[Peace-discuss] Re: News notes, for the AWARE meeting 2007-06-03

[Scott Edwards]

Carl:

Hi.

"the Save Darfur Coalition, an Israeli lobby front group active in the US."

Are you kidding? I'm sure you're just joking, but I wanted to be sure. This 
is the type of baseless rhetoric I'd expect from the administration, so I 
figure you're being tongue-in-cheek. If so, hilarious! If not, you are 
chasing ghosts in the dark, my friend.

thanks!
Scott




>
>Message: 1
>Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:29:38 -0500
>From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] News notes, for the AWARE meeting 2007-06-03
>To: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>Message-ID: <46658F72.2020308 at uiuc.edu>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>SUNDAY 3 JUNE 2007
>
>[1] THE THEME OF THE WEEK IN US POLITICS IS FRAUDULENCE.  That's not
>surprising -- that's often the theme -- but the difference in the two
>official parties on the matter is.  The Republican program is not
>fraudulent, though expressed in obfuscating terms, while the Democratic
>program is.
>
>[2] THE REPUBLICAN PROGRAM is the 'war on terrorism,' which many on the
>left have called a fraud, but in fact the description is accurate
>although euphemistic.  The Republican administration today is conducting
>real (not metaphorical) war against all who actively oppose American
>control of the governments of SW Asia and NE Africa, in order to control
>the region's energy resources, the key to the world economy.  Of course
>these opponents are called indifferently 'terrorists,' although their
>methods don't differ fundamentally from American methods, and thus we
>have a war on terrorism rather than a 'war on anti-imperialism.'
>
>[3] Similarly, two generations ago in SE Asia, the American program was
>accurately described by the 'domino theory,' despite efforts of American
>liberals to describe the theory as false.  In those days our government
>killed millions of people in peasant societies in Indochina because they
>refused to accept the political and economic regimes that we had picked
>out for them.  We feared that successful defiance of US wishes would
>spread -- like falling dominoes knocking over others -- and so had to be
>prevented in Vietnam.  The CIA-directed massacre of a million opponents
>of what became our client government in Indonesia in 1965 was presented
>as mutually justifying and justified by the war in Vietnam, in terms of
>the domino theory.  Of course then the enemy was presented as communism,
>for which the Reagan administration had to substitute terrorism, owing
>to the desuetude of official Marxism-Leninism.
>
>[4] THIS WEEK IN THE WAR ON TERRORISM US warships shelled mountain
>villages in the jungle of northern Somalia.  They also apparently used
>cruise missiles, which (altho' we've almost forgotten) the Clinton
>administration used against Iraq and Sudan, resulting in the deaths of
>thousands in the latter country.  This week the semi-autonomous region
>of Puntland in Somalia apparently asked the US for help against a group
>of jihadis, perhaps refugees from the popular government of Somalia, the
>Islamic Courts Union, overthrown by Ethiopia at American direction.
>This attack was at least the third carried out by US military forces in
>the region since the US-backed invasion.
>
>[5] The New York Times on Saturday carried an article that had to be
>read between the lines more than usual, but when that was done the
>article revealed the fraudulence of the Save Darfur Coalition, an
>Israeli lobby front group active in the US.  NGOs working in Darfur say
>that the moneys collected by the coalition go to demonizing an "Arab"
>government -- consistent with the US-Israeli propaganda campaign in the
>region -- rather than aiding refugees from the rebellion in the west of
>the country.  The US is engaged in a contest with China over African
>oil. The World Bank, under neocon direction and acting as a agent of
>American policy, is losing the battle for influence in Africa to the
>Chinese.  Only the US uses the term genocide in regard to Darfur, and
>the article draws a direct parallel with the use of the charge of
>genocide to justify the Clinton administration's attack on Kosovo.
>Former Clinton administration officials have been calling for US
>military action against Sudan on that model.
>
>[6] IN IRAQ, the month of May saw the deaths of at least 127 Americans
>-- and 14 more dead American soldiers this weekend.  The US government
>this week casually admitted what has been generally known but not
>acknowledged in US politics: they have no intention of ever leaving
>Iraq, despite various talk of withdrawal.  The model, it was said, is
>Korea, where the US has 30,000 troops to this day, more than fifty years
>after establishing an acceptable government in the Korean civil war.
>Perhaps significantly, the US military in Iraq began using the term
>cease-fire this week.  Although personalities come and go and party
>control of the government seems to change, US policy remains remarkably
>consistent over time.
>
>[7] THUS THE DEMOCRATIC PROGRAM is obviously fraudulent, especially
>among those Democratic candidates who announce themselves as anti-war or
>in favor of withdrawal.  Voted in last fall to end the war, the
>Democrats have labored through the winter to neutralize the anti-war
>sentiment of two-thirds of the American people.  Their efforts bore
>fruit in what is being called the 'Memorial Day Betrayal,' as a majority
>of Democrats in the Congress voted to give the administration all the
>money it wants to kill people in the Middle East.  The cynicism was
>particularly notable when -- once the Democrats pro-war majority was
>established in the Senate -- the presidential candidates Clinton and
>Obama were allowed to cast meaningless grandstanding votes against
>funding  -- which of course they had not worked to oppose.  As
>conservative war critic Prof. (and formerly Col.) Andrew Bacevich said
>after his son had died in Iraq last month, "What kind of democracy is
>this when the people do speak and the people's voice is unambiguous --
>but nothing happens?"
>
>[8] We should be clear that it wasn't just fecklessness from the
>Democrats -- they worked hard to see that nothing happened.  Some
>Democrats say clearly that by withdrawal they mean re-missioning,
>whereby the US retains control in Iraq from its billion-dollar embassy
>and permanent base while expanding the war in Afghanistan ("the real war
>on terror").  Some such as Obama continue with hysterical threats
>against Iran (aided by the press), far beyond the the more temperate
>comments of the head of the US Central Command, Admiral Fallon, and even
>the Secretary of State (who nevertheless tried to prevent the EU from
>actually talking to the Iranians this week).
>
>[9] It was the fraudulence of the Democrats on the war, said Cindy
>Sheehan in a Memorial Day message, that prompted her to retire from the
>peace movement.  Now, in order to distract from their non-feasance on
>the war, the Democrats are hawking health care, which they think is a
>winning issue for them.  It's obviously a real concern for Americans, as
>it has been since the Democrats started hawking it sixty years ago.
>
>[10] Senator Obama announced a plan this week, and it's a fraud.  He had
>the temerity to call it "universal heath care," but it's simply a plan
>like those of Clinton and Edwards, which at best would require people to
>have health insurance the way we're now required to have auto insurance.
>   Romney, the Republican candidate, actually instituted such a plan when
>he was governor of Massachusetts.  These plans should not be confused
>with the systems of government-paid health care in, say, Canada and
>France, where you're treated on the basis of how sick you are, not how
>well-off you are.  Obama's plan would simply guarantee that big
>insurance companies and HMOs would be paid, on the bipartisan principle
>that if you want to do anything in our increasingly unequal society, you
>have to pay the rich people first.  And it would be done largely though
>employers, who would therefore continue to have an even more effective
>control over their workers than wages (i.e., how can you strike for
>higher wages when you might lose your health insurance?)
>
>	###
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 2
>Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 09:43:17 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] How the story was 'planted' minutes after
>	it	happened.
>To: n.dahlheim at mchsi.com, peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>Message-ID: <158615.30054.qm at web39705.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
>OK, this was not easy for me to watch because of my
>extremely slow dialup, but from what I can see here
>there is little or no significant difference between
>this and other similar accusations that the disaster
>of 9-11-01 was somehow and “inside job”.
>
>Suspicion is not evidence.  There are coincidences,
>some pretty odd, some not so unusual at all, and much
>speculation of the kind that actor-cops on TV make
>when they “know” they have the right guy even tho the
>evidence isn’t there.  I understand this is also a
>main reason that real-life cops plant evidence or
>otherwise tamper, so strong is their faith in their
>hunches.  (Ironically, of course, this is the same
>kind of “knowledge” that George Bush Jr claimed on TV
>to have about Osama bin Laden when the Taliban gov’t
>asked for evidence for the extradition request:  “We
>don’t need to prove it, we already know he’s guilty,”
>or words to that effect.  We should not have accepted
>that from him, and we should not accept it from
>others, either, even if they happen to be “on our
>side” politically.)  So skepticism like Zwicker’s is
>warranted, but skepticism should never lead to jumping
>to conclusions.
>
>Zwicker again tells us that it would have been
>“impossible” for the kind of impact we all saw to
>cause the collapse we saw, for example.  Oh, sure.
>And it’s impossible for a bee to fly, for ancient
>Egyptians to build a pyramid, etc.  It’s weird, all
>right.  If you’ve ever seen the aftermath of a tornado
>or an ice storm you might have seen some pretty weird
>stuff, too.  A lot of things are weird.  My sister’s
>house was wiped from the face of the earth in
>Hurricane Katrina – cars were stacked like cord wood,
>brick structures crushed, concrete pulverized – but an
>unopened champagne bottle survived intact precisely at
>the site.  I have it in my dining room now.  I can
>show it to you.  Panes of glass also survived intact.
>I have photographs.  Weird?  Yeah.  But does it prove
>there was really no hurricane, or that it didn’t hit
>my sister’s house, that my sister’s house was maybe
>removed under cover of darkness by a gov’t truck
>painted black while everyone was evacuated– or by ET?
>Of course not.  It proves nothing except that weird
>things can happen in extreme situations.
>
>He talks a lot about appearances, too.  A guy on the
>street interviewed doesn’t seem sad.  He “talks like
>an infomercial”.  Etc.  But appearances prove little,
>either.  I was just watching a very low-tech interview
>with two kids about the new Dr. Who exhibit in
>Brighton, England, and they both talked like they had
>been on TV their whole lives, just off the cuff,
>whereas I’ve been interviewed quite a few times and I
>always sound like it’s my first time speaking to
>anyone outside my home.  It happens.  It’s easy to
>become convinced of what seems true, or “obvious,”
>even tho you can’t come up with real evidence, even
>among very smart people, even very politically or
>otherwise savvy and insightful people.  We have a
>standing debate in AWARE with an erudite member who
>claims abortion is wrong because a fetus “looks” like
>a person, or he can’t imagine a cute little baby being
>much less human a few weeks before birth, or words to
>that effect.  Meaningful to him, perhaps, but as an
>argument he might as well say, “Because I said so.”
>
>Zwicker even makes fun of his “man on the street” for
>using the word “obvious” – perhaps with some
>justification, because what seems obvious may in fact
>have no basis in fact at all (the world was once
>obviously flat), which is my point – but then Zwicker
>expects us to believe him when he tells us what’s
>obvious and what’s not.  “You can see for yourself,”
>he tells us, but I for one didn’t see at all what he
>was supposedly showing us (e.g. that the collapse
>wasn’t a “perfect pancake,” whatever that means.  I’ve
>seen a number of buildings demolished – my kids and I
>used to watch clips of ‘em for fun – but they each
>seem pretty different to me.  Of course, I’ve never
>seen one as big as the Twin Towers being demolished
>(nor has anyone in fact as far as I know), and I’m
>certainly no expert: all I’m saying is, what Zwicker
>claims is as plain as the nose on your face is not at
>all plain, and in fact is most likely untrue.
>
>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,
>and from what I can see this stuff doesn’t even
>measure up to the usual standards.
>
>Similarly, Zwicker’s “planting” of info also proves
>virtually nothing.  It’s not even that unusual.  That
>it happened so fast just shows the disingenuity of the
>Bush Admin’s accusations.  But we already know all
>that.  They wanted to find an excuse to attack Iraq,
>to go after bin Laden, to topple the Taliban, etc.,
>for many years – we know this – and when the attacks
>of 9-11-01 occurred, it seems perfectly reasonable
>that it would take them literally seconds to see the
>opportunity there.  People have been waiting for
>Katrina for decades, too, as a number of people have
>pointed out – and now urban planners are taking the
>opportunity to redraw New Orleans and the whole area
>that was hit along much less humane lines.  It’s cruel
>and cynical opportunism, and yes it’s the fault of
>those in power for their racist and classist neglect
>and inhumane prioritizing not to mention the way they
>have played god (and not a very nice god) with
>people’s lives for many years, but it doesn’t mean
>Katrina was an “inside job.”
>
>The fact that the lapdog press normally takes its lead
>from the White House in such matters is not surprising
>or new, either.  I don’t follow their day-to-day
>machinations closely enuf to know exactly how they
>send out word when they want something reported, but a
>good fax machine would do it, let alone a computer
>(presumably with a  faster connection that mine) and a
>good list of media contacts.  It’s just not that hard
>to see it happening, so arguments that it obviously
>couldn’t have happened that way just fall flat.  There
>are a lot of mouthpieces in journalism.  We know that.
>  It says nothing about what happened on 9-11-01.
>
>Certainly the gov’t isn’t trustworthy.  None of us
>thinks they are.  And they do lie.  And they kill
>innocent people.  But these types of suspicions always
>seem to pop up around any really big disaster.  That
>doesn’t make the accusations false, of course, so I
>occasionally do still look thru what folks are saying
>about it.  But extraordinary claims require
>extraordinary evidence, and it’s just not there unless
>I’ve missed something pretty big.
>
>Sorry, I know a lot of anti-war people believe in
>this, but I feel compelled by honesty to speak up
>here.
>Ricky
>
>--- n.dahlheim at mchsi.com wrote:
>
> > If you watch the falling debris from the twin
> > towers, how did fire cause that?
> >
> > Also, if the pancake theory explains the collapse;
> > what happened to the central core of the towers that
> >
> > should stand out like the spindle on a old-fashioned
> > record player?
> >
> > Also, WTC 7 is the real smoking gun.  How come a
> > building not struck by a plane falls in 6 seconds?
> > Why
> > did it fall at 5:20?  Why did its owner say on PBS
> > that 'they' pulled it?
> >
> > The Bush Administration has a record of lying to the
> > public about absolutely everything.  Why aren't they
> >
> > lying about this?  Their secrecy and mendacity
> > should be extended to the realm of 911....
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> >
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> >
>
>
>
>
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>End of Peace-discuss Digest, Vol 41, Issue 9
>********************************************

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