March 1 & 8, 2004
Whole Body Health
March 15, 2004
March 22, 2004
March 29, 2004
Chance for imminent amnesty protection too strong a lure for flocks of illegal immigrants to ignore.
Just days after President Bush announced an ""immigration reform" plan that would give legal status to millions of illegal aliens, the numbers of immigrants entering this country illegally increased dramatically, according to the union that represents the Border Patrol's 9,000 field agents.
Meanwhile, outrage among Republicans who call themselves "conservatives" continued to mount, making it likely that Bush will not force the issue in Congress until after the election, the Revolt among his core supporters could cause him to lose the White House.
Apprehension totals increased threefold in the San Diego area alone since the president's announcement, the National Border Patrol Council said. The vast majority of illegal aliens seized along the border said they had entered the United States seeking amnesty, the union said. Most of those arrested and eventually deported had no history of immigration violations, it said.
Law enforcement authorities, immigration specialists and the council had predicted that the Bush proposal, delivered Jan. 7, would immediately lead to increased illegal immigration by those seeking to take advantage of this "limited" amnesty.
Bush insists that he proposed no amnesty, but would allow illegal aliens to have "temporary" work permits renewable for three-year periods. He proposed no punishment for who entered the country criminally.
Republicans in congress are challenging Bush's definition of "amnesty."
Bush's proposal is, by definition, an amnesty program, and precious amnesties "have not reduced illegal immigration; rather, they have increased illegal immigration," said Rip. LaMar Smith(R-Tex.). He is a member of the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, border security and claims.
"Amnesty rewards those who broke our laws, and thus encourages others to do the same," Smith said. "Our immigration policies should do the opposite - discourage lawbreakers by sending the message that illegal entry into the United States will not be rewarded."
On the security issue, experts have warned repeatedly that the porous border with Mexico allows terrorists from all over the world to freely enter this country. But when the Homeland Security Department (HSD) wanted to fortify a 14-mile stretch of the border to protect defense facilities, a California state agency rejected the request on grounds that the habitat of "endangered species" would be threatened. HSD noted that American citizens are now "endangered species."
The project "does not properly balance border patrol and resource-protection needs," said the California Coastal Commission.
Bush's core Republican supporters are outraged over the latest amnesty proposal and huge budget deficits, among other things.
While hardcore Republicans are unlikely to vote Democrat, they say, their disappointment could cause them to "go fishing" on election day and cost bush the White House.
"Will our folks be AWOL when it comes time for the election because they are just not energized and motivated?" asked Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. "Social conservatives coalesce around strong leadership. That's what motivates and energizes them. And on their cores issues, the leadership from the White House is not there right now." |Top|
A new report by a respected Military think tank accuses the White House and the Defense Department of going to unprecedented lengths to manipulate America's media in order to condition how Americans view wars.
According to the report, officials have tried to desensitize the public to the horrors of combat during the past decade when U.S. forces killed an estimated 50,000 people.
The report's author, Carl Conetta, writing for the Cambridge, Mass-based organization. Project for Defense Department, State Department and White House to conduct large-scale "perception management" and "strategic influence" campaigns in support of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Anyone who remembers Vietnam can recall official news releases touting military successes and enemy body counts. However, what may be new in the post-Sept.11 era are the "prominence, magnitude and intensity" of these campaigns to mold public perceptions, writes Conetta. Even more controversial is "the possibility that false or misleading information might be spread to Western and allied electorates."
As for the lead-up to the war and occupation of Iraq, Conetta contends that an analysis of media reports by Col. Sam Gardiner, USAF (ret.), points to more than 50 suspect stories foisted on the American people - "all of which show signs of products of a media manipulation campaign."
Some of the examples, he claims, included reports on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein's ties to al Qaeda, the surrender of Iraqi divisions, Private Jessica Lynch the execution of U.S. POWs and the role foreign terrorists play in occupied Iraq.
According to Conetta, by far the worst examples of DOD and White House attempts to manipulate public opinion were related to notions of precision bombing and civilian casualties. In the lead-up to the war, President Bush and Defense and White House officials repeatedly downplayed the potential for civilian casualties in the age of "new warfare."
In April 2003, in a speech before workers at a plant operated by weapons maker Boeing, Bush said: "We've applied the new posers of technology...to strike an enemy force with speed and incredible precision. By a combination of creative strategies and advanced technologies, we are redefining war on our terms. In this new era of warfare we can target a regime, not a nation."
Adm. Timothy Keating, who led navy operations in Iraq, echoed bush's speech, saying: "The campaign will be unlike any we have seen in the history of warfare with breathtaking precision, almost eye-watering speed, persistence, agility and lethality."
But where does the truth lie?
Conetta responds that in Iraq guided weapons constituted 68 percent of the missiles fired and, despite administration claims, "the inaccuracies inherent in current systems, the destructive power they posses and the chaotic dynamic of war itself are sufficient to make it likely that substantial damage and civilian casualties will occur."
During the month-long Iraq war, it is estimated that the United States dropped or fired more than 29,000 unguided and guided missiles, equaling approximately 6,000 tons of explosives. In addition, the U.S. military launched 802 Tomahawk cruise missiles at various targets inside a country that is approximately the size of California.
As for the accuracy of guided missiles, Conetta believes their average margin of error is somewhere between 10 feet and 45 feet, with the average being about 25 feet.
"This is sufficiently inaccurate to guarantee that a percentage of weapons aimed at the center of a building will land in the street," he warns.
KILLED OR SERIOUSLY INJURED
In his estimation, even if a 500- to 2000-lb. bomb were precisely dropped on a target, the sheer destructive power of such a weapon would almost guarantee collateral damage. A 2,000-lb. Bomb, which carries almost 1,000-lbs. Of a TNT derivative, would carve a crater 50 feet across and 16 feet deep. That would guarantee a 78 percent risk that anyone standing within an eighth of a mile of the explosion would be killed or seriously injured.
Most Americans are unaware that much of the fighting outside of Baghdad was in areas with an average population density comparable to Pennsylvania or Ohio - roughly 250 people per square mile. The sites of some of largest battles - Karbala, Hillah and Nasiriyah - had significantly higher population densiities with perhaps 500 people per square mile.
With that in mind, Conetta concludes that "there is not real paradox in the fact that during the age of ‘precision warfare' (beginning with the first gulf war), U.S. military operations have claimed the lives of approximately 50,000 (combatants and non-combatants), while during the 14 years preceding the first golf war (1976-1089) overt U.S. operations claimed the lives of approximately 2,000 people." |Top|
The suicide rate is still rising for soldiers facing long, depressing tours in Iraq. Twenty-two suicides have occurred among U.S. troops in Iraq last year, a rate of more than 13.5 per 100,000, the Pentagon reports. This is 20 percent higher than the Army average of 10.5 to 11 prior to the Iraqi invasion. The suicide number does not include cases still under investigation and the rate may be still higher. |Top|
While thousands of same-sex couples are celebrating their "marriages" in San Francisco, the state says their "marriage" licenses will not be registered. California has a standard. California has a standard application form for marriage licenses and, if altered in any way, will not be registered and recorded, said a spokesman for the state Health and Human Services secretary. The homosexual couples have been crossing out "groom" and "bride" as printed and writing in such phrases as "Applicant #1" and Applicant #2" or "spouses for life." |Top|
U.S. public health officials claim that there is no problem with the vaccine industry's use of a mercury compound that they say prevents contamination. However, a growing number of doctors and scientists are questioning its use, saying that the amount of mercury getting into infant bodies through this route appears to be killing people slowly.
The compound is called thimerosal, and it is as controversial as mercury is toxic.
Dr. Mark Geier, MD, PhD, director of the Genetic Centers of America, cited statistics from the Department of Education:
In the 1970s, Geier said, the estimate of autism rate was about one in 25,000. However, in the 1980s, he claimed, it rose to one in 2,500. In the 1990s, he said it was about one in 250. Today, the estimate in the United States is about one in 150, he said.
"That estimate is by Eli Lilly, which makes thimerosal," said Geier.
"What happened in 1990 is that we added HIB, thermopolis D and also Hepatitis B vaccines to our routine childhood vaccine schedule, which was preciously DPT. So, we actually tripled the amount of mercury at that moment inthe vaccines," said Geier.
"But worse than that, it's not limited to autism," sied Geier.
According to researchers, Geier said that reading disorders are up 30-fold. Speech disorders are up - currently one in eight children in the United states are in special education.
"You have to be six years old to be in special education, so we're all shaking to see what the next figure will be for the next six years; and we already have some early indicators. It's going to come out between one in six and one in five," said Geier.
All this special education and special care are at a premium cost, say experts.
And when these children mature into adults, they will not be productive - they will be "an estimated $20 trillion in cost," said Rep. Dan burton, whose House committee is looking at this issue.
Geier places he blame for the pandemic of autism squarely on mercury toxicity - primarily thinerasol used in childhood vaccines.
"Fortunately, we know the culprit is thimerosal, including the authorities, even though they are covering it up. It's still in some of the vaccines, though they say they are removing it. That's the reason incidentally you don't see them out looking for any other cause of autism. If they didn't believe we were right, they would be looking for a poison our of a factory or terrorists or something. They are doing nothing," said Geier.
Geier said that officials have attempted to attribute the rise in the number of cases of autism to genetics.
"I'm a board certified geneticist and know that there are no genetic epidemics. An epidemic means a rapid rise in human disease. The fastest known change in genetics is 1 percent per 100 years,"he said.
"Now, that's not to say these kids can't have a genetic predisposition. They do. In fact, their genetic predisposition is their bodies aren't very good at handling mercury. But, the epidemic is due to thimerosal and not due to genetics," he said.
Most people appear to have a relatively good nercury removal system in their physiology and biochemistry - which is why more people are not ill or dying due to dental amalgams or vaccines.
Geier related the story of Amy Holmes, a medical doctor who has a autistic child. Geier said that Holmes told him, "Mercury can't be involved in autism because I have had my children's hair tested and they have had my children's hair tested and they have almost no mercury in their hair. As a matter of fact my controlled children have more mercury in their hair than do the autistic children."
Geier said that the body handles mercury in two ways; It is either excreted or you take it up into your cells or body tissue and it makes you sick. If mercury is kept in the blood, it will eventually end up in hair and fingernails, he said.
"We did a study. We looked at the data and we could see the mercury in the birth hair of autistics versus control children - the control children had dramatically eleevated levels of mercury in their hair, while the autistic children were way down," said Geier.
"In other words the control children are somehow handling the mercury differently such that it gets in their hair. I think the most common and the easiest explanation is that they are excreting it. They are keeping it in the blood stream so that they can get rid of it. Their cells are preventing the mercury from concentrating in the central nervous system," he said.
Geier said there are more than 5,000 papers on thimerosal available at pubmedcentral.nil.gov, the web site of the National Library of Medicine's digital archive. He said that many of these papers warn of the dangers and call for removal from the vaccines.
So, who is responsible for this mess?
Geier blames the Centers for Disease control (CDC) and the FDA. The FDA licenses vaccines and the CDC is supposed to monitor their safety, said Geier.
"The vaccine system in this country is such that whatever time they want to make a change in vaccines, they have a committee that meets. Unfortunately, as Dan Burton's committee has shown - he can't find a single meeting where the vote does not involve owners of patents, or holders of large numbers of shares in the vaccine company, or who take large amounts of vaccine money or are actually working for the vaccine company," said Geier.
Geier says what is happening may be illegal
"It's more than a revolving door. It's not just that they are going to hire them after they leave industry; they are hiring them while they are there," he said.
"The government is encouraged to ‘work with industry.' So, you can go to the CDC, paid for by Eli Lilly - the producer of thimerosal. If you have workers who work for the company you are regulating, there has to be some question to how well you're doing it," he said. |Top|
X-rays given off by medical equipment are to blame for thousands of cancers every year, according to a new study by researchers at England's Oxford University. The recent findings have some scientists saying that, though X-rays can be helpful as diagnostic tools, they should not be used as frequently as they are in today's hospitals.
"X-rays are of enormous benefit for such things as early cancer detection, but medical experts need to be aware of the quantifiable risks of X-rays," researcher Any Berrington, told New Scientist magazine.
X-rays account for the largest source of exposures to radiation and are increasingly in use in the United States. New Scientist reported that X-raying patients has multiplied by as much as 20 percent since the 1980s. Also, the rising number of times doctors have called for computed tomography (CT) scans, which also use X-rays, has added to exposure.
"In everyday practice, those ordering radiological procedures should think carefully about the benefits and risks to their patients for each examination," said Peter Herzog of Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany.
The findings have compelled doctors to reevaluate a 1981 study by Drs. Richard Doll and Richard Peto, which estimate that O.5 percent of all deaths from cancer in the United states were attributable to medical X-rays.
Around the world, the study found that X-rays from medical equipment cause an estimated 18,500 cancers every year. In the United States, it is believed that some 0.9 percent of all cancers are due to X-rays.
This is not the first time health experts have warned of a link between the increased usage of medical X-rays and a rise in cancer.
In 1999, John W. Gofman, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, conducted a study in which he compared death rates in each of the country's none census divisions with the average number of physicians per 100,000 people in these divisions.
What Gofman found surprised many.
Gofman discovered that while overall death rates dropped in areas where there were a lot of physicians, the rate increased in two specific categories: cancers and heart disease.
Gofman concluded that the medical X-rays are largely to blame for these increases.
"This is a serious public health problem," said Gofman. "We're talking about the two biggest causes of death in this country - cancer and heart disease - which together amount to 45 percent of all deaths. Medical X-rays are a major cause of these deaths."
Gofman notes that radiation dosages delivered by medical equipment has decreased in recent years, thanks to new technology. But he said that few doctors monitor the cumulative doses that patients get, especially women suffering breast cancer and heart patients. |Top|
A decision rendered by a U.S. Department of agriculture (USDA) administrative judge in mid-November 2003 could have far-reaching effects on the National Organic Program (NOP), which was one old in October. The ruling dismissed an appeal filed by an accredited organic certification agent, Massachusetts Independent Certification Inc. (MICI). MICI had argued in its appeal that a USDA official unlawfully interfered with its enforcement of the requirement that laying hens must be given access to the outdoors in order for the eggs to be labeled as organic.
The original dispute came up when MICI denied an organic certificate to the Country Hen, an egg producer based in Massachusetts. It had determined that the chickens did not have access to the outdoors, as required by orgainc regulations.
The day after MICI issued its formal denial, NOP Manger Richard Matthews overturned its decision. According to MICI, Matthews and the NOP never contacted it about the denial. MICI enlisted the Farmers Legal Action Group (FLAG) to press the appeal that was rejected in November.
FLAG attorney Jill Kreuger weighed in quickly on the USDA judge's decision.
"USDA usurped the role of the certifying agent, undermined the organic standards, and failed to provide due process," Kreuger said. "It is unlikely the organic community will accept this state of affairs, any more than it accepted it last year."
USDA administrative law judge Jill S. Clifton countered that she had little choice in the matter because she lacked jurisdiction. She cited a section in the law on denial of certification that states, "The administrator...will review the case and render an opinion on the appeal. When the appeal is sustained the certified operation and certifying agent are notified and the case ends." In other words, Matthew's authority is more or less absolute.
Participants ans industry observers beg to differ. "If USDA can overturn a certifying agent's decision without even holding a hearing, how can consumers be confident that food bearing the USDA organic seal was produced in the manner they expect?" said MICI board member Judith Gillian. "For decades, farmers and consumers have counted on certifying agents to uphold strict organic standards. We can't do our job if we are denied the right to appeal USDA decisions. It's that simple."
Writing in the November issue of the Organic Business News, editor/publisher Dennis Blank was even more pointed. Noting that Country Hen is now on its third certifier and is still trying to pass off little barn porches ans "outdoor access." Blank asserted that the NOP and the organic industry are destined to lock horns.
"While Richard Matthews may have followed the letter of the law in the original ruling in favor of the country Hen's appeal, his actions on this and many other issues are making the NOP an enemy instead of a friend," wrote Blank.
"We warned the industry long ago that foing to the federal government to regulate it would also bring on unanticipated consequences," he wrote. "It is already happening."
Legal documents in the case can be read at FLAG's web site at www.flaginc.org.
For subscription information to Acres USA, write P.O Box 91299, Austin, Tex. 78709 or call 800-355-5313, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. central time. |Top|
In a recent edition of Archives of Neurology a Johns Hopkins University study concludes that taking vitamin C and vitamin E supplements can help protect the aging brain from the oxidation ravages of Alzheimer's disease.
"These results are extremely exciting. Our study suggests that the regular use of vitamin E in nutritional supplement doses in combination with vitamin C may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease," said Dr. Peter Zandi, the lead researcher.
The study used 4,740 volunteers aged 65 or older. Of that group 304 showed signs of Alzheimer's. Only 17 percent of the participants took both vitamin E and vitamin C supplements. Another 20 percent used multi-vitamin supplements, but without high dosage vitamin E or vitamin C in them.
The researchers concluded that patients taking the larger daily doses - 500 to 1,000 IU of Vitamin E - in supplement form were "78 percent less likely to show signs of Alzheimer's than those not taking the combination." Those individuals who took vitamin C pills and vitamin E pills every day got the most benefit. Researchers found no benefit from taking either of the vitamins in isolation.
"There is evidence of a synergistic effect between the activities of Vitamins E and C. Vitamin E is lipid soluble and thus sticks around in fat tissues of the body a relatively long time. In contrast, vitamin C is water soluble and is rapidly excreted from the body. Vitamin C may react to recharge the antioxidant capacities of vitamin E so that the vitamin E can continue doing its job of soaking up free radicals and reducing oxidative stress," Zandi told BBD. |Top|
Worldwide nuclear holocaust all part of Mideast's mini-state's foreign policy, defense strategy.
Most Americans have no idea that the possibility of a full-fledged nuclear "suicide bombing" by the state of Israel itself is a cornerstone of Israel's national security planning. However, there are some U.S. policymakers who have dared to express their concerns about this dangerous policy, which is known as what Pulitzer Prize-winning author Seymour Hersh referred to, in the book by the same name, "The Samson Option."
As Hersh has documented - and Israeli historian Avner Cohen has confirmed it in even more detail in his own book, Israel and the Bomb - Israel's entire national defense policy (from its inception) was framed around the development of powerful nuclear bombs. As Hersh makes clear, the Israelis are willing, if necessary, to "blow up the world" - including themselves - if they have to do so in order to defeat their Arab foes.
The so-called "Samson Option" for Israel is based on the well-known story of Samson in the Bible, who - after being captured by the Philistines - brought down Dagon's temple in Gaza and killed himself along with a number of Philistines. As Hersh put it: "For Israel's nuclear advocates, the Samson Option became another way of saying `Never Again'."
The Sampson Option is a matter of concern - even for many high-placed American policy makers who are otherwise staunch supporters of Israel - but this is not something that has received widespread attention in the American press.
American Free Press reported one year ago that - buried in brief news notes in some Jewish newspapers in early 2003 - former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres had formally broken Israel's longstanding policy of denying its nuclear weapons capabilities, although it was not reported in the mass media in America. Peres admitted in a Feb. 20, 2003 speech in Jerusalem that Israel did indeed have nuclear weapons. The Israeli leader made the admission to a delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.(Despite all of this, most mainstream reports about Israel's nuclear programs continue to state that Israel officially denies having nuclear weapons, Peres' statement notwithstanding.)
This admission by Peres was particularly interesting because in 1999, many American Jewish organizations reacted with alarm when then-President Bill Clinton dared to mention Israel's nuclear program. On May 14, 1999, the influential Jewish weekly, Forward, published an article expressing outrage that "President Clinton is raising for the first time public concerns about Israel's nuclear program."
The article pointed out that some 35 members of the U.S. Congress had written a letter to Clinton expressing concerns about imprisoned Israeli nuclear engineer Mordechai Vanunu, who was the first to publicly expose Israel's nuclear bomb production program.
Responding in a letter dated April 22, 1999 to then- Rep. Lynn Rivers (D-Mich.), President Clinton did more than just express his own concerns about Vanunu's plight. Clinton also said: "I . . . share your concerns about the Israeli nuclear program. We have repeatedly urged Israel and other non-parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty to adhere to the treaty and accept comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards."
Forward reported that "Jewish leaders reacted with shock at news that Mr. Clinton had weighed in on Mr.Vanunu and Israel's nuclear program," and cited the reaction of Anti-Defamation League director Abe Foxman, who attacked Clinton, saying: "I can't believe the president would send such a letter. These are very sensitive issues. It is so judgmental."
Foxman's disgust with Clinton was not unique. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, declared: "The president's reference to Israel's nuclear program is surprising and disturbing. As far as we know it's unprecedented." |Top|
Repentant arms dealer says official story about 9-11 is fraud.
In May 2003, a journalist in Portugal reported on a sensational, marathon meeting of a group of U.S. pilots that issued a report concluding that the story told by the U.S. government about what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 is improbable and unlikely.
Except for several notices on the Internet, that story was basically never reported in the United states, and largely debunked when the reporter flubbed the name of the organizer, creating disbelief in the minds of many readers.
The record was corrected in stunning fashion Feb. 25 on Alex Jones's "Prison Planet:" radio program when former Pentagon arms salesman Donn de Grand-Pre, author of three books that allege 9-11 was an inside job, set the record straight, because he was the man who organized that conference. That 72-hour non-stop symposium by a group of military and civilian pilots concluded the flight crews of the four passenger airliners involved in the 9-11 tragedy had no control over their aircraft.
De Grand Pre, a retired Army colonel, is the author of A Window on America, Confessions of an Arms Peddler and the series "Barbarians Inside the Gates." His thesis in the third opus "is that the wars we have engaged in for whatever reasons since the end of World war II have not only been unconstitutionally waged, but have caused a net loss in political power. Each war was waged to divert our attention away from the true enemy within, and toward a contrived enemy outside our borders."
De Grand Pre explained that his opus actually is a trilogy. "I've got three books out under the title ‘Barbarians inside the gates.' Book 1 was "The Serpent's Sting, Book 2 is The Viper's Venom. Book 3, which just came out is The Rattler's Revenge.
"And I'd like to quote from Book 2, which came out October of 2002. There is a very important paragraph there. It says,
The trigger for the 9-11 activity was the imminent and unstoppable worldwide financial collapse, which can only be prevented temporarily by a major war, perhaps to become known as World War III. To bring it off one more time, martial law will probably be imposed in the United States."
De Grand Pre was the top U.S. arms dealer to the Middle East under the Ford and Carter administrations. What he was caused him to leave government service and begin investigation the forces he saw warping our nation's future.
In the interview with Jones, De Grand Pre made several stunning assertions, among them:
* There were no hijackers on the 9-11 killer jets. And he said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Richard Myers) agrees with him.
In response to a caller to Alex Jone's radio show, de Grand Pre noted: "The co-chairman of the Joint Chiefs himself has agreed there ware no hijackers. There were no cell phone calls. Everybody aboard those aircraft, including pilots and crew was unconscious within 8 to 18 minutes after takeoff. And you can take it from there. I've got it covered in books 2 and 3, what actually happened.
"These planes were being piloted by remote control, probably an AWACS aircraft taking over that airplane or airplanes or drones. And flying them at 5 and 8 G-force that no pilot could withstand. If you read books 2 and 3, you will discover how and why this came about.
* The 9-11 planes are now at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. "And I'm telling you that we are knowledgeably speculating," said de Grand Pre in response to another caller. "Those aircraft went over the Atlantic, and that was ‘all she wrote'."
* Talk of a military coup - to reverse what he calls the administrative coup d'etat that happened on 9-11 - is rife within the corridors of the Pentagon.
In his various interviews and publications, de Grand Pre has called 9-11 "an administrative coup d'etat by the neo-conservatives. He suggests the only way the neocons can be stopped is by a military coup d'etat and estimates 70 percent of key military personnel are in favor of such a step. But the possibility is complicated, he says, by the large number of key military players who have gone over to the Council on Foreign Relations team. Some of these players, including three- and four-star generals, however, may side with the military while pretending to be on the side of the neocons.
De Grand Pre insists he is in persnal contact with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The truly patriotic members of the military have had to sit there and take all these wild schemes by corporate-controlled politicians. De Grand Pre's prediction? "I think those days are coming to an end. The military ain't going to take it any longer"
In the interview with Jones, de Grand Pre also asserted:
* It is common knowledge at the Pentagon that Israel fired nuclear weapons at Iraq during the first gulf war.
* A commercial aircraft did not hit the Pentagon. Most likely it was a cruise missile or a Global Hawk.
* Flight 93, the jetliner that supposedly crashed in Pennsylvania after courageous passengers struggled with armed hijackers, was shot down by the North Dakota Air Guard. "I know the pilot who fired those two missiles to take down Flight 93," de Grand Pre insisted adding that the order to shoot down the plane came from the adjutant general of North Dakota.
* Most likely it was U.S. forces that tried to kill Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz when he visited Iraq recently.
* Military tribunals will try current U.S. public officials if the military takes over, de Grand Pre predicts. "And Cheney is toast." De Grand Pre named Cheney as the one man who knows the most about 9-11.
In earlier interviews, de Grand Pre has recounted that the co-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Gen. Richard Myers, had 500 copies of the 24-page report made and sent out, including to the White House.
Assessing Myers' reaction, de Grand Pre said, "I'm quite sure that he believed in it. I think that he still believes in it. You can understand the difficulties. The civilian administration, of course, won't recognize it as such.
"There's a definite cleavage between the military of the Pentagon and the civilian hierarchy - and never the twain shall meet."
Jones triggered a response from de Grand Pre when he mentioned a 2002 article in The Washington Times that said morale at the Pentagon had never been lower.
De Grand Pre responded: "I can verify that from Col. Dick Schultz, who is a friend of mine in the Joint chiefs. Morale was not only low, but he said some of the troop are ready to mutiny. If it wasn't for the fact that the government, the civilian hierarchy has control over retirements, they would probably be blood in the streets by now."
When other news outlets began checking on this story angle, Jones noted that Pentagon officials were apoplectic. "They panicked and flew the officers on jets to luxury vacations and had these focus groups. It even talked about a possible mutiny. People were just totally distraught. What would make them become distraught overnight in the Pentagon?"
De Grand Pre's answer was chilling, and revealed the possibility of a military coup d'etat has been simmering in the corridors of the Pentagon for some time.
"It wasn't an overnight thing. You see, as I outline in book 1, and I carry that on in book 2, as well in book 3, we were on the verge of a military coup d'etat. And this was long in the planning and after the 78 days of bombing Kosovo, it became critical. And we were close to a coup at that time. In my survey of the reports and the pilots who worked with that, a coup was a possibility.
"In fact, a coup d'etat was pulled on the morning of Sept. 11. Only it was an administrative or what we call a ‘cold' coup d'etat."
Jones' translation of that was "a counterrevolutionary junta.
De Grand Pre concurred and added: "And as we delved into that, we found that the culprits, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, were part of a neocon group that had been planning this thing for literally years prior to Sept.11."
In a previous interview that appeared on Michael Rivero's "What Really Happened" website, de Grand Pre had already outlined his conclusions about 9-11.
"The 9-11 activity and horrific destruction of U.S. property and lives was meant to trigger a psychological and patriotic reaction on the part of the U.S. citizens, which to pave the way for ‘combined UN activity' using the fig leaf of NATO for striking key targets in both the Middle East/South Asia and the Balkans. The goal continues to be ultimate destruction of all national sovereignty and establishment of a global government, the new world order which daddy Bush spoke of .
"The trigger for the 9-11 activity was the imminent and unstoppable worldwide financial collapse, which can only be prevented (temporarily) by a major war, perhaps to become known as World War III. To bring it off (one more time), martial law will probably be imposed in the United States." De Grand Pre had also sounded the same themes on Jackie Patru's "Radio Sweet Liberty" web cast.
"The so-called terrorist attack was in fact a superbly executed Military operation against the United States, requiring the utmost professional military skill in command, communications and control. It was flawless in timing, in the choice of selected aircraft to be used as guided missiles, and in the coordinated delivery of those missiles to their pre-selected targets."
As a tactical military exercise against two significant targets (the world financial center and the citadel of world strategic military planning), the attack, from the point of view of a psychological impact on the American public, equaled the Japanese "surprise" attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec.7, 1941.
But the overriding question of the original group of pilots was: If we are at war, who is the enemy?
The group determined that the enemy is within the gates, that he has infiltrated into the highest policymaking positions at the federal level, and has absolute control, not only of the purse strings, but of the troop buildup and deployment of our military forces, including active, reserve and National Guard units.
De Grand Pre's books are not yet available in the web, but more information can be obtained from de Grand Pre Publishing Ltd. at 540-547-2996.
John Kaminski is the author of "America's Autopsy Report," a collection of his Internet essays published by Dandelion Books and featured on hundreds of websites around the world. For more information on how to get this book or to financially support his work, go to www.johnkaminski.com/. Or, to read some more of his recent essays for free, go to www.rudemacedon.ca/kaminski/kam-index.html
For more on the many unanswered questions surrounding the worst act of terrorism against the American people, see AFP's 50 Unanswered Questions About 9-11. Twenty pages. One copy is $2; six copies are $8 and 40 or more copies are just 80¢ each. Send payment with request to AFP, 1433 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Washington, D.C. 20003 or call 1-888-699-NEWS to charge to Visa or MasterCard. No charge for shipping & handling. |Top|
In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee recently, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan painted a rosy picture of the U.S. economy. In his eyes, the Fed's aggressive expansion of the money supply and suppression of interest rates have strengthened the financial condition of American households and industries. If this is true, however, our nation's "prosperity" is merely a temporary illusion based on smoke and mirrors. True wealth cannot be created simply by printing money; families and businesses cannot prosper by getting deeper in debt.
In fact, economist frank Shostak of the Ludwig von Mises Institute throuws cold water on Greenspan's assertions in an article entitled "Tunning on Empty" Shostak cites statistics showing that American families have never been deeper in debt, never saved so little and never consumed so much more than they produce. By any objective standard, U.S. families are treading on very shaky economic ground.
Never mind, says Greenspan. Mortgage refinancing and home equity loans, made wildly popular by artificially low interest rates established by the Fed. will be the saving grace of American households. They can simply borrow against their homes to finance living beyond their means, a practice encouraged by Fed policies. But what happens when home prices stop going up? What happens when families reach a point where they cannot make payments on two, three or even more mortgages? How can the Fed chairman equate mortgage credit with real economic growth?
Shostak also demonstrates that American businesses aren't doing much better. As consumers exhaust their ability to borrow, they necessarily buy fewer goods and services. The ratio of business liabilities to assets is very high, price to earning ratios are still unrealistic, and investment capital remains scarce. Business may be better than it was two years ago, but the fundamentals are far less healthy than Greenspan would have us believe.
Debt is the fundamental problem the central planners at the Fed will not address. The total U.S. federal debt is more than $7 trillion, and government spending as a percentage of gross domestic product, or GDP, has never been higher except during World War II.
Greenspan's attempts to stimulate economic growth by printing money become more and more tenuous: today the Fed must create nearly $7 of new debt in the form of new fiat currency to generate only $1 of new GDP. Twenty years ago the figure was less than $1.50. Clearly this is a race that has run its course.
As financial analyst Jay Taylor explains, the disturbing increase in the debt to GDP ratio illustrates that printing more money is the only solution federal policymakers know. Federal debt naturally grows faster than income - while there are no limits to how fast the printing pressed can run, there are natural limits to economic growth.
The end may come when foreign central banks realize the dollars they receive are worthless or when they find other places to turn for income. When that day comes, interest rates will rise, perhaps dramatically. At that point not even Greenspan well be able to save the economy from the painful correction necessitated by his easy credit, easy money policies. |Top|
Human Rights Watch (HRW) says it's time for the Bush administration to investigate and prosecute American troops who have been accused of committing human rights violations in Afghanistan.
In a 59-page report, titled Enduring Freedom: Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, HRW warns that the United States is setting a "terrible example" to the rest of the world by its practices of arbitrary arrest, detention and mistreatment of detainees.
The report cites the fact that U.S. forces in Afghanistan are using interrogation tactics that have been condemned by the State Department in the federal agency's own "Country Reports" of human rights abuses.
In particular, the State Department has defined prolonged sleep deprivation and exposure to cold as examples of maltreatment and torture - the types of techniques now used by CIA and military interrogators in special detention facilities like the one at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.
The report complains that HRW investigators were denied access to a heavily guarded CIA compound in the Ariana Chowk district of Kabul, the Afghan capital. Fortyfoot high walls, razor wire and guard towers surround the compound.
"The CIA also controls a separate detention and interrogation facility at Bagram airbase, though this has never been officially acknowledged by the U.S. government. Little is known about who is detained there, for how long, conditions of detention or grounds for release or transfer," claim the report's authors.
A former high-level Taliban official, once held there, told HRW that the CIA flew major al Qaeda suspects into the base for interrogation. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, allegedly suspected of being one of the masterminds behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Over 1,000 people have been detained in Afghanistan since March 2002, and most have been released within days, if not weeks. While acknowledging that recent improvements may have been made in detention facilities like Bagram, HRW says it is difficult to be certain of the facts.
What is not in doubt, according to HRW, is that deadly force has been used in operations to detain suspects, who have later been mistreated in a fashion that amounts to torture.
The report points out that in June 2003 President Bush denied that the United States used torture. However, independent observers have been consistently denied access to detention centers. In contrast, the International Red Cross has been allowed into some facilities but it is prohibited from discussing or publicly publishing its findings.
Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia division of HRW, says it is time for the United States to take action:
"This stonewalling must stop. The U.S. is obliged to investigate and prosecute those who have violated the law. There is no sign that serious investigations are taking place. Abusive governments across the world can now point to the U.S. forces in Afghanistan and say: `If they can abuse human rights and get away with it, why can't we?' "
HRW noted that its investigators received "credible" reports that detainees were treated harshly after the United States set up the Bagram airbase facility in late 2001. In particular, the HRW report referred to the experience of two detainees who were interrogated at Bagram, then transferred to Guantanamo and subsequently released:
"Bright lights were set up outside their cells, shining in, and U.S. military personnel took shifts, keeping the detainees awake by banging on the metal walls of their cells with batons. The detainees were terrified and disoriented by sleep deprivation, which they said lasted for weeks. During interrogations, they said, they were made to stand upright for lengthy periods of time with a bright spotlight shining directly into their eyes. They were told they would not be questioned until they remained motionless for one hour, and initially they were not even entitled to turn their heads. If they did move, the interrogators said the `clock was reset.' U.S. personnel, through interpreters, yelled at the detainees from behind the light."
Two other detainees confirmed to a New York Times reporter that they were shackled naked and made to stand, while being deprived of sleep and beaten. The treatment then continued for weeks. Similar claims were made to a reporter with the Associated Press, including the allegation that some detainees were kept in freezing cells and doused with cold water.
In March 2003, Roger King a U.S. military spokesman at Bagram, admitted that sleep deprivation - wakening detainees every 15 minutes and forcing them to stand for prolonged periods - reduced inhibition and resistance to questioning.
The HRW report claims that several U.S. officials privately acknowledged that those techniques were used. They also admitted that detainees were made to kneel for hours, wearing hoods or spray-painted goggles.
Also in March 2003, a U.S. official told a New York Times reporter that the al Qaeda suspect, Omar Faruq, was subjected to techniques that were "not quite torture but as close as you can get."
Faruq was kept in a cell with fluctuating temperatures, ranging from 100 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
It was also stated by the same unnamed official that the alleged al Qaeda mastermind Abu Zubaydah was taken to Bagram airbase after he was shot three times while being captured in Pakistan. At Bagram, interrogators manipulated his levels of pain medication when questioning him.
A photojournalist, who accompanied U.S. Special Forces and 82nd Airborne troops in operations in eastern Afghanistan in July 2002, later spoke to HRW about his experiences and said that Kandahar was referred to by the troops as "Camp Slappy."
"U.S. forces would threaten uncooperative persons encountered during raids, suggesting they would be sent there: `we tell them they can cooperate or go to Camp Slappy.' "
Afghan allies who conduct operations alongside U.S. troops are singled out by HRW for their systematic abuses against people detained in the country.
"Human Rights Watch is extremely concerned about the treatment of the hundreds of Afghans alleged to be from the Taliban, held under the auspices of the Afghan military and intelligence authorities. In past reports, HRW has documented numerous cases of torture, beatings and other mistreatment of persons. Recently, there have been credible reports from human rights monitors in Kandahar that `Taliban prisoners' are repeatedly and severely beaten by Afghan soldiers holding them."
Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, a member of the Hamid Karzai government, still holds approximately 1,000 prisoners - alleged Taliban and foreign fighters - in the northern city of Shiberghan. According to HRW monitors in the capital, Kabul, CIA and U.S. military interrogators have access to those prisoners and have resisted efforts by the Afghan and Pakistani governments to screen the prisoners for possible release.
UN monitors who have visited some of the Afghan detention facilities have complained about the use of torture and the fact that the CIA and U.S. military know what goes on in Afghan-controlled detention camps.
The HRW report is particularly scathing about the failure of the U.S. to provide answers about the deaths of three detainees in two U.S. detention facilities. According to a death certificate by a military pathologist at Bagram airbase, one of the detainees, a 22-year-old man, died from "blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease."
Another detainee at Bagram, Mullah Habibullah, aged 30, died from a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs) due to blunt force injury to the legs. The third fatality occurred at a facility in Kunar Province in June last year, but U.S. military officials have refused to reveal the cause of death.
So far, officials from Central Command and the Army's Criminal Investigation Command have stated that there is an ongoing investigation into the two deaths at the Bagram base, but no information is available on the third casualty in Kunar.
TORTURE AROUND THE WORLD
The interrogation tactics outlined in the HRW report accord with those used by many armies in wartime and especially in counterinsurgency conflicts. The British army pioneered similar interrogation methods during colonial "emergencies" in Kenya, Aden and Cyprus.
In 1970, a unit from the British army's Intelligence Wing at Ashford subjected 12 detainees in Northern Ireland to hooding, sleep deprivation and white noise. The Human Rights Court in Strasbourg later reviewed the episode and, while condemning the British Army, stopped short of defining the interrogation methods as torture - preferring terms like inhumane, degradingg and ill treatment.
The Geneva Convention in Article 3 condemns what it calls "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."
The Fundamental Guarantees under the 1977 Protocol 1 of the Convention prohibit torture of all kinds, whether physical or mental. According to HRW, the prolonged shackling of detainees breaches international conventions and can amount to torture.
"Prolonged sleep deprivation and exposure to cold may also violate international law prohibitions against mistreatment and amount to torture," states the HRW report into U.S. methods in Afghanistan.
It is unlikely the United States will find itself before any international court or tribunal, say observers, as international laws governing the illegality of certain types of detention and interrogation techniques have not always been clear.
It was to avoid U.S. forces being tried for war crimes that the Bush administration, unlike their British counterparts, refused to acknowledge the authority of the international criminal court at The Hague when its existence was ratified by the Treaty of Rome in 2002. |Top|
Blix BlastsBush Intervention
The war against Iraq was illegal, said Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat who supervised United Nations inspectors that, prior to the war, scoured the country in a search for weapons of mass destruction.
High-ranking U.S. and British officials made repeated allegations that Iraq possessed banned weapons of mass destruction. However, extensive searches by UN weapons inspectors prior to the war and by U.S. inspection teams, after the war, have failed to find a single banned weapon in Iraq.
"They believed the intelligence rather than the inspectors and unfortunately the inspectors were right,' Blix said. "There was not sufficient critical thinking. I even go so far as to say it was like a witch-hunt."
The Intelligence that was used by the U.S. and British governments to justify the war against Iraq turned out to be wrong, Blix said.
"They were so convinced that there were witches in Iraq that every black cat became proof of it," he said. "The tendency was to view any evidence in a more serious light than was the reality.
"There should have been a bit more patience," Blix said. "If the inspections had gone on for a couple more months, then I think br. Blair and others would have realized that many pieces of intelligence which they relied upon were no valid."
Britain's former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind accused PRIME Minister Tony Blair of "gross misuse" of the intelligence services in order to wage war against Iraq. "It is now clear that he took Britain into war on a false prospectus, and the Iraq war will, rightly, haunt Blair for the rest of his premiership," Rifkind wrote in England's The Independent.
Under The Independent's March 5 headline "Iraq war was illegal," Blix said, "I don't buy the argument the war was legalized by the Iraqi violation of earlier resolutions." According to Blix, an international lawyer and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the "ownership" of the UN resolutions pertaining to Iraq rested with the entire 15-member Security Council, and not with individual states.
"The Security council could have authorized it, but I do not think it was right for individual members to do so," said Blix.
Security Council Resolution 1441, passed in November 2002, required the regime of Saddam Hussein to comply with UN weapons inspectors but made clear that no further action could be taken without the approval of the UN. Iraq had complied with UN weapons inspectors prior to being invaded by U.S. and British forces.
Before the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq last March, Blix and Mohamed El Baradei, head of the IAEA, said that in four months of searching, they had found no evidence of any weapons of mass destruction or programs to build them. Blix and El Baradei told the Security council that more time was needed to make a definitive conclusion.
The British government knew that a second resolution was necessary to justify the planned invasion. A memo from Britain's Foreign Office to the Foreign affairs Select Committee on March 17, 2003, "made clear that there was no ‘automaticity' in Resolution 1441 to justify war."
In Blix's recently published book, Disarming Iraq: The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Blix describes how on March 6, 2003, the day before his final report to the Security Council, U.S. Assistant secretary of State John Wolf "tossed photographs of a drone and a cluster bomb on my table" and "in a rather discourteous tone" asked why Blix did not conclude that the photographs were evidence that Iraq was in violation of Security Council resolutions.
Blix told the press that he suspected that his UN office and home in New York had been bugged. The photographs that Wolf had were obtained through an intelligence agency, he said.
"He should not have had them," Blix said. "I asked him how he got them, and he would not tell me, and I said I resented that.
"It could have been some staff belonging to us that handed them to the Americans. I don't think it is very likely, but it could have happened," Blix said. "It could also be that they managed to break into the secure fax and got it that way."
Both the drone and the cluster bomb had been examined by UN inspectors and determined to be inconclusive or "scrap from the past," Blix wrote.
Jafar Dhia Jafar, the "father of Iraq's nuclear program," spoke publicly for the first time about Iraqi weapons programs on March 8 in Beirut. Jafar said UN inspectors had "reached total conviction" that Iraq was free of nuclear weapons. Pressure from the U.S. government, however, prevented Blix from being more forthright with the Security Council, Jafar said.
"Reports of the United Nations inspectors to the Security Council should have been dear and courageous," the Iraqi scientist said.
Jafar presented a paper co-written with Noman Saad Eddin al-Noami, the former director-general of Iraq's nuclear program, at a three-day conference on the repercussions of the invasion of Iraq organized by the Beirut-based Center for Arab Unity Studies.
"Saddam Hussein issued orders in July 1991 for the destruction of all banned weapons, in addition to the systems to produce them. It was carried out by the Special Republican Guard forces." the Iraqi scientists wrote.
"We can confirm with absolute certainty that Iraq no longer possessed any weapons of mass destruction after its unilateral destruction of all its components in the summer of 1991, and did not resume any such activity because it no longer had the foundations to resume such activity," they wrote. |Top|
Whenever American consumers shop at the local Wal-Mart they may think they are getting the best bargains around, but those cheap prices come at a cost to the U.S. economy and American workers.
Wal-Mart is no longer the company that Sam Walton built with his "Made in America" pledge to his customers.
Today, in order to comply with truth in advertising, the mega-company should advertise its wares as "Made in China." In fact, if Wal-Mart were a country it would rank as China's fifth largest trading market - ahead of even Germany and Britain.
Wal-Mart is America's biggest retailer, with annual sales of more than $245 bullion.
When American consumers shop in a Wal-Mart store, however, they should keep this in mind: of a total of 6,000 factories supplying goods to stock the shelves of Wal-Mart stores about 80 percent are located in China.
Here, according to Andrew Twuei, managing director of Wal-Mart's global procurement center in Shenzhen, China, is a clear picture of what China means to the giant retail chain: "There might be places in the world where you can buy cheaper, but can you get the products on the ship?"
The Chinese state-owned shipping firm, COSCO ships much of the country's trade goods in its ships.
"If we have to look at a country that's not politically stable, you might not get your order on time. If you deal in a country where the currency fluctuates every day there is a lot of risk. China happens to have the right mix,' said Tsuei.
China, because of Wal-Mart and other globalist firms eager to do business worth it, regardless of its human rights record and the fact it is Putting U.S. workers out of jobs, currently enjoys a trade surplus over the U.S. of about $125 billion a year.
It is a state that is wrecking the American economy by manipulating its currency, exploiting its workers to the edges of Human endurance and competing unfairly, including stealing the design of American products without any thought of violation of international patents laws.
Wal-Mart's Asia operations are coordinated out of a white-tiled building in Shenzhen, where, according to news reports out of China, the company manages its dealing with such frugality that the conference tables are linoleum covered, and the covering is so worn that the plywood of the tabletops shows through.
In addition to its Chinese links, Wal-Mart is currently under investigation by federal authorities on two fronts.
The giant chain is being investigated for taking out high-dollar life insurance policies on their employees and making the company the beneficiary in the event the employee dies.
Several months ago, Wal-Mart stores across the U.S. were raided by U.S. immigration officials, who took into custody hundreds of illegal aliens that the always-frugal company was using to do janitorial tasks.
The employees were, at their arraignments, ordered by the courts to reappear for further proceedings and were subsequently released.
Most, one source told American Free Press, never reappeared as ordered and simply disappeared. Is anyone surprised?
Wal-Mart was just named one of the "100 best places to work for Latinos" by Hispanic Magazine.
The "Made in America" days of the late Sam Walton are obviously over and have been replaced by something that is anything but American, although millions of Americans, as evidenced by Wal-Mart's annual sales reports, apparently love it.
The reason is its low prices, attracting a new class of Americans who have lost their high-paying jobs and are now forced to look for cheaper goods, or, as it is said, "What goes around comes around comes around."
Wal-Mart, obviously, knows that only too well. |Top|
Ted Pike has done it again. One of America's most courageous independent video producers has come up with a stunning new 94-minute VHS documentary production that is sure to emerge as a standard reference source for one of the most hotly controversial topics of our time. The title says it all: Zionism and Christianity; Unholy Alliance.
This video is not for the faint of heart or the politically correct. Pike and his wife and co-host Alynn take the viewer trough a panoramic journey from the days of Christ to our modern era, analyzing the events that have led to our current Middle East imbroglio.
In previous (and quite well received) documentary productions - Why the Mid-East Bleeds, The other Israell and Hate Laws: Making Criminals of Christians - the Pikes unhesitatingly laid out the often uncomfortable facts about the poser of the Israeli lobby in shaping U.S. policy toward Israel.
INFILTRATION OF THE FAITH
In this video, however, the Pikes delve into the role that the infiltration of the Christian faith has played in manipulating Christians - particularly those in the United States - into accepting and supporting a U.S. alliance with Israel.
The Pikes name names and state that the mass media "manipulates the spigot of information" from which heartland America gains its knowledge of the Middle East and that land's bloody history - always from a pro-Israel point of view. TThey also provide an interesting analysis of the early days of Hollywood motion pictures that is little known to the American public.
They point out that while Christians are aware of the moral corruption of America by the media, these same Bible-believing patriots are blind to who controls the media.
The Pikes acknowledge - and emphasize - that it is religious fervor, both Jewish and Christian, that has a greater influence than even the media and financial control. They contend, with dismay, that if not for Christian religious support for Israel, the power of the Israeli lobby would not be so immense.
The Pikes explore the strange and little-known history of the role of the so-called "Gnostics" in warping and manipulating early Christian church history with the result that what the Pikes call "hybrid religious systems' emerged - abandoning the real teaching of Christ.
They examine, in rather shocking detail, the bizarre teaching of the Babylonian Talmud and the even less known Zohar the mystical teachings of the Kaballah, which speaks in no uncertain terms of an ultimate "world dominion" under the control of Zionism.
The Pikes call for a return to "authentic Christianity" and a rejection of the "Spiritual lawlessness" that has brought the world, as a consequence of the turmoil in the Middle East, to the brink of nuclear destruction today.
If you are strictly secular and prefer to believe the Middle East crisis has nothing to do with religion or with good and evil, you may be "turned off" by this video - but that's your mistake, because if you refuse to face the truths behind the conflict of the ages, you'll never have a complete understanding of why the entire world now seems allied against the United States and Israel.
The Pikes have a warm, inviting way of conducting their quite provocative and fact-filled and informative exploration of this topic. They are not "in your face" as so many documentary producers tend to be. Instead, this high-quality production, filled with fascinating graphics and images that supplement the narrative, is an educational landmark that you'll be proud to show to friends and to church and civic groups. |Top|
The Israeli lobby has launched an all-out drive to ensure congressional passage of a bill, approved by the House and now before a Senate committee that would set up a federal tribunal to investigate and monitor criticism of Israel on American college campuses.
Ten months ago the New York-based Jewish Week newspaper claimed that the report by American Free Press that Republican members of the Senate were planning to crack down on college and university professors who were critical of Israel was "a dangerous urban legend at best, deliberate disinformation at worst." They were claiming that AFP lied.
However, on Sept. 17, 2003, the House Subcommittee on Select Education unanimously approved H.R. 3077, the International Studies in Higher Education Act, which was then passed by the full House on Oct. 21. The chief sponsor of the legislation was Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a conservative Republican from Michigan.
DANGEROUS LEGISLATION
Critics charge that the bill is dangerous - a direct affront to the First Amendment and the product of intrigue by a small clique of individuals and organizations which combines the forces of the powerful Israeli lobby in official Washington.
Leading the push for Senate approval of the bill are the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, run by Abe Foxman, the American Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee.
Also lending its support is Empower America, the neo-conservative front group established by William Kristol, editor and publisher of billionaire Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard, which is said to be the "intellectual" journal that governs the train of foreign policy thinking in the Bush administration.
One other group has lent its support: the U.S. India Political Action Committee, an Indian-American group that has been working closely with the Israeli lobby now that Israel and India are geopolitically allied.
H.R. 3077 is bureaucratic in its tone, decipherable only to those with the capacity to wade through legislative linguistics. It would set up a seven-member advisory board that would have the power to recommend cutting federal funding for colleges and universities that are viewed as harboring academic critics of Israel.
Two members of the board would be appointed by the Senate, two by the House, and three by the secretary of education, two of whom are required to be from U.S. federal security agencies. The various appointees would be selected from what The Christian Science Monitor described on March 11 as "politicians, representatives of cultural and educational organizations, and private citizens."
FEARS ECHOED
Gilbert Merk, vice provost for international affairs and development and director of the Center for International Studies at Duke University, has echoed the fears of many when he charged that this advisory board "could easily be hijacked by those who have a political axe to grind and become a vehicle for an inquisition."
The primary individuals promoting this effort to control intellectual debate on the college campuses are prominent and outspoken supporters of Israel and harsh critics of the Arab and Muslim worlds. They are:
Martin Kramer, a professor of Arab studies at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University in Israel;
Stanley Kurtz, a contributor of ex-CIA man William F. Buckley Jr.'s bitterly anti-Arab National Review Online and a research fellow at the staunchly pro-Israel Hoover Institution; and
Daniel Pipes, founder of the pro-Israel Middle East Institute and its affiliate, Campus Watch, an ADL-style organization that keeps tabs on college professors and students who are - or are suspected of being - critics of Israel.
These three, along with the Israeli lobby, are claiming that they are fighting "anti-Americanism" as it is being taught on the college campuses.
Republicans in Congress have joined this chorus, preferring to allow their constituents to think that this is an "America First" measure.
Juan Cole of the History News Network responds to this extraordinary twist on reality saying that the claim of "anti-Americanism" is intellectually dishonest.
"What they mean . . . if you pin them down is ambivalence about the Iraq war, or dislike of Israeli colonization of the West Bank, or recognition that the U.S. government has sometimes in the past been in bed with present enemies like al Qaeda or Saddam. None of these positions is ‘anti-American,' and any attempt by a congressionally appointed body to tell university professors they cannot say these things - or that if they say them they must hire someone else who will say the opposite - is a contravention of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."
The promoters are also suggesting that this legislation would, according to the American Jewish Committee, "enhance intellectual freedom on campus by enabling diverse viewpoints to be heard." Of course, the legislation would do precisely the opposite, say critics.
Lisa Anderson of the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs said in response that "this plan . . . is not about diversity, or even about the truth."
Ms. Anderson does not cite the role of the Israeli lobby, but instead targets conservative Republicans who are acting as the Israeli lobby's surrogates and says that this plan is "about the conviction of conservative political activists that the American university community is insufficiently patriotic, or perhaps simply insufficiently conservative."
What she should be saying is that these Republicans who are carrying water for Israel are concerned that universities are "insufficiently pro-Israel."
The Republican House members who originally joined Hoekstra in co-sponsoring this legislation should be named for the record. They are: John A. Boehner (Ohio), John R. Carter (Texas), Tom Cole (Oklahoma), James Greenwood (Penn.), Howard (Buck) McKeon (Calif.), Patrick J. Tiberi (Ohio) and Joe Wilson (South Carolina).
Americans will not be able to find out how their representatives voted on the bill. Hoekstra asked for a suspension of the House rules, which was approved, making it possible for the controversial measure to be passed with an unrecorded "voice vote." There is no record of how individual House members voted or if they even voted at all.
FIRST MEASURE
The measure passed by the House is the same type of proposed "ideological diversity" legislation that AFP detailed in its Oct. 20, 2003, issue. At the time, the measure was being kicked around for possible introduction in the Senate by two prominent Republicans, Rick Santorum (Penn.) and Sam Brownback (Kan.).
AFP's initial report on the legislation garnered so much attention from American college and university professors and on the Internet, even so far as the Arab world, that the resulting negative publicity forced Santorum and Brownback to back off.
Many major American education organizations, including the teacher's union, the National Education Association, have raised their concerns about this campaign to muzzle the free speech of teachers, professors and instructors. The American Civil Liberties Union has also protested this measure.
Critics say this is a new form of what has been known in the past as "McCarthyism," and no matter what you may think about the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose name, rightly or wrongly, inspired that terminology, the truth is that this legislation is "McCarthyism" by virtue of the popular definition.
The only chance to destroy this legislation and stop it dead in its tracks is for enough grassroots citizens to rise up and demand that H.R. 3077 be put to rest.
And believe it or not, the one senator who may be able to stop it is Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy of Massachusetts. |Top|
Congress is patting itself on the back after passing legislation that expands the power of the Federal communications Commission (FCC) to crack down on broadcasters with heavy new $500,000 fines. Most politicians were all too eager to appease those demanding that Congress "do something" about racy Super Bowl shows and distasteful radio hosts, especially in an election year. It is clear that most members of Congress gave little thought to the legality or wisdom of the bill, caring only that they be seen as defenders of all things decent.
In doing so, Congress ignored a fundamental truth: government control over radio and television broadcasts is incompatible with a free society. FCC control of broadcast content, whether through licensing, regulations or fines, is naked censorship that is utterly at odds with the plain words of the First Amendment. It could not be any clearer. "Congress shall make no law."
The censors from both political parties argue that because the broadcast spectrum is publicly owned, the public has a right to control the content. But "public" ownership really means government ownership. And government ownership means the current gang of bureaucrats in power gets to decide what is heard and seen. Airwaves are far too precious to be owned or controlled by government - like other scarce and valuable natural resources, airwaves should be controlled by market forces. One mistake - nationalizing the airwaves - does not justify another. We should not violate the First Amendment today because of the sins of the past.
There's nothing new about this latest congressional attack on expression. The political right wing has always embraced censorship, believing that government can foster and protect moral values through strict regulation of speech. But this curious attitude conflicts with the central tenet of conservatism, namely a healthy mistrust of government. Why do conservatives feel compelled to have a federal nanny state protect their children from indecency? Why do conservatives, who once questioned and resisted the growing involvement of government in our lives, not trust PCC bureaucrats to determine moral standards? Conservatives should know that a decent society is rooted in strong families, churches and civic institutions, not government control of broadcasting.
The political left is no better when it comes to free speech. The left may be more permissive toward lurid or obscene material, but it has zero tolerance for political, religious and social commentary that falls outside the bounds of rigid political correctness doctrines it created. Liberals are happy to restrict so-called commercial speech; happy to jail those who commit phony hate-crimes merely by speaking their minds; and happy to impose speech codes on college campuses.
Conservatives must understand that the powers they grant the FCC today may one day be used against them. It is not hard to imagine a future where criticism of abortion is deemed hate speech against women, or criticism of affirmative action considered an unlawful attack on minorities. It is not hard to imagine President Hillary Clinton ordering the FCC to shut down Rush Limbaugh for using the term "feminazi." Already a petition has been files with the Justice department to investigate The Passion of the Christ for possible hate crimes against whose who dislike the film's theology. Big-government conservatives will learn that heavy-handed federal control of speech is far more likely to result in a rigidly secular, politically correct society than a moral society imbued with Christian virtue.
The First Amendment is worthless if it does not protect unpopular controversial expression. It is precisely when the sensibilities of many Americans ore offended that the First Amendment is needed most. Many of our cherished religious, political, and legal traditions are rooted in once-radical ideas. It's a short step from regulation words and images to regulating words and images to regulating thoughts and ideas.
Ultimately, broadcasters air indecent material only if the market demands it. Congress cannot raise the moral bearing of the American people by edict, but it can destroy liberty in the process. When it comes to decency, the American people should stop looking to government and start looking at themselves. |Top|
One of the clichés one hears incessantly from the mouths of politicians is that we have the "best-trained, best-equipped army" in the world. No we don't. We have a military that is overstretched and underequipped because it has more missions than resources. We have a military with way too many women in it. We have a military that still suffers from logistics problems.
Don't take my word for it. Go to www.sftt.org by Col. David Hackworth - a fellow King Features columnist - that, among other things, invites comments from officers and men actually on the battlefield. We have soldiers who didn't get the vests they needed. We have unarmored Humvees that have cost Americans dearly. And, to hear the enlisted men and young officers tell it, we have about the worst military leadership at the top since Abraham Lincoln struggled to find a general who knew how to fight. Unbelievably, many soldiers in Iraq have had to purchase equipment on the open market because it was better than the Army stuff or because the Army stuff wasn't available.
And we have promiscuous medal giving. Some of our top generals look like stereotypes of Latin American dictators with their ribbons and medals. Then there was the case of the young west Virginia girl who was made a celebrity and given a medal for bravery even though she herself said she never fired her weapon and was knocked unconscious by a vehicle crash. She was honest. The brass were not.
The general sense conveyed by these young men is that a young officer who follows the warrior's path and takes care of his men is never going to make it beyond major. To go beyond requires an entirely different approach based on social and political skills as well as on avoiding all of the politically incorrect traps.
We have seen how the military reacted to soldiers voicing criticism or even pessimism to the press. They were told to shut up in no uncertain terms. At the same time, we saw that disgraceful episode in which some soldiers were persuaded to sing a boilerplate letter to their hometown papers saying how everything was peachy-creamy, hunky-dory in Iraq.
Well, the military suffers for the same reason public education suffers. Essentially it is an organization designed and run by politicians and bureaucrats.
It is easy for the politicians to oversell the military situation, because they have been careful not to allow the military to fight any country with one-10th of the resources to put up a good fight. The last time we did, in Vietnam, we lost. Yes, I know we never lost a battle on the field. We lost in Washington, D.C., but we did lose. When the fighting stops and the enemy holds the ground, we've lost, whatever excuse you want to make about it.
I highly recommend Col. Hackworth's website. You will get more truth from there in one five-minute visit than in listening to Donald Rumsfeld and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs for 10 hours.
The only protection the ordinary fighting man has is informed and aroused citizens who demand of their politicians that problems be corrected. That's especially true when the top generals and admirals fail in an officer's most basic duty, which is to look our for the men and women under his or her command. |Top|