Let's not go full circle

One "semi-enlightened" Zionist attended a meeting of Zio-Nazis and came face-to-face with the true face of Zionist race hatred and didn't like it. Now what?

by Seth Freedman - Nov 3, 2007

The despicable baying mob at the Kahane memorial earlier this week were the closest thing we Jews have to home-grown fascists.

"WARNING!" screamed the flyer being thrust into my hand by a concerned-looking young religious man as I entered the hall. "American Jews are in danger!" it continued. "Countless Neo-Nazi groups are spreading their venemous [sic] message ... at public demonstrations calling for violence against Jews ... and praising Hitler as a 'true hero'!"

Fair enough, I thought - that's a pretty sobering prospect, and something worth taking heed of as a Jew who cares about his brethren, and who hates to think of them in danger. That the same boy was then in the midst of a 500-strong crowd yelling "Arabs out! Arabs out!" less than an hour later, and screaming deliriously at footage of the late Meir Kahane, was as ironic as it was despicable.

"Who is wise ... those who see the future," was written halfway down the same flyer, quoting Pirkei Avot in an attempt to exhort the endangered American Jews to make aliyah to Israel and escape the Nazis' evil clutches. The wise man also sees the present though, I think - and knows when to call a spade a spade. Which is why I have no qualms whatsoever about describing the baying mob at the Kahane memorial earlier this week as the closest thing we Jews have to home-grown fascists.

For those unfamiliar with the odious, late Rabbi Kahane, he was the leader of the now-outlawed Kach party in Israel, and his politics included advocating the forcible expulsion of all Arab citizens of Israel. A former member of Knesset - until his party was banned in 1988 - he was gunned down after giving a speech in the United States in 1990. His followers have been responsible for numerous terror attacks against Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, most notably Baruch Goldstein's bloody massacre at a Hebron mosque in 1994.

At the memorial service, the mere mention of Goldstein's name received thunderous applause from the audience - all of whom were ultra-orthodox, and all of whom had not the slightest remorse at singing the praises of Israel's most notorious mass-murderer. Dozens of men wore T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "Now everyone knows ... Kahane was right", a message every bit as repulsive as a group of German neo-Nazis wearing similar attire with Hitler's name replacing that of Kahane's.

Because, make no mistake, the politics of Kach and those of the National Socialists are chillingly similar in their vicious racism and call to arms. Footage of Kahane's more incendiary speeches were shown throughout the ceremony, as he ranted and raved to his enraptured acolytes, fists clenched and raised in triumph whilst he spat his venomous message of hate.

"There is no such thing as an Arab village in Israel," he thundered from beyond the grave, "only a Jewish village that is temporarily inhabited by Arabs." The crowd went wild, stamping their feet and giving piercing whistles, regardless of the fact that most of them had seen the footage countless times before. An impromptu chant of "Kahane still lives" was started by a boy in the row behind me, and soon the entire hall was singing as one, from the youngest schoolchildren to the most gnarled and wizened old men in the room.

The women, on the other side of the curtain mechiza (divider), were no casual bystanders to the furore. The delirium was just as fervent amongst them in response to the various speakers at the dais whipping the audience into a frenzy. One rabbi, well-known in Kach circles, took to the stage with a huge orange Star of David pinned over his heart, to the delight of those looking on. (In a sick send-up of the Yellow Star that the Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust, the far-right, anti-disengagement settlers have adopted the emblem for themselves, in protest at the detested IDF and Israeli government's evacuation of Gush Katif).

The service went on for nearly two hours, and showed no sign of abating when I'd had my fill and headed for the exit. Interspersed with the speeches were video montages put together by Kach propagandists designed to reinforce the feeling that their underground movement was the victim of obscene oppression on the part of the authorities. Like something out of A Clockwork Orange, film of riot police beating settlers and religious youths was juxtaposed onto a soundtrack of plaintive Jewish song, as children looked on in horror and their fathers shook their heads mournfully.

"But we're not beaten," cried the next speaker up. "We've got to mobilise better - every one of you here must spread the word of Kahane, and only in this way will we bring about the true Jewish State that he dreamed of." That same state, according to Kahane when he was in parliament, would have included a ban on all sexual activity between Jews and non-Jews, and seen only Jews eligible as citizens of Israel.

His assassination, and the subsequent murder of his son and daughter-in-law at the hands of Palestinian terrorists, only strengthened the resolve of his die-hard followers, who formed the Kahane Chai offshoot which is currently listed as a terrorist organisation by the FBI. It is similarly viewed in Israel too, although the blurred boundaries between Kahane Chai and the original party mean that the police are powerless to ban events such as tonight's memorial.

For my part, I'm glad they didn't, since the opportunity to witness the fascist hordes for myself was massively instructive as to how low certain elements of Israeli society have sunk. By hailing Baruch Goldstein as a latter-day saint, they're every bit as repulsive as the Hamas supporters who revere Sheikh Yassin, or the far-right Europeans who mourn Hitler's passing every year on his birthday.

As much as I sang the praises of the OneVoice volunteers in my last piece, so do I just as passionately hate each and every one of those sitting alongside me at tonight's event. These are our extremists, these are our terrorists - and this is our dirty secret that is a stain on the state that was founded as a refuge from similarly-minded fascists. If the likes of the Kachniks get their way, then the wheel will truly have come full circle, when the hunted becomes the hunter and history repeats itself once more.

Pakistan's Musharraf declares emergency

by MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press - Nov 3, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on Saturday, state TV said.

"The chief of army staff has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued a provisional constitutional order," a newscaster on Pakistan TV said.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was preparing to impose a state of emergency amid rising violence and political tensions, lawmakers said Saturday after an extraordinary meeting of Cabinet ministers and other officials.

A senior official in the ruling coalition said the decision was reached at the meeting chaired by Musharraf.

"The switch could be turned on anytime," the official said.

But a minister said the decision still had to be approved by a full meeting of the Cabinet, which would convene at 7 p.m.

"If the Cabinet approves it, it will be declared," the minister said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The private Geo TV network, citing unnamed official sources, reported that a final decision to declare an emergency had been taken and that Musharraf may address the nation later tonight.

Another government lawmaker and a Western diplomat, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had received similar information and expected an emergency as early as Saturday night.

Sinking Currency, Sinking Country

by Patrick J. Buchanan - November 2, 2007

The euro, worth 83 cents in the early George W. Bush years, is at $1.45.

The British pound is back up over $2, the highest level since the Carter era. The Canadian dollar, which used to be worth 65 cents, is worth more than the U.S. dollar for the first time in half a century.

Oil is over $90 a barrel. Gold, down to $260 an ounce not so long ago, has hit $800.

Have gold, silver, oil, the euro, the pound and the Canadian dollar all suddenly soared in value in just a few years?

Nope. The dollar has plummeted in value, more so in Bush’s term than during any comparable period of U.S. history. Indeed, Bush is presiding over a worldwide abandonment of the American dollar.

Is it all Bush’s fault? Nope.

The dollar is plunging because America has been living beyond her means, borrowing $2 billion a day from foreign nations to maintain her standard of living and to sustain the American Imperium.

The prime suspect in the death of the dollar is the massive trade deficits America has run up, some $5 trillion in total since the passage of NAFTA and the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1994.

In 2006, that U.S. trade deficit hit $764 billion. The current account deficit, which includes the trade deficit, plus the net outflow of interest, dividends, capital gains and foreign aid, hit $857 billion, 6.5 percent of GDP. As some of us have been writing for years, such deficits are unsustainable and must lead to a decline of the dollar.

A sinking dollar means a poorer nation, and a sinking currency has historically been the mark of a sinking country. And a superpower with a sinking currency is a contradiction in terms.

What does this mean for America and Americans?

As nations realize that the dollars they are being paid for their products cannot buy in the world markets what they once did, they will demand more dollars for those goods. This will mean rising prices for the imports on which America has become more dependent than we have been since before the Civil War.

U.S. tourists traveling to the countries whence their ancestors came will find that the money they saved up does not go as far as they thought.

U.S. soldiers stationed overseas will find the cost of rent, gasoline, food, clothing and dining out takes larger and larger bites out of their paychecks. The people those U.S. soldiers defend will be demanding more and more of their money.

U.S. diplomats stationed overseas, students and businessmen are already facing tougher times.

U.S. foreign aid does not go as far as it did. And there is an element of comedy in seeing the United States going to Beijing to borrow dollars, thus putting our children deeper in debt, to send still more foreign aid to African despots who routinely vote the Chinese line at the United Nations. {Funny how they never mention aid to Israel} (Administrator's comment)

The Chinese, whose currency is tied to the dollar, and Japan will continue, as long as they can, to keep their currencies low against the dollar. For the Asians think long term, and their goals are strategic.

China – growing at 10 percent a year for two decades and now growing at close to 12 percent – is willing to take losses in the value of the dollars it holds to keep the U.S. technology, factories and jobs pouring in, as their exports capture America’s markets from U.S. producers.

The Japanese will take some loss in the value of their dollar hoard to take down Chrysler, Ford and GM, and capture the U.S. auto market as they captured our TV, camera and computer chip markets.

Asians understand that what is important is not who consumes the apples, but who owns the orchard.

Other nations that have kept cash reserves in U.S. Treasury bonds and T-bills are watching the value of these assets sink. Not fools, they will begin, as many already have, to divest and diversify, taking in fewer dollars and more euros and yen. As more nations abandon the dollar, its decline will continue.

The oil-producing and exporting nations, with trade surpluses, like China, have also begun to take the stash of dollars they have and stuff them into sovereign wealth funds, and use these immense and growing funds to buy up real assets in the United States – investment banks and American companies.

Nor is there any end in sight to the sinking of the dollar. For, as foreigners demand more dollars for the oil and goods they sell us, the trade deficit will not fall. And as the U.S. government prints more and more dollars to cover the budget deficits that stretch out – with the coming retirement of the baby boomers – all the way to the horizon, the value of the dollar will fall. And as Ben Bernanke at the Fed tries to keep interest rates low, to keep the U.S. economy from sputtering out in the credit crunch, the value of the dollar will fall.

The chickens of free trade are coming home to roost.

Kurdish Crisis Boxes In Neocons

by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach, Global Research - November 2, 2007

When Secretary of State Condi Rice descended the stairs of her plane in Ankara on November 2, she must have been thanking her lucking stars that her security detail was shielding her from the massive groups of Turkish demonstrators, who were wielding aggressive signs, some showing her face as the backdrop for a target practicer's bulls-eye, and others saying, "Terrorist Condi: Hands Off Turkey." Condi may have been spared the embarrassment, but the signs and pickets were prominently shown on international television news stations. And public opinion polls reported that the popularity of the US among the Turks is about as low as that of the US Congress among American voters.

The reason for the rising tide of anti-Americanism in Turkey is simple: Washington is seen as the sponsor of the Kurdish terrorists who have been killing Turkish soldiers, from their safe haven in US-occupied northern Iraq.

Turkey is a long-term US ally and staunch NATO member, whose Incirlik military base has functioned as a vital launching pad for US operations into Afghanistan and Iraq. Thanks to the insanity emanating from the Bush-Cheney cabal in Washington, this crucial regional ally has turned into not only a leading critic of their botched Iraq policy, but potentially also a "break-away ally" who will challenge the US in the region, in pursuit of aims it rightly defines as in its own vital national self-interest.

"Kurdistan"

The name of the game is "Kurdistan." Since the terrorist Kurdish Workers Party, known as the PKK, has recently initiated a new wave of attacks against Turkish targets, killing dozens of soldiers in southeastern Turkey and abducting others, the conflict between the Kurdish insurgents, who aim at establishing an independent "Kurdistan" in a region overlapping Turkey, Iran and Syria, on the one hand, and the sovereign Turkish nation, on the other, has reached such a point that memories of the tragic 23-year-long struggle and its 30,000 dead, have been vividly awakened. No one in Turkey wants that deadly process to be repeated.

This time around, however, the conflict takes on a strategic dimension: it is not "only" Turkey vs. a domestic insurgent force--the PKK--, but, potentially, a new conflict in Southwest Asia as a whole, vectored on war-torn Iraq. For, the PKK, which has recently raised its ugly head again, is operating not out of Turkey, but out of northern Iraq, in what is known as the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). And this region, which enjoys relative autonomy, is under the control of the United States, the occupying power. Thus, since the PKK renewed its terrorist attacks against Turkish military targets, {from inside Iraq}, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the military establishment, have demanded that the US intervene to disarm the PKK, apprehend its leading figures and extradite them to Turkey. Paying demonstrative lip service to the fable that the Iraqi government be "sovereign," Ankara has also pressed the government of Nouri al-Maliki to move against the PKK.

The crisis reached an initial climax in mid-October, when, following PKK killings of Turkish troops, the Turkish parliament voted to approve a government plan to organize cross-border incursions into northern Iraq, in hot pursuit of the terrorists. Impetus for the vote had been provided by passage of a resolution in the US House Foreign Relations Committee, on October 10, which acknowledged the 1915 massacres of Armenians in Turkey as "genocide." Turkey saw the committee vote as an affront, as demonstrating an "irresponsible attitude" which could jeopardize US-Turkish relations, and responded by recalling its ambassador from Washington. Furthermore, it was mooted that Turkey could close the vital Incirlik base to US operations.

After another 17 Turkish soldiers were killed by PKK terrorists on October 21, the Turkish cabinet went into emergency session. Prime Minister Erdogan, under tremendous domestic pressure to move against the threat, told the London {Times} on October 22, that his country would move to smash the PKK in northern Iraq. "The target of this operation," he explained, "is definitely not Iraq's territorial integrity or its political unity. The target of this operation is the terror organization based in the north of Iraq" which "must be driven out ... its training camps ... dismantled and its leaders ... handed over." Erdogan minced no words regarding the US reponsibility. "In northern Iraq," he said, "we feel that both the terrorist organization and the [Kurdish regional] administration there are sheltering behind America." He went on to speak about a "trilateral mechanism" which had been discussed, among the US, Iraq and Turkey to deal with the problem, but lamented that it had led nowhere.

The decision by the Turkish parliament to approve cross-border incursions into northern Iraq, sounded an alarm bell in Washington. The well-grounded fear among government officials was that, if Turkey were to make good on its threats of incursions into northern Iraq, that would provoke a reaction of the part of the Kurds inside Iraq. Not only: Kurds in Iran and Syria (as well as Turkey) could join forces with their compatriots in Iraq, and strive to establish their independent state, Kurdistan. This would be the realization of a nightmare vision hatched by the 1916 British-French deal known as the Sykes-Picot Treaty, which carved up the Ottoman Empire among the imperial powers in the aftermath of World War I. The ethnic Kurdish population, dispersed among the regions to become newly defined "states" of Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey, would come together in an entity, whose emergence would challenge the very existence of those states.

The Founding Fathers of Kurdistan

If Sykes-Picot were the result of a rotten deal between imperial France and Britain, the threat of a Kurdish entity in the region today must be chalked up to imperial-thinking factions in Britain and the United States. It is now an open secret, which the Bush crowd thought it had been able to keep under wraps, that W. and his crew have been long-term sponsors of the PKK, and worshipped as such by the terrorist group itself. On October 30, the {International Herald Tribune} ran an article reporting on the fact that supplies for the group are allowed to pass through a government checkpoint in Raniya. Former American Ambassador to Turkey Mark Parris was quoted saying, "That couldn't have happened without their permitting them to be there. That's their turf. It's as simple as that." The IHT piece went on to report how the PKK-linked Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (KDSP), which operates freely in Raniya and Sulaimaniya, has a leader, Fayik Muhamed Ahmad Golpi, who is an outsp oken fan of George W. Bush. After the 2004 US elections, Golpi sent W. a letter, congratulating him and wishing him luck in his plans for transforming the Middle East. The IHT article also noted the role of the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), the branch of the group seeking independence from Iran.

Turkey has long accused the US of supporting the PKK and allied Kurdish separatists, on the obvious grounds that the terrorist group has lived and flourished under American occupation in Iraq. It is a well-documented fact that, since the 1991 Desert Storm war against Iraq, the US had set up the notorious "no fly-zones" in the north (and south), which provided air cover to the Kurds (and the PKK). On July 20 of this year, then-Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul reported on Turkish television, that PKK terrorists had been arrested in possession of weapons manufactured in the US. Gul said, "US officials told us those were the weapons they handed over to the Iraqi army. 1,260 weapons captured from the PKK," he said, "are American made. We documented it to the US." According to the {New York Times} in August, US Defense Department officials confirmed that weapons provided by the US to Iraqi military and police trainees in 2004 and 2005 had indeed ended up in the hands of the Kurds. On October 28, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki joined with his Turkish counterpart, Ali Babcan, in a press conference, to denounce the foreign sponsors of the Kurdish groups threatening to detonate an explosion in the region. Mottaki cited the PKK, the PJAK (or PEJAK) and the MEK/MKO (Mujahideen e-Khalq), an Iranian terrorist group operating also from Iraqi soil against the Islamic Republic. In November 2006, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh had reported to the {New Yorker} that "In the past six months, Israel and the United States have been working together in support of a Kurdish resistance group known as the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan. The group has also been conducting clandestine cross-border forays into Iran."

Ankara: US, Iraq Must Rein PKK In

The Turks have rightly demanded that the US, as the occupying power in northern Iraq, take action to curb the PKK, and have asked the allegedly sovereign Iraqi government to do the same. They have also stated that the KRG, led by Massoud Barzani, has protected the PKK. Erdogan was quoted by {Hurriyet} as saying outright, "[Barzani] is in a position of aiding and abetting the terrorist organization in that region." For his part, Barzani has repeatedly refused to hand over PKK elements to Turkey, "no matter what the cost." Orders to the KRG to close all PKK offices have been cheerfully ignored.

However, as it became evident in late October, that the Turks would make good on their threats to send some of the 100,000 troops they had amassed on the border, into northern Iraq, to seek out and kill PKK terrorists, the Iraqi Kurdish authorities changed their tune. One reason is that Turkey made good on its threat to impose economic sanctions on northern Iraq. Flights between Istanbul and Irbil were stopped beginning November. As reported by {BBC}, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said after a cabinet meeting October 31, that they had started "military, political and diplomatic measures" against the PKK. "The targets of these measures are the terrorist organization and those groups which are supporting, aiding and abetting it," he said. Though no details were released, the measures could entail a boycott of the Kurdistan Regional Government. This could mean a cutoff of food imports, electricity supplies, and other imports. Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari announced a t the same time, that checkpoints were being set up on the Turkish-Iraqi border to cut off the PKK supply lines.

Not surprisingly, the PKK began to cry uncle. Falah Mustafa Bakir, the head of foreign relations for the KRG, said November 2, that he hoped Turkey would "reconsider its position and work for a peaceful solution." He claimed the KRG did not support PKK terrorist activity. On November 2, it was reported that a PKK leader, Abdul Rahman al-Chadirchi, was calling on Turkey to present a peace plan to overcome the crisis. This came after Turkish troops had succeeded in hunting down and killing dozens of PKK elements in Turkey.

Whether or not Turkey will move militarily into northern Iraq, will be decided officially, only following talks that Prime Minister Erdogan will hold with President Bush in Washington on November 5. Statements made by Rice, as well as US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, on November 2, stressed Washington's desire that the Turks desist from any such military cross-border incursions. Ankara, however, has argued: if the US waged war on Afghanistan and invaded Iraq, on grounds that elements from those distant countries had been involved in terror attacks against the US, why should Turkey not do the same in a country on its borders? Speaking at a parliamentary group meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) at the end of October, Erdogan said that he would ask President Bush to "clearly define [the US] road map" to deal with the PKK. He said it was a "test of sincerity, and that if the US failed to act, "we will do our own job" i.e. invade Iraq and mop up the PKK.

Regional Peace Efforts

The dangers inherent in a Turkish military incursion across Iraq's borders, are best appreciated by Turkey's immediate neighbors, Iran, Syria and Iraq itself. These three countries host Kurdish minorities who could be catapulted, by a Turkish attack, into a military campaign to establish an independent Kurdistan, thus detabilizing all three nations. It is for this reason, that the three have taken steps to defuse the crisis before it blows up. In a coordinated effort, Syria and Iran have been consulting to eliminate the PKK threat, preferably without Turkish military action inside Iraq.

On October 28, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan was in Tehran to discuss his country's option of invading Iraq to pursue the PKK. The Iranians told him they did {not} support such a military move. This was an important move, since Tehran had earlier supported Turkey's military moves, and even participated in joint attacks against the Kurdish terrorists. On October 29, Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki visited Damascus for talks with President Bashar al-Assad, and his counterpart Walid Muallem. The latter stated after the talks, "The Iranians have initiated efforts which complement those of Syria, because we want to give a political solution a chance." Mottaki was quoted by the {Turkish Daily News} saying, "The PKK terrorists threaten not only Turkey but also Iran and Syria," and added, "The terrorist operations from the north of Iraq create a destabilizing effect throughout the region." Mottaki went on to Baghdad, for talks there. A meeting was held in Istanbul November 2-3, of the foriegn ministers of the region, and included all Iraq's neighbors, plus the permanent members of the UN Security Council, and some G8 members. It is in this context that Condi Rice travelled to Turkey. As of this writing, the meeting is taking place, and no results have been announced yet. However, it was expected that Iran could play a major role. Mottaki had announced that Iran would present a plan to solve the c risis. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, after meeting with Mottaki in Baghdad October 31, "urged Iran to help defuse the border crisis between Turkey and the PKK and to give its entire support at the Istanbul conference," according to a statement from his office, reported by {Tehran Times}. At the same time, Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari said he and Mottaki agreed that the conference should not be "highjacked" by this issue, and should address Iraq's security overall.

Significantlz, Zebari also called on the US and Iran to continue the tripartite (Iran, Iraq, US) talks which had taken place in Baghdad at the ambassadorial level. Mottaki, according to a report in the Lebanese paper {Daily Star}, said the reported "readiness of the Americans for a new round of talks" was something Iran did "consider positively." It was in this congtext that Mottaki announced that Iran would "deliver a plan regarding the situation in Iraq," at the Istanbul meeting.

This would be key, since the US is the occupying power and chief ally of the Kurds. If the Kurdish terrorist threat is to be eliminated and therefore a Turkish military move prevented, the US must shift gears and move credibly against the PKK. Thus far, the US has merely claimed it is "sharing intelligence" with Ankara. On November 1, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morell was quoted by the IHT saying, "The key for any sort of military response, by the Turks or anybody else, is actionable intelligence. We are making efforts to help them get actionable intelligence." But such claims lack credibility, given past performance. As Erdogan complained in an interview to the {Times} of London on October 22, a "trilateral mechanism" had been set up among the US, Iraq and Turkey to deal with the problem, but it "yielded absolutely no results." Essentially the same point was made by former NATO supreme commander in Europe Ralston, who said on October 29, that a diplomatic effort which h e had led, to stop the terrorist PKK, had failed. During his one-year tenure functioning as special envoy on the PKK issue, Ralston had tried to set up such a tripartitie mechanism, but failed, and this prompted his resignation. Iranian sources have told me that intelligence Tehran had supplied to Baghdad, on the PKK (presumably "actionable") had been welcomed, but that the Iraqis had been prevented by the US from acting on it.

Thus, the key to defusing the Kurdish crisis, which threatens to blow up the entire region, lies in Washington, and in US willingness to cooperate with Iran, the regional power with considerable influence in Iraq as well as Turkey. The simmering Kurdish crisis, therefore, is putting the neocon cabal in Washington on the spot. It cannot have its cake and eat it too. It cannot maintain the PKK and the entire Kurdish separatist apparatus as an asset, and at the same time ask Turkey to continue its role as a regional ally. It cannot pretend that Iraq be stabilized, and at the same time demonize and threaten military action against Iran, the key regional power capable of contibuting to stability. In Washington, the chickens have come home to roost.

It’s Time to Fire Washington!

by Debbie Lewis, Global Research - November 2, 2007

When will United States Citizens ever decide enough is enough and fire Washington?

Congress is pulling another fast one and no one is paying attention. As if wanting to control the entire population via the latest proposed commission, H.R. 1955, otherwise known as the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007,” is a slick piece of legislation. The way it reads, we are heading straight for an Authoritarian style government (like we are not in one already!).

This new bill is to be added to Title VIII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, another questionable piece of legislation. Where, may one ask, is representation for “We the People?” The vote for passage in the House of Representatives was 404 ayes to 6 nays and 22 representatives not voting. People on the right or the left think their representation is the best, but quite frankly, there is clearly little difference. Of the fifteen sponsors for this bill, eleven of them are Democrats. The bill has now moved to the Senate for approval, with its two sponsors being Republican.

The title, alone, is offensive. “Homegrown Terrorism?” It will come as no surprise, but the language is also extremely vague. Take the very first line: “To prevent homegrown terrorism and for other purposes.” The Senate version has similar language: “To establish the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, and for other purposes.”

Honestly, “…for other purposes?” We pay these people how much and we get “…for other purposes” in a piece of legislation governing the United States of America? Can they be more vague? Furthermore, why aren’t more US citizens outraged at such unclear language?

The definitions for the phrases “violent radicalization,” “homegrown terrorism,” as well as “ideologically based violence” are almost as interesting as the terminology “…for other purposes.”

To radicalize means to go through sweeping change, while radicalization means to go from an active or passive stance to one of a more militaristic or intense stance. Are they talking about the United States citizens or the US government? Our government has taken on a vastly more violently radicalized stance in this War on Terror, but, so far, the citizens are taking a more peaceful approach, that of public protests. Do they mean to say that these protests are somehow violently radicalizing? I attended the rather large End the War rally in Washington DC on September 15, 2007, and it wasn’t violent at all. In fact, it was inspiring!

What about the oh-so-cleverly coined phrase “ideologically based violence?” According to the framers of this piece of legislation, this string of words is to mean the “use, planned use or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious or social belief.” First of all, planned use? Are they now referring to thought crimes? Secondly, what about the threats of government to try and force the Real ID card on us, or vaccines, or the loss of our civil liberties? Would that not fall under this same category? If so, it appears to me the first casualty of this new legislation should be…The USA PATRIOT Act!

In light of these definitions, one must wonder if the current Congress would see our founding father’s actions as homegrown terrorism using violent radicalization and ideologically based violence to set our country free from the tyrannical government of England. Better yet, can the citizens of the United States consider the current administration as using violent radicalization and ideologically based violence to promote their agenda around the world or promote an idea, here at home?

This is sounding more and more like the War on Terror is coming home, and not in a good way! The internet has been sited as an aid in “facilitating violent radicalization….” (Our government hasn’t figured out a way to take a controlling interest in the internet yet, now have they?) Also, according to HR 1955, preventing such behavior cannot be readily brought about by the “traditional Federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts.” They plan to include state and local efforts, as well as including the US Postal Service and university-based Centers of Excellence, these latter being established by the Secretary of Homeland Security. This Commission sounds like it is being governed by…The USA PATRIOT Act!

If I’m not mistaken, though, I do believe President Bush did say, “…either you are with us, you are with the terrorists.” In light of the growing disenchantment of the US citizens with regards to this illegal war, does that make United States citizens the enemy of the United States government it elects? Apparently so, hence the need for this commission and legislation!

This newly proposed ten member Commission for the prevention of these so-called violent radicalizations, homegrown terrorists, and ideologically based violent groups and individuals is going to look toward governments in other countries that have knowledge and “significant experience” in dealing with such behavior, such as the UK, Canada and Australia. We know that the UK is one of the most surveilled countries on the planet and Canada was financially worse off than the US, until recently. I guess I didn’t realize the UK, Canada, and Australia had such problems with their citizens behaving so badly!

It is past time for us, as good US Citizens, to hold our elected officials responsible for the shoddy legislation they are enacting, especially since they are enacting it on our behalf! When will we learn? When will we take up the fight for our own freedoms? When will we be educated enough to realize we need to fire our representatives in Washington and find a better way to preserve our way of life that doesn’t include thousands of pieces of unnecessary legislation?

Endnotes:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955 House of Representatives Text of H.R. 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2007-993 House Vote for HR 1955

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-1959 Senate Text of S. 1959: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radicalization Radicalization is the transformation from passiveness or activism to more revolutionary, militant or extreme postures. Radicalization is often associated with youth, adversity, alienation, social exclusion, poverty or the perception of injustice to self or others.

http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/radicalization.html Radicalize-change fundamentally: to undergo fundamental change, or introduce sweeping change in something. Make or become politically radical: to adopt politically radical views or cause somebody to do this.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People

http://www.undersiegemovie.com/moreinfo.html Documentary “One Nation Under Siege”

http://www.dhs.gov/xres/programs/editorial_0498.shtm Homeland Security Centers of Excellence

http://www.washingtonyourefired.com/

BOMBING IMPROPER THOUGHTS

by Peter Chamberlin - Nov 2, 2007

There is something terribly wrong with this country, if a majority of the people will choose to follow the very same lies that were used to start the last unnecessary war, to start a new world war centered on Iran, even though that same majority wants the first war ended. The same liars who sold us the same song and dance have now convinced 52% of the people that the future might be so incredibly dangerous that we have to start a nuclear war now to avoid it. http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1379

These are the same deceivers who convinced us that Saddam Hussein had model airplanes capable of striking the United States with biological weapons. They are the same charlatans who still have 41% of the people convinced that Saddam Hussein used al Qaida to bring down the Twin Towers. http://atlanticreview.org/archives/726-More-Americans-Believe-that-Saddam-Was-Directly-Involved-in-911.html These are the same wolves in sheep's clothing who have convinced twenty million American Christians that Armageddon is a good thing, one of those things that "Jesus would do." http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north188.html

They are using the same blatant lie that Iran, like Iraq, would risk giving al Qaida a nuclear weapon that could be traced back to them, thereby causing their own nuclear destruction. Our leaders are acting like lunatics, pursuing a path that all experts agree will be a genocidal one, one which will lead to our own economic downfall. Why are they undermining American security by crippling our over-extended economy and flagrantly going against the will of the American people? If they are not serving the common will of the American people, then whose will are they serving? Isn't it true in America that our representatives are loyal to the moneymen who put them in office, instead of the people they are elected to represent? Lobbyists have more influence in Washington than do the people.

The moneymen and their powerful lobbies have waged psychological warfare against the minds of the American people, in a PR campaign to sell an irrational war to the irrational public. The power mad elite have used public and private institutions to develop psy-warfare techniques that will make public opinion pliable to their manipulations. The idea is to be able to control the majority so that they could be manipulated into accepting the ideas transmitted to them. In selling their irrational policies to the people they developed ways to trick the people into embracing whatever they were told to embrace. They manipulate the majority into ignoring the voices of reason, training the people to think with their emotions instead of their rational minds.

How is it that the war on terrorism, which was started to protect the American people, has been transformed into a war to protect Israel from its neighbors, even while the original war has been handed to NATO to fight for us? The war on terrorism has been hijacked by a handful of conspirators, led by Vice President Cheney (many of them with dual Israeli/American citizenship), who have done everything within their power to turn it into a world war in the Middle East. One of them, neoconservative Michael Ledeen, boldly asserts that Iraq is "a miserably limited battlefield," openly expressing the common neocon desire to see the war escalate into total war, expanded throughout the entire Middle East. http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/2006/01/osama-bin-laden-died-three-weeks-ago.html This is the same Ledeen who wrote a book called Universal Fascism, which sings the praises of fascism and how much America needs a good dose of it. http://www.amconmag.com/06_30_03/feature.html

Other fascist-loving neoconservatives, such as Elliot Abrams, have been busy starting small wars in other Arab countries which are unfortunate enough to be neighbors of Israel (like Lebanon and Palestine), using the same illegal methods he helped to perfect in Nicaragua and El Salvador. In Palestine, his men armed Mohammad Dahlan's radicals to start the Palestinian "civil war" against the popularly elected government. In Lebanon his man, Said Hariri helped to establish the Fatah el-Islam terrorists who attacked the Lebanese government from the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp. Abram's war plan was called the "El Salvador option," when it was used in Iraq, where it helped to create the ongoing sectarian warfare there.

The neocon war plan is to hire gangs of mercenaries, to start large gang wars, wherever Bush and Cheney want to fight real wars. (This is the same overall strategy that brought armies of mercenaries into Iraq, in place of legitimate troops.) These wars justify our invading Muslim countries, not to fight the original "al Qaida-related" thugs, but to fight the militias that rise up to oppose them. We use these thug armies to find the men who will dare to defend themselves against our intrusions. Those who resist us and defend their countries against our invasions are classified as "extremists." The idea is to start the conflicts that will bring out the Muslim men who will not submit to our violent demands, in order to bomb them into submission. In Bush-speak, ideas of self-defense are "radical extremism." The war on terror is being waged to change the minds of all Muslim men, or to kill those whose minds we cannot control.

Likewise, the US government is planning to bomb the Iranians until they change their minds about conforming to our demands. Bush has implied that "World War III" will come about if "the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon" is not somehow removed from Iranian heads. He expressly warned Americans to support his "negotiations" with Iran (which are actually just a series of ultimatums), if we want to avoid the alternative.

The warning to Americans is also a key element of their strategy in the war on terrorism, this part being waged to change people's minds by force, or the threat of force. They are trying to outlaw what people are allowed to BELIEVE. The "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act," H.R. 1955, was passed on October 23, by the House of Representatives. This bill creates a commission which will study how to prohibit ". . . . .the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system . . . . .to advance political, religious, or social change.. . . ." Spreading these beliefs to "advance political, religious, or social change" is defined as "radicalization." If you are trying to educate your fellow countrymen, to democratically influence popular opinion, then you may find yourself accused of "facilitating ideologically-based violence."

Conspiracy theories fit into the government's definition of an "extremist belief system." Belief that our government answers to a secret higher authority than the American majority qualifies you as an "extremist." According to the US State Department, this is anyone who believes that "vast, powerful, evil forces are secretly manipulating events." Doubting the "official version" of violent events, like 9/11, the Kennedy assassinations (John, Bobby, or John Jr.), Oklahoma City bombing, or the downing of Flight 800, is extremism. This act follows on the heels of countless other bills and presidential "signing statements," like the "Military Commissions Act of 2006," which places martial law just a signing statement away. The threat of imprisonment for improper belief may not be imminent, but is clearly very real.

Acting on Conscience

Psychologists and Abusive Interrogations

by Dr. MARY PIPHER - Nov 2, 2007

Iam a psychologist and writer in Lincoln, Nebraska. All of my adult life, I have worked for human rights organizations. In 1965, when I was 17-years-old, I marched for de-segregation in Kansas City. As a therapist, I have spent my career repairing the psychic damage of traumatized people, whether they be rape or assault victims, family members of murder victims, or refugees and asylum seekers. I have worked with torture victims since the 1980's and I know that many of them are innocent of any crime whatsoever and all of them suffer irreparable damage to their lives.

In August of 2007 I made the difficult decision to return my 2006 Presidential Citation, awarded to me by then President of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Gerald Koocher. I was deeply appreciative of this honor and proud to be a member of the APA. Over the years I have enjoyed an excellent relationship with this organization. I received my first Presidential Citation in 1998 from Dr. Martin Seligman and have been the keynote speaker at the APA's national convention. With this action, I feel as if I am betraying a good friend.

For the past few years, I have been troubled by various media and Department of Defense reports that psychologists have designed protocols and trained and supervised interrogators in the use of sophisticated methods for breaking the human spirit and destroying mental functioning. When this August, at the APA's annual convention, members passed Substitute Motion Three instead of a ban on psychologists' involvement in military interrogations, I felt I needed to act.

Substitute Motion Three looks fine on the surface, but the devil is in the details, and the devil always dresses in the tuxedo of lofty rhetoric. While it has been argued that this resolution bars psychologists' participation in the CIA's enhanced interrogation program, the motion did not place a moratorium on psychologists' involvement in all national security facilities that operate outside the law. This lack of firmness puts our profession at odds with the Geneva Conventions, Red Cross standards, Department of Defense guidelines, The U. N. Declaration of Human Rights, and the ethical codes of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association. In ratifying this document, the APA has made a terrible mistake.

With sorrow, I have concluded that the United States government is committing war crimes with the help of individual psychologists and our professional organization. Without psychologists' presence to lend legitimacy to these interrogations, our government would find its position utterly indefensible. The behavior of psychologists on interrogation teams violates our own Code of Ethics, in which we pledge to respect the humanity of all people. As psychologists, we vow to do no harm.

I learned this lesson from my mother, Dr. Avis, who was a small town doctor in rural Nebraska in the 1950's. She often quoted Hippocrates remark, "Make a habit of two things, to help, or at least, to do no harm." She took her Hippocratic vows seriously. Two of them I remember specifically, "Never do anyone harm for someone else's interest." And, "Keep the welfare of your patient as your highest priority." My mother gave free medical care to any one who showed up at our house or her office. Sometimes she was paid in smoked hams and sweet corn. She also taught me this, "Morality isn't pretty words; morality is action." I hope I am honoring my mother's values with my decision.

When any of us are degraded, all of human life is degraded. This is not just about the prisoners; it is about who we are as people. Once we decide certain people are beyond the pale and give them less respect than we would want for ourselves if our situations were reversed, we make we ourselves vulnerable to also being treated as less than human.

I know that the return of my Presidential Citation is of small import, but it is what I can do to disassociate myself from what I consider to be a heinous policy. My belief is that psychology should be solely a helping profession. When we become anything else, we destroy ourselves.

I acted as a matter of conscience and in the hopes that the APA will reconsider its current position. We have long been an organization that respects human rights and promotes tolerance, kindness, and peace. It is my deepest hope that the APA will reclaim its reputation as a beacon of integrity and compassion.

Zombie Nation

Cowardice, Complicity and the Withering of the Soul of America

by DAVID PENNER - Nov 2, 2007

As The Office of the Vice President continues to scheme and plot for war with Iran, which would also likely correspond with martial law at home, the American worker continues to sink deeper and deeper into a horrifying abyss of economic, moral, and spiritual slavery. Even during the worst days of the Depression, never was the American worker more crushed, more beaten, more defeated. Never was he more atomized, more alienated, more alone.

Listen to what people are talking about on TV, on the streets, and in restaurants, and it is clear the American people are pathologically disconnected from reality. This disconnection from reality is particularly pronounced in both the media and academia, where the most critical issues of our time are either completely ignored, or drowned in a barrage of hyperbole and euphemistic blather. It is as if, due to so many decades of brainwashing, Americans are no longer capable of reason, no longer capable of independent thought.

It is also becoming harder and harder to obtain a good paying job without compromising oneself ideologically due to the destruction of the public sphere. The role that the military and prison industrial complexes play in providing employment, and the role played by the media and the education system in indoctrination, pose grave questions about whether constitutional democracy and American capitalism can continue to coexist, or whether the elite will sever the marriage entirely ushering in a military form of government. The unprecedented domination of work in American society, and the cult of placing one's career above and beyond all other considerations, has dehumanized the American people and turned them into collaborators.

In the education system, where universities are increasingly owned lock, stock and barrel by corporations (many universities are corporations), free market dogma reigns unchallenged. The education system, together with the unprecedented power of the mass media, have ushered in a brave new world where Newspeak reigns over the enlightenment, madness over empiricism, and barbarism over reason.

As Americans, we are so fond of saying how we have freedom of speech, but all too often, this simply is not so. How many students at expensive private colleges are permitted to speak out against any number of the vast myriad of unspeakable issues: the destruction of families and communities in American society, the likelihood of war on Iran, the prison-industrial complex, the use of outsourcing and offshoring to destroy unions, the current genocide being waged against black Americans, the censorship in American society? If a student wants to get good grades so as to be able to secure a good paying job later on, the rules are clear: say what you are supposed to say, write what you're supposed to write: shut up and do as you're told. The almost total absence of meaningful intellectual discussion in many colleges and universities, along with the unprecedented corporate consolidation of the media, has put American society in a totalitarian ideological vice. Tenured liberal professors, or even professors that secretly harbor genuinely radical views, often think things privately that they would never dream of saying in class.

The American worker is more enslaved to his employer than ever before, but instead of rebelling against this enslavement, he feels resistance to be impossible or too dangerous to risk, or he embraces it as proof of his toughness and loyalty to his country.

Public school teachers that teach poor and disadvantaged students are under enormous pressures by authoritarian administrators to keep the level as low as possible and to not intellectually challenge their students. Those who resist are marginalized, harassed, and eventually forced out. This tyranny is blindly embraced in the name of multiculturalism, and enforced by morally bankrupt liberals who view students in troubled inner city schools as incapable of serious academic work.

The liberal adage "You have to work within the system" embodies the total moral spiritual, and intellectual collapse of the American people. The Democrats "work within the system," and consequently we have a one party system. Tenured liberal professors have worked within the system, and have gotten so good at it that they have become the system, feeding Amy Tan and The House on Mango Street to poor students so as to keep them illiterate in the name of protecting diversity.

Expensive private colleges are dominated by almost total unanimity of thought in the liberal arts and social sciences, particularly in politics and economics. What are one's chances of getting hired for a tenure-track economics position at a four-year university when you have written polemics attacking the impoverishment of third world countries by the World Bank and IMF? Almost zero. Is this our great freedom, our great liberty of thought? This overwhelming pressure to conform ideologically in the legal system, the media, and academia, and the relentless pressures to be as obsequious and sycophantic as possible at work, is a cancer that is slowly tearing at the heart of American civilization.

Blind obedience and brainwashing through Newspeak begin in school. The media, and other social pressures complete the process. The destruction of family and community life has made resistance at work extraordinarily difficult, because the loss of a decent job that can so easily come from speaking out against unconscionable abuses of power, puts the now atomized American in a void, a zone of nothingness, a banishment into purgatory.

Americans are constantly lying to themselves about the degree to which they have allowed themselves to become ideologically compromised at work. Even more disturbing than the collapse of the New Deal is the inherently reactionary nature of so many jobs in the twenty first century United States. It is almost absurd to talk about unions if you work for the military and are assisting in the manufacturing of new weapons. Jobs in the mass media and mainstream press are often equally as dubious. The education system, viewed by liberals from the 1960's in such an innocent light, bears at least as much responsibility as the media in the lobotomizing of the American mind.

Instead of desperately trying to ward off a looming martial law, Americans are busy trying to get ahead at work. Fascism hasn't come to America with rallies and bonfires but in the fight for the corner office.

Take a good look at what Americans will put up with at ten dollars an hour, and it is clear that unionization and solidarity have reached their nadir in American history.

The idea of not making much money, yet waking up in the morning and feeling good about oneself is a myth if you are a public school teacher whose hands are tied by anti-literacy administrators, or a defense attorney forced to betray clients and plea bargain innocent people into jail.

There is still time for the American worker to awake and take back his country. There is still time to resist, to stand up for freedom of expression and worker's rights. For the elite are rapidly taking us to a place where it may soon no longer be possible to resist. Once that Rubicon is crossed, there will be naught but demons all around us, the bough will be broken, and constitutional democracy will drown in a sea of death and darkness.

VA says 6 percent of combat vets have TBIs

by Rick Maze, Air Force Times - Nov 2, 2007

About 6 percent of Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans seeking treatment at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries, according to preliminary data released Friday.

A VA mandatory screening program that took effect in April has looked at 61,285 veterans of the wars. Of those, 19.2 percent were identified on the screening questionnaire as potentially suffering from traumatic brain injuries and were referred for more tests.

While evaluation continues, VA spokeswoman Alison Aikele said officials believe, based on a smaller sample, that the final result about 5.8 percent will be diagnosed with TBI.

Aikele said it is too soon to draw any conclusions from the screening because the program has been under way for only a few months. Until there is more screening and evaluation, VA officials do not want to jump to any sweeping conclusions about brain injuries, she said.

“We did not really know what to expect,” she said when asked if the number of confirmed TBI cases matched VA’s expectations.

However, the 5.8 percent figure appears low. The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, a joint Pentagon-VA research effort, 14 percent to 20 percent of troops in previous conflicts have had traumatic brain injuries. The Center says there are reasons to expect a higher percentage among troops in the current conflicts because improved body armor has made them more likely to survive injuries that would have been fatal in previous wars, and because of the prevalence of roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades to attack U.S. forces. The blasts from such weapons can easily cause concussive brain injuries.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, said it is clear that traumatic brain injury will be a major issue facing VA in the future.

“Traumatic brain injury is the signature wound for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Akaka said. “I commend the Department of Veterans Affairs for stepping up their TBI screening for service members who have returned from combat.”

Akaka said he is working with other lawmakers to ensure VA has money to treat those diagnosed with TBI.

Aikele said it is not yet clear how much more help the VA will need. Mild cases of TBI can “work themselves out” in about 18 months without exhaustive treatment, she said.

But more serious forms of TBI can result in a lifelong disability.

TBI can be difficult to diagnosis because many of its symptoms are not necessarily considered inappropriate or unexpected in a veteran returning from combat.

Symptoms include increased anxiety, depression, irritability, difficulty communicating and behavior changes. More serious symptoms include memory loss, balance problems, numbness, slurred speech and an inability to concentrate.

AIPAC Espionage Case, Court Memorandum

Court Memorandum:

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

V.

STEVEN J. ROSEN and KEITH WEISSMAN

http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/aipac/memop110207.pdf

US disappointed in China, Russia response on Iran sanctions

AFP - Nov 2, 2007

The United States on Friday urged China and Russia to make a stronger effort toward agreeing a new set of sanctions on Iran, after what Washington said was a disappointing response by the two countries in major power talks in London.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns "was disappointed in China and in Russia," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.

Burns attended the London talks Friday among the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council -- Britain, France, the United States, Russia and China -- plus Germany to discuss strengthened sanctions against Iran under a third UN resolution.

"We think that at this point we really need to be making more progress toward that resolution and that we need to make that diplomacy much more rigorous," Casey said.

"And we're hoping to see more effort taken on the part of particularly the Chinese, and the Russians as well," he told reporters in Washington.

Russia and China have both said they opposed further punitive steps against Iran over its refusal to stop enriching uranium.

A senior US administration official said Burns was disappointed that the Russians and Chinese came to the London talks unprepared to fully grapple with the issue.

"I think Nick's concern is that the Russians and particularly, in this instance I undertand, the Chinese delegation really didn't come prepared to have a complete, detailed discussion of how to move forward," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Foreign ministers of the six world powers decided in late September that they would wait for two key reports in November before deciding on whether to push for a third round of UN sanctions on Tehran.

The reports on Iran's nuclear activities were to be from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

Iran and the IAEA agreed on a timetable in August for Tehran to provide answers to outstanding questions over its nuclear program.

The IAEA has been probing Iran's program for the past four years but has so far failed to conclude whether it is peaceful or not.

Solana was also to continue face-to-face talks with Iran's top nuclear negotiators, who have rejected Western charges that it is trying to build atomic weapons under the guise of its civilian nuclear program.

The UN Security Council has passed two rounds of sanctions to force Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, which can be used to supply the fuel for power generation or for nuclear arms.

Schumer, Feinstein back Mukasey

Of course! Was there really ever any question? It's the Jewish thing to do...

by Andrew Zajac - Nov 2, 207

Looks like Michael Mukasey will be the next Attorney General after all, many Democrats' misgivings about his unwillingness to declare waterboarding illegal notwithstanding.

A pair of key Senate Democrats, Diane Feinstein, of California, and Charles Schumer, of New York, announced this afternoon that they'll vote for Mukasey, giving him the votes he needs to win approval of the Judiciary Committee.

This can be looked at as a call made on the merits, but politically, the nods from Schumer and Feinstein also can be interpreted as meaning that Democrats still haven't figured out how to address issues like torture without appearing to be soft on national security.

The approval of key Democrats came a day after President Bush compared Democratic leaders stalling aspects of his security agenda, including the Mukasey confirmation, to appeasers who enabled Lenin and Hitler.

Reading between the many lines of his statement, one can sense Schumer's discomfiture.

The media-savvy senior senator from New York typically issues frequent, but very brief, sound bite-like statements on the issues of the day.

In this case, he's broken an uncharacteristically long silence with what for him is a torrent of prose:

SCHUMER STATEMENT SUPPORTING JUDGE MUKASEY TO BE NEXT U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL

I will support Judge Michael Mukasey for Attorney General.

I have spent the last nine months doing everything I can to get new leadership at the Department of Justice and I believe the job will not be finished until we get a strong and independent Attorney General. I believe Judge Mukasey is that type of person. Should we reject him, it is almost certain that an acting, caretaker Attorney General will take office without the advice and consent of the Senate. Inevitably, that would enable those in this administration, who do not believe in the rule of law, and have done things that caused even former Attorney General Ashcroft to threaten resignation, to have the complete upper hand.

Only a strong and independent Attorney General can return the Justice Department to what it once was, and should always be. Under this administration, that nominee will certainly never share our views on issues like torture and wiretapping. The best we can hope for is someone who is independent, has integrity, will put rule of law first and, above all, will clean the stench of politicization out of the Justice Department. I believe Judge Mukasey will be that type of Attorney General.

This is an extremely difficult decision. When an administration, so political, so out of touch with the realities of governing and so contemptuous of the rule of law is in charge, we are never left with an ideal choice. Judge Mukasey is not my ideal choice. However, Judge Mukasey, whose integrity and independence is respected even by those who oppose him, is far better than anyone could expect from this administration. He is recommended by and reminds me of Jim Comey, another Bush nominee who—while he didn’t agree with us on the issues—showed the kind of independence and integrity this department needs.

I would also like to say something about torture, particularly waterboarding. I deeply oppose it. I supported Senator Kennedy’s amendment in 2006 and am a co-sponsor of his bill in this congress. Unfortunately, this nominee, indeed any proposed by President Bush will not agree with this. I am, however, confident that this nominee would enforce a law that bans waterboarding as I hope it will.

This afternoon, I met with Judge Michael Mukasey one more time. I requested the meeting to address, in person, some of my concerns. The Judge made clear to me that, were Congress to pass a law banning certain interrogation techniques, we would clearly be acting within our constitutional authority. And he flatly told me that the President would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law, not even under some theory of inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution. He also pledged to enforce such a law and repeated his willingness to leave office rather than participate in a violation of law.

Judge Mukasey is a lawyer’s lawyer. He will not leap to quick judgments. When we want him to do so, such as on torture, we will be disappointed. But when he resists those in the administration who want quick and facile answers, so they can get their way, so they can roll over civil liberties and blot out separation of powers, it is they who will be disappointed.

I realize that, should he become Attorney General, Judge Mukasey and I will disagree on many issues. I have told him that I will battle just as fiercely against him as I did against previous Attorney Generals when we disagree.

These are troubling times at the Justice Department. We cannot afford or allow the department to languish and limp along for the next 14 months. I deeply esteem those who believe the issue of torture is so paramount that Judge Mukasey’s views on it should be the sole determinant of our vote. But I must respectfully disagree. The Justice Department is a shambles: politicized and demoralized. The belief and hope that Justice Mukasey, with his experience, independence and integrity, can restore the department motivates my vote.

Pipe bomb locks down Ariz. nuclear plant

by CHRIS KAHN & AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press - Nov 3, 2007

Imagine what Fox News and other Establishment Media Outlets would do with this story if the worker's name was "Muhammad"

As authorities tried to understand why a contract worker would bring a pipe bomb to the nation's largest nuclear power plant, one thing was immediately clear: The security worked.

Guards stopped Roger William Hurd, 61, at the entrance to the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station when they spotted the bomb. He was detained about a half mile from the containment domes where the nuclear material is stored. Officials pulled his security clearances and placed the facility on lockdown.

"The guards were attentive and alert and took the appropriate action when they identified something suspicious," said Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which will review the incident.

Doug Walters, senior director of security for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group, said Palo Verde's response was exactly as it should have been.

"We have a checkpoint for this reason," Walters said. "They were able to identify a suspicious item in the truck. I don't know what they could have done differently."

The Department of Homeland Security said there was no known terrorism link to the incident at Palo Verde. Hurd, of Goodyear, Ariz., told investigators he did not know how the bomb got in his truck and was released Friday afternoon.

Authorities described the device as a six-inch capped explosive made of galvanized pipe that contained suspicious residue. Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said it was likely homemade.

"If this thing went off in the bed of the truck, it certainly would put a hole in it," Mangan said. "It was rather crude in construction, but it could certainly injure somebody."

Capt. Paul Chagolla with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said the pipe was not hidden. He said Hurd normally drove a motorcycle to work but was in a truck Friday because of the cool weather.

Sheriff's officials rendered the device safe.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said investigators searched Hurd's home but found nothing helpful. Hurd was not arrested, and Arpaio said he expects Hurd to help with the investigation.

Nobody answered the door at Hurd's apartment in Goodyear. Messages left by The Associated Press at numbers listed for Hurd in Arizona and Hartsville, S.C., were not returned as of late Friday night.

Hurd worked as a procurement engineer, responsible for evaluating equipment purchases for the plant, Palo Verde officials said.

He had access to protected areas but had not been in any such area since Aug. 21, said Randy Edington, the chief nuclear officer for plant operator Arizona Public Service Co.

Edington said Hurd would have had access to the reactors but officials did not know the last time he would have been near the reactors.

The incident was considered an "unusual event" — the lowest of four emergencies the plant can declare, said Jim Melfi, an inspector with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

There was no threat to the public and the station operated normally Friday, McDonald said.

McDonald wouldn't say which company employed Hurd. Like everyone who has access to the plant, Hurd submitted to a background check.

Workers also must pass through two security checkpoints to get inside one of the plant's three containment domes, which house the radioactive nuclear material. One of the checkpoints includes an automated system that sniffs workers for the presence of bomb-making materials, McDonald said.

Palo Verde, operated by Arizona Public Service Co., is the nation's largest nuclear power plant both in size and capacity. Located in Wintersburg about 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix, the plant supplies electricity to about 4 million customers in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California.

Arizona Nuclear Plant on Lockdown

Water vapors rise into the air from some of the nine cooling towers at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, seen in this Tuesday, Dec. 7, 1999, file photo near Wintersburg, Ariz. Security officials at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station detained a contract worker with an explosive device in the back of his truck Friday, Nov. 2, 2007 and the plant was put on lockdown. (AP Photo/Jason Wise)

by CHRIS KAHN - Nov 2, 2007

Security officials at the nation's largest nuclear power plant detained a contract worker with a small explosive device in the back of his pickup truck Friday, authorities said.

The worker was stopped and detained at the entrance of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, said U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Victor Dricks. Security officials then put the nuclear station on lockdown, prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving the facility.

Authorities described the device as a small capped pipe that contained suspicious residue.

Capt. Paul Chagolla with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said sheriff's officials rendered the device safe and that investigators were interviewing the worker.

"Our Security personnel acted cautiously and appropriately, demonstrating that our security process and procedures work as designed," said Randy Edington, the chief nuclear officer for plant operator Arizona Public Service Co., in a statement.

The incident was considered an "unusual event" - the lowest of four emergencies the plant can declare, said Jim Melfi, an inspector with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

There was no threat to the public and the station was operating normally, said Palo Verde spokesman Jim McDonald.

Palo Verde, operated by Arizona Public Service Co., is the nation's largest nuclear power plant both in size and capacity. Located in Wintersburg about 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix, the plant supplies electricity to about 4 million customers in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California.

Exhibition honors Muslims who saved Jews

"Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II." - There they go again with that tricky math. We KNOW that this figure should be reduced by at least 1.5 million. Anyway, this just goes to show that Islam/Muslims aren't anti-semitic or anti-Jew. Islam/Muslims are anti-MURDER and anti-Zionist. Afterall, the Arabs/Palestinians are more Semitic than the current "Israeli."

by SEAN GAFFNEY, Associated Press - Nov 1, 2007

Tears welling in his eyes, an elderly Holocaust survivor on Thursday embraced the son of the Albanian man who saved him from the Nazi death camps, highlighting the little-known role played by European Muslims in helping Jews during World War II.

The two met for the first time at a photography exhibition at Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial, honoring Albanians who sheltered Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Albania, a tiny European country with a Muslim majority, sheltered about 1,000 Jews who, except for one family, survived Nazi occupation, according to officials.

"This is a very unique story," said Yehudit Shendar, the exhibition's curator. Though Islam has an anti-Jewish image, these were "Muslims who endangered their own lives to save Jews," she said. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II.

Albanians sheltered between 600 and 1,800 Jewish refugees, risking death or imprisonment, officials said. At the end of the war, Albania was the only European country with a larger Jewish population than before the war.

Yoshua Baruchowic, 84, wore a grim smile as he retold the harrowing story of his rescue. He stood next to Enver Alia Sheqer, the Albanian whose father saved him.

For decades, Baruchowic exchanged letters with Sheqer, 50, and his father, Ali Sheqer Pashkaj, who died in 2004. They often sent family photos, and he called Sheqer his "brother."

Despite many invitations, Baruchowic, who moved to Mexico after the war and became a dentist, refused to visit Albania while the communists were in power, and later because of political turmoil.

Meeting Sheqer on Thursday, he said, "It's glorious. It's something I waited to do all my life."

In 1941, a Nazi convoy transporting Jews passed the Sheqer family's general store deep in the Albanian mountains. Sheqer's father offered the soldiers food and wine. When they became drunk, he handed a message — hidden in a melon — to one of the prisoners, the 18-year-old Baruchowic.

Though they had never met, Baruchowic agreed when Ali Sheqer urged him to flee to the woods. The young Jew hid while Sheqer's father feigned ignorance as he repeatedly stared down a Nazi gun barrel. He held out until the Germans left and then retrieved Baruchowic, hiding him for three years.

"My father was a devout Muslim," Enver Sheqer said. "He believed that to save one life is to enter paradise."

He said his father had to help Baruchowic because of the Albanian code of "Besa," which means "to keep the promise."

The exhibition is named after that code and features black and white photographs of Albanians holding family photos and awards honoring their heroism. Israel has honored 63 Albanians as "Righteous Among the Nations," a title granted to non-Jews who helped Jews escape Nazi persecution.

The photo exhibit is the product of five years of "headhunting" by American Jewish photographer Norman Gershman, who said he was inspired culling the archives at Yad Vashem. Working through several organizations, Gershman spent four years in and out of Albania tracking down survivors.

"It started at Yad Vashem and now it's going to take off from here," he said. The exhibition is next going to the United Nations headquarters in New York for a display on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, he said.

At the exhibit Thursday, Baruchowic and Enver Sheqer stood beneath a photo of Sheqer sitting at the foot of a statue of the Albanian national hero Skanderbeg, a resistance general who led the fight against the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.

In the picture, Sheqer delicately clutches his chest while a furrowed brow looks poised for tears. A similar look covered his face as he struggled to the find words to describe meeting Baruchowic for the first time.

"I have such a good feeling," Sheqer said. "I can't begin how to describe."

Rice to face subpoena in (AIPAC) espionage case

by MATT APUZZO, Associated Press - Nov 2, 2007

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior intelligence officials will be subpoenaed to discuss their conversations with pro-Israel lobbyists, a federal judge ruled Friday in an espionage case.

Lawyers for two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists facing espionage charges have subpoenaed Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams and several others to testify at their trial next year. Prosecutors had challenged the subpoenas in federal court.

Lobbyists Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman have argued that the Israeli interest group played an unofficial but sanctioned role in crafting foreign policy and that Rice and others can confirm it. If they ultimately testify in court, the trial in federal court in suburban Alexandria, Va. could offer a behind-the-scenes look at the way U.S. foreign policy is crafted.

The lobbyists are accused of receiving classified information from a now-convicted Pentagon official and relaying it to an Israeli official and the press. The information included details about the al-Qaida terror network, U.S. policy in Iran and the bombing of the Khobar Towers dormitory in Saudi Arabia, federal prosecutors said.

But defense attorneys suggested that top U.S. officials regularly used the lobbyists as a go-between as they crafted Middle East policy. If so, attorneys say, how are Rosen and Weissman supposed to know the same behavior that's expected of them on one day is criminal the next?

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III said the lobbyists have a right to argue that "they believed the meetings charged in the indictment were simply further examples of the government's use of AIPAC as a diplomatic back channel."

Analyst: Still images suggest Bin Laden video doctored to seem new

by David Edwards and Muriel Kane, Raw Story - November 1, 2007

The Osama bin Laden video released this past September 7, just prior to the sixth anniversary of 9/11, has provoked widespread suspicions of fraud. In particular, bin Laden's beard -- which was grey and ragged in the video released just before the 2004 election -- is thick, black, and neatly trimmed in the new footage.

The video aroused widespread suspicions that bin Laden's beard had been faked in some way, with former White House counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke even speculating that bin Laden had shaved in order to hide out in a country like Indonesia, where Muslim men do not wear beards, and had then pasted on a false beard for the video.

More recently, it has been noted that all but a small portion of the 25-minute video consists of still images, including the section which mentions current events, suggesting the possibility that old footage has been doctored to seem new.

Computer security consultant Neal Krawetz told NBC News that the latest video is strikingly similar to the previous 2004 release, appearing to use the same studio setting and clothing, but that the beard itself does not appear to be false. Other video analysts are in disagreement about whether the videos could have been recorded at the same time -- and if so, how to explain the difference in bin Laden's beard.

Fox News spoke about the controversy to Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, vice president for research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

"I'm not an expert on video analysis," Gartenstein-Ross replied. "I don't have a view as to whether or not this video were pre-recorded."

However, he expressed more self-assurance on the question of bin Laden's beard, saying, "There are only certain circumstances under Islamic law where you're allowed to dye your beard black. One of those is as a tool of war, to make yourself seem like a more formidable opponent."

"Deception itself is only allowed under certain circumstances under Islamic law," Gartenstein-Ross continued. "Al Qaeda may well have thought that ... it was permissible to go ahead and record a great deal of video in case bin Laden is still alive but unable to appear on video."

Bush compares bin Laden to Hitler and Lenin

Maybe Bush really is crazy. He's either crazy or stupid as hell. In this particular case, I don't know which is worst.

RIA Novosti - November 2, 2007

U.S. President George W. Bush blasted Congress in a Thursday speech for failing to take the terrorist threat seriously, and compared Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin.

In a speech to the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based right-wing think tank, he defended U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and urged Democrat-controlled Congress not to restrict funding for Iraq operations, limit anti-terrorist intelligence-gathering methods, or block his appointment of a new attorney general.

He said that six years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, there is "a temptation to think that the threats to our country have grown distant," but warned that "the terrorists who struck America that September morning intend to strike us again."

"History teaches that underestimating the words of evil, ambitious men is a terrible mistake. In the early 1900s, the world ignored the words of Lenin, as he laid out his plans to launch a Communist revolution in Russia - and the world paid a terrible price. The Soviet Empire he established killed tens of millions, and brought the world to the brink of thermonuclear war," Bush said.

The president highlighted Washington's role in bringing down the Soviet Union. He told the gathering, attended by leading conservative lobbyists, "Together with a great President named Ronald Reagan, you championed a policy of rolling back communism oppression and bringing freedom to nations enslaved by communist tyranny."

He also compared Islamist plans to "build a totalitarian Islamic empire... stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia" to the Third Reich.

"In the 1920s, the world ignored the words of Hitler, as he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany, take revenge on Europe, and eradicate the Jews - and the world paid a terrible price."

He insisted that the people of Iraq and Afghanistan have been "liberated" by U.S.-led campaigns: "We removed regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq that had supported terrorists and threatened our citizens, and in so doing, liberated 50 million people from the clutches of tyranny."

Bush said people in the Middle East are now looking to the U.S. to protect their freedom.

"In Kabul, in Baghdad, in Beirut, and other cities across the broader Middle East, brave men and women are risking their lives every day for the same freedoms we enjoy. And like the citizens of Prague and Warsaw and Budapest in the century gone by, they are looking to the United States to stand up for them."

The president criticized Congress, which has been controlled by the Democrats since mid-term elections in January, over its moves to limit funding for Iraq operations, and unwillingness to prolong the controversial Protect America Act, which allows unprecedented levels of surveillance in the U.S., including eavesdropping on phone lines without court orders.

"It's no time for Congress to weaken our ability to gather vital intelligence from captured terrorists... And this is no time for Congress to hold back vital funding for our troops as they fight al Qaeda terrorists and radicals in Afghanistan and Iraq."

"Unfortunately, on too many issues, some in Congress are behaving as if America is not at war," he said.

Memos Prove Rumsfeld Directed Psychological Terror Campaign

Hyping climate of fear, threat of violence to achieve political objectives is the very definition of terrorism

by Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet - November 2, 2007

New Pentagon memos released by the Washington Post prove that ex-U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld directed a psychological campaign of terror in order to achieve political objectives, making Rumsfeld himself a terrorist according to the very definition of the term.

"Donald Rumsfeld, the former United States defence secretary, tried to maintain an atmosphere of fear in America as part of the Iraq war propaganda campaign, a series of leaked memos has shown," reports the London Telegraph.

In an April 2006 memo, Rumsfeld encouraged Pentagon officials to "Keep elevating the threat" and "Talk about Somalia, the Philippines etc. Make the American people realise they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists".

Rumsfeld also urged his staff to concoct "bumper sticker statements" (mindless clichés) in an attempt to garner continued support for the occupation of Iraq.

In the most telling e mail, the former defense secretary ordered the Pentagon to "link Iraq to Iran," heralding the birth of the now saturated propaganda talking point that Iran is fueling the violence in Iraq and helping to kill U.S. troops, despite the fact that British officials patrolling the Iran-Iraq border admit that there is "No concrete proof that Iran is supplying Iraq."

Rumsfeld's obsession with micro-managing every aspect of the propaganda offensive upon the American people led to him disseminating anything up to 60 "snowflakes" or memos every single day, much to the chagrin of Pentagon employees.

His insistence that an artificial climate of fear be maintained in America about the threat of new terror attacks in order to sell the unpopular war in Iraq are the smoking gun for criminal charges to be initiated.

By several of the very definitions of terrorism, Rumsfeld has provably engaged in terrorism, by hyping the threat of terror to achieve a political objective.

Definitions of terrorism

• A psychological strategy of war for gaining political ends by deliberately creating a well-founded climate of fear among the civilian population.


• The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence against people or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies.


• The systematic use of terror, the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear for bringing about political change.


• The use of - or threatened use of - criminal violence against civilians or civilian infrastructure to achieve political ends through fear and intimidation, rather than direct confrontation.


• The calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.

Under any of the definitions of terrorism listed above, Rumsfeld has demonstrably engaged in terror by artificially hyping the fear of new attacks as part of a strategy to achieve a political objective.