What you are saying about Chavez is simply not true.

Chavez is going to be a "Saddam"? Come on! You are spreading lies and disinformation about Chavez. First of all, U.S. policymakers did not support Chavez so already that is a good sign.
Who was Saddam's backer as early as the 1950's? The U.S. funded this killer in the late 1950's. Who was involved in the coups that put the Ba'ath party into power in the first place? The CIA. "The CIA were definitely involved in that coup" US diplomat James Akins who served in the Baghdad Embassy at the time. "I knew all the Ba'ath Party leaders and I liked them," Akins said, "Sure, some people were rounded up and shot but these were mostly communists so that didn't bother us"

We have reporters in a media system who are all too willing to "play the game" Notice that the MSM did not report how the U.S. was responsible for the rise of Saddam and the Ba'ath party? (I am talking about BEFORE the 1980's) We have a very obedient press that serves powerful interests ( towing the line helps reporters' careers) Now they are getting the message to slam Chavez and you guys are lapping it up.

"No reputable human rights organization would claim that Venezuela under Chavez is less democratic that under previous governments, or compares unfavorably in terms of human rights or democratic freedoms to the rest of Latin America.

On the positive side, even Chavez' opponents concede that millions of poor Venezuelans -- the majority -- now have access to health care, education, literacy programs, land titles, and credit for the first time, as a result of the government's social programs. ( U.S. MSM ignores this and the country's unprecedented economic growth that reached 17% in 2004, the highest in the world.)

Sadly, the biggest threats to Venezuela's democracy still come from Washington, which has funded and allied itself with the anti-democratic leaders of Venezuela's opposition, including supporters of the failed coup. This funding and support has been acknowledged by the U.S. State Department. The National Endowment for Democracy, which is funded by our Congress, has also funneled millions of dollars to opposition groups. And recently-released documents from the CIA show that the Bush Administration had detailed advanced knowledge of the coup but lied about what happened: the White House tried to convince the press and other countries that it was not a coup at all, but rather a legitimate seizure of power by "pro-democracy" forces."- Political Attacks Against Venezuela Continue

"A few weeks ago, a group of almost 400 Venezuelan journalists issued a statement denouncing a "campaign" from the United States against Venezuela. The journalists argued that negative and frequent media coverage of Venezuela in the U.S., as well as the frequent comments by high ranking officials at the State Department, the CIA, and The White House, amount to a "campaign" similar to those applied against countries which were later invaded by the U.S.

At a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) held in February, Venezuela's Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez, alerted the governments of the Americas that U.S. "interventionism" in Venezuela is a "prelude to aggression."

Last February, Minister Izarra presented a report detailing an alleged "anti-Chavez bias" in recent media coverage of Venezuela in the United States. Izarra asserted that "in light of the large influx of erroneous and de-contextualized information, it is evident that the U.S. private media has joined forces with the U.S. Department of State and spokespeople of the Bush administration in an effort to launch a 'smear campaign' against the Venezuelan government."" - Venezuelan Media

What U.S. officials did to Chavez was a crime and the MSM was right there playing along with it: "On April 12, 2002, Chavez resigned his presidency It said so, right there in the paper -- every major newspaper in the USA, every single one. Apparently, to quote the New York Times, Chavez recognized that he was unpopular, his time was up: "With yesterday's resignation of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator."

Problem was, the "resignation" story was a fabulous fib, a phantasmagoric fabrication. In fact, the President of Venezuela had been kidnapped at gunpoint and bundled off by helicopter from the presidential palace. He had not resigned; he never resigned; and one of his captors (who secretly supported Chavez) gave him a cell-phone from which he called and confirmed to friends and family that he remained alive -- and still president.

Working for the Guardian and the BBC, I was able within hours of the kidnapping to reach key government people in Venezuela to confirm that this "resignation" factoid was just hoodoo nonsense.

But it was valuable nonsense to the U.S. State Department. The faux resignation gave the new U.S.-government-endorsed Venezuelan leaders the pretense of legitimacy -- Chavez had resigned; this was a legal change of government, not a coup d'etat. (The Organization of American States bars recognition of governments who come to power through violence.) Had the coup leaders not bungled their operation -- the coup collapsed within 48 hours -- or if they had murdered Chavez, we would never have known the truth.

The U.S. papers got it dead wrong -- but how? Who was the source of this "resignation" lie? I asked a U.S. reporter why American news media had reported this nonsense as stone fact without checking. The reply was that it came from a reliable source: "We got it from the State Department."" - How the American media distorted events in Venezuela beyond all recognition

Chavez is using the oil resources to help the poor, his first concern is not the profits of U.S. corporations and that is considered a crime in the U.S. All the attacks on him have to do with how he is helping the people. Some important facts slip through in the MSM: To lessen his dependence on the U.S. market, which soaks up two-thirds of Venezuela's 2.1 million barrels of average daily exports, Caracas also is investing in several major projects such as refineries and shipping terminals to cut out costlier middlemen, predominantly from the United States."

also see Venezuela Watch

Report: Canada testing device that alerts drivers whenever the exceed speed limits.

This is a very good start to ensure safety on the roads. Some people don't appreciate what a VERY clever idea it is to have a system that would enforce speed limits by making it harder to push down the car's gas pedal once the speed limit is passed. The added effort to push on the gas sends a reminder to ourselves of our responsibilities and that going over the speed limit is not the same as going a safe speed under it. It still gives enormous freedom for emergencies. This is something that could give enormous benefits with such an incredibly small "inconvenience" the idea is very, very, clever. And we need to something, so many Americans die on our roads each year, nearly 40,000 MORE than died on 9/11.

42,800 people died on the nation's highways in 2004 Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said the nation was "in the midst of a national epidemic" "If this many people were to die from any one disease in a single year, Americans would demand a vaccine."

And we should put money towards public transportation, the current transportation system is insane. People in the future will look back at our time and think we were barbarians for allowing over 40,000 Americans to die on the road every year. It doesn't have to be this way.

What do YOU think the US position and/or involvement should be with the Sudan where major human rights violations are occurring on a daily basis?

You sound like a bleeding heart liberal, so concerned about human rights and so willing to have the government so something about it. The Military Industrial Complex has quite a marketing department for you to so readily concern yourself with this, and apparently so willing to use taxpayers money to right wrongs.

I would take a careful look before being so willing to go for "Humanitarian Military Intervention." I know you didn't suggest it but this is something that gets pushed and I would suggest you don't assume noble intentions on the part of U.S. policymakers. If they wanted to be decent thing then after the mistaken bombing (which they had no right to do) they should have paid reparations to Sudan. Also the U.S. should not have been undermining attempts to refer the Sudan situation to the ICC. Amnesty International reiterated its concern that the USA is refusing to adopt the Commission of Inquiry’s recommendation that the situation in Darfur should be referred to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

You swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution and to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution. The U.S. Signed the UN Charter, look at our Constitution, Treaties become law of OUR LAND. You need to take seriously the obligations that have been made. We need to stop undermining the UN. Bolton needs to shut his obnoxious mouth and stop openly declaring a policy of lawlessness.

Your whole premise of "constructive comments" is absurd. If someone were to say that street thugs should be held accountable and be brought to justice, I am sure you would agree. Yet you are brainwashed with this idea that people in powerful positions in our government become "America" itself so that we can no longer hold them to account without being cast as "anti-American". It really is one of the most serious propaganda problems we have. All I am saying is that people that violate the law and commit crimes are wrong and should be held accountable so why do you bitch about "criticisms?" If I was saying it about a small time hood you would be jumping up and down saying yes, yes, yes! You would not be saying that it is "worthless criticism" Yet this insane propaganda of conflating U.S. officials with "America" itself has got you brainwashed.

As for specific details of what we should talk about at the UN, I would need to do some research. I, unlike some other people, like to be informed about the issues I discuss.

This topic was about the Iraq Debate, why are you so concerned about Sudan?

Planting Fake News Stories
'Hardball with Chris Matthews' transcript for December 1 show

MATTHEWS: When we return, will the Pentagon strategy of planting fake news stories hamper the chances of true democracy and U.S. victory in Iraq? HARDBALL returns after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Amy Goodman is the radio talk show host for Democracy Now, and Byron York is the White House correspondent for “The National Review.”

Byron, we're going to put you in an interesting position here. Does it offend you, as an American, that we're buying good press in Iraq?

BYRON YORK, NATIONAL REVIEW: I think we shouldn't have been doing it. And I do think that Jim Miklaszewski hinted at this. There is kind of a war going on inside the Pentagon. And I personally think if we had found out there was an article that appeared in the Iraqi press that was very positive to the United States, years later we find out it could be traced back to the CIA, some very black operation at the CIA, big deal. We've done that a lot over the years in many different wars.

But there is a problem when you blur the distinction between that sort of thing and the public affairs officials of the United States military, who should be telling the truth. Did we kill this many people? Have we built this many schools? They should be telling the truth about that. So there is a war in part going on inside the Pentagon and the Bush administration, over how to do this kind of thing.

MATTHEWS: Who makes the decision, do you know? Who made the decision to clear this contract and say, all right, go out there and create some of this bogus positive coverage?

YORK: Well, first of all, I don't know. And I'm not sure a lot of people do know, and I'm sure they're scrambling right now to try to find some answers for Senator Warner.

MATTHEWS: Well, $100 million is a hell of a lien item. And somebody had to approve it.

YORK: Well, yes, but by the way, if I read the stories correctly, the $100 million is for the next five years. It's not as if $100 million was spent on doing this particular stuff we're talking about.

MATTHEWS: Well, at $200 a reporter, $20 million goes a long way this year.

YORK: It does.

MATTHEWS: Anyway, let me go to Amy Goodman. Your view of this matter. This is of course the story we're getting the last couple of days. It's going to be investigated tomorrow by the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, John Warner of Virginia. Senator Warner said he's going to be holding—getting a briefing from the Pentagon as to what role they played at the top. What do you make of it, Amy?

AMY GOODMAN, DEMOCRACY NOW: Well, Chris, it's an absolute outrage, and there are many levels of it. One is of course the outrage against the Iraqi people, that they're not getting true operations, that this is a kind of psychological warfare, and you've dealt with it well on the program.

But I want to talk about a few other levels of this. You also have the blowback effect. When you have pieces that appear in Iraqi papers and then you have newspapers around the world and in this country as well citing those papers, and the blowback comes to this country.

And then you have the marginalization of a press in Iraq that may well be telling the truth. You have organizations like Al-Jazeera. If you have some news outlets telling the truth and others only telling the, quote, “good news.” In fact, the lies that the Bush administration is putting out, and wants the Iraqi people to believe, that marginalizes those news organizations.

(Apparently, Matthews suddenly resents the fact that Goodman is talking about the fake news yet this is what he referred to in the intro! He challenges her:)

MATTHEWS: Well wait a minutes. There's been nothing in the reporting on this to say that we're putting out this information, though. From what I've been reading, we're putting out factual accounts of what we're doing over there in terms of construction.

GOODMAN: There's no different issues here. One is wanting to put out, quote, “good news stories,” that the military is putting out and paying reporters to take. The other part is the covert operation, what they call the—basically, the information, the psychological operations.

This has been reported in “The Philadelphia Inquirer,” has been reported by Knight Ridder. And that is actually planting false stories. Jonathan Landay had a very good piece on this today. Actually, purposely putting in false stories about what is going on in Iraq. And of course the tragedy for the Iraqi people is that they see what's happening on the ground, and they look at a press and they say, why isn't it reflecting what is happening here?

(Seems Matthews suddenly doesn't like the fake news being talked about, at this point Matthews never asks Goodman another question.)

YORK: The reports I've seen on this is that they were accurate, but one-sided. Which is, they should include all sides, but that's a tradition we see in many American news reports.

MATTHEWS: The news around the street, going to both of you. Dispute here in America now, and we're trying to find this out, the objective fact here. It's not about propaganda. We want to know, how well are we doing in training the Iraqi security forces over there, so we can go home. And let them defend their own government.

And the question now, as we have the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, putting out a statement today, that people like George Casey, the Army Chief of Staff, has been making it too high a standard for these Iraqis, saying they're not doing as well as they should, when in fact, he says, just get the standard down a little, and they'll look better. We're having a dispute among the very highest level of our military over whether we've trained anybody over there.

YORK: Well, not completely over whether we've trained anybody, but...

MATTHEWS: ... sufficient to defend the country.

YORK: The president brought that very thing up yesterday in the speech in Annapolis, and he said that we all remember the incidents when the Iraqis just ran away from battle. But there has been a dispute over how many battalions, battalion being 350-800 people: how many of them are ready to go? I mean, the president yesterday...

MATTHEWS: ... do they look like soldiers when they march around? They don't look like people doing something by the hour, they're getting paid to do it?

YORK: When you see them in a pickup truck in irregular uniform, no, they don't look like American soldiers.

MATTHEWS: They look like those dazed guys.

YORK: It's another part of the world.

MATTHEWS: No, but they look like they're kind of dazed and disinterested. When you look at these guys, they don't look like crack outfits. At least, what they're putting on television.

YORK: Well, they're not crack outfits. But on the other hand, these are people who could be killed by doing this.

MATTHEWS: Oh, I understand that. But they're getting paid, too.

YORK: And they know that. So they made a certain decision.

MATTHEWS: They're getting three squares out of this, too. It's isn't completely volunteer work.

YORK: But it's a dangerous decision to make.

MATTHEWS: Yes, it is, based upon a lot of factors, like pay.

YORK: Well, American contractors do the same thing.

MATTHEWS: I know, but we'll wait to see. But this is interesting. When George Casey is fighting with Peter Pace, the highest levels of our military whether we have any standards at all or not, over this. It's fascinating. It's probably a lot more important than this propaganda story.

Amy Goodman, thank you for joining us, Byron York. When we return, President Bush is about to light the National Christmas Tree in Washington. We'll take you there when we return.

Words Goodman was able to speak: 282
Words York was able to speak: 403

I talked about specific facts that you are too cowardly to address. I said that MSNBC neglected to say why the hostages were taken. I said most of the media acts this way. What we did to the Iranians was a crime. You should look into it. In fact it isn't even denied at this point, the US officially admits they perpetrated the coup. What they haven't done is apologize. In 1979 there was a real concern by the Iranians that the US would once again re-install the Shah. The very building the students seized was the building the CIA used to perpetrate the 1953 coup.

At the very least a people have the right to hold their own leaders responsible for the crimes the commit agisnt them The Shah was guilty of enormous human rights violations, many were killed too. What doe the US do? it gives him sanctuary. It wasn't "whimpiness" it was jerkyness on the part of US policymakers. what right do we have to shelter a criminal from his own peoples desire to bring him to justice? For the life of me I don't understand why you think it is OK for the US to meddle in the internal politics of these foreign countries and violate their rights. We are a country that fought to free ourselves from a king and US policymakers go and undermine a democratic government and instal a king!?! And you don't think that US policymakers violate the very principles we supposedly stand for? The example of slavery is to show that policies can be extremely wrong and still there will be people like you that refuse to see that fact. Look how the policy of slavery violated the very principle of freedom, which is what America supposedly stood for. There were many AMericans who said the abolitionists were just noise generators too.

I don't see any mention of the fact that it was illegal to attack Iraq. The NYT is notorious for serving the interests of the powerful and the powerful don't like to be bound by laws. All this sick minded talk from the Times as if it is simply a choice that may or may not be made. Attacking Iraq wasn't "a choice" that either "should" be made or not. It wasn't a choice that would be a "mistake" or not. It was a case of either violating the law of our land or not. The Times is a very sick newspaper for suppressing the fact that what Bush was contemplating was illegal.

It would be very interesting to see if any mainstream news outlet reported the fact that what Bush was contemplating was illegal. I never saw one report that basic fact.
see The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy

Brian,

What in the world do you think was "handled?" You are not following the premise of the discussion if you think they "handled" the comments. Seriously, tell me what it is you need to see. What is it you are not seeing? I laid out the facts so why would anyone continue to believe that U.S officials intend on true democracy? Look at the history, look at their current actions. You think U.S, polciymakers actually want the Iraqi people to make their own policies? What do you think these policies are? U.S. officials talk about a pipe line to ship oil to Israel. do you really think this is what the Iraqis want? Can't you see that policy makers don't care what they want?

I pointed out that there is no reason to believe U.S. policymakers when they claim they want democracy for IRaq. I gave the example of VIetnam where there was to be an election in 1956 yet the US backed Diem who refused elections. No one can dispute this fact and yet you want to think the problem in Vietnam was we were to "wussy?" And look how the media behaves, they don't make this clear to the public. ANd since you read Chomsky's book, Imperial Ambitions you know that he pointed out on page 125 that a huge number of Americans have no idea how many Vietnamese were killed in the war. A public-opinion study was done. "the mean answer was a hundred thousand, about 5 percent of the official figure." The media hasn't even made the public aware of the accurate number of war deaths!

I then pointed out, not quoted but just wrote off the top of my head that only 1% of Iraqis actually believe the U.S. intends to allow real democracy in Iraq. 74 minutes later I provided the source I got the info from and correctly quoted what it was I thought I was referring to. "1% of Iraqis thought the goal was to bring democracy." (by the way, turns out 5% or less thought the goal was WMD, the U.S.'s stated goal) And I went to the trouble of finding the Washington Post article and that still wasn't enough for stinker?

But the central premise that the U.S. doesn't intend to allow real democracy is the main point. In fact as I posted, "51 percent" of Iraqis "said Washington would not allow Iraqis to do that without U.S. pressure and influence."

But the history shows there is no reason to believe U.S. officials' claims. There is no reason to believe the MSM is serious about pursuing these things. Look how they don't deal with the extremely important fact about the Iraqi election that "people voted with the hope that it would end the occupation."

Do you not notice that U.S. officials are not saying that the U.S. will get out when the Iraqis want us out? Do you not notice the media doesn't frame the debate around what the Iraqis want but instead talk about what the U.S. intends to do regardless of what the Iraqis want. Do you not see that? Democracy means that the Iraqi government would represent the will of the Iraqi people, we can see that powerful interests the U.S. are not concerned about that. Is it really hard to believe that these U.S. officials share the mentality of LTC (RET) John G. Wheelock and think “to the victor goes the spoils?" We certainly have bad people in America, you guys can't get it into your heads that bad people can get into our government. You don't think there are people in government like Wheelock who think it is a big joke to undermine democracy for foreign people? The same way Wheelock thinks the coup against Chavez was fine, you don't think U.S. policy makes are just as willing to disregard the rights of people in foreign countries?

I pointed out the VERY important fact that U.S. officials and the media almost never if ever talk about what the Iraqis want when it comes to the troops.

The media constantly plays the game of going alone with the agenda of the powerful. I just saw the Iran hostage crisis mentioned on MSNBC, no mention of the reason why the hostages were taken. This is very common for the media to do.

What does it take Brian? You don't notice that I was debating with someone that doesn't even share American values? “to the victor goes the spoils" is what this guy prefers. That is the mentality of our enemies for God sakes. Americans are supposed to stand for values. Why don't you take this seriously Brian?

Brian's unbelievable response:

Tom,
You have pointed out a lot of crap, and none of it is even interesting. If it was, I would be paying more attention in here. Chomsky is a Communist, he can label it anyway he likes, and you have decided to become his follower. That is never going to get any traction here.

Ya know, there is a whole lot of really good philosophy books out there to study, I wouldn’t bother with an old Commie who lives like a capitalist.

Frankly I do not know why my readers bother debating you. It is like trying to tell a Christian that Jesus wasn’t God. That is a complete waste of time, and not a worthy endevour. I imagine they believe they can save you from yourself, and I don’t believe that is possible.

I don’t know why people buy into all this crud. It is like talking to an anti-gunner that thinks the country would be safer if we banned guns, even though every country that has banneed them has gotten worse.

Communism cannot work, it always leads to a totalitarian government. History teaches us this fact.

Utopia on earth will not happen unless there is a second coming of christ. It is just not reality.

If you consider economic opportunity for other countries creating an empire, you are foolish. History has always showed America to be a Great Country that never dominates another.

Iraq will make of Iraq what it will. We are giving them an opportunity and what they do with it is their responsibilty.

Although I think Chomsky is brilliant, he is also a dope for buying into all that commie crap. Either that or he is intellectually dishonest, and a phoney; you decide.

So, there is really nothing to discuss.

You all did a great job, but I would just let him talk to himself.

My Reply:

Brian said: "You have pointed out a lot of crap, and none of it is even interesting"

So you can’t deal with the facts, you are “bored”. You can’t counter anything, all you can do is label things, never deal with the points raised. Actually when you do you see that I am telling the truth. You probably were surprised to learn that AMerica was not the first to free the slaves. I guess you don’t want to risk learning that other things you assume are incorrect too.

I can’t make you act like an adult and actually discuss the pressing issues of the day. You want to avoid it all label people to avoid thinking about the issues.

Brian said: "Frankly I do not know why my readers bother debating you. It is like trying to tell a Christian that Jesus wasn’t God."

Actually it is you that take these things as articles of faith that simply cannot be discussed. What you are doing is called projection. I am more than willing to have my assumptions challenged with facts. You go on an on with this “communist” stuff. what does it have to do with the points raised. It is an embarrassing copout on your part. Throw those labels around yet what does it have to do with points of fact about the issues we are discussing?

Your non-review of the Chomsky book was so odd, I should have known you would post such an evasive reply. What are you so afraid of? I know that there were many people in 1831 who were afraid to question if slavery was right.

Brian said: "“If you consider economic opportunity for other countries creating an empire, you are foolish. History has always showed America to be a Great Country that never dominates another.”

It would be a good idea to examine the facts. It would be a nice thing but being in denial and refusing to even discuss it doesn’t make it true. Do you realize how much the media suppresses? Fo example, did it ever occur to you to look into how the Ba’ath party got into power in the first place? Notice the MSM didn’t think to look at that either.

If someone tells you that people are suffering and dying as a result of certain policies, it really is depraved to dismiss it without looking into it. In America, we are supposed to be self ruled. You are not doing your duty as a citizen to make sure that crimes an injustices are not perpetrated.

"In many respects, the elections were successful. The main success, however, is being mentioned only marginally, by a few reporters: the US was compelled to allow them to take place.

That is a real triumph of non-violent resistance, for which Sistani has been the symbol. The US sought in every possible way to avoid elections, but has been compelled to back down, step-by-step. First, it tried to ram through a US-written constitution. That was barred by a Sistani fatwa. Then it tried to impose one or another device (caucuses, etc.) that could be controlled completely. Also blocked by non-violent resistance. It continued until finally the US (and UK, trailing obediently behind) had no recourse but to allow an election—and of course, the doctrinal system went into high gear to present it as a US initiative, once it could no longer be avoided. The US also sought to undermine it as much as possible, e.g., by driving independent media out of the country (notably al-Jazeera, the most important), by ensuring that its own candidates, particularly Allawi, would be the only ones to have access to state resources to reach the public (most candidates had to remain unidentified), etc. But the US-UK couldn’t block the elections, greatly to the distress of Washington and London. The question now is whether they can be compelled to accept the outcome. There’s little doubt, even from the more serious mainstream press as well as from polls and from properly hawkish experts (like Anthony Cordesman) that people voted with the hope that it would end the occupation. Blair announced at once, loud and clear, that the prospect is not even being contemplated, clearly articulating his usual contempt for democracy.

Washington also announced that the US military forces would stay at least into 2007, whatever Iraqis want. The more serious press, like the Wall St Journal, is reporting that the US is attempting to secure some kind of agreement on a “vague promise” to withdraw eventually." -Chomsky - Two perspectives on the U.S. occupation of Iraq

They want us to leave.
Polls have asked Iraqis specifically about the presence of U.S. troops

A February poll by the U.S. military, cited by the Brookings Institution, found that 71 percent of Iraqis "oppose the presence of Coalition Forces in Iraq." This poll was taken only in urban areas, but others have found much the same sentiment.According to a January 2005 poll by Abu Dhabi TV/Zogby International, 82 percent of Sunni Arabs and 69 percent of Shiite Arabs favor the withdrawal of U.S. troops either immediately or after an elected government is in place.

A nationwide poll taken by Iraqi university researchers for the British government found that 82 percent of all Iraqis surveyed in August are strongly opposed to the presence of coalition troops and 67 percent feel less secure because of the occupation, the Sunday Telegraph of London reported last month. Let's ask the Iraqi people if U.S. forces should leave

Skepticism About U.S. Deep, Iraq Poll Shows Motive for Invasion Is Focus of Doubts by Walter Pincus, Washington Post November 12th, 2003

More than half of Baghdad's residents said they did not believe the United States would allow the Iraqi people to fashion their political future without the direct influence of Washington, according to a Gallup poll. With the Bush administration holding consultations on the future of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, recent analyses of the poll data, which were gathered three months ago, highlight the roots within that city's populace of many of the concerns the U.S.-led coalition now faces there. Only 5 percent of those polled said they believed the United States invaded Iraq "to assist the Iraqi people," and only 1 percent believed it was to establish democracy there. Three-quarters of those polled said they believed the policies and decisions of the Iraqi Governing Council -- whose members were appointed in July by Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator L. Paul Bremer -- were "mostly determined by the coalition's own authorities," and only 16 percent thought the council members were "fairly independent." The poll, funded by Gallup, was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 1,178 Baghdad residents between Aug. 28 and Sept. 4. The initial results were announced in late September, but additional analyses were released to the polling firm's clients in succeeding weeks. Some Gallup analyses have been published on the Coalition Provisional Authority's Web site in the past two days. Although 52 percent of those polled said they thought the United States was serious about establishing a democratic system of government in Iraq, 51 percent said Washington would not allow Iraqis to do that without U.S. pressure and influence. The margin of error in the poll was plus or minus 2.7 percentage points. In an Oct. 28 analysis, Richard Burkholder, Gallup's director of international polling, noted that most Baghdad residents thought getting rid of Saddam Hussein was worth the hardships they are enduring. But "most are deeply skeptical of the initial rationale the coalition has given for its actions," Burkholder added. The poll showed that doubts about the U.S. motives for invading had led to doubts about Washington's commitment to creating an independent democratic government in Baghdad. Forty-three percent of the respondents said they believed that U.S. and British forces invaded in March primarily "to rob Iraq's oil." While 37 percent believed the United States acted to get rid of the Hussein regime, only 5 percent thought it did so "to assist the Iraq people," the poll found. An additional 6 percent believed the motive was to "change the Middle East 'map' as the U.S. and Israel want." Four percent believed the purpose was to destroy weapons of mass destruction, the primary reason given by the Bush administration. At a time when the United States faces a growing security threat, the poll pointed to other possible reasons why coalition forces are being looked upon as occupiers instead of as liberators. Almost everyone interviewed -- 94 percent -- said Baghdad "now is a more dangerous place than before the invasion," and 86 percent said that for the previous four weeks "they or a member of their household had been afraid to go outside their home at night for safety reasons," Burkholder said in his analysis. He noted that in the two months before the U.S. invasion, only 8 percent said they had experienced a similar fear. Asked about attacks against U.S. troops, 64 percent said they were not justified; 36 percent said they sometimes were. Burkholder noted that those who believed such attacks were somewhat or completely justified -- 11 percent and 8 percent, respectively -- would translate to 440,000 adults 18 or older among Baghdad's adult population of 2.3 million. Forty-eight percent of those polled said they did not believe that the United States will "remain in Iraq as long as necessary, but not a day more," as President Bush has said. Thirty-six percent said they believed that the Americans would leave as Bush had promised. © 2003 The Washington Post Company

The Uncooperative Blogger writes Well pulling out our troops from Iraq before the job is finished, is quitting, pure and simple.

Are you aware of the dynamics at work ? How can you possibly buy into the idea that U.S. officials intend on real democracy and actual self determination for the Iraqis? Do you not see the assumption being made that it is the U.S. that decides when the troops leave? Do you not see how the media, politicians and pundits (and you) all assume it is the U.S.'s decision to make? When the troops leave is the decision for the Iraqis to make, it is their right.

Did you know 82% of Iraqis are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops. Less than 1% of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security and 72% do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.

Did you know about the surprising degree of consensus reached by the main Iraqi factions at the Arab League-orchestrated Reconciliation Conference in Cairo last weekend sharply undercuts the unilateral, guns-and-puppets approach of the Bush administration to the deteriorating situation in Iraq:

We demand the withdrawal of foreign forces in accordance with a timetable, and the establishment of a national and immediate program for rebuilding the armed forces ... that will allow them to guard Iraq's borders and to get control of the security situation ..

"The Kurds would doubtless prefer for the US to stay, as long as the US doesn't once again betray them, as it has done, repeatedly, in the past. The Sunnis, about as numerous as the Kurds, doubtless want the US out. As for the Shiites, it's not so simple. The Sadrists have called for withdrawal. The last poll I know of was on the eve of the election: about 70% of Shiites favored US withdrawal immediately or right after the January elections. The National Sovereignty Commission of the Parliament recently issued a report calling for a timetable for withdrawal of the "occupation forces." The main Shiite Party in the South, SCIRI, just demanded that the British troops there stay in their barracks. According to Steven Kull, one of the most respected polling experts in the country, the International Republican Institute, which had been taking regular polls, stopped reporting them after the elections because of the results they were finding.

It's correct that an occupying army has no rights, only responsibilities, including the responsibility to pay massive reparations and to withdraw unless there is powerful evidence that the population wants them to stay. I don't see evidence of that. And the decision should be made by the victims. We have little to say about it, whatever our subjective judgments, as a matter of principle." -Chomsky 16 Oct 2005

What Do Iraqis Want?
The British ministry of defence did the study, according to their findings:

• 82% are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops
• less than 1% of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security
• 45% of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified - rising to 65% in the British-controlled Maysan province; ( "if that really means "all Iraqis," as reported, then the figure must be considerably higher among Iraqi Arabs." -C)
• 67% of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;
• 43% of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened;
• 72% do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.

"The opinion poll, carried out in August, also debunks claims by both the US and British governments that the general well-being of the average Iraqi is improving in post-Saddam Iraq. The findings differ markedly from a survey carried out by the BBC in March 2004 in which the overwhelming consensus among the 2,500 Iraqis questioned was that life was good. More of those questioned supported the war than opposed it." -Secret MoD poll: Iraqis support attacks on British troops

"We can't find out for sure what Iraqis want -- or what Americans want. But there are some general principles that ought to be observed. One is that invaders have no rights, only responsibilities, and among those responsibilities is to follow the will of the victims (and to provide reparations, trials for the criminals who ordered the invasion, and others). A subsidiary principle is that unless there is strong evidence that the victims want the invaders to remain, they should withdraw. US-UK policy is the opposite, with bipartisan and media support: We decide, and we will "stay the course" as long as we -- not they -- decide to do so." - Chomsky Nov 18, 2005

Bozell's Media Research Center Wrong Again

Sharon, I already have showed you that Bozell is a fraud yet you regurgitate his distortions.
There was nothing wrong with what Rather reported! The
MCR deviously creates a false impression by leaving out the key numbers in the
poll. The fact is "less than half the respondents thought the Bush
tax cut would actually help the economy": 41%.

What MCR doesn't say is that 33% didn't think it would have an effect.

So 33% (which MCR didn't mention) plus 19%
who said it would actaully hurt gives a total of 52%. You can even say
that 7% more (for a total of 59%)didn't say it would help either since they said they either didn't know or didn't
answer. It is MCR that really distorts the picture, not Dan Rather. When you
have 52% or 59% of Americans that don't say it would help, it means
less less than half think it would actually help. Bozell's Media Research Center is deceptive by not mentioning the 33%

Did you take the time to look up the poll that Rather and MCR refer to?

Here is the poll:
Dan Rather and the CBS NEWS/NEW YORK TIMES POLL
Also, Dan Rather serves powerful interests by framing it about Democrats vs. Republicans. The fact is it isn't just Democrats that "call it a campaign for the wealthy" Rather's report once again positions Democrats as the only opponents and pushes Independents out of the discussion. (MCR cleary doesn't have a problem with this game, they make no mention of it.)
CBS NEWS/NEW YORK TIMES POLL: TAX CUTS, THE ECONOMY & BUSH ADMINISTRATION 5/9-12/03
q24 From what you know, do you think a new tax cut would be good for the
economy, bad for the economy, or won't it have much effect on the economy?

	Total	Republican	Democrat	Independent
Good	41%	60%	25%	38%
No effect	33%	26%	39%	35%
Bad	19%	8%	28%	20%
Don't Know/NA	7%	6%	8%	7%

Also See Once again Brent Bozell displays his ignorance

Neo-Conned! Again : Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq Including Noam Chomsky, Milton Viorst, Naomi Klein, Justin Raimondo, W. Patrick Lang

The question was a number count and I pointed out that OVERWHELMINGLY the deaths are that of Palestinians and that the Media presents an OVERWHELMINGLY distorted picture. So what do you think your point about the 10 suicide bomb children makes? Israel has killed more children than that, on average for the last 5 years, every month.

And you really should look into the background. Setting up a racist state and ethnically cleansing hundreds of thousand of people is going to anger the victims. Israel continues to violate the rights of millions of Palestinians.

a critical fact often omitted when the history is presented and this leads to a very distorted view of what happened in 1948. The misleading story often told is that "Jews declared Israel and then they were attacked." The fact is from November 1947 to May 1948 the Zionists were already on the offensive and had already attacked Arabs. In the months before Israel was declared, the Zionists had driven 300,000 non-Jews off their land. In the months before Israel was declared, the Zionists had seized land beyond the proposed Jewish State. SEE Sources

Bill O’Reilly Issues Terrorist Threat Against Fellow Americans

Fanatical Radio and TV pundit issued a radical and vicious threat to fellow Americans who voted for a policy he didn't like. O’Reilly went on air inciting terrorist acts against a landmark tower in San Fransisco, the Coit Tower. As President, O'Reilly would retaliate against residents of San Fransico by encouraging the terrorists of al-Qeada to blow up the Coit Tower.

"And if al-Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." - November 8, 2005 broadcast of Fox News' The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly

• O'Reilly Sounds Off At San Francisco Voters
• Talk host's towering rant: S.F. not worth saving
• O'Reilly to San Francisco: "[I]f Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. ... You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead"

Ibin Thinkin,
Thanks for the response. I hope you will consider reading Chomsky's book Imperial Ambitions

I am working to get basic facts out to the public. The fraud that I pointed out is not the only example. I am watching Karen Hughes on C-SPAN play the same deceptive game. The game she is playing at the hearing I am watching is a denial of what the U.S. policies actually are in the Middle East. Journalist Chris Hedges and others have witnessed Israeli troops intentionally murdering children. And what Hedges and others have witnessed has been documented by an Israeli human rights group and has been confirmed by Israeli soldiers admissions. These facts matter. Please read my post on this. When people see the U.S. supporting these things they get angry. People like Karen Hughes deny what it is that motivates the terrorists and militants that attack U.S. military and civilians.

Chomsky Detractors' Inventions and Falsifications about his Khmer Rouge and Cambodia Statements

Chomsky Detractors hold this quote up as proof he said the Khmer Rouge would be liberators: "By the impulse it has given to the revolutionary forces, this vicious attack may have also prepared the ground, as some observers believe, not only for national liberation but also for a new era of economic development and social justice."

They cut and pasted things they clearly don't understand. "may have also prepared the ground". This means what to them? Do they know what the word "may" means? Chomsky was hopeful some good would come of it. It was written in 1972. He didn't say "it will" or "it has." Chomsky has pointed out that he wrote that in 1972 "when the Khmer Rouge were a marginal and largely unknown factor; this was before the massive bombing campaign of 1973, which played a large part in recruiting the Khmer Rouge. I said then that I hoped that something decent might yet emerge, referring to Prince Sihanouk's peasant supporters. This statement was then reinterpreted as a prediction that the Khmer Rouge would turn Cambodia into a grand utopia"

Chomsky did not defend Pol Pot’s regime. That is a fabrication.
This quote: “We do not pretend to know where the truth lies amidst these sharply conflicting assessments" is from the same 1977 article that detractors quote as "proof" that he "rejected the numerous reports of refugees". What they are doing is really ridiculous.

It is one of many attempts to dishonestly smear Chomsky. Those attempts continue right up to the present: Guardian Fabricates Chomsky Quotes in Bid to Smear World's Number One Intellectual

The Killing Didn't End With Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Before U.S. officials dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they fire bombed Japanese cities. But what few people know is that AFTER the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. officials carried out even more fire bombing of several Japanese cities.

Incredibly, there was a "1000-plane raid five days after Nagasaki on what remained of major Japanese cities, a triumph of military management skills designed to be "as big a finale as possible," the official Air Force history relates; even Stormin' Norman would have been impressed. Thousands of civilians were killed, while amidst the bombs, leaflets fluttered down proclaiming: "Your Government has surrendered. The war is over." General Spaatz wanted to use the third atom bomb on Tokyo for this grand finale, but concluded that further devastation of the "battered city" would not make the intended point. Tokyo had been removed from the first list of targets for the same reason: it was "practically rubble," analysts determined, so that the power of the bomb would not be adequately revealed. The final 1000-plane raid was therefore dispersed to seven targets, the Air Force history adds." p 238 Year 501 Noam Chomsky

John,

You set up the artificial requirement of "other recent examples" while ignoring the ongoing example of Haiti. The U.S. is currently refusing to extradite Constant with an excuse that doesn't pass the laugh test.

The CIA is a secret organization so the more recent, the less info is available. With freedom of information requests and the statements of former officials we can get more details if we look at history.

But Haiti is recent. As for as economic subordination, I already gave you a link that you apparently didn't read. Look at the fact that Clinton shoved economic conditions on Aristide's return. A "harsh neoliberal program that Aristide was compelled to adopt was virtually guaranteed to demolish the remaining shreds of economic sovereignty" Look at the fact that Clinton allowed Aristide back but was eager for him to step down. "Tonight," Clinton said, "I can announce that President Aristide has pledged to step down when his term ends in accordance with the Constitution" and to transfer power to a successor. That conclusion, however, goes well beyond the Constitution, which says nothing about how to calculate the President's term when he has spent three years in exile while civil society is being decimated. One interpretation is that if reinstated, he should pick up where he left off, so that Aristide's term has almost 4 and a half years to run. Another interpretation is that his period in exile is part of his term as elected President. People with some lingering taste for democracy will presumably tend towards the first interpretation."

Chomsky points out that mainstream media ignores the wrong: "Without any exception that I can discover, U.S. commentators adopted Clinton's anti-democratic interpretation." Someone concerned about democracy would allow the man to serve out the length of his term, they would not count the years in exile as part of his term. And look at the very recent events: The U.S ousted him again, a man democratically elected. Also see: Why they had to crush Aristide

The mainstream media is not eager to report these things and hold the powerful accountable. Look at the fact that the U.S. helped put the Ba'ath party into power in the first place in Iraq. It is incredible that the MSM didn't report this fact to the public. We went to war with Iraq to oust Saddam and not a peep about the CIA's responsibility with supporting the man in the late 1950's (I am not talking about the 1980's support) and the fact of the CIA coups in the 60's that put the Ba'aht party into power in the first place! MSM is not performing anything close to what you assume. Start to do some research and stop being so eager to make excuses for these people.

Dear Ms. Brockes:

You wrote this about Chomsky: "... his conclusions remain controversial: ... that during the Bosnian war the "massacre" at Srebrenica was probably overstated. (Chomsky uses quotations marks to undermine things he disagrees with and, in print at least, it can come across less as academic than as witheringly teenage; like, Srebrenica was so not a massacre.)"

Are you claiming that Chomsky made a gesture to indicate quotes when he said the word "massacre"? Did you then make the assumption that he has written massacre with quotes around it? You should try to find a source for that. In his book Hegemony or Survival, he doesn't use quotes around the word. If you haven't, and it seems as if you haven't, you should consider reading some of the books that he has written. Hegemony or Survival and Understanding Power are really good.

U.S. Still Harboring Brutal Terrorist

We should not use torture and we should not harbor terrorists that have carried it out on a large scale.

Treating people decently instead of supporting terrorists would go a long way in solving our problems.

The Amendment was a good start, I agree with Senator McCain.

How about we work to get the son of a bitch Emmanuel Constant extradited so he can stand trial for his horrible crimes?

If we are to be noble people and a nation of laws we need to get our CIA under control and stop them from using terrorism as a tool of economic subordination. Look at the horrific crimes that U.S. policy makers have carried out against Haiti. Chomsky mentions Constant in his book Imperial Ambitions.

If you guys are angered about being "too soft" on terrorists, what do you think of our government officials who claim that they can't extradite this brutal rapist because he wouldn't get "treated fairly"?

The media helps to keep these crimes going. The article's title should have been "U.S. Still Harboring Brutal Terrorist" but here is the AP article:Haitian Women Sue Former Strongman

Lying to get us into war
The National Security Agency has kept secret since 2001 a finding by an agency historian that during the Tonkin Gulf episode, which helped precipitate the Vietnam War, N.S.A. officers deliberately distorted critical intelligence to cover up their mistakes, two people familiar with the historian's work say. NSA Still Covering Up Gulf of Tonkin Lies

The mainstream media did not remind the public that our government lied to us to get us into the Vietnam war and continued to lie to us about the war. All the comparisons the MSM made was about if it is being fought good or not, NOT about the fact it was a lie, not that it was immoral and wrong.

And they are still at it. New details about intelligence LIES about the Gulf of Tonkin were revealed, but MSM was not interested. Odd for a "liberal media" right? David Porter points out, "Did you catch one of the biggest news stories of the past 40 years?
Don't feel bad if you missed it earlier this week, because most of the news media -- this newspaper included -- didn't give that report the attention it demanded."
First casualty: Truth
Porter writes, "when the revelations on the Gulf of Tonkin incident came out earlier this week, much of the news media didn't spend much time or ink on it."

Disinformation
Richard Miniter, author of "Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror", peddles the same stupidity that slow bloggers have tried to peddle.

For example, Miniter claims that the U.S. "discovered" 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium in Iraq. Somone on craigslist gleefully quotes Miniter and posts: "Yet Americans overwhelmingly believe U.S. and coalition forces have found NO weapons of mass destruction."

Gee wiz, so there were WMD in Iraq and that darn liberal media refuses to report it!

Of course Richard Miniter and the others are wrong, again. Those things were already tagged and under seal by UN inspectors.

See: "A joint Pentagon-Energy Department operation has removed 1.77 metric tons of low-enriched uranium from a former nuclear research site in Iraq. The material had been sealed off after the Gulf War." - CBSNEWS 7/7/04

"As of 2002, the only known store of nuclear material in Iraq is in heavyweight sealed barrels at the Tawaitha research facility south of Baghdad. It consists of several tons of low-grade uranium and is monitored by an international agency with the full co-operation of the Iraqi regime." http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/tuwaitha.htm

* 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons agents
--You mean the ones that arrived AFTER the US Invasion? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300530.html

See my previous post when I dubunked this a few months ago: These guys never stop, they point to uranium already tagged by the UN inspectors and think it is a discovery of WMDs!

Here is a book I recommend: Neo-Conned! Again : Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq Including Noam Chomsky, Milton Viorst, Naomi Klein, Justin Raimondo, W. Patrick Lang

You quoted Joseph Farah's vile lie: "Because the Arab leadership who sent him understood that Israeli soldiers, even those under the stress of battle, would not shoot a 10-year-old child."

There is something very very wrong with you guys. You are simply deniers.

A few patterns of omission were particularly startling. The Israeli press, international human rights organizations, and medical relief agencies have all reported on the targeting of Palestinian children by Israeli forces. In the first year of the conflict, for example, at least 45 Palestinian children were confirmed to have been killed by Israeli gunfire to the head. Yet, two of the networks carried no reports on this disturbing phenomenon, and one network, CBS, reported on it only once (“...a 12-year-old boy shot in the head by an Israeli soldier...” 10/10/00).

Physicians for Human Rights USA, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem all confirm the Israeli policy of targeting civilians. Are they all lying anti-Semites? You don't want to be an irrational denier do you?

Reporting on children’s deaths was even more flawed.

In 2004, when 22 times more Palestinian children were being killed than Israeli children, we found that ABC, CBS, and NBC were reporting Israeli children’s deaths at rates 9 to 12.8 times higher than Palestinian children’s deaths. By omitting the killings of a great number of Palestinian children, ABC, CBS, and NBC were failing to perform their function as new agencies – the reporting of the news.

"About half of those sustaining gunshot head injuries were children under the age of sixteen, and 15% of the wounded were women. During this four year period, on average, one child under the age of six was shot in the head every two weeks. These and other violations of the military regulations did not lead to the prosecution of the violators, the provision of remedial measures, or reparations for the injured."
By Neve Gordon
Neve Gordon is the former director of the Israeli and Palestinian Physicians for Human Rights,
Links are here:
www.geocities.com/neve_gordon/Scars.htm
www.ifamericansknew.org/media/index.html

PLEASE write this WorldNetDaily Editor and CEO Joseph Farah
jfarah@worldnetdaily.com and tell him to stop with the vile propaganda of saying that Israeli soldiers "would not shoot a 10-year-old child." Lies like this are on par with holocaust deniers.

From www.theexperiment.org/articles_printer.php?news_id=1763

What has been confirmed by human rights groups has also been observed directly by journalists.

A notable example was a lengthy investigative report in the New York Times Magazine by Michael Finkel, who responded directly to Israel's claims that its soldiers shot only when they were under threat. In a striking passage about the clashes at Karni Crossing, a checkpoint on a road leading from the Israeli settlement of Netzarim in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip into Israel, Finkel recounts:

"I spent two weeks at Karni during daylight hours, and in my time there, the Israeli Army fired live ammunition almost every day. Sometimes only two or three shots, sometimes a dozen or more. On occasion the shots were fired when cars or buses needed to enter or exit the settlement, at other times I could ascertain no reason for the shooting. Not once did I see or hear a single shot from the Palestinian side. Never during the time I spent at Karni did an Israeli soldier appear to be in mortal danger. Nor was either an Israeli soldier or settler even slightly injured. In that two-week period, at least 11 Palestinians were killed during the day at Karni."

[Source: "Playing War" by Michael Finkel, New York Times Magazine, December 24, 2000]

In October 2001, Harper's magazine published the "Gaza Diary" of journalist Chris Hedges [ http://www.harpers.org/online/gaza_diary/gaza_diary.php3?pg=1 ]. Hedges' entry for June 17, 2001 provides even more shocking evidence of the wanton and deliberate killing of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers at Gaza's Khan Yunis refugee camp.

Hedges writes:

"It is still. The camp waits, as if holding its breath. And then, out of the dry furnace air, a disembodied voice crackles over a loudspeaker.

"'Come on, dogs,' the voice booms in Arabic. 'Where are all the dogs of Khan Younis? Come! Come!'

"I stand up. I walk outside the hut. The invective continues to spew: 'Son of a bitch!' 'Son of a whore!' 'Your mother's cunt!'

"The boys dart in small packs up the sloping dunes to the electric fence that separates the camp from the Jewish settlement. They lob rocks toward two armored jeeps parked on top of the dune and mounted with loudspeakers. Three ambulances line the road below the dunes in anticipation of what is to come.

"A percussion grenade explodes. The boys, most no more than ten or eleven years old, scatter, running clumsily across the heavy sand. They descend out of sight behind a sandbank in front of me. There are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers. The bullets from the M-16 rifles tumble end over end through the children's slight bodies. Later, in the hospital, I will see the destruction: the stomachs ripped out, the gaping holes in limbs and torsos.

"Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen.

"Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered -- death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo -- but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."

There can be no doubt that Israeli troops have been targeting innocent Palestinian civilians for death from the beginning of the uprising. This understanding was also reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 1322, passed on October 7, 2000, which

"Condemns acts of violence, especially the excessive use of force against Palestinians, resulting in injury and loss of human life."

In making the moral superiority claim, Israel's apologists are either shamelessly denying the irrefutable evidence cited above and are simply lying, or they are asserting that some forms of murder are morally superior to other forms of murder.

You wrote, "Yeah, thanks for quoting Finkel and Hedges. Especially considering that there isn't a single evidence to support Hedges' lie about IDF soldiers 'entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport' - WHATSOEVER."

Again, what you are saying isn't true.

From a B'Tselem report:

"A conscript soldier who gave testimony to B'Tselem told of a procedure in a particular area of the West Bank during which IDF jeeps were sent as a provocation to areas of friction with Palestinians in order to serve as bait for throwers of stones and petrol bombs. When the latter would approach, the soldiers, who had taken up position in advance at other points, would shoot at them. The stated goal of this procedure was to distance the demonstrations from other sites, but in fact, stated the soldier, "It became a kind of sport, to "knock down" as many "fire-bombers" as possible. It was an obsessive search. It's called 'strive to make contact.' What bothers me is had the jeeps not have entered, there would have been no disturbances of the peace."

[ The rubber-coated metal bullets in theory are supposed to be non-lethal and their use is supposed to adhere to the IDF's own stated regulations. The rubber-coated metal bullets are not supposed to be aimed at the head. ]

From the B'Tselem report:

For many years, the IDF has been using rubber-coated metal bullets for dispersal of demonstrations in the Occupied Territories. B'Tselem has repeatedly warned against the IDF's widespread use of these bullets and the erroneous treatment of them as non-lethal, despite their great destructive potential and the large number of casualties, including many children, resulting from their use."

Over the course of the intifada, B'Tselem documented many incidents in which shooting took place in contravention of the regulations and with no real attempt to prevent killing and causing grave bodily injuries. An inquiry undertaken by Physicians for Human Rights (U.S.A.) at the beginning of the intifada demonstrated that many Palestinians sustained head and eye injuries from rubber bullets. The organization determined that such injuries bear testimony to the illegal use of this means.

[ The rubber-coated metal bullets come in packets of three and are meant to be fired as a packet so they go slower in order for them to remain non-lethal, you are not supposed to separate the bullet packet. ]

From the B'Tselem report:

One conscript soldier informed B'Tselem that "I do not know a single soldier who does not separate the parts of the bullet"

Another soldier told B'Tselem:

"When the company commander gave us a lesson about rubber bullets, he said that you shoot them together in packets of three, and that is almost ineffective because they are too heavy; but if you separate them - it can kill. He added, with a wink: "I'm not hinting at anything" The guys laughed and said to him: 'You are not hinting - you're saying.' He didn't correct them. One day, I got into the "Sufa" jeep that serves as the mobile headquarters for the battalion means of transportation. I saw that lots of separated rubber bullets had been tossed inside. I asked the driver about it, and he said that everyone separates the bullets, even the commander (the one riding alongside the driver). He added that in his opinion, the battalion commander also separates. From talking to the guys, it is clear to me that this is ignored, and everyone shoots rubber bullets that have been separated. I don't think that there is anyone who shoots them without separating them. I always ask people about it and they are shocked by the very question. It is clear to them that you shoot them separately."

[ B'Tselem documented cases of both the IDF soldiers initiating fire, not merely responding and also of the IDF returning fire but not aiming exclusively at Palestinian sources of shooting. ]

A conscript soldier who served in the Gaza Strip stated in his testimony to B'Tselem that:

"While I was at the post, there were a number of cases of shooting. I thought that it was an exchange of fire, but afterwards I understood from discussions with other soldiers that it was just soldiers shooting out of boredom. Soldiers at two different positions would coordinate opening fire between them, and afterwards they would say that they were under fire. It is important for me to state that I am not talking about single shots, but very massive shooting. In the beginning, I was sure that they had really fired at our post, but afterwards I understood, as stated, that it was shooting out of boredom. From conversations with my friends who were at posts in other areas, it became clear to me that it occurs in those places as well. My friends, who were at the post in the Strip. Told me that they emptied entire crates of ammunition out of boredom."

Ariel Shatil, a reserve soldier, told Yediot Aharonot daily regarding this topic that "They say 'The Palestinians are shooting at us and we are responding.' It's not true. There was one officer there who said to the soldiers guarding at the lookout: "Too quiet for you? You're not sure? Fire a couple of rounds.' Every night they would shoot. We start and they shoot back."

A soldier in the regular army who served in the Gaza Strip told B'Tselem that "In theory, the orders given to us state that it is forbidden to shoot if the source of shooting is not identified," but said that in practice, "If they shoot at you from one building, and you shoot at the entire neighborhood […] the soldiers will probably not tell the commanders, but I find it hard to believe that the high-level commanders are not familiar with this phenomenon." He added that:

"I know from discussions with other soldiers that when they shoot on them, they return with heavy, non-proportional fire, even if they do not exactly identify the source of the shooting. A few days ago, I spoke with a friend of mine whom they fired at. He told me that they returned massive fire in the direction of the shooting without identifying it precisely. When I stated to him the fact that he could have easily hit passers by, he said that he didn't care. In my opinion, this occurs with great frequency. "

B'Tselem reports the frequency of cases in which innocent persons were harmed by IDF firing, even though no Palestinians shot from their immediate surrounding area, indicates that there are cases in which soldiers shoot indiscriminately.

Even a high-ranking officer in the Bethlehem area told journalist Nahum Barnea: "I don't give my soldiers directives of the type 'don't harm the innocent.' In the situation that has arisen, whoever gives such an order has said the equivalent of 'don't shoot at all.' […] We try to shoot at those whom we have identified, but not always."

B'Tselem - Trigger Happy: Unjustified Shooting and the Open-Fire Regulations
also see: Alan Dershowitz's Amazing Wonderland

Gaza Still Under Israel's Boot
"Although most of the "quality" media has praised Sharon’s apparent about face (father of the settlements turns his back on his legacy, being a familiar refrain), the actual details of the plan expose something else. Human Rights Watch stated in a November report that even after the supposed pull-out, "Israeli forces will continue to surround Gaza on land, patrol its coastline and its skies. That military cordon will allow Israel to continue to control the flow of all goods and people into and out of the territory. Gaza will remain dependent on Israel for water, sewerage, electricity, telephone access, trade and currency, which will remain the Israeli shekel."" How Australia reported Arafat's death and legacy

Oil's Critical Leverage
"Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our economy but also on the other countries of the world as well." 1990, the then oil man, Dick Cheney The real reasons Bush went to war

"America has major strategic and economic interests in the Middle East that are dictated by the region's vast energy supplies. Not only does America benefit economically from the relatively low costs of Middle Eastern oil, but America's security role in the region gives it indirect but politically critical leverage on the European and Asian economies that are also dependent on energy exports from the region." Zbigniew Brzezinski, Hegemonic Quicksand The National Interest Winter 2003/04

We are not really dependent on oil from the Middle East, according to US intelligence, the US itself will rely on more stable Atlantic Basin resources (West Africa and the Western hemisphere). The reason the U.S. is so involved in the Middle East is about control of the oil, not access to the oil.

In the 1940s, US planners recognized that (in their words) Gulf energy resources are "a stupendous source of strategic power" and "one of the greatest material prizes in world history." Naturally, they intended to control it ... That's a very powerful lever of world control, quite apart from the profits that comes from it. And the US probably doesn't intend to access the oil of Iraq; it intends to use primarily safer Atlantic basin resources for itself (Western Hemisphere, West Africa). But to control the oil has been a leading principle of US foreign policies since the Second World War, and Iraq is particularly significant in this respect.

Quite apart from yielding "profits beyond the dreams of avarice," as one leading history of the oil industry puts the matter, the region still remains "a stupendous source of strategic power," a lever of world control. Control over Gulf energy reserves provides "veto power" over the actions of rivals, as the leading planner George Kennan pointed out half a century ago. Europe and Asia understand very well, and have long been seeking independent access to energy resources. - On the US and the Middle

"Television stations and networks, by contrast, are almost completely inaccessible to individual citizens and almost always uninterested in ideas contributed by individual citizens."
"I CAME here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions." - Al Gore October 5, 2005

"On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked: "Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?"

The decision that was then being considered by the Senate with virtually no meaningful debate turned out to be a fateful one. A few days ago, the former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. General William Odom, said , "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history. " - Associated Press Thursday, October 6, 2005

False Information: Iraq, 9/11 and al-Qaeda
All these stories turn out to have been based on false information supplied by the Iraqi National Congress and the US and UK intelligence agencies. - The Lies of the Press

“I’d be shocked and completely horrified if Aras was working for Iranian intelligence,” says
David Rose, who wrote several pieces for Vanity Fair about Iraq’s weapons program in which he used INC defectors as sources. “I knew INC had connections to Iran but if they were on the Iranian payroll I’ll be completely smackered.”

BAD CONNECTIONS
Several reporters and editors I spoke with recalled that soon after 9/11 the INC started offering them defectors with stories linking Saddam Hussein to international terrorism.

In an article by David Rose, Harith claimed that, in addition to the mobile labs, Hussein was close to building a new long-range missile. He also told of a trip to Africa to buy radioactive materials for a dirty bomb from renegade Russians. He spoke of a chemical weapons factory in Samarra and a bioweapons lab in the suburbs of Baghdad. And so on.

Of all the reporters I spoke with for this article, none seemed as devastated by the INC’s fall from grace as Rose. Perhaps that’s because no one, not even Judith Miller, swallowed and regurgitated more ICP hogwash. Rose concedes that he fell victim to a misinformation campaign and says he wishes he’d been more circumspect. “I feel profound regret over that piece,” Rose confesses. “Harith wasn’t telling the truth but I took every step reasonable to establish that these were credible assertions.” - How Chalabi Played the Press

Chomsky, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", Iraq War and Israel

Noam Chomsky mentions that Richard Perle and Douglas Feith were writing position papers for Benyamin Netanyahu (this has to do with the paper, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" about War on Iraq and Israel)

"The dedicated efforts of the Bush administration to take control of Iraq -- by war, military coup, or some other means -- have elicited various analyses of the guiding motives. Offering one interpretation, Anatol Lieven of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace observes that these plans conform to "the classic modern strategy of an endangered right-wing oligarchy, which is to divert mass discontent into nationalism," inspired by fear of enemies about to destroy us. That strategy is of critical importance if the "radical nationalists" setting policy in Washington hope to advance their announced plan for "unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority," while conducting a major assault against the interests of the large majority of the domestic population.
...
As Lieven correctly notes, the "radical nationalists" in Washington have very close links with Israeli ultra-nationalists. In the 1990s, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith were even writing position papers for Benyamin Netanyahu, who outflanks Ariel Sharon on the extremist right. The usually reliable Israel press has been reporting their connections and plans for some time. These include far-reaching plans for reconstructing the Middle East along lines resembling the former Ottoman empire, but now with the US and its offshore military base in Israel in charge, cooperating with Turkey: what the Egyptian press has described as "the axis of evil," US-Israel-Turkey. According to some reported plans, a Hashemite monarchy might extend from Jordan to parts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinians could then be "transferred" somewhere else, perhaps Jordan. The war against Iran may well already be underway. A good part of the Israeli air force is based in Turkey, and is reported to be flying along the Iranian border from US bases there. Plans for partition of Iran are being developed, perhaps pursued, according to US specialist sources.
...
It is not only much of the world that regards them as a menace. The same is true of highly-regarded strategic analysts and Middle East specialists here, like Anthony Cordesman, who is about as “hardline” as they come within sane sectors. According to Israel’s leading diplomatic correspondent, Akiva Eldar, Cordesman has warned that Washington should “make it clear that its commitment to Israel does not involve a commitment to its sillier armchair strategists and more vocally irresponsible hardliners," referring not so obliquely to Perle and Feith, who are close to power centers in Washington." - A Modest Proposal (This is from an extended version of an article that was carried by the New York Times syndicate. In the version that was carried by the New York Times syndicate, there is no mention of Israel, Richard Perle Douglas Feith or Benyamin Netanyahu)

Question: How do you see military action against Iraq affecting the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Ariel Sharon's representatives have said that Israel will wait until the U.S. has dealt with Iraq before pursuing a political track with the Palestinians, and Binyamin Netanyahu has said that U.S. assistant secretary of state William Burns' road map for peace "is simply not on the agenda."

Chomsky: We don't know if the road map is on the agenda because we don't know what it is. In fact, we don't even know that it exists. There are plans about the Palestinians. The people near the centre of power, like Richard Pearl, Douglas Feith and, probably, [Donald] Rumsfeld have been talking about reorganising the Middle East for years. They have all kinds of far-reaching plans. - Chomsky cuts to the heart of the matter

No Other Motivation, No Other Issue

Ramzi Yousef, the 1993 WTC bomber, was motivated to attack the US because of US support of Israel: He had no other motivation, no other issue.

After his capture, the FBI questioned Ramzi Yousef on the flight back from Pakistan about his motivations for bombing the World Trade Center in 1993.

"Yousef said he took no thrill from killing American citizens and felt guilty about the civilian deaths he had caused. But his conscience was overridden by his desire to stop the killing of Arabs by Israeli troops." "Yousef said he "would like it to be different," but only terrible violence could force this kind of abrupt political change. He said that he truly believed his actions had been rational and logical in pursuit of a change in U.S. policy toward Israel. He mentioned no other motivation during the flight and no other issue in American foreign policy that concerned him." Steve Coll, Ghost Wars p273

Motives for the War on Iraq

Andrea Mitchell: "So what, what is the war in Iraq to bin Laden?

Michael Scheuer: "It is, I think, a proof of his thesis that America is malignantly inclined toward Muslims, that it is willing to attack a Muslim country that dares to defy it, that it is willing to do most anything to defend Israel. It's certainly viewed as an action which is meant to assist the Israeli state. It is in every way predictably, if you will, a godsend for those Muslims who believe as bin Laden does."

[Osama bin Laden] is not a man who rants against our freedoms, our liberties, our voting, our — the fact that our women go to school. He's not the Ayatollah Khomeini; he really doesn't care about all those things. To think that he's trying to rob us of our liberties and freedom is, I think, a gross mistake. What he has done, his genius, is identify particular American foreign policies that are offensive to Muslims whether they support these martial actions or not — our support for Israel, our presence on the Arabian Peninsula, our activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, our support for governments that Muslims believe oppress Muslims, be it India, China, Russia, Uzbekistan. Bin Laden has focused the Muslim world on specific, tangible, visual American policies.

CIA insider, Michael Scheuer, says U.S. fighting wrong war Career officer makes bold claims in book about U.S. war on terror

Michael Scheuer: Universally in the Muslim world, at least according to the most recent polling data, American foreign policy in several specific areas is hated by Muslims. Majorities of 85-90 percent are registered as hating or resenting American policies, towards our support for Israel, our ability to keep oil prices low, or low enough to satisfy Western consumers, our support for Arab tyrannies from Morocco to the Indian Ocean, our support for Putin in Chechnya.

By invading and occupying Iraq, America, or its allies, now occupy the three holiest places in Islam -- Saudi Arabia, first; second, Iraq; and the Israeli control of Jerusalem, the third. Of course, the Israelis are viewed simply as an extension of the United States, so, in essence, in the Muslim mind, all three of their sanctities are occupied by the United States and its allies -- something that was bound to offend 1.3 billion Muslims, whether or not they supported Osama bin Laden.

Michael Scheuer, ex-CIA bin Laden Unit Chief, Explains Why Insurgents Are Willing To Die Fighting Us...Maybe It's Not Our Freedom They Hate...

Also See: One of the Reasons for the War on Iraq