Osama bin Laden quotes author William Blum to explain the motive for the attacks on the U.S.

Bin Laden said in the most recent audio tape, "If you (Americans) are sincere in your desire for peace and security, we have answered you. And if Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, then it would be useful for you to read the book "Rogue State," which states in its introduction: "If I were president, I would stop the attacks on the United States: First I would give an apology to all the widows and orphans and those who were tortured. Then I would announce that American interference in the nations of the world has ended once and for all.""

UPDATE (February 16, 2006): I now learn, from a recent William Blum article, that bin Laden was apparently reading from the opening of a paragraph which appears only in the Foreword of the British edition of Rouge State and which was translated into Arabic. I had assumed that Bin Laden was confused about which book he was reading from but now I learn that there was an edition of Rouge State which did indeed have the paragraph that he was quoting from and that it was this edition, the British edition only, that was translated into Arabic. "If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize to all the widows and orphans, the tortured and impoverished, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. Then I would announce, in all sincerity, to every corner of the world, that America's global interventions have come to an end, and inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the USA but now -- oddly enough -- a foreign country. I would then reduce the military budget by at least 90% and use the savings to pay reparations to the victims. There would be more than enough money. One year's military budget of 330 billion dollars is equal to more than $18,000 an hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born. That's what I'd do on my first three days in the White House. On the fourth day, I'd be assassinated." - Why Terrorists Hate America or Myth and Denial in the War on Terrorism The paragraph also appears in Blum's book Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

In the latest tape, Osama bin Laden once again clearly states the motives for attacking the United States: "You have occupied our lands, offended our honor and dignity and let out our blood and stolen our money and destroyed our houses and played with our security and we will give you the same treatment. You have tried to prevent us from leading a dignified life, but you will not be able to prevent us from a dignified death."

Full text of bin Laden tape

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The following is the full text of a new audiotape from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Parts of the tape were aired on Al-Jazeera television, which published the entire version on its Web site. The text was translated from the Arabic by The Associated Press.

Bin Laden appears to be addressing the American people:

My message to you is about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to end them. I did not intend to speak to you about this because this issue has already been decided. Only metal breaks metal, and our situation, thank God, is only getting better and better, while your situation is the opposite of that.

But I plan to speak about the repeated errors your President Bush has committed in comments on the results of your polls that show an overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. But he (Bush) has opposed this wish and said that withdrawing troops sends the wrong message to opponents, that it is better to fight them (bin Laden's followers) on their land than their fighting us (Americans) on our land.

I can reply to these errors by saying that war in Iraq is raging with no let-up, and operations in Afghanistan are escalating in our favor, thank God, and Pentagon figures show the number of your dead and wounded is increasing not to mention the massive material losses, the destruction of the soldiers' morale there and the rise in cases of suicide among them. So you can imagine the state of psychological breakdown that afflicts a soldier as he gathers the remains of his colleagues after they stepped on land mines that tore them apart. After this situation the soldier is caught between two hard options. He either refuses to leave his military camp on patrols and is therefore dogged by ruthless punishments enacted by the Vietnam Butcher (U.S. army) or he gets destroyed by the mines. This puts him under psychological pressure, fear and humiliation while his nation is ignorant of that (what is going on). The soldier has no solution except to commit suicide. That is a strong message to you, written by his soul, blood and pain, to save what can be saved from this hell. The solution is in your hands if you care about them (the soldiers).

The news of our brother mujahideen (holy warriors) is different from what the Pentagon publishes. They (the news of mujahideen) and what the media report is the truth of what is happening on the ground. And what deepens the doubt over the White House's information is the fact that it targets the media reporting the truth from the ground. And it has appeared lately, supported by documents, that the butcher of freedom in the world (Bush) had decided to bomb the headquarters of the Al-Jazeera in Qatar after bombing its offices in Kabul and Baghdad.

On another issue, jihad (holy war) is ongoing, thank God, despite all the oppressive measures adopted by the U.S Army and its agents (which is) to a point where there is no difference between this criminality and Saddam's criminality, as it has reached the degree of raping women and taking them as hostages instead of their husbands.

As for torturing men, they have used burning chemical acids and drills on their joints. And when they give up on (interrogating) them, they sometimes use the drills on their heads until they die. Read, if you will, the reports of the horrors in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons.

And I say that, despite all the barbaric methods, they have not broken the fierceness of the resistance. The mujahideen, thank God, are increasing in number and strength - so much so that reports point to the ultimate failure and defeat of the unlucky quartet of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. Declaring this defeat is just a matter of time, depending partly on how much the American people know of the size of this tragedy. The sensible people realize that Bush does not have a plan to make his alleged victory in Iraq come true.

And if you compare the small number of dead on the day that Bush announced the end of major operations in that fake, ridiculous show aboard the aircraft carrier with the tenfold number of dead and wounded who were killed in the smaller operations, you would know the truth of what I say. This is that Bush and his administration do not have the will or the ability to get out of Iraq for their own private, suspect reasons.

And so to return to the issue, I say that results of polls please those who are sensible, and Bush's opposition to them is a mistake. The reality shows that the war against America and its allies has not been limited to Iraq as he (Bush) claims. Iraq has become a point of attraction and restorer of (our) energies. At the same time, the mujahideen (holy warriors), with God's grace, have managed repeatedly to penetrate all security measures adopted by the unjust allied countries. The proof of that is the explosions you have seen in the capitals of the European nations who are in this aggressive coalition. The delay in similar operations happening in America has not been because of failure to break through your security measures. The operations are under preparation and you will see them in your homes the minute they are through (with preparations), with God's permission.

Based on what has been said, this shows the errors of Bush's statement - the one that slipped from him - which is at the heart of polls calling for withdrawing the troops. It is better that we (Americans) don't fight Muslims on their lands and that they don't fight us on ours.

We don't mind offering you a long-term truce on fair conditions that we adhere to. We are a nation that God has forbidden to lie and cheat. So both sides can enjoy security and stability under this truce so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been destroyed in this war. There is no shame in this solution, which prevents the wasting of billions of dollars that have gone to those with influence and merchants of war in America who have supported Bush's election campaign with billions of dollars - which lets us understand the insistence by Bush and his gang to carry on with war.

If you (Americans) are sincere in your desire for peace and security, we have answered you. And if Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, then it would be useful for you to read the book "Rogue State," which states in its introduction: "If I were president, I would stop the attacks on the United States: First I would give an apology to all the widows and orphans and those who were tortured. Then I would announce that American interference in the nations of the world has ended once and for all."

Finally, I say that war will go either in our favor or yours. If it is the former, it means your loss and your shame forever, and it is headed in this course. If it is the latter, read history! We are people who do not stand for injustice and we will seek revenge all our lives. The nights and days will not pass without us taking vengeance like on Sept. 11, God permitting. Your minds will be troubled and your lives embittered. As for us, we have nothing to lose. A swimmer in the ocean does not fear the rain. You have occupied our lands, offended our honor and dignity and let out our blood and stolen our money and destroyed our houses and played with our security and we will give you the same treatment.

You have tried to prevent us from leading a dignified life, but you will not be able to prevent us from a dignified death. Failing to carry out jihad, which is called for in our religion, is a sin. The best death to us is under the shadows of swords. Don't let your strength and modern arms fool you. They win a few battles but lose the war. Patience and steadfastness are much better. We were patient in fighting the Soviet Union with simple weapons for 10 years and we bled their economy and now they are nothing.

In that there is a lesson for you.

You wrote, "Dude, you sure know your 20th century history. How about 15th, 5th, or how about 2500 years ago. It's a much bigger picture than you wish to paint and goes back far future than your WWI time period. So understand it all. Not just your canvas."

I know the history. Today I expect all people to live with equal rights. If there are actually Jews in Israel that justify the Jewish supremacist system with concerns of "safety" then they are more than welcome to come here to AMerica where they will be perfectly safe but of course required to respect the equal rights of non-Jews. The Israeli system of injustice must end, it is unfair to even more than just the Palestinians, it is extremely unfair to do to the American people who don't want injustices forced upon people. It is unfair to those Americans that speak out for justice. It is unfair to people like Alison Weir, founder and Executive Director of If Americans. She doesn't deserve to receive death threats. It is unfair to me, I don't deserve to be cursed, to have lit matches thrown at my face, to receive threats by email, to have one of my web sites hacked, to have my flyers ripped down. None of this is justice. People in positions to get the truth out need to start doing so. People like Jon Stewart.

Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in the 1980's and the world didn't end.

Actually Israel's violation of international law in attacking Iraq's Osirak reactor increased the threat. The Osirak reactor was not being used to persue nuclear weapons but AFTER the agression Israel's attack, such weapons were pursued: "Israel's strike, far from foreclosing Iraq's nuclear career, gained Iraq support from some other Arab states to pursue it."

"The Osirak reactor was unsuitable for the production of plutonium, though after the Israeli bombing in 1981, Iraq took the "solid decision to go full speed ahead with weaponization. Prior to that attack, Osirak had regularly been inspected, and the IAEA saw no evidence of any attempt to construct a nuclear weapons programme."

"In 1981, when Israel attacked Iraq's Osirak reactor, Tel Aviv's move caused Baghdad to accelerate its quest for nuclear arms. By demonstrating Iraq's military weakness in its failure to prevent an Israeli air strike, Tel Aviv's decision merely caused the leadership in Baghdad to believe even more strongly that they needed nuclear weapons to shield against future aggression from hostile states. By acquiring nuclear arms, states are able to increase their defense capabilities since other states are hesitant to take military action against a nuclear-armed rival. As Khadduri writes in his recent book describing Iraq's nuclear research program, after Israel attacked the Osirak reactor, "Saddam took the political decision to initiate a full-fledged weapons program immediately afterwards."

http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/archives/000911.html

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2004/08/chomsky-vs-cy.html

You wrote, "..i think it's common knowledge that the israeli settlements are illegal."

People are not born with the knowledge so where are they supposed to learn it? American TV news reports clearly play the game when they keep their mouths shut. and there are indeed many people that do not know it.

You are in denial if you think it makes sense not to report a fact as important as the legal status of these settlements. CLEARLY they are reluctant to inform people that do not know about the illegal status.You can't be claiming that all AMericans know, so why would the news make a point of not informing people that do not know? This has been going on for years, as people grow up, they should be able to learn by hearing basic facts on TV. You really are trying to hard to excuses. N.J. Burketts didn't expect to be confronted on what he had been doing and he pulled an absurd excuse out of his ass. It is sad that you can convince yourself that it makes sense. It is one word: "illegal" and it would carry so much information, no way in hell is there an innocent reason for it not being reported You are in extreme denial if you think there is.

You know damn well why it is happening, these reporters are playing the game. I haven't posted the NJ Burkett story "at least 5 times", you resent that I am informing people about the truth. Reporter N.J. Burkett is an embarrassment, here is his comments from Gaza: "I mention in the piece that the prayers reached a cresendo as the troops were breaking in and that was extraordinary - that was a moment that I will never forget and I'm not Jewish, and as I made my way through the crowd I suddenly realized that here I was and their world as they know it was falling apart all around them, and I'm not wearing a yarmulke. I pulled out a handkerchief from my back pocket and covered my head as a gesture of respect." http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/BurkettGaza/wabc_081805_gazaPM.html

"Wolfowitz's statements: the Bush administration, he said, was disappointed that the Turkish military "did not play the strong leadership role on that issue [i.e., the Iraq debate] that we would have expected. .. in Turkey the meaning seemed painfully clear: The United States wished the Turkish military had either overruled the elected government or perhaps even pushed it aside in favor of one more subservient to U.S. demands.

As numerous Turkish commentators have noted, that's an odd stance for a country now presenting itself as the champion of Middle Eastern democracy."

You are in denial about Wolfowitz. Look at "Wolfowitz's career – like his strong support for Suharto in Indonesia, one of the last century's worst mass murderers and aggressors, when Wolfowitz was ambassador to that country under Ronald Reagan.

As the State Department official responsible for Asian affairs under Reagan, Wolfowitz oversaw support for the murderous dictators Chun of South Korea and Marcos of the Philippines."

U.S, policy makers showed pathological disregard for the improvements to the lives of the Afghanis, what they did to Afghanistan had nothing to do with helping the Afghan people.

"In August 1979, three months before the Soviet intervention, a classified State Department Report stated: 'the United States's larger interests ... would be served by the demise of the Taraki-Amin regime, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reforms in Afghanistan. ... the overthrow of the D.R.A. [Democratic Republic of Afghanistan] would show the rest of the world, particularly the Third World, that the Soviets' view of the socialist course of history as being inevitable is not accurate.'" http://www.doublestandards.org/blum6.html

There was a "large following of people who favored reforms and didn't want to live under a fundamentalist Islamic government" and you think it was OK to support Muslim fundamentalist extremists?!

Many improvements were being made in Afghanistan, girls were going to school. The U.S. actions destroyed that by backing extremist fundamentalists, backing them with BILLIONS of dollars. The CIA was literally shipping Korans and weapons. You think it was a good idea to encourage violent Muslim fundamentalism????

It is unbelievable that you can make excuses for backing violent Muslim fundamentalists after 9/11. You really are too much, it is absolutely unbelievable given what happened on 9/11.

By the way, it isn't just my opinion that what the U.S did provoked the Afghan war, Brzezinski brags about drawing the Russians into "the Afghan trap." This guy was willing to use the Afghan people as expendable chess pieces in a game just to hurt the Russians. "We didn't push the Russians to intervene," Brzezinski said, "but we knowingly increased the probability that they would." http://members.aol.com/bblum6/brz.htm

if it's a closely guarded secret, how did wikipedia find out?

Brzezinski made his statements in 1998, the guy that wrote the wikipeda article could have found out just like I did. The point was it was a lie pushed on the American people and kept secret for years. Obviously after Brzezinski is talking about it publicly people can learn about it.

You asked, "you refer to a few books by minor authors who appear to me to have an extremely narrow world view - what makes you so certain that these books contain the truth?"

What you look for is corroborating evidence. For years I have read about what the CIA did to Iran. The game during those years could have been to claim that "minor authors" are making it up. BUT, as of 2000, it is official because the U.S. State department has admitted that "In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister." The internal logic is that the U.S. admitting it corroborates it because it doesn't make sense to say that the U.S. State department is lying when it admits to wrong doing by the U.S. Once you see a dramatic wrong that has evidence to back it up, and the 1953 coup against Iran is a perfect example because the State Department has admitted it, then you can see that these things are possible and that powerful interests in the U.S. are not only capable of these things but often seek to obscure the fact that these things happened.

I have looked into many of the things that have been written about and they do check out. When Chomsky points out that the division of Vietnam was not supposed to create two countries you can look into it yourself and see that he is telling the truth, the 1954 Geneva agreements did not "partition" Vietnam "the military demarcation line should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary." 1954 Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference You can read about the provision for a election. When you look into the facts, without a chip on your shoulder, when you stop with the subservient fanaticism of desperately making excuses for those in power, you can start to see what has been, and what is, going on. If you get it into your head that government officials are like your daddy and daddy would never lie to you then you will never learn the truth and be truly free. Thomas Jefferson warned that a nation cannot be ignorant and free.

When it is former U.S officials who spill the beans, it is something to take seriously because the internal logic demands it. You can't irrationally dismiss everything you don't want to hear. When former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, admits that the CIA's intervention in Afghanistan preceded the 1979 Soviet invasion, this is something you should take seriously. The story we have been told is that the U.S. responded to the Soviet invasion but that is a lie. Brzezinski said, "According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention."

Notice too that mainstream media is not eager to make any of these things clear to the general public.

There are dramatic examples by the way. You can look into International Law and the UN resolutions and see violations that MSM is unwilling to make clear to the public. Remember these Presidents turn a blind eye to the continued expansion of the illegal settlements in the occupied territories. (and the mainstream media basically refuses to report that the settlements are illegal) Here is something that happened in August 2005 when I confronted a reporter named N.J. Burkett: I was in the lobby of WABC-TV in NY and I overhear a guy saying, "I just got back from Gaza!" gleefully to N.J. Burkett.

I couldn't resist confronting these bastards. I walked over and I asked, "How come you never report that the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal?"

"Everyone knows the settlements are illegal," Burkett say to me. "No they don't," I said. Burkett says, "Sure, it is common knowledge just as there are 10 Amendments in the Bill of Rights."

These guys are such miserable dishonest bastards. These sick minds must concoct lame excuses for not reporting BASIC important facts to the public. "The BBC must be crazy then," I pointed out because they report that the Israeli settlements are illegal. "The BBC manages to report this basic fact to their audience," I said, demolishing Burkett's asinine argument. "Your network doesn't report it, why do American TV networks refuse to report it?" I demanded.

Searching for an excuse why ABC is not reporting basic facts to the American people, the first guy tried, "Americans don't care." Burkett leaves at this point. These guys are such vulgar betrayers of the public trust.

When you read about this and see what the MSM has been up to, it is time to stop mindless falling aver yourself trying to make excuses for people that get into positions of power within our government. The idea of America was never supposed to be "follow the leader!" WE THE PEOPLE are supposed to have self rule, anything less betrays the Spirit of '76.

Media is key to the solution. Control is the issue. You get the maximum control with ownership so there must be a competitive media system that is free from private control and is instead controlled by the general public. The old media can of course be free to do what they do but it is a necessity that a new media system be established that will be in competition with the MSM. Part of that mission is to advocate for a Representative Media, a media system which will be controlled by the American people and not special interests. A system that can compete with the power of the current mainstream media.

The fact is there are details that mainstream media either severely under-reports or doesn't report at all so that is why so many people are unprepared for the truth.

I go into detail in this post: syriana isn't "disgusting leftist propaganda" http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2006/01/syriana-isnt-disgusting-leftist.html

There are incredible facts that don't get reported like the fact that the U.S. policy makers are responsible for the coups that put the Ba'ath party into power in the first place in the 1960's.

The story people heard was Saddam was an ally in the 1980's with the impression that we simply found this man and his party in power. BUT what wasn't reported in mainstream media was the US responsibility for putting the Ba'ath party into power in the first place (1960's) and of paying Saddam to be a murderer in the late 1950's and helping him rise to power. http://www.representativepress.org/CIASaddam.html

This fact was not reported by the mainstream media. (it ruins the narrative that U.S. power players want the public to swallow. The game is "aren't we wonderful, we got rid of Saddam." Telling the public that the U.S. was behind putting the Ba'ath party into power in the first place ruins the story. Also the fact that the U.S. was paying this murderer to be a murderer in the late 1950's.)

Others have corroborated these facts, for example US diplomat James Akins who served in the Baghdad Embassy at the time. What the U.S. media often does is ignore facts like these. You can't simply say "Akins is lying". If that were the case then why isn't "Atkins going off the deep end" a story that gets explored? (because he isn't, he is stating facts that powerful interests want swept under the rug) The media reporters are game players that curry favor for the powerful in this country. The story line is supposed o be "aren't we wonderful for getting rid of Saddam" the news editors do not want the facts know by the general public. It gets a marginal mention that doesn't hammer home the significance here or there, for example in an OPED mentions it: "As its instrument the C.I.A. had chosen the authoritarian and anti-Communist Baath Party, in 1963 still a relatively small political faction influential in the Iraqi Army. According to the former Baathist leader Hani Fkaiki, among party members colluding with the C.I.A. in 1962 and 1963 was Saddam Hussein, then a 25-year-old who had fled to Cairo after taking part in a failed assassination of Kassem in 1958" http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/morris.htm or a brief quote from Atkins on PBS: "We were very happy. They got rid of a lot of communists. A lot of them were executed or shot. This was a great development." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/etc/script.html. The bottom line is, an explosive fact like this, which conflicts with the story line U.S. elites push, doesn't get the coverage it should.

The Menachem Begin quote ("In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.") is another example of the fact that Israel had launched a war of choice, your complaint that I didn't include his rationalization is irrelevant. The bottom line is the war had nothing to do with defense, Israel wanted more.

General Ezer Weizman, Chief of Operations, Israeli Defence Forces, General Staff:
The former Commander of the Air Force, General Ezer Weitzman stated that there was "no threat of destruction" but that the attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was nevertheless justified so that Israel could "exist according the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies." "There was never a danger of extermination. This hypothesis had never been considered in any serious meeting." (Ha'aretz, March 29, 1972)

"Citing corroboratory statements by Chief of Staff Chaim Bar-Lev and General Mattiyahu Peled, Amnon Kapelioul wrote that "no serious argument has been advanced to refute the thesis of the three generals." p. 100 Fateful Triangle, Updated Edition : The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians

General Yitzhak Rabin, Chief of Staff, Israeli Defence Forces:
"I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it." (Le Monde, February 28, 1968 )

The pattern of taking more started "immediately after the armistice agreements of 1949, Israel began encroachments into the demilitarized zones along with military attacks with many civilian casualties and the expulsion of thousands of Arabs" p. 101 Fateful Triangle, Updated Edition : The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians

What right did Israel have to the Straits of Tiran anyway? They were opened by force
when Israel attacked Egypt in 1956. Nasser had every right to close them as Nasser said he did because Israel continued to refuse to honor the UN resolutions calling on it to allow the Palestinians refugees expelled during the 1948 war to return home. (Israel was accepted into the United Nations on condition that it accept the Right of Return of the Palestinian refugees. Israel Violates UN Resolution )

Israel had no right to launch a war of aggression in 1956 and then get rewarded for it by being allowed to use the Straits. "Indeed, President Eisenhower had delivered perhaps the most impassioned defense of the principle that Israel’s withdrawal must be without conditions, asking rhetorically if: ”…a nation which attacks and occupies a foreign territory in the face of United Nations disapproval should be allowed to impose conditions on its withdrawal?” p. 137 Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, New and Revised Edition

The UN should not reward aggressors, the UN could not 'condone a change of the status juris resulting from military action contrary to the provisions of the Charter' p. 137 Image And Reality And Israel had continued its aggression against Syria, Egypt was under no obligation to help Israel by allowing it to ship through the Straits. Even a claim of a "right of free passage" doesn't include shipping supplies to facilitate military aggressions. Egypt's case was very strong and Israel knew it stood a real chance of losing its claim of a right of passage had the issue been decided on a legal basis.

Your wikipedai writer is very dishonest with the claim that "Israel viewed the closure of the straits with alarm" In no way was Israel dependent on the Straits. "The official terms of the blockade barred all Israeli-flagged vessels, and non-Israeli-flagged vessels carrying strategic cargo, form passing through the Straits. Yet, according to the UN Secretariat, not a single Israeli-flagged vessel had used the port of Eilat in the previous two and a half years. Indeed, a mere 5% of Israel’s trade passed through Eilat. The only significant commodity formally affected by the blockade was oil from Iran, which could have been re-routed (albeit at greater cost) through Haifa." p. 139 Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, New and Revised Edition

It is absurd to think Israel had a right to use the Straits to facilitate its aggressions and planned aggressions. I think it is clear that Egypt was within its right to prevent its waterways to be used for this end. Egypt's actions were accordance with International Law and Egypt was willing to have the matter arbitrated. And it clear Israel didn't think it had a strong case since it refuse to have the matter settled in the World Court. Israel anted another war in 1967 just like it started the previous war in 1956.

Eric, you really are obnoxious. You get point after point wrong and you claim I am lying. No apology from you when it is pointed out you are wrong, for example, the meaning of the term "ethnic cleansing". And you push falsehoods and try to get away with it. You lied and said Egypt attacked Israel in 1967. I pointed out to you that you get basic facts wrong, the fact is it was Israel that attacked Egypt. Without skipping a beat, you ignore the fact that you were wrong and launch into excuses for Israel attacking. And they didn't "have to" as Menachem Begin admits: "In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."

Israel wanted another war and rejected attempts to prevent it. "U.N. Secretary-General U Thant proposed (with the support of Israel's closest allies, the US and Canada) the repositioning of UNEF on the Israeli side of the border", Israel rejected this.
And the history shows that Israel was rejecting the diplomatic attempts to address the Straits, Egypt accepted but Israel rejected a special mediator to deal with the situation.

"Reaching Cairo just after the blockade was announced, U Thant elicited a "very significant" (his words) assent from Nasser to a new diplomatic initiative: the appointment of a special UN representative to mediate the crisis, and a two-week moratorium on all belligerent acts in the Straits. Israel peremptorily rejected both of U Thant's proposals." "Nasser repeatedly expressed willingness to submit the Straits dispute to the World Court" Israel REFUSED.

"Alongside U Thant, the U.S. also tried its hand at mediation in late May and early June. Nasser agreed to send his vice-president to Washington to explore a diplomatic settlement BUT "Just two days before the Egyptian's scheduled arrival, however, Israel attacked."

"the U.S. had called for "any recurrence of hostilities or any violation by any party" to be referred back to the U.N. Even "U.S. officials and legal scholars, not to mention U.N. secretaries-general Hammarskjold and U Thant, stressed that this was a "complicated" jurisdictional dispute warranting mediation" http://www.ussliberty.org/orenbook.htm Israel wanted war, not mediation, and it used anything it could as an excuse to attack.

init_baboy,

The political agenda that U.S. policy makers impose upon the Middle East has to do with power. If you really want to understand the political system in American then I suggest you ignore the terms "liberal" and conservative". They really do not mean much when we are talking about the brutal foreign policies.

For example, we don't sit around wondering if the Mob is "liberal" or "conservative", the mobsters simply want what they want and they break heads to get it.

You will never understand what is happening if you try to pigeon hole people into categories of "liberal" or "conservative". How are these thing even being measured, what do these terms actually mean? Clinton is guilty of enormous crimes too, like the continued backing of Israel. There is a continuity of the foreign policies from one Administration to the next. the recent Presidents all ignored the stated goal of the sanctions and said they would stay in place until Saddam was gone (thus undermining the whole intention of the sanctions)

If you really want to understand the political system in American then I suggest you visit http://www.chomsky.info/ Chomksy gives the analysis that you are looking for. Use this page: http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en type the word or words of the topic you are searching and put http://www.chomsky.info/ in the domain field

Here Chomsky exposes some actions Clinton and Bush are guilty of:

---

The US continues to "enhance terror" by providing Israel with the means for terror and destruction, including a new shipment of the most advanced helicopters in the US arsenal. These are standard reactions to atrocities by a client regime. To cite one instructive example, in the first days of the current Intifada, Israel used US helicopters to attack civilian targets, killing 10 Palestinians and wounding 35, hardly in "self-defense." Clinton responded with an agreement for "the largest purchase of military helicopters by the Israeli Air Force in a decade" (Ha'aretz, 3 October, '01), along with spare parts for Apache attack helicopters. The press helped out by refusing to report the facts. A few weeks later, Israel began to use US helicopters for assassinations as well. One of the first acts of the Bush administration was to send Apache Longbow helicopters, the most murderous available. That received some marginal notice under business news.

---

(notice it was not reported in the mainstream media for the general public)

Remember these Presidents turn a blind eye to the continued expansion of the illegal settlements in the occupied territories. (and the mainstream media basically refuses to report that the settlements are illegal) Here is something that happened in August 2005 when I confronted a reporter named N.J. Burkett. I was in the lobby of WABC-TV in NY and I overhear a guy saying, "I just got back from Gaza!" gleefully to N.J. Burkett.

I couldn't resist confronting these bastards. I walked over and I asked, "How come you never report that the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal?"

"Everyone knows the settlements are illegal," Burkett say to me. "No they don't," I said. Burkett says, "Sure, it is common knowledge just as there are 10 Amendments in the Bill of Rights."

These guys are such miserable dishonest bastards. These sick minds must concoct lame excuses for not reporting BASIC important facts to the public. "The BBC must be crazy then," I pointed out because they report that the Israeli settlements are illegal. "The BBC manages to report this basic fact to their audience," I said, demolishing Burkett's asinine argument. "Your network doesn't report it, why do American TV networks refuse to report it?" I demanded.

Searching for an excuse why ABC is not reporting basic facts to the American people, the first guy tried, "Americans don't care." Burkett leaves at this point. These guys are such vulgar betrayers of the public trust.

Syriana isn't "disgusting leftist propaganda." U.S. policy makers have carried out many crimes against the people in the Middle East, it is not "liberal" to point out the truth. For example, the 1953 coup to oust Mossedeq has been admitted to by the U.S. officially so there is no point in denying it: "In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.”" - Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright March 17, 2000 Note that while acknowledging it, the U.S. never apologized for it. Do you have any idea how many Iranians suffered under the Shah? Israel's Mossad and the America's CIA worked with the Shah's secret police, SAVAK, which was ruthless, it tortured and killed many Iranians.

Notice when we hear about the Iran hostage crisis we almost never hear why the hostages were taken in the first place? (the reason was they wanted to hold the Shah accountable for his crimes. They wanted the Shah handed over to them because they were worried the U.S. would once again reinstall the Shah like they did in 1953. The building they took over is the very same building the CIA used to launch the coup that reinstalled the Shah in 1953. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/25/1534210 We are a country that fought to free itself from a king and we have people in our government that undermine a democratic government and force a king upon them! ) http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/07/why-were-hostages-taken-us-media.html ) These are not minor crimes and the media overwhelmingly downplays or suppresses these things. Mainstream media keeps the general public in the dark about the many of the actions of U.S. foreign policy. It was not even reported how the Ba'ath party was put into power in the first place! (the U.S orchestrated the coups that put the Ba'ath party into power in Iraq.) Think for a minute how outrageous it is that U.S. media has refused to inform the public about this) The media is incredibly subservient to powerful interests. (Obviously U.S. media wants to play along with the idea "aren't we wonderful, we got rid of Saddam." Telling the public that the U.S. was behind putting the Ba'ath party into power in the first place ruins the story.)

Would you have wanted to be one of the Iraqis on the lists that the CIA handed over to the Ba'ath part to be shot? The CIA actively supported the 1963 coup that brought the Ba'ath party to power and the CIA made lists of people it labeled as communists and gave these lists to "the submachine gun-toting Iraqi National Guardsmen". The people on these CIA lists were "jailed, interrogated, and summarily gunned down, according to former U.S. intelligence officials with intimate knowledge of the executions." ... the mass killings, presided over by Saddam, took place at Qasr al-Nehayat, literally, the Palace of the End.

A former senior U.S. State Department official told UPI: "We were frankly glad to be rid of them. You ask that they get a fair trial? You have to get kidding. This was serious business." US diplomat James Akins served in the Baghdad Embassy at the time. Mr. Akins said, "I knew all the Ba'ath Party leaders and I liked them ... Sure, some people were rounded up and shot but these were mostly communists so that didn't bother us".

What if they were Jews that were rounded up and shot? What if it was Jews whose names we handed over to be killed? You can't see that the actions of these U.S. officials is the same as the Nazis or Nazi collaborators? If someone was talking about people that handed over the names of Jews to be rounded up and shot by the Nazis would you say it is just "liberal propaganda"?

Hurting and Killing Iranians and Iraqis

barry-3 writes, "Don't be so dramatic and try to make the United States worse than it is."

Stop with the propaganda, we are not talking about the United States, we are talking about people within our government that have violated the principles that most Americans agree we should stand for. They are the "domestic enemies" that we are supposed to defend our Constitution against. These are not people we should bend over backwards making excuses for. Have you never heard of the oath which is sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic?

And notice that mainstream media keeps the general public in the dark about the many of the actions of these people. It was not even reported how the Ba'ath party was put into power in the first place! The media is incredibly subservience to powerful interests.

Notice when we hear about the Iran hostage crisis we almost never hear why the hostages were taken in the first place? (the reason was they wanted to hold the Shah accountable for his crimes and they were worried the U.S. would once again reinstall the Shah like they did in 1953. The building they took over is the very same building the CIA used to launch the coup that reinstalled the Shah. We are a country that fought to free itself from a king and we have people in our government that undermine a democratic government asn force a king upon them! ) http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/07/why-were-hostages-taken-us-media.html These are not minor crimes and the media overwhelmingly downplays or suppresses these things. Do you have any idea how many Iranians suffered under the Shah? Israel's Mossad and the America's CIA worked with the Shah's secret police, SAVAK, which was ruthless, it tortured and killed many Iranians.

Don't make it worse than it is? For God Sakes, would you have wanted to be one of the Iraqis on the lists that the CIA handed over to the Ba'ath part to be shot? The CIA actively supported the 1963 coup that brought the Ba'ath party to power and the CIA made lists of people it labeled as communists and gave these lists to "the submachine gun-toting Iraqi National Guardsmen". The people on these CIA lists were "jailed, interrogated, and summarily gunned down, according to former U.S. intelligence officials with intimate knowledge of the executions." ... the mass killings, presided over by Saddam, took place at Qasr al-Nehayat, literally, the Palace of the End.

A former senior U.S. State Department official told UPI: "We were frankly glad to be rid of them. You ask that they get a fair trial? You have to get kidding. This was serious business." US diplomat James Akins served in the Baghdad Embassy at the time. Mr. Akins said, "I knew all the Ba'ath Party leaders and I liked them ... Sure, some people were rounded up and shot but these were mostly communists so that didn't bother us".

What if they were Jews that were rounded up and shot? What if it was Jews whose names we handed over to be killed? You can't see that the actions of these U.S. officials is the same as the Nazis or Nazi collaborators? If someone was talking about people that handed over the names of Jews to be rounded up and shot by the Nazis would you say "don't make it worse than it is"? Have you given any of this serious thought?

Israel Does Target Civilians and Always Has

A claim often made about Israel is "They don't target innocent civilians. They never have."

That simply is not true.

The Israeli military analyst Zeev Schiff summarized General Gur's comments as follows: "In South Lebanon we struck the civilian population consciously, because they deserved it...the importance of Gur's remarks is the admission that the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously...the Army, he said, has never distinguished civilian (from military) targets... (but) purposely attacked civilian targets even when Israeli settlements had not been struck." see p 181 Fateful Triangle sourced to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz May 15, 1978 or see: pp 77-78 The Real Terror Network by Edward S. Herman

The attacks made by Sharon's Unit 101 were "directed against completely innocent civilians in villages that had no known relation to terrorist acts, for example, Qibya, where 66 civilians were massacred in October 1953 in the first major operation of Sharon's Unit 101" 101. The Real Terror Network by Edward S. Herman

"The military doctrine of attacking defenseless civilians derives from David Ben-Gurion, who was quite explicit about it, though not in public of course. In a January 1, 1948 entry in his Independence War Diary, he writes:

"There is no question as to whether a reaction is necessary or not. The question
is only time and place. Blowing up a house is not enough. What is necessary is
cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place, and casualties. If
we know the family, --[we must] strike mercilessly, women and children included.
Otherwise, the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action, there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent. p182 Fateful Triangle

"The Diary of former Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett is a major source of evidence for a conscious policy of deliberate, unprovoked cross-border attacks, in which advantage was taken of superior military power and a servile western propaganda machine, with the intent of destabilizing neighboring states and provoking them into military responses. Sharett was a footdragger in these enterprises, often shaken by the ruthlessness of the military establishment-"the long chain of false incidents and hostilities we have invented, and so many clashes we have provoked;" the "narrow-mindedness and short-sightedness of our military leaders" [who] "seem to presume that the State of Israel may-or even must-behave in the realm of international relations according to the laws of the jungle." Sharett himself referred to this long effort as a "sacred terrorism."" p78 The Real Terror Network by Edward S. Herman

And as I pointed out, Israeli soldiers still target civilians, including children. What reporters have witnessed first hand has been documented by an Israeli human rights group and has been confirmed by Israeli soldiers admissions. 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. http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/10/you-quoted-joseph-farahs-vile-lie.html

afilsonmartinez, it is always good to try to learn all the facts you can.

The motives also include as I pointed out, interference with the Middle East countries' interior affairs. Note that Al-Qeada's main declaration of war, the 1998 Fatwa, lists three main motives:
1. U.S. occupation of the Arabian Peninsula.
2. U.S. aggression against the Iraqi people.
3. U.S. support of Israel.

You wrote, " and we pretty much gave the jews israel without the consent of the people living there at the time (the muslims). "

Not really. In 1947 the UN made a partition recommendation. In Nov 1947 the UN made a recommendation for a three-way partition of Palestine into a Jewish State, an Arab State and a small internationally administered zone that would have included Jerusalem. This was a recommendation by the UN General Assembly and General Assembly recommendations have no force, they are only recommendations. In fact Israel is the greatest rejecter of General Assembly resolutions by the way. When the recommendation was made, war broke out between the Palestinians and the Zionists who had been planning on taking over and had amassed much more arms. It is the right of the majority, 67% of the population of Palestine which was non-Jewish, to say they don't want their land carved up as the UN had suggested. By May 1948, when the Jews (33%) unilaterally declared "the state of Israel", 300,000 Palestinians had already been ethnically cleansed (forced from their homes or had fled the fighting) by the Zionists and the Zionists had stolen a region well beyond the area of the original Jewish State that was proposed by the UN. Then, after the Zionists had taken control of this much larger part of the region and hundreds of thousands of civilians had been forced out, "Israel" was attacked by some countries but Jordan was working with the Zionist plan (by secret agreement) to prevent a Palestinians state.

You asked, " why did some Muslim groups support the Nazis in WWII?"

As far as I know Haj Amin al-Husseini met with Hitler probably hoping to gain help in opposing the Zionists' agenda. But if you know of "groups" let me know. It is hypocritical of supporters of Israel to point to this considering the proposal made by the Jewish group LEHI. The Jewish organization LEHI (Stern Group) went so far as to offer itself to Hitler in 1941 as a local agency to support the Nazis. Not an insignificant group. Yitzhak Shamir, later Prime Minister, was one of its leaders. This Jewish Zionist group's proposal of January 1941 expressed sympathy for the "German conception" of a "New Order in Europe" and offered to cooperate in the formation of a Jewish state "on a national and totalitarian basis, which will establish relations with the German Reich" and protect Nazi interests in the Middle East. see p95 Fateful Triangle

Hostility and Cruelty

As early as 1891, decent Jews were shocked at the actions of Zionist Jews:
"They treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, unscrupulously deprive them of their rights, insult them without cause. and even boast of such deeds; and none opposes this despicable and dangerous inclination." p144 The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East by David Hirst

Some of the Jews who dared to speak out against these Zionists were murdered by them.

As early as 1924 these sick racist Zionists killed Jews because they stood in the way of their racist plan. Even a religious Jew was targeted by Zionists as he left his synagogue. The Holocaust has been exploited to the max but it is important to remember that the Zionist agenda started decades before it and has no right to claim it as some sort of excuse for Zionist activities.

The info about the June 1924 murder of a religious Jew by Zionist Jews comes from page 165 of Fateful Triangle. "a religious Jew organizing among the largely anti-Zionist native Jewish inhabitants of Palestine" was assassinated by two Haganah agents "as he left the small synagogue in the 'Shaarey Tsedek' hospital." (Hagana was a Jewish terrorist group) Chomsky points out "the official history of the Haganah describes this "special activity" matter-of-factly, justifying the order "to remove the traitor from the land of the living" on the grounds of his "pathological character""

Chomsky makes the point that this very same kind of thing, killing a person as they leave their house of worship (for example the assassination of King Abdullah of Jordan) is supposed to prove the "inveterate evil" of Arabs which is supposed to be so different from the fabled "purity of arms" of the Jewish Zionists.

Menachem Begin (who was a Prime Minister of Israel) and Yitzhak Shamir (who was Foreign Minister of Israel) "are former terrorist commanders, with a bloody record of atrocities to their credit including the killing of Jews* as well as Britons and many Arabs, while the Secretary-General of the Jewish Agency until 1981 (Shmuel Lahis) was a man who murdered several dozen Arab civilians under guard in an undefended Lebanese village during the land-clearing operations of October 1948" pp164-165 Fateful Triangle
*"the Hagana archives archives contain the names of 40 Jews who were killed by Irgun and LEHI(Stern Group) [these are Jewish Zionist groups] men in the cource of their underground work or in the context of settling internal accounts" This does not include Jews killed by terrorist attacks aimed at others." In Haifa, Haganah had a torture chamber for the interrogation of Jews. - footnote pp164-165 Fateful Triangle

Long and Bloody Record
"in the single month of July 1938", "Irgun killed 76 Arabs with bombs in market places and the like." The official history of the Irgun makes little pretence that these actions were retaliatory, as is often alleged, referring proundly, for example, to the murder of 27 Arabs to prevent the celebration over the British White Paper limiting Jewish immigration, the murder of more 52 more when an Irgun member was arrested by the British, etc. The record is generally suppressed in the U.S., where cynics refer to terror and intimidation as an invention of the PLO." p 165 Fateful Triangle

In his book, The Gun and the Olive Branch, David Hirst has done a great job exposing these games, he gives examples of reporters being intimidated. "Behind closed doors some news types will admit they firmly adhere to the pro-Israeli line because it is editorial policy. This issue has long ceased having anything to do with right and wrong, it has simply become policy" Hirst explains "Many journalists privately admit that they fear the retribution of pro-Israel publishers and editors and 'generally understand critical words about Israel to be hazardous to careers'." Mark Schneider said that before he took up political activism on the Palestinians' behalf he wasn't sure the censorship or self-censorship over Israel existed. But Schneider now says, "I used to be skeptical about ... allegations of censorship and self-censorship in the American media, but now I've seen it first-hand." Schneider recounts how he witnessed the Rev. Bob Kinsey being asked by a reporter in the studio what the main reasons for troubles in the Middle East were. "Rev Kinsey spoke of the massive US military aid to Israel and the resulting instability it caused. The reporter's stunning reply: 'While I agree with you, if I say anything about US geopolitical interests with Israel, I might as well clean off my desk. ' Of course, the interview was never aired."- David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, Nation Books; 2nd edition 2003 p57

David Hirst's book is a must have. It is an updated edition and it is incredible.

9/11 Myths Exposed at 911myths.com

911myths.com is great.

Another point you could add is that it is nonsense to claim that steel can never be effected by a fire. This is the implied argument that most 9/11 conspiracy people are making. The simple proof that steel can be damaged by fire is the fact that builders do indeed fireproof steel.

If the 9/11 conspiracy people think steel can never be damaged by fire, how do they explain the fact that fireproofing does indeed get applied to steel in buildings? The problem with the WTC was that the fireproofing was dislodged.

"Ineffective fireproofing and a shortage of staircases were the main reasons for the collapse of the World Trade Center, according to a report released Tuesday and led by Dr. Shyam Sunder, Acting Deputy Director of the Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)" http://www.indolink.com/displayArticleS.php?id=040805021055

"The report also says, of the fireproofing knocked off the steel, that "no fireproofing is designed to withstand such devastating impacts.""

The point about the steel failing in the Madrid Windsor Tower is good: "So what does the Madrid Windsor Tower fire show? That steel columns will collapse in a fire, that concrete is more fire-resistant"

Also see this page about WTC 7, WTC 7 was severely damaged and was on fire for hours.

Another Israeli Journalist Exposes Another Israeli Myth

Israeli journalist Amon Kapeliouk exposes the Israeli myth about the Camp David talks of July 2000. They myth pushed by amoung others, Ariel Sharon who claims that Israel has "no partner for peace."

"The 'no partner' myth is the rationale behind the unilateralism the Sharon government has practiced over the past four years on everything from building the wall, to withdrawing from Gaza. It will also be at the center of the upcoming Israeli elections in March, which will go a long way towards determining whether there will be a peace agreement or another generation of war and reprisal.

According to Israeli journalist Kapeliouk, the Palestinians were wary about Camp David because Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak refused to lay out a pre- talk proposal. But because the Palestinians were also worried that if they refused to sign on, Barak and President Bill Clinton would paint them as obstructionists, they agreed to the negotiations.

Sure enough, when the Palestinians got to Camp David they were handed an offer they could only refuse: Israeli sovereignty over the Haram al Sharif, Islam's third holiest site; continued Israeli presence in the West Bank; no sharing of Jerusalem; and no plan for the 3.1 million Palestinian refugees. To top it off, Barak insisted nothing be written down.

The Palestinians countered with a proposal to give up 9 percent of the West Bank, agree to Israeli sovereignty over settlements in East Jerusalem, and to find a solution to the refugee issue that 'would not threaten Israeli demographic and security interests.'

The Palestinians also wanted this in document form because they felt that by not insisting on specific language concerning the settlements they had been burned in the 1993 Oslo Accords. At the time, the Palestinians assumed Oslo meant the settlements would be frozen until a final agreement was worked out. Instead, Israel doubled the settler population and built more than 40 new ones" - Israel/Palestine A Way Out? by Conn Hallinan

Israeli journalist Tanya Reinhart has alos exposed the facts about Camp David. Reinhart writes about it in detail in her chapter "The Camp David Negotioations: Myths and Facts"
Tanya Reinhart's second edition of her book Israel/Palestine : How to End the War of 1948 provides a primer on the current Israeli/Palestinian crisis.

People like Thomas Friedman are deceiving the American public. As Tanya Reinhart, an Israeli scholar has pointed out, “It is still difficult for many to believe that a deception of such magnitude is possible. Deceptions and false declarations have ben the standard in the politics of the powerful, and certainly are in Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians from the start.” Israel/Palestine by Tanya Reinhart P25

Josef asked, “My question to you is then why didn't Arafat take the 2000 Camp David deal?”

Because it was grotesquely unfair. see link And it is incredible how sleazy the Israeli side was, nothing was put in writing and you may have noticed that “maps were carefully avoided in the US mainstream” medialens. See Reinhart’s book Israel/Palestine : How to End the War of 1948: Robert Malley revealed, after waiting a year, that the 2000 Camp David offer was not as it has been presented in the mainstream media. He pointed out that “strickly speaking, there never was an Israeli offer ... The Israelis always stopped on, if not several, steps short of an offer” Reinhart quoting Malley p25 Israel/Palestine see “Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors” The New York Review of Books August 9, 2001 And there were supposed to be more negotiations, it was the Israeli side that refused to continue the talks.

Josef insisted “And if you want right-of-return so bad, don't you realize that'll kill the Jewish state?”

I think the melodrama and manipulation of using words like “kill” has got to end. As far as a Jewish State, could there be anything more unjust to be imposed upon non-Jews? The whole concept violates basic human rights and is against basic American values. We don’t accept such injustice here in America, we should not be financing it abroad. A state should be of it citizens, not of a privileged class. Do you think Jews in Israel have some special right to set up a discriminatory state? Do you realize Zionists consider equal rights to be “the destruction of Israel” by definition? This is too fanatical an opinion to indulge. All people deserve equal rights regardless of the fact that they don’t belong to a certain religion. At the time the father of Zionism plotted to ethnically cleanse non-Jews, the non-Jews were over 90% of the population of Palestine. In 1947 when the Zionist started the massive ethnic cleansing, non-Jews were approximately 67% of the population. Do you realize that now in America, Christians make up over 76% of the population and Jews are only 1%? But setting up a “Christian State”would be unjust.

 The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

And this is the "liberal media"?!!?

The Washington Post REFUSES to do a poll on whether Bush should be impeached. The Washington Post polling director Richard Morin claimed that a poll question asking if President Bush should be impeached if he lied about the Iraq war would be "biased and would produce a misleading result." then he got angrier and angrier saying that they think of the requests as a joke and that they don't take the requests seriously. He also changes the excuses he gives for refusing to do the poll.

Why not contact him and ask him why he is acting this way since he is supposedly a "liberal" working for the "liberal" Washington Post
Caught in inconsistency by Media Matters, Wash. Post polling director changed story
Contact information:

The Washington Post
Washington Post ombudsman: ombudsman@washpost.com
202-334-7582

Post e-mail directory
The Washington Post
1150 15th St. NW
Washington, DC 20071

Study shows the so called "liberal media" uses the term "liberal bias" 96.5% of the time in relation to the word "media" and only uses the term "conservative bias" 3.5% of the time.*

* Percentages based on a total of 486 searches looking for the word "media" within seven words of either "liberal bias" or "conservative bias." 469 of those searches found the term "liberal bias" and only 17 of the searches found the term "conservative bias."( Geoffrey Nunberg conducted the study, I computed the percentages based on his numbers)

"I was struck by the fact that none of the critics took on the single most extraordinary result in the data I looked at -- this one involving, not labeling, but the way the press talks about the bias story itself. In the newspapers I looked at, the word "media" appears within seven words of "liberal bias" 469 times and within seven words of "conservative bias" just 17 times.

Now there's a difference that truly deserves to be called staggering. But how should we explain it? Certainly critics on the left haven't been silent about what they take to be conservative bias in the media, whether in the pages of political reviews or in dozens of recent books. But the press has given their charges virtually no attention, while giving huge play to complaints from the right about liberal bias. That's hardly what you'd expect from a press that really did have a decided liberal bias, and in fact the discrepancy is far greater than anything you could explain by supposing that reporters were merely bending over backwards to be fair -- in that case, after all, you'd expect them to give at least a polite nod to the other side, as well." - Label Whores, Take Two: A response to Bernard Goldberg, Brent Bozell, and others on media bias. By Geoffrey Nunberg

Think about this: In a 2003 Gallup poll, 45% of the public said the media is "too liberal" and 15% said the media is "too conservative." (36% said the news media are "about right.")

Compare the media's 96.5% to the 45% of the public opinion and the media's 3.5% to the 15% of the public opinion.

According to the study, 96.5% of the time, the media is using the term "liberal bias" in relation to the word "media" yet only 45% of the public thinks the media is "too liberal." And although 15% of the public thinks the media is "too conservative," the media is using the term "conservative bias" only 3.5% of the time.

Now if the media were actually liberally biased why are the results so skewed? The media is overwhelmingly using the term "liberal bias" at a rate above and beyond the general public's opinion and dramatically under using the term "conservative bias" compared to the percentage of the public that thinks there is a conservative bias. Is this the behavior of a "liberal media" or is it the behavior of a media selling the idea of a "liberal media" and downplaying the idea of a "conservative media"?

Geoffrey Nunberg wrote, "In newspaper articles published since 1992, the word "media" appears within seven words of "liberal bias" 469 times and within seven words of "conservative bias" just 17 times. If people are disposed to believe that the media have a liberal bias, it's because that's what the media have been telling them all along."

The Gallup poll conducted in February 2003 asked whether, “In general, do you think the news media are — too liberal, just about right, or too conservative?”

45% said "too liberal"
36% said "about right"
15% said "too conservative"
4% had no opinion

This is the same Gallup poll which Media Research Center (MRC) cites. Note that according to this poll, less than half of the public thinks the media is "too liberal," 45%. And note that the majority of people don't think the media is "too liberal," 51%, which is the 36% who said it is "about right" and 15% that said it is "too conservative." (4% had no opinion)

I think that the Gallup poll should have given as the second choice "no bias" instead of "just about right" to avoid any possible confusion with the word "right."

Here is a study by Geoffrey Nunberg that looks at Use of Political Labels in Major Newspapers

See also:
The numbers confirm what Michael Dolny has shown in a series of annual studies for the group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR): Reporters' Rolodexes stop three times as often at the names of conservative think tanks as at the names of liberal think tanks. The Think Tank Spectrum: For the Media, Some Thinkers Are More Equal Than Others

Student Admits Making Up Homeland Security Agents' Visit

"The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for "The Little Red Book" by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story. The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account.

The student's motivation remains a mystery, but in the interview on Thursday, he provided a glimpse: "When I came back, like wow, there's this circus coming on. I saw my cell phone, and I see like, wow, I have something like 75 messages and like something like 87 missed calls," he said. "Wow, I was popular. I usually get one or probably two a week and that's about it, and I usually pick them up." " - Federal agents' visit was a hoax, Student admits he lied about Mao book By AARON NICODEMUS, Standard-Times staff writer

Re: Exit Strategy

Mr. X writes on CL, "Jeez, just leave already!!! It doesn't matter how long we're there to babysit those people. You are dealing with two different factions who haven't gotten along in a thousand years and you seriously expect them to get along and adopt Democracy just because GWB said so and is force feeding it down their throats?? We could be there a hundred years and the day we leave they will be at each other like it was yesterday. Do you seriously expect a tribe of camel jockeys who still live in the 13th century to join the modern world? It ain't gonna happen in your lifetime, your children's or grandchildren's. You may as well piss into the wind for the all the good this is doing anyone."

2 points:
#1 the US does not intend on allowing true democracy in Iraq.
#2 Iraq already had a democratic tradition, the U.S. and Britain crushed it. In fact the US was behind two coups that put the Ba'ath party into power in the first place.

Mr. X assumes Bush is "force feeding" democracy "down the throats" of Iraqis.

Mr. X, you have not done much research if you believe the Bush administration is actually intending on allowing real democracy.

Noam Chomsky: The US tried, in every possible way, to prevent elections in Iraq. They offered effort after effort to evade the danger of elections. Finally, they were compelled to accept elections by mass non-violent resistance, for which the Ayatollah Sistani [moderate Shi'ite leader] was a kind of a symbol. Mass outpourings of people demanding elections. Finally, Bush and Blair had to agree to elections. The next step is to subvert them and they started immediately. They're doing it right now. Elections mean you pay some - in a democracy at least - you pay some attention to the will of the population. Well, the crucial question for an invading army is: 'do they want us to be here?' Well, we know the answer to that. The British Ministry of Defense carried out a poll a couple of months ago, it was secret, but it leaked to the British Press - I don't think it's been reported in the US. They found that 82 percent of the population wanted the coalition forces, British and US forces to leave. One percent of the population said that they were increasing security.

The US and Britain announced at once, at once, we will not have a timetable to withdraw. So yes, you can all want us to leave, but we won't have a timetable for withdrawal.

How can it be Democracy if the Iraqi People's Wishes Are Ignored? You aren't supposed to think about that. The media and the officials talk about when WE want to withdraw, it isn't put in terms of "we will withdraw when the Iraqis want" So much for democracy! You hear "no timetable" all the time instead of what you should hear if Iraq really was allowed to be a sovereign and democratic nation. If Iraq really was allowed to be a sovereign and democratic nation then you should hear, "the timetable is what the Iraqis say it is."

Noam Chomsky: Suppose that the Iraqi parliament, instead of being an elite force, dominating the population, suppose the Iraqi parliament represents popular will, say the popular will of 80 percent of Iraqis who want the occupying forces to withdraw, according to the British Ministry of Defence. Suppose that happens? Well then the occupying forces should immediately initiate withdrawal and leave it to the Iraqis. Now there's a good reason why Washington and London are not contemplating that. It has nothing to do with the fate of the Iraqis, quite the contrary.

Just think for a minute. What would an independent Iraq be likely to do, an independent, more or less democratic Iraq? Think. I mean if you're going to have a Shi'ite majority. Therefore the Shi'ites will have a lot of influence in policy, probably a dominant influence. The Shi'ite population in the south, which is where most of the oil is, would much prefer warm relations to Iran over hostile relations to Iran. Furthermore they are very close relations already, the Badr brigade, which is the militia that mostly controls the south, was trained in Iran. The clerics have long-standing relations with Iran; the Ayatollah Sistani actually grew up there. Chances are pretty strong, they'll move towards a some sort of a loose Shi'ite alliance, with Iraq and Iran. Furthermore right across the border in Saudi Arabia, there's a substantial Shi'ite population, which has been bitterly oppressed by the US-backed tyranny in Saudi Arabia, the fundamentalist tyranny. Any move towards independence in Iraq is likely to increase the efforts to gain a degree of autonomy and justice. That happens to be where most of Saudi Arabia's oil is. So you can see not far in the future a loose Shi'ite alliance controlling most of the world's oil, independent of the US. Furthermore, it is beginning to turn toward the East.

Iran has pretty much given up on Western Europe, it assumes that Western Europe is too cowardly to act independently of the US, well it has options. It can turn to the East. China can't be intimidated. That's why the US is so frightened of China. It cannot be intimidated. In fact, they're already establishing relations with Iran and in fact even with Saudi Arabia, both military and economic. There is an Asian energy security grid based on Asia and Russia but bringing in India, Korea and others. If Iran moves in that direction, having abandoned any hope in Europe, it can become the lynchpin of the Asian energy security grid.

Andy Clark: And you say that this may be part of an attraction for the Shi'ite groups in Iraq as well to sort of join this movement away from the Western world influence as it were?

Noam Chomsky: Yes, they have every reason to. In fact it might even happen in Saudi Arabia. From the point of view of Washington planners, that is the ultimate nightmare.

Andy Clark: And that's why you say they won't be prepared to leave...

Noam Chomsky: That is why they're fighting tooth and nail to prevent democracy and sovereignty in Iraq. The Iraqi people have resisted and it's a very impressive resistance. I'm not talking about insurgency. I'm talking about popular, non-violent resistance under bitter conditions. There's a labour movement forming, which is a very important one. The US insists on keeping Saddam's bitter anti-labour laws, but the labour movement doesn't like it. Their activists are being killed. Nobody knows by whom, maybe by insurgents, maybe by former Baathists, maybe by somebody else. But they're working. There's the basis of a popular democracy being developed there, much to the horror of the occupying forces, but it's going on and it could have very long term consequences in their national affairs, which is why Bush and Blair have so desperately been trying to prevent democracy and any form of sovereignty and have been forced to back off step by step. This is also going on with the economic arrangements. The US moved in and immediately tried to open up the economy to foreign take-over by imposing outrageous and in fact illegal laws for privatisation. You know, Iraqis don't want that, they want to take control of their own economy and resources. There's a battle going on about that.

Mr. X wrote, "Do you seriously expect a tribe of camel jockeys who still live in the 13th century to join the modern world?"

Mr. X, you don't know anything about Iraq. Do you know what happened in the 1950's and 1960's in Iraq?

Noam Chomsky: Iraq has a long democratic tradition, goes back a century. It was crushed by the British invasion, but it continued to function in many different ways. There was some hope for it with the 1958 revolution, which was a kind of populist revolution which threw out the British and began to introduce social measures and so on and so forth. It introduced the constitution, which is far more liberal than the current one. Well the US and Britain couldn't stand that, so they backed and maybe initiated a coup, a military coup to put the Baath party in. That crushed Iraqi democracy for years." - On the Iraq Election

Working the Refs

Years ago, Republican party chair Rich Bond explained that conservatives' frequent denunciations of "liberal bias" in the media were part of "a strategy" (Washington Post, 8/20/92). Comparing journalists to referees in a sports match, Bond explained: "If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack next time." http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067

We have State-Capitalism NOT Capitalism

Capitalism failed before WWII, we now have state capitalism. Public money is funneled into the hands of wealthy private interests. "State-capitalism" is where socialism is benefiting the rich and powerful. Billions of dollars transferred to private interests, it is what keeps the economy afloat. You should look into how our economy really works.

A huge part of it is the military-industrial complex, where socialism is implemented under the guise of security. "The word to use remains "security," not "subsidy," as Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington advised in the early days of the Cold War, when government was being mobilized as the "savior" of private power, which could not survive in a competitive economy, as the business press frankly acknowledged."

And it does not stop with the Military-Industrial Complex, that is just part of the system. Check out how much wealthy corporation's R&D is on the backs of the American taxpayers. "It's not simply the subsidies to agribusiness and the protection, that's a small part of it; the major part is that there is a dynamic state sector in the economy which is the core of economic innovation and development. Research and development takes place mainly in the state sector. Take the entire new economy, computers, telecommunications, the internet, now biotechnology and so on, the costs are largely socialized through various mechanisms such as the institution we're now talking in (MIT) which is part of the system. Costs are socialized, risks are socialized and if anything comes out decades later it's handed over to private power"

Costs are socialized, profits are privatized

The average American is fed the story that we are a Capitalist economy and that companies invest in their business and reap the returns. The reality is that huge amounts of taxpayer money is used to keep big companies in business, welfare for the rich that many Americans are unaware of. I was flipping through the channels and just happened to catch a mention of something called the "National Nanotechnology Initiative" for a few seconds on the History Channel. It said that the budget was $961 million in 2004. I thought "holy crap", yet another example that puts a lie to the "Capitalist economy" that the public is brainwashed with.

ADM's Dwayne Andreas says talk of "free markets" is just wind, "People who are not in the Midwest do not understand that this is a socialist country."

Neoliberal Economic Theory is Fraud They used state power to support and protect efficient capitalists within their own national boundaries who had the potential to become exporters. They poured subsidies into uncompetitive industries in order to substitute domestically produced goods for imports, often at almost any price.

Great info Tayssir John Gabbour pointed to on Znet:

Incidentally, if there's any doubt that elites are fully aware of socializing costs and privatizing profits:

"Let's talk about the question of why people are wealthy. There is a myth that it's a function of enormous personal attributes. There's a myth that achieving wealth is a function of personal intelligence and energy and thus that the product of that intelligence and energy being wealth is the sole and exclusive possession of the person who developed and earned it. And that myth is so egregious. It's just egregious. ...

There are some things that our government does with its tax money which directly create personal wealth and that is the enormous federal research activity. Do you know there would not be an Internet but for federal research money? There would not be new biotechnological companies but for the federal research effort. There would not be an examination of the human genome without the federal research effort. In those university laboratories is the seed of the health of our economy.

... the individual wealth which is generated in this economy is, in my judgment, and I doubt that there is much that anyone could disagree with about this, is a function of the innovative businesses which are created as a result of federal research. But you understand that the people who benefit from that research get it free ... It starts from this incredible research activity which is going on with federal money.

That leads me to a very simple conclusion. I think that people who have the good fortune, the skill, the luck to become wealthy in our country simply have a debt, simply have a debt to the source of their opportunity." -- Bill Gates Sr., 2003

★ ★ ★ Please Subscribe →↘↓↓↓

http://www.Tinyurl.com/YouTubeSub

Also please Join e-mail list →↘↓↓↓

★ ★ ★ http://www.Tinyurl.com/JoinEmail

Bloomberg is a total hypocrite

It's ironic to hear the mayor, for one, bleating about the rule of law and how "no negotiations should proceed until this illegal, selfish strike ends." This is the same law-abiding civic leader who bragged in "Bloomberg on Bloomberg" (p. 59-60) that breaking the law was just part of his inspired path to riches.- The New York City Transit Strike: It's About Respect...and Solidarity by Michael Hirsch


"Among old McDonald's hamburger wrappings and mouse droppings," the former media giant bragged, "we dragged wires from our computers to the keyboards and screens we were putting in place, stuffed the cables through holes we drilled in other people's furniture -- all without permission, violating every fire law, building code, and union regulation on the books. It's amazing we didn't burn down some office or electrocute ourselves. ... Back in the good old days, we transported the equipment in the back seat of a yellow taxicab. Import/export regulations? We just carried it into the next country in our luggage." p.50-60, Bloomberg on Bloomberg

Bloomberg bitches about working class people who are trying to hold on to what they got (keep pace with inflation and holding onto pension benifits for others) yet this creep broke the law in his lust to become a billionaire.