Response to local letter writer RE: Israel 9-18-2006

18, September 2006         Response to local letter writer RE: Israel                         

Norman Licht (Weekly, Sept. 15) repeats the Israeli official propaganda line that it is the Palestinians who are responsible for the lack of progress in bringing about a peaceful settlement of the Middle East crisis.  Sadly, this is a myth that has been perpetuated with a ‘Goebel’s like repetition (people will believe untrue statements provided they are repeated often enough). Our politicians have used this to great advantage. Remember the mantra, “Saddam Hussein is an imminent threat because he possessed WMD’s”? Similarly, the Israeli government has repeated the mantra, “the Palestinian Authority; Hamas are terrorists and therefore we have no negotiating partner.”

Meanwhile land belonging to the Palestinians has been stolen and its indigenous inhabitants removed at gunpoint. Israel has stolen millions of dollars of funds belonging to the Palestinians driving up unemployment and exacerbating the suffering. A record number of children are suffering from acute malnourishment, others have committed suicide. A new documentary that is sending shock waves through the country, Occupation 101, has ignited indignation from Americans of all stripes who are incensed that our tax dollars are being used by Israel to terrorize and subjugate a defenseless people, namely the Palestinians. Occupation 101 was shown yesterday in San Jose at a sold out audience. I urge readers to go to www.occupation101.com to see the trailer. 

Iraq – no 911 connection & no WMD’s 9-12-2006

12, September 2006               Iraq – no 911 connection & no WMD’s

The latest Senate Intelligence Committee report – release delayed until after the mid-term elections!  - concluded that Hussein had no connection to Bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks. This finding, coupled with the absence of any WMD’s should put to rest the bogus attempts of the Bush administration to justify the war on Iraq. The American people were deliberately misled by an administration determined to establish its unwelcome presence in the Middle East and steal its precious oil resources. Sadly our lawmakers and a compliant media allowed this massive fraud to be perpetrated.  CIA intelligence reports were ignored and opposition deemed ‘unpatriotic’.

The only proper course of action is for US troops to withdraw from Iraq immediately, extend an unconditional apology to the Iraqi people and offer payment of reparations for the ‘shock and awe’ destruction of their  infrastructure and the killing of so many of their people. Bush and his gang of neocons should be removed from office for ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’. A staggering number of 8,000 Iraqis (understated Pentagon numbers) are dying each week. ‘Staying the course’ is no longer an option!  I urge readers to obtain a copy of ‘HUBRIS: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War by journalists Michael Isikoff of Newsweek and David Corn of The Nation, which described in detail the White House shenanigans in the run-up to the Iraq War.

9/11 Docudrama 9-8-2006

8, September 2006                             9/11 Docudrama

        

Well, the White House penchant of distorting the facts to deflect mounting criticism of its abysmal failure to reign in Osama Bin Laden    is in full swing. Its latest partner in crime is the ABC television network which unleashed a media blitz to promote its fictional account of 9/11. The new docudrama, called “the Path to 9/11”, erroneously claims to be factually based on the 9/11 Commission Report. Scriptwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh, a friend of Rush Limbaugh, claims President Clinton had "frequent opportunities in the '90s to stop Bin Laden in his tracks -- but lacked the will to do so." By playing fast and loose with the facts, ABC and its parent, Disney Productions, dishonors the victims of 9/11 in a crude attempt to ‘swift boat’ the democrats.

The fictional account, depicts a scene of a CIA official claiming he had Osama Bin Laden in his sights and seeks permission from the Clinton White House to ‘make his day’ only to be denied by Clinton’s executive order. Sandy Berger, President Clinton's National Security Advisor, and Richard Clarke – the counterterrorism czar for the Clinton administration has characterized the scene as "a total fabrication”. Roger Cressey, a top Bush and Clinton counterterrorism official, said it was "something straight out of Disney and fantasyland. It's factually wrong. And that's shameful."  I urge readers to call Walt Disney president, Robert Iger, and demand an unconditional public apology to all those officials that have been maligned by such gross fabrications.  

Torture 9-8-2006

8, September 2006                 Torture

The Bush administration has now admitted the existence of secret foreign torture dungeons, euphemistically called black sites. This comes as a huge embarrassment to our so called European allies who have steadfastly denied the existence of such ‘black holes.’ It is puzzling why the Europeans would choose to cooperate and cover-up the criminal conduct of our administration. New guidelines on the interrogation of ‘enemy combatants,’ euphemistically referred to as an "alternative set of procedures" for detainees forbidding water –boarding (simulated drowning), hooding and snarling dogs implies that these despicable practices were previously approved by this administration – a clear violation of the Geneva Convention which strictly forbids cruel and unusual punishment of detainees.

Our great nation, symbolized by the Statute of Liberty, was once the most admired democracy in the world. Sadly, we have now become the pariah of the world despised for our support for despotic regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan, and the brutal treatment of prisoners. We have clearly lost our moral compass allowing our administration and their corporate benefactors to subjugate smaller, weaker nations to relieve them of their precious resources at the barrel of a gun. For shame!

IRAQ – staggering violence 9-7-2006

7, September 2006                             IRAQ – staggering violence

                                                                 

President Bush wants us to “stay the course” and not to “cut and run”. It is a pity Bush and his neo-con paper warriors failed to walk the walk and serve their country by seeking deferment from the killing fields of Vietnam. Yes, Bush did serve in the National Guard but did ‘cut and run’ under mysterious circumstances going AWOL for about 12 months.  I sincerely hope the enlightened American public will ‘stay the course’ and remove this dangerous man before he is allowed to do more harm to the world. He has brought dishonor and shame to our nation by dragging us into a sinking quagmire based on a mountain of lies and deceptions which has resulted in enormous loss of life and has drained the US treasury of billions of U.S. dollars.

Pentagon conservative estimates of Iraqi fatalities are a staggering 8,000 per week. This would be equivalent to 80,000 fatalities in the U.S. which has a population 10 times that of Iraq. It is high time we abort the ‘Iraq mission’ and not wait a day longer for the ‘birth pangs of a new democracy’ to unfold.

New proposals by this administration to partition Iraq will inevitably lead to an escalation of more violence and a frenzy of ethnic cleansing that our ill-advised occupation helped to create.

ISRAEL builds more illegal settlements 9-5-2006

5, September 2006            ISRAEL builds more illegal settlements

Once again the Israeli government of Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert’s Kadima and the Labor Party has reneged on its promise to halt further settlements in the West Bank. Dismissing American opposition, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert authorized construction of 690 homes in the occupied West Bank. Olmert was elected earlier this year on a promise to withdraw thousands of Israeli settlers from the West Bank. Olmert also failed to pull down 20 illegal outpost created in March 2001. Yariv Oppenheimer, director of Peace Now in Israel, excoriated Olmert’s Kadima Party and the Labor Party for their failure to honor their election promises to halt further settlements.

Meanwhile, Israeli death squads continue to act with complete immunity killing scores of innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip. Members of Hamas, the democratically elected government, continue to be arrested and imprisoned in complete defiance of international law. These actions follow Israel’s massive destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure and the slaughter of innocent civilians which has outraged much of the free world. Many high government Israeli and U.S. officials, by association, are now likely to face war crimes for their illegal actions. Israel is now asking U.S. taxpayers to reimburse them for the costs of the disastrous war on Lebanon. It is time for U.S. taxpayers to demand an immediate halt to unconditional financial and military support to Israel

Hugo Chavez 9-1-2006

1, September 2006 Hugo Chavez

Hugo Chavez stinging diatribe against his nemesis, George Bush, was hardly unexpected given the CIA attempted to orchestrate an abortive coup against him in 2003. It seems we only like democracies which result in electing leaders who are willing bend to our (US corporate) interests. Sadly, the US has a long history of stifling popular movements in Latin America. Remember the School of the Americas which provides expert training to Latin American military personnel in the delicate art of torture? While a number of media pundits expressed outrage over Chavez’s intemperate language, these same pundits remained silent when Bush effectively torpedoed years of quiet diplomacy by calling heads of state “Axis of Evil” and even mocked the ‘pint sized North Korean leader’ as a ‘pygmy’! What hypocrisy!