism clothed in the robes of what is now called ‘militant Islam’.
These processes are absent from any discussion of America's relationship
with the Arabs. So, in the New Yorker, for example, Seymour Hersch can give
a detailed analysis of the internal problems of Saudi Arabia without ever
touching on why a 'nationalist' government in Saudi might be unenthusiastic
about selling oil to America. This holds for practically all the mainstream
media in the US. The support of America for Israel has been likened to the
elephant in the drawing-room; everybody sees it but nobody mentions it. Any
discussion of America's relationship with the Arabs therefore has an
elephant-sized hole at its heart. And pundits come forward to fill the hole
with chatter about the 'innate hostility' of the Arabs to the US or the
'nihilism' of the terrorists or the 'fanatical nature' of Islam. Debate is
reduced to 'they hate us because we are rich / free / democratic /
unveiled.'
Most of the US administration's and media's information on the Arabs is now
derived from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), co-founded by Meyrav Wurmser, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute. According to the Guardian, MEMRI is connected with Israeli Army Intelligence and feeds the media and politicians with highly selective quotations from extreme Arab publications.(4)
The proposition put forward by the USA and Israel today is that they share
common values - basically a commitment to freedom and democracy. American
politicians are constantly upping the rhetoric on the indivisibility of
America and Israel:
". . . in war and peace, the United States has stood proudly at Israel's
side. Our two nations and peoples are bound together by our common
democratic values and traditions. So it has been for over 50 years. So it
will always be."
Secretary of State Colin Powell to AIPAC, March 30, 2003
Next day:
"As always, there are some, here and abroad, who would drive a wedge between America and Israel. But to do so would be to separate America from its best self. .. our commitment to Israel grows from our duty to preserve the great heritage of liberty and democracy of which we are the most fortunate heirs and the most powerful defenders."
Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle to AIPAC,March 31, 2003
In this view America and Israel’s love of liberty and democracy earn them
the hatred of what prominent neo-cons have called the 'uncivilised' part of
the world. The only way to end this 'hatred' is through a civilizing
mission; a process which the US has now started in Iraq. This can be seen as a logical move within long-term Israeli strategy. Israel has always sold itself to the West on the basis of the state’s oppositional relationship to its chosen environment. Herzl assured the British Foreign Office at the end of the 19th century that Israel would provide a civilised bulwark against the barbarian hordes of Islam. Today, Israel's image is of a beacon of civilisation and, increasingly, America's only trustworthy friend in the region.
While some US policies (notably re the environment and trade) and the
increasingly murky revelations about the links between corporate America
and its government (5) make much of the world deeply uneasy, America's
unwavering support for Israel has implicated it in a whole range of
behaviours which have brought its modus operandi very close to its
prot駩’s; in the past two years the United States has joined Israel in
- manipulating or side-lining international institutions
- ignoring accepted principles of international law (eg. setting up
Guantanamo Bay, sanctioning assassinations world-wide)(6)
- ignoring accepted principles of human rights (eg. carrying out illegal
detentions including the detention of children, condoning the use of
torture)(7)
- adopting military policies to achieve its political ends, embracing a
policy of ‘preventive’ war
- moving to curtail the civil rights of its own citizens (eg. The Patriot
Act)
- encouraging the media to adopt government views and attempting to gag
media which is not their own
Meanwhile the voice of the Christian Right has moved in from the margins and
the discourse of this Right and of members of the administration has become
less guarded in its jingoism and its racism.
The US administration has now joined Israel in presenting itself as engaged
in an existential war. Both states promote images of themselves as nations
injured to a point of no return - Israel by the Holocaust and America by
September 11. In justifying the current war George W Bush said it would be
"suicidal" of the US not to attack Iraq.
The injury done them and the danger they are in justify putting aside
institutions, concepts, ways of being that have taken centuries to evolve
and from which they themselves – paradoxically – continue (in their own
eyes) to derive their legitimacy . The paradox is accommodated in the image
of the ‘tough’ but ‘reluctant’ fighter who takes up arms with a heavy heart
because he has no other choice. Both countries evoke a national psychology
which needs (for the sake of survival) to overcome a kind of wimpishness.
For Zionism the wimpishness is that of the Diaspora Jews – who finally
‘allowed themselves’ to be destroyed. For Americans it’s the fallout from
guilt over Vietnam.
Americans and Israelis also seem to share a view of themselves as a 'chosen’ people. In Israel's case this is through the Covenant. In America's case a recent poll confirmed that 92% of those polled believed that God "personally and individually loved them". To be American is to be Good. We now hear talk of a 'shared mission’ as in House Republican leader Tom DeLay's speech at Boca Raton (on the occasion of the death of the astronauts - among them the Israeli Ilan Ramon) in which he talked of a destiny shared by America and Israel and asked for divine assistance in protecting both. (Newsweek, 2/6/2003).
In this fight for their existence; the Battle beween Good and Evil, there
are no middle grounds no critical stances. You are either “with us” or
“against us." Americans who are not "with" the United States' official
policy are traitors, non-Americans are enemies. Jews who are not "with"
Israeli policy are self-haters, non-Jews are anti-semitic. "Enemies" and
"anti-semites" are of course beyond negotiation or toleration; they have to
be annihilated.
Americans on the whole appear genuinely uncomfortable being at odds with
Israel. Israeli transgressions, injustices etc cannot be discussed as freely as those of any other country. Indeed it seems almost in bad taste to express any reservations about the 'only democracy' in the Arab region. You can decry the absence of practical equality between black and white people in the USA, or talk about the history and plight of the country's Native Americans but it is a terrible faux pas to mention that Israel, by law, is not the same state for its Muslim and Christian citizens as it is for its Jewish ones.
It is possible that underlying this unease is the need to believe in the
essential 'goodness' of Israel, a corollary of its 'moral' (as distinct
from its de facto) right to exist. The intellectual inconsistency between
deploring Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza today and applauding
the even more extreme actions it took in the region in 1948 and the years
leading up to must be deeply problematic.
In this context one should note National Security Adviser, Condoleezza
Rice’s words in her May interview with Israel’s daily Yediot Aharonot: “I
have a deep affinity with Israel. I have always admired the history of the
State of Israel and the hardness and determination of the people that
founded it."
Any discussion of this issue feeds into the perception that the very
existence of Israel is under threat. This is as patently absurd as the claim that Iraq under Saddam Hussein presented an existential threat to the United States. And yet it is the perception encouraged by the governments of both countries to mobilise their own people and to panic them. World media has carried pictures of Americans rushing to buy plastic sheeting and duct tape (to the financial advantage of one of the contributors to the Republican Party) and Israelis in sealed rooms strapping gas masks onto babies' faces - with all the allusions to the horrors of the Nazi gas chambers that this
must evoke.
This poisoned view of the world could not have been promoted without the
collusion of the media. Yet now the protest movements within the USA and
Israel may be forcing parts of the media to re-examine their stance.
Ha’aretz, in Israel, has for some time been providing a platform for
dissident Israeli journalists like Gideon Levy, Uri Avnery and Amira Hass.
A fledgeling Berkley outfit called “If Americans Knew” have just published a piece in the Bay Guardian showing that the San Francisco Chronicle is 20
times more likely to report on the deaths of Israeli children killed in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict than it is to cover Palestinian children's
deaths.(8)
The US- and Israeli-professed love of liberty and commitment to human
values, betrayed by the governments of both countries, is now demonstrating
itself powerfully in the actions of their people and fuelling an important
grass-roots dissidence. In two notable recent acts Professor Ilan Pappe of
Haifa University has called for a boycott of Israeli institutions because of the increased restrictions placed on civil and academic freedoms, and the President of Johns Hopkins University has used his Commencement Address to warn of the dangers to American society from the Patriot Act. But the most touching and heartening example is the movement of the Israeli soldiers refusing to uphold the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. They now number over eleven hundred.
Is it fanciful to suggest that the awakening of the world to the
Palestinian/Israeli conflict has been - at least in part - an effect of the
'Likudisation' of the politics of the USA? And is it naﶥ to hope that
Israeli and American citizens with a true commitment to democracy and
freedom may put a stop to this process before it destroys us all? And is it
cynical to see more hope in this than in what is taking place now on the
shores of the Red Sea?
Ahdaf Soueif
6 June 2003
Footnotes
1. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (www.wrmea.com).
This expenditure continues: in Colin Powell's address to AIPAC on the 30th
of March this year the Secretary of State said: "While we deal with Saddam
Hussein, we must not forget the burdens that the conflict with Iraq has
placed on our Israeli friends. I am very pleased that President Bush has
included in his supplemental budget request that just went to Congress $1
billion in Foreign Military Financing funds to help Israel strengthen its
military and civil defenses.And that's just for starters. The President is
also asking for $9 billion in loan guarantees."
2.Remarks delivered on 26 January 2001, Washington Report on Middle East
Affairs, May 2003.
3. Back in 1996, several of them had presented a policy paper to the then
new Prime Minister of Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu, urging “a clean break from the slogan 'comprehensive peace' to a traditional concept of strategy based on balance of power”. (“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," policy paper written under the auspices of an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies). Its authors included Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser, now all policymakers in or policy advisers to the Bush Administration. One of them, Douglas Fieth, now US undersecretary of Defense for policy, was described approvingly by the Zionist Organisation of America as "the noted pro-Israel activist." (The Guardian, 19/12/2002, 20)
In January 1998, another configuration of neo-cons wrote to President
Clinton urging him to attack Iraq for the security of ‘Israel and our
allies’. Their view was that the road to a Middle East peace 'goes through
Baghdad'. Among the signatories were Elliott Abrams, Richard Armitage, John
Bolton, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld
and Paul Wolfowitz.
4. Meyrav Wurmser's husband, Davis Wurmser, heads Middle East Studies at
Richard Perle's American Enterprise Institute.
5. See, among others, "Enron Used U.S. Government to Bully Developing
Nations" Friday, May 30, 2003 by the Inter Press Service
http://www.ips.org or on www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0530-01.htm
6. The Guardian (December 19, 2002) mapped the connection between Israeli
advice and a new US sanction of world-wide assassinations: "Israeli
officials are proud that their country is 'a laboratory for fighting terror' with tactics ready for export."
7. The United States was actually voted off the UN Commission on Human
Rights in May 2001. The Financial Times suggested that Washington, by
vetoing U.N. resolutions alleging Israeli human rights abuses, had showed
its inability to work impartially in the area of human rights. Secretary of
State Colin Powell suggested the vote was because "we left a little blood on
the floor" in votes involving the Palestinians.
8. http://www.sfbg.com/37/35/news_chron.html | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 7:25 pm Post subject: Iran leader condemns US 'stupidity' |
| Iran leader condemns US 'stupidity'
Khamenei said the Americans had 'replaced Saddam'
Iranian Supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has condemned what he described as the "stupid" and "shameless" actions of US troops in the Iraqi Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.
He said the abuse of prisoners in Iraq showed that the US had merely taken the place of Saddam Hussein, and that it was time for them to leave the "bog of their own making".
The following are excerpts from his remarks, delivered in a speech to theology students and broadcast by Iranian radio:
No Muslim, particularly a Shia, can remain calm in the face of the recent events in Najaf and Karbala...
[The US soldiers] have taken their tanks and artillery and armed forces to the holy site of Karbala. They have shown disrespect to the sacred dome of the Lord of the Faithful. They have fired bullets at the dome. That is not something that faithful Muslims can tolerate or accept...
The Americans have combined stupidity with shamelessness. They are audacious and unrestrained. They are encroaching upon the people's sanctities and what the people love...
Muslim people, particularly Shia - in our own country or in Iraq, in various Iraqi cities or in other parts of the world - will not remain silent at this American encroachment and audacity...
They think they can rule Iraq without any difficulty, take Iraq's oil and humiliate the Iraqi people. What happened at Abu Ghraib prison showed this, and recently it became clear that this has not happened only at Abu Ghraib. It has happened at all, or at least most, American prisons in Iraq...
The president and the gang ruling America say they did not know what was going on. That is how they have apologised. They say they did not know and that they have closed Saddam's torture chambers...
You have not closed Saddam's torture chambers. You have replaced Saddam...
They say they did not know. They are lying, because the Red Cross explicitly declared that it had informed senior army officers and Americans of what was going on a long time ago...
It was wrong for the Americans to go into Iraq. It was wrong for them to stay. Their treatment of the people was wrong. Imposing an American ruler on the people was wrong. Going to Karbala and Najaf was wrong. The things that they did recently were especially wrong. They should realise that the Islamic world, and particularly the Shia world, will not remain silent...
They have killed the innocent people of Najaf and Karbala. The have killed dozens of people. The crime that they have committed is the greatest of crimes. The Islamic world condemns it. The Iranian nation condemns it. The world's Shia condemn it.
The Americans will fail on this path. The more they go along this path, the more they will sink in this bog of their own making...
The Americans are trapped. There is nothing they can do. They will fail if they continue along this path, and they will fail if they pull out. But continuing will be the greater defeat.
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