BOY BOMB VICTIM STRUGGLES AGAINST DESPAIR,
by Samia Nakhoul, Daily Mirror (UK), Apr 8 2003
"Ali Ismaeel Abbas, 12, was fast asleep when war shattered his life. A missile obliterated his home and most of his family, leaving him orphaned, badly burned - and blowing off both his arms. With tears running down his face he asked: 'Can you help get my arms back? Do you think the doctors can get me another pair of hands? If I don't get a pair of hands I will commit suicide. I wanted to be an army officer when I grow up but not any more. Now I want to be a doctor - but how can I? I don't have hands.' Lying in a Baghdad hospital, an improvised metal cage over his chest to stop his burned flesh touching the bedclothes, he said: 'It was midnight when the missile fell on us. My father, my mother and my brother died. My mother was five months pregnant. Our neighbours pulled me out and brought me here unconscious. Our house was just a poor shack. Why did they want to bomb us?'"

A nation divided, with no bridges left to build In Austin, Texas, Robert Fisk sees at first hand the vast gulf between the pro- and anti-war movements in the United States,
Independent (UK), February 16, 2003
"The show was over, recorded for one of those nice liberal local American TV cable channels – this time in Texas – where everyone agrees that war is wrong, that George Bush is in the hands of right-wing Christian fundamentalists and pro-Israeli neo- conservatives. Don Darling, the TV host, had just turned to thank me for my long and flu-laden contribution. Then it happened. Cameraman number two came striding towards us through the studio lights. 'I want to thank you, sir, for reminding us that the British had a lot to do with the chaos in the Middle East, he said. 'But I have something else to say.' His voice rose 10 decibels, his bare arms bouncing up and down at his sides, his shaven head struck forward pugnaciously. 'Yeah, I wanna tell you that the cause of this problem is the fucking medieval Arabs and their wish to enslave us all – and I tell you that it is because we want to save the Jews from the fucking savage Arabs who want to throw them into the sea that we are about to fuck Saddam.' There was a pause as Don Darling looked at the man, aghast. 'And that,' cameraman number two concluded, 'is the fucking truth.' Darling called to the studio manager. 'Where does this man come from?' he demanded to know. The lady from the University of Texas – organiser of this gentle little pow-wow – advanced on to the studio floor in horror: 'Who is this person?' I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. All of a sudden, our nice anti-war chat had been brought to a halt by a spot of redneck reality ... The people with whom these liberal academics should be building bridges are the truck-drivers and bell-hops and Amtrak crews, the poor blacks and the cops whose families provide the cannon fodder for America's overseas military adventures. But that, of course, would force intellectuals to emerge from the sheltered, tenured world of seminars and sit-ins and deal directly with those whose opinions they wish to change."

One US rule for Israel, another for Saddam. For 30 years, America has acted hypocritically in wielding its UN veto,
Observer (UK), February 16, 2003
"Britain and America may have to dilute their demands if they are to persuade the Security Council to consider a new resolution. Britain's Ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, talked of 'offering new language', an altogether less belligerent approach than the run-up to the meeting in November when resolution 1441 was adopted. It seems likely that the US-UK strategy will rely on the threat in a paragraph at the end of 1441: 'The council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violation of its obligations.' All members of the council have already voted in favour of this. Whatever the form of words eventually accepted, the US and UK are still certain to meet opposition from Europe and in turn the hawks in the US government will condemn those urging a veto of early action in Iraq. So it is a good moment to remember America's own record of vetoing resolutions critical of Israel. To raise this at any time, but especially now, will inevitably be considered to be anti-American and anti-Israeli, possibly even anti-Semitic. But it is none of these things. There is long-term legal and political inconsistency between the treatment of Israel and other countries in the region, and the greatest weakness in America's case on Iraq is that it shows no signs of acknowledging its history of favouritism. In the past 30 years, America has vetoed 34 resolutions that criticise Israel and seek to restrain its behaviour. These failed most recently in a demand for the restoration of land seized from the Palestinians and a cessation of construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Even in the relatively minor case from November 1990, when the UN wanted to send three Security Council members to Rishon Lezion, where an Israeli gunman had shot seven Palestinian workers, the US vetoed the wishes of the other 14 countries on the council. Over three decades Arabs have come to understand that the cards are stacked against them. What is important, but rarely understood, in the United States is that each case against Israel seems just as compelling in Arab eyes as the need for Saddam's disarmament is to George Bush. Now that America wants the permanent members of the Security Council to vote for a new resolution, or at least seek a definition of 'serious consequences' in 1441 as meaning military action, Europeans should remind the US of this appalling record of bias and seek to link the discussion about Iraq to the situation between Israel and the Palestinians. In a way, the resolutions stifled by Washington in the past 30 years were unnecessary because so many of the issues raised are covered by a resolution which was supported by the US in November 1967 - the famous resolution 242, which underlines that Israel must return territory acquired in war. This is still active, but 35 years on the Israelis remain in material breach of 242, a breach made all the more flagrant by continued building and settling in the occupied territories. Despite Israeli denials, the message is clear. Israel is not prepared to exchange conquered territory for peace and would appear to prefer to become embroiled in a dirty war with terrorist groups rather than give up a square inch to the Palestinians. Israeli defiance of 242 and the subsequent resolutions passed with US help that reaffirm it have been a chronic destabiliser in the Middle East. The Israelis will not shift and the US has done almost nothing to make them. In fact, its financial and military support has achieved the opposite of compliance. If France or Russia had undermined Security Council resolutions against Iraq to this degree, we can only imagine the indignation and rage of men such as Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. So Americans want it both ways. That is not unusual for the world's dominant power, but to claim that a disarmament of Saddam should be undertaken primarily to secure peace in the region is to neglect the permanent threat to peace caused by Israel's intransigence. There are many good arguments for toppling Saddam, especially the treatment of his 23 million subjects, but to Arabs they will not carry much weight until the West squares up to Israel and insists on compliance of 242. Those who make policy know this is right, but say it is also unrealistic. Israel has nuclear weapons and it is a fact of life that America is forced to intervene in the Middle East to prevent challenges to Israel's regional dominance. It would, of course, be far more dangerous for Israel to act overtly on its own behalf as the great military power that it now is. If America is to be Israel's chaperone and agent, it cannot also be its policeman."

[Rising grassroots outrage against the "pre-emptive" war for Israel.]
The great unheard finally speak out,
Observer (UK), February 16, 2003
"The age of apathy stops here, between a Thomas Cook branch and the Bloomsbury Diner, where the bodies [hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters in London] are jammed together too tightly to move. In the minutes before the march begins, anyone will tell you why protest has supplanted politics. Some of these twenty-first century Chartists with mobile phones are veterans of the Vietnam demonstrations. Some are too young to remember the Cold War. What unites them is anger against Bush and Blair, but mainly Blair. Everyone I talk to says that he will not have their vote again. It is odd to think that these are the sloths who could not be prised from their armchairs when elections rolled round and who hit the remote at the first flicker of any BBC political coverage that wasn't Have I Got News For You. These people, in New Labour's analysis, were the inert of the Earth. And here they are, out in their hundreds of thousands, quoting Hans Blix verbatim and defying a Prime Minister who longed to galvanise them and must now regret becoming the Frankenstein of the protesting classes. Political leaders hate crowds. Mass meetings have been supplanted by leaks and soundbites. In the fractious build-up to war, lonely societies are encouraged to become more solipsistic. A fearful population, hiding behind its anthrax-proofed windows, is also tractable. There is nothing threatening to government about citizens bickering over the last roll of duct tape in Wal-Mart. British marchers have spurned isolation for solidarity, and fear for fury. Their momentum came almost from nowhere. Unlike the Jubilee-trippers, the Soham mobsters and even the Countryside Alliance, they bore no social or political barcode. Theirs was, and is, a movement without a leader. Its members belong to no obvious political caste. Labour voters who march are deracinated from their leaders, and the Tories have none worth worrying about. Their mission, to halt the war, is by definition negative, and their goal unattainable, bar a miracle. Those hoping to recalibrate the Prime Minister's moral compass face disappointment, or even despair. Few predicted weeks ago that so many people would turn out to stop the unstoppable, and I was certainly not among them. The surprise has been the altruism of the protesters, and the size of the vacuum they fill. Blair's natural supporters and opponents have registered their opposition, and seen it spurned ... Today's protesters are starved of inspiration and data. In place of a charismatic leader, they have the belief that politicians are lying. They have no great freedom fighter to support; only Saddam. You could not sell washing powder on that basis, let alone a pacifist cause that may crush a Prime Minister. Yet the movement has taken off and its subscribers, on yesterday's evidence, are not a reissued set of hoary peaceniks. These are organised people with clear aims. They want a peaceful solution for Iraq. If that is not forthcoming, Blair will be punished accordingly."

HYSTERICAL? WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN,,
The London Daily Mirror, February 17 2003
"When the Daily Mirror launched its campaign against the war on Iraq we were dismissed as lefty peaceniks, just opposing military action for the sake of it. As the campaign continued the abuse intensified - we were accused of being 'hysterical,' of 'cynically chasing new readers, of over-reacting'. The crescendo of negativity reached a nadir with our BLOOD ON HIS HANDS front page, powerfully illustrating John Pilger's ferocious attack on Tony Blair for the impending slaughter of Iraqi civilians. This was crass, offensive and way too personal, our critics said. Yet it was the exact same phrase Mr Blair used to denigrate the 1.5 million people who protested in London on Saturday. What is now absolutely clear is that the Daily Mirror is right about this war. And Tony Blair is wrong. The Prime Minister is not a stupid man so he must realise in his astute head that he is beaten logically, politically and democratically. The only support he has in this country is from a few lapdogs in the Cabinet - take a bow, John Prescott - the Tory leadership and newspapers owned by George W Bush admirers living in America. Those one and a half million people who marched on Saturday are not the only ones who feel war would be wrong, needless and a total disaster. Each of them represents many more. It was the biggest demonstration this country has ever seen. It rivalled the magnificent anti-Vietnam marches in the United States in the 70s. In the past, protesters have been sneered at as long-haired hippies. That couldn't be said about Saturday's demonstrators. Young and old, working, middle, and upper class... Countless thousands of ordinary people united on one fundamental principle - war against Iraq at this time is wrong, wrong, wrong ... Having lost the argument, it is Tony Blair who is plunging down the road of hysteria. Playing the morality card is not just offensive and ridiculous, but dangerous. Where would it end? Having taken out Saddam, where would the US-British axis turn to next? Which other objectionable, tyrannical regimes would become targets for our bombs and invasion forces? Will they be sent in to remove Zimbabwe's President Mugabe for driving his people into starvation? How about the terrible anti-human-rights record of the Chinese Government - would we take on their immense population? Or what about the attitude of the Saudis to women and human rights? Or Israel's defiance of UN resolutions? It all smacks of one rule for Iraq and another for everyone else. We should be told if we have just heard the Blair Doctrine - coming second-hand from the dangerous men who run today's White House - which will become our foreign and military policy at the start of the 21st Century. The world has one omnipotent power, whose military spending outstrips every other nation put together. That country, unlike those in Europe, has hardly suffered from attack. Yet this White House wants to bombard Iraq and then who-knows-where next. And it wishes to take the United Kingdom along on its coat-tails, a conspirator to mass slaughter."

[Bolton, like so many high level war-mongers for Israel in the Bush administration, is Jewish]
U.S. OFFICIAL SAYS SYRIA, IRAN WILL BE DEALT WITH AFTER IRAQ WAR,
Ha'aretz (Israel), February 18, 2003
"U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials on Monday that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq, and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterwards. Bolton, who is undersecretary for arms control and international security, is in Israel for meetings about preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction. In a meeting with Bolton on Monday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Israel is concerned about the security threat posed by Iran. It's important to deal with Iran even while American attention is turned toward Iraq, Sharon said."

A Seattle 'Outlaw' Activist Brings Medicine to Iraqis,
[Jewish] Forward, July 26, 2002
"In November 1997, Bert Sacks felt he needed to spend several days in Auschwitz. Like most Jewish visitors, the 60-year-old Boston native wanted to understand, in whatever way possible, the fate that befell his European brethren. But it is reasonable to guess that he was one of the few Jewish visitors who, while walking past the lagers and crematoria, began to think about the children of Iraq ... Of course, at a time when a seemingly imminent war on Iraq tops the political and media agenda, Sacks is pretty much on his own in his crusade against what he calls 'one of the greatest humanitarian violations of our time.' He is even an outlaw, according to the administration. Sacks has made eight trips to Iraq since 1996 with fellow activists, each time bringing thousands of dollars worth of medicines. In 1998, the Treasury Department accused him of violating American sanctions against Iraq, under which it is illegal to take any aid into the country without government approval ... He then came across a June 1991 front-page article in the Washington Post in which Pentagon officials were quoted as saying American forces had purposefully destroyed the Iraqi civilian infrastructure, including the electric grid, in order to further the effect of the sanctions. The article also cited a study by a Harvard group concluding that 170,000 Iraqi children were going to die as a result ... He believes American Jews should be especially sensitive to the suffering of the Iraqi population. Instead, he contended, the American Jewish lobby is one of the main reasons — along with the presence of oilmen at the helm of the government and the Bush family legacy with Saddam — that the campaign to oust the Iraqi dictator has suddenly picked up so much steam after years of inertia. 'The pro-Israel lobby does not see that it is dangerous for Israel,' he said. 'An American strike will be seen in the Arab world as done on behalf of Israel.'"

[Typical Jewish political effort to toxify the anti-war, anti-Jewish racism, and anti-Israel movement as itself "hate."]
German peace movement criticized, [in the "Breaking News" section],
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 18, 2003
"The Berlin Association Against Anti-Semitism accused the German peace movement of anti-Semitism. The group issued the criticism following a demonstration Saturday of some 500,000 anti-war protesters in Berlin. 'From the start of the demonstration, it became clear that groups were involved whose worldview includes nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism,' said the letter, signed by about 100 scholars, Jewish religious and communal leaders, and activist groups from Germany and abroad. 'Revisionist banners and anti-Israel chants were heard. Israel was depicted as pulling the strings in the Iraq conflict; its politicians were cursed as ‘child killers,’ and a few flags of the Islamic extremist Hamas and Hezbollah groups were waved,” the letter added."

EX-PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER BACKS OUR FIGHT,
Daily Mirror (UK), Feb 18 2003
"Former US President Jimmy Carter is backing the Daily Mirror's Not in My Name campaign. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, and the only US president since 1945 never to order American soldiers into war, endorsed our stance on war with Iraq, saying: 'You're doing a good job. I am glad about that. War is evil.' Carter, who will be 79 this year, is a pariah among hawkish Republicans and a hero for doveish Democrats, frequently denouncing wars and conflict whenever they flare ... Carter said an opinion poll which rated the US as the country posing greatest danger to world peace was a 'very embarrassing thing' ... He said: 'Some very embarrassing things have happened in this country. Time magazine in Europe did a public opinion poll on its website and over 350,000 people responded to the question, 'Which country poses the greatest threat to world peace?' North Korea received seven per cent of the votes, Iraq received eight per cent and the United States received 84 per cent' ... [H]e has described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the 'festering cancer and root cause of much anti-American sentiment'."

[Pro-Israel, Jewish toxification of the anti-war movement:]
London Peace Marchers Say: Long Live the Intifada,
By Julia Magnet, Front Page Magazine, February 19, 2003
“I was marching as an observer only, trying to gauge the mood of the 1 million or so who filled the streets from Haymarket to Hyde Park Corner [to protest an Iraq war]. Till now, I had always gotten a civil—if ill informed or garbled—answer. Dressed in a beautiful camelhair coat, with an opulent fur hat and Gucci shades, this lady interested me: her—at least to my NYC-bred mind—anti-Semitic placard hardly fit the refined figure she cut ... But the defaced flag of Israel carried by a bearded, middle-aged Scot took my breath away: a tank, dripping blood, was superimposed over the Star of David. I’d never seen that at a NYC student rally, and I never hope to ... Curiouser still was the weird amalgam of chants and slogans, the trivial next to the libelous: a BAGELS NOT BOMBS next to ZIONISM EQUALS RACISM. DOWN WITH ISRAEL/ BLIX LOOK INTO ISRAEL/ LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA. ISRAEL BROKE 69 UN RESOLUTIONS and JUSTICE FOR PALESTINE FIRST jostled with MAKE TEA NOT WAR and TWAT: THE WAR AGAINST TERROR. A group of veiled girls in black chadors chanted, 'Bush, Bush we know you; Daddy was a killer, too,' next to trust-fund trendies in specially made T-shirts: MY BUSH MAKES LOVE NOT WAR. Where else would full-bearded Muslims, in hajji caps and white traditional dress, march next to the gay alliance, Iraqi flags vying with rainbow flags? But one thing unified the march: a rabid hatred of Israel."

A 'TOXIC' MEME? Israel's 'amen corner' is cornered,
by Justin Raimondo, antiwar.com, February 19, 2003
"Who benefits from our rush to war?... The answer is clearly Israel ... The American conquest of Iraq will eliminate a threat to Israeli security, and pave the way for the extension of the war against Israel's other enemies in the region, notably Syria. This strategic perspective was clearly outlined in a 1996 paper prepared for the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies' 'Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000,' entitled 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.' The ideas put forward in this remarkable document emerged from a collaborative effort that included Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser. The idea was to dissuade the Israelis from going along with the Oslo accord, and outline a new Israeli strategic vision that would not only rid them of their Palestinian problem, but give them 'breathing space' ... The authors of this paper were addressing themselves to then Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but their prescription for a new Israeli policy bears an eerie resemblance to America's post-9/11 stance in the Middle East, and the world at large. And no wonder. Richard Perle, from his perch at the Pentagon Defense Policy Board, is the Lenin of the War Party. Douglas Feith is an Undersecretary of Defense, and David Wurmser is a special assistant to Undersecretary of State for arms control and international security affairs John Bolton. Bolton's recent visit to Israel shows us how far advanced the ideas presented in that 1996 paper have come. Ha'aretz reports: 'U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials on Monday that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq, and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterwards.' Phase one of Operation 'Clean Break' seems to be well underway, with its authors ensconced in the top echelons of the U.S. national security bureaucracy – and American troops circling Iraq in a ring of steel. Now the second phase is being cranked up, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demands action against Syria and Iran. At a meeting with a delegation of U.S. congressmen the other day, Sharon handed the Americans their marching orders: 'Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that Iran, Libya and Syria should be stripped of weapons of mass destruction after Iraq.'"

Peres Questions France's U.N. Status,
macon.com, (Georgia), from Associated Press, February 20, 2003
"Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres on Thursday criticized France and Germany for their opposition to a U.S.-led attack on Iraq, and questioned France's status as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, also criticized recent mass demonstrations around the world against a possible U.S. attack on Iraq ... Peres also suggested another country replace France as a permanent member of the Security Council."

[Propaganda from the Left: A Jew admits the Israeli root of the Bush administration's planned war with Iraq and declares Jewish domination of the "anti-war" movement, but completely dissimulates about Jewish hegemony throughout American culture. The Jewish Left forbids critical inquiry into the "J" word which, of course, is too close to home for comfort.]
It's Not Just the Oil,
by Stanley Heller, February 20, 2003
"Does a boxer fight with one hand tied behind his back? Why is the anti-war movement reluctant to talk about all the reasons for the drive to invade Iraq? Yes, major reasons for the permanent war drive are corporate greed for oil, dreams of political domination, and the lust to test weapons. But there's another one. Extreme right-wing forces from a foreign country and their powerful American backers are pushing the U.S. to invade Iraq and many other countries. I'm, of course, talking about Israel. On November 12 Zev Chafets wrote an incredibly revealing article in the New Haven Register. In an article headlined,'Disarming Iraq is only a start in Middle East' he explained that the Arab and Iranian cultures were 'irrational' and that nothing could be done to 'improve the collective mental health of Arab societies'. He proposed 'giving the Arabs and Iran a stark choice: they can have sovereignty or jihad (in its secular or religious forms), but not both.' He says 'disarming' but of course he means invading the 'Middle East's most hostile and deranged regimes.' Now, who is Zev Chafets? He was originally from Michigan, but went to Israel in 1967 and fought in their army and became director of the government press office under Prime Minister Menachem Begin. He's now a columnist for the New York Daily News. His ideas reflect the desires of Likud, the Israeli ruling party, one variant of extreme Israeli right wing opinion. The current party head, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, is delirious for the war. In his mind, with Iraq leveled the Palestinians will give up hope and he then can go on to his other objectives, destroying the governments of Lebanon, Syria and Iran. How is this influencing the U.S.? It's not blatant. When you go to the Anti-Defamation League site you see nothing calling for war with Iraq. Sharon doesn't have to engage in noisy public appeals. The forces that demand the Iron Fist as the answer to all problems (the neocons) are at the highest levels of the U.S. government. When I was in Hebrew School I remember the teachers railing at the State Department for being filled with 'Arabists' who hated Israel. Nobody rational would say that today. The top officials and advisors to Bush are all rabid neocons. Some like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser actually worked for Israeli think tanks, writing grand papers for (Likud) Prime Minister Netanyahu on how the U.S. and Israel should take apart and reconstruct the Middle East. Do we have to talk about Congress? Just a few days ago the House voted near unanimously to congratulate the Israeli government on its wonderful fair election. Here's a government that is in material breach of the Security Council 'demand' that it remove its forces from the Palestinian cities and Congress offers it hugs and kisses. Is it any wonder? The Israel Apartheid lobby just knocked off a four term Congresswoman (McKinney) as it has done to Senators and Congressmen so many times in the past. Years ago a wit called Congress 'Israeli Occupied Territory.' The joke is still right on the mark. Are we giving aid to anti-Semites by denouncing Likud-neocon influence? Not at all. In no way are we advancing the loony Nazi charge that 'the Jews' run the country. Sure, many neocons are Jews. Jews are also the leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement. The biggest Jewish organizations are backing Sharon, but most Jews don't support them. According to a 1995 survey by the American Jewish Committee only 22% of American Jews consider themselves Zionists. Most American Jews don't give a dime to the ADL or any other Israel-boosting organization. A small group of U.S. Jews are fanatical supporters of Israeli Apartheid and they shower it with money. But even though they seem to have the world by a string, it isn't so. When Israeli interests clash with American ruling class interests the tail does not wag the dog. [Ask Jonathan Pollard, who's sitting out a life term in Danbury prison] The U.S. ruling class is overwhelmingly Christian and the fundamentalism that inspires it is Pat Robertson's evangelism, not Jewish Orthodoxy. Our argument is angry but precise. When the Left denounces Sharon we mean Sharon. When we assail an obvious foreign influence we're not alleging some all-powerful secret plot. When we condemn Israeli apartheid we denounce a Jewish superiority state, not the idea that Jews should live in Israel and enjoy every human right. With that said we owe it to Americans to tell them the whole truth, that part of the war drive is being fueled by a wacko militarist clique from Israel and its interlocking bands of American Jewish and Christian supporters. We're told not to bring up Israeli influence on the U.S. because it would split our supporters. Well, who would it alienate? It would tick off a certain group of Jews, those Jews who are schizophrenic politically, people who can be liberal or radical on every cause except Israel."

Whacking Our Allies,
by Joe Sobran, Sobrans, February 20, 2003
"So today our right-wing gladiators — George Will, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the boys at National Review, to mention just a few — have put on their armor and war paint and are contemptuously heaving brickbats at our no-good, gutless, appeasing 'allies' (always spelling the word with derisive quotation marks). Good patriots are now expected to boycott Perrier and avoid dropping French and German phrases, so as to teach these effete European creeps the lesson that World War II apparently failed to get through their skulls. I can’t help noticing, however, that one U.S. ally (no quote marks necessary here) is exempt from all this riotous invective. That would be our only reliable ally in the Middle East — the one that has murdered American sailors and stolen American military secrets. To our heroic conservative journalists, Israel’s treachery to the United States since 1954, unlike France’s surrender to Hitler in 1940, is ancient history — down the Memory Hole. George Will spares Israel his exquisite sarcasms. Limbaugh and Hannity, discussing Ariel Sharon, stop yelling and speak in tones of hushed reverence. National Review doesn’t do long exposés of Israeli duplicity. When it comes to Israel, these patriots’ defiant courage suddenly deserts them. No, Israel is to be loved, honored, supported, and, above all, trusted. Our right-wing patriots aren’t alarmed, or even mildly curious, about Israel’s unacknowledged 'weapons of mass destruction' (including hundreds of nuclear weapons) or about how, exactly, it came by them. In its unhappy relations with the Arabs, including the Palestinian children who seem to attract so much Israeli ammunition, Israel is always right. The motives of Israel’s critics are always suspect. (Hitler’s name is occasionally mentioned, reminding us that any criticism of Jews leads inexorably to genocide.) When I hear our ferocious hawks whaling away (if hawks can be said to whale) at France or Belgium, I try to imagine them speaking of Israel with similar scorn, fury, and ridicule. The idea is laughable. If it turned out that the most outré of recent conspiracy theories was true — that Israel had somehow arranged the 9/11 attacks — I suspect that these hawks would be only momentarily embarrassed. In due course they would explain that Israel surely had understandable reasons, that the news media were making a big sensation out of the incident because of their anti-Israel bias, and that, still and all, Israel remained our staunch ally ... Behind all this courageous excoriation of our old Arab and European allies is a thorough jumpiness about Jews. A simple, sweaty fear. Our brave boys are scared to death. It’s as if they’d read the forged Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, believed every word of them, and concluded that the prudent course was to stay on the good side of the Elders of Zion."

Israel Sees War in Iraq as Path to Mideast Peace,
New York Times, February 24, 2003
"Israelis once believed that the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians would usher in a new Middle East of comfortable Israeli-Arab co-existence. With Oslo in tatters, they are now putting similar hopes in an American war on Iraq. Other nations may cavil, but Israel is so certain of the rightness of a war on Iraq that it is already thinking past that conflict to urge a continued, assertive American role in the Middle East. Shaul Mofaz, Israel's defense minister, told members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations last week that after Iraq, the United States should generate 'political, economic, diplomatic pressure' on Iran. 'We have great interest in shaping the Middle East the day after' a war, he said. It may seem paradoxical that the country most vulnerable to an Iraqi attack in the event of war is most eager for that war to begin. But Israel's military intelligence has concluded that the chances of a successful Iraqi missile strike here during this war, while ever-present, are small. Israel believes that Mr. Hussein seeks devastating weapons but has far less capacity for mayhem now than he did during the first Persian Gulf war, when he fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel. The army also believes its own national defenses are much improved. Israel regards Iran and Syria as greater threats, and it is hoping that once Mr. Hussein is dispensed with, the dominoes will start to tumble. According to this hope - or evolving strategy - moderates and reformers throughout the region will be encouraged to put new pressure on their regimes, not excepting that of Yasir Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah. 'The shock waves emerging from post-Saddam Baghdad could have wide-ranging effects in Tehran, Damascus and in Ramallah,' Efraim Halevy, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's national security adviser, said in a speech in Munich this month. Until recently, Mr. Halevy was the chief of Mossad, Israel's spy agency ... Mr. Sharon has been alarmed by the recent efforts of the so-called Quartet - the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia - to intervene in the conflict here. Mr. Sharon would much prefer to deal only with the United States, regarding the other players as less supportive of Israel's interests. The top Israeli official said that the Quartet may prove a 'casualty' of an Iraqi war. 'The idea of using the Quartet as the great instrument of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - there are people in Washington who are going to say, 'What do we need these people for?' he said."

Arafat warns Israel will exploit any war,
Gulf News [from |Reuters | February 26, 2003
"Israel will use a war on Iraq as cover to evict Palestinians and destroy holy sites, Yasser Arafat warned yesterday. Arafat, addressing the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit by videolink, warned his people would pay a 'heavy price' for any war. 'The Palestinian people, who are suffering the greatest hardships as a result of the Israeli aggression against and occupation of their land and properties, are going to pay a heavy price if this war is waged,' the Palestinian leader told the summit in Arabic. 'The Israeli government is the first in line to push for this war in order to exploit the situation while the world is busy with Iraq,' he said. Arafat, who is unable to attend the 116-nation NAM conference here because Israel has reportedly refused to guarantee his right to return to his territory, also called for Israelis suspected of 'war crimes' to be put on trial. Arafat said certain Israelis were guilty of "the confiscation of land, the transfer of nationals of the occupying power to that land and the building of settlements, which constitute war crimes with the intensity of crimes against humanity.'"

[Consequences of the immoral war for expansionist Israel and the Jewish Lobby:]
WINNING A WAR AND LOSING THE WORLD
by William Pfaff, International Herald Tribune, February 27, 2003
"The Bush government's Phony War against Iraq now has lasted longer than the Phony War of 1939-1940. With each month of delay, opposition to the American plan to invade Iraq has intensified. The administration's manners in campaigning for war have provoked a real anti-Americanism in West European opinion, going much beyond mere dissent on this one issue. During the 11 months since the administration made public its intention to cause 'regime change' in Iraq, international markets and the international economy have foundered in uncertainty about the war. This uncertainty, which businessmen and investors hate, has smothered the international recovery previously expected to follow the bust of the high-tech bubble. The Bush people seem not to have noticed. The American Phony War is damaging the international economy, the principal international security and political institutions, and what is left of the American reputation for seriousness ... Washington's one success has been to split the European Union. The incompetence of all this is what surprises. Never before has the Iraqi despot had so many governments trying to prevent an attack on him. Never before has opinion in the liberal democracies been so alienated from the United States. The president and his men have put their own team in a hole so deep that when Washington does go to war against Iraq, as it soon will, it is unlikely to have any major allies left other than the governments of Britain, Spain and Poland. Washington says that what thus far has happened in the Security Council threatens to demonstrate the UN's 'irrelevance,' since the UN is relevant only when it endorses U.S. decisions ... Washington has quite possibly made an activist, rival Europe more, rather than less, likely."

U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation,
New York Times, February 27, 2003
"The following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Kiesling is a career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan." The letter is also reproduced here.

[More about the impending war on behalf of Israel:]
U.S. Diplomat Resigns, Protesting 'Our Fervent Pursuit of War',
by Felicity Barringer, New York Times, February 27, 2003
"A career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan resigned this week in protest against the country's policies on Iraq. The diplomat, John Brady Kiesling, the political counselor at the United States Embassy in Athens, said in his resignation letter, 'Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson.' Mr. Kiesling, 45, who has been a diplomat for about 20 years, said in a telephone interview tonight that he faxed the letter to Secretary of State Colin L, Powell on Monday after informing Thomas Miller, the ambassador in Athens, of his decision. He said he had acted alone, but 'I've been comforted by the expressions of support I've gotten afterward' from colleagues. 'No one has any illusions that the policy will be changed,' he said. 'Too much has been invested in the war' ... Asked if his views were widely shared among his diplomatic colleagues, Mr. Kiesling said: 'No one of my colleagues is comfortable with our policy. Everyone is moving ahead with it as good and loyal. The State Department is loaded with people who want to play the team game - we have a very strong premium on loyalty.'"

Bush lays out his “vision” for the Middle East. US imperialism’s rendezvous with disaster,
World Socialist Web Site, February 28, 2003
"According to the US president, the struggle of the Palestinians will end once Baghdad can no longer serve as 'a wealthy patron that pays for terrorist training and offers rewards to families of suicide bombers.' The arrogance and stupidity of this statement are breathtaking. Does Bush really believe that Palestinian youth go to Baghdad to learn how to blow themselves up, or that they do it to get Iraqi 'rewards' for their families? Nearly 2,300 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and Zionist settlers since the intensification of the intifada in September 2000, the great majority unarmed civilians. The population of more than 3.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is subjected to a permanent state of siege, locked in their homes on pain of death, prevented from moving freely by hundreds of roadblocks and barricades, and denied adequate food and medicine. The Bush administration is fully complicit in this naked repression ... The most right-wing government in the country’s [Israel's] history, Sharon’s coalition rests on two semi-fascist parties, one based on the settlers in the occupied territories and the other promoting a policy of 'transfer,' i.e., the expulsion of the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. This Israeli regime has welcomed and encouraged a war against Iraq. It will use the US invasion as the pretext for launching its own intensified assault on the Palestinians. It enjoys the intimate collaboration of the Bush administration. Among the figures most directly involved in planning the war against Iraq are US officials who formerly functioned as advisors and lobbyists for the Israeli government and the Likud Party. Richard Perle, for example, worked as an advisor to Benyamin Netanyahu, Likud’s rightist candidate in the 1996 election. Perle championed an end to peace talks with the Palestinians and the reconquest of Gaza and the West Bank by the Israeli military. Working with him as an advisor to the Zionist right was Douglas Feith, now undersecretary of defense for policy ... Feith has now emerged as the Pentagon’s point-man for the 'postwar reconstruction' of Iraq. Tapped for the top civilian job in the planned “office of reconstruction” for the occupied country is Michael Mobbs, another Pentagon bureaucrat who was formerly Feith’s law partner. The lucrative practice run by Feith when he was out of government had essentially one client, the Israeli military-industrial complex. Last year, Mobbs was the author of a two-page sworn statement defending President Bush’s right to declare any US citizen an 'enemy combatant' and jail them indefinitely without charges, a hearing, a lawyer or bail, much less a trial. The memo was submitted in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a 21-year-old American-born Saudi captured in Afghanistan and held incommunicado in the Guantanamo, Cuba prison camp. With such personnel, the claim that the aim in Iraq is to foster a democratic revival is preposterous. What is being prepared is a brutal colonial regime that will seek to utilize as much as possible the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s own repressive apparatus while subordinating it to the interests of the US and Israel. Its principal function will be to guarantee unrestricted US exploitation of Iraqi oil and the suppression of popular revolt. What is most striking about Bush’s “vision,” however, is that it by no means ends with Iraq. With an invasion of that country, Washington is embarking on an open-ended campaign of military interventions that will bring it face to face with revolutionary explosions in the Middle East and throughout the world."

[Talk show screamer Michael "Savage" (who is Jewish, born Michael Weiner) calls for those who oppose the invasion of Iraq (unspoken subtext: on behalf of Israel) to be jailed.]
Michael Savage,
Michael Savage
"The Sedition Act - Time to Act. Time to Arrest the Leaders of the Anti-War Movement, Once we Go To War? We Must Protect Our Troops! Sponsor The Paul Revere Society!"

[Increasingly, the United States military IS the Israeli military.]
U.S. military plugs Israel into real-time war monitoring. Unprecedented access to command intelligence aims to keep IDF out of Iraq conflict,
By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz (Israel), March 4, 2003
"Israel and the United States have set up a joint command post next to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv at which Israeli army officers will be able to view real-time pictures of the movements of American war planes over Iraq in the event of a war. In addition, an American early warning system that is hooked directly into U.S. intelligence satellites over Iraq was transferred to Israel a few weeks ago, giving Israel direct access to information on any Iraqi missile launches at its terrority, with no delays and no filtering. Both of these are unprecedented measures, according to a report in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. The aim is to prove to Israel that the U.S. is doing everything in its power to prevent Iraqi missiles from landing here, and therefore to convince it not to retaliate should any missiles nevertheless hit. According to the Journal, Israel will be the only country other than the U.S. hooked directly into the U.S. Central Command's communications system."

[Another consequence of Jewish Hollywood and the impending war for Israel].
Hollywood Actors Raise McCarthyism Specter on Iraq,
Yahoo!News (from Reuters), March 4, 2003
"Hollywood actors, facing a vitriolic backlash for their opposition to a war against Iraq, have raised the specter of Cold War McCarthyism in an appeal to avoid returning to one of the movie industry's darkest hours. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) said a slew of hate-mail directed at actors who have taken a public personal stand against war, along with calls for boycotts of movies and albums on the nation's talk radio airwaves and Internet message boards, 'suggests that the lessons of history have, for some, fallen on deaf ears.We deplore the idea that those in the public eye should suffer professionally for having the courage to give voice to their views. Even a hint of the blacklist must never again be tolerated in this nation,' SAG, the nation's largest actors' union, said in a statement. The SAG statement was issued in response to a growing tide of abuse toward American celebrities who have spoken out against a 'rush to war' on nationally televised award shows, through interviews, anti-war TV ads or by taking part in mass protests."

[The Jewish defense of Israeli racism: criticizing the Jewish Lobby and the impending war on behalf of Israel is "hate."]
Anti-war sentiment borders hate speech. Guest commentary: Masha Katz, Joel Sokoloff, Robert Galinsky, Dan Gruber and nine co-signers,
Oregon Daily Emerald, March 04, 2003
"Free speech -- on which this country was founded -- is the right and privilege of all individuals. With this freedom comes responsibility, which was jeopardized on Feb. 18. At the intersection of 13th Avenue and University Street, a swastika, a symbol of atrocity and anti-Semitism, was depicted with 'Bush=Hitler' written nearby. As Jewish students, we feel that incident warrants commentary. First, using a swastika for political discourse is offensive and unacceptable. The swastika, as utilized by Nazi Germany, is the symbol that was used to unite a nation for the systematic extermination of our ancestors. This was not only the symbol to pool hatred solely against the Jews, but also many other minority groups which were thought to be inferior. The Nazi swastika has forever become the mark of anti-Semitism and hate. There is no denying that President George W. Bush is a controversial political leader. However, the comparison of Hitler to Bush marginalizes the horrors the Nazis committed. Any objective view of recent history and current events will show that this analogy is flawed in many ways. Those responsible should be more aware of the implications of their actions and understand that what they did forms a basis for the resurgence of hate on campus. There is already concern among many that the revitalization of the anti-war movement has brought around hateful thoughts in the masses that are hard to quell once in progress. One example of this is the subtle but strong cartoon depiction of Ariel Sharon in the Emerald ... Although this cartoon is not the specific matter in question, it is obvious that the anti-Israel movement is broadening to include anti-Jewish thought. This all goes back to the line between free speech and hate speech. This is a difficult scale to try to balance because free speech is held so dearly in this country. There is the case that any censorship is a distinct violation of free speech and will just lead to further suppression of free expression. This rationale is valid most of the time, but there must be an awareness that not all speech is conducive to critical thinking and sometimes has the reverse effect. Using hate to rally others behind your thoughts just creates more mindless following and doesn't recognize that there may be people who are deeply offended by this absurd demonstration of insensitivity."

[Jail for protesting the war for Israel.]
Man Arrested for Wearing Peace T-Shirt,
Earthlink (from Associated Press), March 5, 2003
"A man was charged with trespassing in a mall after he refused to take off a T-shirt that said 'Peace on Earth' and 'Give peace a chance.' Mall security approached Stephen Downs, 61, and his 31-year-old son, Roger, on Monday night after they were spotted wearing the T-shirts at Crossgates Mall in a suburb of Albany, the men said. The two said they were asked to remove the shirts made at a store there, or leave the mall. They refused. The guards returned with a police officer who repeated the ultimatum. The son took his T-shirt off, but the father refused. ''I said, `All right then, arrest me if you have to,'' Downs said. 'So that's what they did. They put the handcuffs on and took me away.'"

[Who is the foundation behind the new Middle East "Plan." Ted Koppel, who is Jewish, won't tell you. William Kristol, the big pusher behind the "Plan" also is Jewish. So is even counter-commentator below Ian Lustick, pro-Israel Jewish White House hawks like Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and on and on. The "Plan" is Jewish, and it a new form of imperialism in the Middle East -- the United States as an extension of brutal, racist, "pre-emptive strike" Israel.]
The Plan,
ABC Nightline (posted at unansweredquestions.net), March 5, 2003
[transcript]
WILLIAM KRISTOL, PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY: If America doesn't lead, no one else will.
TED KOPPEL, ABC NEWS (Off Camera) It has been called a secret blueprint for US global domination.
WILLIAM KRISTOL America was being too timid and too weak and too unassertive in the post-Cold War era.
TED KOPPEL (Voice Over) A small group of people with a plan to remove Saddam Hussein, long before George W. Bush was elected president. PROFESSOR IAN LUSTICK, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA This group set an agenda and have made the President feel that he has to live up to their definitions of manliness and fear their definitions of failure.
TED KOPPEL (Voice Over) And 9/11 provided the opportunity to set it in motion.
WILLIAM KRISTOL One of the lessons of 9/11 is that you can't sit back and wait to be hit.
Graphics: The Plan
TED KOPPEL (Voice Over) Tonight, "The Plan", how one group and its blueprint have brought us to the brink of war ...
TED KOPPEL (Off Camera) You can watch our story tonight on at least two levels. One, the conspiracy theory, as in this excerpt from a Scottish newspaper, the Glasgow 'Sunday Herald'. 'A secret blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure regime change even before he took power in January 2001.' And a similar, if slightly more hysterical version from a Russian paper, the 'Moscow Times'. 'Not since Mein Kampf has a geopolitical punch been so blatantly telegraphed, years ahead of the blow.'
TED KOPPEL (CONTINUED) (Off Camera) Take away the somewhat hyperbolic references to conspiracy, however, and you're left with a story that has the additional advantage of being true. Back in 1997, a group of Washington heavyweights, almost all of them neo-conservatives, formed an organization called the Project for the New American Century. They did what former government officials and politicians frequently do when they're out of power, they began formulating a strategy, in this case, a foreign policy strategy, that might bring influence to bear on the Administration then in power, headed by President Clinton. Or failing that, on a new Administration that might someday come to power. They were pushing for the elimination of Saddam Hussein. And proposing the establishment of a strong US military presence in the Persian Gulf, linked to a willingness to use force to protect vital American interests in the Gulf. All of that might be of purely academic interest were it not for the fact that among the men behind that campaign were such names as, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. What was, back in 1997, merely a theory, is now, in 2003, US policy. Hardly a conspiracy, the proposal was out there for anyone to see. But certainly an interesting case study of how columnists, commentators, and think-tank intellectuals can, with time and the election of a sympathetic president, change the course of American foreign policy ...
JACKIE JUDD (Off Camera) What was the Project's influence in shaping that thinking?
WILLIAM KRISTOL Well, we had been making these arguments for a few years and we continued to make them.
JACKIE JUDD (Off Camera) How?
WILLIAM KRISTOL Magazine articles, faxed memoranda, longer reports. JACKIE JUDD (Off Camera) To whom?
WILLIAM KRISTOL To the whole world. We made it very public that we thought that one consequence the President should draw from 9/11 is that it was unacceptable to sit back and let, either terrorist groups or dictators developing weapons of mass destruction, strike, first at us.
JACKIE JUDD (Voice Over) Out of all this, a conspiracy theory blossomed, especially in Europe. From Scotland to Russia to England. Writers who oppose a war have written about a cabal of neo-conservatives pulling the strings of the President. A cabal with visions of an imperialist America dominating the world. Even Ian Lustick thinks the Project has acted in a conspiratorial way. PROFESSOR IAN LUSTICK This group, what I call the tom-tom beaters, have set an agenda and have made the President feel that he has to live up to their definitions of manliness, their definitions of success and fear, their definitions of failure ...
JACKIE JUDD (Voice Over) Some critics compare the Project to the group of men who helped lead America into Vietnam and came to be known as "the best and the brightest." Kristol dismisses the comparison. Still, he says, as America seems poised to go to war, there is a degree of accountability he will feel when the first bomb drops.
WILLIAM KRISTOL Of course I'll feel some sense of responsibility. The only point I would also make, though, is one also has to take responsibility, would also have to take responsibility if one advocated doing nothing and then if something terrible happens. And, and I worry. I worry, not because I'm going to look bad, I worry because people could die and will die in this war.
JACKIE JUDD (Off Camera) And after a war, the Project has a vision beyond a regime change in Iraq. A vision in which the United States government inserts itself in other failed regimes in the Middle East. So this truly does become a new American century."

[Another columnist who walks on eggshells before the Jewish Lobby. Dare to speak openly and honestly about Israel's centrality in the impending war with Iraq and your career is in danger.]
Playing Texas poker, Bush bets all on Iraq,
by Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times, March 6, 2003
"A senior Bush official privately admits what his administration cannot declare publicly. The stagnant economy, a dagger aimed at the heart of George W. Bush's second term, will not immediately respond to the president's economic growth program. The economic engine will not be revived until the war against Saddam Hussein is launched and won. Military victory is anticipated inside the Bush administration as the tonic that will prompt corporation officers and private investors to unleash the American economy's dormant power. Although it is impolitic to say so, the fact that the United States will be sitting on a new major oil supply will stimulate the domestic economy. That puts a high premium on quickly gaining control of Iraq's oil wells before they can be torched--a major uncertainty in an otherwise strictly scripted scenario. 'This is Texas poker, with the president putting everything on Iraq,' a Republican senator (who thoroughly approves of this policy) told me ... Few Republicans discuss even in private whether the president had to make this bet. The usually unasked question: Was it really necessary to focus on Saddam's removal from power? With U.S. troops ready to head into harm's way, patriotic politicians do not want to speculate whether this war was avoidable. Any suggestion that the present course largely echoes policies of the Israeli government risks accusations of anti-Israeli and, indeed, anti-Semitic bias. Ever since the Six Day War of 1967, my late partner Rowland Evans and I have faced such accusations whenever we questioned the wisdom of a joint U.S.-Israeli policy. Most recent was the column in the Washington Post of Feb. 18 by Lawrence F. Kaplan, a New Republic senior editor. He cited me and several other journalists in alleging that 'invoking the specter of dual loyalty' (to the United States and Israel) by Jewish Americans was 'toxic,' polluting and even nullifying 'public discourse.' Two days later on CNN's 'Crossfire,' I asked Kaplan to name one instance when I had suggested dual loyalty by anybody. He could not, because I had not. But more than misrepresenting me is involved. Origins of the decision to wage the war against terrorism by removing Saddam has nothing to do with the ethnic origins of its supporters, but constitute something that should be explored without being attacked."

[Jewish neurotic totalitarianism: if you're anti-war and don't want to kill in the service of Israel, the effect is to kill Jews.]
The peace movement of the 1930s made the Holocaust inevitable --- by accident; The peace movement of Today wants no more accidents: Just the death of Jews,
by Sam Schulman, Jewish World Review, March 6, 2003
"The forces aligned with the anti-war, pro-Saddam movement - the interests guiding the anti-war, pro-Sadaam movement - and most of all, the strength the anti-war, pro-Saddam movement derives from Jewish supporters - including, it would seem, most of Hollywood's Jews, the editors of The Forward, the readers of The New York Times - are objectively if not intentionally supporting the people who wish them harm, death, and total elimination. Language itself has changed its meaning. Three years ago, those who said they were anti-Israel but not anti-Semitic meant that they opposed the particular measures the Government of Israel was taking to defend its civilians from terrorists. Now, to say that one is anti-Israel but not ant-Semitic means generally that - if one is a moderate - one is opposed to the existence of Israel as a self-governing Jewish State where it has existed for the better part of a century. But if one is really progressive, it means that one is opposed to the notion that Jews might be permitted to live as individuals in Palestine, where they have lived and come and gone freely and continuously for over two millennia, and that, instead, they should be uprooted and dispossessed by force ... For those of our race - the historic victims of so many causes - it would be disastrous to make the same mistake twice, and entrust our children's fate to the hands of these sad and complicitous pacifists."

America admits suspects died in interrogations,
by Andrew Gumbel, Independent (UK), March 7, 2003
"American military officials acknowledged yesterday that two prisoners captured in Afghanistan in December had been killed while under interrogation at Bagram air base north of Kabul - reviving concerns that the US is resorting to torture in its treatment of Taliban fighters and suspected al-Qa'ida operatives. A spokesman for the air base confirmed that the official cause of death of the two men was 'homicide', contradicting earlier accounts that one had died of a heart attack and the other from a pulmonary embolism. The men's death certificates, made public earlier this week, showed that one captive, known only as Dilawar, 22, from the Khost region, died from 'blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease' while another captive, Mullah Habibullah, 30, suffered from blood clot in the lung that was exacerbated by a 'blunt force injury'. US officials previously admitted using 'stress and duress" on prisoners including sleep deprivation, denial of medication for battle injuries, forcing them to stand or kneel for hours on end with hoods on, subjecting them to loud noises and sudden flashes of light and engaging in culturally humiliating practices such as having them kicked by female officers. While the US claims this still constitutes 'humane' treatment, human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have denounced it as torture as defined by international treaty. The US has also come under heavy criticism for its reported policy of handing suspects over to countries such as Jordan, Egypt or Morocco, where torture techniques are an established part of the security apparatus. Legally, Human Rights Watch says, there is no distinction between using torture directly and subcontracting it out."

[Jack Walters is one of the few American politicians who isn't hanging out of Jewish pockets, and he's on the right moral track, but he doesn't emphasize the central problem: the Jewish Lobby that seeks to exploit the American military to remake the Middle East for the convenience of brutal, racist Israel.]
Missouri GOP Chairman Resignation Letter,
by Jack Walters, P.O. Box 512, Columbia, MO 65205, 573-474-4449
Email: rapid.press@verizon.net
Information Clearinghouse, March 8, 2003
"I grieve for our nation, and the untold suffering that will be wrought. As history has shown, you can possess the greatest armaments in the world, but if your cause and motives are not right, only catastrophe will result. OUR COUNTRY ABOVE POLITICS. As the Bush administration moves toward certain war in the Middle East—a war which I believe nothing good will come from, a war which is unjust, unnecessary, and a war which will undoubtedly widen, perhaps even into world war, thereby placing our nation in dire peril—I have made a decision regarding my position as Boone County Republican Chairman. Wars are easy to get into, but very difficult to get out of. They can sap the moral and spiritual fiber of a nation, squander lives and resources, deplete scarce funds, cause undue hardship on all involved, destroy families, and engender hopelessness. I have questioned both the motives for military action at this time, and the ever-changing, illogical justifications presented to us in what has to be one of the greatest media propaganda blitzes ever force-fed a populace. Any time ground troops are deployed, serious questions must be asked and real answers demanded. The jingoistic rhetoric we are receiving does not constitute legitimate answers. The consequences of our planned attack on Iraq (and also probably Iran, given the size of our forces and their location in proximity to Iran), should cause us all to pause. The Pentagon has announced that we will hit Baghdad with a force almost equal to the bombing of Hiroshima. Obviously many thousands of civilians will perish, with untold thousands maimed. And for what? To liberate them? To bring them freedom? Or democracy? Or is it to really secure the world’s second largest oil reserve and establish a base from which to subjugate other Middle Eastern nations? Is it also the plan for Israel to use the cover of war to forcibly relocate the Palestinian population (as has been publicly stated by some members of Israel’s current government)? How on earth have we arrived at this crucial juncture in our country’s history? How has a war on terrorism been converted into an attack on Iraq? What threat does Iraq pose to us? We must lay the blame squarely on our congress, who according to our Constitution, only has the power to declare war. For congress to cede it’s war-making power to the executive branch is unconstitutional on the very face of it and effectively destroys our three branches of government. Circumventing our Constitution is very bad, and the undeclared wars, which have resulted in our recent history, have had disastrous results. Undeclared wars have no declared objectives, and therefore can widen at will, and our foray into the Middle East will likely set in motion a long-term wave of retaliation. Indeed, I believe that the administration would like to entice Iraq into firing the first blow so some justification could be paraded at the United Nations. If the United States government can adopt this unreal doctrine of preemptive attack on any nation, anywhere, at any time, so can other nations! This is how world wars begin. If the President goes into Iraq alone without a UN resolution, he will be in violation of the war powers given him last October by congress which was contingent on UN approval. A constitutional crisis will occur. What we are about to do in the Middle East is abhorrent to me. It is made doubly so since this is a contrived and fraudulently justified war with hidden objectives. The coming mass slaughter of innocents, the harm our own troops are being placed in, and the potential for wars on several fronts have brought home to me the sobering realization that by remaining Boone County Republican Chairman, I would be giving tacit approval to this imminent war, and tacit approval to the belligerent and reckless language coming from the White House. The safety and integrity of our country outweighs politics. I therefore resign as Chairman of the Boone County Republican Central Committee effective at noon, March 10, 2003."

[Still waiting for Carter's courageous article about the Jewish lockhold on U.S. foreign policy ...]
Jimmy Carter opposes unilateral attack on Iraq,
ABC News, March 9, 2003
"Former US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter has condemned preparations for a unilateral US attack on Iraq, saying it would be an unjust war 'almost unprecedented in the history of civilised nations'. In an article in The New York Times, Mr Carter said profound changes in US foreign policy have reversed 'consistent bipartisan commitments that for more than two centuries have earned our nation greatness' ... President George W Bush is facing widespread international opposition to his threats to invade Iraq and topple President Saddam Hussein, whom Washington accuses of hiding chemical and biological weapons. Mr Bush says he will not let the absence of UN approval stop him, describing US security as paramount. Saddam has denied having weapons of mass destruction and several members of the UN Security Council want continued UN arms inspections rather than war. Mr Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, said Iraq did not directly threaten US security. 'But now ... despite the overwhelming opposition of most people and governments in the world, the United States seems determined to carry out military and diplomatic action that is almost unprecedented in the history of civilised nations,' he wrote. Mr Carter described Mr Bush's attempts to link Iraq to the September 11 2001 attacks on America as unconvincing and said the President has no international authority to establish a "Pax Americana in the region, perhaps occupying the ethnically divided country for as long as a decade'".

[Standing up to the (Jewish Lobby's) war against Iraq.]
Second US diplomat quits over war,
Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), March 11 2003
"A veteran US diplomat resigned today in protest over US policy toward Iraq, becoming the second career foreign service officer to do so in the past month. John Brown, who joined the State Department in 1981, said he resigned because he could not support Washington's Iraq policy, which he said was fomenting a massive rise in anti-US sentiment around the world. In a resignation letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Brown said he agreed with J Brady Kiesling, a diplomat at the US embassy in Athens who quit in February over President George W Bush's apparent intent on fighting Iraq. 'I am joining my colleague John Brady Kiesling in submitting my resignation from the Foreign Service - effective immediately - because I cannot in good conscience support President Bush's war plans against Iraq,' he said. 'Throughout the globe the United States is becoming associated with the unjustified use of force,' Brown said in the letter, a copy of which he sent to AFP. 'The president's disregard for views in other nations, borne out by his neglect of public diplomacy, is giving birth to an anti-American century,' he said."

[The dam against open discussion about Jewish dominance in America is starting to rupture -- slow but sure.]
The Iraq crisis as the War of the Jews,
by Bradley Burston, Haaretz (Israel), March 12, 2003
"The Iraq crisis has triggered the largest pre-emptive anti-war movement in history, with millions on the march against a war that has still yet to begin. As the tide of opposition has grown, so has an undercurrent of argument that Jewish influence in America and Israel is a crucial factor pushing Washington into battle, in turn spurring furious debate over the line between free expression and classic anti-Semitism. The latest focus of the debate was a congressional district close to Washington, where veteran Democratic Congressman James P. Moran Jr. sparked fiery condemnation by telling an anti-war gathering at a Virginia church why he believed mass opposition across the U.S. to an Iraq offensive had not done more to reverse the march to war. 'If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this,' Moran said in remarks quoted Tuesday by the Washington Post. 'The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going, and I think they should.' An onslaught of criticism followed, undiminished by Moran's subsequent apology ... Moran's remarks came amid a flood of commentary from analysts of both the American left and right suggesting that Bush administration was taking advice - if not outright orders - from the Sharon government and the Israeli defense establishment on handling Saddam Hussein. The analysts' comments have intensified as top-ranking Israeli officials have gone on record predicting that the war could have a cure-all effect for many of the Jewish state's paralyzing economic and security ills. The image of such a deus ex machina has been invoked so often as to have entered Israeli public discourse as a synonym for the positive side effects of a war in Iraq - a solution which, if far-fetched in many of its assumptions, may be the only remedy on an otherwise desolate horizon. Of late, the very Jewish organizations speaking out against what they perceive as the new anti-Semitism have themselves come in for attack for allegedly doing the bidding of offstage Jewish and Israeli puppet-masters ... Several of Bush's current defense advisers were instrumental in the preparation of a 1996 position paper for then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a darling of a number of self-described neo-conservatives, many of them high-profile Jewish Republicans. As one of its recommendations, the position paper advised Israeli leaders to 'focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.' The paper's authors included Douglas Feith, now Bush's Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Richard Perle, currently chairman of the Pentagon's advisory Defense Policy Board, and David Wurmser, now a special assistant to Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton. The voices alleging undue hardline Israeli and Jewish influence on the administration also cite the appointments of the hawkish Paul Wolfowitz as Deputy Defense Secretary and of Perle protege Elliot Abrams, viewed as a persuasive critic of the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process, as director of Mideast affairs for the National Security Council. The Abrams appointment spurred an unnamed senior administration official to tell the Washington Post last month that 'the Likudniks are really in charge now' ... Although Jews on the left have long been inured to being dismissed - often by fellow Jews - as anti-Semitic for criticizing Israel, the vociferous nature of some anti-war organizers' anti-Israel positions has convinced even fellow Jewish leftists that anti-Semitism is indeed the proper designation."

[Unspoken subtext: American foreign policy has become a pawn of the Jewish Lobby, as has the British Tony Blair government.]
40 Labour MPs call for Blair to resign,
March 12, 2003
"Labour Party discontent over Tony Blair's stance on Iraq burst into the open for the first time yesterday when more than 40 MPs called for the Prime Minister to resign. The Campaign Group of Labour MPs issued a statement calling on the Prime Minister to 'consider his position' and fellow left-wingers urged a party conference to discuss a leadership challenge. Hilton Dawson, the MP for Lancaster and Wyre, also suggested in a Commons debate that Mr Blair should step down if he failed to get a fresh UN mandate for war ... . But the fact that MPs were openly prepared to contemplate Mr Blair's dismissal underlined the extent of the schism facing the Prime Minister in the absence of a second UN resolution. As well as resignation by Clare Short and others, he faces a rebellion by up to 200 MPs. Mr Dawson, who is not known as a left-winger, said in the House of Commons that the Prime Minister should consider quitting or risk bringing the Labour Party 'to its knees' over war with Iraq ... John McDonnell, the MP for Hayes and Harlington, issued a statement on behalf of the 40 MPs in the Campaign Group that read: 'It is time for the Prime Minister to consider his position. If he is not prepared to stand up to George Bush, he must make way for those that will,' it said."

[British Prime Minister Tony Blair swept by the Jewish pro-war Lobby.]
J'accuse: Why Tony Blair has to go,
Toronto Globe and Mail, March 12, 2003,
"The Linlithgow constituency association of the British Labour Party has put forward a motion recommending that Prime Minister Tony Blair reconsider his position as leader of our party if Britain supports a war against Iraq without clearly expressed support from the United Nations. I agree with this motion. I also believe that if Mr. Blair goes ahead with his support of an American attack without unambiguous UN authorization and without a vote in our House of Commons, he should be branded as a war criminal and sent to The Hague. I have served in the House of Commons as a member of the Labour Party for 41 years and I would never have dreamed of saying this about any one of my previous leaders. But this is a man who has disdain for the House of Commons and international law. This is a grave thing to say about my party leader. But it is far less serious than the results of a war that could set Western Christendom against Islam. Mr. Blair is a lawyer for heaven's sake, but a growing number of dissenters within our party have concluded that he seems to have no understanding that his decision to sanction military action in Iraq without proper Security Council authorization is illegal under international law ... I don't think Mr. Blair really understands the horrors of 21st century war. In 1994, I visited Baghdad (all expenses paid by me) and saw the carbonated limbs of women and children impregnated against a wall by the heat of just one cruise missile. In the coming war, we are told that 800 cruise missiles will be launched just to soften up the enemy. Canadians should not be astonished at the growing opposition to Mr. Blair in Britain and within his own party. Many of us in the Labour Party believe he has misunderstood the pressing danger. It comes not from Iraq, but from terrorism. If there is a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, it is this: Osama bin Laden hates Saddam Hussein; on at least two occasions his organization tried to assassinate him. The wicked perpetrators of Sept. 11 were not Iraqis. They were Saudis and Yemenis. Their bases were in Hamburg, perhaps in London, and certainly in the U.S. itself." [Tam Dalyell, Labour MP for Linlithgow since 1962, is the longest continuously serving member of the British House of Commons.]

[The key is this: as long as people remain intimidated before Jewish power and fail to condemn the Jews' war for Israel, the Jewish Lobby maintains its censorial power. Once condemnation of the Jewish Lobby becomes an avalanche, all will be lost for them.]
As possible strike on Baghdad nears, some say U.S. is fighting Israel’s war,
by Matthew E. Berger, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 10, 2003
"A furor over comments by a U.S. lawmaker is highlighting the resurgent trend of blaming Israel and the Jewish community for the impending war against Iraq. Six rabbis from northern Virginia have asked for the resignation of Rep. James Moran (D-Va.), after he told constituents last week that the Jewish community is behind the Bush administration’s push for war. Moran is apologizing to the Jewish community, and was planning to meet with area rabbis later this week. While Moran’s comments specifically linked the organized American Jewish community with a push for war, an increasing number of people are blaming the looming Iraq war on Jewish officials in the Bush administration. The sentiments echo those made in 1991 by conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan, who said the Persian Gulf War was being touted by 'the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States.' Given widespread skepticism of the U.S. motives for a strike on Baghdad, some Jewish leaders say there is potential for the 'amen corner' comments to gain as much — if not more — traction as they did a decade ago. 'There is a greater potential for mischief on this issue now than 11 or 12 years ago,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. In a town hall with constituents March 3, Moran said, 'If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this,' according to the Virginia-area Connection newspapers. Moran said Jewish leaders were motivated by discussions they had with Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish former prime minister. Rabbi Jack Moline, rabbi at the conservative Agudas Achim Congregation of Northern Virginia, is leading the charge for Moran’s resignation. Moline, who spoke with the congressman for 45 minutes last Friday, says the lawmaker’s remarks are comparable to the comments of Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who was forced to vacate his leadership post last year after making racially insensitive comments at a birthday party. The Jewish community has had problems with Moran for years because of his outspoken comments against Israel. They have also been frustrated by the lack of a primary challenger against him in congressional races. 'We have attempted to bridge the gap with Congressman Moran,' Moline said. 'And we have attempted to persuade the Democratic Party that he wasn’t the best representative for us.'” [WHAT ARROGANCE! WHO THE HELL GIVES A DAMN WHAT'S BEST FOR JEWS! THEIR POWER TO DEMAND THAT EVERYTHING REVOLVES AROUND THEM IS THE PROBLEM!]

[Gil Cates is Jewish, as is the war against Iraq.]
Oscars blacklist stars in bid to prevent peace protest speeches,
The Scotsman (Scotland), March 11, 2003
"The backlash against prominent stars opposing any attack on Iraq has impacted on this year’s Oscars, with organisers drawing up a blacklist of people who will not be allowed a platform to air anti-war views. Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, Vanessa Redgrave, George Clooney, Dustin Hoffman and Spike Lee are among those who will not be speaking, amid fears they could turn the ceremony into an anti-war rally. In a move denounced by some as a return to McCarthyism, star presenters have been ordered to stick to scripts, while winners, who the producers have no control over, could find their acceptance speeches cut if they say anything much more than a brief thank you. Officially, executives say that politics is a turn-off for the show’s television audience. But in the wake of a public backlash against actors such as Martin Sheen, from the West Wing, who have voiced opposition to war, producers do not want to upset advertisers who have paid more than £50 million for adverts ... Gil Cates, one of the ceremony’s producers, wants the ceremony, which takes place on 23 March, to celebrate the Oscars’ 75th anniversary rather than the anti-Bush/Blair movement. And he admitted he thought it 'inappropriate' for stars to use their slots to spotlight world problems. But Tom O’Neil, an Oscar historian, said: 'Political tantrums are inevitable. You’re dealing with a class of people who have unchecked egos and who are invited on talk shows to be experts on everything from high art to pop culture.' Top of the loose-cannon list this year is the Bowling for Columbine director, Michael Moore, a favourite to win the documentary feature award. Last month, Moore thanked the French for not supporting the proposed Iraqi invasion while accepting an award in Paris. And on Saturday, he used the Writers Guild of America awards in Los Angeles to voice his opinions of George Bush, the US president. Worryingly, for the Oscar producers, Moore won loud applause after telling the audience: 'What I see is a country that does not like what’s going on. Let’s all commit ourselves to Bush removal in 2004.' If Moore does not win an Oscar, insiders claim Hollywood will be reverting back to the witch-hunting 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy and his cohorts destroyed the careers of supposed Communist sympathies."

[Truth is the first casualty in times of war. Jews dominate the mass media top hierarchy; this is relevant to any claims of journalistic "objectivity."]
The people don’t know and can’t know,
Evatt Foundation, March 13, 2003
"John Pilger introduces the new edition of Phillip Knightley's classic. The First Casualty: When I read the first edition of this remarkable book twenty-five years ago, I was struck by the following quotations. During the First World War, Prime Minister David Lloyd George told C P Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian: 'If the people really knew [the truth] the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don't know and can't know.' The truth was reported, insisted The Times correspondent, Sir Phillip Gibbs (knighted for his services), 'apart from the naked realism of horrors and losses, and criticism of the facts' ... 'When American bombs incinerated hundreds of women and children in a bomb shelter in a residential part of Baghdad, and several British correspondents reported that there were no strategic or military targets nearby, their patriotism was called into question and their reporting was pilloried in the tabloid press as 'truly disgusting' and 'a disgrace to their country' ... Almost every word of these testimonies could apply to the wars of our time, especially the Gulf War of 1991 and the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Chapters covering these have been added to this new edition, making Knightley's work the most comprehensive j'accuse of journalism as propaganda in the English language. It is the author's lament that, for all the dazzling advances in media technology, the media has little or no memory, as the same bogus 'truth' is served up again and again. Reading the new material, I wondered when journalism's modern breeding grounds, the media studies courses, would begin to address the most important issue raised in this book: the virulence of an unrecognised censorship, often concealed behind false principles of objectivity, whose effect is to minimise and deny the culpability of Western power in acts of great violence and terrorism, such and the Gulf and Kosovo. Thus The Independent could praise the 'miraculously few casualties' in the Gulf War (meaning the few British and American casualties, most of them the result of American 'friendly fire'), while the horror of up to a quarter of a million Iraqis slaughtered by the US-led forces was consigned to oblivion."

[More prospects for the Jewish Lobby's war with Iraq.]
Average Iraqi resents the U.S. more than Saddam,
Daily News (Los Angeles), March 14, 2003
"Iraqis moving in and out of their country as war looms warn that invading U.S. troops likely would face a population determined to fight to the death. President Bush has appealed to Iraqis, promising liberation. But many now see America — which insisted on economic sanctions that hurt millions of Iraqis and is poised to defy world opinion by waging war - as more of a menace now than Saddam Hussein ... Many Shia Muslims from southern Iraq, like Kurds in the north, favor regime change. Iraqis in Baghdad and central Iraq are more loyal. Yet the overriding consensus — conveyed during two dozen recent interviews in desert borderlands and the capitals of Syria and Jordan — is that an oil-hungry invader acting unilaterally must be opposed ... The prospect of popular resistance presents a challenge to U.S. war chiefs .. This weekend, Bush seeks to amplify his appeal by meeting with Iraqi survivors of Saddam Hussein’s 1988 chemical weapons attack on a Kurdish town. But if a U.S. war begins to look like an unwelcome occupation, analysts say, America could bog down disastrously. No foreign army has occupied Arab turf since British forces entered Egypt during the 1950s. Extended combat in densely-populated Baghdad promises civilian casualties - sure fuel for anti-U.S. rage across the Arab-Muslim world. The only way to avoid real trouble, said former U.S. ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsberg, a contributor to several think tank projects, is for U.S. troops to leave Iraq quickly, install 'a regime bent on democratizing Iraq,' and ensure dissemination of 'wonderful photos of smiling people in Baghdad when we march into Baghdad.'"

[What country provided forged documents to justify a war with Iraq? Let's see. Who would have an interest in such a thing? Venezuela?]
Senator Seeks FBI Probe of Iraq Documents. Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia Requests FBI Investigation of Forged Iraq Documents,
ABC News, March 14, 2003
"The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee asked the FBI on Friday to investigate forged documents the Bush administration used as evidence against Saddam Hussein and his military ambitions in Iraq. Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said he was uneasy about a possible campaign to deceive the public about the status of Iraq's nuclear program. An investigation should 'at a minimum help to allay any concerns' that the government was involved in the creation of the documents to build support for administration policies, Rockefeller wrote in a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller. Secretary of State Colin Powell has denied the U.S. government had any hand in creating the false documents. 'It came from other sources,' Powell told a House committee Thursday. 'We were aware of this piece of evidence, and it was provided in good faith to the inspectors.' Rockefeller asked the FBI to determine the source of the documents, the sophistication of the forgeries, the motivation of those responsible, why intelligence agencies didn't recognize them as forgeries and whether they are part of a larger disinformation campaign. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The documents indicated that Iraq tried to by uranium from Niger, the West African nation that is the third-largest producer of mined uranium, Niger's largest export. The documents had been provided to U.S. officials by a third country, which has not been identified. A U.S. government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it was unclear who first created the documents ... At a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing Thursday, Powell said the State Department had not participated 'any way in any falsification.' Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the committee's top Democrat, noted a Washington Post report that said a foreign government might have been conducting a deception campaign to win support for military action against Iraq. When Obey asked Powell if he could say which country that was, Powell replied, 'I can't with confidence.'"

[The word is starting to get out: An "anti-Semite" is really whoever Jews hate and seek to censor. Jews dominate U.S. foreign policy and so much else. It's easy to see if you're not forbidden to look. Publicly noticing this is NOT kosher.]
Whose War? A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interest,
by Patrick J. Buchanan, The American Conservative, March 24, 2003
"The War Party may have gotten its war. But it has also gotten something it did not bargain for. Its membership lists and associations have been exposed and its motives challenged. In a rare moment in U.S. journalism, Tim Russert put this question directly to Richard Perle: 'Can you assure American viewers ... that we're in this situation against Saddam Hussein and his removal for American security interests? And what would be the link in terms of Israel?' Suddenly, the Israeli connection is on the table, and the War Party is not amused. Finding themselves in an unanticipated firefight, our neoconservative friends are doing what comes naturally, seeking student deferments from political combat by claiming the status of a persecuted minority group. People who claim to be writing the foreign policy of the world superpower, one would think, would be a little more manly in the schoolyard of politics. Not so. Former Wall Street Journal editor Max Boot kicked off the campaign. When these 'Buchananites toss around 'neoconservative'-and cite names like Wolfowitz and Cohen-it sometimes sounds as if what they really mean is 'Jewish conservative.' Yet Boot readily concedes that a passionate attachment to Israel is a 'key tenet of neoconservatism.' He also claims that the National Security Strategy of President Bush 'sounds as if it could have come straight out from the pages of Commentary magazine, the neocon bible.' (For the uninitiated, Commentary, the bible in which Boot seeks divine guidance, is the monthly of the American Jewish Committee.) David Brooks of the Weekly Standard wails that attacks based on the Israel tie have put him through personal hell: 'Now I get a steady stream of anti-Semitic screeds in my e-mail, my voicemail and in my mailbox. ... Anti-Semitism is alive and thriving. It's just that its epicenter is no longer on the Buchananite Right, but on the peace-movement left.' Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan endures his own purgatory abroad: 'In London ... one finds Britain's finest minds propounding, in sophisticated language and melodious Oxbridge accents, the conspiracy theories of Pat Buchanan concerning the 'neoconservative' (read: Jewish) hijacking of American foreign policy.' Lawrence Kaplan of the New Republic charges that our little magazine 'has been transformed into a forum for those who contend that President Bush has become a client of ... Ariel Sharon and the 'neoconservative war party.'' Referencing Charles Lindbergh, he accuses Paul Schroeder, Chris Matthews, Robert Novak, Georgie Anne Geyer, Jason Vest of the Nation, and Gary Hart of implying that 'members of the Bush team have been doing Israel's bidding and, by extension, exhibiting 'dual loyalties.'' Kaplan thunders: 'The real problem with such claims is not just that they are untrue. The problem is that they are toxic. Invoking the specter of dual loyalty to mute criticism and debate amounts to more than the everyday pollution of public discourse. It is the nullification of public discourse, for how can one refute accusations grounded in ethnicity? The charges are, ipso facto, impossible to disprove. And so they are meant to be.' What is going on here? Slate's Mickey Kaus nails it in the headline of his retort: 'Lawrence Kaplan Plays the Anti-Semitic Card.' What Kaplan, Brooks, Boot, and Kagan are doing is what the Rev. Jesse Jackson does when caught with some mammoth contribution from a Fortune 500 company he has lately accused of discriminating. He plays the race card. So, too, the neoconservatives are trying to fend off critics by assassinating their character and impugning their motives. Indeed, it is the charge of 'anti-Semitism' itself that is toxic. For this venerable slander is designed to nullify public discourse by smearing and intimidating foes and censoring and blacklisting them and any who would publish them. Neocons say we attack them because they are Jewish. We do not. We attack them because their warmongering threatens our country, even as it finds a reliable echo in Ariel Sharon. And this time the boys have cried "wolf" once too often. It is not working. As Kaus notes, Kaplan's own New Republic carries Harvard professor Stanley Hoffman. In writing of the four power centers in this capital that are clamoring for war, Hoffman himself describes the fourth thus: 'And, finally, there is a loose collection of friends of Israel, who believe in the identity of interests between the Jewish state and the United States. These analysts look on foreign policy through the lens of one dominant concern: Is it good or bad for Israel? Since that nation's founding in 1948, these thinkers have never been in very good odor at the State Department, but now they are well ensconced in the Pentagon, around such strategists as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.' 'If Stanley Hoffman can say this,' asks Kaus, 'why can't Chris Matthews?' Kaus also notes that Kaplan somehow failed to mention the most devastating piece tying the neoconservatives to Sharon and his Likud Party. In a Feb. 9 front-page article in the Washington Post, Robert Kaiser quotes a senior U.S. official as saying, 'The Likudniks are really in charge now.' Kaiser names Perle, Wolfowitz, and Feith as members of a pro-Israel network inside the administration and adds David Wurmser of the Defense Department and Elliott Abrams of the National Security Council. (Abrams is the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, editor emeritus of Commentary, whose magazine has for decades branded critics of Israel as anti-Semites.) Noting that Sharon repeatedly claims a 'special closeness' to the Bushites, Kaiser writes, 'For the first time a U.S. administration and a Likud government are pursuing nearly identical policies.' And a valid question is: how did this come to be, and while it is surely in Sharon's interest, is it in America's interest? This is a time for truth. For America is about to make a momentous decision: whether to launch a series of wars in the Middle East that could ignite the Clash of Civilizations against which Harvard professor Samuel Huntington has warned, a war we believe would be a tragedy and a disaster for this Republic. To avert this war, to answer the neocon smears, we ask that our readers review their agenda as stated in their words. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. As Al Smith used to say, 'Nothing un-American can live in the sunlight.' We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interests. We charge them with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people's right to a homeland of their own. We charge that they have alienated friends and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity. Not in our lifetimes has America been so isolated from old friends. Far worse, President Bush is being lured into a trap baited for him by these neocons that could cost him his office and cause America to forfeit years of peace won for us by the sacrifices of two generations in the Cold War. They charge us with anti-Semitism-i.e., a hatred of Jews for their faith, heritage, or ancestry. False. The truth is, those hurling these charges harbor a 'passionate attachment' to a nation not our own that causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country and to act on an assumption that, somehow, what's good for Israel is good for America." (The entire article is available at bookstores.)

[Consequences of the Jewish Lobby's war for Israel.]
Top US military planner fears a 'likely' repeat of Somalia bloodbath,
Independent (UK), March 15, 2003
"A former military aide to General Norman Schwarzkopf has warned that a US-led war against Iraq could turn into a disaster that echoes the bloody debacle of Somalia rather than the relatively painless 1991 Gulf war. Retired Colonel Mike Turner, who also served as military planner with the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, believes the Bush administration is ignoring potential risks – some that could cost the US dearly ... Colonel Turner said the US had made the mistake of fixing its sights early on ridding the world of Saddam Hussein. This plan had met stiff opposition from the uniformed staff within the Pentagon, but the administration had chosen this focus regardlessly. Colonel Turner outlined a worst-case scenario: 'Within hours of our attack, Saddam launches Scuds on Israel. Israel's government launches a full-scale attack on Iraq, creating a holy war. Saddam, threatened with his own survival, uses chemical and biological weapons and human shields. He torches his own oil fields, thousands of his own people are killed. Photos of US soldiers amid landscapes of Iraqi civilian bodies blanket the world press which aligns unanimously against the US.' He then envisaged the US left to administer a post-Saddam Iraq with minimal international co-operation and open to terror attacks from al- Qa'ida. North Korea could take advantage and start exporting nuclear weapons. 'These are not remote possibilities, but in my view reasonable, possibly even likely outcomes,' he concluded."

Your Religion's Stance on Iraq,
Belief .net
According to a survey by Belief.net, only four religious groups of those surveyed support an invasion of Iraq. They are the Southern Baptist Convention and three Jewish groups (whose qualifier is that "other means" must be "exhausted" first before invasion): The Orthodox Union, Union of American Hebrew Congregrations (Reform), and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. All these pro-war groups -- including the Baptists -- have especially strong ideological ties to Israel. Religous groups OPPOSED to war include the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Episcopal Church, Greek Orthodox Church in America, Mormons - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Presbyterian Church (USA), Quakers - American Friends Service Committee, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

[The Jewish Lobby's war.]
War in Iraq a crime, says Vatican,
The Australian, March 18, 2003
"Military intervention against Iraq would be a crime against peace demanding vengeance before God, the head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace has said. 'War is a crime against peace which cries for vengeance before God,' said Archbishop Renato Raffaele Martino, speaking on Vatican Radio. He stressed the deeply unjust and immoral nature of war, saying it was condemned by God because civilians were the worst sufferers. Martino, formerly Vatican permanent representative to the United Nations, strongly denounced the determination of the United States and its allies to disarm Iraq by force. 'Do not reply with a stone to the child who asks for bread,' he said. 'They are preparing to reply with thousands of bombs to a people that has been asking for bread for the last 12 years.' Stressing the Roman Catholic church would continue to insist on the need and the urgency of peace, he said: 'As always, it will be the Good Samaritan who will bind the wounds of a wounded and weakened people.' Pope John Paul II, one of the most prominent opponents of war on Iraq, urged UN Security Council members yesterday to continue negotiations on the disarmament of Iraq and avert a looming military conflict."

Forwarded to JTR: Robin Cook's resignation speech as Speaker of the House of Commons. The video cuts off as he is getting an unprecedented standing ovation in the House. He is demanding a vote tomorrow night on whether or not to commit British troops, and if Parliament has the power to stop their deployment, it will. However as Cook says, Parliament may have lost control over what is done. Even as our Congress has ... The place to click to play the video is in the upper right hand corner of this page. http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/events03/ukpol/hoc/cook17mar.ram

[Not everyone succombs to the Blair administrations' subservience to (the Jewish Lobby's domination of) US foreign policy.]
Third resignation hits Blair,
This is London/Evening Standard (UK), March 18, 2003
"Tony Blair was today hit by his third government resignation as Home Office minister John Denham unexpectedly quit in protest at the failure to win a fresh UN mandate for action against Saddam Hussein. In a statement, Denham, who became Minister of State for the Home Office in June 2001, said: 'I have this morning resigned from the Government as I cannot support the Government in tonight's vote' ... The 53-year-old peer used a radio interview early today to announce his move - piling the pressure on Mr Blair as he prepared for his sternest test since becoming Prime Minister ... With thousands of British troops poised for action, Mr Blair is now forced to deal with a government crisis which saw an electrifying resignation speech by Cook last night - he was one of the first of the waves of New Labour peers created by Tony Blair in 1997. Today Mr Blair's senior aides feared that Mr Cook's devastating address from the backbenches could lead other ministers to follow him, Lord Hunt and now John Denham out of the government - and swell the number of backbench rebels. Last month 122 Labour MPs voted against Mr Blair in the biggest Commons rebellion suffered by any government in modern times. If the number of Labour rebels reached 173 in a 10pm vote the Prime Minister would have to depend on Tory support to win a parliamentary mandate for going to war. If it hit 206 Mr Blair would have lost the support of half his parliamentary party - putting his leadership in peril."

Sen. Robert Byrd: 'Today I Weep for My Country',
Yahoo!News (from Reuters), March 19, 6:26 PM
"The oldest voice in the U.S. Congress rose on Wednesday to denounce as misguided President Bus's march to war with Iraq.'Today I weep for my country,' said West Virginia Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd. 'No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. ... Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.' 'We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance,' Byrd said, adding: 'After war has ended the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe.' Byrd, who has been a leading foe on Capitol Hill of war with Iraq, spoke in a nearly empty Senate chamber about four hours before Bush's 8 p.m. EST deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face a U.S.-led invasion. 'May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us,/ Byrd said. As the white-haired senator concluded his remarks, a number of people in the visitor's gallery rose and applauded before they were admonished to be quiet. At 85, Byrd is now the oldest member of Congress as well as the longest serving."

[It would seem that the ADL -- so very image-conscious in the name of Jews -- knows what it's doing. As the the war with Iraq begins, we get a clear symbolic hint at who's at the economic helms of the War Monster.]
The Anti-Defamation League Opened The NASDAQ Stock Market,
NASDAQ, March 19, 2003
"Pictured: Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) joins NASDAQ host David Weild, Vice Chairman, The NASDAQ Stock Market to preside over the Market Open. Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League opened The NASDAQ Stock Market Wednesday, March 19, 2003 at NASDAQ's MarketSite in New York. The NASDAQ Stock Market proudly welcomes Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League to the Market Open. Since 1987 Mr. Foxman has attained his role as a world-renowned leader in the fight against anti-Semitism, bigotry and discrimination. In the forefront of major issues of the day, Mr. Foxman speaks out against hatred and violence wherever they occur. About ADL The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry."

[Well, Saddam's got a least one thing right.]
Israel believes Saddam spoke live in morning TV broadcast,
by Herb Keinon, Free Republic (originally from Jerusalem Post ), Mar. 20, 2003
"Israeli Foreign Ministry experts believe that Saddam Hussein was speaking live on camera when he addressed the Iraqi nation this morning on television and radio, shortly after the US launched a war against him ... Saddam also appeared to be under a lot of pressure and more disorganized than usual, when he made the speech, in which he characteristically lashed out at 'criminal Zionism' in addition to the United States, it was noted. In the speech, Saddam accused the United States of committing a 'shameful crime' by attacking Iraq and urged the Iraqi people to "go draw your sword' against the enemy. 'We promise you that Iraq, its leadership and its people will stand up to the evil invaders, and we will take them to such limits that they will lose their patience in achieving their plans, which are pushed by criminal Zionism,' he said."