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Today's
Stories
April 29
Patrick Cockburn
The Fallujah Mutinies
April
28, 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
Meet Congressman Know-Nothing:
Tom Tancredo
Wendy
Brinker
The Politics of the Numb
Faisal
Kutty
The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence
John
Chuckman
Seeking the Evil One
Mike
Whitney
Flag-Draped Coffins and the Seattle Times
Tom
Mountain
Rwanda and the F***** Word
Graeme
Greenback
The Iraqi Alamo: a CNN/CIA Production
Tracy
McLellan
The War Comes Home
M.
Junaid Alam
We are the Barbarians
William
Loren Katz
Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson
April 27, 2004
James
Davis
The Colombia 3 Acquitted
Dave
Lindorff
Chalabi as Prosecutor
Bruce
Schneier
Terrorist Threats and Political
Gain
Cockburn
/ Sengupta
British Generals Resist Calls for
More Troops to Aid Americans in Iraq
Walt
Brasch
Presidential Letters: The Day I
Was Asked to Feed an Elephant
Saul
Landau
The Empire in Denial and the Denial
of Empire
April 26, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops
Prepare to Enter Najaf
Wayne
Madsen
Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR?
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
Elaine
Cassel
Lies About the Patriot Act
Mickey
Z.
Inspired by Pat Tillman?
Greg
Moses
Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit
Gila
Svirsky
Anarchy in Our Souls
Uri
Avnery
Vanunu and the Terrible Secret
April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
April 23, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal
Dave
Lindorff
Imagination Deficit Disorder
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster
Norman
Solomon
Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?"
Cynthia
McKinney
All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization
CounterPunch
Wire
A Bitch Called Wanda
Karyn
Strickler
Sierra Club, Inc.
Hammond
Guthrie
Yellow Caked in the Face
Paul
de Rooij
Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary
of the Iraqi Occupation
April 22, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
When Terror Came to Basra: "I
Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire"
Tanya
Reinhart
The Wall Behind Disengagement
Lance
Selfa
Why is Kucinich Still in the Race?
Josh
Frank
Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq
William
S. Lind
Why We Get It Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Undoing the Latches
Robert
Jensen
Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank
John
L. Hess
The New York Times from 30,000 Feet
April
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Yeats on Iraq
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's Taliban Drug Deal
William
A. Cook
George 1 to George 2
Jack
Random
Iraq and Vietnam
Jean-Guy
Allard
Alarcon Meets the Editors
Mike
Whitney
Charade in the Desert
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes Can
Help Washington Now
| April
29, 2004
Terrorism and Assassination
The
Ultimate Deception
By MICHAEL S.
LADAH
The
recent assassinations of Hamas leaders Sheikh Yassin and Dr. Abdulaziz
Rantisi are part of a long term Israeli strategy -- the latest
in a series of actions taken by Israel toward the ultimate destruction
of Palestinian society. Their implications may be far more reaching
than many analysts have observed, and the need for re-examination of
US policy in the Middle East has never been greater.
The first among Israel’s objectives has been to convince the public
in Israel and in the West that the destruction of Palestinian society
is acceptable. Israel has succeeded in creating the wide spread perception
within Israel and among American society that violence committed by
the Palestinian paramilitary is reprehensible and never justified, but
that the violence committed by the Israeli occupation forces is somehow
defensible. Israel has unfortunately succeeded in convincing the Israeli
and American public that a Palestinian life is worth less than an Israeli
Jewish life. [1]
Israel’s second objective has been to transfer (expel) Palestinians
to areas outside Palestine. In spite of its efforts and the support
of Jewish communities around the world, Israel’s plan to import
enough immigrants to offset the increase in the Palestinian population
has failed. The plan failed even with the intense recruiting among gentiles,
in Asia, Latin America and elsewhere, and even with the promise of free
transportation, cash allowances, subsidized living and free housing
on confiscated Palestinian land. The alternative left for the Israeli
government -- long advocated by a sector of Israeli society -- has been
to transfer Palestinians out of Palestine by making life for Palestinians
so unbearable that they would “opt” to leave or by force
if “voluntary” departure fails. This plan will eventually
succeed unless Palestinian living conditions improve, which is not likely
in the foreseeable future, and the world community remains alert to
Israel’s plan.
Israel’s third and latest strategy in pursuing its objective of
destroying Palestinian society has been to deceptively enlist the help
of the United States, with its military might and world domination,
not only as a partner, which it has already succeeded in doing as was
recently confirmed and announced by George W. Bush, but also as an active
combatant. This deception is no where clearer than in the case of the
assassination of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Dr. Abdulaziz Rantisi. Sharon
knows that Hamas holds their leaders in high esteem and would no doubt
avenge their assassination. From their side, the Palestinians know that
no Israeli action of this magnitude is ever taken without first consulting
with the United States and getting US approval, in spite of denial of
such complicity by the Bush administration.
Sharon’s latest plot has been not only to invite Palestinian violence
against Israel, but also against the United States. Such violence, in
Sharon’s mind, would invite the US to lump the Palestinian resistance
with al Qaeda and other “terrorists” under the US umbrella
of “war on terror,” and cause the US to retaliate with brute
force or instigate Israel to do so on its behalf. That would certainly
help legitimize Sharon’s objective of the total destruction of
Palestinian society right under the nose of the world community. Most
likely, Hamas will see through Sharon’s plan, and will restrict
its retaliation to Israel, as evidenced by the retraction of threats
against the US in the days following Yassin’s assassination. It
is not likely that Sharon will succeed in inviting Palestinian terror
against the United States or its interests in the Middle East any time
soon. However, one can not expect the Palestinians to continue indefinitely
their self restraint with the United States when they see their remaining
land and their national rights being bartered away by a US president
for Jewish votes. Also, we should not be surprised if Sharon manufactures
terror against the US and blames it on the Palestinians with the intent
of bringing the United States as an active combatant on the side of
Israel. A deception of this kind would not be insurmountable or unusual
for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.
As Washington continues to ignore the basic underlying causes of the
disdain felt by so many around the world, the suffering of Palestinians
has been rising steadily. The humiliation of the Palestinians and the
erosion of their national rights are at their all-time peak. The level
of Palestinian suffering during the al-Aksa Intifada has been at its
highest since the Nakba (“cataclysm or catastrophe”) of
1948. If we continue to bankroll and lend political support to Israel’s
policies of expansionism, I fear that we will continue to be shocked
by senseless acts of terrorism the like of which we have not seen. The
President’s decision to bargain away Palestinian rights will certainly
have been one of the causes of such terror. [2]
Unless the United States does more to avoid involvement in Israel’s
thick plot to eradicate Palestinian rights, we should not be surprised
if the US finds itself an active combatant, at a time and place not
of our choosing, at the expense of our interests throughout the world.
Israel will have deceived the United States to fight Israel’s
fight, in a global and perpetual war against Palestinians, Arabs and
Moslems throughout the world. If we look around carefully, we can see
traces everywhere of this, the ultimate deception, an outcome we must
do everything in our power to avoid.
Michael S. Ladah is an Arab American who lived and
worked in various parts of theMiddle East. He is the author of “Quicksand,
Oil and Dreams: The Story of One of Five Million Dispossessed Palestinians.”
He may be reached at mikeladah@cox.net
[1] The deaths among Israelis which have been caused by Palestinian
suicide bombers are labeled by our media and politicians as “reprehensible
crimes that must be punished.” The loss of Palestinian civilian
life at the hands of the Israeli military machine during the Al-Aksa
Intifada period has been approximately four times greater than losses
suffered by Israelis; these Palestinian deaths have been caused by military
invasions and indiscriminate shelling of civilian towns and villages,
repression at road checkpoints, town closures and siege of civilian
populations, house demolitions and political assassinations carried
out through the use of indiscriminate bombs dropped from jet fighters
often killing innocent civilians in addition to their intended targets.
Yet, Palestinian deaths have been labeled as “justified by the
need forIsraelto defend itself.” When there is an outcry in the
UN or in the EU, our government and media have labeled such condemnation
as “not helpful to the peace process.”
Sharon has lately found an ally in George W. Bush’s “war
on terror” in justifying his actions in the same way that George
W. Bush does; they both claim that their fight is a “war on terror,”
and they both have sought the use of brute military force in the name
of security, each for his own reasons but not without the encouragement
of the other. Neither of them knows that the “war on terror,”
like the war on poverty, the war on drugs or the war on hate, can not
be won by military force or, as a minimum, by such force alone.
[2] To anyone who observed the events over the last 50 years, the source
of terrorism against theUnited StatesandIsrael(and their allies) is
obvious; it is not what the Israeli and American public have been led
to believe by their leaders and their media propagandists. The source
of terror against the United States has been its close alliance with
and support for Israel, which has facilitated Israel’s policies
of repression against the Palestinians and expansionism into Palestinian
land. The longer the Palestinian problem eludes a just solution the
more terrorism we may be expected to endure. While the US war on terror
may have had successes in obscure locations around the world, it has
been an utter failure when measured against our objectives, thanks to
the deception of the advisors to our President and thanks to our government’s
pandering to the pro-Israel lobby. The objective of the war on terror
was to bring more safety to America and more security to the interests
of America and Americans everywhere. After two wars in two countries,
Afghanistan and Iraq, and after massive spending, we are neither safer
at home nor are our interests more secure around the world. In fact,
the opposite appears to be true. The US government has sacrificed countless
lives, squandered billions of dollars, and alienated most of our strategic
allies around the globe. In our zeal for waging this “war on terror,”
we have also encouraged Israel in its repression. The result will be
more hatred and more terrorists seeking to cause us harm.
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